tp69

A PhD in farm science with access to a book about growing potatoes will have died of starvation 50-100 days before their first crop is ready to be harvested. It's the lack of time available to actually grow the food that proves terminal. Having access to knowledge is not enough. Being a species that writes stuff down is not, in and of itself, a guarantee of our survival.

If a group of critical specialists gets wiped out there will a) not be enough time to learn how to keep their complex system running, or b) not be enough time to learn and implement a less complex system to the required scale, before the food runs out and everyone dies.

For survival to be assured, there needs to be diversity in critical areas. The alternatives need to be actively studied and practised alongside whatever is dominant. The problem is that competitive economic systems systematically drive out the 'less efficient' approaches, leaving a gaping hole in our fall-back options. Put another way: 'Capitalism eliminates Plan B'.

The prevailing economic system (which rewards and promotes specialisation, homogenisation and efficiency) is incompatible with long-term survival (which depends on generalisation, diversity and inefficiency).

Also statistically, every species in history that has ever over-specialised has gone extinct.

With specialisation comes interdependence. If you spend 99% of your free time studying computers it is almost certain that you don't know how to grow a potato. You depend on others to do things for you.

Over time specialisation results in critical and basic survival skills being lost from the mainstream.

Usually then, some event occurs that wipes out a critical group of specialists, and everything that depends on them comes crashing down, resulting in the species being wiped out... because the knowledge cannot be rediscovered, or the skills re-learnt, before the food runs out.

We are rushing towards a future where all of our food, water and energy is grown/harvested/generated/distributed by AI-driven machines. The number of people on the planet who will know how those AIs actually work will be minuscule.

Specialists already do things like attend conferences... so gather in a single location... breathe the same air while there... stay at the same hotels... eat at the same restaurants... fly the same planes...

If we care about the long-term survival of the Human species, then we should be very, very careful not to allow over-specialisation to occur in critical fields.

Just because many people drive above the speed limit, doesn't mean you need to. Just because people dribble shit on twitter, doesn't mean you need to. Just because rich morons stick jade eggs into their vaginas, doesn't mean you need to. Just because there are greedy scumbags in the world, doesn't mean you need to be one too.

"But, but, someone's going to do it!" isn't even remotely a valid argument against having morals and ethics.

"Perl 6 was one piece of Larry Wall's solution to a rather urgent problem. And that problem was how to separate people who wanted to create new features from people who wanted absolute backwards compatibility. ... But if it didn't happen, Perl was set to implode on itself much more dramatically, much more quickly."

Care to expand on this a little, or suggest an external resource where it has already been elaborated upon?

Agreed, it's a very deep rabbit hole. The 12" PowerBook G4 that I bought back in 2004 had the best keyboard I've ever used — I still have it and occasionally use it. But I've been trying to hunt down a desktop equivalent ever since (but with backlighting and TKL ANSI layout). Haven't succeeded so far. Still trying though.

Although my highest priority (by far) is low noise, I do prefer short travel/registration and a soft landing as well.

Prompted by your post, I did some more research and decided to upgrade(?) my gaming keyboard to a Logitech G Pro TKL https://www.logitechg.com/en-us/product/pro-gaming-keyboard. I haven't tried Romer-G switches so it will be interesting to see how they turn out.

Meanwhile, now that Corsair's exclusive rights to the Cherry MX Silent (Red) have expired, I'm hoping to see a lot more keyboards with that switch make their way into the market. The Corsair Strafe RGB was tempting, but the light spill from under the caps was far too gaudy and distracting for my liking.

Cherry MX Silent (Red) switches with landing pads and o-rings seems like a combination that would work well (for me) for gaming.

For the DB4 and daily driver usage, though, the hunt goes on. I'll keep using the wired Apple Keyboard until someone else comes up with a TKL clone.

The Australian state I live in has the highest electricity prices in the country, and amongst the highest in the world — so there's a simple financial reason to defect from the grid. Then there are the self-sufficiency angles (produce/control your own power) and the preparedness angles (grid power always fails in bushfires) to consider as well. They are all the reasons I need.

If something starts making a noise I'll update my posts and let people know.

The DB4 already has a black version: http://www.streacom.com/products/db4-fanless-chassis/ then click the Gallery tab.

Thanks, and yes — Streacom did really well on the design. It has a brutalist aesthetic to it that folks will probably love or hate.

For those that like the looks but want moar powerrr, Streacom have an actively-cooled version on the drawing board. Do an image search for "Streacom DA4" if you're interested.

Nope, rubber dome.

I'm actually on the lookout for a wired, backlit, white/aluminium, chiclet, TKL keyboard. Basically something like the Apple Keyboard but sans NumKeypad, backlit and keyed for Linux/PC. Bonus points if it has a column of macro keys on the left.

If anyone knows of one please drop me a line.

No, it does not. :)

Thanks, and you're right — I am. :)

It's my new daily driver. I do everything on it except play games. My previous rig is now dedicated to that task.

So we have the usual suspects: Watching videos and movies, staying abreast of current affairs, listening to music.

Then some not so-usual suspects: Research and self-education, software development, and a simulation that I've been running and tweaking for several years.

This computer is on for an average of about 15 hours every day of the week, and is pretty-much always doing something. It spends virtually no uptime idling.

Yep, you can't always wait for the perfect product to come along — sometimes circumstances force your hand.

Not only did that processor not exist at the time, but even if it did there were going to be a bunch of compatibility issues with it on Ubuntu (like there always are when new hardware is released). I simply didn't want to have to deal with those sorts of issues for — potentially — months.

Maybe the Ryzen 5 3400G(E) will be a compelling upgrade? We shall see.

Ratiofarmings is on the right track. The noise coming from the computer drowns out the subtle sounds of life all around me.

Someone suggested in the comments that I should just wear earplugs instead. This was my response to him: "But the rest of the world doesn’t make annoying noises that I want to block out — only the computer does. I still want to hear the birds tweeting in the trees and the wind blowing past the awnings and the rain hitting the roof and the ice-cream truck driving by and my wife chuckling at something she’s watching and the cats running along the floor and the microwave oven heating a meal and the kettle finishing its boil. I’m not trying to disconnect from the rest of the world — I’m trying to reconnect to it."

A lot of the most interesting and enjoyable sounds in life are very, very faint. It doesn't take much noise to drown them out. Even a single fan will do it. Now I can hear those noises and get 'work' done at the same time. It's really hard to describe, but 'magical' comes close.

Thanks for asking.

Yes, the feeling you get from pure silence is hard to put into words.

The design of the DB4 is such that the graphics card is mounted vertically. Fresh, cool air flows in through the grille at the bottom, over the VRM area, then up and out the top of the case.

I have more small heat sinks I could put on the mosfets, but they are relatively low profile so I'm not sure they would improve things much.

A single, large heat sink, with long fins (that would protrude above and beyond the nearby capacitors) would seem to make more sense — but given there are no mounting points I could use to clamp it down I'd be a bit concerned about the long-term effect of torque.

Opinions and suggestions are welcome.

Yep, it took weeks to finalise the parts. I had to contact multiple vendors and get them to check component heights, track down motherboard layouts, compare review photos from different angles, plan heatpipe runs, resolve conflicts with VRM heatsinks and power connectors, watch assembly/review videos over and over again, scrutinise manuals, determine hardware/OS incompatibilities... probably well over 80 hours of work before I could even order the parts.

But, like you say, even though I had done all that, there was still the possibility that I might have missed something and would need to return/replace some parts and rework the plan. My mouse hovered over the "Order" button for quite a while before I finally committed. An anxious moment.

Virtually none of that methodical and boring research/prep work made it into the post — it's just not that interesting. Necessary, yes, but not something that the vast majority of readers would want to read.

The setup should be able to handle a 105W CPU and 75W GPU. At this point 65 + 75W is confirmed. When I OC the 1600 I should be able to verify up to ~95 + 75W.

The strategy was to start with a really well engineered passive case, then select components that could be pushed right up to the thermal limits. It's worked well so far. I'll keep publishing all of my test results for those that may be interested.

I'm glad you enjoyed the post. My first silencing attempt (in the early 1990s) was to seal a hard disk in what amounted to little more than a couple of oven bags, custom-make a long IDE cable, and then — literally — dangle the drive in a bucket of water that was under the desk the computer sat on. That ended poorly, with thermal cycling inducing microfractures in the bags, which resulted in leaks, a dead drive and a blown controller on the motherboard. Ah well, we live and learn. Take it easy.