I'm currently working on a budget gaming PC. The following is the final list of components that I am using. CPU: AMD RYZEN 5 2600 6-Core 3.4 GHz (3.6 GHz Turbo) Socket AM4 processor with Wraith Spire Cooler AMD SenseMI Technology Socket AM4 Max Turbo Frequency 3.6 GHz 16MB L3 Cache 3MB L2 Cache DDR4 Support Unlocked Processor Thermal Design Power 65W AMD Wraith Spire 95W Cooler Included Motherboard: MSI B450M Bazooka Supports AMD® Ryzen 1st and 2nd Generation/ Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics/ Athlon™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics Processors for Socket AM4 Supports DDR4 Memory, up to 3466+(OC) MHz Lightning Fast Game experience: 1x TURBO M.2, Store MI technology Core Boost: With premium layout optimized power design to support more cores and provide better performance. DDR4 Boost: Advanced technology to deliver pure data signals for the best gaming performance and stability. Audio Boost: Reward your ears with studio grade sound quality for the most immersive audio experience PCI-E Steel Armor: Protecting VGA cards against bending and EMI X-Boost: Software that auto-detects and allows you to boost the performance of any storage, Optane or USB device EZ Debug LED: Easiest way to troubleshoot. Memory: HyperX FURY 8GB (2 x 4GB) 288-Pin...Read More
Category: Technology
Google AIY Voice Kit for the Raspberry Pi
The Google AIY Voice Kit lets you build your own natural language processor and connect it to the Google Assistant. All of this fits in a handy little cardboard cube, powered by a Raspberry Pi. More information While on vacation, I am going to build this and I'll report back my findings. UPDATE I successfully built the kit and tested the example python code. I am looking for new features to add and will report back on what I find. More Information url1 url2 url3 url4 url5 url6 url7 url8 url9 History of the Google and Raspberry PI Voice Kit Growing up, the free toys on the covers of magazines were made of plastic. They were cheap, and cheerful. Yet the last thirty years has reduced the price of computing to the point where cheap and cheerful plastic toys have been replaced by other things. Around this time last year Google and Raspberry Pi did something rather intriguing. Together they packaged machine learning — the ability for your Raspberry Pi to think and reason — as a kit, and made it available free on the cover of a magazine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the print run of the magazine sold out in hours. To be fair,...Read More
Pi Day
Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. The irrational number Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point. In addition, as an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern. Only a handful of digits are needed for typical calculations, however, Pi’s infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits. Pi to a 1000 digits 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034 82534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110 55596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603 48610454326648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892 59036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310 51185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298336733624406566430860213949463 95224737190702179860943702770539217176293176752384674818467669405132000568127145263560827 78577134275778960917363717872146844090122495343014654958537105079227968925892354201995611 21290219608640344181598136297747713099605187072113499999983729780499510597317328160963185 95024459455346908302642522308253344685035261931188171010003137838752886587533208381420617 17766914730359825349042875546873115956286388235378759375195778185778053217122680661300192 78766111959092164201989 Calculate Pi (using the Nilakantha series) and Python P = 3 MC = 1 C = 1 for MC in range(1,50000): P = P + (4/((C+1)*(C+2)*(C+3)) - 4/((C+3)*(C+4)*(C+5))) PI = '%10.60f'%(P) print (PI) C = C + 4 You will need run this code billions of iterations to begin to approach calculating Pi. Of course, that is why Pi is so fun! Go here to run the program code. Just click the green run button. Note: 22/7 is NOT Pi...Read More
Password Management
Ok, a quick guide to passwords. Use Passpack. It's free (up to 100) and easy. The average person will not be able to remember the 10's and sometimes 100's of passwords needed to manage your daily life. One option is to make them easy to remember (also easy to guess). Another option is to use the same password over and over (putting all your eggs in one basket). The best option is to use a password management program or website to remember your passwords. I use Passpack for password management because they use a highly encrypted website that not only requires a master password but requires a master passphrase. Your master passphrase is encrypted so that even the folks at Passpack can not recover it for you. We never have your un-encrypted data. Even if our servers were hacked your passwords would be safe. Strong passwords combined with having many passwords can cause headaches. Our manager helps eliminate that by letting you tag, sort, search and manage multiple logins per site. Passpack is available to you from any browser, anywhere, anytime, no need to carry yet another device or install on multiple computers. Source Good Password Guidelines Things to include 1. At least...Read More
Reattaching the cord
Well, it has been almost a year and a half since I cut the cord and joined the antennae/Netflix generation. Netflix is amazing. I watched 100's of episodes of all different types of shows. All without commercials. It is quite a deal for $7.95/month. Also, local TV stations with the antennae were sharp, clear, and not to mention completely free. However, my DSL through Windstream was becoming antiquated and well...slow. $70/month (with tax) for 6Mb/sec was a horrible value. It was time to reattach the cord. I would love to have Verizon FIOS, but tragically it is not offered in my area. My only choice is the evil and outrageously priced...cable. Luckily, Comcast has a nice deal for the holidays. $89.99 for a internet/voice/TV bundle. It has a two year contract period, but the price lasts for two years. The bill will jump $60 on month 25, however, we can cancel at that point. So far so good. my speed has gone from 6Mb/sec down | 384Kb/sec up to: It will take a few days for our number to get transfer, but really a phone is a phone. It's not all that exciting. There seems to be lots of features with TV setup. I...Read More