Diary PCBuds mini-grow

[f-e]

That's coming along. Bit wilted still though. I'm not sure why.
I just switched to soil, and in 24 hours I can see its not going well lol

The lava slide, is an individual slide, like would usually have a picture upon it. Instead, it's constructed like double glazing, with the lava between the glass panels. Heated by the projector, the oils would move around in the slide, as they do in lava lamps. So the light coming through would paint the lava effect on the walls. You really don't see it very often, even in movies from the era. He was a DJ and lighting guy back then. Spent a years wages on his home speakers. He liked that kind of thing, which set him apart in terms of toys. There really won't be many of them slides left in existence.

Edit: It might be a refusal to drink due to high EC. It has that elongated look

 

[PCBuds]

That's coming along. Bit wilted still though. I'm not sure why.

I think it's just a bit of sun stroke?
I've got a butt load of light going on in the closet. Lol

I get the same way when I lay in the sun at the beach. Lol

I've got 44 strips that are each putting out 1200 lumens.

I just measured the light with my lux meter and got 40,000 lux at the top of the plant as well as 40,000 lux up and down every wall from top to bottom.

I just switched to soil, and in 24 hours I can see its not going well lol

I'm not going to do soil again.

I can water the hell out of coco without drowning her.

Even my outdoor plant is in coco.

The lava slide, is an individual slide, like would usually have a picture upon it. Instead, it's constructed like double glazing, with the lava between the glass panels. Heated by the projector, the oils would move around in the slide, as they do in lava lamps. So the light coming through would paint the lava effect on the walls. You really don't see it very often, even in movies from the era. He was a DJ and lighting guy back then. Spent a years wages on his home speakers. He liked that kind of thing, which set him apart in terms of toys. There really won't be many of them slides left in existence.

OK, now I get it.

That's fricken cool !!

They should bring it back !!
I'm sure there's a way for a couple of old hippy engineers to make a safe and environmentally friendly version of it.
Everything old is new again. Lol

Edit: It might be a refusal to drink due to high EC. It has that elongated look

No, she's thirsty as hell.
Almost 2 liters a day.

The wilting leaves are just the ones that I cooked but didn't remove.

They're half dead but I guess they are still doing something because they haven't completely died off.

 

[PCBuds]

... He was a DJ and lighting guy back then. Spent a years wages on his home speakers. He liked that kind of thing, which set him apart in terms of toys.

I was much the same way.
I spent over $10,000 on stereo equipment when I was a teenager in highschool.
(but I had a summer job and didn't pay rent so all my money was spent on toys. Lol)


In my 20's, I delivered pizza in a rusty ass $400 piece of crap car, but it had a $1,400 stereo in it.

I had the very first portable Sony Discman that plugged into my car stereo.

I remember having it strapped to me when I went to get a pizza.

The guys said, "It's pretty big."

I said yeah, it used six C-cell rechargeable batteries and they're dead in 2 hours. The lazer and motors aren't very efficient and kill the batteries fast.

They were blown away.
They thought it was a cassette player.
The damn thing was 10 years old by then. Lol

It was a damn cool device though !!
It wasn't available in Canada at the time so my dad picked it up for me in the USA on one of his trips.
I think I paid $500 CAD in 1982.


I used to have a subscription to Stereo Review.
I remember seeing a set of speakers that were $40,000.
They stood floor to ceiling and were about 6 feet wide.
They had dozens and dozens of individual drivers each working only at their resonant frequency.

The speakers came complete with a sound engineer to set it up specifically to your house.


My sister had a boyfriend with a freind that had "High End Esoteric" speakers. They needed to have a tank of Argon gas to run them.

The tweeter was an electric spark between two points that was controlled by the music input to generate sound.

An arc of electricity gives off ozone gas, so the spark had to have argon gas blowing on it so that it wouldn't give off ozone.


We built a Jacob's Ladder in highschool.

The teacher was demonstrating it and we were fascinated.
Then one student wanted to stick a weiner between the two poles.
(we plugged in both ends like when you're camping and use a coat hanger to cook a weiner.)

It was pretty cool !!
He did sacrifice his lunch to the experiment, but it was worth it.
lol

I remember seeing a dill pickle plugged into the Jacobs Ladder.
I don't remember if we did it in class or if it was a video from later on?

That was cool !!
The pickle was glowing green from the inside out. Lol



I wonder if you could grow a plant with a whole bunch of Jacob's Ladders ?

You could plug in a pickle for some green light.

Weiners for yellows, reds, and orange. Lol

 

[f-e]

Damn man. I know your meter. That's 1200ppfd. You need the elevated CO2 of staying home all day, or that brew you got popping, Or leaf co2 levels will be too low for all the processes that need it.

Perhaps you should back off a bit. Were you just saying the run with using only top lighting was one of your better ones?

If you wanted to feed them to move forward, I might try P. It leads to bushy plants, and being deficient can be hard to spot. The lack of width is a sign though. So is the Red. As is a general lack of energy and vitality. Perhaps it's co2 at such high light, but in feed terms, I would guess P


EDIT: I'm a bit of a Hi-Fi bod. It's a shame how high end means no tone controls, so I'm looking at processing in the digital realm now. I would like the Arcam SA30 with it's direc live room EQ. It's still not tone controls, but at least you get 3 presets that you tailor with your PC. It's usually some sort of room node/resonance/suck-out issue that just needs finding and filtering for. I have the minidsp HD taking USB 24bit from my PC to Amp with such filtering, but I have a Roksan K3 with no tape loop. So the minidsp is just for my PC. The Roksan has a BlueTooth input though oddly. While the K3 CD is the version with external inputs for it's dac. So both are trying, but it's fragmented. All I really like about the Roksan combination is the decent power output, made with class A amps. The Arcam has gone class D. Which sounds like something that should be in the boot of your pizza wagon, doing bass duties only. Rave reviews though, and a rocketing price like most of the kit I'm drawn to. I like the Arcam house sound. The tendency to loose a little detail too smoothness, in an effort to never sound overly tissy. That slightly laid back sound that never really screams out, but offers warmth and depth and more organic tones. Same for speakers. It's soft domes every time. Things like Dynaudio and Morel. Nothing forward and aggressive. I like to lounge. DnB. Breaks. Big Beat. lo-fi hip-hop.

 

[PCBuds]

Damn man. I know your meter. That's 1200ppfd. You need the elevated CO2 of staying home all day, or that brew you got popping, Or leaf co2 levels will be too low for all the processes that need it.

Perhaps you should back off a bit. Were you just saying the run with using only top lighting was one of your better ones?

If you wanted to feed them to move forward, I might try P. It leads to bushy plants, and being deficient can be hard to spot. The lack of width is a sign though. So is the Red. As is a general lack of energy and vitality. Perhaps it's co2 at such high light, but in feed terms, I would guess P

Ahhh, she's fine..

The droopy leaves are old and almost dead.
Maybe I should pluck them ?
They probably aren't helping the plant any.

I'm pretty wasted and kinda feel like some pruning. Lol




These are the important leaves.
I'm sure that they are enough to provide adequate photosynthesis, and they're not all emaciated.

 

[PCBuds]

EDIT: I'm a bit of a Hi-Fi bod. It's a shame how high end means no tone controls, so I'm looking at processing in the digital realm now. I would like the Arcam SA30 with it's direc live room EQ. It's still not tone controls, but at least you get 3 presets that you tailor with your PC. It's usually some sort of room node/resonance/suck-out issue that just needs finding and filtering for. I have the minidsp HD taking USB 24bit from my PC to Amp with such filtering, but I have a Roksan K3 with no tape loop. So the minidsp is just for my PC. The Roksan has a BlueTooth input though oddly. While the K3 CD is the version with external inputs for it's dac. So both are trying, but it's fragmented. All I really like about the Roksan combination is the decent power output, made with class A amps. The Arcam has gone class D. Which sounds like something that should be in the boot of your pizza wagon, doing bass duties only. Rave reviews though, and a rocketing price like most of the kit I'm drawn to. I like the Arcam house sound. The tendency to loose a little detail too smoothness, in an effort to never sound overly tissy. That slightly laid back sound that never really screams out, but offers warmth and depth and more organic tones. Same for speakers. It's soft domes every time. Things like Dynaudio and Morel. Nothing forward and aggressive. I like to lounge. DnB. Breaks. Big Beat. lo-fi hip-hop.

I have almost no idea what that means. lol

I lost track of stereo stuff about 30 years ago.

The Arcam has gone class D. Which sounds like something that should be in the boot of your pizza wagon, doing bass duties only. Rave reviews though...

This was my pizza wagon.
A 1983 Mazda GLC.
(not the actual car though, mine was a baby puke green color with lots of rust. lol)

The back seats would fold down exposing the trunk area from inside the car.

I installed a sheet of 3/4" plywood across the opening then drove to Cambridge Speaker Factory for a woofer.

I showed them what I had and they checked their stock and found a "free flow" driver for me.

Big Blue 12" I think it was called?

My entire trunk area was the "box" for the driver and they had to make sure that the woofer wouldn't overthrow itself without a baffle, which was what my huge trunk area was.

The space behind the headrests of my car was big enough to install two 6X9 speakers facing up.


My cousin is an electrical engineer, and found out what coils I could put on my 6X9 speakers to remove all the deep bass from them.

All the bass went to the woofer.

All the speakers were separately driven with amps and tone controls.
(but I couldn't remove the deep bass from my 6X9's "actively", so I had to use the coils.)

I don't like wasting power with "passive" crossovers, I prefer "active" crossovers, where the driver never sees the frequencies that it can't reproduce.



That stereo kicked ass !!


I remember delivering a pizza at around midnight then got back to the store.

The boss confronted me with a smirk on his face.
He said that the neighbor of the person that I delivered the pizza to called the store.

She said that my music was so loud that it woke her up, and my singing was so load that it woke her husband up. Lol



I don't care how loud anyone's stereo is.
I'll still sing louder.
(it was AC/DC, A touch too much. )


https://youtu.be/JGftIcp2SC0

 

[PCBuds]

I remember being at home after midnight and couldn't turn up my stereo because mom would get pissed off, so I got into my car and drove to a nearby elementary school to crank up the tunes and rock out.

I got out of the drivers seat and sat in the back so that I could have the woofer vibrate my chest cavity. lol

The neighbors were more than 1/4 mile away, so I thought that I was fine.

After about 20 minutes, I saw a flashlight shining through the window of my car.

It was the cops.


I got out of the car and they asked for ID.


I checked my car and myself, but I forgot my F¥KIn wallet!!

I never leave my house without my wallet, keys, and watch, but that night I did.

I said "Dudes" I live a block away!
I just forgot my damn wallet!


So they put in in the back of their cop car and drove me home to get my wallet.

As they got to my driveway, I said "Don't Pull In The Driveway, My Mom Will See The Lights !!"

So they parked on the road and set me free.

I went in the back door of my house and got my wallet.
They drove me back to my car and said "sit in your car".


They took forever in their cop car and finally called me over.
They said that they were called in from the neighboring city, so they had to charge me and file a report.

A noise violation was like $200, so they spent 20 minutes going through their handbook trying to find something cheaper to charge me with.

They said that they would have just told me to shut up and go home, but they they had to charge me with something.

So they charged me with trespassing on school properly after after dark. $34 fine.

Cool !!

Karma comes around.
They knew that I was just a dumbass, and not a hardened criminal, so they gave me a break. Lol

 

[PCBuds]

Check it out !
I found the coil from my 6X9's in my box of old crap !!

It's from the 90's.

I remember that my cousin said that I could make a crossover with multiple coils and capacitors to cut the bass off sharply.

That sounded too complified to me, so I went with the single coil that slowly dumped the deep bass.


KISS. I've always tried to live by that.

 

[PCBuds]

Damn man. I know your meter. That's 1200ppfd.

COOL !!
Is that a lot ??

I want more. Lol

 

[PCBuds]

I remember talking to a couple of guys that said their car stereo would kill me.
My heart would stop, or my lungs would blow up or some shit?

I said "whatever", "you dumb asses", "your stereo isn't going to kill me !!"

So they put me in the back seat of their car to try to kill me.

My heart didn't stop, and I didn't die, but it was pretty fuckin cool !!


My eyeballs were bouncing around in my head, so I couldn't see straight and my lungs were fukun vibrating. Lol

I was drunk and stoned too, and that made it better.


The truth isn't just stranger than fiction, it's a lot stupider too. Lol

 

[PCBuds]

... Were you just saying the run with using only top lighting was one of your better ones?

Yes. I started with just the top lights then slowly turned on my side lights.
I didn't post much about when I turned on the side lights, or how long I spent turning them up, but I did find this post.

And this post the following day.

I did eventually turn the side lights up to maximum, but I don't remember when.

 

[PCBuds]

Here we go...

So my plant was 28 days old when I turned my side lights to maximum.




I have added twelve 5000k strips to the walls since growing that plant, so I do have more light in my closet now.

 

[PCBuds]

COOL !!
Is that a lot ??

I want more. Lol

I looked into it...

I guess it is a lot. Lol

And I've got my lights 4" from the top and 2" from the sides.


I don't mind going against conventional wisdom.
I like to test the limits.

My plant seems fine. She's not dead yet anyway.


I've actually got 16 more strips that I could add to the closet.
Maybe I'll do that for my next plant.
lol


I have had all my lights on and turned up now for 18 days.

 

[f-e]

I used to have an honest Kw in the car. The local Audison dealer said I couldn't have, as they didn't have anything that big. They refused to look though. I run it through the most sensitive speakers. The car shook well. You couldn't see straight. I was blowing out the 100amp fuse every few weeks. That's a fuse for a 1390w circuit, so shouldn't be blowing at that. That was for bass. My mid/tops was a 60amp circuit and went much less often. Eucking miss that setup.

It's actually a capacitor that's used as a high pass filter. A coil passes lower frequencies. Your friend wanted you to use a cap, giving a 12db cutoff slope. After which the coil, to drain off any bass that got through the cap, but was above the caps spot frequency. Essentially making the slope steeper. A 6db rolloff. The coil would live directly across the speaker, to short out the bass that got through. It would still have to get through the cap though. Just the coil alone is shorting the amp, if you don't have the cap. You were lucky.
1Khz with 4ohm drivers, that 0.6mh coil https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Cal...akerCrossover/

Obviously I have delivered a few pizza's in my time to

The Mazda's terrible man. The horizontal plane of the boot, misses the window lines completely. I'm not surprised it was green. Here, it would have a very specific minority audience. Who would of colour matched it for the lounge.


I wouldn't concern yourself with distance. Measured illumination trumps guesswork out of any equation. 1200 is lots. 1500 is the highest advisable with co2. The actual problem is co2 depletion within the leaf tissue. We can feed to these numbers, but the co2 limit is going to stop you at some point.
At 1200ppfd you must be beyond the point of slowing the plants, and into repair work to keep going. They couldn't sustain a lot of the leaf, which is a big clue to them not performing so well with all the lights on. Talk is, that gains slow as we pass 600ppfd and somewhere around 1000 the lighting has a negative effect, slowing processes down as not everything can keep up. Beyond this actual damage is done which the plant must expend energy repairing, or if it can't then parts are lost.

It's interesting to see you have got this high a light, with coco and hg. Can you remind me which brand coco and hg feed you have again?

 

[PCBuds]

I used to have an honest Kw in the car. The local Audison dealer said I couldn't have, as they didn't have anything that big. They refused to look though. I run it through the most sensitive speakers. The car shook well. You couldn't see straight. I was blowing out the 100amp fuse every few weeks. That's a fuse for a 1390w circuit, so shouldn't be blowing at that. That was for bass. My mid/tops was a 60amp circuit and went much less often. Eucking miss that setup.

It's actually a capacitor that's used as a high pass filter. A coil passes lower frequencies. Your friend wanted you to use a cap, giving a 12db cutoff slope. After which the coil, to drain off any bass that got through the cap, but was above the caps spot frequency. Essentially making the slope steeper. A 6db rolloff. The coil would live directly across the speaker, to short out the bass that got through. It would still have to get through the cap though. Just the coil alone is shorting the amp, if you don't have the cap. You were lucky.
1Khz with 4ohm drivers, that 0.6mh coil https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Cal...akerCrossover/

Obviously I have delivered a few pizza's in my time to

I thought that we had installed the coil in series and this is what the website showed, so I think we got it right.
The coil isn't across the woofer.
It is in line with it.


My 6X9'S were just woofers with no built in tweeters, and my amp had a low pass filter to run them so I didn't need the capacitor.

This was another choice with all the components.
(I rubbed out the tweeter, because I didn't have one.)

I didn't need the coils at all really, but I didn't want the 6X9'S dealing with too much bass.

All my mids and treble came from up front.

The Mazda's terrible man. The horizontal plane of the boot, misses the window lines completely. I'm not surprised it was green. Here, it would have a very specific minority audience. Who would of colour matched it for the lounge.

Yeah it was ugly but I didn't care.
I had my cassettes stolen about 6 times, but they didn't want to steal the car. Lol

I wouldn't concern yourself with distance. Measured illumination trumps guesswork out of any equation. 1200 is lots. 1500 is the highest advisable with co2. The actual problem is co2 depletion within the leaf tissue. We can feed to these numbers, but the co2 limit is going to stop you at some point.
At 1200ppfd you must be beyond the point of slowing the plants, and into repair work to keep going. They couldn't sustain a lot of the leaf, which is a big clue to them not performing so well with all the lights on. Talk is, that gains slow as we pass 600ppfd and somewhere around 1000 the lighting has a negative effect, slowing processes down as not everything can keep up. Beyond this actual damage is done which the plant must expend energy repairing, or if it can't then parts are lost.

It's interesting to see you have got this high a light, with coco and hg. Can you remind me which brand coco and hg feed you have again?

Yeah, it seems to be working.
All the buds look good to me, and they are growing.
I'll just keep an eye on her and see what happens.

This is what I'm using...

 

[f-e]

Thanks for the feeding/coco info. It's really upset a lot of my thoughts on coco growing lol. I would of thought coco for bedding would be quite salty, but you are going in fairly heavy with that 5-15-14 and not seeing peoples typical complaints.
The 'full steam ahead' approach has worked alright for a few of us, including ourselves. Then as we back off, there is a lack of middle ground. Until we back off so much that the plants don't really need a great meal to survive. Two extremes, with no middle ground to traverse.
It's many years since I saw something similar with compost and tomato foods. All or Nothing.
I was giving it 'All' but backed right off due to premature aging. A problem I have not solved. I just have more problems. So I moved to compost. I must like problems.

I think we got crossed wires over the speakers. One line in particular had me thinking the coil was on your 6x9s which I presumed had mid/tops units, but were wasting bass power "My cousin is an electrical engineer, and found out what coils I could put on my 6X9 speakers to remove all the deep bass from them"
I put caps on the full range 6x9s I had in the back, and presumed you were doing the same. The only bass based 6x9s I saw, were my JBL's after I blew the tops and tbh.. they were terrible tops. I was happy to ditch the alloy domes and fab in some soft domes. I later moved to audiobahn, and did the same.

I picked up an Alpine tape deck with 6 disk changer that just fitted my golf (rabbit?) glovebox. Wrote the car, and it now sits boxed as new still. Never did get it fitted again. Must be 25 years old. It's retro now lol. I have some unfitted morels coaxials that have doubled in price while I have sat looking at them. Still have my amps, though one needs fixing. I just stalled and never got started again. I recently got a few more bits, but non got fitted. The miniDSP will go in my next build. It's the only way forward. Serious equalisation to flatten the response curve. Like how they make tiny PC speakers make bass. Turning down what they can do, while turning up what they can't. Until it's all level.

 

[PCBuds]

Thanks for the feeding/coco info. It's really upset a lot of my thoughts on coco growing lol. I would of thought coco for bedding would be quite salty, but you are going in fairly heavy with that 5-15-14 and not seeing peoples typical complaints.

This is was I use,..

​

The calmag in the opaque bottle is the stuff that I'm using now until it runs out, then I'll start with the calimagic.

This is what's in the opaque bottle.

​



I use 1/2 tsp of Maxibloom, 1/2 tsp of Potassium Silicate solution, and 1/2 tsp of CalMag into 2 liters of tap water.

I was using RO water but I had to use PH up, but with tap water, the PH is exactly 6.0 so I just use tap water now.
It's easier.

​ ​​​​​​​

 

[PCBuds]

I think we got crossed wires over the speakers...
The only bass based 6x9s I saw, were my JBL's after I blew the tops

​

My memory is a little foggy but I remember going to a stereo shop and spent $1,400 on a car stereo, including installation.

It was a complete Yamaha system with a cassette deck head unit (cd players were not available yet.) Yamaha 6X9'S, that were full range, and Yamaha 4" (or so) tweeter/mids in the doors and a Yamaha YPA600 amp to run the 6X9'S, while the door speakers were run by the head unit.


That was good enough for a few months, (lol) then I bought another YPA600 amp, and installed the sheet of plywood with a twelve inch 8 ohm woofer that I had for my home stereo.

I had it installed in the seat of my chair at home to vibrate my ass. Lol


Then I got a new car (new to me anyway)

A 1985 Mazda 626.
Same as this, same color, but mine had a motorized sunroof and adjustable sport suspension damping at the hit of a button.

I liked the car, and it was a standard transmission.
All my cars have been standard.
I won't buy an automatic vehicle.

All the stereo equipment got swapped into the 626, including the sheet of wood that happened to fit.

That's when I went to Cambridge Speaker Factory and bought the 12" sub and two 6X9'S that were just woofers.
(so I must have blown up my Yamaha 6X9'S ?)

That was a cool place.
It was an actual factory where the built speakers.

I remember that they had a huge electromagnet to put a speaker in to demagnatize the speaker before taking it apart.
Then they would fix the speaker and remagnatize the magnet.


I liked Yamaha. They were the right tradeoff between quality and quantity.
All my home stereo was Yamaha. They don't fudge their numbers.

They got out of the car stereo game shortly after I bought my car stereo because people want to see flashy lights, shiny chrome, and 1,000 Watts printed everywhere.


I still have one of my Yamaha amps.
If it was a Sony or a JVC (Junk Very Cheap. lol), it would have 1 or 2 Thousand Watts printed on it.

I still have the owners manual too.
It's over 30 years old. lol

 

[PCBuds]

I picked up an Alpine tape deck

I remember liking Alpine in general.

I remember a freind of a freind, that had a suped up Z28 with a huge blower up through the hood.
I think it had close to 4 million horse power. Lol

He managed to get sponsored by Alpine and got a free 5-10 thousand dollar stereo installed if he put Alpine stickers all over his car.

It had a built in pink noise generator and the stereo would listen to itself, and automatically adjust itself.

He had no idea how to work his stereo. He barely knew how to turn it on.

That really bothered me. It felt like such a waste of a high end stereo.

...it now sits boxed as new still. Never did get it fitted again. Must be 25 years old. It's retro now lol. I have some unfitted morels coaxials that have doubled in price while I have sat looking at them. Still have my amps, though one needs fixing. I just stalled and never got started again. I recently got a few more bits, but non got fitted.

I've got all kinds of stuff that I could install in my current car, but I just don't care anymore.
I just listen to the radio or nothing at all.
It's had a CD stuck in the factory radio for over a year now, so I can listen to FM or Nine Inch Nails. Lol

It's not just the stereo, but my car only has a 70 amp alternator so I'd have to install a new alternator.

There is an alternator available and it would be pretty cool to say that I got my alternator from the Power Bastards. Lol

I just realized that my car is 20 years old this month.

It was built September 2001.

I might qualify for classic car insurance now ?

 

[f-e]

Another Mazda? It's better looking than the first one. It has skirts to hide the rusty sills
You can see the amps real, from it's 25A fuse, and output claims half of it's consumption. I bet it's class A/B so pretty sweet. Yamaha have a slightly muted sound that never grates, somewhat like Arcam electronics and Morel/Dynaudio speakers. Quite a few hifi names were there early on, but pulled out as the market got busy. Leaving us with some stuff that didn't even work in many cases. SPLX for example.

200amps. That aught to do it

Looking at your feed, it's calcium is reasonably high. The same as the N at 5%. The Mg is unusually high when put beside that 5% though. It's 3.5% Mg. Putting calcium just 50% ahead. This is the kind of ratio I have found myself happy with. While nearly everything has at least 100% more calcium than magnesium, which I find inadequate. The soil plants got Mg right away and are asking for more, and I don't think it's 5 days yet. I see you use calmag but think you may of used an image that didn't load on my poor connection(I have to reconnect before I can post this reply). I guess like most, it's about 4% cal and 1.5% mag. So your calcium ends up as strong as the K. Which seems like a win with coco, who's own K looks like being a problem when I look around. It's all a bit sketchy though, as GH give a guaranteed analysis. It says so on their site and the bottles. They claim it says guaranteed minimum though. They see no problem with putting in 10% N and listing it as 4%. A conversation I couldn't believe they had with me. One that makes any calculation based on their numbers a pointless exercise