via Shamus, this postermaker tool at Despair.com is just too cool. Here’s my contribution (click to enlarge).
another version:
That’s the term for light emitted by collapsing bubbles of ideal gas (ie, argon) in water.The light pulses are on the order of ~50 picoseconds. Lots of energy is produced, primarily driven by bremsstrahlung and also some errant chemistry from water molecules stuck inside the bubble. The good news is that physicists finally kind of understand it well enough to build simple models of it. The bad news is that it isn’t going to help us achieve cold fusion.
ok so this time I have a good excuse for not posting! the first week of fasting is always the toughest 🙂 The funny thing is that I’ve found myself thinking about adding a food category to the blog (primarily a paean to Chipotle). But food blogging during Ramadan would be just masochistic, so it will have to wait until Eid.
There has been a lot of stuff going on though. Galactica season 3 starts soon, and there have been online “webisodes” at Scifi.com that have a very interesting prequel storyline to the season that really delves into the resistance fighter mentality – with our own sympathetic and loved characters making decisions that we would normally decry. It’s odd how I am willing to give a fictional character more slack and make excuses for their behavior that I condemn in the real world – like strong weapons in a shrine. Of course the Cylons are Evil Incarnate (or are they?) so the universe of Galactica is more black and white (or is it?).
Also the Intel Developer Forum is going on and has all sorts of awesome, sharikou-head-exploding stuff like 80-core chips, roadmaps to 45nm processing, and laser FSBs (from Day 1 alone). Anandtech has probably the best coverage. Yesterday during Day 2 they also talked about the Santa Rosa platform, one of my particular interests. One tidbit I’d missed earlier: the FSB clock frequency will also be adjustable, to further improve power management. Right now on the new Centrino platforms running Yonah/Merom, only CPU clock speeds adjust, but the FSB runs at full all the time. And there are even cooler innovations to reduce power that I won’t spoil. The promise of all-day computing gets stronger and stronger.
Shamus’ “DM of the Rings” comic is awesome. I almost choked with laughter at the whole “Leggo my ass” thing. It reminds me of Summoner Geeks – but better.
And Sugar is still losing to a demented penguin. Oh, the humanity!
(bumped 9/15) The fiends!! Chiyo-chan partisans are stuffing the poll! vote for Sugar and reclaim the title!
(bumped 4/22) If you don’t vote for Sugar, you’re a commie. Got that?
VOTE FOR
SUGAR
come on, you bolsheviks! get your rear in gear! You can vote once a day, you know!
Toshiba just announced 1.8″ hard drives with perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR), up to 80GB. Apple is already using them in their new 6G iPods announced yesterday.
Buteven more interesting in storage technology news is Samsung’s announcement of new “phase-change” RAM modules. As DailyTech reports, relative to modern-day flash memory, PRAM will be faster, smaller, and cheaper.
PRAM, says Samsung, is much faster than the fastest NOR flash memory. Samsung indicated that PRAM achieves its performance by changing the way it writes and reads to memory. Unlike current NOR flash, PRAM does not have to erase data before writing new data. This alone achieves 30 times the performance of current memory technology said Samsung. Durability and endurance are also a key development for PRAM, allowing products to last at least 10 times longer.
Samsung indicated that PRAM will be a positive forward step for consumer products as well — lowering prices thanks to new manufacturing techniques. Samsung said that PRAM cells are half the size of NOR flash memory and requires 20 percent fewer manufacturing steps to produce.
I’m not sure if there’s a Moore’s Law equivalent for storage capacity as there is for processor speed, but if not, there ought to be (and they should name it after me). The intriguing thing is that in five years as 100 GB storage in miniscule form factors becomes commonplace, I think we are going to see more innovative usage models than at present. Right now everyone talks about storing your music, photos, videos, and data. But eventually we are going to see full-fledged applications being just as portable. People have already managed to cram an functional (but limited) install of Windows XP onto a USB drive. And there’s also a distro of Linux called Knoppix which is also USB-compatible. And many flash drives sold today come with an application manager called “U3” which lets you selectively install specific applications to your USB stick. But all of this is done within the confines of just a few GB (and of course were not even possible just a couple of years ago).
But imagine what you could do with a device the size of a pen cap but which held 100 GB? You could literally take your entire computing environment with you. It’s not really clear yet how this capability will change our usage models – can you remember how you survived without a cell phone?
Both RightStuf (via Don) and Bob’s Corner Store (via Steven) are having a huge fire-sale on Geneon titles. $5 per disc! This includes Haibane Renmei and Sugar: A Little Snow Fairy, the two titles that I think everyone should own. I personally prefer Bob’s but his website is blocked from work so if the 4-year old permits me ten minutes, I’ll try from home.
At the very least I want to buy Someday’s Dreamers and Bottle Fairy. Both of these were “loaned” to me and I want to get my own copies, primarily because I enjoyed them with my daughter. I also want to see if the Sugar: Summer Special is on the list, and I am also considering Serial Experiments: Lain.
Other than these though I am still (as mentioned earlier) in a bit of a quandary as for what to try next. What I hate more than anything is getting into a good story and then having it end sour, which is what lies in store it seems for both Kamichu and for Last Exile. Mike Kerpan cautioned that Kino’s Journey is good but not really for kids, so I might be better off renting it (if I can find it).
Still, anyone else looking to add some solid titles to their shelf should check these sales out for sure. I recommend Haibane and Sugar at the bare minimum, and Someday’s Dreamers if you want to experiment more.
that would be this one. I’ve just got no time. I’ve got the reviews for Someday’s Dreamers, Mononoke Him and Howl’s Moving Castle all prewritten in my head but haven’t actually put them to blog yet.
In terms of new material, I’m still interested in Kamichu, mainly because it’s the kid-friendliest of the lot, though it looks like it can’t sustain the initial tempo. Last Exile looked interesting, but Shamus was down on the ending. And there’s not much to look forward to either – Gedo Senki looks to be a wash.
Hmm. Maybe Kino’s Journey?
40 years ago today, a legend was born.
Space.
The final frontier.
These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.
Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations.To boldly go where no man has gone before.
It still sends a shiver down my spine.
Paramount is also releasing a new version of the classic series, with updated special effects. These are being done with taste – no Jar-Jars, and Spock doesn’t shoot first. But if you remember the DS9 episode “Trials and Tribble-ations“, you’ll appreciate just how much more beautiful the classic Enterprise was when rendered with realism and love.
Paramount hosted a conference call on Sep. 6th (AICN transcript) where Michael Okuda and others involved in the Special Edition answered questions about the project.
But who cares about a Q&A? See the re-rendered Enterprise in motion for yourself (MOV video file via AICN).
We all know the meme meme. Even if you are not familiar with memetics, you have probably been infected by it. I find that to be part of its elegance, as memetics is a system subject to its own rules, not above them. Therefore, just as the meme meme itself has longevity, frequency, and fecundity, it also mutates and plays piggyback to other memes. Since meme and memetics are successful memes–part of the same memeplex–abuse of them as memetic devices should be expected.
Here are a few ways in which I’ve found them to be abused*:
However, instead of finding this disagreement and distortion of memetics as evidence against it, I find it satisfying, if tautological. Any successful meme will accumulate freeloaders; the meme meme is no exception.
Is the meme meme dying? Can it survive its own selection? If it dies, does memetics go with it?
If these questions are of concern to you, there is something you can do to help! Yes, the meme meme has conjured within me the following message: mind your meme meme.
* Even–no, especially–if you disagree, my point is made.