Haibane.info

Month: March 2011

  • Alienware M11x R3 crossing the Sandy Bridge in April, joined by M14x

    Back in January, Anandtech previewed the entire Sandy Bridge lineup, including the mobile LV/ULV parts, and commented:

    What’s interesting to note about the ULV parts is that even the slowest i5-2537M (yeah, those code names are going to be easy to remember!) comes clocked higher than the outgoing i7-640UM, with more aggressive Turbo modes and a 1W lower TDP. Perhaps we’ll see an M11x R3 with 400M (or 500M?) graphics and one of these ULV chips?

    It’s amazing to think that Alienware’s M11x has achieved such mindshare among gaming laptops that the first thing people think about is the R3 when presented with a new chip! But this is also a commentary on how badly the M11x is due for a refresh. Well, looks like the wait is over – here are preliminary specifications for Dell’s new Alienware M11X R3, due out in April:

    LCD: 11.6″, 1366×768, TrueLife glossy panel, White-LED backlight
    RAM stick options: 1GB/2GB/4GB/8GB, 1333MHz, DDR3
    CPU options:
    i5-2537M, 1.4GHz up to 2.3GHz
    i7-2617M, 1.5GHz up to 2.6GHz
    i7-2657M, 1.6GHz up to 2.7GHz

    Check out the comparative stats on those LV/ULV CPUs from Anand’s January post. No word on what discrete GPU will be used yet, but nvidia is a good bet for Optimus.

    But the more interesting news is that Alienware is also releasing a M14x version – not an M13x as previously assumed and lusted after:

    RAM options: 1GB-4GB, DDR3, 1333MHz or 2GB/4GB, 1600MHz
    CPU options: i3-2310M all the way up to i7-2820QM
    LCD options:
    14″ Full-HD 1920×1080
    14″ 1366×768

    The downside is that battery will be the same 8-cell, 63 Whr used in the M11x R3 above, which is a real problem since the CPUs are the OEM/Retail ones not LV/ULV. The TDP is 35W-45W for these CPUs versus 17W for the CPUs in the M11x R3. Between the more thirsty CPUs and the larger screen, expect battery life to be the Suck for the M14x. It doesn’t make much sense to go for a M14x when you could wait a bit and get an M15x instead (also overdue for a Sandy Bridge refresh).

    The M13x would have been far more reasonable, with LV/ULV and a 63 Whr battery, than the M14x. I think I’ll stick with the M11x – can’t wait until “early April” !

    UPDATE: Eric at Dell-Lab blog responds to my critique of the M14x:

    Currently, I have no information on an M15X refresh. It could be that the M14X is the successor to the M15X. Dell must have figured that going for a 14″ form factor would be better overall.

    I agree, that would make more sense. But the current lineup of 11, 15 and 17 is well-spaced out, and has a natural opening for a 13. If Dell is instead going to have 11, 14 and 17 then that is also evenly spaced, but fewer options. Maybe that is deliberate, easier to have three models in the lineup than four. But the discrepancy between the midrange and high end will be greater. It remains to be seen how the pricing goes.

  • remembering memory

    Nicholas Carr (not to be confused with Paul Carr) has a tremendous essay which follows the theme of his writing in general being a skeptic of Google and the modern information era. Just a teaser:

    Our embrace of the idea that computer databases provide an effective and even superior substitute for personal memory is not particularly surprising. It culminates a century-long shift in the popular view of the mind. As the machines we use to store data have become more voluminous, flexible, and responsive, we’ve grown accustomed to the blurring of artificial and biological memory. But it’s an extraordinary development nonetheless. The notion that memory can be “outsourced,” as Brooks puts it, would have been unthinkable at any earlier moment in our history. For the Ancient Greeks, memory was a goddess: Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses. To Augustine, it was “a vast and infinite profundity,” a reflection of the power of God in man. The classical view remained the common view through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment—up to, in fact, the close of the nineteenth century. When, in an 1892 lecture before a group of teachers, William James declared that “the art of remembering is the art of thinking,” he was stating the obvious. Now, his words seem old-fashioned. Not only has memory lost its divinity; it’s well on its way to losing its humanness. Mnemosyne has become a machine.

    The shift in our view of memory is yet another manifestation of our acceptance of the metaphor that portrays the brain as a computer.

    It’s entitled, “killing Mnemosyne”. I reject that metaphor, as well, and this ties into my own skepticism on Singularity, as well.

    UPDATE – Mark comments, and discusses the relevance to Exformation. Now there’s a Carrian concept! I also agree that our blogs are probably our modern-day “commonplace books”, but I am tempted to try and actually do one in paper. My problem is my handwriting speed is not fast enough to record my thoughts, and the result is usually illegible. So the blog is probably the best outlet. This is kind of ironic.

  • The aPad – Amazon’s imminent android tablet and iPad killer

    Look, it’s basically obvious – Amazon’s new Android Appstore is the precursor to Amazon launching a full-fledged Android tablet of its own. And, true to the character of the kindle, it’s going to be cheaper than other tablets, won’t be packed with features like gyroscopes and cameras, and will probably use a Mirasol color display that is just as readable outdoors as e-Ink and can support video.

    This inevitable Amazon tablet, which I am dubbing the “aPad”, will allow complete vertical content management just like Apple does with iTunes, since Amazon also sells movies, music and now apps – but Amazon has a bigger customer base, and also has that one-click patent everyone loved to hate. Also, the appstore even lets you test-drive apps from right in the web browser.

    No wonder Apple is scared sh#$&less and is suing Amazon over the name and trying to boot Kindle from iOS.

    I cannot wait.

    UPDATE: On facebook, a dear friend (and Apple zealot, in a good way 🙂 comments:

    …just like the android phones killed the iPhone! …wait..

    Now, let me assert and concede that the iPhone is probably the finest phone in existence. And frankly I don’t think that there will ever be a iPhone killer. It should be noted however that the definition of “killer” is rather loose – Android is indeed eating the iPhone’s lunch with respect to market share, for example. But user experience? I’ve never used Android, so I can’t comment, but we are an iPod Touch 4, iPhone 4, and iPad 1 family. I personally use a blackberry because I am a keyboard guy, and the bberry approaches Thinkpad transcendence in that regard. At any rate, I know and use iOS and no one is going to beat iPhone on that field, not for a long time.

    But a tablet is a different matter. iPad certainly opened the door, but the iPad is still a flawed device in a fundamental way: it’s not even remotely “post-PC” as Apple pretends it to be. Without a PC the iPad is unusable. Without iTunes the iPad is closed. Only a technology company with equal vertical integration of a content ecosystem, like Amazon, can match the iPad. Here’s your basic task: decide you want to watch a certain movie, get it on your tablet, and watch it on the train during your commute. How can you do that on Android right now? Only Amazon and Apple can make that happen.

    But where Amazon has the advantage is that it sells un-DRMed MP3s for music, permits video downloads as separate files, and (this is where the Andoid advantage comes in, which is irrelevant on a phone platform) supports industry standards for content. So you have the best of all worlds.

    Don’t get me wrong – the iPad won’t die after being killed. But for the average family, the aPad will simply be a better value – half the cost, half the weight, and none of the hassles. For surfing the web, parity; for watching TV and video, advantage.

    I think Apple’s true genius device is the iPod Touch. No one has anything like it. and the iPhone is king. But the iPad is a niche product, like netbooks were – and Apple has left a huge opening for Amazon to exploit by making it such a closed ecosystem.

  • Conan the Immortal – pure awesomeness

    I agree with @headgeek666 – this is the coolest picture I’ve seen today, and probably in a long while.

    (click to enlarge)

  • Explaining Fukushima: Nuclear Boy and his toxic poo

    So, how do you explain the nuclear disaster to children, without overly alarming them but still trying to convey some sense of the seriousness of the event? Naturally, you make anime – and replace radiation with “poo”.

    I am reminded of this video I shot on a television screen in a department store in Shinjuku five years ago:

    I was politely, but firmly, discouraged from taling more video than this, thankfully. Like Cthulhu, seeing more might have destroyed my soul. I can only shudder at the thought of what horrific disaster that video was trying to explain.

    (BTW, excellent overview of the nuclear plant disaster at Ars Technica.)

  • the geexicon is born

    I confess, I did indeed invent the term “otakusphere” and now I am guilty of too-enthusiastically embracing a typo by Neal Stephenson. Witness: “reamde“. I’m sure we can come up with a clever implied meaning full of irony and wit for it.

    So why not go meta and invent a term for the accumulated invented terms? a Geek Lexicon would therefore naturally be.. well, you know. I suppose we could also have “otaxicon” but now we are getting into failed Transformers territory. I also considered “gexicon” but I’m having flashbacks of Earthsea for some reason so let’s not go there.

    Anyone else have any good candidates? I could also propose “geek service”.

    Someone should probably snap the domain up.

  • What makes Superman super? the “man”

    Once again, via Mark – possibly the best essay on Superman I’ve ever read.

    Superman isn’t a Jesus analogue because, unlike Jesus, his moral vision is not imposed. The word of Jesus is the word of God and therefore what he says goes, dictation straight from the Almighty. Superman is the exact opposite: a man whose moral vision comes not from a source exterior to humanity but from humanity itself, via Ma and Pa Kent, who are themselves immensely decent people. He ultimately isn’t a received savior, regardless of the origin of his powers; he’s Superman, the apotheosis of what human virtue can be. He’s an aspirational figure first and foremost.

    (…) Superman isn’t Superman because of some tragedy which informed his growth. Pa Kent does not die because of a failure on Clark’s part – indeed in most versions of the story, Pa dies when Clark is already Superman. Clark’s knowledge of Krypton doesn’t make him a superhero either; again, this is something he finds out later, too late to traumatize him. Clark is Superman because he decides to be Superman without being prompted. That’s more complex and nuanced a story than “somebody did something to me.” Superman’s story, which informs his entire character, is one of someone who chooses to be good of his own free will and agency, with no influence other than moral upbringing.

    This complements my own observation that the best Superman is where Clark Kent is the person and Superman the persona, rather than the way around. I love the moral paragon argument above, but I take a more cynical view that the most interesting Superman stories are ones in which, just like the rest of us, he lapses. Fundamentally, Superman is not Jesus, he’s the opposite as MGK points out. That should also extend to the question of his infallibility. Free will and reason itself are subjective processes, and Superman is Superrational. Which for mankind, isn’t super at all.

    An interesting corollary is the question of whether Superman’s goodness is the yin that drives the yang of Luthor’s badness. Read MGK’s essay on Luthor – great analysis of the character, and I fully agree that there’s no villain his equal, because other villains are just… villains.

    I’ve enjoyed Batman as a character but he just doesn’t have the same depth of fascination for me – and I’ve long understood that no one could ever “become” Batman.

  • astounding Cassini video flyby of Saturn’s rings and moons

    (UPDATE: credit due, via Mark. Who acounts for a disturbingly large number of my “neato lookit” posts of late.)

    This is incredible – a digital compilation of images from the Cassini probe, no CGI or animation, assembled into incredible breathtaking flybys of the Saturn system. The best part os the third, final sequence where we flyby Titan, Mimas, pass thru the ring-plane, and swoop past Enceladus.

    5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.

    I’ve a photo of me from 1996 as a visitor to JPL (where my friend’s dad worked) in front of the Cassini heat shield. I really need to dig that up… Let’s also remember that the controversy about Cassini being nuclear powered was totally bogus, and use that as a data point for why nuclear power is not the ultimate bugaboo that people assume it to be after the still-unfolding tradegy and disaster in Japan.

  • Filco Majestouch tenkeyless with RED switches at Amazon

    UPDATE – There are a number of other Filco Majestouch keyboards available on Amazon right now – supplied probably limited as these are no longer in production.

    This is a real rarity – a Filco Majestouch keyboard, of the 87-key layout (tenkeyless), and with the linear Cherry MX Red switches, in stock at Amazon.com. In my earlier post on keyboards I noted that reds were pretty much impossible to find. And here they are, in stock and free shipping. The keyboard is a little pricey but I think it’s worth snapping this up.

    Filco Majestouch 87-key (tenkeyless) mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches – $165 at Amazon

    Red switches are linear like blacks, but lighter force for actuation. The result should be an ideal hybrid between gaming and typing. My only complaint is that it isn’t a blank keyset, but that’s ok 🙂 There’s a thread at geekhack with some initial reviews of this board and I think I am going to enjoy it.

  • Leeroy Jenkins

    This is an old Warcraft meme, but new to me, and its hilarity is universal.

    It’s just awesome. And players who endlessly strategize and micromanage drive me insane. I’ve never yet been on a raid (my main is still 75) so maybe the overthinking is necessary for all I know – but pulling a Leeroy is going to be hard to resist.