I bought one today from Best Buy. I figure, ~$400, "up to" 6 hours of battery life, and an Intel Core i3, looks like a steal. I plugged it in, was impressed with the responsiveness. I noticed in the bottom right corner, it kept saying 0%, available, plugged in charging or something. It would stay that would even after an hour or so. I tested it by unplugging the power cord and it immediately shut off.
I tried a couple things to try to fix it. I turned off the laptop and removed the battery, having the laptop connected just by the power cord. I turned on the laptop, noticed the text at the bottom said plugged in, without mentioning any charging. I snapped the battery back in while the computer was on and the tooltip changed. It still had 0% and stayed that way for what seemed like forever. I just let the laptop go to sleep, battery in, charging, from 8pm-10pm. I opened it now, and it says 99%, 7 hours left. Hopefully it doesn't act up on me anymore.
Also, the sound is better than my junky 2007 Polaroid TV, but not as good as my desktop Altec Lansing speakers.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Norelco 7310 annual razor head replacements and other warranty stuff
I just bought the Norelco 7310 on Amazon for just shy of $40, thought it was a great deal, since it came with a 2 year warranty. The booklet says replacing the razor heads every 12 months will keep the close, comfortable shaving going... I feel slightly deceived. The bottom of the packaging also says cutters and combs aren't covered by warranty. Page 15 of the manual has a picture of the razor going under the sink, but then there are specific pictures of removing the razor heads to clean. The razor heads require special care every month, and the trimmer requires attention every 6 months. This is all so complicated. I might as well have gotten a foil shaver, every foil shaver I've come across has lasted for years...
Friday, February 11, 2011
More Westmere vs Knights many integrated core
I found a http://newsroom.intel.com/servlet/JiveServlet/download/1202-20-2558/Infos_zu_Intel_Demos.pdf where the performance of Knights Ferry/Corner? is compared to 2 x 2.93 Xeon X5670. It looks like it's 1.25x faster in HPCC GUPS (highly parallel, but low SIMD affinity), 2x in energy-seismic, 2.25x in academic matrix math benchmark, 3x in CERN Track Fitter benchmark, 3.25x in CFD - Lattice Boltzmann Model, and 5.25x in SP Monte Carlo (highly parallel, high SIMD affinity, use of transcendental functions). Looks like Intel Braunschweig helped. The chart on the right also looks reminiscent of old Larrabee graphs.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Knights Ferry 62.5% faster than six-core i7 for MRI app
I stumbled upon a paper called High-performance 3D Compressive Sensing MRI reconstruction that says "Our (optimized) baseline implementation on a quad-core Core i7 is able to reconstruct a 256×160×80 volume of the neurovasculature from an 8-channel, 10× undersampled data set within 56 seconds, which is already a significant improvement over existing implementations. The latest six-core Core i7 reduces the reconstruction time further to 32 seconds. Moreover, we show that the CS algorithm benefits from modern throughput-oriented architectures. Specifically, our CUDA-base implementation on NVIDIA GTX480 reconstructs the same dataset in 16 seconds, while Intel's Knights Ferry (KNF) of the MIC (Many Integrated Core) architecture even reduces the time to 12 seconds."
It would be nice to know what clock speed the Core i7s were, but still, hooray for faster MRIs. Of course, a 6-core system runs around 200 watts max? while a Knights Ferry system would run at 500 watts max? Performance per watt for the pure Core i7 system would be (1p/200w=0.005) while the Larrabee would be (1.625p/500w=0.00325). Sure it's less efficient, but considering the GTX 480 is a scorcher as well, Intel at least beats Nvidia here in pure performance and efficiency.
Curiously, Google Analytics showed a spike in visitors on February 4, 2011, without about 30 visits from Beaverton, (Oregon), using Internet Explorer on Windows, from "intel corporation" service corporation. I mean, this information is all available on Google.
It would be nice to know what clock speed the Core i7s were, but still, hooray for faster MRIs. Of course, a 6-core system runs around 200 watts max? while a Knights Ferry system would run at 500 watts max? Performance per watt for the pure Core i7 system would be (1p/200w=0.005) while the Larrabee would be (1.625p/500w=0.00325). Sure it's less efficient, but considering the GTX 480 is a scorcher as well, Intel at least beats Nvidia here in pure performance and efficiency.
Curiously, Google Analytics showed a spike in visitors on February 4, 2011, without about 30 visits from Beaverton, (Oregon), using Internet Explorer on Windows, from "intel corporation" service corporation. I mean, this information is all available on Google.
Pelican Lake comes after Rockwell ?
Intel is supposed to release Rockwell (Haswell's 16nm tick/shrink) in 2014, with a successor planned but unrevealed so far. I just caught on the SemiAccurate forums, a post where the moderator slipped, "We aren't reviewing anything in particular but are looking for suggestions and ideas for reviews of various bits somewhere in the timeframe before Rockwell and if not by then, well then by Pelican Lake."
Wikipedia claims that Haswell is developed by Intel's Oregon team, so the Pelican Lake codename is sort of curious, since I thought Oregon and Israel took turns in developing new "tocks".
Wikipedia claims that Haswell is developed by Intel's Oregon team, so the Pelican Lake codename is sort of curious, since I thought Oregon and Israel took turns in developing new "tocks".
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
PIMCO versus Loomis Sayles on Ireland
Bond giants Loomis Sayles has been contrarily bullish on Ireland recently, announcing in October that they had been buying bonds there, when yields were around 6.5%.
They reiterated their confidence in Ireland in November, saying, "Two years from now, you will look back on this as one of the brightest things you did," Fuss told Reuters about purchasing Irish bonds. "If you have a short-term horizon, this is not for you." The yield rose to about 8.5% then. It has since almost hit 9%.
Since then, bond king PIMCO's Mohamed El-Erian decides to stoke the flames, insisting, "What you advise your sister in Ireland now is that you’d say take your money out of an Irish bank and put it in another bank headquartered elsewhere,” El-Erian said. “That’s what happened in Argentina and in emerging economies. People worry about their savings.’"
Pretty spooky coming from the guys with the biggest mutual fund. Yet, in the short term, comparing PIMCO's flagship fund with Loomis Sayles's flagship fund, PTTDX has lost 0.78% in a month compared to 0% for LSBRX, gained 1.27% to LSBRX's 4.31% gain over 3 months, gained 9.23% to LSBRX's 14.9% in a year.
They reiterated their confidence in Ireland in November, saying, "Two years from now, you will look back on this as one of the brightest things you did," Fuss told Reuters about purchasing Irish bonds. "If you have a short-term horizon, this is not for you." The yield rose to about 8.5% then. It has since almost hit 9%.
Since then, bond king PIMCO's Mohamed El-Erian decides to stoke the flames, insisting, "What you advise your sister in Ireland now is that you’d say take your money out of an Irish bank and put it in another bank headquartered elsewhere,” El-Erian said. “That’s what happened in Argentina and in emerging economies. People worry about their savings.’"
Pretty spooky coming from the guys with the biggest mutual fund. Yet, in the short term, comparing PIMCO's flagship fund with Loomis Sayles's flagship fund, PTTDX has lost 0.78% in a month compared to 0% for LSBRX, gained 1.27% to LSBRX's 4.31% gain over 3 months, gained 9.23% to LSBRX's 14.9% in a year.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Larrabee can play Crysis better than the GTX 285
Charlie Demerjian wrote May 20, 2010 that, "They only *publicly* showed a raytracing demo, but they put out lots of other videos of things running. I may have seen lots more. It ran Crysis at playable frames when the software was still immature."
Fast forward to today, a smart idiot says, "Knight's Ferry can't play Crysis or any game really for that matter but this is most likely a driver-limitation than a hardware one since we've seen Larrabee being able to play Crysis(or was it Far Cry 2?) where it was better than GTX285 which back then was the best GPU around. But it seems that Intel has completely abandoned the idea of using Larrabee for gaming and that the architecture will be used only for HPC and servers."
Nvidia's GTX 285 is a bit stale, released in January 2009, so it's almost 2 years old now. The revelation that Larrabee isn't totally a dud (except that it's a 300w monster) is earth shattering, except it seems, Larrabee was playing Far Cry 2 back at IDF 2008 in public! It's a shame such technology is being steered toward HPC, like I earlier surmised.
Canning Larrabee sort of makes sense though. Since graphics are becoming increasingly irrelevant, Intel might as well milk this x86 pseudoGPU. "Performance on my LIBOR Monte Carlo
application is similar to Fermi, and 10× better than quad-core Nehalem."
Fast forward to today, a smart idiot says, "Knight's Ferry can't play Crysis or any game really for that matter but this is most likely a driver-limitation than a hardware one since we've seen Larrabee being able to play Crysis(or was it Far Cry 2?) where it was better than GTX285 which back then was the best GPU around. But it seems that Intel has completely abandoned the idea of using Larrabee for gaming and that the architecture will be used only for HPC and servers."
Nvidia's GTX 285 is a bit stale, released in January 2009, so it's almost 2 years old now. The revelation that Larrabee isn't totally a dud (except that it's a 300w monster) is earth shattering, except it seems, Larrabee was playing Far Cry 2 back at IDF 2008 in public! It's a shame such technology is being steered toward HPC, like I earlier surmised.
Canning Larrabee sort of makes sense though. Since graphics are becoming increasingly irrelevant, Intel might as well milk this x86 pseudoGPU. "Performance on my LIBOR Monte Carlo
application is similar to Fermi, and 10× better than quad-core Nehalem."
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
software trumps steel
Paul Otellini had a chat with Ken Auletta recently at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Intel of course, plowed through with a $7 billion investment in early 2009, even as stock markets were cratering.
Mr. Otellini used the opportunity of a speech before the Economic Club in Washington to vow that Intel would spend more money than ever to expand chip factories in the United States.
Soon after, the markets surged over 50%.
Today, he insists, "As grim as the economy may still appear, we are generating the cutting-edge innovation today that can drive tomorrow's vitality...And as much as business leaders must cope with the fallout of creative destruction, no one wins more from disruptive innovation than the average consumer. The consumer has more choice than ever before, prices go down as new technology (ramps the volume ?), and people have new ways to communicate and enrich their lives."
I am not a fan of inflation, so it's good to see Mr. Prescient continue to forecast further deflation in technology.
On the stockpiles of cash corporations have amassed, he says, "People are not adding jobs or adding capacity because of their view of demand, or their view of the environment -- the uncertainties I mentioned before. Having cash on hand, when -- particularly when you can borrow ultra cheaply, is just good, prudent treasury management for that point in time when things do reverse and you want to make those investments."
See, jobs will come back 1 day.
There is a funny bit, where Paul dabbles into certain conspiracies about CFR...
OTELLINI: Richard and I were talking about this before the lunch today. You guys have a fleet of black helicopters, right, with CFR? (Laughter.) You ought to be able to answer that better than I can. (Laughs.)
QUESTIONER: That one will come back to haunt you.
Intel of course, plowed through with a $7 billion investment in early 2009, even as stock markets were cratering.
Mr. Otellini used the opportunity of a speech before the Economic Club in Washington to vow that Intel would spend more money than ever to expand chip factories in the United States.
Soon after, the markets surged over 50%.
Today, he insists, "As grim as the economy may still appear, we are generating the cutting-edge innovation today that can drive tomorrow's vitality...And as much as business leaders must cope with the fallout of creative destruction, no one wins more from disruptive innovation than the average consumer. The consumer has more choice than ever before, prices go down as new technology (ramps the volume ?), and people have new ways to communicate and enrich their lives."
I am not a fan of inflation, so it's good to see Mr. Prescient continue to forecast further deflation in technology.
On the stockpiles of cash corporations have amassed, he says, "People are not adding jobs or adding capacity because of their view of demand, or their view of the environment -- the uncertainties I mentioned before. Having cash on hand, when -- particularly when you can borrow ultra cheaply, is just good, prudent treasury management for that point in time when things do reverse and you want to make those investments."
See, jobs will come back 1 day.
There is a funny bit, where Paul dabbles into certain conspiracies about CFR...
OTELLINI: Richard and I were talking about this before the lunch today. You guys have a fleet of black helicopters, right, with CFR? (Laughter.) You ought to be able to answer that better than I can. (Laughs.)
QUESTIONER: That one will come back to haunt you.
A quantitative look at gold
I don't understand the gold fever. I never care to invest what I don't comprehend. Business Insider has a good "model" up today that explains some idiosyncrasies. Basically, <2% short term rates means gold goes higher, >2% short term rates means gold goes lower.
According to my backtest, tor every one percentage point real rates differ from 2%, gold moves by eight times that amount per year. So if the real rates are at 1%, gold will move up at an 8% annualized rate. If real rates are at 0%, then gold will move up at a 16% rate (that’s been about the story for the past decade). Conversely, if the real rate jumps to 3%, then gold will drop at an 8% rate.
I will be watching so I can finally pull the trigger on DZZ.
According to my backtest, tor every one percentage point real rates differ from 2%, gold moves by eight times that amount per year. So if the real rates are at 1%, gold will move up at an 8% annualized rate. If real rates are at 0%, then gold will move up at a 16% rate (that’s been about the story for the past decade). Conversely, if the real rate jumps to 3%, then gold will drop at an 8% rate.
I will be watching so I can finally pull the trigger on DZZ.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Razing Georgia
I just came across this story about the city of Smyrna razing the 94-building, 48 acres of the Hickory Lakes apartments. I know little of the area, including the apparent crime problems. It will cost them $9.5 million for the rights to the area, and $4 million to raze it. It seems pretty expensive for 0.075 square miles, but I'm not a developer, so I wouldn't know. Their budget seems solid, so why not!
In fact, I wonder why the wealthy in Atlanta don't all huddle up to blow up some of these ugly old, abandoned buildings (like in The Bluff) and plant trees instead. Think about the carbon they could save! The area around the Georgia State University Commons is looking a lot better though.
In fact, I wonder why the wealthy in Atlanta don't all huddle up to blow up some of these ugly old, abandoned buildings (like in The Bluff) and plant trees instead. Think about the carbon they could save! The area around the Georgia State University Commons is looking a lot better though.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Pimco's McCulley flips and flops on QE2
September 3, 2010: "no compelling pressure to move to QE2"
October 4, 2010: “A new round of quantitative easing is likely,” McCulley, who is based in Newport Beach, California, said in his report. “The bottom line for the U.S. is a growth trajectory so slow you’d nearly call it stalled.”
Come on now... All it will take is another good jobs report for Paul McCulley to flip again on quantitative easing 2. These guys are supposed to be visionaries, not reactionaries.
October 4, 2010: “A new round of quantitative easing is likely,” McCulley, who is based in Newport Beach, California, said in his report. “The bottom line for the U.S. is a growth trajectory so slow you’d nearly call it stalled.”
Come on now... All it will take is another good jobs report for Paul McCulley to flip again on quantitative easing 2. These guys are supposed to be visionaries, not reactionaries.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Myth of Japanese poverty and Chinese wealth
Cool article in Foreign Policy.It reminded me of James Fallows's article, "Japan Surrenders".
Sure, old people steal there, but it sounds like they are doing better than Las Vegas at the moment. I'll take a BMW and a job nearby...
As to the Foreign Policy article that suggests, "a meltdown in Beijing would make Japan's economic malaise look like child's play,", I am in complete agreement, albeit I have only taken a few economics courses so far. My thesis is that though Japan was an imbalanced economy that imploded, they at least had an educated base, still churning out flat screens today. In contrast, China makes cheap and poisoned crap. India can at least speak English and their population is growing, while China slows down, thanks to their short-sighed depopulation policy.
the next reinvented Japan would be easier-living, nonhierarchical, less export-driven, open to the world in all ways (sound like us during the NAFTA debate?!). Having shown the world how to get rich, Japan could illustrate how to be rich.
If you know China mainly through stories of its economic successes, you’re surprised on a visit that it’s still so poor. If you know Japan mainly through stories of its failures, which are real, you’re surprised that it’s become so rich. The houses looked the same, but with bigger, nicer cars in the driveways.
We saw Land Rovers, BMWs, even a Cadillac on the narrow streets that once were full of bikes and little Nissan Sunnys.
In the 1980s, the Tokyu store had run an “American Food Festival,” featuring Big Red soda and bins full of Butterfinger candy bars. Now there are latte shops everywhere, bistros, tapas bars.
only half as many Japanese students are now enrolled at U.S. colleges as 10 years ago—the opposite of the trend in almost every other nation. The tight job market has discouraged students from doing anything as “risky” as spending time outside the Japanese school system.
Japan got rich before it grew old, and China will grow old before it gets rich
Sure, old people steal there, but it sounds like they are doing better than Las Vegas at the moment. I'll take a BMW and a job nearby...
As to the Foreign Policy article that suggests, "a meltdown in Beijing would make Japan's economic malaise look like child's play,", I am in complete agreement, albeit I have only taken a few economics courses so far. My thesis is that though Japan was an imbalanced economy that imploded, they at least had an educated base, still churning out flat screens today. In contrast, China makes cheap and poisoned crap. India can at least speak English and their population is growing, while China slows down, thanks to their short-sighed depopulation policy.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Intel Knights Ferry performance is "quite impressive"
I decided to take a gander at AMDZone to see how those folks were reacting to Sandy Bridge, considering the heaps of praise lavished by Real World Technologies and Ars.
A post by Smartidiot89 dated October 2, 2010 reads, "I happen to know someone who has "Knights Ferry" in possession, while he won't tell me me much due to NDA the performance is quite impressive but it requires alot of work to actually... work on any x86 software so it doesn't simply work as most people believe."
It reminds me of a post by Charlie Demerjian where he notes, "the strengths of the chip are in the 'other' category" and a recent one where he says,
A post by Smartidiot89 dated October 2, 2010 reads, "I happen to know someone who has "Knights Ferry" in possession, while he won't tell me me much due to NDA the performance is quite impressive but it requires alot of work to actually... work on any x86 software so it doesn't simply work as most people believe."
It reminds me of a post by Charlie Demerjian where he notes, "the strengths of the chip are in the 'other' category" and a recent one where he says,
"From what I understand, the consoles were decided as Sony = Intel Larrabee, MS = ? + ATI, and Nintendo = ? + ATI. Then the economic sh*tstorm hit, and people pulled back, and the consoles slipped from 2012 -> 2014.I was looking forward to ray tracing and such, but at least Larrabee/Knights is good at something (presumably HPC, since the crew is supposedly being repurposed that way). We'll be curing Malaria in no time.
Sony and MS have started over, Sony because of Intel's screwup, and MS because they could. Both are still taking bids right now.
Nintendo is the only one with a console being actively worked on, and that will be out LONG before the others. It will likely be the same team that did the N64, GC and Wii again, because they did a great job."
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
MTV Networks Partner Offers spam
My Gmail occasionally catches spam from MTV. They have an unsubscribe button, but they never follow through on my request. I got this today:
from MTV Networks
reply-to postmaster@mms.mtv.com
subject Paranormal Activity 2 - Be the first to see it. Demand it!
mailed-by mms.mtv.com
signed-by mms.mtv.com
To ensure delivery to your inbox, please add mtvoffers@mms.mtv.com to your address book.
You are receiving this message because you asked for occasional updates and special offers from the Viacom family of companies.
All of the MTV spam have URLs composed like http://strongmail-5.west.mtvi.com/track?type=xxx
Clicking those images leads to http://movies.eventful.com/competitions/paranormalactivity2010?utm_source=email&utm_medium=competition&utm_campaign=mtv_announcement_email.
The unsubscribe at the bottom says,"MTV Networks Partner Offers Thank You. Your email address is scheduled to be unsubscribed from all MTV Networks Partner Offer emails. Please allow up to 10 days for completion." This can't be, as I've been unsubscribing for months... The privacy policy isn't better, nor are the terms of use.
I'll be filing a complaint pretty soon. I guess I should also save these spam.
from MTV Networks
reply-to postmaster@mms.mtv.com
subject Paranormal Activity 2 - Be the first to see it. Demand it!
mailed-by mms.mtv.com
signed-by mms.mtv.com
To ensure delivery to your inbox, please add mtvoffers@mms.mtv.com to your address book.
You are receiving this message because you asked for occasional updates and special offers from the Viacom family of companies.
All of the MTV spam have URLs composed like http://strongmail-5.west.mtvi.com/track?type=xxx
Clicking those images leads to http://movies.eventful.com/competitions/paranormalactivity2010?utm_source=email&utm_medium=competition&utm_campaign=mtv_announcement_email.
The unsubscribe at the bottom says,"MTV Networks Partner Offers Thank You. Your email address is scheduled to be unsubscribed from all MTV Networks Partner Offer emails. Please allow up to 10 days for completion." This can't be, as I've been unsubscribing for months... The privacy policy isn't better, nor are the terms of use.
I'll be filing a complaint pretty soon. I guess I should also save these spam.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
.NET Framework to fix Chrome "unknown installer error"
I've downloaded Google Chrome several times today with Firefox to no avail. I kept getting an "unknown installer error" when I clicked on the Chrome setup icon. I thought it was because of old remnants of Chrome.
I tried to download it with Internet Explorer 8, and voila! I got a prompt informing me that the file I was downloading required Microsoft .NET Framework or something. And now I've got Chrome... Not cool, Google.
I tried to download it with Internet Explorer 8, and voila! I got a prompt informing me that the file I was downloading required Microsoft .NET Framework or something. And now I've got Chrome... Not cool, Google.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Drive-ads scam
Just got a spam for http://www.drive-ads.com/. There is an identical site at http://www.adtype.net/.
Right...
Get a Free Car with an Advertisement on it
Or Get Paid to put an Advertisement on your Car
Are there other fees to pay after joining?
No, the one time membership fee is a one time only fee.
Yes, you may send a check/money order to:
Energy Field Unlimited
PO box 19562
Redford, Michigan 48219
Copyright © 2010 DriveMobileAds.com All rights reserved.
Right...
Deflation of television, 19- inch edition
I found a receipt in the house dated 12/23/2007 for the purchase of a nineteen-inch LCD TV, specifically the Polaroid TLA-01901C, for $298. Polaroid ought to be ashamed of this piece of junk. The sound is tinny, the channels change slowly, but at least I can hook up my Nintendo GameCube up to it. The screen is small, though that comes with the portability.
33 months later, the popular 19-inch Sharp LC19SB27UT is selling for about $200. The decent 32-inch Toshiba 32C100U and LG 32LD350 are selling for about $340 today, so in 33 months, for 13% more, I could get about 2.8x the screen area. Wow!
BTW, here's a cool chart of the average price of a 32-inch LCD TV.
12-28-10: That rate has been in the 19% to 20% annual range for twenty years on a display area basis. That means the price per square inch of AMLCD falls 50% every three years.
The implication is that the price of a 42” LCD TV in 2010 should be about one-half its price in 2007.
1-23-11: Just caught this story, which implies 42 inch screens will hit $399 this year, at least the Insignia brand will. I just caught a flyer from BrandsMart for a 42" Panasonic at $399 model, so the estimate sounds realistic.
A new story out 2-2-11, "With 2011 TV models set to come to market later this month, some leftover 2010s will have their prices axed to the max by the beginning of March."
It's accompanied by this chart
, showing the 32 inch TV dropping 14.7% from 2010 to 2011, not quite as much as the 26.8$ drop from 2009 to 2010.
9-12-11: Found this
33 months later, the popular 19-inch Sharp LC19SB27UT is selling for about $200. The decent 32-inch Toshiba 32C100U and LG 32LD350 are selling for about $340 today, so in 33 months, for 13% more, I could get about 2.8x the screen area. Wow!
BTW, here's a cool chart of the average price of a 32-inch LCD TV.12-28-10: That rate has been in the 19% to 20% annual range for twenty years on a display area basis. That means the price per square inch of AMLCD falls 50% every three years.
The implication is that the price of a 42” LCD TV in 2010 should be about one-half its price in 2007.
1-23-11: Just caught this story, which implies 42 inch screens will hit $399 this year, at least the Insignia brand will. I just caught a flyer from BrandsMart for a 42" Panasonic at $399 model, so the estimate sounds realistic.
A new story out 2-2-11, "With 2011 TV models set to come to market later this month, some leftover 2010s will have their prices axed to the max by the beginning of March."
It's accompanied by this chart
, showing the 32 inch TV dropping 14.7% from 2010 to 2011, not quite as much as the 26.8$ drop from 2009 to 2010.
9-12-11: Found this
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Milk inflation at Walmart
Milk was running as low as $1.75 a few months ago, then steady at $1.98. I was there the other day to buy some lowfat milk, and lo and behold, they jacked it up to $2.48 for the Walmart milk! What is going on?
I thought the specter of terrible deflation was upon us, yet gas, milk, and just about everything is hardly getting cheaper... It'd be a waste of money if I didn't finish the rest of my Raisin Bran Extra, but if Walmart doesn't get with it, I'll be boycotting milk for the foreseeable future.
I thought the specter of terrible deflation was upon us, yet gas, milk, and just about everything is hardly getting cheaper... It'd be a waste of money if I didn't finish the rest of my Raisin Bran Extra, but if Walmart doesn't get with it, I'll be boycotting milk for the foreseeable future.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Chase phishing texts
I don't even have a Chase accounts but some con artists are texting me, trying to get me to call them. The first message is from 3683, July 31, 2010, 4:36:42pm; 818-864-3253@chase.com You have received a new JPMorgan Chase banking message. Call now free: 1-818-864-3253 and follow instructions."
Another from 3776, August 4, 2010, 7:19:08am; 845-445-6564@chase.com You have received a new JPMorgan Chase banking message. Call now free: 1-845-445-6564 and follow instructions.
I believe it's an advanced case of CSS history sniffing here (how did they get my T-Mobile?). Firefox 4 and others will fix the issue, but with Microsoft refusing to update IE on XP, a large number of users are still susceptible. Somebody help...
Another from 3776, August 4, 2010, 7:19:08am; 845-445-6564@chase.com You have received a new JPMorgan Chase banking message. Call now free: 1-845-445-6564 and follow instructions.
I believe it's an advanced case of CSS history sniffing here (how did they get my T-Mobile?). Firefox 4 and others will fix the issue, but with Microsoft refusing to update IE on XP, a large number of users are still susceptible. Somebody help...
Friday, July 23, 2010
MENT to explode¿
Crytek's recent presentation at the High Performance Graphics Conference 2010 was released June 30, 2010, yet a Larrabee 2 is listed under "What’s the next generation of consoles?". Larrabee seems to be quite popular for a technology that's supposed to be dead.
Upon the discovery of the nuanced Larrabee 2 name from Crytek's presentation, I was lead to KitGuru's May 15, 2010 article, where 1 of their employee recalls chatters of Mentor Graphics, Intel, Larrabee, and "Mentor Graphics developed Calibre InRoute to support manufacturing closure for advanced node designs" at a pub.
Somehow with just that information, KitGuru concludes, "Intel seems to have completed its internal analysis of the failings of Larrabee v1, created a completely revised strategy and product definition for Larrabee v2 and, most importantly, begun shopping for the tools necessary to design and deliver a world class, discrete graphics solution.".
But the conclusion is very similar to what Charlie Demerjian wrote on May 17, 2010, "That brings us to Larrabee 2, basically a refresh and cleanup of Larrabee 1. Tie up loose ends, optimize what they could, and fix whatever low hanging fruit that remained... Larrabee 3 was going to be a big bang. Intel learned a lot with Larrabee 1, but too late incorporate any of it in Larrabee 2.".
So I'm researching Mentor Graphics, and MENT is coincidentally at a 52-week high today, much thanks to famed hedge fund honcho Carl Icahn. Financial analysis aside, Low-Power Engineering in late 2009 interviewed a chap from Mentor, who let slip that, "by 2011 it [Larrabee] will have 4 billion gates and 128 cores.".
Based upon the KitGuru pub chat, Charlie's subsequent corroboration, and legendary investor Icahn's approval, I expect MENT to blow up pretty soon. If not, at least it's another tea leaf into the viability of Larrabee.
Upon the discovery of the nuanced Larrabee 2 name from Crytek's presentation, I was lead to KitGuru's May 15, 2010 article, where 1 of their employee recalls chatters of Mentor Graphics, Intel, Larrabee, and "Mentor Graphics developed Calibre InRoute to support manufacturing closure for advanced node designs" at a pub.
Somehow with just that information, KitGuru concludes, "Intel seems to have completed its internal analysis of the failings of Larrabee v1, created a completely revised strategy and product definition for Larrabee v2 and, most importantly, begun shopping for the tools necessary to design and deliver a world class, discrete graphics solution.".
But the conclusion is very similar to what Charlie Demerjian wrote on May 17, 2010, "That brings us to Larrabee 2, basically a refresh and cleanup of Larrabee 1. Tie up loose ends, optimize what they could, and fix whatever low hanging fruit that remained... Larrabee 3 was going to be a big bang. Intel learned a lot with Larrabee 1, but too late incorporate any of it in Larrabee 2.".
So I'm researching Mentor Graphics, and MENT is coincidentally at a 52-week high today, much thanks to famed hedge fund honcho Carl Icahn. Financial analysis aside, Low-Power Engineering in late 2009 interviewed a chap from Mentor, who let slip that, "by 2011 it [Larrabee] will have 4 billion gates and 128 cores.".
Based upon the KitGuru pub chat, Charlie's subsequent corroboration, and legendary investor Icahn's approval, I expect MENT to blow up pretty soon. If not, at least it's another tea leaf into the viability of Larrabee.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Blacklight Power collusion and incompetency
October 20, 2008, Blacklight Power Inc. announced "independent" replication of its hydrino technology, by Dr. Peter Jansson of Rowan University of New Jersey. 1 of his publications, dated May 1997, is titled HYDROCATALYSIS: A New Energy Paradigm for the 21st Century.
On Blacklight's site, they say,
So while they clearly don't have any explosive technology yet/ever, they are ready to rumble with funny rock star marketers that know how to get that government cheese.
On Blacklight's site, they say,
In 1991, Dr. Mills founded HydroCatalysis Power Corp. to pursue the development and ultimate commercialization of a new form of energy - the HydroCatalysis Process. In the fall of 1996, the Company's name was changed from HydroCatalysis Power Corp. to BlackLight Power, Inc. to reflect the ultraviolet light emission produced by catalysis in the renamed BlackLight Process. In 1999 the Company moved to its present location, a 53,000 square-foot research facility, in Cranbury, NJ, and has since expanded its employee base to 25 people.There's no such thing as coincidence. If it's not, it ought to be criminal to claim independent verification, when clearly, Randell Mills and Peter Jansson obviously go way back. On top of the HydroCatalysis "coincidence", others explore his employment history with Atlantic Energy, now Conectiv, or as VentureBeat notes,
Jansson has been aware of Blacklight for years, and even acted as an advisor for an energy company that ultimately made a strategic investment, but it appears to have no unethical ties, just an ongoing interest. Jansson also professes to be impartial to the existence of hydrinos, saying he’s interested in hearing any “alternative explanation” to the hydrino theory.Collusion aside, they could possibly be sitting on explosive technology, though a glimpse at their jobs page doesn't inspire confidence. For their business development executive, they are seeking someone with "success with soliciting government agencies for funding technology development; prior grant writing experience, technological capability, especially around internet use for internal and external communication, and possesses a good sense of humor". For their senior mechanical engineer, they want "demonstrated grant-writing experiences" and require "formal presentation skills".
So while they clearly don't have any explosive technology yet/ever, they are ready to rumble with funny rock star marketers that know how to get that government cheese.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Lockheed and Tata maybe EEstor too
July 8, 2010, a news release came out, concerning Lockheed Martin and Tata Advanced System Ltd., a part of India's Tata Group, in which they signed a joint venture to "make defense equipment and aircraft parts in India". Lockheed will invest 428 million rupees, while Tata would invest 1.22 billion rupees (around $35 million as of today).
Tata Group also makes cars with Tata Motors in the famous $2500 Nano. Tata Motors is not just a small novelty car company ala Zenn, they also own Daewoo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Daimler.
Flash back to 2008, when Lockheed signed exclusive rights to develop EEstor electrical energy storage units for "military and homeland defense applications". The initial hype of EEstor was that it would make the electric car a viable alternative to regular gasoline cars, but Dick Weir just hasn't delivered.
So isn't it somewhat significant that Lockheed is announcing a joint venture this week with another company that can leverage the barium titanate technology in both its defense and car business? Or perhaps just its defense business, as the government has possibly decided that the super battery is just too good for the rest of us. But at least Tata can apply their car knowledge to defense applications. Sorry Zenn, you're just a useless useful idiot.
Tata Group also makes cars with Tata Motors in the famous $2500 Nano. Tata Motors is not just a small novelty car company ala Zenn, they also own Daewoo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Daimler.
Flash back to 2008, when Lockheed signed exclusive rights to develop EEstor electrical energy storage units for "military and homeland defense applications". The initial hype of EEstor was that it would make the electric car a viable alternative to regular gasoline cars, but Dick Weir just hasn't delivered.
So isn't it somewhat significant that Lockheed is announcing a joint venture this week with another company that can leverage the barium titanate technology in both its defense and car business? Or perhaps just its defense business, as the government has possibly decided that the super battery is just too good for the rest of us. But at least Tata can apply their car knowledge to defense applications. Sorry Zenn, you're just a useless useful idiot.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
never get it up
On All I Do Is Win, I thought at first T-Pain was saying, "got money on my mind, I can never get it up", like he needed some Cialis, Viagra, or something. The actual lyric is, "I can never get enough". No erectile problems for him I guess..
Friday, July 2, 2010
count white faces
I was listening to All I Do Is Win and Rick Ross's verse got my attention. He says
I can never be a racist, wake up every morning just to count white faces
Meaning what exactly? I went back and watched the video and it turns out white faces is a reference to the presidents on our dollars, kind of like dead presidents, or something. Kind of clever. If he were speaking literally, just because you deal with white people as a black person doesn't mean you're not racist...
I can never be a racist, wake up every morning just to count white faces
Meaning what exactly? I went back and watched the video and it turns out white faces is a reference to the presidents on our dollars, kind of like dead presidents, or something. Kind of clever. If he were speaking literally, just because you deal with white people as a black person doesn't mean you're not racist...
Thursday, July 1, 2010
ZN5 sucks
Don't let first impressions fool you. The Motorola MOTOZINE ZN5 sucks. It can take good, but not great pictures, and that's about as good as it gets.
It has WiFi, but the browser is limited and performance is awful. There was no point in including it.
If you text, it lags horribly, even before much use. In a couple months, mine degenerated beyond texting. Calls would come in, and I would press answer, but it just wouldn't answer, so I had to call people back.There are similar reports all over the web of how the phone, like many Motorola phones, is just terribly buggy.
This is a pretty, horrible phone, double entendre intended.
It has WiFi, but the browser is limited and performance is awful. There was no point in including it.
If you text, it lags horribly, even before much use. In a couple months, mine degenerated beyond texting. Calls would come in, and I would press answer, but it just wouldn't answer, so I had to call people back.There are similar reports all over the web of how the phone, like many Motorola phones, is just terribly buggy.
This is a pretty, horrible phone, double entendre intended.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
polyester comforters suck
Who changed my bedding? I hate this new set of polyester pillow sheets and comforters. Sleeping is a strategic affair for me. Polyester does not bend as well as cotton for every contortion that I resort to, and it smells chemically as well. With cotton comforters, if half is hanging off the side of the bed, half is still on the bed. My polyester tends to almost fall off the bed when just a little bit is hanging. This has got to go.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
barium titanate stealth
I'm curious why this post was taken down recently. The project in question is still up though. The Entrepre-Know-it-Alls, what a funny name. Their product page ironically links to a competitor of EEstor, lithium-ion based Tesla.
I did not see too much that was too revealing from the disappearing post, though there were some select quotes that were new to me.
Super-capacitors introduce a discontinuous technology in that they could replace batteries for many high-voltage energy storage applications. Also they provide an attractive alternative to fossil fuels for both automobiles and stationary power storage systems.
Unlike NiMH and Ni-Cd batteries, which take hours to charge and discharge at 5-10% and 1% per day respectively, the supercapacitor discharges at a rate of .1% per 30 days.
The goal would be to partner with local utilities, municipalities, and businesses to roll out charging stations on local streets and in parking lots. Starbucks would be a specific yet non-exclusive target for this partnership. Not only do they have a nationwide presence, but we also feel that their customers are more likely to be among the early adopters of EEstor-powered vehicles. Partners would have to cover the cost of installing charging stations, and would then be able to profit from the markup on the electricity sold.
From all of that, I gather that even though Tesla is on the lithium-ion boat now, they may jump ship to the EEstor, while it charges up at your local Starbucks and McDonald's. I was under the impression from everything I read that the EEstor device was a magical block that did not release energy, but these Stanford kids have them discharging a small amount. I think Zenn is going the way of Rambus, rewarded for having ownership of significant intellectual property. Or perhaps they'll just go straight to $0.
I did not see too much that was too revealing from the disappearing post, though there were some select quotes that were new to me.
Super-capacitors introduce a discontinuous technology in that they could replace batteries for many high-voltage energy storage applications. Also they provide an attractive alternative to fossil fuels for both automobiles and stationary power storage systems.
Unlike NiMH and Ni-Cd batteries, which take hours to charge and discharge at 5-10% and 1% per day respectively, the supercapacitor discharges at a rate of .1% per 30 days.
The goal would be to partner with local utilities, municipalities, and businesses to roll out charging stations on local streets and in parking lots. Starbucks would be a specific yet non-exclusive target for this partnership. Not only do they have a nationwide presence, but we also feel that their customers are more likely to be among the early adopters of EEstor-powered vehicles. Partners would have to cover the cost of installing charging stations, and would then be able to profit from the markup on the electricity sold.
From all of that, I gather that even though Tesla is on the lithium-ion boat now, they may jump ship to the EEstor, while it charges up at your local Starbucks and McDonald's. I was under the impression from everything I read that the EEstor device was a magical block that did not release energy, but these Stanford kids have them discharging a small amount. I think Zenn is going the way of Rambus, rewarded for having ownership of significant intellectual property. Or perhaps they'll just go straight to $0.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
