This wouldn't have happened with Gainsborough or one of those proper painters.
Thursday, November 26
It's A River In Paris
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11:00 PM
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Wednesday, November 25
Pack My Box With Five Dozen Grumpy Jackdaws
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09:39 AM
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Tuesday, November 24
Facing The Raven
Warning: This whole post is a huge spoiler for current season of Doctor Who, up to episode 10 and possibly including episodes that haven't aired yet.
Warning: This whole post is a huge spoiler for current season of Doctor Who, up to episode 10 and possibly including episodes that haven't aired yet.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
04:02 PM
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Out Of Sight
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10:52 AM
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Monday, November 23
Never Mind The Quality, Feel The Gamut
So the new 27" Retina iMac isn't much of an upgrade from the previous 27" Retina iMac - very slightly faster processor, graphics, and memory, and a significantly faster SSD, though that was already quite fast.
So the new 27" Retina iMac isn't much of an upgrade from the previous 27" Retina iMac - very slightly faster processor, graphics, and memory, and a significantly faster SSD, though that was already quite fast.
What it does have is a wide-gamut screen calibrated for DCI-P3 - that is, it's designed to display the same colour range as digital cinema projectors, and in the same way. And that colour range is wider than the typical monitor or television - Apple says 25% wider.
Normally you only notice colour gamut when a device is bad, rather than good. The original 2012 Nexus 7 had a noticeably limited colour gamut - everything looked like a rainy winter's day even with the brightness at maximum. (The 2013 model was much improved on this, as on most things.)
And I didn't notice it on my iMac at first either, until the screen saver turned up this image of the Colorado River. It's a striking photo on my old monitor, but on a wide-gamut screen it's eye-popping. I've never seen that shade of orange on an LCD display, and I don't think I've ever seen it on a CRT either.
It's one of those things you have to see for yourself.
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Saturday, November 21
Taigalised
Posting from Taiga!
Posting from Taiga!
It works. Plugged in, switched on... Where's the switch? Where's the switch?! Ah. Switched on, poing sound, off we go.
Magic mouse is pretty good. Magic keyboard is a piece of crap with no feel or key travel. An entry-level Logitech keyboard is better than this. So was the old Mac keyboard from the 2nd generation iMac... Which I have sitting in closet upstairs, so I'll dig that out tomorrow.
Screen is all it should be - 14 million pixels and a wide colour gamut and great viewing angles.
Everything so far is pretty zippy. I'd hope so, since it has the fastest of everything that I could possibly get - and since I haven't done anything remotely taxing so far.
The memory upgrade was pretty nice. There's a couple of tricks to it, but they're well-designed tricks:
- There's a button that releases the hatch over the RAM slots. The button can only be reached after removing the power cord, so there's no way you can open it while it's powered on.
- There's a latching mechanism that locks all four RAM slots at once, and when you unlatch it, they hinge outwards for easy access. You just drop the modules in and push the latch shut again.
32GB of 1600MHz third-party RAM was $260, vs. $960 for the upgrade from 8GB to 32GB from Apple. For $700 I'll accept that 2-3% real-world performance difference. (Though why they didn't just use DDR4 I don't know.)
Now let's install Steam...
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09:54 PM
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Friday, November 20
Off-Ice Day
42.8C (109F) in Sydney today. (Predicted 41C, ended up slightly hotter.) A hot air mass moved in from central Australia and spent a day dry-roasting the city before heading out to sea.
42.8C (109F) in Sydney today. (Predicted 41C, ended up slightly hotter.) A hot air mass moved in from central Australia and spent a day dry-roasting the city before heading out to sea.
So I went in to the office where they have really good air conditioning. Problem solved. I turned off all my computers first so I wouldn't come home to multiple drive failures; if it's nearly 43C ambient I shudder to think how hot a disk drive would be running.
Meanwhile in Melbourne, 16C and raining.
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11:06 PM
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Monday, November 16
Taiga'd
Taiga arrived. Today. When I was at the office.
Taiga arrived. Today. When I was at the office.
And the delivery guy got confused because when he knocked on my door, my neighbours answered their door.
So I had to leave work early to head home and sort it out, which means I'll be working late tonight to catch up. But that's fine. Taiga is safe in the spare room and I'll get her set up in the next day or two.
Update: 32GB extra RAM and 5TB external drive arrived today. The Blu-Ray drive is back-ordered, but that's not urgent; I have on in my Windows PC.
Now I'm all set except for software, and that I can buy online as needed.
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03:50 PM
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Tuesday, November 10
Taiga
I've been meaning to buy a new Mac for so long that they've changed the naming scheme for OS X releases and the joke no longer works. (My old Macs are all PowerPC models. I have a second-gen iMac with the 15" CRT, and an even older PowerMac - a 7600, I think.)
Yeah, it's not exactly cheap.* Australian prices have jumped about 25% this year due to currency fluctuations. On the other hand, it's probably the best software developer workstation available at any cost.
That 8GB RAM isn't going to stay that way; I'm just deciding whether to go to 32GB or splash out on 48GB or 64GB. 64GB of third-party RAM costs less than Apple's 32GB upgrade.
I've been meaning to buy a new Mac for so long that they've changed the naming scheme for OS X releases and the joke no longer works. (My old Macs are all PowerPC models. I have a second-gen iMac with the 15" CRT, and an even older PowerMac - a 7600, I think.)
Anyway, ordered the following from the Apple Store today:
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Yeah, it's not exactly cheap.* Australian prices have jumped about 25% this year due to currency fluctuations. On the other hand, it's probably the best software developer workstation available at any cost.
That 8GB RAM isn't going to stay that way; I'm just deciding whether to go to 32GB or splash out on 48GB or 64GB. 64GB of third-party RAM costs less than Apple's 32GB upgrade.
Anyone who has current Mac experience is welcome to chime in with recommendations for additional hardware and software. I want a USB Blu-Ray drive, some good (but not audiophile) stereo speakers (don't really need surround sound or a subwoofer), and either VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop.
I already have software subscriptions with Microsoft, Adobe, and JetBrains that will transfer straight across to Mac, so I'm covered there.
Apart from the old iMac, probably the last desktop PC I bought - rather than built - was my Sun Ultra 5 from around 1999. And even with that I replaced the disk drives and added a video card.
Update: Added 32GB of RAM, a Samsung external Blu-Ray writer, and a 5TB LaCie external drive, and I'm still $270 under Apple's 32GB upgrade price. That could pay for a nice set of AudioEngine speakers.
64GB might be nice, but (a) 32GB is enough, and I already have two computers with 32GB of RAM each, and (b) 64GB costs four times as much as 32GB because you need newer high-density memory.
Update: It's shipped! ETA Monday... When I won't be home. Of course.
* In fact, it's crazy expensive. You can get a decent computer including a small SSD and an IPS monitor for about A$1200. But I spend 60+ hours a week sitting** in front of my screen, and it's how I earn a living, so I can kinda sorta justify the expense.
** Speaking of which, I also need a new chair.
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12:21 PM
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