What is that?
It's a duck pond.
Why aren't there any ducks?
I don't know. There's never any ducks.
Then how do you know it's a duck pond?

Saturday, January 14

Geek

How Many Characters Does It Take To Convey A Single, Cogent, Moderately Complex Point?

More than 140, certainly.  300 is a lot better, but still not always adequate.

Asking for a friend.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 08:30 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 32 words, total size 1 kb.

Friday, January 13

Geek

Request

Could someone please produce a 37.5" 5760x2400 ultra-wide curved IPS monitor.  With DCI P3 support or at least 100% Adobe RGB, and at least two DisplayPort inputs.

Under A$1500.

Thanks.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 31 words, total size 1 kb.

Thursday, January 12

World

BuzzFeed Ben Kills, Eats Puppies On Live Television

Or not.  Hey, here's ten amazing facts about toothpaste!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:15 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

Tuesday, January 10

World

Glowball Worming

So I've been having a...  Discussion...  With some conservative types about global warming over at Townhall.

First thing to note: Disqus comments are horrible.

Second thing to note: Some conservatives are sensible, dubious about the extent of the problem that global warming presents, but ready to accept evidence and discuss solutions.

Third thing to note: Some conservatives are nuts.

Fourth thing: I really mean it about Disqus comments.


I don't know that, strictly speaking, I'm a conservative myself.  Maybe an anarcho-monarchist, or a techno-feudalist, or moe-constructionist.

One of the trends I find worrying in US politics is the widespread denial among conservatives of global warming, which is nearly universally accepted among scientists.

Certainly most of what is written about it in the mainstream news media is garbage, because the mainstream news media is terrible at science reporting, and indeed, terrible at reporting generally.

Certainly too there have been cases of climate scientists behaving poorly, like Michael Mann's lawsuit against Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg, or the University of East Anglia's fight against FOIA requests.*  Sorry, but when you take public money for your work, your work belongs to the public.

But if you simultaneously believe that global warming is a large and pressing problem, and have a realistic estimation of the ability of left-wing governments to address it - that is, that there is no problem so severe that with enough money, time, and effort, they can't make it a hundred times worse - the denial by large portions of the right that the problem even exists is more than a little depressing.

Better, though, than Disqus comments.


* My belief is that the document dump released in the Climategate hack was assembled to respond to the FOIA request before the University decided to stonewall.  Which explains why that particular collection of documents was sitting on a server waiting to be scooped up.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:24 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 315 words, total size 3 kb.

Monday, January 09

Rant

Disqust

Disqus comments are bloody awful.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 6 words, total size 1 kb.

Sunday, January 08

Geek

New Toys From Dell

The first one is an 8K monitor.  Yes, it's only three years since Dell released their first 4K monitor, but what the hell, here's 8K for you.

/images/Dell-UP3218K-Image.jpg?size=720x&q=95
Dell UP3218K.  Just $4999.

At $4999 this is not for everyone - or, really, anyone, if you're spending your own money.  The reason it's interesting is that 8K is the last resolution we'll realistically need.  Once you're at 8K, the only reason to replace your monitor will be physical failure.

And it only took 18 months for 4K monitors to fall from $3299 to $499, so this may be affordable sooner than you'd expect.

The other notable release from Dell is a new all-in-one desktop to compete with the iMac, the XPS 27:

http://ai.mee.nu/images/Dell-XPS-27-Image-760x500.jpg?size=720x&q=95
The 2017 XPS 27, from $1499.

This is a different proposition.  It has a 4K IPS display with 100% Adobe RGB coverage (so it's just fine for print work, if possibly still limited for the latest video standards).  CPU is a Skylake i5 or i7 quad-core, memory up to 64GB, storage up to 1TB PCIe SSD or 2TB conventional disk drive.  

There's a basic non-touch model or a touchscreen model with a hinged mount that lets it drop down to about a 20º angle for....  What, exactly?  There's no mention of pen support, and it's much bulkier than the sleek Surface Studio from Microsoft.  Also, the touch model is ten pounds heavier than the non-touch.

That aside, it has AMD M470X or M485X graphics with 4GB DDR5 video RAM (except on the cheapest models).  Unfortunately, these are not the new 14nm Polaris like the desktop 470 and 480, but older 28nm chips.  The M485X is perfectly capable for gaming at 1080p.  The M470X is a much slower part, equivalent to the Xbox One's GPU, so it won't maintain consistent frame rates even at 1080p.

(And irritatingly, the M485X seems to only be available if you buy the touchscreen model, an instant $500 price increase.)

I/O consists of two Thunderbolt 3 ports, one HDMI, one DisplayPort, five USB 3.0, gigabit ethernet, 802.11AC wifi, and an SD card reader.

Also, ten (count them) speakers.

The big thing, though, is that very much unlike the iMac, almost everything can be accessed and replaced by a technically competent end user.  Not just memory, but storage (one M.2 card and two 2.5" bays, another pleasant change from the iMac), CPU, fans, power supply, even the motherboard.  In theory, the display as well, though that requires disassembling the entire machine.

The one real drawback is the four-year-old graphics.  This would be an absolute standout system if it had the new Polaris graphics, but I don't think AMD have shipped the mobile version yet.

Oh, and the cameras are at the bottom, because Dell are retarded.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:22 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 463 words, total size 3 kb.

Friday, January 06

World

We're Not All Going To Die


No doom for you!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:10 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 10 words, total size 1 kb.

Thursday, January 05

World

Assumes Facts Not In Evidence

What part of "I'm going to commit a serious felony, record it on video, and post it under my own name to a social network used by over a billion people" makes any sense?

What were they thinking?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 43 words, total size 1 kb.

Wednesday, January 04

Blog

Cert This

Got an email today (yesterday now, actually), from MyCERT, the Malaysian Computer Emergency Response Team.  

Usually such notifications are to report spam or phishing attempts coming from a server in the mununiverse, meaning some poor soul got their CPanel or Wordpress account hacked.

This time it was instead a cyber harassment complaint.

Relating to a small JPEG image.

Of a cartoon.

On an item, on a blog, posted in 2012.

Discussing censorship.

MyCERT copied our hosting provider, so I sent them - our hosting provider, that is - a query asking if the image violated their terms of service, which seems unlikely.

If I get hit with a valid DMCA request I will comply fortwithly, because otherwise our hosting provider will comply by yanking our connection (which they need to do to keep their legal immunity under the DMCA).

But I'm more likely to edit user comments for spelling than to remove an image because it "harassed" someone.

Update: Our hosting provider said, and I quote:

Looks like free speech to me.  Closing ticket.

Incero.  Love these guys.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:16 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 180 words, total size 2 kb.

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