Why did you say six months?
He's coming.
This matters. This is important. Why did you say six months?
Why did you say five minutes?
Tuesday, June 25
Conspiracy Theories From A Parallel Earth
The Build-A-Bear Group manipulates global economic policy for its own twisted, fuzzy ends.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
08:16 PM
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1
The Bilderberg Group?
P.S. It still loses all form data after a preview, for me.
Posted by: Tombei The Mist at Tuesday, June 25 2013 10:34 PM (hGCqM)
2
The Bilderberg Group?
Like that, only more cute.
P.S. It still loses all form data after a preview, for me.
Yeah, that, um. I've forgotten what causes that. I'll take another look.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, June 26 2013 02:41 AM (PiXy!)
3
Consider the brouhaha in Australian politics during the last 48 hours, 'Knit-a-Kangaroo' might be more appropriate.
C.T.
Posted by: cxt217 at Friday, June 28 2013 04:31 AM (vmylL)
4
Struth!
I was listening to a podcast the other day, and they were talking about how Build-A-Bear sneakily collects your personal information, and it took me a moment to realise that they really were talking about the do-it-yourself teddy-bear chain.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, June 28 2013 10:50 AM (PiXy!)
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Sunday, June 23
In The Shade
Only three of those are me.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
08:18 PM
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1
Again.
Posted by: Hypozeuxis at Monday, June 24 2013 03:06 AM (XjJZF)
2
I gather this is from Whosis and Snakeman?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Monday, June 24 2013 04:13 AM (+rSRq)
3
Oh..
OH! So you're still in StarTurtle.
(I can't help but think I may have disguised my alt poorly.)
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Monday, June 24 2013 08:25 AM (F7DdT)
4
Yep, yep, and yep.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, June 25 2013 01:08 AM (PiXy!)
5
I'm pretty sure I know that one of those is someone else, and the other doesn't fit the team.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, July 03 2013 02:19 PM (Kogal)
6
Two magical girls and a potato-cat, that's me.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, July 05 2013 03:06 PM (PiXy!)
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Friday, June 21
Insanity
The Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3 is now available in Australia. This is one of the phones I've been looking to as a mini-tablet; it has a 6.3" 1280x720 screen, so the screen is nearly as big as on the Nexus 7, but the device overall is much slimmer and lighter.
There are two models; the only difference is that one has 8GB of onboard flash and the other has 16GB.
Prices are $669 and $679 respectively.
Why do they even bother? The cost of handling two separate SKUs across multiple markets has to be more than the cost of just giving everyone 16GB in the first place.
I'm still thinking it over. If they had a 128GB model at, say, $799, I'd have jumped already.*
* I have a 160GB iPod classic. There is nothing, literally nothing, on the market that can replace it. Flash memory prices are now low enough, and capacities high enough, that it would be cheap and easy to build such a device. But no-one has bothered.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
03:17 PM
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Thursday, June 20
Xbox Phone Home
Or more accurately,
Xbox One no phone home.
After being sandbagged by Sony at E3 last week, Microsoft has wised up and removed the requirement that the Xbox One connect to Microsoft to re-authenticate itself every 24 hours. They've also removed the restriction on selling or lending disc-based games.
Now if they just allow you to run it without the Kinect and cut the price by $100, they'll have a slower PS4 with less available memory...
They could also stop trying to bullshit everyone about the cloud, but there I'm not sure that they actually realise what they're doing; I suspect they may believe their own nonsense.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
09:47 AM
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It isn't so much that they believe their own B.S. about the cloud, it's that they fervently want the World to believe their B.S. about the cloud so they can rake in more money from those who sign up.
Reminds me of when they sent a pair of sales dweebs over to our office with a big pitcher of Vista-flavored Kool-aid back when it first launched. (Sadly for them, there were 4 or 5 of us there that day that did nothing but hammer them on Vista's failings. They were sweating when they left.)
Posted by: the Cyberwolfe at Thursday, June 20 2013 03:01 PM (CUkqs)
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Tuesday, June 11
Apple's Concept Of Innovation
- If it's pretty but lacks functionality, make it ugly but functional.
- If it's dull but functional, make it pretty but useless.
- No you don't get a say in the matter. You will want what you have been told to want.
iOS 7 is just nasty. Must remember to update my iPad to iOS 6 at some point before 7 comes out.
The new Mac Pro Mini is interesting; the world's first high-end workstation that requires a desktop dock. (Available 5¼" drive bays: Zero. Available 3½" drive bays: Zero. Available 2½" drive bays: Zero. Available PCIe slots: Zero.) Up to 12 cores and 64GB RAM, which is exactly the same as the previous model. On the other hand, it's small and looks like an ashtray.
There's a lot of fuss going on about the Mac Pro Mini. If Apple had released it as a new product alongside a lightly updated (socket 2011) full-size Mac Pro, everyone would be ecstatic. But no.
Update:
A choice quote from Ars Technica:
Ask any Mac Pro users where "small size†sits on their list of workstation needs and they will tell you it's down at the bottom, squarely between "should make my bed in the morning†and "covered in fur.â€
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
12:01 PM
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1
Do you have any examples for number 1?
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Tuesday, June 11 2013 01:09 PM (F7DdT)
2
iOS 7. There are worse things on the internet, true, but it's pretty damn awful.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, June 11 2013 04:10 PM (PiXy!)
3
I just took a look at the Mac Pro. What a weird design. At Ars Technica they describe it is a PC designed for Darth Vader, and started referring to it as the "Vader Pro".
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wednesday, June 12 2013 03:09 AM (+rSRq)
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Diced!
And with a little
flup on my doorstep, another Kickstarter project delivers the goods. This time, dice. In each of six colours (red, blue, green, yellow, black, and white): d4, d6, d7, d8, d10, d12, d14, d16, d18, d20, d22, d24, and d30.
Take that, Plato!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
11:24 AM
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"d7"? What the heck does a d7 look like?
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Tuesday, June 11 2013 11:50 AM (+rSRq)
2
Funky. The numbers are on the edges.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, June 11 2013 12:11 PM (PiXy!)
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, June 11 2013 12:19 PM (PiXy!)
4
I finally lost my Kickstarter virginity this evening... not over a computer game, though. Ursula Vernon's "Digger" omnibus could not be denied, and since I was throwing away money anyway I sprinkled some in the direction of Patrick Rothfuss' "Name Of The Wind" playing cards project.
So, come year end I should have some neat new stuff. *wry grin*
Posted by: GreyDuck at Tuesday, June 11 2013 01:27 PM (CUkqs)
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Thursday, June 06
Pretty As Another Picture
The first pictures I saw of the Asus PadNote Fone made it look like an ugly piece of do-not-want, whatever the specs.
Found a better picture.
Want now.
6" 1080p IPS screen, stylus, Android 4.2, 3G, but with an Atom processor rather than Arm. Which does not seem like a sensible choice, at least not until the next-gen Baytrail / Merrifield Atoms come out. But it's the only device even announced so far that has a 1080p+ screen in the gap between 5 and 9 inches. Possibly only 16GB of built-in storage, which is barely adequate, but supports up to 64GB of microSD.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:53 PM
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I think the problem here is that it's just too big to be convenient as a phone. My Droid DNA has a 5" screen and I think it's about as big a phone as I could manage. Anything larger would be a problem.
About the stylus: my iPaq has a stylus, and there's a place in the iPaq to store it. That doesn't appear to be the case for this one. If the stylus is loose, it's going to get lost or broken.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Friday, June 07 2013 01:20 AM (+rSRq)
2
I rarely use my phone or either of my big tablets (Nexus 10, iPad 3), but use my Nexus 7 constantly. So I'm looking for something that will be a tablet 98% of the time and isn't much smaller than the Nexus 7, but can make phone calls when needed. I'm sure most people will have other priorities, but Samsung has sold millions of Galaxy Notes, so it's not that small a market segment.
It does have a little bay for the stylus, it's just in the corner that you can't see in that photo.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, June 07 2013 01:50 AM (PiXy!)
3
I was going to say, the Galaxy Notes have a stylus bay exactly where you can't see in that pic.
It's pretty nice. The phone knows when you've removed or inserted it, and will give you haptic feedback.
Posted by: RickC at Friday, June 07 2013 12:10 PM (WQ6Vb)
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Wednesday, June 05
Missed Opportunities
Where's the 11.6" Haswell Windows 8 notebook with the detachable 2560x1600 screen which turns into an Android tablet with a Wacom digitiser and a stylus and WiDi for using it as a detached touchscreen and a Thunderbolt dock for desktop use?
Given what has been shown at Computex this year, it's possible that there's a device with those exact specs and I just missed it.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
10:26 PM
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Given Bluestacks, you could almost have such a thing already.
Posted by: RickC at Thursday, June 06 2013 08:45 AM (WQ6Vb)
2
Last time I tried it the Bluestacks experience wasn't exactly stellar. Which is a shame, because it's something that
should work, and would be incredibly useful.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 06 2013 02:35 PM (PiXy!)
3
Would that make coffee as well?
Posted by: Wonderduck at Thursday, June 06 2013 03:51 PM (lpH3d)
4
It not only makes coffee, it even drinks it for you!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, June 06 2013 04:37 PM (PiXy!)
5
I tried Bluestacks recently on a Trinity A8-5600K with a discrete Radeon 5670. It worked decently. I think the problems were more that it's a little twitchy than any slowness per se. Since my new i5-3570K doesn't (yet) have a discrete card I haven't tried it there (with an AMD card you can download BS from the AMD website.)
Posted by: RickC at Friday, June 07 2013 12:11 PM (WQ6Vb)
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Computexed
More highlights:
- While everyone's waiting for someone to fix the limitations of the Nexus 7 (slow CPU, limited memory and storage, low-res screen - by this year's standards, anyway), Toshiba stepped in and launched their Excite Pure, which is basically the Nexus 7 internals with a 10" screen and costing $50 more; the Excite Pro, which is just the Excite Write without the cool stuff; and the Excite Write, which fixes the limitations of the Nexus 10, upgrading from a dual-core A15 CPU to quad, adding a microSD slot, and building in a Wacom digitiser and stylus while keeping the superb 2560x1600 display.
So the question is just which you need more: A keyboard (Asus Transformer Pad Infinity), or a stylus (Toshiba Excite Write); the specs are otherwise equivalent (or identical).
- Fujitsu announced the UH90, a 14" notebook with a 3200x1800 display. MSI announced their GT60 3K gaming laptop, with a 15.5" 2880x1620 screen - and a GeForce 780M with 4GB of RAM to move those pixels around. Dell's XPS 11 convertible has a more mundane 2560x1440 11" screen.
Ultra-high-resolution displays are definitely in vogue this year; we can only hope that this continues - and that prices keep going down as production ramps up.
- Intel announced Thunderbolt 2 (again), which provides one 20Gbps channel instead of Thunderbolt 1's two 10Gbps channels. So yes, throughput is exactly the same as before. No, that's not much of a highlight.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:26 PM
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Tuesday, June 04
Glurk
That 4K Asus monitor?
That's not just the resolution; it's also the price tag: $3799.
For which price I can get four 27" 2560x1440 monitors, a couple of Aten DisplayPort switchboxes to hook them up to all my computers, and some of PowerColor's quad-DisplayPort 7850 video cards to hook all my computers to all the switchboxes.
Or to put it another way, it costs as much as 20 perfectly serviceable 21.5" 1080p IPS monitors from Acer.
So... Maybe next year.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:10 PM
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