You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine, and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?
Yes.
Everything's going to be fine.

Wednesday, October 31

Geek

Out Damn Singularity!


So my still-new Nexus 7 and my even newer New iPad are now both obsolete, replaced by the more capacityful New Nexus 7 and the fasteriffic New New iPad.

And here's the Nexus 10, just to complicate matters: One of the first Arm Cortex A15 devices to reach the market, 2GB RAM (twice as much as the Nexus 7), 16 or 32GB of flash (twice as much as the Old Nexus 7 but the same as the New Nexus 7), 2560x1600 display (vs. 1280x800), starting at $399.  So cheaper, faster, and higher resolution than my Old New iPad.  Which I only bought last month.

There's a problem, though, with the Nexus 7, Nexus 10, and the Nexus 4 - and shared with the iPad, iPad Mini, iPhone, and iPod Touch: Not one of these devices has any expansion capability.  Between them, they have a total of zero micro-SD slots.

Given how fast these devices are coming out, how cheap SD cards are, how much Apple and Google charge for incremental upgrades, and how fast I filled up my Nexus 7, that's simply not good enough.

I was thinking of replacing my 16GB Nexus 7 with the 32GB model and giving the original to a family member, but now that Google has crippled the Nexus 10 and Nexus 4 the same way, I'm just getting ticked off.

The Asus Transformer Infinity is kind of expensive, but it has 64GB of flash built-in, a micro-SD slot in the tablet part, and a full-size SD slot in the keyboard dock.  So I could have 256GB in total, today - and more later.  Other expandable candidates include Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1, Galaxy Note 2, and Galaxy S3.  The Note 2 isn't available in Australia yet, but I can add the S3 to my sim-only mobile plan pretty cheaply.

If I could expect a new device to last more than a few months without becoming obsolete, I wouldn't mind so much.  But since that's not the case, I do.  Mind.  So much.

Update: For crying out loud...  I posted this yesterday.  Since then, the Note 2 has been announced for Australia (November 14 release date) and now it looks like there's a Note 7 coming out.  I'd much rather have a Note 7 than just a larger capacity Nexus 7, so I'll put that on hold.  But if iiNet get the Note 2 (and they already have the Note and S3, so it's highly likely) then I'll get that as a phone, and there's a question of whether I really need a 5.5" phone and a high-end 7" tablet.  Want, yes.  Need...  Probably yes.  But then the Nexus 10 launches on November 13....

If Samsung can merge the Note 2 with the Nexus 7 for a Note 7 (preferably 1080P), and the Note 10.1 with the Nexus 10 for a Note 10.2, I'll happily buy all three sizes, because that would tick every box on my wish list.  (32GB, SD card, stylus, brighter colours, higher resolution, and HDMI out.)

I actually have a couple of new wishlist items after using the Nexus 7 for longer: 2GB RAM (already implemented in the Note 2 and Nexus 10) and a Cortex A15 (found in the Nexus 10).  The memory needs became apparent when I found that the simple puzzle game Cut the Rope was using 100MB of memory - even when I wasn't playing it.  The CPU requirements are mostly from browsing complex web sites - Chrome on the Nexus 7 is maybe 5x slower than my desktop PC.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:31 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Life

Trickle Treat!

Had a few groups this year, about 15 kids in all, ages ranging from about 3 up to 14 or so.  Got rid of about half my candy so far.  Only ate one piece myself.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Tuesday, October 30

Cool

Living Up To Their Name

Power is out at one of our new datacenters - ReliableSite in New Jersey.

The servers, however, are still up.  They switched over to generator power without so much as a hiccup.

Which is how things are supposed to work, but there's a world of difference between the best-laid plans and a real live hurricane.  So well done ReliableSite!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:02 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 64 words, total size 1 kb.

Saturday, October 27

Geek

Jaded

These days I read High Scalability about how the world's largest websites manage their data, and I think, Oh, is that all?

28TB of MySQL?  100 billion rows?  We* added that much when we put a new feature into the latest release of one of our products.  We're adding storage in quarter-petabyte increments.

* At my day job.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:22 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Friday, October 26

Cool

Triangulation



That should keep an estimated 175% of my audience occupied.

Update: 325%:

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:50 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.

Wednesday, October 24

Cool

We Have Cake!

http://www.animecubed.com/billy/userimages/sigs/85354.jpg

Come join us in Fractal Village.  Our very first SCIENCE! activation goes off tomorrow, and we have cake!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:39 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 21 words, total size 1 kb.

Tuesday, October 23

Cool

Teaser Trailer

Don't you hate those?  Show you just enough to tell you that it might be cool, but not enough to know whether you should be excited or not?

Ahem...
/images/Hunter.jpg

Chibi Quest, coming soon to a mee.nu near you!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:34 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 40 words, total size 1 kb.

Wednesday, October 17

Cool

A Whole Bunch Of Nobodies

Nobody wants old-school computer role-playing games any more.



Looks like nobody has a whole lot of money.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:59 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 22 words, total size 1 kb.

Saturday, October 13

Geek

Fuzzy Logic

The following fuzzies were served to you directly out of a zip file - testing a new feature.

/files/Fuzzies.zip:Otter.jpg
/files/Fuzzies.zip:Kitty.jpg

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:58 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
Post contains 20 words, total size 1 kb.

Life

Tap Tap On My Window

More of a thud, really.

Opened the door expecting to scare off a raiding possum, but found a rainbow lorikeet instead.  I think it my have flown into the window and dazed itself.  It was skittish but not panicked when I approached to check on it, so the neighbours may have been feeding it.

It wasn't obviously hurt, so I put out a little dish of peach slices for it and left it to recover.  Not sure what else to do, and calling the local wildlife rescue volunteers seems a bit excessive given that they not exactly rare hereabouts.  (They flock in the trees near the railway station, and the collective noise at sunset in summer is astounding.)

Update: Lori was still there this afternoon, so I called WIRES, the Australian wildlife rescue service.  Sadly, Lori passed away before a volunteer could arrive to help.  I donated $100 in her name.  Well, in my name, since lorikeets can't get credit cards, but in her memory.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 10:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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