Technology
Technology
110218
Still feeling crappy. Major headache and weak, not wanting or really able to do anything very much. Spent the day in bed again, lots of sleeping and some Hackintosh research. Watched Dr Who this evening, the first full episode I have watched since… sometime in the 1980s. For the Mac build I think I will wait to see what happens with the new Sandy Bridge processors. This is Intel’s 2nd generation of the i5 and i7 so a major jump in performance, with the new i5 faster than the current i7 for not much more cost. I’ve learnt a lot about processors, motherboards, graphics cards. As long as you pick compatible components, you can hack Apple OSX to run on it. Major geekout opportunity.
That’s about it for today. I hope I feel better tomorrow.
110216 Hackintosh
Prefer Bing to Google? Not sure why anyone uses Bing, but here’s an interesting article. Basically it seems that Microsoft are copying Google’s search results. To prove it, Google fixed a couple of fake search returns for a search like ‘djksijljeejjw’ or something, so it would return one page that had nothing to do with this search string. The very same nonsense search on Bing returns the same page! It’s not against the law, but someone from Google, who put a lot of resources into refining their search algorithms, said it’s like looking over someone’s shoulder in an exam. Microsoft; never original.
…
Back to Google, here’s a You Tube internal error message I saw today:
500 Internal Server Error
Sorry, something went wrong.
A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.
If you see them, show them this information:ZIf_ar2jfRmr7JcVVsJWAfNznnucO5iItQlLBks_BSQihlIGVHaznxT_v8rs
pZGSETqkFWoOaNU2TF9ZEDDvQmqxhDQqgMnTU_WKVBLhdxqapoyWEOsBOfWR
Z6E2HtctdG5w-tFRDo7zS4JDeggKFH3Go-FRApMF0J6DOhHKwBsg9L6mg5ws
E7GJpqJg3MfxVGLVy7iOyHrwXviXqnoLkgBnUTJdHvP3BX-20RH6lU8z-glS
SULOhWrecoVhLPCxP0P5iDMzHq-zMjgmFpRT_KVQPsVSJsFOsrUhWEQY2… etc
– while uploading this:
Vic and Noel, different generations, same humour.
…
I’ve been looking into building a PC for a Hackintosh experiment. Thanks to Kakewalk and iBoot/Multibeast it’s apparently easier than ever to run OSX on PC hardware. You have to make sure the hardware is compatible to what Apple uses. So far it’s looking like I can build a brand new high end i7 silent PC for around £640. (i.e. near Mac Pro performance for the cost of a Mac Mini)
…
Steps stepped: Not very many. I’ve been at home sick most of the day.
110214 Domesticity
Finally got everything put away in its right place. The bedroom is now a study as well:
The kneeling chair is C’s but she’s not using it so I get to have it for my desk. And the living room:
This area where the sofa is may become a day bed if I get the other memory foam mattress from the attic. But for now I like the sofa.
This is the most at home I’ve felt since I was a teenager. Moving the furniture around at the weekend felt just like back in Broughton Gifford where I would often spend Sunday afternoons rearranging things, to get that just right feeling. And then the novelty of going to bed that night everything tidy and facing a new direction, and forgetting where you are when waking up in the morning.
For a while researching running OSX on PC components. May sell the MacBook Pro and small TV and get a PC (for OSX), a large TV and an iPad 2 when it comes. A real domestic day, what with the supermarket run with the girls this evening. Yet I could give it all up no problem, fine with a bed and a book.
This morning’s yoga was a run through of tomorrow’s class. It feels a good one. I will further investigate the poses in the morning to learn some more subtleties to teach. Less of the standing poses tomorrow, with seated forward bends. Looking forward to using the Tibetan Singing Bowl for the first time too, to end savasana.
19 Miles High
I really enjoyed this video of a home made spacecraft. It must have been so much fun doing it, and the images are amazing.
http://player.vimeo.com/video/15091562?portrait=0
Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.
YouTube
On average, 1800 people every day watch something on my YouTube channel. Is that a lot? It seems like a lot. Perhaps worryingly 44% watch ‘You’ve Hit An Old Lady In The Face’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xjZcvjSjUs
I read today that by the end of the year we will be able to rent movies on YouTube.
The Earth and Moon As Seen From Mercury
I really like this picture of what our home looks like to the Mercurians. Going to the moon no longer seems such an odd thing to do. From this article.
Geeking Out On Computer Symbols
Ever wondered about the somewhat strange symbols on your computer or keyboard? No, neither had I, but I enjoyed reading about them anyhow.
Helpful robots
Enough of the ‘robots will destroy us all’ silliness; robots are here to help.
Maxell XLII-S 90 Compact Audio Cassette
POSITION HIGH.
High Resonance Damping & Heat Resistant Cassette Mechanism.
A classy, rugged cassette in charcoal grey with gold lettering.
‘Cassette’ is French for ‘little box’
YouTube: A History
Every minute, 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube!
…
February 2005: YouTube founders, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim begin work on a video sharing site – they all met at PayPal
April 2005: First video uploaded to YouTube – a video of Jawed at San Diego Zoo
November 2005: YouTube secures first round of funding with Sequoia Capital for $3.5m
December 2005: Official Launch (8m videos watched a day)
February 2006: 15m videos watched a day; 20,000 uploaded a day
May 2006: Mobile video uploads released
July 2006: 65,000 new videos uploaded every day, site passes 100m video views per day
August 2006: YouTube launches first advertising concepts – Participatory Video Ads (PVA) and Brand Channels
Autumn 2006: YouTube signs deal with three major music labels (Sony BMG, Warner, Universal)
October 2006: YouTube partners with first major network (CBS) Begins testing Content Id tool to protect copyrighted material
October 2006: YouTube partners with Audible Magic to create audio identification technology
October 2006: Google acquires YouTube for $1.65bn, says its revenues are “not material”
(Continued)
The wonders of ‘Wonders of The Solar System’
The Wonders of The Solar System is my favourite programme right now. It’s presented with a refreshing attitude of awe and wonder by the casual and relaxed Brian Cox who, believe it or not, was in D:ream. Things can only get better. Great locations, great imagery, well written and presented.
Among the things I learnt in Ep 1:
Take all the energy used in one year by one country, the USA.
The sun produces one million times this energy in a single second.
Clouds then clumps of hydrogen collapse under their own gravity, heating up, fusing into helium.
Hotter and hotter, this ignites forming a star, a sun.
The sun accounts for 99% of the solar system’s mass.
VLT stands for… erm, Very Large Telescope.
For those in the UK, the first two episodes can currently be seen here
Digitizing Krishnamurti, Part Two
At KFT in Brockwood, Hampshire, we have begun the second phase of our project to digitize all of Krishnamurti’s video recordings. Last year we captured all of the archive master tapes. We are now on to production master tapes, which include dubbed languages. We are working more than eighteen hours a day on this, making best use of the rented video players. I am on the early shift, which means six o’clock starts. We are using Final Cut Pro, Matrox MX02, on eight-core Mac Pros, capturing to 10-bit uncompressed QuickTime. Each hour we digitize takes up 95GB of disk space, backing everything up on 2TB drives and then LTO-4 tape. After a month of this, we will be able to focus on releasing most of the video titles on DVD and video download.
Get Off The Grid With A Bloom Box
In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that’s inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it. One of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power-plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard. You’ll generate your own electricity with the box and it’ll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid. K.R. Sridhar … says he knows it works because he originally invented a similar device for NASA. He really is a rocket scientist. He invented a new kind of fuel cell, which is like a very skinny battery that always runs. Sridhar feeds oxygen to it on one side, and fuel on the other. The two combine within the cell to create a chemical reaction that produces electricity. There’s no need for burning or combustion, and no need for power lines from an outside source. “It’s cheaper than the grid, it’s cleaner than the grid.” Twenty large, well-known companies have quietly bought and are testing Bloom boxes in California. The first customer was Google. Four units have been powering a Google datacenter for 18 months. They use natural gas, but half as much as would be required for a traditional power plant. John Donahoe, eBay’s CEO, says its five boxes were installed nine months ago and have already saved the company more than $100,000 in electricity costs. eBay’s boxes run on bio-gas made from landfill waste, so they’re carbon neutral. “In five to ten years, we would like to be in every home.” [Sridhar] said a unit should cost an average person less than $3,000.
iPad by Stephen Fry
There are many issues you could have with the iPad. No multitasking, still no Flash. No camera, no GPS. They all fall away the minute you use it. I cannot emphasise enough this point: “Hold your judgment until you’ve spent five minutes with it”. No YouTube film, no promotional video, no keynote address, no list of features can even hint at the extraordinary feeling you get from actually using and interacting with one of these magical objects. You know how everyone who has ever done Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? always says, “It’s not the same when you’re actually here. So different from when you’re sitting at home watching.”? You know how often you’ve heard that? Well, you’ll hear the same from anyone who’s handled an iPad. The moment you experience it in your hands you know this is class.
Nanoscale: World’s Smallest Robot Can Move Atoms
The future won’t be as you imagine it:
In a 2009 article in Nature Nanotechnology, Dr. Seeman shared the results of experiments performed by his lab, along with collaborators at Nanjing University in China, in which scientists built a two-armed nanorobotic device with the ability to place specific atoms and molecules where scientists want them. The device was approximately 150 x 50 x 8 nanometers in size — over a million could fit in a single red blood cell. Using robust error-correction mechanisms, the device can place DNA molecules with 100% accuracy.
via Nanoscale: Robot Arm Places Atoms and Molecules With 100% Accuracy | h+ Magazine.
TV
The nearest analogy to the addictive power of television and the transformation of values that is wrought in the life of the heavy user is probably heroin.
Terence McKenna, Food of the Gods
Ultra-violent Google Wave Demo
Microsoft's grinning robots or the Brotherhood of the Mac. Which is worse?
The funniest article about Mac and PC users
Microsoft’s grinning robots or the Brotherhood of the Mac. Which is worse?
Cause of the bee decline problem?
The electromagnetic waves emitted by the towers crippled the “navigational skills” of the worker bees that go out to collect nectar from flowers to sustain bee colonies, said Dr. Sainuddin Pattazhy, who conducted the study, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
He found that when a cell phone was kept near a beehive, the worker bees were unable to return, leaving the hives with only the queens and eggs and resulting in the collapse of the colony within ten days.
via Mobile phone towers threaten honey bees: study – Latest News – MSN Singapore News – News.
Falling Awake 