While they extremely oversimplify the assets of parallel computing, and discounting the fact that even low-cost CPU’s do plenty of parallel computing nowadays with multi-core systems, there can be no mistake of the sheer awesomeness of 1100 paintball guns firing at once.
And so I give you Adam and Jamie of the Mythbusters in their painting class 101 (filmed at Nvidia’s Nvision show):
Well, the wife and I got iPhone 3G’s today. But they really should be called iPhone 2.5G’s.
After Wired’s article about the survey they did of 3G users in various locales across North America, I was ready to discount the iPhone 3G’s troubles with the 3G network as mainly due to faulty local networks.
Then again, something didn’t sit right in that conclusion. It all became crystal clear as the young, stoked Apple attendant was ringing up the phones. We talked a bit about the Wired article, and I told him I was confident about the iPhone being ok here in Austin, because of the article and my current phone. I have had a Samsung Sync SGH-A707 for almost 2 years now, and the one problem I have never had with it is bad reception. I have 5 to 7 bars (which is max on the phone) on 3G almost the entire time I am in town.
Then he said, “look at it now”. I did and it showed 5 bars of 3G on the Samsung. It never wavered while my wife was getting her iPhone setup. Then as my iPhone was setup, I saw that it has only one bar of 3G for a brief moment and then switches to 3 to 5 bars of Edge. That was enough test for me. The Apple store employee says they never get 3G at that store or around it on the iPhones.
I sit here now, in South Austin (the store was in North Austin) with the new iPhone showing 5 bars of Edge, reading this rebuttal to a rebuttal of the Wired article… essentially saying it is ‘mostly’ still the network.
It’s not the network.
I remember that the Samsung Sync is known for its exceptionally high radio strength. But Wired’s survey chart certainly shows Austin as solid green for network stability/strength. And yet the phones we just purchased have a very hard time connecting anywhere in town with more than a couple bars, and drop to Edge a majority of the time. It was a good theory, and I appreciate the survey, but unfortunately it isn’t backed up in reality.
Aug 26
An eon in modern time ago (a year) I posted a small extrinsic blurb about the upcoming Microsoft technology dubbed Photosynth. I thought the link explained and showed it better than I could, so no need for a further post. But now it is released, and now it deserves the shoutout.
This is a simple “synth”. It was taken by some guy in Austin on his cameraphone. He took a few shots of the 360 bridge (a pretty noticeable landmark), just across the river from where I used to work at Origin. I think this shows the power of Photosynth. First of all, this was easy to find, I just did a Photosynth search for Austin, and it was the first choice. Second this was only a few short photos in a cameraphone. This isn’t the Taj Mahal demo with 400 shots with a $5000 DSLR camera. No, this is normal guy with possibly time on his break from work to snap a few shots through a window and upload them. You can still zoom in on them and skirt all around his view.. and it captures his view amazingly well.
That’s all I have to say, except one more thing, kudos to Microsoft to allowing embed code. Normally that wouldn’t get kudos, because every website on earth has some free embedable content on it nowadays, but kudos for finally coming around. (but an iframe? seriously?)
Aug 25
The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.
Aug 21
Aug 18
The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.
Aug 15
Aug 11
The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.
Aug 10
cute video of our impending time/matter space implosion!
Aug 5
The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.
Been messing with fractals, the last few days. Here’s one I particularly like.
(click to see it ocean-sized)
ghosts in the machine by ~rosicrux on deviantART
It’s about time. Pre-ops to mangoat for finding it.
You are currently browsing the archives for August, 2008
