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.

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?)

The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.

• Get Extraordinary Performance By Exploiting the GPU » AMD
• The Secret to Raising Smart Kids »
• Das Kunst! »
• Photosynth » Microsoft's 3D photo constructor has finally been released
• iPhone 3G came with pictures » a Chinese factory worker added a litle extra to the iPhone package before it shipped. (no, there's nothing NWS)
• SnaptureLabs » Enhance the iPhone's camera
• Plantronics Headset Brings Dolby Surround Sound to Gamers »
• Computer science graduating class of 2007 smallest this decade »
• MoMA Store » Museum of Modern Art store
• Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene »
• Operation Immortality »
• Air Hello Kitty »
• Computer Science Graduate Program at St. Mary’s University »
• Sandvich - Heavy Unlockable for Team Fortress 2 »
• Team Fortress 2 Arena Mode » TF2 Arena keeps the class diversity of Team Fortress 2 while focusing goals around combat between two teams. Where other game modes lean towards a broad overall strategy for the team over a number of lives, Arena concentrates on the specific tactical choices the teams make in a single fight.

The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.

• BuyBlue.org »
• GIMP » The GNU Image Manipulation Program
• Knights Templar to Vatican: Give us back our assets »
• Wordpress SEO Plugin »
• jQuery: The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library »
• freeSSHd » description
• Julia Child was a spy for the OSS against the Nazis » (the OSS evolved into the CIA later)
• Siberian tiger cub presented in Berlin » cutest tiger cub ever
• US boasts of laser weapon’s ‘plausible deniability’ »
• Pi Be Rational T-Shirt | Snorg Tees »
• Get Satisfaction - People-Powered Customer Service »
• The Beginnings of Sierra Part 1 »
• Team Fortress 2 - A Heavy Update »
• Real Snail Mail: a "Slow Art" project »
• Metacritic.com » Reviews, quotes, and scores from leading critics for film, video/DVD, music, tv, books and videogames. Only metacritic.com uses METASCORES, which let you know at a glance how each item was reviewed.

The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.

• 142857 » 142,857 is the best-known cyclic number in base 10.[1][2][3][4] If you multiply the number by 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, the answer will be a cyclic permutation of itself.
• An Artificial Pancreas »
• No Hitler in new Wolfenstein »
• Swarming robots »
• Snowl » Mozilla's foray into social networking
• TCHO » TCHO is obsessively good dark chocolate; where Silicon Valley start-up meets San Francisco food culture.
• BzzAgent » BzzAgent is a Boston based Word of Mouth Marketing (WOM) and Media Network
• Survey Police » Rank, review, and file complaints against online survey companies. Find legitimate online survey panels.
• Software and Hardware Interview Questions and Answers (Microsoft, etc.) »
• GeekInterview.com » GeekInterview.com is an Open Database where you can share Interview questions from your interviews and get answers from experts.
• LAN Party Massacre » A horror movie for fans of video games and traditional gore; Coming 2009
• Design You Trust. » World's Most Famous Social Inspiration.
• Top 10 Conversation Hacks »
• Quantity Always Trumps Quality »
• Riding with Robots on the High Frontier » space and planet photos

cute video of our impending time/matter space implosion!

The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.

• Badger & Blade » This is a community dedicated to the art of wet shaving, and men's grooming.
• Larrabee: Intel’s biggest leap since the Pentium Pro »
• TechIT.com | Find Tech Jobs, Tech People & Tech Help » tech jobs
• Download.com » free software
• Google Transit » bus, train, walking and other urban trip maps
• Dadnab » Bus route text message by city
• Whirled » flash games
• POV-Ray » The Persistence of Vision Raytracer
• gotoAndPlay() » Flash games, tutorials and game development
• Flash Kit, A Flash Developer Resource for Macromedia Flash MX Tutorials SWF FLA images clipart Sounds WAVS Animations Help and Support » an online resource for Macromedia Flash development
• Newgrounds Flash Tutorials »
• Armor Games » flash games
• Cake Wrecks »
• rosicrux tumblr page »
• Chronotron » timetravel flash game, acheive goals with your past and future selves

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.