Traveling

Well, in two days, I'm off to Turku, Finland for my brother's wedding. Of course, that means some substantial travel. To get there: New York->Vienna->Stockholm->Helsinki then the train to Turku. Coming home: Train from Turku to Helsinki->Frankfurt->New York. There are a few miscelaneous buses in there to facilitate local transport. Here's my packing list: 2 Suit Coats Khaki Pants Suit Pants 2 Dress Shirts 2 Underwear 2 Undershirts 4 T-Shirts 4 Underwear 2 Dress Socks 5 Reg Socks Ex Oficio cold weather pants Green Wool Sweater Dress Shoes 2 Ties Black Belt Pentax Q Charge Block k5 Charge Block 1 Power Cord Simple 2 plug usb w/ micro usb and ipod cord DS Charger Flash Battery Charger Flash Batteries Kindle Ipod Video Ipod Nano DS/Games/Manuals LOD Cable Rubber Bands 3Move Headphone Amp K5 DA* 55mm f/1.4 DA 18-135mm WR Flash Camera Accessories Wallet Cleaning Cloth Parka Gloves Over Gloves Thin Hat Pentax q Clothes/Shoes for the Plane Passport Sam/Saga Gift Travel Papers Believe it or not, all of this is going in one carry on sized suitcase! The Red Oxx Airboss. This was the only bag I could find that seemed like it could carry two suits in a marginally wrinkle free arrangement, as a carry on.

The bag uses this bundle folding method. So provided you are comfortable packing like that, It is a stellar bag.

Windows 8 Thoughts

I spent the evening (about 5 hours) installing and optimizing windows 8. It has gotten some pretty mixed reviews, but I have to say, I have managed to get everything exactly the way I want it! A necessary download is Start8... it gives you a start menu (a very customizable start menu) back. Why Microsoft didn't include it originally, I'll never know. But frankly, I don't care because Start8 is so good I might have downloaded it anyways. The Aero interface (formerly known as metro) is solid. I can see why some people don't like it, but if you spend some time customizing it, it provides a very fast and efficient launch pad. I have to look for a modifier that lets you run more than one aero tool at a time, as right now there is little multitasking capability, but overall I don't mind it. Multiple monitor support is improved - you don't need to run a 3rd party app to get two different desktop backgrounds. So that's a plus! Software install was fine - no problems with Windows 7 application support in 8. Only problem I am having is getting my Razer Peripherals Tron Mouse Driver to recognize the Tron mouse that is attached to the computer. I will work on it tomorrow when I am not dead tired! Of course, I will need all day tomorrow to recover from this upgrade session. So if you are on the fence about Windows 8 I say go for it provided you also download Start8. Spend the time customizing aero and finding where Microsoft has hidden things (like the nicely buried Windows 7 disk backup tool - now in the control panel!). I think if most users put in the time, they'd be perfectly happy with Windows 8.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a nice thanksgiving with a 22 month old with a fever and a 7 week old who is a bit fussy. But... we didn't have to cook anything! We ordered a pre-made Whole Foods dinner, heated it up, and enjoyed. It was a little bland, but hey, I have salt, so no problem. A very nice thanksgiving!

Juggling Again

Hello Friends, I discovered that Maxwell really enjoys watching me juggle - he tries to do it too - so all the props are broken out and I'm juggling again! This video was the product of an afternoon play session between me and Maxwell!

 

Ah... the internet

Before the internet you didn't find as much random funny stuff. Now, we all expect amusement from youtube, but typically you don't run across funny stuff on amazon. Try this.

Cable Company Negotiator

After that first year, NEVER pay the required Cable Company price. My bill went from 99.00 / month to 160 / month. After a quick call to the company, I now have double the internet speed (20 Mbps), HBO, and pay 125 / month. All in all, nicely negotiated!

Mostly done with Build

Well, I never got that CPU cooler made by Arctic Cooling to work... turns out it required a 76 cent rentention module to use on a FX socket, so I ordered it, direct from Hong Kong btw, and naturally USPS tried to deliver it, but didn't tell anyone they tried to deliver it... I figured this out yesterday afternoon and then went and picked up this piece of shit piece of plastic today. I say it is a POS because either there is something screwy going on, or Arctic Cooling sent me the wrong module... it is certainly not compatible. So I gave up on that cooler, went to the Microcenter, bought a cooler master geminii s524, installed it without a problem at all, then promptly overclocked to 3.8 ghz! I got it up to 4.2, but I wasn't able to stably run prime95, although other activities seemed ok. Prime95 seems cool with the 3.8 ghz overclock, but I haven't done the overnight stress test yet. Not sure if I need to really. Here's the new Novabench score... a modest increase.

All in all, I'm pretty happy, I've got an overclocked GPU and CPU... I haven't messed with the memory yet, I've got 16gigs, but I'm not really pushing the limits yet.

Here's my novabench score

Build Done

My machine is built! Aside from discovering that the aftermarket CPU heatsink/fan (arctic cooling freezer 13 pro) required the purchase of a 76 cent mounting bracket (only available via direct purchase from the company based in Hong-Kong) there were no problems with the build!

The thing is fast... and it is running pretty cool. I've done a slight overclock on the GPU, but nothing yet on the CPU or RAM; I'm waiting until I have the aftermarket CPU cooler installed.

There is still some work to do on cable management. The case is a little tough to do this in because it has this pretty novel HD mounting system in which 4 of the 6 possible drives can be mounted vertically to improve airflow. However, the SATA power cables that came with the PSU really aren't made for this sort of orientation so the thing is a little awkward. I might have to get some SATA power cables specifically for this purpose.

On that note, I discovered that there is a Micro Center about 10 minutes from my house. They have everything a home builder could want. Had I realized that it was right down the road, I might have bought all my parts there...

Right now I get pretty high scores on WEI (windows experience index) although I'm currently limited by the processor, which I don't exactly understand. This is an 8 core 3.1 mhz cpu!! Hopefully some improved cooling and subsequent overclocking will improve the processor performance. This compliant is really purely from a bench marking perspective, in everyday use, the thing feels super quick.

I've also run novabench and got a score of 1319. I don't really have anything to compare this too... but I get the sense that it is a good score but not a great score. 


I ran prime95 for about 5.5 hours and had no problems. I guess that is to be expected with stock CPU settings. 

For overclocking the GPU I've been using MSI Afterburner, and when I start overclocking the CPU and memory I will likely use T-overclocker which I think is biostar's overclocking utility, or maybe it is made by AMD... I'm not sure. 

But, this thing plays WoW like you wouldn't believe. And internet browsing is great. As new versisons of my most commonly used software comes out (photoshop, lightroom, primere pro, and so on...) I'll be installing and gradually moving away from my imac. Right now I'm still running the imac in a two screen setup, and this PC has a 27" LED LCD display, so yeah, my desk looks pretty awesome. Especially when I add my two laptops to the mix! Perhaps a picture is in order.

Prepping the build area

Finally all my parts are in!! 

I'm still having to do lots of other prep before I start building. Lila got a laptop, so I need to move files around between her old HP slimline and the new Vaio, then, I'm going to take her old 22" acer lcd and pair it up with my imac. Then, my current second display, a 27" LED LCD Viewsonic will become the main display for the new build. But to accommodate 3 screens at my desk, I have to add the "L" back to my desk. I have a desk from crate and barrel and then I added a sideboard, also from crate and barrel to create the "L." But then, when we moved, we actually used the sideboard as a side board! So I have to clean up my curent desk area so I can bring the sideboard back in. Then... I've got to clean up the imac setup, which is fairly complicated, lots of external drives and such. Hopefully by Monday, I'll be ready to build. 

Additionally, I have to write a paper on the curricular effects of the Force Concept Inventory. Fun. 

And perhaps libby should have worn this today

But wait. She teaches english.

May I remind us that...

Pi Day!!

Today was Pi day... Why was it Pi day? Well, Pi can be approximated as 3.14 and the date is March 14th, or 3/14, hence Pi day. But is it Pi day in the UK where today is not 3/14 but 14/3? A resounding NO!

In the UK the nerdy math teachers (cousins of course) celebrate Pi approximation day, 22 of July, rather 22/7. In some ways that makes more sense since the fractional equivalent of 3.14 is 22/7 and the use of the slash in the date convention matches the use of the slash to represent division.

Today, March 14th, however, is also Albert Einstein's birthday, a nice geeky coincidence.

Happily, I was teaching math today, March 14th, at 1:59pm, and at the 26th second we cheered very loudly! We celebrated Pi day with precision to the 10 millionths place (3.1415926...)! The ensuing discussion revolved around how the irrational constant, when thought of with units of time, must largely exist between the 26th and 27th second and due to the infinite divisibility of time and the random repeating nature of pi and thus one can celebrate Pi day with infinite precision.

Personally, I've become a tau man myself, so there was a fair amount of discussion of tau, particuarly the pi vs. tau comparison of the Feynman point (look it up).

All in all a good day.

Pi Day Warm Up

Tomorrow is pi day. Get in the mood.

SSD added to the mix

Caved in an bought a 90 GB Corsair Force GT SSD for my new build. It seems like it would be a much bigger hassle to try to switch over to the SSD after setting everything up, so I decided that I may as well do it from the get go. This drive ended up costing me about 62 cents per gigabyte... not too bad, and it should have enough space for windows 7, Adobe Creative Suite, Lightroom, Office, a few web browsers, and a bunch of games. Storage will be handled by my Western Digital Caviar Black.

The only question remaining is have I bitten off more than I can chew? Luckily Maxwell can go to the daycare while I'm on spring break, so I'll have a good amount of uninterrupted time.

I'll need a new name for this machine (I have an Ironman, Atom, and Squeak...) Any suggestions?

Good on my word

Made the purchase today - bought all the components for my new pc build:



Lila's getting a new computer too, a Sony Vaio:



I guess maxwell will grow up in a PC household! (I'm still keeping my imac, macbook air, and powerbook though... The powerbook is so he can someday discover the joy of playing caesar III)

Inquiry Science is great but exhausting

Howdy all - just finished up Science expo - a science fair like event. All the kids come up with their projects and their own procedures to answer those questions and their own data analysis (and so on...). But let me tell you, supporting all that is really really tiring. But not as tiring as waking up at 3:30 with a baby who wants to play. The barenaked ladies have a song that goes, "who needs sleep? Well... you're never going to get it. Who needs sleep? Can you tell me what's that for? Who needs sleep? Well you're never going to get it... there are guys that have been awake since the second world war." That guy is me. javascript:void(0)

Forecasting the Apple Downfall

Sign 1: Mac Pro hasn't been updated in about two years. The graphics card it ships with is 3 generations old.

Sign 2: Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro are no longer industry standards in their respective fields.

Sign 3: Progression to iOS desktop interface. Don't they know they don't manufacture a touch screen computer?

Conclusion: Professional users are slowly but surely being dropped.

IMO, Apple's success is rooted in the fact that they produced well designed products for professionals, which were also usable by average consumers. If they stop supporting the needs of the professional user, slowly but surely, the quality of the product will erode.

Couple the release of the poorly reviewed Mountain Lion against the release of the well reviewed Windows 8 and reality comes into view.

My next machine will be a PC.

Trying again