Tag: General Hardware

My Thoughts on Apple’s Product Announcements

Because I’m sure you’re very interested in what I think… OK maybe not but this is my site so I’m going to post my thoughts anyways.

The new iPod Shuffle… meh. I never really found a use for a device that randomly plays from a selection of songs. Don’t get me wrong I have my music players on shuffle most of the time but I also have the ability to listen to songs in order when I chose.

The new iPod Nano… meh. It’s a tiny touch screen device. Of course the touch screen means you can no longer have it sitting in your pocket and skip songs by reaching in and clicking the button.

The new iPod Touch… kind of neat. A full iPhone without having the phone internals or the nicer rear facing camera is a novel idea. It would be a good references platform for anybody wanting to develop iPhone software but no wanting to buy the phone and accompanying contract.

The Apple TV… bleh. I’m not a fan of paying $0.99 to rent a television who and $4.99 to rent a new release movie. Likewise the steaming support is most likely only going to support the few formats that iTunes does which are few and far between. The ability to stream NetFlix is pretty cool if you don’t already have an Xbox 360 to do it.

iTunes 10… meh. Social networking for music? Man I wish somebody would have thought that one up before.

Overall I wasn’t impressed with anything announced. Everything was evolutionary (nothing wrong with that granted) except the Apple TV and that was ruined to me the second they said it was going to work on a rental only model. I will say if I ever decide to start developing iPhone software I may get an iPod Touch as reference hardware but I don’t see that happening anytime soon (if ever).

Impressive Sony E-Book Reader Update

With all the posts I do about Amazon’s Kindle (of which my new one should arrive today) and Barnes and Nobel’s Nook I often forget to even mention Sony’s lineup of e-book readers. This is mostly because Sony’s line has had a major drawback, it requires syncing with a desktop computer using their software that only works on Windows. The only time I run Windows is via a virtual machine. Some time ago Sony introduced the Reader Daily Edition that included 3G capabilities allowing you to untether from your desktop but by that time the Kindle already had a solid foot in the door.

Today Sony announced some impressive updates to their Reader lineup. Namely all three models now have touch screens, E Ink Pearl (the same screen used in the new Kindles), and the Daily Edition now supports Wi-Fi (because everybody else was doing it). But one major speed bump lies between Sony and relevance, price. The Reader Pocket Edition, their cheapest device, comes in at $179.00. At this price it includes no connectivity options except tethering it to a computer. For $189.00 you can get the Kindle with both 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity and for $199.00 you can get the Barnes and Nobel Nook with the same. The only Sony Reader with connectivity options (both Wi-Fi and 3G) is the Daily Edition which comes in at $299.00.

Of course Sony can point to their touch screen but that really doesn’t enhance the experience enough to justify the massive increase in price. E Ink displays are slow meaning you aren’t going to get instant feedback when you do something that requires the screen to change. Even with a touch screen you’re not going to be able to scroll down through a book on the Sony Reader as you can with your web browser on a smart phone. If you try to flick the page down the entire screen will take a noticeable fraction of a second to refresh. It’s not that big of a deal really but it means the addition of touch screen controls really isn’t going to add anything over the hard button controls the Kindle uses. The Nook has the second LCD touch screen that avoids the Sony Reader’s problem as LCD’s refresh faster than the human brain can notice making it appear instant.

Still the addition of a touch screen E Ink display is pretty cool and I have to had Sony some credit on that.

Rail Mounted Power

This is a neat idea that doesn’t seem to actually solve the problem it’s designed to. The Firearm Blog brought to our attention the Rifle Integrated Power Rail (RIPR). It’s pretty simple, a battery that provides power to rail mounted accessories through the rails. It seems like a novel idea since you’d no longer be required to carry additional batteries for every accessory on your rifle.

Of course there’s also the major downside; if the RIPR fails all of your accessories go down. This seems to eliminate and advantage considering the following:

We’re not that worried about a RIPR battery going tits up. You would of course carry spares with you. We’re more worried about the plug-in unit/rail (into which the RIPR battery is inserted) failing. If that goes down, you’re done–unless you have spare batteries for the individual accessories, of course.

So now you carry additional RIPR batteries as well as batteries for your individual accessories. That seems to add weight to both the rifle and your load out. Convergence is good in some situations and not so hot in others. Having a small portable computer in your pocket that can make phone calls, listen to music, browse the Internet, and act as a GPS navigator. The reason such devices work well is because losing all of those functions is a nuisance.

Convergence doesn’t work so well when redundancy is critical. For instance a RAID 5 array on a server prevents a system from dying if any single hard drive fails. RAID 0 on the other hand means your entire server will die if any single drive dies. The reason servers generally use RAID 5 is because having the entire system go down if a single drive fails is not acceptable. Once the system is down anything that relies on that server is now useless. The same would go for the RIPR, if it fails every power-using accessory on your gun dies. If these accessories include a flashlight or some kind of night optic requiring power your rifle is now pretty useless in the dark. Personally given the size of the RIPR and the fact that you would still need to carry batteries for individual accessories I feel it’s a solution in search of a problem.

We Got You Your Favorite Thing, Disappointment

The new Kindle started shipping yesterday and I got my shipping notification! Woohoo! Oh wait:

The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com:
——————————————————————–
Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal

———————————————————————

Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):

1 Kindle Leather Cover, Blac… $34.99 1 $34.99

Shipped via UPS

Tracking number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

———————————————————————
Item Subtotal: $34.99
Shipping and handling: $7.48

Total: $42.47

Paid by XXXXXXXXXXXX: $42.47

——————————————————————–

You have only been charged for the items sent in this shipment.
(Per our policy, you only pay for items when we ship them to you.)
The following items will ship separately, as soon as they’re available:
———————————————————————-
Qty Item Price Not Yet Shipped
———————————————————————-

1 Kindle Wireless Reading Devic $189.00 1

God damn it.

Bottom Cylinder Firing Revolver Shipping

According to The Firearm Blog Chiappo has begun shipping the 2″ version of their Rhino revolver. The Rhino peaked my interested because it’s one of the rare revolvers that fires from the bottom cylinder.

The idea is pretty simple, the lower the bore axis on a handgun the less muzzle flip you have to deal with. Glocks are noted quite often as having a very low bore axis while XD pistols are known for having a higher bore axis. Frankly I own both and can’t tell the difference but still I have to say the Rhino Revolver is on my hopefully-get-somebody-maybe list just because I would like a revolver that shoots from the bottom cylinder.

I don’t know much about Chiappo (in fact I never heard of them until this revolver came up some months back) so I don’t know if they have a reputation for making shit or not. I do know that the Rhino appears to have no real rear sight to speak of which kind of turns me off. But the gun in unique enough where I’m certainly interested.

I Can’t Tell You How Many Times I’ve Wanted to Do This

Just read the first paragraph of this article:

A Salt Lake City mortgage company employee allegedly got drunk, opened fired on his firm’s computer server with a .45-caliber automatic, and then told police someone had stolen his gun and caused the damage.

Minus the getting drunk and accusing somebody stole my gun this paragraph really describes one of my dreams, shooting a server. Of course I wouldn’t lie about what happened unlike this drunkard mentioned in the story:

A probable cause statement alleges that Campbell told police he had been “mugged, assaulted with his own firearm and drugged” by a mystery assailant.

Yeah because that’s certainly a believable story. Pro tip here, if you’re going to make up a story in an attempt to lie to the police make it a believable one. Better yet don’t have a gun one you while you’re drunk.

New Assault Knife

Holy shit! Check out this dangerous and terrible knife! Obviously it’s far sharper than any hunting knife needs to be. The only thing this knife is good for is kill people! People simply don’t need a knife this sharp. We need to ban it now!

See how stupid that sounds? Well it sounds equally dumb when that is said about firearms. Seriously though that blade in the video is sharp, I want one.

Why I Never Delete Anything

One thing that is true about me is the fact I never delete files. OK I delete applications I’ve downloaded from the Internet once the versions I’ve obtained are outdated, and maybe a few other little files here and there. But in general I do delete files and that’s because storage is cheap.

I just picked up another 2TB 7200RPM hard drive for about $129.00. With space at that price level there really is no reason not to keep everything you’ve ever created, purchased, or downloaded.

No You Can’t Buy Your Property Back

A while back it was announced that South Korea was going to sell America back a bunch of M1 Garands. All the gunnies jumped up for joy and much cheer was spread throughout the land. Gunnies were getting their checkbooks ready in anticipation for the arrival of certified military M1 Garands. Alas joy has left the land as Say Uncle reports the United States government isn’t going to allow those South Korean rifles to be sold back to their original owners, the American people.

Yup our government is barring us from buying property our tax dollars originally purchased. How nice of them. Their reason:

“The U.S. insisted that imports of the aging rifles could cause problems such as firearm accidents. It was also worried the weapons could be smuggled to terrorists, gangs or other people with bad intentions,” the official told The Korea Times.

So terrorists are going to purchase a semi-automatic rifle that uses an ammunition that’s probably much harder to obtain than 7.62x39mm? Really? Instead of… fully automatic AK-47s that can be built in a cave? Really? That’s the best excuse those idiots on Capital Hill can come up with? Why not just say you don’t want the American people to be able to purchase these rifles? At least that would be honest.

Also now that the rifles can’t be sold to American collectors what’s to stop South Korea from selling them to a terrorist group? Logic fail!