Now if only this thing was real
Jun/090
Now if only this it could walk and carry a real beam rifle, I’d be more amazed as it vaporizes me.
Road Rage
Jun/090
Have really had a chance to blogged in a while. My best friend is getting married and my services to the occasion were requested. But more on that later.
Maybe I’m just getting old, but I’m starting to see some more terrible drivers on the road lately. Red light runners, people chatting on their cellphone without a headset, i.e. not paying attention, people who can’t signal when doing anything, driving slow because they’re lost and don’t want to pull over to pull out their phone and get GPS help, etc…There are times where you just wanna honk they people because they’re so busy doing something else and not paying attention to the road. The same applies to foot traffic. Growing up in SF Chinatown, you know how crowded that area can be. I’m getting a little tired of people stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to answer a call or people putting their shopping carts down the middle of the aisle in a supermarket. Is it that hard to pull over out of the way of traffic? There are people behind you and around you. Pay attention to the road gawd dammit.
Gundam 00, Season 2, Battlestar Galactica
Apr/090
Yeh, I’m finally getting around to writing up something about the 2nd season of Mobile Suit Gundam 00 and Battlestar Galactica after both finished weeks ago. I thought it ended much better than the 1st season. The first season of Gundam 00 had dropped a few too many surprises, which I didn’t like since instead of leading up to a surprise, was just dropped on the viewer’s lap. The ending was poorly executed and everything felt like it was just dropped on the viewer. Season 2 fixed what I felt were the pacing issues. No more surprises and the ending didn’t have multiple fights with multiple villains. It was just 1 long fight with 1 villian. The pacing and structure I liked much better than season 1 but some of the intrigue from Season 1 was lost in Season 2. But that’s what you get for changing the world, hehe.
BSG felt solid through the 4 season. Some of the middle episodes from Season 4.5 felt like they were dragging the story but I was pleased with how it ended. The only downside I find to the show is like with Star Trek: Deep Space 9, RDM likes to make serialized shows. It does make things fairly hard to jump into in the middle. Eventually I’ll get around to picking up the other 3/4ths of the DVDs which I haven’t gotten around to.
Bay-to-Breakers compromise
Feb/090
So now their trying to compromise the B2B race. How about this, Nudity? Yes (In some cases though, I think this might be cruel and unusual punishment to spectators). Alcohol? No. Any Alcohol on the track should be confiscated. Floats? No. Confine it to your costume if you’re gonna wear one. And make race registration a requirement. No bib? No run. Get off the track. This is how it is with almost all races in the city. If you don’t like it, tough. Un-registered runners don’t pay for the clean-up or any race services so why should be be allowed on the course. I’ve lived in the city most of my life and every year, I hear it getting worst and worst with this race. First nudity. Then people passing out beer to the runners. Then people bringing beer on the course. Then urinating on properties along the course. But it’s suppose to be a fun-run. Yeah well, it stopped becoming fun when people are drunk and causing a mess along the streets. Or leaving their garbage in neighborhood. Or having uninvited guests come and wreck the place without cleaning it up, or even paying for clean-up. If they aren’t willing to register for the race, then they should be treated as uninvited guests and kicked out. And since this supervisor is the one crying about the tighter rules, how about we take the money for the clean-up bill for all the extra trash on the street during the race from all the booze floats, drunkards out of his paycheck.
Macbook, late 2008
Dec/080
What made me get one of the new Macbooks? Well, part of it was I wanted a new device to play with as a once-a year present to myself. And the other part said I wanted something lighter and sturdier than my current laptop. Okay, and the thing was on sale and had a rebate from PC Connection. So yes, it was cheap for the holiday sales so I took advantage of it. Why not jump to a Macbook Pro? Cuz I still don’t need that much power and a desktop replacement when I already have a decent desktop. And when I need to lug around a laptop, I prefer the 13.3″ form factor compared to the 15.4″. Dragging my old Macbook half-way across the USA made me realize that I really don’t want to be dragging a 15″ laptop with me. And for people who just plan to watch DVDs, do some lite photo editing or just want to surf the net, a 13″ is as big as you want. A netbook would be better but I like a little more power and I certainly don’t want a Macbook Air. That thing is a tad too expensive.
Out of the box
Compared to the old Macbook, the packaging is a lot lighter. The box is smaller and the remote control that came with the old Macbook is missing. All that’s in there was the Macbook, power adapter, power cable, and the restore discs. That’s it. That’s a step down from the old one. The first thing that impressed me was the weight and thickness. The old Macbook came in at 5 lbs. The new one is 4.5 lbs. It feels lighter. And the thickness is noticeable. And now that it’s made out of aluminum, the thing feels really sturdy, too. I mean REALLY sturdy. I’m no longer scared of that bending plastic feel.
Keyboard, trackpad
I do like the keyboard feel on this model. It doesn’t feel as loose as the old Macbook. There’s a little more resistance to it as well. Overall, I do like the keyboard. I feel like I could put some weight on it compared to the old Macbook. Now on to the trackpad. The trackpad takes up the entire space. There’s no button because the whole thing is a button. But you should have known that by now. After an hour of using it, I really didn’t notice the button missing. Having all that trackpad space really spoils you. And yes, you can do the funny gestures with all four of your fingers. But the first thing I turned on was “Tap to click”. And yes, you can even right-click by going to the lower right corner or doing a 2-finger tap.
Screen
At full brightness, the screen is pretty darn bright. Bright enough to cancel out the effects of sunlight and the glossy screen. After years of using a glossy screen, I have no problems using a glossy screen. Even in sunlight. So with the Macbook having a glossy screen caused me no problems. The LED backlight also felt a little more sharper than the florescent. With both at full brightness, I found the new screen to be better.
Other points and gripes
A friend and myself went to the Apple store a while back and played with the graphics tools in X11 with the new Macbooks and found that the Nvidia 9400M GT chipset actually did fairly well compared to the Intel X3100 in the older Macbook Air. I would imagine that my old Macbook’s GMA950 is fairly dated compared to the 9400M’s power. Chances are I still won’t be gaming on this thing. And I have to go get a new display adapter. Freakin Apple.
I do miss Firewire, but using Migration Assistant with ethernet went fine. My total time transferring time was about 10-15 minutes. My battery cover does seem to be suffering some loose locking issues, but it’s only loose by less than a millimeter. It didn’t seem that bad as some forum dwellers have made it out to be.
Conclusion
Those looking for a sturdy metal, usable laptop the new Macbook is good choice. It’s much better than the olde plastic “Whitebook”. That unibody construction really does feel better. Heat wise, it did fairly well. When I put it away for the night, the table didn’t feel that hot at all. And that was doing a Boot Camp session loading Windows and updating all evening. I would say that this is a solid notebook (literally) for the crowd that wants a decent laptop for average usage. And with better than decent performance, it’s reasonable buy. I would certainly take this laptop with me traveling than my old Macbook.
And one more thing. All those people complaining about the olde “Whitebook’s” case cracking….It’s true.
Merry Christmas/Happy New Year
Dec/080
Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Happy Holidays. Happy birthday Jesus. And did I forget anything?
Looking at the future
Dec/080
First off, I say let the auto companies die. It’s their fault that they continued to make big crappy cars. It’s their fault that they continued making the cars they did while foreign car companies looked at alternatives. Now foreign companies are suffereing less from the falling economy than the Big 3 U.S. companies. But aside from that, if car companies want to stay competative, perhaps they should be looking beyond hybrid models and consider cars that use no gasoline. Let’s face it, fossil fuels are a limited commodity. We will not have enough fossil fuels to last us in the long run. This isn’t just a green issue, but a supply issue. To keep up with the ever growing demand, countires need to consider looking at renewable energy as an alternative to using fossil fuels. It may be great now with gas pump prices back down to reasonable levels, but how long will that last?
Happy Turkey Day
Nov/080
Happy Thanksgiving day everybody. Now for the annual tradition of lots of food and too many cooks in my kitchen.
Happy Tukey Day