Some vehicles I built today.
Scout vehicle. Twin vulcan cannons, mine-layer and transmission link to HQ.
Main assault vehicle. Weapon rack consists of two cannons and two grenade launchers. Machine-gun. Mount for passenger or supplies.
Auxiliary support vehicle. High-power artillery. EMP/sonar blaster. Infantry supplies and additional fuel racks.
Lego. <3
Of course, we’re not going to drag the whole industry down but the state of transparency, openness and responsibility is seriously in the pits.
If you’re into tech news like myself, you’d no doubt have heard about the deceptive promotional marketing of Apple’s iPad. And the terms of service change by Facebook.
And today, I’m going to blast 2 major companies’ blunders myself.
1. Microsoft’s deceptive marketing - Will people never learn?!
Office:Mac has just released their Messenger for Mac 8 beta and so I hopped over to their site to take a look.
Knowing that Microsoft betas are always caveat-laden, I decided to check out their known issues document, where I saw
2.1 Display pictures do not display in the conversation window
Display pictures do not display in the conversation window for both you and your contacts. Also, you cannot change your display picture from the conversation window or the Preferences dialog.
They even gave a screenshot of their own:
And this immediately set off alarm bells in my head. I checked the webpage again and lo and behold: photoshopped mockup, no doubt. And it’s not even an accurate depiction of the app itself. Once again, the tech community has proven that Microsoft sucks when it comes to Photoshop and ad creation.
Now, I understand that betas are inherently buggy but to deceive the end-user community like this is downright unethical. Would it have been so hard to use an actual screenshot like the one above? This beta was aimed at end-users who were “waiting patiently”. (link) We’re not targeting developers who may know better. These are actual users who will go “Why can’t I see my display picture?!” and they’ll never know what went wrong because they won’t read the release notes.
Message to Microsoft: Did you not see how Apple got flamed over their iPad mockup?!
2. Razer’s cure-all and end-all FAQ answers
While surfing the Razer support site a while back, I came across this resolution:
RAZER OROCHI : WINDOWS 7 : RESOLUTION 400002054
Q: I am using Garena and Windows 7 and my Razer mouse is not functioning as it should, but without Garena it works fine.A: This issue is related to the Garena client and Windows 7 UAC (User Account control). To correct this issue, please adjust these settings in Windows.
Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Change User Account Control Settings -> Never Notify
Then reboot your computer.
We won’t know if the trouble occurs because of Window’s UAC, Garena or Razer’s drivers itself but to blatantly ask the end-user to turn off UAC seems too much. Shouldn’t Razer at least give a warning that such actions could lead to decreased security or anything to that effect? This is like asking people to type commands in a terminal without knowing what it does or what will happen.
Even better if they work with the parties involved for a solution.
As a disclaimer, I love Microsoft and Razer. I eagerly anticipate their new products and releases all the time. But I think the tech community could be a little more honest in their dealings.
I’ve always wanted to try rEFIt because the current boot solution on Macs aren’t good enough.
I want to choose the OS I want to boot into without holding onto the Option key. Because I boot into both Windows and Mac with almost equal frequency, the “always allow choosing” is invaluable.
There are also options to configure a timer to default partition, various EFI tools and icons. I really like the customizability of it.
Here’s a screenshot of rEFIt from the main site:
After just a couple minutes of tinkering, this is what I got:
I wish the developer left the screenshot utility in.
One concern I had was that I already partitioned and set up using Boot Camp Utility and I wasn’t sure if rEFIt would overwrite or mess something up. It didn’t. Install, reboot twice and it’s magic. (Of course, the disclaimer that if something DOES happen to you, don’t blame me. YMMV.)
As for those on hackintoshes, you can configure Chameleon similiarly. In your /Extra folder, open com.apple.Boot.plist.
Instant Menu Yes
Timeout 30
Default Partition hd(x,y)
Theme Boot
Those keys are pretty straightforward. x is disk and y is partition, you can check this in Disk Utility.
So you would use hd(0,2) if this were on a hackintosh.
Boot is a theme similiar to what I have on my MBP. Just put it under your /Extra/Themes folder so it looks like /Extra/Themes/Boot. If you don’t have the Themes folder, just create it yourself.
Note that Instant Menu overrides any timeout.
I just wish that Apple would actually incorporate these features into the Startup prefpane so the average user can benefit too.
Unfortunately for the average person, the file system is so complex that everything outside of the desktop and the documents folder appears to be a vast labyrinth which most likely hides booby traps and minotaurs.
That’s because it does hide booby traps and minotaurs.
Let’s just say I tell a client “That ‘Home’ folder is where all of your stuff is. The Mac likes it when you store stuff in there. Use it to store your stuff.” So of course, they put all of their documents in the Documents folder, All music in Music and all eBooks in the Library folder. Then, they go in there and see all of this other stuff and start moving it around, throwing it away, etc. Then, the next time they restart they wonder why nothing is working right. Booby Trap!
So, instead, I have to say “Well, you can touch this but don’t touch that. This is your stuff but this other thing that, while it is your stuff, you can’t touch because it will break things.” With all of that confusing and conflicting information, of course they are just going to save everything to the Desktop and never move it. It’s easier and there is not chance of “breaking” anything. No booby traps.
This a great read but, if you have been paying attention, it is nothing you have not heard me hammering away at for a while now.
(thx DF)
This is an Intel video on how chips are made, with explanations here.
To just skip to the most mysterious part, let’s just ask “Why doesn’t Intel just build all 3.6gHz processors? Why bother with the low and mid-range processors?”
And as a tech-fascinated child, I’d always wondered that. It made no market sense, or common sense for that matter!
The fact is, Intel just makes one whole chunk of silicon and slices it into layers. And then they cut the slices into bits which then become parts of processors.
AND THEY HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CONTROL OVER THE SPEED OF THE CHIPS. AT ALL.
It simply turns out that the higher-end chips are cut from the most powerful/conductive parts of the slice, and the rest vary in terms of speed as well. Think of it as a pancake. No part of it turns out exactly the same. The worst parts end up 1.66gHz or worse, I’d presume.
So in fact, it makes perfect market sense. Pro chips are scarce, so they command higher market prices. Also fits well with target segmentation towards enthusiasts and power users. Mid and low-range chips are good for the mass market since they don’t need all that power and also because we have truck-loads of them.
When we think of the wafer fabrication and chips manufacturing and all, we think: “Wow so precise, so hi-tech, state-of-the-art” when in fact the scary thing is these chip manufacturers have no way to precisely control their products! Every run is like trial and error, “do it and see what happens”.
I’d imagine what happens during a particularly bad run. “Holy shit everything is 2.4gHz and below! Zzzzz…”
*OEM RANT*
Has anyone else noticed the recent trend in notebook processors having lesser and lesser speeds? I bought my HP with C2D 2.4gHz about 2 years ago. And in the market now are many notebooks with 2.26, 2.13 kind of speeds. Is anybody sensing something terribly wrong here?
Has Intel been having some particularly bad runs? I wouldn’t think so, seeing 3.33gHz i7 processors on the market. More likely, they are clearing stock on their C2D processors, especially the lower end to OEMs who take advantage of cheap sales. I’m seeing plenty of notebooks with good HDDs, GPUs, RAM etc but some crap processors. OEMs, what the hell?
Also, OEMs have resorted to listing processor numbers instead of giving us the full spec with speeds, cache etc. Why are you obscuring this information to consumers? Is it because you are using those CHEAP, LOUSY, HALVED-CACHED PROCESSORS or something?!
*/OEM RANT*
Still, the point is chip-making is still a much unknown, “just whack and see”, trial-and-error thing, like making babies. You know roughly how it works but you can’t really control it. It’s really scary how little we know.
