Entanglement Rendering
“Scientists have moved a step closer to creating ultra-fast quantum computers by generating 10 billion bits of quantum entanglement in silicon for the first time.
Scientists believe that super-fast quantum computers, based on quantum bits, or qubits, will be able to test many possible solutions to a problem at once. Conventional computers based on binary “switches,” or bits, can only do one thing at a time.”
Imagine a quantum powered rendering engine. A single render test could, in theory, produce every variation of every parameter in your scene. Then all you have to do is scrub through the results and pick your favorite.
And we thought VRay RT was fast!
Belkin FTW, but PPPoE = Fail
I believe Belkin has trumped Linksys as the new standard in networking. Their new routers continue to impress me with ease of installation and also with the amount of features in the control panel. It comes with WPA encryption enabled without any setup required to get securely, wirelessly connected to the web. The friggin’ even thing comes out of the box with the power and ethernet cords already plugged in to the router. It could not possibly get any more plug-n-play.
That is, unless you are plagued with an ancient DSL connection requiring PPPoE authentication. My mom got DSL in the year 2000 when I was 13 years old so I could play Everquest all day without hogging up the phone line. Until now, she was somehow still limping along with the exact same modem and wireless router that she got on day one. After numerous calls to AT&T and their refusal to upgrade even her modem, I finally just bought new equipment and upgraded her myself.
Little did I know how much of a headach DSL’s PPPoE would cause though. I have never jumped through so many hoops to get wi-fi up and running. PPPoE stupidly requires you to login with a username and password, and also requires very specific configurations in both the modem AND the router to get them to work in harmony.
After quickly realizing the router wasn’t going to auto-configure the modem, I started off hard-wiring the modem into my laptop and setting the modem to PPPoE and plugging in all the login and IP credentials. Seemed logical. However after returning to the router, tweaking various settings, and resetting both devices probably 20 times over the course of an hour, I finally discovered the modem needed to be set to “Bridged” and the login info has to be established ONLY on the router side.
After all was said and done though, the connection difference is remarkable. Here is the before and after speed tests:
I about spit my coffee across the room when I saw she was running on a 0.83megabit connection earlier this week. I knew it was slow, but 0.83 is unheard of! And AT&T is charging $28.00 a month for that! 2.77 mb/s is still relatively slow, but the difference in connection speed and stability is like night and day.
I guess i’ve been spoiled with 6 years of plug-n-play 15 - 30 mbps cable modems. Moral of the story: Upgrade your 10 year old hardware. Or just switch to cable internet:
Living In The Cloud
So lets assume on a good day you have four computing devices you juggle about. Home desktop, work desktop, laptop, and mobile device. Each of them have their own place in your life, but you generally conduct many of the same activities across the board. Considering at any given moment at least one (if not two or three) of these devices is definitely within arm reach, it’s pretty easy to say that your life literally revolves around them.
In the past, all of these devices have stayed fairly isolated from one another. Sure you might have an active home network and maybe you sync your mobile device daily, but those are pretty tiny bridges that are still relatively isolated. What if all your computing devices were all connected seamlessly through some sort of magical web? What if they were all simply terminals to the soul of your online presence, rather than each operating as individual units? It’s true that in many ways they already are, but average users have barely seen the tip of the iceberg. It’s only been in the recent few years or even months that total synchronization and unification of our online/computer/digital selves has become possible.
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Never Enough Planning…
So yeah, remember my post last month about the crazy insane multimedia center? Well, I put it into motion and all was looking good, but as of today it has been derailed.
Essentially the system would involved a HDMI hub that all peripherals get routed through and then sent to both the projector and the TV. Any two of the four devices (X-Box, Blu-Ray, PC, etc.) could be sent to either screen simultaneously without having to unplug stuff and switch the connections. Well for reasons beyond me, I failed to realize that my TV doesn’t actually support HDMI.
So there’s that minor major overlooked detail, and then today I go to hook up my projector and about 10 minutes in…the bulb dies. It’s been giving warnings for a month but I was hoping it would hold out.
As far as the HDMI compatibility goes, I could either A) buy an HDMI to component converter for about $100 and risk serious quality degradation, or B) bite the bullet and buy a decent full HD plasma TV for about $600 more. And a new high quality projector bulb is another $300.
Needless to say, I’m about a grand away from where I had hoped to be today for free. Time to wait for the next paycheck, I guess… And maybe I should invest in a couch first…
Good news, though, is that I finally upgraded from XP to Windows 7. And I got 30 mbps internet hooked up.
My first (and last) Apple fanboy post
When the iPad was first announced, I saw zero use for it. I thought it was just an oversized and overpriced iTouch that would be a waste of money. Then it was launched and I got the opportunity to play with it a bit. Although it felt nice and looked sexy, it still seemed fairly useless beyond just being a coffee-table iTouch. I didn’t really think much more about it until just the other day. With a nerd-tech lifestyle and plans to expand my entertainment center, I’ll most likely be in the market for a universal remote. What could be more interesting and flexible to control your media with than an iPad?
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$16,497.15
So apparently I was bored the other day, because I spent a good two hours drooling over computer parts and putting together a mega-machine. Believe it or not, it is actually slightly modest compared to what I initially set out to create. At least this all fits into one box…almost. After the jump you’ll find a list of components. Pardon the shotty layout, I lifted Newegg’s shopping cart code and appended it with some additional items from elsewhere.
The Ultimate Workstation…
P.S. Help me buy it plzkthx
The New Age of Mobile
My mobile computing experience just jumped to a new level I remember about five years ago when I got my first Sony Ericsson and was so excited that I could finally blog my photos on the go. Today, I edited and compressed HD video, generated thumbnails, formatted it into an HTML display, uploaded it all to my FTP, and created a blog entry to announce it. All from my iPhone.
This was only possible by using LogMeIn, a (semi)free service that allows you to seamlessly control your desktop PC in real time from you iPhone. Pinch, zoom, pan, click, and drag just as you would with any iPhone app, but you’re manipulating your desktop PC in pixel perfect clarity.
After using LogMeIn to trim down, compress, and upload the videos (3 of them) to my FTP, I downloaded them on my iPhone and took screenshots. PerfectPhoto let me crop and resize to create thumbnails, and iFile allowed me to open HTML and swap out a few links. I emailed them back to my desktop (mobile FTP being the weak link here) to upload, and used the Tumblr app to blog my thumbnails and links.
Albeit it took me about 30 minutes, when it may have only taken about 15 if I were sitting directly at my desktop, but not bad for being completely mobile. It’s just so great because the possibilities are endless. When I got finished with this mission, I celebrated with a little Sim Tower (yes, still over the iPhone via LogMeIn). It’s just that seamless.
