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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
 Posted - Feb 24 2012 : 09:17:45 AM
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UV Laser Painting
I bought one of those LED arrays from Element14 and I have to say that they are very bright. You wouldn't want to look directly at them. I think I will buy another but this time a higher CCT (Cool White) and roughly double the luminosity at the same electrical power input. Fortunately it happens to be no dearer. A video may be in the pipeline.
quote:
Originally posted by Yerboogieman
That raceway looks fun. Nothing like what we have up here. But then again, it seems no one likes real racing anymore.
The Grand Prix is hosted in Melbourne along with other motor sports.
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When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
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eze
Apprentice
Canada
66 Posts |
Posted - Feb 25 2012 : 8:41:33 PM
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| Happy Belated Birfday Cake! |
Life is like a box of farkles |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Mar 10 2012 : 09:00:45 AM
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I bought one of these a few days ago:
http://www.asus.com.au/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/ASUS_ZENBOOK_UX21E/
Bloody brilliant device. 128GB SSD using SATA3, Core i7, 4GB RAM, USB 3.0, HDMI, VGA, WiFi, BlueTooth blah blah blah.
A good benchmark was to see if this thing could play a BluRay movie, which it did without a problem. Also the sound quality from this thing is amazing. Battery life changes depending on what you do of course but in the lowest power mode you can probably get about 4-5 hours of constant usage. I haven't been unfortunate enough to run out of juice yet. Boot time is about 17 seconds and to get out of standby takes less than 2 seconds. The chassis is CNC milled from a block of Aluminium so it's quite rigid.
The display is very bright and can be seen easily outdoors but comparing the contrast to one of those Apple MacBook Air thingys it could be a little better. Still, this display is brighter.
Lucky for me, just after I bought it the prices increased. 
I might post some pics if/when I get a chance. |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
Edited by - wasssup1990 on Mar 10 2012 09:04:09 AM |
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Aaron Cake
Administrator
Canada
6718 Posts |
Posted - Mar 10 2012 : 10:23:08 AM
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| The one thing I don't get about those ultrabooks is why they also don't make them tablets. Just swivel the screen into tablet mode. |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Mar 10 2012 : 9:56:48 PM
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| Actually a tablet PC is what I was trying to avoid because I already have one. The price goes up when you want those features and I didn't want another tablet. Asus sell tablets as well but I took all factors into account and what I ended up with was this Ultrabook. The swiveling mechanism on some tablets is a likely point of failure and the screen as well since it's going to have pressure applied on it from the user. I wanted to eliminate those risks with this purchase. Actually my tablet is undergoing a warranty service right now but not related to the swiveling mechanism or the screen. Over the past four years I have bought three laptops each one except my new Ultrabook had to be shipped off for a warranty service. The Lenovo Y510 had a bad hinge because of faulty design and the HP touchsmart had a bad video chip. It goes to show that you should always buy the extended warranty. I have high hopes for this Ultrabook though. It's so robust and as far as I can tell only has two moving parts bar the keyboard and speakers - the fan and the hinge. The thing is pretty much solid metal. However, since this machine doesn't have any user replaceable parts it can cost an arm and a leg to get fixed should something go wrong. Which is another reason why you should buy an extended warranty. |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
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eze
Apprentice
Canada
66 Posts |
Posted - Mar 12 2012 : 2:01:10 PM
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Check this out guys, your tablet PC conversation reminded me about this brainwave controlled skateboard that uses an IPAD as the human interface. I saw it on the Discovery channel this past weekend. The original used an XBOX 360 Kinect unit to enable the rider to use their hands as the gas and brakes but things like weather and sun spots would impair user input. So they went to this new interface that uses brain waves to interpret system commands. Check it out...pretty cool.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57383717-1/brainwave-controlled-skateboard-is-totally-mental/
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Life is like a box of farkles |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Mar 13 2012 : 04:49:41 AM
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That's an interesting device. I don't know much about brain wave reading but it's worth some investigation.
"Use the force, Luke!" - Control things with your mind. 
Stupid, shit Lead-Free solder. It doesn't have the same properties as Leaded Solder. It cracks and doesn't respond well to temperature changes. That was the cause of my HP TouchSmart needing a warranty service. I woman who worked at the place where it was being serviced said that Lead-Free solder is causing an even bigger environmental problem than just leaving the Lead in the solder because so many laptops are breaking down because of bad solder joints. I'm guessing that not many repair houses have the expensive equipment needed to re-flow a bad video IC, so what they do is ship the whole motherboard off to the manufacturer where they either repair or scrap it. So much for Lead-Free solder. I have never used the stuff because I've only heard bad things about it. Also, the woman said that the hard drives of today sometimes fail completely without any lead-up of events thanks to this shitty solder. Well fuck me sideways! I hope that's not true.
Also, has anyone noticed an increase in prices for hard disk drives? I read that it's caused by natural disasters in countries where they are made, slowing production down and thus causing a global shortage. I also read that prices should come down again sometime this quarter, hopefully. |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
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eze
Apprentice
Canada
66 Posts |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Mar 15 2012 : 04:37:42 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by eze
Solid state or coventional 7200 rpm jobbies?
Yeah I said "hard disk drives", specifically the run of the mill 7200RPM ones from WD & Seagate.
They have definitely gone up in price since the start of the year. Solid state drives are still expensive. I'm glad my new Ultrabook has one - so damn fast. A file copy peaked at around 500MB/s and then reduced to a sustained 100-200MB/s. I hate waiting for those mechanical dinosaurs. When I'm working I just want things done NOW, not ASAP.
HDDs are great for backing-up and archiving but when it comes to tasks that require lots of random access to data on the disk, well, they just suck. |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
Edited by - wasssup1990 on Mar 15 2012 04:42:18 AM |
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Aaron Cake
Administrator
Canada
6718 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2012 : 10:35:22 AM
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I used lead free solder when I put the air system into the shop a few years ago. Though that was a plumbing application and not something like a circuit board that has a complete different set of stresses. The absolute worse part about lead free solder is that it won't mix with most leaded solders properly. Cleaning it all off without causing damage is a bitch.
This past week I set up a Toshiba Protege Z835 for a customer. What a hell of a machine! Ultrabook size, super thin, Core I7, 4 GB RAM, and I think a 128 GB SSD. The only thing that kept me from buying one also is the lack of a pointing nipple, and the fact it wasn't a tablet.
Hard drive prices have been high for a while. The good thing is that the prices are driving down those of SSDs, little by little. And once you go SSD, you never go back. |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Mar 17 2012 : 10:03:01 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Aaron Cake
Hard drive prices have been high for a while. The good thing is that the prices are driving down those of SSDs, little by little. And once you go SSD, you never go back.
That's what I am waiting for. When SSDs were first comming into view on shelves around here, a 480GB SSD cost around $1600. Now the same capacity SSD can be bought for $1000. Hopefully by the end of the decade SSDs are mainstream and computer manufacturers are no longer installing HDDs. I wonder what will happen to HDDs. I suppose it'll be like the transition from audio tapes to CDs, or like VHS tapes to DVD. |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
Edited by - wasssup1990 on Mar 17 2012 10:11:30 PM |
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Aaron Cake
Administrator
Canada
6718 Posts |
Posted - Mar 24 2012 : 10:33:06 AM
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| I don't think we'll ever see spinning discs go away. It's hard to say whether SSDs are going to be standard right now, because when I look at my price lists SSDs aren't even a listed option for all but the absolute most high end systems. That said, I won't be installing a spinning disc in one of my systems ever again. |
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wasssup1990
Nobel Prize Winner
A Land Down Under
2261 Posts |
Posted - Mar 25 2012 : 12:26:24 AM
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Exactly! The only time spinning disks come into my life now are when I have no choice but to use them (HDD) because they can store the hundreds and thousands of GB I need to achieve what I want with my computers, plus they are cheap compared to SSDs. I very rarely use optical disks now. I store everything on large HDDs and everyone can get what they need through a 1Gb/s network connection. I have over 6TB of storage at the moment and I need more!
Years ago I went into a chilly server room at one of the universities where I live and a 1-3TB HDD was huge in physical size compared to what I can get now from my local computer shop for around $130 ($30 up since the start of the year).
All of the video rental places are closing down around here. I wanted to rent The Titanic BluRay but one place was closing down just up the road, and another didn't have it. I wanted to "back it up" on my HDD so that anyone could watch at any time. 
Hmmm, maybe that's why the rental places are going out of business. Oops I did it again!
No, it's all these on-line video rental services that are choking the life out of the real stores. |
When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion. |
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Aaron Cake
Administrator
Canada
6718 Posts |
Posted - Mar 25 2012 : 10:30:40 AM
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The video stores have been closing down here as well. Blockbuster declared bankruptcy and closed all their stores, and a number of the local chains have closed as well. They say it's because of Netflix and online rentals. Not sure if I believe that. The Netflix catalog for Canada is a wasteland and without a streaming box or something that can get it onto the TV screen, you are stuck in front of a computer watching.
I have friends who have "cut the cord" and cancelled their cable subscriptions. Works for about a month until they get tired of paying $1 per episode, the hassle of streaming to a TV, finding torrents, or just not being able to watch the same thing everyone else sees. My favourite method of acquiring movies is to just PVR them off of the movie channels. Then watch at my leisure. After putting a 500GB HD into my PVR it's good for several hundred recordings.
The new hybrid hard drives are pretty interesting. The tests Maximum PC have done has showed almost all the benefit of an SSD, but with the cheap capacity of a spinning disc. |
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eze
Apprentice
Canada
66 Posts |
Posted - Mar 25 2012 : 11:11:44 AM
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Sooooooo, I got two sets of LED lightbulbs to replace the signals on my KLR650. I got a set from superbrightled and I got another cheaper set off ebay at a quarter of the price. I am going to do a writeup for my adventure riding forum and I will post a watered down version for you guys here. But right off the bat, I can see that the conventional filament bulbs are brighter than the 45 LED tower bulbs I got. I have an old Canon AE1 with a light meter in it that I hope to use as some kind of qualitative measurement between three types of bulbs.
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Life is like a box of farkles |
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Sittin On Tha Toilet
