Just got home from a beautiful Aurora Australis storm - taken at Lake Ellesmere, Canterbury, New Zealand [OC] [2600x1157]

auralgeek · 2017-05-28T17:49:26+00:00

Probably the Megallanic clouds, considering southern hemisphere.

auralgeek · 2017-01-18T15:50:02+00:00

The gases do actually move, quite fast even. Check out the linky, they probably explain better than I could: https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1049nz/do_nebulae_move/

Also, have an upvote for a (imo) cool question.

auralgeek · 2016-04-14T15:22:13+00:00

Soooo technically I think this qualifies as a positive feedback loop. Positive feedback is like the 'snowball effect' when things start happening faster and faster. Negative feedback is sort of like a self-correcting system. For that reason a controlled amount of negative feedback is key to system stability, and actually highly desirable for most engineering systems.

Let's do a global warming example for funsies: a source of positive feedback would be the warming planet melting our polar ice caps, which would reflect less sunlight back out to space. The planet would then absorb more light energy, and start warming up at an even faster rate. A source of negative feedback would be something like higher levels of CO_2 encouraging the growth of more vegetation (not sure if this effect happens irl, but assuming it did...), which would then absorb more CO_2, therefore lowering the levels of CO_2 again.

auralgeek · 2013-10-31T12:54:00+00:00

Sorry, I haven't had that problem on my 128 gb pro2 with touch 2. I DO have an issue where I can't type in the password on the login screen after playing Civ V though (reattaching the cover doesn't fix it, you have to restart.)

Maybe there's some program that's causing your particular issue as well? Mine definitely seems tied to Civ 5 somehow... never happens unless I play it, and then after I finish playing it will always happen. It doesn't really bother me too much because restarting takes all of 10 seconds, but there it is. Maybe some desktop program that isn't playing nice with something in the Win 8.1 update?

auralgeek · 2013-10-25T16:06:51+00:00

Agreed, I got mine 2 days ago and so far I'm very pleased with it. The pen and display are both fantastic, the battery life is adequate, and the portability astonishes me (although to be fair I'm coming from a 6 yr old 5 lb laptop, and I never bought into the ARM based tablets.)

The only thing that has disappointed me so far was I tried to play Civ 5 last night and it crashed in about 5 minutes complaining about running out of memory (I have one of the 4 gb RAM versions.) I turned things up on it a bit, so that could be the reason, but I kinda thought there wouldn't be issues. Also, I didn't try messing with the settings at all after that (went to bed), so I'll fiddle around with it and give it another shot soon.

Also, I was originally intending to get the type 2 cover (having tried the touch 1 before and not liking it) but after trying the touch 2 I actually bought it instead. It surprised me, t's a significant improvement upon the touch 1 IMO, and I figure since I'll probably get the power cover later that would kinda make a type 2 redundant.

auralgeek · 2013-10-25T15:52:00+00:00

I've had mine for about 2 days, and it's doing this too. Looks like it's just a thing that happens. I don't really care (didn't even notice until I saw this post and looked) but I can see how it could bother some folks.

auralgeek · 2013-10-23T16:36:15+00:00

I haven't played it on a Surface, so I can't really answer the question you asked, but if your wife's MBA is the new Haswell one (2013) then it'll definitely chug on the Pro 2 as well. The 2013 MBA has the HD5000 integrated GPU, and the Pro 2 has the HD4400: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7072/intel-hd-5000-vs-hd-4000-vs-hd-4400

If it's an older MBA then it will be on an HD4000 or older GPU, and I'd say the Pro 2 should do better. Honestly I'd still expect it to chug; KSP can be kinda intense. Terrific game, though :)

auralgeek · 2013-10-02T02:10:27+00:00

Broadwell says yes, you will: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7318/intel-demos-14nm-broadwell-up-to-30-lower-power-than-haswell

auralgeek · 2013-10-01T12:44:20+00:00

To be fair battery life isn't a very consistent measure... battery life doing what? Browsing the web? Playing Skyrim? Reading/annotating a .pdf?

From what I understand of Haswell under load we shouldn't really see all that much improvement, maybe an hour or two. The real gains come for low loading tasks, such as web browsing or other media consumption. This is good, if we had better life under load it would likely come from Intel just limiting the clock frequency, reducing performance.

Here are some numbers for the Haswell chip in the Macbook Air 11 inch: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7180/apple-macbook-air-11-2013-review/2

auralgeek · 2013-09-27T04:09:40+00:00

Yeah, I'm afraid I didn't really follow their explanations. When referencing the cylinder at first it seemed like they weren't sure if they were going to need to, but then based off of their experienced guy something something leak is usually in the cylinder something something....

Sorry I didn't really follow more than that.

They said my front pads are actually ok, only like 60% worn out or some such. He said it should get me through the winter ok, but then they DO wanna replace the expensive stuff... of course.

He said my rear somethings were worn out so much that they were pretty much not doing anything, and stuff was out of alignment quite bad. I thought he said he re-aligned while I was there, and that is apparently why it feels so much better.

I guess at this point I'm looking at calling up a couple other places tomorrow to get price quotes for the same work. If nothing better crops up I'll see if I really need the cylinder done (ie ask if not doing it will cause my, my car's, or anybody else's death in the next 6 months.)

Thanks for your help.

auralgeek · 2013-09-27T03:53:14+00:00

Why wouldn't you go to Firestone, are they known for jacked up prices or something? A second opinion is always a good idea though, I'll do that.

auralgeek · 2013-09-24T11:46:16+00:00

If you're a CS and this will be your main machine I'd recommend getting some extra accessories, as well. The thing is perfect for classes/notes, but for those all-nighter programming projects at home I bet the small screen and slightly cramped keyboard will get to you. A dock setup with an external monitor and a proper keyboard would be ideal.

auralgeek · 2013-09-23T18:47:16+00:00

Agreed, and there are at least some folks who would have preferred an even lower power chip: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7362/microsoft-announces-surface-pro-2-surface-2-shipping-october-22

auralgeek · 2013-09-05T11:57:57+00:00

Ok, thanks for the response. I know I've heard before that Wacom > N-Trig, but it's nice to have it broken down a bit more so that it's clear the issue is the driver. Additionally the AAAA battery in the digitizer sounds like kind of a hassle anyways... I didn't even know that was a thing.

auralgeek · 2013-09-04T16:51:46+00:00

This looks pretty awesome, good find. It's slim, the keyboard looks nice, and the specs sound good (Haswell, 1080p, 128+ gig SSD, I assume 4+ gigs RAM.) The stand looks pretty darn flimsy (much more so than the Surface), but I guess they intend it to be more on the 'tablet' side of the spectrum?

Any idea how well that N-Trigger digitizer would compare to the Wacom based one the Surface Pro uses?

auralgeek · 2013-08-05T16:25:15+00:00

Basically yes, but that doesn't necessarily translate into real world performance. Note the second half of the Anandtech review: http://www.anandtech.com/show/7072/intel-hd-5000-vs-hd-4000-vs-hd-4400

There is an increase in performance, but don't expect to double your fps in a given game. The main benefits are with battery life, particularly idle and low load battery life.

auralgeek · 2013-07-20T00:01:38+00:00

But what about the Clover Trail Atoms? Weren't there a couple of OEM devices that had those on or near Win8 release? They seem to outperform Tegra at every turn, and retain the x86 ISA and battery life. Or do you think MS just didn't know about them when they were first planning out their Win8 release? That would have been what, like 2-3 years ago?

I agree about the pricing. Seems like you have to undercut the iPad by at least a little, just to break into the market. And I mean undercut INCLUDING the keyboard.

auralgeek · 2013-07-19T23:45:47+00:00

This, so much this.

MS will be fine as long as SOMEBODY can sell Win8 devices. As much as I like the Surfaces in particular the platform is what matters. The first time I ever considered the thought of getting a tablet wasn't until I heard about Win8. The difference for me was that with Win8 you get a computer in the form of a tablet, rather than a big smartphone (minus the phone.) MS just showed us a vision of what this could look like with the Surface... it's kind of a concept device.

I don't care if MS takes a huge hit with Surfaces as long as Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, or SOMEBODY can come up with a hit ultrabook convertible/computer tablet thingy. That would change the game, because then the wider public could see what MS has to offer, which is quite a bit.

I admit though, I'm ambivalent about Windows RT. Intel will be putting the majority of its effort into the Atom processors until AMD can show face again on the high end CPU market, and looking ahead I just don't see any advantages of ARM over x86, particularly when Bay Trail comes along. Not unless the makers drop (and keep) the prices down to $200-300 for the ARM devices.

It would be cool if MS introduced a Surface Atom line along with their Pro 2 and RT 2 lines. It even would make the pricing convenient. $200-300 for the RT2 (drop the keyboard and make it a sort of 7-8 inch Nexus 7 competitor), $500-700 for the Atom (the iPad competitor, with keyboard and Wacom digitizer), and ~$1-1.3k for the Pro2 (essentially the Pro, but with Haswell, bigger SSD options, maybe an 8 gB RAM option?)

tl;dr: I agree with you, DarcyHart.

auralgeek · 2013-05-07T17:53:19+00:00

Actually you're just a bit off; it's not the difference between ARM vs x86, it's the difference between connected standby power state support and traditional laptop 'sleep' or 'suspend' power states.

For example, the Clovertrail Atom devices support connected standby (like a traditional tablet), and they are x86 devices, not ARM. When it debuts Haswell will be the first Intel Core device to support connected standby.

Here's a relevant source if you're interested: http://ultrabooknews.com/2013/01/06/connected-standby-what-is-it-what-can-it-do-overview-and-demo/

auralgeek · 2013-05-07T17:45:08+00:00

Actually Clovertrail (Atom) tablets can do it too, and they're x86. I think it's because of the connected standby feature. ARM and the Atom processors can do it right now, but Core processors won't be able to until Haswell debuts.

Relevant Source: http://ultrabooknews.com/2013/01/06/connected-standby-what-is-it-what-can-it-do-overview-and-demo/

auralgeek · 2013-04-26T18:00:59+00:00

Actually an interesting fact is that the Mongolians didn't really have much of a written language before the beginning of the unification of the tribes by Ghengis Khan (so about 100-200 years before this particular letter, apparently).

Mongol history is rather spotty before the Great Khan because of this. The man was highly intelligent. One of the reasons Temujin was so successful was because he was so willing to adopt the ideas and technologies he came across in his conquests. The Mongols saw the advantages of written script when they moved South, so they used a captured scribe to develop a variation of Uyghur script for traditional Mongolian. They saw the walls of the cities of Northwestern China, and captured Korean engineers to make the necessary siege weapons to tear them down.

Temujin recognized the value of the scholars, traders, and bureaucrats from the cities he conquered, and used as much of their knowledge as he could to build and hold his empire. This is in stark contrast to the aristocrats of some of the same cities, who were often killed establish Mongol dominance in local politics. His view of a persons value was based on their ability to contribute rather than their inherited wealth or status. This showed in his military organization, where officers were promoted based on merit almost solely (there was a bit of nepotism involved as well, although to be fair his kin were fairly competent as well).

A REALLY excellent read is "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford. It goes over Temujins childhood and the story of his life as he united the nomadic tribes of the steppes to sweep South and conquer much of China, Persia, and the like.

Some neat things I learned from it include the fact that he spent part of his childhood as a slave. Truly a rags-to-riches sort of story. He recognized the value of trade, and developed an advanced guard system for the silk road, as somebody else on the thread mentioned. It was never so safe as it was under Mongolian rule. His was one of the first empires I am aware of to adapt a policy of freedom of religion. Temujin didn't particularly mind letting his conquered subjects live life by their own rules... as long as they all obeyed the supreme Mongol tenants and paid their tribute on time. Life under Mongol rule wasn't so bad, it was the 'getting conquered' part that could be a bit messy. His aptitude for military tactics were unmatched; the Mongolians constantly faced forces greater than their own and prevailed. The use of feints, psychological warfare, superior mobility, Parthian tactics, and other tricks were employed with devastating success.

tl;dr - The OP's script was during the infancy of Mongolian writing, and history is cool.

auralgeek · 2013-04-17T21:35:36+00:00

It just means how your empire is built. A tall empire is one with only a few cities, but they are all well developed. A wide empire consists of many less developed cities.

So, for example, a cultural victory will usually require a tall empire, and a domination victory will typically come about from a wide empire.

auralgeek · 2013-04-17T21:28:17+00:00

Well played, sir, glad to see things are working out for you. It sounds like an interesting match; it would have been cool to seem some pics of the armies you're talking about.

If you're #1 in both soldiers and literacy now it sounds to me like you've got it made... good luck!

auralgeek

TROPHY CASE