First I thought April 1 (April Fools day), 2017 would be a good day to shoot for completion. Then I spent a few of the project bucks on an unrelated deal I couldn't pass up and that pushed it to March 1st. Now, I'm thinking I'll push it out another another year and a half or so.
If I finish it for my 60th birthday on October 7, 2018, I could easily squirrel away a couple more grand, make it my pièce de résistance finale and no financial concerns would be any the wiser. Not only would that give me more liquidity to work with, but also give the bleeding edge tech a few months to coagulate.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what Intel comes up with for their Optane 3D XPoint. In 2017 we could see it used in conjunction with PCIe 4.0 NVMe x4 M.2. The motherboards with their new 200-series chipset, codenamed "Union Point," that will be able to take full advantage of it, haven't even been previewed yet (AFAIK). This will also give a little breathing room for USB 3.1 Gen 2 to develop a better footing. Plus we could have a better handle on how Cannonlake is stacking up by then as well. We can't go too far beyond the next die shrink before quantum tunneling starts to become a concern.
Any way you look at it, we are on the verge of a rarely seen technological confluence of innovations in personal computing over the next two years. Depending on what's on offer, this could be a good time for a nice microATX build. I'll be keeping a close eye things for a bit longer than originally expected, but I think the cost/benefit ratio will pay out.
EDIT (1/17/2017):
I think I'm going to be going with the Coffee Lake - X chip. It should be available close to when I'll be ready to build...give or take a little bit. Waiting a little longer for it won't be a big deal if I need to. The form factor and computer case are going to be the hardest decisions.
A mostly benighted mélange of observations, perspectives and periodic rants, but, of course, I think I'm right. Otherwise, I would think something completely different.
Saturday, April 2, 2016
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Computer Build II: First thoughts
I almost forgot I had this blog. I was considering where to jot down a few notes on my next computer build and had one of those "...Oh...yeah..." moments.
It looks like my plan to put off building a new computer until March of 2017 is going to work out perfectly...well almost. My budget would have been accumulating on schedule, had I not dipped into it to purchase a couple irresistible deals, but I should be able to make it up in time (I'm usually a little OCD about compartmentalizing my funds. Maybe I'm cured). If not, I'll just have to wait until May or so. No biggie.
I might want to wait a little while longer anyway to see how the new tech is vetting and being priced before committing to a schedule. I do want to have it finished before the 2017 holiday season, however.
Originally, I thought I might be looking at a Skylake or even a Cannon Lake chip, but now it's looking like Kaby Lake is going to be taking that spot. That's okay. It always seems like a new die shrink has a few bugs to work out in the manufacturing and quality control areas and Kaby Lake is going to be a refresh of sorts in the 14 nm arena. I don't know. I guess that might help the churn go a little smoother. We'll see.
While Kaby Lake is compatible with the current generation of motherboards with the LGA 1151 socket, Intel is supposed to be releasing a new chip-set (200 series) at the same time as the new CPU and those motherboards aren't out yet AFAIK. I can't really plan too much further ahead without first deciding which motherboard I want to stick it in. We'll just have to wait. It looks like there is going to be a confluence of new tech all hitting at the same time. This might be fun...and research intensive.
It looks like my plan to put off building a new computer until March of 2017 is going to work out perfectly...well almost. My budget would have been accumulating on schedule, had I not dipped into it to purchase a couple irresistible deals, but I should be able to make it up in time (I'm usually a little OCD about compartmentalizing my funds. Maybe I'm cured). If not, I'll just have to wait until May or so. No biggie.
I might want to wait a little while longer anyway to see how the new tech is vetting and being priced before committing to a schedule. I do want to have it finished before the 2017 holiday season, however.
Originally, I thought I might be looking at a Skylake or even a Cannon Lake chip, but now it's looking like Kaby Lake is going to be taking that spot. That's okay. It always seems like a new die shrink has a few bugs to work out in the manufacturing and quality control areas and Kaby Lake is going to be a refresh of sorts in the 14 nm arena. I don't know. I guess that might help the churn go a little smoother. We'll see.
While Kaby Lake is compatible with the current generation of motherboards with the LGA 1151 socket, Intel is supposed to be releasing a new chip-set (200 series) at the same time as the new CPU and those motherboards aren't out yet AFAIK. I can't really plan too much further ahead without first deciding which motherboard I want to stick it in. We'll just have to wait. It looks like there is going to be a confluence of new tech all hitting at the same time. This might be fun...and research intensive.
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Pamela Geller Unsurprised and Unprepaired
Apparently, Pamela Geller is upset over a dearth of white knights.
Of course, you should have every right to flaunt your freedoms, if that's what you want to do, but you should anticipate the consequences and accept the personal responsibility of preparing for them.
When someone has a well establish track record of following through on their lethal threats against people who commit X and you are bound and determined to telegraph your intentions to commit X in the most ostentatious way you can think of, don't be surprised when that someone shows up with a case of the red ass when you are committing X. This is a no-brainer, people.
Furthermore, if you are not personally willing to kill and die for what you believe in, what is the justification for expecting someone else, who may or may not share your beliefs, to do it for you?
The perfectly reasonable expectation of a pervasive relativistic social mindset is an exponentially increasing number of people who don't give a shit about your beliefs and see no practical utility in killing or dying for your right to express them.
Monday, May 4, 2015
Am I Always Right?
My daughter once accused me, when she was just entering those teen years. "You think you're always right!", she said in a huff as she was storming off to her room. Naturally, I followed her and explained the difference between always thinking you're right and thinking you're always right. The former is just what people do. It's a subtle distinction, but people proceed as if they're right, always. Some of us proceed more confidently with that assumption than others, but it's a perfectly natural thing to do. And, with that same underlying assumption, we opine. It's normal. I can't even imagine what it would be like trying to navigate life with a predominant assumption of being wrong.
Thinking you're always right is a different matter. It implies a deluded sense of infallibility. I've met people with that personality disorder, but they are nearly always emotionally invested in their correctness. Their very identity is wrapped up in it. It affects them greatly to discover they were patently wrong about something. For some reason, unfathomable to me, it embarrasses them to be wrong. These are the people that will make shit up and state it as known fact rather than simply prefacing it with a caveat that they are merely speculating. You will never hear these sorts of people say, "I don't know". I don't have that problem. In the realm of possible knowledge, I don't know most of what is knowable and neither do you. Further, I think there is a plethora of information that simply isn't knowable by anyone confined by this shared corporeal/temporal existence.
I doesn't bother me in the slightest to be wrong or to confess my ignorance. The sooner I can find out I'm wrong about something the better. Then I can make the proper adjustments and proceed as if I'm right again. If I'm wrong about something, show me how and why. Change my mind. It won't hurt my feelings. I have no intrinsic feelings about my rightness. If I clearly don't have all the facts and you do, give them to me. I'll adjust.
I'm smart enough to realize just how little I know in the grand scheme of things. Are you?
Thinking you're always right is a different matter. It implies a deluded sense of infallibility. I've met people with that personality disorder, but they are nearly always emotionally invested in their correctness. Their very identity is wrapped up in it. It affects them greatly to discover they were patently wrong about something. For some reason, unfathomable to me, it embarrasses them to be wrong. These are the people that will make shit up and state it as known fact rather than simply prefacing it with a caveat that they are merely speculating. You will never hear these sorts of people say, "I don't know". I don't have that problem. In the realm of possible knowledge, I don't know most of what is knowable and neither do you. Further, I think there is a plethora of information that simply isn't knowable by anyone confined by this shared corporeal/temporal existence.
I doesn't bother me in the slightest to be wrong or to confess my ignorance. The sooner I can find out I'm wrong about something the better. Then I can make the proper adjustments and proceed as if I'm right again. If I'm wrong about something, show me how and why. Change my mind. It won't hurt my feelings. I have no intrinsic feelings about my rightness. If I clearly don't have all the facts and you do, give them to me. I'll adjust.
I'm smart enough to realize just how little I know in the grand scheme of things. Are you?
Monday, March 2, 2015
A Dream that wasn't a Dream.
A little less than 20 years ago, I had a dream that was unlike any dream I've had before or since. I remember every detail and sensation as vividly today as I did at the time I was dreaming it. It's still crystal clear and that alone makes it unusual.
Like most people, I think, the memory of my dreams are often muddled and vague or not remembered at all. Occasionally, I'll have a vivid dream where I'll remember everything including colors, smells, sounds and so forth. I've certainly had and remember much longer dreams that were more complex, full of impossible characters and bizarre events making them, in principle, subjectively more memorable. I once dreamed an entire non-existent movie staring Robin Williams and John Malkovich. It was good too. But I've never had any dreams that came close to impacting me the way this very brief and comparatively uneventful one I'm going to tell you about did.
In this particular dream, I had the distinct and profound impression that it was an encounter with a messenger from God. Since 1998, no more than a few days at a time have gone by without this dream coming to my mind. Not in an obsessive way where I ponder it for hours on end, but in a more annoying sort of way, like a faint itch you would like to be able to scratch, but can't quite pinpoint.
I shared this dream online once before, about 8 or 9 years after I first had it and was a little surprised that, just before posting this, I was able to find it still archived there all these years later.
In light of events in the Middle East in general and in Jordan in particular, I'm compelled to share it once again with the unmistakable feeling that time is running short and someone who needs to stumble across it will. So, here goes.
First, I think it's important to keep in mind that I had this dream when it was rare for the average person to come across specifically relevant and geographically recognizable satellite imagery. It was long before the advent of Google Maps. I had no previous real context for this dream, but I somehow instinctively knew at what I was looking.
I was looking down from what I now know from google Maps to be about 20 miles above the earth at the Dead Sea and surrounding area and it was live; not like a picture. I could see the clouds and their shadows on the earth moving across the landscape below. I wasn't in my body. I could only see and hear. I had no sense of touch. There was a huge arm and hand with a finger pointing down to what I was somehow positive was not just the general area, but a very specific area that I have circled in red on the map below and I heard a kind, but authoritative masculine voice say, "This is where it will begin." and I knew he meant the Time of Jacob's Trouble or the Great Tribulation. After a short pause he added, "A ball within a ball - that's the secret." And that was the end of it.
I wasn't given or impressed with any other information or any way of interpreting what I had seen, heard and what I can only describe as impressed with. It's difficult to convey the magnitude of the profound significance I felt this dream had while I was dreaming it and still feel about it today.
At the time, I looked through my bibles at the maps to try and understand what it meant, but couldn't find anything I thought was relevant. It wasn't until years later when I was able to access Google Maps on the internet that I learned there was actually a city there. And I was blown away when I discovered it was a city that is today called Karak, Kerak or Al-Karak and was mentioned in bible prophecy as Qer Harreseth, Kir-haraseth or Kir of Moab (the capital city of Moab). Relevant biblical prophesies can be found in Isaiah 15 and Jeremiah 48.
The thing that brought this dream back into focus for me was the news reports of the burning alive of the Jordanian pilot by ISIS. The photo below shows the father of the pilot, Saif al-Kaseasbeh (dressed in black), attending a meeting with senior Jordanian military officers at the family clan's headquarters located in...you guessed it... the city of Karak, Jordan. This together with the possibility of Iran getting a nuclear weapon and that whole mysterious "A ball within a ball - that's the secret." reference has me feeling a little apprehensive of late.
I don't pretend to know what, if anything, any of this means. If the dream actually was prophetic, for all I know it could be regarding events that will take place tomorrow or 1000 years from now. I simply don't know, but thought, if it truly turns out to be prophetic, that it is incumbent on me to share it again now, for the sake of documentation if nothing else.
One last thing. when I previously shared this dream online I quoted the voice as having said "A sphere within a sphere within a sphere...", but that was just my ego embellishing because for some reason I though it was more like what an angelic messenger from God should have said instead. It wasn't. "Ball" was the exact word that was used and it was only one ball within a ball. Oh well, add it to the list of stupid shit I've done over my lifetime.
Like most people, I think, the memory of my dreams are often muddled and vague or not remembered at all. Occasionally, I'll have a vivid dream where I'll remember everything including colors, smells, sounds and so forth. I've certainly had and remember much longer dreams that were more complex, full of impossible characters and bizarre events making them, in principle, subjectively more memorable. I once dreamed an entire non-existent movie staring Robin Williams and John Malkovich. It was good too. But I've never had any dreams that came close to impacting me the way this very brief and comparatively uneventful one I'm going to tell you about did.
In this particular dream, I had the distinct and profound impression that it was an encounter with a messenger from God. Since 1998, no more than a few days at a time have gone by without this dream coming to my mind. Not in an obsessive way where I ponder it for hours on end, but in a more annoying sort of way, like a faint itch you would like to be able to scratch, but can't quite pinpoint.
I shared this dream online once before, about 8 or 9 years after I first had it and was a little surprised that, just before posting this, I was able to find it still archived there all these years later.
In light of events in the Middle East in general and in Jordan in particular, I'm compelled to share it once again with the unmistakable feeling that time is running short and someone who needs to stumble across it will. So, here goes.
First, I think it's important to keep in mind that I had this dream when it was rare for the average person to come across specifically relevant and geographically recognizable satellite imagery. It was long before the advent of Google Maps. I had no previous real context for this dream, but I somehow instinctively knew at what I was looking.
I was looking down from what I now know from google Maps to be about 20 miles above the earth at the Dead Sea and surrounding area and it was live; not like a picture. I could see the clouds and their shadows on the earth moving across the landscape below. I wasn't in my body. I could only see and hear. I had no sense of touch. There was a huge arm and hand with a finger pointing down to what I was somehow positive was not just the general area, but a very specific area that I have circled in red on the map below and I heard a kind, but authoritative masculine voice say, "This is where it will begin." and I knew he meant the Time of Jacob's Trouble or the Great Tribulation. After a short pause he added, "A ball within a ball - that's the secret." And that was the end of it.
I wasn't given or impressed with any other information or any way of interpreting what I had seen, heard and what I can only describe as impressed with. It's difficult to convey the magnitude of the profound significance I felt this dream had while I was dreaming it and still feel about it today.
At the time, I looked through my bibles at the maps to try and understand what it meant, but couldn't find anything I thought was relevant. It wasn't until years later when I was able to access Google Maps on the internet that I learned there was actually a city there. And I was blown away when I discovered it was a city that is today called Karak, Kerak or Al-Karak and was mentioned in bible prophecy as Qer Harreseth, Kir-haraseth or Kir of Moab (the capital city of Moab). Relevant biblical prophesies can be found in Isaiah 15 and Jeremiah 48.
The thing that brought this dream back into focus for me was the news reports of the burning alive of the Jordanian pilot by ISIS. The photo below shows the father of the pilot, Saif al-Kaseasbeh (dressed in black), attending a meeting with senior Jordanian military officers at the family clan's headquarters located in...you guessed it... the city of Karak, Jordan. This together with the possibility of Iran getting a nuclear weapon and that whole mysterious "A ball within a ball - that's the secret." reference has me feeling a little apprehensive of late.
I don't pretend to know what, if anything, any of this means. If the dream actually was prophetic, for all I know it could be regarding events that will take place tomorrow or 1000 years from now. I simply don't know, but thought, if it truly turns out to be prophetic, that it is incumbent on me to share it again now, for the sake of documentation if nothing else.
One last thing. when I previously shared this dream online I quoted the voice as having said "A sphere within a sphere within a sphere...", but that was just my ego embellishing because for some reason I though it was more like what an angelic messenger from God should have said instead. It wasn't. "Ball" was the exact word that was used and it was only one ball within a ball. Oh well, add it to the list of stupid shit I've done over my lifetime.
Sunday, August 31, 2014
Computer Build #3: Making a plan.
Well, I'm getting the itch to build another computer on a budget...faster and better than the last. No small feat for me, but with a limited budget you can't just jump in and start throwing stuff together. You need a plan with objectives, defined parameters and a realistic schedule of purchases.
For a starting point, I'm going to tentatively allow that this build will cost about $3000. Barring any unforeseen emergencies, I should be able to scrounge that together in such a way as to go unnoticed over the course of about 30 months. This means I won't be able to complete this build until mid 2017 or so. That's okay because the technology coming down the pike won't be sufficiently vetted by the public until around that time. DDR4, M.2 NGFF SF3700 SSD, i7 Skylake-K (or possibly 10 nanometer Cannonlake), Nvidia Maxwell GTX 980 Ti and Intel's 100 series chipsets (Union Point 200-Series chipset for Cannonlake...I think) should be thoroughly tested and reviewed by then. In the meantime, I need to start considering what form factor I want to go with. Will passive cooling be sufficient?
...to be continued.
For a starting point, I'm going to tentatively allow that this build will cost about $3000. Barring any unforeseen emergencies, I should be able to scrounge that together in such a way as to go unnoticed over the course of about 30 months. This means I won't be able to complete this build until mid 2017 or so. That's okay because the technology coming down the pike won't be sufficiently vetted by the public until around that time. DDR4, M.2 NGFF SF3700 SSD, i7 Skylake-K (or possibly 10 nanometer Cannonlake), Nvidia Maxwell GTX 980 Ti and Intel's 100 series chipsets (Union Point 200-Series chipset for Cannonlake...I think) should be thoroughly tested and reviewed by then. In the meantime, I need to start considering what form factor I want to go with. Will passive cooling be sufficient?
...to be continued.
I'm Too Lazy
I'm a lazy writer. Most people are. The written word is both the blessing and bane of the internet. It's a blessing when good and thoughtful writers use the medium to freely convey vast amounts of useful information, experience and opinion to the masses. It a bane when I and people like me think we can write a clumsy sentence or two and expect people to be able to extrapolate the true intent and the sometimes complex and subtle character of what we were only half heartedly trying to really say.
For instance, someone recently wrote me and gave a very brief synopsis of one small aspect of their beliefs and I responded with something like, "We need to have a long talk about that." when what I really meant to say was that I wanted to spend more time discussing it so I could gain more than just a superficial understanding of and a deeper insight into their perspectives. In retrospect I can see how what I actually wrote would probably be interpreted as meaning something like, "I would like the opportunity to correct your thinking.", but that was the furthest thing from my mind. Well, I'll probably get the chance to clear this up before too long, but that's not always the case.
This is how misunderstandings get started and develop into animus and sometimes into outright hostilities on the internet. I really need to take just a little more time to write out what I really mean. It doesn't take that much more effort and would probably be immensely more economical and efficient in the grand scheme of things. The apparent easy way is seldom what it seems, I suppose.
For instance, someone recently wrote me and gave a very brief synopsis of one small aspect of their beliefs and I responded with something like, "We need to have a long talk about that." when what I really meant to say was that I wanted to spend more time discussing it so I could gain more than just a superficial understanding of and a deeper insight into their perspectives. In retrospect I can see how what I actually wrote would probably be interpreted as meaning something like, "I would like the opportunity to correct your thinking.", but that was the furthest thing from my mind. Well, I'll probably get the chance to clear this up before too long, but that's not always the case.
This is how misunderstandings get started and develop into animus and sometimes into outright hostilities on the internet. I really need to take just a little more time to write out what I really mean. It doesn't take that much more effort and would probably be immensely more economical and efficient in the grand scheme of things. The apparent easy way is seldom what it seems, I suppose.
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