Friday, October 31, 2008
Madscience!
Just as a side note, I've become increasingly aware of the fact that I sincerely desire to become something of a mad scientist.
Now that my ceaseless ranting with the choice of a new laptop had come to an end, I have to rant on the laptop I've chosen... A little pathetic, but this is what I do for relaxation after five or so straight hours of tweaking OS for work and crunching numbers on mathematica at the same time... Whatever the though provoking posts I have usually go on the bookhling.wordpress.com... Livejournal is strictly for venting steam and ranting for typing's sake. I love how laptops have 'Full performance mode' that can be further tweaked to give performance far more improved from the basic paper specs. I've been subjecting this laptop to so much workload that it's already beginning to stutter a bit when in any mode less than the modified 'full performance', which is no mean fit I tell you. I'm running simulations fit for a fully featured workstation.
So far the laptop experience had been satisfying. Certainly leaps and bounds better than the EEEpc 701 I've been using exclusively for past month or two. I love the keyboard. When they rave about the keyboard on Thinkpads, they aren't kidding around. This is a keyboard you can write your dissertations on... Though this 14 incher keyboard is slightly large for me, but that may be simply because I've been using the EEEpc's keyboards for too long.
The Vista continues to annoy the hell out of me. I do admit that there is a certain degree of innocent joy in being able to tinker with your new computer for the first time, but the problem is I need to use this computer for work, and I need to work in more than one OS. Not to mention that this particular tinkering with Vista isn't to make things better, it's to make thing work...
Of course, I must add that the Vista SP1 is solid as a rock, and I've been throwing a whole lot of work load at it lately, so I think you can trust me on that issue... Vista is good at what it does (for the most part), it's only that the majority of the computing world doesn't seem to be its target audience.
Ugh, I really should stop writing about computers, but I can't help it. I think I haven't read a decent book in weeks, it's bringing this odd cramping sensation to my brain.... I really need to find something good to read.
So far the laptop experience had been satisfying. Certainly leaps and bounds better than the EEEpc 701 I've been using exclusively for past month or two. I love the keyboard. When they rave about the keyboard on Thinkpads, they aren't kidding around. This is a keyboard you can write your dissertations on... Though this 14 incher keyboard is slightly large for me, but that may be simply because I've been using the EEEpc's keyboards for too long.
The Vista continues to annoy the hell out of me. I do admit that there is a certain degree of innocent joy in being able to tinker with your new computer for the first time, but the problem is I need to use this computer for work, and I need to work in more than one OS. Not to mention that this particular tinkering with Vista isn't to make things better, it's to make thing work...
Of course, I must add that the Vista SP1 is solid as a rock, and I've been throwing a whole lot of work load at it lately, so I think you can trust me on that issue... Vista is good at what it does (for the most part), it's only that the majority of the computing world doesn't seem to be its target audience.
Ugh, I really should stop writing about computers, but I can't help it. I think I haven't read a decent book in weeks, it's bringing this odd cramping sensation to my brain.... I really need to find something good to read.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
The T400 is here.
Well, only a day after the shipment notice, I have the T400 in my hands. I'm actually writing this on my new laptop right now.
The construction and design of the chassis definitely shows the signs of being targeted at 'Business' class of users, which I'm beginning to take to mean as people who need to earn their living using computers. Yes. this computer is very reliable, and various human interfaces buttons and their layouts show careful thought and experience on allowing for greater efficiency on the part of the user. I'm new at this particular layout and am still stumbling along, but someone who are used to this particular shortcut/keyboard layout will probably be able to get a lot of work done in a fraction of the time most people would take on 'normal' layout, i.e. those commonly seen on most Dell/Toshiba laptops.
The screen is very bright, very crisp. The webcam is of acceptable quality, nothing to be writing home about. The keyboard is spill-resistant, and the tactile feedback is marvelous. I find this to be even better than the full-size keyboard I use at the lab, and definitely light years ahead of the Asus mini keyboard I've been forced to use exclusively during my leisure. Despite my worries, the size of the laptop is not as large as I thought it would be. And the weight is surprisingly light for its size. I don't really feel any real-life difference between the T400 and the MacBook I tested in the Apple store. I fell comfortable swinging this computer with one hand.
The performance is as expected, it should be considering the extensive amount of research I had to do before ordering this thing. >.> The processing speed is certainly better than my old XPS 1210, and the graphics performance is better by leaps and bounds, though I do need to perform a bit more tests later on (work comes first, right?). I am somewhat saddened by the fact that this laptop is only slightly better performing than the MacBook, (2.0 vs 2.3 ghz, ~2100 3Dmark 06 vs ~2500) but then this laptop cost me 300 dollars less for more performance, so I'm not complaining...
If there's one thing I can't stand about my brand new laptop, it's the windows Vista. Now, I'm not the one to be subject to fanboyism for a particular brand of OS simply for aesthetic preferences or menu interfaces. I regularly use all sorts of operating systems due to the nature of scientific computing, with varying degrees of proficiency... And speaking from the experience, windows series operating systems must be the most irrational and difficult operating system to handle for any sort of hard-core computing on the market. I've spent nearly four whole hours into tweaking the system so it can run the programs required for the labwork, and I'm still not finished. I still need to hunt down a few obscure wrappers and modified shells, and some of them are of different version from what I actually need, so I'm looking at some version incompatibility headaches in the future. If I was on OS X, or Linux, I'd be able to simply apt-get the required programs and let the built-in systems handle the rest... I admit that those platforms entail their own brand of headache-inducing issues, but I think it'll be far less than what I would have to encounter while using Vista. (Being able to use exe installer for python is nice, but needing to fix every single pathway by hand isn't. It's much better than I remember but it's still an issue that shouldn't even exist in the first place.)
The worst crime of all, this Vista gobbles up system resources like there is no tomorrow! Thinkpads have advertised battery life of six hours, so I was expecting at least five hours of wifi using work performance. Well, so far I haven't seen the battery life timer rise beyond the four hour mark, with the six cell extended battery. Considering that the MacBook gets 4.5 hours in OS X using similarly specced hardware and lower capacity batteries, this is simply ridiculous. I'm currently trying to find all sorts of tweaks and peripheral programs I can add on to Vista for near-advertised battery life, which is in itself a ridiculous endeavor the user should not be subjected to in the first place. I want an operating system that doesn't make its own user spend hours 'fixing it' so it can do what it's supposed to do in the first place. This is SP1 version, so it is supposedly significantly improved over the original release of Vista.
For Vista's credit, however, the interface is much cleaner than the XP version I've been using for years. The general program-side design and performance definitely felt improved, though not quite mature. Despite all the negative press (generated primarily by Apple and people with no knowledge of computers), Vista will prove to be a decent, if not good operating system on Desktops where you don't quite have to worry about limited battery life and component devices... The failure of Vista isn't quite the failure of software engineering. It's the failure of software execs who failed to predict the trend of the personal computers market.
The increased screen estate is certainly welcome. I can have a lot of stuff on screen and running all at once on this brand new system with 1440x900 resolution... Less than the 30 in screen at the lab, but more than useable on a laptop.
All in all, I love this laptop. The Vista woes might be remedied by installing a partition of Linux on it. I'll write something up on that process later.
The construction and design of the chassis definitely shows the signs of being targeted at 'Business' class of users, which I'm beginning to take to mean as people who need to earn their living using computers. Yes. this computer is very reliable, and various human interfaces buttons and their layouts show careful thought and experience on allowing for greater efficiency on the part of the user. I'm new at this particular layout and am still stumbling along, but someone who are used to this particular shortcut/keyboard layout will probably be able to get a lot of work done in a fraction of the time most people would take on 'normal' layout, i.e. those commonly seen on most Dell/Toshiba laptops.
The screen is very bright, very crisp. The webcam is of acceptable quality, nothing to be writing home about. The keyboard is spill-resistant, and the tactile feedback is marvelous. I find this to be even better than the full-size keyboard I use at the lab, and definitely light years ahead of the Asus mini keyboard I've been forced to use exclusively during my leisure. Despite my worries, the size of the laptop is not as large as I thought it would be. And the weight is surprisingly light for its size. I don't really feel any real-life difference between the T400 and the MacBook I tested in the Apple store. I fell comfortable swinging this computer with one hand.
The performance is as expected, it should be considering the extensive amount of research I had to do before ordering this thing. >.> The processing speed is certainly better than my old XPS 1210, and the graphics performance is better by leaps and bounds, though I do need to perform a bit more tests later on (work comes first, right?). I am somewhat saddened by the fact that this laptop is only slightly better performing than the MacBook, (2.0 vs 2.3 ghz, ~2100 3Dmark 06 vs ~2500) but then this laptop cost me 300 dollars less for more performance, so I'm not complaining...
If there's one thing I can't stand about my brand new laptop, it's the windows Vista. Now, I'm not the one to be subject to fanboyism for a particular brand of OS simply for aesthetic preferences or menu interfaces. I regularly use all sorts of operating systems due to the nature of scientific computing, with varying degrees of proficiency... And speaking from the experience, windows series operating systems must be the most irrational and difficult operating system to handle for any sort of hard-core computing on the market. I've spent nearly four whole hours into tweaking the system so it can run the programs required for the labwork, and I'm still not finished. I still need to hunt down a few obscure wrappers and modified shells, and some of them are of different version from what I actually need, so I'm looking at some version incompatibility headaches in the future. If I was on OS X, or Linux, I'd be able to simply apt-get the required programs and let the built-in systems handle the rest... I admit that those platforms entail their own brand of headache-inducing issues, but I think it'll be far less than what I would have to encounter while using Vista. (Being able to use exe installer for python is nice, but needing to fix every single pathway by hand isn't. It's much better than I remember but it's still an issue that shouldn't even exist in the first place.)
The worst crime of all, this Vista gobbles up system resources like there is no tomorrow! Thinkpads have advertised battery life of six hours, so I was expecting at least five hours of wifi using work performance. Well, so far I haven't seen the battery life timer rise beyond the four hour mark, with the six cell extended battery. Considering that the MacBook gets 4.5 hours in OS X using similarly specced hardware and lower capacity batteries, this is simply ridiculous. I'm currently trying to find all sorts of tweaks and peripheral programs I can add on to Vista for near-advertised battery life, which is in itself a ridiculous endeavor the user should not be subjected to in the first place. I want an operating system that doesn't make its own user spend hours 'fixing it' so it can do what it's supposed to do in the first place. This is SP1 version, so it is supposedly significantly improved over the original release of Vista.
For Vista's credit, however, the interface is much cleaner than the XP version I've been using for years. The general program-side design and performance definitely felt improved, though not quite mature. Despite all the negative press (generated primarily by Apple and people with no knowledge of computers), Vista will prove to be a decent, if not good operating system on Desktops where you don't quite have to worry about limited battery life and component devices... The failure of Vista isn't quite the failure of software engineering. It's the failure of software execs who failed to predict the trend of the personal computers market.
The increased screen estate is certainly welcome. I can have a lot of stuff on screen and running all at once on this brand new system with 1440x900 resolution... Less than the 30 in screen at the lab, but more than useable on a laptop.
All in all, I love this laptop. The Vista woes might be remedied by installing a partition of Linux on it. I'll write something up on that process later.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Near the end of the drama
Well, I just got an email notifying me that the T400 shipped from HK(!) and is bound to come to my apartment sometime soon, probably by Saturday this week or sometime next week. I guess all those days of using my EEEpc for nearly everything is coming to a close...
Now I need to get a decent Linux distribution for secondary (work) use on that laptop. I can hardly wait... Though not being able to make the OS X jump this time is leaving an odd aftertaste in my mouth, especially since now I have to all sorts of secondary installs/tweaking on the vista distribution to make it compatible for work (ugh, and the fact that Windows has no apt-get repo equivalent simply pisses me off. That's one thing the next version of windows needs. Not some fancy eye candy gimmicks.)
I saw one of my colleagues using one of the new MacBook models in the lab today. I'd say the only fault in the computer, designwise, is the glaring Apple logo on the top of the computer that lights up. As much as I like Paradise/Newton reference I don't feel comfortable becoming a carrier of such an obvious corporate logo.
Oh well, maybe this is for the best.
Now I need to get a decent Linux distribution for secondary (work) use on that laptop. I can hardly wait... Though not being able to make the OS X jump this time is leaving an odd aftertaste in my mouth, especially since now I have to all sorts of secondary installs/tweaking on the vista distribution to make it compatible for work (ugh, and the fact that Windows has no apt-get repo equivalent simply pisses me off. That's one thing the next version of windows needs. Not some fancy eye candy gimmicks.)
I saw one of my colleagues using one of the new MacBook models in the lab today. I'd say the only fault in the computer, designwise, is the glaring Apple logo on the top of the computer that lights up. As much as I like Paradise/Newton reference I don't feel comfortable becoming a carrier of such an obvious corporate logo.
Oh well, maybe this is for the best.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Musing
People love fantasies. They fantasize about things all the time. Act of shaping the most compelling traits of that fantasy in real world is called art. And the process that allows the conversion of idea to shape is called technology. Look at this.
Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, but I think this will definitely appear beautiful in the eyes of the majority. Now, this is merely a model. But sciences and technology might as well make this come true sooner that most people expect it.
What I find truly interesting, however, isn't the shared trait between arts and sciences. That much had been obvious since the days of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the hints of the inseparable relationship between the two had been acknowledged even before then... Or rather, would it be correct to say that modern separation between arts and sciences is a freak accident of history that was given birth a few centuries ago at most? I guess we are all collectively reeling in from the aftershock of the events that happened centuries ago (and people ask why we should bother to learn history).
What I really find interesting, to an almost obsessive degree, is where the beginnings of arts and sciences came from. That is, what would drive bunch of complex systems of collections of molecular compounds to form ideas, worldview, beliefs, and etc... Whether you are a religious fundamentalist or a Dawkins-ian atheist, the fact is that most if not all of humanity have some capacity at aesthetic sensitivity that borders on mystical. Like any prudent scientist (to-be), I believe in things happening in front of my eyes rather than some abstract ideas floating in the clouds. It is a fact that people keep on creating and reacting to stuff, tries to keep themselves alive (though survival seem to take on varying degrees of priority in individuals), and are a system of molecules. So it should be reasonable to suspect that there is a method in nature to create systems of creativity out of components we already know about, using systematic pathways/algorithms that can be replicated.
What is creativity? It is a constant drive to do stuff. Is that enough? Not really. Simply being active isn't good enough... Creativity is a drive to do stuff in coherent manner. Thermodynamic work with coherence, which I might even call 'memory' though it might be too hasty at this point. Would this mean that a metabolic engine with capacity for coherent action (memory?) on the system-wide level contains innate ability to create? Like bacterium? Localized complex chain reaction with proper coherence eventually leads to self-replication? So would this mean that the human capacity for arts is in some deep level related to the capacity to procreate in minimally life-like systems?... That what would be the concept of beauty? And why would human beings pursue aesthetics/ideas outside of that necessary for survival?
It's fun to do a bit of musing like this. Yet it always get frustrating when the time to apply all this into real hard-science comes, because quite frankly, I don't see any physical way of testing all this.
All I can do at the moment, is to sit here and wait for my muse.
Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, but I think this will definitely appear beautiful in the eyes of the majority. Now, this is merely a model. But sciences and technology might as well make this come true sooner that most people expect it.
What I find truly interesting, however, isn't the shared trait between arts and sciences. That much had been obvious since the days of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the hints of the inseparable relationship between the two had been acknowledged even before then... Or rather, would it be correct to say that modern separation between arts and sciences is a freak accident of history that was given birth a few centuries ago at most? I guess we are all collectively reeling in from the aftershock of the events that happened centuries ago (and people ask why we should bother to learn history).
What I really find interesting, to an almost obsessive degree, is where the beginnings of arts and sciences came from. That is, what would drive bunch of complex systems of collections of molecular compounds to form ideas, worldview, beliefs, and etc... Whether you are a religious fundamentalist or a Dawkins-ian atheist, the fact is that most if not all of humanity have some capacity at aesthetic sensitivity that borders on mystical. Like any prudent scientist (to-be), I believe in things happening in front of my eyes rather than some abstract ideas floating in the clouds. It is a fact that people keep on creating and reacting to stuff, tries to keep themselves alive (though survival seem to take on varying degrees of priority in individuals), and are a system of molecules. So it should be reasonable to suspect that there is a method in nature to create systems of creativity out of components we already know about, using systematic pathways/algorithms that can be replicated.
What is creativity? It is a constant drive to do stuff. Is that enough? Not really. Simply being active isn't good enough... Creativity is a drive to do stuff in coherent manner. Thermodynamic work with coherence, which I might even call 'memory' though it might be too hasty at this point. Would this mean that a metabolic engine with capacity for coherent action (memory?) on the system-wide level contains innate ability to create? Like bacterium? Localized complex chain reaction with proper coherence eventually leads to self-replication? So would this mean that the human capacity for arts is in some deep level related to the capacity to procreate in minimally life-like systems?... That what would be the concept of beauty? And why would human beings pursue aesthetics/ideas outside of that necessary for survival?
It's fun to do a bit of musing like this. Yet it always get frustrating when the time to apply all this into real hard-science comes, because quite frankly, I don't see any physical way of testing all this.
All I can do at the moment, is to sit here and wait for my muse.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
QR codes
I saw my cousin playing around with QR codes while I was in Korea, and found it to be cool beyond pretty much anything I've seen icon-wise. (oh, except for that multi-card/PMP/cellphone/scanner/USB/drive/creditcard/internet tablet thingie I caught her carrying around. When will U.S. get off of the morass of technological stagnation???).
Look, I just changed my default userpic to a QR code based one. How cool is that?
Living in U.S. makes me feel as if I'm living in some backwater farming town sometimes. Not that backwater farms are bad, just that it's significantly out of proportion with the level of economic/political might this nation wields at the moment. And yes, even with the failed NeoCon doctrine and falling economy this nation is a superpower, just in case people forgot about that fact.
People may be failing to participate in the major political process of this nation (i.e. voting) not because they're lazy and/or ignorant, but because the political machine of this nation and its goals are so out of touch with the modern world....
That sounds really plausible. Maybe I should do a long post on that one sometime.
Look, I just changed my default userpic to a QR code based one. How cool is that?
Living in U.S. makes me feel as if I'm living in some backwater farming town sometimes. Not that backwater farms are bad, just that it's significantly out of proportion with the level of economic/political might this nation wields at the moment. And yes, even with the failed NeoCon doctrine and falling economy this nation is a superpower, just in case people forgot about that fact.
People may be failing to participate in the major political process of this nation (i.e. voting) not because they're lazy and/or ignorant, but because the political machine of this nation and its goals are so out of touch with the modern world....
That sounds really plausible. Maybe I should do a long post on that one sometime.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
recently
Just a little post to confirm my continued presence on the net.
I've been a little busy trying to pick up the pieces after my little excursion to the HK SB 4.0 and South Korea (never got around to Osaka. The school schedule didn't really let me afford that luxury. I actually had stop by school on the same day I got off the plane at JFK). The whole gradschool process is a bit harsher than I expected... Reading three books a week, doing a full report on them (for my sake, really), and pouring through the references and indexes at the end of them... Not to mention that my field of study is extensively interdisciplinary, so I have a lot of fields to cover all at once, makes me regret all the slacking off in my innocent days... On top of that I've got to brush up on some rudimentary computer skills like how to handle Linux/Unix, coding in python, and Mathematica (which I've been dabbling in a while now, though I'm nowhere near proficient as I need to be).
Oh, and I plan on doing the whole Synthetic Biology thing a full time, though my major will remain physics. I'm actually thinking of putting together NYC based iGEM team, someday ;)
Despite the crazy schedule I actually get to rest a bit on the weekends, so I guess I'm having it better than most immigrants out there with all the economy going to hell (a bit of analysis reveals an interesting trend in the current economic downturn, something I'll go back to in a later post).
As I've continuously whined about past few months, I need to buy a new laptop. Yes. I haven't bought the darn thing yet. I've been doing all my computing on school desktop (by remote connection) and the Asus EEEpc 701 'netbook', which comes equipped with Xandros linux (buggy as a sin would be an understatement), 7in screen, 516mb RAM, and 4GB SSD (which I complement with another 4GB SD card). The little laptop had been surprisingly useful, and I don't know what I would have done without it by my side. Only if the default OS was a bit more stable... The system is more shaky than a vial of nitroglycerin on a centrifuge.
I've actually ordered my laptop on the net already, Lenovo Thinkpad T400. It's scheduled to ship sometime in the week of Nov 12th, so I will be receiving it near the end of the November, which would be roughly a month from now. Yes. While Lenovo builds some decent quality laptops, they certainly suck big time at customer service and shipping arrangements.
The problem is, Apple released their aluminum MacBook line a week or two ago. And from what I'm seeing, the performance on that machine is amazing. The integrated graphics on that machine trumps the dedicated graphics card on quite a few laptops of similar class, and actually does slightly better than the T400 with dedicated video memory I have on order. I've stopped by at the Apple Store on Broadway to take a look (at 11 PM, those guys are open 24hrs), and the weight/design impression is fantastic. Even better, if I decide to pick up the new MacBook, I don't have to sit around sucking on my thumb for a month. Oh, and then there's OS X. Aesthetics wise, I hate OS X and its outdated brushed aluminum look, but the system is built on top of UNIX, so it affords some unique advantages for someone in the field of sciences. The wealth of biology-oriented scientific softwares in OS X and native mathematica integration is staggering, and user even has an option to utilize OS X variety of apt-get software repository for installing some of the more obscure and specialized softwares and frameworks. Extensive software development environment like the Xcode is included free of extra charge, and you are allowed to reinstall the OS as many times as you want. (learn from this, MS!!!) The rumors of impending update to the OS X that would allow users to utilize the GPU component as a secondary (primary?) processor for calculation-intense tasks doesn't sound too bad either... If done properly, it might even be possible for regular MacBook to have near workstation quality number crunching capabilities.
There are several disadvantages in getting the MacBook/OS X, though. The first issue is software compatibility. OS X library might have grown by leaps and bounds in past few years, but it still pales in comparison to what is available on windows platform. Things get progressively worse when you try to use web services/programs in foreign language, i.e. entirely different software culture and financial ecosystem. Take, for example, QR-Code. QR codes are almost universally available in Japan and used in some other Eastern Asian countries to lesser extent. Windows have hundreds of different scripts and programs for generating and reading QR codes. Quick search of google nets us three or so read-only programs for OS X and it is not certain whether they are actively maintained or not. How about interactive fiction utilizing the infocom Z-machine? (My secret passion...) Gargoyle program on windows runs nearly all possible formats used in IF, while OS X needs about two, maybe three of such programs installed on same machine for maximum compatibility. Some people would say that I can run windows on a Mac machine using bootcamp or a virtualization software, but frankly I find the notion of running multiple OS on a single computer to be unrealistic on usability perspectives. Theoretically it might sound like a great option, but the prospect of turning off a computer and ending all my working sessions just to use another program or two is certainly not attractive to me.
The price ratio is also something of an issue. In my configuration of the T400, I get 1440x900 resolution 14in screen, built-in 7in1 card reader, three USB ports, express card slot, 6 hours of wifi-using battery life, 2.2 ghz processor, bluetooth, and WiMax/WWAN upgrade capacity. All of it for 1180 dollars. If I choose to go with the MacBook, I get two USB ports, bluetooth, 1280x 800 resolution on 13in screen, 2.0ghz processor, and 3~4 hours of wifi-using battery life. All of it for whopping 1400 dollars including taxes. That's roughly a 200 dollar difference, with the machine obviously lacking in feature set costing more. Mac aficionados out there will tell me that the OS X itself (with its unlimited reinstallation capabilities), variety of built in software tools, the iLife suit (which looks quite amazing), and UNIX based performance boost/stability offsets the 200 dollar premium, and they might be right (build quality is stacked in favor of the Thinkpad, since Thinkpads have industry-approved build quality record under their belt already). But then I know a good number of free, open source programs available for the windows platform that can do all of those things... Perhaps not better than the Mac software, but certainly adequate. Aesthetics-wise, as I've stated above above, I am not very fond of the OS X design and its 'Aqua' theme, and I personally find how they shove the 'dock' interface down their user's throats to be insulting and grotesque. Windows has such issues as well, but at least I am familiar with some very hard-core theme-patching under the windows platform. It doesn't hurt that I know precisely how I want my computer/OS to look design-wise (and yes, I don't think T400's black box look is ugly, contrary to popular opinion).
I guess for the time being, my ideal machine would be T400 capable of running OS X out-of-the-box. I am aware of certain projects like OSx86 that tries to tune OS X so that they can run on non-native hardwares, but they are just too darn clunky to be used on a mission-critical work laptop. Maybe I should install Ubuntu within the windows partition of the T400?
Whatever the case, logic dictates that I should wait for a month for my cheaper and faster T400 to arrive. It's only that I get constant urge to cancel my order and just go pick up a MacBook (with its better graphics performance) like some primal impulse beyond the reach of civilized consciousness.... (insert witty H.P. Lovecraft reference here)
I've been a little busy trying to pick up the pieces after my little excursion to the HK SB 4.0 and South Korea (never got around to Osaka. The school schedule didn't really let me afford that luxury. I actually had stop by school on the same day I got off the plane at JFK). The whole gradschool process is a bit harsher than I expected... Reading three books a week, doing a full report on them (for my sake, really), and pouring through the references and indexes at the end of them... Not to mention that my field of study is extensively interdisciplinary, so I have a lot of fields to cover all at once, makes me regret all the slacking off in my innocent days... On top of that I've got to brush up on some rudimentary computer skills like how to handle Linux/Unix, coding in python, and Mathematica (which I've been dabbling in a while now, though I'm nowhere near proficient as I need to be).
Oh, and I plan on doing the whole Synthetic Biology thing a full time, though my major will remain physics. I'm actually thinking of putting together NYC based iGEM team, someday ;)
Despite the crazy schedule I actually get to rest a bit on the weekends, so I guess I'm having it better than most immigrants out there with all the economy going to hell (a bit of analysis reveals an interesting trend in the current economic downturn, something I'll go back to in a later post).
As I've continuously whined about past few months, I need to buy a new laptop. Yes. I haven't bought the darn thing yet. I've been doing all my computing on school desktop (by remote connection) and the Asus EEEpc 701 'netbook', which comes equipped with Xandros linux (buggy as a sin would be an understatement), 7in screen, 516mb RAM, and 4GB SSD (which I complement with another 4GB SD card). The little laptop had been surprisingly useful, and I don't know what I would have done without it by my side. Only if the default OS was a bit more stable... The system is more shaky than a vial of nitroglycerin on a centrifuge.
I've actually ordered my laptop on the net already, Lenovo Thinkpad T400. It's scheduled to ship sometime in the week of Nov 12th, so I will be receiving it near the end of the November, which would be roughly a month from now. Yes. While Lenovo builds some decent quality laptops, they certainly suck big time at customer service and shipping arrangements.
The problem is, Apple released their aluminum MacBook line a week or two ago. And from what I'm seeing, the performance on that machine is amazing. The integrated graphics on that machine trumps the dedicated graphics card on quite a few laptops of similar class, and actually does slightly better than the T400 with dedicated video memory I have on order. I've stopped by at the Apple Store on Broadway to take a look (at 11 PM, those guys are open 24hrs), and the weight/design impression is fantastic. Even better, if I decide to pick up the new MacBook, I don't have to sit around sucking on my thumb for a month. Oh, and then there's OS X. Aesthetics wise, I hate OS X and its outdated brushed aluminum look, but the system is built on top of UNIX, so it affords some unique advantages for someone in the field of sciences. The wealth of biology-oriented scientific softwares in OS X and native mathematica integration is staggering, and user even has an option to utilize OS X variety of apt-get software repository for installing some of the more obscure and specialized softwares and frameworks. Extensive software development environment like the Xcode is included free of extra charge, and you are allowed to reinstall the OS as many times as you want. (learn from this, MS!!!) The rumors of impending update to the OS X that would allow users to utilize the GPU component as a secondary (primary?) processor for calculation-intense tasks doesn't sound too bad either... If done properly, it might even be possible for regular MacBook to have near workstation quality number crunching capabilities.
There are several disadvantages in getting the MacBook/OS X, though. The first issue is software compatibility. OS X library might have grown by leaps and bounds in past few years, but it still pales in comparison to what is available on windows platform. Things get progressively worse when you try to use web services/programs in foreign language, i.e. entirely different software culture and financial ecosystem. Take, for example, QR-Code. QR codes are almost universally available in Japan and used in some other Eastern Asian countries to lesser extent. Windows have hundreds of different scripts and programs for generating and reading QR codes. Quick search of google nets us three or so read-only programs for OS X and it is not certain whether they are actively maintained or not. How about interactive fiction utilizing the infocom Z-machine? (My secret passion...) Gargoyle program on windows runs nearly all possible formats used in IF, while OS X needs about two, maybe three of such programs installed on same machine for maximum compatibility. Some people would say that I can run windows on a Mac machine using bootcamp or a virtualization software, but frankly I find the notion of running multiple OS on a single computer to be unrealistic on usability perspectives. Theoretically it might sound like a great option, but the prospect of turning off a computer and ending all my working sessions just to use another program or two is certainly not attractive to me.
The price ratio is also something of an issue. In my configuration of the T400, I get 1440x900 resolution 14in screen, built-in 7in1 card reader, three USB ports, express card slot, 6 hours of wifi-using battery life, 2.2 ghz processor, bluetooth, and WiMax/WWAN upgrade capacity. All of it for 1180 dollars. If I choose to go with the MacBook, I get two USB ports, bluetooth, 1280x 800 resolution on 13in screen, 2.0ghz processor, and 3~4 hours of wifi-using battery life. All of it for whopping 1400 dollars including taxes. That's roughly a 200 dollar difference, with the machine obviously lacking in feature set costing more. Mac aficionados out there will tell me that the OS X itself (with its unlimited reinstallation capabilities), variety of built in software tools, the iLife suit (which looks quite amazing), and UNIX based performance boost/stability offsets the 200 dollar premium, and they might be right (build quality is stacked in favor of the Thinkpad, since Thinkpads have industry-approved build quality record under their belt already). But then I know a good number of free, open source programs available for the windows platform that can do all of those things... Perhaps not better than the Mac software, but certainly adequate. Aesthetics-wise, as I've stated above above, I am not very fond of the OS X design and its 'Aqua' theme, and I personally find how they shove the 'dock' interface down their user's throats to be insulting and grotesque. Windows has such issues as well, but at least I am familiar with some very hard-core theme-patching under the windows platform. It doesn't hurt that I know precisely how I want my computer/OS to look design-wise (and yes, I don't think T400's black box look is ugly, contrary to popular opinion).
I guess for the time being, my ideal machine would be T400 capable of running OS X out-of-the-box. I am aware of certain projects like OSx86 that tries to tune OS X so that they can run on non-native hardwares, but they are just too darn clunky to be used on a mission-critical work laptop. Maybe I should install Ubuntu within the windows partition of the T400?
Whatever the case, logic dictates that I should wait for a month for my cheaper and faster T400 to arrive. It's only that I get constant urge to cancel my order and just go pick up a MacBook (with its better graphics performance) like some primal impulse beyond the reach of civilized consciousness.... (insert witty H.P. Lovecraft reference here)
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