Sustainable computers

Remember Energy Star? I use to see them on all sorts of computer products, especially on the system BIOS. Perhaps it is because it is a US based program, but today I encounter a single Energy Star sticker on my mobo or CPU box or logo on a BIOS screen. Never mind about that now. Today, 40 companies and organisations including Intel, IBM, Dell, AMD, Microsoft, HP, Sun, MIT, WWF, etc. and bizarrely Starbucks, announced an initiative to tackle energy wastage due to the inefficient nature of our computers.

Called the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, the aim of the group is to promote the creation of products that meets or surpass the Environmental Protection Agency's own Energy Star strict guidelines on efficiency, with a goal of reaching 90% efficiency and reduce power consumption by 50% by 2010. The initial goal is to follow the guidelines laid out by Energy Star and aims to introduce stricter guidelines in 2009.

The biggest culprit are of course ACs and PSUs. Everytime I accidentally brush my bare feet against a laptop's AC it would be burning hot indicating just how much energy is actually lost. Desktop's PSU are even worse with requirements to purchase 600W PSU just to run newer inefficient graphic cards. ATi and nVidia needs to follow the footsteps of Intel in producing processors which gives more bang per wattage rather than just pumping more transistors into GPU cores and slapping a huge heat sink on it. Apparently 50% of power from the wall socket is never utilised and is thus wasted.

I hope these companies aren't just doing this for purely as a PR exercise. Like many others I would pay more if the products are more energy efficient and are labelled in a way that would not confuse consumers. Perhaps a sticker like the one on the right would soon make its way onto our PCs. Make it happen.

And please no more junk mails. I have collected my fair share of environmentally unfriendly AOL CDs.

via Ars & PCWorld

Software Impressions: Safari 3 for Windows Beta

Readers of this blog will know how much I dislike Apple, but I was wiling to give it a go today when Steve Jobs announced the availability of the Safari browser for Windows XP and Vista platform. Personally I hate Safari 1.x on its native Mac OS platform. I know of no-one, not even die hard MacBots, who like Safari. It is the worst mainstream browser in existence.

But Steve Jobs reality distortion field does work wonder. A lofty claim of '2x' faster than other browsers would surely catch your eyes. So I did a sinful thing and visited Apple's website to download Safari. The default download actually contained a QuickTime installer, but fortunately I caught that and switched to a QuickTime-less download. Seriously why people bother with QuickTime, the worst media player ever created next to RealPlayer is beyond me (go download VideoLan Macboys). Five minutes later I was surfing. And I hated the experience.

The good stuff first. Safari's renderer works well on most websites I visited including YouTube. That's it. It apparently passed the Acidtest so rendering should not be a problem. Now the bad stuff. The font-smoothing engine passed over from OS X lacked clarity. The cleartype technology displayed is the worst I have seen and it makes pages unreadable. I got a migraine just for looking at the ugly anti-aliased fonts as displayed through Safari. You can change the font smoothing to 'light' under 'preferences', but it is still ugly as hell. It would be great if I could turn it off and use the native cleartype technology, but I guess this is a covert operation from Apple to make PC users hate Windows.

Then there is the GUI which is based on Apple's own Mac OS X, which is an eyesore. It may work well on a Mac OS X machine, but it looks oddly out of place on a Windows environment, especially with that god ugly Aqua theme. It would ignore any skinning request from my Styler program or WindowBlinds (for times when I need reminiscing of BeOS). And it would also ignore my Windows preference of not doing window animations visual effects! Plus it wouldn't scroll when I tried my mouse scroll button.

As far as speed goes it is sometimes slow and sometimes fast, so nothing too special there. But Firefox 2 seems to be much faster. Maybe that is because I optimised it through about:config to speed up the renderer and other stuff, or maybe Steve Jobs is lying. Who knows? It wouldn't be the first time. But right now Safari is sitting as a niche product on my PC as a 'backup' browser in case Firefox, then Opera and finally IE7 fails to render a page properly (eBay UK is a known offender). It is probably useful in the future if I decide to change the layout of this blog to see if Mac OS X/Safari users can enjoy more Apple related rants.

Here is a quick comparison of the memory footprint of each program when opening a single tab loaded with BBC News frontpage:

Safari 3.0 (522.11.3) - 57MB
Opera 9.20 - 17MB
Firefox 2.0.0.4 with tons of extensions- 70MB
Internet Explorer 7.0.5730.11 - 41MB

Here are a couple of comparison screenshots between the various browsers rendering BBC News and this website:

Firefox 2





Internet Explorer 7





Opera 9





Safari 3 Beta

21st century taboos

Via MSN UK

1. Giving money to beggars
Done that, but before the 21st century. I may throw a 20p coin to a busker or buy a Big Issue from a Big Issue guy. Personally I find charity chuggers more annoying than beggars.

2. Speaking to a stranger on a bus or a train
Apart from exceptional circumstances such as Tube Relief, I have never spoken to anyone on a bus or train. It is the London rule. But outside London I would speak to anyone with a smile on the bus or train. Especially OAPs. They are funny.

3. Holding the door open for a woman
50% of the time I hold the door open for someone, woman or male, unless I hate their appearance, then I would close the door. And run off.

4. Saying that 'Imagine' by John Lennon is rubbish
I think John Lennon and the Beatles are rubbish. As are Paul McCartney, Bono and Bob Geldof. There I said it. David Bowie owns all.

5. Complimenting a friend/relative on their children
I have no idea why this list is even on MSN. Saying a tot is cute is nothing remarkable, me thinks. Perhaps the paedo scare of late is the reason for this taboo.

6. Owning up to drinking full-fat milk
Nothing wrong with that. I never own up to it because people never ask me. This isn't taboo, it is just irrelevant to discuss.

7. Asking for a cup of tea in an upmarket cafe
What is an upmarket cafe? Starbucks, Costa etc. are hardly considered upmarket. But I do know people who goes to Browns and they order tea (no, I have never been there).

8. Being irreverent about Princess Diana
I do not know her. No one from her estate gave me money. Why should I care?

9. Arguing that taxes are good
Taxes are good, to a certain degree. Then you should only tax the rich. Only rich people would argue that taxes are bad.

10. Contesting that England has a third-rate football team
Couldn't care less. But yes, England as a team is third-rate.

What a rubbish list. MSN UK must do better next time.

Mythical fairytale god hates games...

But Londoners definitely loves portable video games.

On National Express coach:
- One adult male with black DS Lite
- One adult male with black PSP (SEGA Mega Drive Collection)

On Tube (in my 45 minutes worth of journey today)
- One adult male with black DS Lite
- One adult male with white DS Lite
- One adult female with white DS Lite
- One adult male with enamel navy DS Lite
- One adult male with white PSP
- Zero Blackberries!

It was great to finally see more adults willing to whip out their DS Lite consoles to play in public. Yay London!

In other news an old insignificant relic known as the Church of England is threatening legal action against Sony Computer Entertainment over Insomniac's PS3 game Resistance: Fall of Man. This was because of the inclusion of a Manchester cathedral in the game where men had to battle aliens (sounds pretty cool, maybe I will get a PS3 after all - make that 50% price drop happen SCEE!).

The Beeb has even created four separate articles on this subject (that is an average of TWO a day, for a none-news! Must be a slow news day yesterday), even giving it top bill BBC News website for much of Saturday. I guess they are not interested in 'Maddy' now (thank you German reporter).


Spiffy. Too bad you can't WASD+mouse'd the game.

Now I don't know about you (and my law knowledge is at best consigned to consumer law) but last I heard you can't 'renew' the copyright of old buildings, especially old relics like cathedrals and such (which at 800 years old, probably/should be in the public domain anyway). Now, any lawsuit based on copyrights would likely be thrown out by a sensible judge, so me thinks the CoE is doing this as part of their 'morale crusade' on video games (you don't see churches complaining when films or books use them in fiction) or probably for some kind of money related intent.

I mean they are asking Sony to 'donate' a 'substantial' amount of profit from the game to their coffers (What? Weekly church driven donations isn't enough?). That and a bunch of old irrelevant codgers trying to pin the blame someone else other than themselves because no one here goes to church any more, apart from coffin dodgers. I really can't understand the CoE's logic on how is it Sony's fault that Manchester is riddled with gun crimes. Damn, it really is about money and shifting blames...

ThinkPad Reserve

Looks spiffy, like an exquisite Vaja case. Me wants! Can't wait to see the product as a whole, even if I can't afford one! Only eight days to go.

(Too bad it won't be Yoga)

via

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl mini-review

On surface the latest fourth generation Pokémon proper is similar to the original Pokémon Red/Blue/Green from the Game Boy era. While the graphics has been slightly upgraded, exploration is still based on the top-down camera viewpoint, which is nice. On something as small as the DS screen it would be crazy to force a different viewpoint. The SNES graphics worked for MOTHER3 and it will certainly continue working the new Pokémon, in this case Diamond/Pearl.

The visuals while predominately 2D contains 3D environments, bring to life the beautiful region of Sinnoh. Buildings are polygonal as are the windmills (wonderfully animated I might add). The sound department has received similar upgrades with the new soundtrack complementing exploration while the harshness of the decade old Game Boy limitation remaining, as evident by Pokémon screeches during combat.

The plot isn't important (just replace Team Rocket with Team Galactic... and that's it really!) here as it should be. Compared to other RPGs the storyline is sparse, but that has always been a case with this franchise. What is important is the gameplay and the 107 new Pokémon (of 493 unique critters) you will be hunting until the end of time (okay, until the next proper Pokémon comes out). You can also transfer old Pokémons from your GBA games via slot 2. New to Diamond/Pearl is the ability to connect via WiFi to any other Pokémon gamers around the world to trade and battle other Pokémon creatures. VoIP can also be used to chat with other players provided they are on your friend list.

Like Pokémon Gold/Silver (and Animal Crossing: Wild World, Boktai etc.) the region of Sinnoh is tied to the DS real-time clock. This is important if you want to catch elusive Pokémons such as those who only appears during certain times of the day. It is a great feature and I wish more games would integrate some kind of real world clock into games. There are also weather effects (similar to Final Fantasy XII) that affects exploration. Snow for example will slow you down and fogs can affect visibility. Little touches like this makes exploration even more memorable.

Because this is a RPG, combats are very old school turn based. While stylus support has been added to aid battles I still prefer the old school way of using the face button. It is just much more intuitive and faster. Thankfully Game Freak did not shoe horn any mandatory stylus usage (that I know of).

While some would yell 'ROFL teh kiddeh LOL DS SuXx0r!!', only insecure close-minded gamers would dismiss this. The new Pokémon remains as addictive as any other proper Pokémon classics before it. Give it a go.

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl version will be released in Europe on the 27th July 2007. But if you do not mind potentially losing DS-Wii connectivity (due to Nintendo's DRM region coding) then go ahead and import it. The Wii version is bound to suck (as other Pokémon side-quest games tend to) so you shouldn't lose any sleep regarding it. Plus you save money too.

8/10

Buy this from Play-Asia or Amazon UK today

New farcical London 2012 logo revealed: Lisa Simpson giving head

Verdict: Utter rubbish, dross, ghastly, bland, crap, garish, hideous, ugly, train wreck, disaster, woeful, cack, dated, tacky, vile, embarrassing or whatever insults you can think of. This does not appeal to young, old, left wing, right wing, hip or whatever excuse Seb Coe can think of. It only appeals to 'trendy' people who has a taste for bad designs. BTW please take a look at their recently relaunched website. Must be some kind of Web 2.0 joke.

This new logo, or 'brand' as Lord Coe puts it, is the perfect example of a couple of old people reminiscing about the 80s trying to be 'in touch' and 'getting it in' with the 'innit' culture by being 'edgy' and failing miserably. If you want graffiti art get a real and proper graffiti artist like Banksy. Even if you think the disjointed mess is fine take a look at the other stuff they got wrong. The typography for example is just blend and unprofessional. The Olympic logo is missing its recognisable colours.

ITV News this evening showed this to a bunch of kids and the first kid said "it's rubbish", so it doesn't seem to be appealing to young urban edgy kids as Seb seems to think it will. It even gave me migraine. I had to read a news article to find out that the logo was 2012. And to think they spent £400,000 on this. If this was Eurovison this would be another nul point. Oh, I can't wait for them to reveal their mascots. Lisa and Bart Simpson perhaps?

This logo does not represent London.



Kinda wish that Paris won the games right now. At least their logo was good and use the 'S' and '2' to great effect. Even the old London logo was good enough, especially with its recognisable Thames ribbon flow.

Ken Livingstone's LONDON would be a much better alternative.

via

New Super Mario Bros. DX Mascot Gashapon

Full set. Not mine unfortunately.

/am cry :(