Absurd Singularity

So, at pretty much the very last month of the year, my better half decided that a trip would be required to end the year with a bang! After a few days of frantic scouring of travel sites, an itinerary was procured for the entire family, grandparents included. We would basically be flying out right after Christmas and spend 3 days in San Diego and 3 days in LA with an extra day capping both ends lost to travel time. This was not exactly the best laid of plans. To begin with, airfare is astronomical around that time of the year. Even more so when you're booking less than a month out. =p And it turned out to be pretty much the most annoyingly eventful "vacation" I've ever been on. What happened? I will proceed from the beginning and start with the bad stuff:

Continue reading "Journey to the Left Coast" »

Cailyn originally had a tentative birth date of June 13. June 15th if we went by her ultrasound checks. We were expecting her to be early since we kept hearing that later children often arrive earlier than the first. But like her brother, she wasn't quite ready to make her début yet. ;-p Erin's doctor was all ready to send us to the hospital to be induced on the 13th because apparently Erin was already about 4cm dilated since the weekend. But Erin, having not exactly the most painless of births the first time around, wasn't exactly gung-ho about the idea. So we waited a couple of more days to see if Cailyn would be willing to come on her own.

Erin had another morning checkup with her doctor on the 16th and not much had changed. Erin had the odd contraction every now and then but nothing imminent. Tired of the waiting, we agreed to head over to the hospital for induction. Checked in at a bit after noon. Not much seems to have changed at Hackensack University Medical Center which is good cause it was already pretty nice to begin with. Because Erin was already semi-dilated, they just started her off with oxytocin. Erin had a different doctor this time because the one that delivered Devon retired from obstetrics after Devon was born. So this new doctor was much more lenient in the use of Epidural and basically said Erin could get it whenever she wanted to. Which was music to her ears and she got it done a few hours into things when she felt she didn't want to have to deal with the pain anymore.

About 5 hours after we had checked in, the nurse checked the dilation, said it was about time and went to get the doctor. Once the doctor came, the entire birthing procedure was a lot more relaxed and quicker this time around. It was just the doctor, nurse and me. I had to help again with pushing her left leg out and keeping her head up during the pushing. But it seemed a little unusual because we would just make small talk while waiting for each wave of contractions to begin. And since there was no pain, there wasn't any screaming. =p So overall, very quiet and low key. I think it was on the 4th or 5th wave (3 pushes each wave) that Cailyn decided to show herself.

Despite the much quicker and easier procedure this time, birthing still remains a rather bloody and messy process. =p I think obstetricians get a kick out of getting the fathers to look at what's going on during the delivery. "Look, look, she's got a lot of hair!" "Good job, look! Her head is out!" As I noted in a tweet afterwards:

And it really is. The miracle of childbirth will never cease to amaze (and scare the hell outta) me. ;-p Come to think of it, I don't understand why anyone would want to film their kid's birth. Seriously, no one wants to watch that. =p

Anyway, thankfully, everything has proceeded as well as can be so far since then. Devon looooves his little sister and if he shows any jealousy to the attention that she gets from us, he at least doesn't take it out on her. Grandpa's got a couple of new bruises though. ;-p The two siblings do look remarkably alike as babies though. I assume that will change when she grows. One difference that was very apparent though since Cailyn first emerged is that she has my bone structure while Devon is more like Erin's. She has really delicate and long limbs and fingers and just might wind up being taller than Devon in the future. She's relatively low maintenance for a baby right now, crying only when she's hungry or needs a change. Nothing has really upset her yet to the point where she would cry for longer than a few minutes. But we're all happy to finally have her in our family. =)

For pretty much the last decade my main computer has been a laptop, starting from the gorgeous Powerbook G3 Wallstreet, through the titanium Powerbook G4s, and then the aluminum and unibody Macbook Pros. I pretty much figured that I was done with owning Mac desktops as the computing power of laptops seemed to be sufficient for my use and I placed more value in the portability of laptops. That is until I purchased a Nehalem Mac Pro in September of 2009.

Since the Mac Pro requires no small financial commitment, my initial hard drive configuration for it consisted of one Hitachi 7200RPM 1TB drive. To that I added a Western Digital 10,000RPM 300GB Velociraptor and a Western Digital 5400RPM 1TB Caviar Green drive. The Velociraptor was partitioned in two and served as my boot drive; half went to MacOS X, the other to a BootCamped Windows 7. The faster 1TB drive was my main data drive and the green drive served as my Time Machine backup.

My price trigger when it comes to purchasing backup hard drives is $100. At the time of the Mac Pro purchase, that price slot was taken up by 1TB drives. When 1.5TB drives slipped below the $100 line, I bought one to use as a new Time Machine backup drive. At that point, all four of the Mac Pro's internal 3.5" hard drive bays were filled. I then replaced the 1TB data drive with a Seagate 7200RPM 2TB drive as I discovered 1TB wasn't quite enough to cover a year's worth photo & video. This setup worked quite well and remained unchanged until recently when I decided that it was time to bring a SSD into the fold.

I've been using a 128GB SSD in my unibody MacBook Pro since early 2009 so I was well acquainted with the speed advantages. I was hoping that waiting another year+ would bring prices down but alas, that was not to be. The SSDs have gotten incrementally better but they're still locked in to the same price slots as before. The other issue was also where to install the SSD as all the internal bays were full. To that end I had been keeping an eye on the OWC Multi-Mount solution which provides brackets that allows you install combinations of 2.5" or 3.5" drives in the usually free second 5.25" bay that's situated under the optical Superdrive. So my grandiose plan was to pick up a Multi-Mount along with their 120GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD and pair my existing Velociraptor to it. The SSD would become my sole MacOS X boot disc and the Velociraptor would be dedicated to Windows. I would also add a new 2TB Caviar Green drive to use as my Time Machine backup since that had also recently slipped under the $100 mark.

However, I forgot about one thing: there was only one free SATA port internally. I needed two. The 2009 Mac Pro comes with 6 bays: 2x 5.25" and 4x 3.5", and it has one SATA connection for each bay only. I suppose I could have followed the same route that I had done with my MacBook Pro and removed the SuperDrive but I really didn't want to have to do that. And oddly enough, OWC doesn't have an existing solution to this issue. I chatted with their tech support and the only solution they could come up with was the rather expensive Sonnet Tempo SATA E4i PCI-e card that adds four internal SATA ports. However, besides the price, another issue killed this option dead: namely that hard drives connected via this card are not bootable.

So, I dug around some more on the Interwebs and discovered MaxUpgrades and their MaxConnect system. The MaxConnect system allows you to install up to four 2.5" drives in one of the 5.25" bays. The bracket it comes with isn't as nice-looking or as flexible as the Multi-Mount solution as it only fits 2.5" drives while the Multi-Mount can take either 3.5" or 2.5". But if you're only looking to add two 2.5" drives, the MaxConnect system also comes with a 2-port "bootable" SATA PCI-e card along with the requisite cables to get everything attached and running. Plus the price was quite reasonable. I first contacted them to see if they by any chance were willing to sell just the PCI-e card and cables since I didn't need the bracket but the answer was "no." So I bit the bullet and bought the set.

Continue reading "Drives, Drives, and More Drives" »

As I mentioned in my previous post on smartphone-compatible gloves, I had ordered one of the new iPhone Glove by Dots Gloves which was backordered for a couple of weeks. Surprisingly it showed up quicker than I was expecting so I got to try it out for the past two weeks in this wonderful NYC winter weather. =p

This new lambswool style feels a bit thicker and stiffer than the old knit version that I previously had. Might soften up after age and more frequent use. Something I noticed immediately was that it felt snugger in the fingers than before. Also, there seemed to be a good amount of extraneous thread and knit inside that my fingers would keep getting snagged on when putting them on. So I turned them inside out to check it out.

What you're seeing in the photo above is the point where the palm and fingers connect. Not having owned wool gloves before, I'm not sure if this is normal with them or not but you can see the one big red loop in the center and two smaller silver loops to each side. And if you look closely you can see two thin red threads running horizontally across along the top underneath the loops. These were what my fingers were encountering whenever I put the gloves on. I wound up yanking the thin red threads out but left the loops all in. Overall it seems like rather shoddy handiwork to me but as I said, I have no other similar gloves to compare them with. Plus, once you get past this, it doesn't affect the overall utility of these gloves.

So, how do these gloves work? Basically the same premise as the Agloves. Silver coated fibers act as conductors between your flesh and the touchscreen. The difference here is that they only weave these fibers in to 3 fingers on each hand (thumb, index, middle) instead of throughout the glove as with the Agloves. As can be seen in the photo above, the silver threads seem kind of sparse compared to the Agloves but they work all the same. Because it's a much thicker glove though, response time seems to be a bit slower and precision takes a hit as well. Still able to work with a touchscreen quicker than the old metal dot version though but not as nimble as with the Agloves.

The one advantage that it has over its predecessor and the Agloves is that it's quite warm. Provides excellent protection against the cold. So when it hit sub-30 degree (Fahrenheit) temps here, these are the gloves I pull out first. So, as predicted, these new Dots Gloves have replaced the old ones as my go-to really cold weather gloves. The Agloves is still champs when it comes to responsiveness and precision but these new Dots Gloves are a good compromise between cold protection and utility.

After last week's successful attempt at Vamp-sama's Simple Tarako Spaghetti, I got ready for recipe #2.

Now this one I wasn't looking forward to at all. I'm not a fan of kimchi for starters. And I'm even less of a fan of jyako. But we always have a package or two of jyako in our fridge since Erin loves frying them up with some scrambled eggs as a calcium supplement for Devon. So I bit the bullet and bought a small jar of kimchi from Mitsuwa. The plan was to just make a small portion in case it was as un-palatable as I was expecting. I do love sesame oil though so it at least had that going for it. ;-p

Pretty much zero preparation is needed for this dish. Frying up the jyako in the sesame oil was heavenly (again, LOOOVE sesame oil) and then dumped in the kimchi. Stir fried in our little wok for a few minutes before dumping in some water. I think adding enough water to cover the kimchi is way too much water so next time I'll be adding much less.

As for the final result... Surprisingly, this dish was really good. Goes awesome with plain rice. Couldn't believe it. Polished off the entire portion I had made and was left wanting more. I think if you wanted to meat it up a bit you could probably throw in some thin pieces of pork instead of or in addition to the jyako. But yeah, I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely this one turned out. Final verdict, an 8 out of 10. =)

One of my absolute favorite anime series of the last two years is Tentai Senshi Sunred. Two seasons of short (~10 min.) episodes packed with hilarity that's right down my alley. The series is basically about a slacker ex-Power Ranger (Sunred) and his "mortal" enemies: General Vamp and the evil monsters from his local chapter of the evil organization, Florsheim. However, the monsters all have day jobs and fit into society like regular people and Vamp makes a better neighbor than Sunred does.

Despite each episode being only about 10 minutes each, they're able to throw in a couple of themed skits throughout. One of the main ones being "General Vamp's Quick Recipes" which is pretty self explanatory. So I figured what the hey, it's a new year, I might as well give 'em a shot. So tonight I made recipe #1: Simple Tarako Spaghetti.

I wound up using thin linguine since that was the only pasta we had on hand. And topped it off with a bunch of shredded nori pieces (that also had dried bits of tarako in it). Turned out quite well although I've already been a fan of tarako spaghetti. But it's really quick and easy (4 ingredients and 15 minutes of your time). Definitely something even Sunred could make. ;-p

The shredded nori I used is quite good by itself as well. We polished off the rest that came in the little packet. Most of the time you'll find nori in rather large sheets and packs but since it's not something we usually eat, I managed to find this smaller packet in the rice toppings section of our local Mitsuwa.

So General Vamp's Quick Recipe #1 certainly lives up to its name. Quick, simple and tasty. Probably not the most nutritious of dishes but it will fill an empty stomach just fine. I give it an 7 out of 10. =)

A month or so ago I came across a posting on Friendfeed listing a couple of smartphone-friendly gloves. The Agloves were the only ones that seemed remotely interesting to me so I sprang for a pair. At $18, I figured it wouldn't hurt the wallet too much if they didn't pan out. Plus they give a pretty decent 90 day test period in case you really hate them for some reason.

When they arrived, I was pretty surprised at how thin they are. Made out of 60% polyester, 29% nylon, 7% silver nylon, 3% spandex, and 1% acrylic, they are a pretty snug fit too. The Northeast being in the midst of a cold spell the last couple of weeks, I was pretty apprehensive as to how they'd hold up under the mid 20s to high 30s weather we were having. After a week or so of use, I can say that they're warm enough if you're a regular urban commuter. The palms get chilly quickly once it hits around 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) or below but shoving them into your pockets or just closing your hands into fists solves that issue for the most part. For temperatures ranging from the mid-30s and above, the gloves are perfectly fine in the warmth department. At least for me. Obviously everyone's temperature threshold will vary. Oh, and you probably won't want to get into a snowball fight with these. =p

As far as how they work on the capacitive touch screens on iPhones and other smartphones, they work perfectly as advertised. It's like they're not even there. Really great stuff. I've also grown quite fond of the thinness of the gloves as they're the only gloves I've ever had where I could actually shove them into my pant pockets and root around for things by touch. Normally winter gloves are too bulky to even get them into the pockets or doesn't give you enough of a feel to them.

Prior reviews I've read all sort of ding them on the blandness of the style. I don't mind much since most gloves I tend to buy are either black, dark grey, or dark brown anyway. =p When I purchased my pair, they only had the M/L size in stock and I find them to fit quite well with just a little bit of slack towards the wrist area on the back of the hand. As of now, they seem to have all their other sizes in stock as well finally. One advantage to their thinness is that if you do need extra warmth, you can always wear a thicker pair of gloves over them.

So if you're an avid smartphone user and urban commuter who wants a pair of easy to use and light-weight gloves, then definitely give Agloves a look. If the majority of your exposure to the elements consists of you running from your home to the nearest mass transit station and then to your workplace, then the relative lack weather protection provided by these won't be a big deal.

Now prior to getting the Agloves, I have been using a pair of old Dot Gloves since last winter. The old knit version which consisted of two metal "dots" sewed into the thumb and forefinger of each hand. Style-wise, these were nothing to write home about either although they did eventually wind up being available in a lot more different colors than the Agloves. Being heavy knit, they also provide a lot better weather protection than the Agloves but at the cost of added bulk.

However, where the Aglove trumps the old Dot Gloves is in actual functionality. Even though the Dots Gloves fit me just fine, in order for the "dot" to work reliably and comfortably, you generally want it centered on the fingertip. But more often than not it shifted about so you really had to make an effort to recenter it to the proper position. And then in use, I always had to be a bit more deliberate in my touches for it to work reliably. And doing that really slowed me down. Plus I could also never get any sort of pinching motion between the thumb and forefinger to work reliably.

For now I still keep both pairs of gloves in my winter jacket pockets since they're both really not all that bulky, particularly the Agloves. I use the Agloves more since they're a lot easier to use but will break out the Dot Gloves if it turns out to be a bit chillier than the Agloves can handle. After being alerted to the new iteration of the Dot Gloves in this review, I placed an order for one of their new lambswool "iPhone Gloves." A couple of weeks wait time unfortunately but once they do come in I'll compare them to the Agloves. My guess is the old Dot Gloves will be hitting the trash can soon after.

So a few weeks back I ordered this Incase Snap Case for the iPhone 4 through Apple's "We're Sorry You're Making Such a Big Deal Out of Nothing" program. ;-p It's not that I really needed it, having already gotten the ifrogz LuxeLean case beforehand which still works just fine. But who am I to turn down a free case? At the time it said shipping would be in 4 weeks so I think this came a little early.

As far as iPhone cases go, this one is pretty typical of the clear acrylic form-fitting cases I've had in the past with my previous iPhones. Compared to the ifrogz, as far as I can tell, it may be just a smidgen thinner but seriously, just splitting hairs at this point.

The left side of the case is a bit more encased compared to the ifrogz with separate cutouts for the ringer/vibrate switch and volume buttons. The case is thin enough so that operating these controls doesn't take too much getting used to compared to having just the phone uncased. Not sure why they embossed the "Made in China" on the inside of the case but that doesn't affect anything. The right side of the case I didn't bother taking a photo of cause it's just straight covered plastic with an embossed Incase logo towards the bottom.

The top and bottom of the case is pretty much exactly the same as on the ifrogz case. No surprises here. Easy access to all the controls, plugs and jacks at the expense of not so thorough protection.

And as you can see the back is pretty nondescript. The cutout for the camera lens + flash is not as form-fitting as on the ifrogz plus they encircled the edges of the cutout with what they call a "Flash Ring." Basically they just made the edges black so it cuts down on possible glare caused by the flash reflecting on the clear acrylic and bouncing back into the lens. I'm not a heavy flash user so not sure if this is truly useful or not but sounds good at least. =p You'll also notice from this shot of the back that like all clear acrylic cases, this one also picks up fingerprints quite easily.

You do get a bonus with this case though: a little dual-sided clear acrylic stand. Incase tends to include these little stands with their thin cases. I remember having a S-shaped black plastic one for the iPhone 3GS when I got their perforated case. They're cheap and kinda dinky but convenient and perfectly functional in a pinch.

As I mentioned it's dual sided so you can place the iPhone in at one of two angles. Not entirely sure what exact angles they are but something like 45 and 60 degrees would be my guess. And they only work with the iPhone placed horizontally. The iPhone will tip over backwards immediately if you place it vertically in the 45 degree angle. With the 60 degree it'll work but once you put any pressure on the phone it'll tip over. So just keep it in the horizontal position.

So, in a nutshell, this Snap Case is good if you're a real basic, no frills kinda guy. It's light and thin and gives you just the most basic of protection, mostly just against scratches. If you like to show off the look of the iPhone but still want some protection on it, then this case will be good for you. Like all clear acrylic cases though, I predict that the back of this one will wind up getting all scratched up after a couple of weeks. Better the case than the iPhone itself obviously but these types of cases don't usually retain their pristine forms for very long. Plus you'll have to wind up removing the case every now and then to clean out the tiny dust particles that will inevitably work its way in-between the back of the case and the iPhone itself. If you don't do this often, some of those particles can wind up scratching the iPhone. That may be less of an issue with these new iPhone 4s and their glass backs but it was definitely an issue on the previous iPhone 3GS.

Compared to the ifrogz LuxeLean, I probably favor the ifrogz a bit more at this point. The ifrogz, because of the colored paint has a more grippier feel to it than the Incase which can be quite slippery if you're not careful with it. And I like the felt-like backing that covers the interior of the ifrogz. That pretty much traps any wayward dust particles that make their way into the case and prevents them from moving around against the back of the phone. But besides that, both cases give you pretty much the same amount of protection with the least amount of size and weight addition.