I finally (only a month or so later) got around to putting up pictures from our Costa Rica trip in December.
So, if you are really bored, you can check out the jungle, monkeys, beach and all the other groovy stuff in Costa Rica.
Monthly Archives: January 2005
Still A Respectable Score
Not as good as my 5 under par score, but I played frisbee golf today (for the first time since that score), and I ended up 3 under par. Still better than average… Plus I’m sick, so I’ll use that as an excuse.
The worst part is that I was 5 under for awhile, then I got a bogey on 17 and 18. Oh well, I suck.
Project Lightspeed – 25Mbit DSL
This news is 2 months old, but it’s the first I heard about it. SBC Communications (my local provider here in San Diego), decided to ramp up ADSL2+ deployment, and are going to deploy about 50,000 miles of fiber to everyone’s CO. Then use ADSL2+ technology to bring 25Mbit connectivity to the home (new homes will get fiber right to the home). This will allow neat things like HDTV on demand (goodbye cable and satellite), phone and of course Internet connectivity on a single pair of copper.
They are going to start trails this summer, with commercial deployment at the end of this year. By the end of 2007, more than half of all SBC customers will have access to it.
Hopefully San Diego should be one of the first cities, since we have way too much fiber in the ground as it is.
9 + 15% = 35?
Apple put out a minor speed-bump on their G5 Xserve machines (they went from 2.0 Ghz to 2.3 Ghz and nothing else in the system or architecture changed).
The dual 2.0 Xserve could yield 9 gigaflops of raw processing power (which is really fast to begin with). The dual 2.3 Ghz Xserve yields 35 gigaflops of power.
Can someone please explain to me how a 15% increase in CPU speed gives you 4 times more processing power? Seems a little odd if you ask me.
CES Show Brings New Car Audio Stuff
I was waiting for this year’s CES show to see what is available for a car stereo/navigation system for my new car.
It looks like there are some cool new things this year…
Realtime Traffic Map
Alpine and Pioneer have navigation systems that overlay realtime traffic data on your navigation map (data includes traffic speeds, accidents, etc.) and can automatically re-route you for the fastest path though it all. The traffic feeds come from satellite via XM Radio’s NavTraffic system. This is something I wanted, in fact I blogged about it a few months ago.
Alpine Finally Updates Navigation System
It’s finally touch screen compatible. As you can see here, their current navigation system requires a remote. Was totally stupid if you ask me.
Eclipse Updates Their Navigation System
I really like the form-factor of the Eclipse decks because it’s a double-DIN unit (the others are single DIN with a motorized monitor that pops out). It has a built-in 30GB hard drive with the navigation data taking 10GB of space. Which means you get 20GB to store your music. Unfortunately they don’t support XM radio, have an iPod interface or support the realtime traffic data.
Pioneer Gets iPod Adapter
Pioneer’s rumored iPod adapter arrived. Now Alpine and Pioneer both have one. It would be cool if they supported the ability to display cover art on the main deck.
Now, there are two things I want to know…
1. Why in the hell doesn’t Alpine or Pioneer come out with a double-DIN sized deck?
2. Why doesn’t anyone come out with a bluetooth phone control unit?
Have Had The RAZR V3 For Awhile Now
Okay, I take back my one complaint about the RAZR from this post. The contact manager does not require an entry for every phone number, it just works like that by default. You can change the settings to display by Primary Contact instead.
I also noticed something else cool… when I’m using the phone as an Internet gateway (also see other post), you can still send/receive voice calls just fine, and it doesn’t stop/pause your Internet connectivity. That’s neat.