Figuring out Figures to Display

December 16th, 2009 omo

Ikea this holiday season is selling their DETOLF display cabinets for $60. Believe it or not, anime figure collectors all across the world uses this, because it’s so cheap.

I’ve looked around. The kind of cabinets I want run usually for about $300-400. If I get a break on price I can probably score something I like for under $250, but, well, that’s still a lot more than $60. And the DETOLF is serviceable. If anything, picky people can try to repaint the top and bottom slaps of wood to match their interior decor. I just went with what the walls were painted like.

And for $60, I’m rather satisfied with it. The only real issue I have with it is that, well, it’s flimsy like most Ikea furniture. In essence, the DETOLF is 3 tall panes of safety glass held together by two slabs of wood top and bottom. The thing that keeps the cabinet together are these two sets of metal railing, in which you screw into the top and bottom wooden pieces. It also holds the glass shelves inside the case. The two railings are flimsy as all heck! If they were solid and doesn’t vibrate when you walk next to them on hardwood floor, maybe I would be a happer man. If they don’t hit the glass sides of the cabinet when the shelves are empty and make that cheap rattle sound, I’ll be even happier. For extra credit, if the DETOLF was about a foot shorter, I would also be very happy because then I can set it on top of this drawer/desk combination, rather than setting it on the floor.

Setting it on the floor, if you’ve seen a DETOLF (top link has picture), means it is a display case meant for a larger room with more open spaces. Or how else can you see the stuff in the lower shelves? Elevating the DETOLF is the only other way to go. Those more expensive display cabinets all do this, of course. There’s another issue–a lot of figures I own (and probably a fair reflection on what’s on the market) tend to be sculpted with a frame of reference that is even or below the horizontal plane of the figure. In other words, a lot of these figures are meant to be looked UP at, rather than looked down at.

I think my dad’s pottery collection goes better than animu figurines on these shelves.

At any rate, I got a pair of these set up. I also tore into a backlog of figures that I bought over the past 12 months which remained in their boxes. That half-price Ciel I bought via AmiAmi was quite nice, to my surprise. Ureshiko-san donned her umbrella. Tamaki-nee’s chains were a pain to put on, but now she kneels like the eroge giant that she is. Also need to figure out where to put that OTHER Ureshiko-san and the SUPER LARGE Mai Tokiha (is she 1/6? Way too big for 1/6). I probably should also move that surprisingly lovely Itsuki Kannagi/Musumi Shimoyama figure, since that is just 1/10 and looks ridiculous next to a 1/6. Aegis Figma was cute, but probably funnier than cute; my first Figma, too.

As for the bottom shelf, I stuck Etopen there. It’s quite large for a little thing like that, or rather, I think the scale of it in the anime is spot on.

That is on top of all the other figures I already had out in display. Sigh.

Tags: figures

Posted in Anime, Reviews | No Comments »

New PC Part 2

November 24th, 2009 omo

Instead of breaking down and putting it together over Thanksgiving I caved in last weekend and build the thing up. What’s left to do is rebuild the old box using one of the drives I currently have (probably the 250gb).

I’ll break it down into sections–

Impression:

• SSD is hella fast. When people say it’s the best upgrade you can get, I believe it. Then again I was always a fast-disk-ftw kind of guy.
• Win7 is pretty okay. Being 64 bit didn’t cause any problems, besides the $30 upgrade program needs an upgrade, and a fresh install probably means I had to do it twice.
• I like windows gadgets, but the one gadget I want/need (VPU temp) seems like a pay-only dealie, as it requires a component software used by hardcore tuners. I am not.
• The Antec 1200 is a beast. Huge. I can raise a hamster in it if I didn’t have to weave like 2 additional cords from the matching-heug Antec CP-850 just to power up all the fans in the case. And there are SIX of them that comes with the case, with space for one additional more on the side.
• Airflow in the case is serious. It’s definitely like an air tunnel. My VPU used to run on average 85-90C in my old case, now it runs 75-80C. That’s impressive; in fact it’s so impressive the VPU fan is off unless I play a game, which it rarely spins past 30%. I think this means “mission accomplished” in a different sense; it saved me the money of buying a VPU HSF upgrade or a new, quieter VPU. Kinda wish for a switch to turn off the fans short of unplugging them.
• Airflow in the case is also curious. Like a typical full tower case, one side of it is the “top” end and it is about 50% perforated. It’s also where you can install the additional (120mm) fan. Go google up an Antec 1200 review if you’re curious how it looks. In the box there are two pieces of clear plastic wrap covering it. I am thinking of leaving it like this; this way it’ll create a more linear flow of air from one side of the case to the other, and possibly a stronger positive pressure. It just looks dinky.
• The three forward case fans are the loudest thing in the box. And instead of a typical Antec “H M L” switch, they have dials that you can turn to full, mid, min, or anywhere in between. Kind of neat I thought
• Oh, the fans are decked out with blue LEDs. The top 200mm fan have LEDs on a switch. How thoughtful. But the rest of them don’t, and it kind of sucks :( Why not? It’s freaking annoying.
• I don’t entirely regret buying the Antec 1200 by accident, because it did solve one problem I’ve had, but it’s just too much for poor omo. At the very least it makes my stock CPU coolers more than sufficient. As you might have heard, the new i5/i7 have low profile HSF compared to even my socket 775 Conroe. Not that it matters–
• Overclocking this generation of i7s is like overclocking old school 80486, where you can wire a switch to the case for that “turbo” button. It’s more complicated nowadays, because there are more than a few power settings you have to change on the BIOS side, but also some CPU features like that Intel Turbo thing which OC’s single cores for single thread apps, and obviously your multipliers will be off the spec so it’s wonky and you might want to turn it off. MSI has literally a button on their boards that does this. Gigabyte does not, but in the BIOS there’s a preset feature which does this for you basically. Oh, it helps to have 1600 DDR3 ram. Which I do \o/ And of course, a reboot to turn it on/off. So it’s not quite as easy as the days of old. It really doesn’t take much to run my i5 up to 3.6GHz without breaking a sweat. And I mean by ME breaking a sweat trying to find the best values to tune the rig. As far as I can tell the CPU only runs hotter because the powersaving features are off, so when it idles it still clocks at 3.6ghz and not downclock to 1.1ghz as it would stock.
• Did I mention the heug case + the heug power supply is heavy? I guess one thing to note about the PS is that it really is quiet, and pretty quality. I don’t regret getting it even if I’ll never use anywhere close to 850w that it is specc’d for.
• So much of what I installed with this box is already in Win7’s came-with drivers, I ended up forgetting installing random crap, lol.

To Do:

• Need to move crap around so I spare out a drive for the old box. I already have an image
• Since I inadvertently solved the VPU heat/noise problem, and I doubt I’ll overclock any more than “stock OC” I might just cancel the CPU HSF, or use it in the Sonata. I’ll probably leave out the heat pipe crap this time.
• Wish I can engineer a light switch for the 5 other sets of LEDs in the Antec 1200. Time to google up a mod. Srsly, that is almost a deal breaker right there. Good thing they’re not that bright and I can point them away from me.
• Still have to figure out a backup solution. I would like a NAS but given this monster case I might just settle for 2x or 3x 1tb drives and run RAID 5. Just hope my currently 1tb will last when 3x 1tb drive is < $200 (not far in the future I think).

Regrets:

• I spent too much money.
• Related to that, it isn’t difficult to reconfigure some stuff and eek out enough cash for an i7 860. The improvements are notable simply because of hyperthreading… But rly, I’m sure my CPU can handle hyperthreading, but it’s just disabled in the hardware. Wish some magic can unlock that lol.
• Related to that, too, is the RAM. I mean I guess I have 1600 ram but I should’ve known better that I’ll rarely use it. Could’ve saved maybe $10-20.
• It’s freaking heavy. Again, and gaudy, and the light problems.

Tags: pc building

Posted in Gadgets, Reviews | 1 Comment »

Shure SE 115

November 17th, 2009 omo

Long time no post.

So my trusty Shure e2c has finally breathed its almost-last breath. The plastic shielding over the post-Y-splitter portion (the stretch of cable between the ear buds to the splitter) has gotten to the point where it’s too brittle to be stored, and the eventual breaks in the cable lead to too much lost of power to the buds that it is not working out of one end. That means it’s time for a new pair of earbuds. For postmortum, I’ve had these since 2005 and I bought them as open box from Circuit City via their eBay store. No, I didn’t take the utmost care with them either, especially in the final years of it.

So, Shure SE 115. I had a chance to pick up a pair of SE 110s for $50 (after cash back) but I passed it on for a sale on the 115. That sale never really came, and I was pressed to get a new pair, so I blew a bunch of Amazon gift certs. The problem with 110 and 115, from a brief google, is the lack of bass response. Supposedly if you go up to a SE 210 (about $100 more) you can win-win with both more fun dynamics and more “flat” response but lol.

The actual kit, if you’ve set foot in an Apple store, comes in this long box. It contains a carry pouch which beats the little circle thing the e2cs has, even if it’s like twice as big. Like all of Shure’s new earphones, it is separated into the extension cord portion and the earphone portion. Not sure I like it, but it works. Shure e2cs have bigger ear bud attachments–something not a problem for me but nonetheless I noticed, so it’s a problem for some users. The 115s come default with foam buds that are in a semispherical shape, but the usual array of optional buds of different shapes and sizes are present (as well as the removal kit) so it’s all good.

As to the sound quality? It’s definitely pretty bassy for something like this, but the frequency response is flatter than the e2c near the high end. What it does better is clarity and volume. Mid and low mids are notably clearer and louder, which is probably a good thing for most people, depending on the type of music you listen to the most.

I picked mine up for $68, black, from Amazon. It comes in 3 other colors. I think it’s a good deal.

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Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation – Endless Frontier…ugh

September 4th, 2009 omo

So, I got this DS and is playing a game. Here is one of many jokes localized by Atlus–

Haken: It’s amazing what you can learn from wasting time on the internet all day.

KOS-MOS: Strange… In my time, the Internet is for–

Xiaomu: Sh-Shut up, you fool! Don’t mock my technical expertise!

Posted in Admin, Games, Reviews | No Comments »

RSU and Stock Options

April 27th, 2009 omo

I had to make a choice over the two. Basically as an hiring incentive I was given X amount of Restricted Stock Units. RSUs are the new stock options for employees. If you would recall, stock options are the ability to purchase a company’s stock at a predetermined, fixed price. I think most notorious case (I guess in a good way) is AOL. People who worked it in the early 90s were given stock options to the company and the company’s value rose like rocket to Jupiter. Once it matures, your $100 per share stock could be had for $5. So 50000 shares of it would net you close to 4 mil even after Uncle Sam’s share. So that was 1999, anyways. I think most employees had closer to 10000 shares or so, if you were there in the earlier days? Just trying to recall from memory.

Stock options, as you can see, promise huge gains. But at the same time so can RSU. It’s just that in general you get much fewer RSU than actual stock options, as options require you to do something to buy in and sell. Anyways, I have the opportunity to convert my RSU to 2.2 times more in stock options, because they realized at the time of the offer, the stock prices were rock bottom. They still sort of are.

RSU is similar to options in that after a vesting period, it becomes some kind of stock-like instrument. In this case RSU becomes actual stock, and you end up owning it (after your employer holds some shares for tax purposes). There’s no price associated with RSU because you…get stock. The math lies in the number of RSU you are promised.

In the choice between the two, there are three numbers to figure out besides any material contractual terms, and the vesting time/schedule: X – number of RSU, Y – number of stock options, S – strike price, and Z – the breakeven point.

Presuming both the options and RSU vest completely over the same period of time A, S times Y is the amount you pay to convert your options into stocks, and if we sell immediately, the profit (or loss) is the price per stock sold times Y, minus S times Y. If the breakeven point is the price of stock at the time we sell, Z, that equates the RSU choice with the options choice (ignoring tax consequences), then ZY – SY = ZX. With a bit of algebra, we get Z(Y-X)=S, or Z = S/(Y-X). Naturally, the assumption made here is that you won’t cash in options at a loss, and if you get the same number of RSU as stock options, RSU would automatically get you more money because it assumes the price of the stock (SX).

RSUs are better than stock options in a few ways–first off, they are guaranteed to have value (unless your company explodes, or you leave the job before it vests). Stock options may not have value if the strike price is higher than the going price at the time of vesting. Second, you get the stock automatically; lazy people like me would prefer that stock roll into my brokerage account (set up by the employer) automagically rather than have to learn and track the stock market for a good time to buy in and sell. Plus, if it vests over time rather than all at once, it gives employees company ownership, with all that goodness about employee-owned companies has to do with morale and whatever.

The funny thing is, at this point RSUs do less to motivate me than options, because the company’s stock are trading at an all-time low. In fact it’s as low as it has been since IPO, and this tech company survived the .com bust. Pretty dire times, right? Great time to get some stock options!

Tags: stocks

Posted in Reviews, Social | 1 Comment »

NY International Auto Show 2009

April 13th, 2009 omo

So I was at the auto show with mia otou-san in our now-annual tradition each April.

This year the picking was slim. I think the two of us made it out an hour earlier than we normally would have. We capped off the day at lunch @ Lazzara’s. Got one of their daily pizza (half, it was fresh tomatoes, moz, and chicken breasts) and the calamari hero.

But yes, the cars. We actually took some pictures so hopefully those will be coming. Other than that, the picking was slim, as said. The car of the show, IMO, is the Hyundai Genesis. This year it’s more pimp than last year. But what impressed me the most was the price line for the coupe. The 310 horsepower version only lines up to be about 25000? That’s nuts. The exterior looks good and the well-furnished and sufficiently designed interior puts it ahead of other cars of its class.

What are of its class? Say the Acura TL. The TL Tech is actually better furnished, but its MSRP is closer to 40k. Performance wise it might be even better. The SH-AWD is definitely one of the better buys of its class, but that’s approaching the price of an Audi.

On the other hand it’s a sad day for Infiniti. Couple years ago it rocked the house, but now the G37 only has its stylish exterior and fun-to-drive engine to speak for itself. The M45 was significantly disappointing compared to other cars of its class.

Like the Lexus GS and ES lines. I’d take a Lexus ES over a M45, as sad as it may be. We did witness the ISF again and the new ISC, which is a convertable with a hard top. I doubt any VolksWagen types would fall for it though, even if it is quite stylish (chick car?). Yawn at the LX series.

The VW CC is as nice as they come, too bad it’s closer to 30k and at that price I’d rather splurge on a Genesis coupe.  At the show there was a Hyundai Equus which might be making its way to the US? I don’t know. But what is definitely coming over is the new Golf and GTI. The GTI is a fine car if that’s your thing. Nothing beats it, probably, with exception to the BMW 1 series.

The BMW 128 and the 135 are very nice cars. The 2-door version especially. It’s like a smaller and more hardcore GTI. The convertible version is notably bigger, but obviously forego the trunk. Other than the semi-exotic M6 that’s pretty much all I got out of BMW this year. Z4? Yawn. No other car exemplify the excitement of midddle age crisis better IMO.

Audi…is Audi. Probably the best interior in my opinion out of the German 3 for sports driving.

Mercedes S550 is still the best interior at that price range, if luxury is your thing. Between this and the Lexus LS series, it’s a close call that costs $10k apart.

Oh, also the Acura ZDX (LOL) and the BMW X6M (LOL). Just want to mention them. Also, Fisker. And expensive Jaugar cars are really nice. Pretty mucch breezed through Caddy and Crysler. No new stuff there.

In everyman-land, there’s not much going on for our Ford guys but that’s because we skipped it. At least the car section. The new Camaro, on the other hand… hawt stuff. Also dig the retro theme, only if they could make it less ugly in the inside. Volt prototype is prototype-ish.

Toyota doesn’t have much new stuff out there…same Prius, same weird-crossover Venza, etc. Honda is more or less the same with the newly launched Insight that is just like a Prius, but sportier. The new Element is boxier than ever and less ugly, at least.

Sat in the Altima 2-door again, next to the Accord 2-door…hard call. Accord’s interior is better, now, but you pay more and the Altima might run a tad faster. I should try my butt in a 300c but that didn’t look any different than before. Actually most exhibits looked the same. Smart, Mini, Volvo, Saab, Saturn, just to name a few.

Nissan SE-R is not an everyman car but it looked slightly better than I remembered it to be. The new Mazdaspeed 3 is like the old one from the outside. Lan Evo is just disappointing, and the WRX is as you’d expect it, totally spartan and all.

As far as trucks go, for full-size, Dodge wins, hands down. F-150 comes next, and GMC tightly behind that. Forget the Tundra or Titan.

But yeah, a lot of them are just the 2009 models that were available last year.

Tags: cars

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Buying an Upgrade for Perspectives

March 27th, 2009 omo

This is kind of a response to this article, mixed with my feeling about the PC enthusiast market.

It’s like the aftermarket car mod market. E-Penis as expressed through figures like breaking horsepower or consequent read speeds. And it is an undeniable part of the market forces.

On the other hand, obviously there’s a lot more to it than that. We all want a functional, speedy, well-priced computer that makes us feel good about it. Sometimes it’s about how it looks or how it fits into your den or kitchen or bed room. Sometimes it’s about the crazy case mods or that it makes no noise or it has 4 video cards. Sometimes it’s about how you can still afford to play the games you like on a dime. Sometimes it’s about an objective benchmark that adds and translates to real life value.

But the Anandtech article I linked, besides being informative about the current state of NAND-based solid state drives, also gave a good insightful look at how numbers are manipulated in disregard of real world performance due to market pandering and lack of understanding that leads to customer dissatisfaction. It’s not all; there are entire market segments in the PC enthusiast market that sells pointless wares. Some of my favorites are heatsinks of various shapes claiming one is better than the other, another is in thermal pastes and the detailed ways you can differentiate the ones that comes with Intel’s retail packaging versus what is off the shelf @ Newegg. Or the static-reducing board for high-end PCI tuners and sound cards. Or actually, PC cooling in general.

What makes all of this work isn’t that paying $5 for a tube of silicon remixes is a con, but that all of these non-OEM additions can plausably improve your computer somehow. It’s marketing nonsense. Like how an exhaust bigger than that other one can improve flow and squeeze some unimaginable amount of power from your powertrain. I don’t know.

The other point I want to raise is that, as most sensible PC hardware enthusiasts would agree, is that disk activity is the number one bottleneck of today’s PCs, from a holistic perspective. It even may be the #1 bottleneck in specific applications like gaming or video processing. It affects pretty much everything a normal person do on his computer. The hope and dreams of the profitability of the SSD revolution is big.

But it is elusive to bench. It doesn’t have one simple number that could reflect the benefits of faster random and sequental reads, and in real life application the differences are hard to measure. It poses a big marketing problem. This is why reviews matter, etc.

Props to those who care and digs into these expensive computing options.

Tags: computers

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Ikari Hero

February 27th, 2009 omo

So following a few people who work/live in Manhattan via Google Reader, I found myself with this site call Midtown Lunch. From that I found this decent Italian place near work called Lazzara’s. It’s actually one of the best pizza places in Manhattan, suprisingly. Haven’t had a slice there yet, but I’ve had this sandwich.

Highly recommended.

It’s on the expensive side, at $10, but it delivers. A win if you like calamari.

The squid’s breading tend to get soggy quickly, but the squid remains firm and fresh. It bites.

The sandwich is also slightly kicking with spices, but overall just a red sauce, not too much, a little thick, and good flavor with the fried squid breading. Fresh stick of Moz. All in a hero roll.

Better fresh than not, but thumbs up even after a day if you heat it up. It gets a little seafood-y but some people like that.

Tags: lunch

Posted in Reviews, Social, food | 1 Comment »

Everglide S-500 Is Holiday Tease

December 2nd, 2008 omo

So a while back during the pre-Thanksgiving Woot-off, I got a pair of these Everglide S-500 which are now on sale for the same price from buy.com. That means I paid an extra $5 to get them about 2-3 weeks early. I suppose it’s not a terrible loss. Oh by the way you can pick from white or black. I got the white ones because I was slow with the wooting and the black ones ran out.

I can help you with a review, at least.

These are strictly cheap, big, comfy headphones. They are a little on the bulky side but I think that’s a good thing for most people. That keeps out the sound from outside (especially since you want to use these massive things in a stationary setting) and that always translate to a better sound.

But the S-500’s mids and highs are disappointingly flat. My Shure e2cs kicks its butt. The bass response for these Everglides is obviously better than a pair of ear buds (of any kind) but that’s really the one of only two redeeming features. Bass sounds bassy but probably a little too dense, but the drivers provides a filling sound.

The other redeeming feature is that they are comfortable. For the record I wear glasses and have relatively big ears, and after an hour of use they only feel a little warm. Definitely good for long-term gaming.

In fact, these Everglides are touted as exactly that–comfortable gamer headsets for those tiresome, long Naxx raid nights. But speaking of online gaming and vent and all, it actually doesn’t come with a microphone built into the headset. The package comes with a separate, simple clip-on mic that you plug in separately into your PC. It’s definitely A HUGE MINUS because who wants 2 sets of wires dangling? This really bothered me. I mean, sure, that also means you can use the mics separately if the need ever arises, but I guess that is why most PC headsets…have a mic attached to the headset? EPIC FALE IMO.

These made-in-China headsets are definitely worth $15 just because of their solid headphone aspect. The mids responses well enough that they make good gamer headphones in terms of getting crisp sound effects from games, but it’s no improvement over good PMP earbuds for music. Rest of it is sorta disappointing. Despite the solid feel of the whole package the non-integrated mic is a major issue I have with it. In the end, I feel sorry for anyone who paid the $90 or whatever price they were as MSRP, but they can make a good throwaway headset or a casual Christmas present.

Tags: deals

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Google Chrome First Look

September 2nd, 2008 omo

1. Read their compelling case in comic form, online, as penned by Scott McCloud. It explains what’s new and good and improved. And is great marketing.

2. It feels like Safari on drugs. It’s also the fastest GUI browser I’ve ever seen. I’m currently running it off the work PC which is a Pentium D (3.4ghz) with a gig of ram, so it should pwn any GUI web browser. And it really pwns with Chrome.

3. Seeing that it’s suppose to haul ass via its Javascript VM, I tried out some AJAX heavy sites like the usual google suites (which obviously pass with flying colors, if even enhanced a bit) and sites like thesixtyone, pandora, etc. And they work.

4. LOL. Adblock plugin for Chrome = ultimate irony? Which is why it doesn’t exist but will be one of the first plugins for Chrome.

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