The same microwave length

Today I went to heat my lunch as I do on most days, this is done in a common lunchroom area housed with a dozen microwaves, unless I’m summoned to a cold salad this 2minuite microwaving ritual doesn’t take place. Today on the menu, chicken curry, on basmati rice with mango cilantro chutney, if you must know! I often sing songs and write sonnets to my wife about the greatness of her world famous ginger and garlic infused curry. This post isn’t about my lunch, or my wife’s culinary talent, this is the story of the episode that ensued today in the lunchroom.

image courtesy of wikimedia, it’s a whirlpool with the cover open. Blimey!

I put my lunch in a prehistoric looking Microwave Oven and placed a paper napkin over my lunch, the last thing you want is red curry all over the microwave walls. A middle aged lady standing beside me commented “you heat your lunch just like I do, I don’t like using those plastic cover things!” I agreed with “Yes, that’s why I don’t even use plastic containers, I’ve read too much about the dangers!” I use glass containers whenever I microwave my lunch or anything for that matter. I’d invited a conversation, the lady stated she was horrified by people who not only use plastic but will microwave styrofoam and also added the dangers of plastics leaching and contaminating food! All this is happening while people around us are heating food in plastic containers.

She left stating, there’s no harm in reading, or any danger in reading too much!

$440 AMD Quad Core Build

Credit to redditor wagnerjr for all the below builds. This is outstanding, and a pretty solid quad core rig at a budget price. I’ve always been an intel guy but this is not bad at all.

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD FX-4100 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor	$99.99 @ Microcenter
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler	$19.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard	$00.00 @ Microcenter
Memory	Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory	$24.99 @ Microcenter
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB 3.5″ 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$43.98 @ NCIX US
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB Video Card	$141.97 @ Newegg
Case	Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case	$44.99 @ Microcenter
Power Supply	Antec 400W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply	$46.98 @ Newegg
Optical Drive	Samsung SH-222AL/BSBS DVD/CD Writer	$17.98 @ Newegg
		Total
	Prices include shipping and discounts when available.	$440.87
	Generated 2012-02-15 05:32 EST-0500

Here’s a sub-$400 version.

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD FX-4100 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor	$99.99 @ Newegg
CPU Cooler	Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler	$19.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard	$00.00 @ Microcenter
Memory	Patriot Sector 5 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory	$14.99 @ Microcenter
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB 3.5″ 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$43.98 @ NCIX US
Video Card	XFX Radeon HD 6790 1GB Video Card	$119.99 @ Microcenter
Case	Cooler Master Elite 430 ATX Mid Tower Case	$37.99 @ Microcenter
Power Supply	Antec 430W ATX12V Power Supply	$44.99 @ Amazon
Optical Drive	Samsung SH-222AL/BSBS DVD/CD Writer	$17.98 @ Newegg
		Total
	Prices include shipping and discounts when available.	$399.90
	Generated 2012-02-15 06:36 EST-0500

Not a quad core but a dual core intel build

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	Intel Pentium G620 2.6GHz Dual-Core Processor	$49.99 @ Microcenter
Motherboard	MSI H67A-G43 (B3) ATX LGA1155 Motherboard	$59.99 @ Newegg
Memory	Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory	$24.99 @ Microcenter
Hard Drive	Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB 3.5″ 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$43.98 @ NCIX US
Video Card	Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB Video Card	$141.97 @ Newegg
Case	Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case	$44.99 @ Microcenter
Power Supply	Antec 350W ATX12V Power Supply	$30.25 @ Amazon
Optical Drive	Samsung SH-222AL/BSBS DVD/CD Writer	$17.98 @ Newegg
		Total
	Prices include shipping and discounts when available.	$414.14
	Generated 2012-02-15 06:54 EST-0500

On an unrelated note, check out cocquyt‘s very sweet rig on imgur the tidy cable work is great!

The Greatness of Steve Jobs

After last years post on the ipad2 Review I am in the process of reading Steve Jobs Biography by Walter Isaacson. I am nothing short of inspired by the man! I can safely say I enjoy Apple products, really like Steve Jobs philosophy and ethos. I cannot stand the Mac/Apple culture or fanbois! I’ll save that negativity for another post, for now I give you the Steve Jobs I admire.
photo courtesy of meltendo

Zen Buddhism

Jobs was a perfectionist, much of this can be attributed to his dad Paul Jobs. Paul would often tell young Steve that a cabinet should look beautiful on the back where no one will ever look as it does on the exterior. It is precisely this level of detail that makes the Macbook Air or the ipad a beautiful and useful thing. People buy things because they are beautiful and because they are useful. Apple products do this, and it is through Steve’s vision, such balance is achieved. The nice people at Arstechnica even seem to think ASUS zenbook is just an imitator of the Macbook Air. Mac goes to market with a solid product. This is very much like Job’s personality; solid, confident, and cocky. It goes outside the norm and suddenly everyone wants to copy it. Invent the future, but keep it simple.

The very thing Steve gave the public is also something he stayed away from. He never clung to or worshiped material things. Materialism is a disease, the world is attached to stuff, be it shiny expensive bits of electronic gadgetry or a wardrobe of clothes. Jobs didn’t have furniture in his house because he simply couldn’t find the right kind of furniture. Jobs never had a fancy house with a lavish state of the art security system like Bill Gates or Larry Ellison (he even had more cash that them) Reed (Job’s son) would often ask “Are we going to the rich guys house” (Larry Ellison) Steve was very wealthy but never gave into superfluous niceties, nor did his parents when he shared some of his wealth with them. Jobs parents paid for their house and went on 1 cruise each year.

Jobs was a life long vegetarian too. Materialism isn’t just stuff, it’s how we treat our bodies.

Lose yourself to material things and you’ve lost your identity.

It was either shit or great

Job’s was a hard man to work for, he spoke his mind and often hurt peoples feelings. If someone brought him an idea he didn’t dance around or beat about the bush, he’d tell them “It’s shit.” We’ve become such a sensitive namby-pamby society, it’s ok to tell a suggestive dirty joke with your peers at lunch and laugh at someone’s expense but if a direct comment is made on performance, by a customer or a boss, feelings and morale are crushed.

Apple products were built by engineers who were used to receiving feedback from Jobs, as I noted earlier Apple products went to market looking good, from the user friendly interface to the packaging.

Everything had to be great!


Someday you’ll die

When Jobs spoke at a Stanford University graduation in 2005 he does mention his own death, and also talks about doing great things before you die. Everyone will die someday, do what makes you happy.

On the Occupy Movement and Capitalism

It’s pretty obvious money = power. It’s also a tough thing to share, if you had a $1m would you give it away or “share it”. The idea of a tax system imposes this on the rich or anyone who makes a paycheck. I don’t feel the #occupy Wal-Street movement did very much, other than block traffic for the working class. At least here in Minneapolis, free ways were blocked, the media gives a power to the people slant. Take a look at these images from City Pages clearly appealing to its audience. Might I add these people in the photos don’t look very hard off.

Fine so what if we tax the crap out of the rich, it’s not going to solve the $14tn debt. It might help it but certainly not the answer. There’s so many under the table transactions and income tax evasion taking place, and no this doesn’t happen in third world countries with dictators, it happens in the developed world too e.g. Greece, Portugal and Spain are prime examples. If it’s happening there, it’s happening in the US. It’s happening where humans live.

Occupy has been a clever way to divert blame from Govt to people. The guiltiest party of printing inflated dollars into the economy just slipped away int he background silently. Yes I know many of the occupy protests were by Govt buildings too, and there were some “Audit the Federal Reserve” I agree with this position.

The general theme was “corporate greed” and the overshadowing message is to “Tax the crap out of wal-street.” The message of occupy was the 99% crying out injustice to the 1% who are supposedly holding all the cash. First, the so called 99% aren’t very good at mathematics, because I really don’t think their following is 99% of the US population and 1% is definitely not controlling all the wealth.

This young lady should get applauded, the only poster I agree with. Although I’m suspect, I’m not the audience she’s targeting. The number of occupy protesters sporting a North Face or brand name garment of clothing have already given into “Capitalism” if you’ve every bought anything from a chain, you’ve given into it. Yes, that includes the iphone used to rouse friends.

Let’s meet at the govt plaza and show these pricks the 99 per cent LOL
—Sent from my iPhone

Wait, I need a Starbucks it’s cold out!
—Sent from my iPad

Sorry I couldn’t resist, but I’m trying to drive the point. We are a capitalist nation, it doesn’t work the other way. Yes of course we should audit the Federal Govt, those words “transparency” and keeping the spending power of the dollar should exist, but the other side is quite different. Poverty in Africa is not a pretty thing, you’ll hear about these rays of hope, here’s discussion of System D economies in Africa and Asia, yes it creates innovation, jobs and hope. There are also far worse things happening in those nations. The real occupy was for North African nations, and even then there’s a long way to go. Just today I read a piece on how Africa can remind the world of the Capitalist way. Wait what? the developing nations want KFC, GAP and Apple products? Of course they do, it’s ridiculous to kill capitalism, who doesn’t want 12 varieties of ice-cream, who thinks competition and commerce are silly. They bring problems but we sure like the availability of goods and services.