Tony J's Hacienda de la Blog

Graphics Intensive Computing in the Cloud

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:42:48 -0800

So can you imagine hard-core gaming via the cloud? Or how about serious photoshop design layout in the cloud? Or, even more taxing, doing video production in the cloud?

It's easy to imagine basic computing tasks in the cloud--most of us already do it in one way or another: Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, Flickr, Twitter, etc. All of those are using the cloud. This all easily runs on the cheapest netbook and barely taxes your CPU.

But what about more graphic intensive computing activities? Can you imagine playing Call of Duty in the cloud? Or working on a 200MB Photoshop file in the cloud? Or how about editing a 30 minute video in the cloud? One might think this is impossible. But it is actually quite feasible.

Cloud computing is sweeping the internet and is definitely the buzzword du jour. 'What is cloud computing,' you might ask. It is defined as 'Using servers hosted on the Internet for computational purposes'. Here are several different definitions.

So how could you possibly work on a 200 MB photoshop file in the cloud or play a graphic intensive game like Call of Duty on a cheap netbook? This is one of the more interesting new movements in Cloud Computing. There are a handful of new companies who have developed new cloud services which use web servers packed full of GPU's. This allows a cloud based service to do all the heavy lifting of graphics processing on the server-side. Then they stream the video of that output. So all the mouse and keyboard inputs are sent to the server, the server computes and operates the program and then renders it as video output back to the user. As long as the end user has a decent high-speed internet connection they will see little or no delay. And what's especially interesting is that the end user can have high performance gaming or production running on a cheap computer because they are just paying a small monthly fee to have all the heavy lifting happen in the cloud.

It makes for a very interesting fundamental shift in the way we relate to computers. I believe Google is hedging its bets with this whole shift via their Chrome OS. The gaming company OnLive has their whole business model based on this approach. In fact seeing what OnLive is doing gave me a clear picture of the whole future possibility of cloud computing in the first place.

MS is scrambling to position itself for this transition with their Windows Azure OS and MS Office Online. Apple is rumored to be getting ready to shift its whole iTunes model into the cloud with the big world-class hosting center they are building.

You can see and hear it almost everywhere you turn in the computing world.

Hang on. Its going to be an interesting next 2 or 3 years.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

College is dumb?

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:27:33 -0800

I read a speech a couple weeks ago and part of it was so wonderfully profound. So for everyone out there worried about getting good grades, or getting into the right school, or climbing the corporate ladder or whatever--stop worrying!

"You will become known for doing what you do.

This may sound obvious, but it is a useful thing to realize. Many people seem to think they must endure a 'rite of passage' which, once passed, will allow them to do the kind of work they want to do. Then they end up disappointed that this day never comes. Find a way to do the work you want to do, even if it means working nights and weekends. Once you've done a handful of excellent things in a given way, you will become known as the person who does excellent things in that given way. And that's the person you want to be, because then people will hire you to be that person."

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Automobile Design: Wedgy vs. Flat

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:07:32 -0700

So I've noticed over the last couple years a trend in the design of cars. It seems there's been a big movement toward "wedgy" looking body styles. It may be a subjective opinion but I don't like it. I think cars look better when they use flat lines in their body styling. To me the wedgy look has a sense of being cheap but the flat lines have a sense of precision and like they are more in harmony with the road and the wind. See the photos below:

Wedgy Car Body Styles:

Photos_wedge_style_cars

A car with nice straight lines:

Porsche

Here's another one with nice straight lines that echo the road and linear motion of a car:

214_porsche_jp011008_f

This car has a unique line to it where it is concave--almost like the body lines are hugging the ground. I'd say this type of body line is more similar to the flat lines of the above photo. Whatever the case its a nice departure from the ubiquitous wedge look most cars have.

Mercedes

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Palm Trees in Seattle??

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:41:20 -0700

One of my most favorite places to eat a donut is here:

Top_pot_donuts

Notice the cool mid-century modern design, the cool signage, and the two 30-foot palm trees in front of the building. Tres hip.

You've actually most likely already eaten one of their donuts before if you've ever had an old-fashioned donut at Starbucks. Those are provided by Top Pot. If you'd like to visit this Top Pot Donuts location here a map. And here is their website.

All of their stores are extremely cool architecture. I'll eventually try and post photos of their other locations too. I think they have 5 different locations around the Seattle area.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The Papyrus Font is Way Over-used!

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:31:51 -0700

It's tragic when you see a nicely designed font abused and overused. It seems like just about every other business is beginning to use this font as their "logo". I've seen it on several dentist offices, tons of restaurants, spas, hair salons, and furniture stores. Here's an example of the typical abuse.

I think business are falling into the trap of using this font because it's a distinct and evocative font that strongly communicates a vibe and aesthetic that not many other fonts can do. BUT all those benefits are moot now that "everyone" is using it. If you're a small business (or a big one for that matter) and need a logo or design for a brochure or marketing flyer etc, please hire an experienced graphic designer. If this graphic designer recommends using the Papyrus font for your logo or marketing material, the promptly fire them and hire someone who knows better.

Papyrus_font_bad

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Cool office building in Seattle

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 08:22:50 -0700

This is one of my favorite buildings in Seattle. I wish more buildings were like this. If anyone knows more information about this building: who designed it? when was it built? I'd love to find out more. Here are a couple photos and...

Office_cool_modern_building1

Office_cool_modern_building2

Here is where it is located.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Screen Resolution - more please!

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 21:49:31 -0700

In order for computing to really be useful we need monitors the size of our entire desk surface. Not these piddly 1280x1024 screens that most of us work on.

Screen-resolution

Having a digital workspace that allows you to really spread out all your "stuff" would really help you to keep your train of thought and see everything in front of you at once. It's how we really live on our desks.

When we sit down to work on something we spread everything out so we can have quick access to information or lists or other things we need to reference without having to dig through a single pile of stuff. This is how monitors should be.

Update:

Friday, July 17th, 2009

Saw an article about a new CURVED ultra-wide-screen by Ostendo Technologies called the CRVD. It sports a 2880 x 900 screen resolution at about 41" wide and 13" tall. That's getting close to our ultimate 5000 x 3000 max practical screen resolution for a desktop monitor. I bet someone could easily manufacture a 5000 x 3000 screen resolution monitor except that it would probably cost quite a bit and they may be nervous about the sellability of a monitor that big. I'd buy one. And if they marketed it correctly I bet a lot of other people would buy them too.

Additionally a few months ago I saw an obscure reference to another high resolution monitor called the Big Bertha from IBM (model number t220 and t221). It's an LCD monitor they produced in 2001 which had a mind blowing 3840 x 2400 screen resolution. All this in about a 22" diagonal. That is approaching print quality a pixel density of 204 per inch. Much printing today runs about 300 dots per inch and higher.

I'm hoping for another big order of magnitude push in screen resolution to get to that magic 5000 x 3000 threshold. Then we could really get stuff done in our digital lives instead of spending so much time switching between windows and loosing train of thought or getting distracted.

So manufacturers and product managers of monitors, get to work and bring it on.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Notes on Selfishness

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 12:20:05 -0700

Our biggest problem is too much focus on ourselves. We are self-obsessed.

Why are we so self-absorbed and violent towards each other? (whether it be little small levels or gross huge levels--like Virginia Massacre)

We are all trapped in our selfishness. Who of us can become non-selfish in a meaningful and lasting way? Is it possible--truly possible?

We are told that the almighty God, the creator of all of reality and everything we know and will ever know in this universe has intervened. It seems just too crazy. The unfathomable force that created the world, stars, and everything has supposedly reached out to you and me. Picked out this little clump of molecules called Tony J. and wants to intervene in my life and rescue me. Doesn't this just sound absolutely crazy? It is sooo wild and beyond comprehension.

Enter faith. The big gamble. My choice--your choice: Take everything you have and are and put it on the platter to give up control of it. Ask God, "What do you want me to do with all of this?" And the magic potentially amazing, cool part, "God, please come inside me and transform me into a new thing. Make me not broken and selfish anymore."

This probably needs to be a daily ritual--asking God, "What do you want me to do with all this today?..." This seems to be the big friction point of humanity.

Ego. Self Life. Ego transformation. Let god operate us.

Real relationship with God is ego transformation. The power of God changes us from the inside and the by-products of that begin to show up in our lives. Stupic performance requirements like "Do not drink, do not smoke, do not play cards, do now swear, etc etc etc..." are not ego level transformation. That's trying to make ourselves act like we've had an ego-level trasnformation. It doesn't matter. When we give up control of our lives to God (our bodies, mind, sould, heart, talents, future, money, time, energy, resources, etc) then everything magically will fall into place. It looks different for each person.

To me it comes down to two concepts:

The Greatest Command

Matt. 22:36-40

"Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?" Jesus replied, "'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments."

What happens when we give up control of our lives to God?

5:22-25

But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit's leading in every part of our lives.

We can pretty much just have the two little chunks of scripture and live our whole lives by this and not really need the rest of scripture.

For myself? What am I going to do? How am I going to live my life? What am I going to do today, tomorrow and the next day regarding all this? Will I give up control and continue to give up control? Invite God to operate my life?

For you? If you've been in the habbit of giving up control of your life to God, how will you live today? Will it be under the control of God or of yourself?

If you have never given up control of your life to God, what do you think? Crazy isn't it? Risky. It's a huge consideration--very expensive and presents a possible huge change to the way you live life. There's a magical mysterious power in this type of life. Strange and cool things happen. Think about it and give it a try.

-- end

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

What does earth look like from 4 billion miles away?

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 07:33:54 -0800

Hi Neighborhood People.

Hope this post finds everyone happy, and with pleasant and comfortable conditions occurring in your lives.

I saw a particularly fascinating picture of the earth this week. It was presented in a lecture by Dr. Carl Sagan--a long time "enemy" of creation perspective. In spite of his world view, what he said was absolutely fascinating. Read below:

---

Preface:
On October 13, 1994, the famous astronomer Carl Sagan was delivering a public lecture at his own university of Cornell. During that lecture, he presented this photo:

Pbd_sm

The photo above was taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 as it sailed away from Earth, more than 4 billion miles in the distance. Having completed it primary mission, Voyager at that time was on its way out of the Solar System, on a trajectory of approximately 32 degrees above the plane of the Solar System. Ground Control issued a command for the distant space craft to turn around and, looking back, take photos of each of the planets it had visited. From Voyager's vast distance, the Earth was captured as a infinitesimal point of light (between the two white tick marks), actually smaller than a single pixel of the photo. The image was taken with a narrow angle camera lens, with the Sun quite close to the field of view. Quite by accident, the Earth was captured in one of the scattered light rays caused by taking the image at an angle so close to the Sun. Dr. Sagan was quite moved by this image of our tiny world. Here is an enlargement of the area around our Pale Blue Dot and an excerpt from the late Dr. Sagan's talk:

Pbd_close

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

---

What a wondeful and refreshing perspective to hear. It only adds a sense of depth to the perspective of knowing God. To loving Him and loving our neighbors as much as we love ourselves.

Take care,
Tony J.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Hello World

nobody@vox.com(Tony Jacobson) — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 09:45:40 -0700

This is my first post!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend