Coffee Cup

Hello hello and happy new year!
The cup of the day is the Australian Skyberry - a brew I've had the pleasure to encounter before but this time available in my local supermarket. It seems 2014 may see the dawn of civilized drinks, either that or it was an overflowing seasonal specialty. Nonetheless it has been prepared, as have I, and together we will get acquainted.

The first warning sign is that it was one of a selection of ground coffees in the finest range - The Skyberry was in good company with an Ethiopian Sidamo and some South American thing, so i'm hopeful that the drink reaches me in prime condition.

The second warning sign - as if buying ground coffee isn't problematic enough - is that the Best Before is months in the future.  This rather stretches the definition of "best". Technically, it'll be worse after the smugly printed so by process of elimination better before it, but "best" before it implies some objective yardstick by which you can measure the coffee and if you want to get specific about "Best" before rather than "better" before then your process should be counted not on a calender, but by a wristwatch.

Nonetheless, in a hopeless sea of optimism and toxic cocktail of stubbornness and thirst I purchased my beloved Skyberry. Preparation was a two-shot black americano, slightly strong. And I figured I'd take my time to decide on sugar or biscuit accompaniment - My coffee-shop goto at the moment is to dunk a spoon to leave a few drops of coffee on it and set it aside on a saucer, about half full of brown sugar. Once the drink is complete, take the sugar as required for a sweet sugar rush. Its a strange ritual, but counteracts the occasional bitter aftertaste of some high street blends.

Well, as can only be expected, the poor drink was doomed before it passed my lips. It can only be a christmas gimmick to pad the shelves and was as stale as a new-year Turkey sandwich. I managed about a finger or so, but its flat stale taste suffocated the taste buds with a dry ash finish. It wasn't terrible, but I own an instant coffee that's less unpleasant and there didn't seem to be a reason to continue any longer than needed to finish this write-up.

So I bring you the disappointment that was supermarket ground coffee, defined by their remarkable ability to start with something delicious and completely ruin it. To continue the theme, next week I'll be playing SimCity!

I am Roger in Technology, thanks for reading.

Digital Rage Management

So I started writing a blog post about DRM but got bored and wandered off but the topic has been on my mind during the commercial season.  It bugs me that we've got from Vinyl to Tape to CD to MP3 to DRM. I don't feel like we won that last technological step, however the sands are still shifting.

Television services have benefitted from the same three funding models that we have now - Adverts, Subscription and Pay-as-you-go rental and owned.

Services like netflix are subscription, while YouTube and Vevo are largely Advert funded - although this is changing. Media companies like HBO and Virgin offer subscription and rental options, while iTunes, GooglePlay, et al are offering the new model of PAYG Owned DRM.

Meanwhile, traditional piracy always had the edge against slow-delivery, quality-limited or poor-choice content providers but is struggling to keep up with HD and 4K On Demand-PAYG services. Its the convienience, not the cost, driving the consumption market.

So, why do I think the consumer lost out on the last step? Well as long as the content providers service is more convienent than piracy then they will take our money.  My background concern is a very shallow one - its about limited access to a century of education and entertainment that we potentially - but not actually - have access to.
But this isn't a loss to the consumer, its a loss to humanity and far beside the road I'm travelling at the moment.

The loss to the consumer is the fractured nature of the market. Fractured and competing music companies retailing vinyl had little cost to the consumer, who could easily walk into a record shop and buy music. And actually, competition between artists and record labels was probably a good thing for the consumer, leading to musical and eventually technological revolution. Ok there were a few record shops but the retail was divided from the production by physical distribution. The system was PAYG-owned-media, but you had a freedom to store and use the media as you wanted and it was easy to find and buy.

Under the new system, as I browse Netflix, Vevo, YouTube, Picturebox, Blinkbox, iPlayer, BSkyB, iTunes, GooglePlay, SteamPlay, Virgin, HBO and a dozen other services they all have one thing in common - a limited subsection of content and they are often moving toward a PAYG owned model instead of a subscription or PAYG consumable item cost.  I don't mind a PAYG consumable item because I pay for it, watch it and I'm done. The transaction is complete, like a cinema ticket or a bucket of popcorn. It's cheap and once its gone, its gone
But when I'm forced into a PAYG owned purchase its going to cost a lot more than the rental and I'm at the whim of the content provider still carrying and supplying my content to my device, OS and country. Some aforementioned providers are better at support than others, but each has a similar yet different selection of content.

Imagine having to go to the Virgin shop to buy virgin label records and going to the EMI store to buy EMI vinyl. And some of your vinyl will self destruct after X paybacks or a set number of days.
Or all of your HMV CDs would self-destruct when the HMV shop closed down, or your DVDs would skip and stutter during peak hours.

But this is where we are, led by the leash of modern DRM. If I buy a film on GooglePlay, I can later buy the same film on another service. I might have to if GooglePlay stop providing it, or don't support my playback device. Digital Rights - as the are - are a stop gap. I don't want to have to browse a dozen content providers, each asking for unique login credentials and push-button access to my wallet. I don't want to check which provider I bought BattleStar Galactica from or stand puzzling if I should spend £1.89 on a single episode of Dr.Who or if I should series-link it from a different provider.
For every preceeding format my media could sit on a shelf - albiet a digital shelf in the case of MP3s - without this additional barrier between me and my content. But I wouldn't have gone this far without proposing a solution. The 21st century solution is as always, to go meta. 

Lets assume that a cloud-hosted or better yet distributed database with an authenticated token vending machine manages all of my accounts. I have a single login and it records which media is bought from which service, so just provides me with sort/search and filter options to playback to the requested device.  

Now, lets go multi-user. We each have a login and can watch our own media. Each encrypted token represents the digital rights to watch an episode, movie or whatever and is authenticated by the network.

My Meta ownership of digital media means my distribution network can publish new tokens for other users. Perhaps I wanted to gift you my copy of Ghostbusters - its in my account and I can watch it, so I instuct the network to publish a new token for you and BAM! one set of Google, Netflix, iTunes et al. accounts with meta-layer for authentication to prevent abuse - My Ghostbusters token would of course be revoked. It'd still exist in the cloud somewhere, on GooglePlay or Blinkbox or somewhere as a purchased digital right but I'm extracted from that by my single-sign-on meta account layer.
We *could* de-restrict it and just share accounts of course, but the meta-layer with access to multiple content providers gives me a single sign-on and single-interface so we might as well go one step further and respect the DRM only allowing me to watch the content I've paid for and adding sharing by issuing and revoking tokens. Lastly, this does pose the question - what if we both pay for the same film - well, the collection of accounts will already own the film. The cost could be divided equally between users - so the secound user gets it half-price and the value is credited to the other account.
Or the money could be given to the content provider, or directly to the artist. Or to a local childrens charity. Or my personal favorite, it goes into a fund and can be used to "upgrade"  purchase from SD to HD, or from HD to 4K. Because I really hate having to buy the same film over and again as each format changes. The fund would also be used to Re-Buy content in the case that one content provider stops carrying something we've paid for, or if we have to switch content provider to support new hardware or codecs. This latter point is in the best interest of the content provider - if they have a better selection of long lasting content, then we'll switch to them and the re-buy fund goes straight into their filthy gold-laden pockets.

A taste of Hawaii

Earlier this month I was privileged to be drinking Hawaiian Kona, and I'll try and do it justice in this writeup. This review is based on a single 250g bag of Type 1 Kona beans ground and prepared as 2, 3 or 4 shot espresso and the occasional 2 shot americano. The beans were roasted mid-december, stored in an airtight container in a cool dark place and ground immediatly before use.

Setting the Kona aside is its distinct sweet aroma like black forest fruits. There is an exciting berry hit from the moment you start grinding.
The initial sip is dominated by its sweet fruity fragrance that quickly gives way to a soft main taste, which is warm, but not earthy at all. The Kona then relaxes into a gentle, but slightly sharper, aftertaste that completes the palette.

Producing a rich dark crema I found the Kona difficult to under or over extract - you just can't go wrong with each cup coming out very similar to the last. Letting it steep for a little longer produces a stronger coffee but without the dark bite of a lot of South American beans. 

Prepared too quickly and under extracted the Kona still performs well but misses some of its magic.

The versitile Kona is ideal for espresso or strong americano and doesn’t need the extra water to bring it alive but nor does it suffer from a more dilute preparation.

I don’t take milk or sugar in my coffee, and although I didn’t try them I can imagine it blending very well with Vanilla or hazelnut syrup if that your style.

I know I’ll be returning to the Kona, and even the first cup won a top spot in my estimation.

Music to my ears

Another recent addition to the technological no-mans-land I inhabit has been my new amplifier. If you've not been following, I'm in the camp where computers should be seen and not heard so spent 2011 chasing down SSDs, Watercooling and all manner of technological wonders to calm my computer into silence.
I don't normally add pictures to posts but I think reviews are worth a little context so here it is:

I hadn't considered getting a proper amp at all until I saw this. Once your PC is quiet your amp and speakers start to matter and the unbeatable warm tones make this amazing amp the cherry on the top of your quiet build.

First impressions are very good, very good indeed. I don't have my full audio collection as uncompressed PCM but my limited selection of Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and John Lee Hooker was more than enough to feel quite satisfied with the experience and bring a smile to my ears.

At an incredible price point for its quality, and able to drive 4,6 or 8 Ohms this amp completes your set-up whatever your requirements.
Its a small form-factor but unusual height so might not fit in all hifi cabinets/racks, but I couldn't bear to hide it way - placing this pride of place on my desk.

Its lightweight and compact at about six or seven inches wide.  There are no fancy bells, whistles or horns on this one.  It takes RCA stereo inputs and has Banana outputs and a single volume control sits just in range of the valves radiance so you can feel their comforting warmth on you hand every time you reach for the volume.

More extended listening added the London Symphony Orchestra and a selection of Rock from the past few decades with every note and beat reproduced at a quality that quite simply exceeds requirements.

I am quite literally bathed in the warming light of the orange glow while treating my ears to audio quality unmatched in the computing world. No amount of digital progress can rival the incandescence of a valve amplifier and this binds together two generations of technology seamlessly. The future is here, and its got valves in it.

It's time to wake up and hear the music. It's time for a valve amp.

First Contact

Enter the Alienware TactX gamer mouse.!
Despite its glowing eyes and braided tail, the TactX unboxing was an understated affair. A plain black mouse in a plain black box it didn't have retail reviews and awards plastered all over it.  But lets face it, by the time you are holding it in your hands you don't need adverts.

Surprisingly small in the hand, the TactX delivers tracking that is Smooth with a capital Smoo. While I'd expected something a little larger, I don't have massive man maulers so its compact size isn't uncomfortable.

In-game config I found a little difficult to master in a hurry, since the motion and acceleration has quite a different feel it'll take a little time to master. However the first impressions are very good indeed. Configured at 3000 dpi the TactX represented a 100% increase in resolution from my previous mouse, which made a difference. Set to 5000 dpi the TactX really came into its own, although my tests were mainly performed on a "mixed ability" public server.

For context, I've always been a "casual sniper" rather than a nerdcore super-camper. At Medium range the TactX provided predictable fluid precision that scored plenty of solid hits.
Short range sniping was a frenzy of scope-and-fire meatshots that I would have lacked either the precision - or confidence - to succeed in before.  Being fair, both the short and mid-range are dominated by timing and reflexes rather than aiming so it was difficult to expect much improvement.
The high precision tracking allowed for a few Long-range and hail-mary headshots that I'm simply not familiar with so at some point I will crack out the marshmallows and learn about those cowardly long range tactics.

Satisfied with results, I tested my mettle against the Gog Clan.  Up against clansmen you see more tactical play, and a strategic cat-and-mouse mechanic with more well defined roles than the casual herpderpery of a public server. Against pros, the TactX helps as well.  I connected with crisp rockets and got some great scattergun meatshots - how much of that was a placebo-driven increase in confidence I'll never know but I had my A-game with me which is what I'm paying the money for.

Back to software to finish, the TactX control panel allows you to set up colour profiles, or roaming colours for the lights. There are about sixteen default colours, providing a whole spectrum but I've left mine at cool blue to match the LEDs on my PC.

A long-term review will have to wait until I've really put it through its paces, but for now fortune favours the bold - but the bold, it seems, favour Alienware.

Slipped a Disk

In November 2011 I had some SSD Failures which made me cry a lot. QQ More, I know. Having to fall back to a Magnetic HDD is a first world problem but its the state of play - and heres why it pissed me off.

Buying value-for money I based my machine off of the Asus M78A-Pro. It included onboard video with HDMI out, so I knew that I could run the PC without a video card as a Media Player when I retire it from being a games/development PC.
It also has a good BIOS, and Six SATA slots. Thats the focus of this article - coming up with 'the best' disk config.

After fiddling in the Spring 2011 my setup looked like this:
The first slot is a 128GB Crucial SSD. This is my boot drive.
The second slot is for my BluRay drive.
The third slot is for a magnetic HDD (WD Green 1.5TB). Its housed in an enclosure to keep it quiet.
The fourth and fifth slot have 180GB SSDs in RAID-0.
The Sixth slot is empty.

Conclusions
Having an SSD as your main drive is great, and booting on SSDs is fast.  The capacity hasn't been a problem yet but I've used about 100GB. From a fresh install, Win7 took about 15 seconds from power on to desktop fully booted. These days its slowed to around twenty seconds, but still pretty fast. The Boot drive is a Crucial 128GB drive. Solid, reliable. Fast.

I don't use my computer for watching BluRays, so in hindsight a good DVD drive would have been fine. And I already had one so could have saved some money.  I think I only used it for the initial OS install, and actually an external/DVD drive might have been a smart choice and saved me an SATA slot for something else.

The magnetic HDD has been great. A huge capacity, its used for big installs to save room on the boot drive, media and some personal projects. Its never really a performance bottleneck as I don't use it for anything that is speed critical.

Lastly, SSD RAID is a great place to install games. SSDs are fast, and the stripe configuration is double the size and double the speed of a normal SSD.  Since all my games are easily installable, and saved games/profiles/user accounts are mostly online I'm happy with a two-drive stripe and adding a third for parity costs £200 more but gains me nothing so the last SATA port remains empty.
The Games drive is a pair of OCZ Vertex-2s.  Fast, cheaper, larger than the Crucial drive, this is where performance really counts.

Until ... BAH! One of the gaming SSDs failed. . . and then two weeks later so did the second. Even that £200 parity wouldn't have saved me.
The moral of the story? Not sure. The theory was pretty sound. I don't *much* care that I lost the SSDs. The machine is still fast, and I didn't lose anything I couldn't reinstall. The magnetic drive has my CD collection - but I've got a backup of all that anyway.

The SSD stripe was the crown jewel in the setup. Its still a fast machine but when you've run with the cheetahs once then everything else feels like you are plodding with the elephants. The come down of both OCZ SSDs dying within two weeks was heartbreaking.
I'm probably not going to buy from OCZ next time, thats all I can say.

We can rebuild it. Faster. Larger. We have the technology.

More news as it breaks.

Lightning Slow

Since May this year (2011) I've been enjoying the slick speeds of an SSD Raid stripeset for my /steam partition. Its was only a two drive stripe but still crazy fast compared to its clunky Magnetic disk counterpart.
Its a pair of OCZ 180GB Vertex-2s, and they look pretty shiny.

Striping two drives together also helps account for the piddly size of SSD drives, doubling up the capacity so my two one-eighties appear as a single 360GB partition. Which is reasonable for /steam as I don't tend to have too much installed at once and its speed that matters.

With only six onboard SATA connectors, assigned to drives for /boot, /data, BluRay and Card Reader using up the last two drives for /steam seemed reasonable and sacrificing RAID-5 Parity saved the purchase cost of a third drive.

Given everything on /steam is DRM'd I can easily reinstall it and in my arrogance decided against fitting an additional SATA card just for the sake of adding a parity disk.  Let Valve mirror my files, why should I have to as well? Besides, the drives are rated at two million hours of reliability.  Thats two-hundred years and some change.  I only need them to be reliable for 10% of that time?  Parity Schmarity I'm going to be fine with a two-drive stripeset.

Local games were shockingly fast - the upgrade broke the back of the data transfer bottleneck. Gigs of data flowed so fast and I started considering that 8GB of RAM wasn't enough and it might be time to step up to sixteen.
Loading times had dropped, map changes were scary fast.  It was a golden time.

And then, within six months tragedy struck. It was the merry month of movember when one of the drives ceased to be, destroying the stripe and losing all data.  That weekend I regained composure, unplugged it and installed the essentials to the remaining disk.  A single SSD for games is still better than a magnetic drive after all. but Less than two weeks later, the second one gave up its will to live.
Well thank you OCZ.  How proud I was of the shiny pair of Vertex-2 drives when they arrived, and how far did I fall when they died, belly up. Two Million Hours of reliability. I call Bullshit. That should mean two hundred years if I ran them 24/7.  I ran them about 6/6 - thats maybe a hundred and fifty hours. like less than 0.01% of their expected lifespan. I don't even know if I want a replacement. Another ticking timebomb waiting to crash and lose all my games again? Pah.

And what would I have gained by adding the extra reliability of a third drive for parity? Three dead drives.
Perhaps I'm being too harsh, and should try again. Give OCZ a second chance. But I've got (e.g. my Boot and Swap drive) SSDs from Crucial that I've had for twice as long and they must have been thrashed harder and still going strong.