The more I consider it, the less likely it is that I will ever buy myself a NetBook PC. A NetBook PC is basically a stripped down laptop that usually weighs less than 1kg and comes with a 10″ screen or so – basically a small and light laptop that you can carry around in your handbag. The main component that makes all this possible is the use of low power microprocessors, which reduce the need for an expensive and bulky cooling system.

However, due to price reasons, it is making less and less sense to actually get a NetBook. For example, consider the following devices from Lenovo (single unit dealer prices are quoted):

• Lenovo S10 (NetBook) – Atom 270/1.6GHz/512kb/533FSB/10.2″/1GB RAM/160GB HDD/GMA950 (RM1619)
• Lenovo G410 (Laptop) – CoreDuo T2390/1.86GHz/1Mb/533FSB/14.1″/1GB RAM/160GB HDD/X3100 (RM1489)

It is plainly obvious that the G410 is a better computer than the S10. It has a better graphics chip, a faster processor and a larger screen. The G410 is a real machine that can be used to do real work while the S10 is more a toy that is useful for checking email than running simulations. Moreover, if the devices are further scrutinised, there will be further advantages for the G410 including the cheaper price tag of RM130.

The only advantage that the S10 has is size. It is sufficiently small to be mistaken for an organiser while the G410 is a real laptop. Therefore, netbooks are pretty much only useful for yuppies and teenagers with rich daddies. For a price conscious student or a serious worker, an older model laptop is definitely a better buy.

However, I am quite interested to see a Atom based server system though. These babies would work very well in the data centre. Some early benchmarks have shown that an Atom 330 with two cores at 1.6GHz and capable of running two threads each, has excellent MySQL performance, easily beating a Pentium 4 2.8GHz machine by 265% (and consuming less than 5% of the electrical power).

I am now considering buying a Atom based system to power my back-end file server. I plan to set up a file server for storing all the encoded videos that I will be encoding for my HTPC. Having a dedicated file system would allow me to grow my storage according to my requirements. That way, I can just get a HTPC system without any built in storage (or remove any bundled storage), which will further reduce the noise levels of the system.

PS: As for the claims of being ‘energy efficient’, this does not translate into real world advantages. While the NetBook uses less power than a normal laptop, it also comes with smaller batteries. In effect, you still only get 2-3 hours of effective use before the thing dies on you. Less so, if you’re using wireless or 3G Internet.

I passed by Harvey Norman today and decided to drop in to look at the new Compaq Nettop. Let me just say that I am quite taken in by the price of the thing. It is much cheaper than I had expected. Internet reports claim that the price of the high end model (2030) is about US$386 (RM1355) but they are only selling it for RM998 (US$285) here.

The high end model that they are selling here is dubbed the Compaq Presario 2035Q, which seems to be the branding that HP is trying to achieve with it’s compaq line of products. As the detailed specs seem rather hard to come by on the Internet, I decided to check out the specs using the software on the display unit. Here they are:

• CPU: Intel Atom 330
  This is the most powerful Atom processor to date. It is a dual-core HyperThreaded processor. What this means is that the software sees an effective 4-cores. This is sweet as the extra processing power can definitely be put to good use for high quality video playback.
• VGA: Intel GMA950
  Unfortunately, it comes with the same terrible 945GC chipset that every other Atom platform comes with. Although NVidia has released the 9400M for Atom processors, no vendors seem to be pushing out products with them yet. I’m keeping my fingers crossed though.
• AUD: Realtek ALC662 HD Audio
  This information had to be gleaned from the vendor and device ID numbers. This bodes well though, since this device is capable of 5.1 surround sound. However, it seems to lack the actual ports that do the output.

Besides these important things, it also has 1Gb of DDR2 memory and a 160GB harddisk. It also comes with a LightScribe capable DVD burner. There is also a card reader on the front that can come in useful for displaying photos from digital cameras directly on screen. Also on the front are 2 USB ports and the earphone and mic ports. On the back are another 2 USB ports, ethernet port and modem port. It does not come with wifi but I am sure that there is a free internal USB port that I can jack one into.

While it is not a perfect HTPC, it does come awfully close to being one. The only thing it lacks are the higher end audio and video outputs. If this is the best thing available when the time comes to actually make the purchase, I might just get it. However, I will still continue to look for a nettop with a DVI or HDMI video output and a 5.1 surround sound output.

PS: Then again, it might be possible that the 5.1 surround sound output is multiplexed on the rear ports. Some devices do it this way. I’ll need to look up more info about this.

The ecosystem surrounding one of my microprocessor designs is growing slowly, but surely. In addition to the world’s leading software defined radio project, already using my processor core, I have just been notified today, that another group intends to use my processor as the core processor for their hardware platform. If their platform takes off, it could potentially be the world’s leading router platform.

So, now I have to think about throwing additional resources into my hobby project to grow it into something more significant. All this time, it has been pretty much a project that I took up as a learning opportunity. If there was something interesting that I’d like to learn about microprocessors, I would try it out on my processor design to see how it works. I’ve always learned by doing, rather than reading.

Presently, all that I have is the processor core. I have not written any software for it nor have I built any hardware applications around it. The people who used it had to build everything around it from scratch. All I did was provide the core along with some support for it. When they faced problems, they would contact me for help. In return, if they fixed any problems, they would send patches to me.

All is well so far.

However, with more and more professional projects taking up an interest and using my core, I have to think of a long term support infrastructure and ecosystem around the core. It might actually be prudent to consider porting Linux to my core and making a basic demo platform that others can then build on. I should probably consider further developing the software capabilities to add value to the core.

But all these things take time and effort. While it’s been mainly a hobby project, I could choose to do things whenever I was free to do so. However, with more and more commercial projects sellling devices built around my core, it might be prudent for me to charge some sort of ad-hoc maintenance fee. I think that I will have a discussion with the different projects who use my cores, to work out some sort of payment schedule.

I don’t expect this thing to make me rich. I only think that it’s fair to compensate me for any time and effort in supporting their commercial projects.

I’ve finished checking the first batch of papers allocated to me which consisted of papers from four courses. I’m starting to get the hang of doing it and yes, I do think that the most efficient method is to check all the scores on the main sheet first, before verifying each paper against it’s score.

The reason is simply one of context switching. With this method, context switching is kept to a minimum. Checking the scores on the main sheet merely involves punching a calculator at lightning speed and looking at the values. Then, the next task of verifying each paper against it’s mark sheet is just a question of looking it up in the table, in sorted order. Then, the last task is to actually verify that each page has been marked and the marks totalled up correctly. I do this while looking up the scores to reduce the amount of manual paper flipping work that I need to do. Optimisation.

Three of the courses went without problems and I could quickly sign off on the papers. One of the courses has quite a large number of errors though. Some of the questions were totalled incorrectly and some pages were not marked. I’ve noted down all the details of the errors on a sheet of paper that I will need to attach to the official marker’s form later. It’s a little unfortunate for the students as in each case, they had been given too many marks and might need to have some of their marks deducted.

So, I’ll need to meet up with the principal assessors to make the corrections. However, that person is away for the whole of next week. So, I can only make the corrections the following week, which is pushing the deadline kind of close.

I have noticed something about marking though. You can tell if a lecturer is dedicated or not, simply by how they mark the papers. Some lecturers are very careful in their marking, with lots of details, while others are just cincai doing it. It really comes through in the marking.

So, next week, I’ll go return this batch of papers and possibly pick up another batch of papers to check. I do the mark checking while watching TV. It also helps me to keep my mind off things.

According to this article, it seems that some boffins in Israel have come up with a mathematical algorithm to determine just how beautiful a woman is. The core idea behind their algorithm is the Golden Ratio (1.618), which is generally believed to be aesthetically pleasing, by renaissance artists. In order to scientifically verify their results, they compared the scores to the ones from Hot-or-Not, a beauty ranking website. However useful this algorithm is, it sounds like a solution screaming for a problem. So, I’ll put on my businessman hat and try to think up a few creative ones.

The most obvious application for such an algorithm would definitely be in plastic surgery. Surgeons already use computer models to help patients visualise their future look and make any necessary corrections. Now, plug in this algorithm and they can even score a woman on how she will look after the surgery. The more artful surgeons may even base their surgery fees on the score, charging exorbitant amounts for a perfect 10.

An alternative application would be for industries where beauty is important, such as acting, modeling or even beauty pageants. Numbers are already important for these people, such as dress size, height and other measurements. So, tacking on an extra number would not be too difficult to do. Obviously, physical beauty isn’t everything, but this tool could be invaluable in helping to screen people out, if someone was diabolically ugly, for example.

Another possible application is for settling bar bets. No longer would guys have to argue about how hot a woman is. All they would need to do is take a photo and upload it to a computer that will spit out a score. This can even be done entirely by mobile phone these days. Ageless arguments can be settled for less than the price of a pint. This might just be the golden standard scale on which, all women in the world will be judged by in the future.

Which leads me to the ultimate application for such an algorithm. This tool would be terribly useful for teenage girls who are self absorbed in their own appearance. Instead of just reading the numbers off a bathroom scale and seeing how they look in a mirror, these girls can now stand in front of a webcam and have an objective score assigned by a computer. This would just do wonders in shaping their self esteem for adulthood.

I know that we boffins rarely get to see the sun, much less women, but this is plain pathetic. There’s not much use in knowing if someone is superficially hot. If they had designed an algorithm that could help other boffins get these hot women, that would be something that I’d take to the bank.

Alright, I know that this entry was a little ironic, but I won’t be surprised if they do really well in this superficial world that we live in, where everything is about appearances.