AnandTech: AMD Phenom Preview: Barcelona Desktop Benchmarks

We saw how competitive AMD became after the first round of price cuts this year, but after the second set Intel went back to dominating. The trouble for AMD this time around is that Phenom is a much larger chip than the outgoing Athlon 64 X2, whereas Intel’s Penryn family will actually be smaller than Conroe. AMD is already losing a considerable amount of money each quarter, so fabbing a larger chip at the same price as current CPUs will only make the situation worse. However, Intel can afford to continue to keep its processors as aggressively priced, especially moving to 45nm.To put it plainly: Phenom/Barcelona make this price war more difficult on AMD, while Penryn makes it easier on Intel. What’s the end game? Is there a solution? We’re not sure, all we know today is a starting point for Phenom expectations.

A larger chip for AMD vs. a smaller chip for Intel for their next generation? This doesn’t sound good for AMD’s coffers.

SiliconValley.com – Tech Talk: Unopened rebate requests found in San Jose dumpster

Lately, I’ve been trying to buy things without rebates. I really don’t mind filling out the forms and cutting out the UPC labels, but there’s always a concern in the back of your mind that you’ll never receive the rebate. It’s also silly when you do all this work to receive a $5 rebate check. My caveat is to only deal with rebates from larger companies since smaller companies may not have enough resources to deal with a large rebate response. The PR fallout from unopened rebate requests in a dumpster might also be a lot tougher for a big company to explain.

PC Perspective – Hardware Leaderboard

What is the PC Perspective HW Leaderboard? The PC Perspective Hardware Leaderboard is going to become the first place you look to find the components that will make up your next computer. On this page you will find our editor’s combined opinions on the best systems you can build based on three different budgets. You can expand each of the systems (High End, Mid-Range and Budget) to show you all the components that we believe represent the best products in their price ranges.

I think I’ll be building the high end system in the next few months when Crysis, COD4, HL2 episode 2, UT4 and Quake Wars ship. It’s going to be crazy FPS times this Christmas!

Google Code – Updates: Announcing Tesseract OCR

Now that it’s a open source project supported by Google, I’ve decided to add Tesseract as an OCR program for FuzzyOCR. Hopefully, the open source and Google support will lead to making this the best open source OCR for my spamkilling needs. I also removed OCRtext and replaced it with FuzzyOCR svn 133 for Spamassassin yesterday since I believe FuzzyOCR can catch more types of corrupted and obfuscated image files.

Latest update is available at

http://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/

Cool Tool: Kevlar Thread

Kevlar Thread
Tough sewing lineI tend to be rough on buttons (or maybe I’m just gaining weight). I started using Kevlar thread to sew fire toys and found it is very strong. I now use Kevlar thread for all my sewing. On buttons, I don’t need to use as much thread to secure them and the thread is tougher than the fabric I sew into. By weight, Kevlar is five times stronger than steel wire and is used in bulletproof vests. Do NOT try to break it by hand — you’ll just hurt yourself. The very thin thread works well with beads — it’s very abrasion resistant — and there are thicker varieties that I use for sewing leather.

— Sean Rutlidge

The price seems pretty good at $2 a spool. The immediate use I could think of is that you could use it to sew on buttons that would never fall off. I wonder if kevlar thread is ever used as fishing line.

I purchased a Sony PS3 today because there was a great deal through Amazon to purchase the PS3 along with 8 free DVDs for $479.15 shipped. I also ordered a STR-DG910 7.1 which has 3 HDMI inputs. What’s great about this receiver is that it can take all the HDMI, composite, and component inputs and output them through the HDMI output. This means just one cable for video from the receiver to the TV.  The receiver will handle all the sound output instead of the TV. I also looked at the Onkyo TX-SR605S 7.1 which is a much prettier receiver, but it was almost $100 more expensive, so I just went with the Sony.

Collapse of Big Dig Ceiling in Boston Is Tied to Glue – New York Times

The supplier in Boston, Powers Fasteners, noted that the fast-set epoxy was not for long-term use but that information was “in the fine print,” said Mr. Magladry, and no one recognized that the material would weaken.The failure dumped 26 tons of concrete and hardware on the 15-year-old Buick sedan in which Milena Del Valle was riding, and on the surrounding roadway. Her husband, the driver, escaped with minor injuries.

The board tested both formulations of epoxy available from Powers and found that the “standard set” type worked fine, but within 80 days, all the samples using the “fast set” formulation had failed.

A spokeswoman for Powers, Karen Schwartzman, said the company was asked to supply its “standard set” product, did so, and assumed it had been used. Perhaps the construction companies had the “fast set” product on hand for another part of the job and used that instead, Ms. Schwartzman said.

Last night, I used some Underwater Sticky flexible epoxy to bond a metal pipe with a PVC coupler. It’s amazing how a small, overlooked detail can cause so much carnage.