the things we think but do not say

My laptop eats ultra portable laptops for lunch

Originally uploaded by georgeaye.

A pretty significant change at work just happened and it’s one that I never thought I’d see. I’ve finally migrated to a laptop. After years and years of consistent dual processor desktop use (rocking good ol’ Pentium Pros back in ‘98, for reals yo) I’ve given in to using a laptop.
But the Dell M90 though is no regular laptop. In fact, I’d be impressed to find a lap, strong enough to rest it on top of. So rather than a laptop, or even a “mobile pc” I’m just going to start calling it a ‘transportable personal computer”.
But why the change from a desktop to a “TPC”? Two concurrent technology trends have finally converged on me. One is the rapid increase in pure processing power available to portables. The recent splash made by Intel Core Duo dual-core processors every laptop (and MacBook Pros) have let me get better performance than my previously beefy Dell dual Xeon 3 Ghz desktop.
Obviously if I had a dual processor, dual core desktop I’d be even faster still. But this brings me to the other contributing factor. The basic premise of ‘you can never have enough processing power’ is still true. While I’d love to have a dual core, dual processor desktop AND a dual core, single processor laptop, I went with the laptop and got my processor thrills some where else. Respower and other ‘remote rendering’ services allow me to leverage the power of completely web browser controlled render farms to render my images. This way, I can but the burden onto their network and not try to kill myself slogging away on my own.
Plus the usual benefits that I’ve heard for years about being a ‘road warrior’ are all true: I can move from project space to project space; I can leave work at a reasonable time and still be productive at my own schedule; I can look like a twat carrying this boxy bag everywhere.
The downsides though with having a laptop of this kind are plenty:
It kinda feels like GM’s Hummer division decided to make a laptop.
It weighs as much as an obsese toddler. Carrying it each day is inducing some sort of scoliosis that I have to correct for by carrying it on the other shoulder every other day.
It needs a laptop bag that’s almost becoming luggage. I found it really hard to find a decent bag that would fit a 17″ screen, but I eventually found the Brenthave Duo. It’s great but it’s huge.
The battery life is just 2 hours. Which is undertandable since it’s pumping out a 1920x1200 pixels display onto a 17″ of screen real estate

The freaking power supply is bigger and heavier than usual too.
The main thing is that it works, its faster than its replacment and I can (with some effort) take it places.
For the nerds in the room, the full specs are below:
Intel Core Duo 2.16 GHz
4Gb RAM (holy shit 4gigs in a laptop!)
Nvidia Quadro FX 2500M with 512mb (oh snap, 512mb graphics card!)
17″, WXGA+ resolution (1920 x 1200)
80 Gb HD
8XDVD+/-RW

I love silly, popcorn fueled summer movies. Almost every year I go with the slimmest, glimmer of hope that something will rise from that incredibly shallow pool. And I hoped it would have been Superman that rose like a ray of light that breaks an Autumn morn. But alas Iit wasn’t. In fact the best thing about Superman is the trailer for Spiderman 3. Man that trailer kicked ass.

But I can finally say that my quest can lie dormant another season. Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Man’s Chest, saved my summer.

It was thrilling, exciting, funny, bucks swashed, “Ah hahs!” were heartily shouted and pretty lasses were tossed around. And man, the visual effects were unfreaking-believable. It was supervised by John Knoll, an ILM old timer (and brother to Thomas Knoll, Photoshop creator).

Go see it now and try to forget that the following just happened: X-Men III, Superman, Mission Impossible III, Click, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, The Da Vinci Code etc…