Bay Trail

I'm very much looking forward to new Intel Bay Trail based tablets or hybrids that are coming in the next month or so. They are a much-redesigned 'Atom' platform, which means very low power consumption but enough power to do most stuff.

The original Atom CPUs went into netbooks, in 2009 or so. In fact, I'm typing this on one - an MSI Wind U100 clone from the UK, called an Advent 4211. 10.1 inch screen, 1024 * 600; 1.6GHz cpu, pretty decent keyboard. I had an SSD in it for a while, but went back to a standard hard drive. Running Windows XP it's actually fast enough for most stuff.

It falls over with YouTube and other video related tasks - the GPU integrated here is just too slow, or lacking in the optimisations required to do stuff in hardware - meaning the already-weak CPU has to pick up the slack.

Anyway, enough about this laptop. The new Bay Trail systems will have much that this lacks: HDMI (or, mini HDMI, but good enough); an SSD (how fast remains to be seen, and what premium for a reasonable amount of storage - the lowest tier will come with a mere 32Gb, and Windows will take up 20Gb or so of that..). USB 3. Some will have high resolution screens, some 1280 * 800 and some 1366 * 768.

I'm getting one. I just don't know which one will carry the right specs for me, namely:

4Gb RAM (there will be ones with 2Gb; some of the processors will allow a maximum of 2Gb, so I'm limited to the better ones)
64Gb storage or greater (on the good side, most seem to come with micro SD for music and such)
3g connectivity
Not crap quality

From what I've seen so far, I don't know that there is something that will tick *all* my boxes - the Asus T100 has a lower resolution screen, and no 3g; the Dell Venue doesn't have a full dock, but does have 3g (but at what cost?) - more specs are coming next week.

Pretty exciting. For a long time I've known I don't need cutting edge computing power. Pretty much any Core2 Duo CPU is powerful enough - and that includes the Celeron 847 in my Dell Vostro. If I can get that much power in a small tablet form factor, I'll be able to retire my Playbook (good for in bed, bad for web browsing though, really - until I found Origami Browser, which makes things a bit better), a couple of laptops if I get one with a nice resolution screen, and a whole load of power supplies, cables, etc.

Here's hoping something comes along that is able to meet my requirements! These things are going for a really good price, too - I wonder how Microsoft's ARM-based Surface 2 can compete, when it can't run all the stuff a Bay Trail tablet can.

Things...

I really enjoyed reading about the '100 Thing Challenge' when that all kicked off (guy named dave). While staying at Tremblant, and over the last few weeks at 'the farm', I've realised I need far less.

How many things do you 'touch' a day? In my case, my pared-down kit is:

Clothes - hat (because bald), t-shirt, socks, pants, trousers, shoes. Depending on the weather, jumper, coat, scarf, gloves. One thing about the 'vandwelling' movement is that you go where the weather is (or where the weather isn't!). So I'd be targeting 21 degrees C.

What else? Well, sleeping bag. I've only been to places with beds lately, so a sleeping mat hasn't been necessary, but should probably be part of my kit. As should a proper pillow - currently I tend to use either a towel or just go without. I'm fine without, for a while, but sometimes...

Toothpaste, brush, general purpose soap/shower gel, towel.

Laptop, power supply, USB cable to charge phone, headphones.

Cup, spoon, knife (more a pruning knife than cutlery). Instant coffee (urgh). Powdered milk (actually pretty nice). Noodles, plus something to eat with them. Water bottle. Trangia alcohol stove plus some alcohol.

And.. yup that's pretty much it.

I'm thinking that I'll sell my car, as the plan is to take one of our two off the road for Kara's maternity leave. Depending on how much I want to go trekking in a minivan, I'll buy a minivan at the right time. Leave three seats in (benefit to having captain's chairs for the second row!), make a milk crate bed, and put my Things in.. and I'll be good to go!

Kara raised a good question: What to do with diapers/nappies when on the road. We're planning to have reusable ones, but without a washing machine? Hmm.

What am I missing? Well, a mini-fridge would help, plus a more sophisticated cooking setup. The trangia works well - but it chews through alcohol quite quickly, and is only a single burner.

You can fit quite a lot in the back of a minivan, though. And it's not like we'd - all three of us - be sleeping in it for extended trips, more one or two days between visits, or the occasional hotel.

Well.. that's what I'm mulling, anyway.

Bought A(nother) House!

It's a funny old world.

I'm in the process of buying probably the largest AND cheapest house I've ever bought. The fourth house I've ever bought.

This one is going to be.. hopefully fun, not 'fun'. It's in Texas, so there will be another tax return to do. It's a rental property.

The returns are good on paper, but we'll see how it pans out. It is a relatively small purchase so, even if it goes wrong, shouldn't be *too* expensive a mistake (think.. nice mid-range luxury car).

What makes my head spin is that, as I said, it's a reasonable size - three bedrooms, garage, roughly 1/5th acre lot, and yet it is about 1/8th the price of my house in the UK. Once the renovations are done, perhaps 1/6th. Roughly a quarter of the price of the house we live in here in Canada.

It's not a mansion, far from it. Solid (fingers crossed) - metal roof and siding.

I am nervous about buying in the US, but the returns, as I said, seem good. Greed or good sense? Time will tell.

In other news: The tomatoes are doing nicely, the courgettes are getting close to being done. We just spent $500 on one car (two new ty/ires plus some little bits), $180 on the other (oil, fuel filter, wheel balancing...) which.. is a bit painful but I guess it's just part of the driving habit.

Kara just did a job up in Iqaluit where it snowed a little on her last day - in August! I'm just back from Mont-Tremblant. And next week we take a mini-trip down to the US.

I'm retired? I don't know. I'm puttering or pottering. Not really sure what I'm doing - is 'investor' a job title? 'Lazy bum'? Oh yeah - stay at home father. Just under 3 months now, ohmygodohmygod.

I don't know what to think about impending fatherhood. At Tremblant, I spent a little time with my (wife's) nieces - 3 and 5 years old, or there abouts. I guess I'm avoiding thinking about it too much - what will be, will be, worrying about it (which is something I do about lots of things) won't do much.

5-6 more food boxes to do - can't wait for that to be wrapped up. Then, in theory, I'm really free - I could just take off for three weeks. Abandoning my wife, 6 weeks before her due date, though? Well - she's working til the start of November. So I could - for a week, 10 days maybe. Maybe I will.

The other thing.. is cars. We have two. Once the food boxes are done, one will be entirely surplus to requirements - so what do we do? Sell the (my) Crown Vic, which I got a hitch on, and really like? Or just put it off the road? Or keep it on the road, and put the Civic off for the winter/until Kara goes back to work?

Leaving a car sitting all winter.. not the best. Off the road but put into a warm garage? Well, that's just wasteful, and it'd be almost as expensive as keeping it on the road. Selling seems best.. I suppose. But I love my Crown Vic! And if we keep the Civic, we can't do the soapstone (easily) - plus buying a vehicle in Ontario leads to sales tax, so 13% of the purchase price.

Oh well. I did need the car this year. I should've bought a minivan (something I can sleep in, for fun). But I have enjoyed my Crown Vic.

Well, that's enough of a ramble on a Sunday night. Happy long weekend, if you happen to have one!