Notes From The Lab

I was reading a couple of magazines from my school library the other day, and this was what caught my eye:


Cruelty-Free Bacon
Scientists in the Netherlands have grown minced pork in a dish by adding water, glucose and amino acids to pig stem cells. Expect artificial ground meat by 2012 and bacon within the decade. (Rena Marie Pacella, from Popular Science)


What?! We can now grow meat? This is something unheard of! Darn, we are messing with mother nature big-time I assure you. I presume that in the next 5 years or so, we can be expecting something called "home-grown meat" lying in the "Instant Aisle" of a grocery store. Inside the pack will include all the necessary nutrients, conditions and space for harvesting your very own slice of meat. On the 'Instructions' at the back of the packaging, it'll simply read, "Just add water!" I guess animals can prep for a sigh of relief.

Another note, the US military have a new weapon at their disposal (what a surprise indeed) - a humongous flying laser turret. It is a laser cannon built into a C-130 Hercules. It uses a mixture of iodine and oxygen to produce a pernicious beam of light. After the beam has been readied, make sure nothing other than the intended target gets in its way. For everything in its path will be sizzled and obliterated within seconds. My sympathies, birds. To the pilots in the plane, fret not. The beam of laser itself isn't hot, and is only capable of heating things up.

A mean little sucker huh

If you're interested, feel free to read more on this here and here.

Well, that's it for another weird day at the office. Your comments are greatly appreciated.

T'ang

(image from http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/article/2008-03/how-it-works-airborne-laser-cannon)

The Way It’s Meant to Be Heard: A Review of the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro

I was supposed to leave this review for later, perhaps after my exams. However, I just can’t help it! My pleasurable experience with my new earpieces has forced me to blurt this out right now. In short, it truly has been a lovely start for my online shopping trend.

The payment and selection process was easy enough that’s for sure. I just had to pick a seller with my product and one which offered the lowest price. Of course, I can’t trust the seller just because his price is the lowest. You may never know if the product is an imitation model from China. So, I had to look at the feedback given by previous buyers. I was flabbergasted. It was a grand total of 47,900+ ratings and 99.7% of them were highly positive. Wow! The description of “Power Seller” given by eBay is spot on! The seller, Yogi Computers, gained my trust in a matter of seconds. The next few steps couldn't be simpler: just pay the fees via Paypal and an email confirming payment and shipment is sent almost instantaneously.

The shipping cost was certainly not cheap (US$26.99 to be exact). However, I have none but one choice: I had to use United States Postal Service’s (USPS) Express Mail International shipping. This is USPS’ fastest shipping method. It seems a little pricey for a product weighing in at merely a few hundred grams though. Nevertheless, the package’s ETA was within 3-5 days and it had to be sent from Pennsylvania all the way to Burnaby, BC (that’s more than the entire width of North America). The estimation was dead right. Within 3 short days, I came across a note from the post service. It said an attempt to send me a parcel has been in vain, and recommended me that I pick the parcel up myself at a post office nearby. And so I did.

The packaging itself was aesthetically pleasing. A matt blue and white paper bag with a quality leaflet attached to its side indicating all the necessary postage details. Also, I noticed that the package made a stop at JFK airport, and then Jamaica before arriving at its intended destination.

Upon opening the bag, I was immediately confronted with a stench of foul smelling gas. It smelt like the odor found within plane cargo (of course!). And there you have it, the very box housing my earphones.


After reading numerous articles on reviews of these earphones, I couldn't wait to try them for myself. However a ridiculous impediment stood in may way: the hard plastic box was a hassle to open. The plastic was so reluctant to break itself apart. I had to resort to brute force ripping with a set of DIY tools! By the time the box finally gave way, I ended up with blister-ridden fingers. Darn, this box could have even withstood a ton of C4 explosives! I guess quality products go hand in hand with quality packaging.

The box neatly housed a bag of ear tip sleeves; a ear-junk cleaning tool (LOL); a sound volume attenuator; a chic and elegant looking metallic case; a ¼ inch adapter jack; and of course, the earphones themselves. I had a fair bit of time sampling the myriad of sleeves and adjusting the reinforced cables so that it loops round my ears securely. The intended method of wearing these ‘phones aren’t the normal one of simply letting the cables dangle from your ears. These required the cable to be wrapped round the back of your ear, perhaps to attain a more secure fit and to minimize the microphonic effects (cable thumping noises).



Without a moment to lose, I seized my iPod and booted it up. I first song that I played was Jay Chou’s 发如雪 (hair like snow). To me, this is the perfect song to test my new earphones. It starts of with a clear and sparkly drizzling sound and later climaxes to produce a deep bassy sound. Besides, the song is encoded in Apple Lossless. To make a long story short, the sound was absolutely stellar! The detail of the Super.fi 5 Pros outstripped my Sennheiser CX300 by a mile! Bass reproduction was deep and tight. When directly compared to my Sennheisers, the bass was clearly less muffled and muddy. The midrange was also proficiently controlled too. In other words, the lows, mids and highs were flawlessly balanced. It was a definite upgrade for my now aging Sennheisers. As expected, the upgrade in sound quality was certainly not as radical as moving up from the despicable pair of iPod pack-ins to my Sennheisers. But the stepping up from my CX300 was a profound difference nonetheless. With twin balanced armatures per earpiece, the reason for this can’t be too hard to comprehend I guess!

Additionally, the ear loops worked exactly as advertised. No matter how hard I shook my head, they kept the earpieces from falling off. The earpieces go deep into my ear canals, but never felt overly intrusive.

So at long last, after agonizing lengths of earphone testing in a store over in Singapore, I have finally found the perfect model that satisfied my cravings perfectly. As I recall, I have tried various models from Shure and Etymotic, but none them seemed to entice me. With above average comfort levels, superb sonics and a relatively low price tag, the Ultimate Ears Super.fi Pro 5 is one earphone which justly lives up to its name!

The complete package

"The Ultimate in Super Fidelity", that is what it stands for.
T’ang

The cause of sensor noise

I'm back after my long hiatus due to heavy school commitments. Yes, JC life is real tough, especially with useless subjects like project work. Anyway, the purpose of this post is to discuss the causes of CCD (Charged Coupled Device) noise. For those that do not know, sensor noise is what causes grainy images when pictures are taken at high sensor sensitivities, for example, ISO1600.

Sensor noise is more visible in images with uniform areas of colour and brightness

To understand how sensor noise comes about, we must first understand how a CCD captures an image. Light is made up of discrete particles of energy, photons. When these photons come into contact with the photosites, aka pixels of the CCD, a voltage is produced. More photons reaching the photosite result in more voltage produced. As such, the camera is able to distinguish bright areas from dark areas, to create an image.

How is the noise produced? Basically photons are quantum particles, they adhere to the laws of quantum mechanics. It is not possible to count the number of photons hitting the photosite with 100 percent accuracy , there will always be a certain amount of uncertainty. This is one of the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principal. This uncertainty creates what we call shot noise. One way to counter such noise is to increase the amount of photons used to make the image. This can be done by simply increasing the exposure, letting more light into the camera. With more photons, the noise will increase but at a slower rate than which the signal increases. Thus, the signal to noise ratio increases, resulting in a cleaner image which is less noisy.

Another major factor of sensor noise is sensor read noise. After photons are captured by the photosite on a CCD to produce a voltage, the voltage is then amplified by an amount proportional to the ISO gain set in the camera, and digitized in an analog-to-digital converter (ADC). Each step in the signal processing chain from counting the number of photons captured by the photosite, to amplification of the voltage, to digitization results in noise added to the image. None of the electronic components are perfect. All of them contribute noise to the final image.

One other facet of the sensor noise problem is thermal noise. At the crux of the issue is that at higher temperatures, electrons have a higher kinetic energy and are more likely to be accidentally released by the photosite . This causes the voltage produced by the photosite to be higher than it actually is supposed to be. To alleviate this problem, one should not take extremely long exposures as the thermal noise increases proportionately with the length of the exposure.

And that's all for my discussion on sensor noise, hope you enjoyed it. For those of you who would like to find out more on this technical subject, feel free to visit http://theory.uchicago.edu/~ejm/pix/20d/tests/noise/index.html#shotnoise to find out more!
Look out for my next post on my new in ear canal phones, the ATH-CK52.

To cleaner images,
Bryan

I Need A Vacation

I sincerely regret to announce the following... I'll be taking a short break from posting articles, due to my impending provincial exams. They'll officially be over by 25th June though, so it shouldn't be too long a hiatus. Hopefully Bryan will be able to fill the empty spaces in, but I doubt it. We've haven't seen a post from him for months now lol!

Anyway, before I take my leave, I would like to post something about my life in Canada for a change (credit goes to my buddy, Mok). My high school prom was on May 10th (a little too little too late to point this out I believe, but better late than never! XD). In case my fellow Singaporeans aren't able to comprehend what in the world a 'prom' is, here's a little scoop of enlightenment: A formal dance held for a high-school or college class typically at or near the end of the academic year. (Source: thefreedictionary.com) Ha! Like the definition said, it's formal! So no shorts and flip-flops are permitted! Hmm.. I've never been able to envision myself in a suit back then. But after my first hand experience, at least I now know I don't look too bad in it, don't you think? (pictures coming up in just a moment) LOL! But don't get me wrong, I assure you, I'm not a narcissist.

Like I promised:

From left to right: myself; Darren Pereira; Robert Straw

Gino Lara; myself

Simon Chiarello; myself

Also, I just had my graduation commencement (ceremony) on June 1. A really boring one I must say! No one 'cept for my brother to watch me shake the hand of my vice-principal! I've managed to graduate with Honors too :P It's a fine goal to be sure! Plus, I've won some British Colombia Science Council Medal for having the best overall score for the 3 sciences. Again, I emphasize: I don't mean to boast. You guys want to know more about me in Canada right? Well, here you go then!

A grad breakfast was held earlier today. Though the food was not the best I've tasted (yuck!), it's free, so who cares?! The 'best' from the smorgasbord of dishes served has definitely got to be the french toast. It was close to eating stale bread that has been laying around in the arid open for an entire week to solidify. Yes, in other words, it was rock hard. We had a rowdy time of marking one another's yearbooks soon after. I count roughly 20 autographs so far.

One last thing. Permit me to digress back to tech stuff, I apologise. I had just purchased an Ultimate Ears Super fi. 5 Pro earphones from ebay. This is the first product that I have bought online too. It is well on the way onto my grasp, with an anticipated shipping time of 3-5 business days, sent from Pennsylvania, USA. The procedure has been pretty smooth so far, with paypal giving 'speedy' confirmations and all. I'll see how well it goes. A review of this product will be arriving shortly, perhaps after my exams. So keep a weather eye on the horizon.

See ya soon!
T'ang

Optical Drives for Roadwarriors? Not Anymore

Looks like Apple’s attempt of dropping the optical drive from its MacBook Air was quite a swift move. It’s now the year 2008, and who needs the optical drive on their ultraportable notebook anyway?

Allow me to explain. To what point and purpose do we need optical drives on ultraportables for? Watching DVDs? Well, one can actually cram a couple of movies onto a flash drive instead. What’s more is that there are no moving parts (besides the electrons, of course) in flash memory, helping you to conserve your precious battery life. I’m certain that battery life is a major constituent to what makes a good portable notebook. Traditional optical drives have discs gyrating at a couple of hundred RPMs per minute. Now that’s one mean juice sucker. Plus, you actually even get a performance boost via USB for your viewing experience.

The next challenge: software installation. Much software requires an optical drive in order to install itself, no doubt. But now, it is possible to find these installers on the internet to be downloaded readily. Furthermore, much to the iPhone’s delight, many programs are now web-based, not requiring any form of installation. Ever heard of a web-based productivity suite?

What about disc burning?! How often do you burn discs while on the road may I ask? Most of us resort to a portable HDD or thumb drive to store our data anyway. The CD-RW, or DVD+/-RW, for that matter, is quickly being alienated as a “modern” floppy disc. Simply redundant. If you really insist on burning, take your ultraportable back home with you and count on your 16x Dual Layer DVD writer instead.

So finally, the conundrum of how to take ultraportables to an even portable level has been worked out. Eliminating the optical drive from a laptop will definitely slim the laptop down. I mean, just take a look at the MacBook Air.

To all the upcoming ultraportable models: the optical drive’s epitaph clearly reads “I’m obsolete, period”.

Enough said?
T’ang

(With references from Lance Ulanoff’s article at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2309779,00.asp. Image from www.cbcnz.com.)

The Spirit of Ultra Lives

Just purchased a new handphone a couple of days ago. It's still in Singapore though, thus I haven't got a first hand tryout of the phone itself. This Soul, Spirit of Ultra, U900, or whatever we want to call it, will be the last of the Samsung Ultra Edition lineup.

Huh? That quick?

Apparently the answer is a yes. The Ultra series has been a thriving line I believe, with sliders, candybars and clamshells reaching unprecedented slimness. Besides, it was equally striking that Samsung managed to squeeze so much of the latest features into so thin a phone. A 3.2 Megapixel camera in a 5.9mm candybar? You've gotta be kidding. This lineup of phones have also been largely design oriented - a trait in mobile phones that has been fading these few years. I mean, just take a look at those Sony Ericssons. (Don't mean to pick on Sony lol)

It seems depressing that Samsung has chose to discontinue this splendid line of phones. Nevertheless, it's fortunate that Samsung will at least leave a perpetual legacy for others, including itself to pick up and look up to.

The last of its kind

Overview of the Soul:
-A touch interface
-5 Megapixel camera
-HSDPA 7.2Mbps
-FM radio
-12.9mm thin

What's next?
T'ang

(image from http://uk.samsungmobile.com/mobile/SGH-U900)

When Iron Turns Platinum: A Review of the Iron Man Film

"Yeah. I can fly."

Spectacular! Absolutely dazzling! This is one superhero action flick that clearly sets itself apart from the competition. Previously, after I watched the trailers for the film, I predicted that the film will be just another average superhero movie, just like Fantastic Four and The Hulk (Ang Lee’s version. Not the upcoming one). Thus, I thought to myself nonchalantly, "why bother?" However, after many of my buddies have seen the film, rumor has it that the film is astoundingly good. Plus, movie ratings site Rotten Tomatoes actually presented it with a “FRESH” rating of over 92%! And the only way I could find out the truth behind all this, was to watch the film myself which I did today.

The movie features an affluent and brilliant ladies’ man Tony Stark, who builds an omnipotent exoskeleton for himself after a series of tragic events in Afghanistan. As expected, this superhero uses his suit to protect the people he put in harm’s way. Apparently, the Iron Man’s nemesis is his long-time business partner, who has secretly been selling Tony’s weapons to terrorist groups.

The panoply of mesmerizing visual effects never ceases to amaze! This applies particularly well to the F-22 Raptor chase scene, where the film ignites into a thrilling climax. Additionally, there is a close resemblance to the transformation of robots in another distinguished film, Transformers, where Tony Stark is seen suiting up in his new Mark III exoskeleton.

Besides, Tony Stark’s mansion somewhere on the coast in California is SO advanced. The pinnacle of his tech toys has got to be the holoprojector. He can even place his hand into the projection and design his suit’s components. Also, the automated windows that fade to black does a decent job in keeping his bedroom dark while he, ahem, does his thing. On a side note, I actually have the exact same arching lamp that Tony has in his living room, lol.

The Audi R8 featured notably in the film is so cool. Speaking of cars, wow! Tony has one huge myriad of supercars. He owns a Saleen S7, a Shelby Cobra, a Koenigsegg CCR and of course, his fabled R8. Too bad he crash lands on his Shelby though.

Oops, I’ve typed close to 400 words now. Forgive me, for I babble too much. Finishing up, I’d give Iron Man a worthy 4 out of 5. I eagerly anticipate the imminent 2nd and 3rd sequels!

Is it better to be feared, or respected?
T’ang

(image from http://vargucci.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/ironman-08preview-lg.jpg)