Hunting the technology again

You'd think after getting shinies in the form of the monitor, speakers and mouse that I'd be happy for a while wouldn't you ?

NOOOO !!!!

This is technology.

More is better. Always.

First up - the tech I have is great. No complaints. Maybe the computer's processor is getting a little old (it's an i5-2500k from a few generations and almost 5 years ago) but it's still handling what it gets thrown in the shape of the games. How about the new stuff ?

The monitor is great. It's a breath of fresh air. New monitors will be like that but if you're in the market for tech, get the best out of what's on offer. Why buy second best if a little research can point you towards the best stuff ? Oh - it's an AOC 25" QHD monitor (1440p - more pixels, more detail) with an IPS screen. It does the trick. Pretty pictures look Pretty.

There's a thought ! My camera has a higher resolution than even this new shiny monitor. I haven't looked at the latest pics (Comic Con) on it yet.
(a few minutes later)
Oh that was so worth it.

I've been loving the speakers too but ... the mouse ? It may have started double bouncing already. Curious. (Double bouncing is where too many clicks happen).

The tech I'm curious about at the moment is :

Telly. Nah. Won't happen. The fairly old 32" telly still does me pretty well and I'm not sure that the newer panels are actually mature yet technologically.

Graphics card. One thing about getting a monitor with twice as many pixels as before, it puts a lot more strain on the thing that is painting all those pixels. And the AMD R9 380 I bought in Feb was struggling a bit in Elite. Will I replace it ? Nah. Whatever is out there now is not a significant upgrade on the R9 380 for an affordable price. I'll just turn down the number of pixels it is being asked to make.

But it's not just tech. Tech is more fun though.

Glasses ... oh wow these glasses have done me really well. They're like 14 years old now and I still have good depth perception from them. Speed perception is a little out of whack but I can adjust for that.

Actually - how do you measure depth accurately but not speed ? Speed is rate of change of depth after all. Strange but true.

Things to help you spy things better ? Perhaps.

What else - At the Mall earlier, I picked up something for my ankle to hopefully help it repair. Although it might well be odd going to work tomorrow with one foot in an ankle protector (and a shoe) and the other in a sock (and a shoe). My general condition is improving but there are areas (like my ankle) where the skin isn't being allowed to repair due to wear and tear of daily life.

But ankle protectors are boring. Thorntons fudge isn't and some may have escaped with me earlier. Oops.

Rogue One should be awesome.

The last bit of tech I've started looking into is a new phone. My iPhone 5 is still doing ok. But it has its flaws ... like Apple gradually moving away from giving customers what they want. My iPhone is still stuck on iOS 6 so that it can talk to the iTunes on my laptop. (I refuse to allow the newer versions of iTunes on because they are garbage). This is bad. It has also lost 3GB of its 13.5GB capacity to "Other Data" which I can't get back at the moment. The worst bit is the Lightning connector, it's getting harder and harder to make the connector work.

It still does its job as a phone but I am starting to look at other options. It has to do a few things :

Talk to iTunes.
Talk to the car. Send my music to the car.
Do the usual smartphoney type stuff.
Have all you can eat data.
Mobile tethering so I can have the iPad get to the internet through it.
Be as secure as Android can be.

I'm looking at the Samsung Galaxy phones at the moment. But I'll procrastinate a bunch before I actually get one. Because it's not something I actually need to do yet and I should do a little research with my old Android phone to see if the Talk to Itunes method I have in mind will work. (an app called Doubletwist).

Oh and away from tech - back to games ! I've been looking at the No Man's Sky situation over the weekend. I was quite looking forward to that game. It promised to combine the Elite aspects of flying round the galaxy with exploring planets. It looked like it could be quite compelling. It has recovered from a problematic launch where people had problems running it ... but that doesn't change the underlying gameplay.

I won't be getting this one until it significantly improves. Big problems at the moment (apparently ! I'm going from second hand reports ...) - a broken flight model and a lack of variation.

It's like throwing a dice 1000 times. Sure, you can throw it that 1000 times and get 1000 results but if that dice has only 6 sides, you only get 6 different results. The variation and therefore the interest in seeing something different dies quite quickly.

I'll be waiting for the next Deus Ex game and perhaps ... having another look at the Elite Internet Spaceships :-).