Why IV? Dinosaurs!

My wife biffs me upside the head for taking so long (circa 5 years) to work up the nerve to leave Intel and join IV:

Boring cubicles  

versus

An office with dinosaurs from Jurassic Park

Changes

I have left Intel effective yesterday, and will join Quantum Intellectual Property services on Monday.

"My" Photograph

Many websites, in particular social networking sites, suggest that you provide a photograph.

Here's the one I use.

Why is this "My" Photograph?

Anecdote: a coworker, Matt Merton, sent an email postcard back from a trip to Italy with the bust of a Roman Emperor, asking "What computer architect does this remind you of?"



The likeness was remarkable. Curly hair, beard.



Since I have always been a fan of Roman history, in particular of the "good emperors" such as Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, I decoded to adopt this as "My" Photograph, for use on websites, etc.



I may have lost Matt's original email, but the photograph credited below seems reasonable.



Unfortunately for me, the photograph was not of Marcus Aurelius or Hadrian, or even Trajan, but instead was of Antoninus Pius, about whom I know little.  The adjective "Pius" does not really apply to me.  But what little is known of this emperor makes him seem like a good guy, although some blame him for making Rome too comfortable, softening Rome up for the barbarian invasions that plagued his successors.

Source, Attribution, and Credits for "My" Photograph

This photograph is derived from the photograph

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Antoninus_Pius_BM_Sc1463.jpg

which contains the following licence information:

This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License

In short: you are free to distribute and modify the file as long as you attribute its author(s) or licensor(s).

Picture shot by Marie-Lan Nguyen (user:Jastrow) and released under the license(s) stated above. You are free to use it for any purpose as long as you credit me and follow the terms of the license.

Example:  © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

I am using images, such as JPG, GIF, or the like, of this photograph as "me" on various sites, for reasons explained here.



Unfortunately, it is occasionally hard to attach the attribution and credit to the image where used.  For example, many sites only allow images, JPG or GIF, to be attached, with nowhere to put credits. I would like to associate a link or flyover with the image, however, unfortunately, many sites do not allow this - or else I do not know how to do so.  I made some attempt to embed the credits within the photograph, but by photo editing skills are not so good.



I am therefore creating this page describing `"My" Photograph', and providing the attribution and credit here. I will try to link to this page, or to the page http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcxddbtr_22f8pwcsd4 which describes other social networking data, and which links to this page, in an effort to provide full credit.



Note that I attempted to contact the photographer using the email address provided, to no avail.

Making lemonade with my Toshiba M400 Tablet PC

I have blogged in the past about my Toshiba M400 Tablet PC. I so much loved my older Toshiba 3505 Tablet PC, but the M400 is just plain and simply a lemon. It has sat unused for the almost two years since I bought it, because it was simply too loud to be used at home.

Not just my PC, but apparently the whole M400 model line. Googling finds many people with my complaint: fan too loud, hangs. One fellow even went so far as to void his warranty by installing an on/off switch for the fan.

Several sites discussed how the fan noise was a bigger issue in Japan than in the United States. Apparently the Japanese are less tolerant of unnecessary noise than are Americans. Yet another thing I have in common with Japan.

Having a bit of free time, I decided to try to make a go of it again. Reinstalled from scratch. Tried using various utilities to tune CPU performance and fan speed: RM Clock, Notebook Hardware Control, and, most usefully, SpeedFan. However, although the latter accomplished some tunings, they were insufficient to make it tolerable.

"When life gives you a lemon, make lemonade..."

The M400 is too loud to use at home. However, we have a cottage near the ocean, filled with the roar of the surf. The M400 is, barely, tolerable here. The M400 is louder than the surf, especially when it goes into what I call "Hyper Fan" mode; but it may be okay to leave the computer at the cottage. Heaven knows I am getting no other good use out of it.

Annoyingly, the M400 is the first machine I bought a multi year warranty for. Expires next year. If there was any hope of it being fixed. But past attempts were vain.