Tuesday, 31 July 2012
Sony Xperia S + P
So for the last few months or so I have had a new phone. Guess what brand (it's in the title). Now I have a soft spot for Sony phones. They have constantly been good feature phones; cyber shot, walkman, and of course now we are in the age of the smartphone. Now Sony was once in bed with Ericsson, and the first Android phone I bought was the Xperia X10. Now it had a lot of criticisms as it didn't come with the latest version of Android - it shipped with 1.6 - but over the lifetime of the phone it was upgraded up to 2.3 and by that point it was quite a good phone and did what I wanted, even if it was a little slow and laggy. But it still worked. Also compared to the phones at the time the X10 had a more original design in my opinion. It had a soft touch back that curved to fit in the hand well.
Now at the time my wife had the iPhone 3Gs. Now that still is quite a great phone. A bit limited for my tastes. It feels a bit clunky to use, but it still looks good compared to some of what comes out now. Also it had that nice pebble like back to it. It made is comfortable in the hand.
Now the new phones. So I have a Xperia S and same has the Xperia P. The S, P and the U, and the three phones of the new range, with the S being the largest and the P being the middle sized phone.
So design wise what do we have. We still have the curved back, and the S still has that nice soft touch plastic finish. It's a slim phone, and quite angular and imposing. Almost monolithic. Sharp edges and none of that pill-like overly curved corners. It of course as nice brushed metal buttons, and as always a dedicated camera button - which even when in locked mode the camera will spring to life. Otherwise it seems rather plain. Except that the phone as on the lower portion below the screen a clear strip that illuminates when the phone charges or is activated. This strip is also is where the antenna is. This strip really is a bit of a gimmick but also something that stops the phone being like all other black slabs. But recently this has become a useful design as an app now allows the strip to pulse when the phone receives a text or misses a call.
The P, is of course a smaller phone, (4.0 inch diagonal widescreen HD rather than the 4.3 of the S). But rather than soft touch plastic the P is a aluminium body, following all the same design principles.
Now it's hard to say which phone looks better. Large screen and thinner, or aluminium body.
Now the S has just got android 4.0 while the P is getting the update from 2.3 in August. Now the difference between the software are subtle, and more so because Sony don't do any heavy skinning of android. The skin is an nice simplification of what was on my X10. Live wallpapers are simple but attractive, and the timescape app has been reduced in it's importance to the system. As for 4.0 compared to 2.3, Sony have backported some features.
Now if there is one thing I really like about the P is the white magic screen. So while both have Bravia Reality display screens, with the both using full HD, the P also has something extra. White Magic means the pixels are the typical green, cyan an magenta, but also a fourth white pixel. this pixel makes the screen brighter and also means the screen uses less power. It really does make a difference.
Is there much more to say? Well I think the improved screens and sizes make them both ideal for reading books, pdfs, comics, and are really good for watching movies.
If there is a phone that has got some unfair reviews recently it is the S.
Monday, 23 July 2012
Project Ideas
For the listeners: If you could see me writing a new project, what would it be?
- Monsters/antagonists
- New city/finish off current project (see Manchester Vampire the requiem, Manchester mage the Ascension, Vampire Moscow, Geist - Paris/New York/LondonPrague).
- New powers?
- SAS
- Short stories
Friday, 20 July 2012
New type of chemical bond may form in extreme magnetic fields of stars | Ars Technica
Artist's impression of a neutron star, showing the intense magnetic field lines (in blue) surrounding it. Such strong magnetic fields could create a new type of molecule.Bonds between atoms are electrical in character: atoms share electrons or mutually ionize, creating an attractive force binding them together. However, researchers are now suggesting that it may be possible to generate magnetic bonds, resulting in stable molecules of different types than exist on Earth. While these molecules can't be produced with even our strongest laboratory magnets, they could form in the extreme magnetic fields near white dwarfs and neutron stars, and their unique spectral signatures may make them visible through observations.
As described in a new Science paper, Kai K. Lange, E. I. Tellgren, M. R. Hoffmann, and T. Helgaker performed detailed quantum mechanical calculations for two atoms in exceedingly strong magnetic fields. While previous work had shown that a relatively weak bond could form when the molecule is parallel to the magnetic field, Lange and colleagues discovered an additional stronger bond might result when the molecule is perpendicular. Their calculation relied on very few assumptions, so it is useful for determining the properties of the molecules formed. Intriguingly, their model also described a magnetic molecule could be made from helium, which is famously inert and doesn't form stable electric bonds.
Why are magnetic fields so extreme?
White dwarfs are the dense cores of stars similar to our Sun that shed their outer layers after exhausting their nuclear fuel. Neutron stars are the even denser remains of stars at least 8 times more massive than the Sun; they form when the star's core collapses as the star exploded in a supernova. In both cases, the small size of the stellar remnant and the high density combine to intensify the magnetic field near the surface.
The strongest laboratory magnets can produced magnetic field strengths of about 40 Teslas (40T). However, fields surrounding white dwarfs can be a thousand times greater, and neutron star field strengths are even stronger. (For comparison, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines may run as high as 7T, and Earth's magnetic field ranges from 25 to 65 microteslas.) In other words, the magnetic environment near extreme stellar remnants is substantially different than anything we can produce on Earth, so it's unsurprising that at least some new phenomena could arise in such a setting.
The authors used a common method in molecular chemistry and physics known as an full configuration-interaction (FCI) calculation, in which atoms are modeled directly with a minimum of assumptions. In this way, they were able to obtain all the possible molecular binding configurations. They focused on hydrogen, which has the twin advantages of being simple (one electron per atom) and common. At low temperatures and negligible electric or magnetic fields, hydrogen forms the two-atom molecule H2 through covalent bonding, where the electrons are shared equally between the two atoms. However, the environment around white dwarfs and neutron stars is too hot for this bond to survive, and the molecules dissociate.
Intense magnetic fields could change that, based on the FCI analysis. As the magnetic field strength increased, the researchers found the electron orbitals (the patterns of the electron cloud of an atom) distorted, making the atoms themselves magnetic. This effect, known as paramagnetism, is seen in many materials: they are magnetic only in the presence of an external field (as opposed to ferromagnets—"permanent magnets"—which don't require an external field). In the case of hydrogen atoms in extreme magnetic fields, the result of the paramagnetism was the formation of an H2 molecule that's held together through magnetic bonding.
While previous calculations had found magnetic bonding when the two atoms were oriented perpendicular to a magnetic field, they didn't show bonding in other orientations. The new results revealed the bonds persist when the atoms are rotated by any angle relative to the field, though the perpendicular orientation was still preferred. Additionally, in the earlier results, bonding was due to motion of the electrons, not a paramagnetic effect. The differences arise because of the approximations used in the earlier work used, which are not present in the current one.
The researchers also performed FCI calculations for helium, which only forms molecules under extreme conditions—and even then the results are highly unstable. They found magnetic bonds were possible, meaning quasi-stable paramagnetic He2 could exist. As with H2, however, the molecules were found to break apart when the external field was turned off.
Because of the fundamentally different character of magnetic H2, its spectrum—the wavelengths of light absorbed and emitted—will be different than the spectrum of covalent H2. Similarly, magnetic He2 has a unique spectrum. If magnetic molecules exist in the atmospheres of white dwarfs or neutron stars, they might be detectable, assuming they are produced in sufficient quantities.
While current laboratory magnetic fields aren't strong enough to create magnetic molecules, new pulsed magnetic fields are able to achieve higher strengths for brief periods of time. While the molecules would only persist as long as the field was switched on, future experiments should be able to hunt for their predicted spectra.
Science, 2012. DOI: 10.1126/science.1219703 and 10.1126/science.1224869 (About DOIs).
Well this is new and different
Wednesday, 18 July 2012
MHS, Oxford: Copy of John Dee's Holy Table of 1582, English, Late 17th Century (IRN 6546, Inventory number 15449)
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Copy of John Dee's Holy Table of 1582, English, Late 17th Century
Sunday, 1 July 2012
Wow... 6 months in Germany...
So since the last update you have seen quite a few pictures of my cats. Which means that they too are now living in Germany. Of course we are enjoying our flat a lot, and often have to look after our landlord's cat as they go on holiday to the coast quite often.
Work wise things are improving a lot now, as I feel like I am actually contributing in a meaningful way, even if that is trawling through computer code for density functional theory calculations, and trying to find a way to hack it to do what I want. On the work front I also have a conference in Berlin and one in Lugano, Switzerland to go to, and the latter one in on neural networks, so I will also be getting to chance to meetup with my PhD supervisor.
On the more social aspect of things, I now have a gaming group almost ready, and we have also been out to the local goth/rock club a couple of times with some new friends. I have really missed going out to dance, and have a few drinks, and the club here is great.
Also I have now been co-hosting Darker Days Radio for over a year, which is great. We are soon to begin season 4 and we have big things planned, and some cool interviews lined up.
I'm sure that the is more to talk about, but for now,
