On Quad Core Jerkoffness

So, the latest Samsung flagship smartphone, that the media calls "superphone" has been announced and demo'd. And what do people think?

Why Should You Get a Galaxy S 3 (its III, but I HATE roman numerals)

• You have a lot of money
• You have a VERY crappy phone like the early 2000s phone.
• You like to brag with your latest gadgetry
• You like to play with your phone (either games, or custom roms... or whatever) 

Why You Should Not Get a Galaxy S 3

• You can already surf the web easily
• You can make phone calls. Yes it's a phone!!!!
• You can write SMS, MMS, mail, etc.
• You can consume multimedia (youtube, videos, music)
• You don't need to charge the phone often. Once every 2 days is great :)

So Samsung Galaxy S III in my opinion... meh, will not buy.

 

Quad Core to drain your battery...

There is an increasing trend of MOAR COARS. And MOAR SCREEN. And MOAR RAM. This, in my opinion is absolute and complete bullshit. I remember using a phone, and it was good. Then I needed to get rid of it - because I needed another phone for development. So I gave it to my sister. The phone is the 1st revision HTC Desire, one that had the AMOLED screen and somewhat bad vibration motors.

And I'm a professional. I know my way around silicone shit. I can type and click and respond with types and clicks to error messages. I can fix stuff.

But I really cannot understand why are they putting MOAR COARS in these latest phones. Must it run Crysis? Must it fold@home? Must it keep your palms warm when do watch a video? Force you to use the charger more often? Something?

The "community", which are mostly consumers and semi-enthusiasts want MOAR COARS. So generally speaking, someone is forcing Samsung and other hardware and phone designers and manufacturers to add more cores. The phone now should be faster - yeah, to call somebody and then run out of battery. Or start typing a message and overheat your phone.

The only thing it makes sense is to replace a home PC for consumers, that consume content from the Interwebz. So you make a simple and intuitive interface that simplifies web browsing, music and movies, and you got yourself a winner.

... or replace your PC-like device.

So they are building phones to replace personal computers. A colleague of mine thinks that in the future, you will have just one device, and carry it around. It will act as your computer, Internet device, multimedia hub, etc. But when you plug it in to a specialized dock, you will use it as a personal computer with a large screen, keyboard and a touchpad/mouse. Sweeet :)

That's actually a good idea. But for someone that doesn't think that a personal computer is a fun consumer device, but a productiviy workstation, that sucks. And today's phones, as fast as they may be as a phone, cannot replace a full featured personal computer. There was a phone called Motorola Atrix, that had a notebook-like dock. Good idea, but it failed - because of extra costs and awful performance. It just won't work. At least not yet.

And with all these Sandy/Ivy Bridge chips...

... I would shoot myself in the foot if I replace it with a phone. Yes, the PC needs a hundred times MOAR POWAH, but It's a thousand times faster and million times more flexible. And for me, that's important.

IBM makes ownage HPC-s. Intel makes kickass consumer and server CPU-s. ATI/nvidia makes kickass video cards. Sony/Microsoft makes kickass consoles. So why should I get a generally weaker device that will get me crappy experience instead of having different, but highly specialized devices that offer maximum performance and user experience?

TL;DR

I don't need a modern super-smartphone, I only need a smartphone. Every other phone, go fuck yourself, I'm keeping my PC,

A dream to come true.

Rub three times...

... and a Djinn leaves the lamp. Sanity today is a very rare commodity, something that I learn every day. People are given endless choices about everything. Really, everything. So if a certain individual doesn't get it's choices right, might end up frustrated or stressed. Not a pretty sight.
In time the frustration will become an addiction, and you will never ever pick anything right. You'll be dissapointed with this or that and eventually turn paranoid, but at the end of the day... do you really need all that?

The answer is a big fat NO.

 

Wishful thinking

Calling a Djinn from the lamp, you are usually given three wishes (with a few disclamers, hehe). One of my wishes is at least to be more straightforward with picking things that I don't really need. Surely, I can pick the things that I need with no problem, but what if you don't need something but want it anyways? Chances are, you'll spend money for it. The harder you earn it, you'll be less eager to spend it. Easy come - easy go. Just like the three wishes. Generally, you don't know what to do with a given opportunity, you just waste it and take it for granted.
A small example from life: since we're visiting a same caffe bar (it's in our office neighbourhood) on and on and time and time again, one morning we were given free drinks, compliments of the manager-slash-owner. And what did we pick? Instead of picking something fun, like beer, scotch or a coctail, we took aromatized sparkling water. Which is cheap. Pretty cheap. I cannot emphasize enough - very cheap. One should now think that the manager is using this philosophy to attract more customers by giving them rewards or bonuses, and using the surprise-effect and easy-come-easy-go mentality, to get away with, let's admit it, cheap advertizing.

What angers me most is that I fell for it. Dumbass.

That really insulted my intelligence.

 

How to use the wishes

First thing to do when given an opportunity is to think about it, and think real hard. Try to cover all the bases, have an exit strategy and work hard to get all the right stuff with near-perfect benefit for oneself. When presented with a choice, you don't just rush into it. Like falling for offers with cut prices for an already cheap commodity or wasting good scotch on the manager's tab. In some situations there's no room for mistakes. Especially since you don't live forever. That's why, for example, you are not given the benefit of asking Djinn for more wishes. Because then, you'll go against the shortcut-taking human psychology - which rushes into things. And it goes against the law of things - which is the conservation of energy.

Disney's Genie, voiced by Robin Willams

You cannot get something for nothing. The wishes are free, but we cannot really use them. You can only get away if you pay with Sanity and Wisdom, which people don't really posses in tandem. That's why a superinteligent person is never "sane". That why a "wise" person has no desire to gain.

Common sense is slowly losing it's meaning and followers. But the process is accelerating.

 

FAIL?

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