Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with performance

What is wrong with my iPhone?

rabbitrabbit — Tue, 21 May 2013 08:23:43 -0800

I got my iPhone 4 in October 2011. The past few months, it has had a couple of really annoying issues: 1. It is very, very slow. If I open an app, it is about 10-30 seconds before I can do anything (before that it's just unresponsive). And even after that, it is VERY slow compared to my husband's iPhone 4 (which he has had about a year longer than I've had mine).

2. Half the time when I plug it in, it doesn't charge (no acknowledging charging beep/vibrate, no charging icon in upper right corner). I then have to shut the phone off and plug it in. It always charges when it's turned off.

3. Recently when I was using a turn-by-turn navigation app (Waze) the phone kept "losing" GPS signal (in an area that's always had fine signal before, and in fact it was still showing plenty of bars and 3G) and it got very hot to the touch, especially on the back (it was not charging at the time). I don't even know what to make of this one.

Things I've tried:

1. For the slowness, I tried removing the 1,000 or so photos and videos that I had in Camera Roll. My phone was pretty full. I had very high hopes that this would help, but the phone has a ton of free space now and the slowness has not improved.

2. For the charging issues, I tried new chargers. I figured maybe my chargers were bad and that's why it wasn't charging sometimes, but nope. I kind of knew this couldn't be the problem, since it ALWAYS charges after I turn it off.

Um, what next? Even with my advanced Google-fu, I'm not finding much about these particular issues, there is just a ton of noise about iPhones on the Internet. Would an Apple Genius be able to help? Is my phone just reaching the end of its life? (I find this hard to accept, like I said, my husband's iPhone 4 is a year older than mine and it still works fine.)

I don't even know what else might be relevant. I'm running the latest iOS 6.1.3. I'm on Verizon. It has always had an OtterBox on it, I do have a toddler that puts his sticky hands on it sometimes, but mostly that's just on the glass because it's in a case. I use my phone quite a bit for web surfing, Shazam, Facebook, and games (god it's so annoying to watch the candy blow up in slow-motion in Candy Crush), a bit of texting, and rarely as an actual phone. I charge it every night overnight (I use it as my alarm clock). I have 7-8 pages of apps (nothing in folders, so that's about 115 apps.

Looking for some unbiased cost-benefit analysis for cycling upgrades

RustyBrooks — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:53:06 -0800

After a year of strenuous work, I am finally at the point where I think it's worth upgrading my bike to try to eke out some more speed. But I want to know what kinds of improvements are really worth it. I've been riding for 3 years, and over the last year putting a lot of time into becoming a stronger cyclist. My bike is an entry level specialized road bike (A 2010 Secteur if it matters, an aluminum-framed, low-grade-shimano-group bike). For most of those 3 years I was unconcerned about my bike, my theory being that I had a lot of work to do on myself (weight and proficiency) before I needed to worry about trying to buy performance.

I don't think I'm quite at my peak of performance but I'm getting there, and I'm doing the kind of riding where I would benefit from some upgrades. I'm an extremely practical and economical (in some senses) person and I am not going to buy The Best Bike or The Fanciest Wheels or whatever without figuring out what upgrades make sense and what don't.

Basically, I would be happy to spend $1000-1500 upgrading, or say $2500 replacing my bike, if it was likely to improve my flat-road average speed by 1mph+. And I'm basically trying to find out, what I can expect the improvement to be, in mph/$ for various upgrades.

I found this
and it's definitely along the right lines, although if you follow it back to the original research it's geared around a person going 30 mph on a 40k time trial, I think. And it's specifically based on aerodynamics - I expect there are also many weight improvements I could do.

The most expedient thing to do would probably be to get a whole new bike. I'm open to that idea, but I'd probably still need the same help figuring out what wheel sets are worth their price, how much weight reductions will help, and so forth.

That link above had some surprises to me. I knew that shoe covers help, for example, but was surprised they helped that much - more than an aero frame for example, while costing a mere $50 vs thousands for the frame. That's a perfect example of what I'm interested in, avoiding big dollar purchases that will barely help and focusing on things that will make a difference.

Diagnosing poor performing Windows laptop

PercussivePaul — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:15:15 -0800

My Windows 7 laptop frequently goes to 100% CPU usage and becomes unusable. I've discovered that if I put it to sleep and immediately wake it up, the CPU usage goes back down to a reasonable level (10% ish) and stays that way, but this problem recurs at least daily. How can I diagnose and fix the cause of this issue? It's a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge running Win7 64 bit, about 3 years old. Intel Core i3-330M 2.13GHz, 4GB RAM, 250 GB HDD (nearly full), integrated graphics. I tend to run an admittedly heavy load, browsers with a billion tabs open, Python and Javascript applications, Word, Excel, etc... but the CPU problem seems to happen at random times, even when there is not much open. Closing applications does not seem to bring CPU usage down -- only putting it to sleep and waking it up does. Physical memory usage tends to be about 50%.

This has been going on for at least a year to a noticeable degree. I did a fresh install of Win 7 some time ago but the problem recurred soon. Nothing in task manager seems to be causing this -- when it gets sluggish, applications that normally use 1% of the CPU suddenly need 15%. Just did a virus scan and it came back clean, though maybe I should check again.

I've thought of getting more RAM and/or an SSD but given the age of this laptop I don't know if I want to throw more money at it. But I would prefer to delay replacement for another year or two and I feel like that should be possible with this hardware. Contemplating switching to Linux but I recall Ubuntu having, um, CPU utilization issues (hmm) when I tried it a few years ago, though maybe it will be better this time. Or maybe this CPU is just underpowered?

Any ideas? How do I even figure out what's wrong? I am super frustrated.

ThinkPad Edge or faster cheap laptop?

Busy Old Fool — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:35:15 -0800

Is the quality of the ThinkPad Edge worth the performance hit? Critique my nearly-made laptop purchasing choice! I’m looking at buying a 15.6" (no smaller) laptop for computationally light use: web browsing, Office applications and occasional watching of online video. Build quality and longevity is more important, so I’ve been looking at ThinkPads, which given the smallish budget means the E series. I’m aware that ThinkPad Edges are nowhere near as well-made as T series or X series, but I think they’re still a step up from entry-level laptops. Correct me if I’m wrong!

Within the budget available, the best ThinkPad deal I can find is the E530 (i3 2328M / 4GB RAM / 500GB 7200 / 6 cell battery / LED backlight 1366x768 screen). That’s only a 2nd generation i3, so I looked at what I could get elsewhere.

As a comparison, for a little more money, I can get a Dell Inspiron with i3-3227U / 4GB RAM / 500GB 5400 / 4 cell battery / WLED 1366x768 screen. So, better CPU and better screen. The Thinkpad has a slightly faster HD and a better battery, though the 2nd gen i3 is less efficient than the 3rd, as I understand it. Oh, and the ThinkPad comes with Win8 Pro, rather than vanilla Win8 on the Dell.

My question is whether the specification advantages of the Dell are enough that I should consider it. Given the light use outlined above, is there any reason I shouldn’t go for the ThinkPad or will it show its age in terms of performance very soon?

Bonus question: Whatever I buy, I’m planning to upgrade the RAM and add an SSD at some point. I think probably double the RAM straight away and add the SSD in a year or two when finances allow and SSD speed has further improved. Anything wrong with that plan?

Note that I’m buying in the UK. I haven’t given prices, as I’m more interested in performance comparisons, but I want to be closer to £300 than £350. If you have a specific alternative in the UK that’s better than my options above, please share it. I have spent some time looking into this, so suggestions I try ‘Dell Outlet’ or ‘get a refurbished T series on eBay’ aren’t helpful without a specific suggestion in my price range.

What musical instruments can I play with a hand tremor?

quarantine — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 15:50:40 -0800

I have a worsening degenerative hand tremor and can no longer play conventional rock music on guitar. What musical instrument could I take up that could accommodate this condition? To help gauge the current scale of the condition, I can still touch-type most days (if my wrists are resting on the keyboard) but have trouble operating an iPhone or holding a cup of coffee. Because of the successful keyboarding, the piano has occurred to me. Any other ideas?

Speeding up Lightroom on Mac Pro

Admiral Haddock — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 09:39:47 -0800

I use a mid-2009 Mac Pro for photo editing / cataloging in Lightroom. Performance has been increasingly unsatisfactory. Looking for your advice re: upgrades to the Mac Pro, or perhaps getting a new Macbook Pro. Specs inside. The Mac Pro is a 2 x 2.26 quad core Xeon running 10.6.8 with 14 GB of physical RAM (I can't remember how the sticks are configured--but it's not perfectly matched (maybe 2 6s and a 2gb?)). Main hard drive (i.e., where applications reside) is a 640 GB 7200 RPM WD Caviar Blue. All my drive bays are filled (one with a Time Machine volume, and the other two with drives for the Lightroom catalog). I'm running LR 4.1 (build 829322).

I'm editing full-size RAW files output from a 5dMKIII. Maybe 25MB+ each. I increased the size of LR's cache, but I can't remember to what. I have LR set to render full size previews.

LR is really laggy, whether switching between images in the catalog, using the mask brush, the spot healing tool--really anything. It's getting really annoying.

Obviously, I haven't upgraded to the newest OS or the newest version of LR. I've been reluctant, given that each version of LR has gotten (IMO) progressively laggier.

What's the best way of getting some (go on, say it) snappiness back? More RAM? Increase the size of the LR cache? Upgrade to LR 4.3? SSD (and if a SSD is the way to go, do you have a particular model to recommend for a desktop)? Or is this just throwing good money after "bad," given that this is coming up on a four-year old machine, and should I just get a new retina Macbook Pro?

Thanks!

Why do ABS systems work so much better than traction control systems?

Juffo-Wup — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:15:21 -0800

Why do anti-lock brake systems [seem to] work so much better than traction control systems on modern sedans? For many years I drove a car without what you might call electronic safety systems, by which I mean anti-lock brakes, traction control, and electronic stability control. Since 2010, I have been driving a 2010 Ford Fusion with all three of these systems. It seems to me that the anti-lock braking system works much better than the traction control system does, and I am wondering why this might be.

To clarify, by the "traction control system," I mean the system which tries to keep you from losing traction (acceleration) if you depress the accelerator pedal too far while driving in a straight line on a slippery surface.

When it is safe to do so, such as on an empty road or in an empty parking lot under appropriate conditions, I like to "experiment" with my car's performance in slippery conditions. I do this because I am curious about the performance and limits of the modern brake/traction/stability systems, and because I think it is important to know how one's car handles at the edges (or outside) of control in case I encounter that type of situation by mistake or in an emergency while driving.

By "experiment," I mean doing such things as:

a) Increasing brake pedal pressure on a slippery surface to see at what point the ABS kicks in and how quickly the car can stop once it does.

b) Increasing accelerator pedal pressure to see when the wheels start to slip and the traction control kicks in and how quickly the car can continue accelerating once it does.

c) Other things involving steering in conjunction with braking and/or accelerating which would normally send the car out of control, in order to see what type of order the ESC system is able to maintain.

I have been very impressed with the car's ABS system whenever I experiment with it. In every case I have tried, the ABS has been able to stop the car more quickly than I would be able to if I back off (and then modulate pressure on) the brake pedal once the ABS kicks in.

On the other hand, it seems like I can often make the car accelerate faster (in slippery conditions) if I back off and then finesse the accelerator pedal than if I simply hold the accelerator pedal at a position past where traction control kicks in and let the traction control system do its job.

[I have been *extremely* impressed with what the stability control system is able to do, even under the most extreme/unwise sets of control inputs, but that's not germane to this question.]

So, my questions are this:

1) If you drive a front-wheel-drive sedan with ABS and traction control and have experimented with or used the systems, do you agree that the ABS works substantially better than the traction control?

2) Why do you think this is? I can come up with some ideas off the top of my head (e.g., braking is frequently more safety-critical than acceleration, so they put more work/money/etc into it), but I would be very interested to hear actual engineering, mechanical, scientific, or otherwise fact-based explanations of why this might be.

Thanks in advance and, as always, I look forward to reading your input.

Dance dance dance!

EmilyFlew — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:12:39 -0800

I love watching male ballet dancers in the New York City Ballet. What else would I enjoy watching? I am just starting to try to learn about dance, and have gone to some amazing performances, including a few at the NYCB (so, a lot of Balanchine). I love a lot about these shows, but I love watching the male ballet dancers (danseurs?) the most -- there is something about the combination of the extremely demonstrative athleticism and classicism and artistry of movement that amazes me. I would like to find other performances that scratch this itch. Perhaps relevant: I also just saw a Parsons Dance Company performance and though I appreciated the atheleticism, I found the choreography way too kitchy for my taste. But that was probably only the fourth dance performance I've ever been to, so I'm pretty wide open and know very little about the universe.

I welcome recommendations that range from "Look up Baryshnikov videos from the 1970s on YouTube" to "Go to Alvin Ailey shows, their performances set to house music are the best" to "Have you tried watching Mixed Martial Arts?" I'm in New York City, and especially welcome recommendations for groups or theaters to keep an eye on here.

Help feeling more motivated and less negative about work.

sock of ages — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 08:44:59 -0800

I have a pretty decent job but don't enjoy it and have started underperforming - how can I motivate myself to work harder again? I work for a local authority (UK) and have been in the same post for about a decade, a data-wankery job. The demands of the post are quite difficult, with a lot of requests, often very urgent. The demands have increased and are still increasing. I manage two part-time staff.

I used to work very hard and do extra hours. For the last six months I have been struggling to get in to work on time, regularly being one and a half to two hours late and making up the time using leave hours. I have also found it difficult to make myself do the work I should be prioritising. I have sent some borderline-unprofessional emails to senior staff in response to requests that fail to understand some of the fundamentals of our work, don't give us enough time for complex requests, or ignore the fact that they have already received some of the things they are requesting. I don't think these have crossed the line into unprofessional, but I have been told that they show my frustration. I also do not support my own two staff well.

As for what changed six months ago, we had a particularly stressful time at work around that time, and some of the senior managers whom I respected left.

I have got into a cycle of anxiety and shame about my work performance which I think is stopping me being able to address it.

I am concerned that things may blow up on me. I may be called out for not doing tasks I should be, for poor time-keeping or rudeness. My team has now been asked to create a new system for data analysis, a task which feels enormous, maybe 60 to 70 days of staff time. I feel crushed by the thought of this and am not sure what to do. I also suspect that this system will not address the long-term performance issues in the teams I support. I have generally reached a point of being very cynical about the authority's ability to improve performance. To some extent whether the system does improve performance is not my problem, I should do the work anyway, but that inability to believe in the point of it doesn't help.

Things I have considered or tried to make myself perform better at work:

(a) better work planning. This has worked well for me in the past but isn't working now. I know what I should be doing, how long it will take and what the deadlines are, but am still not doing it.

(b) discussing my lack of performance with my manager. She is totally overloaded and I am certain would not have any suggestions that would help. My sense is that she does not want to know that I am struggling because she does not know what to do about it. No-one senior to me has mentioned my poor performance to me. I believe that my manager and other senior staff also over-estimate my importance to the authority so may be allowing me to get away with unavailability, poor time keeping etc on the belief that they need me. That is a view that could switch at any moment if they were to be given clear evidence of my under-performance. I do not have regular supervision or appraisals.

(c) focussing on things outside work to give me more of a sense of achievement, with the aim of feeling less emotionally involved in work and therefore more able to perform better there. This is not helping at present.

(d) discussing with my therapist. Continuing to do this but nothing useful has come out of it so far, though I am generally happy with my therapist and feel I am making progress in other areas of my life.

(e) talking to friends at work. They see that it is a difficult situation but are not able to suggest anything to help.

(f) being honest about my performance with a member of staff I manage who is also a friend, and asking him to sit with me whilst I do some urgent tasks. This has worked well in that I have managed to complete some things, but I don't think it's far on him and it's not a long-term solution.

(g) "fake it till I make it" around feeling negative about the authority's ability to improve. If I am able to find some evidence for improving performance in the data, I make sure I mention that to staff. This has not affected my attitude, however.

(h) emailing my manager each week to tell her what I have been working on and what my goals are for the next week. I haven't tried this, but am considering it.

(i) taking some leave and hope that I will go back to work with a better attitude. I had leave over Christmas which didn't help, and it is now a difficult time to take more time off.

(j) looking for another job. Still looking though there is not much around at the moment.

(k) focussing on the parts of my job that I enjoy, such as some technical processes, and the benefits such as generous leave, good pay and a lot of autonomy.

(l) trying to focus on the difference my work makes to the authority's support to vulnerable people. I do believe abstractly that data analysis is important in improving services and outcomes, but have stopped believing that what my authority does with my work makes any difference to service users.

(m) trying to learn new skills at work, such as SQL. Only just started this.

Also relevant is the fact that my authority is making very considerable cuts to services. This now seems unlikely to affect my team directly in terms of loss of posts, though our workload will probably increase. The cuts in general are part of what is affecting my morale.

My questions are: do you have any suggestions for how I can improve my work attitude and performance? Have you been in a situation where you turned around your work ethic whilst staying in the same job?

Thanks, and sorry for the length.

Which Boston-area theater/performance/arts subscription should I buy?

teditrix — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:46:29 -0800

Which Boston-area theater/performance/arts subscription should I buy? We are a young couple that likes occasionally having reasons to leave the house and go on a proper date.

My fiance just bought us a subscription to the A.R.T. season. I would like to buy something similar but complementary: another theater series, or a concert/dance series, or ... really anything that will get us out of the house once every month or two. I think my top leaning right now is a set of World Music/CRASHarts concerts.

I am open to things like museum memberships, as well, but it's probably best for us if we are committing to go to a specific event on a specific day. Wackier things -- cooking classes? drawing lessons? -- are on the table, too -- again, as long as we can commit to a set of them in advance.

We are in Somerville; anywhere subway-accessible would be good. The organization doesn't have to offer a formal subscription program; patching together a series of tickets to make our own is fine. We tend toward random hipsterish pursuits, but we don't mind pretending to be adults occasionally, either. Probably looking to spend about $100-200 per person.

Finding the perfect Mac laptop for an indecisive Windows-based web developer

maudlin — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 17:13:55 -0800

I'm a web developer / eLearning developer on Windows 7 looking to: 1) Get a Mac because I need to be able to test sites quickly and easily on my own; 2) Get a Windows-bootable unit that can act as my backup machine when my Asus throws a tantrum as it did this week; and 3) Get a reasonably portable Windows-bootable laptop that can handle Photoshop and other resource hogs so that I can work on it at client sites without having to barely squish the Asus (aka "The Clydesdale") into my largest backpack. Ideally, I could get all three in one machine that wouldn't cost the earth. Please join me as I anguish over the MacBook Air, the MacBook Pro, the Mac Mini, and other options. What I do with my computers:

- Adobe Creative Suite CS5 and CS6 / eLearning Suite 2 and 6 (Captivate, Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver)
- Some work in Illustrator CS4
- Other elearning tools (Camtasia 7 and 8, Articulate Storyline)
- Office 2010

I don't do any heavyweight video editing (just web-based work in Camtasia and the like). I don't produce graphics for print, just the web. Typical eLearning file sizes to open, save and convert to Flash are 25-90 Mb (Storyline files with videos can get huge, Captivate files typically max out at about 50-60 Mb).

I'm mostly happy with my Asus (Windows Home Premium, i7 quad core, 16 Gb DDR 1333 RAM, 750 Gb HDD at 7200rpm). I do find that when I was at 6 Gb RAM that I would have problems running Photoshop and Captivate or Storyline at the same time. My video driver is a little flaky, but it hasn't actually crashed in front of me since the last update a couple of months ago.

What I'm considering at Canadian pricing:

Laptops that could (maybe) do it all with Bootcamp and Windows 7 Pro OEM.

1) MacBook 13" i5 dual core (3rd gen/Ivy Bridge) with 4 Gb RAM that I'll upgrade to 8Gb on my own. Small enough to fit in my smallest backpack, too.

Performance: I'm assuming mostly OK: any feedback?
Price: It's on sale this week for $1049. 4 Gb more of RAM will be about $60 more.
My concerns: The HDD spins at 5400 rpm, and all my recent Windows machines have been at 7200. Will I find this unbearably slow? Plus, at 4.5 pounds versus the Asus 6 pounds, it is an improvement but not all that lightweight.

2) Some kind of 13" Mac Air (can't do 11" because the SSD drives only go to 128 Gb).

Performance: I could work with a 256 Gb SSD because that will hold all my apps and some data. It would certainly be faster than the 5400 HDD on the MacBook Pros. I know that I already get impatient with the 7200 rpm HDD on my Asus when opening, closing and saving 50-90 Mb files. But the importance of the processor speed is where I'm really confused.

a) Ivy Bridge i5 versus Sandy Bridge i5. Is the latter significantly slower than the Ivy Bridge? It looks as if the RAM is slower, too, at 1333 Mhz instead of 1600 Mhz.

b) How does the i7 (dual core) Ivy Bridge compare to the i5 Ivy Bridge? If I have the same fast RAM and an SSD in both, is the bump in processor speed worth it?

Price:
a) i5 Sandy Bridge: $1249 at Future Shop
b) i5 Ivy Bridge: $1499 with 4 Gb RAM. If necessary, I could add more 4 Gb more after I put it through its paces, so that's about $60 more.
c) i7 (dual core) Ivy Bridge: $1599 with 4 Gb RAM, plus $60 or so upgrade to 8 Gb on my own.

I haven't paid more than $1300 for a computer in years. These prices are a little above my comfort level. OTOH, I don't know if I could live with an HDD spinning at 5400 rpm. Apple can offer me an SSD or a potter's wheel, but nothing in between.

More complicated options:

1) Mac Mini (i5 or i7 dual core, 500 Gb or 1 Tb HDDD at 5400 rpm). These are pretty cheap at $599/$799, but that slow HDD concerns me. Plus, I would still have to deal with the laptop problem, so I may end up spending anywhere from $500 to $1000 for a reasonably small but gutsy Windows laptop.

2) Sell the Asus for $400-500 and use the proceeds and what I have budgeted for The Perfect Mac Laptop to get a desktop like this (I would still have to add memory) and a 13" MacBook Pro. Approximately $2050 for these units minus the CL proceeds works out to $1550-1650 to get a more powerful desktop and a good but not great laptop.

All this typing and now I think I know my answer, but any feedback, useful questions or a boot to the head would be appreciated. Thanks!

journey to the land of oriental rugs

threeants — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 20:40:14 -0800

Musicfilter: what are the best live "sessions" on Youtube? Recommend me your favorites! I love these performances because they're live, and a fresh new take from the studio version, but generally also have good sound quality and aren't recorded out of someone's tinny phone next to a shrieking audience member. I guess the gold standard for this is KEXP, but even they have such a vast back-catalog that I'd love to be directed to some favorites.

Thanks!

Thomas Kincade she is not...

peacrow — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:54:04 -0800

What can I read/watch/do to learn more about Performance Art? I will soon be gaining a performance artist as a family member. Even though I am from an artistic/performing family (both of my siblings are artists, both parents are musicians), I am terribly ignorant when it comes to performance art. I am just familiar with it enough to realize how unenlightened I am.

As a way to (hopefully) connect with and understand this wonderful person better, I'd like to learn a bit more.

Are there any books about the history of performance art, accessible to a layperson? I'd be interested in theory-lite, rather than theory-free.

Who are, say, the top 3-5 most famous performance artists I should know? Sadly, I feel like Yoko Ono is the extent of my PA celeb knowledge. Unless mimes count. Then Yoko Ono and Marcel Marceau.

Are there any up-and-coming performance artists generating a lot of buzz?

If it makes a difference, her work focuses on human rights and slavery.

I'm sorry this sounds silly or daft. I am really a babe in the woods here and don't even know where to begin. If you can help set me on the path to smart about performance art, I would be super grateful.

Have you been on Wellbutrin and used propanolol as needed?

namemeansgazelle — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 13:48:31 -0800

YANMD: I recently started Wellbutrin (150 mg) for SAD. So far, no side effects. I haven't noticed an increase in anxiety, faster heart rate, etc. I also take around 5-10 mg of propranolol as needed (beta blocker) for performance anxiety. It works really well. My question: has anyone else had this combo of meds and noticed that the beta blocker worked differently? My shrink says it should be fine, but I'm interested in hearing any stories. This is probably my anxiety talking, but I'm just worried I'll take my beta blocker before a performance situation and it won't work, or won't feel the same. Thanks in advance.

Performance artist search

specialk420 — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:27:23 -0800

Looking for artworks where artists use instructional language, prompts or directives. Similar to Yoko Ono's grapefruit or artists who give tours through museums as a conceptual strategies such Andrea Fraser

a woosh and a shift and the land that we...wait your car is making that noise...?

ps_im_awesome — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 18:45:17 -0800

i hear cars coming up my road, and when they obviously shift to the next gear, i hear a "whoosh" of "air" or something else. what is that? my '01 civic is a 5 speed, but it never whooshes when i shift. is this some high performance kind of thing? i've caught sight of the cars and they range from VW's to Acuras and beyond. just curious to know what the "whoosh" is.

A Room of One's Own

hermitosis — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:17:18 -0800

Looking for a artist studio/workspace kind of deal in Manhattan. Challenges: affordable, soundproof, pay-per-use. Some friends and I need to get together about once a month to rehearse some pretty goofy material for an hour or two at a time. It would be really wonderful to do this in Manhattan, which is far more central to everyone involved, than in the various outer boroughs we live in.

Our priorities are:

Privacy - we need to be able to make noise, and we don't want to be visible or overheard if we can help it.

Affordable - I dunno, fifty bucks per session? Is that lunacy? We don't need any sort of tech set up, just a space.

Pay-per-use - We don't have either the funds or the necessity to rent a place for an entire month, week, or even day. Just a couple hours here or there. We're fine scheduling many weeks in advance.

I know, it sounds like a pipe dream. But maybe you know of something that I don't?

Best way to upgrade to a Solid State Drive?

Rhaomi — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:18:22 -0800

What's the best way to go about installing a solid state drive in a new laptop? (And is this even a good idea?) After six years of solid service from my workhorse Dell Latitude, the combination of wonky ports, depleted battery, slowing performance, and an intermittent Disk Click of Doom has convinced me it's time to finally upgrade. Luckily, I found a great deal on a snazzy new IdeaPad Y580. According to this exhaustive review, it's got everything I'm looking for: decent screen, powerful CPU and GPU, similar form factor, and priced hundreds less than comparable machines elsewhere.

The only real flaw is storage. I've heard phenomenal things about SSDs -- lightning speed, low heat/noise emissions, shockproof, etc. -- and definitely wanted to make one the centerpiece of any new laptop purchase. But the Y580 only ships with a standard mechanical drive, which the review identifies as a significant performance bottleneck in an otherwise speedy package.

One potential solution is to go for the premium model, which includes a 32GB "caching" SSD as a supplement to a whopping 1TB mechanical drive. But I get the impression that such a set-up isn't nearly as responsive as an all-SSD environment -- faster boot-up, maybe, but not a "Best. Upgrade. Ever." system-wide turbo boost. I'd also like to avoid, in light of aforementioned Disk Click of Doom, returning to the relative frailty of physical drives for storing all my files. (And frankly, I don't fully understand how one manages a hybrid set-up. Installing the OS in one drive and media files in another? Where do programs go? It sounds awkward.)

Given these misgivings, what I'd really like to do is just buy a lower-tier Y580 with a small HDD, use the savings to acquire a full SSD separately (256GB sounds good), and swap it in when the new laptop arrives. But this has complications of its own. So here are my core questions:

- What's the most reliable ~256GB drive available today? Not necessarily the fastest -- the difference between SSD models is peanuts compared to the step up from HDDs -- but the one most likely to last at least a few years, given reports of perilously high failure rates in earlier years. Intel is the most respected name and offers a five-year warranty, but they're relatively pricey at well over $1 per GB, so I'd be interested in hearing about other brands with respectable track records (as well as those with high failure rates to steer clear of)

- What's the best way to install a new SSD in a new laptop? Should I clone the stock hard disk to the SSD with a migration tool, or would it be better to just install Windows 7 on it fresh? What about transferring files from my old laptop? What's the process for swapping out the drives themselves? Also, are there any tweaks I should do to the SSD that would normally be done by Lenovo pre-shipment in order to optimize it and prolong its lifespan?

- Is there any reason I shouldn't prefer a large SSD over the hybrid HDD+caching SSD? Apart from sheer cost, obvs. I'm really trying to "future proof" this purchase and get the biggest possible performance leap that will last a good number of years, but if a hybrid drive offers ~90% of the speed of an SSD or avoids some major pitfall, then I might be willing to settle. I'd really like to shockproof my data and reduce noise/heat/power consumption, though, so it would have to be a pretty big pitfall.

Is there a minimum sample size required to use the bell curve for performance management?

r2d2 — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:20:04 -0800

Is there a minimum sample size required to use the bell curve for performance management? I was wondering if small teams (3-5) can use the normal curve / bell curve for categorizing employees by performance? I have a feeling that the sample size needs to be much larger than that (3-5) for the bell curve to apply. Anybody know if there is a minimum? If possible please share link to supporting evidence.

Ableton Live and Synced Video for Concert

M83 — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:55:08 -0800

The band uses Ableton Live for backing tracks (drummer uses a click track - metronome). From the arrangement view (Live's VSTs are used also) is there a way to place video in a track and have it stream from a Macbook while the audio streams to a soundcard? If not, what is the easiest way to play videos in sync with the backing tracks? Using one Macbook is preferable.

What will I need to display the video hardware wise?

All Things Weird and Wonderful to do in the East Bay and SF

foxy_hedgehog — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:54:58 -0800

I'm spending a working sabbatical in Berkeley from July 25-August 25. I grew up there, so I have a general sense of places to go, but I'm out of it in terms of what cool organizations/spaces do cool and crazy things that I should keep tabs on while I'm in town in Berkeley, Oakland, and SF. I know about the Prelinger Archive and Southern Exposure and the Roxie in SF, but that's about it. What mailing lists and websites for different places should I be keeping my eyes on while I'm there? I'm thinking weird film screenings, great music, comedy, misc. uncategorizable cultural events, weird and wild and cool and wonderful performances, all sorts of strangeness.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Advice for speaking/performing with a cold?

ManInSuit — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 08:41:55 -0800

I have a cold. I have to talk to talk to a few groups of people in the next 48 hours, and want to avoid excessive coughing, crazy hoarseness, etc. Any advice? So I have what I assume to be a pretty run-of-the-mill cold, that I've had for three or four days: I had at at various times a sore throat, runny nose, some fatigue, some coughing. Mostly able to go about my regular life, just a bit slower.

Normally, I'm pretty happy to let a cold run its course, and I usually don't take cold medicine.

But in the next while I have a couple of things I need to do where the cold might really get in the way: Tonight, I do a show at a bar where I talk to a hundred or so people, intermittently, over a couple of hours (using a mic). Tomorrow, I teach a class to a group of around 20 people.

Some of the cold symptoms I've had in the past while would get in the way of this. Most notably - I find if I talk loud for more than a few minutes, I start to cough a lot. This doesn't happen in normal conversation, but does if, say, I rehearse a prepared speech, projecting as if I were speaking to a group.

So...

I'm interested in any advice people may have on tips for dealing with this. Are there medications I could use to help? I'm hoping for as little psychotropic effect as possible - I'd rather not be made speedy or drowsy (though if I had to choose one, I guess speedy would be better and drowsy worse). I'm in Canada, if that affects what sorts of medications are available.

Also - the symptoms seem to change a lot day-to-day. So right now, it seems, the worst problem is the dry, painful cough. But I'm interested in what people do for relief of other symptoms, too...

Any advice much appreciated!

Video streaming from a small club

Chuckles — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 17:14:06 -0800

My friend would like to stream video from a small club he volunteers in. It is purely not for profit stuff, the Celebrity Club in Performing Arts Lodge Toronto. We have a pretty nice audio system, but now he'd like to allow residents to view what's happening in the club in real time. It doesn't have to be secure, but it is intended only for the residents.

I'm looking for camera recommendations, but I'm also looking for any how to information at all. While I'm very technical, I haven't done anything in this area at all. What about software or hardware? Considering upload speeds in Toronto, we might need a streaming host for this?

Budget is something less than $2000, hopefully considerably less. I'm good at scrounging the little things though, so that adds some flexibility. I'm very technical, he is a little technical, and the residents are not at all technical.

Bad at sex

peter1982peter — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 06:43:11 -0800

What does it mean to say someone is "no good in bed"? What things do people do (or not do) when they're bad in the sack? Someone said this about an acquaintance today, and I got wondering what specifically it might have been referring to.

Live action in a cinema?

pablocake — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 22:00:15 -0800

Looking for examples of live performances at movie theatres I remember hearing about an independent cinema in the US that held regular events where local actors did voiceovers to old films. I'm working on a similar project and looking for inspiration.

Any good examples of people mixing live theatre with old movie footage? Or links to cinemas currently doing something similar?