A new tablet

The Lenovo Miix 700. 

Core m7 passively-cooled tablet PC, with 256 GB of storage, 8 GB of RAM, with Windows 10 Pro. 

Not the fastest PC, but it was never meant to replace my PC. It was meant to replace my aging iPad 4. 

With a Wacom pen, it positions itself as a capable drawing tablet at a pretty great price. I paid 985 USD to Singapore including S&H. Of course I don't intend to draw on it as much as my digital art friends would, but it is worth knowing that I could pick up drawing any time I would like. 

But this comes at a catch. 

The Lenovo Miix 700 is not officially Wintab-supported, and despite having a Wacom pen, its Elan screen means that it is not supported by Wacom Feel either. This means that officially there is no support for pressure sensitivity for Photoshop. However, this does not mean that it cannot work with Wintab. It is possible to still download the Wintab drivers for the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 series and have them work with the Lenovo Miix 700, thus enabling pressure sensitivity for Lenovo Miix for Photoshop or other non-Lenovo applications.

You will also need to open the Window > Brush panel, and under Shape Dynamics, select Pen Pressure under the Control tab.

Because this pen is not Wacom Feel enabled, you will not be able to re-map the pen barrel buttons from the defaults. The barrel buttons are for right click (front button) and erase (back button).

Palm rejection isn't perfect, and the pen is slick on the screen due to the hard nib that it uses, but otherwise this is a great pen to use.

At the current point it's actually more economical to buy the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 tablet (1st generation). It costs around the same price on Amazon, has the same processor, memory and hard disk space, but it also has USB-C charging, a longer battery life, the detachable keyboard has similar quality to the full-sized Thinkpads, and the stylus is Wacom Feel compatible. Basically it's everything a Miix 700 is, but better everywhere else.

I'm only a bit salty Amazon decided to tell me about the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 tablet after I paid for the Miix 700 and I have been using it for a week. 

Some random thoughts...

I like the song だってだって噫無情, but every time I play that song it takes me down a weird train of thought.

The song is about a tearful farewell^[1] by the singers to a person who "goes to the ends of the Earth, seeking the things they believe in"^[2]. The song also has a bridge part where each singer in the song tells the person she is singing for either asking them not to go, to return soon, or her hope that they will meet again.

Usually the image of a "person who seeks the things they believe in" suggests that the person is leaving for a cause they feel is greater than themselves or just the people immediately around them. That tends to mean military.

I always associated "going to the ends of the Earth" as something pilots do. I mean ships work fine, but I hate the open seas^[3].

Then the usual Hollywood image of someone tearfully persuading their loved ones not to leave, especially in a military context, would be for a mission with little to no hope of success. A last ditch attempt, or a Hail Mary, whatever floats your boat.

Now considering this is a Japanese song...

...my mind went to kamikaze attacks.

That was rather insensitive.


Footnotes

[1] Stanza 1, Line 3:
抱きしめる瞬間に 別れの気配
That moment when we were holding each other was our sign of farewell.

[2] Stanza 3, Line 3:
信じたものを求め 地の果てまで行く日
The day you will go to the ends of the Earth, seeking the things you believe in.

[3] Ironically, my favourite character in this group is associated with the sea.

I managed to find another jumping spider in the house, so I decided to drop it into the cellar spider can to see what would happen.

The cellar spider had already had quite a nice life, having been well fed previously. I actually fed it with some random flying ants. Of course, it also turned to cannibalism: I dropped another cellar spider together with the original cellar spider and it was instantly eaten.

What happened after the jumping spider dropped into the can was completely unexpected: Though it was caught in the cellar spider's web (which has already been there for a long time), it managed to escape. Then it found the cellar spider, instantly latched on to it, killed it and ate it.

That was quick.

RIP cellar spider.

The jumping spider went into hiding at the top of the can while it digested its food, leaving me with enough space to clean the cellar spider's web off the can.

Some more memories from my part time work...

Most of my part time work in Uniqlo was in the women's section, folding all the clothes in the bargain bin area. That area isn't wanting of work either: every single day I return to the bargain bin area the bins look like a tornado just went through them. 

Of course, since I'm also classed as a service staff, I do need to answer customers' questions about where some of the apparel are. Most of them are mundane, like where's the fitting room, or where's a certain type of apparel. 

Not all of them were mundane though: this question that came from a little boy who was with his mother was worthy of a Philosoraptor meme. 

Interesting fact: boy shorts are women's underwear. This is why. 

His mother told him to knock it off with the weird questions, but I seriously hope I wasn't the only one in the shop who thought it was a legit question. 

Some memories from my part time work...

When I working in Uniqlo in Chinatown Point for the closing shift, they would always play the song "Best of Me" by Oakfield Mansion. The music has a nice melody and beat, and the lyrics are very sweet. I initially wanted to download the song to play in my standard playlist.

Since this was played through the sound system in the shop, the sound wasn't that detailed.

Some time I stopped working there, I went to check out the song, this time using my high-quality IEMs. I managed to find the song on SoundCloud, and apparently the singer isn't that well known. Maybe that's why the store played this song: royalty fees are cheaper.



It would have been a nice song, if the singer didn't sound like he was about to inhale the microphone every time he takes a breath.

In the end the song didn't make it to my playlist.

Some things from Far Cry 3...

Oh I'm sorry, Willis Cuntley, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome our airport, which incidentally the one you'll be transiting at, is.

Trust me, if you have actually smelt a durian, you'd wouldn't just ban it from your subway, you'd be advocating for its genocide.

Bad day...

That much shit taste...

After the lamest guiding assignment where I had to bring around a group of girls around the same age as my sister (7 years younger than I am) in my university (which is mostly deserted since it's the weekend before classes start), I asked them what kind of music they like in an attempt to start a conversation.

They answered "Justin Bieber".

항암제（抗癌劑）: anti-cancer drug
Because that's what I need after listening to such a cancerous answer.
And if I want to be killed, I'd prefer to die cancer-free anyway. 

Conversation: killed. Didn't even get a chance.

Even dating sim characters have better taste in music than them. [1]

I'd say "get off my lawn" but Bieber's the same age as I am. He's from my generation.

[1] One of them likes piano concertos, the other likes British punk rock. I don't know what the third one likes.