Tiny Tower Tips

To maximize sales, don't bother stocking the 1- or 2-coin items in stores. Sales occur at a rate of about 10 per minute per store multiplied by the sector demand rate. 3-coin sales yield approximately 30 coins per minute at 100% demand. FYI: The stats page displays "coins per minute" even though it states "sales per min." Bitizens with a rating of 9 will help maximize profit and dream jobs maximize inventory.

Tiny Tower: Now at 60 floors with 110 bitizens and 106 dream jobs. Tip for more dream jobs...occasionally stop ordering and go into an eviction frenzy, then use accumulated towerbux to move in bitizens. The higher the tower, the more likely a bitizen matches a store. Often, when a biz has three happy bitizens, then give one of them a temp job in order to hire the new lesser skilled only to cash in on the 3 towerbux reward, then evict. In the end, you end up with more towerbux than spent and lots of happy bitizens. It's almost another game within the game.

Helpful sites:
Tiny Tower Wiki
Tiny Tower Guide
Tips & Strategies Thread on TouchArcade

Update note: uh oh...the new 1.2 release only rewards 1 towerbux for placing a dream job. This effectively eliminates the sub-game of moving people in to dream jobs for big towerbux gain. An alternative sub-game: evict everyone from the building and earn towerbux as new bitizens move into dream jobs.

Tiny Tower: Really liking this app...very addictive time waster. Presently at 50 floors with 78 "bitizens" and 74 dream jobs. Does this app teach cultural tolerance?

Tiny Tower tips:
Save bux.
Upgrade elevator.
Evict all bitizens without dream jobs.
Maintain one store with max 3-coin stock on order for big spender (e.g. Recording Studio or Doctor's Office). When he arrives, use bux if necessary.
Maintain a list of recent searches noting both the store and the home floor.
Group stores to make it easier to shuffle staff while awaiting perfect employees.
Send delivery person to max 3-coin stock (translates to 3 bux savings).

iPod touch tip: Moleskine has a new app for note taking. It took a while to figure out how to activate the drawing tool. Once you're inside a note, open the tool select screen at the lower right. Then, touch the pen tool and on the options page, touch the red check mark to activate the tool. This takes you back to your last open page and you can start drawing. There's an eraser at the top of the screen. When you're finished drawing, touch the input options icon, touch the text icon to open its options screen, touch the check mark and you are back to the text mode again.

Cubase 6 was announced last week. We're looking forward to the upgrade. The Studio version is no longer an option, but the upgrade from Cubase Studio 5 is under $200.

Update: Just ordered on 20110705

Apple's iPad 2.0 will not feature a 2048 by 1536 screen as rumored. See the PCWorld report. Apple will begin mass production of the iPad 2 by the end of February according to Digitimes, a Taiwanese trade publication. Maybe we'll hold off buying one until April or May because a dual-core graphics chip capable of playing 1080p HD video would be a nice feature!

Picked up a 12oz canister of  Trader Joe's Ultra Dark French Roast Coffee. Wow! Very strong, dark, and oily. Tons of aroma and flavor. Excellent when blended with hazelnut

Also looked at a Lifecore R100 rowing machine. They run about $1300.

The next generation of Intel Core processor scores high in the Passmark benchmark. With the reduction in pricing of memory, CPUs, and motherboards, the speed-versus-value of a complete system is improving dramatically.

Presently, we're measuring performance for a new studio system configuration. The orange spot on the diagram below is the speed and value measurement of our latest digital audio workstation powered by an overclocked Xeon W3520. The red spot is the speed and value measurement of a new configuration powered by a next gen, overclocked Core i7-2600K. Comparatively, the prospective system is 51% faster than the system we purchased in August! Value is computed as the Passmark score divided by system price. Again, comparatively, the prospective system scores a 90% improvement. The blue dots are other Intel and AMD systems for comparison. The two blue dots scoring the highest speed (above 12000) are systems powered by an overclocked Core i7 980X. Of course, it's challenging to configure a low-cost, quiet system using this rather expensive CPU.

FYI...The prospective i7-2600K DAW configuration presently prices out at $926.

Mobo ASUS P8P67-M PRO $149.99
ODD ASUS Black 24X $19.99
RAM G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB $89.99
CPU Intel Core i7-2600K $329.99
HSF COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 $29.99
HDD WD6401AALS 640GB $64.99
GPU ASUS EN8400GS Silent $34.99
Case Antec Mini P180 White $79.99
PSU COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M600 $99.99
Fans 2x Nexus PWM Series D12SL-12PWM $25.98

New Addition: We picked up a Capresso coffee burr grinder (model 559) from Costco for $30. It does a modest job at producing a fine grind. To overcome the grind inconsistency, we discovered a large sifter comes in handy to strain out the larger remnants from the grounds. The few remaining remnants can be dropped back into the upper hopper for regrinding later. With the extra sifting process, this grinder produces outstanding flavor - better than Starbucks! BTW, we load about 16g of beans at a time.

Happy New Year!

Here's a small, simple, fast, low-cost HDPC configuration:
LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray iHOS104-08 $59.99
G.SKILL 4GB DDR2 F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK $84.99
AMD Athlon II X4 640 Quad-Core Processor $99.99
WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache $49.99
Shuttle SA76G2 V2 $209.99
The processor in this configuration scores a 3474 on the Passmark benchmark.

An all-time favorite book is Replayby Ken Grimwood. A number of years after loaning our prized copy to an acquaintance and after they moved away from the area, we were browsing a second-hand bookstore and found a copy of this book. Imagine the surprise of finding your own name written in the book and having to buy it back. Oh, the irony!

Merry Christmas! Looking forward to the total solar eclipse in August 2017. Check out the interactive map.

Frozen Mocha: Boil 100ml water and then add 14g freshly-ground (finest grind) coffee and reboil twice or thrice. Within two minutes, strain coffee into mug and stir in 6g sugar. Bring to room temperature. Add coffee ice cream to fill mug. Stir carefully with coffee to create a smooth blend. Enjoy!

Playing: Michael Stegner Trio - Fantastic Adventures of An Amphibian Named Jamal

Studio Update: Delighted to report that the new studio computer scored a 7380 on the PassMark benchmark. This exceeds the reported speed of a stock Core i7 975 which scores a 7026. The Xeon W3520 processor costs less than 1/3 of the i7 975. We're overclocking the Xeon a modest 25%.

Now performing research to configure a new workstation for the design studio. The i7 950 and the Xeon W3550 are looking rather attractive at this point.

Playing: Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor

Make-A-Thon 2010: Interesting event, but the name is odd. Attended three breakouts: Gestural Ideation, Radically Agile Design, and Conceptual Models in Interaction Design. The last two sessions took opposing sides, one preaching to just jump in and design and make and do while the other reinforcing to think deeply first.

Coffee Break: Although the studio's Tassimo machine has performed well for the past four years, 50 cents-a-pod espresso is growing tired. A quick cost analysis reveals that we can whittle that per-cup cost way down to about 17 cents, not counting the cost of the espresso-making machine...still hunting for a good affordable unit. Meanwhile, after learning a little more about the espresso-making process, we've created an alternative recipe.

Smooth Turkish Mocha: Heat/stir 100ml whole milk with 3g of 100% cacao until smooth and set aside.
Boil 100ml water and then add 14g freshly-ground (finest grind) coffee and reboil twice or thrice.
Within two minutes, strain coffee into milk and stir in 12g sugar.
Perfection every time.
Option: Try hazelnut-flavored coffee.
Simple filter trick: use a quarter of a white paper napkin inside a conic strainer

Studio Update: New system flying at 3.52 GHz stable and now very quiet at idle running at about 41°C (40% fan) after a little rewiring of the existing fans (until a few pwm fans are obtained). Pulled out the noisy Antec tri-speed fans. SuperPi 1M is 11.122s / Cinebench 6.07. Remoting into Cubase is pretty cool! Oh, and the whispering cow is now being retooled as a streaming music file server.

Studio Update: The new DAW is performing well. Authorized Steinway from Garritan no longer sputters due to a lack of computing horsepower. Finding the x64 driver for the M-Audio Midisport 2x2 was challenging. (If you happen to need it, look here. Although it is beta as of this writing, it appears to be working.)

BTW: This is a new version of the Xeon W3520. The box was marked as V2 batch 3001B720.

Studio Update: We built the new system yesterday and powered up without a glitch. Now running at 3.37 GHz. The Asus Rampage III Gene operates with the Intel Xeon W3520 perfectly so far. Looks good in the Antec case. Not quite there yet with the silencing, but the performance is responsive. SuperPI: 12.455s 1M / Cinebench: 5.56 (scoring just above the Core i7 960). Below is the new heatsink.

Studio Update: Although the Gateway 700X is now super-quiet, the Pentium 4 that powers it can't keep up with Cubase and the Garritan Steinway. Running a single core (Northwood processor) at 2.26 GHz with only 1 GB memory just doesn't seem like much compared to today's multi-core wonders. We finally decided to advance into the 21st century with a new quiet digital audio workstation for the studio. After two months of intensive investigation into sources, options, and compatibility, here's today's order:

Mobo: ASUS Rampage III Gene link
RAM: Mushkin Redline 6GB DDR3 1600 link
CPU: Intel Xeon W3520 2.66GHz link
HSF: Noctua NH-U12P SE2 link
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB link
ODD: ASUS Black 24X DVD Burner link
GPU: ASUS EN8400GS Silent/P/512M link
Case: Antec P183 Black Mid Tower link
PSU: Antec CP-850 850W Modular link
Fans: Nexus 120mm Silent link
LCD: Samsung BX2235 21.5" LED link

That's an eight-thread quad-core system with 6 GB and a nice monitor for $1,327.39 and some labor. (The old Gateway cost $2K!)

The Xeon W3520 was selected for its higher "binning" - passing a higher quality test and intended for workstation computers. Essentially equivalent to a Core i7 920, it adds ECC (error correction code ) capability, but the reviews on the various motherboards persuaded us to go with the R3G, opting for performance over ECC. We aim to reach almost the speed of a Core i7 975 for 1/3 of the cost.

Check out this inspiring video on Youtube by trubyd44: link

Studio Update: Opted for the PATA version of the WD3200, hoping for a single platter and low noise. Used the Acronis True Image software from the Western Digital site to clone all of the data from the old 120GB disk after updating the BIOS first so that the full disk space could be recognized. Pulled the old disk out and made the new disk the primary and did another sound reading of the system from 1 meter. Fairly quiet now. Below is the spectrograph as it stands today. The blue line is the current machine noise level. The yellow line is a measure of noise outside of the studio, away from the original unmodified machine. The red line is the noise level of the pre-modified Gateway 700X. Overall, it appears that the changes have yielded about a 20dB drop across the spectrum. Much more tolerable, since now there is only a hint of moving air.

Studio Update: The main Digital Audio Workstation at Studio J is presently a Gateway 700X. Ever since its arrival many years ago, its been a source of extra studio noise. After much research about quieting PCs (see SilentPCReview and EndPCNoise) and given that a new system is just a bit out of reach, we decided to try picking up a few tools to quiet it down. This computer has a Pentium 4 processor with a noisy little 60mm fan attached to a heatsink which Gateway recommends NOT removing. Well, for a mere $66, we were able to pick up a couple of 92mm fans, a 120mm fan, and a 60mm to 92mm adapter. The 92mm fans are Noctua NF-B9 and the 120mm fan is a Noctua NF-S12B ULN. These are packaged with soft fan mounts and Ultra-Low-Noise Adapters (3-pin in-line resistors). The fans are rated to be very quiet and have self-stabilizing oil pressure bearings.

First to be removed were the old 60mm AVC (ball bearing) fan and the 92mm Sunon (sleeve bearing) fan on the power supply. Next, the 92mm Noctua fan was connected to the 60mm fan adapter (available through SVC). The assembly was then attached to the heatsink, using a screwdriver carefully between the fan blades. The other new 92mm fan was attached to the old power supply, and the 120mm fan was placed on the inside back of the case (blowing out of course).

During the initial test of the system, there was a significant reduction in overall noise...notably, the elimination of the 60mm fan noise. After a little sleep, it became clear that there was one further avenue worth exploring - that extra fan controller on the motherboard (mobo) which Gateway says it wasn't using. Well, the CPU cooler was specified to be plugged into the fixed voltage pins next to the processor, but we discovered that the extra fan controller over by the memory sticks can indeed be controlled by SpeedFan. BINGO! We installed the ULN adapters on the PSU and case fan which run at fixed speeds fairly quietly. Meanwhile, the processor cooling fan is now plugged directly into the extra fan controller. The lowest set point in SpeedFan is 20% to start the fan and keep it turning. On heavy load, the fan will speed up to 100%. According to SpeedFan, the sensor is indicating 570 RPM at idle and 600 RPM at full tilt but these seem low since you can hear the fan when running faster. (BTW, the Terragen renderer is a great tool for loading your processors.) The CPU temperature runs between 37°C (20% fan) at idle and 50°C (100% fan) loaded. Prior to the modification, the CPU ran under 30°C at idle.

A little rewiring, and behold, a nearly silent machine. Doing another ambient recording of the computer and comparing to the original spectrogram indicates about a 15dB reduction across the spectrum. The red line in the diagram is the original ambient noise from the unmodified machine. The blue line is the modified version. The yellow is the background noise measured outside of the studio and away from the unmodified machine.

A note about the disk. This Gateway 700X came with an EIDE 120GB Western Digital drive. After learning about how the computer case acts as a loudspeaker, amplifying the sound of the disk drive, the old 3-bay 3.5in containment structure was removed and replaced with a smaller, more compact 3-bay structure and placed on the floor of the case, seated on a bed of bubble-wrap and rubber. There is still an audible whine of the 7200 RPM drive, so the next upgrade will likely be a SATA controller card and quiet drive.

Photos: before and after.

Update: Turns out that the CPU Fan socket is providing the RPM reading, so this is the speed of the case fan which is plugged into that socket. The controllable Fan1 socket is apparently not providing the RPM reading. When the CPU fan speeds up, its proximity to the case fan affects the RPM slightly. Also, the motherboard is wired for additional fans, but Gateway or Intel did not install the extra sockets.