#But it's still quite satisfying to be able to extend their lifespan beyond that of mortal ken XDDD

[thaylepo]

you can also pre-emptively darn to reinforce areas you've noticed tend to wear thru more quickly! AND darning can be combined with patching for extra heavy duty reinforcement!

Sincerely, a fellow thick-thighed pants-wearer who has been patching/darning/reinforcing the same pair of work jeans on the inner leg for six years now like a disaster relief worker desperately stacking sandbags against an oncoming flood lolol

(When the other 90% of those jeans is as worn out as the crotch is i'll finally call it quits, but until then I will ship-of-Theseus these pants because they are otherwise sturdy as hell)

((I'm learning how to darn holes! I'm tired of wearing through my clothes quickly because of my work boots or thick thighs, so I'm finally learning how to properly darn a hole. First vs second attempt, and I think I'm already getting the hang of this!))

[ankulometes]

Albion in The Chiasm

Have you ever experienced the uncanny sensation that perhaps, just perhaps, you are not entirely at home in this world? Do you ever look around and think, “I don’t belong here”? And by “here” I mean: in this world, this particular existence as a whole rather than this or that place or time within it?

Are you ever plagued by a gnawing sense of regret concerning choices taken in the past that have led you to this present? Does it ever feel as though those other paths that might have been seem to appear before you such that they are almost tangible?

Have you ever experienced a sense of dread or foreboding? If you are alone in your home at night, do you ever suspect that there is some alien presence in the other room, around the corner, or upstairs; forever just out of sight and ungraspable? Have you ever seen a ghost? Don’t call the Ghostbusters quite yet.

Maybe you’ve had a strong intuition or a moment of blinding inspiration, as if suddenly the clouds cleared and the meaning of some event or a required course of action was standing before you in brilliant sunlight?

Perhaps you’ve witnessed true magic? I do not mean a cheap conjuring trick whereby some parlour charlatan deceives your senses. I mean a wondrous exercise of such skill and knowledge as to produce a result that is so far beyond your ken that you can only satisfy yourself concerning the reality of its occurrence through recourse to the supernatural.

Doubtless there are those amongst you who believe, rightly or wrongly, that you have lived before in some other time and place. In which case, was that some “other” being or was it something you would still call “me”?

Some physicists have hypothesised that there are a practically infinite number of universes all existing within the same space and time, occupying dimensions we cannot perceive. With every decision, at each juncture, down to the level of a subatomic collision, every possible outcome occurs simultaneously, branching into myriad divergent worlds.

However, bound by the shackles of academic sobriety, few dare to declare openly what they perhaps grasp in their dreams and imaginings: that these universes, this multiverse, is one single vast being that exists within a yet greater realm inhabited by other such beings. It is a creature that we are as far — farther even — from being able to grasp than a single cell or nucleotide of our own bodies is from grasping the complete essence of us.

Nevertheless, there are some amongst us who have a somewhat clearer view of this creature of which they are a part. Some amongst them even have a name for it: they call it The Chiasm. And some few amongst them refer to themselves as The Dehiscent, for they alone are able, in a limited fashion, to perceive — and maybe even traverse between — those regions of the body of The Chiasm that are forever hidden and shut off from the rest of us.

The Chiasm was born with a first decision: to be or not to be; the autochthonic moment of the Big Bang in which our world and all other possible worlds within it came into being. However, what most people forget is that the principle of the necessary realisation of all simultaneous possibilities extends also to that original moment. At the instant of the Big Bang, the multiverse both came into being and remained nothing. It was born and not born. Thus, at its most fundamental level, it is constituted by this profound symmetry between being and non-being; between thing and nothing. For every something that is, there is nothing that is not. Exactly half of The Chiasm is not constituted from this peculiar and ineffable anti-substance which is beyond all matter, even that which we think of as antimatter or dark matter. It is strange stuff indeed.

We humans have some intimation of this “anti-substance” which we can glimpse through a glass darkly. It haunts our very existence. Yet we cannot even speak or think of it properly for, when we do, we necessarily turn it into “something”. Nevertheless, there are those amongst The Dehiscent who can grasp and manipulate this elusive non-material in order to bend The Chiasm toward their own obscure ends.

Whilst things are discrete and countable, nothing is always zero and undifferentiated. Its unified nature, combined with its binding symmetry to the multiplicity of stuff, is what makes it valuable to The Dehiscent who refer to it as The Noth.

As if our inability to conceptualise even half of our own tiny corner of existence weren’t enough, our situation as “normal” human beings is yet more blinkered. Just as blood cells, sent hurtling around the intricate routes of our arteries know little or nothing of either the pumping heart that drives them or the uncountable divergent channels that veer away from their own narrow course, so we are forever skewered by the tip of time’s arrow. To our puny powers of perception, things emerge from the future unseen and recede into the past where they are forever lost to all but memory.

The Chiasm is a physical being and time is its body — its growth, its life, its shape, its form. And also, potentially, its death. From the moment of its birth from out of nothing into the two ligaments of nothing and something, it multiplies and branches ever outward in exponential growth in a process which might, in theory, proceed forever in a manner that renders it effectively immortal (as we think of time). However, as a few amongst The Dehiscent have grasped, matters are not so blissfully eternal in practice.

At some point during the incommensurable lifespan of a Chiasm, things can go awry. The flourishing growth that defined its “youth” begins to collapse. The horizon of possibility begins to diminish. Divergence is replaced with convergence until, ultimately, it collapses into only a single nothing and a single something once more and the whole process begins again in a moment of cosmic reincarnation. Thus, to each other, Chiasms must look somewhat like an ever progressing series of perfectly intersecting sine waves or connected lenses.

Because of this “death” there is an ethical drive or karma within The Chiasm’s existence: what will that one and only one something which remains at the end to define the possibilities inherent of the next cycle be? Will it be good? Or will it be evil? When one lives at the level of The Chiasms, this is an important concern.

The body of The Chiasm is structured and defined by a collection of fundamental particles that lie far beyond the comprehension and detection skills of human scientists. The skilled and perceptive amongst The Dehiscent, on the other hand, are deeply concerned with them. Collectively, they are known as quidditrons: particles of essence or quality that possess neither mass nor extent in any dimension we can conceive or measure. The quantity, position, and interaction of these particles determine what we might think of as the “health” of The Chiasm.

Logons are particles of logical, internal, synchronic consistency that provide any moment from which possibilities branch with structural integrity and strength. They create the joints in the body of The Chiasm and are the bones or scaffold of each moment. They are the critical difference between saying that anything that can happen does happen and saying that everything happens. Moments that are logon deficient are improbable, inconsistent, and incoherent. This lack causes the moment to collapse.

Furthermore, like the tendrils on a vine, logons secure a moment in time by binding to neighbouring branches. In the context of The Chiasm, this is what is meant when one declares that any given moment resides at an equivalent point in time within one thread to that in another. The paths these tendrils create establish synchronic relationships between branches. Or not, as the case may be.

Muthons are particles of diachronic coherence. They form the branches of time and possibility, reaching out between and linking logon moments longitudinally. They forge The Chiasm’s limbs. Much as with logons, a muthon deficiency within a branch that connects two moments will cause it to wither.

Pathons are particles of sentiment or feeling that determine the appearance and sensation of a moment. If logons and muthons can be thought of as the skeleton or scaffold on which the body of The Chiasm is created, then pathons are its flesh. Alternatively, an architectural metaphor might describe them as the bricks, the decor, and the air that fills a room. They interact closely with ethons, or particles of character.

Ethons lie beyond any concepts of “good” and “evil” that we humans might understand. It is perhaps more accurate to say that they have a degree of “charge”; although not in the positive and negative sense like electrons that entails a necessary attraction and repulsion. Within any moment, the particular coalescence and interaction of ethons and pathons generates the motive force that drives a Chiasmic thread or branch, defining its nature.

This momentary reaction between pathons and ethons breeds yet another type of particle known as porons. These we might think of as particles of dehiscence or possibility. They explode outward from each moment, drawing other quidditron particles such that the creation of new branches and new moments occurs as the force of the blast fades.

Thus we might think of The Chiasm as a whole as being like a vast nuclear power generator. The constant and increasing generation and release of possibility constructs time, giving it form. The extent and degree to which this occurs is indicative of its vitality.

Yet the metaphor is inevitably somewhat misleading. All this talk of particles and reactions might lead one into a false sense of security; as if the multiverse of The Chiasm were merely the outcome of some comfortably Newtonian collision of orb-like particles in a void over time in a manner that supplies a reassuringly empirical and linear conception of reality.

The Chiasm is a being. It is as biological and “organic” as you or I. Whether it is conscious or possesses a will is a moot point but, if it does, it is certainly nothing like that which humans possess. What really makes it radically different from us in this respect is that it is eternal. Time as we know it is not a concept that has any meaning to The Chiasm itself: it is an epiphenomenon of our existence within it. One might as well ask you to describe the experience and motivations of the cells of your own body. You may be conceptually aware of them and their processes impact your conscious and subconscious life but you have no inkling of what it means to be a constituent part of yourself.

Despite the necessary metaphors, The Chiasm does not develop over time as such. It doesn’t really “grow” new branches and lens-shaped multiverse segments. Each and every one exists, always has existed, and always will exist in every state of every moment that we think of as time. But that does not mean The Chiasm is static or unchanging. On the contrary, it is in a perpetual state of mutation and transformation that we might think of as being akin to breathing or the flexing of a muscle.

Maybe this is even how it moves through whatever it is that constitutes space and time within its extra-multiversal habitat? Who knows. Regardless of what it means to The Chiasm itself, the ramifications for us are extraordinary. Past, present, and future all coexist simultaneously and, for those who possess the requisite knowledge and skills, can be experienced or traversed after a fashion. However, the act of doing so fundamentally impacts quidditrons, altering or even collapsing local structures.

And this is where The Dehiscent enter the fray.

The Dehiscent, as a few of the English-speaking human-formed amongst them have been known to refer to themselves rather pompously on occasion, are “normal” everyday beings like you and me. Or your cat. Or the worm eating its way through the soil outside.

At the most basic level, a dehiscent entity is anything that functions as the locus of a peculiar configuration of quidditrons over the course of a particular moment or moments. There is nothing in their outward appearance that might mark them as being in any way distinct. Nor are they, like Clark Kent, merely concealing super-strength and supersonic flying abilities beneath a flimsy disguise. Insofar as they are as bound by the laws of possibility as you or me, they are just like us.

Yet they are nonetheless inevitably affected by the coalescence of quidditrons that inheres within them. Most commonly, this might cause them to see or know things we cannot, leading them to behave in ways we don’t understand or do things we believe to be impossible.

The precise nature of the differences they exhibit depends on the strength of the dehiscence they possess and the properties of their existence as an otherwise normal entity. Maybe a dehiscent tree might somehow be able to perceive its imminent destruction but lacks the agency that would render it capable of avoiding its demise. A squirrel in possession of a powerful coalescence of quidditrons might demonstrate an uncanny skill at finding nuts but, as an instinctual animal, remains devoid of the higher cognitive faculties that would lead it to reflect in more depth on what it has learned.

In our own world, psychiatric wards, political establishments, and company boardrooms are full of dehiscent humans whom quidditrons have either tortured with voices and visions, filled with dangerous conviction, or transformed into sociopaths who lack empathy for their fellow human beings. It is rarely a gift for which one might be thankful.

Through their divergent behaviour, many dehiscent entities come to act like tumours in the body of The Chiasm. All too often, they warp and distort and destroy the horizon of possibility to the detriment of the life of The Chiasm. But others, like white blood cells, are led into a life of struggle against these forces of closure that would, left to their own devices, cause The Chiasm to collapse into a lingering and painful death.

As mentioned above, this struggle appears outwardly like a continual reconfiguration of the body of The Chiasm, as though it were breathing or flexing its muscles, through the collapsing and creation of possibility and moments. The very fibres of its being develop and become stronger or waste away. Entire strands of time emerge into existence or are subsumed by The Noth. They wind around and intersect with or decouple from each other like the branches of some impossibly intricate and complex plant. And, like many plants, it has a kind of centre or trunk upon which the other branches build.

Whilst it may be unfashionably anthropocentric to say so, the worlds of humans are an important part of this trunk or spinal column. As beings in possession of both degrees of cognitive faculty and agency that renders us capable of utterly transforming the regions of The Chiasm we inhabit, humans are very much part of the “brain” of this vast multiverse entity. We do not serve this function alone, of course. But we serve it nonetheless. And the dehiscent amongst us do so especially, even if the result is cancerous.

This brings us to The Dehiscent, with a capital “T” and a capital “D”. They are beings who, for a greater or lesser number of moments, happen to be in possession of an especially powerful convergence of quidditrons that we might refer to as a dehisceme. What this entails in practice is that they are aware of the presence and nature of their dehiscence. It is a rare phenomenon.

When one talks about them using a proper noun, one is always referring to a being that uses language in that way. Which, to all intents and purposes, means that The Dehiscent are human.

A dehisceme does not render such individuals immortal or omniscient or omnipotent — a fact which I imagine many amongst them must find incredibly frustrating. It provides a quantum entanglement that links their interconnected human existences as they spread and diverge through the parallel universes that make up The Chiasm. The link may be stronger or weaker and it might impinge on their consciousness in any number of ways. But where you and I are blindly scattered through every possible outcome, these people can exercise agency and intent to direct their dehisceme carrying existence down a particular path.

Such people may be able to perceive, and even sometimes comprehend, their position within a fair extent of The Chiasm as it extends over our time. They almost certainly have a far clearer view than either you or I possess of the possibilities that are open to them. They might demonstrate an understanding of the consequences of their actions that is so far beyond our own as to often render their behaviour difficult to understand.

Their ability to gain knowledge and act upon it may be so superior to yours or mine that they appear to be capable of things that are nothing less than magical to our eyes. Yet they still remain ineluctably constrained by their situated position, perspective, and nature as feeble, mortal human beings.

Exposure to a wider horizon of experience hopefully broadens their minds. Nonetheless, they remain mortal beings that are born and die in specific moments with only a finite number between them. Their capacity to conceptualise the perceptions made possible by a dehisceme remains bounded by those generally prevalent within the moments to which they are subject.

Yet, even amongst The Dehiscent, those who have consciously grappled with the nature of their dehisceme and learned how to harness its capabilities are few. Most amongst them at least learn how to perceive the presence of a dehisceme in others. Consequently, they tend to be drawn toward one another, which is how they came to name themselves. That said, they do not typically hang out in clubhouses wearing aprons and exchanging funny handshakes.

However, there are countless universes in which those regions populated by human beings are utterly dominated by The Dehiscent. There they use their unique powers in a systematic and coordinated fashion to direct the course of events, seeking the comfort of absolute certainty to stave off the intense aporia that exposure to a dehisceme produces within them.

Although they often remain unaware of the fact, this is precisely the kind of response that makes The Chiasm sicken and wither. As a result, others amongst them are driven in a different direction. Like rebel factions, they splinter off and seek to produce new, healthy growth.

Some disperse, producing entirely new branches that spread as far away as possible from any infected growth. These Dehiscent are like a counterculture that desires to flee from civilisation and create a utopia in the far distant hills. From these seeds, new oppressive regimes of closure tend to develop since all utopians are authoritarians deep down.

Others diverge but, in so doing, bind themselves as tightly as possible to the corrupt limb, seeking to draw away any healthy life that remains within it until the two or more join once again into a single, fertile thread. These Dehiscent are the teachers, the doctors, the nurses, the firefighters, the gardeners, the dissidents, the protestors.

Whichever approach these Rebel Dehiscent choose, their activities constitute a threat to the aims of their kin who seek an end to possibility, an end to change, an end to flourishing growth. To those amongst their number who, knowingly or unknowingly, out of malice or misguided good intentions, desire convergence over divergence. Thus a struggle emerges and a battle across countless universes unfolds between Chiasmic entities who, despite their incredible gifts, usually remain as blind and unwitting in their actions as tumours and white blood cells are in our own bodies.

And that is where Albion comes into the picture.

Winding through the spine of The Chiasm are two threads of particular interest to me. The first, of course, is our own: sick and dying, it threatens to infect and collapse those branches that swarm around it. Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold. Our ways become lost and isolated, dispersed until they collapse into empty nothingness. As the character of our moments becomes increasingly corroded and their structure ever more unstable, our visceral sense of uncanny anxiety grows.

Perceiving our terrible fate, one particular faction of Rebel Dehiscent took action. In a branch of The Chiasm that they keep tightly bound to our own, they have struggled over many generations to draw our wounds so that we might ultimately be welcomed into the healing embrace of their own time.

Appreciating the limits of their powers and the requirements placed on them by their long term goals, they did not disappear into some utopia. They merely took those parts of our world which they understood to the best of their abilities to be a source of sickness and strove to make them better, without breaking so far from our universe that we became abandoned to some horrific destiny.

Some days we can feel them at work. Those are the good days. When right and reason triumph over ignorance and hate. On other days they must suffer for their cause, accepting that to run a course with us means bad things will happen. Their dreams and desires leak through the gaps to inspire us and fill us with hope. Our fears and anxieties flow the other way to produce grief and despair. We dimly perceive their goal of a reunion of our universes into a healthy new flourishing branch of The Chiasm through our imaginings of events like the rapture at the end of time. They in turn must take on our apocalyptic visions of death through fire and destruction in order to remain by our side until the ultimate moment.

It is a world in which, before the dawn of civilisation, fallible gods lived amongst mankind. Where true magicians are at work. A place where people and events known to us only through myth as stories that have seeped through the holes in space lived and occurred for real. It is the site of an invisible war that will determine the fate not only of their own world but also that of ours. A timeless battle fought for the highest stakes in which a single miscalculation could unleash untold catastrophe.

This is the world of Albion. It is not a perfect world. It is not even a better world in any simplistic sense. It has its own stories that are as full of struggle, failure, and loss as our own. But it is a different world, even if it often appears similar to our own. I hope you like it more than ours. I do.

[babbleuk]

Is Scale-Out File Storage the New Black?

Storage vendors, especially startups, are finally supporting new media types in their systems. In this article I want to talk about the impact that quad-level cell (QLC) NAND memory and Intel Optane have in the development of scale-out systems and how vendors like VAST Data are taking full advantage of them in their product design.

In my recent GigaOm report about scale-out file storage (Key Criteria for Evaluating Scale-Out File Storage), I mentioned several key criteria that can help users evaluate this type of storage system. Today I want to explore specific solution functionality that can make a difference in a scale-out storage deployment, and how it should impact your thinking.

Key Criteria, Considered

Before I go further, however, I want to dive into the structure of our GigaOm Key Criteria reports and how they help inform decision making. For each sector we assess, the Key Criteria report explores three sets of criteria specific to that sector. They are:

Table stakes are solution features or characteristics that you should be able to take for granted in a product class. For example, if the class were cars, things like infotainment systems and air conditioning are now standard in every car, and therefore are not generally significant in driving a decision.

Emerging technologies are all about what’s next—what features or capabilities can you expect to emerge in the near future (12-18 months). For cars, that might be the first implementation of autonomous driving for highways. I honestly don’t know—I’m not an expert in car technology.

Key criteria are the core of the report and address features and characteristics that really make a difference in assessing solutions. In a car, this might be the use of an electric powertrain or advanced safety devices to protect you and pedestrians from accidents.

In addition, the Key Criteria report breaks down a number of evaluation metrics, which are broad, top-line characteristics of solutions being evaluated, and are helpful in comparing the relative value of solutions in specific areas. For cars, these top-line characteristics might be performance, comfort, fuel efficiency, range, and so on.

These reports finish with an analysis of the impact that each of the key criteria has on the high-level evaluation metrics. This indicates whether a particular solution might meet your needs. For example, an electric powertrain may have a significant, positive effect on metrics like comfort, performance, and fuel efficiency, while its impact on vehicle range is less beneficial.

In the Key Criteria report for scale-out storage, the important differentiating key criteria we analyzed were:

Integration with object storage

Integration with the public cloud

New flash-memory devices

System management

Data management

Now I want to focus on one of these key criteria and give you an example of a vendor that has interpreted this important metric in a very innovative and efficient way.

Flash Memory and Scale-Out

I explore the impact of flash memory storage on scale-out systems in depth. The following excerpt comes directly from my GigaOm report, “Key Criteria for Evaluating Scale-Out File Storage.”

Modern scale-out file storage is utilized for a growing number of workloads that need capacity associated with high performance. The data stored in these systems can be anything from very large media files down to files a few kilobytes in size. Finding the right combination of $/GB and $/IOPS is not easy but in general, active data is only a small percentage of the total capacity. As a consequence, flash memory is becoming the standard for active workloads, while object storage (either an on-premises, HDD-based or cloud-object store), houses inactive data. This two-tier approach is explained in this gigaom report.

Hard drives still provide the best $/GB ratio, but to stay performance-competitive with solid state flash media solutions, HDD vendors are developing new technologies and access methods to close the gap. Unfortunately, these approaches add complexity that can actually make HDD utilization in standard enterprise arrays more and more difficult.

On the other hand, even though MLC and TLC flash memory prices have been falling steadily for quite some time, the $/GB ratio remains too high to satisfy the capacity requirements of some applications. Meanwhile, performance of standard flash memory falls short for applications that require accessing data at memory speed without the cost, persistence and capacity limitations imposed by RAM. To address this price/performance conundrum, the memory industry has come up with two solutions:

Quad-level cell (QLC) NAND memory is the next iterative leap in the evolution of flash memory, thanks to new manufacturing techniques that stack up to 96 layers of cells in the same chip (and even more for the next generation). This density enables vendors to build very cheap and high-capacity storage devices.

Unfortunately, these devices have a few important drawbacks. They have a very weak write endurance (up to just 500 write cycles) and a much lower write speed compared to MLC SSDs. In comparison, an MLC NAND device can endure between ten and twenty thousand write cycles, and write speeds can reach up to four times higher than QLC. The combination of lower $/GB ratios and higher media density and efficiency can significantly impact the overall TCO of a solution. Not all architectures are ready for QLC 3D NAND. How it is implemented makes the difference in terms of efficiency, TCA, and TCO.

Memory-class storage (i.e. Intel Optane) is gaining traction in the enterprise storage market. This new kind of device bridges the gap between DRAM and NAND memory in terms of latency, cost, and features. It is not as fast as RAM, but prevents access to slower storage and improves overall system response and availability when used in persistent mode.

In addition, storage vendors can use this media for caching and as a landing zone for hot data for performing operations like compression, optimization, and erasure coding. It is also useful for fast handling of metadata. In any case, the user can expect a general improvement in performance, at reasonable cost.

These new classes of memory do not remove HDDs from the game. Spinning media remains viable as near-line tier storage in modern systems and can be effective in large systems that consolidate multiple workloads on a single storage system, providing a capacity tier at low cost. That said, organizations are moving away from hybrid configurations in favor of all-flash storage systems associated with an external object store, or they take advantage of the cloud to develop the necessary capacity.

Impact Analysis: VAST Data

VAST Data, a startup that is doing really well with its scale-out file storage solution, has implemented Intel Optane and QLC-NAND synergistically in their system with great results. Intel Optane is used as a landing area for all data. This really isn’t a cache but more a staging area where data is prepared, chunked, and organized to minimize write amplification and optimize operations in the QLC back end.

By implementing this data path, which is associated with innovative data compaction and protection techniques, the system can achieve impressive $/GB while maintaining performance throughput at the front end. This makes the solution a good fit for workloads that need both capacity and performance at a reasonable cost. This is an oversimplification, perhaps, but I encourage you to check out the videos recorded during Storage Field Day 20, to get a good grasp of VAST Data architecture.

As mentioned earlier, the impact that key criteria have on evaluation metrics provides a better understanding of the solution and, ultimately, how well the product might fit your needs.

Table 2 shows the high impact that new flash memory devices have on performance, scalability, system lifespan, TCO and ROI, and flexibility. Only usability is minimally impacted. What this means is if you place value on the metrics that are highly impacted by this key criterion, you should put VAST on your short list for a scale-out storage evaluation.

Figure 1. The Impact of Key Criteria on Evaluation Metrics

Closing the Circle

The research at GigaOm extends beyond the Key Criteria report, which sets the table for the detailed market sector analysis in our GigaOm Radar reports. The Key Criteria report is essentially a structured overview of a product sector, while the Radar report presents a market landscape that summarizes all the key criteria and metrics evaluations for each vendor and positions them together on a chart.

One of the most important characteristics of the Radar report is that it is technology focused and doesn’t really take into account market share. This may sound odd when compared to analysis available from other sources, but our commitment is to put the technology first, and to help IT decision makers understand both what a solution can do for their organizations and where its development is going. As I often say, it is a forward-looking approach rather than a conservative, backward-looking approach–which approach would you prefer to inform your IT organization?

As you can see in the diagram below (Figure 2), VAST is well-positioned in the Leaders circle of the GigaOm Radar report chart and was graded as an Outperformer. This reflects the company’s aggressive forward movement not just with its flash-memory implementation, but its success shaping its solution to solve challenges with unstructured data. VAST is a storage vendor that is worth a look.

Figure 2. GigaOm Radar Chart for Scale-Out File Systems

from Gigaom https://gigaom.com/2020/09/14/is-scale-out-file-storage-the-new-black/

[chasingthecosmos]

Three Hearts to Own

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: G Pairing: The Doctor/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler Chapters: 11/12 Read on AO3 here.

A (sort of) season re-write centering around the Doctor’s touch telepathy and the many ways that it makes his life difficult while he attempts to move on from the loss of Rose Tyler. This work is based around Seasons 3 & 4 and the Tenth Doctor. It’s the final entry in the “A Hand to Hold” series, but it can also be read as a stand-alone. The first four or five chapters will just be short excerpts from the Doctor’s time away from Rose, but there will be a Journey’s End fix-it and a happily ever after at the end. Tags will be updated as I go. Chapters will vary in length.

Chapter Eleven: Journey’s End (Part Three)

They all ended up escaping with their lives only because of Rose's brilliance and Donna's nimble fingers. In fact, the Doctor found that he really didn't need to do much work at all when he had his two fantastic girls at his side working with him, and with the added help of Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey, and Jackie (yes, even her), Davros and the daleks really never even really stood a chance to begin with.

They ended up leaving the whole horde of daleks spinning helplessly and completely disabled after Rose, Donna, and the Doctor sent the twenty-six planets in the Medusa Cascade home and then prepared to handle the remaining twenty-seventh themselves. Even though the Doctor may have preferred a more fiery end to the remaining ship full of hateful robots, he had Rose in his head reminding him of just how far he had come since the Time War, and he found that he simply couldn't muster up the same level of hate and anger that he had had all those years ago when they had first come across a broken down dalek buried underneath the sands of the Nevada desert.

Instead, the Doctor merely extended one last half-hearted attempt to save Davros, but when his offer of mercy was vehemently and predictably denied, he gladly shut his TARDIS doors on the whole bloody crucible and set it resolutely behind them.

Rose didn't have any additional words of comfort or reassurance for him, in the end - though the Doctor didn't really think that there were enough words in the universe that could heal the complexities of the Time War and all of the damage and destruction that it continued to leave behind, even now. But his brilliant, beautiful girl still managed to overshadow any lingering despair and anger with her feelings of love and peace, which she projected into his mind until there wasn't room for anything else.

With Rose filling his thoughts and the rest of his companions filling his TARDIS, the Doctor's hearts were more full than they had been in a very, very long time - though, of course, the knowledge that goodbyes were inevitably around the corner did dampen the mood somewhat.

Sarah Jane went first - she was eager to get back to her son (a story that she still didn't bother to tell him completely, though the Doctor suspected that he would find out the details sooner or later). She was followed close behind by Jack and Martha - then, to all of their surprise, Mickey.

"There's nothing in that world for me, now," the young man proclaimed decidedly as he left Pete's World behind him and set his sights on the new world that lay before him, "certainly not Rose."

The Doctor shared a weighted look with the young man who he had spent an inordinate amount of time being jealous over in the past. It all seemed like such a long time ago, now - even though he knew that, in reality, it had only been a few years. Mickey had grown up and changed so much from that frightened kid cowering in a back alley just because a couple of plastic dummies were attempting to threaten his life. The Doctor still couldn't admit it out loud - not even now - but there was no denying the fact that he was proud of him.

When he finally ran off after Jack and Martha, the Doctor knew that he wouldn't have to worry about Rickey the Idiot anymore - he already had all of the resources that he would need in order to make a successful life for himself all over again. However, the rest of the Tyler family was another story.

"Time for one last trip," the Doctor announced as he swaggered back into his TARDIS with an air of easy confidence that he didn't really feel at all. Rose and Jackie didn't meet his eyes as he moved back to the TARDIS monitor, but he caught Donna's look of pained sympathy that did nothing at all to improve his mood as he declared resolutely, "Dårlig Ulv Stranden."

--------------------

"Oh, fat lot of good this is. Back of beyond - bloody

Norway

?" Jackie moaned as soon as the TARDIS touched down again and they all stepped out onto that cold, cloudy beach once more.

"Couldn't you have gotten her a little bit closer to home?" Rose agreed, sighing heavily as she scowled out at the horizon. The Doctor could sense that she was just as wary at seeing this place again as he was. There were simply too many bad memories of half-formed sentences and rushed goodbyes.

"Do you ... have someone who you could call?" the Doctor asked awkwardly, not quite sure how to phrase his question without sounding completely ridiculous as he subtly attempted to learn as much as he could about the life that Rose had made for herself here without him.

"Mum could always phone Dad," she replied with an off-handed shrug. "How long can we stay? I'd like to make sure that she's alright before we head back."

When the Doctor's only reply was a beat of unsure silence as he silently gauged her expression and thoughts, Rose rolled her eyes dramatically and added, "I mean, of course I'm coming back with you. What, did you think you were just going to drop me off on this sad old beach again and leave me behind forever?"

"I thought ..." the Doctor tried weakly, not really sure how to explain the many different doubts, fears, and anxieties that he was feeling in that moment.

"Oh, no. You're not getting rid of me that easily," Rose cut him off simply. "I just ... need to explain to her everything that's happened." She paused for a moment as she tore her gaze away from him and glanced at her mother over her shoulder, her expression falling as she silently prepared herself for the last, momentous goodbye that still lay ahead of them.

Do you want me to come with you ...? the Doctor asked hesitantly, his hands shoved into his pockets as he shifted his weight awkwardly in the sand. He had always been bad at the goodbyes, and he had always been bad with his companions' mothers. He suspected that those two negatives wouldn't exactly cancel each other out - especially when it came to Jackie Tyler.

But Rose's smile was confident and infection as she met his gaze and slowly nodded in assent and gratitude. "Might want to wait a minute, though," she suggested blithely as she moved to follow after her mother. "Probably don't want to be within slapping-distance if her first reaction isn't exactly ideal."

--------------------

However, Rose needn't have worried - her goodbye to her mother was heartfelt and satisfying, leaving absolutely no loose ends like the Doctor was notoriously known for doing. He and Rose were able to explain quite clearly that Rose's lifespan now far exceeded her mother's, and that she really would be safer and happier in a place where she wouldn't constantly be having to explain to people why she wasn't aging. Jackie even took the "Bad-Wolf-leading-them-all-to-this-point-and-changing-Rose's-body-specifically-for-him" part better than he had expected.

"Always knew it would come to this, one way or another," she sighed ruefully through her tears. "From the first moment you stepped into that bloody box with him, I knew I'd never get you back completely."

"It's better this way, Mum," Rose insisted gently, blinking through her own watery eyes. "You don't need me anymore. You've got Dad and Tony and everything you could ever want here. You'll all have a long, happy, normal life without me."

"I'll always need you, Rose," Jackie muttered, bringing her daughter into a crushing hug before they parted ways for the last time. "But you need him - and we all know how he's completely rubbish without you. So you go, and you live the life you've always wanted. Just know that I love you - no matter how far you go or how long you travel, just know that, Rose. Know that I love you."

The Doctor's hearts broke in sympathy for his bondmate when they finally turned their backs on Pete's World for the last time, but he took comfort in the fact that Rose was able to say goodbye to her mother in the end, and he was pleased to find that she didn't have a single ounce of lingering regret left in her as he fired up the TARDIS engines and set their course back for their home universe.

However, as per usual, Donna couldn't let the quite, reflective moment last, and the three of them were left standing in silence for only thirteen seconds before she piped up sarcastically, "Well, there's at least one person who's still fully human on board, and she is honestly very, very tired. do you think I can trust you two not to go running off into any explosions for a few hours while I take a quick kip?"

"Of course," the Doctor replied gently at the same time that Rose grinned and teased, "No promises."

Donna heaved a weary sigh as she glared at the two of them, but she didn't offer any more warnings or advice before shuffling off deeper into the TARDIS in the direction of her room.

"Speaking of explosions ..." the Doctor muttered as casually as he could while flashing an assessing gaze in Rose's direction out of the corner of his eye.

"Yes, yes, I know ..." Rose sighed dramatically as she rolled her eyes at him with a long-suffering expression. It seemed that she knew without him having to tell her that he was still intensely curious about her new state of being and was eager to dissect the issue down to its molecular roots as soon as possible.

"I'll meet you in the infirmary," Rose muttered as she ran the tips of her fingers over the Doctor's arm on her way past him before following Donna's path deeper into the TARDIS. He didn't miss the sudden exhausted slump of her shoulders as she went, but before the Doctor could even attempt to ask her what was wrong, she tugged teasingly against his thoughts and quickly assured him that she was fine.

Don't keep me waiting, she reminded him as soon as they were out of ear-shot from one another. It's been two years and we have a lot of catching up to do ...

[huntsvillecommercialroofing-blog]

Roofing Services in Huntsville, AL

Business Roofing, Huntsville, Alabama

A good roof can secure your property for a long time. Business facilities count on good roof in all their daily procedures. When you want a professional, reliable, reliable as well as reliable business roof covering company, trust fund just one name in business- Commercial Roofing Huntsville, Alabama.

Your roof covering is our business!

Welcome to Commercial Roofing Huntsville, Alabama! Whether you wish to secure your employees, your financial investment, or you just wish to update your business roof covering, we are ready to aid you. We are a full-service business roof covering company that specializes in all roof covering applications. We are offering the city of Huntsville, Alabama for many years currently as well as our enthusiasm in giving excellent roof covering stays the exact same.

You can count on our solutions for your roof covering needs. We can conveniently function alongside with your task supervisors as well as engineers to develop a roof covering remedy that is custom-tailored for you. Our roofing contractors are knowledgeable in all aspects of business roof covering. We are taken into consideration professionals in this business, therefore more customers trust us for their business roof covering needs.

Via the years, we have actually established our own name in the roof covering sector. We have actually completed countless roof covering tasks as well as we're still working with a whole lot more. If you hire us as your business professional roofer, we assure that you will certainly never search for another one! It is our leading concern in this business to meet client fulfillment. We will certainly never leave till you state you are 100% completely satisfied with our roof covering work.

Regarding United States

We began as a tiny roof covering company providing our solutions to businesses in our city. Being brand-new in the sector, we constantly make every effort to complete every task, satisfying our client's fulfillment. We were able to build a strong client base through recommendations as well as our increasing popularity.

As a company, we value every client relationship we have due to the fact that repeat customers is what we desire in this business. We constantly offer the finest quality roof available on the market. All our roof covering service technicians are accredited installers who understand the roof well as well as are considerate with our customers.

We focus on the setup as well as repair service of brand-new as well as aging business roof coverings throughout Huntsville, Alabama. We make use of only the current devices as well as the first-rate of products for all our roof covering tasks.

We make use of only Conklin products in all our business roof covering solutions. Conklin is the most relied on brand name in giving quality as well as remarkable business roof covering products.

Regarding Conklin

In 1977, Conklin formulated acrylic roof covering layers which supply maximum protection versus weather condition components as well as assist in saving energy. Since then, many businesses have actually tried to enter in the cool, reflective roof covering layer market. Nevertheless, Conklin is just one of a kind.

Conklin Roofing Systems integrate the best products which are shown as well as tested for more than 30 years to supply excellent value for building owners, property supervisors as well as commercial owners. We recommend this roof due to the fact that it is a wise way of purchasing your roof.

Why Conklin Roofing Products?

The most effective advantage of Conklin Roofing Systems is it can last for many years. This roof covering brand name is known for its long life. We figured out that much of the first systems in the 1970s who used this roof are still executing up to today. We are happy to supply the Conklin ® brands due to the fact that they are shown to last. We are very certain that our business as well as commercial customers will certainly benefit more in regards to sturdiness as well as energy financial savings. Various other benefits of Conklin Roofing System are the following:

· It helps increase owner convenience by keeping the structure or the building cooler during the summer season.

· It provides sustainable roof which is shown as well as tested to last for many years.

· It helps address air contamination as well as global warming worries by decreasing the co2 as well as various other gasses connected with fossil fuel-generated electrical power utilized for air conditioning.

Our Services

· Single Ply Membrane for Commercial Roofs If you are searching for a roofing system reconstruction system that goes beyond roof covering layers, solitary ply membrane can be your good selection. Whether you wish to extend the life of your existing low-slope or flat roof covering, or are searching for a trustworthy roof for brand-new roof covering setup, this is the best alternative. This process is mounted in a series of overlapping layers. Additionally, this system can be mounted in any season!

· Membrane Coating Membrane layer layer secures your financial investment PVC, EDM or single-ply roof covering membrane. Our membrane layer system expands the life of your roof covering, giving watertight protection you can count on. This system quits leaks due to the fact that it provides a remarkable water-proof obstacle that stops further damage to your building. When you require a membrane layer layer system for your building, call us as well as we'll obtain it provided for you.

· Spray Polyurethane Foam Commercial Roofing A spray polyurethane foam roof covering or SPF roof covering as widely known is a sort of closed cell roof covering as well as insulation material that both waterproofs as well as protects. The most effective thing about SPF roof covering is that it can be utilized in any climate as well as has a longer beneficial life compared to various other roof. Our SPF layer system is created for flat as well as low-slope roof coverings. It permeates your roof covering's surface area creating a leak evidence seal that secures your roof covering for many years!

· Metal Roofing Restoration You don't require to set up a brand-new roof covering when you can conserve your old one. If you are handling an aging metal roof covering, our metal roof covering reconstruction solutions is your finest selection. This system expands the life of your metal roof covering. Our metal roof covering reconstruction aims to offer a total waterproofing system for metal roof coverings. It stops corrosion as well as guarantees an energy-efficient as well as long-lasting ending up layer for the years to find.

Advantages of our Commercial Roofing Services

• Energy-efficient. Our roof mirror the UV rays as well as heat of the sunlight. This will certainly aid keep your facility cooler, specifically in the summertime season where the heat index is high. Because of this, you can take pleasure in reduced cooling bills given that your facility is well-ventilated.

• Durable. Throughout the years, our roof have actually been tried as well as tested for its sturdiness. After our mindful setup, your roof covering can be walked on without creating any splits or damage. Should there be any, leaks can't happen due to the fact that the slit typically does not undergo the complete density of the foam.

• Waterproof as well as Seamless. Our SPF roof is applied in fluid kind. For that reason, it has the capacity to fill out gaps, seams, as well as splits in the existing roof covering as well as substrate.

• Longer Roof Lifespan. Our roof covering systems generally last longer compared to others as a result of our mindful as well as specialist setup. With using Conklin products, you'll have the ability to totally eliminate a replacement. This layer will certainly secure any splits as well as leaks as well as stops further damage to your facility.

• Gives your Roof a New Look. Roofing which has aged significantly can leave a poor image to your customers as well as investors. It can additionally influence the selling value of your property need to you plan to market it in the future. Our business roof will certainly offer your roof covering a brighter as well as a fresh, makeover.

When should roof covering maintenance be performed on a roof?

The National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) suggests repair and maintenance to be performed a minimum of two times a year. Extra significantly, the maintenance ought to be done before as well as after serious weather condition seasons such as the winter season in the Northern as well as Eastern United States. These assessments will certainly aid clean up the roof system of any type of particles, clear all rain gutters as well as waterways, as well as examine weak spots in the roof system to guarantee that there is no deterioration that can leakage in the future.

Pick us for your next roof covering task!

We are your roof covering's best friend. Below are the reasons.

• Dedicated as well as Professional People. We have the best team aboard, that's why we are certain that we can supply our solutions efficiently. We give them the proper training as well as they are very knowledgeable in all locations of business roof covering. We additionally offer them with safety and security training. We educate them to strive as well as work securely.

• Affordable Pricing. One of our goals in this business is to offer quality solutions at the best value. Our team believe that roof covering solutions need to not be costly as well as can be availed by anyone. We have a standard rates plan that helps any budget. You don't require to stress over any hidden prices due to the fact that we don't charge any!

• Free Estimate. Offer us a telephone call as well as we will certainly offer you a cost-free quote of our solutions. You can additionally fill out the kind on our site as well as we assure to get back to you as soon as possible. We assure to offer you a sincere quotation based on your business roof covering needs.

When you require our roof covering solutions, we're prepared to aid. With our specialist skills as well as expertise, we assure you a business roof covering like nothing else! Call us today as well as allow's begin working with your roof covering!

Huntsville Commercial Roofing 209 Lincoln St SE # 299 Huntsville, AL 35801 (256) 253-5007 https://commercial-roofing.net/commercial-roofing-huntsville-alabama/

[infotainmentplus-blog]

Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra Review: It’s about time For more than five years, Sony’s smartphone lineup has more or less remained the same. Compared to other competing smartphones, the company’s offerings always trailed behind in design, overall hardware features, and other popular smartphone trends like near bezel-less displays, dual cameras, and QHD resolution screens. They were good phones, but they were unexciting and almost always priced too high for what they offered compared to the competition. Factors like the fingerprint sensor being unavailable in the U.S. and a lack of carrier support made them even more unappealing. Now it looks like Sony is finally starting to make some significant changes. Is it too little too late? We won’t be able to fully answer that question until Sony’s flagship Xperia XZ2 hits the market, but its new mid-range smartphone might give us a glimpse into Sony’s future. This is the Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra review. Design Sony’s previous design grew stale rather fast but the XA2 Ultra is Sony’s first smartphone in a long time to make some drastic changes. Despite its decidedly mid-range specs, it looks and feels every bit like a high-end smartphone. The distinct boxy and rectangular Sony shape mostly remains intact; from a distance, you may not notice anything different. Once you take a closer look though, the changes Sony made to modernize the design become clear. With a thick and heavy all-metal body, the XA2 Ultra is sturdy. It feels like an absolute tank. The build quality is top notch, with nice design flourishes like chamfered edges, a slightly curved back, and rounded sides for improved ergonomics. Despite all that, the XA2 Ultra isn’t the most comfortable phone to hold and use. The smooth metal finish provides very little grip. The Ultra name means this phone is big, which may not appeal to everyone. The Ultra name means this phone is big, which may not appeal to everyone. There are so many big Android phones out there nowadays that physical size is rarely a topic of conversation anymore, especially with manufacturers shrinking down bezels and switching to 18:9 displays to make big phones smaller. The XA2 Ultra follows some of these trends. Its side bezels are practically non-existent and the top and bottom bezels are slightly smaller, though the phone is still incredibly wide, tall, and thick. It takes me back to the days of the Nexus 6. It’s an uncomfortable one-handed device and its sharp corners jab you in the palm, only adding to the discomfort. Display It's not the most impressive-sounding display but it certainly won't disappoint. The smaller bezels might make you think the XA2 Ultra has an 18:9 display, but that isn’t the case. Instead, the XA2 Ultra sticks with a more traditional 16:9 display, which is partly why the phone is still so wide despite its thinner side bezels. The screen is a 6-inch IPS LCD with a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, covered in 2.5D glass for a slight curve along the edges which blends in nicely with the rest of the phone’s subtly rounded aesthetic. It’s not the most impressive-sounding display but it certainly won’t disappoint. At six inches there’s plenty of screen real estate to comfortably browse the web and enjoy content such YouTube videos, movies, or games. Read more: What is the 18:9 aspect ratio all about? The 1080p resolution spread over a 6-inch display doesn’t result in the highest pixel density, but the screen is still plenty sharp and easy to read. The display has vibrant color, excellent contrast, great viewing angles, and gets bright enough to see in direct sunlight. Like many other Sony smartphones, The XA2 Ultra offers the ability to easily adjust the screen’s white balance, color gamut, and contrast within the software if the default out of the box settings don’t quite suit your taste. Performance The XA2 Ultra is powered by fairly run-of-the-mill midrange specs. It packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 processor and 4GB of RAM. In my week of use, the XA2 Ultra performed admirably. Swiping through home screens, launching applications, and playing games was a responsive and fluid experience and 4GB of RAM was plenty of memory for smooth multitasking. The XA2 Ultra will not produce mind-blowing benchmark numbers, but in real-world use, it should be more than enough to satisfy most users. Where the Snapdragon 630 processor truly shines is its battery life because it’s one of Qualcomm’s more battery-efficient processors. Sony also bumped up the battery capacity in the XA2 Ultra to 3,580mAh, a significant increase over the previous generation. The XA2 Ultra consistently lasted me two days on a single charge, with screen-on time easily reaching the six-hour mark. Fast charging is available via Quick Charge 3.0 and Sony’s stamina mode can help prolong battery life when you can’t get to a charger. The XA2 Ultra also comes with other useful battery features like Battery Care and Qnovo Adaptive Charging, which helps keep your battery healthier and extends its lifespan. Hardware The XA2 Ultra is available in two storage options with 32 or 64GB variants. If you want more space there’s a microSD card slot for up to 256GB of additional storage. Bluetooth 5 is onboard with support for higher-quality audio with AptX HD. You’ll probably also be happy to know the XA2 Ultra keeps its headphone jack — something which won’t be in Sony’s upcoming XZ2 flagship. You'll probably also be happy to know the XA2 Ultra keeps its headphone jack. Flanking the USB Type-C port on the bottom is a single speaker, which, much like most single-firing speakers, isn’t much to write home about. It gets fairly loud, with no noticeable signs of distortion, but the placement makes it easy to muffle and it fires audio sideways when holding the phone in landscape. It's unfortunate Sony took this long to make it happen but as the saying goes — better late than never. The biggest hardware change Sony made this year is the relocation of the fingerprint sensor. What used to be embedded in the side mounted power key has been moved to the back, right below the camera. It’s spacious, easy to reach with an index finger, and reasonably fast at unlocking. It also finally works for U.S. users. It’s unfortunate Sony took this long to make it happen but as the saying goes, “better late than never.” Camera One of the biggest highlights of the XA2 Ultra are its cameras — at least according to Sony. The XA2 Ultra comes with two front-facing cameras, which we haven’t seen since the LG V10. The main sensor is a 16MP camera with optical image stabilization for improved low light shooting and less chance of a blurry selfie should you have a shaky hand. The secondary sensor is a wide-angle 8MP shooter with a 120-degree field of view to make group selfies easier or simply fit more of the background into the frame. Next to the primary front-facing shooter is a flash Sony calls a slow-sync flash. Normally when you take a selfie in a dark environment and use a flash, your face will be properly illuminated but the background remains dark. The slow-sync flash is designed to alleviate this problem by evenly lighting the subject and the background so you can see more detail. In everyday practice, it works but it isn’t as impressive as it seems. Photos appear more natural and more of the background is easily visible but it introduces more noise into the shot. Image quality in general from the front-facing camera is not as good as I would have expected from a 16MP camera with OIS. Sony’s image processing will give your selfies a very soft look, which is great for hiding blemishes and fine detail but it feels a little aggressive. A skin softening feature is enabled by default, but turning this off doesn’t seem to make a noticeable difference. The rear camera is a 23MP Exmor RS sensor with f/2.0 aperture and max ISO performance of 12,800. This is impressively high for a smartphone camera (although a far cry from the Huawei P20) and will create brighter images in low light, though unfortunately ISO levels beyond 3,200 can’t be dialed in manually. Regardless, you’ll likely never want to shoot at higher ISO levels due to the heavy increase in noise, which already visibly creeps in when the camera approaches even 1,000 ISO. Image quality deteriorates quickly in dark or night time situations with soft details, overblown highlights, and washed-out colors, giving the images a very muddy appearance. Unsurprisingly, the camera fairs better in bright or well-lit environments. Color reproduction is natural and properly saturated, and images are sharp. The camera’s biggest downfall is its poor dynamic range. Shadows are heavily crushed in almost every situation, resulting in less detail. HDR helps tremendously with that, but I’m still not a fan of how Sony buries HDR in the manual mode camera settings. It’s cumbersome to access and unintuitive, meaning many users will never enjoy its benefits. Software The software experience on the XA2 Ultra is very standard Sony. It’s based on Android 8.0 Oreo with Xperia customizations. If you’ve used any recent Sony smartphone, you’ll instantly feel right at home. Sony’s customizations are unobtrusive and they keep the experience very close to stock, which I’ve always enjoyed. Sony's customizations are unobtrusive and they keep the experience very close to stock. The XA2 Ultra comes with typical Sony features be found in many of the company’s other devices, like Playstation integration and the Xperia theme engine for customizing the wallpaper, icons, and general UI. A list of recommended apps can be accessed by swiping down on the home screen or through the app drawer, though I’ve never found this to be particularly useful. Specific to the XA2 Ultra is the addition of one-handed features, which can make operating the phone with one hand easier. Using these features you can shrink the UI into a smaller resizable window and shift other elements such as the dialer and pattern lock to either the left or right side of the display. Gallery Specifications Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra Display 6" Full HD 1080p Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 RAM 4 GB Storage 32 GB 64 GB Expandable up to 256 GB via microSD Camera Rear: 23 MP Exmor RS with f/2.3 aperture, hybrid AP, and 5x zoom Front: 16 MP sensor with OIS and 8 MP with 120 wide-angle lens Battery 3,580 mAh battery, Quick Charge 3.0, Battery Care, Qnovo Adaptive Charging Software Android 8.0 Oreo Miscellaneous Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, USB Type-C, 3.5 mm headphone jack Pricing & Final Thoughts The Sony Xperia XA2 Ultra is available as an unlocked device for GSM networks and is priced at $450 in the U.S.. For a mid-range phone, the XA2 Ultra has a lot to offer, with its long overdue design refresh, dual front-facing cameras, fantastic battery life, and a fingerprint sensor that now works in the U.S.. But it’s not priced as competitively as it should be — typical of most Sony phones. The XA2 Ultra would be more attractive — possibly even a no-brainer purchase — if it were priced at under $400. $450 puts this very close to “budget flagship” devices like the OnePlus 5T and Honor View10. Both are only $50 more and arguably offer better bang for your buck, especially on the performance side. Still, the XA2 Ultra is another solid offering from Sony and a great step forward in the right direction. Unfortunately, like many Sony devices, its price may hold it back from success. , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2E7jJpz