August 2009
Monthly Archive
The Sunda Islands
| Posted by Chill on 31 Aug 2009 |
I found a great, extremely minimal PDF viewer: Sumatra PDF.
Even FoxIT is far too bloated these days, and there is no way I’d install Adobe Reader.
Sumatra does exactly what I need it do, which is read PDFs, and nothing I don’t need it to do, such as try to find updates every 10 minutes, display ads, or send my personal info to some large corporation.
Recommended.
Maker
| Posted by Chill on 31 Aug 2009 |
In response to this, I think everything is and should be up for a remake.
Everything. How the fuck does a remake or cover sully the original? Answer: it doesn’t.
And you could get something amazing.
Why are people so religious about this?
Climate
| Posted by Chill on 30 Aug 2009 |
I wonder if in 50 years all those 25-year-olds denying that climate change/global warming is real will recant?
Probably not. People don’t work that way. But I wish I could shove in their faces their idiocy when that time comes. I am spiteful like that.
Compy 386
| Posted by Chill on 30 Aug 2009 |
Here’s my new computer. Its name is Zirak-zigil. Here’s what it looks like:
I think it turned out pretty damn good. It took enough work, that’s for sure.
The big device with the bright blue fans on the back is the radiator that takes the heat from the water that passes over the CPU and gets rid of it. It didn’t come with those fans, just plain, boring ones; I added those on. Having it outside the case avoids heating up all the other components on the inside.
The case has UV lights in it is why the tubing for the watercooling and the SATA cables (the blue cables) glow like they do.
There’s still a few tweaks and additions, but that’s basically it. I’m very pleased with it. Big thanks to mon amour et rêve enchanteurs ont rendu vrai for her assistance with building the beast.
Vasion
| Posted by Chill on 30 Aug 2009 |
Invasion of the Pattern Snatchers
Not the best-written sf story in history, but interesting. I’ll take interesting over well-written any day.
Donkey kong
| Posted by Chill on 29 Aug 2009 |
PCI Express x1 connectors do fit in x16 slots. Really.
| Posted by Chill on 28 Aug 2009 |
This is in reaction to something I saw a lot of misconceptions about I was researching my new computer.
You can put a small (x1) PCI Express card in any connector slot, even the largest ones (the x16). Though the connector is not as long on an x1 card as the huge x16 slot, trust me, it still fits. It’s designed that way.
I saw too many posts about, “This card is PCI Express with the small connector, and all I have is the x16 big connectors so I can’t put it in my motherboard.” Wrong! All PCI Express cards of the smaller type will all fit in the large PCI Express slots, but will only take up a small bit of the connector. Just makes sure you don’t try to shove it in old-school plain PCI slot. That definitely won’t work.
If someone Googles this question, mayhap this will be useful.
Trunk issue
| Posted by Chill on 28 Aug 2009 |
One of the reasons I really like Penelope Trunk is that she, as I tend to do, tells people things that are true that they really, really don’t want to hear.
In fact, I wish she what she was writing there weren’t true. But it is, and even if I generally am pretty asocial, at least it pays to know the real way the world works. Choosing by ignorance is far inferior to choosing by knowledge. Both are still choices, but one is just doomed to fail.
The text of it all
| Posted by Chill on 28 Aug 2009 |
I was just realizing that I’ve read more textbooks in my life than those who’ve attended college and gotten a four-year degree.
For years, reading textbooks was a hobby of mine (still is, I guess — just started another one). If you assume that most college students take 50 different classes to graduate, and that each class has one textbook, that’s around fifty textbooks, though most college students don’t read the whole thing as I tend to.
Conservatively, I’ve probably read 75+ college-level textbooks in my life — I started when I was 10. The first one I ever read was a textbook on biology that my neighbor had, who was attending nursing school. She didn’t really understand it, so I helped her with it.
Not to prove that I’m Mr. Smartypants or anything, because there are tons of people smarter than me, but just to show that education doesn’t have to come with an official imprimatur. And I guarantee that I remember most of those books — especially the important concepts and, more importantly, where to look for info — better than most folks with degrees.
Why? Because I actually wanted to learn what I was taking in. Most people in college don’t give a hoot at all.
187 with my iPod in your mouth, foo’
| Posted by Chill on 28 Aug 2009 |
The financial penalty for sharing music is more than for murdering someone.
Capitalism: protect the bottom line, no matter what.
The length of it
| Posted by Chill on 27 Aug 2009 |
I just figured out a video card with no published length specs was approximately 7.5 inches long by using something of a known size in a photo (a DVI connector). Nothing hard or even surprising, but more of a chance to rant about why the hell do video card makers and websites like Newegg basically never publish length and width specs?
That shit matters! Most people don’t use full tower cases (I don’t), and even many of those cases are limited by drive cages and other obstructions.
When I have to resort to ninja CIA techniques to determine something that should be written all over the page, something is wrong.
Heavy metal
| Posted by Chill on 27 Aug 2009 |
A draft report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs.
China mines over 95pc of the world’s rare earth minerals, mostly in Inner Mongolia. The move to hoard reserves is the clearest sign to date that the global struggle for diminishing resources is shifting into a new phase. Countries may find it hard to obtain key materials at any price.
There are only so many resources on this planet. There are too many of us and too few of them. They will run out. Not soon after, so will we.
It’s getting hot in here
| Posted by Chill on 27 Aug 2009 |
Even though my new computer works fine at 4.0Ghz, I think I’ll leave it at 3.8Ghz or maybe even 3.66Ghz for day-to-day use, as the last little bits of performance at the top end make power consumption (and thus heat output) go through the roof.
I know that heat output increases as the square of the megahertz increase, but it seems to do even more than that at the top end.
Though my cooler can handle that much heat easily, how it heats up the house — which is poorly-insulated and expensive enough already to cool — is not so pleasant.
Basically running balls-to-the-wall at 4Ghz, my system puts out as much heat as a small space heater. No joke.