From the "sad and blue--no dualie" Dept.
I knew it was too good to last.
At 8:45 pm this evening, my computer refused to boot - right after installing a new sound card (an Audigy2).
The power supply seems fine. The mobo is DOA though.
Man, first a fried CPU and now a fried mobo.
Best case scenario, they replace it no questions asked.
Most likely, they will RMA it to the manufacturer and I am motherboard-less for 2-3 weeks.
Worst Case Scenario - Tyan refuses to replace it.
Ironically, I was suppose to pick up my video card tomorrow; the last piece of equipment I needed.
The plan for tomorrow - feign ignorance, exchange my sound card, pick up my video card, and try to exchange my motherboard and put in a purchase for a 550 W Power suppl; my PSU is now suspect.
Hell at this rate, I might as well just shell out for real cpus too.
Jeez.
-Tai
From the "Information Visualization" Dept.
I was chatting with some designers today and we started talking about next generation interfaces. One designer was thinking about 3D User Interfaces and how that would be a cool way of abstracting information display.
I disagreed. My argument goes like this:
Humans don't see in 3D, but rather something like 2.5D--we see a 2D image with an instinctual understanding of the concept of depth (the 3rd dimension). Only after we move within a space do we start to understand three dimensional spaces (try walking in a maze of mirrors). Among women, spatial cognition is also not a typically strong skill (and I would say that is probably correct in most humans as well)--so thus you've just handicapped 50+% of your potential user base. Therefore the thought of using simulated 3D, without a real simulation of optical depth just doesn't make sense to me.
Alas, I don't think we'll ever see that 3D Unix interface in from Jurassic Park used in Windows.
It also goes against one of the most basic design rules: simplify as much as possible or KISS.
Cheers,
Tai
From the "I hate Noise" Dept.
Goodness: So my dual cpu computer is up and running. I feel the love.
It seems stable. I ran Prime95 (prime number search) for 9 hours yesterday, stressing both my CPUs to 100%. No problems. Left MemTest86 running on my comp when I left this morning...i takes about 5 1/2 hours to test it.
Badness: My only real big concern is that I underestimated the amount of noise that the CPU Fans would generate.
When I first started the system, I noticed that the fans seem to hit the "mechanical resonance" of my cases. My case started vibrating like mad. You could hear it downstairs because it was shaking the floor rafters. Horrible.
I've managed to quiet it down a bit, I reseated my CPUs, tightened my motherboard to the case, and it is now bearable. I still can't stop the vibration though. That's just disturbing. What is even crazier is that I'm even considering watercooling to reduce the noise.
Inevitably, I think that my motherboard mounts could be tighter too (I hand tightened them too). So when I have time, I'll take my computer apart and tighten the mounts with some pliers.
Great, just great.
I still need to get a video card and sound card.
Cheers,
Tai
From the "tired like a old prize-fighter" Dept.
Man. I've completely lost it at work.
I'm so tired--I can barely think.
-T
From the "Freud would have a field day" Dept.
So I had this even stranger dream last night.
In this dream, I have a dog.
So I bring my pet to work, and I start neglecting it. By the end of the work day, I realise that I haven't fed it nor have I taken it for a walk. So I find my dog, I start giving food from the company fridge--actually, I was stealing my coworkers' food.
Then I realise that my dog needs to go to the washroom and that it has been pissing here and there around the office. So I grag the dog and carry it outside, all the while, as it is pissing everywhere...like a hose. When I take it outside, it just stands there on all fours (no leg up) pissing on itself.
I'm stunned, "That's not how you do it! Do it like this." I command.
So the dream ends with me on all fours, with my left leg raised and my dog doing the same.
What the hell does that mean?
-T
From the "Too busy to blog" Dept.
Work has been running me down recently. Jen has also been working hard--although it's funny that I can't really give her any sympathy.
As I continue to grow in my chosen profession (Website Builder, I think it is called) I've come to realise several things:
Granted, these are not very deep insights, we all learn at different paces.
I'm beginning to burn out.
From the "Dept of Computerdom" Dept.
My CPU should be arriving today or tomorrow. Let's hope all goes well.
I have chosen WinXP Pro and Gentoo Linux to be the two Operating Systems that I want to use. I would normally run Debian, but the Kernel compile scares the bejezus out of me. I am hoping that Gentoo can do the hardware detection for me. I am also looking to buy an Sapphire Atlantis 9600 Pro (includes Zallman heat pipe = no noise) and probably an Audigy2 for good measure.
One thing that bugs me about the antec case is that it has front panel Headphone and microphone jacks. I mean, I need a stupid, and I mean STUPID long headphone wire to reach the back of the case. Where is the ergonomics?
-T
From the "Trogdor the Burninator Says" Dept.
Damn. I just fried one of my new cpus.
Well, that's what you get for trying to mod a cpu. I was aware of the risks, and I did screw up the paint job--too careless. I wasn't paying attention.
Man, it sucks when you can smell something burning after you turn on your computer.
Luckily my motherboard wasn't fried.
So off I go to order another Athlon 1600+ XP.
They say three times a charm. If this one doesn't work, I'm going out and buying 2 Athlon MPs -- no more hacking.
Well at least one chip is being identified as a 1600 MP processor. So 50% isn't too bad... This last chip will still put me under the price point for a real MP. But after that, than it isn't worth the headache. Then I'll just cough up the 400 bucks for two Athlon 2000+ MPs. Damn...this isn't cheap at all.
The is that even if the mods work, it may not be stable anyway...
UPDATE: I just ordered a new chip. Cross your fingers folks.
Cheers,
Tai
From the "Free Games" dept.
I've been reading about Go recently. I actually purchased a beginner's book called, "The Book of GO". It's a fascinating game which requires quite a bit of pattern recognition.
I also found an interesting open source project (Free as in Beer and Freedom) called GNU Go.
It would be interesting to get a string of Go champions and monitor them using a "think out loud" protocol. I'd love to understand their approach to the game.
BTW, GNU Go kicks my ass all the time.
If you are interested, Awari is also a cool game.
Tai
From the "I ram, you ram" Dept.
So I got my ram today.
Still waiting for my heatsinks.
-T
From the "I must have a biological clock too" Dept.
So I had this weird dream last night.
I was in my room and I called Jen ( our normal means of communication during the week ). We chatted a bit and then I said, "Will you marry me?".
Jen said yes.
I then responded with, "Okay, that's great. We'll talk about this later."
Then I hung up.
Man, some dreams are so foggy, and other dreams are so clear.
I wonder what this means?
Cheers,
Tai
From the "Dual CPU goodness" Dept.
I finally received my cpus.
It's funny, I ordered two identical cpus (Athlon 1600+ XPs), but when I opened the box, they were different colours.
I took the time to expose the L5 bridges today--nervous work. I took a pin an physically scratched the surface of the CPU. I also scrubbed the area with Isopropyl Alcohol (99% pure) to clean the surface.
I also bought my case, PSU and Rear Defogger Repair kit (to mod the cpus).
It's all coming together.
Waiting on my heatsinks, thermal gel and ram.
Getting excited.
-T
From the "No Power; No Blog" Dept.
So Most of Ontario, parts Quebec, and surrounding areas in the US experienced a massive power blackout yesterday at 4:00 pm EST.
Wow. It's funny seeing how people change. The neighborhood is so quiet. No hum of airconditioners--it seemed like everyone was having a BBQ. That's all you could smell.
A lot more pedestrians too--a rare site in suburban Markham, ON.
It was great to see the stars out yesterday night. You could actually see the Milky-Way. Normally there is too much light pollution.
I think when I'm older, I'm going to buy myself a big telescope--one of those pro-hobbiest ones. Granted, I'll need a place to use it, which would necessitate me getting some land up north or something.
Last night was nice. Walking around felt like the way a neighborhood should feel --people were outside, smell of food in the air--it's like everybody tuned out for a bit to smell the roses.
Today, everything here is back to normal.
I'm not sure if that's a positive thing.
How do you all handle the blackout?
-T
From the "No computer yet" Dept.
So all I have right now is a motherboard.
My thermal compound and CPU heatsinks were shipped today from Vancouver. Unfortunately my CPUs have been delayed yet again due to the blackout. I'm still waiting for my RAM.
I will purchase my case and PSU this weekend if I have the time.
I've also have been researching sound proofing methods for computers.
I put in an order for:
I'm not sure how effective the sound dampener matting will be. There are other products that are known to work better, but they are about 4 times more expensive. I've also read about home-made sound dampening using anything from carpet matting to padded envelopes.
I can't stand loud computers and I fear that a dual-cpu system will be too loud for me. However, since the system I am building is rather cheap, I can afford to spend some money (close to a $100 CDN) to proactively sound proof it.
Got to love quiet fans and vibration reducing materials.
Tai
From the "Hot off the grill" dept.
Today my team (IA/Usability) hosted the bi-weekly summer BBQ. It's a rotating responsibility among the departments with proceeds going to the United Way. Being usability specialists, it was all about the experience for us.
By that, my team and I set a new standard in the efficiency of summer BBQs with wait times below 5 minutes. Previous attempts had wait times in excess of 35 minutes. We also raised the bar with food selection as well as food quality.
Here's how we did it: I found out that OnX was going to match our proceeds (total revenue), rather than profit. Thus, much like a dot-com company burning their seed money--we spent a lot of money getting high quality patties from President's choice, rather than Cost-co. 100% beef, 100% chicken, Vegetarian patties, no filler, etc. With higher quality food, we also planned our set up much earlier, with food going on the grill 45 minutes before the actual start of lunch. As such, we were able to queue up a large amount of food for the initial wait. No line-ups, good food--how could you go wrong.
Like I said, "It's all about the experience."
Unfortunately, I basically burned up about 5 and a 1/2 hours setting up, cooking and cleaning up when I could have been doing billable work. After spending all that time outside, in front of a grill, you didn't really want to work anymore. All I could smell was meat.
-T
From the "Warning: Very Boring" Dept.
So I finally received my motherboard today. I had to cancel my order from NCIX.com and go to Infonec Computer Systems (a local store) to acquire it.
Sweet. If I have time, I will pick up the conductive paint and a case.
Tai
From the "Cold War" Dept.
So I used this online Magic 8-ball to tell me if I should buy the Dual CPU computer.
It said "Yes" 4 out of 5 times.
Granted the coin I was flipping said "No" 6 times before a single yes showed.
So I decided to do what Kevin recommended, and let my wallet do the talking.
So I bought:
I'll have to modify the Athlon processors--which kind of worries me--but there is a store near my house that sells the tools I need to hack the CPU.
Should be straight forward.
I don't know what I plan to use the computer for, but it will be way faster than what I have now. I can now say that I'm at least only 2 years behind the bleeding edge of technology.
Cheers,
Tai
From the "More Pressure" Dept.
After work on Friday, Jen came and picked me up. We went shopping for a cell phone for Jen's mother. We came back empty handed.
Jen's mother was really excited that when she came back from golf that evening. Ben said that Jen had a surprise for her.
When Jen told her mom that she was getting a cell phone for her, her mom was visibly upset.
She thought that Jen and I were going to announce our engagement!
LOL.
<sigh />
From the "Weekend Review" Dept.
I find that the long distance between Jen and I has made our weekends almost kind of "closed". All we want to do is spend time with each other and it's difficult to plan around anything else.
Next weekend we plan to go to the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo.
Cheers,
Tai
From the "Win98se to Linux and back again" Dept.
I've been playing around with the ol' Pentium 200mmx. I'm trying to get it ready to go live again for Family use (probably as Kai's personal computer).
I thought that this would be a perfect time to install Linux on the computer. It's a a fully featured OS that is actively developed and supported. Moreover, it's suppose to breath new life into older hardware.
I downloaded the Morphix OS -- a neat little OS distribution that can be ran off a CD. The light version weighs in at a svelte 175 MBytes. It is really impressive. It features a recent kernel, a small suite of applications for accessing the Internet, a wordprocessor--all on one CD. Quite good.
It's performance on the P200mmx was a lacking though -- even with Xfce 4.0rc2; a very light window manager.
So I reinstalled Win98SE again. Now it runs fine.
From the "Cold War begins; again" Dept.
Kevin bought a 120 GB harddrive for his computer.
Damn him.
From the "Cold War continues" Dept.
Coincidentally, I've been recently obsessing over symmetic multi-processing systems. Computers with 2 or more CPUs.
I've always wanted one--On eBay you can buy a motherboard and 2 Pentium3 993 MHz CPUs for $340 CDN.
Granted the system would be a dead-end in terms of expandability, upgradeability, etc. However, it would be a cool system to get my feet wet. The only turn off was the motherboard being advertised was a known lemon with a rather high mortality rate.
From the "I can always dream" Dept.
So after much thinking, wringing hands, etc. I finally decided not to buy the dual P3 mobo and CPUs. Many a chat with Fred and Kevin convinced me that my gut reaction over the motherboard and general "staleness" of the architecture was correct. They also gave several good reasons, but perhaps the most important was, "What are you going to use it for?"
Good question. I have no idea.
Multi-CPU systems are only good for a limited number of applications - Web Server applications, Databases, 3D rendering and compositing, Photoshop, Video encoding and editing, and sound manipulation. Since I really don't do any of these things, it's hard to warrant the purchase of a dual CPU rig.
Oh well.
From the "In my spare time" Dept.
Last week I did manage to poke around in the 2cpu.com forums, and I've developed a pretty nice starter system.
Ideally, I would use Dave's old TNT2 AGP card for the time being, as well as stripping my SCSI components from the family computer for it's HDD, CD, etc.
Total cost: $ 1049.67 (including Taxes + Shipping)
I'm not sure what I'd want to do with this system like this (it's definitely no speed demon considering people have Athlon XPs running in SMP mode at 2800+ speeds).
Cheers,
Tai
From the "Announcement 1" Dept.
I had a great time in Collingwood this past weekend. It was unfortunate that I had to work on Sunday and Monday.
It was a crazy time. I wish I could write more about it, but what happens at the cottage, stays at the cottage.
From the "Announcement 2" Dept.
This just in from the OnX email Servers:
RE: Tai TohEffective today, Tai will be the point person for all DaimlerChrysler US and Canada Usability and Information Architecture concerns and initiatives.
In addition, Tai is now supported by a new member of the DC IA team: Victoria Oliver. Tai will be mentoring Victoria as she comes up to speed within the DC environment. Tai will also be responsible for allocating all IA/Usability work within DC.
I guess I was promoted.
Cheers,
Tai
From the "Feeling a little off" Dept.
It's 2:00 am. I feel like crap. I am stuck in this spiral of depreciating physical fitness. It's really starting to get to me.
From the "My Kung Fu is better than your Kung Fu" Dept.
Last week, I was talking to Lambert, Thip's boyfriend. He started taking Wing Chun kung fu. Interesting conversation with him and I.
Like any new student he's trying to understand the politics of Wing Chun. When I first started back in 1993, I found out that the Yip Man lineage of Wing Chun had been divided into several distinct schools. More politics than anything else, it basically breaks down with Yip Man's students doing "self-promotion".
So you have people like Leung Ting or William Cheung each saying that their kung fu is better than anyone other system, including other forms of Wing chung. Master vs. Master, student vs. Master. It's all kind of funny.
I don't really care much for this kind of stuff and I spent a lot of time trying to explain to Lambert that there really isn't a difference between "Wing Chun", "Wing Tsun", or "Ving Tsun". It's just how you spell it.
Same shit; different piles.
Bottom line: If I train harder than my oponent, it doesn't matter what school of martial arts you practice.
It became apparent to me that he didn't understand Siu Niem Tao; the first structured routine or form that you learn in Wing Chun. Granted, I think his training is much more "practical" with a emphasis on drills--which is awesome because you can learn any martial art using drills. Moreover, it took me over two years to "really understand it", so I guess I have to be patient.
I still practice what I know - the first 3 parts of Siu Niem Tao, Parts 1 and 2 of Chum Kieu, and Parts 1 and 2 of the wooden dummy set.
I wish I had a wooden dummy.
It's a shame I stopped in 1997 (with only infrequent visits to my sifu since then).
Tai