Monday 31 January 2011

Rant 715 / Noth

So I've learnt that you cannot easily transfer a hard disk with an OS from one PC to another. Due to the massive differences in drivers, it most likely will not work. However it can still be used as a hard drive, though all the programmes inside will need to be reinstalled.






It's been raining since early morning today, Still very cloudy and raining now at 1pm.

Best weather ever.

For anyone who isn't going out, that is.

That includes myself.

It's so cool I don't even need my fan at times, which is rare.

The only thing that's ruining the ambience atm is the contractor who's obviously trying to rush his job so that he doesn't have to return during Chinese New Year.

Fucker's been drilling on a Sunday morning. Now that's what I call desperation.






This computer is so quiet I could sleep easily while it's on. I wonder if it was the same for the old computer when it was brand new.

There is a large difference between the two computers' fans. The old one had a 120mm fan on the front, back, right and left. This new casing has a 120mm fan on the back, and a 200mm fan on the top and front. The left panel (when the front is facing me) also has a slot for another 120 or 140mm fan. I think I should put a filter there.






It doesn't stop raining. The closest it got to stopping today was a light drizzle. Fortunately there's no wind so I can open my windows some.






File transfer rate from the old HDD to the new reached 63MB/s while copying the entire ME2 folder over. Also heard a tiny bit of rumbling from the HDDs during the process. Maybe it's just that quiet in my room since my fan isn't on. Or maybe it's a bad sign.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Rant 714 / Second First

Bought a new PC today. Since it contained the older hard disk from the desktop that I ruined, it needed to be repaired by Windows. All the drivers and stuff are different other than the hard disk.

It's been "Attempting repairs..." for like 10 mins now. I'm not sure if it's normal but I'm going to be patient this time. Seriously trying to avoid any trouble in a brand new PC.



I'm pretty sure I was not given the optimal price. They probably screwed me over in some way but I'm not too curious. I was completely satisfied with the specs of my old computer and this computer is even better than that.

Old PC - Phenom II X4 955 3.2GHz
New PC - i7-2600 3.4GHz

Old PC - MSI 790FX-GD70
New PC - ASUS P8P67 ( I think I might have downgraded here)

Old and new PC - Kingston DDR3 RAM 2GB X2 (total 4GB)

Old PC - WD Caviar Black 500GB 32MB
New PC - Above and a new WD Caviar Blue 500GB 16MB   (Caviar Black > Caviar Blue but I'm planning to install all programmes on the Caviar Black anyway)

Old PC - MSI GTX285 1GB DDR3
New PC - Sapphire HD 6970 2GB DDR5

Old PC - Cooler Master CM690 ATX Black
New PC - 912 HAF Advanced (has two USB 3.0 ports but I'm not sure if I'll be needing them)


Hmm... apparently transferring a hard disk drive (HDD) from an old PC to a new one is not as common a practice as I expected. I'm not finding much help on Google and it's been "attempting repairs" for like 30mins. I'm not allowed to cancel it (I tried clicking on the Cancel button) so I'm prepared to wait till tomorrow morning.

6.11PM:

Oh great! A response! A bad response but a response nonetheless. Now it's telling me it can't be repaired, which I already expected. Doing an install instead.

I fucked up. I just picked the new drive to install it in.

This means I'm going to have to format it and install Windows... again.

Also this means I'm losing all my save files, including my latest Cities XL and ME2 saves. In the backup saves I'm probably still at the Reaper IFF mission and as for Cities XL, I did not back up saves ever since I installed it.

It's not a big deal because it's not really hard to get it back to 100k population again now that I know how to plan for the future to that extent. In fact I'm going to build an even better city with far fewer criss-crossing roads.


8.09PM:

Almost done installing the drivers. I had decided to adapt to the new situation by leaving the OS in the new hard disk drive. The justification for this is that the older HDD might not last as long as the new one. After all, Caviar Blue is supposed to be slower but more reliable and it's newer than the other.

So I can access my old drives in this setup. I think they had installed the new HDD as the master but I'm not completely sure. Maybe there's no master and slave in this desktop. Doesn't matter as long as it is booting fine.

Going to try the games soon. If they work, I have no qualms about everything. If not, well, tomorrow's Sunday anyway.

Interestingly, this mobo has Bluetooth.




10.41PM:

All drivers installed. The new hard disk is now C: while the old C: is now D: and the old D: is now E:. OS on the old HDD is now disabled but I have not formatted it yet.

I should probably have formatted both HDDs and installed the OS on the Caviar Black since it loads faster, but now I think I should install my games on it instead.

On the other hand, I now have a huge 500GB HDD that only contains the OS and driver files.

I should probably do something about this.

But what?

This is a strange arrangement but it's convenient at the moment.


On an unrelated note, having a Caviar Black external hard disk is a waste. I have a 1TB one and I just learnt that I could have just gotten the Caviar Green version, which is slower but consumes less electricity. Why would I need a high performance external storage disk?

Next time.


As for the games, they don't work. The files are all there but the programmes don't work. Therefore I'm keeping them for a while longer since I don't actually need the extra space.


How nice! Here's a very convenient way for you to bring your Mozilla bookmarks and passwords over to a new computer:

This is only for Vista users. Go to your user folder and all the way into Roaming. Inside Roaming is a folder called "Mozilla". Copy it and paste it in the new HDD with the new Mozilla and overwrite the new Mozilla folder with it.

Sorry I lost the website when I restarted the browser. Too lazy to find it again. Doesn't matter anyway.

Friday 28 January 2011

Rant 713 / The End Of A PC









Just discovered Spick n' Span when I checked Beeconomic today. Whoa! S$260 per month for a session of 4 hours of cleaning per week makes each session cost only $65. Some maids do it cheaper ($50) and even do the ironing, which this company offers separately from its cleaning services. Then again, the maids aren't supposed to moonlight during their off days. Also, some of those maids are really poor so they kinda deserve the extra money. Like the one we're hiring currently. I'm pretty sure she's not a vegan but that's what her breakfast at the market implied.






So today my computer did the now-normal random shut down routine. Tried holding the Power button to release any charge in the PSU. 10 times, didn't work. Pulling and replugging the PSU's connector on the mobo. 5 times, didn't work. Pulling out power cable and replugging. 2 times, didn't work.

Gave up, fck the repair services. Decided to dismantle the computer just to see if there are any obvious signs of damage and that if I break anything, I'll get a new computer.

So I learnt where to connect the Power and Reset buttons' wires on the mobo and how to stick in the RAM, processor, graphics card and network card. Still don't know what is inside the PSU but not too curious atm because I accidentally bent some of the pins on the processor while trying to put it back.

Slanted pins I can handle but L-shaped pins are kinda too advanced for me.

Yep, so I ruined a vital component of the PC. Tomorrow I'll be getting a new computer with 2 hard drives, one of which is going to be the one from this PC. This will definitely be the master HDD while the new one will be the slave because I have a perfectly working legitimate copy of 64-bit Vista Home Premium in this 500GB Caviar Black.

As for my video card, I feel it's kind of a waste not to use it but at this rate I might as well bring this computer there and tell them to install a new processor.

Which I won't. This old PC will be kept in a dusty old corner until I need it for troubleshooting in the future. The working parts can help me determine if the ones in the future PC are still working.

On an unrelated note, I love this old laptop so much now. If not for it I'd have to keep walking between the living room and my room to use the PC outside. If this ever stops working, I'm pretty sure I will need to buy a cheap laptop to replace it. Probably one that goes between $500 and $900. Just enough to watch videos and surf the net with.

Rant 712 / Public Transport Maintenance Is Expensive!

My first time building a city with a population of 50k in Cities XL.



11 excess jobs in a population of 50k. All available industries pretty close to 1:1 in terms of supply vs demand. Except for fuel, but hey, nobody dislikes cheap petrol!

My main problem is still traffic. I suspect that junctions slow down traffic and worsen it but I'm not sure. If it's true, then I can't help it because I need to connect too many roads to the main road. Now my road system look damn ugly because I keep build roads no matter the slope gradient. It means some of my roads are kinda zig-zag.






A hilltop roundabout - a good idea or a good idea?

That was actually my first experiment with roundabouts. I don't know if they're actually worth the space and effort but I was desperate to find a way to ease the traffic without building even more criss-crossing roads. It worked somewhat but look at how much space that took. The gradient of the slope was part of the problem though; the roundabout wasn't wholly at fault.

At last, BUSES! Oh I get the metro too but I'll stick with buses for now.

It's at this point that I have to reduce my graphics to the minimum. It's lagging a bit, so I might as well go straight to the settings for max performance. I don't zoom in much to look at the people anyway.








Spent a night being annoyed by the computer. Same problem as before - shutting down for no reason.

I think it did that for 4 times before I posted the problem in hardwarezone (HWZ). No good reply atm. Definitely not a heat problem because it very rarely occured in the afternoons. Mostly it happens during the evenings or mornings, which makes me suspect that the fluctuating temperature has to do with it although I don't know how.

I almost wanted to dissemble the PC just to check the mounting of the mobo but decided not to because it was late and I have class tomorrow. If something goes wrong, I'll be too distracted to read the notes before the lesson.

Anyway after posting it on HWZ I'd been trying to boot my PC without success over like 3 hours (since 9pm). There was roughly 10-30mins between each attempt and all of them ended in a sudden shut down at or before the Microsoft Corporation loading screen with the green bar. I'd also switch on my air conditioner at about 9.30pm.

Then at about 12.30am it's now alright again. Which really adds to my previously described suspicion. Yet if that is true, then it would have shut down whenever it was warming up from room temperature while I have my air conditioner on.

Gah!

Thursday 27 January 2011

Rant 711 / O Fortuna








So I checked the motherboard's manual just now and learnt that the connector I was told to pull out and plug in again by the tech was the power connector for the motherboard.

A little googling led to me a possible conclusion that the permanent solution to this problem of static shorting the motherboard is to mount it again and put some cardboard between the board and the case. This fits what the tech said about how he couldn't do anything about it because the computer has been assembled already, implying he would have had to dismantle a lot of things to do it. Not really understanding why then, I didn't insist that he did whatever was necessary to permanently end this issue.

Maybe I should do it. This temporary solution is going to make life difficult when I do assignments. Rewriting essays isn't fun, especially if they're in Chinese.

I'll do it when I'm pissed enough. Atm I'm not motivated enough to go through that much trouble.









It's supposed to look cute but I thought it looked wrong instead. Right from the start I couldn't stop thinking how the rabbits looked morbidly obese. Is this normal or are they just furry? I have too little experience with pet rabbits to judge confidently but that's what it looked like to me.

How can people do that to their pets?



Unlike the first video, this one is cute, even if the cat's replaced by anything else including a human.







ME2 on Hardcore was hard... if not for my Cryo Blast. What makes the entire game hard is actually the Husks, those zombie-like creatures that are actually closer to robots than the undead. The reason is that they are the only enemies that run to me immediately when they see me. The other enemy type that tries to attack me at close range is the krogan, but they only walk slowly instead of run and they get easily distracted by Drones. So much time is wasted by them when they try to "krogan charge" at my Explosive Drones.

Fortunately for me, the Husks shatter and die when frozen, something that is unique to these creatures. I really didn't have them on my mind when I decided to spend points on this Cryo Blast. On the mission in which I first met Legion, this ability seriously saved my ass more than anything else. Even the Explosive Drone was useless since it could only distract and not kill.

I guess things will be worse on future runs.

Anyway, I'm on the suicide mission now. Things will be easy. Even if they're not, there isn't anything more I can do about it. I've upgraded everything, have max levels for everyone and have a mental list of who to be assigned for what roles later. On my first run I'd only got one role wrong  - putting Thane for the Tech job because I thought sneaking was more important than the tech expertise.




Despite all these hype about China's future, I think by 2100 people will be looking at Africa instead, and China will be what Europe is today.






So dental plaque is actual invisible and easily removed. The yellow brittle stuff that forms around the base of the teeth is tartar.

Tartar is formed when plaque hardens, which it does in 48 hours. After 10 days, the bacteria fossilize and become tartar. In addition, certain salts will collect and help form the tartar.

Tartar is bad for your dental health apparently because it irritates the gums, causing it to recede. When your gums recede enough, your teeth will loosen.

Hence it's best to brush your teeth everyday.













Now that I'm getting the hang of Cities XL, the game is getting quite interesting. Quit 3 maps after failing at building a successful city in each.

Mostly, it was the traffic problem that I did not expect that ruined the cities. I was not aware that there would be much larger roads than those that I started with, thinking it would be like SimCity in which the only better thing than a road was a highway.

Nope, after small avenues Cities XL also offers large avenues. Because of that, I could have replaced my main road that went through my city with that. However, I'd have to demolish lots of buildings along the old road to make room of the expansion. Since each building's tile is wider than the new road's, destroying it to expand the road would cause a significantly large empty gap between the large avenue and the next building.

All that unexpected waste of space frustrated me, so I gave up and went on to a new map for a new city instead. This time, I had 2 main roads plus a large gap between the two so that I can have more than enough space to build 2 large avenues and still be able to upgrade them if there are even wider roads available in the future.

Managing the traffic is a bitch. Even if you have like 5 parallel 2-lane roads, you can't just convert any of them without thinking to 1-way roads to ease the traffic in a single direction because it affects the coverage of essential services like medical centres and the police. These 1-way roads can force them (police cars, ambulances, etc) to take large detours to get to a spot, which lowers the coverage of that particular area.

And I can't build public transport yet. Apparently I need more than 50k people to start building bus stops. I've only got 26k people. That seriously sucks. Didn't we have rickshaws and trishaws in the old days when Singapore was still a small colony?

One more thing, the warnings that appear in the upper centre area of the screen are sometimes bullshit. I've been keeping an eye on the numbers recently to watch for the jobs vs populations, and it kept telling me that the Skilled/Unskilled populations need more housing when I'm actually having too many of those and not enough jobs. On the other hand, it's time to look at the roads whenever it says that "Traffic congestion is bad."

Monday 24 January 2011

Rant 710 / Push The Tempo!! Push The Tempo!! Push The Tempo!! Push The Tempo!! Push The Tempo!! Push The Tempo!! Push The Tempo!!









My PC problems never seem to stop. Just now at about 9.30am my computer rebooted itself while I was playing ME2. But it stopped at a black screen after the initial loading screen telling me to insert a boot media.

Hard disk problem.

I rebooted to look at the initial screen again. Holy shit! SATA 2, ie where the the hard drive was supposed to be at, was "Not Detected".

That was bad. Worse than before, in fact.

This time I pushed the correct connectors at the hard disk drive. The last few times I had been pushing the ones for the DVD drive. I hardly use it so I'd completely forgotten I had a DVD drive whenever I open up my computer. Anyway this time I had to open up the panel on the other side to see the cables at the back of my hard disk.

I pushed them in really hard.

And when I rebooted again, it was all okay.

How did it loosen itself? I haven't dropped or even knocked on the computer at all recently.

At this rate, I'm going to be able to build a PC on my own. I just need to buy that special glue for the heat sink and I can probably do it. On second though, I'm not rich enough to play around with over a thousand dollars' worth of hardware.







I just realized ME2 has a level cap of 30. No wonder I can never seem to get that 1 skill point that I need to get lvl3 Overload even after completing every single side mission I can possibly find before going for the Reaper IFF.

So now I've got 2 extra points but I don't feel like I need them. On the other hand, some of the other guys do need to be retrained. Fortunately I've got like 80k eezo despite researching everything including the unnecessary medical bay upgrade.







Today we're worrying about the human population overtaxing our planet's resources. When the next generation grows up, the whole world will be worrying about what the developed countries today worry about - the greying population. After that, I believe, things will stabilize.

From this, it can be deduced that the global population is still adapting to what started out as the Industrial Revolution. This conclusion changed my impression of the impact of that event on the world.

Anyway people in my generation should really worry about their retirement funds. The world's population is going to explode further in the next 2-3 decades despite the dropping of birth rates. I personally don't think that, for Singaporeans, our CPF is going to be enough whatever the sum.

In contrast, our children's generation are likely going to have an easy time when they grow old.






That mystery relative replied to my question saying he/she knew me before birth and had carried me when I was a baby.

The problem with this answer is that it was too vague. I think everybody on my mother's side of the family tree who was alive then had carried me, except a few.

This time it was even more awkward to ask him/her IMO.







It's not the exercise that I hate but the warming up. Same with thinking. I just dislike the revving up of my brain and body. I really don't mind just staying relaxed and not thinking.







Cities XL! It's like Simcity 3000 but easier on the newbies. I like how the tutorials aren't really necessary if you already have experience with SimCity. They accomplished this by locking up everything and giving you more tools/buildings gradually as your population increases. But they couldn't possibly have spent all that time making an elaborate tutorial for nothing, so I'm pretty sure it can help a lot if you're willing to endure all that reading. Me, I spent half an hour stuck on one objective in which I spent 99% of my cash making the longest single stretch of residential zone ever to exist. Then I quit and started a new game.

I'm only on my first map and has just got enough people to build a Fire Station, so I'm still quite new. I have no idea what I'm getting next and what buildings are really unnecessary. It's entirely possible that I've been building certain structures way too early since I almost got bankrupt at one point due to too much maintenance costs. Now I'm making 10k a day but my retail sector is in very bad shape (and has been since the beginning). Too much production they say. I don't know how to make their goods sell better other than by building more houses.





After years of blogging I've noted quite a number of irregular verbs that have the same past and present tenses. For example, I just used "quit" in the part of the blog directly above this. The past tense of "quit" is still "quit" although some dictionaries do use "quitted". However "quitted" cannot be used when it does not mean "to leave". "He quitted the job," is correct but "He quitted smoking," is wrong.

To keep it simple, I think people should just stick with "quit" all the time. I mean, all those irregular verbs are hard enough to memorise already, so why makes things even more complicated?

Also, another word, which I had used yesterday, is "shut".


Blogging definitely improved my English. I wish the same can be said for my Chinese.

Sunday 23 January 2011

Rant 709 / When A Human Likes A Corpse, It's Necrophilia. When A Corpse Likes A Human, It's Hunger.

LKY announces that Singapore is not a nation yet.

I am confused and a little saddened.

I'm not confused about nationhood. No, I know what he's trying to say but I just can't figure out why he's saying it in the media.

Obviously it's going to be interpreted in a multitude of ways by the public now and in the future, some of which is not going to be well-received by anyone. So why is he saying this now?

I'm also saddened because it's true. If we get annexed by any of our neighbours in the future, no one will miss this country. There isn't much that people can describe as "the good old days" when we had any sort of glorious history.

Compare this with Venice, a tiny state that bears quite a few similarities with Singapore. Even hundreds of years past its Golden Age, it's still remembered for its past when it was a tiny wealthy merchant state.

This is one reason why we're not a nation yet that was not mentioned.






I wonder if it's normal for a person to have no contact with all his relatives. I just realized I didn't even know the surnames of some of my cousins. First cousins.
Now I've only found out a few of their names via Facebook due to unforeseen circumstances.

I've been assured that it is alright but I'm still not sure.







Yahoo News comments are just as bad as Youtube comments. I find myself getting increasingly irked by the people who frequent there.

All they do is whine about the government!

Even when they agree with LKY they still continue to bash him and the rest of PAP.

To them, everything PAP does is wrong and the entire Singapore is full of beggars on the streets. Nobody can afford homes and nobody has enough to eat. And all that is because of the PAP.

I'm not even exaggerating.

I'm going to stop reading their comments from now on. If I want to kill my brain cells I could just visit /b/. At least they have nice images once in a while.






I just realized my average rate of income from mturk has gone down to $2 a day. Yep, I currently at the income level of a coolie from the old days.

It has been dropping even since I ran out of psychological surveys. Since these only allowed one attempt each, there's nothing I can do about it. I did get a $2.50 bonus from one of the researchers for being honest though. That's more than what 99% of the people offer for a single job.

It's still cool because I'm doing practically nothing other than helping with the family business. Today, my bro's gf came with us too. It's just simple labour for her - open and unpack the giant bags of goods with my bro while I bring them to the storage area and stack them up properly.

Anyway I've already told my bro to inform me if he ever buys anything so that we can order together and save on the shipping fee. Right now I'm just accumulating money there so that when the good games come out in March and May I can afford them... if they're worth the money.

These days, disappointment is the norm for new games. Everything is so overhyped now except for NS2 but only because the devs for this game has been showing everyone practically everything in the game right from the beginning.






Why would left-handed people have any sort of difficulty with using a controller? It just makes no sense. Personally I control my mouse with my left hand when I'm bored and supporting my head with my right such that my right elbow is on my left wrist. It's completely fine as long as I'm not playing games.






I should probably change my glasses soon. I'm beginning to experience aching behind my eyes at night.






So today I encountered someone I don't know at all. Recently I added my aunt on FB and later, some of my cousins on her friends list. But I did not recognize one of the names there. Okay, I'm kinda lying. If not for their photos and surnames, I would not have recognized any of them. One of them I only recognized by surname. The other I recognize because he looked like my maternal aunts and uncles. Yet another I knew only because that aunt mentioned his name on the phone.

Yes I have that little contact with most of my relatives.

In the end I ignored one name on her tiny list (probably because people her generation/social circle aren't too computer-savvy) because I did not know anyone of that name and he/she did not post his real photo.

Today I found that he/she sent a friend request which included a message asking why I did not post any of my bro's photos. So here's relative I completely don't know. It was rather awkward to have to ask who he/she is. I'll find out eventually.

Saturday 22 January 2011

Rant 708 / Somali Pirates Have Balls

My PC died again. How many times has it been? All I know is that it's going to be the third time I'm bringing it back to Sim Lim Square tomorrow.

This time, it's mostly my fault.

I was playing ME2, in the Project Overlord mission from the DLC. After going into the entrance to Prometheus, I got stuck on the loading screen.

So after 5 mins, I got impatient. Everything responded normally, except I couldn't go back to Windows (which was not surprising for a loading screen).

Irritation set in. I began using keys like Alt-Tab, Ctrl-Alt-Del and finally the Reset and Power buttons. No use.

Then I gave up. Went away for a while before returning to find a black screen with a responsive cursor. So I went away again.

After some time it gave me an error which I can't recall now. Didn't think it was important. My reply was to shut it down by force. Can't remember how. Probably switched off the PSU.

When I rebooted it later, it gave me a different error. After leaving the initial booting screen that listed all the drives and USB devices, it went to a black screen with only the following words:

A disk read error occurred.
Press Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart.

I'd never encountered such a problem before. I didn't know shutting down a computer by force could do this.

Restarting the PC led to the same screen with the same error.

After lots of trials and error, I began to boot from the Windows DVD. At the System Recovery console, I was told a certain problem was preventing basically everything that it could do from being done. Upon further random clicking, I learnt that this particular problem was a major yet simple issue:

No hard disk was detected.

Nothing screams, "You're fucked!" like this error does.

This means no more save files.

I'm so not playing ME2 anymore, not in a very long time. I've completed so many side missions and the Project Overlord was the last major side mission (minor side missions are those you find from scanning planets) I had left before ending the game.

Now I've to start from scratch completely. Wait.. let me check my ME1 saves on this laptop. Please be there...



YES I STILL HAVE THOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm going to back them all up. Losing those would be so devastating. I've got so many completed runs there.

I think the term for this is "bricked", as in "My hard disk is bricked." I'm not sure because my BIOS still includes it in the SATA list. Most likely though, I'm going to have to bring a hundred bucks to pay for a new hard disk tomorrow.



Can't help but wonder why these things are happening so frequently. A dead hard disk is still tolerable but a problem nonetheless.



EDIT: I unplugged and replugged the 2 cables connecting to my hard disk. Now it's detected but when I tried to load Safe Mode, it got stuck at crcdisk.sys.

After a while of waiting for it to load while I browed the Western Digital website for diagnostics softwares (a new idea I got while reading more google results I got from searching new phrases that have to do with "hard disk" instead of "loading bars" and "Windows"), it restarted all by itself.

Now it's perfectly normal again.

Yes it's now in Windows. I could not help but say "Holy fuck..." when I saw this.

WHY?

This computer... it's like it's got regenerative abilities. Ok, gtg need to back up save files and scan the hard disk.



EDIT 2: Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics for Windows is going to take 1h30m to complete an Extended Test on my hard disk. Oh well, what needs to be done needs to be done.


EDIT3: According to the test result, my hard disk is in perfect condition. Not a single bad sector detected. I'm so confused.

So.

Confused.

Friday 21 January 2011

Rant 707 / Jewish Nazi

I didn't know Oishii has a bakery in addition to its pizza delivery service. It's at the former Ginza Plaza, now renamed as "West Coast Plaza". Just tried the Hershey's-Kiss-shaped butter cookies which are sold at $15 per plastic jar. They're pretty amazing. Seriously.







So there are 19 sites that offer deals like Beeconomics. That's a lot of website to keep an eye on daily. Some of those on the linked website contain typo, so here's an alternative list which is also on the first website. This one's better but I don't know if it contains everything listed in the first.






So I just noticed Amazon.com doesn't offer Standard Shipping for games. I tested it with a pre-ordered game, an in-stock game and an in-stock book. When checking out the 3 separate orders, only the book had Standard Shipping in the list of delivery options.

Which means instead of paying US$9 for shipping I have to pay US$18. That's for a single game in the order. If, say, I order, the upcoming Deus Ex game (US$48 = about S$62.40) I'll be paying almost half again the price.

The UK Amazon is even worse, with almost the same shipping price for STANDARD SHIPPING (8.80GBP = about 17.60SGD) but even higher product prices for Deux Ex (38GBP = about 76SGD). But that point became moot when I realized, via some googling, that the Mturk gift certs can't be used in non-US Amazon websites.

There went my hope that the JP Amazon could offer me better prices.

Oh well, at least I'm still able to afford games just by sitting at home.






I'm going to bed soon. I think my computer is about to have a problem-free day today. Fantastic.






Patrician 4. I'm on the first campaign map. Not bothering to complete my next objective, which is to build a counting house in Aalborg.

I've played so long I actually remember the name of the town even though I rarely micromanage my ships' transactions there!

Mainly, I've been trying to make bad trade routes that leak money faster than a broken sieve. I've made 2 but somehow they always lose money. Now I'm doing all I can just to raise more money. Maybe I should just delete those routes.

But I need them. I need more money and automated trade routes are the best way to do it.

Right now I've got like 200k but it doesn't mean much because all I do is send my third fleet, which consists of a single cog, around the eastern side of the map to trade. My first fleet only does trips to the Mediterranean. Meanwhile my second and fourth fleet (both also single cogs) are on those automated non-profit charity trips.

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Rant 706 / It Wasn't Water

I remember all those times in secondary school (or was it JC) when we had to write essays discussing whether cloning humans is a good thing.

Now the Japanese are about to clone mammoths. First Dolly, now an extinct elephant-like creature. I think what the scientists are actually doing here is that they're trying to refine the process, perhaps looking for a way to make it cheaper.

Despite whatever ethical problem everyone may have about this, the possibilities of human cloning are undeniably useful. Furthermore, nothing else can quite give us what cloning can.






LKY believes that immigrants will save our population. Unfortunately he is right. It won't help Singaporeans, but it will help Singapore.

It takes roughly three generations for immigrants to become real natives. That's about 70-80 years.





Apparently those beeps you hear from your computer when it boots up are error codes!! OMG! Why doesn't anyone mention this???

For American Megatrends Inc BIOS, the 3 beeps I've been hearing ever since I got it back means "Base 64k memory failure".

The reason for this differs among the various websites. Mainly they point to either the RAM or the motherboard.

Both can possibly cause the auto-shutdown problem.

I'd very much prefer that the RAM is at fault but it's not like I have a choice.





Happened again at around 12pm. This time I had learnt how to remove RAM from a Youtube video and pulled out both just to take a look. One of them was somehow dusty in the middle. Cleaned both and put them back in again.

I know it's unlikely but I hope it doesn't happen again.







...But it did. 3pm. So I decided to fiddle with the RAM sticks. Pulled out the left one. Pressed the Power button. Fans spun... only for a second. Nothing happened after that.

Removed the other stick, placed it in the left slot.

Same thing happened.

... OMG DID I JUST FIND OUT THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM?!?!?

Replaced that stick with the first one that I removed.

Same thing happened.

Oh shit.

Placed the second stick inside.

Same thing happened yet again.

Switch the 2 sticks.

Nope.

Oh fuck!

So I brought it to Sim Lim Square yet again. One of the techs recognized me but it was the other guy I remember seeing from long ago who attended to my computer.

He switched the wires for the Power and Reset button and told me to wait for a while because it happened at random.

After 10mins of walking and window shopping, I went back and told him to forget it. One thing led to another and when I described the problem again. Initially I told him it had been shutting down as if "someone pulled out the wire". This time I told him it was as if "there was a blackout". For some reason, that meant a different thing to him.

It still wasn't the PSU or mobo. This was because he assured me that they sent both for servicing and got back brand new ones. So yes, I have a brand new mobo and PSU in my PC. Which means it is highly unlikely that they are the causes.

So he told me it was a static problem and proceeded to show me which connector to pull out and plug back in when it happens. It's the really long one that goes into the mobo and is connected to lots of very colourful wires (orange, yellow, red and etc).

And when I brought it back home and switched it on, there was NO BEEP!

It's now back to its original state, for reasons I probably will never understand. For now, I don't really care. Why pay any attention to things that don't need fixing?






Some of the jobs on Mturk are really easy! After lurking around for a while on the website, I find that there are, once in a while, jobs that are incredibly easy and yet pays more than others.

For example, there is one where the guy asks people to register on some Beeconomics-like website called nomoreracks.com using a certain link. I believe it was his referral link. After checking out the site, I learnt that it is offering $5 per friend invited plus free gifts when the invited friends reach certain numbers.

I didn't care about the site because the first thing I checked was its shipping policies, and the page said it only ships in the US. But with my 20 alternate emails, I don't mind using 1 to make US$3. It's such easy money.

As for the rest of the time, Patrician 4 is a great game to multitask with. I have it on together with Lockerz and Mturk. I've long given up on getting anything from Lockerz but I've nothing to lose by playing the videos.

I'm not actually recommending the site. After all, I can't get actual cash from it.







7.55pm. Fuck. It shut down again! Did the thing with the connectors. It didn't magically restart itself.

I'm getting close to buying a new computer.







We lack security on the Internet. That's obvious. Global chaos? Maybe not. But something big will happen someday because websites aren't protected enough. It's not a possibility; it's an eventuality. Big things have happened because people thought certain things couldn't happen. Dams have collapsed. Nuclear reactors have melted down. Planes have flown into skyscrapers. Even before WW2, people thought that war was impossible given what had happened during the Great War.

What these mean is that some lessons people can only learn the hard way. And given enough time, they will get the opportunity to learn.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Rant 705 / Waxy

It happened again. The computer had shut down like its power cable was suddenly pulled out, except the power LED was still blinking.

Right now it seems fine. Temperatures most definitely not the problem.

If it's power, then it may be because of my external hard disks... or not because I had the 3.5" one left on for the entire day yesterday and nothing happened.

Motherboard?

Either way, I really don't want to think about it anymore.







Finished Arcania: Gothic 4. Not as good as I expected after reading so much about how great it was going to be.

It's not about bugs. There were amazingly few bugs that bugged me. Actually, there was only one. In the catacombs under the Thorniara cemetary, there was an item inside one of the bookshelf. I knew it was there only because of the glowing butterflies fluttering around the bookshelf. After 5 mins of walking and jumping around it, I still couldn't get whatever was inside.

The second bug I found (not in chronological order) was a Gold Ore Lode that couldn't be opened until I was above it, which I eventually got to after some random jumps.

The last bug was at the beach where I had to wipe out the undead and there was a false Innos priest at the far end. What happened was that some of the undeads died in the water and the invisible wall stopped me from looting the corpses.

Most of the bugs occur in the later part of the game, which makes sense. They might have begun to run out of steam after testing half the game so thoroughly and players who get annoyed by these minor bugs so close to the end would not be stopped by them.

Also, it was surprisingly linear for a western RPG. No option to be bad, few skills and few options in how I can complete quests.








ME2 got so easy suddenly. I had completely forgotten about getting a new weapon option during one part of the game. After getting the sniper rifle, everything became easy mode again.

This is why I should not play a game twice simultaneously. I need time to forget and be surprised again. A game with no surprise is very boring.







When the average guy takes MC, only his boss notices. When Steve Jobs takes MC, HEADLINES.







8pm. No PC problem so far. Does the auto-shutdown problem only occur in the morning? Why? Is morning dew forming in the PSU or something?







Now that I've made some money on Mturk, I took some time to look at the shipping rates of Amazon. The money from Mturk can only be spent at Amazon.com for everyone not in the US or India. For some reason Indian workers can get cash. They probably have a big subsidiary there or something.

Anyway I don't think the money can be used on shipping fees but I'm not sure. At any rate, just the shipping charges alone is very expensive. US$5 per shipment plus US$5 per item. US$5 is roughly S$6.50, and that's just for the cheapest and slowest method. So if I order just one book, it's the price of the book plus S$13, and it doesn't get much cheaper if I order more.

Furthermore, I can't get anything from Amazon other than books and DVDs (ie games). Well, at least I can get games. Books I can get from Opentrolley. There are other stuff they can deliver outside the US but I'm not interested in those.





9.06pm. Auto-shutdown. Again. Why?

Monday 17 January 2011

Rant 704 / Pyre

Today's weather is probably the best in a very long time. Cool breeze since yesterday evening, cool afternoon interrupted by a quick but heavy rain. Since then, a cool easterly wind has been blowing through my room.

Which, of course, means it's coming from my bathroom and out of my room's window.

Though it sounds nasty, it really isn't. This is one major reason why I maintain the cleanliness of my bathroom regularly. If there was even a trace of piss, the wind would not have been pleasant at all no matter the temperature.

Despite my efforts, things aren't completely perfect. For example, I well aware of the times my neighbours have diarrhoea during the day. Shit happens.







With the recent focus on dropping birth rates among Singaporeans in the news, it made me think of how the people with lower income do not avoid having children because of rising costs.

Is it because they're too stupid to think about it?

Is it because the better educated women worry too much about money?

Are people with higher income more reluctant to sacrifice part of their lifestyle in order to spend more on children?

Are the people with higher income just poorer?

I'm sure a lot of people have read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Among the various vague concepts it teaches is one I'm not sure if a lot of people understand.

People with higher income are not necessarily wealthier, mainly because they also want to spend more. What makes people wealthier, or at least one of the factors, is the difference between one's income and expenditure.

Then if we throw in the concept of "future expectations", it gets even worse. Obviously, when you make more, you expect to make even more in the future. When you do that, you'd plan on what to spend the extra money on. Expectations.

Except I don't think a lot of people put the idea of "children" into the equation when they do that. Either they accidentally omitted that or they plain ignored that. More likely the latter.

So here is the deeper layer of the problem. It's kind of like having pets. They're cute and all, but someone has to pick up their shit, clean them, change the water, clean the bed or tank, take them to the vet and etc.

When they don't want to have children and not because they had forgotten about that in their long term plans, it means they see having children as a negative thing, something to avoid, just like work except it's fifty thousand times worse and doesn't get them paid.

This is the real problem people should be looking at. Money is superficial, an excuse. The perception of what it takes to raise a child is the root. People don't do things when they think it is not worth the effort. In this case, the "thing" is having kids.

As long as this psychological issue is not resolved, the birth rates among those who think more and plan further ahead will continue to drop.

The rich shrinks. The middle class rises up to fill the vacuum. Then the poor rises to fill the gap in the middle class.

Even though we're about to have 7 billion people on Earth this year, the world does not have an infinite supply of poorly educated people ready to migrate to wherever they're needed. Most developed countries have the same problem of dropping birth rates among the better educated and a working solution is nowhere in sight. Someday, something drastic will have to be done.

IMO, it's going to be some kind of human farm/orphanage, where kids are born from surrogate mothers and taken care of by the government till they're adults. Then there's also the alternative, which is to make it a law for women to have children, kinda like conscription. I have difficulty judging which is worse. Heck, maybe both will happen.

Rant 703 / Graphics Card Crashed Only Once Since The Repair. Once, But It Did Happen.

It kept bugging me yesterday how it's strange that random problems persist only for a morning. Yesterday's auto-shutdown issue was not the first time problems kept happening for a while and vanished later for no reason.


Why do computers have this sort of temporary problems? It's not like they can regenerate like cells. How did this problem solve itself yesterday without doing anything?

It makes no sense.

I think it's problems like this in life that makes adults less curious than children.

Children, having never encountered anything like this, naturally form this notion that nothing in the world can't be solved. Everything must have an answer.

As they grow up, they start to see things like what I just went through and find that the answer is not worth the effort, so they gradually develop this unconscious habit of ignoring such things. Eventually they call it "a lack of curiosity". I think it's just an adapted behaviour that improves the overall cost-effectiveness of their actions in life.

Imagine if I were to read up on how to open up and test the PSU and mobo with my average IQ, I'd be spending days here with a headache. Eventually I may or may not understand why the problem existed and why it disappeared without my help. Finally I'll have to put everything back or spend money buying replacements.







All news seem to be not good. News are usually either bad or not good. On the few occasions they're good, they don't seem to make anyone smile.

For example, when a person reads about how someone died in a tragic accident, he/she can get quite unhappy for a short while. Yet when he/she reads about how someone won a prize or when the country is ranked high up some prestigious lists, the positive reaction is usually not of the same magnitude.

Therefore, reading the news can only make a person less happy overall.

Ignorance is bliss?







Seems like Idra is going to play against Jinro again. Are the Koreans trying to avoid matches between the Korean players and the foreigners?








Arcania: Gothic 4 took a long time to get interesting, just like Divinity 2. But now I've maxed out the skill that gives unlimited blows (used to need to stop for a break after every 6 blows or so with my weapon), I don't know what else to to put my skill points in. Also maxed out the Lightning magic skill. So I'm putting the points in the first skill called Mettle if I'm not wrong.







My bro's gf is drinking Twining's Earl Grey now. Saw a discarded packet in the trash. My bro doesn't drink anything and my mum only sticks to her blend of jasmine and Tie Guan Ying. That only leaves her.

I tried Twinings tea some time ago, and may have mentioned it here. If I were to buy Twinings, I'd choose either Earl Grey or English Breakfast Tea.

But I don't. Lipton Yellow Label is just cheaper. IMO the more expensive tea needs to be enjoyed leisurely in the morning when it's still cool. Obviously, I'd have little desire to appreciate the delicate aroma of hot tea in the frickin burning heat of the afternoon sun.

Just to make things clear, I have nothing against Lipton Yellow Label. In fact I've been buying their 100-packet boxes since about a year ago. Big fan here.

But it is cheap enough that I don't feel guilty for not tasting every mouthful. When it's more expensive, it just gives me the impression that more work has gone into cultivating the leaves and processing them into teabags. Plus I used to get it for free during NS, so it reinforced the idea in me that Lipton teabags can be wasted. Hence I don't find anything wrong with dumping a fresh Lipton teabag in a mug of tap water every morning and drinking diluted tea every day. It's just one step above drinking tap water to me.

It's not like I don't care about the aroma. I do. In every 100-packet box the teabags are lined into rows. Whenever I get a box, I place one row into a ziplock bag, squeeze out as much air as I can, roll it tightly and zipping it up. Right now I have 2 of such bags and another 2 rows inside the box, which is also in a ziplock bag that's been folded tightly to keep air from getting sucked back in. All these are in my cupboard.

Then there's yet another bag that's kept in a microwave-safe plastic container. So every day I have to open both the box and the bag to get a teabag. Yes, I do care about the teabags.

Actually my main concern is that I may stop using it for a while, which I've done before. If I don't seal everything up properly, the teabags may smell different by the time I use them again. It's happened before, but fortunately it was only like 20 teabags. They weren't mouldy, just different. Exposed to the air for too long. Happens to everything dehydrated, rice, tea leaves, etc.

EDIT: Earl Grey is NOT a brand! Earl Grey is a kind of tea made with orange peel oil!

Saturday 15 January 2011

Rant 702 / H4X

Secret Asian Man!









Someone in Empires voiced his suspicion to me that a certain player was wallhacking, so I stayed up much longer than before to watch that player and record 5 games from his point of view.

The first game was fruitless because everything he did could be explained. However in the next 4 games there were 7 instances that I thought were evidences of a wallhack. During these 7 times he either appeared to watch someone through walls or killed someone he couldn't have seen.

So I downloaded Dropbox, zipped the 4 files (aka "demos") and placed the 30MB zip file in the Public Folder.

Next I completed the player report post in the server's forum and posted it together with the link to the file.

The reason I didn't just ban him was because

1) I've never seen anyone wallhack before, hence I might have been mistaken. Stranger, more inexplicable things have happened.

2) My admin level is too low to give permabans.

So it's 11.30pm right now. If it stays this way, it will be great. This is within the optimal time period for my sleep to begin for the rest of the semester.




Anyway Dropbox is pretty cool. With a free account, I can have 2GB of space in which I can place any file and with the proper link only I can give, these files can be retrieved even by people who don't have the Dropbox client and when I'm offline.

How does it work?

Rant 701 / If You Think Your Life Sucks, At Least The Thing/Person You Spend The Most Time With Isn't Having Major Issues

Alicafe Classic tastes like those Kopiko coffee candies. It's practically the liquid version of it. I think it's because there's too much creamer.








I'm not sure if the $75 is worth it. Maybe it is for those who shop at Lockerz since they earn PTZ from purchases but not for me.








YET ANOTHER PC PROBLEM!!

So this morning (15 Jan, Sat) I woke up at around 5am. Switched on the computer, did regularly checks (email, forums, etc). Then at around 6am I got to the kitchen to prepare to make fried rice with eggs and luncheon meat.

Beated 3 eggs, added garlic salt and black pepper. Diced half a can of luncheon meat. Then recalled that when I cook it's going to be very noisy. It was 6.30 when I was ready to start the stove. Too early, didn't want to wake up my whole family.

So I got back to my computer. It appeared to be switched off. Weird. I didn't remember any power-saving options that I picked that had anything to do with switching off the CPU in 30mins.

Then I noticed the Numlock LED was still glowing. What was happening? Crash again? Oh shit...

So I tried random keys. No response.

Looked at the power button. The power LED light was blinking once every second.

Never seen that before.

So I pressed the power button.

Nothing.

Reset button.

Nothing.

WHAT WAS HAPPENING???

Switched off the electric outlet and on again.

Restarted computer. Everything loaded normally.

Just when I was about to open Firefox, the computer just... shutdown as if we were having a blackout. It just stopped.

But the Numlock was still on and the power light was blinking.

WHAT WAS HAPPENING?!?

Four more times I rebooted as before.

Once it crashed while Windows was loading, once in the BIOS menu, once in Windows and once while I was risking the computer by googling for help.

So I got pissed and took out my laptop.

Google results point to problems involving the motherboard, PSU and drivers, mainly the first two.

There was nothing I could do about anything since it just switches off randomly.

By the time I was satisfied I couldn't get anymore out of Google, it was about 9am.

So I got out to wait for the housekeeper. Left the computers off.

11am. Got back in, now the PC seems fine. Consciously clicking on "Save" every several lines now. Speedfan is also on in case something was overheating. As of now, 11.16am, the highest temperature I see is only 64 degrees Celsius. AFAIK too high means above 85.

If it crashes again, which I REALLY hope won't happen, I'm lugging it back to Fuwell. Meanwhile my mum is nagging me to buy a new computer. If I get into the habit of buying new PCs every 2 years or less, I don't think I will be able to survive in the future when we don't have her income.

How much it costs to bring it over for repairs, or "troubleshoot" as they call it:

$30 fee.

$25 2-way cab fare.

Total: $55-$80 depending on how long they take. If it isn't serious, they can fix it on the same day, so that's $55. If it's serious like the mobo problem last week, $80.

20mins since I switched it on. Actually 25. Hasn't crashed yet. This is the longest time since the first crash this morning.

Almost forgot to mention that the previous problems are gone. Yesterday was completely crash-free.

Friday 14 January 2011

Rant 700 / Vampiric Sorcerers

Since I always type the rant number in the title before anything else, I'm going to say here on the first paragraph that I'm surprised it's the 700th already.

Furthermore, the fact that I'm not making a living out of writing after churning out 700 pages of trash in 4 years is proof that a prolific writer does not a good writer make.

Or is it the other way round?

But if I'd wanted to make money by producing literary crap, I'd be typing about sparkly vampire wizards who stalk naive little girls in a school of magic instead.







This morning after I woke up the first thing I did was open my PC and pushed the connectors really hard, especially those that have to do with the hard disk which is my prime suspect.

It's now 3 hours since I switched on the computer and everything is working perfectly fine. Hope this continues indefinitely.

...

22 hours now. Not a single crash! If this goes on it's going to be even better than before. In the past my video card used to crash almost everyday, so if it doesn't anymore, then maybe it was because the card wasn't pushed in properly.







Did some work at mturk.com just now. If they all get accepted I should have made $5 for half an hour of clicking and pressing buttons. The best-paying jobs were probably those psychological tests in which they ask you simple questions like "Would you want a)$5 now or b) $10 in 3 days?". For spending like 20mins answering mind-numbing questions like this, they pay about US$0.50-$1. Too bad they only allow each person to do it once.

Specifically avoided anything that required typing a lot of words even though they usually pay more. For example they could ask you to write a review on a detergent and would pay you a few dollars for it. Not bad but I didn't feel like doing too much thinking.

Been having a headache due to eye fatigue. Probably has to do with my sleep schedule since this came all of a sudden instead of being a gradual thing, the latter being a sign that I need new glasses. Keep needing to close my eyes to rest but didn't dare to lie on the bed. The last time I did that was a few days ago. Fell asleep in minutes. That was at 4pm. Nope, can't risk that. Waking up at 12am may be nice (I like the cooler temperature and tranquillity of the night) but I'm going to have classes in a few weeks' time.

The best was probably the job in which I just pick all the photos that had to do with the concept of "granddaughter". They gave me like 100 pictures and I just looked through them and clicked on every photo that had an old person and a very young girl together. Only $0.07 for that but seriously, I could do it forever. Sieving through crap images to find good ones is something one eventually gets good at if one browses 4chan often enough. Of course if one browses deviantart the effect would be even stronger since it's got even more bad pictures.



AFAIK that's where all the amateur artists go to display their works.









A wireless video card now exists! Unfortunately it still looks like you have to stick it into the motherboard.

But you get to skip that cable that goes to your monitor. Less cables means less mess and you have one less restriction on how to position your computer.

Realistically speaking, wouldn't there be lag or worse... interference?

Now if you have a wireless sound card/speakers, and a wireless mouse/keyboard set, you'll be able to place your computer outside your room, thereby solving the uncomfortable heat problem for those who live in the tropical zone like me.







When I ask anyone what they want, I fucking hate it when they reply," Anything" when the truth is that there are several things that they dislike.

Why do so many people assume I can read minds?

Thursday 13 January 2011

Rant 699 / Blue Spice Of Dune

I got 3 BSODs this morning together with lots of crashes involving Firefox, Adobe Flash Player, Avira Antivirus and etc. I had no idea what was happening since yesterday it was almost perfectly fine other than the single BSOD.

I really don't want to lug my PC back to Fuwell again but I will when I get annoyed enough like the last time.

After those crashes I went to bed for a while. For some reason I felt really sleepy at around 7.30am after waking up at 5. Went to bed last night at 8pm.

Anyway I got back up at 11am, decided to open it up and start pushing all the plugs or whatever they're called. Maybe the technicians didn't connect everything properly.

Now it seems normal again. No crashes. Another suspect was the hard disk. Maybe it was damaged during the entire process of bringing it there, getting repaired and bringing it back. There were a few bumps along the way both in the car and on my way to the road from my void deck. Who knows? If it crashes again like it did this morning, I'll do a disk scan.





Also made some mushroom and chicken cream soup using canned soup plus chicken breasts for me and my bro this morning. Removed the skin and diced the meat. I used cream of mushroom for myself and thought it might not taste so good. But there's fresh chicken in it, so how bad could it be right?

So I threw the skin into the soup before it boiled together with the canned soup. Stirred till everything is boiling and properly dissolved before adding the chicken. 2 breasts worth of diced meat. Then I threw in 1 pinch of salt just because I'm cool like that.

Stirred till it boiled and stopped the fire.

It actually tasted epic. I was surprised. I think the fatty taste of the skin and fats of the chicken dramatically improved the soup. Didn't have chicken in the canned soup so it all came from the meat I added. Most of the it was also not overcooked. I should do this again.






Part of Brisbane was evacuated due to flood. Mr Global Warming is getting pretty serious. I think we should all start to learn to swim... or build canoes.








I'm pretty sure Lockerz is being raided or something. Almost everything in the 24/7 auction page has either hit 16k PTZ or is very close to doing so. Or else, why 16k?

Ok it seems to have ended. Everything that became available for bids 9 hours or more ago are now at around 16k PTZ while everything that came out later isn't. I hope actual people with a lot of PTZ bidded for those items to compete with those bullshit bids so that us normal people with only 10k PTZ can actually get something.







BSOD again. The error in the last one was "BAD_POOL_CALLER". According to google results that may be a driver problem.

The motherboard seems to be different now. Beeps during booting when it used to be completely silent, so they may have given me a motherboard that isn't compatible with the other components.

What do? I'm very sick of PC problems now.

Furthermore, Firefox keeps crashing, especially its plugin manager or something. Not particularly irritating since I can restore all tabs but it might become that eventually.





Found a Flash movie that actually is good. Basically, the creator found some random review of some random Flash game on Newgrounds, got someone to read it and made a movie out of the voice track. The result was epic. Somehow he combined the art of font animation (or whatever it's called) and the use of properly-timed music to create a very dramatic movie.

I rarely mention anything from Newgrounds, but this is one movie I dare call a masterpiece of Flash animation.









IMO the best was the robot dinasaur. It took me a several rewinds to see how it was done. Once I could finally see it as it really is, the head just stopped turning.








Watched last evenings' games on Gom. The earlier Code A games were so bad, I'm sure even noobs will question many of  the decisions made by the players in the games. In fact it felt like they would belong in the Stone League more than the Diamond. Heck, et3000 would have won if it was a 3-player FFA. Half the time I was asking, "WHY?!? Why is he doing that?!?"

The games later were much better, especially when Jinro played against Ensnare. Longest game ever. 47 minutes. Ensnare probably got impatient or tired near the end and made some mistakes, leading to his loss of his armies.

In the game between Jinro and Idra, I actually thought Jinro had lost at one point when most of his units were wiped. Fortunately he was able to minimise his losses by staying calm, and recovered quickly before beating Idra.

The one thing I noticed is that the SQ stream on Gom is actually smooth now, for the most parts.






Deleting Avira. Its scans keep getting in conflict with NOD32. For example, NOD32 always thinks that certain files Avira creates during a system scan is a virus. Since I have to choose one, I'm picking the one that technically requires a paid subscription.

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Rant 698 / Rosemary Lamb

For some reason I'm excited about Homefront. Why?








So I've finally got my PC back. Got a BSOD soon after booting but it seems fine now.

Without the shortcut in my laptop's browser to remind me of this, I've completely forgotten about my stocks in the Investopedia stock simulation.

And look at what I found!


I'm definitely selling my Nvidia and Sears stocks tonight. 3k! I don't know what to do with the Baidu stocks though. Petrochina has risen to somewhat decent levels but Baidu is just sinking like a rock.

So by tonight I will have made 3k USD. How long have I been in the game? Hmm... According to the Trade History page I bought my first stocks on the 12th of November. Nov to Dec, Dec to Jan. 3k in 2 months. 1.5k per month average using 100k as capital. 1.5% return per month. I don't think I should be proud of these numbers.

Still, profits are profits. Too bad this isn't real though.

EDIT: Ok I was retarded. The game has already ended. Forgot about the game title.








Today after telling my mum about my leftover herbs (had like 4 stalks of rosemary left) she used it to stir fry with pork.

Now I totally recognize the smell. I think it has to do with it mixing with fats or oil or something.

It smells like the lamb chops from one of the closed-and-gone good western food stalls in one of the kopitiams in the neighbourhood.

So they used it for LAMB CHOPS!

I asked my bro to confirm too. Unsurprisingly, he said he didn't know and all the food from the western food stalls taste the same. So all he confirmed was that he was gustatorily challenged, which I've already said before.

Monday 10 January 2011

Rant 697 / Games Of 2011

Heroes of Might and Magic... 6!



Developed by Black Hole Entertainment. Unless some of those 3DO guys are part of it, I think we'll see a pretty different game again, just like how HoMM4 was so different from the previous games in the series.





My guess appears to be wrong. This looks more similar to HoMM5 than I expected. But I find that I'm not very interested in the series anymore, probably because I suck at it.










Everybody in the EU seems to need a bailout after the US mortgage crisis.What's up with that?








Made the baked herbal chicken this morning. Marinated them in separate bowls for an hour, half the chicken in rosemary and half in sage. Chopped several leaves and stalks of each and use both the chopped herbs and whole leaves to marinate. One tiny pinch of salt each.

Baked the first batch in two separate aluminium foils for 25 mins, arranged neatly in a single layer, covered and sealed.

Result was that it was slightly too long and the edges of some of them were overcooked. Learnt that the last time I did it, I did not warm up the oven before placing them inside. Didn't mention it then so it's a guess but makes sense.

If the oven is warmed up, the optimal cooking time is between 20-25mins at 100 degrees Celsius. If not, 25mins.

Initially both rosemary and sage seemed to taste the same. Took the entire two batches to find the differences. Sage has a stronger smell while rosemary tasted kind of familiar and reminds me of soap.

After finishing the chickens I ate the leaves consecutively to compare. Rosemary is actually slightly minty but it can only be tasted when the leaves are eaten alone.

I think I may have mistaken rosemary for sage in the sausage in the Big Breakfast. I don't know.

EDIT: Rosemary = 迷 迭 香 [mídiéxiāng]








Here's a very useful list of upcoming games for the new year.


As usual, source unknown.








Accidentally missed the Code A games today because I was busy getting promoted to being a vassal from a mercenary captain in Warband.

Didn't miss the Code S games though.

TSL_Clide beat MarineKingPrime.WE at his own game. Both sides used almost purely Marines and Clide won. The irony is hard to miss.

The other matches between the Code S and Code A players weren't that interesting.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Rant 696 / Pizza Price Per Unit Area Comparison

Following the pizza thing in the previous rant, I decided to calculate the price per sq inch of different pizza sizes.


Since I was looking at Domino's, let's start there. Btw using pi = 3.1416 and rounding prices to 3dp.


Domino's


9" - $22.80 / 63.6174 sq in = $0.358/sq in
12" - $29.80 / 113.0976 sq in = $0.263/sq in
15" - $35.80 / 176.715 sq in = $0.203/sq in

*The only crust available for 15" is New York Crust.



Pizza Hut


Viva
10" - $18.50 / 78.54 sq in = $0.236/sq in
13" - $24.50 / 132.7326 sq in = $0.185/sq in


Pan
6" - $8.50 / 28.2744 sq in = $0.301/sq in
9" - $19.50 / 63.6174 sq in = $0.307/sq in
12" - $25.50 / 113.0976 sq in = $0.225/sq in



Canadian 2 For 1

Standard Pizza
10" - $23.90 / 2(78.54) sq in = $0.152/sq in
12" - $31.90 / 2(113.0976) sq in = $0.141/sq in
14" - $37.90 / 2(153.9384) sq in = $0.123/sq in


Super Value Pizza
10" - $21.90 / 2(78.54) sq in = $0.139/sq in
12" - $27.90 / 2(113.0976) sq in = $0.123/sq in
14" - $32.90 / 2(153.9384) sq in = $0.107/sq in






Oishi Pizza


2 pizzas
10" - $22.90 / 2(78.54) sq in = $0.146/sq in
12" - $29.90 / 2(113.0976) sq in = $0.132/sq in
14" - $35.90 / 2(153.9384) sq in = $0.117/sq in
*Surprisingly, Oishi actually beats Canadian in the 2-for-1 pizza contest unless you order Canadian's shitty Super Value Pizzas, which people order probably just for the sake of eating pizza.

Single pizzas
10" - $15.90 / 78.54 sq in = $0.202/sq in
12" - $21.90 / 113.0976 sq in = $0.194/sq in
14" - $25.90 / 153.9384 sq in = $0.168/sq in






Sarpino's

2-for-1 pizza
10" - $25 / 2(78.54) sq in = $0.159/sq in
12" - $30 / 2(113.0976) sq in = $0.133/sq in
14" - $35 / 2(153.9384) sq in = $0.114/sq in
*Even more surprisingly, Sarpino's 14" 2-for-1 pizzas are even cheaper than the previous champ, Oishi's. This is getting interesting.


Gourmet (single pizza)
*Every second Gourmet pizza is sold at roughly half price, hence I'm calculating the prices separately.
10" - $18.80 / 78.54 sq in = $0.239/sq in
12" - $23.80 / 113.0976 sq in = $0.210/sq in
14" - $28.80 / 153.9384 sq in = $0.187/sq in


Gourmet (2 pizzas)
10" - $(18.80 + 9.50) / 2(78.54) sq in = $0.180/sq in
12" - $(23.80 + 12) / 2(113.0976) sq in = $0.158/sq in
14" - $(28.80 + 14.50) / 2(153.9384) sq in = $0.141/sq in


Super Value 5 Cheese Pizza (2 pizzas)
*Doing this just to see if it offers something even cheaper, therefore I'll only calculate the price if you order two. Like Gourmet pizzas, every second pizza is at roughly half price.


10" - $(17.80 + 9) / 2(78.54) sq in = $0.171/sq in
12" - $(20.80 + 10.50) / 2(113.0976) sq in = $0.138/sq in
14" - $(23.80 + 13) / 2(153.9384) sq in = $0.120/sq in
*Yet again I am surprised. How is this not cheaper than Canadian's Super Value Pizzas??


Cheese Pizza (two pizzas)
*Found on the same page as the above, this better be the cheapest pizza of all because it's just a large cheese toast.



10" - $(14.80 + 7.50) / 2(78.54) sq in = $0.142/sq in
12" - $(17.80 + 9) / 2(113.0976) sq in = $0.118/sq in
14" - $(20.80 + 11) / 2(153.9384) sq in = $0.103/sq in




Rite Pizza
*Apparently they do 2-for-1 now too.


Chicken/Beef/Seafood (2-for-1)
10" - $23 / 2(78.54) sq in = $0.146/sq in
12" - $30.50 / 2(113.0976) sq in = $0.135/sq in
14" - $37 / 2(153.9384) sq in = $0.120/sq in

Rite Saver (2-for-1)
10" - $21 / 2(78.54) sq in = $0.134/sq in
12" - $27.50 / 2(113.0976) sq in = $0.122/sq in
14" - $32 / 2(153.9384) sq in = $0.104/sq in
*The 14" Rite Savers may be the cheapest non-plain pizzas in Singapore that isn't made in your own kitchen, but only because they have merely one topping each. You can probably get the same price if you add one topping to Sarpino's Cheese Pizzas.








Pizza de France
*This is in the list only because it offers 3-pizza deals.


Gourmet Table (Triple Treat)
10" - $34 / 3(78.54) sq in = $0.144/sq in
12" - $44 / 3(113.0976) sq in = $0.130/sq in
14" - $54 / 3(153.9384) sq in = $0.117/sq in
*At 14" it matches the price of Oishi's 2-for-1, which is the current reigning champion for the non-budget-pizza category.At both 10" and 12" it is the cheapest in the same category.

Classic Table (Triple Treat)
10" - $30 / 3(78.54) sq in = $0.127/sq in
12" - $41 / 3(113.0976) sq in = $0.121/sq in
14" - $49 / 3(153.9384) sq in = $0.106/sq in
*This menu includes the plain cheese toast, though called "Mozza Classic" here. 








I don't know if I missed any but I think I'm done here.


I'll end this with the conclusion that if you are not on a seriously tight budget, the best value for money can be found in Oishi's menu and Pizza de France's Gourmet Table. In the case that you are on a seriously tight budget, why the heck are you ordering pizza??














The bak kut teh was exceptionally bland. I used the packet of spices I bought in Malacca during the BC trip but my mum refused to follow the instructions. Instead, we used exactly half the spices. In the end she added a cube of fish stock (it's the same as chicken stock anyway) but the taste only improved slightly.


Fortunately due to my still screwed up sleep schedule I just went to bed soon after, before I had to force myself to consume an entire bowl of it.


Now it's 3am and I'm simmering it for 30mins to reduce the soup. Hopefully the slightly thicker version would have a stronger flavour.


EDIT: Yes it was better after I reduced it by about 20% in height, which is a lot if you take into account the amount of solids in the soup.















"Let's" and "lets". They are different.


Let's do it.


He lets the dog in.


The above are correct. The following is wrong.


Lets do it.


I think this explanation is clear and concise enough.

Saturday 8 January 2011

Rant 695 / Global Cheese League

The Kinect sold 8 million units in 60 days. That's an average rate of 103k units per day. It means they're definitely going to make a Kinect 2 someday and expand on this market in the meantime.

It is now likely that the computers in Minority Report will become reality in our lifetime. We're so close!













Today while waiting for my room to be cleaned I was forced to watch Jamie Oliver make gravlax. Was actually watching some Chinese documentary about a group of Japanese supporters who were declared Japanese spies by the Manchurians during the Pre-WWII days.

From a practical point of view, I'd say it was completely logical to want to emulate the Japanese back then. In the final years of the Qing, China was a pretty fucked up place. On the other hand, the Japanese were wealthy, powerful and most importantly, free of European colonies.

Then my bro came out with his gf because his room was also being cleaned and he probably wanted to keep his gf happy or something, so he took the remote and did some channel surfing. Usually he doesn't care what was on TV during the wait.

Anyway, let me go back to the gravlax. The two times I made it, I used only dill, salmon and salt. Lots of salt and just enough dill to cover the entire piece of salmon. This guy, however, also used beetroot, lemon and schnapps.

I'm not sure if I can find beetroot, so if I ever see it I may try it. Then again, I don't really like dill. Just not used to the taste.








Just when I got some fresh rosemary and chicken breasts, I receive this new flyer from PizzaHut promoting their new Rosemary Chicken pizza.

Coincidence? Or are they spying on me?








Recently I came across this rather interesting product. I've seen wrist support for use with the computer mouse but I didn't think they can also come with a mousepad attached.

Now they do, plus something extra.




Kinky.

There's also one with Rangiku and another for Nel.




It's kinda strange though that Orihime is missing.

I'm nowhere close to wanting to buy any of these. I don't like having things that would constantly distract me. Learnt that from back when I had the following pics as my wallpaper (not simultaneously).



And those mousepads cost US$28. Cheap for a pair of fake tits, expensive for a mousepad. I'm still using the C&C Generals mousepad that came with the game that I bought when it first came out. Last time I bought any game soon after release.

Back then, I didn't even know what it was and had never even heard of a "mousepad" before. Simply pasted it on a random spot like a mini-poster and forgot about it till years later when I needed a mousepad.







Some of the deals on Beeconomics are actually quite interesting, especially those for restaurants like the one being displayed there right now.

50% discount for anything only on weekdays at Platypus. I have no idea if the restaurant is good and I don't know any reviewers I can trust. Too bad by the time I get replies from all the BC members it will have ended, so there's no point for me in asking by SMS.

From what I can tell an average meal cost around S$20-30 there, so with the coupons it will be roughly $10-15 each.

The coupons are good for 3 months, so it may be possible to use it during the coming CNY in Feb. On the other hand, there may be even more interesting deals in the near future.

21 hours remaining.






Deathspank! Nothing much to talk about really. It's the same kind of game as Diablo but with humour. In the game, the player is Deathspank, a stereotypical brawny yet brainless hero with a stereotypical heroic voice.

This game is actually quite similar to The Bard's Tale but funny in a dumber way. Not that I mind. If I wanted to think I'd play RTS games instead.

Speaking of RTS I've been missing all the games of the current GSL season due to a very screwed up sleep schedule. Quite disappointed in missing all those great matches but atm I'm more concerned with my body clock.

I managed to keep myself awake yesterday long enough to watch the games between July and some noob though.

There was so much cheese in the first two games of that match (and the beginning of the third), they could have called it Global Cheese League instead!

Why so cheese?

Although it was quite interesting to see a hidden Baneling Nest, of all things. Who would have thought you could hide structures as a Zerg player?








Was ordering Pizza when I noticed something I didn't think of before.

Two 12" pizzas are smaller than a 9" pizza plus a 15" pizza.

Looks the same right? The 15" pizza should offset the smallness of the 9" pizza, right?

Do the math and you'll see the difference.

Significant difference. 4.5pi to be exact. Or 14 sq inch. Or 91 sq cm. That's like 3*30cm.

This makes the current Dominos coupons very stupid. Or at least 1 of them. To be more specific, it's the one in which you pay S$40 for two 12" pizzas with extra cheese. Code PP52. Nobody cares about extra cheese.

On the other hand, I could use the one in which I pay an extra $3 for a 9" pizza when I buy another pizza at ala carte price. If I buy a 15" pizza at $35.80 and use this coupon, I'd get both pizzas for $1 less than the above. Why the heck would I use PP52? For the extra cheese?

Anyway we didn't order pizza in the end. Made bak kut teh instead.