AtomicInternet Archived News

Archived News starting from 07-16-2012 and earlier

The cancellation of the dyno at Cougarfest meant I had enough participants for the Enorym suggested trip to Centralia, PA. I had never heard of the place until Myrn mentioned it on our conference call on my way to Cougarfest. Intrigued, and motivated by the cancellation, I got overly excited and infected 4 other people to brave the trip. The city has an interesting history that lead it to the abandoned sinkhole it has become, but over time the exciting ruins have been overgrown so that now the only really exciting thing left is the abandoned stretch of highway covered in penis graphics by the local kids. I took two Photosynth murals and explored a bit, but nothing extraordinary stood out. The road alone was worth the trip.
Photosynth 1 | Photosynth 2

Another year, another Cougarfest. Surprisingly my 14 year old Cougar continues to survive despite it's best efforts otherwise. The trend of declining attendance continued this year with a total of 28 actual Cougars, but only 10 non-Cougars which means the 50% threshold has yet to occur. The smaller group meant we could all travel without endangering the public and fit in resturants reasonably well, yet we still managed to scare hotel security who couldn't figure out why anyone would want to sit in a parking lot and drink. Their response was to tell us to move further into the woods until we eventually passed out in the adjacent campground which became our starting point the following nights. I rode along on my first rally and had some good quality conversations instead of running around trying to talk to everyone thanks to the lower turnout.

The North Atlantic Oscillation is to blame for making my summer an unbearable heat wave, and I intend to sue it for incompetence. Every year it brings cooler air to keep the weather closer to the mid 70s but this year it's not doing it's job and I'm taking action! Join me in my class action lawsuit, only together can we bring change!

Last year Lila was only 5 months old for the July 4th celebration, but this year she was fully aware of her surroundings and ready for some $29.99 Wal-Mart grade entertainment. We started the day with a patriotic photo shoot, eventually convincing Lila her star glasses look better on her head. The evening consisted of Lila alternating between pulling Lisas hands off her ears and clapping at the fireworks while the constant mortar fire from the neighbors didn't really bother her until the very end of the night. While she won't be ready to upgrade to full on mortars and bottle rockets anytime soon, I can tell she'll probably become a pyromaniac.

On my way home today I passed an ambulance followed closely by two police cars and decided it was an odd caravan. About 3 blocks later I saw this and was informed by a few bystanders it was a police chase that ended with the corvette slamming into the building. While disappointed I missed the event, I'm also glad I wasn't between the building and the Corvette.

My last experiment with storage speed involved a single 60GB SSD which turned out to be slower than my last upgrade to the motherboard controller for my dual Velociraptor drives. Today I found a sweet enough deal to go dual SSDs using two Crucial M4 128GB drives and it handily blows away the velociraptors. The Windows 7 experience index is pegged at 7.9 (the highest it goes) for storage and everything I do so far is instant. I went from ~260 MB/s to over 500 MB/s sequential read while the burst hit almost 650 MB/s. At this point I'm fairly confident my limit is the on-board RAID controller but I've lost my desire to push something I rarely use anymore to the absolute limit. Is this me getting old, or is this a shift in technology to mobility and convienience over performance? I'm sure I'll read this in a few years and realize it's both.

Almost 2 months after my Focus ST initial order I finally received confirmation my order is ready to build. While there is no mention of when it will be built or when I can expect to take delivery I feel better having the confirmation. At this point even if I have it a few days before it snows I'll be happy, but hopefully sooner than that.

Lila and I decided to take a walk this evening; collecting rocks, dandelions, auto-parts and anything else that we found on the sidewalk. About halfway through the walk Lila stopped and decided to jump while saying "boom" repeatedly. I'm not sure if she was making a comment on our violent society or just had to poop, but the video makes me laugh every time I watch it.

With the first day of summer come and gone, it was high time Lila had a bonfire to enjoy despite the recent heat wave making it a ridiculous idea. She stayed fairly cautious around the actual fire, but didn't quite figure out ladder golf or cornhole. In both cases she figured out the basic throwing motion and made the effort so by next year I'm sure she'll be a pro at both.

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