Archived News starting from 09-14-2006 and earlier
BlogTuesday at my company's
all company meeting I was tasked with shooting rolled t-shirts from the
Fox theatre stage with a three person slingshot (the mouse in the
article is the corporate mascot for the
application I launched). The slingshot team consisted of me,
Duane and Dan, and while we waited backstage we had an opportunity to see all the
signatures in the green room. Today we had a group photo at
Northville Downs in the middle of the field. I still don't know how horses and information technology relate, but standing in the middle of a horse racing field I realized I would never have predicted myself being in either location. Needless to say I made appropriate obnoxious gestures at opportune moments in both locations.
After eyeing the
Xbox Media Center conversion for a few months now, I got all the required hardware for about $20 off ebay. The final push came from Lisa when I couldn't explain why the
Xbox Media Center Extender couldn't display photos from my network share (it can only extend photos on the media center hard drive). Add to that the fact that the retail xbox can't play DiVX or any other useful format excpet DVD and MP3 and you can see why it becomes a "need" rather than a "want." My hackable game choice was "007: Agent Under Fire" since the MechAssault game has 4 different versions out, only one of which is hackable. After loading the save game from the Action Replay memory card in my 007 game the xbox blinked and a typical l33t h@x0r screen appeared. A hack this easy that doesn't require any hardware modifications always feels great. I quickly used the l33t h@x0r screen to back up the EEPROM and MSLOAD and replace them with the hacked versions. After rebooting the xbox I was greeted with FTP settings that allowed me to copy the media center software over the network. 20 minutes later I rebooted a second time and was greeted with my new
Xbox Media Center Experience. I can even play the recorded TV .DVR-MS files on my media center via a file share. Now Lisa can enjoy DiVX, photos, music and emulated games on either television, which is why I did the hack. Not because I'm an obsessive techno nerd that can't leave well enough alone.
Yesterday I got a call from
American Express asking if I authorized a $1 charge to my card. Typically I get these calls and remember making the charge, but this time it was a mystery. I hung up, called back, and requested a replacement card. Today I received another call asking about a $1,000 charge from WalMart.com. I explained I had already cancelled the card and they assured me it was, but apparently they leave it open for more fraudulent charge attempts. After confirming it wasn't me making the charge, they hung up and probably activated their FraudFinder nanobot to seek out and give cancer to the person who stole my card information. Being a cheap bastard, I'm sure they got it from any number of shady websites I buy from in search of a good deal. Fortunately it was caught before I was in a position to fight an uphill battle. I checked my account and found another charge after the WalMart one, so apparently whoever got the info went on a charging spree after the $1 went through. If you get a fraudulent usage call from your credit card company, thank them for me, and ask them not to activate the nanobot if they suspect me.br />
My dream of mega-fast storage for my
primary machine was
realized not too long ago. It was so fast, I had to
upgrade my CPU to keep up with it. I was confident my storage speed was cutting edge until I installed a
Seagate Barracuda drive into my
media machine today. I of course immediately ran a
benchmark comparison and discovered the single new drive had a higher burst speed than my dual-drive RAID.
This was not surprising since the new drive was SATA/300 vs. the SATA/150
WD Raptor drives in my RAID, so the bus capacity between processor and the new drive was double that between processor and my RAID drives. For burst speeds at least, 7,200RPM really is faster than 10,000RPM if it's stuck on a SATA/150 short bus. However, since I don't access files sequentially on my hard drive, the higher random access should net me better real-world performance. Interpreting the results this way also enables me to adjust reality back to the belief that my RAID is a mega-fast storage device unparalleled by any non-SCSI setups. The transitive property wins again!
Despite freezing weather and bouts of rain, my annual
camping trip in Ipperwash was a success. Two nights of intoxicated fun yielded such memories as the
search for the Gnome,
butter from a creamer,
suggestive photos, and
all
kinds
of
meat. This year was also the most attended with representatives from California, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois and Toronto. Unfortunately the weather prevented me from becoming as intoxicated as I'd have liked, but there's always next year.
This morning at 10:30am Lisa was on 8-Mile heading east on her way to work. Unbeknownst to her, a bank robber was tearing down Beech Daly trying to escape from the police. When the light went green and she entered the intersection of
8-Mile and Beech Daly she was greeted with a southbound white commercial van heading straight for her Jeep. She hit the gas to try and get out of the way but the van was going too fast and impacted the left rear door of her truck. She then either spun or was pushed into a pole that impacted her right rear door. By hitting the gas she placed both impacts in the rear doors of the truck rather than the driver and passenger doors, so she only received scrapes and bruises. As you can tell from the
photos, if she hadn't hit the gas she would have had much more serious injuries. The
news story said the robber then tried to carjack another vehicle but before he could the police caught up and captured him (that's Lisa on the stretcher in the news story). After initially driving to the wrong hospital, I finally found her and confirmed she was not critical. After an hour of sitting with her she was smiling and laughing again despite the pain killers she was on, which made me very happy. It boggles my mind to think of how many vehicles go through that intersection a day, and the chances of her Jeep being in that spot when the escape van comes through. She's currently recovering as her muscles and bruises heal up from the impact. Thanks to everyone who called or emailed, I passed your concerns on to her.
After the
Barn LAN, I decided I was done running a network cable from my computer room to my bedroom (for my Xbox Media Center Extender), and that it was time to wire it properly. As I've bitched about
many times before, my house is absolutely horrible to run wiring through. Feeling particularly inventive, I inspected the
joist space between my floors and discovered my bathroom shower access door was directly above an
access point, from which I could access the wall the Xbox was against. Having formulated a wiring route, I now needed a way to get the wire from the utility room to the access point. Short a wiring snake, and not entirely certain I could run the path with one anyways, I decided to enlist the help of my cat (
Sam), who could easily fit in the joist space. At the very least it would provide some entertainment. Enlisting the help of John and Roy (and the cat), we began by
calming him down to minimize his famous freakouts. Next we attached a
PETA approved
painters tape harness which easily broke free under moderate strain. After an initial attempt failed due to the harness breaking, the second attempt had Sam wandering in circles around the joists (as you can see from the
wire path) before my voice and the shaking treat can finally got his attention. Once he decided to head along the planned path, it was all John could do to keep the wire feeding freely around his initial loops for sufficient cable slack. Unbelievably, only 15 minutes into the experiment, Sam
arrived on the other end complaining loudly with the harness around his feet. He
successfully pulled the network cable 20 feet through the joists. I'm sure it's not the first time a cat has pulled cable, but it's a pretty rare event, and we definitely got a kick out of it. I
showed Sam what his work helped me do, but he was far more interested in the can of Tuna I gave him for a reward. You can thank (or blame) John for the "CAT" 5 pun (
Category 5 Cable is what my cat ran for me), it was all him.
The
Barn LAN finally happened today after several threats from
Matt prevented us from moving it to the typical basement location. Fortunately I had several long
power cords and
network cables to service the barn for the landmark event. We started off with the new
FEAR Combat, which was great (and totally free). After
Jeffords and Whiney joined, we had some good clean 4 on 4 FarCry sessions followed by some UT2K4.
Ron brought his new projector, which gave us all a great 62" view of his place in the game (until he decided that was a bad thing). Noticeably absent this event were
Mr. and Mrs. Stavos, Jaird,
Tigerbomb and
Hasselhoff; all of whom will be kidnapped and held indefinitely at the next event. Reflecting on the first LAN party in my barn, I have to say it went fairly well. Lugging the required equipment back and forth was inconvenient, but the increased area for bodily gas dispursion was worth it. The smokers also enjoyed non-stop smoking. Unfortunately as prime LAN season approaches, it will be cold enough to freeze nipples solid so it was probably the last one for the forseeable future. And now for the token
LAN Video from the
Gnome Cam.
Well it finally happened. I got my Google AdSense check and accomplished my
3 month old goal of getting one. I technically accomplished it 2 months ago, but the way
AdSense is setup, you have to wait almost a full 2 months before you get the actual check. Don't worry, I didn't forget the 3% of you that clicked on the Ads: as promised, here's a
scan of the check for you to print out, forge, and try to pass off as genuine. Just don't come crying to me when you get prosecuted for
uttering and publishing. Well you can, but I'll probably just laugh at you. Now to find something totally ridiculous to blow my earnings on.
With my latest
TV acquisition, video connection options have become a frequent conversation topic. Searching Google for a definitive listing, I quickly found
this glossary from Crutchfield, which covers an exhaustive number of connections for both video, audio and data. For those not nearly as interested in connections, I'll sum up the video part from worst quality to best:
- Composite video: lowest analog quality, basic yellow video input.
- S-video: "seperate" video, seperates color and brightness in analog signal. Marginally better than composite
- Component video: Splits the color signal into two portions and brightness into another. Big improvement over S-video.
- DVI (Digital Visual Interface): Transfer video signals in pure digital form, are encrypted with HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection). Two kinds of DVI connections: DVI-D is found on most home video gear, carries digital-only signals. DVI-I, used with some computer video cards, is capable of passing both digital and analog video signals.
- HDMI: Used for passing standard- and high-definition digital video signals, as well as multi-channel digital audio, through a single cable. Accommodates up to 5 Gbps bandwidth to simultaneously transfer pure digital video and audio signals without compression. Signal is also encrypted with HDCP.
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