So, I was sitting at my computer and someone on Twitter mentioned a Wordpress Upgrade. As I went to update this site, I noticed that someone hit an article I wrote 3 years ago today (well, yesterday now that it’s after midnight) about G4TechTV.

Well, it wasn’t all about that horrible, horrible TV station, and more about the awesomeness that was soon to become TWiT.  The TWiT network has expanded quite a bit to encompass a whole mess of different tech podcasts, quite a few that I listen to reguarily other than TWiT itself.

Anyway, just thought I’d wish a happy belated birthday to TWiT, and point out that I still have yet to watch more than 2 minutes of G4TechTV. I can get my Star Trek TOS fix on TVLand without the obnoxious chat.

Confidential blueprints for the widely controversial Freedom Tower which is set to be erected where the World Trade Center buildings once stood were found in a city garbage can by a homeless recovering drug addict. Usually when the words “homeless” and “recovering drug addict” are used together, it just means the guy doesn’t have enough cash to support his crack habit.

An article in the New York Post does the obvious and screams “OH MY GOD SOMEONE COULD USE THIS TO PLOT A TERRORIST ATTACK! FLEE! SCURRY! RUN AWAY!!”

A terrorist attack wasn’t the first thing that came to my mind when I read the article title, but leave it to the NYC press to try and induce fear in everyone.  I mean, I live in a small city in the Midwest, so this stuff isn’t right in my backyard, but honestly, I don’t need a

I’ve probably been hanging around Skyscraper City too much, but I’m far more interested in the plans themselves just to see how everything’s put together. While I don’t deny that there’s a potential threat here, It certainly isn’t the bowel-emptying fear that this article tries to make it out to be.

These schematics are available to quite a few people such as architects, contractors and PA officials. They’re also apparently quite a few revisions old.  I’m quite certain that someone with resources could get their grubby little paws on the plans if they really wanted to.

A highly overpaid “Security Expert” adds to the drama by stating “Any time a sensitive document is unintentionally left behind, it’s a treasure trove for a potential adversary.”

I should also point out that anyone with enough time, knowledge and money could wander through the building when it’s completed and gleam similar information.  Not to mention the thousand or so construction workers that will have far more accurate information about the building than a set of old plans.

Here’s the thing the press doesn’t seem to realize: Anyone with enough money, and enough resources can get their hands on any kind of information they want. The more people that have the information, the easier/cheaper it is to get. Security through obscurity has always been a horribly flawed approach with software, and it’s really no better with anything else.

Comedy Central, along with South Park creators Matt Stone & Trey Parker have put up every single episode of South Park for free on South Park Studios.  Apparently the creators are splitting ad revenue 50/50 with Comedy Central, and also plan on releasing other animated content they come up with on the site.

The site contains every episode of South park, interjected with 30 second interstatial commercials, as well as 3000 embeddable clips.  For instance, an upcoming South Park pays homage to the 1981 classic Heavy Metal

I think it’s time for me to start catching up on some of the episodes I’ve missed.

For the longest time, computers and computer related things have been my hobby.  Most recently building & tinkering with my HTPC has been an ongoing thing in my house, and now that it’s mostly complete (a good working setup that won’t need to be upgraded for quite awhile), It’s time to move on to something else. After all, I’ve made my hobby (computers) my job.

When I was 8 years old or so, I was given a small N-scale model train set. I played with it for hours on end, but all I had was some track, a controller, an engine and a few cars.  At such a young age I couldn’t really afford to expand my setup much, and N-scale stuff was hard to find and expensive.  However, what little money I was able to get from mowing lawns and doing chores was spent on extra track and extra cars. Eventually though, I moved on to other things, and took up playing with electronics.

I always had a soft spot in my heart for model train sets.  I lived very close to railroad tracks my entire life, and while big trains didn’t fascinate me like they do some people, when I got married and moved away, I definately missed them.  For the first few months I’d wake up in the middle of the night wondering what the sound was… then I realized it was the lack of a rumbling train, and it’s blowing horn.

I just turned 30 a few weeks ago, and I’ve decided it’s time to actually get into a hobby that can hold my attention.  Some people collect stamps, rocks, coins, even road signs. Me, I’m going to collect expensive electrical toys.  I’m going to build a railroad in my basement, and it’s going to be grand. I’ve never had a real hobby before. Instead I’ve had “projects” I’ve been interested in.

Today I drove the 30 minutes or so up to Green Bay to visit EngineHouse Services. A store stocking nothing but model railroad stuff.   I was like a kid in a candy shop. Being the geek I am, I asked tons of questions, and then couldn’t make up my mind on what I wanted to do.  I knew I wanted a Digital Command Controller (DCC) for my train set, and the guys at EngineHouse were quite helpful at explaining the ins and outs of it.  In the end I picked up a book, a copy of this month’s Model Railroader, and the Digitrax Zepher Starter Set (a DCC system).  Total spent: $210, and I have nothing to show for it. I also couldn’t be more excited.

Tomorrow I’m heading over to Home Depot to pick up the lumber to build my table. A lot of people will just slap a piece of 3/4 plywood on a couple horses, but I’m told that it could sag over time so, a frame I shall build.  Expected cost: $75.

This Saturday there’s a model train expo & swap meet in town that I’m going to go to. With any luck, I may just wind up buying my first locomotive there.  However if I get the table done ahead of time, I might head on up to Green Bay again.

Anyway, I’m quite excited about this. I’m hoping to document the project as it continues, so keep on watching this space!

I was wandering around Wal-Mart today, as I had to pick up a few things, and it was close by.  I usually try to avoid the place like the plague, but I was in a decent mood, and I had the ability to ignore everyone due to having my headphones in.

I stopped in the hardware department to grab a new hose for the back of the washing machine (the hot water hose leaks), and started my way back to electronics.  As I started walking past toys, I heard this ungodly screeching noise.   I turned to look, and some 6 year old kid is crying, presumably because his mommy wouldn’t buy him some useless piece of plastic.  Normally wailing crying kids irritate the ever-living hell out of me, but I realized that this kid was suffering.

I was ecstatic.  I felt joy well up inside of me, a joy that I really had never felt before.  I was happy because this little brat wasn’t getting his way.  His mother was scolding him and telling him no, and he was throwing a temper tantrum.  I tried to hide the smile on my face, but was unable to.  I wanted more than anything to kneel down next to the kid and say in a sarcastic baby voice, “Awww, your mommy won’t wet you get a wittle toy? How sad for you… NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP BEFORE I SLIT YOUR THROAT!”.  Fortunately I was able to suppress that urge, as I’m quite sure as funny and enjoyable as it may have been, it probably would have ended badly for me.

I continued around the corner towards electronics where there was a large traffic jam of people where I was forced to stop.   The kid continued to cry and stomp his feet and his mother continued to scold him.  At this point the brat’s mother grabbed his hand and started dragging him in another direction.  The little shit actually grabbed on to my cart and let out this blood-curdling shreek “BUT I WANT IT BLURBLURFVDSLJHERIUERFGKGERBEWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!”

I continued to have a huge grin on my face as his mother pried his little hand from the side of my cart, and dragged him off in another direction.

Never before has Wal-Mart actually brightened my day. I loathe the place, and I’m usually in a very foul mood by the time I get home.  This time though, the pain of Wal-Mart was offset by seeing the suffering of some child.

If there’s a god, I’m so going to Hell.

So, last night I started to realize how slow my computer was. I had too much shit on it. It was time to format and reinstall.

I had this shiny disk sitting next to me with the Windows Vista logo on it, and Temptation got the better of me. I had paid $30 for it a few months back (It’s awesome to know someone who works at MS!), and I figured it was time to give it a try. So we begin our total with $30.

I backed up my shit, popped the disk in and started the install process. Installing was quite painless as compared to XP and previous versions of Windows. The only snag I ran into was that it wouldn’t let me format my primary drive, but that wasn’t that big of a deal, “It’ll make pulling my old data in easier” I figured. That however, is where the fun ends.

When I moved into my new house, I went wireless. I ran out and picked up 3 $40 wireless PCI cards for various computers in my house. I got the cheap ones because, well, they were cheap. I’ve had some issues with them but nothing major.

Until I installed Vista.

Vista refused to recognize the card. No matter how hard I tried, it just wouldn’t work. 3 hours later, I decide to run to Best Buy and get a new wireless card. Ka-ching, $70 down the drain (but I got a faster wireless card!). This brings us up to $100

So, I get online, finally, and go to download the latest Vista drivers for my nVidia GeForce 7900GT video card. I do so, and suddenly my screen is scrambled (Kind of like watching scrambled pay per view porn). I couldn’t set the screen at any resolution above 640×480. After about 6 hours of searching web pages and downloading/installing 20 different driver packages I gave up. People have been having this problem with the 7900GT for a long time, and nVidia/MS has yet to fix it. I headed over to tom’s hardware to check out reviews on video cards, found a great article and came up with a few I figured would be suitable replacements in the $200 range.

I head back out to Best Buy, And sure enough, they’re sold out of all the cards I had in mind, they had nothing but low-end shit. There are of course a few idiots standing in the aisle gibbering away. One of the idiots happened to be standing right in front of what looked like an empty spot. The price tag caught my eye though, at $280. I bent down to get a closer look, and Low-and behold, There was a lone BFG GeForce 8800 GT sitting there.

I mulled it over for a minute, and decided what the heck. I grabbed the box and ran up to the checkout before I could change my mind. Ka-ching, add about $300 to the tally.

I rush home with my new bottom-of-the-high-end video card, and plug it in. I reboot the computer, and just as windows was about to come up, I hear the fan kick in, and the computer shuts off.

“Fuck.” I say out loud.

I try it again, and just as the GUI is about to kick in, the computer shuts off again.

I utter a few more curse words.

I try booting in safe mode, and it hangs after loading diskcrc.sys. This usually is a sign of a corrupt windows install. However It’s likely that something got corrupted by the sudden lack of power.

When I built my PC about 16 months ago, I skimped a bit on the Power Supply. Today I paid for it. The new, shiny 8800GT was too much card for my poor PSU. And I had just paid the price for it. I was going to have to start my install process all over again.

At this point I was thinking to myself “Now I have to go drop $60 on a new power supply. But then I realized that a few short months ago, I had to replace the PSU in another computer. That machine had a 520W PSU in it, where it really only needed a 350. I swapped the two PSUs around, and began to install Vista again. This time it allowed me to format the main partition, so I did so. The install went smoothly, the wireless card installed correctly, and the new video card worked flawlessly. I spent some time getting my old data back on the drive, restoring important files, etc, and I took a 3 hour nap as well.

So far I’m enjoying the interface, and it isn’t nearly as bad as I remember during the beta test. I shut off all the annoying prompts, and even managed to edit my hosts file without the system screaming at me.

I’m currently downloading Bioshock on Steam to see what my new video card can do.

Grand total: About $400
Time Spent: 21 hours (including 3 hour nap)
Rating on a pain & suffering scale of 1-10: 7

The moral of this story so far? If you’re not looking to upgrade your computer, stick with XP.

A Montreal father spent 2 weeks hunting for a copy of “Guitar Hero III” to give to his son for Christmas. He visited game stores all over town, and finally managed to snag a copy at EB Games about 25 minutes after their shipment arrived.

“I was so relieved in that I had finally got the Holy Grail of Christmas presents pretty much just in the nick of time. I couldn’t wait to spread the jubilance to my son,” he wrote.

“Then, yesterday, I came home from work early and what do I find? My innocent little boy smoking pot in the back yard with two of his delinquent friends.”

So, what he did what any upset father would do, and sold the copy of Guitar Hero on E-Bay. Much to his surprise, when the auction closed, the boy’s father discovered that an Australian man had plunked down over $9,100 US for it.

The father apparently cut a deal with the son, and gave him a choice of ending the auction early, or keeping it up. When the son realized exactly how much people were bidding for the item, he decided to keep it going. Apparently he didn’t want Guitar Hero that badly.

I moved recently into a much larger house. The problem arose that My little wireless Belkin router that I paid $20 for at Wal-Mart so I could use my Wii didn’t seem up to the task of covering my entire residence. It also started to have issues when more than 4 devices were connected at once.

I moved 2 of my desktop PCs to wireless, as I wasn’t keen on drilling holes in the walls for cat5.  So now I have 2 laptops, 2 desktop PCs, my media center PC,  my iPhone, my Nintendo Wii, and my Nintendo DS all using my wireless connection.  I decided it was time to upgrade routers, so after doing some research I heard that the Linksys WRT54g (and it’s derivatives, the GL and GS) got great reviews. I was going to go for the GL model, since it had more memory and used Open Source Firmware, but just my luck, none of the stores around here carried it.

So, Best Buy wound up having the G and GS models on sale.  I got there and decided to pick up the GS.  I got it home, plugged it in, and set it up. It was great, for about an hour.

Suddenly I started realizing the network was horribly slow.  I had constant packet loss outside the router (the internal network was fine, so it wasn’t a bad signal) . After hours and hours of research, I couldn’t find a solution to my issue.  I could reset the router by unplugging it, but an hour or so later, the problem would crop up again.

One site I visited suggested that perhaps the cache was filling up in the router.  This made sense, but unfortunately there wasn’t a fix for it.  What I wound up doing was installing a 3rd party firmware, DD-WRT.  From there I had different issues, with bad signal, but at least the packet loss issue was resolved.

It’s taken many hours of tweaking and reading on the DD-WRT site to get my router running stable.  My Belkin never had issues like this, I just plugged it in and it worked.    I must confess that I’m not well versed in the wireless networking arts, so some of the issues I have may just be to plain ignorance or stupidity. However, I’m having a hard time believing it could be this blasted difficult.

There’s still some quirks I have to work out. My lovely 15mbit connection  only tops out at 10mbit/sec right now, so that’s kind of a drag.  If I can’t get this blasted thing to work right, I may just wind up returning it and taking a look at something else.  I’m so frustrated right now that I wouldn’t be above wiring my house with cat5.

Over the past 4 months I’ve been addicted to Eve Online. My recent foray into the game has been far more exciting due to the fact that I’m out in 0.0 space, and not hanging around Empire with the rest of the pubbies.

Today CCP in conjunction with Transgaming (creators of cedega and cider) released both a Linux and a Mac client for Eve. I was running Eve under cedega, and eventually wine for quite awhile so I was eager to give out the new “native” (not really native) Linux client a try.

Basically what they did is wrap the windows client up in Cider for the Mac, and cedega for Linux. This may sound horrible at first, but Transgaming has been working with CCP for quite awhile, and the performance between windows and Linux seems to differ very little. I was impressed when I loaded into the game and was getting my standard 55fps. about the same FPS I was getting in windows.

I haven’t tried any major fleet battles, but I’m going to go ahead and assume it definitely won’t be any better than windows in that aspect.

There were a few issues that I ran into, however. The primary problem was that I was forced to run the game in full screen mode. Now, I primarily switch back and forth between Eve and whatever work I’m doing throughout the day. Being unable to run in windowed mode makes this task impossible. Fortunately the Eve community has quite a few Linux geeks, and they seem to have found a workaround for it. You can set up windowed mode in the “Eve Online Configuration” program.

For those of us using Gentoo, the icons don’t get installed automagically for us, therefore it’s done quite simply by typing:

/path/to/eve -config

The second problem I had was with the audio. It would cut out from time to time. This may indicate an issue with my audio drivers in Gentoo however, and may not be game related at all.

All in all, I was quite impressed with the Linux Client. Both CCP and Transgaming seem to have done a good job thus far.

Edit: Eve Online can be downloaded here

Welp, I’m all moved in. There’s just a few things left to get out of the old house like the Christmas decorations and whatnot.

I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time working the last week or so as well, as 3 servers out of the 10 we’re using at SkyscraperCity decided to have hardware failures. This of course means there’s very little time left to play my precious Eve Online.

The other thing I’m hoping to do over the course of the next day or two is to upgrade Wordpress here. My problem is that I have so many damn plugins, I’m not quite sure what to do with myself

I guess we’ll find out.