shopping trip last saturday. one week ago. for new computer. i finally get to assemble every single part by myself, with no crappy stuff.

LG 19" LCD L1952T
Coolermaster Centurion5
Coolermaster Extreme 430W
Asus P5B
Intel Core2Duo E6300 1.86Ghz
1GB Kingston DDR2 5300 - 667Mhz
Seagate Sata2 320Gb
XpertVision Geforce 7900GS 256DDR3 Sonic
Samsung 18x DVDRW



so this thing costs $200 odd? ouch. and anyway, it has a 3 year's warranty, even longer than the crap 1 year that pc dealers provide. most of my stuff have 2 or 3 year's warranty, hard disk 5 yr, ram lifetime. so guess how they shortchange us.


interesting label. there's "Malay" on it. dunno why.


bare processor. which will crash very quickly if not cooled. as i discovered when the fan on the old pc died.


Huge CPU cooling fan and ram. I checked back my pics of my old pc, and this heatsink+fan is way bigger. it's impressive considering it's a default Intel set. no wonder it overclocks well.


my cheapo Kingston ValueRam, more China products. as jx pointed out, most stuff were labelled with China. it's like one of the cheapast you can buy at SimLim, but it's quite good, so i wonder what Dell uses. anyway i need another 1Gb of ram, anyone wants to sponsor me $176?


apparently those ppl are quite particular about what chips are actually on the ram. same brand ram can have different chips in different batches, and some perform better than the rest. this one is not bad. but i havent tried stressing it


Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB. yay. so that i don't have to keep all photos on DVDs.
let's see how long the drive can last. typical desktops come with 160-200gb of hard disk capacity, and usually doesn't last for 2 years. perhaps by then i will reach 1 terabyte.


one of my favourite parts: my big red graphics card
which is there mainly so that i can play my Command & Conquer 3 when it comes out in March 07


the inside with everything in place. but the wires were not tidied up yet. i wonder what the tiny computers would be like with everything so cramped. and my mother complained that the case was too big. but my motherboard seems to fit in nicely.


those big beige sliders make for screw-less harddisk installation, good, coz i used to not have enough screws.


and finally it's complete with IKEA xmas lights


sacrificed an iMac for this, but for the same price range, most components are twice as good.

im lacking a sound card, perhaps when creative has a sale, but the onboard sound is not bad. it actually detects when you plug something into the ports and checks with you if it's the correct plug.

pic of an oil drum with toys on it. what an odd combination


just to show how much trash there were on the sand


part of a pineapple. it was Death Beach. with many many dead fishes and fish parts, and fish guts. and oranges and pineapple parts. and beach trash. much more death than usual


highlight of the day was puffer fish. yeah. absolutely fantastic find. although it was almost rather dead.


you can see the little beak and small wings


washed-up huge teddy bear. it's gross


one of the fish available at the beach today


home of some crab


and there were a couple of little clams lying in the sand. but everything was just too dirty to do proper digging. and the tide was high. not a good day

so it was that this guy wanted to use the internet badly at night but was not allowed to do so at home and so went downstairs and used went into someone else's wireless network and someone saw him doing it. and the poor fella gets into so much trouble for this.

i really pity him for being the one to be the scapegoat of a ridiculous society.

1. perhaps he shouldn't have done it so openly, or let himself be called to task

2. the public should support him because it's really not much of a "crime"

3. i find that the person who "caught" him is just a busybody who shouldn't have made such a big fuss over such a trivial matter

4. just like how the topic was brought up in the papers today, there isn't much of a criminal act in accessing a publicly available private network. just like if you leave your money at your door, doesn't mean that it's wrong for other people to just take it away. it's so nonsensical to charge the poor fella. if the network is meant for private use, then set it up for private use. if the broadband subscription is not for sharing, then blame the subscriber for "sharing" it.

5. the judge (i dunno what's his personal view) had to follow the letter of the law and so the poor fella was guilty of a crime.

the poor fella was just there at the wrong place wrong time wrong laws wrong society. sux. i still think the most culpable person is the busybody.


*
on a side note, i just got a wireless modem from singnet, and they came down to set it up for me. [not that it's that hard to do, but heck] so this slack looking guy [who dressed like me going back to hostel], came and did the config. and so i discovered that they turn on WEP encryption, which is better than the old unsecured networks floating around everywhere. [actually, the telcos should blame themselves for unsecured networks, since it means other ppl dont need to sign up with their plans. BUT, STUPIDLY, they have never even Tried to Educate people as to how to secure their own networks so that other people have to sign up for their own internet service. tsk.] but anyway WEP. and after searching on the web, i find that it's an Old and Useless encryption protocol because it can be defeated in 2 mins with easily available programs. That is so pathetic. So i switched it to WPA2, but it's really hard to type in a long secure passcode correctly. and i've like changed most of the settings on the router. including not broadcasting the network name, checking for MAC address, setting up filesharing and opening port for torrenting.
so that's it, do things yourself, don't depend on half-hearted service.

Libellés : wireless router WEP WPA2 encryption

module depressed life depressed sleep depressed clothes depressed

dark matter no matter doesn't matter

older-than-middle-aged-folks using english words in hokkien speech

overhearing the workings of a company through the loud phone calls of the guy beside me on the train

an ugly hag dressed up and perfumed, who rushes into the train, grabs a seat, start doing seat exercises, wears gaudy clothes, carries a tacky bag with a strawberry on it, and has a remarkably disapprovable face

a man, in shirt and pants, carrying the backpack jx used to carry, looking around

a Western girl, ipod clipped to the outside of her jeans, a wonder it doesn't drop off or get stolen

a little trinket, lost and found

a "wrong" question, correctly answered

a nother CD-R, failed

a PC finally built

an iMac came and gone

confidence lost

a rain that washed the year away

a nother birthday, christmas, gone

a plane, that will fly off soon

i'm not a guapo
i'm not in love
i'm not a phoenix
i cannot fly
i'm not a genius
some things are better unsaid

1. overheard two ppl speaking in french. which of course made me very excited. but they moved away after a very short while. dang

2. in a shop. saw this >middle-aged man asking the shop attendant for a recommendation for a graphics card. he was holding a piece of paper with some prices and stuff, so it seems like he was buying quite a bit of stuff. So the attendant asks him back "what's your budget?", and the man replies coolly "no limit for budget". So the attendant raises his eyebrows and then casually indicates this 8800GTX model [which happens to cost >$800 for one single graphics card alone. a very impressive price considering currently computer prices]. and the man asks a bit more to confirm that it's really the best model available now, and checks with his sons to see if it's good enough. so i realise that he had his two sons with him, one of them was this tall useless looking (and probably computer-illiterate) guy. ... and then i missed a bit but somehow they settled for a 7900GS model. [which at $300 odd is a far cry from the first one] and with this 7900GS there's this sonic model, which the attendant explains is for people who want to overclock their computers. and i can tell that the attendant is feeling somewhat ridiculous at answering their queries.

and then best of all, the attendant shows them the 7900GS graphics card, and the man asks him how to fix it into the computer. (more unseen raised eyebrows from the attendant). so the attendant asks if they know where the PCI-Express slot in the computer is. and after discovering to his horror that they dont know what is that, educates them that there are AGP and PCI-E slots for graphics cards. and so he asks which one do they have, coz the newer graphics cards only fit in PCI-E. and the man says "the Acer one", apparently they have an Acer computer (which i think was bought recently), and it's just the Acer. hahaha. ok that's really really funny. because why would anyone buy an Acer pc (which tend to be ccheap and crappy(relatively), and then want to ask for unlimited budget graphics card. diao)

so it was all very entertaining to overhear that. just some rich ppl who only know how to follow on-screen prompts and sales talk and know nothing about what actually goes on in the computer. sigh.

but actually i feel that there'll be more of this in the future. since chips will be more pervasive in our lives and we wont really be able to keep up with the different things. so we'll just use, and that's all. the base technology is so far from the user level, like in Macs, where probably most of the users dont know much about their hardware and operating system. Macs just dont encourage the flexibility, customization and indepth knowledge that PCs promote.

3. there was this Philips LCD monitor promoter more time saying that LG and Samsung are good. it seemed to be a lost cause

Class95FM was playing sad songs on the radio, even though it was only a half-hearted effort

...
It must have been love, but it's over now
It must have been good, but I lost it somehow
It must have been love, but it's over now
From the moment we touched till the time had run out
...

...
Tommy and Laura were lovers he wanted to give here everything
Flowers presents and most of all a wedding ring
He saw a sign for a stockcar race a thousand dollar prize it read
He couldn't get Laura on the phone so to her mother Tommy said
Tell Laura I love her tell Laura I need her
Tell Laura I may be late I've something to do that cannot wait
He drove his car to the racing ground he was the youngest driver there
The crowd roared as they started to race
Around the truck they drove at a deadly pace
No one knows what happened that day how his car overturned in flames
But as they pulled him from the twisted wreck
With his dying breath they heard him say
Tell Laura I love her tell Laura I need her
Tell Laura not to cry my love for her will never die
...

have i mentioned, that when i ask a question, or more precisely, a loaded question, there is more to it than the answer?

that for that question, usually there will be some standard answers, and by the time the qn is answered, i will have a possibly standard rebuttal to the standard answer. and perhaps that is what i really want answered. but i have to set up the setting to reach the second portion.
or perhaps i want to see what response i will get

or maybe when i answer some question, i will already have a rebuttal to my own answer, but i would like to wait if the other party can bring it up. perhaps while answering, i have already thought of a way which the answer fails.
why not just say it out? to show off? maybe not, maybe to see if the other person can find a different route/rebuttal/answer/response without me distracting/leading down a particular path. after all, self-criticism doesn't work very well.

just to know that most of the times in life, there aren't simple answers, or simple questions, but whether i can be bothered to discuss it at length. and if that person comprehends lively discussions that are not personal attacks.

sometimes i ask questions to which i already know the answer, to see if there are other possible answers. sometimes i do not give the (proper) answer, because the answer is fairly obvious or should have been found out, or because nothing bad will happen.

other times, it's good to just sleep, watch tv, eat icecream, match tops and bottoms, lose handphones, get married, buy soft toys and live peacefully.

should post this before i forget it.

IF i were sitting at the edge of the roof of a tall building, and for some reason unexplained i fell off (perhaps due to a gust of wind) what should i do?
should i flail and try to grab something? should i try to soften the landing? should i scream for help? should i do some funky triple twist backflip?

or should i, perhaps, strive to ensure certain and instantaneous death?

boing boing boing boing boing boing boing boing falls off the cliff

oh yes, since changing over to their new blogger in beta login, i dunno what's the difference, but publishing posts is now very fast. which is so much better. otherwise, i dont see what's the diff, other than the bothersome google account. at least if i can post properly, i might be too lazy to go and switch blog providers, blogger was really getting on my nerves sometime back

so i havent blogged for a long time.
so all those weird ideas and thoughts have been dispersing into thin air, made into some vague impression on the neurons in my brain, perhaps the particular electrical pattern might surface again sometime in the future.
so all that's happened is that i was so sick for the first few days of my exams. that i was so sicked and drugged that i din have energy to be stressed out, or perhaps i was. that the papers came and went in a blur. that i think im a terrible student. that it came it went. that all those computer games came and went. that im busy helping out at the shop. that archery in the sun is making me look like a negative panda. that there's not much excitement about the birthday. that christmas seems like something foreign. that i just wish to get away from academic stuff. that perhaps it would be good if i painted for a living.

i just can't get the lame remark that fat ppl are hydrophobic and thin ppl are hydrophilic out of my head.
well since jx says that hydrophilic things have a layer of hydro--- bonds all around it, and it doesnt just dissolve...

and since all things have that, and yet some things dissolve. it must mean that the bonds holding my molecules together are stronger than the enthalpy of dissolution, such that i dont just dissolve in rainwater. hm. me and my bonds, therefore i exist.