So my old AMD has some fun history. I think I got it back in early '04 back when I used to prefer AMD over Intel (the AMD I got after that converted me to Intel, but that's a different story).
I had my computer in a wireless network situation, and found out that WEP (the old wireless security) takes like 4 seconds to crack, and wanted to upgrade to WAP, which is better but probably still takes less than 20 minutes. But I digress.
I had an old-technology WEP card that worked with it, but I wanted to upgrade my security. The rest of my wireless network was running on WAP so I popped in the other card I had. It made my computer freeze. I tried and took back at least 5 different WAP-capable network cards, none of which worked. I came to find out that my particular motherboard's PCI bus had a weird timing issue with the Atheros-based network interface cards, which is pretty much all of the network cards out there. I tried a few odd brands hoping they weren't atheros based, and I may have found one but it didn't work either.
I ended up running a wire.
Today I was given the options of letting my son play kid games on my own computer (which would consist of a. me not using the computer and b. the keyboard and mouse getting sticky. And I hate that.) or getting the old AMD to work.
Somehow I came up with the idea of trying a USB-based wireless adapter.
I bought the WUSB100 from Linksys for $40 and plugged it in. I burned the latest Ubuntu client (3 times- the first was a flat data CD with a .iso file on it, the 2nd tried to write too quickly and was corrupted, third times the charm at reliable 4x speed.) and installed it up. It's a really slick installer, by the way. I probably like it better than the old XP installer. I can't tell you how I like the vista/win7 installer because so far I've managed to avoid that train wreck.
Anyway, it all worked flawlessly minus the wireless turning off about 15 seconds after bringing up the google page and repeatedly asking me for my password. I found this fix (not really sure why it worked but it did) and then had to mess around with flash and quicktime plugins (oh, not to mention a pretty painless Nvidia driver install) and the machine is good to go in all its 2004 glory.
Of course, by WAP I mean WPA.
14 November 2010
05 October 2010
The way of Kings: Brandon Sanderson
This book is good. Unlike most epic-fantasy writers, Sanderson usually picks 1-3 people to be the "main" characters. He's good at letting you really know who the main characters are, what they think, and what their motivations probably are. A lot of epic fantasy just focuses on the what. Which is interesting, but missing a lot of the puzzle.
The first three pages of the intro describe some warriors who come back to fight evil every few thousand years, and then go into some sort of hibernation mode where they are mentally attacked by evil until the next round. If they die, they automatically go into slumber and come back for the next fight. If they live, they have to choose. This time, 9 of 10 of them live, and none are willing to go back to the torment.
Then we get started with the main story, which follows a few cool people (there are probably two main characters, one of which I liked better than the other, and he's probably more "main" than the other.) through their struggles. They have a really interesting caste system based on eye color, which Sanderson does effectively. He has a bunch of other interesting stuff that is interesting but doesn't get in the way of the storytelling.
It's cool, and it's 1,000 pages long. So basically, you get to pay the price of one book and get enough pages for three, which it essentially is. The only real drawback is that he does a bit of rewinding to fill us in on the timeline, while I found myself just wanting to know what happens NOW. But I suppose that was the point, and the back info was pretty interesting, too. I recommend this book!
There's a bit of combat, obviously, and people die but it's not terribly graphic. Brandon does a good job of making you kind of care about even the minor characters before he kills them off.
The first three pages of the intro describe some warriors who come back to fight evil every few thousand years, and then go into some sort of hibernation mode where they are mentally attacked by evil until the next round. If they die, they automatically go into slumber and come back for the next fight. If they live, they have to choose. This time, 9 of 10 of them live, and none are willing to go back to the torment.
Then we get started with the main story, which follows a few cool people (there are probably two main characters, one of which I liked better than the other, and he's probably more "main" than the other.) through their struggles. They have a really interesting caste system based on eye color, which Sanderson does effectively. He has a bunch of other interesting stuff that is interesting but doesn't get in the way of the storytelling.
It's cool, and it's 1,000 pages long. So basically, you get to pay the price of one book and get enough pages for three, which it essentially is. The only real drawback is that he does a bit of rewinding to fill us in on the timeline, while I found myself just wanting to know what happens NOW. But I suppose that was the point, and the back info was pretty interesting, too. I recommend this book!
There's a bit of combat, obviously, and people die but it's not terribly graphic. Brandon does a good job of making you kind of care about even the minor characters before he kills them off.
08 September 2010
Nerds vs Dorks
I'm sure most nerds have had mini-crises wondering if they are actually nerds. In playing some online games I have come to question the definition of nerd, and if I should be associating with the "lower tiered" nerds who obviously are complete and utter morons, but seem to picture themselves as top tier nerds. After getting frustrated over the years and being able to find very little to satisfy my frustration, I finally found this Venn-Diagram.
Let me just explain a little. The three attributes, Intelligence, Obsession, and Social Ineptitude which we could see as the triumvirate of nerd-dom, are each required. I'm not totally sure I agree with the word choices for Geek and Dweeb, but since we need to label Obsession + Intelligence and Intelligence + Social Ineptitude as something, they work for now.
As previously stated, there is a lot of room when playing online games, or really doing anything, to run into morons. On the Venn diagram, they probably have Obsession and Social Ineptitude, but lacking intelligence. These Dorks are out there making true nerds look bad!
Geeks (Int + Obs) can readily observe that they aren't socially inept, and may actually be more comfortable as a Geek, or consider themselves "cool" nerds or closet nerds.
Dweebs (Int + S.I.) at least are OK with not being obsessed, because they can just see themselves as "casual" nerds. Maybe Jack of all trades nerds.
Dorks (Obs + S.I.) are where the problems start. Lacking intelligence and being unable to comprehend it, they automatically assume that Obsession is the definition of a nerd. They wear being socially inept as a badge of honor. Dorks are the people ruining the reputations of the true nerds everywhere. Worse yet, Dorks think that they have attained nerd-dom and make all other categories of nerd question themselves. Do we really want to be lumped with socially inept morons? No. The true nerds then have to find a new way to keep their identity.
I think the days of nerd-gamers are over. In the past, it took some amount of skill to get a computer to work, and to get it to play games. This entry pass in itself usually marked one as at least having intelligence. But with computers getting so much easier to use and the internet much easier to use, the flood-gates have opened and the unwashed masses of Obsessed, Socially inept have diluted the previously clean environment.
From a gaming perspective, the unwashed masses, unable to handle the level of difficulty that the real nerds are capable of, have no option but to whine and moan about it so the games are "fair". They are obsessed and socially inept, but not intelligent enough to play the game "for reals". Because the dorks have superior numbers and due to the lure of the mighty dollar, they eventually get their way.
Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of nerds who get pushed out of nerd-dom not due to lack of intelligence. Time constraints could limit obsession, and push Nerds to Dweeb status. A nerd may learn to cope with his social awkwardness and become a Geek. You can't take their Intelligence away, unless they do drugs or something stupid to lower their thinking abilities.
One commenter tried to say, "Hey, I see myself as pure intelligence. I don't even need obsession or Social Ineptitude." Well buddy, my real fear is that you're probably just a confused dork, but let me try to explain this better. The Venn diagram may work better of we think of the three traits as Intelligence, Social Ability, and um... Moderation? In this way, a true nerd has Intelligence and lacks social ability and moderation. I think these three values may all be able to be seen as "positives".
Anyway Dorks, don't get too down on yourself. It's always possible to bump up your intelligence factor. Plus, we really shouldn't see "Nerd" as the goal. We probably want Intelligence, Moderation, and Social skills to be the goal. Maybe someone can come up with a name for that. Maybe then all of us confused nerds/dweebs/geeks/dorks can figure out what to do with our lives.
Let me just explain a little. The three attributes, Intelligence, Obsession, and Social Ineptitude which we could see as the triumvirate of nerd-dom, are each required. I'm not totally sure I agree with the word choices for Geek and Dweeb, but since we need to label Obsession + Intelligence and Intelligence + Social Ineptitude as something, they work for now.
As previously stated, there is a lot of room when playing online games, or really doing anything, to run into morons. On the Venn diagram, they probably have Obsession and Social Ineptitude, but lacking intelligence. These Dorks are out there making true nerds look bad!
Geeks (Int + Obs) can readily observe that they aren't socially inept, and may actually be more comfortable as a Geek, or consider themselves "cool" nerds or closet nerds.
Dweebs (Int + S.I.) at least are OK with not being obsessed, because they can just see themselves as "casual" nerds. Maybe Jack of all trades nerds.
Dorks (Obs + S.I.) are where the problems start. Lacking intelligence and being unable to comprehend it, they automatically assume that Obsession is the definition of a nerd. They wear being socially inept as a badge of honor. Dorks are the people ruining the reputations of the true nerds everywhere. Worse yet, Dorks think that they have attained nerd-dom and make all other categories of nerd question themselves. Do we really want to be lumped with socially inept morons? No. The true nerds then have to find a new way to keep their identity.
I think the days of nerd-gamers are over. In the past, it took some amount of skill to get a computer to work, and to get it to play games. This entry pass in itself usually marked one as at least having intelligence. But with computers getting so much easier to use and the internet much easier to use, the flood-gates have opened and the unwashed masses of Obsessed, Socially inept have diluted the previously clean environment.
From a gaming perspective, the unwashed masses, unable to handle the level of difficulty that the real nerds are capable of, have no option but to whine and moan about it so the games are "fair". They are obsessed and socially inept, but not intelligent enough to play the game "for reals". Because the dorks have superior numbers and due to the lure of the mighty dollar, they eventually get their way.
Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of nerds who get pushed out of nerd-dom not due to lack of intelligence. Time constraints could limit obsession, and push Nerds to Dweeb status. A nerd may learn to cope with his social awkwardness and become a Geek. You can't take their Intelligence away, unless they do drugs or something stupid to lower their thinking abilities.
One commenter tried to say, "Hey, I see myself as pure intelligence. I don't even need obsession or Social Ineptitude." Well buddy, my real fear is that you're probably just a confused dork, but let me try to explain this better. The Venn diagram may work better of we think of the three traits as Intelligence, Social Ability, and um... Moderation? In this way, a true nerd has Intelligence and lacks social ability and moderation. I think these three values may all be able to be seen as "positives".
Anyway Dorks, don't get too down on yourself. It's always possible to bump up your intelligence factor. Plus, we really shouldn't see "Nerd" as the goal. We probably want Intelligence, Moderation, and Social skills to be the goal. Maybe someone can come up with a name for that. Maybe then all of us confused nerds/dweebs/geeks/dorks can figure out what to do with our lives.
26 August 2010
I like this song. It's fun.
I think Baker man is funny and his song is catchy, so I'm linking it. Plus it's a way to say thanks to my follower!
09 August 2010
Mac wins again.
So the past two movies I've purchased, are unreadable on at least two Windows XP machines. I pop the disk in, and the DVD light turns on and off and may or may not lockup my computer to the point of needing to reboot or simply close some programs. Autoplay seems to have something to do with it (Bad DRM?), but I did a registry hack to disable autoplay, but I still get problems. Once I was able to boot with the disc in the drive and I could watch it, but what a pain. I almost wanted to break my dvd drive in frustration.
I popped the disk into my Mac, loads up immediately and plays. Epic win for Mac, epic fail for Windoze.
I popped the disk into my Mac, loads up immediately and plays. Epic win for Mac, epic fail for Windoze.
03 August 2010
I'm not a multi-tasker
I know that multi-tasking is a huge buzzword for resumes, and corporations are always looking for people ready to work in a "fast-paced, multitasking environment" but honestly, multi-tasking is a waste of time.
How many things can you really do at once, not including walking and chewing gum? Anything that actually requires concentration and is worth doing needs full attention. If I try to do 5 things at once, I might be able to handle the gum-chewing and walking, but the important tasks are just going to sit.
In the business world, if I try to juggle too many tasks at a time, I'm going to end up being so distracted that nothing gets done and multi-tasking becomes a necessity since I have to juggle calling all the people back, spending all my precious brain-cycles coming up with reasons why the thing person 1 wants isn't done, all the while trying to come up with something to tell person 2.
Honestly? I'm a one-at-a-time kind of guy. I like to get a task, no interruptions, get it done, and move on to the next. Actually, for things other than gum-chewing and walking, this is more efficient because I spend less time wasting brain cycles on crap to come up with. And, that slush-pile that piles up if I try to multitask? It gets gone.
Embrace your single-mindedness, pick a task and just get 'er done. No use wallowing around in-between tasks.
Now to go attack that list of goals that must not be named.
How many things can you really do at once, not including walking and chewing gum? Anything that actually requires concentration and is worth doing needs full attention. If I try to do 5 things at once, I might be able to handle the gum-chewing and walking, but the important tasks are just going to sit.
In the business world, if I try to juggle too many tasks at a time, I'm going to end up being so distracted that nothing gets done and multi-tasking becomes a necessity since I have to juggle calling all the people back, spending all my precious brain-cycles coming up with reasons why the thing person 1 wants isn't done, all the while trying to come up with something to tell person 2.
Honestly? I'm a one-at-a-time kind of guy. I like to get a task, no interruptions, get it done, and move on to the next. Actually, for things other than gum-chewing and walking, this is more efficient because I spend less time wasting brain cycles on crap to come up with. And, that slush-pile that piles up if I try to multitask? It gets gone.
Embrace your single-mindedness, pick a task and just get 'er done. No use wallowing around in-between tasks.
Now to go attack that list of goals that must not be named.
15 July 2010
Double-header: FFXIV and LoL
I recently got into the beta of Final Fantasy 14 and gave League of Legends another try. I decided to write some reviews.
FFXIV- This game is still in beta, and I'm sure that they will optimize the graphics speed for the various video cards "soon" (because as of right now, even with a very good system, the graphics are very unresponsive), so I'm trying to not hold this against them. I'm also going to try to pretend that they didn't simply take the exact races/models from FF11 and relabel them and try to pawn them off as "new" races. The old races weren't 100% terrible. Oh, I'm going to give them a pass for the pathetic enemies that we have to fight too, since it's almost Final Fantasy-ey to have that kind of mobs. Not that I'm not bothered by fighting rabid bunnies with a party of 5 level 20s. I mean seriously, the only other place I've ever seen a bunny be threatening was Monty Python, which wasn't going for seriousness.
If I could ignore all those problems, the game could still be passable. But the biggest problem is the interface and controls. The game is built from the ground up to be used with a game pad! This is just terrible, because gamepads are only good when a mouse+keyboard are not available. So much loss of precision, and mashing tab over and over until you happen to be in range of what you're trying to target (and for some reason, tab picks the target right of center, and goes left-to right until it wraps around to just-left of center being the last in the cycle) only to have hit the button so many times that we skip over and have to tab through everything again. Yeah, I think shift-tab backs up a target, but why fight over table scraps? There's no reason to do something so idiotic when simply using the mouse to click what you want to target is 2,000 times better.
The follow camera lags behind, as if we're tethered to a balloon that eventually gets around to floating into approximately the right position. This is just terrible and makes me feel like I'm playing a game on a console with a game pad (/shrug.... again, we could fight over table scraps, but mouse+keyboard is clearly superior to gamepads) which isn't capable of the precision necessary to use an immediate-reaction camera following scheme.
Toggling in and out of combat still takes about 2 seconds, and your character has to stop moving, equip or unequip his weapon, and then ready to continue moving. This gets really obnoxious when you forget you're already in combat mode, run up to a mob (with the terrible control scheme) only to go out of combat, and then have to go back into combat, oh crap accidentally hit tab have to cycle through all the targets again. Crap that bunny walked through me ugh now I have to try and get this dilapidated camera control to move 180 degrees so I can see that stupid bunny that walked under me so I can tab it and hit the "target lock" button (which wouldn't even be necessary with a mouse+keyboard setup, which is 100% superior to gamepads). The game ends up feeling like doing my chores, only in doing so I haven't actually put the laundry into the washer or taken out the trash. Though we may as well just put FFXIV into the trash.
LoL. This is all I have to say about League of Legends. Yes, they obviously knew their game's acronym was laugh out loud, which is what you should do for this game. Let's pretend that the heroes aren't annoying, juvenile, cartoony, and/or cliche, because stylistically they could have just been trying to be different. But eventually all the classes end up seeming about the same. Then I just start feeling like my hero is running in place because everyone in the game moves so slow. The only potentially good thing about this game is that they have a stat called +ability power that allows spell damage to scale (a potential "issue" of DoTA / HoN is that the agility-based classes scale into terrors by endgame, where int/str don't) into endgame. In theory this should be a good thing, but in actuality this just seems to force all of the heroes into farm/carry mode, and instead of anything exciting happening, everyone just farms up for endgame, which never ends up being very satisfying. Essentially LoL is just EM (easy mode) Heroes of Newerth, plus about a suck factor of 500.
Let's just say we ignored all those negative aspects because the game is still fun, and HoN guys are just too hardcore. LoL is for casuals, right? Well, the free to play model fails. Sure, they rotate in 10 or so heroes every week, and then if you have favorites you can drop some real money to purchase the ability to have the rights to play the heroes (which all suck, by the way). You don't have to spend real money, because for playing games, and especially winning games, you get special points that you can accumulate to buy your heroes for "free". This aspect really sucks, because after as many games as I could manage- I think I won 5 of 8 games, I still didn't have enough points for one of the "cheap" heroes. Cheap being 1350 points. I think I ended up with 900 points or so. However, the "cool" heroes cost more like 6000 "free" points, which is what, a weeks straight of winning? And I have to do this with the epicly retarded heroes of the week?
If you still haven't decided this games deserves the trash can, if you calculate how much real money you would have to spend to buy all of the heroes, it would probably be $100 or so (oh, and you can buy special skins! The skins cost real money too!) to just buy the heroes straight up. If you do buy all these heroes, which end up all playing very similarly to each other, and have really lame game voices, you're still going to be playing a bunch of nubs who didn't want to drop $30 up front to play Heroes of Newerth either, and are still just using the weekly heroes. Plus, the hero picking method doesn't prevent both teams from picking the same hero. There's nothing more lame than laning against a mirror. It takes all strategy out and just turns the game into a brute-force and skill match. Ever play starcraft as Terran vs Terran? Yeah, it's really lame.
I'm not even going to recommend you to play LoL casually for a while and then switch over to HoN, because LoL sucks. I'm just going to say, play HoN, maybe watch some casts at honcast.com, and don't waste your time with LoL.
FFXIV- This game is still in beta, and I'm sure that they will optimize the graphics speed for the various video cards "soon" (because as of right now, even with a very good system, the graphics are very unresponsive), so I'm trying to not hold this against them. I'm also going to try to pretend that they didn't simply take the exact races/models from FF11 and relabel them and try to pawn them off as "new" races. The old races weren't 100% terrible. Oh, I'm going to give them a pass for the pathetic enemies that we have to fight too, since it's almost Final Fantasy-ey to have that kind of mobs. Not that I'm not bothered by fighting rabid bunnies with a party of 5 level 20s. I mean seriously, the only other place I've ever seen a bunny be threatening was Monty Python, which wasn't going for seriousness.
If I could ignore all those problems, the game could still be passable. But the biggest problem is the interface and controls. The game is built from the ground up to be used with a game pad! This is just terrible, because gamepads are only good when a mouse+keyboard are not available. So much loss of precision, and mashing tab over and over until you happen to be in range of what you're trying to target (and for some reason, tab picks the target right of center, and goes left-to right until it wraps around to just-left of center being the last in the cycle) only to have hit the button so many times that we skip over and have to tab through everything again. Yeah, I think shift-tab backs up a target, but why fight over table scraps? There's no reason to do something so idiotic when simply using the mouse to click what you want to target is 2,000 times better.
The follow camera lags behind, as if we're tethered to a balloon that eventually gets around to floating into approximately the right position. This is just terrible and makes me feel like I'm playing a game on a console with a game pad (/shrug.... again, we could fight over table scraps, but mouse+keyboard is clearly superior to gamepads) which isn't capable of the precision necessary to use an immediate-reaction camera following scheme.
Toggling in and out of combat still takes about 2 seconds, and your character has to stop moving, equip or unequip his weapon, and then ready to continue moving. This gets really obnoxious when you forget you're already in combat mode, run up to a mob (with the terrible control scheme) only to go out of combat, and then have to go back into combat, oh crap accidentally hit tab have to cycle through all the targets again. Crap that bunny walked through me ugh now I have to try and get this dilapidated camera control to move 180 degrees so I can see that stupid bunny that walked under me so I can tab it and hit the "target lock" button (which wouldn't even be necessary with a mouse+keyboard setup, which is 100% superior to gamepads). The game ends up feeling like doing my chores, only in doing so I haven't actually put the laundry into the washer or taken out the trash. Though we may as well just put FFXIV into the trash.
LoL. This is all I have to say about League of Legends. Yes, they obviously knew their game's acronym was laugh out loud, which is what you should do for this game. Let's pretend that the heroes aren't annoying, juvenile, cartoony, and/or cliche, because stylistically they could have just been trying to be different. But eventually all the classes end up seeming about the same. Then I just start feeling like my hero is running in place because everyone in the game moves so slow. The only potentially good thing about this game is that they have a stat called +ability power that allows spell damage to scale (a potential "issue" of DoTA / HoN is that the agility-based classes scale into terrors by endgame, where int/str don't) into endgame. In theory this should be a good thing, but in actuality this just seems to force all of the heroes into farm/carry mode, and instead of anything exciting happening, everyone just farms up for endgame, which never ends up being very satisfying. Essentially LoL is just EM (easy mode) Heroes of Newerth, plus about a suck factor of 500.
Let's just say we ignored all those negative aspects because the game is still fun, and HoN guys are just too hardcore. LoL is for casuals, right? Well, the free to play model fails. Sure, they rotate in 10 or so heroes every week, and then if you have favorites you can drop some real money to purchase the ability to have the rights to play the heroes (which all suck, by the way). You don't have to spend real money, because for playing games, and especially winning games, you get special points that you can accumulate to buy your heroes for "free". This aspect really sucks, because after as many games as I could manage- I think I won 5 of 8 games, I still didn't have enough points for one of the "cheap" heroes. Cheap being 1350 points. I think I ended up with 900 points or so. However, the "cool" heroes cost more like 6000 "free" points, which is what, a weeks straight of winning? And I have to do this with the epicly retarded heroes of the week?
If you still haven't decided this games deserves the trash can, if you calculate how much real money you would have to spend to buy all of the heroes, it would probably be $100 or so (oh, and you can buy special skins! The skins cost real money too!) to just buy the heroes straight up. If you do buy all these heroes, which end up all playing very similarly to each other, and have really lame game voices, you're still going to be playing a bunch of nubs who didn't want to drop $30 up front to play Heroes of Newerth either, and are still just using the weekly heroes. Plus, the hero picking method doesn't prevent both teams from picking the same hero. There's nothing more lame than laning against a mirror. It takes all strategy out and just turns the game into a brute-force and skill match. Ever play starcraft as Terran vs Terran? Yeah, it's really lame.
I'm not even going to recommend you to play LoL casually for a while and then switch over to HoN, because LoL sucks. I'm just going to say, play HoN, maybe watch some casts at honcast.com, and don't waste your time with LoL.
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