So, my new graphics card is working nicely. I've noticed that desktop performance (window scrolling etc) isn't quite as good, but 3D performance is just swell. I haven't had a chance to really see what it can do, but preliminary results are good.
Now that i've got a machine that can handle newer games, do I go for Battlefield Vietnam or Farcry?
So, I took the plunge and got the XFX GeForce 6600gt AGP for about 225 incl. tax. There's a 25 buck rebate, but I almost always fail to get rebates, so we'll see. You can check out a comparative review of a few 6600gt cards from techreport.com for more info about my card. I'll undoubtably be putting rants or raves about it once I get the thing up and running.
If you're interested, I bought the card from ZipZoomFly.com and they've been alright so far. They had the best price and offered free 2-day fedex.
Let's say I'm willing to spend around $200 on games/electronics for the next, say 4 to 6 months. What should I do?
If anyone's interested, here's the perl script I wrote to check through a .pwf file and print the names of any users who are also using their username as a password. It's not documented, but I guess that'll be a feature of version 2.0.
while(<STDIN>){
chop;
next unless /^(.+):(.+)/;
my $name = $1;
my $pwd = $2;
my $salt = substr($pwd, 0, 2);
if (crypt($name, $salt) eq $pwd) {
print "$name\n";
}
}This iterates through whatever's coming in on stdin (so call this like perl foo.pl < bar.pwf) one line at a time. It chops the newline char off the end then skips the line unless it matches the pattern of one or more characters then a colon then one or more other characters. It then checks if the username encrypts to the encrypted password. If it does, the name gets printed to stdout. ta da!
Argh, there's a browser problem out there. It affects every browser except Internet Explorer (and Lynx, as it turns out). To check it out, go over to schmoo and click the links. If the address bar says paypal.com but you're obviously not at paypal, I'd recommend not clicking on links to get you anyplace important until this is resolved. Really, you should type in by hand or use a bookmark to get anywhere important anyway. By important I mean anything someone would want to fool you about, such as money.
Of course, relatively speaking, I'd say you're still better off not using IE unless you're willing to wait around for Microsoft to tell you about flaws with their product.
Ok you geeks, I hate to admit it, but, much to my chagrin, I've discovered that Perl is fun. I just used it to parse a file (much like a .htaccess file) containing "username:encrypted_password" and test to see if the username was the same as the (unencrypted) password. (and no, i'm not breaking into anything, i'm supposed to be the admin for the system in question)
What astonishes me is how easy it was. It didn't take much work at all, and as I learn more about perl, I see how I could have done it even easier with built-in shortcuts and regexps.
The reason I'm astonished is because I used to hold a strong prejudice against perl. For those wondering why level-headed me would be so prejudicial, here's a bit of sample code I randomly grabbed from here
$drw =~ m/.*exception occurred:.*?pid=(\d+).*?\s+\1\s(.*?)\n/s;
Yeah. That's not real pretty. Perl jockeys seem to love code like that, and, quite frankly, it scares me. (and no, I still am not quite sure what that line is doing). Anyway, who knows? Maybe I'll be writing stuff like that in a few weeks. I kind of hope not.
Looking for some circumfloribus words? There's a great list at the bottom of this page of definitions for the word nonce.
So I was so excited I had found a google whack that I didn't notice the one and only link has something to do with cumm factories. Please, let's just ignore that detail and rejoice in the whack.
Ok, so here's a rugby update. The Humboldt State 'Lumberjacks' (and they're OK!) made a good showing of themselves, putting in for one solid try near the end of the match. Yes, we did defeat them 43-7, but when you're playing the Bears, that 7 actually means a lot. Furthermore, they held us to under fifty. This is also a pretty solid accomplishment against the Bears.
Here's what head coach Jack Clark had to say: "It's to convenient to use the `it's the first game excuse.' The fact is we were not very dynamic." I guess that's the amazing thing about our program: a mere victory is not good enough.
So the next match is against Saint Mary's Staurday at 1:00 on Witter field. Come one, come all! Last match they were charging $8 for people not carrying Cal IDs. So alumni, dig out that old student ID. I'm not sure if the next match will be the same price; cost of entrance usually varies a lot from match to match.
For my next trick, you get a choice: do you want to hear about my experience with the Cal Alumni Choir, or do you want to hear my thoughts on Bush's inagural address?
I saw something remarkable on the way to work this morning. I saw a man standing in the park with a long leather strap dangling from his wrist. Any guesses? My guess was jesses. And I was right*! At his feet was a small falcon devouring some hapless prey. So it seems the noble art of falconry is alive and well in Berkeley.
* Almost. It turns out a jess is a strap on the falcon's leg to which a leash can be attached.
Alright, consider yourselves warned: Cal's season opener vs Humboldt State (usually a pretty good team) is Saturday the 15th at 1:00 pm. Everyone's welcome to beers/coffee/pizza/whatever at my place in the hour or so prior. Also, it's easy to park in my neighborhood, and rugby parking can be a hassle, so we should carpool.
I'm very excited about this season's schedule. Of special note are 6 home games to start the season including a Thursday night game against the UCSC Slugs, a home game against Stanfurd and we're hosting a round of 16 AND the championship round of four is at Stanford again this year.
So, here's to another glorious season of rucking, tackling and mauling by the mighty bears!
My mom took a course in folk-art cooking, and one of the things she learned about was marzapan sculpting. She brought us a hunk of marzapan and this cool colored dye/dust stuff, and we made little mini-things. Things made include: a carrot, an apple, a fish, baby jesus, and piggies! (I made the piggies. there was some drama there, 'cause my piggie's head fell off at one point, and his snout and ears crumbled. This made me very sad. I needed to take a time-out.)
Anyway, happy holidays from my home to yours, and I hope you all get what you wanted for Christmas.
Here's a fun article for you couch psychologists out there. It's a study on incompetence, and how/why people who are incompetent (at something) are generally oblivious to their incompetence, and grossly overestimate their skills or knowledge in specific fields.
If you're not interested in reading, here's a figure from the article. The researchers asked the subjects how good they were at logic (relative to the students in their class), and then gave them a quick logic test. The subjects were asked to assess their performance after taking their test. The figure shows percieved competence, percieved test score, and actual test score. All numbers are in terms of percentile.
Hey, so I've been noticing these pyramid type thingies for getting a free iPod. Apparently there are some scammy ones and some real ones. Have any of you tried to get a free iPod? Any success? If I researched the right scheme to try, would any of you be willing to put in a few minutes to help me get it?
It seems like the way it works is you create an account and then go sign up for some deal. Most of them are something like 'sign up for our service for a year at a discount' but some are 'try our service free for a month, and if you like it, take no action and we'll bill you'. If you do the free trial then cancel (assuming you don't want the service), then it costs you nothing. Anyone?
Christmas Shopping
The Christmas Shopper:
Alone in a sea of peers,
A single snowflake
on Winter in Berkeley:
The soggy sky sobs
winedark wetness and gray gloom:
The longest of nights.
And in case lofty poetry isn't your thing, here's something funny.
For those running FireFox (browser) and Thunderbird (email) but don't keep up with the latest nerd news, FireFox 1.0 has been out for about a month, and Thunderbird 1.0 just came out. Go grab 'em if you want the latest and greatest! Both downloads are under 6 MB if you're grabbing the executables, so it's quick and easy.
For those still running Internet Explorer and Outlook, get with the program!My Dad is wanting to build a computer to replace his DVD player, CD player and VHS collection. He's asked for my help, and right now I'm looking at two options. One is to go for Windows Media Center Edition, and the other is to go for Debian Linux + MythTV.
What I'm thinking so far is that the Windows solution is slick and integrated, but it would be expensive (both for the software and hardware). My dad is a frugal guy, so I'm not sure I could sell it. The linux solution is free (software) and has flexible hardware requirements. Both are feature-rich. One of many benefits to going for the linux based solution (that I just thought of) is that when I get the inevitable support requests, I can just ssh into the linux box and fix it myself.
Have any of you tried anything similar? Have any suggestions? Leave a comment!
On an unrelated topic, I am missing some cds. I have the jewel cases, but not the disks! Did any of you borrow cds from me? I didn't think so. Any psychics in the audience? Let me know where they are!
