BRAIN_RECALL

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

2007-08-30T18:38:00.000-05:00

I've moved! Well, lets just say I can't keep a blog worth crap.
But, I'm still active and doing a few projects. To see what those projects are, just go here:

Brain_ReCall

Enjoy!

Forgot the title...

2006-07-09T03:48:00.000-05:00

Alright, well, I got lost again and didn't update in, well, forever.

The job search landed me with a position at Advanced Heat Treaters, not exactly a great job but it's simple work with decent pay/hours. The rest of the summer has been flying by in short order, so things have been going rather smoothly.

Got a letter in the mail from PSU asking if I would attend graduate school. I'm not sure if I will since I don't know if my finical situation will let me. I would like to, thinking it may expand my job opportunities. This will require more research and thought.

I finally got Guild Wars Factions and quickly got hooked again. I have a ridiculous amount of time placed into this game (over 400 hours easily), but considering it cost just as much as every other game I have bought, it is far more bang for the buck.

The BEAST did me over one more time. The SATA power adapter had a minor problem with a smaller than normal pin on the standard 4-pin ATX connector side. This caused the array (both hard drives since I ran one splitter) to loose power. I lost an array over that, which was hell for awhile. I have since managed to fix the problem (I hope) and have decided to forgo the RAID 0 array. Sad, but true, as it was becoming too much of a problem for other projects. Yes, I finally am triple-booting with XP Pro, Vista Beta 2, and Ubuntu 6.06. XGL and compiz is running pretty nice on this system. Since the last few months they have expanded some features, finally got some major things figured out, and now has a fully graphical configuration utility. Good times are ahead.

Oh, one final note is my new little program I wrote up. Because of some retarded software I use to add album covers to my music collection, I have to skip to each song to each is updated. Well, I was using a simple program called Aaron’s Clicker, which did what I needed to do (emulate a mouse click at timed intervals). Unfortunately, it was on a trial and had to be bought after so many days. So, I did some research and figured out that Visual Basic could be used to write a dirt simple program that could do essentially the same thing. Thus, I present Timed Clicker.

Cleaning out the room

2006-04-25T20:34:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that time of the year. I'll be packing up and shipping out of the dorm room within a week, leaving with one more year to go. Hopefully, that one will go slightly more smoothly than this one went. Anyways, other matters.

Job searching, particularly a summer internship, seems to be a bust. More and more it's starting to look like I'll be back at the old home-improvement job soon enough. I kinda hated the job, but I'm familiar with it, so I wouldn't totally mind going back. Hopefully they need some summer-only help. If not, I immagine there is more jobs (with better pay, too).

The BEAST has been hell for me. I had a stick of RAM go bad on me, which got replaced fairly easily. No sooner then I get it (didn't even have a chance to install it yet) then the pump controller totally die. Yea, another two weeks without the computer. Alright, so I get the new active-power controller and the water is running better than ever. Hard drive corruption. The Maxtor hard drives I was betting on to be a better buy started throwing bad sectors at me. Oh joy. I lost my RAID 0 array, AGAIN, but only lost my recent Napster music additions. I couldn't even determine which drive was bad, since thier is somehow a bad compatability problem with the model drives I had (DiamondMax 10 series, although the 11 have the same problems) and the nForce4 chipset. How wonderful. Shipped them back to NewEgg and got me some Western Digital RAID Edition drives. I'm not running them in a RAID this time. Hopefully this will give me some better reliability, and give me the chance of Linux on that machine. Ugh, what a pain having these failures. The only thing I'm really not happy about is I can't directly return the old drives; I can only request a replacement. To eBay I go!

Compiz?

2006-02-27T22:30:00.000-05:00

What is it? I don't know what the word means (or even where it came from) but I do know the name of the program. Combined with something else called XGL under Linux, it's an advanced 3D desktop with features that OS X doesn't have and even Microsoft's upcomming Vista wish it had.

Anyways, read my detailed ordeal with compiz on XGL here: http://brain.recall.googlepages.com/compiz

Here it is, Kool_Killer!

2006-02-25T00:15:00.000-05:00

Well, today, I finally got around to putting together a web page. As sucky as it is, lets give it a whril!

Check it out here: http://brain.recall.googlepages.com/kool_killer

Let me know what you think!

Plastic Surgery!

2006-02-23T14:07:00.000-05:00

Well, this is a facelift, isn’t it? I found Google Pages late last night, and that started me on a little update-rampage. This blog has a face-lift with some other improvements, such as an update to my list of links. Check them out, especially the first one, where someday I hope to get all of my projects up on the web. Google gives me that chance, with a VERY slick interface. Unfortunately, it was Dugg, meaning, it was posted on Digg’s front page which caused every geek this side of the moon to try to go there at once. Somehow, they managed to take down Google! I’m sure it will be back though. Until then, enjoy…

The EVIL doctor waits...

2006-02-20T10:47:00.000-05:00

This semester is actually good! Enjoyable classes combined with some easier topics (and slightly less asshole-ish professors) and overall less workload actually gives me some time for stuff that I want to do. AMAZING!

So what's up then? Well, many things are in the pipeline, of which I can discuss none of. Top-secret, hush-hush type stuff, I assure you.

But, other things are awesome. Came home last weekend and hung out with Dwayne and Earl (who just got married) and made a few rounds to the bars. Most enjoyable, now we just have to get Robertson to come along to Gunners and have Brett serve us a CANNON (100 oz. of beer with it's own tap).

Well, before I wrap this up, I'll tell you about my one friend on the 4th Floor Hamiliton. His name is Chris, although he wants to be called Creese. He's a speaker nut. In his room he has a home-built 5.1 audio setup for his computer. The two front satilites consist of 4 in. woofers with 1 in. tweeters. Rear channels are 3 in. woofers in parallel with some Monsoon flat-pannel speakers. The center channel is impressive, with a 10 in. woofer, two 3 in. woofers, and 2 tweeters. Then, the awesomeness of his 15 in. subwoofer that shakes the entire floor.
But what's really awesome is his DJ setup. He has some pretty nice, but generally standard-issue PA speakers, but then he one-ups it with his BASS TOWER. Four 15 in. subwoofers in a tower about 6 ft. tall. Incredibly impressive to see, and even better to feel. Man, when I get enough money, he's building me one of those, heh.

The Update Edition

2006-01-13T11:51:00.000-05:00

Just a teaser update to my small world.

School started back up after a wonderful and much needed, but short, winter break. I have some interesting classes this semester, and with luck the workload should be slightly less stressful.

I finally managed to upgrade The Beast, aka Kool_Killer after nearly four years (shock, horror!). Sometime I will figure out how to do a picture post and throw some up for your viewing pleasure. It turned out quite well, and seems to be a bit of an attention grabber from the guys on the floor. Unfortunately, the upgrades didn't arrive in time for Lou's LAN Party 2005: Holiday Edition.

LLP was, in my book, less than a success. I am seriously considering not doing another one again, considering how much effort others and I placed into it, how we were badgered by certain people weeks in advance, and how many people showed up late and left early (conveniently dogging setup and cleanup, something that I can't do by myself). Next LLP will have to be either a pay-for event or be completely organized and setup by someone else if it is to continue. Depressing, yes, but there is nothing else I can do about it.

Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for listening.

Some wonderful statistics...

2005-12-02T02:19:00.000-05:00

We all love the RIAA, don't we? Let’s take a look at some of their activity over the past few years.

During the last two years, the RIAA has filed over 14,800 lawsuits suing individuals over copyright infringement (swapping music online). Of those lawsuits, only one actually went to court. That means everyone else choose to settle the case at an average settlement of $3,000.

Lets do some math, shall we?
14,800 lawsuits times $3,000 per settlement = $44.4 million.
$44.4 million divided by 365 days per year times 2 years = $60,821.92
$60,821.92 divided by 24 hours/day by 60 minutes/hour = $42.24
$42.24 divided by 60 seconds per minute = $0.70

Lets review, shall we?
The RIAA files 14,800 lawsuits with no judicial review (their suits only require the signature of a clerk). Since people cannot afford to perform a legal battle with a megacorp such as the RIAA, they quickly settle. Meanwhile, the RIAA rakes in money at just over 70 cents a second.

Does this sound like a extortion to you?

And yet I wonder how much of this money makes its way back to "the struggling artists."

Duck and cover...

2005-11-22T01:12:00.000-05:00

Ahh, what they used to say after a nuclear strike. To protect yourself, you should duck and cover.

My guess is Sony is doing that right now, hoping the shit-storm just flies over. Oh, but it isn't.

At last count, at least SIX class action lawsuits were filed against Sony over the rootkit. They include the states of New York, California, and Texas as well as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The District Attorney of Texas is alone calling for a penalty of $100,000 per infection. Even if only 100 installations were found to exist in the state of Texas, that alone amounts to a $10 million penalty. And, judging by this map of detected infections, that is a low number.

But, lets turn to what Sony is doing. They at first denied any wrongdoing, of course. This is standard procedure for such a megacorp. Of course, the problem didn't go away, so they stopped production of the infected CDs. Great, but there were still some 20 million CDs in circulation. Only after enough complaints and two class-action lawsuits later did Sony offer to remove all infected CDs from store shelves and offer a replacement with a non-infected CD. Glad to see them save face when faced with legal consequences.

Ahh, Sony. In their infinite greed they had set back DRM by several years. Instead of the initial plan of slowly letting us get used to DRM before we were totally restricted, they turned up the water too hot and the frog jumped out before it boiled to death. They have thrown a better part of the music industry in total disarray, as people are now being scared off from buying CDs for the holiday season. People are boycotting Sony, and I'm surely going to be one of them. Even though Sony BMG isn't entirely affiliated with Sony Electronics, the link in the name alone is enough for me.

People are aware now. They know what the music industry is doing to their rights. They will soon learn of all their wonderful practices as EMI forces Apple to enter a variable pricing scheme sometime next year. People will figure it out, and then they'll be done.

The age of the media cartels will soon be over. All thanks to Sony and a rootkit.

Edit:
Almost forgot some of the better parts. Sony uses another type of DRM from a company called SunComm. This stuff isn't QUITE as bad, but it's still horrible in one simple fact. When you insert the CD it will ask you to install the "Enhanced content" (read: DRM and thier required media player). However, if you click no to not accept thier terms, it still installs the DRM! You couldn't make this shit up...

Lets try this again...

2005-11-07T15:35:00.000-05:00

I was going to write about my latest adventures in Guild Wars, but, I decided to tackle something far differnt.

Recently, large entertainment buisnesses (mostly music, such as Time Warner, BMG, Sony, etc.) has decided to include DRM to restrict your rights when using thier music. Digital Rights Management was touted as a consumer-demanded "feature," but it simply isn't. With the advent of computers with CD burners and P2P on high-speed internet, the old corporations became scared that they would loose control over the distribution system they have become dependant on. So, DRM is belived to be thier saving grace, where digital content will be restricted to how they want it used, not how you want it used.

Most of the DRM of yore was pathetic. Usually it was some program that would autorun on a Windows machine to disable the CD drive from reading the audio portion of the disc correctly or by confusing the drive to cause the computer to crash. Lots of these attempts even prevented the discs from being played on normal stand-alone CD players. The consumers weren't happy, and they showed it with large amounts of these CDs being returned. Retailers had to foot the bill, leaving them quite mad as well.

Now Sony takes it up one notch. With some recent music, such as Switchfoot's "Nothing is Sound" album they released the worst possible DRM they could come up with. (For an entire listing of DRM protected Sony CD's from Amazon to avoid, check here. ) Sony's DRM autoruns a program on Windows asking you to install a specifically built CD-player. The installer presents a standard EULA (End User Liscense Agreement that is presented with almost all software during installation) where there is no mention of the DRM Sony will be installing nor the way the DRM works. But here is what Sony doesn't want you to know.

The DRM installs what is called a rootkit (rootkits are generally an essential part of any good trojan). Essentially, it really screws with Windows to hide itself and all the files it wants to from Windows. Specifically, any file, program, process, or folder starting with "$sys$" are hidden from Windows, and thus from you. The DRM uses this cloaking rootkit to hide the true DRM, a new CD-ROM driver. The new driver has a special function to scramble the data when a ripping program attempts to rip tracks from not just Sony's CDs, but all CDs. It also goes so far to disable CD burners from creating audio discs. It will aslo contact Sony each time you play thier CD to download advertisements to your computer. All in the name of corporate greed.

The cd-burner and ripping isn't new, and has been done before. But what is new and what is getting everyone very mad is the rootkit. Here are a few things that can be done with the rootkit:

World of Warcraft hackers are using the rootkit to hide thier cheating program from Blizzard's anti-cheating program called Warden. Rename the program with the "$sys$" in front of it and it becomes completely hidden.
Any virus, worm, trojan, spyware, adware, and malware can use this rootkit to hide itself from the user and any virus/spyware scanner.
Sony can seemlessly install even more restrictive DRM, such as blocking a new program the old version didn't, without the user's knowledge or consent.

The exterior of the CD you buy doesn't mention the wonderful rootkit. It never mentions how it would affect your ability to listen to, burn, or rip other CDs. Sony attempts to hide behind a shrinkwrap EULA. What are they? "By opening this product, you agree to all the terms within." The problem is you have no way to know what the terms are without opening it, and if you don't agree with it you are instructed to return the product to the place of purchase, which, for the most part, won't return opened CD's or computer games since they could have been copied. The really bad part is the EULA inside doesn't mention the above DRM protection methods at all, including the phoning-home part.

Only after the DRM was dragged into the light did Sony offer a uninstaller, which at first required you to email two seperate people and wait for a response from them to get a link to go get the uninstaller. They're obviously trying to frustrate the casual user to keep thier rootkit on your computer. Better yet, the uninstaller doesn't uninstall the DRM, but mearly removes the cloaking feature of the rootkit. In fact, the uninstaller UPGRADES the DRM to a newer version!

And yet, after all of this, Sony still calls thier DRM impliementation "not a security risk."
Maybe after newer versions with deeper imbeded rootkits that also disable P2P software people will realize what all the rage was about.

PS: This was reposted, after the comments were spamed. It was only once, but enough to tick me off, enable post moderation, and repost this post to purge the comments.

Dreams show the darndest things...

2005-10-12T23:52:00.000-05:00

The following is an account of last night’s dream (more accurately, this morning from the times of 9:05AM to 9:30AM). The following is as accurate as I can remember, however, minor details have been changed to reflect a more sensible situation, for some artistic flare, and lastly because my dream memory isn’t the best.

The setting is me playing my character, Dargo Dramea, on a game I often play called Guild Wars. I was in a unknown town. The entire area was an island for which the town consumed. The soft rolling grass covered hills and steep dividing walls of earth reminded me of one of the planets in Knights of The Old Republic (except there were no flying whales… but I digress). I was near the merchant, where a long earth-wall separated the merchant from the rest of the town. Just then I was hit by an arrow. “What the hell? You can’t take damage in a town!” I had thought. A nearby monk healed my damage, with no apparent source of the damage. “You can’t take damage, and you certainly can’t use your spells in a town” I had announced to the town channel. Some people acknowledged the weirdness of it and just said it must be some really interesting bug. Immediately afterwards, a loud crumbling sound came from the towns main entrance. The NPC’s of the town (non-playable character) including the merchant off to the side of me screamed out “They found us! Run, run for your lives!” The merchant in front me turned and ran to the opposite side of the city as the noise. Just then, a huge party list developed. It contained the entire town (with, oddly enough, each health bar was half-length to fit everyone in a reasonable area). Characters immediately started to follow the NPC’s, with no one chatting anymore as they scrambled. People were falling fast, from the looks of the party window. I had noticed a small off-to-the-side path behind me that went behind a earth-wall and wandered up towards the front entrance. Me and a warrior (wearing Gladiator armor) started to follow up this path.

There we saw who was attacking. A hideous cross between a Grawl and a Mountain Troll was attacking two necromancers. They weren’t doing too well, so we joined in to help. As soon as we did, two more of these beasts ran in. I stayed back, casted Arcane Echo, fired off a Rodgort’s Invocation into the group, and then fired it again thanks to the echo. One more fireball combined with the necro spells and the distraction of the warrior caused them to fall. I ran to the group, but six more beasts came from the entrance to the town towards us. I glanced at our party list and realized the almost the entire town’s compliment was dead. The chat channel was now explosive with activity as people tried to grasp the happenings. The six Grawl Trolls were on us, attacking, and quickly taking out the already weakened necromancers. They all ganged up on the warrior, and knowing there was little I could do, I ran.

I wasn't really sure at first which direction I was heading; I just tried to get away from the grawl trolls who had by now finished off the warrior. I found myself running towards the door from where all these creatures came from (it was unprotected since they were chasing down other helpless victims, particularly those that were away from the computer and remained motionless). As I ran through the gate and onto the large dock complex of this island town, I found myself face-to-face with a sorcerer of some kind in one of the classic cinematics that we are all familiar with. He was average dressed in solid black, with just some gold trim outlining the cloak he wore. He said in a raspy voice as the Grawl trolls surrounded us "We have come back to reclaim what is ours. You are the last of people to survive. Go back to your king. Tell him what has happened here. Tell him it will happen again. Now, go." He motioned to the nearby boat, which my character walked on and drifted away out to sea.

At this point I woke up, realized I hit the snooze button a few too many times, and ran to get to class.

RIAA vs iTunes

2005-09-20T14:01:00.000-05:00

Here's a great quote from Slashdot. The article the comment appeared in was how the RIAA was pressuring Apple to increase thier prices.

"Hey, what do with this golden goose?"

"What does it do?"

"It lays golden eggs."

"Do we own the goose?"

"No, but we get half the eggs as long as the goose uses our nest."

"We ain't got to do nuthin' and we still get half the eggs?"

"Yep."

"But we don't own the goose."

"Nope."

"I say we kill it!"

Cheaters suck...

2005-09-16T14:51:00.000-05:00

Below is the message I sent to Guild Wars violation reporting system.

It is in my regret that I even have to write this message, but I feel it must be done. As a summary, I believe the player of the character Eyes On Silas is using a bot to control his character. The following is an account as accurate as I can remember of the time about 12:30PM to 1:30AM on Thursday, September 15th.

The night started when I was helping Helena The Dread (N/R11) and Errutu Denuscar (N/W12) kill Garfaz Bloodfang with my character Dargo Dramea (E/Me20) in the Diessa Lowlands. Out of boredom I offered to take them up to Yaks Bend. We stopped at the Grendich Courthouse before we left for the big trip. At this point we offered to take another person up for free. Eyes On Silas joined up as a level 11 Warrior/Monk.

Immediately I thought something was off. Eyes On Silas began saying in the team channel "Let's go!" and "I'm ready!" "Lead on!" But, we went out anyways, not really thinking he was a bot but simply maybe not so good with the language. We got out to Diessa Lowlands to begin our journey. He said "Lead on!," turned, and ran to the nearest group of Charr. He attacked the group as we tried to keep up. Mid battle he spoke "In the name of the k-ing!" amongst other phrases that we would hear later on. He almost died, just barely getting off a healing signet as the last Charr fell. He said "Lead on!" once again. So I started to lead, stopping before the next group to let everyone catch up. He didn't, saying "Lead on!" before running into the next group and attacking. After we killed the Charr, I finally asked in team-chat if he was a bot. The other two guys understandably thought it was funny. We got no direct response, only another "Lead on!" after a few moments.

As we continued our way I kept asking if he was a bot, telling the other guys that he was a bot, but we still only got the cookie-cutter responses as before. During one battle he finally died, saying “Revenge me!” When we didn’t resurrect him after awhile (mainly because we couldn’t) the bot began responding “I am THE team!” and something to the sort of “You will regret this!” By this time we reached the Ascalon Foothills, where he was resurrected and the charades began again, but this time we let him attack a group of Hydras and watched him die. We got few responses back from him at this time. We moved up into Traveler’s Vale where he resurrected again, and we quickly watched him die, again.

At this point I realized that I was going to drag this bot to Yak’s Bend, and since we were so far it made little sense leaving the bot and reforming. So we pushed on into Yaks Bend.

I had accused Eyes On Silas several times in team chat of being a bot. I had said several times in team chat that I was going to report him. We never got any other responses that resembled a player was playing the character.

When inside Yaks Bend, I announced on the all channel that Eyes On Silas was a bot as a warning to anyone who was listening. Some people asked how I knew that, and about 30 seconds later Eyes On Silas responded with “You wish.” I noted his apparent automatic responses he was spewing, which he said to just use the up arrow in the chat window. He then apparently demonstrated the technique, speaking about 75% of the phrases he said sequentially without any doubles in a matter of seconds (literally less than a second between them). I told him I was reporting him of using a bot, which he said what that would do.

Now, I want to rant here a little bit. Eyes On Silas did not attempt to refute my accusation, what a person would normally would do. No, he asked what would be the consequences. This, if you know a little about the psychology of lying, is a HUGE admission of guilt.

At that point, some others commented how “stupid” the phrases “the bot” said. Others said to report him and offer links to the Guild Wars support site. By this time I had added Eyes On Silas to my friends list, and I had noticed that he immediately left Guild Wars.

As a final note, I would like to say how much I enjoy Guild Wars. You guys have built perhaps the only MMORPG that I will ever play, let alone enjoy.

I would also like to note that I am no perfect soul myself. I have done the whole IDDQD and IDKFA equivalents in games, but this was only done to amuse myself. What Eyes On Silas did is FAR different, as his cheating affects the accounts of thousands of others by giving him a very unfair advantage over others. I hope in your investigations, either in the case of Eyes On Silas or in the many other cases I imagine you deal with, that you remove these people in order to better Guild Wars as a whole.

Once again, I thank you for this amazing game and your incredible support of the Guild Wars community.

Sincerely,

Joseph Auman

The Willard Preacher

2005-09-15T15:25:00.000-05:00

Next to this one building I often pass, and have classes in, exists a small clearing around the main entrance. Here, a guy makes his daily trip to this spot and preaches his beliefs to whoever passes by.

He is known as The Willard Preacher, after the building he preaches next to.

I guess this guy has been doing this for over 15 years, and when I first saw him I thought a psychology professor was having an outdoor class.

But, today, instead of just walking by, I decided to stop for about 5 minutes between classes. Mostly, he was talking about how our “liberal” professors were pushing their liberal ideas onto us. He said in one line:

“Would you sodomize and prostitute your morality to these liberal professors to get a better grade?”

I did what most people did: ignored it as ranting of someone with far too much time on their hands.

Snap to 30 minutes later in my statistics class. We were discussing some property of probability when he made an off-topic comment.

“It’s like those people who believe in ID, Intelligent Design. I think they shouldn’t drive cars. You know why? Because those people don’t believe in science, so they shouldn’t be driving cars since they are built on science.”

That provided some amusing irony to the day.

Err..

2005-09-12T23:38:00.000-05:00

Wow, college, how I missed thee (NOT).
Buried under homework, I'm slowly pulling myself through. There's no way to really tell how this year will go this time around ( my guess is certainly not as good as before), but maybe with a little luck and some majic I cna get through it.

After a few mishaps and shenanigans, I'm in my new dorm room. Noel is my roommate, and we're getting along fine. I only wish there was some air conditioning (Damnit, where's this cold weather, PA? You're failing my expectations!). Some day I will post pictures, as soon as I get off my lazy ass and get them of my phone.

But, alas, as I sit here at alsmost 1 AM, I realize that I have homework to pound out before tommorrow. Hey, that's Guild Wars over there... lets try that out instead. Heh...

SFATTP

2005-08-21T12:14:00.000-05:00

Straight Forward, and to The Point.

Well, I finally figured out (mostly) my college situation. Before, Penn State had issued me "supplemental housing" which is code for "we overbooked the hell outta the dorms, so, like, we're gonna give you a closet."
Luckily, I didn't get a closet, and instead got a genuine dorm with one genuine dormmate. I haven't had the chance to talk to him, but hopefully everything will work out alright.

Other than that, things will be coming along. I still have to pack, but that's what this last week is for. And, as per my parents request, I will not be bringing The Beast, aka Kool_Killer, as they think it may be "stolen." I'll amuse them for awhile, but until then I'll be on my hardened laptop, the Mobile_Monster. I will also have the Mini_Beast (the NEC handheld) as a life savior.

In other news, I now have a cell phone. Those Who Are Worthy will know the number. Those Who Are Not Worthy will have to email to see if they may have their status changed. Oh, and the name of the wonderful phone is Mobile_Moto (can you tell I love naming my geeky stuff?).

All-in-all, this is just a dirt-quick update. Enjoy the rest of your day.

PS: My dad was recently tested for prostate cancer. The doctor didn't think it was, but just wanted to make sure. Scary as hell, but it was negative.

Damned Dirty Lawyers...

2005-07-05T23:06:00.000-05:00

So, finally, after many known cases of abuse, AMD has filed against Intel for anti-trust violations.

Honestly, I'm shocked it took them this long to go against Intel. I guess they wanted to make sure they have enough evidence. It sure does look like they do.

Lets take, for example, the recent Japanese Federal Trade Commission's case against Intel, where, they Intel themselves admitted to violating their anti-monopoly laws against Sony, Toshiba, Fujitsu, NEC, and Hitachi. The outright admitted they were using illegal rebates and intimidation to ensure that these companies would ONLY use Intel processors.

The way I see it, there are two outcomes. One, AMD wins in the USA and Intel is sanctioned. Two, AMD looses and go under from the legal fees. If you read the formal legal complaint, and if even half of it is remotely true, then I doubt Outcome #2 will ever happen. Quite simply, there appears to be too many cases to be a mere coincidence or glossing over of facts.

Maybe finally I could buy a Dell laptop with AMD technology. I can only hope.

Ugh...

2005-06-30T22:22:00.000-05:00

Blogger ate two of my long posts.
Fuck it, I like apple and I want an ipod.

Maybe this will work, bastards...

Here I am

2005-06-17T23:55:00.000-05:00

Alright, I tried keeping the goal, but I failed. Oh well, move on.

What I really wanted to do was test this network card. A while back Jon gave me this wireless card that should of been compatiable with his handheld. But unfortunetly, it didn't work. Here, the firmware was some unoffical version that didn't work with the drivers I had. So, using my brothers 10 year old laptop, I flashed an older, correct, version, and BINGO. She works, yes, she does.

Unfortunetly, the browser, roughly ported from IE 4, is dirt old. Lots of things are just unsupported, like any formating for this very post. But, oh well, I can live with it.

All in all, a neat project to do that became very handy. Now I gotta see if Jon will sell this to me...

I've fallen off!

2005-05-18T17:42:00.000-05:00

The edge of the world! Oh no, turn back, turn back!

*whoosh*

Well, I did disappear for awhile. The reason? GUILD WARS. No, not some cheesy B-movie combo of Star Wars and The Lord of The Rings, but a new massively-multiplayer online role-playing game, simple a MMORPG.

I've tried other MMORPGs and liked some. I mildly enjoyed Diablo, couldn't get the grip of Medivia (which is actually a MUD [multi-user dungeon]). I loved Knights of The Old Republic, even though that doesn't quite fit here since it's not online, but it is one of the few RPGs that I could sit through. As you may or may not know, I'm a big First Person Shooter fan, namely of the Serious Sam series.

However, something about GW has intrigued me. Maybe it's the fact it runs beautifully on my lousy dialup, or the fact that all online play is free. But there is something else. Storyline isn't it so much, since the plot is rather huge and filled with side-quests to keep you busy. No, I think it has to be the system of play, and especially how it's set up for friend co-op quests.

First off, Guild Wars can be played alone, or with your friends, or accompanied by computer controlled henchmen. But the fun happens when you and a friend join up to complete a common mission, or to help them through one of their quests. Communication with you and a friend can be done through the standard chat methods, but Guild Wars goes one step above by allowing access to a map that all party members can see and use. You can draw out possible paths, mark areas of interest, and strategize how to attack a mob of enemies.

The simple fact that the classes, called professions, are so well balanced is amazing. Usually somewhere in a RPG a certain combination with one strategy will almost guarantee victory. Not so with Guild Wars. Every profession has their vital strengths and weaknesses, and combined with a second profession, gives you some very interesting game play. Essentially, if you don't know what you're doing or how to use your character, you'll die quickly. However, each and every character combination is as powerful as the next used right.

Honestly, I could rant on about GW until my fingers bleed, but I'll leave it at that. Right now I have to go build me some new armor, oh yes, it's gonna be fun!

UPTT

2005-05-11T22:07:00.000-05:00

Today we (i.e. about ten PSU:DuBois students) went on a University Park Transition Tour.
Very interesting it was. The Main Campus is big, really big, mind-boggling hugely impressively vast, to say the least. It's quite intimidating to see just the scale of it, especially considering I spent the first two years of my college career at perhaps the smallest PSU branch campus (yeah, we have FIVE buildings, total, and three houses).

But even with all the intimidation of being next to the largest buildings I have had the pleasure being next to, I'm excited going down there. Sure, it'll be overwhelming for the first two weeks. Hell, I'll probably be so nervous I'll barely eat for the first two weeks. But after that transition I know I'm going to have fun.
For someone who has been locked up in a two-bit town for 20 years, I'm excited as hell to get to a town where I can actually walk to a huge business district and actually visit decent shops. Saint Marys isn't bad, mind you, but NOTHING compared to State College.

Now, if the GPA I built in DuBois can keep me afloat for these last two years, then I'll be set.

Good Will Hunting

2005-05-10T20:44:00.000-05:00

It’s funny when I hear someone talk about “saving the deer.” Environmentalists that absolutely hate hunting. Not all the “tree-huggers” are bad, and most of their points of discussion are well deserved. But some people seem so far out of touch of the facts it’s almost sickening.

Where I live hunting is a city-wide affair. Every single friend that I have owns a gun, and just as many hunt. Archery, muzzleloader, shotguns and bolt-action rifles. Deer hunting is such a sport in St. Marys that the schools shut down on the first day of buck season. If you were to take a look at the deer herd population statistics, there would be a huge depression in the number of deer for all of Elk County. I myself have never hunted, and our family has never owned a gun. But I respect the sport and its purpose, something the environmentalists seem to miss.

Firstly, there is a major reason why deer hunting takes place: deer population control. No one wants to have cougars in their back lawn. No one wants a pack of wolves living in the forest across the street, most certainly not with children playing outside. So, the wolf, cougar, bears, and mountain lion populations were hunted to near extermination. This left the deer with no natural predators. What does this mean? Uncontrolled population explosion. The deer would literally eat themselves into starvation, where the population would exhaust all natural resources.

This is where hunting comes into play. By replacing the natural predators with unnatural ones, namely the hunters themselves, the herd can be reduced in size so that the environment can handle the herd. Hunting prevents the mass starvation that would otherwise happen, keeping the overall health of the deer good.

Of course, to reduce the “senseless killing of innocent animals,” we would need to reintroduce the deer’s natural predators. Then, we would also need to be willing to deal with the animal attacks. These natural predators do attack humans, for various reasons (such as a territory violation, or simple hunger). The environmentalists would need to make a conscience decision to allow attacks on people so that the deer population could be maintained, something that could be done without the attacks with hunting.

So, what is it? Bears attacking children, or hunters mounting a deer above their fireplace?

Thank you, come again!

2005-05-08T18:48:00.000-05:00

I've long wanted a blog of my own. Something where I could spew my thoughts and keep a record of my projects.

Finally.

Now the problem is keeping me interested. I want this blog to stay with me for a long while, and in order for that to happen, I'll have to keep it updated. I don't plan on posting every day (my life simply isn't quite that interesting) but maybe a few times a week would be grand. I'll pledge to myself to post AT LEAST twice a week, with a goal of three times a week. Lets see if I can keep it like that.

With that in order, I'll leave this as my first blog post. I'll keep it simple as a pledge to myself, and later on down the line I'll talk a little about both my thoughts on matters and a little about who I am.