31Mar

Fixed Compy, and April Fools

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Well, I “fixed” my compy. I’ve known for a while that there were problems with the nvidia sata controller (i have an a8n-sli premium), and I’ve been working off the Silicon Image controller since then.

When i moved into my new place, i put a wireless card into one of my PCI slots to “borrow” some bandwidth until we got our AT&T set up. Apparently, the wireless card was the source of the problem. I had tried an AirLink card at first, and it made my computer have some serious problems booting up. I then switched to a NetGear, and i was able to get it working. It was secretly malfunctioning, though. Either i have a bad PCI bus, or my computer is not good with Wireless cards. I took the card out, and i haven’t had a crash since. It’s been about a week now. That’s good news. I don’t have to reformat. HOORAY!

April fools is tomorrow, and I wish I knew someone with a Mac. This would be a fun prank to pull. Oh well, I’ll just have to think of something else.

18Mar

Dying Compy

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Well, my computer has been blue screening itself with a “MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION” a lot recently. I get about an hour of use before it dies and i have to restart it.

I ran some diagnostics, and it doesn’t appear to be the motherboard, CPU, or RAM. I had this problem before when i had my hard drives connected to the Nvidia raid controller on my board (an A8N-SLI premium), and after moving over to the silicon image raid controller, i thought my problems were solved. It was ok for about 6 months.

Well, since all the system hardware checked out, I’m beginning to wonder if the problem lies in one of my hard drives. I have two 10k raptors for an OS, and a 500GB drive for data, and one of them is … squeaking. I think it’s the 500GB. more experiments tonight…

11Mar

Fats Waller

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I heard some Fats Waller music on Pandora the other day, so I bought the Handlful of Keys boxed set. Well, it’s a lot of fun. Fats’ favorite word seems to be an enthusiastic “YEAH!”, although it sounds a bit more like “EAH!”

Top songs so far are “My good friend the milkman says” and “The curse of an aching heart.” Tracks where Fats talks are most amusing. “Let me tell you something woman, you made a big fat greasy bum outta me, and I ain’t gonna stand for it.” fun stuff.

03Mar

Professor Layton: Love and Hate

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Ok, Professor Layton is a good game. But god damn, every once in a while one of those puzzles just makes me angry. Specifically, puzzle no 116:

Now, when the instructions say “any three numbers” and “vertically, horizontally, or diagonally”, I’m gonna expect that EVERY row and EVERY column must add to the same amount, not just the middle row and middle column. I spent about 30 minutes playing around under that impression, only to find out I was doing it wrong (the answer for what i thought it was is 47, by the way). I was a little frustrated by that. Only problem is, I’m not really sure how it should be worded to make it any better…

Or take puzzle no. 67. It’s simply not solvable on your own. There isn’t enough information.

That being said, it’s a good game. You take the bad with the good, i guess.

03Mar

Videogames as Art

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I’m tired of people arguing about whether or not videogames are art. Who are these fools? Yes, Shadow of the Colossus is pretty. Yes, the music is nice. And sure, Roger Ebert made you angry with his comments about video games. But seriously, now the CONTROLS are art, too?!?

Videogames are not art. Videogames are a medium on which you can create art. They’re nothing more than a canvas on which you can do some scribbles or create a deep, though provoking story line with gorgeous imagery. There’s a big difference between Pac-Man and Shadow of the Colossus, but they both have great gameplay. As gamers, we should be enjoying the gameplay. Let the historians argue about “art”.

03Mar

D Tour: A Tenacious Documentary

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I’ve gone to a couple Cinequest movies recently. Today I went to see the Tenacious D film, which is a documentary they made during their tour. I show up just as they were starting the film, and someone had won an iPod nano i think. The film was interesting enough. I enjoy watching behind the scenes stuff for bands and movies. What was surprising, however, was that at the end of the film, the announcer girl came up to the stage and introduced none other than Kyle Gass for a Q&A. I had no clue he’d be there, and it was a nice surprise for him to be there. It was especially cool because the California theater is so intimate. Good times.

01Mar

New Stuff

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So I started a professional blog at blog.lukerymarz.com, and it made me feel like I should have a personal blog of some sort. I though it could talk about games, project besides engineering stuff, and whatever I fancy at the time. Let’s see where it goes…