Random Crap

So, quite a few things have happened lately, and I haven't updated in a while, so I might as well.

I got back from Megaplex in Orlando, FL, and it was lots of fun. Got to meet some new people and pretty much goofed off the entire weekend. Quite a few folks liked the badge I commissioned from Tani DaReal, and getting to hang out with folks I hadn't seen in a while was a real treat.

I went insane and purchased a MacBook Pro. 2GHz Intel Core Duo, 1GB of RAM and 100GB hard drive. This is the fastest laptop I've ever seen! I'm amazed by how snappy MacOS X is on it; Apple finally redeemed the years of stagnation in their notebook line with this one. The downside is waiting for Universal binary versions of various applications to come out! Hurry up and recompile, folks!

On top of that, now that I have a fast enough machine, I went ahead and checked out Second Life. Ho-boy, I hope I don't become addicted to this. My name on there is "Zorin Frobozz" if you'd like to say hi. Sadly, there was no lynx avatar available, so I took a grey tabby-cat and added ear-tufts! Close enough for now. The game universe is entirely user created and you can create all sorts of wacky objects with this funky scripting language. I'm still learning about it, but who knows what I might come up with once I figure it all out. Whoo!

Anyway... That's all folks!

I've started RPing more on FurryMUCK lately. I dunno if it's that a new batch of fun and interesting players has joined the system, or what, but it seems more fun lately than it's been over the past few years. I'm glad FM is doing well; in this age of flashy web graphics and Second Life and all, text-based systems have fallen into the shadows and only the most hard-core people seem to like them anymore. It's a community with a strong history and I'm glad to have been a part of it for so long.

On the other side, though, I'm thinking of actually building... *gasp*, a Windows box. For games, of course. The thing is, when the MacBook Pro comes out in Februrary, if it can run Windows in a dual-boot configuration, that would be the ideal solution, as it would kill two cockroaches with one stomp. There's lots of games that have come out in the last few years that I'd like to try, many of them already in the bargain bins. A Windows box is a sad necessary evil to be able to play them, though.

Other than that, not much. Been dealing with lots and lots and lots of disk storage at work, backup strategies, pricing out an array of like 36 flat panels and pricing out hardware to drive it, and so on. It'd be neat if they'd buy that LCD array, that must be some sight.

I was digging through some old tapes and found some neat bits of radio from the 1980s, preserved for all time.

When I was a kid I got a tape recorder for Christmas, and would sometimes record the radio. Of course, being a kid, I did it the only way that came naturally, putting the microphone near the speaker, so the quality isn't all that great. But it's still a fun bit of nostalgia, as you will see.

Unfortunately, I don't remember the exact year. If any music buffs can pinpoint it more accurately, let me know!

So last night I met up with a bunch of folks at a friend's place. We sat around watching a few episodes of Freakazoid, then went to go watch "The Chronicles of Narnia" as one big group. It was loads of fun!

The movie was amazing. I don't think I've ever seen more realistic CG animals in my life. The story was also enjoyable, though the movie could have benefited from a bit faster pacing in some places. I just couldn't believe how good the animals looked; the facial moments when speaking looked incredibly realistic! One thought that came to me is that they could theoretically remake "The Lion King" in this sort of "live-action" and it would actually look good! (Though actually this would be a bad idea, Disney, so if you are reading, don't try it. };) )

After the movie, we returned and watched a couple more episodes of Freakazoid (duhhhhhhhhhh I am Mo-Ron!) for good measure. I miss cartoons like that; they managed to be funny without having to resort entirely to shock factor and gross-out (like South Park and Drawn Together).

And that's a wrap!

So for a while I've been promising myself to go on a bicycle ride to Downtown Miami and back when the weather gets cooler and a day without rain is predicted. Today was the day! So I said "what the heck" and did it!

I rode from around SW 137th avenue all the way to Bayfront Park. That's about 15 miles each way "as the crow flies", but due to the nature of the city I had to take lots of side streets and such, so the total trip distance ended up being 40.44 miles.

I stopped at a downtown Subway and had a roast beef sub before returning. Overall it was a rewarding experience to get to Bayfront Park and back under my own power. Of course, 40 miles is nothing to an experienced cyclist, but I'm far from that; I'm a computer geek who has this unusual (for a geek) urge to go outside sometimes!

Stats:

Total distance: 40.44 miles

Average speed: 12.0MPH

Maximum speed: 26MPH (down a hill, so it was sorta cheating ;) )

Total time in motion: 3h:23m:10s

Best part of the trip: Subway. Food feels so good when you're exhausted.

Worst part of trip: Inconsiderate motorists.

Biggest complaint: "Bike path" appears to not be in the vocabulary of Miami-Dade city planners.

Random tidbit: Cute kitty sleeping in the window of an apartment across the street from Subway. Grey and white with some tabby-ness. Yes, I'm hopeless!

Will I do it again: Maybe. Legs still hurt like hell!

Just updated this site to Drupal 4.6.x (it's about time, right?) and the upgrade seems to have gone smoothly, but if anyone sees any bizarre quirks, please let me know in a comment!

The quirk with logging in resulting in a blank page appears to have gone away. Other than that, I don't see any cosmetic changes or major changes on the admin side...

On other notes...

I got the p690 going at work a while ago. It is one hell of a beast of a box; right now it is partitioned entirely for Linux; all 31 usable CPUs and 256GB of memory.

It's hard to fathom a machine with 256GB of memory. I mean, this is so much memory that EVERYTHING you ever access on the machine's disk ends up in cache and STAYS in cache pretty much permanently! This causes the machine to always feel incredibly snappy once you've been using it for a bit.

I also managed to compile an entire Linux kernel in a bit less than two minutes. Normally compiling a Linux kernel takes about 20 minutes! "make -j 31" scrolls like no tomorrow, and the CPU time reported is around 23 minutes (since it adds up the time used on all of the CPUs)

It's a pretty fun machine to mess around with. }:)

Oh yeah, I was also at MetroZoo last weekend and took some photos. Well, I took a lot more, but these are the ones I'm showing off. The otters were a real blast to watch; they're totally adorable!

Oh yeah, this, and also this! Servals can jump pretty high.

Unusual past few days, it's been. Quick summary:

I've been wrestling trying to get an IBM p690 "Regatta" going at work. Basically an IBM POWER system about as tall as me (6'5") that needs three-phase power and sounds like a hurricane when it's turned on. The air blowing out is also hot as hell, which means it must be drawing a hell of a lot of power.

32 CPUs, and supposedly 128 gigabytes (yes, *GIGA*) of RAM, it is quite a sight to behold. Unfortunately, one of the fans isn't working, AND it's not booting correctly, throwing firmware CRC errors. Alas, IBM is coming out to look at it tomorrow.

I've also been messing with a BladeCenter, which is basically a big chassis that takes blades, which are self-contained servers with their own memory and disk. Yup, a 2.5" 10K RPM SCA SCSI drive. Didn't even know they existed until recently.

So what's the deal with Best Buy and $90 DVI cables? I was there Wednesday shopping for a TOSlink cable for my new HDTV receiver, and I can't believe some people actually pay that much. I also saw an $80 TOSlink cable. It's pretty disgusting, when you can get similar cables for around ten bucks online, in some cases including shipping. Will folks really pay $70 for a cable just to avoid waiting a couple days for shipping?!

Oh, and by the way: ABC's "Lost" in HDTV is sweeeeeeeeeeeeee*EEEEEEE*eeeet. I can't believe I can watch it and other shows in *above* DVD quality, received over a plain ordinary indoor antenna! Amazing. I need to find a way to RECORD shows in that quality; unfortunately all the devices on the market that can do so appear to either require tape (Ewww!) or subscription fees (DirecTiVo). I don't agree with TiVo's ass-kissing the TV studios, either, so they can be without my cash.

HOLY CRAP THIS IS SO ADORABLE I'M GOING TO BARF:

Err.. *ahem*.. Now back to your regularly scheduled WTF.

(Snow leopards rule.)

Remember _The Lion King_? That movie I sometimes obsess about? Yeah, that one.

Well, it seems Disney produced a second soundtrack, but never released it. No, not "Rhythm of the Pridelands". This was a soundtrack featuring pretty much the entire score of the movie, with no dialogue or rearrangements. Some enterprising soul leaked it, and it has been posted to the Internet.

Check it out.

Us old and grey Lion King fans are always happy to see new material become available; I never imagined something THIS cool would suddenly appear, though. Especially since I'm a fan of Hans Zimmer, and loved his work in _Gladiator_ as well.

Get it while you can; I doubt it'll be posted for long given mac.com's stance on "piracy". But then this isn't really piracy, is it? Afterall, Disney never released it, so they're not actually losing any money from this....

It's nice to be able to hear the score as it was in the movie with no dialogue or sound effects. The "official" soundtrack rearranged pretty much the whole score, and made it into a mere shadow of its former glory. Especially awesome are the tracks "Plotting" and "Under the Stars / Simba Alive".

Enjoy!

240/120 volts, 60Hz, split-single-phase.

Yep, 60Hz! Not 63.4 most of the time and 59.7 when the toaster is running. 60.000. Period.

Yup! 120 volts. Not 127.3 or 118.5 or 0.0 when it runs out of gas. 120 freakin' volts.

And 240 for the water heater, of course! Hot shower time tonight!

I saw the crew working on the feeder while driving home from work, so I knew tonight would be the night. All hail the grid! For without it, we are in hot sweaty darkness....

-Z