Cakoluchiam
18 November 2009 @ 05:51 pm
I forgot to check the internal microphone before I switched hard drives and reinstalled Windows, and it's certainly not working on this install. BRB checking that it actually exists (if not, then fuck, I'll need another system exchange—my computer is my phone and I need it to have a microphone).
 
 
Cakoluchiam
18 November 2009 @ 02:45 pm
Dell overnighted the default drivers disc and a new docking station so I got them this morning, and I was fully prepared to sit back and enjoy my new upgrade... but of course leave it to Dell to always leave something wrong.

First of all, the drivers disc they sent was organized no better than the drivers section of the website, which even given my system's service tag (which theoretically holds precise information about not only the model number but the individual serial tag of each part in my computer) still only narrowed down drivers to "ANYTHING POSSIBLY AVAILABLE IN ANY CONFIGURATION OF A LATITUDE E6500"—oh, I'm sorry, did I say "anything"? I meant "anything except for the fingerprint reader".

The lack of a driver for a hardware component that wasn't even part of the original system (for which this new one is an exchange) wouldn't be much of a problem for most people, but I made the mistake of setting up fingerprint access just before reinstalling Windows. This meant that once Windows was installed, the computer is still accessible only by a swipe of my index finger (luckily that much still works) or of course the alternate password, but either way, there appears to be no way for me to unregister my fingerprint nor to register new fingerprints. Yikes.

The second problem was that the docking station arrived without a power supply, and although the laptop's cable plugs in fine, my power supply is rated at 90W and the docking station is rated at 130W. Also just for convenience's sake, I'd rather not have to unpack my laptop's power cable and reach behind the desk every time I want to dock my computer.

Third, the docking station sent did not include PS/2 ports despite that the representative who arranged the dispatch specifically said that it would. I have an old IBM keyboard with an integrated trackpoint that I'd like someday to get in working order enough to be able to use, but it's worthless without PS/2 inputs for my computer.

I called back and the representative was very helpful in the case of the missing driver for the fingerprint scanner—he was as astounded as I was to discover that the driver existed neither online nor in the disc they had sent, and moreover their backup online driver resource didn't accept my system's service tag. He ordered a new disc specifically for the fingerprint reader driver a la carte to be sent overnight.

He was resistant to replace the docking station (as I am sure all representatives are trained to be when it comes to essentially giving away hardware for free) but I offered to return the original docking station as well as the intermediate replacement (2 for the price of 1) since the previous docking station exchange had not required me to return the original. He said it "wasn't possible" but I reminded him that that's what they said about the last two docking stations they sent me too, and after putting me on hold for a few more minutes he returned with special approval. I reminded him that my return of the original docking station was contingent on the replacement providing PS/2 ports and a power supply (sadly, E-series docking stations don't have integrated power supplies nor do they provide a PCI card slot, so gone are my hopes of installing an extra video card and fully hybridizing this machine into a gaming desktop), and he set up the exchange.

I had a little chat with his supervisor afterwards as tends to happen every now and then when the representative I talk to has a middle-eastern accent. It's nice though because although they seem to ask discriminatorily for feedback, I usually get the best help from said middle-eastern sounding representatives, so I'm always happy to speak good words of praise. I wonder if they ever instruct native English speakers to preface their calls with "please feel free to ask me to repeat anything if I am not speaking clearly enough"—I have more problems understanding many American accents than I do the clear diction of someone who had to work consciously to develop their language skills.

In the meanwhile, my new machine is functional enough to run, so I'll be enjoying me some L4D or maybe TF2 or maybe even HL2E1&2. Ooh, and once I get Windows 7 (godforbid I be forced to resort to Vista), I'll be able to enjoy DX10 too : D.
 
 
Cakoluchiam
16 November 2009 @ 01:57 pm
Dear [Action.Contact First Name] [Action.Contact Last Name] )

In related news, I'm getting an upgrade to an E6500 with a 2.4GHz processor and 2gb RAM. No news on the video card yet, but with 133% my current speed and 200% my current RAM, there's no way I'm complaining unless I get stuck with integrated graphics. Other perks include Bluetooth (finally) and an integrated fingerprint reader.

The only problem is that now I have to go through the process of arguing for a docking station upgrade if my D/dock isn't compatible with the E-series, but I'll wait until I have one bird in hand before attacking that second one in the bush.

I look forward to being able to L4D (and soon 2L2D) with the rest of 'em.
 
 
Cakoluchiam
28 October 2009 @ 10:49 pm
The show is in its third season. Why is it only now that I'm hearing about it, and EVERYWHERE. On blogs, in the news, on YouTube (Sesame Street!), on the Daily Show... It's not mentions of the third-season's quality either. It's just... culture. References are made to the show in general: its style, the characters; it's being used as an icon of the era and industry it represents. It's referenced so seamlessly, as if people have been talking about it for years, that it's pervaded our entire culture.

Is this some great coincidence, or have the minds behind Mad Men taken the subject of their art into practice? Are they so effectively advertising their show that we don't even know they're doing it?

As a result of the sudden abundance of reference to the show, I've begun to watch it, from the first season. I'm only a few episodes in, but I'm really enjoying it. As a review, it seems more art than drama to me, which is just fine, since I can relax and appreciate it without the sort of expectations that come with most modern problem-a-week dramas.
 
 
Cakoluchiam
28 October 2009 @ 12:40 pm
System replacement GET!
 
 
Cakoluchiam
27 October 2009 @ 04:44 pm
"The period of sin is irrational." ~Me

Edit: Supplemental Reading
 
 
Cakoluchiam
27 October 2009 @ 01:02 am
Castle's Halloween costume is a space cowboy. Yes, it's that good.

"Okay, a) there are no cows in space; b) didn't you wear that like... five years ago?"
"So?"
"So, don't you think you should move on?"
"I like it!"
 
 
Cakoluchiam
01 October 2009 @ 11:54 am
Signature recognition via this sort of application. Note how it matters not just -where- you draw, but -when-. It's one thing to forge a signature. It's an entirely different thing to forge the signing of that signature.
 
 
Cakoluchiam
05 September 2009 @ 02:32 pm
I just had one of the most vivid and detailed dreams I've had in a very long time.

Flood )
 
 
Cakoluchiam
21 July 2009 @ 10:56 pm
My memory isn't what it once was. )

I've always enjoyed having good record of my life; this journal, class notes, textbooks, GMail archives, instant message logs, even install files for previous working versions of programs I regularly install on my computer. As a result, I have become less reliant on my own memory, when I have a reference for everything, a Wikipedia of my life. I wonder (though perhaps it is no wonder) if this might be a primary cause that nowadays I find myself forgetting things that should be important: pay the bills, call that reference, the memory of my first date with my girlfriend... Even though I don't have explicit records of these things (short of, in each of these given cases, someone else's memory to which I will someday be held accountable), I have brought myself to this general complacency that if ever I should need to know something about my life, there is -usually- a record I can depend upon.

Usually isn't always, and that is the problem. In particular, I rarely make record of my intentions when I stand up and exit the room in search of ... what was it? food? socks? a toothbrush? DVDs?, and quite often now I find myself walking back and forth between two rooms, returning each time with a different item acquired or task accomplished, in the hope that eventually, I will realize what it was I had set out to do in the first place and be pleasantly surprised to discover that the mission was somewhere inadvertently accomplished.

Incidentally, this is also how I tend to approach the construction of mathematical proofs. )

Take this essay, for example. I opened this writing tablet with the intention to discuss my mixed feelings over my birthday.  )But thinking consciously of the problem I realized that its roots may lie deeper in my personality than just superficial worries. I realized that a primary cause of those worries is my same collective nature. I simply have too many friends. I can't get rid of them, and I really don't want to. The problem is, sometimes I don't feel like my friends are really my friends. This doesn't have anything to do with how people treat me, how often they call, the quality or quantity of presents they give me, etc.—that's all great (quite often, better than I feel I deserve, given how rarely I generally call and the sparsity of gifts I give). It has to do with acceptance.

I love a lot of people. It's who I am, and how I roll. I am up front and honest about myself to the best of my ability; the sole exception ironically being with my best friend and brother who I'm pretty sure still thinks I'm joking when I talk about being attracted to dudes. When I make a friend, I choose to accept that person and all that comes with them, no matter what. The problem is, I secretly expect the same in return. That's an oxymoron, following "no matter what" with expectations. So in order to avoid the logical paradox, I've had to change my own behaviour to ensure that that expectation is never tested.

Mostly this means taking "all that comes with [me]" and setting it aside in a magic box that my friends will never have to see (and thus, never have to accept). Sure, I'll still talk about what's in the box, but as long as it's not jumping out and clawing them in the face, they'll be fine, my hypothesis will never be tested, and my resolution will remain unbroken. So even though I'm happy to discuss all matters of my personal life with just about anyone, the fact of the matter is that I—the real me is still locked up in the closet, in that magic box.

Worse still, is that in that magic box, with the real me, are all my other friends, for whome each individually I have constructed a separate magic box containing all the areas of my life which might be objectionable to them, again, to be heard of but not seen. Sometimes this happens simply because I haven't introduced my friends to each other, but sometimes (and increasingly often as I collect more friends) it happens because friends who do know each other have fallings-out of their own, apart from me (or, in the case of some romantic rivalries, because of me). The more close friends I have in each others' magic boxen, the harder it is to have big celebrations with all those friends without opening them up and putting my expectations to test.

And so, every year at about this time, a crowd of people starts bugging me, reminding me that yes, indeed, it is my birthday, and what am I going to do about it? Rather than tell them the truth (which I guess I hadn't even figured out for myself until now) which is that I'm certainly not going to be hanging out with them because if I do then I won't be able to hang out with any of my other friends who happen to be in their magic Pandora box, I just tell them that it doesn't really matter to me that it's my birthday; it's just another day, after all.

It's not just another day.

I'm tired of having to censor my life for people I love very deeply. They're not making me choose, but they're making me choose.

It hurts.
A lot.

So if you glossed over this entire post and just happened to notice the word "birthday" and want to know what you can get me, how about this: get over your petty high school disputes and learn to love your fellow man so we can all go to a big party together and have a great time.

If everyone can just do that one simple thing, then drinks are on me.
Tags:
 
 
Cakoluchiam
16 July 2009 @ 11:49 pm
I just bought the GCN game Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup for $4 today. So far, even as a single-player game, it has been well-worth the money. I still hold, however, that someone needs to make an online multiplayer version of Quidditch, with actual 3D movement (and the larger arenas to support it).
 
 
Cakoluchiam
03 July 2009 @ 09:44 pm
I just bought a 4Gb microSD card with adapter for use with my Wii, and I am sitting here awestruck that inside this tiny chip, which, including the plastic casing that probably makes up about 50% of its volume, is smaller than a US Dime, sit literally BILLIONS of tiny electronic registers which are all precisely accessible and perfectly accurate.

Holy fucking balls.

In Unrelated News: I used IE8 to compose this post, and I am dumbstruck that there is NO FUCKING UNDO FUNCTION. I accidentally selected the whole post and deleted it (by hitting space instead of ctrl+c, the latter and more intelligent of which I do at the end of long posts such as this to avoid just this sort of problem), and had to rewrite the entire thing from scratch. Moreover, using the text select cursor on the end of a line places the bar at the first character of the next line, requiring me to PRECISION-SELECT the single pixel space at the end of the line in order to place the cursor where I want it, which is also retarded. Thank god I'm going back to FireFox in a second.
 
 
Cakoluchiam
27 June 2009 @ 01:27 am
QOTD: "LaBoeuf projects a pathetic, wall-eyed dorkhood, when he's not babbling like a tumor removed from Woody Allen's prostate that somehow achieved sentience."
 
 
Cakoluchiam
28 May 2009 @ 01:51 pm
Ow.  
So I noticed ABC has this new series called "The Goode Family", which I could have sworn was "The Greene Family" in the previews, but in any case, it looked like a left-wing "King of the Hill", which is a a pretty good show, so I thought I'd check it out.

After five minutes, I can already tell it's the most offensive show on TV. Yes, more than Family Guy. It's less a left-wing "King of the Hill", and more of a covert "Beavis and Butthead", all of which were apparently also created by the same guy...

It's funny in much the same way drunk college roommates are funny: not because it's intelligent, or creative, or even purposefully comedic, but just because it's so painfully self-true in its own stupidity.

In Other News: When my roommates moved out yesterday, we reinstalled the smoke detectors, which have been beeping in rounds ever since. I knew there was a legitimate reason we removed them. I hardly slept at all last night.
 
 
Cakoluchiam
27 May 2009 @ 03:33 am
Stephen Colbert on gay marriage: "Why wouldn't I just go get gay married? Okay? Hanging out with guys is great! If I could make that legal..."
 
 
Cakoluchiam
10 May 2009 @ 05:47 pm
Apparently Battle.net now has digital downloads of StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II (and all related expansions), which one can link from their original CD-Keys. This makes me very happy.
 
 
Cakoluchiam
10 May 2009 @ 12:31 pm
A little wisdom from POPsickle Comic:

Life is fair.

It treats everyone equally.

You get exactly what you deserve.

You got in for free.

So stop complaining.

Asshole.


Also: "If God wanted information transferred on the quantum level, then why would He originally have used parchement?"
 
 
Cakoluchiam
06 May 2009 @ 02:25 pm
I just got back from campus, turning in a transfer authorization form for the last class credit I need for my degree. On the way back I swung by the campus center and picked up the chance-of-rain indoor commencement ceremony tickets, and bought my cap, gown, and tassel.

I can sleep now.
Mmmmmmm...
 
 
Cakoluchiam
28 April 2009 @ 05:02 am
I can do this.
Finishing my MQP in two more days, that is.
The staying up any later... notsomuch. It's been 42 hours now, and I've been practically asleep with my eyes open since about midnight.

I still want to strangle whomever it was that decided to require Seniors turn in projects a WHOLE FUCKING MONTH before everyone else. In the MIDDLE OF FINALS.
Sleepyrage.... zzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZ*hic*

Oh yeah, and playing with WinWord's math editor is fun. Much more fun than staring at the screen while LaTeX does NOTHING for me.
 
 
Cakoluchiam
26 April 2009 @ 02:59 pm
So I was looking at postage pricing today, and I discovered that:

It would cost more for me to mail my possessions back to CA (at the cheapest price, which would take weeks, with no guaranteed arrival date, insurance, etc.) than it would for me to package them in the shape of people, give them all fake IDs, and buy that many extra plane tickets (assuring they'd arrive the same time I would).

WTF, world?