So I've uploaded the only photos I could quickly find of my trip back from CA. You can check out some brush fires in Nevada here. If I come across any other photos I'll add them to the album.
Also if anyone knows a better hosting service with more space let me know, preferrably something free. I've got gigs of photos and manually resizing them or adjusting jpeg compression ratios is a pain. I'm also open to suggestions for software to batch automate such a conversion without messing with the originals.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Been a long while
Well looking at my blog it's been quite a long time since I posted last. While I didn't die during that time I've been busy with school and haven't had much time for posting (that and nothing exciting happens at school :(). Anyhow, I was finally able to migrate my blog to the new blogger beta. So far I'm impressed it managed to migrate my links without any real data loss.
In the last two months since I last posted, I drove from CA to MN. Drove from MN to WI. Had my roommate burn up my apartment's kitchen. Played WoW (acquired my tier 2 epic set). Done schoolwork. Eaten cheese curds. From my trip I have a few pictures of Nevada on fire as we saw lightning strikes start a few brush fires on the way back. I'll try to post something from my trip back over the next couple of weeks.
In the last two months since I last posted, I drove from CA to MN. Drove from MN to WI. Had my roommate burn up my apartment's kitchen. Played WoW (acquired my tier 2 epic set). Done schoolwork. Eaten cheese curds. From my trip I have a few pictures of Nevada on fire as we saw lightning strikes start a few brush fires on the way back. I'll try to post something from my trip back over the next couple of weeks.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Quiet week
Well it's been pretty quiet here the last couple of weeks. This last weekend I spent Saturday in San Francisco with a couple of friends from Madison. I managed to get a nice sunburn on my face since I once again forgot to use sunblock. I also learned that it's a long walk from the piers to Lumbard Street, those hills in San Francisco are a pain to walk up.
I spent Sunday in Livermore wine tasting, and it was a lot of fun. Unlike trendy Nappa/Sonoma Livermore has mostly free tastings and some very good wine for reasonable prices. Only one place was charging $25+ for a bottle and their wine wasn't even that good. I spent more than I should have buying wine. Ahh well I'll just have to drink it sometime. The trick now is to get it back to MN/WI without it going bad.
That's it for now. I'll try and post a few pics of San Francisco and my earlier crater trip when I have time.
I spent Sunday in Livermore wine tasting, and it was a lot of fun. Unlike trendy Nappa/Sonoma Livermore has mostly free tastings and some very good wine for reasonable prices. Only one place was charging $25+ for a bottle and their wine wasn't even that good. I spent more than I should have buying wine. Ahh well I'll just have to drink it sometime. The trick now is to get it back to MN/WI without it going bad.
That's it for now. I'll try and post a few pics of San Francisco and my earlier crater trip when I have time.
Friday, July 14, 2006
It went pop when it stopped
Well it seems my air mattress has decided to die on me. As of 6am this morning my mattress has some mysterious leak and loses air at an incredible rate, only silently and without any breeze. Instead the air dissappears quickly from the confines of the mattress and leaves no trace of its escape route. As I haven't had time to find a replacement I get to sleep on the floor for a night. Tomorrow I need to go air matress shopping to find one that fits my bed.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
First Repair
My car is going in for it's first service this morning. Sometime over the last month it developped a slow leak in one of the tires. Since driving around on a flat is a bad idea I get to enjoy an hour or two at a tire place while they diagnose and fix the problem.
Stupid Cars.
(Also I'll try and have an update on my trip later, I still have Gigabytes of photos to go through.)
Stupid Cars.
(Also I'll try and have an update on my trip later, I still have Gigabytes of photos to go through.)
Friday, June 30, 2006
The Adventure Begins
A long weekend stands before me, for four days I have no work, and no repsonsibilities. Starting early tomorrow morning I set out on a long journey, a great adventure.
I venture forth to the uncharted north of the Republic of California, and into the wilds of Oregon. For during my time off I will visit the silent giants standing along the shores of the pacific, explore a cave, and visit an island of wizards.
I plan to document my adventures through pictures and text but it we shall see how things go. With that I shall head to rest before I begin my journey early on the morrow.
I venture forth to the uncharted north of the Republic of California, and into the wilds of Oregon. For during my time off I will visit the silent giants standing along the shores of the pacific, explore a cave, and visit an island of wizards.
I plan to document my adventures through pictures and text but it we shall see how things go. With that I shall head to rest before I begin my journey early on the morrow.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
I just want you to know who I am
It's been a while since I made a post. Now where do I start. I've been both busy with work and yet had nothing to do while at work? Strange Huh?
Outside of work I've been busy as well. On the WoW front my guild has managed to make it to the final boss of Black Wing Lair, Nefarian. So far after about 5 tries we have him down to phase 2 so we're doing pretty well.
In the real world I've been to a few LAN parties, woke up at the crack of dawn to watch the world cup, and been to a concert in the last couple of weeks. Of those I have to say last night's concert was probably the most fun I've had in the last week or so. I went to the Goo Goo Dolls/Counting Crows summer tour concert held at the Shoreline Amphitheater. Of the two bands I enjoyed the Goo Goo Dolls the most. I'm just not as into the music of the Counting Crows. This was the first time I've seen either of these groups live and I have to say they have a totally different dynamic. During a live show the music has more more energy and yet many of the songs had a different slower pace.
Now I need to decide if I liked the music well enough to buy their latest CD. I almost did the night of the concert but the "merchant booth" was charing over $15 and I wasn't sure if the extra cost ws going to the band or some third party.
I'd upload a few pictures of the concert except I managed to leave my camera at work and so didn't take any :(. I tried to take some photos on my cellphone but it really doesn't work that well.
Outside of work I've been busy as well. On the WoW front my guild has managed to make it to the final boss of Black Wing Lair, Nefarian. So far after about 5 tries we have him down to phase 2 so we're doing pretty well.
In the real world I've been to a few LAN parties, woke up at the crack of dawn to watch the world cup, and been to a concert in the last couple of weeks. Of those I have to say last night's concert was probably the most fun I've had in the last week or so. I went to the Goo Goo Dolls/Counting Crows summer tour concert held at the Shoreline Amphitheater. Of the two bands I enjoyed the Goo Goo Dolls the most. I'm just not as into the music of the Counting Crows. This was the first time I've seen either of these groups live and I have to say they have a totally different dynamic. During a live show the music has more more energy and yet many of the songs had a different slower pace.
Now I need to decide if I liked the music well enough to buy their latest CD. I almost did the night of the concert but the "merchant booth" was charing over $15 and I wasn't sure if the extra cost ws going to the band or some third party.
I'd upload a few pictures of the concert except I managed to leave my camera at work and so didn't take any :(. I tried to take some photos on my cellphone but it really doesn't work that well.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Uni-Man
On the way to work today I saw someone with a sweet ride on their way to work. It wasn't a ferrari, lotus, porsche, or maserati (those are a dime a dozen).
What I saw was a guy riding a unicycle.
What I saw was a guy riding a unicycle.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Photo Time!
Today I have a bunch of pictures to post. First I have a bunch of pictures of the top of Donner Pass which is at about 7,000 feet. This pass is crossed by I-80 as you enter California from Nevada.
I have a few more pictures of the pass but I need to find a good place to host a photo album.
In addition to these last photos of my trip I have a few pictures of my apartment.
Finally I have a closeup of that set of Katana's you can see in the first photo. My Dad purchased these for me in Chinatown when he went in the San Francisco Tuesday. They look kinda cool and the whole set cost $26 after tax! If you pull them out the appear to be steal and a bit greasy. They really remind me of practice blades for Iaido but less practical.
I have a few more pictures of the pass but I need to find a good place to host a photo album.
In addition to these last photos of my trip I have a few pictures of my apartment.
Finally I have a closeup of that set of Katana's you can see in the first photo. My Dad purchased these for me in Chinatown when he went in the San Francisco Tuesday. They look kinda cool and the whole set cost $26 after tax! If you pull them out the appear to be steal and a bit greasy. They really remind me of practice blades for Iaido but less practical.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Day One
I've managed to survive day one of my summer internship at a small fabless-semiconducter design house. Even so we've had a few interesting changes from last year. Apparently, due to space constraints interns don't get cubes, we get sit in the hall, with a modular desk thing attached to the outside of the cube we sit by. At least the hall we sit in is by the giant glass windows on the side of the building so at least I get some sunlight out of the deal. The downside is that I don't get a desk, just a sort of hanging table without any storage/drawers. Next year interns will probably end up in the parking lot :P.
Another interesting change is that we no longer get phones, instead we were given some usb headsets and use some software phone. To bad the headsets suck and can't pick up your voice at all, don't ever buy a Logitech Premium 250 USB headset. It is impossible to turn it up enough to pick up a voice without shouting. The IP phone software at least appears to work well except for our crappy headsets. This sort of makes me feel like I'm working in a Dilbert cartoon.
In more interesting news I get to do something completely new to me, and once again I'm forced to learn a ton of new stuff. Basically nothing but my knowledge of internal chip code names is useful from last year. But being thrown into the fire is what internships are all about! I also found out some of the work I did last year is still being actively used, worked on and has been slightly improved. Apparently, my internship last summer has had some long lasting effect on what's going on at my employer!
Another interesting change is that we no longer get phones, instead we were given some usb headsets and use some software phone. To bad the headsets suck and can't pick up your voice at all, don't ever buy a Logitech Premium 250 USB headset. It is impossible to turn it up enough to pick up a voice without shouting. The IP phone software at least appears to work well except for our crappy headsets. This sort of makes me feel like I'm working in a Dilbert cartoon.
In more interesting news I get to do something completely new to me, and once again I'm forced to learn a ton of new stuff. Basically nothing but my knowledge of internal chip code names is useful from last year. But being thrown into the fire is what internships are all about! I also found out some of the work I did last year is still being actively used, worked on and has been slightly improved. Apparently, my internship last summer has had some long lasting effect on what's going on at my employer!
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Busy Day
Well today we (my Dad and I) put another 700 miles on my car. We drove all the way from Evanston, WY to Rocklin, CA, crossing the states of Utah, and Nevada. This last trip was a bit more exciting than the last couple, as we got to see some cool mountains and enjoyed a few rain, sleet, and snowstorms. I got the honor of driving anytime we approached mountainous terrain as my Dad dislikes driving in the mountains. This meant I got to drive from WY to the middle of the Utah salt flats, and from Reno, NV to CA.
First I have a few pictures of Utah just outside Salt Lake city at the first reststop after entering the state:
This is a rather pretty part of Utah and a fun canyon to drive down. At one time pioneers came down this same canyon on their way to California and Oregon. The last picture gives a brief glimpse of the road ahead. About 10-20 minutes further into Utah you drive by where the bobsled, luge, and skiing events of the 2002 Olympics at Salt Lake city were held.
Next we have a picture of part of the area where the olympics where held along with a picture of the Great Salt Lake (from a moving car):
Finally, we have a few pictures from the small set of mountains in between Utah, and Nevada. As you can see in these it's gotten a bit colder and it's now snowing instead of raining on us.
That's currently it for pictures. I have a few pictures from the top of Donner Pass which is between NV, and CA but they are on my other camera (and about 5mb a picture). Can anyone suggest a place I can host a bunch of pictures for free? The mountains between CA, and NV are pretty cool but I don't have any pictures of the trip as I was busy driving. My Dad was to busy cringing on every turn to take pictures (it turns out that a Mazda 3 corners really well :D).
After arriving in Rocklin, my Dad and I went and saw the new X-Men III movie after eating some dinner. I'll post my thoughts on the movie later after I've given others a chance to see it first. (One hint, STAY UNTIL THE END OF THE CREDITS)
First I have a few pictures of Utah just outside Salt Lake city at the first reststop after entering the state:
This is a rather pretty part of Utah and a fun canyon to drive down. At one time pioneers came down this same canyon on their way to California and Oregon. The last picture gives a brief glimpse of the road ahead. About 10-20 minutes further into Utah you drive by where the bobsled, luge, and skiing events of the 2002 Olympics at Salt Lake city were held.
Next we have a picture of part of the area where the olympics where held along with a picture of the Great Salt Lake (from a moving car):
Finally, we have a few pictures from the small set of mountains in between Utah, and Nevada. As you can see in these it's gotten a bit colder and it's now snowing instead of raining on us.
That's currently it for pictures. I have a few pictures from the top of Donner Pass which is between NV, and CA but they are on my other camera (and about 5mb a picture). Can anyone suggest a place I can host a bunch of pictures for free? The mountains between CA, and NV are pretty cool but I don't have any pictures of the trip as I was busy driving. My Dad was to busy cringing on every turn to take pictures (it turns out that a Mazda 3 corners really well :D).After arriving in Rocklin, my Dad and I went and saw the new X-Men III movie after eating some dinner. I'll post my thoughts on the movie later after I've given others a chance to see it first. (One hint, STAY UNTIL THE END OF THE CREDITS)
Night-time Driving
Here are a couple pictures of my dash at night. When taking the photo's I didn't realize my camera would automagically set the shutter speed really low so they turned out sort of blurry.
First is a picture of the dash when you first enter the car:
This next picture is of the dash before you turn on your headlights:
Next we turn on the lights, and we get the blue back:
Finally a picture of the console with the stereo, clock, and temperature readout. You can't make them out since they are all in black on that giant glowing red bar. A tiny bit of camera movement loses the readout:
First is a picture of the dash when you first enter the car:
This next picture is of the dash before you turn on your headlights:
Next we turn on the lights, and we get the blue back:
Finally a picture of the console with the stereo, clock, and temperature readout. You can't make them out since they are all in black on that giant glowing red bar. A tiny bit of camera movement loses the readout:
Friday, May 26, 2006
Zoom-Zoom
Well nothing really exciting happened today, we managed to make it across Nebraska and Wyoming with no real trouble. Today we drove 400 miles across Wyoming and about another 400 miles across Nebraska. That puts us up to around 1,400 for my 2,200 mile trip. Right now I'm sitting in a hotel Evanston, WY taking full advantage of the wireless internet (yes I logged into WoW but I don't really plan to play). It took me a bit to get logged in as it appears the default name server assigned by the hotel doesn't really exist. In trying to figure out why I couldn't find Google I discovered they use linksys home routers as access points which all happen to use the default admin password. With my newfound power I could h4x0r the router and mess up the 'net but that would be pretty pointless and just screw me over.
Anyways I have a few pictures to post. I have a couple pictures of Wyoming from the car, and a few pictures of my car. For those of you who don't know I recently (two days ago) purchased a 2006 Mazda 3, S model to drive around for the next 10 years. In any case I have a couple pictures of the car for those interested. But first Wyoming!
These are the only pictures which turned out, the rest are just of completely flat land and have reflections from the car window. Now for my car.
Now the interior:
Those of your who may have looked closely might have noticed that yes, this car has a manual not an automatic transmission. I currently have like 4 days experience with it and have it down pretty well now. Another interesting tidbit is that you CANNOT see any of the gauges when the car is off as the red is 100% led lights. As an added bonus the white edges you see turn blue at night, it looks pretty cool. I'll try and snap a photo after it gets dark and post it later. Anyways that's it for now. Tomorrow, it's time to cross Utah, and Nevada as we plan to stop in Sacremento for the night (my Dad doesn't want to drive further than that).
Anyways I have a few pictures to post. I have a couple pictures of Wyoming from the car, and a few pictures of my car. For those of you who don't know I recently (two days ago) purchased a 2006 Mazda 3, S model to drive around for the next 10 years. In any case I have a couple pictures of the car for those interested. But first Wyoming!
These are the only pictures which turned out, the rest are just of completely flat land and have reflections from the car window. Now for my car.
Now the interior:
Those of your who may have looked closely might have noticed that yes, this car has a manual not an automatic transmission. I currently have like 4 days experience with it and have it down pretty well now. Another interesting tidbit is that you CANNOT see any of the gauges when the car is off as the red is 100% led lights. As an added bonus the white edges you see turn blue at night, it looks pretty cool. I'll try and snap a photo after it gets dark and post it later. Anyways that's it for now. Tomorrow, it's time to cross Utah, and Nevada as we plan to stop in Sacremento for the night (my Dad doesn't want to drive further than that).
Thursday, May 25, 2006
California HO!
Well I'm off to California as of today. Right now I'm sitting in a hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska after about half a day of driving like crazy. So far the trip has been pretty uneventful. Nebraska/Iowa are probably the two most boring (and smelliest) states to drive through so I don't think much exciting will happen over the next day or so. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to post tomorrow.
Vael Down
As of last night my WoW guild has finally downed Vaelastrasz the Corrupt! This boss is considered the second hardest guy in BWL after Nefarion. With Vael down we will once again start making serious progress in BWL.
Now back to packing for CA.
Now back to packing for CA.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Time is Money Friend
Well it's been a very busy week and a half for me. I've spent most of my week taking care of stuff before I head out to California to start my internship at nVidia. WoW time has been restricted to my scheduled raid times once again.
So what have I done this week (in no particular order)?
So what have I done this week (in no particular order)?
- Played with my new Olympus Stylus 600 and Olympus E-500 cameras.
- Test drove more cars than I can count.
- Driving my brother and sister to school/work/events.
- Picking out a new pair of glasses.
- Shopped for Car insurance.
- Compared Car loan rates.
- Worked on some school stuff
- Spent a couple days sick with a 101° fever.
- Setup shared internet in a relatives house.
- Went to a birthday party.
- Went to a car auction.
- Got pulled over for driving a white Cadillac.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Orphan Tour
For some reason my brother decided to take a poor Stormwind orphan along to BWL.
I don't think this is really the right place for children.
I don't think this is really the right place for children.
AARGGGHH Stupid Server
It's been awhile since I've made a post about World of Warcraft. Some of you may know that I play this game upon occasion. Since my last WoW post stuff has changed quite about. I left my old small guild and joined a raiding guild on my server Perenolde. Since I started raiding with them (I actually started while still a member of my old guild), we have managed to master Molten Core and basically have this dungeon on "farm" status. We have also managed to get Onyxia on farm status, and can get Razorgore in Black Wing Lair down in 1-2 attempts regularly.
Last Sunday my guild was disbanded after our officers asked our guild leader to step down due to some personality conflicts between the leader and some of our membership. Rather than step down gracefully a long argument ensued followed by the GM disbanding the guild rather than transferring leadership. While this could be the death of a guild luckily my guild bounces back pretty well. We have already reformed with new name and leadership and we are stronger than ever. Now to the reason for this post.
Right now we are working on getting down boss #2 in BWL Vaelastraz the Corrupt. Today we managed to almost kill this guy 5 times, our last two attempts would have been kills but for one annoying problem. BLIZZARD HATES US. That's right we had some freak disconnects our last tries which basically cost us the fight. While we had a tank disconnect just as we started the fight and about 2 minutes into the fight we lost another 5-10 players. For this particular fight healing and damage dealing are all very important and we cannot lose that many players and still expect to finish the fight. So we ended up the night empty handed with only our normal Onyxia/Razorgore 2 kill combo. Hopefully we have time Saturday or Sunday to take Vael down.
For those of you interested I have a video of the fight encoded with the xvid codec, with full audio. You can here my current background music and the teamspeak chatter. Two interesting things to note. Just as you see ATTACK show up on the screen you can see yellow text in the bottom left corner which one of the tanks disconnecting. Around 2 minutes into the fight you can see the mass disconnect which doomed us. WARNING: 60mb video! Download here.
Last Sunday my guild was disbanded after our officers asked our guild leader to step down due to some personality conflicts between the leader and some of our membership. Rather than step down gracefully a long argument ensued followed by the GM disbanding the guild rather than transferring leadership. While this could be the death of a guild luckily my guild bounces back pretty well. We have already reformed with new name and leadership and we are stronger than ever. Now to the reason for this post.
Right now we are working on getting down boss #2 in BWL Vaelastraz the Corrupt. Today we managed to almost kill this guy 5 times, our last two attempts would have been kills but for one annoying problem. BLIZZARD HATES US. That's right we had some freak disconnects our last tries which basically cost us the fight. While we had a tank disconnect just as we started the fight and about 2 minutes into the fight we lost another 5-10 players. For this particular fight healing and damage dealing are all very important and we cannot lose that many players and still expect to finish the fight. So we ended up the night empty handed with only our normal Onyxia/Razorgore 2 kill combo. Hopefully we have time Saturday or Sunday to take Vael down.
For those of you interested I have a video of the fight encoded with the xvid codec, with full audio. You can here my current background music and the teamspeak chatter. Two interesting things to note. Just as you see ATTACK show up on the screen you can see yellow text in the bottom left corner which one of the tanks disconnecting. Around 2 minutes into the fight you can see the mass disconnect which doomed us. WARNING: 60mb video! Download here.
Monday, May 08, 2006
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T4 P330 H5
After talking with people about all the great old games I've inspired myself to go play some of those old classic PC games I have sitting around.
Ultima 1-8, Wing Commander 1-3, Crusader:No Regret/Remorse, Magic Carpet, Tie Fighter, X-Wing, Dark Forces, Warcraft I, Wacraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal(impossible expansion), Syndicate, Theme Hospital, Settlers 2, Dungeon Keeper, Mechwarrior 2(Wolf Clan Campaign), Master of Magic, Master of Orion 2, Fallout and more I can't recall now!
Now I just need to figure out how to run all these things on XP 64, without them running to fast.
Ultima 1-8, Wing Commander 1-3, Crusader:No Regret/Remorse, Magic Carpet, Tie Fighter, X-Wing, Dark Forces, Warcraft I, Wacraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal(impossible expansion), Syndicate, Theme Hospital, Settlers 2, Dungeon Keeper, Mechwarrior 2(Wolf Clan Campaign), Master of Magic, Master of Orion 2, Fallout and more I can't recall now!
Now I just need to figure out how to run all these things on XP 64, without them running to fast.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
The Light - It Burns!!!
So far finals week is off to a racing start. Yesterday I had a cookout out at Vilas park with some friends. The first thing we did was assemble the grill, which took longer than I had expected since we had to many engineers on the project. Once that work was done we got the food on but it took a good 1-2 hours to get it all cooked.
While waiting for food we enjoyed the beautiful weather, and played some Frisbee. After eating we walked over to the Henry Vilas Zoo where we looked at the animals. I hadn't been to the zoo since freshman year, and not to much has changed. For a free zoo they have a nice selection of animals, we saw: Lions, Peacocks, Kangaroos, Bears, Giraffes, Sea Otters, Harbor Seals, and more. Some of the animals didn't appear to be out yet. We were also a bit to late to see some animals as they closed up a few exhibits about 5 minutes before we made it over there :(.
Well while playing Frisbee and looking at all the animals it appears I acquired a nice sunburn on my face, arms, and the back of my neck. Next time I spend more than an hour or so outside I'll remember that I should put on sunblock. You'd think I'd learn I burn at the beginning of the season by now.
(Bonus question: What computer game is my post title from?)
While waiting for food we enjoyed the beautiful weather, and played some Frisbee. After eating we walked over to the Henry Vilas Zoo where we looked at the animals. I hadn't been to the zoo since freshman year, and not to much has changed. For a free zoo they have a nice selection of animals, we saw: Lions, Peacocks, Kangaroos, Bears, Giraffes, Sea Otters, Harbor Seals, and more. Some of the animals didn't appear to be out yet. We were also a bit to late to see some animals as they closed up a few exhibits about 5 minutes before we made it over there :(.
Well while playing Frisbee and looking at all the animals it appears I acquired a nice sunburn on my face, arms, and the back of my neck. Next time I spend more than an hour or so outside I'll remember that I should put on sunblock. You'd think I'd learn I burn at the beginning of the season by now.
(Bonus question: What computer game is my post title from?)
Thursday, April 27, 2006
All plants must die
It seems that all the plants have declared war on me. This morning I woke up with my eyes all puffy and watering, and my nose completely stuffed up. Apparently something I am VERY allergic to is spewing its devil pollen into the air in an attempt to kill me. I've tried taking some prescription strength allergy medication, but it has had little effect against to the weapons of the plants. At this point the only option is a mass attack to eliminate the plants before they kill me in my sleep.
At this point there is no hope of a peaceful solution and so it is with great sadness that I declare war upon the cellulose ones.
At this point there is no hope of a peaceful solution and so it is with great sadness that I declare war upon the cellulose ones.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
It's Alive
I can't believe it finally works!! What is it you might ask? It is the Maquina engineering fountain remote server I've been working on the last couple of years. Or original server was written by me in about 10 minutes a year or two back. Since this fall we've been slowly rewriting the server to support several concurrent connections and actually be somewhat feature rich! No longer does it completely crap out if you give it invalid input (actually I lie, it sill dies when you give invalid input only now it's a nice assert!).
You should check out Colins blog (link on the right) for movies and pictures of the server in action. The working version has been the effort of a bunch of people. Tim reworked our ladder network code to deal with disconnects. Colin and Craig have been the primary coders on the new and improved server and have done a good job. I revamped/cleaned up my networking library(it's still not perfect), wrote a logging library, gave some random C++ and system design/architecture help, and have been figuring out how to turn our poor console app into a Windows service (which as of about 10 minutes ago I think I have figure out).
All that's left before we can do an initial deployment is:
You should check out Colins blog (link on the right) for movies and pictures of the server in action. The working version has been the effort of a bunch of people. Tim reworked our ladder network code to deal with disconnects. Colin and Craig have been the primary coders on the new and improved server and have done a good job. I revamped/cleaned up my networking library(it's still not perfect), wrote a logging library, gave some random C++ and system design/architecture help, and have been figuring out how to turn our poor console app into a Windows service (which as of about 10 minutes ago I think I have figure out).
All that's left before we can do an initial deployment is:
- Finish coding the last bits of the server
- Port the server to a Windows Service (my job)
- Implement User ID Protocol
- Finish Website Design (Mikah where is our Ajax Web 2.0 XML Service Client?)
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Thank You for Smoking
Last night I saw the excellent movie "Thank You for Smoking". I definitely recommend the movie, it gives some interesting insight into "Spin" and the world of lobbiests. It even comes with some good tips on how to debate someone, just remember you don't need to be right you just need to show the other person is wrong.
This morning I'm heading to Engr to give a talk to high school students about how great computer engr is. I hope I manage to convince someone to become and engr. To be honest I'm not sure how much influence college student has with highschoolers. I could really see making a difference if I worked with them everyday and showed what cool stuff you can do in engineering, but given 1 hour? Hopefully our demo of our fountain remote control project doesn't totally break just before we give our presentation. What could possibly go wrong? Computers never make mistakes.
This morning I'm heading to Engr to give a talk to high school students about how great computer engr is. I hope I manage to convince someone to become and engr. To be honest I'm not sure how much influence
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Afghani food made easy
Since I didn't make the 5 hour drive back home for Easter this last weekend, I decided to spend a rainy Sunday making some Afghani food with a recipe from my favorite restaurant. Well it turns out I didn't have all the ingredients necessary, and I was already hungry and didn't want to wait on food. So instead I made my own cheesy version of Kabeli Palow that was much simpler.
Rather than doing all the work in the recipe I simply browned some chicken in a pan threw in some garam masala, garlic salt, and raisins. I then combined the mixture with some basmati rice, and amazingly it turned out pretty good. It wasn't nearly as good as the food from Da Afghan but it sure was easy to make. I'll probably have the same thing tonight since all I have is some chicken and a 10lb bag of rice left in my apartment.
Rather than doing all the work in the recipe I simply browned some chicken in a pan threw in some garam masala, garlic salt, and raisins. I then combined the mixture with some basmati rice, and amazingly it turned out pretty good. It wasn't nearly as good as the food from Da Afghan but it sure was easy to make. I'll probably have the same thing tonight since all I have is some chicken and a 10lb bag of rice left in my apartment.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Dell invents everything!
A recent interview with the Dell CTO has Dell claiming if it wasn't for them PCI-Express, 802.11, 64 bit x86 support and more would never have come to be. While I agree Dell has a lot of power in the industry I think they are taking to much credit for other peoples work. About the only technology I might give Dell some credit for is making Intel support 64bit technology on their processors. They probably had a conversation along these lines:
Dell: Hey, Intel.
Intel: Yes?
Dell: We need 64 bit computers HP is stealing sales from us.
Intel: You have 64 bit processors. Itaniums should be good enough for you.
Dell: We want 64 bit x86!
Intel: Microsoft doesn't even support this.
Dell: I WANT IT!!!
Intel: No.
Dell: We'll use AMD.
Intel: .....
Intel: Would you like anything else with your 64 bit x64 procs?
Dell: Buy one get one free with your processors.
Intel: Ok.
Dell: Hey, Intel.
Intel: Yes?
Dell: We need 64 bit computers HP is stealing sales from us.
Intel: You have 64 bit processors. Itaniums should be good enough for you.
Dell: We want 64 bit x86!
Intel: Microsoft doesn't even support this.
Dell: I WANT IT!!!
Intel: No.
Dell: We'll use AMD.
Intel: .....
Intel: Would you like anything else with your 64 bit x64 procs?
Dell: Buy one get one free with your processors.
Intel: Ok.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Hell just froze over
Well I think its official hell just froze over. Apple has just announced a beta for a tool which will allow end users to dual boot Mac OS X and Windows XP on their Intel based Macs. This tool makes repartitioning your harddrive as simple as adjusting a slider and it gives you a full set of Windows drivers for the Apple hardware. This solution is more elegant than the previously announced user written BIOS compatibility layer. While the layer allowed you to boot xp it driver support for Apple's hardware was lacking. This makes me want to replace my 17in PowerBook with a MacBook Pro. Except I really can't justify dropping another 2k on a laptop in less than a year.
One of the funniest parts of the announcement shows Apple's attitude toward its PC competitors and Microsoft.
Macs use an ultra-modern industry standard technology called EFI to handle booting. Sadly, Windows XP, and even the upcoming Vista, are stuck in the 1980s with old-fashioned BIOS. But with Boot Camp, the Mac can operate smoothly in both centuries.
One of the funniest parts of the announcement shows Apple's attitude toward its PC competitors and Microsoft.
Macs use an ultra-modern industry standard technology called EFI to handle booting. Sadly, Windows XP, and even the upcoming Vista, are stuck in the 1980s with old-fashioned BIOS. But with Boot Camp, the Mac can operate smoothly in both centuries.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Newegg is Teh Sux0r
Well the title says it all. I received a replacement mainboard for my broken one today. Only it wasn't really a replacement for my mainboard. Instead of the model I returned I received a inferior model which retails for $30-40 less than my board. It doesn't have even the same set of features as my old mainboard. To top it off the mainboard came all by itself and didn't include any of the cables, a manual, drivers, or any of the other stuff I returned as per Newegg.com's instructions.
After talking to a customer service rep I found I needed to RMA/return this POS board they sent me, and wait for them to get off their butts and possibly send me the correct item. The rep was kind enough to tell me they would refund $20 for shipping the item back (it actually costs $20.49 to ship). Hopefully they will actually credit my account, but as the overnight shipping I was promised on the phone doesn't show up on the RMA order my hopes for this aren't very high. At this point I was better off attempting to fix my mainboard by myself. This is probably the last time I ever buy anything from Newegg.com, or even recommend them to others. It seems that Newegg's customer service is starting to suck as they become more and more popular.
After talking to a customer service rep I found I needed to RMA/return this POS board they sent me, and wait for them to get off their butts and possibly send me the correct item. The rep was kind enough to tell me they would refund $20 for shipping the item back (it actually costs $20.49 to ship). Hopefully they will actually credit my account, but as the overnight shipping I was promised on the phone doesn't show up on the RMA order my hopes for this aren't very high. At this point I was better off attempting to fix my mainboard by myself. This is probably the last time I ever buy anything from Newegg.com, or even recommend them to others. It seems that Newegg's customer service is starting to suck as they become more and more popular.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
The Quiet Before the Storm
This last month has been rather busy, I've had three midterms, and spring break, over the last few weeks. Break was a quiet time where I had a chance to relax a bit. I played a bit of WoW (not as much as you would expect), went to an orchestra concert, went camera shopping (didn't get anything), and worked on some research/paper writing. Since returning I've been slowly getting back into the swing of things.
Despite the release of Bethesada Softworks' new game Oblivion, the death of my PC motherboard's chipset fan has kept me on track. I won't be receiving my "new" (refurbished...) board until next Monday so I'm still pretty safe. The lack of my desktop has also curtailed my WoW playing to "scheduled" times (laptop != good gaming). This is a good thing as it's now project time at school. This semester I'm developing a secure network poker game, implementing a few real-time networking scheduling algorithms, and examining the effects of using DRAM without refresh cycles as caches in multi-processor systems.
I think I'm going to have my hands full the rest of the semester. Despite all this I've had a pretty quiet day so far. I went to meet with a Professor only to realize he was out of town (oops), and I followed that up with a meeting with a project partner. After my meeting I headed home, ate some lunch, and made up a large pot of chili for tonight (Yummm). I'm probably going to have left over chili for the rest of the week, but this is a good thing as chili only gets better with age.
Despite the release of Bethesada Softworks' new game Oblivion, the death of my PC motherboard's chipset fan has kept me on track. I won't be receiving my "new" (refurbished...) board until next Monday so I'm still pretty safe. The lack of my desktop has also curtailed my WoW playing to "scheduled" times (laptop != good gaming). This is a good thing as it's now project time at school. This semester I'm developing a secure network poker game, implementing a few real-time networking scheduling algorithms, and examining the effects of using DRAM without refresh cycles as caches in multi-processor systems.
I think I'm going to have my hands full the rest of the semester. Despite all this I've had a pretty quiet day so far. I went to meet with a Professor only to realize he was out of town (oops), and I followed that up with a meeting with a project partner. After my meeting I headed home, ate some lunch, and made up a large pot of chili for tonight (Yummm). I'm probably going to have left over chili for the rest of the week, but this is a good thing as chili only gets better with age.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Kendo Update
Here's that post I promised about the Kendo tournament at the begining of the week.
So last Saturday I got to ride to Detroit, MI for the annual Kendo Tournament. One of our club members was testing for his San-Dan rank and we needed to be out to Detroit by about 2pm. Given the 7-8 hour long drive this meant I was getting picked up around 5:30am Saturday morning. Knowing this I carefully set my alarm clock to 5am Friday night so I would have enough time to wake up and finish my packing.
Saturday morning I awoke to my cellphone's ring to find out that my ride would be arriving in about 5 minutes! I didn't remember my alarm going off so I checked my alarm and verified I had set my alarm to 5:00, 5:00 pm that is. Oops! After a quick scramble during which I loaded my backup up with my clothes and other items I had set out the night, I ran downstairs and found out I had only kept people waiting about 5 minutes. Next we went to meet up with Van #2 which was delayed by someone and so didn't show up until about 20 minutes later. Looks like I could have taken a bit more time packing, instead I spent the rest of the weekend with the feeling I left something important behind (I didn't).
We arrived at the hotel around 2ish and after checking in a few of us went down to the lobby to play poker while we waited for testing to be done (in retrospect I probably would have found the test interesting). At 7pm there was a banquet scheduled which set each of us back around $35. There we were served the most expensive 3oz of chicken with rice I have ever had. One person at our table managed to snag an extra meal (the waiter just dropped it off and said he looked hungry) so we split it up among the hungry people at the table.
Later that evening most of our club got together for a pre-tournament party where we played a round of Texas Hold'em Poker (this is really popular for some reason). After I destroyed everyone at poker (I'm not kidding), we played a couple rounds of Uker and went to sleep for the night.
The next day it we arrived at the tournament only to find we had somehow made it there 10-20 minutes late and had missed the opening ceremony. On top of this fighting begain right away so we didn't have any warm up time. I managed to do alright in my one match but lost in the end to a more experienced Kendoist. I spent the rest of the day watching the various matches and was really impressed by the 5-dan and above matches. I've never seen people move so fast and hit so well. Some of the fights went for 15-20 minutes of overtime until someone scored a point! Google video seems to have one of the semi-final matches for the Yondans.
After watching the finals I got another chance to fight in the team tournament. I was on our second team with the rest of the 1-kyu club members. This was probably the fastest set of fights I've seen. The first and last team members did pretty well and lasted for a whole 2 minutes each. The rest of us? I think we lasted for 5 seconds.
So last Saturday I got to ride to Detroit, MI for the annual Kendo Tournament. One of our club members was testing for his San-Dan rank and we needed to be out to Detroit by about 2pm. Given the 7-8 hour long drive this meant I was getting picked up around 5:30am Saturday morning. Knowing this I carefully set my alarm clock to 5am Friday night so I would have enough time to wake up and finish my packing.
Saturday morning I awoke to my cellphone's ring to find out that my ride would be arriving in about 5 minutes! I didn't remember my alarm going off so I checked my alarm and verified I had set my alarm to 5:00, 5:00 pm that is. Oops! After a quick scramble during which I loaded my backup up with my clothes and other items I had set out the night, I ran downstairs and found out I had only kept people waiting about 5 minutes. Next we went to meet up with Van #2 which was delayed by someone and so didn't show up until about 20 minutes later. Looks like I could have taken a bit more time packing, instead I spent the rest of the weekend with the feeling I left something important behind (I didn't).
We arrived at the hotel around 2ish and after checking in a few of us went down to the lobby to play poker while we waited for testing to be done (in retrospect I probably would have found the test interesting). At 7pm there was a banquet scheduled which set each of us back around $35. There we were served the most expensive 3oz of chicken with rice I have ever had. One person at our table managed to snag an extra meal (the waiter just dropped it off and said he looked hungry) so we split it up among the hungry people at the table.
Later that evening most of our club got together for a pre-tournament party where we played a round of Texas Hold'em Poker (this is really popular for some reason). After I destroyed everyone at poker (I'm not kidding), we played a couple rounds of Uker and went to sleep for the night.
The next day it we arrived at the tournament only to find we had somehow made it there 10-20 minutes late and had missed the opening ceremony. On top of this fighting begain right away so we didn't have any warm up time. I managed to do alright in my one match but lost in the end to a more experienced Kendoist. I spent the rest of the day watching the various matches and was really impressed by the 5-dan and above matches. I've never seen people move so fast and hit so well. Some of the fights went for 15-20 minutes of overtime until someone scored a point! Google video seems to have one of the semi-final matches for the Yondans.
After watching the finals I got another chance to fight in the team tournament. I was on our second team with the rest of the 1-kyu club members. This was probably the fastest set of fights I've seen. The first and last team members did pretty well and lasted for a whole 2 minutes each. The rest of us? I think we lasted for 5 seconds.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Google Rocks
Well Google has added a dasboard widget that lets me make posts to my blog. Now I might actually make more posts as I sit bored in class :). They also have created a gmail preview widget which is pretty cool. You can grab them both at http://www.google.com/macwidgets/.
Monday, February 20, 2006
So Tired
I'm back from Detroit and pretty wiped. I arrived back here at 2:20 am or so after the long 7-8 hour drive. I'd post more but as I was up for 20 hours yesterday, I need to take a quick nap now that class is done.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Early Morning Kendo!
Today is the day. I shall be getting up around 4:30-5am and heading out to Detroit for the MWKF tournament! The tournament actually starts tomorrow but Kendo club is needs to be out there early as we have some member's testing for new ranks. Hopefully, the tournament will go well and Detroit will be a lot of fun.
The drive will suck though.
The drive will suck though.
Ahn'Qiraj
Well the gates of AQ are opening tonight on our server. It turns out that our server has died under the load of people. Someone at Blizzard put little thought into the whole event as so far on every server that opened the gates has crashed repeatedly. Well if the one person who could open the gates hadn't decided to do it at 1am our time I might actually have been able to participate. Well I have class so I'll be heading to bed. I think I'll set my alarm early to catch the tail end.
Plus I need practice getting up at 4am for kendo.
Plus I need practice getting up at 4am for kendo.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Kendo Hurts
Well after a long 2 month break I've finally started Kendo again. One thing I've learned from this is NEVER stop any form of intensive exercise 'cause when you start again your muscles hate you. The funny thing is the only way to make my arms and legs stop hurting is to do more Kendo, which makes it worse. WTF!
Of course someone who shall remain nameless hit me about 50 times in the right arm by my elbow today and a nice bruise is forming. Right elbow != Kendo target.
Of course someone who shall remain nameless hit me about 50 times in the right arm by my elbow today and a nice bruise is forming. Right elbow != Kendo target.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Back in Madtown
Well I'm back in Madison. I manged to get 99% of my stuff packed yesterday (a first), before I headed on the 5 hour drive all the way out here today. My Dad and Brother came with me so they got stuck with a 10 hour round trip drive (I really appreciate the ride, 10 hours sucks).
On top of packing yesterday I ran another MC run (that thing I ranted about before). I managed to pick up my classes Tier 1 epic robe the Arcanist Robe for a measly 5 DKPs (Dragon Kill Point), the minimum bid for an item during a run (this is good, don't worry about what DKP are).
Other than a trip my weekend has been pretty quite so far. Turns out one of my roomates was happy to see me.... I mean happy to see my Xbox return so he could once again watch movies on the TV. I need to practice getting to sleep early, and waking up early for my wonderful 9:55am class.
On top of packing yesterday I ran another MC run (that thing I ranted about before). I managed to pick up my classes Tier 1 epic robe the Arcanist Robe for a measly 5 DKPs (Dragon Kill Point), the minimum bid for an item during a run (this is good, don't worry about what DKP are).
Other than a trip my weekend has been pretty quite so far. Turns out one of my roomates was happy to see me.... I mean happy to see my Xbox return so he could once again watch movies on the TV. I need to practice getting to sleep early, and waking up early for my wonderful 9:55am class.
Sunday, January 08, 2006
A Very WoW Break
Well I haven't posted in awhile because not much has been happening. I've been using my break to play World of Warcraft before I head back to school. In the last couple weeks I got my PVP rank up to the first level of "officer" Knight, while also finding a guild to run Molten Core with (for those of you who don't know MC is the first of the two 40 man end game instances).
Molten Core while "small" in size compared to some instances, MC is filled with monsters that take 40 of the max level characters to take down. There are 10 main bosses in the dungeon:
Lastly there is the main boss at the end, the Firelord Ragnaros.
MC is large enough that they actually save your progress through the dungeon and give you one week to complete it. Our first night we stomped our way to Shazzrah who crushed us a couple times. As it was getting really late, like hour 4 of the run, we stopped for the night.
Run two was a couple days later. During run two we finally managed to nuke Shazzrah after we adjusted our tactics. We crushed Golemagg, and Sulfurion with little loss of life, but Majordomo Executus was another matter. It took us 4 tries and 3 raid wipes (a wipe is when all 40 people die) to defeat the Majordomo. As this was the first time the group had taken down Majordomo we were pretty excited about the whole thing. The only boss left to us was Ragnaros the Firelord who we didn't stand a chance of defeating. Despite the fact we couldn't kill him we decided to spawn him and say "Hi".
Of course in our excitement over the defeat of Executus we tried to go to fast, on the first set of "trash" monsters we ran into the entire raid wiped, twice. We went back to the start of the dungeon and decided to visit Rag through the front door as the monsters over there are much, much easier.
After spawning Rag by talking to the defeated Majordomo, Rag appears and kills Executus for his incompetence. Of course after the scripted sequence ended someone decided to attack him which ended up getting a chunk of the raid killed by Rag and his big hammer. Luckily a bunch of us jumped through a portal and escaped to Ironforge and safety. Screenshots of the end room are below, click for a high-res image (300k).
Ragnaros
Molten Core while "small" in size compared to some instances, MC is filled with monsters that take 40 of the max level characters to take down. There are 10 main bosses in the dungeon:
- Lucifron
- Magmader
- Gehennas
- Garr
- Baron Geddon
- Shazzrah
- Golemagg The Incinerator
- Sulfurion Harbringer
- Majordomo Executus
Lastly there is the main boss at the end, the Firelord Ragnaros.
MC is large enough that they actually save your progress through the dungeon and give you one week to complete it. Our first night we stomped our way to Shazzrah who crushed us a couple times. As it was getting really late, like hour 4 of the run, we stopped for the night.
Run two was a couple days later. During run two we finally managed to nuke Shazzrah after we adjusted our tactics. We crushed Golemagg, and Sulfurion with little loss of life, but Majordomo Executus was another matter. It took us 4 tries and 3 raid wipes (a wipe is when all 40 people die) to defeat the Majordomo. As this was the first time the group had taken down Majordomo we were pretty excited about the whole thing. The only boss left to us was Ragnaros the Firelord who we didn't stand a chance of defeating. Despite the fact we couldn't kill him we decided to spawn him and say "Hi".
Of course in our excitement over the defeat of Executus we tried to go to fast, on the first set of "trash" monsters we ran into the entire raid wiped, twice. We went back to the start of the dungeon and decided to visit Rag through the front door as the monsters over there are much, much easier.
After spawning Rag by talking to the defeated Majordomo, Rag appears and kills Executus for his incompetence. Of course after the scripted sequence ended someone decided to attack him which ended up getting a chunk of the raid killed by Rag and his big hammer. Luckily a bunch of us jumped through a portal and escaped to Ironforge and safety. Screenshots of the end room are below, click for a high-res image (300k).
Majordomo Executus
Ragnaros
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