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I used to hate USB when it first came out for some reason. Maybe because it caused lockups and crashes. The simple installation instructions never seemed to work right. Back in the days of windows 95, which by the way, I have 3 copies laying around available for free to anyone that wants them. They are 150 miles away so immediate delivery is unavailable. So first I got an USB webcam from earthlink. That crash monkey settled down after my reluctant entry into windows 98. And of course, linux renders it completely useless. Then came the digital camera, again from earthlink. This however had an optional com port, that I frequently employed. Unfortunately, installing both the still and web camera, proved pointless, since whichever one was installed second thought it was the first one. Afterwards the one previously working would crash. Then after building my brother his computer, he bought me a printer. Since I was to cheap too buy an IEEE 1284 printer cable, I tried out the USB. It would work great if the steps were followed exactly, and until the USB cable was unplugged and replugged. That would require complicated driver reinstalls. This, on a couple of times, due to inexperience and the pitfalls of windows 98 led to a format and complete overhaul. Eventually, I got an IEEE 1284 printer cable for about a dollar at directron.com via instore pickup and stayed with that until I ran out of ink. So for about two years I have not even bothered to hook up the printer. Now that UTSA is going to start charging, it is time to reinvest in ink cartridges. One day scanning the hot deals, I noticed I could get a scanner for around fifteen dollars after rebate from staples. I bit and got the Visioneer 8100 USB scanner. It is nice and I usually don't have problems with it. Once again it is the installation that is the culprit of problems. With this toy I am able to switch USB ports without problems. This could be due Windows 2000 I now run. Maybe the printer will do the same on the new platform. Of course with this scanner there is no hope for Linux, due to Visioneer failing to release drivers. I did get the rebate. Not too long ago I found myself in need of a new keyboard. Hearing rumors of faster response time, I went out to OfficeMax and made the purchase of the cheapest black USB keyboard. It is nice, but I still preferred the custom colored, with dislikeable keys removed, old one. It was, after all an old AT keyboard, my first. With the adapter I was having trouble making it fit in the back. So I made the switch. The only other original computer part, besides my monitor, (The floppy, I recently tried to give away, so it's no longer in the computer and far from accessible.) was my nice Mouseman Wheel. The presenting problem was the lint and other accumulated garbage began to collect in the ball; clicking and pointer stopping prevailed. I resolved to get an optical mouse. Funny to note that my brother had an optical mouse back around 1989. I wonder where they went for ten years. So I got an USB Logitech MX300 optical mouse for Christmas. I like it's motion, but it is smaller then my Mouseman. It will take getting used to. Companies should make mouses for people that do not have small hands. So the point is that now my peripherals are almost all USB. The lone exception is my Creative remote control. I see no reason to buy a new remote control until I get my tV tuner, but that will be awhile. From hate to... not hate. I think USB is kind of neat, having all the devices plug into one kind of port. If you read this far, congratulations. If it was someone else's blog, I wouldn't have. |
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I listen to the sounds of di.fm as pointed out by David. The Hard Trance is good. It puts me into my state... So now, I am a level 84 Archer on Gauntlet Legends, Dark Legacy. Keeps my level 80+ Dwarf company. That machine has consumed a large quantity of my money. I probably could have bought a playstation 2 with what I have pumped into it. The Computer needs a reformat. Mostly because I screwed things up when upgrading The motherboard and cpu. I think instead of copying the hard drive I should have just reinstalled, when I upgraded that. I've switched out 3 video cards too. Things look real ugly on the tV. I'm going to try a format soon and see if that fixes things. It is essential for my plan of a pvr. Elsewise, I may have to buy a DVD player. So far I've avoided that. And thinking of upgrades I need some new ram. Right now using I'm using PC133 with my 1667 AMD AthlonXP. Quite a waste. I need to get it switched up to DDR. I was thinking of getting some hardcore 3200 stuff, switching to watercooling and overclocking just for fun. I don't really need faster stuff, as I no longer game. I would benefit much greater from from RAM and DDR. But I have heard that DDRII is going to quickly obsolete DDR, so I don't know. Maybe just get some mediocre stuff; as long as it is stable. Hard trance puts me in that mood. Cannot describe it. Repetitive electronic beats... Daydream. I'm lost in music. |
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My plan to sleep early and awake early has failed. After about 4 hours of sleep, I'm back to unsleep. I had hoped to at least make it to 7am. This usually occurs after periods of sleeping when the body is tired. So I would go to sleep when tired, thereby avoiding any sleeplessness. Near instant sleep is good. If I let myself completely turn to natural sleep, I think I will arrive at 24 hours of wakefulness and around 10-15 hours of sleep. Seems weird, but it is so comfortable when I am in that swing. Interestingly at the same time, moments of initial sleep and unsleep rotate forward. I will end up going to sleep later every time. Starting the cycle at 12am, it will eventually goto 1am, 3am, 6am, 12pm, 1pm... and so on. Not at those particular times, but I present the idea. Modern society foils my ideal sleep pattern; particularly UTSA. So therefore, I would desire a forced time of initial unsleep at about 8am. This is further complicated by my habit of not sleeping the same amount each night. My needed amount ranges from 4 hours (lower quantities) to 8 hours (most quantities) to 12 hours (lower quantities). Probably varied by the amount of daily effort and total period of preceding unsleep. So like Dad has been doing for about the past three years, to much ridicule, I have decided to avoid eating certain beef products, particularly ground beef. Madcow is the main culprit. Of course, judging from experiences of people that have worked in meat markets; who have told me not to buy ground beef, a person shouldn't eat it anyway. I am still going to eat steaks. So why now? Actually I have been considering it for a long time and have been much limiting my consumption of the ground beef. Finding one instance of madcow in the United States should frighten most people because of the extremely lax controls. And the cow that forced the current scandel very obviously had something wrong with it. Of course most cattle slaughtered are not an old cow. They are about a year old. It will not demonstrate signs of the infection. The only way to find out is to test the brain. And then consider that two major protein supplement producers have admitted to including cow blood in the supplement intended to enhance the cattle, a procedure that has been baned. So American feedlots continue to feed cow to cow. An industry that continues to do this deserves the economic fallout that will occur. However, as my understanding goes, most ranchers do not do the protein supplements. That occurs at the feedlot. The sad part is that after the latest scare, most beef will probably become safer. But like I said earlier, feeding cow to cow... you are going to get what is coming to you. So several people have commented to me. Including paraphrases, "If it's God's choice, I'll die," suggesting that somehow by not eating beef I am countering God's plan. Well I don't believe this. If you do that is your problem. What about, "You can't live your life in fear." Well it's not quite like that. Everyone knows Russian Roulette. This is like that, but there are many more chambers and many more bullets. Put it this way... If you had two devices, that you put to your head. One would one hundred percent of the time give you a good massage, and it makes you feel content. The second device would make you feel content (and just content, but in a slightly different way then the first. Perhaps slightly a better contentedness.) nine hundred, ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine time out of a million. But you have once chance of a million of it sending a powerful microwave beam into your head and instantly cooking it; thereby insuring death. Would you continue using the second device, especially because it only makes you feel content. No super high or extreme comfort. Well, I will stick to the first device. One in a million is too high of odds. Madcow is like that. In fact most beef eaters in the U.S., including me could already be infected with it. We don't know because the beef industry so strongly rejected any kind of controls. It was with regret that they supposeably eliminated feeding beef to cattle. Personally I don't trust them. Even ranchers that bought beef free protein supplements could have been tricked by greedy suppliers. Ok so my position is that I will only eat beef steaks. Of course, depending on the butcher and cutting practices, I could get madcow anyway. I am not going to tell anyone to not eat beef. Eat it to your hearts content. More for you, right? And it will be less expensive. On a side note, is there a way to eliminate comments to a blog and still make it publicly readable? |
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I attempted to install my printer. With my luck it failed. I can not get it to work. Very annoying. Stupid USB. Also discovered when accessing windows boot options, my USB keyboard does not respond. Again annoying. Some much for the greatness of USB. I am also noticing my computer monitor is failing to display text correctly. It could be my video card, I guess, but there are distortion problems on the screen as well. It has done the fuzzys before, but somehow got out of it. I guess six years out of a used monitor is not all that bad. That is about twenty-one dollars a year. I will find out for sure if it is the monitor once I do the overdue format and reinstall. If It is, I am thinking of getting a seventeen inch LCD, but they are much expensive. Awhile back I did a total cost analysis and found that after utilizing a hot deal, after about five years the seventeen inch will cost about the same as a 21 inch CRT, and then decrease in cost from there. I guess the savings would be greater if energy costs went up as well. The only thing is that I heard they perform poorly in terms of ghosting with games and movies. I do not game much but like to keep the option open. I like to watch all kinds of videos on the screen as well, so that is a downer. Then again, I will not have a continuous stream of electrons aiming for my head, and it has a much smaller footprint. Of course, a seventeen inch CRT is the best buy but... Maybe I will just wait for the best deal. I left the apartment for the first time in two days. Interaction with people; scary. People at UTSA looked morose today. I guess people do not want to go back to school. Me, I am apathetic about it. It gives me something to do. This semester I actually plan to do homework. This time I really mean it. I saw an interesting thing on the book of Revelation on tV. Seem to suggest it was never meant to be a modern day prophecy. They presented evidence it was made for first century Christians. After seeing the show, I would tend to agree. After all it was a big church council that came up with what books to put in the Bible. I do not remember what year it happened, but apparently there was great controversy and arguing about it. In the end they left a bunch out and put in some that may not belong. I am beginning to like this blog idea. |
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Being tired is a little bit like being hunted, except you are prey of sleep and mind tricks. It does not even creep up. It chases from the moment of unsleep. It makes things blur when they should not. It makes driving like a dream. It is the fuzzys that flow in front of everything like a a big sheet. Little bits of distortion crawl on someones shirt or face or the wall or the sky. Light comming back to my eyes gets filtered, not distorting but inserting the fuzzys. Retna burns fearfully could turn to migrains. Stomach churns. But it is the fuzzys that really get to me. I formated my hard drive and reinstalled windows 2000. Initially my graphics looked okay without the distortion. After installing the 53.03's the display errors appeared, but the refresh rate appeared ok. So I went back to the 45.33. That got rid of the display errors but got back to the refresh problem. So then I went back to the 41.09, as I am using right now. That version of nView is less functional. I am sick of nVidia products, I think. My next card will be ATI. Although with my MX400, it displayed flawlessly on my tV up to the point that I changed my motherboard and cpu. I read a suggestion that display problems might be related to not enough power. After reinstalling windows, the printer setup went right the first time. I've switched my wonderfull new usb mouse and keyboard back to ps2. I see no difference. |