Insiders are saying the Core 2 Duo will undergo massive price cuts in Q2 2007. Most notably, the E6700 price will be cut 40%. For those looking for the biggest bang for the buck, a possible upgrade strategy would be to pick up the E6300 now, run it stock then sell it around April for a E4400 (10X multiplier) and overclock the hell out of it. Hell, you may even have some money left after selling the E6300. Intel really has AMD's balls in their hands this year... We'll see how AMD responds with the Barcelona, Agena and Kuma cores.



Source: http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/itnews.php?tid=714230&starttime=0&endtime=0

So I took the plunge...

'tis the Christmas break! Time to relax and start thinking about upgrading my computer!!! This is what I have now:

CPU: AthlonXP Thoroughbred 'B' 1700+ @ 2600+
RAM: 512MB PC3200 DDR
MOBO: ASUS A7V266-C
VIDEO: All-In-Wonder X800XL AGP
PSU: Zalman 300W(ZM300A-APF)
Heatsink: Zalman CNPS-7000AlCu

Upgrade:
CPU: Core2 Duo E6300 Retail (~$215)
MOBO: ASROCK 775DUAL-VSTA (~$80)
RAM: Add another stick of 512MB PC3200 (~$70)
PSU: el-cheapo Nspire ISO-500D 450W (~$40)
Total: $462 incl. tax

The motherboard is pretty crappy for overclocking though. On average, it hits a wall around 300FSB (from default of 266FSB). That means with the E6300's 7X multiplier, it can barely make E6400 speeds (7x300=2100MHz). Now, Intel is going to be releasing the E4300 sometime in Q1 2007 - I heard Jan 21 from several sources. Because it runs 200FSB native, the E4300 has a 9X multiplier meaning with even the crap ASROCK board, it can run 9x300 = 2700MHz or about E6700 speeds!!! Still don't know what the effect of the reduced cache will be though... So wait for January 21 or buy now? Hmm....

Anchorman in the hot seat:
Guilty or not?

Sorry, I couldn't resist lol:

Caught with porno gag:

Most amazing stop-motion I have ever seen :eek:

Another funny video from the shopping channel:

Hilarious clip from the Shop at Home Network channel:

So I am watching the White and Nerdy parody video in the blog entry below and then it suddenly struck me a great portion of what it was rhyming off sounded familiar. Here's a list of similarities between the video and me:

- I understood the MC Escher reference
- my favourite tea is Earl Grey
- I thought about buying a Toyota Prius
- yes, I consider calculus fun... sometimes
- I don't know Klingon, fluently... alright, I only know a few words - this one doesn't count
- I was on the chess team...
- Jean-Luc Picard! My hero!
- I know a guy who has seen the Star Wars holiday special - this by itself is scary

Bwahaha:

Weird Al's parody music videos. Nerds, unite!

It's All About the Pentium


White and Nerdy

This is freakishly groovy:

Upcoming title for EA's popular FIFA series: FIFA Fighter!

Sierra has released the multiplayer portion of F.E.A.R. for free. You will be able to play online with people who own the full retail version. Warning: this game requires a very beefy machine to run. Radeon 9800 or better recommended.

Click here for official site.

Direct download locations (1.76GB):

• Fast mirror, no lineup
• Sierra official FTP

Two funny japanese pranks:

• Video 1
• Video 2

What's faster than a Porsche Carrera GT, but costs the same as a family sedan? Say hello to the Ariel Atom.

• Click here for video

Parts ready to assemble.

My boss found out I was sort of a minor computer geek so he asked me to build him a new computer. He wanted the computer for mainly video capture/editing and PVR functionalities. I chose the following parts for him:

• CPU: Athlon 64 X2 +3800 S939 (dual core)


• Heatsink: Zalman 7000B Al-Cu


• RAM: 2 x 512MB (1GB) PC3200 DDR RAM


• Motherboard: ASUS A8N-VM CSM (integrated video, LAN, audio)


• Hard Drives:
  1. 36GB Western Digital Raptor 10,000RPM
  2. 320GB Seagate 7200.10 7,200RPM


• Case: Antec Sonata II with 450W PSU


• Tuner/Capture Card: Sapphire Theatrix (ATI Theater 550 chipset)


• OS: Windows XP Professional Media Center Edition 2005

The new computer (on the left) beside my own older Sonata I computer.

Because of school and work, I haven't followed the computer scene for the last couple months. As the result, I made a few bad choice of parts. I warned my boss this would happen, but he was persistent in having his computer built as soon as possible.

My first mistake was choosing the S939 socket. This socket is getting phased out and being replaced by the AM2. They are equally priced but the AM2 is more future-proof as newer CPUs will use the AM2 socket.

Choosing the Raptor hard drive was worst though. I believed all Raptors dominated the single non-SCSI drive category. Some Raptor models still do, but the 36GB model I chose - the smallest in the line, has since fallen from its throne. When I benchmarked the drives, I found the Raptor's 62MB/sec transfer rate totally obliterated by the Seagate 7200.10's blazing fast 78MB/sec. Superior spindle speed, it seems, is no longer an accurate gauge of raw performance.

To be fair, the Raptor still sports enterprise-class ruggedness and reliability, and it has low seek latencies, which interrelates to increased responsiveness in certain applications, that no 7200RPM drives can match, but in light of this new information, the premium for this drive is simply too high.

All in all, it's still a decent computer. It's extremely quiet - practically silent when the hard drives are idle, and it's definitely fast enough for whatever my boss needs to do. And judging by his response, he is certainly happy with the computer, which is ultimately all that matters.

Uber micro can also be applied to everyday activities, such as flipping burgers. (Photo by Dan)

Guybrush Threepwood and Herman Toothrot on Dinky Island

Herman: "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, what color is the tree?"
Guybrush (after exhausting all colors): "All colors?"
Herman: "Exactly. Now, what has this experience taught you?"
Guybrush: "That philosophy isn't worth my time."
Herman: "I'm very impressed. It takes most people years to reach this point."

-- Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

Guybrush Threepwood and Wally in the map room

Wally: "I'm a cartographer."
Guybrush: "You do open heart surgery? In here?"

-- Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge

My bike was stolen a few weeks ago while I was at Ryerson. I locked it up to a bike rack outside the Student Centre - under a security camera no less. Campus security reviewed the tape and concluded the thief cut through the cable lock with a bolt cutter and made off with my bike in 14 seconds. Unfortunately, no identifiable facial features were clear on the tape.

Because my bike was rather old, I can only imagine the thief stole it for the saddle, which was recently purchased and expensive. I guess it was easier for him to steal the whole bike rather then spend the time to unbolt the saddle.

I didn't shed too much tear over losing my bike though. The shifting had not been working too great after I bent a couple teeth in the cog in a fall, the brakes were failing, and the frame was starting to rust. It was simply time we parted ways.

In talking to people, I am discovering that Toronto has a major bike theft problem. I am shocked by the number of people I have talked to that shared a similiar tale; either somebody has had their bike stolen, or they know somebody who did. The campus security guard that took my statement lambasted about having on average two people report stolen bikes a day!

As the following video shows, stealing a bike is obscenely easy.



To prevent having my bike stolen again in the future, I have been educating myself about bike security. Let me share with you several things I have learned:

• Cable locks, irrespective of their price, are for the most part inferior to U-locks. Bolt cutters are known to have defeated even the thickess cable locks that are advertised with misleading monikers like "airplane-grade."
• The recommended way to lock a bike is to have a U-lock pass through both the frame and rear wheel. Even better if you have a front quick release wheel is to move it to the rear wheel and pass the U-lock through the frame and both wheels.
• The object to which you secure the bike should be carefully examined to make certain it does not have bolts that are easily removed or otherwise tampered with such that the bike can be removed without breaking the lock.
• Because thiefs are becoming more bold, bolted seats and wheels are not as safe from theft anymore. Consider replacing bolts with quick releases to facilitate locking the wheels and removing the saddle.

Anyhow, I just bought a road bike. I tried posting the picture but Blogger(TM) is having none of it. The bike needs major tuning. Shifting is horrid on climbs, the crankshaft is making all sort of wonderful grinding noises, and the drop handlebar is way too low. Apart from those problem, the bike is incredibly quick. Now, let's just hope my U-lock does its job.

The Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory in Japan.

• Click here for more information

We are on the dawn of a new era in gaming. Soon, the boundary between the virtual and the real will get much closer than ever as games promise real-time experience with near Hollywood-production quality.

Ushering in this new era is Crytek's upcoming game, Crysis. Unveiled at the E3 Expo this year, its graphics is nothing short of revolutionary. Here's a gameplay clip:



There is a higher quality version of the clip here (select 'Gameplay 2').

Funny A&P commercial

More hilarity at www.engrish.com.

'Wrong Guy' interviewed on the BBC:

This is the funniest video I've seen in a while. It's the BBC interviewing a supposed Guy Kewney, editor of newswireless.net and IT expert, about the Apple vs Apple case on live TV - however, it's not Guy Kewney. It's actually Guy Goma, a recent graduate who was there waiting for a job interview.

Mr Goma said his appearance was "very stressful" and wondered why the questions were not related to the data support cleanser job he applied for.

You can find the full article here.

Money Saving Guide For Computer Experts

DI-524 Wireless Router - Wolf In Sheep's Clothing:

One of the dirty secrets in electronics manufacturing is in order to save manufacturing costs, different products often share the same underlying hardware, but have various features turned on or off using software. This is the case with the Dlink DI-524. Not only is it a great router, it's actually a firmware-crippled DI-624, the faster, more expensive brother of the 524.

One guy at the DSLforum discovered both routers shared the same Atheros chipset and brilliantly figured out how to fool the 524 into thinking it's a 624. Specifically, this only works with revision 'C' of the DI-524. To change it to a 624, you need to flash with the hacked firmware. After the flash, your DI-524 will behave identically to a 624. It will even accept non-hacked official DI-624 firmware. DI-624 firmwares are also more regularly updated than DI-524's.

Your router will now have the following upgrades:

• double the speed with Super-G 108Mbps
• more features such as Turbo and Extended modes
• cable testing feature
• more configurable properties

The greatest thing with the 524 is you can often find them on sale at Futureshop and other computer hardware retailers. I got mine for $35 at Compusmart after mail-in-rebates.

Exam time is here. Time to lock and load.

Best fight scene ever. From the movie, "Undefeatable". Warning, it's a bit gory.

Real life Simpsons.

I just found what appears to be a copy of a letter I wrote to a friend of the family who visited us from Japan. All I can say is WTF?! It's dated October 21, 1996 so I must have been in junior high school at that time. Maybe I had a fever that day because I don't recall drinking so young. I'll let you be the judge of that. Comments are in bold.

Guess who? What?! Michael Jackson??! No, no, no... It's Brian. Huh? No, I'm not trying to blackmail you. I'm responding to your letter not because I want to, but because my parents forced me. Just kidding. We had a really bad summer after you left. A hurricane completely destroyed our house, all our belongings burned to ashes when lightning struck our destroyed house, and we were forced to live in a treehouse in our backyard naked. Oh ya, and everybody in my family got typhoid from my mom's cooking (my understanding of viral infection was limited at this time). Excluding all that, we had a pretty good summer.

Remember when you made fun of my look in the picture at Niagara Falls? Well, you are a deleterious (harmful to body or mind), necrophilious (attraction to dead bodies), demonic (possessed by an evil spirit), half-witted Martian. Okay, maybe that is a little bit overly offensive. You are a subnormal dairy farmer. What do you mean you want to kill me? Fine, you are a esoteric......human being. Thanks a lot because it took all my energy just to type "human being" because we all know you're not.

So, how are you? I'm feeling terrible because I have to write this letter. I'm also writing on behalf of my parents because they are too busy right now arguing about who gets to watch Barney tonight (WTF?!). Okay, okay. No more stupid jokes (the footnote says "not"). The next paragraph is going to be really hard for me to write. Ready?

Thank you for the gifts you sent us especially the "tabi" for my mom. Come back to Toronto whenever you are free again. Just remember not to bring Yusuke because he might barf on my carpet again after getting drunk. Kidding again (I was such a kidder...)

Arghhhh!!!! Martian attack!!!! Got to run. Hope I don't get fined for public indecency for not wearing anything but rags. Oh, and say hello to Yusuke for me. See you next time, if I'm still alive.
B-Y-E!

P.S. Don't show this letter to Michelle because she might understand what I wrote.

I-beamer team video by Mike Tran


The I-beamers are back from the 22nd Annual Troitsky Bridge Building Competition held at Concordia University in Montreal. We went into the competition confident our design would beat all the teams. However, things were not meant to be. We finished a disappointing 18th out of 40 teams.

When our bridge tipped over at 80kg, we were in total shock. We were expecting something closer to 1100kg. Afterwards, one of the judges came up to me and apologized saying they just realized there was something wrong with the machine since the loading kept moving off center. Reza's team, who won the competition at Ryerson, failed at around the same weight as us. All bridges that were top loaded failed the same way; by tipping over, or twisting. In the end, of all things, a suspension bridge from Cegep Chicoutimi won.

After all the teams had their bridges crushed, we asked the organizers to crush our bridge again since it was largely unscathed from the first time. This time, we clearly saw the loader applying torque on our bridge, spinning and twisting it - something that's not suppose to happen.

We are going to fire off an e-mail to the Canadian Society of Civil Engineer (CSCE), who organized the event, detailing the problems with the crusher in the hopes the same thing won't happen again.

Meanwhile, if you were watching the Discovery Channel today, Reza's team was featured on the Daily Planet. I appeared for a brief moment in the background. I'll try to not let it go to my head.

• Official bridge building competition site with results

The bridge bearing battle scars after placing 3rd overall in Thursday's crushing.

In the language of the original civil engineers; veni, vidi, vici ... Barely. Our team placed 3rd and qualified for the national competition at Concordia University by the thinnest of margins. Only 0.5 points out of a 100 separated us from Chris and his team of masters students, the heavy favourites having set the Canadian record in 2003.

Our 1.35kg bridge held 784kg before the footings failed prematurely. In terms of the strength-to-weight ratio which comprises the majority of the score, we placed second. However, we were automatically deducted points in design because we went with an A-frame design, something that the organizers were trying to discourage. Nonetheless, even with this scoring scheme that we thought was unfair, we placed 3rd, barely ahead of Chris' team.

But it was not without controversy. When Chris' bridge was handled for the official weigh-in prior to the crushing, a member of the crushing committee accidentally knocked their bridge over and broke off the deck. Because the deck contributed nothing to the structural integrity of the bridge, they continued on with crushing. It did poorly failing at around 430kg. This is where things got a little crazy. Chris' team complained their bridge would of held more had the deck not been broken. They referred to a situation last year at Concordia where a similar situation occurred and they were awarded a 15% bonus in load score. This bonus would of placed them ahead of us and thus occupying the last qualifying position for the national competition.

Of course, this was a little upsetting. We clearly won according to the rules that we all agreed to when we entered the competition and it would of been extremely unfair had we lost our 3rd place standing because they changed the rules after the results. Fortunately, it worked out for us. I heard they may or may not send four teams this year. But personally, I just care we got what we deserved.

• official Ryerson bridge competition site with pictures

The second picture is courtesy of Stan.

After 50 painstaking hours over the past weekend, our popsicle stick bridge is finally done. This Thursday, February 17, the structural masterpiece our team designed and constructed will compete in the annual Ryerson bridge building competition. Starting 12pm that day, the bridges will be put under a hydraulic press and loaded until it fails. The top 3 Ryerson teams will move on to the national competition held at Concordia University in Montreal.

I want to be the first to thank the team members, Mike, Mohammed, and Stan for their dedication and hard work. Our bridge is kickass because you guys were there every step of the way.

Stay tuned. Pictures and videos are coming after the competition.

Stats:

• Bridge Type: Quadruple I-beam A-frame
• Design Bridge Mass: 1.15kg
• Final Bridge Mass: 1.37kg
• Design Load: 1250kg

GO I-BEAMERS!

The future is now.
Here's a demonstration video of Multi-Touch display technology similiar to the one shown in the movie, The Minority Report:

• Click here to download (17MB, 3min31sec)

Read more about the technology.

True story, I was happy. My girlfriend and I had been dating for over a year, and so we decided to get married. My parents helped us in every way, my friends encouraged me, and my girlfriend? She was a dream! There was only one thing bothering me, very much indeed, and that one thing was her younger sister. My prospective sister-in-law was twenty years of age, wore tight mini skirts and low cut blouses. She would regularly bend down when near me and I got many a pleasant view of her underwear. It had to be deliberate. She never did it when she was near anyone else. One day little sister called and asked me to come over to check the wedding invitations. She was alone when I arrived. She whispered to me that soon I was to be married, and she had feelings and desires for me that she couldn't overcome and didn't really want to overcome. She told me that she wanted to make love to me just once before I got married and committed my life to her sister. I was in total shock and couldn't say a word. She said, "I'm going upstairs to my bedroom, and if you want to go ahead with it just come up and get me." I was stunned. I was frozen in shock as I watched her go up the stairs. When she reached the top she pulled down her panties and threw them down the stairs at me. I stood there for a moment, then turned and went straight to the front door. I opened the door and stepped out of the house. I walked straight towards my car. My future father-in-law was standing outside. With tears in his eyes he hugged me and said, "We are very happy that you have passed our little test. We couldn't ask for a better man for our daughter. Welcome to the family.

The moral of this story is: Always keep your condoms in your car.

Electric discharges produced by the Z Machine at Lockheed Martin's Scandia National Laboratories. It is the most powerful X-ray source on Earth. Scientists hope to use its intense magnetic fields to carry out experiments on warp propulsion theory. Read more.

Howdy guys. It has been a while. I'm currently just having fun and recharging for the final push towards the end of the school year. I think I slept on average 12 hours a day this break. Yes, I didn't think it was possible either.

I'm satisfied with last semester's marks. I should of been more prepared for the exams though. That's my fault. I took my foot off the gas pedal a little bit too soon. It's going to be pedal-to-the-metal next semester!

Lots of stuff have been happening during the break. I held a LAN party at my house. Good times. My team has also been busy designing for the bridge building competition in February. We're going to unveil some pretty revolutionary designs so look for us ;)

I'm looking forward to hitting the slopes at Blue Mountain for a couple days with my friends. I really need the exercise. I think this year is a new low for me in terms of physical activity. Hopefully, I can get back to shape next semester by doing fencing and playing hockey in the civil engineering team Dave is organizing.

In the meantime, I'm going to go sit on my ass and watch some Smallville and maybe play some Warcraft.