Snow and spinners
Yesterday morning the sky was the most incredible shade of purple.
It was best at around 0730. The sky was overcast and there was just the faintest skiff of snow coming down, and the sun hadn't quite managed to put in an appearance. The purple was... indescribable. It wasn't like a bruise, it wasn't like a plum... it's like trying to find a comparison to day-glo orange - there just isn't anything.
It was deeper to the north, a bit more orange to the west (the bulk of Vancouver is in that direction), and a bit lighter to the east.
Then the crows came.
Now, this is a murder of crows numbering roughly 100000. Yes, that's a hundred thousand. When they all take off more or less at once, they blot out the sky, but that morning they were taking their time and mostly just flying in a single jagged line. Which suited the scene perfectly, as it was as though Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. ;)
That same day was my single day off. I went home and slept. Woke up and puttered around, then went to sleep at night. Hard to imagine that would be a treat, but it was. I woke up around 0500 feeling rested but with the same sore back I had the last time I slept for more than three hours. Guess I'm just meant to laze around in a chair rather than a bed. :P
I went downtown. I picked up some shampoo (discount place my ass) since I've been running short since the summer, and then went to my favourite computer place to look at some parts.
Between getting the shampoo and getting to the computer place, I stopped and had a chai latte at my old stomping grounds. It wasn't quite as tasty as I remembered, but damn that thing was filling! I suddenly didn't regret that my favourite slice joint had been closed when I went by. That's the "come for the so-so pizza, stay for the non-speaking glare of the guy behind the counter" slice joint, btw. ;) On to the computer store!
As usual, I felt buyer's remorse the moment I walked out of the store. It's a lame feeling, since I haven't actually bought anything for myself for quite some time now. Not games, not toys - nothing. So I'll just have to suck it up. ;)
While I was there, the guy asked me what I'm going to use my machine for when I get it all finished. When he heard "gaming" (that's the clue to salespeople that you're dumb enough to spend thousands on your box), he said "Well, then you'll want to RAID your drives."
Huh? For gaming?
"Oh sure! You'll have that fast processor, fast RAM, fast motherboard. Your bottleneck will now be your hard drive."
Nice try Skippy. While it's technically true that things would load faster, I don't mind that extra second. And during a game (at least the type I tend to play) there's very little in the way of loading from the drive. So I think I'll give your RAID idea a miss, m'kay?
However, I did get what might be the sexiest power supply I've ever owned. It's way overpowered for my needs (480 watts) since I'm not going to light this thing up or put hydraulics in it, but I might just need to put a spinning hub on it, just to indicate the internal badassedness.
It's a dual rail, but what I like most is that you can add or remove power cables from it as needed.
I'm paranoid about having enough cooling. Always have been. But not so much I'm going to water cool or put in a shitload of fans (although my last major system did have eight fans, if you include the one on the video card). But flow is important. And I use aluminum cases because they seem to shed the heat a little faster (Hey, 1C is 1C).
But having all of those nasty power cables dangling from the PSU just screws that up. And often even when you bind them up, they just end up insulating the top of your case and retaining extra heat. This awesome thing just lets you unplug them and store them in your drawer until you need more. What could be better?
And it's got a 120mm fan, just to make it a touch quieter. Not that that's important to me, after that 8 fan system. That mofo could nearly levitate!
Let me just say about the day - I'd forgotten how enjoyable it can be to just go out in the daylight, for yourself with no schedule, and live. I'll have to try to do that more often. :)
Unfortunately, I couldn't cap the day with a movie, as I had to get home and do my laundry for the week and try to get a little sleep before work. Ah well, all time off has to come to an end, unless I win that sixteen million in the 6/49 tonight, that is...
It was best at around 0730. The sky was overcast and there was just the faintest skiff of snow coming down, and the sun hadn't quite managed to put in an appearance. The purple was... indescribable. It wasn't like a bruise, it wasn't like a plum... it's like trying to find a comparison to day-glo orange - there just isn't anything.
It was deeper to the north, a bit more orange to the west (the bulk of Vancouver is in that direction), and a bit lighter to the east.
Then the crows came.
Now, this is a murder of crows numbering roughly 100000. Yes, that's a hundred thousand. When they all take off more or less at once, they blot out the sky, but that morning they were taking their time and mostly just flying in a single jagged line. Which suited the scene perfectly, as it was as though Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. ;)
That same day was my single day off. I went home and slept. Woke up and puttered around, then went to sleep at night. Hard to imagine that would be a treat, but it was. I woke up around 0500 feeling rested but with the same sore back I had the last time I slept for more than three hours. Guess I'm just meant to laze around in a chair rather than a bed. :P
I went downtown. I picked up some shampoo (discount place my ass) since I've been running short since the summer, and then went to my favourite computer place to look at some parts.
Between getting the shampoo and getting to the computer place, I stopped and had a chai latte at my old stomping grounds. It wasn't quite as tasty as I remembered, but damn that thing was filling! I suddenly didn't regret that my favourite slice joint had been closed when I went by. That's the "come for the so-so pizza, stay for the non-speaking glare of the guy behind the counter" slice joint, btw. ;) On to the computer store!
As usual, I felt buyer's remorse the moment I walked out of the store. It's a lame feeling, since I haven't actually bought anything for myself for quite some time now. Not games, not toys - nothing. So I'll just have to suck it up. ;)
While I was there, the guy asked me what I'm going to use my machine for when I get it all finished. When he heard "gaming" (that's the clue to salespeople that you're dumb enough to spend thousands on your box), he said "Well, then you'll want to RAID your drives."
Huh? For gaming?
"Oh sure! You'll have that fast processor, fast RAM, fast motherboard. Your bottleneck will now be your hard drive."
Nice try Skippy. While it's technically true that things would load faster, I don't mind that extra second. And during a game (at least the type I tend to play) there's very little in the way of loading from the drive. So I think I'll give your RAID idea a miss, m'kay?
However, I did get what might be the sexiest power supply I've ever owned. It's way overpowered for my needs (480 watts) since I'm not going to light this thing up or put hydraulics in it, but I might just need to put a spinning hub on it, just to indicate the internal badassedness.
It's a dual rail, but what I like most is that you can add or remove power cables from it as needed.
I'm paranoid about having enough cooling. Always have been. But not so much I'm going to water cool or put in a shitload of fans (although my last major system did have eight fans, if you include the one on the video card). But flow is important. And I use aluminum cases because they seem to shed the heat a little faster (Hey, 1C is 1C).
But having all of those nasty power cables dangling from the PSU just screws that up. And often even when you bind them up, they just end up insulating the top of your case and retaining extra heat. This awesome thing just lets you unplug them and store them in your drawer until you need more. What could be better?
And it's got a 120mm fan, just to make it a touch quieter. Not that that's important to me, after that 8 fan system. That mofo could nearly levitate!
Let me just say about the day - I'd forgotten how enjoyable it can be to just go out in the daylight, for yourself with no schedule, and live. I'll have to try to do that more often. :)
Unfortunately, I couldn't cap the day with a movie, as I had to get home and do my laundry for the week and try to get a little sleep before work. Ah well, all time off has to come to an end, unless I win that sixteen million in the 6/49 tonight, that is...
posted by Rimmy at 15:29
2 Comments:
Computer salesmen still trying to screw you? When will they ever learn?
I figured by now they would be putting out weather warnings in regard to the blizzard happening inside the case of your mo-chine. Glad to hear your using aluminum cases though. Thanks for keeping me employed. - Uber Smelter
Anything I can do to provide work for my friends. ;)
Ah, he was just upselling. You can't blame him, although it puts me in mind of something that happened in A&B Sound many years ago when I was there with Tursi. He even submitted it to the Computer Stupidities site (http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid) and they put it up!
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