The apt has been a total geekdom the past 2 weekends. I’ve been building my own computer, because I’m not happy with anything available from the big vendors like Dell and HP, and I don’t trust the smaller outfits. Also, I’m a very hands-on kind of guy. If I can do or build something myself, I prefer it that way. I get a kick out of it.

I also get a kick out of getting the most bang for my buck… squeezing out pennies. A Q6600 quad core processor is like having FOUR 2.4 gHz processors. That’s a lot of processor, especially since you can buy one now for $255. But look around the net, and you see everyone is tweaking bios settings and sqeezing 3 and 3.6 gHz out of the Q6600. 3.6gHz quad? Same price? I’m there!

So yeah, I got my quad core up to 3.2 gHz. I could push it further, but doing so generates more heat, which requires faster fans, which means more noise. I like things quiet, so I’m happy with my 3.2 gHz bargain.

In order to get to those higher speeds, one thing you have to do is boost the voltage going to the processor. The higher the voltage, the faster the speed that can be maintained.

Apparently, you can do the same thing with the brain. Give it a little boost in voltage, and memory and learning increase significantly. This was discovered accidentally, in an experimental treatment for obesity. Electrodes were pushed into the man’s brain and stimulated with an electric current. Instead of a diminished appetite, the treatment resulted in increased brain performance:

Speaking to The Independent yesterday, Professor Lozano said: “His performance improved dramatically. As we turned the current up, we first drove his memory circuits and improved his learning. As we increased the intensity of the current, we got spontaneous memories of discrete events. At a certain intensity, he would slash to the scene [in the park]. When the intensity was increased further, he got more detail but, when the current was turned off, it rapidly decayed.”

I wonder how far this parallel goes? If you “up” the voltage too much on a processor, it overheats. It fries. Tho if you fry the brain, you’re out a bit more than $255.

I took a life expectancy questionnaire today, and was a little surprised I wasn’t chided for my drinking habits. Instead I was told to keep it up!

Having 2-3 drinks a day has maximized your life expectancy

Bring me another!

The New York Times has a story today on the scarcity/popularity of the Wii:

“Nintendo is afraid that if it makes too many Wii, the boom may crest too quickly,” said Masayuki Otani, an analyst at Maruwa Securities in Tokyo. “It doesn’t want to satisfy all demand right away.”

I’d been skeptical about paying extra for “clean” or “green” energy options from ConEd before. We got another mailer this weekend, and this time I put a few minutes into research and I’m glad I did. Their “Green” option will let you sign-up for a month-by-month variable rate. This at first sounds a little scary, who knows how high it could go. But being month-by-month, I can revert at any time. Also, they cap the extra cost for this variable plan at 1 cent per kilowatt-hour. Looking over past bills, this equates to an extra $1.83 cents on our $66 bill last month, and an extra $7 or so on our highest summertime bill… a small price to pay for coal/oil free electricity. ps. the Green option delivers energy from 35% wind and 65% hydro sources. They also have a wind-only plan at an extra cost of 2.5 cents per kWh.

If you have your ConEd account number nearby, you can enroll online. I just did, and it took about 5 minutes. During the process they even show you how many kWhs you’ve used the past few months, so you can figure what the extra cost will be. Be sure to pick the variable rate option– the fixed rate was about 40% more and requires a 1 year commitment.

Now I want to go to St. Maarten just to hang out on the beach and watch planes land:

More here.

There’s a Hobo Foundation, a Hobo Museum, and a Hobo Cemetery in Britt, Iowa. Apparently, when a hobo passes away his pals say s/he’s “caught the westbound”. Here’s a sampling of some of the westbound’s riders:

MOUNTAIN DEW
SLOW MOTION SHORTY
A MAN CALLD JOHN
LORD OPEN ROAD
CARDBOARD
HAIRBREATH HARRY
KING DAVID 1
SONNY SLIM CHANCE
TROUBLE
STEP AND A HALF
FLORIDA BOY BLUE
CHICO THE KID
COPPER FRENCHIE
JUST JIM
HORIZONTAL JOHN
PAPA SMURF
DING DONG
30 WT. EARL
A.D.D.BRYAN
RAINBOW
LEPRUCHAN
MIKE OF THE WEEDS
KICKSTAND
CHICKEN RED
SPACEMAN JOHN
WATERBED LOU

R.I.P

When I saw “Canine Freestyle” I was expecting some unintelligible doggie rapping/howling. This golden retriever doesn’t rap, but he puts my dance moves to shame:

January 15th and still no snow. This is sad news for a Florida boy who still finds excitement in the first snowfall each winter. Clive Thompson was asked to write about the future of NYC weather for New York Magazine. The short version:

The Five-Year Forecast
Unseasonably warm, with freakish snowfalls and chance of cyclone. This winter will be weird, and the weather will keep getting weirder.

The long version is much longer. Thompson explains how El Nino, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), and of course global warming will affect the weather here– not for just the next 5 years, but for the next 100 or so.

If you have to ask how long something will take to complete, consider Hofstadter’s Law:

It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Ha ha! All the headlines this morning read “Man shot in PS3 waiting line.” But the REAL tragedy here is the poor kid who ran into a pole as he was racing 50 others for a chance to buy a $600 game system.

Short supplies of the PS3 and strong demand led to lines of buyers, some waiting for days, outside stores across the country. … In West Bend, Wis., a 19-year-old man was injured when he ran into a pole racing with 50 others for one of 10 spots outside a Wal-Mart.

My question is, was this an incident where they opened some kind of gate and 50 people ran to be first in line? OR (and I’m secretly hoping this is the case) 50 potential buyers waiting in a line were sensing the futility, and banded together to say “Listen, we’re not all going to get a PS3. Let’s race. First ten to get to that pole get dibs.”

I hope the guy who hit the pole was at least ahead of the pack when he collided.