| Where did that week go? |
[Monday 6th June 2005 at 6:39 pm]
Thomas
|
| [ | Feeling |
| |  bored | ] |
| [ | Playing |
| | Butterflies & Hurricanes ~ Muse | ] |
Hmm, so I'm sitting in the Informatics lab and watching the download slowly trickle along (a 200-odd meg file tends to take its time). Anyway, it's been a while since any of you have heard from me (apart from the Bad Wolf post, which is not in any way a result of an enormous experiment in neuro-linguistic programming), so here's another long rambling post.
I spent the week at home, which started with me watching  music4asoul obliterate the various end bosses for Tales of Symphonia, and then mash the bosses for Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. Very impressed by the whole pre-final-boss story sequence for FF:CC, and by the graphics as well. Also watched the two most recent Doctor Whos, so ptristan doesn't have to bring in a copy of either of those for me (but you'd better bring in Bad Wolf next week!).
Nothing much else happened, apart from me doing revision and registering with various employment agencies to hopefully get a job over summer. Oh, I did end up doing a couple of bits of computer fixing for friends: Case 1 was no sound from a 4.1 speaker set. Drivers didn't solve it, tests with a pair of earphones and the associated MP3 player proved that the speakers or amp was at fault, so noltad was disconnecting the speakers to extract them from his desk when he passed me the amp and I had a look at the back of it.
"Wait a minute, that socket looks a bit mangled... where's the volume control widget?"
"Ah, that's your problem - see, the pin's bent. Got a small screwdriver or something?"
*bend*
"Right, plug a couple of speakers back in and let's test it."
*loud random music*
Case 2, from the same house: a pair of El Cheapo speakers from a Time machine (running Windows 95) had lost the amplifiing part. All you got was the quiet non-amplified sound, and the red power light didn't light up. Swapping the wall wart for a variable one produced a red light, but now no sound. Somewhat expected, considering that the wall wart was rated for 1.25A @ 12V and the replacement delivered a mere 300mA. Solution: chuck them and buy a new pair, considering that they can be had from the likes of eBuyer for under a fiver. It's not worth trying to find a PSU that'll deliver over an amp at 12 volts, with the right connector and right polarity, just to power a pair of El Cheapo speakers (yes, I know I'm running mine from a variable transformer, but I've got one that'll deliver at least 800mA).
Hmm, 58% and half an hour remaining. If you're trying to work out what's being downloaded, it's this, a random Star Wars fanfilm that I randomly came across. Make that 59%.
*Semagic bings at me. I go check my friends list. Semagic bings again, but no change to friends list (it's been doing this a lot recently - sounds like someone's checkfriends implementation is b0rked. Just as I bring the post window back up, Outlook Express bings at me. /me consideres deleting 'bing' sound*
Yes, I do still use Outlook Express and Internet Explorer. I have my reasons for both: OE is a pretty decent IMAP client (apart from a couple of quirks), and is actually rather secure once you lock it down a bit. IE makes for a decent web browser, b0rked CSS aside, and has the nice bonus of not screwing up the TrackPoint's scroll wheel replacement. To those of you who say "IE is insecure!" I shall inform you that FireFox is also insecure. To those of you who say "IE doesn't support $STANDARD", I shall inform you that I really do not give a frozen turkey.
Well, while typing that randomness another 10% came down, at about 20K/s. And this is supposedly a 155mb/s line, with me having a 2mb/s link to the campus wireless (actually, 6mb/s now). Ctrl+C, up-arrow, enter. 60K/s, much nicer. Okay then, 25K/s. 70. 20. Hmm. Sod that, I'll download it another time.
Ctrl+C. |
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