Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Sweet natural lighting

[Standard Incandescent] [Incandescent Reveal] [Compact Fluorescent Lights] [Compact Fluorescent 50K]


























Shortly after I moved into my current apartment, I took to changing all of the light bulbs within to compact fluorescent bulbs to save energy. After I installed the first CFL bulb, I found two things that disappointed me.
  1. The bulbs I got did not initially light up to their full brightness. It took a few minutes before they were fully lit.
  2. The color of the light that came forth from these bulbs were yellowish, similar to their incandescent counterparts. I had hoped that, being fluorescent, they would more closely resemble their tube-shaped cousins.
Still, they would save me some money in electricity bills, and I supposedly wouldn't have to replace them nearly as often as the incandescent bulbs, so I stayed with using them.

After using them, I've noticed that my indoor pictures, where I am loath to use the camera flash unless absolutely necessary, are all turning out very yellow. In other words, I am getting atrocious lighting from these bulbs.

Last week, I was finally fed up with it and decided to look for alternatives. Fortunately, I found some online stores that have "natural lighting" or "full spectrum" CFL bulbs. Good news for me, but I wasn't sure if they will truly be "white light" as advertised, so I decided to see if I could find any at the local stores. My search turned out in vain, and I ended up trying some incandescent "Reveal" bulbs by GE, which visually isn't much better, although in photos they show up better than my old CFLs. There seems to be very little difference between them and the regular incandescent bulbs in my photos, however.

So I went ahead and ordered the CFLs from online, which were rated at 50,000 Kelvin for color temperature.

They work well. I now finally have white light, and they light up fully without delay. Now if only the CFL 3-way bulb from them had brighter low settings...


On a side note, I don't know what that white stuff is at the bottom right corner of the standard incandescent pic... it certainly wasn't anything I placed there when I was taking the picture. Spooky.

In-N-Out Burger


3x3 burger with grilled onions
Fries, well done
Large drink

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

RAID rebuilding

One of the hard drives in the main RAID server at work went down again last Friday. Ideally, with three drives in RAID 1 mode, the mirrored drive should have gone to the backup and tried to rebuild itself in the background.

But that's not what happened. Instead, I had to reboot, go into the RAID tools, and try and get it to rebuild from there.

Unfortunately, it seemed to have gotten stuck at 22% since Friday afternoon, and remained so all weekend. It was only through luck and perseverance that I was able to get it seemingly back on track, as it's now gone past 22%, and hopefully will be back to 100% by the time I get back to work tomorrow.

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Finished Dragon Quest VIII

Sort of. I defeated Rhapthorne, the final boss character, and then there's a sequence involving the lifting of the curse and the princess' marriage. But a new quest opens up after this, and you're given a chance for a save game with everything your characters have right before you started the final boss fight.

I sort of knew it coming in, because there are "Infamous Monsters" which don't become available until you "beat" the game.

Reading online, there's mention of how this new quest is about the Hero character's background. Not really a surprise here. It was almost immediately obvious, once you reached Argonia in the game, that the Hero is the son of Eltrio, the king's older brother who disappeared.

And unless I'm completely off-track here, it seems very likely that Munchie--the little mouse/hamster the Hero carries around--is actually Chen Mui in disguise; Chen Mui being one of the elders who magically shows up to guide the party through the town.


So I guess finishing this quest will make an alternate ending available, as it should make the Hero the son of Eltrio and Xia, who would have ruled Argonia if Eltrio hadn't died. So having the princess of Trodain marry the Hero would still fulfill the old promise between Trodain and Argonia... and it was too much to expect the current king to find out about the Hero's past and halt the wedding between Medea and Charmles.

Friday, December 23, 2005

Butterface

This picture, or sequence of pictures, has been floating around the net for quite some time.

I was trying to find it and show to my friends the other day, but had the hardest time in locating a web page that contained it.

Luckily, someone posted it again on the forum. So now I'm uploading it here for easier access in the future.


For those who don't know what a "butterface" is... well, looking at the picture, it should be obvious.

A butterface is a woman who has excellent physical attributes. Everything looks great, but her face...

Thursday, December 22, 2005

This is hilarious -- Sushi

Another Google Video gem... a spoof documentary on the etiquettes of eating sushi, made by Japanese comedy duo "The Rahmens."

[You should never ask about this]...the chef ("Taisho") wipes his sweat with his cloth, and immediately aftewards, proceeds to wipe the blade which he uses to make sushi. "You should never ask about this." LMAO.


Edit: The video appears to have been removed from Google Video, so I found the same video on YouTube.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

A Western tradition with a Chinese twist

I have finally taken the artificial Christmas tree that I bought two years ago out of storage and set it up in the living room. I also went to Target to buy some hooks, on which to hang my Christmas wreath.

But it's not your typical wreath by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, it's one made with Chinese knots.
When my grandmother came to visit during the summer, she brought along a few of these "wreaths" that she had made. There were two designs, the other one was much prettier and more "wreath-like," as it had large leaves made of Chinese knots, making it look much fuller than the one I got. I picked this one because it still looks good (just not as good as the other), and my relatives in Canada (to whom the remaining wreath will go) deserved to see how good the other one looks.

And of course, I'm too lazy to decorate the tree... plus I'll be the only one here during Christmas, so there doesn't seem to be much point in decorating it. And I think it's festive enough as it is.

Friday, December 16, 2005

SanDisk RMA--Received

As the tracking from UPS indicated, my replacement SD card was delivered today. It's basically a new card, as you can see from the contacts that it hasn't been used before. 512 megs only gets me an approximate 200 pictures in my 5.0 megapixel camera, but over a thousand in my 2.0 megapixel digital SLR. So that should be plenty for both of these cameras.

Monday, December 12, 2005

Bananas!

Apparently, in a recent episode of Family Guy, Brian (the dog) tried to cheer Peter up by donning a banana costume, and then proceeded to perform the "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" dance.

I guess it's funny enough on its own, for people who don't get the reference. And even if you do get the reference, the original was pretty much a "WTF?" anyway.

Someone mentioned that he had the original as a ringtone for a while. Which reminded me of the infamous "Banana phone"--another "WTF" phenomenon on the Internet. (Although when Raffi originally made the song, I'm sure he didn't expect this kind of exposure.)

I'm not sure which came first--the NewGrounds animation, or the sped-up versions. So I'll link the NewGrounds one first:


Then there are the sped-up versions. I'm pretty sure this one was the first. It's a simple, Gundam in a banana suit, being held by an ASCII girl, animation.

Following the ASCII-girl banana phone, there was a "remix" done, with the "badger" animation.


So, what have we learned from this? Nothing. Except there's some weird stuff on the Internet. Which I'm sure most people knew all along.


Edit: Wow, you really can find anything on the Internet. A quick search on Wikipedia found both songs/animations and references.
Looks like there are a few more animations that I haven't seen.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Guess I'm a bit behind the times

Checking my Gmail yesterday, I noticed a link for Google Talk, Google's (currently Beta) IM service. Turns out Google launched this service back in August.

A quick search showed that it's simple task to configure Trillian to work with Google Talk, and since the only other requirement for Google Talk right now is a Gmail account, I figured I'd give it a try.

Although, actually, I'd still need to get my friends who have Gmail to setup their computers to use Google Talk for it to be worthwhile. Plus I'd still need to download the actual program from Google to see what its functions really are.

SanDisk's RMA

Let me just say, although their support leaves something to be desired, their return service is top-notch.

I went to their website last Tuesday and opened a support request, but they didn't get back to me until two days later. And when they did, half the questions they asked was already anwered in the form I filled out when I submitted my request. Then, on Sunday, without informing me, they closed the request and opened up an RMA ticket. Luckily I happened to check their support page on Sunday, and noticed the change. It basically wanted me to confirm my shipping address. So I gave them my work address.

On Monday, they sent me an email to let me know that my RMA has been authorized, and gave me instructions on obtaining a shipping label from FedEx. They have pre-paid FedEx 2nd Day service for me to send back the defective SD card, which is more than any of the other companies I've had to request RMA from. They didn't even ask for my receipt, although I did print one out before I submitted my support request, just in case.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

What do they call it when everything intersects?

Well, they all came today. The camera bag by Konica Minolta, and the PIAA replacement bulbs.

It should be able to protect the camera well enough. Too bad it no longer fits my shirt pocket.


Super Plasma bulbs... This is the one that burned out on me. If you hold it up to the light, you should be able to see the burned-out filament.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Origami rose

Oops, forgot to rotate the image. :o

Michelle lamented on the fact that the roses she received on Monday had already wilted after less than a week. Which reminded me of an episode of Prison Break from a few weeks ago--The prison doctor said that she didn't like flowers, because they don't last. So the main character left her an origami rose at the end of his next visit--and prompted me to look for instructions on how to make an origami rose of my own.

This is the result. It actually looks better when seen from the side, and I imagine much more like a rose when a stem is added, along with a different colored paper.

My second attempt turned out a lot better, IMO. Now I've just got to find some real origami paper, so I can see what it can really look like. And also make a stem for it.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

The pen is mightier than the sword

Literally.

...

Okay, maybe not literally.


As with most items I purchase online, I had my new SD card shipped to my office. However, as I lack the means to a sharp blade at the office, I was left with a rather dull blade from a Swiss army knife.

With it, I futilely tried to cut open the child-proof packaging of the memory card. When that failed, I grabbed a pen and traced along the lines made by the Swiss army knife, as was able to break through the plastic.

Couldn't have done that as easily with the Swiss army knife, so yeah, that makes the pen "mightier." Obviously, that's not what they had in mind when they came up with the phrase...

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

The upside of online shopping

Aside from being able to comparison shop much faster than one would be able to in the real world, it's also quite easy to pull up an old order from most online stores and print out an invoice.

I received my new 2 gig Ultra-II SD card today (I ordered with next-day air shipping), and Sandisk has a lifetime warranty on the card. Since the 512 meg SD card that failed on me was also a Sandisk, I realized that I should be able to contact them for a repair/replacement. However, they will most likely want to see some proof of purchase, and I doubt I'd be able to find a receipt for something I got two years ago.

Luckily, I remember clearly which online store I got it from--TheNerds.net--because at the time, they royally f***ed up my order by claiming to have the camera I wanted in stock, but only shipping me the memory card. So even though I refuse to do any more business with them, I can still look up my user information at their site. And sure enough, there was the order info, all ready for me to print out. Now I just need to get the model number from the card when I get home, and I should be able to contact Sandisk about a repair.

On a side note, I was able to find a carrying case made by Konica Minolta for my new camera, rather than some generic brand, online, while the many electronic stores I've been to do not seem to carry any Minolta accessories.


The major downside, for me, regarding online shopping, would be the shipping--the cost, the wait, etc.

Monday, November 28, 2005

Classical... electric guitar

Saw this posted on Club3G last week. Quite cool, especially for people who like electric guitar.
Canon in D Guitar, hosted by Google Video.
Rock, baby. Rock! Hopefully I'll remember to make an MP3 out of this when I get home.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Secure Digital card failure

After the first day at Vegas, I had my brother place my 512MB SD card into his laptop to take a look at the pictures I've taken. Afterwards, when I tried to take pictures, I got an error from my camera, telling me that it's unable to use the card...

I've tried it on everything else available to me that can read SD cards, but none of them work, either. His memory card seems to be still working fine. I wonder what the actual cause of the problem is. At any rate, all of my pictures were lost, and I've placed an order for a 2GB Ultra-II card.

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Dragon Quest VIII

After two days of running around to various stores (Target, Toys 'R' Us, Best Buy), trying to buy a copy of this game, I finally found a Game Stop store and got it. Though they didn't put it on the shelves, so maybe Best Buy had them, too, but I didn't ask the clerks there. The clerks at Target and Toys 'R' Us, on the other hand, had no idea what game I was talking about.

But at least the clerk at the Target store told me where the Game Stop was, as the map they had online was quite useless and had me looking in the wrong place. They had a 20% off deal for the strategy guide if you buy it with the game... I didn't really want to get a strategy guide, but decided to get it, afterall, if for nothing else but the colored-artwork alone.

Ah, the character design styles of Akira Toriyama. If you're familiar with his work, then it would be unmistakable--you'd be able to recognize his work immediately.

Which makes me wonder how Johnny wasn't able to tell when we saw the game at Anime Expo earlier this year.

"But I like the wenches!"

Thursday, November 17, 2005

A rainbow... sort of



We went to lunch rather late today, and the sun was already quite low in the sky by the time we were going back to work. On the way back, I could sort of make out a mini-rainbow in the sky, where the sun's rays have refracted off the few clouds in the sky. I decided to take some pictures, just to see if they will show up, as well as see the image quality of the camera.

Technology and magic

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
-Arthur C. Clarke

Soooo wrong

Saw this posted on rec.humor.funny:

Three guys were working on a high-rise building project -- Steve, Bruce, and Bluey. Steve falls off and is killed instantly. As the ambulance takes the body away, Bruce says, "Someone should go and tell his wife."

Bluey says, "OK, I'm pretty good at that sensitive stuff, I'll do it."

Two hours later, he comes back carrying a case of Foster's.

Bruce says, "Where did you get that, Bluey?"

"Steve's wife gave it to me," Bluey replies.

"That's unbelievable! You told the lady her husband was dead and she gave you the beer?"

"Well not exactly," Bluey says. "When she answered the door, I said to her, 'You must be Steve's widow.' She said, 'No, I'm not a widow.' And I said, 'I'll bet you a case of Foster's you are.'"

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Music Genome Project

I got this link from the Club3G forum. It's a pretty interesting idea. The basic premise is for you to tell the site what songs/artists you like, and it'll play songs based on your selection. In the background, the site breaks down each song and artist's style to their more fundamental elements, so that they can relate the various songs with one another and come up with new recommendations.

In other words, once you've set it up with your own specific preferences, listening to it should be like listening to a radio station created to suit your specific tastes.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Lord of the Rings parody animations

[Samwise wants some] [The secret love] Sam knows where it's at.

These have been around for quite some time now, but I thought I'd put them somewhere easy for me to find, since I didn't save them when I first saw them. I know there are a few others out there, but I haven't had much luck finding them. Hopefully I will find them in the future.

Looks like Blogger converts animated GIFs to JPEGs. So I'll have to use another server.

"One does not simply... walk into Mortor..."

[Boromir in deep thought]Boromir gets a bright idea...

[What about a catapult?]
And the pay-off:

[What a gracious winner!]

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Test: Photographing the moon

One of the things I've wanted to do was to take a photo of the moon, which I've not had much success of in the past. I tried again with my new camera, testing various settings. This was the best result of the bunch. I've, of course, cropped the picture, as the rest of the canvas in the picture is just black-nothing-ness.

Since I got a decent result, I decided to try again using my Panasonic camera, using basically the same settings. The resultant picture (also cropped) is the one on the right.

The setting that seemed to work well is manual ISO 50, spot metering, with automatic flash.

DiMAGE X50

As I expected, my camera arrived today, because the post office doesn't deliver on Veteran's Day (yesterday), while DHL dropped off the camera at the post office on Thursday. I asked Rosemary to call me if they receive a package for me at the office, so I could go and pick it up.



A quick size-comparison shows that the camera is just a tad bigger than a credit card. It's also a bit bigger than my brother's PowerShot SD300, but it's good enough for my purposes.


The design of the camera feels a bit spartan to me, but they're easy enough to figure out. I applied the screen protector I got for me PDA, and cut off the excess with an Xacto knife.


Quite obviously, this is the most compact camera I've ever owned. Forgoing optical zoom capabilities in favor of portability might come back to haunt me in the future, but for now, it seems a fair trade-off. It is, at least, also capable of capturing photos at a much higher resolution, but I'll still need my old Panasonic (12x optical zoom) if I want to take telephoto shots of subjects from far away with a reasonable resolution.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

DHL @home

Quite possibly the worst idea. Ever... Or at least in shipping. Anyway. According to DHL's website:
DHL@home

DHL has partnered with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to create a new service designed for business-to-residence shippers who desire a secure, cost-effective shipping solution. Shipments are picked up by DHL and delivered directly to your customers by the local post office.


Features and Benefits
  • An efficient service for shipments from businesses to U.S. residential locations, including P.O. boxes
  • Standard delivery within 2 - 4 business days, Deferred delivery within 2 - 7 business days
  • Shipments up to 70 lbs.
  • Door-to-door visibility and tracking
    So, DHL picks up the package. Ships it to the city where it's supposed to go, and then, even though they're in the same area as the intended destination, they don't deliver it. They drop it off at the nearest post office, by which time the mail courier has most likely already left the office for delivery, so it will just sit in the office, to be delivered the next day.

    This is not progress. It unnecessarily prolongs the delivery time, with the only potential benefit being that USPS can leave items in your mail box, and not require a signature. But the potential benefit is only there if the package is small enough to fit your mail box. If it's not, they will still have to leave it at your door, which is what DHL would have done anyway. I mean, when was the last time the USPS left something weighing around 70 lbs. in your mail box? Or even 5 lbs.?

    And even though they say "door-to-door visibility and tracking" as one of the features (which they provide with their regular service), on my package, it seems to stop right at "arrive at USPS." I may be proved wrong tomorrow, but as far as I can tell, it's not going to tell me the delivery progress of USPS from DHL's website. And there's no link to the tracking service at USPS.

    Considering that my package shipped from Fresno, California, if it had been delivered via USPS from the beginning, I probably would have received the package already yesterday. Maybe, just maybe, if the package had been sent from across the country, it would have been faster via DHL... if they flew it over on one of their planes. Somehow I doubt they would have put it on a plane for standard shipping, though. So there couldn't possibly be any benefits from using this system.

    Wednesday, November 09, 2005

    The Media

    So it's the day after the special election, and while I some of the preliminary results on the local news last night, they were far from final, and I was curious as to which propositions passed, and which didn't.

    So I logged on to L.A. Times' website, just to look at the results. The only thing I could find were articles talking about how Schwarzenegger failed.

    Okay. So the propositions he was backing did not pass. But those were not the only propositions on the ballot. What about the others? If the results for all the props were available on the site, they sure as hell didn't make them easy to find. I just want information, I don't need the media spin on what (supposedly) cause the voters to vote the way they did. Is that too much to ask? I thought the basic idea of the news is to report the facts, not the biased ideas.

    I later logged on to iWon, though I didn't expect to find the results there, since this is basically local news. I highly doubt that the rest of the country cares much about the election results of California, when they've got their own results to wonder about. They did have an article on the same four propositions that Arnold was backing, I think from the Associated Press, which is more information than I expected. But alas, nothing on the rest of the propositions.

    Eventually, I thought to check the website of one of my local TV stations, and found the results of all the propositions. Looks like none of them passed.

    Thank you, KTLA, that was all I wanted to know. Screw you, L.A. Times!

    Tuesday, November 08, 2005

    New digital camera

    After some contemplating, I have decided to get myself yet another digital camera.

    For my previous digital camera, I focused mostly on the camera's optical zoom ability, which would have been great for public events, such as the concerts, graduations, etc. And while I do love the Panasonic that I've got, its resolution is on the low end these days, and even though it's not as long as the 10x zoom camera from Sony, it's still quite a bit larger than most of the other digital cameras out there, which makes carrying it around a bit of a hassle.

    Since I don't typically need to utilize the full capabilities of the zoom, I've decided to obtain a new camera for the purposes of snapshots. Which means a compact camera, with decent (average) zoom ability, and decent resolution.

    After some searching, I settled on the Minolta DiMAGE X50. It is now on order from Overstock. I hope it arrives soon.

    Tuesday, November 01, 2005

    PSP Gripdock

    About a week ago, I saw the PSP Gripdock at Target, and thought it might help with the less than ergonomic design of the PSP, so I picked one up yesterday, and gave it a go. It costs about $40, but was placed in the automotive section, rather than the gaming section.


    You flip open the top "Safety Clip," then plug the PSP in to the headphone jack and power jack.


    Obviously, its main function is to give the PSP a better grip, more resembling that of a regular console controller, so that your hands don't cramp up after hours of play. It does add some other bonus features, as listed in its manual:
    • Ergonomic design and cooling fan with multiple air vents for a comfortable, steady grip when gaming
    • Two premium built-in speakers enhance the audio experience
    • Internal backup battery pack doubles PSP runtime
    • Charges PSP in 2 1/2 hours
    • 12 Volt DC Charging Adaptor included
    • LED Battery Charge Status Indicators
    • Dual headphone ports for shared private viewing, listening or gaming
    • Convenient drawstring backpack stores GripDock and PSP
    • Safety Clip and recessed latch to hold PSP securely in dock
    There was no "drawstring backpack" that came with the package, and I couldn't find any references to it in any of the online stores, so I guess they decided not to include those after printing the manual. The "double PSP runtime" requires fully charged batteries, as well as using headphones so that you don't use the speakers, and use without the fans.

    The "battery pack" is basically 4 rechargeable AA NiMH batteries.

    The DC adapter is a car charger, it doesn't come with one that works with a regular wall outlet, although you can use the normal PSP adapter that came with the system.


    There power switch is located on the top of the device, along with the dual headphone ports and the power plug. In the center, you see the fan vent, while the fans themselves are located on each grip to help cool your hands, should you be the type of person who has sweaty palms while you game.



    You turn on the fans by pushing the switch at the bottom. You can also see the speakers located on the grips in this pic.



    As you can probably tell, with the size of the PSP, the gripdock is quite large. Here's a size comparison with the Gripdock, a PS2 dual shock controller, a N64 controller, and a Sega Dreamcast controller. It probably rivals the size of the Xbox controller.



    The gripdock does make the PSP much easier to hold, so it succeeds in its primary function.

    Pros
    • Better grip for the PSP.
    • Rechargeable NiMH batteries to extend the battery life of the PSP.
    • External speakers to make the PSP more audible (louder).
    • Dual headphone jacks.
    • Car charger.
    • Fans to keep hands cool.

    Cons
    • Adds a lot of bulk to the PSP, reducing portability.
    • So-called "premium" speakers crackle at high volume settings.
    • Must remove PSP from dock to switch game, Memory Stick Duo, or PSP battery.
    • Must turn on Gripdock for sound.

    Conclusion

    If you don't mind the bulk, and would like to have a more "console-control-like" feel to your PSP, then the Gripdock is a pretty good solution. If you want better sound quality, however, look elsewhere. Or just use the headphones.

    Monday, October 31, 2005

    MP3 renaming

    On Friday, I successfully renamed my MP3 collection using TagScanner, which effectively placed all of my MP3s into directories as sorted by artist and album. It's nice for songs from artists who I have many songs for, but not so much for the artists whose songs I have very few of. But I'm not going through the additional time of trying to put all of those songs in a "miscellaneous" or "various artists" folder.

    So, aside for the one CD of Chinese MP3s that I got from Michael, everything is sorted and burned onto two DVDs for easy backup. Guess I had less MP3s than I thought I did.

    Sunday, October 30, 2005

    Halloween party

    ...and me without my costume.

    Lucy called in the aftertoon to invite me to a Halloween party, and since I didn't have anything planned and hadn't seen Lucy in a while, I decided to go. Since it was kind of last minute, I didn't get any costumes for the party.

    Saw Shirley (Viv) at the party, which was not completely unexpected, since I also saw her at the last YGAP event that I went to.

    Made a few new friends there, as well. Since I didn't bring my camera, I took these pictures from my cell phone (which I'm now using for their respective cell phone entries).

    Fenni was not quite satisfied with the quality of the pictures, and wanted me to take new ones, so now I have more pics of her...

    This picture of Angel is pretty dark and hard to see... which I knew right after I took it. Although it didn't seem as dark then as it does now; I think it might look better if I try to adjust the gamma correction a bit. I suppose there's some sort of irony involved with a girl named "Angel" who dressed up with little devil horns.

    Hopefully Lucy will send me the pics she took from the event, and I will have more usable pictures. Or I will just have bring my camera along the next time I see them.


    The party was not too bad, although not being much of a dancer, nor a conversationalist (sheesh, what can I do?), I felt more like a fish out of water.

    After the party, Lucy and I went to Regent Cafe for a drink.