Spring Cleaning

Whenever I reach the point where I'm moving ten pounds of junk back and forth between a chair and my bed so I can sit or sleep, I know it's time for some serious cleaning.

This is after I'd already been at it for eight hours, clearing out around fifty pounds of garbage and thrift store findings.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/animakitty/489394552

Maybe once I free up some room in the room, I can get back to work on all my lingering half-finished projects.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/animakitty/489394616/

I just recently found this, http://google.com/coop/cse/ Google now allows you to create custom search engines. You can tailor them to a number of sites and/or keywords, narrowing down your searches dramatically. You can also allow volunteers with Google accounts to collaborate with you, adding sites to the index you search from.

I've made one myself, and it's definitely an improvement over the results one gets from vanilla Google.

Interesting. I found this http://www.lijit.com/ site today, and added a search box for it at the bottom of my journal page. It strings together some of the sites I use, like Digg, Flickr, Livejournal, and StumbleUpon. You can search the collective mass of me from those sites, if you wish. :KD

Been awhile since I've posted on here, hasn't it? I've been using Livejournal for the past four years now I guess, but I'm tired of how isolated it is and limited for free users.

A lot's transpired since I last posted. I'm nearly finished with school, with just one more quarter to go if all proceeds smoothly.

My parents have both been hospitalized and had parts removed, but they're still around. My sister is in Tanzania with her four year-old daughter and her husband, doing missionary work in a remote village.

I was diagnosed two years ago with ADD, and since I was prescribed some meds to deal with it I've noticed an improvement in my school work.

Unfortunately my lack of drive to write persists, frustrating any effort to finish in-progress stories or start new ones.

I took up customizing and painting Nerf guns as a hobby a few years back, and I've made a little money selling them on Ebay as well as giving them to friends and just playing with 'em myself. There are several sites devoted to just this sort of thing on the web, populated by cubicle warriors, general hobbyists, kids and teens. Yay Nerf!

Well, I decided out of a sense of morbidity to go see how the Nvidia 5700 Ultra does against the 9600XT. Xbitlabs has a *very* lengthy article on the subject, and it was interesting to see that Nvidia does well in the geometry department, and ATI trounces Nvidia in the pixel shader arena. (this graph will give you an idea *how* badly it trounces Nvidia, http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video/fx5700ultra-9600xt/shadermark_640.gif

In general, the 5700's faster memory helps it out at higher resolutions, but at lower ones, the 9600XT leads.
Of course, this is all academic. How do they do in the game benchmarks?

Well, for the most part in the older games, the 9600XT sticks very very close to the 5700's score, until you get to the highest resolution, where ATI takes a small dive. However, the engines used in those benchmarks won't be around for too much longer, as is mentioned in the article.
The tests with the newer engines, taking advantage of Directx9, showed that the 9600XT smacks Nvidia around quite harshly. However, this is partially the fault of the 5700's drivers not being totally compatible with DX9, something that will be fixed later, according to this month-old review. (Does anyone know if it *has* been fixed yet?)
Also, pretty much any game where the 5700 shows an advantage over the 9600 XT? Enable FSAA and AF, and watch the 9600XT take off.
Small bit on overclocking: the 'overdrive' feature, according to the article, isn't yet usable for the 9600XT, a problem that will be fixed in the next Catalyst drivers.

My personal conclusion? If you play Counterstrike, Quake, etc. and run at low resolutions anyway for the max FPS and speed you can get? Go with the 5700 Ultra. But, if you're like me and play non-multiplayer stuff the majority of the time (being on dialup doesn't encourage me to compete online after all), and you just want beautifully rendered graphics, (as well as potential to run games coming out in the next year) definitely go with the 9600XT.

Of course, these conclusions are drawn from only one source, and if you would like to debate any of the above, go ahead and show me another article. Xbitlab's was very thorough however, so I feel confident in my statements.

Anima

Here's a post I just made on a modding forum about the video card I ordered, the ATI Radeon 9600XT, comparing it to Nvidia's equivalent card, the 5700 Ultra.

Ummm...whatever. The quiz is pretty funny though, :K)
http://www.liquidgeneration.com/quiz/images/ironman.jpg
To link it (the actual code):

Well, I was sick, but I'm back now. Back at work that is, wishing I hadn't worn a sweatshirt. Blargh.
Jonesy linked to an incredibly hilarious comic today on her LJ, and I immensely enjoyed my speedy spluring on their archive. I mean...this is the first comic so far to realistically portray the frustrations of trying to get your chocobos to breed. Gawd that was funny...but it wasn't the funniest comic in there either. Go take a look, it's called VGcats. VG...as in, video games. There's also some guy with underwear on his head named pantsman, but just try to avoid eye contact with him.
I got my Christmas card from Lly yesterday, so that rocked. I mailed my cards today, which means that I suck. I hope Lly's gets there in time... The others probably will, going to a couple US states and Canada.
My video card will arrive in four days, according to the shipping tracking order thingy. My sword...who knows? o,O It could be months. But at least I'll have it in time for a convention, if I make it to one. Yay!
Speaking of my costume, I had these fantasies last night (not like that,) about building a pair of uber-cool mechanized wings to wear with my trenchcoat. The idea started small...thinking of running glowire along a pair of those goth black angel wings you can buy at Hot Topics or whatever...but then I thought cybernetic would look much better. So...how would I do it? Alumninum tubing perhaps for the frame/'tendons', anodized steel blue if I can find a place that can do that for less than sixty bucks or so... But what to use for the membranes? Cellophane would suck. Maybe some sort of iridescent fabric? But that would look cheap. I'm thinking...black velvet. And, I could run strips of blinking/trickling blue LED's along the innner surfaces of the frame....yeah...that'd be sweet. But, I know nothing of welding, fabric-trimming, and it would mean lugging another battery around inside the coat, probably a larger one than 9V. o,o But, it's a cool idea still.

My LiveJournal 12 Days
My True Love gave to me...
12 bastians a-smiling.
11 gleesilverwinds a-drumming.
10 jamieotterbeins a-spinning.
9 jonesybunnys a-flaming.
8 kamberlanes a-kicking.
7 kirzens a-kissing.
6 llyanders a-rubbing.
5 red racethecoons.
4 guzzling rozberks.
3 Jamaican shadowstalkerws.
2 donkey talonsaurns.
And a whitekitten in a kiwi tree.
Get gifts! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

Mew. Sad friends all around, lately. It's probably partially pre-holiday-depression, which hit me earlier last week. I remembered things...people...that are lost to me, and teetered dangerously on returning to old pain cycles. So I feel for you folks now who are hurting...I wish I could do more to help.
In lighter news, I received my grades last night. 3 B's and a A, which gets me $410.00 back from my parents, as refunded tuition money. I've already spent 186 of that, buying a new video card for myself. I've bought myself quite a few things for Christmas, *-,-* Some comics, a sword, and now this video card... Oh well. Since I have a feeling the gifts from the family will be somewhat lacking, I can always take comfort in my loot. :K)