How to Look Like a Complete Nerd
Or “Fitting in at Anime North”
- Take two new “collector’s edition” coke bottles ($1.50 each, way too expensive).
Two weeks in at AMD
Do you know how sad it is to handle a Hemlock card, (a 5970 as released) to test out some video decoding and then putting it back in the cabinet and then have to go home to a 4850? I’m going to have to upgrade soon if this keeps going on.
And the worst part is that we only use them for video decoding. No games with massive frame rates, everything turned to the max and marveling at technology. Just the same things I can do with my card anyway.
At least I’m getting some good time in watching movies as I wake up early and leave work later than a normal day. I’ve already watched the 4 Batman movies from 1989-1997 and Face/Off. I can’t say I’ll run out before this term is over with the collection we have.
The drive in also gives me a chance to listen to audio books. I’ve already “read” The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and next is The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The guys I work with are great, I felt at home within the first 3 days. It’s like I’ve been there for months already.
I bought an SSD last week which should be delivered on Tuesday. And once Friday’s paycheque comes in I’m going to get a Nexus One and say goodbye to iTunes forever.
PS3, S/PDIF output to computer
Recently posted this on a forum but I figured this might be a good place as well:
Goal:
5.1 output from my PS3 through my computer.
Why? I don’t have any other way to output to 5.1 from it without spending money (receiver + different speakers).What I have:
First gen PS3, HDMI and TOSLINK cables.Monitor has HDMI -> analog stereo output
Problems: Constant low hum (monitor has bad quality output) and only 2.0 sound. This requires the monitor to be on HDMI output to passthrough audio as well.This motherboard. It has a Realtek ALC888 chip. I also have the separate bracket for TOSLINK in.
Problems: This can do stereo but no DTS/Dolby, but it fixes the buzzing problem. It can also play when the monitor is on different output.And a Creative X-Fi Extreme Audio card.
This has S/PDIF in, but I am not spending $100+ on the options they have to actually use it. Instead I am trying repin the gigabyte bracket and have it connect to this card. It does have DTS/Dolby decoding
So, the gigabyte manual says that the bracket has three pins.
1. red – Power
2. yellow – SPDIF_I
3. black – GNDSo I switched black and yellow to match up with this pinout diagram of the creative card (top left, +5V, GRN, SPDIF0 IN)
Plugged that in and… nothing. I can hear feint popping when I switch audio output devices on the PS3, but the Creative card never shows a signal (“Unknown or invalid signal”, just like when disconnected).
Any help or insight would be appreciated, thanks.
P.S. I think I may have destroyed any input on my sound card by fooling around with this. My microphone no longer works on that sound card 
Gaming, gaming and more gaming
So I’ve been doing a lot of gaming recently, and, non-standardly for me, on the PS3. I finished both Heavy Rain and God of War 3 in about a day each and then started on FF13.
Heavy Rain was pretty damn good and a unique kind of game I wouldn’t mind playing again. Could have used some more polish in places but it was a great foray into a new kind of game. I want more of it, just… not too many. I don’t want another age of brown WW2 shooters.
God of War 3 felt like more God of War. Which is a good thing. I got to finish my God killing quest although the ending was a built lengthy and not-so-action-game style, all I wanted was a prettier game with more killing random things for the hell of it.
Final Fantasy 13 was, as many people have already said, very linear. Takes about 20 hours to actually make a decision in where you go. I wasn’t disappointed with this though. I went for this game purely for the visuals and they don’t disappoint. The hair on every character especially. As much as it is partially overdone asian JRPG hair, it’s much better than the everyone-is-bald-or-ugly syndrome of Mass Effect. Not to mention the combat mechanics which I absolutely love. Every character can fulfill three separate roles (or all 6 later on) instead of being stuck with a healer all battle when you don’t need one. I may not be always picking my attacks (auto feature does a pretty good job) but I am constantly switching paradigms. I’m not really a fan of the lore and the universe, but it works well enough for me.
On the PC gaming side I’ve been working on Battlefield: Bad Company 2 which I picked up for $40. It has many buggy parts to it but it still ends up being a bunch of fun. I’ve already maxed out the recon class (love those long range sniper shots) and I’m working on the rest. If this game had a few bug fixes it would probably top my favourite shooters this year.
I’ve also invested a bit of time into Plain Sight which is a little nauseating but the core mechanics are inherently balanced for risk/reward. Kill people to get energy, more energy for people who have more energy, turn energy into points by blowing yourself up. More points if you had kill streaks and if you catch people in your suicide blast.
Also recently I’ve been playing League of Legends (although this has died down a bit). A DotA clone that manages to be fun although bit rage inducing at times. The problem with games like this is that the learning curve is ridiculous. A player is basically required to know everything before playing a game. There is at least a tutorial in this clone (and I’ve played other before so I was fine) but there is still way too much content to cover.
P.S. Still waiting for that SC2 beta invite Blizzard.