Ohio High School Encourages Troubled Kids to Take Up Games

It's not often that I get to see a story about computer games as a positive influence, let alone a story involving public educators that (gasp!) promote innovation and worry about teaching our kids.

Dayton, Ohio is home to the Dayton Technology Design High School. Instead of forcing students to either deal with the boredom that comes from being above-average in public high schools or drop out, this school has done something that required both intelligence and initiative (two traits that generally don't come naturally to a public school administrator). They started a class especially for students which will focus largely on the elements of video game creation, from concept to finished product. The new tech school is designed for 16- to 22-year-olds and will cover traditional subjects as well as video game design.

If I'd had a school like this when I was in high school, I doubt I would've gotten the grades I did. While I graduated with a laudible 3.2 GPA I also took advantage of every single chance I could to skip school and I never did get around to learning good study habits or how to turn in assignments when they were due. Those were skills that I learned after trying to go to college, failing miserably, working for several years, and finally attending a non-traditional college (University of Phoenix) that taught through subject matter that I could apply to what I was interested in - work in the Information Technology sector.

While I don't know how long this program will last, based on the comments on the story I can already tell it's worthwhile because there are kids who would have ended up on the short end of the public education stick that will almost certainly be able to earn a quality education.

Microsoft Adds "Previous Versions" Support At File System Level In Vista

I swear, every single time I turn around there's a new reason NOT to upgrade (or as my brother puts it - crossgrade since it's not really an improvement so much as an improvement as a change) to Vista when it becomes available. Now, Microsoft is adding 'previous version' support to their already-bloated Bitlocker. Damnit, when I delete something I want it to stay deleted! As it stands I rarely make use of the Recycle Bin - why would I want the last 10 versions of a Word document laying around on my hard drive??

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How to Bypass Most Firewall Restrictions and Access the Internet Privately

Want to surf at work but can't because of a firewall? This is a complete resource of everything you need to know when it comes to getting around pesky work firewalls. One of my brothers has an IT department that delights in adding new words to their firewall restrictions - words that don't necessarily have anything to do with whether a site is appropriate or not. This site might just help with that.

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Top Secret 'Nazi aircraft carrier' located

The Polish navy says it is almost certain that it has located the wreck of Nazi Germany's only aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin. A Polish firm searching for oil first detected the wreck in the Baltic Sea, 55km (34 miles) offshore. The ship's whereabouts had been a mystery since the end of World War II.

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$88 for digital television, unlimited calling, and 2.5Gbps Internet

For 70 euros ($88) a month, customers participating in the fiber trial get Internet access, digital television broadcasts, and unlimited telephone calls over an optical connection with a theoretical maximum data rate of 2.5Gbps downstream, and 1.2Gbps upstream.

Someone remind me why I have to pay $60 per month for a 1.5Mbps down/756Kbps upstream connection?

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Shawn Hogan - My Hero

Here's an individual who has both the means and the motivation to stop (or at least contest) the MPAA's extortion scheme. Accompany this with the recent victory against the RIAA and it looks like the wheels of justice are finally starting to turn in the right direction. For those who were recently thawed from an iceberg or some time-space anomaly, the **AA entities have been filing lawsuits against invididuals in "John Doe" lawsuits for several years now using little more than IP addresses obtained from P2P networks. To make it more irritating, the *AAs send a letter and/or contact the person via phone demanding an exorbitant fee to settle out of court instead of leaving the individual penniless in the court battle. Because of this, very few people have the ability to go to court and even fewer have the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed in today's court system to pursue such a case.

IRS Threatens Political Speech -- A basic First Amendment Right

Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14) warns us: "Today, the IRS is again attempting to chill free speech, sending notices to more than 15,000 non-profit organizations
including churches regarding its new crackdown on political activity." We can't allow political dissent to be silenced. Indeed, "Speech is speech, regardless of the setting."


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Court Says Jack Thompson is not a Friend of the Court

In a terse, one-page ruling, Federal District Court Judge James Brady has refused to permit controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson to file an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief in the ongoing lawsuit over Louisiana's recently-enacted video game law.

As the person who drafted the bill that later became law, Jackson attempted to file his brief as 'defendent and co-counsel' even though he is not licensed to practice law in Louisiana and was not named as a defendent.

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Dell overcharged customers $24,000,000 in taxes

It's been a slow news week (other than the fighting between Israel and Lebanon, which I've already commented on), but I saw this article on Dell. Glad I dodged that bullet!

Once-mighty Dell ended up in court in May charged with ripping off its customers in Washington State, USofA, to the tune of $24 million in sales tax. The court ordered that every penny should be repaid. Essentially, Dell charged sales tax on their warranties, which are supposed to be sales tax free.

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New Computer Delayed

I heard back from CPUSolutions about my order. It appears that the AMD 5000+ is in short supply, possibly due to the upcoming price change. They just said the processor was on backorder until the 21st (new prices are due to come out on the 24th). I asked the sales rep if I could get the new pricing on the 5000+ since I was going to have to wait anyway, he's checking on it. Will I ever get this machine built??

AMD Announces Price Cut Details - >50% on some processors

AMD has announced details of their price cuts... prep your wallet for July 24th!

In related news, I was contacted by CPUSolutions yesterday because they don't have any of the 5000+ processors in stock and they seem to be on backorder until the 24th. I plan on contacting them today to see if I can get this kind of discount.

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U.S. Miltary Plans UAV Oblique-Wing Bomber

The unmanned Switchblade would loiter for hours at low speed, then change it's shape and rocket to a target at Mach 2. The thing that makes this such a unique concept plane is the fact that the wings will rotate 60 degrees when the plane goes supersonic. Take a look at the picture and you'll see why this thing isn't going to be in production for 20 years. You look at it and think there's no way that thing can fly! The great thing about aerodynamics is that not only can it fly but it's a proven design! The only problem is that human pilots have issues flying it.

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MYSQL Drawing Curtains on Older Databases

Speaking as someone who works with several rather large databases running on a mySQL 4.0.22 (hopefully being upgraded to 4.1 soon, we'll see) I'm curious to see how this turns out. My company's problem is that the OS that is being used does not plan to support mySQL 5 until 5.2 becomes available...

mySQL AB has been relatively generous in the past in providing free updates for versions of its database as old as five years or more. Maintaining several releases at once costs the company money, however, and it will soon start charging for updates to the older versions, MySQL said.

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UK ISP to British recording industry: Get Lost!

It's a heavy news day! This ISP is my new hero. Instead of just keeling over and giving the BPI (UK's version of the RIAA) what they want, Tiscali not only rejected the request but went into detail on why they weren't going to roll over. Hopefully, if this goes to court the presiding judge will rule on the merits of the case instead of the 'spirit of the law' or the guise of being tough on piracy. My favorite quote from their letter?
"Tiscali does not intend to require its customers to enter into the undertakings proposed by you and, in any event, our initial view is that they are more restrictive than is reasonable or necessary. However, should you wish our customers to enter into your undertakings, you
will need to approach them directly. It is a matter for them to decide whether they wish to enter into such undertakings or defend proceedings against them in the courts. It is not for Tiscali, as an ISP, nor the BPI, as a trade association, to effectively act as a regulator or law enforcement agency and deny individuals the right to defend themselves against the allegations made against them."

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Israeli Troops Enter Lebanon

Normally, I don't really care that much about which country is invading which for what reason. The latest from Israel was interesting to me because it appears to confirm that Israel has taken the correct stance this time.

Ever since their soldier was kidnapped, Israel has been asked by the world to consider negotiations for an exchange. Even the soldier's father asked for an exchange. Israel said that if they exchanged prisoners this time they'd be asking for further kidnappings. That's what happened today. Lebanon kidnapped Israeli soldiers for the express purpose of exchanging prisoners later. Why did they think it would work? Because it worked last time for them: 400 Palestinians and Lebanese for 1 Israeli businessman and 3 Israeli corpses. With those kinds of exchange rates what kind of terrorist organization WOULDN'T want to take a few Israeli prisoners even if just on the off-chance that one of their own might get captured!

Well, it didn't work this time. Israel has decided to show some balls, presumably hoping that the world won't take the opportunity to kick them.

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Don't Cyber in Holland

When I saw this on Digg, at first I thought it wasn't work-friendly. On further viewing, it's not only funny as hell it's also an excellent opportunity to remind parents to know what's going on in your teen's life - whether they be guys or gals.

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New Computer

Antec TX1050B Case
AMD AM2 x2 5000 Retail Boxed
ASUS M2NSLIDELUXE AM2 SOC, Dual DDR
(2)DDR2 667 1gb
(2)80MM BALL BEARING CASE FAN
(2)WD 320GB SATA2 HARD DISK 16M CACHE (RAID-0)
XFX GeForce 7950 GX2 1GB Xtreme PCI
LITE ON 16X DVDRW LIGHTSCRIBE
WINDOWS XP HOME SP2 OEM

There's the machine I just bought from CPU Solutions. Grand total (shipping not included): $2407.12

Some explanations are probably in order. The 80mm case fans are an option on the TX1050B case, but I figured it's always a good idea to insure the best airflow possible (it is a full tower by the way). With all the dust and dirt down in the basement, I was surprised to find that the case they picked out for me (with no prompting!) includes an air filter in the front that can easily be taken out and cleaned.

I also decided to go with twin hard drives (most of my previous pricing had been for a single hard drive) since the price on those WD drives was excellent for a 16MB cache and going with a RAID-0 should help overcome the 7200rpm. The DVDRW drive on the old computer really did need to stay put and I desperately needed something a little newer than HP's old DVD+RW drive. I decided against putting the big money into Windows x64 because quite frankly it doesn't appear to help that much when gaming. I'm sure I'll eventually be forced into Vista anyway, so why pay for an upgrade to 64-bit twice? I decided against getting a custom power supply since the one that comes with the case is SLI-certified and tests showed the rails were able to maintain the load of an SLI machine. If I move to Quad-SLI I'll probably have to upgrade the power supply but that's... awhile in the future I think.

The best part? They'll start building within 3-5 days, so it's probably going to ship next Monday. UPS Ground takes 3-5 business days so I should have it by the 21st. Compare that to Dell's $2800 less-powerful version that MIGHT have shipped by the 26th and was ordered in late June! DELL SUCKS!

Slacking on new posts

I've been slacking on new blog posts lately, partly because it's the weekend and partly because I've been so busy comparing prices and service for my new computer. I had ordered a customized XPS 700 from Dell in late June, but the estimated ship date has been bumped several times and when I cancelled they still had yet to ship ANY systems and were unwilling to commit to a date other than August. It was just way too fishy for me so I just cancelled the whole thing, especially with Conroe coming out in July and Dell unwilling to honor any kind of price adjustment for the delay.

Where did I look after that? I was going to look locally but since Totally Awesome went out of business (stupid Dell Schanze) there's no real vendor locally! I called PC Laptops (the company that took over TAC warranties) and they refused to quote a price because the GeForce 7950 GX2 was "unreliable and unstable" and DDR2 memory was "extremely expensive and hard to get ahold of". At that point I pretty much tuned the sales rep out while he went on and on about how great Dual 7900 cards were with Intel's processors. So there were two other local vendors: Abcon Systems and Ricon Computers. Ricon couldn't give me a quote over the phone and couldn't understand why I wanted an AMD AM2 instead of an Intel processor, while Abcon Systems has yet to return a phone call or an email requesting a quote. With that kind of service, I'm done with either of them.
Update: I received a quote from Abcon later that night, with a machine that was note quite as nice as the one put together by CPU Solutions but priced at exactly $2400. Since I'd already ordered from CPU Solutions and their system was a tad nicer, I'm sticking with them. Maybe next time.

Next, I tried Alienware. They're expensive, but you can't beat them for the cool factor and custom work with their nice sound dampening, video cooling, and liquid cpu cooling. They quoted me $3200 for the system with an AMD 5000+ and $3800 for the system with an AMD FX-62 in it. Plus no financing. Ouch! Wife wouldn't go for it so the search continued for a system with a lower cost.

OK, let's see what it'll cost to do it myself (DIY) with parts from Newegg. That's when I settled on the AMD 5000+ instead of an FX-62. Benchmarks were about the same but the FX-62 was a whopping $1100 compared to the 5000+ at $800. The system priced out at just a tad over $2000 and Newegg offers 6 months Same As Cash. Still, I REALLY didn't feel like putting the thing together myself. I'd have to neglect the kids, get no real support, and hope that the components were all a good match. Not to mention availability was still in question on some of the parts and I don't do a really good job on wiring management inside a case. OK, I decided, $2000 is about what parts will cost me plus upgrades and freebies.

So I found IBUYPOWER. Great price on the configurator ($2200 for a slightly better system and some freebies). Great! Even a 5% discount! So I went searching for reviews of the company. Ick. ICK. EEEEEWWWW!!! Evidently the company is about 50/50 on their support. Any problems and the company just treats you like a plague victim. That and they had a history of shipping problems that resulted in dents and dings to the case, potential hazards from incomplete installs (one customer mentioned that the CPU fan wasn't even screwed on!). So I kept looking.

Falcon Northwest... Too expensive (although well worth the money if I was still single). Tigerdirect... close.

Avadirect was one of the few willing to email a quote to me, came out to $2212.69. OK, not bad, but they're using a mid-tower case and DDR2 667Mhz instead of 800. So I kept them in mind but keep looking.

Cyberpower was $2430 after their instant rebate of $50 for systems over $1000. Again, a mid-tower case. Reviews were dicey but not quite as bad as IBUYPOWER. Unfortunately, HardOCP's review found several small problems with both computer and support versus IBUYPOWER's singular problems in the support division so I kept looking (not to mention that price tag bothered me since it included several freebies I could do without).

Thus we come to my favorite so far - CPU Solutions. Their website configurations don't have AM2 so I went ahead and used their live chat to ask if they did custom configurations with socket AM2. The sales rep(Steve) replied that they did, got my key specs, asked for some smaller ones that I didn't really care that much about (hd size, case color, etc) and said he'd email me a price quote. A few minutes later, he emailed me letting me know that he'd gotten prices on everything but the DDR2 800 and that it might take him awhile to track down the supplier and get a quote! While I'd normally be a little upset that something like DDR2-800 was unavailable, in this case I've gotta give props to the sales rep for letting me know why the price quote was going to take longer. I replied back for a quote using DDR2-667 instead, got a quote within 5 minutes. The quote was $1466. Uh-oh, something is wrong here! So I looked at the parts list (itemized, yay!) and noticed that while the processor had a line item it didn't have a price! So I replied back with Newegg's price and asked for an updated quote that would include a good heatsink/fan. Steve replied back mentioning that he would recommend using a stock cooler but he'd be willing to add a higher-quality cooler if needed. He also mentioned that Newegg was an OEM (very limited warranty) versus the 3 year warranty I'd get going retail. Even then, the price as the same as Newegg! That brought the total up to $2265.14. I've fired off another email asking about financing, RAID-0, dropping the floppy drive ($10 line item), and estimated ship date and that's where that stands right now.

While I was between emails, I looked on eBay. A seller had a fairly nice system that was close to my specs but with a 4200+ instead of a 5000+ and using DDR2-667 instead of 800 (maybe there is a shortage?) as well as no OS for $1899. So I fired off an email to the seller asking for a price quote to upgrade to a 5000+, 800Mhz memory, and x64.
01) Upgrade to 5000+ is $520.00 (retail difference is $440)
02) Upgrade memory to CORSAIR XMS EXTREME DDR2-800 is $60.00 (ok, that's about right)
03) Install Windows XP PRO 64-bit is $159.00 (that looks about right)

Still, that brought the price up to $2600! So either I'm going to eat the speed difference of a 4200+ vs 5000+ or I'm going with CPU Solutions. The deciding factor? Price and service. CPU Solutions has an outstanding sales staff, which usually bodes well for the support staff. Their prices are VERY close to IBUYPOWER but without the crazy bad reviews. I'll keep you updated!

Gutenberg Marks 35th: Makes Plans for Free Million eBook Give-Away

In celebration of Project Gutenberg's 35th Birthday, this year it's giving away 1/3 Million Free eBooks between July 4th, 2006, and August 4th, 2006. Each subsequent year, the Free Anniversary Give-Away will greatly expand. By 2009, Gutenberg plans to give away One Million Free ebooks!! They're Absolutely Free and Yours to Keep Forever !!!

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XP Tweaks for Gaming

Some of these are common sense, alot more not so much so. Thanks go to Guide2Games (http://forums.guide2games.org/index.php?showtopic=2716) for most of these tips. Use these at your own risk and for chrissakes remember to backup your registry before screwing with it!

1) You may want to create another profile exclusively for gaming - if someone else uses your computer for other stuff (chatting, office work, etc). You do this in the control panel --> User Accounts
2) change your background to solid blue (None). This saves your system from having to store that image in memory.
3) right-click on My Computer, Advanced, Visual Effects. Adjust for Best Performance. Scroll to the bottom and check the last one "use visual styles on windows and buttons".
4) Click the start button.
Select Run.
Type services.msc and click ok.
Go to IMAPI CD-Burning Com Services open it and click on start up type, change to "Disabled".
(this can also be accomplished by going to Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Services)
7) the following services are GENERALLY not needed. Your mileage may vary depending on your system...
Alerter
Application Layer Gateway Service,
Application Management
Clipbook
Distributed Link Tracking Client
Distributed Transaction Coordinater
Error Reporting Service
Fast User Switching Compatibility
IMAPI CD-Burning
Indexing Service
IPSEC Services
Messenger
Net Logon
Net Meeting
Remote Desktop Sharing
Network DDE
Network DDE DSDM
Portable Media Serial Number
Remote Desktop Help Session Manager
Remote Registry
Secondary Logon
Smartcard
SSDP Discovery Service
Telnet Themes
Uninterruptible Power Supply
Universal Plug and Play Device Host
Upload Manager
Webclient
Wireless Zero Configuration
WMI Performance Adaptor

8) NTFS is a great file system, but its feature-set comes at a slight cost in performance. You can negate this a little with the following tips:
a)By default NTFS will automatically update timestamps whenever a directory is traversed. This isn't a necessary feature, and it slows down large volumes. Disable it by going to Run and type regedit:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem and set 'DisableNTFSLastAccessUpdate' to 1.
b) NTFS uses disparate master file control tables to store filesystem information about your drives. Over time these core MFT files grow and become fragmented, slowing down all accesses to the drive. By setting aside a little space, MFT's can grow without becoming fragmented.
In the same key where you disabled the last access feature creat a new DWORD value called 'NtfsMftZoneReservation' and set it to 2.
Keep in mind this will reserve more space than necessary, leaving you with slightly less for new files. You may also want to defragment your drives on a regular basis.

Note: Article updated to take out inaccurate tweaks.

Review of Blade: The Series pilot

We took the kids to the Museum of Natural History last weekend and I've got pictures I'm going to post in a bit. In the meantime, I thought some of y'all might be looking at Blade: The Series.

First, let me say I'm a huge fan of the movies. I wasn't all that impressed with the second one, and the third one had some issues but overall I've enjoyed the Blade character. I've read one or two of the comics, none of which makes me a real Blade expert. On the other hand, it doesn't take a genius to know crap when he smells it.

The 2 hour pilot follows Blade as he sets up shop in Detroit to go after yet another master renegade vampire with a plot to destroy the delicate balance between vampires and humans. This time, the plot involves using vampires as experiments to discover a serum to immunize/innoculate civilized vampires from the effects of garlic and silver (and possibly daylight, they didn't get into that). Essentially, the vampire keeps a pen of wild vampires (who of course hang from the ceiling of the meat-packing plant) and captures a few every now and then, innoculates them, then instantly pours a garlic mix on them to see if they burn up or not. Blade has nothing but new friends in the series, although there's a passing mention of Whistler by the token asian guy who provides Blade with his toys now and researches the inhaler serum. The new love in his life is an ex-army seargent (who seems to be in the habit of drawing her 9mm at the first sign of danger, yet can't seem to fight or shoot!) who happened to be related to one of the gangsters the master vampire killed to keep his secret experiments safe. By the end of the pilot, she not only knows about vampires but (SPOILER HERE!!!) has become a vampire. In total contrast to the way the vampire virus worked in the past, the serum does not change her back to a human - it just clears her blood-lust making her a great Alias wanna-be double agent for Blade.

There are no big names in the series, Blade is played by some black guy who is at his best when (mis)quoting movie lines and getting his ass handed to him by vampires and humans alike. I kid you not, if Blade was this inept in combat then vampires would've killed him long ago!

Needless to say, I hated the pilot episode. No cool toys, no cool special effects, no tv-style sex or half-nudity, no bumping-and-grinding from the Goth scene, and the main character seems to spend the majority of every combat scene getting his butt kicked! I would highly recommend that you give this one a pass - you'll be glad you did.

Senator "explains" the Internet

This is what happens when you let people who know nothing about the way things work explain how they work. Below is a nice long quote from Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on how the internet works. Now take that and compare it to how the Internet really works - this time:
1) in English
2) from people who work with the technology in question
3) from people who don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line if they don't "explain" things the wrong way.

There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service isn't going to go through the Internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.

So you want to talk about the consumer? Let's talk about you and me. We use this internet to communicate and we aren't using it for commercial purposes.

We aren't earning anything by going on that internet. Now I'm not saying you have to or you want to discrimnate against those people [...]

The regulatory approach is wrong. Your approach is regulatory in the sense that it says "No one can charge anyone for massively invading this world of the internet". No, I'm not finished. I want people to understand my position, I'm not going to take a lot of time. [?]

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?

Do you know why?

Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people.

[...]

Now I think these people are arguing whether they should be able to dump all that stuff on the internet ought to consider if they should develop a system themselves.

Maybe there is a place for a commercial net but it's not using what consumers use every day.

It's not using the messaging service that is essential to small businesses, to our operation of families.

The whole concept is that we should not go into this until someone shows that there is something that has been done that really is a viloation of net neutraility that hits you and me.
(transcript provided by Wired)

In English, the esteemed Senator is authoritatively saying that his staff sent him an email on Friday and he didn't get it until Monday because the Internet was busy handling commercial traffic. It couldn't have had anything to do with his mail server, the fact that he didn't check his mail until Monday, or perhaps that his staff didn't send it when he thought they had... The Internet, according to this idiot, was down this weekend and nobody noticed a thing.

Microsoft denies WGA kill switch in Windows XP

Never let it be said that I don't give credit where credit is due, or follow-up on past stories wherever possible. Microsoft has confirmed that it does not plan to cripple copies of Windows XP for users who refuse to install Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA).

IMHO, it's possible that they had plans for doing so and have rolled them back in response to the outpouring of (well-deserved) criticism. Of course, they took the opportunity to mention that we'll see a version of WGA on Vista.

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