It’s just a ride….
Good lord this dude is ridiculous. He’s playing this Korean knockoff of DDR called “Pump It Up” and basically just freestyles it on doubles. Absolutely ridiculous. Dude can flat out dance. I seriously wish I had the ability to dance, especially like that. Color me jealous. 
For what it’s worth, he’s apparently from Charlotte, NC and even has a myspace page
Technorati Tags: video, pump it up, dancing, smidget
I finally got sound out of my digital output on my soundcard under Linux! I’ve been trying various distributions to no avail and finally got it to work under Suse 10.1. Now, I don’t think this is really distribution-dependent but that just happens to be the one that I actually got it working under and the one I happned to be running when I finally decided I was going to get this shit working at any cost.
Basically, I have an Asus A8N-E motherboard with onboard Nforce4 audio. I don’t use the analog outputs for anything but headphones because I have an optical digital cable running to my home theater receiver. Thus, I wanted to get the optical output working. Well, I had read that I had to enable the IEC 958 output in the mixer app and that should do the trick. That in and of itself didn’t do jack shit for me, unfortunately. I still only had sound on my analog outputs. Well, eventually in doing some more reading, I found an obscure reference to a horizontal slider in “gamix”, which is a mixer app for gnome (It will run under KDE). Sure enough, there’s a horizontal slider under “output” that I had to slide all the way to the left and poof, I had sound on my digital output. I didn’t even have to install the nvidia linux drivers to get sound working. Strangely, in KMix there’s a slider for the IEC958 Playback that you have to slide all the way DOWN in order to get sound from the digital outputs. Completely contrary to what one might think. Stupid Linux! Either way, everything is working so I’m happy now.
So for those of you in KDE and using KMix, slide the IEC958 slider all the way down and under the “switches” tab, make sure the playback source is set to PCM. Once you do that, everything should work. Remember that on the digital out none of the volume sliders have any effect on anything since of course it’s sending a raw digital signal to the receiver.
Yep… My phone actually seems so much better after installing the new ROM update. First off, instead of getting 250kbps on EVDO with a best of around 400 if I’m REALLY lucky, I’m getting close to 600kbps (550-600ish). The ROM update updated the radio so one can rightfully assume that the reason for the speed increase is the ROM update. I’ve hard reset my phone before and never really seen any increase in speeds and the speed increase happened literally directly before and after the upgrade. I tested my speed before I upgraded and got something like 220kbps and directly after I got 557kbps. Big difference if you ask me. Web pages load infinitely faster and email downloads take literally half the time! Obviously sending pix messages won’t get any better since upload is capped at 144kbps (though real-world speed is considerably less). I’ve literally fallen in love with my phone all over again. It even seems to be booting up more quickly and running a bit better as well (though that could be because of the hard reset). Either way, I don’t see any reason why not to install the upgrade. It’s made a world of difference on my end. Here’s a nice shot of the new Comm Manager in AKU2. A huge improvement over the old style of doing things (three buttons arranged vertically).
Technorati Tags: xv6700, msfp, aku2, geek, technology, cellphones, pda
Yep… works perfectly fine. The updater hard-resets your phone so you’ll have to re-sync everything. Also remember that if you renamed your phone previously you’ll have to rename it back to whatever you had it named prior to activesyncing the first time after you install the update. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have to go into Tools > Add/Remove programs and recheck the checkbox next to the programs you want to re-install. Also you’ll need to re-do any registry edits you’ve done previously. Outside of that, it works nicely. The voice dial app sucks balls as you have to record voice tags for everything. The new “Comm Manager” is absolutely wonderful. It’s so much better than the piece of shit they had before. Not only that, there’s a new “device lock” function on the main screen so you can keep the phone from dialing random numbers from your pocket without having to set the stupid thing to lock after 0 minutes of inactivity (meaning it locked everytime the screen was turned off). Also, not having to do the reg hack to enable wifi and phone at the same time is a big plus. So far I don’t see any downside to the new update. I can honestly say I’m happier with it than I’ve ever been before. Oh, and the UTStarcom site is slower than dogshit, so I mirrored the download here if you really wanna download. It’s 39.5MB so you might be waiting awhile.
Finally, UTStarcom has released the new ROM update for the Verizon XV6700! Sprint, Alltel and Telus already had it for a good little while, but Verizon’s slow ass still was showing no signs of release. Well, now that it’s available on the UTstarcom site I’ve downloaded it and I’m installing it now. Looks like it adds a few new features and fixes a couple of bugs… here’s a quote from the release notes:
This software update makes available some new features and corrects some issues. Some of the primary enhancements are:
Microsoft Messaging and Security Feature Pack- The Messaging & Security Feature Pack for Windows Mobile 5.0 enables business users to easily stay connected to their email while on the go and helps businesses to better protect device data. Benefits of this feature pack include:
- Direct Push Technology- Keep your Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and Inbox up-to-date using Direct Push Technology. Plus, you can now browse your corporate address book over-the-air with Exchange 2003 SP2. Faster transfer and synchronization of data- Outlook data sent between Exchange Server and a Windows Mobile-based device is significantly compressed, enabling faster transfer and synchronization of data.
Better protection of device data and management of devices
- Remotely enforced IT policy
- Local and remote device wipe
- Certificate-based authentication
- Enhanced security using Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME)
- Added a Voice Dialing application to allow you to leverage the handsfree capability already on the device.
- Main Today Screen provides you the capability to lock the device and prevent inadvertently activity.
- Corrected an issue where unknowingly, to the user, the device would enter into “Flight Mode”
- Added the capability to enable Wi-Fi and CDMA simultaneously.
Let’s hope this all goes well and I don’t brick my phone. Thank god I have insurance if I do.
Yep… I had an amazing weekend for sure. Friday, my girlfriend and I both got paid so we went out shopping and had a whole bunch of errands to run. We finally got home at like 9pm and literally passed out by 10pm and slept til 10am Saturday… At that point we got up, had friends over, went out to eat then went swimming at the pool… Saturday night was when the fun REALLY began! We already had a 1.75L bottle of rum and a fifth of vodka that we hadn’t really put a dent in from the previous weekend so we figured we’d drink some of that to get a nice buzz and then go to Fiction and have fun there. Well, because we ate Chinese food and didn’t get home til 9:35 and wanted to get to Fiction by 11 we didn’t really get to drink much at home. So we basically had to drink at Fiction.
Seeing that we got there about 11, we didn’t have to pay cover (which was the point of showing up so early). Problem
is that at 11pm it’s absolutely dead as fuck so it’s not a helluva lot of fun. Basically the only thing to do is mill about and maybe sit in the courtyard and hang out and talk. I didn’t even start drinking til almost 12:30 because I didn’t want to get stupid drunk early and not remember the rest of the night. So about 12:30 I find my favorite bartender and start drinking. At the same time I’m buying myself drinks, I’m getting one for my girlfriend (myself: surfer on acid; girlfriend: sex on the beach). I decide that I’m not going to slam drinks like I normally do, in the hopes that I won’t get absolutely tanked and make an idiot out of myself (I do this a lot, mind you). My girlfriend, on the other hand, can merely LOOK at a shot of booze and get a buzz. I figured it wouldn’t take a whole lot to get her trashed and at absolute most she’d drink four drinks and be gone. I was pretty much dead-on with both, luckily. She had four sex on the beaches and I had about 5 surfers on acid plus a nazi coke and a red bull to cap off the night and I was feeling great, but not trashed. She was absolutely lit the fuck up, to say the least. All told my tab was $90 with a $15.50 tip… wayyyy too fucking much money to go out and blow just to get a little drunk. On one hand, I was mad that I didn’t get trashed… but on the other hand I was happy I wasn’t trashed because that meant I remembered everything and was still coherent, plus no hangover the next morning. Anyway, Fiction was awesome, Slink spun a sick ass set that had people on the dance floor going nuts (my girlfriend included) and everyone had a great time.
Eventually, we left Fiction and headed home… On the way home, my friend Sam decided to drunk dial some completely random people in his girlfriend’s cellphone and one other person whose number he just randomly dialed without even knowing them. Hilarity ensues, with the “random” even calling back and fucking with him a bit by telling him to bring them some taco bell and such. During all this we stop at Taco Bell and grab some food and head home… at this point I’m feeling a bit mischievous and decide that we’re going to dump a bottle of dishwashing liquid into the fountain out in front of our apartment complex. We get home and I grab the dishwashing liquid and we all run back out to the fountain and do the deed. I pour it in and we make a break back to the apartment… problem is I’m laughing so fucking hard that I trip over the mound of dirt surrounding one of the trees and faceplant. I get up, dust myself off and start running again only to trip over the sidewalk and hit the pavement. So at this point I’ve managed to fuck up my shorts AND my knee, but I eventually make it back to the apartment and take a break. Well, my friend Steve decides he’s going to leave and takes off… only to call me 2 minutes later and tell me to come out and look at the fountain because the bubbles are every bit of 4ft tall and damn near overflowing out of the fountain. Sure enough, we go outside and look and there’s an enormous blob of bubbles in the fountain engulfing the whole pool of water, more or less. A great ending to an overall great night. I was feeling damn good and my girlfriend said she’d never felt so great drunk in her entire life…. so yeah, we were all pretty happy.
Sunday was more or less uneventful… we went to see “Nacho Libre” which was quite possibly one of the worst movies I’ve seen in my entire life. I think I chuckled maybe 10 times during the entire movie and seriously felt gypped. That’s two hours plus and $12 I’ll never get back. Thanks, Jack Black.. I’d like a $12 check, please. Asshole.
Technorati Tags: drunkenness, weekend, recap, movies, nacho libre, reviews, pranks
Yes, really… you read that correctly. After being a die-hard AMD person for the last few years, I’ve been looking at Intel’s new Core2 CPU’s that are supposed to be released soon and I can’t help but be impressed. My biggest bitch about Intel previously was their NetBurst architecture basically forced them to run ridiculously high clock speeds and thus churn out ungodly amounts of heat and have higher power requirements than an equivalent AMD system. I’m not a big fan of a hot, loud system and the P4’s were the kings of such systems. Now that Intel has seen the light and their new CPU’s have shorter pipelines and do more work per clock cycle (something that AMD has been king of since the first Athlons), they’re actually worth looking at. From the benchmarks I’ve been reading, it seems that the X6800 (Core Extreme, replacing the P4 EE) utterly smokes the crap out of the Athlon FX-62 and even the E6700 & E6600 (standard Core2 chips, comparable to the X2’s) are doing quite well against the X2 5000 and the FX-62. I can’t help but be impressed at the turn-around Intel has made after being regularly beaten like a rented mule on the gaming benchmarks, only saving face on some multimedia encoding apps (no doubt thanks to optimizations in the programs themselves). Even in regular desktop apps, the new Intel chips are putting the smackdown on AMD’s current lineup. Hopefully AMD has an ace or two up their sleeve to fight back, but as of right now it looks like Intel has this round in the bag quite handily. Too bad I’m not in the market to upgrade anytime soon… maybe next year, though. Here’s some benchmarks, for those of you who aren’t fluent in google-ese.
Tweaktown’s benchmarks
Anandtech runs it through the wringer
Technorati Tags: AMD, Core2, CPU’s, Intel, Core Extreme, benchmarks
While I do like the commercials for the new Dodge Caliber and find them at least mildly amusing for the most part, there’s one thing about them that annoys me to no end. The car in the commercial has a mean V8 growl like it’s packing a hemi under the hood and the shots they use in the commercial make the car look rather large and menacing, like a shorter version of the Magnum. Problem is, the car isn’t very large and only packs a 4cylinder engine under the hood. Anyone who’s seen one of these things in person can vouch for the fact that they’re about the size of a PT cruiser at most. Even worse, the engine is far from a hemi… hell, it’s HALF a hemi at best. The stock engine is a 1.8L 148hp 4cylinder and the R/T model gets a 2.4L 172hp 4 cylinder. Mind you, a 172hp 4-cylinder isn’t horrible but it’s hardly an engine that is going to have any sort of menacing rumble.
I understand that Dodge has an image to uphold, that being the “tough guy” car and whatnot but why in hell blatantly mis-represent the Caliber as something it’s not? I have no doubt that it’s quite the practical vehicle and may even be fun to drive, but a ground-pounding Billy Badass muscle car it is not. Hell, the non R/T only has 8hp more than a 2006 Honda Civic EX. The R/T model falls 25hp short of the Civic Si and 8hp short of a Hyundai Tiburon GT V6. Size-wise, the car is shorter overall than a Civic sedan (173.8″ vs 176.7″) and has a shorter wheelbase as well (103.7″ vs 106.3″). Make no bones about it, this thing is a small car. You’d never guess it from the commercials, but it is.
Technorati Tags: cars, Dodge, commercials, rants
Yesterday I actually went to see the movie “Cars” with my girlfriend, best friend and his girlfriend and I must say it’s actually a very good movie. Despite its G rating, it wasn’t just a kids movie. It doesn’t quite have the adult humor innuendos that “Shrek” has, but it’s still quite funny for the most part. I thought the one sore spot of the movie was going to be Larry the Cable Guy as Tow Mater, but he was actually tolerable and delivers some funny quips here and there. Thankfully, he never once uses his idiotic trademark “Git ‘r Done” line. Owen Wilson does a really good job as the lead character (Lightning McQueen) and the supporting cast is nothing short of excellent. George Carlin as the hippy VW Bus (Filmore) was quite funny as well. Cheech Marin plays a low-rider with hydraulics and wire wheels, amusingly. I was surprised to find out that Tony Shalhoub (from the TV show Monk) plays an Italian car named Luigi (looks a bit like a Fiat from what I could tell) who runs a tire shop with his pal Guido. There are even some celebrity cameos in the movie that I was surprised to see.. Michael Schumacher plays hmself as a Ferrari (durh), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. plays himself, as does Michael Andretti and Jay Leno (as Jay Limo in the movie). Richard Petty even plays “The King” and sure enough he drives #43.. even better, he’s an old Superbird in blue just like his colors were. Bob Costas plays Bob Cutlass and Darrell Waltrip plays Darrell Cartrip (both announcers). All in all, a pretty damn good movie. We happened to catch a matinee, but even if we had paid full price I wouldn’t have felt ripped off.
I was bored at work and ran across this on boingboing.net tonight. Basically it’s a cyclist’s toolkit in a container shaped like a water bottle. Mind you it’s not actually a water bottle, so in using this you’ll lose the ability to carry one of your water bottles (assuming you have more than one cage) but it’s still handy to have if you can still manage to carry enough water. Here’s the contents according to the description on the site:
Includes: bit screwdriver handle, 6-15mm ball wrench, 6 driver bits (slotted and Phillips), 3 hex key wrenches, 2 tire levers and tire patch kit with glue.
Not too bad and it should get you out of most jams you might encounter while riding. Obviously if you need more tools than what that offers, there’s the option of carrying an under-seat wedge pack or maybe even a backpack. Either way, it’s a nice way to ensure you don’t forget your toolkit even on short rides down to the store or whatever.
