simplicity from chaos: just a few things...

before i get back to some long needed video gaming...

a quick story about exploding video cards...

i hated my ati x700 pro. from the day i got it, i've had lock-up problems, and it's been nothing but a headache. however, because i got it, albeit new in box, from a 'person', i've had no support from ati on it. i've had to limp along, under-clocking the card, and putting on a 3rd power video cooler... which still didn't really help much.

i was replying to am email, and my system just shut off. it's been running for about a week straight, and i haven't made any changes to the system at all. i cracked the case, and sniffed around... didn't smell much of anything... so i blew out all the dust and checked all the connections.

tried to turn it back on... it ran for about 20 seconds and shut off again. then when i hit the power button, it does absolutely nothing... it doesn't even blink.

so, i'm thinking maybe the power supply is shot... i opened it up again, disconnecting all of my peripherals, and unneeded stuff... it turned on, but i got the flashy led of doom on the front... so, i pulled the video card to try and reseat it and that's when i saw the burn mark.

i'm guessing that there's been a manufacturing flaw in the card that i got, and it just took this long to blow up.

i was pretty pissed... i went out and bought a new pny verto nvidia geforce 7900 GS 256MB GDDR3 card... i was going to buy a crappy $60 card, but i figured it would actually be better just to buy something decent and be done with it.i'm also rocking a new 500 watt antec truepower 2.0 power supply, just to be safe.

i'm very happy with the GS... if you aren't familiar with video card release schedules, over the last few years, nvidia and ati have been releasing high end chipsets, then afterwards, have been releasing new cards with almost the exact same power, better heat management, and a much lower price tag. this card is one of those... the original would be a 7900 GT, which retailed about $350, my GS has the same power and features, lower heat, and retails for under $200.i'll take it. now i can play rainbow six: vegas... yays!

it was inevitable, but i still have a hard time believing it...

being a zune owner, i like to keep up on the goings on in the zune world. endgadget has this article which states thatsony and universal have removed the ability to share their music via the zune's wifi.

now, to help you understand that. universal gets money for every zune sold, just so we can share their music, and both companies were involved in the agreement for the 3 days / 3 plays rules.... now their pulling out and saying, NO SOUP FOR YOU!

it's ridiculous, i wonder how long until they require you to swipe your credit card before you listen to the radio....

good thing no one else owns a zune, or i wouldn't be able to share most of my songs with them...

i like google... but...

this article is a compilation of many thoughts aboutgoogle's plans for the future. it seems to be based on all of the rumors that have been going around. but in this case, when we say rumors, we mean educated guesses.

basically, however, the story is in regards to the fact that, if google doesn't already control the internet, it will very very soon... and in the future, there may not be any internet without google...

it's a very good read... less dry than you might expect.

star wars...

i remember a few years back when everyone was talking about space being the new place to be for countries in the know... people were all concerned about spy satellites and weapons in space...

guess what... it's happening, little by little. and now china is prepared to shoot satellites out of the sky... as a matter of fact, they already have.

the end is near!

if you haven't seen this yet...

fix that right now! watch: