Monday, June 26, 2006

Manhattan, Kansas Here I Come!

Well, I'm at least a step closer to getting moved to Manhattan, Kansas....I've charged my deposit on the move.

Now, I'm waiting to hear back when my actual move out date will be and the window of when my move in date is.

Hopefully, enough notice so I can find a one-way airplane ticket to get me there in between the two processes. And, start living in an empty place. Though I expect it to be better living in the empty place there than the empty place here. ;D

Still lots of do in packing and other preparations....and maybe start looking at change of address notification.

Also need to sort out some time to say some good-byes :..(

Saturday, June 17, 2006

MythBusters: Killer Brace Position

I was just watching this old episode of Mythbusters, having not seen it originally.....due to problems getting it to record around conflicting shows....

I'm really getting into watching them again, largely perhaps because of Kari Byron....after all I guess I have this thing about red heads ;D

Anyways...I though the cell phone versus drunk test was interesting....because it reminded me of a bar argument I remember being around back in the early 90's when the goverment was trying to make 0.08 the legal standard for the whole country....rather than where lots of places which had higher limits (and I seem to recall one place had 0.05).....

It was interesting in Mythbusters, because they used a 0.08 legal limit...and they had Adam and Kari be legal(ly drunk). And, they both failed. Which means they've not only proven that talking on your cellphone while driving is just as bad as driving while impaired....

But, they proved that the 0.08 legal limit is too high (and perhaps equally arbitrary to any other legal limit). And, that the legal limit needs to be lowered....

Since lately them seem to enjoy drinking on the show so much....perhaps they should do a show where they see just how high of a BAC they can blow before they can't pass the driving test.

Though can't understand why you can't just have people that drink shouldn't drive...PERIOD. After all, I never drank when I was driving (having done sufficient drinking for my lifetime, and then getting my license)....and I was still perfectly capable of getting into accidents and nearly getting myself killed. Now I just neither drink nor drive :D

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Debt to Pack Rat Propensity?

Wonder if anybody has done a study on the relationship between a person's personal debt and their tendancy to be a pack rat?

I've always been quite a pack rat. I have boxes and boxes of stuff cluttering up my apartment, some of which probably hasn't been opened since I first left home (1990). While, there are other things that at least got unpacked so that they could be at least seen.

There were are probably 3 (off the top of my head) main reasons why I keep stuff around.

1. worried I'll need it some day, and don't want to buy it again.
2. memories
3. nostalgic

While 2 and 3 are probably heavily intertwined...the best distinction is probably....keeping my old school notebooks (2) or keeping a 100MB harddrive (3).

Well, once upon a time...and up until about a year and half ago...I had debt....at times it was pretty serious, too. And, I kept all kinds of things. Like great big boxes of clothing I had outgrown...back when I was extremely underweight, as opposed to where people still consider me underweight, but I see being 50% heavier than I was an improvement. In comparison, I feel heavy...and it seems to be making me less active. Though there are other health reasons why I'm this way. But, I'm hoping that after I relocate to Manhattan, KS, etc....that I'll be able to work on address this.

Anyways...I've been slowly working on packing some of my stuff up...and as I go through things (both previously unpacked and boxes that hadn't been opened since a previous move)...I'm finding it much easier to throw away stuff than I used to.

Like I am going to free myself of all the old clothes that doesn't fit me anymore (except where it falls into category 3, like my old Scout uniform ;)

As for the 100MB harddrive, that's already packed away somewhere. It was the first harddrive that I ever personally purchased and owned.....

Monday, June 05, 2006

I'm moving to Manhattan....

...the one in Kansas.

I just accepted an offer to work as a Unix Systems Administrator at K-State.

Now to work out the move.

iWon News - Beneficiaries of Distributed Computing

Here's a related article from the same site....which mentions some of the other projects I also participate in.

I've already set Einstein@home (and the not mentioned LHC@home) to run with a lower resource share. And, I've stopped running Climateprediction.net, because they still haven't fixed the issue where it crashes on Linux.

And my Windows (server) box is too slow for the task....especially when it starts thrashing.....but it has the max. physical memory that the i815 chipset supports.

The article also fails to mention one other project that I participate in....SIMAP.

iWon News - Researcher Looks to PCs for Medical Cures

Here's an article about Rosetta@Home, a BOINC project that I participate in.

Lately, I've been thinking of shifting my participation in BOINC projects to allocate more resources to projects like this....and lead my sizeable lead on Seti@home credits decline.

Even though one of the projects I'd be interested in crunching, says that you should have at least 1GB in the machine to run it. And, I don't yet have such a beast idling away to give to this.

But, it is on my list to upgrade some of my old boxes...in part to better do BOINC work....