Digital Rants

After 2 weeks of broad spectrum antibiotics treatment in insolation, Cowcow #1 has been introduced back into the pond. The fact that it has lived this long is a miracle (it was losing its bearings back then).

Some sun has already given the fish back its colours, only time will tell if it'd survive, but I wish it all the best. Of the 7 new Kois we introduced, 2 has died. Hopefully the remaining five will live long and prosper.

Which sort of brings up a question, the pond is close to 3 years now.. No fries? How/when do they spawn?

Update: It's now 1730 and the fish is still coping well...

Yet another thing checked off the list of things to buy.

The E6300 CPU is a Pentium but it's not bad at all. I guess it's Pentium by name only. The chip is new so I don't really know much about it from the Internet, but so far so good.

My old HTPC was too old (+6 years old?) and although the hardware still works pretty well (noise aside), the software has progressed too far and support has dropped. E.g. features like VDPAU are not supported. Indeed with the new hardware video playback is a lot smoother!

So smooth in fact it looked too fluid and unreal under 100hz mode. Turn that off and video playback is perfect. The deinterlacing is finally working well now. I am finally happy with video playback on Linux. Now all I need is BD support!

This post does not make a lot of sense I guess. Because I am dead tired right now. Will sleep soon I think.

Link: http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=152424

Recreational anglers will have to pay to catch dhufish, pink snapper and other vulnerable species under new rules announced by the State Government today.

The sweeping changes, which aim to halve the catch of dhufish and other demersal scalefish, also include an annual two-month ban beginning from October 15.
...
The new West Coast demersal licence will cost $20 for one day, $60 for a fortnight or $150 annually.

A standard $45 fee will also be introduced for the existing licences: rock lobster, abalone, marron, freshwater angling and recreational netting.

The new fee regime is expected to earn the State Government more than $4 million a year, which will be spent on recreational fishing management, such as policing and research into fish stocks.

Mr Prokop said the new regime would mean that keen anglers faced paying $405 each year.

“This is in stark contrast to the previous umbrella licence which cost $81,” he said.

Oh come on and stop the dishonesty! Just say it out loud that this is a cash grab and I will not be as angry right now.

What else hasn't gone up lately? Even my income has gone up, but still it cannot keep pace with the demands of the state government!

Not sure if it's my fault or the MythDevs but HD video playback is not so good now, took up to much CPU.

The main client has been powering on for 5 years (had a life it's first 4 years doing 24/7 high CPU/disk intensive duties). It's time to move this machine down to the home office.

Scored two free Antec casings at work, so it will cut down the cost of upgrading. Now waiting for new parts to be ordered.

Budget: Under $400.

I got almost everything I want in my "to buy" list now.

So I'm not a millionaire today. Oh well, keep trying. Nothing betted, nothing won .

Been trying to source new parts for a HTPC build (old computer is really hard to keep together). It's not about money, it's about getting the right parts at the right place at the right price.

Some place sells this but not that, and some place sells that and not this. To get everything I want I either have to go around everywhere, or source alternate parts.

It's the video card. Should I just go ATI? The whole reason of upgrading is to get NVIDIA's VDPAU. But I want something with no fan, and I can only get that from Osbourne Park. The Cooler, CPU, and motherboard are at Balcatta.

That's it! All I want are 4 items, and they're spread around Perth!

Anybody tried this before? They are HK based, and HK sells lots of strange stuffs... Being Chinese I'm more receptive to snake oils.

E.g. Chinese herbal medicines and acupunctures works. These two practices were seen as snake oils to the western world, but they eventually wise up and ate humble pie. From TV coverage I think Chinese methodologies on treating the body is being recognised in at least one sport - NBA.

But the fuse? I'm willing to believe, but if it works, there's no way it's because of the whatever speak mentioned on the website. I'm betting it's placebo (and I'm all for placebo), but how to concretely proof this?

Will keep a look out for this next time I drop by HK. Hopefully will get a few if they are cheap and hope some brave souls can test it out as I'm not going to put it on mine. The fuse is far from the weakest link in my set up.

Link: http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/winter-storms-batter-wa--17000-lose-power-20090629-d1m4.html

It's been estimated 17,000 homes are without power in Perth today. And yet they want us to pay more for electricity.

A lot of things ain't right in this world. This is but one example.

What is it with media these days? First they're complaining about not enough rain, now they are saying it's prob too much..

Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/26/2609189.htm?site=news

Yet again the public is paying for incompetence. Why should we be paying extra because something we don't own broke and it costs a lot of money to fix it? Maintaining their infrastructure should be their costs and not ours!

They wasted the boom times on god knows what, and when times get bad, they charge us more? I rather they increase it by a few percent annually then a huge hike like this. A huge hike is a lot harder to budget for.

And this is not the only hike. Electricity, council rates, strata rates, public transport, everything is going up.

Hike is to make the company viable. By doing so, the government is merely transferring the problem of managing money from a big fat corporation with highly paid executives to thousands of small families with lower paid jobs. The problem is still there, stupid!