Welcome to my blog containing sporadic personal ramblings, coding, electronics, D&D and anything else.>
It’s been over 3 years since the last upgrade, so this Xmas there was no postponing it. Time for another computer upgrade.
After doing this, I found to my dismay that the stupid Samsung Syncmaster 225bw started to act up, with the error message “Not Optimum mode” blinking.
That’s not to say that the monitor did not work, it worked perfectly 55% of the time, and not at all the remaining 45%.
I would boot up into windows, and the screen would be black with the “Not Optimum Mode” message flashing extremely quickly, even though the resolution and update frequency was set to the monitors native values. The problem even presented itself when Installing Windows 7 (64 bit).
I found an interesting “fix”, after waiting 10 minutes without using the computer (win 7 default), the screen would go to sleep mode. If I then clicked a button or moved the mouse, there was a 55% chance the monitor would work normally, otherwise it would just continue with the error message. This was the oddest part, that it sometimes worked even though no settings or any changes were made in the display settings on the computer.
After some googling I found that lots of other people have been getting the same error, and tried several solutions everything from creating custom refresh rates (60.001 hz) and using powerstrip. But nothing worked. So I decided to call Samsung support, who kept claiming there was nothing wrong with the monitor since it worked on another computer, an obviously fallacious statement, as I pointed out “there is nothing wrong with the computer since other monitors works great on it”, and by this logic neither the monitor or computer is to blame for the error.
I could have sent it in for testing, but that would likely just be a waste of money seeing that the monitor works nicely on other computers and my old computer. So they would just have charged me for testing it. Instead I got myself a BenQ XL2410T 120 hz monitor bundled with Nvidia 3d Vision. And I don’t regret that for a second, I was getting sick of that horrible bleeding on the top and bottom of the Samsung screen, so this new one with greater resolution (full hd), better response time, better contrast, etc.. is MUCH more comfortable. I’ll probably write up a review of the 3D part soon, but so far it’s pretty awesome on some games =)
Today (Just passed midnight, so here in Norway it’s Saturday 6th) is Carl Sagan day, the day each year where we celebrate the greatest human to ever walk this planet, Carl Sagan.
If I had to choose a favorite person of all of history, it would without any doubt be professor Sagan. A professor of astrophysics, and awesome scientist. He’s most known for being an important part of SETI and his PBS documentary Cosmos, which is a very good show and if you haven’t watched it, it’s definitely worth your time (note, the first episode might be a bit dull for some peoples taste, but it gets better from the second episode). Unfortunately I will be traveling to Spain Saturday, so will not be able to celebrate the day as much as I’d like.. But I will be watching my favorite episode of Cosmos, and maybe go out and have a glimpse at the stars if the weather permits.
I finally got around to hanging the picture I made of Neil Degrasse Tyson on my wall today, I finished it over a month ago and now it’s finally up there for the whole world to enjoy (well, at least anyone who might happen to visit my apartment).
Now I can do all of my work under his watchful eye :D
The picture took about 10 hours to do, it is 45x45cm and made from 8100 small plastic beads (perler).
If you’re not already, you should follow him at @neiltyson, he has very interesting tweets about science and astronomy.
I’ve been pretty busy playing Fallout New Vegas since it released Friday, have played around 20 hours and just recently got Veronica (voiced by Felicia Day) as a companion and made my way to the Strip to talk with Mr. House (voiced by Rene Auberjonois), it’s like being in geek heaven.
I really like the game so far, tt’s basically the same as Fallout 3 (not a complaint), and I like the story and setting so far. I do miss the 50′s music, but I listen to the Fallout 3 soundtrack almost daily anyhow :)
Seems like since I got Veronica the game has started to freeze up when trying to close it. But other than that it has been very stable and bug free.
I did however notice a strange bug with Veronica once I logged in.. She kept grinning for the entire session. It started to really creep me out:
Today I turned 10’000 days old. This means I can has cookie while programming! :)
It’s been too long since I got any programming done on my Star Trek game Trekwar, but today I managed to implement animation support on the main map, as well as get the sensor system and fog of war working (still needs a bit of tweaking):
I’ve gotten a new job, and been working on another paying project as well (Comicon does not pay for itself you know). But this other project is almost done, and then I should be able to get back to doing regular Trekwar updates.
I’ve also switched over to Toodledo for maintaining the list of features to be implemented, so hopefully you can see the issues under “0.4.0 (Alpha)” shrinking over the next few months :)