Almost Like Another Upgrade

February 23, 2005 by Eric Richardson

In the course of upgrading the kernel on my desktop (which is also the server for the blog at the moment... sorry if you got a Bad Gateway error while it was down) I took a few minutes to tackle a long-standing suspicion that my machine wasn't running as fast as it should be.

Turns out it really wasn't -- in fact it wasn't even close.

See back in September when I bought new parts and built myself the bulk of a new machine I had a few issues with the motherboard and had to reset the CMOS settings. Somehow that meant I ended up with the frontside bus speed set to 100mhz. The computer then saw my Athlon 3200+ as a 1300mhz CPU. I've now bumped that up to 166mhz (I didn't try 200mhz yet) and the CPU now shows up as a 3000+. I know, it's still not at its full potential, but it's enough of a bump to get almost a 2x speedup in eThreads benchmarks.

I sort of like the idea of a progressive upgrade. Now it's like I just got a new CPU, even though I paid for it back in September.

Finally, the s710a Arrives

February 22, 2005 by Eric Richardson

So I got a new phone today. I've been anxiously awaiting the release of the Sony Ericsson s710a for quite a while now, so when it finally appeared I couldn't hold off too much longer before ordering it. I placed the order yesterday around noon via cingular's website. The phone was delivered this morning at 9am. That's what I call good turnaround. I can't say I'm an expert just yet, but I've played with the phone enough by now to be able to give a first impression type review. Summary: good, not perfect. — Continue Reading...

Random Twins

February 22, 2005 by Eric Richardson

I was walking from my apartment to the bus stop today when I noticed that the guy in front of me had the same bag I do. Now, this was kind of a weird experience, since I've never seen anyone that even had a bag by the same manufacturer I do (Arkel). But this guy had the exact same model. I said hi and found that he works for the LA County Bike Coalition, which I had no idea was headquartered on my block.

Flexcar: Finally, a Hybrid

February 17, 2005 by Eric Richardson

My Dad's in town right now, so after my morning class I came back Downtown, met him for lunch at the Yorkshire Grill, and then we took the DASH over to Union Station to pick up a Flexcar. If you remember back to my first trip I was disappointed to not get a hybrid. Well this time I made sure and reserved ahead of time to get one of the cars at One Gateway Plaza (two cars, both hybrids). I've actually still got the car right now since we're heading back out in a bit for dinner, but I thought I'd drop by the blog for a midway update. — Continue Reading...

Me and Einstein, Not Just the Caltech Connection

February 15, 2005 by Eric Richardson

For my careers class we took the Myers Briggs Type Indicator test before last week. Today we got our results, which say that I am an INTP. In general I think that seems about right. This site tells me I have the same type as Einstein. Another INTP explanation seems to nail me:

you can be an under-achieving but very capable student... A relentless learner in areas that hold your interest... you might seem "lost in thought" to others... you tend to connect unrelated thoughts... you would rather be the architect of a plan than the implementer of it...

It's almost eerie how true that all is. — Continue Reading...