Sick wolf, sick computer.
So I've been sick all week and it keeps getting worse. Yesterday I lost my voice, which I don't think has ever happened to me before. When I talk, I sound like some greasy faced adolescent, but with pebbles in my throat. I've found that if I make an effort to talk in a deep Barry White voice I'm at least intelligible, however much like a dumbass I sound as a result. I've never realized how much I take for granted the ability to talk.
Warning: Nerd stuff ahead.
In other news, I got a check for last year's bonus at work. I could have saved it considering I'm about to be jobless, but instead I decided to do the responsible thing and get a new computer. Actually I got my previous computer as I was getting sacked from my previous job in 2001, so I guess I'm making it a tradition. I haven't put together a computer since then, so I was a little confused and/or miffed about some of the things that have changed. My perfectly good AGP video card needed to be replaced, the dinky little IDE interface on the new mobo only supports 2 devices since everything is going SATA, etc... All in all I'm really happy with it so far though. I went with the Wolfdale E8400 processor, not just because of the name, but... I mean, come on. Wolfdale. As far as speed goes, my jaw hasn't come off the floor yet. Considering I had an Athlon t-bird overclocked to a blistering 1.1Ghz before, I feel like I'm in some kind of star trek universe. Installing/compiling my full Gentoo linux system, which was an all-day-and-into-the-next deal before, was done in a few hours. Now I want to compile stuff just to watch messages whip by at light speed. Of course I guess I felt the same way when I went from a 233MHZ K6 to the athlon and found I could compile glibc in less than a day. This really feels like a bigger leap though. The E8400 supposedly easily overclocks to 4Ghz with just the stock fan, though I think I'll wait for the magic to wear off before I do anything like that. No, really.
Warning: Nerd stuff ahead.
In other news, I got a check for last year's bonus at work. I could have saved it considering I'm about to be jobless, but instead I decided to do the responsible thing and get a new computer. Actually I got my previous computer as I was getting sacked from my previous job in 2001, so I guess I'm making it a tradition. I haven't put together a computer since then, so I was a little confused and/or miffed about some of the things that have changed. My perfectly good AGP video card needed to be replaced, the dinky little IDE interface on the new mobo only supports 2 devices since everything is going SATA, etc... All in all I'm really happy with it so far though. I went with the Wolfdale E8400 processor, not just because of the name, but... I mean, come on. Wolfdale. As far as speed goes, my jaw hasn't come off the floor yet. Considering I had an Athlon t-bird overclocked to a blistering 1.1Ghz before, I feel like I'm in some kind of star trek universe. Installing/compiling my full Gentoo linux system, which was an all-day-and-into-the-next deal before, was done in a few hours. Now I want to compile stuff just to watch messages whip by at light speed. Of course I guess I felt the same way when I went from a 233MHZ K6 to the athlon and found I could compile glibc in less than a day. This really feels like a bigger leap though. The E8400 supposedly easily overclocks to 4Ghz with just the stock fan, though I think I'll wait for the magic to wear off before I do anything like that. No, really.