478 Motherboards

I've had problems with my Asrock motherboard since I first bought it but I've only been able to trace the problems to it after I tested different graphic cards and ram. I have this weird artifact that keeps cropping up during 3D intensive games; it's always the same figure and it's always in the same places. My 3D games also get these screwed up planes and lines intersecting at weird angles and I have to restart the game, go to the main menu, or (in the case of The Sims 2) I set the shadows to none then back again to detailed.

I've replaced my video card from a ATI thingy to the present nVidia 6800 and I've tried removing and leaving in the different ram thingies at different times to see if the artifacts come back and they always have. Interestingly, Warcraft 3 doesn't display those artifacts nor do the graphics go all screwy.

Recently, I've had really slow read/write speeds between my external HD (2.5"), internal HDs and my DVDWriter. Last year it took me 20 minutes to burn and verify a full DVD and now it takes an hour. I went to Gilmore St to look for a replacement motherboard and I found out that motherboards compatible to my present video card, processor, and ram are now phased out. Sucks.

I don't have enough money to buy a whole new set so I decided that the access speeds might be helped by replacing the IDE cables and a new enclosure for the external drive. I bought the IDE cables and a new enclosure and replaced them on my cpu when I found a fishing hook bait thing and a lead weight inside the cpu casing. WHAT THE HELL. I took them out but the access speeds remain a disappointing 2-4MBps between hard drives and a 1 hour 10 minute burn for dvds. (The fishing stuff must have ricocheted there when I ripped my boss' stored fishing gear from under the bed.)

Beach

My mother, grandmother and I took my grandfather around for a drive last Christmas vacation. This view is from Jo's by the Sea, a restaurant in Sibulan. That's Cebu in the distance.

Presents

This here's my girlfriend's niece kissing my present to her. This was sent to me with the caption "Thank you. Kiss doggie." My girlfriend told me she never let go of the stuffed toy. Sigh. I love Christmas if only to see my gifts thoroughly enjoyed by the receivers.

Dementia

Sigh. My grandfather had a mini stroke last year and it left him blind in one eye as well as decreased his mental acuity; he now has trouble finding some words to communicate. The day before I arrived home for the holidays, my grandfather was admitted to the ICU of the hospital because they, my grandmother and mother, feared my grandfather had another stroke. I don't know what makes a stroke a mini and I don't know what made them fear that my grandfather had another one but I do know that my grandfather looked pretty wasted away when I saw him in the hospital.

He is eighty-four years old and is suffering from delusions that my grandmother might be looking for another man. He is throwing tantrums when only my grandmother is there with him and sometimes even trying to choke her although at his age he doesn't have the strength to do so. My mother, a neurologist, tells my grandmother that you can't just tell him it's so silly to think that way. "It's the disease talking," she says.

I don't know what to do.

PSP Pdf Reading

I'm sad to say that I can't get Bookr Pdf Reader to work on my psp but I used PDF Tools to convert pdfs into images then use irfanview to do a batch rename as well as increasing the jpg compression rate. The batch rename is needed because PDF Tools creates image files without left zero padding and this might change the order of viewing the images.

My Daemon From the Golden Compass site!

Desra. She's my daemon. She's modest, shy, solitary, spontaneous and fickle. I wanted a dog. A bulldog. Or a grizzly bear. *sigh*.

The Day After Trillanes Stormed The Manila Peninsula Hotel

I don't know if that's real smoke. And I don't know where those buildings are.

Basic Math

I can't believe what happened to me last night. I don't know what caused it but I suspect the framework I'm using at work is to blame.

I went to CDR King to buy some blank dvds and asked how much would twenty-five of those cost me. The girl at the counter said they were priced at twelve pesos each so I struggled to calculate it and ended up with six hundred pesos. Damn it. Counter-girl then told me they didn't have any stack less than fifty pieces so I told her to go ahead and get them for me.

I held three five-hundred peso bills as the girl rang up my order because I thought I was going to shell out a thousand and two hundred for the stuff. Everything was totaled and my bill was at six hundred pesos. I embarrassingly pocketed my extra bill.

Neat Questions

From necramirez:

questions sa client (U.S.) interview via phone:

CompSci questions!

1) Given an array of integers of length N, you know that the values are unique and belong to the range 0..N, where one number is missing (0..N is N+1 numbers). Provide a solution to determine the missing number and what is its running time.

2) Given a 2xN grid, provide a solution to determine the number of possible ways to arrange 1x2 tiles to cover the entire grid.

3) Design Problem: You are able to accept different forms of input (XML via Web Service, plain string, XML via HTTP request) and should likewise be able to output in different formats (HTTP Response, Web Service Response, e-mail). Describe how you will set-up the application such that it will be easy to add new forms of input and output.

I will try and solve these later when I have the time. In the meantime, feel free to post your solutions.

Interviewing Developers

Joel Spolsky writes a very interesting guide (The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing (version 3.0)) on how to interview candidates properly to find out the best hire for a developer position. I've only recently been able to test applicants for our company but only as a peer level test. I haven't interviewed any of them other than viewed their resumes and the results of the interviews of managers.

Most of the candidates failed the Java and SQL proficiency tests but our company is desperate so I made up some small problems for them to try and solve. I made them write a program that would use a loop to display the following:

*
**
***
****
*****

I then asked them to rewrite that loop to display:

*****
 ****
  ***
   **
    *

Next, they were asked to take the last triangle and count the number of asterisks per line. Lastly, they were asked to sort the number of asterisks into ascending order.

I'm very surprised that no one was able to ace the exam and only two had some competent solutions to the first and third problems. Those two might have just been copying each other's work.

We ended up hiring one of the two who were able to answer some of the test. I'm hoping it's not a bad decision.

Nodame Cantabile

It's a live Japanese Television series. It's funny and awesome. Check it out.

The Approaching Storm

Manila Bay under "Kabayan" Tropical Storm.

Ye ole pen case thingy

... out of old diskettes.