grown up in slow motion

I have been reading The Codebreakers, a huge tome on cryptology. I'm still in the old-timey stuff, although there are a couple ideas I haven't heard of before for the basic substitutions. I just got through the general solution to polyalphabetic ciphers, which was interesting.

Now that Gauss is up and running, I installed a couple games that Freeman really stuggled with and Gauss blows them away. That's what I was hoping for.

I've had the radar detector for over a month now. So far it has been totally useless. 99% of what I pick up has been grocery stores, and the two radar signs I've run across caught me off guard. If anything I have been driving more restrained because of the thing - I don't trust it and don't want to be caught off guard, whereas before I was blissfully unaware.

The weather here is back to cool and rainy - so much for the springtime euphoria.

a sense of function but a disregard

I guess it was a crappy week but it doesn't matter at all now because I'm not at work today, the new computer is working perfectly and the weather is beautiful.

i pray the wrecking ball is waning

I finally got Gauss to work. All it took was a mutant XP install disc combining my original XP CD, Service Pack 2 and some extra SATA drivers.

but our ship's not coming back

Gauss has turned into the worst project in the world. Let's review the disasters to date:

Intel are assholes and sit around not releasing the new 45nm CPUs, causing an eight month delay in the start of the project. When project starts, the desired case has gone out of production and has to be special ordered from Buy.com. Buy.com fails and does not actually have the case. Case has to be ordered again from Frys.com.

On the big day of assembly, motherboard turns out to be DOA. Motherboard is RMA'd to Newegg.com, who has run out of that type of motherboard. Have to go to Fry's and buy some other random motherboard. New motherboard works, but Windows XP does not recognize SATA drives.

Got internal floppy drive to hold SATA drivers. Windows XP setup says press F6 to load drivers but does not load USB keyboard drivers until after that. Rummaged up USB-PS/2 converter. Still cannot press F6. Got into menu. $28 floppy drive does not work. Tried flipping the power. $28 floppy drive fried.

XP setup also will not recognize more than 128GB of SATA drives. The solution is apparently an SP2 CD, which I do not have, and requires something called slipstreaming to merge an XP install disk with SP2.

I am never building a computer again.

a place out by the sun

More Camaro spy shots this morning, notably at the Nurburgring sporting red Brembo brake calipers - presumably the SS is undergoing some hardcore track testing. Apparently the Genesis coupe will also have Brembo brakes, but they are so big they will only fit on the 19" wheels and not the standard 18".

In other car news, there is a new BMW M3 ad out showing a combustion cycle with no CGI - it's pretty cool in itself, but I also really like the music. Unfortunately I think the ad is brand new so nobody has music info - if it isn't custom. The Genesis coupe's website also has music I really like but can't find.

every color goes where you do

My DOA motherboard just made it to Newegg on Friday, so I probably won't see a new one until next weekend.

I saw a new XJR convertible today. That's the first interesting thing I've spotted in a while, although I did see a Delorean at the grocery store a while ago. I would upload the picture I took, but it's on my unhacked Razr so I am still under Verizon's tyranny.

I was hoping to burn some new MP3 CDs for the Malibu today, but I never got around to it. I don't know how to fix my playlists so I always just stick with the same ones.

you're breaking my flow

I hate April Fool's Day. Just because we've arrived at an arbitrary point in our orbital cycle people take this as license to be a jackass, exploit the trust of others, tell fantastic lies and extract amusement from the suffering of others. I can't trust a damned thing that happens today. Fortunately two guys at work got fired recently for screwing around so nobody was going to cross that line, but my webcomics thought they were being clever by rerouting their links to each other (apparently xkcd's idea), and everything in the car news I read has to be taken with a grain of salt. Which is unfortunate because I want to believe there is a 50/50 chance of a G8 GXP coupe getting built. Or that Audi has finally cracked the twin-turbo V10 for the R8.

i've got to stop it somehow

I spent my weekend playing my new game on the old computer and trying to fix the new computer, which is the opposite of what I wanted to happen. I can't turn my pile of computer parts into a computer. I think it is the motherboard, or maybe I just want it to be the motherboard. I am going to RMA it to Newegg which means at least a week of delay.

she sang a short tune

More Camaro spy shots this morning, although the most entertaining thing was a burn in the comments:

"White Camaro has 1.8 liter four cylinder with no turbo (RS model), and the black one has a turbo charged 2.0 EcoTech (known as the SS "Maximum Bob special edition"). Neither can put over 200 hp on a chassis dyno."

However, the new pics do show pillarless windows. That's something. It looks like they also fixed the ugly tail light chrome on the black model.

Also seems like Newegg has already sold out of Q9450. I'm going to have to keep my eyes peeled for when the Q9550 hits.

when you walk away

The case I wanted for the new computer is apparently out of production, so finding it was kind of tricky. I tried Buy.com, but they spent two days sitting on their asses before coming back and telling me they didn't actually have it. I tried the Fry's website and actually found it for cheaper, although I'm going to two day it so it will get here with the rest of my components.

Seems like Newegg FINALLY added one of the processors I am considering for the primary.

In other news, the shuffle feature on the new iPod sucks, as it constantly keeps picking songs from the same album instead of actually shuffling. I am also still in the phase where I am removing hundreds of songs out of shuffle altogether.