Filed under: posts
First of all, J. Cole. No, not the footballer, the new kid on the Roc Nation block. Bars, bars, bars … damn.
Went to the S.F. Zoo this weekend. It was an extraordinarily nice day for the city and the zoo was a good place to spend it. I forgot how the S.F. Zoo was like since I hadn’t visited in a good 8 or so years since this visit. Last time, I was tutoring a first grade class when I took the kids to the zoo. I’m glad the zoo keys are still there, thought I didn’t find them in the Gift Store.
Some kid was feeding Rice Crispy treats to the peacocks that roam the zoo and I was able to get up close and personal with one of them:
We ended up seeing a bunch of other cool things – a Snow Leopard, a baby Gorilla, a bear fight, and a child being physically forced to “look at the monkeys!$)&#@*,” by his overly aggressive mother. If more weekends are like this one, life will be great!
Short post tonight – gotta get ready for a long work week ahead.
‘Tis all.
I ended up spending my evening watching High Fidelity on Hulu. The movie overall was pretty entertaining – nothing too special, except for one scene that really spoke to me. While Jack Black was really great in this film, sadly, he was not involved in the scene. Here it is:
I’ll cut off here because there will be spoilers in this post. More after the jump.
Filed under: posts
WTF happened to Kanye? He used to be so legit. Case in point:
@ 2:26 – Mos Def and Avon Barksdale from “The Wire.” Leeee-git.
Compare to anything from “808s..” damn how far he sank.
Filed under: posts | Tags: HTPC, media, movies, tech support, technology, wireless N
Recently, I have been undergoing the trials and tribulations associated with setting up an effecting home theatre PC (HTPC) and the network to go along with it. Using XMBC, the setup for the software was actually pretty smooth, after some tinkering with DXVA (GPU decoding). However, the most irksome element of the whole set-up was how to effectively stream the 1080p content from my hard drive located in my bedroom through a wall and about 30 feet to the HTPC linked up to my television.
Reading up on the topic on the interwebs indicated that some had success with N wireless, which theoretically offers up to 300 Mbps of transfer speed. Of course, considering the real life issues with wireless data, the speed would be dramatically cut down.
So, after endless issues and frustrations here’s the need-to-do list for streaming success:
Router Configuration (this is the router setup page, sometimes at 192.168.1.1 – check manual for instructions)
1. If your wireless card or adapter cannot receive 5 ghz, don’t broadcast in 5 ghz . Although this will cut down your effecting transfer speed to 150 Mbps max, it will still be enough to stream them movies. Broadcast at 2.4 ghz @ 40mhz band.
2. Set the wireless security to WPA2-Personal, AES. I don’t know why this must be the security type, but for some reason, my wireless adapter would not even receive an N signal without it selected.
3. Select channel 6 to broadcast. I don’t know if other channels work, but for me, the adapter would be maxed out at 65 Mbps unless channel 6 was chosen.
Wireless Card or Adapter Configuration
1. Make sure your card can receive 5 ghz signal if you are going to use that signal.
2. Make sure your drivers are updated, and if it still doesn’t work, ensure the driver update isn’t a bad one. (Use Google!)
That should do it. I could stream a 16 GB mkv in H.264 pretty well after the set-up. The connection in Windows 7 read about 144 Mbps. I haven’t tried anything more demanding, but for my purposes, it seems to work fine.
Good Luck!
Near my birthday, I noticed that I was seeing flashing lights streaking across the lower part of my left eye. There was no pain, there was no irritation, or physical response for that matter. Little did I know, while I was working myself to death through my birthday, my eye was quitting on me.
When people with higher levels of myopia visit the eye doctor, like myself, we get dilated-eye exams to check on the retina. I’ve had this procedure done to my eyes each time I get a check-up since I was in high school. My most recent eye exam was 2 months prior, during which, the optometrist concluded that my retinas were in great health.
Fast forward to the beginning of 2010 and things are different. I know that if I see strange flashes or floaters, they may be indicators of a retinal detachment and I must seek medical attention immediately. However, I noted that descriptions of flashes were different than what I was experiencing, which was actually very hard to notice. In addition, I had no severe floaters other than what I’ve seen my entire life.
Even so, I decided to go see an ophthalmologist, just to make sure. After seeing my family doc first (damn HMO), he indicated that the referral to the eye M.D. would be “urgent.” However, he told me not to worry, as flashes just happen sometimes. I first saw a optometrist who found a retinal tear in the lower right of my eye. He wanted a second opinion from an ophthalmologist who confirmed his finding. They both reassured me that nothing too severe was occurring and a tear was an easy fix, if a fix was even required.
I am then referred to a retinal specialist. I am pretty freaked out at this point. The worst medical incident I’ve ever had was a case of food poisoning. The retinal specialist was a lot more thorough and informative. He found another, much more severe, localized detachment in the upper right corner of my left eye. The retina had a larger tear there which had actually begun to detach. Way after normal office hours, he began to perform laser surgery on my left eye to save my vision.
Laser surgery is painless to the eye. It is NOT painless overall. It is a welding process where the retina is welded to the back of the eye using a focused, high intensity laser. (See: laser coagulation). There is a sharp pain as nerves in your eye are treated to the intensity of the light. It feels like a sudden, acute headache. The laser is not constant, but rather flashes whenever the doctor triggers it. After what seemed like hours, but was probably forty minutes or so, the procedure was done and my eye was sore and my head ached, but I could see.
The doctor had sealed several small tears in the lower right of my left eye. For the more severe localized detachment, he isolated the detachment using a method called demarcation laser photocoagulation. He basically sealed off the detached area so it would not grow out from my periphery.
I just had my first check-up a week after the procedure and the laser welds seem to be holding. Since I do have a detachment that is contained in the upper left portion of my eye, I have noticed some reduction in my peripheral vision of the lower right, as the eye is mirrored. Supposedly, I will eventually see a slight shadow on that end which decreases as the brain adjusts to the change.
There is some blurriness for me when it comes to near-reading which the doc said should clear up in the months to come. Apparently, the nerves behind the layer that was laser-treated have a role in the focusing in the eye. Since there is some swelling, it may take some time for my vision to clear. If not, some new glasses will be needed.
I’m still a bit concerned right now since I still suffer from flashes at times – though it is much less obvious. The doctor said it is possible that I will continue to see some for a while along with other visual artifacts (flickering) as the eye is healing and still irritated. If they increase in number or severity, I may have a problem on my hands.
Otherwise, things are okay. I’m pretty lucky as I found the issue early and was able to receive a less severe treatment because of it. (If the retina fully detaches, they must insert a silicon buckle over your eye, or insert a gas bubble to force the retina back).
I am very appreciative of all the friends and family who expressed concern and helped me through this otherwise pretty scary situation. And for those with high myopia (say, greater than -5.0, be sure to get your annual retina check-up and be on the look out for flashes, floaters, decrease in vision or shadows.
Wish me luck in the coming weeks that I can put all this behind me and worry about less important things, like cars and media centers.
‘Tis all.
Inkless 