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The filth inside computers continues to fascinate me. I’m amazed they ingest all of the crap that they do.

Anyway, here’s some pictures of an impressively filthy computer, one that required a trip outside for it’s cleaning. And for those of you who are wondering, no, I did not clean the dust from our service sticker inside. For some reason the yuck just didn’t stick to it.

Here is a great quote from a great interview with former athlete Dick Pound, who leads the international fight against doping in sports.

I don’t want my grandchildren to have to become chemical stockpiles in order to be good at sports and to have fun at it. Baseball, take your kid out to the ballpark some day and you say, ‘Son, some day if you ingest enough of this shit, you might be a player on that field, too.’ It’s a completely antithetical view to what sport should have been in the first place. It’s essentially a humanistic endeavour to see how far you can go on your own talent.

MSI makes okay graphics cards, but sometimes they don’t use standard VGA cooling solutions. Fancy performance cards like their Geforce 4200 models all use custom heat sinks which cover both GPU and the DRAM chips.

I have a system with one of these cards in the shop today. The integrated fan has seized, and I don’t have any VGA coolers that cover the RAM chips too. I not sure if the RAM actually needs to be sinked, but I’m assuming it was done for a reason. So I’m going to work with the existing heatsink if I can. I cut out the dead fan and put in the only new one I’ve got that fits. The result:

The wire ties really pull together this ugly hack, as does the Startech fan with a two-wire molex power connector. I like it. Keeps the GPU cool and saves the customer a bit of cash.

I’ve finished reading through an interesting overview of the future of computing. Like Coverfire, I also found the CPU comment in the article a bit off.

In the long term it makes little sense to burden CPU with DVD playback or SSL encryption. These and similar tasks should and with time will be handled completely by dedicated hardware that is going to be far more efficient (power and performance-wise) than CPU.

With applications and standards evolving so quickly, flexibility is key. Who wants to be stuck with a hardware solution for something that gets replaced next year? (DVD decoder cards anyone?) Maybe in a mature industry specialised processor units make sense, but not in the constantly evolving desktop world. In the desktop world — that most important part our industry that actually reaches regular people — general purpose CPUs coupled with rapidly evolving code is king.

Take for example, the PhysX PPU, a dedicated physics hardware solution for gamers. It’s an interesting idea, but one I don’t think is going to do as well as some people think. Game designers know that most people don’t have a PhysX processor in their PC, but they know that everyone has an x86-compatible processor. Given these options, which do you suppose are they going to write their physics code for? At best, all the PhysX card will do is make non-critical stuff like explosions prettier (for which I’m sure there is a market).

Flexibility is why GPUs on graphics cards have become big like regular CPUs. I figure if anything, the desktop is heading in the direction of processor convergence. There may come a time when there are no special purpose processors at all, just lots of little programmable ones all connected with really fast buses. I think the computers of the future will have lots of these FPGA-like devices working together as required, being adapted as needed by a smart operating system. Power consumption becomes a function of how many are in use and in what way. Upgrading to play the latest game becomes a matter of adding more. You buy a new computer when you run out of upgrade slots, or maybe when faster buses come along.

The scenario I describe is somewhat dependent on multiprocessing technology getting a lot better, as well as bus technologies maturing and standardising more. It would also be nice if RAM and CPUs could share the same bus. AMD processors have both a built-in memory controller and hypertransport interface, so such an idea isn’t as crazy as it sounds. But most of all, it depends on our software sucking less. Says Coverfire:

High level tools and design methodologies do not just save developer time they make modern software possible.

I wrote code in assembler for years and I can tell you that it not only is it unreasonable to write any modern application in assembler, it is a waste of time to try. Back in my hacking days the only way to get fast code was to use assembler, but I was never fast to write code in assembler, nor was it easy. To stay on top of the complicated needs of the computer industry of today, programmers must use high level languages.

As I see it, the future of computing is going involve lots of hardware parallelism but to make that happen all the hackers, from code monkey to comp-sci Ph.D, are going to have to step up to the plate. Just because we have fast processors and efficient high-level languages doesn’t mean we get to slack off on making efficient code. It is unacceptable to me that a word processor today takes 40MB of main memory to get going when ten years ago it only required 2MB. Since I don’t think it’s the fault of the compiler guys, I’m going to point the finger at the app developers, though I suspect the developers of library code are equally to blame.

The future of computing will see computers become cheap and common like lightbulbs, but at the same time they will never forget their general purpose roots. Gadgets will be gadgets and PCs will be PCs. But all the CPU advances in world will be useless unless the code the CPUs are executing becomes better. I think the hardware guys have an idea where they are going, but I’m not sure if the software folks do yet. When they figure it out we’ll be ready to benefit from the future of computing.

I’ve just discovered an interesting site which tries to figure out what Canada will be like in the year 2020 and what we need to do to get there. Good to see that someone is thinking about these things because it’s very likely I’m going to live through that year and I don’t want it to suck.

I noticed a curious new product while reviewing mainboards on the Asus website: a notebook covered with leather. You can even get a leather-clad mouse to go with it. Obviously it’s being marketed as a handcrafted-by-the-hands-of-a-master kind of lifestyle product and I have to wonder if the computer industry has matured enough to sport affectations such as this.

I think it would be cool to build custom computer enclosures.  Might be good money in that.

Paul Thurrott has managed to get bit by the WGA. I feel for him. Microsoft once accused me of being a pirate, too. It angered me enough that I switched my desktop over to Fedora Core Linux and haven’t looked back since.

What a real bummer it must be to loyally use and promote a company’s product only have them accuse you of being a thief. Maybe not quite as bad as getting kicked in the balls by your best friend, but still sucky.

The moral to the story is simple. Just because you are big fan of Microsoft doesn’t mean you aren’t their bitch. They own you and they draw the leash tighter with each new version. Seriously, are there Windows fanboys out there who really think this will get any better with Vista?

Microsoft apologists might wonder why is Microsoft behaving like this. All these years of us supporting the company, buying its products, and this is the thanks we get? The reason is because they don’t care about you. No large company cares about its customers, particularly one with a monopoly. They only pretend to care so they can get your money.

But it’s even worse than that at Microsoft. Not only do they not care, they don’t even have to pretend. As a monopolist in their market, they can do whatever they want to you. To them, you stopped being a customer long ago and became a factor. You are cultivated for your money, like a cow is for its milk. Like the farmer with his herd, they know as long as they don’t abuse you too badly you’ll always give milk. So even though the ‘tie-ins’ from their ‘partners’ may annoy you, Product Activation might inconvenience you and WGA will pester you, they know you’ll be back. Why? Too lazy, too ignorant, too scared, too addicted… no matter how you cut it, you’re their bitch, and they will keep taking more and more from you until you do something about it.

Microsoft fans will tell you that Microsoft has every right to charge as much as they want and do what they want with their product. This is true: every business has the right to charge as much money as the market will pay for their product. That’s beautiful, glorious capitalism. But it only works in a marketplace with competition, with a product that doesn’t affect the lives of billions. Mutually beneficial capitalism breaks down pretty badly when a monopolist is involved with a product so critical. Without the threat of customers fleeing to other vendors a company finds itself with such absolute, intoxicating power. It can do what it likes and farm the hell out of its customers forever, so long as it keeps potential competitors beat down, locked up and hidden away. Which is exactly what Microsoft does.

WGA is just one of the many indignities Windows users are going to suffer in the coming years. I’d like to think large firms like Microsoft could re-learn the idea of the mutually beneficial transaction and treat their customers with respect, but no large company in North America has enough balls or moral focus to do it, not Microsoft, not any of them. Even if they did, the shareholders wouldn’t let them. But that’s a whole other story, that is.

In the meantime, it’s the user who’s going to have to learn to stop being the bitch.

Here’s one use for a small, dead air compressor.

We use compressed air to blow crap out of computers every day. Air cans aren’t the cheapest, so some two years ago I brought in an air compressor. Just recently, it died (I think the electric motor gave out) so I bought a new one and stuck the old one up in the graveyard.

One of my complaints about compact air compressors is the air tank (the “pig”) doesn’t hold a lot of air. A heavy duty blow job can drain the tank in less than than a minute, forcing the compressor to cycle. It’s loud.

While the motor and piston on the dead unit might be useless, there is still a perfectly good three gallon steel pig attached to the thing. Well, doubling up stuff is all the rage in the computer industry these days, isn’t it? There’s dual core processors, dual network controllers, and of course, dual SLI graphics cards. So in the spirit of dual-ness we upgraded our three gallon compressor into a six gallon dual SLI pig compressor using the leftover accessories from the two units.

The main output valve on the old unit is left wide open so it can fill. The one-way input valve and pressure sensor are left on to act as seals. The 100psi relief valve is attached to the old unit to provide the whole system with an emergency pressure release (as is required for safety). Hooked up together they work as a six gallon tank.

The hack is a complete success. It now takes some three minutes of solid blowage to make the compressor cycle — excellent! And best yet, we can keep chaining new pigs to the rig for even more blowing p0wuh!

It’s more fun to take the back roads when you come home from London, where I finished delivering some product and meeting with associates. The scenery is nicer, there’s less traffic, the detour only adds a few minutes to the overall trip and best yet, odd stuff sometimes happens.

Along a particularly nice section of road I noticed a large plume of grey smoke rising into the air. The actual location was hidden behind the various woodlots, but it looked to be some distance away, probably three concessions ahead and maybe two to the right. But it was large enough to make me think that it was more than just some farmer burning trash. If he was, that’s a hell of a lot of trash. Interesting.

As I rounded another curve on the tree lined road, there came into view a small car half in the ditch with a number of young people milling around it. Interesting.

Being of the helpful sort, I decided to stop and attempt to be, uhh, helpful. All those years of being a Boy Scout, I suppose. So I pulled over on what little shoulder there was on the small road and put on the four-ways. First time I’ve used the hazards since I got the vehicle, actually.

Five young people in their late teens were attempting to move a sports car out of the shallow ditch. Or rather, the two young men were, ballcaps on backwards, pushing down with all their might on the front, while one young woman in the driver’s seat gunned the engine trying to get the front wheels to bite into the long grass. The crew was rounded off by two little cuties in their tallest shoes and their best clothes, standing around uselessly making suggestions.

I walk up. “Problems?” It’s a facetious start, I know, but it seemed like the thing to ask.

“Shithead here put my car into the ditch!”

“Like hell! You were all pointing at the sky and shit!”

“You’re not the one who’s going to get into trouble for this!”

OMFG, they ditched their parent’s car while looking at that fire a couple of roads over. They were probably driving too fast and lost track of the curve in the road. This is rich. This is funny. I’ve sooo been here before. Brings back so many memories.

Getting out of something like this is easy if you have enough manpower.

“You know, this car can’t weigh that much. We can probably just push it out.”

One of the young men looks at me as if to say, are we enough?

“I mean all of us. Put it in neutral. You two on the the pillars by the doors, the rest of us on the front. It’ll move. If it moves too much, someone jump into the driver’s seat and hit the brakes.”

The chassis of the vehicle was grounded on the shoulder. To free it, all we needed to do was move it up and over half a metre, so the front wheels could get a grip on something less slick than the grass. The ditch was mostly dry, it was narrow, and our feet were able to push directly against the ground.

Getting in to the spirt of the whole affair one of the young men counted, “1, 2, 3, push!!”

And we pushed. The two little cuties made strange weak noises as they pushed against the door frames. Beside me I heard a solid grunt, not from one of the guys, but from the girl they had trying to back up the car. She was short and petite but she tensed up like a weightlifter revealing some solid upper body under that tanktop. She drove her shoulder into the grille beside mine and clenched her jaw. The four of us pushed off hard against the bank and the car rolled easily on to the road.

I smacked the dirt from my hands. “See. Easy. Reminds me of my youth.”

“Totally! Thanks man!”

Unable to resist I quipped, “No worries, but you didn’t need me. Supergirl here could have done it.”

The little ones flustered about as useless as before and the joke was mostly lost on the lads. But Supergirl sported a smug, shiteating grin on her face as I walked back to my van. Any three of them could have pushed it out if she was on the front, no problem, just nobody had figured that out.

“Alrighty then, have a good one,” I said, and with that, I drove off.

The region where I live is being migrated to 10 digit dialing for all calls, even local ones. Despite the grumblings of many of the residents, I think this change is a good thing as makes the use of the telephone system more consistent and paves the way for more numbers with non-traditional area codes (eg. 539 or 579). It also means you shouldn’t have to worry about things like when to use an area code, or remembering to start a North American long distance call with 1.

If every telephone exchange in Canada knows that every Canadian number is 10 digits long, it is much easier to parse the number. The system will know that the first three digits are always the area code. It can look up that number in a table to figure out what area the code is headed for (also figure out whether the call is bound for the USA). The next three digits are always the exchange to route to in that area. The final four are the rest of the number. I’m not an expert on these things but to me this all seems pretty simple.

But then again, my telephone company is Bell Canada. Apparently you can’t just switch a country to 10 digit dialing. I’m not sure what the technical reason is (if any), but I suspect that it has something to do with their equipment being really old, or of varying levels of sophistication throughout the land.

So as of the beginning of the month, if you don’t add the area code to a local number like 273 2636, the telephone system will berate you:

The local number you have dialed must be preceeded by its area code. Your call will now proceed. For future calls please dial the area code.

But don’t get overly enthusiastic! They don’t mean for you to put the 1 on the front either. That would be 11 digit dialing. If you dial 1 519 273 2636 the telephone system will give you this stern message:

This is a local call. Do not dial 1 or 0 before the number you are calling. This is a recording.

What they want you to do is dial 519 273 2636, which is exactly I’ve been hoping for. But alas, this seems to only work for local numbers, not long distance ones. If you dial 905 470 1000 from the Stratford area you will be told:

We’re sorry. You must dial 1 or 0 plus the area code before the number you are dialing. Will you please hang up and try your call again. This is a recording.

*sigh*

In effect, nothing has changed other than you have to dial 10 numbers for a local call instead of seven. Yay.