New One

I've actually been bit of regret purchasing this monster, but I did and there's no turning back anyway. It was in a two day sale with $150 off plus free speakers (I will sell the speakers as I've already got way better ones and hopefully get another $100 out of that)

Looking back I do think I did the right thing in terms of the price I got it for. The Studio XPS 435 which is just out is from over $2000 and with worse components, just better expandability and less noisy, with way larger chassis as well.

I've seen that many comment on this one that it's bit noisy, so I expected that and it's true. It is noisy but not that bad that you would throw it away. The expandability of it actually surprised me. The sales from Dell told me in the online chat that there would be only one PCI slot free so I was like 'well, I will not get a PCI WiFi card then, get a USB one instead and leave it for say a better sound card' and I did. But when I opened the chassis when it arrives, It actually come with 3 free PCI-Express x1 slots, well I only need one for a sound card anyway, probably a Creative X-Fi Extreme Music. Lucky I didn't get a PCI WiFi card prior cos that one doesn't actually fit in PCI-Express x1 slots...

There had been some frustration with the software side of this thing. The dardisk wasn't partitioned properly out of the factory, so I obviously have to divide it again and I actually had to hide the recovery partition myself! And after that I had to reinstall Windows, there are problems with the bluetooth thing comes with it, which I can't manage to install a so-called 'bluetooth peripheral', however it does not affect the bluetooth communication among my phone, my desktop and laptop so I just leave that alone. The Windows Vista 64-bit is bit weird, especially when it comes to media playing. I'll have to try to work this out some time. Or I'm actually considering Linux, I was to switch to Linux for my laptop but now I started to consider maybe this one is the thing that I should switch. The only thing worried me was the compatibility of the hardwares and stuff, I won't start until I got them relatively clear.

The power system is another concern of this desktop to me. It is probably more of a living room computer than a workplace one, I can't imagine my computer has lights on when it's not turned on but it has. The light itself is not a big issue, I could just turn the power supply off, but as most of my appliance is on the same surge protector I still want my phone charger on!

Hmm for the customized build part, I basically only chose the basic parts for it, although it's already more than appealing. The core components are Intel Core i7 920, X58+ICH10, 3G DDR3 1066MHz, 500G HDD, ATI Radeon 4850HD 512M. It is obviously not worth it to spend almost $1000 to upgrade to i7 940 as there's nothing much more than a 133MHz higher clock speed which I think I actually could overclock my CPU to if I want it cos the basics such as number of cores and amount of caches are absolutely the same, while the RAM and HDD could be added by myself easily later. It was said that a RAID series would match better with the performance of the system than a single hardisk, I guess so when it becomes the bottle neck of the system, with all those hi-end CPUs and graphic cards. I would actually prefer a graphic card by nVidia but it didn't provide me with a choice...

Well that's about it, my new computer. I've yet to try it on one of those hard core games but I'm definitely eager to get my hands on Diable III whenever it comes out, and I'm ready with this thing hopefully.

A Worse than Nothing Holiday?

5 reports, 1 assignment and then 2 exams after the Easter break, WTF? It's supposed to be EASTER!! Wait is Easter about the break or the suffering? I am no Christian so it is all about the break for me obviously, I should be able to demand it and the piled-up homework is all that I get.

Now, the 3rd day in 10 is almost gone, what have I done towards those? None. I've been enjoying MY days off uni so far. Which would turn into greater suffer close to the due days of the homework and exams...

Anyway, I'm going to bed and call this a day, the 3rd of 10 days' break.

Simply Moved

This is a very old piece of story. A shepherd was shepherding sheep on the hills and watching out for wolves. One day he was bored and tried to cry out 'The Wolf is coming!' and the whole village ran up the hill to help just to find out it was a lie. The shepherd found it funny and did it several times later, and people knew that he's lying and didn't bother running up the hill again. And there's one day that a wolf had really appeared, no matter how the shepherd cries no one runs up for help.

It's bit different in the McDull book, while nobody believes the shepherd again, there's still McDull running up the hills every time the shepherd cries. It wasn't that McDull does believe the shepherd, he once told the shepherd, 'If there's once that the wolf is really coming, just once, you will die. I lose nothing but weight running up every time you cry, I just don't want to risk your life.'

The Yellow Peril

Problems? Definitely.

Solutions? Definitely.

Consequences? Who cares!

I do. Although this is only a political prophetic fiction written some twenty years ago, it points out the way China (and consequently the world) is heading towards. Actually some of the scenarios described in the fiction had already happened, such as self-burning on the Tiananmen Square and the reign of Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan.

I don't know whether the once-in-800-years yellow peril would actually occur in this 21st century, which is exactly 800 years after Genghis Khan's famous western expedition into Europe.

The Yellow Peril described in the book was about the collapse of Chinese Communist Party government after the assassination of the Chinese president and a series of natural and nuclear disasters, which leads to the insane invasion of 1 billion refugees towards Russia, Western Europe, North America and Australia. The refugees are not armed, using its number and the sympathy of the Western World as weapons instead, while the crippling temporary government tried to negotiate with any nations on their way - Pakistan, Afghanistan, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Iran, Turkey etc., even Russia itself who wants toead the refugees out of the nation towards the United States, to force them to open up a corridor and give help of food and transportation on the way. Well they can't afford to deny hel lping, cos if they do, hundreds of millions of refugees will be forced to staying in the country that denies passage, which will definitely cripple that country promptly.

Well, such description of invasion is alarming, given that Chinese people (including myself) as well as other people from developing countries are already fleeing out of the country to the Western World in hope of a better life and escape from the corrupt government, a phenomenon known as Neo-Colonization.

What's ahead of us?