While I've been using the Power Options in Windows according to the situation, I've never truly explored the settings for each choice. After accidentally finding out that the Power Button on the chassis (aka casing) was really to put it to Sleep mode when it's already switched on, I decided I had to change that and I might as well look at the various settings while I'm at it.
So as I searched for the option to change what the Power Button does, I saw that in Power Saver mode everything works the same as all the other choices except 2 things. First, my display turns off within a minute of inactivity. Second, the maximum processor power is reduced to 50%.
My AMD Phenom II X4 955 processor has TDP of 125W, where TDP basically is the same as "energy consumption rate". This means my Power Saver mode saves at least 62.5Wh per hour. Throw in another 45W for turning off my monitor and depending on the rates, it can save me quite a bit on bills than if I leave everything on all day.
Looking on the less positive side, it also means I'm using a horrendous amount of power when I turn my desktop on. I mean, the Intel's price equivalent of my processor, the Quad 9550 or something like that, uses only 95W max.
Since I'm on the topic of computers (again), my computer is crashing randomly while in Windows. I don't know what is wrong, but the only advanced setting I've changed that might cause this is the page pool memory size. So I've reduced it from the original over 300Mb to over 200Mb. Hope this works.
The Catholic Church supports, of all things, stem cell research?!? Incredible! This aspect of biological science is possibly one of the most controversial issues out there in the scientific world because of their experiments and sources of stem cells. Of course, the potential uses of stem cells are limitless. Among all the sciences in the modern world, I feel it's the most likely to create immortality.
A new mod for Half Life 2 was just released a day ago. I've been checking its page since the 3rd of July and it was released on the 4th of July.
This new mod is called NeoTokyo and as its name suggests, its all very Japanese-anime-looking. Based on Ghost in a Shell and 5 years in the making, this mod is the best designed among all Half Life 2 mods.
Too bad it's just not my cup of tea. It's basically the same sort of game as CS - killing each other - but with an additonal "capture the flag" objective.
The only reason I play a little of it now is because it's built so much hype before release that there are hundreds of servers running this game and quite a lot of players on them. Many of the servers running during the day (again, local time) are Japanese servers. Though I haven't played in these servers, the fact that they're all labelled "JP ONLY" in their names gives me an idea of its popularity in Animeland.
Even Empires is losing players to it. Yesterday before the release during a game some of the players were already discussing about forming a NeoTokyo clan. Today, many of the servers began dying before the usual time. My only conclusion is that the players are playing the newer game now.
Palin, famous for being the most important bimbo milf (at least on the intarwebs) in the US government, is quitting her job as the governor of Alaska.
You'd be surprised by the amount of fake nude pics of her available online. I know I was. Hell, there's even an American porno film starring a Palin look-alike.
Described as a very conservative Republican, she won her position by supporting a natural gas pipeline project in Alaska. Apparently, religious people aren't necessarily eco-friendly people.
This article is so true. People look so different before and after they die, as if the act of dying changes a person's image instantly.
2 days without crashing. 2 changes I've made so far - not opening Folding@Home and reduced the paged pool memory size. 2 days doesn't show anything, but it sure makes me less annoyed.
This is now my wallpaper. It's one of those few in my collection that doesn't turn horribly blur when I expand it to my monitor's resolution. Hard to find good wallpapers with large resolutions.And it's deliciously hawt.
Just found a seemingly impossible obstacle in Mass Effect on Insanity mode. I've mentioned before that I've always found the boss battle at Liara's Dig Site very tough; now it turns out it's close to impossible on the highest difficulty level the game has to offer.
Basically my team has to take down 2 Geth Shock Troopers, a Geth Rocket Trooper, a Geth Sniper and the almost invulnerable Krogan Battlemaster.
The geths are alright; I learnt how to handle them after two tries. The Battlemaster is the one that's giving me a headache. The geths always charge towards me (except for the cowardly sniper who hides behind the crate throughout the fight) so I can just dive behind a cover and snipe them all to hell.
Unlike the geths, the Krogan Battlemaster has a very deadly weapon - the melee smash - and it takes merely a hit to kill me. He normally hides behind cover, but when I reduce his HP to around 40% he would charge towards me and smash me to bits.
Now the problem is I can't kill him before he reaches me! The only thing I can think of now, after calming down, is to Throw him away (biotic skill) and throw a grenade at him and snipe him all at once.
I haven't been able to Throw him since I was too busy running so I have no idea if my low-level Throw can stop him long enough. I wish I can undo my skill points on Electronics. I had spent most of my skill points on this and Decryption before I remembered that I was going to have Tali for the rest of the game. If I had kept that in mind from the start, I would have had to master one of the two container-unlocking skills and let Tali handle the other. Then I would have had more points to learn either Stasis or Medicine.
As of now, I have zero point on both of them. The reason why I want them is that they, together with Throw, are the three skills I have that can disable enemies temporarily.
Ah well, I'll just have to make do with what I have now. I have to make it work, or I'll have to reload a previous save which is very far away.
I haven't been drinking tea for a number of months, maybe even a year, despite my mum's daily pot of tea always placed right next to the kettle. When my bro's friend bought a small carton of Twinnings tea for him, I was curious about how different it was compared to the other teas I've tasted before.
It's a collection of 5 different teas, 5 packets each. There are Assam, Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Ceylon and English Breakfast. This morning (5th July) I opened it and tried a packet of Assam.
Being no tea connoisseur, all teas taste about the same to me. The only 4 teas I can identify are Pu Li, Tie Guan Yin, green tea and Lipton Red Tea. And peach tea, lemon tea and etc and whatever fancy artificial bottled teas you can think of. I'd have to have no tastebuds whatsoever to be unable to know apple tea when I taste it.
Anyway, after 2 cups of Assam tea (from the same packet), I filled my empty mug with my mum's special blend of Tie Guan Yin.
They are worlds apart, to say the least.
The Assam tea was light with a little long-lasting aftertaste. The Tie Guan Yin was very strong and filled with that sour taste at the back of my tongue (acidic taste?) but fills my mouth with a nice aftertaste. Compared to the black tea, the tea from the tea bag was... in Cantonese we say it's bland as a nun's piss.
I'm not saying either of them is better than the other, but I'd prefer the black tea to be a little more diluted. The acidic taste is rather unpleasant, which is why ever since I was a child I've always diluted it with 1 part tea to around 5 parts water. I'm not a hardcore drinker after all.
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