53 turns out to be the normal temperature on an average day that isn't particularly cool or warm. The computer had been left idling for an hour or two because I restarted it for a hard disk scan while I took a nap. Opening Firefox to blog this doesn't affect the temperature. No air conditioning atm.
First, 53 is much warmer than I expected. I thought it was supposed to reach the ambient (room) temperature when nothing is happening. This means my air conditioner doesn't actually significantly lower the temperature in my computer and probably only helps in reducing the fan speeds or cools down the computer when I stop gaming.
Second, surfing the internet doesn't use much resources. For my computer the temperature merely rises 1 degree when my browser is open with 6 different tabs for 10 mins. Therefore, if you are planning to buy a computer just for work and internet, do yourself a favour and buy a really cheap one at S$1k or less.
Surfing the internet is a waste of my computer's life expectancy :\
If only there's a way to use this waste heat. Too bad there's no way to run some water pipes through my computer or I could use it as a water heater. I keep it on all most of the day anyway.
I was going to remind Vic to update his blog (it's become a routine) but decided not to. If it feels like such a chore, it is understandable if he lets the blog die. After all, this is supposed to be a leisure activity. We don't get money for this and, in my case, this is merely one of many possible ways to store my memories. If this feels like work, maybe it should be stopped.
I know I would if I begin to see this as work. This should explain why I don't have a set schedule, I don't want one of those chatboxes here and I didn't reply to the majority of the comments on this blog. I want absolutely no obligation regarding this.
In this era where, in some places, an adult male cannot be left alone with kids without being suspected as a paedophile, I think that maybe male private tutors should bring along a webcam/laptop or video recorder during their sessions. These can then allow the students to go through anything they forgot during the lessons and to provide evidence that nothing illegal happened.
Cost is the problem.
Front Mission Evolved given a mediocre rating by Gamepot of 5.5 out of 10 for both PS3 and XBox. Final Fantasy 14 was given a scathing review complete with a score of 4.0 out of 10 by the same website.
Gamespot is looking more credible now.
No way I'm buying FFXIV in the foreseeable future. Same with FME.
So L4D2 always crashes my video card. It's not the only game that does that but it shows that the problem does not have anything to do with the temperature.
Hmm.. the device manager is wrong! My driver isn't up-to-date!
Just checked the website and there is a newer version available even though the device manager says mine is the latest.
Let's see if things work better after tonight. But just in case, I also googled "nvidia gts 285 crash" and one of the result pages advised that I use this programme called "Driver Sweeper". Apparently it worked for someone who had the same problem.
So I did. I just installed it, check the option for NVIDIA-Display, then Analyze and finally Clean.
It asked me to restart after that so I let it, but when it rebooted the resolution was the smallest possible for the monitor. Fortunately the computer was still working fine so I went to the Device Manager, where it was displaying an error in my graphics card that said something about missing or damaged files in the driver or something.
Got me worried that the Driver Sweeper swept too many files away, so I tried to reinstall the latest driver which I didn't delete. After that, I rebooted and everything is alright again.
Phew.
29 countries are alarmingly hungry. XD
Makes me feel a little more guilty about throwing away spoilt food. Just yesterday I had to dump 5 bad oranges that were used as offerings for my late father. Nobody ate them because there is simply too much food at home.
We are throwing away two meals a day at least, excluding the fruits and the spread of roasted meats and stuff we buy every first and fifteenth day of each lunar month. It just makes things worse to know our wastage isn't even a tiny bit of the tip of the iceberg.
Think about all the restaurants and supermarkets. Just the amount of waste from the buffet restaurants is pretty overwhelming. Then we have the fresh food sections that are always kept full in supermarkets. All those unsold goods that turned bad can only go one way - the bin.
It just makes me think that maybe the freedom to choose isn't all that great for the planet.
This isn't the first time I've thought about that and it probably won't be the last.
It feels like hypocrisy to believe in both democracy and conservation, if you think about it.
To have the freedom to choose what to eat, you need to be offered a range of options. Since we cannot order directly from farms, this only means they must slaughter and harvest everything before we even begin to pick. One safe assumption we can then make here is that it is impossible that we would choose to take everything, because while our choices may be random, the variety of choices is not. Therefore there must always be excess so that we can always find what we want.
Without the ability to order directly from the farms, the freedom to choose your food comes at the expense of the environment.
And those children in those 29 countries, they're hungry so that we can pick what we eat. The wealthier countries have bought their food so that their own citizens can select from a wide range of products whenever they walk down the aisles of the supermarkets.
To reduce hunger and keep our selection of food available, there can be only one option at the moment - let their birth rates go below their death rates.
Until the day the farmers are able to harvest exactly what we need, what I'm suggesting cannot be wrong, only immoral. But if morality is allowed to guide everyone's decisions, the entire world would be Marxist.
So far I have no desire to play ME2 again. I guess it just shows how much I like the game.
It would have been much better if they had kept the planet exploration the same using the Mako vehicle instead of that boring planetary subterranean scanner.Salted egg as a snack. Cheaper than potato chips, and saltier. They're easy to prepare too. The black charcoal crust they come in can be removed simply by gripping each end of the egg and twisting in opposite directions. At first I thought I had to scrape it off with fingers or a knife but apparently it's easier than that.
Also, bad ones explode in boiling water. Not crack, not leak. Explode.
Salted eggs always remind me of how my father used to tell me that he used to have only half a salted egg to go with one bowl of porridge for each meal. And according to him, he and my great-grandmother were not the poorest in the village. At least they could afford a salted egg for every meal and enough porridge to leave them only slightly hungry after eating.
Other families had to tie a belt or rope around their bellies tightly before each meal. One hung a salted fish on top of a wall to look at while they ate their plain porridge.
People like me will never know poverty no matter how much I read and listen. As a boy, I used to get scolded by my father for finishing the salted eggs too fast. I could finish an entire egg and down only half a bowl of porridge.
Now I've even eaten a whole salted egg by itself. Wonder what he would have said about that.
"Son, you're hardcore. I'm proud of you."
很像很爽。
I wonder if my bro can taste food. He never seems to enjoy eating anything. Give him anything nice to drink, eg iced Milo, and he gulps it down like water. McDonald's breakfast, normal breakfast from the market, or home-cooked breakfast, don't matter. He just swallows them at max speed.
Does he have taste buds? Or has he been eating purely for the sake of filling his stomach throughout his life?
And it's not just this because I, too, eat quickly. The difference is that he has only 2 grades for all food - "okay" and "not very good".
Gives me no pleasure to cook for him. At least my mum might give me a tiny bit of feedback. Asking my bro for comments is no different from asking if my food is edible. Hence I only cook for myself these days. It's boring to cook for 1 person.
But I can't invite people for my cooking for two reasons:
1) It's a spontaneous thing for me. It's like one day I just wake up and feel like cooking, so I cook. Or while surfing the net I suddenly spot a recipe I feel like trying, so I do it.
2) There is no guarantee of quality. Since it's a spontaneous thing, it means I don't do it regularly.
3) Like my attitude towards this blog, I want minimal obligations in life. In fact I have this attitude towards everything I do, including in games.
I've had people asking me to cook for them when I tell them I only cook for myself nowadays. The first instance of this was probably when my mum told the hairdressers/barbers/whatever we frequent that I've been cooking spaghetti and baked rice at home. Then when I went there just for a simple haircut they began discussing the topic, likely out of boredom.
That was followed by the request. It was awkwardly hard to reject but I did. There was no excuse to not do it, technically speaking. The girls work just across the road from 10 to 10 every single day.
They knew I was full of shit when I said it was troublesome to bring over the whole tray of food, and I know they knew. In fact, it was they who suggested that reason and I just agreed. Not exactly a proud moment of my life.
Seriously, I always just sit there ready to doze off when I get my hair cut. I was definitely not prepared for conversation of any sort when I went there. I only expect 15-30 mins of boredom and semi-sleep.
I'm not the sort who wants to cook just because someone asked. Furthermore, at my rate of practice it is going to be a long time before I become satisfied with my cooking, so there really is no point in asking me to cook for anyone at the moment.
The only dish I'm actually satisfied was at this point in time is the chicken breast with sage.
As for my bro and his gf, they're a perfect match when it comes to food. Both appear to gustatorily challenged.
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