I have a new monitor!

I was given a used 17" monitor, and it rocks! I did not know how fuzzy my old 17" NEC Multisync was getting, but this new one is wonderously sharp. I'm quite beside myself with joy. Honestly! Perhaps the sweetest thing about it is it is so LIGHT! Speaking as someone who has shlepped a lot of monitors over the years, a light 17"er is a great thing.

I jumped on City of Heroes last night for an hour or so, ran into my old friend Dan, and with this monitor, coupled with my new video card and new sound card, I had a great time. One mission that we did had vampire-generating pools, great visual effects with the water. Another mission we were fighting zombies, then later on, a giant tiki god. Dan sat back and played sniper and healed me while I ran in like a buzz saw mowing these things down. When I was chewing up the tiki god, there was Polynesian music playing, but only when you were close to it.

Lots of fun!

If you REALLY need to cool that computer, why not use a jet engine?

That's what Hewlett-Packard is doing.
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16992&ch=infotech

I haven't finished reading the entire article, but I would think noise might be a bit of an issue. It would be interesting to feel a substantial breeze when working in the server room.


Oh, I forgot the obligatory Slashdot reference:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/16/1247236

If you can't name the Ten Commandments, should you sponser a law to display them?

Colbert had a congresscritter on his show who sponsered a bill to require the display of the Ten Commandments in Congress, he could name three of the ten.

http://gorillamask.net/colbert10c.shtml

Pope makes first Papal Visit to Six Flags

Gotta love The Onion!

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/49419

Cancer updates

Two of my friends have cancer right now: Kris, with breast cancer, and Jim, with colon cancer. Jim went into the hospital today and presumably has had the operation already. Kris has responded quite well to chemo, though she has had some adverse reactions to the drugs and they've had to change them a couple of times.

Jim sent the following email out yesterday and I wanted to post it: (phone numbers redacted)
( Read more... )

Jim has been amazing through this, at least publicly. He's really kept his spirits up, and that's a lot of the battle. If you let cancer beat you emotionally, it'll probably beat you physically. He was fortunate in that his tumor was caught fairly early and had not yet spread. It responded well to treatment, and through chemo and radiation therapies, it has shrunk to 25% of its original size. He's got about as much lined up in his favor, but there are still significant risks when it comes to any surgery, and you never know.

I spoke with him last night. He's still putting up a pretty brave face, but he's also rattled. He's never had surgery before (I've been under the knife seven times, not counting wisdom teeth extraction) and he wasn't happy, but it was truly a case of "do this or die."

I pray he'll still be around for me to see him when I'm back in Phoenix next month. I've lost too many friends over the last couple of years, I don't want to go to another funeral any time soon.