Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in dpk's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, April 26th, 2007
11:35 am	Syndication ronebofh set it up so my blog's RSS feed can be viewed as dpk_wp. So if you want to track my lively and entertaining blog and/or life, befriend dpk_wp on LJ! (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, October 14th, 2005
5:26 pm	Moved to dpk.net Moved my blogging stuff to dpk.net . I forgot to mention that here. Heh. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 28th, 2004
10:42 pm	Ran the R/C on the street The speedometer, 2-speed transmission, and the racing clutch arrived the other day. First thing I did was put the speedometer on and held the car up off the ground. At 3 turns (fuel needle on the carb), it went around 21mph. 2.25 turns, 31mph. The next day (today) on the road, I ran it up and down the street and got it up to 23mph. I didn't go full throttle (it's a small road), 'cause I didn't have time to stop and turn around before it left my view. I also think I found a place to run nearby on weekends - a building that's up for sale, in an empty business park. Yeehaw. Current Mood: excited (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 19th, 2004
8:21 pm	Google Oh yeah, feel free to contribute bogus search result information so I can post it on my site, http://www.dpk.net/ . I'm hoping to reverse the negative effect of the spammers, even just slightly, with some real links to real content. Current Mood: hopeful (Comment on this)
8:13 pm	R/C trouble, work I can't seem to keep the engine running for more than 5-10 seconds. It's pretty frustrating. From what I've read, this probably means that there's a problem with the fuel delivery. IE it's burning the fuel that it gets while being primed, but that's about it. It could also be air, but I kind of doubt it, since it's all set up per factory specifications. I've put up a sort of meta-journal about the RC. I know my journal isn't exactly full of life, but I think the RC stuff would clutter things up a bit with all the constant failed attempts to start it. And on to work. Boy I sure do miss the 440BX chipset, and the Adaptec 2940 cards. Life was simpler then. Everything just worked. And worked and worked and worked. More modern servers are lasting months to a year or two before having catastrophic failures (notably, the Tyan S2518 boards seem to suffer from this, big time!), where the BX boards are still running 5 years later. Nothing sucks more than having a motherboard fail, too, especially since everything is onboard nowadays. Nearly every one of our S2518 Tyan boards has failed entirely, to the point they won't even POST. I know which brand of motherboard I won't be buying for home use... Current Mood: frustrated (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 24th, 2004
4:01 pm	Ran the R/C I ran the car for the first time, after running a tank through it idle. I can tell this thing is going to be fast and fun. The area I ran it in is a short driveway, surrounded by dirt, so it did get kind of dirty - going to have to clean out the springs a bit. :) Still, totally fun. Can't wait to go full throttle, or to start upgrading it. Current Mood: excited (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 15th, 2004
12:26 pm	Planned upgrades for the R/C I've yet to break in the car - however I can't help but plan what I'd like to do to make it even better/faster. This is a personal "wish list", heh. From the parts list at Tower Hobbies. (link fixed, dunno why I had a bestbuy link) 2-speed transmission Lightweight flywheel Aluminum exhaust header Not sure what else. I didn't see one, but it'd be neat if there was a way to hook up a servo to the carburetor instead of having to do it all by hand. Current Mood: giddy (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 14th, 2004
6:50 pm	Saitek joysticks cause cancer? I recently received a very nice Saitek Cyborg Evo joystick as a gift. It has received glowing and positive reviews. I'm looking forward to using it. I've owned a Saitek joystick before, and on its USB cable was a yellow label warning me to make sure to install the drivers before plugging in the joystick, or else I was going to be in a world of trouble getting it to work. This joystick, the Evo, has a different label. What the hell? I've looked around online and haven't found any mention of this on websites or forums, but I may have missed it. How did lead get on the cable? How much lead? Has anyone researched this? I'm not exactly the type to be super paranoid about my own health, but I find this just a little more than odd... Current Mood: confused (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 12th, 2004
8:40 pm	New hobby I finally took the plunge, and bought in to a new hobby. R/C car racing. I'm starting out with a HPI RS4 RTR (ready to run) kit, hoping to add hop-up parts to it as I go, and maybe eventually get a from-scratch kit later on. Going to have to find a place or a club to join that does nitro racing, but I don't think that'll be too hard. Opening of the box: Pic 1 Pic 2 Current Mood: excited (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 14th, 2003
11:18 am	WMD Well, that's wonderful guys. You've found Saddam. Now, how about you go and find some Weapons of Mass Destruction that you claimed existed in the country, huh? I'm not happy about spending $87B(plus whatever lead up to it, all unaccountable to our representation) to find one man - that is fucking stupid, and doesn't make us any safer. Current Mood: angry (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2003
3:12 pm	Discoveries I just did my first few runs on the new board, and I've discovered some things: Snoqualmie's Summit West is pretty empty on Wednesdays in the early parts of the season. My bindings suck. I suck. I just can't get the hang of almost anything toe-side. I can go down the whole mountain without falling on my heel-side, but that's boring. I think I just have trouble maintaining proper center of gravity while I go toe-side (body facing up the hill, head facing forward). I'm going to look around for resources before I attempt classes (which may or may not help, heh.) Oh and about the bindings... they're cheap, and they flex. I think they flex enough that the board isn't getting any of the flex action. They also came loose from all the crashing I did, which wasn't their fault. ;) Good thing I got one of those multitool dealies at the shop. Current Mood: sore (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 29th, 2003
11:06 am	Yay Got my snowboard via Fedex today. Fedex rocks, by the way. Now I just have to figure out how to put this thing together. I've never done this part before. I'm looking for tab a, I think it needs to go in slot b. I picked up the board from a Google ad for "boardsforless.com", a Yahoo store. The board I got was the Sprinter Silence '03. It looks pretty sweet. The design on it is very plain - it was one of the few plain designs there actually. I picked it based on price and design - I couldn't find any reviews for it. In fact, finding review sites has been quite a chore - the only one I did find had user reviews which were not moderated, and as such could have easily been astroturfing. Not interested. Anyone know of a good snowboarding magazine? Current Mood: excited (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 20th, 2003
6:13 pm	A disturbing read The story of a Canadian sent to Syria by the U.S. and tortured. Man. The whole description of the torture and the forced signing of documents without being allowed to read them plays out just like I remember the book 1984. The U.S. officials in there said that since he isn't a U.S. citizen he had no rights, even though our Constitution was created based on the *fact* that we have rights merely by being human. As such, the U.S. is disclaiming accountability for this. How can I, as a U.S. citizen, react to this? Who do I call upon to resolve this injustice, if they are just going to say that he wasn't a citizen, "so it's OK." I feel so helpless. It's not like voting could affect it - how do you vote to force recognition of the values of the Constitution? I'm not aware of a national election that would go towards this end. The most I've seen is that we can elect representatives. But then they can select whomever they want to run things - like George W. Bush did with John Ashcroft (the man who lost an election to a dead man) - and those people are empowered (whether by policy or by "fact of life") to make actual change to our country. There's no hope left is there? Current Mood: pissed off (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 7th, 2003
1:32 pm	Final Fantasy XI Online #2 I just hooked up my PS2 gamepad to my PC (formerly used for Midnight Club 2) - man, what a difference. Not having to deal with the left and right mouse buttons, and dragging around, and inevitably accidentally clicking the landscape makes the game a _LOT_ more playable. I can't emphasize that enough. I'm still getting the hang of the story line and what part I play in it. I'm getting some good info from the boards at Stratics per usual. My character Mobian suffered a permanent death. I figured, I need to start over with the new knowledge I had. Plus I was stuck on some mission and I couldn't figure out how to get out of it. The new character's name is Ryuh, but I don't remember what server she's on. Anyways, with the PS2 gamepad, the game plays a lot more smoothly - with the interface issues out of the way, I can concentrate on actual gameplay. Which, actually, ain't that bad. I'm looking forward to making in-game friends that I can group with, in later levels. It looks like that's going to be Where It's At. I do think I may have been too harsh in my initial post. Current Mood: calm (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 5th, 2003
3:37 pm	Nextel Nextel has got to be the worst cell provider ever. I miss at least half of the calls that come in, at least according to those who are persistent and keep trying to reach me. My voicemail notifications come in days late, or just out of the blue when the phone was never called. I'm sure glad alternatives are popping up that have that two-way "Push to Talk" feature. Here's hoping for interoperability... yeah right.. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 4th, 2003
3:02 pm	Geekness My Visor just reminded me of a doctor's appointment I have today. I completely forgot that was today. Man, I am sure glad to have this device, even though any more I mostly use it as a calendar/memo pad. Upon reflection, I'm a major geek to depend on an electronic device so much. That makes me think how much geekier I could be with more devices: Handlight - How many times have you wished you had a flashlight but either didn't have a free hand, or couldn't remember where you put yours? It would be cool (and geeky) to have a light-weight low-profile "glove" that contained 3 LED flashlights - 1 on the pointer finger, 1 on the middle finger, and 1 in the center of your palm pointed out. You'd turn them on or off with quick finger movements, or for the palm light, perhaps with your thumb. Slower movements wouldn't disturb them. Powered by N-cell batteries on the back of your hand. OK so I only have one right now. Current Mood: geeky (Comment on this)
Monday, November 3rd, 2003
1:39 pm	Final Fantasy XI Online I picked up this game pretty recently. Now, when reading this mini-review, it's probably important to realize I spent over a year on EverQuest, and several months on UO, as well as time on many other MMOGs. I developed a lot of opinions, especially while playing EQ. My first impression of Final Fantasy XI is that it is almost exactly like EverQuest, but without the ability to jump, and with a more awkward interface (keyboard and mouse). It took 3 or 4 hours to install entirely, including all of the patching (8500 or so files had to be updated, why the installer didn't see that while it was running is beyond me.) There are fewer monsters in the newbie area than I'm used to, but gaining experience isn't as slow (keep in mind I'm on the early levels so far). The Job system is interesting, whereby you can choose your class more or less "on the fly", and then gain experience in each class separately. Getting used to the navigation system takes time. The mouse cursor is rather hard to see, so when you right-click to change the view, you don't always know where the camera is going to fly off to. Selecting monsters or doors with the mouse is really tough - often I end up clicking either nothing (which pulls up a menu and throws the mouse cursor way off to the left) or myself. I don't know if I'll stick with this game or not. So far nothing has lept out and grabbed me and said "David, this is THE GAME you've been looking for." I've picked up more ideas of how I wouldn't do things than how I would, if I were to create my own game. This will be a "review in motion", heh. I haven't played it long enough to write it all up in one post, although I guess I could summarize my thoughts later on. Btw, I'm player Mobian on server Unicorn, in case you're on that server already. That's another thing, but I'll let these links speak to that. (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 1st, 2003
10:50 pm	Abit KD7A hang Sometimes my motherboard only sees half the RAM, and when it does, it's like half of one stick and half the other (according to Sandra, bank 0 and bank 3, for instance, where 0 & 1 are on one stick and 2 & 3 are on another). Too weird. I'm using all defaults on BIOS except the drive settings. Geil PC3200 RAM. I haven't been able to find anyone talking about this problem online, but hopefully this'll get indexed and then maybe someone will have an idea. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2003
6:17 pm	Razer Boomslang 1000 I just picked up a whole batch of Boomslang 1000's on a tip. Don't worry, they were cheap. Here's the thing though. I can't seem to figure out how the hell to get the coolest feature - the on-the-fly sensitivty changing to work at all. Nothing shows up on screen, sensitivity doesn't change, etc. Any help out there? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 27th, 2003
6:55 pm	Homeworld 2 I realize there are more ideas than people to implement them, when it comes to computer gaming, but one thing I'd really like to see is a multiplayer Homeworld-type game where you can assign squadrons to other players, and then assign "goals" to them. You, as the "general" would handle resources while they'd go and shoot up the folks. Maybe people could take turns being general. No need to stop with 2 levels either - why not have unlimited numbers of ranks? And why not allow for a cell structure (if you so choose)? That'd be a fun game to participate in. (Comment on this)