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December 16, 2003
Work?
You know you're working long hours when you get off work, and the only three cars in sight at work are the security guard's, your boss', and your own.
You know you're working way too much unpaid overtime when this scene repeats itself twice in the previous week alone...
(psst! you-know-who-you-are, are you finally done with those two 15 page papers and that 5 page paper yet? finals week ended last friday, you know! :o )
Posted by brian at 10:18 PM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2003
Benchmarking USB 2.0 flash readers...
I've been sitting here unscientifically benchmarking two different USB 2.0 8-n-1 flash readers all evening. The results aren't what Steve's Digicams lead me to believe.
All testing is on an MSI K7N2Delta-ILSR motherboard on Windows XP w/SP1. System components are fast enough not to slow down USB, although Windows XP's SCSI write caching flag may be affecting testing? I'm only testing xD performance, as that's the only media I have here. All tests use a 256MB Fuji xD card.
The first reader I got was a Lexar 8-n-1. I tested it a while ago, but here are tonight's results.
1:23 read 103MB (pictures)
2:50 write 103MB
6:15 write 119MB (pictures)
1:09 read 119MB
I wasn't exactly happy with the performance... so I picked up a SanDisk 8-n-1 tonight.
6:07 write 119MB (pictures)
0:10 read 119MB (read results appear cached)
0:13 read 119MB (read results appear cached)
3:40 write 133MB (MP3s)
0:15 read 133MB (read results appear cached)
2:20 read 167MB (video)
1:11 read 103MB (video and a very few pictures)
5:37 write 99MB (video and pictures)
0:52 read 99MB (video and pictures)
4:29 write 59MB (pictures and one video)
0:16 read 59MB (pictures and one video)
5:18 read 102MB (pictures-- cache cleared)
Notice the weirdass, very fast results for the SanDisk-- this appears to be because of the OS's read and write caching.
Suffice it to say, I originally thought the SanDisk was much, much faster... now I'm not so sure. It may actually be slower (!).
Write speed on both units looks about the same, so I'm willing to wager that both units actually read about the same speed once you get caching issues out of the way. Both drives autodetect as the same in Windows too, so I suspect both us the same internal chipset...
Well, it was a cheap experiment at least, since the SanDisk cost me just $8 after rebate-- I need a USB flash reader so a while ago I bought the Lexar... I wasn't going to pay $30 again for the Sandisk, but heck I can handle $8!
Posted by brian at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2003
Ouch.
I know finals are painful and ugly and crap... so... to everyone who still has them, good luck!
Something I remember about finals: I know I just can't study with some of my friends.
Alicia, for example, kicked my *ss in engineering, still graduated with better grades than I did and did it in 4 years. And I STILL haven't figured out when she actually studies, 'cause appearantly she doesn't...
Then there's Pearl, who is a master of procrastination, much like I am. Only she's much worse. I enjoy cramming and pain, but she takes it to suicidal levels.
She's known about her 35 pages worth of final papers for at least the last 7 days, maybe longer, and yet she's got less than 22 hours left and she still has 22 pages to write! Man. There's finals, which cause pain and suffering, there's stupidity, which causes greater pain and suffering, and then there's self-abuse, which Pearl seems to excel in.
So if you're as screwed as Pearl is (either intentionally, unintentionally, by design, or otherwise)... GOOD LUCK! Let me know if you need an ambulance out from your last final, I'll be sure to arrange for one. =P
Posted by brian at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2003
Updates. At last.
Gallery updates, at last... work hasn't killed me yet, but some other stuff (grad school apps and paperwork in general) may make things really miserable ASAP...
Update one: (already mentioned earlier, I think) out with Sophia, Vanessa, and Pearl.
Update two: Weekend of November 22nd... Nicole came down to visit Barry, plus Thomas and Umi's birthdays.
Update three: out with Pearl's friends... as Amy calls it, the MSJ crew.
Posted by brian at 10:50 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2003
Quiz time again...
In lieu of actual content, enjoy this quiz... I'll have pics up sometime this week, I hope!
Kev came by and we built his PC today. Finally got those parts out of my apartment after a week... although it was awfully tempting to keep his P4-2.8ghz/800FSB with 2GB of DDR400 for myself... =P
Fight Club!
What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla
Posted by brian at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2003
Busy...
Too busy lately. Just enough stuff going on, combined with the need to go out and play, to keep me very tired... tired enough that I don't feel like updating too often.
Some new pictures with Sophia, Vanessa, and Pearl are up though. That'll do for now... too tired to mention the rest... I'll get pictures up as soon as I can... hopefully things will involve more rest for me after this week!
Posted by brian at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2003
Quiz time!
Stolen from Katrina's xanga.
You are the pilot.
Saint Exupery's 'The Little Prince' Quiz.
brought to you by Quizilla
Posted by brian at 09:25 PM | Comments (0)