Moore Stuff

I have not been able to post here in a week, and I apologize for that.  But after 3½ long years of having the same ol’ Athlon 64 3400 system, I have finally moved into the modern age.  I am now writing this on a brand new quad-core Q6600 overclocked to 3.0 GHz w/ 2 GBs of RAM and a 8600GT video card.  Now, of course I could’ve splurged and gotten some Q9450 w/ 4 GBs of RAM and SLI GeForce 9800 video cards … but what’s the point of that?

My family has always been, let’s say “frugal.”  Not cheap, but frugal.  It stems from my great-grandmother Waldrop.  She never had a lot of money, and always saved it when she could.  The funny thing is, all of us decended from her have been the same way.  She died 40 years before I was born, so it wasn’t her influence or anything.  I don’t know if its genetic or what.  But when we save some money like that, its a family joke that we say “That’s the Waldrop in you.”

Well, I purchased this PC in much the same way.  First, I hate store-bought PC’s.  When you buy a Dell or HP or Sony Vaio, you’re buying a system that they fill with mediocre parts, and is loaded w/ tons of crapware.  So I buy the parts piece-by-piece.  When you buy PC’s like this, its similar in a lot of way to playing the stock market.  Set your target price, wait until it reaches it, then pounce.  So, let me explain (and forgive me if I get too geeky here)…

So, first, I waited until the April 20 Intel processor price drops, waiting for a Q6600 processor to fall below $200.  I finally found that when MicroCenter had a Q6600 for $180.  Then I got a motherboard (DFI DK P35 T2RS) for $130, waiting until it wen’t on sale.  Then, I took advantage of the really cheap DDR2 prices lately, and got 2GBs of DDR2 800 for $45.  I used a $40 mail in rebate at Buy.com to get a Corsair VX550 power supply for $50.  And I got a Cooler Master Centurion case for $20 when CompUSA was going out of business.  Throw in an Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro for $27, and I spent about $500 for a PC that would cost you $900 at your local Best Buy.

Where I really saved money, though, was by not spending that extra $400 on prepackaged junk that I didn’t need. I already have a 22″ widescreen monitor, so I don’t need a stupid 17″.  I already have a Logitech MX 3200 mouse and keyboard, which, for $50 is far superior to any stupid ball-mouse HP would throw in the box.  And, I already have a Logitech X-540 5.1ch speaker system (which I got for $50 once), which would be far better than any tinny, pathetic speakers that come bundled.

And, by getting top quality parts on the stuff I did buy, I can overclock this processor to 25% beyond its rated specs (and probably a lot more).  PCs made by most manufacturers (except the boutique outlets) are usually not overclockable, because you can screw things up if you don’t know what you’re doing.  But, since I and people like me do know what we’re doing, we can crank up the speed.

Now, the downside (as some see it) would be that you don’t get any tech support.  And that’s scary to a lot of people.  But, here’s the nice thing…  When you build a PC yourself, you’ll learn so much about it that you won’t need tech support.

So, unless you’re deathly afraid of technology, I’d advise anyone wanting to have a really good desktop PC, to build it yourself.  Not only do you get top quality parts on the stuff you buy, you save money by not buying parts that you don’t need.  Spending money, and saving it at the same time is a great feeling…

But I guess that’s just the Waldrop in me.

One of the best deals around is Woot!  Especially when they have a woot-off.  One of the most elusive things to get is the Bag of Crap.  If you don’t know what this is, let me explain.

When Woot! is having its woot-off, one item will suddenly appear called “Random Crap” with a price of $1 + $5 shipping.  You can order up to a maximum of 3 bags, which you should absolutely do, because the shipping cost is $5 whether you order 1 or 3.  Woot! makes no promises as to what you get … you simply get what they throw in the box.

But you can get some weird stuff.  Case in point…

I found this on my doorstep this morning.  This is from the woot-off two weeks ago, in which I managed to get a Bag of Crap, after trying 3 times over the past six months.  The contents of the box are these:

• 1 iRobot Roomba Discovery (with what looks like all its parts), worth ~$150.
• 12 boxes of 18 pods of Dark Sienna coffee (216 pots of coffee, wow!), worth ~$60-70
• 1 Woot! bucket, worth ???
• 1 Die-cast metal toy, worth ~$10.

Not a bad deal for $8.

I was reading an article on Newsday.com about Mike D’Antoni going to coach the Knicks (for the life of me, I have no idea why). But the article mentions one thing which got me thinking:

The Knicks also have a lottery pick in the upcoming draft and, if things fall their way, hope to be in position to draft point guard Derrick Rose of Memphis… The Knicks, who sit in the fifth position, have not won it since 1985, when they drafted Patrick Ewing.

For years, I’ve heard rumors about the 1985 Draft Lottery. It was the first year they implemented the lottery, and it was a straight 1/7 odds of getting the first draft pick. Everyone knew that the first pick would be Ewing.

Because the Knicks lived and worked in the same city as the NBA offices, the Knicks were a source of embarrasment for the league. In the years leading up to the ‘85 draft, the Knicks stank, going 24-58 in ‘84-85. They had been .500 or below for over a decade, and, rumor has it, the NBA wanted it to stop.

So, the facts of the case were these: Indiana and Golden State finished w/ worse records (22-60) than the Knicks. So, a two-step process was enacted. First, instead of having a coin-flip between the Pacers and Warriors (as they had always done before), the NBA implemented the lottery, to put the Knicks in play for #1. Then, when it comes time to pick their envelope, mark their envelope, so you can draw them #1.

Think its crazy? Check out the evidence at about 4:50 in:

As the guy puts the envelopes in, one envelope gets knocked around pretty good, and has its corners bent-up. That was the envelope that was the Knicks’ envelope (the one he pulled out at about 5:30). Also note how Stern looks down at what envelope he’s picking, and goes by several others to pick the bent-corner envelope. Only after that does he not look at what envelopes he’s picking.

I mention this because of the upcoming draft lottery . The Knicks, once again, stink. I sure hope people won’t look back at the 2008 lottery and wonder if it too was rigged.

http://www.charlotte.com/109/story/617846.html

A followup to my post yesterday, our local paper had an article today about overzealous weather policies by local TV stations.  Let me say again, I whole-heartedly agree with WBTV’s recent change to cover severe weather w/ a crawl, and only break-in to coverage when absolutely necessary.

By insisting on breaking-in to coverage at the drop of a hat, WSOC and WCNC are going to find themselves cyring wolf.

http://justyouwatch.blogspot.com/2008/05/tornadoes-ruin-big-tv-night.html

I couldn’t believe my eyes tonight as I witnessed both our local ABC and NBC affiliates here in Charlotte allowed the weather geeks to run roughshod over the station managers and interrupted Earl, Office, Scrubs, 30 Rock, Grey’s, etc., simply because of a few severe thunderstorms.

I don’t mean to minimize the plight of the people in the storms. But when I’m inside a severe storm, the last thing I have is a TV. Either the power is out, or cable is out. Consequently, the only people who care about your First Warn Super Doppler 3000 report CAN’T EVEN SEE IT! Meanwhile, the rest of us are sitting there, without a single raindrop falling, looking at Steve Udelson’s dorky face telling us every 45 secs to seek shelter. ITS A TORNADO, STEVE! THEY KNOW THAT! For two solid hours tonight, one station kept repeating the same information over and over and over every 3 minutes.

The problem is that weather geeks have gone too far. The stations spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on massive radar and computer systems, and feel they have to justify the expense by interrupting regular programming every time it starts raining.

The last time they did something like this, our local CBS affiliate interrupted the broadcast of the ACC basketball tournament this year because we got a 1/2 inch of rain in an hour. Yea. They’re still sorting through the hate mail from that one. So wisely, tonight, the CBS affiliate learned their lesson and showed the normal programming, but showed a crawl across the bottom of the screen, and the weather guy was only on during commercials.

So, bravo to WBTV (CBS). WCNC (NBC) and WSOC (ABC), I hope your weather geeks guys go stand on top of your radar towers the next time a storm hits, and do us all a favor.