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July 22, 2006
Lexan And Heat
Back when I moved into my new apartment, everyone pretty much laughed when I asked about air conditioning. This resulted in an apartment with basically no means to put an in-window AC unit.
Earlier this summer the heat kicked up, a lot. Enough to make me purchase an in-room AC with a tube out the window kind of deal. Only issue with that has been my windows open similar to a door, they open from a side and wedge out. This sucks because no only can you not put an in window AC unit there, it becomes near impossible to put an in room AC unit in as well (the tube vent just blows back in).
Enter the wonderful world of Home Depot and Lexan plastic sheets. I bought a big piece of lexan and cut it to about my screen size. Meaning it should just slide into place. After that I cut out a section for the tube to blow outside and whammo, life is golden. One aspect of lexan I was not aware of is it's thermal expansion abilities. As it gets hot, it expands like crazy, and the faux window is now current wedged into the frame.
The issue has been it's hot, and despite my best senses I didn't buy the 10,000 BTU unit (which cost an extra $300). Instead I've got an 8,000 unit which is just barely keeping my 12'x12' bedroom cool. Some of this is probably because the venting tube is warm, some due to the lexan not retaining the thermal heat very well, but I'm sure some of it is due to the lack of BTUs on the AC unit. Damn.
In the mean time, I'll continue to stick to my desk. Kayaking adventure in a few days, last manic run for stuff today. Yippie!
Posted by Dan at 07:13 PM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2006
Blueberries
In case there was any question in someone's mind...
It is possible to eat 8 lbs of blueberries in less than a week, and (more importantly) before they go bad.
This experiment's costs:
8lbs of blueberries = $5.
Posted by Dan at 09:23 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2006
First Shoe
The first shoe has finally dropped. Now, like everyone else, I'm anxious to see what the other shoe brings with it...
Posted by Dan at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
Dev Tools and Releases
In a most frustrating series of days, I've discovered a few things.
First gripe is Windows XP. Yeah, everyone complains about Windows, and many of us are forced to work with it daily. Here is an odd behavior though. One application, statically linked to be distributable, whose primary goal is to create a simulated cpu load on a system. For example, you want 30% CPU utilization, it will run some operands to create 30% load and dynamically adjust based upon the work load you add to the system. Under Windows XP this tool works fine. Under Windows XP SP2 this tool works fine. Under Windows XP SP1 one of two behaviors happens; A) CPU utilization hits 100% B) CPU utilization is $N + 10. Ugh. The solution required creative #defines and #pragma opimze per OS installs.
Second gripe for the day. I've enjoyed working with OS X for most of the time, only I can't stand XCode. I find it to be an atrocious tool, making simple things extremely difficult. I won't even begin to describe the non-useful syntax finishing that it currently utilizes. Currently I'm working on building a KEXT for use on the IA32 Macs, only all my development work has been on a PPC based system. XCode nicely abstracts away all of the messy details to work out between the two. What isn't mentioned is that XCode v2.2 for some unknown reason likes to include the -nostdinc flag, while providing no option for removing it or why your standard includes are gone. Upgrading to XCode v2.3 solves this problem, but that was discovered until well after several hours had been spent researching into this.
Yep... complaints.
On the brighter side, only a few more weeks until my kayaking adventure in Canada. I'm very excited. I need to get a few more batteries for the camera, and probably a few more items of clothes.
Posted by Dan at 01:37 AM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2006
Italy
Watched the Italy vs Germany game today, it was a good game. I've been cheering for Italy for some time now, and it feels even better to see them winning.
Choice quote of the morning though, one girls interest in the game for the men in attendance. Too bad none of the guys were interested in anything but the game :\
Posted by Dan at 06:38 PM | Comments (0)