testing my night shots skills on the malaysian flyer, named 'eye on malaysia'
not that tall a wheel and closing soon because they are shifting it to another location in another city. RM15 a ride, quite cheap, and it goes quite fast for a few rounds. the cabins can fit 6 so is pretty small and the windows heavily scratched. so the pcitures were not so nice because of the light smearing along the scratch marks.
the eye is built on the bank of a lake and at certain times, there are laser shows. recorded a part of it. that one not bad.
took a trip back to kl for about 10 days hence was absent from this blog for a period. so, its another slew of posts coming up.
for a change, i took the train back. a long swaying 10 hour snake ride. actually took it because i lugged back my old AMD system back for my mum, to replace her aged Duron 800Mhz system that died. So 1/5 of the bunk was taken up by luggage. didnt have enough legroom to stretch. then halfway, at Gemas, we had to offload the train to continue the trip by bus because there was a train derailment few days ago and they have not cleared the tracks yet. had to shift all my stuff out into the bus, took the 2 hour + boneshaker bus ride to Seremban, then from there, got off the bus to another train and continued the journey to KL. was late by 2 hours when i reached but still in one piece and very annoyed with the train company, but then again, as my mum said, 'what else would you expect?'
i rest my case.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA
wear a pair of headphones before listening to this. its surreal
http://remixmag.com/production/hardware/remix_sixth_annual_remix/
my pair of current headphones, the audio technica ath m50 won some award. no wonder i could hear all the still small voices from the pc causing me to want to change my soundcard. well, at least i'm assured that its a good set of cans.
this project is supposed to have ended two weeks ago but recently decided the sound was not up to par. alot of background hissing and clicking from the system. dont know where the circut is dirty with static. anyway, looked around and got a Creative x-fi Extreme Gamer for $105, the usual price is $145. still on warranty till end of this year, i.e. 4 months old. the previous owner swtiching over to the new Asus dx card. pics here.
the box is a real mouse trap. the way the card and the extra items are arranged is really cramped and strange.
the stuff that came along with teh card. nothing much but drivers.
only half card tall. more punch in a smaller pack. no gold connectors but i doubt you'll hear a diff.
the cirrus chip. thats what gives the 7.1 surround sound.
the x-fi chip thats under the heat sink. a review online tried to pry away the heatsink to look at the chip but it was too well glued to the chip. anyway, really shoddy lapping of the chip IMHO, just look at the it, the corners of the chip are not under the thermal paste. crappy.
the other bugbear of the card is the super slow installation time. waited a good 5 minutes for the drivers to be installed. then after that updated them but had to uninstall first before downloading (which took like 30+ minutes) then going through the slow install process again.
but after that was done, the 3D rendering was really good. i'm a headphones person (mainly because there are always others around me so cant make much of a noise) so the 3D emulation on headphones was really superb. the clarity was also top notch. one of the tracks had a big thud in the beginning of the track and i instinctively turned to my left to see who droped something on the floor. my music is more 'in your face', crisp and clear. the bass i have yet to tweak but so far so good.
had to replace me old shaver, that i bought when i just came into uni. lasted me now like almost 7 years. got it for about $70 then, which was big money for a student. the battery died and now have to use direct from the plug. the blades are dull already but still usable, and the replacement blades are no more in production. so its time to say goodbye.
got this one online, as all my other recent purchases were. made in holland, but its a US version. locally known as the HQ8140. it retails in local stores for S$199 but i got it for only 100, brand new. this guy somehow gets it for real cheap in US and he goes there often for business. anyway, it comes sealed in the box, so nothing to worry. tried it after an hour of charging and it works slightly better than the old one... haha... its also washable, which means i can directly flush the whole unit under a tap to get rid of the hair stuck in the unit all over the place.
the only annoying thing now is the US plug, and i have to find an adaptor for it each time i charge.
the shave heads are quite a bit of amazing technology. looks really complicated. the replacement heads cost about $19 each, so 3 would cost about $57, erm, more than half the buying price... kinda not worth it to just replace the blades huh?
the specs for this really neat piece of eqpt. can be found here.
