Gauri is born

My new computer parts have started arriving:

Folding@home addiction

As I mentioned on my Computers page, I recently got into Folding@home. It started by just folding on my PS3. I leave it on 24/7 anyway (because I can't turn it on and off with my IR remote, and who wants to get up off the couch and push a button?), so why not have it do something useful, right? The PS3 is a good folding machine that will generate around 900 points per day (PPD). Wait a minute, you mean I can score points?

I also leave my PCs on all the time, so why not install the software on some of them, too. I'll just install the uniprocessor client. Well, that doesn't generate many PPD, so maybe I'll install the beta SMP client on my desktop. That's better, but it's still going to take a long time for me to overtake people on the AVS Forum team, even though most of them are not actively folding. I've got a decent NVIDIA card in Aparna, and although I'll have to install the CUDA drivers, why not try the GPU client as well? Whoa, I just doubled my PPD!

Now I've got 5 folding processes running, generating around 4000-7000 PPD, and I've moved from #89 to #85 on the team in the last 24 hours. Today I ordered a 9800 GX2 specfically for folding (10,000 PPD!). I actually tried to order two cards, but I was lucky to get the one from Newegg before they were out of stock again. Pretty soon I'll have caseless motherboards scattered around the condo with big fans blowing on them (or maybe I'll be able to turn off the heat this winter). It's a sickness! But hopefully, one day it will help find a cure.

Japan photos

Co-workers at Omron

I found my pictures from Japan (on my old SyJet drive disks!) and posted them to a Flickr account. I particularly like this one.

I have a blog?

No, I hadn't completely forgotten about this blog (although it did take me a while to remember how to post). I've just been away from my website in general for a while. About the only pages I've been updating are the computer pages, and I don't think even those pages were updated in 2008. Anyway, it's a new year, and I'm back and in the midst of cleaning things up. (First my homepage, next the 3x3 Eyes Digest? It just might happen.)

I updated my bio, and altered some text on other pages that said I was still living in Japan. (That hasn't been true for almost 10 years!) I also updated most of the computer pages, except for the really old PCs, and I'm also in the process of updating the computers themselves so those pages should continue to change. The AV pages are next, but for that I need decent pictures.

I got a new camera, and I really need to start posting more and better pictures on this site. It's been so long, I can't even remember my disk quota or how close I am to hitting it, but I just got my annual bill from my web host so that should refresh my memory. Regardless of space, I might just start hosting photos on Flickr.

Finally, the old green template for this blog wasn't working for me, so I changed it to this basic template for now. I think I'll stick with Blogger for a while, since it's already up and running.