2004-09-28

Tales of Symphonia

That's the game I've been playing (along with Alan, Bao, and Duy) for the past two weeks. Actually, that's pretty much all I did during those two weeks (sleep, lectures, and eating time excepted) :P

Now, maybe it's time to get back to reality. We do have several other games lined up though: Warcraft III, Sega Rally 2 (old game, but you can sorta drift in it!! :D), and Missing Since January.

FMA 49 and 50 were really great! Loads plot twists and revelations... oooooooh! Can't wait until 51!

"Wahoo." - Presea, Tales of Symphonia

2004-09-27

Got laptop back!

Yay! Now I can post stuff :D

2004-09-10

Baaad Bad Weather

It seems like both East Asia and the Caribbean are having very stormy weather this season. Florida's been hit hard by Hurricanes Charley and Frances, and now Ivan has its sights on the poor Sunshine State. In Asia now, Typhoon Songda has been rampaging around in Korea and Japan, following Aere which has left Taiwan and China devastated two weeks ago.

More bad/unusual weather:

-snowfall in Alberta a couple days ago
-cold and wet summer here (mostly)
-unseasonally hot summer in BC

I don't know what my point is really. Maybe I'm running out of things to post about :(

2004-09-09

Back to 'Loo...

It's time to go back to Waterloo, sigh :(

I have to pack up and leave again, after 4 months of memories in RH. Gotta buy some new furniture as well. IKEA, maybe?

Bought a 256 MB memory drive to help facilitate the transfer of files while in 'Loo (like anime :P)

According to an article on Wikipedia, not only statistics but also epidemiology, is like a bikini :P
"Epidemiology is like a bikini: what is revealed is interesting; what is concealed is crucial." -- Peter Duesberg (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb 1991)

2004-09-01

My thoughts on DVD-RAM

I bought a DVD burner yesterday and some DVD-RAM media. Although I've read and heard some negative opinions about the RAM format, I wanted to try it out for myself. The DVD burner is a LG GSA-4120B, which supports every DVD format in existence right now (+R, -R, +RW, -RW, +R DL, and RAM) and the DVD-RAM media is manufactured by Panasonic (made in Japan!)

I primarily bought this drive for backup purposes. My first test for the RAM media was to transfer my backup files to it. It was pretty amazing! It behaves just like a hard drive: no DVD-writing software required, quick writing of small files, and no waiting for lead-in and lead-out before ejecting the disc. In fact, it took me some time to get used to it because it's so unlike -RW/+RW. Each DVD-RAM disc is basically a 4.26GB hard drive :D.

I do have two complaints about the RAM format though. The first is that it is slower than +RW in transfering large amounts of data (a 3x RAM speed is actually equal to only 1.5x because it uses write/verify and read/verify instead of pure write and read). The good thing is that I don't plan on using this for large transfers at a time -- the initial backup will be a large transfer and will take a while, but after that only small modifications need be made (you don't copy 30+ GBs of stuff onto your 40 GB hard drive everyday now do you? :P) My second complaint is its incompatability with most DVD drives. Few DVDs can read them and fewer still can write to them. :(

There are lots of good things about RAM too. The DVD-RAM format is highly reliable due to error-correction features built into every disc. It also sports >100 000 times rewrite capabilty -- each disc will last you more than 27 years if you rewrite it 10 times a day -- and is bootable to boot :P. This reliablilty mumbo-jumbo may not translate into real-life perfomance but I can testify that it's pretty darn good. I've used an Imation DVD-RAM disc from Roxio as my personal coaster for 3 months now, the disc going through steaming hot mugs on top and a rough wooden surface on the bottom everyday. It has endured much punishment, indeed: if a hot mug goes on top, it immediately curls up due to the overwhelming heat. I thought it was certainly dead, but yesterday I tried to see if it would still work with my new burner. Indeed it did! All it required was a re-format :D

I think DVD-RAM is a great format for computer (data) use. That was and still is its purpose after all. As for anime and movie backups, I'm sticking with -R/+R because I only need write-once capability and the fast speeds (like 8x +) are nice. I hope this post helps you choose a good burner (if you're actually looking for one) :D