Technology has a horrible habit of going wrong every now and again. User error??? RTFM!
I came back from a weekend away last Tuesday and turned on Old Faithful (the PC, not the wife) only to have sparks fly and a loud bang, followed by a nasty smell (I'm still talking about the PC here).
It would seem it was my PC's power supply which had finally bit the dust (I say finally like I was expecting it, but in truth I'm not sure I was).
When I tried to work out what had caused it, I realised that I had possibly over-loaded the wattage usage for it. It was a 380W power supply, and I think (by using an online calculator e.g. this one) that I was using around 370W or so (minus USB attached devices).
Now I'm not the biggest tree hugger out there, but I thought 380W was quite a bit of power to be using. Obviously it won't always be using that amount (under normal/idle usage), but under full load (i.e. playing an intensive game) it could well be using that.
I thought that with the new Intel C2D or C2Q CPUs etc. the power draw of modern PCs was supposed to be pretty low. Admittedly I also have 4 hard drives & 2 DVD drives in there, but that's not the point ;o)
It seems the graphics cards these days are the biggest power hungry components out there. Even the (relatively) old one that I have uses around 150W (under full load).
Thankfully most of the time I tend to use my laptop for the usual tasks (email/web etc. etc.) which even when charging only uses up to 90W, so a much more eco-friendly way to 'compute'.
I dread to think how much the 'leccy bills are for those guys using the 1000+ watt power supplies who are gaming for whole weekends etc.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
Sunday, 10 May 2009
Isn't Technology Great...
I'm constantly amazed at new inventions and people's abilities to spot new things and new ways of doing things we already do.
Today I found a new application that replicates the PSP's ability to remotely connect to the PS3 so you can launch games, movies, music etc. remotely on your PC (well, Mac only at the moment).
Given that the PSP & PS3 are (supposedly closed platforms) - someone has done a lot of reverse engineering to enable this and I for one am pretty impressed.
For anyone interested, you need a PSP running custom firmware and (at the moment) an Apple Mac...although I understand a PC version is imminent.
Link to the necessary details/files -> here
Today I found a new application that replicates the PSP's ability to remotely connect to the PS3 so you can launch games, movies, music etc. remotely on your PC (well, Mac only at the moment).
Given that the PSP & PS3 are (supposedly closed platforms) - someone has done a lot of reverse engineering to enable this and I for one am pretty impressed.
For anyone interested, you need a PSP running custom firmware and (at the moment) an Apple Mac...although I understand a PC version is imminent.
Link to the necessary details/files -> here
Saturday, 2 May 2009
Generation Y?
Evolution is a funny thing.
As a geek I tend to like Sci-fi TV shows and films. So shows like Heroes and movies like the X-Men series tend to tick my boxes (so to speak) as well as prompt an interest into the science behind them.
So, (Jesse voice) this week I have been mostly reading about evolution.
We've been taught in school (except perhaps in the more religious schools) about Darwin's theory of evolution and how our species evolved from the primates into homo-sapiens...but that was a while ago...what's next for us as a species?
Evolution as I understand it is about a species adapting and evolving based on their environment and the challenges it brings. The environment for us as a species has changed very little (for the things that will really affect us) in the last thousand years or so and apart from having to dodge traffic whilst crossing the road, there aren't a huge number of environmental challenges for us to evolve for.
And with an increasingly mobile global population, genetic diversification is becoming a rarity.
Our use of technology has also shaped our evolution, reduced it in fact.
We have used our knowledge of technology and tools to achieve things that were never possible before - and by doing so, removed our need for evolution to achieve the same goal. So are we in fact stagnating in terms of evolution?
Some might argue that we aren't and that in fact evolution is taking an almost hidden road forwards. For example in the case of disease resistance. There are cases of people in Africa who are naturally immune to the HIV virus. These types of people are the "fittest" from the classic Herbert Spencer quote "Survival of the fittest".
We will hopefully see more of these beneficial genetic abnormalities in the future, but just don't expect anyone to be able to blink really hard and stop time...not yet anyway.
As a geek I tend to like Sci-fi TV shows and films. So shows like Heroes and movies like the X-Men series tend to tick my boxes (so to speak) as well as prompt an interest into the science behind them.
So, (Jesse voice) this week I have been mostly reading about evolution.
We've been taught in school (except perhaps in the more religious schools) about Darwin's theory of evolution and how our species evolved from the primates into homo-sapiens...but that was a while ago...what's next for us as a species?
Evolution as I understand it is about a species adapting and evolving based on their environment and the challenges it brings. The environment for us as a species has changed very little (for the things that will really affect us) in the last thousand years or so and apart from having to dodge traffic whilst crossing the road, there aren't a huge number of environmental challenges for us to evolve for.
And with an increasingly mobile global population, genetic diversification is becoming a rarity.
Our use of technology has also shaped our evolution, reduced it in fact.
We have used our knowledge of technology and tools to achieve things that were never possible before - and by doing so, removed our need for evolution to achieve the same goal. So are we in fact stagnating in terms of evolution?
Some might argue that we aren't and that in fact evolution is taking an almost hidden road forwards. For example in the case of disease resistance. There are cases of people in Africa who are naturally immune to the HIV virus. These types of people are the "fittest" from the classic Herbert Spencer quote "Survival of the fittest".
We will hopefully see more of these beneficial genetic abnormalities in the future, but just don't expect anyone to be able to blink really hard and stop time...not yet anyway.
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