The XP SP2 Half Open Connections Limit Myth

I still see this bandied about as a possible factor in slow P2P speeds. It is easily misunderstood, but the half open connections limit imposed by XP SP2 and Vista does not matter for P2P speeds. It limits the rate at which connections can be made, not the total number of simultaneous connections.

Now, 10 half open connections seem a little low, but most ordinary users do not need more than this. Even heavy P2P users such as myself.

I usually run eMule and Bittorrent at the same time and I do not usually partake in very popular torrents (my usual haunts: Pleasuredome and DIME; what would I do without you guys?) but I usually have no problem maxing out the bandwidth available to my 3 Mbps connection. Sure, the clients spin up a little slower than before but how does it matter? I wasted maybe two or three minutes? The other negative side effect would be the occasional 4226 error in the Event Log, but I don’t care about that.

I am not denouncing LvlLord’s patch as evil as I really do not care if everybody installs it, but it won’t increase your P2P speeds. It won’t make your computer run better. It won’t solve the global poverty problem and it definitely won’t make you more popular with the gents/ladies.

XName – Free DNS Service

Hating to deal with the inconvenience of the ZoneEdit "only the first five domains are free" rule (yes I’m very cheap), I searched for a free alternative and I think I found it, XName. Though the ZoneEdit user interface is simpler and probably more helpful, making it more suitable for beginners, XName does not lack in features and the interface is arguably more convenient once you get used to it.

In any case, its really a great and free service, so please contribute some spare cash if you use the service and can afford it.

Prince: Not Getting It

I though Prince was a musician who got it, but apparently he doesn’t. Stunts like this will only cost him legitimate fans.

Trent Reznor, on the other hand, is one of few artists who gets it and has the balls, knowledge and integrity to do the right thing. He is the man.

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Categorized as Music, Tech Tagged

Windows Live Writer Beta 3

I am typing this on WLW Beta 3. I wrote about the first beta, which was already very usable at the time. This is the best of breed in blogging software on Windows.

Quite a lot of changes for beta 3, but the best thing for me is “Publish XHTML-style markup”.

In other news, CCleaner 2.0 is now RC and Spybot Search & Destroy has reached 1.5.1 final. I recommend both very highly.

R.I.P. Pavarotti

Always a tragedy when music dies.

Queen + Luciano Pavarotti - Too Much Love Will Kill You (Brian May)

This is my favourite non-opera memory of the maestro, a fantastic duet between the opera singer and the astrophysicist.

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Categorized as Music

Thermochrom’ing

Indeed, the thermochrome CD is very nice. Unfortunately… the tropical climate of Singapore renders it useless. I need to hold the CD up to the air conditioner to cool it down enough.

That said, I’ve recently discovered our local band The Observatory released their album second album Blank Walls with a thermochrome cover. Very nice, and all along I was thinking that the ink used was just especially susceptible to oily fingers.

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Categorized as Music

Rhapsody of Fire – Power of the Dragon Flame

Duh Magnet
“It’s got Power, Dragon and Flame in it! Triple Threat, man!”

“AWESOME!” *mad riffs all round*

loser-x
dude…that video would be embarrassing for a singapore band

Duh Magnet
Singapore bands have trouble making ends meet, hence dignity is more impt. [:)]

Duh Magnet
Finished the PotDF mtv. It was truly a masterpiece. [:)]

loser-x
“There’s just no way that we can win, that was a masterpiece.”

Duh Magnet
Seriously, I think most metal songs should only have videos using concert footage, there’s no other way to make it non-ridiculous.

loser-x
or just a straightforward performance video

Duh Magnet
Assuming limited budget, competence and imagination, that is.

loser-x
but given their “moves”, that would be embarrassing too

Duh Magnet
I like the “finger rings round eyes” gestures. Seriously….

What I learnt about love in just under 20 min of TV

I was just channel surfing this evening while waiting for “Sportscenter” to start at 10pm when I chanced upon “Honour and Passion” on Channel 8.  And for the next 20 minutes or so, I was simply engrossed with the MediaCorp Drama series.

You see, in that short span of time, I felt I have seen two interesting romantic scenarios which urges me to address it in this entry.

Love Crime A

huifang

Rui En learns that her dad (Huang Wenyong) has been recently smitten by a young (and hot) lady friend in the form of Ong Ai Leng, recently.  Since their meeting, Mr Lucky SOB has outright rejected the affections of a long-time family friend (Hong Huifang) whom through the years have been played the role of a surrogate mother to Wenyong’s children.

My Verdict :

Aww… ain’t that a shame? While Hong Huifang herself once played the role of the tramp back in her hey days of ‘Samsui Woman” (which was what, 1985?) You can’t blame Wenyong’s heartless decision. I mean, look at the pictures I posted !!! Have you seen Ong Ai Leng? Seriously! This is a no-brainer. There is simply no way in God’s green Earth would you find a red blooded man who would do otherwise.  I don’t even care if she’s a scheming bitch who’s eyeing on his CPF money, from what I see, no amount of SAF money can buy a man such good luck.  Whats the chances of a bloke of his age and looks scoring with a woman like Ai Leng?

Redcon One* to the Encik Huang.

(Army talk for Grade A)

Love Crime B

Mr Commando, Tay Ping Hui learns that the woman of his dreams, Artillery Captain Felicia Chin only has eyes for his own baby brother played by Bryan Wong. Like all love-triangles, Bryan of course, has no interest in Felicia (or he probably don’t dare to incur the wrath of his red beret and probably half-insane elder brother).

Later on, the lovestruck dumbass commando has really performed the ultimate gut-wrenching love-kamikaze.   After learning about Felicia’s birthday lunch/dinner date with Bryan, Ping Hui managed to secretly arranged a pair of singing Indian waiters to bring out a cake plus a present (a Tag Heuer) for the pleasantly surprised Felicia, while pleading for Bryan through SMS to “grant her her dream date”.

*Cue : Ping Hui leaving the restaurant with his heart in two*

My Verdict :

Now somebody pleeeeeeeeeeze explain this to me.

Boy meets girl. And girl goes for …the Gay guy.

Hello?????  There was even a scene where the baffled Rui En (she’s their sister) even asked Felicia why she would go for Mr Savvy rather than the grunt.

Felicia’s answer? “Personality clash, too quiet for her own taste, and…she relish a challenge!”

At that moment of time, I nearly fell over from the chair.

I truly believe, the only reason why girls go for the gay guy is simply ‘cos women love to change a guy. And what better challenge to the woman than to ‘revert’ a homosexual back to a straight guy through the power of her…pu..erm..love.

All I can say is.. Good luck to your ‘mission’, woman, you’ll need it.

Before I end this rant,  I must give commendations to Ping Hui’s portrayal of being the lovefool.  His awkward expressions in the presence of Felicia is really spot-on.  But the real surprise here is Bryan’s straight faced performance.  Gone are the snappy bitchy tones you see of his normal self, and instead, we get this super cool successful business dude. Heck, even I would have thought the man was straight.

And by the way, can somebody tell me when in the world did Felicia become such a hot babe? Now there wasn’t one scene in the 20 odd minutes where we have Felicia in uniform, so don’t go telling me its her in the no.3 / no.4.

Wow. It is really amazing how much changes a good hairdo can do to a person.  One day she was this skinny underweight girl with really bad mushroom hairdo and now, she’s this super and matured hot WOMAN in SAF outfit.

Y-U-M-M-Y.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I am in the mood for some Vitagen.

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Categorized as TV