Monthly Archives: May 2007

Here are a few little know facts about Cyberphreak.com.
Did you know?
I have one of the largest Zaurus Software depositories on the internet?
http://www.cyberphreak.com/zaurus/feed/ contains more than 650 packages and is the most commonly hit directory on Cyberphreak.com
I get an average of 200+ hits a day?
I don’t know who they are, but I get ’em. Many from Europe and Japan for some reason. Maybe I am huge in Japan and don’t even know it.
In February of 2008, Cyberphreak.com will be 10 years old?
Wow.
Cyberphreak.com contains more than 19,000 files?
Those Glenn photos really add up.
Cyberphreak.com is created with entirely free software running under Linux?
The pages are edited in Quanta+, Graphics are done in G.I.M.P. or Digikam, ftp is via gFTP or Konqueror, previewed in Firefox.
I have never charged or had paid advertising?
I loath adds, I don’t care if the site costs me about $85 a year, with the domain name.
The name Cyberphreak.com was completely pulled out of my ass?
I thought it just sounded cool, I have never phreaked in my life.
That cyberphreak.net and .org have changed hands about 30 times in the time I have had this site up?
Poor bastards.
Cyberphreak.com has outlived 3 of it’s hosting providers?
I hope it is not my curse. I am currently with the largest host on the internet, so I hope they don’t go under or get out of the business.
So far this year people visiting Cyberphreak.com used Firefox over Internet Explorer users 2 to 1?
Good market penetration there.

About 2 or 3 times in my life I have experiences “sleep paralysis.”
It is basically you are going to sleep or just waking up and the part of your brain that keeps you from injuring yourself is still on, but you are semi or almost fully aware. It is a very odd feeling, not being able to control your limbs for a few minutes.
What makes it even scarier it is often accompanied by VERY vivid hallucinations (visual, audio, and touch.) Most scientists think it is the origin of most, if not all alien and ghost sitings. It ALSO has a lovely sense of extreme dread along with difficulty breathing thrown in for extra fun.
So, to get to the point, the object of dread is often cultural and not universal. For instance, many people see aliens, or ghosts, shadow people, devils, demons, or in the past succubus or old hags. In my case, I dreaded and was convinced a burglar was trying to break into my apartment at the time. It was the whole nine yards, rattling the door handles and a person dressed in black. But, notice, it was a person I was dreading. Not a supernatural entity. I happen to be an atheist, and don’t believe in ghosts, aliens, hobgoblins or whatnot.
So, if you have ever experienced sleep paralysis, what did you perceive as your source of dread? Did it relate directly to your belief system?

My computer had been locking up too often, and I knew it was hardware related.
So, first I cleaned the case and the CPU heat sink. That helped for a while, but it then started to lock up again. Then I noticed the chipset fan was turning sloooowly, so I replaced that. Got a little better, but still would lock up after about 12 hours. Then I replaced the power supply. No dice.
So, finally I bought some new, silver based head sink compound. I had heard that silicone based compound can dry out. It has been 4 years since I installed the current heat sink. I pulled up the heat sink and there was NO material between the die of the CPU and the heat sink. It looks like it migrated away from the die over these years.

As you can see, there was almost nothing conducting heat other than force of habit. Apparently, the tape type compound used before is wax and silicone based. You can see how it migrated away from the die to the outside of the die. Now, with the new silver grease, there have been no lockups and the CPU is running about 8 degrees C cooler than before.

We shall see if this does the trick.

Knowing that one of the most powerful computers in the world (that can compute 360 trillion operations per second!) can only simulate half of a mouse brain at 1/10 speed say a lot about organic brains.

Wired Science – Wired Blogs

I guess it takes a lot of work to equal 4 billion years of evolution.  The one remarkable thing about brains are that they so parallel and work in real time, all the time.   Even a mouse brain in processing 10’s or 100’s of millions of bits of information every second using probably a tenth of a watt of energy!
The human brain (and whale brains) are the most complicated pieces of matter in the known universe!  Humans have 100,000,000,000 neurons with over 10,000 connections per neuron!  The number of possible connections is greater than the number of elemental particles in the universe.  I think it will take a little while longer before we can create a machine that rivals our brains and minds.