Hey guys, I'm back in the real world again. Explanation on where i've been tomorrow- long and short of it is i've been testing the new pc, which is all dandy, posts soon on that too.

Anyway in the meantime, have summa this

Adventures in my Antec 300

So for the last 2 years i've been going around moaning like a whiney bitch because i need a new PC. Thats right, i've needed a new PC for 2 fuckin years!! People have had new PCs and upgraded them in that time. Thing is my computer isn't old, it's just crap. It can't even play Half Life 2 and it was built like 3 years AFTER that fuckin game was made. Jeez! Though of course this computer has been deeply important to me. This laptop has been here for me sharing all my experiences of the bizarre last 4 years, and it will always hold a special place in my heart, and it is because of this laptop that you've been getting these posts every whenever i do them. But this post isn't about silly 'Girl + Laptop 4 Eva' sentiments! This is about what happened after that time i was all "i need a new PC!" and james was all "build one!" and i was all "shit!" and then stuff was happening.

So i spent a few weeks doing my research and a spreadsheet was born. The first and most painful decision was the case. I wanted a case that had a window, a nice looking front and was something fairly original. After driving myself crazy trying to pick one i eventually chose the Antec 300, which is absolutely none of those things. I'll explain why later.

Yesterday was the day The Motherboard and the cpu were supposed to arrive, so yesterday was one of those days where i couldn't shower, cook, go outside, listen to music loudly or do anything in case they came and i missed them. That was how much i wanted them to come. BASTARDS. They didn't come! I didn't know what to do with myself. In the end the only way i could relieve the pain was to mock film trailers and cut up old graphic design books and cover my wall with trippy pictures. It was alright i guess.

I let them off cuz it was Easter and today they came. The delivery man called me Love but it didn't really make up for it. My enthusiasm was long gone, drowned in the misery of yesterday. Then i opened the package and pulled out the motherboard box and i stopped giving a fuck about being a mopey cow.

I was all well excited. Why was i excited? Look at the packaging! It screams "Bitch! THREE!! be EXCITED!!!!" and who argues with three, right??

Fucking THREE! though i'm still not sure about the relevance of most of the 3s on there.

Eventually i calmed down about all the 3's after all of about 2 seconds, and was ready to go ahead with the next stage: opening the box and looking at it!



I'm gonna be honest, it took about an hour- and a half can of relentless- to build up the courage to get it out of the anti static bag. I wasn't just staring at it that whole time mind, i was reading the manual too. Anyway it finally happened.


Naturally this is the very moment when Pippin starts yeowling at the door begging to be let in so she can express her desperate need to rub her staticy furs all over it. True that she was at the door all day anyway, which made trips to the toilet a bit like some stupid game from when you were 5. Anyway, i won, and that's all you need to know.

The little magic box of tricks:


Naturally the CPU, the most precious, important and expensive part of the computer is packaged in a pathetically thin fold of generic plastic and shoved at the bottom of a thin cardboard box. All i can say is i'm grateful that when i opened such reinforced, waterproof, anti-static foolproof packaging, the cpu dropped out onto a soft bed and slipped between the folds of my duvet so no one had the chance to accidentally stand on it or kick it across the floor.

Again, it took guts but i finally got the cpu strapped in, the humongous cpu cooler over the top of it and all seemed well. I hadn't even fucked up and touched the contacts or anything, i think. Everything was swell.



Human vs the I/O Panel:

Still doesn't fit right.. fucker.

..and that's when the I/O panel perked up and was like "Whats that? Going 'swell' huh? Ahem, then i believe that is my cue!" and so things started going shit. Thing is the I/O panel has these pokey things that are intended to help you line up the motherboard. I understand that's their intention, but they actually made life a lot more bloody difficult because no matter how i bent them, they were all somehow still in the way. In the end i figured screw you panel and just forced the board into position, but when i let go, the pokey bits pushed the board back and it scraped on the brass standoffs on the back. When i checked the back there were a few scrapes. Or maybe they were more scratches. Probably somewhere between scratches and scrapes. Scrapetches? I was going to take a picture to get a second opinion, but holding the mobo and the camera is kinda awkward. Anyhoo i'm not sure how serious it was, i guess we'll have to see. I mean all over the board (and the box) it does say ULTRA DURABLE and allegedly the 'UD' in 'X58A-UD3R' stands for 'Ultrafuckin-Durable' so hopefully that means it can handle a little scrapetch on the back. Hopefully..

Inside the computer, as modelled by blue hattifattiner

Ok so question time! Now I'm not saying you guys don't know how to ask questions, and you are of course welcome to, but i'm gonna let my subconscious save you the trouble. It's my subconscious so it kinda gets dibs. You know how it is.

What. That is not a full computer
I know, still to go: DVD drive, Graphics card, RAM, Hard drive, another fan, a monitor, essentially all the shit thats not whats mentioned above. I've got a spreadsheet with the models and prices so it's all planned out.

Careful you don't drop any screws into that PSU.
Despite noting this danger and deciding to only touch screws when it's laid flat on its side, it still happened. Don't worry, i got it out again, eventually..


What about that case? are you gonna mod that case? i bet you're SO gonna mod that case!
Damnit, why do i hang out with people that know me so well!? anyway, You're RIGHT. Turns out my dad is happy to let me use the equipment to put a window in it, and i spied some UV cathode tubes on amazon.. and the fans have blue LEDs, so you can see where this is all going. If i find some white paint i can use, i think you see the plan. This is why i got the Antec 300: it's good for modding.

Whats happening to the old laptop?
If the PC works out and is still running ok after a while, I'll relieve this laptop of all the horrible software it's gathered over the years that's been dragging it down and let it be reborn again anew with Linux.

With What?
Linux.

Oh right, i've never tried that.
Yeh. We're the same person, remember?

I'm never sure. Do you think this PC is gonna work?
I have no idea! I'm saying that right now. I'm sure building a PC is not so hard since people are doing it all the time; however i don't have complete faith in myself not to fuck something up. Also, i am kinda bothered about things like the scratch. And what if i did touch something i shouldn't've, y'know? i'm probably being paranoid because it's my first time, and you know how you beat yourself up more if you go wrong first time. I guess tune in next week (actually lets be safe and say two weeks) to find out if i'm cutting myself with despair or if i've gone clinically insane with happiness!

The Next week or so? Such optimism.
Yes!

What mouse you gonna use?
Gonna get a cheap mouse from tesco's

Serious?
No. The Wacom Tablet stays on.

Cool. Well, er.. that's all i have to say.
Good, it creeps me out when we talk.

Well guys, thats it for now. Obviously this is all still under construction so i may bore you with it some more in the near future. In the meantime, i will try to contain my excitement. I mean fuck.. I might be able to play HALF LIFE TWO!!!

Especially for you..

Ok so i figured Anonymous has been going on at me for a bit about doing some naked pics. He even made an adorably heart wrenching cartoon :D which actually made me feel quite bad tbh. So, i figured i may as well give him something.

Enjoy!

(click for full pic)

The Filth!

This week i been mostly reading The Filth

These are just some random pages, they're not even the highlights!











And by special request, a couple of Dmitri, the soviet chimpanzee assassin, who actually seems pretty mundane against most of the shit going on in this book.





Highly, highly recommended stuff. These are all from the same story by the way, and barely the tip of the iceberg. This probably shouldn't be relevant but it's also British, so if you're concerned you have too much American or Japanese in your comic collection, you know what to do.

I have a great idea for a game. It's called Gladiator Tycoon. It's based on classical ideas about entertainment. You build your own Colosseum in Rome and buy kidnapped victims and animals from all over europe and africa and force them into bloody mortal combat to entertain crowds. You can set up exciting deathmatch scenarios, pick your victims (extra points for christians) and breed beasts to fight them. The more horrific your scenarios, the bigger crowds you pull and the more cash you get- and the more stuff you get to buy for your Coloseum and make it into a truly gory theatre of torture and death.

And if anyone accuses the game of being violent, i will respond with: "it is an educational look at how human entertainment has changed from 2,000 years ago."

BTW: If you're interested to know the incredible true story about Titchmarsh and how he came to the stupid views he has, it is all 'explained' right here.

I return from the dead to ask you...

Am i the only one with a dirty mind?


P.S. btw, the rumours are true- i am actually indeed still alive. If anyone is still out there reading this then.. i'm going to apologise for being so shit. Firstly i haven't responded to any comments for 3 months (though if you take it upon yourself to check back you will see i have replied to them all now) and secondly i havent blogged anything semi reasonable for a couple of months. This partially cuz i've been very busy (more on that in future), but mostly because, quite simply, i've been rather bitter and depressed for the last few months. Trust me, you wouldn't have liked the posts, and i was struggling to make any sociable comments. I can't pinpoint any particular reason but suffice to say i wasn't neglecting my duties, it was just better that way.
No guaruntee of posts especially soon, because i'm still very busy. That said, i've got some exciting ambitions i plan to execute soon so they may get reported on, but that may be another month yet, so i guess this is a bit of a false alarm.

Things you always wanted to know about space but were too afraid to ask

I was about to comment on a friends blog which required me to find an old notepad file, but instead i found this: A little research pad i'd started into the more intimate details of space.
So I've finished it off and published it, just for you. During my research i discovered this documentary, which you may enjoy if you take an interest in this stuff. Bear in mind it's one of those overdramatic and slightly patronisingly narrated documentaries though.
As you know i like to add links to articles where i heard about stuff, and i have more links i could add, but i actually can't be bothered right now. I will aim to do it tomorrow. That and get round to commenting on that blog.


What do breasts go like in space? Do girls still have to wear bras?

According to the documentary, breasts appear larger in zero gravity. Also women do not need to wear bras, as you'd expect. Breasts also seem to float into a more natural spherical/ dome like shape (and yes i have arrived at that conclusion from studying footage of female astronauts). Girls would probably choose to wear a bra if they're going to be filmed though, in case the nipples show through, or maybe not, if she's shameless like that.


What about willies? What do they go like? Can you still, y'know, get em up?

One of the effects of zero gravity is the even distribution of blood around the body. On earth, blood is drawn away from the head and towards the feet, and the heart pumps hard to force it into body extremities. In zero G, the blood fills everywhere evenly.. meaning more than usual in the penis. This results in astronauts being very prone to erections or having mild erections a lot, and it's supposed to be quite easy to get a proper boner. One astronaut even complained this gave him a lot of pain in the mornings.


Would zero-G affect orgasm in any way?

I haven't found any information on this. You'd have to consider things like muscle atrophy might mean spasms are not as strong, and you'd have to be careful to not accidentally knock yourself around too much of course, but i havent found any proper information on it.


Have people had sex in space yet?

Given that you've got 3-6 intelligent adults, usually including at least one woman, in a small, enclosed space, isolated from the rest of humanity for 6 months, it's pretty hard to imagine sex has never happened. There have been rumours that astronauts and cosmonauts have got it on, but both american and russian agencies deny these claims.

Nasa, being a largely conservative organisation, still seems to consider the subject a big taboo and apparently no astronaut has ever had sex on a mission, and those questioned by the press have denied it. Nasa doesn't officially prohibit sex but seems to discourage it- All activity is logged and american space modules/ shuttles don't allow for much privacy, so it all looks pretty unlikely. Russians, despite being more laidback and seeming to have closer bonded teams, actually forbid sex because of the complications that can arise.
Of course whether anyone ever has got away with on the sly is unknown, and will probably never be officially confirmed.


What do you think sex in space is like?

Apparently the act of sex in space is more difficult than on earth, basically because things fly around and can be pushed away very easily, and sex requires intimacy and everything. Personally i can think of a few solutions to this, namely using velcro walls, handles, straps, sleeping bags etc, but you know the americans.. everything's gotta be a big performance. One woman invented a '2suit', suits that can be worn by people and then attach to each other so you can stay close. It seemed to work but was somewhat a hassle. I dunno, the story of the american million dollar zero-g pen and the russian pencil comes to mind really. Still, i haven't tried it so i don't know.
Cumming in space has got to be messy though. Apparently water droplets will fly all over the station (water is filtered out of the air so this is ok) but you can imagine how unpleasant that might be for other crew members if it were cum.


Can it go wrong?

According to Will Whitehouse of Virgin Galactic, "you can break a penis" if you're not careful.
You've been warned.


Do.. females still menstruate in Zero G?

Despite fantasies about colonising space, Nasa was apparently too scared take women because of concerns that menstruation in zero-G might be dangerous. It was imagined they might get 'backflow', or blood that won't leave the body. When they did send a woman into space, they had her take drugs to stop the cycle.. So for a long time, this was a scary question no one had the guts to answer.

Luckily, it turns out the whole thing isn't a problem at all. Firstly, gravity is not required, muscles do most of the work anyway, so 'backflow' was actually a mythical problem that never existed. Secondly, a tampon acts as a wick and helps to draw out the blood. So there you go, the female system maintains it's full functionality in space.


..What about on the moon and beyond?

This comes from the traditional belief that women's cycles are linked to lunar phases. (The word menstruation actually derives from 'mensis', latin for month, which itself derives from 'mene', greek for moon.) If an organism's system is regulated by something, and that influence is removed- say if they go stand on that something- what happens to it? Does it stop, adjust to a new influence, or carry on as usual anyway?
No human females have left the influence of the moon so no one knows for sure. Actually, its unconfirmed if the moon does regulate womens cycles or if it's all just a coincidence. Many organic systems are linked to lunar phases, either by its tidal effect or its nocturnal light levels, so it's a reasonable theory.. that said i can personally vouch that its not unusual for cycles to have absolutely no synchronisation to the moon whatsoever, and actually women with regular 29.5 day cycles are not in the majority..


Can humans reproduce in space?

It's complicated..

So far no one knows how well humans can reproduce, but we can make guesses based on what we know so far. Various attempts have been made breeding various organisms in space, but it's dodgy. Even plants cannot reproduce reliably- they are prone to abnormalities. The only animals to have reproduced fully (from mating to birth) successfully are fish. Pretty much all Other animals have had problems at some point in the process.
Scientists are working on whittling down exactly which point it is that fails. Fertilisation seems to go well in frogs and mice, but not so well in other animals like sea urchins. Pregnant rats have been sent into space and given birth in zero gravity and produced healthy baby rats, so birth is no issue either. In a mouse breeding experiment, problems occured in embryonic development. Generally the more complex an organism, the more can go wrong, so there may be a lot of problems for humans to consider. In short: The success of reproduction may depend on whether humans can find a solution for that development stage.

As well as zero/ micro-gravity, theres issues such as radiation and the general nature of space life- toxic chemical exposure, the composition of the artificial atmosphere, and all that kinda thing. Nasa has a policy to disqualify pregnant astronauts (i think this means 'bring home' and possibly 'fire'?) on the grounds of these kinds of medical issues. Also, remember 9 months is a long time.. i think longer than any astronaut or cosmonaut has done in one session.


Whats it like if you die in space?

No one has died in space. All space-related deaths have been during launch, re entry, or tests on the ground. Still, if you're curious, there's more than one way to theoretically die in space. If you want to explore some of them, there's a game for that.


By the way, whats the difference between Astronauts and Cosmonauts?

Nationality. Astronauts are american (though the term can be used generally), and cosmonauts are russian. Taikonauts are chinese, and indian astronauts will be vyomanauts. There's others like spationauts (french) and i'm sure the list goes on, but i can't be bothered to go through every country's native word for 'space' and stick 'naut' on the end. You get the picture.