Ok, I have now submitted my order for the following PC components:
The aim here is to make the OS (mostly 64 bit Win7, plus some Linux stuff) run smoothly. Gaming upgrade will focus on a new graphics card, but more about that later.
Filed under game studies, personal diary, technology
I bought my previous workstation/gaming pc in spring 2007, which would be five years next May — an eternity in terms of how pc and gaming hardware in particular evolves. As I do not have much of a budget for this (a family man has surprisingly plenty of money outlets), I’d be happy to just get the utility software and OS to run more speedily; the current situation is so laggy it is just unacceptable. The most efficient way to achieve this would be to install an SDD. Checking my old hardware, I realized I should upgrade also the motherboard in order to get SATA III bus, which is necessary if upgrade to SSD would make any sense. In a modern motherboard there would be a new CPU socket, thus: a CPU upgrade. My old DIMM memory modules would no longer be a match to the new CPU; thus: a memory upgrade. At that point, it also becomes apparent that the old GeForce 8800 GTS would be the bottleneck of the new system — thus: also a graphics card upgrade.
Something like ten years ago I would still had loved the challenge, and been eager to build spreadsheets to run various comparisons to gain the ultimate value for money and a future-proof solution. Today, the workload to do such an operation properly just depresses. There will always be some incompatibility or driver issues when you set up a PC system from separate components. Yet, getting a pre-installed box from HP, Apple, or some other major manufacturer does not make much sense either. Recycling the best components (like the Blu-ray optical drive, case, possibly the power source) from the old machine would mean that the “half-new” setup would be c. half the price of comparable manufacturer-made PC. Paying the premium on the other hand would pay towards some kind of peace of mind — perhaps, depending on the quality of system and its guarantee. Having two, three grand extra, I would go for a readymade, high-end setup, no questions asked. Trying to be thrifty while still being able to game and edit videos means that one should be able to invest plenty of time into tweaking — another scarce resource these days. Sigh…
Filed under DIY, personal diary, technology
Naapurini Totoro
I watched My Neighbour Totoro today with my boys (all three of them, while the youngest had some troubles in concentrating, he is only 5 months old). I sometimes wonder how does it affect your imagination and perception of the world to have access to such nuanced, beautiful works of fantastic art from very early age. I was reading Famous FIve by Enid Blyton and then, at the age of seven, was watching Batman (the campy tv series) and Thunderbirds doll animations from Finnish, black-and-white television. No wonder I grew up to become a gadget geek.
I should write more of Hayao Miyazaki’s work some time. I mentioned it briefly in my 2009 talk, and the related short paper, Japanese Fantasy and the East-West Dialectic (2010), but watching how traces of Eastern Shintoism mix freely with the great tradition of fantastic imaginary and storytelling (elements folk tales, even Alices Adventures in Wonderland are evident in Totoro), there is so much more to be said.
Filed under media, personal diary, publications, science fiction & fantasy
Here are some of my speaking engaments in November / luentovierailuja marraskuussa.
• 19.11. 20 min esitys ”Informaatiokone ja ihminen” Turussa
• 22.11. 45 min esitys, johdanto ”Pelien kulttuurit”, Pelit ja sosiaalinen media-seminaarissa, Tampereen yliopisto
• 25.11. 1h luento ”Pelikirjasto vai kirjastopeliä?” Fellmanni-keskus, Lahti
• 29.11. 2h luento ”Muuttuvat muodot: Digitaalinen pelaaminen kulttuurissa ja yhteiskunnassa”, Pasilan kirjastossa
Näkemisiin, näissä tai muissa yhteyksissä!
Filed under game studies, personal diary
Sure sign of summer: our garden work has begun again. I have e.g. operated our overgrown apple trees with a chain saw, washed away old paint and repainted (a bit hastily) all our wooden garden furniture, plus the terrace, then delivered sand, gravel and flagstones required by various paths and other constructions that look like becoming the main garden project of this summer. Here the foundation for a swing.
Filed under DIY, house, personal diary
I decided to let go of the idea of using the Articles page as a work-in-progress writing platform (I never seemed to find that extra time to work on those article drafts). Instead, I have now included links to some recent published articles by myself and those co-authored with others in to this page (http://fransmayra.fi/articles/). There is a longer list available here: http://www.uta.fi/~frans.mayra/publications.html
Filed under digital culture, game studies, media, personal diary, science fiction & fantasy, status
(This event will be in Finnish.) Puhun tämän vuoden Tieteen päivillä kahdessa eri sessiossa, molemmissa “arki” yhteisenä nimittäjänä:
Filed under events, game studies, personal diary
WordPress.com is appararently automatically generating this kind of status reports at the start of a new year of blogging:
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats.
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 9,400 times in 2010. That’s about 23 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 64 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 762 posts. There were 17 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 11mb. That’s about a picture per month.
The busiest day of the year was December 21st with 241 views. The most popular post that day was The most amazing 450 page presentation ever.
The top referring sites in 2010 were onegiantmedia.com, networkedblogs.com, unet.fi, uta.fi, and facebook.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for baby snow leopard, ipeng spotify, dr-bt50, digiscoping, and baby snow leopards.
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
The most amazing 450 page presentation ever December 2010
Enable Remote Desktop Connection on Vista Home Premium August 2007
593 comments
meeting with a baby snow leopard August 2006
8 comments
iPeng. iPhone. Spotify. And Squeezebox. August 2010
5 comments
Samsung N220 March 2010
14 comments
Filed under media, personal diary
Year 2010 has been a truly busy one (I cannot really understand that it is almost over and that we soon will be living 2011 already). Apart from all the research activities (some of which we try to mention in gamelab.uta.fi), and the usual upheaval in university administration, law and organization (we are no longer part of the Finnish government), this year will go down in history as the one when the first graduates of Interactive Media finished their studies. Here are the names and the titles of the first three pro gradu theses that we accepted this fall:
Congratulations to everyone – three very good and interesting works!
Filed under game studies, media, personal diary, university
Here are some random words, taken from the xml dump of this blog site. This looks pretty technical, eh? (It is the meta terms that repeat the most.) Looking back, it was in April 2004 when the first posts into this were written. So it becomes – what – seven years next spring? Seems I have missed the five-year celebration already…
Filed under media, personal diary
Professor of interactive media, digital culture and game studies in the University of Tampere, Finland. A fan of new media, old ideas, science fiction and fantasy.
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