I came across this little guy today while I was trying to track down a pesky audio driver for Windows XP. It seems to contain the entire driver profile for the Vostro 1400 so you no longer have to search for each of them individually. Nothing like being punished for not wanting Vista.

By the way, this contains the NVIDIA 8400 driver, and not the integrated Intel video driver. Sorry, that means you have to hunt down *one* driver… (Hint: its right here.)

Why Dell or other manufacturers don’t do this is beyond me. How hard is it to build a system that uses your service tag to zip/bundle the correct drivers on the fly? Maybe I should build something like that, but I’d probably get sued into oblivion by all the overzealous big company lawyers.

Download the driver pack here.

If you’d like some customization done on the theme, I refer you to the stellar Magatheme Pro Package WordPress Magazine Theme with customization! It’s got all the options you all asked for, built-in! Everything from an awesome tab slider and homepage layout to drop down menus and a couple subtle color schemes are ready out of the box. So check it out!

Well, I just got finished with the brand new Magatheme (1.0.5)! Ultimately, I’ll incorporate a full front page outline (Pro Edition), just like your favorite magazine themes have, but until then you’ll just have to enjoy this classy, minimalistic WordPress theme just like any other Plain Jane theme.

But wait! If you download within the next 15 minutes you get…

• A classy, minimalistic design!
• 3 column, golden ratio deduced layout!
• A cool, slightly blue ice color scheme!
• Six sidebars! Count them, six!
  • Wide Sidebar
  • Left Sidebar
  • Right Sidebar
  • Left Footbar
  • Mid Footbar
  • Right Footbar
• Completely valid XHTML and CSS!
• WordPress 2.7 compatibility!
• Zebra striped comments!
• Highlighted author comments!
• (Pro) Selectable magazine or blog style homepage.
• (Pro) Over 15 widget ready locations.
• (Pro) 4 color schemes.
• (Pro) No-edit ad and tracking integration.
• (Pro) Feedburner integration.
• (Pro) Drop down menus and fancy homepage tab slider.
• (Pro) Hide/show author, date, categories, tags, and comment sections.

Leave a comment below and let me know what you think of the theme! I’d love to hear it. Perhaps your suggestions will make it into the next version.

PS: I haven’t tested IE6 yet, let me know if it works for you! It works in IE6!

Download it now! or View the Demo! or View the Pro Demo!

Now, I hate reality television as much as the next guy, I avoid “Big Brother 43″ and “Survivor 37: Urban Style” like the plague. However, there is one show that doesn’t quite deserve being lumped into the same category as the others, although it is definitely real and is on TV. It isn’t the similar but oh-so-tacky “Man VS. Wild”, it is the fascinating “Survivorman” series from Discovery Channel.

Real realism, and no drama for drama’s sake.

This show is all about surviving alone in the wild, and since most people surviving are without the luxury of a camera crew to help or sneak a protein bar, Les Stroud doesn’t bring a camera crew either, just cameras. Now stop and think about this, he does all the filming himself while surviving. That’s pretty intense.

While there is no threat of being kicked out of the game and losing a chance at a million dollars, there is the threat of not eating dinner tonight or drinking safe water. In the end, it’s just a really knowledgeable guy with a couple cameras alone for a week in the Arctic Tundra (or Utah Desert, or somewhere else).

Genuinely useful information, you know, just in case.

This shit could save your life! Especially if you are a big fan of hiking, hunting, camping or you commonly put yourself into situations where you could get lost (but that never happens, right?). Just the knowledge that water can contain harmful bacteria that will put you out of commission, if not kill you, is enough to keep you well until someone notices you didn’t return and a rescue crew is sent.

His method of preaching preparedness can also determine your survival, bringing a simple knife and a few minor food supplies can be the difference between life and death. Knowing how to deal with the psychological aspect of surviving alone is also very important, and something he never fails to mention.

A shot of emotion.

There are very few things more despondent than a man completely alone, draining himself filming whilst still trying to survive. Although you know he’ll be fine (they’ve already shown previews for next week), it still puts a big smile on your face when Les finally snags a big fish after 4 days of eating dandelions. You can feel his happiness, his sense of accomplishment, his satisfaction in himself; and its contagious.

At the end of each day, his lonesome wails on the harp serve as a substitute for the nutrition denied him as he spent a seemingly desperate day searching for a more substantial dinner than a few nuts and berries.

But I guess that tune will do.

Thanks for the great show Les.

Just when I thought I had kicked the habit. I hadn’t been playing Halo 3 on XBOX at all, and I haven’t played through any PC games (save Portal and company) for like 2 years, which was my real obsession. I only rarely indulged in Wii on a drinking night. I hardly ever played Desktop Tower Defense anymore, even in class. My spouts of addiction to random physics based games liked The Fantastic Contraption, Armadillo Run and Splitter had long subsided.

But noooooo, along comes Left 4 Dead in all it’s gory beauty. Damn you Valve.

I love zombies. I love killing zombies, so therefore, I love Left 4 Dead.

A lot has been said about how zombies cannot run. While I tend to agree with Simon’s position, when you add slow moving zombies to a first-person-shooter, you get a big steaming pile of boring. So this was part of my original justification to try it out, along with the fact that Valve was involved.

My verdict: bloody good. The best part is re-playability. Every time you play through a new campaign, it’s different. Random crowds of zombies will come at a different points each time. Boss zombies will be in new spots, sometimes…

Also, the concept behind the campaigns is solid. There is no back story, just four players (usually human in an online world) in a situation trying to get to an extraction point. Surrounded by zombies. Oh, you also get guns, ammo, health items and grenade items, but you need to get the hell out of there.

Each campaign ends with a huge fight as you wait for rescue, these can be intense and rewarding. I remember one time fighting at the riverfront, waiting for a boat. We see the boat coming it’s just three of us now running for the dock. Of course I run the slowest being a woman the most damaged and I get knocked to the ground 10 feet from the boat. One guy covers me while another helps me up as we watch a Tank boss (aka the Hulk) comes crashing towards us. We made it out with less than a second to spare. A great moment in gaming. You had to be there I guess.

To PC or not to PC: PC vs. XBOX

I have played both PC and XBOX versions of Left 4 Dead, and they are both fine. I enjoy mouse and keyboard a lot so I tend to like PC. However, I do like how much more reliable XBOX Live seems to be over the PC online play, and the split screen is awesome, especially with some brews.

So yes, I will be online, playing this game.

And I don’t think I will be quitting anytime soon. So hit me up on Steam as mstrymn or XBOX as Cheezsticks.

It was 15 miles to school, uphill both ways. In the snow.

Seriously?

To celebrate the spirit of the upcoming election, I thought I’d collect a few past stats that have turned out to be pretty good predictors of the US presidential elections. These are quite silly but you can’t argue with the results. First up is one you’ve probably already heard about somewhere…

Halloween mask sales.

This is according to BuyCostumes.com, the world’s largest online retailer of, well, costumes. According to them, the past two election years’ sales of each nominees’ masks have correlated perfectly to the actual winner. In 2000 and 2004, Buy Costumes had sold 57% and 53% George W. Bush masks, respectively. Obviously, Halloween masks have more power over our government than previously thought.

• Prediction: Obama with 55%.

The Redskins’ final home game.

Basically, if the Red Skins win their final home game, the incumbent party will remain in office. This one was dug up by ESPN in 2004, while it didn’t work out last election, where the Redskins lost to the Packers predicting that Kerry would take office, it has otherwise proven accurate since 1936.

• Prediction: Obama. Last night the Redskins lost 23-6.

Favorite cookie recipe.

Since 1992, each prospective first wife (or husband?) sent in their favorite cookie recipes to Family Circle for readers to vote on. Each year, the winner of that vote was the spouse of the winning on nominee on Nov. 4th. However, there was some talk of Cindy McCain cheating on her recipe, perhaps we should consider her disqualified…

• Prediction: (Cindy?) McCain with 54% but cheated.

The Scholastic kids vote.

Apparently, asking a bunch of kids who will win the election is incredibly accurate. It’s worked since they started the poll, except for one year in 1960 when JFK supposedly lost to Nixon. The likely reason for the stunning accuracy is that the kids simply mirror their parents political opinions. Actually, this probably leads to a more accurate sampling than most polls because kids don’t filter very well. Just ask the master of getting-kids-to-say-dumb-stuff Bill Cosby…

• Prediction: Obama with 57%.

So it looks like that’s three for Obama, and one for McCain (disputable). I think Obama is gonna take it too. We’ll see.

The interesting concept of intuition was brought up the other day in one of my classes. In order to highlight the fallibility of trusting your intuition over cold hard logic, they proposed to us a slew of questions (although only three were really important). We were simply told to answer each question the best we could. Without further ado, here are the three questions of interest (try to answer each rather quickly):

1. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball.
   How much does the ball cost?
2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take
   100 machines to make 100 widgets?
3. In a lake, there is a patch of  lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size.
   If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it
   take for the patch to cover half of  the lake?

A little background: These three questions were first proposed by Shane Frederick of MIT and are commonly referred to as the “Cognitive Reflection Test” or the CRT. The questions basically test your reliance on logic vs. intuition and are supposedly correlated with one’s IQ and their willingness to wait for good things (according the original study).

Each question presents an easy “intuitive” answer which is actually incorrect. However, it is assumed that those with a higher IQ will notice that the intuitive answer contains inconsistencies that deserve a further (and more time consuming) examination. You might take it with a grain of salt, but it is interesting.

Solutions below.

||

||

||

||

||

||

||

\ | | /

\/

The Solutions.

For question #1, one might intuitively say, “$1.00 plus $0.10 is $1.10, therefore a ball costs $0.10“. While this is quite intuitive, it is also incorrect. A person who is more thorough might respond that the ball actually costs $0.05 (.05+(1+.05)=1.1). The correct answer is the ball costs $0.05.

For question #2, an intuitive response would be that “5=5=5 so 100=100=100“. However, if it takes a single machine 5 minutes to make a single widget, even a million machines can make a million widgets in 5 minutes. The correct answer is therefore 5 minutes.

For question #3, the common intuitive response would be, “half the pond would be covered in half the time, so 48/2=24 days“. However, this ignores the exponential growth of the lily pads. Try working it backwards, if the pond is covered after 48 days, and they double in size every day, then day 47 would be half covered. The correct answer is 47 days.

How do you compare?

How many did you get right? Compare your score to the below averages for various colleges.

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 2.18
• Princeton University: 1.63
• Harvard University: 1.43
• Web-based studies: 1.10
• Michigan State University: 0.79

Please note that even if you missed them all, don’t fret, it’s obviously not a full IQ test. I would imagine that getting each question is a bit like adding a few more points to an average IQ score. Besides, how much credence can you give some odd paper?

Regardless, I am pretty sure I cheated and saw these all before the test. But I feel like I can be pretty impatient at times. Isn’t knowing half the batttle?