Diet Root Beer Floats: Not a Good Idea

Ashley Bischoff13 Comments

On Friday, Mike decided to make himself a root beer float. At the time, I resisted since I was about to eat dinner soon (it was about 6pm at the time). Mike made his float with a half-full IBC that had apparently been in the back of the fridge for quite some time. And, even though it was a bit flat, Mike said that the float still turned out well.

I went to an autocross on Saturday and, after returning, I thought that a root beer float could be rather tasty. And, I recalled that I still had a can of Diet A&W in my mini-fridge. I wasn’t sure how the float would turn out with diet soda, but I figured that I could always pour it out if I needed to.

I ventured to the freezer and took out a frozen beer mug along with some Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream (the same ice cream that Mike used for his float the day before). I grabbed an ice cream scoop and added two scoops to the mug. I then added the root beer and, as root beer floats tend to do, it foamed up easily and so it took me several careful pours to get all the root beer in the mug.

It had been years since my last root beer float (perhaps ten years), and I was really looking forward to drinking it. After all, root beer and ice cream are two great tastes that taste great together. As I lifted my glass, I pondered for a moment whether the lack of sugar would have any effect on the float; but, I set that thought aside and took a big gulp. Man, it was awful.

Somehow — and perhaps due to the combination of the frozen mug along with the frozen ice cream — the root beer had frozen into chunks of rootbeersicles. It was as if I had a mug of ice cream with some caramel-colored ice tossed in. And, the full-fat/full-sugar nature of the Blue Bell only served to emphasize the watered-down quality of this pathetic root beer.

In the end, I really wanted to like it. I even tried grabbing a spoon so that I could just extract the ice cream bits. But, the root-ice had permeated the beverage and infected all of it. I had no choice but to pour it all down the drain. So, I not only didn’t end up with a tasty beverage, but I’m still itching for a good root beer float (or even a decent one). Perhaps I’ll have to buy a real root beer so that I'll be ready for next time.

British vs American Quoting Styles

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Reading over a Slashdot article on Google’s new look, the discussion somehow turned to quoting conventions and cardshark2001 pointed out that British and American quoting styles differ.

The site points out that in the US, “periods and commas go inside quotation marks regardless of logic”. However, the British apparently include punctuation such as commas and question marks inside the quotation when it makes more sense to do so. For instance, there’s an entirely different meaning (to me) between these arrangements:

  • I’d rather not rent “Dude, Where’s My Car?”.
  • I’d rather not rent “Dude, Where’s My Car”?

Eric S Raymond also talks more about this in the section on Hacker Writing Style of the Jargon File where he confirms that “Hart’s Rules and the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors call the hacker-like style ‘new’ or ‘logical’ quoting”. In any case, this “logical” style is one that I’ve adopted for some time and I’m pleased to learn that it has a grammatical backing as well.

New PC Parts: Antec Sonata Case & Thermaltake Silent Boost

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What started as a PC-upgrade project about a year and a half ago is now well underway. I’m upgrading just the motherboard/processor and the case, but it should perform like a new box after that. Ordinarily, I’d buy a higher-end motherboard in order to have it last through a few incremental upgrades, but I decided instead on a cheap Soyo motherboard as part of my new buy-cheap-and-buy-often strategy. So, the remaining decisions were the heatsink/fan and the case.

The case was actually an easy decision. A few months back, I read a review on Ars Technica for Antec’s Sonata case and it seemed to be just what I was looking for. In particular, the Sonata was designed to be quiet and that was one of my primary goals for this new machine:

OK, now we get to what makes this case special. Antec’s marketing term for its cooling management system is “Antec Low Noise Technology.” It consists of a handful of things, but the most important of these is the TruePower PSU that comes with the case. The TruePower 380W unit adjusts fan speeds based on the temperature in the case. Two Molex-connector power lines coming off of the PSU are marked as “fan only” lines. Those lines will adjust fan spinning speed (via voltage) to minimize noise, and frankly, it works really well. […]

In addition to the quieting features, I was also stoked about their innovative “sideways” hard drive mounting:

First, you can see on the bottom right that hard drives are installed “sideways,” that is, with the connector end facing you in this picture. This is a great design; it makes accessing drives very easy, plus it means that all of your drive cables can be made to easily run up the side of the case. […]

So, the case was an easy enough decision but the heatsink/fan was a bit tougher. At first, I had planned on going with a Zalman heatsink as it’s both an effective and very quiet cooler. However, I then saw Zalman’s motherboard compatibility chart where my motherboard was listed as not compatible (the only Soyo with that designation, natch).

So, I checked on Zalman’s other primary competitors to look for a suitable substitute. I first checked on Thermalright and since their heatsinks seemed a bit on the large side, I headed off to their support section to see whether any of their heatsinks would fit my motherboard. However, even though they have a motherboard compatibility list for each of their heatsinks, they’re not entirely comprehensive — my motherboard wasn’t listed on any of the lists (either way), so I was left unsure. I didn’t want to take a chance on buying a heatsink that wouldn't fit, so I crossed Thermalright off my list.

I next checked on Thermaltake and what first caught my eye there was their SilentTower. It uses heat pipes, which not only cools well but lifts the large heatsink well out of the way of any low-flying motherboard capacitors. In all, the SilentTower pushes about 52 CFM (about twice that of a normal fan setup) while remaining at 21 dB. This looked like just about the perfect heatsink/fan until I tried to buy one — it turns out that Thermaltake only released the SilentTower earlier this month and it wasn't available in stores anywhere yet.

So, I looked over Thermaltake’s other offerings. I had heard of some of their fans from their Volcano line, but I chose to avoid those they’re known for being a bit loud. But, their Silent Boost seemed more like what I had in mind. Granted, it only pushed 27 CFM, but it was only 21 dB and I wasn’t planning on overlclocking my box anyway. I didn’t see any motherboard compatibility charts on Thermaltake’s site, but the Silent Boost visually appeared that it would fit my motherboard easily (especially since it’s tapered towards the bottom).

So, I’ve ordered a Thermaltake Silent Boost ($25.75 w/ free FedEx Saver shipping from AccuPC) and an Antec Sonata case ($84.57 + $20 shipping from Provantage). Somehow seems as if my current PC has become even slower since ordering all these parts for my new PC — I can’t wait to assemble it and put it to good use :).

The Cheap-But-Often PC Buying Strategy

Ashley Bischoff5 Comments

It all started on Thursday when I saw an offer for a free-after-rebate Soyo motherboard on DealNews (via the daily DealNews newsletter). Not that I was particularly in the market for new PC parts — I was trying to hold out for an Athlon 64 — but I was intrigued by this unusually good deal. As a first step, I looked up the retailer (Mwave) on ResellerRatings and found that they have a 8.73 rating along with a Gold consumer-excellence award.

From there, I mentioned it to Mike to get his thoughts on it (since he’s a professional IT Guy, I trust his opinion on this kind of thing). He confirmed that Soyo is a decent brand and he went on to say that his previous motherboard was even a Soyo (though he has an Asus now). Mike was even considering buying one for himself, until he read the offer details and discovered that the deal required a CPU purchase from Mwave as well.

Being the skeptic that I am, I figured that Mwave was overcharging on the processors to cover the costs of the motherboard. So, I cross-checked their prices against NewEgg’s. As it turns out, Mwave’s processor prices are actually lower than NewEgg’s (!). Mwave’s Athlon 2800 is $108 (compared to $116 at NewEgg) and their Athlon 3000 is $144 (compared to $166) at NewEgg.

At this point, both of us had all but discounted the idea of going for this deal. In Mike’s case, he already had a spare AMD 1700 and so he could have just about built a computer from spare parts and this “free” motherboard. But, with the required processor purchase, it would be far from a free PC for Mike.

And, in any case, I was only really considering this as a stop-gap measure to hold me over until Athlon 64s (Socket 939, specifically) became widely available. And, under that scenario, I would have bought a cheap Athlon 2200 or something to go with it (which would still work out to a decent speed upgrade from my current Athlon 700 for not much dough).

For those wondering why I’m even bothering with another PC upgrade when I already have a new PowerBook ;), I have my reasons. In the short-run, I still haven’t found an editor that I like on Mac OS and, in the long-run, I still need a PC for games (Doom III, Half-Life 2, and so on).

Anyhow, I got to talking with Mike about how we missed this great deal “by that much” (since it required a processor purchase). And, at that point, Mike shared with me his newly formed buying strategy which I like to call the “cheap but often” approach.

Summarizing my thoughts on the matter up until that point, it seemed reasonable to me that it would be cheaper to buy higher-end PC parts since they last longer between upgrades (as opposed to buying cheap parts which have to be upgraded much sooner). However, Mike expressed that, with the price difference between high-end and low-end parts, it's actually cheaper in the long run to buy cheap or mid-range parts, even if it means buying them more often.

Logically, his point of view made sense to me, though it was a little jarring at the time since it wasn't the way I was used to thinking. So, to prove it to myself (one way or the other), I decided to whip up a spreadsheet to calculate PC upgrade costs over time (using both strategies). As I made the spreadsheet, I held these assumptions:

  • A “cheap PC” will last three years and, after that time, neither the motherboard nor CPU could be migrated to the new box. That is, it’s assumed that the CPU is maxing out the cheap motherboard’s capabilities already and that an upgraded CPU wouldn’t be possible.

  • An “expensive PC” will also last three years; however, a refresher CPU could be bought at that time which would extend the life of the box an additional two years.

  • And, lastly, each “new” box would built by scrounging parts from the “old” box whenever possible — I wouldn’t be building a completely new machine each time.

And, for the spreadsheet to make sense, here’s what I have in my current PC with notations of which parts can’t be reused in the new box:

  • Asus Slot A motherboard [nope]
  • Athlon 700 [nope]
  • Western Digital 120 GB hard drive
  • Maxtor 10 GB hard drive [probably not]
  • Plextor CD-R drive
  • Pioneer SCSI DVD drive
  • GeForce4 Ti4600
  • Floppy drive
  • D-Link NIC
  • 1 GB PC3000 RAM (bought earlier)

With that out of the way, the spreadsheet is available in OpenOffice.org Calc format (7k) and PDF (62k). You may notice that the “now” section for the “Expensive Route” includes both an SATA drive and a DVD+R/DVD-R recorder (as both of those parts would allow the expensive PC to laster longer between upgrades). Not to worry, the “Cheap Route” gets those parts also, though only as needed (as part of the 3-year “Cheap Route” upgrade where it’s assumed that the motherboard of that time will predominately feature SATA controllers).

So, as you can see from looking over the spreadsheet, the cheap route is cheap not only in the short-run (as expected) but also in the long-run (which I didn’t initially expect). With the exception of Year 3, the cheap route remains cheaper than the expensive route right through the 8-year projections (even though it requires replacement parts sooner).

So, with the numbers in-hand, I ordered the Soyo motherboard and an Athlon 3000 to go with it. With FedEx Saver shipping, they should be arriving within the next few days :).

Update 03/31: The original spreadsheet had an error in one of the formulas, but that’s been corrected. The end result (the “cheaper route” being cheaper in the long run) is the same.

Inspection and Wifi at Kwik Kar Lube & Tune

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

The inspection on my car was coming due this month (expiring at the end of 3/2004), so I knew I had to get that done within the next few days. In past years, I’ve gone to the Jiffy Lube at Greenville & Mockingbird and they’ve always been fine (just an ordinary car inspection).

Since buying my PowerBook, I’ve been keeping mental notes of local businesses with WiFi support and I had in the back of my mind that one of the oil-change shops had WiFi (though I couldn’t remember their name or whether they were authorized for inspections in the first place).

So, I first checked the TX Department of Public Safety’s site for inspection stations in my area. Sure enough, there was the “Kwik Kar Lube & Tune” which sounded familiar. And, a quick check at JiWire — a site listing WiFi hotspots — confirmed it. So, I packed up my PowerBook yesterday afternoon and headed off.

It was a great experience, or as good as a car inspection can be. I pulled into the parking lot and an attendant greeted me at my car door to ask how he could help me. I requested an inspection, handed over my keys, and he got started right away. I headed off to the waiting room and unpacked my laptop. Mac OS found the access point right away and I was connected.

As I waited, I downloaded the latest Thunderbird build, chatted a bit on iChat, and the inspection was complete in about 20-30 minutes. It was fairly pleasant and I wouldn't hesitate to go there for my next inspection.