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Adam and Jamie, hots of the known MythBusters show compared a CPU vs a GPU to explain parallel processing and the GPU drew an ACTUAL mona lisa drawing using paint balls in 80 milliseconds!!!!!!!

I’m a fan of both paintball and having a beefy GPU. This video was so right up my alley. Plus how wicked is it to see paintballs blast a Mona Lisa in 80 milleseconds? The GPU vs CPU display was done as part of NVision08. NVision08 was a kind of mega event described as “Featuring over 55 hours of jaw-dropping visual wonderment – from today’s hottest games and movies, video, science, mobile and computer technologies – you will get to experience, touch and feel the latest visual technologies that will change your life. And let you see into the future.”

On last night’s Colbert Report, Stephen cut through all of the doom and gloom of the Democratic Convention by profiling someone who’s flourishing in the current economy: A repo man.

Others who are probably doing well these days include unemployment-office workers, squatters, pan-handle makers, trashcan-fire emporiums, tumble-weed manufacturers and super-villains.

Ron Paul appears on CNN’s American Morning and points out the lies we are being told about economics and foreign policy.

Not to long ago I purchased a new Dell 22″ WS monitor. I love the thing, but shortly after getting it a single stuck pixel appears. In normal use of the computer I don’t see it, but as soon as I reboot or go to something with a black screen there it is… glaring at me, taunting me that my new monitor isn’t perfect. I over course placed a call to Dell, and receive the response that it’s acceptable for up to 5 stuck/dead pixels to happen on a monitor. I replied that is like saying “sorry you’re new Ferrari has a paint chip but up to five paint chips is ok by us”. That didn’t get me anywhere… ce la vi.

If you’re not familiar with a stuck pixel it’s a bright dot of colour most noticeable when the rest of the screen is black. Stuck pixels are fairly common on high resolution LCD screens. Stuck pixels sometimes start working again with time unless they appear black on a white background, these are known as dead pixels.

Enter JScreenFix. JScreenFix is a Java applet that helps fix stuck pixel. When I first ran across it I thought it had to be a joke. Guess what? It worked! JScreenFix claims to repair most stuck pixels in under 20 minutes, and mild screen burn-in within 12 hours. I ran it for about 5 minutes (max) and the pixel was unstuck and my monitor looks brand new.

So what are the highlights?

• Runs in web browser.
• Fixes most stuck pixels on LCD screens.
• Removes image persistence on LCD screens.
• Reduces burn-in on plasma screens.
• Runs on Windows, Mac and Linux computers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Scott Hanselman, the studmuffin of the Microsoft world drops some knowledge and clears up some confusion about the size of the .NET Framework.

The .NET Framework is not really a 200+ meg download. From Scott’s site:

Which installer do I use?

Here’s the whole thing in a nutshell for Developers, ISVs, and Administrators.

• Offline Installer - One single file that can be run offline and can install the .NET Framework any system it’s run on. It’s complete, all platforms, installable offline.
• Online Installer - A 2.7 meg setup program that will detect what just the files you need, then go download between 10 and 60 megs.
  • NOTE: If you’re IT and inside an office, you’ll want to decide if you want everyone in the office downloading .NET separately, or if you just want download it once, and have them to run it off a network share. Check out the Deployment Guide for Administrators for ways to push it out via AD or SMS.

So how big is it the .NET Framework download, really?

It depends on what you’ve already got installed. Here’s some examples of my results using an XP SP2 machine.

Scott goes into much greater detail on his blog here. He’s also launched a section of his site called SmallestDotNet, it checks you browser’s “UserAgent” and figures out what version (if any) of the .NET Framework you have (or don’t have) installed, then calculated the total size if you chose to download the .NET Framework. Easy huh. The bummer is that it doesn’t work with FireFox.