“If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.” — Albert Einstein
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After letting the amazing code for the new IMGrammarBot sit on my hard drive inactive for months and months, I’ve finally released it today. Go get it! It does amazing new things, such as:
Unfortunately, I have to retract my prior statements about Nintendo cleaning up its manufacturing process. The DS Lite I got, much to my dismay, had a screwed up control pad; it made snapping sounds and was very difficult to make work in diagonal directions. So, I exchanged it for another one, hoping that my blog post had been right.
It wasn’t. Sure enough, I found dust particles under the new unit’s screens. Lots of them, too. Luckily, the bright backlight makes them virtually invisible, so it wasn’t a big deal. However, that unit was also (seemingly) defective, as the bottom screen had a strong yellow tint to it. I’m aware that the bottom screen, being a touch screen, won’t appear the same as the top screen, but this one was strikingly different, so I returned it again.
Now I have it: My third DS Lite, and the control pad works, the screens are appropriately colored… and there are two visible specks of foreign particles on the top display. Examination with a flashlight reveals that the top screen is loaded with dust particles, and I’m fortunate that only two of them show up under the backlight. When visible they discolor the part of the screen they cover. They actually make the screen look like it has dysfunctional pixels, but the flashlight reveals that they are indeed dust.
I hate this. At least now I have a unit without other problems, so if I replace the top screen using a screen replacement kit, it would be possible to clean it out (though not in my incredibly dusty home). I found only one particle under the touch screen (which can’t be serviced by the user), so that’s a blessing.
Today I finally got into the game and bought a Nintendo DS Lite in the newly released “onyx” black color. This is only notable because it’s the first Nintendo handheld I’ve ever purchased that doesn’t seem to have dust, or other foreign particles under its screen (in this case, both of them). I’m pleasantly surprised; as many Game Boy systems as I have had to return to get one with an acceptably minimal amount of foreign material under the screens, I expected to have to go through a dozen DS systems to find something acceptable. For the record, I have possesed these devices, all of which had dust under their screens:
When my Game Boy Pocket was a problem, we contacted Nintendo of America to complain. The person we talked with–who, if I recall, was highly authoratative in the company, though I can’t remember what position–informed us that there is nothing about the design to prevent foreign particles from entering the device’s screen. This has held true; all my Game Boy systems have had dust under their screens at purchase, and changing dust situations through their life. My Game Boy Advance SP even had a tiny insect crawling around under the screen once.
Hopefully this isn’t so much the case with the DS Lite, since it’s the first one I’ve ever bought without any. Now if some dust doesn’t creep in before I can actually purchase a DS game to fill its most significant orifice, I’ll be set.
I now have a 2 GB Kingston DataTraveler USB flash drive with something interesting I’d never heard of before: U3. U3 is an interface for portable applications, allowing developers to write programs that are effortlessly carried from computer to computer. Amazingly, it’s actually agreed upon and used by multiple manufacturers, such as Kingston, SanDisk, and Memorex, and is openly available for more manufacturers to use. The drive contains a ROM portion with Windows autorun information to get the U3 tray icon menu going.
This is a pretty interesting concept, I’d say, and the developers think it could evolve the way we compute. I like the idea of being able to store all my favorite programs and data in one spot and take it with me everywhere. With the absence of a registry, it would make archival extremely simple–I could just make a copy of the flash drive. However, I see one major problem: constantly rewriting to the device is bad for its health, so how will we truly be able to use any sort of program on a flash drive?
I started my latest college semester today to find that my classes have been placed in classrooms where I can’t pick up on the Wi-Fi hotspot located at the town library, which is across the street from the school. Oddly, I used to be able to get a little bit of signal on the far side of the school, but now can’t get signal even in the middle of the school. I guess maybe they lowered power.
It’s frustrating to be unable to gather information relevant to the classes I’m in, since I’ve been doing that in the last five classes I’ve been in. It might help if I had more powerful hardware, since my crappy laptop has no PCMCIA slot, no built in Wi-Fi receiver, and I have a cheap USB Wi-Fi stick by Airlink. I’d build a cantenna, but I’d have no way to use it since my Wi-Fi stick has no place for an external antenna. I hope to get a decent laptop soon, however, so it may only be a short period of time before I have a big, ugly can sitting on my table in class. That will be hilarious.
