Gizmodo's 50 Key Geek Skills

I thought this list was funny until I realized I have personally done at least half of them.

From Gizmodo.com:

Gizmodo readers like you tend to think they know more about technology any other people—including (or especially) Giz editors. You're the person your friends and family come to with computer problems, what those in the know call a geek. But there are varying levels of geekdom. In order for you to prove where you stand, I've compiled a handy list of 50 key geek skills. Many of them are straightforward, some are tough as hell. Only the most dedicated shut-in basement dwellers will score a perfect 50. How do you stack up? Hit the jump to find out, and be sure to keep a tally as you read—there's a poll at the end to see how you measure up to your fellow Giz readers.

1. Install a hard drive in a laptop
2. Perform a clean OS install on a machine with two OSes
3. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone
4. Jailbreak an iPhone
5. Wire your house for Ethernet and Coax cable
6. Use BitTorrent and RSS to automatically download new shows from trackers
7. Use an A/V receiver to its fullest capability (every port is taken)
8. Calibrate an HDTV without the manual
9. Use a DSLR in full manual mode
10. Hack the encryption and mooch your neighbor's Wi-Fi
11. Solder cleanly enough to get around a circuit board
12. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point
13. Shove the guts of a modern game console into a retro game console
14. Design a webpage in HTML by hand that features a picture of your cat
15. Use Photoshop to imperceptibly doctor a photo
16. Abstain from buying extended warranties
17. Know where to buy cheap cables and accessories
18. Fix your parents' computer over the phone without looking at a computer
19. Enter the Konami code
20. Comment on Gizmodo from your phone
21. Type quickly using T9 texting
22. Program a universal remote
23. Contribute code to the Linux kernel
24. [Encrypt information]
25. Avoid DRM on everything
26. Know how to back up your data to networked storage—& actually do it
27. Watch TV shows on the internet for free
28. Edit together digital video ripped from YouTube
29. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator
30. Reset expired trial software by messing with the registry
31. Hackintosh your PC
32. Download pre-release movies from Usenet
33. Hack the Wii to play homebrew games
34. Get around web content filters on public computers
35. Get into a Windows computer if you forgot your password
36. Securely erase your data so it can't be recovered
37. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network
38. Build a fighting robot
39. Write your own Firefox plugins
40. Navigate and reorganize the files on your computer in DOS
41. Get something on the front page of Digg
42. Get through to executive customer service
43. Rip a CD to V0 quality MP3s
44. Rip a DVD to DivX
45. Build your own computer from parts
46. Swap out the hard drive in your DVR for a bigger one
47. Get an NES cartridge working again by blowing in it
48. Calibrate a 7.1 surround-sound system
49. Play downloaded games on a Nintendo DS
50. Talk about things that aren't tech related

Hardest Times Past for AMD?

Quote from eetimes:
"SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Advanced Micro Devices is back on track with its latest 45 nmperformance computing (HPC) companies expect to see neck-and neck competition between AMD and Intel as both move to six-core server processors in 2009.

AMD's four-core, 45 nm Shanghai processor is shipping now, ahead of schedule. The chip, which AMD has not yet formally announced, will be priced aggressively and is getting performance measures as high as 35 percent above its previous 65 nm Barcelona while consuming as much as 30 percent less power, said Burke Banda, a server marketing manager for AMD."

Most people know about AMD's problems... First off, their stock has dropped 90% since '06. Second, they've "let go" about 500 employees in order to pay off their 1.5 billion dollar debt. Finally, and most recently, they've had an employee-gone-rogue allegedly steal 1.5 billion dollars worth of trade secrets and hand them to his wife, who just "happens" to work for Intel. Hmmm...

But if you read the above excerpt, then you might agree with me in saying things are finally looking up for AMD. As the multicore race heats up, AMD looks like an early favorite with it's (unofficial) Shanghai 45 nm 4-core. Preliminary tests show considerable improvements in both power consumption & performance.

However, Intel also announced that they too will be releasing a new processor of the 45 nm Nehalem family. Once this comes out, Intel & AMD will most definitely be neck-and-neck. AMD needs to make capitalize on beating Intel to the market if they want to make up for previous lost profits (& customers).

Awwwwwww

I love you too, Mr Sloth

"Oh Crap!"

Click the image to enlarge it. Makes that dog's eyes even funnier.

Cyrus Virus

I 'bout wet myself when I read this from this forum :

"Well, i was surfing the net at college yesterday on my laptop, im allowed to use it in lessons to take notes etc.
I shut it down after my free period and went to physics, switched my laptop on, and upon startup it started some EXTREEMLY annoying music

I looked at it, tried to put some headphones in (sadly my headphons jack appears to no longer be working) and my sound panel is blanked out, so i cant control the volume (MUTE IT!)
eventually i gave in that physics lesson and just used pen and paper.

so i got home and tried to mess about a bit with it, it appears to have a strange virus.
It plays "Miley Cyrus - See You Again" upon startup, each and every time, and just repeats at full volume, it wont accept headphones (just sees them as not there and continues to play)

I found miley.exe as a process, and im assuming thats what controlling it, but when i close it, its just reopens itself and starts playing again

anyone have any ideas? As i absolutly hate pop music, and this takes the buscuit -.-"



So for those of you who skipped the paragraph for the recap, here you go. Basically, while sitting in class, our protagonist's laptop acquired a virus of epic proportions. First, the virus disabled the headphone jack & the audio controls simultaneously. Next, it forced the volume to skyrocket. And then the grand finale- "See You Again" by Miley Cyrus blasted on a constant loop.

EPIC