Book Review #5: Of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters

Book 5: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams

Another crazy adventure with Arthur Dent. Zaphod Beeblebrox is looking for the ruler of the Universe, on a mission that he only recently remembered. At one point they end up at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, a very imaginative place, where people can go to see what happens at the End and enjoy a good supper at the same time. The plot seemed slightly contrived and just a bit confusing, but there were certainly funny parts, and is a good choice if you're just looking for laughs, not seriousness.

I enjoyed this one a bit more than the first, though that could have been because it took me a few times to get through the first one and the jokes were old by then. I especially like the ending scene, but I won't spoil it.

I've tried to get through the third book, to no avail. It's not holding my attention and I'm more in the mood for epic fantasy. Don't know if I'll continue this series, but if I do, I'll post my reviews here.

Building A PC: Part 1

I have recently decided to build a new computer. I have reasons for why I'm doing it before my exams are over, as well as reasons for why I'm building it myself, but I'd rather talk about the latter. I am aiming to write these posts about my new computer not only for tech-savvy readers, but for anyone who is interested. So I apologize if you know some of this already. This blog was partly inspired by Coding Horror's popular series of posts. Take a look at them if you want more pictures of pretty PC parts.

Building has many benefits over pre-built, if you're up to the task. If you learn about parts, you can choose exactly what you want--and then modify them when you change your mind, or when the technology for a particular part gets better. This way you don't have to buy a whole new computer when you want a new part, and you know exactly where it goes and whether it plays nice with your other parts. It can also be cheaper, but only if you're careful.

I did my best to be careful. I wanted a gaming PC that could play today's games at the highest graphics settings, as well as being a bit future-proof so that I won't have to rebuild for at least a few years. Problem was, I had to buy everything from the keyboard to the motherboard. All that I had already was a gaming laptop, which I couldn't take parts from.

To find parts, I had to do research. This is essential, and probably the most difficult part of building a computer. I was lucky, since I have lots of friends in computing science to bounce ideas off of, but most of my decisions were based on reading reviews, benchmarks (performance tests), and searching sites for the best prices. I wanted to make good choices, so I spent some time doing this. I ended up buying my parts online from Dabs and eBuyer, two major electronics retailers in the UK.

Here are my final specs, which I know many of you will skip the rest of this post to see:

Processor	£170	Intel Core i5-2500K
Motherboard	£95	Asus P8Z68-V LX
Graphics Card	£160	XFX Radeon HD6870 2GB
Memory	£45	Patriot 8GB Viper Xtreme DDR3 1866MHz
Case	£65	Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus Case
Power Supply	£37	Coolermaster GX 650W
Hard Drive	£83	Seagate 1TB Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 7200RPM
DVD-RW Drive	£15	LiteOn iHAS124 24x
Speakers	£18	Logitech S220 2.1 Speakers
Keyboard	£11	Logitech K200 Media Keyboard
Monitor	£142	Samsung S24A300H 24" HDMI Monitor (and cable)
Power Strip	£8	Belkin 6-Socket SurgeStrip 3m Cable

The total was just under £850. Note that the motherboard, processor, and memory came in a £300 bundle; I estimated what each separate part cost within the bundle. The same goes for the case and power supply, they came in a roughly £100 bundle.

The day the last part came--the monitor and its HDMI cable--I got to work. Part 2 will cover the steps I took to put it all together.

Freedom

On Friday, my class and I turned in our dissertations. It was such a relief. Since exams don't start for about a month, it's as if I went from having no time for anything but work to having no idea what to do with myself. I have a few small projects in mind though, including writing a bunch of blog posts that I've been beind on. I have another book review and at least one post I want to make about the new computer I put together. Look for them soon!

I might also buy A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin, finally, for kindle... now that I have some time to get absorbed in books.

Milestones

As of last night, I have completed all of my coursework. Another step closer to being finished with my degree. There are still two weeks of lectures left, and three weeks to finish my dissertation. For that, I have at least 30 more pages to go, plus a presentation to prepare. It's a lot easier to bear without extra work on top of that.

I'm so ready to have time to do whatever I want: read, play video games, assemble a new computer, cross-stitch... so ready, in fact, that I will probably make time to do some of these things during my exam-study-break. While still studying plenty, of course. I'll have to plan my time wisely, with nine exams to prepare for.

I'm also considering participating in Blog Every Day April (BEDA) this year. It will be easier since I won't be going to classes, but I will be studying. We'll see if I can manage it.