I fixed the problem with SoundApp skipping. It was Virtual Memory. With VM turned off I haven't had any skips, even when launching applications. I don't really need the extra memory (and I only had VM on at the minimum level, which keeps programs from loading everything at startup) and the extra 650 MB of hard disk space is nice to have. I always thought that VM wouldn't kick in until you run out of real memory, now I know that it interferes with the system at all times (and now I also know why lots of real-time programs recommend turning off VM). Now that I think about it, the problem went away on my old machine after I installed RAM Doubler (which I didn't install at first since I thought that 160 MB was enough). So RAM Doubler is better than VM.

The other thing is that I solved the crashing problem on startup by not running the script that cleans up the RAM Disk. Instead I moved the commands to my backup script so that the Persistent RAM Disk file is deleted before backup. That brings my computer a little closer to total stability, although it still occassionally hard crashes. Eh, such is life...

Honor is a bitch sometimes. There are some things I can't do just because that's not the person I want to be, but it can bother me deep down inside sometimes, which just goes to show how far I still have to go to be a good person. Like if a friend borrows something from me, I'll really try not to ask for them back. They have to be responsible with other people's things and it's not my place to remind them or to come off as a person who reminds people that they haven't returned this or that.

Another example is going to Billy's for Thanksgiving. I mentioned to some people before and they seemed interested, although it was still very informal. But when it comes time to make an official announcement I have to ignore that and treat it as a blank slate, to give people a chance to back out without losing face. And this is the only mention I am likely to make of it. I'm not asking again and definitely not face to face, so people don't feel obliged to go just because I'm asking.

Conversely that's the kind of attitude I have when people invite me to do things. If they ask me, it would be impolite to refuse, so I have to make the effort whether or not I have the time and inclination to do this. Even when Shannon and Kimberly had their saloon night I still felt bad about not attending because of work. I expect people who ask really want me to do this, so I try to accept...

On another topic, it's amazing what rumor sites come up with. I just read this post where someone working with a development version of an nVidia GeForce2 card saw that there was an option to install "Macintosh system compatibility" drivers. One thing leads to another and the conclusion is that nVidia is going to release GeForce2 cards for the Mac market.

Not to blow it out of proportion, but having an option doesn't indicate anything other than someone worked a bit to make the card compatible with a Mac. I do the same thing with our software. I try to run it on my Mac and if it doesn't work I try to find out why and fix it. Stuff I can't fix I put in a debug flag to turn it off. The debug flag is called TEST_MAC_OS and if someone happened to see it (some people go to great lengths sifting through source code) they might assume that we're working on making out software work on the Mac. Far from it, I'm just turning stuff off that I don't need for my testing and which crashes the platform on my Mac...