Today was the first visible snowfall of the season.

By visible, I mean that you can actually see the snow piling up. It already snowed a little bit about a few weeks ago, but the snow was so light that it melted instantly upon touching the ground, and it only lasted for a few hours or so. Usually, it starts snowing significantly earlier in my area, but it’s extremely late this year.

Someone even already had the chance to doodle in the snow on a car out in the parking lot.

I’m not too big of a fan of snow, so I’m not really that excited. I have faint memories of playing in the snow when I was little, but even then, it was more of a hassle because I would be forced to put on my snow pants and winter coat and gloves and boots and hat just to go outside for recess, and that process would take about 15 minutes. By the time we got outside, we would only have about five minutes to play before we had to come back inside and take everything off again.

The only recent recollections I have with regards to snow are mostly frustrating, including trying to fix the snow blower so I don’t have to hand-shovel a foot’s worth of snow off the drive way, and having to walk back home in a blizzard from my office a few years ago because the buses stopped running due to severe weather.

I don’t want to end this on a morbid note, so I guess that I’m slightly okay with the fact that it’s snowing now.

But only a little.

If you’re a regular watcher of my live stream on Twitch.TV, you might have notice that I haven’t really been streaming much lately, and when I do stream, it’s from a different location (as you might have seen from the background in my webcam).

I’ve gotten a handful of people asking me why that is (and one person even going to the extent of asking me if I had quit streaming), so I decided to make a quick blog post describing my current situation.

The reason I haven’t been streaming lately is because the Internet at my apartment is extremely unreliable. My rent payment comes with utilities included, one of which is 50 Mb/s Internet from ResTech Services, an Internet service provider that I believe only serves the Madison, WI area (or, at the very least, their main offices are in Madison). Usually the Internet is okay (although I never get up to 50 Mb/s), but occasionally, I run into severe speed and latency problems.

These problems generally fix themselves, and if not, then I can usually call customer service and ask them to reset some stuff on my account. However, the problem I’ve been facing lately has gone completely unresolved, even though I’ve done thorough investigations and I’ve called my ISP multiple times.

Long story short, my Internet connection drops every 15-20 minutes. Although this isn’t a huge deal for everyday, normal Internet use, it does pose a problem when I’m playing games like League of Legends, or when I’m streaming, which requires a constant and consistent connection with the corresponding servers. Get your connection dropped during a game and it’ll lag you out, rending you unable to control your character while it attempts to reconnect, putting you in a vulnerable position prone to death. Get your connection dropped during a stream and your viewers will constantly have to refresh the stream (if the stream doesn’t automatically restart in their browser), and the recorded replay file is split up into little chunks.

As of right now, my next course of action is to try out a different router than the one I’m using. I find it very difficult to believe that my router randomly decided to start dropping my Internet connection one day, but I still understand that it’s possible, no matter how small the chance.

Until then, all of my streaming will have to be done from an alternative location using a different Internet connection.

Fortunately, my university’s Internet is good enough that I’m able to stream in high definition without any problems. So, I’ve generally been streaming from my psychology research lab office, or a commons (sometimes referred to as a library in the quiet sections) private study room.

I’ll try to keep you guys updated on the status of my Internet, and when I will be able to stream regularly from my apartment again.

If you saw my blog post from a few days ago, you know that I recently got a bunch of new stuff from Razer, which included the Razer BlackWidow Ultimate 2013.

For the past half a year or so, I’ve been using the Razer BlackWidow standard edition. The primary difference between this keyboard and the one I received a few days ago is that it’s an older model. I’ve done a bit of research on it and I haven’t really been able to find any significant differences between the two models, other than the fact that the color of the lighting is different, and the gaming features have been slightly improved in the newer model.

The other difference is that I used to use the standard edition, but this time I got the ultimate edition. The main differences that I can tell between the standard and ultimate editions are that the ultimate comes with full lighting of the keys, and has extra jacks for connecting your headphones, microphone, and something that uses USB.

Overall, I love the Razer BlackWidow standard edition, but I dislike the Razer BlackWidow Ultimate 2013.

Starting with the feel of the keyboard, the standard edition keyboard has a rougher feel with more defined edges to the keys that helps your fingers get a grip on the keyboard. This allows for efficient typing with few errors because it is very difficult for your fingers to accidentally hit keys that you don’t want.

On the other hand, the ultimate 2013 edition has much smoother and softer keys with very undefined edges. If you were to slip your fingers across the edges of the keys, it would be difficult to tell just by your sense of touch where the key ends and a new key starts. Thus, it’s difficult to get a grip on the home row, and easy for your fingers to slip off your targeted keys.

I’m not sure if this difference in texture and feel is distinct between the standard and ultimate editions, or the classic and 2013 editions, because I haven’t tried all four different combinations of possible keyboards.

Moving on to the extra input ports, it seems like something that would be convenient, but there’s a catch. The data sent through the extra ports aren’t actually being converted through USB; they’re essentially just mass extension cords. When you take a look at your Ultimate keyboard, the input cable is massive, because it has two USB cables and two standard jack cables. This is pretty bulky and uncomfortable if you’re using a laptop and you’re connecting and disconnecting your keyboard each time you take it out with you and bring it back.

Overall, my recommendation, if you are going to get a Razer keyboard, is to stick with the older model of the BlackWidow. Unless you specifically want or need the extra features of the Ultimate, and you are fine with the inconveniences it brings, the classic standard edition seems to come with everything that a keyboard really needs while keeping everything simple.

Because of my dissatisfaction with the Ultimate 2013, I will be returning it back to Razer. However, I will still be using my Razer BlackWidow standard edition whenever I get the chance, because it is still my favorite keyboard and I get a feeling of satisfaction whenever I use it and hear myself typing.

My stash of new Razer gear arrived today in the mail.

Seen in the photo is the Razer BlackWidow 2013, Razer DeathAdder mouse, and Razer Goliathus surface.

I’ll definitely be testing these out extensively within the near future, and will be posting some reviews up on my website.

And of course, a thank you to Razer for providing me with the equipment.

I came back to my desk at the Badger Herald office for the first time in about a week or so today. After sitting down, I noticed this:

How do you even manage to scratch and gunk up a desk so badly in a single week?

-__-

You might already be aware that I’m back at home for Thanksgiving break.

Before I got back home, my dad did some holiday decorating. I noticed that he selected an interesting place for one of our wreaths.

Ran out of places to hang up decorations? No problem. Just put it on the telescope.