dd-wrt and torrents

with the new wireless network at home in use full-time, i have found that while downloading the latest fedora core torrent (or any torrent for that matter) that the wireless network basically is gridlocked. other machines get sporadic access to the internet, if you are lucky.

the culprit? it turns out that the default timeout value for a bittorrent connection is something absurdly high and the default keep-alive connection in the dd-wrt firmware is also pretty high. the combination of these factors make for an unstable wireless network.

the solution? apparently a lot of other people use this firmware and bittorrent and have found a workaround. i applied the changes in the settings and the network is purring once again.

i started to look at powerline solutions which are very expensive. ethernet over your power line seems like a cool concept, but it’s very expensive and from what i hear can be kind of flaky and prone to interference. luckily, i didn’t have to go down that route so that was quite a relief.

Update: Link above is dead.
Here is another source with the solution used.

moving around

i helped john move some stuff around at his new place yesterday. he bought this ENORMOUS wine cellar off some guy at ebay and we had the wonderful task of moving it from this guy’s place to john’s place. when i saw the wine cellar, i thought it was going to be so heavy that we weren’t going to be able to move it anywhere. i think it holds something like 168 bottles of wine. craziness, i tell you.

i still have a lot of stuff at the house to move around, but i’ve started the painful task of hanging all of my clothes. i think that i need to buy more hangers. christi made me throw away my wire hangers. she doesn’t like them, but i think that they are just fine.

i actually didn’t throw the hangers away. i just put them away in the give-for-free pile. speaking of which, i have a lot of stuff that i want to sell or give away. i guess i should hurry and put that stuff on craigslist so that it doesn’t keep the garbage packed.

making sushi

i made sushi for dinner last night. it was the usual spread: tuna, hamachi, salmon, eel, cucumber, and tamago. make your own sushi is always good and it was nice to be able to enjoy some sushi with friends.

for those who don’t make sushi at home, i always hear about how special it must be to make sushi. sushi is probably one of the easiest meals to make because you don’t have to cook anything. all you have to do is cut some stuff up and you are done. how easy is that?

things around the house are moving along, we’re slowly getting moved in. i tried to clear out some boxes from the garage last night. we can ALMOST get a car in the garage now. ALMOST.