Nitemare Cafehttp://www.nitemarecafe.com/ A day in the life of a computer geeken Tue, 04 Aug 2026 07:51:04 -0400 Tue, 04 Aug 2026 07:51:04 -0400 Early-mid 2010s Gaming Machine Some years ago, I picked up a couple of CRTs and an old turntable stereo from one of my old co-workers to save them from a dumpster, and while I was there, he offered me a gaming rig from the early 2010s which didn't boot for pretty cheap. It was in a Raidmax ATX case, and the case itself was worth more than the $20 he was asking.

Once I got it home, I pulled system apart, and it is fairly impressive for the time. It has external knobs for controlling some of the fans and their LED lighting, and at some point, a capacitor blew up and once of the wires started to melt, which caused a short. Also, one of the four 6GB RAM chips had apparently gone bad, and the hard drive had been removed as some point. It also had some random, period-correct, i7 CPU in it. Also, an NVIDIA Geforce GTX970 GPU, which actually caused a class-action suit against NVIDIA for intentionally designing it with 3.5GB of fast VRAM and .5GB of slower memory, causing performance issues. It had a clock rate of 1050Mhz and a boost rate of somewhere around 1170Mhz, if memory serves. The RAM situation was a serious bottleneck.

Recently, I've decided it take it out of storage and upgrade this to a somewhat period-correct gaming beast. I had a spare 8TB hard drive, so I decided to install it. I also had an NVIDIA Quadro M4000, which was basically the workstation version of the GTX970, but with 8GB of vRAM and a clock rate of something around 770Mhz. After some work, I managed to modify the video BIOS to set the clock rate to 1000Mhz and the boost rate to 1050Mhz. Not quite as fast as an actual GTX970, but as close as I could get without playing with power and voltage settings. A simple boost of the max power from 120W to 130W stablized the framerate, as it would hit 120W every now and then and throttle the speed down. It never goes above 120W, but giving that slight overhead stablized the speed.

The motherboard used is an Intel DX79SI, with 8 DDR3 RAM slots which support quad-channel memory. So, I have ordered 5 used sticks of 8GB G.SKILL Ripjaws PC3-14900 RAM to match the 3 sticks already in it to max out the motherboard to 64GB of quad-channel RAM. I also flashed the bios to support the fastest CPU available, a 2nd-gen i7, a 4GHz i7-3960X Extreme, with 6 cores and 12 threads. I have one of those on order as well.

I ID'ed the Raidmax case as a Raidmax Augusta. It has five internal 5.25" drive bays, plus a separate chamber for six 3.5" internal hard drives, on easily removable trays.

I installed the latest release of the Devuan Linux distro, which is basically Debian without systemd. I installed MATE as my desktop to keep it as light as possible, and will be running most of my games throught Lutris and other emulator front-ends.

Tags: emulation, gaming, pc

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/early-mid-2010s-gaming-machine.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./early-mid-2010s-gaming-machine.html Wintermute Tue, 04 Aug 2026 07:51:00 -0400 <!doctype html>

Nitemare Cafe

A day in the life of a computer geek

Home Blog About Discord Guestbook Links

July 21, 2026 — Wintermute

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/doctype-html.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./doctype-html.html Wintermute Wintermute Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:37:01 -0400 Reset my family tree Due to a number of errors, I made my old family tree private and started a new one to share on Ancestry.com. I am being more methodical in my approach, using a vertical tree and going top-to-bottom on the current generation that I am working. I am typically not researching any siblings which show up, but I am not adding any from another tree unless they also appear in other records. I may eventually do that research as well, but for now I am concentrating on direct ancestors: parents, grandparents, great- grandparents, etc. I thought I would share a quick snapshot of where I am:

Barnhart Family Tree

Tags: genealogy

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/reset-my-family-tree.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./reset-my-family-tree.html Wintermute Wed, 08 Jul 2026 07:53:16 -0400 Slight update You may have noticed a slight change to the way the site renders. I updated the .css to be lighter weight, as I discovered it did not display well for some extremely old browsers. The new .css is nearly the same, but not quite, and should fix those issues.

Tags: updates

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/slight-update.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./slight-update.html Wintermute Wed, 08 Jul 2026 07:21:09 -0400 Review: The Invention of Lying (2009) Somehow, 2009's The Invention of Lying managed to fly under my radar when it came out, so this is my original viewing and not a rewatch.

In it, humanity is unable to lie. There isn't even a word for telling a falsehood. Movies are documentaries, advertising is honest, and your date tells you upfront the they're not attacted to you so you're probably not getting lucky. Suddenly, a character played by Ricky Gervais discovered that he has the ability to lie, and his bank just trusts him and assumes their system is in error when he withdraws more than what is in his account in order to pay his rent.

The brutal honesty up until that point, and leading up to it, is absolutely both messed up and hilarious as the same time. And the movie is great until sometime around this point.

When his mother is dying, and is afraid, he basically invents religion, the afterlife, and all that. He becomes wealthy as a result, and the movie slowly slides into the "money can't buy happiness" trope, but I don't think it ever actually made it all the way there. It seems more of a critisism of religion by that point, and while some of the jabs at apologetics are humorous, it's no longer nearly as laugh-out-loud funny. And there are some touching moments as well because, despite their continued inability to lie, the other characters do manage to show some growth.

This one is worth the watch, espcially the first half or so. I'm not sure I am likely to revisit it, though, unless I forget I've seen it and decide to check it out again at a future date. It's just kind of the sort of movie that is enjoyable enough but forgettable at the same time.

Tags: reviews, movies, the-invention-of-lyinng

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/review-the-invention-of-lying-2009.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./review-the-invention-of-lying-2009.html Wintermute Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:25:45 -0400 Rewatch: Hiding Out (1987) I just finished another 80's movie rewatch that I remember watching as a teen. This is the first time I've Hiding Out in decades. The quick summary is that a stockbroker is a whitness in a case against a mobster and has to go into hiding. He winds up at a highschool, where the administration mistakes him as a student, so he enrolls. Hilarily ensues.

It's a simple premise (actually, both... Person hiding from mobster and adult in high school) but it still works. It's funny, and it has touching parts as well. Overall, worth rewatching.

Tags: rewatch, movies, hiding-out

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/rewatch-hiding-out-1987.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./rewatch-hiding-out-1987.html Wintermute Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:05:07 -0400 Motorcycle X-Pro 125cc Ninja clone motorcycle I've been posting quite a bit over on Facebook about my new motorcycle. It's a cheap Chinese clone of a Ninja, but only 125cc. Had 0 miles on it when I received it, but needed set up and adjusted. I'm still in that process, and then I have to get the VIN inspected in order to get it titled. Hopefully I can get that done within the 45 days the temp tags are valid for.

UPDATES:

I currently have about 115 miles on the bike and thought I'd post some updates.

First, the stock carb sucks, which I was aware of before I made my purchase. The issue is that the air/fuel mixture screw is completely blocked off. You only have the idle adjustment screw. The pilot and main jets are not able to be changed either. This created an issue where I needed to use full choke in order to get it to run well. If I adjusted the idle properly, then the engine would bog at cruising RPMs, making it impossible to reach a speed over 45 mph. So I went ahead an installed a Nibbi PE22 Carburetor and 48mm open air filter. This left two hoses from the removed airbox dangling. One is the crankcase breather hose and one is part of the PAIR (similar to EGR, and part of emissions control) system. The crankcase breather hose is important to keep open, but also you don't want dirt entering this way. So I ordered a small air filter to prevent this. The other hose needs removed or blocked off, so I removed it and used a steel washer and high-temp JB Weld to cover the remaining hole.

I also decided to upgrade from the 14-tooth front sprocket which comes stock to a 17-tooth sprocket. This resulted in the chain being slightly to short, so I ordered a 130 link, heavy duty replacement. This will give me slightly more top-end speed at the cost of low-end torque, but the Nibbi carb should help with that as well.

The stock mirrors kinda suck, so I went through a couple of replacements before landing on these mirrors. The are perfect for this bike and give you a wider view of the road behind you than the stock ones did.

Finally, a couple of minor upgrades I did was a magnetic oil plug and an anti-skid kickstand pad. I picked up some which you just throw down on the ground as well, but I like the idea of a permanent one, as I know me and I will be forgetting the other ones contantly. ;)

After the break-in period is done, there is another upgrade I plan on doing. I plan on adding an engine oil cooler to help extend the life of the engine by lowering operating temps.

One modification that has been recommended is to replace the complete exhaust system with a high-flow exhaust system to take better advantage of the new carb. I guess the stock header pipe restricts flow, so even cutting the stock muffler and replacing it with a high-flow slip-on one won't improve performance much. This one is less important to me because, while the mods I've done and have planned improve performance, they also improve reliability so that the cheap Chinese bike lasts a good, long while. I may eventually do the exhaust later if I decide I need to get a little more performance out of this little 125cc engine, but it is certainly not a priority at this time.

Also note: none of the links are affiliate links. They are links to what I've bought so far and have been happy with.

Oh. One last link. I had heard the stock sparkplug sucked, so I replaced it with this one before ever starting the bike up.

Tags: motorcycle, x-pro, bd125-11, ninja, 125cc

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/motorcycle.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./motorcycle.html Wintermute Mon, 01 Jun 2026 12:56:11 -0400 Mathias paternal line As promised, here is the paternal line from my mother's side:

  • Ludwid (Louis) Metz (1476-????) France
  • Georges Metz (1505-1570) France
  • Johannes Wolfgang Mattias Metz (1550-1584 France
  • George Metz Matthias (1575-1627) France
  • William Claus Metz Mathias (1616-1685) France
  • Abraham Claus Matheiss (1650-1701) France
  • Johann Jacob Adam Mathias (1675-1774) France
  • Johan Jacob Matthias (1704-1782) France - died in Slate Ridge, Frederick Co, MD, USA
  • Johan Jacob Mathias III (1741-1842) Somerset, PA, USA - died in Hocking Co, OH, USA
  • Peter Mathias (1785-1879) Penn Township, Berks Co, PA, USA - died in Good Hope Township, Hocking Co, OH, USA
  • William Levi Mathias (1827-1877) Somerset, Perry Co, OH, USA - died in Payne, Paulding Co, OH, USA
  • James Summers Mathias (1853-1918) Hocking Co, OH, USA - died in Fairfield Co, OH, USA
  • John Riley Mathias (1879-1938) Hocking Co, OH, USA - died in Lancaster, Fairfield Co, OH, USA
  • Herman Clinton Mathias (1921-1969) Vinton Co, OH, USA - died in Lancaster, Fairfield Co, OH, USA
  • Sandra Kay Mathias (1949-2022) Sugar Grove, Fairfiled Co, OH, USA - died in Lancaster, Fairfield Co, OH, USA

And there we have the 15 generations prior to me from the Mathias side.

Tags: mathias, genealogy, paternal

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/mathias-paternal-line.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./mathias-paternal-line.html Wintermute Tue, 07 Apr 2026 21:48:37 -0400 Barnhart paternal line I have been doing some genealogy research, and I've managed to trace both parent's paternal lines back pretty far. I am documenting the Barnhart line here:

UPDATE: I made a rookie mistake and copied a name from another tree without verification. Turns out I am unable to verify Georg's father, and many records were lost during the Thirty Years' War, so I am unlikey to be able to break through that brick wall.

  • Georg Johann Bernhart (1642-1686) Germany
  • Joann Mathesis Barnhart (1679-1733) Germany
  • Johannes Mathias Bernhardt (1729-1794) Germany - died in East Buffalo, Union Co, PA, USA
  • Mathias Barnhart (1770-1842) Union Co, PA, USA
  • George Barnhart (1798-1844) Union Co, PA, USA - died in Green Township, Ross Co, OH, USA
  • William Henry (William "The Younger") Barnhart (1825-1891) Green Township, Ross Co, OH, USA
  • Franklin Barnhart (1863-1944) Ross Co, OH, USA - died in Lancaster, Fairfield Co, OH, USA
  • Hugh Franklin Barnhart (1900-1982) Colerain Township, Ross Co, OH, USA - died in Lancaster, Fairfield Co, OH, USA
  • Robert Delno Barnhart (1939-2025) Columbus, Franklin Co, OH, USA - died in Danielson, Windham Co, CT, USA

There you have it. The 14 generations of Barnharts before me. I will document the Mathias line in a separate post. Then I will likely begin working on the maternal lines of both parents.

Tags: barnhart, genealogy, paternal

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/barnhart-paternal-line.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./barnhart-paternal-line.html Wintermute Tue, 07 Apr 2026 20:49:19 -0400 Trust Your Technolust I ordered this because I thought it was kinda cool, seeing as I've been interested in cybersecurity since before I even started a career in IT. Also love Hak5's products (the pager is absolutely awesome). I even knew there were some puzzles on the coin. What I didn't know was that the puzzles lead to a grand prize for one lucky hacker. Some are saying it's an all-out ARG. So... Who wants to help me solve this and share the prize with me? ;)

Tags: hak5, arg

Comments?  

]]>http://www.nitemarecafe.com/trust-your-technolust.html http://www.nitemarecafe.com/./trust-your-technolust.html Wintermute Sat, 24 Jan 2026 20:48:44 -0500