IP addresses and Taiwan

High-scoring word of the late night:

VINCA (120 points) - against Deidre B. [5W, 2W] {a good deficit-erasing word!}


This is where Corey attempts to educate me about IP addresses:

[02:35:31] mrptptpt: I was GOING to do an image search, but Google keeps coming up in fucking Chinese, and I can't use it well... I really wish I could figure out how to permanently change it to always be English
[02:36:47] AlenaBrolxFlami: my mother has Google Translate or something on her computer
[02:39:48] mrptptpt: well, I've saved ENGLISH as my default choice in every language thing I can find, but "www.google.com" or just typing crap into Chrome to make it do a Google search straight from the URL bar thing brings up Chinese Google
[02:40:24] mrptptpt: I have to go to language settings and change it from there to do anything, and that gets rid of whatever I was already searching for too, so it makes it like 4 extra steps
[02:43:46] AlenaBrolxFlami: I take it you're using her computer?
[02:46:32] mrptptpt: nope
[02:46:34] mrptptpt: mine
[02:46:41] mrptptpt: it just knows I'm in Taiwan from my IP
[02:47:29] AlenaBrolxFlami: wow... your IP changed?!
[02:47:33] mrptptpt: well, I can type "google.us" and get regular google.com without it redirecting me to google.com.tw
[02:47:47] mrptptpt: huh? of course my IP changed, I'm on her internet connection
[02:48:28] mrptptpt: but google.us doesn't fix searches
[02:48:50] mrptptpt: those still come up in Chinese. I mean searches directly from the browser rather than typing google.us and searching from there
[02:53:44] AlenaBrolxFlami: okay, I'm not an IP expert!
[02:58:04] mrptptpt: your IP is something you get from your ISP. if you're on a laptop and use the internet at home, you'll have one IP... if you take it to school / work and use it there, you'll be on their internet connection, not yours, so you'll have an IP from their connection. if you go to another country, you'll almost definitely not be on your own connection anymore :P
[02:58:05] mrptptpt: your IP isn't related to YOUR computer at all. there's something called a MAC address which kind of is (tied to your network card, not your actual computer), but you can't see that over the internet, just internal networks
[03:03:05] AlenaBrolxFlami: do MAC addresses have anything to do with the MAC computers?
[03:03:16] mrptptpt: no
[03:05:26] mrptptpt: a MAC is like an IP, kind of, but it's an address just for your computer. it's used for networks, but not the internet. the internet has IP addresses instead, and they're not tied to your computer, you might get a different IP every time you connect to the internet, unless you paid extra for a static IP that doesn't change
[03:06:03] AlenaBrolxFlami: okay
[03:11:46] mrptptpt: sounds like we might go see Clash of the Titans tonight
[03:12:13] mrptptpt: I hope the new one still shows Perseus' mom totally naked running around on the beach with him as a kid :P probably not
[03:12:43] mrptptpt: I bet they get rid of the mechanical owl too, which might be good since that was kinda dumb
[03:18:21] AlenaBrolxFlami: WHAT?! I'm sure Jane will be totally thrilled to see that :P
[03:28:06] AlenaBrolxFlami: oh well, bedtime now... 3:30 AM. NOT that I was able to sleep at this time yesterday
[03:32:52] mrptptpt: she saw that already, we watched the original first :P (we didn't quite make it to the end, though... that movie is cool, but long and slow and we started it late)
[03:33:02] AlenaBrolxFlami: oh, okay
[03:33:18] mrptptpt: she didn't have much reaction :P