Axodys

I think it would be really cool if at some point in the future an urban simulation game in the GTA vein had parks with basketball courts with pickup games going on at all hours of the day. You could either sit and watch the action or take part in the game within the game.

On that note I just found a couple GTA mod sites while poking around the net as well: “gta3mods.com”:http://www.gta3mods.com/ and “GTA World”:http://gtaworld.nfscheats.com/index.php.

Dive into Mark: “My other car is a cdr”:http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/04/10/my_other_car_is_a_cdr.html

bq. Found in 2-year old code:
def car(t): return t[0]
def cdr(t): return t[1]
Good Lord, what was I thinking?

The coolest thing to me about Mark’s post was that I immediately saw the little buglet despite having limited python and lisp experience. I even had an inkling of what the proper syntax for the python code should be (def cdr(t): return t[1:]). Moments like this make me think that I should really devote more time to improving my programming skill level because I really do enjoy it.

I spent more time than I probably should have last night playing “Grand Theft Auto III”:http://www.rockstargames.com/grandtheftauto3/ but it was a lot of fun. Cooler still, my video card didn’t seem to have any problems running at 1600×1200x32. Actually the resolution was probably more like 1600×900 since I opted for the more cinematic widescreen setting.

Of course while my new computer purred along my body didn’t fare quite as well. My left hand started to get fairly sore manning the keyboard after just a couple hours. I think it’s time to go purchase that “Nostromo n50 SpeedPad”:http://www.avault.com/hardware/getreview.asp?review=belkinspdpad I was thinking about.

In other hardware testing news (wink) I had quite a bit of fun playing “Oni”:http://www.bungie.org Wednesday night. Unfortunately it was only the demo version, but I see Amazon has Oni listed for $10 at the moment. I love the hand to hand combat system in this game. I would have purchased it when it came out, but I didn’t own a computer with a decent 3D graphics card.

It took several hours of work with a brief pause for dinner and a few other tasks, but I completed my big project of the evening. My new computer (tentatively named Obsidian) ia now up and running. Unfortunately I’m too tired at this point to install much else.

The first two boxes from my recent “NewEgg”:http://newegg.com order arrived yesterday, but the computer case and power supply didn’t arrive in town until today. I’m really happy with my new 19″ ViewSonic monitor though; black is definitely my preferred computer preripheral color. I hooked the monitor up to my PowerBook to take it for a little dual screen action and it worked great. It also has a nifty brightness button that lets you switch between normal use and high brightness (for games) instantly.

After I unpacked the other box I spent some time examining all the various components and came away with several pleasant surprises. The MSI Ge4 Ti 4200 video card I ordered came with a ton of bundled software and games including Elder Scrolls III: Morrowwind, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, and Serious Sam II. It also supports video output (and input!?) so I may be able to eliminate crappy old tv I often use for watching basketball tapes during the winter.

The ASUS motherboard I purchased has support for quite a few cool things down the road. Digital audio input and autoput, 6 channel surround sound, serial-ata, USB 2.0, Firewire, and even RAID (0 and 1) if you have a couple similar hard drives.

Putting everything together tonight should be a lot of fun.

Every computer that I have ever purchased for myself up to this point has been a Macintosh of some sort or other. In the spring of 1991 I purchased a Mac Classic with the money I had saved working as a courtesy clerk at Albertsons. That computer served me well for the first two years of my college experience, but in the fall of 1993 I upgraded to a Mac Quadra 660av (notable for the first incarnation of Apple’s PlainTalk voice recogntion). Approximately three years later I bought a Mac clone, PowerComputing’s PowerCenter 150. That computer served me well for another couple years until I went back to Apple and bought an original Bondi Blue iMac. A year later I decided I needed a 333 Mhz Lombard PowerBook, and that particular computer continues to serve me well thanks to a 466Mhz upgrade I purchased from NewerTech.

Friday I ordered the parts for my first non MacOS computer. I had been saving up some money to buy a new iBook or PowerBook for a while now, but hadn’t saved up quite enough money for a 12″ PowerBook G4 yet. Monday in a meeting with my supervisor I learned that if I submit a request for a Powerbook in June after the start of the new fiscal year, I can get one paid for through work. So realizing I had enough money saved up to buy the parts to assemble a pretty nice PC plus 19″ monitor for easily half the price I was going to pay for the PowerBook I decided to go for it.

My computer gaming options just got about 90% better I think. Actually, now that I think about it more like 98%+ because my current PowerBook doesn’t have the horsepower to play most of the new 3D games that actually do come out for Macs.

Not that the new PC is going to be strictly a gaming machine. The ASUS motherboard I’ve purchased supports FireWire and I also ordered a pretty speedy Lite-On CDRW drive along with a DVD drive. I’m curious to try creating some SVCDs on the PC side of things. Here are all the relevant specs:

* “AMD Athlon XP 2200+/266″:http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1124
* “ASUS A7V8X”:http://usa.asus.com/mb/socketa/a7v8x/overview.htm
* MSI GeForce 4 Titanium 4200 128MB 8X AGP
* 512 MB RAM
* 80 GB Hard Drive
* 52X24X52 Lite On CDRW
* 16X Lite On DVD

Oh, and I think the new case is pretty cool looking as well.

“Iraqi man risked all for U.S. POW “:http://msnbc.com/news/895233.asp?0cv=CB10

bq. MARINE COMBAT HEADQUARTERS, Iraq, April 3 — Mohammed, a gregarious 32-year-old Iraqi lawyer, went by the hospital in Nasiriyah one day last week to visit his wife, who worked there as a nurse, when he noticed the ominous presence of security agents.

bq. Curious, he asked around, and a doctor friend told him an American soldier was being held there. Something made him want to go see. The doctor took him to a first-floor emergency wing where he pointed out the soldier through a glass interior window — a young woman lying in a bed, bandaged and covered in a white blanket.

bq. Inside the room with her was an imposing Iraqi man, clad all in black. Mohammed watched as the man slapped the American woman with his open palm, then again with the back of his hand. In that instant, Mohammed recalled today, he resolved to do something. After the man in black left, Mohammed sneaked in to see the young woman.

bq. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he told her. He was going for help.

The courage that Mohammed showed in the face of certain danger to himself and his family is amazing. What a tremendously inspirational story.

The Register checks in with “their review”:http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/30047.html of the 12″ Powerbook G4.

Despite the fact that the reveiwer waited until he had used the PowerBook for over a month there’s not a whole lot of new information here, but still an interesting perspective.

And in related news it looks like I may actually be able to get one for myself through work by sometime in June.

“Bowling For Columbine: Documentary or fiction?”:http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html

I haven’t seen BFC in its entirety yet, but I have seen a couple clips that I found vaguely annoying; maybe it was Moore’s smug confrontational style and the knowledge that he had edited the movie to reflect his own agenda. “If only I had known”:http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html. Now it sounds like Moore might actually be a fictional academy award winner. Classic.

Think Geek:
* “George Foreman USB iGrill”:http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/igrill.shtml
* “World’s Large Remote Controlled Car”:http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/rc-car.shtml
* “Celebrity DNA”:http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/looflirpa/dna.shtml