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NV20 = GeForce 3
[ 2-22-01 ][ 5:53 p.m. pst ][ By Rice ]

The "next big thing" in consumer 3D graphics is here, and it's called the nVIDIA GeForce 3. It won't be available on the market for a while yet, and when it is, it'll be pre-packaged on the Mac first before we see it as an addon card for PC's hovering around the $600 range. Yes, you read that right. SIX HUNDRED!

At the Macworld Expo in Tokyo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the GeForce 3 as the most advanced chip ever, with capabilities of displaing Toy Story 2 graphics rendering in real time. As icing on the cake (at least for me), id software's hall of fame coder John Carmack made a short speech while showing off the new Doom 3 engine. It's all here, baby!

My opinion? An enthusiastic WOW!

I'll hold off spewing the geek blabber until the PC announcements come out, because technically, today's press release was for the Mac only. Plus, none of the hardware review sites have their articles done yet, and since I don't have an engineering sample like they do, I can't back up the hype (4 times faster than the GeForce 2 Ultra?).

But I'm excitied. Really. Yeah, I know I just got a GeForce 2 GTS, but hell, most games today can barely take full advantage of it. It'll be a while before the potential for the GeForce 3 is unlocked by those with the true power: software developers. If you check out the streaming video from the link above, it's pretty safe to say with Carmack and Doom 3 leading the charge, things are going to get a lot better. =)

PlayStation 2? X-Box? Bring it on.

"The GeForce 3 is the most exciting thing that my company has had to work with in years."  --  John Carmack, 2001 MacWorld at Tokyo

Around The Rice
[ 2-21-01 ][ 1:47 a.m. pst ][ By Rice ]

Hey all. I'm back from a short haitus filled with midterms and papers. It looks as though the coast is clear for a while now, so I'm gonna start updating more again.

*Ahem*... onto the big news: I GOT A GEFORCE 2 GTS!!! Fa la la la.....

So my computer's core is now composed of the following:

CPU: Intel Pentium III 700E
Motherboard: ASUS CUSL2
Video: Leadtek WinFast GeForce 2 GTS 32 megs DDR-RAM
RAM: 128 megs SDRRAM (Generic)

I get 158 frames per second in Quake 3 timedemo with all the graphics uglified and the sound turned off. 78 frames per second on the High Quality setting w/ sound quality set on high as well. For a geek like me, those numbers really turn me on. ;)

The FSAA (Full Screen Anti-Aliasing) option in the drivers really makes NBA Live 2001 look sweet. What it does is smooth out the jagged edges of the polygon, but with the frame rates taking a hit. It's all good though, because frames don't matter as much as eye candy in those games.

Okay, me go indulge some more. Later. =P

Valentines Day
[ 2-14-01 ][ 10:43 p.m. pst ][ By Rice ]

Have you ever wondered why we celebrate Valentines Day? Why we bother with such a blatent commercial holiday? Well, with the Internet being such a vast pool of information, I went to look it up.

Just a quick digression: when I was clicking around on Yahoo! for the history of Valentines, I was reminded of how useful the WWW is. Before, I'd have to hit the local library's encyclopedia shelf to find out even the most trivial of information. Anyways, here's the story paraphrased. I wanna practice my prose. =P

    A long time ago, back in the days when the Roman Empire ruled half of the world, there lived an emperor known as Claudius the Cruel. Legend has it that he ruled Rome with an iron fist, and his thirst for conquest was seemlingly unquenchable.

    When the wars broke out with neighboring barbarians, Claudius would summon regular citizens to fight as soldiers in his army. Those boys and men often lost their lives in battle, which left their sweethearts and wives back home in mortal grief. As word spread around the empire, the men began to rebel against the draft because they didn't want to leave their women. In a fit of rage, Claudius decreed that from then on, marriage was no longer legal. That, he thought, would solve his dilemma......

    Meanwhile, in a beautiful temple near the palace of the emperor, there served a priest named Valentine who specialized in joining couples in holy matrimony. When he heard the news that Claudius was banning marriages, he became very sad. However, couples continued to seek his service in secret, which forced Valentine to either disobey the emperor's decree, or follow his heart and continue to marry those young men and women. Well, as you all know, according to the Beatles, love is all you need, so Valentine decided to follow his heart.

    Word of his secret ceremonies spread like wildfire and couples flocked to his altar like ants to sugar. Eventually, the information leaked out to Claudius, and he became furious. In rage, he cried, "Go! Take that priest in the temple! Cast him into a dungeon! No man in Rome, priest or not, shall disobey my commands!" Roman legionnaires raided his temple before Valentine got wind of his arrest warrent and dragged him into the cellars where he was to be executed within a month.

    As the priest was mired in the darkest of perils, he struck up a friendship with the jailer's blind daughter, who would go visit him everyday. As the execution date crept ever closer, their relationship blossomed within the dark, murky dungeons. She, along with many other supporters of Valentine, pled with the emperor for mercy. Alas, he was not called Claudius the Cruel without a reason, for his fury only grew for every plea.

    At the dawn of his execution, Valentine authored a letter baring his heart to the jailer's daughter. Just before he was dragged away, at the bottom of the letter he signed "From Your Valentine". When the jailer's daughter received it, the priest had already been martyred. Her best friend read her the letter because she was blind, and as her friend handed it back to her in conclusion, she began to sob in grief. She cried like she never cried before, but when she was done, her eyes was, for the first time, capable of seeing the world.

    And that, my star crossed lovers, is the story of Saint Valentine's day.

Alright, I ain't gonna lie. I embellished it by quite a lot, but it was sort of fun doing so. Most of it is true (supposedly), but I added in the blind part and the dramatic language that my composition TA hates so much. =)

Speaking of which, I have the final draft of a paper due, so I need to start burning the midnight oil. Until next time, cheers.

Hannibal
[ 2-13-01 ][ 2:16 a.m. pst ][ By Rice ]

--> Click! <--

Here's the Cliff Note version of the review: Doesn't live up to Silence of the Lambs.

NBA All-Star Weekend
[ 2-12-01 ][ 1:54 a.m. pst ][ By Rice ]

Hey all, I'm back with a freshly re-partitioned and formatted computer. My hard drive's cut up like a pretty pie chart now, and my dual booting OS'es are purring along perfectly. I haven't setup Linux yet, because I know once I do, I'll be spending a lot of time playing around with it, and right now I want to focus more on ending this quarter on a strong note.

Speaking of which, after I broke my 29 straight hours of attending class streak. I haven't topped 5 hours since, culminating in ditching over half of my classes last week. Sigh. Tomorrow (or rather, later today) is a new day of a new week, and I shall revitalize my resolution. Err... yeah, whatever. Just cross your fingers for me. =P

NBA All-Star weekend was a mixed bag. I missed the rookie game on Saturday afternoon. Pity, because that's always fun to watch. 2Ball's boring as it'll always be. The 3 point shootout was relatively entertaining, with Ray Allen shooting the lights out and winning easily. Then the dunk contest... it was horrible. I haven't seen such a poor display of creativity in a dunk contest since Harold Miner won it back to back. Oh Vinsanity, wherefore art thou?

The game itself on Sunday was one of the best I've ever seen, surprisingly. Everyone including myself predicted a Western romp, and for the first 3 periods, it looked as though it would come true.

... Until Allen Iverson decided he wanted to win.

The Answer was the MVP.

You know, he just may win MVP this season, and here's why: we as fans can look up to Shaq, Kobe, KG, Jordan, et al., but hell, they're all 6'6" or taller. Iverson's 6 feet nothing, if even that. He works hard, he drives the lane recklessly, and he shoots with abandon. Basically he takes a licking, but keeps on ticking. We can point to the aforementioned group and say, shucks, we can never exceed in basketball cuz we ain't got the height. But then, we point to Iverson and say, he looks just like that skinny black kid next door, and he's an MVP candidate in the best basketball league in the world. We can do it, because Allen's doing it right now.

Of course, there are certain intangibles, like you gotta have hops and mad handles, that I neglected to mention, but you get my point. ;)

Other thoughts:

• Kobe should've just taken the last shot. I know, it seemed like it was impossible to make, with Mutombo towering over him, but I've seen Kobe shoot from impossible angles and swish those shots like he was shooting from the free throw line. He could've made it, especially since he was hot, making two in a row before.
• Duncan should've made the wide open shot, but I guess he was so surprised he got the ball that he just fumbled it up there.
• Webber should've tipped it in. He had perfect position and everything, but he just missed. A stud like him shouldn't miss those easy tip-ins.
• So basically, the West had every opportunity to win it. But they blew it.
• I always knew Stephon Marbury was a stud. He's so quick and has a deadly shot too, as the rest of the world now knows.
• Vince Carter had two spectacular dunks: a 360 two hand jam and a right handed windmill. He tried a third one, jumping from just below the free throw line over four defenders, that would've taken the roof off of the MCI Center if he had made it.

*Whoosh*

"Can't... quite... REACH!"