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1/29/2004

Internet sales tax round two continues.  Here's the controversial part:

The second, far more controversial point is that Allen wants to make the infrastructure of the Internet tax-free too. Wholesale telecommunications and Internet backbone services purchased by Internet service providers would be exempt from tax. Many states now impose either a telecommunications sales or excise tax on such purchases.

Great. Keep arguing it, that means the moratorium won't go anywhere. 

Would someone please explain to me the point of making Urban Terror for Wolfenstein mod?  I mean is the ET engine that much different from the Q3 engine?  If I want modern urban combat I have RavenShield.  

Intel to offer some 64-bit loving? More good signs of how we the consumer will benefit. 

Past rumours have had it that Microsoft will only support one 64-bit x86 ISA, and since AMD got there first, Intel will have to just get into line.

Adopting AMD64 would be a bold move that would legitimise the 64-bit x86 world by ending the fear that it would be undermined by two competing standards, but would Intel want to admit that it thinks a rival's technology is the best way forward? We doubt it.

1/27/2004

Public Source Code for Enemy Territory. Get modding. I need my fix!

So, Atari announced a delay for the game Driv3r till June 2004 at least.  When asked why they stated they hoped it was up to the same high quality as their last great game: Terminator 3: War of the Machines. "Hey," the Atari spokesmen muttered, "We know this will be better than Custer's Revenge so buy it you media drones!"

SCO, formerly Caldera, is hated. Hated Hated Hated. And for good reason. Take on the Linux community.  Good strategy there, chief. Obviously taking a page from the soldier with a Thompson tactic that works so well in Wolfenstein.  

1/25/2004

This animation is probably a bit old showing how those NASA golf carts are scooting around on Mars. Regardless, it's cool as hell.

Now, THIS is called being whipped!

1/23/2004

There's been several articles regarding the "A" Node for the Internet and it's super secret location somewhere in Virginia.  My question is this: If all these reports and reporters keep talking about, how long before it's NOT a secret?  Well, hopefully they have a secondary zone.  If not, good game and pull out the teletypes.  

Wow, others are mad at GTA now. Now if only all the Neo-Nazis would complain about Wolfenstein so we can point and laugh at them more. 

I didn't read the rest of this article since the author stated: "If I have to shoot an M1 Garand at another Nazi, I'm going to hang up my mouse." Which is really too bad since he's talking about the next Freedom Force game and the fact that it deals with fighting Nazis.  

Well finally!! Punkbuster going into Call of Duty. From the developers and such:

We know concerns about cheating are a big issue in the fan community right now, so we wanted to pass along the following update: Infinity Ward has signed a deal with Even Balance to include PunkBuster for Call of Duty. As more information, including timing, develops on releasing PB support for Call of Duty, we'll let you know. Thanks

1/22/2004

Browsing online and I've started twitching in excitement about the first person shooters coming out this year. Possibly all within a matter of months. I read over this list and curl up giggling like a school girl.

1. Serious Sam: Word to the Mothership. Get our your wife beater T-shirt, Ray-Ban shades, and 7 foot long chain gun. Greatest co-op shooter ever!

2. Painkiller - Hitman for God. Ridiculous physics and lots of double barrel boom stick? It'll make you want to wash yourself in the blood of the Lamb after pumping three rounds of buckshot into it.

3. Doom 3 - 'nuff said. Could it also mean a new Wolfenstein in a few years?

4. Half-Life 2 - Freeman. Head Crabs. Government troops.

5. Star Wars Battlefront - Shooter in Star Wars using BF'42 engine. Interesting rumor: game has built in voice comm which changes your voice to sound more like a battle droid or trooper. Interesting if true.

1/20/2004

"Do you hear that sound Mr. Anderson. That's the sound of, inevitability."  Damn right Agent Smith! That inevitable sound?  The sound of chip going downwards again! Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

And this group's budget is too high but see what you can do if you had $4000 bucks every month to upgrade.

1/19/2004

As always, I check out Blues in the morning and afternoon and lo and behold he doesn't disappoint with news.  ATI has a new driver out today which includes a new feature called Overdrive Enhancement. Which does exactly what? Well, read on:

ATI OVERDRIVE™ maximizes the performance of the graphic accelerator by increasing the speed of the graphics processor. This is done by constantly monitoring the temperature of the graphics processor, so that the maximum clock speed can always be maintained.

But that's for Radeon 9600/9800 only.  Tough luck to us 9700 users.

Get those antivirus patches update as Bagel is coming. Tech info about it here.

1/18/2004

Good day.  In the continuing hunt for the parts to my next PC, it's also important to consider cooling systems for the CPU since those are hot little mothers. So, here's an article regarding heatsinks.  Basically, if you're not much of an overclocker, the one that comes boxed with the CPU is good, but otherwise you probably need a 3rd party option.  

1/16/2004

Now, I have the memory retention of a housefly.  So when I read technical articles I like them explained in very small words and lots of pictures. Therefore, here's an article explaining Serial ATA. It's only 6 months late but hey, that's ok!

Wow, a vibrator for you face guys! 

And what would a person look like if they had massive forearms from a game controller? I got an idea what you'd look like

I yam what I yam and that's l33t!

Finally, had this sent to me by a buddy from the ND80 servers as a small group of us have become Knights of Old Republic addicts which is somehow pulled me away from Wolfenstein.  Found an orange light saber.  Nice.

1/15/2004

Wow, spammers take over the Mars Rover.  No, I'd never lie!

Do you like sitting around in your apartment in the dead quiet trying not to be heard or bothered? Well, guess what, Silent Hunter III has been announced. Introverts rejoice. Run silent run.. nah, just be silent. Ok thanks

1/14/2004

The merger of gaming and film industry continues. Now Jason Hall has joined Warner Brothers to make a new studio. Jason's old company, Monolith, is currently involved making the massive online game based on the Matrix movie (a game I intend to try out and of course will gladly welcome a free copy of from the developer. Look ma, I'm a 'net ho!)

1/13/2004

Let the price hunt continue for a new machine as AMD has their roadmap for 2004 revealed here. The plans for the 754 socket:

Now, if memory serves, the 64/3000+ is about half the cost of the 3200 with 1MB cache with minmal difference in performance. So, will the 3400+ be the same price as the 64/3200+? Also, the larger socket 939 systems have some information as well but those are some pricey beasts.

Call of Duty expansion already announced and pre-sales being taken?  No punkbuster probably...

1/12/2004

Hiya.  Windows 98/98SE/ME users can rejoice and the rest of us can bemoan the extension Microsoft put on for the operating systems. Why?  Because some people won't upgrade probably. Oh and XP Home pretty much stinks.

1/11/2004

What? You mean CAN SPAM didn't work?

Email security firm MX Logic found that of a random sample of over 1,000 unsolicited commercial emails received during the first week this year only THREE of the messages complied with the CAN-SPAM Act. The CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act went into effect on January 1.

You mean spammers aren't law abiding? Who woulda thunk it?!  Look, redesign the underlying email system.  It's too easy to spoof. 

1/10/2004

Verisign expiration certificates messing up Norton? Norton's not to blame probably but the answer is simple. Trend.

Also, not much else in the news today so I'll post a screenshot from my second run through Knights of the Old Republic. The insanity dark Jedi skill freaking rules.  I'm laying waste to everything with this skill. Cower in fear!

1/9/2004

So Wired has an article up about the 20 most important Macs.  How can you talk about Macs when you don't mention Dolemite, Shaft, or Snoop Dogg.  Come on man, those guys got more juice than any overclocked G5 ever will.

Weirdest thing I read all day. A game made by the lead singer of KORN.  Kiss Psycho Circus Redux? 

Maybe Ventrilo will make a secure voice program now that the Feds are wanting to snoop on VoIP programs.  I mean we don't want to give them our secret strategies for Wolf and Enemy Territory.

Darkon passed on a nice little link regarding OSP and an interview with the developer

Kevin Cloud from id contacted me about 6 months before the game was released, asking if I would be interested in helping out. Getting OSP in from the start has always been a goal, so how could I refuse? J Working with the SD guys was definitely a change, as internet collaborations mean you *never* get the face-to-face time usually available to talk about issues and generally how things are going...

1/8/2004

Fortune 100 named Nvidia one of the best company's to work for in the market.  Yeah, except when it comes to beating ATi at video cards.  

Looking for something fill your time while waiting for Doom 3 and Half-Life 2?  Well, go pick up the Battle Collection for Medieval: Total War. $30 for the original game and the expansion? Nice. 

You see!! You see!! Even the Counter-Strike addicts admit the superiority of Enemy Territory!

To this day there is no game better at balancing arcade action and realism, as well as differing classes and weapons, than ET.

Nothing beat the L-shaped Tetris block!

1/7/2004

Please let this game die. Please let this game die.

ATi and mobile graphics chips?  Can the LCDs handle it? Heck, how big would these phones have to be?

• Advanced 2D and 3D graphics;
• MPEG 4 decode with real-time video playback at 30-fps and low power consumption;
• Video Capture Ports with support for high resolution camera sensors (1.3M and 2M pixels);
• JPEG CODEC to compress and decompress images to be either saved in memory and printed or shared wirelessly by the camera phone user; and,
• Many other features such as two display engines (primary and sub-display) and embedded frame buffer.

While the announcement of some more id people getting ownership:

In further strengthening our management tem, id Software is proud to announce that Todd Hollenshead, CEO, and Tim Willits, lead designer, have been granted ownership shares in id Software, Inc. Todd and Tim join the long-standing ownership team of Adrian Carmack, John Carmack, and Kevin Cloud. Everyone at id would like to thank Todd and Tim for their years of dedication and congratulate them on their latest accomplishment.

I don't think it really matters if John C. leaves as the engine is what id is trying to sell and then let others (Nerve, Splash, etc.) make the arguably better games for the engine. 

And in the shopping for a new computer continuation, here's the info on the Athlon64 3400+. Little too much though for my blood.

1/6/2004

So today I was pointed to a great article about some accidental pornography in an Xbox game. Here's my favorite part:

Texan Tony Ashcraft was one of the early buyers of the game and noted the URL as he played. Thinking the link might feature ancillary information on the game, he told me he typed it into his browser, only to find no one owned the domain. On Nov. 22, he bought it and immediately filled it with porn links.

Now that is some deep belly aching funny. Kudos to Mr. Ashcraft. Please standby as your inbox will be filled with litigation of the company saying it's their link.

64 bit extensions for the Intel this year?

Well, it so happens that AMD is already moving more than 10,000 Opteron boxes a quarter. That's more than the total number of Itanium boxes shipped all year. If this x86-64-bit thing is taking off, Intel really would prefer not to be left too far behind. Add to that Sun Microsystems' recent entrance into the Opteron market along with IBM's support, and things start to seem a bit worrying.

You hear that noise? It's Adam Smith and Milton Friedman, and other pro capitalist microeconomics people laughing their dead asses off right now. Wait, I think Friedman is still alive. Regardless, kudos to the free market economy.  AMD takes the reins and runs and Intel now plays catch up.  Who wins? Me and you, the end consumer.  Come on price wars!!

I had heard about Silent Storm but what Tycho said over on Penny-Arcade really intrigues me.

1/5/2004

More emulator fun.  This time have an Apple ][ and get on the Oregon Trail.

Yet more Painkiller screenshots. Yeah.

Oh, and if you didn't hear, Gracelessland is back!

1/3/2004

I didn't play as many games as most people but here's my favorites from last year (in order)

1. Knights of the Old Republic - I still like Star Wars even though the last two movies haven't been all that hot.  Knights throws you into the Star Wars universe and keeps your interest without bogging you down in RPG dice rolling stupidity.  Light sabers, force powers, and Jedi mind tricks. Just can't go wrong. 

2. Enemy Territory - This is about as far as the Quake 3 engine can be taken and it's a good thing id has a new engine coming out next year with Doom 3.  The single player was scrapped but the multiplayer is highly entertaining. With the mod community now putting out more maps the replay value of this game is worth the price of admission. Oh wait, there is no price since it's freaking free!  All my fellow ET'ers gimme a v57!

3. Homeworld 2- Simple formula for success: take Homeworld, spruce up the graphics, and continue the interesting story laid out by the first one. A fully three dimensional environment makes even more current RTS games like Rise of Nations mere novice games.

4. Elite Force 2  - Straight ahead shooters are still a barrel full of monkeys fun.  Besides which, it's some local boys, Ritual, behind the fun. 

5. Call of Duty - Why is this at the bottom of the list?  It brought both single player and multiplayer to the table but the multiplayer just lacks anything that I can't get in another multiplayer game so why bother? Plus the developers nonchalant attitude towards any sort of anticheat software really is depressing. 

1/1/2004

Happy New Year. To start it off some friends made me play some Rise of Nations with them. Since that game has been reviewed a lot already, let's just give the quick run down.  In terms of the resource management / micro-management, I think it lies somewhere between Age of Kings and Empire Earth.  Age of Kings was pretty straightforward whereas Empire Earth was a huge headache with just too many ages and too much stuff to do.  I honestly was just a bit lost and not nearly as fast as my buddies on the building of stuff so they were constantly helping me buy time to upgrade stuff. But by then it was too late since they had already taken the oil wells and what not.  Still, it was a good bit of fun. 

Wow, what's sure to be a short trial, GTA3 and Vice City are going to Federal Court since someone wants it pulled from store shelves.  Welcome to 1st Amendment town.