Month: February 2002 (Page 2 of 2)

Hardly a month passed by and here we have another one of my friends
from Purdue who tied the knot. So, many congratulations the both of
you! Uhmmm… I didn’t bring my camera this time around so I don’t
have any pictures at all for this wedding. Sorry! :P

Right after the wedding, some of us were thinking of making it up to
Genting Highlands tomorrow and spend the day there. I was really
looking forward to that until later in the evening when Amy informed
me that it was called off since Bard is down with a fever. Ickkk! Looks
like another uneventful Sunday for me tomorrow…

So, nVidia today
launched the new GeForce4 graphics card. Hardly a year ago, I bought
an Asus V8200 Deluxe
card which was equipped with a GeForce3 and to date, I hardly see any
games or applications that actually take full advantage of the Geforce3
featureset like pixel shaders or such. But existing applications (mostly
games) that taxes the graphics card to the limits (like Quake,
Max Payne,
etc.) runs real sweet on it. Anyways, I don’t regard the GeForce4 as
being revolutionary such as when the GeForce3 came out. No doubt the
GeForce4 is a much faster card but there’s really nothing new as far as
the architecture is concerned. There are a couple of new featured
introduced in the new GeForce4 but I reckon its not so much of a
compelling reason to upgrade (Those things burn quite a big hole in
your wallet too!) so the GeForce3 card will definitely remain in my PC for
a while.

I get hyped up whenever I come across a piece of news with John
Carmack in it. You would have noticed in my About
page that one of the people I look up to is John Carmack. So, just who
is this John Carmack you ask? Ever played Wolfenstein, Doom 1 & 2 or
Quake 1, 2 or 3 Arena? He’s the creator of those games’ engines. What
makes me look up to him is that he is a technical idealist and most of
the things that he has come up with are driven not by business but
technical correctness. I can only wish that most of the projects I work
on is just like that, ‘cos most of the time, its the business requirements
that drive things and when things get tight, compromises have to be made
on the technical side of things, leaving things totally dysfunctional (I’m
tempted to drive the point home by highlighting products made by a
certain very large software company but I’ll let it go for now!). He also
recognizes the fact that he is not that business savvy and thus has hired
somebody to take care of the business side of things while he concentrates
at what he does best, i.e. programming. This is of course the opposite
of what usually happens in the industry. Great engineers who were brilliant
in their field end up managing the company or such. Anyways, he has
come such a long way that people, especially those in the PC graphics
industry, regard him as an authority as to what should be right or wrong
when drivers (mostly OpenGL)
are being built or developed. I will be putting in items in here whenever
The Man is in the news from now on….

It’s Federal Territory Day today so it’s a day off for me. Went around
KL in the afternoon and I got me The Fast And The Furious
DVD. Whilst the action was frenetic, stunts were nicely done,
soundtrack was thumping (Dang! I really dig on those tracks by BT!),
special features were worthy, some nice (not gorgeous or hot though,
heh!) babes (Jordana Brewster), it’s a shame I can’t say the same
about the storyline though. It’s just as shallow as some Malay movies
with some lumba haram (illegal street racing) theme thrown in. Anyways,
it’s a good DVD to throw in your rig, crank the volume up and bother
some neighbors on a quiet afternoon or evening. Heh! My rating: 4.5/10.

Something in the news that both angered and cracked me up at the
same time. Apparently, these 24 hour eating outlets are a source of
social ills and thus the solution to overcome it is by not allowing them
to operate on a 24 hour basis. Another reason given is that rather than
having people frequenting the eating outlets in the wee hours of the
night, the time is much better spent having a good nights rest instead.
What a load of crap, I’d say. Eating outlets as a cause of social ills?
Gimme a break! Just how many incidences have been reported so far
about eating outlets being vice dens? People don’t go mugging,
gambling or get laid at those eating outlets! They go there to get food!
And the time is better spent sleeping so that they can come to work
“feeling fresh”? Hello, Minister! What about those people who work on
shifts? Are you going to deprive them of their basic need to live? Not
everyone has a 9-to-5 job, y’know. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a
classic example of how shallow minded some of our ministers can be.
It’s just plain, downright stupid. People go to these places to get food,
to ease the hunger pangs that come to them in the middle of the night,
to meet friends, to wind down after a whole day and evening’s work. At
the same time, these eating outlets have become part of the unique
Malaysian culture and thus taking them down would mean taking part
of our culture down as well. As far as social ills are concerned, has there
been any statistics compiled to show the correlation between the
existence of these 24 hour eateries with the number of immoral
activities? I certainly don’t think so. Y’know what? If they’re really intent
on not wanting people to go out at night and engage in those
unhealthy activities, why not just impose a curfew? Simpler innit? The
people aren’t kids, for heaven’s sake! I just hope whatever plans they
have to put a stop to the 24 hour eateries will fall through. At the same
time, The Star
is running a public opinion poll
on whether or not the authorities should ban those eating outlets. Go
do some justice…