Monday, May 17, 2004

UT2K4 Rebate -- 11:02 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Well, isn't this a kick in the shorts. I sent in my rebate form for Unreal Tournament 2004 some time ago. I just checked Atari's rebate page only to find that my rebate is not compliant because it "was made outside of the qualifying period". Apparently they are sending something back to me about this. The problem seems to be that the purchase date had to be between March 14 and May 14. My receipt from EB Games was dated March 12, technically two days before release. If this is the case, I may have to have a little "discussion" with some androids from Atari. This would directly contradict written comments by an Atari spokesman on their forums. Grr.

Unreal Engine 3 Interview -- 10:37 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

BeyondUnreal interviewed Epic's Tim Sweeney about the next generation of the Unreal Engine. He talks a bit about the type of hardware they are targeting as well as some of the physics possibilities.

Pondering the Imponderable -- 6:37 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

I just got back from a brief trip for a graduation in the family. I was good to see so much of my family and drink beer that other people paid for (for the most part). Now I'm just tired and I've lost a day's worth of time for work. Oh well.

While I was gone, I was reading an article on NVIDIA in the latest Computer Power User (CPU) magazine. There's a couple of paragraphs from it on their website. While there is a bit of "rah rah" in there, they are surprisingly candid on what went wrong with the NV30 series of chips (GeForce FX) and how they used what they learned to their advantage for the recently-announced NV40 series. If you've never read CPU, I highly recommend it. They have columns by people who should be familiar: Kyle Bennett from HardOCP, Alex "Sharky" Ross, Slashdot's Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, and others. I've been a subscriber for several years.

Regarding the UT2K4 patch, I'm hearing that some Windows users are starting to experience the KIntersect crash that has been plaguing Linux users for some time. I hope this means that find out where the problem is in the Karma physics code more quickly.

In one final completely unrelated note, I'm beginning to hate my Audiovox SP11CDS 10-disc changer in our Windstar. We got it because we could use our OEM head unit to control it. That would allow us to use the rear controls in the van so that the kids could be listening to something on CD via headphones, while my wife and I could listen to a tape or the radio. Great theory. The problem is that the changer is very finicky. It refused to play my Stevie Ray Vaughn Greatest Hits 2 CD. It is very particular about homemade CDs. To top it all off, it was expensive. If I had to do it over, I'd just get another Kenwood MP3-capable head unit and forget about the rear controls. Oh well.

Bleh -- 1:35 pm CST, Update by The Master

There haven't been any updates of late, due to both of us being gone to various things over the weekend. Mine was unplanned, so the lack of news is my fault, but that's the way it goes.

Lots of exciting stuff happenning, tho. First, Cisco has possibly had its IOS stolen by hackers. My only comment is: Proprietary companies should take a page from the CIA. If it's secret, don't put it on a network that can be accessed from the outside. Idiots.

Second, it looks like SCO is taking a pounding in some of its legal cases, but I'm sure that won't stop its stock price from cycling all over the ups and downs. Let's hope something fatal happens there soon, so we can all forget about SCO.

Third: it looks like Microsoft would like us to believe that Linux Torvalds just stole Linux from a UNIX codebase. Okay, M$. Time to shut up. You look even more stupid every week. And stop making other companies do your dirty work. If you can't stand the legal heat, maybe it's time to close up shop.

I'd say something about E3, but honestly, nothing really exciting was announced, other than the fact that id's next game won't be based on an established property, and development on it should commence shortly. If I remember correctly, that "new property" thing was supposed to be the case before id switched to the Doom 3 concept. So take that with a huge grain of salt.

No Old News

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