HL2 first impressions

Ok to some this is old news. Even to me it seems a bit old and dated, however I haven't had a computer capable of playing HL2 until now and let me tell you reading about the innovation and playing it is completely different.

This physics engine is nothing short of incredible. I'm frequently baffled about how well it can simulate how objects would realistically behave. So much so that even in the earily parts of the game I learned to used my new found ability to interact with the enviroment to my advantage. In fact without thinking about it I did things like knock down tables for cover. Grab a barrel for protection against fire. All of which later I sat back just to let it all sink in that this game reached a level of realism previously unheard of.

And it's not a dumb shooter either. There are frequent stops along the way where the game throws you into puzzle solving scenario. These end up being stages where they demonstrate the power of their physics engine. For example in one scene there's a titer tottler type scenario where you run around the room piling up bricks on one end until the titer toter is heavy enough to let you stand on the other end without going down. Things also have boyancy, and this is demonstrated by a scenario where you have to raise a platform by making it more boyant.

I think what's most impressive about half-life is how the game never feels flat. Frequently I find myself in the toybox scenario where every game object is like a toy because the physics engine so good at modeling realistic behavior.

For anyone that has glossed over HL2 because their computer wasn't fast enough be sure to try it when your computer is. Although I would also recommend playing HL1 to understand the storyline. Although the sad part is I don't think I'll ever run into a game that's this well thought out in terms of storyline, and gameplay. More and more games go for the all graphics approach, and like supermodels they might look beautiful, but you surely get fed up with them quickly. HL2's graphics might not be as spectacular as farcry but in every other way HL2 is a more superior game, and the level of polish is above everthing I'm used to seeing.

McMaster Can't do paper work part 4

McMaster University has alot of great things going for it. Ability to do paperwork for their students is not one of them. I finally traced down the reason the OSAP loan office was sending me notices for end of intrest free status. This was because the interest free status forms I filled out over the summer only cover up to 52 weeks or 8 months and thus I needed to fill out another one over the summer. Reminders were sent out to everyone, everyone but the co-op students that is.... Ironic isn't it since the majority of students eligable for continuation of interest free status are in fact full time enrolled co-op students.

4 years in a row McMaster has manage to foul up some form of administrative work and the outcome is always the same. I find out about it the last minute because something "broke" and I have under a week to fix it.

The university is great mind you... they just can't do paper work.

The Blogger's Illusion

Blogger's go about their day to day activities often not realizing that what they wrote actually gets read. Yes that's right if you blog chances are someone will read what you wrote.

I'll be honest I like most blogger's assume that what I wrote will never be read by anyone unless of course I send my friends a link to check out pictures and such. In reality though friends seem to actually read it cause I've told no one that I had my car crushed but yet weeks after I kept getting emails saying. "Sorry to hear about your car accident"

I guess it's kinda stupid for me to assume my blog doesn't get read, I mean come on what are blogs anyway? Strangely though because I had no comments to any of my blogs I was under the illusion that the blog was not being read.

So I am famous, ok maybe just a little...

Dell Delayed

Today I got an email stating that my purchase of the expensive Dell laptop has been delayed but they can deliver a new one with a different (cheaper) part with the cost reflected to me.

I originally purchased my laptop with a GeForce 7800 GTX which is top of the line from nVidia only the 7800 GTX Go is a higher end model which wasn't offered in my configuration.

However my Dell sales rep told me that tell ran out of inventory of the 7800 Go and they could give me my laptop within the next few days if I agree to the ATI x1400 (with a $200 discount).

I've been reading reviews and the ATI x1400 is ATI's new series of mid-range or budget cards. And seeing how I got premium or top of the line parts for every other component I wasn't about to go budget. The ATI x1400 apparently has less number crunching power than even the older X700 so I was in no way impressed by that offering. Don't get me wrong I love ATI I mean ATI headquarters is only 5 blocks away from where I work, but if the options were x1800 or even x1900 I would place an order in a heartbeat.

So it looks like provided they allow me to take a final look at my configuration once the 7800 is back in stock, and modify CPU / RAM / HDD if need be I'll be waiting for the 7800 Go which Dell says will be back in stock by May 1st. I'm still trying to see if they can give me a GeForce 7800 GTX go as it's found in their higher end gaming laptops, and I have their highest end multimedia laptop. I'd totally be willing to pay the difference if they offered.

I feel like I'm trying to purchase a ferrari labourghini or something. In the computer industry waiting a month IS waiting a year in any other industry. My only hope is that the nVidia does get here by May 1st and Dell will offset any price hikes.

Seems even if you are buying premium products you can't expect everyone else to not do the same.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse...

It always does doesn't it. Sometimes my dad does these immaculate feats of incompetance that even I can't fantom how he manages to accomplish it.

Here I am with my Mazda3 2006 backing into the halfway under the garage door he presses the door close button with me and my car under it! I was seriously in a state of WTF?! who close their garage door on their own car with their children in it?!

The worst part? He was staring at me in his car while doing it and he didn't see me?! You gotta be shitting me!

So tomorrow and the day after I won't be driving anymore, my car is in the body shop for repairs. He's paying well he'd better be paying. My car was stopped engine was on and I was in it. He saw me so I don't know WTF he was thinking when he close the motorized garage door flattening my C pillar on the car. Jeez it's not even an old clunker either the damn car is only 3 months old manufactured in Nov 2005, and kept in prestene condition.

I'm just peeved right now seems nothing is going my way.

All Look Same Even To Cops

Apparently even cops can't tell the difference between asians. My proof? I was at Sheppard and Midland today going to help my parents fix the suvallence computer and I was pulled over by a cop. He went thur the usual drill being quite rude, I was polite dispite that and provided him with everything, they he wanted to keep me in the car for a couple of minutes while he checked on stuff. That was fine with me because I knew I wasn't in any kind of trouble.

Anyways 20 min later after falling asleep in my car he wakes me up and tells me I'm he would like to see my ownership, no sweat I thought it's in the glove I hand him the paper, he looks at me and says it's the recipt from mazda. Since my parents took the car home for me they told me all the stuff was in the car I simply thought that the reciept or proof of purchase was the ownership. Luckily my parents arrived at the scene and they tried their best to explain they didn't know it should be in the car so I never got it. He sends me a ticket and says as long as I show up in court with the ownership in hand (green paper) he'd drop the charges.

He then goes to explain that apparently some asian dude swiped a ATM machine in a nearby scotia bank and he thought that was me (which I interpretted as he chased after the first asian he seen). I'm sure he thought for sure it was me but I guess he just wanted to see if I acted like I wanted to get away at the same time he took my wallet so I guess all the cards were checked. (and traced to my accounts).

Anyways I drove away giggling at the fact that all asians look same.

But also it goes to prove the age old adage, no good deed goes unpunished now I have to set some court date which if the name change serves me as a lesson could take up to a year, at which time. I won't be driving the car anymore.

Suffice to say this hasn't been my week, I won't even bore you with the stuff I had to deal with yesterday. Funny part is the more crap that gets loaded on, the less bad it seems. Guess the law of diminishing returns works for negative things as well that should be somewhat comforting.

(time of incident 8:30pm)

CS GAMES!

On march 3rd at 8:00am we boarded the first coach bus on our way to Montreal to compete in CSGAMES 2006



On the bus brian and me try frantically to contact Torum which isn't on the bus that is departing in 2 minutes. It seems it's become a McMaster team tradition to have one memeber cut it close. I am glad to say however this time we didn't lose a member that was originally on the team.





When we got off it was time to navigate the subway system but unlike last time we downloaded subway and bus route information and were well off even from the start. On top of that I had my palm with preloaded maps of Montreal which proved very handy along with the satalite photos to guide us on landmarks.







This didn't do anything about the brisk winds but as Jay here points out in this picture we were definetly much happier knowing exactly where we were going.







We arrived at the hotel earily this time, so there was not much left to do but relax. Until the opening ceremonies.








Then while we were all getting our team "Blue Screen Of Death" shirts on we realized that one member didn't have one fully ironed on yet. So Alan sans shirt went into sweat-shop mode and furiously worked the hotel iron so we would all come in team colours.








Lesson from the wise, when the manufacturer says wait for side A to cool before ironing on side B that's because they want you to avoid doing this :-)








McMaster finally hits the Opening ceremonies, we learn there are 33 different teams we were up against some stiff competition and we all knew it.




As with any skills based competition at the end of the night you can find us all in bars... I apologize for not having any in competition pics but were were far to busy competing.













Team Blue Screen of Death from McMaster University were the underdogs of this competition some teams like McGill brought 3 sub teams. Team Blue Screen of death however consisted of (from left to right): FanFan, Alan, Kevin, Jason, Emery, Torum, Bob, Brian, and Jeff.






Team Blue Screen of Death soon was known as "One of the teams to beat" ranking 1st in several events including the coveted #1 spot for the "TEAM SOFTWARE ENGINEERING" competition. Proving that McMaster engineers really aren't something you can laugh at (as many other students from Waterloo and UofT seem to think).

BSOD also ran away with several high ranking scores and hardly failed any of the challanges they where put up to proving that we are a resourceful bunch. The result? We ran away with 2nd place overall and beat all other Canadian universites making us the #1 university at the competiton in Canada, and that is something to be proud of!

So I end this fun article with a video of our team because if a picture is worth a thousand words then surely this video is worth a thousand laughs.



Feel free to check out all the other teams too!

Autoshow 2006 recap

I was at the autoshow week of Feb 18-19, but I decided not to post these pics until the autoshow was finished.

On to the pictures then!


Can you believe you can rent super cars for a weekend now? That's a sweet service since those things aren't very practical anyways.



"Best new sports sedan"



Unobvious hybrid



Really don't like that new nose



The Ashton Martin DB9 Wheels


Ashton Martin DB9




this is the slightly smaller and sportier Ashton Martin V8 Vantage



Before I fell in love with my current car design, I was really pulled toward this one the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Mitsubishi's one of those companies you don't see on the streets alot but they're products look just that much more unique for that reason.



Once again don't like the new nose design I think it looks horrible.



For those that have seen my car or own a Mazda3 take a close look at this. No it's not a Mazda3 guage. It's acutally from a pontiac. Now who stole from who is hard to tell. I will say this though the seats were terribly uncomfortable.




No one can deny the Laborghini defiently looks different. This has stayed my dream car for many years. Plainly for this reason, many cars can be fast but this car can look fast even when it doesn't move at all. The shape of the car looks more closer to a stealth fighter than a car, and I love that. Not that the car is a slouch at all it's up there with the best cars.



Dodge charger I believe. Well even if not it's US made because of the areodynamic nightmare of a nose. Might be powerful but don't expect a high top speed. (looks like the americans have reverted to pushing bricks throught the wind again).



This is the same car I have in a different colour that my parents originally wanted me to get.... I'm so glad I went with Titanium grey instead.



Here's the Mazda concept car, I believe it was an experiment with seamless design. since your not able to see the C pillars. Nor are you able to see the headlights (Could they be behind a clever 2 sided surface?)



A very nice convertable indeed.



Let me reiterate it's a stealth jet.



I want these. It seemed some new cars were using some new frameless wiper blades. I want these, but haven't seen this style in any shops. Pictured here is off a BMW, but there are Honda's with the same wipers. I'd really want to test this one out so I'll be watching the stores for it.




The new High speed mercedes?

We do have an autobahn!

Canada does have an autobahn it's the QEW. Alot of cars including my own were travelling well above the speed limit. On sundays where the traffic is very light you can really get up to speed on this road, almost as much as our german friends.

Now I'm finally starting to understand fast cars.

Filming in Hamilton

This weekend (Sunday) I might be heading down to Hamilton to be in the intro video to CSGAMES team Segfault. As of yet I haven't recieved the location and time details so I'm not sure but there's a good chance this week would be the week to get team segfault's clips together while Kev and others will dilligently work on splicing together the various clips to form an actual team video.

Next week wednesday (Feb 15) I'll be heading down to Missauga for a .NET user group meeting (at Microsoft Canada Headquarters). That should be an interresting event.

Additionally following that week that weekend the 5G gang would probably be heading to T.O. or at least Andy might be heading down week of 18-19 for the auto show, which I will be joining him.

Sounds like some busy weeks ahead.

Goodbye Acrobat

Today I finally made the full conversion from Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0.5 on my work PC over to foxit reader. The reason? Well Acrobat these days has grow to be bloatware with it's multiple plugins and slow loading splash screen it's sometimes unbearably slow to use.


In comes foxit reader the less than 1 MB PDF reader. Although while using it I found some minor issues, like being unable to show PDF documents from within a browser so far I'm very satisfied with the results. Unlike Adobe Acrobat there is no attempt to install all these auxillary programs that load in the background doing various things like checking for updates. The result is a very clean program that loads as fast as notepad, and has all the features of standard Acrobat.

For users of Acrobat Pro this is no replacement since you cannot create PDF's with this program nor can you mark up existing PDF documents. However, for the millions of PDF view only users this is a definite download I'd recommend it to anyone that needs a fast lite PDF viewer.