blake johnson

My new computer is up and running smoothly. I've loaded up Half-Life 2 and I am already getting sucked into it. The game is quite remarkable. The first thing you notice, of course, is the graphics. Texture detail is amazing (normal mapping at work, I suppose). Next you start noticing how interactive the game is. There was a lot of hype regarding the physics in HL2, but I guess it's hard to describe the sense of being able to touch and move so many things in the game. You really just have to play it. Finally, once you start interacting with the NPCs you definitely get the sense that this is unlike anything you've ever played before, because character interaction looks and feels natural rather than stiff and awkward. I don't know if it is the poses, or the facial animation, or something else, but HL2 fully delivers believable character interaction.

I might add that Half-Life 2 contains a fair number of physics jokes; always a plus, right? Speaking of physics jokes, here's a groaner I heard last week: Two fermions walk into a bar, the first one says to the bartender, "I'll have a martini." Then second says, "Damn, that's what I wanted!"

This might be a bad week for getting work done. Don't worry too much, though, I'm not eager to climb under a mountain of work again like I did this week!

I just finished the original Max Payne this afternoon. It was a really fun game. That's one fewer now on my list of unfinished games.

There are two opinion pieces in the times today regarding Lawrence Summers' remarks on women and science: Op-Ed Contributor: Sex Ed at Harvard and Different but (Probably) Equal. I am glad to see that both articles stress the importance and ground breaking nature of current studies into the innate differences between men and women.

I finally took the plunge today and bought a new computer, or rather, I bought the parts for a new computer. I decided that I was going to build it myself and save a couple hundred dollars. Putting it all together is half the fun anyway, right?

It turns out that the nVidia GeForce 6800GT is an AGP native card, so the PCI Express version has an on-board converter which increases the price of the card by about $80. I decided that instead of continuing to wait for nForce4 Ultra or VIA K8T890 motherboards to be available, I would save some money by getting the AGP video card, a cheaper motherboard, and I would put it together myself. Consequently, I can use the money I saved now to purchase a new motherboard and video card in a couple years.

For those that are curious, my new computer will have a Athlon 64 3500+, an nVidia GeForce 6800GT, and 1GB of DDR 400 RAM. I'm pretty excited. I just hope I don't get any defective parts and have to deal with returning anything.

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Originally uploaded by sableswan.

I went skiing with Phyllis and my parents in Deer Valley in the first week of January. It snowed all week, so the slopes were fantastic, though the temperatures were a bit chilly (and the wind was howling). Phyllis and I took advantage of a break in the cloud cover to get this picture.