Logo by Tom Purves

12:49 AM
More TwinVQ observations
Sorry, I'm not really convinced by this format.  A 96 kbps VQF compared to a 128 kbps MP3 clearly suffered from a lack of stereo separation and high-frequency response.  What else is there to say?  Wish I could encode the VQF at 128 kbps for a closer comparison.

12:30 AM
Seinfeld
What did you guys think of that last episode?  Personally, I was a little disappointed.  The ending was kind of a downer, but that's not what really disappointed me.  The last episode was way too much recapping.  It really seems like they tried to do something different and it didn't really come out all that well.

TwinVQ
Check out this new encoding algorithm for audio files...similar to the Layer III format but supposedly identical in quality to a 128 kbps MP3 at only 96 kbps.   I haven't actually been all that excited about this format because the reference MPEG-4 audio source produces rather poor sounding files based on this algorithm, but it's highly likely that this is because the reference encoder is totally unoptimized.  I'm trying out the encoder now on my own files and I'm going to see how well it performs.

TwinVQ home page

8:46 PM
FFVII demo out
Hmm.  50MB?  I don't really even know if I liked FFVII that much.  Sure, all these fancy graphics and cutscenes, but the fact is that MM6 holds my attention and FFVII did not.  Playing FFVII seemed sort of like work, but that's coming from somebody who's probably played too many games and might be a little jaded?   Anyhow, I am curious to see how the 3Dfx treatment spruces up the game.

Download locations from 3dfxmania

1:36 PM
TriTech/Pyramid 3D out
As in out of the market.  This chip generated a lot of hubbub last year with its nearly photorealistic rendering quality and advanced features like bump mapping.  But apparently TriTech has decided to leave the hotly competitively market and stick to less flashy endeavors.

Didn't I hear that this chip was designed by the demo group Future Crew?  It's a shame.  Hope to see something else from them soon.

EE Times' story

9:35 AM
LA Confidential
Did I mention how good this movie is?  A sleeper hit of sorts...most people by now know it's good, but back around November or December nobody I knew had seen the damn thing.  Even I didn't realize it was good until I ended up seeing it by pure chance.  The marketing guys who were promoting it really screwed up because they portrayed it as a generic cop movie instead of what it really is (although, to be honest, I don't quite know how to describe it).

Anyhow, it's out now on DVD and VHS, so if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and sit down and watch.  It proves movies can have a plot and still be good (sarcasm).   You know, with movies costing around $100 million nowadays, you'd think the producers would wise up and spend $1 million of that on a decent plot.

3:16 PM
Thanks for the input
By the way, I just wanted to thank those of you who wrote in about your opinions on the DOJ/Windows 98 issue.  Many of you came to Microsoft's defense, arguing that while it does have a dominant position in the market, innovation is still alive and well and that the inclusion of the browser in the OS will be beneficial to most users.

Just curious, but how many of you think the browser belongs in the OS?  The real issue here is that I know everybody obviously likes getting things for free.  But a monopolistic tactic often used by big companies called "dumping" involves temporarily selling a product way below cost to drive a small competitor into the ground.   A large company can eat the losses and survive while a small niche competitor cannot.  Then later, the large company simply raises prices again (and possibly has bought out the smaller competitor).  This is what the DOJ is trying to protect people against.

So again, the question is, does the browser belong in the OS?  Not "Do people like getting it for free?"  I don't see any huge benefits to the user in integrating the browser.  In fact, the new look is annoying to me.

Also, let me state for the record that I think IE 4.01 is superior to Navigator and I use it on a daily basis, so don't anybody get the idea that I'm one of those "Mickey$oft sucks!" freaks.  :-)

I2O finding acceptance slow
In case you don't remember, I2O (Intelligent I/O) is an interesting standard that allows you offload I/O intensive function to a separate coprocessor, freeing the host CPU for more of its own work  I2O has managed to make inroads in companies which don't have sell to a large customer base and can concentrate primarily on performance, but it's having a significantly harder time breaking into the OEM market.   One thing especially hurting it is the lack of common support in popular operating systems like Windows NT.  Patches are available, but the performance and reliability boosts don't seem to be enough to make vendors want to switch yet.  At the current rate, it is expected that the I2O 2.0 standard may be well be out before I2O finds broader acceptance.  V2.0 should tighten compliance and ensure that more vendors' products work together (yet another issue that needs to be dealt with).

EE Times' story

1:37 AM
ICQ for Windows CE
Two things I've heard so far...it's only for Windows CE 2.0 and you must have an existing ICQ number to use it.  With that in mind, it's got great potential.   Go get it!

Mirabilis' website

2:46 PM
Deep Impact
Well, I didn't hear about this movie until 3 days before it was supposed to come out, but my friends tell me there was a big advertising push for the movie.   Anyway, I went to see it just because all my buddies wanted to go too.  In case you've been living in a cave, the movie is about a comet that's about to strike the Earth.  The movie actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it ended up being more of a drama than a sci-fi flick.  It takes forever to see some nice special effects.

SPOILERS BELOW

They fly a ship out to intercept the comet and blow it up.  The special effects were nice, but the part we didn't get was that they only brought 8 small nukes (5 megaton yield a piece) and only ended up using four of them.  If I was flying a ship out there, it would be loaded with nukes.  NUKE CITY. 

Also, there is a young girl in the movie involved in some cheesy kid romance that looks like Helen Hunt.  My friends didn't think so, but I don't know what they are thinking...she definitely does.  In the movie, a boy finds the comet at the beginning and becomes famous when the information about the comet is finally released.  As part of a safety program, the US builds a big network of underground caves where a million citizens can survive when the comet hits.  Naturally, the kid and his family gets selected to be in the program since he found the comet.

Anyhow, this kid is in love with the girl.  There is a scene where everyone is preparing for the worst and the kid comes up to the girl, who is sitting under a tree watching the sunset, and offers for her to come along with him.  She says, "But how? We didn't get selected."  He says, "Well, I was talking some to people, and they say that if we get married, you can come along."  And she says, "But what about my family?"  He says, "They say that they can come along too."  Then he says, "Will you marry me?"  And she's looking at him, and he says, "Come on.  It's your only chance to survive."

Everybody in the movie theater was laughing at that point.  That's not much of a choice, is it?  There was all this touching music playing, but it really seemed like Mail-order Brides, Inc.  "Marry me if you want to live."  Yeah, thanks for the options.