revelation

Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV is one of the most hotly anticipated video games coming out this year. Imagine an immersive city environment where you're free to roam and do as you please, now with ultra-realistic next-generation graphics. GTA IV will be released for both X360 and PS3 in October 2007. I'm a big GTA fan, and I can't wait to play this latest one on my PS3.

Yesterday Rockstar continued to build up the hype around this game, by giving the gaming world a glimpse of things to come, in the form of a short teaser trailer. The speculation is over, the next GTA is coming back home to Liberty City, which is a thinly veiled version of New York City. The trailer shows some cool digital renditions of various NYC landmarks, like the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, the Chrysler building, and Grand Central Terminal.

To be honest, I'm a little disappointed that it's Liberty City again. I've already roamed the streets and dominated the crime underworld twice in LC, with GTA III and GTA: Liberty City Stories. I was kind of hoping they'd take the franchise to another new and exciting city, perhaps somewhere international like Hong Kong or Germany.

What's interesting though, is that based on the trailer, you will be playing the role of a thickly accented immigrant -- everyone seems to think it's a Russian accent. This is a new take on the GTA plotlines, but Rockstar has always had a reputation for doing unconventional things and making them into a success. I'm sure I'm going to enjoy playing this one when it comes out.

View the GTA IV Trailer at Rockstar's site

folding

I used to fold paper airplanes and throw them from the 2nd story of my house to see how far they'd go, but this is way cooler. This weekend I'm using my PS3 to help find a cure for cancer.

Stanford University [ok as a Cal alumnus I feel somewhat obligated to call them Stanfurd, rhymes with turd huhuh] has been using home PCs and now PS3s in a distributed computing network called the Folding@Home Project. People who want to let their computers/PS3s help the Project simply download the Project application, and then let the program run in the background, effectively donating their idle computer processor time. The Project tackles the massive task of analyzing folding proteins -- due to the huge amount of calculations required it typically would require a supercomputer, but by dividing up the task into smaller work units and handing out assignments to individual machines -- homework, if you will -- the power of everyone's computers is combined in one of the largest distributed computing networks in the world. Good stuff.

But it gets even better. The PS3's Cell processor has been touted as one of the most advanced CPUs you can buy today, and Sony has teamed with Stanford University to take advantage of that. The CPU crunches away at its homework, and the RSX graphics chip displays the actual protein folding and geometry in realtime for you to see. And in the background, a world map slowly rotates and shows you, world-wide, all the other PS3s that are crunching away as well as little points of light. That rates a 10.0 on the geek scale for me.

It's nice to know that I can do something for medical research so easily, and it requires so little effort -- just leave the PS3 on and let it put the smack down on some misbehaving proteins. I almost feel guilty when I interrupt it to actually play a game -- almost. I still gotta play my games, sucka!

Folding@Home on the PS3

Gizmodo: PS3 Triples Folding At Home's Computing Power to Over 500 TFLOPS..PFLOPS in Spitting Range

idle

A soon to be ex-coworker (he's leaving my firm and therefore not highly productive in his final days anyways) introduced me to one of those websites that is bound to tie up many of your hours during the workday and make you completely unproductive. Click on it at your own risk, I wouldn't want you to get fired because you've been playing video games all day instead of work! http://www.everyvideogame.com

This site has some of my favorite classic NES games such as Tetris, Bionic Commando, and Karateka.

This coming Saturday is a big one for racing -- the season opener for the Formula 1 Championship Series in Australia, and the first major endurance race of the year in American Le Mans Series, the 12 Hours of Sebring. In F1 everyone's excited about the beginning of a new era--one without Michael Schumacher on the racing grid. The battle is on between reigning F1 Champion Fernando Alonso at McLaren Mercedes, and the hopeful successor to Schumacher's throne at Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen.

In ALMS, the focus last year was on the debut of Audi's diesel prototype in LMP1 and the Corvette vs. Aston Martin battle in GT1. But this year the big show looks to be in LMP2, where a multitude of cars will debut at the season opening 12 Hours of Sebring in Florida. Acura and Mazda make their entry into the ALMS with LMP2 entries, and hope to give Porsche's newly updated RS Spyders a run for their money. Porsche returns with its Team Penske RS Spyders but also welcomes new customers Dyson Racing to the fold with RS Spyders of their own. I'm still bummed that Lexus didn't end up fielding their GT2 class IS350 race car in ALMS, but who knows, maybe that will return someday.

motivation

It's that time of the year in Europe for the Geneva Motor show, and there are lots of cool new cars on display this year. Of course I don't have the coin nor the time right now to be jetting off to Geneva to see them in person, but thank goodness we have the Internet and legions of car fans all over the world who can share the love.

Previously I mentioned the unveiling of Lexus's IS-F at the Detroit Motor Show -- well, now here comes the latest iteration of the competition -- well actually the benchmark against which all other performance sport sedans are measured. BMW brought its M3 Concept to the Geneva show and most of the automotive press have pointed out that it pretty much is what we're going to see in dealerships later this year when the M3 goes on sale. The pertinent specs: based on the new 3-Series coupe chassis, 2 doors, 420+ HP V8 motor. Carbon-fiber roof, slightly sportier-looking body styling. The "Powerdome" bulge on the hood is supposed to be a subtle hint that the car is packing some formidable V8 muscle under the hood, but it just comes across as tacky or plain ugly in my book. Otherwise overall I think the M3 is a pretty good looking car, but is it going to be worth the hefty premium over the standard 335i coupe? I don't know. I was just reading that there are some ECU upgrades available from the likes of Vishnu or Alpina that turn up the boost on the 335i to power levels of around 360-380HP, for a lot less dough.

Another cool vehicle rolled out at the Geneva show is the Artega GT, which looks a bit like a cross between a Carrera GT, Lotus Elise, and Ferrari F430 -- all very beautiful cars. Powered by a 300HP V6 motor from VW, the Artega GT will be offered in limited numbers for around $100K.

deflation

I had another lesson last week in the "you gotta pay to play" category ... got a flat on my IS350 while driving into work. The low tire warning light came on just as I pulled into the parking lot. Sure enough, a tire was leaking badly. Just like that, I needed a new rear 255/40-18 tire. Went to the local tire shop, they said that tire is toast, couldn't be repaired. That one tire would set me back $345 and take a week to order. Yowza! I called around and fortunately my Lexus dealer had one in stock, for $296. Woohoo. I could saved some bucks buying it on Tirerack.com, but I can't be driving around on my donut spare tire all week long (what an attractive pale yellow hue the steel wheel has!) so I bit the bullet and got the new tire installed. I guess that's the price we pay for performance.