Slashdot Mirror

whoda writes "When you think of a bicycle, you most likely think of 2 tires, a chain, some gearing of some sort, and other assorted mechanical bits. However, when Lance Armstrong, Jan Ullrich, and over 180 other riders get together to compete at the Tour de France every year, there is a lot of technology that comes along for the ride too. From Lance's Sunglass'/MP3 Player to the advanced use of composites seen on Tyler Hamilton's time trial bike, there are many examples of high technology making the racers faster through better training, materials and aerodynamics."

bfwebster writes "Space.com has a story on the scientists and technicians working on the Mars rovers, Spirit and Oppotunity--and how they will react when the rovers finally break down, go silent, or otherwise die. Of course, humans becoming emotionally involved with hardware is high on the list of overused science fiction cliches (see I.14), and humans were naming (and anthropomorphizing) their cars long before they started doing it to their computers. Some argue that anthropomorphic design can ease end-user acceptance [PDF], with some interesting results among toys for children. On the other hand, when software manufacturers try to give our computers some 'personality', we tend to vehemently react against it--witness Microsoft's attempts with the much-loathed Bob and Clippy. And when our personal computers are aged or ailing or simply misbehaving, we usually are more than happy to put them out of our misery. So in the case of Spirit and Opportunity, the issue may be the large investment of time, money, and professional credibility in having two semi-autonomous rovers 100 million miles away function correctly. Best quote from the Space.com story: when Spirit, early into its mission, shut down for reasons then unknown, the Spirit mission manager happened to get a phone call from her husband. He asked her how her day had been, and she said, 'Well...I think I'm personally responsible for the loss of a $400 million national asset.' Doncha hate it when that happens?"

Thanks to RetroGames for pointing to the project page for Adventure II, an unofficial Atari 5200 sequel to the classic Atari 2600 version of Adventure. There's a 40 percent version available for download, and the page asks you to bear in mind that "..the dragon will eat you (resetting the demo) if he bites you too many times." In related news, this review of the Atari 10-In-1 TV Game, including the original version of Adventure, points out that the world's first videogame 'easter egg', sneaked in by creator Warren Robinett and containing his name, has been changed in the new TV Game version to the word 'TEXT' - shurely shome mistake?

ahaning asks: "I've recently been collecting mirrors for a file that I found a while back when I had messed up a motherboard and didn't have a manual for it. I haven't really needed the file since, but I'd hate to loose it. Unfortunately, I didn't find out about it until after the fact, but, as the file shows, there used to be a (yearly?) publication on CDROM called Total Hardware. From what I can guess, it contained all that's in the file but with images of every card (there's a little under 15,000 in all). Another similar library of information was called Microhouse. That library is still available. However, all of my attempts to wget the Microhouse library have failed. What I wanted to ask was if anyone else knew of any other good resources similar to these. Especially files (tar/zip) that can be downloaded and referred to offline." It's useful little things like this that the industry once did that I found extremely useful. It's sad that hardware companies either find no monetary value or even goodwill value in continuing to provide this information to its customers.

ahaning asks: "I've recently been collecting mirrors for a file that I found a while back when I had messed up a motherboard and didn't have a manual for it. I haven't really needed the file since, but I'd hate to loose it. Unfortunately, I didn't find out about it until after the fact, but, as the file shows, there used to be a (yearly?) publication on CDROM called Total Hardware. From what I can guess, it contained all that's in the file but with images of every card (there's a little under 15,000 in all). Another similar library of information was called Microhouse. That library is still available. However, all of my attempts to wget the Microhouse library have failed. What I wanted to ask was if anyone else knew of any other good resources similar to these. Especially files (tar/zip) that can be downloaded and referred to offline." It's useful little things like this that the industry once did that I found extremely useful. It's sad that hardware companies either find no monetary value or even goodwill value in continuing to provide this information to its customers.

Effugas writes "The mind boggles. Police have apparently raided a student's dorm room due to his participation in a heavy metal music inspired Starcraft clan, 'Bled For Days.'" The link above is to the university's student newspaper, the Kent Stater, which one of the students told me got the story completely wrong, though he wouldn't elaborate. That said, having spoken with another of the students, I think the essentials of the story are right: cops, confiscation, clan, and (absurd) worry about trash talk being death threats. A few comments below.

I spoke with Patrick Barnes, identified as the lead member of the clan. He's a Comp. Sci. major, and I can tell from the sound of his voice that he likes the material (he finds it easy).

The way Patrick described it to me, there was a technical glitch in uploading the website -- I'm still not sure exactly how this happened, but apparently they contacted the wrong server. Anyway, whatever happened, it got the attention of someone at Kent State. The students with their names on the clan site got letters in the mail saying they were to have a meeting with their Resident Director in two days.

On the day of that meeting, it was cancelled. Then, on Thursday, the cops (campus cops, apparently) came to one of their dorm rooms, and confiscated a computer and CDs. Everyone in the clan was taken to the station and individually questioned about what it was, what it meant, whether they were hackers, who was the "leader," and so on.

The confiscated computer is having its hard drive copied and analyzed for evidence. According to Patrick, it might be returned tomorrow, or, as the law allows, not for a year.

Patrick was the only one of the members I spoke with who was willing to talk at any length. He predicted the other members of the clan would be more worried than he, and he was right (their lawyer had told them not to talk about it). I hope in a few years they can look back on this as simply a surreal trip into the land of university cops who don't understand gaming.

I'll hand the conclusion over to this story's submitter, Effugas, who asks:

"Instead of simply laughing and moving on, what can we, as a community do to prevent these kind of occurances in the future? Would something as simple as a confidential 'reality check' group of experts, made available to law enforcement as consultants, be helpful? Would a set of guidelines, peer reviewed by the community, be useful? Instead of cursing the darkness, how can we praise the light?"