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I'd go with a fanless 350MHz Pentium II, running Windows 98SE, with 256MB ECC RAM(some DOS apps flip out if you have that much extended memory, though), on an Intel BX-chipset motherboard(Asus P2B comes to mind). Go with a name-brand power supply like Antec, non-PFC(you do want to use it with a cheap UPS without worries over compatibility, right?), with a power rating of 500W or more(not that you need it, it will probably last longer if you don't push it as close to its limits). Install two large, quiet chassis fans from different manufacturers. I'd use a 5400 RPM laptop drive(will probably need a $5-$10 mount/connector adapter), or even 7200 RPM, 20-80GB or so, with a 5-year warranty. Too large and the BIOS will have problems, and you'd probably not use it anyway.

If you want something newer(and you may, as I'm not sure what the lifespan on older slot 1 motherboards are...), you may want to look into a fanless socket 370 VIA C3, running on an Intel BX2 motherboard(only because it supports ECC, you can see other chipsets that nominally support it here: http://www.anime.net/~goemon/linux-ecc/).

Oh, and don't get a cheapo $10 case. They'll warp and bend, and could conceivably short out your motherboard. Not to mention slice open your supple flesh. ;)

Since nobody's mentioned it yet:

More recent versions of Red Hat come with EDAC (formerly known as bluesmoke) enabled and will throw parity errors to the syslog ...

http://bluesmoke.sf.net/
http://buttersideup.com/edacwiki/Main_Page

Its predecessor, Linux-ECC, also has a plug by DJB for its use with some decent details:

http://cr.yp.to/hardware/ecc.html
http://www.anime.net/~goemon/linux-ecc/

This isn't really apples fault but older second hand macs are over priced. For whatever reason macs hold value much better than PCs do. For instance awhile back I got the idea stuck in my head I wanted a old ibook G3, you know the cute clam shell things. I probably would have just wiped it and installed linux but I like the case design. Plus I wanted something to carry around with me just for text processing. Anyways I spend a few days looking on ebay. Turns out to pick up a old ibook it costs 300-800 excluding shipping. I personally feel that is horribly overpriced. Looking around on ebay for a p3 500mhz (which is kinda close to a G3 according to the linux benchmarks) price barely hits 300$ and most of those laptops come with wifi.

Like I said originally though this isn't apples fault (well it could be, I am not a econ major) just the fact that people sell old macs for higher than old pcs.

awaiting your data point :-)

too bad about the controller placement. it would have made an excellent portable mame platform.

HAHAHAHA! I was wondering if someone made a reference to Macross Plus. It was Guld "Boa" Bowmen's plane, the YF-21, that had morphing wings based on Zentradi technology.

Oh GOD, how I love Robotech and all stuff related!

Actually I've been working on the Q3 code for a number of years. I wrote this and this for example.

I wrote the Enemy Territory 2.60 Release for Id/Activision under contract with them.

I've also had the engine source for over a year under contract with Id/Activision so I could write this. You might have heard of this little get together called Quakecon. It was used to broadcast the qualifier and tournament matches.

Care to tell us what exactly is your experience with the q3 engine code?

Actually I've been working on the Q3 code for a number of years. I wrote this and this for example.

I wrote the Enemy Territory 2.60 Release for Id/Activision under contract with them.

I've also had the engine source for over a year under contract with Id/Activision so I could write this. You might have heard of this little get together called Quakecon. It was used to broadcast the qualifier and tournament matches.

Care to tell us what exactly is your experience with the q3 engine code?

Actually I've been working on the Q3 code for a number of years. I wrote this and this for example.

I wrote the Enemy Territory 2.60 Release for Id/Activision under contract with them.

I've also had the engine source for over a year under contract with Id/Activision so I could write this. You might have heard of this little get together called Quakecon. It was used to broadcast the qualifier and tournament matches.

Care to tell us what exactly is your experience with the q3 engine code?

I think you should understand what exactly moding entails. It is not an addition, it is a modification, of whatever sections of the engine source the company has chosen to make available.

I think you should understand what exactly moding entails. It is not an addition, it is a modification, of whatever sections of the engine source the company has chosen to make available.

11. Aqua. (not the ugly University colors of XP).

Actually aqua is one of the worst things apple has done in OSX. Apple basically abandoned 15 years of excellent and well and thoroughly researched UI guidelines in favor of eye candy (gumdrop buttons, brushed metal, etc.). In fact much of aqua violates fundamental UI guidelines (eg, don't use color as an indicator of status or function)

Not to mention that you can't customize aqua at all without horrible, gross third party hacks.

You want an example of how aqua is fucked up? tell me dear apple, which window has focus?

give etpro a go they have done wonders with the antilag. that is of course if you want to play et and not etf

In the anime series The Vision of Escaflowne it is very strongly implied that the leader of the enemy forces, Emperor Dornkirk, is really Sir Isaac Newton, transported to the planet Gaea from his deathbed. In the series, Dornkirk/Newton is driven by a compulsion to understand and ultimately control fate, thinking it to be a natural force like gravity.

The series even claims that Newton was driven by this obsession with fate later in his life, but I've never seen anything to back this up, so I could never tell if this extraordinarily fanciful plot device was in any way based in fact, or if it was entirely created by the show's writers.

--realinvalidname

Are you sure about that? An official windows XP advertisement from microsoft says 64 kilobytes! 256 kilobytes sounds too high.

Sounds like you came accross ShrubET. I'd agree competely with regard to that mod.

Have a look at ETPro though, this is becoming far more popular than ShrubET, partially due to many feeling the same way and partly because Shrub isnt updating his mod where as the ETPro guys definately are. They dont put stupid crap in like Shrub, I guess the only things you might not like is the ability for server's to fine tune the experience points/skills system and the speed of map-movers like tanks. This is there largely so clan wars can be sped up.

ETPro is much closer to vanilla ET, mostly adding features and bugfixes that will go unnoticed if you dont want them (i.e. select the feature or have a problem with the relevant bug). While some of the features/adjustments are a tad l33t clannie orientated, there's so much other stuff I consider the mod more as continuing development of ET - like OSP mod for RTCW (which was so good they built it straight into ET).

And btw, ETPro sorted the custom campaign thing so you dont need to download the stupid .pk3 files all the time, like you do in vanilla ET, there it's just a script on the server.

Quick run down of the numbers by using filters in my ASE, all servers pinging my crappy ISDN below 100, having at least one player and no password*:
(*note IIRC this filter doesnt actually work properly, server has to include "sets g_needpass 1" for it to show in server browsers).

ETMain: 86
Shrub: 40
ETPro: 135
Other: 1
Total: 262

Actually looking at that I'm surprised how quickly ETPro is taking over, didnt have anything like half the active servers last time I checked, and thats even signficantly faster than OSP overtook vanilla RTCW.

Just BTW, seeing as it's roughly on topic and the interview does mention ET's co-developer/publisher/shomething-or-other id Software, the freely downloadable PC game Enemy Territory is likely to be converted to Mac (or at least an attmpt made) by the modder team behind ETPro.

Probably take awhile before it even get's properly started though, since first they will be releasing (and maybe fixing) version 2.1 of ETPro mod, and then working on ET-TV.

Just BTW, seeing as it's roughly on topic and the interview does mention ET's co-developer/publisher/shomething-or-other id Software, the freely downloadable PC game Enemy Territory is likely to be converted to Mac (or at least an attmpt made) by the modder team behind ETPro.

Probably take awhile before it even get's properly started though, since first they will be releasing (and maybe fixing) version 2.1 of ETPro mod, and then working on ET-TV.

ETPro is also coming out with a replacement for Punk Buster. PunkBuster is the built in anti-cheat software that's been used in RTCW as well as ET.

I've recently been sucked into the competitive gameplay world (where teams organize into divisions, leagues, etc, tournaments are held periodically for cash and prizes, and all that good stuff). As much as I used to chuckle at the thought of "pro gamers", it turns out that there can be just as much nuance to strategy and execution to appreciate in watching a multiplayer video game as there is in watching say a football game. At least to my mind.

One cool thing about mods is that they can be used to improve games to a point where they're suitable for competition. The ETpro mod by bani for the game Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory alters some aspects of gameplay to make it more suitable stopwatch competitions.

The other thing mods can do, and this is kinda neat, is actually add in features to accomodate game spectators. Again, using ETpro as an example, bani included some small changes to help shoutcasters quickly identify players and get stats during the match. A multiview feature was also added so that a spectator could watch the game from several different points of view with a Picture-in-Picture style setup.

In the future, I see mods stepping up to fill in the roles that the original game developers either couldn't think of or didn't want to address because the competition world wasn't their target audience. I can see a mod coming out that can not only handle broadcasting video of the match, but offers optional commentary via an mp3/ogg stream from a caster and presents information kind of in the same way FOX does for football games (current scores, tickers for other matches, league stats for players, etc).

Yeah. Mods are crucial if you want to let your users take your software places you'd never even thought of before.

No, you have to go back further (though still within Mikimoto Haruhiko's works). Think EVE from MegaZone 23 parts I,II, IIIa and IIIb

SUE THIS u AOL CUNTS!!!!

LOTR 'Engrish' Subs

Or this FotR parody.

whorl.da.ru

Free Johnny Walker

For more info on Macross Plus and other Macross anime, check out the Macross Compendium

Great for those AutoeroticBondageLine text chat sessions.

(backstory)

Great for those AutoeroticBondageLine text chat sessions.

(backstory)

Two other good Anime series that haven't been mentioned so far (that I saw at JAC at UIUC):

Nadia (The Secret of Blue Water) --Adventure/romance anime loosely based on Jules Vernes "20.000 Leagus Under the Sea", but with Atlanis myths and powerful technology at the core. Surprising story, good personalization, bea-yutiful animation, all over good. Manages to do high-tech stuff without the ubiquitous robots/grabbler arms etc.

Outlaw Star -- Space comedy with decent animation and story. Quite funny.

Hope you'll enjoy them!

-Lars

The Vision of Escaflowne: Many people didn't manage to see this one, as it was overshadowed by Evangelion (which ran the same season, in the same time slot). It's good. Damn good. Earth girl goes to medieval fantasy planet that has big mechas and a massive ongoing war. Extremely well done.

Escaflowne did get overshadowed by Evangelion (even its own producer admitted it ^^;), but it ran after Evangelion ended, in a different timeslot. It's just that almost *every* project for a few years afterwards were affected (positively or negatively) by Evangelion. The industry folks in Japan even have several names for it ("Eva Shock"), and one mainstream newspaper called the phenomenon the third wave of Japanese animation (after the ones launched by Space Battleship Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam).

Fortunately, Escaflowne is experiencing something of an resurgence thanks to the upcoming movie and other releases on both sides of the Pacific.

I second your opinion on the Vision of Escaflowne, I was looking to see if anyone else recommended it before I put my two cents in. I myself was disappointed with the ending, felt it was rushed. The producers knew they had the leeway of making a movie to tie up loose ends (in production now).

The producers decided not to go that route. ^^; Escaflowne the Movie will not be a followup to the series, but an entirely separate storyline. You can catch Escaflowne the Movie at its American premieres at Anime Expo and Otakon.

IFor more information, everybody, on anime and manga, the best English language online resource I've seen is EX.org , which might be the best online magazine I've seen, period.

I second that EX recommendation, although I'm somewhat biased. =)

It is absolutely imperative that you find and watch The Vision of Escaflowne, which is scheduled to be released on DVD shortly.

Unfortunately, the DVD release in United States and Canada have been pushed back to October 3. =/ The good news is that Fox Kids will be showing it on American television this fall.

Escaflowne Compendium on DVDs

Escaflowne Compendium on television series broadcast

It is absolutely imperative that you find and watch The Vision of Escaflowne, which is scheduled to be released on DVD shortly.

Unfortunately, the DVD release in United States and Canada have been pushed back to October 3. =/ The good news is that Fox Kids will be showing it on American television this fall.

Escaflowne Compendium on DVDs

Escaflowne Compendium on television series broadcast

I know it's been mentioned before, but the Macross Plus 4-part series (on 2 DVD's) is awesome.. the animation is great, the music is great, the acting isn't half bad either. Do NOT mistake the miniseries for the movie, they chop out 2 and a half hours and the whole thing doesn't make sense anymore.

It's nowhere that drastic at all ... =) The video version only clocks in at 157 minutes, and after removing the multiple ending credits, it's quite close to the 115-minute running time of the Movie Edition. (The Movie Edition economizes on the running time by showing prologue/back story during its opening and ending credits.) In fact, there is 20 minutes of movie-only footage -- roughly the same amount of footage that exclusive to the video version.

Ironically, the creator Shoji Kawamori says that the movie edition is closer to the original script of his story. He and the scriptwriter (Cowboy Bebop's Keiko Nobumoto) originally wrote the script as a feature-length film, and it was only at the distributor's request that they rearranged the story with three tacked-on cliffhangers and released it on four videos first.

The moral? Watch both. =)

Motif set about to capture the 'visual elegance' of Windows (pre-95), and has been stuck there ever since. The stupid drop-down fly-out menus (as opposed to drop down - scroll) Motif has are grounds enough for shooting someone. Motif does not "provide a GUI for Unix applications" -- it makes UNIX look retarded! It says, "Warning! This system is unusable! Try your toaster instead!"

http://yawara.anime.net/gaijinFAQ/n etscape.html
It being the case that Motif sucks beyond belief, and that Netscape Navigator uses Motif, you basically have to maim it to let it display Japanese in things like the Menu-bar, Bookmarks, and Forms.

http://www.catalog.com/hopkins/ simcity/keynote.html
It wouldn't have been possible to port SimCity to X11 using Open Software Foundation's Motif toolkit. It just absolutely sucks. It's not open, and you have to pay for the source code, and it's not being maintained.

http://www.mandrakeuser.org/connec t/cbrowse.html
The interface sucks. It is built with the legacy Motif library.

http://shadowrun.html.com/ubb /Forum2/HTML/000007.html
And I programmed in C/X-windows/Motif for ten years. The most far away I can stand from that monster, the happier I am :)

http://www.motifzone.com/resources/sta rt.htm
Let's face it, X/Motif are sophisticated pieces of system software with lots of flexibility and power.

http://slashdot.org/articles/99 /03/01/0644222.shtml
I'm a professional X11 programmer, and GTK+ is one of the nicest widget sets about. Combined with GNOME it has the potential to beat even the object frameworks produced by Less Palatable Companies. For people who have never done professional X11 programming, Motif is CRAP. Everybody hates it. It was designed by a committee, and damn it shows. There's a reason it's called Bloatif. Even the addon packages to make Motif more usable (by giving it workable file dialogs, tree views, and a drag and drop you don't have to implement 90% by hand) are buggy, slow and memory hungry.

http://slashdot.org/books/99/03/22 /0826250.shtml
If it weren't for GTK I'd probably be programming Motif (well, OK, actually I'd be programming in QT, but that's besides the point). Motif is much like raw X Window System calls, except that Motif is MUCH MUCH WORSE! Motif is much like the stinky dead fish that your dog insists on digging up every time you try to throw it away. The world needs more Motif applications like I need a hole in my head. I can go on and on about this. Really, I can. Moral of the story: Learn a toolkit. Believe me on this one. I've made dumber comments, but few have been more true. Just don't do Motif. :^)
[...]
BTW, I agree about Motif. I think it was the worst thing to happen to Unix, ever. I think it did more to harm Unix as a platform than anything else that ever occurred during the 30+ years that Unix has been in existence.
[...]
Motif/Lesstif is arguably worse than gtk, and I programmed a lot of Motif.

If the designers of X-Windows built cars, there would be no fewer than five steering wheels hidden about the cockpit, none of which followed the same principles -- but you'd be able to shift gears with your car stereo. Useful feature, that. - Marus J. Ranum, Digital Equipment Corporation

http://ecco.bsee.swin.edu.au/un ix/uh/x-windows.html
The Motif Self-Abuse Kit
X gave Unix vendors something they had professed to want for years: a standard that allowed programs built for different computers to interoperate. But it didn't give them enough. X gave programmers a way to display windows and pixels, but it didn't speak to buttons, menus, scroll bars, or any of the other necessary elements of a graphical user interface. Programmers invented their own. Soon the Unix community had six or so different interface standards. A bunch of people who hadn't written 10 lines of code in as many years set up shop in a brick building in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was the former home of a failed computer company and came up with a "solution:" the Open Software Foundation's Motif. What Motif does is make Unix slow. Real slow. A stated design goal of Motif was to give the X Window System the window management capabilities of HP's circa-1988 window manager and the visual elegance of Microsoft Windows. We kid you not. Recipe for disaster: start with the Microsoft Windows metaphor, which was designed and hand coded in assembler. Build something on top of three or four layers of X to look like Windows. Call it "Motif." Now put two 486 boxes side by side, one running Windows and one running Unix/Motif. Watch one crawl. Watch it wither. Watch it drop faster than the putsch in Russia. Motif can't compete with the Macintosh OS or with DOS/Windows as a delivery platform.

Just think of what we can do with all that formaldehyde.

O_o