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I think G-nome forgot to leave room inside his case for the keyboard.
http://www.waveney.demon.co.uk/whoswho/Orac.jpeg
I can't find any good pics of the original orac, but here's a sample.

I dunno. It doesn't look so Orac to me ... well, in that Orac is a transparent plexi-glass box, and this is also a transparent plexi-glass box, okay ... they're similar.

But this thing still looks like a rice-box PC. A true Blake7 fan wouldn't have stuck to PC form-factor in an imitation of Orac, in my opinion ...

I agree, that was the first thing I thought. For comparison, here is the real Orac

With all that freedom... why is this still just a rectangular box?

Indeed. And why is it called Orac when it doesn't actually look anything like Orac?

I hate to sound curmudgeonly, and the case mod looks interesting and all, but it looks about as much like a Dalek as it does Orac.

With all that freedom... why is this still just a rectangular box?

Indeed. And why is it called Orac when it doesn't actually look anything like Orac?

I hate to sound curmudgeonly, and the case mod looks interesting and all, but it looks about as much like a Dalek as it does Orac.

Given that one of the keywords in most assembly languages is ORG, stating the origin point where the assembly begins, yes you can if you're compiling it with an assembler called Orgasm or another assembler called Orgasm.

Evolvotron

From the page: Evolvotron is an interactive "generative art" application for Linux to evolve images/textures/patterns/animations through an iterative process of random mutation and user-selection driven evolution. It's not running in Flash, you may render all images to arbitrary resolutions and is perfect for creating new desktop backgrounds... Also check the Gallery and Animations.

The code is licensed under the GPL. It uses Qt and is multi-threaded.

Evolvotron

From the page: Evolvotron is an interactive "generative art" application for Linux to evolve images/textures/patterns/animations through an iterative process of random mutation and user-selection driven evolution. It's not running in Flash, you may render all images to arbitrary resolutions and is perfect for creating new desktop backgrounds... Also check the Gallery and Animations.

The code is licensed under the GPL. It uses Qt and is multi-threaded.

Evolvotron

From the page: Evolvotron is an interactive "generative art" application for Linux to evolve images/textures/patterns/animations through an iterative process of random mutation and user-selection driven evolution. It's not running in Flash, you may render all images to arbitrary resolutions and is perfect for creating new desktop backgrounds... Also check the Gallery and Animations.

The code is licensed under the GPL. It uses Qt and is multi-threaded.

... turning it into a tiny (and thus safe) hydrogen bomb.

Cute link for the "tiny, safe hydrogen bomb"! Or perhaps they mean that the image is actual size? Cool -- the New Millenium version of an old favorite.

I mean, this is just amazing! A system that lets you send messages by waving your arms!

Maybe in a few more years they'll invent a system which lets you send a message by entering just dots and dashes.

I received this email at 1725 PST:

I received this email earlier today:

I can't post to slashdot but you if you'd like to post a pointer to my detailed, techie review of the Mark I Trilobite then please do:

http://www.hearsay.demon.co.uk/trilobiteReview.txt

Basically, yes, it does build up an internal map of the area to be cleaned and cover the entire area using a least-travel algorithm. My trilobite kicks ass.

Simon.

Short summary: The device is fairly intelligent, does not get stuck frequently, does indeed learn the extents of the room and work with them, and gets the vacuuming done pretty well. Its only shortcomings are that it sometimes will miss a patch (surprise surprise) and that it does not do a very good job of getting the dust/dirt 2cm from walls.

And now, unrelated to the linked article: From what I understand the Roomba is pretty dumb, not as dumb as I made it out to be but not very bright nonetheless. But, maybe I've been misled along those lines?

It seems to me that companies ought to have a right to exchange services with people on terms that both sides agree on.

I agree, but this has had many implications that I have struggled to come to grips with. This amounts to saying it's okay with me if people do certain things together that I might believe are morally wrong, as long as they both agree together and don't affect anyone else. It amounts to saying that whether or not people know what is best for them, it is not up to society and/or the government to come "help" them make the right decision. It amounts to saying that government is not entitled to pass just any old law, simply because something is a "good idea."

It means that if people want to consume foods that are bad for them or worse, drugs that are bad for them, we have no business interfering. (I thought California had this figured out, actually.)

It means that if two people want to exchange "services" of a nature that I personally find immoral and abhorrent, I can't try to use government to stop them. Whether such "services" are exchanged for money, for pleasure, or whatever.

It means that there's a universal "morality" of sorts that says you can agree to anything but can't make someone do something against their will; interestingly, it also means that whatever other morality you might subscribe to, you can't force it on anyone unless they agree to it.

It means wages can't be set by law.

It means software licenses are more or less legitimate, although we might still question the "shrink-wrap agreement" stuff.

It means that no fault divorce should perhaps be eliminated in cases where the two parties agree to that kind of binding agreement.

Some of these scare me; a different set of them may scare you. Meanwhile, some delight me. All in all, though, I've concluded that I can't delegate to government a right that I do not have, that a group of us cannot delegate to government a right we do not have, even if we vote on it and majority wins, and that I can't condone the use of government to interfere with people's private agreements and decisions as long as those decisions do not directly affect anyone else.

Scary. But it could make for a remarkable world.

USB here:
http://www.mpeltd.demon.co.uk/usbstamp.htm


Very tiny here:
http://www.mpeltd.demon.co.uk/tiniarm.htm


You can program em both in FORTH if you want to (see forth) - forth is like a macro-macro-assembler where you derive your own language in it, one which is ideally suited to your problem.

Sam

USB here:
http://www.mpeltd.demon.co.uk/usbstamp.htm


Very tiny here:
http://www.mpeltd.demon.co.uk/tiniarm.htm


You can program em both in FORTH if you want to (see forth) - forth is like a macro-macro-assembler where you derive your own language in it, one which is ideally suited to your problem.

Sam

I've not seen someone use them for art before but they can be used for illicit communications. Heres a program that allows people to use ping packets to chat to each other: icmptalk.c

..because your hearing doesn't work like that. the sound quality perceived can't be easily told from frequency graphs and so on (ever heard of the PWB effect?)

25+ buttons? Do they not know that people like(d) the ipod for ease of use, amongst other things?

I've thought a lot about the iPod UI, and it's neither as easy nor as powerful as I would have liked. I wrote this about it.

Most of what I'd like fixed would be easier to do with a couple more buttons. 25 does seem a little excessive however...

For the non-elitests his e-mail address is: martin@wrasse.demon.co.uk

Why can't people use ISO date format? That is the silly month/day/year format.

The ISO format is YYYY-MM-DD. Big-endian, like how we write other numbers, or times. Sorts easily.

See the ISO date format campaign.

An interesting alternative is to do what VMS does: 4-MAY-2004 No ambiguity when you spell out the month (VMS uses three letter abbreviations). But it's not culture neutral of course...

No one has mentioned UPS yet. I'm not sure you could really call it revolutionary, but it does have a few interesting features:

• Not based on gdb, amazingly. Does C/C++/FORTRAN on linux, freebsd and solaris.
• As your program runs you see an animated view of the machine at roughly source-code level (ie. text style, not ddd-like graphical).
• It includes a C interpreter ... you can write scraps of C and attach them to parts of your program as it runs. You can use the C interpreter to write watches and conditional breakpoints etc.
• It's based on the Athena widget set so it now looks incredibly ugly. OTOH, it also makes it very quick.

Like other people here I debug mostly with printfs() logged to a file for easy searching, supplemented with valgrind, memprof and occasionally UPS. They are all tools and you need to try to pick the right one for the sort of bug you think you're facing.

1. Total Solar Eclipses
2. Planetary Transits
3. Naked-eye visible Supernovas

Not only do I get to see amazing astronomical events, while I am there I travel around and see wonderful and interesting parts of our own planet!

To pay for my vacations to these selected events, I have established travel investment funds (setup many years in advance) for:

• Total Solar Eclipses:
  • 29 March 2006 (Libya)
  • 01 Aug 2008 (Siberia or Mongolia)
  • 22 Jul 2009 (China or Pacific)
  • 11 Jul 2010 (Easter Island)
  • 13 Nov 2012 (high speed jet over the Pacific?)
• Planetary Transits:
  • Venus: 8 June 2004 (Italy)
  • Mercury: 8 Nov 2006 (TBD)
  • Venus: 6 June 2012 (TBD)

I also keep an emergency fund that allows me go anywhere in the world at a moments notice to see a Supernova bright enough seen with the naked eye. I had such a fund in place which allowed me to rush from California to Australia some 21 hours after the discovery of 1987A (24 Feb 1987).

Maybe next naked eye supernova viewable in my hemisphere. But if not, I have another supernova fund ready ...

I first learned about the Transit of Venus, in the early summer of 1970, during a Morrison Planetarium program of the California Academy of Science. At the age of 9 I decided that I wanted to see next transit.

I have waiting patiently for 34 years to make my transit observations. It is now only a few dozen days away!!!

Is the only way to deal with stress.

Try and exercise hard for an hour each day and the endorphins produced will suppress the production of stress hormones.

I cycle. It's a geek thing to do as you can get into the engineering side of cycle componentry whilst at the same time getting to learn something about physiology and how to train yourself.... VO2 Max, heart rate monitoring etc.

I find that the exercise is the only thing that keeps me sane in a modern Western environment. I think that lack of exercise amongst modern Westerners results in the increased depression and other psychoses we're prone to.

Just so peope know what to expect, here's an account of the last time Scientology tried to buy a WorldCon and Hugo Awards: Strange Vibrations

this

If Chess has these implications, imagine what a good match of GO will do for you! Both man and computer alike! Simple to learn, arcane to master offering a lifetime of fulfillment.

I've read that while computers can offer a credible competition to even a Chessmater, there is no current "go" program that can challenge a true master of that game. Though it's been a while since I've read this, so this may have changed. But this has been a reason why computer logic enthusiasts have been enthralled with this game for many a year.

A little offtopic...but...by the way, while on the topic of Go: did you know that the original selling price of KPT Bryce was determined over a game of go? Eric Wenger (the original developer who based all of the fractal math on the work of Ken Musgrave, originally an aprentice of Dr. Mandelbrot himself) thought that Bryce should be a "Hollywood Tool" and cost over $7000 (back in the early 90's!). But Kai Krause thought it should be a tool to "empower the creativity of the average person" and said the pricepoint should be set at $99.00

So they decided to let a game of Go decide it. Thankfully, Kai won the game!

I use a Windows desktop because after all the years of using Linux, despite knowing all these subtle little nuances, I found it more trouble than it's worth to use Linux/FreeBSD as my desktop when it's a lot less hassle to just use Windows.

You are basing this on three years worth of using Linux IN THE MID 90'S????

I first installed Linux in the mid 90's. It was hell. Half the hardware didn't work. The other had to coaxed into working. The desktops, KDE in it's ugly duckling infancy and gnome far from mature. The desktop applications were not much to cheer for - stuck with lousy closed sourced Netscape 4 and after a while there was a half-assed port of WordPerfect. When I finally got sound working, there was maybe a console mp3 player and not much more.

Things could not possibly be more different today. The last computer I bought, everything worked right out of the box: granted, I had bought the hardware knowing I was going to run Linux, but even things I had thought were write-offs (like the MB built in sound) worked immediately. The install programs are beautiful, helpful, and make installing Linux considerably easier then Windows (and with Knoppix, not even necessary!)

KDE and Gnome have both matured into completely usable desktops, and they look & feel just as state of the art as one would expect. Today we have browsers like FireFox with are best available on any platform, and OpenOffice 1.1 and beyond which is a perfectly good (and now decently fast) office suite. The Gimp now does everything I ever used Photoshop for. MPlayer and even Xine run circles around any of the media players my windows using friends have.

Today my digital carmera works with Linux. My PDA works with Linux. My iPod works with Linux.

Less hassle to run Windows? When I want a new application, I click on the Synaptic icon, find the application and press the install button. In Windows, one had to wade through crap on some shareware site, and then finally end up with a crippled and time limited program (even for the most trivial things!) that then needs more hassle to either register or the endless hassle that of trying to crack or find a serial (immoral, whatever: I'll never do it again because it is such a bitch, yet all windows users I know do it).

In Linux, I never have any trouble with viruses or worms. I can keep my software up to date with a single click in GUI app, and that really means up to date: I never have to purchase and install a newer version. I don't ever have to bother with hassle like product activation, whatever new hardware I buy. The software I run obeys me, and never has alterior motives to control me.

A lot less hassle? Ok, have your own little world, it might be cosy in there.

As for the guys mother, I think we can all be glad she won't be able to run the cute little program (read trojan horse or worm) that her friends sent her. And as for the genealogy application, I would come over, install one of the many available and explain to her that she does not need to open her wallet for software again.

(The real problem with mother's and Linux, and the reason my moth doesn't use it, is the fact that "guy next door who knows computers" typically doesn't know it. If my mother didn't like ten thousand kilometer's from here, I could see no downside to moving her.)

Diaphone Profundo 64 in the Atlantic City Convention Center
Contra Trombone 64 in the Sydney Town Hall

There are a couple of others that don't go all the way down. And a whole bunch of "fake" ones.

incidentally, the one in Atlantic City is known as very expensive wind. (since you can't really "hear" 8Hz)

Then there's the Subgrossuntersatzregalbass. mwah ha ha ha

Funny a discussion about the evil effects of low-hertz noise this should come up, NTK had a link just last week to some guy's sound page with a wav file that you can't hear but is supposed to make you go all funny.

Anyone brave enough to try it??

I seem to remember a story about the KLF (nutter musicians of million-quid burning fame) messing around blasting subsonic sounds about and killing cows and such. Doubtless apocryphal, but funny.

Is not a new thing.

The coin doesn't have seven sides, it's flat like a normal coin, just "septagonal" in shape. When you said seven sides, i was thinking of a more three-dimensional coin. Would be a pain to keep in your pocket, I'd imagine...

No mention on the Sourceforge project page of a port to the older EPOC/Symbian OSes. Pity, I would have liked to have PuTTY running on my Psion 5mx.

I currently use Hermes and a direct serial connection to maintain my headless Linux boxes. Psion 5/5mx machines are really good for this with the 640x240 display and keyboard you can type on.

Demon has been doing this for years and the first ISP I used in the time before the web existed already did this. Prior art should not be difficult.

Yo asshole:

Instead of posting all the f***ing text, how about just posting the link?

Cock-sucker. You're still karma-trolling in my book.

1. God created everything
2. God set everything into motion
3. God knows about everything
4. God knows the future

This equals "no free will." How so? If God knows how things will turn out and He created you, you have no choice in the matter. He created me to be a non-believer who would burn in the eternal fires of hell. He knew that I would take this choice even before I was born. He knew I would do this even before Adam and Eve. If He didn't, God becomes finite. God cannot have His knowledge limited, even by Himself. To do so would limit God: an entity which is by Judeo-Christian definition infinite.

You are probably either going to say, "No it doesn't for God can put things into motion and watch them unfold from our free will," or "God knows how we are going to choose but is still giving us the opportunity to choose without interference," or possibly "God can choose to ignore the events until they transpire."

No dice. If God can put things into motion without knowing how it turns out, the entity is no longer omniscient and thus, no longer the God everyone loves talking about. If God must limit His knowledge -- for whatever reason, it doesn't matter -- then God has limits. If God has limits -- a notion contrary to the Bible -- then how can we be sure that God is not limited in other ways as well? After all, if God can't do that, how do you know God can read your thoughts, hear your prayers, or see you in your bedroom at night? And if God has some sort of limitation, why must God be responsible for the creation of the universe? In for a penny, in for a pound. If God knows how we'll each turn out, it stands to reason that God knew before He created us. If He knew before He created us, then He created me for the expressed purpose of making me suffer eternally in Hell. I have no choice. He made me this way. He could've made me another way, but He chose not to. Gee. Thanks God. You're a swell guy.

Or perhaps you were going to go into the fact that something or someone had to create the universe. Who created God? No one? God just is? Then why can't the universe just be? Why can't the universe have winked itself into existence? If metaphysics is to be a player, a intelligent all-powerful Oz... err... God has no standing over the self-actuated universe. Correction: we can see and interact with the universe. We know the universe exists. God needs more support.

Let's assume we're ghosts: That begs the question of origin. Where did all these ghosts come from?

First of all, it doesn't beg the question; It raises the question. I know you may have heard friends, family, or television personalities use the term "beg the question" this way. It is wrong when they use it too.

But I digress. We are not robots. Robots are assumed to be metallic objects made by humanity. We are however machines. Biomechanical machines, but machines nonetheless. Machines that are discussing

First, the blind in this instance have no prior experience with sight. Even if everything about seeing were to be described to them in great detail, it would be so far beyond their experience as to be incomprehensible. Those who witnessed this act would construe it as supernatural, literally meaning above or more than what is natural, because for them blindness is natural.

Yes, the blind would have no personal experience with it. However I have not met any blind people in the world today who consider sight to be supernatural. Lance Armstrong rides a bicycle on a 30 degree upward slope faster than I can ride on flat ground. It is outside of my personal experience to be able to do what he does let alone for a long as he is able to do it. I do not, however, consider it supernatural.

An attribution of something above and beyond reality requires not only lack of experience with the subject at hand, but a dogmatic belief that the subject is intrinsically unknowable. (Not as unknown to me personally, but rather unknown to anyone.) This is the God of the Gaps that I cannot accept.

You may argue that the experiment was performed by a reputable institution, but I would argue that a reputable institution wouldn't even dream of allowing such an insane person through their doors, much less let him do his little tricks.

Here is where we diverge greatly. I do not consider an institution to be reputable if it ignores information that is inconvenient. This is of course not the same as watching someone's "little tricks" and noting the use of smoke and mirrors.

In summary, fine-tuning theory states that the basic parameters of physics must be set to such specific values that it can only be accounted for by intelligent design. This is, in essence, the results of the seeing person's experiment - the probability that we (life) would be capable of existing at all (not to mention human consciousness) is so small as to be impossible - a much more distant prospect than the 1/24 chance that the colored objects are named correctly.

The chances of me winning a six-number lottery jackpot -- assuming I buy one ticket -- are 1 in 13,983,816. Everyone else has the same chance (assuming there is no cheating of course). From a realistic point of view, no one would never win the lottery. However, people do indeed win the lottery. Christians, jews, muslims, buddhists, and even atheists have all won the lottery at one time or another. Does this mean that at a given time, Jesus plucked those balls down just for you? Are you truly that arrogant? Or rather is it random chance that you won?

I am extremely lucky. I was born into a universe that was physically acceptable for formation, born on a planet upon which organic compounds are plentiful, have been birthed from a species of supreme bad-asses (to borrow a phrase from Cryptonomicon), and live in the wealthiest country on the planet. Woohoo! I won the lottery! And had I lost, we would not be having this discussion. A great improbability is not the same as an impossibility.

Now then, with regard to the Fine-Tuning Design Argument, I and others have a few issues. First and foremost is the notion that everything just seems to fit too perfectly. I take it that you don't know too many physicists or engineers do you? The general response I get from those communities is that it's a wonder that this chaotic and unordered world functions as well as it does. For further discussion and other important points, I'll have to simply say "look

Mac users outside the US often refer to the Option key as Alt. Whereas Apple keyboards sold in the US say "option" (usually (but not always) with "alt" in tiny letters in the upper left corner), Apple keyboards sold outside the US typically have the option symbol and the "alt" text.

Images:

• US keyboard. Note the word "option" spelled out on the key.
• symbols on a European Apple keyboard (an old Apple Extended Keyboard II, I believe. My favorite ADB keyboard) Note the use of the option key symbol on the key. Also note the arrows on the shift and caps lock keys. Decoding the keyboard shortcuts in menu items must be a lot easier for non-US Macintosh users!

127.0.0.0/8 - This block is assigned for use as the Internet host
loopback address. A datagram sent by a higher level protocol to an
address anywhere within this block should loop back inside the host.
This is ordinarily implemented using only 127.0.0.1/32 for loopback,
but no addresses within this block should ever appear on any network
anywhere [RFC1700, page 5].

I lived through the cold war. I was scared shitless as a kid by films like Threads. (A friend sent me an MPEG-4 of this film recently, and I still found it incredibly depressing, despite some of the obvious made-for-TV effects. The acting, storyline and directing makes up greatly for the low budget). When I first saw the film, aged about 13, I only saw half of it because it scared me so much I couldn't keep watching. I then couldn't sleep for weeks, and night lightning from summer thunderstorms woke me in cold sweats. Up until that point, "nuclear attack" had just been words, and I thought of it in a way like WWII - cities in rubble, but people cheerfully rebuilding it. Threads changed this - I suddenly realised with horror that not only was nuclear war possible (and with all the 'Protect and Survive' stuff - the early 80s was the height of nuclear paranoia in Britain), it seemed inevitable.

However, I got to a stage where I could stop worrying about it, and maybe laugh and make jokes about nuclear annihilation. This is because I finally realised there was absolutely NOTHING I can do about it, and therefore it's a bit pointless worrying about it - all I can do is hope it won't happen. In a bizarre Dr. Strangelove way, I learned to stop worrying "and love the bomb" (well, maybe not love the bomb, but I didn't spend half my day worrying about it).

I'm still waiting for the Beeb to finish the final part of the original series!

How about Allegro? It's a free cross-platform C/C++ API for game coding. I used to love writing DOS games with that and DJGPP back in the days of Win95-98, and it's available with the same amount of functionality on DOS, Unix (Linux, FreeBSD, Irix, Solaris, Darwin), Windows, QNX, BeOS and MacOS X. It's not for 3D graphics really, but it does everything else (besides networking) darn well. For instance: multichannel sound, game controllers, mouse and keyboard, timers, simple 2D graphics, graphics import/export, packed datafiles (useful for tile graphics libraries and sound banks), and even a free MIDI software synthesizer that uses your sound out. So all you need is a networking API if you're writing a multiplayer game, and a 3D API if you're going 3D, and you're all set.

I think a step in the right direction would be a bootable CDROM that contains KDE and GNOME, and ALL of those wonderful short games - like KBlackBox, Same Gnome, etc. without any attempt to leave space for office apps. A browser with a Flash plugin would be ideal, so you can download and play MORE games. Ahh, those remind me of something. Does anyone remember MS Entertainment Pack? It wasn't graphically intense. It was just a bunch of cool games. And people paid a decent amount of money for those crappy games, when you could buy a single SNES game for the same price. Also, think of PopCap and those terrible Flash games my mom got hooked on at iwon. So why don't we focus on just making a bunch more cool games, and making them well?

Maybe someone can collaborate with a large (50+) group of coders, artists, and musicians and they can all put at least half-time effort into a real game. The unwashed masses of coders need a leader... someone has to step up and say "Join me! I will lead us to glory!" If I weren't so darn busy with two jobs I might be doing this right now. We don't need any 3D full-freedom MMORPG style games. Those are getting tired. Focus on single and small multiplayer LAN games. And if you can come up with a LAN/lobby server gaming API like DirectPlay, more power to you. Allegro doesn't do networking.

Coders: If you're thinking about making a game, please please please don't write another variant of some game we already have ten of. We really don't need Super Ultra Mega 3D Tetris/Mahjongg with Cute Girly Pictures or yet another card game. Honestly, we need classic arcade games, and twitch games you can play for five minutes. Using Allegro (see the link above) you can easily make them - and they will be cross-platform.

Just try to do a good job making your game fun and don't over-polish the graphics. Too many features will make the game take longer to develop. Remember the KISS principle.

Well, one of the purposes of the web is that of preserving memories (and history), regardless of the source.
Since we are on Slashdot, however, and Sci-Fi is one of the hot topics, I will just mention Star Maidens and Raumpatrouille Orion. Surely bad TV, but I am glad I can prove to myself those weird and indistinct memories are real after all!... :)

Because The Sims isn't so much a simulation as it is a charictiture of it's environment. When I think of a simulator I think of a flight simulator such as Flightgear. I'm not sure flightgear would keep young ones entertained for very long. But if by simulation you mean something like The Sims, then just about any other Sim-related title should suit you. There's SimCity, SimAnt, SimEarth (might be a problem if you're in a state that forbids the teaching of evolution). Some open source alternatives would be: LinCity or Freeciv.

Here's an image of the Crab Nebula supernova. It was invoked as part of an ad campaign for Jerry Bruckheimer's "Armageddon". A pretty big pop-up if you ask me

Since a recipe is merely a list of instructions, I figured that the GPL could be applied, although IANAL.

So, for Slashdot, I present Free Food :-)

[Don't go toasting my server now... :-]

ipcs is not what you think it is. ipcs is the controlling program for various IPC services in Unix.

What you probably meant is IBCS (Intel Binary Compatibility Standard). This is a kernel module that allows SCO binaries (among others) to run on your Linux system.

Personally, I used to have to submit weekly reports each week, in word format. Usually this was just a bunch of text that needed to have a pretty header and footer attached to it. What I would've loved to do is keep a list of things I'd done that week in a text file on my harddrive, then have a cron job that ran a perl script to convert the incoming text into a word document, then email it to my boss.

WSH and Office's VBA implementations can easily handle this. The way I usually handle this sort of thing is to write the data in plain text (or CSV for Excel) and then use VBA code to format it and make it pretty. I've done just this sort of thing with both Word and Excel using VBScript on an ASP page. I've gotten out of scripting lately, but .NET may make it even easier to do this sort of thing.

You could even have Outlook email it for you, though it'd probably complain that something was trying to send email on your behalf. That could be solved with Push The Freakin' Button, or by doing a direct SMTP connection to your mail server.

If your VBScript isn't up to par, then AutoIt is a decent macro program that couldn't also do what you want, but it wouldn't be as reliable or robust...plus it can't do it in the background. I have had to use it for progams that had no scripting interface though, and was thankful that it existed.

I implemented speech synthesis in the Mac OS X version of Zoom, although more as a gimmick than anything else. When I get around to it, the new Cocoa version should improve on this considerably (as it will be able to take advantage of Mac OS X's existing accessibility features as well as providing its own synthesis). Speech recognition is more difficult under OS X, as you have to provide specific phrases to recognise. I thought about hacking the game and reading the grammar tables (both the Inform and Infocom formats are documented somewhere) in order to generate these, but it did seem like rather too much effort and would probably be a bit hit and miss in any case.

Here's an animation of the object. The link to the yahoo egroup discussion is also worth looking at. The discussion morphs from everyone thinking it's a joke post to realizing that the asteroid exists. It's an interesting log of people coping with uncertainty.

Now what would be cool is to build the vacuum tube based machine the allies used to crack various codes...

The bombe was the first significant such electo-mechanical device used by the allies. Based on the Polish Bomba, incidentally.

Later they turned to Colossus, thought by many to be the first true computer.

Both are being rebuilt at Bletchely Park by a team of volunteers. Very cool, in my opinion.