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They obviously used a farm silo for this one. Check out the exclusive photo.

Telling people online gaming is where its at got me bad looks when I tried to appeal to a video game employer. Apparently the only video game company that ever interviewed me as a game designer, also just lost half their company to a split... The verant split to Everquest. So they didn't want to hear online gaming is a thing of the future. There's SOOOOO much you can do with online gaming, yet people barely touched the basics.

Read up on my online racing game concept at: Racing
It illustrates that if you allow users to build levels and other content, and have it available for play automatically to all, then you build a community and a growing game.

As someone who has also been wanting a MyMac for years, I'll second the grandparent poster's point. If this theoretical new Mac is worth owning, then it WILL cut into PowerMac sales by a small but measurable amount.

Apple's four corner product strategy is hard for a frugal-but-savvy Mac shopper. The e/iMac is too limiting, the PowerMac is too huge and costly. (FWIW, the iMac G5 is also $$$). What I really want (and probably what Zo0ok wants) is an iMac-ish mobo, in a pizzabox/shoebox case, with AGP, for a fair price.

Most of the other thousand-odd people like me just give up at this point and buy a PowerMac. If this happens, we won't have to.

Citizen, you have revealed too much.
Go here or here for re-education.
Remember, the Computer is your friend.

Before growing far toward being heliocentric, the first biorb will need to begin the defense of Earth against celestial attacks.

Kinetic energy asteroidal weapons are the most likely technology to represent the greatest threat to Earth as a result of the growing solar biorb. Once asteroid mining begins in earnest, as it will once life becomes heliocentric, asteroids can be redirected via carefully planned celestial mechanics. Within a matter of decades, a malicious interest could send a swarm of tiny asteroids toward Earth at speeds comparable to that of the Swift Tuttle comet -- a popular candidate for global disaster scenarios. Since kinetic energy goes up as the square of velocity, the important thing is to find small asteroids with the right trajectories. This would most likely be carried out on the basis of a fairly complete atlas of the trajectories of small asteroids, searching for some large number of them that could be manipulated to converge on Earth with maximum relative velocity over a fairly narrow window of time.

The most economic defense will likely be the preemptive survey, cataloging and monitoring of all celestial objects (comets as well as asteroids) large enough to survive high speed passage through Earth's atmostphere with little loss due to ablation. This means the initial prospecting for asteroidal resources will be carried out by Earth shielding entities. It is difficult to second guess the technologies that would be available for this task so far in the future, but candidate technologies are already upon us and surveys are already being done.

Perhaps the most positive aspect of this situation is that when an asteroid is identified as a threat, it is also identified as a particularly attractive source of "fuel" for space transportation. Any asteroid that has a high velocity relative to Earth, or can be easily made to have such a velocity, and which has an orbit that can be made to come near Earth, can be used as reaction mass to navigate the inner solar system. Each time this is done, however, the threat represented by such asteroids diminishes. It's as though someone had discovered a way to burn nuclear fuel in jets without pollution. The bombs would get burned up due to economic demand.

Additional global threats to Earth are most likely decreased by removing technological civilization from its biosphere.

Similar symptoms have occurred, in Kuwait and are proliferating. It is believed that in Iraq, 250,000 men, women, and children may have been affected. The death rate is high A study carried out in 1993 by three American scientists estimated that about 50,000 Iraqi children had already died during the first eight months after the Gulf War from the detrimental effects of DU projectiles.

link

50000 - in eight months - after the _first_ war. More DU-weapons were used in the second. Most effects are long term and show up several years later.

Before you accuse someone of "bullshit" - at least use Google. That way you'll avoid coming across as a total idiot.

These things aren't at all inevitable.

First, the 20 year delay between Lilienfeld and the realization of the transistor should be evidence alone of the fact that something more than "the inevitable" was going on with the transistor. Additional evidence is that the inventors of the transistor did their work against orders from Bell Labs management to stop work. they actually had to hide their work on a roller-cart which they hid in a closet until their management was gone when they would roll it out and continue their work. It could easily have been 20 more years -- or more -- if they hadn't risked their jobs to do what Bell Labs management tried to stop them from doing.

Secondly, all you need to do to observer that "ripe" technological advances are not inevitable is just look at what NASA has done to kill the spirit of enterprise in launch vehicles for the last 30 years or more. You can kill almost any technology by simply creating a government bureaucracy chartered to develop it which continues to get money to "solve" the problem so long as the problem remains unsolved. They'll have billions per year to make sure it never happens -- and when it comes to lowering the price per lb to low earth orbit they have succeeded in that task beyond anyone's wildest expectations.

http://geocities.com/StealthRainFox

http://geocities.com/StealthRainFox

Digital Rights Management and Mozilla Firefox in the Matrix

http://geocities.com/StealthRainFox

http://geocities.com/stealthrainfox/

Clarke has been wheelchair bound for some time. Between post-polio syndrome and another disease whose name I'm not even going to bother to pronounce (info here. He is getting up there in years, though.

IBM has a subsidiary in China and cannot possibly vet all the Chinese working there. As well, IBM has an affiliate in Taiwan. Of the two groups (i.e. mainland Chinese and Taiwanese), the Taiwanese pose the greater security risk.

The technologies that IBM has developed could be used by the Chinese military. Some Taiwanese, at the request of Beijing, might just xerox the blueprints for this technology and hand it to Chinese intelligence services. One use of high density storage is to store all the intelligence collected by Taiwanese spies on behalf of Beijing.

To IBM, I say, "Tread carefully. Guard your technology. The Chinese wall between IBM-USA and IBM-Taiwan is no protection. Tear it down and sell the Taiwan subsidiary to Acer."

The RSA will help to protect Western bank/brokerage accounts from Chinese theft. That the majority of stolen credit card numbers end up in the hands of Chinese gangs, aided and abetted by Beijing, in Southeast Asia should surprise no one.

That's exactly what we need for Linux. ANOTHER framework. Xt, GTK+, Qt, TK, Motif, and FLTk just isn't enough!

1. Which state (with "state" being a slightly looser definition of "country") supplies the most spies for mainland China ? (hint: The answer is not mainland China.)

2. Which state has voluntarily invested more than $100 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China?

3. From which state has 4.3% of its population (i.e. 1 million out of 2.3 million people) moved to mainland China?

4. Which foreign government committed the only successful assassination in the USA?

5. Which state supports most of Beijing's geopolitical claims to the Spratly Islands, the Senkaku Islands, and even Tibet?

The answer to all the questions is Taiwan.

And it won't be the only time. From the Disperse Life scenario:

Earth Shield

Before growing far toward being heliocentric, the first biorb will need to begin the defense of Earth against celestial attacks.

Kinetic energy asteroidal weapons are the most likely technology to represent the greatest threat to Earth as a result of the growing solar biorb. Once asteroid mining begins in earnest, as it will once life becomes heliocentric, asteroids can be redirected via carefully planned celestial mechanics. Within a matter of decades, a malicious interest could send a swarm of tiny asteroids toward Earth at speeds comparable to that of the Swift Tuttle comet -- a popular candidate for global disaster scenarios. Since kinetic energy goes up as the square of velocity, the important thing is to find small asteroids with the right trajectories. This would most likely be carried out on the basis of a fairly complete atlas of the trajectories of small asteroids, searching for some large number of them that could be manipulated to converge on Earth with maximum relative velocity over a fairly narrow window of time.

The most economic defense will likely be the preemptive survey, cataloging and monitoring of all celestial objects (comets as well as asteroids) large enough to survive high speed passage through Earth's atmostphere with little loss due to ablation. This means the initial prospecting for asteroidal resources will be carried out by Earth shielding entities. It is difficult to second guess the technologies that would be available for this task so far in the future, but candidate technologies are already upon us and surveys are already being done.

Perhaps the most positive aspect of this situation is that when an asteroid is identified as a threat, it is also identified as a particularly attractive source of "fuel" for space transportation. Any asteroid that has a high velocity relative to Earth, or can be easily made to have such a velocity, and which has an orbit that can be made to come near Earth, can be used as reaction mass to navigate the inner solar system. Each time this is done, however, the threat represented by such asteroids diminishes. It's as though someone had discovered a way to burn nuclear fuel in jets without pollution. The bombs would get burned up due to economic demand.

Additional global threats to Earth are most likely decreased by removing technological civilization from its biosphere.

There have been some public trials of these already. Very good, if you like blue. :-)

Yes! Me and old Uncle Saddam. We had this deal going where I supplied chicken entrails and he sent me diamonds. Oh why did it have to end? Oh the humanity!

"health care"? Yea, if you were a party member

Really? Nooo!

"education"- indoctination since Saddam was the only person ever allowed to be discussed

Right

tell me ANY dictatorship that has been overthrown without any blood being shed

Sure: Poland, Chechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, etc etc.

"theft of Iraq resources"..Bullshit. Iraq owns it's oil and sells it to whomever pulls up to the terminal at Basra.

All Iraqi industries (with exception of oil) were privatized by the order of Vice Roy Bremmer just before his departure. Furthermore, he set rules in place that: allow 100% foreign ownership of all Iraqi companies, allow 100% of profits to be taken out of the country and even though oil fields were exluded, the oil terminals and processing wasnt, a consortium of CHEVRON and Betchel and several other foreign companies operates these. All of Bremer's rules are set in stone and the new "sovereign" government will not be allowed to change them (including the 15% flat income tax)

90% of the problems are being caused by EXTERNAL NON-IRAQI Muslim fundamentalists who want a theocracy.

I was treating you semi-seriously up to this point but this is clearly a waste of time. Lay off FOX "news" and Rush Limbaugh. Of all the "insurgents" captured in Iraq less then 2% are foreigners and thats according to US Army's own data.

As to the Crusade...

I'm not sure, but I don't think the US extradites US citizens to other countries.

Extracted from the US to:
Ireland [archives.tcm.ie]

Hong Kong [info.gov.hk]

Yugoslavia [geocities.com]

I am by no means an expert on this, these are just some google results. wap

The American military has awoken to the Chinese threat and developing a security means of instant message is a good second step. The first step was the Clinton administrations' smart move to put Taiwan on the FBI list of hostile intelligence threats.

The third step should be rescinding the Taiwan Telations Act.

You can actually play through the game without dying, and earn your 30 lives instead of cheating for them.

My online trophy room

Actually, a lot of today's toys ARE the toys from our youth. My kids asked for a lot of stuff that I asked for at their age. Zoids, Rubik's Cubes, Transformers, GI Joe, etc. are all under our tree for the next generation. Robots, too. About 20 years ago my parents got me a Verbot (I wanted an Omnibot, goddammit); my older son is getting a Robosapien. Toys may change some, but the idea (and sometimes even brand) stays the same.

My only gripe with the toys these days is that they are cheap plastic renditions of what we had. Hell, you practically had to be up on your tetanus shots before playing with those metal Transformers and Zoids.

Movie tie-ins were the same back then as well, just different stuff. Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Gremilins, ET -- we had the same stuff just under the guise of a different movie. Just why, WHY, WHY, did they have to make a Spiderman glove that shoots web fluid. I can see my cats covered in this stuff within an hour of it coming out of the box Saturday morning...

It really has been a nice trip down memory lane this year. 20 years ago I had a HUGE Christmas becuase my father got a bonus at his job and my parents knew they would never, ever have money like that again. I got my first Atari (5200 -- with Pac Man! Anyone remember how IMPOSSIBLE it was to find that back then?), my first boombox, my first TV, my first robot, my first Zoids and Transformers. Equally, I received a nice overtime paycheck this year and was able to get some extra stuff for my sons, mirroring what I got when I was 10 (they are 8 and 10). I suppose I'm buying some of the toys more out of MY desire to play with them than anything else! :^)

I wonder if I can hack the Robosapien to use Bluetooth so I can control it from my laptop...

NASA becomes the first bold customer for commercial services.

Americans need a frontier, not a program.

Incentives open frontiers, not plans.

If this Subcommittee hears no other message through the barrage of studies, projections and policy recommendations, it must hear this message. A reformed space policy focused on opening the space frontier through commercial incentives will make all the difference to our future as a world, a nation and as individuals.

when PostgreSQL release their latest version (8.0) all Open Source database project will have a native port to Windows.

Open Source Database comparison: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MaxDB, Firebird and Ingres

I wrote a design document for Transformers Online a few days ago. Its a pretty intense MMOG that bases its action off PlanetSide, but has RTS elements, and a long character progression. I don't think Hasbro executives will pick up on it, but its a good read if you're interested in where next generation MMOGs should be heading.

Transformers Online

I did a web search and found it here. You might wanna create a torrent or a mirror before this gets /.tted.
Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with it. I just did a google search after reading this article and it showed this link. Who knows if it is the legit one...

There were several 'movie games' back in the early 90s with excellent graphics, but you need to find the blue key in the haystack to get past a point. They were so freaking impossible without a hint book that they weren't fun. I'm freaking psyched we've finally evolved past that point. Now we're stuck in MMOG infancy mode. Theres going to be one big MMOG that comes out soon that will be a virutual monopoly(excuse the pun). Lets just hope it doesn't suck. If you don't believe me, think Street Fighter 2 popularity on a persistant world where there is user created content. People love the game at first and invest tons of hours and create tons of stuff in the game, so the game gets better over time. The amount of money it makes affords big name game developers, so the game just evolves in a way no other game could have ever afforded. Since the game rules so much, it will draw more and more gamers in. Since all the gamers are playing this game, they won't have dollars for other competing projects. Some games that have a chance of jacking the market

This game will probably never happen, but I wrote up a MMOFPS based on the cartoon Transformers. It has heavier RPG aspects than PlanetSide, so your character can take longer to level, and more personalized team work. I've always found that I can have a maxxed out character within a few short hours on PlanetSide. I kicked some tail on PlanetSide, but it had no long term character development to hold my interest. Design Document

The question is one of integrity. There are ample Western sources identifying Taiwanese spies helping Beijing, so the idea of Taiwanese programmers helping Beijing is not farfetched. In fact, the Western source called the "New York Times" states clearly that 1 million Taiwanese have emigrated (yes, emigrated) to mainland China.

Who is lying? "New York Times" or an anonymous "tekunokurato" at SlashDot? I believe that "tekunokurato" is lying.

In fact, the Web site provides the links to the original Western news sources. So, if you distrust the names of the Taiwanese spies identified on the web site, you are free to click on the links to the original Western news sources like the "Los Angeles Times".

The question then becomes, "Who is lying? 'Los Angeles Times' or an anonymous 'aussie a' on Slashdot'?" I believe that the "aussie a" is lying.

The facts are very damning. The names of the Taiwanese spies are identified, and there are links to Western news sources identifying them.

So, who is lying? "Los Angeles Times" or an anonymous Taiwanese like "ryen" on SlashDot? I believe that "ryen" is lying.

They defended the case claiming a EULA, but I'm sure they could have used another method to nix the BnetD guys. BnetD guys are cute when the beta is out, and I've used it before. I like to get a jump on strategy as early as possible. I think the fun of a game is finding the best strategy you can instead of just executing it.

Anyway Blizzard is one of the first gaming companies to use a CDkey that they can authorize on their server. This forces people to buy their own copy to play instead of pirating. BnetD was simply a way to circumvent Blizzard's anti-pirating technique. Under sane law, BnetD should not be allowed to do this. EULA was just an excuse, but I'm sure another method could have been employed.

I wouldn't hold anything against Blizzard for this one. Blizzard was just trying to defend their rights and keep sales up. Blizzard products are quality. If you like MMORPGS, I'd say go buy World of Warcraft. But if you want my honest opinion, they haven't done anything revolutionary yet, so its the same as any other MMORPG, but with the Blizzard name tag on it. I'm trying to convice Blizzard to slap in some flavorful RPG content. :)

WOW game ideas

The result is shocking but true. Equally shocking and true is the fact that 1 million Taiwanese have emigrated to mainland China.

"Alcohol, by releasing at large primeval instincts and leveling ranking potentials, eases sexual intimacy, thus increasing the chance for low ranking people, however negative consequences of alcohol consumption are widely known. Since instinctive sexual selection does not know anything about alcoholism, symptoms of alcohol abuse do not hamper subconscious preference of the potential partner. "

The Treatise of Love

If you give every object in the game a name, and you relate distance and time, you can quite easily turn a MMORPG into a text adventure that can be read. This is a primitive step towards artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence will have every real noun and verb in its dictionary, and create a virtual 3d world. Artificial Intelligence is a long way off, but wiring up a MMORPG to play in text mode could be done now if funded.
More on AI

Writing an application to work reliably under all variations is not a slam-dunk.

So it turns out that Microsoft's mutant penguin ad compaign was right all along?

For the past few years, I've been screaming about the negative effects of having so many different standards to choose from on Linux - this is why I personally use FreeBSD and OSX (well, okay, and Windows for games).

But the biggest problem (which also exists on FreeBSD), is QT. The shitty licence has caused so much damage by keeping cross-platform and commercial development off KDE (one of the most popular window managers). I know there's GTK, but I can't help think that Linux might have reached critical mass and become mainstream popular without it - GTK might not be perfect, but it is a STANDARD.

Monkey man Steve Balmer might have looked silly when he yelled it on stage, but he was right: "Developers, developers, developers." The Linux community should be bending over backwards to attract new developers into their flock, by making their passage into the fold as easy and as hassle-free as possible.

Chicken and the egg: applications for Linux, users for Linux. The Linux community can't force people to use Linux for the sake of using Linux, but they can bring applications to the platform - if they're worth using, users will follow.

It was truly sad to see EA devolve into the marketing, sports game monster which it is today. Some of my first video gaming memories, and very happy ones, come from EA, or ECA as they used to be. Starflight was one of the best games around for a long time, and occupied many a weekend. Also, Sentinel worlds is responsible for at least one summer flying by, and probably for much missed homework. I even kept my save game from that one for a year or two waiting for number 2 to release, but it was not to be. EA was, at one time, a wonderful company that put out quality games, and it was painful to see them become nothing more than NFL/NHL/(Whatever sports acronym) <insert year here>.

ratposion wm? How about fvwm? Not that Rosegarden would run on that, but you can make a nice custom ~/.fvwm2rc file that sets your desktop up just like you want it. Examples near the bottom of this page: My Linux Files
Just a suggestion.

>>Miranda has plug-ins galore...
>>Some of my favourite plugins are -
>> CAPS_LOCK flasher - incoming message? Your keyboard lights flash.

>>Miranda has plug-ins galore...
>>Some of my favourite plugins are -
>> CAPS_LOCK flasher - incoming message? Your keyboard lights flash.

If you want to build a profitable language school, then I suggest that you build one that teaches Mandarin. Also, teach the mainland version of Mandarin. The version in Taiwan is outdated.

By the way, please do visit the web site (for Taiwan) that I listed above. It has been updated with new information from "The New York Times". 4.3% of the Taiwanese have permanently moved to mainland China. (No. I'm not "inventing" this statistics. Just visit the web link.)

One of the largest employers of Mandarin-language-speaking Americans is the U.S. State Department. It cannot trust Taiwanese immigrants but will trust native Americans (i.e. anyone born in the US and considering herself to be an unhyphenated American). The State Department needs Mandarin speakers to catalogue relevant information that is gleaned from Beijing's press and Taipei's press. Beijing is a foe, and Taipei is a foe pretending to be a friend.

So many things are becoming an addition to the mobile phone, and different groups teaming up to cover their core areas. Obviously Sony are placed fairly well at the moment with their audio, imaging, comms and gaming devices. Who else will team up to compete?

Personally, I'd love to see the Nintendo technologies meshed with Apple and Motorola. To me both Apple and Nintendo, lean towards highly usable, simple technology with high build quality.

Who else is next?

-----

Glen Williams

Actually, this lunatic thinks you can transmit homeopathic power over da intarweb.

I really have little more than that to say on the subject.

Fuse some Tibetan chants into the Jedi mantra and display them on the computer screen as the game player plays the role of the liberator of the peoples enslaved by the Empire and China. In these role-playing video games, imagine a Jedi knight going through training at a temple that remarkably resembes a Tibetan temple in the Himalayas. Then, imagine the Jedi knight flying his X-wing fighter and blasting the palace housing the "Evil Lord", who speaks Mandarin.

P.S.
The web site discussing Taiwan has been updated with new information from "The New York Times". 4.3% of the Taiwanese have emigrated from Taiwan to mainland China. (No. I'm not fabricating this statistic. Check out the web site.)

"May the Force (of good) be with You!"

A Taiwanese immigrant may well have sabotaged the missile that turned itself off.

...scholars of revolutions may find the following passage from chapter 4, "Arms Races and Manipulation" particularly interesting:

"Several species of ant have no workers of their own. The queens invade nests of other species, dispose of the host queen, and use the host workers to bring up their own reproductive young. The method of disposing of the queen varies. In some species, such as the descriptively named Bothriomyrmex regicidus and B. decapitans, the parasite queen rides about on the back of the host queen and then, in Wilson's (1971) delightful description, 'begins the one act for which she is uniquely specialized: slowly cutting off the head of her victim' (p. 363)."

"Monomorium santschii achieves the same result by more subtle means. The host workers have weapons wielded by strong muscles, and nerves attached to the muscles; why should the parasite queen exert her own jaws if she can subvert the nervous systems controlling the numerous jaws of the host workers? It does not seem to be known how she achieves it, but she does: the host workers kill their own mother and adopt the usurper. A chemical secreted by the parasite queen seems the likely weapon, in which case it might be labeled a pheromone, but it is probably more illuminating to think of it as a formidably powerful drug. In line with this interpretation, Wilson (1971, p 413) writes of symphylic substances as being 'more than just elementary nutritive substances or even analogues of the natural host pheromones. Several authors have spoken of a narcotizing effect of symphylic substances.' Wilson also uses the word 'intoxicant' and quotes a case in which worker ants under the influence of such a substance become temporarily disoriented and less sure of their footing."

"Those who have never been brainwashed or addicted to a drug find it hard to understand their fellow men who are driven by such compulsions. In the same naive way we cannot understand a host bird's being compelled to feed an absurdly oversized cuckoo, or worker ants wantonly murdering the only being in the whole world that is vital to their genetic success. But such subjective feelings are misleading, even where the relatively crude achievements of human pharmacology are concerned. With natural selection working on the problem, who would be so presumptuous as to guess what feats of mind control might not be achieved?"

When we see words such as "prejudice" and "discrimination" used in morally perjorative and even medically diagnostic ways that are otherwise indistinguishable from "knowledge", "wisdom" and "discernment" -- particularly in the areas of thought about "genes" -- who would be so presumptuous as to assert no genetic interests are at work generating emotional confusion of clear headedness?

Finally, Dawkins completes this paragraph on mind control with a warning:

"Do not expect to see animals always behaving in such a way as to maximize their own inclusive fitness. Losers in an arms race [genetic omni-recessives -- jab] may behave in some very odd ways indeed. If they appear disoriented and unsure of their footing, this may be only the beginning."

Take the case of Tibet. Why do the folks in Hong Kong, mainland China, and Taiwan province support integrating Tibet into "One China"? Why are engineering classes overflowing with Chinese folks and Amnesty International meetings being nearly devoid of Chinese?

What is the name of this Chinese emergence? It is "Chinese culture". The god of Chinese culture is Chinese nationalism. Visit the link about Taiwan. It has been updated within the last 24 hours, and there is an interesting statistic (courtesy of "The New York Times"): 1 million Taiwanese (about 4.3% of Taiwan's population) have emigrated mainland China. Of course, the Taiwanese are responsible for their behavior even though we can ascribe it to "emergence". (I know. I know. I was shocked by the statistic too, and I have a Ph.D. in Political Science.) The Taiwanese are responsible for insisting, via their constitution, that Tibet is part of "One China".

The Taiwanese, the Hong Kongers, and the mainlanders all do not give a damn about Tibet.

Take the case of Tibet. Why do the folks in Hong Kong, mainland China, and Taiwan province support integrating Tibet into "One China"? Why are engineering classes overflowing with Chinese folks and Amnesty International meetings being nearly devoid of Chinese?

What is the name of this Chinese emergence? It is "Chinese culture". The god of Chinese culture is Chinese nationalism. Visit the link about Taiwan. It has been updated within the last 24 hours, and there is an interesting statistic (courtesy of "The New York Times"): 1 million Taiwanese (about 4.3% of Taiwan's population) have emigrated mainland China. Of course, the Taiwanese are responsible for their behavior even though we can ascribe it to "emergence". (I know. I know. I was shocked by the statistic too, and I have a Ph.D. in Political Science.) The Taiwanese are responsible for insisting, via their constitution, that Tibet is part of "One China".

The Taiwanese, the Hong Kongers, and the mainlanders all do not give a damn about Tibet.