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The comeback of the Trojan Room Coffee Cam

The legendary Krups ProAroma out of the even more legendary "Trojan Room" wrote history as the worldwide first webcam. She didn't get thrown away last August because SPIEGEL ONLINE together with a sponsor bought it from the University. Now she is makingn coffee again.

CAM 1 CAM 2

Ten years she fullfilled her duties, brewing coffee. Hundreds of Students and workers at the computer lab at the University of Cambridge warmed their hands and stomachs with the coffee. Million of Web-Surfers from all over the world watched. The Trojan Room Coffee Machine wrote web history since 1994 as the worldwide first webcam. Then, in the summer of 2001, she was supposed to go offline forever.

The computer lab in Cambridge moved, this was one of the reasons. The coffee, say some of the users, was for quite some time more cult than anything else - another reason. And then, in the spring of 2001, the Krups ProAroma died: An era was obviously coming to an end.But what to do with an icon of the web?

Throw it away? Not possible!

She was put up for the higest bidder and SPIEGEL ONLINE together with the Health company Fresenius as a sponsor bought it for the impressive price of DM 10,452.70: Again the "Trojan Coffee Maker" wrote history - the most expensive broken coffee maker in the world.

But she was destined to brew coffee again, she was supposed to send the steamy pictures back out into the web-world. The employees from the manufacturer Krups knew what to do: Free of charge they were going to repair this classic - even though the gurantee had long expired. So she left the office of SPIEGEL ONLINE as soon as she had come in.

And she came back, repaired, as god as new, but still the old. And so, like you could watch her from 1994 until 2001 in Cambridge you can watch her now again, out of two perspectives. The Trojan-Room-Coffee-Machine brews, blubbers and steams again, almost around the clock. And the people nearby are warming their hands and stomachs with the hot coffee, and out there, some maybe the heart.

The comeback of the Trojan Room Coffee Cam

The legendary Krups ProAroma out of the even more legendary "Trojan Room" wrote history as the worldwide first webcam. She didn't get thrown away last August because SPIEGEL ONLINE together with a sponsor bought it from the University. Now she is makingn coffee again.

CAM 1 CAM 2

Ten years she fullfilled her duties, brewing coffee. Hundreds of Students and workers at the computer lab at the University of Cambridge warmed their hands and stomachs with the coffee. Million of Web-Surfers from all over the world watched. The Trojan Room Coffee Machine wrote web history since 1994 as the worldwide first webcam. Then, in the summer of 2001, she was supposed to go offline forever.

The computer lab in Cambridge moved, this was one of the reasons. The coffee, say some of the users, was for quite some time more cult than anything else - another reason. And then, in the spring of 2001, the Krups ProAroma died: An era was obviously coming to an end.But what to do with an icon of the web?

Throw it away? Not possible!

She was put up for the higest bidder and SPIEGEL ONLINE together with the Health company Fresenius as a sponsor bought it for the impressive price of DM 10,452.70: Again the "Trojan Coffee Maker" wrote history - the most expensive broken coffee maker in the world.

But she was destined to brew coffee again, she was supposed to send the steamy pictures back out into the web-world. The employees from the manufacturer Krups knew what to do: Free of charge they were going to repair this classic - even though the gurantee had long expired. So she left the office of SPIEGEL ONLINE as soon as she had come in.

And she came back, repaired, as god as new, but still the old. And so, like you could watch her from 1994 until 2001 in Cambridge you can watch her now again, out of two perspectives. The Trojan-Room-Coffee-Machine brews, blubbers and steams again, almost around the clock. And the people nearby are warming their hands and stomachs with the hot coffee, and out there, some maybe the heart.

I mean it's nice, but much too complicated and expensive. Why not use cheap, existing technology, i.e. combustion motors? They can be fueled by alcohol, methane and even hydrogen (BWM is already series-producing a hydrogen-fueled 750). We could have been driving on methane for decades, but the fact is, the oil companies have a lot to say in most governments, and without fuel, even the most high-tech car is useless.

Maybe some /.ers would be interested, that while of course the "Return to Wolfenstein" storyline is fictional, there is a grain of truth to it.
Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuehrer SS, was drawn to - if not obsessed with - the mystical and supernatural. While I would have to research this thesis, Himmler may really have believed (Sorry, German) to be an incarnation of Herny the Lion (1133-1189). A fact is, that H. wanted to turn the SS into a quasi religious order, based on germanic mythology.
Maybe the most interesting piece here, is that H. installed the "H-Sonderkommando" (German), which was a well funded research project on witch hunts. Himmler viewed the witch hunts as a kind of early modern holocaust inflicted upon the Germanic race ... At the same time, researchers say, Himmler was hoping to find among the old records "the remains of the heathen, Old Germanic folk culture that one assumed was meant to be wiped out along with the witches." ( Der Spiegel (English)
To find out more about the guys you're shooting in Wolfenstein, read Himmler's Pozen speech.

Apart from this, happy gaming

Alex

Blaming the messenger has been the weapon of choice for a number of people and institutions. I would like to throw in the following story about the German Newsmagazin Der Spiegel:
"The SPIEGEL affair of 1962 remains unforgotten. The arrest of the publisher, the business director and several reporters as well as the occupation of the SPIEGEL offices over a period of several weeks set off a storm of indignation in the German public. The government declaration that the cover story "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ('limited defense readiness') about the NATO maneuver "Fallex" constituted treason proved to be unfounded. All of the imprisoned were released. Then Minister of Defense Franz Josef Straua, deeply involved in the affair, finally had to resign and the Adenauer era drew to an end."
Here, the German gouverment simply declared an article on the state of the forces "high treason". A wonderful quote...
Adenauer (head of gouvernment) "High Treason has been committed here"
Someone from the audience "Who says so?"
Adenauer "I say so!"

I am waiting for Microsoft to say something similar...

Alex

You speak about "my ideology" and a "community" that you think I adhere to, but both don't apply. You don't even know my ideology and you haven't got the slightest idea what I stand for. Don't be so quick to judge. I don't have this view because I consider it "hip".

I mean it: Bush has not given enough reason for his military campaign so far. Sorry to say it: Going into Afghanistan without such proof *would* be a violation of international treaties.

I don't know if "catch phrase" was the right word (English is not my first language).

I support every move of the current business and investigative side of the current crackdown on the terrorists. Follow the money, folks, and let the flow run dry. But the military strike of this "war on terrorism" hasn't got a clear objective so far. So the US and their allies are going to do a military strike against Afghanistan to... uh, well, to do what, really?

But we all are against "terrorism", right? So we must be for this war, right? And if we aren't for this war, we are supporting terrorism, right?

US officials have said again and again that "each suspect has direct or indirect ties with Bin Laden", yet local investigators in Germany have said again and again that "so far, we can not confirm that they (the 3+2 suspects who studied at Harburg University) have ties with Bin Laden". (Source)

We are in a propaganda war right now. And you fell for the propaganda. Classic:

And the divisiveness hurts the morale of the soldiers, limiting their effectiveness, and increasing their chances of injury and death. So, please, put your personal ideology to rest until the effort/attack/war has concluded, for the well-being of the country and for the safety of our men and women in uniform.

Rethink your statement.

How does an attack on Afghanistan help the well-being of the USA? How does removing the Taliban government by a military strike help the well-being of the USA? *Why* are we risking the safety of our "men and women in uniform" (please play national anthem in the background while saying previous phrase) on a military operation that's basically built on "we're doing it because we have to do *something*"?

------

P.S.: I find it terrifying how much life imitates art. So now we have terrorists who copy the flamboyant madness of a James Bond plot on the one side and a US president who checks every item on the list of "Wag the Dog" on the other.

Um... the Taliban is known to harbor and protect Bin Laden. Bin Laden has *claimed* to be responsible for at least 2 embassy bombings and is linked to the ship bombing in Yemen. He sounds pretty guilty to me.

• Bin Laden has not claimed to be responsible for the embassy bombings of August 7, 1998, which you probably mean. In the trial regarding the embassy bombings, four assumed followers of Bin Laden were proven guilty, but Bin Laden's guilt himself could not be proven. The man has made a couple of statements that make pretty clear he does not feel very much concern about what happened in these incidents and that he definitely does not love America, but AFAIK he has never admitted actually having done anything. It's going to be a hard job proving that, as far as I can see. There's a good summary at Spiegel.de (in German, but heck, it's a globalized world)
  
• Even if he's guilty of something, he's not necessarily guilty of this. When person A breaks into your house and escapes, you don't go and shoot person B in the head because he's claimed to have raped your wife and you couldn't prove it.
  

/. is international, so you might wanna check it out:

Tagesschau
Welt
Rheinische Post
Spiegel Online
Stern

All of these sites have good picture coverage for those who do not speak German. And they are way faster than all US sites at the moment!

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Just today the German news magazin Der Spiegel has a story about Lego cult and especially movies made with Lego characters. If yo don't speak German, just visit the box on the right of the page for the links.

Check here.
They say they plan to repair it and run it with a webcam in some weeks.

It was bought by Spiegel-Online, a german online news service.
The announcement is here (in German - try the babelfish version).

It was bought by Spiegel-Online, a german online news service.
The announcement is here (in German - try the babelfish version).

In Germany we got a guy who has stolen plutonium from atomic recycling factory!
Apparantly the security there was so low that he just had to put it asides and take it with him home. check out the german magazine "spiegel online".
You may need babelfish

If you can read German, the following article in German news magazine Der Spiegel might be interesting. It's pretty neutral and very insightful, IMHO: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,127191,00.htm l.

It describes among other things how the hardliners on both sides want to increase tension. There seems to be a history of the Chinese making very hasty accusations (without knowing facts) which then cannot be taken back without losing face.

What strikes me most is how little factual information we have. Nonetheless everybody seems to have an opinion...

The name of the magazine is Der Spiegel (not Speigel). It would have been nice if the official's statement would have gotten a bit more space in the Wired article. A name would have been nice, as well. BTW, it was also doubted in the article that the statements reflect the real position of the government towards MS products.

I still don't understand why any closed-source products are used in sensitive areas, be it in Germany or elsewhere. To create a somewhat secure environment, good admins are required anyway. They don't need any funky GUIs, so why not pick one of the free Unices?

considering that the Bundeswehr (according to NATO plans) was supposed to be at the forefront of defense against the 7000+ warsaw pact tanks that could have invaded western europe, i would consider it a major military organization.

also, as one poster said (unfortunately modded down to 0) standing man power was 500000+ (now down to 280000 or so). mobilization levels within 3 months were 1000000+, i think.

in addition, it is a little known fact that the federal republic of germany has, in fact, nuclear weapons. Check out this article (babelfished).

There is a German Tornado strike bomber squadron that is assigned to carry American B61 nuclear bombs. Officially, these weapons are still under US control, but that is probably just a formality.

[Everything in brackets is my comment. I am German.]

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/politik/0,1518,1231 70,00.html

Enemy Software

German Army bans Microsoft Software

In fear of US secret services, the German foreign ministry and the German army are planning to close security holes. Instead of American software, federal computers will run German software in the future. [German software? There is no German operating system that I know of. DPA has a competent staff of tech writers, but I doubt they got this right.]

Original article by Deutsche Presse Agentur [an independent, but huge commercial German press agency].

(Image caption: In danger of spies - the German army shoots against Microsoft.)

Computers that are used in security-sensitive areas shall not run Microsoft software anymore. According to German government security advisors, the American secret service NSA has full access to the complete source codes of the US company and is thus able to read even encrypted [Microsoft] files. Because of this, the German ministry of defense uses encryption technologies offered by the local companies Siemens and Telekom [the formerly state-owned, now largest telephone and internet provider].

Meanwhile, the ministry of foreign affairs has halted plans to use video conference technology to communicate with their embassadors and foreign offices. During a Telekom presentation in Berlin at the beginning of March, State Secretary Gunter Pleuger was informed that for technical reasons, every satellite transmission is routed to the American city Denver, Coloroda.

Pleuger thinks the detour to the USA is a security risk. "Then we could do our conferences in Langley right from the start" joked a staffer of the Pleuger office. Langley, Virgina, is the location of the US secret service CIA.



------------------

German computer magazine C't provides a digital version of the magazines of one year on CD-ROM for an additional DM 10 (USD 5) for subscribers.

Unfortunately, this is not the norm. Other magazines (like Spiegel) provide a digital version, but this one costs DM 260 (USD 130) - for anyone, also for subscribers.

I think it would be best to convince publishers to offer digital versions (or access to their online archives) for a small fee, at least for subscribers. They shouldn't have to pay again for the same content. The scanning is just too much work.

According to this article (in German), that kind of remote administration is a feature in Windows XP.

My favourite quote - Microsofts Jim Allchin on the question whether that introduces a potential security risk: 'nothing can happen, the data is encrypted'.

;-)

Or even looking at them, seeing that most of them are in languages other than English, which a rather large portion of English native speakers can't be bothered to learn sufficiently to be able to read an online news site. Among computer enthusiasts, the portion is even larger, probably.

You can try the often-mentioned, often-flamed-against-because-it's-in-German Heise Newsletter, for example, where you'll find links to the legal situation in the European Union fairly often, or the online version of the Spiegel magazine that has its own Net Culture section. For a left-wing perspective, try reading the taz online.

All of this is in German, because I read news mainly in German and English. (I occasionally read things in Arabic and Finnish as well, but there I'm not as qualified as in the other two)

Goes to show that the media even "controls" internet election. At least their reporting was not driven by big money ...

I was in the first wave of membership registrations from Germany after the excellent publicity campaigns run by c't and Spiegel online, and hence I received my PIN letter quite early. I was a bit suprised when recently I found another letter with another PIN and along with it received an email with another number and password.

I managed to activate the second membership without further problems. I was not able to endorse another candidate, though, because the server said that my second membership had been "placed at -3" for security reasons and refused to let me place another vote. I sent mail to ICANN asking for deletion of my second account, to which they haven't answered, though.

It might be interesting to know if there are others out there enlisted at ICANN with more than one membership account, and if any of these were able to cast more than one vote, which I would find rather disturbing and democratically unsatisfying. As far as I am concerned, I mainly see technical problems behind this, but for the conspiracy theorists among you, this is probably another bit of meat to chew on, as is this article on Spiegel online (in German) about the "revolt of the voting cattle" and fears of technoanarchists dominating ICANN.

I was in the first wave of membership registrations from Germany after the excellent publicity campaigns run by c't and Spiegel online, and hence I received my PIN letter quite early. I was a bit suprised when recently I found another letter with another PIN and along with it received an email with another number and password.

I managed to activate the second membership without further problems. I was not able to endorse another candidate, though, because the server said that my second membership had been "placed at -3" for security reasons and refused to let me place another vote. I sent mail to ICANN asking for deletion of my second account, to which they haven't answered, though.

It might be interesting to know if there are others out there enlisted at ICANN with more than one membership account, and if any of these were able to cast more than one vote, which I would find rather disturbing and democratically unsatisfying. As far as I am concerned, I mainly see technical problems behind this, but for the conspiracy theorists among you, this is probably another bit of meat to chew on, as is this article on Spiegel online (in German) about the "revolt of the voting cattle" and fears of technoanarchists dominating ICANN.

I was in the first wave of membership registrations from Germany after the excellent publicity campaigns run by c't and Spiegel online, and hence I received my PIN letter quite early. I was a bit suprised when recently I found another letter with another PIN and along with it received an email with another number and password.

I managed to activate the second membership without further problems. I was not able to endorse another candidate, though, because the server said that my second membership had been "placed at -3" for security reasons and refused to let me place another vote. I sent mail to ICANN asking for deletion of my second account, to which they haven't answered, though.

It might be interesting to know if there are others out there enlisted at ICANN with more than one membership account, and if any of these were able to cast more than one vote, which I would find rather disturbing and democratically unsatisfying. As far as I am concerned, I mainly see technical problems behind this, but for the conspiracy theorists among you, this is probably another bit of meat to chew on, as is this article on Spiegel online (in German) about the "revolt of the voting cattle" and fears of technoanarchists dominating ICANN.

Well, as long as you take the bother to read stuff in any language other than English, of course, there is quite a good selection of active independent online news sources besides the ones you Americans tend to stick to; for instance, the Heise newsletter, the Spiegel or TAZ online magazines or the web.de service in German or, for example, iltalehti in Finnish, even though that one's fairly yellow press.

Even though some of us don't like it, this is an increasingly globalizing world where being able to understand others is a bit of an advantage.

The current issue of German news magazine Der Spiegel (27/2000) has an article on Bove on page 166: 'Kaese statt Hamburger'.

I did not renew my newpaper subscription after it became clear that I get the same news every day, and a day earlier, on the online versions of CNN, the Washington Post, and the Spiegel. Frankly, I'd like these businesses to survive, at least online, and I worry about their ability to continue when people like me no longer buy the paper editions. But I just can't get around the fact that the Internet versions are free and are significantly more timely.

I do buy the paper in situations where I can't get to the Internet, like when I ride the train to work in the morning, and I still enjoy it. Longer, more in-depth reports can make a paper more worthwhile than a collection of articles on the Net.

It's sometimes claimed that books will become obsolete, but I'm sure they won't, because paper probably will always be a much better medium for delivering information than a computer screen with its damnable scroll bar. You can't scribble notes in the margin on your screen; you can't jam your thumb and index finger into two places you want to save; you can't fold it up and stick in your pocket and take it with you to the john. But newspapers will always have the great weakness of being a day behind.

Newspapers may have to become more like magazines to survive -- they'll need to publish longer, more researched articles with more depth than the daily news. These pieces will need more time to develop, hence requiring a weekly or monthly publication schedule rather than daily. But then, weekly and monthly magazines are already there, so the daily paper may really be on its way out.

We mustn't forget, however, that very many people still have no Internet access, and it will last a few years before the Internet is as universal as, say, television. That might keep the papers alive for a while.

One huge problem is the abuse of the system. Someone could simply set up the knowledge base to go fishing for some secret industrial data, well someone already did.

The story of the german energy company Enercon is a good example here. In short it describes how a german company finds their own invention already patented in the US, by the US competitor Kennentech, with papers bearing even Enercon logos! It sounds funny until you realize that Enercon lost 100 million DM and 300 people lost their jobs, as Enercon was not allowed to sell their products in the US.

So if you are looking for some adversely affected 'decent citizens' (though not US citizens) throw the words 'Enercon' and 'NSA' at your preferred Searchengine. I did so and got some coverage of the case here or a little down the page from heise. German readers might want to look at a script for the "plusminus" show or a "Spiegel" or "Zeit" article. While digging up the case i also stumbled over this nice collection of slides concerning the NSA.

In a related note, there's currently the robocup going on over in Sweeden, and
there's a Sony Legged Robot League which is these AIBO's running around playing
soccer.

It's quite funny when they fall over and lay around flapping their legs till
they manage to get up.

There's a RealVideo stream here
More info about the competition and game schedules are over at www.robocup.org

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/ 0,1518,29296,00.html