Slashdot Mirror
Godzilla vs. Mecha-Quickies
Moo-ha-ha. CmdrTaco is on vacation (and sending his e-mail to /dev/null, so please don't even try), so I'm doing Quickies this week. On to the good stuff. DigitalDaedalus wrote in to tell us about the SGI 404 pages. Cute. For those with that not-so-fresh feeling, dodobh wrote in to tell us about the Slashdot Purity Test. No, I won't tell you my score. In the 'ear candy' bin, casret told us that they posted the results of the XMMS plugin contest. Time for some stuff from the 'exploding stuff' bin. Aardappel wrote in about
Fisheye Quake, and Kintanon caught my eye with Fun With Grapes.
Charles Helfenstein told us about the anti-cubicle. Very cool. Fanmail used the force and wrote in about George Lucas In Love. With all the X-Men hype going on, Link wrote in about Mutant Watch. Smurfy cared to share AIEEE, the Acronym Interaction, Expansion and Extrapolation Engine. fwfr told us about the Sim-William Shatner. You'll need Flash.
Last but certainly not least, The Welcome Rain wrote in to tell us about your friend and mine, Robot Frank.
I want the aura. I wonder if i hold the exchange mail server hostage if my boss will get me one... Oh wait, you can't hold it hostage, it never works anyway! Oh well. I guess I'll just have to hold the jetdirect box on our printer hostage. "Gimme that or the printer goes local!" (ppl quivering in their boots) -der saeufer (ich bin besoffen)
I'd heard about the grape trick a few years ago, but the screenshots here are nice.
What happens is that the sliced, somewhat-conducting grape is just about the right size to act as a microwave antenna. Large currents are set up in the grape, which cause the (very thin) junction between the halves to go *poof*.
You could probably enhance this effect by sprinkling the open surfaces with salt to make them more conducting.
Have a listen to some of the stuff at Fun Sounds, especially this news story about two men and their gerbil...
Point a RealPlayer at /etc geek TV archives and check out Episode 5: Fun with High Voltage Electrical Discharges, demonstrates how to produce ball lightening in your microwave with a flaming toothpick.
The "Lucas in Love" link reminded me.... I'd heard of it a while back on some show (one of those like 'entertainment tonight' which I was watching for some unfathomable reason) and it popped into my head again when I saw TPM and its resultant game.
The show had a brief interview with the person who made "lucas in love", and the person said that he had created the movie as kind of an 'homage' to Lucas and the whole Star Wars franchise.
The question that then occurred to me: Could I extend this idea to games?
The whole Star Wars mythology is full of characters, settings, and an entire ethos - great building blocks for, say, an RPG. None has been made as yet, and - if recent movies are any indication - we're likely to be disappointed if one is. So what if someone created a Star-Wars like game in homage?
Obviously, it can't be called "Star Wars". But how much of the SW franchise is trademarked? Suppose we make something set in a Star Wars universe, that refers to the "force" (A generic enough term, right?) and possibly "Jedi", and then build a story and game around it?
Granted, it might not be an original idea, but many of us are star wars fans, and I know that I, for one, would love to see a well-done game out of it.
-Denor
The press release says the base model costs $5500 US. http://www.poetictech.com/news/news.html.
I fed that page Perl about a hundred times hoping to get "Pathologically eclectic rubish lister.." ... I didn't come anywhere close... :)
-Ryan Dietrich
-- Java is not a Jedi trait... "do, or do not, there is no try" --
There are 10 babies!
Check it out:
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/1.j pg
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/2.jpg
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/3.jpg
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/4.jpg
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/5.jpg
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/6.jpg
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/7.jpg
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/8.jpg
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/9.jpg
http://www.sgi.com/images/404_babies/10.jpg
Who sais I live to make a fool of myself? :p ... Oh and is it me but are 8 and 9 the same?
............ no.
That purity test...called me a Microserf.
A MICROSERF!
Just for that, I'm going to whore the article I submitted last week, but didn't get posted. It's at my website; now to find out if I can see the Slashdot effect in action.
I hope JonKatz comments on it, or I'm going to kill him. And pour hot grits down his pants.
Of course, this article is going to get moderated down, because the moderators always moderate down dissenting viewpoints, right? Especially if they're Microserfs like I supposedly am.:)
...must go customize Slashboxes now...wonder what Slashdot looks like...
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I am amazed at myself. I am probably addicted to /.... but to be a trollish for a moment, I often get upset when i hit reload every 5 minutes and dont see a new article. I miss those Sunday night quickies...
I tried out one of those Aura setups at a friends work once. He works for a state run company, and each employee gets a yearly budget. He didnt replace his workstation for a few years, and bought that thing. Its enormous and he practically lives at work now.
I'd like one for my home office.
On another note, what plugins do you people use for xmms? I haven't been using anything fancy for it.
There is one plugin I would love (and all you Pink Floyd fans should want it too) is a no gap plugin. When one plays The Wall there are not supposed to be any gaps between tracks. It's a common problem for MP3 players to put a gap between tracks... the popular WinAmp for that other OS has a plugin to remove those gaps.
Any plugin coders know how to do this? I dont know the first thing about sound programming... although I dont think it involves sound at all... just some sort of output plugin to prebuffer the next song or something.
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
It's made by West End Games. Their website is kinda crummy (ok, very crummy), but I found some actual merchandise at Cyberdungeon.com.
Purity test. Bah! Being a /. geezer means I'm always right. I can blather on with the pointless stories about how I remember when there were no 'users' and everyone was anonymous, and when there was no Jon Katz, and no moderation, and when there was, I was in the 1st batch. With age comes wisdom and extreme cynicism, jadedness (is that a word) and outright paranoia (I think SETI@Home is actually Echelon@Home and people are actually scanning a chunk of net traffic for key words.) and discovering that you always make tpyos (and say the more important things inside the parens) rather than outside. Ooo! New article! Gotta go slamdunk some trolls!
they tried to build the techno-solder of the future, recently. (HUDs on rifle and eye, GPS tracking, multiple specialty machines, etc.) They ended up sucking because the packs were 50+lbs and stuck up (no hidden crawling) and the battery life ended up being about 12 hrs, plus no way to get in new batteries. Oh, and the soldiers would still get blowed up.
--
+&x
OK, so I'm responsible for the test... you can all boo me!
I'm working to expand the Slashdot Purity test into a 500-question test, but I need suggestions for questions, and some other ratings (yes, I agree, JonKatz wannabe and Microserf are both lame but I couldnt think of anything funnier)
If you have any suggestions email em to me!
________________________________
The flaming toothpick in a microwave actually results in a plasma at the burning tip. There was an article here some time ago. (Too lazy/busy to search)
For another interesting effect, take a power cord, strip the insulation at the end, stick the two ends into a pickled dill and turn on the power. If done properly, you will end up with a nice glowing pickle. Dont do it for too long since it starts burning and stinking up the place.
Do the above at your own risk
--Emmett
Also, check out #slashdot on irc.openprojects.net
One of the power ups for the Marathon series by Bungie was a fish-eye distortion. it made trucking through those small corridors *reall* cool. Even better was the Night-Vision power up: you could see in the dark, but everything was done in false colour, purple, yellow, etc. Very cool.
Grr... still waiting for the Marathon -> Unreal conversion.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Wow, it says I'm a JonKatz wannabe. How'd they know? I mean...
*insert 10k of redundant drivel here*
:)
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
'K so about 20 seconds ago I was clicking through those pictures looking at each one and a kid walks by my room, stops, comes in and says "are you looking at kiddie porn?"
I had to explain it all to him, starting by telling him what a 404 message is.
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Excuse me? Advocating Perl, the language this site is written in, does not count for a point?
Gee whiz, perhaps honestly answering questions like that is why I am an "Average Geek"...
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
I have a friend who likes to do stuff like that. The pickle lit up like an incandescent bulb.
He also likes to make fireballs with his stove. Here's how to do it:
---
Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
This on a web page not updated since November 1998 is NOT an encouraging sign.
Take a mylar 'anti-static' bag from one of your old peripherials. Walk out to your car. Take a pair of jumper cables and connect one of the closed corners to your engine block. Pull the plug end of a spark plug wire, and slide the insulative cover back so you can see the metal clip. Here's where a buddy comes in handy! ;) While holding the spark plug wire the hell away from you or the car (neoprene gloves are nice of you're a wuss and don't like 15KV pokes from a Honda) have the buddy start it.. Bring the plug wire near to the bag.
It's like a huge AOL CD!!!
.sig: Now legally binding!
And I've submitted him to Mutant-Watch. I'd hate to see him hook up with Prof-X and those other mutants and ruin society as we know it. I recommend that we all take Hemos' stories with a grain of salt now that we know that he is a dirty mutant.
/. you all look to be mutants or at least sympathizers. I'm going to be up all night reporting every one of you.
Actually, looking at the comments posted on
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
Ok. Here goes. Right click on xmms. Options. Preferences, Options. [x] Pause between songs . Done
The Slashdot Purity Test suffers from some of the same minor flaws as the Hacker Purity Test from which it appears to draw its inspiration. Some of the questions that garner points should be turned around, such as:
...and later wish you remembered?
123. Did you check your user info page to answer the above question?
I would have worded that, "Did you know your Karma without checking because you've looked at your User page in the past hour?"
Some of the other questions contradict each other. For example:
64. Do you ever forget to use the Preview button?
65.
66. Have you ever previewed your post several times to get it ``just right''?
67. Do you think previewing is for weenies?
While it is a bit rough around the edges and should be labeled Version 0.1, it has potential, and it shows some understanding of the dynamics of Slashdot.
Oh, and it looks like it is being "used to gather demographic information".
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
That effect is better with a high-voltage tranformer. Instead of the burning, red glow, you get actual explosions.
.sig: Now legally binding!