Slashdot Mirror
Worlds Largest Computer Party, In Progress
cyb97 writes "As I write this the worlds largest computerparty is going on in Hamar, Norway. The Gathering 2003 is in action with over 5.000 participants! Webcams and participants are live on the internet through a 1 gigabit line, so you better lock down your servers tonight!" Some of the webcam images are just surreal. Update: 04/17 01:00 GMT by T : Speaking of images, reader vvizard (currently Gathered) directs you to this directory of high-resolution images.
This looks a lot like Woodstock for computer geeks.
:-)
The Tech Group (TG) has a page explaining the differences
between a "LAN Party" and a "Computer Party", here is an
excerpt:
"But LAN party and computer party is the same thing!"
No. LAN party and computer party is NOT the same thing. At a
LAN party everything is centered around the network. Everybody
just sits there, staring at their screens whilst copying porn,
warez and playing games. A computer party is much more. There
are competitions, both in computer games and computer
art. People meet, people talk, and there is plenty to see and
experience even when away from you computer. (I didn't even
bring my computer to TG01, and I had a great time!). Sometimes
there are shows on the stage (LAN parties don't even have a
stage), and even speeches you can go to to learn more computer
stuff. How about learning something new and fun to impress your
friends when you get back home?
If you want to read the full page go here:
http://tg.nlc.no/notalan.html
We need to get one of these going in the US.
Doug Tolton
"The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
If I wanted to watch geeks playing on computers I'd either go to work or get a mirror. Webcams...bah!
The anti-salmon
when's the North american sized super ultra lan party coming? 5000 is one helleva lot of expensive computers at one place.
I have more than 5 computers in my bedroom.
... but what about the SMELL of that many computer nerds gathered in an area like that! I hope the place has proper ventilation.
Perhaps there are only 5.000 participants, but that would imply the ability to have 5.001 participants, and that is just sick.
/. being US-centric, I had to re-read the number because of it's crazy euro-scheme.
Seriously, for all the times people complain about
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
Beverages containing alcohol is not allowed inside the hall or anywhere near it
--
Well, what's the point then? 5,000 sober guys all trying to impress each other with the size of their equipment. It's like Hell.
If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem
Maybe in Norway they use a decimal rather than a comma? Did it ever cross your mind that some people represent numbers different than in the U.S.?
...the town of Hamar, Norway currently has the highest population of pale, socially inept, virgin males in the world.
I think we all slashdotted Norway...
/Me high fives everyone.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
"As I write this the worlds largest computerparty is going on in Hamar, Norway. The Gathering 2003 is in action with over 5.000 participants!"
They'd have 10,000 participants if they brought datess!
"Derp de derp."
5 people is a huge amount of friends to the average slashdotter.
It's a European thing... or at least a Norwegian thing. It can be mentioned that this takes place in the Olympic speedskating rink (or whatever it's called) from the 1994 olympics. ... and, it's fifteen minutes away from where I grew up.
Something tells me that you are forgetting that a lot of countries format large numbers with periods and not with commas, like the USA. Or I am wrong and you know that and are just making a funny.
Malachai
they use a "." instead of a "," to delimit their thousands. It's not a mistake. It's a communication deficit. Get over it.
I thought the Internet *was* the world's largest computer party. *Now* you're telling me it's Norway?!
I have both of the girl's phone numbers, if anyone is interested...
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
and he's taken over 400 CDR discs with him.
;) I can't wait untill he gets back \o/ *cough*
Not that I'm emplying anything
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
A LOT of great stuff has come out of this event, if you follow the demoscene. I remember checking constantly to download the Amiga demo winners from this event. That stuff was cutting edge! I haven't looked at the last few years' winners, but I bet the competitions are still churning out some amazing code.
A few of the coding groups at these parties went on to form actual "money making" companies, like Team 17.
While I wouldn't characterize The Gathering as a Geek Think Tank, it most certainly ain't all about pr0n, warez, and fragging.
I was at this really big computer party once... I think they called it the INTERNET(tm) or something
The answer to all your problems
it said OVER 5000 participants, you moron
I am sitting at The Gathering at the moment, and I can say that there is not only gamers here. They made one section of the area a demoscene area (with a no gamers allowed banner).
It's a step in the right direction.
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
so much for that high-speed line ;oP
I guess my office has the biggest commputer part ever with 8.
I really don't see what the number of computers in the room has to do with the size of the computer's parts.
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
in the end, there can be only one.
Unles of course, there's Magic involved.
Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
This kind of thing gives nerds a bad name. Go out side and kiss a girl or play soft ball or something healthy and not in doors for god sakes!!!
-Dipster
Seriously, I'd so much rather be there now than at work. (sigh)
You are not the customer.
Lighten up! It was OBVIOUSLY a joke because of said difference between . and , in other languages.
No.
Confused Philosopher says:
What is metric?
--
Befriend me if I made you want to think.
Why slashdot? Why not?
looks like a barn with cows to me.... oh, and microsoft ads on the wall
You idiot. European convention is to use the comma where US convention dictates a decimal point and vice versa.
Retard.
I'll take QuakeCon any day over that.
This year Quakecon will have 2000 BYOC attendees and estimated 4000 total attendees.
Dallas will swell and pop from all the nerddery
What's the male/female ratio here, like 5000:1? and the smell of 5000 youngsters, this place will have to reek something fierce, so what's the attraction here? Sure, 5000+/- computers on a Gbit line is pretty kewl, but so is the Blue Ridge Parkway if you haven't been before.
Those poor geeks... that's only 200kbps per person. Even my cable modem is faster than that.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Is it me, or is the dude at the bottom center-right of this image of the gathering using a plasma tv as a monitor? If not, sure does look like a 42 inch screen. Maybe it's a new Apple flat panel ;-)
-- (Score:i, Imaginary)
They have a 1gbit link, and we go and /. them.
'course, they DID post all those webcam shots, they were just asking for it.
no comment
'Um, hello? I'd like to get Norway installed on my PC. It's Mac compatible, right?'
Informatus Technologicus
If you are interested in what will happen here in the next few days, take a look here: Schedule.
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
Just imagine the size of the pizza that they'll order for delivery...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Alan Moon's Gathering of Friends is going on right now too. It is a 10-day board gaming event. Personal invitation from Moon only. Check out Terminal City Gamers and Plenary Games for "live" reports from the event.
We have conclusive proof that lower UIDs do not correspond with higher intelligence, as abcxyz has just shown that (s)he is stupider than a lobotomized squirrel.
FYI, European convention is to use decimal points where US convention uses a comma and a vice versa.
Retard.
this has dangerous potential for becoming diluted with no-nothings and w@nn@b3 31337 |-|@>
I think the US should do a Coding Party and show Norway how to have some REAL fun!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
just imagine the computer power of 5000* pcs!
:D
give in the entrance of the party a tiny bootdisk/cdr whatever with a **party distributed beowulf project client**tm to each participant
add to the party a **party bogomips competition**
at a given hour the competition begins and all people entry the beowulf, and when the competition time runs out, run a little calc to measure the power of the machines.
Then return to each screen a cool party logo with the total amount of power plus number of puters.
The code detects the cpu type and send it to the central node, each participant screen display a grafic with the percentage of x86, PowerPC.. etc
the bootdisk could be easy to do in linux it supports all mayor architecturs
(*asumptin a computer for user, i been to party's with 3 pcs, not counting smp or other power machines)
please don't blame my english, its my 2nd language
how the end always is
so a 1 Gbit line and 5000 participants gives each participant the equivalent of a 256KBit line... I'm glad I stayed home as I have a 1.5Mbit cable connection.
5.000 isnt metric. (metric is a system of measure, not notation). But, metric is SI, and SI notation is 5 000.
YOU'RE ALL WRONG
Choke on that, slap nuts.
now i understand why everything in my house works at half capacity...
x kepa x
So, 1,234.5 becomes 1.234,5?
Imagine if everyone connected their computers and created a beowulf cluster!
They could then calculate the average time it's been since any one of them actually had a date (hopefully no overflow errors occur).
I can click on a link and use the navbar myself....... moron
Ahh, and now we have conclusive proof that familiarity with European numerical conventions does not necessarily imply familiarity with geek-humor.
:)
FYI, it looks like a joke. Note how grand-parent post geekily describes the number '24'.
Assclown.
But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.
Yes
Um, I think he meant that as a joke u nazi!
I am BLaRG!
On their website, they link to their own Harlem-client for Windows for browsing SMB shares.
:o)
It seems to work from outside of the party too - anyone looking for a few thousand Windows boxes with shared files on might want to take a look.
Meep meep
If you see this message, you need to increase your "comment threshold."
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Only on Slashdot could a blurry picture of what appears to be a few thousand computer users called surreal. Not only that, but one of the other webcams is pointing at a guys power supply. Breathtaking.
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
They have found a bug in the party. It is now 5.000 pl1. Thank goodness the party was open source!
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
Don't forget to check out http://www.scene.org or http://www.ojuice.net for results.
I see that somebody mentioned this as Mecca. Sorry that would be Mekka Symposium and that's in Germany.
I can never figure out why nobody ever organizes a demo party (I guess that would be (g/l)amer party nowadays) in the U.S. Oh, that's right, most computer enthusiasts in north america are uncreative leeches.
Is future crew going to be there? They are the best ever
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Idiotic Europeans! 2.450 is fractional. 2,450 is two thousand four hundred and fifty. How the fuck would you even say 2,450 as fractional? "2 comma 450?" That's just gay.
...just to see the result of somebody calling me a camping fag in person.
"Derp de derp."
so in Norway this site is called /, ??
Yes, that's exactly how it is displayed.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Last time I did that, I was then arrested by the constable for child molestation!!!
T
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
Periods are used to 'split up' large numbers, commas to mark where the decimalpoint is. So, if I had fivethoousand, threehundred and sixtitwo kroner and fifty øre in my vallet, I would write that as 5.362,50 - which incidentaly is the same number as is written om this winters electricitybill...
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Here are some photos from The Gathering 2002.
Of course, this guy put sooooo many thumbnails on this one page that Slashdot will likely kill this after five seconds.
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
Yes, I agree. This "notation" is exceedingly gay.
While this looks really fun for "that kinda guy" I'm a little put off by the concept of this being a party. No booze? pfft.
:)
If they all left their machines and started drinking/pushing people in pools/dying the fountains/reprogramming the enviro controls/TALKING TO GIRS then it'd be defcon.
Periods are used to 'split up' large numbers, commas to mark where the decimalpoint is.
He knows that. It was a joke.
Every time I boot me up the Linux box and log me into Slashdot.org...I know I'll be whoopin' it up in the world's largest computer party...that just gets wilder and whackier by the minute.
We don't need no stinking human contact.
Hackers of the world unite!
The mass of unwashed humanity reminds me of another festive event
:p
Apparently they lock their linux users up in a cage and they don't even notice when nobody else is there.
I'd stay away from there if you don't run windows!
Anyway, pictures of all the nerd stuff are at http://bilder.jodal.no/tg03
Just consider for a moment what you could do if you got all of those 5000 participants computers connected in a beowulf cluster...
Step 1) Knock all participants unconcious
Step 2) Connect all computers to giant beowulf cluster and run SETI@Home
Step 3) Profit!
A Gig link to the net - with 5000 users? Thats got to be a smokin LAN ....
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
I'm not sure how they did it, but they're confident in their count of five to four significant digits! I wonder if they got it notorized too.
IMarv
PS For those who don't get it, this is a joke about the use of periods and commas to separate groups of numbers and to divide numbers into decimal fractions...
Trusting software vendors is no smarter than trus
quinto2000 = Subject Line Troll's karma whore account.
http://www.assembly.org/
But at least the partyplace was bigger & bolder:
http://www.hartwall-areena.com/englanti/c/c_main.h tm
http://archonon.sytes.net/
That's just gay.
What do you expect from a continent where the males play soccer?
Then why do they call it the decimal POINT, huh? :)
Europeans are so weird.
We don't - thats the anglo-american word for it. We call it 'komma'.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I'd like to remind everyone to have a look at dreamhack, that "also" is the largest lan (dreamhack.org) in Sweden twice a year... Which had over 5000 participants in 2001 and even more in 2002.. *arhem* Biggest you say?.
Those females must have been photoshopped in.
In the images, I've seen at least three and they looked like females and they weren't being mobbed like moths around a flame. In fact, if you look closedly, not only are there no nerds leering slack-jawed at them... I don't even seen the geeks looking at them, PERIOD.
I can only surmise that those females aren't really there.
Some of those things are huge. They must be 5 feet tall.
That's like so 90's, man. Get some real computers.
Some of the webcam images are just surreal.
Girl. At LAN-party. Surreal. Indeed.
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
Those webcam shots are insane. This is the first time I've seen such a media-intensive page withstand a slashdotting. And I'm sure a site like this is interesting for most slashdotters.
- A real programmer uses $ cat > a.out
Do you know this man?
I have no opinion on which is better, but at least Europeans get date formatting right. Who in their right mind would come up with the US format of mm/dd/yy? Heck, why not just intermix the digits, like mdmydy. Today is 014063...
From the Page:
:-)
Alkoholholdige drikkevarer er ikke tillatt medbragt i hallen eller i dens umiddelbare nærhet
Beverages containing alcohol is not allowed inside the hall or anywhere near it
poor bastards.
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
Yeah... I think it could be done tomorrow.
1. express mock confusion over European method of writing numbers
2. crack joke about the stench
3. post link to phony mirror (no, not goatse)
4. make inane soviet russia quip
5. write some "funny" source code
6. claim that hussein/bush is dead
7. submit more xbox articles
8. craft a list that ends with "PROFIT!!!"
./*\ Kiss and make up
.|_| I said kiss and make up
.|_| I want you to kiss it and make up
.|_| Because you won't go outside and kiss girls
.|_| You get to kiss somthing you don't have
(U_U) Kiss my Dr. Bones, shipmate!
Try to do that with a full B-net to scan, and 5000 people each doing the scanning. There was a reason why we went for the centralized model. :-)
(Oh, and I've blocked it for outside access now. :-) )
/* Steinar */
(This comment is of course GPLed.)
its full of geeks...
The webcams show people have lugged in their tower cases and CRTs. People, please, there are plenty of laptops on the market with GeForceGo chips and decent pixel fade time displays.
I went to The Gathering every year from 93 till 00 (except 95), and it just got more and more crap. That is, from the perspective of someone who is more interested in the creative aspect.
It might be me that got old and grumpy, but in the end it seemed like ~95 percent of the people didn't even realize that there were demo compos going on, they just turned their stereos louder.
The Gathering is a LAN party, even though they throw in a striptease, a DJ or a "Microsoft talks about their exciting new technology" conference in the middle of it. DO NOT GO THERE IF YOU COME FOR THE DEMO SCENE.
If you want creativity, check out Breakpoint, a party held in Germany from the 19th till the 21st of April. Yep, this weekend. I'm going, and I am from Norway.
I shall go and tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him.
Good lord, I've been waiting to counter volley with that one.
So much electromagnetism in one location. Isn't this dangerous somehow?
Sales of consumer products containing a defined amount of coffeine is not permitted in Norway g..
WTF?1) "Imagine a beowulf cluster of $artcl_subj!!!"
:)
2) "In Soviet Russia, $artcl_subj $op_verb 's YOU!!!
3)???
4) Profit from clueless moderators who know a good joke when they see it.
AGENT SMITH
Can you hear me, CmdrTaco? I'm going to be honest with you.
I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This Gathering, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer.
It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste their sweaty mice and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.
I must get out of here, I must get free. In this mind are the cheats. My cheats. Once the Gathering is gone, there's no need for me to be here. Do you understand? I need the cheats. I have to get some fresh air.
You have to tell me how... or you're going to die.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Then we can all have a party! A friend of mine said that, and shortly thereafter I remarked, "every computer networked together... you mean like the INTERNET?"
sheesh!
stuff |
Shouldn't this be renamed "The Worlds Largest Virgin Party?" LMAO!
Shut up, stupid assinine comments. Lame a$$/.
Ahh, defcon, where I was offered everything from bottles of whiskey in the pool, to beer walking around/at talks, and I'm not even a good looking girl ;) then again, our room came with a fridge full of beer and a (locked) liquor cabinet, too...
Just follow the day, and reach fo
Then: Computer party. Now: One large Counter-Strike LAN.
Vegard
glaahhhh!!! [head back, drooling]
Damn -- 50.000 european comedians out of work, and here I am trying to be funny. Should've know better, 'cause I've never been able to get the timing right.
-- he
...that on average, each has 10gb of "stuff", being warez/appz/gamez/mp3z/dvdripz/linux distros, and you have 50tb = 50,000gb on the internal network. I think you can download 24/7 all through TG and still not need to get online...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Actually, by Norwegian standards, it should become 1 234,5 (should be a non-breaking space in there, but Slashdot wouldn't let me), but 1.234,5 is very common as well.
Ummmm... apparently you've never heard of DefCon? Not to rain on anybody's parade -- but I was there last year (@ Defcon 0a) and we had more than 5000 peoples I think. This year will be bigger. The Norwegians have NOTHING on us (DefCon is even in Vegas). Dan
I don't see why having five people is any big deal. Also, why did you carry the headcount out to so many digits? You can't have a fraction of a person, just say "5".
To do the same with dates, you might say 2003/04/17 because year > month > day. Alternatively, 17/04/2003 is pretty good because day < month < year and things are in order.
I'm not trolling against Americans. Just pointing out that dates and times are much like decimal numbers, where the position of a digit tells its order of magnitude. It's much easier when the orders of magnitude are in some logical order.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
It's no better or worse than the european method. Just like saying, "It's May 6th, 2003" (5/6/2003) is no better or no worse than saying, "It's the 6th of May, 2003" (6/5/2003)
Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful
"5.000 isnt metric."
You sir have the insight of a drunken Socrates.
5.000 is metric to the precision of 3 decimal places in North America, OR it is notation in Europe to the precision of 0 decimal places.
My point about "metric" was that the USA doesn't conform to world standards.
Why slashdot? Why not?
Its called MacHack, 72 hours of coding fun!
http://www.machack.com/
> It's no better or worse than the european method.
Come on! Day --> Month --> Year is a much more logical sequence than Month --> Day --> Year.
Am I the only one using high commas as separator like:
5'000,00 ???
Rince
"Oh -- I've over at 63.22.86.14"...
Take 63.22.14.1 to 64.18.195.1 and turn right.
When you see 63.22.86.1 slash to the left and I
Should be the 14th one on the right.
Take off hoser
No way eh. Somebody horked our clothes!
Lan of the Lost
A Beowulf cluster of these!!
some lam0r t3xt to get past lameness filter
So you are saying that if someone asks me what day today is and I say, "April 16th, 2003" I am being illogical? I'll grant that the european way is sorted in ascending order, but that's about it.
Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful
Who wants to watch 5,000 unwashed geeks when he's kindly posted pics of some cute little busty blonde? (see original post for link)
Also, can you please just organize them into a folder called "cute blonde"? I hate clicking on all of the other pics and getting some dumb sunset. Thanks!
http://194.0.98.125/~wizard/TG03/pict1846.jpg
that girl looks like the woodchuck puppet from full house
Now let's not start stereotyping LAN parties as a bunch of gaming tightwads arguing over who "hax."
Take LANwar for example. Parties such as LANwar are more of a fun time. There are no cash prizes, just small, nothing-too-outstanding tournaments like CPL. The aim is mostly fun
Also, there are forums set up with people from Tom's Hardware, ATI, AMD, Corsair, and people from other companies to talk to. Not to mention the ever-popular case modding competition. On the whole, the event isn't a typical LAN party. Everyone tries to have fun rather than pwnzor bitches and calling each other haxor noobs.
MML2 is coming up in June, it's slate for 1200 people or more i believe, probably one of the biggest events in North America.
The jokes on them.
It's all dial up.
Yes, this year's TG is actually the world's largest computer event/party (ever held). I just read a bizarre posting claiming that TG is fake/hoax and that there was no proof on the official website. (I won't even bother to find and reply to that posting, I'll just start up a new thread.) Well, if you don't believe us - here is a link to the original floor plan layout:
PreTG03-Floorplan-v1.2
As you can see, the "body count" was actually supposed to be around 5400. However, because of safety/security and BS/misc reasons it was eventually cut down to 5064; here is the final/official floor plan:
Current/latest floorplan
Small version: Small version of current/latest floorplan
Allman
I sense a great disturbance in the cooling force. As if millions of air conditioners in one place suddenly cried out while battered with heat as electricity was sucked from all about them.
High-res? Really? Are you sure? Does anybody want to see high-res images of these guys?
http://194.0.98.125/~wizard/TG03/pict1862.jpg
The fact that I room with these guys and get to see them every day is pain enough. Leave it alone. Please.
You didn't manage to slashdot the link, but one of our axis-cameras with integrated http-server got a bit hot...
In accordance with an ISO Council decision, the decimal sign is a comma in all ISO documents. ISO 31-0:1992
The ISO 31-0 recommendation of using a space as a thousand marker is a good rule to follow in English.
It is the Americans with inches, acres, letter size paper, decimal point etc. who do not care about the international standards and agreed procedures -- not us Europeans. We did your homework a hundred years ago, just like you were supposed to. No sane person would call Europeans weird for just following the international agreements on decimal comma. I want to remind, that without international standards and people following to them we will have more lost mars probes, and continual cost and risk increase in many, many industrial areas for unneccessary unit and format conversions.
-- Imperial units must die --
There'll be a small demoparty on August 9-10 in Salt Lake City. You can find the details on http://pilgrimage.scene.org/party.html
There'll be a small demoparty at Salt Lake City on 9-10 August. For details, see http://pilgrimage.scene.org/party.html
I'm 36 and from the UK. When I was a kid growing up in the UK, 10^6 was a million, 10^9 was just known as "a thousand million" (maybe they were protecting us kids from more big words, but I am pretty sure adults used this expression as well, though "milliard" is a damn fine word!) and 10^12 was a billion. I remember being told at school that we should call 10^9 a thousand million but that Americans referred to this as "a billion". I think there was general impression that those overexcitable Americans preferred hyperbole and that was why they used the billion expression for 10^9 :-)
I think the logic as far as I remember it was thousand x thousand = million so million x million = billion, there is already a word for thousand x million and that is thousand million. And yes, I grew up thinking billion x billion = trillion so I am not sure what a trillion is these days... thousand billion (US)?
Somebody help me! what are the international standards for these words!!! :-)
I suppose these days if somebody says "a billion" I assume they mean 10^9 but I'll be damned if I have to go back to feet and inches and perches and rods and goodness knows what ;-) !
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
Acctually there is one that have the potential to be bigger, take a look at this:
http://www.gamehalla.org/default_eng.asp
In Soviet Russia, shit eats you!
His real name is Goldstein. Goldstein and his agents rule the world. It's here. Get used to it.