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Nominations for 2003 Vaporware Awards
spin2cool writes "Wired News is now accepting submissions for its fifth annual Vaporware Awards. These awards "celebrate all those eagerly anticipated gizmos that were put off, put away or quietly put down. And, of course, those that existed merely as a figment of someone's imagination."
...are listed here. Indrema, nice.
The Army reading list
HAL became operational in 1997:
I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997
Absolutely correct. It doesn't take a lot of room to store a few vials of Anthrax, or a few gallons of Nerve Gas. They could be just about anywhere, disquised as something else, stashed inside holes, false walls, or stuck down old oil wells, buried in a fake grave, etc. The only easy stuff to find is nuclear material as it has to be well shielded, which makes it harder to hide but not impossible. Saddam had 12 yrs to find ways to hide things in a country the size of California, not to mention he had friends in other Arab countries who may be minding the store. It's not going to be an easy job.
Well, as a stable release, the Hurd is vapourware. However, one can install it and it does work for a number of uses. It fulfill the greatly-needed role of making the free-software-unfriendly Linux obsolete and ensuring that a kernel which fits GNU values becomes popular, but it is a great system to poke around with and see where *nix operating systems might move beyond POSIX.
But GNU exists, and is active use. HURD exists, but is, as you say, complete.
You seem to mean HURD, not GNU/HURD. HURD is a kernel*, where GNU/HURD is a system, like GNU/Linux is a system . . same software, different kernel.
You can go to http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/download.html and get HURD (such as it is). Hardly vapor.
-Peter
*Of course the HURD is really a micro-kernel and a bunch of daemons that do the work traditionally done by an OS kernel, but let's not get pedantic.
-P
The Reg, well Gartner really, is full of crap. Nowhere in the article or the Gartner report does it state which version of Longhorn they are referring to and it is highly unlikely that the desktop version of Longhorn will slip that far behind. I'm guessing they are referring to the Server version of Longhorn which is more likely because the Server versions have been slowly slipping behind the desktop releases. 2000 and 2003 Servers were all released after their desktop counterparts (2000 Professional and XP Professional respectively).
Not only that but these dates keep creeping every time the story is retold. Gartner puts the release of Longhorn (likely the Server version) at mid-2008 at the latest and 2006 at the earliest however The Register states Gartner puts the date as late as 2009 but doesn't mention whether it's early or late 2009. I'd call that highly suspect. The 2009 date The Reg is reporting comes from the end of the article where Gartner suspects that if Longhorn ships in 2007 the EOL for 2000 will get bumped a year but in the event that Longhorn is released in 2008/9 they believe MS will force customers to upgrade to Windows 2003 Server first. Earlier reports about the shipping date of Longhorn had it slipping from late 2005 to early- to mid-2006 then suddenly to no earlier than 2007.
In the meantime this fails to take into account a number of issues, not least of which is where is the desktop version in all of this? There are far too many if's and way too much on the line for MS to let Longhorn slip beyond 2007 at the latest and with the shape the OS was in during the PDC is it quite likely we will see Longhorn hit the shelves in 2006.
There is no guarentee in there, you pay for SA, if an upgrade comes out during the term you get it, if not that's life. Sure people will get pissed off, but that would be their fault, for getting sucked into SA, not MS's.
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
Realisiticly speaking, there has only been 1 date ever mentioned: 2003 - it was on banners advertising Doom 3 at E3 2002. It has been in development for a while, but id has never said anything besides 2003(and no one has resonably expected it before that), so it has only slipped 1 time.
Iraqi colonel who told MI6 that Saddam could launch WMD within 45 minutes
Read the article. This was covered by every
major news agency. You just seemed to have missed it.
Login for the telegraph:
user: thetruthhurts@doesntit.com
pass: wmds
Here's a few snippets for you:
He said they were to be used by Saddam's Fedayeen paramilitaries and units of the Special Republican Guard when the war with coalition troops reached "a critical stage".
The containers, which came from a number of factories on the outskirts of Baghdad, were delivered to the army by the Fedayeen and were distributed to the front-line units under cover of darkness.
The devices, which were known by Iraqi officers as "the secret weapon", were made in Iraq and designed to be launched by hand-held rocket-propelled grenades. They could also have been launched sooner than the 45-minutes claimed in the dossier.
"Forget 45 minutes," said Col al-Dabbagh "we could have fired these within half-an-hour."
Local commanders were told that they could use the weapons only on the personal orders of Saddam. "We were told that when the war came we would only have a short time to use everything we had to defend ourselves, including the secret weapon," he said.
The only reason that these weapons were not used, said Col al-Dabbagh, was because the bulk of the Iraqi army did not want to fight for Saddam. "The West should thank God that the Iraqi army decided not to fight," he said.
"If the army had fought for Saddam Hussein and used these weapons there would have been terrible consequences."
Saddam was in a whole in the ground because he was a coward. He was captured alive! With a gun at his hip, and plenty of time to use it (being that he was in a whole that had to be uncovered, a process that surely took several minutes)
Casual Games/Downloads
Actually:g old1.asp
Finally, it was time to start writing some code. "We checked the first code pieces in around mid-December 1988," Lucovsky said, "and had a very basic system kind of booting on a simulator of the Intel i860 (which was codenamed "N-Ten") by January." In fact, this is where NT actually got its name, Lucovsky revealed, adding that the "new technology" moniker was added after the fact in a rare spurt of product marketing by the original NT team members. "Originally, we were targeting NT to the Intel i860, a RISC processor that was horribly behind schedule. Because we didn't have any i860 machines in-house to test on, we used an i860 simulator. That's why we called it NT, because it worked on the 'N-Ten.'"
From http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winserver2k3_
There's one big difference between Quake3 and Doom3 : competition.
...
Back in the Q3 days, there was only 1major competitor to ID, which was Epic's unreal engine. Other games were based on the Q2 engine, or had another customer base (TombRaider fon instance was rarely compared to ID games)
Today, things are very different with Unreal2 engine, HalfLife2, Blizzard having a serous engine,
I don't thing they can pull our Doom3 string as long they did with Q3
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
a "few vials" wouldn't really count as "mass" destruction though, would it? take a look at the amount of chemical weapons the united states stores. there's a nice map available here:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/cbw/cw.htm
these repositories range from 2,000 to 13,000 tonnes each. and there are nine of them.
that's a lot more than just a "few vials"
(nb: i am not sure how old this map is, but the us is not committed to destroying chem weapons until 2007... the purpose is to demonstrate that wmds are have "mass")
2 1337 4 u!
It was also widely reported that this report was bullshit and that is why Tony Blair is in trouble. British Intelligence and those who had reason to actually know what was going on were thinking it would take Saddam months to get things together for a WMD attack. He was being seriously hampered by the no-fly zone, sanctions and inspectors. The gas atack on the Kurds occurred back in the 80's when we liked Saddam and were selling him WMD. After the first Gulf War no incidents of usage of WMD nor evidence of continuing WMD programs were ever found.
It was also widely reported that this report was bullshit and that is why Tony Blair is in trouble
I think you are confusing the date the material was originally released (around sept 2002) and when this interview/story was conducted (about a week ago)
This is an Iraqi LT. Colonel stating that what was in that original report was true (and that he was the source of it)
Casual Games/Downloads
Ah, an interesting theory. We'll forget for a moment that the entire nothern region was being patrolled by U.S./British aircraft (remember the no fly zone?). Consequently, he "couldn't" use them there either, for precisely the same reason you offer as to why he didn't use them against invaders.
However, that begs the question of how does that affect U.S. national security, which was the nominal reason for this little adventure? I've been waiting for 18 months for an answer to that one.
Hmmm Most of the evidence supporting the 45 minute claim was "rubbished" by the experts of the British Intelligence Services, a number of whom gave reports to the Hutton Enquiry (into the death of Dr Kelly). Yes, I am aware of the recent story in the Telegraph, however I am not sure that it adds _any_ creditability to the 45 minute claims...
It looks like FWB's RealPC is a strong candidate. The management struggle accompanying the exposure of RealPC vaporous nature is also entertaining.
Reading Slashdot is ruining my spelling and grammar.
Thanks! I was just going to not care that some idiot mod thought this was a troll, but it's nice to see some support, albeit anonymous.
Mods, the post was a reference to History of the World, Part I, where the end of the movie is a promo for the sequel, which never came out. Hence, it's vaporware.
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
Oh, you mean he had about 2,500 nuclear warheads like the US does? That's a real threat. The point is, depending on what side of the line you stand on you can always choose to see the other side as a threat. There is no hard proof of WMD, there is no proof of anything Iraq could shoot up in the air and bomb America with. You are choosing to ignore the facts and live your life in fear. Don't take my word for it:
"In Jordan and Indonesia, well over half of those asked felt the United States posed a greater danger to world peace and stability than al Qaeda.
In five of the 11 countries polled, a majority of respondents believed the United States was more dangerous than Iran, named by Bush as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and North Korea. - From a survey of 11,000 people in 11 countries Link
Ubisoft (don't copy your game CD's! No Backups!) has been working on Harpoon4 since I believe '99; Don't really care since I discovered Harpoon2 plays great on VirtualPC.
Matrix Games Steel Panthers:Moderna was supposed to be SP:WAW updated for the modern age; considering that it was to be free, like SP:WAW, I can't complain a whole lot.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad.
- Donald Rumsfeld March 30, 2003
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
- Dick Cheney August 26, 2002
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
- George W. Bush September 12, 2002
If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
- Ari Fleischer December 2, 2002
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
- Ari Fleischer January 9, 2003
Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
- George W. Bush January 28, 2003
We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
- Colin Powell February 5, 2003
We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
- George Bush February 8, 2003
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
- George Bush March 18, 2003
We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.
- Tony Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003
One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
- Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark March 22, 2003
Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.
- Tony Blair 28 April, 2003
We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so.
- George Bush May 3, 2003
I am confident that we will find evidence that makes it clear he had weapons of mass destruction.
- Colin Powell May 4, 2003
I never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.
- Donald Rumsfeld May 4, 2003
I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program.
- George W. Bush May 6, 2003
U.S. officials never expected that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons of mass destruction.
- Condoleeza Rice May 12, 2003
They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer.
- Donald Rumsfeld May 27, 2003
Link to source
Teamfortress 2
First hint was as an expansion for HL.
Then as a standalone.
Then an expansion for HL/CS
Then a standalone.
I believe the latest incarnation is as a standalone, running the HL2 engine.
It's been so long, I don't even REMEMBER if I pre-ordered it via Amazon.com - but that was when it was a $30 expansion. Do they still have my ticket? Did I pay? I truly don't remember.
-Styopa
Just got to love when you state your wacky opinion as proof. That France sold weapons to Iraq when it was considered a western ally is nothing new, so did the US. It's always amusing when the neocons show the video where Chirac shakes Hussein's hand as proof that France still supports him. You know what? I saw a similar video in which Rumsfeld was shaking hands with Saddam.
Apparently you haven't seen it.
The quickest way to become an atheist is to study the Bible thoroughly.
Dude please. We've all heard it before. We KNOW he HAD them because we gave them to him. The issue was not HAD but HAVE. So what he has the ability to house, use, distribute WMD, we all know that. But does he have any NOW. Appearantly that answer was no, and still is no.
War could have and should have been justified for legitimate and available reasons. Manufacturing a reason just removes credibility.
Vaporware of the year... The 2.6 kernel. All the talk was that it was going to come out this year; and that was as far back as march of LAST year. I definately understand pushing it off -- alot is riding on it (or will). Then again, maybe longhorn has it beat
The analysts have used that explanation. Blix himself even came up with the "Beware of Dog" analogy, which was talked about a lot in the press a few months ago.
The problem with this idea is that one of Bush's main justifications for the war (and the only part the U.N. was interested in) was Saddam's WMD program and cache. Insisting you have WMD as a way to ward off the WMD inspectors is pretty stupid. Like putting a "Beware of dog" sign up to keep out the animal control officer after you have admitted to having a rabid dog.