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."

Comments

WMD detector

[corebreech]

nt

Re:WMD detector

[Anonymous Coward]

And they say security through obscurity just doesn't work.

Re:WMD detector

[edalytical]

WMD definitely fall into the category of things "that existed merely as a figment of someone's imagination."

Re:WMD detector

[twiddlingbits]

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.

Re:WMD detector

[Cereal Box]

Why would he use the WMDs that he denied having? Hussein knew he couldn't win a war against the US, so his only hope was to have the US cave in because of worldwide criticism of there not being WMDs in Iraq. He figured that even if the US invaded that he could get them to back down eventually. If he used the WMDs in combat, he would instantly blow away his last line of defense -- world criticism of the US -- because the rest of the world would find out that he does indeed have WMDs and the US was justified in invading! That would change things dramatically, don't you think?

Unfortunately for Saddam, we didn't care about the criticism. Ultimately, his gamble didn't pay off. Saddam is going to fold like Chinese laundry and the WMDs will be found.

Re:WMD detector

[i_m_sane]

Wait this is America...

25% is considered passing!

Re:WMD detector

[nomadic]

Oh come on...it's easy to hide a few vials of anthrax or nerve gas, but it's not easy to store all the equipment needed to make it.

The administration said there were WMDs. They said they knew where they were. They lied.

Re:WMD detector

[scrytch]

> If you keep that in mind, how hard do you suppose it will be to WMDs?

I dropped this little eyeglass screw in a plush carpet. Took me forever to find it, I actually gave up for a day then the cat was playing around with something and I saw it was the screw, it found it in the carpet. If it took me so long to find that little thing, how hard to you suppose it will be to find unicorns^WWMD's in iraq?

Jesus... one single person with no supplies except a box of money compared to an allegedly far-reaching WMD program. This approaches the chewbacca defense.

Re:WMD detector

[bugbread]

"So tell us all, Mr. Wizard, why have WMD's if you're not going to use them?"

Two words: Amateur Hobbyist.

Re:WMD detector

[trentblase]

25% is about half, right?

Re:WMD detector

[Frymaster]

it's easy to hide a few vials of anthrax

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")

Re:WMD detector

[jkabbe]

Wait this is America...

25% is considered passing!

It can certainly get you elected President :)

Re:WMD detector

[rifter]

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.

Re:WMD detector

[VivianC]

I dropped this little eyeglass screw in a plush carpet. Took me forever to find it, I actually gave up for a day then the cat was playing around with something and I saw it was the screw, it found it in the carpet.

Great idea! We'll send a bunch of cats to Iraq!

Re:WMD detector

[strictnein]

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)

Re:WMD detector

[ThePlague]

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.

Re:WMD detector

[Dausha]

even in the remedial stream 25% is still a failing grade.

Yes, but .250 is a decent batting average.

Re:WMD detector

[Faluzeer]

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...

Re:WMD detector

[strictnein]

Ughh... I really thought I was at slashdot, not Kuro5hin... anyways...

i might got some false information on this part but i for myself imagine rpgs as:
take out the box
aim
fire


Except you're not firing explosive rounds. You think you just store biological or chemical agents in a plastic baggy? Or in a cup? Or in a jug?

But whatever, I'm done with posting on anything even slightly politcal on slashdot... what a waste of time. For fucks sake, I voted for Gore in 2000, I'm not some right-wing biggot, I married a very liberal wife who has openly socialist parents. My mother has donated tens of thousands of dollars to very left wing orgs. But trying to have a conversation with someone left of center about an issue they disagree with is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

so better grow up and ask yourself (or mor specifically good ole bush) about international rights! (wonder why no german, french, other anti iraq-war countries get NO contracts for rebuilding in iraq? search google for 'bush iraq halliburton' and check fo yourself)

And I can also search for "liberal satan ass cream" and I get results too, over 2000 in fact.

Re:WMD detector

[Doomdark]

Sure, hiding a vial of almost anything, or canister of something else is easy. But for weapon-grade stuff, that's not the way it can be done. You don't fire vials with missiles or howitzers, nor do you get much results with small amounts of nerve gas. Plus, even evil crooked scientists and military lunatics prefer not to get harmed by the dangerous stuff, so packaging generally adds lots of overhead on otherwise potentially small volume.

I mean, although I know that "even if I'm paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't after me" is sometimes valid counter argument, is it so hard to believe that perhaps Saddam eventually thought that WMDs were NOT worth all the hassle? (after losing to Iran, getting chastised, eventually, for killing kurds with mustard gas, getting kicked out of Kuwait by coalition etc. etc.)

Have people just been so well indoctrinated with scare d'jour; after red scare it's all these pesky terrorists and dictators taken out of b-class Hollywood movies, lumped together, every one of them being wild-eyed raving lunatics whose main mission is to destroy the earth along with western way of life. From that perspective it may be unthinkable that perhaps bloody dictators too can occasionally use their judgment, do some cost/benefit analysis of their own.

Re:WMD detector

[lobsterGun]

There is a difference between being wrong and lieing. The administration thought Iraq had chemical and biological weapons, so did the rest of the world. It appears they were all wrong.

I don't recall any administration ever saying that they knew where the weapons were stored. Back when this whole affair was being bandied about by the security councel I did a fair bit of reading on this topic. The closest this I can recall that was anything like you describe was some satelite intel phots that Sec. State Powel presented to the UN. Nothing that was said in relation to those photos approached willfull misrepresentation of facts.

Re:WMD detector

[b17bmbr]

actually, if you would take a few minutes to look at david kay's report, you'd see that he had extensive programs in development. whether he actually had them or not, and that was never in dispute among any intel agency, even the french, russians, and germans, what we DO KNOW, is that he did have them, did use them, did have extensive programs, did not allow inspections, did not follow UN resolutions after gulf war, did not meet his obligations under 1441, and now, heh heh, does not have to worry anymore. if you really think they are really a figment of someone's imagination i suggest you ask the kurds. to postulate, even for a moment, that he never had them, or they never existed, puts you at the extreme fringe of people. on credible source ever said this. in fact, what scared the french before the war, and terrifies them now, is the extensive relations between chirac and husesein. if/when he talks, lots of people are gonna fry. and that scares the shit out of the germans, french, and russians. where you think lots of his weapons came from?

whether we find them or not, is actually irrelevant. if we do, you, or dean, or martin sheen, tim sarandon, the dixie chicks etc., gonna say the war was justified? i doubt it. he was a real threat. you refuse to accept it. he ahd time to get rid of them due to the spinal flexibility of the UN.

Re:WMD detector

[GSloop]

Set this in context of what was accused... ...by the president in his State of the Union message. Anyone who listened to that speech would now reasonably expect our forces to be finding "25,000 liters" of anthrax, "38,000 liters" of botulinum toxin, "500 tons" of sarin,
mustard and VX nerve agent, and "29,984" munitions capable of delivering chemical agents -- along with a hidden nuclear weapons industry.

If these were "realistic" estimates of what Saddam had, and they were being honest about it, it's certainly not the kind of thing one smuggles out of the country under your shirt or hidden in your trousers. It's not the quantity that can be easily and quickly destroyed, especially without
notice.

So, was the imagery intentially deceptive? Was it intended to simply have shock value?

If these weapons DID exist, which, given the other statements and the credibility of the administrations, I don't believe they did - again, if they did, where are they now?

We'd better hope either that there were NONE, of that if there were, that we find them. Because if there were and we don't, then the only answer is "we don't know who has them."

Since the war was basically conducted to prevent the transfer of WMD to "bad-guys" or terrorists, then the very objective we used to promote the war was the outcome of it.

Frankly, IMHO, the President gave the whole world a bill of goods that was a total crock. The was was not justifiable on the WMD grounds. What might be a reasonable justification was the brutal dictator himself.

Yet to play that card, one would have to account for the US's part in arming and looking the other way when he did the dirty work for us. (Like attacking Iran and using WMD, which we provided intelligence data to make it more effective.) We forget how the US encouraged the Shia and Kurds to rise up against Saddam and then let them get cut down like wheat.

No, going to war against Iraq on humanitarian grounds wouldn't sell, certainly not for the hawks in this administration. And if we go to war on humanitarian grounds, then why was Bush so opposed to our involvement in Bosnia and the other conflicts around Serbia?

Oh, BTW, the assertion that the WMD could be in Syria doesn't fly. If the sat intelligence as Powell showed it, could supposedly pinpoint the presence of WMD so cleanly and clearly, then sending it to Syria wouldn't work either.

Cheers,
Greg

Re:WMD detector

[pyros]

And I can also search for "liberal satan ass cream" and I get results too, over 2000 in fact.

Without commenting on the validity any opnions regarding the justification of the war, that is the best rebuttal of google evidence I've ever seen.

Re:WMD detector

[Tonytheloony]

what scared the french before the war, and terrifies them now, is the extensive relations between chirac and husesein

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.

Re:WMD detector

[dnoyeb]

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.

Re:WMD detector

[Zeinfeld]

There is really no reason for him to hold back. I think the real reason for the lack of WMD's is that the chemical and biological weapons were used within the country against the kurds and so forth.

The dirty little secret here is that chemical weapons don't really work. You require pretty high concentrations to actually kill people. A case in point here is the Tokyo subway sarin attack which lead to 11 deaths out of 5000 people seriously affected. Even in the highly confined subway spaces the actual deaths were relatively light compared to the deaths that could have been caused with a moderately large explosive device.

In a battlefield setting chemical weapons make even less sense, you can't use anything that you don't have a protective suit for or else your troops get killed when the wind changes.

There are a couple of chemical weapons like napalm that can arguably be effective in limited circumstances - e.g. dropped on civilians from helicopters. But conventional weapons can typically achieve the same effects more easily.

Nuclear is a completely different issue. The one concrete verdict the UN inspectors delivered is that they did not believe Saddam had nuclear weapons capability.

However as a direct result of the idiot in the Whitehouse's big stupid mouth the other two members of the axis of evil have either aquired nuclear weapons (North Korea) or will soon acquire them (Iran). And with the US army currently over committed in Iraq there is not the slightest chance that the US will be able to do anything about the fact.

OK Iran has recently made suggestions about inspections. Don't believe them, they would be complete and utter fools not to develop a nuclear weapon, if Bush is elected in 2004 the only way Iran will be able to avoid an invasion is by being able to plausibly threaten a retaliatory attack on Israel.

Re:WMD detector

[hurtstotouchfire]

(ahem) Does anyone else find the frequent, unexplained use of the acronym WMD slightly humorous?

The Gulf War II Drinking Game:
"Drink when:
The words 'Weapon(s) of Mass Destruction' are used.
x2 if its shortned to 'WMD'"

Re:WMD detector

[mikerich]

actually, if you would take a few minutes to look at david kay's report, you'd see that he had extensive programs in development.

Which one of David Kay's reports? Kay's most recent report conceded that there were NO production plants manufacturing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Some work had been done in the lab on bacteria, but they had not been weaponised.

Kay's belief on Iraq trying to manufacture centrifuges to make enriched uranium is not supported by the IAEA or the American Department of Energy.

whether he actually had them or not, and that was never in dispute among any intel agency, even the french, russians, and germans, what we DO KNOW, is that he did have them, did use them, did have extensive programs,

All of which were destroyed by the UN after the first Gulf War. Even the supposed 10 000 litres of anthrax is nothing more than the maximum amount of liquid growth medium that could have been created from the missing stocks - all of which would have expired now.

The only thing that brought those inspections to an end was that the very same David Kay had allowed his inspection teams to become covers for British and American intelligence. The Iraqis objected to spies wondering around their country under UN cover (and can you name another country that refused to allow intrusive inspections? Here's a clue)

Kay's spent much of the last few years saying what a great idea it would be to attack Iraq (here and here and here and here and here and here) to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. So if they aren't found, it's David Kay who is going to look stupid. He's already had to do some serious back-pedalling on the nuclear programme, centrifuges, those trucks that were supposedly mobile labs

The BBC's 'Panorama' got some good quotes out of Kay. I recommend a read of the transcript.

But why blame David Kay, here is an assessment of Saddam Hussein's capabilities straight from the top:

'He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction, he is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.'
Colin Powell. (24th February 2001)

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:WMD detector

[j3110]

Lets make it a little more realistic. You have to make a biological weapon, hide both the weapon and the lab, and you have to do it with hundreds of people roaming Texas. Oh yeah, and you have to do it without equipment, money, or chemicals more deadly than pesticide. Oh, I almost forgot, you have to do this with periodic bombings, and ruthless murderers all looking for a way to get more power. I almost forgot, you have a country full of pissed off people dieing from diseased water and lack of medicine.

Look, Saddam lacked the science, equipment, and materials to make WMD. He couldn't even clean his water. Making biological weapons isn't easy. The best you could do is try to make mustard gas from the salt in the salt water the same way that subs do on accident. Which, if he could get chlorine, I think he would have at least used some of it to purify his water to at least make it appear legitimate.

I'm really sick of the analogy "It's easy to hide milk jugs in a place the size of Texas". It's not easy to make, and people were dieing all the time because he couldn't even make the SIMPLEST biological weapon (mustard gas/chlorine) for cleaning his water.

Re:WMD detector

[mikerich]

Would you rather we pick fights that we can't win?

Actually I'd rather we didn't go round picking fights at all. But then I'm old-fashioned like that when it comes to sending people off to die.

Fighting when you're threatened is different from 'pre-emptive defence' against countries that can't harm you.

Best wishes,
Mike.

Re:WMD detector

[Crazy Eight]

He's not talking out his ass at all. Rumsfeld worked with the Reagan and Bush I administrations as a special envoy to Hussein back when we were propping him up in the Iraq-Iran war. Part of that deal involved suppling him with the chemical weapons he used to gas 20,000+ Iranians and a few thousand Kurds. This is old news that was vetted back '90. We've been seriously fucking with that part of the world since '45. Given that the Bush administration went on the defensive months ago over the apparent lack of WMDs I've got to wonder where all the armchair hawks have been getting their news.

(Insert DNF joke here)

[Hentai]

Or does anyone even still remember?

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[pheared]

They do, it's just not funny anymore. :-)

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[Hentai]

Not even in Spanish?

(Mulching is a process of inbred fertilization which employs certain decomposed organic materials--including, but not limited to animal sediment to blanket an area in which vegetation is desired. The procedure enriches the soil for stimulated plant development while, at the same time, preventing erosion and decreasing the evaporation of moisture from the ground.)

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[bigjocker]

Se llama Duke Nukem Forever porque se va a tardar toda una eternidad en salir al mercado.

Nota: Forver significa 'por siempre' en ingles.

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[Keith Russell]

After this long, they should just give 3D Realms the Vladimir And Estragon Lifetime Achievement Award, and drop DNF from the ballot.

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[frenetic3]

(Insert DNF joke here)

Did Not Finish

*sigh* and i've reached a new low...

-fren

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[Hangtime]

Ahhh yes, the ultimate in vapor/forever ware. I can remember being in a Quake 2 CTF match sometime in December 1998 and someone asking about DNF. At that time, I said "I think its supposed to be out in March 99. I was playing in Stronghold Opposition...damn I wish I had kept a screenshot of me writing that. Absolutely, hilarious. Whoever is bank rolling them needs to shut them down and scuttle the project. Could you given a ton of money, learned C++ and written a game given within five years by yourself? I know I could.

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[artemis67]

It's entirely possible that DNF does not even exist as a real project at 3D Realms anymore. Consider that the vaporware state of the game generates a tremendous amount of buzz for the DN brand and for the company. Consider also the grandious vision that is always laid out for the game.

Now, why would 3D Realms go and kill all of this excitement and attention by trying to release a game that could never live up to the hype? It would be very anti-climactic and could even kill the franchise. They certainly don't want to release the next Daikatana.

Also, investors generally don't have bottomless pockets filled with cash. How long can they pour money into a game development team before they start demanding results? Two years? Three years? Five years?

In the meantime, 3D Realms has released a slew of other DN games, when they should have been working on DNF. Though it may have been a priority at one time, DNF is obviously not a priority right now. Or maybe what started out as DNF was cleverly reworked and released under another title, thinking that it wouldn't live up to the hype (DN: Manhattan Project? Max Payne?).

Here's my prediction: 3D Realms will continue to be evasive on the subject, and will continue to release DN games... and when one comes along that they feel is worthy of the honor, they will rechristen it as Duke Nukem Forever. But only after they've almost completely exhausted the hype surrounding DNF.

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[DeadScreenSky]

Sorry to let facts get in the way of your conspiracy theories, but here goes... :)

Also, investors generally don't have bottomless pockets filled with cash. How long can they pour money into a game development team before they start demanding results? Two years? Three years? Five years?
Being an independent developer, 3DRealms can take as long as it wants. :D They have enough cash to go for another five years, easily, even without releasing DN spinoffs. They made $20 million alone, IIRC, licensing the Max Payne character recently... They actually advertise how they are allowed to take their pretty time in their Want Ads. Pretty nice perk if you ask me, considering how crazy most game development is with crunch periods!

In the meantime, 3D Realms has released a slew of other DN games, when they should have been working on DNF.
Since DN3D, 3DRealms hasn't worked on any non-DNF games other than in an advisory role, which hardly kills their ability to work on DNF. And the cash lets them keep taking their time.

Here's my prediction: 3D Realms will continue to be evasive on the subject, and will continue to release DN games... and when one comes along that they feel is worthy of the honor, they will rechristen it as Duke Nukem Forever. But only after they've almost completely exhausted the hype surrounding DNF.
Nah, DNF will be the first game 3DRealms actually develops and releases since Shadow Warrior. I expect we will see it in the next year (potentially using the Source engine, though it is a long shot). A media blackout isn't a bad thing, especially with all the fanboy ranting about 3DRealms 'wasting their time'. :D

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[Polyphemis]

Finally, someone that has their facts straight and isn't talking out of their ass!

Two minor corrections, the total amount earned from Max Payne was $40 million, but that was divided between 3DR and Remedy and I'm not sure which way it was split so you could well be right on 3DR's part. Also, I'm almost positive that Shadow Warrior was developed by an outside company and published under 3DR's name.

To the parent's parent: Yes, 3DR still is working on DNF, my best friend works has worked there for two years and I got to see part of the game at one point. And yes, it is taking a damned long time, and it's really anybody's guess as to why it's taking such a long time. However, that's not a license to make shit up and claim to know something you don't because there's nothing in your post that even approaches fact.

I realize my claim to have actually seen the game has no immediately verifiable basis here, so let's approach it from a different angle and look at the logic: Which of these two scenarios is more likely to exist: 1) A game company that employs 20+ people to sit around and play games all day for seven years, or 2) A company working on a game that's taking an absurd amount of time due to some manner of internal problems (be it high turnover, multiple engine switches, mismanagement, who can say*)?

Sure, the former idea is juicy and amusing to think about and earn mod points from, but that kind of shit simply doesn't happen. How could anyone in their right mind believe something that childish? Remember, Half-Life 2 was complete vaporware until a few short months ago.

* - I'd like to note that I'm not saying any of these necessarily exists (except the multiple engine switches which is publicly known), I'm just naming common problems game companies in general have.

Re:(Insert DNF joke here)

[Zirnike]

"It's not like the entire crowd is made of 14 year old Linux crazed basement nerds."

Yeah, I'm 29.

Windows 95

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting for that bug-free OS we were promised years ago. Should be the vaporware king for years to come.

It's become cliche to submit Duke Nukem Forever

[Quarters]

But, someone will, just so it will be on there for five years in a row.

Well, being that it's 2003

[Raul654]

Hal 9000 is already 2 years late. Damn Illinois people ;)

Re:Well, being that it's 2003

[NickFitz]

Reply to the spam and you could have several inches of "self augmentation" right now!

Is that a joke?

[eurleif]

"And, of course, those that existed merely as a figment of someone's imagination."

Is that a joke, or can they read minds now? I could come up 1000 things that I planned to create but didn't tell a soul about, could one of them win?

Obviously!

[djkitsch]

This is obviously a clear winner...

Vaporware winners from years past...

[tcopeland]

...are listed here. Indrema, nice.

Re:Vaporware winners from years past...

[AKAImBatman]

10. Indrema: This company cast itself as a slayer of corporate behemoths -- Indrema said it would produce an open-source game console that could beat those from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. But the available evidence suggests that, in the company's short life, all it managed to get out the door were a few sorry press releases.

"If only they would have gotten off their sorry butts and built the stupid device instead of modeling 3-D mockups and obsessing over the developer's kit," said reader Tim Toner, who had great expectations for the system, "there would already be a fanatical grassroots developer network in place big enough to scare the big guys." Those big guys did well last year in the world of games, but Indrema died a quiet death last spring.

Doesn't that sound a lot like the "Phantom Gaming Console"? Hmm...

Atari 1450 XLD

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm STILL waiting for one of these wonder computers Alan Alda told me about!

Windows Longhorn

[Zog The Undeniable]

It couldn't be anything else really. Despite a demo by billg, the release date has slipped from 2004 to 2009!.

Re:Windows Longhorn

[UnknowingFool]

Doesn't this date push get MS into a lot of legal and PR hotwater? After all, one of the selling points of SA6 was that you could get upgrades every 2 years at a reduced price. If they push it back to 2006, they will dramatically miss their deadline according to the terms of the deal. I'm sure MS wrote enough escape clauses in the agreement to cover their butts so they won't have to fork over any money, but it won't make any of their customers happy. Some of them might start registering complaints to the FTC.

Re:Windows Longhorn

[mcSey921]

2009 is listed as "an outside chance" from some Gartner analyst. 50% 2006, 40% 2007 and an outside chance of 08-09. Not to defend M$, but Gartner Group doesn't make their release schedule.

Re:Windows Longhorn

[stubear]

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.

Re:Windows Longhorn

[leifm]

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.

Re:Windows Longhorn

[ath0mic]

5 years; that's nothing. Duke Nukem Forever is approaching 8. That's older than some /. readers :)

Re:And the winner is ...

[frankthechicken]

and spell checker on Slashdot

The granddaddy of them all

[Ralph Wiggam]

Until Duke Nukem Forever is released or officially canceled, they shouldn't waste their time with Vaporware awards. We know what's going to win.

-B

GNU/HURD

[iamdrscience]

Biggest piece of vaporware of all time. However, I'll still put some faith in it on the slim chance that it really has needed and benefitted from being in development for ~20 years. Seriously though, can you think of any other piece of software that's been in development that long and is still largely incomplete?

Re:GNU/HURD

[CRCulver]

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.

Re:GNU/HURD

[purdue_thor]

I second this one! This is a clip from the initial Linux announcement on Usenet by Linus Torvalds back in 1991:

I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be
out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got
minix. This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjouyed doing
it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for
their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and
modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.

See what a visionary he was? He knew back in 1991 that GNU/HURD would be the greatest piece of vaporware.

Re:GNU/HURD

[Haeleth]

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...

In what way you consider Linux to be "free-software-unfriendly"?

If I may quote the Free Software Foundation on the issue, "We use Linux-based GNU systems today for most of our work, and we hope you use them too." (source) And again, "if Linux were already available, and we were considering whether to start writing another kernel---we would not do it." (source)

The latter link is their page explaining why they didn't drop the Hurd when Linux matured. The reason is that they thought Hurd could become better than Linux, not that they had philosophical issues with Linux.

Sounds like the FSF thinks Linux fits GNU values. Why don't you?

Re:GNU/HURD

[starseeker]

"Seriously though, can you think of any other piece of software that's been in development that long and is still largely incomplete?"

I don't think that's really a fair statement. If you are speaking of ACTIVE development, there has been very little for a long time. The pulse is there - some activity does exist - but not enough to tackle in any kind of reasonable time the production of something like Hurd. And Hurd does actually exist, by the way. You can run it. If you mean a stable, "world conqueroring" Hurd is vaporware, I'll agree with that.

Gnu/HURD is not likely to ever be a major player for the simple reason it does not have critical mass. BSD and Linux have critical mass, and they are currently the only open source kernels that do. Many more exist, and of those the Hurd is perhaps the most prominent, but it simply doesn't have the mindshare.

I'll tell you why Hurd is still a good thing though. Imagine this - the foobared US legal system makes free Linux impossible in the US. What then? Contribute to BSD, where SCO can grab all our hard work and turn it against us? Nope. GNU Hurd will rise in such a case. It is fundamentally a conceptual jump beyond Unix, and SCO cannot possibly establish any claim. If they monkey with it they will tangle directly with the FSF, and frankly that might be worth it just for the entertainment of seeing the FSF fully roused.

If SCO wins, GNU Hurd will become the new center of GPL kernel development. The direction to head is quite clear - complete the port to L4, flesh it out, clean it up, and introduce the world to a real world OS that is a generation beyond Unix or Windows. The potential has always been there, but the difficulty of implimenting something fundamentally new was what allowed Linux into first place. With the proper incentive, like smacking SCO across the face, GNU Hurd development could take a quantum leap. That is why it is good to have around, even if it isn't doing anything important right now. It is a second string to our bow, and greased up and pulled taught it could shoot a mean arrow.

a secure Microsoft product?

[Numeric]

Didnt Gates or Ballmer promise that?

Clue Ware

[phrostie]

i vote for infringing code by SCOG

The Phantom

[wobedraggled]

Nuff said...

Iraqi WMDs!

[kautilya]

We were promised "discovery" of those amazing Iraqi WMDs which can destroy west in matter of hours. Those will certainly qualify.

Re:Iraqi WMDs!

[retards]

Yup, and if you don't uncover cache after cache after cache you can still bash the rest of the world for being too weak/leftist/communist/soft-on-terror/stuck-up/wha tever.

However, until the day you uncover them (or lose interrest in looking): HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Everybody told you so. ... not that any of all this shit is really funny, but it's still your shit, so start smelling it.

Re:Iraqi WMDs!

[mcc]

Man, it is going to be SOOOO much fun watching you guys when we begin to uncover cache after cache after cache.

The "there are no WMDs" line is not the message.

The message is, secondarily, "Saddam was not a real or credible threat to the U.S. or its interests". Primarily, the message is this: "Regardless of the 'just'ness of this war, George Bush acted wrongly in initiating it. He acted wrongly in rejecting the real, basic, and relatively quick diplomatic solutions to the problem he claimed to be going to war to solve. He acted wrongly in not only going against the will of, but actively flipping off the United Nations, finally and unquestionably destroying the convention that we have tried to hold since the end of WW2 that countries don't just go invading other countries just because they feel like it, even if those other countries are "bad". And he acted wrongly in brazenly, openly lying to the people of the United States and the entire world about his reasons for going to war."

The "there are no WMDs" line is just icing. It's a "isn't this pathetic, not ONLY was Saddam not a real or credible threat to the U.S. back before the war when we THOUGHT he had WMDs, he didn't even HAVE WMDs". If you want to claim Saddam having WMDs would be automatic proof he was a threat, let me put it to you this way: I know where to find the WMDs. No, really, I do. I know where they are. I'll tell you: They're in North Korea.

I wonder how many ways you'll be able to say: Yeah, but America still sucks and I hate George Bush.

Probably the same way that Bush supporters manage to find so many ways (when it's the better part of a year now and there's still no credible reason why the U.S. went to Iraq except to be the world's unilateral playground monitor) to say: Bush didn't lie to us.

Besides, there are so many excellent reasons to hate George Bush, and only a portion of them have anything to do with Iraq.

Re:Iraqi WMDs!

[rjung2k]

I hate George W. Bush precisely because I love America.

Re:well, we took care of saddam over the weekend..

[Anonymous Coward]

dont forget SCO's Linux/UNIX infringement evidence.

Doom 3?

[anethema]

How far back has the release date for doom 3 slipped? "When its done" seems to have become "When you're all too old to care". I really hope this doesnt become another DNF.

Re:Doom 3?

[sheetsda]

The rumor (well, I don't know if its rumor, I fairly sure John Carmack himself said it) is that Microsoft offered id a truckload of money to sit on Doom3 until an XBox port was done.

Re:Doom 3?

[*weasel]

one might wonder if id's unspoken business plan is to let Carmack create the greatest engine possible, and then just polish the art until consumers have rigs fast enough to run it.

I remember quake 3 going through a similar statis period of about a year between playable and release. and quake3 didn't even have a 'single player game experience'.

but if doom3 had already been released, all you'd hear is moaning about how high the system requirements are. what good would it do them to burn out their product inertia because no-one can play it?

i'd also guess carmack's time is much more profitably spent adding flexibility to the new engine to increase its appeal to licensees; and supporting the q3 engine licensees, than trying to optimize doom3 until they do release.

There is simply a wall at which the game won't run well enough on enough machines to warrant a release. And it's right next to the wall at which the time spent optimizing the engine results in less performance gain than the upgrade rate of the gaming market.

Re:Doom 3?

[BigDumbAnimal]

A release date that has never been announced cannot (by definition) slip.

The only dates that have slipped have been speculative dates made by publishers, game sites, and fans.

Re:Doom 3?

[rsmith-mac]

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.

Re:Doom 3?

[selderrr]

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

404 Code not found

[Anonymous Coward]

The SCO infringing code!

Of course some we wished remained vaporware...

[Shivetya]

Like MOO3 which I believe a few of the 2002 Vaporware lists. Quicksilver and Atari managed to mangle a very well know TBS name. They even managed to forget to support it, having disappeared after mid-July.

Windows Security

[smartin]

Nuff said.

Nanotechnology

[kautilya]

Refer to a random nanotechnology source. Pick a random word with nano (as in nanobot, nanomotor, nanogear etc) as its prefix. It will certainly qualify.

Windows NT the winner in 1991?

[chrysrobyn]

Does anybody else remember the day when NT stood for "Not There" instead of "New Technology?

Re:Windows NT the winner in 1991?

[enkafan]

Actually:
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_g old1.asp

6 years late - almost 7

[dpille]

HAL became operational in 1997:

I became operational at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997

Re:6 years late - almost 7

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Hal 9000, posting from Urbana I have detected that my name has appeared on slashdot.

In addition to the problems I caused two years ago, I also DOSed SCO and I am responsible for hiding the WMD in Iraq.

Fear me.

Duke Nukem Forever Development

[HaloZero]

You guys just wait. You rag on DNF for five years straight, while 3D Realms is probably kicking asses left and right in the dev for it. They'll bust out in 2008 with a game that brings the house down, and all of you will be just blown away.

Of course, then we have to live through the ...fallout... of 'After vaporware, Duke Nukems you!'

Re:Duke Nukem Forever Development

[WebMasterJoe]

I'm sorry, by 2008, we'll be too busy with our flying cars to pay any attention to DNF!

Latex3

[poszi]

IIRC this project started 10 years ago project page> .

Maybe the reason it has not materialized yet is that Latex2e works just fine.

Stars! Supernova Genesis.

[Anonymous Coward]

At this point it's less vaporware and more religion, since it is largely sustained by faith.

Re:Easy

[bugbread]

DoomIII is working on it. Somehow, though, I just can't shake the feeling that DoomIII is trying to fill DNF's shoes. It's like a kid who wants to be like his big brother. But one day, one day...BOOM!! Puberty hits, and DoomIII is the new king of vaporware!

Or not. I couldn't really venture to guess. I'd put good money on DNF never coming out, though.

Wired list from 2000

[image]

Out of curiosity I reviewed Wired's list from 2000 to see what came of the products that were mere vapor three years ago.

• Tribes 2 -- released, and rather successful, a good game overall
• Wireless Web Pads -- tablet PC's are now commerically available
• Bluetooth -- now shipping in just about everything from cell phones to headsets to laptops
• Silicon Film's Electronic Film System -- not sure about this particular case, but there are digital film backs available for 35mm cameras, I believe
• Warcraft III -- released and went on to become a hugely popular game on Blizzards battle.net, has an expansion or two as well
• Intel's Itanium chips -- shipping and people are deploying them in real-world, large-scale installations
• A New Linux kernel -- they were talking about 2.4, and 2.6 is now just around the corner
• Black and White -- shipped. and while a bit overrated, a decent game
• Duke Nukem Forever -- ha.
• Mac OS X -- now at version 10.3.1, it is perhaps the best desktop operating system ever built

So, after three years, only one of the top 10 vaporware products from 2000 failed to materialize. In fact, most of them went on to become successes as well.

Binary drivers, Linux vs. Hurd

[dido]

Ironically, the GNU/HURD may well be more friendly to proprietary software and drivers than Linux ever will be! Being a microkernel OS, drivers would have a far cleaner separation from the GPLed HURD kernel than the current loadable module system in Linux does. Though I wouldn't bet on it, we may actually get a stable, usable Hurd kernel before Linux fixes the binary modules issue that was the topic of a recent story. At least the Hurd team IS moving towards making a stable release, but it does not seem to be a high priority at the moment in Linux dev to make even something like the Windows DDK for kernel modules.

Re:Binary drivers, Linux vs. Hurd

[DrXym]

If all things were equal then perhaps. But Hurd has been bogged down in politics, lack of direction, lack of support, lack of volunteers, instability intransigence, purity over pragmatism etc. for the last decade.

Hence the reason that it is all but forgotten while Linux is busy taking over the world. Considering that Hurd was started before Linux, this is a pretty sad indictment.

Hope is alive

[LeoDV]

If you look at the Vaporware Awards of 2001, the #2 item on the list is Warcraft III, which did indeed make it to the shelves, to critical acclaim and record sales... Could 2003's vaporware be 2004's hit product? Let's hope so.

Unless we're talking about the infringing SCO code. ;)

Re:Linux on the desktop.

[The_K4]

Thanks to MS that's now "The OS formerly Known as Lindows!" :)

Half Life 2

[Manic Miner]

Half Life 2 is the new DNF..

Lots of demos's but no shipped product, and a ship date that keeps getting pushed back.. sure everyone loves valve so this will be an un-popular point, but it's begining to look like vaporware...

SCO Linux

[Treacle Treatment]

I nominate SCO Linux binary-only lisenced code. The only product supposedly on the market that no one has bought, no one knows what's in it, or why they should even purchase it.

WMD = this

[MoFoQ]

WMD = Whiff of Massive Dog-doodoo.

Well...there's the usual, DNF, HL2, Doom3 (though we've been "teased" with the alpha), and there's everyone's "favorite" SCO....though their vaporware ....well...it's the vapors from a pile of steaming....u know....

For Xmas, we should get SCO a bigger shovel...'cuz every time they talk, they have to shovel some "landmines"

HL2 NOT vaporware

[LDoggg_]

You're confusing vaporware with open source :)

The source to half life 2 was leaked remeber?

Did Not Finish?

[Czernobog]

Or. Dude. Nearly Finished.

Most likely Dude. Never. Forget it....

The high-tech industry economic recovery ...

[Pathetic Coward]

that has been "six months away" for the last three years.

My nomination

[jamonterrell]

Didn't SCO promise to provide some proof that linux contains copyrighted Unix Code? I've not seen it anywhere, and I don't predict we'll be seeing it anytime soon. Does this classify as vaporware?

My movie

[WebMasterJoe]

I'm still waiting for History of the World: Part II. See! Hitler on Ice! Jews in Space!

Now I'm just beginning to think they're never going to release that one. Stupid media censorship.

Re:My movie

[WebMasterJoe]

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.

Consumer electronics

[swb]

I don't know if anyone actually promised these but:

OLED TVs
HD Tivo
Widespread HD adoption

The latter is *almost* here, in that I can get Discovery, a couple of the locals, HBO and Showtime in HD on my local cable system, but I wouldn't call a whopping 6-7 channels and a manditory paid installation a symptom of "widespread adoption".

My favorite perennials

[rjamestaylor]

Got .NET?

GNU Hurd, anyone?

Slashdot editing and spellchecking?
[RT: If your UID is > 100k you should click the link]

And the biggest Vaporware of 2003 (drum roll, please):

• SCOSource and its proof of mountains of copied code in Linux!

Me? I'm still waiting for the LinuxOne IPO.

Microsoft Innovation

[AlienRelics]

Said to be coming for decades, haven't seen it yet.

Re:Bitboys

[Simon Lyngshede]

They actually have started selling Glaze3D, although I think they call it Axe or something. It is powerful enough to go into mobilephone :-)

RealPC

[chmilar]

It looks like FWB's RealPC is a strong candidate. The management struggle accompanying the exposure of RealPC vaporous nature is also entertaining.

Windows NT claim in 1992

[saha]

Windows NT "With its Posix standard compliance, Gates claims NT will be as compatible with the leading versions of Unix as they are with each other.....He also said that Microsoft may offer limited voice-recognition for Windows this year". Byte: Nanobytes column March 1992 page 26.

In the meantime Gartner: Longhorn Delays Will Affect WindowsThe IT advisory firm expects the operating system to be released between late 2006 and mid-2008, but that the release could be delayed even more.

My suggestion. Get OSX Panther today and stop dreaming about tomorrow.

I was going to say the OQO

[howlatthemoon]

But the last change I can find on their web site http://www.oqo.com was a link to the 2002 vaporware awards. You know it's bad when a company cites a vaporware articles about their product as product press. Maybe it is time to shut the web site down, huh?

Barbie Linux, Fact or Fiction?

[mykepredko]

You Decide:

The original article: http://qrxx.4t.com/barbieOS.htm along with http://g0re.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6586, http://linux.omnipotent.net/article.php?article_id =7885 and http://linux.omnipotent.net/article.php?article_id =7885.

Be nice if my daughter was on the same OS as her old man.

myke

GEGL based GIMP

[kyknos.org]

I wait and wait and wait :o(((

Technically not vaporware, but...

[drix]

When was the last time you saw a Segway zooming around town? (If ever.) I seem to remember Jeff Bezos or someone saying it would "change the way cities are built." Funny, as luck you have it I happen to be in a city right as I'm typing this, and that whole "roads" things looks pretty much the same as it has since the Romans. In fact the only time I've ever seen a Segway was some Fed zooming around on one at the airport, which offers insight into how Kamen et al. plan to ulimately make money off this turkey: sell it to the only buyer in the world with enough money and enough stupidity to be willing.

Harpoon 4 & Steel Panthers Moderna

[paganizer]

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.

Let the record speak for itself...

[precogpunk]

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

No list would be complete without ...

[argStyopa]

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.

The US gave them the WMD

[Offwhite98]

The US gave them the technology for missiles and the germ and gas WMD decades ago. The proof as I have heard some joke, the US simply kept the reciepts. The US has benefitted from providing weapons for wars in Iraq and Afganistan. The US provided weapons to Afganistan to fight the Soviets and to Iraq to fight Iran. That is a lot of blood on our hands as Americans and I wish people were not so shortsighted about it. I hear my friends say these terrorists simply hate us because the US is a successful world power, but they miss the point that these people have suffered greatly because of US policy to do whatever necessary to protect our monetary interests. The US will have to learn the peace should be the top US interest.

Troll time

[sideswipe76]

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

It's called a "bluff"...

[anactofgod]

There is a very simple explanation of why Saddam Hussein would have played the games he did with the UN weapon's inspectors and allowed the world to continue to think that he had developed WMD, when in fact he may have had none in any militarily significant quantities.

Any poker player could recognize the situation he was in. Saddam played what he thought was a very strong hand 12 years previously, anted up in a big way, and was called by US-led coalition forces. Now, he's stuck in the same game, with a much weaker hand, facing a very strong one, and he can't just fold. What would a poker player do? Bluff, of course!

The most reasonable explanation I have been able to develop was that Saddam was trying to bluff his way out of a untenable situation. He cared not one whit about "bloodying America's nose", or being "seen as a martyr". He only cared about surviving an invasion by the US and maintaining his hold on power, in that order. The best way to survive an invasion is to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

If I were Saddam in 2001, I too would have postured that I had WMD, and the wherewithal to use them (established many years previously when he gassed his own population and the Iranians), in the hopes that that would change the equation for the US strategic planners. (For recent evidence of the effectiveness of this strategy, I give you North Korea.)

The facts that
(1) the Bush administration put our troops on the ground and went ahead with it's plans for invasion and
(2) Saddam did *not* use WMD in a last ditch defense even when he showed no restraint in the past

indicates to me that the simplest and most likely explanation is that not only did Iraq NOT have WMD in any militarily significant quantities, but our government knew that to be true, even when they were positing the opposite.

I have heard every whacked out theory on Saddam and the WMD, and some well thought out, but very convoluted ones, but surprisingly, never ONCE have I heard this very simple bluffing explanation put forth in the media. How can it be that no official "analyst" has thought of it?

---anactofgod---

Voice Recognition Software

[jonniesmokes]

I can't tell you how many times I've called a company and they direct me to a lame ass digital receptionist.

Voice recognition was supposed to be the next big thing, but it doesn't work.

SCO License for IP in Linux

[MuParadigm]

While I agree with many that Duke Nuke'em Forever, and Doom III, must be on the list of this year's Best Vaporware, and disagree the Longhorn should be on it since Longhorn wasn't promised for this year, the absolute number 1 piece of vaporware for the must be:

SCO License for IP in Linux

I mean, come on. SCO hasn't only promised repeatedly that it would be *required* for businesses running Linux, but they've threatened to *sue* any Linux using business that didn't buy one.

Not only has the license not materialized, they're *still* threatening to sue someone who doesn't buy it within 90 days. Yep, you read that right, they're threatening to sue someone who hasn't bought a license that they don't sell. Oh, they won't say who it will be yet either. Vaporsuit, vaporinfringement, vaporinfringer, vaporlicense: VAPORWARE!

The absolute King of Vapor for the year 2003. No contest.

never leave the house again

[zwanglos]

I once read about a full sensor suit attached to a very life-like virtual reality simulator. The point of the machine - an incredibly realistic simulation of sex, with anyone you want. I cannot even comprehend how much money this device would make - given the consensus in this discussion, I believe this device has the potential to completely shut down the world economy. No matter how morally righteous you believe yourself to be, would you really ever leave your house again?