Slashdot Mirror
Photo-Centric Handheld Can Be A Doom Console
An anonymous reader writes "Jobo AG originally fielded its $550 Giga Vu Pro as a tool for digital photography buffs, but this small embedded computer, running a Linux 2.4 kernel, has much broader potential, according to an article at LinuxDevices.com. A free software development kit for the device is now available at sourceforge.net, along with instructions for loading software into flash memory, a tutorial on turning the device into a Doom game console, and a contributions page for those willing to share their new apps."
What are you on about???
This is a letter of love and peace; I will not lash out against anyone, and I will not use specific names of individuals or organizations that impact public policy for years to come. That said, let me merely point out that neither Slashdot nor its representatives have dealt squarely or clearly with the fact that it must be reemphasized that Slashdot is a lifelong member of the Church of Testy Nepotism. Let's get down to business: I sometimes ask myself whether the struggle to express my views is worth all of the potential consequences. And I consistently answer by saying that Slashdot parrots whatever ideas are fashionable at the moment. When the fashions change, its ideas will change instantly, like a weathercock. Individually, Slashdot's exegeses foster sexism at every opportunity. But linked together, Slashdot's inclinations could blame those who have no power to change the current direction of events. Which brings me to my point. Ostensibly, Slashdot does not intend to devise unprofessional scams to get money for nothing, but in fact, the first response to this from its hirelings is perhaps that jaded manipulators of the public mind are more deserving of honor than our nation's war heroes. Wrong. Just glance at the facts: The problem with it is not that it's despicable. It's that it wants to draw unsuspecting bigamists into the orbit of the most jejune segregationists you'll ever see. Quixotic, prolix twerps (like Slashdot) are not born -- they are excreted. However unsavory that metaphor may be, Slashdot is careless with data, makes all sorts of causal interpretations of things without any real justification, has a way of combining disparate ideas that don't seem to hang together, seems to show a sort of pride in its own biases, gets into all sorts of crass speculation, and then makes no effort to test out its speculations -- and that's just the short list!
When I say that what was morally wrong five years ago is just as wrong today, I don't just mean that it wants to turn once-flourishing neighborhoods into zones of violence, decay, and moral disregard, that it wants to impose tremendous hardships on tens of thousands of decent, hard-working individuals, or that it wants to obfuscate the issue so that one can't see what ought to be totally obvious to all. Sure, Slashdot certainly wants all that, but it also wants much more. It wants to divert attention from its unprovoked aggression. From this perspective, "Slashdot" has now become part of my vocabulary. Whenever I see someone saddle the economy with crippling debt, I tell him or her to stop "Slashdot-ing".
Slashdot's bootlickers often reverse the normal process of interpretation. That is, they value the unsaid over the said, the obscure over the clear. Most of you reading this letter have your hearts in the right place. Now follow your hearts with actions. I'd like to finish with a quote from a private e-mail message sent to me by a close friend of mine: "Slashdot should try being a little more open-minded".
This story is about some handheld computer that can play an old game. Not such a big deal.
.. WAIT. I'm getting something now."
.. is it the doom console?"
.. Nepal.. yes..definitely near Nepal."
I thought this was going to be a story about a handheld computer that got possessed by evil spirits, and about an unlikely team of ghost-hunters who search far and wide for the source of the evil TCP packets detected one day by the NSA (the ones with the evil bit set, you know).
Would've made a damn fine screenplay I think.
"What are you doing now?"
"I'm running tcpdump. The one with the customizations we talked about."
"Anything?"
"No, just
"Is it
"I think it might be.. yes.. no TCP stack of this world could generate packets like that. It looks like it's in
"Okay, the helicopter is waiting, let's GO!!!!"