If my computer where taken by anyone I would want it to contain no information whatsoever, preferably having the people who took it have no access to the box what-so-ever. encrypted fs, encrypted bios, requiring one of those nice USB keychains to use as key to turn the thing on, why aren't there features like that in most bioses?
Encrypted fs Covered in linux bios pass protect in some bioses usb key as key ? system autodestruct? simple bash script?
Oh well, I always like the thought of giving a computer the following voise command: Computer, Initiate self-destruct
I miss my folder popping open... it really rocked. especially when draggin' and droppin' oh well... macosX kicks macos9's butt in all other areas (especially running *nix apps;-) ).
BZFlag: 3D Tank Shoot 'Em Up That Deserves Attention Part 1
Published by LinuxOrbit.com: April 4, 2002 by John Gowin, LinuxOrbit Editor-in-chief
Have you ever been walking down the street, minding your own business, and suddenly look down to find something you hadn't expected? It might be money, it might be a decoder ring, it could be anything. But the almost universal reaction is pleasurable.
"That's a nice surprise" you think as you stoop and pocket whatever good fortune has dropped in your path.
The same thing can happen in the strangest places. For example, a recent post on our message boards inquired
"What's your favorite flag in bzflag?".
Not being familiar with the game, I had to ask "What's bzflag?"
Little did I know that such an innocent inquiry would result in an almost indecent obsession with a very cool game.
What is BZFlag?
BZFlag is a 3D multi-player tank battle game. You can fight other tanks by yourself as a Rogue (some game servers don't support Rogues) or join a team based on your tank color (Red, Green, Blue, Purple). The object of course is to kill other tank opponents by shooting them, a fairly straightforward scenario for a first-person shoot 'em up type of game.
The "flag" in the title of BZFlag refers to the white flags found scattered across the battlefield in the game. To pick up a flag, you merely have to run over it with your tank. Each flag grants the owner of the flag special abilities within the game. That's where some of the strategy of game comes in. Certain flags bestow powerful gifts to the bearer while other flags are designed to specifically combat the bearer of another flag. Not all flags grant a bonus either. Some of the flags hamper a player for a fixed amount of time before they automatically are released. Because the flags are indistinguishable to all players, it is chance that determines whether you pick up a flag that will make you powerful or shackle you with a burden.
In order to excel at the game, it pays to know your flags. Here's a quick rundown of the flags available in the game, with a description of what they do, what they're best used for and what they're helpful against.
First the "good" flags:
High Speed Boosts your speed by 50%. Good for overall use. Can escape Guided Missiles if used to drive perpendicular to the missile path.
Quick Turn Boosts turn rate by 50%. Good for close combat but no major advantage for combating other flags.
Oscillation Overthruster Enables tank to go through buildings. You cannot back up in or into a building, nor can you shoot while sealed inside a building. You must be completely inside a building to be protected from normal shots. Vulnerable to Shockwave, Super Bullet and Steamroller in close quarters. Good for ambush attacks, but your tank always returns to ground level since you sink through any obstacle or building you jump on.
Rapid Fire Increases shot speed and decreases range and reload delay. Good flag for overall combat, no major bonus against other flags.
Machine Gun Increases shot speed and dramatically decreases range and reload delay. Good only for close combat. Real close.
Guided Missile Arguably the most coveted flag in the game, Guided Missile enables shots to guide themselves when locked on an opponent by right-clicking your mouse on an opponent in your view window. The missile can be re-targeted at any time during its flight (with the right mouse button). This allows the player some control over the missile's steering. Vulnerable to the Stealth flag since missiles can't be locked on.
Laser Gives your tank a laser cannon, with effectively infinite speed and range. Just point and shoot. Laser reload time is doubled from normal weapon. One downside is that you have a decent chance of killing yourself from extended reflections of the laser due to its infinite range. Great for long distance kills, but likely you will eventually become your own victim. Used carefully, very powerful. Good against Guided Missile thanks to its extended range.
Ricochet Causes shots to reflect off walls. Many servers have ricochet enable for the entire battlefield, so this flag does nothing on these types of servers. On non-ricochet servers, you can practice your billiards skills by shooting around corners off border walls.
Super Bullet Enables shots to go through buildings. Kills Oscillation Overthruster carriers inside of buildings as well as "zoned" Phantom Zone users. Great for unsuspecting opponents on the other side of a building or wall.
Stealth Tank becomes invisible on radar but is still visible out-the-window. Prevents Guided Missile from locking on the carrier of the flag. Great overall use, especially against opponents not facing you.
Cloaking Tank becomes invisible out-the-window but is still visible on radar. Good for hectic battle due to invisibility, but Guided Missile can still lock on you. Jumping while using this flag is more effective.
Invisible Bullet Radar of opponents can't see your shots, so it's an excellent flag for all around battle and for those not facing you.
Tiny Your tank becomes much smaller and harder to hit. Good for head to head battle due to reduced size.
Narrow With this flag, your tank becomes paper thin. It's very hard (but not impossible) to hit a "Narrow" tank from the front or back. However, the tank is as long as usual so hitting it from the side has normal difficulty. Good for head to head battle, but try not to jump while turning.
Shield Allows the bearer to absorb on hit from an opponent, but the hit ejects the flag immediately. Since the flag may not disappear when it ejects, you may want to wait around for it to fall to the ground so you can grab it again, but the shield flag flies for an extra long time (longer than the normal reload time).
Steamroller Possibly the least desirable of flags (other than Ricochet and Jump when server settings make them useless) this flag enables your to kill other tanks by driving over them. The downside is you rarely get close enough in normal game play.
Shock Wave Makes your tank shoot a shock wave in all directions rather than shells. Any tank caught in the wave is destroyed (including tanks on or in buildings). This is a good tactical flag against Guided Missile an Oscillation Overthruster users. The downside is the shock wave has a short range, so even an opponent without a flag has an advantage. Try not to jump with this flag either.
Phantom Zone Driving through a teleporter send the bearer of this flag to the Phantom Zone. A "zoned" tank cannot shoot, but can drive through buildings and cannot be destroyed except by a Super Bullet or a Shock Wave. Also fun to use to taunt or distract unseasoned opponents who might waste time firing at a "zoned" tank.
Genocide This is a dreaded flag in team play. When the bearer of Genocide kills any tank on another team, all members of that team are destroyed as well. A good way to rack up the points or kill a Guided Missile user by killing off the weakest member of his team. No battle advantage in head to head or Rogue competition.
Jumping This allows your tank to jump, but is useless on "jump" servers. Great for servers without jump enabled for all since high-ground can't be reached without jumping. Identify Displays the identity of the closest flag in the vicinity. This flag is good for finding a flag you want, but don't get too distracted "flag shopping". This flag offers no battle advantage.
Then there are the "bad" flags:
Colorblindness This makes all tanks appear black, both on radar and in your view screen. Be careful you don't shoot your teammates.
Obesity This flag causes your tank to become very large and easy to hit. Makes teleporters unusable due to enlargement.
Left Turn Only This prevents your tank from turning right. Only thing to do is drive in straight line or circle left until the flag times out.
Right Turn Only Same as left turn except the opposite direction.
Momentum This flag gives your tank a lot of inertia. Stopping and turning become exercises in physics. The overall effect is less response for all movements.
Blindness This blanks the main view screen, but your radar still works. It is effectively impossible to detect any tank with Stealth, but shooting a Stealth with Blindness is the stuff legends are made of.
Jamming Disables the radar but you can still see out your main view screen.
Wide Angle Ever wonder how a goldfish perceives its owner? This flag gives you some idea. The bearer sees the battlefield through a distorted fish eye lens in the main window.
this is a canned response posted to everything to do with AI/robotics, I suggest you people go and take a look at his account... its trolling and whoring at the same time...
-9 years ago would be 9 years in the future, you meant -9 years from now, which would be 9 years in the past.
Re:Grounds for divorce.
on
Spy v. Spy
·
· Score: 0
I (14) would be pissed if my parents did that to me. Them watching me post to slashdot while I should be studying for german exams.... not good. parents shouldn't spy on kids. ofcoursed I'm biased like hell and my posts generally aren't appreciated (karma=-1 at ~50 posts)
aren't these the guys that use 2.4ghz for military applications? I thought you couldn't use an 802.11 network there, and now you can use a cell-phone jammer... weird people..
its so GD simple, just capture the music/video/ etc. right of the lead!!! route it to your audio/video card and of you go! even better if you can use a digital IO with a "pirate" operating system that you can modify without permission *gasp* *choke*
isn't the US supposed to make all that intelligence availible to the public after 30 years? If so, is there a site where I can look at all that "gray" information? hell, not like the us follows its own laws anyways;-)
somehow I don't think nvidea would mind if you use its drivers in a new console and sell billions of them... for if you want to use the drivers you also need the card...
We tried and found that the background din of music, talking, and slamming weights was too much for VoiceNav. Once in a blue moon we got the track to shift, but not until speaking loud enough to draw the gaze of a few patrons who wondered why we were yelling at our MP3 player.
if they send the data to you to be viewed, what prevents you from linking the cable that connects the handhelds motherboard to its screen to your computer and watch whatever you are only supposed to see once 2 million times? its simple, simply have your computer record whatever is send out to the screen...
same as with copy protected CD's, just hook up the audio out of your cd player to your PC... its that simple!
actually the joke is as follows
on
Debian NetBSD
·
· Score: 0
UNIX Airways
Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the
airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece
by
piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to
be
building.
Air DOS
Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and
let
the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push again,
jump
on again, and so on...
Mac Airlines
All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look
and
act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you
are
gently but firmly told that you don't need to know, don't want to know,
and everything will be done for you without your ever having to know,
so
just shut up.
Windows Air
The terminal is pretty and colorful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.
Windows NT Air
Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.
Linux Air
Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways
themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself.
When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy
of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, "You had to
do what with the seat?
I'm no expert but I assume that in order to give commands to the bird you would want to know where it is located in the sky, if you could keep that info secret I think ppl will have quite a hard time to find it.
PS: this ofcourse would only work if it doesn't communicate with joe average. If it would you could probally use multiple dishes to figure out where it is located
you take a box say about 5mx8mx4m attach short extenstions (wings) say 1mx1mx0.05m and put thrusters under them, now, put a big thruster on the back of the craft, a big fat reactor to power the thrusters (I know I know, but I like SciFi) and of you go.
let me clarify, the box is the body of the craft, It is divided into 2 floors, the upper floor houses the crew, controlls, etc. the lower floor houses cargo, fuel, reactor, etc.
The wings with thrusters are so that you can change the pitch of the vessel. the thruster on the back is the main thruster, you can change in which direction its facing (handy for liftoffs,etc.).
maybe I've been watching to much startrek, corrections are welcome, also, I'm not sure if I used the right word for pitch, if you have better Ideas, please tell me;)
But there are multiple ways to program for os X, let me explain them:
classic: program for macos9 and have it run in the macos9 emulator called classic. (c/c++)
carbon: program for macos9 and macosx natively, this means that the app will run in both macos9 and X without classic. (c/c++)
cocoa: program for macosx. this will run in macosX natively but won't run in macos9 (java and obj C only)
POSTIX: just like coding for linux, if the user has xwindows installed you can use xwindows. or just normal C, perl, pascal, whatever CLI apps.
I belief that M$ office is coded in carbon, this means that it would still need to be ported to X windows, that would be quite a task comparted to porting from macos9 to macosX, not to mention that the macos code-base is totally different from the windows code base.
DISCLAMER: some of the facts, thoughts, ideas in this post might be completely wrong, in that case, please correct me;)
have you ever, EVER even run debian??? in the default install you end up on the command line with +/- 30 mb of shit installed. from there you install packages from the net. Its the most functional and non-bloated option around
Slashdot Mirror
If my computer where taken by anyone I would want it to contain no information whatsoever, preferably having the people who took it have no access to the box what-so-ever. encrypted fs, encrypted bios, requiring one of those nice USB keychains to use as key to turn the thing on, why aren't there features like that in most bioses?
Encrypted fs Covered in linux
bios pass protect in some bioses
usb key as key ?
system autodestruct? simple bash script?
Oh well, I always like the thought of giving a computer the following voise command:
Computer, Initiate self-destruct
authorisation Niksie, Omega Beta 9 3 Alfa
can you imagine a beo^H^H^H^H **bEEP**
troll detected,
post aborted
IP banned
I miss my folder popping open... it really rocked. especially when draggin' and droppin' oh well... macosX kicks macos9's butt in all other areas (especially running *nix apps ;-) ).
Damn, here is the first page, thats all I got:
BZFlag: 3D Tank Shoot 'Em Up That Deserves Attention Part 1
Published by LinuxOrbit.com: April 4, 2002
by John Gowin, LinuxOrbit Editor-in-chief
Have you ever been walking down the street, minding your own business, and suddenly look down to find something you hadn't expected? It might be money, it might be a decoder ring, it could be anything. But the almost universal reaction is pleasurable.
"That's a nice surprise" you think as you stoop and pocket whatever good fortune has dropped in your path.
The same thing can happen in the strangest places. For example, a recent post on our message boards inquired
"What's your favorite flag in bzflag?".
Not being familiar with the game, I had to ask "What's bzflag?"
Little did I know that such an innocent inquiry would result in an almost indecent obsession with a very cool game.
What is BZFlag?
BZFlag is a 3D multi-player tank battle game. You can fight other tanks by yourself as a Rogue (some game servers don't support Rogues) or join a team based on your tank color (Red, Green, Blue, Purple). The object of course is to kill other tank opponents by shooting them, a fairly straightforward scenario for a first-person shoot 'em up type of game.
The "flag" in the title of BZFlag refers to the white flags found scattered across the battlefield in the game. To pick up a flag, you merely have to run over it with your tank. Each flag grants the owner of the flag special abilities within the game. That's where some of the strategy of game comes in. Certain flags bestow powerful gifts to the bearer while other flags are designed to specifically combat the bearer of another flag. Not all flags grant a bonus either. Some of the flags hamper a player for a fixed amount of time before they automatically are released. Because the flags are indistinguishable to all players, it is chance that determines whether you pick up a flag that will make you powerful or shackle you with a burden.
In order to excel at the game, it pays to know your flags. Here's a quick rundown of the flags available in the game, with a description of what they do, what they're best used for and what they're helpful against.
First the "good" flags:
High Speed
Boosts your speed by 50%. Good for overall use. Can escape Guided Missiles if used to drive perpendicular to the missile path.
Quick Turn
Boosts turn rate by 50%. Good for close combat but no major advantage for combating other flags.
Oscillation Overthruster
Enables tank to go through buildings. You cannot back up in or into a building, nor can you shoot while sealed inside a building. You must be completely inside a building to be protected from normal shots. Vulnerable to Shockwave, Super Bullet and Steamroller in close quarters. Good for ambush attacks, but your tank always returns to ground level since you sink through any obstacle or building you jump on.
Rapid Fire
Increases shot speed and decreases range and reload delay. Good flag for overall combat, no major bonus against other flags.
Machine Gun
Increases shot speed and dramatically decreases range and reload delay. Good only for close combat. Real close.
Guided Missile
Arguably the most coveted flag in the game, Guided Missile enables shots to guide themselves when locked on an opponent by right-clicking your mouse on an opponent in your view window. The missile can be re-targeted at any time during its flight (with the right mouse button). This allows the player some control over the missile's steering. Vulnerable to the Stealth flag since missiles can't be locked on.
Laser
Gives your tank a laser cannon, with effectively infinite speed and range. Just point and shoot. Laser reload time is doubled from normal weapon. One downside is that you have a decent chance of killing yourself from extended reflections of the laser due to its infinite range. Great for long distance kills, but likely you will eventually become your own victim. Used carefully, very powerful. Good against Guided Missile thanks to its extended range.
Ricochet
Causes shots to reflect off walls. Many servers have ricochet enable for the entire battlefield, so this flag does nothing on these types of servers. On non-ricochet servers, you can practice your billiards skills by shooting around corners off border walls.
Super Bullet
Enables shots to go through buildings. Kills Oscillation Overthruster carriers inside of buildings as well as "zoned" Phantom Zone users. Great for unsuspecting opponents on the other side of a building or wall.
Stealth
Tank becomes invisible on radar but is still visible out-the-window. Prevents Guided Missile from locking on the carrier of the flag. Great overall use, especially against opponents not facing you.
Cloaking
Tank becomes invisible out-the-window but is still visible on radar. Good for hectic battle due to invisibility, but Guided Missile can still lock on you. Jumping while using this flag is more effective.
Invisible Bullet
Radar of opponents can't see your shots, so it's an excellent flag for all around battle and for those not facing you.
Tiny
Your tank becomes much smaller and harder to hit. Good for head to head battle due to reduced size.
Narrow
With this flag, your tank becomes paper thin. It's very hard (but not impossible) to hit a "Narrow" tank from the front or back. However, the tank is as long as usual so hitting it from the side has normal difficulty. Good for head to head battle, but try not to jump while turning.
Shield
Allows the bearer to absorb on hit from an opponent, but the hit ejects the flag immediately. Since the flag may not disappear when it ejects, you may want to wait around for it to fall to the ground so you can grab it again, but the shield flag flies for an extra long time (longer than the normal reload time).
Steamroller
Possibly the least desirable of flags (other than Ricochet and Jump when server settings make them useless) this flag enables your to kill other tanks by driving over them. The downside is you rarely get close enough in normal game play.
Shock Wave
Makes your tank shoot a shock wave in all directions rather than shells. Any tank caught in the wave is destroyed (including tanks on or in buildings). This is a good tactical flag against Guided Missile an Oscillation Overthruster users. The downside is the shock wave has a short range, so even an opponent without a flag has an advantage. Try not to jump with this flag either.
Phantom Zone
Driving through a teleporter send the bearer of this flag to the Phantom Zone. A "zoned" tank cannot shoot, but can drive through buildings and cannot be destroyed except by a Super Bullet or a Shock Wave. Also fun to use to taunt or distract unseasoned opponents who might waste time firing at a "zoned" tank.
Genocide
This is a dreaded flag in team play. When the bearer of Genocide kills any tank on another team, all members of that team are destroyed as well. A good way to rack up the points or kill a Guided Missile user by killing off the weakest member of his team. No battle advantage in head to head or Rogue competition.
Jumping
This allows your tank to jump, but is useless on "jump" servers. Great for servers without jump enabled for all since high-ground can't be reached without jumping. Identify
Displays the identity of the closest flag in the vicinity. This flag is good for finding a flag you want, but don't get too distracted "flag shopping". This flag offers no battle advantage.
Then there are the "bad" flags:
Colorblindness
This makes all tanks appear black, both on radar and in your view screen. Be careful you don't shoot your teammates.
Obesity
This flag causes your tank to become very large and easy to hit. Makes teleporters unusable due to enlargement.
Left Turn Only
This prevents your tank from turning right. Only thing to do is drive in straight line or circle left until the flag times out.
Right Turn Only
Same as left turn except the opposite direction.
Momentum
This flag gives your tank a lot of inertia. Stopping and turning become exercises in physics. The overall effect is less response for all movements.
Blindness
This blanks the main view screen, but your radar still works. It is effectively impossible to detect any tank with Stealth, but shooting a Stealth with Blindness is the stuff legends are made of.
Jamming
Disables the radar but you can still see out your main view screen.
Wide Angle
Ever wonder how a goldfish perceives its owner? This flag gives you some idea. The bearer sees the battlefield through a distorted fish eye lens in the main window.
Go to Part 2, Strategy and more!
does this mean that my rice won't need additional flavoring? I want rice with without actually having to put the sauce on it!
Except it would another 20 years to radio us and tell us what it did...
this is a canned response posted to everything to do with AI/robotics, I suggest you people go and take a look at his account... its trolling and whoring at the same time...
:http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=30004&cid =3228042
also, check out
rot13!!!
translate topic with your friendly local IRC bot
-9 years ago would be 9 years in the future, you meant -9 years from now, which would be 9 years in the past.
I (14) would be pissed if my parents did that to me. Them watching me post to slashdot while I should be studying for german exams.... not good. parents shouldn't spy on kids.
ofcoursed I'm biased like hell and my posts generally aren't appreciated (karma=-1 at ~50 posts)
aren't these the guys that use 2.4ghz for military applications? I thought you couldn't use an 802.11 network there, and now you can use a cell-phone jammer... weird people..
its so GD simple, just capture the music/video/ etc. right of the lead!!! route it to your audio/video card and of you go! even better if you can use a digital IO with a "pirate" operating system that you can modify without permission *gasp* *choke*
Debian??? its base install is great, very nice and small. You add what you need from there.
[semi-flame]
it doesn't support multitasking - because of CPU
very low upgradabillity of low quality CPU
is not document based based - means no documents you can open with different applications
doesn't have unix compatibillity - means no simple command line apps that make your live easier
[/semi-flame]
isn't the US supposed to make all that intelligence availible to the public after 30 years? If so, is there a site where I can look at all that "gray" information? hell, not like the us follows its own laws anyways ;-)
good luck finding a alternative to gcc
somehow I don't think nvidea would mind if you use its drivers in a new console and sell billions of them... for if you want to use the drivers you also need the card...
We tried and found that the background din of music, talking, and slamming weights was too much for VoiceNav. Once in a blue moon we got the track to shift, but not until speaking loud enough to draw the gaze of a few patrons who wondered why we were yelling at our MP3 player.
heh, I loved that part
if they send the data to you to be viewed, what prevents you from linking the cable that connects the handhelds motherboard to its screen to your computer and watch whatever you are only supposed to see once 2 million times? its simple, simply have your computer record whatever is send out to the screen...
same as with copy protected CD's, just hook up the audio out of your cd player to your PC... its that simple!
UNIX Airways
...
Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to the
airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together piece
by
piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are supposed to
be
building.
Air DOS
Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on and
let
the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push again,
jump
on again, and so on
Mac Airlines
All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents look
and
act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about details, you
are
gently but firmly told that you don't need to know, don't want to know,
and everything will be done for you without your ever having to know,
so
just shut up.
Windows Air
The terminal is pretty and colorful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.
Windows NT Air
Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.
Linux Air
Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways
themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself.
When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy
of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, "You had to
do what with the seat?
I'm having trouble seeing it with onmiweb, a browser for MacosX... I think slashdot shouldn't link to sites that use non-standard HTML
I'm no expert but I assume that in order to give commands to the bird you would want to know where it is located in the sky, if you could keep that info secret I think ppl will have quite a hard time to find it.
PS: this ofcourse would only work if it doesn't communicate with joe average. If it would you could probally use multiple dishes to figure out where it is located
you take a box say about 5mx8mx4m attach short extenstions (wings) say 1mx1mx0.05m and put thrusters under them, now, put a big thruster on the back of the craft, a big fat reactor to power the thrusters (I know I know, but I like SciFi) and of you go.
;)
let me clarify, the box is the body of the craft, It is divided into 2 floors, the upper floor houses the crew, controlls, etc. the lower floor houses cargo, fuel, reactor, etc.
The wings with thrusters are so that you can change the pitch of the vessel. the thruster on the back is the main thruster, you can change in which direction its facing (handy for liftoffs,etc.).
maybe I've been watching to much startrek, corrections are welcome, also, I'm not sure if I used the right word for pitch, if you have better Ideas, please tell me
MacosX does have office.
;)
But there are multiple ways to program for os X, let me explain them:
classic: program for macos9 and have it run in the macos9 emulator called classic. (c/c++)
carbon: program for macos9 and macosx natively, this means that the app will run in both macos9 and X without classic. (c/c++)
cocoa: program for macosx. this will run in macosX natively but won't run in macos9 (java and obj C only)
POSTIX: just like coding for linux, if the user has xwindows installed you can use xwindows. or just normal C, perl, pascal, whatever CLI apps.
I belief that M$ office is coded in carbon, this means that it would still need to be ported to X windows, that would be quite a task comparted to porting from macos9 to macosX, not to mention that the macos code-base is totally different from the windows code base.
DISCLAMER: some of the facts, thoughts, ideas in this post might be completely wrong, in that case, please correct me
have you ever, EVER even run debian??? in the default install you end up on the command line with +/- 30 mb of shit installed. from there you install packages from the net. Its the most functional and non-bloated option around