The Blinkenlights people have a page about the Paris project here.
It sounds really cool. Based upon what I've heard on the radio, it is designed so that someone in Paris can call it on their mobile phone and play Tetris, Pong, Breakout, etc.
Plus, you can submit animated GIFs to them and they will play it. Neat.
That was name of the BBS in my home town, Sioux City, Iowa. Set up by a kid that skipped a couple of grades, Stavens, I think.
Those were the days...only 10 people on at once... Playing LORD.... right before he left for college and shut it down, we even had e-mail to the outside world. I thought it was so cool at the time...
In case anyone is not aware, the HGTTG web site the article mentions is http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/. It's the most ambitious, IMHO, of Douglas Adam's projects. Basically, it's an online Guide that you submit information to, the way the Guide in the books is described. It's been running for a few years now, and has quite a bit of stuff.
The page that DNA submitted about the site can be found here.
Of course, I'm such a nerd that I've actually submitted an article. Yes, I know I'm a geek....
I just finished downloading and trying the one-player version of UT2k3. It seemed pretty good. Most of the old favorites are there (mini-gun [my fave!!!], bio gun, flak cannon, etc) but a few have some modifications. The rocket launcher only shoots 3 shells and I think they no longer home. The sniper rifle seems to be some sort of lightning shooting thing, but didn't get to try it in the deathmatch I played.
New weapons, too: Ion Painter: paint a target with a laser and watch the in-orbit satellite take it out! >:)
Shield gun: Some sort of combo energy weapon, shield against energy weapons. Again, didnt' try it yet.
I like the interface a lot better.
My only gripe is that the textures are good enough that sometimes it is hard to see the opponents far away; They blend in, unlike UT where you could always see red uniforms against grey backgrounds. I guess I could turn down textures so that they other team can be seen, but what's the fun in that?:)
I don't have a lot of java experience, but I tried this to try to get that experience. Unfortunately, no matter what cool stuff I put in my bot, the tutorial bots beat it on a regular basis.:(
I think one of the problems was that the way I wrote it, it could fire more shots than average. Unfortunately, you lose a bit of energy with every shot, so all my missed shots led to my bot typically just shooting until a single shot by an opponent killed it. D'oh
Try "The God Particle" by Leon Lederman. Great book for quantum theory or even just basic particles. It was my constant reference when I was doing a report on particle accelerators.
Update: I restarted my computer and the normal 20something boot took a minute and a half.... Even after a couple more boots, it seems to be running slightly slower.... I mean, it is anotre 133 mb of crap on my system, but it shouldn't have that noticible of a effect on my fairly recent (Athlon XP 2000+, 512mb ddr ram) computer.:(
I just put the SP1 on my computer. Basically, as far as I can tell, all it does is add a "Set Program Access and Defaults" shortcut to your startment that allows you to change the defaults. (Mine were mostly off of the defaults anyway, so this was pretty useless). If you go to add/remove programs, you have the option to "remove access to" ie, outlook express, and messenger, but obviously not get rid of them. It goes along well with previous posts about Microsoft doing a very little bit of good to prevent the imposition of a huge block of restrictions on them.
On another note, after I installed it, I burned it onto an cd-rw to put on my other computer, and my burn program had to test for read speeds, something it only does the first time you run it. Why would this happen?
Maybe it's just me, but a news story (even an even-handed one like this) on Palladium and how it will try to secure PCs just a day or two after a story in which Microsoft leaders admit that their current systems are not 'designed for security' seems mighty suspicious....
If you read the web site, it describes how the building they altered the car in is powered by ANOTHER device:
Electricity that powers the 1,800 Square foot electric vehicle building is from another invention, currently being tested, that uses no outside power source. It needs no fuel, wind, solar or hydroelectric to operate. It is a totally new type of self contained and self generating alternative energy invention and is completely different from what is used in the electric car.
I mean, come on, even if you ignore the laws of physics, these guys came up with two different perpetual motion machines. Ugh.
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The Blinkenlights people have a page about the Paris project here.
It sounds really cool. Based upon what I've heard on the radio, it is designed so that someone in Paris can call it on their mobile phone and play Tetris, Pong, Breakout, etc.
Plus, you can submit animated GIFs to them and they will play it. Neat.
That was name of the BBS in my home town, Sioux City, Iowa. Set up by a kid that skipped a couple of grades, Stavens, I think.
Those were the days...only 10 people on at once... Playing LORD.... right before he left for college and shut it down, we even had e-mail to the outside world. I thought it was so cool at the time...
In case anyone is not aware, the HGTTG web site the article mentions is http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/. It's the most ambitious, IMHO, of Douglas Adam's projects. Basically, it's an online Guide that you submit information to, the way the Guide in the books is described. It's been running for a few years now, and has quite a bit of stuff.
The page that DNA submitted about the site can be found here.
Of course, I'm such a nerd that I've actually submitted an article. Yes, I know I'm a geek....
I just finished downloading and trying the one-player version of UT2k3. It seemed pretty good. Most of the old favorites are there (mini-gun [my fave!!!], bio gun, flak cannon, etc) but a few have some modifications. The rocket launcher only shoots 3 shells and I think they no longer home. The sniper rifle seems to be some sort of lightning shooting thing, but didn't get to try it in the deathmatch I played.
:)
New weapons, too: Ion Painter: paint a target with a laser and watch the in-orbit satellite take it out! >:)
Shield gun: Some sort of combo energy weapon, shield against energy weapons. Again, didnt' try it yet.
I like the interface a lot better.
My only gripe is that the textures are good enough that sometimes it is hard to see the opponents far away; They blend in, unlike UT where you could always see red uniforms against grey backgrounds. I guess I could turn down textures so that they other team can be seen, but what's the fun in that?
I don't have a lot of java experience, but I tried this to try to get that experience. Unfortunately, no matter what cool stuff I put in my bot, the tutorial bots beat it on a regular basis. :(
I think one of the problems was that the way I wrote it, it could fire more shots than average. Unfortunately, you lose a bit of energy with every shot, so all my missed shots led to my bot typically just shooting until a single shot by an opponent killed it. D'oh
(Sorry. Hit enter the first time I posted this)
Try "The God Particle" by Leon Lederman. Great book for quantum theory or even just basic particles. It was my constant reference when I was doing a report on particle accelerators.
Update: I restarted my computer and the normal 20something boot took a minute and a half.... Even after a couple more boots, it seems to be running slightly slower.... I mean, it is anotre 133 mb of crap on my system, but it shouldn't have that noticible of a effect on my fairly recent (Athlon XP 2000+, 512mb ddr ram) computer. :(
I just put the SP1 on my computer. Basically, as far as I can tell, all it does is add a "Set Program Access and Defaults" shortcut to your startment that allows you to change the defaults. (Mine were mostly off of the defaults anyway, so this was pretty useless). If you go to add/remove programs, you have the option to "remove access to" ie, outlook express, and messenger, but obviously not get rid of them. It goes along well with previous posts about Microsoft doing a very little bit of good to prevent the imposition of a huge block of restrictions on them.
On another note, after I installed it, I burned it onto an cd-rw to put on my other computer, and my burn program had to test for read speeds, something it only does the first time you run it. Why would this happen?
Maybe it's just me, but a news story (even an even-handed one like this) on Palladium and how it will try to secure PCs just a day or two after a story in which Microsoft leaders admit that their current systems are not 'designed for security' seems mighty suspicious....
If you read the web site, it describes how the building they altered the car in is powered by ANOTHER device:
I mean, come on, even if you ignore the laws of physics, these guys came up with two different perpetual motion machines. Ugh.