It must be really hard producing a sequel of such a classic game after such a long period. They will be judged against people's rose tinted rememberances of the original Wolfenstein 3D. And no matter how good it is, people will say 'Ahhh I enjoyed the original more.'
Uhm, hold on a sec, perhaps it was before your day but Wolfenstein 3D was NOT the original! The original was "Castle Wolfenstein" for the Apple (not Macintosh here, we're talking Apple II IIc kind of Apple).
Check the link from the front page to see what the real Castle Wolfenstein looked like.
... if the author, or some of the people who have posted so far, have any first hand experience of "Automatic Design of Algorithms Through Evolution" (ADATE)?
In related news, police have closed in on a suspect believed to be responsible for creating the Code Sex virus that crippled thousands of systems across the net last week.
When asked about the virus the unidentified man responded "It's not my fault! I didn't to it intentionally. All I was doing was surfing my favorite pr0n sites and, well, you know, enjoying myself, when all these windows started popping up! At first I thought it was the usual spam trick - but no, this code just started appearing everywhere. It just sort of created itself... really! You've gotta believe me!"
In related news highways across the country were shutdown by police after Highway 405 turned into a war zone Wednesday night.
Witnesses say it was a scene right out of the Carwars RPG: "tires squealed, glass flew, and carnage abound." The current toll is at 20 dead and more than 100 cars catatonic.
Experts are pointing the finger at two young men who got into a dispute after one allegedly cut the other off. The man who was cut off apparently kicked the door of the first drivers car, upsetting the vehicles in the area and instigating the riot that followed.
Car psychologists, accident crisis crews, and tow trucks have been brought in to try and help those vehicles traumatized by Wednesdays events.
In Related News, Logitech KeyMouse XP
on
New Cube controller
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· Score: 5, Funny
In related news, Logitech announced today it's new KeyMouse XP.
From the press release: The KeyMouse XP is the worlds first mouse to integrate a 120 key keyboard inside a mouse. This gives the user the advantage of not having to switch between keyboard and mouse - a repetitive movement which costs the user time and productivity.
The keyboard is located between the left and right mouse buttons.
When asked how difficult this new mouse would be to handle Logitech would only say that the user would need a really big-ass mousepad.
For those who are interested the author also write a program called Younge's Modulus which is essentially a Mech Combat Simulator that uses the same realistic physics engine as X-Plane does (of course were more concerned with walking, rather than flying in this case).
If you want to try it, there is a demo version available (MAC/Windows only).
Dangerous Information
on
GPS Drawings
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· Score: 3, Funny
At the end of all the time, use the (x,y) cords and divide the city into 4 quadants and start to make equations of where you have been....try and see where you are most likely to be..... see what times you are most likely to be where, etc...
Let me get this straight... you want to hand your girl-friend 3D graphical evidence that you weren't working late, that you've actually been drinking with your buddies at the bar again?
Instead of using lights or mere beeps to tell you about its Power On Self Test progress, it speaks its errors,in a quite comprehensible female voice.
The P4B also comes with a Windows utility that lets you convert WAV files to make your own error messages.
In related news, Asus will begin shipping the Custom Error Pack with errors including:
- I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that!
- It's Microsofts Fault - Really!
- BSOD my ass!
- Doh!
- Need Beer!
- I've been Slashdotted!
and many more!
Canada's Scotia Bank will be glad to see this problem being worked on. A division of Scotia in the US had been storing a huge amount of gold and silver in vaults under the WTC.
I wonder if anyone is going to attempt to lift this before the authorities can get to it? That would be one hell of an engineering feat, not to mention logistical nightmare. But, I suppose, not impossible...
Argh, this blurring of what is science fiction and what is fantasy really gets to me sometimes...
Science fiction stories do NOT have to be in space! Fantasy stories do not have to have witches, dragons, goblins, etc... you can have Fantasy in space and Science Fiction in the past.
Case in point: Larry Niven wrote a story about the essence of magic being a natural resource, like oil. Only in this story the resource was running out, and the magic in the world was failing. This is definitely science fiction.(Sorry I forget the title)
On the other hand you see books like the Honor Harrington series by David Webber, which is primarily war-in-space (this type book is often classified as Space Opera, I admit)... but these are essentially fantasy.
The main difference is that in Science Fiction there is some principal element to the story involving science - be it the Ring in Larry Nivens Ringworld, or Thistledown in Greg Bears Eon. Or it can be a theory, such as a change in the laws of physics (al la David Brins The Practice Effect). It need not involve space at all.
Fantasy on the other hand is primarily just a story. There might be science, be it in the form of space ships or anything else, but it is not a primary element to the story itself. Just because your characters ride a rocket doesn't make the story science fiction. If they are riding a rocket that they built, and the story is all about how they did it, then it might be science fiction. (unless you are the crazy rocket guy, then it could be your obituary)
Anyhow, Harry Potter is fantasy... but as has already been noted, that doesn't prevent it from winning a Hugo. A Hugo can go to a science fiction OR fantasy story.
As John Travolta said in "Battlefield Earth" - "Humans are *so* stupid!"
You have a point. Humans were stupid enough to make that movie in the first place, somehow this just follows...
A shame really (the movie), the book was one of the very few things Hubbard ever wrote that could actually be considered worth reading!
(I don't want to hear a bloody word about Dianetics)
For those of you who haven't heard of iDEN phones, iDEN is a variation of the TDMA (Time Domain Multiple Access) digital cellular protocal which allows for additional features - primarily the 2 Way Radio (Direct Connect) feature. In Canada the iDEN carrier is Clearnet (they call the service "Mike"). In the US it's Nextel.
I have a Motorola i1000Plus iDEN phone linked with Clearnet (whom I have to have some serious discussions with given my current reception - but thats another story). And I have to wonder, why make an iDEN phone the 'ultimate' for phone gaming?
iDEN phones are typically targeted at the 'Business' and 'Professional' market, people who are willing to pay more for their service and airtime than you would for a standard PCS service. You get the additional features, but you pay for it.
This is not to say that these markets would not be interested in having good gaming on their phones - given that many are geeks, I'm sure a large percentage would love to have this capability. However, given that there are far fewer iDEN phones out there than TDMA/CDMA standard PCS phones (I'm talking North America here, not you lucky Europians who get GSM). Would it not make more sense for Motorola to target this towards the average cellular market? The available pool is much larger, filled with people more likely to make a purchasing decision based whether the phone plays the games they want or not. (If your planning to go iDEN it's probably because you need some of the specific features. While gaming might be a nice perk, it isn't likely to seriously affect your purchasing decision.)
the weaker-energy radio waves (longer wavelengths) and the positioning of antennas relative to the body, but we'll never know, now that cellphones have supplanted ham radios (and at much greater cost).
The major concern with cell phones and the potential health risks comes from a combination of power and antenna location.
Originally cell phones operated at as much as 4watts! That's a helluva lot of power to be radiated right beside your skull. Current cellphones max out at 0.6watts.
Given that most Ham systems are using externally mounted antennas that are not located within an inch of your skull, the exposure is far lower. Even with clam-shell style cell phones they have measured significantly lower exposure ratings as the antenna is being tilted away from the users head.
Ham radio has to adapt now. We have to get rid of all those stupid restrictions like morse-code tests for liscenses. Anyone can buy and operate a cellphone without a liscense. The same should be true for ham radios.
As far as cell phones supplanting Ham, and Ham's need to adapt to compensate, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. They are two very different technologies offering very different forms of communication. Ham is great for some kinds of communication, but is a one to many medium rather than the one to one communication of telephone (cellular or otherwise). Cellular phones also have the advantage of integrating with the existing phone system - it's inherent in the design. Yes, I know you can patch into phones with a Ham if such a repeater is available.
Getting back to the one to many aspect, it has several problems when you talk about the scale of cellular communication. Since only one person can talk at any given time on a given frequency (within their transmitters range) you quickly consume the available resources. And we don't want to forget responsibility, getting a licence forces Ham opperators to behave themselves (and assumes a certain level of maturity). Think of Usenet in the early days, it was a valuable resource. Now that anybody can post it's degenerated into noise (yes, everybody has always been able to post, but before net communications got to be point-and-click the learning curve acted a lot like a licence). Do you like the idea of people trolling the Ham space? Or having people just keying for the sake of it? Yetch... You also have the problem of privacy: none with Ham. True you can monitor cellular activity with a scanner, but with digital phones and spread spectrum technologies, it's much harder to get anything useful out of it. Besides, I have get to see a hand held Ham anywhere near as tiny as current cell phones.
Ham is a valuable tool, but planning to use it as a cellular replacement seems like a bad plan to me. But that's just IMO.
Given the incredibly small size of these things, and the possible density of the device as a result, how would this affect heat dissipation?
If the amount of heat generated is anything close to current processors, having a chip that densely populated would likely self destruct. As it is my Ahtlon 900 runs rather toasty, even with a giant copper heatsink/fan assembly.
Maybe those guys playing with liquid nitrogen as a coolant are on to something...
Not quite... it depends on your interpretation of the story. The closest HHGTTG actually comes to revealing the question is when Ford and Arthur start experimenting with the scrabble board towards the end of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Here it is revealed that the Golgafrincham have come to prehistoric Earth and are killing off the original populance - the members of Deep Thoughts experiment. They further reason that since Marvin mentioned that Arthur had the question printed in his brain wave patterns, that he may have a bastarised version. This is where scrabble comes in.
In the end the (damaged) question is revealed by the scrabble pieces as follows:
W, H, A, T, D, O, Y, O, U, G, E, T, I, F, Y, O, U, M, U, L, T, I, P, L, Y, S, I, X, B, Y, N, I, N, E
The robots' mission is to fly into a disaster area complete with fire, water and smoke hazards, to locate and avoid threats to itself, to find bodies, distinguish from survivors and the dead, identify hazardous materials containers, determine if the container contents are radioactive, biohazardous, or explosive (by reading the labels), generate a detailed map of the disaster area, photograph the area, and return safely back to base.
Neat, who would have thought my OS would help me survive one of Hotblacks shows??
Slashdot Mirror
Uhm, hold on a sec, perhaps it was before your day but Wolfenstein 3D was NOT the original! The original was "Castle Wolfenstein" for the Apple (not Macintosh here, we're talking Apple II IIc kind of Apple).
Check the link from the front page to see what the real Castle Wolfenstein looked like.
Man, I loved that game... :)
IBM: Damn it Q! Quit making all those damned crazy gadgets for him will ya?
If not, might I suggest getting out more?? :)
When asked about the virus the unidentified man responded "It's not my fault! I didn't to it intentionally. All I was doing was surfing my favorite pr0n sites and, well, you know, enjoying myself, when all these windows started popping up! At first I thought it was the usual spam trick - but no, this code just started appearing everywhere. It just sort of created itself... really! You've gotta believe me!"
The investigation continues.
Hmmm, I can just hear it:
This car is happy to move for you and stop again with the knowledge of a job well done.
Does this mean it will have Genuine People Personalities? I'm sooooo depressed!
Witnesses say it was a scene right out of the Carwars RPG: "tires squealed, glass flew, and carnage abound." The current toll is at 20 dead and more than 100 cars catatonic.
Experts are pointing the finger at two young men who got into a dispute after one allegedly cut the other off. The man who was cut off apparently kicked the door of the first drivers car, upsetting the vehicles in the area and instigating the riot that followed.
Car psychologists, accident crisis crews, and tow trucks have been brought in to try and help those vehicles traumatized by Wednesdays events.
From the press release:
The KeyMouse XP is the worlds first mouse to integrate a 120 key keyboard inside a mouse. This gives the user the advantage of not having to switch between keyboard and mouse - a repetitive movement which costs the user time and productivity.
The keyboard is located between the left and right mouse buttons.
When asked how difficult this new mouse would be to handle Logitech would only say that the user would need a really big-ass mousepad.
If you want to try it, there is a demo version available (MAC/Windows only).
Let me get this straight... you want to hand your girl-friend 3D graphical evidence that you weren't working late, that you've actually been drinking with your buddies at the bar again?
All I can say is: Bad, bad plan.
The P4B also comes with a Windows utility that lets you convert WAV files to make your own error messages.
In related news, Asus will begin shipping the Custom Error Pack with errors including:
- I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that!
- It's Microsofts Fault - Really!
- BSOD my ass!
- Doh!
- Need Beer!
- I've been Slashdotted!
and many more!
Canada's Scotia Bank will be glad to see this problem being worked on. A division of Scotia in the US had been storing a huge amount of gold and silver in vaults under the WTC.
I wonder if anyone is going to attempt to lift this before the authorities can get to it? That would be one hell of an engineering feat, not to mention logistical nightmare. But, I suppose, not impossible...
Sorry...
Science fiction stories do NOT have to be in space! Fantasy stories do not have to have witches, dragons, goblins, etc... you can have Fantasy in space and Science Fiction in the past.
Case in point: Larry Niven wrote a story about the essence of magic being a natural resource, like oil. Only in this story the resource was running out, and the magic in the world was failing. This is definitely science fiction.(Sorry I forget the title)
On the other hand you see books like the Honor Harrington series by David Webber, which is primarily war-in-space (this type book is often classified as Space Opera, I admit)... but these are essentially fantasy.
The main difference is that in Science Fiction there is some principal element to the story involving science - be it the Ring in Larry Nivens Ringworld, or Thistledown in Greg Bears Eon. Or it can be a theory, such as a change in the laws of physics (al la David Brins The Practice Effect). It need not involve space at all.
Fantasy on the other hand is primarily just a story. There might be science, be it in the form of space ships or anything else, but it is not a primary element to the story itself. Just because your characters ride a rocket doesn't make the story science fiction. If they are riding a rocket that they built, and the story is all about how they did it, then it might be science fiction.
(unless you are the crazy rocket guy, then it could be your obituary)
Anyhow, Harry Potter is fantasy... but as has already been noted, that doesn't prevent it from winning a Hugo. A Hugo can go to a science fiction OR fantasy story.
My congratulations to J.K. Rowling!
Okay, I want one!
You have a point. Humans were stupid enough to make that movie in the first place, somehow this just follows...
A shame really (the movie), the book was one of the very few things Hubbard ever wrote that could actually be considered worth reading!
(I don't want to hear a bloody word about Dianetics)
Heheh, reminds me a lot of Cat Scan, a site dedicated to stuffing your kitty into a flatbed and hitting the scan button.
There are some pretty hilarious pictures from the original contest that started it all (near the bottom of the page).
I have a Motorola i1000Plus iDEN phone linked with Clearnet (whom I have to have some serious discussions with given my current reception - but thats another story). And I have to wonder, why make an iDEN phone the 'ultimate' for phone gaming?
iDEN phones are typically targeted at the 'Business' and 'Professional' market, people who are willing to pay more for their service and airtime than you would for a standard PCS service. You get the additional features, but you pay for it.
This is not to say that these markets would not be interested in having good gaming on their phones - given that many are geeks, I'm sure a large percentage would love to have this capability. However, given that there are far fewer iDEN phones out there than TDMA/CDMA standard PCS phones (I'm talking North America here, not you lucky Europians who get GSM). Would it not make more sense for Motorola to target this towards the average cellular market? The available pool is much larger, filled with people more likely to make a purchasing decision based whether the phone plays the games they want or not. (If your planning to go iDEN it's probably because you need some of the specific features. While gaming might be a nice perk, it isn't likely to seriously affect your purchasing decision.)
Thats my take anyhow...
The major concern with cell phones and the potential health risks comes from a combination of power and antenna location.
Originally cell phones operated at as much as 4watts! That's a helluva lot of power to be radiated right beside your skull. Current cellphones max out at 0.6watts.
Given that most Ham systems are using externally mounted antennas that are not located within an inch of your skull, the exposure is far lower. Even with clam-shell style cell phones they have measured significantly lower exposure ratings as the antenna is being tilted away from the users head.
Ham radio has to adapt now. We have to get rid of all those stupid restrictions like morse-code tests for liscenses. Anyone can buy and operate a cellphone without a liscense. The same should be true for ham radios.
As far as cell phones supplanting Ham, and Ham's need to adapt to compensate, this doesn't make a lot of sense to me. They are two very different technologies offering very different forms of communication. Ham is great for some kinds of communication, but is a one to many medium rather than the one to one communication of telephone (cellular or otherwise). Cellular phones also have the advantage of integrating with the existing phone system - it's inherent in the design. Yes, I know you can patch into phones with a Ham if such a repeater is available.
Getting back to the one to many aspect, it has several problems when you talk about the scale of cellular communication. Since only one person can talk at any given time on a given frequency (within their transmitters range) you quickly consume the available resources. And we don't want to forget responsibility, getting a licence forces Ham opperators to behave themselves (and assumes a certain level of maturity). Think of Usenet in the early days, it was a valuable resource. Now that anybody can post it's degenerated into noise (yes, everybody has always been able to post, but before net communications got to be point-and-click the learning curve acted a lot like a licence). Do you like the idea of people trolling the Ham space? Or having people just keying for the sake of it? Yetch... You also have the problem of privacy: none with Ham. True you can monitor cellular activity with a scanner, but with digital phones and spread spectrum technologies, it's much harder to get anything useful out of it. Besides, I have get to see a hand held Ham anywhere near as tiny as current cell phones.
Ham is a valuable tool, but planning to use it as a cellular replacement seems like a bad plan to me. But that's just IMO.
Stay awhile, stay FOREVER!
Can't forget about other 64 classics... although a total Super Mario rip off, Giana Sisters was pretty decent.
If the amount of heat generated is anything close to current processors, having a chip that densely populated would likely self destruct. As it is my Ahtlon 900 runs rather toasty, even with a giant copper heatsink/fan assembly.
Maybe those guys playing with liquid nitrogen as a coolant are on to something...
Not quite... it depends on your interpretation of the story. The closest HHGTTG actually comes to revealing the question is when Ford and Arthur start experimenting with the scrabble board towards the end of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Here it is revealed that the Golgafrincham have come to prehistoric Earth and are killing off the original populance - the members of Deep Thoughts experiment. They further reason that since Marvin mentioned that Arthur had the question printed in his brain wave patterns, that he may have a bastarised version. This is where scrabble comes in.
In the end the (damaged) question is revealed by the scrabble pieces as follows:
W, H, A, T, D, O, Y, O, U, G, E, T, I, F, Y, O, U, M, U, L, T, I, P, L, Y, S, I, X, B, Y, N, I, N, E
Thanks!
Neat, who would have thought my OS would help me survive one of Hotblacks shows??
Geek: Are you kidding me? Check this out, I just pinged my arm - what do you expect me to do with a latency like that?
(for those who don't know who FS is, do some reading on Berserkers)