Sunday, April 9, 2000

Q3A Jailbreak Beta -- 10:01 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

A beta version of the new Quake III Arena mod, Jailbreak, has been released. You can download it from the Jailbreak homepage. It's a 38M download, but they also have it divided up into four ~10M chunks for modemers. When you frag someone on the opposing team, they go to jail. Once everyone on a team is in jail, the whole team is executed (the goal of the game). Players who are still free can throw a switch to release their imprisoned teammates.

I played it a little bit (3v3 with five bots). The bots understand shooting well enough, but won't throw the switch to release you (or help you escape when imprisoned). It looks like it would be a fun team-based mod without all the complexities of Team-Fortress-esque mods.

One level I played, q3jbsul3 "Neighbourhate", is that most rare of levels that makes me want to rush right out and kill myself. Why?

• The bases are two tall towers. You need to run up a zillion flights of stairs in the dark to rescue your teammates.
• They use that "shiny metal" shader all over the place.
• Some of the doors aren't really doors. They are teleporters that zap you to God only knows where.

The other two maps I played were pretty nice. That "Neighbourhate" one made me want to smash my head through my monitor. Or listen to Kid Rock. Same effect.

Slow Day-History notes -- 9:12 pm CST, Update by The Master

Since it's been a slow day, a couple of interesting historical events that happened on this date:

• 1912: The RMS Titanic sets sail on her fateful maiden voyage. I will be reposting this one in 5 days.
• 1963: The US Navy submarine USS Thresher had some unknown difficulty that prevented her surfacing off Cape Cod. All hands (129 souls) were lost when Thresher sank past crush depth. The cause of the Thresher disaster is still unknown.

One of these days I'm going to build a database with this kind of stuff.

A.T. Hun comments: Gee, that sounds like a fun database, TM!

The Master comments: Hey-remember I almost went for a double-major in history A.T. That kind of stuff would be INTERESTING to me. Especially the pessimistic stuff :-)

Saturday, April 8, 2000

Microsoft Knew About the Win2K 51 IP Bug -- 10:55 pm CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

I saw this last Saturday, but thought that it was an April 1 thing. I guess not. A Win2K server which is acting as a domain controller can't handle more than 50 IP addresses. This article shows that Microsoft knew about the bug before Win2K went gold. When customers started questioning and complaining, Microsoft first ignored them and then would only release little information about the problem. According to Microsoft, using such a configuration is "stupid" anyway. A fix is on the way, though, for people stupid enough to try this.

Monopoly trial, schmonopoly trial. Good ol' Microsoft. Always letting the customer know who's boss.

Minix Gets BSD License -- 10:41 pm CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

Wow! Andrew Tanenbaum, author of Minix, posted the news that Minix can now be distributed under the BSD license, making it "effectively no different than being in the public domain. You can do whatever you want with it. " Minix is a small Unixlike OS which inspired Linus Torvalds to develop Linux. I remember running it on my old 286 from 5.25" floppies. More on Minix here.

The Code Breakers -- 11:16 am CST, Update by The Master

Interesting article on Yahoo! News on Making And Breaking Codes at U.S. Spy Agency NSA. I've always had an interest in codes and cyphers, and it's always interesting to read what it's actually like to do this kind of work.

The China-Taiwan Debate -- 11:00 am CST, Update by The Master

Now, this is off-topic, but I think people need to be aware of this world crisis. China Lashes Out at New Taiwan Government is the title of a Yahoo! News article indicating that mainland China has gotten vocal and violent towards Taiwan once again.

Why is this important? Well, Mainland China has nukes, and the largest army in the world. Taiwan is a tiny island. If those two go to blows a lot of people are going to die, and Americans will die with them because we are legally obligated to defend Taiwan in a crisis situation.

A.T. Hun comments: The Chinese aren't that stupid. It's the typical sabre-rattling with very little substance. Plus their buddy Bill won't be President much longer. They'll need to start sucking up again :) They need most-favored-nation status more than they need Taiwan.

Sharky CPU $ updated -- 10:51 am CST, Update by The Master

SharkyExtreme has updated their Weekly CPU Price List. Sharky runs a great site. Be sure to check that one out.

WinZip 8.0 Beta release -- 10:48 am CST, Update by The Master

Winzip Computing, Inc. (Formerly Niko Mak) has released a new beta of WinZip 8.0. So far, I like this release. It's a lot more like Explorer, which makes Drag&Drop a lot more sensible and reliable when used with WinZip. Check it out.

Past Two Days' News

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