Saturday, June 24, 2000

KDE2 Preview -- 10:32 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

KDE is a very powerful and user-friendly graphical front-end for Linux' X Window system. It's the one I use when I boot to Linux. The next version, KDE2, promises to be even more friendly. GNULinux.com has a quick preview of KDE2, based on beta code. Most impressive is their kOffice productivity suite. I'm hoping this will be another step toward allowing me to dump Windows eventually. We'll see. Thanks Linux Today.

J.t.Qbe comments: KDE2 promises to be a huge improvement over an already great window manager. I use Enlightenment at work, but KDE2 may very well lure me away.

But it won't let you dump Windows entirely. The games will keep pulling you back. Kudos to Loki for helping to bring high quality games to Linux, but I still have a ton of Windows/DOS games I still play (or intend to play). Until you're ready to dump your legacy stuff altogether, you'll need that legacy OS. . .

Q3A Side-Scroller -- 10:17 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

TargetQuake attempts to turn our favorite first-person shooter into a classic side-scroller. Interesting concept. You can download the PK3 file here. There are a few bugs, so make sure to check out the TargetQuake page first. Thanks Blue.

History today -- 10:57 am CST, Update by The Master

• 1497: The first recorded sighting of North America by a European took place as explorer John Cabot spotted land, probably in present-day Canada.
• 1509: Henry VIII was crowned king of England.
• 1675: In colonial New England, King Philip’s War began when a band of Wampanoag warriors raided the border settlement of Swansee, Massachusetts, and massacred the English colonists there.
• 1793: The first republican constitution in France was adopted.
• 1812: Following the rejection of his Continental System by Czar Alexander I, French Emperor Napoleon order his Grande Armée, the largest European military force ever assembled to that date, into Russia.
• 1910: The Wireless Ship Act of 1910 required all American ships carrying more than fifty people to be equipped with radios.
• 1915: More than 800 people died when the excursion steamer Eastland capsized at Chicago's Clark Street dock.
• 1940: France signed an armistice with Italy during World War II.
• 1945: Soviet troops parade past Red Square in celebration of their victory over Germany. As drums rolled, 200 soldiers performed a familiar ritual: They threw 200 German military banners at the foot of the Lenin Mausoleum. A little over 130 years earlier, victorious Russian troops threw Napoleon's banners at the feet of Czar Alexander I.
• 1948: Communist forces cut off all land and water routes between West Germany and West Berlin, prompting the Western allies to organize the massive Berlin Airlift.
• 1968: "Resurrection City," a shantytown constructed as part of the Poor People's March on Washington, D.C., was closed down by authorities.
• 1975: 113 people were killed when an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashed while attempting to land during a thunderstorm at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.
• 1989: Zhao Ziyang, who had expressed sympathy with pro-democracy students, was replaced by Jiang Zemin as general secretary of the Communist Party.
• 1994: The European Union and Russia signed a landmark friendship accord in Corfu, Greece.

Friday, June 23, 2000

Scott Miller Interview -- 10:20 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Radiated has posted an interview with 3D Realms' Scott Miller who is currently working on Duke Nukem Forever (aka Daikatana II: Electric Boogaloo). Actually the Radiated folks ask how 3D Realms intends on avoiding Daikatana's pitfalls since Duke Forever has been in production almost as long. Here's his answer:

Where (sic) making a great game, one that sets new standards, looks and feels cutting-edge, and has gameplay that's never been seen before. We also don't have burdensome sidekicks.

I think that could be considered a jab. Thanks Stomped.

EA Q3A Map Pack -- 4:56 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The crezzy folks working on EA's The World Is Not Enough Q3A-based shooter have released a map pack (26.6M) (made in their "spare time") for Quake III Arena. There are 12 DM maps and 1 CTF map. Most of the maps are space maps, but all of them have some unique twists (and some serious physics-defying bounce pads too). My favorite part of this pack is the quad trap on the one level (I'll let you figure out which one). Thanks Blue.

AOL, Time-Warner Merger Vote in -- 1:37 pm CST, Update by The Master

According to Yahoo! News, AOL, Time Warner Shareholders Approve Merger. Well, here it is-the ultimate powerhouse. Time-Warner's cable bandwidth and AOL's content and internet. Fear the future folks :-)

A.T. Hun comments: If the U.S. regulators let this one go through, mark my words: the AOL-TW monolith will become the target of the Department of Justice. That will happen sooner rather than later.

MOO3 Combat Design Doc -- 1:31 pm CST, Update by The Master

Quicksilver has placed a webbized copy of their Ground Combat Design Doc online for perusal. If this doc is any indication of the depth of play planned for Master of Orion 3, we are going to be seeing a truly incredible game released. If it doesn't take 50 years to write...

UT 421 Patch Info -- 10:30 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Uffda! Forgot to post this yesterday (two little kids with the flu will make you forgetful). UnrealTournament.org got word of fixes coming up in a 421 patch for Unreal Tournament (duh). Here are the game engine fixes:

• fixed another mixed skin cheat
• fixed creeping pings problem - especially prevalent with passworded servers
• fixed problems with passwords with spaces
• improved server CPU utilization
• improved prioritization of network traffic for low bandwidth users
• fixed ActorLineCheck() crash again - no really this time
• fixed clearing base on client in netplay - thanks Mongo
• fixed suicide spamming
• Last Man Standing now can have time limit
• fixed spriteballexplosion sounds playing client side
• faster translocation effect in software mode
• fixed collision bug which cropped up in 420 (overlord)

There are also a slew of UnrealEd fixes. The patch could be out as soon as this weekend, but you know how THAT goes. Thanks VoodooExtreme.

History today -- 9:46 am CST, Update by The Master

• 1865: General Stand Watie surrenders Confederate forces in the Indian Territory (today's Oklahoma) at Doaksville.
• 1868: Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called a "Type-Writer."
• 1888: Abolitionist Frederick Douglass received one vote from the Kentucky delegation at the Republican convention in Chicago, effectively making him the first black candidate nominated for U.S. president. (The nomination went to Benjamin Harrison.)
• 1912: Alan Turing laid the groundwork for the field of artificial intelligence. At age twenty-four, Turing suggested a theoretical calculating device that could carry out step-by-step mathematical operations based on a program. The "Turing Machine" became the theoretical model for work on digital computers in the 1940s. In his later work, he argued that computers would one day think like humans. He devised a test to measure this capacity, called the "Turing test."
• 1931: Aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from New York on the first round-the-world flight in a single-engine plane.
• 1938: The Civil Aeronautics Authority was established.
• 1940: Adolf Hitler surveys notable sites in the French capital, now German-occupied territory.
• 1947: The Senate joined the House in overriding President Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.
• 1956: Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt.
• 1967: President Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin held the first of two meetings in Glassboro, N.J.
• 1969: Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief U.S. justice by his predecessor, Earl Warren.
• 1972: President Nixon and White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman discussed a plan to use the CIA to obstruct the FBI's Watergate investigation. (Revelation of the tape recording of this conversation sparked Nixon's resignation in 1974.)
• 1985: All 329 people aboard an Air-India Boeing 747 died when the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland, apparently because of a bomb.
• 1995: Dr. Jonas Salk, the medical pioneer who developed the first vaccine against polio, died in La Jolla, Calif., at age 80.

Past Two Days' News

The Haus is powered by:

All original information on this website is copyright © TheHaus.Net, 1999-2005. The use of original images, text, and/or code from this website without expressed written consent is prohibited. The authors of this site cannot be held responsible for any damage, real or imagined, which comes from the use of information presented on this site. All trademarks used are the properties of their respective owners. This site is not to be used as a floatation device (but if you try, I want a video tape of it).