Friday, July 28, 2000

Napster appeal granted -- 7:42 pm CST, Update by The Master

Napster has won a last minute reprieve in Appeals court today, which basically means the leaching goes on. I'm actually surprised they stayed the shutdown order, considering it's allowing blatant copyright violation. However, the court basically stated that the law is so muddled in this case that it needs careful review. No duh-the only reason this is being considered at all is the fact that the industry has allowed taping and copying for "personal use" for years, which in most cases of law means you've forfeited your copyrights. We'll see how this goes in court . . .

Abrash on XBox -- 7:11 pm CST, Update by The Master

Michael Abrash, programming/ML/graphics god, has an article over on Dr. Dobbs entitled "Inside XBox Graphics", a major-techy commentary on the new M$ XBox that he's working on. Good stuff for hardware geeks like myself.

I'm very happy to hear Abrash is pounding on the XBox. I was afraid his talents were being wasted working on spelling and thesaurus technology for M$ Word.

A.T. Hun comments: This is really cool . . . except for the fact that I posted this link three and a half weeks ago. *cough*

The Master comments: So, does it show that I'm not the normal news poster on The Haus??

Wilson takes some shots at Apple -- 7:03 pm CST, Update by The Master

Mike Wilson, CEO of Gathering of Developers, has made a couple of blunt statements in a Q&A GameWeek interview. He then sent a follow-up email to Blue clarifying his comments on Apple's lack of marketing support for gaming titles. Too bad for Apple-they can go ahead and pot themselves in the head. My view? The only people who put the major cash into system upgrades on a yearly basis are hardware junkies, gamers, and power users. And power users don't care about games. Hmmmm . . . so which third of the market is Apple ignoring?

[We’re] not very happy at all. Apple has basically abandoned gaming as a priority, and therefore most game publishers are abandoning it. This will likely be the last Macworld that you see Gathering product at, if things don’t change drastically. We have been very vocal about our support of Apple and the Mac up to now, but I have to say that there has been no reciprocity whatsoever. [It’s] very disappointing and sad for the Mac users.

Oh, and Apple has made a rather massive mistake with that blue cube server of theirs, since it infringes on Cobalt Network's Qube system design. Oops. You'd think with all the lawsuits they like throwing at companies that copy their designs, they'd make sure they don't step on it themselves :-)

Serious Sam finds a Publisher -- 6:57 pm CST, Update by The Master

Croteam, maker of the Serious Sam demo and upcoming game, have landed a publisher, according to GameSpot. Gathering of Developer's On Deck Interactive label is going to be SS's publisher. There's an interview with the On Deck and Croteam bigwigs on GameSpot as well. Thanks Blue.

Go to Mars--It's Better Than Britian -- 10:10 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

This MSNBC article outlines NASA's plans to send an orbiter to Mars in 2001 and at least one lander and possibly another orbiter in 2003. It also mentions NASA's plans to bring back samples of Martian rocks, soil, etc. for analysis here on Earth.

And if things keep going the way they are I'm guessing that I (and probably Wraith) will want to be on the first manned mission to Mars. According to this article on The Standard, the House of Commons just bassed a bill recently passed by the House of Lords giving the British government access to all email going through British ISPs. It even threatens jail terms if companies fail to turn over encryption keys or if an employee even mentions to his superiors that the government has asked for such information. Makes the F.B.I. and Carnivore seem positively tame by comparison.

It's just another case of governmental cluelessness. They pass some laws which will not actually effect criminals at all because they are easy to circumvent, while at the same time harassing honest, law-abiding citizens just because the leadership is paranoid. Thanks Slashdot for both stories.

Thursday, July 27, 2000

RA:UT Update -- 2:48 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Now since Rocket Arena is all the rage for Quake III Arena, a post was made on the Rocket Arena for Unreal Tournament page with the following news:

Code: Yeah, since this is the one that's been taking the longest, this is probably the one you are more interested in, right? :) I recently went on a trip for two weeks, and sent off a version of the code for beta testing just before I left. Unfortunately, I have not yet received the bug reports for that version, leaving me unable to fix bugs in the code. Don't worry, as I should be getting these bug reports within the next day or so, allowing me to proceed working at full speed again. Once I've seen the bug list, I'll be able to determine whether I can fix them up quickly and release within the week (to meet that end-of-July promise), or I'll realize that there are still too many major bugs that would require me to delay the release into August. Don't worry, a bug-free RA:UT with four to six extra maps WILL be worth the wait.

There's more where that came from, so make sure to check out the whole thing. Thanks Blue.

Boycott RIAA -- 11:15 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

In light of the (at least temporary) Napster shut-down, some anti-Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) movements are firing up. Check out Boycott-RIAA.com for information on a planned August-long boycott of RIAA-member recordings. Sounds like a good idea. Hit 'em in the only place they'll notice, the pocketbook. Thanks Slashdot.

LinuxCE--Taking Linux Where It Wasn't Meant to Go -- 11:15 am CST, Update by J.t.Qbe

We Haus-Menschen like our PalmOS-based PDAs (there's nothing like a handheld computer, and except for the lack of a hard drive, my Visor is more powerful than my old '286 was!). As with everything else, though, Micro$oft is trying to take over the PDA market with its own Windows CE operating system (appropriately shortened to "WinCE"). This morning I read this interesting article about some who are working to run Linux on these (formerly) WinCE only PDAs. Check it out, if you're interested in this kind of stuff.

Pondering the Imponderable -- 11:06 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Sometime between 12:30 this morning and when I got up, my second phone line went dead. I'm on my main line right now, but can't tie it up too long. Hopefully Qbe and The Master can keep things interesting until a phone company lackey can get out here.

J.t.Qbe comments: Sorry to hear it, A.T. Now you'll have to limp along with only one phone line like the rest of us peasants!

A.T. Hun comments: Well, as of right now (2:30 P.M.) I seem to be back in business. There was a short someplace, although I'm not sure where. Hopefully they actually fixed it.

Past Two Days' News

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