Tuesday, June 27, 2000

Half-Life persistence -- 10:10 pm CST, Update by The Master

No, I'm not talking about Half-Life's popularity, I'm talking about Half-Life's newly announced persistence API, which will allow data on players to persist between games and servers.

I really like this concept-always have. What I'd like to know is whether they have a way of making persistent data that cannot be hacked by the game player. Otherwise this is all a technicality.

Half-Life 1.1.0.1 Tomorrow -- 9:17 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Blue got word from Valve that they will be releasing a 1.1.0.1 patch for Half-Life tomorrow. Here's the skinny:

Valve will release HL Update 1.1.0.1 tomorrow at 11 am PST. The update includes improvements for graphic card issues, connection problems, game rules exploit problems, as well as resource and performance issues. Players can update their version via Half-Life's Auto Update feature or traditional download.

It'll be interesting to see if the auto-updater actually works for me this time.

Void for PalmOS -- 12:26 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Curse you, J.T.Qbe! Just when I get myself to the point that I'm not using my Handspring Visor PDA so much, he emails me with word of a PalmOS game called Void. Basically it's a frightfully good clone of the space trading game Elite (a personal favorite of J.t. and me). Guess I'll have to buy a few more packs of AAAs.

Ack, ack, ack! I just noticed on that website that they also have a knock-off of the classic vector-graphics tank shooter BattleZone, called Tank Pilot! More AAAs!

UPDATE! I just had a bit of a heart attack because I couldn't get my Visor to hotsync. I figured that Win98 must be blowing something up with USB, so I deleted the USB entry in System and let Win98 redetect it. I even reinstalled the Palm software. No dice. Having eliminated about everything else, I gave the Visor a soft restart. That did the trick. Whew!

J.t.Qbe comments: Sorry A.T.--not. I haven't actually tried Void yet--I'm hooked on Ackeron at present. When I get a spare half-meg, I'll load up Void, though. . .

Mozilla M17? -- 11:32 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to this Slashdot article, Mozilla M17 is supposed to be released today (that would be a bit of a surprise since M16 wasn't released that long ago). While you are waiting for it to show up on Mozilla's FTP, read the rest of that article, which details the development and support of PNG, the new graphics format which will hopefully replace GIF.

UPDATE! 9:25 P.M. It appears that Slashdot was mistaken. They offer this mea culpa.

Non Sequitur: BS Music -- 11:12 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Welcome to my first ever Non Sequitur post! OK, some of you might say that I've had plenty of non sequitur posts before. For you knuckle-draggers out there, non sequitur means "it does not follow". It's a term used in logic and debate when a person's conclusion doesn't follow their supporting statements. Still awake? Anyway, I'm going to use "Non Sequitur" to post interesting links to stuff I find on the 'Net that aren't necessarily gaming or computer-related.

The first is a link I found last night on The Shack from the Washington Post, talking about Britney Spears in concert. If there's anything I hate, it's pre-fab pop music. This article deals with the lack of real vocals in her concert and the unholy terror that is her fan base. It's rather obvious that the author of that article would rather have been doing anything else the night of the concert, like spraying Lysol directly in his eyes.

History today -- 8:37 am CST, Update by The Master

• 1829: In Genoa, Italy, English scientist James Smithson died after a long illness, leaving behind a will with an interesting clause. In the event that his only nephew died without any heirs, Smithson decreed that the whole of his estate go to "the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge."
• 1844: Mormon leader Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were killed by a mob in Carthage, Ill.
• 1847: New York and Boston were linked by telegraph wires.
• 1862: Battle of Gaines' Mill (First Cold Harbor), Virginia.
• 1865: Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia.
• 1893: The New York stock market crashed.
• 1929: Researchers at the Bell Telephone Lab in New York City gave the first public demonstration of color television.
• 1940: The Germans set up two-way radio communication in their newly occupied French territory, employing their most sophisticated coding machine, Enigma, to transmit information.
• 1942: The FBI announced the capture of eight Nazi saboteurs who had been put ashore from a submarine on New York's Long Island.
• 1944: American forces completed their capture of the French port of Cherbourg from the Germans.
• 1950: President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict after the U.N. Security Council called on member nations to help South Korea repel a communist invasion.
• 1957: More than 500 people were killed when Hurricane Audrey slammed through coastal Louisiana and Texas.
• 1973: Former White House counsel John W. Dean told the Senate Watergate Committee about an "enemies list" kept by the Nixon White House.
• 1980: President Carter signed legislation reviving draft registration.
• 1985: Legendary Route 66, which originally stretched from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif., passed into history as officials decertified the road.
• 1990: NASA announced that a flaw in the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope was preventing the instrument from achieving optimum focus.
• 1991: Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, who in 1967 became the first African American to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, retired after serving on the nation’s highest court for twenty-four years.
• 1995: The space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on a historic flight to link up with Russia's space station Mir and bring home American astronaut Norman Thagard.

Monday, June 26, 2000

Xian TargetQuake Map -- 10:46 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

id's Christian "Disruptor" Antkow has released a map for the new side-scroller mod for Quake III Arena called Target Quake (story). You can download his map from the official Q3A site. While TargetQuake looks very cool, I'm finding gameplay to be more than a little annoying. I'll keep trying though.

History today -- 10:07 am CST, Update by The Master

• 1541: Francisco Pizarro, the governor of Peru and conqueror of the Inca civilization, was assassinated in Lima by his Spanish rivals.
• 1843: Hong Kong was proclaimed a British crown colony with Sir Henry Pottinger as its first governor.
• 1862: Battle of Mechanicsville, Ellerson's Mill, (Beaver Dam Creek), Virginia.
• 1870: The first section of Atlantic City, N.J.'s Boardwalk was opened to the public.
• 1900: A commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against yellow fever.
• 1911: Frederick Williams, inventor of an early form of computer memory, was born. An electrical engineer who had worked on code-breaking systems during World War II, Williams also made important contributions to the development of radar.
• 1917: The first American Expeditionary Force troops arrived in France during World War I.
• 1919: The New York Daily News was first published.
• 1925: Charlie Chaplin's classic comedy, "The Gold Rush," premiered at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
• 1945: The United Nations charter was signed by 50 countries in San Francisco.
• 1948: The Berlin Airlift began after the Soviet Union cut off land and water routes to the isolated western sector of the German city.
• 1959, President Eisenhower joined Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in ceremonies officially opening the St. Lawrence Seaway.
• 1963: President Kennedy visited West Berlin, where he made his famous declaration: "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner).
  
  A.T. Hun comments: Except that it was a bad translation. "Ich bin ein Berliner" means "I am a jelly doughnut" (ein Berliner is a type of jelly doughnut). If he wanted to say "I am a (resident of) Berlin" he should have said, "Ich bin Berliner." I'm certain that the Germans understood what he meant, but I'm also sure that a few of them smiled quietly to themselves. Interestingly enough, Ronald Reagan repeated JFK's words upon a visit to Berlin. (See this page on the Urban Legends site for more information.)
  
  Reminds me of another great translation snafu. President Carter told the Poles through an official state department translator that he was "pleased to be grasping their secret parts."
  
  
• 1968: Chief U.S. Justice Earl Warren announced his intention to resign.
• 1989: A Soviet nuclear submarine carrying atomic weapons was crippled off the coast of Norway when a pipe burst in its reactor.
• 1990: President Bush, who had campaigned for office on a pledge of "no new taxes," conceded that tax increases would have to be included in any deficit-reduction package worked out with congressional negotiators.

Shogo Linux and Amiga Update -- 10:01 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Hyperion Software posted an updated status report on their ports of Shogo to Linux and the Amiga. Here's some highlights from the report:

• They are moving the transformation code to OpenGL to take advantage of hardware T&L (like the GeForce's--although I don't know if the .93 NVIDIA Linux drivers support hardware T&L or not. I assume they do.)
• OpenAL will be used for 3D sounds (hey, Creative, get those Linux Soundblaster Live! drivers out one of these years!)

Sounds like some good stuff! Thanks, Blue, for the heads-up.

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