Wednesday, July 26, 2000

NVIDIA Apology -- 9:53 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Hypothermia posted an interview with NVIDIA's PR Director, Derek Perez. In it, he attempts to explain how the problems first started with sites like Hypothermia and Riva3D. Apologies were offered and apparently accepted. Hopefully this will be the last of it. Thanks Shugashack.

Fun with OpenVMS -- 9:32 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Our very own J.t.Qbe has begun a journey, a journey he wishes to share with the world. Recently, he got his hands on a VAX machine in an effort to run OpenVMS. You say you don't know what OpenVMS is? You wouldn't know a VAX if someone dropped one on you? Well then read The VAX Files: Fun with OpenVMS. In this first installment, he explains what in the world VMS is and what possessed him to want to run it. It's a very interesting read. I highly recommend that you check it out. Stay tuned for part two next Wednesday and part three the Wednesday after that.

The Master comments: Okay, couple pieces of trivia: #1, I met my wife over the VAX phone utility. #2: The man who designed Windows NT, Dave Cutler, also had a large role in VMS and the earlier PDP-11 OS at Digital. I hope this frightens everyone :-)

J.t.Qbe comments: Congrats, TM! That's the first VMS-induced marriage I've heard about! Conspiracy theorists like to point to the correlation between VMS and Windows NT--add one to each of the letters in VMS and you get WNT. . . spooky, isn't it?

Napster shut down -- 9:12 pm CST, Update by The Master

It appears that Napster is being shutdown. A Federal court judge has ordered Napster to cease and desist allowing the trade of copyrighted mp3s over their service by Friday, citing that the service does not fall under the "fair use" provisions of the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.

I'm not surprised by this verdict. Napster was in blatant violation of copyright since the beginning, like it or not. The future of online digital music will be an interesting journey from now on.

<rant> Does anyone else out there feel cheated by the prices charged for CDs nowadays? When I first started buying CDs back in 91, they were between $9 and $11. Now they're $16+, and the technology to make them is so cheap it's disgusting. From what I've read, the musicians are making a LOT of cash, but not nearly enough to make up the difference. So, ahem, we're being screwed by the record industry. I hope they don't try to sell music digitally for $25 a copy-they'll make Napster look-alikes completely rampant.</rant>

Zvezda Dock Successful -- 11:20 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

The Russian Zvezda module for the international space station (ISS) successfully docked with a part of the space station which was already in orbit. This opens things up for the United States to launch several shuttle missions to get NASA's contribution to the station in orbit. Over the next six years 39 shuttle flights and seven Russian rocket launches will complete the station. The ISS will get its first crew members in November, who will make sure the station is functioning properly. Thanks Slashdot.

Intel: SDRAM is OK -- 11:00 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

According to this ZDNet article, Intel has given up on trying to ram RAMBUS down everybody's throats with the Pentium 4. PC133 SDRAM will be fully supported. Now if we could just kill RAMBUS off totally . . . Thanks sCary.

Tuesday, July 25, 2000

FBI DDOS? -- 12:31 pm CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Wraith sent along some news he found on The Hacker News Network. According to this Wired News story, the webmaster of a site which archives all kinds of material related to spy networks claims that his site has come under a DDOS attack after he refused to take down some classified Japanese secrets at the request of the FBI. Coincidence? Kinda makes you go, "Hmmmmmm," doesn't it. Or, as Wraith put it, "I'm telling ya, sometimes it creeps me out to live in the US . . ."

Actually, the whole Carnivore thing creeps me out a lot more than this does. Notice that I said, "creeps me out" not "surprises me." I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find a very small FBI operative living in my sock drawer.

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

Recently I've been getting back into playing guitar. I had a cheap acoustic when I was a kid. I sold my bass five years ago (the worst decision I ever made). Now, I've been doing some research into getting an electric, most likely a Yamaha Pacifica 112M (thanks for the tip, Skip!) or possibly an Ibanez GSA-60. I've been amazed at the amount of information available on the 'Net for learning to play guitar or researching buying a guitar. I wish the Internet would have been around when I was first learning bass--I would have been a much better player.

Star Wars RPG -- 11:06 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

While I'm stealing all the news from Blue, I came across this press release announcing a Star Wars Role-Playing Game to be made in a joint venture between LucasArts and BioWare (the makers of Baldur's Gate). The game will be set before the events in Episode I. Don't get too excited, the game isn't due to be released until 2002.

Sanity Demo Released -- 10:40 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

Monolith has released the demo of Sanity: Aiken's Artifact (61M) at Real.Com. It'll be interesting to see what Lith has done with LithTech 2.0 and to see if they fixed some of the problems from 1.x. Thanks Blue's News.

In case you are wondering why Monolith and RealNetworks are in bed together, check out this press release.

Past Two Days' News

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