[Slashdot-mailer] Slashdot Daily Report (11/4/2000)
David Jacoby
jacoby@ecn.purdue.edu
Sat, 4 Nov 2000 11:00:02 -0500 (EST)
Slashdot Daily Report ( http://slashdot.org/ )
News for Nerds. Stuff That Matters.
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Pi: It Just Keeps On Going
A articles article from the "distributed-"usefulness"" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/149209
dominic7 sent us a link on the National Post
about a new record for "knowing" Pi. Using the ol'
distributed approach, a math major in Canada has
found the quadrillionth binary digit of pi. It's a
zero.
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Candle
A books article from the "thoughts-of-elton-john" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/10/25/163203
Duncan Lawie wrote this review of Candle, which
portrays a frightening but not-so-unbelieveable
future, when today's notion of a digital divide is
turned precisely on its head: it's a world where
not being connected is not only unheard of, but
criminal. Read this summary to decide whether it
belongs on your "to-read" list, but it's just
landed on mine. [TABLE NOT SHOWN]
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More Candidate Answers - Bush and Hagelin
A interviews article from the "another-study-in-contrasts" department
sent by Roblimo
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/1451204
Two more presidential aspirants have sent answers
to Slashdot questions: Republican Party candidate
George W. Bush and Natural Law Party candidate
John Hagelin. Not surprisingly, there are many
issues on which they don't agree.
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Computers-for-Student-Eyeballs Scheme Goes Under
A yro article from the "serves-them-right" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/153201
mwalker writes "The New York Times is reporting
that ZapMe corporation is sending schools the bill
for computers that they had given the schools for
free. ZapMe's original business model of playing
ads for students on the computers, and trading
their personal information for "Zap points"
towards prizes seems to have fallen afoul of a few
privacy advocates."
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The Kid Who Wouldn't Be King
A features article from the "-a-jaw-dropping-tale-from-the-Hellmouth" department
sent by JonKatz
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/0412228
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Demos, Screenshots Of Cyan's Next Projects
A articles article from the "lotta-linkage" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/0519258
Stop Making Sense! writes: "First, an overview:
To put it simply, Cyan has been a very busy little
adventure game company lately. So busy, in fact,
that it has left the job of a third Myst sequel,
Myst III:Exile, to the notorious Presto Studios.
With the impending release of realMyst, a realtime
3D version of Myst, and the accompanying Demo and
Trailer, quite a few revelations about Cyan's
long-term project have been woefully missed by
most. A word about this project, before we get to
the sweetness: It is codenamed MUDPIE." (Read on
for more.) [updated by timothy] Due to a defective
brain node, certain sentences were posted
redundantly in this story. The node has been
cauterized, and the sentences too. "It is going to
be an organic, realtime multiplayer game running
on the same 'Headspin' 3D engine (which Cyan
bought from the now-defunct Headspin Technologies
along with a bunch of Headspin's programming
staff)as realMyst and is going to take place in
the Myst/Riven universe. In the blizzard of Myst
information, the sweetest snippet of all has
basically gotten lost in the shuffle: a Screenshot
of MUDPIE. People think at first it's a small
chamber until the realize that the blob front and
center is a person. The engine is very pretty and
relatively low on bugs, if a bit slow. Some people
think the edges of the front pillars aren't soft
enough, but they look fine to me :). For more info
and clarification, see [this info page on Cyan's
site]."
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The Kid Who Wouldn't Be King (UPDATED)
A features article from the "-a-jaw-dropping-tale-from-the-Hellmouth" department
sent by JonKatz
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/0412228
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3Dwm Updates
A articles article from the "way-ahead-of-its-time" department
sent by CmdrTaco
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/1758244
Robert Karlsson writes "3Dwm, the
Three-dimensional window manager, an open source
project at Chalmers Medialab, has just released a
new, extensive release of 3Dwm, release 0.2.2 -
VNC support, 3D scene graph, big texture
splitting, client connection, framework, 3D
materials support, testsuite added." miles away
from a real desktop, but a great testbed for those
ideas that are way ahead of their time.
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What Will Happen to Sega?
A articles article from the "the-death-throes-are-coming" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/1532200
A reader writes "Sega is getting out of hardware
altogether. Salon has an interesting bit about the
impending doom of Sega and speculation that among
the other major players, namely Sony and Nintendo,
Microsoft has the most to gain from purchasing the
beleaguered Sega."
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Cheap, Paper RF ID Tags To Replace Barcodes?
A articles article from the "paperless-office-and-grocery-store" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/188230
Chris writes: "From EETimes: "International Paper
Co. and Motorola Inc. have developed a low-cost RF
identification system that could become
commonplace on disposable items like cereal boxes,
replacing the ubiquitous bar code." While the
article does mention that the cost of the
technology must drop further (from about 10 to 30
cents per ID to a couple of pennies), it overlooks
the potential impact on privacy. (Just imagine
embedding these tags in your clothes.)"
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IBM Takes #1 w/ASCI White
A articles article from the "beating-out-the-rest-of-the-pack" department
sent by Hemos
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/2118216
mcryptic writes "Cnet News has this story about
how IBM now tops the top 500 list with the new
ASCI White supercomputer. The machine has 8,192
CPUs, weighs 106 tons and takes up two basketball
courts' worth of floor space." And it's for
Seti@home...er...no.
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Geek Throne: A Self-Adjusting "Smart" Chair
A articles article from the "laptops-and-lazyboys-don't-mix" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/03/2130251
bmongar writes: "An article at Eurekalert
mentions that scientists at Purdue University have
made a chair that can sense your posture and
movement. As a sufferer of low back pain I hope
this leads to chairs that can sense your posture
and adjust to provide proper support for your
back. It would be a possible relief for millions.
I can't find the links supporting this, but I
believe computer professionals suffer more back
pain than professional movers." This is a cool
project. This stuff -- furniture, and ergonomics
in general -- will only get more important, even
if it's still amazingly neglected. How they
recognize the postures is interesting, too --
"Given the similarity between a pressure
distribution map from the contact sensors and a
greyscale image, computer vision and pattern
recognition algorithms, such as Principal
Components Analysis, are applied to the problem of
classifying steady-state sitting postures," says
the article.
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Alberta, Canada Goes Broadband -- By 2004
A articles article from the "what-happened-to-ip-over-powerlines?!" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/04/0647213
jasonu writes: "According to this article in The
Calgary Herald, every town in Alberta, Canada with
either a hospital, a school, a government office
or a library will be getting wired for high speed
Internet access by the end of 2004. I will finally
get broadband!!" Though the article says this will
be an "optical fiber network," it doesn't detail
the mechanics of it, nor expected data
capabilities -- but for $40 a month (Canadian),
anything that sounds even remotely "high speed"
sounds pretty impressive.
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A New Tack In Search Engine Formulation
A articles article from the "doh!" department
sent by timothy
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/11/04/0840213
An unnamed correspondent writes: "PC World
reports that 'big-shot Web directories such as
Yahoo and LookSmart' are missing thousands of the
best links, which a new startup HotLinks has in in
their directory by building it from people's
bookmarks." This sounds like a smart idea
(building from people's own bookmarks), but is it
doomed to create in-breeding of links? That is, in
a search engine based on bookmarks, will they be
able to get enough "new blood"?
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The info is Rob Malda's
The code is mine
MOTD: -----------------------------------
I am no longer associated with Purdue, except for being a former
student, former employee, and active member of the Linux Users Group.
As such, I'll either be moving this service to another server or
killing it entirely. Your input is requested as to what you'd like.
Then again, when was the last time I changed the MOTD? And when was
last time it was read?