14-March-1999 [Artur Marques]
Today's contents, for now, are: #1) Hardware Rumors #2) Software Rumors #3) ULTIMA on-line is on sale for big money #4) Tom & Nicole will grow old together #5) Hacker's hero Mitnick will finally go to trial on 20 APRIL 1999 #6) IF you have something to contribute with, go ahead!. Plus, the usual picture of the day.
TIP of the day: Did you know that there's an artificial life GIL waiting for you at the Computer Projects section?
PC133 SDRAM is coming sooner than expected and it might affect some hardware schedules, for 1999. The RAMBUS and the P3 @ 133 MHz front-bus are the most affected, and INTEL is considering delaying these products, so that the PC133 SDRAM will actually be just a un-necessary luxury of some PC owners, who enjoy overclocking. Incredibly, just the rumor was enough to cause importation problems of PENTIUM-3 to Europe, and you should be very lucky if you manage to buy one of those in the next days... Let's see if I can put my hands on a P3@450 :-).
Microsoft #2, Steve Ballmer, is thinking about a revolution. The SW giant will be split in 4 enterprises, each specialized in their own stuff, where "stuff" is operating systems, interactive media (read Internet), software for software developers, and software for other users (Office, games, etc). The Office package may be ported to Linux, consequence of this reorganization. Just Rumors?
ULTIMA ON-LINE is on sale for big money
If you are into computer games and into the Internet, you MUST know about ULTIMA ON-LINE, the BIGGEST Internet game, ever designed. I was a great ULTIMA 8 player, the last of the single player ULTIMA games; after ULTIMA 8, the Lord British saga decided to bet on something that was quite adventurous back then, in 1997. ULTIMA was going to turn into a server-client program, where the server is an application never to be sold, running a world, where hundreds, or thousands, of people (clients) can live in, doing a virtual life, as warriors, wizards, or just regular folks, hunting dragons at the weekends...
After HUGE scalability problems at the beginning, ULTIMA programmer's did manage to make this gigantic virtual community work OK, and now there are hundreds of regular people living there, making fortunes, friendships and enemies.
Its not easy to become successful in ULTIMA. Only the very best players will manage to build characters, strong enough to resist murder attempts and other not so nice things that go on in the virtual community. One of these great players is selling his TWO years old ULTIMA account for the highest bid, which is 1600 USD (~300.000 ESCUDOS), by now...
Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman will grow old, together...
...at least, this is what she says. The story is exactly ONE year old, but knew some developments the day before yesterday (friday), when the couple was at the funeral of Stanley Kubrik, in London, England. It goes like this: in February 1998, a journalist managed to intercept a telephone conversation between Tom and Nicole, using a modified radio receiver. During the conversation, Nicole said that their marriage was "hanging by a thread". This journalist sold the story to The Globe, but got accused of violation of privacy, resisting all this time to justice, by paying a 10.000 USD fine. Last friday, the man admitted his fault, in exchange of a minor accusation, and that was it.
Nicole and Tom are BOTH in the "almost secret" last film of Stanley Kubrik, "Eyes Wide Shut". There is somewhere in the Internet, a 90 seconds trailer, where the famous couple can be seen in a *very hot* loving scene, that is part of the film. The Internet clip was made from an original, that was showed last week @ the annual ShoWest Exhibitor's Convention, in... (guess it) Las Vegas. If you are into MPEG movies, you might enjoy my Trade Center...
Nicole says that her love for Tom is eternal: "we will grow old, together, loving each other". That's the spirit!
Hacker's hero Mitnick will finally go to trial on 20 APRIL 1999
4 years after his arrest, one of the most mythical computer hackers of all times, Kevin Mitnick, will be judged day 20 April 1999. Kevin is being accused of severe hacking into some communication company's proprietary software. This is going to be a very special case, because of the technical concepts that must be understood by all the parts. Kevin was finally aloud to approach a (portable) PC, in order to review documents that are important for his defense, but that authorization is not happening in practical terms, as several "computer experts" keep inspecting the machine, afraid that Kevin might do something wrong... The hacker's community has been expressing its discomfort with the whole situation, since the beginning, and many american newspapers' had to shut their websites, because of successive attacks to the servers...
IF you have something to contribute with, go ahead!
NOT today, may be tomorrow, this website will debut an anonymous FTP server, where people can upload (and download) stuff to (and from). I am not exactly sure what to offer and what to expect, but the chances are that the FTP server will work on 1:1 basis, meaning that if you upload something, you might suck something. The amount of available files will be very, very small, to start with, just to check people's reactions. The files MUST BE binaries or big digital documents, such as INTEGRAL books.
Now, if you have text NEWS, in any language, please send them in to *contact* and they WILL get published and credited to you (sign them!).
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I have this +11 years old car, that travels a LOT nowadays... My car is my friend, and I think that he deserves to be the 1st car in the world with a sentimental picture of his own... Here it is, an old picture of him the day he turned 20.000 KM. I was traveling at 120 kph @ the time. Souvenirs... |