1000 degrees below zero - Gwen Heliou

Where do old computers end ? Some month ago, I tried to convince some friend to buy a bunch of SGI O2 on Ebay (4 units, R10k, working, for something around 350$us)… But they weren’t interested unfortunnately… I’m still wanting to buy one unit (You know, these noisy SGI looking like a massive vacuum on wheels…). Anyways, I won,t do anything with it except an new house for my server perhaps (By getting rid of all the cutting-edge technology inside the beautiful box certainly)…

Try the museum and look for the past computers you had.[…]
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The more we’re approaching march, the more infos about Splinter Cell Chaos Theory are out. I’ve been at last able to hear the theme of the map I’ve been working on as a level artist for the last 6 months (PS2 version). As Amon Tobin did it, I was eager to hear it for sure. I’m already a fan of his work anyway. […]
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I’ve found again this pretty old site (Without any updates since october 2004) reviewing vacuum-robots and related stuff. I’m still wondering if I want one for my home or not. How can this little piece of machinery will handle the mess of old wood floors, mixed with many non-euclidian furnitures, a wild cat named “Paquerette” and a forgotten pair of sneackers when doing its duty…? That’s a mystery.
You’ll find some robot kits review too (Lego mindstorm, and so on)
… Hmmm, Ebay, Mindstorm, Ebay… I’ll have a look… Here’s the site: Everyday Robots.

The funny thing is I’ve already did that with some of my neighbour when my WiFi connexion started to twitch. I wanted to figure out what was happening and finally entered into one of the WiFi router around, using “admin” as a password (I suspected him to be a casual, laptop user, of his router anyway). It worked, of course.
Then I changed my neighbour’s channel to figure out if he was jamming mine, but unfortunnately, it wasn’t the case. I set everything back, and closed the connexion, after asking to myself if I’d better to make a mess of everything then shut his connexion, as a matter of lesson. Answer: nope. My neighbour is also the guy who often shovels the snow in the building’s entrance and I won’t make something that bother him.

“Every techie I know says that you shouldn’t use other people’s networks without permission. Every techie I know does it anyway. If you’re going to steal—no, let’s say borrow—your neighbor’s Wi-Fi access, you might as well do it right. Step one: Lose the guilt. The FCC told me that they don’t know of any federal or state laws that make it illegal to log on to an open network. Using someone’s connection to check your e-mail isn’t like hacking into their bank account. It’s more like you’re borrowing a cup of sugar. (Unless you hog their bandwidth by watching lots of streaming video—that’s like hijacking a sugar truck.)”
Here’s the link to this interesting article from Slate.com
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The last attempts seemed terrible, with no contestant able to finish and cross the line. As it seems, the next ones are better trained.
The 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge will be competed on October 8, 2005 in the desert Southwest. The team that develops an autonomous ground vehicle that finishes the designated route most quickly within 10 hours will receive $2 million. The route will be no more than 175 miles over desert terrain featuring natural and man-made obstacles. The exact route will not be revealed until two hours before the event begins. 40 participants will compete in a qualifier that will narrow the field to 20 race-day competitors. (Source, RedTeam site)

Watch these videos to figure out: H1ghlander & Sandstorm - Find more videos here.
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For my own, this is the new über-promising japanese movie to come (It went out in 2004 in Japan). I didn’t know a bit of it before reading an entry about it on Slashdot. The trailer simply mixes Brazil, Blade Runner, the 5th Element, and as much manga culture and eastern asian kitch as it can, where there’s room left. I’m just eager to see more, and won’t bother if I’m disapointed afterwards, I swear. [… read more in extended]
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“HG2G centers around a man named Arthur Dent, an Earthling having a pretty rough day… His house is about to be bulldozed, he discovers that his best friend is an alien and to top things off, Planet Earth is about to be demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Fortunately, Dent is whisked away by Ford Prefect, an undercover alien researching “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” just before the planet is destroyed. Arthur unwittingly sets out on a journey in which he finds that nothing is as it seems: he learns that a towel is just the most useful thing in the universe, finds the meaning of life, and discovers that everything he needs to know can be found in one book: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
More pictures from the source here, IGN.
//Update// Here’s the trailer ! Woohoo. […]
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A group on authors (mostly science-fiction) decided to counter-attack publisher PublishAmerica after it claimed online to be more selective in choosing what work to publish compared to the low-level SF edition in general. They wrotte a bad novel, which was accepted and ready to publish in january 2005. A really really bad novel, among which there were duplicated chapters, a computer generated chapter and even a missing chapter!
Here’s a quick review
A link to Travis Tea’s site (Hoax author’s site), and a link to the novel and related documents (pdf).

It was a pleasure to work with you guys. Lachez pas.
Here are some funny Sam Fischer’s videos (Vintage third echelon training videos). More will be released soon, but I won’t spoil the surprise [… Read more in extended]
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I’m on my knees. I’m eager to see more of that in the future, at home. They are integrating 3d in real time video, ok. And their environment seems chaotic enough to challenge what I though to be todays limit in term of interaction. That’s augmented reality! (Even if people’s reality does not seem to need ehencements, sometimes). It’s working like a Boujou, but in realtime, and with dirty shaky video. The second video shows, a bit deeper, how their stuff works. I want it so baaaaaad.
Watch out the first video (Stream). I’ve fixed the previous link. The second one is 80Mb (Wait for a while before DL starts)

Source : gearlive.com
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