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Friday, October 31, 2003

Have a safe and fun Halloween!

Have a safe and fun Halloween!


Remember to be careful out and about. Plus don't eat all the candy in one night! You don't want to waste it by getting sick.

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

FreeBSD 4.9 Released

FreeBSD 4.9 was released late yesterday night.

It contains the usual assortment of bug fixes and security holes closed. Some new kernel changes, support for the Physical Address Extensions (PAE) capability on Intel Pentium Pro and higher processors has been added, drivers for more network cards, updates to ipfw, GNOME has been updated to 2.4 and KDE has been updated to 3.1.4 and a few other misc things.

Read the announcement here:
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/4.9R/announce.html
Release notes:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.9R/relnotes.html
Errata:
http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.9R/errata.html

quote:

---

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 23:19:08 -0800
From: "Murray Stokely"
To:
Subject: FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE is now available

I am happy to announce the availability of FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE, the latest release of the FreeBSD -STABLE development branch. Since FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE in April 2003, we have made conservative updates to a number of software programs in the base system, dealt with known security issues, and merged support for large memory i386 machines with Page Address Extensions (PAE) from 5.1.

For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the release notes and errata list, available here:

http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.9R/relnotes.html

http://www.FreeBSD.org/releases/4.9R/errata.html

This release does not include all of the new technologies that were introduced with FreeBSD 5.1 in June. Most developer resources are focused on improving the FreeBSD 5.X branch, and this may very well be the last major release of FreeBSD 4.X. The security officer team will continue to actively support the 4.X branch according to the normal policy. Additional 4.9.X releases may be made available when necessitated by security vulnerabilities or high-impact bugfixes.

We encourage all our users to evaluate FreeBSD 5.1 and the upcoming 5.2. Because PAE support has only been a feature in 4.X for a few months, it has not received wide-spread testing, and our most conservative users may wish to stay with FreeBSD 4.8 until they choose to migrate to 5.X.

For more information about the distinctions between FreeBSD 4.X and 5.X, or for general information about the FreeBSD release engineering activities, please see :

http://www.FreeBSD.org/releng/

---

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Diablo 2: LOD patch 1.10 released today!

Well who knew it?!? They finally released the damn patch. It's been in the works for what seems like forever. The folks at Blizzard must have sacraficed a whole flock of lambs and sold their souls to Diablo himself.

There's just too much new to post it here so you can read up on the complete info here: http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=mdt0763p.

They haven't released a stand alone copy of the patch yet. Right now the only way to get it is to download it inside the game. After it's installed it's a crapshoot getting logged into battle.net. Everyone is getting Realm Down messages.

Like I said there's just too much new to talk about however the one thing I will discuss is the new anti-cheat system they've been working on.

quote:

---

Implemented a new system to detect and delete 'duped', 'hacked' and other erroneous items from the inventories of Realm Characters as they are loaded.

---

So far it seems to be hit or miss with this new system. Lots of hacked and bugged items have been deleted but there are reports of legit items dissappearing too. However no one is sure how many of these claims are real or just upset people. Some bugged items still exist so it's not fullproof. Plus all the duped items are still here. Although I read someplace they haven't turned on the duped item deletion yet.

They better turn it on soon if they can. Otherwise I'm going to laugh at all the people that sold off their stuff thinking it was going to disappear!

Now stop reading this and go play people!

---- !UPDATE! ----
Get the patches here if you're having troubles finding it elsewhere.
Diablo 2: Original (9.4MB) - http://www.alanbarber.org/gallery/files/diablo/D2Patch_110.exe
Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction Expansion (4.9MB) - http://www.alanbarber.org/gallery/files/diablo/LODPatch_110.exe

Sunday, October 26, 2003

Dennis Miller just might have a point

Read a little rant about space travel by Dennis Miller and I have to agree with him.

To sum it up for you lazy folks... Space travel has gotten stale. It's time to downsize NASA and use the money for better things.

quote:

---

Instead of coaxing a Battle-Bot off-road on the Red Planet (search) why don't we take NASA's budget and rededicate it to a public works project and build a comprehensive system of bullet trains right here on terra firma? Because, quite frankly, the current odds of getting to Saturn are a whole lot better than those of going from L.A. to Fresno on Amtrak.

---

I totally agree with him. The fact of the mater is the space program has gone from grand to bland. I think it would be better to spend the billions we throw to NASA every year on projects that could actually improve the lives of Americans.

I'm sure liberals would want to spend the money on welfare or some other stupid program and we could give a bit to these programs. However, I want to see the money go to something more grand. Something like a high-speed rail system is perfect.

Air travel is too expensive and honestly it's a pain in the neck to deal with. Having cheap, convenient, and accessible travel for the masses will do a lot to help everyone. People can stay where they live but look for jobs farther out. It helps businesses with fast shipping.

I'd support the idea and I'm sure others would too.

Friday, October 24, 2003

I think God is trying to tell you something!

Ladies and Gentlemen I kid you not lightning strikes Mel Gibson's controversial film "The Passion of Christ" has for the second time!

CNN.com reports that actor Jim Caviezel who plays the part of Jesus got struck by lightning. This is just too freaking weird considering the movie has been causing lots of controversy for Jewish and Roman Catholics.

This was Caviezels first strike but this is the second strike for assistant director Jan Michelini. You just have to ask yourself what the heck is going on?!? While filming lightning has struck cast and crew not just once as a freak occurrence but twice, in particular one guy! The chances of that happening are so tiny you can't help but wonder if it isn't the work of a higher power.

I know I'd be scared s***less of working on that set after the second hit.

I'm Roman Catholic but I could care less what they film. Honestly I see it just as stupid as the films the religious groups make and try to sell on the 700 club and the likes. I'll stick to the Lord of the Rings and Matrix films thank you very much!

Thursday, October 23, 2003

Intel says California is anti-business

Caught an interesting story over at the Taipei times. Basically Intel says California is anti-business because of all the regulations in place.

Craig Barrett, the CEO, says Intel won't be spending much money in Cali long as the current regulations exist. And Intel spends a LOT of money!

quote:

---

Barrett hasn't expanded Intel's remaining California chip factory since 1999 and the "overwhelming majority" of the US$22.4 billion budgeted for plants and equipment over the past four years has been spent outside the state, Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.

---

Hey Mr Barrett! Ohio is always looking for new jobs in the high tech sector. Come build a chip fab here. We'll treat you right and provide you with plenty of very smart labor.

Man I'd love to have Intel build a big plant here. I'd love working at a place like Intel. Heck I'd love working for any big name companies. Better than getting some crap IT job at the little businesses around here.

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Nokia N-Gage = N-Flop?

IGN.com is reporting the first week sales figures for Nokia's new Cellphone/Portable Game system the N-Gage.

According to them the first week sales numbers look like this:
United States - 5000 units
United Kingdom - 500 units

Bwaaahaaaaa! HAaa! Haa! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Shesh! Those numbers are just horrible. I applaud Nokia for trying but I can't help but laugh. I don't have any numbers but I'm pretty sure the GBA SP had a first week unit sales in the range of 500,000 worldwide (if someone can find the numbers I'll post a link).

It's just said really. Nokia was trying to pimp and hype up the N-Gage for weeks. They did all sorts of silly stuff. They even held midnight release parties all over the place. If they sold just 5000 in the first week that parties must have been a major flop!

They must have used in-house designers because the usability of the thing just plain sucks rotten eggs. I may not be a product design specialist but even I know something isn't designed right when you have take off the back cover and remove the battery to put games into the system!

The fact of the mater is the N-Gage is a crappy looking phone with an even worse game system tacked on with an outrageous price tag.

Not to say N-Gage couldn't succeed. It just needs a complete redesign to look more like a normal cellphone and function more like a real game system. That and knock a hundred bucks off the price.

The Gameboy is the only real system in town right now. Sony's handheld the PSP might success but with the specs they're claiming I just don't know. Dual 333mhz cpus, two graphics chips, a mini dvd type disc, usb 2.0 ports, 802.11 wifi network, infrared port, etc, etc. A system like that would cost a fortune to build and sell. PDAs with half the features they're claiming cost $400-$500. No way they can charge that much for a game system. Plus the battery requirements for that much hardware has got to be a problem. Oh well we'll just see.