WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1999
* Starcraft Lamers (2:00 PM, EST)
Last night after I finally figured out my strategy to actually live through the first rushes and build up lots of troops/etc. I was playing a killer game of 3 humans vs 2 computers (the computer cheats). While I was mopping up the remains of the computers buildings I noticed my base was being destroyed... After a few seconds of WTFing I realized one of our allies, grant.lee, was destroying our bases while we were fighting... By the time I pulled my troops back I was swarmed by his Zerg and had no means to build more troops etc since he had destroyed my Nexus. My battle weakened troops fell quickly to his huge brood who had not even entered the combat. So if you've never played Starcraft or if you do always watch your back for lamers on your own team....

* Ubermachine Tunes
California Sunshine California Sunshine 9289K [goa]
e razor India 5617K [trance]
Kox Box Fuel On 8794K [trance]
Leftfield Afro-Left 7094K [techno]
Man with No Name Tarantula 7979K [trance]
Mocean Worker René M 7933K [d&b]
Paul van Dyk Seven Ways 6009K [trance]
Terpsichore Bogokka 5244K [goa]
Total Eclipse A Little Bit of Heaven 7035K [trance]
Transwave Robostyx 7129K [trance]
Get some here:  Ubermachine

* Linux 2.4 Nearing Release
This letter from Linus on the Linux Kernel Mailing List tells of an upcoming feature freeze which means no more conent being added, which means a nearly finished kernel :)

Feature freeze in about two weeks is the current plan.

In short, people who think they have major requirements had better get their act together. That means that if ISDN people actually want to try to get into a real release one of these years, they don't have all that much time to futz around any more.

And it does mean that if it's not in working order already, it probably won't make it into 2.4.

Linus

Read the actual post: http://boudicca.tux.org/hypermail/linux-kernel/this-week/0392.html
And in related news:

* Linus = Man Of The Century?
Time Magazine's people of the century poll shows Linus as number 15, right after Madonna. Another point of note is Billy Boy gates is lower on the list :)
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2308475,00.html?chkpt=hpqs014

* LiteStep v. 024.5 Beta
I was a hardcore LiteStep supporter until I found my themes had to be manually altered any time I changed my desktop resolution, and was too lazy to keep doing that so I abandoned LiteStep fo a while. It seems that in the couple monthes I've been away many improvements have been made to make it more stable, and easy to setup. BTW, LiteStep is a Explorer shell replacement that is similar to the Linux AfterStep Window-Manager. It is highly configurable and very stable, and uses almost no resources. the average utilities weigh in with kilobytes, not megabytes.  http://warewolf.litestep.com/distropage

* WinRAM-Booster
For those of you suffering from LRL (Low RAM Lag) WinRAM-Booster may be your saviour. It'll defrag your RAM, optimize your swap, and more to make your box run faster. Read this:

...increase your available RAM for any application with one mouse click, or automatically whenever you start an application. They work by defragmenting your system memory and the swap file, allowing you to recover RAM from the operating system and applications. WinRAM-Booster makes Windows swap unused libraries and DLLs temporarily out to your harddisc, making more room for your games and apps. It will also make Windows unload unused libraries as soon as possible. You can create shortcuts to programs with optimization commands that are executed before the program is started (for example, "Set xMB free before starting this program"). You also can set the program to optimize every X minutes, or when 80 percent of your memory is used. WinRAM-Booster Standard will integrate itself to the right-click menu of the Windows recyclebin to make access to optimization commands as easy as possible.

I have a 192 MB beast here, so RAM is no biggy, but once I had a mere 32 MB to play Q2 with... GAH.
http://home.t-online.de/home/stefan.kuske/mainwrb.htm

* #150 Lamers have no friends...

* Link O The Day (Rine)
Like Weird Al? The hit It's All About the Pentiums and get on his mailing list.
 
 
 
TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1999
* Q3Test 1.08 (1:00 PM, EST)
Well  Igot the .plan update and hit the sites for a download they were already swamped, but my Starcraft addiction will keep me busy till it slacks up. For those of you that want it NOW here's our local Nofadz.com copy: ftp://nofadz.com/pub/nofadz/quake3/win32/q3test_win32_1_08.exe
And here's some mirrors for the WIN32 version on Blue's:  http://www.bluesnews.com/files/q3a/q3test_win32_1_08.shtml

Word from Graeme is:
Q3Test 1.08!!!  Go bring down your favorite Internet site.

Because it's once again a full download, we've included a new model (Sarge) with this version of the test as a consolation prize.  You need to select him from the console using the "model sarge" command.
Also:
You MUST delete all previous versions of Q3TEST for the game to run properly!!!!!!

The Sarge model was the default for the IHV test that so many people got their paws on :)

* AMD Goes Copper
As a test of the new copper chips AMD made a batch of K6s as a warmup for making copper Athlons (K7). Copper = more speed, K7 + copper = INSANE speed. http://www.theregister.co.uk/990802-000019.html

* Flu Virus Created
This is exciting news, since this is the break that may lead to finding a cure to most colds, diseases and viruses. A live virus mutated could become the ultimate virus killer, and with this ability cnacer could be realistically cured, as well as AIDS. Normal vaccines use dead viruses to combat live viruses, this new technology would allow living viruses to act as hunters to track and destroy hostile viruses. Read more:  http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9908/02/flu.dna/index.html

* ICQ Sound Schemes
For those of you haven't discovered it yet, you can alter the default ICQ sounds to be rid of that annoying UH-OH. I'm currently using me super-cool StarcraftProtoss scheme :) Just hit the ICQ Sound Scheme site:  http://www.icq.com/sounds/
And then open ICQ > Preferences > Sound and import the SCM file. Enjoy.

* #149 "This is my Railgun, there are many like it, but this one is mine, my Railgun is my life...."
From Full Metal Jacket (Moses version)

* Link Of The Day (Rine)
For you Lord Of The Rings fans... Ringbearer.org Stuff
 
 
MONDAY, AUGUST 2, 1999
* Even Newer ICQ (99a Beta v.2.24 Build 1800) (12:15 PM, EST)
Less bugs they say.... Here's a direct D/L from BetaNews to avoid the build confusion of 2.22 http://www.betanews.com/download.php3?url=ftp://ftp.icq.com/pub/ICQ_Win95_98_NT4/icq99a.exe

*Wal-Mart to Replace Dangerous Violent Video Games with Family Friendly Guns, Fireworks, Cigarettes, Alcohol.  (Rine)
National Game Review shines a spotlight on the truth about Wal-Mart, they censor music, but sell the most guns in the United States....  http://www.nationalgamereview.com/99.8.2/walmart.html

* Vertical Horizon To Build Cheap MP3 Players
Tired of all the expensive redesigned computers being sold as MP3 players, Vertical Horizon is aiming at making them from what they should be... CD players. Although they are not a big name company (cept in the Karaoke area) they are setting a precedent by attempting to make simple and inexpensive MP3 players. I'm interested....  http://www.mp3.com/news/304.html

* Net Piracy, Friend Or Foe?
ZDNet discusses how pirated video/audio may help more than hurt movies/CD's sales. They site The Blair Witch Project, who almost singly from net information has made it go over bigtime in the 27 theatres showing it.  http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2305894,00.html?chkpt=hpqs014

* Bill Gates Gives MILLIONS To Charity
Hrmmm...
At the end of 1998, the Foundation had committed $133 million to organizations working in global health; $122 million to educational concerns; more than $42 million to community projects in the Pacific Northwest; and over $60 million to special projects and annual giving campaigns.

I suspect this will make him more money cause Americans will think he's such a nice guy....
Read more:  http://www.gatesfoundations.org/WHGfoundation/

* Humorous Links
Saw these on NoFaDz last night, and am passing them on...
Sparkler Bombs...   http://www.fromorbit.com/drutter/Bombs.html
Life Will Not Be Like Star Trek...   http://beavis.bwave.com/~ascii/tv/trek_factor.txt

* #148 Wal-Mart + Rednecks = Dead Rednecks :)
Wal-Mart provides the guns, Rednecks provide the stupidity, the outcome is natural selection.... Yay Darwin!

*Link Of The Day (Rine)
IGN For Men....