Topic: COMPUTER - on April 18, 2008 at 1:09:00 PM CEST
Secret hisory of Infocom's abortive sequel to The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy text adventure, Milliways
Andy Baio's been slipped a hard drive containing the whole network share from Infocom, creators of the legendary text-adventure game Zork and The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy; he's mining the drive's many treasures and today he's published a long account of the abortivr Milliways game, a sequel to H2G2 set in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe:
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Topic: COMPUTER - on April 18, 2008 at 1:05:00 PM CEST
PowerBooks can transform into Desktops?
When one Mac modder found himself in possession of a well-worn PowerBook that was having some screen problems, he decided to breathe new life into it by turning it into a Mac desktop. (MacTop?)
Essentially, the case is made of two sheets of white acrylic, bolted together by socket countersunk screws. I’ve used 15mm chrome pipe as the four spacers between the acrylic sheet. The perforated steel was cut to my specifications by a very helpful chap found on eBay. Cutting the CD drive slot was a little tricky, as was drilling the power button hole, but once done they seem to function ok.
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Topic: COMPUTER - on April 18, 2008 at 1:02:00 PM CEST
Deutschlands vergessene Chip-Großväter
Milliarden von Transistoren treiben heute Computer und Mobiltelefone an, als Entwickler gelten US-Forscher der Bell Laboratories. Doch unabhängig und parallel bauten zwei deutsche Physiker vor 60 Jahren den Prototyp eines Transistors. Die Geschichte zweier verkannter Pioniere.
So kann man sich irren: Am 1. Juli 1948 versteckte die "New York Times" auf Seite 46 zwischen allerlei anderen Meldungen zum Radioprogramm (Radiotheater abgesetzt, Verkehrsnachrichten für Wochenendurlauber) die eigentlich Titelseiten-würdige Nachricht, dass der Telefonkonzern Bell der Presse ein neues Gerät namens Transistor vorgeführt hatte. Für die Erfindung gebe es, so schrieb die Times "viele Verwendungsmöglichkeiten in Radios, wo bislang Elektronenröhren zum Einsatz kommen."
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Topic: Terror - on April 18, 2008 at 1:00:00 PM CEST
Unterhändler in Algerien ermordet
Dramatischer Zwischenfall in der Geiselkrise um zwei entführte Österreicher in Nordafrika: Wie Sicherheitskreise bestätigen, wurden ein Unterhändler und dessen Begleiter in Algerien ermordet aufgefunden. Ob die Täter zu al-Qaida gehören, ist noch ungewiss.
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Topic: AUSTRIA - on April 18, 2008 at 12:56:00 PM CEST
Austrian City Demands People Switch Phones To Silent Mode On Public Transit
It looks like politicians worldwide have decided to step in to try to stop rude mobile phone behavior. Just after we pointed to US politicians looking to ban the (already banned) use of mobile phones on airplanes, the mayor of the Austrian city of Graz, has said that commuters must switch their mobile phones to silent mode on public transportation.
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Topic: health - on April 18, 2008 at 12:54:00 PM CEST
Euro 2008 fans at risk of measles
Football supporters travelling to Euro 2008 may be at risk of catching measles, health officials have warned.
Significant outbreaks are occurring in Switzerland and Austria, the two countries hosting the competition this summer, Europe-wide figures show.
A team of vaccine experts is currently conducting a risk assessment in Austria just eight weeks before the tournament.
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Topic: SCIENCE - on April 18, 2008 at 12:49:00 PM CEST
Complete Darwin Papers Debut on Internet
The complete works of Charles Darwin -- a god among scientists and the bane of every creationist’s existence – are finally available for anyone, anywhere to read. And it only took 126 years and another scientific revolution to make it happen.
Cambridge University, where Darwin studied theology, has digitized and published on the internet its collection of some 30,000 items and 90,000 images by the man who changed the course of science by writing the evolutionary primer, The Origin of Species, in 1859.
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