"Games: EA's New Game Plan". Sorry, that's it. The title is all I've got. Slashdot's new feature, which shows the titles of stories from other sections on the main page, is great -- it lets me watch for ghosts throughout the Haunted Slashdot Manor. But in this case, I didn't click through to the story before it evaporated into the mist. All that's left is the story title, and a mysterious link leading to a voice that intones, solemnly, "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along." Sorry!

Ghosts of Slashdot: 01/09/2006
[Was the first Ghost of 2006 yanked because it's a dupe? Perhaps the judgement was premature. I probably wasn't the only Subscriber to write in to point out May 2005's "Aquarium Full of Oil For PC Cooling" and even the 1999 posting "CPU Cooling Insanity". But those articles were about amateur attempts, basically dropping a motherboard in an oil-filled aquarium. This is the next generation of deep-fried computers -- it involves an off-the-shelf plexiglass case and lots of silicone caulk. Perhaps the editors will reincorporate this unfairly executed ghost.]

Want a Cool and Quiet PC? Dunk it in Oil
Posted by ScuttleMonkey in The Mysterious Future!
from the everything-is-better-deep-fried dept.

The Last Gunslinger writes "Tom's Hardware Guide has published an article (complete with video) showing how they employed their own approach to the liquid cooled computer. To offset the loss of normal airflow around their Athlon FX-55 and GeForce 6800Ultra, the mad scientists in the lab decided to fill the case up with 8 gallons of cooking oil. The oil temperature leveled off at a comfy 104F during benchmarking operations intended to tax both the CPU and GPU to their limits. Interestingly enough, they first attempted this operation using deionized water. It worked for 5 minutes before developing short circuits...but the hardware was amazingly undamaged."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

Ghosts of Slashdot: 10/11/2005
[It was like the Highlander: in the end, there could be only one. This article and the eventual winner were both posted to the front page at the same time! It's big news, so naturally the editors were falling over themselves to get it posted. This one was The Weakest Link. Goodbye!]

Real Wins Against Microsoft
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the probably-come-down-on-appeal dept.

pdirty writes "Real networks wins a $750 million settlement agreement with Microsoft following Real's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. The deal would include Microsoft paying cash as well as advertising for Real services, and products through channels such as MSN. Real is holding a conference call after the closing bell today to announce the details."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come?

Ghosts of Slashdot: 10/10/2005
[The first few words should have been a hint. Sure enough, the story broke on Friday, though you have to admit that Oracle Acquires Innobase doesn't have quite the ring of "Assasination attempt on MySQL?"]

Assasination attempt on MySQL?
Posted by Hemos in The Mysterious Future!
from the the-silent-struggle-of-databases dept.

Will Darcy writes "Interesting news on Friday: the Oracle acquisition - the eleventh this year - of Innobase. Innobase? You may very well have never heard of it. Unless you are a serious MySQL user. MySQL the most popular open source database product - a serious competitor to Oracle's core money maker: the RDBMS. Innobase is one of several database engines you can use with MySQL. But it is the most important one for organisations that are looking for a serious database, with high concurrency, ACID transactions, foreign keys with cascading UPDATE and DELETE in MySQL. That means: if you are looking for a database that supports Foreign Keys or real transactions , MySQL can only deliver when used with the InnoDB engine from Innobase. That means in my opinion that Oracle now holds the key to whether MySQL is or is not a serious 'enterprise level' database! see this blog by Lucas Jellema for more details."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

Ghosts of Slashdot: 10/07/2005
[I'm happy to say that I helped consign this article to the netherworld. As a subscriber, I saw it before it went live, and recognized it as a dupe of a 2-day-old article, Jamming Cellphones with Text Messages. Some folks say that subscribers are fools, paying to do the Slashdot editors' work for them. I say... guilty as charged!]

SMS Attacks Could Take Down Cell Networks
Posted by Zonk in The Mysterious Future!
from the keep-talking dept.

wired_parrot writes "In an article on PCWorld, researchers warn of the danger that hackers could easily take down cellular service throughout the United States by engaging in a denial of service attack using SMS." From the article: "Because mobile phones use the same small portion of radio frequency, called the "control channel," to both set up calls and send SMS messages, a flood of SMS messages could so overwhelm a cellular tower that it would effectively prevent any new telephone calls from going through. This technique, called a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, has been used successfully to take down Web sites, but to date, it has not been used on cellular networks, the researchers say. To be most successful, the attack would need to target telephones within a certain geographic region, but the Penn State researchers said that this can be done by using public databases and creative Google searches. "

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

Ghosts of Slashdot: 08/23/2005
[This ghost may be reincarnated later today... I suspect it got moved off the front page for the latest Google rumors. A search on Google News for "Slashdot Concorde" came up blank, and I got the same result on a regular Google site search, so it's not an obvious dupe. And just in case I didn't say the word enough times already, "google google google".]

Japan Plans Test of 'New Concorde'
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the yes-please-go-faster-please dept.

Steve Nixon writes "Japan's space agency plans to launch an arrow-shaped airplane at twice the speed of sound high over the Australian outback as early as next month in a crucial test of the country's push to develop a supersonic successor to the retired Concorde."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

[I'm not sure why this got rejected. I would have thought it was because it was a dupe of a previous article, since the CW article is dated 7/11, four days ago. But news.google.com didn't return any results for Slashdot and SeaCode. Are they just tired of hearing the same old bad Indian jokes (and outright racism), or is it just a dupe of something I couldn't find? Or, does my writeup simply suck eggs?]

RobertB-DC writes: "Offshoring gets a new definition: three miles off the Califonia coast, according to a former ship captain and a former IT consultant. They've put together San Diego based SeaCode, with plans to convert a former cruise ship into cubespace for 600 "C++Faring Lads". Sailing under the flag of Vanuatu, US labor laws don't apply, so no visa is needed for international IT types. But Americans are welcome to apply, if you like the sound of $1,800 a month for a 10-hour workday."

Ghosts of Slashdot: 07/11/2005
[Wow. I'm really surprised this one got this far. It's not like the Slashdot community wouldn't be the first to pick up this story -- and they did, when the original story was posted on 7/7/05 -- a full four days ago. Dups of obscure Games or Apple stories are one thing, but Hardware? All's well that ends well, though, since this one didn't make it past the Ghost stage. Happy Slurpee day!]

IBM Releases New PowerPC Chips
Posted by timothy in The Mysterious Future!
from the from the two-hearts-beat-as-one dept.

bryan8m writes "IBM has unveiled two new PowerPC chips. The news comes after Apple's recent announcement that it was dropping PowerPC processors in favor of Intel chips. The new PowerPC 970MP is a dual-core version of the PowerPC 970FX, which is known as the G5 processor in Apple's PowerMac and iMac machines. Articles here(1), here(2), and here(3)."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

Ghosts of Slashdot: 07/06/2005
[This looks like one of the most interesting Ghosts yet. It's a great riff on the gamer stereotype, and it's just begging to rake in the +5, Funny mods. Maybe that's the problem -- there's just so little room for a serious discussion. But when has that ever stopped the editors before? Or maybe it's because the FA itself is about as long this submission... and awfully short on details. Did someone call BS?]

Online Gaming Addiction Clinic Opened in China

Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the can't-go-there-gotta-check-my-wow-auctions dept.

Tom writes "Pro-G reports that a clinic officially licensed by the Chinese Government for treating online gaming addictions has opened in China. Patients are mostly aged 14 to 24 and are treated by a staff of 23 nurses and doctors. The primary cause of the patients' addiction is said to be the pressure from parents for their children to do well at school, resulting in the child turning to online gaming to relieve the pressure."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

Program note: I tried to set the icon to the Atari joystick "Games" icon, but couldn't find it. Sorry!

Ghosts of Slashdot: 06/29/2005
[I haven't yet immersed myself in the Apple/iPod world, but this appears to be a duplicate of yesterday's Podcasting article. One of the first modded-up comments notes that Podcasting is "an audio distribution system based on RSS with enclosures." Guess that makes this a dupe, after all.]

Apple Extends RSS 2.0 for Podcasting
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the waste-of-bandwidth-and-time dept.

blair writes "The BBC is reporting about extensions that Apple is proposing to RSS 2.0 for podcasting. Now my question is are they really necessary?"

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

Ghosts of Slashdot: 06/07/2005
[First day back from vacation and the Ghosts are already making their appearance! This one is a dupe of an article posted yesterday, so I'll go there to check out the off-topic replies such an article is bound to receive. According to posters on this article, Slashdot has been experiencing unusually large levels of duplication lately, even by Slashdot standards. I can sympathize, though... it's summer, for crying out loud.]

Closed Source Code Results In DUI Dismissals
Posted by Zonk in The Mysterious Future!
from the open-it-up dept.
hormiga writes "A Florida judge is throwing out DUI cases because, among other things, the breath alcohol test equipment manufacturer refuses to release the source code." From the article: "All four of Seminole County's criminal judges have been using a standard that if a DUI defendant asks for a key piece of information about how the machine works - its software source code, for instance - and the state cannot provide it, the breath test is rejected, the Orlando Sentinel reported Wednesday."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

Ghosts of Slashdot: 05/10/2005
[Ghost spottings on consecutive days! Haven't had that in a while. I have absolutely *no* clue what this Games-section article is talking about. I guess I'm one of the "masses" CmdTaco is referring to.]

A Widening High Definition Apartheid
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the battle-of-the-pixels dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Stormy has bleak premonitions about a grim High-Definition Apartheid in the coming generation of consoles - it's the first time I've ever heard this position enunciated." The same gap already exists on the PC so it's not a new problem. It will be years before the masses move to HD. Their loss I guess!

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

Ghosts of Slashdot: 05/09/2005
[I don't know much about Apple operating systems, so I haven't followed this controversy. This rather short blurb must have been rushed into the article queue. In fact, it's a link to the same blog entry as this Saturday article. Don't you hate it when news happens on the weekend?]

Cherry OS Finished
Posted by Hemos in The Mysterious Future!
from the from the the-end-of-the-road-for dept. dept.

MrToast writes "It looks like Arben Kryeziu has finally given up on Cherry OS. All I can say is "good riddance"."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Other Subscribers have joined the Ghost Hunt!
Here's a partial list:

morcheeba

more to come...

Just want to continue tracking my sigs. Original list available here.

This one is self-explanatory. I've only actually bought from them once, but it's a cool place to hang around if you're awake at midnight, Dallas time.
--
w00t? w00t!

This is a sig from a particularly dark period. It's a reference to the song Alone Again, Naturally. The next line is "And climbing to the top, to throw myself off, in an effort to make it clear to who-ever what it's like when you're shattered..."
--
...I promise myself to treat myself, and visit a nearby tower.

I came across this one at the amazing QDB (aka bash.org). I couldn't bring myself to link to the site referenced by the quote, though!
--
Our hearts are extended to the 17 victims of the recent internet fraud

I submitted a particularly interesting story, only to have it rejected. I don't usually whine about such things, but I really want to know what Slashdotters think about this bizarre-but-possible concept.
--
Offshoring: three miles off the coast?

Yep, this is a new one. Since the start of the year, I've been getting mod points every 5 days or so. I guess I got bumped up into some even higher Karmic eschelon, because this week I got mod points on Monday, Wednesday, and again just now. They expire on 4/11, which *should* be Monday, but since they normally only last 3 days, I'll be crossing my fingers to see whether I still have them Monday morning.

I run a slow dialup at home, but if you find a worthy weekend moderation opportunity, post here! I'll have little chance to do good moderation on dialup otherwise.