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Submission + - Happy 10th Birthday, Duke Nukem Forever

GotWookiee writes: That's right, ten years ago today on Sunday, April 27tn, 1997, 3D Realms formally announced the development of Duke Nukem Forever, the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D. Ten years later, it is still in development.

Major development milestones:
April '97: 3D Realms announces the development of the game.
August '97: PC Gamer magazine publishes the first screen shots.
November '97: Scott Miller states that the intended release date is in 1998.
December '97: 3D Realms gets the Quake II engine source code.
May '98: 3D Realms unveils a first demo footage at E3.
June '98: 3D Realms switches to the Unreal engine. George Broussard states that DNF will be out in 1999. Lots of content is scrapped.
'99: DNF upgrades to the Unreal Tournament engine.
December '99: More DNF screenshots. DNF releases a Christmas card implying it will be out soon.
'00: DNF gets 2nd place in Wired magazines Vaporware Award.
December '00: Another Christmas card.
'01: DNF wins 1st place in the Wired Vaporware Awards.
May '01: Another demo video at E3. The last to date.
'02: DNF wins the Vaporware award again.
'02: New programmers are hired and the game engine is retooled. 95% of previous content is scrapped according to Broussard.
'03: Wired gives DNF the Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award, created solely for DNF.
September '04: Karma physics engine replaced with Meqon engine.
'05 and '06: DNF wins the Vaporware Award two years in a row, again.
January, '07: In-game screen shot released.

During DNF's record 10 years of development, many things have transpired. Also, many historical events have taken less time than DNF's development. Here are some things that have happened in less time than DNF's development:

1) The production and release of all 3 Star Wars prequels, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, along with every Pixar movie except Toy Story.
2) It took less time for NASA and its contractor's to put a man on the moon and return him to the Earth, from Kennedy's pledge before congress to Armstrong's historic "small step."
3) The career's of Britney Spears and Collin Farrel.
4) The two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity were proposed, authorized, announced, designed, launched and successfully landed upon Mars where they have been exploring the surface for over 2.5 years.
5) The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan (the largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world) was in contract, built, launched, comissioned, and began active duty.
6) The Wright brothers designed and flew the first airplane.
7) The American Revolutionary War, Civil War, World Wars I and II, the development of the Atomic Bomb, and the US involvement in Vietnam each took less time than DNF's development.

For a more complete list, check out The Duke Nukem Forever List.

In 2008, George Broussard will make you his bitch!
Robotics

Submission + - Sucker-footed robot crawls on beating hearts

holy_calamity writes: A caterpillar-like robot that can crawl over the surface of a beating heart using two suckers for feet has been developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon. By clinging to the outside of the heart it is stationary relative to the moving surface. Inserted through a small hole below the ribcage and piloted with a joystick, tests in live pigs have seen it fit pacemaker leads and deliver injections.
Space

Submission + - Living in a closed ecological system for 13 days..

kingtut_qwertyuiop writes: Imagine 13 days in a closed (well, almost) environment, breathing air containing oxygen created by algae powered by your own waste, getting power based on solar and bike power. Well, Lloyd Godson has done just that, with the BioSub project in Australia. This low-budget project appears to have most of its staffing by volunteers, and equipment often supplied through sponsorship, using a bio-coil designed by a US high school's Advanced Biology class for air, waste reclamation, and (towards the end) food.
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Valve Cafe hacked! Financial info stolen.

denominateur writes: According to a forum thread at No-Steam Valve Software's "Valve Café" servers have been compromised giving the perpetrators access to users' financial information and Valve's balance sheets for the café service. So far Valve has reacted by deleting posts mentioning the security breach in the official forums. Apparently, they responded to one user asking about why his post was deleted and why Valve won't inform its users with: "Actually mate....as far as I know only the Cyber Cafe owners were hit. I am not sure though...but there is no need to panic at this time."
Mozilla

Submission + - Thunderbird 2 out

robertlagrant writes: "Mozilla's Thunderbird email software has reached version 2.0.0.0. Includes tagging messages, quick navigation through threads, improved (and saved) searches, and (most usefully for some) support for checking .mac and gmail. Reports that Thunderbird 2 may contain a mole were quickly quashed."
It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Have Your Game and Eat it Too

Jen Dixson writes: "GWN's Jen Dixson has compiled what could be the most comprehensive list of game cakes ever produced. The article goes into detail about each cake, including where it originated, and for what purpose. And, of course, the juicy details about what each cake is made from are included as well. Feed your eyeballs here!"
Linux Business

Submission + - Ensuring the Success of Dell Desktop Linux

rainhill writes: "There is an interesting article over at the Earthweb.

Dell is making with their second desktop Linux effort and am increasingly wondering how long before the Linux supporters make it clear to Dell this is a bad idea. While some are being patient, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that many don't fundamentally understand why this is vastly more difficult than it looks, and why Dell will desperately need their support, not their constant criticism, to justify continuing the effort.
"
Software

Submission + - Pay More to Get Rid of Crapware from PCs

jChow writes: "We are all tired of the amount of crapware/bloatware that HP, Dell, Sony and others force us to work with. Can we ever solve this problem? According to Gundeep Hora of CoolTechZone.com, we may be able to. He suggests, "Why not have users pay an extra $25 to get a crapware-less PC, as the article suggests. That way, the companies could still beef up their bottom line and we can get a shiny new PC with absolutely nothing on it. I'm sure paying $25 is a better option than spending the time to reformat the drive, deal with application conflicts or even going through the Add/Remove Programs to delete one program after another, and hope that it doesn't cause the system to go bonkers."

Proving You Are Not a Spammer? 127

tfinniga asks: "A spammer has recently started using my domain name as 'From:' addresses when sending out spam. I'm worried about my domain being blacklisted, and I'm annoyed by the bounces — I'm getting about 1000 bounce messages a day. Unfortunately, I give out a different email address to each site I visit: slashdot@example.com, paypal@example.com, amazon@example.com, etc., and the spammer is using a different address for each mail, so simple address filtering doesn't work. What is the best way of avoiding being put on a blacklist, and dealing with the flood of bounces?"
Security

Submission + - The Death of the Anti-Virus Software

Paul Mah writes: "http://www.techatplay.com/2007/04/18/the-death-of- the-anti-virus-software/

It has been 25 years since the first computer virus appeared in 1982. Dismally, the only progress we seemed to have made thus far is in the maintaining of increasingly larger virus databases of virus signatures that is nowhere like the new and advanced menaces we see almost on a continuous basis. White-listing, the only solution that has a viable chance of real success has been largely ignored by the large AV companies. I believe that it is high time we start putting the pressure on them for the necessary paradigm shift."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Diving deeper into Linux

teh moges writes: From an administrator point of view, I know a lot about MS Windows, where files are stored, where settings are, which registry keys to edit, how to change drivers and so on. I made the initial switch to Linux a year ago, and now that I feel capable with using Linux from an end user's point of view, and when things go wrong, I can fix them, thanks to Google. I now want to now start to get deeper into it. Are there any great resources, such as websites, wikis or books for someone that wants to find out exactly how Linux works and how to fix and modify it?
Mozilla

Submission + - Mozilla Thunderbird 2 Released

An anonymous reader writes: From mozillaZine:

"Thunderbird 2 is now available for download on Windows, Mac and Linux in over 35 languages. Thunderbird 2 offers easy ways to manage and organize your email with message tags, advanced folder views, message history navigation, find as you type, and improved new mail alert notifications. Thunderbird 2 also includes a refreshed user interface and support for Microsoft Vista.

"The Thunderbird 2 features page has more details about the new features in Thunderbird 2. The Thunderbird 2 Release Notes have more specific information. The Rumbling Edge has a list of notable bug fixes in Thunderbird 2."

"We also want to extend a huge thanks to everyone in the MozillaZine community for their help and support with Thunderbird 2 over the past year. We wouldn't have been able to release Thunderbird without you. A special thanks to the awesome forum moderators who spend so much time answering questions and to the folks who help organize and participate in our weekly test threads here at MozillaZine."

Important note: "Thunderbird 1.5.0.x users will be offered Thunderbird 2 via software update at a later date. Those wishing to upgrade now are therefore advised to download and install Thunderbird 2 manually."
Software

Submission + - Open source shopping cart solution

ekan writes: "I'm about to setup an online store and am somewhat daunted by all the shopping cart options out there. There are also a ton of opinions about which one is the best. As far as I can tell, Zen Cart seems to be one of the better open source options.

All I want is a nice web 2.0 interface, open source (of course), easy to manage, with all the payment/shipping options that are needed to do business (Google Checkout, PayPal, Merchant Credit Card/USPS, FedEx, UPS). Zen Cart looks nice, but I'd really like to use something that's more AJAX enabled. Any ideas?"
It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Pirated CD's Raided in Malaysia Found by Dogs

The 0x539 One writes: "As was previously covered by Slashdot, there in fact CD sniffing dogs out there. There's absolutely no argument that there's piracy in the world of CD's and DVD's, but I am forced to wonder, how do the dogs know the difference between a legit CD vs. a pirated CD? Does their special training allow them to smell software licenses?

CD Sniffing Dogs"

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