G3

Some scientists up in Boulder, CO have gas. Very cold gas, mind you, that when aided with lasers, magnets, and other cool toys, can make fermions do wierd things, like condense.

“This is a major breakthrough in the field of very cold gases,” said one.

They have a field for everything now-a-days, I guess. But the world really needs somebody to make really cold Potassium atoms pair off, and these are the folks who do it.

Personally, I’m more interested in the field of very hot gases, or at least in what generates them.

Remember the Mike Rowe incident? Well, after Microsoft realized the seriously overreacted they got together and settled things.

Mike agreed to give over his website name, and Microsoft agreed to help him set up a new Web site, give him and his family a holiday in Redmond, pay for his Microsoft certification course, hook him up with a subscription to MSDN, and top it off with an Xbox with some games.

Woot! Go Mike. It’s still pretty silly that they ended up with MikeRoweSoft.com, but it’s much better than $10, eh?

One of my favorite online cartoon strips:

Frazz

A certain geek I know is bleary-eyed this morning for certain reasons related to a certain Lost Village. With apologies to Jef Mallet, here’s a (modified) Frazz (from 1/26/2004) for Mark’s bemusement…
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So it turns out that 2004 is the Year of the Monkey. I really dig the Google image:

I gleaned this nifty tip from a Desert Combat / Battlefield 1942 FAQ today:

How do I auto-join a specific server from a shortcut?

Make a shortcut from your battlefield1942.exe on your desktop. Right click, properties. In the ‘target box’ add this:

"C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 1942\BF1942.exe" +restart 1 +joinServer 192.168.0.1:14567

(Port 14567 is the default for Bf1942.)

Stealth advertising smacktards will have their comments baleeted.

If you have thoughtful comments to contribute, that’s peachy. But we’re not interested in being used as a Google rank-booster for commercial sites, so please refrain from non-content, off-topic, or advertising-motivated comments.

Al Gore didn’t take the initiative to create the Internet so you could abuse us in such ways.

Java running on WindRivers VxWorks Real Time Operating System….nifty.

I’ve received a couple of emails about people who got to see screenings of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ, which is about the last hours of Jesus’ life leading up to the crucifixion.

Here are some excerpts:

“The movie was in a rough cut version…but still I thought a very finished state,…special effects had not been added yet, nor was the music complete…. still it brought uncontrollable weeping from everyone. I couldn’t stop crying through the whole movie. And when the movie was over, there was complete silence in the church. ”
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From the Nifty Files ™:

The folks at DC and GameSpy have come up with what looks to be a much cooler way to get on the same game server as your buddies:

Quick Match

Here’s the marketing spiel:

QuickMatch helps you get into the best game of Battlefield as quickly as possible. It can find the best server for you based on what you want. It will always search for the lowest ping possible! It will let you know when a buddy has joined a server and allows you to follow easily. Or you can find a server and have your buddy or buddies follow you. You can also find a server based on its name or IP, quickly join a server you have played on recently, or join one of the GameSpy Subscriber Servers.

Here’s a screenshot:
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With Half Life 2 being relegated to “sometime in the future”, its sad how thin the HL2 fansites are getting stretched. Here’s an excerpt from an interview by HL2World of Valve’s alpha geek Gabe Newell:

HL2World.com: What kind of car do you drive?

Gabe Newell: BMW 740i. It’s the new one with the i-drive, which is one of the buggiest and ill-conceived pieces of software I’ve used in a long time.

HL2W: The woman who did the voice for the original tram ride sounded hot, was she?

Gabe: I wasn’t at the recording sessions, so I can’t say.

HL2W: What kind of car do you drive?

Gabe: Same one I was driving two questions ago.

Beauty. Here’s the fat-free interview in full:
HL2World.com Interviews Valve’s Gabe Newell.