cybercyst asks: "I've been having a problem with this for quite some time, and thought it was just me -- until two good friends of mine experienced the same problem. What we are experiencing is best described as a time-skew: our system time is apparently jumping forward an hour, and then returning to normal. It repeats this multiple times, and as far as I can tell only a reboot is any sort of remedy for this, albeit a temporary one. As you can imagine this causes all sorts of problems (under windows managers xscreensaver is always popping up -- in fact as I wrote this, the screensaver has come on over 10 times, negative fps in OpenGL programs, extremely large ping times, and so forth)."

Keith Handy asks: "I seem to be unable to find algorithms and/or open source programs that will do accurate motion tracking, i.e. you mark a point on an object in frame 36, and the program can follow that point on that object through all the frames following it. This is useful not just for analyzing motion, but also for interpolating/extrapolating frames of video -- so if you had something at only 15 fps, you could generate inbetween frames (which are not just crossfades between the frames) and actually smooth the effect of the motion. Not something so complicated as to get into actual physics -- just something that will indicate where (in 2D only) that part of the object has moved from one frame to the next, for any given point in the whole picture. And for that matter it doesn't have to be 100% accurate, just any means of generating a reasonable motion-flow map." This doesn't strike me as an easy algorithm to develop, but are there any papers online or offline, that might describe an algorithm that can at least track objects in an image?

Eric^2 asks: "My family has over 50 spools of 8mm (real non-magnetic no-audio developed) reel-to-reel film that I would like to get converted over to a digital format before it deteriorates any more. The majority of the solutions I've seen involve an expensive (frame-rate-adjustable) projector and a miniDV camcorder. Even the services I've looked into (while quite expensive) use this scheme. The film speeds are not 30 fps (i.e. NTSC), so there are some synchronization issues that must be overcome."

Over the last few months, I've had a number of AskSlashdot questions about quiet computers, what hardware to get, and other items for assembling a mega-machine that won't knock the roof off. I've put the finishing touches on my own mega machine -- if you're looking at doing the same thing, or are just curious about the hardware involved, you can find out about what I built.

mmaddox asks: "Who ELSE is following, or has invested in, the awful release of the MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game), World War 2 Online? Plagued with server problems, switch configuration issues, poor client performance (less than 5 FPS on some systems, with 8-10 commonly reported), and a growing list of angry users returning software to the store, it looks like this much-heralded game may well be tolling its own death knells. The final outcome is still to be seen. Are releases like this to be expected? Should a game buyer be patient and wait for the system to be repaired, or is the buyer justified in demanding results for hard-earned money?" I've noticed that there have been several MMOG's that have been looking to get off of the ground over the past year and a half, however not many of them have (of course, for reasons of my own, I'm hoping Neverwinter Nights succeeds). What MMOG's, currently under development, have you all been following and do any of them look to be progressing the way they should?

Elyjah writes: "A company called Essential Reality is devloping a 3D Glove input device. They have several demo movies you can watch (if you have Quicktime). The movies show the glove being displayed by runway models (this is amusing), being used in several FPS games, being used as an interface to a a 3D graphics development tool (this looks really cool), and being used with a music application. While truely usable devices like this are probably several years off, it is fun to see what is being worked on."

Tom has extensive poop on the GeForce 3. Some history, and a ton of why this card may or may not be worth the $600 price tag. Lots of stuff on the Vertex Shaders (which look to be a truly amazing idea). Very worth a read if you're interested in state-of-the-art 3D, or just wanna sneak preview at what next year's FPS will be doing.

Thermodyne writes: "The sequel of the game that helped invent the fps is being developed and the first of the screenshots have been released here. The game is based on the Quake 3 engine, but seems to stray away from the original intent of the first game." I can't begin to count the number of hours I lost in wolf3d ... course, I hope it does stray from the original game: who wants to run around shooting dogs and finding hidden switches for 30 levels? The lighting in some of those screenshots is super impressive. (check out that flame thrower). Sadly, I think my fps days are past me. I played The Sims for the first time last week. What an amazing game.

RapaNui asks: "I'm working on a project that uses a remotely controlled camera for video and still work. It currently uses a small board camera and a microwave (analog) downlink for video (the video feed is only used for targeting the onboard DVcam and still camera). Anyway, the telemetry downlink has just been upgraded and we now have 50-60 Kbps available that (if possible) we would like to use for a video downlink. All we need is 1/4 frame (PAL, 384x288) at around 2-5 fps What I was thinking of is a PC/104 or similar PC, running Linux and a vid-capture card (or an old parallel port video capture box - Snappy?). Whatever it is needs to be relatively small and light. Are there any usable (under linux) PC/104 or similar video capture (or still capture) cards? Or is there a unit (like some of the cams made by Axis) that could take video (composite or S-video) in one end and dump out a serial data stream at the other end? (This would be preferable, 'cause it would mean less hardware, and complexity on that end)."

IronChef writes "Ran across a web site where someone is attempting to combine online games and cash. The difference here is it looks like it's not some big tournament where everyone gathers and the top 3 out of a field of hundreds get paid, but a small group jumps into a server for a buck or two per head, and the winner cashes out on the spot." And you thought you swear a lot when you lag now!

Start this one off with a creative hack: tim.kerby sent in just that: using a tortilla as a bread board when your local radio shack is out. Future creative hacks may involve i4u's link to camborg which tracks wearable cameras. Ant found cats and robots. You can practice by playing Kitty Lick 3, an FPS you play as a feline (thanks bjorky) But If cats aren't your pet of choice, how about pigs? Rookie sent in linkage to a story about a one in first class that you'll swear is fiction (but it isn't). radiator sent in a hilarious parody: first aid for a dying dot com. Some auctions worth noting: drDugan sent a picture autographed by Linus being sold on eBay (and donated to charity). Dirty Yanni noted that Metallica/Napster parody t-shirts are for sale on eBay. And the last auction (but not on eBay) is Spock's original ears from the original trek. Oh, and how about t-shirts mocking the MS breakin & source code theft? CArnesen noted that Anime Expo 2001 has been scheduled for this summer. I'm seriously considering going. Mothy notes that famed Rubber Chicken vendor Archie McPhee is now selling the Linux Voodoo Penguin (however the ad features a "Sysadmin" wearing a tie! Have to much free time? Ant does! He sent us a reflex tester (I've managed a .24) but thats nothing compared to Am I Hot or Not which is fun for hours on end if you're the type that amuses easily. And finally, tshell noted that that now that there is a complete O'Reily ate my balls site, the Internet is now complete. You can all go home now.

Polo writes: "Remember looking at those photos of bullets going through lightbulbs, apples and playing cards? Well, here is a fascinating digital camera from Visible Solutions that can capture images at over 1000 frames per second (with reduced resolutions up to 32000 fps!) The standard camera has 256M of memory to capture a whopping 2 seconds of video upgradeable to 1G to capture 8 seconds. You can also daisy-chain several cameras with firewire to capture an "event" from many angles. Here is the only slow-motion sequence on their site. What would you capture?" 1GB to capture 8 seconds -- sheesh! I'd like to see real slo-mo a little more affordable, but it takes extremes to create nice middles, eh?

The word "Internet" was uttered precisely once in last night's presidential debate, and I don't have to tell you the context. You already know the topic was Columbine, and you already know the Net was being blamed for mass murder. What our Republican candidate failed to mention is that his party's bogeymen, the evil Internet and its evil twin violent entertainment, have brought about a new era of peace. If we really want less violence in our schools, we obviously need more violence on our Internet.

Crusader writes: "Matt Matthews has produced an extensive series of benchmarks which examine four separate games' performance on the Voodoo5, the Rage 128 Pro, the G400 Max, and the GeForce 2 3D graphics cards under Linux. Performance against Windows 98 is also included." We also received: driveitlikeyoustoleit writes, "3dfx, NVIDIA and ATI's best are all pitted against each other in a high-end 3D video card roundup. The authors pit six GeForce2 GTS (from ASUS, Creative, ELSA and Hercules) based cards against an ATI Radeon 256 and a 3dfx Voodoo5 5500. Performance for a change isn't the only criteria in question (although the end scores are somewhat weighted in favor of fps) but also at full-scene anti-aliasing, image quality and DVD performance/quality are critically looked at. The screen shots page showing off FSAA comparisons are great visual indicators of what the cards can do."

mr.blobby writes "3dfx' long awaited "big-daddy" version of the Voodoo5, the Voodoo5 6000 has been delayed almost as long as Daikatana but according to this news story, the card (with all of its four TMUs - texture memory units) and its external power supply has been sighted at a gaming trade show in London (ECTS) and is still slated for a release. There are a few benchmarks showing it beating NVIDIA's GeForce 2 which can't be bad. The author said this "the card was hitting around 50-60 FPS at 1600x1400", which seems most impressive."

The Queen reminded me to post this: Last night's "X-Files" was a weird episode involving a video game gone wrong. It obviously was meant to promote discussion on violence in video games: "Healthy outlet for stress or promoting violence in society?" Personally I thought it was a crappy episode and not very suspenseful. Cheesy. Formulaic. Definitely sub-par for the show (even for its last few seasons), although it did have its moments. Did anyone else watch this?

ugene sent us a link to something I've never seen before: 7mm thick speakers. They claim they sound as good as conical speakers, but they project sound 360 degrees. Nifty looking if you're aestheticly anal, or low on space. I wonder if they can be removed from their stand and hung right on a wall. Update: 04/11 06:17 by CT : Cyberdiva sent me a review as did Alan Dang from 3DGaming.

An anonymous reader pointed us a a wired news article where you can read that the authors of the UltraHLE N64 emulator has had its source code released. The article talks about Nintendo considering Legal Action against the authors of the emulator, as well as the Sony/Connectix suit and the fact that another company is working on a Playstation emulator for windows. Update: 02/12 03:51 by CT : My bad. The source code wasn't actually released by the authors- the code is a disasembled bit posted by someone else. It doesn't compile. Will the real UltraHLE authors take the hint? Update: 02/13 03:04 by S : The code has been removed, although anyone could make it again with REC. In the mean time, Dextrose has an UltraHLE-on-Linux Howto which reveals that the combination of UltraHLE-Wine-Linux is faster than the original UltraHLE-Win98: with Zelda running at 21.3 fps under Linux versus 19.6 under Win98.

Rob Lanphier wrote in wondering about what happened to the AOL/RN story. Well, it appears that little digital hiccup we had today sort of, well, "lost" the story. So, in recap, AOL will be bundling RealPlayer in their latest round of pseudo-techie coasters that will be coming out soon. Additionally, the Beta 2 of the player is out, with the additional features:

• New Intel/RealNetworks video codec technology (better quality video)
• Frame Rate Upsampling (take a 15 fps video and make it look like 20-30 fps)
• Web-based server administration tool w/source (hack to your hearts delight)
• Server on multiple platforms (Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Win NT, DEC OSF, SGI Irix, Win 95)

We've got a problem on Slashdot. Along with amazing growth we've experienced in the last 6 months, we've suffered some of the same problems as usenet. Namely the signal to noise ratio on the comments is getting out of control. There are real gems in the comments section, but wading through 'I got the first comment!' crap, or huge rampant offtopic debates is wasting bandwidth and time of the thousands of readers who just want the good stuff. Keep reading to read the deal. Updated read the end