VLUG Meeting Minutes 1999.06.08

Although those figures look awfully low, remember that it was June. They're still higher than the count from the previous June.

Announcements

The meeting started at 7:07 with Mike Thorpe as master of ceremonies. He introduced Andrew Willard, who made his usual pitch for CDs and stuffed Tuxen. The pitch included an educational segment where it was revealed that surveys have shown, Tux prevents road rage. Mike then presented some news items:

• RedHat is going public, despite their earlier claim that they would never do this. Of course we expect the stock to be very popular, although it's likely that ordinary folks like us won't be able to get any until the initial feeding frenzy passes.
• Chris McLean is gone away to Nanaimo on his new job with Global. A moment of silence was observed.
• Pushing and propaganda for the SETI clients. They've apparently resolved the problem where everyone was running the same blocks over and over again.
• Someone found an unexpected Ultima Online client for Linux recently. The question was asked, "What is Ultima Online?"; the answer is that it's a graphical multiplayer RPG on the Internet, vaguely similar to a MUD.
• Most important: ladybug, the vlug.org server, is online again in the Business and Economics Building at UVic, thanks to assistence from Gordon McCague and UVic Computing User Services.

Presentation

Pavel Zaitesev, on procmail.

Break

Further Presentation

Carl Constantine, on CodeWarrior.

Q&A

The Q&A session quickly turned into a "drool on Chris Halsall's hardware" session, as he demonstrated how the new Quake can do things like weapons that light up the walls they pass (funny, I remember Doom doing that on my 486), volumetric fog, and curvaceous surfaces, all at insanely fast frame rates. He also demoed his 3D screensaver code. After the demos, we adjourned for the usual refreshments.