Kerbal Space Program for the Apple II

[Vince Weaver] tried to use his time machine to jump a few years in the future to get a less buggy version of Kerbal Space Program, but as usual with time travel, nothing went right and he ended up heading to 1987. Finding himself in an alternate timeline where KSP had been released for the Apple II, he brought back a copy.

Well, that’s the narrative proposed by [Vince Weaver] on his YouTube channel. The real story, and hack, being that he wrote a version of KSP for the Apple II in Applesoft Basic. He has used the language for the ridiculous before. You can build a rocket, select a pilot, launch, and if you’re lucky (or skilled), reach orbit.

We loaded up his disk image on an Apple II emulator and gave it a try. We managed to murde—lose a few pilots, but that was about it.  It was hard not to get distracted by the graphics and remember to point the rocket the right direction. Either way, it was a neat bit of fun in retro computing. Video after the break.

Filed under: classic hacks, computer hacks

Comcast can’t get “gigabit” tax break that was created for Google Fiber

(credit: Comcast)

Comcast has hit a roadblock in its attempt to get a big tax break that Oregon legislators wrote specifically for Google Fiber.

It looked like Comcast had won a few months ago when Oregon's Public Utility Commission ruled 3-0 that Comcast's gigabit service qualifies the company for the tax exemption. But the exemption still needed to be certified by the state Department of Revenue, and last week the department refused to do so.

The department "ruled Comcast ineligible for the tax break, at least for this year," The Oregonian reported. "The department declined to disclose its reasoning, citing taxpayer confidentiality, and referred questions to Comcast. Comcast said any information would have to come from the Revenue Department."

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Study that found cell phones cause cancer in rats is riddled with red flags

(credit: kaboompics)

Late last week, headlines blared that a new, $25 million, years-long government study had finally found a clear connection between cellphone radiation and tumors in rats—striking fear in the hearts of gadget lovers worldwide. The finding—if true—would suggest we’re headed for an upsetting uptick in cancer incidence and death. Mobile phones, after all, are ubiquitous and many among us have a near religious devotion to them if not an unhealthy codependence.

Luckily for us, the study does not provide that clear link.

The study, which was not properly peer reviewed—despite what some outlets have reported—is chock full of red flags: small sample sizes, partially reported results, control oddities, statistical stretches, and a slim conclusion. In short: “there is nothing in this report that can be regarded to be statistically significant,” Donald Berry, a biostatistics professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, told Ars. “The authors should have used the “black box warning.”

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Martian ice caps tell story of massive climate shifts

Enlarge / Mars' northern ice cap. (credit: ESA/DLR/FU-Berlin)

Earth has a climatic pacemaker driven by subtle patterns in its orbit. The shape of its orbit shifts slightly, the tilt of its axis bobs up and down, and that axis wobbles like a top. Add up the way all that movement affects the distribution of sunlight in the high latitude Northern Hemisphere, and you get a predictable succession of glacial and interglacial periods.

Mars has orbital patterns that affect its climate, too. In fact, Mars’ orbital cycles swing to greater extremes than Earth’s. For example, Mars’ current axial tilt is about 25°, but it has varied within a range of 18° to 48° over the past 10 million years. Those orbital changes have influenced its climate as well.

On Earth, the “ice ages” resulted in a transfer of water from the ocean into growing continental ice sheets. On Mars, the changes cause transfers of water ice from the polar caps to lower latitudes, where it forms thin layers and possibly even glaciers. When conditions tilt back the other way, ice disappears from lower latitudes and the polar caps thicken again.

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Apartment complex demands tenants give Facebook “like” within 5 days

(credit: KSL)

Remember the Florida apartment complex that got a lot of attention for giving tenants a contract banning harsh online reviews? A Utah apartment complex is going one better: instead of squelching negative reviews, owners of the complex are trying to coerce tenants into giving positive feedback.

Last week, tenants at City Park Apartments, located in Salt Lake City, received a "Facebook Addendum" posted on their doors, outlining what's expected of them. Most jarring was a requirement that they "friend" the complex within five days.

The predictable results are already rolling in. Rather than a flood of "likes," the City Park Apartments contract became a story on KSL, a local TV station. By Sunday, The Associated Press picked up the story and made it national. The complex hasn't gotten the positive feedback it hoped for; instead, it has racked up more than 800 one-star reviews on its Facebook page.

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Feds can keep your hard drives indefinitely—and search them, too

(credit: Magnus Hagdorn)

The government can prosecute and imprison people for crimes based on evidence obtained from their computers—even evidence retained for years that was outside the scope of an original probable-cause search warrant, a federal appeals court has said in a 100-page opinion paired with a blistering dissent.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that there was no constitutional violation because the authorities acted in good faith when they initially obtained a search warrant, held on to the files for years, and built a case unrelated to the original search.

The case posed a vexing question—how long may the authorities keep somebody's computer files that were obtained during a search but were not germane to that search? The convicted accountant said that only the computer files pertaining to his client—who was being investigated as part of an Army overbilling scandal—should have been retained by the government during a 2003 search. All of his personal files, which eventually led to his own tax-evasion conviction, should have been purged, he argued.

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Broken shifter? Top Gear’s new season fails to wow

(credit: BBC)

On Sunday, one of the BBC's most successful shows returned with a new cast—and very few fresh ideas. Ratings in the UK were not what host Chris Evans hoped for—missing the 5 million mark he set as a measure for success, and the best parts were relegated to the Web-only Extra Gear, starring Rory Reid and Chris Harris. The debut could prove troublesome for a BBC that needs strong foreign sales of the show to fill its coffers in times of ever-decreasing government support.

Sunday's show, which premiered Monday night on BBC America, is the third iteration of Top Gear since 1977. The original format wasn't particularly good, but it did well because the UK only had a handful of TV channels to watch back then. In 2002, there was the Andy Wilman-produced reboot, starring Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. Under their tenure, the show didn't just succeed with UK audiences—it built up a global cult following with fans either watching it on local broadcasters or more commonly via Internet piracy.

But last year, Top Gear's machinery ground to a halt after the show's frontman berated and then attacked a producer during a toddler-like hunger tantrum (if toddlers punched people and called them c*nts). The latest of an increasingly long list of Clarksonian scandals was too much for the state-funded BBC to endure, and the grand oaf of television was fired. With the frontman gone, Wilman, May, and Hammond threw in the towel as well, but things ended well for the gang. They landed a multimillion dollar contract with Amazon to make a new series called The Grand Tour, which debuts later this year.

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