Poll at awnews.org
Posted Thursday, February 27, 2003 by Comit
Head on over to awnews.org and vote in their current poll regarding Alphaworld update. Results will be sent to AWI. Here's part of what Enzo had to say about it in the NGs:

"We will be putting something like this up as soon as we get a chance. It will be a simple "yes" "no" "undecided" selection which will be open to registered cits. Only your most recent vote will be counted in the totals."

By the way, not much news the past couple of weeks. I decided not to post any real world news because we want to keep SW City news as a majority.

NG-Block: Newsgroup Update
Posted Monday, February 10, 2003 by Chris
No, this time it isn't farcical. Although this news item sounds like it certainly well could be.

Over the weekend A!!CT world owner MrBruce asked for financial help on the AW Newsgroups and other nonsense and in return was rewarded with flames from several of his vocal and ignorant detractors.

Well, turns out it was back online again before Monday evening, but this time under the leadership of Whitestar. This is only the most recent in a long line of shut downs and restartings of the A!!CT world...

In other news Enzo makes a reappearance as the newsgroup moderator. But only because an indignant MrBruce called up the AWI offices and complained about its users. No word yet on if Enzo will decide to stay again.

That's this week's NG-Block.

The Real World
Posted Friday, February 7, 2003 by Comit
It's Friday again, so here's the weekly scoop:

Have you ever dreamed of powering your electronics with your shirt? No? Well you may be able to sooner or later.

Ok but have you ever dreamed of teleporting just like in AW? Well we're one step closer...

Someone spotted this website where you can buy wooden computer parts. Pretty nice looking IMO.

Electronics continue to get smaller and smaller. How does 1 molecule components sound?

There wasn't too much news this week, with the exception of the war and shuttle crisis. Next Friday I'll open a poll to vote whether or not you want us to continue covering real world news.

Scarabian Republic F@H Breaks into 400's
Posted Thursday, February 6, 2003 by syntax
Today the Scarabian Republic Folding@HOME team broke into the 400's category! So far, the team comprised of 13 members has collected almost 550 WU's (work units)and 3700 points! Good work guys!

If you want to see our F@H website, click here!

News tid-bits...
Posted Wednesday, February 5, 2003 by Comit
An SW City roadmap has been posted in the forums. It highlights some major roads of, or passing through, SW City.

The yacht party has cooled down now over at Sybit Seaport. It was great, perhaps one of SW City's most popular ideas. So far there are 12 beautiful vessels, only a couple of them incomplete.

swcity.net more popular than I expected. January recieved 466 MB traffic!

The Bullet Trams idea has been revived and is being dicussed in the forums. For you younguns', the idea was to connect Yeti City and SW City via subway track.

SW City recieves CY Award statue!
Posted Monday, February 3, 2003 by Comit
Yay! It's taken several months but we finally recieved our statue for best town of 2002. Congratulations everyone. We finally won this hard earned award after 3 years, which reminds me - SW City is approaching its 4th birthday already! Considering AWI's speed I think we'd be best off arranging the awards now with them, so stay tuned.

You can find our town's award at town square on the south side in the center of the main path.

And, a final note, if you haven't yet heard, Praxten Oil Rig recieved its statue award too a few weeks ago.

Tourists = back
Posted Monday, February 3, 2003 by Comit
Looks like AWI can't make up their minds. Tourists are re-allowed into Alphaworld again. This time the reason is uncertain though.

UPDATE: Chris here. Tourists are gone again. From now on we will not update any more news on this issue unless Tourist access is actually made permanent. >_<

Breaking News: Tourists back in AW Prime
Posted Saturday, February 1, 2003 by Chris
Tourists can now officially enter Alpha World Prime, Active World's massive building world. There was no official announcement out of the AWC camp, but speculation is that this move is a response to the outcry against the anti-tourism policies instituted by the government last year on January 3, 2002.

UPDATE: Another area of speculation suggests that tourist access was granted to AW Prime only so tourists could build at any of the various Columbia Memorials. In this case, tourist access is likely to last not more than a week. Still there is no official word as to the reason why.

UPDATE: Tourist access was turned off early this morning. The free reign was probably only granted for the day because of the Columbia disaster.

Forum Back Online
Posted Saturday, February 1, 2003 by Chris
The Forum was down last night for several hours as our friends at my server provider upgraded the system. It was a routine system upgrade, which definitely seems to follow Comit's mantra of "If it ain't broke, improve it." ^_^

Also, the white screen problem with the forum should be fixed for everyone.