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Worlds Largest Computer Party, In Progress 329

Posted by timothy from the think-of-the-electric-bill dept.
cyb97 writes "As I write this the worlds largest computerparty is going on in Hamar, Norway. The Gathering 2003 is in action with over 5.000 participants! Webcams and participants are live on the internet through a 1 gigabit line, so you better lock down your servers tonight!" Some of the webcam images are just surreal. Update: 04/17 01:00 GMT by T : Speaking of images, reader vvizard (currently Gathered) directs you to this directory of high-resolution images.
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Worlds Largest Computer Party, In Progress More

Worlds Largest Computer Party, In Progress

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  • Geek Mecca (Score:5, Informative)

    by dtolton ( 162216 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:24PM (#5744770) Homepage
    This looks a lot like Woodstock for computer geeks.

    The Tech Group (TG) has a page explaining the differences
    between a "LAN Party" and a "Computer Party", here is an
    excerpt:

    "But LAN party and computer party is the same thing!"
    No. LAN party and computer party is NOT the same thing. At a
    LAN party everything is centered around the network. Everybody
    just sits there, staring at their screens whilst copying porn,
    warez and playing games. A computer party is much more. There
    are competitions, both in computer games and computer
    art. People meet, people talk, and there is plenty to see and
    experience even when away from you computer. (I didn't even
    bring my computer to TG01, and I had a great time!). Sometimes
    there are shows on the stage (LAN parties don't even have a
    stage), and even speeches you can go to to learn more computer
    stuff. How about learning something new and fun to impress your
    friends when you get back home?

    If you want to read the full page go here:
    http://tg.nlc.no/notalan.html

    We need to get one of these going in the US. :-)
    • this has dangerous potential for becoming diluted with no-nothings and w@nn@b3 31337 |-|@>
      I think the US should do a Coding Party and show Norway how to have some REAL fun!

    • Re:Geek Mecca (Score:3, Informative)

      by Eneff ( 96967 )
      We had one.

      It was called NAID. (Or wait... was it in Canada? I forget...)

      In any event, it folded after a few years.

      • Re:Geek Mecca (Score:3, Informative)

        by zsazsa ( 141679 )
        It was in Montreal in 1995 and 1996. It's still sorta around, at naid.net [naid.net] though it's only really about coding now.

        There have been other smaller North American parties, but nothing approaching the size of NAID.
    • Every time I boot me up the Linux box and log me into Slashdot.org...I know I'll be whoopin' it up in the world's largest computer party...that just gets wilder and whackier by the minute.

      We don't need no stinking human contact.

    • Re:Geek Mecca (Score:2, Insightful)

      by zaffir ( 546764 )
      A LAN can have all of that. There's no golden rule prohibiting a stage (last MPCON i went to had a pretty big one with a dj and other stuff), or coding, or interacting with other people. In fact, every LAN i go to has lots of interactions that don't involve the computer. There's more reasons to go to them than low pings for gaming and lots of bandwidth for file sharing.

      True, a "computer party" emphasizes that and more, but that doens't mean everyone just stares at their screens at a LAN.

    • Re:Geek Mecca (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Geekstock?

  • hmmm (Score:2, Funny)

    by fjordboy ( 169716 )
    If I wanted to watch geeks playing on computers I'd either go to work or get a mirror. Webcams...bah!

  • No Alcohol (Score:5, Funny)

    by AppyPappy ( 64817 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:28PM (#5744808)
    Beverages containing alcohol is not allowed inside the hall or anywhere near it

    --

    Well, what's the point then? 5,000 sober guys all trying to impress each other with the size of their equipment. It's like Hell.

    • So people won't get "Hamared" (Score:5, Funny)

      by Idou ( 572394 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:52PM (#5745030) Journal
      If you see this message, you need to increase your "comment threshold."

    • Re:No Alcohol (Score:5, Informative)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @01:04PM (#5745105) Homepage Journal
      well, nobody else made a proper comment to this.. so here goes:

      that means that if you want to drink inside, you have to smugle the beverages, which means that when you want to drink you wander outside(besides, it's norway, drinking is f**** expensive). also it would be hell for the organizers to get permits for an event where drinking would be allowed and minors would be present, also, this way, they can deny access by all the guys that are _TOO_ drunk for their own good(happens at most parties, that are 'alcohol free').

      the 'no booze' is just a remark that the organizers try to keep the boozing to minimum and not scare away any parents too(would you let your kid into an event that said 'drinking is ok, bring your own booze'). however drinking has been, is , and will be a very common in demoparties.

    • Re:No Alcohol (Score:4, Informative)

      by matvei ( 568098 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @01:06PM (#5745111)
      If you had ever participated in a demo party (or "computer party" as TG organizers have called it for the past few years) you'd know that the "no alcohol" policy doesn't mean that people don't drink alcohol ;-)

      Usually the majority of demo sceners (the people who come there to participate in the art competitions) spend most of their time outside the party hall, boozing around open fire with other likeminded folks that they can only meet at parties.

      When the Finnish equivalent party, Assembly [assembly.org] (it is also one of the oldest demoparties along with The Gathering) is held, there is a shadow party called Boozembly going on in the nearby woods and you can find all the demo scene legends out there when there are no competitions running.

      I hope that the quality of releases at TG will be OK, but I'm afraid that the majority of people will go to Breakpoint [untergrund.net] instead which is a strictly demo scene oriented party.

      1500 drunk guys all trying to impress each other with real-time computer generated art. It might not be heaven but it's far from Hell.

      Oh well, back to coding my demo for BP..

    • Sales of consumer products containing a defined amount of coffeine is not permitted in Norway g.. [gathering.org]

      WTF?

  • Oops (Score:5, Funny)

    by xanadu-xtroot.com ( 450073 ) <.moc.tibroni. .ta. .udanax.> on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:28PM (#5744819) Homepage Journal
    I think we all slashdotted Norway...

    /Me high fives everyone.

  • Heh (Score:5, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:28PM (#5744820) Homepage Journal
    "As I write this the worlds largest computerparty is going on in Hamar, Norway. The Gathering 2003 is in action with over 5.000 participants!"

    They'd have 10,000 participants if they brought datess!
    • "They'd have 10,000 participants if they brought datess!"

      Dates! What a hoot! If they could get a date, they wouldn't be THERE!

    • Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)

      by telstar ( 236404 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @01:00PM (#5745077)
      "They'd have 10,000 participants if they brought dates!"
      • Yeah, except for the fact the half of them are dating somebody from IRC who's actually a guy, and the other half have developed crushes on their Sims.

  • In most of Europe (Score:5, Informative)

    by Razor Blades are Not ( 636247 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:31PM (#5744846)
    they use a "." instead of a "," to delimit their thousands. It's not a mistake. It's a communication deficit. Get over it.

    • Re:In most of Europe (Score:2, Insightful)

      by morbuz ( 592480 )
      Yep, an I hate it. Annoying giving coordinates as ((0,4),(2,4),(2,4)). "." as a decimalmark is some of the (few) things they got right in UK&US.
    • What, do you think we are gullibe? Next thing you are going to tell me they do something weird like switch the month and day around when giving the date.
    • they use a "." instead of a "," to delimit their thousands. It's not a mistake.

      What? No Europeans arguing that a period is BETTER than the American comma? You guys have really eased up lately.

  • If you want... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Niles_Stonne ( 105949 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:32PM (#5744859) Homepage
    I have both of the girl's phone numbers, if anyone is interested...

  • My mate has gone to this.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Idimmu Xul ( 204345 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:33PM (#5744867) Homepage Journal
    and he's taken over 400 CDR discs with him.

    Not that I'm emplying anything ;) I can't wait untill he gets back \o/ *cough*

  • Pr0n & warez? Not! (Score:5, Informative)

    by IAmRenegadeX ( 627910 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:34PM (#5744870)
    A LOT of great stuff has come out of this event, if you follow the demoscene. I remember checking constantly to download the Amiga demo winners from this event. That stuff was cutting edge! I haven't looked at the last few years' winners, but I bet the competitions are still churning out some amazing code.

    A few of the coding groups at these parties went on to form actual "money making" companies, like Team 17 [team17.com].

    While I wouldn't characterize The Gathering as a Geek Think Tank, it most certainly ain't all about pr0n, warez, and fragging.

  • "Party report" (Score:5, Informative)

    by termos ( 634980 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:34PM (#5744878) Homepage
    I am sitting at The Gathering at the moment, and I can say that there is not only gamers here. They made one section of the area a demoscene area (with a no gamers allowed banner).
    It's a step in the right direction.

    • Re:"Party report" (Score:3, Interesting)

      by argmanah ( 616458 )
      I am sitting at The Gathering at the moment, and I can say that there is not only gamers here. They made one section of the area a demoscene area (with a no gamers allowed banner).
      Ah, the demoscene. Am I the only one reminded of conventions like Assembly '9X where groups like Future Crew and others made our machines do ridiculous things?

      It's hard not to miss the good old days before bloatware became the status quo.
      • I live in Vegas, and I still hang out with a lot of the guys from the old 702 and Ice crews. Some awesome demo & ansi guys, plus guys that formed the first few Vegas BBS's. Demo parties died because people thought they were lan parties. Subsequently, the commonness of broadband in homes killed lan parties. Remember the kids at lan parties that had dial-up at home? The ones that just leeched the pipe for 6 hours with warez and mp3s? I remember some of the smarter guys started yanking the line to th

      • Re:"Party report" (Score:5, Informative)

        by MagPulse ( 316 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @02:21PM (#5745744)
        Future Crew was ahead of computer game companies, so they get credit for "making machines do ridiculous things". Today game companies have budgets rivaling movie studios, so they get all the attention. But small teams and even individuals can still make great demos. Here are the three big demo parties and some recent results (may not be the latest): Here are some other sites with demos:
        • Pouet [pouet.net] - Has a big list of demos, intros, and lots of comments.
        • 256b.com [256b.com] - If the 2-10 meg demos on pouet are too bloated for you, check these out.
        • CFXweb [cfxweb.net] - A community web site with forums and a magazine.
        My favorite demo of the moment is IV-Racer [scene.org] by The Lost Souls, though it uses mostly pre-made 3D models instead of calculated effects. For a good tiny one, try this one [scene.org] by Haujobb [scene.org]. They both have incredible atmosphere that I'd love to have in a game.
    • This event looks like great fun! I'm looking at the sea of monitors showing on one of the webcam images: I guess they don't have to worry about heating the building.

      Perhaps you could post a more detailed report so those of us stuck at work could enjoy The Gathering vicariously?

      The on-line schedule mentions deadlines for various "hand-in"s. Are these opportunities for attendees to register items for presentation? The schedule also mentions voting. What's that about?

      - Tim
    • You act like that would be a good thing. Buch o'Geeks swamming around saying my computer is more 'leet than your computer doesn't sound like any fun unless you can frag him into oblivion. Oh, and our Lan Parties have live DJs. Screw you gamer-hating types! ;-P :-)
  • so much for that high-speed line ;oP

  • in the end, there can be only one.

    Unles of course, there's Magic involved.

    Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week.
  • ..., so they had better have gotten that party started.

    Seriously, I'd so much rather be there now than at work. (sigh)

  • I'll take QuakeCon any day over that.

    This year Quakecon will have 2000 BYOC attendees and estimated 4000 total attendees.

    Dallas will swell and pop from all the nerddery

    • Re:Bah (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:54PM (#5745040) Homepage Journal
      eh, so?

      the gathering, the party, assemblies, and other european DEMOSCENE-parties are first, and foremost meant to be DEMOSCENE-parties, they're not meant to hell-of-a-size lan gaming parties anyways. they're about having good time, having couple of beers, shooting the breeze, checking some cool new/ancient hardware, toying around, catching up with old times. you're meant to compete with your creativy, not with your speed of wrist and accuracy in sniping.

      the bigger demoscene events have been slowly turning into laning events though which is a shame.. the unity is left out, and the newer attendees don't often even know the history behind the events..

      the number of attendees has nothing to do with the amount of fun, a lot of the smaller demoparties have been very funny events that have left many good memories.

      if you're only a _gamer_ you take quakecon over that, if you're a demoscener, you don't even think quakecon as an option (except maybe have your own shadow party in the woods, telling legends over a camp-fire drinking beer).

      btw, is it really so now that the gathering is _the_ biggest? 5000 for real? couldnt find accurate information on their webpage.

  • Only gigabit? (Score:5, Funny)

    by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:42PM (#5744940) Homepage
    Those poor geeks... that's only 200kbps per person. Even my cable modem is faster than that.
    • Why would you need much internet bandwidth? All the game servers are local and I am sure you could find all the p0rn and warez ever created on the local network. The only reason you would need an internet connection for is checking e-mail and web surfing. If 9/10 people are busy crawling the LAN for p0rn or playing local games, then each person actually using the internet gets 2 mpbs.
    • ...that on average, each has 10gb of "stuff", being warez/appz/gamez/mp3z/dvdripz/linux distros, and you have 50tb = 50,000gb on the internal network. I think you can download 24/7 all through TG and still not need to get online...

      Kjella

  • Great Googly-Moogly (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 0x00000dcc ( 614432 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:42PM (#5744941) Journal
    Is it me, or is the dude at the bottom center-right of this image of the gathering [nmee.net] using a plasma tv as a monitor? If not, sure does look like a 42 inch screen. Maybe it's a new Apple flat panel ;-)

  • What is happening? (Score:5, Informative)

    by termos ( 634980 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:42PM (#5744950) Homepage
    If you are interested in what will happen here in the next few days, take a look here: Schedule [gathering.org].

  • Wow... (Score:5, Funny)

    by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:42PM (#5744951) Homepage Journal
    Just imagine the size of the pizza that they'll order for delivery...
    • Just imagine the size of the pizza that they'll order for delivery...

      And the smell later in the evening.

    • Just imagine the size of the pizza that they'll order for delivery...

      Even worse, imagine the poor bastard who has to try and placate the toppings preferences of 5000 geeks.

      Hey! I just found a legitimate use for P2P!

    • "Oh -- I've over at 63.22.86.14"...

      Take 63.22.14.1 to 64.18.195.1 and turn right.
      When you see 63.22.86.1 slash to the left and I
      Should be the 14th one on the right.

  • Obligatory Beowulf comment (Score:3)

    by binaryDigit ( 557647 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:49PM (#5745004)
    Imagine if everyone connected their computers and created a beowulf cluster!

    They could then calculate the average time it's been since any one of them actually had a date (hopefully no overflow errors occur).

  • Downloads 'r' Us (Score:3, Interesting)

    by semaj ( 172655 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:52PM (#5745026) Journal
    On their website, they link to their own Harlem-client for Windows [tg.nlc.no] for browsing SMB shares.

    It seems to work from outside of the party too - anyone looking for a few thousand Windows boxes with shared files on might want to take a look. :o)

  • Surreal? (Score:5, Funny)

    by heldlikesound ( 132717 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:53PM (#5745034) Homepage
    Only on Slashdot could a blurry picture of what appears to be a few thousand computer users called surreal. Not only that, but one of the other webcams is pointing at a guys power supply. Breathtaking.

  • I'd love to go to this... (Score:5, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @12:59PM (#5745067) Homepage Journal
    ...just to see the result of somebody calling me a camping fag in person.

  • Here are some photos from The Gathering 2002 [sesse.net].

    Of course, this guy put sooooo many thumbnails on this one page that Slashdot will likely kill this after five seconds.

  • The mass of unwashed humanity reminds me of another festive event [houston500.com]

  • Apparently they lock their linux users up in a cage [jodal.no] and they don't even notice when nobody else is there [jodal.no].

    I'd stay away from there if you don't run windows!

    Anyway, pictures of all the nerd stuff are at http://bilder.jodal.no/tg03 [jodal.no]
  • A Gig link to the net - with 5000 users? Thats got to be a smokin LAN ....
  • Sales of consumer products containing a defined amount of coffeine is not permitted in Norway
    Hmmm, just what the heck kind of computer party is this, anyway?
  • Wouldn't it be really interesting if an entire ideology of computer software could be designed down to the finest detail by a number of individuals hired for such a task? This would include an entire operating system and all the software to run on it. An enormous party would be thrown, to which would be invited hundreds of thousands of programmers. Each would be assigned a specific portion of the system. At the end of a single day, the entire software system would be completed due to the sheer number of pro

  • TODO (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    1. express mock confusion over European method of writing numbers
    2. crack joke about the stench
    3. post link to phony mirror [redcoat.net] (no, not goatse [goatse.cx])
    4. make inane soviet russia quip
    5. write some "funny" source code
    6. claim that hussein/bush is dead
    7. submit more xbox articles
    8. craft a list that ends with "PROFIT!!!"
  • The webcams show people have lugged in their tower cases and CRTs. People, please, there are plenty of laptops on the market with GeForceGo chips and decent pixel fade time displays.

  • The Gathering (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mkro ( 644055 )

    I went to The Gathering every year from 93 till 00 (except 95), and it just got more and more crap. That is, from the perspective of someone who is more interested in the creative aspect.

    • From year to year the following increases:
    • Younger and younger participants.
    • More and more gamers.
    • The focus IS on the network, network games and "bringing empty harddrives". Oh, and meet the cute girl you talked to on #teenchat
    • "Look, my dad bought me bigger soundsystem than you got from your dad. Now, hear. Everyone he

    • Yes, TG00 was crappy scene-wise -- TG01 was a little better, and TG02 was actually quite good (but of course, you can't match a scene-only party like Breakpoint -- you'll have to accept all the CS-playing fourteen-year-olds, but you can still meet with other sceners and have fun). I don't really know how TG03 will be yet, but it looks promising so far :-)

      /* Steinar */

  • Karm's gonna roast for this (Score:5, Funny)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Wednesday April 16, 2003 @02:14PM (#5745660)
    But I simply cannot resist.

    AGENT SMITH
    Can you hear me, CmdrTaco? I'm going to be honest with you.

    I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This Gathering, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer.

    It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste their sweaty mice and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.

    I must get out of here, I must get free. In this mind are the cheats. My cheats. Once the Gathering is gone, there's no need for me to be here. Do you understand? I need the cheats. I have to get some fresh air.

    You have to tell me how... or you're going to die.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Then we can all have a party! A friend of mine said that, and shortly thereafter I remarked, "every computer networked together... you mean like the INTERNET?"
    sheesh!

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