Hacker

Hacker may refer to:

Technology

Entertainment

Hacker culture

The hacker culture is a subculture of individuals who enjoy the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming and circumventing limitations of systems to achieve novel and clever outcomes. The act of engaging in activities (such as programming or other media) in a spirit of playfulness and exploration is termed "hacking". However, the defining characteristic of a hacker is not the activities performed themselves (e.g. programming), but the manner in which it is done: hacking entails some form of excellence, for example exploring the limits of what is possible, thereby doing something exciting and meaningful. Activities of playful cleverness can be said to have "hack value" and are termed "hacks" (examples include pranks at MIT intended to demonstrate technical aptitude and cleverness). The hacker culture originally emerged in academia in the 1960s around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Mod (video gaming)

A mod or modification is the alteration of content from a video game in order to make it operate in a manner different from its original version. Mods can be created for any genre of game but are especially popular in first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not stand-alone software and require the user to have the original release in order to run. They can include new items, modded weapons, characters, enemies, models, textures, levels, story lines, music, money, armor, life and game modes. They can be single-player or multiplayer. Mods that add new content to the underlying game are often called partial conversions, while mods that create an entirely new game are called total conversions and mods that fix bugs only are called unofficial patches.

Games running on a personal computer are often designed with change in mind, allowing modern PC games to be modified by gamers without much difficulty. These mods can add extra replay value and interest. The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute mods, and they have become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games. Developers such as id Software, Valve Software, Re-Logic, Bethesda Softworks, Firaxis, Crytek, The Creative Assembly and Epic Games provide extensive tools and documentation to assist mod makers, leveraging the potential success brought in by a popular mod like Counter-Strike.

Orbiter

An orbiter is a space probe that orbits a planet or other astronomical object. An orbiter can be either man-made, or created naturally..

Examples

Asteroids

Earth

Jupiter

Mars

Mercury

Moon

Saturn

Sun

Orbiter (ride)

The Orbiter is a fairground ride invented by Richard Woolls in 1976, with showman Henry Frederick Smith investing in the blueprints and consequently being the first owner, taking delivery in 1976 of the OB-1, making its debut at Dreamland Amusement Park in Margate, Kent.

Description

It has a number of articulated arms radiating from a central rotating vertical axis. Each arm supports a cluster of cars, which are lifted through 90° into the horizontal position once the ride is spinning. At the same time, each cluster of cars rotates around its arm's axis.

The Orbiter/Typhoon/Predator arms don't always tilt at the same height (90%). Some might tilt all the way while others don't tilt a lot. Most Orbiters consist of six arms, and have three cars for each arm with up to two people sitting in each car. There is a metal lap bar that comes down on the car for the restraint.

Production

The Orbiter is made by Tivoli manufacturing, a British company. In the U.S. their representative is Amtech.

Orbiter (comics)

Orbiter is a graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran, published in 2003 by DC Comics under their Vertigo imprint.

It is a hard science fiction story set in the early 21st Century about a team of specialists employed to understand the mysterious reappearance of the space shuttle Venture. The shuttle crashed back to Earth after disappearing ten years earlier with its crew missing, save for the catatonic pilot, and alien technology on board.

Ellis and Doran are both space flight enthusiasts and dedicated Orbiter to the "lives, memories and legacies" of the astronauts who died in the 2003 Columbia disaster.

Warren Ellis received an Eisner Award nomination as Best Writer for his 2004 works including Orbiter.

Publication history

The graphic novel was first published as a hardcover by Vertigo in April 2003 (ISBN 1-4012-0056-7) and as a softcover by Little Brown in May 2004 (ISBN 1-4012-0268-3). Titan Books published a British softcover in June 2004 (ISBN 1840237244)

Plot synopsis