Comment Re:Last prize really Ig Nobel? (Score 1) 111
Sounds like they have mathematical demonstration of the Peter principle. This is where "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence".
Submission + - Modern Warfare 2 Team Sues Activision (thinq.co.uk)
Stoobalou writes: 38 members of the team at Infinity Ward, which created cash cow Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, are suing publisher Activision. The 38 complainants, some of whom have since jumped ship whilst others are still on the Infinity Ward payroll, are demanding $54 million in unpaid bonuses and up to $500 million in damages.
Submission + - Open source will kill off the iPhone, says Kaspers (techworld.com)
ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: Eugene Kaspersky, the controversial CEO of security company Kaspersky, has said open source operating systems will kill off closed source rivals including that driving the iconic iPhone. To survive, Apple needs to change its approach and get rid of restrictions for developers. Otherwise, Android and Symbian will supersede the iPhone.
Submission + - Geo-distributed web hosting - a new service (tronkle.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Web hosting has been around since the web was born and content delivery networks and such appeared soon after. Now there's a new technology that tries to combine the two. This service is offered by a start-up called Tronkle and it allows your website to be present in several locations around the world at the same time and served to your website visitors from the location that is closest to them. And when they say "website" this time they really mean it: it's not just a bunch of files that get to the edge nodes, but the entire website and services (database included). This means that the entire processing (http, php and db) is also performed on the edge nodes and this means that you also get load balancing for your website. Of course you could do this by Mysql replication and http load balancing but to make shared web hosting that allows each user to choose their own combination of servers is a totally different story and that's exactly what Tronkle does.
UK ISP Spots a File-Sharing Loophole, Implements It 179
An anonymous reader writes "As well as taking an active part in OFCOM's code of obligations in regards to the ill-conceived Digital Economy Act (the UK three-strikes law for filesharers), niche ISP Andrews & Arnold have identified various loopholes in the law, the main one being that a customer can be classified as a communications provider. They have now implemented measures so in your control panel you may register your legal status and be classed as such." Another of the loopholes this inventive ISP sussed out: "Operating more than one retail arm selling to customers and allowing customers to migrate freely with no change to service between those retail arms, thus bypassing copyright notice counting and any blocking orders."
Submission + - Perception Of Data Security At Odds With Reality (net-security.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Nearly three-quarters of organizations believe they have adequate policies in place to protect sensitive, personal information, yet more than half have lost sensitive data within the past two years — and nearly 60 percent of those organizations acknowledge data loss as a recurring problem, according to a global study by Accenture. While 70 percent agreed that organizations have an obligation to take reasonable steps to secure consumers’ personal information, there are discrepancies in their commitments. Nearly half did not believe it was important or very important to: limit the collection or sharing of sensitive personal customer information.
Why Time Flies By As You Get Older 252
Ant notes a piece up on WBUR Boston addressing theories to explain the universal human experience that time seems to pass faster as you get older. Here's the 9-minute audio (MP3). Several explanations are tried out: that brains lay down more information for novel experiences; that the "clock" for nerve impulses in aging brains runs slower; and that each interval of time represents a diminishing fraction of life as we age.
What Drugs Do Astronauts Take? 132
astroengine writes "Science fiction is stuffed full of examples of pill-popping space explorers and aliens enjoying psychedelic highs. After all, space is big; it can get boring/scary/crazy up there. It's little wonder, then, that our current space explorers consume a cocktail of uppers, downers, tranquilizers and alcohol to get the job done. Robert Lamb on tranquilizers in the space station: 'Sure, it hardly makes for a civilized evening aboard ISS, but it beats someone blowing the hatch because they think they saw something crawling on one of the solar panels.'"
New Aliens Vs. Predator Game Doesn't Make It Past AU Ratings Board 277
An anonymous reader writes "Australia refused to give Rebellion's new Aliens Vs. Predator game a rating, effectively banning it in the country. Rebellion says it won't be submitting an edited version for another round of classifications, however. (As Valve did with Left 4 Dead 2.) They said, 'We will not be releasing a sanitized or cut down version for territories where adults are not considered by their governments to be able to make their own entertainment choices.'"
Comment For those with a disability. (Score 2, Interesting) 154
I have a son with cerebral palsy (spastic quadriplegia). It's incredibly hard for him to play games even with the uber sized trackball I got him (http://www.infogrip.com/product_view.asp?RecordNumber=98). I'd love someone to make this work as there's nothing wrong with his mind it would seem - the signals for movement just don't get to his limbs properly.
Anyone with a physical impairment that prevents them from using standard input device technology would love something like this. Assuming it works at all... here's hoping.
Anyone with a physical impairment that prevents them from using standard input device technology would love something like this. Assuming it works at all... here's hoping.
Journal Journal: RIAA tells YouTube to remove free guitar lessons 341
Is it so wrong to learn how to play the guitar? According to RIAA: Yes. According to NPR, a record company ordered YouTube to remove videos of a man who offered to show people how to play the guitar because the songs he was teaching violated copyright infringement rules. How could this constitute as infringement if most musicians usually experiement to find something that sounds familiar? I've never had a guitar less
Journal Journal: My daughter
The little one has been potty trained since around last October when she told her mom "No more diapers!" (training pants). She just turned three in January. She still calls everything 'poopoo' no matter what she has to go to the bathroom for, so we just learned to ask her when she is done and do the appopriate clean up if any.
Journal Journal: First alternative fuel NASCAR race: Fontana, CA
Fontana, CA was debut of alternative fuel for NASCAR today
More horsepower but less engine reliability due to redused lubrication of the valve train.
BTW, #17 won.
Journal Journal: Fight Iranian gender-apartheid with one million signatures
Iranian women's rights activists are fighting gender apartheid through the "One Million Signatures" campaign, which demands an end to discriminatory laws against women. At present, men have the sole right to divorce and except in special cases, the right to custody of children. One man's testimony equals that of two women. A man's worth is twice that of a woman in cases of murder or bodily injury. A daughter receives half a son's inheritance. And certain positions, such as that of a judge, are c
Journal Journal: Microsoft's Real Plan?
What's Microsoft's real plan? With the advent of .Net, the Microsoft/Novell deal, the splitting of Microsoft into three major groups internally, and the impossibility of Windows being developed the same way that Vista was for the the generation of Windows it becomes quite possible that Windows as we know it - with an NT Kernel and all - is no longer the future of Windows. Just how might Microsoft surive? Check out my full blog describing
