Hsensei - Slashdot User

NASA Outsources ISS Resupply To SpaceX, Orbital 151

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 23, 2008 @10:10PM from the minding-the-gap dept.

DynaSoar writes "NASA has signed two contracts with US commercial space ventures totaling $3.5 billion for resupply of the International Space Station. SpaceX will receive $1.6 billion for 12 flights of SpaceX's planned Dragon spacecraft and their Falcon 9 boosters. $1.9 billion goes to Orbital for eight flights of its Cygnus spacecraft riding its Taurus 2 boosters. Neither of the specified craft has ever flown. However, the proposed vehicles are under construction and based on proven technology, whereas NASA has often contracted with big aerospace companies for services using vehicles not yet even designed."

Submission + - VHS finally dies a death, no really 1

Submitted by thefickler on Tuesday December 23, 2008 @10:09PM

thefickler writes: The last major supplier of VHS videotapes, is ditching the format in favor of DVD, effectively killing the format for good. This uncharitable commentator has this to say:"Will VHS be missed? Not ... with videos being brittle, clunky, and rather user-unfriendly. But they ushered in a new era that was important to get to where we are today. And for that reason, the death of VHS is rather sad. Almost as sad as the people still using it."

Submission + - It's Official: The PDA is Dead

Submitted by fm6 on Tuesday December 23, 2008 @07:02PM

fm6 writes: Some you will recall how Apple invented the PDA back in 1989. Their implementation had issues that we need not belabor, and was eventually discontinued. Its market niche was taken over by a simpler device, the Palm Pilot, which dominated the PDA market from that point on.

Nowadays, Palm mostly sells smart phones. Although they sold $11 million worth of PDAs last quarter, they haven't developed any new models since the TX and Z22 were released in 2005. Last Friday, CEO Ed Colligan announced what everybody had already figured out: these two models will be the last. The PDA is dead. Long live the Smart Phone!

Submission + - Another AVG false alarm? (paulwallbank.com)

Submitted by

paulwallbank

on Tuesday December 23, 2008 @05:34PM

paulwallbank writes: "AVG Free appears to be reporting another false positive, this time in the Windows soundcard drivers. http://paulwallbank.com/2008/12/23/another-avg-false-alarm/"

Comment Re:I don't care what happens. (Score 2, Interesting) 873

by Hsensei on Friday December 19, 2008 @03:45PM (#26176231) Attached to: The US economy is heading toward ...

You know. from where I set the "responsible adults" in power don't seem to want to solve the problem either. They are the ones hiding the information that we would need to form a plan to get ourselves out of this mess. Hell, for most of them they have incentive to prolong our misery as long as is possible. When the shit finally does hit the fan... I doubt the quality of life of those hunkered down will drop as much as the rest of us who are used to our current instant gratification lifestyles. If the people in power were going to try and fix the problem I would agree with you, but from the way I see it they are not. So I really hope it's just me being cynical with no faith in humanity. I pray for all of us that's all it is. Is it time for the 4th box to be used in the defense of democracy?

Comment Re:i did my civic duty... (Score 1) 709

by Hsensei on Thursday November 06, 2008 @12:18PM (#25662379) Attached to: In the U.S. election just ended, I voted ...

Everyone knows you NEVER drink the Kool-aid.

Comment i did my civic duty... (Score 1) 709

by Hsensei on Wednesday November 05, 2008 @06:04PM (#25651003) Attached to: In the U.S. election just ended, I voted ...

Good old scantron style. To bad Red or Blue they are all crooked. Thats why I am glad there is a write in section.

EA Hit By Class-Action Suit Over Spore DRM 538

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday September 24, 2008 @04:02PM from the was-it-worth-the-hassle? dept.

The ever-growing unrest caused by the DRM involved with EA's launch of Spore came to a head on Monday. A woman named Melissa Thomas filed a class-action lawsuit against EA for their inclusion of the SecuROM copy-protection software with Spore. This comes after protests of the game's DRM ranged from a bombardment of poor Amazon reviews to in-game designs decrying EA and its policies. Some of those policies were eased, but EA has also threatened to ban players for even discussing SecuROM on their forums. The court documents (PDF) allege: "What purchasers are not told is that, included in the purchase, installation, and operation of Spore is a second, undisclosed program. The name of the second program is SecuROM ... Consumers are given no control, rights, or options over SecuROM. ... Electronic Arts intentionally did not disclose to any such purchasers that the Spore game disk also possessed a second, hidden program which secretly installed to the command and control center of the computer."

Copyright Board Lawyer Responds On Pandora's End 174

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 16, 2008 @05:38PM from the cutting-off-the-air-supply dept.

mattnyc99 writes "A month ago we talked about the impending death of streaming music site Pandora thanks to a very backwards fight over royalties. PopMech follows up with an article that, besides noting how insane it is that Pandora has to pay record labels for the bad songs that users skip, also gets the (three-member) Copyright Royalty Board to try and defend itself about why the government is determining royalty rates for the music industry. Quoting: 'It was uninvited,' says Richard Strasser, senior attorney for the Copyright Royalty Board. 'I don't think anybody was jumping up and down with joy in the government that they have this responsibility, but the former systems just weren't working out.'" No one seems to be trying to defend or explain why Internet radio is being hit so much harder than satellite or broadcast.

Environmental Cost of Hybrids' Battery Recycling? 520

Posted by timothy on Tuesday September 09, 2008 @05:17PM from the they're-good-for-bludgeoning-seals dept.

LostMyBeaver writes "I have been considering the purchase of an electric or hybrid vehicle for some time. The biggest problem I have currently is that both technologies make use of rechargable batteries. The same tree-huggers telling me gasoline is bad are telling me that batteries are bad too. I'm only partially knowledgable in this area, but it appears the battery technologies are generally based at least on lithium ion, nickel metal hydride, lead acid and nickel-cadmium. I was hoping someone on Slashdot would be knowledgable enough to explain the environmental cost of recycling these batteries. If I understand correctly, after these chemicals are 'spent' so the cells no longer maintain a charge, they are not useful for producing new batteries. I can only imagine that the most common method of recycling the cells is to store the toxic chemicals of the batteries in barrels and refilling the cells with new chemicals. This sounds like an environmental disaster to me. Is there someone here that can help me sleep better at night by explaining what really happens?"

LOTRO Dev Talks About Bringing MMOs To Consoles 129

Posted by Soulskill on Monday September 01, 2008 @10:36PM from the give-me-a-mouse-and-keyboard-or-give-me-death dept.

Jeffrey Steefel, executive producer for Lord of the Rings: Online recently spoke to Eurogamer about the game's upcoming expansion and its future in the MMO market. One thing he mentions is the challenge of designing an MMO for consoles, which have a larger player base than PC games. He admits that UI development would be a huge issue, but also thinks MMOs could benefit from splitting tasks between various devices. "Long term, for me, the real exciting vision is ... thinking about a game, a franchise, as this centralised content. There's this thing called Lord of the Rings that sits on a bunch of servers ... and whether you're on your PC, your console, your mobile device, those are all just access points, and they're all good at different things. ... The console is great for fast action, immediate activities. Combat, raids, things like that could be a lot of fun sitting on your couch. And some things that are necessary but slightly rote and boring, like managing your inventory or setting up for a raid, or some elements of crafting — those are things that you can do instead of playing Bejeweled when you're sitting on the train or on a break or whatever it happens to be."

NYT Explores the World of Internet Trolls 423

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 31, 2008 @09:18PM from the it's-not-a-pretty-place dept.

prostoalex writes "New York Times magazine explores the history and status quo of Internet trolling. They look at the early days of Usenet trolling, current anonymous forums, and social networking pages as the latest venues for trolls: 'In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word troll to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a pseudo-naïve tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.'"

The Beginnings of a TLD Free-For-All? 489

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday June 23, 2008 @03:08PM from the bad-ideas dept.

Mordok-DestroyerOfWo writes "According to the BBC, ICANN is considering opening up the wholesale creation of TLDs by private industry. While I'm sure this is done for the convenience of the companies and has nothing to do with the several thousand dollars they will be charging for each registration, I was curious what the tech community at large thought about this idea. It seems to me that this will simply open the doors for a never-ending stream of TLD squatters."

Paper Stronger Than Cast Iron 327

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 09, 2008 @11:20PM from the write-on dept.

TaeKwonDood writes "All paper is made of cellulose, which at the nanoscale level is quite strong, but paper processing makes large, fragile fibers that break easily. Researchers in Sweden have have come up with a manufacturing process that keeps the fibers small, resulting in 'nanopaper' with over 1.6 times the tensile strength of cast iron (214 megapascals vs. 130 mPa). And since cellulose is the most abundant organic compound on the planet, it's cheap to use compared to other exotic, expensive-to-produce options — such as carbon nanotubes."

Is Mathematics Discovered Or Invented? 798

Posted by kdawson on Saturday April 26, 2008 @05:42PM from the plato-says-yeah-but dept.

An anonymous reader points out an article up at Science News on a question that, remarkably, is still being debated after a few thousand years: is mathematics discovered, or is it invented? Those who answer "discovered" are the intellectual descendants of Plato; their number includes Roger Penrose. The article notes that one difficulty with the Platonic view: if mathematical ideas exist in some way independent of humans or minds, then human minds engaged in doing mathematics must somehow be able to connect with this non-physical state. The European Mathematical Society recently devoted space to the debate. One of the papers, Let Platonism die, can be found on page 24 of this PDF. The author believes that Platonism "has more in common with mystical religions than with modern science."

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