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Comment Both right and wrong move (Score 2) 311

by fjsalcedo (#44349761) Attached to: British Prime Minister Promises Default On Porn Blocking
In my opinion this move is both right and wrong. It is absolutely right because it gives, AT LAST, parents and people with real troubles caused by pornography (and, yes, pornography does cause really serious problems to a LOT of people) the ability to get rid of such a troublesome content. Think of alcohol and alcoholic people, or tobacco and smokers, just to mention legal substances, at least the addicts to them have the rightful choice of NOT having access to those substances imposed in their homes. Nobody delivers alcohol or tobacco daily, 24x7, and for FREE to them. Which is not the case with pornography. On the other hand, I think the move is wrong because it imposes censorship by default (which it would be right in public places, by the way). I do really think that granting the right for everybody to really OPT OUT of pornografy, if they so desire, should be compulsory. I mean, British Government should have left the access to porn as is (although I firmly disagree) BUT forcing the companies to grant the right to opt out of it, in a swift and easy manner. Regards.
Cellphones

San Francisco Abandons Mobile Phone Radiation Labels 132

Posted by timothy from the this-sticker-is-a-choking-hazard dept.
judgecorp writes "The city of San Francisco has abandoned a law proposed in 2010 which would have required mobile phones to be labelled with their radiation level. Mobile phone industry body the CTIA fought the bill in court, arguing that there is not enough evidence of harm. The city is not convinced phones are safe — it says its decision to abandon the law is simply based on the legal costs."

Submission + - Becoming programmer at 40 1

Submitted by fjsalcedo
fjsalcedo writes: Hi! I've read many times, here at Slashdot and elesewhere, that programming, especially learning how to program professionally, is a matter of young people. That programmers after 35 or so begin to decline and even loose their jobs or at least part of their wages. Well, my story is quite the contrary. I've never made it after undergraduate level in Computer Science because I had to begin working. I've always worked 24x4 in IT environments, but all that stoped abruptly one and a half years ago when I was diagnosed with a form of epilepsy and my neurologist did forbid me from working shifts and, above all, nights. Fortunately enough, my company didn't fire me, instead they gave me the oportunity to learn and work as a web programmer. Since then, in les than a year, I've had to learn Java, Javascript, JSTL, EL, JSP, regular expressions, Spring, Hibernate, SQL, etc. And, you know what?? I did. I'm not an expert, of course, but I'm really interested in continue learning. Is my new born career a dead end or do I have a chance of becoming good at programming?

Submission + - World of Warcraft Bleeding Subscribers, 1.3 Million Lost in 2013 (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: World of Warcarft, gaming industry’s most popular franchise and one of Activision Blizzard's cash cow, is bleeding subscribers with 1.3 million defecting the game in the first quarter of 2013 alone. Activision Blizzard, through an earnings call press release [PDF] on Wednesday, revealed this bit of information and according to the company the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) saw a decline of over 14 per cent subscribers in the first quarter of 2013, the total now standing at 8.3 million.

Comment Spanish mechanical keyboard (Score 1) 298

by fjsalcedo (#43115407) Attached to: Cherry's New Keyboard Switches Emulate IBM Model M Feel
Hi! Sorry if this is not appropriate, but, does anybody know where do I can find a good mechanical keyboard with Spanish layout? Take Filco, for instance, they have, as far as I know, American and British English, German, Italian, French, even Swedish and Finish, but no Spanish. Hey, we are more than 400 million speakers. So, any information would be very much appreciated. Regards FJSS
The Internet

Woman's Nude Pics End Up Online After Call To Tech Support 197

Posted by samzenpus from the how-was-your-service-today? dept.
Tara Fitzgerald couldn't find the nude pictures she planned on sending to her boyfriend, but instead of just taking more, she decided to see if a Dell tech support call could fix her problem. Apparently the tech support guy found them. Unfortunately, he then put them up on a site called "bitchtara."
Microsoft

MS Design Lets You Put Batteries In Any Way You Want 453

Posted by timothy from the dis-orientation dept.
jangel writes "While its strategy for mobile devices might be a mess, Microsoft has announced something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented design for battery contacts will allow users of portable devices — digital cameras, flashlights, remote controls, toys, you name it — to insert their batteries in any direction. Compatible with AA and AAA cells, among others, the 'InstaLoad' technology does not require special electronics or circuitry, the company claims."
Games

How Game Gimmicks Break Immersion 228

Posted by Soulskill from the they-can't-all-be-portal dept.
The Moving Pixels blog has brief discussion of how gimmicky game mechanics often break a player's sense of immersion, making it painfully obvious that he's simply jumping through carefully planned hoops set up by the developers. The author takes an example from Singularity, which has a weapon that can time-shift objects between a pristine, functional state and a broken, decayed state. Quoting: "The core issue with this time control device is that it's just not grand and sweeping enough. It doesn't feel like it's part of a world gone mad. Instead it's just a gameplay tool. You can only use it on certain things in certain places. You can 'un-decay' this chalkboard but not that desk. You can dissolve that piece of cover but not most of the walls in the game. The ultimate failure of such cheap tricks is that they make the game world less immersive rather than more compelling. The world gets divided into those few things that I can time shift, that different set of things I can levitate, and that majority of things that I can't interact with at all. ... I'm painfully aware that all that I'm really doing is pushing the right button at the right place and time. Sure, that's what many games are when you get down to it, but part of the artistry of game design comes from trying to hide this fact."
Communications

Solar-Powered Flight Grounded By Equipment Bug 28

Posted by timothy from the for-want-of-a-nail dept.
crimeandpunishment writes "If your plane is powered by the sun, it's tough to fly if your crew is in the dark. A 24-hour test flight for the world's first solar-powered round-the-world flight had to be postponed Thursday due to an equipment problem that would have left mission control out of touch with the technology on the experimental aircraft. When they're able to make this test flight, they hope by flying all day they'll be able to fully charge the batteries, then use the stored energy to power the plane all night."

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