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Comment I've Gone Back to PC (Score 1) 422

by ink (#34382006) Attached to: The 5-Year Console Cycle Is Dead

I'm sorry, but I can't handle 8800GT-era graphics anymore. The 360 used to look nice, but it's definitely aging, and Microsoft seems intent on going down the casual-gamer road. I started buying more titles on PC than console last year, and I've only purchased a handful this year. I know that I'm in the minority, but this supposed "10-year cycle" is just not for me.

Submission + - Supreme Court Hears Video Game Case (kotaku.com)

Submitted by ink
ink writes: The supreme court heard arguments today about the controversial California law that makes it illegal to sell "violent" videogames to minors. The transcript is interesting, if only to read justices Kagen and Scalias thoughts on Mortal Kombat: "It's iconic", "I don't know what she's talking about".
Transportation

Submission + - Aircraft bomb finds may spell end for in-flight Wi (newscientist.com)

Submitted by wjousts
wjousts writes: According to New Scientist, the ability to use a cellphone or Wi-Fi connection on an aircraft might be a casualty of the recent package bombs.



Quoting:

In-flight Wi-Fi "gives a bomber lots of options for contacting a device on an aircraft", Alford says. Even if ordinary cellphone connections are blocked, it would allow a voice-over-internet connection to reach a handset.

"If it were to be possible to transmit directly from the ground to a plane over the sea, that would be scary," says Alford's colleague, company founder Sidney Alford. "Or if a passenger could use a cellphone to transmit to the hold of the aeroplane he is in, he could become a very effective suicide bomber."
Government

Submission + - Tea Party Pushes GOP Past Dems In Social Net Use (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Social networks transformed the 2008 presidential election and that burst of online campaigning has spread significantly in this year's mid-term elections. In the 2008 election, Democrats and then-candidate Barack Obama showed a lot of online savvy by connecting with younger voters on social networks like Facebook. This time around, the Republican party has more than caught up to the Democrats, according to non-partisan HeadCount.org. As of late September, Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate had more than 1.43 million fans on Facebook, compared with less than 300,000 for Democrats, noted HeadCount. And on Twitter, Republican Senatorial candidates collectively counted 520,000 followers, far more than the 90,000 followers of Democratic candidates. 'Candidates associated with the Tea Party are clearly responsible for much of the social media activity, most notably South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint,' reported HeadCount.org. 'Hailed as one of the most new media savvy elected officials, he has more Twitter Followers than any incumbent and more Facebook fans than any incumbent other than [Sen. John] McCain.'
Technology

Submission + - Congo minerals (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The Register has a thoughtful and informative article (I know, I was surprised too) by Tim Worstall, dealing with the minerals trade that provides much of the funding for the incredibly bloody civil war in the Congo. The key element is tantalum, which is used to make capacitors for cell phones and other portable electronics. There's an effort going on to block the use of tantalum from the Congo — but according to the author, the effort is doomed to failure since the ban is impossible to enforce, and Congo is able to provide the cheapest product.
Technology

Submission + - Forget LED lightbulbs... ESL bulbs are coming... (usatoday.com)

Submitted by Bibs_kin
Bibs_kin writes: USA Today has an article mentioning a new lightbulb technology that should start receiving orders by the end of the year. Still trying to get used to the curly-Q compact fluorescent light bulb? Haven't yet tried the LED (light emitting diode)? Well, you may be falling behind, because there's yet another, energy-efficient light bulb entering the market — known as the ESL.
Games

Submission + - Supreme Court Leaning Towards Game Industry (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23
donniebaseball23 writes: Oral arguments concerning the hotly contested California violent video games law began today, and so far it appears that the Supreme Court Justices are siding with the game industry's view that the law is unconstitutional. In fact, Justice Antonin Scalia said that California is "asking us to create a whole new prohibition." Kenneth L. Doroshow, general counsel of the ESA noted that the law "would inevitably lead to a stifling of creative expression across all forms of media, not limited to video games." Furthermore, a new U.S. Gallup poll shows that the majority of Americans want to see parents as being most responsible for what violent content kids can or cannot access.
IT

Submission + - A Decade of Agile Programming: Has It Delivered? (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "InfoWorld offers a look back at the first decade of agile programming. Forged in February 2001 when a group of developers convened in Utah to find an alternative to documentation-driven, 'heavyweight' software development practices, The Manifesto for Agile Software Development sought to promote processes that accommodate changing requirements, collaboration with customers, and delivery of software in short iterations. Fast-forward a decade, and agile software development is becoming increasingly commonplace, with software firms adopting agile offshoots such as Scrum, Extreme Programming, and Kanban — a trend some see benefiting software development overall."

Comment Re:Here's Oracle's Example (Score 1) 675

by ink (#34052894) Attached to: Oracle Claims Google 'Directly Copied' Our Java Code

I agree with you. The nice way that the fields match up is troubling. Perhaps the person who wrote this bit for Harmony copied Sun's class header and then wrote the code -- but that is still a copyright violation. Perhaps Apache can track down who wrote it for an opinion/explanation? I'm hoping that Oracle is just being obtuse.

Comment Here's Oracle's Example (Score 5, Informative) 675

by ink (#34051616) Attached to: Oracle Claims Google 'Directly Copied' Our Java Code

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It seems that more and more mathematicians are using a new, high level language named "research student".

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