Comment I am Jack's utter lack of awe... (Score 2) 75
Seriously NASA?
SpaceX is launching rockets that effing land themselves and you're celebrating that your parachute works? Well, those are new...
Comment Re:How does this not violate the 5th and/or 14th.. (Score 1) 371
Perhaps we could settle for "incapable of subtlety"...
Comment Re:How does this not violate the 5th and/or 14th.. (Score 1) 371
According to the Washington Post the CIA knew he was in the car. Several news outlets report this (although that could be parroting the Washington Post); however, several early reports about the attack appear to show the CIA proud that they killed Derwish as well (although that quickly changed after people got wind that he was an American.)
Apparently there was a 'secret finding' making this ok back in 2001/2002.
George Tenet is a yes man.
Comment Re:How does this not violate the 5th and/or 14th.. (Score 1) 371
You can say about Bush whatever you want, but he was always honest about it
Honest about what? Why we should invade Iraq? That we aren't torturing anyone? That the CIA didn't mean to kill that American citizen?
Obama is a worse disappointment in this regard simply because everyone with half a brain should have known that as a Neo-conservative Bush would behave that way. Obama was supposed to be a return to constitutional principles. Now he might as well be making security policy with Cheney (there's a scary thought, lol...)
Comment Re:How does this not violate the 5th and/or 14th.. (Score 1) 371
The first term of "Hope and Change" was not enough to prove he is nothing more than a liar?
Sorry, Republicans handed him the perfect excuse so that objective parties will really never be able to know given they basically said f*** you to anything the guy even thought about irrespective of whether or not it was good for America...
Comment Re:How does this not violate the 5th and/or 14th.. (Score 1) 371
Stop cheering me up...
Comment Re:How does this not violate the 5th and/or 14th.. (Score 1) 371
They did, actually.
The CIA killed a 'terrorist' despite knowing that a U.S. citizen, Kamal Derwish, was in the vehicle at the time.
Apparently before 2002 there was a 'secret finding' that you could assassinate U.S. citizens who the government believed were aiding Al Qaeda.
That f***ing a**hole Bin Laden won the minute we started destroying our own constitution.
Comment How does this not violate the 5th and/or 14th... (Score 3, Interesting) 371
...amendments to the Constitution?
Obama is turning out to be just as bad as the Neo-Cons when it comes to "protecting us from ourselves."
Ask Slashdot: Best Way to Learn C# For Game Programming? 254
An anonymous reader writes So I, like many people, want to make my own game. Outside of MATLAB, Visual Basic, and LabVIEW I have no real programming experience. I initially started with Ruby, but after doing my homework decided that if I ever wanted to progress to a game that required some power, I would basically need to learn some form of C anyway. Further digging has led me to C#. The other parts of game design and theory I have covered: I have ~8 years of CAD modeling experience including Maya and Blender; I have a semiprofessional sound studio, an idie album on iTunes, and am adept at creating sound effects/music in a wide variety of programs; I'm familiar with the setbacks and frustration involved with game development — I beta tested DotA for 9ish years; I already have my game idea down on paper (RTS), including growth tables, unit types, unit states, story-lines, etc. I've been planning this out for a year or two; I will be doing this on my own time, by myself, and am prepared for it to take a couple years to finish. The reason for listing that stuff out, is that I want people to understand that I know what I'm getting myself in to, and I'm not trying to put out a not-so-subtle "help me make a game for free lol" type of post. With all of that said, where is a good place to start (i.e., recommended books) for learning C# for game programming? I am familiar with object oriented programming, so that's a little bit of help. I'm not necessarily looking for the syntax (that part is just memorization), but more for the methodology involved. If anyone also has any suggestions for other books or information that deal with game development, I would love to hear that too. I know enough to understand that I really don't know anything, but have a good foundation to build on.
Comment Re:Friends dont let Friends buy Ubisoft (Score 1) 215
It was, but that was a looong time ago...
Comment Re:How racist would it sound if it they were calle (Score 1) 646
What is it referencing then?
Comment How racist would it sound if it they were called.. (Score 1) 646
'The Blackskins'?
Seems pretty racist.
Braves doesn't seem racist to me, although it may be sensitive (and the iconography associated seems pretty racist - and I'm a Braves fan!)
These types of things are very subjective though; ergo, it is likely better to err more toward the side of those who feel slighted.
Comment Is it locked to the Amazon app store like... (Score 4, Interesting) 192
...the rest of their stuff?
If so, not only a "no thanks" but I would like to add a "I hope you die a flaming fiery death and nobody is stupid enough to buy you..."
Amazon Announces 'Fire Phone' 192
Amazon has unveiled the Fire Phone. It runs a modified version of Android, and it will launch exclusively for AT&T's network. The screen is a 4.7" IPS LCD (they tested from 4.3" to 5.5", and decided 4.7" worked best for single-hand use), with an emphasis on brightness. It runs on a quad-core 2.2GHz processor with 2GB of RAM, and an Adreno 330 GPU. It has a rear-facing, 13-megapixel camera using an f/2.0 five-element lens with image stabilization. There's a dedicated physical button on the side of the phone that will turn it on and put it into camera mode when pressed. The phone comes with dual stereo speakers that produce virtual surround sound. Amazon wants the phone to be distinctive for its ability to provide video content, both from a hardware and software perspective.
The Fire Phone runs Mayday, Amazon's live tech support service for devices. They also demonstrated Firefly, software that recognizes physical objects using the phone's camera, as well as TV shows and songs it hears. It runs quickly, often identifying things in less than a second (and it pulls up an Amazon product listing, of course). It can even recognize art. Firefly has its own dedicated physical button on the phone, and Amazon is providing a Firefly SDK to third parties who want to develop with it. Another major feature of the Fire Phone is what Amazon calls "dynamic perspective." Using multiple front-facing cameras, the phone tracks the position of a user's head, and uses that to slightly adjust what's displayed on the screen so content is easier to see from the new angle. It allows for gesture control of the phone — for example, you can tilt the phone to scroll a web page or move your head slightly look around a 2-D stadium image when browsing for available seats. Putting your thumb on the screen acts like a mute button for the head tracking, so it isn't confused when you look up from the screen or turn your head to talk to somebody. It's an impressive piece of software, and they've made an SDK available for it.
The Fire Phone runs Mayday, Amazon's live tech support service for devices. They also demonstrated Firefly, software that recognizes physical objects using the phone's camera, as well as TV shows and songs it hears. It runs quickly, often identifying things in less than a second (and it pulls up an Amazon product listing, of course). It can even recognize art. Firefly has its own dedicated physical button on the phone, and Amazon is providing a Firefly SDK to third parties who want to develop with it. Another major feature of the Fire Phone is what Amazon calls "dynamic perspective." Using multiple front-facing cameras, the phone tracks the position of a user's head, and uses that to slightly adjust what's displayed on the screen so content is easier to see from the new angle. It allows for gesture control of the phone — for example, you can tilt the phone to scroll a web page or move your head slightly look around a 2-D stadium image when browsing for available seats. Putting your thumb on the screen acts like a mute button for the head tracking, so it isn't confused when you look up from the screen or turn your head to talk to somebody. It's an impressive piece of software, and they've made an SDK available for it.
Comment Re:Massive conspiracy (Score 1) 465
Lerner’s computer crashed in the summer of 2011, depriving investigators of many of her prior emails. Flax’s computer crashed in December 2011, Camp and Boustany said. The IRS said Friday that technicians went to great lengths trying to recover data from Lerner’s computer in 2011. In emails provided by the IRS, technicians said they sent the computer to a forensic lab run by the agency’s criminal investigations unit. But to no avail.
Well, to be fair, before everybody gets wound up and declaring 'massive' conspiracies, why don't we get them to tell us what they think the term "computer crash" means, and what exactly happened to her (for a start) computer?
How are these computers 'crashing' in such a way that a forensics team couldn't pull data off the drives?
What e-mail infrastructure does the IRS use?
Get a list of the people that the IRS head e-mail and subpoena the e-mails ON THEIR SIDE.
Let's also find out why people at the IRS seem to suffer an extraordinary number of catastrophic 'crashes' to their computer systems, especially the higher up the food chain you go. Don't they have top of the line firewalls, anti-virus, et cetera? I know that doesn't make anyone totally protected, but I am stuck managing all of the computers for my immediate and extended family and none of them have had drives with unrecoverable data (and believe me, some of them visit some sketchy sites and install whatever appears to be interesting, lol...)
Details people, details.
Hard to know what actually happened when people just use the term 'computer crash.'
