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Social Networks

Farmville, Social Gaming, and Addiction 251

Posted by Soulskill from the tragedy-of-the-common-interest dept.
MarkN writes "Facebook has been trumpeting the fact that Farmville, the most popular game on its site, has more users than Twitter, with 69 million playing over a month and 26 million playing each day. Combined with Facebook's announcement that they have hit 350 million users, that means one out of every five people on Facebook is playing Farmville. Gamasutra has a post taking a critical analysis of Farmville, its deceptively slow level grind, how a number of gameplay features end up as simply decorative since they aren't balanced with the benefits of raising crops, and discussing why Farmville succeeds so well in virally spreading itself and addicting people."
Education

Computer Games and Traditional CS Courses 173

Posted by Soulskill from the terrible-terrible-games dept.
drroman22 writes "Schools are working to put real-world relevance into computer science education by integrating video game development into traditional CS courses. Quoting: 'Many CS educators recognized and took advantage of younger generations' familiarity and interests for computer video games and integrate related contents into their introductory programming courses. Because these are the first courses students encounter, they build excitement and enthusiasm for our discipline. ... Much of this work reported resounding successes with drastically increased enrollments and student successes. Based on these results, it is well recognized that integrating computer gaming into CS1 and CS2 (CS1/2) courses, the first programming courses students encounter, is a promising strategy for recruiting and retaining potential students." While a focus on games may help stir interest, it seems as though game development studios are as yet unimpressed by most game-related college courses. To those who have taken such courses or considered hiring those who have: what has your experience been?

Comment Re:What glasses are those? (Score 1) 97

by bigg_nate (#28798037) Attached to: Pics of the Longest Solar Eclipse of the Century
Those glasses are *very* dark. They let through something like 10^-6 of the light, making it safe to look directly at the sun through them. Other than the sun, all you see is black.

They're only useful during the partial phase of the eclipse. During totality, they're not necessary, and in fact you won't be able to see anything with them on.

Comment Re:Good luck with that! (Score 2, Insightful) 520

by bigg_nate (#26473325) Attached to: Breathalyzer Source Code Ruling Upheld

The code is probably a bit more costly than you give it credit for. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if it were the single biggest barrier to entry an upstart breathalyzer manufacturer would have to face.

But that doesn't mean it holds any trade secret value. Even if there is a reasonable amount of code, I'm guessing it's all pretty straightforward. Most of it probably deals with interfacing between different hardware components, and if your breathalyzer isn't using exactly the same hardware, the source isn't really going to help you.

I suspect the real reason the company wants to keep the source code secret is that if a bug were found, it would be seriously bad publicity.

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