Comment Re:This sounds familiar to, (Score 1) 162
Care to explain what it does? I read the hints and still have no clue what 'unix' is, and gcc and cc on my machine give compilation errors.
Farmville, Social Gaming, and Addiction 251
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."
Computer Games and Traditional CS Courses 173
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:Personally I'd rather you were honest with me (Score 2, Informative) 344
This one, perhaps?
Comment Re:What glasses are those? (Score 1) 97
I think both visible and infrared light can hurt your eyes in these kinds of intensities. But also, I'm guessing "100%" doesn't literally mean 100%, like how "no trans fat" just means less than half a gram per serving.
Comment Re:What glasses are those? (Score 1) 97
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.
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.
TomTom Can License FAT Without Violating the GPL 261
dp619 writes "Capped per-unit royalties make FAT licensing agreements permissible under the GPL, and SD Times has found that Microsoft's public license policy caps royalties at $250k. If the royalties are capped — as they seem to be — TomTom should be able to license FAT without violating the GPL. And if that is the case ... TomTom needs some serious explaining to do as to why they aren't licensing FAT. That said, Microsoft still needs to explain why it just cannot say that folks won't violate the GPL if they license FAT under its terms."
Comment Re:Great.. (Score 1) 520
Wow. Out of curiosity, do you think it should be a crime to walk into a crowded place carrying a bomb? After all, there's already a law against actually blowing people up.
Comment Re:Good luck with that! (Score 2, Insightful) 520
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.
Comment Re:Perfection Has a Price (Score 1) 726
It seems obvious that you should test 4, 5, 20, and 21. And I can understand that in some cases, you'd want to test 0 and 255 as well. But what bugs could your software reasonably have that would cause the other cases to fail if those succeed?
New Nanotech Fabric Never Gets Wet 231
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on a simple coating for polyester that renders it unwettable — even after two months underwater it emerges dry to the touch. Water cannot attach to the new fabric thanks to nanostructured filaments and a structure that traps a constant air layer. One potential use is for low-drag swim wear."
6 Languages You Wish the Boss Let You Use 264
Esther Schindler writes "Several weeks ago, Lynn Greiner's article on the state of the scripting universe was slashdotted. Several people raised their eyebrows at the (to them) obvious omissions, since the article only covered PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl and JavaScript. As I wrote at the time, Lynn chose those languages because hers was a follow-up to an article from three years back. However, it was a fair point. While CIO has covered several in depth, those five dynamic languages are not the only ones developers use. In 6 Scripting Languages Your Developers Wish You'd Let Them Use, CIO looks at several (including Groovy, Scala, Lua, F#, Clojure and Boo) which deserve more attention for business software development, even if your shop is dedicated to Java or .NET. Each language gets a formal definition and then a quote or two from a developer who explains why it inspires passion."
Comment Re:Interesting Read (Score 1) 939
Causation does not equal causation.
Is that like how having aids is not the same as having AIDS?
