Comment Re:I don't understand (Score 1) 339
I apologise if my comment was overly obvious. It's only recently become apparent to me.
Comment I don't understand (Score 5, Insightful) 339
I don't understand these alleged Christians' obsession with force and control. Forcing your own will upon someone else is the very antithesis of Christianity.
Comment Re:Let's teach kids to make hardware mods early (Score 5, Funny) 167
When I was a kid, my parents had a 'red button' called a leather belt. It was much harder to hack.
Harder to hack, my arse! When this happened to me, I used to modify the client (my bottom) by increasing the resistance (extra underpants) and return a spoofed result to the server.
Comment Re:DRM (Score 2, Insightful) 214
At least you can keep those patches. I cached the patch the Bioshock installer downloaded and tried everything I could think of to force the installer to use it instead of redownloading it, but it wouldn't have it.
BTW, ten megabytes is NOT trivial when downloaded at 6KB/s, which is what happens to a lot of Australian ADSL customers' connections when the monthly quota is exceeded.
Comment DRM (Score 4, Interesting) 214
Until recently I viewed the vitriol spewed by anti-DRM zealots with mild suprise. I'd never really felt it was all that bad. Then I bought and installed Bioshock. CD keys and mild disc protection I can live with, but those PLUS activation PLUS forcing a 10MB patch download every single time the game is installed took my breath away. After a few hours trying to install it under Wine I was ready to put my foot through my screen.
THAT ruined Bioshock for me. Spoilers I don't really mind.
Comment Re:eye candy (Score 2, Interesting) 559
XFCE is nice, but I think Fluxbox is nicer still, especially when used with XFCE apps. It loads in less than a second but still manages to look rather nice with transparency and stuff. The best bit though, aside from its fleety-nimbleness, is that it allows user-definable, chained keyboard shortcuts (I have {Alt+x, Alt+z} mapped to 'screen -Rd', for example). It's freaking awesome.
I apologise for evangelizing, but I just love it so damn much.
Comment Re:Boron? (Score 1) 163
I thought the slogan was was "Nobody doesn't like molten boron", not "Nobody does it like molten boron".
?
Comment Re:Don't do it! (Score 1) 360
For the lulls (in actual news).
Submission + - Wind-powered data center for Google 3
TT writes: Google is considering building a wind-powered data center in Greensburg, Kan. In addition to the huge solar-panel project it's building in Mountain View, this 20-megawatt data center in Greensburg would go a long way toward helping Google get carbon neutral, as is its goal. The company, like the entire universe today, is on the green kick. It announced last month that it wants to make renewable energy cheaper than coal.
Submission + - Microsoft deprecating some OOXML functionality (fanaticattack.com)
christian.einfeldt writes: "According to open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver, Microsoft will be deprecating certain functionality in its Microsoft Office Open XML specification. Ossendryver says the move is an attempt to quiet critics of the specification in the run up to the crucial February vote as to whether Microsoft OOXML will be included as a second standard for e-documents, along with the existing ODF ISO standard. ECMA, the Microsoft-led industry standards group formally offering OOXML to ISO, confirms in a 21 December 2007 announcement that issues related to the "leap year bug", VML, compatibility settings such as "AutoSpaceLikeWord95" and others will be "extracted from the main specification and relocated to an independent annex in DIS 29500 for deprecated functionality." Ossendryver is not convinced that deprecation will work, calling the deprecation proposal a 'smoke screen' and a 'bomb disguised as a standard' because 'every application will need to support the deprecated features in order to read files with the deprecated features.' Ossendryver also points out that legacy formatted Microsoft Office documents will still remain non-standard under the new proposal for deprecation."
China Anti-Corruption Web Site Crashes On First Day 169
An anonymous reader tips us to news out of China that the Web site of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention crashed on Tuesday, just hours after its launch, as droves of people logged on to complain about corruption among officials. "The number of visitors was very large and beyond our expectations," an anonymous NBCP official said.
Submission + - The Queen of England launches a YouTube Channel (youtube.com)
gihan_ripper writes: "Fifty years ago, the Queen began broadcasting her Christmas message via television. To celebrate this anniversary, the Royal Channel has been launched. It will show this year's Christmas message and currently contains a smattering of old clips, including the first Christmas message from 1957."
Submission + - Norway mandates government use of ODF and PDF
siDDis writes: Earlier this year Slashdot mentioned that Norway moves towards mandatory use of ODF and PDF. Now it's confirmed that the Norwegian government has mandated the use of open document formats from January 1st, 2009.
There are three formats that have been mandated for all documentation between authorities, users and partners. HTML for all public information on the Web, PDF for all documents where layout needs to be preserved and ODF for all documents that the recipient is supposed to be able to edit. Documents may also be published in other formats, but they must always be available in either ODF or PDF.
There are three formats that have been mandated for all documentation between authorities, users and partners. HTML for all public information on the Web, PDF for all documents where layout needs to be preserved and ODF for all documents that the recipient is supposed to be able to edit. Documents may also be published in other formats, but they must always be available in either ODF or PDF.
Submission + - 300-MPG Jetsons Car for $30K by End of '08 (popularmechanics.com)
An anonymous reader writes: You may have heard some of the hype last month when California-based Aptera let out first word of its allegedly super fuel-efficient (and cheap) Typ-1 electric vehicle. Well this video test drive and gee-whiz specs breakdown proves that this thing is for real: 120 miles on a single lithium-phosphate pack charge for 2008, with a 300-mpg model to follow by 2009. Aptera is also mentioned in Wired's new cover story as one of several early front-runners for the Automotive X Prize.
Submission + - Guantanamo deleted detainee IDs from Wikipedia (ljsf.org) 1
James Hardine writes: The New York Times and The Inquirer are reporting that Wikileaks, the transparency group that published two manuals leaked from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba earlier this month has now caught US armed forces personnel there conducting propaganda attacks over the Internet. The activities uncovered by Wikileaks include deleting Guantanamo detainees' ID numbers from Wikipedia, posting of self-praising comments on news websites in response to negative articles, promoting pro-Guantanamo stories on the Internet news focus website Digg, and even altering Wikipedia's entry on Cuban President Fidel Castro to describe him as "an admitted transexual". Guantanamo spokesman Lt. Col. Bush blasted Wikileaks for identifying one "mass communications officer" by name, who has since received death threats for "simply doing his job — posting positive comments on the Internet about Gitmo". In response Wikileaks has posted independent confirmation of their analysis by security expert Bruce Schneier.
