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Comment Re:XTrans (Score 3, Informative) 221

by Kev Vance (#32973038) Attached to: Open Source Transcription Software?

Ubuntu uses PulseAudio on the ALSA audio subsystem, but that error message indicates XTrans is trying to use the OSS audio subsystem instead. To work around this, try using the Pulse OSS wrapper or temporarily disable Pulse. From the commandline, "padsp xtrans" or "pasuspender xtrans".
Image

The "King of All Computer Mice" Finally Ships 207

Posted by samzenpus from the there's-a-button-for-that dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The much-anticipated, much-mocked 18-button joystick mouse from WarMouse is now shipping. The press release features an impressive set of user quotes from game designer Chris Taylor, new SFWA president John Scalzi, and a doctor who runs a medical software company. Crazy or not, it's obviously more than just a gaming mouse."
Open Source

Aquaria Goes Open Source 58

Posted by Soulskill from the come-on-in-the-water's-fine dept.
A post on the Wolfire blog yesterday announced that the source code for Aquaria has now been released. Aquaria, an action-adventure, underwater sidescroller from Bit Blot, was part of the Humble Indie Bundle, which was so successful that the developers of four games pledged to release them as open source. This marks the final release, following Lugaru, Gish, and Penumbra: Overture. The source code is available from a Mercurial repository.
Education

The "Scientific Impotence" Excuse 892

Posted by Soulskill from the happens-more-often-as-you-get-older dept.
chichilalescu writes "I've had the feeling for a long time that people refuse to listen to scientists. The following is from an article on Ars Technica: 'It's hardly a secret that large segments of the population choose not to accept scientific data because it conflicts with their predefined beliefs: economic, political, religious, or otherwise. But many studies have indicated that these same people aren't happy with viewing themselves as anti-science, which can create a state of cognitive dissonance. That has left psychologists pondering the methods that these people use to rationalize the conflict. A study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology [abstract here] takes a look at one of these methods, which the authors term "scientific impotence" — the decision that science can't actually address the issue at hand properly.' The study found that 'regardless of whether the information presented confirmed or contradicted [the subjects'] existing beliefs, all of them came away from the reading with their beliefs strengthened."
Biotech

A Genetically Engineered Fly That Can Smell Light 111

Posted by timothy from the lsd-way-cheaper dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It sounds like a cool — if somewhat pointless — super-powered insect: a fly that can smell light! Researchers added a light-sensitive protein to a fruit fly's olfactory neurons, which caused the neurons to fire when the fly was exposed to a certain wavelength of blue light. Adding the protein specifically to neurons that respond to good smells, like bananas, makes for a light-seeking fly."

Comment Re:64-bit flash (Score 1) 224

by Kev Vance (#31945876) Attached to: Rumors of Hulu's Subscription Plans

No*, but I do like my flash videos to have sound. I use JACK for low-latency audio mixing, and JACK's wire protocol is not compatible over different architectures.

* I use development builds of Chrome, and the bad ones sometimes DO use >4 GB RAM. But not often ;)

Comment Slylandro probe (Score 3, Funny) 437

by Kev Vance (#31562270) Attached to: Flaw In Emergency Response System May Have Killed Hundreds

Is anyone else reminded of Star Control 2? The "peaceful" Slylandro probe... which was misconfigured with bad priorities.

Captain: Your probe DOES destroy ships and I can prove it!
Slylandro: No! It cannot! It is not programmed for hostile behavior! What is your reasoning?!
Captain: Think about what a probe does when it meets a ship.
Slylandro: Space ships are the probe's highest priority because we want more than anything to make friendly contact with alien races.
Captain: Think about a probe's Replication behavior.
Slylandro: The probe seeks raw materials, and processes them in preparation for Replication.
Captain: Think about the effect of changing the replication behavior's priority.
Slylandro: The answer is simple... it would spend more of its time seeking raw materials for its replication process. So what?
Captain: Now, what will it do to a ship, given that its Replication priority is set to maximum?
Slylandro: I don't see what you are getting at, but I'll play along with you.
Slylandro: Like I said, alien ships are THE top priority target. Once a probe scanned a ship, it would instantly move toward it. Then, when it got to the ship, it would initiate communication automatically. When communications were terminated, a new behavior would be selected, and...
Slylandro: Uh-oh.
Slylandro: A new behavior would be selected, and since the Replication setting was set to maximum the probe wouldn't get time to pick a new target... it would use the current target--the ship--for raw Replication materials. It would process the ship, break it into component compounds with electrical discharges.
Slylandro: Oh no! what have we done? Traveller! You must tell us what we can do! How can we stop the probes from destroying all life in the galaxy?!

Comment Re:Ummm... (Score 4, Informative) 387

by Kev Vance (#30812120) Attached to: ReactOS Being Rewritten, Gets Wine Infusion
Not that I'd expect anyone here to read the articles, but to quote the presentation:

ARWINSS takes the best from Wine:
– “Cheap” syncs of work done by hundreds of developers for every new version (takes ~30 minutes to merge and test)
– At least 13495 apps from appdb.winehq.org become supported, plus support of those apps which Wine can’t run by design (hardware protection, drivers, etc)
– Good, proven, regression tested source code

...and leaves the worst:
– Ugly emulation of NT kernel
– Incorrect call chains in kernel32/ntdll
– ntoskrnl.exe being just another service
– Very slow communication with Wineserver
– Wineserver as a nightmare
– UNIX dependencies
–...
Classic Games (Games)

M.U.L.E. Is Back 110

Posted by Soulskill from the not-for-the-red-wings dept.
jmp_nyc writes "The developers at Turborilla have remade the 1983 classic game M.U.L.E. The game is free, and has slightly updated graphics, but more or less the same gameplay as the original version. As with the original game, up to four players can play against each other (or fewer than four with AI players taking the other spots). Unlike the original version, the four players can play against each other online. For those of you not familiar with M.U.L.E., it was one of the earliest economic simulation games, revolving around the colonization of the fictitious planet Irata (Atari spelled backwards). I have fond memories of spending what seemed like days at a time playing the game, as it's quite addictive, with the gameplay seeming simpler than it turns out to be. I'm sure I'm not the only Slashdotter who had a nasty M.U.L.E. addiction back in the day and would like a dose of nostalgia every now and then."
Role Playing (Games)

Dragon Age: Origins Expansion Coming In March 80

Posted by Soulskill from the well-met-warden dept.
ishanjain tipped news that BioWare has announced an expansion for Dragon Age: Origins, called Awakening, that is due out on March 16th. Awakening "is supposed to run about 15 hours and will allow for players to import and edit characters they've broken in from the core game," and it will take place "in the in the role of a Grey Warden Commander who's been tasked with rebuilding the order of Grey Wardens and finding out how the darkspawn survived following the death of the Archdemon dragon." A trailer is available at the official site, as well as some information on a new bit of DLC that will be out shortly, entitled Return to Ostagar. (It was originally due for release on January 5th, but was delayed.)
Programming

The State of Ruby VMs — Ruby Renaissance 89

Posted by Soulskill from the take-your-pick dept.
igrigorik writes "In the short span of just a couple of years, the Ruby VM space has evolved to more than just a handful of choices: MRI, JRuby, IronRuby, MacRuby, Rubinius, MagLev, REE and BlueRuby. Four of these VMs will hit 1.0 status in the upcoming year and will open up entirely new possibilities for the language — Mac apps via MacRuby, Ruby in the browser via Silverlight, object persistence via Smalltalk VM, and so forth. This article takes a detailed look at the past year, the progress of each project, and where the community is heading. It's an exciting time to be a Rubyist."

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