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Comment Re:Pull A Jordan? Seriously? (Score 2) 279

This is one of the best fantasy series I've ever read.

Actually, it's more what I'd call "realistic" fantasy. Now, before you start telling me that fantasy is by definition not realistic, let me explain.

Martin's characters are some of the most relentlessly human I've seen in a fantasy series. None of the characters, save a few who live on the edges (so far) have been pure good or pure evil. Everybody is a shade of gray.

Add to that the fact that Martin isn't afraid to kill off major characters, and it's a delight to read.

Technology

Xerox PARC Celebrates 40th Anniversary 57

CWmike writes "For 40 years, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center has been a place of technological creativity and bold ideas, writes Todd Weiss. The inventions it has spawned, from Ethernet networking to laser printing and the graphical user interface, have led to myriad technologies that allow us to use computers in ways that we take for granted today. When it opened on July 1, 1970, PARC was set up as a division of Xerox Corp. The idea was to invest in PARC as a springboard for developing new technologies and fresh concepts that would lead to future products. 'Conducting research at PARC four decades ago was like magic,' says Dr. Robert S. Bauer, who worked at PARC from 1970 to 2001. 'In an era of political and social upheaval, we came to work every day with a passion to free technology from the grip of the military-industrial complex and bring computation to the people.' Indeed, the company's 'technology first' culture has sometimes brought it under fire. PARC has often been criticized for its past failures to capitalize on some of its greatest inventions, allowing other companies to cash in on its ideas. (Today, PARC has a team working to protect its intellectual property.) Nevertheless, its reputation as a technology innovator is impeccable."

Comment Re:New LeGuin (Gifts, Voices, Powers) (Score 1) 1021

I can remember in Junior (or was it Senior?) English, being shown a BBC adaptation of LeGuin's Lathe of Heaven. I'd long before discovered Science Fiction and Fantasy. At the time I was more into SciFi, as I hadn't run into any good fantasy since I'd read Tolkien. I'd never read any of LeGuin's works, and I can remember being blown away. Even then I knew the books were usually better than the movie/series, and I immediately went out and got all of her books I could find. I'm still trying to find a copy of that movie on DVD.

Comment Re:Still... (Score 1) 859

Actually, you are saving more than 50% because you still pay for only 13 Watts

Since the idea of these bulbs (at least in most articles, not to mention the legislation proposed to outlaw incandescents) is to "save the environment", isn't the fact that it's actually resulting in more power being generated than they say an issue?

Comment Re:First (Score 1) 405

Of course, that completely ignores the fact that the technological skillsets to put an automated probe in space versus humans in space are pretty much divergent, with the exception of the tech to launch them there. It's much harder to keep a person who is ill-adapted for near-vacuum environments alive than to modify processing equipment for that environment. As a nation the US already had a lot of experience launching automated systems into space, and yet Apollo 1 still happened.
First Person Shooters (Games)

Submission + - Linux Games: any good ones?

aunt edna writes: Pushed by the advent of Vista, my PC is heading off to Linux.
One of the many benefits I have enjoyed over the years from using Windows has been the availability of good games. (ok, you can re-phrase)

What games that run on Linux would slash-dotters recommend?
All types welcome — strategy, fps, whatever.
Security

Submission + - 'Very Severe Hole' in Vista UAC Design

Cuts and bruises writes: "Hacker Joanna Rutkowska has flagged a "very severe hole" in the design of Windows Vista's User Account Controls (UAC) feature. The issue is that Vista automatically assumes that all setup programs (application installers) should be run with administrator privileges, meaning that a freeware Tetris installer would be allowed to load kernel drivers. Microsoft Mark Russinovich acknowledges the risk factor but says it was a "design choice" to balance security with ease-of-use."

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