Comment Porting is hard. (Score 1) 481
Especially when your business changed your 3rd party platform from Flash to Silverlight. Hopefully an HTML5 implementation of Instant Watch is in the works.
CD Sales Continue To Plummet, Vinyl Records Soar 431
Lucas123 writes "Over the past four years, vinyl record sales have been soaring, jumping almost 300% from 858,000 in 2006 to 2.5 million in 2009, and sales this year are on track to reach new peaks, according to Nielsen Entertainment. Meanwhile, as digital music sales are also continuing a steady rise, CD sales have been on a fast downward slope over the same period of time. In the first half of this year alone, CD album sales were down about 18% over the same period last year. David Bakula, senior vice president of analytics at Nielsen Entertainment, said it's not just audiophiles expanding their collections that is driving vinyl record sales but a whole new generation of young music aficionados who are digging the album art, liner notes and other features that records bring to the table. 'The trend sure does seem sustainable. And the record industry is really doing a lot of cool things to not only make the format come alive but to make it more exciting for consumers,' Bakula said."
Comment Re:"Publisher" is the problem. (Score 1) 326
OK--let's get rid of the people that fork over tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to developers so they can create the majority of the games we enjoy. Even most of the classic games that GOG sold would have been impossible to develop in their time without the financial backing of the publishers. But let's just get rid of them--game developers don't need money!
Independently-made games are great, but I can only play arty platformers like Braid so many times before they all start to blur together just like Gears of Halo (or was that Call of War 2?)
Sit Longer, Die Sooner 341
mcgrew writes "Bad news for most of us here — The Chicago Tribune is reporting that even if you get plenty of exercize, sitting down all day reduces your lifespan. From the article: 'Even after adjusting for body mass index (BMI) and smoking, the researchers found that women who sit more than 6 hours a day were 37 percent more likely to die than those who sit less than 3 hours; for men, long-sitters were 17 percent more likely to die.
People who exercise regularly had a lower risk, but still significant, risk of dying. Those who sat a lot and moved less than three and a half hours per day are the most likely to die early: researchers found a 94 percent increased risk for women and 48 percent increase for men, they announced recently in the American Journal of Epidemiology.'"
Comment Re:retire it (Score 2, Funny) 417
The real fun is when they take it home and turn it on--the CPUs will melt the cement!
Comment Re:retire it (Score 1) 417
Comment Re:This is good news (Score 1) 216
They couldn't have retracted the array rather than unilaterally letting it get destroyed? That's nonsense. And a "spark" from the array getting burned caused a completely separate area of the ship to burst into flames? There was no good reason for that to happen.
Good luck graduating with a physics degree if you think the "science" in that movie works at all.
Comment Re:This is good news (Score 1) 216
You mean it'll be great until about half an hour in, when the crew arbitrarily decides to let their communications array get scorched without consulting their CO. And then their oxygen garden RANDOMLY bursts into flames...they divert from their mission and bicker like children...et cetera...
I will never understand how such a bullshit movie gets to call itself science fiction, let alone be called a "masterpiece" by anyone who has graduated high school.
NY Governor Wants To Expand DNA Database 169
crimeandpunishment writes "If Governor David Paterson has his way, New York would take DNA samples from even the lowest level of criminal, doubling the state's DNA database. He says it would help to both solve crimes and clear people who were wrongly convicted. New York would become the first state in the country to do this. Currently DNA isn't collected in most misdemeanors. The plan is getting lots of support among law enforcement, but the New York Civil Liberties Union says there are questions about privacy."
Comment Correct me if I'm wrong, but... (Score 1) 53
...isn't the problem with data loss NOT that the only copy of the data is physically lost, but that a copy of the data is out in the wild? This product seems to miss the point entirely.
Comment Re:Now if only they would change their policy (Score 1) 241
Never heard of hyperbole, eh?
Comment Re:Use It, Lose It (Score 2, Informative) 419
Talking while driving or adjusting the radio isn't "supertasking." Do you want to ban drivers from speaking to their passengers too?
Pharma Marketing Faces a Character-Count Conundrum 176
this_boat_is_real writes "There's growing concern over how pharmaceutical companies use social media and the Internet to market their products. Last November, the US Food and Drug Administration held a hearing on the topic, and many were worried over how marketing mediums such as Twitter — which has a 140-character limit on text — can sufficiently disclose drug risks." Here's the FDA's announcement about last year's hearings, which includes links to an archive of presentations as well as a video record of the meeting.
After Learning Java Syntax, What Next? 293
Niris writes "I'm currently taking a course called Advanced Java Programming, which is using the text book Absolute Java, 4th edition, by Walter Savitch. As I work at night as a security guard in the middle of nowhere, I've had enough time to read through the entire course part of the book, finish all eleven chapter quizzes, and do all of the assignments within a month, so all that's left is a group assignment that won't be ready until late April. I'm trying to figure out what else to read that's Java related aside from the usual 'This is how to create a tree. This is recursion. This is how to implement an interface and make an anonymous object,' and wanted to see what Slashdotters have to suggest. So far I'm looking at reading Beginning Algorithms, by Simon Harris and James Ross."
Comment Re:Science or Religion? (Score 1) 1136
If a ball falls down it is because of gravity. If it bounces back up it is because of gravity. If comet flies into the solar system it is because of gravity. If the comet slingshots around jupiter and permanently exits the solar system it is because of gravity. If the tide rises it is because of gravity. If the tide recedes it is because of gravity. See how easy it is to gloss over the details and make something perfectly normal seem contradictory?
Our understanding of gravity far exceeds our understanding of climate science, so your comparison is bullshit. Lemme know when we figure out how to describe the climate using a simple equation though. Thanks for playing.
