Comment Excuse me officer... (Score 1) 373
... but the car in front of me was also speeding. Also, didn't you notice that the car I passed back there had a broken tail light.
Comment Human Rights vs IP (Score 1) 99
Every kind of human rights group complain about human rights being thrown out of the window... nah, can't have stop building our iphones! (or whatever)
So we look the other way when it comes to human rights, but when the IPAA mentions 3.5 billion dollars... stuff needs to be done!
Comment Found another site with sensitive info.... (Score 1) 330
"The current standard composition for the black powders that are manufactured by pyrotechnicians was adopted as long ago as 1780. Proportions by weight are 75% potassium nitrate (known as saltpeter or saltpetre), 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpowder#Black_powder )
Wikipedia is next I guess...
MacPaint Source Code Released to Museum 175
gbooch writes "The Computer History Museum, located in Mountain View, California, is not only a museum of hardware but also a museum of software. Today, with the permission of Apple, the Museum has made available the original source code of MacPaint.
MacPaint was written by Bill Atkinson, a member of the original Macintosh development team. Originally called MacSketch, he based it on his earlier LisaSketch (also called SketchPad) for the Apple Lisa computer. Bill started work on the Macintosh version in early 1983. "
Valve Releases Updated Alien Swarm For Free With Code Base 164
baronvoncarson tips news that today Valve released an updated version of Alien Swarm, a popular Unreal Tournament 2004 total conversion mod. The creators of the mod were hired by Valve, and they've helped turn it into a stand-alone game running on the Source engine. Valve is also releasing the code base for Alien Swarm and an SDK. The game is available for free on Steam.
StarCraft II Cost $100 Million To Develop 414
UgLyPuNk writes with news of a report that Blizzard has spent over $100 million developing StarCraft II. Initial development on the game began in 2003, and it's due to be released on July 27th. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick "described StarCraft as one of the company’s seven 'pillars of opportunity' (where each pillar has the potential to deliver operating profit between $500 million and $1 billion over its life span)." The finalized system requirements for the game have been released, and players planning to buy the digitally distributed version can download it now, though it won't be playable until the 27th.
Comment unfinished games (Score 1) 462
""My answer is for us as publishers to actually sell unfinished games...""
So all he is really saying is
Sounds like a plan, till the "bad guys" start cracking/releasing patches/DLC. Oh wait they are already doing that...
Droid X Self-Destructs If You Try To Mod 757
An anonymous reader writes with some discouraging news for hack-oriented purchasers of the new Droid X phone: "If the eFuse fails to verify [the firmware information (what we call ROMS), the kernel information, and the bootloader version], then the eFuse receives a command to 'blow the fuse' or 'trip the fuse.' This results in the booting process becoming corrupted, followed by a permanent bricking of the phone. This FailSafe is activated anytime the bootloader is tampered with or any of the above three parts of the phone has been tampered with."
Comment while they are at it.... (Score 1) 289
...they should sue the power company that supplied the electricity that made it all possible to begin with...
The Chicken May Have Come Before the Egg 341
Muondecay writes "The age old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg, has been tentatively answered. The verdict? The chicken, or rather a key protein needed to form the shell of the egg. The protein, called ovocledidin-17, was known to be involved in binding calcite molecules that formed the shells, but the mechanism behind this was unclear until now. The protein acts as a molecular machine, binding to nanoparticles of calcite and guiding them to begin self-assembly of the shell. This gives tremendous insight for developing methods of nano-scale self-assembly based on natural processes, as well as settling heated cocktail party arguments everywhere."
Willow Garage Robot Fetches Beer, Engineers Rejoice 114
kkleiner writes "Willow Garage has pulled off the ultimate engineering feat: teaching a PR2 robot to fetch you a beer from the fridge. Not only can the PR2 select the correct brew from the fridge, it can deliver, and even open the beer as needed. That's right, all the humans have to do is drink and relax. Prepare yourself for some major robot-envy as you check out the PR2 delivering much-needed refreshment in the video."
Mom Arrested After Son Makes Dry Ice "Bombs" 571
formfeed writes "Police were called to a house in Omaha where a 14-year-old made some 'dry ice bombs' (dry ice in soda bottles). Since his mom knew about it, she is now facing felony charges for child endangment and possession of a destructive device. From the article: 'Assistant Douglas County Attorney Eric Wells said the boy admitted to making the bomb and that his mother knew he was doing so. The boy was set to appear Tuesday afternoon in juvenile court, accused of possessing a destructive device.'" She's lucky they didn't find the baking soda volcano in the basement.
Porting Lemmings In 36 Hours 154
An anonymous reader writes "Aaron Ardiri challenged himself to port his classic PalmOS version of Lemmings to the iPhone, Palm Pre, Mac, and Windows. The porting was done using his own dev environment, which creates native C versions of the game. He liveblogged the whole thing, and finished after only 36 hours with an iPhone version and a Palm Pre version awaiting submission, and free versions for Windows and Mac available on his site."
Submission + - Google, GE Consortium Releases Spime Standard (readwriteweb.com)
marshallkirkpatrick writes: A consortium of companies including Google and GE has released the USNAP 2.0 spec for standardized wireless communication between sensors plugged into electrical devices and home smart grid meters. The possibilities are very big, but who owns the data?
Submission + - Aquino Governance: What’s in Store for the B (outsourceit2philippines.com)
erl reed writes: President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will be leaving a total of US$7.2 billion Business Process Outsourcing generation legacy when she turns over her governance to the country’s new “chief engineer”. The offshore BPO staffs and specialists in the Philippines have performed more than well and survived the recent global recession. This is what the incumbent Philippine president has trumpeted. But would the industry remain healthy under the term of Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr. which would start a few weeks from now?
