Comment Re:Oh God (Score 1) 249
I think its "bailout" at the business management screen, all lower case.
Comment Right... (Score 5, Funny) 219
So the obvious way to maintain such secrecy is have it posted to slashdot.
Brilliant...
Comment Re:nice... (Score 5, Insightful) 711
So by that logic all people who play violent video games must automatically think that its ok to kill people in real life because we do in the game?
99.9% of people who play these games know they shouldn't kill other people and etc, but do so in the game because there are no consequences. Should we take away all violent video games just because of a 0.1% that might go on a school shooting spree?
Comment Re:Huge waste of money (Score 0) 176
It does in the short term, but printing money in this manner is a very slipperly slope to deep government debt and inflation.
Comment Re:Not Exactly Original... (Score 1) 104
The source engine was, and still is, built with the capacity to perform file streaming of this sort. Its just never been implemented.
Comment Re:I like Steam (Score 1) 241
Because all pubishments for cheating infringement are handled completely via steam's account system - aka VAC bans.
Submission + - Mating Across the Species Barrier
Reservoir Hill writes: "Mating with another species is often maladaptive, but biologists are reporting the first example of harsh environmental conditions driving an animal across the species barrier as a survival strategy. When drought threatens, one species of spadefoot toad will mate with more drought resistant toads of another species so that their offspring have the best chance of survival even if it means that those offspring will have a lower chance of reproducing successfully. One possibility is that the toads need their offspring to develop more quickly when water is in short supply and field tests confirmed that hybrid tadpoles were more likely to survive through metamorphosis in rapidly drying pools. "Females are probably assessing a lot more out there than just how long the male's tail is," says Karen Pfennig, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "They are probably more sensitive to their own condition and environment when choosing a male.""
Submission + - The pros of upgrading from Vista to XP! (dotnet.org.za) 4
An anonymous reader writes: A reviewer takes on the daunting task of upgrading [sic] from Vista to XP, and gives a very nice breakdown of the Pros and Cons (yes, there are a couple...;)
Submission + - France plans to cut off P2P filesharers (ft.com)
CryptoKiller writes: French President Nicolas Sarkozy is set to propose new laws to cut off Internet access to P2P filesharers with a "three-strikes-and-you're-out" policy. The proposals have been drawn up by an independent review headed by Denis Olivennes, the chairman of Fnac, a French entertainment retailer. Reporting from the Financial Times.
Submission + - New copyright law in Israel - mostly good news
Sun writes: "Last Monday the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) passed the new copyright law, scheduled to go into effect in half a year. The previous law was passed in England in 1911, and was enacted in (then Palestine) in 1922.
The bad news:
The good news:
All in all, this is a huge improvement even over the existing law. As someone who was present during some of the deliberations, and actively participated, I can say that I think that the most important law in the Israeli codex is the law that governs how much money a party can receive in campaign contributions. Despite at least three of the last four prime ministers got into hot water over violating this law, the end result is that the Israeli legislator is, for the most part, open to hear what is best for EVERYONE, and does care to do the right thing. Interest groups can still try to present their case in a convincing manner, but the fact that such humble resources, such as a bunch of volunteers from Hamakor and from the academic world, could make a difference is a very encouraging sign."
The bad news:
- Copyright period was lengthened for photographs was extended to match all other rights. All copyright now lasts life+70 years, except actual recordings which last 50 years.
- "Making available" was explicitly listed as a protected right. On the flip side, the fact that another country found it necessary to list this right explicitly may aid people defending themselves in the US.
- Work created for the government is copyrighted, albeit with a shortened copyright period of 50 years.
The good news:
- No anti-circumvention clauses, and not for lack of trying. The Israeli record federation tried to pass such a law, with a lot of backing from the proprietary software industry. The opponents included the Israeli ISOC chapter, as well as Hamakor (represented, among others, by myself). The most important opponent, however, was the ministry of justice! It is too optimistic to assume we heard the last word on this, but for the moment, Israel is DMCA free.
- Explicit exclusion from copyright of control over reverse engineering for interoperability and for research purposes. Again, this one had a lot of fighting from the software industry (mostly Microsoft and Retalix), but again common sense prevailed. This time a lot of help was received from the academic community, with several professors stepping forward to state that without ability to reverse engineer, research would come to a halt.
- Fair use was expanded. The 1911 law had a limited "close" list of what would be considered "fair use". The new law allows the court to expand the list based on economical and other considerations. The list of considerations is, itself, also subject to court discretion and expansion.
- Transient copies — the specifically excludes transient copies made for the purpose of a legitimate activity from being controlled by the copyright holder. The fact that, in order to run a program, the bits are copied from the hard disk to the RAM can no longer be used in order to control what can be done with a program.
All in all, this is a huge improvement even over the existing law. As someone who was present during some of the deliberations, and actively participated, I can say that I think that the most important law in the Israeli codex is the law that governs how much money a party can receive in campaign contributions. Despite at least three of the last four prime ministers got into hot water over violating this law, the end result is that the Israeli legislator is, for the most part, open to hear what is best for EVERYONE, and does care to do the right thing. Interest groups can still try to present their case in a convincing manner, but the fact that such humble resources, such as a bunch of volunteers from Hamakor and from the academic world, could make a difference is a very encouraging sign."
Submission + - AMD Likely to Delay 2.4GHz Phenom CPU Launch Too (techluver.com)
Tech.Luver writes: "Issues with AMD's new 65nm processors are not only dampening the launch schedule of the highest frequency version 2.6GHz Phenom CPU, but may now also affect the 2.4GHz 9700 model as well, according to sources at motherboard makers in Taiwan, says Digitimes.
Digitimes further reports, "Phenom 9500 and 9600 CPUs launched on November 19 at US$251 and US$283, respectively, and AMD was earlier reported to be planning to launch a 9700 model in mid December. However, this schedule is now likely to be pushed back to early 2008, sources at motherboard makers have revealed.
The delay of the higher-end CPUs is not the only disappointment expressed by the industry players as the thermal design power (TDP) of the upcoming 9700 is also drawing concern. The sources revealed that the 9700 will have a TDP of 125W while the the 2.6GHz 9900 model will have its TDP hit as much as 140W.
( http://techluver.com/2007/11/23/amd-likely-to-delay-24ghz-phenom-cpu-launch-too/ )"
Submission + - Grammarians versus semi-literate college students (richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk)
pthompson writes: This spat started with complaints [by residents of this well-to-do London suburb] about the poor grammar in postings [by college students], but some are suggesting that the editors of the local rag delete semi-literate comments. Is grammar still important in the world of the Internet? Would there be justification in censuring semi-literate students?
Submission + - UK could finally get terrestrial HDTV
SoLongAndThanks writes: When the UK opted to implement digital TV via terrestrial transmission the decision was taken not to allow HD, instead it went for increased channel choice in standard definition. Now OFCOM (the government off-shoot that allocates the spectrum) has indicated that it now wants to allow HD via the system (known as Freeview), but some changes will need to be made to make this possible. Cnet.co.uk has a story explaining the OFCOM proposal which includes moving some channels to MPEG-4 and changing the modulation scheme. It also mentions the BBC's MIMO trial which could be implemented at the same time to increase the amount of data carried per multiplex.
Submission + - Should Nintendo must make a cell phone?
An anonymous reader writes: CNET.co.uk has a very interesting article up, pleading Nintendo to make a cell phone. "Nintendo has demonstrated with the DS and Wii that it understands usability and aesthetics to such an extent that any phone it would produce would not only look beautiful, but would also be extremely usable in terms of hardware and software." The article goes on to say that "Nintendo also understands casual, time-limited gaming better than any other company. If it could continue the quality of games it has produced for the DS on to a mobile, it would easily be the best phone gaming experience ever created. And that's the point: Nintendo makes consoles and is extremely good at it, so who would you rather have making your gaming phone?"
Submission + - iPhone available on all networks in Germany
teslar writes: The Spiegel tells us (in German), that as a result of Vodafone's court order, T-Mobile is now selling the iPhone unlocked and without a contract at a bargain price of 999 Euros — 600 Euros more than it costs on contract. People who have bought their iPhone on or after the 19th of November can have it be unlocked for free. However, the deal is only temporary until the legal situation is clear — T-Mobile is appealing the decision and is threatening to sue Vodafone for damages.
