Comment ALMOST THERE... (Score 0) 80
Am I the only one that immediately thought of the bio-etheric laser from the spirits within?
Comment Re:NASA == National Security (Score 1) 288
Isn't it obvious? To act as a planetary booby-trap for the raptors who were once driven off of this planet. We can only assume that after escaping to the farthest reaches of space and developing a massive space fairing armada, they'd return every 20 million years or so to asses the habitability of their former world. When they return to find their world overrun with fleshy pink things, the fight will be vicious one. After our inevitable defeat, we'll lie in wait on the moon. Years will go by, but eventually, the raptors, satisfied that the world is theirs once again, will dismiss their fleet and and lower their guard. It's at this point that we'll unleash our trap, sterilizing the planet in a nuclear holocaust, so that centuries later, once the radiation has subsided and life returned, we might have earth for ourselves...
For another 20 million years.
Comment Re:Correlation (Score 2, Insightful) 570
You don't see this sort of thing in markets with real competition. Try to charge $100 on that bag of cheezie poofs, and the other guys will take your profits by charging $98 dollars a bag, you'll be forced to match them, and so on, until the prices are at the limits of profitability, and can't be lowered any further.
Bookmark IXtreme 1.5 LiteOn - BenQ - Samsung - TEAM JUNGLE (xbox-scene.com)
Comment Hardware is cheap, Software lasts forever (Score 2, Insightful) 465
The bottom line is, software improvement is a one time cost, once its done, it's done.
Hardware solutions on the other hand, though cheaper outright, are reoccurring (you'll need keep upgrading that hardware as it becomes outdated) and scale up with demand (if you double your number of servers, you'll need to double this hardware as well)
This is why, except in cases were demand won't increase, or the extra hardware is unlikely to become outdated, software solutions tend to be the more economical choice.
Comment Broken Junk, seriously (Score 2, Informative) 372
Drive around to a couple of thrift stores or garage sales and pick up a couple interesting appliances he can take apart, give the boy a box of nuts and bolts and some tools and let him go to town.
YMMV, but when I was that age, returning home to find a new appliance on my workbench was like a tiny Christmas.
Submission + - steve Balmer Egged in Hungary (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: I am not a wordsmith. Someone tried to egg Balmer during a speech and missed. He was upset because in that country they apperently have to pay a hefty Microsoft tax by law.
[any summary you do will be better...]
Submission + - Secret FBI Wiretapping Audit Revealed With Ctrl+C (wired.com) 1
mytrip writes: "Once again, supposedly sensitive information blacked out from a government report turns out to be visible by computer experts armed with the Ctrl+C keys — and that information turns out to be not very sensitive after all.
Simply highlighting the redacted columns in this table from an Inspector General report reveals some very un-sensitive information. Image: Justice Department Inspector General Report
This time around, University of Pennsylvania professor Matt Blaze discovered that the Justice Department's Inspector General's office had failed to adequately obfuscate data in a March report (.pdf) about FBI payments to telecoms to make their legacy phone switches comply with 1995 wiretapping rules. That report detailed how the FBI had finished spending its allotted $500 million to help telephone companies retrofit their old switches to make them compliant with the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act or Calea — even as federal wiretaps target cellphones more than 90 percent of the time.
Some of the tidbits considered too sensitive to be aired publicly?
The FBI paid Verizon $2500 a piece to upgrade 1,140 old telephone switches. Oddly the report didn't redact the total amount paid to the telecom — slightly more than $2.9 million dollars — but somehow the bad guys will win if they knew the number of switches and the cost paid.
FBI survey results about wiretaps could also be found hidden under the redaction layer."
Simply highlighting the redacted columns in this table from an Inspector General report reveals some very un-sensitive information. Image: Justice Department Inspector General Report
This time around, University of Pennsylvania professor Matt Blaze discovered that the Justice Department's Inspector General's office had failed to adequately obfuscate data in a March report (.pdf) about FBI payments to telecoms to make their legacy phone switches comply with 1995 wiretapping rules. That report detailed how the FBI had finished spending its allotted $500 million to help telephone companies retrofit their old switches to make them compliant with the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act or Calea — even as federal wiretaps target cellphones more than 90 percent of the time.
Some of the tidbits considered too sensitive to be aired publicly?
The FBI paid Verizon $2500 a piece to upgrade 1,140 old telephone switches. Oddly the report didn't redact the total amount paid to the telecom — slightly more than $2.9 million dollars — but somehow the bad guys will win if they knew the number of switches and the cost paid.
FBI survey results about wiretaps could also be found hidden under the redaction layer."
Submission + - The Zombie Engine released as Open Source
The Zombie Team writes: "ANNOUNCEMENT — The Zombie Engine released as Open Source
We're proud to announce the official release of the Zombie Engine under an open license. The Zombie Engine is a complete game framework, editor and toolset for the creation of PC multiplayer action games. It is the result of several years of development effort at spanish developer Tragnarion Studios, and is based in nebula2, the open-source 3D engine from Radon Labs.
The engine is developed in C++, using Lua for game scripting, and it provides a complete toolset with features such as realtime terrain edition, interactive level creation for all game elements, immediate entity inspection and edition, integrated game mode, entity customization through scripting, visual edition of finite state machines, triggers and waypoints, undo/redo capabilities, all sorts of interactive debug visualizations, etc. The engine provides an exporter plugin for 3DS Max that allows exporting static and animated geometry, collision, occluders and indoor spaces with cell and portal visibility, custom graphic and game materials, etc. Graphics features include efficient large-scale terrain rendering, horizon culling, instancing, batching and impostors, light visibility using dynamic regions, environment-aware material with dynamic shader code composition, etc. The game framework provided includes support for implementing all kinds of networked player behaviors, agent AI, mission modes, physics-based vehicles, weapon and combat systems, etc.
The Zombie Engine is aimed at the creation of low- and mid-profile action games for independent developers to create their own projects starting from a large and established code base, and also appeals to programmers interested in open-source game development who are willing to extend and improve its feature set and capabilities. The Zombie Engine is released under a BSD-style license, and for more information and downloading you can get it at: http://thezombieengine.sourceforge.net/"
We're proud to announce the official release of the Zombie Engine under an open license. The Zombie Engine is a complete game framework, editor and toolset for the creation of PC multiplayer action games. It is the result of several years of development effort at spanish developer Tragnarion Studios, and is based in nebula2, the open-source 3D engine from Radon Labs.
The engine is developed in C++, using Lua for game scripting, and it provides a complete toolset with features such as realtime terrain edition, interactive level creation for all game elements, immediate entity inspection and edition, integrated game mode, entity customization through scripting, visual edition of finite state machines, triggers and waypoints, undo/redo capabilities, all sorts of interactive debug visualizations, etc. The engine provides an exporter plugin for 3DS Max that allows exporting static and animated geometry, collision, occluders and indoor spaces with cell and portal visibility, custom graphic and game materials, etc. Graphics features include efficient large-scale terrain rendering, horizon culling, instancing, batching and impostors, light visibility using dynamic regions, environment-aware material with dynamic shader code composition, etc. The game framework provided includes support for implementing all kinds of networked player behaviors, agent AI, mission modes, physics-based vehicles, weapon and combat systems, etc.
The Zombie Engine is aimed at the creation of low- and mid-profile action games for independent developers to create their own projects starting from a large and established code base, and also appeals to programmers interested in open-source game development who are willing to extend and improve its feature set and capabilities. The Zombie Engine is released under a BSD-style license, and for more information and downloading you can get it at: http://thezombieengine.sourceforge.net/"
Submission + - PC Magazine's top ten most common passwords lists. (sync-blog.com)
Ant writes: "Sync shares PC Magazine's compiled list (can't find it on its Web site) of the ten most commonly used passwords by computer users today. Some are understandable — like numbers 1, 2 and 3 (see below) — while others (such as 6 and 9) are just plain odd.
Also, see 2007 list.
Seen in Link Logger's DSL/Broadband Reports security forum thread."
Submission + - Developing an Instant Operating System
An anonymous reader writes: What do you do if you are stranded on a desolate island and
desperately need an operating system? This article at
Embedded.com shows how to build your own "instant operating
system" from scratch: develop a cooperative
scheduler, add protothreads, and
stir. Perfect for embedded systems developers and for anyone
interested in operating systems development.
Submission + - Circuit design to yield infinite battery life (itnews.com.au) 1
schliz writes: Mobile phone users could benefit from patented technology that promises infinite battery life — if only electrical engineer Ray Winton would take it to market. The technology has been filed under a U.S. patent for a "charge-pump" that harvests radio frequency (RF) energy using a wireless antenna.
By storing the harvested energy at high voltage on a capacitor, Winton expects to be able to store large amounts of energy on an integrated circuit. As the circuit is powered by RF energy that is harvested by an on-board antenna, the power source could be virtually infinite.
By storing the harvested energy at high voltage on a capacitor, Winton expects to be able to store large amounts of energy on an integrated circuit. As the circuit is powered by RF energy that is harvested by an on-board antenna, the power source could be virtually infinite.
Submission + - Good countries to live in for "nerds"?
Psionicist writes: What are good countries to live in for tech/science types, such as programmers, mathematicians, scientists or engineers? I'm looking for a country with libertarian tendencies, low taxes, strong protection of civil liberties and no police state laws. As I'm probably not the only slashdotter thinking of moving somewhere else, a discussion about various countries from a nerd/slashdot perspective should be very interesting. How do you like the country you live currently in? Where would you like to move to and why?
Submission + - Strength in numbers Vs. Logic, China Vs, The World (wordpress.com)
Anonymous Coward writes: "With China's gradual opening up to the world, allowing more information to flow in and out via the net, a whole host of people have gotten access to information which is strange and new to them. These people have started putting their marks on the internet, 'correcting' information which is at odds with their own teachings. Info-liberals often assert that serving the truth on a silver-platter is all it takes to attain a better world, but how will the net combat 1.6 billion people uniting under the same contra-factual ideas on the net? Will logic prevail over strength in numbers?"
Submission + - There will be blood - a lot, actually (thestandard.com)
EKHill writes: "Dean Takahashi got the supreme luck to preview Electronic Arts' new gore fest extravaganza DeadSpace.
The funny thing is how his review almost sounds morally and physically squeamish at times. "The blood and gore surprised me. We're talking a spray of blood shooting out of the alien creatures as you shoot them aboard a gigantic space mining ship. You walk by a bloody and disemboweled creature lying on an operating table while another creature is operating on it." He continued, "And you can die an inglorious death as a creature rips your head off and tears off your limbs."
Question is, why is it that the developers WANT to produce and play these games and are willing to go elsewhere to do it? Said an EA developer, "This is the reason I stayed at Electronic Arts. This is the game I wanted to make.""
