Pow.R Toc.H - Slashdot User

Zombie Pigs First, Hibernating Soldiers Next 193

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 07, 2009 @07:06PM from the fattening-up-on-brains dept.

ColdWetDog writes "Wired is running a story on DARPA's effort to stave off battlefield casualties by turning injured soldiers into zombies by injecting them with a cocktail of one chemical or another (details to be announced). From the article, 'Dr. Fossum predicts that each soldier will carry a syringe into combat zones or remote areas, and medic teams will be equipped with several. A single injection will minimize metabolic needs, de-animating injured troops by shutting down brain and heart function. Once treatment can be carried out, they'll be "re-animated" and — hopefully — as good as new.' If it doesn't pan out we can at least get zombie bacon and spam."

Modded Xbox Bans Prompt EFF Warning About Terms of Service 254

Posted by Soulskill on Friday December 04, 2009 @01:19AM from the by-reading-this-you-bequeath-me-all-your-possessions dept.

Last month we discussed news that Microsoft had banned hundreds of thousands of Xbox users for using modified consoles. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has now pointed to this round of bans as a prime example of the power given to providers of online services through 'Terms of Service' and other usage agreements. "No matter how much we rely on them to get on with our everyday lives, access to online services — like email, social networking sites, and (wait for it) online gaming — can never be guaranteed. ... he who writes the TOS makes the rules, and when it comes to enforcing them, the service provider often behaves as though it is also the judge, jury and executioner. ... While the mass ban provides a useful illustration of their danger, these terms can be found in nearly all TOS agreements for all kinds of services. There have been virtually no legal challenges to these kinds of arbitrary termination clauses, but we imagine this will be a growth area for lawyers."

EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry 221

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @07:50AM from the put-your-money-where-your-gun-is dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday November 24, 2009 @07:07PM from the snack-is-going-to-be-on-the-floor-today dept.

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

Comment Explore2fs (Score 4, Informative) 569

by Pow.R Toc.H on Thursday September 10, 2009 @06:11PM (#29383643) Attached to: Which Filesystem Do You Use On Portable Media For Linux Systems?

If you don't want much hassle, just use explore2fs (http://www.chrysocome.net/explore2fs). It's an userland application which does not install any drivers or the like on Windows, and as such will execute as any user. However, you'll still need to transport it to the machines you'll want to use, and thus you'll need a tiny space of FAT32 for doing the trick.

If you have rights to install drivers on the windows machines you use, you can try the EXT2 driver available on www.fs-driver.org. It will mount your EXT2/EXT3 volume as a drive letter so you can transfer files between partitions.

Submission + - Think your phone bill is high? Try $218 trillion..

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @11:41AM

An anonymous reader writes: Malaysian man hit with gigantic bill, ordered to pay up or face prosecution KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he received a U.S. $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.

Submission + - Citrix acquires XenSource virtualization software (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @10:51AM

coondoggie writes: "Citrix Systems agreed to acquire XenSource today in a deal valued at $500 million. The recently rumored deal will let Citrix enter the server and desktop virtualization markets, long dominated by VMware, who went public yesterday and whose shares are trading at $51 at the close of trading. Investment banking firm Jefferies & Company issued a report Tuesday on Citrix titled "Citrix-Xen Makes Perfect Strategic Sense." The company says Citrix's close relationship with Microsoft — the two have worked together for years on thin-client technology — is key in that Citrix could help Microsoft make up ground on VMware, whose successful IPO on Tuesday confirmed its leadership role in the emerging virtualization market. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/081507-citri x-xensource-desktop-server-virtualization.html"

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