Madball - Slashdot User

New WoW Patch Brings Cross-Server Instances 342

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 09, 2009 @04:36AM from the new-and-shiny dept.

ajs writes "World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion was staggered into 4 phases. The fourth and final phase, patch 3.3, was released on Tuesday. This patch is significant in that it will be the first introduction of one of the most anticipated new features in the game since PvP arenas: the cross-realm random dungeon, as well as the release of new end-game dungeons for 5, 10 and 25-player groups. The patch notes have been posted, and so has a trailer. The ultimate fight against the expansion's antagonist, the Lich King a.k.a. Arthas, will be gated as each of the four wings of the final dungeon are opened in turn — a process that may take several months. The next major patch after 3.3 (presumably 4.0) will be the release of Cataclysm, the next expansion."

Comment Re:Hehe (Score 1) 333

by Madball on Tuesday November 24, 2009 @02:01PM (#30216336) Attached to: Bing Cashback Can Cost You Money

I believe the statement is a correct to the parent which stated "IE=Internet equation" (which btw I've never heard anyone say). This is in reference to Bing's attempt to conflate search with Bing, as IE has been conflated with the Internet (which I can attest to--ask your grandma or boss to open IE and they'll look at you confused, then ask them to open "The Intenet")...

Comment Re:To reduce this to simpler terms......... (Score 1) 165

by Madball on Tuesday May 12, 2009 @11:36AM (#27922797) Attached to: Can Cable Companies Store Shows For Us?

Bad enough my cable company can figure out what I watch: I don't want them storing my stuff for me.

It's not "your stuff". Whether you can time-shift your consumption of it or not, it's not truly yours.

Even if it's legal to do so, it is not wanted, and I am sure the cable company will figure out how to make mincemeat of privacy once I allow them to store my TV shows and movies.

How is their storage of the content an additional invasion of privacy (beyond the tracking they already do)?

The more you allow others to do for you, the more you let others control you.

Might want to loosen the tinfoil.

Comment Re:overpaid? (Score 4, Informative) 323

by Madball on Monday May 04, 2009 @08:18AM (#27814283) Attached to: Pentagon Lost Billions, Pennies At a Time

This was 1969. $6.00/hr (12,522/year) wasn't so bad. Equivalent in 2009 dollars is $34.87/hr (72,773/year).

Comment Re:Stocks win, gambling loses (Score 1) 138

by Madball on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @04:41PM (#27764123) Attached to: Minnesota Latest To Try To Block Gambling Sites

But there is another key difference between casino gambling and stocks

As mentioned by several, there is more to gambling than traditional casino gambling (e.g. craps, roulette, slots). The proposed ISP blocks would have an effect on all types.

averaged over time, gambling loses you money and stocks earn you money.

How much time? How many stocks? If you are talking particular stocks, than you can definitely lose money over even long time periods (how is your Worldcom stock doing?).

Pick any stock index you like - it's nearly impossible to find a 10-year span where it has lost money

Hm. I dug up a really obscure index you may never of heard of, the S&P 500: http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXSP:.INX

Comment Re:Kidding, I know....but.... (Score 3, Insightful) 138

by Madball on Wednesday April 29, 2009 @04:28PM (#27763931) Attached to: Minnesota Latest To Try To Block Gambling Sites

Wayyyyyy different than gambling. Gambling is random and even worse, the end results (risk/reward profiles) are heavily skewed toward your competitor (the house). Stock price moves are determined by the market. Just a bunch of buyers and sellers agreeing on the price - but it isn't random, like gambling.

Not all gambling is random in the same way you describe. Some, are non-random, house-favored, such as sports/horse betting. Then, there is poker... The house takes a cut of pot. While your starting hand may be random, the winner is far from random.

As in, you own it just like you own a bike or a computer or any other asset in your house. You have (some) legal rights and some "claim" on future earnings. That's what stock, aka common equity, represents.

Also, I would argue that all stock really represents is voting power. It is not an asset in any real way. Your share is not equal to Company Worth/Total Shares. It's worth either par value ($1) or whatever the market thinks it is worth--> which can be completely independent of the company's intrinsic value (if such a thing exists).

Comment Re:They are fsck'ed and shares go up? (Score 1) 233

by Madball on Thursday April 09, 2009 @08:34AM (#27516673) Attached to: Microsoft Ordered To Pay $388 Million In Patent Case

I do not really get all this crap about stock & shares ... I would certainly not put any money in that company ... Besides, since Microsoft have so harshly defended software patents, they should increase the fine 10 fold! Besides, product activation and GA and all that crap has "significantly" increased Microsoft's revenue stream, get the facts! http://www.klid.dk/statistics/mswin.html check the increase from 2001-2002, oops, that's when XP came out with product activation .... ahhhhh, that's why the figures double, then .... wintards!

I'm sure the stinking pile of ME had nothing to do with that, nor the XP product itself, nor their other products, or anything else--it was simply the product activation that made them all that money. Correlation != causation. Oh, and if you were to buy stock in Microsoft, unless it's an IPO, you're not giving them any money.

Comment As for a jury interpreting the patent... (Score 2, Interesting) 233

by Madball on Thursday April 09, 2009 @08:29AM (#27516629) Attached to: Microsoft Ordered To Pay $388 Million In Patent Case

Good luck with that. Here's a snippet of patent (claim 1).

1. A registration system for licensing execution of digital data in a use mode, said digital data executable on a 55 platform, said system including local licensee unique ID generating means and remote licensee unique ID generating means, said system further including mode switching means operable on said platform which permits use of said digital data in said use mode on said platform only if a licensee 60 unique ID first generated by said local licensee unique ID generating means has matched a licensee unique ID subsequently generated by said remote licensee unique ID generating means; and wherein said remote licensee unique ID generating means comprises software executed on a plat- 65 form which includes the algorithm utilized by said local licensee unique ID generating means to produce said licensee unique ID.

Say what?

Comment Link to the patent application (Score 1) 233

by Madball on Thursday April 09, 2009 @08:20AM (#27516561) Attached to: Microsoft Ordered To Pay $388 Million In Patent Case

http://www.google.com/patents?id=K7MoAAAAEBAJ As you can see, we can blame an Aussie for this one! Attaaaaaaack.

The Guardian Shifts To Twitter After 188 Years of Ink 211

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @10:53AM from the save-the-trees dept.

teflon_king writes with news that renowned British newspaper The Guardian will be abandoning its paper-and-ink distribution scheme and publishing all articles and news as Tweets. Quoting: "A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include '1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!;' 'OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more;' and 'JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?' Sceptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet. For example, Martin Luther King's legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian's Twitterised archive as 'I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by,' eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original."

Conficker Worm Strike Reports Start Rolling In 508

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @10:10AM from the be-on-the-lookout dept.

Nieriko writes "Reports are trickling in about the impact from the Conficker worm, as infected systems passed zero hour at midnight and began downloading additional malicious components. Here are a couple of the more notable incidents caused by Conficker so far, according to published reports: — '... shortly after midnight local time, an ATM in the capital city of Reykjavik began spewing 100-Krona notes. ... A nuclear missile installation near Elmendorf Air force Base outside of Anchorage, Alaska briefly went on a full-scale military alert after technicians manning the bunker suspected that several of their control systems were infected with Conficker.'"

Slashdot Launches User Achievements 1582

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday April 01, 2009 @09:28AM from the can't-believe-it-took-so-long dept.

In a concerted effort to compete with more popular MMOs like World of Warcraft, we've decided to add an Achievement system to Slashdot. We've retroactively granted around 900,000 achievements to our logged in users. You can view them from your user page, or you can see my list if you're curious what a REAL achiever looks like. Many achievements have been sprinkled throughout the system and are awaiting discovery by dedicated Slashdot users, but a starter list of achievements is in the FAQ. I'll toss you one freebie: you can register your wow main for points if you're that kind of person. Now go forth and achieve!

Comment Re:Exactly like MPG estimates (Score 2, Informative) 154

by Madball on Monday March 16, 2009 @01:01PM (#27212499) Attached to: AMD — "We're Not Entirely Honest" About Batteries

It's no different than the automobile industry stating "EPA Estimated MPG city/highway" which is not based on a dynamometer test

EPA tests are done on a dyno: http://www.fueleconomy.org/feg/how_tested.shtml

or actual performance measurement but instead is calculated based on the amount of CO2 which exits the exhaust pipe of the car! Is it any wonder, then, that hybrid cars which shut off their gasoline engine when stopped and at low speed/light acceleration, would give grossly inflated figures? Well, they did (and do), which explains why real-world MPG is often far less than this calculated (not even simulated) performance.

Why do you think that the testing methodology inflates the estimated mileage for Hybrids because of shut-off's at lights? If your gas engine is shutoff, how much fuel are you burning? Zero. If you are driving a conventional powertrain vehicle and are idling, how much fuel are you burning? Something more than zero. Granted, the crux of the matter is measuring what this something more is, but that's on the conventional side, not the hybrid side of the equation.

What is needed is real-world testing -- dynamometer ("rolling test track") testing for autos where the wind resistance, temperature, barometric pressure, etc. can all be carefully controlled.

And how would you test wind resistance on a dyno anyway? Since the vehicle isn't physically moving, drag is a non-factor (and thus "strictly controlled" at zero).

Comment Re:1.6M Processors, but only 1.6 TB memory? (Score 1) 248

by Madball on Tuesday February 03, 2009 @02:22PM (#26713939) Attached to: IBM Building 20 Petaflop Computer For the US Gov't

"BlueGene/P uses a modified PowerPC 450 processor running at 850 MHz with four cores per chip and as many as 4,096 processors in a rack. The Sequoia system will use 45nm processors with as many as 16 cores per chip running at a significantly faster data rate.

Both BlueGene/P and Sequoia consist of clusters built up from 96 racks of systems. Sequoia will have 1.6 petabytes of memory feeding its 1.6 million cores, but many details of its design have not yet been disclosed."

There we go. It is 100,000 processors, with 16 cores each (yes, a core is a processor, but since the summary went out of its way to make this distinction, we should continue to do so for a fair comparison). Summary is wrong (big surprise there).

Comment Re:1.6M Processors, but only 1.6 TB memory? (Score 5, Informative) 248

by Madball on Tuesday February 03, 2009 @11:50AM (#26710433) Attached to: IBM Building 20 Petaflop Computer For the US Gov't

Another reference article: http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000489 Mentions "up to" 4,096 processors per rack. So, at maximum, this would be 393,216 processors. Perhaps they are quad cores and someone took the liberty of multiplying the 393,216x4=1.6M (rounded). A more reasonable assumption may be 100,000 quad-core CPUs (400,000 cores). That would make the summarization of by only 16 times, lol.

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