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Comment Confuses cause and effect (Score 1, Informative) 661

Swine flu is a serious thread to people who are already chronically ill. If you are seriously ill, you are likely bed ridden and pumped with cortizone, steroids and other drugs. And as a result, of course you have a poor body mass index. Its a miracle you are even alive. Swine flu comes along and is the final straw, your body can't take another illness.

 

Comment straw man argument (Score 3, Interesting) 248

Geo-engineering may make people think that we can carry on as now with no sacrifices. This article tries to re-inject a sense of fear. Its like saying "OK so the vacuum cleaner is good at cleaning the floor. But does it paint the garage? No? Well back to cleaning the floor with a mop then"

Surely we deserve a more rational debate? Sacrifices are needed but sophistry will not persuade anyone.

Software

How To Kill an Open Source Project With New Funding 187

mir42 writes "The OpenSource multimedia authorware project Sophie, formerly hosted by USC Los Angeles, may just have been killed by new funding. The original funding organization, Mellon Foundation, approved a grant to redevelop the four year project from scratch in Java. The grant was awarded to a Bulgarian company based on their proposal, which is simply an exact description, including the UI and the artwork, of the current Sophie. Being an OpenSource project, this isn't strictly illegal, but let's say, not nice and definitely not innovative, coming from a former sub-sub-contractor on the project. Some of the original, now laid-off developers started OpenSophie.org trying to salvage the project. As the current version is still somewhat buggy and slow, it might just be enough to alienate all potential users of Sophie to the point that nobody will even try to use the next version. Have others faced similar situations? How would you deal with a situation like this?"
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Blizzard wins major lawsuit against bot developers

Captain Kirk writes: http://vforums.mmoglider.com/showthread.php?t=161403 Blizzard, the owners of World of Warcraft, have won their case against Michael Donnelly, the programmer who wrote Glider. Blizzard won on 2 arguments. Firstly that if a game is loaded into RAM, that can de considered an unauthorized copy of the game and as such a breach of copyright. Secondly, that selling Glider was interfering with Blizzard's contractual relationship with it customers. The net effect? If you buy game, you transfer rights to the game developer that they can sue you for.
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - World of Warcraft uses a new Rootkit

Captain Kirk writes: We all know that World of Warcraft has checked for hacks to ensure a safe game environment for all players.

The latest version of these checks goes beyond anything seen so far in that what is being checked is now completely encrypted. Obviously this hits bot writers as can be seen from these complaints: http://onwarden.blogspot.com/2007/11/storm-is-brewing.html

But it also strikes at the privacy of all users. Now Blizzard has a tool that is encrypted and can run any type of scan, transfer any file or edit any document on your computer. That can't be right.

Comment Weasel words (Score 2, Interesting) 149

From TFA "As does any advertiser, we aim to give our campaigns a budget"

Come on, what you are doing is bidding whatever it takes to get the sport you want.

That pushes up the price for everyone else. Good for you but bad for your customers.

There is never a case where you lie awake at night worrying if you have bid too much.

"Do no evil" is a great motto and Google is a great company. I feel that they have not considered this from the point of view of Adwords buyers. I'd be surprised if they are still doing it in 12 months. Google would no longer be the Google we love if they are.
Star Wars Prequels

Journal Journal: What? I have a journal?

Well my view is that young Robbie Malda wouldn't have given this journal to me unless he felt there were more people out there interested in me than in Star Wars Prequels.

I'm the documentation project leader for the gnutella developers forum. Why the Star Wars Prequel title - well - the saddo's who set this up forgot to put Star Trek as an option.

Now this is where I write something interesting. Be right back...

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