Comment Re:But, does it run... (Score 0, Redundant) 113
...on poutine?
hmmmm, d'la poutine
Comment Great Idea (Score 2, Funny) 332
Another great idea signed by UK's gov
Submission + - Why don't I feel like gaming anymore?
Merakis writes: Once upon a time I remember enjoying my gaming. I would wake up on a Saturday morning, much as I do now, and even before scurrying off to have a bite to eat, I would sit down in front of the television and enjoy a delightful morning gaming session. Sure, the gaming system's varied; a Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo, Playstation, Nintendo 64, and finally, my first computer, an IBM Thinkpad 486 laptop with a 56k fax-modem through which I had my first taste of MMO in the form of a MUD — which I soon became quite addicted to since it was such a great adventure. Over the years as technology has improved (ie: better graphics, larger 'worlds', the prevalence of Massively Multiplayer) I have played through and enjoyed many itterations on the same theme — the fighter, the rogue, the mage, the cleric, etc. But now, I feel a sort of emptiness whenever the urge to game grips me. Where has the adventure gone? The elation of the next level is lost to me, and I feel like no matter how good the graphics get, no mater how much I keep searching, I will no longer be able to find that same feeling that I had as a child again. Have I changed, or is there something missing in today's competitive market for games? What was it that made gaming so pleasurable for me then, and how can I regain it?
Comment Re:New stuff (Score 1) 65
Or even simpler, its simply that they're doing something with their brain
Comment Re:How is daytrading not gambling? (Score 1) 300
my point is that more market participants makes for a more efficient market place, something that all market participants benefit from ... while more players around the table doesn't affect the game, it just makes for a bigger game, something that not all player benefit from
Comment Re:How is daytrading not gambling? (Score 1) 300
It's your third point where you go wrong,
Neither creates wealth and merely shifts it around
more daytraders means more participants in the market place, more participants means more liquidity and more liquidity means a better functioning market place. A market with no liquidity, is a market that is not trading, ie the 2008 market, where bids and offers are worlds apart, this is bad for ALL the participants from big institutions to small retail guy, much like you I presume... Hence daytraders, while you may not realize it are providing a service for the market place at their own risk and are compensated accordingly.
Submission + - Suprise party for the Internets?
MrTester writes: Seriously? Today is the 40th anniversary of the first internet traffic, and there is nothing on SlashDot and Google doesnt have a cool logo? WTF?
Submission + - Hemp Walls are 7x Stronger Than Concrete (inhabitat.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Buildings account for thirty-eight percent of the CO2 emissions in the U.S., according to the U.S. Green Building Council, and demand for carbon neutral and/or zero footprint buildings is at an all-time high. Now there is a new building material that is not just carbon neutral, but is actually carbon negative. Developed by U.K.-based Lhoist Group, Tradical Hemcrete is a concrete substitute made from hemp, lime and water. What makes it carbon negative? There is more CO2 locked-up in the process of growing and harvesting of the hemp than is released in the production of the lime binder.
Submission + - Sentiment Mining: Can any such technology succeed? (cnet.com)
ashtophoenix writes: "CNET has an article that talks about Web data mining to figure out sentiments from Blog Postings, Forums and such. Can any such technology ever succeed? After all they all are prone to the sincerity and integrity of the poster. Doesn't it come down to a basic human problem, that is, is a person speaking the truth or is he or she lying or trying to manipulate an opinion. As much an algorithm can be sophisticated, how can we successfully write a program to solve a problem that we haven't been able to solve in real life!"
Submission + - Threatened Languages Digitally Archived for Future
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Telegraph reports that of the world's 6,000 natural languages, half will probably not survive for another generation so experts are encouraging native people and anthropologists to capture myths, folk songs chants and poems in their dying languages through a collected oral literature compiled into a digital archive that can be accessed on demand and will make the "nuts and bolts" of lost cultures readily available. "When a language becomes endangered so too does a cultural world view," says Dr Mark Turin of Cambridge University's Department of Social Anthropology. ""We want to engage with indigenous people trying to document their myths and folklore." The first batch of archives material includes a recording of folk music of the Lo Monthang region, Nepal, and ceremonial chanting in the Vaupés Region of Colombia. The World Oral Literature Project has already handed out around 10 grants to tribes from Mongolia to Nigeria — and the researchers admitted traditional British languages such as Cornish and Gaelic are also at risk. ""People often think it's often only tribal cultures that are under threat," says Turin. "But all over Europe there are pockets of traditional communities and speech forms that have become extinct.""
Submission + - SPAM: Microsoft patent evolutionary tree
Fred Wallace writes: "This patent is written in such a broad language that it appears to swallow up any activity that involves understanding biodiversity though phylogenetics," said William Piel, a phylogeneticst at Yale University quoted in the article.
Piel claims the basic techniques are derived from as far back as when Charles Darwin sketched the first evolutionary tree, and today are used by hundreds of biological systematics software packages. "Microsoft might as well patent the multiplication tables," Piel said.
Link to Original Source
Piel claims the basic techniques are derived from as far back as when Charles Darwin sketched the first evolutionary tree, and today are used by hundreds of biological systematics software packages. "Microsoft might as well patent the multiplication tables," Piel said.
Link to Original Source
Chevy Volt Rated At 230 mpg In the City 1006
necro81 writes "General Motors, emerging from bankruptcy, today announced that its upcoming plug-in hybrid vehicle, the Volt, will have an EPA rating of 230 mpg for city driving (about 98 km/L). The unprecedented rating, the first in triple digits, is the result of a new (draft) methodology for calculating the 'gas' mileage for vehicles that operate primarily or extensively on electricity. The Volt, due out late next year, can drive approximately 40 miles on its Li-Ion battery pack, after which a gasoline engine kicks in to provide additional electricity to charge the battery. Running off the gasoline engine yields approximately 50 mpg. Of course, the devil's in the details, because the conversion of grid-based electricity to gasoline-mileage is imprecise." Now we know the meaning of the mysterious "230" viral marketing campaign.
Free Realms Approaches the Five-Million-Player Mark 77
A few days ago at Comic-Con, Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley spoke about the success of Free Realms, their free-to-play MMORPG that relies on microtransactions for a business model. The game was released at the end of April, and by mid-June there were upwards of three million registered users. Now that total is approaching five million, with no sign of slowing down. Min Kim, another panelist at the discussion, said, "When people started talking about it back in 2003 or 2004, people said Western games would never want to do this, to play a game for free and then buy items. And now everybody is saying, 'We're going to have microtransactions as part of our business model.'"
East Africa Gets High-Speed Internet Access Via Undersea Cable 198
Abel Mebratu writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "The first undersea cable to bring high-speed internet access to East Africa has gone live. The fiber-optic cable, operated by African-owned firm Seacom, connects South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique to Europe and Asia. The firm says the cable will help to boost the prospects of the region's industry and commerce. The cable — which is 17,000km long — took two years to lay and cost more than $650m."
Comment so easy (Score 1) 601
simple solution really ... stop smoking weed
