pingbat - Slashdot User

Comment Welcome to the club (Score 1) 239

by pingbat on Friday December 02, 2011 @04:02PM (#38242096) Attached to: Genome Researchers Have Too Much Data

Well, hard times for these guys. They have tons of data with next to no noise, errors or uncertainty. I can name 20 people i know personally that would love datasets like that for their research. Am I the only one seeing it this way? Shame you didn't buy the hard drives 4 months ago though. Tough break.

Comment Opening up the airplay protocol (Score 1) 526

by pingbat on Friday October 28, 2011 @12:17AM (#37864838) Attached to: Apple's Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC) Now Open Source

I would say that it's more likely they want to open up the airplay protocol. Encouraging more devices to connect to their devices and enabling airplay on more 3rd party devices.

Comment Wait for a zenbook? (Score 1) 708

by pingbat on Tuesday October 25, 2011 @04:06AM (#37828804) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: GNU/Linux Laptops?

You might consider waiting for a zenbook from ASUS. It is essentially a macbook Air without the apple logo. ASUS usually have pretty decent linux support too. http://www.anandtech.com/tag/zenbook

Comment Keyswitches matter (Score 1) 235

by pingbat on Saturday October 15, 2011 @04:25PM (#37725792) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Ergonomic Office Environment?

I really don't think it matters how your keyboard is laid out. What I think does matter is that it has mechanical switches. This makes a huge difference in typing, allows you to put less strain on your fingers (you don't have to bottom out the keys) and also drowns out the sound of the guy next to you (and pretty much everything else).
Getting a keyboard with blank keycaps has really improved my typing speed. It forces you to touch-type which is another skill that will pay dividends.
I personally use a Das Keyboard Ultimate S since it was the only one easily available where I live. It is hands down the best investment I have made when it comes to comfort at work. If you prefer something different then look for Cherry blue switches which seems to be the favorite of most. If you really want to get into the keyboard porn thing then go here: http://geekhack.org/

Comment Future of Slashdot (Score 1) 354

by pingbat on Thursday October 13, 2011 @06:29AM (#37699538) Attached to: Google Employee Accidentally Shares Rant About Google+

Seems to me as thought this holds a valuable lesson for Slashdot. With the management asking about the future what better time for a story like this to surface! Platformize Slashdot!

Submission + - AMD's details its first 8-core desktop processors (techworld.com.au)

Submitted by

angry tapir

on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @06:28PM

angry tapir writes: "Details about Advanced Micro Devices' first eight-core desktop processors, based on its Bulldozer architecture, have appeared on some retail sites ahead of their official launch. The FX-8150 and FX-8120 processors are part of the re-launched FX family of chips, which are pitched as high-performance parts aimed at gaming machines and other high-end systems. The FX chips are based on AMD's new Bulldozer architecture, which provides a speed boost of 50 percent or more compared to its predecessor, according to AMD."

Submission + - Vindicated: Ridiculed Israeli scientist wins Nobel (yahoo.com)

Submitted by sanzibar on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @06:15PM

sanzibar writes: The shy, 70-year-old Shechtman said he never doubted his findings and considered himself merely the latest in a long line of scientists who advanced their fields by challenging the conventional wisdom and were shunned by the establishment because of it. In 1982, Shechtman discovered what are now called "quasicrystals" — atoms arranged in patterns that seemed forbidden by nature. "I was thrown out of my research group. They said I brought shame on them with what I was saying," he recalled. "I never took it personally. I knew I was right and they were wrong."
Yes. Sometimes the consensus is wrong.

Submission + - Sprint confirms unlimited data for the iPhone (edibleapple.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @05:24PM

An anonymous reader writes: It was quick, and if you blinked, you may have missed it, but Apple announced yesterday that the iPhone is finally coming to Sprint.

Earlier today, Sprint today confirmed that they will maintain their unlimited data plans for iPhone users as the Kansas-based carrier hopes to lure users away from AT&T and Verizon.

Submission + - Monkeys Control Virtual Limbs With Their Minds (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit on Wednesday October 05, 2011 @04:21PM

sciencehabit writes: When it comes to prosthetic hands, you can't beat the one Luke Skywalker receives in The Empire Strikes Back. Not only did that robotic limb allow him to wield a lightsaber with great dexterity, each of his fingers twitched when a robot poked them. Although real-life brain-controlled prosthetics that enable a person to, say, pick up a pencil continue to improve for amputees, limbs that can actually feel touch sensations have remained a challenge. Now, by implanting electrodes into both the motor and the sensory areas of the brain, researchers have created a virtual prosthetic hand that monkeys control using only their minds, and that enables them to feel virtual textures.

Comment Name (Score 1) 341

by pingbat on Sunday September 18, 2011 @08:39AM (#37433248) Attached to: The (Big) Problem With RIM

Surely the biggest problem is the name! Red Dwarf, corporate brown-nosing etc...

Comment This + eye tracking was done 3 years ago! (Score 2) 119

by pingbat on Friday September 09, 2011 @05:16AM (#37349338) Attached to: Booktrack Adds Music and Sound Effects To Ebooks

Text 2.0 was a research project undertaken at DFKI, the German AI research institute. - Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QocWsWd7fc More Info here: http://text20.net/

Submission + - Steam VAC ban story, what do YOU think? 2

Submitted by

choke

on Thursday September 08, 2011 @02:16AM

choke writes: "On or about 3 and a half years ago my then pre-teen son used an external program which caused him to get a "VAC Ban" on a game in my steam account.

The odd result, was that Valve banned -all- games on this particular account which used the same middleware as this game, which resulted numerous games being banned. Games which I had paid for in good faith, and had no record of violation. Furthermore, all FUTURE games that may be released with this middleware are also banned on this account.

Before I am duly excoriated for letting someone else use my account and whatnot, I should say that as a parent and at that time, I was hesitant to have my preteen child maintaining his own friends list and making arbitrary contact with the public, hence I would let him use my account on occasion. Steams parental controls are not particularly useful in that regard.

I won't defend the actions that got banned — I agree with the ban however, valve has chosen to exercise their power to also remove functionality from other paid games on my account, with zero recourse after numerous attempts to remedy the situation other than to 'purchase a new account' and repurchase -all- of the games which use this particular middleware.

This led me to think that if I had purchased those games elsewhere, I would not have lost access to them. And it made me hesitate when I thought of buying more games on Steam.

What do YOU think? Was it my just desserts for letting a child use my account? Are there other ways this could be handled by Valve?"

Submission + - Online Game Sales to Surpass Retail by 2013 (industrygamers.com)

Submitted by donniebaseball23 on Thursday September 08, 2011 @12:20AM

donniebaseball23 writes: Digital has been growing by leaps and bounds, thanks to social gaming on PC and games for smartphones and tablets. This isn't about to slow down and in fact will be one of the largest drivers of growth for the games industry worldwide, which DFC Intelligence forecasts will hit $81 billion in 2016. The research firm predicts that online game sales will eclipse retail by 2013. "On a global basis it looks like retail delivery of physical software peaked in 2008. We expect a slow, steady decline for physical game sales, with a steady increase for online delivery of games and new business models such as subscriptions and virtual item sales," said DFC's David Cole.

Comment Shooting themselves in the foot (Score 1) 861

by pingbat on Saturday May 29, 2010 @06:20AM (#32387590) Attached to: <em>The Hurt Locker</em> Producers Sue First 5,000 File-Sharers

Of all recent films, this is probably one of those that benefited most from filesharing. The thing was completely unknown and one could make a strong case for part of the hype that got generated being thanks to filesharers who saw the film and passed the word around. I think that there will always be a status quo in the filesharing 'war' unless something dramatic happens which seems unlikely.

Ubuntu One Gets iPhone App For Contact Sync 115

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 05, 2010 @07:12PM from the plays-nicely-with-others dept.

oneone writes "Canonical is bringing its Ubuntu One cloud service (which we discussed last month) to handheld devices with a new mobile contact synchronization feature that is powered by Funambol. Canonical's Ubuntu One application for the iPhone is now available from the iTunes Music Store. Android and other mobile operating systems will be supported with Funambol's standard client application. The mobile sync feature is currently in the beta testing stage but will be generally available to Ubuntu One subscribers when Ubuntu 10.04 is released later this month. Canonical says that it is boosting its Ubuntu One server infrastructure in order to support what it anticipates will be record loads."

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