Comment As a wise man once said... (Score 5, Funny) 240
"Put your head in a microwave and get yourself a tan."
You must dare to be stupid.
Comment This approach has been tried before (Score 1) 142
The X community has said specifically that this sort of end-run around the GPL is strictly forbidden. I expect yet another flame war over this at any moment.
Comment Graphics were great, software, not so much (Score 1) 374
The biggest problem with the Myst games is that to run it on Windows you had to install the buggy Quicktime software. It was always breaking, either because of upgrade issues or just plain bugs. I think a lot of people gave up on it because of how hard it was to keep running if you had other games on the system.
The game was ahead of its time. It would have been much better with a 3d render software engine like Unreal. (Which did not exist at that time.)
Also, you did not get to kill anything. Modern gamers need a body count.
Comment Here is how I did it (Score 1) 472
Find a large tech company that hires contractors. Get hired as a contractor. Work your ass off and show them you know more than any of the youngsters. Get them to convert you to full time real employee.
Worked for me. Now I get to play with cool toys from the future.
Comment Comcast and CenturyLink (Score 1) 79
Comcast and CenturyLink would still block you after using more than 250 gigs of bandwidth.
In the future "unlimited" will mean "just a second".
Comment Microsoft has always dealt with bugs as a PR issue (Score 1) 100
Since Microsoft has a habit of ignoring the issues that get reported without a bounty, I don't see how adding one would improve the issue.
One of the reasons for Full Disclosure is to pressure companies that think of security vulnerabilities as a PR problem instead of an urgent technical issue. If the first reaction you get from a company is "this only effects a small handful of users" then they are trying to patch through spin instead of fixing the problem. Microsoft is not the only one that does this, but they have been one of the biggest offenders.
BTW, "this only effects a small handful of users" has been used by Microsoft so many times that they have grounds to trademark the phrase.
Comment Re:Rainbow Dash (Score 2) 141
If it uses 50% less power, it will be cooler. The Atom processors generate very little heat compared with the more power-hungry Xeon and Core Duo chipsets.
Intel has become very aware of power usage as well as heat. The days of the room heating CPU are hopefully behind us.
Comment Casio F-91W wristwatch (Score 5, Funny) 426
Well now I know what to give for Christmas...
Comment There needs to be an "anti-patent" (Score 1) 127
There needs to be an "anti-patent" that you can file that says "I invented this first, but I choose not to patent it". Something that would be legally binding and prevent later patents from people who look for things and ideas without patents and then file the patents for themselves.
Submission + - Government Transparency Sites Face Chopping Block (sunlightfoundation.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Congress is quietly proposing to eliminate the funding for a slew of websites that allow citizens to keep government accountable. As part of the frantic budget cutting the electronic government fund would be slashed from $34 million to $2 million. Sites such as Data.gov, USASpending.gov and the IT Dashboard [http://it.usaspending.gov] would be immediately crippled and be forced to shutdown in a matter of months. The provision to cut these programs began with House Republicans and was recently re-introduced by Senate Democrats.
The most recent developments indicate the situation is quite dire. Funding will run out for many of these projects on April 20th and put valuable data back into the shadows. Journalists who depend on this data will lose access, citizens will not be able to examine the government's activities and all tools built on the data will break. The Sunlight Foundation fights to improve government transparency and if these cuts go through, the public will be denied the vital resources many members of Congress have previously championed.
The most recent developments indicate the situation is quite dire. Funding will run out for many of these projects on April 20th and put valuable data back into the shadows. Journalists who depend on this data will lose access, citizens will not be able to examine the government's activities and all tools built on the data will break. The Sunlight Foundation fights to improve government transparency and if these cuts go through, the public will be denied the vital resources many members of Congress have previously championed.
Submission + - Film Company Suing 5,865 Downloaders Has Problem (hollywoodreporter.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: According to The Hollywood Reporter
Camelot Entertainment Group has hopped onto the mass-suing bandwagon by targeting 5,865 alleged downloaders of the B-movie revenge flick Nude Nuns with Big Guns. But the company might not even own the film. Lawsuit filed after Camelot defaulted on loan, and had its films seized, raising possibility that one of the largest copyright lawsuits in California history was made over a title outside the plaintiff's actual domain.
Camelot Entertainment Group has hopped onto the mass-suing bandwagon by targeting 5,865 alleged downloaders of the B-movie revenge flick Nude Nuns with Big Guns. But the company might not even own the film. Lawsuit filed after Camelot defaulted on loan, and had its films seized, raising possibility that one of the largest copyright lawsuits in California history was made over a title outside the plaintiff's actual domain.
Comment Re:well, he might be right (Score 2) 643
The iPad is an upscaled iPod Touch with two really big batteries and a bigger screen. (Take a look at the pictures of a disassembled iPad if you don't believe me.)
Most other tablets are just flat netbooks with a touchscreen instead of a keyboard.
Comment Tablets will replace netbooks (Score 1) 643
Tablets serve the same niche that netbooks do. A smaller machine that is more portable than a laptop or desktop that handles tasks that are needed while traveling or away from your more permanent machine. Also something that is not as expensive as your laptop and won't be as painful if lost or stolen.
There seems to be an assumption by the industry that people want to own just one machine that does everything. What is happening is that they own multiple devices that may or may not share similar tasks, but have different levels of portability. You may have one device that stays at home and one that you take on the bus to work with you. Another may be just for long trips. The hard part is not the form factor, but getting those devices to share data in a transparent and secure manner.
Another reason that Microsoft may be grousing about tablets is it breaks the usage model for Windows. Most windows software wants at least a two button mouse. Click for select and right click for context menus. With a tablet you have no right or left mouse buttons so you have to come up with replacements for those actions. Apple has an easier time converting because they were mostly one button instead of two. (And X windows users have three buttons to contend with. (Though two are just cut and paste.))
I expect that tablets will almost entirely replace the netbook market by 2015. By then the OS issues will be worked out and they will "just work".
Comment Every time they talk about the cloud... (Score 1) 45
I hear bong water bubbling in the background.
Comment What I want to know is... (Score 5, Funny) 553
Does Bjarne Stroustrop think of women as objects?
