superboj - Slashdot User

Submission + - California's anti-game senator Leland Yee arrested on corruption, bribery charge (gamespot.com)

Submitted by g1nG3Rj0urNAl157 on Wednesday March 26, 2014 @03:15PM

g1nG3Rj0urNAl157 writes: Democratic California state senator Leland Yee, an outspoken critic of the video game industry, has been arrested on bribery and corruption charges. The FBI nabbed the politician this morning during a sting operation, sources have told NBC Bay Area. Yee represents District 8, which includes video game development hotbeds like San Francisco and San Mateo County. Gamers know him as the man who put forth the much-publicized violent game law that the United States Supreme Court struck down in 2011.

Submission + - Peter Molyneux: Working for Microsoft Is Like Taking Antidepressants

Submitted by SmartAboutThings on Wednesday March 26, 2014 @01:09PM

SmartAboutThings writes: Peter Molyneux is one of the most famous personalities in the history of gaming, especially recognized for having created God games Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Black & White but also the Fable series. After creating the Fable series, Molyneux announced in March 2012 that he will be leaving Lionhead and Microsoft to start another company – 22Cans. During a recent interview, the former Microsoft employee has shared some interesting details regarding the time when he was working over at Redmond. He says Microsoft is a “big supertanker of safety” and that working there is “like taking antidepressants“. Here’s the excerpt from his interview:
I left Microsoft because I think when you have the ability to be a creative person, you have to take that seriously, and you have to push yourself. And pushing yourself is a lot easier to do if you’re in a life raft that has a big hole in the side, and that’s what I think indie development is. You’re paddling desperately to get where you want to go to, but you’re also bailing out. Whereas if you’re in a big supertanker of safety, which Microsoft was, then that safety is like an anesthetic. It’s like taking antidepressants. The world just feels too comfortable.

Submission + - Getting misogyny, racism and homophobia out of gaming (eurogamer.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 21, 2014 @05:37PM

An anonymous reader writes: One theme central to several talks at this week's Game Developers Conference has been how to deal with the abuse generated by a small segment of gamers. BioWare's Manveer Heir says he wants the industry to stop being scared of challenging the most outspoken and vituperative members of the gaming community. His GDC talk focused on 'misogyny, sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia and other types of social injustice.' He said, 'We should use the ability of our medium to show players the issues first-hand, or give them a unique understanding of the issues and complexities by crafting game mechanics along with narrative components that result in dynamics of play that create meaning for the player in ways that other media isn't capable of.' Meanwhile, Adam Orth, who became the center of of an internet hatestorm last year after an offhand comment about the Xbox One's always-online DRM, said game developers should make an effort to encourage their playerbase to behave in a more civilized manner.

Submission + - The Net routes around censorship in Turkey (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by lpress on Friday March 21, 2014 @02:48PM

lpress writes: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been embarrassed by social media showing corruption, vowed yesterday to "eradicate Twitter." He followed through by cutting off access, but users soon found work-arounds like posting by email and using VPNs. The hashtag #TwitterOlmadanYaayamam (I can't live without Twitter) quickly rose to the top of Twitter's worldwide trending topics.

Submission + - SPAM: It was the worst industrial disaster in US history—and we learned nothing 1

Submitted by superboj on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @12:46PM

superboj writes: Forget Deepwater Horizon or Three Mile Island: The biggest industrial disaster in American history actually happened in 2008, when more than a billion gallons of coal sludge ran through the small town of Kingston Tennessee. This story details how, five years later, nothing has been done to stop it happening again, thanks to energy industry lobbying, federal inaction, and secrecy imposed on Congress.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Band Earning Money From Spotify With Completely Silent Album (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by EwanPalmer on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @12:13PM

EwanPalmer writes: Funk band Vulfpeck have released a fully silent album and are asking fans to stream it constantly in order to generate Spotify royalties.

The album, named Sleepify, has 10 tracks just over 30 seconds long — the required amount of listening time in which a song has to be streamed in order for it to have been registered as listened to by Spotify.

This means if someone was to leave it playing for around seven hours while they slept, they would earn Vulfpeck around $5.39. The band said the money earned from the album will go towards a tour in which each show has free admission.

Submission + - First Automatic Identification Of Flying Insects Allows Hi-Tech Bug Zapping

Submitted by KentuckyFC on Wednesday March 19, 2014 @09:33AM

KentuckyFC writes: Entomologists have never been able to identify flying insects automatically. But not through lack of trying. The obvious approach is to listen out for the frequency of the wing beat. But acoustic microphones aren't up to the job because sound intensity drops with the square of the distance, so flying insects quickly drop out of range. Now a group of researchers has solved this problem using a laser beam pointing at a photosensitive array. Any insect flying through the beam, casts a shadow of its beating wings that can easily be recorded at distances of several metres. Using this new device, the team has created a dataset of millions of wing beat recordings, more than all previous recordings put together. And they've used the dataset to train a Bayesian classifier algorithm to identify flying insects automatically for the first time. That opens the prospect of a new generation of bug zappers that kill only certain insects or just females rather than males. That could have a big impact on human health since mosquitoes and other flying insects kill millions of people each year. It could also help in agriculture where insects threaten billions of dollars worth of crops.

Submission + - The truth about the disease nobody can pin down (medium.com)

Submitted by blastboy on Tuesday March 11, 2014 @12:34PM

blastboy writes: The symptoms of Morgellons sound terrifying—burning, biting, scratching fibers found in the skin that leave victims frantic, wild and depressed. Is it an infection? Allergies? Alien parasites? In fact, say doctors, it doesn't exist at all.

Submission + - Tutankhamun's blood (medium.com)

Submitted by Jim Giles on Friday March 07, 2014 @03:43PM

Jim Giles writes: Egyptology meets DNA meets Mormons. This is the inside story behind the sometimes dubious tactics used to study the Pharaohs.

Submission + - How Tutankhamun's DNA became a battleground (medium.com)

Submitted by superboj on Friday March 07, 2014 @03:12PM

superboj writes: Everyone wants a piece of Egypt's most famous pharaoh, including the media, the Muslim Brotherhood and even the Mormon church. But while scientists have been trying to excavate his DNA and prove who he was—Egypt's turbulent politics have been making progress hard. Will experts be able to make a major discovery? And what happens if they do?

Submission + - Tutankhamun's Blood (medium.com) 1

Submitted by Maddie Kahn on Thursday March 06, 2014 @01:34PM

Maddie Kahn writes: It's been 3,000 years since he died, a century since his lavish tomb was uncovered — and still Tutankhamun's turbulent life remains fascinating and mysterious. Many would like to probe deeper into the pharaoh's past, but it's not just curiosity that drives them: the boy king's status has made his secrets valuable to politicians as well as archaeologists. When the revolution turned Egypt upside down, those trying to understand Tutankhamun's heritage were left stranded. Now, with Mohamed Morsi ousted by the military and the study of ancient DNA making a critical leap forward, award-winning author Jo Marchant explores the storm of science and politics swirling around Egypt's most famous son.

Submission + - Does crime leave a genetic trace? (medium.com)

Submitted by gallifreyan99 on Tuesday February 18, 2014 @01:46AM

gallifreyan99 writes: Scientists have spent decades trying to understand and fix social problems like violence and alcoholism, usually focusing on the poor and disadvantaged. But now a small band of researchers is claiming that biology plays a vitally important role—because trauma can change you at a genetic level that gets passed on to kids, grandkids, and perhaps even beyond. Astonishing story.

Submission + - Is the internet good or bad? Yes. (medium.com)

Submitted by blastboy on Thursday February 13, 2014 @01:20PM

blastboy writes: “It’s just a tool.” I'd heard this many times before. It contains a modicum of truth, but buries technology’s impacts on our lives, which are never neutral. Often, I asked the person who said it if they thought nuclear weapons were “just a tool.” Humans have always fought, but few would say it doesn’t matter if we fight with sticks, knives, guns, or nuclear weapons." Great essay on Snowden, technology and the problem with how we think of surveillance.

Submission + - What tear gas taught me about Twitter and the NSA (medium.com)

Submitted by superboj on Wednesday February 12, 2014 @02:03PM

superboj writes: Snowden's revelations about the NSA have us all talking about big data and Big Brother. But this great piece tying together online spying, political repression and the Turkish rebellion argues that we need new metaphors—because our surveillance nightmare is more frightening, and more subtle, than we realize.

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