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Comment Rogue is from 1980 (or earlier) (Score 1) 654

...but my first GUI was Rogue.

What, no love for castle.exe?

Rogue is from 1980, so it's at least 4 years old than Castle Adventure and the Tandy 1000, both of which came out in 1984.

Rogue is actually older than the PC; it was ported to the PC from PDP 11 Unix 7th Edition. It's actually a bit older than 1980, but that's the date that wikipedia gives.

Your Rights Online

Submission + - Petition Requests Formal ACTA Ratification In Sena (techdirt.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Techdirt reports that a petition on the US Government's We the People website raises the question of whether ACTA is enforcable as an executive agreement — which allows the President to sign the agreement without getting approval — when it covers intellectual property, which is the mandate of Congress, and would require a vote before it becomes a treaty.

Slashdot has previously covered Senator Wyden questioning the constitutionality of ACTA before signing; while the EU will be imminently signing ACTA into force.

Submission + - Was mega upload crushed to stop mega box? (dslreports.com)

MrShaggy writes: "Our friends at dsl-reports that 'The kicker was Megabox would cater to unsigned artists and allow anyone to sell their creations while allowing the artist to retain 90% of the earnings. Or, artists could even giveaway their songs and would be paid through a service called Megakey. “Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads. The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works,” Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak in December. Megabox was planning on bypassing the labels, RIAA, and the entire music establishment.'"
AMD

Submission + - The state of stereoscopic 3D gaming on the PC (techreport.com)

crookedvulture writes: While 3D TVs have largely been a bust, AMD and Nvidia continue to push stereoscopic 3D implementations on the PC. This article takes a closer look at how HD3D and 3D Vision 2 compare and whether either improves one's gaming experience. The verdict is mixed overall, with eye fatigue and spotty game compatibility tarnishing stereo 3D's appeal somewhat. The fact that you'll need a high-end graphics card to ensure smooth gameplay (enabling stereo 3D essentially doubles the number of frames that must be rendered) doesn't help. However, newer games like Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham City really come alive when viewed in stereo 3D. With Microsoft standardizing a stereo API in the next version of DirectX, true 3D gaming could have a bright future on the PC.
Linux

Submission + - The HUD As The New Desktop Manager (markshuttleworth.com) 1

esocid writes: Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Project, is proposing the next direction for desktop managers, focusing on interaction and intent.

Even casual users find typing faster than mousing. So while there are modes of interaction where it’s nice to sit back and drive around with the mouse, we observe people staying more engaged and more focused on their task when they can keep their hands on the keyboard all the time. Hotkeys are a sort of mental gymnastics, the HUD is a continuation of mental flow.

It’s smart, because it can do things like fuzzy matching, and it can learn what you usually do so it can prioritise the things you use often. It covers the focused app (because that’s where you probably want to act) as well as system functionality; you can change IM state, or go offline in Skype, all through the HUD, without changing focus, because those apps all talk to the indicator system. When you’ve been using it for a little while it seems like it’s reading your mind, in a good way.


KDE

Submission + - KDE 4.8 Released (kde.org)

jrepin writes: " KDE community have released version 4.8 of their free and open source software bundle. The new version provides many new features, improved stability and increased performance.

Highlights for Plasma Workspaces include window manager optimizations, the redesign of power management, and integration with Activities. The first Qt Quick-based Plasma widgets have entered the default installation of Plasma Desktop, with more to follow in future releases.

KDE applications released today include Dolphin file manager with its new display engine, new Kate text editor features and improvements, Gwenview image viewer with functional and visual improvements. KDE Telepathy reaches first beta milestone. New features for Marble virtual globe keep arriving, among these are: Elevation Profile, satellite tracking and Krunner integration.

KDE Platform provides the foundation for KDE software. KDE software is more stable than ever before. In addition to stability improvements and bugfixes, Platform 4.8 provides better tools for building fluid and touch-friendly user interfaces, integrates with other systems' password saving mechanisms and lays the base for more powerful interaction with other people using the new KDE Telepathy framework."

Comment Re:"Most" doesn't mean "very". (Score 1) 465

Overall a good summary, but it was IBM that inspired "FUD", not Microsoft.

IBM is (AFAIK) not especially evil anymore, but they were deeply evil and hated in the 60s and 70s. Microsoft took over from them like a runner taking the baton in a relay race.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt#Definition

Biotech

Scientists To Breed the Auroch From Extinction 277

ImNotARealPerson writes "Scientists in Italy are hoping to breed back from extinction the mighty auroch, a bovine species which has been extinct since 1627. The auroch weighed 2,200 pounds (1000kg) and its shoulders stood at 6'6". The beasts once roamed most of Asia and northern Africa. The animal was depicted in cave paintings and Julius Caesar described it as being a little less in size than an elephant. A member of the Consortium for Experimental Biotechnology suggests that 99% of the auroch's DNA can be recreated from genetic material found in surviving bone material. Wikipedia mentions that researchers in Poland are working on the same problem."
Space

A Hyper-Velocity Impact In the Asteroid Belt? 114

astroengine writes "Astronomers have spotted something rather odd in the asteroid belt. It looks like a comet, but it's got a circular orbit, similar to an asteroid. Whether it's an asteroid or a comet, it has a long, comet-like tail, suggesting something is being vented into space. Some experts think it could be a very rare comet/asteroid hybrid being heated by the sun, but there's an even more exciting possibility: It could be the first ever observation of two asteroids colliding in the asteroid belt."

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UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things. -- Doug Gwyn

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