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Comment Re:Good but overrated (Score 1) 37

by bartle (#26473195) Attached to: <em>Braid</em>, Games As Art, and Interpretation
In general I agree with you. As a puzzle game it is outstanding but the story just leaves players dazed and confused. I've read some Blow interviews and various interpretations and the game, while very well thought out, simply does not intend to lead the player to a specific outcome. Blow used every literary device in the book but in the end couldn't make a single recognizable point.

It makes me sad that the final level has one of the most brilliant videogame twists I've ever seen but ultimately it leads nowhere. If only the game had solidly been about a man reconciling a lost relationship with no mention of the Manhattan Project.
Security

Submission + - Gov. Palin prefers Yahoo email

Submitted by
bartle
bartle writes: "The Washington Post is reporting that Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin regularly uses Yahoo email instead of Alaskan government servers. This became relevant when requests were made for official email and it was learned that most of her email sits on Yahoo servers, out of reach of open records laws.

Palin also routinely does government business from a Yahoo address, gov.sarah@yahoo.com, rather than her secure official state e-mail address, according to documents already made public. "Whoops!" Palin aide Frank Bailey wrote, after addressing an e-mail to the governor's official state address. "Frank, This is not the Governor's personal account," a secretary reminded him.

"

Comment Likely a feature (Score 5, Interesting) 277

by bartle (#23497906) Attached to: Coding Flaws Caused Moody's Debt Rating Errors
This doesn't explain how Standard and Poor's arrived at the same ratings. One possible explanation is that Moody's code was initially correct but they introduced the "bug" to make sure they were providing the same valuations as S&P.

In any case, it sounds like they found a new scapegoat and they're going to take it for a test ride.
The Military

Submission + - Robot Cannon Kills 9, Injures 14 (wired.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An auto-targeting, auto-reloading cannon goes out of control during a South African military drill — killing 9 soldiers, and wounding 14 more. Officials can't figure out whether to blame jammed hardware, software glitches... or the start of the robot uprising. One thing's for sure: it's not the first time robo-weapons have started acting dangerously odd.
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - PC owners get Bioshock, draconian new DRM system (kotaku.com)

Submitted by igorthefiend
igorthefiend writes: Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/gaming/more-bioshock-shock/) and others (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t =5527) are reporting that the PC version of Bioshock is loaded with new DRM from Securom which limits users to just two installs.

2K are saying that if users come up against the limit they should contact Securom — but Securom are referring people back to 2K according to NoFrag. http://www.nofrag.com/images/00311b.jpg

Where does this leave the doctrine of first sale? Is this ushering in a new era of restrictive protection on AAA titles?
Communications

Submission + - Developer of Reverse Directories Dead at 87 (hughpickens.com)

Submitted by
Pcol
Pcol writes: "Reverse directories, listing residents sorted by address and phone number, are invaluable to detectives, debt collectors, telemarketers and anyone who needs to find someone. Although the first reverse directories were compiled in the 1780s by trudging door to door, recording the residents of every building on every block, what IBM sales representative Jack Cole did, starting in 1947, was to streamline the process, using punch cards to turn an ordinary telephone book into what today would be called a searchable database. Cole hired typists to keyboard the entire Dallas telephone book onto punch cards. Directories for other cities soon followed, with Mr. Cole drawing on census records, tax rolls and other data to supplement the information in the phone book. As cellular phones have become more popular, there has been debate about releasing cell phone numbers into public 411 and reverse number directories. Right now, cell phone numbers are not available in any reverse-number directories. However, several information companies provide reverse cell phone lookups that are obtained from utility resources, and are available online."
Security

Submission + - Estonia's Cyber-war

Submitted by
bartle
bartle writes: "Slate is running an article on the brief but significant attack that Estonia suffered recently.

Since late April, the Web sites of various Estonian government entities, banks, and media outlets have been barraged with extraordinary amounts of Web traffic (100 times more than usual), making them very slow and even unusable. The Estonian government has identified as-yet-unknown rogue Russian hackers and the Kremlin as participants in these denial-of-service attacks. Russia has firmly denied these charges."
The Internet

Submission + - Disaster recovery

Submitted by moogoogaipan
moogoogaipan writes: After a few days thinking about the quickest way to bring my website back to the internet users, I am still stuck at DNS. From experience, even if I set the TTL for my DNS zone file as low as 5 mins, there are still DNS servers out there won't update until a few days later(yeah you, AOL). Here is my situation. Say, I have my web servers and database servers at a remote backup location. They are ready to serve. So my question for ./ers is that if we get hit by an earthquake at our main location, what can I do in a few hours to get everyone to go to our backup location?
Security

Submission + - Hard drive snafu has NBA star suing, fuming

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "All basketball player Bruce Bowen wanted was his hard drive fixed. What he got apparently is an invasion of privacy and a big mess. The Smoking Gun Website says the San Antonio Spurs forward hired a Texas company to fix but instead the repair company removed the machine's hard drive and sold the item — which contained confidential personal and financial information — to another customer. Bowen is now seeking over $2 million in damages from Computer Nerdz, the San Antonio company used to repair his Gateway computer. http://www.networkworld.com/community3/?q=node/147 53"

Feed Segway Centuar gets examined in-depth (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Transportation

While there unfortunately still isn't any word on when it might be available, those curious about the long-in-development Segway Centaur may want to head over to MotorcycleUSA, which has put together a fairly in-depth look at the four-wheeled vehicle for those that haven't been following its every move. Of course, it's still to early to tell if it'll have the profound effect on our lives that the original Segway has had, but they seem confident that the vehicle will at least provide some "unadulterated fun" -- if it's ever actually released, that is. They do see a few potential problems with it, however, including the not-insignificant possibility for the rider to be thrown off during sharp turns due to the vehicle's high center of gravity. On the plus side, that could at least make Segway polo a bit more interesting.

[Via AutoblogGreen]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Feds go after E-Gold

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The inevitable has finally arrived, the feds are going after E-gold and its associated digital currency exchangers. A four count indictment against owners Douglas L. Jackson, Reid A. Jackson, and Barry K. Downey was unsealed today in Washington DC charging them with conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business under federal law, and transmission of money without a license under D.C. law. It seems E-gold will still honor existing commitments to most small account holders although the DOJ is also seeking to freeze specific large accounts.

From the article:
"The DOJ also obtained a restraining order to prevent the defendants from unloading their assets as well 24 seizure warrants on more than 55 accounts believed to be property involved in money laundering and the operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business."

links:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/04/27/HNdigita lcurrencycharges_1.html
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/or l-bk-brevardmoney042707,0,5539803.story?coll=orl-h ome-headlines
http://www.pr-inside.com/digital-currency-business -e-gold-indicted-r107629.htm
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Happy 10th Birthday, Duke Nukem Forever

Submitted by GotWookiee
GotWookiee writes: That's right, ten years ago today on Sunday, April 27tn, 1997, 3D Realms formally announced the development of Duke Nukem Forever, the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D. Ten years later, it is still in development.

Major development milestones:
April '97: 3D Realms announces the development of the game.
August '97: PC Gamer magazine publishes the first screen shots.
November '97: Scott Miller states that the intended release date is in 1998.
December '97: 3D Realms gets the Quake II engine source code.
May '98: 3D Realms unveils a first demo footage at E3.
June '98: 3D Realms switches to the Unreal engine. George Broussard states that DNF will be out in 1999. Lots of content is scrapped.
'99: DNF upgrades to the Unreal Tournament engine.
December '99: More DNF screenshots. DNF releases a Christmas card implying it will be out soon.
'00: DNF gets 2nd place in Wired magazines Vaporware Award.
December '00: Another Christmas card.
'01: DNF wins 1st place in the Wired Vaporware Awards.
May '01: Another demo video at E3. The last to date.
'02: DNF wins the Vaporware award again.
'02: New programmers are hired and the game engine is retooled. 95% of previous content is scrapped according to Broussard.
'03: Wired gives DNF the Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award, created solely for DNF.
September '04: Karma physics engine replaced with Meqon engine.
'05 and '06: DNF wins the Vaporware Award two years in a row, again.
January, '07: In-game screen shot released.

During DNF's record 10 years of development, many things have transpired. Also, many historical events have taken less time than DNF's development. Here are some things that have happened in less time than DNF's development:

1) The production and release of all 3 Star Wars prequels, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, along with every Pixar movie except Toy Story.
2) It took less time for NASA and its contractor's to put a man on the moon and return him to the Earth, from Kennedy's pledge before congress to Armstrong's historic "small step."
3) The career's of Britney Spears and Collin Farrel.
4) The two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity were proposed, authorized, announced, designed, launched and successfully landed upon Mars where they have been exploring the surface for over 2.5 years.
5) The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan (the largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world) was in contract, built, launched, comissioned, and began active duty.
6) The Wright brothers designed and flew the first airplane.
7) The American Revolutionary War, Civil War, World Wars I and II, the development of the Atomic Bomb, and the US involvement in Vietnam each took less time than DNF's development.

For a more complete list, check out The Duke Nukem Forever List.

In 2008, George Broussard will make you his bitch!
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Japanese Fleeced in Poodle Scam

Submitted by ddg412
ddg412 writes: You would think most people could tell a dog and a sheep apart. Apparently, some people in Japan can't. A company called 'Poodles as Pets' have been passing off sheep as poodles to unsuspecting people. At $1600 each, they were a bargain, until customers started noticing their 'dogs' wouldn't bark and had hooves instead of nails.

Feed Rare Case Of Dental Patient-to-patient Hepatitis B Virus Transmission Recorded (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Researchers have documented a case of hepatitis B virus (HBV) transmission between two patients at a dentist's office in the United States. While this kind of infection is exceedingly rare, universal vaccination against the virus would likely have prevented both cases, according to the authors of the case report and an accompanying commentary.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - AppleTV playing XVid and other fun hacks

Submitted by
snk1324
snk1324 writes: "I'm surprised this hasn't been posted yet, but some posters on the Something Awful forums have successfully hacked the AppleTV to play XVid, got VNC access, and SSH going. It's going pretty fast, so there may be more by the time you read this. Check it out here."

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