Comment Re:Look at this another way. No More Sampling. (Score 1) 300
Amen Break, anyone?
Comment Re:Raiding (Score 1) 175
Look, maybe it's you. If you see a paladin in the video and you don't know what to do because you're a warrior, it's not the game. It's not the class. It's not the encounter. It's you.
And no, tanking's not hard. You survive, you did a good job. You die, it was either your gear or your healers. Tanking involves very little skill nowadays. You've got a handful of cooldowns you use every couple minutes, and that's about it. DPS has to manage more at once, and healing is where the challenge really is.
"I don't know how to raid" is sort of meaningless on its own. What part is it you don't know, exactly?
Comment Re:Too Easy (Score 1) 175
I'm mostly hoping each level is challenging. Original Shattered Halls in BC was pretty rough. Doable, but rough. In Wrath, there are plenty of dungeons I simply never ran on normal, because my gear from BC was good enough to head straight into heroics.
Comment Re:Raiding (Score 1) 175
A 5k gear score is doable with 5-man dungeons. I mean, even before this last patch.
You can "know the fights" by looking them up on wowpedia.org or youtube. Or tankspot. Or bosskillers. Or a half dozen other sites.
ICC pugs on my server routinely clear at least half of icecrown. I've known pugs attempt heroic bosses, and some even kill (normal) lich king.
Comment Re:ITT noobs complaining about SC2 (Score 1) 83
Once upon a time, you could play a Blizzard game over a LAN.
Once upon a time, you could install a "spawn" copy to play against a friend, allowing the two of you to play multiplayer off one install disc and CD key.
Once upon a time, you didn't need the internet to play single player.
Comment I recently had to replace my phone... (Score 1) 336
... and it annoyed me to no end that I couldn't just get something like my old phone, a Nokia 6150. All the phones now either flip or slide, and are chock full of "features" which are really thinly-veiled attempts to get you to cough up more money for a data plan.
I just wanted a regular phone with a 12-key number pad that could send text messages with predictive text input. Nope. Not offered anymore. Hell, I can't even send an email to someone without using a data plan and some email "service". (On the Nokia I could simply set an email address as the recipient of a text message.) And one of the features about it I really liked—the ability to set "profiles", multiple preference sets for ring volume and the like—isn't on the one I have now. But dammit, I can take pictures and... not do a whole lot with them.
And even the 6150 doesn't have something my original cell phone did that I gave up in 2004... I miss Snake.
Comment Really, though, missing option? (Score 1) 311
Depends on the poll?
French City To Use CCTV For Parking Fines 297
horza writes "The city of Nice, France is rolling out 626 CCTV cameras throughout town, giving it one of the highest levels of surveillance in the world (1.8 cameras per 1000 inhabitants). The usual rhetoric was given — that they will be used solely for reducing violent crime — but the city will now begin sending out parking tickets solely based on the CCTV video evidence."
Star Wars Films In 3D Due In 2012 409
bowman9991 writes "Star Wars creator George Lucas is converting all six films from his iconic science fiction saga into 3D and will re-release them in theatres in 2012. 'Episode I: The Phantom Menace' will be released first."
Fine-Structure Constant Maybe Not So Constant 105
Kilrah_il writes "The fine-structure constant, a coupling constant characterizing the strength of the electromagnetic interaction, has been measured lately by scientists from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia and has been found to change slightly in light sent from quasars in galaxies as far back as 12 billion years ago. Although the results look promising, caution is advised: 'This would be sensational if it were real, but I'm still not completely convinced that it's not simply systematic errors' in the data, comments cosmologist Max Tegmark of MIT. Craig Hogan of the University of Chicago and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill., acknowledges that 'it's a competent team and a thorough analysis.' But because the work has such profound implications for physics and requires such a high level of precision measurements, 'it needs more proof before we'll believe it.'"
Autism Diagnosed With a Fifteen Minute Brain Scan 190
kkleiner writes "A new technique developed at King's College London uses a fifteen minute MRI scan to diagnose autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The scan is used to analyze the structure of grey matter in the brain, and tests have shown that it can identify individuals already diagnosed with autism with 90% accuracy. The research could change the way that autism is diagnosed – including screening children for the disorder at a young age."
Comment Re:Did they even think about this one? (Score 1) 160
Pfft, as though it's uncommon for an 8 year old to ask that kind of question...or to hear the word sex used for that matter.
It isn't? It should be.
Maybe that's part of what's created the rise of prostitots? No one trying to keep sex away from children?
Comment Re:Did they even think about this one? (Score 1) 160
So, if I understand you right, you're saying the conversation goes like this:
"I don't really want to be talking to my 8-year-old about sex."
"Well, too bad. You should, and we're calling ourselves the Sex Party."
"Wow, you totally changed my mind!"
Um, yeah... not so much. This logic is a lot like atheists calling religious people stupid and expecting that to convert them to atheism.
Comment Did they even think about this one? (Score 1) 160
You know, I know this is in the context of a business, but if you're going to name your political party the Sex Party, do you even stop and think about it? Are they allowed to run ads during prime time? Are you going to have 8-year-old asking, "Daddy, what does sex mean?" I'm not sure I'd vote for a party that put me through that kind of hassle.
Retrieving a Stolen Laptop By IP Address Alone? 765
CorporalKlinger writes "My vehicle was recently burglarized while parked in a university parking lot in a midwestern state. My new Dell laptop was stolen from the car, along with several other items. I have no idea who might have done this, and the police say that without any idea of a suspect, the best they can do is enter the serial number from my laptop in a national stolen goods database in case it is ever pawned or recovered in another investigation. I had Thunderbird set up on the laptop, configured to check my Gmail through IMAP. Luckily, Gmail logs and displays the last 6 or 7 IP addresses that have logged into your account. I immediately stopped using that email account, cleared it out, and left the password unchanged — creating my own honeypot in case the criminal loaded Thunderbird on my laptop. Sure enough, last week Gmail reported 4 accesses via IMAP from the same IP address in a state just to the east of mine. I know that this must be the criminal who took my property, since I've disabled IMAP access to the account on all of my own computers. The municipal police say they can't intervene in the case since university police have jurisdiction over crimes that take place on their land. The university police department — about 10 officers and 2 detectives — don't even know what an IP address is. I even contacted the local FBI office and they said they're 'not interested' in the case despite it now crossing state lines. Am I chasing my own tail here? How can I get someone to pay attention to the fact that all the police need to do is file some RIAA-style paperwork to find the name associated with this IP address and knock on the right door to nab a criminal and recover my property? How can I get my laptop back — and more importantly — stop this criminal in his tracks?"
