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The Military

Military Personnel Weigh In On Being Taliban In Medal of Honor 171

Posted by Soulskill from the identity-conflict dept.
SSDNINJA writes "This is a feature from gamrFeed that interviews nine US service members about playing as the Taliban in the upcoming Medal of Honor. One soldier states that games like MoH and Call of Duty are 'profiteering from war.' Another says, 'Honestly, I don't really see what the whole fuss is about. It's a game, and just like in Call of Duty, you don't really care about what side you're taking, just as long as you win. I don't think anyone cares if you're part of the Rangers or Spetznaz, as long as you win.' An excellent and interesting read."

Comment Re:Alas, the coffee machine is no more (Score 1) 168

by bigdaddyhame (#32834392) Attached to: Information On Philips' "Coffee" Machine?
If the Philips Coffee Machine was indeed in the Evoluon from 1966 to 1989, then that copy of the machine can't be the same one that was installed in the OSC during the 1970's-1980's. My brother and I have very clear memories of the machine at the OSC during the 1970's. We also know from the OSC themselves that they didn't throw it away, it's in storage and needs parts.

Comment It's in storage... (Score 5, Informative) 168

by bigdaddyhame (#32791346) Attached to: Information On Philips' "Coffee" Machine?
http://www.facebook.com/sciencecentrememories?ref=ts The Ontario Science Centre Memory Bank is a Facebook group for sharing pics and notes about favorite displays and experiences at the OSC... They include a pic and some notes about the Philips Coffee Machine and it's current whereabouts... At last word it was held in a warehouse, needing spare parts. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3172797&id=64649215395
Data Storage

WD, Intel, Corsair, Kingston, Plextor SSDs Collide 56

Posted by timothy from the will-it-collide dept.
J. Dzhugashvili writes "New SSDs just keep coming out from all corners of the market, and keeping track of all of them isn't the easiest job in the world. Good thing SSD roundups pop up every once in a while. This time, Western Digital's recently launched SiliconEdge Blue solid-state drive has been compared against new entrants from Corsair, Kingston, and Plextor. The newcomers faced off against not just each other, but also Intel's famous X25-M G2, WD's new VelociRaptor VR200M mechanical hard drive, and a plain-old WD Caviar Black 2TB thrown in for good measure. Who came out on top? Priced at about the same level, the WD and Plextor drives each seem to have deal-breaking performance weaknesses. The Kingston drive is more affordable than the rest, but it yielded poor IOMeter results. In the end, the winner appeared to be Corsair's Nova V128, which had similar all-around performance as Intel's 160GB X25-M G2 but with a slightly lower capacity and a more attractive price." Thanks to that summary, you might not need to wade through all 10 of the pages into which the linked article's been split.
Games

Game Difficulty As a Virtue 204

Posted by Soulskill from the all-hail-battletoads dept.
The Wii and various mobile gaming platforms have done wonders for the trend toward casual or "easy" games. But the success of a few recent titles, despite their difficulty, has caused some to wonder whether the pendulum has swung too far; whether a little frustration can be seen as a good thing. Quoting: "The evidence is subtle but compelling. For one example, look to major consumer website GameSpot's Game of the Year for 2009: Atlus' PS3 RPG Demon's Souls, which received widespread critical acclaim – none of which failed to include a mention of the game's steep challenge. GameSpot called it 'ruthlessly, unforgivingly difficult.' Demon's Souls was a sleeper hit, an anomaly in the era of accessibility. One would think the deck was stacked against a game that demanded such vicious persistence, such precise attention – and yet a surge of praise from critics and developers alike praised the game for reintroducing the experience of meaningful challenge, of a game that demanded something from its players rather than looked for ways to hand them things. It wasn't just Demon's Souls that recently flipped the proverbial bird to the 'gaming for everyone' trend. In many ways, the independent development scene can be viewed on the macro level as a harbinger of trends to come, and over the past year and into 2010, many indies have decided to be brutal to their players."

Comment Re:boston dot com (Score 1) 97

by bigdaddyhame (#28798239) Attached to: Pics of the Longest Solar Eclipse of the Century
NASA posts all astronaut photography on its website in a variety of resolutions, including the original full-size file. Usually within a day or so of the images being taken and transmitted back to earth.

Here's a page with photos of the eclipse from March 26, 2009: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/multimedia/ISS_eclipse_03292006.html

Comment Re:boston dot com (Score 1) 97

by bigdaddyhame (#28797867) Attached to: Pics of the Longest Solar Eclipse of the Century
the larger the image size the easier it is to print postcards of it or manipulate it for profit.

and in terms of bandwidth, a few hundred K might not seem like a lot but when you have hundreds of thousands of visitors each day, it makes a difference - especially considering the website in question, boston.com, is a newspaper's website - and we all know how well newspapers are doing these days.

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