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Comment Not sure about that strategy... (Score 1) 684

>One interesting strategy discussed is for the professor to make the final count for more of the final grade each time cheating is discovered.

I don't teach CS but I do teach college-level history, and I think that would cause some problems. For one thing (if I understand what they're saying), essentially everyone's grade changes whenever even a single student is caught cheating. If you aced the midterm that was 40% of the grade, well, sorry, now it's only 30% of the grade and you'll have to make it up on the final. While cheating is, obviously, a bad thing, I don't think the entire class should be made to suffer because of it.

Open Source

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."

Comment Re:I am a prof, and I agree!! (Score 1) 467

>Why anyone think these abominations are progress is beyond me

I teach, too, and the word I was given was that blackboards generate lots of dust, and the dust gets into the computers/projectors/etc. I once taught in a room where the solution apparently was to put the projector facing one wall while the chalkboard was along another wall. It was completely useless for using the chalkboard while showing presentations.

Comment It's not just screening... (Score 1) 454

There's something else going on as well. A few years ago I was looking at buying a particular product (I don't remember what now) so I Googled the product name to see what reviews I could find. There were a lot of reviews out there, but when I started looking at the specific reviews I realized that many of the reviews were just copied between reviewing websites. It wasn't just the positive reviews--the websites actually seemed to intentionally copy the reviews posted on each other's sites, most likely to pump up the number of reviews on their own sites. I ended up only being able to find maybe 10 reviews of the product, but they were copied over and over between sites. After that experience I don't trust the reviews on random websites nearly so much.

Comment Yeah, we'll always be able to resell them! (Score 1) 590

>people are going to trade in used games for new games and those old games will be sold back to other people. There's nothing game developers can do to stop them...

Exactly! Nothing they can do at all! They should just stop complaining about it and move on.

On a completely unrelated note, can someone please post instructions on how I can resell the games I've downloaded for my Wii and Xbox 360? Also, I've got some downloaded books for my Kindle that I'm tired of and want to sell. I know I can do these things because, like the summary says, there's nothing the publishers can do to stop it. Thanks in advance!

Input Devices

Epic Sticking With Classic Controllers For Now 64

Cliff Bleszinski, design director for Epic Games, said in an interview with Develop that while motion control schemes like Project Natal look interesting, Epic will probably be sticking with classic controllers "for the foreseeable future." He said, "Microsoft came down a few weeks before E3 and gave us a demo, and they're now shipping out the dev kits; I think it's great. When you start combining the motion-capture, the facial recognition, and the vocal recognition you can create some unique experiences. And of course more accessibility is always a good thing. When you build an interface like that though you need to [specifically] design a game for it. It can't just be tacked on."

Comment The next gen (Score 2, Funny) 160

>... we don't think any party is seriously interested in throwing away these investments and starting over from scratch.

Man, wouldn't it be funny if Nintendo did a hardware refresh in a year or so and called it a next generation machine? They could make it backwards compatible to the Wii, have simultaneous releases for both systems, but distract Sony and MS to no end. But would it be the Wii2, or the WiiII (or Wiii)?

Comment Re:A new city? (Score 1) 195

>In that case, why build a massive solar generator instead of fitting the rooftops with solar panels from the start? It would have the added advantage that one 'incident' at the generator site would nut shut down the whole city

I think a better question might be, "Why build a brand new city in a state with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the US? Do they really need more empty houses?"

Comment Think of the poor publishers! (Score 4, Funny) 107

>Should publishers get a cut of the money, at least as long as their book is being scanned?

Definitely. Especially if the book has been out of print for decades and the publisher has no plans, and no interest, in every publishing fresh copies. We need to keep the revenue going to the people it's always gone to!

Comment Re:Sorry, but... (Score 0, Troll) 535

Is this the new troll meme? I don't usually browse the lower-scored posts, so I haven't seen this one before, but it looks like a generic post--it certainly has nothing to do with MS opening new stores. It's kind of a bland post--my favorite from days of yore was the Mac troll complaining about how long it took to copy a small file at his "freelancing gig." Good times, good times.

Hardware Hacking

Submission + - 250,000 iPhones bought to be hacked (nytimes.com)

8tim8 writes: In the middle of a New York Times article on Apple's recent sales strength, this line appears: "In response to analysts' questions, Timothy Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, acknowledged that as many as 250,000 iPhones had been purchased but then not activated for service with AT&T, Apple's exclusive wireless partner in the United States." I knew that some had been bought to be opened up, but a quarter million of them?
Music

Submission + - Apple's aims to stop second-hand iPod trading (cnet.co.uk) 4

An anonymous reader writes: CNet is running a story that highlights how Apple's apparently generous offering of free iPod engraving, is actually an effort to curb any resale of used iPods. This stops any second-hand trading and forces buyers to seek brand-new models, full-price, directly from Apple. One commenter notes that this engraving also voids any option of replacement iPods through AppleCare.
Upgrades

Submission + - First Retail Water-Cooled DDR2 Memory Tested

Twistedmelon writes: We've all heard of water cooling for processors and even graphics processors, in today's high end PCs. However, a water cooled memory module is something that hasn't been done until now. OCZ Technology recently announced their line of Flex XLC Water-Cooled RAM, with its integrated heat-spreaders that can be connected to any standard water cooling system. The memory operates much cooler under load with tight timings at DDR2-800 speeds. For those with water-cooling setups, these DIMMs could easily be tapped into an existing system allowing for quiet and robust cooling for your system memory as well.

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