sumbry - Slashdot User

PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 17, 2009 @03:18PM from the load-photon-torpedoes dept.

darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."

ASCAP Seeks Licensing Fees For Guitar Hero Arcade 146

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 16, 2009 @07:55AM from the understanding-is-too-much-effort dept.

Self Bias Resistor writes "According to a post on the Arcade-Museum forums, ASCAP is demanding an annual $800 licensing fee from at least one operator of a Guitar Hero Arcade machine, citing ASCAP licensing regulations regarding jukeboxes. An ASCAP representative allegedly told the operator that she viewed the Guitar Hero machine as a jukebox of sorts. The operator told ASCAP to contact Raw Thrills, the company that sells the arcade units. The case is ongoing and GamePolitics is currently seeking clarification of the story from ASCAP."

The Star Wars Christmas Special Still Exists 316

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday December 10, 2009 @09:41AM from the truth-is-out-there dept.

rapturizer noted the critical news that "Fans of "Star Wars" have a chance to see a free screening of the notoriously bad 'Star Wars Holiday Special' next week in Minneapolis." Nothing brings out the Christmas spirit like watching what may very well be the worst TV ever produced. Sadly however, I'm not sure that this is the worst *Star Wars* merch ever made.

New WoW Patch Brings Cross-Server Instances 342

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 09, 2009 @04:36AM from the new-and-shiny dept.

ajs writes "World of Warcraft's Wrath of the Lich King expansion was staggered into 4 phases. The fourth and final phase, patch 3.3, was released on Tuesday. This patch is significant in that it will be the first introduction of one of the most anticipated new features in the game since PvP arenas: the cross-realm random dungeon, as well as the release of new end-game dungeons for 5, 10 and 25-player groups. The patch notes have been posted, and so has a trailer. The ultimate fight against the expansion's antagonist, the Lich King a.k.a. Arthas, will be gated as each of the four wings of the final dungeon are opened in turn — a process that may take several months. The next major patch after 3.3 (presumably 4.0) will be the release of Cataclysm, the next expansion."

FreeNAS Switching From FreeBSD To Debian Linux 206

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday December 06, 2009 @12:29PM from the changing-horses dept.

dnaumov writes "FreeNAS, a popular, free NAS solution, is moving away from using FreeBSD as its underlying core OS and switching to Debian Linux. Version 0.8 of FreeNAS as well as all further releases are going to be based on Linux, while the FreeBSD-based 0.7 branch of FreeNAS is going into maintenance-only mode, according to main developer Volker Theile. A discussion about the switch, including comments from the developers, can be found on the FreeNAS SourceForge discussion forum. Some users applaud the change, which promises improved hardware compatibility, while others voice concerns regarding the future of their existing setups and lack of ZFS support in Linux."

Nintendo Upset Over Nokia Game Emulation Video 189

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @02:45AM from the super-mario-takedown dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo is investigating potential copyright infringement by Nokia during some video demos of their N900 phone, which can be seen emulating Nintendo games. Nintendo spokesman Robert Saunders says: 'We take rigorous steps to protect our IP and our legal team will examine this to determine if any infringement has taken place.' In the video, Nokia says, 'Most publishers allow individual title usage, provided that the user is in possession of the original title.'"

Comment Walmart, I mean Google Strikes Again! (Score 2, Insightful) 439

by sumbry on Friday October 30, 2009 @11:48AM (#29924673) Attached to: Will Google and Android Kill Standalone GPS?

In the same way that Walmart comes into a town and destroys local businesses, Google can enter into an industry/sector and destroy most of the competition overnight by giving an application away for free. Who is going to pay $100 for a Maps Application now (or more for a hardware device) when they can just download one for free.

Isn't this the same type of stuff we accused Microsoft of doing years ago? Yup, Walmart, I mean Google strikes again. Pray whatever industry you're in Google doesn't decide to suddenly release a free product.

Comment Re:Why not PostgreSQL? (Score 1) 235

by sumbry on Wednesday January 03, 2007 @02:48AM (#17440868) Attached to: MySQL Falcon Storage Engine Open Sourced

> Well, there is one thing, Falcon compresses data while Postgresql doesn't. can't help wondering what this will do to performance.

This is actually not true. If you have a variable length column in Postgres and insert data that exceeds 2K in size, it will automatically be compressed by Postgres using a simple LZ compression algorithm. This has been the case since Postgres 8.0. You have to specifically disable this feature if you don't want to use it.

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/static/storage- toast.html

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