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Submission + - Japan Celebrates Windows 7 with 7-story Sandwich (burgerkingjapan.co.jp)

Submitted by caranha
caranha writes: Burger King Japan found that the release of windows 7 was a significant enough event to release a 7-story high hamburger to celebrate it. The Ad says that the promotion will take place for one week from now. The cost of the sandwich (1450 Yens), is about 3 times the usual price of BK's sandwiches, but up to 30 people per day may get a discount to 777 yens.

On my way back from work today (~6PM) I walked across a BK in Akihabara, and they were already out of the "Windows 7 Whooper".
Government

Canada Considering Online Voting In Elections 324

Posted by timothy from the no-more-polls-here-in-canada-south dept.
ehud42 writes "Slashdot readers generally agree that voting machines such as those from Diebold are a bad idea. Well, what about online voting? That is what the Vancouver Sun is reporting. Given that voter turnout in our most recent election was the worst on record, Elections Canada is kicking around the idea of allowing voters to register online, update registration information online, and maybe even vote online."

Comment Re:There is always an easier solution... (Score 1) 252

by caranha (#28164797) Attached to: University Gives Away iPhones To Curb Truancy

Perhaps it's because universities have a limited number of spaces that they would prefer to give to successful students and truancy may correlate with success.

Not really. Japan currently has a problem of more spaces than students (aging population and all that). It is not as bad for universities as it is for elementary/high school, but it is a serious problem.

Or it may be that some classes require a team effort and truant students disrupt that (but for whatever reason, the team is reluctant to report it.... or it counts against them anyway).

This is more likely. I have TA'd for a course where the entire team's grade was determined by each member's assignments.

Anyway, I find this article highly irregular. My experience is that japanese universities will bend themselves backwards to prevent any undergrad student from not graduating. Also, all cellphones here
have GPS, not only iPhones. I think it is more likely, from RTFA, that the university is putting on a course for the students to hack with the iPhones, and the writer of the article decided to capitalize on the minor point of "trying to check attendance with the GPS".
PC Games (Games)

Understanding Addiction-Based Game Design 308

Posted by Soulskill from the i-can-quit-any-time-i-want-to-i-just-don't-want-to dept.
spidweb writes "The common theory is that games like World of Warcraft are addictive. But what are the exact qualities that make it so? Are there specific elements of the design that can be pulled out, distilled, and used at will to give a game drug-like properties? Is it wrong to do so? A new article at IGN RPG Vault attempts to isolates the exact qualities that go into making an addiction-based design. From the article: 'If a game uses rewards of any sort to entice you to experience highly repetitive content, you should see what it's trying to do and which of your buttons it's trying to press. If you don't mind, that's cool, but you should understand it.'"
Image

Class Teaches Nerds Social Skills 639

Posted by samzenpus from the geeks-need-love-too dept.
PeterAitch writes "According to Reuters, Potsdam University in Germany is now teaching social skills as part of their IT courses. This is intended to 'ease entry into the world of work'. The 440 students enrolled in the master's degree course will learn how to write flirtatious text messages and emails, impress people at parties and cope with rejection(s)." The class is taught by a superficial model, who will fall in love with the nerdiest student at the end of the semester after realizing that he is beautiful on the inside.

Feed Nissan Warns Drivers: Don't Put Mobile Phones Near Our Keys (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
Nissan is going around warning a bunch of US drivers of either the Nissan Altima or the Infiniti G35 to be careful with their mobile phones. However, it's not, as you might expect, about driving while using those mobile phones. Nope. It's about keeping those mobile phones away from the car keys that open and start the cars. Like many newer cars, these cars use a wireless key system. Unfortunately, they're discovering that mobile phones receiving calls while in contact with the keys can scramble the electronic code on the keys... making them into useless paperweights. This would seem like a pretty big problem -- and simply telling drivers to keep their phones away from their keys isn't likely to work very well, considering phones and keys very often end up together in people's pockets or purses.
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Sims 2 Paysite Controversy

Submitted by
Tierney Dawkins
Tierney Dawkins writes: "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End has been one of the most anticipated movies of the summer and with its impressive opening weekend it is guaranteed to be one of this year's biggest hits. Everyone loves a pirate, right? Well, maybe not the owners of sites which sell custom content for EA Game's Sims 2.

The self-proclaimed pirates of Paysites Must Be Destroyed (paysites.mustbedestroyed.org) are leading the charge and staging a mutiny of sorts. Not against EA Games but against sites that sell modified content for use in the Sims 2. According to the EA Games licensing agreement — "You may include materials created with the Tools & Materials on your personal noncommercial website for the noncommercial benefit of the fan community" — it's a big no-no to sell custom content.

But EA has not taken any steps to stop paysites from charging customers hundreds of dollars for modified hair and a sleek new wardrobe for their Sims. In some instances it costs more to buy the custom content library of these sites than it does all the Sims 2 expansion packs combined. Sites like Sims2Studio charge $132.16 for 28 sets of custom content. And there are hundreds of these sites with some offering monthly subscription rates (The Sims Resource and Peggy Sims) and others charging per item or per set (Simfreaks2)

So, what's a pirate to do? The pirates of Paysites Must Be Destroyed have pooled their resources to buy server space and pillaged the content from hundreds of Sims 2 paysites. They now host the content for free.

Paysites Must Be Destroyed was founded September 2006 and it has been a bit of rough journey for these would-be pirates. Paysite owners were, not surprisingly, less than pleased when the site came into being. And, somewhat surprisingly, the Sims 2 community at large was also not happy with the piracy. Many Sims 2 players expressed concern about artist's rights and hosting of items against the artist's wishes. Paysites Must Be Destroyed could not be referred to by name on many of the largest Sims 2 forums and quickly acquired the moniker "The Site That Must Not Be Named".

"The Site That Must Not Be Named" was the elephant in the room that everyone knew about but no one seemed that comfortable in acknowledging until recently. And it was not the Sims community but EA Games that brought the pirates some mainstream Sim acknowledgment.

After years of silence EA Games has suddenly become more responsive when emailed about the legality of paysites. EA claims in emails that selling their items is infringing on their copyright and that they are in the process of investigating sites. EA's sudden involvement has inspired a community wide "Free the Sims" letter writing campaign on some of the Sims 2 largest sites (www.sims2community.com and www.insimenator.net).

Will EA Games ban paysites? The pirates wait for news but in the meantime they continue to fill their booty with the latest paysite creations."

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"And remember: Evil will always prevail, because Good is dumb." -- Spaceballs

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