Comment Re:How many members in this cult? (Score 1) 474
Actually, the story was repeated as true in some media outlets in Brazil. The original blog's admins even went around posting "Thanks for believing in us!" in some of these.
USB Is the Devil's Connection 474
Jamie handed us Satan's Data Connection. You see, sane and rational human being, the
USB logo is actually in the shape of a trident, and the obvious action to Evangelical Christians in Brazil is to ban its use. Hopefully they don't mispronounce SCSI and find themselves lusting after their PCs.
Comment Wrong (Score 1) 103
The linked article does not actually refers to the Scientific article (why not?), so I went and did some digging.
http://frontiersin.org/neuroscience/behavioralneuroscience/paper/10.3389/fnbeh.2010.00031/
Nothing like "monkeys like to watch TV". The experiment only measure the activity of the monkey's brain when it is watching the movie, but not when it is NOT watching the movie or when it is watching something else. Actually the paper is more about this new brain wave sensor that they are developing than about monkeys and TVs. Like a previous commenter said - if you have a monkey stuck into a chair, with a bunch of probes dug into its brain, in a dark room, it will get interested in a movie shown in front of him. Duh! (and, according to the article, at least 60% of the trials where thrown away because the monkey did not actually look at the movie).
Comment Re:What was the email? (Score 1) 306
Way to fail by not RTFA'ing.
StarCraft II Closed Beta Begins 268
Blizzard announced today that the multiplayer beta test for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is now underway. The client downloader is available through Battle.net for people who have received invites, and the system requirements have been posted as well. A list of known issues is up on the official forums. StarCraft II and the revamped Battle.net are planned for release "in the first half of 2010."
Game Devs Migrating Toward iPhone, Away From Wii 143
A new report by Game Developer Research reveals that the number of developers working on games for the iPhone continues to rise, roughly doubling in number from last year. At the same time, the amount of work done on games for Nintendo's Wii dropped significantly:
"Just over 70 percent of developers said they were developing at least one game for PC or Mac (including browser and social games), rising slightly from last year; 41 percent reported working on console games. Within that latter group, Xbox 360 was the most popular system with 69 percent of console developers targeting it, followed by 61 percent for PlayStation 3. While those console figures stayed within a few percent of last year's results, the change in Wii adoption was much more significant: reported developer support for the system dropped from 42 percent to 30 percent of console developers, supporting numerous publishers' claims of a recent softening of the Wii market."
Why the First Cowboy To Draw Always Gets Shot 398
cremeglace writes "Have you ever noticed that the first cowboy to draw his gun in a Hollywood Western is invariably the one to get shot? Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr did, once arranging mock duels to test the validity of this cinematic curiosity. Researchers have now confirmed that people indeed move faster if they are reacting, rather than acting first."
Submission + - Japan Celebrates Windows 7 with 7-story Sandwich (burgerkingjapan.co.jp)
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".
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".
Canada Considering Online Voting In Elections 324
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
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".
Comment Re:Weak Article (Score 1) 308
Well, what did you expect? The story submitter was the guy who wrote the article himself. (Jeff Vogel owns spidweb games).
Understanding Addiction-Based Game Design 308
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.'"
Comment Re:I beg your pardon? (Score 1) 951
Lamarckian Evolution.
Neo-Darwinian Evolution.
Developmental Evolution.
(lamarckian evolution in a very limited scale during embrionary stages of an individual)
The term "Dwarvinian Evolution" is necessary to compare to other models for Evolutionary theory, even in Biology.
Class Teaches Nerds Social Skills
639
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.
Comment Real World Goodies (Score 5, Insightful) 734
Indeed. Including a cloth map, a moonstone and an ankh in the packaging (Rest in Peace, Origin
