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Comment Re:Internet connection shouldn't be required (Score 2) 233

by Agret (#34731124) Attached to: Ubisoft's Draconian DRM Patched?
Then start Steam, it'll detect there is no internet connection available and ask to start in offline mode. Since you only prefer singleplayer games you should be able to run them no problem, if Steam says the game is unavailable leave the Steam window open and go into Steam\SteamApps\Common, look for your game folder and run the exe directly - it should work fine :)
Medicine

Do Sleepy Surgeons Have a Right To Operate? 332

Posted by timothy from the ahm-purrrfecly-ffffine dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "BusinessWeek reports that a commentary from the New England Journal of Medicine calls on doctors to disclose when they're deprived of sleep and not perform surgery unless a patient gives written consent after being informed of their surgeon's status. 'We think that institutions have a responsibility to minimize the chances that patients are going to be cared for by sleep-deprived clinicians,' writes Dr. Michael Nurok, an anesthesiologist and intensive care physician. Research suggests that sleep deprivation impairs a person's psychomotor skills — those that require coordination and precision — as much as alcohol consumption and increases the risk of complications in patients whose surgeons failed to get much shuteye."
Cellphones

Micro-USB Cellphone Charger Becomes EU Standard 302

Posted by timothy from the wish-they-seemed-stronger dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The European Commission has put into effect a June 2009 agreement stating that major cellphone manufacturers should standardize their charging/data connection ports to the popular Micro-USB format. CEN-CENELEC and ETSI provided the standards by which these 14 companies will abide to make cell phone recharging and data transfer easy." Apple may even bring the next-gen iPad along for the ride.
Technology

Tech History Behind New York's New Year's Eve Ball 106

Posted by Soulskill from the powered-by-dick-clark's-mojo dept.
Toe, The writes "A perennial icon of New Year's Eve is the geodesic ball which first dropped in Times Square in 1907. Over the past century, there have been seven iterations of this ball. The first one, made out of iron and wood, weighed 400 pounds and sported one hundred 25-watt bulbs. The current ball weighs almost six tons and uses 32,256 Philips Luxeon Rebel LEDs. The designers expect there to be more tech improvements to the ball soon. What do you think of the ball and the bizarre status it holds in our culture? How would you change it for years to come?"
Mars

'Colonizing the Red Planet,' a How-To Guide 288

Posted by Soulskill from the add-water-and-stir dept.
Velcroman1 writes "A manned mission to Mars would be the greatest adventure in the history of the human race. And one man knows how to make it a reality. In fact, he just wrote the book on it — literally. Joel Levine, senior research scientist with NASA's Langley Research Center and co-chair of NASA's Human Exploration of Mars Science Analysis Group, just published 'The Human Mission to Mars: Colonizing the Red Planet.' The book reads like a who's who of Mars mission science, featuring senators, astronauts, astrophysicists, geologists and more on getting to Mars, studying its atmosphere and climate, the psychological and medical effects on the crew and other details. The most interesting bit: Levine presents is a solution for funding the trip, something unprecedented for NASA: advertising. 'The suggestion is marketing to different corporations and professional sports leagues for advertising, which is something NASA never does.'"

Comment Re:Civ was my offline game (Score 1) 295

by Agret (#32152252) Attached to: <em>Civilization V</em> To Use Steamworks
Before the new Steam client re-design offline mode was notoriously bad and at LAN events people resorted to using cracked copies of the game. It was pretty annoying having to track down a cracked copy when I owned the game legit and felt like a step backwards in gaming to me. I'm glad they have finally resolved the issues (supposably) but I guess time will tell :) As far as DRM goes though I do like Steam for being so unrestricted, I hate how SecuROM only lets you install on 5 PCs. I know it's not likely that i'll be installing the game on 5 PCs but you have to look into what constitutes a PC, could upgrading my motherboard & CPU count as a new PC? What about changing my graphics card? The number quickly adds up, especially if you use two machines or more.
Biotech

Scientists Create Artificial Meat 820

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the mmmmm-soggy-pork dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that scientists have created the first artificial meat by extracting cells from the muscle of a live pig and putting them in a broth of other animal products where the cells then multiplied to create muscle tissue. Described as soggy pork, researchers believe that it can be turned into something like steak if they can find a way to 'exercise' the muscle and while no one has yet tasted the artificial meat, researchers believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years' time. '"What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue. We need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there," says Mark Post, professor of physiology at Eindhoven University. "You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals." Animal rights group Peta has welcomed the laboratory-grown meat, announcing that "as far as we're concerned, if meat is no longer a piece of a dead animal there's no ethical objection while the Vegetarian Society remained skeptical. "The big question is how could you guarantee you were eating artificial flesh rather than flesh from an animal that had been slaughtered. It would be very difficult to label and identify in a way that people would trust.""
Software

Genetic Algorithm Helps Identify Criminals 84

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the playing-to-your-strengths dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes to tell us that a new software approach to police sketch artists is finding surprising success in a trial run of 15 police departments in the UK and a few other sites. The software borrows principles from evolution with an interactive genetic algorithm that progressively changes as witnesses try to remember specific details. Current field trials are reporting an increase in successful identification by as much as double conventional methods. A short video with a few working shots of the new "EFIT-V" system is also available on YouTube. "[Researcher Christopher Solomon]'s software generates its own faces that progressively evolve to match the witness' memories. The witness starts with a general description such as 'I remember a young white male with dark hair.' Nine different computer-generated faces that roughly fit the description are generated, and the witness identifies the best and worst matches. The software uses the best fit as a template to automatically generate nine new faces with slightly tweaked features, based on what it learned from the rejected faces. 'Over a number of generations, the computer can learn what face you're looking for,' says Solomon. The mathematics underlying the software is borrowed from Solomon's experience using optics to image turbulence in the atmosphere in the 1990s."

Comment Re:Farewell Fallout... (Score 1) 174

by Agret (#18717509) Attached to: Fallout IP Sold to Bethesda Softworks

I have Fallout BOS for my PS2 and do you know what rating it has? M, for Blood and Gore, Strong Sexual Themes, Strong Language and Violence. One of the first characters you meet is a hooker.
Fallout BOS wasn't made by Bethesda Softworks so your comment has no significance other than you being wrong.
Editorial

Submission + - Editorial: Compiz and Beryl Merger

Submitted by
invisibastard
invisibastard writes: "Linux Tech Daily has an editorial on the proceeding merger or Compiz and Beryl. LTD believes this is a good thing and the community overall will benefit. What do you think? Will it be possible for these teams to work together? One thing is certain, the 3D desktop space is drawing a lot of attention to Linux."
Security

Submission + - How Skype & Co. get round firewalls

Submitted by
sorry bugger
sorry bugger writes: "From the article: "Peer-to-peer software applications are a network administrator's nightmare. In order to be able to exchange packets with their counterpart as directly as possible they use subtle tricks to punch holes in firewalls, which shouldn't actually be letting in packets from the outside world." More under http://www.heise-security.co.uk/articles/82481"
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Battlestar Galactica game - for free!

Submitted by
Lt. Cannonfodder
Lt. Cannonfodder writes: "In answer to the hopes and dreams of scifi gamers everywhere, Beyond the Red Line team has released a demo of their upcoming total conversion based on the popular tv-show Battlestar Galactica. Unlike almost all other game modifications, Beyond the Red Line does not require anything else but the download itself to run and is completely free of charge.

As screenshots are the thing that usually spark the interest, take a look at these:

http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/images/screenshots/ screen13.jpg
http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/images/screenshots/ screen15.jpg
http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/images/screenshots/ screen07.jpg

More screenshots, download links and forums can be found at http://www.game-warden.com/bsg/"

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