MercBoy - Slashdot User

Saboteur Launch Plagued By Problems With ATI Cards 230

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday December 09, 2009 @01:58AM from the more-or-less-finished dept.

An anonymous reader writes "So far, there are over 35 pages of people posting about why EA released Pandemic Studios' final game, Saboteur, to first the EU on December 4th and then, after knowing full well it did not work properly, to the Americas on December 8th. They have been promising to work on a patch that is apparently now in the QA stage of testing. It is not a small bug; rather, if you have an ATI video card and either Windows 7 or Windows Vista, the majority (90%) of users have the game crash after the title screen. Since the marketshare for ATI is nearly equal to that of Nvidia, and the ATI logo is adorning the front page of the Saboteur website, it seems like quite a large mistake to release the game in its current state."

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday December 03, 2009 @11:04AM from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.

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."

Games Workshop Goes After Fan Site 174

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @05:03AM from the don't-anger-your-base dept.

mark.leaman writes "BoingBoing has a recent post regarding Games Workshop's aggressive posturing against fan sites featuring derivative work of their game products. 'Game publisher and miniature manufacturer Games Workshop just sent a cease and desist letter to boardgamegeek.com, telling them to remove all fan-made players' aids. This includes scenarios, rules summaries, inventory manifests, scans to help replace worn pieces — many of these created for long out of print, well-loved games...' As a lifelong hobby gamer of table, board, card and miniature games, I view this as pure heresy. It made me reject the idea of buying any Games Workshop (read Warhammer) products for my son this Christmas. Their fate was sealed, in terms of my wallet, after I Googled their shenanigans. In 2007 they forbid Warhammer fan films, this year they shut down Vassal Modules, and a while back they went after retailers as well. What ever happened to fair use?"

Comment Re:These people are delusional. (Score 1) 926

by MercBoy on Thursday August 27, 2009 @07:02AM (#29214425) Attached to: FSF Attacks Windows 7's "Sins" In New Campaign

"why should we let microsoft get away with being evil even if it's the status quo?" Huh? Microsoft is simply doing what it needs to do to maximize profits for its shareholders. Besides starting some campaign to change laws that would somehow affect Microsoft's way of doing business, you have no power to "let Microsoft get away" with anything. Not sure what you're getting at here.

Comment Re:What made SS1 great? (Score 1) 65

by MercBoy on Monday June 29, 2009 @11:46AM (#28514819) Attached to: <em>Serious Sam</em> Remake Coming In Fall

Things that made SS great. Sam's voice. The humor. The music in some locations was fantastic. Carts.

Comment Puppies and Babies (Score 1) 1354

by MercBoy on Monday June 22, 2009 @12:04PM (#28423581) Attached to: Where Does a Geek Find a Social Life?

When my 2nd daughter was a few months old, and my first daughter was 3, we bought a puppy at the local mall (I know, buying puppies in malls is not generally a good thing). As I walked through the mall pushing the baby stroller with one hand, holding the puppy in other, and my 3 year old tagging along, I was approached by at least 5 beautiful women who wanted to hold the puppy and praise my kids. It was so surreal I looked around for the hidden cameras.

Submission + - Best computer language for teaching concepts?

Submitted by MercBoy on Monday October 15, 2007 @09:55AM

MercBoy writes: I've just started teaching my daughters (ages 11 and 14) about computers. We homeschool, and I want them to have a basic understanding about the inner working of computers. For my 14 year old we began by covering basic electricity, transistors, and logic gates. I'm planning on getting up to a rudimentary explanation of the cpu, do some simple assembly language, and then on to a higher level language. I've been programming in C forever, but I'm not sure if I want to use C as a teaching tool. Any suggestions? They're probably not going to have careers in software, but I want them to be able to write programs and understand what's behind the curtain...

Comment TV is VERY important for the government (Score 1) 663

by MercBoy on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @08:26AM (#18345565) Attached to: Billion Dollar Handout To Upgrade TVs

Television is opium for the masses. If people are happily watching TV, they're not going to spend as much time thinking about the world around them. Keep the masses happy, and the actions of the government will not be questioned. American Idol becomes far more important that the US supplying arms to a third world country. A great read pertaining to television and mass media is "Amusing Ourselves to Death" by Neil Postman.

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