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Comment Re:We had a good one like that (Score 1) 426

by admiralfurburger (#34234422) Attached to: Windows Phone Permanently Modifies MicroSD Cards, Warns Samsung

Hmmmm, I think I still have a box of those around. They were used for hooking up NEC Multisync II monitors(DB9) to VGA cards...
I think I may have herniated a braincell remembering that. Don't get me started on using cga monitors on an ega card. Or going monochrome on Windows 3.1, gah!
Idle

2012 Mayan Calendar 'Doomsday' Date Might Be Wrong 144

Posted by samzenpus from the 60-day-reprieve dept.
astroengine writes "A UC Santa Barbara associate professor is disputing the accuracy of the mesoamerican 'Long Count' calendar after highlighting several astronomical flaws in a correlation factor used to synchronize the ancient Mayan calendar with our modern Gregorian calendar. If proven to be correct, Gerardo Aldana may have nudged the infamous December 21, 2012 'End of the World' date out by at least 60 days. Unfortunately, even if the apocalypse is rescheduled, doomsday theorists will unlikely take note."
Image

Study Says Your Personality Doesn't Change After 1st Grade 221

Posted by samzenpus from the everybody-I-ever-needed-to-be-I-was-in-first-grade dept.
A study authored by Christopher Nave, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, says that our personalities stay pretty much the same from early childhood all the way through old age. From the article: "Using data from a 1960s study of approximately 2,400 ethnically diverse schoolchildren (grades 1 - 6) in Hawaii, researchers compared teacher personality ratings of the students with videotaped interviews of 144 of those individuals 40 years later. They examined four personality attributes - talkativeness (called verbal fluency), adaptability (cope well with new situations), impulsiveness and self-minimizing behavior (essentially being humble to the point of minimizing one's importance)." This must explain my overriding need to be first captain when we pick kickball teams at the office.
Security

Stand-Alone Antivirus Software? 159

Posted by timothy from the lonely-job dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I work for a company that repairs specialty devices that have an embedded Mini-ATX motherboard without a CD-ROM drive and run Windows XP Home. And while the USB flash drives we insert into them have a physical write-protect tab, we still encounter a (rather annoying) display dialog from malware/viruses to remove the write-protect so the malware can infect the flash drive. We don't remove the write-protect, obviously, but would like to offer our customers the option of removing the malware/virus without having to install any software. We would rather not install/uninstall antivirus software even for one-time use, due to various licensing issues, nor do we want to connect to the Internet to use web-based online scanners. Is there any stand-alone anti-virus/anti-malware software for Windows that can be run directly from the write-protected flash drive itself?"
Image

North Korea Develops Anti-Aging "Super Drink" 296

Posted by samzenpus from the can-full-of-wonder dept.
__roo writes "According to North Korea's official news agency, a drink produced by North Korea's Moranbong Carbonated Fruit Juice Joint Venture Company can cure aging and all disease. 'It, with effects of both preventive and curative treatment, helps improve mental and retentive faculties by multiplying brain cells. It also protects skin from wrinkles and black spots and prevents such geriatric diseases as cerebral hemorrhage, myocardium and brain infarction by removing acid effete matters in time.' It also has no side-effects." Last month North Korea announced its fusion breakthrough, and now it has a super drink. One can only imagine what wonders may come in July — perhaps self-buttering toast.
Image

Snails On Methamphetamine 93

Posted by samzenpus from the escargot-on-ice dept.
sciencehabit writes "Science answers the question: What happens when you put a snail on speed? From the article: 'The results suggest that meth improves memory, something that has been previously observed in creatures with large, complex brains like rats and humans. But since the snails store their memories in a simple, three-neuron network, the team hopes that studying the meth effect in these gastropods will help pinpoint how the drug's memory magnification powers work.'"

Comment Traditional media got greedy on the net (Score 2, Interesting) 454

by admiralfurburger (#32368582) Attached to: UK Newspaper Websites To Become Nearly Invisible

1.) A while back I needed some extra cash, so I took several paper routes. The newspaper is the main one for the area I live in, they charge 75 retail. However, it turns out that NONE of this money goes back to the publisher. The money collected from home delivery, machine sales & retail store sales is divided up this way: The Route manager gets a 1/3, the truck driver gets a 1/3 & the point of distribution(paper boy, store, machine filler) gets a 1/3. The publisher takes nothing, they get all their money from the ads.

2.) Some time ago I co-owned a small retail store. We sold a few magazines. We paid for the first month of all the mags we wanted to sell, then nothing more for as long as we were in business. I was a bit confused by this, so asked many questions of the distributor. He said: most mags work this way. The publisher makes their money from the ads & gives them to the distributor, often paying the distributor a small amount per mag "placed." Some stores actually get paid for placement of certain mags, in addition to keeping all the cover price. Subscriptions work the same way, which is why publisher's clearing house can have such a huge sweepstakes prize.

And they don't have any idea of how many people looked at the ad on page 147, more less even went to the manufacturer's website or looked for the product at the grocery store. My understanding is that web ads, while gleaning much more customer info, are far cheaper. It doesn't make sense to me...
Games

8-Year Fan-Made Game Project Shut Down By Activision 265

Posted by Soulskill from the of-doors-and-ways-out dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Activision, after acquiring Vivendi, became the new copyright holder of the classic King's Quest series of adventure game. They have now issued a cease and desist order to a team which has worked for eight years on a fan-made project initially dubbed a sequel to the last official installment, King's Quest 8. This stands against the fact that Vivendi granted a non-commercial license to the team, subject to Vivendi's approval of the game after submission. After the acquisition, key team members had indicated on the game's forums (now stripped of their original content by order of Activision) that Activision had given the indication that it intended to keep its current fan-game licenses, but was not interested in issuing new ones."
GUI

When PC Ports of Console Games Go Wrong 398

Posted by Soulskill from the in-other-words-always dept.
A post up at Gamasutra complains about the lack of effort put into the PC ports of some console games. The author picks on the unimpressively-reviewed Ninja Blade in particular: "Just as a quick guide to what we're dealing with here: when you create a new save file at the start of Ninja Blade on the PC, it warns you not to 'turn off your console.' Yes, Ninja Blade is one of those conversions: not so much converted as made to perfunctorily run on a different machine. In-game, you're asked to press A, B, X and Y in various sequences as part of Ninja Blade's extraordinary abundance of quick-time events. Whether you have an Xbox 360 pad plugged in or not, the game captions these button icons with text describing the PC equivalent controls. Only it doesn't always do that. Sometimes, you're left staring at a giant, pulsating, green letter A, and no idea what to do with it." What awful ports have you had the misfortune to experience?

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