Comment Re:Using the "right" interpreter with env (Score 1) 2362
Ubuntu 8.04:
tom@ubuntu:/tmp$
bash:
tom@ubuntu:/tmp$
tom@ubuntu:/tmp$ ls
tom@ubuntu:/tmp$ whereis env
env:
Bugger. Is it really POSIX?
Submission + - Jack Thompson tattles to GTA maker's mum
Stony Stevenson writes: US attorney Jack Thompson, who has campaigned against video game violence, has sent an open letter to the mother of Strauss Zelnick, chairman of video game publisher Take-Two. The letter, which was sent to lawyers representing Zelnick and not directly to Mrs Zelnick, reads as follows: "Dear Mrs. Zelnick:
Your son, as you may know (or maybe you don't know), is Chairman of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., whose most popular video games are the Grand Theft Auto murder simulator games banned in some countries but sold to children here. "We've already received numerous [GTA IV] reviews, and to a one, they are perfect scores. My mom couldn't write better reviews..."
Taking your son's thought, I would encourage you either to play this game or have an adroit video gamer play it for you. Some of the latter gamers are on death row, so try to find one out in the civilian population who hasn't killed someone yet.
Which Way to the Donuts? 8
It's early evening. You've just finished a large double cheese, pepperoni and sausage pizza and washed it down with a 2 liter of Mountain Dew. The tingling in your arm a reminder that it will take much more than an astounding 10,000 calorie dump to defeat your body and fuel it through the next 5 hours of Warcraft raiding. Too full of sauce, spiced meats and sugar to move, you manage to turn your head and look at the meager half bag of Doritos, in your clogged heart of hearts you know that this is not enough. You need more. You need donuts. How are you going to find them? Call someone? Don't be ridiculous you haven't talked to a real person in months. Search for donuts on Google? Do you have any idea how many hits you'd get? (actually you do, it's around 13,300,000.) Tired, frustrated and not completely stuffed you let the dream of donuts slip through your greasy fingers once again. We've all been there but now there is a solution. Someone has finally made a Krispy Kreme finder with a clock that determines if the store is open. Simply type in your zip code, rub on some sun block to protect your pale skin, put on pants and follow the directions.
Submission + - Does any company power down at night? 11
An anonymous reader writes: My Health Sciences Campus has about 8,000 computers on desks, and any night about half of them are left on. I know, because I track all the MAC addresses in case there is a virus outbreak. Aside from the current fad of "being green", has anyone had any success in encouraging users to power-down at night? Eliminate running bots, protect yourself from the next virus outbreak, keep your data safe, etc. My esteemed director's view: "I log off of my PC at night". Or does it matter, security wise, let alone power consumption wise?
Robotic Presence For a Telecommuter 186
McGregorMortis writes "Ivan lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and telecommutes to work in Waterloo, Ontario. But in meetings, speaker-phones suck: can't hear everybody, can't move around, no visual contact. So Ivan made an IvanAnywhere robot to give him a physical presence in the office. If Ivan wants to talk to a coworker, he just steers radio-controlled IvanAnywhere into that person's office for a chat."
Programmer's Language-Aware Spell Checker? 452
Jerry Asher writes "Not all of my coworkers are careful about spelling errors. Sometimes this causes real embarrassment as spelling errors creep into software interfaces. Does anyone know of spell checkers for programming languages? I don't want a text spell checker, I want a programming-language-aware spell checker. A spell checker that I can pass all of my code through and will flag spelling errors in function names, variable names, and comments, but will ignore language keywords, language constructs and expressions, and various programming styles (camel code, or underscores, or...). I want a spell checker that knows that void *functionSigniture(char *myRoutine) contains one spelling error. Does anyone have such a thing for Java or C++? Are there any Eclipse plugins that do this?"
Six Multi-Service IM Clients Reviewed 258
mikemuch writes "It's been a while since AOL stopped trying to jam third-party IM clients, and their use is now a fairly common desktop experience. ExtremeTech has posted a roundup of free alternatives to the standard IM software from the big boys — AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN (now Windows Live) Messenger. The products are a mixed bag, some of them Web 2.0-based, like the excellent meebo and the ad-heavy eBuddy. Most give you combined message windows with tabs. GAIM is now Pidgin, Meetro tries to get you chatting with locals, and Trillian, now at version 3.1, remains the client to beat."
Comment Re:The *big* problem with GNUStep... (Score 1) 129
I guess I really don't get the point of your post. I thought it was basically a "well, everyone who doesn't think and act like me is wrong!" Slashdot Special, but after re-reading it I'm not so sure.
Well, chalk one up for your intuition and mark me down with a loss for communication.
I suppose I feel a bit confused as to why there seem to be so many people who, when coming into contact with NeXT technologies, have such a visceral dislike of them; while at the same time there is a smaller number for whom it not only seems comfortable, but demonstrably much more productive. There used to be a similar phenomenon with Blender, I think. I'm not really a 3D modeller/animator, so the discussions were always peripheral for me. But I seem to recall people who had worked with 3DS Max and some other professional 3D tools being blown away by how productive Blender made them, once they got past the unusual GUI layout. At the same time, there were a lot of other people who tried it once, said something along the lines of "I don't like this because it's too different," and walked away. Is it just that they didn't take the time to learn how to be effective with the tool? Or is there really some difference in cognitive psychology that makes certain tools more natural to certain people? (You could say, "why not just change the GUI to be more traditional, then?" The problem, I would presume, was that the "unusual" GUI was one of the keys to the increased productivity.)
I have been injured physically by common, but ergonomically poor, equipment designs. Yet when I was shown equipment that is more appropriate for the human body, I disliked it because it felt different from what I was familiar with. Fortunately, I eventually came around and now feel much better because I stuck with it long enough. But "cognitive ergonomics," if there is such a thing, may be different from physical ergonomics.
Submission + - Apple witohut Jobs?
CDPatten writes: The internet is
buzzing with
speculation that Steve Jobs may step down over reports that he profited $7.5
million in stock options by falsifying an executive board meeting. The financial
times has a good
overview of the unfolding story.
From the Article:
"Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer, was handed 7.5m stock options in 2001 without the required authorization from the company's board of directors, according to people familiar with the matter.
Records that purported to show a full board meeting had taken place to approve Mr Jobs' remuneration, as required by Apple's procedures, were later falsified. These are now among the pieces of evidence being weighed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as it decides whether to pursue a case against the company or any individuals over the affair, according to these people."
From the Article:
"Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer, was handed 7.5m stock options in 2001 without the required authorization from the company's board of directors, according to people familiar with the matter.
Records that purported to show a full board meeting had taken place to approve Mr Jobs' remuneration, as required by Apple's procedures, were later falsified. These are now among the pieces of evidence being weighed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as it decides whether to pursue a case against the company or any individuals over the affair, according to these people."
Submission + - Virgin deflowered by Wikipedia
lee writes: "Virgin Unite, the charitable arm of Virgin Group, is matching one for one all donations to Wikimedia Foundation for a 24 hour period. When this period began, a link to Virgin Unite was placed in the site notice on all Wikimedia projects. A mere twelve (12) minutes later their site was down for the count due to overwhelming traffic. As of now the site notice is no longer pointing directly to the Virgin Unite site, but instead redirects to an article on the Wikimedia Foundation wiki. One Wikipedia editor blogged this here."
Pyschonauts Now Back-Compat on 360 64
The much requested addition of backwards compatability for Psychonauts has reached the Xbox 360, reports the British Gaming Blog. The list also adds support for titles like Ultimate Spider-Man, Buffy, Shenmue II and ... Aquaman. The list was dropped early, so don't put the discs in quite yet and expect them to work. Still ... yay Psychonauts.
Giving the Gift of Ubuntu Linux for Christmas? 235
Father Christmas asks: "This Christmas I have decided to give all of my friends and relatives Ubuntu Linux CDs from the Ubuntu ShipIt service. In addition, I plan to help them backup their old systems, install Ubuntu, and then introduce them to using Linux for their everyday tasks. What sort of post-installation changes should be made to Ubuntu to make it easy for everyday people to use? What extra software packages should be installed? Should I stick with the default Gnome installation, or would KDE be a better choice? Is there anything else that should be done to maximize the utility of their systems, as well as make their first experience with Linux a great one?"
Social Networks Gaining on Internet Portals 96
Compete writes "We have some interesting analysis on how Social Networking sites compare to portals. From a sample size of around 2 million US people, Compete concludes that social networking sites are quickly approaching the traffic level of the big portals like Google and Yahoo. They liken the growth of SNS to email in the 90's. Their key findings:
1. In June, 2 out of every 3 people online visited a social networking site
2. Since January 2004, the number of people visiting or taking part in one of the top online social networks has grown by over 109%
3. Social networking sites are now close to eclipsing traffic to the giants — Google and Yahoo"
The FSF, GPLv3 and DRM 388
whats-life-without-gpl writes "FSF has a thing against DRM. This article tries to explain why RMS isn't a DRM (Note that NewsForge is also owned by OSTG) fan and how GPLv3 is gearing up to protect against it. "
Inside View on Apple WWDC Rumors 231
AppleLurker writes "In a recent interview with DVD newsroom an Apple employee talks WWDC rumors including the iPhone, Blu-ray, MacPro and the Apple Tablet. More realistic about what not to expect next week when Steve Jobs hits the stage." Apple's next move is always a hotbed of debate leading up to a product release and with all the rumors flying this year all bets are off until we see the checkered flag, so take with the requisite grain of salt.
