Comment quick easy and shiney (Score 1) 1016
clay pot
thermite
torch
Comment are you serously (Score 1) 462
asking on the internet how to live without the internet
whiskey tango foxtrot charlie
Comment translation from marketing (Score 1) 291
We screwed the pooch with the original PSN and the PS3 now Microsoft and Nintendo are severely whipping our asses and we can't afford to build out a LIVE competitor for the same fee Microsoft charges so now we will continue with the delusion that people want to buy every game we make at full price forever. (i'm looking at you Games on Demand)
Comment oh come on (Score 1) 477
ok people make up your fucking minds ether you get natural emulation or you get flood control
i live near garrison and i'm tired of hearing about things that the corps "needs to answer for" when it's wet the corps has to answer for draining from the dams to make room for the run off when it's dry the southern states on the river bitch that there's not enough water for barges and the northern states get bent over recreation on the reservoir
or my current personal favorite everyone thinking that when we get a half inch of rain that the corps didn't account for that and thus the state capital will be flooded from existence
it's time to pick one goal deal with it and let these people do their jobs that i guarantee they didn't know would be this thankless when they signed up
if you want flood control then deal with the habitat issue some other way if you want the habitat preserved well then get your waders out because there will be floods and when the dams have to drain they will be bigger and longer
this is life
deal with it
Comment all games in the last 20 years are clones (Score 1) 235
platformer = Mario
adventure = Zelda
RPG = Final Fantasy (1) [yes i know the stat system in FF goes back to old pen and paper games but i'm limiting my self to digital here]
FPS = wolf 3D
TBS = Civilization
RTS = Command and Conquer
puzzle = tetris (implied or implicit time limit and no control over what piece you get next)
make a game that takes no elements from these or any other previous then you can complain about game clones
Hint (illustrative only not saying the following don't include their own ideas):
metroid = zelda adventure mechanic + mario platforming
american RPGs = zelda adventure mechanic + FPS view + FF style EXP based level system
Zombie Pigs First, Hibernating Soldiers Next
193
ColdWetDog writes "Wired is running a story on DARPA's effort to stave off battlefield casualties by turning injured soldiers into zombies by injecting them with a cocktail of one chemical or another (details to be announced). From the article, 'Dr. Fossum predicts that each soldier will carry a syringe into combat zones or remote areas, and medic teams will be equipped with several. A single injection will minimize metabolic needs, de-animating injured troops by shutting down brain and heart function. Once treatment can be carried out, they'll be "re-animated" and — hopefully — as good as new.' If it doesn't pan out we can at least get zombie bacon and spam."
Comment read the TOS (Score 1) 453
you mod the console you can't use live there are no legitimate hobbyists running modded consoles on live either to run pirate software or cheat a game you want to play on live and console mod get 2 one to play one to hack or stop being surprised when you get banned and shut the fuck up
Comment Re:Big news... (Score 1) 461
If half the Linux users would all send me a buck . .
you would have a sizable herd of male deer and not enough money to keep 'em
Comment Re:Big news... (Score 1) 461
"It never snows in August"
come to North Dakota and say that
Comment someone's asleep (Score 1) 594
this was in the pathetic local paper on Wednesday
Prototype Vehicle For the Blind 238
An anonymous reader writes "A student team from Virginia Tech Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory have created a vehicle which allows the blind to drive. The vehicle uses a laser range finder to determine distances and alerts the driver through voice commands and vibration. Tomorrow [Friday] morning, the vehicle will have its first public test drive at the University of Maryland. At last, Braille on drive-up ATMs may finally be vindicated."
Sandia Studies Botnets In 1M OS Digital Petri Dish 161
Ponca City, We love you writes "The NY Times has the story of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories creating what is in effect a vast digital petri dish able to hold one million operating systems at once in an effort to study the behavior of botnets. Sandia scientist Ron Minnich, the inventor of LinuxBIOS, and his colleague Don Rudish have converted a Dell supercomputer to simulate a mini-Internet of one million computers. The researchers say they hope to be able to infect their digital petri dish with a botnet and then gather data on how the system behaves. 'When a forest is on fire you can fly over it, but with a cyber-attack you have no clear idea of what it looks like,' says Minnich. 'It's an extremely difficult task to get a global picture.' The Dell Thunderbird supercomputer, named MegaTux, has 4,480 Intel microprocessors running Linux virtual machines with Wine, making it possible to run 1 million copies of a Windows environment without paying licensing fees to Microsoft. MegaTux is an example of a new kind of computational science, in which computers are used to simulate scientific instruments that were once used in physical world laboratories. In the past, the researchers said, no one has tried to program a computer to simulate more than tens of thousands of operating systems."
Apple Dominates "Premium PC" Market 475
itwbennett writes "Macs made up a whopping 91 percent of the $1,000-and-up computer market in June. Not so long ago, $1,000 got you an entry-level machine. Today the average computer sells for $701, while the average Windows machine sells for only $515. Still, Macs only make up 8.7% of PC sales. But is that really such a bad position to be in? Consider an Apples to Apples, that is, Macs to iPhones comparison: the iPhone takes only a sliver of the phone market but a much larger share of the profits."
New Zealand Tree Stuck In Evolutionary Time Warp 337
sciencehabit writes "A eucalyptus-like tree from New Zealand is still waging a battle that should have ended over 500 years ago. The tree continues to sport evolutionary adaptations, such as barbed leaves, to protect it from a large, flightless bird known as a moa. There's just one problem: the moa went extinct around 1500 AD."
Why Video Games Are Having a Harder Time With Humor 202
Kotaku is running an opinion piece discussing why video games are having a harder time being funny as they've shifted away from text-driven adventures and toward graphics-intensive environments. "As technology improved, things began to get more serious. With the rise of 3D technology a strong focus was put on making games look good, delivering a more realistic — and often darker — experience to the player. Cartoonish comedic games became more of a novelty than the norm. Few titles, such as Rare's Conker's Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64, fully embraced humor." The article also talks about how the trend could soon reverse itself. LucasArts' Dave Grossman said, "As the games get smarter and start paying attention to more things about what the player is actually doing, using that ability not just to create challenges but to create humorous moments will be pretty cool. Eventually I expect to be out of a job over that."
