Comment God dammit... (Score 1) 274
Republicans don't drink coffee!
Comment Re:It's the anti-apple (Score 1) 234
Nice sig. One who complains about stupid people ought to know how to spell...
Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242
likuidkewl writes "Two super-earths, 5 and 7.5 times the size of our home, were found to be orbiting 61 Virginis a mere 28 light years away. 'These detections indicate that low-mass planets are quite common around nearby stars. The discovery of potentially habitable nearby worlds may be just a few years away,' said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC. Among hundreds of our nearest stellar neighbors, 61 Vir stands out as being the most nearly similar to the Sun in terms of age, mass, and other essential properties."
Comment Re:Windows Media Center (Score 1) 536
I have Windows Media Center on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit connecting to Xbox360 and it does NOT just work.
It's constantly adding videos to the library and videos that are in my video library do not show up. Viewing my photo collection is painfully slow over 100mb wired ethernet. I do not understand how people can like that software! Of course, I must be doing something wrong but how does one troubleshoot MS software...?
EA Flip-Flops On Battlefield: Heroes Pricing, Fans Angry 221
An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."
US Air Force Buying Another 2,200 PS3s 144
bleedingpegasus sends word that the US Air Force will be grabbing up 2,200 new PlayStation 3 consoles for research into supercomputing. They already have a cluster made from 336 of the old-style (non-Slim) consoles, which they've used for a variety of purposes, including "processing multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images (known as synthetic aperture radar image formation), high-def video processing, and 'neuromorphic computing.'" According to the Justification Review Document (DOC), "Once the hardware configuration is implemented, software code will be developed in-house for cluster implementation utilizing a Linux-based operating software."
Comment Re:Try Supreme Commander (Score 1) 161
I've been playing other, less-fun games to attempt curb my addiction to SupCom: FA. But I don't know what I'm going to do when SupCom 2 comes out in 2010... hopefully...?
Comment Re:How did it turn out? (Score 1) 173
Your broken-recordness would not be so annoying if it weren't so misleading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/29/nintendo-profits-plunge-wii-sales
Yes, they've sold a lot of Wiis in the past. But while Wii sales have gone down lately (despite a $50 price drop), PS3 and 360 sales numbers are flat.
I used to own a Wii. I had such a hard time finding fun games for it I sold it for near what I paid for it and bought a cheaper, more powerful 360 and have been very happy with it since. Lots of great, cheap games for it.
A Look At How Far PC Gaming Has Come 427
Bit-tech is running a feature examining the progress PC games have made over the past couple decades. The article highlights aspects of modern games we often take for granted or nitpick, and compares them to earlier games in which such features were implemented poorly or not at all. Quoting:
"Doom's legacy is still being felt today in fact and it's a fair bet that you can take any shooter off a shelf, from America’s Army to Zeno Clash, examine it, and list a dozen things that those games owe to Doom. Things like the wobble of the guns and the on-screen feedback that tells you which direction you are being shot from — these were things that id Software invented. On the other hand, from a story perspective, Doom was absolutely rubbish. You start in a room, no idea what’s going on and you are surrounded by demons. You have to read the manual and supporting media to get a grip on it all — something modern games would get heavily slated for doing. Yet the idea that plot was optional caught on and the same flaw was replicated in other games of the era, such as Quake and (to a lesser extent) Duke Nukem 3D. There were years and years where the lessons of early story-driven games were forgotten and all anyone really cared about was having as many sprites or polygons as possible."
Comment Re:What a first sentence... (Score 1) 128
I'm fairly certain there are no cheap and easy ways to drastically reduce fuel usage, or they would have thought of it by now.
They thought of it a looooong time ago. Time to start using it again!:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/22/2143897.htm
Comment The hand that giveth... (Score 1) 206
"The military also hopes to replace copper wiring in planes and satellites with highly conductive nanotubes, saving millions of dollars in fuel costs."
Comment Re:Book: Descarte's Error (Score 1) 482
Word. This is kind of a silly topic but it actually shines a bright light on
Without motivation we are nothing. Motivation is the main... uh, motivator behind everything we humans do.
If an ancestor did not feel motivated to procreate, that behavior died with that individual.
Everyone alive today contains deep-rooted psychological motivators that were selected for over thousands of years of human evolution.
Amazing to wonder if really good sex-bots (from Japan) could spell the end of humanity. So many people these days chose not to have kids... If we can't keep humanity going, why on earth would AI beings even start?
Comment Big diff between mild depression and depression (Score 1) 512
Regular depression is debilitating in almost every way.
Mild depression is unpleasant but has the benefit of helping some cognitive abilities.
Comment Re:Missing Option (Score 1) 452
Comeback? where did it go? Try Supreme Commander. It had killer PC requirements when it came out but plays very smooth on today's bargain machines. Sweet, sweet game. Less polish than a Blizzard title but definitely the best RTS since SC.
Comment Re:Slashkos (Score 2, Insightful) 1053
Another cause of obesity in the US that is absent in a lot of other countries is that the US is designed around automobile transportation. Walking and biking are strongly discouraged by the design of our roads and the spread-out nature of our cities and towns.
