sandmaninator - Slashdot User

Comment Sony is making the right move - towards Steam (Score 2) 371

by sandmaninator on Friday March 30, 2012 @05:00PM (#39528263) Attached to: PlayStation 4 'Orbis' Rumors: AMD Hardware, Hostile To Used Games

I love Steam because I don't have to hassle with selling my used games. It does not bother me in the least because I never pay over $15 for a game. They frequently have great sales and you can build an awesome library with very little money.

A console that would work the same way would be a great thing. Of course, Sony needs to work on their security... and their game prices!

Comment Re:But a plecebo is the most effective drug of all (Score 1) 566

by sandmaninator on Monday March 05, 2012 @07:38PM (#39255487) Attached to: Growth of Pseudoscience Harming Australian Universities

But a patient's belief that the placebo works is required for it to work! You want Aussies to get their placebos from unaccredited hacks? The "drugs" will likely work better if they come from graduates!

Healing is a great deal more about psychology than most slashdotters would like to admit. It's a messy business, studying the human mind. The hard sciences have difficulty dealing with something so complex.

Comment Re:much like the folding bike (Score 1) 222

by sandmaninator on Wednesday January 25, 2012 @06:44PM (#38823291) Attached to: MIT Media Lab Rolls Out Folding Car

Folding bikes are a godsend in certain situations and even IF they have slightly poorer handling than a regular bike, they sure beat walking!

Comment Re:Just woke up and read: (Score 1) 57

by sandmaninator on Monday January 02, 2012 @12:07PM (#38563624) Attached to: Could Ancient Pottery Improve Spacecraft Tiles?

I read "Could Ancient Pottery Improve Starcraft Tiles".
Just install Starcraft2. The new tiles are excellent!

Comment Re:Remember when you're reading this... (Score 2) 214

by sandmaninator on Tuesday January 11, 2011 @06:08PM (#34840922) Attached to: Aussie City Braces For Worst Flood In 118 Years

Minnesota is one of the places on earth that suffer the widest temperature variation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Minnesota_weather_records
71 deg F change in one day
Highest temp = 114 deg F on July 6th 1936
Lowest = -60 deg F on Feb 6th, 1996 - I was in Duluth for that one. Exposed skin got damaged quickly.
Variety is the spice of life :-)

Comment Re:Focus (Score 1) 284

by sandmaninator on Friday June 11, 2010 @12:57PM (#32537510) Attached to: Japan Successfully Deploys First Solar Sail In Space

Hate to ensmallen your soul but, you are using a word made up by "The Simpsons" writers without any trace of irony.

Comment Re:The U.S. Depends on it (Score 1) 394

by sandmaninator on Thursday April 15, 2010 @01:50PM (#31860450) Attached to: Entertainment Industry's Dystopia of the Future

I quite like a lot of the shows, movies, video games and such that the US produces. I hope these businesses can work out a method to get recompensed for their considerable effort and investment so they can continue generating more.
I find older Xbox 360 games quite reasonably priced but since PC games have no secondary value, due to DRM, they should cost even less. Instead, they somehow cost more. So, I play less and less PC games despite the existence of non-evil DRM schemes like Steam. Netflix is quite a reasonable cost for entertainment.
Music is currently way overpriced for the investment required but piracy is helping publishers understand the true value of downloaded music.. Hint: it's close to free.

The 1 Terabyte SSD Arrives 237

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday April 13, 2010 @09:04AM from the that-should-be-enough dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Over recent years Solid State Drives (SSDs) have moved from luxury to affordable additions to one's PC, but mechanical hard drives are still king when it comes to capacity. That was until the revamped Colossus LT series Solid State Drive came along this week. With up to 1TB, the drive offers offers massive storage capacities of the level normally not seen in SSDs. While 1TB of SSD space hits right at the heart of the traditional hard disk market, it comes at a high price — at around $4,000 for the 1TB model, these drives are in the realm of aspirational rather than practical."

Comment Re:They don't like supporting it (Score 1) 619

by sandmaninator on Monday January 18, 2010 @06:54PM (#30813872) Attached to: HandBrake Abandons DivX As an Output Format

I use handbrake to create videos for PSP. The PSP presets were broken in Handbrake 9.3 and they completely removed them in 9.4. I can't find any online posting indicating that anyone can create PSP-compatible vids using 9.4 so, on my new Windows 7 system, I need to run handbrake 9.3 in XP compatibility mode in order to create PSP-ready vids.
Handbrake devs cited the fact that none of the devs owned a PSP and that it was just too much work to ship presets for it in version 9.4.
You get what you pay for...

PlayStation Network Expanding To Involve Other Devices 63

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday January 07, 2010 @03:44AM from the making-toasters-smarter dept.

At CES, Sony's Kaz Hirai confirmed that the company will build out its PlayStation Network for use with other devices, such as televisions, Blu-ray players, and PCs. Quoting: "... the expansion starts next month with the availability of the PSN video store on these other devices, and Hirai explained they are constructing a mechanism to create a single user ID across the entire network (if you have a PSN account, it's good to go on any other applicable Sony device, and if you create one on another device, it'll work on PSN). And finally, Hirai also announced the formation of a new Sony division — called Sony Network Entertainment, Inc. — to drive this expansion of the PSN service into a Sony-wide network."

EA Shutting Down Video Game Servers Prematurely 341

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @07:42AM from the sixty-dollar-yearly-fee dept.

Spacezilla writes "EA is dropping the bomb on a number of their video game servers, shutting down the online fun for many of their Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3 games. Not only is the inclusion of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles odd, the date the games were released is even more surprising. Yes, Madden 07 and 08 are included in the shutdown... but Madden 09 on all consoles as well?"

Comment God dammit... (Score 1) 274

by sandmaninator on Tuesday December 22, 2009 @01:00PM (#30525218) Attached to: Climate, Habitat Threaten Wild Coffee Species

Republicans don't drink coffee!

Comment Re:It's the anti-apple (Score 1) 234

by sandmaninator on Tuesday December 22, 2009 @11:12AM (#30523820) Attached to: CherryPal's $99 "Odd Lots" Netbook

Nice sig. One who complains about stupid people ought to know how to spell...

Super-Earths Discovered Orbiting Nearby, Sun-Like Star 242

Posted by Soulskill on Monday December 14, 2009 @05:52PM from the i-for-one dept.

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

by sandmaninator on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @07:19PM (#30304904) Attached to: Best PC DVR Software, For Any Platform?

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...?

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