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Cellphones

Austin's Alamo Drafthouse Theater Gives Texters the Boot 370

Hugh Pickens writes "Ever been annoyed during that nail-biting darkened hallway scene by someone turning on their phone to send a text? Well, don't mess with Texas or you may end up on the screen in a public service announcement. Alamo Drafthouse, a local chain of dine-and-screen movie theaters in Austin, Texas, has long waged a war against impolite moviegoers booting out customers who talk or text during performances. Phoebe Connelly writes that according to Tim League, the Drafthouse's founder, a woman was recently warned twice about texting during a screening, and then, in accordance with company policy, was escorted out without a refund. 'I don't think people realize that it is distracting,' says League. 'It seems like nothing, but if you spend as much time as I do at the movies, you realize the entire theater sees it and it pulls you out of the movie experience. It's every bit as intrusive as talking.' The irate customer called up the Alamo Drafthouse and left a profanity-laced (and perhaps slightly inebriated) message decrying the theater's policies, but the theater got the last laugh as they took the audio of the woman's voicemail, transcribed it, and turned it into an in-house preview [tl: Note, YouTube video contains some profanity] that warns theatergoers against cell phone use during movies. 'Part of what we're trying to do is have a comedic message about what to us is a very serious issue,' says League, declining to give any more details about the woman at the center of the recent PSA."
Sci-Fi

The Science of Lightsabers 232

sethmad writes "As everyone who's ever passed the GRE knows, there are two major hypothetical operational problems with Star Wars lightsabers. More accurately I should say there were two problems, because I solved both of them."

Comment Re:Linux (Score 1) 254

AMD/ATI has started a new open source driver project for their video cards (http://www.anandtech.com/show/2338). AMD is at least working for good linux support though it may not necessarily be up to snuff today (I haven't looked at benchmarks between win/linux on AMD/ATI's cards).

At least they're trying?

Comment Re:Ubuntu (Score 1) 766

Contrary to what most basic users think, they can make the switch to Win7 or Ubuntu pretty easily. Especially for basic internet and e-mail (which realistically is the extent of most people's computer use). I just switched my parents to Windows 7 and asked them what they thought. Their comments: "We didn't really notice anything".

The problem with switching family to a *nix solution is still going to be software. There are certain programs that your family will want to use that is simply unavailable. First that comes to mind is TurboTax. If you plan on switching family's OS, make sure you're not making more work for yourself down the road.

And really, with the Win7 family pack (3 upgrades for $149), Win7 is a realistic alternative to Win XP.

Comment Re:Conversion to mass in kg (Score 4, Informative) 173

The higgs is sort of the measureable side effect of the physics that 'give' particles mass.

Think of it this way. The Electro Magnetic field "gives" particles charge. (or the charge in a particle interacts with other charges through the EM field).

There are some particles that sorta 'show up' in the equations when you're dealing with the EM fields (photon, W & Z bosons).

The same sort of things happens with mass. Some physicists came up with an addendum to the current equations that would explain how the mass of particles interacts. These equations have in them (depending on version) 1 or more particles (Higgs bosons).

So it's not so much that the Higgs gives particles mass, but by detecting the Higgs, we prove the existence of the Higgs field which allows mass in particles to interact.

Comment Re:Holy shit? (Score 4, Insightful) 950

Learning to exercise and keep yourself in shape is a part of the cirriculum.

Start looking up child obesity numbers and you'll see that schools need to be doing more, not less.

I'd imagine the program is to let kids know where their heart rates are, and where they should be to get good exercise. Even if they are recording everything, it's pretty meaningless information. You'd know a person's heart rate from 7th grade.

The bigger issue here is whether your kids are getting exercise and whether they're overweight. If they're heavy, do everything possible to encourage exercise. Once the habits are set, they're incredibly difficult to change once they're adults.

Comment Re:I don't know, but... (Score 3, Interesting) 494

The OP didn't say he relies on spellcheck, but that his fingers know how to spell when his head doesn't.

I've got the same problem. Words like receive are no problem when I'm typing, but if I put pen to paper, I need to stop and think. When many people type, they think the word, not the letter. Their hands put the words from thought to type with no intermediate thought needed.

I spell by muscle memory, not thought. I'm sure the same works for people who write all the time. The pen just makes the words they need.

So how about you get off your high horse, read what the OP actually said instead of what you thought he said, and fuck off.

Comment Re:But does it work? (Score 5, Interesting) 707

This seems to make sense to me. The breathalizer is supposed to measure the blood alcohol content, and this is done by measuring the alcohol content in air expelled by the *lungs* (with a knowlege of partial pressures).

But if you equally weight beginning readings with ending readings, then you can be skewed by the first reading, which comes from the air in the mouth, instead of the lungs (giving low scores for people with time since their last drink, and people high scores with a recent last drink).

I would think that this method would give a more accurate reading by filtering out the readings from 'mouth air' and giving preference to 'lung air'.

But regardles, tests should have been done using both methods, and comparing to blood test to see which returns more consistantly accurate results. I wonder if those tests need to be made public as well.

Comment Re:I find it amusing... (Score 2, Informative) 93

Point of Interest:

The unfinished room was in the Mage *Guild* Tower in the Imperial City. The whole Arcane University was there, it was just one room that was locked. It was added later in the DLC The Orrery.

There was also a DLC called the Mage Tower. This was a house mod released all at once. I has no relation to the locked room in the Mage Guild Tower. (now that I think of it, I think the Mage Guild Tower is officially called the Archmage Tower)

Comment Re:Profit-making strategy (Score 5, Informative) 93

The point of the article, though, isn't whether they should make DLC. It's whether they should do additional content in a DLC or as a full expansion. If you remember Morrowind, there were two huge expansion packs (Bloodmoon and Tribunal). Each with an amount of play almost equal to the original game.

But Knights of the Nine, a DLC for Oblivion, only gave 10 - 15 hours of play (that of a standard primary quest line).

Easier and quicker to release and sold for less than an expansion.

Personally, I'd like an expansion over DLC (if this is the given choice). I'm ok waiting.

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