Comment Use Old Hardware (Score 1) 438
Surely you have a few old boomboxes laying around?
Check out this post, should be an... inpromptu solution.
http://blogs.oreilly.com/digitalmedia/2007/07/stupid-wifi-speaker-tricks.html
Comment Re:Monk = Assassin (Score 1) 297
The issue of similarities to the Monk classes between Hellfire and D3 were addressed in the summary on here. In Hellfire, it was a far east style monk, versus the "eastern european" feel they are trying to create this time.
Now, had they gone with that far east feel (which is what I first assumed when I heard about this), then they were borrowing more than just a name from a prior game.
Comment Re:Monk = Assassin (Score 3, Interesting) 297
Blizzard seems to be borrowing a WHOLE LOT from themselves on Diablo II.
Borrowing from one game to the successor is alright, but they've borrowed a good deal from Diablo II for the original WoW. As long as it's all in good taste, I say let it.
Also, when thinking of the monk, I think of the official expansion for Diablo 1 that added the Monk class originally.
Submission + - Skype To Shutdown ? (whurl.me)
tomlins writes: "eBay is faced with the prospect of having to close down the hugely popular VIOP app Skype due to a its reliance on proprietary code still owned by Skypes' original founders who are threatening to pull the plug on the licensing agreement they have with eBay, http://whurl.me/skypeshutdown , reported by The Age"
Submission + - Kazaa to return as a legal subscription service (cnet.com)
suraj.sun writes: One of the most recognizable brands in the history of illegal downloading is due to officially resurface, perhaps as early as next week, sources close to the company told CNET News. Only this time the name Kazaa will be part of a legal music service.
Altnet and parent company Brilliant Digital Entertainment attached the Kazaa brand to a subscription service that will offer songs and ringtones from all four of the major recording companies. For the past few months, a beta version has been available.
The company tried recently to ratchet up expectations with a series of vague, and what some considered misguided, press releases.
The site will open with over 1 million tracks. According to the blog TorrentFreak, the new Kazaa will offer unlimited downloads for $20 a month.
CNET News : http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10289985-93.html
Altnet and parent company Brilliant Digital Entertainment attached the Kazaa brand to a subscription service that will offer songs and ringtones from all four of the major recording companies. For the past few months, a beta version has been available.
The company tried recently to ratchet up expectations with a series of vague, and what some considered misguided, press releases.
The site will open with over 1 million tracks. According to the blog TorrentFreak, the new Kazaa will offer unlimited downloads for $20 a month.
CNET News : http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10289985-93.html
Submission + - YouTube Dropping Support For IE6 (techcrunch.com)
Oracle Goddess writes: "YouTube is using alert banners to announce that the company will be phasing out support for the IE6 browser shortly. The online video behemoth is pointing to 'modern' browsers like Google Chrome (twice on the same page even, unsurprisingly), Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.5 as alternatives. YouTube follows in the footsteps of another Web 2.0 poster child, Digg, which recently hinted at wanting to cut support for the browser too. YouTube hasn't officially reported their desire to drop support for IE6, but it's conceivable that like Digg it would rather have its developers spend time optimizing the service for newer, better browsers than wasting man hours on the oft-despised Microsoft browser."
Submission + - Massive VisaBuxx $23 Quadrillion "Glitch"
myob1776 writes: Visa Buxx is a funded debit card program that allows parents to give their kids Visa debit cards that are funded from parent accounts. Parents can monitor the spending and funding, etc. Our kids travel a lot for sports and so we find the cards useful.
There appears to have been a massive software problem with the Visa Buxx system yesterday. I received an email from Visa Buxx informing me that my son's account was overdrawn, due to a purchase he'd made from Applebees — in the amount of $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 (that's 23 quadrillion — I had to look it up).
After checking with him to make sure he really hadn't purchased 23 quadrillion dollars worth of food from Applebees — he's really not that big an eater — I called to dispute the transaction. A tired-sounding customer service rep interrupted me: "Are you calling about the $23 trillion dollar charge?" I corrected her "Actually, it's 23 quadrillion. I looked it up." According to her this was the result of a "glitch" that affected many, many other accounts. Until it's worked out — meaning, until Visa figures out why it happened and confirms that my son did not really spend $23 quadrillion dollars at Applebees — the accounts are frozen.
There appears to have been a massive software problem with the Visa Buxx system yesterday. I received an email from Visa Buxx informing me that my son's account was overdrawn, due to a purchase he'd made from Applebees — in the amount of $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 (that's 23 quadrillion — I had to look it up).
After checking with him to make sure he really hadn't purchased 23 quadrillion dollars worth of food from Applebees — he's really not that big an eater — I called to dispute the transaction. A tired-sounding customer service rep interrupted me: "Are you calling about the $23 trillion dollar charge?" I corrected her "Actually, it's 23 quadrillion. I looked it up." According to her this was the result of a "glitch" that affected many, many other accounts. Until it's worked out — meaning, until Visa figures out why it happened and confirms that my son did not really spend $23 quadrillion dollars at Applebees — the accounts are frozen.
Submission + - Light's Repulsive Force Discovered
Aurispector writes: An article on LiveScience says a newly discovered repulsive aspect to light could one day control telecommunications devices with greater speed and less power. The discovery could lead to nanodevices controlled by light rather than electricity.
"The discovery was made by splitting infrared light into two beams that each travel on a different length of silicon nanowire, called a waveguide. The two light beams became out of phase with one another, creating a push, or repulsive force, with an intensity that can be controlled; the more out of phase the two light beams, the stronger the force."
As an added bonus, nerds may no longer need LED's to trick out their custom gaming rigs!
Comment Unpaid Interns (Score 3, Funny) 310
Works great against any vertical surface, or on-the-go!
Comment Re:SomaFM? (Score 1) 270
That's what I was afraid of as well.
I didn't start donating until the ridiculous rates from a few years ago kicked in, but here's hoping they keep going strong.
I'm thinking it would be best to just wait until they post on their blog about how it affects them. Either it'll be a huge sigh of relief, or a kick in the pants.
Comment SomaFM? (Score 1) 270
What about SomaFM? How will this affect their royalty issues?
Comment Re:If You Drink Alcohol Avoid Acetaminophen (Score 1) 631
(Oh, if only I had mod points...)
There's a drink on the market called Function : Urban Detox. It has N-acetylcysteine in it, and claims that drinking it will help prevent/remove a hangover.
Didn't think it might have an effect on APAP digestion, but after seeing that, it looks like it could help.
Submission + - Twitter users buy more music than average (arstechnica.com) 1
Death Metal writes: "Those who use Twitter buy more music than those who don't, making the Twitter-using demographic valuable to the music industry. That's the conclusion of a new report from the NPD Group, which tracked the music buying habits of nearly 4,000 Internet users. The firm found that the crossover between music buyers and Twitter users is higher than the general Internet-using population, and that this segment spends more on music than the average user."
Comment Re:No "Cowboy Neal" option? (Score 1) 491
I am appalled at the absence of chemE's. Time to "accidentally" shut down some refineries and raise the price of gas.
-Or watch everything in our local markets double in price.
Plastics interested me the most into Chem. Eng., and it really is hard to imagine where we'd be without it in the future, if that were to unfortunately happen.
Comment "Fresh new light" (Score 4, Insightful) 248
Going from XP to 7 Beta1 (and now RC), am I the only one who feels that the improved performance issues of Windows 7 may actually work? I installed a copy of the RC on my laptop, and it worked beyond what I expected. The Laptop was "powerful" enough for Vista, and it couldn't even compare to the performance my laptop was giving me currently.
I installed the Beta on my desktop, and only had one issue that isn't worth the words to complain about.
I know Vista may have been a flop to some people, but this just seems like a repeat of about 8-10 years ago. When ME came out, users found it abyssmal. But the solution seemed to be to go from 98SE to XP, and everyone was content.
This just seems like repeated history to me, as everyone jumps the XP ship for 7, because Vista is still taking water.
P.S. It's rather late here, apologies in advance. I'm probably rambling by now.
