Comment I try to learn something new every... (Score 1) 160
...time I want to look smart.
Gosh, I have never answered an
I find myself making personal plans all day, and then just standing there sitting on my butt.
=/
Comment Re:Windows? (Score 4, Informative) 364
I liked the Amiga's solution: Holding down one of the Amiga keyboard buttons turned the cursor keys into a virtual mouse.
In Linux you can press SHIFT + NUMLOCK.
This toggles numpad-keys-as-virtual-mouse behaviour.
Comment Re:I surrender. (Score 5, Funny) 212
I really miss a "Well Played Sarcarm" mod option.
Comment Alcohol as fuel source. (Score 5, Informative) 894
Here in Brazil we have been using alcohol as a fuel source for years. When you go to a gas station, it is guaranteed that you will find both a gasoline pump and an alcohol pump. Most cars developed here since 2003 accept both fuels, using an engine technology called FLEX. The only difference is that the alcohol we use is called "Anidro", and it is 99.3% pure, while Ethanol is 96% pure (the rest being mostly water).
Based on this, to subsidize the price of the gasoline here, the government sets an alcohol mandate of 22%. So even if you have a gasoline-only car, you are really using 3/4 gasoline and 1/4 alcohol when you fill the tank. Since the alcohol does attack all parts of the engine that are in contact with it, engines produced for the brazilian market have a special protection layer. And indeed, owners of imported cars here usually fill their tanks with a special "premium" gasoline, that is basically pure and high-octane, to avoid damage. (Guess I don't have to say that gas stations rip you off for that)
Comment Learn with history or make the same mistakes. (Score 5, Informative) 346
I dare say that this insistence on backward compatibility is going to kill this format.
If anyone still remembers, many years ago Thomson released the mp3PRO format.
It was a low bitrate MP3 with some added spectral band data that could recreate the original
music sound quality. So in theory, you could have the same quality for half the bitrate/size.
To my decaying ears, it sounded really good at the time... if played on the supported players.
But when you played these files in any unsupported player, which happened to be all of them
except for the Thomson's Player or the Thomson's Winamp Plugin, you ended up listening to
a HORRIBLE low bitrate sound quality, since the extra mp3PRO information was ignored.
And even worse: you had no way of telling if a file being downloaded was an original mp3 file
or a new mp3PRO file, since they both used the same file extension. Maybe if they had renamed
the extension to
Years pass... and now they are doing the same thing again.
Instead of focusing on a lossless mp3 codec for a specific kind of market/enthusiast, they are
insisting in keeping backward compatibility with players using the same method as mp3PRO did.
And once more the files are going to have the same extension as the original ones, instead
of
I hope I am wrong, but this surely spells doom to me.
Comment Re:Down too?! (Score 3, Informative) 120
This is the first time I heard about Parrot, and it really got my attention as well.
I know it's common knowlegde, but you can get more information in wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrot_virtual_machine
Enjoy!
Comment Re:From across the pond (Score 4, Informative) 321
Nice!
I am totally in!
Now we only have to manage the silly limitation that April only goes to 30!
XKCD Improving the Internet ... Yet Again 204
netbuzz writes "Comic creator Randall Monroe suggested in a recent xkcd strip that YouTube comments would be better — or, more precisely, less idiotic — if only those posting them were forced to hear their words read aloud first. Well, YouTube has gone and made this "audio preview" a reality, albeit an optional one. And, it's not the first time that xkcd has contributed to the betterment of the Internet, as those who are familiar with last year's "Internet census" and its use of a Hilbert curve may remember."
Submission + - Opening a videogame business. 1
Volanin writes: I am currently finishing my plans to open a small videogame startup. I have been researching about this for some time, but I must admit that I don't know anybody that has/had first-hand experience in the game creation business near where I live. The plan is to start with a game for Nintendo DS, since games for this platform demand less resources and the platform is quite widespread. I already assembled a small team to deal with graphics, sound and programming, but I have not yet decided anything about sales or marketing, since it is impossible for me to compete with the big companies. It's certain that I am going to run into unexpected surprises, so can anyone share their experiences or thoughts? Thank you a lot!
Comment Re:Firefox Download Day - no time (Score 1) 1080
Yes it does!
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node/2438
Check your Official Firefox Release local time here:
http://tinyurl.com/4e7fv5
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/node/2438
Check your Official Firefox Release local time here:
http://tinyurl.com/4e7fv5
Submission + - Wine 1.0 Released! (winehq.org)
Volanin writes: The Wine team is proud to announce that Wine 1.0 is now available. This is the first stable release of Wine after 15 years of development and beta testing. Many thanks to everybody who helped us along that long road!
While compatibility is not perfect yet, thousands of applications have been reported to work very well. Check http://appdb.winehq.org/ to see the details for your favorite applications.
While compatibility is not perfect yet, thousands of applications have been reported to work very well. Check http://appdb.winehq.org/ to see the details for your favorite applications.
Submission + - Online Petition: Replace Next Ubuntu's Wallpaper
Volanin writes: In every Ubuntu release there is a group that is not so fond of the art. But this time, this group is a lot bigger: There is a lot of people who disliked the wallpaper, be it because of it's low quality, because they found it boring, or even because it is too similar to Vista's. And that's the reason this petition exists, to become a central point where people can manifest their dissatisfaction in a way that will reach the leaders of Ubuntu.
Submission + - KDE4 beta 3 delayed for one week.
Volanin writes: KDE4 developer Sebastian Kuegler states: 'It has just been decided that the Beta 3 will be out one week later than originally planned. This is mainly due to some changes in how plasma work that we'd like to see in the new Beta. Highlights of that will be a working panel implementation.'
Submission + - What Game Companies Want From Graduates
simoniker writes: Game education site Game Career Guide has a new feature talking to recruiters from notable game companies like EA, Insomniac Games, and THQ about the best university courses and qualifications for getting hired to be a game developer. In it, EA's Colleen McCreary notes that she feels "not all students are suited for the traditional academic experience and it's nice for those students to have options," though adds that EA encourages students "to pursue more traditional academic degrees that allow for an emphasis on game development." She also comments of the rise of some TV-advertised mass market 'game schools': "Our concern with for-profit institutions is that students may not learn the fundamental the tools for understanding and solving complex issues," she says. "We are most likely to hire someone who has a BFA or MFA from a traditional art college and a BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science for our entry level artist and software engineer positions."
S3 Tries to Get Back Into PC Graphics 171
mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech has a review of S3's attempt to get some traction in the lower-end graphics card market, the Chrome S27. Though its specs look great--256MB memory, 700MHz core clock rate, 1.4GHz memory clock, and 22.4 GB/sec memory throughput, it still manages to underperform similarly priced video cards from the red and green graphics companies."
