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The Internet

Time Warner Shelves Plans For Tiered Pricing 210

Posted by timothy
from the meek-will-continue-to-subsidize-the-bold dept.
The FNP writes "Time Warner has postponed their plans to test tiered data caps in Greensboro NC, Rochester NY, San Antonio TX, and Austin TX. This announcement comes shortly after the media started reporting on Eric Massa's opposition and protests planned for this Saturday outside of Time Warner's offices in Greensboro and Rochester." There's also a good piece at Ars on the fall of the current tiered-pricing plans.
The Military

North Korea Missile Launch Fails 609

Posted by timothy
from the one-of-the-strings-must-have-broken dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Remember the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch by the North Koreans last night? You know, the one that went over Japan and supposedly put a 'communications satellite' into orbit. Well, according to the US Northern Command and NORAD it has been a complete and utter failure, with the second stage and payload 'falling in the Pacific.'"
Biotech

Scientists Map Neanderthal Genome 229

Posted by timothy
from the first-draft-means-they-can-still-send-it-back dept.
goran72 writes "In a development which could reveal the links between modern humans and their prehistoric cousins, scientists said they have mapped a first draft of the Neanderthal genome. Researchers used DNA fragments extracted from three Croatian fossils to map out more than 60 percent of the entire Neanderthal genome by sequencing three billion bases of DNA."
Classic Games (Games)

Adventure Game Interfaces and Puzzle Theory 149

Posted by Soulskill
from the use-square-peg-on-round-hole dept.
MarkN writes "It seems like whenever broad topics of game design are discussed on Slashdot, a few people bring up examples of Adventure Games, possibly owing to the age and interests of our members. I'd be interested to hear the community's thoughts on a piece I wrote on Adventure Games, talking about the evolution they underwent in terms of interfaces, and how the choice of interface affects some aspects of the puzzles and design. My basic premise is that an Adventure Game is an exercise in abstract puzzle solving — you could represent the same game with a parser or a point and click interface and still have the same underlying puzzle structure, and required player actions. What the interface does affect is how the player specifies those actions. Point and click games typically have a bare handful of verbs compared to parser games, where the player is forced to describe the desired interaction much more precisely in a way that doesn't lend itself to brute force fiddling. It's a point Yahtzee has made in the past; he went so far as to design a modern graphic adventure game with a parser input to demonstrate its potential." Read on for the rest of MarkN's comments.
Hardware Hacking

Oil-Immersion Cooled PC Goes To Retail 210

Posted by ScuttleMonkey
from the next-up-hot-grits dept.
notthatwillsmith writes "Everyone's seen mods where someone super-cools a PC by submersing it in a non-conductive oil. It's a neat idea, but most components aren't designed to withstand a hot oil bath; after prolonged exposure materials break down and components begin to fail. Maximum PC has an exclusive hands-on, first look at the new Hardcore Computer Reactor, the first oil-cooled PC available for sale. Hardcore engineered the Reactor to withstand the oil, using space-age materials and proprietary oil. The Reactor's custom-manufactured motherboard, videocards, memory, and SSD drives are submersed in the oil, while the dry components sit outside the bulletproof tank. The motherboard lifts out of the oil bath on rails, giving you relatively easy access to components, and the overall design is simply jaw-dropping. Of course, we'd expect nothing less for a machine with a base price of $4000 that goes all the way up to $11k for a fully maxed out config."
United States

Dossia looking to reshape Healthcare in USA

Submitted by
adickerson0
adickerson0 writes "Applied Materials, BP America, Intel Corporation, Pitney Bowes, Wal-Mart and Cardinal Health have joined together to start Dossia. This group plans to create a free (beer) system that allows hospitals and clinics across the country to digitize and share patient records. Furthermore they plan to integrate this with EMT Services, Labs, and Pharmacies. One of the major voices in this movement is Lee Scott of Wal-Mart. Who in February announced the Better Health Care Together Coalition which involves Wal-Mart, AT&T, SEIU, CWA, Center for American Progress and the Howard Baker Center. All of which comes on the heels of the Wal-Mart $4 prescription drug plan and the opening of 76 in store health clinics (2000 planned in 5-7 years). With the support of so many large groups and what seems to be a developing health care network to support Dossia, what can the Linux community and Slashdot do to support this initiative? http://www.omnimedix.org/"

Odets, where is thy sting? -- George S. Kaufman