Cyphertube - Slashdot User

The Sims 3 To Mesh With Social Networks 25

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday May 02 2009, @06:26AM
from the linked-sim-book-space dept.

Electronic Arts has released a good bit of information about the online aspects of The Sims 3, which is due for release in early June. The game will have downloadable content available on launch day that includes a second, separate town called Riverview. They'll also be revamping the game's website to allow the sharing of content and integration with social media. In addition, EA mentioned that the game will make use of micro-transactions, which players can use to buy things like furniture, clothing, and other items.

Senator Arlen Specter Becomes a Democrat 1124

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 28 2009, @03:52PM
from the crossing-the-aisle dept.

Akido37 was one of many readers letting us know that US Sen. Arlen Specter has changed parties to become a Democrat. This gives the Democrats 59 seats in the Senate, and 60 if and when Al Franken gets seated from Minnesota. However, Specter said in his announcement that he will not be an automatic 60th vote for breaking Republican filibusters. While the senator's move seems to have surprised many Republicans, it is understandable to moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who said, "You haven't certainly heard warm encouraging words of how they [Republicans] view moderates. Either you are with us or against us." Specter noted that in his home state of Pennsylvania, 200,000 formerly Republican voters switched party allegiance last year.

Exploring the Current State of Beta Testing 82

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday April 20 2009, @06:19PM
from the only-if-you-actually-learn-from-the-past dept.

Karen Hertzberg writes "Since the earliest days of MMO gaming, beta testing has played a pivotal role in the success or failure of our persistent worlds. We've come a long way since the initial tests of Ultima Online and The Realm, but what role do our current beta tests play in the potential outcomes of unreleased titles? To answer this question, Ten Ton Hammer turned to current and former beta decision makers at Cryptic Studios, NetDevil, Sony Online Entertainment, Funcom, and Mythic Entertainment. Some of their answers — and the information they reveal — may surprise you."

Comment: Misread (Score 1) 111

by Cyphertube on Saturday April 11 2009, @11:54AM (#27542367) Attached to: How Facebook Runs Its LAMP Stack

When I first saw the post, I though it said how Facebook RUINS its LAMP stack.

I think that has to do with my experience with the apps and how often things timeout in that regard. It's a little frustrating and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the guys at Facebook, but it is interesting to find how that third-party experience affects my subconscious.

Comment: What is there to watch anymore? (Score 2, Insightful) 798

by Cyphertube on Monday March 16 2009, @05:35PM (#27217347) Attached to: Sci Fi Channel Becoming Less Geek-Centric "SyFy"

I haven't watched much of Sci Fi in a while. I used to watch Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, but they're done. I would have continued watching Battlestar Galactica, but it kept jumping around, so now I'm waiting and just getting it on DVD.

Nothing else had really jumped out at me lately. But then again, ever since the whole Farscape fiasco, it's been clear that the management doesn't have a clue how to run a channel that is targeted towards a particular interest group and then use that for better advertising prices.

The more this crap goes on, the more likely I am to stop watching a lot of TV and just buy stuff on DVD or watch it on the Internet.

Comment: Re:Cost of fighting global warming is worse than G (Score 1) 1061

by Cyphertube on Tuesday January 27 2009, @02:27PM (#26626163) Attached to: Global Warming Irreversible, NOAA Scientist Finds

As a libertarian, I'd be more inclined to simply sue you for polluting.

Just because it is 41 does not mean that an average temp for January indicates a lack of global warming. You look like someone who knows little about the weather and are mathematically ignorant.

To make a realistic argument, you have to look at the data, the source of the data, etc. A real analysis would be nice. I'm currently in a place where some winters are colder than others. Sometimes we get snow only once, and other times we get dumped on. Back in 1994, we hit around 20 below Fahrenheit.

Yeah, the medication issue sucks, but it's not just the laws, but the laziness of pharmaceutical companies. I take a ton of meds, and they piss me off too.

Comment: Time to plan for a different location for retiring (Score 1) 1061

by Cyphertube on Tuesday January 27 2009, @02:23PM (#26626055) Attached to: Global Warming Irreversible, NOAA Scientist Finds

So, again, as much as I never wanted to live in FL for the hurricanes, it's going to be interesting.

The problem with trying to find the right place to live within the concept of global warming is that while the average global temperature goes up, the temperature swings in some places should increase. Summers may well be hotter and winters cooler.

Since I want to live in Scotland, my concern is regarding any shift to the Gulf Stream and the effects that would have.

Comment: Not surprised (Score 1) 369

by Cyphertube on Saturday January 17 2009, @03:00PM (#26498915) Attached to: Belkin's Amazon Rep Paying For Fake Online Reviews

Belkin is one of those companies that managed to piss me off years ago. They offshored their customer service and then provided crap equipment.

I lost well over $50 on Belkin hardware for which they never reimbursed me after I sent the defective crap back.

So, like most companies with no ethics, I'm not surprised they'd pay people to write reviews that are worthless.

Rolling my own parental controls in Linux 0

Submitted by ZekeSMZ on Sunday July 22 2007, @09:26PM

ZekeSMZ writes "It's been a year since I made the switch from windows to Ubuntu, and I can safely say I'm never going back. One of the best things I've done is to set up an Edubuntu system for my kids — ages 4 and 2. With applications such as Supertux, TuxPaint, G Compris, Stellarium and even Kolf, they amuse themselves for hours with the machine and can't damage it like they can a Windows box.

Now that my 4 year old is learning to read and type, I'd like to set up some form of parental controls on my network. I consider myself a moderately competant Linux user, but I do not have anything approaching the skills of the talented sysadmins I've worked with over the years. So, I'd like to reach out to the Slashdot community for advice on how to lock down my network so that they won't accidentally bump into the seedier side of the web.

What are the best firewall apps to use for internal filtering? Do (or could) any of them support pro-active whitelisting, where I could get an email with a blocked URL that my kids tried to visit, and in response — I set up a rule to allow or deny access to the URL. This is a fairly mainstream feature of various parental control software out there, how could a similar solution be set up in Linux?

I'm going to assume that my kids are smarter than me and will one day figure out how to own the network. You get bonus points if you can give pointers on setting up a dual system, one that they can hack, and one that is running in the background in silent or stealth mode to monitor activity. My intent here is not to be big brother, but rather a responsible parent."

Timewarner DNS Hijacking 0

Submitted by

Exstatica

on Sunday July 22 2007, @06:06PM

Exstatica writes "It looks like Timewarner is taking botnets into their own hands. They've hijacked dns for a few irc servers. The latests being irc.vel.net, irc.mzima.net, and irc.nac.net all part of EFNet. Using ns1.sd.cox.net the lookup returns an ip for what looks to be a script that forces the user into a channel and issues a set of commands to clean the drones. There have been different reports of other irc networks being hijacked and other dns servers involved. Is this the right way to handle this? Is hijacking DNS illegal?"