Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror
Games

Mario Gets a Portal Gun In New Indie Game 85

Posted by Soulskill
from the princess-is-a-lie dept.
jjp9999 sends word of a game in development that mashes up Super Mario Bros. and Portal. Dubbed Mari0 by its developer, the game is being built on the Löve framework and will be released for free. The original Super Mario Bros. levels will be included, as well as some puzzle-style maps and a level editor. They also plan to include simultaneous multiplayer.
Image

Drought-Stricken Texas Town Taps Urine For Water 300 Screenshot-sm

Posted by samzenpus
from the it's-important-to-stay-hydrated dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Texas is in the midst of a drought so severe that local water management teams have decided to distribute reclaimed wastewater (aka urine). The Colorado River Municipal Water District in West Texas has broken ground on a $13 million plant that will capture treated wastewater and ready it for redistribution. After being run through microfilters and undergoing reverse osmosis, slimy sewage is cleansed with peroxide and ultraviolet light. This intense process ensures that any pharmaceuticals and carcinogens are removed, and that the H2O stands up to drinking water regulations."
Government

Why the US Govt Should Be Happy About Wikileaks 232

Posted by samzenpus
from the how-I-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-leaks dept.
angry tapir writes "WikiLeaks' leaking of classified information should be considered a blessing for the US government, and other governments should take heed of the lessons when it comes to information sharing, according to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) research associate, Professor Mike Nelson, who spent four years as Senator Al Gore's science adviser and served as the White House director for technology policy on IT, and was also a member of Barack Obama presidential campaign."

Comment: Re:Agreed (Score 2, Insightful) 741

by azaris (#35778842) Attached to: Could You Pass Harvard's Entrance Exam From 1869?

I admit, I struggled a bit with the polynomials as I don't work much with them anymore, I still don't see any direct application for them even after years of working in scientific computing. Therefore, I see them as a graduation test only, meaning "If we can force you to learn this, then we can force you to learn anything.".

Just for that you fail the exam.

Google

MPAA Threatens To Disconnect Google From Internet 468

Posted by samzenpus
from the searching-for-glass-tigers dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Over the last few months, Google has received more than 100 copyright infringement warnings from MPAA-affiliated movies studios. Most are directed at users of Google's public Wi-Fi service, but others are meant for Google employees. The MPAA is thus warning the search giant that it might get disconnected from the Internet. Although the copyright holders use strong language, these notices are simply warnings, and typically do not lead to legal action."

Comment: Re:Guilty much? (Score 1) 685

by azaris (#34441876) Attached to: Graduate Students Being Warned Away From Leaked Cables

I think the point the GP was making was that, yes the US military can instantly and overwhelmingly wipe out any civil resistance. However that is entirely dependent on said soldiers of the US military actually following those orders. If there was a civil insurrection, there is a real possibility that soldiers would simply refuse to open fire on civilians and also possible that they would simply join them.

Doesn't happen much, does it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings

Comment: Re:People would protest against raising corp. tax (Score 2, Funny) 809

by azaris (#34363710) Attached to: The Luck of the Irish Runs Out

Look, left-wing parties are likely to do well in our next election, but no-one sensible here, left or right, wants to raise the corporation tax rate. These companies provide our jobs.

If a raise would be announced, ordinary people here would really start to protest.

Ireland is not the US, where lower-middle class working people will protest on the streets saying that Mario Antoinette should have more cake.

Comment: Re:On the subject of games (Score 1) 200

by azaris (#34099146) Attached to: Developing <em>StarCraft 2</em> Build Orders With Genetic Algorithms

I'd like to see a game that isn't a click-fest, but still would offer some action and nice visuals. Something with the gameplay involving giving orders to partially autonomous troops. After giving orders, you could watch and see how they fare and perhaps give some further orders, maybe with some possible penalty incurred for breaking radio silence. Or in the setting of a Total War type of game, there could be a limited number messengers who would take time to reach the troops and even have a chance to fail in delivering your orders.

Scourge of War: Gettysburg and its predecessors Take Command: 2nd Manassas and Take Command: Bull Run pretty much work that way. The graphics are dated (think Medieval: TW quality) but functional enough, the gameplay fairly slow and meticulous. Most battles start with 5-20 minutes of maneuvering into attack positions, after which you order your divisions/brigades their set targets and watch them march into the fray. If and when things start looking bad you start to micromanage individual batteries and regiments. That's when it gets really hectic and interesting. Or you can play Empire: TW and watch the beautifully rendered but historically ridiculously inaccruate soldiers run up and down mountains on a tiny battlefield while being bombarded by overpowered artillery.

Comment: Sounds like multigrid (Score 4, Interesting) 157

by azaris (#33984906) Attached to: Astonishing Speedup In Solving Linear SDD Systems

Multigrid is theoretically O(s), so I don't immediately see how this is such a huge leap. Of course the actual complexity also depends on the problem and the implementation. Maybe their method.is applicaple to a wider variety of problems.

Also, the "iterated sparsifying" sounds a lot like algebraic multigrid.

Image

Las Vegas Hotel Vdara an Accidental Death Ray 218 Screenshot-sm

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the staying-there-next dept.
evanism writes "A hotel in Las Vegas is accidentally designed to be a massive parabolic dish that focuses the suns rays into a death ray! Burns hair, plastic and causes pain." It apparently lasts for several minutes during afternoons of bright sunlight, but if you need to perform science on it, you better hurry since they plan to ruin/fix it.
Privacy

Iris Scanning Set To Secure City In Mexico 265

Posted by timothy
from the you-blink-you-die dept.
kkleiner writes "The million-plus citizens of Leon, Mexico are set to become the first example of a city secured through the power of biometric identification. Iris and face scanning technologies from Global Rainmakers, Inc. will allow people to use their eyes to prove their identify, withdraw money from an ATM, get help at a hospital, and even ride the bus. Whether you're jealous or intimidated by Leon's adoption of widespread eye identification you should pay attention to the project – similar biometric checkpoints are coming to locations near you. Some are already in place."
Privacy

Introducing the Invulnerable Evercookie 332

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the evil-and-clever dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Using eight different techniques and locations, a 'security' guy has developed a cookie that is very, very hard to delete. If just one copy of the cookie remains, the other locations are rebuilt. My favorite storage location is in 'RGB values of auto-generated, force-cached PNGs using HTML5 Canvas tag to read pixels (cookies) back out' — awesome."

Stupidity got us into this mess -- why can't it get us out?

Close