Comment: Re:Deus Ex, anyone? (Score 1) 669
Human Revolution was pretty good, but I do generally pretend that Invisible War never happened. The original does win out for its weaving together of secret societies. That was just plain interesting.
Comment: Deus Ex, anyone? (Score 1) 669
Just had to throw that out there so that someone has to reinstall it. I played through it a few weeks ago.
Except for flashes of nostalgia where I drop something like that (or Morrowind) onto my laptop (through WINE), I don't really play games any more. And nothing on Android/iOS is even remotely interesting to me.
Except for flashes of nostalgia where I drop something like that (or Morrowind) onto my laptop (through WINE), I don't really play games any more. And nothing on Android/iOS is even remotely interesting to me.
Comment: Re:Of course there's VR movies as well. (Score 1) 61
Agreed. What they really need is the ability to pause a scene for a short period of time - or advance when you're ready - and allow the viewer to travel around the room, look at the details, choose different vantage points as the story progresses. Add details, like articles in newspapers on tables and stuff in drawers. That's what makes all the best RPGs what they are. Tell a story by adding immersion. I'd pay good money for that.
Comment: Jumpstart VR with VR Cafes... (Score 2) 61
...or something like that. Even if VR isn't quite up to spec yet, this would be a great way to get people in front of the Oculus &c. that aren't willing to shell out cash on pre-release hardware and software. That's how a lot of my friends and I got into games when we were kids - we'd go try them out at LAN cafes in town. With an investment into all of the stuff the article mentions - the omni-directional treadmill, the advanced sound system, and the headset of course - you could probably set up an hourly rate that makes the investment back pretty quickly just out of curious people.
Then when it gets really good - higher resolution, or maybe even Caprica level - upgrade to that and you'll be busy forever.
Then when it gets really good - higher resolution, or maybe even Caprica level - upgrade to that and you'll be busy forever.
Comment: This is what technology needs to be about. (Score 2) 21
Making tech accessible to people in isolated parts of the world that need it more than I do is what excites me about tech. I used to live and work in the Alaskan bush, and dust threatened to kill just about everything with an on switch during the summer, and extreme cold during the winter. Now if only we had more people focusing on making reliable, effective, and modern tools like this, and fewer working on free-to-play games designed to suck out your money/identifying information/dignity/life force.
Comment: Known Fact. (Score 1) 717
Overworking is the reason why we had all those 40-hour-workweek iniatives in the late 1800s. It applies to all industries. I happen to be a teacher, and you can expect 60-80 hour weeks as a matter of course (no pun intended). I fully agree that organizational failures show up as overwork in this fashion, and have to look no further than schools.
Comment: How often does this happen? (Score 4, Insightful) 239
Now imagine how many people get to enjoy this sort of thing on a daily basis, and either don't want to go through the trouble of challenging it or can't afford to.
Comment: Well, that's stupid. (Score 1) 387
The only argument that I can remotely see being made for this sort of legislation is 'protecting jobs in X industry.' Manufacturer distribution and sales have got to be more efficient, and probably [relatively] more honest since the manufacturer suffers directly if someone's missold or if the product is misrepresented.
Frankly, the car dealer industry is one that could disappear without many complaints from the public, but there will still be plenty of used cars.
Frankly, the car dealer industry is one that could disappear without many complaints from the public, but there will still be plenty of used cars.
+ - Graphene conducts electricity ten times better than expected-> 1
Submitted
by
ananyo
ananyo writes "Physicists have produced nanoribbons of graphene — the single-atom-thick carbon — that conduct electrons better than theory predicted even for the most idealized form of the material. The finding could help graphene realize its promise in high-end electronics, where researchers have long hoped it could outperform traditional materials such as silicon.
In graphene, electrons can move faster than in any other material at room temperature. But techniques that cut sheets of graphene into the narrow ribbons needed to form wires of a nano-scale circuit leave ragged edges, which disrupt the electron flow. Now a team led by physicist Walt de Heer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta has made ribbons that conduct electric charges for more than 10 micrometres without meeting resistance — 1,000 times farther than in typical graphene nanoribbons. The ribbons made by de Heer's team in fact conduct electrons ten times better than standard theories of electron transport they should, say the authors."
Link to Original Source
In graphene, electrons can move faster than in any other material at room temperature. But techniques that cut sheets of graphene into the narrow ribbons needed to form wires of a nano-scale circuit leave ragged edges, which disrupt the electron flow. Now a team led by physicist Walt de Heer at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta has made ribbons that conduct electric charges for more than 10 micrometres without meeting resistance — 1,000 times farther than in typical graphene nanoribbons. The ribbons made by de Heer's team in fact conduct electrons ten times better than standard theories of electron transport they should, say the authors."
Link to Original Source
Comment: Re:AltSlashdot is coming (Score 1) 2
This is interesting, but expect a C&D any time now for using the trademark. Why not something entirely new? Or pick two other punctuation marks?
Comment: Re:Give it a break already. (Score 1) 3
Agreed. Everyone needs to get a grip.
Comment: Um... guys? (Score 1) 250
So I get that the beta sucks, but aren't we going to discuss these stories a bit too?
If Dice gets the idea in their heads that we're all unappeasable *and* that /. is unprofitable, they'll give up on the paint job and just sink the whole ship.
Comment: Shazbot. Again?! (Score 1) 2219
I have to agree with the people saying that /. is about the comments. I've read through literally hundreds of comments by my peers and by wiser folk than I because I wanted to learn something and to get new perspectives. But on the beta, roughly every other article, I get this bloody error:
Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments. Try again... na-nu, na-nu!
That gets old. Neither reloading nor clicking on the try again button works. It's pretty much inevitable that they're going to 'update the look' to make it look like one of those awful clickfarm sites. That's 'in' right now. But they don't have to break the core of it.
Shazbot! We ran into some trouble getting the comments. Try again... na-nu, na-nu!
That gets old. Neither reloading nor clicking on the try again button works. It's pretty much inevitable that they're going to 'update the look' to make it look like one of those awful clickfarm sites. That's 'in' right now. But they don't have to break the core of it.
+ - New Microsoft CEO Member of Myhrvold-Gates Patent Club
Submitted
by
theodp
theodp writes "It turns out a pretty good clue that new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella enjoyed an inside track for the top job at the software giant was just a patent search away. While a USPTO search turned up no issued or pending patents assigned to Microsoft that listed Nadella as an inventor, it did surprisingly turn up 33 patent applications listing Nadella, Bill Gates, and Nathan Myhrvold as co-inventors, most of which were assigned to Intellectual Ventures holding company Elwha, LLC. So, with Nadella and Gates driving Microsoft, is it time for the software giant to provide an explanation for why its top execs were moonlighting for a patent bully, and how that squares with the Microsoft Standards of Business Conduct?"
+ - What is your best hacking and/or DOS story?
Submitted
by
drfreak
drfreak writes "I started using the Internet early in the upper 1980's. Back then most people didn't have direct access. We'd dial into a server instead which gave us shell accounts to play with and use text-based content such as UseNet and IRC.
Even with the net being that limited many of us forged our first attacks; often just to mess with our friends but sometimes also to punish an adversary. It was all in good fun back then and no real damage was intended. It also gave my friends at the time and myself a lot of new experience coding because it is always more fun to have a goal when writing a script or program than to just do "Hello World."
Ok, so I'll disclose my personal favorite: Hanging out on EFNet IRC a lot, I was always attracted to the misfits called "Operators" which actually ran (still do) the network and hanged out there. Many people (including myself) have tried and failed to hack that channel and kick all the operators out as a badge of honor. Knowing I didn't have the skill at the time to write a bot to do it, I took a bare-bones approach and read the IRC RFC looking for loopholes.
My Friends and I were so intent on hacking IRC we experimented with creating our own network of servers just to see how they operated. While doing that I had an epiphany that there was no limit on how many people can be listed in a -o message. The only limit was in the client, which was typically four.
So, I convinced a friend who was an IRCop to give me an O: line to test my new server. I then commenced to login via telnet masquerading as said server and de-op nearly everyone on #twilight_zone. The only thing which prevented my success was I was typing the list by hand and someone joined at the same time so didn't get de-opped. I was banned forever from that channel for managing to de-op a few dozen people in one line, but I still felt successful for pulling off something a regular bot could never do by my own hands in a telnet session. The only reason I wasn't banned from that network forever was out of respect for the research and attention it took to pull off the attack. I also had no idea what social engineering was back then but it was key to getting server-level access.
So what are your early benign hacks, folks?"
Even with the net being that limited many of us forged our first attacks; often just to mess with our friends but sometimes also to punish an adversary. It was all in good fun back then and no real damage was intended. It also gave my friends at the time and myself a lot of new experience coding because it is always more fun to have a goal when writing a script or program than to just do "Hello World."
Ok, so I'll disclose my personal favorite: Hanging out on EFNet IRC a lot, I was always attracted to the misfits called "Operators" which actually ran (still do) the network and hanged out there. Many people (including myself) have tried and failed to hack that channel and kick all the operators out as a badge of honor. Knowing I didn't have the skill at the time to write a bot to do it, I took a bare-bones approach and read the IRC RFC looking for loopholes.
My Friends and I were so intent on hacking IRC we experimented with creating our own network of servers just to see how they operated. While doing that I had an epiphany that there was no limit on how many people can be listed in a -o message. The only limit was in the client, which was typically four.
So, I convinced a friend who was an IRCop to give me an O: line to test my new server. I then commenced to login via telnet masquerading as said server and de-op nearly everyone on #twilight_zone. The only thing which prevented my success was I was typing the list by hand and someone joined at the same time so didn't get de-opped. I was banned forever from that channel for managing to de-op a few dozen people in one line, but I still felt successful for pulling off something a regular bot could never do by my own hands in a telnet session. The only reason I wasn't banned from that network forever was out of respect for the research and attention it took to pull off the attack. I also had no idea what social engineering was back then but it was key to getting server-level access.
So what are your early benign hacks, folks?"