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Comment Re:This is still no remedy... (Score 1) 311

It's happened to us all, I am certain. However, at some point (college hopefully, or at least later in the "real world") the joke's on them. Those who let the geek do all the work and make no effort to understand the project may get a passing grade, or be perceived as having accomplished something at work, but ultimately it will come around to bit them in the ass. I was in a programming class where they attempted to split the class in to those with programming experience, and those without. They then formed mixed groups. However, this backfired completely, as most of the people who were not experienced in programming let the programmer do all the work, and never learned anything. Finals came around, and, well, I imagine most of them are in that class for a second try.

Comment What? (Score 1) 664

Unlike many of the people posting here, I am actually in classes in which people bring laptops, and use them to watch youtube, play WoW, and Facebook. However, I don't find myself distracted one bit. If you find that you cannot divert your gaze from the excess flashiness of someone's game of WoW, or the boring details of their Facebook friends, then you have bigger problems than your classmates. Also, why should the professor care if people are paying attention to him? It's their money. Oh yes it is, even with financial aid. Do you really think they are going to continue paying for your education when you start failing classes? I think not.
Aside from those obvious points, there remains the many ways that laptops in class can help. For example, I've taken a laptop to one class in order to use wikipedia to fill in various details missed in the sporadic and rambling lectures of some professors. I download the powerpoint slides used by the professors so I don't have to strain my eyes trying to read badly-focused projected text from the back row (I sit in the back row to avoid distracting people, and I hate it when people look over my shoulder anyway).
Luckily, the students still hold enough of a say at the university I am attending that such ridiculous measures would never fly. But if my professors DID demand that laptops be absent from the lectures, I would be one of the few to actually be affected. Those now playing MMORPGs and Facebook games would simply find another source of distraction - perhaps cellphones (remember those? I hear they have 3D networked games and Facebook now. Amazing.) Those distracted by the laptops of others will simply find some spot of dust on the wall to attract their attention, and still not learn anything.

Comment So... (Score 1, Troll) 265

... who is surprised by this? Lots of fan projects have been shut down in recent years. Chrono Resurrection, Crimson Echoes, Halogen, etc. Anyone working on a fangame at this point and not taking drastic measures to ensure that they are not infringing on trademarks or copyright gets zero sympathy from me when they get their eventual C&D.

It's a sad catch-22 that to drum up interest in your game project you need to base it on an existing franchise. As long as people are willing to latch onto any small glimmer of hope that their favorite nostalgic game will be remade in modern times, there will be fangames. And they will be shut down.
Patents

Submission + - Google Patents Country-Specific Content Blocking

theodp writes: On Tuesday, Google was awarded U.S. Patent No.7,664,751 for its invention of Variable User Interface Based on Document Access Privileges, which the search giant explains can be used to restrict what Internet content people can see 'based on geographical location information of the user and based on access rights possessed for the document.' From the patent: 'For example, readers from the United States may be given 'partial' access to the document while readers in Canada may be given 'full' access to the document. This may be because the content provider has been granted full rights in the document from the publisher for Canadian readers but has not been granted rights in the United States, so the content provider may choose to only enable fair use display for readers in the United States.' Oh well, at least Google is 'no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn'.

Comment Re:HP didn't make the list? (Score 1) 430

"You do realize of course that the very computer you are using to bash Compaq would not be in existence if it wasn't for Compaq, right?" Yes, we'd probably be using something superior to x86. The IBM compatibles survived because they... were compatible. If Compaq hadn't reverse-engineered the PC, someone else would have, or someone would have reverse-engineered Macintosh, or something entirely different.

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