Sandman1971 - Slashdot User

EA Shuts Down Pandemic Studios, Cuts 200 Jobs 161

Posted by Soulskill on Friday November 20, 2009 @01:01AM from the say-goodnight-folks dept.

lbalbalba writes "Electronic Arts is shutting down its Westwood-based game developer Pandemic Studios just two years after acquiring it, putting nearly 200 people out of work. 'The struggling video game publisher informed employees Tuesday morning that it was closing the studio as part of a recently announced plan to eliminate 1,500 jobs, or 16% of its global workforce. Pandemic has about 220 employees, but an EA spokesman said that a core team, estimated by two people close to the studio to be about 25, will be integrated into the publisher's other Los Angeles studio, in Playa Vista.' An ex-developer for Pandemic attributed the studio's struggles to poor decisions from the management."

Comment No issues (Score 1) 1231

by Sandman1971 on Tuesday November 03, 2009 @07:11PM (#29970352) Attached to: Some Early Adopters Stung By Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

I upgraded a few days ago without any issues. The only app (so far) that stopped working for me is Handbrake. So far everything else has worked flawlessly.

From Doom To Dunia — the History of 3D Engines 117

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday July 29, 2009 @06:24AM from the looking-forward-to-tech-5 dept.

notthatwillsmith writes "It's difficult to think of a single category of application that's driven the pace of desktop hardware development further and faster than first-person shooters. Maximum PC examined the evolution of FPS engines, looking back at the key technologies that brought games from the early sprite-based days of Doom to the fully 3D-rendered African Savannah as rendered by Far Cry 2's Dunia engine. It's truly amazing how far the state of the art has moved in the last 16 years."

Comment Re:Space Quest (Score 1) 1120

by Sandman1971 on Tuesday July 28, 2009 @10:54AM (#28852547) Attached to: Which Game Series Would You Reboot?

I'd love for Kings Quest or Space Quest making a comeback. Those were the best of the adventure games.

Best Mouse For Programming? 569

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 09, 2009 @05:14PM from the keep-it-away-from-cigarettes-and-drugs dept.

LosManos writes "Which is the best programming mouse? Mandatory musts are wireless, and that it doesn't clog up like old mechanical mice. Present personal preferences are for: lots of buttons, since if I have moved my hand away from the keyboard I can at least do something more than move the pointer; sturdy feeling; not too light, so it doesn't move around by me accidentally looking at it." What would you recommend?

Comment How does this bill make a difference? (Score 2, Insightful) 439

by Sandman1971 on Thursday June 18, 2009 @01:10PM (#28376207) Attached to: Bill Ready To Ban ISP Caps In the US

Hmmm something I don't get. They want internet access to be treated like a utility. Let's see...

The more electricity I use, the higher my bill.
The more water I use, the higher my bill.
The more natural gas I use, the higher my bill.

By treating internet connectivity like a utility, that would mean that I would get billed according to usage... Which is what bandwidth caps mostly are (pay extra if you surpass a certain amount of utilization in a month). So how does this bill have any type of impact, other than ISPs having to prove to the FCC what the cost:utilization ratio is.

EU Data-Retention Laws Stricter Than Many People Realized 263

Posted by timothy on Monday April 06, 2009 @04:52AM from the you-mean-like-a-12-month-year? dept.

An anonymous reader writes with a snippet from the Telegraph: "A European Union directive, which Britain was instrumental in devising, comes into force which will require all internet service providers to retain information on email traffic, visits to web sites and telephone calls made over the internet, for 12 months."

Comment Re:Similar (Score 3, Interesting) 743

by Sandman1971 on Wednesday March 11, 2009 @12:08PM (#27151893) Attached to: Young People Prefer "Sizzle Sounds" of MP3 Format

That has nothing to do with nor does it reflect the quality of flatscreens. Box stores are known to mess up the sharpness, brightness and contrast of their TVs on the showroom floor to make it 'pop' (heck, some TVs even have a demo or showroom setting that does it at the push of 1 button). I too personally think it looks like crap at those settings.

Its best to do your homework online, then when at the store ask the salesperson if you can adjust the settings to something that you find more acceptable. I've never been turned down when I've asked this. It gives you a better representation of the quality (but not a full representation, as the lighting at your house will be different).

Generally, flatscreens are better than CRTs when calibrated properly. I know you couldn't pry my DLP out of my cold, dead hands (though DLPs are not true flatscreens). For true flatscreen, you can't go wrong with a properly calibrated Sharp Aquos.

Researchers Warn of Possible BitTorrent Meltdown 294

Posted by kdawson on Friday February 13, 2009 @10:45AM from the domino-effect dept.

secmartin writes "Researchers at Delft University warn that large parts of the BitTorrent network might collapse if The Pirate Bay is forced to shut down. A large part of the available torrents use The Pirate Bay as tracker, and other available trackers will probably be overloaded if all traffic is shifted there. TPB is currently using eight servers for their trackers. According to the researchers, even trackerless torrents using the DHT protocol will face problems: 'One bug in a DHT sorting routine ensures that it can only "stumble upon success", meaning torrent downloads will not start in seconds or minutes if Pirate Bay goes down in flames.'"

An Early Look At DC Universe Online 60

Posted by Soulskill on Monday February 09, 2009 @03:11AM from the with-x-ray-vision dept.

Joystiq got the opportunity to spend some time playing an early version of Sony's DC Universe Online . Though the MMO won't be released for perhaps a year, the developers seem to have created a solid foundation for an entertaining and innovative game. GameDaily is running an interview with Marv Wolfman, a comic veteran who recently joined the DCUO team. From Joystiq: "DCUO is very much an action MMO, with few game mechanics decided by the roll of the algorithmic dice. The game controls much like most third-person action titles, with standard light and heavy (charge-sensitive) attacks, a jump action and an interact button (notably, used to pick up cars). Super moves are mapped to the same four face buttons (when using the PS3 gamepad; a keyboard and mouse will be compatible with the console version, too) and are activated using L2 and R2 toggles. In total, up to eight super moves are easily accessible at any given time. Our character could fire ice balls and freezing rays at opponents, melee them with blocks of ice, or conveniently freeze them inside larger blocks, for example. A simple targeting mode (accessed by holding R1) locks the game camera onto an opponent for focused attacks. ... DC Universe Online isn't trying to strictly clone today's success models. SOE is making genuine efforts to build what could be the best superhero game ever conceived, and we're excited to watch it grow."

Comment Re:Ok (Score 1) 369

by Sandman1971 on Thursday February 05, 2009 @09:44PM (#26747103) Attached to: Charter Cable Capping Usage Nationwide This Month

Agreed completely.

My ISP put in a 60 gig cap last year. I surf, download anime, work from home 4-5 days a week, listen to streaming music, watch videos on youtube, play X-Box live (includes downloading videos, demos and lots of RockBand/Guitar Hero DLCs), play World of Warcraft, am constantly uploading pictures to Flickr and my blog, do a lot of emails (receive 300-400 a day for work alone), download about a dozen weekly podcasts and do the occasional download. I also download updates for the multiple OSes that I'm running (Windows on 2 machines and Linux on another).

My wife surfs the net, does email, listens to streaming music and plays some online games.

And you know what? We average around 40 gigs a month. Some months its in the low 30s, some months its in the low 50s.

Once our kids are old enough to start using the internet I'm hoping that this cap will be a little higher, but even then an 80-100 gig cap would be acceptable.

Amazon Enters Gaming Market 52

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @03:56AM from the competition-is-a-good-thing dept.

eldavojohn writes "Ars brings us news of Amazon's entrance into the casual gaming market after purchasing Reflexive last year. Amazon identifies this sort of gaming as a good start for its demographic of customers and is certainly making competitors in the field nervous. There is a lot of evidence that Amazon is testing the waters to see how these small time games go as a prerequisite to something bigger, although they aren't talking. From Ars, 'For the first week, visitors will even be able to grab three games for free: Jewel Quest 2, Build a Lot, and The Scruffs. That, along with the ability to try every game before you buy, should be enough to entice fans of casual gaming to check out Amazon's offerings. It also looks like this could be Amazon's first step into the world of digital distribution for video games.' Do you think this trial will go well for Amazon?"

Tech Publisher O'Reilly Slashes Jobs 207

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 20, 2009 @12:41AM from the more-with-less dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, geeky tech publisher O'Reilly Media has slashed 14% of its workforce, or 31 people. Founder and tech pundit Tim O'Reilly comments on the layoffs by exhorting people to 'get more with less.' According to the article, 'Just this week... both tech giant Google and book retailer Barnes & Noble announced their first layoffs ever. Other publishing houses, including HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Random House, and Simon & Schuster have frozen salaries or cut jobs, or both.'"

Wikipedia Gears Up For Explosion In Digital Media 141

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 14, 2009 @05:23PM from the until-there-is-only-one-site-on-the-internet dept.

jbrodkin writes "Wikipedia is gearing up for an explosion in digital content with new servers and storage designed to handle larger photo and video uploads. Until early 2008, the user-generated encyclopedia's primary media file server had just 2TB of total space, which was not enough to hold growing amounts of video, audio and picture files, says CTO Brian Vibber. 'For a long time, we just did not have the capacity [to handle very large media files],' he says. Wikipedia has raised media storage from 2TB to 48TB and the limit on file uploads from 20MB to 100MB. Ultimately, Wikipedia wants to eliminate any practical size limits on uploads, potentially allowing users to post feature length, high-quality videos. 'The limits will get bigger and bigger to where it will be relatively easy for someone who has a legitimate need to upload a two-hour video of good quality,' Vibber says."

Comment 3x12.5 is even better! (Score 4, Interesting) 1055

by Sandman1971 on Tuesday January 13, 2009 @09:11PM (#26442289) Attached to: How Does a 9/80 Work Schedule Work Out?

I once worked a job that was 3x12.5, and it was great! It was overnight, and the boss didn't mind if we slept during the downtimes. The staggered schedule also made it that we had a full 7 days straight off every third week (followed by 6x12.5 in 7 days, that was a bit of a killer). Though being overnight in made family life hell for 3 days, the time off more than made up for it.

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