Comment Re:Is it fun? (Score 1) 113
If it's open source I'm sure some crazy person somewhere will invent new and weird gameplay mods you can try out.
Eventually one of them has to be awesome...
Comment Re:Aluminum powder is green? (Score 1) 157
But it burns water and aluminum. Using natural water makes anything green.
Comment The end is near! (Score 1) 635
Oh no, now they'll have to make more inkblots!
Submission + - Detroit Spammer Pleads Guilty (czmyt.com)
Czmyt writes: "Five individuals pleaded guilty today in federal court in Detroit for their roles in a wide-ranging international stock fraud scheme involving the illegal use of bulk commercial e-mails, or "spamming." Alan M. Ralsky, 64, of West Bloomfield, Mich., and Scott K. Bradley, 38, also of West Bloomfield, both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud and to violate the CAN-SPAM Act. Ralsky and Bradley also pleaded guilty to wire fraud, money laundering, and violating the CAN-SPAM Act. Under the terms of his plea agreement, Ralsky acknowledges he is facing up to 87 months in prison ...."
Submission + - Penguin Poop Seen from Space (nationalgeographic.com)
bob5972 writes: Finally, satellite imagery has done something useful for mankind.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090603-penguin-poop-video-ap.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090603-penguin-poop-video-ap.html
Comment Old News (Score 1) 469
The study cited in the main article was done in the '80s, and said the rats "might have died" from lack of sleep. The other link is a newspaper article published in 1997. This is hardly "groundbreaking."
Submission + - Steam Still Selling Broken PC Game After 2 Months (shacknews.com)
kribby writes: "People who have bought 'Earth 2160' via Steam have not been able to enjoy their purchase for more than 2 months. The user is greeted with a "failed to get steamid" error message upon startup. There are several forum threads related to the problem, but Steam has failed to give a specific announcement or provide refunds."
Submission + - MIT and the Constant Robotic Gardeners (singularityhub.com)
Singularity Hub writes: "MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is pioneering the field of automated farming. During a semester long experiment, CSAIL's researchers created a laboratory farm: tomato plants in terra cotta pots with artificial turf for grass. The goal of the experiment: to see if these tomatoes could be grown, tended, and harvested by robot caretakers."
Submission + - Chimpanzees exchange meat for sex (bbc.co.uk)
the_therapist writes: "A team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, studied chimps in the Tai Forest reserve in Ivory Coast and discovered that chimpanzees enter into "deals" whereby they exchange meat for sex.
Among the findings are that "male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts". They also found this to be "a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are"."
Among the findings are that "male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts". They also found this to be "a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are"."
Submission + - D&D co-creator Dave Arneson has died (escapistmagazine.com) 1
Bizzeh writes: "Dave Arneson, half of the duo — the other half being Gary Gygax — that created influential tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons, passed away earlier today. Known recently for his teaching at Full Sail College in Florida as well as his fantasy RPG Blackmoor, Arneson had been struggling with his health ever since a stroke in 2002.
According to The Escapist, Arneson's health worsened last week and he was admitted to the hospital. Unforutnately this morning, things took a turn for the worse. We extend our deepest condolences to those affected by Dave Arneson's passing, especially his loved ones."
Submission + - "We're Linux" Finalists announced (ostatic.com)
ruphus13 writes: In an effort to drive more awareness to Linux, the Linux Foundation announced the "We're Linux" contest. Over 90 entries were received, and the finalists are now out. From the article, "The contest was spawned from the idea that other software companies were paying millions of dollars to celebrities for endorsements, while Linux was promoted and shared by enthusiastic, passionate, actual users. Contestants were given a simple directive: tell the Linux Foundation what Linux is for you, why you use it, and why you'd encourage others to do the same. Humor and professional production quality weren't required — it just had to be genuine." Details on the finalists can be found on the Linux Foundation Video site here.
Submission + - UK Home Office Site Links to Porn 1
Azaril writes: The British home office had an embarrassing incident this morning, when it was discovered that a link to the new legistlation on data retention actually linked to a Japanese porn site. Apparently, the home office forgot to renew the domain name, and didn't change the link when it was bought by a japanese company. This of course comes after the news that the home secretary claimed pornographic films on her expense account.
Submission + - Cloud control: the ways Microsoft is battling (networkworld.com)
Julie188 writes: "Microsoft has announced its next iteration of .NET Services, which in which it promises that .Net in the cloud will be interoperable with other cloud services written in any other language. Live Framework, and its underlying sync services, could be one of the most interesting aspects of the Azure platform. It's unique and no one else is seriously tackling that part of the problem. These are just a few of the ways Microsoft will do battle with the so-called Cloud Manifesto club (Sun, IBM, Red Hat, Amazon and Google), says blogger Mitchell Ashley."
Submission + - Design software giants target the unemployed
avishere writes: "People may be losing their jobs, but for savvy/vulture-like execs, the economic meltdown is the perfect time to get their software into the hands of who can't afford their multi-thousand-dollar price tags. Software giants Autodesk and SolidWorks have each latched onto the worst-economic-disaster-since-the-Great-Depression meme and released free versions of their flagship computer-aided-design brands before their potential users are forced to sell their laptops on Craigslist. "In these uncertain economic times," Autodesk coos sympathetically, it will give away temporary licenses of AutoCAD and others ($5,000+) to those unemployed in the fields of architecture, engineering and design. (They are also developing a Mac version, two decades too late.) SolidWorks was quick to respond with its subtly titled Engineering Stimulus Package. So if anyone out there has their weekdays free, jumpstart your hardware and design projects for cheap. Legally, too."
Submission + - All your dollars are belong to us!
blastard writes: The U.S. Treasury website is currently unreachable, requiring all visitors to login in with username and password. No word on when the U.S. Department of Treasury will stop being super secret.
