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Submission + - Guild Wars 2 announces release date (arena.net)

Submitted by Woldry
Woldry writes: After 5 years in development, Guild Wars 2 has announced a launch date: August 28, 2012. Their aim is to provide "a living breathing online world that challenges convention, that’s designed for fun instead of grind". There's a beta weekend planned for July 20-22 for those who have prepurchased the game (and for those who have gotten legit beta keys in advance).

Submission + - Do Passwords Matter? (net-security.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: You don't have to look very hard to find an article discussing password breaches. However, what most journalists are saying about password breaches is likely different from what I am about to tell you — it simply does not matter how strong your password is, how it is encrypted when stored by the provider, or how the transport layer is encrypted. Here's why.
Science

Submission + - Early Human Ate Like a Giraffe (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The newest member of the human family, Australopithecus sediba, ate enough bark, leaves, and fruit that its appetite was more like that of a giraffe's than a human's. That is the conclusion of a new study, in which an international team of researchers used state-of-the-art methods to analyze the diet of two australopithecines that fell into a death pit in Malapa, South Africa, almost 2 million years ago.
Idle

Submission + - Mysterious Fairy Circles Are 'Alive' (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: "Fairy circles"--bare patches of soil, 2 to 12 meters in diameter, that freckle grasslands from southern Angola to northern South Africa--have confounded humans for centuries. Locals say they're the footprints of the gods. Scientists have thrown their hands up in the air. But now, using satellite images, one scientist has discovered something no one else has: the circles are "alive". That is, the appear and disappear at regular intervals, with an average "lifespan" of about 41 years.
Microsoft

Submission + - Why Microsoft killed the Windows Start button (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "Microsoft claims it took the controversial decision to remove the Start button from the traditional Windows desktop because people had stopped using it. The lack of a Start button on the Windows 8 desktop has been one of the most divisive elements of the new user interface, and was widely assumed to have made way for the Metro Start screen.

However, In an interview with PC Pro, Chaitanya Sareen, principal program manager at Microsoft, said the telemetry gathered from Windows 7 convinced Microsoft to radically overhaul the Start menu because people were using the taskbar instead. "When we evolved the taskbar we saw awesome adoption of pinning [applications] on the taskbar," said Sareen. "We are seeing people pin like crazy. And so we saw the Start menu usage dramatically dropping, and that gave us an option. We’re saying 'look, Start menu usage is dropping, what can we do about it? What can we do with the Start menu to revive it, to give it some new identity, give it some new power?'""

Comment Re:heh (Score 1) 1091

by Woldry (#39427571) Attached to: Why Linux Can't 'Sell' On the Desktop
If you really think "/dev/sdb2 is the second partition on the device plugged into SATA port 2" counts as "trivial" to the casual computer user, you are taking your technical knowledge for granted. Most casual computer users don't have a clue what a partition is, let alone a SATA port. And actually, in Windows Explorer, the icon for the E: drive usually does give you some visual clues (and often a description) as to what physical device it might be. It's not a perfect system, and it's not always sufficiently informative, but it's usually much more transparent to the casual user.

(FWIW, I'm a Linux user myself, but my bf just doesn't get it, and I'm probably switching back to Windows because I'm tired of fighting Wine to get his Windows-only games to work.)
User Journal

Journal Journal: Libraries across Ohio face slashed budgets

Journal by Woldry
Ohio Governor Ted Strickland has proposed slashing statewide library funding by 50% over the next two years. Unlike most other states, Ohio libraries rely primarily on state support for their budgets. This means that most libraries -- which have already seen cuts in state funding of up to 20% -- will see their budgets cut in half. Smaller libraries who are already struggling will have to close outright. Larger libraries will have to cut essential s

Comment Re:Money Grab (Score 3, Insightful) 793

by Woldry (#27954025) Attached to: NY Bill Proposes Fat Tax On Games, DVDs, Junk Food
Not to mention the fact that when "Almost all experts agree" on a wide range of things, they are almost certainly going to be wrong about at least a few of them. The notions of experts about what sorts of foods make people fat have changed drastically in my several decades of adulthood. They're bound to change again. Will the taxes go away on foods that the latest scientific version of the truth decides are no longer fattening? Of course not. They'll stay, and also be added to the new alleged culprits, as more and more foods fall under the tax.

And then, aside from the food question, there's the question of whether it's in the best interest of government to discourage mental activity and learning (in the form of games) on the dubious assumption that the alternative that people will choose will be healthier.

Comment Re:BRILLIANT IDEA (Score 2, Insightful) 189

by Woldry (#27953591) Attached to: Cory Doctorow Says DIY Licensing Will Solve Piracy
If a bread multiplying machine was invented would you outlaw it with the best interest of bakers in mind? No. You ( we ) would want free bread. Sadly, looking at history, there would indeed be an earnest effort to halt, or at least limit, the use of such a machine, for exactly the reason you give. There would also be people decrying the machine as "untested" and demanding that it never be used till it can be proved to be 100% safe.

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