Comment Re:I don't think they care (Score 1) 744
How long has the definition of "Natural" been "Leads to Reproduction"?
And to think that all this time I thought it meant "occurs in nature without the aid of Man".
Comment Re:Elder Scrolls: Oblivion suffers from this (Score 1) 369
I think you're blaming consoles for what are simply just missing or poor features.
All three of those things are annoying on a console too. They're not a result of the game being available on consoles.
Comment Re:Pedantry and Nothing More (Score 1) 353
What does the 6510 have to do with anything?
GEOS was an OS for the C64, and Workbench was the Amiga.
No one mentioned CPUs.
Magnetic Brain Stimulation Makes Learning Easier 208
cylonlover writes "Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a technology that temporarily activates – or inactivates – parts of the brain using magnetic stimulation. Its ability to selectively turn areas of the brain on or off allows the functions and interconnections of the brain to by studied in a noninvasive and painless manner. Now researchers have shown that the technology can be used to enable rats to learn more easily. While smarter rats probably aren't high on anyone's wish list, the technology shows potential for allowing TMS to better treat a variety of brain disorders and diseases in humans, such as severe depression and schizophrenia."
Comment Re:Australia! (Score 1) 439
No, 1st of June until 31 August in quite a lot of the southern hemisphere - Australia included.
Comment Re:Will this get Americans out of their SUV/Pickup (Score 1) 417
It's already that in Australia, and it's as much as $8.50 per gallon in the UK
Comment Re:Still... (Score 2) 223
The GPL is not an EULA, it's a distribution license.
You're free to use GPL'd software any way you like without agreeing to the GPL, you just can't distribute it.
Comment Re:Windows-only game? (Score 1) 231
Civilization Revolutions is not "Civilization on the console", it's "Civilization for casual gamers". There's no technical reason why Civ IV or Civ V couldn't be ported to console without any loss in functionality, it's just that whatever focus groups they talked to fell for the Wii myth that console gamers have a 5 minute attention span.
I've spent hundreds of hours playing Morrowind and Oblivion on a console, and would have loved to see a full Civilization console port.
Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 742
it's not a case of "big bad windows" at all. The only politics is in your head.
It's a case of learning to be flexible and understanding the concepts rather than rote learning of a tool.
Its the same principle that has universities teach programming languages you probably won't use in the workforce, and why high schools offer spoken languages you'll probably never really use.
Comment Re:properly abstract your UI and it won't matter (Score 1) 331
Good luck getting to that end without a programmer though.
Comment Re:They deserve any late fees they get? (Score 2, Informative) 195
This actually happened on Thursday. Some people are still waiting for their money, with 40,000 or so likely to still be waiting on Monday.
Comment Re:LEGO and BASIC (Score 1) 458
If you think QBasic is the reason you're not a programmer, then I'm afraid the reason is a little deeper than that.
QBasic is a fully featured, structured language. It bears very little resemblance to the BASIC seen on 80s 8bit computers. But even if you learnt with traditional BASIC, it still shouldn't have scarred you for life. You should have been aware of the limitations of the language, and been adapting the good design in your head to fit within its constraints - rather than letting the constraints dictate the design.
Hard-Coded Bias In Google Search Results? 257
bonch writes "Technology consultant Benjamin Edelman has developed a methodology for determining the existence of a hard-coded bias in Google's search engine which places Google's services at the top of the results page. Searching for a stock ticker places Google Finance at the top along with a price chart, but adding a comma to the end of the query removes the Google link completely. Other variations, such as 'a sore throat' instead of 'sore throat,' removes Google Health from its top position. Queries in other categories provide links to not only Google services but also their preferred partners. Though Google claims it does not bias its results, Edelman cites a 2007 admission from Google's Marissa Mayers that they placed Google Finance at the top of the results page, calling it 'only fair' because they made the search engine. Edelman notes that Google cites its use of unbiased algorithms to dismiss antitrust scrutiny, and he recalls the DOJ's intervention in airlines providing favorable results for their own flights in customer reservation systems they owned."
An Illustrated Version Control Timeline 244
rocket22 writes "Most software developers are supposed to be using the latest in tech and see themselves as living on the edge of software innovation. But, are they aware of how old some of the tools they use on a daily basis are? There are teams out there developing iPad software and checking in code inside arcane CVS repositories. Aren't we in the 21st century, the age of distributed version control? The blog post goes through some of the most important version control systems on the last three decades and while it doesn't try to come up with an extremely detailed thesis, it does a good job creating a catalog of some of the most widely spread or technologically relevant SCMs."
Immaculate Conception In a Boa Constrictor 478
crudmonkey writes "Researchers have discovered a biological shocker: female boa constrictors are capable of giving birth asexually. But the surprise doesn't end there. The study in Biology Letters found that boa babies produced through this asexual reproduction — also known as parthenogenesis — sport a chromosomal oddity that researchers thought was impossible in reptiles. While researchers admit that the female in the study may have been a genetic freak, they say the findings should press researchers to re-think reptile reproduction. Virgin birth among reptiles, especially primitive ones like boas, they argue may be far commoner than ever expected."
