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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What's there to like about the BETA? (slashdot.org) 7

Submitted by Narnie
Narnie writes: I come to /. not for the nearly interesting pseudo-tech articles, but for the lively, self-moderated discussion. Today I'm bit surprised to see every discussion summarized to fuckbeta. Popping up all over the place there's discussions about beta and even alternatives being revived and created. As I tend not to RTFA, I haven't sampled the beta myself. So, I ask you guys, what's there to like about the BETA and what's there to loath?

Comment Re:Gov't project (Score 1) 516

by Spliffster (#45074107) Attached to: Administration Admits Obamacare Website Stinks

All the early rockets in the space race were later used as ICMBs (mercury -> atlas, gemeni -> titan, both became ICBMs). Except the saturn V most prior mature rokets became ICBMs and NASA did the development. You might head over to wikipedia and read a bit about it. Usually it's not clearly stated but if you compare the military programmes with the NASA's you'll start to see that the space race actually survived because of the military value (and the obvious political one, but that wasn't the only reason).

Comment Re: Contracts will never go away in the USA (Score 1) 329

by Spliffster (#43693893) Attached to: The Days of Cheap, Subsidized Phones May Be Numbered

Hello. I am living in a country where cellphone network providers are regulated by the state. They must offer sim cards without phone contracts. I get 100% coverage in my country with all carriers and pay 69$ a month for unlimited text, speech and internet. The phone i bought (Galaxy Nexus) has cost me $380 and will last for 2 years.

Before we had this regulations I payed at least twice the price per year. I took about 2 years for the market to adjust and priced dropped significantly. Our telcos are still reporting huge profits every year so the must have made much more before.

Basically because most f the people here started buying the phones, the cellphone providers became just another data provider (utility). Subsidized phones have kept the prices artificially high in the past.

Best
-S

Comment Re:Grow Up (Score 1) 965

by Spliffster (#43168641) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Mac To Linux Return Flow?

I feel your pain. My primary desktop computers run linux since 2001. The last couple of years has been a real PITA with change for changes sake. I've been through KDE, Gnome, XFCE and various light weight DMs. With the release of e17 I switched to Bodhi and am pretty happy. If they keep their release cycle, e18 will be out around 2020 ;)

Best
-S

Submission + - Command & Conquer recreated in HTML5, with multiplayer!! (adityaravishankar.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Back in the deep dark days of 1995, computer gaming was very different from what we know today. It was slower, blockier, and everything was a pain to install. Still, many gamers of the era have fond memories of the original Command and Conquer, later renamed Tiberian Dawn. This real-time strategy game pitted the Brotherhood of Nod against the GDI in all-out war. Now you can play this classic PC title entirely in your browser . What an age we live in.

An enterprising coder, Aditya Ravi Shankar, actually recreated the strategy game using nothing but HTML5, where it runs on 69k of Javascript. Why did he set out on such an adventure? For starters, Shankar’s attempt was a self-mandated undertaking in order to improve his coding skills, where he gave himself a one month window to rebuild the game in the browser, and had to comb through the original game’s files in order to obtain all the right sprites, sounds and specs.

According to Shankar, “In hindsight, I might have wanted to take smaller steps and make a tower defense game instead of jumping directly into an RTS. Trying to do the whole thing in under a month all by myself wasn’t the smartest idea.”

This implementation of Command and Conquer has been developed entirely in HTML5, so any modern web browser should be compatible. In its current incarnation you can’t play the entire game. You can run through the first few levels of both campaigns, but there is online multiplayer support through node.js.

All the assets and audio are lifted directly from the original game, circa 1995. The developer stresses that the port was not created for financial gains, but only as a proof of concept. The game itself is available as a free download from EA , and has been for a few years. Considering this, you might be able to get away with calling the HTML5 port fair use.

The game itself plays well in most places. Unit movement seems a little clumsy, but this might be a fair representation of the original game. The multiplayer skirmishes are good for a few rounds of fun, but many of the structures and units from the full game are missing at this point. Assuming the developer does not get a cease and desist, more content could be added later.

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