pradeepsekar - Slashdot User

Ocean-Crossing Dragonflies Discovered 95

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @10:45PM from the incredible-journey dept.

grrlscientist writes "While living and working as a marine biologist in Maldives, Charles Anderson noticed sudden explosions of dragonflies at certain times of year. He explains how he carefully tracked the path of a plain, little dragonfly called the Globe Skimmer, Pantala flavescens, only to discover that it had the longest migratory journey of any insect in the world."

Infinity Ward Fights Against Modern Warfare 2 Cheaters 203

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @07:56AM from the be-careful-they-cheat dept.

Faithbleed writes "IW's Robert Bowling reports on his twitter account that Infinity Ward is giving 2,500 Modern Warfare 2 cheaters the boot. The news comes as the war between IW and MW2's fans rages over the decision to go with IWnet hosting instead of dedicated servers. Unhappy players were quick to come up with hacks that would allow their own servers and various other changes." Despite the dedicated-server complaints, Modern Warfare 2 has sold ridiculously well.

Comment Re:The writer is clueless about end users (Score 1) 244

by pradeepsekar on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @12:52PM (#29885479) Attached to: Comparing the Freedoms Offered By Maemo and Android

In the GSM world, all you have to do is try your SIM on a different device, and you know if it is the network or the device. I prefer manufacturers who get users the features they need in their handsets, and telcos who look after networks. All artificial restrictions go away when you combine this with number portability.

There is no shortage of bundled and locked handsets and plans in the GSM world too. So subsidizing upfront purchase prices for the particular segment of buyers is very much possible, and happens quite a bit.

The CDMA platform may be more spectrum efficient, but IMHO, GSM wins out overall - from an user perspective at least.

Comment ASUS Eee Box PC B202 (Score 1) 697

by pradeepsekar on Sunday October 25, 2009 @02:58PM (#29866319) Attached to: Low-Power Home Linux Server?

ASUS Eee Box PC B202 runs Ubuntu Server like a dream. Have configured it as a PDC for my Windows Boxes, and trying to get Free Radius working for my Wifi network. Have got BIND, Squid running to provide the caching I need. Have not got started with the filtering, but thats the next stop after Free Radius. And VPN so that I can get back into home when I am travelling. Syslogd will also be nice to log my Internet Traffic. But that would be all I require. (My backups are on a DNS 323, so I dont plan messing with it. Anyway, this Eee box has only 160GB, hardly enough for the task at hand) It sits as a headless box in a corner and I just SSH in when I need it. Pretty, and pretty impressive for the small box it is. Atom N270, 1GB RAM is enough for what I do - CPU hardly ever spikes beyond 10-15%, and RAM is more like 25% peak that I have seen when I am logged in and swap does not really get touched. I have only one wish - a distro where all this is preconfigured or works out of the box...

Comment Life (Score 1) 376

by pradeepsekar on Tuesday June 16, 2009 @01:19PM (#28349961) Attached to: NASA To Trigger Massive Explosion On the Moon In Search of Ice

If there is a chance for water there, there may also be a chance for life. Hitting that area in this manner may just reduce that probability to zero.

Using Linux To Make a Slow, Awful WAN Connection 110

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 09, 2009 @10:21PM from the too-bad-to-be-true dept.

Julie188 writes "This is a brilliant little Linux trick from Windows fanboy Tyson Kopczynski. He wanted to test a new Windows 7 feature called Branch Cache, which caches remote data on the local machine to reduce traffic on a stressed out WAN connection. But how to fake a crappy WAN? Linux. 'The command that I executed (tc) made use of Linux Traffic Control (a kernel thing) which allows me to easily interject 100ms latency on eth1. Boff, Bonk, Pow, Plop, Kapow, swa-a-p, whamm, zzzzzwap, bam ... instant WAN crappiness,' he writes."

Worlds.com To Extend Virtual World Lawsuit To Second Life, WoW 106

Posted by Soulskill on Friday March 13, 2009 @01:28AM from the one-percent-inspiration-ninety-nine-percent-litgation dept.

FiveRings writes "BusinessInsider has a story about Worlds.com, a company that inherited the patent on virtual worlds from the Starlight Starbright Foundation and is taking it to court against NCSoft over the company's various MMOs. If successful, he will press on and sue the makers of Second Life and World of Warcraft as well. The article notes that the NCSoft case is being held in east Texas, which has been a favorable venue for patent trolls in the past."

New Google Favicon Deja Vu All Over Again? 227

Posted by timothy on Sunday January 11, 2009 @08:52PM from the matters-of-deep-significance dept.

theodp writes "Last June, Google rolled out a new favicon, the small branding icon that graces your URL bar when you visit Google. Which, as it turned out, bore a striking similarity to Garth Brooks' Circle-G logo. Well, Google went back to the drawing board and has come back with a new favicon, which it says was inspired by — not copied from, mind you — its users' submitted ideas. Some are also seeing inspiration elsewhere for the new favicon, which consists of white 'g' on a background of four color swatches. Take the AVG antivirus icon, for instance. Or everybody's favorite memory toy, Simon. Or — in perhaps the unkindest cut of all — the four-color Microsoft Windows logo, shown here with a superimposed white '7'. Anything else come to mind?" What comes to mind for me is just how obsessed many people are with the Google favicon.

Comment Re:Reality is different. Re:Morality police (Score 1) 292

by pradeepsekar on Saturday January 03, 2009 @05:46PM (#26314355) Attached to: India Sleepwalks Into a Surveillance Society

For those in power who know how to wield it, such laws simply become an excuse to harass anyone and everyone as they please. The current system is full of laws and regulations that make even the most law abiding person wilt under scrutiny. The only defense is anonymity - in the large number of people in the nation. Just hope that no one notices you - and if they do, well, ...

Avoiding Wasted Time With Prince of Persia 507

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 30, 2008 @03:32AM from the getting-to-the-good-stuff dept.

Zonk pointed out an interesting video presentation by Shamus Young on the importance of the new Prince of Persia, calling it the most innovative game of 2008. Young brings up the fact that many of today's games punish failure by wasting the player's time; being sent back to a check point, the beginning of a level, or sometimes even further. This cuts into the amount of time players have to enjoy the meat of the game — the current challenge they have to overcome. Unfortunately, as Young notes, modern controllers are designed for players who have been gaming since they were kids, and have evolved to be more complicated to operate than an automobile. The combination of these factors therefore limits or prevents the interest of new players; a problem Prince of Persia has addressed well through intuitive controls and the lack of punitive time sinks.

Mechanical AI Made In LittleBigPlanet 65

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday December 20, 2008 @01:45AM from the somebody-make-a-quake-3-LBP-port dept.

Laurens writes "Despite slow sales of LittleBigPlanet in the USA, you might have heard of the calculator made within the game, but now that has been topped. I found a fully-functioning AI machine which plays Tic-Tac-Toe against the player. Considering that you can't actually program in LBP, this feat is impressive; it is a machine which has mechanical AND and OR ports made of pistons and proximity detectors, a physically moving Program Counter, and hundreds of wires. The level is called 'Tic Tac Toe' and is by author Cristel." Another player created a similarly amazing level that is a recreation of John Conway's Game of Life.

How To Cut In Line and Not Get Caught 256

Posted by samzenpus on Friday November 07, 2008 @03:07PM from the no-cuts dept.

ewenc writes "A psychology study of hundreds of people waiting for front-row access to U2 concerts points to the best ways to cut in line and not get caught. 'Super-fans' are most irked by queue-jumpers. People were equally peeved whether someone cut in front or behind, and cutters who jumped beside a friend were less likely to attract scorn."

Submission + - Vista Explorer thinks 647MB>219GB

Submitted by pradeepsekar on Tuesday October 02, 2007 @02:54PM

pradeepsekar writes: The latest error I have noticed on my Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit is that copying a 647MB File to a partition with 219GB free gives a 'not enough disk space' error — both on using Explorer and the Move command from the prompt. Smaller files (27MB) copy fine. Thankfully, xcopy managed to copy the files without complaining. Once the file (647MB) had moved to the large drive, copying it again to another drive with 219GB free worked fine...

Interestingly, this very same error appears to have existed in XP in 2005 — http://west-wind.com/WebLog/posts/1556.aspx

Submission + - Forking Ideas From Ex-Boss

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 18, 2007 @08:09PM

An anonymous reader writes: I have decided to leave my current company of 10 years, after seeing a piece of application developed by me not fully utilized to serve and capture market shares, and I would like to start a new business offering a similar service. This app is surprisingly simple, like an online contact form with a few backend logics for distribution purposes, it is not currently patented and possibly cannot be patented. Obviously I will steer clear of using any codes in the existing app, but would there still legal problems by "forking" a similar service given my intimate involvement with the development in its previous life, and what steps should I take to minimize these risks?

Submission + - Java volcano in Indonesia akin to potato gun

Submitted by Kazlor on Sunday February 25, 2007 @07:48AM

Kazlor writes: Just saw this earlier on BBC earlier. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6392995.st m Apparently they're trying to plug up the volcano, Java, in Indonesia with cement balls, weighing up to 250kg (500 pounds). Common sense from playing with tennis ball cannons and potato guns as a kid tells me that it's gonna use a side pocket to relieve back pressure before chucking it out like someone drinking water down in Mexico.

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