Comment Guess that explains that (Score 2) 267
That should solve the mystery of why Wikileaks "went back" to EasyDNS for hosting. Shame that people didn't dig a little deeper when that seemed weird.
Comment Another VLC Developer's Take (Score 5, Interesting) 717
He thinks there's no real issue here.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1850340
As a major VLC developer, I have to say that the FSF is pushing bad faith and FUD.
Comment Maybe not the best example. (Score 1, Interesting) 298
a photography app that was rejected because it used the volume buttons as trigger
It's a volume button. I don't have a problem with Apple with rejecting an app that subverts the defined usage of a hardware button. I haven't used (or heard of) this app, but what does it do if you try to change the volume of your music or phone call when also trying to take a picture?
Comment Vicious Cycle (Score 2, Insightful) 254
'Why would you spend a lot of money trying to build a service in Canada when Canadians take so much without paying for it?' said Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association
How are Canadian music lovers supposed to pay for music if no one builds a service to do so?
Comment Re:I'm surprised nobody has said this yet, but.. (Score 1) 622
The short version is that Christian salvation is free. I can go to church, I can read the bible, I can get into heaven without ever giving a cent to a Christian denomination.
Christianity is only free if your time is free.
Star Guard — an Old-School Platformer Done Right 107
An anonymous reader writes "Rock, Paper, Shotgun points out a new game called Star Guard, a Flash-based platformer for Mac and PC that's a throwback to the early days of computer gaming, yet still entertaining. They describe it thus: 'Its greatest strength, to my mind, is throwing out the old-school traditions of difficulty. It does certainly get tricky, requiring the platformer standbys of carefully timed jumps and learning enemy patterns — there's something of a Metroid vibe to it. But you don't get punished for failing to meet one of its challenges — you're just plunged a few feet back to most recent checkpoint, and carry on. Lives are not finite, but the small mound of green pixels that mark your corpses are a maudlin testament to your ineptitude. However, death is useful — I ritually found myself sending in a suicide spaceman, taking out an enemy or a mine so that the path was clear for my next go. ... However, it doesn't leave people who pride themselves on their gaming skill, and demand their games to be hard, out in the cold. At the end of each level, your score alters dramatically depending on how many times you died.'"
US Colleges Say Hiring US Students a Bad Deal 490
theodp writes "Many US colleges and universities have notices posted on their websites informing US companies that they're tax chumps if they hire students who are US citizens. 'In fact, a company may save money by hiring international students because the majority of them are exempt from Social Security (FICA) and Medicare tax requirements,' advises the taxpayer-supported University of Pittsburgh (pdf) as it makes the case against hiring its own US students. You'll find identical pitches made by the University of Delaware, the University of Cincinnati, Kansas State University, the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Iowa State University, and other public colleges and universities. The same message is also echoed by private schools, such as John Hopkins University, Brown University, Rollins College and Loyola University Chicago."
Robot Fish To Hunt Down Pollution 55
An anonymous reader writes "According to the Financial Times, scientists are building a shoal of robot fish to be let loose in the port [of Gijon, Spain] to check on the quality of the water. The fish are equipped with tiny chemical sensors capable of detecting pollutants in the water. These let them home in on the sources of hazardous pollutants, such as leaks from vessels or undersea pipelines. Modeled on carp and costing about £20,000 ($29,000) each to make, the fish are to be lifelike in appearance and swimming behavior so they will not alarm their fellow marine inhabitants."
Vim 7.2 Released 106
sanguisdex writes "After fifteen months of work: a brand new Vim release! This is a stable version. There are many bug fixes and updated runtime files. The only new feature worth mentioning is support for floating point. Upgrading from a previous version is highly recommended: a few crashing bugs and several security issues were fixed. For the details see the announcement or go directly to the download page."
Sugar-Coated Drug-Dealing Game Approved For iPhone 73
Pocket Gamer writes "Of course, Apple wouldn't allow such a salacious games as Dope Wars on the hallowed corridors of the App Store. What Catamount's done is sugarcoat its game (quite literally) and turned it into Prohibition 3: Candy Wars — a reskinned version of the exact same game."
iTunes DRM-Free Files Contain Personal Info 693
r2k writes "Apple's iTunes Plus files are DRM-free, but sharing the files on P2P networks may be an extremely bad idea. A report published by CNet highlights the fact that the account information and email address of the iTunes account holder is hidden inside each and every DRM-free download. I checked, and I found I couldn't access the information using an ID3 tag editor, but using Notepad I found my email address stored inside the audio file itself."
Gears of War 2 Patched To Fix Matchmaking Issues, Problems Persist 34
When Gears of War 2 was released, one of the biggest complaints about the game was that its matchmaking system didn't work properly for multi-player games, leading to unreasonably long wait times. After trying to placate players with mostly useless suggestions, Epic finally released a patch to address the matchmaking issues. Unfortunately, now that players have had a chance to try it out, it seems a large segment of the Gears 2 population is still having problems.
Yahoo Blocks Venerable Email List Over False Positives 358
RomulusNR writes "Yahoo has stopped delivering This Is True, Randy Cassingham's 14-year-old mailing list, because too many Yahoo readers have mistakenly or carelessly flagged it as spam. Yahoo readers make up over 10% of True's readership, slashing the ad revenue that keeps it going. And Yahoo doesn't negotiate with spammers. As Randy describes it: 'The yahoos... ask to be put on True's distribution, then confirm that request, and... then click the "This is Spam" button when they don't recognize the mailing or simply don't want it anymore. Yes, those yahoos have screwed thousands upon thousands of others who really do want my newsletter. Too bad: Yahoo is listening to the yahoos instead: they're blocking it. To them, we're "spammers" and no protestations from "spammers" count.' The irony is that This is True is one of the first profitable mailing lists, predating Yahoo! Mail by almost three years."
Underground Freight Networks 284
morphovar writes "The German Ruhr University of Bochum is conducting experiments with a large-scale model for an automated subterranean transport system. It would use unmanned electric vehicles on rails that travel in a network through pipelines with a diameter of 1.6 meters, up to distances of 150 kilometers. Sending cargo goods through underground pipelines is anything but new — see this scan of a 1929 magazine article about Chicago's underground freight tunnel network (more details). Translating this concept to the 21st century would be something like introducing email for things: you could order something on the Internet and pick it up through a trapdoor in your cellar the next morning."
Submission + - Vista Windows Genuine Advantage(WGA) is down (microsoft.com) 1
z3razerviper writes: "It appears that Vista's Windows Genuine Advantage seems to be down causing all sorts of problems for Vista users trying to download patches for their shiny OS. Oddly enough things get much less shiny when WGA disables Aero and other features once it decides your copy of Vista is invalid.
Microsoft WGA Vista Forum: http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/"
