The Barking Dog - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Why always Ms. Pac Man, but hardly ever Pac Man (Score 1) 177

by The Barking Dog on Saturday August 07, 2010 @09:41AM (#33173056) Attached to: 'Old School' Arcade Still Popular In NYC

I remember hearing that a lot of the original Pac Man cabinets were revamped for Ms. Pac Man when it was released - the boards replaced and the cabinet reskinned - which is why it's very difficult to find a vintage Pac Man cabinet. But like BigSes said, Ms is simply more fun, which would explain why it's the only one you see now. (Except for Pac Man Championship Edition, which is insanely cool. Hope the new edition adds an infinite play mode.)

Comment Re:Might explain my crashes (Score 1) 422

by The Barking Dog on Monday August 02, 2010 @10:56AM (#33110342) Attached to: Is <em>StarCraft II</em> Killing Graphics Cards?

NVIDIA GeForce 9400 (oh, and 10.6.4 - forgot about that last point upgrade). I have the res set to 1920x1080 and most of the options set to low or medium.

Comment Might explain my crashes (Score 5, Informative) 422

by The Barking Dog on Monday August 02, 2010 @09:43AM (#33109364) Attached to: Is <em>StarCraft II</em> Killing Graphics Cards?

I'm playing Starcraft II on the last-gen iMac (purchased about four months ago) on OS X 10.6.3. The game is stable during gameplay, but it's crashed on me several times in cutscenes, onboard the Hyperion, or even in the main menu (ironically, while I was bringing up the menu to quit the game).

Comment Re:the problem with ads these days (Score 1) 1051

by The Barking Dog on Sunday March 07, 2010 @10:08AM (#31389348) Attached to: Ars Technica Inveighs Against Ad Blocking

oh btw am i mistaken that ad block plus actually DOES NOT DOWNLOAD THE ADS IT BLOCKS

I wish ad blockers *would* download the ads, but not display them. It would never result in a click, but it would result in a view, so depending on the ad deal between publisher and advertiser, the site may still get credit.

Comment Re:the school district model (Score 1) 620

by The Barking Dog on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @05:48PM (#30661216) Attached to: IT Workers To Get Fewer Perks, No Free Coffee

I figured once that it cost me $0.40 per day to make coffee at home, given the weight of beans I grind per pot and the filtered water I use. That's $146 per year, or $104 if I only made it five days a week. So, $60 to $120 per year isn't far off.

DX11 Tested Against DX9 With Dirt 2 Demo 201

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday December 03, 2009 @02:20AM from the shadows-with-shadows dept.

MojoKid writes "The PC demo for Codemasters' upcoming DirectX 11 racing title, Dirt 2, has just hit the web and is available for download. Dirt 2 is a highly-anticipated racing sim that also happens to feature leading-edge graphic effects. In addition to a DirectX 9 code path, Dirt 2 also utilizes a number of DirectX 11 features, like hardware-tessellated dynamic water, an animated crowd and dynamic cloth effects, in addition to DirectCompute 11-accelerated high-definition ambient occlusion (HADO), full floating-point high dynamic range (HDR) lighting, and full-screen resolution post processing. Performance-wise, DX11 didn't take its toll as much as you'd expect this early on in its adoption cycle." Bit-tech also took a look at the graphical differences, arriving at this conclusion: "You'd need a seriously keen eye and brown paper envelope full of cash from one of the creators of Dirt 2 to notice any real difference between textures in the two versions of DirectX."

Comment Re:I can't speak to raw escolar, but... (Score 1) 554

by The Barking Dog on Monday November 23, 2009 @08:45AM (#30200872) Attached to: Is That Sushi Hazardous To Your Health?

I had a similar, though better informed, experience with escolar. My wife and I were planning on having a nice anniversary dinner at an upscale restaurant in Austin, TX. Escolar was on their online menu, and I read up on it. The Wikipedia article is very precise in its description of its symptoms, and that it's banned in other countries. I thought, bah, it can't really do that to you...can it? It was one of two options on their prixe fixe menu, and I can cook a good steak myself, so it's what I ordered. After dinner, we walked a couple blocks over to a bar off 6th Street. As the lady at the door was going to take our cover charge, I suddenly felt like my bowels were going to violently void themselves. We ducked out of line and hurried back to the hotel. I made it just in time, and had one of the most unpleasant experiences I've ever had on a toilet. The symptom descriptions were very accurate.

The Sims 3 To Mesh With Social Networks 25

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday May 02, 2009 @06:26AM from the linked-sim-book-space dept.

Electronic Arts has released a good bit of information about the online aspects of The Sims 3, which is due for release in early June. The game will have downloadable content available on launch day that includes a second, separate town called Riverview. They'll also be revamping the game's website to allow the sharing of content and integration with social media. In addition, EA mentioned that the game will make use of micro-transactions, which players can use to buy things like furniture, clothing, and other items.

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 Confirmed For the PS3, 360 83

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday April 28, 2009 @07:34AM from the hey-why-not dept.

RyuuzakiTetsuya writes "According to Kotaku, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is making its way to the PS3 and the Xbox 360. It's based on the Dreamcast code, and it includes Online play and widescreen support. A demo will be available Thursday on the Playstation Network, and the full game will retail for $15 on each of the respective online services. A gameplay trailer is available as well."

The Woman Who Established Fair Use 226

Posted by kdawson on Sunday April 26, 2009 @08:42PM from the one-of-a-kind dept.

The Narrative Fallacy writes "The Washington Post has an interesting profile on Barbara A. Ringer, who joined the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress in 1949 and spent 21 years drafting the legislation and lobbying Congress before the Copyright Act of 1976 was finally passed. Ringer wrote most of the bill herself. 'Barbara had personal and political skills that could meld together the contentious factions that threatened to tear apart every compromise in the 20 year road to passage of the 1976 Act,' wrote copyright lawyer William Patry. The act codified the fair use defense to copyright infringement. For the first time, scholars and reviewers could quote briefly from copyrighted works without having to pay fees. With the 1976 act that Ringer conceived, an author owned the copyright for his or her lifetime plus 50 years. Previously under the old 1909 law, an author owned the copyright for 28 years from the date of publication and unless the copyright was renewed, the work entered the public domain, and the author lost any right to royalties. Ringer received the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, the highest honor for a federal worker. Ringer remained active in copyright law for years, attending international conferences and filing briefs with the Supreme Court before her death earlier this year at age 83. 'Her contributions were monumental,' said Marybeth Peters, the Library of Congress's current register of copyrights. 'She blazed trails. She was a heroine.'"

The Circus Widens In Aftermath of Pirate Bay Verdict 319

Posted by kdawson on Saturday April 25, 2009 @04:19PM from the buy-me-some-peanuts-and-crackerjacks dept.

MaulerOfEmotards sends along an in-depth followup, from the Swedish press, of our discussion the other day about the biased trial judge in the Pirate Bay case. "The turmoil concerns Tomas Norström, the presiding judge of The Pirate Bay trial, who is suspected of bias after reports surfaced of affiliation with copyright protection organizations. For this he has been reported to the appeals court (in Swedish; translation here). The circus around the judge is currently focused on three points. First, his personal affiliation with at least four copyright protection organizations, a state the potential bias of which he himself fails to see and refuses to admit. Secondly, Swedish trials use a system of several lay assessors to supervise the presiding judge. One of these, a member of an artists' interest organization, was forced by Mr. Norström to resign from the trial for potential bias. The judge's failure to see the obvious contradiction in this (translation) casts doubts on his suitability and competence. Thirdly, according to professor of judicial sociology Håkan Hydén (translation), the judge has inappropriately 'duped and influenced the lay assessors' during the trial: 'a judge that has decided that "this is something we can't allow" has little problem finding legal arguments that are difficult for assisting lay assessors to counter.'" Click the link below to read further on Professor Hydén's enumeration of "at least three strange things in a strange trial." On a related note, reader Siker adds the factoid that membership in the Pirate Party exploded 150% in the week following the verdict. The Pirate Party now surpasses in size four smaller parties in Sweden, and is closing in on a fifth. Political fallout could ensue as soon as June, when an election for EU parliament will be held.

Why AT&T Wants To Keep the iPhone Away From Verizon 237

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 25, 2009 @12:20PM from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Saul Hansell of the NY Times has an interesting post analyzing AT&T's earnings report and highlighting the enormous stakes involved in the renewal of its exclusive contract to distribute Apple's iPhone in the United States. Hansell does some rough calculations: 'If the average iPhone customer brings in $90 a month, or $1,080 a year in revenue, and the operating profit margin stays constant at 26 percent, that means an iPhone customer represents at least $561 in operating profit over a two-year contract,' says Hansell. 'Put another way, if the company gets 2.5 million new customers a year because of its iPhone exclusivity, the deal represents at least $700 million a year in operating profits — profits that it could lose if Verizon sold the iPhone, too.' With those sort of numbers, AT&T has every reason to make Apple an offer it can't refuse to keep its exclusive deal for another few years. Of course, the incentives for Verizon are presumably the mirror image, so expect Verizon to come to Cupertino, checkbook in hand, to see what sort of deal they can make. 'The benefit of somewhat more iPhone sales from wide distribution is likely to be swamped by a huge bid from AT&T to keep exclusivity, and an equally high bid from Verizon to win some (or maybe even all) of the business for itself.'"

Using Light's Handedness To Find Alien Life 210

Posted by timothy on Friday April 24, 2009 @01:18AM from the let's-skip-some-steps-in-the-middle dept.

Rational Egoist writes "Scientists working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have come up with a novel, easy way to detect life on other planets. Rather than try to measure the composition of atmospheres, they want to look at the chirality of light coming from the planet. From the article: '"If the [planet's] surface had just a collection of random chiral molecules, half would go left, half right," Germer says. "But life's self-assembly means they all would go one way. It's hard to imagine a planet's surface exhibiting handedness without the presence of self assembly, which is an essential component of life."' And they have already built a working model: 'Because chiral molecules reflect light in a way that indicates their handedness, the research team built a device to shine light on plant leaves and bacteria, and then detect the polarized reflections from the organisms' chlorophyll from a short distance away. The device detected chirality from both sources.' The article abstract is available online."

DHS Seeks "Ethical Hackers" To Protect Federal Net Infrastructure 133

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 18, 2009 @01:21PM from the loaded-phrases dept.

Death Metal sends this excerpt from an AP report: "General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could 'think like the bad guy.' Applicants, it said, must understand hackers' tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems. In the Pentagon's budget request submitted last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will increase the number of cyberexperts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011. With warnings that the US is ill-prepared for a cyberattack, the White House conducted a 60-day study of how the government can better manage and use technology (PDF) to protect everything from the electrical grid and stock markets to tax data, airline flight systems, and nuclear launch codes. ... Nadia Short, vice president at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, said the job posting for ethical hackers fills a critical need for the government."

Comic Sans, Font of Ill Will 503

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 18, 2009 @12:22PM from the less-comic-more-sans-please dept.

Kelson writes "The Wall Street Journal profiles Vincent Connare, designer of the web's most-hated font, Comic Sans. Not surprisingly, the font's origins go back to Microsoft Bob, where he saw a talking dog speaking in Times New Roman. Connare pulled out Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns for reference, and created the comic book-style font over the next week. 'Mr. Connare has looked on, alternately amused and mortified, as Comic Sans has spread from a software project at Microsoft Corp. 15 years ago to grade-school fliers and holiday newsletters, Disney ads and Beanie Baby tags, business emails, street signs, Bibles, porn sites, gravestones and hospital posters about bowel cancer. ... The jolly typeface has spawned the Ban Comic Sans movement, nearly a decade old but stronger now than ever, thanks to the Web."

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