Comment Re: Many eyeballs out of MS have seen source, lega (Score -1) 193
Occular teabag.
Comment Widescreen movies (Score 1) 139
How would it be "less useful" for widescreen movies? You'll have some letterbox matting to compensate for the aspect ratio difference...that's about it. It will play movies. It will play widescreen movies. It just won't play them edge-to-edge on the screen.
Comment SDL_WINDOW_BORDERLESS (Score 0) 42
I'm a big user of SDL 1.2 and to be honest I wasn't going to change. I was poking around today though and found that there's built-in support to remove window decoration (as well as lots of other nice new features). I'd previously tried to remove window decoration myself under Windows in SDL 1.2 by using Win32 calls and wasn't 100% successful.
Comment Re:Both links to the same page... (Score -1) 74
We aren't getting the handheld we want, but the handheld we need NO WAIT
We aren't getting the handheld we want or need. NO WAIT
We aren't getting the handheld.
Comment Re:Libraries (Score 1) 331
I'm not in the US. I live in the UK and my comments are based on my observation of it.
Comment Re:Provoking (Score 1) 1130
It puts you into cannon, not "canon".
Comment Libraries (Score -1, Flamebait) 331
This is why we should always fight to keep libraries open. It's all very well fast food restaurants having free wifi, but you have to provide the device yourself.
Libraries, with a few PCs you can use are the answer. Where libraries are closed, we should look into re-opening them. If the buildings are not available then we can "re-purpose" church halls maybe a few nights a week as internet centres for the poor, using donated PCs.
Journal Journal: Return of the Pangolin
So I haven't written a journal entry for a while (9 years) so I thought I'd update it.
I'm currently looking forward to the 7DRL event in March. I wanted to enter the 2012 one but my programming skills had become rusty. I therefore spent the last year getting back up to full strength in preparation for this year's event. A year of fun, spent on #rgrd on quakenet, programming roguelikes and other experiments in ruby, scheme, c++, SDL, irrlicht, libtcod, gosu...
Comment Half life of Half Life (Score 1) 315
The reverse half-life of Half Life games is 521 years: After 521 years, half of Half Life 3 will be complete.
Therefore, much like shooting a tortoise at a tree, Half Life 3 will never be finished.
Comment Pango, pango (Score 1) 280
I think it would be nice if Canonical gave some proportion of the proceeds to a charity that helps conserve the animal of the current release. It's a shame though that if they did so it would come too late to help bankroll "Efforts for the Saverization of the Pangolin".
Worldwide Support For Nuclear Power Drops 324
ProbablyJoe writes "A poll for the BBC shows that worldwide support for nuclear power has dropped significantly in the past 6 years. However, while support has dropped in most countries, the UK has defied the trend, where 37% of the public support building new reactors. Unsurprisingly, support in Japan has dropped significantly, with only 6% supporting new reactors. The U.S. remains the country with the highest public opinion of nuclear power, though support has dropped slightly. Much of the decline in approval has been attributed to the events in Fukushima earlier in the year, although a recent Slashdot poll indicated that many readers' opinions had not been affected by the events, and there was an even split between those who found the technology more or less safe since the events. With reports on the long lasting effects in Fukushima still conflicted, is nuclear power still a viable solution to the world's energy problems?"
California Governor Vetoes Ban On Warrantless Phone Searches 462
kodiaktau writes "In probably the most important decision Gov. Brown of California will make this year, he has vetoed the bill that would require officers to get a search warrant before searching cellular phones of arrested citizens. This further enables the police to carry out warrantless searches of private property extending into contacts, email, photos, banking activity, GPS, and other functions that are controlled by modern phones. 'He cites a recent California Supreme Court decision upholding the warrantless searches of people incident to an arrest. In his brief message (PDF), he also doesn’t say whether it’s a good idea or not. Instead, he says the state Supreme Court’s decision is good enough, a decision the U.S. Supreme Court let stand last week.'"
Australian Women Fight Over "Geekgirl" Trademark 187
bennyboy64 writes "Two prominent women in the Australian IT industry are in a bitter dispute over the ownership of the trademark 'geekgirl.' A woman attempting to use 'geekgirl' on Twitter told ZDNet that women had been advised by the trademark owner to stop doing so since she owned the trademark for the word. 'She noted her trademark and asked me to stop calling myself a "geekgirl" in general conversation and to cease using the hashtag "#geekgirl" on Twitter,' IT consultant Kate Carruthers said."
Climate Change and the Integrity of Science 1046
blau tips news of an open letter from 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel laureates, decrying the "recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular." The letter lays out the basics of the scientific method, and explains how certainly highly-regarded theories — such as the big bang, evolution, and Earth's origin — are commonly accepted due to the strength of the evidence supporting them, though "fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong." It goes on to "call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them." According to the Guardian, the letter "originated with a number of NAS members who were frustrated at the misinformation being spread by climate deniers and the assaults on scientists by some policy-makers who hope to delay or avoid making policy decisions and are hiding behind the recent controversy around emails and minor errors in the IPCC."
Second Inquiry Exonerates Climatic Research Unit 764
mvdwege writes "After being cleared of charges of misconduct by a parliamentary committee, now the CRU has the results of the inquiry (PDF) by a panel of scientists into their scientific methods. Here is the CRU press release. Criticisms: The statistical methods used, though arriving at correct results, are not optimal, and it is recommended future studies involve professional statisticians if possible; and the CRU scientists are lacking somewhat in organization. A very far cry from the widespread allegations of fraud. It seems 'Climategate' is ending with a whimper."
