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Comment Re:Aircraft electronics (Score 1) 198

by AppleTRON (#32418754) Attached to: Rent an iPad For Inflight Entertainment

Aircraft electrics have been WiFi/phone safe for decades, if they weren't then every lightning bolt with 100 miles would be a threat.

The reasons for not allowing those things aren't to do with safety.

In fact, it has precisely everything to do with safety.

A pilot once told me that while most electronic equipment doesn't interfere with the plane's systems, it prevents a passenger from devoting immediate and full attention to emergency protocol during the most dangerous times in the flight: takeoff and landing.

In the event of an emergency during takeoff and landing (which are statistically most likely), the flight crew needs everyone's attention to ensure the emergency is handled readily.

That, according to a commercial pilot, is the reason we must switch off portable electronic devices during takeoff and landing.

Comment Re:EvE Online? (Score 1) 480

by holychicken (#31245520) Attached to: Why Are There No Popular <em>Ultima Online</em>-Like MMOs?
Nonsense. I started Eve in November 2009. I joined a piracy corp and was immediately doing roams finding other ships in my crappy little Rifter. That wasn't exactly for me, so I joined a blob and was immediately included in some huge battles. I also have a trader who I spend a lot of time just making a lot of ISK in the markets.

Sure, you can't be some uber soloer very quickly in the game, but to act like you can't do anything without having played for a year is an outright misrepresentation. . .you just can't be a loner and you have to know how to work in a group.
Java

After Learning Java Syntax, What Next? 293

Posted by timothy from the nice-hot-bath dept.
Niris writes "I'm currently taking a course called Advanced Java Programming, which is using the text book Absolute Java, 4th edition, by Walter Savitch. As I work at night as a security guard in the middle of nowhere, I've had enough time to read through the entire course part of the book, finish all eleven chapter quizzes, and do all of the assignments within a month, so all that's left is a group assignment that won't be ready until late April. I'm trying to figure out what else to read that's Java related aside from the usual 'This is how to create a tree. This is recursion. This is how to implement an interface and make an anonymous object,' and wanted to see what Slashdotters have to suggest. So far I'm looking at reading Beginning Algorithms, by Simon Harris and James Ross."
Cellphones

The Cell Phone Has Changed — New Etiquette Needed 585

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the where-is-my-direct-neural-interface dept.
CWmike writes to share a recent manners-rant that has some great gems about how not to be "that guy" on a cell phone. What rules of engagement are absolutely necessary and what social penalties should become standard practice for repeat offenders? "It's easy to be rude with a cell phone. A visitor from another planet might conclude that rudeness is a cell phone's main purpose. Random, annoying ring tones go off unexpectedly. People talk too loudly on cell phones in public because of the challenge of holding a conversation in a noisy environment with someone who's not present. Cell phones need their own rules of etiquette, or we'll descend into social barbarism."
Education

Researchers Make a Case For Learning Through Video Game Creation 68

Posted by Soulskill from the now-third-graders-get-to-experience-crunch-time dept.
ub3r n3u7r4l1st sends along this snippet from Science Daily: "Computer games have a broad appeal that transcends gender, culture, age and socio-economic status. Now, computer scientists in the US think that creating computer games, rather than just playing them, could boost students' critical and creative thinking skills as well as broaden their participation in computing. ... 'Worldwide, there is increasing recognition of a digital divide, a troubling gap between groups that use information and communication technologies widely and those that do not,' the team explains. 'The digital divide refers not only to unequal access to computing resources between groups of people but also to inequalities in their ability to use information technology fully.' There are many causes and proposed solutions to bridging this divide, but applying them at the educational and computer literacy level in an entertaining and productive way might be one of the more successful. The team adds that teaching people how to use off-the-shelf tools to quickly build a computer game might allow anyone to learn new thinking and computing skills."
Education

NZ School Goes Open Source Amid Microsoft Mandate 305

Posted by kdawson from the kiwis-and-penguins-sittin'-in-a-tree dept.
Dan Jones writes "Kiwis have built an entire school IT system out of open source software, in less than two months, despite a deal between the New Zealand government and Microsoft that effectively mandates the use of Microsoft products in the country's schools. Albany Senior High School in the northern suburbs of Auckland has been running an entirely open source infrastructure since it opened in 2009. It's using a range of applications like OpenOffice, Moodle for education content, Mahara for student portfolios, and Koha for the library catalogue. Ubuntu Linux is on the desktop and Mandriva provides the server. Interestingly, the school will move into new purpose-built premises this year, which include a dedicated server room design based on standard New Zealand school requirements, including four racks each capable of holding 48 servers for its main systems. The main infrastructure at Albany Senior High only requires four servers, suggesting an almost 50-fold saving on hardware requirements."
Government

Deadline For Data.gov Arrives, and Delivers 81

Posted by kdawson from the set-my-data-free dept.
inKubus writes "According to a story carried by AP, as part of President Barack Obama's 'Open Government Directive,' the 24 major departments and agencies that make up the executive branch of the federal government had until Friday to release at least three 'high-value' data sets. Over 300 new data sets have been released on data.gov. There's a lot of interesting stuff on there and more to come." One of the departments required to release data is the office of the US Trade Representative. Wouldn't it be nice if they posted the ACTA negotiating drafts?

Comment I think it is incredibly short-sighted (Score 1) 251

by holychicken (#28527431) Attached to: In Defense of the Classic Controller
to not only not see the end of button controllers coming soon, but to see that as a bad thing.

Unless something drastic happens that makes us believe that we can't control games well with natural human movements, the controller is going to die.

Games are just so much more fun for so many more people when the input is intuitive rather than requiring you to learn what every buttons does. For those of us who grew up doing so AND kept practicing, it is not so hard, but for most people that is not true. And even for those of us who can do it, I wouldn't believe you if you said that you didn't find picking up the Wii controller "refreshing" the first time you did so.

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