Comment Re:Interesting take... (Score 1) 186
I still remember GemStone III very, very well; it ate most of my teenage years. it's sad that i don't have time to play in IV, because i have never enjoyed any other MU* quite as much.
Comment Re:Hmm, no... (Score 1) 776
It is possible that you require Earth shoes. I found that the extra sole under the ball allowed me to shift my weight forward very naturally.
Journal Journal: Human
Human account, just a lurker.
Submission + - Leg-paralysis stimulation, sensing device steps up (canadianmanufacturing.com)
AndreV writes: "After 30 years of development, a device developed at Simon Fraser University that assists people who have paralysis in one leg to walk will soon be on the market in Europe and, eventually, in the U.S. and Canada. The pacemaker-like Neurostep uses nerve cuffs to sense and stimulate nerve activity in the paralyzed leg, allowing greater mobility for those suffering from neurological disabilities such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury or cerebral palsy. About the size of a cell phone, the "brain" integrates three digital modules: the neurosensing module (receives nerve impulses), real-time adaptive control module (interrogates the signals and identifies physical events), and neurostimulation module (delivers stimulation to the target nerve). It was recently approved for use in Europe, the first of its kind, and they are working to begin clinical trials and introduce the device in the U.S."
Submission + - "Shadow of the Colossus" to become movie (riskybusinessblog.com)
Sockatume writes: SCE's critically acclaimed Shadow of the Colossus is to become a feature film. The cult boss-rush game will be adapted by Justin Marks, who also wrote the recent Chun-Li movie. A friend of the writer reports that the studio hopes to turn it into a LotR-style fantasy blockbuster, expanding upon the side characters in the original's minimalistic and solitary storyline. This won't be the game's first trip to Hollywood, however. 2007's Reign Over Me featured the game, at the suggestion of editor Jeremy Roush.
Submission + - Why the CAPTCHA approach is doomed (blogspot.com)
TechnoBabble Pro writes: "The CAPTCHA idea sounds simple: prevent bots from massively abusing a website (e.g. to get many email or social network accounts, and send spam), by giving users a test which is easy for humans, but impossible for computers. Is there really such a thing as a well-balanced CAPTCHA, easy on human eyes, but tough on bots? TechnoBabble Pro has a piece on 3 CAPTCHA gotchas which show why any puzzle which isn't a nuisance to legitimate users, won't be much hindrance to abusers, either. It looks like we need a different approach to stop the bots."
Submission + - Powerful Sonar Causes Deafness in Dolphins 1
Hugh Pickens writes: "Mass strandings could be caused because dolphins are rendered temporarily deaf by military sonar, experiments have shown. Tests on a captive dolphin have demonstrated that hearing can be lost for up to 40 minutes on exposure to sonar and may explain several strandings of dolphins and whales in the past decade. Most strandings are still thought to be natural events, but the tests strengthen fears that exercises by naval vessels equipped with sonar are responsible for at least some of them. For example, in the Bahamas in March 2000, 16 Cuvier's beaked whales and Blainville's beaked whales and a spotted dolphin beached during a US navy exercise in which sonar was used intensively for 16 hours (pdf). "The big question is what causes them to strand," says Dr. Aran Mooney, of the University of Hawaii. "What we are looking at are animals whose primary sense is hearing, like ours is seeing. Their ears are the most sensitive organ they have." In the experiment scientists fitted a harmless suction cup to the dolphin's head, with a sensor attached that monitored the animal's brainwaves and when the pings reached 203 decibels and were repeated, the neurological data showed the mammal had become deaf, for its brain no longer responded to sound. "We definitely showed that there are physiological and some behavioral effects [from repeated, loud sonar], but to extrapolate that into the wild, we don't really know," said Mooney."
Submission + - Chimpanzees exchange meat for sex (bbc.co.uk)
the_therapist writes: "A team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, studied chimps in the Tai Forest reserve in Ivory Coast and discovered that chimpanzees enter into "deals" whereby they exchange meat for sex.
Among the findings are that "male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts". They also found this to be "a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are"."
Among the findings are that "male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts". They also found this to be "a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are"."
Submission + - Cells in the Retina Tile Like Puzzle Pieces (sciencedaily.com)
tim writes: Recent work at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif. shows that cells in the retina sample visual space like a multi-layered jigsaw puzzle. High resolution measurements of light response reveal that individual cells have irregular shapes, but together their shapes coordinate to tightly cover visual space. This type of large scale, exquisite coordination could be a general organizing principle of the brain, but no one has seen it previously because technical obstacles typically prevent recording from large cell populations. The full paper can be found here.
Amazon Releases iPhone Kindle Software 232
palmsolo writes "The Amazon Kindle 2 just started shipping last week, but Amazon surprised everyone late on March 3rd by placing the Amazon Kindle software for the iPhone in the Apple App Store. With the Whispersync technology you can now keep your Kindle and iPhone ebooks in sync and read everywhere you go. Readers on the iPhone also now get access to over 200,000 ebook titles on the Amazon Kindle storefront. Check out the hands-on image gallery and video of the Amazon Kindle software on the iPhone and Kindle 2."
Star Trek Fragrances 169
An anonymous reader writes "I am a trek fan and excited about the new movie, but this is too much. From the Trek Movie Article:
'Genki Wear, known for its licensed science fiction jewelry and perfumes, has produced what might be the most unusual Star Trek product ever: Star Trek colognes and perfume based on the original 1960s television show. ... There are three fragrances planned for 2009 with the monikers 'Tiberius," "Red Shirt" and "Ponn Farr."'" Are they telling us we stink?
Obama Picks Net Neutrality Backer As FCC Chief 409
Ripit writes "President Obama on Tuesday nominated Julius Genachowski as the nation's top telecommunications regulator, picking a campaign adviser who has divided his career between Washington, D.C., political jobs and working as an Internet executive.
Genachowski is likely to continue the Democratic push for more Net neutrality regulations, which are opposed by some conservatives and telecommunications providers. He was a top Obama technology adviser and aided in crafting a technology platform that supported Net neutrality rules."
A Short Summary Following the Pirate Bay Trial 500
Dan B. writes "The Guardian has a nice piece wrapping up the trial in Sweden for the co-defendants in the P2P trial-of-the-decade, that of The Pirate Bay. 'Today, the defense lawyers summed up. It was a short trial and not a particularly merry one, but it could have far-reaching effects.' Surprisingly, when the defendants hit the stand they didn't bash copyright or take a libertarian approach; it all came back to the tried and tested formula for criminal defense, 'I am not responsible.'"
Should Job Seekers Tell Employers To Quit Snooping? 681
onehitwonder writes in with a CIO opinion piece arguing that potential employees need to stand up to employers who snoop the Web for insights into their after-work activities, often disqualifying them as a result. "Employers are increasingly trolling the web for information about prospective employees that they can use in their hiring decisions. Consequently, career experts advise job seekers to not post any photos, opinions or information on blogs and social networking websites (like Slashdot) that a potential employer might find remotely off-putting. Instead of cautioning job seekers to censor their activity online, we job seekers and defenders of our civil liberties should tell employers to stop snooping and to stop judging our behavior outside of work, writes CIO.com Senior Online Editor Meridith Levinson. By basing professional hiring decisions on candidates' personal lives and beliefs, employers are effectively legislating people's behavior, and they're creating an online environment where people can't express their true beliefs, state their unvarnished opinions, be themselves, and that runs contrary to the free, communal ethos of the Web. Employers that exploit the Web to snoop into and judge people's personal lives infringe on everyone's privacy, and their actions verge on discrimination."
The 300 Million Year Old Brain 68
Pickens writes "Paleontologists recently discovered the world's oldest brain nestled within a 300-million-year-old fish fossil of one of the extinct relatives of modern ratfishes, also known as 'host sharks' or chimaeras. These chimaera relatives, called iniopterygians, represented bizarre beasts that sported massive skulls with huge eye sockets, shark-like teeth in rows, tails with clubs, huge pectoral fins that were placed almost on their backs, and bone-like spikes or hooks tipping the fins. The brain shows details such as a large vision lobe and optic nerve stretching to the proper place on the braincase, which fits with the fish's large eye sockets. The ear canals of the extinct fish only exist on a horizontal plane so the fish could only detect side-to-side movements, and not up or down. 'There is nothing like this known today; it is really bizarre,' said John Maisey, paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. 'But now that we know that brains might be preserved in such ancient fossils, we can start looking for others. We are limited in information about early vertebrate brains, and the evolution of the brain lies at the core of vertebrate history.'"
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The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. -- Paul Erlich
