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Comment Makes so much sense now... (Score 1) 495

by FreakinSyco (#30768720) Attached to: Tynt Insight Is Watching You Cut and Paste

This must have been placed on a bunch of websites recently. I'm a habitual "highlight as I read" person. I noticed a couple months back that quite a few websites started the FireFox activity indicator spinning when I highlighted (New York Times included).

I wonder how much useful information this "service" is actually providing to content hosters. I must send dozens of small chuncks of text every time I read an article.

Can I disable this through AdBlock?

Comment Why not create our own ET life? (Score 1, Interesting) 107

by FreakinSyco (#28468149) Attached to: Cassini Spots Geysers On Saturn's Moon Enceladus

We know what these planets consist of. We know of some pretty crazy bacteria here on earth. Why not shoot a rocket full of random bacteria that can survive our most extreme conditions to places like these?

If I recall correctly NASA has always been super careful about bacteria on space vehicles. Why don't we just infect everything and kick start this whole ET thing ourselves.
Games

Valve Provides Details On Left 4 Dead Survival Pack DLC 62

Posted by Soulskill from the a-new-take-on-not-dying dept.
A post on the Left 4 Dead blog shares details of the Survival Pack downloadable content due out next week. It will be free, and available for both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game. "Our goals for Survival Mode are to deliver a mode of play distinct from Campaign or Versus, have games that regularly last under ten minutes, and emphasize competition with team play through leaderboards. Survival Mode draws on the planning and communication aspects of a successful Finale or Crescendo event, while taking it to another level. It rapidly hits a fever pitch that only a well coordinated team will be able to successfully survive. ... Given the extreme pace of Survival Mode, the number of zombies killed in a single round often outnumbers an entire campaign."
The Internet

Time Warner Pulls Plug On Metered Billing Tests 112

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the scream-loud-enough-and-be-heard dept.
fudreporter is one of many who writes to tell us that Time Warner is not planning to continue their tiered consumption tests at this time. The company is not completely admitting defeat, stating that they "may return to the idea in the future," but for now the test has been shut down. "The plan would have established several tiers based on how much consumers use the Internet. Time Warner Cable had said at the time that it believed that consumers who download the most content need to pay more to cover infrastructure upgrades. The plan was first announced two weeks ago, then modified with higher download caps last week. In a news release yesterday, Glenn Britt, the chief executive of Time Warner Cable, said, 'We will not proceed with implementation of additional tests until further consultation with our customers and other interested parties, ensuring that community needs are being met.'"
Role Playing (Games)

Managing Player-Created Content In City of Heroes 43

Posted by Soulskill from the what's-your-favorite-naughty-word dept.
Superhero MMO City of Heroes recently went live with its 14th expansion (release notes), one of the main features of which is the Mission Architect, a system to allow players to create their own quest content and then submit it to be implemented into the game. Now, Joe Morrissey of the City of Heroes team has written an article about how they plan to manage the content that players create. "You have to decide how draconian you want to be. The more hardcore you are, the fewer people who will see inappropriate content, but you expose yourself to potential grief voting. Grief voting is when a player flags perfectly acceptable content as inappropriate just because it's fun. If it only takes a single vote to eliminate content from the game, clicking that button is going to be the game for a lot of players. You don't want perfectly good content getting pulled because someone's a jerk."
It's funny. Laugh.

April Fools Sees Fake Extra Millions For Users of Brokerage Site 280

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the where-not-to-do-business dept.
Upstart online brokerage site Zecco had an unfortunate April Fool's day snafu that they are claiming was an honest mistake. Users logged on to find larger balances than they should have, sometimes millions of dollars extra, and many of those users started trading with the nonexistent money. Happy April Fool's Day. "... when Zecco realized it, the company apparently started to force sell, even at a loss, charging the losses to the customers along with a '$19.99 broker-assisted trading fee.' Oops."

Comment No improvement of the 4870?? (Score 5, Informative) 84

by FreakinSyco (#27435183) Attached to: ATI, Nvidia Reveal New $250 Graphics Cards

Yet HotHarware tests their 4890 and shows that it outperforms the 4870 in every category...

http://hothardware.com/Articles/ATI-Radeon-HD-4890-RV790-Unveiled/

and I quote:

"In every test, the Radeon HD 4890 (Asus EAH4890) was faster than the 1GB Radeon HD 4870, and the overclocked 4890 (Asus EAH4890 TOP) simply increased the card's overall lead. In comparison to competing offerings from NVIDIA, the Radeon HD 4890 is faster than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 overall, but it didn't quite keep pace with the just announced GeForce GTX 275."

Comment Future of News, Today! (Score 1) 425

by FreakinSyco (#26961871) Attached to: AP Considers Making Content Require Payment

The future of news is here today. In a day and age when everyone and their dog has a blog we end up with blog aggregates. The Consumerist, Engadget, Jalopnik and many others, whose sole purpose is to take in stories from all over the net, and produce a focused coherent stream of stories. Then, on top of this layer, we get sites like Slashdot and Digg who primarily take stories from these mid-level focused aggregates and produce an interesting stream of news covering all sorts of topics.

I have a newspaper, but my front page is Slashdot, my sports section is DeadSpin, my auto section is AutoBlog, my tech section is Gizmodo and none of my content (in general) comes from any wire service.

Comment Re:The confusion is part of the Stimulus (Score 1) 434

by FreakinSyco (#26901437) Attached to: Confusion Reigns As Analog TV Begins Shutdown

I purchased a bunch of Linksys wireless N equipment. The goal was to have my PopcornHour box stream 1080p movies wirelessly. It didn't work at all. Playback would start then skip out. After reading a bit more, the Linksys stuff only supports wireless N in the 2.4GHz range. I went ahead and made the plunge and purchased an Apple Airport Extreme and one Apple Airport Express. I set up a wireless N network in the 5GHz range only. Now I can stream 1080p movies without issues.

I don't think many people realize how big of a difference getting out of the overcrowded 2.4GHz range can make.
The Almighty Buck

Apple Disclosures About Jobs To Face SEC Review 187

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-really-hate-turtlenecks dept.
suraj.sun writes "US regulators are examining Apple Inc.'s disclosures about Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs's health problems to ensure investors weren't misled, a person familiar with the matter said. The Securities and Exchange Commission's review doesn't mean investigators have seen evidence of wrongdoing, the person said, declining to be identified because the inquiry isn't public. Bloomberg News reported last week that Jobs is considering a liver transplant as a result of complications after treatment for cancer, according to people who are monitoring his illness."

Is Microsoft Improving Its Image? 746

Posted by CmdrTaco from the sure-couldn't-get-worse dept.
nk497 writes "Writer makes the case that Windows 7 is a turning point for Microsoft, and we all might start liking them soon ... 'While it's not winning everyone over, there are real signs that Microsoft has taken criticisms on board where it matters most: in the software and services that it provides. The idea of a faster, slimmer Windows is one that most Vista owners would automatically put on their wishlist, and it seems that Microsoft has genuinely done something about it. It's not just reignited interest in the Windows product line, but it's got users appreciating a fresh approach from Microsoft as well.'"

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