Kailias - Slashdot User

Google Makes Apps Script Available To All 61

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday March 14, 2010 @10:49AM from the come-one-come-all dept.

theodp writes "Formerly only available to Apps Users, Google has made Apps Script available to everyone (sample script), including you Google Docs low-lifers. Apps Script lets you automate actions across spreadsheets, sites, calendars, and other Google services. No spamming, kids!"

Nokia Targets Mobile Kinetic Energy Charging 65

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday March 09, 2010 @12:26PM from the walking-and-talking dept.

justice4all writes "Nokia has filed a US patent for a phone charger that harvests kinetic energy. The technology has been used in laptops, PDAs, and GPS receivers, according to Nokia. Essentially, the mobile devices would be powered in part through the movements of their owners."

Sony Joins the Offensive Against Pre-Owned Games 461

Posted by Soulskill on Friday February 19, 2010 @07:11AM from the saddle-up dept.

BanjoTed writes "In a move to counter sales of pre-owned games, EA recently revealed DLC perks for those who buy new copies of Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Now, PlayStation platform holder Sony has jumped on the bandwagon with similar plans for the PSP's SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3. '[Players] will need to register their game online before they are able to access the multiplayer component of the title. UMD copies will use a redeemable code while the digital version will authenticate automatically in the background. Furthermore ... anyone buying a pre-owned copy of the game will be forced to cough up $20 to obtain a code to play online."

Valve's Battle Against Cheaters 336

Posted by Soulskill on Friday February 19, 2010 @04:13AM from the busting-punks dept.

wjousts writes "IEEE Spectrum takes a look behind the scenes at Valve's on-going efforts to battle cheaters in online games: 'Cheating is a superserious threat,' says [Steam's lead engineer, John] Cook. 'Cheating is more of a serious threat than piracy.' The company combats this with its own Valve Anti-Cheat System, which a user consents to install in the Steam subscriber agreement. Cook says the software gets around anti-virus programs by handling all the operations that require administrator access to the user's machine. So, how important is preventing cheating? How much privacy are you willing to sacrifice in the interests of a level playing field? 'Valve also looks for changes within the player's computer processor's memory, which might indicate that cheat code is running.'"

Israeli Scientists Freeze Water By Warming It 165

Posted by timothy on Saturday February 06, 2010 @06:30AM from the you-must-become-the-frozen-water dept.

ccktech writes "As reported by NPR and Chemistry world, the journal Science has a paper by David Ehre, Etay Lavert, Meir Lahav, and Igor Lubomirsky [note: abstract online; payment required to read the full paper] of Israel's Weizmann Institute, who have figured out a way to freeze pure water by warming it up. The trick is that pure water has different freezing points depending on the electrical charge of the surface it resides on. They found out that a negatively charged surface causes water to freeze at a lower temperature than a positively charged surface. By putting water on the pyroelectric material Lithium Tantalate, which has a negative charge when cooler but a positive change when warmer; water would remain a liquid down to -17 degrees C., and then freeze when the substrate and water were warmed up and the charge changed to positive, where water freezes at -7 degrees C."

Newly-Found Windows Bug Affects All Versions Since NT 393

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday January 20, 2010 @11:17AM from the staying-power dept.

garg0yle writes "A researcher has found a security bug that could allow privilege escalation in Windows. Nothing new there, right? Well, this affects the Virtual DOS Machine, found in every 32-bit version of Windows all the way back to Windows NT. That's 17 years worth of Windows and counting. 'Using code written for the VDM, an unprivileged user can inject code of his choosing directly into the system's kernel, making it possible to make changes to highly sensitive parts of the operating system. ... The vulnerability exists in all 32-bit versions of Microsoft OSes released since 1993, and proof-of-concept code works on the XP, Server 2003, Vista, Server 2008, and 7 versions of Windows, Ormandy reported.'"

Police Called Over 11-Year-Old's Science Project 687

Posted by samzenpus on Saturday January 16, 2010 @05:37PM from the duck-and-cover dept.

garg0yle writes "Police in San Diego were called to investigate an 11-year-old's science project, consisting of 'a motion detector made out of an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics,' after the vice-principal came to the conclusion that it was a bomb. Charges aren't being laid against the youth, but it's being recommended that he and his family 'get counseling.' Apparently, the student violated school policies — I'm assuming these are policies against having any kind of independent thought?"

Own Your Own Fighter Jet 222

Posted by samzenpus on Saturday January 16, 2010 @03:02PM from the only-one-on-the-block dept.

gimmebeer writes "The Russian Sukhoi SU-27 has a top speed of Mach 1.8 (more than 1,300 mph) and has a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1 to 1. That means it can accelerate while climbing straight up. It was designed to fight against the best the US had to offer, and now it can be yours for the price of a mediocre used business jet."

EA Shutting Down Video Game Servers Prematurely 341

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @07:42AM from the sixty-dollar-yearly-fee dept.

Spacezilla writes "EA is dropping the bomb on a number of their video game servers, shutting down the online fun for many of their Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation 3 games. Not only is the inclusion of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles odd, the date the games were released is even more surprising. Yes, Madden 07 and 08 are included in the shutdown... but Madden 09 on all consoles as well?"

Music By Natural Selection 164

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 21, 2009 @03:57PM from the survival-of-the-grooviest dept.

maccallr writes "The DarwinTunes experiment needs you! Using an evolutionary algorithm and the ears of you the general public, we've been evolving a four bar loop that started out as pretty dismal primordial auditory soup and now after >27k ratings and 200 generations is sounding pretty good. Given that the only ingredients are sine waves, we're impressed. We got some coverage in the New Scientist CultureLab blog but now things have gone quiet and we'd really appreciate some Slashdotter idle time. We recently upped the maximum 'genome size' and we think that the music is already benefiting from the change."

PhD Candidate Talks About the Physics of Space Battles 361

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday December 17, 2009 @03:18PM from the load-photon-torpedoes dept.

darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."

Zombie Pigs First, Hibernating Soldiers Next 193

Posted by samzenpus on Monday December 07, 2009 @07:06PM from the fattening-up-on-brains dept.

ColdWetDog writes "Wired is running a story on DARPA's effort to stave off battlefield casualties by turning injured soldiers into zombies by injecting them with a cocktail of one chemical or another (details to be announced). From the article, 'Dr. Fossum predicts that each soldier will carry a syringe into combat zones or remote areas, and medic teams will be equipped with several. A single injection will minimize metabolic needs, de-animating injured troops by shutting down brain and heart function. Once treatment can be carried out, they'll be "re-animated" and — hopefully — as good as new.' If it doesn't pan out we can at least get zombie bacon and spam."

Comment Re:Have they played the mission? (Score 1) 548

by Kailias on Monday November 16, 2009 @08:04PM (#30123952) Attached to: Russia Recalls <em>Modern Warfare 2</em>

I'm a 26 year old american male. The first game I ever remember playing was Oregon trail, and the only interesting part about that to me, was when it was time to hunt. When GTA3 was out, I didn't even do the main storyline... I thought it was more interesting to track down all the hookers in the city, take care of business with them in a dark alley somewhere then drive the car off a bridge with them still inside of it. I'm fairly desensitised to anything I see in games, real life, the news. It simply all is information to me. However like you... I found myself facing a moral dilemma when it was time to pull the trigger on the civvies. Before i realized what i was doing, I actually shot at the terrorist and immediately failed the mission. However, the fact that I felt anything at all while playing, especially morally...... was shocking to me. I think this, and a few others things in the game are quite brilliant. I mean really, imagine having a moral dilemma about shooting a digital bullet into a digital civilian in this day and age. I believe this is exactly what they were going for, and it was executed quite well. War is hell. The game does warn you about some shocking content and give you the option of skipping it if you so desire. I believe they should let it stand.

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