Kazlor - Slashdot User

Comment I'd be screwed. (Score 1) 247

by Kazlor on Thursday September 24, 2009 @03:31PM (#29532969) Attached to: Honda's Answer To the Segway

I'm one of those folks that had to have a spinal fusion surgery due to an injury at work. One of the side effects of it I have found is my balance now is HORRIBLE. I can be standing at the kitchen sink, doing dishes, and nearly fall on my side because my body suddenly decides which way is up. As cool, or helpful, or intriguing as any of these machines might be, I know for one, the day I sat on one, I'd put my head through a damned wall because it interpreted me trying to regain my balance and I'd wind up getting bucked off, even with such a low speed on that thing (Murphy hates me). Not to mention, that thing would anger my back worse than sitting on the floor does already.

Comment Hitchhikers? (Score 1) 205

by Kazlor on Wednesday September 23, 2009 @04:39PM (#29522461) Attached to: HD Video From The Edge of Space, On the Cheap

Am I the only one that thought of the sperm whale being called into existence, several miles above the surface of an alien planet?

Comment Medical Reasons! (Score 1) 709

by Kazlor on Thursday November 06, 2008 @12:24PM (#25663547) Attached to: In the U.S. election just ended, I voted ...

I was actually pretty pissed off I didn't get in to vote. I had a pretty hardcore seizure (first ever for me, no less) the night before, and got to spend the time with the fine folks in the ER.

CERN Releases Analysis of LHC Incident 149

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 16, 2008 @07:07PM from the training-exercise-was-too-trite dept.

sash writes "From the fresh press release: 'Investigations at CERN following a large helium leak into sector 3-4 of the Large Hadron Collider tunnel have confirmed that cause of the incident was a faulty electrical connection between two of the accelerator's magnets. This resulted in mechanical damage and release of helium from the magnet cold mass into the tunnel. Proper safety procedures were in force, the safety systems performed as expected, and no one was put at risk. Sufficient spare components are in hand to ensure that the LHC is able to restart in 2009, and measures to prevent a similar incident in the future are being put in place.'"

6.7 Meter Telescope To Capture 30 Terabytes Per Night 67

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 04, 2008 @01:09AM from the very-large-yet-very-small dept.

Lumenary7204 writes "The Register has a story about the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a project to build a 6.7 meter effective-diameter ground-based telescope that will be used to map some of the faintest objects in the night sky. Jeff Kantor, the LSST Project Data Manager, indicates that the telescope should be in operation by 2016, will generate around 30 terabytes of data per night, and will 'open a movie-like window on objects that change or move on rapid timescales: exploding supernovae, potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids, and distant Kuiper Belt Objects.' The end result will be a 150 petabyte database containing one of the most detailed surveys of the universe ever undertaken by a ground-based telescope. The telescope's 8.4 meter mirror blank was recently unveiled at the University of Arizona's Mirror Lab in Tucson."

Stargate Worlds Beta Begins Oct. 15th 84

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 04, 2008 @12:06AM from the work-in-progress dept.

Kotaku reports that the closed beta for Stargate Worlds, an MMO based on the popular Stargate television shows, will begin on October 15th. Registration is open at the game's website. Gamespy has some new screenshots available, and a Youtube channel has been opened for videos about the game. We discussed the early plans for Stargate Worlds a couple years ago.

Future Sony MMOs Will Be On Consoles 144

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 03, 2008 @07:42PM from the raiding-from-your-couch dept.

The MTV Multiplayer Blog interviewed John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, about the future of MMOs. He discusses some of SOE's current projects and comments that they'll be focusing on consoles for all of their upcoming MMOs. "I would say that we would be one of the early adopters on [bringing MMOs to consoles], and we plan on becoming one of the dominant players in the MMO space on consoles." Sony's plans may include games for their hand-held console, the PSP. Smedley goes on to talk about bringing existing, popular franchises into MMO development, and remarks, "It's pretty safe to say that 'EverQuest' has not seen its last game."

Oregon Judge Says RIAA Made 'Honest Mistake,' Allows Subpoena 175

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 03, 2008 @06:41PM from the no-harm-no-foul-right? dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Arista v. Does 1-17, the RIAA's case targeting students at the University of Oregon, the Oregon Attorney General's motion to quash the RIAA's subpoena — pending for about a year — has reached a perplexing conclusion. The Court agreed with the University that the subpoena, as worded, imposed an undue burden on the University by requiring it to produce 'sufficient information to identify alleged infringers,' which would have required the University to 'conduct an investigation,' but then allowed the RIAA to subpoena the identities of 'persons associated by dorm room occupancy or username with the 17 IP addresses listed' even though those people may be completely innocent. In his 8-page decision (PDF), the Judge also 'presumed' the RIAA lawyers' misrepresentations were an 'honest mistake,' made no reference at all to the fact, pointed out by the Attorney General, that the RIAA investigators (Safenet, formerly MediaSentry) were not licensed, rejected all of the AG's privacy arguments under both state and federal law, and rejected the AG's request for discovery into the RIAA's investigative tactics."

Seeing With Your Skin? 138

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday October 03, 2008 @04:22PM from the eyes-in-the-back-of-my-head dept.

Iddo Genuth writes to tell us that a researcher from Tel Aviv University is exploring the possibility that humans may be able to "see" via their skin. Professor Leonid Yaroslavsky hopes to utilize this possible technology to find solutions for the blind in addition to new types of image capture that might be able to work where conventional lenses fail. Unfortunately he has a long uphill battle ahead to convince others that his theories are possible. "The lenses currently used for optics-based imaging have many problems. They only work within a limited range of electromagnetic radiation. Relatively, these are still costly devices greatly limited by weight and field of view. The imaging Professor Yaroslavsky has in mind has no lenses and he believes the devices can be adapted to any kind of radiation and wavelength. They could essentially work with a 360-degree field of view and their imaging capability will only be determined by computer power rather than the laws of light diffraction."

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Spawns Real-Life Car 93

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday October 03, 2008 @02:54PM from the and-i'm-sure-it-will-be-affordable dept.

Car Analogy Please writes to tell us that a new car unveiled at the Paris Auto Show was modeled after the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue car. GTbyCITROËN is the first car that has been designed in tandem with a video game to then spill out onto the actual pavement. "The GTbyCITROËN is the product of a partnership built up during the creation of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Takumi Yamamoto, from Citroen and Kazunori Yamauchi from Polyphony Digital Inc, the games developer were inspired by each others industries to design a concept car for the game that then flowed further into the real-world. The game version of the car mirrors the real-world performance of the concept."

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