Kithran - Slashdot User

Comment How many counties are still in halfway house stage (Score 1) 2288

by Kithran on Thursday April 21, 2011 @05:36AM (#35891056) Attached to: Why Does the US Cling To Imperial Measurements?

The claim that only 3 countries use imperial is misleading - I'm curious as to how many countries are in a halfway house stage. What do I mean? Officially metric but plenty of things (both offical and matter of daily use) imperial.

For example in the UK you have:

Speed limits (still mph)
Road signs (distances still miles)
Lots of food/drink (e.g. milk sold in 4 pint containers, have to be labelled 2.273 liters but still referred to as pints and also have pint amount on label)
Petrol is priced by the liter but everyone refers to their car's mpg
etc.

Comment Re:ok i'll say it (Score 4, Informative) 620

by Kithran on Monday August 09, 2010 @05:00PM (#33195644) Attached to: <em>EVE</em> Player Loses $1,200 Worth of Game Time In-Game

However there is also no need to ever undock with one PLEX never mind 74. You can apply them to you account (ie use the item to add 30 days to your subscription) from anywhere in the game. Yes he dies trying to get to the main trading hub in the game however he could have gone to any other station in the system and had no problems. Also he was an absolute fool for flying in a very fragile ship when another group had declared war on him (thus was able to be attacked even in the main trading hub system without interference).

Kithran

Copyright and the Games Industry 94

Posted by Soulskill on Friday December 04, 2009 @03:51AM from the your-super-mario-toilet-paper-is-probably-illegal dept.

A recent post at the Press Start To Drink blog examined the relationship the games industry has with copyright laws. More so than in some other creative industries, the reactions of game companies to derivative works are widely varied and often unpredictable, ranging anywhere from active support to situations like the Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes debacle. Quoting: "... even within the gaming industry, there is a tension between IP holders and fan producers/poachers. Some companies, such as Epic and Square Enix, remain incredibly protective of their Intellectual Property, threatening those that use their creations, even for non-profit, cultural reasons, with legal suits. Other companies, like Valve, seem to, if not embrace, at least tolerate, and perhaps even tacitly encourage this kind of fan engagement with their work. Lessig suggests, 'The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check with a lawyer.' Indeed, the more developers and publishers that take up Valve's position, the more creativity and innovation will emerge out of video game fan communities, already known for their intense fandom and desire to add to, alter, and re-imagine their favorite gaming universes."

The State of UK Broadband — Not So Fast 279

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday November 26, 2008 @06:29AM from the but-you-have-actual-competition dept.

Barence writes "The deplorable speed of British broadband connections has been revealed in the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics, which show that 42.3% of broadband connections are slower than 2Mb/sec. More worryingly, the ONS statistics are based on the connection's headline speed, not actual throughput, which means that many more British broadband connections are effectively below the 2Mb/sec barrier. Better still, a separate report issued yesterday by Ofcom revealed that the majority of broadband users had no idea about the speed of their connection anyway."

Rewriting a Software Product After Quitting a Job? 604

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday November 26, 2008 @03:57AM from the clean-room-white-coats dept.

hi_caramba_2008 writes "We are a bunch of good friends at a large software company. The product we work on is under-budgeted and over-hyped by the sales drones. The code quality sucks, and management keeps pulling in different direction. Discussing this among ourselves, we talked about leaving the company and rebuilding the code from scratch over a few months. We are not taking any code with us. We are not taking customer lists (we probably will aim at different customers anyway). The code architecture will also be different — hosted vs. stand-alone, different modules and APIs. But at the feature level, we will imitate this product. Can we be sued for IP infringement, theft, or whatever? Are workers allowed to imitate the product they were working on? We know we have to deal with the non-compete clause in our employment contracts, but in our state this clause has been very difficult to enforce. We are more concerned with other IP legal aspects."

Comment Re:I still don't see the point (Score 1) 569

by Kithran on Friday May 09, 2008 @10:25AM (#23349712) Attached to: Have You Changed Your Opinion On eBook Readers?

I don't think the big deal with the Kindle (or rather with the eInk display used by the Kindle, the Sony reader and the Bookeen CyBook) is that its screen looks like paper its that the power consumption is so low and it doesn't strain your eyes like an lcd. I have had a palm and a couple of sony clies that I used to use to read ebooks and whilst I had no problems with reading on an lcd the fact that I could (if I was lucky) read for maybe a couple of hours before the battery started to give out was a major problem. With my CyBook I can read probably half a dozen books before I hit that point. Also there is less strain on my eyes. I don't think of the display as being like paper (although a lot of people who have seen mine have commented on that).

I read a lot and the fact I currently have 665 books on my CyBook is a hell of a lot more convenient than having 665 physical books. Also as people have noted already there are some publishers (primarily Baen via their Webscriptions and Free Library) that realise that people wont pay the same price as a hardback book for the electronic version. However people will pay if its cheaper (say few bucks) and convenient (no need to hunt through assorted torrent sites to find one that has a copy of the book you are looking for). There are a number of authors whose books I've only discovered because I either read one of their books for free or had one of their books bundled with books from authors I was already interested in.

Kithran

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