Comment Stackexchange (Score 5, Informative) 188
http://gamedev.stackexchange.com/ is a great place to ask game development related questions.
Comment If you want a Drupal job, get known around Drupal. (Score 4, Interesting) 523
For some of the Drupal-shops, including the one I work at, community involvement is highly rated. Contribute to the larger modules, Views/Panels, or Core itself. Get some CTR-rating. (certifiedtorock.com). The number may look meaningless, but people look it up when they are introduced to a new "Drupal-person". You can ping 'letharion', me on IRC if you wanna get involved in the community.
DrupalCon sounds like an excellent place to go, people are often recruiting at them.
If it gives you more hope, my employer, NodeOne, has a large percentage of people with similar backgrounds as your, including myself.
That said, CmdrPony makes a good point. Why not do something of your own?
Comment Why do we still talk to the MPAA? (Score 1) 300
The MPAA(and RIAA) exist for a single purpose. Being the media Mafia. If they were to one day wake up with a conscience, they'd also be without a job. MPAA is just the front that gets to take the betting, and we should really focus more attention on those who fund the MPAA/RIAA. Universal, Sony, EMI, Warner and friends.
If _they_ decided that respecting their customers mattered, MPAA would be gone overnight.
Jailbreaking iPhone Now Legal 423
whisper_jeff writes "The US government on Monday announced new rules making it officially legal for iPhone owners to 'jailbreak' their device and run unauthorized third-party applications, as well as the ability to unlock any cell phone for use on multiple carriers."
The EFF has further details on this and some of the other legal protections granted in the new rules.
Comment Incorrect headline (Score 5, Informative) 546
The headline says "Use C++ instead of C" which is incorrect.
C++ is, as made obvious from the text, an option, not a requirement.
GCC Moving To Use C++ Instead of C 546
An anonymous reader writes "CodeSourcery's Mark Mitchell wrote to the GCC mailing list yesterday reporting that 'the GCC Steering Committee and the FSF have approved the use of C++ in GCC itself. Of course, there's no reason for us to use C++ features just because we can. The goal is a better compiler for users, not a C++ code base for its own sake.' Still undecided is what subset of C++ to use, as many contributors are experts in C, but novices in C++; there is a call for a volunteer to develop the C++ coding standards."
Brokers Get Strict Social Networking Rules 50
eldavojohn writes "If you're a broker or work for a brokerage firm then you better think twice before posting content to Facebook and Twitter. It seems the static parts of the pages like your profile must be approved and fall under the watch of FINRA. But a post to Facebook or a tweet might constitute a 'public appearance' representing your firm. Which means that 'firms must supervise these interactive electronic communications under NASD Rule 3010 in a manner reasonably designed to ensure that they do not violate the content requirements of FINRA's communications rules.' It's days like these I'm glad I don't work on Wall Street or have jury duty."
Game Difficulty As a Virtue 204
The Wii and various mobile gaming platforms have done wonders for the trend toward casual or "easy" games. But the success of a few recent titles, despite their difficulty, has caused some to wonder whether the pendulum has swung too far; whether a little frustration can be seen as a good thing. Quoting:
"The evidence is subtle but compelling. For one example, look to major consumer website GameSpot's Game of the Year for 2009: Atlus' PS3 RPG Demon's Souls, which received widespread critical acclaim – none of which failed to include a mention of the game's steep challenge. GameSpot called it 'ruthlessly, unforgivingly difficult.' Demon's Souls was a sleeper hit, an anomaly in the era of accessibility. One would think the deck was stacked against a game that demanded such vicious persistence, such precise attention – and yet a surge of praise from critics and developers alike praised the game for reintroducing the experience of meaningful challenge, of a game that demanded something from its players rather than looked for ways to hand them things. It wasn't just Demon's Souls that recently flipped the proverbial bird to the 'gaming for everyone' trend. In many ways, the independent development scene can be viewed on the macro level as a harbinger of trends to come, and over the past year and into 2010, many indies have decided to be brutal to their players."
Nvidia Discloses Details On Next-Gen Fermi GPU 175
EconolineCrush writes "The Tech Report has published the first details describing the architecture behind Nvidia's upcoming Fermi GPU. More than just a graphics processor, Fermi incorporates many enhancements targeted specifically at general-purpose computing, such as better support for double-precision math, improved internal scheduling and switching, and more robust tools for developers. Plus, you know, more cores. Some questions about the chip remain unanswered, but it's not expected to arrive until later this year or early next."
Submission + - Opera 10.0 released (opera.com) 2
neonsignal writes: Opera 10 has been released. It now supports rich text email, the 'turbo' Opera proxy server feature, some HTML 5 support, XML 'pretty printing', extra skinning features, and a 100/100 score in the Acid3 test. There has been no official announcement as yet.
Comment GWN had something similar a while ago (Score 1) 209
Assuming that you want to do the remote thing with SSH as suggested above (and not actually sit down at each desk), you might find the "Tips and Tricks" section here interesting:
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gmn/20080930-newsletter.xml
New Discovery May End Transplant Rejection 201
mmmscience writes with this excerpt from the Examiner:
"Big news in the medical world: scientists in Australia have found a way to stop the body from attacking organ transplants, greatly decreasing the possibility of organ rejection. ... When a new tissue is introduced, one's immune system kicks into overdrive, sending out cells known as killer T cells to attack and destroy the unknown tissue. ... Professor Jonathan Sprent and Dr. Kylie Webster from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research focused on a different type of T cells — known as regulatory T cells (Treg) — in this study. Tregs are capable of quieting the immune system, stopping the killer T cells from seeking out and attacking foreign objects."
Comment Re:Corporate culture (Score 3, Insightful) 883
I beg to differ.
That myth has been perpetuated "forever", and it's always "10 years into the future". It was 10 years left 10 years ago, and it will be 10 years still in "10-20 years, your lifetime".
If oil prices hadn't been at the low they are, I'd say that the myth is even deliberately upheld by oil companies to increase oil price.
"We will run out of oil soon!" is at best, a grave simplification, and at it's worst, a direct lie.
Google it, and at the very least you will get a more nuanced picture than "10-20" years.
Or read, "The Next Millionaires", and you will get a completely different picture. (Of economics in general, compared to what I was taught in school atleast)
CCC Hackers Break DECT Telephones' Security 116
Sub Zero 992 writes "Heise Security (article in German) is reporting that at this year's Chaos Communications Congress (25C3) researchers in Europe's dedected.org group have published an article (PDF) showing, using a PC-Card costing only EUR 23, how to eavesdrop on DECT transmissions. There are hundreds of millions of terminals, ranging from telephones, to electronic payment terminals, to door openers, using the DECT standard." So far, the Heise article's German only, but I suspect will show up soon in English translation. Update: 12/30 21:27 GMT by T : Reader Juha-Matti Laurio writes with
the story in English. Thanks!
UK ISPs Are Censoring Wikipedia 668
Concerned Wikipedian writes "Starting December 4th, Wikipedia administrators noticed a surge of edits from certain IP addresses. These IPs turned out to be the proxies for the content filters of at least 6 major UK ISPs. After some research by Wikipedians, it appears that the image of the 1970s LP cover art of the Scorpions' 'Virgin Killer' album has been blocked because it was judged to be 'child pornography,' and all other attempts to access Wikimedia foundation sites from these ISPs are being proxied to only a few IP addresses. This is causing many problems for Wikipedia administrators, because much of the UK vandalism now comes from a single IP, which, when blocked, affects potentially hundreds of thousands of anonymous users who intend no harm and are utterly confused as to why they are no longer able to edit. The image was flagged by the the Internet Watch Foundation, which is funded by the EU and the UK government, and has the support of many ISPs and online institutions in the UK. The filter is fairly easy to circumvent simply by viewing the article in some other languages, or by logging in on the secure version of Wikipedia."
