Comment Is it worth it? (Score 0) 162
Do these hacktivist organizations really command enough respect and hold enough power for such actions to be necessary? All I could think when I read this news post was "Why?"
Comment This could hurt other industries (Score 0) 241
I wonder how many porn sites this will prevent? /tasteless joke
Comment What a letdown (Score -1) 132
Wow, this article was way less interesting than the title promised. Why did this make front page?
Comment The American Way (Score 0, Insightful) 718
This is simply another step in the American plan to stop all terrorism, everywhere. Forever.
I have a dream that we will someday be able to enjoy our Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches and apple pie without fear of being bombed by suicidal Jihad warriors!
Comment Re:Let's start a POOL! (Score 0) 136
Whoever it is, they picked a damn good time to cement Sony's image as a company that makes terrible decisions. I almost feel bad considering all the other negative media Sony has received lately... not that they don't deserve it.
Comment Re:Next on /. ... (Score 0) 136
Yeah, it's certainly not Anon's style. That was my point.
Comment Next on /. ... (Score 0) 136
People ask Anonymous if this was THEIR fault, despite claims that an attack on the PSN would damage its users more than Sony. Headline does not produce desired ratings.
Comment Are you sure... (Score 1) 162
...YouTube knows how to function without mandatory obnoxious video advertising?
Comment This is old news. (Score 0) 343
Games will always be sold and bought for what they're worth to the consumer... and guess what? People are still buying $60 games. This is old news and I'm sick of hearing about it.
Submission + - Lasers to replace sparkplugs in engines? (scienceblog.com) 2
An anonymous reader writes: For more than 150 years, spark plugs have powered internal combustion engines. Automakers are now getting close to being able to replace this long-standing technology with laser igniters, which should enable cleaner, more efficient, and more economical vehicles. Price and size have been issues holding up such an advance, but a Japanese team is set to announce they've overcome those hurdles.
Comment Paradigm shift (Score 0) 233
Wow, a large scale internet operation that CAN'T be blamed on 4chan. Looks like they need to step up their game.
Comment Rogue_rat (Score 4, Funny) 311
Interesting way of looking at our failures. So... let's see if BP uses this to prove their genius.
Why Being Wrong Makes Humans So Smart 311
Hugh Pickens sends in an excerpt in last week's Boston Globe from Kathryn Schulz's book Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. "The more scientists understand about cognitive functioning, the more it becomes clear that our capacity to make mistakes is utterly inextricable from what makes the human brain so swift, adaptable, and intelligent. Rather than treating errors like the bedbugs of the intellect — an appalling and embarrassing nuisance we try to pretend out of existence — we need to recognize that human fallibility is part and parcel of human brilliance. Neuroscientists increasingly think that inductive reasoning undergirds virtually all of human cognition. Humans use inductive reasoning to learn language, organize the world into meaningful categories, and grasp the relationship between cause and effect. Thanks to inductive reasoning, we are able to form nearly instantaneous beliefs and take action accordingly. However, Schulz writes, 'The distinctive thing about inductive reasoning is that it generates conclusions that aren't necessarily true. They are, instead, probabilistically true — which means they are possibly false.' Schulz recommends that we respond to the mistakes (or putative mistakes) of those around us with empathy and generosity and demand that our business and political leaders acknowledge and redress their errors rather than ignoring or denying them. 'Once we recognize that we do not err out of laziness, stupidity, or evil intent, we can liberate ourselves from the impossible burden of trying to be permanently right. We can take seriously the proposition that we could be in error, without deeming ourselves idiotic or unworthy.'"
Mass Effect To Invade the Big Screen 142
UgLyPuNk writes "This could be a good thing or a bad thing: EA has just confirmed that it's making Mass Effect into a movie. The franchise has been acquired by Legendary Pictures, which is best known for its co-productions of The Dark Knight, Clash of the Titans, 300, Watchmen, and, um, The Hangover, as part of a co-financing agreement with Warner Bros."
An Inside Look At Warhammer Online's Server Setup 71
An article at Gamasutra provides some details on the hardware Mythic uses to power Warhammer Online, courtesy of Chief Technical Officer Matt Shaw and Online Technical Director Andrew Mann. Quoting:
"At any given time, approximately 2,000 servers are in operation, supporting the gameplay in WAR. Matt Shaw commented, 'What we call a server to the user, that main server is actually a cluster of a number of machines. Our Server Farm in Virginia, for example,' Mann said, 'has about 60 Dell Blade chassis running Warhammer Online — each hosting up to 16 servers. All in all, we have about 700 servers in operation at this location.' ... 'We use blade architecture heavily for Warhammer Online,' Mann noted. 'Almost every server that we deploy is a blade system. We don't use virtualization; our software is somewhat virtualized itself. We've always had the technology to run our game world across several pieces of hardware. It's application-layer clustering at a process level. Virtualization wouldn't gain us much because we already run very close to peak CPU usage on these systems.' ... The normalized server configuration — in use across all of the Mythic-managed facilities — features dual Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors running at 3 GHz with 8 GB of RAM."
