Comment My power bill has never been higher (Score 1) 169
As a direct result of the renewables, the cost of power in South Australia is one of the most expensive rates in the world. I commonly have power bills exceeding ~US$300 per month.
Comment 20k shipped? Doubt that. (Score 1) 67
There is a lot of dissatisfaction from many people over on the Oculus forums due to lack of information and shipping delays. Many who ordered within the first 48 hours after orders opened on March 19th have not received units or even an update other than "we're working real hard to ship orders as quickly as possible".
Based on comments from the forums, information given about how many were sold how quickly and feedback from the oculus forums, about the only way they could claim that 20k were shipped is if they were shipped from the manufacturer to the distribution centers, not the customers.
Oculus has had my money from March 20th and I'm yet to receive any kind of shipping confirmation. They did not sell 20k in the first 24 hours.
EVE Player Loses $1,200 Worth of Game Time In-Game 620
An anonymous reader writes "Massively.com has reported that an EVE Online player recently lost over $1,200 worth of in-game items during a pirate attack. The player in question was carrying 74 PLEX in their ship's cargo hold — in-game 'Pilot's License Extensions' that award 30 days of EVE Online time when used on your account. When the ship was blown up by another player, all 74 PLEX were destroyed in the resulting blast, costing $1,200 worth of damage, or over 6 years of EVE subscription time, however you prefer to count it. Ow."
Flash Ported To iOS and iPhone 4 231
An anonymous reader noted that there is a simple HOWTO explaining how to install flash on an iPhone4. Mad props for using Strong Bad as the demo. Of course, step one is to use the JailBreakMe. Once installed, Flash inside Safari loads in a stopped state so it won't even hurt performance unless you decide to actually execute the program.
Torchlight II Announced For 2011 85
Runic Games has announced a sequel to the popular action RPG Torchlight, planned for release in Spring 2011. One notable improvement from the first game is Torchlight II's inclusion of online co-op play, with LAN support and a matchmaking system. "The sequel will feature an updated version of the Torchlight editor, randomized overworld areas complete with weather effects, random dungeons, a selection of pets, fishing, limitless loot, and a retirement system which will allow users to retire an older character and bestow some benefits of it to a newly created character." An MMO set in the Torchlight world is still in development.
A How-To Website For Australian Voters 158
Twisted64 writes "If you're interested in voting below the line in the upcoming federal election in Australia, but don't want to waste time in the booth individually ranking up to 76 candidates (for the unfortunates in New South Wales), then Cameron McCormack's website may have what you need. The website allows voters to set their preferences beforehand, dragging and dropping Stephen Conroy at the bottom of the barrel and thrusting the Sex Party into pole position (as an utterly random example). Once preferences are set, the site can generate a PDF to be printed and taken to the booth." (More, below.)
What Game Devs Should Learn From EVE 270
An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Gamesradar about EVE Online's Council of Stellar Management (CSM), a group of elected player representatives that serve to facilitate communications between the developers and the community:
"On the last day, the devs announced that after the earlier discussions about improving the CSM’s ability to effect change, the CSM was being raised to the status of its own department within CCP. This is revolutionary; in one swift move, the CSM went from what could be considered a glorified focus group to what CCP considers to be a 'stakeholder' in the company, given equal consideration with every other department in requesting development time for a project. That means the CSM — and the entire playerbase it represents — has as much influence on development projects as Marketing, Accounting, Publicity and all the other teams outside of the development team. This is, of course, the stated intention. But has any developer gone to such lengths for its fans?"
AMD Multi-Display Tech Has Problems, Potential 138
EconolineCrush writes "While AMD's Eyefinity multi-display gaming tech is undeniably impressive at first glance, digging deeper reveals key limitations. Some games work well, others not at all, and many are simply better suited to specific screen configurations. A three-way setup looks to be ideal from a compatibility perspective, and given current LCD prices, it's really not all that expensive. But would you take that over a single high-resolution display or a giant HDTV?"
Supermassive Black Hole Is Thrown Out of Galaxy 167
DarkKnightRadick writes "An undergrad student at the University of Utrecht, Marianne Heida, has found evidence of a supermassive black hole being tossed out of its galaxy. According to the article, the black hole — which has a mass equivalent to one billion suns — is possibly the culmination of two galaxies merging (or colliding, depending on how you like to look at it) and their black holes merging, creating one supermassive beast. The black hole was found using the Chandra Source Catalog (from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory). The direction of the expulsion is also possibly indicative of the direction of rotation of the two black holes as they circled each other before merging."
Anti-Gamer South Australian Attorney General Quits 104
dogbolter writes "South Australian Attorney General, Michael Atkinson, infamous for the banning of R18+ rated games and the censoring of political comment in Australia, has quit. The recent South Australian election provided a massive swing against Atkinson's governing labor party. As a direct result of the South Australian election result, he is standing down. Hopefully someone with half a clue will assume the vacant post and overturn the decision to ban adult oriented computer games."
Brain-Control Gaming Headset Launching Dec. 21 112
An anonymous reader writes "Controlling computers with our minds may sound like science fiction, but one Australian company claims to be able to let you do just that. The Emotiv device has been garnering attention at trade shows and conferences for several years, and now the company says it is set to launch the Emotiv EPOC headset on December 21. PC Authority spoke to co-founder Nam Do about the Emotiv technology and its potential as a mainstream gaming interface."
One wonders what kind of adoption they expect with a $299 price tag.
Use of Asphalt Paved Surfaces For Solar Heat 110
vg30e writes "It seems that a company in the Netherlands has found a way to use asphalt paved surfaces as solar heat collectors. Flexible tubes under the surface of the road collect heat from asphalt pavement using water as the working liquid. The heated water is stored underground for later use in defrosting the road, or heating buildings. With all the miles of highway in the continental US, this might be a viable way of collecting massive amounts of thermal energy."
Submission + - British Village Requests Removal from GPS Maps (nytimes.com) 6
longacre writes: "The tiny village of Barrow Gurney, England has asked GPS map publisher Tele Atlas to remove them from the company's maps. The reason: truck drivers using GPS navigation devices are being directed to drive through the town despite the roads being too narrow for sidewalks, and causing numerous accidents. At the root of the problem lies the fact that the navigation maps used by trucks are the same as those used by passenger cars, which don't contain data on road width or no truck zones. Tele Atlas says they will release truck-appropriate databases at some point, but until then they advise local governments to make use of a technology dating back to the Romans: road signs."
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