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Comment Stroke hand (Score 1) 221

by TommyTumult (#41424275) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Gaming With Only One Hand?
I lost the use of my left arm and hand a year ago as a result of a gamma knife procedure to correct an AVM in my brain, so I'm very interested in any replies to this thread. I've been typing with one hand for over a year now and have gotten fairly proficient(as an ugly bastard, I wasn't terrible at one handed typing to begin with...), but I tried playing Torchlight II the other day and found that, while it's playable, two hands would be better than one. I was hoping to map some options to one of the multiple button on my mouse, but it appears that such a thing isn't available after a simple attempt. I hope I'm wrong and it is possible, but I've pretty much given up hope of seriously gaming again unless I can get my hand to operate again. If I do manage to get my hand working, I hope to play Tony Hawk again along with some MUDing to get my typing back up to par. Good luck, friend.
Biotech

Controlling Monkey Brains and Behavior With Light 77

Posted by Soulskill from the they've-gone-completely-bananas dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers reporting online on July 26 in Current Biology have for the first time shown that they can control the behavior of monkeys by using pulses of blue light to very specifically activate particular brain cells (abstract). The findings represent a key advance for optogenetics, a state-of-the-art method for making causal connections between brain activity and behavior. Based on the discovery, the researchers say that similar light-based mind control could likely also be made to work in humans for therapeutic ends."
Privacy

Sheriff's Online Database Leaks Info On Informants 185

Posted by Soulskill from the second-verse-same-as-the-first dept.
Tootech writes with this snippet from NPR: "A Colorado sheriff's online database mistakenly revealed the identities of confidential drug informants and listed phone numbers, addresses and Social Security numbers of suspects, victims and others interviewed during criminal investigations, authorities said. The breach potentially affects some 200,000 people, and Mesa County sheriff's deputies have been sifting through the database to determine who, if anyone, is in jeopardy. ... The FBI and Google Inc. are trying to determine who accessed the database, the sheriff said. Their concern: That someone may have copied it and could post it, WikiLeaks-style, on the Internet. 'The truth is, once it's been out there and on the Internet and copied, you're never going to regain total control,' Hilkey said. Thousands of pages of confidential information were vulnerable from April until Nov. 24, when someone notified authorities after finding their name on the Internet. Officials said the database was accessed from within the United States, as well as outside the country, before it was removed from the server."
Sci-Fi

Churchill Accused of Sealing UFO Files, Fearing Public Panic 615

Posted by samzenpus from the truth-is-out-there-in-that-filing-cabinet dept.
Newly released secret files show that Winston Churchill ordered a cover-up of an alleged encounter between a UFO and a RAF bomber because he feared public panic. From the article: "Mr Churchill is reported to have made a declaration to the effect of the following: 'This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic among the general population and destroy one's belief in the Church.'"
Image

Oil Leak Could Be Stopped With a Nuke 799

Posted by samzenpus from the lesser-of-two-disasters dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico could be stopped with an underground nuclear blast, a Russian newspaper reports. Komsomoloskaya Pravda, the best-selling Russian daily, reports that in Soviet times such leaks were plugged with controlled nuclear blasts underground. The idea is simple, KP writes: 'The underground explosion moves the rock, presses on it, and, in essence, squeezes the well's channel.' It's so simple, in fact, that the Soviet Union used this method five times to deal with petrocalamities, and it only didn't work once."
Mars

Gardening On Mars 262

Posted by CmdrTaco from the marshrooms-are-delicious dept.
Calopteryx writes "Following Obama's announcement of the intention to send humans to Mars by the mid-2030s, New Scientist reports on plans to piece together the elements of a starter kit for the first colonists of the Red Planet: 'The creation of a human outpost on Mars is still some way off, but that hasn't stopped us planning the garden.'"
Programming

How Do You Accurately Estimate Programming Time? 483

Posted by Soulskill from the step-one-invent-time-travel dept.
itwbennett writes "It can take a fairly stable team of programmers as long as six months to get to a point where they're estimating programming time fairly close to actuals, says Suvro Upadhyaya, a Senior Software Engineer at Oracle. Accurately estimating programming time is a process of defining limitations, he says. The programmers' experience, domain knowledge, and speed vs. quality all come into play, and it is highly dependent upon the culture of the team/organization. Upadhyaya uses Scrum to estimate programming time. How do you do it?"
The Courts

Microsoft Dodges Class Action In WGA Lawsuit 256

Posted by kdawson from the hire-your-own-lawyer dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A lawsuit that accused Microsoft of misleading consumers to download and install an update for Windows Genuine Advantage under the guise that it was critical security update will go forward, but not as a class action. A federal judge has refused to certify the lawsuit as a class action, which would have meant that anyone who owned a Windows XP PC in mid-2006 could join the case without having to hire an attorney. As Windows XP was easily the most popular operating system at the time, the ruling means Redmond has managed to avoid hundreds of millions in potential damages."

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