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Comment Re:Great... Game to Movie (Score 2, Interesting) 142

by Unkemptwolf (#32360016) Attached to: <em>Mass Effect</em> To Invade the Big Screen
Mass Effect: First Contact

That would be awesome. Its even already got a cool story line: Humans encounter Turians. Turians blow up Humans. Humans send a small fleet that blows up the Turians, Turians send a bigger fleet to capture Shanxi, thinking it is the Human homeworld. Humans send a bigger fleet, kick the Turians in the teeth, and take back Shanxi. Council realizes that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding and brokers a peace treaty.

I would pay to see that. It sounds pretty awesome to me. Cue the sequels.

Comment Re:Of course they did... (Score 1) 214

by AlamedaStone (#30157854) Attached to: AT&amp;T Loses First Legal Battle Against Verizon

Don't agree. After this whole thing blew up I watched the Verizon ads. They make clear they are discussing 3G coverage, not generalized coverage (which would be available almost everywhere).

Aside -

Have you ever been to a place without cellphone coverage (and I don't mean because the building's walls are blocking). My digital phone doesn't work in mountainous areas, but my old analog phone seemed to work everywhere. It makes me wish analog was still alive, if only for backup.

I agree, but I have to say I'm glad I don't have to buy and deploy all that cable every time I take a road trip anymore.

Comment Re:Where does this leave GIMP? (Score 1) 900

by Malc (#30156400) Attached to: GIMP Dropped From Ubuntu 10.04

Don't forget Picasa, now also available for the Mac (to save us from iPhoto's insistence of managing the files). I haven't used PSP since the early 90s.

Most of the time for holiday shots and what not, something like Picasa is good enough, and the work-flow is much easier and faster (important to people like me who take 100+ photos a day). I drop back to Photoshop for piecing together panoramas and HDRs, and when it's better quality output is required on the few occasions, but by then, I'm down to an album of 60 or less (I don't want to completely bore other people).

I tried GIMP a few years ago, and won't go back to it. And for those promoting GTK - yuck! They couldn't even get the basics right, like the common file open/close dialog (and why they didn't delegate to the native versions on OSes like Windows is beyond me). Maybe it's improved since then, but I have no desire to change my current work-flow. It's courses for horses though: a lot of people around here like and support it, and good for them.

Comment Re:Just release TV shows for free (Score 1) 675

by Unkemptwolf (#30008650) Attached to: Cable Exec Suggests Changing Consumer Behavior, Not Business Model

Cable companies do not see any revenue directly from advertisements.

Oh rly? Time Warner would seem to disagree. I mean, clearly you know more than I do, but doesn't that look at awful lot like a cable company selling commercial time? Look at the side bar, they even advertise what popular shows they still have spots for!
Privacy

FBI Is the Worst FOIA Performer 92

Posted by kdawson from the mind-the-gap dept.
krou writes "The National Security Archive at George Washington University has awarded its 2009 Rosemary Award to the FBI for worst freedom of information performance (PDF of the award). Previous winners have been the CIA and the Treasury. The NSA notes that 'The FBI's reports to Congress show that the Bureau is unable to find any records in response to two-thirds of its incoming FOIA requests on average over the past four years, when the other major government agencies averaged only a 13% "no records" response to public requests.' The FBI's explanation, according to the NSA, is that 'files are indexed only by reference terms that have to be manually applied by individual agents,' and even then, 'agents don't always index all relevant terms.' Furthermore, 'unless a requester specifically asks for a broader search, the FBI will only look in a central database of electronic file names at FBI headquarters in Washington.' Any search will therefore 'miss any internal or cross-references to people who are not the subject of an investigation, any records stored at other FBI offices around the country, and any records created before 1970.'"
Encryption

How To, When You Have To Encrypt Absolutely Everything? 468

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the first-step-is-teaching-people-how-not-to-be-stupid dept.
Dark Neuron writes "My institution has thousands of computers, and is looking at starting an IT policy to encrypt everything, all hard drives, including desktops, laptops, external hard drives, USB flash drives, etc. I am looking at an open source product for Windows, Mac, UNIX, as well as portable hard drives, but I am concerned about overhead and speed penalties. Does anyone have experience and/or advice with encrypting every single device in a similar situation?"

NVIDIA Offers 3D Glasses For the Masses 261

Posted by CmdrTaco from the holding-out-for-the-fourth-dimension dept.
Vigile writes "A new stereoscopic 3D gaming technology has hit the street today from NVIDIA, though demoed earlier in the year, that promises to bring high quality 3D gaming to the PC. The GeForce 3D Vision technology utilizes active shutter glasses and a 120 Hz display (either 120 Hz LCD or 3D-Ready DLP TVs) to bring an immersive 3D effect to PC games. Using the depth buffer information stored in DirectX, the NVIDIA software is able to construct a stereo 3D image out of existing game content while the 120 Hz requirement gives each eye 60 frames of motion per second negating the physical detriments that were known to occur with previous 3D offerings. The review at PC Perspective details how the technology works, the performance hit your games take while using it and the advantages and disadvantages to the user's gaming experience with 3D Vision."
Power

Batteries To Store Wind Energy 275

Posted by Soulskill from the charging-at-wind-mills dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "Scientific American reports that Xcel Energy, a Minneapolis-based utility company, has started to test a new technology to store wind energy in batteries. The company is currently trying it in a 1,100 megawatt facility of wind turbines in Southern Minnesota. The company started this effort because 'the wind doesn't always blow and, even worse, it often blows strongest when people aren't using much electricity, like late at night.' It has received a $1 million grant from Minnesota's Renewable Development Fund and the energy plant should be operational (PDF) in the first quarter of 2009. If this project is successful, the utility expects to deploy many more energy plants before 2020 to avoid more polluting energy sources."
Space

Future of Space Elevator Looks Shaky 486

Posted by kdawson from the a.-c.-clarke-quaking-in-his-grave dept.
lurking_giant writes "In a report on NewScientist.com, researchers working on development of a space elevator (an idea we have discussed numerous times) have determined that the concept is not stable. Coriolis force on the moving climbers would cause side loading that would make stability extremely difficult, while solar wind would cause shifting loads on the geostationary midpoint. All of this would likely make it necessary to add thrusters, which would consume fuel and negate the benefits of the concept. Alternatively, careful choreography of multiple loads might ease the instability, again with unknown but negative economic impacts."
The Courts

Lessig, Zittrain, Barlow To Square Off Against RIAA 288

Posted by timothy from the ensemble-cast dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's case in Boston against a 24-year-old grad student, SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, in which Prof. Charles Nesson of Harvard Law School, along with members of his CyberLaw class, are representing the defendant, may shape up as a showdown between the Electronic Frontier and Big Music. The defendant's witness list includes names such as those of Prof. Lawrence Lessig (Author of 'Free Culture'), John Perry Barlow (former songwriter of The Grateful Dead and cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation), Prof. Johan Pouwelse (Scientific Director of P2P-Next), Prof. Jonathan Zittrain (Author of 'The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It'), Professors Wendy Seltzer, Terry Fisher, and John Palfrey, and others. The RIAA requested, and was granted, an adjournment of the trial, from its previously scheduled December 1st date, to March 30, 2009. (The RIAA lawyers have been asking for adjournments a lot lately, asking for an adjournment in UMG v. Lindor the other day because they were so busy preparing for the Tenenbaum December 1st trial ... I guess when you're running on hot air, you sometimes run out of steam)."
Politics

WV Voters Say Machines Are Switching Votes 900

Posted by CmdrTaco from the he-who-pays-diebold-wins dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for 'Barack Obama' kept flipping to 'John McCain.'"

Comment Re:Missing option (Score 1) 1104

by Unkemptwolf (#25060399) Attached to: Who do you blame for the US Financial Situation
Well, clearly its a humanitarian effort. After all, much of the violence in Iraq would most likely not be there if America had not invaded. It is, therefore, America's responsibility to help end the violence and rebuild as much infrastructure as possible to return the country to as much of a normal state as can be had.

Or maybe its just a face-saving exercise. Take your pick.
Announcements

Journal Journal: AT&T's Batteries Explode

Journal by Cbos1
Apparently AT&T's batteries are exploding, check this out from Engadget: "AT&T is looking to replace 17,000 backup batteries in U-verse equipment cabinets all over the country over concerns that they can explode. Those are confirmed concerns, too, as there have been four confirmed incidents since October 2006. Explosions have occurred in Houston, Cleveland and Wisconsin; the Wisconsin incident reportedly was strong enough to blow the 50-pound cabinet door off its bolts. The bad news for
IBM

Submission + - IBM virtual world defies laws of physics (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jbrodkin
jbrodkin writes: "IBM has a unique take on virtual worlds for business use. Rather than strictly adhering to the laws of physics, IBM is letting its employees hold virtual meetings up in the air and under water, and giving them wacky chores such as kicking a giant boulder 1,400 feet. "Why do we need walls and ceilings to do a meeting?" asks Michael Ackerbauer of IBM, who is building the company's virtual world, called the Metaverse. "We've had meetings under water and up in the air. Meetings are where you want them to be." There have been some mixed reactions to the unconventional model, Ackerbauer admits. "Some are saying 'wow, this is great, I'm ready to go.' Others are scratching their heads," he says."

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