VikingVishnu - Slashdot User

Comment Perspective (Score 2) 1452

by VikingVishnu on Monday October 10, 2011 @10:24AM (#37662292) Attached to: Richard Stallman's Dissenting View of Steve Jobs

What Stallman needs is perspective. He lives in a world of absolutes. "They are the devils, we are the holy warriors!" logic does not apply to anything and everything, including software. There are no rights or wrongs in the way Apple, Microsoft and GNU do business/provide their services/software. They are just different in their approach. GNU, and Stallmans philosophy, could not have sold the number of machines Apple has been able to sell in the last decade, just because of the fact that a normal person in the street does not care if iPhone was scam to surround them in a walled garden. A normal person in the street wants stuff to work, and look pretty, which the iPhone did. Apple is successful because Jobs related to the general public, providing them with what they thought was cool. Nothing wrong in that. General public doesn't give a damn about deeper philosophy, about openness, and about walled gardens until they get a raid from RIAA for piracy or they get sued. In this world, you make a living not by uplifting people, but by selling people what they want and need.

Submission + - Patent Troll Lawyer Sanctioned: Extortion Tactics (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09, 2011 @06:26AM

An anonymous reader writes: For all the stories of patent trolls and copyright trolls, there haven't been too many stories of either being sanctioned for abusive or extortion-like practices... until now. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (one level below the Supreme Court) has approved over $600,000 in sanctions against a lawyer for a patent troll, saying that filing over a hundred lawsuits, each of which was followed up almost immediately with offers to settle at fees much cheaper than it would cost to fight, has the "indicia of extortion." Now if only judges started doing that more often.

Beaver Dam Visible From Space 286

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday May 05, 2010 @06:41PM from the dam-big-job dept.

ygslash writes "The Hoover Dam no longer holds the title of the world's widest dam. Satellite photos of northern Alberta, Canada, show that several families of beavers have apparently joined forces to build a dam 850 meters wide, more than twice as wide as the Hoover Dam."

Do Gamers Want Simpler Games? 462

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday May 05, 2010 @03:20AM from the i'd-say-no-but-i-used-to-love-frogger dept.

A recent GamePro article sums up a lesson that developers and publishers have been slowly learning over the last few years: gamers don't want as much from games as they say they do. Quoting: "Conventional gaming wisdom thus far has been 'bigger, better, MORE!' It's something affirmed by the vocal minority on forums, and by the vast majority of critics that praise games for ambition and scale. The problem is, in reality its almost completely wrong. ... How do we know this? Because an increasing number of games incorporate telemetry systems that track our every action. They measure the time we play, they watch where we get stuck, and they broadcast our behavior back to the people that make the games so they can tune the experience accordingly. Every studio I've spoken to that does this, to a fault, says that many of the games they've released are far too big and far too hard for most players' behavior. As a general rule, less than five percent of a game's audience plays a title through to completion. I've had several studios tell me that their general observation is that 'more than 90 percent' of a game's audience will play it for 'just four or five hours.'"

Open Source Developer Knighted 101

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday May 02, 2010 @06:02PM from the knights-who-say-free dept.

unixfan writes "Georg Greve, developer of Open Document Format and active FOSS developer, has received a knighthood in Germany for his work. From the article: 'Some weeks ago I received news that the embassy in Berne had unsuccessfully been trying to contact me under FSFE's old office address in Zurich. This was a bit odd and unexpected. So you can probably understand my surprise to be told by the embassy upon contacting them that on 18 December 2009 I had been awarded the Cross of Merit on ribbon (Verdienstkreuz am Bande) by the Federal Republic of Germany. As you might expect, my first reaction was one of disbelief. I was, in fact, rather shaken. You could also say shocked. Quick Wikipedia research revealed this to be part of the orders of knighthood, making this a Knight's Cross.'"

Nintendo Upset Over Nokia Game Emulation Video 189

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @02:45AM from the super-mario-takedown dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo is investigating potential copyright infringement by Nokia during some video demos of their N900 phone, which can be seen emulating Nintendo games. Nintendo spokesman Robert Saunders says: 'We take rigorous steps to protect our IP and our legal team will examine this to determine if any infringement has taken place.' In the video, Nokia says, 'Most publishers allow individual title usage, provided that the user is in possession of the original title.'"

Computer Games and Traditional CS Courses 173

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday November 25, 2009 @02:12AM from the terrible-terrible-games dept.

drroman22 writes "Schools are working to put real-world relevance into computer science education by integrating video game development into traditional CS courses. Quoting: 'Many CS educators recognized and took advantage of younger generations' familiarity and interests for computer video games and integrate related contents into their introductory programming courses. Because these are the first courses students encounter, they build excitement and enthusiasm for our discipline. ... Much of this work reported resounding successes with drastically increased enrollments and student successes. Based on these results, it is well recognized that integrating computer gaming into CS1 and CS2 (CS1/2) courses, the first programming courses students encounter, is a promising strategy for recruiting and retaining potential students." While a focus on games may help stir interest, it seems as though game development studios are as yet unimpressed by most game-related college courses. To those who have taken such courses or considered hiring those who have: what has your experience been?

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday November 24, 2009 @07:07PM from the snack-is-going-to-be-on-the-floor-today dept.

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

What To Do With a Free Xbox 360 Pro? 416

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday October 07, 2009 @10:32PM from the donate-it-to-me dept.

OzPeter writes "Last week I won an Xbox 360 Pro. However, I am not a gamer, and after looking at the current MS offerings, I am not tempted to become one. But I am in the market for a Media Center PC that I can use for streaming TV shows off the 'net as well as general web browsing and displaying video through the HDMI port. With that in mind, I again looked at MS and saw they seemed to have positioned the Xbox as an adjunct to a separate Windows Media Center PC and not as a stand alone unit (which is not what I want). So, once again, I did some more research into the Xbox homebrew scene and discovered things like Xbox Linux. But after reading that site, it is apparent that MS is trying to beat down the homebrewers, and I am left wondering how much hassle it would be to go down that path. So my question is: how should I re-purpose my Xbox? Is it worthwhile doing the Homebrew/Linux option (and can anyone share any experiences)? Are there other ways of re-purposing the device that I haven't considered? Or should I just keep it boxed up as a Christmas present for a favorite nephew?"

Bridging the Gap Between User-Generated Content and Interesting Content 73

Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 02, 2009 @01:25AM from the yeah-i-said-it dept.

Edge Magazine is running a story about user-generated content — or rather, its failure to live up to the hype of the past few years. The author says it "turned out to be a niche. Not everyone has the chops to learn the tools, and even fewer gamers have an idea they want to see through. Instead of revolutionizing games, it merely adds another rung on the ladder from 'player' to 'game-maker.'" Instead, the games that have incorporated the concept in a fun way use what he calls "user-generated, machine-mediated content," and he points out the flexibility of Scribblenauts; the user supplies the imagination and the developer translates that to gameplay. "It shows us our reflection — however tiny, however distorted — inside our games, an experience that is guaranteed to mesmerize us. Ambitious players will still go pick up the tools and learn the languages that let them mod or make their own games; but while they're busy with that, [this system] can invigorate our content — and give us a little more of what we love: ourselves."

An Early Look At Ragnar Tornquist's The Secret World 54

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 11, 2009 @04:10AM from the pretty-pictures dept.

At the recent Penny Arcade Expo, Funcom revealed a ton of new information on The Secret World, an MMO being designed by Ragnar Tornquist that's aiming to buck several of the genre's common trends. Tornquist also spoke later about several of the game's features and some of the design philosophy that they're working with. The game does not have a traditional class or leveling system. Instead, players gather the powers they want to use and align themselves with various factions of their choosing. "We want you to feel part of a world where the conspiracies are so dense and the politics is so thick that, when you join the secret society as a novice at the very beginning, it's this vast organization, and you'll have no idea how it works initially." PvP will be largely segregated from PvE, and new players will be able to contribute in fights that involve more experienced players. Funcom released some concept art and in-game screenshots for The Secret World to go along with a new cinematic trailer.

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