Comment Moon dirt = 'ground'? (Score 1) 294
So soil on the moon is also called 'ground'? How boring.
Comment IDE needs work (Score 1) 268
Can we just get the IDE to work with the debugger?
Comment Re:Does anyone really use it? (Score 0, Flamebait) 443
but does anyone use MonoDevelop?
It runs like crap. Click in the wrong place and it crashes.
and frankly if you're using Mono you're probably an MS guy who wants his stuff to work on linux rather than a *nix dev anyway. Aren't you?
I want it to work. Period. I'm a computer guy, I don't define or limit myself to Microsoft, Linux, or embedded 68HC11A, I just want a managed language that works. Shove your bigotry.
Submission + - Appeals Court Stays RIAA Subpoena vs Students (blogspot.com)
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The procedures used by the RIAA the past 5 years in suing 'John Does' without their knowing about it have never been subjected to scrutiny by an appeals court, since most of the 'John Does' never learn about the 'ex parte' proceeding until it's too late to do anything about it. That is about to change. In Arista Records v. Does 1-16, a case targeting students at the Albany Campus of the State University of New York, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has decided to put things on hold while it takes a careful look at what transpired in the lower court. The way it came to this is that a few 'John Does' filed a broad-based challenge to a number of the RIAA's procedures, citing the defendant's constitutional rights, the insufficiency of the complaint, the lack of personal jurisdiction over the defendants, improper misjoinder of the defendants, and the RIAA's illegal procurement of its "evidence" through the use of an unlicensed investigator, MediaSentry. The lower court judges gave short shrift to 'John Doe #3', but he promptly filed an appeal, and asked for a stay of the subpoena and lower court proceedings during the pendency of the appeal. The RIAA opposed the motion arguing that John Doe's appeal had no chance of success. The Appeals Court disagreed, and granted the motion, freezing the subpoena and putting the entire case on hold until the appeal is finally determined. As one commentator said, 'this news has been a long time coming, but is welcomed'."
Comment Judge Gladys Dykes (Score 1) 415
Bailiff! Whack his pee pee!
Comment Aljazeera English via Livestation.com (Score 1) 349
Using the viewer from Livestation.com , I've been watching the debates on Aljazeera (English). It works perfectly on my Ubuntu 8 (64-bit) installation.
DVD Porn Viruses Ravage US Soldiers' Computers 489
stevegee58 writes "Tom Ricks' Inbox in the Sunday Washington Post reported that bootleg DVDs purchased in Iraqi markets ('souks') are frequently infected with viruses. Iraqi soldiers were affected as well; electronic interaction between Iraqi and US soldiers frequently resulted in a corresponding exchange of viruses from these infected DVDs."
Submission + - Congress members with RIAA pockets.
palewook writes: The Consumerist posted a story containing the contact information of 50 United States Representatives & Senators who accepted RIAA money during their last election campaign. Seems like a good time to let a few people know how you feel about RIAA shills.
Submission + - Indie 3D Game Engines?
TBBScorpion writes: Questions: Which of the Indie 3D game engines are worth while? How long until Ogre3D and other open source engines catch up?
Lately I have been investigating 3D game engines. I was mostly paying attention to open source engines like Ogre3d, Irrlicht, Crystal Space 3D, etc. Then I found out about cheap Indie licenses for commercial game engines like Torque Game Engine ($150), Torque Game Engine Advanced ($295) and the C4 Engine ($200 + free upgrades).
I found a list of top commercial and open source game engines at devmaster.net in case anyone is interested (I didn't want to take the time to list all the engines, but there are more good ones that I did not list on this page.
Here is my dilemma and question... Which of the engines are worth investing in? Buy an indie license or hold out for open source? Or start with indie and switch later if open source catches up?
Torque Game Engine 1.5 works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux but lacks modern shader support (except for something about a free modernization kit). I mostly do cross-platform software development so I like this feature.
But then there is Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA) which adds shader support and the Atlas terrain paging feature and a few other nice features, but is DirectX9 based and is no longer cross-platform. I have also heard rumors about support for the engine to be a little on the lacking side, yet the Torque community seems to be rather large compared to other commercial. Are the complaints just from people who don't really know how to program expecting to be able to edit the C++ of the game engine or are capable people really having trouble? I've heard rumors about stability of TGEA compared to TGE? For those of you who have used TGE or TGEA, would you recommend it over other engines?
The C4 Engine looks nice as well, but seems to be under active development and less mature, but potentially more modern game engine? Also, it supports Windows XP and Mac OS X, which is better then just Windows.
The features I am hoping for are:
When it comes to the open source engines like Ogre3D, the main thing the seem to be lacking is the built-in editors, and at least Ogre3D is currently mostly a graphics engine rather then a complete game engine (i.e. Physics built-in; does provide wrappers for ODE and other Physics engines). My assumption is that is just a matter of time before Ogre3D and other engines catch up with the top Indie commercial engines? What does the slashdot community think about the topic?
Lastly, I will be using the game engine for not only making games, but for some scientific applications as well. Also, I started using C++ 10 years ago and have been using Python since January 2002... so I'm ready to dive into the engine code.
Lately I have been investigating 3D game engines. I was mostly paying attention to open source engines like Ogre3d, Irrlicht, Crystal Space 3D, etc. Then I found out about cheap Indie licenses for commercial game engines like Torque Game Engine ($150), Torque Game Engine Advanced ($295) and the C4 Engine ($200 + free upgrades).
I found a list of top commercial and open source game engines at devmaster.net in case anyone is interested (I didn't want to take the time to list all the engines, but there are more good ones that I did not list on this page.
Here is my dilemma and question... Which of the engines are worth investing in? Buy an indie license or hold out for open source? Or start with indie and switch later if open source catches up?
Torque Game Engine 1.5 works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux but lacks modern shader support (except for something about a free modernization kit). I mostly do cross-platform software development so I like this feature.
But then there is Torque Game Engine Advanced (TGEA) which adds shader support and the Atlas terrain paging feature and a few other nice features, but is DirectX9 based and is no longer cross-platform. I have also heard rumors about support for the engine to be a little on the lacking side, yet the Torque community seems to be rather large compared to other commercial. Are the complaints just from people who don't really know how to program expecting to be able to edit the C++ of the game engine or are capable people really having trouble? I've heard rumors about stability of TGEA compared to TGE? For those of you who have used TGE or TGEA, would you recommend it over other engines?
The C4 Engine looks nice as well, but seems to be under active development and less mature, but potentially more modern game engine? Also, it supports Windows XP and Mac OS X, which is better then just Windows.
The features I am hoping for are:
- Cross-platform if possible
- Modern shader support
- Terrain paging system built-in
- Model, material and animation import from Blender 3d
When it comes to the open source engines like Ogre3D, the main thing the seem to be lacking is the built-in editors, and at least Ogre3D is currently mostly a graphics engine rather then a complete game engine (i.e. Physics built-in; does provide wrappers for ODE and other Physics engines). My assumption is that is just a matter of time before Ogre3D and other engines catch up with the top Indie commercial engines? What does the slashdot community think about the topic?
Lastly, I will be using the game engine for not only making games, but for some scientific applications as well. Also, I started using C++ 10 years ago and have been using Python since January 2002... so I'm ready to dive into the engine code.
Submission + - Simple Stand-alone IM/Videophone Device for Granny
ashitaka writes: "One month ago my father-in-law died leaving his wife to live alone for the first time in her life. She lives in a somewhat rural part of Japan North of Tokyo in an area with few neighbours. My wife is her only daughter and we live in Canada, her only son is an engineer for Fujitsu and spends many days on the road. We know she misses our kids and we try to get over to Japan as much as possible however more than once every year or two is a stretch.
If she could have a simple device that hooks up to a broadband connection with a small webcam and directional microphone on top of the TV and which can be operated with a couple of buttons on a remote we know she would feel so much more in contact with us and could make sure she *really* is doing ok. (She didn't tell us my father-in-law was hospitalized until he had been in for several months and just kept saying he was out or too busy to come to the phone)
Videophone technologies up to now have required knowledge of computer operation and Instant Messaging software or having to go through the complexities of setting up the traditional video conference. Here we are talking about a 76-year old Japanese granny who has never and will never touch anything more complex than the phone or the TV remote.
I'm looking for a device which can be administered remotely, has 6-8 large "quick-dial" buttons and an emergency button which will try to connect through a list of contacts if required. It shouldn't look like a computer but should support connecting to whatever IM clients would be appropriate. It would be nice if it could turn on the TV when a particular Universal remote button or buttons were pressed to save Obaachan an extra step but I'm not cure if current signalling standards for TVs would support that."
If she could have a simple device that hooks up to a broadband connection with a small webcam and directional microphone on top of the TV and which can be operated with a couple of buttons on a remote we know she would feel so much more in contact with us and could make sure she *really* is doing ok. (She didn't tell us my father-in-law was hospitalized until he had been in for several months and just kept saying he was out or too busy to come to the phone)
Videophone technologies up to now have required knowledge of computer operation and Instant Messaging software or having to go through the complexities of setting up the traditional video conference. Here we are talking about a 76-year old Japanese granny who has never and will never touch anything more complex than the phone or the TV remote.
I'm looking for a device which can be administered remotely, has 6-8 large "quick-dial" buttons and an emergency button which will try to connect through a list of contacts if required. It shouldn't look like a computer but should support connecting to whatever IM clients would be appropriate. It would be nice if it could turn on the TV when a particular Universal remote button or buttons were pressed to save Obaachan an extra step but I'm not cure if current signalling standards for TVs would support that."
Submission + - PC World editor resigns , wont fudgereviews
bricko writes: PC World editor walks out , new Top editor from Apple wants him to write reviews favorable to advertisers. Seems Colin Crawford formerly from Apple wants them to schmooze the adverts. Long time editor walks...tells them to stick it.
http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/05/pc_world_ed itor.html
Submission + - Defense Contractor Halliburton Moving HQ to Dubai
theodp writes: "Much-maligned defense contractor Halliburton is moving its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Dubai's friendly tax laws will add to Halliburton's bottom line. Last year, it earned $2.3B in profits. Sen. Patrick Leahy called the company's move 'corporate greed at its worst.' Halliburton, once headed by VP Dick Cheney, has received contracts valued at an estimated $25.7B for its work in Iraq."
What the GPLv3 Means for MS-Novell Agreement 161
eldavojohn writes to mention IT Business Edge has a dry but interesting interview with a lawyer (Antoinette Tease) on the effects the GPLv3 on the Microsoft & Novell alliance. From her answers: "Unlike prior versions of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which did not address patent rights, the current draft of the GPL version 3 has several provisions that address patent rights. Section 2 states that the license to use the open source code 'terminates if you bring suit against anyone for patent infringement of any of your essential patent claims' based on any version of the open source program." She goes on to say "the GPLv3 as currently drafted would impose an obligation on Novell to somehow 'shield' its customers from patent lawsuits brought by Microsoft, or, alternatively, to make the source code publicly available..."
Submission + - Samsung Begins Shipping Hybrid Hard Drives
writertype writes: "Samsung has become the first company begin shipping hybrid hard drives, we report on ExtremeTech. Unfortunately, there's no word yet (besides "soon") on when retail shipments will begin, or when (or if) 3.5-inch models will be available. Note that these are different than the ReadyBoost USB flash drives optimized for Vista; hybrid drives contain a smaller amount of flash, and work as a write cache for your notebook drive, extending battery life."
Source Control For Bills In Congress? 300
grepya writes "An article in Slate talks about the sneaky way a major change in the Patriot Act reauthorization bill was made by (possibly) a Congressional staffer without even his boss knowing about it. (The change increased the power of the Executive at the expense of the other two branches of government.) Now, I write software for a large and complex system containing millions of lines of code and I know that nobody could slip a single line of code into my project without my knowledge. This is because everything that goes into the build goes into a source control system, and email notification is generated to interested parties. This is for a body of work that affects perhaps a few hundred thousand people at most (our company and the combined population of all our customer organizations). Shouldn't the same process be applied to bills being debated in national legislatures that affect potentially hundreds of millions of people?"
Slashdot Top Deals
Your program is sick! Shoot it and put it out of its memory.
