chriscorbell - Slashdot User

Gamers Pay To Play With Girls 408

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday March 23, 2010 @01:00PM from the this-could-get-expensive-fast dept.

taucross writes "A new site allows lonely Xbox 360 gamers to pay a prescribed fee for a few minutes of game time with one of the 'PlayDates', a girl who is paid to play video games. Gamers can choose to have a 'flirty' or 'dirty' experience with one of the PlayDates. Is this what we meant when we said we wanted 'adult gaming'?"

Comment Does IE "security" sabotage Firefox download? (Score 1) 220

by chriscorbell on Friday February 19, 2010 @07:38PM (#31205998) Attached to: Details Emerge On EU-Only "Browser Choice" Screen For Windows

Has anyone recently tried to use IE to download firefox? Does IE adopt "security" policies to make it harder to download and install Firefox? I was experimenting with a fresh 2008 Server instance in EC2 the other day and needed to download some open-source packages to install. I found that IE was super paranoid about any download, especially from a mirror site, and would put up a security warning, make me click OK to whitelist the site, and then go back and try the download again. I went through all the settigns dialogs I could find trying to turn off this "feature" to no avail. Turns out if you download Firefox from the mozilla site it will redirect you to a different mirror each time - meaning you can do this dance repeatedly and never actually satisfy IE's bizarre "security". The workaround is to delve into one of the mirror sites and navigate to the download you need. I'm not a paranoid type but I find myself questioning whether this wasn't a deliberate "how can we make it a PITA to download Firefox" move by the IE crew.

Apple's "iPad" Out In the Open 1713

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @02:49PM from the will-care-when-it-runs-linux dept.

Reader oxide7 is one of the many to note that the heaviest speculation is mostly over (still waiting on the price, though) about Apple's anticipated new device (though there are surely plenty of questions about the device's hardware capabilities and the scope of its software and content marketplace): "At an event in San Francisco Apple released its anticipated iPad.'[It's] Way better than a laptop, way better then a phone. You can turn it any way you want. To see the whole page is phenomenal,' said Jobs." The (0.5") skinny: 1.5 lbs, multitouch, up to 64GB of flash, 9.7" screen, and a 1Ghz "Apple A4" chip (more about the A4 in Engadget's developing story). The iPad is closer in concept to an expanded iPhone (OS and all) than a miniaturized laptop, though it doesn't have quite as much connectivity as you might expect, with no 3G connection built in. (You'll have to make do with 802.11n, Bluetooth, and tethering.) Live coverage is ongoing at gdgt live, Engadget, and Gizmodo, as well as various others. Update by timothy, 19:58 GMT: Got the 3G part wrong; 3G is indeed an option. Prices run from $499 (16GB flash, WiFi but no 3G) to $829 (WiFi and 3G, 64GB flash). Should start shipping in 60 days (WiFi only), in 90 days for 3G. Surprsingly, no built-in camera.

Secret Copyright Treaty Leaks. It's Bad. Very Bad. 775

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 04, 2009 @10:31AM from the you-gotta-be-kidding-me dept.

Jamie found a Boing Boing story that will probably get your blood to at least a simmer. It says "The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama's administration refused to disclose due to 'national security' concerns, has leaked. It's bad." You can read the original leaked document or the summary. If passed, the internet will never be the same. Thank goodness it's hidden from public scrutiny for National Security.

Comment who gives a **** (Score 1) 551

by chriscorbell on Friday September 25, 2009 @07:24PM (#29545207) Attached to: The Duct Tape Programmer

...what Joel "straw man fallacies for fun and profit" Spolowsky says about it? Seriously, all this dude does is amplify his self-importance with grandiose soft(war)e stories while giving mediocre programmers pseudo-intellectual cover to do whatever the hell they want when they're not micro-managed. Ooh, yeah, that's making us all so much more practical and productive. Blog to the hand, JS.

Microsoft To Open Retail Stores 535

Posted by kdawson on Friday February 13, 2009 @09:16AM from the world-class-shopping-experience dept.

chaz373 writes "CNET reports that Microsoft is going retail. In the 'Beyond Binary' blog Ina Fried reports, 'After years of brushing off the notion, Microsoft said on Thursday that it will open up its own line of retail stores. Without detailing the plans, Microsoft said it has hired David Porter, a 25-year Wal-Mart veteran, to lead the effort. Sources say that Porter's mission will be to develop the company's retail plans and that the effort is likely to start small with just a few locations.'"

Bill Gates Unleashes Swarm of Mosquitoes 841

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday February 05, 2009 @09:39AM from the ok-that's-awesome dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft founder turned philanthropist Bill Gates released a glass full of mosquitoes at an elite Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference to make a point about the deadly sting of malaria. 'Malaria is spread by mosquitoes,' Gates said while opening a jar on stage at a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars. 'I brought some. Here I'll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected.'" Say what you will about the guy, that is showmanship. Well done.

Comment + Feature parity and doc sharing on all OS's (Score 1) 503

by chriscorbell on Tuesday January 20, 2009 @03:35PM (#26534089) Attached to: Can a Small Business Migrate Smoothly To OpenOffice.org v3?

In addition to price the major reason for me to use OO over MS is the seamless use accross OS's. I'm a developer who works on Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux and Vista. I keep a lot of documents under source control, things like specifications, spreadsheets with performance data, and diagrams which I'm now doing in OO draw. There's nothing that quite prepares you for being able to check out, edit, and check in the same spreadsheet on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows and have it just work and render perfectly on all OS's. If you're a cross-platform shop in any way (for development, creative or anything) OO is a huge win in this regard.

Comment I always wonder why Woz gets quoted (Score 1) 573

by chriscorbell on Thursday October 09, 2008 @04:31PM (#25319999) Attached to: Steve Wozniak Predicts Death of the IPod

Nothing against him as a person, but what's he been doing that's so brilliant in the past 2 decades that makes him an authority? He's like the Pete Best of Apple.

Proposed Bill in Tennessee Penalizes Schools for Allowing Piracy 129

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday February 28, 2008 @08:01PM from the the-riaa's-problems-are-everyone's-problems dept.

An anonymous reader brings us an Ars Technica report about a proposed bill in Tennessee which would require state-funded universities to enforce anti-piracy standards. The universities would be forced to "track down and stop infringing activity" or risk losing their funding. The U.S. Congress requested last year that certain universities do this voluntarily. Quoting: "Efforts taken by universities thus far to deter and prevent piracy have had mixed results. The University of Utah, for instance, claims that it has reduced MPAA and RIAA complaints by 90 percent and saved $1.2 million in bandwidth costs by instituting anti-piracy filtering mechanisms. However, the school revealed that their filtering system hasn't been able to stop encrypted P2P traffic and noted that students will find ways to circumvent any system. The end result, some say, will be a costly arms race as students perpetually work to circumvent anti-piracy systems put in place by universities."

Professors Slam Java As "Damaging" To Students 1267

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 08, 2008 @04:18AM from the we-had-to-use-the-letter-o dept.

jfmiller call to our attention two professors emeritus of computer science at New York University who have penned an article titled Computer Science Education: Where Are the Software Engineers of Tomorrow? in which they berate their university, and others, for not teaching solid languages like C, C++, Lisp, and ADA. The submitter wonders whether any CS students or professors would care to respond. Quoting the article: "The resulting set of skills [from today's educational practices] is insufficient for today's software industry (in particular for safety and security purposes) and, unfortunately, matches well what the outsourcing industry can offer. We are training easily replaceable professionals... Java programming courses did not prepare our students for the first course in systems, much less for more advanced ones. Students found it hard to write programs that did not have a graphic interface, had no feeling for the relationship between the source program and what the hardware would actually do, and (most damaging) did not understand the semantics of pointers at all, which made the use of C in systems programming very challenging."

Scientist Suggests We Explore 'Universe is a VR Simulation' Theory 1144

Posted by Zonk on Friday January 04, 2008 @01:44PM from the what-would-we-do-if-he's-right dept.

holy_calamity writes "A New Zealand physicist has written a paper saying that physicists should seriously explore the possibility the universe is a giant virtual reality simulation. He says that the existence of quantum phenomena could be due to the underlying digital nature of the simulation and also claims his VR hypothesis can explain relativity, the big bang and more. It should be possible to perform experiments to prove the hypothesis too. He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual."

IBM Sues Company Selling Fake, Flammable Batteries 261

Posted by Zonk on Thursday November 29, 2007 @07:35PM from the why-would-you-do-that dept.

Bergkamp10 writes "A Computerworld article is reporting that IBM is suing Shentech for selling laptop batteries that catch on fire and sport allegedly fake IBM logos. IBM apparently followed up on a claim by a customer that an 'IBM' laptop battery bought at Shentech caught on fire and damaged his laptop. The customer reported the problem to Lenovo (who license Big Blue's trademark) who subsequently ordered 12 batteries from Shentech and found them all to be fakes. IBM is asking for US$1 million in damages for each dodgy battery sold."

Paranormal Investigations and Belief in Ghosts 606

Posted by Zonk on Friday October 26, 2007 @07:32PM from the in-the-heart-of-translvania-in-the-vampire-hall-of-fame-yeah dept.

Esther Schindler writes "Sure, everyone uses technology on the job. But you may not have contemplated the tools used by paranormal investigators (at least, not until you began thinking about Halloween) who look for the truth in ghosts and other things that go Bump in the Night. In Paranormal Investigations and Technology: Where Ghosts and Gadgets Meet, CIO's Al Sacco writes about the most unusual of tool chests, with everything from thermometers to blimp cams." You want spooky? An anonymous reader passed a link to a survey that says a third of Americans believe in ghosts. Who you gonna call?

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