klin - Slashdot User

Collision of Two Asteroids Spotted For the First Time 31

Posted by timothy on Friday October 08, 2010 @09:22PM from the delicious-space-dust dept.

sciencehabit writes "Astronomers report that a small asteroid located in the inner asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter took a major hit early last year. Previously rendered only in artists' conceptions, the first asteroid collision known in modern times revealed itself in a tail of debris streaming from what astronomers at first assumed was a comet. Instead of a steady stream of dust, however, they found boulders near the object with dust moving away from them."

Frustrated Reporter Quits After Slow News Day 178

Posted by samzenpus on Monday September 13, 2010 @11:01AM from the take-this-job-and-shove-it dept.

Norwegian radio journalist Pia Beathe Pedersen quit on the air complaining that her bosses were making her read news on a day when "nothing important has happened." Pedersen claimed that broadcaster NRK put too much pressure on the staff and that she "wanted to be able to eat properly again and be able to breathe," during her nearly two-minute on-air resignation.

Turbine Responds To DDO Community Protest 57

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 14, 2010 @02:49PM from the that-was-fast dept.

Zarrot writes "Turbine has listened to the community and backed away from the partnership with SuperRewards that we discussed yesterday. Quoting: 'Based on your feedback, we're stepping away from the "Offer" category for now. We'll keep exploring alternate ways for players who want points to get them. We'll also continue to innovate in pricing and accessibility because that's who we are. As of today, the Offer Wall is coming down. We'll collect all the feedback we've received over the last few days and will use it to guide future decisions.'"

Jack Thompson Attacks DoD, ESA, GTA With Utah Bill 235

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday February 03, 2009 @03:13PM from the back-on-board-the-train-to-crazytown dept.

eldavojohn writes "Delusional disbarred Miami attorney Jack Thompson claims to have a bill in the state of Utah that targets retailers and entire industries with the Truth in Advertising Law. The best part of his rant: 'Our military appropriately uses violent video games a) to suppress the inhibition to kill of new recruits, and b) to teach killing scenarios. Games have the same effect on civilian teens.' While GamePolitics couldn't find the bill on Utah's state site, they did receive a response from him claiming 'I have a sponsor and a bill, and [the video game] industry is in trouble.' For 2009 bills, there seems to be merely a bill enhancing the Truth in Advertising Law but does not contain any of Thompson's verbiage. Good 'ole Jack — always good for some laughs, but really he needs to give it up one of these days."

Violence in Games, Once Again, Not That Compelling 191

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday January 16, 2009 @07:01PM from the chickens-and-eggs dept.

One of the great arguments of the digital age has been over the effects of video games on aggression — especially if you have ever heard the name Jack Thompson. A recent study suggest the counterpoint once again, that violent video games really don't have that much impact. "The authors performed six studies in total, but they were in broad agreement, so we'll only discuss the more compelling ones here. For the experimental portion, these involved playing an essentially identical game with different degrees of violent content. One group of participants was randomly assigned to play the game House of the Dead 3 on the different extremes of its gore settings, while a second was split between those who played the normal version of Half-Life 2, and a those who played a modified version that turned the adventure into an elaborate game of tag. In both cases, the primary influences on enjoyment were the sense of competence and satisfaction, along with the immersive nature of the game. Generally, females rated immersion as more important, while males went for competence (and consistently rated their own expertise very highly). Violence didn't register when it came to enjoyment, even for those with pre-existing violent tendencies."

Comment Get started with WTL (Score 5, Interesting) 560

by klin on Wednesday May 12, 2004 @11:36PM (#9135724) Attached to: Microsoft Releases WTL To SourceForge

I started Win32 programming with WTL. No MFC experience at all.

For those of you who may be curious about this technology, here are a couple of points:

WTL is a collection of header files with the source inlined in. Personally I find the source reasonably understandable. I have had not much trouble stepping through and debugging WTL calls.

It's a light wrapper around the Win32 API. Some people commented on the lack of documentation regarding the WTL. The truth is, MSDN's API and common controls documentation pretty much covers what you need to know. For most cases the library does little fudging between your app and the API behavior.

For the application I am coding, I use strictly STL strings, containers, and various Boost libraries. With WTL, I don't feel that I am paying for things I am not using like CStrings and such. For non-UI OS calls, I use ATL. In short, WTL, STL, & ATL let me produce efficient code without worrying about reinventing solutions.

One thing I am worried about is the future of WTL. Open-sourcing is great, but I don't know what direction the Windows API is heading. As .NET seeps deeper into the Windows Platform, I am afraid that MS is going to try to root out such a quick and painless way to whip out applications in unmanaged code. There's life in C++ yet, I just don't know if MS believes that.

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