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Comment Re:Hmm... (Score 1) 88

Care to state which VNs you consider the greatest? *Puts on weeaboo hat* Looking at the top list at vndb (http://vndb.org/v/all?q=;fil=tagspoil-0;o=d;s=rating), the majority of the western audience predominantly considers the greatest titles to be those produced by big companies like Key and Nitro+ -- hardly a couple of kids in their basements. Higurashi and Umineko are doujin titles, but they were hardly slapped together over a summer holiday.

As far as western VNs go, the most popular is probably Katawa Shoujo, and that took literally years to make. And even as a finished product, it can hardly be considered even remotely in the same league as MLA or CrossChannel. Other western VNs made by a basement dwellers are invariably bad. It's also worth noting that doujin software tends to have more salability in Japan than indie software has had in the west until recently (though this seems to be changing for the better).

While I doubt the megatokyo vn is going be all that great, I can understand the need for financial support if it's going to have a hope of being anywhere half-decent. I chucked the guy my $10 and wish him well -- not because I am particularly hopeful of this specific title, but because I think it's nice that the medium gets some exposure apart from the lolcartoonporn kind.

Comment Re:It Could Be More (Score 1) 295

Works fine on arch (yaourt -S steam), and I haven't heard anyone else complain. Just because valve packages steam for ubuntu, doesn't mean it doesn't work on other distros. It's unreasonable to expect valve to package its software specific to each and every distro, version and architecture. I don't know if your last comment was supposed to be funny, but repackaging hardly requires a software engineer.

Comment Better example (Score 2) 91

While definitely cool project, I think there are better examples out there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QcfZGDvHU8#t=16 also shows an auto tracking turret with portal voices. However in this case the tracking seems quick enough to be useful, and it actually hurts people. Add some white plastic, and you're pretty close to the "real" deal.

Submission + - Boltzmann equation solved, the new way

xt writes: The Boltzmann equation is old news. What's news is that the 140 year old equation has been solved, using mathematical techniques from the fields of partial differential equations and harmonic analysis, some as new as five years old. This solution provides a new understanding of the effects due to grazing collisions, when neighboring molecules just glance off one another rather than collide head on. We may not understand the theory, but we'll sure love the applications!

Submission + - First Anarchist's Cookbook Convictions (telegraph.co.uk)

analysethis writes: In the UK last month the author/compiler of the well-known-in-internet-circles 'terrorist handbook' pleaded guilty to seven counts of collecting information that could have been used to prepare or commit acts of terrorism, with a maximum jail term of 10 years. Today the first people caught with downloaded copies have been put behind bars — a white supremacist father and son pairing getting 10 & 2 years respectively, convicted of three counts of possessing material useful for acts of terror. How many will be emptying their recycle bins after this conviction?

As of writing, the book is still freely available on Amazon.com to buy.

Comment Re:Ubuntu (Score 3, Interesting) 279

But, an earlier poster mentioned the fact that corporate and financial institutions have all this money to pay high powered administrators. If the administrators are working with a decent operating system, and if the administrators are competent, then Enterprise is safe, right? And, the military too, right?

How's that British thing working out now? Windows for Submarines? The last I heard, it was down. Who has more expertise in securing computers than the US or the UK departments of defense? If THEY can't secure Windows, then who can?

Comment Re:People will move to Apple. (Score 1) 695

My grandparents are dead, so I can't really speak for them (insert bad bsd joke here), but I know my mother has no problems clicking on the wifi icon in ubuntu. Really, while wifi can be nuisance in some distributions, ubuntu has come a long way. Even a generic acer laptop which one of my neighbors uses, complete with a (reputedly horrible) broadcom wnic, worked out of the box on. While I'm sure there are still some black spots on the linux wifi map, you have to be pretty unlucky to get something which doesn't work out of the box on said distribution. And if you want to eliminate luck as a factor, you can spend five minutes extra the next time you buy a computer, and make sure you get one with atheros or intel chipsets.

While Apple hardware may be excellent, their macbook line is still overpriced by $3-400 compared to a similarly spec-ed Lenovo. This I believe, is the biggest rationale for not choosing apple. If you can get a similar or better non-Apple computer for less price than an Apple, why would you go with the Apple? Especially if all you do is play solitaire and flash games, which you can do on ubuntu just as well as on osx (easier according to my mother, as the dock confused her).

On a side note, as I'm sure some will suggest installing OSX on non-Apple PC's. When I recently installed 10.5.* on my T60, the wifi (iwl3945) refused to work. I don't think the drivers were ready. On the other hand, ubuntu immediately recognized the card and configured it; so I can only assume that the whole OSX "just works" experience only applies to Apple produced PC's.
Microsoft

Submission + - Linux Foundation Calls for 'Respect for Microsoft' (vnu.co.uk)

kripkenstein writes: "Jim Zemlin (executive director for the Linux Foundation) has said at LinuxWorld that the open source community should stop poking fun at Microsoft:

Open source vendors have to recognise that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems. This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it.

"There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.
An interesting perspective, but saying Microsoft has "a good track record in fending off competition" is like saying Muhammad Ali was "good at hitting his opponents in the ring"."

User Journal

Journal SPAM: The Season Of Cherry Blossoms 2

The colour of flower is as white as the complexion of a pretty young woman.

The colour of trunk is as black as the colour of hair.

Those are two reasons cherry blossoms attract many Japanese.

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