puppetier - Slashdot User

High Fructose Corn Syrup Causes Bigger Weight Gain In Rats 542

Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 24, 2010 @04:30PM from the subsidies-cause-fatter-corn-farmers dept.

krou writes "In an experiment conducted by a Princeton University team, 'Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.' Long-term consumption also 'led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides.' Psychology professor Bart Hoebel commented that 'When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese — every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight.'"

Sprint Unveils HTC Evo 4G Super Phone 284

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday March 24, 2010 @12:00PM from the spec-escalation dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Sprint dropped a bombshell on the CTIA Wireless trade show by unveiling the most powerful Google Android smartphone ever seen in the USA, the WiMAX-powered Evo 4G. The phone runs Android 2.1 on a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8650 chipset along with a helpful 1GB of built-in memory and 512MB of RAM, which is assisted by a MicroSD slot supporting up to 32GB cards. It swaps between EVDO Rev. A, WiMAX and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g on demand. The phone is dominated by a 4.3-inch, 800-by-480 65,000-color TFT LCD capacitive touch screen. There's an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 1.3-megapixel unit on the front. The camera also records 720p, high-def video, which it can play through an HDMI out jack on the bottom. The Evo 4G weighs 170g and measures 120.5 mm by 67 mm by 13 mm. It's expected to hit the market in the summer."

NASA Gives Mars Rover Extra Smarts 116

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday March 24, 2010 @11:21AM from the rover-that-keeps-on-giving dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA today said it upgraded the software controlling its Mars Rover Opportunity to let it make its own decisions about what items like rocks and interesting red planet formations to focus its cameras on. The new system, which NASA uploaded over the past few months, is called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science, or AEGIS and it lets Opportunity's computer examine images that the rover takes with its wide-angle navigation camera after a drive, and recognize rocks that meet specified criteria, such as rounded shape or light color. It can then center its narrower-angle panoramic camera on the chosen target and take multiple images through color filters, NASA stated."

The $8,500 Gaming Table You Want 260

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday March 24, 2010 @09:18AM from the i'm-gonna-need-a-raise dept.

Recently I stumbled upon The Sultan Gaming Table. With a price tag of over $8K, it would have to be awesome: but it has little compartments for the players and DM as well as a drop-down playing surface. If you find the pricetag daunting then you are a sane person, and might instead want to look at the Emissary which starts at a "mere" $1,500 and has many of the same features. Honestly I just love the idea of having my minis on a playing surface underneath the dinner table. I ought to be allowed to expense one of these. I also wish they had more pictures and fewer renderings on the site.

Mars Images Reveal Evidence of Ancient Lakes 128

Posted by timothy on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @10:39AM from the older-I-get-the-wetter-mars-was dept.

Matt_dk writes "Spectacular satellite images suggest that Mars was warm enough to sustain lakes three billion years ago, a period that was previously thought to be too cold and arid to sustain water on the surface, according to research published today in the journal Geology. Earlier research had suggested that Mars had a warm and wet early history but that between 4 billion and 3.8 billion years ago, before the Hesperian Epoch, the planet lost most of its atmosphere and became cold and dry. In the new study, the researchers analysed detailed images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently circling the red planet, and concluded that there were later episodes where Mars experienced warm and wet periods."

EVE Online Battle Breaks Records (And Servers) 308

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 05, 2010 @01:09AM from the blame-it-on-the-torrents dept.

captainktainer writes "In one of the largest tests of EVE Online's new player sovereignty system in the Dominion expansion pack, a fleet of ships attempting to retake a lost star system was effectively annihilated amidst controversy. Defenders IT Alliance, a coalition succeeding the infamous Band of Brothers alliance (whose disbanding was covered in a previous story), effectively annihilated the enemy fleet, destroying thousands of dollars' worth of in-game assets. A representative of the alliance claimed to have destroyed a minimum of four, possibly five or more of the game's most expensive and powerful ship class, known as Titans. Both official and unofficial forums are filled with debate about whether the one-sided battle was due to difference in player skill or the well-known network failures after the release of the expansion. One of the attackers, a member of the GoonSwarm alliance, claims that because of bad coding, 'Only 5% of [the attackers] loaded,' meaning that lag prevented the attackers from using their ships, even as the defenders were able to destroy those ships unopposed. Even members of the victorious IT Alliance expressed disappointment at the outcome of the battle. CCP, EVE Online's publisher, has recently acknowledged poor network performance, especially in the advertised 'large fleet battles' that Dominion was supposed to encourage, and has asked players to help them stress test their code on Tuesday. Despite the admitted network failure, leaders of the attacking force do not expect CCP to replace lost ships, claiming that it was their own fault for not accounting for server failures. The incident raises questions about CCP's ability to cope with the increased network use associated with their rapid growth in subscriptions."

Comment Re:Look at the titles (Score 1) 1276

by puppetier on Tuesday September 23, 2008 @02:31PM (#25125687) Attached to: Bad Signs For Blu-ray

Well I have a PS3 and at the time I got it there were loads of special offers for blu-ray movies (5 free with my PS3 and tons of website that were 2-for-1 offers or better) so needless to say I have a decent collection of about 30 blu-ray movies that cost me less than if I were to buy them on DVD. That aside, personally I feel the difference between DVD and blu-ray is as drastic and awesome as the difference between VHS and DVD was, so nearly every movie I watch on blu-ray, imo, is awesome and worth it.

But for some good recommendations, well it depends on the types of movies you enjoy watching, but a few that I enjoyed were;

- The Fifth Element (I was really impressed an old movie from the 90s could look so good)

- Lord of War (nothing like having a crystal clear picture & audio to help you get into the story and emotion of a movie)

- Ultra Violet (ya, its a kinda cheesy comic book movie, but the visual effects and styling of this movie are stunning, the only thing better than blu-ray on this would be the imax)

- House of Flying Daggers (yes, its subtitled but the uncompressed audio is amazing and coupled with the visuals in this movie really help tell a great story)

- Corpse Bride (wow, just wow. The wow factor for me on this movie was how clear the picture was, sometimes it was legitamely difficult to decern some of the textures from real cloth. To be fair though, I think in some places they actually did this, so I might be wrong, but either way this movie looks amazing.)

- Crank (I personally love this movie, a lot of people I've talked to don't like it for one reason or another, but I first watched it on DVD and then later on blu-ray and it nearly seems like a different movie. This movie benefits immensely from having great picture quality and audio)

- Planet Earth (this is a documentary basically about the ecosystem of our planet, its not too exciting but it is interesting to say the least. The important factor for this movie is it is absolutely beautiful, worth watching)

I personnally prefer blu-ray over DVD and I feel it offers a great amount of value for me when watching movies, as it stands the only experience that succeeds it would be an IMAX theatre. But to be fair blu-ray wouldn't be worth it if it isn't coupled with a nice 1080p HDTV and a decent sound system so it is a substancial investment for someone that is looking to just watch movies. Blu-ray is more of a side benefit for me because my home theatre is mostly used to play video games.

As far as I'm concerned blu-ray is still an early adopter's brand, based even on the comments in this thread its not ready for the mainstream, but I'm fairly confident it will come and I think a lot of the people here will enjoy watching their blu-ray movies in the future.

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