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Comment Re:Slashdot (Score 1) 251

Same here, I've been away for over a decade. This is not the place I remember. I'm surprised the consensus is that when 1/3 of a company quits en masse, it can be spun as a good thing. Many people would like to leave their job, but doing so would be extremely problematic. The volume of people leaving is telling.
Cellphones

Carmack & Mustaine Talk Doom Resurrection For the iPhone 57

Posted by Soulskill from the portable-demon-killing dept.
themacgamer writes "Luis Sosa had a chance to sit down with John Carmack and Tom Mustaine of id Software and discuss Doom Resurrection for the iPhone: 'At the start we thought it was just a touch screen, so you'd tap to shoot the monsters, but it was never fun; it felt too clinical. It didn't feel like you were swinging your heavy gun around to bring down the monster before he chews off your head,' said Carmack. Mustaine added, '[The shooting mechanic] was definitely a trial-and-error thing. You said the word "distilled," and that's definitely a word we've been using. We really wanted to distill the visceral Doom experience into the iPhone.' He also said, '... we have P2P co-op play that's not in the shipping version, but will come later. We didn't expect the 3.0 OS out so quickly! Two players join together, they see each other's cursors, and they either compete or co-op for a score. We're hoping to patch it in down the road. We're also looking at additional levels and potentially some stat-tracking stuff as well.'"

Comment Re:I dunno... (Score 4, Insightful) 562

by rebullandvodka (#27981157) Attached to: Sony Pictures CEO Thinks the Net Wasn't Worth It
This is refrain. The music industry attempts to apply its business model to the internet, gets burned, and accuses their customer base of not playing fair. Clearly there are ways to make money from the internet, just not the way the media giants want to make it. The cat is out of the bag. There is no choice but to adapt. Innovate or go out of business.
Spam

FTC Targets Massive Car Warranty Robocall Scheme 361

Posted by Soulskill from the hopefully-with-bombs dept.
coondoggie writes "Robocalls are a scourge, and the Federal Trade Commission today took action against one outfit by asking a federal court to shut down companies that have been bombarding consumers with hundreds of millions of allegedly deceptive robocalls in an effort to sell vehicle service contracts. According to the FTC, the robocalls have prompted tens of thousands of complaints from consumers who are either on the Do Not Call Registry or asked not to be called. Five telephone numbers associated with the defendants have generated a total of 30,000 Do Not Call complaints. Consumers received the robocalls at home, work, and on their cell phones, sometimes several times in one day. Businesses, government offices and even 911 dispatchers also have been subjected to the calls, the FTC said." Reader powerlord points out that another such company, not named in the FTC filing, raised the ire of thousands of internet-goers, who struck back by rickrolling the company's voice mail and digging up personal information on the company's president.

Comment Re:Its GPL licenced, someone should fork it. (Score 1) 408

by rebullandvodka (#27795853) Attached to: NoScript Adds Subscriptions To Adblock Plus

What I will not do is run code on my machine that's obfuscated or that attempts to mess with things it shouldn't mess with.

?? Web sites that aren't obfuscating their javascript are wasting their bandwidth and frustrating their users with a slow loading page. You'll need to just plain shut off Javascript if you don't want to run obfuscated js.
Privacy

Cities View Red Light Cameras As Profit Centers 740

Posted by timothy from the criminalize-everything-spread-the-guilt dept.
Houston 2600 writes "Chicago could rake in 'at least $200 million' a year — and wipe out the entire projected deficit for 2009 — by using its vast network of redlight and surveillance cameras to hunt down uninsured motorists, aldermen were told today. The system pitched to the City Council's Transportation Committee by Michigan-based InsureNet would work only if insurance companies were somehow compelled to report the names and license plates of insured motorists. That's already happening daily in 13 states, but not here."

Comment Re:RTFA (Score 1) 628

by rebullandvodka (#26494405) Attached to: 3 Cups of Coffee Increases Hallucinations
I'm a type I diabetic. I test my blood sugar 6-8 times daily. I've had a Medtronic Minimed 515 insulin pump on my person for several years. A few years back I went on a diet/exercise kick and lost ~50lbs. I can say without a doubt that after exercise (5mi jog), I need significantly less insulin. I reduce the basal dose rate to %50 normal basal rate for an 1hr. I have a heightened sensitivity to insulin for ~24hrs after exercise. Based on my experience I find it hard to understand why you claim that your insulin levels are increased after working out. What type of exercise are you doing? How can this be? There is a much higher correlation between glucose and insulin requirements than protein. I base my insulin dosage on how much carbohydrate I take in. I can almost ignore the amount of protein I eat in terms of insulin requirements.
Programming

More Than Coding Errors Behind Bad Software 726

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bad-decisions-go-all-the-way-up dept.
An anonymous reader writes "SANS' just-released list of the Top 15 most dangerous programming errors obscures the real problem with software development today, argues InfoWeek's Alex Wolfe. In More Than Coding Mistakes At Fault In Bad Software, he lays the blame on PC developers (read: Microsoft) who kicked the time-honored waterfall model to the curb and replaced it not with object-oriented or agile development but with a 'modus operandi of cramming in as many features as possible, and then fixing problems in beta.' He argues that youthful programmers don't know about error-catching and lack a sense of history, suggesting they read Fred Brooks' 'The Mythical Man-Month,' and Gerald Weinberg's 'The Psychology of Computer Programming.'"
Transportation

Amtrak Photo Contestant Arrested By Amtrak Police 675

Posted by kdawson from the what-we-have-here-is-a-failure-to-communicate dept.
Photographer Duane Kerzic was standing on the public platform in New York's Penn Station, taking pictures of trains in hopes of winning the annual photo contest that Amtrak had been running since 2003. Amtrak police arrested him for refusing to delete the photos when asked, though they later charged him with trespassing. "Obviously, there is a lack of communication between Amtrak's marketing department, which promotes the annual contest, called Picture Our Trains, and its police department, which has a history of harassing photographers for photographing these same trains. Not much different than the JetBlue incident from earlier this year where JetBlue flight attendants had a woman arrested for refusing to delete a video she filmed in flight while the JetBlue marketing department hosted a contest encouraging passengers to take photos in flight." Kerzic's blog has an account of the arrest on Dec. 21 and the aftermath.

Comment Re:Locusts (Score 1) 743

by rebullandvodka (#26317251) Attached to: Volvo Introduces a Collision-Proof Car

Still, cars that try to do any driving for me at speed seem like a bad idea. In fact, I don't even like air-bags, because I figure if one blows up in my face during an accident at freeway speeds, it would cause me to lose any change of controlling the vehicle. You don't see airbags in race cars, just very nice seat belt systems.

Airbags go off when a collision is happening. Any control you think you have at that point is useless. Airbags save lives.
Space

Meteorite Destroys Warehouse In Auckland, NZ 278

Posted by timothy from the creative-excuse-for-the-late-night-set dept.
vik writes "According to local media, multiple eye witnesses are reporting that a meteorite crashed into a warehouse in Auckland, New Zealand last night, setting it on fire. The warehouse roof was destroyed but no nearby buildings were damaged and there was only one minor casualty — a man who happened to be inside the building at the time. The fire service have not yet made an official announcement."
Democrats

Change.gov Uses Google Moderator System 436

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-should-call-it-pigg dept.
GMonkeyLouie writes "The website for President-elect Obama's transition team, Change.gov, has unveiled a section called Open for Questions, which lets users submit questions and vote them up or down, in an effort to let the collaborative mind produce the questions that are the most important to the American populace (or at least the web-savvy portion). The page is powered by Google Moderator. It was unveiled yesterday, and CNet reports that when they went to post last night, '159,890 had voted on 1,986 questions from 3,255 people.'"

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