slackerboy - Slashdot User

UK Teen Banned From US Over Obscene Obama Email 555

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday September 14, 2010 @11:06AM from the sticks-and-stones dept.

British teenager Luke Angel has been banned from the US for sending an email to the White House calling President Obama an obscenity. The 17-year-old says he was drunk when he sent the mail and doesn't understand what the big deal is. "I don't remember exactly what I wrote as I was drunk. But I think I called Barack Obama a p***k. It was silly -- the sort of thing you do when you're a teenager and have had a few," he said. The FBI contacted local police who in turn confronted Luke and let him know that the US Department of Homeland Security didn't think his email was funny. "The police came and took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever. I don't really care but my parents aren't very happy," Angel said.

APB To Use In-Game Audio Advertisements 97

Posted by Soulskill on Friday June 25, 2010 @08:26AM from the almost-like-an-all-points-bulletin dept.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun reports that upcoming action MMOG APB: All Points Bulletin will use in-game audio advertisements as part of its business model. The number of ads you hear will be limited: "you'll only hear an ad when you go into a new zone, and that's only once every three hours." Nevertheless, some gamers are upset that these ads will be included on top of APB's already unusual payment plans. The game is set for release next Tuesday. Producer Jesse Knapp says of Realtime Worlds' goals for APB, "We looked at other online action games, and we saw things we felt could be better. Only 12 to 32 players in a match, bad connection due to peer-to-peer, dead cities, way too much time in lobbies, things like that. So what we set out to do was to make a game that has that online player vs. player action game experience in a large city with other players around, no lobbies, dynamic matchmaking, dedicated servers, great experience, and that's been one of the driving factors of APB from the very beginning." CVG recently previewed the game.

Newsweek Easter Egg Reports Zombie Invasion 93

Posted by kdawson on Monday June 14, 2010 @10:56PM from the it-takes-braaains dept.

danielkennedy74 writes "Newsweek.com becomes the latest in a long list of sites that will reveal an Easter egg if you enter the Konami code correctly (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, enter). This is a cheat code that appeared in many of Konami's video games, starting around 1986 — my favorite places to use it were Contra and Life Force, 30 lives FTW. The Easter egg was probably included by a developer unbeknownst to the Newsweek powers that be. It's reminiscent of an incident that happened at ESPN last year, involving unicorns."

Comment Re:how many scientists are enough? (Score 1) 551

by slackerboy on Thursday October 29, 2009 @08:48AM (#29908839) Attached to: Study Says US Needs Fewer Science Students

From my personal experience (computer) engineering pays a reasonable starting wage but there is no career path to speak of unless you jump into management. I do plenty to keep my skills up to date and all that really does is keep me at the same senior level salary I had 7 years ago...

Oddly enough, my organization has opportunities to move up and stay technical by moving to the research side of the house. The problem is, you also have to move to the geographic location of one of the labs.

Comment Re:That is the end of Twitter (Score 1) 170

by slackerboy on Thursday June 11, 2009 @09:05AM (#28292071) Attached to: One-Tweet Wonders

JFK's dad was JFK, just an average Joe.

Close. His initials were JPK

Comment Re:Nothing to worry about (Score 1) 379

by slackerboy on Wednesday June 10, 2009 @09:49AM (#28278807) Attached to: Pixar's Next Three Films Will Be Sequels

Considering Tarzan or Hunchback original stretches the meaning of the word further than any word should ever reasonably expect to be stretched.

As opposed to Snow White or Sleeping Beauty? You might as well limit it to "Steamboat Willy"! (Even Bambi is based on a book that had come out ~20 years earlier.)

What Disney has traditionally been good at is retelling an older story in a format that both kids and their parents enjoy watching.

Comment Re:Babel (Score 1) 296

by slackerboy on Tuesday June 09, 2009 @08:25AM (#28263987) Attached to: Inflatable Tower Could Climb To the Edge of Space

Damn! I was sure he said there was a frog in his bidet...

Comment Re:Taste (Score 1) 366

by slackerboy on Wednesday May 06, 2009 @08:32AM (#27844011) Attached to: Nuclear Testing Helps Identify Fake Vintage Whiskey

Interesting. I wonder what other liquors, or even wines might benefit from this trick?

Well, wine is already in the 10%-20% alcohol range (as opposed to whiskey at ~40%), so you've essentially already benefited from this effect. Essentially any mixed drink made with a harder liquor is going to take advantage of this, however

Comment Re:Women don't want to do CS? (Score 1) 1563

by slackerboy on Tuesday November 18, 2008 @05:20PM (#25808345) Attached to: Why the Widening Gender Gap In Computer Science?

People treat little kids differently based on whether they are a boy or a girl, regardless of what you as a parent want (or even what the kid wants).

I'd love to hear an example of that. Remember, I'm talking about kids who aren't even 1 year old yet.

Sure. What do kids get as a gifts for (insert holiday celebration of your choice) from their relatives (especially Grandma/Grandpa)? Do the girls all get Bob the builder toys and the boys get a play kitchen and dolls? Probably not.

Your "wearing pink" example is silly. How would a 9-month-old know that pink is a "girl" color?

How do you know that pink is a "girl" color? It's societal. Society thinks that pink is a "girl" color, so people tend to give girls pink clothes. The girls then either like the color or recognize that they get positive reinforcement for liking it (e.g. grandma smiles and says "How cute!") and wear it more often.

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