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Communications

26 Years Old and Can't Write In Cursive 921

Posted by timothy from the but-good-penmanship-is-sexy dept.
theodp writes "Back in 1942, Chicago mail-order house Spiegel's looked to handwriting analysis to identify inconsistent, unreliable, poorly adjusted people. Ah, those were the days. TIME reports we are witnessing the death of handwriting, noting that Gen Y struggles with cursive and the group following them has even less of a need for good penmanship. And while the knee-jerk explanation is that computers are to blame for our increasingly illegible scrawl, literacy prof Steve Graham explains that kids haven't learned to write neatly because no one has forced them to. 'Writing is just not part of the national agenda anymore,' he says. So much for 100 Years of Handwriting Success!"
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Unusual physics engine game ported to Linux (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
christian.einfeldt
christian.einfeldt writes: "Halloween has come early for Linux-loving gamers in the form of the scary Penumbra game trilogy, which has just recently been ported natively to GNU-Linux by the manufacturer, Frictional Games. The Penumbra games, named Overture, Black Plague, and Requiem, respectively, are first person survival horror and physics puzzle games which challenge the player to survive in a mine in Greenland which has been taken over by a monstrous infection/demon/cthulhu-esque thing. The graphics, sounds, and plot are all admirable in a scary sort of way. The protagonist is an ordinary human with no particular powers at all, who fumbles around in the dark mine fighting zombified dogs or fleeing from infected humans. But the game is remarkable for its physics engine — rather than just bump and acquire, the player must use the mouse to physically turn knobs and open doors; and the player can grab and throw pretty much anything in the environment. The physics engine drives objects to fly and fall exactly as one would expect. The porting of a game with such a deft physics engine natively to Linux might be one of the most noteworthy events for GNU-Linux gamers since the 'World of Goo' Linux port."
The Courts

Jammie Thomas Moves To Strike RIAA $1.92M Verdict 392

Posted by timothy from the in-excruciating-detail dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Jammie Thomas-Rasset has made a motion for a new trial, seeking to vacate the $1.92 million judgment entered against her for infringement of 24 MP3 files, in Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset. Her attorneys' brief (PDF) argues, among other things, that the 'monstrous' sized verdict violates the Due Process Clause, consistent with 100 years of SCOTUS jurisprudence, since it is grossly disproportionate to any actual damages sustained. It further argues that, since the RIAA elected to offer no evidence of actual damages, either as an alternative to statutory damages, or to buttress the fairness of a statutory damages award, the verdict, if it is to be reduced, must be reduced to zero."

Comment Re:RAID != BACKUP (Score 0) 564

by technomanceraus (#28589405) Attached to: RAID Trust Issues — Windows Or a Cheap Controller?
Because i'm not their sys admin ... dammit :) and also easy online backup solutions wheren't around when i was asked to help them. I don't really want to have to support 20 or so friends and families backup solutions. I have my own life you know ( being on slashdot this may come as a surprise to you ) although that said maybe now that online internet backup solutions are becoming better and easier to use I may suggest this to the more tech savvy of my friends and family.

Comment Re:RAID != BACKUP (Score 0) 564

by technomanceraus (#28588395) Attached to: RAID Trust Issues — Windows Or a Cheap Controller?
RAID == BACKUP for the general public. I have time and time again tried to teach my non-computer literate friends and family to backup their data ... they have good intentions especially if they've recently lost data but ultimately they don't backup or do it once and don't do it again. They best solution I have found, that gave me a little peace of mind that there data might be semi safe, is a RAID mirror setup. At least if one drive dies there's hope that the data will be salvageable. Cause you can bet they haven't performed any backup for months if ever.
Displays

Submission + - Is Kindle DX worth the money

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Now that some little time has passed, and the hype has died down a bit, I'm wondering if anyone has taken the $500 plunge and gotten a Kindle DX. From the academic-paper-reading-geek perspective, is it worth the money? How well does it work with pdfs, and is it easy to get them on and off? I haven't been able to find any good reviews on the interweb that address its usability as I would like to use it.

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