Comment I do this (Score 1) 267
I usually name my wifi "_SURVEILLANCE" just to mess with my neighbors
Understanding Addiction-Based Game Design 308
spidweb writes "The common theory is that games like World of Warcraft are addictive. But what are the exact qualities that make it so? Are there specific elements of the design that can be pulled out, distilled, and used at will to give a game drug-like properties? Is it wrong to do so? A new article at IGN RPG Vault attempts to isolates the exact qualities that go into making an addiction-based design. From the article: 'If a game uses rewards of any sort to entice you to experience highly repetitive content, you should see what it's trying to do and which of your buttons it's trying to press. If you don't mind, that's cool, but you should understand it.'"
High-Tech Start-Ups Put Down Roots In New Soil 141
ThousandStars writes "The Wall Street Journal says that 'High-tech start-ups are increasingly setting up shop in places previously not known for attracting high-tech firms. A number of cities, such as Kalamazoo, Mich., and Toledo, Ohio, are offering grant money and tax breaks to high-tech start-ups, just as the usual venture-capital hot spots, such as Silicon Valley and Boston, continue to see a pullback in venture lending.""
Comment Re:Big claims indeed! (Score 2, Informative) 633
The patent on LZW compression (the problematic portion of the GIF format) expired on June 30, 2003, though Unisys claims to have patents and patents pending on a number of improvements to the claims in the original patent.
