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e3m4n writes
"The fictitious 'good samaritan' law from the final episode of Seinfeld (the one that landed them in jail for a year) appears to be headed toward reality for California residents after the house passed this bill. There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."
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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."
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sonamchauhan writes
"A Londoner helped his wife deliver their baby by Googling 'how to deliver a baby' on his mobile phone. From the article: 'Today proud Mr Smith said: "The midwife had checked Emma earlier in the day but contractions started up again at about 8pm so we called the midwife to come back. But then everything happened so quickly I realized Emma was going to give birth. I wasn't sure what I was going to do so I just looked up the instructions on the internet using my BlackBerry."'"
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DrNASA writes:
An article that quoted George Lucas as saying that SpiderMan 3 is a 'silly movie' also had this interesting bit of King Geek speak:
"And here's a little news: Lucas tells me he will make two more live-action films based in the "Star Wars" era.
"But they won't have members of the Skywalker family as characters," he said. "They will be other people of that milieu." "
TFA — http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,270874,00.html
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CowTipperGore writes:
Founded by William Shockley in the mid-50s, Shockley Semiconductor Lab is generally credited with starting the Silicon Valley boom. When he was unable to lure his former Bell Labs coworkers to join him, he filled his ranks with the best and brightest engineering school grads, including Gordon Moore and others who later went on to form Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.
The building at 391 San Antonio Road, Mountain View, California, is the original site of the company but, unlike the HP Garage, this building has received little protection or preservation. It recently housed a fruit stand, where visitors could find a small display about Shockley above baskets of fruit. The fruit stand is now closed, leaving the future of the building in the air.