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Comment Re:What's the big deal? (Score 4, Insightful) 483

Perhaps because you don't *need* google's marketplace to load a program on your phone? If google yanks your app, you can still sell it to people. Unlike with apple, where if they yank your app, you can only sell it to people with jailbroken phones, which is a tiny tiny minority.

Apple should have every right to list or not list whatever they want in their store, because it's their store. The problem only comes about because their store is the "only" way to get programs onto the phone.

Comment Re:28 hour day (Score 1) 287

I tried this once. Well, more like I tried to try it. I was only on the schedule for about a week before I bailed. It was among the most awful weeks ever. I was so tired that I couldn't stay awake until "bedtime", then when I did get in bed I couldn't stay asleep until "morning". All that work making up a clock program that can track 28 hour days for nothing.

I've always kinda wanted to try again but never had the motivation. It may be possible, and would probably be great once you adjusted, but be warned: it will suck like you wouldn't believe for at least the first week.

A friend of mine once did an 8 day week system (it matches up with the 7 day week too). He had better luck, though I suspect this is because he got to sleep a lot more often, so the constant exhaustion was less of a factor. I think he stayed on it for near a month.

Comment Re:Anyone ever read the instruction manuals? (Score 5, Informative) 189

I checked the book for Mario Paint and the SNES Mario Kart; I didn't see anything obvious one way or the other on this topic. However, systems more recent than that (N64, gamecube and wii) definitely DO have something to say. It actually says the exact opposite of what you suggest:

"Copying of any Nintendo game is illegal and is strictly prohibited by domestic and international intellectual property laws. "Back-up" or "archival" copies are not authorized and are not necessary to protect your software. Violators will be prosecuted."
-Inside front cover of Smash Brothers: Brawl for wii.

They actually manage to make the message even more infuriating by telling outright lies. (Not necessary? Are they seriously implying that their disks can't ever be scratched by anything? Or that an N64 cart can't be killed by ESD?)

So, while they may have once been cool about it, at some point they decided that being jerks was the way to go. It's been this way since N64, so I'm sure the DS games say the same thing.

Note: I looked in the book for Mario Kart 64, and found this exact message there, too. It's possible that third party titles don't have a message this ridiculous. I remember it being in the gamecube manuals, too, but don't have one at hand to check for sure.

Comment None of the above? (Score 1) 939

Wow, first time ever I find myself looking for a CowboyNeal option, and it isn't there.
  • Escape - vi, some of the windows shortcut keys
  • Caps Lock - Evil, but I remapped it to "pause winamp"
  • Windows key - No start menu for me, so it's useful just like any other modifier
  • Scroll Lock - I picked this, but my laptop doesn't even have one.
  • Context menu key - Remapped to middle mouse click in windows, for when I don't have an external mouse plugged in
  • F-lock - Don't have one, thank god
  • Pause/break - This key is how I launch programs. Press pause, then almost any other key, and some program or another launches. For windows and linux, even!
  • Media keys - I have three, they launch temperature monitor, command prompt, and "next track in winamp".

So the only keys that are actually useless are the ones I don't have on the keyboard. I do not abide useless keys. They're there--might as well put them to some use.

Biotech

Virtual Fence Could Modernize the Old West 216

Hugh Pickens writes "For more than a century, ranchers in the West have kept cattle in place with fences of barbed wire, split wood and, more recently, electrified wires. Now, animal science researchers with the Department of Agriculture are working on a system that will allow cowboys to herd their cattle remotely via radio by singing commands and whispering into their ears and tracking movements by satellite and computer. A video of Dean Anderson, a researcher at the USDA's Jornada Experimental Range at Las Cruces, NM., shows how he has built radios that attach to an animal's head that allow a person at the other end to issue a range of commands — gentle singing, sharp commands, or a buzz like a bee or snake — to get the cattle to move where one wants them to. Anderson says it would cost $900 today to put a radio device on one head of cattle, but he says costs will fall and the entire herd wouldn't have to be outfitted, just the 'leaders.' Much of the research has focused on how cattlemen can identify which cattle in their herds are the ones that the others follow."

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