90% of Gaming Addiction Patients Not Addicted 333

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday November 25, 2008 @09:05PM from the don't-worry-i'm-sure-you're-in-the-other-10% dept.

phorm writes "BBC is carrying an article which states that 90% of visitors to Europe's 'video game addiction clinic' are not, in fact, addicted. The problem is a social one rather than a psychological issue. In other words, the patients have turned to heavy gaming because they felt they didn't fit in elsewhere, or that they fit in better 'in the game' than elsewhere in 'the real world.' This has been discussed before, with arguments ranging from gaming being a good way to socialize, the clinical definition of gaming addiction, and claims than males are wired for video-game addiction."

Northrop Grumman Markets Weaponized Laser System 246

Posted by Soulskill on Friday November 14, 2008 @09:08PM from the hoping-for-a-bulk-discount dept.

stephencrane writes "Northrop Grumman is making available for sale the FIRESTRIKE weaponized laser system. The solid-state laser unit weighs over 400lbs, sends/receives instructions and data via an RJ-45 jack and can be synchronized with additional units to emit a 100 kW beam. It looks like some piece of stereophonic amplification equipment out of the '50s. Or Fallout 3. The press release suggests that FIRESTRIKE 'will form the backbone of future laser weapon systems.'"

Comment Re:It's very close. (Score 1) 421

by ShadeARG on Tuesday August 19, 2008 @03:02PM (#24662625) Attached to: Leaping the Uncanny Valley

The uncanny valley is most certainly is involved. It is caused by a great multitude of factors, and a very important single factor that I can point you to is subsurface scattering, which is performed on the mesh. Without this, you have no hope of breaking out of the uncanny valley. Humans simply cannot be fooled when it comes to such detail, unless they have bad vision.

CGI Emily doing something the real Emily did not do is not the point here. Motion capture is about getting past the barrier of having to model a fully realistic muscular and skeletal system, so in that particular area the uncanny valley in the sense of movement and articulation is solved. The kind of advancement that you are referring to accomplish this will not come until a muscular system and skeletal structure are fully modeled. Oh, and you can't forget about skin either.. quite complex.

Buckyballs Can Store Concentrated Hydrogen 193

Posted by Soulskill on Friday March 21, 2008 @08:18AM from the brought-to-you-by-the-letter-H dept.

Pickens brings news that researchers from Rice University have discovered that it's possible to store hydrogen inside buckyballs. Hydrogen can be an excellent power source, but it is notoriously difficult to store. The buckyballs can contain up to 8% of their weight in hydrogen, and they are strong enough to hold it at a density that rivals the center of Jupiter. "Using a computer model, Yakobson's research team has tracked the strength of each atomic bond in a buckyball and simulated what happened to the bonds as more hydrogen atoms were packed inside. Yakobson said the model promises to be particularly useful because it is scalable, that is it can calculate exactly how much hydrogen a buckyball of any given size can hold, and it can also tell scientists how overstuffed buckyballs burst open and release their cargo."

Comment Re:Well, thanks slashdot (Score 2, Informative) 357

by zborgerd on Tuesday October 31, 2006 @06:07PM (#16665273) Attached to: Why Gaming Sucks On Linux

Ditto. I'd say that the last few I've submitted have been rejected. Frankly, I thought they were well-written submissions as well...

* 2006-08-04 15:10:52 Linux Game Publishing Releases Cold War for Linux. (Index,PC Games (Games)) (rejected)
* 2006-05-30 18:17:50 LGP Announces Release of X2: The Threat (Games,Space) (rejected)

Pretty sad too. Both are excellent titles. Guess people are too wrapped up in making Cedega work to be playing Linux games.

Comment Re:Well, thanks slashdot (Score 4, Informative) 357

by michaelsimms on Tuesday October 31, 2006 @05:07PM (#16664365) Attached to: Why Gaming Sucks On Linux

> Maybe if LGP didn't sell a game for £20.00, then sell an UPDATE for £3.00 which actually doesn't add any
> new functionality, but merely provides support for that game from LGP and the ability to install future
> updates, people would be more receptive.

Yessss and if you had RESEARCHED this properly you would understand. The update we sell is for the LOKI version so that to get support people dont have to pay and get a whole new game. We arent going to support the loki version because a) its not our game, we dont have the source, and b) its not our game. The update is sold so people get a supported game for LESS.

> Maybe if Tux Games didn't charge $35 more for Quake IV than Best Buy does for the Windows version, they'd
> get more sales.

We are in the UK, we have to pay a lot more for the games we buy. We actually make NO PROFIT on over half of the games we sell. We sell them at cost price.

> What do you mean by doing "their bit"? Should they keep their mouth shut about the problems they have
> running the games they want to play, yet shout from the rooftops when something actually IS released that
> supports Linux?

No but nor should they ignore any progress Linux gaming makes and criticise Linux gaming on a regular basis. Some of each would be nice.

> Should they purchase games they don't want, to generate more sales for you, which is really
> the only thing that's going to entice developers to give your company licenses for more games.

If slashdot reports on the games that are available, sales go up. Thats a fact of the slashdot effect. If we get more sales we can afford more licenses. That is the fact of licensing games. Companies that we license games from care about MONEY, and if we sell more games we license bigger games. I dont want ANYONE to buy games they dont want, but letting people know what is out there would allow people to know about them and buy them IF they want.

Why Gaming Sucks On Linux 357

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday October 31, 2006 @03:32PM from the penguins-without-joysticks dept.

lseltzer writes "Efforts have been made to improve the situation, but things have actually gotten worse for gaming on Linux rather than better. If you're a gamer you're just plain better off running Windows and dual-booting (or VMing) between the two operating systems than hoping your games will run in Cedega or some such product." From the article: "So where does all of this leave Linux gamers? One word: Windows. Yep, you read that right. If you're a gamer, do yourself a favor and just buy a copy of Windows and set up a dual-boot system. Why bother to torture yourself with the headaches presented by Linux gaming? Why should you continually not have the games you want to play? Why settle for half-assed solutions that might or might not run the games you crave so desperately?"