Mrcowcow - Slashdot User

Journal Journal: MPAA Violates Another Software License 297

Journal by Alien54 on Saturday February 17, 2007 @05:38PM

Patrick Robib, a blogger who wrote his own blogging engine called Forest Blog recently noticed that none other than the MPAA was using his work, and had completely violated his linkware license by removing all links back to the

Red Hat Not Seeing Microsoft, Ubuntu as Threats 241

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday June 14, 2006 @01:32AM from the keeping-a-stiff-upper-lip dept.

Ian Price writes "Red Hat is shrugging off Microsoft's entry into the cluster computing space after Microsoft announced that it has completed the code for its Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 targeting high-performance computing. From the article: 'Scott Crenshaw, general manager of enterprise Linux platform at Red Hat, dismissed Microsoft's entry into cluster computing. "They're playing catch-up," he said. "Linux is often associated with high-performance computing, but Windows has never achieved that on a large scale."' Crenshaw also commented with respect to Ubuntu: 'Their user base is still small, so we're not seeing the impact of it [Ubuntu] so far.'"

Sony Pushes Back Release For Blu-Ray Players 262

Posted by Zonk on Monday June 12, 2006 @01:25PM from the series-of-unfortunate-events dept.

Sony has announced that their first model of Blu-Ray player will release in August, not later this month as originally announced. The BDP-SP1, retailing for $1000, will now ship on or about August 15th. Bad news for fans of the new format, and even worse news for the PS3. Since Sony's lackluster E3 showing, a string of bad news has seemed to conspire against the company's next-gen console. From the Gamers with Jobs article: "With the PS3's high-end model coming it at a whopping $400.00 less than a stand-alone Blu-Ray player, Sony needs to release these players as soon as possible. If they wait too long, the PS3 will begin looming on the horizon, causing even devout early adopters to question the intelligence of buying a stand-alone Blu-Ray unit. Sony also needs the largest possible installed base, come launch-time for the PS3. For the Blu-Ray player to be the PS3's version of the PS2's DVD player, casual technophiles need to be able to see the virtues of the Blu-Ray format. If there are few players, and few titles, this might not happen."

RuneScape - Digging The Virtual Economy 31

Posted by Zonk on Friday June 02, 2006 @07:38PM from the micro-macro-economics dept.

Inquisitor911 writes "One of the things that is peculiar about MMORPGs are the constantly changing virtual markets. For example, look at RuneScape's Economic Fluctuations after the release of skills allowing players to build in-game houses." From the post: "The initial frenzy started with realtors. Once the announcement about the housing update was made, members flocked to purchase houses (placed in a magical portal, so they don't clutter up the landscape) and then flocked to build. A market sprang up within minutes that catered to those too busy, too intent, or too high-level to bother gathering up resources. Planks, nails, clay, rock, tiles, and more suddenly began to command exceptional prices. Clay went from 10 gold pieces to 1000 gold pieces within minutes. Right now it is hovering between a low of 600 or 700 gold pieces for dry clay to about 1000 gold pieces for wet clay, but the price is fluctuating downwards as the initial demand levels off and more suppliers get in on the action. I expect it will peak again on the weekend as more players become aware of the new function."

Comment Re:yes, they do! (Score 1) 1104

by Mrcowcow on Saturday April 29, 2006 @12:17AM (#15225969) Attached to: Do Kids Still Program?

I am aware that html is not a programming language. I am learning Perl because I want to, not because it is the good thing to do. I still use Windows solely because I use programs that will not work with Liunx. Yes, I have used Linux, but I dont want to mess around a whole lot with my desktop. I want something that works easily for my desktop. And where did Basic come from? I have never used Basic, or really wanted to. I program because I want to, not to learn skills for the future.

Linux Helping Oracle 148

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sunday April 09, 2006 @12:17PM from the more-the-merrier dept.

Mr. Fahrenheit writes "CNN has a story about how Oracle's effort to port their database to Linux may be helping them to out pace IBM." From the article: "In its biennial survey of the world's largest databases, WinterCorp, a database research and consulting company, reported that Oracle dominated its list of 175 large databases. For the first time, databases running on Linux appeared on WinterCorp's list -- and all of them came from Oracle."

Xbox 360 Backup Discs Bootable 287

Posted by Zonk on Saturday March 18, 2006 @03:33PM from the new-milestone dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The firmware of the Xbox 360 DVD drive has been hacked, allowing users to boot backups of games on the new Microsoft console. A group of hackers on the xboxhacker.net forum managed to trick the DVD firmware into reporting a recordable disc as an original Xbox 360 disc. This means that it will not allow booting of unsigned homebrew code (like Linux), as the signature check is not bypassed. This hack will just trick the Xbox 360 into thinking you inserted an original Xbox 360 disc, so it'll only boot unedited executables. A video has been released, the hack has not been released to the public (because it will be mainly used for piracy), but all the research of the last few months is publicly viewable."

Opera Software Co-Founder Passes Away 145

Posted by CowboyNeal on Saturday March 18, 2006 @01:09PM from the rest-in-peace dept.

worb writes "One of the two founders of Opera Software, Geir Ivarsoy, recently passed away after a long battle with cancer. His funeral yesterday was attended by Opera employees who paid their last respects to their former lead programmer. While Opera hasn't had the same success as Firefox on the desktop, it has had considerable success in the mobile phone market due to its speed and small footprint, combined with excellent standards compliance and innovative features."

Final Fantasy XI Fan Fest 06 25

Posted by Zonk on Friday March 17, 2006 @02:09PM from the event-review-get dept.

Last weekend the players of Final Fantasy XI attended their annual fan fest. 1up has a blowout on coverage of the event, with a rundown on the event's announcements, an interview with the development team, and a fan-fest edition of My Life in Vana'diel. Eurogamer was on the ground there as well, with some comments about cat-ear-wearing fans rounding out their coverage. From that article: "Whooping players, each hanging dry-eye-balled and pregnant-lung-ed with anticipation tiptoe transfixed. They swing on every word their creators choose to bless them with. Each announcement of gameplay tweaking and balancing, however mundane to an outsider (new spells for Black Mages! White Mages to be able to heal all ailments in one go! Warriors can now throw axes! Mog Lockers will be able to hold 140 items!) brings with it jeers or cheers from those players in the audience that will see their character's social stock increase or decrease as a result. Black Mages are to be penalised for questing in groups: Hell Yes! Hell No! All around players fist the air or stamp their feet in incredulous response to the microcosmically evolutionary pronouncements."

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