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Comment Re:in 10 years... (Score 1) 219

I run a Minecraft server with/for a small-ish group of friends and family (~25 people whitelisted). The problem we've faced is that as Mojang adds more features, you have to do a reboot of your map if you want to have access (or easy access, I should say) to them if you're playing in Survival mode. Because of this we've already rebooted once, since we ran one map from ~1.2 beta through the 1.0.0 launch (to get NPC villages, Fortresses+The End, etc), and now are facing a second reboot because of Emeralds being added (and to get a map with jungles not out in the far away/unexplored areas).

Some people wanted to keep working on old projects or at least have access to them, so I found a mod called Multiverse that allowed me to set up portals across worlds. Now our old map is Creative / free build, our current map is Survival, and we have a flat map in Creative for large projects. When 1.3 gets released we'll probably spawn a new map and change the current map to creative (with its own inventory, separate from the new map) and start a new.

Comment Re:Zombie story - Chapter One (Score 4, Insightful) 146

You're trying to use the metric of countries = largest civilization. Any extraterrestrial visitors (probably) wouldn't know where China's borders were. My guess is they would go to the areas with the most light emitted at night, which would probably be Western Europe, Eastern Seaboard of the US, or Japan.

Comment Re:How about they kill activation too? (Score 4, Interesting) 233

OGA/WGA/activation is pointless. It annoys the legit users while the pirates are happily ignoring it.

Exactly. I'm running a legit copy of Sever 2008 R2 and after my latest reinstall (on to a SSD), it wouldn't activate without calling an automated number and following prompts. I tried 3 times to get it to activate through this method but it 'failed' every time. After the 3rd try, I let the automated service send me off to talk with a human rep...except for one problem: the extension the system sent me to was a disconnected number. After having wasted 45 minutes on the "simple and automated" system, I found a WGA crack (or whatever the hell they're calling it now) and have been puttering along for the last several months with no problems at all.

Space

Geomagnetic Storm In Progress 110

shogun writes "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports a strong geomagnetic storm is in progress. The shuttle, ISS and GPS systems may be affected." They think this storm was caused by a weak solar flare on April 3rd. As you may expect, this has caused some unusually impressive northern lights since it started. What you may not expect is a photograph from Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi aboard the International Space Station showing the aurora from orbit. He apparently tweets a lot of pictures from space. He and his crewmates have taken over 100,000 pictures since coming aboard the ISS.
Image

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."
Mars

Radar Map of Buried Mars Layers Confirms Climate Cycles 114

Matt_dk writes "A radar instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has essentially looked below the surface of the Red Planet's north-polar ice cap, and found data to confirm theoretical models of Martian climate swings during the past few million years. The new, three-dimensional map using 358 radar observations provides a cross-sectional view of the north-polar layered deposits. 'The radar has been giving us spectacular results,' said Jeffrey Plaut of JPL, a member of the science team for the Shallow Radar instrument. 'We have mapped continuous underground layers in three dimensions across a vast area.'"
Privacy

Oregon Governor Proposes Vehicle Mileage Tax 713

tiedyejeremy writes "As covered by the Crosscut Blog, the Governor of Oregon, Ted Kulongoski, is proposing a change in the funding of the Oregonian transportation system that drops gasoline taxes and, by way of GPS tracking, taxes the number of miles driven, to the tune of 1.2 cents per mile. The reason for the proposed change is that lower fuel consumption via fuel efficiency will leave the system underfunded. The concerns involve government tracking of the movements of vehicles within the state, though this has been denied by ODOT official, James Whitty. I'm wondering how this affects people using the Interstate System and private roads, and if the outputs can or will be used by law enforcement to check alibis."
Cellphones

(Useful) Stupid BlackBerry Tricks? 238

Wolfger writes "Continuing the recent (useful) stupid theme: I've recently become a BlackBerry user, and I'm in love with the obvious(?) tricks, such as installing MidpSSH to access my home box remotely. But I'd like to know what more experienced Crackberry addicts can share."
The Internet

10 Years Later, Misunderstood DMCA Is the Law That "Saved the Web" 205

mattOzan writes "On the tenth anniversary of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act [PDF], Wired Magazine posits that the DMCA should be praised for catalyzing the interactive '2.0' Web that we enjoy today. While acknowledging the troublesome 'anti-circumvention' provision of the act, they claim that any harm caused by that is far outweighed by the act's "notice-and-takedown" provision and the safe harbor that this provides to intermediary ISPs. Fritz Attaway, policy adviser for the MPAA weighed in saying 'It's not perfect. But it's better than nothing.'"

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