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Comment Re:seems to be missing a few points (Score 1) 828

But he seems actually worried mainly about tenured professors who are doing good research, because they aren't paying enough attention to teaching. Good teachers need to exist, but so do good researchers--- the problem with today's university is not that there are too many good senior researchers. If anything, the opposite.

The problem is researchers and teachers get jumbled into the same mass when it comes to advertising. Having the best theoretical physicists doing research does nothing for an physics undergrad.

Games

Peter Molyneux On Developmental Experimentation 55

Gamasutra reports on a talk given at GDC by Peter Molyneux, founder of Lionhead Studios and designer of games such as Black & White and Fable. Molyneux discussed some of the experimentation that went into the development of their various games. Quoting: "After his overview of the process, Molyneux demonstrated a number of actual experiments. He began by showing an early version of Fable II's dog, which he himself designed and which ended up factoring heavily into the full game. 'This is probably one of the most valuable experiments we ever did,' he said. Using the original Fable engine, the team asked itself, 'Why don't we think how the dog can actually move and be a companion to the player?' They decided to focus on exploring what a dog would do, rather than try to slot a canine into existing typical video game companion tasks. This led to the mechanic of the dog running out in front of the player, rather than beside or behind the player as most game AI companions are positioned, which had a huge impact on the dog's role."
Security

Submission + - Many antivirus tools fail in LinuxWorld test (darkreading.com)

talkinsecurity writes: "In a public, side-by-side test conducted last night at LinuxWorld, ten antivirus products were confronted with 25 known viruses. The results were surprisingly disparate. Only three of the products caught all of the viruses; three only caught 61 percent, and one caught an abysmal 6 percent. The test, which wasn't particularly complicated, proves that there still are wide differences in the effectiveness of AV tools. A lot of people think all AV tools are the same — they're not! http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=131 246&WT.svl=news1_1"
Sci-Fi

Submission + - William Gibson gives up on the future

Tinkle writes: Sci-fi novellist William Gibson has given up trying to predict the future — because he says it's become far too difficult. In an interview with silicon.com, Gibson explains why his latest book is set in the recent past.

From the Q&A:
"We hit a point somewhere in the mid-18th century where we started doing what we think of technology today and it started changing things for us, changing society. Since World War II it's going literally exponential and what we are experiencing now is the real vertigo of that — we have no idea at all now where we are going."

"Will global warming catch up with us? Is that irreparable? Will technological civilisation collapse? There seems to be some possibility of that over the next 30 or 40 years or will we do some Verner Vinge singularity trick and suddenly become capable of everything and everything will be cool and the geek rapture will arrive? That's a possibility too."
Microsoft

Journal Journal: /. is Phising now?

I was checking my email this morning, using Microsoft Outlook 2007 and came across my normal [Slashdot] Stories subscription; when I noticed that Microsoft Outlook had applied a red banner to the top of it; saying "This might be a phising message and is potentially unsafe. Links and other functionality have been disabled". Is this just a software Malfunction, is Microsoft starting to hate Slashdot, or is there another reason deep within the headers of the email message?
Privacy

Submission + - House approves warrantless wiretapping.

An anonymous reader writes: The House of Representatives voted 227-183 to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to allow warrantless wiretapping of telephone and electronic communications. The vote extends the FISA amendment for six months. The final vote results are available here.
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - iD and Valve violating GPL

frooge writes: With the recent release of iD's catalog on Steam, it appears DOSBox is being used to run the old DOS games for greater compatibility. According to a post on the Halflife2.net forums, however, this distribution does not contain a copy of the GPL license that DOSBox is distributed under, which violates the license. According to the DOSBox developers, they were not notified that it was being used for this release.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Page 12 of the DTP "Sue me first, Microsoft" list

This is a copy of page 12 of the DTP "Sue me first, Microsoft" list of names of people who are challenging Microsoft to prove its questionable patent claims in court. 1416.Wathsala Vithanage - I'm using Linux since I was 19. I used it for my studies and now I develop Free Software. The university where I'm employed, pays me for doing this. My whole career is based on FOSS. I live and pay my bills because of FOSS. I write system level code in C/C++/ASM for Linux and BSD systems I know nothing ab
The Courts

German Prosecutors Won't Help RIAA Counterpart 199

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A German court decision ruled that the European counterpart to the RIAA cannot invoke criminal proceedings over petty file sharing incidents. The goal was to to find out from ISPs the identity of alleged file-sharing subscribers; the requests have been refused as the judge saw the the proceedings as not in the 'public interest', and little or no economic damage was shown to have been caused to the record companies. Offering a few copyright-protected music tracks via a P2P network client was 'a petty offense,' the court declared. Within days, German prosecutors have now indicated that they will no longer permit the use of 'criminal proceedings' to procure subscriber information."
Movies

Submission + - Film on music piracy released as Xvid torrent (goodcopybadcopy.net)

goodbye_kitty writes: "The producers of a new documentary film analyzing global music piracy have decided to "put their money where their mouth is" by releasing the film as a free Xvid download (hosted by the pirate bay, as one would expect). The film explores the blurred line between "fair use" and piracy, and includes interviews with DJ Danger Mouse (creator of the now infamous 'grey album'), Lawrence Lessig (found of Creative Commons), the lads from the pirate bay, and even some guy from the MPAA. Link to torrent here"

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