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Nuns Donate Their Brains to Alzheimer's Research 148

Posted by samzenpus from the bring-me-a-pious-brain dept.
Many Catholic religious orders are participating in a long range Alzheimer's disease study. Rush University's Religious Orders Study began in 1993 and tracks the participants' mental abilities through yearly memory testing. In addition to the annual tests, the study subjects agree to donate their brains. From the article: "The researchers sought members of religious orders, hoping they would be willing to donate and would not have children or spouses interfering with that arrangement at the last minute. More than 1,100 nuns, priests and brothers across the country representing a wide range of ethnic groups are taking part."
Games

Can You Fight DRM With Patience? 309

Posted by Soulskill from the napalm-works-better dept.
As modern DRM schemes get more annoying and invasive, the common wisdom is to vote with your wallet and avoid supporting developers and publishers who include such schemes with their games. Or, if you simply must play it, wait a while until outcry and complaints have caused the DRM restrictions to be loosened. But will any of that make game creators rethink their stance? An article at CNet argues that gamers are, in general, an impatient bunch, and that trait combined with the nature of the games industry means that progress fighting DRM will be slow or nonexistent. Quoting: "Increasingly so, the joke seems to be on the customers who end up buying this software when it first comes out. A simple look back at some controversial titles has shown us that after the initial sales come, the publisher later removes the vast majority of the DRM, leaving gamers to enjoy the software with fewer restrictions. ... Still, [waiting until later to purchase the game] isn't a good long-term solution. Early sales are often one of the big quantifiers in whether a studio will start working on a sequel, and if everyone were to wait to buy games once they hit the bargain price, publishers would simply stop making PC versions. There's also no promise that the really heavy bits of DRM will be stripped out at a later date, except for the fact that most publishers are unlikely to want to maintain the cost of running the activation, and/or online verification servers for older software."
Science

Why Time Flies By As You Get Older 252

Posted by kdawson from the like-a-banana dept.
Ant notes a piece up on WBUR Boston addressing theories to explain the universal human experience that time seems to pass faster as you get older. Here's the 9-minute audio (MP3). Several explanations are tried out: that brains lay down more information for novel experiences; that the "clock" for nerve impulses in aging brains runs slower; and that each interval of time represents a diminishing fraction of life as we age.
Classic Games (Games)

M.U.L.E. Is Back 110

Posted by Soulskill from the not-for-the-red-wings dept.
jmp_nyc writes "The developers at Turborilla have remade the 1983 classic game M.U.L.E. The game is free, and has slightly updated graphics, but more or less the same gameplay as the original version. As with the original game, up to four players can play against each other (or fewer than four with AI players taking the other spots). Unlike the original version, the four players can play against each other online. For those of you not familiar with M.U.L.E., it was one of the earliest economic simulation games, revolving around the colonization of the fictitious planet Irata (Atari spelled backwards). I have fond memories of spending what seemed like days at a time playing the game, as it's quite addictive, with the gameplay seeming simpler than it turns out to be. I'm sure I'm not the only Slashdotter who had a nasty M.U.L.E. addiction back in the day and would like a dose of nostalgia every now and then."

Comment Correcting Some Misconceptions and Inaccuracies (Score 1) 535

by heff66 (#26755255) Attached to: Google Earth 5.0 Silently Changes Update Policy
I think most of the complaints here are valid. Google is installing system level software without notifying the user and is updating that software involuntarily when the user launches the app.

How many times has a new update "broken" things on your machine? I prefer to install the updates when I choose to, not when Google chooses to.

Now to address some of the inaccuracies I see in the previous postings...

Those of you comparing the Google mechanism to Apple's update mechanisms are way off base. (Windows AND Mac versions)

Unlike Google, Apple clearly tells you up front that it wants to install a software update mechanism and gives you the option NOT to use it. Windows users who claim it automaticgally turns itself back on when you turn it off need to loosen their neckties and get some oxygen up to their brains. This just isn't accurate.

And enough with the phony claims that Apple sneaks software onto the user's machine. That's just not true either. They are VERY clear about what is being installed and always offer you the option to NOT install the extra software.

On the Mac, Software Update can be configured NOT to automatically install updates, and there is much transparency regarding the update process. It isn't sneakily hidden in the background. They are up front about it.

On Windows, you can easily configure the software update mechanism to ignore updates and never darken your door again. Use the prefs, folks. That's what they are there for.

Next, what on earth (the real one, not the google one) does google need to be doing in the system space. This is an end user app. There is no reason that the update mechanism can't reside within the app. Why do they feel the need to install a system level daemon to accomplish the task. (Yes, I know they are not alone in this respect. I resent it just as much in the other vendors as well.)

So let's have an accurate discussion about this. I DO think Google has crossed the line here and I don't think the comparison's to Apple's approach are valid.

Just my .02 dollars.

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