Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
Image

365 Days of Photojournalism With Stormtroopers 30

Posted by samzenpus from the it's-good-to-have-friends dept.
Lanxon writes "Wired reports that for one French fan, the Stormtrooper has become an obsession. Stormtroopers 365 is a collection of wacky, witty, and artistic photographs that its creator Stéfan Le Dû has been adding to daily since 3 April 2009 when the project began. 'I got a new camera and I had some Stormtrooper figures sleeping in their blister packs for months. I wanted to start something a bit challenging on Flickr, and I had previously seen some awesome Star Wars toys pictures, and other "365" projects that I really liked,' he says. The two starring Stormtroopers — TK455 and TK479 — have run into cats, clocks, various household implements, and even a DeLorean sports car."
Idle

Canadian Blood Services Promotes Pseudoscience 219

Posted by samzenpus from the type-A-negative-personality dept.
trianglecat writes "The not-for-profit agency Canadian Blood Services has a section of their website based on the Japanese cultural belief of ketsueki-gata, which claims that a person's blood group determines or predicts their personality type. Disappointing for a self-proclaimed 'science-based' organization. The Ottawa Skeptics, based in the nation's capital, appear to be taking some action."
PC Games (Games)

Star Guard — an Old-School Platformer Done Right 107

Posted by Soulskill from the 39-deaths-i-am-terrible dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Rock, Paper, Shotgun points out a new game called Star Guard, a Flash-based platformer for Mac and PC that's a throwback to the early days of computer gaming, yet still entertaining. They describe it thus: 'Its greatest strength, to my mind, is throwing out the old-school traditions of difficulty. It does certainly get tricky, requiring the platformer standbys of carefully timed jumps and learning enemy patterns — there's something of a Metroid vibe to it. But you don't get punished for failing to meet one of its challenges — you're just plunged a few feet back to most recent checkpoint, and carry on. Lives are not finite, but the small mound of green pixels that mark your corpses are a maudlin testament to your ineptitude. However, death is useful — I ritually found myself sending in a suicide spaceman, taking out an enemy or a mine so that the path was clear for my next go. ... However, it doesn't leave people who pride themselves on their gaming skill, and demand their games to be hard, out in the cold. At the end of each level, your score alters dramatically depending on how many times you died.'"
Image

Microsoft Exec Says, "You'll Miss Vista" 273

Posted by samzenpus from the cold-day-in-hell dept.
Oracle Goddess writes "'Years from now, when you've moved on to Windows 7, you'll look back at Windows Vista fondly. You'll remember its fabulous attributes, not its flaws.' That's the opinion of Steve Guggenheimer, vice president of the OEM division at Microsoft. 'I think people will look back on Vista after the Windows 7 release and realize that there were actually a bunch of good things there,' Guggenheimer said in a recent interview. 'So it'll actually be interesting to see in two years what the perception is of Vista.' A dissenting opinion comes from Bob Nitrio, president of system builder Ranvest Associates, doesn't believe organizations that skipped Vista will ever regret their decision. 'I don't think for a second that people are suddenly going to love Windows 7 so much that they will experience deep pangs of regret for not having adopted Vista,' said Nitrio. If I had to bet, I'd go with Bob's take on it." My first thought was, Steve meant Windows 7 is designed to be virtually unusable as payback for all the complaints about Vista, but I might be biased.
Input Devices

Best Mouse For Programming? 569

Posted by timothy from the keep-it-away-from-cigarettes-and-drugs dept.
LosManos writes "Which is the best programming mouse? Mandatory musts are wireless, and that it doesn't clog up like old mechanical mice. Present personal preferences are for: lots of buttons, since if I have moved my hand away from the keyboard I can at least do something more than move the pointer; sturdy feeling; not too light, so it doesn't move around by me accidentally looking at it." What would you recommend?
Internet Explorer

IE Market Share Drops Below 70% 640

Posted by timothy from the probably-too-late-to-open-source-ie dept.
Mike writes "Microsoft's market share in the browser dropped below 70% for the first time in eight years, while Mozilla broke the 20% barrier for the first time in its history. It's too early to tell for sure, but if Net Applications' numbers are correct, then Microsoft's Internet Explorer will end 2008 with a historic market share loss in a software segment Microsoft believes is key to its business."

Feed Airbus gets Euro approval for in-flight calling system (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Cellphones

The FAA's still hemming and hawing over how to handle the rather controversial issue of in-flight mobile phone use, but that hasn't stopped Europe's Airbus from pushing the issue on its home turf. Having already signed agreements with Ryanair and Qantas to provide service through its OnAir subsidiary, the company's been testing equipment to enable the use of GSM handsets for some time; the European Aviation Safety Agency's apparently pretty satisfied with how those tests have been coming along, too, having just blessed the system for commercial use. European travelers worried that this development is going to lead to a rash of incessant yappers on domestic flights can take some solace in the knowledge that flight attendants will be able to "manage" the service, even shutting off voice entirely while leaving SMS and data active. Look for OnAir service to drop initially on short flights in Western Europe, though Airbus intends to take it global -- if the FAA's cool with it, anyway.

[Via WirelessInfo.com]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
AMD

Submission + - AMD considering getting out of fabrication busines (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
mytrip
mytrip writes: "2007 has not been kind to AMD. The company saw its workstation market share slip, has taken on $2 billion of new debt and lost almost $1.2 billion over the past two quarters.

Speculation is building in the analyst community that AMD will attempt to further cut costs by outsourcing more — or all — of its chip making as early as 2008. One Citigroup analyst is predicting a "transformational move" that would result in AMD's lower-end CPUs being manufactured by a third party and possibly selling off part or all of its Dresden, Germany facility. Another report from Goldman Sachs outlines the investment firm's belief that the company will leave manufacturing completely in the hands of third parties.

Getting out of manufacturing is certainly a plausible — if not likely — scenario for AMD"
Operating Systems

24-hour Test Drive of PC-BSD 285

Posted by Zonk from the might-get-a-few-reluctant-IT-folks-on-board dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica has a concise introduction to PC-BSD, a FreeBSD derivative that emphasizes ease of use and aims to convert Windows users. The review describes the installation process, articulates the advantages of PC-BSD,and reveal some of the challenges that the reviewer faced along the way. From the article: 'In the end, I would suggest this distribution to new users provided they had someone to call in case of a driver malfunction during installation. I would also recommend PC-BSD to seasoned Unix users that have never tried using FreeBSD before and would prefer a shallower learning curve before getting down to business.'"

Slashdot Top Deals

When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking about themselves.

Close