Comment Re:All URLs are going to Google (Score 2) 113

by raz0 on Tuesday August 11, 2015 @05:15PM (#50296755) Attached to: Firefox 40 Arrives With Windows 10 Support, Expanded Malware Protection

Even in Firefox 39 (possibly earlier), Google gets to set a permanent cookie if you have malware/"web forgery" detection enabled (which is the default). Even with an addon like 'Self-Destructing Cookies' you still can't get rid of the Google cookie. You can even try for yourself in Settings > Privacy > Show Cookies on a fresh install of Firefox. https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbugzilla.mozilla.org%2Fs...

Comment Re:Scientists hate Microsoft Office (Score 1) 181

by raz0 on Friday March 07, 2014 @01:14PM (#46428759) Attached to: Physics Forum At Fermilab Bans Powerpoint

This is a fallacy. If you take a look at the kind of presentations you see at top-tier computer graphics conference (i.e. SIGGRAPH -- shameless plug [paywalled] and another one), you will see that using all the fancy features of today's presentation software really can help in delivering the content of the presentation in a nice and intuitive way. The problem is that most people aren't willing spend one week on a presentation (except for top-tier computer graphics conferences).

More Devs Going Indie, To Gamers' Benefit 137

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday August 25, 2010 @03:28AM from the granularization-of-an-industry dept.

Wired is running a feature about how a growing number of game developers are abandoning jobs at major publishers and studios and taking their experience to the indie scene instead. Quoting: "They’re veterans of the triple-A game biz with decades of experience behind them. They’ve worked for the biggest companies and had a hand in some of the industry’s biggest blockbusters. They could work on anything, but they’ve found creative fulfillment splitting off into a tiny crew and doing their own thing. They’re using everything they’ve learned working on big-budget epics and applying it to small, downloadable games. The good news for gamers is that, as the industry’s top talents depart the big studios and go into business for themselves, players are being treated to a new class of indie game. They’re smaller and carry cheaper price tags, but they’re produced by industry veterans instead of thrown together by B teams and interns. Most importantly, unlike big-budget games that need to appeal to the lowest common denominator to turn a profit, these indie gems reveal the undiluted creative vision of their makers."

Grigory Perelman Turns Down $1M Millennium Prize 226

Posted by kdawson on Friday July 02, 2010 @12:38PM from the can't-buy-me-love dept.

Kleiba writes "After turning down the prestigious Field Medal in 2006 for his contributions to mathematics, the reclusive Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman announced yesterday that he is rejecting a $1 million Millennium Prize from the Clay Mathematics Institute for solving the Poincare conjecture."

MS Design Lets You Put Batteries In Any Way You Want 453

Posted by timothy on Friday July 02, 2010 @07:07AM from the dis-orientation dept.

jangel writes "While its strategy for mobile devices might be a mess, Microsoft has announced something we'll all benefit from. The company's patented design for battery contacts will allow users of portable devices — digital cameras, flashlights, remote controls, toys, you name it — to insert their batteries in any direction. Compatible with AA and AAA cells, among others, the 'InstaLoad' technology does not require special electronics or circuitry, the company claims."

FSF Asks Apple To Comply With the GPL For Clone of GNU Go 482

Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 26, 2010 @04:04PM from the y'know-fellas-the-license dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Free Software Foundation has discovered that an application currently distributed in Apple's App Store is a port of GNU Go. This makes it a GPL violation, because Apple controls distribution of all such programs through the iTunes Store Terms of Service, which is incompatible with section 6 of the GPLv2. It's an unusual enforcement action, though, because they don't want Apple to just make the app disappear, they want Apple to grant its users the full freedoms offered by the GPL. Accordingly, they haven't sued or sent any legal threats and are instead in talks with Apple about how they can offer their users the GPLed software legally, which is difficult because it's not possible to grant users all the freedoms they're entitled to and still comply with Apple's restrictive licensing terms."

EA Editor Criticizes Command & Conquer 4 DRM 266

Posted by Soulskill on Friday March 26, 2010 @06:29AM from the preach-it-brother dept.

Command & Conquer 4's DRM hasn't garnered Electronic Arts as much bad press and fan outrage as Ubisoft's scheme, despite being very similar. Nevertheless, it's been causing problems and frustrations for some users, including EA.com's own editor-in-chief, Jeff Green. An anonymous reader points this out: "Green wrote on his Twitter account late last week: 'Booted twice — and progress lost — on my single-player C&C4 game because my DSL connection blinked. DRM fail. We need new solutions.' He continued later, 'Well. I've tried to be open-minded. But my 'net connection is finicky — and the constant disruption of my C&C4 SP game makes this unplayable. The story is fun, the gameplay is interesting and different at least — but if you suffer from shaky/unreliable DSL — you've been warned.'"

Adobe Download Manager Installing Software Without Consent 98

Posted by timothy on Friday February 19, 2010 @06:31PM from the plus-one-invitation dept.

"Not all is worth cheering about as Adobe turns 20," writes reader adeelarshad82, who excerpts from a story at PC Magazine's Security Watch: "Researcher Aviv Raff has found a problem in ADM (Adobe Download Manager) and the method through which it is delivered from adobe.com. The net effect of the problem is that a user can be tricked into downloading and installing software using ADM without actual consent. Tonight Adobe acknowledged the report and said they were working on the issue with Raff and NOS Microsystems, the company that wrote ADM."

Mozilla Thunderbird 3 Released 272

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday December 08, 2009 @06:48PM from the hot-bits dept.

supersloshy writes Today Mozilla released Thunderbird 3. Many new features are available, including Tabs and enhanced search features, a message archive for emails you don't want to delete but still want to keep, Firefox 3's improved Add-ons Manager, Personas support, and many other improvements. Download here."

Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday December 03, 2009 @11:04AM from the download-compile-reboot-repeat dept.

diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."

First Earth-Sized Exoplanet May Have Been Found 222

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 19, 2009 @08:48PM from the but-not-as-we-know-it dept.

Adam Korbitz writes "New Scientist is reporting the extrasolar planet MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb — whose discovery was announced just last summer — may actually be the first truly Earth-sized exoplanet to be identified. A new analysis suggests the planet weighs less than half the original estimate of 3.3 Earth masses; the new estimate pegs the planet's size at 1.4 Earth masses. The planet orbits a small red dwarf star, some 3,000 light-years from here, at an orbital distance of 0.62 astronomical units, about the same distance as Venus from our sun. One significance of the planet's discovery is that it points to the probable ubiquity of smaller terrestrial planets in somewhat Earth-like orbits around red dwarf stars, the oldest and most numerous stars in the galaxy. Here is a video report from the discoverers."

Building Linux Applications With JavaScript 288

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 19, 2009 @07:59PM from the keeping-it-local dept.

crankymonkey writes "The GNOME desktop environment could soon gain support for building and extending applications with JavaScript thanks to an experimental new project called Seed. Ars Technica has written a detailed tutorial about Seed with several code examples. The article demonstrates how to make a GTK+ application for Linux with JavaScript and explains how Seed could influence the future of GNOME development. In some ways, it's an evolution of the strategy that was pioneered long ago by GNU with embedded Scheme. Ars Technica concludes: 'The availability of a desktop-wide embeddable scripting language for application extension and plugin writing will enable users to add lots of rich new functionality to the environment. As this technology matures and it becomes more tightly integrated with other language frameworks such as Vala, it could change the way that GNOME programmers approach application development. JavaScript could be used as high-level glue for user interface manipulation and rapid prototyping while Vala or C are used for performance-sensitive tasks.'"

Open Source Victories of 2008 378

Posted by kdawson on Saturday January 03, 2009 @11:30PM from the brief-look-back dept.

Meshach writes "Ars Technica has an interesting run-down on the major open source victories of 2008. Some, like Firefox 3, we can probably mostly agree on. Others — KDE 4 comes to mind — will be more controversial. And Mono 2? What else should be on the list?"

Comment Re:I wouldn't know - boycotting (Score 1) 384

by raz0 on Friday December 05, 2008 @05:41PM (#26007703) Attached to: Players Furious Over Buggy <em>GTA IV</em> PC Release

I had the exact same feeling of disappointment as you, and also the exact same concerns regarding the required activation. I applaud you for spending the time to write a real physical letter to Rockstar. Hopefully it will have an impact, especially if more people do this. Personally I wrote (among other - I collected about every Rockstar e-mail I could find) to mouthoff@rockstagames.com about my concerns, and I would suggest others do the same if they feel the same way.

Comment Re:I'm slightly astonished (Score 1) 384

by raz0 on Friday December 05, 2008 @04:26PM (#26006839) Attached to: Players Furious Over Buggy <em>GTA IV</em> PC Release

You probably should have used the very extensive configuration with regards to key mapping that San Andreas allows. I agree, the standard controls are very weird and counter-intuitive, but it's nothing 5 minutes spent on choosing your own (saner) mapping won't fix.

The plane missions are notoriously hard though. It's not just the controls. It takes quite a lot to get used to controlling the planes in San Andreas. In short, you just need practice. P.S. Don't use the mouse. Planes are most easily controlled with the keyboard (optionally a real controller).

http://mtasa.littlewhitey.com/