Comment Time for Android to make a move... (Score 0) 1027
The Year of the Linux Handheld has arrived!
BFG Exiting Graphics Card Market 108
thsoundman writes news that BFG appears to be giving up on the graphics card side of its business. The company's chairman said in a statement:
"After eight years of providing innovative, high-quality graphics cards to the market, we regret to say that this category is no longer profitable for us, although we will continue to evaluate it going forward. We will continue to provide our award-winning power supplies and gaming systems, and are working on a few new products as well. I'd like to stress that we will continue to provide RMA support for our current graphics card warranty holders, as well as for all of our other products such as power supplies, PCs, and notebooks."
Testing the Safety of Tasers On Meth-Addled Sheep 253
Funded in part by Taser International, a recent study was done to learn the effects of being tasered while on methamphetamines. Since someone would probably complain about researchers going around and tasering meth addicts, they used sheep instead. From the article: "The less-lethal device of choice was the Taser X26, a standard law enforcement tool which can fire at suspects from a distance of 35 feet. Researchers shocked sixteen anesthetized sheep after dosing the animals with an IV drip of methamphetamine hydrochloride. Some of the smaller sheep weighing less than 70.5 pounds suffered exacerbated heart symptoms related to meth use. But neither the smaller nor larger sheep showed signs of the ventricular fibrillation condition, a highly abnormal heart rhythm that can become fatal."
Real-World Synthehol In Development 273
Ada_Rules writes "Researchers at the Imperial College London have announced development of an alcohol substitute that has many of the same properties as the Synthehol from the series Star Trek, in that one will get a buzz from it but will not end up with a hangover. In addition you will have the option of getting immediately sober if you so desire it. Let's hope this is not the typical vaporware. It is not that I really want a drink of Synthehol, but with its release I assume Romulan Ale won't be far behind."
Microbes That Keep Us Healthy Starting To Die Off 260
Dr_Ken writes with a quote from Scientific American:
"The human body has some 10 trillion human cells—but 10 times that number of microbial cells. So what happens when such an important part of our bodies goes missing? With rapid changes in sanitation, medicine and lifestyle in the past century, some of these indigenous species are facing decline, displacement and possibly even extinction. In many of the world's larger ecosystems, scientists can predict what might happen when one of the central species is lost, but in the human microbial environment—which is still largely uncharacterized—most of these rapid changes are not yet understood. 'This is the next frontier and has real significance for human health, public health and medicine,' says Betsy Foxman, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor. Meanwhile, each new generation in developed countries comes into the world with fewer of these native populations. 'They're actually missing some component of their microbiota that they've evolved to have,' Foxman says."
Comment Re:Mods, please be responsible. (Score 1) 624
If you lived in his area of jurisdiction, you'd understand.
Comment What kind of games are you looking to make? (Score 1) 324
Many modern FPS and RTS games have SDKs available where you can create mods of the original game. Pick your favorite, figure out what language it requires, study that, and make a mod for the game. It will get you used to working with level design tools, which you're going to need at some point, as well as programming in that language as it pertains to games. If you can bring in extra developers, that's good teamwork experience, which you'll need in just about any field period.
Companies like Valve have been known to hire accomplished mod-makers. Don't get your hopes up on that, but it's something to think about.
Apple's Mac OS X Update Breaks Perl 264
mir writes "It looks like if you use CPAN to install modules, Apple's latest security update might just have broken your Perl. According to Tatsuhiko Miyagawa 'The Security Update brings (old) IO.bundle with version 1.22 but your IO.pm has been updated to the latest 1.23 on CPAN shell. (But hey, 1.23 was released in 2006...Why do you bring that ancient version back, Apple!?)'."
Comment Hardly. (Score 4, Interesting) 417
From TFA:
... I cannot justify buying three $500 video cards just to play a game.
Was this ever a requirement just to play a game? Granted, I haven't been around THAT long, but if my current rig and its pair of $200 video cards in SLI mode can run Age of Conan at 70 FPS on maxed out settings, I fail to see why anyone would be shelling out $1500 on graphics hardware alone.
An often-missed point in this discussion is, even with bleeding edge $500 video cards available, there isn't a game out there that requires more than one of these behemoth cards to run at max settings. None that I've encountered, anyway, and this was true even four years ago when I built my current rig's predecessor.
As for the gaming PC being dead, mine seems to be alive and well despite being a year old now. I generally build a new rig every three years or so, and it seems to cost roughly $1500 for the entire machine each time. I tend to jump on new games fairly quickly, and I have yet to see my computer choke on one. I never really understood the whole "six-month upgrade cycle" thing for hardware, but maybe my luck with hardware is just that good.
Either way, the article sounds like more sensationalist over-stirring of the pot to me. Move along, nothing to see here.
Ballmer Ordered To Testify In 'Vista Capable' Case 235
alphadogg writes "A federal judge in Seattle has ordered Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to testify in a class action lawsuit against Microsoft that alleges the company misled consumers in a marketing campaign for its Windows Vista operating system in which computers sold with an older Microsoft OS were labeled 'Vista Capable' when in fact they could only run a basic version of Vista. Ballmer has unique personal knowledge of facts surrounding the case, therefore he must face questioning, Judge Marsha Pechman of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle ruled, according to court documents released late Friday."
Comment Re:That's awesome but... (Score 1) 182
I haven't played it because no one ever mentioned it to me. I had heard of it but never gave it a second thought until I purchased the Orange Box earlier this year, and realized that I actually DO enjoy FPS games. Half-Life 2 has since becomes one of my favorite games, and needless to say, I keep up on the gaming scene a lot more now than I used to.
That being said, I'm downloading Half-Life on Steam as we speak and can't wait to play it.
Comment Re:Nashville's recording industry (Score 2, Informative) 331
Not to mention a line of signature guitars used in plenty of genres outside country.
Record Label Infringes Own Copyright, Site Pulled 282
AnonCow sends in a peculiar story from TorrentFreak, which describes the plight of a free-download music site that has been summarily evicted from the Internet for violating its own copyright. The problem seems to revolve around the host's insistence that proof of copyright be snail-mailed to them. Kind of difficult when your copyright takes the form of a Creative Commons license that cannot be verified unless its site is up. "The website of an Internet-based record label which offers completely free music downloads has been taken down by its host for copyright infringement, even though it only offers its own music. Quote Unquote Records calls itself 'The First Ever Donation Based Record Label,' but is currently homeless after its host pulled the plug."
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