pizzach noted that the MacBook Air battery is actually fairly easy to replace. "All it requires is a philips screwdriver. Unlike some of Apple's other products, the battery is not so soldered in which should make a lot of people at least a little bit happier." I think I'll have to wait for something with a bigger screen and a faster clock speed.
Players have discovered that a programming decision in World of Warcraft puts a hard limit on how much in-game wealth a player can acquire: 2^31 gold pieces are all you can have. I wonder how long the gold farmers have know about this?
Today, while skimming over various WoW sites, I noticed two forum posts about the same topic: Players have discovered that there's a cap on how much money you can carry in the game. Apparently that amount is 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper. After you reach that lofty sum, you'll no longer be able to receive money from any source in the game. While some responses to the original posts claim that this exact limit had previously been theorized to exist, there have been no reports of anyone in the game actually achieving this amount via legal means.
Dorgabas on the official forums and meth on MMO-Champion's forums both reported the discovery today, each with a screenshot to provide veracity to their claims. You can check them out by clicking here. The shots are of two different players, one of whom is on a German-speaking server. In the shot you can read his conversation with a GM, which supposedly translates to him asking the GM about the limit and the GM scratching his head in response.
Mitch writes "Blizzard apparently used signed integers for their World of Warcraft gold values as some people have recently hit the limit of 2^31. "Apparently that amount is 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper. After you reach that lofty sum, you'll no longer be able to receive money from any source in the game. While some responses to the original posts claim that this exact limit had previously been theorized to exist, there have been no reports of anyone in the game actually achieving this amount via legal means.". I guess Blizzard didn't expect anyone to ever get close to that much gold in game."
HangingChad writes "According to Fortune, there are reports that Microsoft is trying to strong arm startups to give preferential treatment to MSN Messenger and are using account information as leverage. 'If the company wants to offer other IM services (from Yahoo, Google or AOL, say), Messenger must get top billing. And if the startup wants to offer any other IM service, it must pay Microsoft 25 cents a user per year for a site license.' Of course, if the company is willing to use Messenger exclusively 'fee will be discounted 100 percent.' Getting detailed information is difficult as many of the companies being approached are afraid of reprisals."
Larry sez, "Four giant waterfalls will be erected in New York for three months this summer as part of a public arts project. The waterfalls, including one that will fall from the famed Brooklyn Bridge, are the brainchild of Danish artist Olafur Eliasson."
Three of the waterfalls will cascade into the East River and New York Harbor from free-standing scaffolding towers that Eliasson said were part of his artistic vision, mirroring the scaffolding towers that sprout up throughout New York. The falls will be in place from mid-July to mid-October.
City officials are hoping to emulate the success of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's project, "The Gates," which drew around 1.5 million visitors to the city in February 2005 to view about 7,500 saffron panels draped through Central Park.
garlicnation writes "Gizmodo reports that robots that have the ability to learn and can communicate information to their peers have learned to lie. 'Three colonies of bots in the 50th generation learned to signal to other robots in the group when then found food or poison. But the fourth colony included lying cheats that signaled food when they found poison and then calmly rolled over to the real food while other robots went to their battery-death.'"
The July, 1940 edition of Popular Science heralded the miraculous appearance of a bold new means of packaging pickles: "Transparent rubber!"
Pickles, packaged in envelopes of a transparent rubber product, have been introduced by a leading American food packer. The water-tight container, which is protected by a cardboard box, holds neatly arranged sweet pickles which are packed in fluid just as when they are sold in glass bottles. Besides increasing the attractiveness of the commodity, the new method of packing is reported to eliminate bottle breakage and to reduce the weight of the containers.
Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels: The Shop of the Forbidden City (with ice-cream freezer), Beijing, China. Love the sign -- sounds like an installment in the Indiana Jones franchise.
Link
In the Christmas episode of sf writer Spider Robinson's delightfully eclectic podcast (I'm running a little behind in my podcasts right now), Spider introduced the work of American bluesman Paul Pena, playing a couple of his tracks. I was blown away.
Pena, a blind musician, was captivated by the sounds of Tuvan throat-singing, which he encountered for the first time on a late-night shortwave transmission. He taught himself to throat-sing, and met with and befriended Kongar-ol Ondar, forming the band Genghis Blues, which merged throat-singing with Delta blues in a marvellous and haunting way.
Pena died tragically after a misdiagnosis of pancreatic cancer led to his being addicted to -- and then brutally denied -- heavy painkillers, and subsequently died from pancreatitis and complications from diabetes.
BigTimOBrien writes to mention the EFF is reporting that self-proclaimed cyberlawyer, Eric Menhart, has decided to trademark use of the term "cyberlaw" and is threatening other lawyers with legal action over the term. "I wish I could say I was surprised by this one, but such overreaching invocations of IP rights are all too common -- even where, as in this case, there are no actual "rights" to speak of. But an IP lawyer should know that courts (and trademark examiners, and many tech companies that might be potential clients) don't look kindly on efforts to abuse trademark law to control everyday language. Here's hoping Menhart figures that out fast."
Flickr user Sweet Juniper has a heartbreaking, gorgeous and horrifying set of photos of a rotting Detroit school book depository, where mountains of yellowing, damp, torn schoolbooks moulder, right in the middle of town:
This is inside the building right next to the Michigan Central Station. Apparently at one time it was a post office, and then it was used by the Detroit Public schools to store textbooks and materials. The columns in here are particularly beautiful. I think I read somewhere that the building was designed by Albert Kahn, but I haven't been able to verify that.
All those metal bars once supported pallets where all those papers and books were stored. This is the state I found it in.
There is an interesting discussion brewing on the Open Government discussion list. It all started when Aaron Swartz posted information about a new Library of Congress initiative with Flickr called "The Commons." This initiative is important because (if it continues) will allow people to tag images on Flickr as public domain, something you can't do today.
As a result of this discussion, Public.Resource.Org has put an unsolicited proposal into the Smithsonian Institution proposing they join the party by donating 2,000 public domain images to the pool. Yahoo! has not yet said if they would allow the Smithsonian to participate, but we figured they might let them in the door. To make the offer of a joint venture a serious one, we've put $50,000 on the table.
Needless to say, if we're successful in this venture, we'll also make tarballs available for FTP for those who just want to download instead of navigate.
Young adult fantasy writer Tamora Pierce and Julie Holderman are planning a science fiction convention for young adults -- and young adult sf, and are planning it all on a LiveJournal group. Love this idea -- when I started going to cons, there was an enormous group of bratpack kids like me in attendance. These days, it seems like most of the kids were dragged along by their parents. Eventually, the parents will die off -- and then where will we be?
But when it comes to the presence of kidlit authors at conventions? Our favorite conventions welcome writers of content for younger readers, but these writers are in the minority at the con. Often kidlit writers are treated by members of adult F&SF cons in a manner that is patronizing at best, snubbing or scornful at worst. In recent months this has been a growing burr under our saddles, until chance remarks after a recent con got us to talking about the place of YA and kids' F&SF in the literary world in general.
Ours is an outsider arena--not mainstream enough for the purely kidlit crowd, not adult enough for the F&SF purists. And yet, most F&SF readers were introduced to the genres as kids and still re-read their favorites, if they don't continue to read the new F&SF which is being published for younger readers! We run into as many adult readers of kidlit at cons as we do actual, real, well--you know--kids and teens!
Following a long and fruitless hunt for a kidlit con, we started talking about making our own. Think of it, folks. Your dream date: writers, editors, star booksellers, artists, critics, art, videos, anime, and a dealer's room filled with treats. Panel topics about the art you love, discussions on publishing books for children and teens, what works (what lasts) in movies for kids. A con for the well-read, regardless of age, featuring the writers who changed your life.
That's what we're doing here. A project of this size needs a lot of active participation in its planning and execution. In other words, we need help, in the form of volunteers, ideas, and funding. This is where we open the floor to you all for suggestions, recommendations, and all of the assistance we can get. Do you know anyone who might provide us with grant money? (Can you write grants?) Are you willing to work on a con committee, and in what capacity? Have you started a convention and are you willing to give advice on starting a convention? Who would you like to see, as guests and as the first Guests of Honor (writer and artist)? Your input is welcome!
Dotnaught writes to tell us InformationWeek is reporting that the CIA admitted today that recent power outages in multiple cities outside the United States are the result of cyberattacks. "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
mytrip writes to mention that the same people who invented credit scores are working to create a similar system for hospitals and other health care providers. "The project, dubbed "MedFICO" in some early press reports, will aid hospitals in assessing a patient's ability to pay their medical bills. But privacy advocates are worried that the notorious errors that have caused frequent criticism of the credit system will also cause trouble with any attempt to create a health-related risk score. They also fear that a low score might impact the quality of the health care that patients receive."
Funkmaster F writes "At the KDE Developer Conference today, Trolltech CEO Havaard Nord announced that its Qt application development toolkit will be released under GPL 3. 'Here at the KDE release event, Nord's announcement was met with applause. Like Trolltech's initial decision to move from its own QPL license to the GPL, this announcement and the company's more recent decision to adopt the GPL for all platforms rather than just Linux, demonstrate the company's ongoing commitment to openness.'"
Montana's governor asked 17 other states Friday to join his rebellion against federal I.D. rules he considers invasive and expensive, setting a showdown where citizens of the rebel states couldn't use their driver's licenses to enter federal buildings or fly on planes. Homeland Security says, bring it on.
Warning: include(/var/chroot/home/content/r/a/m/ramnem/htmlgoogle_vadd.txt) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/content/r/a/m/ramnem/html/archives/200801/20080119_world_technology.php on line 210
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/var/chroot/home/content/r/a/m/ramnem/htmlgoogle_vadd.txt' for inclusion (include_path='.') in /home/content/r/a/m/ramnem/html/archives/200801/20080119_world_technology.php on line 210
Warning: include(/var/chroot/home/content/r/a/m/ramnem/htmlgoogle_vadd.txt) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/content/r/a/m/ramnem/html/archives/200801/20080119_world_technology.php on line 210
Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/var/chroot/home/content/r/a/m/ramnem/htmlgoogle_vadd.txt' for inclusion (include_path='.') in /home/content/r/a/m/ramnem/html/archives/200801/20080119_world_technology.php on line 210
But when it comes to the presence of kidlit authors at conventions? Our favorite conventions welcome writers of content for younger readers, but these writers are in the minority at the con. Often kidlit writers are treated by members of adult F&SF cons in a manner that is patronizing at best, snubbing or scornful at worst. In recent months this has been a growing burr under our saddles, until chance remarks after a recent con got us to talking about the place of YA and kids' F&SF in the literary world in general.
