not "second life" - it's "surreal life"

[posted by Liberty]

Recent news from the land of the entirely unreal where corporations are duped into spending real money thinking they are reaching "the youth market":

"Second Life 'virtual ATM' hacked; $ 3.2 million "virtual dollars" withdrawn

http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2007/07/25/world-stock-exchange-hit-by-l32-million-theft

Note: the imaginary money is valued by the parent company as being worth $12,300 in real-world money (US Dollars).

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[posted by belovedconsole]

I just downloaded the demo of Codemasters' "Dirt" for ps3.

F***ing amazing.

Here's what they said about JUST the audio (never mind the other amazingness):

" On the PLAYSTATION 3 system, one 3.2 GHz SPU vector
co-processor is dedicated to audio and delivers 7.1 and 5.1 surround
sound, using third-order
Ambisonic soundfields for the most realistic positioning."

Exploring Beyond 'Guitar Hero' - Add your own music!

Beyond Guitar Hero - A Multi-part Posting
[posted by Liberty Miller]

There are a couple of different interesting options for moving beyond the limitations of the Video Game "Guitar Hero"...

Part 1: Keyboard Hero (PC)

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Part 2: (this article)

Turning your G.H. Guitar into a musical instrument
[posted by Grim* ]

If you're looking to make better use of your Guitar Hero controller or are in serious need of a time wasting project, The Guitar Zeros have a solution. You've probably heard about the controller-wielding band before, but if not, a video showcasing one of their performances can be found here.

The band was nice enough to put up a guide showing exactly how they went about making their Guitar Hero controllers behave like musical instruments.

While the guide has been out for a while, The Guitar Zeros just recently released their custom "FRETBUZZ" software. So, if you have a PC (or a Mac if you feel particularly lucky), an X-Plorer or a PS2 Guitar Hero controller (requires USB adapter), and some free time, you too can earn extra geek points by pimping out your controller. The best part? No modding is required -- it's all done using software.

(from http://www.destructoid.com/turning-your-guitar-hero-controller-into-a-musical-instrument-32471.phtml )

Make a Guitar Hero Kit for your PC (Jan 2007)
http://www.instructables.com /id/EBWOWVK2PPEXCFG5WI/?ALLSTEPS

• How to make a PS2 Guitar Hero controller out of scratch
  
  { at instructables.com }

See also:

• Frets On Fire played using a Wii Remote+Nunchuk

Related links:

• official guitar hero red octane store: { http://www.redoctane.com/gh-ps2.html }
• red octane store at amazon.com

Cisco Makes Unimaginable Sums of Money, Single Handedly Turns Around Stock Market

Why is this man smiling?

Well, let's look at what John Chambers, CEO and Chairman of Cisco [http://www.cisco.com/], had to say:

Financial Overview

[Our 4th quarter] achieved record revenue of approximately $9.4B [that's $9.4 Billion US Dollars - Editor], an 18% year over year increase, comfortably above our guidance of 15-16% provided in the [3rd Quarter] conference call. This was once again one of the fastest Cisco standalone year over year revenue growth rates we have seen in several years. Order growth was even stronger than revenue growth with product book to bill comfortably above 1.

Non-GAAP net income was $2.3B, an increase year over year of approximately 21%. GAAP [Generally Accepted Accounting Principles] net income was $1.9 [Billion], representing a 25% increase year over year.

That's USD $2,300,000,000. In "cash from operations". In three months.

Non-GAAP earnings per share were a record $0.36 and GAAP earnings per share were $0.31, which were increases of 20% and 24% respectively year over year. Cash generated from operations was $2.7B, and we repurchased $1.5B of common stock. We exited the quarter with $22.3B in cash, cash equivalents, and investments.

Or, to paraphrase John, "We are a cash machine. Think about this number: two-point-seven billion dollars. Now multiple that by 4. That's 10 billion a year in cash from operations. That's more than some countries generate."

Beyond Guitar Hero - Be a Keyboard Hero !

Be a Keyboard Hero with "Frets on Fire"! -- an Opensource Freeware application for PC or Mac.

Check out this demo! (google video)

You can get the program 'Frets on Fire' from the project's main website at http://fretsonfire.sourceforge.net/.

Features:

• Unique inverted keyboard gameplay style (computer keyboard, not musical keyboard).
• Support for guitar controllers and generic joysticks.
• Includes a song editor for making your own tunes.
• Submit your scores to 'the World Charts'.
• Hundreds of songs composed by the community.
• Supports importing Guitar Hero™ I and Guitar Hero™ II songs.
• Multiplatform (runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and FreeBSD).
• Open source, full Python source code available.

links:

• Frets on Fire (FoF) > download current release from SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/fretsonfire/
• > Archived Website

Now see:

• Make a Guitar Hero Kit for your PC (Jan 2007) { http://www.instructables.com/id/EBWOWVK2PPEXCFG5WI/?ALLSTEPS }
• Extra credit:
  How to make a PS2 Guitar Hero controller out of scratch { http://www.instructables.com/id/EWO41A9F4MSZZS9/ }

See also:

• Frets On Fire played using a Wii Remote+Nunchuk

Related links:

• official guitar hero red octane store: { http://www.redoctane.com/gh-ps2.html }
• red octane store at amazon.com

Meat Production's Environmental Impact

[ posted by Lauren Kinsey on 2007, August 5 (Sunday), 11 am EDT) ]

Here's what's on my mind this morning...

A major 2006 report by the United Nations summarized the devastation
caused by the meat industry. Raising animals for food, the report
said, is "one of the top two or three most significant contributors to
the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to
global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major
policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate
change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss
of biodiversity. Livestock's contribution to environmental problems is
on a massive scale …."

Growing all the crops to feed farmed animals requires massive amounts
of water and land—in fact, nearly half of the water and 80 percent of
the agricultural land in the United States are used to raise animals
for food.6,7 Our taste for meat is also taking a toll on our supply of
fuel and other nonrenewable resources—about one-third of the raw
materials used in America each year is consumed by the farmed animal
industry.

Farmed animals produce about 130 times as much excrement as the entire
human population of the United States, and since factory farms don't
have sewage treatment systems as our cities and towns do, this
concentrated slop ends up polluting our water, destroying our topsoil,
and contaminating our air.9 And meat-eaters are responsible for the
production of 100 percent of this waste—about 86,000 pounds per
second!10 Give up animal products, and you'll be responsible for none
of it.

Many leading environmental organizations, including the National
Audubon Society, the WorldWatch Institute, the Sierra Club, and the
Union of Concerned Scientists, have recognized that raising animals
for food damages the environment more than just about anything else
that we do. Whether it's the overuse of resources, unchecked water or
air pollution, or soil erosion, raising animals for food is wreaking
havoc on the Earth. The most important step you can take to save the
planet is to go vegetarian.

Blade Runner 'Final Cut' DVD will be available for Christmas 2007

Warner Home Video announced that it will release yet another cut of Ridley Scott's classic SciFi movie Blade Runner on DVD on December 18 2007, preceded by a brief theatrical run in Los Angeles and New York on Oct. 5. The announcement came at the beginning of Comic-Con International in San Diego, where Scott and some of the cast were scheduled to appear.

Scott did some post-production on the 1982 movie to create Blade Runner: The Final Cut, which has also been restored and remastered from original elements. The new version will feature never-before-seen added or extended scenes, added lines, new and improved special effects, director and filmmaker commentary, an all-new 5.1 Dolby Digital audio track and more, the studio said.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut will be sold in three DVD editions, along with 3 other versions of the film ...

>> read the rest of this article (with pictures!)

Add Vista Premium/Enterprise features to XP (or Vista)

(filed under 'send to blog')

[posted by Liberty Miller, July 31 2007]

You can add features that are unique to Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate if you have Windows XP or Vista Business. For example:

Virtual computing

Vista Enterprise and Ultimate include Virtual PC, which lets you run multiple PC-based operating systems ( e.g. Linux, Windows XP on Vista, other Windows versions...) from within Windows. This can give you backward compatibility with older software, a second environment in which to surf the Web more safely, and more.

XP users can download this feature for free directly from Microsoft {link}. Users of other Vista editions other than Enterprise and Ultimate may want to try out the free VMware Player {http://www.vmware.com/products/player/} ...

Taskbar Thumbnail Previews for XP (free)

"Visual Task Tips {link} is a lightweight shell enhancement utility. It provides thumbnail preview image for each task in the Windows Taskbar, as seen in the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista."

continue: read more at windows secrets >>

Cisco Makes Strategic Investment in VMware

[ Cisco.com Posting Date: 2007-July-27 ]

Abstract: Cisco Systems Inc., the biggest maker of computer-networking equipment, will buy $150 million worth of shares in the initial public offering of VMware Inc. This represents an "equity stake" in the company.

Quoted from PR Newswire:

Cisco today announced that it has made a strategic investment of $150 million in VMware, Inc. [Editor - makers of VMware Player, see above], the global leader in virtual infrastructure software.

Cisco’s purchase will give the company about a 1.6 percent ownership stake in VMware and is intended to strengthen intercompany collaboration toward accelerating customer adoption of VMware virtualization products with Cisco’s networking infrastructure. In addition, the investment is intended to accelerate the development of customer solutions that address the intersection of virtualization and networking technologies.

"We see the network becoming an increasingly important component in how customers deploy, manage, and secure their data center resources in a more virtualized manner," said Ned Hooper, Senior Vice President, Corporate Business Development. "By collaborating with VMware and others, Cisco can help ensure that the network and the server virtualization are more tightly coupled to allow customers to more easily scale these environments."

This investment continues Cisco’s long-standing strategy of investing in companies primarily with strategic intent and with the interest to stay close to market transitions.

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