pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/hurricanejets.jpg" width="500" height="276" style="display:block;" /Hurricanes, as we've seen, can wreak serious havoc when they strike populated areas. We've never had control over them before, but one researcher thinks they could be broken up with F-4 fighter jets./p pIn theory, sending in a pair of the jets to do loops around the eye of the hurricane while it's still out over the ocean, creating sonic booms, would break it up before it hits the shore.br/p blockquoteJet fighters flying at supersonic speeds along special trajectories with a hurricane/typhoon at various altitudes would create supersonic booms. In one such embodiment, the trajectories for the supersonic booms of the present invention are counter to the rotational component of the hurricane and/or typhoon being targeted. As such, supersonic booms can be tailored and/or designed to partially and/or fully -negate the basic rotational contribution in a hurricane by slowing down a hurricane's/typhoon's rotation. Additionally, when supersonic booms propagate downward to the surface of the ocean they also destabilize a hurricane's/typhoon's structure by increasing the pressure in the central part of a hurricane's/typhoon's eye./blockquote pIt's a pretty crazy idea, but I guess it makes sense. It would be pretty amazing to be able to stop any hurricane before it hit shore, saving millions and millions of dollars and who knows how many lives. I can't wait for them to test this out. [a href="http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=2008094226"Patent/a via a href="http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archives/avflash/1267-full.html#199329"AV Web/a; iThanks, Jason!/i]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=d43cd72def74a2e53be8e26e96b05693p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=d43cd72def74a2e53be8e26e96b05693p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=d43cd72def74a2e53be8e26e96b05693" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=L2MnaIBx"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=uNcVZuCz"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=DOa9FLCw"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=DOa9FLCw" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=yZQ0yq3m"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=yZQ0yq3m" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/2-5sJaKGTqM" height="1" width="1"/

pHere's the full text of the memo from MTVN (a href="http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?Page=QUOTETicker=VIA" class="ticker" title="VIA"NYSE: VIA/a) chairman and CEO Judy McGrath to her staff regarding layoffs and restructuring. It's very low on detail; as the memo says, some of the specifics will come out today: /p p I'm sure you've read Philippe and Tom's note, and I want to talk to you about what it means for MTV Networks – today and in the context of our overall mission and strategy going forward. /p p We all know there's a fundamental restructuring of our entire economy going on, and it extends beyond our borders. This is not just about MTVN, Viacom or even sister media companies – it's happening in every industry, all over the world.nbsp; This doesn't make it easier to say goodbye to people we love and respect, but it is the hard truth. In these tough times, we are responsible for sustaining and reinventing our company as thoughtfully as we can.nbsp; The changes we're making today are necessary, difficult, and the responsible way for us to move forward. /p p Here in the U.S., we're consolidating some groups, centralizing functions and outsourcing others, and aligning our resources across brands and platforms.nbsp; Specific details of the changes and how they affect you and your group will be communicated by your department heads today.nbsp; Our International organization continues to implement a new approach to structure and operations, which has been underway throughout the year. Further moves will be outlined by the leadership of each MTVNI region. /p p Change like this is so tough, to say the least.nbsp; But we must accept that we operate today in a state of constant evolution, constant change. /p p We believe the next chapter for each of us will be all about new possibilities, creativity and invention.nbsp; This is where our opportunity lies.nbsp; We can use this moment of global transformation to reassert our capacity to innovate, to inspire through creative and business excellence, to connect with our audience as powerfully as ever. We will be a leaner organization, but we will always be champions of new ideas, champions of all of our customers and brands, and leaders in new ways of doing business. /p p Everyone here contributes to MTVN and Viacom every single day and night without exception.nbsp; We hate to see dedicated friends and co-workers leave us, and we say goodbye with care, gratitude, support and respect. /p p Thank you all for your continued commitment to MTV Networks. /p p -- Judy /p piCheck out the best business jobs in digital media. a href="http://jobs.paidcontent.org/"Go here/a for paidContent.org Job Board./i/p pa href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?a=ul81RC"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/pcorg?i=ul81RC" border="0"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=BjmNO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=BjmNO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=rfGqO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=rfGqO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=A0pHo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=A0pHo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=oHiqO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=oHiqO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?a=h9hoO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pcorg?i=h9hoO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pcorg/~4/474749101" height="1" width="1"/

Posted by Dennis Sellers

An Apple patent (number 20080298021) for a notebook computer with a hybrid diamond heat spreader has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates to heat-transfer techniques. More specifically, the present invention relates to the use of a diamond heat spreader to transport heat in computer systems.

Posted by Dennis Sellers

An Apple patent (number 20080297487) for a display integrated photodiode matrix has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates generally to proximity sensing displays, and more particularly, to proximity sensing displays using infrared or other radiation for sensing proximity events.

pa href=http://ffffound.com/image/b05a7146b1d683e7e2625eadf96fbd63adab29c3img src=http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/b05a7146b1d683e7e2625eadf96fbd63adab29c3_m.jpg alt=No se puede mostrar la imagen “http://www.iankim.net/images/inventions.jpg” porque contiene errores. border=0 width=480 height=480/a/ppvia a href=http://www.iankim.net/images/inventions.jpghttp://www.iankim.net/images/inventions.jpg/a/p

div class='rss_chapo'p class=spipDate de sortie : 2009/p p class=spipRéalisé par Marc Abraham/p p class=spipAvec Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, Dermot Mulroney, Jake Abel, Aaron Abrams, Alan Alda .../p p class=spipFilm américain - Genre : Drame/p p class=spipDurée : 1h 59min/p/div div class='rss_texte'p class=spipstrong class=spipSynopsis :/strong br/p p class=spipL'histoire de Robert Kearns, l'inventeur de l'essuie-glace intermittent pour pare-brise qui a passé la plus grande partie de sa vie a se battre contre les constructeurs automobiles de Detroit qui lui ont volé son invention. Un combat pour lequel l'inventeur a délaissé sa famille.../p/div div class='rss_ps'object width=560 height=345param name=movie value=http://www.youtube.com/v/J7ZSDE0aJqghl=enfs=1rel=0/paramparam name=allowFullScreen value=true/paramparam name=allowscriptaccess value=always/paramembed src=http://www.youtube.com/v/J7ZSDE0aJqghl=enfs=1rel=0 type=application/x-shockwave-flash allowscriptaccess=always allowfullscreen=true width=560 height=345/embed/object/div

Le PC Dell XPS en forme de bâton n’est encore qu’un projet à l’état de concept, mais il semble être l’une des inventions les plus ingénieuse en matière d’ordinateur portable. Imaginé par Tai Chiem, il s’agit d’un tube, à l’intérieur duquel sont enroulés deux écrans OLED souples.

As he lived just before the invention of the telescope, Tycho Brahe relied on his keen eyes to make observations that changed the science. Yet his face was more remarkable for a different feature: a golden nose. In 1566, when Tycho was a 20-year-old student at the University of Rostock in Germany, he became embroiled in a drunken argument with another Danish nobleman named Manderup Parsbjerg. A duel ensued – in the dark – in the course of which Parsbjerg’s rapier lopped off much of the bridge of the future astronomer’s nose. To mask the damage, Tycho – like Galileo Galilei, he is generally known by his first name – designed himself a metallic nose-job. Using an alloy of silver and gold, he fashioned a false nose that is said to have been remarkably realistic. Thenceforth, he carried a special paste around with him – historians differ on whether this was for reattaching the nose, or for polishing it. The man with the golden nose may, in fact, have had several replacements. When his body was exhumed in 1901, on the 300th anniversary of his death, no precious prosthesis was found. His skull however, was stained green where the nose would have been. This may indicate that copper – which oxidises to a green colour – was used to build his nose. Some speculate that he had a lighter copper nose for everyday use, and saved the heavier silver-gold version for special occasions. Alternatively, a grave robber might have stolen the precious metal, and substituted a cheap alternative. Tycho’s nasal appendage was far from his only unusual possession: at his family seat, Knutstorp castle, he kept a pet moose. His prized companion met a tragic end, falling downstairs after drinking beer at a banquet. Another member of the nobleman’s unorthodox household was a dwarf named Jepp, whom Tycho considered to be clairvoyant. Tycho, who at one stage owned 1 per cent of all the wealth in Denmark, would often order silence at his feasts and make his guests listen to Jepp’s pronouncements. For all his quirks, however, Tycho was an astronomer of immense stature. Besides observing the supernova of 1572, he catalogued more than a thousand new stars, and made some of the most accurate measurements of celestial movements yet accomplished. In his latter years, when working in Prague, he employed Johannes Kepler as his assistant. After Tycho’s death, Kepler was to use his master’s records of the movement of Mars to establish the laws of planetary motion. Tycho, however, was off the scent on one critical astronomical matter: though well aware of Copernicus’s theory that the Earth orbits the Sun, he was unable to accept it. Instead, he proposed his own idiosyncratic cosmology, by which the Sun orbited the Earth, while the remaining planets orbited the Sun.

Le conglomérat américain abandonne le développement d’une version à haut rendement de la vieille ampoule à filament incandescent pour se concentrer sur l’éclairage à LED et OLED. La lampe HEI (High Efficiency Incandescent), une version à haute efficacité lumineuse de la lampe à incandescence, ne verra finalement pas le jour. General Electric, qui en avait annoncé en février 2007 le développement pour une commercialisation prévue à l’horizon 2010, vient d’arrêter le projet. Sa priorité va désormais aux systèmes d’éclairage du futur à base de LED et OLED. Le conglomérat américain met ainsi fin à une invention vieille de 129 ans, développée et popularisée par Thomas Edison, à l’origine de la création de la société. L’ampoule HEI se présentait pourtant comme une alternative séduisante à la lampe fluocompacte. Elle était censée offrir le même rendement lumineux que la fluocompacte, soit quatre à cinq fois celui d’une lampe à incandescence traditionnelle, avec plusieurs avantages : une meilleure qualité de lumière, l’absence de mercure et de rayonnements infrarouges.

Monday's post about a propellor-driven wind cart designed to travel directly downwind faster than the wind (DWFTTW) has generated an emotionally-charged discussion about the feasibility of such a vehicle. There are three camps -- the people who think it's possible, the people who think it isn't, and the people who don't know. All three camps have members claiming to have degrees in physics, engineering, and aeronautics, and members from each camp are guilty of name-calling, insults, and cheerleading for their "side." One fellow, a proponent of the idea that DWFTTW is possible, even told me that I should "prepare to be disappointed" because I have my doubts about DWFTTW! I would actually be delighted to learn the truth about this, whatever it is. In MAKE Vol. 11, Charles Platt made a miniature model of the vehicle and came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a wind-powered vehicle that can travel downwind faster than the speed of the wind. Last year, while Charles was working on the MAKE piece, he emailed me this charming sketch and description: Lack of imagination among wind-cart enthusiasts has prevented them from realizing that a simple modern invention can solve the problem of net forward air flow trying to stop the cart. That invention is--the air duct! A swivelling duct would be able to take advantage of wind coming from any direction. A vane at the rear of the duct would automatically turn it into the wind. Even on a windless day, the lucky owner of this windmobile would only have to give it a push before leaping aboard, to create some relative air flow that would power up the fan and accelerate the cart. Who could have imagined that the answer to the problem of non-renewable resources could be so simple? Of course, he is being facetious. This morning, Charles emailed me the following, along with permission to post it: I have browsed the huge discussion in response to your cart posting. Amazingly, so far as I can see, no one has addressed the fundamental problem that if the cart transitions from moving slower than the wind to faster than the wind, the reversal of air flow will try to turn the propeller backward, thus tending to stop the cart. It bothers me that so many people are conned by this idea (or con themselves). -- Three questions for cart enthusiasts: 1. When the cart begins running slower than a tail wind, does the air move through the propeller from the back toward the front? 2. If the cart can somehow accelerate faster than the tail wind (as its proponents claim), does this means that air will now move through the propeller from the front toward the back? 3. If the flow of air through the propeller reverses in this way, will it tend to reverse the rotation of the propeller? Answers to (1) and (2) are clearly "yes." Answer to (3) can be determined empirically by blowing air at a small fan, first from the front, then from the back, and watching which way it turns. Answer to (3) will also be "yes." Therefore, the reversed air flow will retard forward motion, the speed of the cart is self-limiting, and the claim is false. If you have something to contribute in the discussion boards about this, please refrain from insults and name-calling. Side note: I emailed Adam Savage about this, and he said it's "in the hopper" for a Mythbuster's experiment! Im considering running another article about this in a future issue of MAKE, as well. Previously: Video: can a vehicle move downwind faster than the wind? - Boing Boing Downwind faster than the wind, part 2 - Boing Boing...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=29383e592c5465902331a3e4fb847b4cp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=29383e592c5465902331a3e4fb847b4cp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=29383e592c5465902331a3e4fb847b4c" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

Ce court-métrage d'animation 3D présente les aventures d'un petit scientifique, dont les inventions ne se comportent pas toujours comme prévu.9 Vote(s)

Posted by Dennis Sellers

An Apple patent (number 7460129) for a method, device and computer system for creating a smooth, continuous height (scalar or vector) field has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates generally to computer graphics and more particularly to the generation of spatially varying effects applied to...

For years, we've been among those pointing out that the really important thing in economic growth isn't invention, but a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20040429/1249251_F.shtml"innovation/a. It's the a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20080103/152737.shtml"process/a of actually taking an idea and successfully a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20070903/221321.shtml"bringing it to market/a in a way that people want that matters in the long run. Coming up with new ideas is only a small part of the process. That's why we often have so much trouble with the way the patent system works. It greatly enhances the role of simply coming up with the new idea, and then makes the important part -- the innovation -- a lot more expensive. However, when we discuss this, we often get angry comments from people noting that "basic research" would disappear without patents. Of course, that's unlikely for a variety of reasons, including the fact that a great deal of basic research has little or nothing to do with patents. br /br / However, a recent deeply researched book by Columbia professor Amar Bhide called a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=GRZ3R2RULTcC#038;printsec=frontcover#038;dq=the+venturesome+economy#038;ei=U7ozSezKC5WekwSEsOGqCA#PPR7,M1"iThe Venturesome Economy/i/a goes even further in noting that all of this talk about basic research misses the point: a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30ping.html?partner=rss#038;emc=rss" target="_new"basic research has little impact on actual innovation/a. If we want to focus on actually helping the economy, investing in basic research will do very little. The real trick is in encouraging that ongoing innovation -- those "mid-level" improvements that make products more acceptable in the market. Even if basic research occurs outside of the US, our ability to take ideas and shape them into successful businesses by engaging in that process of refining and improving are what will allow the economy to continue growing. It's great to see more academic support for these concepts.br /br /a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081201/0223352981.shtml"Permalink/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081201/0223352981.shtml#comments"Comments/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20081201/0223352981op=sharethis"Email This Story/abr / br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=f6879e1c096b7aa7f77d9bc56f9a6053p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=f6879e1c096b7aa7f77d9bc56f9a6053p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=f6879e1c096b7aa7f77d9bc56f9a6053" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?a=rkyho"img src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?i=rkyho" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~4/473716329" height="1" width="1"/

The reason we have such a huge choice of low cost computers and all sorts of gizmos and gadgets, smart phones, and electronic toys is because of the amazing advances in chip designs. Hundreds of small chip design firms are producing incredibly advanced semiconductors that power a slew of innovative devices.

But the reason we have so much innovation in the chip industry is because of a manufacturing revolution that began more than twenty years ago. In 1987, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) was founded as a new type of chip company--it was a semiconductor foundry--it made chips for other companies.

This completely transformed the chip industry and ushered in an innovation explosion. Chip designers didn't have to build their own chip factories, they could buy production time from chip foundries. Previously, chip startups had to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, primarily to pay for chip production--yet their value was in the designs.

Chip foundries led to a dramatic cut in the cost of establishing a chip company. Investment now went into chip design, not building a manufacturing line and learning how to run it.

This simple manufacturing revolution is responsible for all the innovation in electronics. And that's a model that could be effectively applied in the automotive world, and unleash a wave of innovation.

Manufacturing expertise . . .

I support a bailout of the automakers for one key reason: manufacturing expertise. If they shut down then we lose many decades of manufacturing knowledge and processes--it would be hugely expensive to recreate.

That manufacturing expertise can be used to build a Hummer, or it can be used to build hybrids, electric cars, and anything with wheels and an engine.

There is a tremendous amount of innovation in transportation that could be unlocked if you didn't have to have build your own factory to make the vehicles.

General Motors and the other car makers know how to re-tool lines to make all sorts of vehicles. They know what designs, and components work, and what doesn't; they have relationships with parts manufacturers, they have software design systems, test systems, air tunnels, algorithms...

They also know how to get through the red tape of qualifying vehicles for US roads. There is a massive amount of knowledge and expertise within the Big 3 that could be applied to producing the greenest of green vehicles.

My proposal is to use government monies to convert the Big 3 auto makers into car making foundries, in a similar fashion to chip-making foundries. That way, small startups with great ideas could quickly get their designs into production without requiring massive amounts of capital and learning how to build and operate a car factory.

Tesla Motors . . .

Take a look at Tesla Motors, one of the most innovative car companies of the past decade. The Tesla Roadster is an innovative all-electric sports car made with a carbon fiber body that has a range of 244 miles and does zero to sixty in less than 4 seconds. It received Time Magazine's 2nd best inventions of 2008.

But you have to very rich to buy one of these $109,000 cars primarily because building a manufacturing line is so expensive. It also means that Tesla had to raise massive amounts of capital to fund the manufacturing lines. This means the innovative Tesla technology will take years to trickle down to mainstream models--yet that's where it's lower carbon-footprint would have the most value.

Tesla ran into lots of delays because of manufacturing problems, and also problems with some of the components.

What if Tesla contracted with GM to make its cars? GM would know how to quickly tool up a production run, it probably would be able to help out with some of the drive-train problems Tesla had. GM would know what things work and how to avoid many problems that Tesla had to learn the hard way..

It is this kind of manufacturing expertise that could be leverage across a new industry. Small startups with great designs and technologies could quickly come to market without having to build their own production lines.

Car foundries could set off a huge wave of innovation at precisely the right time when we are searching for more responsible and sustainable forms of transport. And the US could grab a leadership position with such a plan.

Let's turn the Big 3 auto makers into foundries that can create a platform for a new type of innovative auto industry.

Posted by Dennis Sellers

Apple has released a patent (number 7460362) for a display housing for a computer device has appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates generally to computer system and, more particularly, to improved features for housings of computer systems.

div class="rxbodyfield"p class="ArticleBody" page="1"Everyone knows that techies love "Dungeons amp; Dragons," where they can prowl the bowels of a castle and cast spells on clueless managers, er, mages. After all, it's just a game./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Or is it? Many tech staffers are also hard-core PC gamers. For good reason: In virtual worlds like "a href="http://www.gamepro.com/games/pc/135523/world-of-warcraft-wrath-of-the-lich-king/" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU"World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King/a" and "a href="http://www.gamepro.com/games/pc/109782/civilization-iv/" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU"Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword/a," you can show off your awesome mental powers and flex the most feared fingers in the universe. You can hone the problem-solving skills that make you good at IT, take out frustrations from your day-to-day work, and celebrate the technology that you so love./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"b[ Check/b bout InfoWorld's slideshow of the a href="http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/2008/12/188-infoworld_s_per-1.html?source=fssr" class="regularArticleU"six perfect PC games for IT/a. | Looking for other cool techie stuff? Peruse our a href="http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/2008/11/185-2008_geek_gadge-1.html?source=fssr" class="regularArticleU"2008 geek gadget gift guide/a. ]/b/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"So what, exactly, does a kick-ass shooter game like "a href="http://www.gamepro.com/games/pc/132121/call-of-duty-4-modern-warfare/" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU"Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare/a" or the beautifully rendered role-playing game "a href="http://www.gamepro.com/games/pc/109692/fallout-3/" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU"Fallout 3/a" really say about tech life? Well, saddle up your Mechano-strider and watch as the Blade of Vaulted Secrets carves deeply into the tech-worker psyche./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"bThe techie-gamer relationship is rooted in "Civilization"br/ /bAh, the early days of "Civilization," or "Civ" in tech-speak. This classic Sid Meier game ran on PC DOS -- no games ran on Windows 3 in the early 1990s -- which basically locked out mere mortals from playing it./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"That is, you needed to know how to reconfigure autoexec.bat and config.sys to load extended memory and mouse drivers so that "Civ" could run. "You had to know technology to even play games," says George Jones, editorial director of a href="http://www.gamepro.com/" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU"GamePro/a, an InfoWorld sister publication. "Back then there was no Internet resource to help you, and so you had had to figure it out on your own. It was crazy."/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"When PC games finally reached the masses, thanks largely to Windows 95, techies were already masters of "Doom," "Quake," "Counterstrike," and "World of Warcraft." (Let the jocks play "Madden NFL" -- why throw a football for a touchdown when you can toss a flash grenade through a window and storm the door for a beat-down?)/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Today, Jones figures more than half of all hard-core PC gamers work in tech. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist specializing in the gamer lifestyle, agrees: "There's a large overlay between people who game and people who chose technology for work," he says, adding, "Some people can read people, others can understand ? a computer."/pp class="ArticleBody" page="2"bStupid users are lost in the virtual worldbr/ /bThe single experience nearly every tech worker shares is that, at some point in their career, they've had to deal with a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/04/13/77021_16FEusergoofs_1.html" class="regularArticleU"stupid users/a, a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/05/07/19FEuserintro_1.html" class="regularArticleU"more stupid users/a, and a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/06/16/25FE-stupid-users-part-3-admins_1.html" class="regularArticleU"even more stupid users/a. These users rarely respect the unsung tech worker -- and PC games can provide an opportunity for a little payback./pp class="ArticleBody" page="2"Let's face it: There's a tinge of happiness when one of these smug users creeps around the corner and right into your sniper crosshairs. It's your "Call of Duty" to put the poor sap out of his misery. Even better, the next day you can chuckle at him in the cafeteria line./pp class="ArticleBody" page="2"Indeed, users should thank techies for creating an industry of sophisticated games. When users look at a game screen, they probably wouldn't notice poorly overlapping 3-D images if a Hammer of Judgment hit them over the head./pp class="ArticleBody" page="2"But best-selling games such as "Fallout 3" don't have shoddy graphics rendering or crude artificial intelligence because "top game developers know their work will be scrutinized by trained eyes," explains Jones. "You can't fool them."/pp class="ArticleBody" page="2"bSolving problems with bloody executionbr/ /bMany tech workers are fervent problem solvers. Some are strategic, some tactical. Some solve problems through reverse engineering, others by invention, and a few by sheer luck. PC games play smartly into the many aspects of this problem-solving passion./pp class="ArticleBody" page="2"In "a href="http://www.gamepro.com/games/pc/109782/civilization-iv/" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU"Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword/a," a player spends days, weeks, or maybe months shaping a civilization from the beginning of time to the modern era. The goal is to emerge as the leader, and there's not just one solution or path to success. "It's the ultimate problem-solving experience," Jones says, "and epitomizes the mind frame of the tech worker."/pp class="ArticleBody" page="2"Of course, many tech workers don't have weeks or even hours to solve a problem. That's where "StarCraft" i/comes in. In this game, you're a military leader of an alien species. The game calls for quick thinking and some serious team management during short missions./pp class="ArticleBody" page="2""StarCraft" perhaps best mirrors the challenges and successes of life in IT. "'StarCraft' i/is firefighting," says Jones. "Things are crumbling, and you have to figure out how to fix it in 25 minutes. It's the nature of IT work." (FYI, "a href="http://www.gamepro.com/games/pc/131341/starcraft-ii/" target="_blank" class="regularArticleU"StarCraft II/a" is planned for release next year.)/pp class="ArticleBody" page="2"bPerfect PC games for ITbr/ /bOK, now that it's clear why techies and gaming go so well together, which games are the ideal fit for IT? InfoWorld has picked the ideal game for six kinds of tech staffers. Check them out in our a href="http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/2008/12/188-infoworld_s_per-1.html" class="regularArticleU""Perfect techie games" slideshow/a./p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=efb778efbd7d728fdea775b87bbdd901p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=efb778efbd7d728fdea775b87bbdd901p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=efb778efbd7d728fdea775b87bbdd901 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/

INVENTION – Des ingénieurs ont breveté un nouveau procédé pour contrôler les tempêtes tropicales...

You may recall just a few months ago that a "showcased" Google spreadsheet for splitting the bill a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20080725/0154041790.shtml"got some basic math wrong/a. After we pointed it out, Google Phd.'s apparently got to work and figured out how to a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080803/172041.shtml"properly split a bill/a. Perhaps part of the problem was that they didn't have a a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1#038;Sect2=HITOFF#038;d=PALL#038;p=1#038;u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm#038;r=1#038;f=G#038;l=50#038;s1=7,457,767.PN.#038;OS=PN/7,457,767#038;RS=PN/7,457,767" target="_new"newly approved US patent/a (found via a href="http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/26/1352257#038;from=rss"Slashdot/a) from IBM on the basic concept of splitting the bill. The patent is actually for a device at a restaurant table, where multiple patrons can input how much they want to pay and the device keeps track to make sure the entire bill is paid. As the patent notes, earlier inventions allowed patrons to pay at the table. What was new about this patent, was the splitting of the bill part. The USPTO had originally rejected the patent, but that so-called "final rejection" was just overruled.br /br /a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081201/0306022986.shtml"Permalink/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081201/0306022986.shtml#comments"Comments/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20081201/0306022986op=sharethis"Email This Story/abr / br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=6397ac8e50ed845e1b235a05a2d7f0e1p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=6397ac8e50ed845e1b235a05a2d7f0e1p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=6397ac8e50ed845e1b235a05a2d7f0e1" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?a=gd6Ao"img src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?i=gd6Ao" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~4/473340504" height="1" width="1"/

I really like this young man's parody of Adam Sandler's Hannukah Song, reworked for lonely atheists in the holiday season: So when you feel like the only kid in town, without a God-like idol, Here’s a list of famous atheists, so you don’t feel sui-cidal: Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison, the Fathers of Invention, Also Sigmund Freud, who discovered anal retention The Piano Man, Billy Joel, refused to join a sect Now we know why Rodney Dangerfield, never got any respect Angelina Jolie, astronomer Carl Sagan Put them together– not a bad-looking pagan [Sagan was really agnostic] You don’t need a bar- mitzvah, or even baptizm Cause you can get blessed — by Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens Forget Adam Sandler's Hanukkah Song, Here's the Atheism Song (Thanks, Don!)...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=e72b4e4f4efac48d575e28f7489d227fp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=e72b4e4f4efac48d575e28f7489d227fp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=e72b4e4f4efac48d575e28f7489d227f" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

pTroisième épisode de cette série Le jeu du mois, avec comme star aujourd'hui, un jeu très addictif : Slime Volley ! Essayer ce jeu c'est l'adopter, en effet, il est très rapide à installer et à prendre en main./p pAu bout de deux minutes de jeu, vous en serez accros, je vous le garantie ! La présentation ? Bien sûr, c'est par là !/p pimg title=logo_slime_volley.png, nov 2008 style=margin: 0 auto; display: block; alt= src=http://www.generation-linux.fr/public/dec08/logo_slime_volley.png //p br /pstrongI. Présentation/strong/p pJe ne veux pas paraphraser donc je vais vous faire un vulgaire copier-coller (un peu épuré) de la description faite sur le a href=http://slime.tuxfamily.orgsite officiel/a :/p pqSlime Volley est un jeu inspiré des jeux Java du même nom (dans le style de Blobby Volley).br / Il s’agit d’une simulation de volley : vous dirigez une emslime/em (un blob semi-circulaire) sur lequel la balle rebondit.br /br /Ce jeu est programmé en C avec la bibliothèque Simple DirectMedia Library (SDL), et est placé sous license GPLv3. Il est donc libre et gratuit.br / Slime Volley est développé sous Linux et Mac OS X, et fonctionne également sous Windows./q/p pEt voici la description que m'a fait un des créateurs de ce jeu (MCMic) :/p pqÀ la base, il s'agissait d'un jeu en java lui-même nommé Slime Volley, qui me plaisait beaucoup. br /J'ai donc eu envie d'adapter ce jeu en C et en libre, pour me mettre sérieusement à la programmation. Avec l'aide de VinDuv, on a programmé ladite version, ajoutant ensuite diverses fonctionnalités au fil des versions. Je me suis notamment occupé de coder les premiers modes de vitesse (une invention de notre part) et l'IA pour pouvoir jouer contre l'ordi. Vinduv a beaucoup aidé pour la physique et le réseau notamment.br /Au final, notre jeu est bien plus évolué que le jeu java, la physique est également très différente./q/p pQu'est-ce-que vous voulez rajouter à cela, pour moi tout est dit, nous allons donc passer à la deuxième partie, l'installation./p br /pstrongII. Installation/strong/p pComme je vous l'ai dit, tout est très facile, rendez-vous sur a href=http://slime.tuxfamily.org/down.phpla page de téléchargement/a du site de Silme Volley puis téléchargez la version correspondant à votre système. En effet, Slime Volley a l'avantage d'être disponible sous toutes les grandes plateformes, à savoir Linux, Mac et Windows./p pA l'heure où j'écris cet article, la version 2.4.1 vient tout juste de voir le jour, c'est donc cette version qui est proposée au téléchargement actuellement./p pSur cette page, vous verrez également comment rendre disponible Slime Volley via les dépôts. Personnellement, j'ai téléchargé le package Debian/Ubuntu .deb, je l'ai installé via le gestionnaire de package et tout fonctionne correctemen