Back in my day we had 2D graphics and were thankful for them: related news

Back in my day, we had 2D graphics and were thankful for them!

Dads like to share stories of how rough they had it when they were kids. Now there’s an exhibit proving them right, at least when it comes to video games. A vintage video-game exhibit at the McCullough-Price House in Chandler, AZ is allowing dads to show their kids just how clunky the games looked and operated back in the day. Displays also take visitors through the evolution of game consoles, from Atari to Xbox.

NBCU Wireless GM On iPhone: 'We Didn't Feel That We Had To Be There On Day One'

When it comes to the iPhone, large entertainment companies are sitting on the sidelines. NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) can’t justify investing in one platform, but instead is putting equal time and investment across the board at this point, Salil Dalvi, NBCU’s GM of wireless, told mocoNews. He’s not yet convinced there’s a huge advantage of building on-device applications for the iPhone’s updated operating system. “We didn’t feel that we had to be there on day one … One of the real surprises from my perspective is it just really changes how we approach the market,â€� Dalvi said. “We’re taking a look at it. We haven’t ruled it in or ruled it out at this point … Do we get 80 percent of what the benefit is just by offering a highly-optimized experience on a web site?â€� For games, thereâ€

Google Has All My Data – How Do I Back It Up?

shadeshope writes "Slowly but surely Google has taken over my computing life.How can I back it up? Bit by bit with their mantra, hip image and brilliant services. Google has gained my trust and all my data. I am doing almost all of my computing in the cloud. Google Reader, Calender, Email, Docs and Notes have become my tools of choice. Even to the point where my day book, research notes etc are all on Google's servers.It was just so easy, enabling me to effortlessly work from multiple computers, operating systems and locations. I know, I know, this is foolish — all my eggs are firmly in one basket. It has crept up on me. As a long-time computer user, and committed pessimist, I have used many schemes over the years to ensure my data is safe.

I think it's fair to say we lacked a proven goalscorer last season, but at least we found the back of the net. The last three pre-season games have seen a goal drought of worrying proportions.

Now I realise pre-season stands for little. The results don't matter, it's the performances but when you've not scored in 3 games - two of which were against teams who we should really have hit the back against - then you start to get a bit jittery. Now, let's not get this out of context. On Friday night we had seven players missing who would be in a starting line up and shortly afterwards lost Stephen McPhee which means we effectively were playing our second string. However, that still doesn't mean we shouldn't have done better against Shrewsbury and at least scored a goal.

The Coker Tour Blog 3

Tuesday morning we were up and rolling early. We had a 1 PM appointment in York, Pa at the Harley-Davidson assembly plant. From Charlottesville, Va. where we had stayed the previous night it was a four hour drive. The morning trip took us through the beautiful Virginia countryside then into Pennsylvania through the Gettysburg area. We arrived at the Harley-Davidson Assembly facility at 12:30 and at 1PM we took the one hour tour. Assembly had already begun on the 2009 models and they were going to debut in one week at the Harley dealers convention in Las Vegas. We were not able to see the 2009 models up close but did get a detailed look at the stamping area for fenders and the new 6 gallon tanks. It was a very interesting tour and nice to see that there really are still things that are "Made in America"

KDE on KDE 4.0 (Groklaw)

Lately a lot has been said (or bemoaned) in the community about KDE 4, the 4.0 release and the KDE developers. In the following article we would like to address some common misconceptions about KDE 4 as we see it. As we firmly believe in KDE 4 and the future of the Free Desktop, we expected the heated discussions about KDE4 and especially the 4.0 release to go away - and we were wrong about that. As blogging about the issues raised didn't seem to reach the audience we intended, we took the opportunity presented by Groklaw for this article with both hands. We sincerely hope it sheds some light on why the KDE community did what it thought it had to do and we hope it shows we do take the criticism seriously.

Where Has All My Spam Gone?

An anonymous reader writes "I have my own domain, which has its own email server, where I receive all my personal email. I've been getting about 800 emails a day, of which perhaps 20 are real. Suddenly, Sunday or Monday evening, the spam pretty much stopped. My volume of mail has plummeted to less than 100 a day, and as far as I can tell, I'm not missing any real mail — I'm still getting the email list subscriptions I'm expecting, and every time I ask someone to send me a test message, it gets through. My domain host insists that it doesn't do any spam filtering before mail gets to my inbox, and that they've changed nothing about their configuration. I run SpamAssassin on my server to mark, but not delete, spam, and download the whole mess to my home client, and I'm still seeing the occasional message tagged by SpamAssassin.

Option activity heats up on eBay (EBAY) ahead of this afternoon's earnings report

We're all friends here, right? Well, I have a confession to make: I'm a shoe-aholic (I may have mentioned this in the past). I think it dates back to my college days (all 8 years of them), when I was working my way through school at a "big box sporting goods" retailer (no names mentioned to protect the innocent). Unfortunately for me, shoes are one of the college habits that I have proven unable to break ... curses Nike, Adidas, Converse, and Puma!! (Christmas Hint for my Faithful: those are my brands of choice, I wear a 12, and like the retro vibe) Well, one thing has led to another, with my addiction for shoes leading to an addiction to eBay (EBAY: View sentiment for EBAYsentiment, chart, options) . I'll check out the latest kicks in my size before I retreat to the Fightcave for my night's rest – prompting the spouse to ask me why I am

Options Update: Option Players Issue Their Bids on eBay

We're all friends here, right? Well, I have a confession to make: I'm a shoe-aholic (I may have mentioned this in the past). I think it dates back to my college days (all 8 years of them), when I was working my way through school at a "big box sporting goods" retailer (no names mentioned to protect the innocent). Unfortunately for me, shoes are one of the college habits that I have proven unable to break ... curses Nike, Adidas, Converse, and Puma!! (Christmas Hint for my Faithful: those are my brands of choice, I wear a 12, and like the retro vibe) Well, one thing has led to another, with my addiction for shoes leading to an addiction to eBay (EBAY: View sentiment for EBAYsentiment, chart, options) . I'll check out the latest kicks in my size before I retreat to the Fightcave for my night's rest – prompting the spouse to ask me why I am

Apple iPod Nano (3rd Generation) Review

(Review) - We couldn't wait to get our hands on the latest of Apple's iPod music players, as the company put on its annual show to update the most successful product line in its history last week. Needless to say, the industry is buzzing once again and for a good reason. We've got to be honest though. When Jobs first showcased the new line, our jaws dropped. We were horrified with the new designs. They appeared to be chubby, clunky and anything but sexy. Was Apple losing its touch with reality? Who would want an out of shape iPod? Certainly not us. But we were wrong. Boy, we were wrong. Just like with a lot of other Apple products, you can't truly get a feel for them with text, photos, audio and videos. You have got to see them in real life to truly appreciate their beauty.

PR Guy Says Bloggers Should Shut Up And Take Press Releases

When we first started Techdirt, one of the things I said clearly on the site was not to send us press releases, as we had no interest in writing about them. Yet, so many PR people clearly chose not to read the site and they send them anyway. They don't read the fact that we don't want press releases -- and in most cases they clearly don't read the site because the press releases obviously are about stuff we never write about. And it just gets worse and worse. These days, my inbox is filled with more press releases than regular email -- and I don't post any of them. You would think that PR people would eventually recognize how inefficient it is to send these press releases -- but since it's so easy to just cc every email address in a press list, they never even think about it.

Kismet connection

The day I became a story on page one of the Hindustan Times (Blogged in India, between covers in Pakistan), people looked at me, looked away, and then looked again. What kicks I got. Current friends demanded a treat, forgotten friends demanded to meet, neighbours congratulated and strangers called from Gorakhpur and Buffalo (my phone number is listed on my blog). But these moments of glory are fleeting. The day dies, the daily is dumped, and that day’s story becomes yesterday’s headline. Life chugs back to anonymity and I’m back in the darkness, groping to keep the machine running — five blogs, one day-job and five bosses in that day-job to take care of.

ATI Radeon HD 4850 Linux Performance

"Last week we exclusively shared the steps AMD was taking to make an evolutionary leap in Linux support with same-day support for their brand-new Radeon HD 4800 series, Linux drivers shipping on the product CD, some manufacturers showcasing Tux on the product packaging, and their proprietary Linux driver reaching a feature parity with their Windows driver. We had also shared that the Radeon HD 4850 works with open-source xf86-video-ati driver since day one. Now that we have had time to complete testing of the Radeon HD 4850, today we are sharing the first Linux results from this brand-new ATI graphics processor. Before you think the Windows and Linux performance is equal for the Radeon HD 4800 series, this isn't the case, at least not yet...

Multiple Domains; One Site

I have 3 domains forwarding to my optimized site. I bought the domains a few weeks ago and I noticed that they have a few back links, now since I forward those domains to my mains website Google is counting them as back links for my main site. Since this works should I buy awhole bunch of domains with back links and forward them to my site???

7 iPhone 3G's and now I get...

Someone better wake up Apple and find out what is going on in Cupertino.. Today I went to my Apple Store to exchange my 3rd iPhone since mine was powering on by itself. So during my meeting with the Genius Bar it was determined that the unit was defective again and they would swap it out with a refurb. Well when we opened the first one it had huge speckles that were sharp on the back of the phone. Almost as if dirt was on the phone and it was painted over. So the genius (funny term) then went back and got another one and what do you know? Yup.. Defective paint. At this time he told me if I get another one with bad paint to just take it and come back a month later and swap it again. Well.. you guessed it there was a dent in the paint and I was forced to take it with me.

The inventor of doosra talks spin, Twenty20 and county cricket €" Part II

A veteran on the county circuit, having gone from Surrey to Ireland to Sussex and now back to Surrey, Saqlain says the moves were not purely for financial reasons but targeted at gaining exposure. There was speculation over his future after he left Sussex halfway through a two-year deal. Saqlain had not featured much that summer and made only four Championship appearances taking 14 wickets. "I went to Sussex because I had no other option at the time. They looked after me very well, they kept in mind my expectations and gave me a deal which matched my requirements," he says matter-of-factly. "But I came back here to London, because there are better education options for my three children. I'm conservative and wanted my kids to get a proper Islamic education.

My LittleBig Game

We are now getting close to finishing LittleBigPlanet – it’s due for release in October so that doesn’t leave us much time. At the moment we’re basically making proper seat of the pants last minute changes and panicking about everything. There’s a lot of pressure to live up to but the game’s looking really good and it’s shaping into something that I know we’re going to be proud of here at Media Molecule, which is great because when we first pitched it we weren’t even quite sure of what we were going to create...

Spending too much on my cats, part two: Should I buy a Litter Robot?

Well, it's been three months since I adopted Ruby and Dolly Parton and despite a few mishaps—a little pee on the bed, my ceramic Buddha no longer has a head and the bottoms of my dresses now have a kind of "de-constructed" look—things have gone swimmingly. I love these cats and I can't imagine my life without them. What I can imagine my life without is the smell of their litter boxes in my not-very-big apartment. We've tried all kinds of litter. The natural ones smell within an hour and the chemical ones don't smell, but scare me (some are made with known carcinogens. No, no, no.). Because I can't literally be manning the box after every visit, and because I equally don't love the scent when I get home, I really don't know what to do. I've heard good things about the Litter Robot, which waits seven minutes after your cat leaves the bo

The rules for claiming tax dependents

My husband got a letter from the IRS. We just got married this year, and for the past six years we lived together with my children. At times I did not even work; he has been the main provider for our family so he claims my kids on his taxes every year. We got a letter from the IRS wanting proof of dependents. Now, come to find out, the rules have changed and he was not allowed to claim them, I guess. I am so scared; what do we do?

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Linux Performance

"Back in March we had looked at the Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 mobile processor with its Penryn core and 6MB of shared L2 cache between its two cores clocked at 2.50GHz. We were very pleased with the performance of this mobile processor on Linux, which was found within a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 notebook, and today we are looking at the Penryn's desktop counterpart. Intel's Core 2 Duo "Wolfdale" E8000 series processors were released earlier this year with 6MB of L2 cache, 45nm manufacturing, a 1333MHz FSB, and support for SSE 4.1. The processor from the Wolfdale series we are looking at today under Linux is the Core 2 Duo E8400."

Destructoid PAX 08: Damnation hands-on

We managed to get a peek at Damnation at E3 earlier this summer. We were glad that Codemasters had us over to check it out, but we were a bit bummed to see that it was a hands-off preview. Luckily we were finally able to get some hands-on time with Damnation at PAX.

Alien Rumors Quelled as NASA Announces Phoenix Perchlorate Discovery

"We don't want to come to you and say 'we found chocolate on Mars,' then come back and say, 'We were wrong it was strawberry.' We don't want to do that," MECA lead scientist Michael Hecht told reporters. Over in the U.K., Stuart Atkinson was listening and responded immediately. Even before the press briefing was over, some of the Phoenix team saw it on UnmannedSpaceFlight.com, where Atkinson posted it, and were seen to be chuckling. "It was the best," Hecht said later. We, too found it amusing and with Atkinson's permission are reposting it here.

The Coker Tire Tour Blog 2

After our great day on Saturday with the car show and silent auction raising over $2300 we were pumped up and ready to roll toward New York and the Syracuse Nationals. Sunday morning we gathered at the daily driver's meeting and discussed among other things the threat of some morning showers on our way to Knoxville. Boy were we wrong. The threat of showers quickly turned into a very major downpour that we stayed under for the entire 3 hour drive to Knoxville. The planned route was I-75 but rather than do battle with the semis on the interstate I checked my trusty atlas and found that Route 11 ran parallel with I-75 so I jumped off and ran up the four lane to Knoxville. Street Rodder Associate Publisher John Barkley and Senior Editor Ron Ceridono battled the elements in the Roadster Ute bodied all steel 1934 Ford Phaeton that Ron has been

ATI Radeon HD 4870 On Linux

"A week ago we looked at the brand-new ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics card under Linux. This graphics card launch was unlike any in ATI's history where with the introduction of a brand new product generation, Linux users were greeted by same-day Linux support -- both through their proprietary fglrx driver and with the open-source xf86-video-ati driver. In addition, some of the board partners are opting to put Tux on their product packaging and shipping the Linux drivers on their product CDs. As we had also exclusively shared, AMD will soon be approaching a feature parity between the Windows and Linux drivers. Today we're publishing our complete review of the new ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB as well as delivering additional benchmarks from the Radeon HD 4850 under Linux, of course.

Our auto insurance was supposed to cover rental-car accidents. It didnt.

Qustion: Our rental car was sideswiped by a tour bus when my wife and I were on vacation. We rented the car from Dollar, but we declined insurance because we have an auto policy with Safeco and a rep said we’d be covered if we had an accident. Safeco paid most of the $4,000 claim but refused to cover charges for what Dollar said was the car’s diminished value, loss of use and administrative fees. Those totaled $1,050. Help! - Jeffery Fear, Los Angeles

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