New subreddit chronicles the most public “blue screens of death”

The new subreddit Public Blue Screens of Death. I swiped my credit card at a gas station last week, and as I replaced the nozzle, the pump’s display screen froze, blanked, and then rebooted. I had never seen such a thing before. Not sure if I had actually paid for the gas or not, I went inside and told the cashier. “It happens,” she said. Indeed it does. Thanks to our ever-more-computerized world, crashed software and arcane error messages are a common sight in public-facing displays. A new subreddit called Public Blue Screens of Death aims to chronicle these public crashes, especially those that result in the infamous Windows “blue screen of death” (BSOD). This isn’t the first such collection of BSODs, of course. The Flickr group ” Public Computer Errors ” has been around since 2005 and contains 1,500 images—but its remit extends far beyond the BSOD. More commonly, public BSODs are collected into humorous, one-off roundups . The new subreddit aims to be an ongoing archive of such material, however, and it has been skinned to resemble an old Windows display. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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New subreddit chronicles the most public “blue screens of death”

Here’s How The 2016 Ford Focus RS’s Stall Recovery Feature Works

The new Ford Focus RS Comes with a Stall Recovery feature that will help you look like less of a jackass after you cut the engine out with the clutch pedal, but it won’t stop you from stalling. Here’s how it works. Read more…

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Here’s How The 2016 Ford Focus RS’s Stall Recovery Feature Works

A New PS4 Remote Makes the Playstation a Halfway Decent Set-Top Box

Sony’s Playstation 4 does most of the TV-watching things a TV-watching box is meant to do, apart from the fact that watching Netflix using two analog sticks is a pain. Sony’s new Bluetooth universal remote should fix all that. Read more…

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A New PS4 Remote Makes the Playstation a Halfway Decent Set-Top Box

Open-Source Doom 3 Advances With EAX Audio, 64-bit ARM/x86 Support

An anonymous reader writes: Dhewm3, one of the leading implementations of the Doom 3 engine built off the open-source id Tech 4 engine, has released a new version of the GPL-licensed engine that takes Doom 3 far beyond where it was left off by id Software. The newest code has full SDL support, OpenAL + OpenAL EFX for audio, 64-bit x86/ARM support, better support for widescreen resolutions, and CMake build system support on Linux/Windows/OSX/FreeBSD. This new open-source code can be downloaded from Dhewm3 on GitHub but continues to depend upon the retail Doom 3 game assets. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Open-Source Doom 3 Advances With EAX Audio, 64-bit ARM/x86 Support

See the Sketches J.R.R. Tolkien Used To Build Middle-Earth

Esther Schindler writes: In addition to writing the story of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien drew it. The maps and sketches he made while drafting it “informed his storytelling, allowing him to test narrative ideas and illustrate scenes he needed to capture in words, ” reports Ethan Gilsdorf at Wired. “For Tolkien, the art of writing and the art of drawing were inextricably intertwined.” It’s all coming out in a new book, but here we get a sneak preview, along with several cool observations, such as: “If Tolkien’s nerdy use of graph paper feels like a secret message to future Dungeons & Dragons players, then so does his ‘Plan of Shelob’s lair.’ Tolkien’s map of tunnels stocked with nasties—here, a spider named Shelob—would be right at home in any Dungeon Master’s campaign notes. He even marks the place for a classic dungeon crawl feature: ‘trap.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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See the Sketches J.R.R. Tolkien Used To Build Middle-Earth

Betternet is a Free, Unlimited VPN With No Registration

Windows/iOS/Android/Chrome/Firefox: A good VPN is a handy tool. A free, unlimited one is even better. Betternet aims to make using a VPN (as well as my wordplay) dead simple. Read more…

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Betternet is a Free, Unlimited VPN With No Registration

SIgn Of the Times: Calif. Privacy Protections Signed Into Law

The EFF reports a spot of bright news from California: Governor Jerry Brown today signed into law the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act. CalECPA, says the organization, “protects Californians by requiring a warrant for digital records, including emails and texts, as well as a user’s geographical location. These protections apply not only to your devices, but to online services that store your data. Only two other states have so far offered these protections: Maine and Utah.” The ACLU provides a fact sheet (PDF) about what the bill entails, which says: SB 178 will ensure that, in most cases, the police must obtain a warrant from a judge before accessing a person’s private information, including data from personal electronic devices, email, digital documents, text messages, and location information. The bill also includes thoughtful exceptions to ensure that law enforcement can continue to effectively and efficiently protect public safety in emergency situations. Notice and enforcement provisions in the bill provide proper transparency and judicial oversight to ensure that the law is followed. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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SIgn Of the Times: Calif. Privacy Protections Signed Into Law

New, Ultrafast Swimming Drones Are Tiny Ocean Explorers

The future of drones isn’t in the skies. It’s in the ocean. That’s what the OpenROV team proved in 2012 with their wildly successful remote-controlled ocean-going drone (complete with underwater camera). And now they’re back with the Trident, a sleeker, faster model–which I took for a test swim last week at San Francisco’s Aquarium of the Bay . Read more…

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New, Ultrafast Swimming Drones Are Tiny Ocean Explorers

Verizon Will Add $20 to Grandfathered Unlimited Plan Customers’ Plan

If you’re on a grandfathered unlimited plan on Verizon, your bill is about to get higher. $20 higher, to be exact. Unlimited plans will cost $50 per month, starting on your first billing cycle after November 15th. Read more…

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Verizon Will Add $20 to Grandfathered Unlimited Plan Customers’ Plan

Pandora Just Bought Ticketfly For Nearly Half a Billion Dollars

Your favorite internet radio service will soon make it easier to buy concert tickets. Pandora just bought Ticketfly , a Ticketmaster competitor, for $450 million. Why? Because it’s a great idea. Read more…

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Pandora Just Bought Ticketfly For Nearly Half a Billion Dollars