Why You Should Never, Ever Pay More Than $10 For HDMI Cables

My recommendation? Amazon.com has some great HDMI cables priced at under $3. I have around 5 of these at home and they work just as well as those $250 monstrosity.

[Via Lifehacker | Mint]

Modern Warfare 2 floored by logistical screw-up

Modern Warfare 2 Stimulus PackageDebate about the implementation of the stimulus package rages on. But this time it’s not the US government, but rather Microsoft, which is the subject.

The situation involves the first major downloadable content to the hugely successful Modern Warfare 2, marketed as the Stimulus Package and released on the Xbox 360 yesterday. (It’s set to appear on the PS3 on 30 April.)

Making a simple logistical error in the game can lead to your character meeting a violent and explosive fate. Doing the same in issuing the update didn’t lead to bloodshed, it did cause what the company described as “a big hairball that we had to unwind.”

The mistake was that Microsoft released the new content — a new batch of locations for battle — before an update which made the game aware that the new locations existed. The resulting confusion within the game not only meant players couldn’t access the new locations, but there were widespread problems with setting up online games.

That problem has now been fixed and the update applied. However, there were some ongoing problems for players who wanted to pay for the download with Point of Sale Activation cards (effectively vouchers bought in retail stores). The new content meant many more people than usual wanted to redeem the cards on the same day, causing a logjam on the Microsoft system.

A Microsoft blog post notes: ” You haven’t done anything wrong, you won’t lose your money, and you don’t need to go back to the store – just hang in there and try again in a few hours.”

One interesting note from the blog post is that while there was an explanation of the various problems, there was no specific apology, a point commenters were quick to pick up on.

There has also been criticism of the content itself as it appears that the game mode used each time a new location is played is chosen randomly rather than selected by the player, a point which doesn’t appear to have been made clear in promotion of the content.



April Fools’ Day Prank: Voice Activated Printers / Copiers

Since tomorrow is one of the most anticipated day of the year for many geeks, we though you’d enjoy this little prank we recently stumbled upon on the web.

Thanks to these custom-made PDFs designed for the most popular brands of printers/copiers, you can now get your work colleagues talking to empty air, making complete fools of themselves while standing in front of the departmental printer. Note: the Canon version above is located here.

Please note that if company’s corporate policy leaves no place for humor, you should definitely not try this at work.

[Download PDFs]

Kids Choir Sings Portal’s “Still Alive”

Ladies and gentlegeeks, here is “Still Alive”, Jonathan Coulton‘s awesome song that plays at the end of Portal, as performed by the Gifford Children’s Choir. Enjoy!

Skeletor Getting a Root Canal [PIC]

Because, you know, everyone needs to pay a visit to the dentist sometimes, especially villains like Skeletor, who want to keep their evil-looking grin in good shape at all time.

Hit the link for a picture of He-Man getting a haircut.

[Link] [Edit: Somehow, the link doesn’t work for a lot of people. To make it work, after clicking the link, put your cursor at the end of the url in the address bar and hit enter]

Magnets mask morals

If you think your morals are immutable, think again. It turns out nothing more complicated than a set of magnetic pulses could impair moral judgments.

Researchers at the Massachussets Institute of Technology have identified the so-called moral compass as being a section of the brain known as the right temporo-parietal junction, located just behind the right ear (marked in red in the picture above.) They found this through brain scans which showed increased activity in the area when moral judgments were being made.

The researchers then carried out two sets of tests to see if this could be manipulated, both involving the use of magnetic stimulation to create an electrical current which temporarily disables the relevant part of the brain.

In one test, it was found that a 25 minute sessions of stimulation left volunteers who read a story judging the characters by events rather than by their intentions.

In the other test, the participants were given the current for just half a second. The scenarios in this test included one where a man let his girlfriend cross a bridge he knew to be unsafe. After receiving the magnetic pulse, participants were much more likely to consider the man had acted acceptably.

Another scenario involved a character visiting a chemical plant making coffee for a friend and taking sugar from a container marked “toxic”. After receiving the pulse, participants were more likely to consider the character hadn’t acted irresponsibly as no harm came to her friend.

In both sets of tests it appears the specific difference was that judgments became biased towards assessing outcomes and downplayed the perceived importance of people’s intentions.

The researchers say this is only one part of the puzzle: moral judgments also include factors such as the circumstances and previous behavior of the person being judged.

The next step in the research is to investigate what role luck plays in the way a person is judged by others. One example would be the difference between a drunk driver who kills a pedestrian and one who avoids any incident: though the only difference between the two is luck, most people would probably take a harsher view of the former’s behavior.

Pac-Man on the Moon

From its position in orbit around Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft revealed some interesting images of the icy moon Mimas – “unexpected hot regions” that happen to resemble Pac-Man about to chomp down on a pink dot.

Though the heated dot was expected due to the warm spot around Herschel Crater (which is what makes the moon itself rather remarkably resemble the Death Star), scientists claim to be “completely baffled” by the Pac-Man-shaped heat signature on the left. It could be due to surface texture variations, though that still doesn’t explain the sharp boundaries.

A NASA scientist described the moon as “more bizarre than we thought it was.” Awesome.

[Via NASA]

Job Offer: [GaS] is looking for a few good contributors

Edit: Please note that the position has been filled. Thanks to everyone who sent in an email!

[Geeks Are Sexy] is currently looking for passionate IT people / geeks who are up to the challenge of blogging a few days each week about geekdom, technology and other IT related topics. Here are some reasons you should consider writing for us:

  • Exposure
  • Write about your passion
  • Improve your writing skills
  • Be part of a community
  • Get a salary out of something you’ve always been doing for free (payable via Paypal only)

The candidate must have creativity, strong english writing skills, and some experience in the world of blogging and technology. If you think you are up to the task, then we would love to hear more from you. Be sure to send us examples of your writings + links to sites where you’ve worked before.

Zero Clutter: The Battle for Desk Space Begins

Produced by Youtube user meerakapur for Lenovo, Zero Clutter is a stop-motion animation that uses clay to partly recreate a semblance of The Matrix’s famous Agent Smith vs. Neo fight scene. Check it out.

[Via TechEblog]