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Submission + - DTrace 2.0 ready-for-use in Gentoo Linux (gentoo.org)

Submitted by Heraklit
Heraklit writes: Gentoo Linux, distribution (not only) for coders and experts, adds another exciting feature: the powerful DTrace dynamical tracing framework introduced by Sun Microsystems / Oracle originally for Solaris, is now available out of the box:

The real, mythical DTrace comes to Gentoo! Need to dynamically trace your kernel or userspace programs, with rainbows, ponies, and unicorns — and all entirely safely and in production?! Gentoo is now ready for that! Just emerge dev-debug/dtrace and you’re all set.

Submission + - Gentoo Linux goes Binary (gentoo.org)

Submitted by Heraklit
Heraklit writes: Behind the scenes, the source-based Linux distribution Gentoo has had binary package support for years. Now, official downloads are added, for free mix-and-match with source-based installation! From Gentoo's homepage:
"To speed up working with slow hardware and for overall convenience, we’re now also offering binary packages for download and direct installation! For most architectures, this is limited to the core system and weekly updates — not so for amd64 and arm64 however. There we’ve got a stunning >20 GByte of packages on our mirrors, from LibreOffice to KDE Plasma and from Gnome to Docker. Gentoo stable, updated daily. Enjoy!"
Games

The Problems With Video Game Voice Acting 251

Posted by Soulskill from the who-called-in-de-fleet dept.
The Guardian's Games blog explores the tendency of modern video games to suffer from poor voice acting, a flaw made all the more glaring by increasingly precise and impressive graphics. Quoting: "Due to the interactive nature of games, actors can't be given a standard film script from which they're able to gauge the throughline of their character and a feel for the dramatic development of the narrative. Instead, lines of dialogue need to be isolated into chunks so they can be accessed and triggered within the game in line with the actions of each individual player. Consequently, the performer will usually be presented with a spreadsheet jammed with hundreds of single lines of dialogue, with little sense of context or interaction. ... But according to David Sobolov, one of the most experienced videogame voice actors in the world (just check out his website), the significant time pressures mean that close, in-depth direction is not always possible. 'Often, there's a need to record a great number of lines, so to keep the session moving, once we've established the tone of the character we're performing, the director will silently direct us using the spreadsheet on the screen by simply moving the cursor down the page to indicate if he/she liked what we did. Or they'll make up a code, like typing an 'x' to ask us to give them another take.' It sounds, in effect, like a sort of acting battery farm, a grinding, dehumanizing production line of disembodied phrases, delivered for hours on end. Hardly conducive to Oscar-winning performances."

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