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Comment Re:Yet another great argument... (Score 2, Interesting) 402

I'm not sure you're familiar with the facts. First, the number of H1B's given to this company indicates precisely that they are _not_ an offshore, outsourcing enterprise - the place of employment (and where taxes are paid by the employer and employees) is the US. Second, H1B requires that employers "Pay the nonimmigrant workers at least the local prevailing wage or the employer's actual wage, whichever is higher; pay for non-productive time in certain circumstances; and offer benefits on the same basis as for U.S. workers;" (http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/h1b.htm) Of course, there is some wiggle room, but that is natural and appropriate for a free market society. The H1Bs I know are getting paid far above what certain US nationals make in similar jobs, because they're worth it. Their job hunt is international, and so are their careers. For other H1Bs - well, don't forget that this country was founded based on immigration. I agree that there are problems though - see Moryath's comment below. The bigger question for me is why it takes $50M to make a website backed by a database, to serve a tiny state in which most potential users will have employer-provided healthcare anyway.
Opera

Hackers Steal Opera-Signed Certificate Through Infrastructure Attack 104

wiredmikey writes "Norwegian browser maker Opera Software has confirmed that a targeted internal network infrastructure attack led to the theft of a code signing certificate that was used to sign malware. 'The current evidence suggests a limited impact. The attackers were able to obtain at least one old and expired Opera code signing certificate, which they have used to sign some malware. This has allowed them to distribute malicious software which incorrectly appears to have been published by Opera Software, or appears to be the Opera browser,' Opera warned in a brief advisory. The Opera breach signals a growing shift by organized hacking groups to target the internal infrastructure network at big companies that provide client side software to millions of end users."

Comment Re:lateral transfer / evolution (Score 1) 159

Perhaps because the classic evolution model typically involves vertical transfer? But, of course, the selection process continues to work very well, so you're right from that perspective. "HGT has been shown to be an important factor in the evolution of many organisms." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_gene_transfer

Comment INS has been around... with shortcomings (Score 1) 84

Inertial navigation systems have been around for a long time - certainly predating GPS. Commercial aircraft fly with them (to be independent). They are small enough to be added to small drones - though they are not "chip-scale". Precise, robust ones are very expensive, and perhaps addressing the price is one of their goals, though the blurb doesn't state that. They also need to be re-calibrated regularly (ever seen exact position information at locations where aircraft park?), but again, I don't see how the DARPA project addresses it. It would be nice to have a miniature-INS for indoors navigation, but only if it's a chip for less than $10 or so...

Comment Simplify your life (Score 1) 770

I live perfectly well without TV. Netflix provides ample entertainment on a nice large flat-screen or a projector. You will save time and energy (it'll be quiet). AppleTV is useful. I have a laptop (a top-of-the line Macbook Pro with SSD etc etc), but no desktop (not even at work). That way I don't have to synchronize data, and I have everything with me. If you need another iMac at home depends on your family, I guess. An iPad or a cheaper Android tablet are useful for reading the news during breakfast, etc etc. Someone here suggested to simply wait and see what you miss the most. That is a wise suggestion.

Comment Independent gas station chains? Scalability? (Score 1) 525

If I only had one gas station every 200 miles, I'd get quite nervous in my car as well. (It does 300 miles per re-fill.) The solution would be a joint-venture with a chain of gas stations, or perhaps for Musk to buy a 50% share in one outright. Are all the gas station chains in North America owned by big mineral oil companies, or are there independent ones? If these chains installed sufficient charging stations, one could get rid of this problem. Once there are more EV on the road, a problem of scalability will crop up. You'll need many more power points at a station than you have now (for gas) if it takes an hour to re-charge. That takes some real estate...

Comment Information Sciences (Score 1) 347

One of the degrees we offer here at Penn State is "Information Sciences and Technology". While there are many CS aspects to it, which are taught (Databases, Programming, Mobile and Web Development, etc.), there are more aspects of humanities and "big data" involved - learning how to interpret and visualize quantitative measures, and learning to process large-scale data (e.g., CiteSEER was created here), and some aspects of software development, project management, business management. We also have a strong cyber security group and teach cyber law. We want our students to be strong computationally (e.g., understand scalability, algorithms, data structures), but theoretical computer science, as interesting as I find it personally, takes the back-burner. From what I understand, our graduates have among the highest average starting salaries among the BSc-level programs here. Other schools have iSchools as well, whose programs are worth considering. (There is a spectrum from "library science" to business or CS. Choose wisely.)

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