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Programming

Ask Slashdot: Future-Proof Jobs? 509

An anonymous reader writes: My niece, who is graduating from high school, has asked me for some career advice. Since I work in data processing, my first thought was to recommend a degree course in computer science or computer engineering. However, after reading books by Jeremy Rifkin (The Third Industrial Revolution) and Ray Kurzweil (How to Create a Mind), I now wonder whether a career in information technology is actually better than, say, becoming a lawyer or a construction worker. While the two authors differ in their political persuasions (Rifkin is a Green leftist and Kurzweil is a Libertarian transhumanist), both foresee an increasingly automated future where most of humanity would become either jobless or underemployed by the middle of the century. While robots take over the production of consumer hardware, Big Data algorithms like the ones used by Google and IBM appear to be displacing even white collar tech workers. How long before the only ones left on the payroll are the few "rockstar" programmers and administrators needed to maintain the system? Besides politics and drug dealing, what jobs are really future-proof? Would it be better if my niece took a course in the Arts, since creativity is looking to be one of humanity's final frontiers against the inevitable Rise of the Machines?

Submission + - The Q Platform uses Linux/OpenWRT to Control LED Light Bulbs and Stream Audio 1

dmtaub writes: The Q is the only Open Source platform for music and light control on the market. In addition to using a smartphone to play music, set alarms/alerts, and trigger scenes, the Q will have a scripting IDE on the router configuration web page for aspiring programmers to play with light and sound.
There are only a few days left on the Kickstarter ( http://kck.st/1pCusil ) so now's the time to show support for a hackable smart-home platform that integrates music with colorful LED light bulbs.

Full disclosure: I am one of the co founders. Even though I am not working for them anymore, I still really want to see open-source, hackable LED lighting make its way to the masses.
Science

New Sensor To Detect Food-Borne Bacteria On Site 10

Zothecula (1870348) writes According to the CDC, around 48 million people in the US get sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die as a result of foodborne illnesses every year. One of the main culprits is listeriosis (or listeria), which is responsible for approximately 1,600 illnesses and 260 deaths. Now researchers at the University of Southampton are using a device designed to detect the most common cause of listeriosis directly on food preparation surfaces, without the need to send samples away for laboratory testing.

Comment Re:Well... (Score 4, Interesting) 493

Yes, this is just misplaced paranoia. Vaccinations are legitimate public health information.

Just yes. That is to say, yes they are legitimate public health information. And yes, it is paranoia.

Paranoia says registrations of one kind or another are extremely prone to government abuse. And it isn't valid to say "I know my government representatives and they would never do such a thing." Because you do not know all future government administrations and whether they would do such a thing.

- TFTFY

Further, thouse who's health cannot tolerate vaccanation are exempt from vaccinations for schooling and don't have any place in the milatry. It is unfortunate that madated vaccines are the only way to get us to the ciritical mass that can protect those who cannot be vaccinated, however it's fear mongers like you are what's keeping us below that critical point.

Moreover, intentional fallicies like this call into question your ablity to think critically and rationally:

And if you genuinely cannot imagine how government could conceivably abuse this information, then you shouldn't be speaking up at all. Should everybody be vaccinated?

If you cannot articulate your actual fears are so that they can be addressed, then you are just paronid. I personally can think of very few ways the list could be abused, and none of the abuses outweigh the risk of another Polio outbreak.

Comment Read the FAQ!!! (Score 1) 193

http://solarroadways.com/faq.s...

Costs: the idea is that this would cost less than building normal solar pannels AND roads; Moreover, they would also replace the need for powerlines as they are inteded to be part of the distrubtion system. Thus price for new developments shouldn't be an issue.

Repair: Most road damage is due to heavy trucking and utilitys digging them up. The solar roads are designed to withstand and excess 250,000 pounds, and the pannels are modular, which means they can be removed and replaced if digging benigh them is required

Wear: there won't be snow plows going across them as they will have a heating element built in, loss of transparancy is currently thought to have a maximum reduction on output of only 9%, see repair (above) for more questions about durablity. Line Display: netherlands failure: used glow

Technology

Reinventing the Axe 217

Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes "The axe has been with us for thousands of years, with its design changing very little during that time. After all, how much can you really alter a basic blade-and-handle? Well, Finnish inventor Heikki Karna has tried to change it a whole lot, with a new, oddly-shaped axe that he claims is a whole lot safer because it transfers a percentage of downward force into rotational energy, cutting down on deflections. 'The Vipukirves [as the axe is called] still has a sharpened blade at the end, but it has a projection coming off the side that shifts the center of gravity away from the middle. At the point of impact, the edge is driven into the wood and slows down, but the kinetic energy contained in the 1.9 kilogram axe head continues down and to the side (because of the odd center of gravity),' is how Geek.com describes the design. 'The rotational energy actually pushes the wood apart like a lever.' The question is, will everyone pick up on this new way of doing things?"

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The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. -- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"

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