Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Ethical Dilemma (Score 5, Interesting) 559

I faced this very question right at the start of my IT career, in 1968. I had been absolutely against arms manufacture, but was given a chance to move from chemistry/thermodynamics (working in the development of domestic gas burners) to a programming job in aerospace. I have loved aeroplanes since I was 5, an avid SF reader, and going from a "budget" of 30 minutes of mainframe time per week (that was FORTRAN so included compile, test, run) to being 100% programming in technical problems was like being invited to the best party ever. I was going to have to accept a small pay cut, but that didn't matter a bit. Then I realized that every line of code would be used for military aircraft as much or more than for civil projects. It was a long night of the soul, but I decided to take the job. I am so glad I did, not least because I found that most of the military people (real aircrew) were the real anti-war guys. They were the ones most concerned about reducing "collateral damage", and pushing for more accurate delivery of - well - death.
I think we did a good job. Today's wars are still terrible, but compared with conflicts such as WW2 they are actually more controlled, especially when hi-tech systems are used. I am older and wiser now, and doubt that we will ever see an end to war, but I do believe that armed conflict is getting "cleaner", at least when developed countries are involved. If we get more precise systems then we should be able to bring conflicts to a quicker end, with less damage to civilian areas and the environment.
So my advice is to reflect on the outcome of improving technology by better simulation and then decide on each job offer as it comes. This is true whatever area you look at, the arms industry is investing in "non-lethal" systems, the drug companies in simulation and "in vitro" testing, so both of these provide chances for really good jobs in which you can make a positive difference to the world.
I suspect that this might lose me some karma, but I think that gaming is probably the least ethical area (killing things should never be fun, even in a virtual world), and I personally would never work in the financial sector, but then that's the ethical dilemma we all face.

Comment Re:MBTI oh no (Score 4, Informative) 211

To quote from Wikipedia
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a predictor of job success has not been supported in studies,[15][16] and its use for this purpose is expressly discouraged in the Manual.[17]

Another case of HR pretending to have a scientific basis for predicting job fit to a profile, and totally missing the point of the original question. Presumably these guys know how to get the sales people they need, but realize that they need to speak the language of their customers.

I would suggest that the best way to train sales staff for any technical product is to take the best communicator from your technical staff and get him (or her) to run a regular seminar on the product, explaining the kind of problem the product is designed to solve and how the customers are likely to use it. Over a shortish time, the seminars will get better and you might even find that involving more techies actually improves the sales and the product.

Open Source

Submission + - Spanish Basque --all government software must b open sourced and published. (h-online.com)

lsatenstein writes: The regional government of Spain's Basque Country has decreed that all software produced for Basque government agencies and public bodies should be open sourced. Joinup, the European Commission's open source web site, cites an articleSpanish language link in Spanish newspaper El Pais, saying that the only exceptions will be software that directly affects state security and a handful of projects which are being conducted in conjunction with commercial software suppliers.

Submission + - Coulson held in perjury inquiry (bbc.co.uk)

HarryatRock writes: "BBC reporting arrest of Prime Minister David Cameron's former director of communications Andy Coulson.
A police spokeswoman said: "Officers from Strathclyde Police's Operation Rubicon team detained a 44-year-old man in London this morning under section 14 of the Criminal Procedure Scotland Act 1995 on suspicion of committing perjury before the High Court in Glasgow.""

Comment Abraham Darby (Score 1) 542

Abraham Darby for starting the industrial revolution.
From Wikipedia
In 1709, at Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, England, Abraham Darby began to fuel a blast furnace with coke instead of charcoal.
His new process made lots of cheap good quality cast iron, used for pots and pans, fire grates, and bridges! This lead to massive expansion of transport (lots of heavy iron to move), and could be said to have started "consumerism", with barges moving vast quantities of iron goods along the canals.

Politics

Submission + - Chile Threatens To Drop Out Of TPP Negotiations Due To Ridiculous US Demands Abo (techdirt.com)

TheGift73 writes: "You may remember that some officials in Chile recently began wondering what benefit they would get from agreeing to be a part of TPP. It seems that view is going even further. There was just another negotiating round and it appears (as we've expected, but don't know for sure because the US negotiators, led by Ron Kirk refuse to be even remotely transparent) that the US's strong position on IP is scaring off Chile. A high level government official is now saying that the country is considering pulling out of the TPP negotiations unless the US "significantly moderates its intellectual property demands." The article suggests that Chile is willing to move forward with much of the rest of the agreement, but the ridiculous USTR position on IP is giving it reason to be concerned."
Facebook

Submission + - Winklevoss Twins Launch Zurker - The Social Network Owned By You (zurker.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Winklevoss twins have launched a new social networking site to rival Facebook, except this site comes with a twist in that everyone that signs up to the new site during its beta test gets shares in the company. This "owned by you" approach is a novel way to combat security concerns surrounding sites like facebook and google but do you think Zurker will even see the light of day in terms of every day use? Will this go the same way as Google+ or will some people get rich in the process?
Science

Submission + - Fungi Discovered In The Amazon Will Eat Your Plastic

DaneM writes: Recently, a group of student researchers from Yale University brought home a previously-undiscovered fungus that has a voracious appetite for polyurethane. For those not aware, polyurethane comprises many garden hoses, truck seats, shoes, and other durable plastic items--and will be around for your great-grandchildren to watch decompose if you throw it in the dump today. Depending on further study, this new organism may prove to be a solution to a significant part of our slow-decomposing waste problem.
Politics

Submission + - Climate Change: Conservative politics still have no clue (smh.com.au)

hairyfish writes: In Australia, acting NSW Premier, Andrew Stoner, has dismissed extreme weather predictions for the state of NSW by the federal government's Climate Commission as ''alarmist''.
"We have heard of all our dams drying up in the past. We've heard predictions of the central coast and other coastal parts of the state going under water, the polar ice caps melting. I'm sorry, none of this has happened. As time goes on I think these people's credibility will be found wanting.''

The Military

UK In Danger From Electromagnetic Bomb, Says Defense Secretary 268

judgecorp writes "Britain must build defenses against an EMP bomb, the UK Secretary of Defense Phillip Hammond told a conference today. Electromagnetic Pulse devices mimic the result of a solar flare or a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere, creating a storm of electromagnetic radiation, which can break mobile networks and satellite systems. Any preparation for solar storms must also consider the possibility of deliberate electromagnetic events, warns Hammond."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Trinity A10-4600M Processor Launched, Tested (hothardware.com) 3

MojoKid writes: "AMD lifted the veil on their new Trinity A-Series mobile processor architecture today. Trinity has been reported as offering much-needed CPU performance enhancements in IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) but also more of AMD's strength in gaming and multimedia horsepower, with an enhanced second generation integrated Radeon HD graphics engine. AMD's A10-4600M quad-core chip is comprised of 1.3B transistors with a CPU base core clock of 2.3GHz and Turbo Core speeds of up to 3.2GHz. The on-board Radeon HD 7660G graphics core is comprised of 384 Radeon Stream Processor cores clocked at 497MHz base and 686Mhz Turbo. In the benchmarks, AMD's new Trinity A10 chip outpaces Intel's Ivy Bridge for gamingbut can't hold a candle to it for standard compute workloads or video transcoding."
Piracy

Finland: Open WiFi Access Point Owner Not Liable For Infringement 156

New submitter mjrauhal writes "In Finland, the operator of an open WiFi access point was found not guilty for copyright infringement allegedly committed over said access point. The operation of such access points would have become legally risky were this decided otherwise. Appeal by the Finnish Anti-Piracy Center is still possible for this district court ruling."

Slashdot Top Deals

I program, therefore I am.

Working...