pinky99 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Paid to do nothing?

Submitted by djupedal on Monday April 16, 2007 @03:54AM

djupedal writes: Are you paid to do nothing? Were you hired to do nothing?

Are you paid, yet you don't do any work? This is for anyone, except of course those collecting job benefits. I'm talking about those that come into work and hang out and do nothing whatsoever productive, but still receive regular performance reviews, generic corporate emails and a routine weekly/monthly salary. Maybe you don't even have to show up at the office.

I have a friend who is going on six months since he was asked to do any type of work, yet his (not meager) salary keeps being automatically deposited and the only time anyone from the office checks on him is to make sure he is still alive. How long has it been since you had an assignment or participated in an active project, etc.? What do you do with your time? How long do you think this type of ghost position can continue? Is this a dream job or an ethical burden?

Feed Images: Microsoft's multicolor bar code (com.com)

From feed by cnetfeed on Monday April 16, 2007 @03:52AM

Software giant is giving the bar code lots of color to pack more data into less space.

Submission + - Intel to launch Linux-powered mobile Internet devi

Submitted by daria42 on Monday April 16, 2007 @03:13AM

daria42 writes: Intel is developing its own take on the mini-tablet, with a new ultra-mobile PC platform to be announced at this week's Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. The big surprise? It's based on Linux. Called a Mobile Internet Device (pic), or MID, the devices will have screen sizes from 4.5 to six inches with a target audience described as "consumers and prosumers" rather than mobile professionals.

Submission + - Google zooming in on Darfur

Submitted by

twofish

on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @12:02PM

twofish writes: "The Herald Sun is reporting:

In a project with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, inaugurated yesterday, Google has updated its Google Earth service with high resolution satellite images of the Darfur region in western Sudan to document destroyed villages, displaced people and refugee camps.
Zooming in on the region, users will see flame icons. Clicking on these icons will bring up information about that village.

Sara Bloomfield, the museum's director, said museum staff members had approached Google about the project as they sought ways to highlight what they believe is genocide.

In Google Earth, which the company says has been downloaded by 200 million people worldwide, they found an ideal medium. "This is like the world's biggest bulletin board," Ms Bloomfield said.

"

Submission + - Cedega 6.0 Released

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:02AM

An anonymous reader writes: TransGaming Inc. a leader in the development of software portability products for cross-platform gaming, takes gaming on the Linux operating system to new heights with the release of Cedega 6.0.

Palm to go Linux 253

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @11:00AM from the will-change-precisely-nothing dept.

jetkins writes "The Melbourne Age reports that company officials announced Tuesday that Palm will move to a new Linux-based platform 'to help the company compete better.' The move was announced 'during a meeting with analysts in New York, where they also discussed the company's business strategy and refused to talk about recent rumors of a possible buyout.'"

Submission + - E8 structure finally decoded

Submitted by arobic on Monday March 19, 2007 @05:25AM

arobic writes: A group of mathematicians from US and Europe succeeded in mapping the E8 structure, an example of a Lie group. These were developed by the well-known mathematician Sophus Lie (pronounce Lee) in the last century and are used for many applications, mainly in theoretical physics. This is an important breakthrough as it could help physicists working on Grand Unified Theories (aka GUTs).

Submission + - Driving games make drivers dangerous

Submitted by

kilauea

on Monday March 19, 2007 @04:45AM

kilauea writes: "According to this BBC new story, some german scientists are telling us that playing driving games makes you take more risks while "doing the real thing". Sounds fishy to me. For one they state that people who play games are more likely to crash, well we already knew that the demographic here overlaps. Secondly they state they reaction times are a second slower, and there is more than enough science to suggest that playing games will actualy increas your reaction times. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6457353.stm"

Scoble Bites The Hand That Fed Him 178

Posted by Zonk on Monday March 19, 2007 @04:15AM from the define-sucks dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Times Online points out a post that Robert Scoble, former Microsoft blogger, put up on his site recently. In essence, Scoble has moved 180 degrees from his former blogging tone, saying that 'Microsoft Sucks'. More specifically, he is highly critical of Microsoft's online policy. In Scoble's words: 'Microsoft's Internet execution sucks (on whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks (look at that last post again). If that's in it to win then I don't get it. ... Microsoft isn't going away. Don't get me wrong. They have record profits, record sales, all that. But on the Internet? Come on. This isn't winning. Microsoft: stop the talk. Ship a better search, a better advertising system than Google, a better hosting service than Amazon, a better cross-platform Web development ecosystem than Adobe, and get some services out there that are innovative (where's the video RSS reader? Blog search? Something like Yahoo's Pipes? A real blog service? A way to look up people?) That's how you win.'"

Submission + - Can Slashdot save the world?

Submitted by

r3gx

on Monday March 19, 2007 @03:13AM

r3gx writes: "Hypothesis: There is no problem that the collective wisdom of /. can't solve. Test case: Global Warming There has got to be a viable scientific solution to the problem of Global Warming. Is there another easily produced gas we can release into the atmosphere? Can C02 be converted into another stable state? C02 exist in the ocean as it is highly soluble, could this natural process be expedited, and what would this do to the PH of the ocean? Can we take all the excess C02, make dry ice and re-freeze Greenland? OK, so that last one is more funny than viable, but we all know the situation is no laughing matter. Yet we go on with our daily lives slashdotting about how to build a faster computer or who is suing who while we continue to emit thousands of tons of C02 and other greenhouse gasses daily. Is it possible to cut C02 and other greenhouse gas emissions significantly enough in the near future to counter global warming? I personally do not think so. There has to be another scientific solution."

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