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Comment Re:Just Leave (Score 2) 290

If I had mod points, I'd give you some. So many otherwise intelligent people build a castle around their job, daring others to try to do it. The position themselves so that they are the go-to guy for the job, and create misery for themselves in the process as they can never get a day off and they're consumed by the additional stress.

Comment Documentation (Score 1) 290

You need to have documented as a standard practice during every project. Don't just store it electronically either -- networks and computers fail at inopportune times -- but make sure that enough information stored on paper to figure out what is going on if everything breaks especially domain and local admin passwords for each machine. If the paper contains sensitive info, keep it secured (in a safe that he, you, and a trustworthy third party can get into) but still document it. It is hopeless to try to document all of your work at the end as you will lose a lot of the important details (that one missing simple step that it took you forever to figure out to get the thing working).
Technology

Smart Camera Tells Tobacco From Marijuana 167

An anonymous reader writes "A new smart camera technology not only takes a picture but also assays chemical composition, allowing photographers to tell whether that hand-rolled cigarette contains tobacco or marijuana. Designed to speed industrial inspection systems — such as detecting whether food is spoiled — the new smart camera includes spectral filters that make images of corn fields appear differently from hemp. Spectral cameras have been available for decades, but this microchip version should be cheap enough for almost any application."
Earth

Is the Earth Gaining Or Losing Mass? 356

Hugh Pickens writes writes "BBC recently asked physicist and Cambridge University professor Dave Ansell to draw up a balance sheet of the mass that's coming in to the earth, and the mass going out to find out if the earth is gaining or losing mass. By far the biggest contributor to the world's mass is the 40,000 tonnes of dust that is falling from space to Earth every year. 'The Earth is acting like a giant vacuum cleaner powered by gravity in space, pulling in particles of dust,' says Dr. Chris Smith. Another factor increasing the earth's mass is global warming which adds about 160 tonnes a year because as the temperature of the Earth goes up, energy is added to the system, so the mass must go up. On the minus side, at the very center of the Earth, within the inner core, there exists a sphere of uranium five mile in diameter which acts as a natural nuclear reactor so these nuclear reactions cause a loss of mass of about 16 tonnes per year." (Read more, below.)

Comment Re:Now that's a little patronising... (Score 1) 31

Did they -- consciously or unconsciously -- give them extra points for being female? I've often seen in coed organizations that if a male and female or competing for a similar award (a job, bonus, etc.) and have the same qualifications, the female will often win it because it looks better for the organization ("LOOK! We have females in high positions here!").

Comment Re:Listen to the users before bashing (Score 1) 633

I think that's part of what he meant by getting the kinks worked out. I think the Volt concept is on the right track, but they need to extend it to all of their cars at a commodity price with a smaller battery pack. Trying to get their development costs back on just one car model is resulting is high up front costs to the buyer, with few sales. They need to spread these costs out, and reap a long-term profit. In about two more generations, the Volt will be very cool indeed.

Comment Re:Random Passwords (Score 1) 339

Another thing that annoys me is when I use a generated random password and it fails a website's password validation algorithm. Oh no, you used a particular special character thrice. So, I then have to modify the password to fit its standards and make it weaker. Very annoying. Also, sometimes password generators will utilize reserved characters which break the website software.

Comment Random Passwords (Score 1) 339

I create a randomized password for every website, stored as a plain text file -- one per website -- in an encrypted directory. When I login to the website, I copy/paste the password from the file. The encrypted directory is not mounted unless I am actively using it. The problem I run into is that many websites only store an unknown few characters (maybe 8) and truncate the password without informing the user of the new password. This means that it will let you login the first time, but when you try to login later, you can't get in because the password isn't what they stored. This is very frustrating.

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