Comment Missing: Technical Writers (Score 1) 139
Good pay, good hours, limited room for advancement.
But it's not like I expect a Dice Slashvertizement to be remotely complete...
Experts: Aim of 2 Degrees Climate Goal Insufficient 442
An anonymous reader points out that a long held goal of keeping the Earth's average temperature from rising above 2 degrees Celsius might not be good enough. "A long-held benchmark for limiting global warming is 'utterly inadequate,' a leading U.N. climate scientist declared. Keeping the Earth's average temperature from rising past 2 degrees Celsius – a cap established by studies in the early 1970s – is far too loose a goal, Petra Tschakert, a professor at Penn State University and a lead author of an assessment report for the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, said in a commentary published in the journal Climate Change Responses. Already, with an average increase of just 0.8 degrees Celsius, she wrote, 'negative impacts' are 'widespread across the globe.' Tschakert called for lowering the warming target to 1.5 degrees Celsius."
Comment It will have an effect all right... (Score 4, Interesting) 349
It will encourage high tech companies in general and venture capital firms in specific to:
A). Locate their businesses in a state (like Texas) where Social Justice Warrior-type lawsuits have little chance to succeed.
B). More carefully screen potential employees for Social Justice Warrior tendencies so as to minimize the chance of future lawsuits.
Businesses exist to make money, they don't exit for believers in victimhood identity politics to wage politics and cash in at their expense.
Dad and Daughter Recreate Jurassic Park With $100,000 In Lego Pieces 52
mpicpp writes Animator Paul Hollingsworth and his daughter Hailee, along with some help from a few "master builders" — decided to Jurassic Park using only Lego pieces. More than $100,000 in Lego were used, according to the video's description. The result is a surprisingly stunning and hilarious version of the 1993 dino-thriller. The team behind the film also released an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at the production.
A Software Project Full of "Male Anatomy" Jokes Causes Controversy 765
An anonymous reader writes with the story of a Github user's joke repository that is causing some controversy. "There's no question that the tech world is an overwhelmingly male place. There's legit concern that tech is run-amok with 'brogrammers' that make women programmers feel unwelcome. On the other hand, people just want to laugh. It's at that intersection that programmer Randy Hunt, aka 'letsgetrandy' posted a 'project' earlier this week to software hosting site GitHub called 'DICSS.' The project, which is actual free and open source software, is surrounded by geeky jokes about the male anatomy. And it's gone nuts, so to speak, becoming the most trending project on Github, and the subject of a lot of chatter on Twitter. And, Hunt tells us, the folks at Github are scratching their heads wondering what they should do about it. Some people love DICSS ... and some people are, understandably, offended. The offended people point out that this is exactly the sort of thing that makes tech unwelcoming to women, and not just because of the original project, but because of some of the comments (posted as "commits") that might take the joke too far."
UN Backs Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign 190
mdsolar sends this report from The Guardian:
The UN organization in charge of global climate change negotiations is backing the fast-growing campaign persuading investors to sell off their fossil fuel assets. It said it was lending its "moral authority" to the divestment campaign because it shared the ambition to get a strong deal to tackle global warming at a crunch UN summit in Paris in December.
The move is likely to be controversial as the economies of many nations at the negotiating table heavily rely on coal, oil and gas. In 2013, coal-reliant Poland hosted the UNFCCC summit and was castigated for arranging a global coal industry summit alongside. Now, the World Coal Association has criticized the UNFCCC's decision to back divestment, saying it threatened investment in cleaner coal technologies.
The move is likely to be controversial as the economies of many nations at the negotiating table heavily rely on coal, oil and gas. In 2013, coal-reliant Poland hosted the UNFCCC summit and was castigated for arranging a global coal industry summit alongside. Now, the World Coal Association has criticized the UNFCCC's decision to back divestment, saying it threatened investment in cleaner coal technologies.
Prison Program Aims To Turn Criminals Into Coders 305
Press2ToContinue writes with news that San Quentin, a notorious California prison, has started a program to teach a class of inmates to write code. The first class will last for six months, and the inmates are learning about programming for eight hours a day. The hope is to give them the skills to find a good job after they leave prison, which in turn would reduce their chances of recidivism. Since the state's Dept. of Corrections prohibits internet access, the class only "pretends" to be online — they can't use internet-based resources, and nobody on the outside can see or use the software they create. One of the class's backers said, 'Almost every week there's epiphanies. And most of the guys in here, they've never touched a computer before. They are progressing beyond our expectations."
Comment It's not a "moral dilemma" to a Clinton (Score 2, Insightful) 609
Laws are for the little people, not them.
They believe, and act, as though they are above the law. Lying, perjury, obstruction of justice.
There's no dilemma if you feel that laws simply don't apply to you...
Comment "Dystopian Future"??? (Score -1, Flamebait) 392
Looks like someone was looking to win the Hyperbole of the Year Award.
If the worst thing about the future is having to buy adapter cables, sign me up. Sounds like a vast improvement over a future where men spend 8 hours reciting the Koran every day before going out to shoot heretics and abduct more women into sexual slavery...
California's Hot, Dry Winters Tied To Climate Change 279
mdsolar sends word that hot dry winters may be the norm in the future for California. "Climate change is one of the most prominent public health issues currently on the CDC's radar. The organization's Climate and Health Program attempts to help state and city health departments to prepare for the health impacts of climate change, which can come in the form of things like temperature extremes, air pollution, allergens, and changes in disease patterns; they can also be felt indirectly through issues like food security. Since 2012, California has been in the midst of a record-setting drought, with extremely warm and dry conditions characterizing the last three years in that state. A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes that warming caused by humans is responsible for the conditions that have led to this California drought. This study, published by scientists affiliated with the Department of Environmental Earth System Science and the Woods Institute for Environment at Stanford University, used historical statewide data for observed temperature, precipitation, and drought in California. The investigators used the Palmer Hydrological Drought Index (PHDI) and the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI), collected by the National Climatic Data Center, as measures of the severity of wet/dry anomalies. They also used global climate model simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) to compare historical predictions for anthropogenic and non-anthropogenic historical climates."
Submission + - #TangoDown: Anonymous Purges ISIS Supporters From Twitter (battleswarmblog.com)
Nova Express writes: Hacking group Anonymous are purging Twitter of ISIS supporters in Operation #TangoDown. Within seconds of Anonymous-related accounts @CtrlSec, @CtrlSec0, @CtrlSec1 or @CtrlSec2 designating a Twitter account as an ISIS-supporting account, those accounts are getting suspended.
Submission + - Daylight Saving Time Change on Sunday for N. America 1
An anonymous reader writes: Just a reminder that DST starts this weekend for most of North America. The majority of people feel that DST is a bad idea and want it to stop. If that was done, the main question would then probably be whether to go to Standard time year-round, or "summer" time year-round (more). For the latter, there is some evidence that it helps reduce crime (at least initially); for the former, more northern locations would have sunrise occur 08:30 or later, which would make the morning commute difficult. Some even argue that the US should go to only two timezones. The DST change occurs at the end of March in the EU, so they're will a second round of confusion for trans-Atlantic conference calls then.
Comment As Doomed as the Kellog-Briand Pact (Score 3, Insightful) 318
Remember that? That was the 1928 pact that outlawed war.
You might remember how well that worked out.
This will work out just swell until Russia or China or ISIS develop an effective fighting robot and are able to deploy them in sufficient quantities to make a decisive difference in battle.
Plus there's the impossibility of enforcement. How can you prove it was a robot rather than a remote-operated drone?
And there's the tiny issue that, knowing how slowly the wheels of the "international community's" court systems turn, the war is likely to be won or lost before those violating it ever come to trial...
Comment I'm hoping this experiment results... (Score 2) 212
...in the creation of transparent Aluminum....
Comment Far better a Restaurant site in HTML... (Score 4, Insightful) 302
...than one of those bloated, slow-loading, all-Flash restaurant front-ends that take 20 seconds to load and animate before they show you the location, hours of operation, or any menus.
