Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:It's powerful, but.. (Score 1) 118

Maybe because it's a public holiday in some countries. Enterprisey stuff likes to know things like that.

As to there being two, I understand that the benighted heathens of the Byzantine persuasion calculate it differently to the bead-jigglers in Rome.

Then again, it's PHP so all bets are off.

Comment Re:Funny thing about email (Score 1) 232

Assuming 3000 emails in an 8 hour workday, 5 days a week, this is one email every 48 seconds on average, all the time. And if you compress its handling into part of the day, it means spending approx. 2 hours when you spend 2 seconds per email. How does this "represent a few seconds of distraction here and there a worst"?

Comment Re:Nerd Blackface (Score 1) 442

Then you won't be reading slashdot any more either, right? Because the Sheldon Cooper characterizes epitomizes a significant fraction of the posts here - myopic, minimal empathy and a retreat to 'logic' that is really just selfish rationalization.

Thanks, I've been grappling with words for this for a while after having started to work in a really nerdy place. It's ok, but strangely aggravating, and you put it very well, especiall the last part. There's also no use in pointing it out to some people, it simply does not register, just like on /. sometimes.

Comment Re:Er, that's a bit confusing (Score 2) 166

Missing modpoints again so quoting the AC +1 informative:

Speaking as a university researcher ...

I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment of your post, but in research ethics the concept of coercion is often taken much more broadly than it might be in typical parlance.

The idea is that if the incentives for research participation become too large, someone might not be able to rationally turn down an offer, and might be compelled to do something they do not want to do. I.e., you can coerce someone with rewards that are too large, just as you can coerce them with punishments that are too large. The idea is to prevent people from feeling like they sold their soul to the devil.

Where this gets complicated is that what is considered to be a coercive incentive depends on the potential participant's circumstances. So if you're homeless, you might feel compelled to do something you wouldn't otherwise do because you're desperate. I've been on research proposals where $35 or so USD was considered coercive because that amount of money was so large for the area of the world that they were recruiting from at the time.

I'm not sure how this intersects with this story--I agree that in itself, there's nothing wrong with recruiting homeless individuals. You also don't want to deny them opportunities that others have. But by the same token, you don't want to take advantage of their circumstances to make an undignified proposal something they can't refuse (not saying it is undignified, just that it probably needs more scrutiny, which it may or may not have had).

Slashdot Top Deals

Real Programmers don't eat quiche. They eat Twinkies and Szechwan food.

Working...