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Comment Glad this is happening, shame it took so long (Score 4, Insightful) 96

I'm glad this is happening, and it's shame it took so long - or was ever introduced, really. Stuff like this hurts the public's perception of science. Everybody knew this was bullshit.

There are about 28,000 flights in Europe every day of the year and about 1.2 cell phones for every European. I doubt I've been on a plane in the past 5 years where every passenger over the age of 15 didn't have a phone. I like to think that I'm pretty good about turning my phone off (to airplane mode at least), but I've still managed to forget once during the ~30 flights I've been on in the past 4-5 years. Extrapolate that out, and it's obvious that if a phone could affect a flight, we'd be seeing cases every day. Terrorists would sneak phones onto planes to take them down.

Your average Joe sees "science" being used to support limits on cell phones, they know they're bullshit, so the next time they hear another "science-based" bit of info that goes against their comfort, they'll just ignore it too. Why would they bother, "science" is just BS anyway.

Comment Re:Tuning it out? (Score 1) 254

There is literally one metric that counts with advertising, no matter what agencies, media houses or publishers tell you - sales. Everything else is BS. If your advertising does not increase sales (be it by increasing brand awareness, engagement, education, market segment creation, etc), you're just throwing money away.

Comment Re:the Putin stage (Score 1) 294

I'd personally much rather have a single credit rating database, run by an accountable government body with clear rules and regulations concerning who has access to my data and how, along with a clear-cut procedures for updating and correcting the data, than the status quo: three private, opaque, for-profit organizations that are not accountable to any public entity.

Comment Re:Can't Tell Them Apart (Score 1) 466

I have open source code (about 13k lines of c/c++ for embedded platform) and I happen to interview 'badly' when I am put on the spot and asked to code up something in 15 minutes while someone watches me. that's not how I work and I fail horribly at THAT style of interview. note, I am fairly good (not a+ but definitely better than average) at coding in the real world - just NOT in synthetic white-board style interviews.

As a designer, this type of thing floors me. Every job I've gotten (and every job any designer has gotten) is based on their portfolio. Nobody asks if the person actually did it, or was helped, etc. They ask you to discuss what you did. That's been the standard for getting design jobs for decades.

I don't understand why developers don't have portfolio reviews like this as well. What they're asking of you is akin to someone asking me in an interview "draw us some pretty pictures". Most designers would find that an offensive disregard for the practice of design, let alone a disregard for the previous work they've done that should be the actual litmus test for getting the job.

Developers need to start putting their foot down and asking for portfolio reviews of code they've written and not be asked to do a side show act to get jobs.

Comment Re:get rid of salary pay / make it have a high lev (Score 1) 477

The only way that could possibly be reversed is a group larger and more powerful than the owners of tech companies fighting to reverse it; that is to say, the organized tech workers will have fight for our own standard of living.

Many already have, they've become contractors. When you bill by the hour, most companies will not let you work more than 40 hours per week, and those that do, you get to bill for. It may not be time and a half, but it's payment for time.

You just need to take control over your own career to get out of the salary prison.

Comment Re:From the Oculus VR Forums on Markus (Score 1) 300

I guess you get to be picky and complain when you have an extremely popular game.

Yes that's exactly what you get to be. Why this is seen as some negative is beyond me. Notch built his company from nothing and hasn't taken investment or any of the number of things most companies want to do. He has enough money to tell anyone he wants "fuck you" and has every right to as a business owner. There's nothing wrong with that.

Comment Re:at least they're trying... (Score 2) 326

There should be a national sales tax. That's it, nothing else. You should not be charged for earning, saving or investing money.

Yeah, that's a great way to increase the tax burden on the poorest while offloading it off the richest AND enticing them to not spend money. Do you even think about the second or third layer effects of any of your decisions?

Comment Re:I hope (Score 1) 353

That reminds me of an encounter I had with some vegan drinking a soy latte while I was talking to a friend about a new burger place I went to that had great, locally sourced beef, pork and vegetables. She launched into some spiel about how beef is bad for the environment since on the same acre you can grow 10x more soya or whatever. I replied saying that may be true, but here in Europe we're not lacking in arable farm land, and it might be shocking to learn, but importing coffee from South America and soy from Asia isn't exactly ecologically neutral either, is it? We didn't get along after that.

Transportation

Richard Branson Plans Orbital Spaceships For Virgin Galactic 177

Velcroman1 writes "Following the historic first rocket-powered flight of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle, Virgin Galactic plans to build a fleet of spaceships and begin ferrying hundreds of tourists into space in 2014. And then? A whole new kind of spacecraft, Sir Richard Branson said. 'We'll be building orbital spaceships after that,' Branson told Fox News Tuesday, 'so that people who want to go for a week or two can.' Assuming the cost is on the same scale, would you pay a few hundred grand for a few weeks in orbit?"

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