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Comment Absolutely (Score 1) 520

As someone who did just that (well over 10 years ago,) you will absolutely be pigeon holed if you go into some type of sysadmin job if that's where you start. Generally, in the technology sector (usually referred to as IT in the corporate world) there are programming jobs and infrastructure (sysadmin type) jobs. Whichever side you 'grow up' on, it makes it harder to move to the other side. Management will always pigeon hole you as a result of your experience. The more of it you have, the more typecast you'll be.

Comment Re:Which illustrates what we already knew (Score 1) 298

Differences in the OS's may account for much of the difference. IIRC it was Phoronix that posted a graphics benchmark that showed that 3d games on linux were faster when run under KDE than Unity or GNOME3 (which was the slowest.) Also, differences in X,gcc/glib could also account. Don't assume that newer is faster. Often times it's not.

Comment Re:Why can't we figure out what's killing the bees (Score 1) 248

Here some information from that article I posted:

Shan Bilimoria, a professor and molecular virologist, said the bees may be taking a one-two punch from both an insect virus and a fungus, which may be causing bees to die off by the billions...

"researchers discovered through spectroscopic analysis evidence of a moth virus called insect iridescent virus (IIV) 6 and a fungal parasite called Nosema."

Comment Re:They tried this already. (Score 1) 248

Something like that. They cross bred a very docile bee with a very aggressive african bee which produced lots of very good honey. They though that by doing so they could get a docile bee which produced lots of top quality honey. Unfortunately they ended up with a bee that would kick your a$$ if you even looked at it funny, never mind trying to get the honey.

Comment Herd Mentality (Score 1) 105

Just goes to show you that most people can't or won't think for themselves. Most people just follow the herd, no matter what that herd is... and if you disagree with that herd you are a moron or an idiot, etc. Another posted mentioned " what we see as reasonable is VERY often decided by the range of views we are exposed to" and I think he's got it spot on precisely b/c people don't think critically and usually aren't informed (but are more that willing to render an opinion.)

The problem is probably due to the fact that public high schools (most people only have high school education) generally teach people to memorize and recite rather than think critically. Think back onto most exams you've ever had (secondary and even post secondary) and how many of them required critical thinking ability? Very few. But you probably got great marks in most subjects if you could just memorize and recite data.

Programming

Simpler "Hello World" Demonstrated In C 582

An anonymous reader writes "Wondering where all that bloat comes from, causing even the classic 'Hello world' to weigh in at 11 KB? An MIT programmer decided to make a Linux C program so simple, she could explain every byte of the assembly. She found that gcc was including libc even when you don't ask for it. The blog shows how to compile a much simpler 'Hello world,' using no libraries at all. This takes me back to the days of programming bare-metal on DOS!"
The Internet

Blizzard Previews Revamped Battle.net 188

Blizzard updated the official StarCraft II site today with a preview of how the revamped Battle.net will function. They emphasize the social features, competitive matchmaking system, and the ease of sharing mods and maps. Quoting: "When the legacy Battle.net service introduced support for user-created mods such as DotA, Tower Defense, and many others, these user-created game types became immensely popular. But while Battle.net supported mods at a basic level, integration with tools and the mod community wasn't where it needed to be for a game releasing in 2010. The new Battle.net service will see some major improvements in this area. StarCraft II will include a full-featured content-creation toolkit — the same tools used by the StarCraft II design team to create the single-player campaign. To fully harness the community's mapmaking prowess, Battle.net will introduce a feature called Map Publishing. Map Publishing will let users upload their maps to the service and share them with the rest of the community immediately on the service. This also ties in with the goal of making Battle.net an always-connected experience — you can publish, browse, and download maps directly via the Battle.net client. Finding games based on specific mods will also be much easier with our all-new custom game system, placing the full breadth of the modding community's efforts at your fingertips."
PlayStation (Games)

PS3 Hacked? 296

Several readers have sent word that George Hotz (a.k.a. geohot), the hacker best known for unlocking Apple's iPhone, says he has now hacked the PlayStation 3. From his blog post: "I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip. 3 years, 2 months, 11 days...that's a pretty secure system. ... As far as the exploit goes, I'm not revealing it yet. The theory isn't really patchable, but they can make implementations much harder. Also, for obvious reasons I can't post dumps. I'm hoping to find the decryption keys and post them, but they may be embedded in hardware. Hopefully keys are setup like the iPhone's KBAG."
Image

Scientists Say a Dirty Child Is a Healthy Child 331

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."
Image

Chimpanzees Exchange Meat For Sex 313

the_therapist writes "A team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, studied chimps in the Tai Forest reserve in Ivory Coast and discovered that chimpanzees enter into 'deals' whereby they exchange meat for sex. Among the findings are that 'male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts.' They also found this to be 'a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are.'"
Power

Solyndra's Thin-Film Solar Cells Draw $1.2 Billion In Orders 131

SolarSells writes "Solyndra makes funky-looking cylindrical solar cells that resemble compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Their products are meant for office buildings, and are made from a thin coating of copper indium gallium diselenide on glass tubes. Although they might not be able to fill them till 2012, the company has already received $1.2 billion in orders. Their manufacturing tricks make the cells so cheap that they may be competitive with other forms of power even after solar subsidies are phased out."

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