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Comment Re:Where was this art during the trial? And PJ's b (Score 1) 149

by Some Bitch (#42358105) Attached to: Apple's Pinch+Zoom Patent Invalidated By Preliminary USPTO Ruling

The judge prevented Samsung from entering all manner of evidence for the purpose of demonstrating prior art.

I'd argue that Samsung prevented Samsung from entering that evidence when they missed the filing deadline. To use an old meme, which part of the word deadline did you not understand?
The Almighty Buck

Automation Is Making Unions Irrelevant 510

Posted by Soulskill from the skynet-just-wants-to-flip-burgers dept.
dcblogs writes "Michigan lawmakers just approved a right-to-work law in an effort to dismantle union power, but unions are already becoming irrelevant. The problem with unions is they can't protect jobs. They can't stop a company from moving jobs overseas, closing offices, or replacing workers with machines. Indeed, improvements in automation is making the nation attractive again for manufacturing, according to U.S. intelligence Global Trends 2030 report. The trends are clear. Amazon spent $775 million this year to acquire a company, Kiva Systems that makes robots used in warehouses. Automation will replace warehouse workers, assembly-line and even retail workers. In time, Google's driverless cars will replace drivers in the trucking industry. Unions sometimes get blamed for creating uncompetitive environments and pushing jobs overseas. But the tech industry, which isn't unionized, is a counterpoint. Tech has been steadily moving jobs overseas to lower costs."

North Korea's Satellite Is Out of Control 450

Posted by samzenpus from the wobble-and-bobble dept.
Koreantoast writes "After failing on numerous occasions, North Korea has finally put a satellite in orbit. But according to US officials, it is now 'tumbling out of control.' This is bad news, and more bad news, covered in a double layer of extra bad news. From the article: 'According to US officials, it appears that North Korea's new satellite has failed to achieve a stable orbit and is now "tumbling out of control." The greatest danger is the threat of it colliding with another satellite, adding to the growing debris field around the earth.' A separate Gizmodo article provides links for tracking the current location of the satellite."
Education

Video Professor Cliff Lampe Talks About Gamification in Academia (Video) 123

Posted by Roblimo from the slogging-through-the-trenches-of-higher-education dept.
Professor Lampe is using gamification in his 200-student lecture classes to make them more interesting. He says big-class lectures can often be as boring for the professor as they are for the students. A little bit of game-type action can spice things up and make classes more interesting. Near the end of the video he points out that gamification is becoming popular for employee training in private enterprise, so why not use the concept in universities and other educational institutions?
The Almighty Buck

Money Python: Florida Contest Offers Rewards In 2013 Everglades Python Hunt 132

Posted by samzenpus from the badger-badger-badger-badger-mushroom dept.
Press2ToContinue writes "Dubbed the Python Challenge, the month-long contest will award $1,000 for the longest python and $1,500 for the most pythons caught between Jan. 12 and Feb. 10 in any of four hunting areas north of Everglades National Park and at the Big Cypress National Preserve. Pythons have been spreading through the Everglades for years, posing a threat to the sensitive ecosystem by preying on native species. Some estimates put their number in the tens of thousands. Last year, 272 pythons were removed from the wild, state figures show."

Comment Re:Uh, nice try (Score 1) 670

by Some Bitch (#42218493) Attached to: Stay Home When You're Sick!

Maybe it's a culture or geographical thing, but I've never worked at a company that counted sick days against PTO days. (Mostly internet companies with 500-ish employees in the Seattle area.)

The sick policy is always, "if you're sick stay home, if you're sick a lot you let's talk about it".

This is how it works in Europe, it does rather boggle the mind that there are parts of the first world that don't work this way.
Microsoft

Windows 8: a 'Christmas Gift For Someone You Hate' 740

Posted by timothy from the not-keeping-it-all-bottled-up-inside dept.
zacharye writes "Microsoft is no stranger to criticism these days, and the company's new Windows 8 platform is once again the target of a scathing review from a high-profile user. Well-known Internet entrepreneur and MIT professor Philip Greenspun handed Windows 8 one of its most damning reviews yet earlier this week, calling the new operating system a 'Christmas gift for someone you hate.' Greenspun panned almost every aspect of Microsoft's new software, noting that Microsoft had four years to study Android and more than five to examine iOS, but still couldn't build a usable tablet experience..."
Games

Interview With Icculus on GNU/Linux Gaming 74

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the ioquake3-between-stories dept.
Via Phoronix comes a link to an interview with prolific GNU/Linux game porter Icculus about the state of gaming on GNU/Linux. Topics include Steam, Windows 8, his experiences trying to push FatELF vs full screen games, and the general state of the game industry. From the article (on the general state of games on GNU/Linux): "It's making progress. We're turning out to have a pretty big year, with Unity3D coming to the platform, and Valve preparing to release Steam. These are just good foundations to an awesome 2013."
Censorship

The Promo Bay Blocked By UK ISPs 132

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the culture-police dept.
hypnosec writes "The Pirate Bay's artist promotion platform (the Promo Bay), despite being perfectly legal, is being blocked by several UK Internet service providers including BT, and Virgin Media. The Promo Bay was launched this week as a promotion platform for content creators like filmmakers and musicians enabling them to showcase their talent and work to thousands of people across the web. Even though the idea is novel, The Promo Bay has somehow found itself on a block list alongside the Pirate Bay."
Handhelds

Ask Slashdot: Tablets For Papers; Are We There Yet? 180

Posted by timothy from the getting-closer-at-least dept.
An anonymous reader writes "When I was younger, engineering and science offices didn't have computers yet. It was the tradition: Piled Higher and Deeper desks, and overloaded bookcases. I ended up doing other things, and haven't been in a regular office for a couple of decades. Now I'm older, spending a lot more time with the screen, and finding my aging butt and back aren't as pliable for the long hours of reading papers. And while looking at rather expensive chairs, etc for a solution, what I'm remembering is we used to be able to lean back, feet up, while reading the stapled print-outs — makes a change from hunched-over writing and typing. So I'm what wondering is this: Are We There Yet with tablets? You guys would know — What makes a good tablet for reading, sorting, annotating, and searching PDFs, etc? Hardware and software — what tablets have gotten this really right?"
The Courts

Apple Claims Ignorance of Jury Foreman's Previous Tangle With Samsung 186

Posted by timothy from the no-idea-yerhonor dept.
quantr writes with the news that Apple claims that the company "wasn't aware during trial that the foreman of the jury that issued a $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung Electronics Co. was involved in a lawsuit with his former employer, Seagate Technology Inc. 'Samsung asked Apple to disclose when it first learned about the litigation between the jury foreman, Velvin Hogan, and Seagate. Apple responded in a filing yesterday in federal court in San Jose, California. Samsung is attempting to get the Aug. 24 verdict thrown out based on claims the trial was tainted by the foreman's failure during jury selection to tell U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh, who presided over the case, that he filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and was sued by Seagate."
Censorship

How Some Chinese Users Bypass The Great Firewall 58

Posted by timothy from the differentially-censored dept.
CowboyRobot writes "The ACM has an article describing the history and present of the Great Firewall of China (GFW). 'Essentially, GFW is a government-controlled attacking system, launching attacks that interfere with legitimate communications and affecting many more victims than malicious actors. Using special techniques, it successfully blocks the majority of Chinese Internet users from accessing most of the Web sites or information that the government doesn't like. GFW is not perfect, however. Some Chinese technical professionals can bypass it with a variety of methods and/or tools. An arms race between censorship and circumvention has been going on for years, and GFW has caused collateral damage along the way.'"
Portables (Apple)

Ask Slashdot: Good Linux Desktop Environment For Hi-Def/Retina Displays? 234

Posted by Soulskill from the time-to-start-thinking-about-this-again dept.
Volanin writes "I have been using Linux for the last 15 years both at home and at work (mostly GNOME and now Unity). Recently, I gave in to temptation and bought myself a Macbook retina 15". As you can read around, Linux still has no good support for this hardware, so I am running it inside a virtual machine. Running in scaled 1440x900 makes the Linux fonts look absolutely terrible, and running in true 2880x1800 makes them beautiful, but every UI element becomes so tiny, it's unworkable. Is there a desktop environment that handles resolution independence better? Linux has had support for SVG for a long time, but GNOME/Unity seems adamant in defining small icon sizes and UI elements without the possibility to resize them."

Comment Re:Transoceans (Score 2) 238

by Some Bitch (#42128477) Attached to: BP and Three Executives Facing Criminal Charges Over Oil Spill

1. BP does not stand for British Petroleum and hasn't since the late 90s when American Oil Company and British Petroleum merged to format BP AMOCO. The merged company later changed the name to BP, not short for anything.

2. More BP stock is owned by US companies and individuals than British.

BP is multinational, the HQ of the parent company might be in London but it's owned by Americans.
Data Storage

OCZ Launches Vector Indilinx Barefoot 3 SSD, First All In-House Design 122

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the intel-sans-gouging dept.
MojoKid writes "Not many SSD controller manufacturers have been able to compete with the likes of SandForce and the myriad of SATA drives from various OEMs on the market that are based on their technology. However, OCZ took a different approach recently when they acquired SSD controller manufacturer Indilinx and PCI Express Switch maker PLX. Today the company took the wraps of their new Vector line of SSDs. The Vector is the first drive from OCZ to utilize only technologies developed by the unified Indilinx, PLX, and OCZ teams (except for the actual NAND flash), since the acquisitions. The Vector is based on the new INDILINK Barefoot 3 controller, which in terms of its features and specifications, looks competitive with some of the fastest drives on the market currently. In the benchmarks, the drive's IOMeter and CrystalDiskMark scores line up well and OCZ is offering a 5 year warranty on the product."

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