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Submission + - People Who Use Firefox or Chrome Make Better Employees

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: In the world of Big Data, everything means something. Now Joe Pinsker reports that Cornerstone OnDemand, a company that sells software that helps employers recruit and retain workers, has found after analyzing data on about 50,000 people who took its 45-minute online job assessment, that people who took the test on a non-default browser, such as Firefox or Chrome, ended up staying at their jobs about 15 percent longer than those who stuck with Safari or Internet Explorer and performed better on the job as well. Chief Analytics Officer Michael Housman offered an explanation for the results in an interview with Freakonomics Radio. “I think that the fact that you took the time to install Firefox on your computer shows us something about you. It shows that you’re someone who is an informed consumer,” says Housman. “You’ve made an active choice to do something that wasn’t default.” But why would a company care about something as seemingly trivial as the browser a candidate chooses to use? "Call centers are estimated to suffer from a turnover rate of about 45 percent annually (PDF), and it can cost thousands of dollars to hire new employees," says Pinsker. "Because of that, companies are eager to find any proxy for talent and dedication that they can."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Good Keyboard? (newegg.com) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After five years of service, my keyboard is dying, and I'm starting to look for a new one. Since it's for my primary machine, and I spend a lot of hours there for both work and leisure, I'd like to invest in a high-quality replacement. What do you recommend? I've been using a Logitech G15, and it worked well enough — but not enough for me to buy another. (I've also heard that Logitech's build quality has been on the decline in recent years — has that been your experience, those of you who own their recent hardware?) Use cases include coding and gaming, so durability is a big plus.

I'd prefer something a bit less bulky than the G15, which has an area at the top for media controls and a tiny screen. I don't mind a thicker bottom bezel so much. I'm not a huge fan of ergonomic/split keyboard, but if you know a really excellent one, I wouldn't rule it out. Same with mechanical keyboards — love the action, but the noise is an issue. I don't need any particular bells and whistles, but don't mind them. As for a budget... as I said, it's for a heavy-use machine, so I don't mind investing in something. (That said, if I'm spending $150+, it better automatically make sure all my semicolons are in the right place.) So, what keyboard has served you well?

Submission + - Deploying Solar in California's Urban Areas Could Meet Demand Five Times Over (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: About 8% of terrestrial surfaces in California have been developed, ranging from cities and buildings to park spaces. If photovoltaic panels, along with concentrating solar power, were more effectively deployed in and around those areas, it could meet between three and five times what California currently uses for electricity, according to a new study. The study from the Carnegie Institution for Science, found that using small- and utility-scale solar power in and around developed areas could generate up to 15,000 terawatt-hours (trillion watt hours) of energy a year using photovoltaic technology, and 6,000TWh of energy a year using concentrating solar power technology. "Integrating solar facilities into the urban and suburban environment causes the least amount of land-cover change and the lowest environmental impact," post-doctoral environmental earth scientist Rebecca Hernandez said.

Submission + - NASA Launches Four Spacecraft To Study Earth-Sun Magnetism (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Late Thursday NASA used an Atlas rocket to put four new, identical spacecraft into orbit. "The quartet of observatories is being placed into an oblong orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles into the magnetosphere — nearly halfway to the moon at one point. They will fly in pyramid formation, between 6 miles and 250 miles apart, to provide 3-D views of magnetic reconnection on the smallest of scales. Magnetic reconnection is what happens when magnetic fields like those around Earth and the sun come together, break apart, then come together again, releasing vast energy. This repeated process drives the aurora, as well as solar storms that can disrupt communications and power on Earth. Data from this two-year mission should help scientists better understand so-called space weather."

Submission + - Today is the Pi Day of the Century (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by Brandon Butler
Brandon Butler writes: Each year March 14 is Pi Day. But this year is the Pi Day of the Century. Why? Write out the next handful of Pi digits: 3.1415... What is this year? 3/14/15.

It gets better. Keep going with the Pi digits: 3.151592653â¦

On 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 will be the biggest Pi moment of our lifetimes.

So, go eat pie, or build a Rasberry Pi computer or something.

Submission + - Mass Surveillance: Can We Blame It All On The Government?

Submitted by Nicola Hahn
Nicola Hahn writes: Yet another news report has emerged detailing how the CIA is actively subverting low-level encryption features in mainstream hi-tech products. Responding to the story, an unnamed intelligence official essentially shrugged his shoulders and commented that “there's a whole world of devices out there, and that's what we're going to do.” Perhaps this sort of cavalier dismissal isn’t surprising given that leaked classified documents indicate that government intelligence officers view iPhone users as ‘Zombies’ who pay for their own surveillance.

The past year or so of revelations paints a pretty damning portrait of the NSA and CIA. But if you read the Intercept’s coverage of the CIA’s subversion projects carefully you’ll notice mention of Lockheed Martin. And this raises a question that hasn’t received much attention: what role does corporate America play in all of this? Are American companies simply hapless pawns of a runaway national security state? Ed Snowden has stated that mass surveillance is “about economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation. They're about power.” A sympathy which has been echoed by others. Who, then, stands to gain from mass surveillance?

Submission + - UK Police and PRS Shutdown Karaoke Torrent Site (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The City of London's Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit and copyright and royalty group PRS for Music have teamed up for what appears to be a first-of-its-kind action. Arresting a 46-year-old man, this week police shutdown one of the Internet's few karaoke-focused BitTorrent trackers.

While at some stages wildly popular in the East, to most in the West a night at a karaoke bar is probably more closely associated with too many beers and individuals belting out classics wearing the aural equivalent of beer goggles.

The pastime is considered by some as a bit of a joke but karaoke is big business. According to the people behind the web-based Playstation software SingOn, the global karaoke market could be worth as much as $10 billion.

Submission + - Kim Stanley Robinson Says Colonizing Mars Won't Be As Easy As He Thought (io9.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy filled us all with hope that we could terraform Mars in the 21st century, with its plausible description of terraforming processes. But now, in the face of what we've learned about Mars in the past 20 years, he no longer thinks it'll be that easy.

Talking to SETI's Blog Picture Science podcast, Robinson explains that his ideas about terraforming Mars, back in the 1990s, were based on three assumptions that have been called into question or disproved:

1) Mars doesn't have any life on it at all. And now, it's looking more likely that there could be bacteria living beneath the surface. "That's going to be very hard to disprove," says Robinson. "We could be intruding on alien life."

2) There would be enough of the chemical compounds we need to survive. In particular, we need a lot of nitrogen â" and scientists had expected there to be a lot, based on the ordinary distribution of elements in planetary accretion. But there's much less nitrogen on Mars than we'd hoped.

3) There's nothing poisonous to us on the surface. In fact, the surface is covered with perchlorates, which are highly toxic to humans, and the original Viking mission did not detect these. We could use bacteria to dispose of them, but it would be a very long-term process.

"It's no longer a simple matter," Robinson says. "It's possible that we could occupy, inhabit and terraform Mars. But it's probably going to take a lot longer than I described in my books."

Instead, Robinson says that Mars can't serve as a "backup planet," and that we need to fix our problems here on Earth if we're to have any hope of surviving for the timescales needed to set up an eventual colony there.

Submission + - The FAA Says You Can't Post Drone Videos on YouTube (vice.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: If you fly a drone and post footage on YouTube, you could end up with a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Earlier this week, the agency sent a legal notice to Jayson Hanes, a Tampa-based drone hobbyist who has been posting drone-shot videos online for roughly the last year.

The FAA said that, because there are ads on YouTube, Hanes's flights constituted a commercial use of the technology subject to stricter regulations and enforcement action from the agency. It said that if he did not stop flying “commercially,” he could be subject to fines or sanctions.

Submission + - New Solar Capacity Beats Coal and Wind, Again (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Solar energy installations beat both wind generated and coal-fired energy for the second year in a row, according to a new report from GTM Research. While solar only makes up about 1 percent of U.S. energy, in 2014, it added nearly as many new megawatts as natural gas, which is approaching coal as the country’s primary energy source. Solar capacity grew 32 percent from 2013 to 2014 and GTM is predicting it will grow 59% YoY this year. Just two years ago, in 2012, coal represented 41% of new energy capacity and solar only 10%. Last year, coal was down to 23% of new electrical capacity. Solar capacity growth last year represents a 12-fold increase over the amounts being installed in 2009. Key to solar adoption has been falling costs across market segments and states.

Comment Re:Shouldn't they be after Google? (Score 1) 148

by FirstOne (#49226711) Attached to: Microsoft Asks US Court To Ban Kyocera's Android Phones

Their is no such thing as internal distribution for a CORPORATION/VIRTUAL PERSON(non-pural).

Merely using Linux (by copying/distribution in anyform, subject's them to GPL license, like any other type of software. One always needs a valid license to even to just install a program, to do otherwise would make all M$ programs fair game to pirate.

Comment Re:Shouldn't they be after Google? (Score 1) 148

by FirstOne (#49223809) Attached to: Microsoft Asks US Court To Ban Kyocera's Android Phones

A fair amount of M$ patents over Linux are invalid, because Microsoft duplicated and distributed Linux internally.

That distribution kicked in the patent clause of GPL. Thus estoppling all licensing claims their patents against Linux.. I.E. They authorized duplication, distribution, and use by their Employees/Sub-contractors/etc all of which are 3rd parties to M$ corporate patent port folio.

A similar claim can be made for Nokia android phones, which Nokia android phones of which Micosoft paid 7.2 Billion for.

Any decent lawyer can easily point out these estoppel conflicts and moot a motion for a pretrial injunction.

Comment Re:Don't forget weight (mass) (Score 1) 239

by FirstOne (#48953307) Attached to: NFL Asks Columbia University For Help With Deflate-Gate

Besides the "ideal gas law, of PV =nRT", the act of checking the pressure leaks some air out of the ball.. Those valves aren't perfect, same with the gauges..

This happens to me all the time with my mountain bike tires. Each time you measure, some air leaks out and it's a couple PSI less the next time you remeasure a few seconds later.

Lastly, The temperature of the air filling the ball might have been substantially elevated above room temp by the compressor. I.E. Heat of compression, combined with waste heat from compressor motor + friction inside the pump itself is dumped into air tank. Especially if the compressor had just been fired it up(or had been running for some time), and it had to run for a couple of additional minutes rebuilding the reservoir tanks to cutoff pressure.(~150-200psi).

This phenomenon is well known in the diving industry, tanks are routinely filled to 3600-3700psi, only to have it settle down to ~3200-3300psi once the previous hot tank/air inside cools down to ambient temperature.

.

Comment Re:Dementia will get'm long before 120 (Score 1) 441

by FirstOne (#48666199) Attached to: How Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel Plans To Live 120 Years

Telomerase only works (naturally) in 3 kinds of human cells

Not once in the article I quoted nor my posts have mentioned Telomerase, shifting the focus of the discussion, instead of admitting your error.

Finding a study is a simple task by googling "diet and exercise telomeres", yielding Scholarly links

But nooo, you insist on being an a irrational poster, changing the subject and complaining I haven't met your requirements. If you really want a science links here, but the Prostrate cancer study, (5yr follow up, Blood cell telomeres lengthened by +10%, verses -3% control group) is behind a pay-wall. I suppose you'll complain about that as well.

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