Comment What they're really saying is... (Score 4, Insightful) 441
We're too cheap to hire a less experienced person and train them to do their job properly.
Comment Re:Deep down.. (Score 1) 610
I think it will affect a lot of us. One big potential scenario is the banks would run low on money, so they call in all outstanding loans, including home mortgages. Unless you're 3 mos or so from paying off that 30-yr mortgage, a good number of homeowners in the 98% will get totally shafted since they obviously don't have the money to pay the loan off.
Weaponized Robots Could Take Point In Future Military Ops 182
Lucas123 writes "This past week at Ft. Benning, weaponized robot prototypes from four robotics companies — Northrop Grumman, HDT Robotics, iRobot Corp. and QinetiQ — demonstrated their abilities to traverse rugged terrain, fire machine guns and take out pop-up targets from a distance of 150 meters. 'They're not just tools, but members of the squad. That's the goal,' said Lt. Col. Willie Smith, chief of Unmanned Ground Vehicles at Fort Benning. For example, the Northrup Grumman's CaMEL (Carry-all Mechanized Equipment Landrover) can run for 24 hours on three-and-a-half gallons of fuel, and can be equipped with a grenade launcher, an automatic weapon and anti-tank missiles. The CaMEL also can identify targets from three-and-a-half kilometers away, using a daylight telescope or thermal imaging. The robots have also demonstrated their ability to be air dropped behind enemy lines or into remote terrain."
Comment For software developers (Score 1) 358
For the last round of hiring my company did, it was strongly suggested that any applicants open a Github account so they can use it to save the code they wrote for our evaluation. Having a Github account can give software-oriented people a chance to publish any projects they've written, akin to a portfolio for graphics design artists.
Comment Re:Why wouldn't the people support them? (Score 1) 174
Dear 'Murrikans,
The city on a hill is a myth. Manifest Destiny is a myth. 'Murrikan exceptionalism is a crock of shit. Any sort of decency or aspiration is a universal human trait. And unless you graduate from college/vo-tech, work damn hard, and/or get lucky, you're not going to do better than the clowns that appear on the Jerry Springer show.
PS - see if you can find Benghazi on a map. Hell, see if you can find the US on a map.
Comment Not on modern Macs (Score 5, Insightful) 385
It's made for PowerPC Macs, so the rest of us using Intel Macs are out of luck.
Comment Re:Can't America get its acts together ? (Score 1) 1059
When did it become right to not help other people? When exactly did we reach the utopia that you preach about where people collect their wealth and give nothing back to society?
From the Intertubes:
"Prosperity theology is a Christian religious doctrine that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will always increase one's material wealth."
Comment Re:Can't America get its acts together ? (Score 1) 1059
The people in the middle (like me, and mine) get just about nothing from the government, but the government is in our pockets, taking about 1/3 of our wages every week. All the entitlements go over me, past me, or under me. We, the working people, don't benefit from food stamps, free housing, free utilities, and sure don't benefit from an inverted tax schedule scheme, and we DAMNED SURE don't benefit from wars being fought halfway around the world to enrich the oil industries.
If you're in a city, do you take the subway? If you're traveling to another area, do you drive on the Interstates? If you get robbed or your house is on fire, who do you call? If you're hiring someone to fill a job, who provided that person with their basic education? Where do you get a book to read? How do you know your water is clean? Your food and drugs are safe? Your house is safe to live in?
I'll call it - your claim of getting nothing from the government is bullshit.
Comment I can see it now... (Score 1) 112
Samsung sues Apple for capacitive stylus. Wouldn't Sammy win just based on prior art?!
Comment To quote Marvin the Martian (Score 1) 544
Where's the kaboom?! There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!!!!!
Comment Re:Serves them right (Score 2) 578
From Wikipedia:
Adkisson's manifesto also cited the inability to find a job, and that his food stamps were being cut.
And he blames his problems on Democrats and liberals?! WTF?!?!
Tuition Should Be Lower For Science Majors, Says Florida Task Force 457
Hugh Pickens writes "Jordan Weissmann writes that a task force commissioned by Florida Governor Rick Scott is putting the finishing touches on a proposal that would allow the state's public universities to charge lower tuition for studying topics thought to be in high demand among Florida employers including science, technology, engineering, and math. The hope is that by keeping certain degrees cheaper than others, Florida can encourage students into fields where it needs more talent. For some, it might seem inherently unfair to send dance majors deeper into debt just to keep tuition low for engineers, who are already poised to earn more once they graduate, but task force chair Dale Brill says tax dollars are scarce, and the public deserves the best possible return from its investment in education and that means spending more generously on the students who are most likely to help grow Florida's economy once they graduate. Brill also argues that too few young people consider their career prospects carefully when picking a major. 'We're trying to introduce some semblance of a market dynamic information in an environment where there is none,' Brill says. 'Most students couldn't tell you what they pay in tuition. In economics, pricing is all we have to determine and work out supply and demand. So, when the consumer is completely separated from the cost of a product, then the cost rises.'"
Remember when everyone was supposed to become an aerospace engineer and then the industry collapsed in the early 90s?
Comment So why can't we do it? (Score 1, Interesting) 686
I suspect at this point humanity, as a collective whole, is still too small-minded to consider such an endeavor. Our politicians are narcissistic/sociopathic, and private industry would want it to be profitable.
*sigh*
Comment Re:parental self control (Score 1) 322
As a parent, I totally accept responsibility for my kids' well-being and health. I am totally guilty of taking my kids through drive-thrus and letting them watch TV. The wife and I have adopted an American suburban, 2-car, 2-income, white-collar lifestyle with the kids also being swept up in the hectic pace that it entails.
By the time one of us gets to the child care center to get them (since the elementary school closes way before COB), they're whining how they're hungry, and on many days we need to get one of them to an after-school sports event. As much as we try to do the right thing, we're so physically and emotionally tired that we give in to doing the easy thing; we get them fast food and let them watch TV for an hour before we really sit down with them for homework time.
So am I an ideal parent? Do I make the absolutely best choices for them? No of course not. Unfortunately we cannot make those decisions in an ideal vacuum. I make decisions that still meet my kids' needs that still balances out with time constraints, external commitments, and, honestly, plain old selfishness to watch out for my own interests.
Comment Re:frist (Score 1) 249
Windows comes with Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) and a file system which supports block level snapshots. VSS works with VSS aware applications (VSS writers) such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle Database Server, Exchange Server, Active Directory, NTFS and Hyper-V server. When a service is a VSS writer it participates in VSS coordination/synchronization to create consistent disk state.
...
To my knowledge, Linux doesn't have anything like VSS. Which means that each application/service must be handled separately. Typically you will stop the service during the backup. Some services such as PostgreSQL can recover from a non-consistent disk image; others can not. Individual applications may have commands/services which allow admins to "dump" state to a file to be backed up separately. All in all reliably backing up a running Linux server is more complicated compared to backing up a running Windows server with VSS aware services.
I am currently running a number of VMs using CentOS KVM with virtual disks being hosted on volumes being managed by LVM. Granted KVM and LVM are separate entities, but they can be made to work together to achieve the same result you mention above. I've backed up and restored VMs a number of times (as validation tests) and it's pretty robust.
