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Comment It's not a zero sum game (Score 2) 215

by Taco Cowboy (#48408281) Attached to: Do Good Programmers Need Agents?

... Most likely outcome: the agent, whose entire compensation is based on separating me from as much cash as possible, manages to take more than that difference and I get screwed while thinking I got a good deal ...

If you are of the top 1% talent you wouldn't be feeling so butthurt over how much that "agent" skims over what you take

Look, I've been in the industry even before Al Gore started his "information superhighway" stump

I worked as a grunt in research labs, buried deep within the big corporate behemoths, I started my own joints, one after the other (they were not known as "startups" back then), sold some, re-invest the $$ by help funding other startups, and so on ... and along the ways I got acquainted with many legendary talents, some still with me, some parted ways, but I never stop searching for talents

Back then there were no "agencies". Heck! Back then there was no linkedin or anything like that, but when we needed talents we went crowdsourcing (no, that phrase wasn't invented either) and via our network of friends and/or acquaintances we got what we want

And yes, I do pay those who helped find me the talent I need, and no, I do not count the money I paid to those (so-called) agents as part of the money I am willing to pay the talent

What we have are business opportunities. What we want is to make money. And to make money we are willing to hire the right person to do the job, and we are willing to pay.

If you are really good, you will be paid what you are worth. Whatever those "agent" skims from you will not eat into your worth

This ain't a zero sum game, man !
Robotics

Robots Put To Work On E-Waste 39

Posted by Soulskill from the robots-disassembling-robots dept.
aesoteric writes: Australian researchers have programmed industrial robots to tackle the vast array of e-waste thrown out every year. The research shows robots can learn and memorize how various electronic products — such as LCD screens — are designed, enabling those products to be disassembled for recycling faster and faster. The end goal is less than five minutes to dismantle a product.

Submission + - Robots Put To Work On E-Waste (unsw.edu.au)

Submitted by aesoteric
aesoteric writes: Australian researchers have programmed industrial robots to tackle the vast array of e-waste thrown out every year. The research shows robots can learn and memorise how various electronic products — such as LCD screens — are designed, enabling those products to be disassembled for recycling faster and faster. The end goal is less than five minutes to dismantle a product.
Medicine

The Dutch Village Where Everyone Has Dementia 231

Posted by samzenpus from the last-town dept.
HughPickens.com writes Josh Planos writes at The Atlantic that the isolated village of Hogewey on the outskirts of Amsterdam has been dubbed "Dementia Village" because it is home to residents who are only admitted if they're categorized as having severe cases of dementia or Alzheimer's disease. "There are no wards, long hallways, or corridors at the facility," writes Planos. "Residents live in groups of six or seven to a house, with one or two caretakers. Perhaps the most unique element of the facility—apart from the stealthy "gardener" caretakers—is its approach toward housing. Hogeway features 23 uniquely stylized homes, furnished around the time period when residents' short-term memories stopped properly functioning. There are homes resembling the 1950s, 1970s, and 2000s, accurate down to the tablecloths, because it helps residents feel as if they're home."

In Holland, everyone pays into the state health care system during their working years, with the money then disbursed to pay for later-in-life expenses — and that means living in Hogewey does not cost any more than a traditional nursing home. The inspiration came about in 1992, when Yvonne van Amerongen and another member of staff at a traditional nursing home both had their own mothers die, being glad that their elderly parents had died quickly and had not had to endure hospital-like care. A series of research and brainstorming sessions in 1993 found that humans choose to surround and interact with other like-minded people of similar backgrounds and experiences; the arrangement at Hogewey provides this by ensuring that residents with similar backgrounds continue to live closely together. On a physical level, residents at Hogewey require fewer medications; they eat better and they live longer. On a mental level, they also seem to have more joy. "The people here keep their independence, as much as they can have of it, and they stay active," says Theo Visser. "Here they still have a life. It's not the sort of slow, quiet death you get in other places. Here everyone feels at home."

Submission + - Google Compute Engine Gets Autoscaler, Finally

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google today added an Autoscaler feature, which helps apps handle varying traffic and workloads, to its Compute Engine on the Google Cloud Platform. The service, first demoed at the company’s Google Cloud Platform Live event, is now debuting in public beta. The feature is helpful for developers who want to build applications that don’t go down when web traffic goes haywire on the burgeoning Google public cloud. But the addition comes long after Microsoft added autoscaling to its cloud in July 2013, and Amazon introduced autoscaling more than five years ago.
Biotech

Scientists Optimistic About Getting a Mammoth Genome Complete Enough To Clone 187

Posted by samzenpus from the one-piece-at-a-time dept.
Clark Schultz writes The premise behind Jurassic Park just got a bit more real after scientists in South Korea said they are optimistic they can extract enough DNA from the blood of a preserved woolly mammoth to clone the long-extinct mammal. The ice-wrapped woolly mammoth was found last year on an island off of Siberia. The development is being closely watched by the scientific community with opinion sharply divided on the ethics of the project.

Submission + - NYC to replace most of its payphones with free gigabit WiFi in 2015

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: NYC announced its plans: LinkNYC — a network of 10,000 gigabit WiFi hotspots that will line the streets of all five boroughs of New York City. The project will replace all but a small handful of historic payphones with "Links," small towers equipped with WiFi, an Android tablet with select city-service apps and, of course, the ability to make phone calls. What's missing? The word pay: it's all free.
Privacy

Tor Eyes Crowdfunding Campaign To Upgrade Its Hidden Services 106

Posted by samzenpus from the price-of-privacy dept.
apexcp writes The web's biggest anonymity network is considering a crowdfunding campaign to overhaul its hidden services. From the article: "In the last 15 months, several of the biggest anonymous websites on the Tor network have been identified and seized by police. In most cases, no one is quite sure how it happened. The details of such a campaign have yet to be revealed. With enough funding, Tor could have developers focusing their work entirely on hidden services, a change in developer priorities that many Tor users have been hoping for in recent years."

Submission + - Electric shock study suggests we'd rather hurt ourselves than others (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: If you had the choice between hurting yourself or someone else in exchange for money, how altruistic do you think you’d be? In one infamous experiment, people were quite willing to deliver painful shocks to anonymous victims when asked by a scientist. But a new study that forced people into the dilemma of choosing between pain and profit finds that participants cared more about other people’s well-being than their own. It is hailed as the first hard evidence of altruism for the young field of behavioral economics.
Transportation

Toyota Names Upcoming Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car 194

Posted by samzenpus from the a-car-by-any-other-name-would-drive-as-clean dept.
An anonymous reader writes Toyota has announced the name of its new hydrogen-powered car: Mirai, which means "future" in Japanese. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said: "Today, we are at a turning point in automotive history. A turning point where a four-door sedan can travel 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen, can be refueled in under five minutes and emit only water vapor."
Space

Fascinating Rosetta Image Captures Philae's Comet Bounce 69

Posted by samzenpus from the where's-waldo dept.
mpicpp points out that high-resolution pictures have been released of Philae's landing. "The hunt for Rosetta's lost lander Philae is gaining steam as scientists pore over images from above the comet that may help reveal its final location. The ESA released an image Monday taken by Rosetta's OSIRIS camera showing Philae's first bounce on the comet. The mosaic includes a series of pictures tracking the lander descending toward the comet, the initial touchdown point and then an image of the lander moving east. 'The imaging team is confident that combining the CONSERT ranging data with OSIRIS and navcam images from the orbiter and images from near the surface and on it from Philae's ROLIS and CIVA cameras will soon reveal the lander's whereabouts,' says the ESA."
Education

Coding Bootcamps Presented As "College Alternative" 226

Posted by samzenpus from the pop-goes-the-bubble dept.
ErichTheRed writes Perhaps this is the sign that the Web 2.0 bubble is finally at its peak. CNN produced a piece on DevBootcamp, a 19-week intensive coding academy designed to turn out Web developers at a rapid pace. I remember Microsoft and Cisco certification bootcamps from the peak of the last tech bubble, and the flood of under-qualified "IT professionals" they produced. Now that developer bootcamps are in the mainsteam media, can the end of the bubble be far away?

Submission + - A second act for the Wooly Mammoth?

Submitted by Clark Schultz
Clark Schultz writes: The premise behind Jurassic Park just got a bit realer after scientists in South Korea said they are optimistic they can extract enough DNA from the blood of a preserved wooly mammoth to clone the long-extinct mammal. The ice-wrapped wooly mammoth was found last year on an island off of Siberia. The development is being closely-watched by the scientific community with opinion sharply divided on the ethics of the project.

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