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The Almighty Buck

Should You Be Paid For Being On Call? 735

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the then-i-want-hazard-pay dept.
theodp writes "Fortune's Dear Annie takes on the case of poor Dazed and Confused, an independent webmaster who's expected to be on call for his client at all hours of the day and night, but doesn't get paid for being on call, only for the 40 hours a week that he's in the office. Surprisingly, Annie throws cold water on the contractor's dreams of paid OT, citing these pearls of wisdom from an attorney who's apparently never had the 'privilege' of being a techie on call: 'Many companies see the on-call issue as analogous to a fire fighter's job. Most of the time, a fire fighter is off-duty but on call, hanging around the firehouse, cooking, sleeping, or whatever. What that person really gets paid for is the relatively small, but crucial, amount of time he spends walking into a burning building with an ax. A webmaster, likewise, has slow times and busy times.'" What on call policies are you used to working with and how should it work in an ideal world?
Earth

NASA Attempts To Assuage 2012 Fears 881

Posted by timothy from the nostalgia-for-y2k dept.
eldavojohn writes "The apocalyptic film 2012 has dominated the box office, taking in $65 million on opening weekend. But with all those uninformed eyeballs watching the film, NASA has found itself answering so many common questions that their Ask an Astrobiologist blog offers calming, professional reassurance that there is no planet Nibiru, nor will it collide with Earth (although I do recall a massive solar storm forecast). NASA's main site even offers a FAQ answering similar questions. NPR has more on NASA scientist David Morrison and his efforts to calm the ensuing public hysteria, but survivalists are already planning for the big one. Pretty funny, right? Not according to Morrison: 'I've had three from young people saying they were contemplating committing suicide. I've had two from women contemplating killing their children and themselves. I had one last week from a person who said, "I'm so scared, my only friend is my little dog. When should I put it to sleep so it won't suffer?" And I don't know how to answer those questions.'"

Comment The company apologized (Score 5, Informative) 645

by thomasinx (#29832361) Attached to: Singer In Grocery Store Ordered To Pay Royalties
Yes, she was ordered to pay royalties. However, shortly afterward, the company sent her flowers, and issued a formal apology (ie, they realized they went *way* too far).

and I quote the article...
"In a note attached to a large bouquet of flowers they said: "We're very sorry we made a big mistake. We hear you have a lovely singing voice and we wish you good luck." "
Media

Disney Close To Unveiling New "DVD Killer" 498

Posted by timothy from the plays-for-sure dept.
Uncle Rummy writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Disney is close to releasing a new system that will sell permanent, multi-device access to digital media. The system, dubbed Keychest, is being positioned as an answer to consumer concerns about purchasing digital media that are locked to a small number of devices, and thus as a way to finally shift media sales from an ownership model to an access model. They claim that such a service would reduce the risk of losing access to content as a result of a single vendor going out of business, as purchased content would remain available from other vendors. However, they do not seem to have addressed the question of what happens to customers' access to purchased content if the Keychest service itself is discontinued."
Education

Student Loan Interest Rankles College Grads 1259

Posted by kdawson from the loan-arranger dept.
theodp writes "Like many recent college grads, Steven Lee finds himself unemployed in one of the roughest job markets in decades and saddled with a big pile of debt — he owes about $84,000 in student loans for undergrad and grad school. But what's really got Lee angry are the high interest rates on his government-backed student loans. 'The rate for a 30-year mortgage is around 5%,' Lee said. 'Why should anyone have to pay 8.5%? The government has bailed out homeowners. It's bailed out big businesses. Why can't it also help students?' Not only that, federal student loans are the only loans in the nation that are largely non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, have no statutes of limitations, and can't be refinanced after consolidation, so Lee can forget about pulling a move out of the GM playbook. And unlike mortgages on million-dollar vacation homes, student loans have very limited tax deductability. A spokeswoman for the Department of Education blamed Congress for the rates which she conceded 'may seem high today,' but suggested that students are a credit-unworthy lot who should thank their lucky stars that rates aren't 12% or higher. Makes one long for the good-old-days of 3% student loans, doesn't it?"
Science

The Ultimate Limit of Moore's Law 418

Posted by kdawson from the double-double dept.
BuzzSkyline writes "Physicists have found that there is an ultimate limit to the speed of calculations, regardless of any improvements in technology. According to the researchers who found the computation limit, the bound 'poses an absolute law of nature, just like the speed of light.' While many experts expect technological limits to kick in eventually, engineers always seem to find ways around such roadblocks. If the physicists are right, though, no technology could ever beat the ultimate limit they've calculated — which is about 10^16 times faster than today's fastest machines. At the current Moore's Law pace, computational speeds will hit the wall in 75 to 80 years. A paper describing the analysis, which relies on thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and information theory, appeared in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters (abstract here)."
Patents

Patent Claim Could Block Import of Toyota's Hybrid Cars 451

Posted by timothy from the advancing-the-useful-arts-and-sciences dept.
JynxMe writes "Paice is a tiny Florida company that has patented a way to apply force to a car's wheels from an electric motor or internal combustion engine. Paice thinks that Toyota is infringing on its technology, and is going after the automaker in court. The legal spat became much more serious for Toyota this week, when the US International Trade Commission decided to investigate the matter. In the worst-case scenario for Toyota, the commission could ban the hybrid Camry, third-generation Prius, Lexus HS250h sedan and Lexus RX450h SUV."
Input Devices

BrainPort Lets the Blind "See" With Their Tongues 131

Posted by kdawson from the battery-testing dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientific American reports that a new device called 'BrainPort' aims to restore the experience of vision for the blind and visually impaired by relying on the nerves on the tongue's surface to send light signals to the brain. BrainPort collects visual data through a small digital video camera and converts the signal into electrical pulses sent to the tongue via a 'lollipop' that sits directly on the tongue, where densely packed nerves receive the incoming electrical signals. White pixels yield a strong electrical pulse and the electrodes spatially correlate with the pixels, so that if the camera detects light fixtures in the middle of a dark hallway, electrical stimulations will occur along the center of the tongue. Within 15 minutes of using the device, blind people can begin interpreting spatial information. 'At first, I was amazed at what the device could do,' says research director William Seiple. 'One guy started to cry when he saw his first letter.'" There is some indication that the signals from the tongue are processed by the visual cortex. The company developing the BrainPort will submit it to the FDA for approval later this month, and it could be on sale (for around $10,000) by the end of the year.

Comment Re:That is an incredibly dumb question. (Score 5, Insightful) 730

by thomasinx (#29058595) Attached to: Why Should I Trust My Network Administrator?
There are no dumb questions.

He's here asking for advice, so give it to him. Even though most of the people who read/post this board are heavily involved with IT, and it might be a common sense answer, the fact is that to this person it isn't as simple a solution.

In many cases, people have sensitive information that they are handling on their servers, and whether or not to trust the IT staff is a valid question. (not all geeks are trustworthy). Also, in many cases, (especially with startups) they dont have the resources to hire on-site IT staff, so they have to outsource it. It introduces a dilemma that many will have to deal with.

-T
Science

Dogs As Intelligent As Average Two-Year-Old Children 472

Posted by timothy from the buddy-the-dog-is-hiding-his-smarts dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "The Telegraph reports that researchers using tests originally designed to demonstrate the development of language, pre-language and basic arithmetic in human children have found that dogs are capable of understanding up to 250 words and gestures, can count up to five and can perform simple mathematical calculations putting them on par with the average two-year-old child. While most dogs understand simple commands such as sit, fetch and stay, a border collie tested by Professor Coren showed a knowledge of 200 spoken words. 'Obviously we are not going to be able to sit down and have a conversation with a dog, but like a two-year-old, they show that they can understand words and gestures,' says Professor Stanley Coren, a leading expert on canine intelligence at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Dogs can tell that one plus one should equal two and not one or three,' says Coren, adding that dogs 'can also deliberately deceive, which is something that young children only start developing later in their life.' Coren believes centuries of selective breeding and living alongside humans has helped to hone the intelligence of dogs. 'They may not be Einsteins, but are sure closer to humans than we thought.'"
It's funny. Laugh.

Student Sues University Because She's Unemployable 1251

Posted by kdawson from the want-fries-with-that dept.
digitalhermit writes "A C student (not the programming language) has sued her former school because she has been unable to find a job in the three months since her graduation. Yup, some schools are degree mills, but this just seems... bizarre."
Security

Scammer Plants a Fake ATM At Defcon 17 394

Posted by kdawson from the not-the-brightest-LED-in-the-flashlight dept.
Groo Wanderer writes "Normally, a well-crafted fake ATM would skim a lot of card information before it was noticed, if it was ever noticed at all. Because it is safer for the criminals and harder to prosecute, financial crimes like this are spreading fast. If you are smart, you don't try to pull one off in the middle of a computer security convention where the attendees are very good at spotting such scams. That said, some not-so-bright criminal tried to plant a fake ATM at Defcon. He now has one less fake ATM and a whole lot of investigators on his tail."
Privacy

UK Plans To Monitor 20,000 Families' Homes Via CCTV 693

Posted by timothy from the words-fail-but-pictures-deliver dept.
metrix007 points out a story in the Sunday Express with more surveillance-camera madness from the UK, where the government now wants to place 20,000 CCTV cameras to monitor families ("the worst families in England") within their own homes, to make sure that "kids go to bed on time and eat healthy meals and the like. This is going too far, and hopefully will not pass. Where will it end?"
Security

Submission + - CARS.gov EULA Allows the Government to Own Your PC 1

Submitted by
54mc
54mc writes: "Glen Beck today revealed what a close inspection of the End User License Agreement for the CARS system contains. From the EULA, "This application provides access to the DoT CARS system. When logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a Federal computer system and is the property of the U.S. Government." The EULA goes on to include other specific aspects of what exactly belongs to the computer.Will this be yet another issue for the already troubled system?

This is of course, yet another example of EULAs that no one reads going way too far."
Security

Submission + - Police Ask Hackers to Help Track Jakarta Bombers

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Australian newspaper "The Age" reports that police in Indonesia are calling on computer hackers to track who is behind a website claiming responsibility for the Jakarta hotel bombings that left nine people dead in attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in downtown Jakarta on July 17. "The cyber crime team is chasing (who is behind this) ... hopefully, we can track them," says national police spokesman Nanan Soekarna. "There are a lot of smart hackers in Indonesia. Come on, try to prove that you can defend your people and country and provide information so we can catch them." A statement discovered earlier this week on blogging service Blogspot.com claimed responsibility for the hotel attacks under the name of Malaysian-born extremist Noordin Mohammed Top. Police are investigating the authenticity of the blog which carries two messages from a group called Tanzim Al Qoidah Indonesia saying the bombings aimed to destroy all parties related to the West and Christianity and offers solace to Muslims suffering from their oppression. Real or not, the statement has attracted tens of thousands of visitors to the blog, more than 2,000 of whom have posted messages in response, the vast majority condemning the attacks. "These comments represent the mood of the larger Internet users in Indonesia," writes Riyadi Suparno in the Jakarta Post. "Their mood, their anger and their frustration with terrorism represent the mood, anger and frustration of many of us nationwide.""

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