Comment I tried... (Score 5, Funny) 187
But they said there was now a $50 service fee in order for me to submit my bug. They said something about how fuel prices had gone up and they had no choice but to start charging the fee.
Ask Slashdot: What Do You Wish You'd Known Starting Your First "Real" Job? 583
itwbennett writes: ITworld's Josh Fruhlinger asked seasoned (and some not-so-seasoned) tech professionals what they wished they knew back when they were newly minted graduates entering the workforce. Perhaps not surprisingly, some of the best advice has more to do with soft skills than with tech skills. To wit: 'When [managers] say they are suggesting you do something, it's not really a suggestion — it is an order disguised as a suggestion. Plain-speaking is a lost art at big companies and corporate double talk is the name of the game.' What's your best piece of advice for the newest among you?
Comment My favorite part (Score 1) 79
Did Guistra get the contracts?
Duh.
Comment Re:Oh, please, no more... (Score 0) 54
I came here for ponies.
Slashdot got bad. The ponies are the stallions of what was right about this place. Yet they still choose not to return.
I will return next year, in seek of ponies.
Comment Re:The cost of college in the usa is to high and t (Score 1) 145
to
too
Not being a Grammar Nazi, just pointing out how such an error can completely null the point you're trying to make (and null that to any others listening). Some others:
Effect and affect
It's and its
Where and were (this mind boggles me, I suppose it is a West Coast accent thing, I have no idea)
Don't let your argument be straw-manned for the sake of a few basic errors; it happens again and again.
Comment Re:Universal wants me to use YouTube more (Score 1) 117
The CD is still very much alive, in my house anyway.
At this moment in time, I don't see myself ever paying for a digital music download, call me old fashioned but I need something tangible when it comes to music. (Though I do admit to downloading and paying for games through Steam and Good Old Games.)
To me, the CD represents excellent value for money, especially if I am paying around £10 UK for a piece of music I may well end up repeatedly enjoying over the next few decades.
Your CDs will not function a few decades from now.
Comment Re:Mouse brains are tiny. (Score 2) 109
They are smaller no doubt, but in both cases the blood brain barrier is just beneath the surface of the skull
No it's not. It's formed by the endothelium (thin layer one cell thick that is in direct contact with the cerebral blood stream) on the smallest capillaries that penetrate deep into the brain matter.
Comment Re:Science is fine, science-bashing is on the rise (Score 1) 320
So why is scientific error in the news so often? The submission skimmed right past it: public relations sabotage by political and commercial interests who stand to gain by casting doubt on science. Global warming deniers, anti-vaccine nuts, anti-evolution zealots, nontraditional medicine snake-oil salesmen
And no, I don't have any rigorous data to support my claim. But according to the submission, I should treat all data as baloney and make my arguments based on truthiness alone.
There's nothing like that in the submission, why don't you read the articles linked rather than spout off "ermahgerd its a republican smear campaing!!!!!!1111one" like all the other idiots with their heads in the sand.
Comment Re:seems about the same (Score 2) 320
Funding is moving away from small, easily reproducible studies towards huge, billion dollar projects that can only be performed in one or two highly specialized research institutes. Even if you have the resources to replicate any study you want, some questions require following through an experiment for decades (pitch drop experiment), which limits reproducibility.
Comment Re:Not science (Score 1) 320
It is not just bad scientists or media/politicians using scientists for their own purposes. It is also good scientists, working on high-level topics, deciding to cut corners/falsify results to announce major results that turn out to be false to get their paper out first.
Comment Re:But that's the problem... (Score 2) 320
It is difficult to give exact figures because there are so far few formal studies quantifying the extent of the problem. We know that for example psychology retractions have quadrupled since 1989, a rate higher than the growth in the number of publications in the same period. It is also likely that most scientific misconduct remains uncovered or unacknowledged. It seems that few scientists admit misconduct, but many more know someone else who is committing it:
"an average of 1.97% of scientists admitted to having "fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once – a serious form of misconduct by any standard – and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behaviour of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices." (from http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/sep/13/scientific-research-fraud-bad-practice)
Ask Slashdot: Why Does Science Appear To Be Getting Things Increasingly Wrong? 320
azaris writes: Recent revelations of heavily policy-driven or even falsified science have raised concern in the general public, but especially in the scientific community itself. It's not purely a question of political or commercial interference either (as is often claimed when it comes to e.g. climate research) — scientists themselves are increasingly incentivized to game the system for improved career prospects, more funding, or simply because they perceive everyone else to do it, too. Even discounting outright fraud or manipulation of data, the widespread use of methodologies known to be invalid plagues many fields and is leading to an increasing inability to reproduce recent findings (the so-called crisis of reproducibility) that puts the very basis of our reliance on scientific research results at risk. Of course, one could claim that science is by nature self-correcting, but the problem appears to be getting worse before it gets better.
Is it time for more scientists to speak out openly about raising the level of transparency and honesty in their field?
Is it time for more scientists to speak out openly about raising the level of transparency and honesty in their field?
Submission + - Google's Solar-Drone Internet Tests About To Take Off (itworld.com)
itwbennett writes: Titan Aerospace, the drone-maker acquired last year by Google to help realize the company's ambitious plans to provide Internet access to remote areas via solar-powered drones, recently applied for and received two licenses from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to run tests over the next six months.
Submission + - Algorithm Clones Facial Expressions...And Pastes Them Onto Other Faces
KentuckyFC writes: Various researchers have attempted to paste an expression from one face on to another but so far with mixed results. Problems arise because these algorithms measure the way a face distorts when it changes from a neutral expression to the one of interest. They then attempt to reproduce the same distortion on another face. That's fine if the two faces have similar features. But when the faces differ in structure, as most do, this kind of distortion looks unnatural. Now a Chinese team has solved the problem with an algorithm that divides a face into different regions for the mouth, eyes, nose, etc and measures the distortion in each area separately. It then distorts the target face in these specific regions while ensuring the overall proportions remain realistic. At the same time, it decides what muscle groups must have been used to create these distortions and calculates how this would change the topology of the target face with wrinkles, dimples and so on. It then adds the appropriate shadows to make the expression realistic. The result is a way to clone an expression and paste it onto another entirely different face. The algorithm opens the way to a new generation of communication techniques in which avatars can represent the expressions as well as the voices of humans. The film industry could also benefit from an easy way to paste the expressions of actors on to the cartoon characters they voice.
Submission + - Why Does Science Appear to Be Getting Things Increasingly Wrong?
azaris writes: Recent revelations of heavily policy-driven or even falsified science have raised concern in the general public, but especially in the scientific community itself. It's not purely a question of political or commercial interference either (as is often claimed when it comes to e.g. climate research) — scientists themselves are increasingly incentivised to game the system for improved career prospects, more funding, or simply because they perceive everyone else to do it, too. Even discounting outright fraud or manipulation of data, the widespread use of methodologies known to be invalid plagues many fields and is leading to an increasing inability to reproduce recent findings (the so-called crisis of reproducibility) that puts the very basis of our reliance on scientific research results at risk. Of course, one could claim that science is by nature self-correcting, but the problem appears to be getting worse before it gets better.
Is it time for more scientists to speak out openly about raising the level of transparency and honesty in their field?
Is it time for more scientists to speak out openly about raising the level of transparency and honesty in their field?
