Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Brewing Implications (Score 1) 61

Wow. This has some implications for the craft/homebrew yeast companies. Control over reproduction rate and when it occurs at a more granular level... Although this can be controlled by providing food and adequate temperature, this may be something they could use. I'm thinking of these types of businesses:

http://www.wyeastlab.com/

http://www.whitelabs.com/

Oh, and Left Coast Represent!

Comment Re:The laid off weren't just in non-core businesse (Score 1) 138

No wonder all my TAC support calls are handled by Indians. Not that I've every had a problem, but I just wondered why. I thought they were routing calls overseas, not having H1-B workers in the US. Granted, this is motivated by profit, but you think an American company like Cisco would be interested in helping our own economy by hiring local... You know with this 10-15% unemployment issue could be handled better if we didn't just approve more H1-Bs to come over and take our high tech jobs. *frowns*

M

Comment Let's leave the 90s behind... (Score 1) 25

The only "wearable computer" I want is a HUD in my spectacles. Wearable computing is not a new idea... Shit, the Dick Tracy watch was imagined before wearable computing was even a catch phrase. Let's call it something different, though... Wearable computers makes me think of the Tron Guy. The best one I have heard so far is "Mobile Computing."

For some real next level shit, check out Ubiquitous Computing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing . That's _really_ the future. ;-)

M

Comment Re:Every person's right (Score 1) 838

I live in Oregon, and our death with dignity act is one of the reasons I want to die here. To dispel some myths that anyone can use Dr. assisted suicide:

a. You have to be able to take a regiment of dozens of pills on your own. (People here are trying to change that as some debilitating diseases affect this ability.)
b. You have to have a terminal disease and a physician has to sign off that you will die in the next six months.
c. Your doctor, you, and two witnesses need to sign (one of the witnesses cannot be related to you, be in your will, be your doctor, or be a health care professional) paperwork to verify the procedure.
d. The patient must have sound mental judgement at the time of the decision.
e. The patient may rescind at any time.

There have been no known cases of abuse of this law to date.

If you want to know more, educate yourself by starting here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Dyrw71DOtLk .

Comment Re:...and develop iOS on their iPads? (Score 1) 577

Mod parent up and great grand parent up.

Apple just changed how colleges have to present their products. There's requirements like: each Apple product must have X' of dedicated floor space, store must sell $65K+ product a year, must have product displayed in high traffic area. We had a small shop that sold to incoming students and was there as more of a service.

So we dropped selling Apple products on campus just as all the students are bringing them on campus. Smart Apple. Real fucking smart.

We still bought a couple hundred Macs for our annual replacement, but we did it through standard purchasing rather than being a reseller.... We now purchase little Mac Mini servers for departmental servers instead of Xserves. We still rack 'em since Apple hasn't embraced virtualization at all... They stopped selling XRAIDs all together. They are getting out of commodity hardware and more into media delivery. The iPad is a consumption device and for most users it's probably sufficient.

They also just announced not needing to have a computer to sync and backup your iPads and iPhones and iGizmos, so yeah, they're getting away from most users using Mac OS X. I don't thing MacOS will ever go away, but it will most likely be a "development" kit or whatever.
 

Comment Re:Fuck yeah (Score 1) 123

AC's got a point, but people live in different circumstances in different parts of their lives.

When I graduated college, my Dad said, "Go to where you can get a job." Well, it was 2002 and there was another tech slump, so I was applying to jobs as a recent graduate with much more qualified applicants in the pool. So I decided to move where I wanted to live. It took me a while, but I found good work as a network admin.

Plus a job isn't a life. That's the point the AC is making. You can find work anywhere. I'm serious. You just need the skills people want. My skill set is broad and not very deep (except for in CS/IT) so I can work in a lot of sectors. Life is way more than a job. And people that focus too much on their career lose balance and miss out on living life.

As a bonus for choosing my city before my job: I started my family after having a solid job in a place I wanted to live.

Comment Cheap (Score 1) 136

Google's smart.

Middle of nowhere, but close to Bend, OR which underwent a real estate boom and bust. So I'm imagining real estate is dirt cheap. Lot's of outdoor sports, breweries, and boutique shops in Bend, so Googlers or Googlites or Googlies will have a place to romp. Not to mention the weed is fantastic from Eugene...

As well, this the east side of the Cascades, so there are many microclimates ranging from high desert to rain forest to lush valleys. Night time is always frigid. Lots of wind power access.

Smart.

Comment Walled Gardens (Score 1) 1

iOS and console manufacturers like control and money. They _want_ to sell games that people play for 5 minutes and then ditch. They lower the opportunity cost to lower than retail stores, but nothing can compete with free. They're scared it will mess up their business models. I just don't see homebrew games happening despite really wanting them to.

I homebrew beer, and I can only distribute it for free (law just passed in Oregon a few weeks ago.) Before then I wasn't legally allowed to bring homebrew out of my house to serve to someone... for free. I'm sure the Oregon Liquor Control Commission lobbied against that law.

http://gov.oregonlive.com/bill/2011/SB444/

M

Slashdot Top Deals

One way to make your old car run better is to look up the price of a new model.

Working...