Comment From your Therapist: (Score 1) 187
WTF!!! We had a raid last night, where were you?
Comment Uwe Boll FTW!!! (Score 1) 298
They should let Uwe Boll direct it, just for the hilarity of watching him box everyone that hates it.
Sam Raimi To Direct World of Warcraft Movie 298
Decado writes "Blizzard has just announced that Sam Raimi is to direct the new World of Warcraft movie. 'Raimi, acclaimed director of the blockbuster Spider-Man series, will bring the forces of the Horde and the Alliance to life in epic live-action film. Charles Roven's Atlas Entertainment will produce alongside Raimi's Stars Road Entertaiment.' While it's still early in the process, does this offer hope that someone might finally make a good movie based on a game IP?"
Comment We'll save so much money by hiring Russian coders (Score 1) 324
Flashback to a meeting with a bunch of douchebag MBAs 4 years ago at Goldman Sachs:
MBA Dbag 1: "We'll save so much money by moving these coding jobs overseas to Russia! American coders are getting too expensive!"
MBA Dbag2: "I don't see any drawbacks. Let's do it. As long as they can't outsource us playing phonetag and having meetings with each other all day, right?"
MBA Dbag 1: "We'll save so much money by moving these coding jobs overseas to Russia! American coders are getting too expensive!"
MBA Dbag2: "I don't see any drawbacks. Let's do it. As long as they can't outsource us playing phonetag and having meetings with each other all day, right?"
Comment You can take this process and shove it (Score 2, Interesting) 436
and they're less likely to conform to organizational development processes and coding standards.
A lot of times, the "Cowboy Coding" is more effective because the "development processes and coding standards" were implemented and enforced by phonetaggers who have never written a productive line of code in their entire lives. Those who are inclined to break them, naturally, are more productive and seem more effective - despite the grumblings of the phonetaggers that they are "unmanageable".
But, really - Does "management" have any right to blame them? They spent the last decade proving to every developer the idea that if you allow yourself or your work to be commoditized, we will ship you or your job overseas where it can be done cheaper. And "development processes and coding standards" are usually implemented with the intent of "commoditizing", to a certain degree, the work of coding....and you're going to blame the *developers* for rejecting that? Middle management in the US basically *created* the environment that forced developers to either become "Cowboys" or to compete with people making $4/hr overseas.
Speaking on behalf of coders everywhere - You can take your "development processes and coding standards" and shove it - I'll keep my job and let you grumble under your breath about how I am "unmanageable", thank you.
Comment Chocolate (Score 1) 902
Keep a small supply of chocolate (I find that the mini-Doves work best) with you at work for "desk-calls". People will be more inclined to communicate with you early and often (as opposed to after a huge disaster has started) if you bring them chocolate.
Another tip: Be specific when you are explaining you might have to deflect a call. "I have to fix something for Bob right away but I'll see you as soon as I'm done." is much better than just saying "Sorry, I'm really busy and I can't help you right now.".
Another tip: Be specific when you are explaining you might have to deflect a call. "I have to fix something for Bob right away but I'll see you as soon as I'm done." is much better than just saying "Sorry, I'm really busy and I can't help you right now.".
Comment Oh please (Score 1) 716
Again and again...why does *no one* understand the simple principle of CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION?
The teachers may have inflated the kids grades...what if you were one of those teachers? And the low-income kids really needed that $500? I would do the same thing; Give everyone an A, whether they earned it or not...would not want to be responsible for them starving...
Comment Easiest and Best Solution (Score 1) 604
I was in a similar situation, but where "conflict of interest" was the issue at hand instead of IP/Copyright issues.
Do what I did; Get someone who *didn't* work with you guys to be your "frontman", and have him do the sales...and even say he coded it. Shut up and don't tell the people you used to work with what you're doing and you can't get caught.
Do what I did; Get someone who *didn't* work with you guys to be your "frontman", and have him do the sales...and even say he coded it. Shut up and don't tell the people you used to work with what you're doing and you can't get caught.
Comcast Has 30 Days To 'Fess Up About P2P Throttling 262
negRo_slim writes with some welcome news from Ars Technica: "Comcast has 30 days to disclose the details of its 'unreasonable network management practices' to the Federal Communications Commission, the agency warned Wednesday morning as it released its full, 67-page Order. As FCC Chair Kevin Martin said it would, the Commission's Order rejects the ISP giant's insistence that its handling of peer-to-peer applications was necessary. 'We conclude that the company's discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet,' the agency declares." And from reader JagsLive comes news that Comcast has a different plan in place to deal with heavy bandwidth users: slow traffic for up to 20 minutes at a time to users who are grabbing the most bits.
Amateur Scientists Seek Fusion Reaction 401
ElvaWSJ writes "A small subculture of amateur physicists and science-fiction fans — fewer than 100 worldwide — are building working nuclear-fusion reactors at home. The designs are based on the work of Philo T. Farnsworth, an inventor of television, from the 1960s. Some of these hobbyists hope similar reactors can one day power the planet, but so far they consume more energy than they create."
The First Paper-Based Transistors 177
Roland Piquepaille found news of research out of Portugal that has resulted in the first paper-based transistors (the original article is less informative than Roland's blog). More precisely, they've made the first field effect transistors (FET) with a paper interstrate layer. According to the research team, such transistors offer the same level of performance as 'state-of-the-art, oxide-based thin film transistors produced on glass or crystalline silicon substrates.' Possible applications include disposable electronics devices, such as paper displays, smart labels, bio-applications or RFID tags. The research will be published in IEEE Electron Device Letters in September.
Submission + - Republican Bloggers vs. Reality?
TheGrapeApe writes: Apparently the article posted on Slashdot earlier today ("Nancy Pelosi vs. The Internet") positing that Pelosi wanted to clamp down on House Members using blogs caused enough of a stir to elicit an official response from Mike Capuano, the chairman of the House Franking Committee
First, the ONLY item we seek to address is LOOSENING existing rules to allow Members to post videos
As someone who follows politics, I found it a little hard to believe that Pelosi really wanted to stifle blogs as an outlet of political communication; Especially considering that her blog and on-line presence seems to generate quite a bit more traffic than that of her Republican counterpart.
Bizarre Properties of Glass Allow Creation of "Metallic Glass" 265
VindictivePantz writes to mention that scientists have discovered some bizarre properties of glass and are already applying that knowledge to create what is being called "metallic glass." "The breakthrough involved solving the decades-old problem of just what glass is. It has been known that that despite its solid appearance, glass and gels are actually in a 'jammed' state of matter — somewhere between liquid and solid — that moves very slowly. Like cars in a traffic jam, atoms in a glass are in something like suspended animation, unable to reach their destination because the route is blocked by their neighbors. So even though glass is a hard substance, it never quite becomes a proper solid, according to chemists and materials scientists."
Polar Robots to Explore the Arctic 98
Roland Piquepaille writes "It's now almost certain that the world's ice shelves are melting. And while satellites provide lots of data about their evolution, ground-based weather stations could be even more useful. But if scientists can no longer stay on fragile and volatile ice sheets, what can they do? They can use specially designed robots called SnoMotes developed by U.S. researchers. 'The SnoMotes work as a team, autonomously collaborating among themselves to cover all the necessary ground to gather assigned scientific measurements.' More importantly, a SnoMote is an 'expendable rover that wouldn't break a research team's bank if it were lost during an experiment,' according to the lead researcher." Reader coondoggie adds a link to another story on these robots at Network World.
Submission + - MS Word Metadata causes problems for 527 group
TheGrapeApe writes: Legally, 527 groups (remember the "Swiftboat" guys?) are forbidden by the Federal Election Commission to coordinate their efforts with any candidate or party groups in any way, shape or form. (And for good reason; They do not have to abide by the same strict standards of transparency in their operations that normal political groups do.) Unfortunately for Republican shadow group "Freedom's Watch", they forgot to remove metadata from a Microsoft Word document that they distributed to the press that seems to indicate that they did just that; Plainly visible in the document properties is the string "NRCC" or National Republican Congressional Committee — The official house campaign arm of the Republican party. Democratic party officials have filed a complaint with the FEC about the incident..
