An anonymous reader writes "I received a state university degree in Computer Science. After graduation, I immediately took jobs in QA to pay the bills while waiting for other opportunities, which of course turned out to be as naive as it sounds. I've been working QA for several years now and my resume does not show the right kind of work experience for programming. On the whole I'm probably no better as a a candidate than a CS graduate fresh out of college. But all of the job postings out in the real world are looking for people with 2-5 years of programming work experience. How do you build up those first 2 years of experience? What kinds of companies hire programmers with no prior experience?"

fprintf writes "A recent NY Times article discusses links between personal music players and hearing loss. This is not anything new; personally, I have hearing loss from listening to my Sony Walkman cassette player many years ago. However, given the widespread use of the personal music players, I see people using earbuds everywhere; is there a technical solution to the potential danger?"

An anonymous reader writes "Since the last semester of college I've been working as a first line tech support agent. At first it was just a way to earn some extra money; then it became a way to scrape by until I could find myself a real job. By now (almost two years in), it's beginning to feel like a curse. The problem I'm having is that no matter how many jobs I apply for, and no matter how well-written my applications are, I can't seem to get further than the first interview. For some reason it seems a lot of employers will completely overlook my degree in computer engineering, the fact that I can show them several personal projects that I've worked on, and that I can show them that I clearly possess the skills they are looking for. I've had several employers tell me to my face, and in rejection letters, that my 'professional background' isn't what they're looking for even when they've clearly stated that they're looking for recent graduates. In fact, a few have even told me that they decided against hiring me simply because I've worked in tech support at a call center for the last two years. I'm wondering if others have experienced similar problems and if there are any good ways to get employers to realize that my experience from tech support is actually a good thing and not a sign of incompetence."

Strudelkugel writes "The LA Times and others are reporting the music industry is working with SanDisk to try unrestricted music files on microSD memory cards to improve sales of physical media: 'In addition to music, the slotMusic cards will come pre-loaded with other things, such as liner notes, album-cover artwork and sometimes video.' The important part: 'The music on slotMusic comes without copyright protection, so it can be used on almost all computers, mobile phones and music players — but it won't play on an iPod, which doesn't have a micro-SD memory slot. It has one gigabyte of memory, and the music tracks are played back at high quality.' Could it be the labels have finally recognized that providing features and convenience to customers is preferable to suing them?" Most computers also don't have microSD slots; according to EMI's press release, there will be a "tiny USB sleeve" packaged with each card, and the "high quality" format means up to 320kbps MP3. From the given description, it seems like it would be no harder to transfer the tracks to an iPod (via a computer) than to most other players.

An anonymous reader writes "Ray Beckerman, known for questioning the RIAAs legal tactics (also for frequent Slashdot contributions), was sued by the RIAA over his blog Recording Industry vs. People. In question is the 'vexatious' claims that the RIAAs legal tactics is a 'sham.' Beckerman is quoted as saying that the litigation against him is 'frivolous and irresponsible.'"

CaryTheSane writes "After six years, it's finally time for my old Pentium 4 to retire to web browsing duties, and I want a new gaming PC. I'd like to build my own this time, and I've scoped out most of the parts I want for a moderately high-end system. Which online vendors have you used before that you trust for parts? I've dealt with NewEgg, and I like them, but I live in Tennessee, a state in which they have a presence. Unfortunately, this means they have to hit me up for 9.5% sales tax. That really eats into my system build budget, so I'm looking for alternatives. I'd like to use the fewest number of vendors (preferably only one), so that all the parts arrive at the same time and I don't have one part's 30-day return policy run out while I'm waiting for parts from another vendor to show up. So, which reliable and economical parts vendors do you recommend?" Conversely, are there any you'd recommend avoiding?

NASA scientists have discovered a way to craft very large mirrors using carbon nanotubes, some epoxy, a little bit of aluminum, and large quantities of lunar dust. They say the technique will allow the construction of massive telescopes on the moon without the expense and risk of transporting the mirrors from Earth. Douglas Rabin of the Goddard Space Flight Center is quoted saying, "Our method could be scaled-up on the moon, using the ubiquitous lunar dust, to create giant telescope mirrors up to 50 meters in diameter." While this breakthrough was relatively cheap, NASA is currently offering up to $10 million for other good lunar research projects.

XaN-ASMoDi writes "Yesterday saw the 30th anniversary of the very first broadcast of Douglas Adam's seminal work, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", to mark this, Mark Vernon has written an article for the BBC News Magazine on the answer to The Question. 'It's 30 years since Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy made its debut on BBC radio, but its most famous mystery is still waiting to be resolved...'"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "We all know that false or misleading science headlines are all too common these days and that misleading media combined with an apathetic and undereducated public lead to widespread ignorance. But the real question is, how can this trend be reversed? At a session at the recent AAAS meeting, a study was discussed indicating that what matters most is how the information is portrayed. While people are willing to defer to experts on matters of low concern, for things that affect them directly, such as breast cancer or childhood diseases, expertise only counts for as much as giving off a 'sense of honesty and openness,' and that it matters far less than creating a sense of empathy in deciding who people will listen to. In other words, it's not enough to merely report on it as an expert. You need to make sure your report exudes a sense of honesty, openness, empathy, and maybe even a hint of humor."

Ponca City, We Love You writes "Researchers at Monash University, in Australia, have found a process to coat natural fibers such as wool, silk, and hemp that will automatically remove food, grime, and even red-wine stains by coating their fibers with titanium dioxide nanocrystals, which break down food and dirt in sunlight. Titanium dioxide is a strong photocatalyst and in the presence of ultraviolet light and water vapor, it forms hydroxyl radicals, which oxidize, or decompose, organic matter. "These nanocrystals cannot decompose wool and are harmless to skin," says organic chemist and nanomaterials researcher Walid Daoud. Titanium dioxide can also destroy pathogens such as bacteria in the presence of sunlight by breaking down the cell walls of the microorganisms making self-cleaning fabrics especially useful in hospitals and other medical settings."

Paul Bourke writes "Every year the POVRay rendering community run a short code competition. The challenge is create an image using a limited number of bytes, normally just 256. This year the competition required the artist to create an animation rather than just an image. The winning entries are now online where you can see what can be created for a meager 512 bytes."

theodp writes "Starting November 12, The One Laptop Per Child Project will sell its affordable XO laptop to Americans for a brief period of time, but there's a slight catch: U.S. buyers must purchase two computers — one for their own child and one for a child in the developing world — for a total cost of $399. 'Staff members of the laptop project were concerned that American children might try the pared-down machines and find them lacking compared to their Apple, Hewlett-Packard or Dell laptops. Then, in this era of immediate global communications, they might post their criticisms on Web sites and blogs read around the world, damaging the reputation of the XO Laptop, the project staff worried. So the laptop project sponsored focus-group research with American children, ages 7 to 11, at the end of August. The results were reassuringly positive.'"

Joe Barr writes "Fork the kernel? Are you crazy? A blog entry on InfoWorld.com urged the Linux community to fork the kernel into desktop and server versions because, according to the author, all Linus Torvalds cares about is big iron. Sorry, but that's both wrong and stupid."

An anonymous reader sends us a Reuters story on a statement yesterday by Franco Frattini, the EU Justice and Security commissioner, who believes that Internet searches for bomb-making instructions should be blocked across the European Union. The commissioner "intend[s] to carry out a clear exploring exercise with the private sector... on how it is possible to use technology to prevent people from using or searching dangerous words like bomb, kill, genocide or terrorism..."