Paktu - Slashdot User

Ballmer Turns To Geeks For Salvation 370

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday February 08 2011, @02:10PM
from the good-luck-with-that dept.

jfruhlinger writes "One of the critiques of Steve Ballmer as Microsoft CEO is that, as someone who came up through sales, he doesn't really get what running an innovative tech company is about. With the company board starting to question his performance — he didn't get his bonus last year because of the Kin debacle, for instance — it appears that Ballmer is planning to install engineers in high places to turn the company around."

Comment: Gigabit since 2004 in dorms at U of Minnesota (Score 2, Interesting) 107

by Paktu on Thursday October 21 2010, @09:42PM (#33982106) Attached to: Google Testing High-Speed Fiber Network At Stanford Res Halls

When I was a freshman there, they installed gigabit ethernet in all of the dorms. This was way back in 2004. I can't find anything that old, but here's a source from 2006 to confirm it: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2075070,00.asp

Comment: Credit cards blocked in Africa? (Score 1) 146

by Paktu on Sunday April 25 2010, @03:19AM (#31972166) Attached to: Bridging the Digital Divide In Uganda, By Freight

"Most merchants and payment gateway providers automatically block all credit cards from Africa"
Would someone knowledgable explain the reasoning behind this? I know Africa has more than its share of scammers, but why couldn't a merchant simply set rules requiring the funds to clear, a minimum amount of time between the purchase date and ship date, etc.? Why is an outright ban needed?

Comment: Re:Indian Copyright Bill (Score 1, Insightful) 192

by Paktu on Saturday April 24 2010, @02:36AM (#31965178) Attached to: Indian Copyright Bill Declares Private, Personal Copying "Fair Dealing"

I suspect I'm going to get modded down for saying this, but...
You might be able to make the case that Indians work hard, but are they actually productive. I read one anecdote after another about terrible performance from Indian web designers, programmers, call center workers, etc.

I am very reluctant to believe that Indians are somehow inherently "better workers" than Americans.

Comment: Carlson School- the douchiest place on earth (Score 1) 103

by Paktu on Monday April 12 2010, @06:40PM (#31823864) Attached to: Handling Money Brings Pain Relief

All I needed to know about the Carlson School of Management I learned from Urbandictionary (third definition)

Who Should Own Your Smartphone? 129

Posted by timothy on Wednesday March 24 2010, @05:13PM
from the still-waiting-on-that-iphone dept.

snydeq writes "The great corporate barrier against employees using personal smartphones in business contexts has been breached, writes InfoWorld's Galen Gruman. According to a recent report from Forrester Research, half of the smartphones in use among US and Canadian businesses are not company-issued equipment. In fact, some organizations are even subsidizing employees' service plans as an easy way to avoid the procurement and management headaches of an increasingly standard piece of work equipment. Gruman discusses the pros and cons of going with a subsidized, employee-owned smartphone plan, which is part of a larger trend that sees IT loosening its grip on 'dual-use' devices, including laptops and PCs."

California To Create Public Animal Abuser Registry 404

Posted by timothy on Friday March 05 2010, @09:18PM
from the good-fences-make-good-neighbors dept.

An anonymous reader writes "California legislators are moving forward with plans to create a public, online, animal abuser registry identical in function to the public sex offender registry. Is this the slippery slope to further government mandated lists and registries?"

Comment: drugs are bad, mmkay? (Score 5, Insightful) 147

by Paktu on Sunday February 28 2010, @01:36PM (#31307118) Attached to: Open Gov Tracker Reveals Best US Open Government Ideas

The digital letdown was when many of the top ideas generated by the process were to legalize marijuana

Or maybe that's because it's a worthwhile and viable policy objective.

Citibank Cancels Bank Account of Objectionable Blogger 265

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday February 25 2010, @02:39PM
from the there's-gotta-be-more-to-this dept.

Keith found this story about Citibank blocking a website's bank account after deciding that the site's blog contained questionable content. I guess it's up to a bank to decide whom to do business with, but this is pretty crazy.

Real-Time, Movie-Quality CGI For Games 184

Posted by kdawson on Monday February 22 2010, @07:54PM
from the we-can-animate-it-for-you-wholesale dept.

An anonymous reader writes "An Intel-owned development team can now render CGI-quality graphics in real time. 'Their video clips show artists pulling together 3D elements like a jigsaw puzzle (see for example this video starting at about 3:38), making movie-level CG look as easy as following a recipe.' They hope that the simplicity of 'Project Offset' could ultimately give them the edge in the race to produce real-time graphics engines for games."