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Comment Postal Return & Drive Thru (Score 1) 547

Free postal return envelopes would help.
Drive-thru returns would help.
Browsing and renting online would help.
Maybe even a drive-through pickup for online rentals.

If there is a drive-thru fast food in the parking lot, it can be a two-fer
Make a deal with the fast food joint to let online rentals be picked up from their drive-thru window.

The reason I won't rent DVDs any more isn't that I can't find a movie in the store, or enjoy it.

It is the hassle of returning the DVD and late fees and all that.

Comment Like Algebra 1 (Score 1) 767

Less than half the kids in high school can grasp algebra 1. There is nothing you can do to make them "get it" - their brain either works that way, or it doesn't. Algebra, Geometry, and Programming seem self-evident to me. On the other hand, I can't draw, and dropped out of English 101 on six separate occasions. Metaphors, similes and analyzing literature are just a ridiculous to me - that stuff makes no sense at all.

Comment Read Books, then Criticize (Score 1) 196

Code Complete by Steve McConnell
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Kent Beck, Martin Fowler and Akira Hirasawa

Get a colleague to read books and then criticize each other's code.
It gets amazing results.

I had the same problem, no senior level programmers to teach the craft. We had once per week lunch meetings and had one programmer show his work, and the others criticize. Our code became much clearer and our bug counts went way down.
Good Luck!

Comment Less US Jobs under Present "System" (Score 1) 1167

I own a small IT outsourcing shop.
Work comes in a trickle or a deluge, no in-between.
There will be overtime hours worked, it is the nature the beast.

It is a competitive business, I cannot put in higher bids and expect to get any business.

Since each hour of US overtime would be a large loss to me, I just cannot afford to do it. I will not do it.

I was using two solutions to this:
1. US coders working on Salary + Bonus, where working more = more bonus.
2. Offshore coders on straight hourly wages.

The recession hit, and I could not afford the high base salaries for the US guys.
I laid off 8 US coders - after exhausting the business accounts and my personal savings.
I still have the offshore guys. They stuck with me even though their hours went in half.

Business has picked up, but I have not hired any more US coders.
I would love to hire more guys in the US.

However!
I have not managed to afford to get health insurance for my family yet - next year looks good for getting that going again.
Obamacare gives me nightmares: Absolute requirement to provide unaffordable care for US workers.
Mandatory overtime bonus pay = too risky to depend on US workers for projects with low profitablity - and this economy is only producing low profitability projects so far.

The answer to all these problems is to go make more money and not assume any more risk.
And that means not hiring any US coders, although I would really love to do that.

Comment The old system is fine, er wait... (Score 1) 341

Well, it would be fine if we actually followed it.
Our government was designed to be limited, and citizen juries are designed to be a check and balance against tyrannical laws.

The career politicians have slipped free from the enumerated powers and the 10th amendment.
No laws were changed, they just found the system to limiting, so reinterpreted it.
Citizen juries are told they cannot judge laws -- and this is the sole purpose of citizen juries - consent of the governed.

We have a sweet little system, too bad the insiders have stolen it from us.
There are no public servants - we are all servants to the public sector.
It was not supposed to be like this...

Comment Android? (Score 1) 1348

A front door assault on Windows is not getting anywhere.
Android is proving wildly popular for phones.
If Android can prove as popular for tablets.
If Tablets can make laptops obsolete
If both those things happen, then Android could get somewhere.
It will take a platform shift to displace Windows as King of the Hill.
Image

"Super Monkey" Security Force Used At Commonwealth Games 66

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has increased the strength of its monkey security team for the Commonwelath Games. The large langur monkeys are used to scare away smaller, more troublesome primate species from sporting arenas and food stalls. "From tomorrow onwards we will increase the number of langurs from 28 to 38. The additional langurs will take care of the Games venues and other important areas," an NDMC official told the Press Trust of India news agency. Sounds like a good idea until the monkeys learn how to throw barrels.

Comment Re:Explains why old ppl vote Republican... (Score 1) 122

Perhaps the "old people" see past the rhetoric about "saving the planet" or "helping the needy"
Perhaps the "old people" see that politicians are douchebags who buy votes using other peoples money.
Perhaps the "old people" see that politicians give YOUR money to bureaucrats and unions where 80% is wasted before making it to the "worthy" cause.
Perhaps the "old people" see that when the money finally gets to the "worthy cause" the recipients spend it wastefully, because it is "OPM" ("Other People's Money")

Perhaps the "old people" are just mean when they believe politicians are only after money and power.

Perhaps the "old people" are right.

Now, GET OFF MY LAWN!
Science

Aussie Scientists Find Coconut-Carrying Octopus 205

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from an AP report: "Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal. The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot. ... 'I was gobsmacked,' said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. 'I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh.'"
Earth

Yellowstone Supervolcano Larger Than First Thought 451

drewtheman writes "New studies of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park shows the plume and the magma chamber under the volcano are larger than first thought and contradicts claims that only shallow hot rock exists. University of Utah research professor of geophysics Robert Smith led four separate studies that verify a plume of hot and molten rock at least 410 miles deep that rises at an angle from the northwest."

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