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Comment This is quite common in India (Score 1) 372

by 140Mandak262Jamuna (#44569553) Attached to: New Tech Money, Same Old Problems
Almost all the tech companies in Bangalore, Chennai, Bombay and Pune do this. Not just for top techies, for their entire work force. This practice started ages ago when factories were built far from the city but with major work force coming from the city. So factories would build "quarters" for essential staff who had to come at all odd hours, and bus the workers in for day shifts. The bus fleets of big public sector companies in Bangalore like BEL, HMT, ITT, HAL etc used to be comparable or even bigger than the city bus systems. Further the city bus systems are notoriously over crowded and wont be able to handle peak loads of shift changes in big factories.
Space

Video Amateur Astronomer Bruce Berger Talks About Telescopes, Part II (Video) 31

Posted by Roblimo from the there-are-stars-that-are-famous-and-some-that-you-hardly-ever-hear-of dept.
Bruce Berger is an IT guy, but he's also an amateur astronomer who takes telescope selection and scope building extra-seriously. We ran a video interview with him yesterday. Today that interview continues, with more emphasis on telescope selection and purchasing. He mentions Orion, a telescope vendor he seems to respect, along with other sources for both new and used equipment. Which should you buy (or build): A reflector or a refractor telescope? Bruce talks about how you should make your selection based on what you want to view, your skill level, and how much time and/or money you have available.

Comment Limit Lawyer fees to the actual compensation (Score 3, Interesting) 212

The problem with these class action lawsuits is that, it is mostly started by lawyers. If they win or settle, they first take out all their, "costs" which is highly inflated. Wish some of the class members would sue their own lawyers for malpractice when the costs are inflated, fraudulently. That is a different line. But then they take their fee of 30% or 40% of the total award, regardless of how much is actually distributed to the claimants.

If the lawyer fees are limited to 30% of the amount actually distributed to the claimants, it would go a long way in creating an incentive for the lawyers to actually make sure the claimants get some money. Right now, once the settlement is done, they lawyers collect all their money and send a form letter to claimants and move on to the next target.

I think we should make lawyers subject to malpractice laws too when they usurp the right to represent a class of claimants. Due diligence in locating all possible claimants to the class, making sure they all get due compensation, making sure the costs are not inflated etc all should come under malpractice provisions. If the lawyers screw up, the claimants should be able to sue them for malpractice.

Comment The Dork Brothers! (Score 2, Insightful) 296

by Roblimo (#44562039) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Is There a Good Device Holster?

All tech holsters look like they were made by the Dork Brothers, AKA the guys who design bicycle helmets. So forget holsters. And we won't even talk about fanny packs. Barf. I carry a small over-the-shoulder "messenger-style" laptop case that happily holds my little 11.5" subnotebook, my smarty-pants phone, some odds and ends, and my .22 pistol (along with a couple of extra magazines).

Comment I died and was brought back to life (Score 5, Interesting) 351

by Roblimo (#44556847) Attached to: Neurologists Shine Light On Near-Death Experiences

I had a heart attack on Mar. 1, 2010. I stayed conscious, although in heavy pain. Got stents put in, was sent home on Mar. 4... and had congestive heart failure about 6 hours after I was out of the hospital. This time, my heart just plain stopped. I was dead. EMS dudes shocked me back to life and got me to the hospital where I was treated. I obviously survived.

But I was dead for between 3 and 4 minutes before the EMS crew got to me. No breathing, no heartbeat.

White lights and tunnels? No. Everything faded to black. That was it. Nothing to see, nothing to hear. No gods or angels. Just... nothing.

 
Space

Video Amateur Astronomer Bruce Berger Talks About Meteors and Telescopes (Video) 36

Posted by timothy from the how-to-see-stars-without-getting-hit-on-the-head dept.
Bruce Berger is an IT guy, but he's also an amateur astronomer who takes at least one aspect of astronomy more seriously than most sky-watchers. Not content with what he could buy when he first wanted a telescope of his own, Berger set out to make one -- it turned out so well, he says he'll never part with it, and he's made several others since, and taught many other people to do the same. In this pursuit, he's also been a long-time member of the Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston, including a stint as the group's president. (Berger's custom license plate reads "SCPMKR.") In the video below, though, I caught up with him in Maine between evenings watching this year's spectacular Perseid showers (and without any of his home-built scopes to hand), to give some insight about what would-be skywatchers should consider in looking at scopes. It's surprising just how good today's telescopes are for the money, but it's easy to be ripped off, too, or at least disappointed. (And besides avoiding department store junk, building your own is still Bruce's strongest advice.) Ed note: This Video is Part 1 of 2. Part 2 will run tomorrow.

Comment Re:Undo Gerrymandering? (Score 2) 93

by 140Mandak262Jamuna (#44525627) Attached to: Is New York City Ready For Digital Voting?

To Congressdorks: Remember Arab Spring. It can happen here.

Really? The way Occupy Wall Street succeeded? One important characteristic of Arab spring is having a few leaders, self-appointed mostly, who are recognized by many followers. These leaders represent their followers by proxy and leaders accumulate followers. In OWS you had All-Chiefs-and-no-Indians problem. The congress critters know it. They are not scared. The NRA has stood by them election after election, turning out votes repeatedly. That is the kind of track record you have to rake up if you want to be taken seriously.

Comment People are not ready for e-voting. (Score 3, Insightful) 93

by 140Mandak262Jamuna (#44524133) Attached to: Is New York City Ready For Digital Voting?
The electoral process must not only be fair, but also it should be very visibly fair. Otherwise the losing side will always accuse the other side of "fixing" elections. So the switch to e-voting requires the much harder work of persuading people that it is trustworthy. Other technical challenges are also very difficult. The voter should be able to verify that his/her vote is cast correctly and counted correctly. At the same time no one else, even with the cooperation of the voter, should be able to connect the vote cast to the voter. Voter not being able to prove how he/she voted is a fundamental requirement, without it people would buy/sell votes with confidence.
Space

Video Jon Oxer Talks About the ArduSats That are On the Way to ISS (Video) 17

Posted by Roblimo from the they-sang-the-hit-song-'hitching-a-ride'-all-the-way-into-space dept.
Two ArduSats were launched last week from Japan, along with an ISS resupply package, and on August 9 this payload is due to arrive at the International Space Station. Jon Oxer is a co-founder of Freetronics, a company that sells Arduino-based products, so he has a vested interest in ArduSat's success. He's also a major Free Software booster, which may be part of the reason he was at OSCON -- where Timothy Lord and his camcorder caught up with him. BTW: This is the same JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) launch that is carrying the first talking humanoid robot to go into space from Earth. So this launch is not only "a giant leap for robots," as Japanese robot Mirata famously said, but is also a good-sized step for Arduinos. And for CubeSats, too.
Security

Video Usenix and EFF Reps Talk About VW's Attempt to Suppress a Presentation (Video) 29

Posted by Roblimo from the even-if-everybody-knows-the-secret-it-is-still-a-secret dept.
You may have read about this on Slashdot: Three researchers were going to present a paper next week at the USENIX Security '13 conference about security holes they found in one of Volkswagen's anti-theft systems, but a British court said they couldn't. One of the presenters works at a British university, and the court may have jurisdiction over him. The other two are not U.K. residents, and the Usenix conference is being held in Washington D.C., so jurisdiction questions are flying thick and fast. Amusingly, whether the paper is published and presented or not, the security holes and crack codes it is supposed to contain have been available on the Internet for quite a while, so bad guys who want to learn about them most likely have done so already. Then, last week, we heard that one of the presenters was going to show up at the conference and possibly ignore the injunction. Meanwhile, USENIX co-executive director Casey Henderson and EFF intellectual property director Corynne McSherry talked with Slashdot's Timothy Lord via Zoom and discussed this situation, and how this sort of problem might be prevented in the future.

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