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Submission + - Slashdot Alum Samzenpus's Fractured Veil Hits Kickstarter

CmdrTaco writes: Long time Slashdot readers remember Samzenpus,who posted over 17,000 stories here, sadly crushing my record in the process! What you might NOT know is that he was frequently the Dungeon Master for D&D campaigns played by the original Slashdot crew, and for the last few years he has been applying these skills with fellow Slashdot editorial alum Chris DiBona to a Survival game called Fractured Veil. It's set in a post apocalyptic Hawaii with a huge world based on real map data to explore, as well as careful balance between PVP & PVE. I figured a lot of our old friends would love to help them meet their kickstarter goal and then help us build bases and murder monsters! The game is turning into something pretty great and I'm excited to see it in the wild!

Comment Re: But (Score 1) 27

Other than some irrelevant infectious organisms that tend to tag team with tumors, I would guess that if you have removed the tumor(s) and identified them and are confident they are gone, then you should be pleased. Some people need several days of bed rest if the tumors are particularly nasty, others not long at all

A biopsy is not necessarily the entire tumor:

biopsy /bäps/
noun
an examination of tissue removed from a living body to discover the presence, cause, or extent of a disease.

To state it differently, a small chunk of the tumor can be removed and then examined to see how best to treat the remainder of the tumor. Taking a biopsy can be done in a much less invasive manner than excising the entire tumor.

Comment Re:But (Score 1) 27

But if you have already removed the tumor and put its cells under the microscope, does it really matter which is which?

Yes. They have not necessarily removed the entire tumor. This could be useful in examining a biopsy to see how to treat what's left.

United Kingdom

'Boaty McBoatface' Polar Ship Named After Attenborough Despite Less Votes (bbc.com) 232

The UK's 200 Million Euro polar research ship won't be called Boaty McBoatface. Instead, the new ship will be called RRS (Royal Research Ship) Sir David Attenborough. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) had originally planned to name the new ship via an online poll. In all fairness, RRS Sir David Attenborough did pick up a few votes, though in terms of popularity nothing came close to Boaty McBoatface (it earned over 124,000 votes). "We want a name that lasts longer than a social-media news cycle and reflects the serious nature of the science it will be doing," said Jo Johnson, the U.K. Science minister. BBC reports: While the polar ship itself will not be named Boaty McBoatface, one of its remotely operated sub-sea vehicles will be named Boaty in recognition of the vote. James Hand, who first suggested the flippant moniker, said he was pleased the name would "live on."

Comment SeeClickFix (Score 1) 159

Raleigh, NC, uses SeeClickFix, supposedly.

One road issue I entered (with a picture) was just ignored until it aged out of the system. They're doing a city wide resurfacing program to address multiple road issues, but it would have been nice to get that response instead of Jack Squat.

I put another request in for tree servicing (as required by law) and nothing happened on it for three months. I finally called the city directly and the issue was taken care of within two days. Again, it would have been nice to be told "hey you need to call so-and-so" instead of having to hunt that down myself, since (I think) they advertised this application as the way to submit issues to them.

Someone has to be monitoring these apps or they are just useless to the citizens. They are, however, useful for a limited time to the City Council since people can vent into the void (the app), but that only works until people realize the app requests are ignored.

Comment Re:Object lesson from the stock market (Score 1) 198

Cancer is a tough disease and, sometimes, the treatments are rougher on the patient than the cure. Chemotherapy impairs your ability to think coherently. You're like the dog in the movie "Up!" ('Next quarter we'll release the Uber Widget to prepare out markets for... SQUIRREL!!!'), I don't know if Steve Jobs availed himself of chemotherapy toward the end, but you can rest assured that he laid out his vision for the management team before he shuffled off this mortal coil; he was too much of a control freak (in the great sense) not to.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin-Based Drug Market Silk Road Thriving With $2 Million In Monthly Sales 498

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Every day or so of the last six months, Carnegie Mellon computer security professor Nicolas Christin has crawled and scraped Silk Road, the Tor- and Bitcoin-based underground online market for illegal drug sales. Now Christin has released a paper (PDF) on his findings, which show that the site's business is booming: its number of sellers, who offer everything from cocaine to ecstasy, has jumped from around 300 in February to more than 550. Its total sales now add up to around $1.9 million a month. And its operators generate more than $6,000 a day in commissions for themselves, compared with around $2,500 in February. Most surprising, perhaps, is that buyers rate the sellers on the site as relatively trustworthy, despite the fact that no real identities are used. Close to 98% of ratings on the site are positive."

Comment Some Simple Rules (Score 1) 1127

I worked at Apple as a contractor and as an employee for thirteen years, and it was--hands-down--THE BEST at administering diversity. And I say that as one of the few black people who worked there. The top-to-bottom attitude that over-arched everything was that if you're not thinking about our customers, you aren't doing your job. Management decided that it wanted a diverse, welcoming, vibrant workplace and put policies in place that made the goal attainable. If you were there, it was because you had something to contribute and sexuality, gender, race, religion, and physical or emotional challenges were secondary to your ability to get the job done the way Apple's customers expected it to be done. The policy was enforced strictly. Orientation and performance review targets reinforced the culture. As with the secrecy policy after Steve Jobs's return, all an employee had to do was stick with the guidelines, and they could expect an exciting, fulfilling experience.

That's not to say that things at Apple were perfect. One manager decided to release a pictorial chart of his organization. His diversity problems were apparent to everyone but him. Workplace romances are not unheard of. Still, the things I learned from the experience of working at Apple have stood me in good stead.

  Your co-worker as a fellow human being ALWAYS comes first;
  If you're thinking about anything other than doing your job while you're at work, you might be setting yourself up for a fall;
  Don't do anything that might distract your co-workers from achieving their goals and objectives.

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