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Comment We're still around (Score 1) 481

by cyberElvis (#55433311) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Where Do Old Programmers Go?

Many of us haven't gone anywhere. I guess it depends on your industry but I see plenty of older developers around my office. There is such a shortage of quality developers that I think the jobs will be there for the older generation (fingers crossed).

I am going to try to stay with it for now at 45, since I prefer to actually build things rather than just talk about it in meetings!

Age is just an mindset/attitude anyway.
If you love to learn and stay current, then you'll be fine.
Books

Judge Chin Says He Will Cut the Google Book Settlement 38

Posted by timothy from the why-not-horizontally dept.
Miracle Jones writes "In a move that has shocked the publishing world, Judge Denny Chin has filed a brief saying that he has decided to cut the Google Book Settlement in half, letting Google host the first half of every book the company has scanned, and letting other interested stakeholders fight for the rights to the rest. 'We think this is a hard decision, but a fair one,' said John Peter Franks for Google. 'We would like to be able to host and control whole books, but at least we get the front half.'"
Science

Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter, Protein ... and Now Fat 210

Posted by timothy from the visit-the-chiba-clinic-for-an-upgrade dept.
ral writes "The human tongue can taste more than sweet, sour, salty, bitter and protein. Researchers have added fat to that list. Dr. Russell Keast, an exercise and nutrition sciences professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, told Slashfood, 'This makes logical sense. We have sweet to identify carbohydrate/sugars, and umami to identify protein/amino acids, so we could expect a taste to identify the other macronutrient: fat.' In the Deakin study, which appears in the latest issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, Dr. Keast and his team gave a group of 33 people fatty acids found in common foods, mixed in with nonfat milk to disguise the telltale fat texture. All 33 could detect the fatty acids to at least a small degree."

Comment Leverage Groups (Score 2, Insightful) 1197

by cyberElvis (#31231006) Attached to: Health Insurance When Leaving the Corporate World?

Look into any kind of groups you have membership in especially professional associations. For example IEEE members (I believe after a year of membership) can get group health insurance, although I have not looked into lately it it may no longer be the case. Also organizations like AAA (yes the auto club) have discount prescription programs. Basically look at any group you belong to see if they have leveraged the power of their membership base to negotiate rates with insurance companies.
Piracy

Sony Joins the Offensive Against Pre-Owned Games 461

Posted by Soulskill from the saddle-up dept.
BanjoTed writes "In a move to counter sales of pre-owned games, EA recently revealed DLC perks for those who buy new copies of Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Now, PlayStation platform holder Sony has jumped on the bandwagon with similar plans for the PSP's SOCOM: Fireteam Bravo 3. '[Players] will need to register their game online before they are able to access the multiplayer component of the title. UMD copies will use a redeemable code while the digital version will authenticate automatically in the background. Furthermore ... anyone buying a pre-owned copy of the game will be forced to cough up $20 to obtain a code to play online."
PHP

Eight PHP IDEs Compared 206

Posted by timothy from the colonic-extraction dept.
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Rick Grehen provides an in-depth comparative review of eight PHP IDEs: ActiveState's Komodo IDE, CodeLobster PHP Edition, Eclipse PHP Development Tools (PDT), MPSoftware's phpDesigner, NetBeans IDE for PHP, NuSphere's PhpED, WaterProof's PHPEdit, and Zend Studio. 'All of these PHP toolkits offer strong support for the other languages and environments (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL database) that a PHP developer encounters. The key differences we discovered were in the tools they provide (HTML inspector, SQL management system) for various tasks, the quality of their documentation, and general ease-of-use,' Grehen writes.'"
Space

A Hyper-Velocity Impact In the Asteroid Belt? 114

Posted by Soulskill from the i-played-that-game dept.
astroengine writes "Astronomers have spotted something rather odd in the asteroid belt. It looks like a comet, but it's got a circular orbit, similar to an asteroid. Whether it's an asteroid or a comet, it has a long, comet-like tail, suggesting something is being vented into space. Some experts think it could be a very rare comet/asteroid hybrid being heated by the sun, but there's an even more exciting possibility: It could be the first ever observation of two asteroids colliding in the asteroid belt."
The Almighty Buck

Average Budget For Major, Multi-Platform Games Is $18-28 Million 157

Posted by Soulskill from the large-potatoes dept.
An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Develop: "The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen game is $18-$28 million, according to new data. A study by entertainment analyst group M2 Research also puts development costs for single-platform projects at an average of $10 million. The figures themselves may not be too surprising, with high-profile games often breaking the $40 million barrier. Polyphony's Gran Turismo 5 budget is said to be hovering around the $60 million mark, while Modern Warfare 2's budget was said to be as high as $50 million."

Comment Chicken or Egg? (Score 2, Interesting) 242

by cyberElvis (#30145520) Attached to: Accountability of the Scientific Stimulus Funding

A quick look at the site, and I found this: http://www.scienceworksforus.org/virginia/u-va-receives-grant-to-study-effect-of-federal-stimulus-on-science-and-engineering-jobs
Stimulus money to study the effect of stimulus money!

Sure let's just keep printing money! I am sure the value of the dollar won't go down.

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