Comment I'm not happy about this (Score 1) 338

by hrrY on Tuesday October 18, 2011 @03:24PM (#37753512) Attached to: Facebook Is Building Shadow Profiles of Non-Users

I was always wondering when this was going to come up... For starters, I am the ONLY person with my name, first and surname combination; in the world(I know, hard to believe but true nonetheless) I have never had a facebook account(and never will), but *yet* for some odd reason there is a faux profile of me(I shit thee not) is listed on it with some odd similarities including but not limited to race, sex, location, and activities that I'm into(again I shit you not). I have seen this profile and it has a picture of some loser getting high or doing whatever the hell he's doing WITH MY NAME. Now let's say for example, that I'm looking for a job and the potential employer does a Facebook search which I believe is SOP these days in the job market and that profile pops up. What then is the chance of me being looked at as suitable candidate?! Or let's say for another example I am contracting and the client wants to do some background research on me(which I feel is reasonable) and then again, THAT SHIT POPS UP All I'm saying is that this "feature" has the potential to do a lot of irreparable, long lasting, "digital" damage(i.e. the wayback machine) to a person that has never, nor has any intent, of being on "The Facebook". Sooo, is the only way I(or anyone else with this problem) can protect myself is to sign-up with a real profile in an attempt to set the digital record straight?! Truthfully, if I never get a job or contract again after a background check I fully and indelibly have no one but Facebook to blame...

Comment At Microsoft, this is business as usual... (Score 1) 693

by hrrY on Tuesday February 01, 2011 @03:33PM (#35071358) Attached to: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Google Search Results

I used to work for Microsoft Live search division, and they are referred to as "Google dumps". What I'm not sure about is if they(MS), or the advertiser, generates them as part of my job was to parse them(horrible work)... In any case it still comes down to the advertiser as they are the one's that pay for the keyword, phrase, etc.

Comment Have fun(it will allow them to have it to)! (Score 1) 467

by hrrY on Sunday January 16, 2011 @03:33PM (#34898572) Attached to: Advice On Teaching Linux To CS Freshmen?

From my experience, the best way anyone learns anything at all is by being introduced to some aspect of it that is basic, fun, and practical to that relative interest(s).

Combat Vets On CoD: Black Ops, Medal of Honor Taliban 93

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday November 23, 2010 @07:51AM from the not-as-messy-as-the-real-deal dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Thom 'SSGTRAN' Tran, seen in the Call of Duty: Black Ops live action trailer and in the game as the NVA multiplayer character, gets interviewed and talks about Medal of Honor's Taliban drama. '... to me, it's a non-issue. This is Hollywood. This is entertainment. There has to be a bad guy if there's going to be a good guy. It's that simple. Regardless of whether you call them — "Taliban" or "Op For" — you're looking at the same thing. They're the bad guys.'" Gamasutra published a related story about military simulation games from the perspective of black ops veteran and awesome-name-contest winner Wolfgang Hammersmith. "In his view, all gunfights are a series of ordered and logical decisions; when he explains it to me, I can sense him performing mental math, brain exercise, the kind that appeals to gamers and game designers. Precise skill, calculated reaction. Combat operations and pistolcraft are the man's life's work."

Comment Re:What else can we help you with? (Score 1) 375

by hrrY on Thursday November 11, 2010 @09:42PM (#34203066) Attached to: Can Windows, OS X and Fedora All Work Together?

Post pictures of your girlfriend, and we'll tell you if you should propose. Give a snapshot of your kitchen, and we'll make redecorating suggestions. Post your eTrade login and password, I'll take a shot at helping you revise your portfolio. Thinking of buying a house? We know nothing about your company, what it does, what the people are like. We have no fucking clue what you should do, because every situation is different. If there is one decent bit of advice to be had, and this comes from the Veep level with 20 years in: 1. Everything starts with the directory system and 2. Calendaring derives from it.

Win

Comment Good ole Microsoft... (Score 1) 490

by hrrY on Wednesday September 08, 2010 @06:48PM (#33514906) Attached to: Microsoft Suspends Gamer For Being From Fort Gay

The best story is when I worked for Windows Live Search a few years ago. Make a long story(which shouldn't have been long) short, some very big client was trying to run ads in Arkansas, Alaska...As this somehow did not quite compute, I showed my manager the map of United States, an atlas, and even the goddamn encyclopedia brittanica to illustrate that not only is there no town/ city in Alaska named Arkansas but that they were in fact 2 completely different states. I seriously got pulled into a 4hr long conference call to go over where on earth I could have possibly come up with this notion....

/true story
//fired 1 month later
//Bing wins

Nintendo To Take On Piracy In 3-D 249

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday May 08, 2010 @10:47AM from the dee-arrrrrr!-emm dept.

crimeandpunishment writes "Nintendo says when its new handheld game device with 3-D technology comes out, it will have beefed-up anti-piracy measures. For obvious reasons, the company is keeping tight-lipped on the specifics. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata says they're not only concerned about software piracy, but also a growing tolerance for it. He said, 'We fear a kind of thinking is become widespread that paying for software is meaningless.'"

TSA Worker Jailed In Body Scan Rage Incident 352

Posted by samzenpus on Friday May 07, 2010 @03:32PM from the checking-out-your-package dept.

A TSA worker in Miami was arrested for aggravated battery after he attacked a co-worker for making fun of the size of his genitals. Rolando Negrin walked through one of the new body scanners during a recent training session and a supervisor started making fun of his manhood. From the article: "According to the police report, Negrin confronted one of his co-workers in an employee parking lot, where he hit him with a police baton on the arm and back."

Sony Refuses To Sanction PS3 "Other OS" Refunds 396

Posted by Soulskill on Friday April 16, 2010 @03:34AM from the you-paid-for-what-we-say-you-paid-for dept.

Stoobalou writes "Sony says that it has no intention of reimbursing retailers if they offer users partial refunds for fat PS3s. Last week, the first PS3 user successfully secured a partial refund from Amazon UK as compensation for the removal of the ability to run Linux on the console. The user quoted European law in order to persuade the online retailer that the goods he had bought in good faith were no longer fit for his purposes because of the enforcement of firmware update 3.21, which meant that users who chose to keep the Other OS functionality would lose the ability to play the latest games or connect to the PlayStation Network."

Woman Claims Wii Fit Caused Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome 380

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday April 15, 2010 @07:00PM from the can't-stop-playing dept.

Amanda Flowers always liked her Wii Fit but now she can't get enough of it. Amanda claims a fall from her balance board damaged a nerve and has left her suffering from persistent sexual arousal syndrome. From the article: "The catering worker said: 'It began as a twinge down below before surging through my body. Sometimes it built up into a trembling orgasm.' A doctor diagnosed her with persistent sexual arousal syndrome due to a damaged nerve."

Ubisoft DRM Causing More Problems 279

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday April 03, 2010 @01:52PM from the there's-a-lesson-here-that-nobody-will-learn dept.

Joe Helfrich writes "Ubisoft's Settlers 7 servers have been causing problems for over a week for users worldwide, and Australian gamers are hardly able to connect at all. 'The problem reportedly strikes after the game has already confirmed an active Internet connection, and prevents the user from playing even the single-player campaign, returning the error "server not available." But they are available, because other people are logged into them and merrily playing away.' Wonder how they're going to describe this one as an attack."

Judge Chin Says He Will Cut the Google Book Settlement 38

Posted by timothy on Thursday April 01, 2010 @07:42PM 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.'"

Postgres Project To Go NoSQL 62

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday April 01, 2010 @05:43PM from the time-to-migrate dept.

TheFuzzy writes "Apparently the PostgreSQL project is caving in to recent trends and going NoSQL next year. This will leave SQLite as the only open source database still supporting SQL."

Solutions For More Community At Work? 205

Posted by timothy on Saturday January 30, 2010 @07:24PM from the buffet-followed-by-orgy dept.

CrunkCreeper writes "I work at a tier-2 hosting company (SAP, web servers, Citrix, databases, etc.). I started working at this location two years ago in January. The company had anywhere from 20-30 other employees, and now we are just over 100. People with all different IT experience are employed. At one end of the spectrum, you have accounting, billing, and sales. At the other end you have the help desk, analysts, and engineers. In the past we were hiring mainly people in their 20s, and now we're hiring more senior people in their 30s and 40s. Incidentally with our expanded demographic and recently aggressive hiring, people are not as familiar with each other as they used to be. This happens to some extent and will continue to happen more the larger our company grows, but I would like to curb the corporate feel a bit. I'm trying to bring family or community feel back to the company. The reason for this need is that great ideas are normally discussed in non-formal environments. Beside this fact, I want people to genuinely have more fun and decrease the sometimes uncomfortable discussions with 'that guy' from 'that department.' Being an IT company, I find it more natural for collaboration via computer, but welcome more traditional methods too. How does your company keep or build a community environment using technology?" Read on for some more on how it works at CrunkCreeper's workplace, and give suggestions for how to make things better.

Comment Lifesize rules (Score 1) 170

by hrrY on Thursday January 21, 2010 @08:45PM (#30854758) Attached to: Affordable and Usable Video Conferencing?

Well, after working with thus stuff for the past few years, I would have to say Lifesize. All you need is an HD webcam, ideally a static IP or port forwarding/ triggering, minimum 1mb upstream and then your done. Granted, if you want conference room status, and more than 4 locations then you may have to buy a Lifesize room codec(few grand, depends on how big the room is and if you actually VC with 8 parties all the time). I strongly recommend the minimum 1mb part...