penelope_b - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Missing Option: Manhattan (Score 1) 1141

by penelope_b on Thursday August 05, 2010 @03:37PM (#33153776) Attached to: My Automobile Gets __ MPG

I work in Jersey. Thus, car in Manhattan. And the OP does not lie about the garage costs. It's insanity! I can literally take a 15k/yr pay cut and make MORE than I do now, just because I own a car.

Making Strides Toward Low-Cost LED Lighting 398

Posted by timothy on Sunday July 20, 2008 @02:30PM from the brightly-walk-among-the-clouds dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "You all know that incandescent bulbs are pretty inefficient, converting only 10% of electricity into light — and 90% into heat. Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, could soon replace incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs in our homes. They are more efficient and environmentally friendly. But LED lights are currently too expensive because they are using a sapphire-based technology. Now, Purdue University researchers have found a way to build low-cost and bright LEDs for home lighting. According to the researchers, the LED lights now on the market cost about $100 while LED lights based on their new technology could be commercially available within a couple of years for a cost of about $5. It would also help to cut our electricity bill by about 10%."

Fast-Booting OS for Usually-Off Appliance PCs? 523

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 17, 2008 @10:00PM from the zero-to-sixty-in-zilch-dot-two dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I have some older computer equipment at work that I want to re-purpose as application appliances. The machines will sit, unpowered, until needed, then powered up. No way around the 'sitting powered off' — company directive. What is the quickest-booting OS I could use for them? I know about LinuxBIOS, but that would require new hardware, which does not go along which the re-purposing theme. Some of them do not need to be connected to a network, so an old version of Linux or Windows 98 are possible. DOS is too old to consider. So what are my options?"

How To Show Code Samples? 485

Posted by Soulskill on Friday July 11, 2008 @07:56PM from the ethics-code dept.

Todd writes "I've been looking around at 'help wanted' advertisements for programming jobs, and almost all of them demand that you not only have professional experience, but also that you show samples of your work. This got me wondering; with the work product, trade secret, and non-disclosure laws/agreements, how exactly can you show work that you've done in a professional capacity to a prospective employer without violating the privacy of the company for which the code was written? For instance, I can't say I've written many BASH scripts (at least, not large ones) for myself personally, but the assortment of such scripts written for my current job is wide and varied indeed. I can't very well just deliver these scripts, or even small portions thereof, to third parties to help demonstrate my scripting prowess. With that in mind, what am I supposed to show them?"

Gmail, SPF, and Broken Email Forwarding? 300

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 10, 2008 @03:20PM from the rejected-mail-for-too-many-ellipses dept.

alek writes "I recently stopped getting Email from a friend ... which turns out to be related to his use of SPF records and my forwarding to gmail. This 'lost Email problem' may get worse with Google implementing Domain Keys." Alek is looking for a non-complicated solution to this non-trivial problem; read on below for more details.

What Is the Best Way To Disinfect Your Laptop? 545

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 03, 2008 @07:53PM from the use-a-nice-strong-antivirus dept.

akutz writes "I've had the flu since Tuesday afternoon. My wife picked me up from work with a temperature of 103.6 and it finally broke at 98.7 around 3am this morning. Yay. The problem is that I used my laptop during my periods of feverish deliriousness, contaminating my shiny 15" MacBook Pro with the icky influenza virus. I am asking my fellow Slashdotters if they have ever sought out a good way of disinfecting their lucky laptops after an illness. Do you use soap? A light acid bath? Just get the family dog to lick it until it looks clean?"

Feed More People Realizing That Giving Stuff Away Can Increase Revenue (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @12:52AM

When we discuss the importance of understanding economics when scarcity is removed, one of the key points we've tried to make (though we don't always succeed) is that when companies learn to embrace the economics it actually increases the size of their market -- if they understand where to focus for profits. Unfortunately, too many people seem to assume that this is a struggle between producers and consumers and that if one side wins, the other loses. However, it's not a zero-sum game, and you don't need to focus on "balancing" both sides when both sides can come out as winners. That's why it's amusing to see the NY Times seem positively shocked that an amazingly expensive conference like TED has discovered it can make a lot more money by giving away the videos of its exclusive presentations for free online. They make it out as if it's somehow "counter" to basic economics, but it's not. TED isn't just selling the content of the presentations, they're really selling the overall community that attends the conference, meets the other smart folks at the event and has a chance to discuss and debate the ideas and concepts presented. When you realize that, giving away the videos isn't counter to anything. It makes a tremendous amount of sense, because it only enhances the brand recognition of the event as well as the overall value of attending. In other words, giving the non-scarce stuff (the presentations) away helps increase the value of the scarce stuff (tickets to attend) just like economics says it should.

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