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Comment Bullshit (Score 1) 496

I hear the same complaints here in the states. The fact is that employers don't want to train new employees or they expect workers to have more skills than they are willing to pay, so in essence they are looking for workers to do now what used to be the jobs of two or three individual people but only want to pay the old wage of doing only one job but wanting three times as much.

Comment This could turn out worse then the imagine (Score 1) 297

My first thought when I read that a publishing group was being delisted was how am I going to know what was delisted?

I use amazon because I feel (dont really know) that it gives me access to pretty much every book that I can buy and so if Im researching a topic or want to read about something now IM not so sure that I'll use amazon.

Yeah, I know I could use a library but I live somewhere where its not that great and I dont know how to seach for books in other way, but now that I think of it, I'll do some googling.

Comment Re:New trends, new counter-trends (Score 1) 162

I've been thinking about this since the MW2 server decision and it does seem to be a slight change in attitude recently.

Games like http://www.torchlightgame.com/, http://www.captainforever.com/ seem to be actively engaging its players in making the game but also expecting us to pay them.

We can't make good open-source games because someone has to stop playing them and DESIGN/CODE them! :)

So I think we are seeing something different and not so different,ie We should expect to pay for the games we play but we should expect much more input than the big game makers have been giving us lately. I think torchlight points the way: using opensource tools as much as possible but this leaves the ability to modify the game as much as we want but we should expect to pay for it. I think lately we have been expecting everything for free and as programs require more and more effort we should expect to pay for them. ie, the days of paying once and getting mods and upgrades and new content for free Are Over but I know that if I really enjoy playing a game, I think I would continue to support it. again Im not sure this if very much different then the DLC over 360/PS3 but the the difference would be that we wouldn't be limited to just the gamemaker, ie anyone could make mods with these quasi-open-source games and charge for them if they wanted.

anyway I hope Im making sense, the kids are up too early today

Comment Uhmmm. Is his research even legal? (Score 1) 895

As far as I understand it, he involved unwilling participants into his research and never informed them of what he was doing so I suspect they never gave him consent.
If people really wanted to punish this guy for being an ass, it's as easy as reporting him to his chair and asking him why he felt he inflict such grief on unwilling participants. I know most research requires that you consent and that's what bothers me most about his ass-hole antics

Biotech

Engineered Mosquitoes Could Wipe Out Dengue Fever 343

Christina Valencia points us to a Wired story about scientists who plan to use genetically modified mosquitoes to reduce the population of Dengue-carrying insects. The altered genes cause newly born mosquitoes to die before they are able to breed if they are not supplied with a crucial antibiotic. This is a more aggressive approach than the anti-Malaria work we discussed last year. From Wired: "Mosquitoes pass dengue fever to up to 100 million people each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Up to 5 million die. If the scientists can replicate their results in real field conditions, their technology could kill half of the next generation of dengue mosquitoes, which scientists say would significantly reduce the spread of the disease. If all goes well the company envisions releasing the insects in Malaysia on a large scale in three years."
Windows

Submission + - The pros of upgrading from Vista to XP! (dotnet.org.za) 4

An anonymous reader writes: A reviewer takes on the daunting task of upgrading [sic] from Vista to XP, and gives a very nice breakdown of the Pros and Cons (yes, there are a couple...;)
Microsoft

Submission + - What is Bill Gates learning from Open Source? (zdnet.com)

christian.einfeldt writes: "In the world of Free Open Source Software communities, Microsoft is often viewed as the very epitome of the Cathedral-style model of software production. But is Bill Gates learning from the software development phenomenon that he once compared loosely to communism? In commenting on the results of a Microsoft-commissioned survey of approximately 500 board-level executives about the importance of interpersonal skills versus raw IT coding skills, Gates starts to sound a bit more like a member of the Apache Foundation than the take-no-prisoners king of cut-throat competition: 'Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.' [Emphasis added]. One wonders how long until 'sharing ideas' starts to become 'sharing source' code. Nah. it'll never happen."

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