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Comment Good news (Score 1) 43

Considering Amazon (I think) uses Bing for Alexa searches - when I occasionally try to do a search via Alexa the results are usually really really poor quality. Hope this integration will be actually available and make Alexa searches a lot more useful (as in they will actually produce results I'm asking for).

Comment Not a surprise at all (Score 1) 54

This is not a secret, in the last year quite a few AWS people left primarily because stock is a large part of total comp and it is down almost 50%, so Amazon pay is trending below market average - especially for those who've been there over 4 years and did not get a promotion. It is pretty clear trend if you keep an eye on LinkedIn posts from folks who are leaving.

Culturally, Amazon is a high performance culture and it is required to always stay on top of things - which is not well positioned for work/life balance and well positioned for eventual burnout. I am not sure how an idea of constantly raising the bar while at the same time stack ranking and culling employees who do a very good job from customer perspective but ranked in the lower segments sustainable in the long term. At some point Amazon is going to have a bar that is too high for their job bands so it will become increasingly difficult to find new people to hire at comp offered - and it may very well be that this point is now and something needs to be adjusted on Amazon side to continue to expand their work force at desired rate (which is what they likely to want in the next few months, when stock may be trending better).

In my opinion employee churn at Amazon is not a bug but a feature built into the system.
The Military

United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea 567

Posted by samzenpus from the nice-day-for-a-flight dept.
skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its allies in the region. The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' mainland."
Technology

Festo's Drone Dragonfly Takes To the Air 45

Posted by samzenpus from the little-flyer dept.
yyzmcleod writes "Building on the work of last year's bionic creation, the Smart Bird, Festo announced that it will literally launch its latest creation, the BionicOpter, at Hannover Messe in April. With a wingspan of 63 cm and weighing in at 175 grams, the robotic dragonfly mimics all forms of flight as its natural counterpart, including hover, glide and maneuvering in all directions. This is made possible, the company says, by the BionicOpter's ability to move each of its four wings independently, as well as control their amplitude, frequency and angle of attack. Including its actuated head and body, the robot exhibits 13 degrees of freedom, which allows it to rapidly accelerate, decelerate, turn and fly backwards."
Businesses

Former Exec Says Electronic Arts "Is In the Wrong Business" 180

Posted by Soulskill from the inspiring-internet-outrage-is-a-bad-business-model dept.
Mitch Lasky was the executive vice president of Mobile and Online at Electronic Arts until leaving the publisher to work at an investment firm. He now has some harsh things to say about how EA has been run over the past several years, in particular criticizing the decisions of CEO John Riccitiello. Quoting: "EA is in the wrong business, with the wrong cost structure and the wrong team, but somehow they seem to think that it is going to be a smooth, two-year transition from packaged goods to digital. Think again. ... by far the greatest failure of Riccitiello's strategy has been the EA Games division. JR bet his tenure on EA's ability to 'grow their way through the transition' to digital/online with hit packaged goods titles. They honestly believed that they had a decade to make this transition (I think it's more like 2-3 years). Since the recurring-revenue sports titles were already 'booked' (i.e., fully accounted for in the Wall Street estimates) it fell to EA Games to make hits that could move the needle. It's been a very ugly scene, indeed. From Spore, to Dead Space, to Mirror's Edge, to Need for Speed: Undercover, it's been one expensive commercial disappointment for EA Games after another. Not to mention the shut-down of Pandemic, half of the justification for EA's $850MM acquisition of Bioware-Pandemic. And don't think that Dante's Inferno, or Knights of the Old Republic, is going to make it all better. It's a bankrupt strategy."
Games

Pirates as a Marketplace 214

Posted by Soulskill from the marrrrrrrket-share dept.
John Riccitiello, the CEO of Electronic Arts, made some revealing comments in an interview with Kotaku about how the company's attitudes are shifting with regard to software piracy. Quoting: "Some of the people buying this DLC are not people who bought the game in a new shrink-wrapped box. That could be seen as a dark cloud, a mass of gamers who play a game without contributing a penny to EA. But around that cloud Riccitiello identified a silver lining: 'There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace,' he said, pointing to DLC as a way to do it. The EA boss would prefer people bought their games, of course. 'I don't think anybody should pirate anything,' he said. 'I believe in the artistry of the people who build [the games industry.] I profoundly believe that. And when you steal from us, you steal from them. Having said that, there's a lot of people who do.' So encourage those pirates to pay for something, he figures. Riccitiello explained that EA's download services aren't perfect at distinguishing between used copies of games and pirated copies. As a result, he suggested, EA sells DLC to both communities of gamers. And that's how a pirate can turn into a paying customer."

Comment Re:Learn a UNIX (Score 1) 474

by prizrak (#28426425) Attached to: Getting Beyond the Helldesk

I fully agree with "Learn a UNIX" advice. Here in MA there seem to be a shortage of qualified UNIX admins even nowadays.

I've been trying to hire 3 Senior UNIX/Linux admins (long term contract) for last 2 months and I had to go through 72 (yes, 72) candidates that I phone screened before locating qualified individuals - and that's only the ones who passed simpler phone pre-screening. We needed someone who knows Solaris/Veritas/Linux well so that made it more difficult - but still, good experienced UNIX admins are definitely in demand.

If you have RHCE certification - that is always a big plus, 5 hours of hands on test do tend to identify who can make things work quickly and who can't. Solaris certs are also a plus, though not as valuable as RHCE IMO. And of course experience is above all important for everything.

So if UNIX is something you like to work on - it is easy to start on your own and work your way up step by step.

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