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Comment Types of Meetings (Score 1) 75

by still-a-geek (#62921607) Attached to: Useless Meetings Waste Time and $100 Million a Year for Big Companies
Useful
  • 1. Code reviews.
  • 2. Design and architectural meetings for projects.
  • 3. 1 on 1's with the boss (maybe once or twice a month at the most).
  • 4. Project meetings (to an extent).
  • 5. Quarterly department meetings that update us on what's going on. I find these very useful, others may not.

Useless

  • 1. Status meetings - Just send an email with your status to the team. Some team members just like to talk and take up most of the meeting time. (Yes, the boss should be limiting that, but not always).
  • 2. Rah-rah meetings - Don't care. Waste of time.
  • 3. For-a-purpose meetings - Recent phenomenon due to covid where everyone who are still working from home (and we still are at my company) are required to meet to “see” each other and have a meeting about something. We can do that on video. I'd rather just do an ad-hoc get together after work with my peers, i.e. not work related!

I'm sure there are others, but these are off the top of my head.
China

China's Stealth Fighter Flight Test Successful 161

Posted by Soulskill from the sneaky-as-can-be dept.
New submitter vencs writes "China has successfully tested its second stealth fighter, a smaller, twin-engine jet that military analysts said could potentially allow it to one day fly missions from an aircraft carrier. Military analysts said the new jet's design suggested the People's Liberation Army might use it to arm and escort aircraft carriers like the Liaoning, which was officially deployed last month. Andrei Chang, editor-in-chief of Kanwa Asian Defense Monthly, said the new prototype appears to have borrowed features from the U.S. Air Force's twin-engine F-22 and U.S. Navy's single-engine F-35C."
Science

Thousands of Lab Mice Lost In Sandy Flooding 88

Posted by Soulskill from the george-bush-doesn't-care-about-mouse-people dept.
An anonymous reader writes "While New York University's Langone Medical Center in lower Manhattan was the site of heroism as 260 patients were evacuated from flooded floors and a nearly complete loss of power, similar floods at NYU's nearby Smilow Research Building killed thousands of laboratory mice, including genetically altered specimens in-bred over many generations as research subjects for melanoma and other diseases. Other laboratory animals, cells, and living tissue used in medical research were also lost; because of the gestation period involved, some projects were likely set back a number of years. Past experience with storms such as Allison in Houston and Katrina in New Orleans has shown that keeping laboratory animals in basements is not good practice, but research institutions keep doing it anyway."

Comment Dot.com Bust 2.0 (Score 1) 688

by still-a-geek (#38681184) Attached to: "Learn To Code, Get a Job" According To CNN
If you want to see dot.com Bust 2.0, this will contribute to it. Do you remember the dot.com era? Most of those people with no technical or coding background who tried to learn how to code in 1 year (or less) and obtained some flea-bag certificate were the first ones to be let go. And yes, there were a lot of them. Without having the fundamentals of data structures, coding style, documentation skills, and good logic and problem solving skills, those new "coders" will have a very short career, if any. Most companies learned their lesson from dot.com 1.0.
Programming

Are You Too Good For Code Reviews? 495

Posted by Soulskill from the what-else-are-end-users-for dept.
theodp writes "Why do some programmers,' asks Chris Hemedinger, 'place little value on code reviews?' This apparently includes even Programming Greats like Ken 'C' Thompson, who quipped, 'we were all pretty good coders' when asked about the importance of code reviews in his work. Hemedinger, on the other hand, subscribes to the school of thought that peer code reviews are Things Everyone Should Do. Not only do reviews keep you on your toes, Hemedinger says, they also 'improve quality, ensure continuity, and keep it fresh. Who can argue against that?'"
Stats

Average Gamer Is 37 Years Old 295

Posted by Soulskill from the get-off-my-sim-lawn dept.
kolbe writes "A new study from the Entertainment Software Association suggests that the average age of today's gamers is between the 37 and 41 years old. If true, does this mean that game studios should be adjusting their demographics accordingly? Is Generation X the next 'baby boomer' market for the gaming industry?"
Image

Satellite-Based Laser Hunts Woodpeckers From Space 53

Posted by samzenpus from the where's-woody dept.
University of Idaho scientists have figured out a more effective way to track woodpecker populations than following the incessant laughter. They're using a laser onboard NASA's Icesat spacecraft to determine where the birds might be living. From the article: "NASA's Icesat satellite was initially intended for measuring glacial surfaces at the Earth's poles but has proven to be quite effective in measuring vegetation also. The satellite's laser bounces off of forest canopies, tree trunks and the ground making important characteristics about the forest easily measurable. For example, forest density is determined by the relative amount of light returned versus that which is returned from the ground. Once ideal woodpecker locations are identified 'we actually conduct ground-based woodpecker surveys in these locations as well to verify it,' says team-member Patrick Adam."
Image

Survey Shows That Fox News Makes You Less Informed 1352

Posted by samzenpus from the fair-balanced-and-simple dept.
A survey of American voters by World Public Opinion shows that Fox News viewers are significantly more misinformed than consumers of news from other sources. One of the most interesting questions was about President Obama's birthplace. 63 percent of Fox viewers believe Obama was not born in the US (or that it is unclear). In 2003 a similar study about the Iraq war showed that Fox viewers were once again less knowledgeable on the subject than average. Let the flame war begin!
Caldera

Claimed Proof That UNIX Code Was Copied Into Linux 578

Posted by kdawson from the copied-by-a-spider-on-lsd dept.
walterbyrd writes "SCO's ex-CEO's brother, a lawyer named Kevin McBride, has finally revealed some of the UNIX code that SCO claimed was copied into Linux. Scroll down to the comments where it reads: 'SCO submitted a very material amount of literal copying from UNIX to Linux in the SCO v. IBM case. For example, see the following excerpts from SCO's evidence submission in Dec. 2005 in the SCO v. IBM case:' There are a number of links to PDF files containing UNIX code that SCO claimed was copied into Linux (until they lost the battle by losing ownership of UNIX)." Many of the snippets I looked at are pretty generic. Others, like this one (PDF), would require an extremely liberal view of the term "copy and paste."
GNU is Not Unix

FSF Asks Apple To Comply With the GPL For Clone of GNU Go 482

Posted by timothy from the y'know-fellas-the-license dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Free Software Foundation has discovered that an application currently distributed in Apple's App Store is a port of GNU Go. This makes it a GPL violation, because Apple controls distribution of all such programs through the iTunes Store Terms of Service, which is incompatible with section 6 of the GPLv2. It's an unusual enforcement action, though, because they don't want Apple to just make the app disappear, they want Apple to grant its users the full freedoms offered by the GPL. Accordingly, they haven't sued or sent any legal threats and are instead in talks with Apple about how they can offer their users the GPLed software legally, which is difficult because it's not possible to grant users all the freedoms they're entitled to and still comply with Apple's restrictive licensing terms."

Comment In Chicagoland... (Score 1) 395

by still-a-geek (#30801658) Attached to: Truth Or Dare — What Is the Best US Cell Company?
... the best two are Verizon and US Cellular. Verizon gets the edge for variety of cell phones to choose from and nationwide coverage, but US Cellular gets the edge for better service although their regional coverage is just as good if not better than Verizon's.

Sprint and T-Mobile only care about getting customers to sign a contract. Their service is atrocious and cellular coverage is spotty around the city and really crappy in the rural areas.

The only thing going for AT&T is the iPhone. If it weren't for that, they'd be down there with Sprint and T-Mobile.

Comment Doesn't surprise me (Score 1, Interesting) 447

by still-a-geek (#30509152) Attached to: Holy See Declares a "Unique Copyright" On the Pope
The Vatican is run like a business and has done so since its inception. It is one of the richest entities in the world that is its own country, has its own army and has its own economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_city.

How in the heck can a religion do this? It seems to contradict everything Jesus stood for: Peace, love, and helping people, not killing countless millions and building an empire in the name of God. What a bunch of hypocrites! It wouldn't surprise me that the Vatican will try and copyright (trademark, too) the name Vatican or even Jesus Christ one of these days.

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