Comment Re:You forgot the "Amount of BS" option. (Score 1) 1026
Damn straight!
Comment Re:yep (Score 2, Insightful) 148
The newbie could start writing his name on all his deliverables. Since he is the one doing all the writing, he should put his name first. If his manager reviews, edits, or polishes the employee's deliverable before sending it up the ladder, then it would be appropriate for the boss to add his name as a contributor *after* the author's name. The same rule applies to documents, slide decks, books, emails, and so on.
Anyone who deletes names in order to steal credit is a thief. And the only person worse than a thief is the one who failed to fire him.
If he can't stand working with thiefs in corporate america, he could always experiment with crooks, pirates, lawyers, and politicians on a more global scale.
Anyone who deletes names in order to steal credit is a thief. And the only person worse than a thief is the one who failed to fire him.
If he can't stand working with thiefs in corporate america, he could always experiment with crooks, pirates, lawyers, and politicians on a more global scale.
Molten Salt-Based Solar Power Plant 478
rcastro0 writes "Hamilton Sundstrand, a division of United Technologies, announced today that it will start to commercialize a new type of solar power plant. A new company called SolarReserve will be created to provide heat-resistant pumps and other equipment, as well as the expertise in handling and storing salt that has been heated to more than 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit. According to venture capitalist Vinod Khosla 'Three percent of the land area of Morocco could support all of the electricity for Western Europe.' Molten Salt storage is already used in Nevada's Solar One power plant. Is this the post-hydrocarbon world finally knocking?"
Rails Bigwig Rails on Rails Community 616
Zed Shaw, creator of the popular Mongrel HTTP daemon / library, has decided it was high time to tear into the Ruby/Rails community for many different complaints that he has been collecting over the last few years. "Rails is a Ghetto" is Shaw's self-proclaimed exit strategy from the Rails community. "This is that rant. It is part of my grand exit strategy from the Ruby and Rails community. I don't want to be a 'Ruby guy' anymore, and will probably start getting into more Python, Factor, and Lua in the coming months. I've got about three or four more projects in the works that will use all of those and not much Ruby planned. This rant is full of stories about companies and people who've either pissed in my cheerios somehow or screwed over friends. I can back all of them up from emails, IRC chat logs, or with witnesses. Nothing in here is a lie unless it's really obviously a lie through exaggeration, and there's a lot of my opinion as well."
Scammers Continue to Wreak Havoc in MMO's 330
eldavojohn writes "We're all well aware of the scams that sometimes happen in online games like Eve Online. But despite this looking primarily like a problem with Eve Online, the MIT Technology Review brings us stories from Second Life and the very real $700,000 (USD) in Linden Dollars that has recently disappeared in what is appearing to be a classic ponzi scheme by a company named Ginko Banking. Unbelievably high interest rates coupled with some shady withdrawal limits leads to classic epic losses to investors. Eve Online was merely virtual currency but Second Life has a real monetary value associated with Linden Dollars & therefore is certain to see more and more scams pop up like this. How can Linden Labs set up a safety net to catch things like this?"
Musicians Have Many Money Options Online, Says Talking Head 114
Time Slows Down writes "Scottish born musician and former record label owner David Byrne says the future of music as a career is wide open and identifies six different distribution models now available to musicians in an article in this month's Wired magazine. At one end of the scale is the 360, or equity deal, where every aspect of the artist's career is handled by producers, promoters, marketing people, and managers. At the other end of the scale is the self-distribution model, where the music is self-produced, self-written, self-played, and self-marketed."
RIAA Now Filing Suits Against Consumers Who Rip CDs 403
mrneutron2003 writes "With this past week's announcement by Warner to release its entire catalog to Amazon in MP3 format with no Digital Rights Management, you would think that the organization that represents them, The RIAA, would begin changing its tune. Instead, they are pressing on in their campaign against consumers by suing individuals who merely rip CDs they've purchased legally. 'The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.'"
The Death of High Fidelity 377
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Rolling Stone has an interesting story on how record producers alter the way they mix albums to compensate for the limitations of MP3 sound. Much of the information left out during MP3 compression is at the very high and low ends, which is why some MP3s sound flat. Without enough low end, 'you don't get the punch anymore. It decreases the punch of the kick drum and how the speaker gets pushed when the guitarist plays a power chord.' The inner ear automatically compresses blasts of high volume to protect itself, so we associate compression with loudness. After a few minutes, constant loudness grows fatiguing to the brain. Though few listeners realize this consciously, many feel an urge to skip to another song."
AOL to Shut Down Netscape Support/Development 247
Kelson writes "After years of trying to figure out what to do with it, AOL is officially discontinuing the Netscape browser. In the four and a half years after they dismantled the development team and spun off the Mozilla Foundation as a lost cause, only to see Firefox take off, AOL has tried twice to reinvent Netscape. There was the chimera-like Netscape 8, which used both Mozilla's and IE's rendering engines, and just months ago they released Netscape 9, trying to ride the social networking wave. AOL will release security fixes through February 1, 2008, after which the browser will officially be dead. For the "nostalgic," they suggest using Firefox and installing a Netscape theme."
Wal-Mart Closes Online Movie Download Service 136
eldavojohn writes "A year after opening its movie download service, Wal-Mart has abandoned the endeavor. They claim this is a result of HP's decision to stop supporting its video download store software. The article also notes that, unlike iTunes, Wal-Mart offered variable pricing which attracted a lot of studios. 'The world's largest retailer instead turned its rental service over to Netflix Inc. Wal-Mart still operates a music download service and continues to sell CDs and DVDs at retail stores and over the Internet for shipping by mail.' Is this evidence of the strength of unified pricing in media downloads or just another company being squished by the giant Netflix & Apple?"
Domains May Disappear After Search 379
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Daily Domainer has a story alleging that there may be a leak that allows domain tasters to intercept, analyze and register your domain ideas in minutes. 'Every time you do a whois search with any service, you run a risk of losing your domain,' says one industry insider. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC ) has not been able to find hard evidence of Domain Name Front Running but they have issued an advisory (pdf) for people to come forward with hard evidence it is happening. Here is how domain name research theft crimes can occur and some tips to avoiding being a victim."
Microsoft Deprecating Some OOXML Functionality 138
christian.einfeldt writes "According to open standards advocate Russell Ossendryver, Microsoft will be deprecating certain functionality in its Microsoft Office Open XML specification. Ossendryver says the move is an attempt to quiet critics of the specification in the run up to the crucial February ISO vote. The Microsoft-led industry standards group formally offering OOXML confirms in a 21 December 2007 announcement that issues related to the 'leap year bug', VML, compatibility settings such as 'AutoSpaceLikeWord95' and others will be 'extracted from the main specification and relocated to an independent annex in DIS 29500 for deprecated functionality.'"
Report Says 36.4% of World's Computers Infringe on IP 331
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "According to a new report by Digital Music News, 36.4% of the world's computers have LimeWire installed. Given their claim that filling an iPod legally would cost about $40,000, they're pretty sure that most of those computers are infringing upon at least a few imaginary property rights. BitTorrent shouldn't feel left out, though. BitTorrent actually uses more bandwidth, but the article suggests that this is because it is used to share larger files, like movies."
Australia Scraps National ID Plan 149
IPU = Imaginary Property Unicorn writes "The proposed Australian 'Access Card', a universal ID that would be required for any Australian wishing to use Medicare, Centrelink, the Child Support Agency, or Veterans' Affairs, has been scrapped by the incoming Rudd Labor Government. The card would have contained an RFID tag with the person's name, date of birth, gender, address, signature, card number, card expiration date, and Medicare number, but there were also provisions to add more personal data later on. It seems that Rudd Labor is not eager to copy the American REAL ID Act."
Intelligent Design Ruled "Not Science" 1497
blane.bramble writes "The Register is reporting that the UK government has stated there is no place in the science curriculum for Intelligent Design and that it can not be taught as science. 'The Government is aware that a number of concerns have been raised in the media and elsewhere as to whether creationism and intelligent design have a place in science lessons. The Government is clear that creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National Curriculum programs of study and should not be taught as science.'"
