Slashdot Mirror

Everybody knows it, head hunters know it, employers know it, so why do they carry on asking those "skills"?

Because as Marti Olsen points out, the majority of people are extroverts, and assume anyone who is not like them is defective. So extroverts love brainstorming, group think and other social work environments, so they think everyone should enjoy it and demand it in others.

The right answer is, as other people have said on this thread, balance. Sometimes we should work together, but also sometimes we should leave each other the f--- alone.

But because extroverts tend to be disconnected from facts and experience, they instead remember when they were happiest which was brainstorming sessions or other team activities. Thus they demand it.

To be fair, that's only about 30% of the hiring managers out there. The other 70% actually want people with political skills. The ability to negotiate with people they disagree with, to get people to go along with an idea, to contribute to the group when required instead of being a lone wolf causing problems or sniping. Introverts make excellent politicians in this regard--usually the Karl Rove backroom operator or chief-of-staff. But it's somehow off-putting to state: "Don't be an obstinate asshole who has to get his way and bullies others to achieve his goals -- yes, that means not you, John Bolton." on the job posting.

So just look at "work well with others" and "enjoy team work" to mean you're not a douchebag or a dickhead. It doesn't necessarily mean you are a people person.

Unfortunately it does work. Pick up Unbroken, a story about a downed WWII flyer who, amongst other fairly horrid episodes, got interred in a Japanese POW camp. He remained there till the end of the war and describes leaving the camp. The area had been carpet bombed previously (and hit with the atomic bomb). The civilian population - which previously had been ready to sacrifice themselves when the Allies invaded were basically shocked into submission.

Don't make the mistake of conflating how we persecute 'war' these days with all out and out military aggression which has not been seen on a large scale since WWII. We would have won in Vietnam, would win in Iraq and Afghanistan if we did that (and likely be set up for war crimes). War is really ugly business. We're just playing at low level conflicts for now. (Not that it makes it morally or politically correct). Hopefully we won't get there again, but with humans being the ugly little monsters we are, I wouldn't bet on it.

Actually it was a whole $350 with 8Gb from Newegg and a carrying case from Tigerdirect, so nope, not expensive at all. of course i lucked out as i ordered mine 2 weeks before the Thailand flood, now the same unit is a whole....let me look...$415, not really that big a difference, but of course you'll have to add the $30 for 2 4Gb sticks like i got.

Anyway here is the link and if you'll check the comments below the first poster links to the 8Gb RAM upgrade. I can't say enough good things about this netbook, it gets 6 hours plus playing 720p video, gets a hair over 8 in Expressgate surfing and listening to music, has enough GPU to play L4D and GTA:VC, and has enough CPU muscle i'm using it to edit multitracks and even as a custom drum machine using hydrogen and running it into the mixer, great for having more realistic drums when laying down scratch tracks. Its got plenty of space, doesn't get hot, only weighs 3 pounds, and if you want even longer battery life there is a 10 cell you can pick up but personally 6 hours plus is plenty.. Oh and it comes with Win 7 HP X64 ready to go and swapping out the RAM is easy peasy. After I sold the 2Gb stick that came with it for $20 the RAM boost was a grand total of $14 and it was only $6 difference between 6Gb and 8Gb so I figured WTF ya know? Having that much RAM means that Superfetch has ALL my apps preloaded into RAM, its sweeet.

so if you or anyone you know wants a netbook I'd say go for it, its a great lightweight unit that kicks ass on the road. It even has a USB 3 port with charging capability so if your phone dies you can use the EEE to give it a quick charge. Nice.

According to this excellent book, Copyright was first introduced by the Brits and more or less forced upon the US (among others). Now, it's quite ironic (and sad at the same time) that the former British Copyright extremism is coming back from the US to haunt their ordinary citizens.

Naturally the job doesn't care, it is a thing, not capable of emotion or empathy.
The question is how management care about/for you. My management is special, I'm 35 on my 3rd job within my company and my 5th job overall. I have no plans on leaving the group I'm in so long as any two of the three people directly above me stay above me. If it gets down to one then it becomes a matter of consensus, did the other two go to the same company or division? Then I'll likely go too, no loyalty to the company, just the people. They've bailed &&|| covered my ass and in exchange I am extra dedicated and honest with them. Simple as that.

There is a book, I highly recommend: Moral Mazes http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Mazes-World-Corporate-Managers/dp/0199729883/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326514612&sr=8-1 (not a sponsored link). Read it, understand it, and while I can not promise invincibility in your career, it comes damn close.
-nB

For those that want more information, pick up the book "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder. It was required reading for my Senior Ethics class in Uni, though I only read 3/4 of the book at the time. Earlier this year I actually read it the whole way through. Not only is it very well written and often humorous, it talks about a very interesting character, one Dr. Paul Farmer, and his ongoing efforts against TB globally, specifically at the poverty level in countries (mainly Haiti) where they would consider the U.S. poverty level middle class. Farmer does a lot more than just TB work, but much of his life has been devoted to lowering the cost for TB medication and advising various governments on TB programs (including Russia's prison epidemic).

I'm sure you could find more complete information about TB and its history in medical textbooks, but Mountains Beyond Mountains gives a very good intro to it (in a modern sense) while also making for good reading.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Mountains-Beyond-Healing-World-Farmer/dp/0375506160

Send your programmers this link:

http://www.literateprogramming.com/

and have them read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Literate-Programming-Center-Language-Information/dp/0937073806/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326462347&sr=8-1

``Propaganda'' here:

http://vasc.ri.cmu.edu/old_help/Programming/Literate/literate.html

I re-wrote the typesetting back-end of an interactive, graphical ad design / generation program as a literate program and it made a _huge_ difference in the maintainability of the system and made adding additional features _much_ easier.

After my father's 1963 Chevy was stolen, he installed a car kill switch kit. You can get them for modern cars too. Since you put the switch where ever you want, it would take a thief time to find it, and they won't be bothered. You can sometimes get a lower insurance rate too.

The "quite rare" speculation is certainly based on definition.

The Earth's feature in question was working plate tectonics, with just about the right amount of water on the surface. I can't recall the workings of the feedback mechanism itself, only that it depends on CO2 being released from volcanoes at a rougly constant rate and then being reabsorbed in the crust (and later brought deeper near subduction zones) with the reabsorbtion rate being positively corellated with surface temperature, thus creating a negative feedback loop - or something like that. (Oh, and I've found the book.)

Yep, exactly. Going to Mars is really hard, heck even getting to orbit is tough. So many things have to work or else the whole thing fails. This spacecraft failure is most likely one particular item that was not thoroughly tested (my personal speculation). It does remind me of a mention in the book "Korolev" by James Harford where it describes when Soviets launched a satellite that could have been the first to detect Van Allen radiation belts. However the tape recorder onboard failed because engineer responsible said no more ground testing is needed (I may have forgot some of the details, don't have the book handy right now). My impression is some of the spacecraft people wanted to do some more tests or add some backup circuitry but the engineer insisted the tape recorder will work (I guess it records signal data for later transmission back to ground stations). Tape recorder failed or the data was out of calibration. But I'm thinking this was very ambitious as those early years was a steep learning curve for both US and USSR.

If you have not, read the book. It is very detailed, almost have to indulge yourself into "thinking Russian" (i.e. like reading Anna Karenina) since it is a different culture for engineers. http://www.amazon.com/Korolev-Masterminded-Soviet-Drive-America/dp/0471327212

Alrighty I see we have "In Soviet Russia" comments, how about a car analogy? This is /. afterall.

I want the opposite, what I want is a combo, TV+PS3+Blu-ray, a Playstation TV or Xbox TV. I think Sony could do this, if they were smart enough, that would be an unbeatable all-in-one solution.

I'm sure Sony could easily do this. But it would cost you a small fortune. Plus it would really suck when one of those integrated devices breaks. It's much more economical to replace a broken PS3 or Xbox than the entire system.

Personally, I hate multiple remotes, DVD players, Netflix dongles and such stuff. Just one bezel free huge rectangle with PS3 and Blu-ray drive seamlessly integrated, that would be nice. No more cables, no more input selection or remote controller fights.

Both my TV and Bluray player can access Netflix (and other services) as well as my HTPC. Admittedly it was a pain to set up initially, but it's all done and I never have to think about it again(so far). I also only have one remote for my TV, HTPC (though there is a wireless keyboard & mouse if needed),CD player, bluray, DVD player, reciever, and DTV PVR. Hell it even controls the digital picture frame in that room as well as a Roomba vacuum cleaner.

That being said, there's still value in these types of books for some.

I first started taking software seriously (having dabbled throughout childhood) when I bought a copy of http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Three-Days-Popular-Applications/dp/155622298X and Turbo C++ (in 1991?) before a really long deployment to the Pacific. Now, it took me more than three days to really *get* pointers, LOL, but that little digest of a book was a wonderful start for me. 20 years later, I am a very senior software engineer and a CTO.

Love that book! Still have it in my dev library.

It doesn't seem to have moving parts. I got a 1TB passport HDD for $95, but a 128G SSD is more expensive and even smaller form factors, like the Patriot Magnum are very convenient.

I was wonderin, but... http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/43868/victorinox-ssd-swiss-army-pictures has 3k for the price, though unofficial. I'd love to hear how swiss army came up w that $ sum.

I say this because... swiss army knife = $15 on a good day, 1 tb usb drive = $10 on any day, granted the hardware encrypted and shock proof ones are more expensive, but https://store.ironkey.com/personal = $80 and if anybody wants something like http://www.amazon.com/1TB-Encrypted-Slim-Drive-256BIT/dp/B0036TVX94 they're just being stupid and trying to rip you off. So, $100 v 3k? why???

People are buying cables that let them plug their phones into their televisions.

Example

He has to have a point, because Joost Smiers wrote a book? BTW, did you notice one of his other books is on sale on Amazon for $104.00 USD? I'll bet he has a copyright on that baby.

And please, pray tell, how do we force those in power and benefitting from a rigged system to vote for it to end

Robert Heinlein answers that question decades ago: Take Back Your Government

The article in the Toronto Review of Books has at least three spelling errors and typos, including the common error "free reign" instead of "free rein". (That's supposed to be a horse term.) The body text is in a sans-serif font, while the headings are in a serif font. The body leading is huge, almost double-spaced. This publication is in no position to talk about layout. Besides, how much good layout can you do on a tiny screen that updates slowly?

As for the eBook Alice, colorizing the Tenniel illustrations is bad enough, and animating them is just tacky. What next, 3D? If you want a good version of Alice, get The Annotated Alice, which is not currently available as an eBook and would look terrible on the tiny screen.

Yes.

Yes you do.

You do deserve better ebooks. Because the current quality of ebooks is destroying the Internet, and, dare I say it, destroying the fabric of America itself. And as every red-blooded American knows, the Internet and the United States of America ARE EXACTLY THE SAME THING.

Every night I weep, weep bitter tears, at the terrible, terrible, quality of ebooks infesting our world. Me, I blame socialists. Or fascists. Or communists. Or atheists. Or Christians. It's the socio-fascist-communo-godless-theocratic industrial complex destroying the world one lousy ebook at a time.

... which is why you should immediately run out and buy a copy of Pay Me, Bug!, available on Amazon.com (Kindle), Barnes and Noble (Nook), Smashwords (epub, Kobe, PDF, LRF, PalmDoc), and iTunes. It is the only chance we all have to ensure a better tomorrow.

But what if the Big Bang never happened?

Every time I read about webs of matter spanning across such distances, considering the time required to form these I remember the refreshing perspective put forward by this beautiful little book.

I was just reading about this in Lessig's book, "Free Culture" today. I can't recommend the book enough!
I never knew Walt Disney's Steamboat Mickey infringed on Steamboat Bill, Jr which infringed on the song Steamboat Bill. Ironic, isn't it? Too bad the madness isn't stopping anytime soon...

That's a very anglo-centric comment.

Ivo Andric was, and continues to be, quite popular. In fact, his work influenced both Serbian nationalism to a great extent (and unfortunately, even played a role in the Bosnian conflict and in heightening anti-muslim sentiments in the region).

I'd strongly recommend that you read his The Bridge on the Drina. Amazing masterpiece.

http://www.vizio.com/lcd-hdtvs/va26lhdtv10t.html
http://www.vizio.com/lcd-hdtvs/vx240m.html

They aren't copying Apple, they are copying Sony: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-NSX-32GT1-32-Inch-Featuring-Google/dp/B004BBA6B2 (who very well may have copied Apple, but that's beside the point).

Nice site you got there at http://www.rense.com/. David Duke videos? Check. Conspiracy theories about Mars? Check. Chemtrails? Check. Miracle cures? Check. Rampant antisemitism? Check.

Though for what it's worth, the original source seems to be here: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=index_23

And the author, Laurence Britt*, seems to have no other credentials than his article appearing in a free, irregularly published journal of, let's say uncertain repute. (Don't forget to pick up his novel, June, 2004,, which depicts a future America dominated by right-wing extremists, still available new from 5 sellers for just $49.99.)

Of course none of that makes what he says any less true by default. Fascist nations probably possess most of those characteristics. It's also true that serial killers all have many characteristics in common: they have noses, mouths, ears, eyes, hair, and always seem to show up in human form (so far). Be on the lookout!

If the sales on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Cell-Phones-Accessories-Service-Plans/zgbs/wireless/2407747011 are any indication the top three selling are all Android phones.

And perhaps the reason for that is because Amazon appears not to sell subsidized iPhones.

Just sayin'...

Better questions, since when is Microsoft disappointing Windows Phone users news?

If the reviews on Amazon are any indication, most people are pretty happy with their Windows Phones. The top 3 highest reviewed phones are all Windows Phones.

Hmmm. Think those may be astroturfing?

Better questions, since when is Microsoft disappointing Windows Phone users news?

If the reviews on Amazon are any indication, most people are pretty happy with their Windows Phones. The top 3 highest reviewed phones are all Windows Phones.

The tax breaks taken by companies are not subsidies, especially since they are not by any means limited to gasoline companies but just general category tax breaks. Moreover, "social costs" aren't costs other than what number they put on them, which is meaningless.

What in the world are you talking about? They specifically (energy companies) get subsidies on oil refining, exploration [1] as well as securing those assets (see: Iraq War and Xe security - all paid for by US tax dollars).

[1] http://askville.amazon.com/explain-subsidy-oil-producing-firms/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=182382

Exactly, as Harvey Silverglate warned us about in his book "Three Felonies a Day"

A myrmecologist's dream.

You're an ignorant fuckwit tool. There's several Sony camcorders from each generation which include an IR lamp, and IR lamps were actually sold as a pairing with Song camcorders, i.e. Sony HVL-HIRL IR. So when you know what the fuck you're talking about, you are invited to come back and make another comment. But until then, you need to fucking realize that Sony has sold numerous camcorders with this as a listed feature, and that your ignorance has no bearing on reality. In fact, it's also a standard feature in low-end security cameras these days, with many of them including IR LEDs for illumination. I have one sitting in my garage right now.

You, sir, are an ignorant asshole. Fuck off.

Little boy can't read and throws a tanty.

You're an ignorant fuckwit tool. There's several Sony camcorders from each generation which include an IR lamp, and IR lamps were actually sold as a pairing with Song camcorders, i.e. Sony HVL-HIRL IR. So when you know what the fuck you're talking about, you are invited to come back and make another comment. But until then, you need to fucking realize that Sony has sold numerous camcorders with this as a listed feature, and that your ignorance has no bearing on reality. In fact, it's also a standard feature in low-end security cameras these days, with many of them including IR LEDs for illumination. I have one sitting in my garage right now.

You, sir, are an ignorant asshole. Fuck off.

For the best talking dog story, see "Small" by H. Allen Smith. It's in a book called "How to Write Without Knowing Nothing". Very funny! http://www.amazon.com/How-Write-Without-Knowing-Nothing/dp/B0007DL4DM/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325866453&sr=1-4

Is this a demonstration of the applicant's unstructured problem ability, or perhaps their prep for the interview game at certain image-conscious technology companies from reading silly books like this one?

That's a good point actually. I would venture to say that if a candidate has taken the trouble to prepare so thoroughly that they have developed a logic way to tackle most unstructured problems, they're still probably better than a candidate who failed miserably at even attempting the problem. There's a stronger chance that such a candidate would pick up a new technology or a new subject area much more quickly quickly than another candidate who has demonstrated no such initiative in the past.

But all said and done, you are right. A clever candidate can always "game" the interview process and say what the interviewer wants to hear. This is where interviewing becomes an inexact science.

The really neat thing about brain teasers or puzzles or the bizarre questions you sometimes encounter like "How many pigeons are there is Manhattan" is that they are a very good way to judge someone's unstructured problem solving ability. How someone approaches this kind of a problem is a good proxy for their ability to debug hard technical issues or their problem solving ability in general.

Is this a demonstration of the applicant's unstructured problem ability, or perhaps their prep for the interview game at certain image-conscious technology companies from reading silly books like this one?

Can anyone recommend a good place (website / book) to learn more?

Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Best photography book I ever invested in.

Scott Kelby has a number of books that I've found very helpful on the specifics, too.

This one from Amazon is actually pretty close.

Everybody says they are the "good guys". Who comes right out and says they are evil? The world isn't black and white, anyways, though the fight against Hitler and his dictator allies was about as black and white as it gets.

Agreed; by then, Germany had really run off the rails. I also feel we did right by Japan, when we rebooted their society after the war and turned them into a Western-style state that is vastly more free and efficient than it was.

I'm not taking any issue with your comment about rebooting Japan. And I don't take issue with your comment about Japan being freer than it was under the Tôjô regime.

However, the bit about "turned them into a Western-style state that is vastly more ... efficient than it was" suggests you've not spent much time living there. For all its outward trappings, Japan really isn't all that Western:

• The emphasis is very much on the group, not the individual.
• Authority is treated in a very different way.
• Conflict is avoided much more than what we see in the US or Europe.
• Japanese efficiency might not be as recent or as Western as you make it out to be. Read up on the story of engineering the Mitsubishi Zero for one example. Or look to how Toyota's just-in-time inventory management beat the pants off Detroit for another example.
• Ideas of personal interconnectedness and what each person owes everyone else in their lives are very different than in the West (a bit like karma, only backwards -- doing something good for someone when they're down is seen as taking advantage of them, because now they owe you; see Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword for an analysis that still holds broadly true some 70 years later).
• Ideas of time are different as well -- the US business obsession with quarterly earnings, and the consequent downward spiral in overall economic activity, just doesn't happen there, and companies still draft plans for the coming five to ten years (I'm not saying that these get followed to the letter, but even just thinking about things that far out leads to different behavior).
• Stereotypes aren't something to be abhorred and avoided, as in the US, but instead are a real basic part of how society functions, part of the cognitive streamlining that eases different kinds of social interrelations.

These are just a few of the bigger differences that I can come up with off the cuff. The biggest change in Japan from getting smacked down by the US was a broad realization that the Japanese people are not the best, not the godliest people, simply by dint of losing. Thinking they were the best led to mass hubris, out of the belief that everyone else was somehow less human. (... Some might extend that to the way the US has been behaving lately, but that's grist for a different mill.) From most else that I've read and heard about, however, Japan wasn't all that Westernized in the process. Modern Japanese culture has more in common with South Korea (and possibly even China?) than it does with the US or UK or EU.

Cheers,

I'm a full-time prescription glasses wearer, and I didn't like wearing glasses at first. Upgrading to a titanium frame made a massive difference.

The last time I went to the cinema to watch a 3D movie I picked up a pair of clip-on filters, something a bit like this. They add a tiny amount of weight to my glasses, the total weight is less than my old steel framed glasses.

Well now, this only took me all of 2 seconds to find. http://www.amazon.com/Pro-Optic-Canon-Adapter-Correction/dp/B00009R7ZR mount ring for FD / FL glass for manual focus on EF mount bodies.

Don't know or particularly care about the Konica / Minolta lenses, I'm sure with a bit of machining I could MAKE the proper depth and fit to mount them on my EF mount body though... If someone else hasn't already.

I just wish they'd add a view finder, even if it's really basic.

It's worth mentioning there is an add-on viewfinder for the LX5, which even got decent reviews. (I know it says it's for the GF1, but it's also for the LX5).

For cameras that are supposed to be compact, I think an add-on viewfinder for the hotshoe makes some sense, since you wouldn't normally need an external flash (darker scenes) and an optical viewfinder (daylight) at the same time.

While we are at it, I have an LX3 and getting a bounce flash for the hot shoe makes a BIG difference for indoor shots. I do get teased because the flash is as big as the camera, but the photos look good. So, narrow your search for compacts to those with a hot shoe and compatible TTL flash.

i'd recommend the DMC-ZS9 though... $129 to your door.

i'm not sure why you're looking for interchangeable lenses when you claim to have no technical knowledge. the macro mode on the lumix works great, and the lens is a 24mm leica with 16x optical zoom, and optical image stabilization. the video mode now has a stereo mic, and they moved the mic location from the far left where your index finger might cover it, and you wouldn't know your video didn't have sound until you tried to play it back.

Whenever I read about DRM, TCP, software patents, SOPA and such, the below quote comes into my mind
Disclaimer: From the top of my head, not neccesarly a precise quote!

"Es wird sein, nicht lange nach dem man das Jahr 2000 geschrieben haben wird, da wird die Welt seltsames zu beobachten haben. [...] Da wird nicht ein direktes aber doch eine Art von Verbot für alles Denken von Amerika ausgehen, ein Gesetz, das das Ziel hat, alles individuelle Denken zu unterdrücken."

Rough translation:

"It will be, not long after the year 2000 has been, that the world will have a strange thing to observe. [...] There will not be a direct, but still a sort of prohibition of any thinking spreading out from Amerika, a law which purpose it is to supress any individual free thinking."

This is a quote from a transscibed lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in 1918(!). He was what one today would probably describe as an avid mysticists and esotheric teacher and lecturer, albeit one of the lesser crackpottier ones. ... He insisted that there is a spiritual world, and it's basically 'more real' than the world todays humanity percieves with their bodyly senses. Basically, one of his main claims was that Platos Cave Metaphor or the hindu concept of maya is a true thing. ... Anyway, never mind. ... What does get to me however, that throughout his lectures he did, not often but at times, give prognoses of the future, sometimes close to the prophetic and, as far as I can tell, until now has allways turned out right. The above quote being somewhat of a point in case.

Some of his stuff is really way out there, yet his advice on mental and spiritual excercises is very down-to-earth and effective, as, for instance, his advice on education. .. And whenever stuff like this comes up, I always wonder if he was on to more than one might expect.

For anybody interested, here's an english translation of the lecture.
Be prepared, some of this is deep mystic/esotheric stuff.
You have been warned. :-)
I do recomment his written books on spiritual training though, well worthwhile, even for the casual reader. ... The closest you'll get to becoming a Jedi in real life. :-)

My 2 cents.

The book Proofiness made a similar argument on recent very close elections like MN Senate and 2000 White House.

While it is not our current law, the argument made was that from statistical view it would make more sense to treat such a close tally as a tie and follow procedures of what happens if it was actually a tie. For example, I believe the MN law would have drawn lots. As others have pointed out, the policial process of selecting delegates doesn't need these to be separated - though in this case we through our media treat this as a horse race and hence there there is this human desire to have a winner of that race.

Updated second edition. The one in the GP is out of print and rather expensive. May have to grab this.

That is nothing, this cable runs 2694.75.

I've had fantastic success with the WDTV Live Streaming whatever-the-hell-it's-called:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005KOZNBW/ref=oh_o02_s00_i00_details

Plays anything I throw at it (samba share, NFS share, media server like orb, local storage, etc) and does just about every online video service (netflix, blockbuster, etc).

Picked it up for $89 in November. Fantastic!

The C64 was my 2nd computer (first was an Acorn Electron) and it's still my favourite computer of all time.

I still have a C128 with several disk drives, cartridges and other peripherals. I've even got a couple of flashable carts and an SD-card based reader with an ethernet port, so I guess I'd be classed as a Commodore enthusiast :P

Commodore were amazing. They should have remained on top, but a confluence of a factors drove them from the market.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone with fond memories of Commodore machines.

Yes I know these things may be dangerous, but some consumer products (e.g. heavy duty rust removers) have hydrofluoric acid in them (yes, that's fluoric, not chloric, and yes you can buy it from town). The potential risk may be outweighed by the benefits if the wearer wore special glasses, and there was a clear way that points 'down' (e.g. this product.

If that's not good enough, then it could even detect if there wasn't a surface within an inch or two of the device and would then automatically shut itself off.

I just think these things could be magic for cleaning say, dog rugs (my dog leaks a little in his sleep unfortunately). But would it do that well? If not there's always the peroxide...

Perhaps someone with enough know-how can chime here with something I've always pondered. There's a range of products which rely on UV light to kill bacteria, mold, viruses etc. Unfortunately, many of these products are underpowered such as this one (I can't say for sure, but some of the reviews don't seem great):
http://www.amazon.com/Verilux-CleanWave-VH01WW4-UV-C-Sanitizing/dp/B0018A330K/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1325745037&sr=8-4

My question is how much more powerful can we make these. I understand there's a safety issue, but ignoring that, what kind of wattage could one go to to use on beds, chairs, carpets, cupboards, even sinks and food areas.

Would a kilowatt or two for one of these 'wands' do a good enough job, and not set the house on fire? Would it also clear up dog/cat wee for example? It would be great to have something like this to avoid using liquids/bleach or throwing out the item, especially for pet owners like myself.