This is an interesting way of looking for recruits. An individual interview is one thing -- I've seen some real losers get past that process. Google seems to be looking for a way to entice and reward developers who can use their l33t coding sk1llz in a team environment. It's one thing to be able to write good code -- the ability to work with other great coders is valuable indeed.
Here's what Google values, from their Job Opportunities [google.com] page:
What we look for when hiring great people: * People with broad knowledge and expertise in many different areas of computer science and mathematics, including distributed systems, operating systems, data mining, information retrieval, machine learning, performance optimization, algorithms, user interface design, statistical inference and information theory, and related areas. * People with world-class programming skills. * People with excellent communication and organizational skills. * People who are passionate about their work and are great colleagues. * People who enjoy working in a high-energy, unstructured environment on very small project teams to build amazing products used by millions of people every day. * People with diverse interests and skills.
What intrigues me personally is that this contest took place in an online collaborative environment. Does this mean that Google is considering opening up to remote working -- as in, I can live in Dallas and "work" in the Googleplex? As much as I'd love to work at a place like Google, there's no way I'm moving to California.
Something that seems to be mildly overlooked here, in my opinion, is that this has the power to give VeriSign "ownership" of the web in many users' minds.
If my mom tries to go to http://www.gooodhousekeeping.com and gets a VeriSign message and a search box, well it doesn't take much of that before she starts thinking that VeriSign == The WWW, because VeriSign is who always tells her what she typed wrong and where she should be going.
What this comes down to is a company trying to "brand" the web. In many ways, Google has been successful at this, but they have actually played fair and achieved what they have on the basis of merit. VeriSign is ABUSING their power to brand the web as their own.
It should be patently obvious by now that VeriSign's modus operandi is one of deceit and trickery. Evidence the fake "renewal" cards they have sent out in the past to "slam" DNS registrants much like the shady phone companies have tried to do with your long-distance.
Damn, it's ridiculous that people even try to get away with this sort of crap these days...will someone with the power to please stop this?
What they've feared most: all developing nations that are short on cash but have plenty of talent and labor, creating their own OS's and hardware architectures, leaving Craig and Bill out of the loop with empty pockets.
Last time it was M$ not getting its share with the OS consortium, now it's hardware. Soon they'll have a complete system...
The article submitter mentioned his theory that the RIAA is behind this latest ISP tactic to impose new, fuzzy bandwidth limits on their customers. While I don't doubt that at all, (lots of fingers in the pie with those guys...) think of the backlash if the RIAA is 'successful' in their current endavours to end illegal copying and filesharing.
Here I define 'successful' as having such a strong effect in stopping people from downloading music, that sales of CD burners go down (no one is copying and/or burning their own CD's), sales of MP3 players go down (no one wants to even rip CD's to mp3 for fear of being sued). (and yeah, I know that won't happen because there's many legitimate uses, but bear with me for a second).
Now, suddenly, the $500billion electronics industry that makes CD burners and MP3 players is going to be seeing declining sales. And the $50 billion record industry sales went up a couple billion. Which industry do you think has more power?
The whole situation is pretty strange. Consider that Sony Electronics makes something like $40 billion a year. And Sony Entertainment makes around $4 billion. Sony Entertainment is a record company, and part of the RIAA. Sony Electronics makes CD burners, MP3 players, Car CD players that can play MP3's, Computers, and various other electronics used in these 'illegal' copying pratices. Do you think AOL-TW makes more money from their record company division, or their ISP division (that allows people to download using p2p)?
Maybe someone can shed some light on who's making these decisions in the RIAA and why these companies are allowing it to do what it's doing.
First, my disclaimer: I am a newbie to *ix. I am confident that I can handle any reasonable system administration task in Windows and/or DOS, as I have dealt with those OSes since 1990. That said, I hope this new merger will improve the OS in terms of stability and user friendliness.
My experience with Linux has been one week of trying to make the GUI work with RH7.2 and my Radeon 8500. I believe that at that time XFree86 was just plain incompatible at that time, though I'd bet some uber dudes made it work. I couldn't, and if there is no GUI, then it is not the kind of OS I want to use at home. Later I tried RH7.3, and X worked, but with no hardware 3D acceleration. Tux Racer was a slide show. Since I will not pay Xi for drivers so I can game at home, and ATI's binaries didn't work well enough for me, I abandoned 7.3. I skipped RH8 entirely because by then I had sold the 8500 and installed a 9700 Pro (love that card!). So now I have RH9 up and running, ATI's catalyst 3.7 drivers working reasonably well, and RTCW:Enemy Territory and UT2003 working great, so I can say that I believe I now have an OS acceptable for my home use.
As for *ix, I know there exists a command line prompt, and the operator can do many things provided he knows what to do there. I am not one of these people. I am the guy who needs a HOW-TO page to use rpm. I want to know how to use bash and the like. I want to know how to make KDE and GNOME do exactly what I want. I want to know how to install drivers correctly and understand the steps. I want to be as proficient in Linux as I am in windows.
That said, I do have a Linux book--The Red Hat Linux Bible (for RH7.2) It is a comprehensive book, with enough information for a beginner to install RH Linux and not much else. I'd say that unless you are already familiar with Linux and similar OSes that 95% of the material in that book is going to be over your head. About the only useful newbie information I found was installing RH. I understand that not everyone is going to use the same procedure, but for me, it was pretty much insert disk 1 and follow the prompts.
Don't get me wrong-- while convering installation is a great idea-- maybe some easy to understand tips on configuring X would be nice. Would you believe that changing the desktop resolution is covered in an obscure paragraph some 300 pages into the book? How about changing the refresh rate? I'll bet I'll have to edit my config file, but perhaps someone made it possible through the GUI. You Linux uber coders did that, didn't you?
How about sound cards? I'd bet that millions of computers sold in the last 4 years are capable of 4- or more channel audio. I don't know how to activate the rear channels. (Disclaimer-- i accidentally got them to work in RH7.3)
Guess what else? I sure would like my logitech 3 button + wheel mouse to work correctly. When connected via PS2, the only selection that works is 2 button wheel mouse. Changing to the USB port, RH discovers it nicely (I was floored to see the mouse discovered when booting!), but I have no idea what the thumb button does nor do I know how to change it.
My guess is that those of you who have read this whole thing are saying RTFM. Well, sure, I'd love to RTFM. Just give me a manual I can understand! Man pages are not good reading for the beginner, and unless you have a laptop, hard to take with you when you need a break from getting the fvcking screen resolution fixed.
Ah, well... just venting. I'll probably have to take a class at the community college, as none of my friends use Linux. Me, I am bored with windows, and want to be ready for the time when it is not worth the effort to get an unliscensed wopy of windows to work. I'll see if I can find a copy of RH9 Unleashed... thanks for the review!
Fun in the workplace with microwaves!
on
Microwave Fun
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
My sister-in-law works with the US Dept. of Agriculture. Her job consists primarily of zapping fruitfly maggots/larva with everything from lasers to 5000w microwaves. She also boils them, crushes them, melts them with acids, dessicates them with silica flakes then blows them away with huge fans.. you name it. Anything that can be done to kill the little doofers, she does. In bulk. They're grown by the thousands just for the purpose of dying in nasty ways.
I think the whole point is to figure out ways to remove them from crops without damaging the crops or using pesticides. She likes her job, though. The only problem is that burning fruitfly maggots smell not entirely unlike barbecue or popcorn, so she invariably leaves the lab hungry...
On Slashdot, we normally complain about frivolous lawsuits. Doesn't this fall under that category? I'm POSITIVE that every hard drive I've bought in the past several years has come with an explanation of what each individual manufacturer considers one KB, MB, or GB to be equal to.
How is that a troll? Is the poster writing inflammatory content in the hopes of getting a response from the unwitting? Don't think so. Offtopic might have been a better choice.
This person doesn't want to read the license. He wants to cause trouble.
"You must be new here."
People on Slashdot regularly fight incessantly for pedantic, yet idealistic goals, because they have nothing else to do with their time. I'd get used to it.
What can Nintendo do to get out of this hardware slump?
Well, they could start selling more risque titles a la Playstation, but I don't think that's where they want to go. Nintendo has always been a family-oriented company and they'll just have to accept the lower market share associated with that theme.
Apprarently, with parts and labor this came out to an over $800 repair. I immediately purchased two more years of AppleCare. [...] But anyways, I figured if Apple is going to charge that much to do repairs, [...]
Congratulations, you've been successfully trolled by the Apple marketing department.
800 bucks to replace two CPU's? I don't think so. If you're not really paying, they can say it cost whatever they want in order to impress you.
You got "wowed" at how much money you "saved" and bought some more highly profitable warranty time, and then encouraged more people on Slashdot to do the same.
Why do they even need marketing people with great guys like you out there?
Never buy an extended warranty/service plan/whatever.
The company has done its math, and priced the warranty so that on average they make a handsome amount of money. Do you think PC makers are making a profit on $499 machines? Nope. But what about that $99 service plan, representing another 20% of the cost of the machine, which is pure profit if nothing breaks? (the most likely case).
Think of it this way: why would they try to sell you something they would lose money on?
Slashdot Mirror
Test.
This is only the beginning.
Here's what Google values, from their Job Opportunities [google.com] page:What intrigues me personally is that this contest took place in an online collaborative environment. Does this mean that Google is considering opening up to remote working -- as in, I can live in Dallas and "work" in the Googleplex? As much as I'd love to work at a place like Google, there's no way I'm moving to California.
Something that seems to be mildly overlooked here, in my opinion, is that this has the power to give VeriSign "ownership" of the web in many users' minds.
If my mom tries to go to http://www.gooodhousekeeping.com and gets a VeriSign message and a search box, well it doesn't take much of that before she starts thinking that VeriSign == The WWW, because VeriSign is who always tells her what she typed wrong and where she should be going.
What this comes down to is a company trying to "brand" the web. In many ways, Google has been successful at this, but they have actually played fair and achieved what they have on the basis of merit. VeriSign is ABUSING their power to brand the web as their own.
It should be patently obvious by now that VeriSign's modus operandi is one of deceit and trickery. Evidence the fake "renewal" cards they have sent out in the past to "slam" DNS registrants much like the shady phone companies have tried to do with your long-distance.
Damn, it's ridiculous that people even try to get away with this sort of crap these days...will someone with the power to please stop this?
What they've feared most: all developing nations that are short on cash but have plenty of talent and labor, creating their own OS's and hardware architectures, leaving Craig and Bill out of the loop with empty pockets.
Last time it was M$ not getting its share with the OS consortium, now it's hardware. Soon they'll have a complete system...
Here I define 'successful' as having such a strong effect in stopping people from downloading music, that sales of CD burners go down (no one is copying and/or burning their own CD's), sales of MP3 players go down (no one wants to even rip CD's to mp3 for fear of being sued). (and yeah, I know that won't happen because there's many legitimate uses, but bear with me for a second).
Now, suddenly, the $500billion electronics industry that makes CD burners and MP3 players is going to be seeing declining sales. And the $50 billion record industry sales went up a couple billion. Which industry do you think has more power?
The whole situation is pretty strange. Consider that Sony Electronics makes something like $40 billion a year. And Sony Entertainment makes around $4 billion. Sony Entertainment is a record company, and part of the RIAA. Sony Electronics makes CD burners, MP3 players, Car CD players that can play MP3's, Computers, and various other electronics used in these 'illegal' copying pratices. Do you think AOL-TW makes more money from their record company division, or their ISP division (that allows people to download using p2p)?
Maybe someone can shed some light on who's making these decisions in the RIAA and why these companies are allowing it to do what it's doing.
First, my disclaimer: I am a newbie to *ix. I am confident that I can handle any reasonable system administration task in Windows and/or DOS, as I have dealt with those OSes since 1990. That said, I hope this new merger will improve the OS in terms of stability and user friendliness.
My experience with Linux has been one week of trying to make the GUI work with RH7.2 and my Radeon 8500. I believe that at that time XFree86 was just plain incompatible at that time, though I'd bet some uber dudes made it work. I couldn't, and if there is no GUI, then it is not the kind of OS I want to use at home. Later I tried RH7.3, and X worked, but with no hardware 3D acceleration. Tux Racer was a slide show. Since I will not pay Xi for drivers so I can game at home, and ATI's binaries didn't work well enough for me, I abandoned 7.3. I skipped RH8 entirely because by then I had sold the 8500 and installed a 9700 Pro (love that card!). So now I have RH9 up and running, ATI's catalyst 3.7 drivers working reasonably well, and RTCW:Enemy Territory and UT2003 working great, so I can say that I believe I now have an OS acceptable for my home use.
As for *ix, I know there exists a command line prompt, and the operator can do many things provided he knows what to do there. I am not one of these people. I am the guy who needs a HOW-TO page to use rpm. I want to know how to use bash and the like. I want to know how to make KDE and GNOME do exactly what I want. I want to know how to install drivers correctly and understand the steps. I want to be as proficient in Linux as I am in windows.
That said, I do have a Linux book--The Red Hat Linux Bible (for RH7.2) It is a comprehensive book, with enough information for a beginner to install RH Linux and not much else. I'd say that unless you are already familiar with Linux and similar OSes that 95% of the material in that book is going to be over your head. About the only useful newbie information I found was installing RH. I understand that not everyone is going to use the same procedure, but for me, it was pretty much insert disk 1 and follow the prompts.
Don't get me wrong-- while convering installation is a great idea-- maybe some easy to understand tips on configuring X would be nice. Would you believe that changing the desktop resolution is covered in an obscure paragraph some 300 pages into the book? How about changing the refresh rate? I'll bet I'll have to edit my config file, but perhaps someone made it possible through the GUI. You Linux uber coders did that, didn't you?
How about sound cards? I'd bet that millions of computers sold in the last 4 years are capable of 4- or more channel audio. I don't know how to activate the rear channels. (Disclaimer-- i accidentally got them to work in RH7.3)
Guess what else? I sure would like my logitech 3 button + wheel mouse to work correctly. When connected via PS2, the only selection that works is 2 button wheel mouse. Changing to the USB port, RH discovers it nicely (I was floored to see the mouse discovered when booting!), but I have no idea what the thumb button does nor do I know how to change it.
My guess is that those of you who have read this whole thing are saying RTFM. Well, sure, I'd love to RTFM. Just give me a manual I can understand! Man pages are not good reading for the beginner, and unless you have a laptop, hard to take with you when you need a break from getting the fvcking screen resolution fixed.
Ah, well... just venting. I'll probably have to take a class at the community college, as none of my friends use Linux. Me, I am bored with windows, and want to be ready for the time when it is not worth the effort to get an unliscensed wopy of windows to work. I'll see if I can find a copy of RH9 Unleashed... thanks for the review!
My sister-in-law works with the US Dept. of Agriculture. Her job consists primarily of zapping fruitfly maggots/larva with everything from lasers to 5000w microwaves. She also boils them, crushes them, melts them with acids, dessicates them with silica flakes then blows them away with huge fans.. you name it. Anything that can be done to kill the little doofers, she does. In bulk. They're grown by the thousands just for the purpose of dying in nasty ways.
I think the whole point is to figure out ways to remove them from crops without damaging the crops or using pesticides. She likes her job, though. The only problem is that burning fruitfly maggots smell not entirely unlike barbecue or popcorn, so she invariably leaves the lab hungry...
On Slashdot, we normally complain about frivolous lawsuits. Doesn't this fall under that category? I'm POSITIVE that every hard drive I've bought in the past several years has come with an explanation of what each individual manufacturer considers one KB, MB, or GB to be equal to.
I hope this gets dismissed quickly.
You are a fucking chump. Prepare to be modbombed.
It means that, in order to run at a decent speed, you have to overclock the C64's 6502 [snip]
The C64 actually ran on a 6510. The disk drives were 6502.
Also notable device with 6502 CPU: original Nintendo.
You forgot to mention that drinking age is 18 in some provinces.
You also forgot to mention the 50%+ taxes. Fun fun!
733 MHz, and I'm supposed to celebrate?
Transmeta missed the boat. Even in thin clients, they're underpowered. At 733 MHz, even low IPC won't help.
Transmeta was a good company, but they didn't get their product to market in time.
hi
How is that a troll? Is the poster writing inflammatory content in the hopes of getting a response from the unwitting? Don't think so. Offtopic might have been a better choice.
That's what your original post should have been moderated as, but alas, that option doesn't exist.
Let me guess...you are posting on Slashdot from work???
;)
Well, let's see. I know on Slashdot we don't read articles, but do we at least read comments we are replying to?
With all that said... I did post this from work.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have our answer!
This person doesn't want to read the license. He wants to cause trouble.
"You must be new here."
People on Slashdot regularly fight incessantly for pedantic, yet idealistic goals, because they have nothing else to do with their time. I'd get used to it.
So as far as I'm concerned, the computer world already has BETTER safety than automobiles.
Hey Bill! How's the weather in Redmond these days? September is so lovely in coastal Washington.
in soviet russia, trinary computes YOU!
Why was this marked troll? It isn't one. Offtopic would probably have been the best moderation, or perhaps just overrated.
This moderation is getting marked as "unfair" in M2 if I see it.
What can Nintendo do to get out of this hardware slump?
Well, they could start selling more risque titles a la Playstation, but I don't think that's where they want to go. Nintendo has always been a family-oriented company and they'll just have to accept the lower market share associated with that theme.
Apprarently, with parts and labor this came out to an over $800 repair. I immediately purchased two more years of AppleCare. [...] But anyways, I figured if Apple is going to charge that much to do repairs, [...]
Congratulations, you've been successfully trolled by the Apple marketing department.
800 bucks to replace two CPU's? I don't think so. If you're not really paying, they can say it cost whatever they want in order to impress you.
You got "wowed" at how much money you "saved" and bought some more highly profitable warranty time, and then encouraged more people on Slashdot to do the same.
Why do they even need marketing people with great guys like you out there?
Paying $300 now may mean that in two years you don't have to spend $1,000 to get your laptop into working order again.
In two years, you could replace your current model laptop for $1,000 due to newer stuff being out and the inevitable price breaks in the PC industry.
Never buy an extended warranty/service plan/whatever.
The company has done its math, and priced the warranty so that on average they make a handsome amount of money. Do you think PC makers are making a profit on $499 machines? Nope. But what about that $99 service plan, representing another 20% of the cost of the machine, which is pure profit if nothing breaks? (the most likely case).
Think of it this way: why would they try to sell you something they would lose money on?
"ADOT Troll"?
This guy copied this exact comment from this post, from the same article, and the mods didn't see it!
I mean did you all hear that Metallica is suing a Canadian band for the use of the E-F chord in their song.
This was a hoax, thanks for playing.