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User: guru42101

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  1. Re:Good for experiments, not powerplant ready on MIT Designs Less Expensive Fusion Reactor That Boosts Power Tenfold · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't have a problem with it. Especially a heavy water plant that doesn't require high grade materials.

  2. Re:Need to be adjustable on Ask Slashdot: Have You Tried a Standing Desk? · · Score: 1

    Actually standing desks in an office environment can be cheap. It just requires a change of chair instead of a fancy desk. The new standing desks at work they just raise the work surface of the user's cubical to appropriate standing height and give them a tall chair (as would be in a laboratory). Now the employee can sit or stand as they desire. I'm planning on giving it a try in a few months, although I'll probably get my own chair because they seem to get expensive crappy ones instead of better ones that are more affordable.

  3. Re:Lots of highly paid folks on A Tool For Analyzing H-1B Visa Applications Reveals Tech Salary Secrets · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The other thing a lot of people overlook is people here working on Visitor B-1 visas, different than an H1B. Basically they're not employed directly by a US company, they're paid by some firm in India or wherever. The visa lasts usually 6 months and they must leave the country and reapply. At my employer we have an army of them contracted from Bristlecone, Wipro, IBM, and probably some others. Most of them are paid significantly less than a US employee, even after their rental car and hotel are covered. One I work with regularly let it slip how much they make in Rupees and it ended up being around 11 USD/h after conversion. From when I relo'd here I know the company has a bank of rooms at the nearby hotel at a significantly discounted rate (probably 30-40/n) and they carpool everywhere. A similar low experience US employee would probably get 25-30/h in this area.

  4. Re:Seems he has more of a clue on Pope Attacked By Climate Change Skeptics · · Score: 1

    I think I remember reading at some point that saying that God had to create everything as it is now is drastically under estimating the power of God. Although that may have been in relation to the Vatican's stance on extra-terrestrial life. Either way, I think it is relevant to their opinion on the matter.

  5. Re:It's Just a Euphemism... on Yahoo Called Its Layoffs a "Remix." Don't Do That. · · Score: 2

    I've been through two and a half layoffs.

    1st was managed like crap in November of 2001 working for a financial software company. Over the course of 3 weeks they laid off a bunch of people each Friday totaling 1/3 - 1/2 of the company. Each time saying that they done with layoffs for the foreseeable future. Each cut was made primarily by start date leaving their new application without enough workers and some parts of it's development without any workers.

    2nd was done ok'ish in March of 2008. Again in finance, this time making customizations to the application I helped write back in 2001. We knew there was some trouble, it had been well communicated. We just didn't know how close that trouble was. A deal to get buyers for our investments fell through and the company hit their break point for funds. An all hands meeting was held stating that the company was going to close. Contractors would be let go immediately unless they were working on something absolutely necessary. In a week announcements would be made on a layoff schedule and they reminded us of and explained the details of the company severance package. During that week work everyone continued on necessary work and documented what was needed to be done to mothball everything. Management met together and put in their requests for who to stay and how long. Emails were sent out stating that some would be asked to leave immediately, others stay for some time longer, some until the end of June, and a few until our portfolio was emptied. Then they had the meetings with each person, the division head, and one member of HR. If you went with what they wanted you would be given an extra month's pay. You could change it, but then you'd lose your severance and the month's pay.

    3rd was more a half lay off. I was working under a research grant and well before our grant was up for renewal it was announced that we wouldn't be getting the grant again as it was switching from research to implementation. Everyone was basically told to take their time and look for a new job or hang around until the end + 6 months. They also said they may get a new grant immediately or it may take awhile, but after the 6 months only a couple specific employes (necessary to continue grant applications) would be allowed to stay.

  6. Re:Lies, bullshit, and more lies ... on With H-1B Cap Hit, Zuckerberg and Ballmer-Led Groups Press For More Tech Visas · · Score: 1

    Mine doesn't even bother with H1-B's except for a few FT employees who received their degree in the US and are basically staying and working on citizenship. However, the number of contractors from India who work on-site for 6 months, take a vacation out of the country for a bit or go back to India and then come back with a fresh 6 month business trip visa is insane. That is probably a larger issue than the H1-B's for employee pay in most locations.

    Although we'd have trouble hiring qualified individuals to relocate anyway. We're in a small to mid size town and the only place using Java, Oracle ERP, and Oracle Middleware. If you work here in development and you want a change of jobs you have to move. There are two other large companies but one is .Net and the other is C++/Assembler. There are a few small companies that do IT services, but openings at those are few and far between and they pay low and only need entry level people.

  7. Re:Best money Tom Steyer ever spent on Obama Vetoes Keystone XL Pipeline Bill · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually BNSF hates shipping oil. It's too high risk in terms of brand value loss when a spill occurs. Source: I work for a different Berkshire subsidiary.

    Now in my own opinion. I prefer the pipeline, however the maintenance of pipes is generally crap and leaks are common. If there was a guarantee of proper maintenance then I'd be all about it vs the other available options. Perhaps this could be done by requiring an environment clean up, but we've seen how well that works in the past

  8. Re:Tsk. And they wonder where employee loyalty wen on Massive Layoff Underway At IBM · · Score: 1

    IBM would be a lot better off if their quality of work was significantly better. We (a major US manufacturer) have IBM contractors helping us out with an Oracle eBusiness roll-out. The knowledge level of the contractors they send is well below what was promised. I work in middleware/integration and often find that I need to pull up the eBusiness API documentation because they have no knowledge of how to send standard data to the system (e.g. Shipments, Receipts, Inventory Transactions, Orders...). We've been slowly trimming down the number of contractors because it's faster for us to do it ourselves instead of fixing their mistakes. We'll do it right in 9 months versus having them do it wrong in 6 months and we spend another 6-12 months getting it to work properly. I'm sure it would help if we had better requirements (500 line estimate for max shipment notice size turned into actually being 80,000, 20,000 transactions / month from warehouse servers turned into 17 million, and tons of missing specs for required fields), but they wrote the specs.

  9. Re:Not over the phone on If a Financial Institution Mishandles My Data, What Recourse Do I Have? · · Score: 1

    This is very true. Them sending this information over email and unencrypted is a violation of at least one if not several federal financial privacy laws, at least from my understanding during my three year stint doing programming work for a bank.

    They should send a link to activate an account. The should use various bits of personal information to verify the user (SSN, DOB...) and preferably a random confirmation code that the representative gave the customer over the phone during the original phone call.

  10. Re:Don't most trojans already work kinda like this on The Malware of the Future May Come Bearing Real Gifts · · Score: 2

    My mother had a few of those. Some coupon app on her desktop that was actually advertised by her local news station for getting an aggregated searchable list of coupons available and where to acquire them. It did what it was supposed to. It also downloaded and installed additional applications and hijacked your browser (eg: toolbar search goes to their stuff no matter which option you select, added adverts to websites, and displayed popup ads with fake warnings)

  11. Re:These people are doing it to themselves on Miss a Payment? Your Car Stops Running · · Score: 1

    This is very true. My mortgage is technically due on the first, but not considered late until after the fifth. For some reason my auto-draft occurs on the fifth, or prior business day.

  12. Re:Hmm... on Scotland Votes No To Independence · · Score: 1

    Well 25% of the population does have an IQ at or below 90.

  13. More correct IMO would be Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Virginia..... Although technically speaking it was annexed by England not US.

  14. Re:design on Heartbleed To Blame For Community Health Systems Breach · · Score: 2

    With 200+ facilities it kind of has to network accessible if they're using a centralized system.

  15. Re:It's not like they've had 5 months to fix it... on Heartbleed To Blame For Community Health Systems Breach · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know people who work there. Their only priority is profit. A few weeks ago they did the largest settlement ever with the feds for defrauding medicare. One of the higher ups in a town hall meeting about their atrocious turn over rate compared their employees to janitors. They put red tape over things that should be simple which causes employees to use improper routes to just get something working for now.

  16. Re:Chicken or Egg on Science Moneyball: The Secret to a Successful Academic Career · · Score: 1

    Medical / Biology has it's own author order convention. First author is generally the person that did the most work/research on the publication. Last author is the person who managed it. Second author is generally the primary grunt of work. After that is anyone else that contributed / edited, often in order of amount contributed.

    Source I worked at a research hospital for several years and actually managed to snag myself a second authorship on a project.

  17. Re:History on Rand Paul Suggests Backing Bitcoin With Stocks · · Score: 4, Informative

    He's also a failed optometrist.

  18. Re:Overly Paranoid on Ask Slashdot: How To Back Up Physical Data? · · Score: 1

    This is what I've done. I have the most recent official copy on me or in my fire safe at home (for DL's the old copy is officially invalid, but unless you're dealing with the government no one cares). The backup/older copy is with with a family member in their fire safe.

  19. Re:Is it really censorship? on China Censors "The Big Bang Theory" and Other Streaming Shows · · Score: 1

    I'd agree that it is protectionism, but more from brain drain. It shows eccentric scientists living happily and somewhat successfully in the US. One of the main characters is of Indian descent and there are often several other Asian scientists shown in the university lunchroom.

  20. Re:One of these things is not like the others... on China Censors "The Big Bang Theory" and Other Streaming Shows · · Score: 1

    Or maybe she's failing at paying her bills and often has her boyfriends loan her the money to pay them? (The actual reason given in the show).

  21. LabNodes on Ask Slashdot: Professional Journaling/Notes Software? · · Score: 1

    https://labnodes.vanderbilt.ed... has the ability to keep track of resources and share them with other researchers. They were working on notebook functionality before I left, but it doesn't look like that has been implemented yet.

  22. Re:Tesla needs just a few more things on Mercedes Pooh-Poohs Tesla, Says It Has "Limited Potential" · · Score: 1

    IMO the solution is to change it from charging the battery to swapping out the battery. The problem then is having a standardized battery configuration/connection and we all know how well standards go. The station can then charge for the electricity and expenses, including an amount to cover the occasional battery replacement.

  23. Re:Creative Counting on Can the ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers Be Believed? · · Score: 1

    That is a doubtfully low number. KY alone, last I heard, had around 370k plans paid for and a 60%+ decrease in uncovered individuals.

  24. Re:7.1 million is pathetically low, so ya I believ on Can the ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers Be Believed? · · Score: 1

    I don't know which numbers include children/dependents and which ones don't. That is an important bit of information. If the 60 million is individuals and the 7.1 million is plans, which is how it reads then the total coverage could be significantly higher. If it's the other way around then it is significantly worse.

  25. Re:Communism is the only way forward on Job Automation and the Minimum Wage Debate · · Score: 1

    I think you're saying the same thing. Government is interfering in the wrong ways because it has been overly influenced by corporations and financial institutions. Due to this it is not acting in the best interest of the general populace but those few that have enough cash to game the system.