I recall the game "Total Annihilation", a popular real time strategy game from the 90s. The publisher, CaveDog, periodically would add new units to the game (something like one a month or so). While I also like it when the publisher includes map editors, it is still good to get new material from the original developers.
It is not hard to determine whether or not your own role qualifies as exempt or non-exempt. Where it gets interesting is if you have seasonal duties, such as being a software developer for part of the year (which would be exempt from overtime pay) and then providing technical support for that software during a different part of the year (which would be non-exempt, or due overtime pay). A good example might be developers at Turbo Tax that code in the fall and do tax software support during the spring (which is tax season in the United States). If more than 20% of your work during the year is non-exempt then your employer cannot classify you as exempt and you must be paid for all overtime as if you were non-exempt year round.
The chart in the article includes plots of historical melt, 2007 melt, and 2008 melt. The 2008 line falls between the 2007 and historical lines. The 2007 and 2008 lines do overlap at several points, but the most recent plot points show the 2008 line moving back between 2007 and the average. How is it that 2008 is on pace to be a record year when 2007 currently shows more?
Interestingly, Barack did issue a statement PRIOR to the decision voicing his support of the DC law. The Politico site includes the following details (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11371.html):
The Obama campaign distanced itself Thursday from a statement made last year to the Chicago Tribune that "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional." Spokesman Bill Burton said that the statement "was not worded as well as it could have been" and that Obama believes that generally the Constitution "doesn't prevent local and state governments from enacting their own gun laws."
So much of the debate surrounds the right to protect yourself from criminals, but I was taught that the framers also had a healthy mistrust of the British government and sought to ensure that the system of government they were proposing would never impose tyrranical rule over the people. Wouldn't that point of view also shed light on what they originally thought would be the purpose of the state militias, that the federal government was to be extremely limited, the states should hold most of the power locally, and that states could defend themselves against federal troops?
He asked questions most people would want asked
on
Tim Russert Dies At 58
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Virtually no one in news asks candidates and newsmakers the tough questions anymore. You could always count on Tim to throw hardballs every time.
He also was very good at ignoring spin when he didn't get a straight answer. Great interviewer and moderator.
Condolences to his family and friends, he certainly was taken before his time.
Yahoo's market cap takes a hit, shareholders initiate lawsuits against the Yahoo board. Microsoft may be able to swoop in next quarter and accomplish this via hostile takeover for significantly less. Surprised Microsoft didn't do this sooner
I find it hard to believe that they didn't plug their phones into a charger during that week. Cruise ships generally are not that far from shore, and they spend a lot of their daylight hours in port, but still...I would have expected the batteries to run down during the course of the week since the phones were on.
There is too little in the way of accountability that the school administration can control. Heck, accountability is practically non-existent in schools beyond whatever accountability is necessary to support the educational beauracracy.
When you give school principals the authority to run their schools like they would a business, where the principals have total autonomy over staff hiring and classroom goals, you will see significant improvements across the board. Either the principal will get the right staff in place (big win) or the principal will be exposed as underqualified to lead and you replace them with someone more qualified (big win).
Tie this to a voucher system that allows parents to direct their education dollars wherever they deem is best for their child and the US will have a vastly superior education system in only a few years.
There are a lot of embedded systems out there that could be impacted by this, so it would be prudent to consider the impact should a component fail. Back during the run-up to Y2K I was doing embedded systems assessments for upstream oil and gas producers, and during an inventory of some SCADA systems on an off-shore oil rig a rep from one of the equipment manufacturers happened to be there while we were. We got to talking about a specific component and he emphatically claimed that the component was Y2K ready and said "here, let me show you". He manually advanced the date on the device to February 2000 and it immediately failed. You should have seen the commotion as the crew scrambled to maintain the appropriate functionality of the rig manually. To the rep's horror he discovered that he could not set the date back on the device (it was a $15,000 piece of equipment). Fortunately the oil rig had a spare in inventory and it was installed within a half hour and order was restored. Of course we thanked him for helping us with the assessment.
Unfortunately, many if not most of the oldest and most successful research facilities are now mired in political and bureaucratic sludge. Research funding and even hiring too often is now driven by political motivations. I am glad that these prizes provide an opportunity and motivation to restore the joy (and hopefully progress) in research.
Surely you jest. iTunes provides a vastly superior experience to the user: their music catalog is huge, the tools they provide to search for tunes and sample tunes is so much easier to use, their purchasing model is friendlier, and the sound quality is top notch.
A magazine I subscribe to included in this month's issue a free 35 song sample from eMusic.com. I investigated it and the service was horrible in every way. Music catalog sucked. Finding songs in their catalog sucked. The sound quality of samples sucked. Their purchasing options were limited to three subcription models. Even with free music samples I could not find any compelling reason to use their service.
If a company wants to compete successfully against an iTunes, they better offer an advantage somewhere.
I still haven't been sold on electronic voting
on
Who won?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Seems to me it is a solution without a problem. Couldn't you avoid vote-counting concerns entirely by casting paper ballots, then allowing anyone with an interest in the counting process to witness the tally. Count the votes publicly, perhaps in a gymnasium or library, with a camera to record the counting process as well as to transmit a feed to an internet site. I believe they do something similar in Canada now. I would gladly exchange the additional time necessary to conduct the count manually with witnesses for a repeat of the Florida fiasco during the Presidential election in 2000.
Interesting. But don't forget that if Greenland ice is melting, other northern ice masses will be melting as well, and the resulting rise in water levels will be greater. Better keep that realtor's business card handy!
I don't like using the Blackberry while driving
on
The BlackBerry Orphans
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· Score: 2, Funny
...because it diverts too much attention away from my Nintendo DS
...or at least that is the best that Stout can recall. From an article in Virginia Business Magazine http://www.virginiabusiness.com/magazine/yr2005/se p05/law.shtml "...the inventor came up with the name. Stout does not even remember what it stands for, but thinks it was originally New Technology Products."
The velocities theorized by this technology are mind boggling, but wouldn't a collision with a tiny piece of space dust be, for all intents and purposes, completely catastrophic for the vehicle at that speed? A collision with a grain of sand when travelling at 70% of the speed of light would involve a VERY large quantity of kinetic energy. Without some kind of shielding beyond our current technology levels, wouldn't the vehicle would be severely damaged?
Not only does Steve Jobs have a dynamic personality, but he KNOWS he does and can promote himself and his company accordingly. On top of that, Apple is the true innovator in the industry -- they produce must-have products, and those products almost unfailingly work extremely well.
By comparison, Bill's personality doesn't have the dynamic, charismatic element that Steve has. Bill certainly has the intellect, the will, and the drive, but he just comes across differently than Steve in a public setting.
It's like comparing Scorcese to Bruckheimer. Critics love Scorcese more and everyone will agree that Scorcese makes a superior product, but Bruckheimer is the one with the blockbuster hits.
I wonder if the DVDs sent to the screeners include those annoying advertisements and coming attraction segments, and if so, are they also locked out of skipping past them?
We had the same program at the school where I attended the sixth grade. The grades we were given were simply based on a tally of the number of "modules" we completed in the six week period. Each module was graded on a pass / fail basis. To get an "A", you had to complete 18 modules in the six week period, to get a "B" you had to complete 15 modules in the six week period, and so forth. Each student worked at his or her own pace, and the teacher was there merely to maintain basic order in the class space.
My friend and I discovered that if we busted our humps at the start of the six week grading period that we could complete 18 modules in each subject in about a week, thereby guaranteeing straight A's and still allowing us to spend the remainder of the six weeks achieving god-like skills in paper football, playing cat's cradle, talking Star Trek, and talking about the newest craze in our female classmates: boobies.
Egad...how many lifelong habits have their roots in our sixth grade year?
Slashdot Mirror
I recall the game "Total Annihilation", a popular real time strategy game from the 90s. The publisher, CaveDog, periodically would add new units to the game (something like one a month or so). While I also like it when the publisher includes map editors, it is still good to get new material from the original developers.
The FLSA is actually pretty clear and easy to follow: http://finduslaw.com/fair_labor_standards_act_flsa_29_u_s_code_chapter_8#2
It is not hard to determine whether or not your own role qualifies as exempt or non-exempt. Where it gets interesting is if you have seasonal duties, such as being a software developer for part of the year (which would be exempt from overtime pay) and then providing technical support for that software during a different part of the year (which would be non-exempt, or due overtime pay). A good example might be developers at Turbo Tax that code in the fall and do tax software support during the spring (which is tax season in the United States). If more than 20% of your work during the year is non-exempt then your employer cannot classify you as exempt and you must be paid for all overtime as if you were non-exempt year round.
The chart in the article includes plots of historical melt, 2007 melt, and 2008 melt. The 2008 line falls between the 2007 and historical lines. The 2007 and 2008 lines do overlap at several points, but the most recent plot points show the 2008 line moving back between 2007 and the average. How is it that 2008 is on pace to be a record year when 2007 currently shows more?
Interestingly, Barack did issue a statement PRIOR to the decision voicing his support of the DC law. The Politico site includes the following details (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11371.html): The Obama campaign distanced itself Thursday from a statement made last year to the Chicago Tribune that "Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional." Spokesman Bill Burton said that the statement "was not worded as well as it could have been" and that Obama believes that generally the Constitution "doesn't prevent local and state governments from enacting their own gun laws."
So much of the debate surrounds the right to protect yourself from criminals, but I was taught that the framers also had a healthy mistrust of the British government and sought to ensure that the system of government they were proposing would never impose tyrranical rule over the people. Wouldn't that point of view also shed light on what they originally thought would be the purpose of the state militias, that the federal government was to be extremely limited, the states should hold most of the power locally, and that states could defend themselves against federal troops?
Virtually no one in news asks candidates and newsmakers the tough questions anymore. You could always count on Tim to throw hardballs every time. He also was very good at ignoring spin when he didn't get a straight answer. Great interviewer and moderator. Condolences to his family and friends, he certainly was taken before his time.
I wonder if their system would be able to interpret captchas successfully?
Yahoo's market cap takes a hit, shareholders initiate lawsuits against the Yahoo board. Microsoft may be able to swoop in next quarter and accomplish this via hostile takeover for significantly less. Surprised Microsoft didn't do this sooner
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic - Arthur C. Clarke,
I find it hard to believe that they didn't plug their phones into a charger during that week. Cruise ships generally are not that far from shore, and they spend a lot of their daylight hours in port, but still...I would have expected the batteries to run down during the course of the week since the phones were on.
There is too little in the way of accountability that the school administration can control. Heck, accountability is practically non-existent in schools beyond whatever accountability is necessary to support the educational beauracracy.
When you give school principals the authority to run their schools like they would a business, where the principals have total autonomy over staff hiring and classroom goals, you will see significant improvements across the board. Either the principal will get the right staff in place (big win) or the principal will be exposed as underqualified to lead and you replace them with someone more qualified (big win).
Tie this to a voucher system that allows parents to direct their education dollars wherever they deem is best for their child and the US will have a vastly superior education system in only a few years.
There are a lot of embedded systems out there that could be impacted by this, so it would be prudent to consider the impact should a component fail. Back during the run-up to Y2K I was doing embedded systems assessments for upstream oil and gas producers, and during an inventory of some SCADA systems on an off-shore oil rig a rep from one of the equipment manufacturers happened to be there while we were. We got to talking about a specific component and he emphatically claimed that the component was Y2K ready and said "here, let me show you". He manually advanced the date on the device to February 2000 and it immediately failed. You should have seen the commotion as the crew scrambled to maintain the appropriate functionality of the rig manually. To the rep's horror he discovered that he could not set the date back on the device (it was a $15,000 piece of equipment). Fortunately the oil rig had a spare in inventory and it was installed within a half hour and order was restored. Of course we thanked him for helping us with the assessment.
Imagine trying to return Turbo Tax after April 15. For most people, the shelf life of that product ends then.
Unfortunately, many if not most of the oldest and most successful research facilities are now mired in political and bureaucratic sludge. Research funding and even hiring too often is now driven by political motivations. I am glad that these prizes provide an opportunity and motivation to restore the joy (and hopefully progress) in research.
Surely you jest. iTunes provides a vastly superior experience to the user: their music catalog is huge, the tools they provide to search for tunes and sample tunes is so much easier to use, their purchasing model is friendlier, and the sound quality is top notch. A magazine I subscribe to included in this month's issue a free 35 song sample from eMusic.com. I investigated it and the service was horrible in every way. Music catalog sucked. Finding songs in their catalog sucked. The sound quality of samples sucked. Their purchasing options were limited to three subcription models. Even with free music samples I could not find any compelling reason to use their service. If a company wants to compete successfully against an iTunes, they better offer an advantage somewhere.
Seems to me it is a solution without a problem. Couldn't you avoid vote-counting concerns entirely by casting paper ballots, then allowing anyone with an interest in the counting process to witness the tally. Count the votes publicly, perhaps in a gymnasium or library, with a camera to record the counting process as well as to transmit a feed to an internet site. I believe they do something similar in Canada now. I would gladly exchange the additional time necessary to conduct the count manually with witnesses for a repeat of the Florida fiasco during the Presidential election in 2000.
I can remember being unable to move out of a corner after a particularly busy gunfight because the bodies were piled so high around me.
Interesting. But don't forget that if Greenland ice is melting, other northern ice masses will be melting as well, and the resulting rise in water levels will be greater. Better keep that realtor's business card handy!
...because it diverts too much attention away from my Nintendo DS
...or at least that is the best that Stout can recall. From an article in Virginia Business Magazine http://www.virginiabusiness.com/magazine/yr2005/se p05/law.shtml "...the inventor came up with the name. Stout does not even remember what it stands for, but thinks it was originally New Technology Products."
Walter Isaacson's recent biography on Franklin (available virtually everywhere, including amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074325807X/qid=11 37510251/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-5388269-4030340?n =507846&s=books&v=glance) is a broad and comprehensive study that manages to be a fairly easy read.
The velocities theorized by this technology are mind boggling, but wouldn't a collision with a tiny piece of space dust be, for all intents and purposes, completely catastrophic for the vehicle at that speed? A collision with a grain of sand when travelling at 70% of the speed of light would involve a VERY large quantity of kinetic energy. Without some kind of shielding beyond our current technology levels, wouldn't the vehicle would be severely damaged?
Not only does Steve Jobs have a dynamic personality, but he KNOWS he does and can promote himself and his company accordingly. On top of that, Apple is the true innovator in the industry -- they produce must-have products, and those products almost unfailingly work extremely well.
By comparison, Bill's personality doesn't have the dynamic, charismatic element that Steve has. Bill certainly has the intellect, the will, and the drive, but he just comes across differently than Steve in a public setting.
It's like comparing Scorcese to Bruckheimer. Critics love Scorcese more and everyone will agree that Scorcese makes a superior product, but Bruckheimer is the one with the blockbuster hits.
I wonder if the DVDs sent to the screeners include those annoying advertisements and coming attraction segments, and if so, are they also locked out of skipping past them?
We had the same program at the school where I attended the sixth grade. The grades we were given were simply based on a tally of the number of "modules" we completed in the six week period. Each module was graded on a pass / fail basis. To get an "A", you had to complete 18 modules in the six week period, to get a "B" you had to complete 15 modules in the six week period, and so forth. Each student worked at his or her own pace, and the teacher was there merely to maintain basic order in the class space.
My friend and I discovered that if we busted our humps at the start of the six week grading period that we could complete 18 modules in each subject in about a week, thereby guaranteeing straight A's and still allowing us to spend the remainder of the six weeks achieving god-like skills in paper football, playing cat's cradle, talking Star Trek, and talking about the newest craze in our female classmates: boobies.
Egad...how many lifelong habits have their roots in our sixth grade year?