Saturday, March 9, 2013

Here's what the GOP needs to do to join the 21st Century



 1) Replace Romneycare with a single-payer health system modeled on the VA, with plenty of allowance for private medical care since not all doctors or patients will want to use that system.

2) Tax unearned income at a higher rate than income earned from Real Work.

3) Figure out how to support people whose jobs are going away because of outsourcing and automation.

4) Raise the minimum wage.

5) Agitate for better DoD shopping; lower procurement costs. (Talk about waste! Oy!)

6) Basically, when it comes to a choice between curing a sick kid and putting more money in a rich man's pocket, come down on the kid's side, not the rich man's.
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Don't do these things, GOP, and you're telling Americans that you are not interested in us. And if you're not interested in us, why should we be interested in you?

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Former MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos Talks About Managing Remote Workers (Video)

Millions of pixels have been used to talk about Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to ban telecommuting and her reasons for doing it. Today's interviewee, Mårten Mickos, built MySQL AB into a billion-dollar company with 70% of its workers, all over the world, telecommuting instead of working in offices. WATCH THIS VIDEO AND FIND OUT HOW HE DID IT!

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

A Conversation with the President of the Open Source Initiative (Video)

Simon Phipps is President of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) at least until March 31, 2013. He is one of 11 Directors, with Legal Counsel Mark Radcliffe and OSI President Emeritus Eric Raymond serving as advisers... READ THE REST AND VIEW VIDEO...

Monday, February 4, 2013

The Only, Lonely Protester at CES (Video)

CES is not a political show, so it only drew one visible protester: Kelly Chong, who is mad at camera manufacturers for (he says) destroying his camera repair business. He managed to get mentioned in Forbes, in an article headlined CES: One Man's Protest Against The World's Camera Makers. And now he's getting three minutes and five seconds of fame on Slashdot. Is his protest justified? According to a 2012 article headlined How Nikon Is Killing Camera Repair, at least one major camera manufacturer now refuses to sell parts to independent repair shops. READ THE REST & SEE THE VIDEO

Cut Big Data Down to Small Data and Save Big Bucks

A visualization created by IBM of Wikipedia edits.
At multiple terabytes in size, the text and images
of Wikipedia are a classic example of big data.
Big Data was one of the buzziest buzzwords of 2012, and is buzzing only a little less in 2013. An awful lot of money is being flung at Big Data. That's nice for companies that have an unlimited supply of cash, which yours probably does not. Let's face it: Big Data is useful if you're trying to determine what happened to the universe 17 milliseconds after the Big Bang. Big Data is useful in a business sense for Wal~Mart, which handles over one million customer transactions per hour. Big Data is also fine for the U.S. government, which owns six of the world's 10 biggest supercomputers. Now let's look at your business. How many supercomputers do you own? Probably none. So instead of seeing how Big your Data can be, you are probably better off cutting your data down to size. Let's look at some ways of doing that -- and how you'll save a Big Bunch of Bucks in the process.
READ THE REST...

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Nine Free and Easy Ways to Look Your Best in a Video Interview or Chat

I do a fair number of remote video interviews (like this one) these days. They’re getting to be rather common. One day you’ll be called on for a video interview. Or you’ll just decide you want to look your best in a video chat session or simple “talking head” video production. Assuming you already have a webcam and microphone, whether they’re built into a laptop or clipped to the top of a monitor, you already have the equipment you need. Now what you need are these simple tricks that will make you look your best, even over a not-so-good Internet chat connection. READ THE REST...

LinuxFest Northwest is Coming in April (Video)

Jakob Perry, today's interviewee, is a volunteer who helps make LinuxFest Northwest happen. This is an event produced by the Bellingham Linux Users Group that "has been a tradition in Bellingham, WA since 2000." Bellingham is a small town about a 1.5 hour drive away from Seattle, and a shorter distance from Vancouver, Canada. Last year they had 1200 people. They have a core group of about 10 year-round volunteers, with as many as 60 participating in the event itself, many of whom are students at Bellingham Technical College, which is where LinuxFest Northwest is held... SEE THE VIDEO

Friday, January 4, 2013

How To Get Customer Service or Tech Support Help Without Going Nuts


 buyChristmascustomer servicegiftNew Yearshoppingtech support
You survived Christmas and got the shiny new iThingie you’d been lusting after. Or you got yourself a new Adenoid smarty phone to replace the venerable dime-a-minute voice-only cell phone you’ve had for the last six years that needed a new battery. Or maybe you got a laptop or TV. Whatever it was, it is now time to call tech support. Don’t cry! It doesn’t have to be a horrible experience. Irritating? That goes without saying. But if you follow my advice, it won’t be a totally terrible experience.
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