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dstone writes "Paul Graham, Lisp programmer turned Venture Capitalist, shares his thoughts this month on why programmers shouldn't have bosses. He claims "the restrictiveness of big company jobs is particularly hard on programmers" because, unlike sales or support employees, programmers are constantly creating new things and this requires more freedom than a large hierarchy allows. His suggestion to programmers? They're wired to be their own bosses. "The environment in big companies is toxic to programmers. In the first couple weeks of working on their own startup they seem to come to life, because finally they're working the way people are meant to.""
http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html

Filed under: Wireless

Simmer down, NFL fans -- we're talking real football here, so we'd recommend hoping a flight to Europe if you're interested in taking advantage of this. Reportedly, Bluepod Media has inked exclusive BT marketing rights with a bevy of Premiership football clubs including Blackburn Rovers, Birmingham City, West Ham, Portsmouth and Wigan Athletic (among others). The deal was worked out after successful trials at Portsmouth and Birmingham City, and going forward, Bluepod will be working with third-parties to "create and distribute branded content to football fans within all stadiums on match days." Best of all, said content will be offered up to attendees gratis, while brand owners will be shelling out cash on a per download basis. Don't worry, dear Americans, you can always order up a hot dog from the comfort of your Safeco Field seat with your DS -- how's that for a consolation prize?

[Via IntoMobile, image courtesy of Hobo Tread]

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http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/219176185/

Stony Stevenson writes "The CIA has admitted that cyberattacks have caused at least one power outage affecting multiple cities outside the United States. Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, said that CIA senior analyst Tom Donahue confirmed that online attackers had caused at least one blackout. The disclosure was made at a New Orleans security conference Friday attended by international government officials, engineers, and security managers from North American energy companies and utilities. Paller said that Donahue presented him with a written statement that read, "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet.""

zakkie writes "According to InfoWorld, Google's Desktop indexing engine is vulnerable to an exploit (the second such flaw to be found) that could allow crackers to read files or execute code. By exploiting a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability on Google.com, an attacker can grab all the data off a Google Desktop. Google is said to be "investigating"."

bennett77 writes "What looks like an upside-down rainbow is actually a rare atmospheric spectacle called a circumzenithal arc. According to the San Francisco Chronicle: its an unusual phenomenon caused by sunlight shining through a thin, invisible screen of tiny ice crystals high in the sky and has nothing at all to do with the rain."

bunder writes "The Associated Press SEATTLE (Feb 24, 2007) A U.S. federal jury's ruling that Microsoft infringed on two MP3 patents and must pay $1.52- billion US in damages could turn into a major sour note for other technology companies in the digital music business. The victory for France's Alcatel-Lucent SA could embolden the telecommunications equipment maker to pursue claims — or seek royalties — from other companies that it believes infringe on the technology, experts said yesterday. The two patents in question cover the encoding and decoding of audio into the digital MP3 format — a popular way to convert music from a CD into a lightweight file on a personal computer and vice versa. Microsoft said it paid for the technology from Germany-based Fraunhofer Institute, which licences it to hundreds of companies, including Apple Inc. and RealNetworks Inc. When the software maker decided to add MP3 decoding and encoding capabilities to its Windows Media Player, it paid Fraunhofer $16-million US for the relevant intellectual property licences and source code."

ifindkarma writes "Joyce Park, CTO of invitation site Renkoo.com [1], has
written a two-part essay exploring why there is no pipeline of self-taught
female engineers entering the tech industry via Open Source or other
individual efforts. In "The Hidden Engineering Gap" [2], she asks why
there are so many self-taught male software engineers in startups, but
no similar pool of women. In "A Modest Proposal" [3], she discusses a
potential short-term fix to the problem.

Links:

    1. http://renkoo.com/
    2. http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/2007/01/02 /the-hidden-engineering-gender-gap/
    3. http://www.venturebeat.com/contributors/2007/01/04 /a-modest-proposal/"

mattnyc99 writes "A new report by the National Research Council warns that, by 2010, the number of NASA's Earth-observing missions will drop dramatically, and the number of operating sensors and instruments on NASA spacecraft will decrease by 40 percent. From the report: "The United States' extraordinary foundation of global observations is at great risk." So what does it all mean? Popular Mechanics asks an MIT professor involved in the findings."

supermegadope writes "From the article. at http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNew s/20070116/cancer_dca_070116/20070116?hub=Canada

""I think DCA can be selective for cancer because it attacks a fundamental process in cancer development that is unique to cancer cells," said Dr. Evangelos Michelakis, a professor at the University of Alberta department of medicine and a key study author.

The molecule appears to repair the damage that cancer cells cause to mitochondria, the units that convert food into energy."

"In addition, because DCA has been used in both healthy people and ailing patients with mitochondrial diseases, researchers know it is a relatively non-toxic molecule that can be immediately tested in patients with cancer.

The compound, which is sold both as powder and as a liquid, is widely available at chemistry stores.

Furthermore, the compound is not patented, nor is it owned by any drug firm, so it would be an inexpensive drug to administer.

However, because DCA is not patented, Michelakis expressed concern that it may be difficult to find funding from private investors to test the compound in clinical trials. ""

dgiik writes "Most people think Linux users are all geeks. That is not true. I know many artists and ordinary people who enjoy using Linux and nobody would ever call them geeks. But it is true that most Linux users are males. I'm running a little poll at my website and the results confirmed my general belief that Linux users are almost all males. 93% of all responders were males. While I knew that most Linux users were males, the wide margin was a surprise to me. Any thoughts on why linux is so overwhelmingly a guy thing?"

lewiz writes "The BBC is reporting that music purchased at MSN Music will not play on the new Zune music player." From the article: "The problem has arisen because tracks from the MSN Music site are compatible with the specifications of the Plays For Sure initiative. This was intended to re-assure consumers as it guaranteed that music bought from services backing it would work with players that supported it. MSN Music, Napster, AOL Music Now and Urge all backed Plays For Sure as did many players from hardware makers such as Archos, Creative, Dell and Iriver. In a statement a Microsoft spokesperson said: 'Since Zune is a separate offering that is not part of the Plays For Sure ecosystem, Zune content is not supported on Plays For Sure devices.'"