Men and women do see things differently.
New research published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Biology of Sex Differences finds that the way that the visual centers of men and women’s brains works is different. Men have greater sensitivity to fine detail and rapidly moving stimuli, but women are better at discriminating between colors.
The New York Public Library recently embarked on a controversial plan to move two to three million books off-site.
The New York Public Library (NYPL) retired its pneumatic-tube system sometime last year. It had been used to request books for more than a century. The New York Public Library opened in 1911 and that pneumatic call system had changed little since then. You still filled out a slip, and you still turned that slip over to a clerk, who would load it into a metal cartridge. The cartridge would be driven by air pressure to a station down in the stacks, where another clerk would retrieve your book, which was then sent back up to the call desk by a dumbwaiter. In recent years, this procedure would take about 20 minutes. In decades past, I’m told, it was closer to five.
BYD remote controlled car
All eyes have been on Google and it’s self-driving car prototype. But while that has been happening, a Chinese electric car maker BYD has released a vehicle that already drives itself, sometimes.
Continue reading… “You can own a self-driving car today for $10,000”
Monte die Paschi Bank
The Monte die Paschi Bank, tucked away in this Tuscan city, is the world’s oldest bank. It has survived the Borgias, pestilence and too many wars to count. Now, a mundane foe has proved far more dangerous: Italian government debt.
Continue reading… “Future of the world’s oldest bank uncertain”
Bill Brockman landed a post-retirement job at a child development center in Kansas.
Just how much the Great Recession reshaped what many baby boomers thought retirement would look like is becoming clearer: More than ever, they now expect to retire later or work when they’re “retired.”
Continue reading… “Retirement age a moving target for baby boomers”
Moving development to the cloud and offering the IDE as a service to developers, a significant amount of their workload has been removed.
The sentiment that software is taking over the world has become widely accepted throughout the tech community. Last year it was examined in depth by Marc Andreessen. However, as software continues to infiltrate nearly every industry, there’s a serious consequence taking shape. The demand for development continues to grow exponentially, but the amount of qualified developers that are available to produce this commodity is not. Simply put, the world is running out of developers.
Scrub jay
Scientists have discovered that when western scrub jays encounter a dead bird, they call out to one another and stop foraging. Then the jays often fly down to the dead body and gather around it.
Continue reading… “Some birds hold ‘funerals’ for their dead”
Where will qualified younger programmers come from when the older generation retires?
T’S a looming crisis not even dreamed of when computers were the new frontier, and all those working on them were young pioneers.
But fast-forward a few decades – and now experts warn that essential systems that control areas like defence and banking are about to be left without qualified people to run them, as the first generation of computer programmers retire and, sadly, die.
Seventy-two-year-old US digital forensic examiner, Robert E Johnston, said that the skills shortage in computer programming carried with it serious consequences…
Choose your career wisely or be swept aside by new innovations.
Karen Richards is unemployed, but it’s not for lack of trying. She estimates that she has sent out about 100 resumés in the past year.
The Arlington resident theorizes that a few factors have prevented her from landing a job: She’s overqualified for some positions, underqualified for others, and the fact that she’s currently out of work may be a turnoff to some employers.
But there’s another problem that she says could be holding her back. The legal sector is using new software for research and client management, and she isn’t familiar with it…
Continue reading… “Job seekers find it difficult to keep up with innovations in their field”
Next time you consider an ad like “Help wanted! Highly paid fashion models!” just remember
it’s harder work than you think, not very glamorous, and there’s always
some jerk in the background making you do things you don’t want to!
Quote of the Day: “You’ll always be a little disappointing in person because you can’t be the edited essence of yourself.” – Mel Brooks
Young adults find ways to access the Internet even without a roof over their heads.
Social scientists found that 75 percent of the homeless youth they surveyed use social networks and that their usage patterns were remarkably similar to college students. in a new intriguing study..
Continue reading… “Study finds 75% of homeless youth use social networks”
Some Europeans will get access to the full complement of HBO content for a small fee.
According to Variety, in mid-October an HBO streaming service that does not require an associated cable subscription will be rolled out in Europe. It is confined to only a few European countries, but it’s an embrace from Time Warner to cord-cutters that non-HBO customers have long sought.
Continue reading… “HBO brings streaming-only service to Europe”