Uncouth Facebook postings closing doors for job candidates

Some of us had the luck of doing stupid things online before most employers knew what social networking was. (I'll admit it: in my early working days, I said some not-nice things online about some of the people I worked with.) These days, however, those looking for jobs have had many years to build up an unsavory history across the Internet, and employers now know how to do their homework. In fact, nearly half of the employers in the US now search for job candidates on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, according to survey results from CareerBuilder. The job-finding firm said that the numbers reflect a twofold increase over those who reported doing so in last year—45 percent in 2009 versus 22 percent in 2008—and cautioned that many employers choose not to hire based on information they find online.

Facebook was the most popular site for researching job candidates this year—no surprise there, since Facebook has exploded in popularity as of late. "Professional" networking site LinkedIn came in second at 26 percent, MySpace came in third at 21 percent, 11 percent read blogs, and seven percent followed candidates' updates on Twitter. Paranoid yet about any of your recent tweets?

ars technica

UBS to hand over names of 4,450 clients to U.S.

The IRS said Americans would no longer be able to evade taxes so easily by hiding their assets in offshore accounts.

The agreement comes as U.S. tax authorities conduct a criminal investigation into Americans who used Swiss bank accounts at UBS to avoid paying U.S. taxes.

The settlement follows demands from the U.S. authorities that the bank hand over details on more than 50,000 customers. According to the settlement, U.S. tax authorities will gain access to 4,450 accounts of Americans who have accounts with UBS, and will drop a lawsuit against UBS in federal court demanding the names.

However, the agency expects to have access to hundreds of additional accounts through other agreements. An IRS official said the total number of names disclosed could be in the "high 5,000s."

"Wealthy Americans who have hidden their money offshore will find themselves in a jam," said IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman. "You can expect us to continue to be aggressive with institutions that are helping Americans avoid taxes."

Market Watch

When less is more

WHY is it so many manufacturers cannot leave well alone? They go to great pains to produce exquisite pieces of technology. Then too often, instead of merely honing the rough edges away to perfection, they spoil everything by adding unnecessary bells and whistles and unwarranted girth. In the pursuit of sales, they seem to feel they must continually add further features to keep jaded customers coming back for more. It is as if consumers can’t be trusted to respect the product for what the designers originally intended.

Occasionally, they get it right. When the little Flip Mino camcorder came out a couple of years ago, your correspondent (not an instinctive early adopter) just knew it was something he had to have. What impressed him about the design was not simply the gadget’s diminutive proportions and low price, but the way the developers had so ruthlessly resisted all the marketing pressure to add further features—and had single-mindedly maintained the design’s clarity of purpose. The Flip had one function, and one only—to fit in a shirt-pocket ready to be flipped out in a trice for those fleeting video moments. This it did brilliantly. Though the Flip’s performance has kept pace with technical improvements, subsequent versions have steadfastly maintained the designer’s original concept.

The Economist

For evolving robots, deception is in the genes

Researchers in Switzerland have developed an experimental system that allows them to track the evolution of social cues. The experiments do not, however, involve the Swiss population. Instead, the individuals involved are small-wheeled robots that compete for food and emit light to signal to their neighbors. Evolution occurs because their behavior is controlled by a set of 33 digital "genes." In a paper that will be released later this week by PNAS, the authors describe how these robots evolve to avoid tipping their competitors off to the site of a food source.

These robots and the ecosystem they "live" in is described in a paper they have published previously in Current Biology. The robots themselves have a floor sensor, wheels, a camera, and light that can display different colors. They're set loose in an arena that contains two hubs, one with food that improves their health, and a second with poison that damages it. The hubs look identical from a distance, and can only be distinguished at close range using the floor sensor.

ars technica

Amish newspaper succeeds the old-fashioned way

SUGARCREEK, Ohio -

The writers' grievances came in the form of angry letters, carried over bumpy rural roads to the newspaper office serving the Amish community.

In a world where news still travels at a mail carrier's pace, the farmers, preachers and mechanics responsible for filling The Budget threatened to go on strike if the 119-year-old Amish weekly went ahead with its plan to go online.

The writers, known as scribes, feared their plainspoken dispatches would become fodder for entertainment in the "English," or non-Amish, world. The editors hastily rescinded the plan shortly after proposing it in 2006, and today, only local news briefs appear on The Budget's bare-bones Web site.

"My gosh, they spoke in volume," said Keith Rathbun, publisher of The Budget, a newspaper mailed to nearly 20,000 subscribers across the U.S. and Canada. "I'd be a fool to not pay attention to it."

Far from impeding the newspaper's success, shunning the Internet actually solidified its steadfast fan base.

Yahoo Tech

The Law of Accelerating Returns

"An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive linear" view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The "returns," such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light."

The Law of Accelerating Returns, Ray Kurzweil

Quitting cigarettes oldschool

Is your Palm Pre spying on you?

Is your Palm Pre spying on you and sending your GPS coordinates and more back to the Palm mothership on a daily basis? According to mobile application developer Joey Hess, that's exactly what is happening. He asserts on his personal blog that data on the location and app used on the Palm's Pre smartphone is being sent to Palm.

The report of Palm snooping on its customers is growing in volume within the blogosphere with many taking the allegations seriously. To be clear, the allegation can not be confirmed.

MSNBC

Les Paul, 1915-2009

Les Paul, 94, a Grammy Award-winning guitar virtuoso and inventor who helped bring his instrument, typically assigned to chug along rhythmically and compliantly, to the forefront of jazz and rock-and-roll performance, died today at a hospital in White Plains, N.Y. He had pneumonia.

The Washington Post

American Music Masters

Ground Control with Major Tom: Your Life in Your Hand

I have never been much of a gadget guy. I have outdated TVs( seriously- one of them has a VCR in it), a used iPod( 50 bucks), a cheap laptop, and the N64( Turok/Mario Cart rules!) is still my game console of choice. Dont get me wrong- I love technology. I love playing XBox, I love iPods, I love my computer. But I never seek out gadgets- they have to bite me in the ass.

Here is where I admit that my ass hath been bitten by a slick little serpent tempting me to partake of the Apple. That slick little serpent is none other than the iPhone. I have never had a smartphone, or a cool phone at all-the phone I just replaced was a flip nokia with its front screen broken and no real internet access. I am an admitted latecomer to this arena, so any observation I may make is coming from a neophyte. I make this disclaimer because there are many murmurings of discontent against Apple and AT&T lately, coming from disillusioned users. I respect their opinion, and will have to experience my own troubles before i can comment on this. I would simply like to comment on this wonderful lil gadget on a general level, just as we love to do here at The Modular Man.

My cell bill is more expensive than it has been in the past, but this is understandable in light of unlimited data access, and, as one of my coworkers so aptly pointed out, it is a small price to pay for 'your life in your hand'.
I can pay my bills, check my email, take photos and videos, access all my work data, and even post on this blog. I can chart the seas, listen to albums, call my brothers, and teach my children phonics. I can read a book or sketch with my finger. I can IM, watch movies and play games. All of this from my literal fingertips. Once again-this may be nothing new to some people, but it is mind blowing to this modular man. I cannot imagine my now passed grandparents being able to process a device like this. or even assimilate our now accepted verbiage like 'there's an app for that'( "What the hell is an 'app'?", my grandpa would say). Even a few years ago this insanely easy to use device was but a twinkle in Steve Job's eye. Not even the visionary cartoon the Jetsons imagined something so simple yet so complex.

To all the people complaining about the lack of MMS and Tethering through AT&T on the iPhone at this time(understandably so), or the Google/Apple 'divorce', I would like to remind us all that a device of this nature was a fairy tale back in the day.
This is what we call Transience: the passing of time through technological advance so quickly our minds cannot process the change, thus taking it for granted. In this aspect, I am glad that I am a late comer to this arena. I don't want transience to steal my joy. I cant wait until the iPhone's full functionality is unleashed upon the user by a carrier that can handle it all(AT&T says the missing features are coming soon), or when the troubled waters between Google and Apple settle, but until then, my 3GS is beautiful just the way it is. Seriously, its like Christmas at our house.

Now excuse me while i go to bask in the warm glow of my life in my hand.