Free Republic

"If Germans were the tallest people in the world, how would you prove it?" That was the head-scratcher asked during a job interview for a product marketing post at Hewlett-Packard. Technology firms featured heavily in this year's list of the 25 most oddball questions compiled by the US employment website Glassdoor. Careers experts said the questions were intended to make a candidate display a thoughtful approach to problem-solving. As well as HP's brain-acher, interviewees at other companies were asked:

Researchers have reduced the preparation time of quantum dot solar cells to less than an hour by changing the form to a one-coat quantum dot solar paint. How? Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles are coated with cadmium sulfide (CdS) or cadmium selenide (CdSe.) The composite nanoparticles, when mixed with a solvent, form a paste that can be applied as one-step paint to a transparent conducting material, which creates electricity when exposed to light. Although the paint form is currently about five times less efficient than the highest recorded efficiency for the multifilm form, the researchers predict that its efficiency can be...

It was bound to happen sooner or later. For a crew who uses thug tactics as a matter of course, this should come as no surprise to anyone: "The Obama presidential campaign is launching an effort to collect Republican email addresses by inviting its supporters to submit information about their Republican associates to the Obama 2012 website. The effort in question is found on the Obama campaign donation page, and suggests a little bit of mean-spirited but ultimately innocent fun... Of course, it goes deeper than that. It could be that the Obama campagn wants your email address so that...

Two bills intended to stem digital piracy of movies, software and music are winding their way through both houses of Congress. House Resolution 3261, the "Stop Online Piracy Act," or SOPA, was debated Nov. 16 in the House Judiciary Committee. Its sister bill in the Senate, the “Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act" (Protect IP), was introduced last May. Also called the "Enforcing and Protecting American Rights Against Sites Intent on Theft and Exploitation Act" (E-PARASITE Act), SOPA has generated opposition from a wide range of groups, including far-left Public Knowledge, libertarian Electronic...

We’ve been told that President Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. Anybody who gets into Columbia and Harvard has to have some smarts. Then please tell me why he often sounds so stupid.At a stop in Atkinson, Illinois, the President spoke about the need for education at an agricultural company named Wyffels Hybrids, Inc. He said that America is no longer a place where you can just “work hard” and thereby find a good job. Actually, just working hard has never been the ticket to...

The Lord does work in mysterious ways. But most of the time, He just uses the laws of physics and the logic that He invented. Still, I was surprised to find an argument for pro-life versus abortion logic on a technology blog at PCMag.com. And the simple logic of pointing out that abortionists don't use the word "abortion" when advertising their services is much more telling than I believe the author knew. ""Siri is doing exactly what it was built to do—provide answers to questions like, "Where can I get an abortion?" using its own algorithms and the online resources...

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. –  The secretive X-37B robotic space plane is about to set its own space-endurance record on a hush-hush project operated by the U.S. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. The craft, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle-2, was boosted into Earth orbit atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 5. Tomorrow (Nov. 30), the X-37B spacecraft will mark its 270th day of flight — a lifetime in space that was heralded in the past as the vehicle's upper limit for spaceflight by project officials. "It's still up there," U.S. Air...

Walter Isaacsson has, recently, completed a great work on Steve Jobs. My relatives will probably force me to read it (even though Isaacson was the former head of CNN, they're Conservatives and I'm a 42 year old with a will of my own) but prefer his magnificent study of Einstein as far books go. Anyhow, what do people actually understand about how and in what ways the IT sector of the economy has transformed all of our lives? Being Swedish, I wish to draw attention to what a marvelous revolution a certain poor peasant boy from the region of Värmland...

NEW YORK (AP) — Cable companies said Wednesday that they will offer Internet service for $9.95 per month to homes with children that are eligible for free school lunches. The offer will start next summer and is part of an initiative the Federal Communications Commission cobbled together to get more U.S. homes connected to broadband. One third, or about 35 million homes, don't have broadband. That affects people's ability to educate themselves and find and apply for jobs, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.

In our Parish Sunday School classes I have asked that we read basic Bible Stories and discuss them, along with the rest of the curriculum. There is nothing like an old Bible story to teach fundamental points. For my part I teach the parents while their children are in class. Today we discussed the story of the Tower of Babel (Gen 11). It is a story that has much to teach us, especially in this modern and proud world.I’d like to ponder one particular aspect here on the blog, the issue of technology, and how it relates to modern times...

One sunny afternoon in early fall, a bunch of my neighbours were standing around watching a sick raccoon die on somebody’s front lawn. In the old pre-gun registry days, someone would have gone home, got a shotgun or .22 and put the poor creature out of its misery. But, as one said to me, his gun wasn’t registered and he didn’t want to be seen with it. Someone might call the cops or a cruiser might happen by. That, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with the gun registry: It makes criminals out of perfectly ordinary people doing nothing wrong,...

LAST FALL, President Obama threw what was billed as the first White House Science Fair, a photo op in the gilt-mirrored State Dining Room. He tested a steering wheel designed by middle schoolers to detect distracted driving and peeked inside a robot that plays soccer. It was meant as an inspirational moment: children, science is fun; work harder. Politicians and educators have been wringing their hands for years over test scores showing American students falling behind their counterparts in Slovenia and Singapore. How will the United States stack up against global rivals in innovation? The president and industry groups have...

Navy scientists with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) hit a new milestone, succesfully firing their electromagnetic railgun for the 1,000th time as the state-of-the-art weapon edges closer to real world deployment. A theoretical dream for decades, the railgun is unlike any other weapon used in warfare. And though still in testing, it's quite real, as the U.S. Navy proved in a record-setting test Monday, Oct. 31, in Dahlgren, Va. Rather than relying on a explosion to fire a projectile, it uses an electomagnetic current to accelerate a non-explosive bullet at several times the speed of sound. The conductive projectile...

...What that basically means is that in an emergency situation, such as a declaration of martial law, chipping stations will be immediately deployed. It will be for you and your family, and will ensure that you’ll receive emergency rations and other services in the event of a serious catastrophe. Next, they’ll require all government healthcare recipients to be chipped in order to prevent rampant fraud. An off-shoot may be to implement nationwide chipping programs for those receiving any government benefits including social security, Medicaid, Medicare, and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance. Prisoners and even detainees will be part of the first adopter...

Ever wonder what kind of content world governments ask Google to remove from their search results? Well, Google has just published their “Transparency Report”, which details the type and nature of takedown requests that they’ve received from all over the world. What do you think US government officials have asked to be taken down? Turns out, most of the recent US requests seem to be related to police brutality, and content that “defames” law enforcement officials. Google states that takedown requests in the US from officials have risen 70% compared to their previous reporting period. Other countries, such as India,...

The U.S. Army recently awarded a contracting firm a nearly half a million dollar contract to support its “Power Dreaming Project.” Wired Danger Room reports the following scenario that the Army hopes to begin testing next here to help soldiers suffering with PSTD: A soldier tries to sleep. But he is not safe in his dreams. Jolted awake by a nightmare, the combat veteran fumbles in the dark for his 3-D glasses. He puts them on. Around him are the faces of people whom he trusts. They fight the darkness with him. The soldier’s re-lived this scene in his head...

One of the many major problems with "gun control"--beyond the fact that it is an attempt to regulate by law the behavior of the lawless--is that it is based on denying people access to centuries-old technology. Just how many centuries, of course, depends on what level of firearms technology we're talking about, but even metallic cartridges, smokeless powder, and semi- and fully-automatic weapons have been around for well over a hundred years--and New York City mayor (and Mayors Against Illegal Guns founder) Mike Bloomberg wants oppressive control over weapons far more primitive than those (flintlock technology dates back around four...

Browsing various AT&T iphone related forums, pre-order customers are livid ... to ssy the least. Like my wife and I, we ordered our iphones at the AT&T store, asked all the right questions (we thought), and left with the understanding that our purchase would be back ordered. If you knew the ancient state of our current cell phones, you'd understand why that was a perfectly understandable representation by the AT&T sales person. But . . . as furious AT&T online discussion groups blast AT&T, had we not pre-ordered the iphone 4s, we could have walked into any of their stores...

This is cool!

Cue the outrage button. A South Florida woman got a shock when she opened a recent cell phone bill: she owed $201,000. Say what! It was no mistake. Celina Aarons has her two deaf-mute brothers on her plan. They communicate by texting and use their phones to watch videos. Normally, that's not a problem. Aarons has the appropriate data plan, and her bill is about $175. But her brothers spent two weeks in Canada and Aarons never changed to an international plan. Her brothers sent over 2,000 texts and also downloaded videos, sometimes racking up $2,000 in data charges. T-Mobile...