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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: With grants drying up, how is a tech non profit to survive? 2

helios17 writes: Non Profits like this have traditionally gotten started from the money grants provide. Most grants award vehicles, computers and even pay for organization rental and utility costs. The problem fledgling and even established non profits are encountering is the dwindling number of grants allowing for Operating or General Support costs. What good is a vehicle received via grant if you can't afford to put fuel in it?

With the number of Operating or General Support grants shrinking and those available funds competed for heavily, should we be looking on line for help? Can efforts like this be a better way to approach it?"

efforts such as this
IT

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: IT Contractor? How's your health (insurance)

An anonymous reader writes: In the tech industry, as the economy continues its downturn, IT folks in my circles who were either laid off or let go are turning to contract work to pay their bills. Layoffs and a decline in tech jobs has affected older IT workers the most. Many of us find it more lucrative and enjoyable in the long run and leave the world of cubicles forever. However, there is much to be said for working for a large company or corporation, and health insurance is one of the benefits we value most.

But what happens to those who find themselves in this position at mid-career or later in life? Hopefully they have accumulated enough savings or have enough money in an HSA to survive a major medical emergency. Unfortunately, many do not and some find themselves in dire straits with their lives depending on others for help.

I have been working IT contracts mostly now for the past 11 years and I've done very well. I belong to a group insurance plan and the coverage is decent but as I get older, premiums and copays go up and coverage goes down. So I thought I would ask Slashdot. If you work contracts exclusively, what do you think is the best plan for insurance. Any preferences?

Comment [PSA] Helios Project Founder needs our help! (Score -1, Offtopic) 335

From his blog at http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-is-where-we-are.html

Ken's cancer has just recently begun to spread to his right lymph node but his Oncologist has assured us that this is 80 percent curative if he gets the needed surgery in time.

Unfortunately, his 1100 dollar a month SSI disability disqualifies him for Medicaid care and the local county low-income insurance he was receiving. This leaves us with about 2 weeks to either raise enough money for at least the OR for the surgery (we are hopeful of finding a surgeon to do the work pro bono) or raise enough money for the entire procedure. We've spent hours upon hours researching and contacting the links some of you have provided but they are so limited in scope that 90 percent of them are not helpful at all.

We are looking at two weeks, maybe three before the cancer spreads past the point of surgery being an option. After that, we've been told just to make him as comfortable as possible until he passes. I'm not ready to accept that.

I have a blog post up here as well:

http://thomasaknight.com/blog.php?id=71

and there is an indieGoGO campaign going on here:

http://indiegogo.com/helios

Comment Re:[PSA] Ken Starks of HeliOS fame has 2-3 weeks l (Score 1) 93

Ken actually had an offer from an off-shore surgeon to do the work pro-bono. Sadly, Ken's passport has expired, and the amount of time to get a new passport is prohibitive. We have 2-3 weeks at most to scrounge up the money for the surgery, after which the cancer will have spread too far to be operable. :(

Comment Re:Where do I donate ? (Score 1) 7

Sadly, no.

I'm the guy who set up the donation drive, and had to work within my means, which was basically using the paypal donation button, and later the IndieGoGo campaign.

If anyone in the community has the means to set something like this up, we need all the help we can get. This will save Ken's life if we can make it happen.

Comment Re:And piracy stll goes on (Score 1) 288

Amazon already has a system in place to allow customers to redownload my book if I make a future revision. I've used it once to send out an update after a few minor mistakes made it through to the final release. I did a new revision and had Amazon notify all of my customers of the new version. Worked wonderfully.

And no DRM.

DRM is defective by design. It doesn't stop piracy. It only causes problems. As a rule, I don't enable DRM, ever.

Comment Ruggedized Cell Phone (Score 2) 126

I think it would likely be easier to find a ruggedized case for a popular cell phone than an eReader, and then you could load the eReader app of all the popular sites onto it. (Amazon, B&N, and Kobo all have Smartphone apps that work with their services)

I'm actually quite fond of reading on my cell phone. I carry it with me everywhere anyway, so any time I have a few seconds to read, I've got it out with a book open.

Comment Re:And piracy stll goes on (Score 2) 288

Book piracy is very much like Music Piracy.

You can't stop it, no matter how hard you try.

I don't enable DRM on my books. Why? Because DRM doesn't stop piracy. I don't *want* people to pirate my book, but I don't honestly believe there is a damn thing I could do about it if my book *did* get pirated.

The hope is that the exposure I gain from any kind of piracy will offset the piracy itself. Right? :)

Comment As an Indie Author Myself... (Score 4, Informative) 288

This really disappoints me. :(

I saw this coming when the site started circulating the facebook groups I'm involved in. In each case I explained how the site worked, and defended LendInk.com for what they were doing.

The knee-jerking that resulted in this sites shut down is a perfect exampled of what happens when a bunch of frustrated indie authors don't take the time to read or research a site before crying foul.

Submission + - Interview: Author and Game Designer Jeff Grubb (thomasaknight.com)

Synchis writes: Fantasy Author Thomas A. Knight continues his 29-day blogfest today by posting a special interview with Author and Game Designer Jeff Grubb. Jeff has been involved in projects ranging from the original D&D Unearthed Arcana and Monster Manual II, to more recent games such as Guild Wars Nightfall, and is also the author of various novels set in DragonLance, Forgotten Realms, Magic: The Gathering, Warcraft, StarCraft and the Guild Wars shared universes.

Comment My question is... (Score 1) 421

Is this even legal?

I mean, since when can a credit corporation tell you what you can and can't spend your money on?

Where exactly do they draw the line? Who makes the decision as to what is ok and what is not okay?

I see this as a very slippery slope. Mastercard should be very careful with these heavy-handed decisions.

Comment Re:The stupidest thing is (Score 2) 775

The short answer to that is: Yes.

Copyright laws center around the right to create and *distribute* copyrighted works.

The idea behind the first-sale doctrine was that you could purchase a copy of a copyrighted work, and then do with it as you pleased as long as you did not make additional copies of it. I buy a book, I can now lend it, trade it, sell it, or even give it away. Without the first-sale doctrine, only the copyright holder can determine if that work can be distributed, even after its been sold.

Now, an interesting way around this decision would be this: Purchase the watch, and then in some way *remove* the logo from it. There would no longer be a copyright issue, and the watch could be freely sold.

Comment Re:Dvorak (Score 2, Informative) 425

Actually, this is not normally an issue. Once you train yourself to type in a certain way, your muscles remember how to do it, even if you, consciously, do not.

At the other end of this, is the fact that because of muscle memory, switching to dvorak to fix a querty typing issue often does not solve the problem. (I'm speaking from experience here, because this is what I did.) Most people don't actively think about how they are typing, they type from muscle memory.

Instead, I found the best way to train myself out of bad habits was actually thinking about where my fingers are going and making a conscious effort to stem the bad habits. Re-train your muscles to type properly. It took me a few months of actively working at it, but I have had a fair amount of success with it, and now type properly with all fingers, and look at the screen when I type instead of the keyboard, or constantly shifting from the keyboard to the screen. It has helped a lot with my headaches, as constantly refocusing my eyes was leading to a lot of eye strain.

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