Month: October 2017

Enlarge / The Facebook sign and logo at its Menlo Park, California headquarters. (credit: Josh Edelson/Getty Images)

Facebook is being hit with a proposed class-action federal lawsuit alleging that the social-networking company purposely misclassifies employees to exempt them from overtime pay.

The suit (PDF) was brought Friday by a former salaried client solutions manager from Facebook's office in Chicago. The woman, Susie Bigger, alleges that she and countless other Facebook workers are illegally classified as managers as part of "defendant’s scheme to deprive them of overtime compensation.”

The suit notes a "systematic, companywide wrongful classification" system for Client Solutions Managers, Customer Solutions Managers, Customer Account Managers, "or other similarly titled positions."

Enlarge / Saturn glows as Cassini spies the planet eclipsing the Sun. (credit: NASA)

I've now been writing about science for nearly a dozen years, which means my career more or less overlaps with that of the Cassini probe. Unlike that spacecraft, fortunately, nobody's directed me to burn up in the atmosphere of Saturn. But, given the overlap between us, you might think I'd be saddened and nostalgic when the last signal arrived from the ringed planet, which, due to the distance, arrived well after Cassini tumbled out of control and came apart. After all, we'd no longer be graced by the steady flow of stunning pictures from a set of worlds that are amazingly foreign.

I am a bit saddened by Cassini's planned destruction, but it's not going to leave a hole in my emotional well-being, at least not in death. Instead, the sadness came years ago, from the realization that Cassini would probably be the last of its kind in my lifetime.

Why so sad?

Will I miss the stunning photos? A bit, I guess. But I wasn't the sort of person to carefully pay attention to JPL's servers to track when new pixels made their way in from Saturn. And, to a certain extent, Cassini was a victim of its own success. Over the years, it sent home so many spectacular images of Saturn, its rings, and its moons, that the newer ones tended to have an air of familiarity about them.

Much of the marketing around wireless routers, extenders, and other networking equipment focuses on dealing with range problems—your house is too big, so the back bedroom doesn't get a strong Wi-Fi signal. But for people like myself who live in apartments or condos in extremely dense urban neighborhoods, range is not the only problem. Interference from neighbors' networks is the chief villain.

Worse, renters are often prohibited by their leases from making modifications to the apartment like running Ethernet cables inside the walls, or sometimes even pinning Ethernet cables to the outside of the walls. For those apartment dwellers, there are few options.

PORTLAND, Oregon—If you think you've seen everything there is to offer at a massive "retro gaming expo," then you're a lot like me. I went to last weekend's Portland Retro Gaming Expo with low expectations, simply hoping to have fun and play games with a few friends. But the annual show has continued its explosive growth, and this year's edition featured so much rare and weird gaming stuff from yesteryear that I couldn't help but pull out my camera.

In part, I'm a sucker for rare games, in original, mint-condition boxes, being collected and sold in a giant pavilion, which PRGE offered in its biggest show floor yet. And I always enjoy a massive free-play floor that lets me save quarters on classic pinball and video arcade machines, which PRGE also delivered with its biggest selection since the show began in 2006.