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User: markhahn

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  1. Oracle: hey, rent this hardware for 10x the capex+opex.

    Seriously, Amazon is making a killing from cloud, so how surprising is it that other companies want some of that honey?

    This server costs about $12k, and would cost the standard 10%/year to power and cool.
    Yet over a 3-year rental life, Oracle is charging $142k.

  2. good! on Hillary Clinton Used BleachBit To Wipe Emails (neowin.net) · · Score: 1

    Why are we criticizing good IT practice? There is no logic to the "if you have nothing to hide, you will perform IT poorly". In fact, this implies that Clinton's email server might have actually been secure, assuming they paid as much attention to best practice back then, too.

  3. basically it would upset the muggles. look at the responses here: all of them are based on vacuous analogies to ancient systems, dredge up irrelevant issues like voter intimidation, or praise politicians (who would certainly still exist, as would parties) or that less indirect democracy would somehow eliminate the constitution. or worse: suggest that voting security would be a problem.

    the main issue is that muggles are used to the dysfunctional system we have now, and the vested interests are comfortable with how they can keep things under control. or to put it another way: the voters who are unhappy with the current system are getting some catharsis through Bernie and Trump, and the latter group will probably spend their load well before the election.

  4. being in public is public on New Software Puts License Plate Scanners Into Citizens' Hands (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    What's the issue here? When you're in public, you have no expectation of privacy. We might have gotten used to being anonymous most of the time, but there's nothing inherent or ethical about that...

  5. WSJ editorial, really? on Does Government Science Funding Drive Innovation? (wsj.com) · · Score: 1

    What a shock to find an anti-science editorial in WSJ - surely by any measure the paper of record for plutocrats.

    basic science gives rise to tech opportunities. isn't this obvious? the article actually claims that science is the result of tech, which I just cannot.

  6. they're just dickheads on Oracle: Google Has "Destroyed" the Market For Java · · Score: 1

    Java was never that great, and Sun/Oracle tried their best to monetize it, maximize the leverage they had over their network-effect monopoly. So boo-hoo that reality didn't go their way.

    The courts are not a valid way to fix your competitive failures.

  7. no, not a breakthrough on New Molecular Transistor Can Control Single Electrons · · Score: 1

    manufacturability is what drives the industry, not exotic physics. this project was an interesting demo of tricks you can play with an STM, but it offers nothing towards actual transistors or circuits.

  8. teach the concept, not the route on How Bad User Interfaces Can Ruin Lives · · Score: 1

    Isn't it obvious that most of the problem is when people learn GUI procedurally? Rather than learning the GUI concept and visual language? Yes, the visual language changes somewhat, but not dramatically (a little flatter, etc).

    Accessibility is important, but it pertains to issues of icon size, readability. Sanity of UI matters too (whether normal workflow requires a lot of click-sequences). But the main issue here is that no one should ever use a computer procedurally. Letting them do so may seem effective, but none of our systems are appliance-like (in the sense of fixed-function/interface). Yes, if someone only ever uses a computer for one thing, it may seem pointless to explain the concept of GUIs, but it's also necessary.

  9. what price science? on The Case For a Muon Collider Succeeding the LHC Just Got Stronger · · Score: 1

    we need to find a way to talk about the price of science projects. there are many examples: the top of top500, LHC, Iter, etc. we don't seem to discuss them rationally: to estimate the practical payoff in order to evaluate the cost of building them.

  10. finally a sane response. on Insurer Won't Pay Out For Security Breach Because of Lax Security · · Score: 1

    Finally the security offenders are forced to pay. It's weird how coverage gets all hung up about finding and punishing the perps.

    It's also weird how we're very comfortable with self-regulating systems like The Market or Evolution, but don't seem to think that these systems require feedback. How many security breaches would be avoided if there was consistent (negative) feedback?

  11. matter of taste. on 25 Years Today - Windows 3.0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    win3 was important, mainly politically, though. after all, the windows of today is not decended from win3 - it's the not-love child of the OS/2 project, really. remember that around the time of your fabled 3.0 release, OS/2 was at the milestone version 2.0 which took advantage of 32b flat mode for the first time. and OS/2 was really just a sort of wet-nurse for NT OS/2, which became Windows NT and all recent versions...

  12. Proposal: update the universal SPM constant. on Report: Apple Watch Preorders Almost 1 Million On First Day In the US · · Score: 1

    According to Wikipedia, the widely-known 1.0 SPM constant was first proposed sometime in the mid-late 1800s, usually attributed to PT Barnum, but apparently falsely. Perhaps the murky origins of the constant explain why it has been forgotten by physics, or perhaps it's just that modern commerce has made it much easier to measure with accuracy.

    To make it more SI, I propose we switch to Suckers Per Second, and that SPS should be updated from 60 (in the Barnum era) to a lower bound of 395 (ref: Apple Watch, "sport" edition) and upper bound of SBP=17,000.

  13. Re:Doomed on Bitcoin In China Still Chugging Along, a Year After Clampdown · · Score: 1

    The point of BTC is disintermediation. If you scratch the surface, you'll learn that everyone hates conventional banks, CC, etc - mainly because the intermediaries are extracting such a high toll. Yes, they are convenient enough to use, but just barely. The prospect of a secure, trust-free and cost-efficient way to buy directly, that's BTC's niche.

  14. well, OK but on Book Review: Future Crimes · · Score: 1

    Thanks, but the review's text could use a little editing...

  15. just tax corp income where it's earned. on Obama Proposes One-Time Tax On $2 Trillion US Companies Hold Overseas · · Score: 1

    Most of these tax avoidance schemes depend on the fact that corps pay tax only on excess profits. They don't pay tax on income, like, you know, *people* do. Notice that it's always unambiguous where revenue from, so a corporate *income* tax would be relatively loophole-free. Yeah, yeah, we'd have to drop the rates substantially, since corps pay such a low effective tax (relative to revenue) today.

  16. yeah on Report: DHS Failing On Cybersecurity · · Score: 1

    obscure, poorly-defined, well-funded, with no vested constituency. what could possibly go wrong.

  17. ssshh, nobody tell them about BGP on Sony Leaks Reveal Hollywood Is Trying To Break DNS · · Score: 1

    the DNS idea is stupid, but not surprisingly so, given the level of practice the Sony hack has disclosed.

  18. missing the point on A Paper By Maggie Simpson and Edna Krabappel Was Accepted By Two Journals · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Fake and/or predatory journals are an interesting phenomenon with repercussions greater than just whether they accept nonsense papers. Could the poster edit to include some commentary on why this is interesting?

  19. heat and patterned-media on Consortium Roadmap Shows 100TB Hard Drives Possible By 2025 · · Score: 2

    interesting that these density improvements could both be applied to tape as well.

    yeah, "tape yuck", but it makes a certain amount of sense for cool data. which we have lots of, always increasing. tape seeks are a minute or so, and if density is competitive, tape has a good chance to beat disks on price. certainly on power. the real problem is that the tape industry seems to be sort of demographically challenged...

  20. because they can on Cameron Accuses Internet Companies Of Giving Terrorists Safe Haven · · Score: 2

    Imagine the amount of mayhem being tacitly supported by makers of paper and pens.

    Politicians think they are right to demand control of behavior because it is, theoretically possible. They don't seem to appreciate that their model for the online world is flawed: it's not like physical space, compact and easily policed. The net is a communication medium, which can no more be policed than paper, phones or *air* can be cleaned of mayhem...

  21. nothing is 100% secure on Smartphone App To Be Used As Hotel Room Keys · · Score: 1

    In a just universe, whenever some knob uttered a platitude like that, they'd be struck by lightning or a meteor or turned into a pillar of salt.

    yes, I definitely would prefer a potentially secure wireless protocol over an obviously insecure physical key. this is a no-brainer! even better: make it a public, *STANDARD* secure wireless protocol, preferably exactly the same one I use to authorize NFC payments from my phone.

  22. one better on The Airplane of the Future May Not Have Windows · · Score: 1

    how about dispense with passenger accommodations entirely? I'd rather be loaded into a shipping tube at the gate...

  23. interstate commerce? on Michigan Latest State To Ban Direct Tesla Sales · · Score: 2

    I don't understand why this silliness isn't being slapped down by the feds.

  24. It's because they care! on If You're Connected, Apple Collects Your Data · · Score: 2

    What kind of antisocial fiend would blame Apple for wanting to play a role in customer's lives? After all, isn't that sort of why Apple people buy Apple in the first place, the need to belong, to be involved in something bigger than themselves? You know: every sparrow, etc, etc.

  25. made for each other. on Microsoft Partners With Docker · · Score: -1, Troll

    docker is anti-Unix in significant ways, so should be a great match for Msft - maybe with some systemd to spice up their love-life.