Slashdot Mirror


User: darrenm

darrenm's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
14
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 14

  1. Car Maker Sell Cars Cheaper in US Than Where Built on Australians Urged To Spoof IP Addresses For Better Prices · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This is another great example. Here are cars being built in Canada and being sold for much less after being shipped to the US than they can be bought for in the same city they are built in.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/06/12/ottawa-car-price-disparity-border-shopping.html

    Using Canadian dollars for Canada and US in USA, but currency has been around par for the last couple of years.

    As an example:
    Honda builds the Acura MDX in Alliston, Ontario Canada, but to buy one from the dealer in that town costs $9,660 more (MSRP) than going to Honolulu, Hawaii USA to purchase one.

    Honda says that there are different market conditions and the costs of marketing in two official languages.

    Or how about Toyota that also builds Corollas in Ontario. But they charge a Freight and PDI of $1,465 in Canada versus $760 in the US.

  2. Re:Shortages are a solved problem. on Japan Restarts Two of Its 50 Nuclear Reactors · · Score: 1

    I know that's how my body's internal temperate is regulated - a 24 hour moving average. As long as it stays around 20C everything's cool.

    Seriously, it's scary how fast some apartments can heat up after sunrise and cool down after dark. I think about this a lot working late where the HVAC system at work is on a timer. It's almost like they built a tower that is useless without A/C. As soon as the air stops blowing and the room gets quiet at 6:00 pm, within a minute or two I can feel the temperature increase.

  3. Re:Sink it on Japanese Tsunami Ghost Ship Spotted Off Canadian Coast · · Score: 2

    We couldn't if we wanted to. We only buy overpriced, used subs from Britain that aren't safe, let alone ready for combat. Currently we don't have any submarines that have attack capabilities... so if you want to take over Canada, now is the time. http://thechronicleherald.ca/canada/74078-second-hand-subs-bad-deal-canada-says-british-mp

  4. Meanwhile, back at the bar... on Faulty Cable To Blame For Superluminal Neutrino Results · · Score: 4, Funny

    Einstein was seen chuckling to himself and mumbling under his breath "you didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?"

  5. TouchPad != Other Android Tablets on HP TouchPad Go: $99? · · Score: 1

    Most people agree that Amazon is either just breaking even selling the Amazon Fire, or perhaps selling it at a slight loss (at $200 USD).

    So it's obvious that even a 7" HP TouchPad Go, let alone a 10" model is being sold below cost at $200.

    Remember HP added feature that are not included in the TouchPad Go like:
      - higher resolution screen
      - GPS
      - twice the storage
      - twice the RAM
      - front and rear facing cameras (including flash)
      - better CPU (a TI OMAP 1GHz dual-core versus dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm processor)

    HP is just dumping them now, there's no more coming once these are sold...

  6. Nice to hear... on DynDNS Cuts Back Free DNS Options · · Score: 1

    I find it nice to hear stories like this when corporations get larger they still remember the people that help get them going. I had no idea that there was an account type called Dynamic DNS Pro - Permanent.

    Props to Dyn for doing that.

  7. Just use Nuclear Power + a little Common Sense on Could the US Phase Out Nuclear Power? · · Score: 1

    Instead of knee-jerk reactions to "the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl" - I laughed when a reported said that. You mean the only accident since Chernobyl?

    How about just using a little common sense:
      - Don't build nuclear reactors on fault lines where you expect an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 or more, move them and use utility lines to bring in the power.
      - Don't continue to use reactors past their "expiry" date - shut them down and re-build.
      - Use a newer generation CANDU design.
      - If someone brings up the fact that the containment unit isn't built thick enough, or there are problems with the cement, look into it before there is a problem.
      - Realize that coal and oil burning don't have zero health impacts.

  8. Re:This drug really screws up female fertility on Merck's Drug Propecia Linked To Sexual Dysfunction · · Score: 1

    I think Propecia was originally going to be used to treat prostate enlargement - by reducing the level of androgens in men's systems. And they did notice the hair growth was a side effect of that treatment. Which made it better than the other hair "growth" treatments out there since, for the most part, they slow or stop the hair loss, but do fairly poorly at replacing hair where it has stopped growing.

    I think this article has two important points - IF Merck knew that Propecia could cause *permanent* impotence and IF covered it up, then this is a big deal. A lot of people would guess if you were messing with male hormones that something like this could happen.

    But I never expected that impotence would be permanent if you went off of the drug for say a month or two.

  9. Re:Less protection for free speech? on In Canada, Criminal Libel Charges Laid For Criticizing Police · · Score: 1

    I'm starting to see a slippery slope of citizen's rights being ignored in Canada. Look at the number of peaceful protesters at the G20 meeting in Toronto this summer that were arrested without cause.

    Some were held for a day without being told why. All the police had to do is walk up to them and ask for ID. By law if you are walking in a public place you don't need to produce identification, but for some strange reason the week of the G20 meeting in downtown Toronto you did. If not, off you went to a holding area with no further explanation.

    There are at least two class action lawsuits underway against the police and various levels of government over the treatment.
    http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/09/02/g20-class-action-lawsuit.html

  10. Here is a link to the original article... on Study Claims Cellphones Implicated In Bee Loss · · Score: 1
    http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/25may2010/1376.pdf

    And as another poster mentioned, Current Science Online isn't peer reviewed, it's meant as a means of communication and is fairly open.

    I like the conclusion of the article: "We are fortunate that the warning bells have been sounded and it is for us to timely plan strategies to save not only the bees but life from the ill effects of such EMR."

    They are taking those Nokia GSM cellphones seriously! Set those phasers to stun...

    http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/index.html

  11. Re:Not to sound like a tinfoil hat... on Senators Question Removal of NASA Program Manager · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I have a hard time understanding is how NASA (the Americans) made it look so easy to complete six manned moon landings in a 3 year period 40 years ago, but nobody (neither NASA or any other country) has been able to do it since. By easy I mean banging them out every few months without incident/deaths.

    You can't tell me during the high flying economic times, when people were going to go into orbit with their dog just for fun, that countries like Russia or China haven't wanted to be known as the second country to make it to the moon, or the first country to land three people on the surface of the moon during a mission, etc.

    It's like 1972 happened and then every country on earth forgot that the moon existed, with respect to manned lunar missions.

    I'm not saying it's easy, or cheap, but if NASA could do it 41 years ago why hasn't anybody stepped up to the plate?

  12. Apple is scared to lose their development platform on Adobe Founders On Flash and Internet Standards · · Score: 1

    Another reason Apple is so dead-set against using Adobe Flash on their iPhone/iPads is because they would lose their exclusive development platform of XCode on their custom Mac hardware. And if Apple is anything, they are a hardware company.

    Basically what they are saying (after they changed their licensing agreement for iPhone/iPad developers) is that if you want to write software for us you will type in code in XCode and compile it using that compiler and submit it to us for approval.

    If they allowed native compiled code from other software developers, then anybody with Adobe's latest CS5 Flash (even on Windows!) could create native iPhone binaries using the well-known Flash dev environment. And porting Flash games over would take work, but not nearly as much as buying a Mac and re-writing everything in Objective-C.

    And all those annoying Flash banner ads! I'm glad they're gone... I mean being replaced by Apple iAd so they can control the entire advertising "experience" for your online devices. iAds is coming soon to iPhone OS 4.

  13. H.264 is an open standard for all on Canonical Explains Decision to License H.264 For Ubuntu · · Score: 0, Troll

    H.264 is an open standard for all... 'Cause Steve Jobs told me so.

  14. Already been done in Canada on iPod Fee Proposed For Canada · · Score: 2, Informative

    This was already implemented in Canada five years ago. Apple collected the money but when the Federal government overturned the ruling the money was given back to the consumer (or the Red Cross if the consumer didn't know about the refund program). The government decided it didn't make sense to collect money since you could fill the iPod with legally obtained music. http://www.apple.com/ca/ipodlevyrefund/