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User: ThermalRunaway

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  1. Re:cost plus contract on Lockheed Martin Screwup Delays Delivery of Air Force GPS Satellites (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 2

    This is not correct. Cost Plus means the contractor is paid for actual work done plus either a fixed fee or an award feed... thus CPFF or CPAF contract types.

    Cost plus contracts are NOT the only ones bid legitimately... its normally the opposite. if you know you are you are going to get paid for your actual hours worked, you bid as low as you can justify and then incur over runs later for "risks"', etc.

    Point (1): no cost plus never "kicks in" like this. Even in other contract types if anything is changed you can renegotiate the cost.

    Point (2): WTF does this even mean....

    Point (3): Wrong again. nothing "activates". The contractor is paided for actual hours worked.. thus the "cost" part of cost plus. The "plus" part is the fee paid... basically profit.

    Example: You now lawns. You quote someone $50 to mow their lawn. This would be Fixed Price. You take however long you want to now the lawn, and you get $50.

    You quote someone $25 per hour for your labor and estimate it will take 2 hours to mow the lawn. This would be cost plus. You might add something like.. if I do a good job I also get $10 bonus at the end.. this would be cost plus fixed fee.

  2. ownNote on Slashdot Asks: What's Your Preferred Note-Taking App? · · Score: 1

    Decent note taking app, with borwser and phone app support.. and you can host yourself in ownCloud, which has server side encryption and runs on your own HW.

    That said I usually use OneNote for anything that isn't sensitive and use ownNote just for things I dont want unencrypted in the cloud

  3. Re:Who's in charge, again? on Obama Planning New Rules For Oil and Gas Industry's Methane Emissions · · Score: 1

    At least 15.

  4. Re:Who's in charge, again? on Obama Planning New Rules For Oil and Gas Industry's Methane Emissions · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem with the EPA is like other Gov agencies. For example, the IRS is a needed function, but is it efficient and looking for the best interests of the citizens? Hardly. The EPA is needed, but its growing into a giant lumbering obstacle to many economic and personal ventures.

    We all agree that the obvious things are obvious. No one should be allowed to dump toxic waste in a creek. The non-obvious things are where things start to suck. For example a home owner find some outrageous amount for building an unauthorized pond, or restricting development due to a variety of field mouse.

    No the market wont find a solution, because the market is designed to find the best price/competition point. There is no real incentive to protect the economy, other than maybe bad press. This is a valid function of government, but like everything else, is prone to abuse.

  5. Re:great news for corporations and politicians on Obama Proposes 2 Years of Free Community College · · Score: 1

    What would be a better use of tax dollars in the long run?

    How about not spending tax dollars on anything and lowering my rates?

  6. Customer Instructions on Intel To Offer Custom Xeons With Embedded FPGAs For the Data Center · · Score: 1

    I hope they allow customer instructions like the NIOS soft CPU in Altera FPGAs. This lets you create customer HW to implement some function at the ISA level... Altera lets you do single or multi cycle return. And auto generates either an instruction for ASM use or some stubs for C. It really is super useful.

  7. Not all of it is Terrorist related... on Verizon Transparency Report: Govt Requests Increasing · · Score: 3, Informative

    My sister is a defense attorney. She is responsible for a few of those subpoena items in 2013. None of them for anything remotely related to national security or terrorists. The last one was some dispute about a winning state lottery ticket... she had to get the txt msg records for her client and the other person.

  8. Re:Anything MS can do Apple can do Eviler.... on Retail Copies of Office 2013 Are Tied To a Single Computer Forever · · Score: 1

    Eh, I'll reply anyway AC.

    The argument I was responding to was that with Apple I'm forced to by the OS with the HW, therefore I'm paying for the OS (read the original post I responded to). This is stilly as almost everyone gets an OS with their HW. Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, HP, Best Buy, Apple...

    Its not about anyone dictating anything, just stating that the supposed issue that you HAVE to pay for the OS with Apple applies in almost all cases to Windows as well.

    My MacBook Pro (non retina) is exactly as upgradable as my work issued Dell laptop. I can replace the battery, HDD, and RAM myself. If you go to a Air or Retina you can replace the HDD, I think, but nothing else. The trade there is very slim vs upgradability. As to upgrading... as I said I have a Win desktop and a MBP (and the stupid work laptop that I hate for various work IT related reasons). Usually with my desktop, by the time its so outdated I really feel the need to upgrade, its better cost benefit to just get a new box. "Broken items should be fixed". Ya... but my desktop right now runs a Core 2, and there is no upgrade path there... unless I get a new CPU and a new MoBo. I could then get a new GFX card, and use my current HDDs. So... I've saved the case and the PSU and the RAM, maybe. Meh....

  9. Re:Anything MS can do Apple can do Eviler.... on Retail Copies of Office 2013 Are Tied To a Single Computer Forever · · Score: 1

    No, I said I paid $20 for the OS upgrade.. which follows me to my new(er) Mac. Can you buy a Dell or Toshiba at Best Buy or some similar outlet store with no OS on it? So again your argument doesn't work because I pay for the OS on my Windows desktop as well when I bought my Dell. My more important point is that the Apple version of office SW was greatly cheaper and follows me to any Mac(s) that I own, thus differentiating from the MS Office experience. (I also own MS Office).

    Your 30% number is vague as I can find Dell laptops with configurations that match the price of a macbook, and I can price out desktops from dell or alien ware that are comparable and in the same cost area. I'd also argue that even with some % upper for Apple, I am getting additional features that I'm willing to pay for. Namely outstanding service at the local Apple store.. in person. And a nicely curated App store for OSX. Its convenient for a lot of things. And my purchases follow me and I can reinstall without having to remember where I put the activation code, work on any mac I own. Kind of like the Steam model, which is also very nice. We could compare the price of Apple's version of Word, Excel, and PPT, which would cost a total of $60, vs the price of MS Office. So while you supposedly saved on your HW, I could equally claim I saved on office SW...

    (Yes, there are some machines with options for Linux that let you reduce the OS cost, and yet, some houses like AVA Direct let you buy a no OS box, but thats not a "typical" PC user's go to place)

  10. Re:Anything MS can do Apple can do Eviler.... on Retail Copies of Office 2013 Are Tied To a Single Computer Forever · · Score: 3, Informative

    What? Apple is no better because the MS Office Lic applies equally to PC or Mac hardware? The problem is the license, nothing to do with the hardware.

    In fact my $20 upgrade to Mountain Lion travels with my Apple ID. I sold an older MacBook and bought a new(er) one that had Lion on it. After I signed into the AppStore my Mountain Lion install worked fine...

    Or the $20 Pages or $20 Numbers applications I bought.. once... that work on any Macs I own... at the same time.

  11. Re:Can't America get its acts together ? on Congressman Introduces Bill To Ban Minting of Trillion-Dollar Coin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lets say top end rates go back to some of the historically high ones that have existed.. say 70% to 90% on income above $X, what possible incentive would there be to earn that money in the US? Someone with the ability to earn that money will choose to do it in a region where its not taxed like that.

    Look at Google, Starbucks, etc, that are doing just that by taking that income in places like Ireland. So no they dont say "I just wont make more", they do it outside the US where they dont pay taxes on it and that money leaves our economy.

  12. Re:Can't America get its acts together ? on Congressman Introduces Bill To Ban Minting of Trillion-Dollar Coin · · Score: 0

    Lol. Sorry, the numbers make your argument total "fucking bullshit". You don't pay FICA on SS benefits. FICA is what funds your benefits, you ignorant twit. FICA is not a traditional tax in that you get it back in the form of those SS benefits you seem to like so much. Its essentially a forced savings account for retirement that is administered by the Gov and half funded by your employer.

    Whereas the income taxes some of us pay are directly funneled to others via a huge series of defined benefits and other hand outs. If your beloved "47%" is really largely Sr Citizens living off SS, they dont pay income taxes (as has already been demonstrated) nor do they pay FICA.

    Learn2research.

  13. Re:Can't America get its acts together ? on Congressman Introduces Bill To Ban Minting of Trillion-Dollar Coin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > The problem since 1980, is that those with the most money have voted that they pay a lower share of taxes than their share of wealth.

    No. What is "their share" and why should it be more simply because they are more successful? In fact the top 10% of earners pay 70% of all taxes and the top 50% pay 98% (http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html).

    The problem is we continue to take from the top 50% and give it away to the bottom 50% who pay essentially nothing and in many cases get a refund check anyway for various credits. This does little to motivate anyone to try and make more money.

    >the bottom 98% woke up and said, "wow! The top 1% is taking everything

    I think you mean the top 50% are getting tired of funding the bottom 50%. Everyone should pay something if they have an income. If you have no skin in the game you have no reason to care if taxes go up on everyone else and you will continue to vote yourself more money.

    This sums up the real problem nicely:
    "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the Public Treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy always followed by dictatorship."
    -- Alexander Fraser Tyler

  14. Re:those billions on US Air Force Scraps ERP Project After $1 Billion Spent · · Score: 1

    Tax Rates != quality of civilization. People engaging in work, contributing to the economy and paying fair taxes along the way for the government to provide essential services to allow people the freedom to continue working and making money builds civilization.

  15. Re:those billions on US Air Force Scraps ERP Project After $1 Billion Spent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why should it go to social programs? Why cant I just keep my hard earned money for my favorite social program: buying ME beer...

  16. Verizon... on Ask Slashdot: Best Cell Phone Carrier In the US? · · Score: 1

    I have had ATT for a while and found it particularly frustrating. The "4G" is unreliable and even if you have several bars you can have zero data throughput. I travel frequently to LA and Florida and had poor service both places. Last LA trip we had a biz dinner at a place near the beach and I had no service, my buddy had full Verizon LTE.

    Switched the iPhone 5 about a week ago and went to Verizon and its insanely better. LTE feels about as fast as WiFi at home, and actually faster than some hotel WiFis. I was back in LA the last few days and had great service in areas I had zero on ATT. Would deff recommend Verizon, eps with an LTE phone.

    Other cool note: VZ lets you tether free, ATT makes you pay additional.

  17. Re:Pffftttt...no surprise here on AT&T Facing Net Neutrality Complaint Over FaceTime Restrictions · · Score: 1

    So you are saying the Comcast cable line into my condo is owned by ATT? And the Fiber line into my office that is owned by CenturyLink is actually owned by ATT? Not arguing for the sake of it, but seems a giant over statement to say ATT owns the last mile everywhere.

  18. Re:Pffftttt...no surprise here on AT&T Facing Net Neutrality Complaint Over FaceTime Restrictions · · Score: 2

    Qwest bought USWest, which was a baby bell. Qwest was purchased by CenturyLink, which is not connected to ATT at all.... ya, it WAS all ATT back when the phone system was first rolled out, but it is completely inaccurate to say that now.

  19. Re:Pffftttt...no surprise here on AT&T Facing Net Neutrality Complaint Over FaceTime Restrictions · · Score: 2

    I'd point to Level3 or (what used to be) Qwest or Global Grossing or other companies that own their own nation wide fiber network. Qwest bought a bunch of railroad right of ways and laid fiber all over the place. So no, all the back haul from towers isnt ATT.

  20. Re:React positively? on NASA's Bolden Speaks On Future Mars Mission, Chinese Moon Landing · · Score: 1

    Really? Idiot Republicans? Both parties voted for bailouts of TooBigToFail XYZ. Reps tend to want lower gov spending except on military. Dems tend to want lower spending except on social entitlements of their liking.

    I for one would rather see us spend money on another moon mission than trying to convince Afghans about the glories of representative government, or for DHS to research why kids get fat when they eat too much bacon.

    Lets not forget about the dramatic shift in social standing of tech/engineers since the 60s. Nowdays people are more about what some dumbass girl from Jersey is doing on sat night in bar than what NASA is doing with JWST or Kepler. People with nothing to their credit other than being famous for being famous for a sex tape or stupid antics are way more popular in mainstream culture than astronauts or engineers. Its quite sad.

  21. Re:none on Internet Explorer Market Share Drops To Almost 15% · · Score: 1

    Metro may be exactly what most users want instead of a start menu. Look at the success of iOS for many not-so-smart users. You just move the screen around until you find the shiny icon with the name of the thing you want to use. Oh look.. a glossy button called "Words with Friends". I'll push that. And magically its full screen. No need to have to figure out confusing things like resizing the window or moving it around. Plus with one app only open at a time (except if you dock on the side bar) it removes all those distractions of multitasking. My mom will love this.

    Power users can drop back into "real" desktop mode to do nerdy things like write code or something.

  22. Needed to be priced vs AppleTV on Is the Google Nexus Q Subtraction by Subtraction? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm not an Apple fanboy (or Android). But I do like the AppleTV, its small and cheap ($99), and streams everything that I care about... my music library, Netflix, and I can rent moves from iTunes. While its missing some items like Hulu, or expandable apps... for $99 I don't care. And the new screen mirroring features are pretty nice.

    Q could be interesting, but for 3x the price, what exactly am I getting? Android only, can't stream Pandora, etc, no screen casting option. Even AppleTV supports streaming from Android (via a 3-rd party app).

    If Q were $100 or maybe even $150, I would seriously consider it just to get away from Apple, and for the potential hacks that will come, but they screwed up the procing big time.

  23. Re:I do not understand... on Facebook Forming a PAC · · Score: 1

    Like the outrage about unions doing the same thing for the past decades? I dont think its right in either case. But if a union can form a PAC and donate to and lobby candidates/elected officials, its not any different for a company to do it too. Personally I'd rather see neither allowed...

  24. Re:Complicated reasoning. on Chief NSA Lawyer Hints That NSA May Be Tracking US Citizens · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As long as a Republican isn't in the White House? I suppose you have read all the new NSA directives since Obama has been in office that have upped the standard? Or are you referring to that time Obama signed the extension of the Patriot Act. Definitely higher standards there.

    Its the same from both sides, don't obscure the truth that the gov in general is running around destroying privacy and other rights while people fight about what side of some random carpeted aisle the idea came from...

  25. Re:Can we start using examples other than Divorce? on Apple Logging Locations of All iPhone Users · · Score: 1

    Expect that phones and all other "transmitting" devices (among other things) are completely banned from secure areas. If you carry a phone around in a SCIF you have bigger problems than the Steve Jobs tracking file.