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User: Surt

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Comments · 8,792

  1. Re:Redundant on Diesel-Like Engine Could Boost Fuel Economy By 50% · · Score: 1

    Absolutely. I was really only responding to the GP's discussion of what will make sense twenty years out.

  2. Re:Redundant on Diesel-Like Engine Could Boost Fuel Economy By 50% · · Score: 1

    Cost is the one element that is almost certain to improve to the necessary degree to make electric competitive. So if all you demand is 40 miles of range, you are going to be happily driving electric within the decade.

  3. Re:What's the advantage over diesel? on Diesel-Like Engine Could Boost Fuel Economy By 50% · · Score: 1

    Diesel actually has marginally higher energy density. The big issue is the combustion byproducts.

  4. Re:Jevons Paradox on Diesel-Like Engine Could Boost Fuel Economy By 50% · · Score: 1

    Actually, they won't. We've now reached the point where further suburbian exodus is basically impossible. People (generally speaking) simply cannot have a commute that is any longer than they already have. There isn't enough time left in the day for the sleep required to maintain even medium term health.

  5. Re:Redundant on Diesel-Like Engine Could Boost Fuel Economy By 50% · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't think it's much of a moving target ... electric needs to reach a 600 mile range and charge in 10 minutes. That will make it an effective transportation alternative for all current automotive travel. It really doesn't need to get any better than that.

    It's hard to see how electric can be beat in the long run. Even a 50% decrease in fuel use won't make gasoline fueling the cheaper choice.

  6. Re:There's a hard upper limit to facebook's growth on Facebook Adds 96 Million Shares, Will Privacy Get Worse After IPO? · · Score: 1

    It's an interesting idea. I had to consider it for quite a while. Ultimately, I think that's a losing play for facebook. When facebook sells your information to advertisers, you get targeted advertising. A minor annoyance, and one you can easily tune out. Heck, for some more targeted advertising could actually be beneficial (no more ads for feminine hygiene products!).

    But screw with teens ability to have a private life? The 'it' set will move on.

    Screw with someone's ability to get a job? Everyone will become more and more guarded on facebook, undermining the core business for a small margin business, and again, driving people to a competitor.

    And the market research dollars are wrapped up in the advertising budget I quoted, so there's no more to be gained there.

    But the yellow ribbon sales are a possibility I'll admit. There's some money to be made there. I suppose they could look to displace amazon. But threaten amazon's core business and they wake up a giant software company with no current desire to compete with facebook. Amazon could build a facebook clone as a loss leader.

    The online games market seems like their safest bet. But I don't think there's that much more money to be made there.

  7. Re:Rise of the discount carriers on Verizon To Kill All Unlimited Data Plans · · Score: 1

    I switched to TMobile because of the terrible outages I experienced with Verizon. I've never had cause to regret that decision.

  8. There's a hard upper limit to facebook's growth on Facebook Adds 96 Million Shares, Will Privacy Get Worse After IPO? · · Score: 2

    Worldwide ad spending. The only thing they can sell right now is ... you. But the buyers are spending less than a trillion worldwide annually. That's the total market. Their annual revenue is already about 4B. Realistically, they should be able to grab no more than about double their attention share, and what is that, maybe 5% (generously). That puts about a 25x growth cap on facebook, and assumes that they successfully reach basically everyone who ever sees advertising.

    Personally I'll be shocked if they can grow revenue 10x.

  9. Re:U.S. court systems on Oracle Not Satisfied With Potential $150,000; Goes Against Judge's Warning · · Score: 1

    Absolutely. There is a critical difference between being right and being popular.

  10. Re:Worse? on Forbes Names Microsoft's Steve Ballmer Worst CEO · · Score: 1

    Who would you rate worse?

  11. Re:establish the facts of your standing on High School Students Sue Federal Gov't Over Global Warming · · Score: 1

    Somehow I expect they'll choose to inflate that down into meaninglessness rather than suffer with it.

  12. Re:establish the facts of your standing on High School Students Sue Federal Gov't Over Global Warming · · Score: 1

    The debt isn't going to be a burden for them, they're already trying to elect congresscritters who will default. Eventually, they'll succeed.

  13. Re:Freemium at its best on Facebook Tests the Waters With Paid Perks · · Score: 1

    I think that's the point of the whole thread. Facebook is already headed the way of Myspace. Seriously. All but about 10% of the people I know have abandoned facebook already. Sure, they still have accounts, but no one is posting there anymore, and they're only checking for activity ~monthly.

  14. Re:U.S. court systems on Oracle Not Satisfied With Potential $150,000; Goes Against Judge's Warning · · Score: 1

    Re: social mobility:

    how: by reducing the distribution of the wealth production of the country. The statistics don't lie, it has happened.

    why: to reduce the capability of the lower classes to disrupt their wealth/control in the short or long term.

    And indeed, my representative does not answer the phone. She has glad handers to do it for her.

    And yes, obviously I'm trying to get someone else elected when I say I'm trying to get her out. And of course I have an agenda, everyone does, that's the very definition of politics. I happen to believe, earnestly, that my goals align better with the interests of the vast majority of the population.

  15. Re:Insurance, Backups, Encryption on Ask Slashdot: How To Secure My Life-In-A-Briefcase? · · Score: 1

    Given his entire life is 4k worth of hardware, it isn't clear to me that he does or can afford insurance. But he really didn't make either his short or long term budget for this clear, which makes it hard to make any recommendation.

  16. Re:troll on Ask Slashdot: How To Secure My Life-In-A-Briefcase? · · Score: 1

    Now?

  17. Re:Is any degree late in life a good decision? on Ask Slashdot: Best Degree For a Late Career Boost? · · Score: 1

    I was assuming a 65+ retirement, which at least in this country is aggressive. 68-70 is probably most realistic. I choose a discount rate of about 3% compounded annually, and assume a combined tax rate of around 30%.

  18. Re:U.S. court systems on Oracle Not Satisfied With Potential $150,000; Goes Against Judge's Warning · · Score: 1

    Yeah, sadly I'd have to agree with the shortsightedness on both sides. As much as I dislike the right's ideas, the left's leadership is useless for actually trying to get anything done. Depressingly, the right seems to have the more capable leaders in this generation (not that any of them are superb, but the right's seem stronger).

  19. Re:Is any degree late in life a good decision? on Ask Slashdot: Best Degree For a Late Career Boost? · · Score: 1

    A degree completed at age 50 that buys a 5K increase pays off a 50k degree before retirement. Unless you are going for a top tier MBA you shouldn't pay that much.

    And of course that doesn't factor in life fulfillment.

  20. Re:Wow! on Ask Slashdot: Best Degree For a Late Career Boost? · · Score: 1, Funny

    It's the same thing as the gamemaker posts. An attempt to drive people away from slashdot.

  21. Re:U.S. court systems on Oracle Not Satisfied With Potential $150,000; Goes Against Judge's Warning · · Score: 2

    Are you kidding? What they're doing with it is ensuring maintenance on the status quo where possible, and gradually shifting the wealth created by our society even more into their control in order to reduce social mobility.

    I contact my representative regularly. They don't respond. I try to get people to vote them out of office. It isn't working. I'm not capable of being persuasive enough to achieve the kind of change we need.

  22. Re:"Level playing field" is a sham on NASA's Hansen Calls Out Obama On Climate Change · · Score: 1

    I'd say the ultimate point of green technology is to ensure there can be jobs in the long term. Ultimately, the ability to do anything is constrained by the laws of physics. Energy creates the ability to do things, which makes jobs possible. Fossil fuels will run out (/ reach the point where the cost to achieve that input is greater than the productive output), and when they do, we'd better have replaced that energy input into our economy, or the proportion of our economy driven by that energy will vanish.

  23. Re:"Level playing field" is a sham on NASA's Hansen Calls Out Obama On Climate Change · · Score: 1

    I think the gp's point is that in short term jobs per dollar, manufacturing beats research.

  24. Re:U.S. court systems on Oracle Not Satisfied With Potential $150,000; Goes Against Judge's Warning · · Score: 1

    Well, that's plausible. Virginia is a red state, so you don't have a ton of liberals to begin with, and it's also a more rural state, so you don't have the more typical urban liberals.

    So I'll give you 2 things to consider:

    1) Liberals are broadly anti-sprawl. Enough so that there have actually been incidences of extremists on the left setting fire to the kinds of developments that bother you.

    2) I don't know anything about Virginia politics, but given how red Virginia is, the right/Republicans ought to have had sufficient legislative control to prevent the McMansions situation. That they didn't indicates a problem either in competence or in will.

  25. Re:U.S. court systems on Oracle Not Satisfied With Potential $150,000; Goes Against Judge's Warning · · Score: 1

    I don't know where you live, but where I live and across most of the country the liberals are the ones pushing high density housing. The McMansions were built by the unrestricted greed is good set. There are things liberals don't get right, but this isn't one of them.