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User: lambent

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  1. I'll wager it doesn't actually matter on Fraud Bots Cost Advertisers $6 Billion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here's the thing. This is like a microeconomics modeled market. If the click rate is inflated by 25%, I'll wager the payouts compensate by being deflated by 25%. Advertisers are willing to pay for clicks, and will probably adjust their prices accordingly.

    One of the few times I feel comfortable saying online that the free market will handily solve this problem, without worrying that I'll end up sounding like a lolberterian.

  2. Re:Any evidence? on NSA Collects 200 Million Text Messages Per Day · · Score: 2

    You have to be aware of the actions that the NSA has taken previously, the statements they make, and how their words don't match up with reality.

    So, I'm quite sure that if they say that they're not allowed to request info from an ally, they are telling a very sanitized version of the truth. They in fact don't request such info from an ally.

    What they don't say is that if an ally just happens to give them that info, they can't have it ... so that's almost certainly what they're doing.

    They're not asking for anything ... but they still end up getting it.

  3. No, not really. It is a bit overreaching.

  4. Good on EV Owner Arrested Over 5 Cents Worth of Electricity From School's Outlet · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I'm getting pretty tired of seeing extension cords snaking through parking lots and parking garages.

    I don't think the issue here is just five cents; some places can't handle the capacity this puts on their systems or wiring, or perhaps they don't want the liability of you screwing up your car thanks to faulty wiring, and suing you for it. And hell, what if some bright person uses a cord that's too light of a gauge for the current, and ends up starting a fire or hurting someone?

    Charging should be done where appropriate, not wherever anyone wants.

  5. weed & ativan on Scientist Seeks Investment For "Alcohol Substitute" · · Score: 1

    weed & ativan. there, research done. we can all go home early.

  6. Re:Stupid question on SQL Vs. NoSQL: Which Is Better? · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ability to tune for performance on know hardware; better permissions structures; ability to get support from the company; data security, replication, backup; clustering; not wanting to reinvent the wheel using man-hours when you can more easily pay for a known working solution that is well documented ...

    etc. There are a lot of reasons.

  7. Re:And this is why on WikiLeaks Begins Release of 2.5m Syrian Emails · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    So, two of those articles have nothing remotely to do with the conversation at hand.

    Are you insane, slanted so far you're horizontal, or just stupid?

  8. Re:Jesus, stop being pathetic! on Linux Users Banned From Diablo III Servers · · Score: 1

    This argument has been bandied about for almost a decade, now. Simply, the market base for Linux users is simply too small (and the subset of that contingency that uses Wine for gaming is even smaller yet) for any conglomerate consideration of that markets buying power to matter worth a damn to any of the large studios.

    Small indie houses, maybe. But nobody is going to go out of business not selling to the Wine userbase.

    The reality of the situation sucks, but given past trends, it's safe to conclude at this point that it will never change.

  9. Re:warranty in case of bankruptcy? on RIM Drops Playbook Price By 66% · · Score: 1

    Laziness and complacency. Innovation is hard. It's long been show in the technological marketplace that copying someone else's ideas (and thus letting someone else spend their money on R&D), then selling a knock-off, is a financially viable business model.

    RIM just hasn't made a good copycat, yet. If they're able to ride out the storm for long enough, they'll figure out the right balance of rip-off and shininess to produce a viable product again.

  10. Re:OMG Need More Moneyz! on Report Says Schools Need 100Mbps Per 1,000 Users · · Score: 2

    the story you're referencing was a bit more nuanced than that. the students blew off a standardized test that didn't matter; that was part of it. also, she wasn't just ranked one of the worst. she was ranked the absolute worst teacher.

    amazing.

  11. Re:Distance on Pirate Bay Criticizes Anonymous' Attack On Virgin · · Score: 2

    I don't think so. They've been under attack for a long time, and have always had an irreverent attitude to the Powers That Be. They've always seemed indifferent to how they are viewed by ISP's and governments.

    I don't believe there's anything ulterior to this, they probably just don't like DDoS's. No reason not to take them at face value on this.

  12. Re:Incidentally... on Israel Passes Photoshop Law To Combat Anorexia · · Score: 1

    So, are you advocating that we do nothing? We tried that, and it doesn't work.

    Perhaps the point here is that it is recognized that this action will not cure the problem, but might help reduce it. Frequently, these type of complex issues can't be fixed by just one thing. But we can't do nothing. We have to at least try.

  13. Re:...but it was still a space shuttle flying... on The Space Shuttle Discovery's Last Mile (Video) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Way to give away our lead in space.

    just like we gave away our lead in nuclear engineering. oh, and physics, too.

    and education.
    and manufacturing.
    and medicine.

    is there anything we're the best at anymore, other than incarcerating our own people?

  14. Re:Why post on facebook? on Netflix CEO Accuses Comcast of Not Practicing Net Neutrality · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The FCC has remarkably little enforcement capability. Likely, the goal was to name & shame in the most publicly visible way possible, so Netflix could gain some traction on this issue quickly, instead of having to wait around for months for the FCC to do anything useful.

  15. Re:Firing in US on Interview With TSA Screener Reveals 'Fatal Flaws' · · Score: 5, Insightful

    no, that's not what life is about. i pity you for not understanding that.

  16. Re:Isn't that useless? on The Optimum Attack Rate For SSH Bruteforce? Once Every Ten Seconds · · Score: 1

    it's remarkably dumb, yes. but they don't need to attack specific targets, they're going after the lowest hanging fruit. they just need ANY attack to work, not EVERY.

    very easy to mitigate against as you point out. but there are people out there who never get around to those steps, on account of being lazy.

  17. Re:In Other words... on Studies Link Pesticides To Bee Colony Collapse Disorder · · Score: 2

    Hey, there, snarkopotamous. Did I say to stop all current agricultural practices RIGHT THE FUCK NOW so we can all step as one into the bright utopian future?

    No, I did not.

    It's this type of blatant refusal to address issues coherently and the related knee-jerk argumentativeness that keeps progress from being made.

    Fun fact: a hell of a lot of those 7billion people who are alive today are very slowly and painfully starving because the system that IS in place doesn't adequately meet their needs anyway.

    Also, cheap food is typically less nutritious, as well. What do I propose we do? Anything at all. But people like you try to reframe the discussion, so I suppose we'll just sit on our hands and do nothing, year after year. Which is what we are doing anyway.

    Ho hum.

  18. Re:In Other words... on Studies Link Pesticides To Bee Colony Collapse Disorder · · Score: 1

    No, the logical move is to develop sustainable agriculture practices that don't need to rely on pesticides. By definition, any pesticide is poison, and will certainly affect something else down the line. Even if we find an alternative pesticide that does not harm the bees, it will harm something else.

  19. Re:Kid Icarus on Classic Nintendo Games Are NP-Hard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's a pretty big difference between "hard" and "fundamentally broken".

    Battletoads was hard because it was designed poorly.

  20. Re:s/First Female/Robyn Bergeron as/ on Red Hat Appoints Robyn Bergeron First Female Fedora Project Leader · · Score: 1

    Excellent points.

    Also, thanks for actually addressing the topic at hand.

  21. Re:s/First Female/Robyn Bergeron as/ on Red Hat Appoints Robyn Bergeron First Female Fedora Project Leader · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Okay, I'll take the bait. How exactly does gender affect programming ability?

  22. Re:How much is 28 Megawatt? on Facebook's Oregon Data Center Uses As Much Power As Entire County · · Score: 1

    it's not a mispronunciation, per se. it's a perfectly acceptable alternative, which i've typically only haerd used by older generations of foreign engineers/physicists.

    so, it's more like an idiomatic pronunciation.

  23. Re:They all do it. why just apple? on Some Critics Suggest Apple Boycott Over Chinese Working Conditions · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You're being obtusely hyperbolic.

    1. All the manufacturers don't take advantage of this. And most of them aren't as bad as Apple.

    2. This hasn't been going on for hundreds of years; the world hasn't had a global economic environment for hundreds of years. It's been going on for a few decades.

    3. Improving conditions in manufacturing plants in China probably wouldn't lead to a significant increase in price. As someone else mentioned in the comments, paying Chinese workers American pay rates for their labour would increase the cost of an iPad by $70. Compared to the price of the device, one may call this significant or not. Merely making the conditions of the Chinese labourers not completely and utterly horrifying would probably only increase the cost per unit by a few bucks, at most.

    You're making up shit. Knock it off.

  24. Re:Good luck getting the protestors to support tha on Some Critics Suggest Apple Boycott Over Chinese Working Conditions · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These articles regarding Apple's labour practices have been fairly regular for years, now. It's not that many people did not know about it; it's that many people choose not to care about it.

  25. Re:No null pionters on Mozilla Releases Rust 0.1 · · Score: 2

    The graceful way is to actually write code properly. But apparently, it's far simpler to just spend five years creating a new language that nobody else is ever going to use.