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  1. Re:yep on Obamacare Could Help Fuel a Tech Start-Up Boom · · Score: 1

    You are being subsidized by other payers because you aren't paying as much as even a cheap insurance plan would otherwise cost. Whether you receive low-income support under Obamacare has nothing to do with it.

  2. Re:give proper credit on The Story of the Original iPhone's Development · · Score: 1

    No. They had low resolution displays and was pretty much an upgraded Palm Pilot with a cell phone built-in and a blackberry like keyboard that made life easier since graffiti required a stylus to input well

    There were some full touch screen versions, and 320x320 isn't "low resolution" (compared to the iPhone's 320x480). You didn't have to use the stylus, there were touch keyboards, although the hard keyboards were nicer than iPhone for a long time.

    There is a reason the smart phone market didn't take off until the introduction of the iPhone.

    Apple has never been the dominant smart phone vendor, so they certainly didn't cause it "to take off"; they simply grew with a market that has grown exponentially since the early Palm/Nokia days.

  3. Re:give proper credit on The Story of the Original iPhone's Development · · Score: 0

    I don't think so. Ford dominated its market for a while; Apple never did.

  4. two things you can learn from it on What Developers Can Learn From Healthcare.gov · · Score: 1

    If you can get it, get a government contract to implement some huge IT system; you can have cost overruns up the wazoo, miss your deadlines, and create unusable interfaces; there will likely be few consequences, the customers can't run away from you, and the pockets of the government are infinitely deep to cover whatever you want.

    If you can't get in on such a boondoggle as a vendor, vote against any kind of politician who promises to solve problems with some huge, government-paid IT system; they rarely are cost-effective solutions or very usable.

  5. Re:give proper credit on The Story of the Original iPhone's Development · · Score: 1

    But that difference didn't exist. All the smartphones at the time had pretty much the same features in the same combinations as the iPhone. A Palm-based phone around the time the iPhone came out already was pretty much like an iPhone: same kind of launcher, same productivity apps, same kind of syncing, music player, online market, dock, sync cable, etc. The main difference between iPhone and the rest was not innovation or combination of features, it was appearance, design, and (a moderate increase in) usability.

  6. Re:Terminology on The Story of the Original iPhone's Development · · Score: 0

    The word "innovation" does not mean "invention."

    Neither does it mean "popularizing".

    What you're describing, however, does fit the definition of innovation.

    Palm, Nokia, RIM, and Microsoft didn't just invent these technologies, they brought them to market and had very successful products with them. That's innovation. Apple never even caught up with their market share. Apple did a spectacular job on design, engineering, and marketing, but none of that is innovation.

  7. Re:A testament to engineers on The Story of the Original iPhone's Development · · Score: 4, Informative

    Couldn't they just wait till it actually worked? Its not like anyone was racing them to market in those days.

    Android had been in the works since 2005 and probably could have been released on a phone in 2007, but their acquisition by Google probably cost them a year. And at the time, Palm, Microsoft, and Nokia were formidable competitors. In 2007, they had become complacent and failed to update their OSes, but Apple didn't know that at the time.

    Yeah, people were "racing them to market", and the initial iPhone was a pretty iffy proposition and pretty limited device.

  8. give proper credit on The Story of the Original iPhone's Development · · Score: 0

    The impact has been not only economic but also cultural. Apple’s innovations have set off an entire rethinking of how humans interact with machines. It’s not simply that we use our fingers now instead of a mouse. Smartphones, in particular, have become extensions of our brains. They have fundamentally changed the way people receive and process information.

    Except they weren't really "Apple innovations". Apple did a great job with the design and engineering of the iPhone, and they popularized these ideas and interfaces. But the innovations themselves largely came from Palm, Nokia, and a whole bunch of startups.

  9. Re:Could have killed someone on Ask Slashdot: Time To Regulate Domestic Drones? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, a 3 pound object like a flower pot, a window pane, a coke bottle, a chunk of rock, a purse, a model airplane, or any of many other kinds of objects that tumble off buildings. Are you going to make new, separate laws for each class of object? Why???

  10. stop making stupid laws on Ask Slashdot: Time To Regulate Domestic Drones? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In theory, the FAA forbids the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles over crowded areas such as Manhattan, but that hasn't stopped any number of hobbyists from launching drones.

    How is this different from any other model aircraft? Quadcopters are probably a lot less dangerous than all the other kinds of model aircraft people have been flying for decades.

    It's simple: if you hurt or kill someone with a "drone", you're going to be held responsible just when you do the same with any other kind of object, vehicle, weapon, or model aircraft. And if you fly model aircraft where you shouldn't, you can be held responsible for that already.

    Now, stop making new stupid laws that simply duplicate already existing, perfectly good laws.

  11. Re:Democratization on Science Magazine "Sting Operation" Catches Predatory Journals In the Act · · Score: 1

    However, there is a clear difference between a fraudulent paper, and a shoddy paper in which the experimental results are clearly an error.

    Yes: fraud actually causes harm, whereas a shoddy paper doesn't.

    Even an undergraduate with a basic understanding of what a biological assay is should be able to spot the wrong conclusions right away

    And that's precisely why it doesn't matter.

  12. Re:What do we want in a paper? on Science Magazine "Sting Operation" Catches Predatory Journals In the Act · · Score: 1

    What do we want in scientific papers? What are they even for?

    They are for communicating useful ideas. And papers do that and do it well.

    But you don't need peer review or journals for that. With the Internet, people increasingly just put papers out as tech reports, and they get cited and used by others.

  13. Re:Democratization on Science Magazine "Sting Operation" Catches Predatory Journals In the Act · · Score: 1

    On one hand, it is easier for those that are not entrenched within the bastions of power to be heard, but on the other hand, all data received from these sources must be treated much more cautiously.

    More cautiously than what? A Science paper? Science has published numerous scientific frauds over the years. In fact, if you're looking for a high profile scientific fraud, you're more likely to find it in Science than in an open access journal, because that's where the rewards are highest.

  14. Re:Bias on Science Magazine "Sting Operation" Catches Predatory Journals In the Act · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In fact, over the years, Science has published numerous scientifically fraudulent papers, some of which were pretty blatant. So, in a sense, we already have a control. In addition to control experiments, it needs three more things experiments usually need: a statistically representative data set, a justification, and a clearly defined hypothesis. It lacks all of those.

    Peer review isn't meant to eliminate all errors from scientific papers, it's simply intended to make life a little easier for readers by weeding out papers they are probably not interested in. So, if the hypothesis is that "lower cost journals have less stringent peer review", that doesn't require any testing: it's almost certainly true, but it doesn't matter to anybody. Publishing a bad paper in a peer reviewed journal doesn't hurt anybody, except maybe the reputation of the journal.

  15. make it all public on Apple and Nokia Outraged That Samsung Lawyers Leaked Patent License Terms · · Score: 1

    Free and efficient markets require information. All legal settlements should be required to be public by law. The same is true for most contracts and other deals (including employment contracts).

    Making that happen would also be very simple: if it's not public, it's not enforceable in a court of law.

  16. His hoax paper claimed that a particular molecule slowed the growth of cancer cells, and it was riddled with obvious errors and contradictions.

    And this is different from the average Science paper... how?

  17. "no U.S. company" on Lavabit Case Unsealed: FBI Demands Companies Secretly Turn Over Crypto Keys · · Score: 1

    The phrase "no U.S. company can be trusted" may erroneously suggest that you might still be able to trust non-U.S. companies. But serious and offensive as this is, don't assume that you're safe anywhere else. The only reason we know about this is because the US legal system at least allowed the order to be unsealed (and probably only because it was the FBI rather than the NSA). Legal systems and spy agencies in other nations have powers that are at least as broad, and often far broader, than their US equivalents, and often have even less government supervision.

  18. Re:yep on Obamacare Could Help Fuel a Tech Start-Up Boom · · Score: 1

    If they start at $100 for you, then you are being subsidized. That doesn't make them cheap, it simply means that someone else is paying for you.

  19. Re:Make more Greenhouse Gas on Upper Limit On Emissions Likely To Be Exceeded Within Decades · · Score: 1

    From the page you cite:

    On the Earth, the IPCC states that "a 'runaway greenhouse effect'—analogous to Venus—appears to have virtually no chance of being induced by anthropogenic activities."

    We know that because even if we burn all fossil fuel we can reasonably get at, that will only be a fraction of the carbon that used to be in the atmosphere.

    You can pretty much conclude that any "scientist" who argues that a runaway greenhouse effect is possible on earth is not credible in anything he says. In particular, James Hansen has lost any credibility because he keeps stating this kind of nonsense.

  20. Re:yep on Obamacare Could Help Fuel a Tech Start-Up Boom · · Score: 1

    Looking at the situation pragmatically, giving the public access to checkups and common disease treatment is a societal good. It keeps them active members of society and reduces preventable diseases.

    I have paid for checkups and common disease treatments out of pocket for years; a single year of that is cheaper than a month of Obamacare.

    But instead of spreading the cost across the entire population we force those that actually pay for hospital services to shoulder the burden of those who don't.

    No, that's not how it worked, since almost nobody paid for hospital services out of pocket. Instead, insurance paid for hospital services and adjusted their rates accordingly. Hence, it was already the case that the cost of the uninsured was spread across everybody who could actually afford insurance.

    The effect of Obamacare is rather to cause people to become even more irresponsible in their habits and health-related spending because it will never cost them anything.

  21. Re:Exactly! on Obamacare Could Help Fuel a Tech Start-Up Boom · · Score: 1

    Actually, obese people cost less in medical care over their lifetimes, they die earlier. So you can thank me for saving you money.

    They also pay less into the system if they die earlier.

    Every person has a right to medical care. If you had any humanity you would be ashamed.

    Every person has a right to medical care... meaning basic medical care that can be provided for a few hundred dollars a year.

    You don't have a right to have US-style full coverage at other people's expense. And you don't have a right to have your body fixed at other people's expense no matter what you do to it.

  22. Re:Exactly! on Obamacare Could Help Fuel a Tech Start-Up Boom · · Score: 1

    Very few countries have true "universal health care"; most of them have mixed public/private systems. All of them have problems with cost control, just like the US. They pay less per person but they also tend to get worse service. Many have less life risk, but they also have less upside potential and give you far less choices in determining your own future.

  23. Re:yep on Obamacare Could Help Fuel a Tech Start-Up Boom · · Score: 1

    You bet being able to get reasonable insurance on your own is going to have more people quitting jobs to start a new business.

    And wouldn't it have been nice if health care reform had actually focused on this, instead of all the other crap and handouts to big businesses that Obama did.

  24. Re:yep on Obamacare Could Help Fuel a Tech Start-Up Boom · · Score: 1

    The big answer to this is: so? In America, some people will wait forever. Literally, the wait is forever. Then, for others, it's a few weeks.

    The wait is forever in these other places too, when the government rules say that you don't get surgery, which they frequently do.

    Furthermore, in the US, you have always been covered by Medicaid, but only once you couldn't pay out of pocket anymore.

  25. Re:yep on Obamacare Could Help Fuel a Tech Start-Up Boom · · Score: 1

    A private entity that the government does not set prices on decided to raise prices. This raise was not mandated by the ACA.

    No, it wasn't mandated by it, but it was caused by it. Government actions have effects on markets, and in this case (as often) negative effects that result in price increases.

    My state has over 40 options on the exchange.

    Unfortunately, all of them bad and overpriced, as mandated by government.