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User: purpledinoz

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Comments · 975

  1. Re:LG? Wrong phone. on Why My LG Optimus Cellphone Is Worse Than It's Supposed To Be · · Score: 1

    I made the mistake of buying an LG Optimus 2X, supposedly a flagship phone. My best uptime was 200h, at which point it was so slow, I had to reboot. I'm almost certain LG has a thousand monkeys writing their software. CyanogenMod was my saviour. Unfortunately, not even CyanogenMod could not fix everything. Also, NVidia was apparently a huge part of the problem. So my rule is, no LG Software (I have a LG Nexus 5 new, it's awesome) and no NVidia CPU (stick with Qualcomm).

  2. Re:So what? on States That Raised Minimum Wage See No Slow-Down In Job Growth · · Score: 1

    In Germany, where there's no minimum wage, there are people who earn less than 5 EUR per hour. This is ridiculously low. These low wage workers then get topped up by the state so they're not homeless. Essentially the state is subsidizing cheap labour. In this case, I would say a minimum wage is necessary so that the employers have to pay the full cost of labour. Sure prices will go up, but I see that as a necessity. I don't understand the argument that any minimum wage is bad 1EUR/h is clearly too little. No one will work for this. 100EUR/h will destroy the economy. I suspect there's a sweet spot somewhere.

  3. Re:There's something Germany can do right away... on After NSA Spying Flap, Germany Asks CIA Station Chief to Depart · · Score: 1

    Not going to happen. The US bases bring in a lot of money to Germany. Also, the Germans are in on it too. This is just a dog and pony show to pretend they're doing something about spying.

  4. Re:Well, of course on NSA Considers Linux Journal Readers, Tor (And Linux?) Users "Extremists" · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And what is the actual situation? The searching for terrorists is probably not the only thing the data is used for. I'm sure the data is used for various nefarious purposes, such as industrial espionage, political espionage, blackmail. Maybe figuring out the sentiment of the population and their likelihood to breakout into mass protest. I'm sure they're doing some non-evil research too. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a database identifying people who are against the status quo of the Democrat/Republican duopoly, and feeding that data to the media outlets so they run stories smearing any third party candidates. That's a bit farfetched, but everything the NSA was confirmed to be doing was also farfetched before Snowden leaked those documents.

  5. Re:Or we could just stop racing to the bottom on China Starts Outsourcing From ... the US · · Score: 1

    While I agree, the problem is power. Unions gain too much power and they abuse their situation, and become just as corrupt as the government. There always need to be a balance of power. I find unions in Germany operate far better. They actually work with the companies to make things better for everyone.

  6. Re:Warriors, unite! on The Simultaneous Rise and Decline of Battlefield · · Score: 1

    And how much music have you downloaded? You've done even more damage. No wonder the financial crisis happened!

  7. Re:I've seen it. on Endorphins Make Tanning Addictive · · Score: 1

    Most of the Canadian population isn't that far north. Toronto for example is at 4342N, which is about the same as Florence, Italy (4347N), and southern France (Marseille, 4318N). Calgary is at 5103N, which is around London, England (5130N) and the middle of Germany (Dresden, 5102N). Stockholm is much farther north, at 5920N, similar to Whitehorse at 6043N. It's really interesting to compare the latitudes between North America and Europe. Europe has great weather considering how far north it is.

  8. Re:Where are they going to fab the chips? on Russia Wants To Replace US Computer Chips With Local Processors · · Score: 1

    As far as I know, the Russians didn't buy an entire fab, maybe bought a bunch of used equipment from the Qimonda bankruptcy. You might be referring to AMD spinning off its fabs into Global Foundries, which is now owned by investors in Abu Dhabi. Building a modern semiconductor fab is extremely expensive. The cheapest piece of equipment costs a minimum of $1M. Lithography tools costs over $20M a piece (and you can't just buy one). You're looking at dumping at least $3B into a new fab. The operating costs are also really expensive, like maintaining a clean room, equipment maintenance. Before its deminse, Qimonda was losing 100M Euros a month! The only way chip making is economically feasible is to produce huge volumes. If you're not producing huge volumes, then you have to go to a foundry like Global Foundries or TSMC. If Russia is really going to do this, they would probably go to a foundry.

  9. Re:Technological solution on High Frequency Trading and Finance's Race To Irrelevance · · Score: 1

    There's an exchange called IEX that has implemented a technical solution by adding delay via a really long spool of fiber optic cable.

  10. Re:How will history judge the F-35? on Canada Poised To Buy 65 Lockheed Martin F-35 JSFs · · Score: 1

    There's no reason why the F-35 shouldn't work well. Just drop that stupid vertical takeoff requirement and tell the US Marine Corps to work together with the Air Force. That would have dropped the development costs significantly.

    The real question is, what are actually the Canadian Air Force requirements? I seriously doubt that Canada needs stealth strike fighters to patrol the remote north. Who's radar do they want to evade? What really irks me is that the so called conservative government wants to blow a shit load of tax payer's money for some military toys, and without properly evaluating all the options. I'm pretty sure the Super Hornet is better suited for the Canadian Air Force, and is half the price! Win win right? I thought the conservatives were supposed to be conservative with money too? I guess conservative now means, cut spending on social programs and science, cut taxes for the rich, reduce environmental regulation, increase military spending, increase the deficit. I do realize there might be some political pressure from the US to buy into this disaster. Harper should just grow some balls and tell them to fuck off.

  11. Re:Badly run company does badly... on HP Makes More Money, Cuts 16,000 Jobs · · Score: 1

    HP makes great laptops. Both for home and business. However, their laptops look like cheap knockoffs of MacBooks. They also need to lower their prices. Consumers aren't going to shell out $1K for a laptop anymore (except Apple consumers). What's really shitty is that HP spent a ton of money in stock buybacks. Why did they do this and then fire a ton of employees? It seems to me that the executives in the company are gutting it and running away with the cash.

  12. I'm also skeptical on Wyoming Is First State To Reject Science Standards Over Climate Change · · Score: 0

    that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Have you been into space and seen the Earth revolve around the Sun? I didn't think so. Just look into the sky, clearly the Sun revolves around Earth.

  13. Re:For those of us not in the US on Lessig Launches a Super PAC To End All Super PACs · · Score: 1

    How have you Americans not realized that your democracy is a farce?! The mere existence of Super PACs flies in the face of democracy. Why aren't you Americans, with all your 2nd amendment guns, taking down your tyrannical government with force?! This is exactly what the 2nd amendment was for. Without a change for the better in the US, I see that the rest of western world marching down the same path.

  14. Re:Duh on Study Finds US Is an Oligarchy, Not a Democracy · · Score: 1

    Harper is trying his hardest to bring the ugliest parts of the US to Canada.

  15. Re:Revolt? on Study Finds US Is an Oligarchy, Not a Democracy · · Score: 1

    Yes, but no one will join you because they're too busy watching TV.

  16. Re:Why so much resistance to climate science? on Study Rules Out Global Warming Being a Natural Fluctuation With 99% Certainty · · Score: 1

    In other words, the change in atmospheric composition is roughly .02%. That's it.

    Yes, that is a small change in composition relative to the atmosphere, but what is the effect? Adding a few grains of salt to a glass of water will pretty much have no noticeable effect. But adding a small drop of food colouring to that same glass of water will affect the colour significantly. A small change CAN have big effect.

  17. Why so much resistance to climate science? on Study Rules Out Global Warming Being a Natural Fluctuation With 99% Certainty · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't get it, after reading the comments here, why is there so much resistance accept that man is causing climate change? Just thinking logically, it makes sense. We're taking carbon that's been buried for millions of years, and then burning it, on a huge scale. How can this not affect the climate? I actually hope that the climate skeptics are right.

  18. Re:Liechtenstein on UN Report Reveals Odds of Being Murdered Country By Country · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not so fast! A banker was shot dead this year in Lichtenstein. Although, since it's a banker, maybe I would count this as a positive killing...

  19. Use the system against them on Blender Foundation Video Taken Down On YouTube For Copyright Violation · · Score: 1

    How about we all start sending take down notices claiming copyright on all Sony content, forcing all Sony content to be taken offline. Even better if we're able to take down all MAFIAA content off of YouTube.

  20. Re:April Fools? on NSA Confirms It Has Been Searching US Citizens' Data Without a Warrant · · Score: 1

    The constitution has become merely a historical document. When there's no one to enforce it, it's essentially useless.

  21. Re:Wait - you think they don't? on GCHQ and NSA Targeted World Leaders, Private German Companies · · Score: 1

    The NSA is using terrorism as an excuse for industrial espionage, which then is probably then used to further enrich the already wealthy. I wouldn't be surprised if the NSA is spying for Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan to get inside information so they can trade accordingly. This would at least be consistent with the pattern of using tax payer's money to enrich a few people.

  22. Self Defeating? on Russia Blocks Internet Sites of Putin Critics · · Score: 1

    I wonder if blocking this kind of stuff is self defeating. It sort of signals what you should be looking at. If I saw that The Huffington Post was blocked, it would make me curious and I would find a way to read The Huffington Post.

  23. Re:Makers and takers on 70% of U.S. Government Spending Is Writing Checks To Individuals · · Score: 2

    But now, the printing presses are controlled by the richest people in the world, which happen to profit the most from the current money printing. The biggest banks get essentially free loans, then buy treasuries at 2% yield, profit! All while the brunt of the population has to suffer the corresponding inflation. Sure, inflation is low, if you don't eat or use any energy.

  24. Re:Prosecutors too busy to catch the real criminal on A Dispatch From Outside the Prison Holding Barrett Brown · · Score: 1

    And Jon Corzine lied to congress, and there's event proof of it. But he seems to be immune from jail.

  25. Prosecutors too busy to catch the real criminals on A Dispatch From Outside the Prison Holding Barrett Brown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It amazes me that US prosecutors go full throttle going after people like Barrett Brown and Aaron Swartz, while people like Jon Corzine (who made $1.6B of customer money disappear at MF Global) and many other fraudsters in the banking industry are left alone to continue their fraud. And no one seems to care enough to do something about it.