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User: dixon1e

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Comments · 17

  1. Re:I'll pay for subsidies here any day. on How Elon Musk's Growing Empire is Fueled By Government Subsidies · · Score: 1

    Oil subsidies should have been included in the article for comparison. One might expect the amount of oil subsidies to dwarf the amount of money Elon Musk is getting. If we were to do a Nate Silver on the economic, cultural and social benefits from Elon Musk's use of Federal subsidies, what would it look like?

  2. Re:Already been done on Security Experts Believe the Internet of Things Will Be Used To Kill Someone · · Score: 1

    The power of a device to do massive good means we will use it, as the good will far outweigh the risks. For a stunning example of how much we value such devices, even though they are dangerous, look at the 2010 statistics for car crashes.

    In 2010 car crashes in the USA caused over 32,000 dead and over 2,000,000 injured.

    See more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

  3. Municipal Fiber - More Potent than Net Neutrality on AT&T To "Pause" Gigabit Internet Rollout Until Net Neutrality Is Settled · · Score: 1

    Longmont Colorado is rolling out a municipally owned fiber network as a utility, with fiber to every home and business. The cost for 1 gigabit symmetric is $50/month.

    Read it again: Municipal Fiber at 1 gigabit symmetric for $50/month, if you sign up in the first 30 days. It will probably be $60-100/month after that.

    All of America's modest sized cities can do this, it is neither technically nor financially difficult. For a city of 90,000, the bond was $42 million, requiring only 30% uptake to break even. Uptake beyond that simply shortens the payoff and turns everything into community profit, lowering all utility bills.

    State regulation created by lobbyists could not stop the Longmont project, and seven more Colorado cities voted in November 2014 to do the same. Montrose CO has already voted the same as Longmont. Boulder voters voted an overwhelming 84% YES to overcome the Colorado legislature's laws preventing them from doing this.

    AT&T is afraid of Municipal competition, and they should be. Comcast did not even speak at the Longmont City hearings, though they were there. CenturyLink did speak, and threatened both the Mayor and City Council of Longmont.

    "Longmont will pay the price!" - CenturyLink

    CenturyLink really did say this. Over and over and over.

    Once up a time when Russia left a United Nations meeting in a tiff, the rest of the nations quickly adopted resolutions they could not veto. America's cities should do the same while AT&T has left the room.

    Every single city where AT&T has "paused" should pick up the Municipal Fiber mantra. The point is not to make AT&T come back to the table. The point is to tell them "you may go away now, you have extracted enough of our community blood while returning nothing."

    Please do this, you must do this: tell your City Council what Longmont, CO, Chattanooga TN, Cedar Falls, IA, Wilson, NC and Lafayette LA are doing. The plan is simple, own all of your own utilities, with fiber paving the way for lower bills all across all utilities, while keeping the money in your own community.

    Taking action is remarkably easy. If you don't, you have no one to blame for your ISP choices.

  4. Re:Gee, I expected different results....! on MIT Releases Swartz Report: Instead of Leading, School Was 'Hands-Off' · · Score: 1

    "They're not wrong, they're just assholes."

  5. Re:Murdoch Political Agenda on Gates Paying Murdoch For System To Track U.S. Kids' School Progress · · Score: 1

    Murdoch is desperately trying to learn the lessons from his Myspace debacle. Has has publicly stated it was a disaster he does not want to repeat. Anything that gets him "closer to the kids" is a good thing from his perspective. Having Gates pay for it, in this form factor and political cover, is simply outrageous.

  6. Public Data, CouchDB and Geocouch on Ask Slashdot: Open Source vs Proprietary GIS Solution? · · Score: 1

    It's probably not the right time to change everything in your shop, but you could learn a lot from Geocouch and CouchDB. The technology for mobile and remote collection is very powerful using these tools, and it's worth beginning to learn how the NoSQL databases work in any case. MongoDB also has a GIS facet. For further discussions on Public Data please see Max Ogden's work: http://govinthelab.com/diy-open-data-how-to-start-a-public-data-catalog-in-your-city/

  7. That's So Vo-Tech on Ask Slashdot: CS Degree Without Gen-Ed Requirements? · · Score: 1

    What you are describing is vocational training. And others have said this, but you are completely missing the point of a University education. The process of going through "other classes" is what enables you to BE a better programmer. Higher education, all of it, transforms the way you think and interact with people and society. What do you think "social networking" is about? The new (smart) hiring trends seek those who are just plain good at programming, but much better at people skills. I know highly successful consultancies hiring History, Economics and Music majors to do 80% your job. They dominate the development process, even though they don't code. They save the real time because they produce the really usable products. Get your head on straight, you are missing the boat, utterly.

  8. May I See Your Resume? on Shadow Scholar Details Student Cheating · · Score: 1

    You are one well rounded fellow. I wonder what your resume would look like applying for another position. Better, I wonder what the reaction of any recruiter would be upon seeing it.

  9. Cadium (which uses OpenFOAM) on Best OSS CFD Package For High School Physics? · · Score: 1

    See Caedium, which also implements a version of OpenFOAM. In the simple screencast tutorial, you can see how quickly a Wing model can be put together, with simple visualizations of flow and turbulence. This can be done in 5 minutes. http://www.symscape.com/product/caedium Not sure of the licensing costs for education, but this is MUCH simpler and easy to use and it is fully cross platform, including Mac. I would simply ask for educational terms and see what you find out. I think it's effectively a one-man shop. And I completely agree with other comments that we are talking about teaching, not about becoming overnight engineers. You are to be commended for reaching out to do this for your students.

  10. Re:Entirely irrelevant and wasteful answer. on Best OSS CFD Package For High School Physics? · · Score: 1

    Well spoken!

  11. Vyatta could work for you on Open Source Router To Replace WRT54GL? · · Score: 1

    The Vyatta open source system works very well, and it has a very good community. These two things are required imho for success in open source. They have appliances or you can byobox, including any of the very small, nearly hand held low power server solutions now out there.

  12. Re:Vyatta on Powerful Linux ISP Router Distribution? · · Score: 1

    It's good stuff, try it.

  13. Re:Customers as your funding on Bootstrapping a New Technology? · · Score: 1

    May I ask you to exchange email on your progress in the future? As a full disclaimer, I briefly ran a motion capture studio in the late 90's, so there is more than academic interest here ;) We had an optical system. Lots of post production work :(

  14. Re:Customers as your funding on Bootstrapping a New Technology? · · Score: 1

    I am remiss in not mentioning one other way to do this, and that's by being a consultant in this field to both earn your daily bread and learn much more about the "who will buy it." Then you can better prep your licensing deals while also having real cred in the business. Others have gone this way and succeeded, though you will certainly have a wide variety of opinions on this.

  15. Re:Customers as your funding on Bootstrapping a New Technology? · · Score: 1

    This is terrific, clear thinking, and I have to say, as I think most others have, that you seem to have something here. I mentioned health care for instance. The ability to do an analysis of bio-mechanical motion of an afflicted or injured patient, offer treatment, and then do a follow up motion comparison study is simply priceless. If you could offer this at the General Practitioner level with your price entry point ... that's game changing stuff right there. So good for you. I also noted many others mentioning venture capital. I have to sort of disagree here, as I have one foot in the business and one foot as an entrepreneur. There are classes of companies that VCs like, the reasons are not for this discussion, and I think yours is not one of them. Sad to say, anyone who is showing an interest probably has something in mind that will not be to your ultimate benefit. Your best hopes are likely angels and customers combined with maybe one solid strategic investment. Unfortunately, you do have a hardware component, so funding will be a challenge in this environment, unlike the "two kids with a web feature" which for some reason commands too much attention these daze (IMHO). One other area to pursue could be a grant. It is a skill all by itself to get one, but not a hard skill to learn. Again, getting the right partner is key. You could investigate SBIRs and other similar sources. Pay attention to your diligence with a grant though, as you are leaning toward an IP licensing deal.

  16. Customers as your funding on Bootstrapping a New Technology? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Techies starting companies tend to only focus on the technology as a game changer, without capturing the essence of being an entrepreneur. It sounds trite, but you really have to remember all you are trying to do is sell something to someone that really needs it. So have said that: 1) You've got to know who you are selling to and what you are selling 2) There must be an innovation at the core (you seem to have this) 3) You have to be able to mind everything else, which is why you need at least one trusted partner, and no, that doesn't mean a friend or work colleague - often a huge mistake of choices. Read a lot of what Union Square Ventures have to say: http://unionsquareventures.com/ Now, with the tiny slice of information you've offered, you may have customers in a wide variety of industries, not just entertainment. What about Health Care? How about Sports (teaching golf swings for example). By working up a sales plan (not a technology plan) several times over (there are many processes for doing this, you'll find out) you will get a much better idea of who will really pay as customers to help fund your venture. Customer money is very good money for a start up.

  17. Possible ESD Solution on Delivering Software, Electronically? · · Score: 1

    Our company are working on a solution that may be of help, I'd like to discuss your requirements with you, if you are willing. I see there is lots of stuff out there, and am just learning about ESD myself. My e-mail is dixon@sourcery.com.