Slashdot Mirror


User: Migraineman

Migraineman's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
1,021
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 1,021

  1. Re:Defense? on Defending Against Drones · · Score: 2, Funny

    Boot to the head!

  2. Re:What do you own? on Hollywood Stock Exchange Set To Launch In April · · Score: 1

    No, I'm not. They're more "insurance policy" than securities. I really think our financial system is in trouble. You can magically convert intangible things like "the weather" into pseudo-tangible entities by wrapping them up in a pretty bow and changing the name (i.e. call them "derivatives".) That's bad, especially when the item that's supposed to be "securing" the derivative turns out to be an IOU written on a bar napkin.

  3. Re:What do you own? on Hollywood Stock Exchange Set To Launch In April · · Score: 1

    I chose Ms. Jolie simply because I expect most folks will know who she is and what she does. And yes, I'm sure she would cause me headaches.

    I understand how futures contracts work. For money exchanged today, we agree that I will buy "Product A" at an agreed-upon price at a specific date in the future. If Product A's market price drops below the futures contract strike price, I'm losing money (had it been a futures option, I could back out, worthless piece of paper in-hand.) Regardless, the futures contract is an exchange-traded derivative, and it's associated with tangible property at some point.

    What you're describing with "vlm 69642 will pay the owner of this ticket $1 if Ms. Jolie's next movie is an absolute stinker" is gambling, not commodity futures trading.

  4. What do you own? on Hollywood Stock Exchange Set To Launch In April · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm confused. If this is a game, or strictly entertainment, why do they need to be registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission? If this is a real trading forum, what exactly do you own? May I expect a distribution from Angelina Jolie's next big blockbuster, because as a shareholder, I expect her first and only priority is to maintain and enhance shareholder value.

    I didn't think it was legal to own a person. Maybe it's legal if you only own a small percentage of a person.

  5. Re:Oh that's useful... on Hungarian Electric Car Splits Into Two Smaller Cars · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm dubious. Let's be generous and say that the roof is 2 sq.m. Insolation at the earth's surface is about 1 kW/sq.m, meaning you've got a whopping 2kW you can collect. With really good and really expensive solar cells, you're looking at 30% efficiency (yeah, space-grade go to 40%, but are brutally expensive.) So your 2kW becomes about 650W usable. That's less than 1hp continuous.

    So if you have a super-efficient drivetrain, and you never exceed 20kph, and you only drive on flat terrain, and you always have the solar cells pointed directly at the sun ... you can drive 20km per day using just solar. Maybe.

    I've done the "solar cells on the roof" calculations more times than I care to recall. The power contribution from the small available area is insignificant compared to a 10-30kW power requirement for a vehicle. Any time I hear "solar cells on the roof," I know it's done to make people feel good. If they're using less-efficient but much-cheaper single junction polycrystalline silicon cells, your conversion efficiency is only around 5%. Your 2kW incident power becomes 100W usable. To put that in perspective, a healthy person can go to the gym, put the exercise bike in "power" mode, and crank out 70W for several hours.

  6. Re:Nobody is going to pay for news on Newsday Gets 35 Subscriptions To Pay Web Site · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nobody is going to pay for a news site for the most part. You can easily get the same news elsewhere for free.

    And to continue this point, it's not just the "free" aspect, it's also the ability to go directly to the source for the information.

    Back in the day, actually not too long ago, the news outlets (papers, radio, TV) served a purpose - they provided a conduit for information transfer. Folks had information (big game scores, courtroom shenanignas, weather forecasts) and needed a way to convey that information to other folks. Similarly, the "end users" desired the information, but didn't have a way to get it directly. The news media connected the two groups, and served a valuable purpose.

    Enter the Intarweb. Suddenly, the end user is directly connected to the information source. The news media middlemen are left holding their hats, scrambling for significance.

    Probably the worst thing that has happened to the media outlets is transparency. When you have the web at yor fingertips, it's particularly easy to notice that the vast majority of news outlets are simply re-branding the AP or Reuters news feeds. Their collective credibility is shot to hell. They've been branded as "middle men" and not as information sources. The web allows you to go directly to the source. Why would I tolerate some reporter's re-hash of a story when I can interpret the source for myself? Case and point - I can get weather information directly from the National Weather Service rather than getting the dumbed-down version spewed by the local TV station or newspaper. They don't add value (actually they remove it) so I bypass them ... because I can.

  7. Re:hmmm on Thomas Edison's Kindle · · Score: 1

    Only if I find a new wife.

  8. Re:No on Game Developers Note Net Neutrality Concerns To FCC · · Score: 1

    You may have a decent solution to the Tragedy of the Commons problem - i.e. "mark all your packets as super-high-priority" issue. Instead of relying on folks to behave and properly tag their packets, give them a structured end-user QoS profile. Your plan includes 1Mbps of less-than 10mS latency traffic, and 100Mbps of greater-than 10mS latency traffic. You have a limited resource (kinda like your paycheck.) Spend it how you see fit. Enforcement occurs at the ISP's ingress point.

    This would require some method of designating traffic priorities at the user's site. Each app would have it's own priority request, but you'd need a local "overlord" to handle the aggregate network connection. I wouldn't expect your game and your music streamer and your VoIP apps to negotiate amongst themselves.

  9. Not Interested on Half of Google News Users Browse But Don't Click · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, lesse here ...

    Entertainment News, nope, couldn't care less [scrolls]

    Sports News, nope, couldn't care less [scrolls]

    Random Feel-Good Stories, nope, couldn't care less [scrolls]

    Domestic News, government officials are still corrupt, stock market is still iffy, another auto maker is filing Chapter Whatever, [scrolls]

    International News, emergency relief in Haiti still ongoing, continued tribal disputes in the Middle East, China still has internal issues

    Okay, so it's the same crap as yesterday, and the day before that. I'm a bad person because I don't want to re-read a story regurgitated from several days ago? And the news outlets are upset that the recycled content isn't generating revenue?

  10. Re:I expect privacy on Facebook's Zuckerberg Says Forget Privacy · · Score: 1

    I think you missed the point. If Facebook et al can alter the definition of "reasonable expectation of privacy" by changing the public/private settings of user content en masse, then they have a foundation for stating that society's expectation of privacy has changed. "Hey looky! 79% of our user-generated content if publicly viewable. That' a vast majority." They're trying to alter the interpreted aspect of legislation via the back-channel. If these bozos can demonstrate that, in general, people have no expectation of privacy posting on Facebook, then your individual opinion is rendered moot. Yes, they're trying to take your personal information and sell it to the highest bidder. However, the current legal landscape prohibits them from doing so (legally.) That's the part they're trying to change.

    And the cops can enter your home without a warrant. Have a look at "reasonable suspicion" and "probable cause." Both are respected as valid by the courts.

  11. Re:I expect privacy on Facebook's Zuckerberg Says Forget Privacy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here's the problem - they are attempting to change society's "reasonable expectation of privacy." Many laws are based on this social expectation. For example, the police have the ability to execute warrantless searches if they see something "in plain sight." That "plain sight" element is coupled to your expectation of privacy - you put said item into plain sight, thus you have no expectation of privacy regarding it. If you go to a public park, your expectation of privacy is reduced because of the venue. Facebook is attempting to alter the rules regarding what "normal" expectations are. They will do this without your consent, and rip your privacy out from under you.

    Like your freedom, privacy is something you have to earn ... and sometimes fight for.

  12. Roads with VTOL? on DARPA Kick-Starts Flying Car Program · · Score: 1

    If it's a VTOL vehicle, why the need for roads?

  13. TaxCut on Best Open Source Business Tools? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I realize that I may incite a religious war between the TaxCut camp and the TurboTax camp, but using a $75 piece of professional software seems like a good investment. Either would probably do, though I've used TaxCut for most of a decade for my LLC, and it walks you through the business filings pretty decently.

    I'll presume that you chose an S-Corp for a reason, and won't badger you about using an LLC for a two-man shop. I will strongly recommend that you go over to irs.gov and read up on the S-Corp rules. There are a bunch of very helpful publications, and the IRS has gotten much more customer-oriented over the years.

  14. Re:It's like bicycles... on Where Are the Cheap Thin Clients? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the product link. I think I just found my new MAME machine. Might not be grunty enough to handle the newer machines, but it should be plenty for old-school games.

  15. Re:Make sense on Google Found Guilty of French Copyright Infringement · · Score: 1

    We do need copyrights of some kind, as everyone should be rewarded when his work is used in any way.

    You're begging the question. Copyright law is a nod to human behavior. If food was free, you'd be a glutton. If entertainment was free, you'd be a couch potato. In an ideal communist society, people take only what they need, and produce what they're capable of. To function properly, that needs to be self-policing. In the real worls, that situation tends toward the leviathan on the couch. Why lift a finger when you don't have to? "Soft" work outputs like music and books are easily duplicated, which drives their cost toward zero.

    Let's back this up and consider the situation from an economics perspective. Entertainment is a commodity. Your "free time" is a reasonably fixed resource, limited by your available time and your disposable income. Now, more than ever, there is competition for your free time. Decades ago, people used to go to the movies, or go to a local show ... other alternatives weren't available. Now, people blog, play MMPGORMPGs well into the night, or run hobby businesses. Competition should have reduced the price of traditional entertainment, but that hasn't really happened. People are starting to really comprehend that their time has value, and going to the movies, or buying an audio CD, or buying a book "isn't worth it."

    Let's segue back to the book. Let's assume that I value my time (and I do.) Buying a book for a recreational read is a risk. I'm not interested in wasting my time, so I do a little digging. The cover art is pretty, and the back flap has a glowing review from the New York Times Post Dispatch Review, using such words as "thrilling" and "spectacular." If I can Google an excerpt and find out that the writing is stiff like cardboard ... no sale. And that right there is the crux of the problem. I can make an informed decision without making a trek to the local library. The impulse buy is effectively killed by readily available previews. Traditional publishers cringe at the thought that revenues will plummet overnight (nevermind that they should be putting an eye toward quality over quantity.)

    In response to this threat, traditional media publishers are fighting back. Reducing their prices results in reduced revenues, which is the result they don't want. So instead, they're changing the legal landscape in their favor. Globally.

  16. Re:Make sense on Google Found Guilty of French Copyright Infringement · · Score: 2, Informative
    Wow, you've caught me on an unusually good day. Lemme reach into the big bag o' Troll Feed and let's examine this deeper.

    This is bullshit.

    Quite possibly, but your emotional reaction tends to indicate that it isn't.

    Without the publisher advertising and distributing the book nobody would even know it existed.

    A little narrow minded to restrict this to books, but we'll entertain this constraint for now, as it is relevant to the original story. You are correct, without some form of "advertisement," be it word of mouth or billboards along the roadside, nobody would know your book existed. However, the "publisher" in the traditional sense of the word has become irrelevant. There are many avenues at my disposal to advertise a work that don't involve a greedy middleman. Youtube is a great example. Publication and distribution in electronic formats is perfectly viable these days.

    If you think its so easy to make it as an author without a publisher, prove it, publish your results, else STFU because you have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

    When did I claim it was easy to be an author? I said "Lots of folks actually want their creative works indexed." That does include myself. As for "prove it," I am the author or co-author of a number of technical standards (radio and terrestrial communications) where I received not one thin dime of compensation for doing so, and get this, the standards are publicly available, so I also don't get any compensation when people implement the standards in products.

    And just to pre-empt other retards here, no, pointing to a few examples isn't "proof".

    How many would be enough? Ten? One hundred? Actually I'm quite amused by the whole "don't show me actual proof, cuz' I just called that it doesn't count." Care to stamp your feet and hold your breath until you turn blue? BTW, I call that the neighbor's tree is "base" where copyright doesn't apply.

    Google is using copyright content without permission to make money on online bookstore click-throughs.

    They're using an excerpt of the work in question, and the publishers are getting bent out of shape because they're being muscled out of their personal playground.

    Somehow I don't think they would be so careless with GPL copyright as it would freak out the simpleton fanbois like you who they desperately need as part of their online forum defense squad.

    Fanboi? Forum Defense Squad? Do members of the FDS get to wear nifty uniforms?

    Seriously, I don't see anything that reads like "Google can do no wrong." They provide an index, with some advertising that covers the costs. They don't charge me to list my content on their search engine, and my publications are exposed to a broader base of people than I could do otherwise by myself. I benefit from this relationship, directly.

  17. Re:Make sense on Google Found Guilty of French Copyright Infringement · · Score: 1

    If your content shows up in Google's results and they make any money off it, then you as the creator of that content should get a portion of that money.

    That's quite the matter-of-fact statement there, chief. Lots of folks actually want their creative works indexed by Google et al. Google indexes an excerpt of my work, and links back to some form of source content. Note that I haven't paid a dime for this service ...

    Note also that the individuals who are complaining are the ones who currently have a stranglehold on the distribution channel - the publishers. If an index like Google can connect the customer directly with the content creator, that makes the distributor rather irrelevant, n'est-ce pas?

  18. Re:Sounds familiar on Broadband Rights & the Killer App of 1900 · · Score: 1

    Unfortunately, most people don't see it that way. They use health insurance the same way they use the pump at the gas station. They have a runny nose, so they go to the hospital emergency room. Why not? The insurance will pay for it, right?

    If there's one aspect of insurance reform I would desperately love to see, it would be prohibition of employers offering to comp-out insurance premiums as a benefit. People need to know exactly how much they're paying in insurance premiums. I'm self-employed, and I see every buck of the $24k/year in premiums I'm coughing up.

  19. Re:Sounds familiar on Broadband Rights & the Killer App of 1900 · · Score: 1

    Congrats, you've described the stereotypical pyramid scheme. The only way the insurance cartels can survive is if income continues to exceed pay-out. They're attempting to legislate their business model. You will have no choice. Your participation in the system will be mandatory, enforced under the auspices of "paying your fair share." You are a "cheater" and a "bad person" if you don't participate in the health insurance program that benefits us all (the insurance companies more than anyone else.)

  20. Re:"zero fuel"? on Berkeley Engineers Have Some Bad News About Air Cars · · Score: 2, Informative

    The basic physics experiment is called a Reuben's Tube. Build one with only a single orifice at a high-pressure resonance point, install a check valve, and collect the pressurized gas in a tank. Here's another concept.

  21. Re:"zero fuel"? on Berkeley Engineers Have Some Bad News About Air Cars · · Score: 1

    Heat it with a large pile of burning coal? You can add some water to the air to enhance the effect.

    Alternatively, you could acoustically excite the air in a resonant chamber, and pick off the high pressure gas at the peaks of the standing waves. Technically that's a mechanical method, but not of the typical piston or rotary type.

  22. Re:Citizenship on Apple Patents "Enforceable" Ad Viewing On Devices · · Score: 1

    Seemed like a good idea at the time ...

  23. Re:Citizenship on Apple Patents "Enforceable" Ad Viewing On Devices · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I prefer to evaluate the movie on it's own merits, rather than complain that it doesn't parrot the book perfectly. It's not a deep cerebral movie, but it's produced well enough to be immersive and fun (except, possibly, for the bizarre physics in the scene where Rico is standing atop the thrashing tanker.)

    My wife doesn't like the movie, and can't get past the "extreme violence." She didn't see the strong parallels between the Global Federation and the 1940s era Nazis. Yes Virginia, the Nazis are the good guys. Maybe that's where the hate comes from.

  24. Re:Citizenship on Apple Patents "Enforceable" Ad Viewing On Devices · · Score: 2

    Click below for continuing NBC.COM coverage of the military response on Klendathu in the Quarrantine Zone.

    Citizen, would you like to know more?

    ......[YES]......[YES]

  25. Re:Tour a sub. on Two Sunken Japanese Submarines Found Off Hawaii · · Score: 4, Informative

    The USS Torsk (SS-423) is on display in Baltimore MD at the Inner Harbor.