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User: rtb61

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  1. Re:Kind of like supermarket loyalty schemes on Here Comes the Panopticon: Insurance Companies · · Score: 1

    I understand how it works. What you do is sell insurance to people who don't need it and when they do refuse to sell it to them any more. So now instead of health insurance you sell accident insurance only with activity insurance add ons. So for healthy young people who have undergone DNA testing and are deemed to be health risk free you provide accident only insurance but if they undertake any high risk activities you charge additional short term premiums, so snow skiing insurance, diving insurance, driving insurance et al. So insurance it's all about charging people who don't need it cheap premiums to make them feel better and when they do need it dropping them.

    Of course for ignorant short term thinkers yes when your younger your insurance is cheaper but when you get older you're fucked and either can't get cover or end up paying through the nose for it. So with universal health care you are not paying for everyone else, you are paying to provide coverage for your own future come what may. Cheaper today is not cheaper tomorrow, saving pennies to spend pounds is stupid thinking.

  2. Re:One hundred *billion* dollars? on Radical Dual Tilting Blade Helicopter Design Targets Speeds of Over 270mph · · Score: 2

    Large hybrid titling ducted rotor quadcopters with electric drives and inboard turbine generators. Don't they already make model aircraft that look much like that and perform pretty well. Just need to up scale it. Now if they want to save money, which really doesn't seem to be the objective. They need to separate out the airframe from everything else. Don't design a military aircraft, design an agile high speed civilian aircraft capable of carrying the final design load, of personnel, munitions and armour. The advantage you have something to directly sell into civilian market to save money. The body shape can then vary according to demand. That research of course has no impact on the remaining research which covers target acquisition and elimination. Survivability is quite simply tied to how much spare mass the design can carry, the more spare mass, the more you can convert that into armour.

  3. Re:Which raises the critical question: on Python Bumps Off Java As Top Learning Language · · Score: 1

    When learning to code, compact code which is easy to read is the most important. Java was very verbose code requiring far more code to do the same thing. Doing loops is the most important thing in coding and how compactly and readably they are done, drives how learn able the language is. Ruby is very good at that and has the edge of Python in that regard. Ruby can achieve in one line of code what requires a whole paragraph of code in Java and that makes a big difference in understanding code. Being able to test individual lines of code also helps the learner.

    Of course as thing advance the software engineer takes over with descriptions of actions and functions being coded in the background by the coding engine, now the quality of code that future coding engines produce will be an interesting thing.

  4. Re:It's Microsoft's fault on Tired of Playing Cyber Cop, Microsoft Looks For Partners In Crime Fighting · · Score: 1

    The problem is policing agencies have been left way behind and are still just barely catching up. This creates a problem private corporations have the computer skill but lack the legal propriety to conduct the policing role and shouldn't really be trusted with it as competitive pressure will not allow the impartial application of the policing role. Police agencies are woefully lacking in the skills, going so far as to actively avoid hiring the people that would be most useful in that role. It's likely that a specialist investigation only agency is required, pretty much an extension of communications authority agency.

    Strictly investigation only, they would reach out to other agencies to conduct the arrest and of course those other agencies could reach out to the communications authority to conduct technical investigations. As a civilian agency the communications authority could hire the people most applicable to the job, most skilled at conducting technical investigation, most likely to find new investigative targets and of course most likely to establish communication link with the most affected companies in order to trigger new investigations.

    People could call nickname them the Pooh Bears because of their love of honey pots.

  5. Re:It's like we've learned nothing in 5000 years on BlackBerry's Innovation: Square-Screened Smartphones · · Score: 1

    I though the big limiting factor was being able to jam it into a shirt pocket. Although it seems shirt pockets already need to do a bit of catching up definitely needing to become a bit deeper.

  6. Re:Chasing Organised Crime on Australian Police Use Telcos For Cell "Tower Dump" of All Connected Users' Data · · Score: 1

    Not really, greedy and stupid go hand in hand. So they use the laziest easiest methods to lie, cheat and steal. The only skill they really make use of is the complete and total absence of conscience, although that is not really a skill more a birth defect of bad genes, very bad genes. Add in some IQ and the stop using phones but then they are far more destructive and become politicians and corporate executives.

  7. Chasing Organised Crime on Australian Police Use Telcos For Cell "Tower Dump" of All Connected Users' Data · · Score: 2

    Apparently those involved in organised crime are using the cheapest possible pre-payphones and sim cards swapping from one to another throughout the day. So police are looking for the odd phone out, coming from locations where tracked suspect persons are. So tracking all calls and eliminating the non-suspect ones to leave the ones they are looking for. So tracking the criminal activity associated with pre-pay phones and sim cards is a little more tricky than the movies make out.

  8. Re:That does it on Researchers Develop New Way To Steal Passwords Using Google Glass · · Score: 2

    Of course if you are entering a password whilst using an augmented reality device only you can see what you are doing and why you are doing it. So only way to defeat all those countless surveillance cameras http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tec... , http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4416.... Perhaps google glass isn't the problem perhaps the problem already exists.

  9. Re:GPS on Mars on ESA Shows Off Quadcopter Landing Concept For Mars Rovers · · Score: 1

    So the smart designer would incorporate the solar panels into the blades so that upon landing when folded up they could serve another purpose. It is all about making the best use of mass.

  10. Re:Another child making unsupported claims on 15-Year-Old Developing a 3D Printer 10x Faster Than Anything On the Market · · Score: 1

    It's like a lot of these technological inventions coming up with the method is easy actually achieving it is harder. The quickest achievable one I can come up with is laser styled printer. Where the drum picks up the printing medium in a pass and you use a laser light to set and heat the medium in select areas and then apply it to the printing bed. As the drum makes each pass a layer is laid down, adhering to previous layers. Partially set printing media on the bed provides support for suspended parts, those parts as the same for the rest of of media are forced from the drum by the application of the appropriate charge at the appropriate location in conjunction with a charge in the printing media. All print media is partially set via electric current to provide support for set areas of print media, thus partial set media is recovered and recycled at the end of a print run. Thickness of each pass can be varied to accelerate printing.

    So easy to came up with the idea, now putting it into practice is far more difficult including coming up with the printing medium. Of course the USPTO passes patents on far broader description with far less of an idea all to feed patent lawyers.

  11. Re:Uuh, wrong question on What Came First, Black Holes Or Galaxies? · · Score: 1

    The multi-verse. From chaos, every thing, every where, every when, life enforced a singular time line, some thing, some where, some when because you can never have nothing, no where, no when. Although not to be fooled, time as such doesn't exist, it is just a life based relative measure of change.

  12. Re:I dont see a problem here on NASA Approves Production of Most Powerful Rocket Ever · · Score: 1

    Yep, because that way, some privatised company can grab the research for free and then claim how much cheaper their stuff is, of course without reminding people it is cheaper because they didn't have to pay for all that research, they don't have to properly monitor space to ensure they can achieve a safe launch and orbit and they don't have to pay for all that rescue stuff. If we want to be doing more in our solar system, then we have to be researching and designing new stuff. We have to push the limits of our understanding. Otherwise as a society we will shrink back into self consuming parasitical nothings, eating ourselves to extinction, food for the psychopaths until our society collapses. To strive for nothing but greed is to strive for nothing at all.

  13. Re:Missed it by that much. on Oklahoma's Earthquakes Linked To Fracking · · Score: 1

    Now add in those earthquakes and basically the completely fracturing of the formations that waste water was injected into and well, those estimates just reflect the intent of those estimates, sheer and utter bullshit to justifying the cheapest possible method of dumping that water, short of just dumping it straight into the nearest river or stream.

  14. Re:It's Intended on Amazon Fighting FTC Over In-App Purchases Fine · · Score: 1

    The legal requirement is the seller is to ensure the person making the purchase is the holder of the credit card, nothing more and nothing less. The commonly extort payment by threatening the holder of the card children with criminal charges even when under law the minor they threaten is to young to enter a contract. So the courts need to rule on real and actual harm. What is the real and actual harm engendered by a minor making a false purchase of a virtual product, would the parent have ever allowed the purchase, is the virtual product devalued and now second hand, is there a restocking cost of the virtual product ie what are the real and actual damages of the cancellation of the virtual product. Now that virtual product also logically has to extend to downloaded content, again, no devaluation of product, no restocking and the end user paid the delivery costs. So legal common sense needs to surmount insensate psychopathic greed. There is a penalty for failing to properly authenticate the purchaser and really as it is fraud and theft that penalty should be revised and made far more severe.

  15. Re:What's next on Apple Hires Away TAG Heuer's VP of Global Sales · · Score: 1

    Yeah, nut everyone with half a brain who reads the reviews knows that Beats suck for the price. So point and laugh at the suckers and teach the a lesson they need to learn, don't believe anything coming out of the mouths of pseudo celebrity douche bags, they are full of it. I as a rule steer clear of any product with a psuedo celebrity endorsement, the immediate thought is they have wasted money spending it on the douche nozzle rather than on making a quality product. Now that's the lesson that needs to be spread far and wide.

  16. Re:How fitting on Study: People Would Rather Be Shocked Than Be Alone With Their Thoughts · · Score: 1

    The majority of psuedo celebrities are extroverts, in fact they are clinically narcissistic extroverts. Their behaviour tends to flood the air waves and is presented as normal and desirable, however this does not make it so.

  17. Re:On this 4th of July... on Qualcomm Takes Down 100+ GitHub Repositories With DMCA Notice · · Score: 1

    Wrong. You are slandering someone and fraudulently attempting to steal their content. No different to running up to someone in a public street screaming out that they are thief and taking their wallet claiming it is yours. Some weeks or months later after it is proved your claim was lies and returning their wallet, just wandering off like some fuck head douche, laughing like nothing happened and not just doing it once but enough times to destroy all potential competitors.

    The law has to tighten up and those issues of slander, fraud and attempted theft of work need to be tackled.

  18. Re:In Soviet Germany... on German Intelligence Employee Arrested On Suspicion of Spying For US On Bundestag · · Score: 1

    Three ideas to bring the arrest into focus, Economic Espionage, Industrial Espionage and Extortion. So no matter the country, no matter the origin, get busted being a "FOR PROFIT" double agent and you are screwed. That the US was paying him will in fact piss off the Germans more than if the Russians were doing, they would expect if from the Russians, from the US, oh yeah, they will be hunting down those doing the paying as a matter of principle. Don't forget the US just made the German intelligence service look like a bunch of amateur idiots.

    The most appropriate German response would be to punch a hole in US security and specifically let the Russian and Chinese in. This to provide a real sting in replacement for capture, enhanced interrogation and execution. Which is the legal response for spies.

  19. Re:What's next on Apple Hires Away TAG Heuer's VP of Global Sales · · Score: 1

    Problem is, when it is a tech product it has technological outperform all rivals, think, supercars. If they don't people will laugh at the idiots that buy them and as they are bought neither for use or comfort but for poseur value it kind of defeats the purpose.

    The internet already is doing a lot of damage to the poseur value of products. Why supercar if you can't drive it like one, why branded clothing if you could spend less going to a tailor and get the same thing custom made and custom fitted, why sit in a big empty macmansion and be stuck with a long commute. When bullshit marketing controlled the airwaves, as it still does on the idiot box, sure the poseur spend big to be someone lies ruled but, on the internet everyone's voices are heard and marketing bullshit is being seen as marketing bullshit. In this case so much so, that Apple's marketing bubble is now deflating and they are desperate to pump more hot air into it.

  20. Re:Trust on Microsoft Backs Open Source For the Internet of Things · · Score: 1

    PS I also use MY MSN have done so for decades, prefer it to Google. I also do not use GMail at all. Dislike BING mostly because of the name, it really comes off as goofy, always reminds me of the insurance salesman in Groundhog Day (wasn't 'B' for Ballmer an insurance salesman), never could understand why the would devalue the MSN brand as in MSN Search, MSN kind of rolls off the tongue. Ain't no amount of intimidation or insults ever going to stop me from what I have been doing for over 20 YEARS M$ it was and M$ it will be and it really is pretty childish of the M$ marketdroids to try.

  21. Re:Trust on Microsoft Backs Open Source For the Internet of Things · · Score: 0

    Ahh the psychic commenter claiming to know what is in my mind. I can assure when I refer to MSM, I use, MSN, check my comment history, I never stick the $ in MSN. Go look check it out for yourself as far back as you want to go, LIAR.

  22. Re:Trust on Microsoft Backs Open Source For the Internet of Things · · Score: 0
    As Always I use MS specifically for http://www.msaustralia.org.au/, http://www.msnz.org.nz/, https://beta.mssociety.ca/, http://www.mssociety.org.uk/, http://www.mymsaa.org/ (Ohh Look M$ scared them off). Of course also if you had any history going you would know when it comes to coding M$ was big on the $ not to do with making money. Of course the M$ first use came with stories about the creation of rental models and advertising in application way back in the nineties.

    So all of your don't ignore MS and dig deep, remember how important our noggins are to geeks and nerds. Thanks to you for your M$ paranoia, it gives me the opportunity to promote worthwhile charities, only happens about once a year. Some silly anal retentive type has to spout off and a bunch of modders from a particular company join in (there I used M$ five times including this are you happy yet?).

  23. Re:inflation is not related to economy growth on Investor Tim Draper Announces He Won Silk Road Bitcoin Auction · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nope because bit coin is primarily a pyramid ponzi currency. Accruing it's value by the work now required to generate it, whilst those at the very top who created by far the bulk of the bit coins did very little to create those bit coins (the bulk of their effort was in marketing the creation of the illusion). This illusion of later effort has not relationship at all to earlier effort and the main driver that keeps bitcoin going is use in criminal activity. How ever that use in criminal activity also drives theft of bit coin. This is why so many crypto currencies have now appeared, other scam artists trying to be at the top of their pyramid, creating the bulk of their crypto currency prior to release to the public.

    So how many coins are there, who holds the most, what effort was required to generate them and, how many were generated prior to release to the public. Crypto currencies are ponzi schemes, you generate value by selling the idea to others who must put more value in, in order for your investment to be worth more, this obfuscated behind the principle that earlier players can far more readily generate coins than later players. So pretty much legal authorities have failed to act on activity that really runs on the border of being a blatant ponzi scheme.

  24. Re:Non-compete agreements are BS. on Amazon Sues After Ex-Worker Takes Google Job · · Score: 1

    So that brings an interesting point to that 18 month non-compete clause. You sign the contract, you haven't been paid yet, does it come into force. You work one day, earn one days pays and they own you for 18 months unpaid. What proportion of your salary pays for that 18 month non-compete clause and over what period does it come into affect. Non-compete clauses logically have to be paid for to be valid, if they failed to stipulate how it's payment is accrued, then it was never really paid for and never really valid. In the suit they can claim repayment but really only for the value of the non-compete, the actual damage as a proportion of his salary, the value of the work, excluding all other value accrued to the firm by his work. They can not really deny the job they could however recover contractual damages against the salary they paid him, putting a value on that as a proportion of his salary would be really tricky.

  25. Re:Use Paper on Ask Slashdot: Replacing Paper With Tablets For Design Meetings? · · Score: 1

    Shit dude, why not just use both. How expensive are those sheets of paper and pencils, that you can not throw a few more round on the desk along with the tablets. Pencils are not just pencils, colour, hardness, point shape, pressure used, how many uses over the same area, direction of use and even smudging with your finger, all count. So sure tablets are a useful tool but most definitely not as the only tool.