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User: rhsanborn

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  1. Re:The Splintering Continues on Netflix is Testing Even More Expensive Subscription Prices (bgr.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They had to make the pivot for exactly the reason you mentioned. In early days, main-stream content was easy and cheap to license. It isn't anymore, so Netflix couldn't continue to exist. Continuing that business model meant Netflix was going to be dead. This new gambit either has to work, or it won't, but the old Netflix model of cheap third party content won't be back. I think it ultimately ends up with Netflix shrinking and having to be ok with that due to more competition. Maybe a micro-payments system might take over at some point where we can very democratically vote with our dollars, but ultimately, I don't think people really want that.

  2. Re:What about the courts? on Politicians Cannot Block Social Media Foes, US Appeals Court Rules (reuters.com) · · Score: 2

    I don't think it goes that far. It's focused on the user, not the social media company. The user can't take actions to block and restrict based on viewpoint discrimination on their public pages. It doesn't obligate Facebook or Twitter to treat any particular parts of their services like public forums, though.

  3. Re: knowing how it works is nice, but not necessar on Researchers Make RAM From a Phase Change We Don't Entirely Understand (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 1

    Two votes, nice post.

  4. Re:Partnering with "fake news" outlets on Facebook Doesn't Care About Fixing Fake News Problem On Its Platform (theguardian.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's only "one-sided" because one-side has a decided challenge with reality and facts and has decided they don't matter anymore. In that case, being one-sided isn't a concern.

  5. How many artists won't get the entry-level apprentice-like opportunity to learn from people with more experience because this role has been automated?

  6. Re:If only higher math was useful on Fields Medals Awarded To 4 Mathematicians (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Seeing that black hole, figuring out how they form, and how they behave increases our understanding of things like quantum mechanics. These are findings that have had applications (GPS, quantum computing, etc.) and we have every reason to believe will continue to have applications. Plus, it helps us understand other big systems like our sun, which might come in handy too.

  7. Re:Maybe... on Studies Find Evidence That Meditation Is Demotivating (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    Likewise, the value in meditation may not be motivation toward a specific task, but rather overall well-being. We can (and should) find other ways to motivate people but encouraging a sese of well-being can definitely avoid those days of minimal productivity from feeling terrible, avoid likelihood of leaving from over-stress, etc. Who is out there championing meditation as a motivator that we needed to disprove it?

  8. Re:The next disruption will be distributed. on American Tech Giants Are Making Life Tough For Startups (economist.com) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Additionally, people don't really care. Geek care, that's mostly it. Most everyone else doesn't care, and that matters, because if they don't come to this utopia of distributed privacy, then no one else will either.

  9. This. It's high risk very low reward.

    One of the child comments mentions "if you can't get VC money then your idea is likely beyond crap" which is silly. Most VCs aren't interested in one-off hardware ideas. They don't have the explosive growth that's attractive to VCs. Hardware is hard, and I think someone needs to push for crowdfunding to involve more than maybe getting the product at a slightly-below retail price, or nothing. Laws need to be changed, but give these people stock in the resulting company. They're literally funding it...

  10. Re:Misleading headline on Finland Is Killing Its Basic Income Experiment (businessinsider.com) · · Score: 1

    But, like we do medical studies, it's valuable to setup a phase 1 trial and see if things start to look like they're working, and then we expand those trials/experiments if they work as expected.

  11. Re:Take the car away on Your Future Home Might Be Powered By Car Batteries (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 3

    Not to mention that, at the moment, batteries are very specific to a particular car, which happens to be one of the largest capital investments a family can make. What kind of life-cycle degradation can we expect from the car being a base-load for the house? I'd hate to be reducing the life-expectancy of the car because it was used floating the house. I have a feeling a pack dedicated to the purpose would be better suited to the task, and much less expensive to replace when it wears out (as opposed to taking apart the car). It also doesn't fit the use case for most families. The house-supporting battery pack will need to supply most of it's power at night, but that's when the family is expecting the car to be charging to the next day's commute. When the house or grid is at full renewable production, your car is most likely sitting in a lot at work somewhere.

  12. That's not the same. Those products are clearly branded as Amazon Basics (and are often of equal or better quality). Walmart, on the other hand insists suppliers make brand name products special for Walmart with independent SKUs that may not meet the same quality requirements of the manufacturers other products. If you can't meet their price point, they'll help you find a factory in China that will help you do it, with thinner steel, lower quality components, etc. (https://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart)

  13. Re:Climate change is real on 2017 Among Warmest Years On Record (npr.org) · · Score: 1

    It's two things. 1) Someone here mentioned the relative cost. It's cheap right now to burn natural gas. 2) It's not that the risks are unknown, but rather it's a difference between acute risks and long-term risks. Humans are really good at fighting really hard to try to avoid things that are immediately big and very scary. We're terrible at mitigating slowly increasing risks, and probabilities.

  14. Re:Overblown on Senator Wants Apple To Answer Questions on Slowing iPhones (reuters.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I also don't think this change was just to make the batteries last the full day. It was also to address an issue where the device was requesting more power than the degraded batteries could provide and was causing unexpected shutdowns. I know of several people with older iPhones that random turn off. It sounds like this could have been the problem.

    Fanboy or no, Apple likes repeat customers, and phones becoming useless garbage doesn't help retention. They didn't slow down their phones to make people buy new phones. They add features that are only available on new phones to do that. Intentionally making old phones not work drives people to other manufacturers. We can safely remove the tinfoil hats for a minute.

  15. Re:The real money is in pop corn on MoviePass Adds a Million Subscribers, Even if Theaters Aren't Sold on It (nytimes.com) · · Score: 1

    I think they don't want this to get traction and wide acceptance. Right now, MoviePass is low-friction, allows you to go to any(?) theater, and no one is the wiser. In a year, when 5 million people are using MoviePass and MP shows up at AMC and says, "You need to give us a discount, or we're going to block your chain." then AMC is in a bad position, because it will be the only chain not supported by MP. Chains don't want to be commoditized because they lose a lot of say over how they run and price their businesses.

  16. Re:Sample size on Study Finds Robot Surgeons Are Actually Slower and More Expensive (theregister.co.uk) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's actually the point. We aren't trying to determine if robots are good or bad in general. It's irrelevant. The researchers are trying to determine if robot assisted surgery is better than non-robot assisted surgery for specific surgeries. This is how doctors determine the best course of action to use in a specific situation, and whether insurance companies will cover extra costs for those particular actions. It looks like 2 particular surgeries show no benefit of robots and that doctors probably shouldn't generally use those robots for those procedures, and insurance companies shouldn't pay anything extra for the use of robots in those procedures. We should hope they're working on studying the efficacy of robotic assistance in more surgical procedures.

  17. And I don't think the authors say we should never use robots and stop developing robots. But it is probably worth questioning using these robots for the surgeries in question, and whether it's valuable for hospitals to buy these robots. It's almost certainly worth making sure insurance companies and medicare don't pay hospitals extra for using these robots in these procedures at this time.

  18. Re:Why don't they just do what airlines do on Paradise Papers Expose Canadian Scalper's Multimillion-Dollar StubHub Scheme (www.cbc.ca) · · Score: 1

    Maybe TicketMaster could implement this using the ridiculous fee they still charge, even though their business is almost entirely overhead free now that they don't need to run physical retail locations.

  19. Re:People Don't Remember on US Is Slipping Toward Measles Being Endemic Once Again, Says Study (arstechnica.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This isn't good enough for children with rare diseases and childhood cancers that don't allow them to get vaccination. Vaccination isn't just about my kid, it's a social policy designed to protect others as well.

  20. Re:I've seen it both ways on Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop In the Classroom (scientificamerican.com) · · Score: 1

    I don't have time to find the studies now, but writing notes is associated with much better content retention than typing notes. So, while a given student may have a stenographers record of the class, they a much less likely to be able to reproduce that on a test.

  21. The labels are in constant contention with Spotify and Pandora over what the per play amount should be. Spotify likely sends them some data on X many users, and Y many plays of label songs, and Z many plays of non-label songs (independents, etc.). If Spotify is justifying their per play amount on the ratio of label vs. non-label plays, and then intentionally inserting owned, $0 songs into popular playlists to get lots of plays, then the labels may feel like something is being pulled over on them. This is fair on the label's part if Spotify is justifying their price based on what price their business model can support. I think it's fair that Spotify can get paid to have music created that people want to listen to, but if they are doing that, they likely need to disclose that to the other people who allow their music to be distributed on Spotify, because those people may decide to pull that music if it's being replaced by Spotify as a direct competitor while Spotify claims they simply can't afford to pay what the labels think their music is worth.

  22. Re:Slashdot is the wrong audience for this questio on Would You Buy the iPhone 8 If It Cost $1,200? (9to5mac.com) · · Score: 1

    I'm also curious what he thinks Apple can implement with the extra margin that they can't already do on the iPhone? I'm sure they can put fancier, higher resolution screens, maybe a crazy camera, etc. But I don't think people are going to pay a 60-80% increase for a marginally better camera, and I don't think there is a killer new use case that is just waiting for this one expensive technology to be put on the phone.

  23. Re: Not true (for the US) on Jack Ma: In 30 Years People Will Work Four Hours a Day and Maybe Four Days a Week (cnbc.com) · · Score: 2

    We have to make some assumptions about your grandmother, but lets say she's a post-war wife and bought her house and car in the late 1950s. Inflation alone says that house is $135k in today's dollars and that car is $27k in today's dollars. Both of those are achievable for a new car, and a starter house in many parts of the country.

  24. Re:Likely the best explenation on 'Older Fathers Have Geekier Sons' (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    I think you're on point with control factors. If they didn't control for income or education they may find that people with higher incomes or more education tend to have children later. Correlation v. causation and all that.

  25. Re:The WSJ is hurting, you say? on Wall Street Journal's Google Traffic Drops 44% After Pulling Out of First Click Free (bloomberg.com) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And that same newsroom was really unhappy with editorial decisions to soften the paper's coverage of Trump during the election. The newsroom may be reputable, but what ultimately makes it to the page wasn't. Those who didn't agree were told to go work for another paper. (http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-journal-editor-trump-coverage-fake-news-2017-2)