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User: JoeMerchant

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Comments · 6,280

  1. Re:Those with the money on Feds Now Oppose Aereo, Rejecting Cloud Apocalypse Argument · · Score: 1

    There are quite a few laws older than 80 years with a lot of relevance today, starting with the Bill of Rights.

    However, if being in public means anyone is free to follow and video me and my activities, then sell this information for a profit (traffic cams, private investigators, etc.) - I see how repeating broadcast television on the internet, without or even with time-shift delays, should also be free for anyone to undertake as a business.

    There will be higher bidders in the courtroom than the individual liberties supporters, copyright will prevail, and Mickey Mouse will not be public domain until well after children as yet unborn are 75 years old.

  2. Re:Protein isn't the problem. on Low-Protein Diet May Extend Lifespan · · Score: 1

    HFCS is cheap, ridiculously tax subsidized cheap. When they closed down the sugar plantations in Hawaii and breakfast cereals hiked up 50% in price, everybody screamed. Now, you can have solid sweetener for $2 per gallon, so guess what's found in much higher quantities in your food now that it's less than half the cost of cane or beet sugar?

  3. Re:Stop focusing on the fads on Low-Protein Diet May Extend Lifespan · · Score: 1

    Remember this, when smoking was getting banned in most of North America, the cigarette companies diversified and got into, guess what? Food.

    High fructose corn syrup (New Coke, oops sorry- here's your Old Coke back, now with HFCS...) and all manner of addictive things have been scientifically woven into your grocery store aisles since then, by the corporations who have made a science of legal addiction for profit.

  4. Re:Low protein extends life? on Low-Protein Diet May Extend Lifespan · · Score: 1

    Tell them (your girlfriends) that the Paleo diet is the way to go - steak, bacon, fried veggies - good stuff.

  5. Re:Atkin's Diet on Low-Protein Diet May Extend Lifespan · · Score: 1

    Empty carbs.... you do know that Atkins died young?

    Carbs are where the calories are at in the American diet - kill the soda, breads, cereals, cookies, doughnuts, and other sugars (carbs), and you remove most of the impulse calories from the table.

    You can get fat on nuts, steak, cheese and bacon, just consume the same calories in them as you would have in soda and doughnuts.

  6. Re:Unregulated currency on Bitcoin Exchange Flexcoin Wiped Out By Theft · · Score: 1

    I'm missing why the banks are necessary?

    If you can hold your bitcoin in your own wallet, can't you be your own bank?

    What's the incentive to trust somebody you've never met, often located in another country, to hold your unregulated currency for any longer than it takes to perform an exchange?

  7. Re:Unregulated currency on Bitcoin Exchange Flexcoin Wiped Out By Theft · · Score: 1

    if you come here to talk about how this isn't a fundamental bitcoin problem

    It's not a problem, it's a feature.

    In the Oklahoma land rush days, you kept your gold coins in your sock, and a Colt .45 at your side to protect the sock.

    Now, it's the clever nerds who will get to hold on to their (oh, so) valuable Bitcoins, and the trusting losers who are getting scammed out of them.

    I just want somebody to run the criminals to ground and show how a couple of million dollars is plenty of incentive to peel back the supposed layers of anonymity in Bitcoin. Unfortunately, just exposing who did it won't likely recover the value, so the incentive might still not be there to do it.

  8. Re:Open Source it on NASA Forgets How To Talk To ICE/ISEE-3 Spacecraft · · Score: 2

    If there's any kind of "little black box" on that vehicle that uses any kind of "secure" communication protocols, even from 30 years ago, the time and effort required to publish a functional, redacted communication protocol will cost far more than the balance of the mission calculations, communication hardware, etc.

  9. Re:Regulation of currency on MtGox Sets Up Call Center For Worried Bitcoiners · · Score: 1

    Well, this was 1986ish, before that internets tube thing caught on, so, maybe they've changed their ways... the tables were pretty damn empty.

  10. Re:Regulation of currency on MtGox Sets Up Call Center For Worried Bitcoiners · · Score: 1

    Carnival cruise lines, that was how their table was labeled in the felt, and when I asked the attendant they confirmed the payouts... seemed insane to me, especially with a killer free buffet down the hall...

  11. Re:Abjectly false argument on Cops Say NDA Kept Them from Notifying Courts About Cell Phone Tracking Gadget · · Score: 1

    I always look for contracts that have illegal provisions and make sure I sign the document. Then I can get out of the contract without worry.

    You enjoy making arguments in court? On the court's schedule?

    Personally, I prefer to not wrestle with pigs, you both get muddy, but the pig enjoys it.

  12. Re:Abjectly false argument on Cops Say NDA Kept Them from Notifying Courts About Cell Phone Tracking Gadget · · Score: 2

    Naw man, come here, sign this agreement.

    First thing it says is that you will never tell anybody about the existence of this agreement, no way, no how, no foolin'.

    Next we get to the good stuff where you and I do all kinds of illegal things, but, since we're bound by this agreement, we can never tell anybody about it, not even under oath in a court of law.

    Ya see: airtight, uptight, and outta sight.

    Strangely enough, I had a former employer ask me to sign my rights to sue them away under a "secrecy bound" agreement like that - it didn't explicitly say anything illegal, I think - actually, I don't know - I deferred signing it until I found adequate counsel, and so far the only counsel I have found to look at it can't stop laughing long enough to say anything coherent.

  13. Re:Regulation of currency on MtGox Sets Up Call Center For Worried Bitcoiners · · Score: 1

    But you really want a rate of return better than a monkey, otherwise you might as well invest in index funds, how boring is that?

    If you want to gamble with money in an exciting way; I suggest going to Vegas.

    I've never been to Vegas, I did make a low pass at a Roulette table on a cruise ship once, I was astounded to find that Red/Black bets paid back $0.60 on the dollar. So, bet $1 on Red, if Red comes up, you get to keep your dollar and the house gives you $0.60 additional - woo hoo, but if Black comes up, you lose your dollar.

    How drunk do you have to be to ever think that's a good idea?

  14. Re:BBC on First Look At the Animals of the New Hebrides Trench · · Score: 1

    It's the American cable TV model, something I never understood and have never subscribed to... premium programming, with Ads!

  15. Re:Really? on First Look At the Animals of the New Hebrides Trench · · Score: 2

    In the absence of data, science tends to assume that the observations in hand also apply to places not observed yet. When it comes true, everybody cheers. The rest of the time, there's a progression of "that's strange... I don't believe you - prove it!... Hmmm, we need a grant to study this."

    There should be a "meta-science of the unknown" to explain how much we don't know, based on the variability of our existing observations - how likely we are to find new and surprising things, based on how often our existing knowledge base has been surprised in the past. Sort of how they choose space exploration missions, but certainly it can be applied to many under-explored areas on Earth, too.

  16. Re:Atmospheric pressure on First Look At the Animals of the New Hebrides Trench · · Score: 2

    Just don't travel up and down the water column with trapped gas and you'll be fine.

    Oh, you breathe air? Well, that presents extra challenges.

    So much solar energy gets converted to chemical energy and then falls to the bottom of the ocean - it was more or less inevitable that surface life would evolve and exploit it somehow.

  17. Re:Regulation of currency on MtGox Sets Up Call Center For Worried Bitcoiners · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Monkeys do better than people in the stock market - I'm sure they did lots of market research beforehand though.

    But you really want a rate of return better than a monkey, otherwise you might as well invest in index funds, how boring is that?

    So the trick is to identify when people, in general, are being less-smart than monkeys and then run in the opposite direction.

    It's not an easy business, outsmarting the monkeys - that's why it's better to be lucky than smart.

  18. Re:If the first 25% is actually without charge on Study: Half of In-App Purchases Come From Only 0.15% of Players · · Score: 1

    Free market, as long as the stuff uninstalls cleanly, I'd say anything is fair.

    I had one "Free" game that started sending me notifications every few days - I don't care if I can tweak my O.S. to filter them, I can also just uninstall the crap.

  19. Re:iapcracker on Study: Half of In-App Purchases Come From Only 0.15% of Players · · Score: 1

    I released a game for Palm Pilot - it was "donationware" - if you like it, send some money. I got tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of installs over the years, zero donations. (to be fair, I had no way to track play-time.)

    It was listed on PalmGear H.Q. for awhile, the way they listed it implied that you had to cough up $9 to get the download file - wasn't true, but it appeared to be. While I was listed higher up in the rankings, I was selling 10 copies a month. They eventually pushed me down below all the arcade rip-off titles that sold far more copies and sales tapered off.

    I think the opportunity to get in-game remuneration from advertising is great - $50K/day for Flappy Bird - nice lotto win for one guy, $5/day for a thousand solo authors is also at least something for their efforts.

  20. Re:iapcracker on Study: Half of In-App Purchases Come From Only 0.15% of Players · · Score: 1

    I play Hill Climb Racing - perhaps a bit too much.

    I have never paid for any of the in-game "points boosts" - it does feel like cheating, gamewise.

    I have considered buying one, just as a "thank you" to the authors - haven't done it yet, but maybe someday...

  21. Re:The worst kind of human beings on Study: Half of In-App Purchases Come From Only 0.15% of Players · · Score: 1

    Casinos should be shut down if they advertise "FREE" gaming, then get you more or less physically addicted to the game before slipping in a "insert credit card here to get what you really really want...."

    For a small percentage of the population, gambling is a weakness that they cannot control. Exploitation of those people should be banned.

    Not everybody who spends $10K/month gambling is being exploited, but those who spend their last rent and food money on it, are.

  22. Re:The worst kind of human beings on Study: Half of In-App Purchases Come From Only 0.15% of Players · · Score: 1

    Keep the numbers in perspective, 0.15%.

    Being on a "smartphone" or "tablet" puts you easily into the top 70% of the socio-economic strata... poor people carry prepaid burners.

    So, the people have money, 1.5% of them are willing to crack open their wallets, and 10% of those just don't care.

    The top 1% make more than $500K/year, and we're talking about 1/1000 type people here...

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

    Sure, if I made $50K/month, I probably wouldn't blow $10K of it on cocaine and hookers, or candy crush, but I should be so lucky as to be tested....

  23. Re:$10,000?!? on Study: Half of In-App Purchases Come From Only 0.15% of Players · · Score: 1

    I hope you're getting more than $10K per month for that bridge, can you imagine what the toll booth takes in?

  24. Re:ATM keypads on Inside Boeing's New Self-Destructing Smartphone · · Score: 1

    Maybe they're not all as loaded, but a friend worked at a bank (basically drive up, park and walk access, albeit on Miami Beach) and on a Friday night they'd stock their ATM with $50K, and half of it would be legally withdrawn by Saturday morning.

    If your brother had defrauded you, you could go after him in court and make a bunch of lawyers rich while you attempt to recover a piece of your money.

    Hatred of lawyers is probably what keeps most people honest, whether they know it or not.

  25. Re:Minicomputer? on First Outdoor Flocks of Autonomous Flying Robots · · Score: 1

    Minicomputer meant a specific thing to a specific minority of the population.

    How long ago was the last of that type of minicomputer manufactured? Possibly before the article author's birth.