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User: Sky+Cry

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  1. Re:Regulatory capture on 8 In 10 People Now See Climate Change As a 'Catastrophic Risk,' Says Survey (trust.org) · · Score: 1

    Government has no business telling anyone how to produce energy. Therefore there shouldn't be any subsidies for any specific type of clean energy production.

    However, government has every business telling everyone to not pollute the environment. So instead of subsidies there should be extra heavy taxes on anything that pollutes the environment - proportional to the pollution.

  2. Define what actually matters to you on Slashdot Asks: How Do You Know a Developer is Doing a Good Job? · · Score: 1

    Make sure the measurements accurately reflect what you care about. What is code quality for you? Do you care about customers not encountering bugs? (All bugs? Just critical?) Do you care about development speed not being reduced gradually? Do you care about estimates matching actual time spent, so you can plan ahead? If you don't actually care about how many lines of code are committed to the git repository, then obviously don't measure it!

    And if you can't measure something for each team member individually, make the whole team equally accountable for the end result. They will figure it out themselves and tell you who's bringing the team down. Not just that, once they know what you really want, they'll also be able to suggest how to measure it better, or tell you what you can do to let them achieve greater results. (E.g., faster PC, bigger monitor, fewer distractions, no scope changes, better test environment, specific training, etc.)

  3. Re:It was bound to happen. on Automakers, Dependent on Mexico, Face a Rougher Road with Trump (reuters.com) · · Score: 1

    4. Replace minimum wage with Universal Base Income, both ensuring quality of life for local workers and leveling the playing field regardless of laws of other countries.

  4. Re:Released in Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka on Facebook Releases Messenger Lite For People On Slower Networks and With Old and Basic Android Phones (cnet.com) · · Score: 1

    It probably is the encryption. I've had a lot of performance problems with my HTC One M6 - the whole would just freeze for seemingly no reason every now and then, and it would even crash on MTP file transfer regularly. In fact, it was getting worse and worse every day. All of it was fixed by resetting back to the unencrypted storage. Encryption comes with a huge price.

  5. Wait, what? Voluntarily paid the fines? Many people don't consider paying fines something you do "voluntarily".

  6. Re:No company should pay more taxes than required. on Apple Should Pay More Tax, Says Co-Founder Wozniak (bbc.com) · · Score: 1

    Or, instead, there could be negative exceptions only. Government shouldn't be in the business of encouraging development of Solar Cells, it should be in the business of discouraging use of, for example, coal and oil, basically imposing additional taxes on everything that threatens our environment in some way. Let the private sector figure out the best solution, government should just be saying what is a no-go. And that way the worst case scenario is that environment-threatening companies find loopholes to pay the same tax as everyone else.

  7. Re:Meh on Presidential Candidate Lincoln Chaffee Proposes That US Go Metric · · Score: 1

    You could have the US go metric tomorrow, but people will still use Imperial measurements for another century

    Or you could do it in a century and people will still use Imperial measurements for TWO more centuries.

  8. Re:Insurance on Calif. DMV Back-Pedals On Commercial-Plate Mandate For Ride-Share Drivers · · Score: 1

    Or Uber could simply become that insurance company.

  9. Re:Not For Me on Toyota Names Upcoming Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car · · Score: 1

    No one said it's easy for Tesla, but they have clearly demonstrated that they can make it easy for you - in fact easier than filling a tank of gas! I don't have any insight into their strategic plans, but I can imagine they would want to first install the easier (for them) alternative before rolling out nation-wide something as complicated as battery swap. I can imagine such solution has huge fixed costs that will not be covered until they become considerably more popular. They have not pushed away from the concept, however - it's still there on their web site: http://www.teslamotors.com/bat...

  10. Re:Not For Me on Toyota Names Upcoming Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car · · Score: 1

    What's the difference when you can replace a battery even faster? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  11. Re:Awesome on Tesla Announces Dual Motors, 'Autopilot' For the Model S · · Score: 1

    You keep repeating the same thing, but you don't provide any explanation. I don't think you know what inflation does, but, unlike you, I'm actually going to explain why I think so.

    Considering all other factors equal (we both know they aren't, but the argument is about inflation, nothing else), consider two scenarios:
    1) have $10k now, don't spend them, don't invest them, in 10 years you still have the same $10k
    2) have $10k now, buy something worth $10k now, in 10 years you still have this thing that cost $10k originally, but because of inflation (=increase in prices) it now costs $11k.

    In scenario 1 you have less value than in scenario 2. Like I said, this disregards all other economic factors that affect value, but the idea is to show how inflation influences it.

  12. Re:Yes yes yes on One In Three Jobs Will Be Taken By Software Or Robots By 2025, Says Gartner · · Score: 1

    Those numbers don't have the meaning you give them.
    When one person is producing enough food to feed all 100 people, yet he only eats for one, does it mean that the other 99 people are fed and don't need to work? No. Until he actually shares the food he produces, the 99 people still need to work to get their own food.
    So how do they get food?
    1) They ask and receive it for free, because the producer is generous. If producer is OK with that, there's no problem to solve. This is the "kid" example you started with.
    2) They make something that the producer needs, and trade with producer. This is where we are now pretty much. Basic economy, no new problem to solve.
    3) The producer doesn't want anything they are willing to give, so they make their own food. The producer is now overproducing and is forced to decrease his prices, or to reallocate his efforts to something else (could be something completely new that was not done before - like actual space exploration). Again, basic economy, no problem to solve.

    So where's the problem again? It's not related to "labor participation rate", but rather in the ability of everyone to take their life in their hands (see point 3). This ability can be severely damaged if a small portion of population is hogging up all the limited resources (such as land or intellectual property) necessary to do so. And the result is that option 3 is no longer available, forcing people to take option 2 no matter the price. Instead of solving this problem you're just implying that option 1 should be forced somehow.

  13. Re:Definition of Irony on It's Dumb To Tell Kids They're Smart · · Score: 1

    But this is internet. You don't need interpersonal skills on the internet.

  14. Re:CPU cycle != 1 second on Understanding an AI's Timescale · · Score: 1

    While there are AIs that are proven to be better at playing chess than the best of humans, they cannot achieve the same performance with just 1 clock cycle per move that a human can achieve with 1 second per move (see the so called bullet games). 1 CPU clock cycle is clearly not comparable to 1 human second - even at a task that AIs are already better at!

  15. Re:Touch-screen desktop PCs are a fad on HP Brings Back Windows 7 'By Popular Demand' As Buyers Shun Windows 8 · · Score: 1

    3) Right click in the bottom left corner, click Shut down or sign out, click Restart

    There are some really nice improvements over Windows 7 - the new options should be advertised more, though.

  16. Re:Brazil aims low, film at 11 on Brazil Orders Google To Hand Over Street View Data · · Score: 1

    I think the cost of damage is what matters, not profit taken. In fact, if the cost of damage is negligible compared to the profit, something is wrong. With the law or with the perception of the damage. In that case it should probably simply be legal, but expensive. Like cutting down trees can be "paid for" by planting 2 or 3 times as many trees as were cut down.

  17. Re:Brazil aims low, film at 11 on Brazil Orders Google To Hand Over Street View Data · · Score: 1

    Now, you strawman'd the size of the company. But the size of the fine should be at least the cost of the damage done plus a punitive amount to act as a sufficient deterrent. What I'm saying here is that $500,000 is worth less that the money Google will make off using said personal data, and is thus ineffectual. The punitive amount on top of the calculated amount of profits they could make off the data should be high enough to deter Google from doing it in Brazil again... and thus wasting taxpayer dollars prosecuting them.

    But you yourself are mixing things up. First you're talking about "the damage done", then you're talking about "calculated amount of profits". So which one is it? And how could you possibly calculate it in this case?

  18. Re:Time is dependent on observation? on First Experimental Evidence That Time Is an Emergent Quantum Phenomenon · · Score: 1

    So universe is lazy-evaluated?

  19. Re:As soon as the smart car counts as the driver on Concern Mounts Over Self-Driving Cars Taking Away Freedom · · Score: 1

    Un-take-controllable? Wouldn't a simple log of who was in control at which point in time suffice? Law enforcement can easily check whether you were controlling the car when you shouldn't have, but cannot prevent you from doing so in the future without a just cause. Just like they cannot prevent you from drunk driving now.

  20. Re:Clever on Motorola Uses NFC To Enable Touch-to-Unlock For Smartphones · · Score: 1

    No need to wait for the Kickstarter version, if you can get this sooner: http://www.nfcworld.com/2013/06/21/324745/geak-unveils-nfc-smart-watch-and-contactless-ring/

  21. Re:FRAUD ALERT! Ignorant person wants attention. on Moscow Subway To Use Special Devices To Read Data On Passengers' Phones · · Score: 1

    People would not be able to use their phones on the subway, which is probably not possible anyway unless antennas have been installed in the tunnels.

    Except they have been installed in the tunnels. E.g.: http://english.corp.megafon.ru/news/20120206-1808.html

  22. Re:Obligatory xkcd merchandise reference on NYC Bans Mention of Dinosaurs, Dancing, Birthdays On Student Tests · · Score: 1

    Obligatory xkcd: http://www.xkcd.com/135/

  23. Re:What if it turned out the other way? on Greenpeace Breaks Into French Nuclear Plant · · Score: 1

    Nobody is saying that. What people are saying is that since its advent, fewer people per KWh produced have died from nuclear power than coal, even if you count Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    Fixed that for you. It doesn't matter how old some specific technology is.

  24. Re:Easier solution on System Recognizes Emotions In People's Voices · · Score: 1

    I wish that worked with my girlfriend.

  25. Re:Big inequalities on What Happens When the Average Lifespan is 150 Years? · · Score: 1

    1) With more people being productive and willing to spend their hard earned money, there'll be greater demand for more workforce.
    2) Why rely on unreliable inheritance, when you have 4 previous generations to help in time of need?
    3) The key point is sound investment. It's being smart that pays off, not being old.