Slashdot Mirror


User: kenh

kenh's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
4,561
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 4,561

  1. Re: Remember when WSJ had a modicrum of decency? on Automation Coming To Restaurants, But Not Because of Minimum Wage Hikes · · Score: 1

    Rising labor costs, stupid auto-correct...

  2. Re: Remember when WSJ had a modicrum of decency? on Automation Coming To Restaurants, But Not Because of Minimum Wage Hikes · · Score: 1

    Because tiding labor costs, resulting in higher food costs, certainly won't influence sales at the restaurants, right?

  3. Re: This is silly on Automation Coming To Restaurants, But Not Because of Minimum Wage Hikes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So we should retain inefficient practices and increase costs to the consumer because otherwise we'll have a glut of unemployed low-skill workers that may commit crimes?

    Seriously?

    A person rendered unemployable by ordering kiosks is a victim of an education system that ill-prepared them to contribute to society, and the solution isn't to protect their low/no-skill jobs.

    Did people argue against the automobile because buggy whip workers would turn to a life of crime when they lose their jobs?

  4. Re: What 3500$? on Tech Firm Fined For Paying Imported Workers $1.21 Per Hour · · Score: 1

    If the same company sends US workers to India, will the workers accept India-level wages? How come this only works one way?

  5. Re: What 3500$? on Tech Firm Fined For Paying Imported Workers $1.21 Per Hour · · Score: 1

    There was the $20BN 'Recovery Fund' - that's just under $2BN/dead worker...

  6. How? on Tech Firm Fined For Paying Imported Workers $1.21 Per Hour · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Where did they find housing in Fremont they could afford at $1.21/hr?

    How did they feed themselves?

    How did they afford the plane ticket to SF?

    Let me guess, the company paid for all the above, and subtracted it from their wages... That's about the only way you can approach $1.21/hr.

    Now, about that 121/hr work week - that has them working 5 days straight per week, with Saturday and Sunday off... Or about 17 hours a day, every day of the week.

    Let me guess, the folks filing the claim subtracted sleep time and founded every waking hour as a work hour because they are either in company housing or at work...

    Bottom line, I think their supporters are working too hard to make their case - like the homeless advocates who redefined homeless to include folks who would be homeless if they list their jobs and only have a few weeks savings to live on...

  7. Re: Politics on Ebola Does Not Require an "Ebola Czar," Nor Calling Up the National Guard · · Score: 1

    Not true.

    http://www.bostonmagazine.com/...

    For example, Russia outlaws gun ownership, yet has a higher murder rate than the US...

  8. Re: What? on NPR: '80s Ads Are Responsible For the Lack of Women Coders · · Score: 1

    What?

    In my NJ school district there are four elementary schools, one middle school and one high school. Two of them element arise have female principals, the middle school and high school each have female vice-principals, and our prior superintendent was a woman.

    Oh, and fully 80% of the teaching staff is female, and two of the the five non-superintendent administrators are female (Student services and Curriccullum are female, IT, Finance, and Maint. Are headed by men).

  9. Re: This shit is why managers think the cloud work on Vax, PDP/11, HP3000 and Others Live On In the Cloud · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Sharepoint runs on PDP-11s? VAX? Alpha?

  10. Apples and oranges? on Diners Tend To Eat More If Their Companions Are Overweight · · Score: 1

    After observing the "corpulent" woman serve herself, the students were allowed to come forward and serve themselves pasta and salad. On average, the coeds each served themselves more pasta than the "fat" woman had selected while taking less salad than she did. When the same study was performed with the actress appearing sans the fat suit, researchers observed that students ended up eating more salad than pasta. The conclusion was simple: people may consume more unhealthy food and eat less healthy food when in the presence of an overweight person."

    Is "taking more" the same as "eating more"? Did all the coeds clean their plates?

  11. Re: If the libs are for it... on Conservative Groups Accuse FCC of Helping Net Neutrality Advocates File Comments · · Score: 1

    By including the Koch brothers in the story it multiplies the traffic on slashdot...

  12. Re: If the libs are for it... on Conservative Groups Accuse FCC of Helping Net Neutrality Advocates File Comments · · Score: 1

    That's not what Pauline Keal said - she was confused how Nixon won because 'nobody she knows voted for him'.

  13. Re: Conservatives crying "no fair"? on Conservative Groups Accuse FCC of Helping Net Neutrality Advocates File Comments · · Score: 1

    The government shouldn't be holding a comment period and then spend taxpayer dollars in an attempt to influence the outcome.

    It may look like it is leveling the playing field from where you are sitting, but fir every filthy rich conservative there is a corresponding filthy rich liberal, free to spend their own money to influence public opinion just like the filthy rich conservatives do. That they choose not to doesn't make them 'better' than their conservative counter-parts, it makes them cheap.

    Doubt there are a corresponding number of filthy rich liberals? Who do you think pays $30K+ at the 400 fund raisers Obama has attended since taking office? He flys out west and will hit several multi-million dollar fundraiser a day!

    The point is the FCC choose a side, and spent taxpayer influence their own position.

  14. I saw what you did there... on Conservative Groups Accuse FCC of Helping Net Neutrality Advocates File Comments · · Score: 1

    You equated a private group spending their own money to advance their belief/opinion with a branch if the federal government spending our tax dollars stacking the deck for one side of a purportedly fair debate on net neutrality.

    I bet you thought by tossing the Koch brothers into the mix we wouldn't notice your attempt at a false equivalency.

    Better luck next time.

  15. Re: And Java fail again on Possible Reason Behind Version Hop to Windows 10: Compatibility · · Score: 1

    Wasn't the goal of Java to be able to run anywhere inside a JVM that insulated the underlying computer system from anything Java might want to do, creating code that was 'safe' to download and run from the Internet since it couldn't harm your computer?

  16. Re: How badly coded are Windows applications? on Possible Reason Behind Version Hop to Windows 10: Compatibility · · Score: 1

    No, the problem wasn't that they referred to it as "Y2K", the problem was the mass media got hold of a 'possible' problem that 'might' affect 'some' computers and spun the issue to be so large as to throw civilization back to the dark ages - water utilities were goingt o stop pumping water, planes would fall out of the sky, the phone system would fail, etc.

  17. Re: Windows 9X on Possible Reason Behind Version Hop to Windows 10: Compatibility · · Score: 2

    These are Windows developers. Of course that (sic)have difficulty in writing software that can't figure out revision differences.

    Your double-negative and decision to break up one complete sentence into two incomplete sentences with typo really undercuts your argument...

  18. Understand what 'minimum' means on Lost Opportunity? Windows 10 Has the Same Minimum PC Requirements As Vista · · Score: 1

    So Windows 10 has the same hardware requirements as Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8/8.1 - so what?

    Most people arguing for increased minimum specs are arguing for a system that would perform reasonably with an unspecified workload in addition to the load the OS puts on the system (for example, running MS Office 2013 applications)... Would dropping, for example, support for 32-bit x86 only hardware add or diminish the market share Windows 10 enjoys?

    BTW why isn't anyone complaining about Ubuntu Linux which has similar minimum requirements and has for years?

  19. Re: Really? on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 1

    Solar cells on your roof simply are not cost competitive against utility company power. Period.

    The requirement that utility company's buy your excess 'green' energy whenever you happen to have some at RETAIL prices artificially lowers the cost of rooftop photovoltaics.

    Photovoltaics are not a substitute for a connection to the power grid *unless* you add a storage device to capture your excess electricity during the day so you can have power at night.

  20. Re: Really? on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 2

    Yeah, Germany has it all figured out...

    According to the New York Times (9-19-2013), not so much:

    German families are being hit by rapidly increasing electricity rates, to the point where growing numbers of them can no longer afford to pay the bill. Businesses are more and more worried that their energy costs will put them at a disadvantage to competitors in nations with lower energy costs, and some energy-intensive industries have begun to shun the country because they fear steeper costs ahead.

    Newly constructed offshore wind farms churn unconnected to an energy grid still in need of expansion. And despite all the costs, carbon emissions actually rose last year as reserve coal-burning plants were fired up to close gaps in energy supplies.

    A new phrase, âoeenergy poverty,â has entered the lexicon.

  21. Re: Not so.... on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 2

    Forcing your local power company to buy your excess electricity at retail prices is a subsidy, is that going away?

    Are people paying full retail for their rooftop solar arrays? That is the measure of 'subsidies going away' - taking a 50% subsidy and dropping it to 40% isn't an example of subsidies 'going away'.

  22. Re: Oh dear - money grows on trees... on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 1

    Spreading the cost of your lunch over a group of people that do not share in your lunch isn't cheaper, it's cheaper to your - when you factor in the cost of administering the spreading of the cost and the oversight of the subsidized lunch you are enjoying at a discount, the net total cost is actually greater...

  23. Re: Utilities Fighting Back on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 1

    "Decline" is not "dead", decline means a little less.

    The federal subsidies that distort the market for home solar panels should end. Insulating buyers from the actual cost of solar panels removes incentives for industries to find more cost efficient technologies.

    The requirements that utilities buy whatever random excess electricity you roof top solar cells happen to generate at a price far in excess of the cost the utility could generate it for needs to stop.

    The power buyback program is insanity, nothing less. Consider this - imagine we were back at the turn of the last century, and buggy whips were a big industry. Then someone invents a home buggy whip machine which turns out buggy whips at a random rate. Now the government, bowing to the idea that poor people can't afford buggy whips decides to cover half the cost of every buggy whip machine purchased. Furthermore, the government decides that in order to help make buggy whips more affordable, buggy whip manufacturers are forced to pay above retail price for every excess buggy whip every home buggy whip machine produced.

    When the buggy whip industry collapses, it wouldn't be because of the invention of the home buggy whip machine, it would be as a result of the federal and state regulations.

  24. Profits a function of regulations on Utilities Should Worry; Rooftop Solar Could Soon Cut Their Profit · · Score: 1

    First off, the current system of forcing utilities to buy excess electricity generated by distributed photovoltaic cells at a premium is the one thing that likely will impact power company PROFITS. For those not familiar with this, in the US (at least, not sure of other markets) power companies buy your unused power you put on to the grid at a price that is above the retail price your neighbors will pay for their electricity from the utility. THAT policy, coupled with extremely generous incentives from the government is what makes photovoltaic cells an 'affordable' power source.

    Second, utility company profit is typically regulated to be a percentage of revenues, and reduced sales (because of conservation, self-generation, or whatever) will reduce power company revenue, but profits will remain at the regulated percentage of revenue. (Back when AT&T was *the* phone company, they enjoyed a federally guaranteed profit of around 6% of revenue. They couldn't make more than 6% profit on phone service, but they could keep raising rates until they hit 6% profit. Six percent isn't an unreasonable profit, but when it is guaranteed, it is great. This helps explain why the phone company did so much research and paid such high salaries - these increased costs required increases in revenue, which increased profits.)

    The thing that hurts the power company are the regulations, not the lost sales:

    Install solar panels on your roof, gov't covers half of the cost (50% discount)

    Generate electricity with those solar panels, sell the excess to power company at premium (retail plus) price.

    Forcing the power company to buy electricity it doesn't want when it doesn't need it and can't predict or rely on it is what will kill their profits, not you buying less electricity on sunny days with your federally discounted solar panel array on the roof.

  25. Re: Yes, just like that. on Outlining Thin Linux · · Score: 1

    Now we run Windows Server 2012 with no GUI, virtualized, and admin with powershell. We've ripped out tens of thousands of dollars of Red Hat; windows is cheaper.

    But how can that be? Linux is free?! /sarcasm