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User: nephilimsd

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Comments · 146

  1. Re: While I hate the media circus... on Ferguson No-Fly Zone Revealed As Anti-Media Tactic · · Score: 1

    Actually, the first amendment says that "Congress shall make no law respecting..." As far as I know, a temporary flight restriction is not a law, and was not published by Congress. Therefore, while this may still be illegal, it's likely not unconstitutional. I am not a Supreme Court justice, so YMMV.

  2. Re:1%'er has no more votes than a 99%'er on US Midterm Elections Discussion · · Score: 1

    How to do punish everyone at the same time? By voting for the opposition, which incidentially, will do the exact same thing that resulted in punitive voting? The next election, switch back? All I see are circles.

  3. Re:...and also not true on New Atomic Clock Reaches the Boundaries of Timekeeping · · Score: 1

    By the same logic, infinite is impossible and therefore useless. So we should just redefine it to some arbitrarily large number that I have a hard time conceptualizing. Let's call it roughly 10 duodectrillion. /sarcasm

    Just because something is impossible doesn't make the concept of that thing less meaningful. Perfection, in this case, is just a model of how things would work in an idealized universe. It becomes useful as a comparative term. As clocks approach perfection, relativity becomes a complicating factor in further refinement. That doesn't mean we need to redefine perfect for this context.

  4. Re:Competition on Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC Breached · · Score: 2

    No, no, no. It says it right in the quote. Users can select what information they *WANT* to share with retailers. All of their information will be shared, regardless, just some because the user want it, and the rest because the retailers do.

  5. Re:Good luck with that. on Rite Aid and CVS Block Apple Pay and Google Wallet · · Score: 1

    FDIC protection basically means if the bank gets robbed, the federal reserve is responsible for the money and not you. With a credit card, if something gets stolen, it wasn't yours to begin with. Since the liability is and was always on the credit card company side, you cannot be held responsible for payment of fraudulent charges (to a minimum of something like $50). As a consumer, I'll take the protections of a credit card over the protections of a checking account any day. At the same time, partially because of FDIC insurance, I choose to store liquid capital in a checking account as opposed to under my mattress where I am responsible for any loss.

  6. Re:Tech Companies have become warring fiefdoms on Will Apple Lose Siri's Core Tech To Samsung? · · Score: 1

    "Really? 10 years ago you had a phone with 32GB of memory, that could connect to an LTE4 network, stream usable HD video (and display it on it's own HD screen), do voice recognition, weighed less the 150 grams, had a 16MP camera, etc? Exactly which phone was that?"

    In all fairness, the only thing you've done is add bigger numbers or better adjectives to existing functions. If you replaced that with, "[Y]ou had a phone with memory, that could connect to a network, stream video (and display it on it's own screen)..." The answer is likely yes. I can see how that isn't really considered innovation, and just incremental improvement (albeit a lot in a fairly short time).

  7. Re:Story title needs a warning! on Could Maroney Be Prosecuted For Her Own Hacked Pictures? · · Score: 1

    Citation, please.

  8. Re:Just what we need. More compliance! on Drones Reveal Widespread Tax Evasion In Argentina · · Score: 1

    In addition to value being a multi-dependant variable, there is also an aspect of progressivism to property tax as a value of property. The ability for a person owning a million dollar home to shoulder higher proportional burden for maintaining society is greater than the ability for a person owning a $100,000 home, which in turn is likely to be higher than an average renter. Additionally, the owner has more vested interest in maintaining a local area without simply up and leaving, due to the increased effort required in selling the existing property and purchasing elsewhere. Finally, assuming that homeowners do not like to see blight growing in their area, and assuming this risk grows as value grows, it continues to make more sense to tax the value of the improvements on land than other, more regressive tax schemes.

  9. Re:OK on IBM Solar Concentrator Can Produce12kW/day, Clean Water, and AC · · Score: 1

    First, lets assume that they mean 12 kWh/day (unlikely since an average house uses 30 kWh/day, and the article states output is enough for several households). The article states the entire structure lasts 60 years (lets use 50 for simple math), and that components will need to be replaced every 10-15 years, and every 25 years, for different components. We can use the 10 year figures, again for easy math. I live in Nevada, which has one of the cheapest electricity rates in the country. A flat-bill system runs me $.16/kWh, and a tiered structure can get as cheap as $0.125/kWh. Lets assume that I currently purchase all electricity at the cheapest possible rate (impossible since this is only available for 7 months out of the year, but whatever). Using the national average (I use a bit less due to no A/C and rely on better insulation in my home instead), that works out to $3.75/day, which is $112/month for just electricity. There are 600 months in 50 years. With no inflation, I could expect to spend $67200 on electricity over those 50 years. 12 kWh assumed to be produced per day provides 40% of my average usage. This gives me a total lifetime value for this project of $26880. Depending on the cost of the entire structure and maintenance, that leaves a lot of room to work with and still come out on the positive side, even with best estimates at making this device appear worthless. If the initial cost is anywhere near the $20,000 neighborhood and is legal to install in residential areas, I would strongly consider this for personal use. Electricity is probably going to get more expensive as oil and natural gas resources go down, and the actual value is likely to be significantly higher.

  10. Re:The sad part is... on Snowden's Leaks Didn't Help Terrorists · · Score: 1

    Maybe it should have been rated as funny instead of insightful, but the joke is still solid. It deserves to be upmodded.

  11. Re:It it never had much effect on terrorists on Snowden's Leaks Didn't Help Terrorists · · Score: 1

    "So its clear then that the NSA was doing this for economical reasons, getting better trade agreements, giving US companies a competitive advantage and such." That's non-sense. It's not clear about anything. In fact, if "terrorists" or whomever are currently being targeted are using sophisticated communication methods, then the idea of creating a department with the intention of defeating the security that is being used makes more sense. It actually provides a level of legitimacy for the creation of NSA. Please note, I don't support the NSA existing at all, let alone collecting the vast troves of information. And I certainly do credit Snowden for making my grandmother interested in the conversation (although she seems to have picked the wrong horse...).

  12. Re:How to cripple a city on Google's Driverless Cars Capable of Exceeding Speed Limit · · Score: 1

    The speed limit is generally interpreted as the "maximum safe speed, regardless of other conditions." As such, driving at exactly the speed limit cannot be considered unsafe for driving too slowly, though it could be considered unsafe for driving too quickly if other factors such as weather and traffic also impact the safe driving speed. http://www.nolo.com/legal-ency...

  13. Re:Pete and Repeat on Ask Slashdot: Why Are Online Job Applications So Badly Designed? · · Score: 1

    Posting every keyword you can think of is also most likely a bad idea. If the automated software detects too many keywords, the application is thrown out as likely spam. The ideal thing to do is to have one master resume that contains everything you think might ever be relevant, and then tailor a specific copy for each job you are posting for, using only the keywords they ask for in the job posting plus maybe one or two related skills. Then a human might actually see it. Also, you can still format a plain-text resume to be short, and provide a PDF of a pretty version with expanded explanations of duties or situations. And learn to bring additional copies of your resume to interviews, so you can give the interviewer something much nicer to look at.

  14. Re:Disengenous on Amazon's eBook Math · · Score: 1

    I find value in the practices that companies employ, and not just in the prices that their goods are sold. For example, WalMart has a policy of subsidizing payroll dollars with tax dollars (http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/15/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-in-public-assistance/). Therefore, I choose not to shop at WalMart. Furthermore, because I find this practice particularly egregious, I encourage other people not to shop there. If all of my choices were limited to three companies that engage in similar practices (or at best, one that doesn't), then the market isn't actually competitive. What you have is an oligopoly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly).

  15. Re:Modern Day Anti-Evolutionists on Climate Change Skeptic Group Must Pay Damages To UVA, Michael Mann · · Score: 1

    I don't see deniers as being particularly squeaky, but rather as appealing to the outcome that most people want anyway: Change nothing about the current policy, the prices that we pay, or the convenience of life, and if possible, maybe think about doing something about this whole climate thing. But the climate is a very distant concern, after cost and convenience. If we can't find a cheap, convenient solution now, let's just wait until one shows up. In the mean time, full steam ahead!

  16. Re:Where's the article? on Ninety-Nine Percent of the Ocean's Plastic Is Missing · · Score: 1

    And this is considered informative.

  17. Re:What The?!? on US Agency Aims To Regulate Map Aids In Vehicles · · Score: 1

    Much like the main problem in the U.S. is our inclusion of economically crappy states, like Mississippi (https://bber.unm.edu/econ/st-gdp5.htm).

  18. Re:how does one even contact google to be forgotte on Web Browsing Isn't Copyright Infringement, Rules EU Court of Justice · · Score: 1

    I have long since used http://www.gizoogle.net/ as a functional replacement for Google.

  19. Re:Even higher! on Seattle Approves $15 Per Hour Minimum Wage · · Score: 2

    You're presenting a false dichotomy. On the one hand, either your preconceived notions of economics are true. On the other, all established principles of economics are false. This not an "A or not A" situation. It is entirely possible that labor cost does not have the same type of effect as you believe and for destruction for destruction's sake to still be a generally bad economic policy.

  20. Re:Auto-save is NOT your friend on Goodbye, Ctrl-S · · Score: 1

    The number of times that I open a document with the purpose of testing a change or providing information to someone in a what-if scenario that I really don't want saved is probably more than the number of times that I open a document with the purpose of actually changing anything. I work in a finance department, and a lot of our calculations are still done in Excel templates. If I don't have the option to close without saving, I am probably not using whatever office suite you are presenting me.

  21. Re:I don't know about you lot... on With the Surface Pro, Microsoft Is Trying To Recreate the PC Market · · Score: 1

    The thing about the Surface Pro is that apps from third parties are available. All of the apps that are used on a traditional Windows desktop are available. This includes entertainment options such as Steam or any Windows games, productivity applications such as Adobe suite and Office suite, video or sound engineering software, CAD software, or anything else created in the last 20-some odd years. Not all (closer to none) of the applications are optimized for touch, that's true, but that's what bluetooth mice and detachable keyboards are for. When those are inconvenient, you get to covert to a simple mode, where web browsing, netflix, emails, and whatever other tablet-specific applications you want are available to use. I own an original Surface Pro, and so far it has been the best all-purpose computing device I have owned. With the 8 GB RAM upgrade in the Surface Pro 3, I might actually consider upgrading. The biggest drawback is that Windows 8 is still frustrating to navigate. If they would add an option where Metro is the default screen when keyboard is not connected, and goes away completely when a keyboard is present, the device would be perfect.

  22. Re:It is God. on Supermassive Black Hole At the Centre of Galaxy May Be Wormhole In Disguise · · Score: 2

    I have compared the weight of the argument against the weight of a lump of coal that I found. Since I know that straw men burn, and I know that coal burns, I estimate that if the weights of the two are equal, then we are in fact dealing with a straw-man.

  23. Re:Soo... on Lessig Launches a Super PAC To End All Super PACs · · Score: 1

    The issues that you bring up are important, but the point of the MayDay PAC is that none of those issues can be effectively tackled while the only candidates that are available are those that are hand-picked by those with the most wealth. By ending Super PACs, more pertinent issues and ideas can be used as a political platform, and the issues that voters care about are more likely to be addressed than issues that the wealthy care about. Not implying that the wealthy aren't voters, mind you, just that not all voters are wealthy and we currently only get to vote on the basis of issues that the wealthy care about, and that does not really include the wear on drugs, punitive taxation, or the 4th amendment.

  24. Re:Was it really Tesla's problem? on Under the Chassis: A Look At Tesla's Battery Shield · · Score: 1

    He was obviously referring to an ocean of lava.

  25. Re:Apple / Google / etc on How Ireland Got Apple's $9 Billion Australian Profit · · Score: 1

    This was meant for one post down. Sorry.