Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:What is the net effect? (Score 1) 907

If subprime auto lending is really so profitable why aren't there more people doing it?
Given the small amounts of money that are involved any tiny bank or hedge fund could get into. At the prices you're talking about even a small investment club could make these loans.
I suggest it's because the risks are much higher than you assume they are.
Take your first example. How much do you think it costs to repossess a car? Of course there are legal fees and court fees. Then you have to pay a guy to go and get the car to some holding area (which you also have to pay for). Then you need to arrange to sell it and unless the bank is going to open it's own used car lot (which costs money) they need to pay someone to sell it for them (which costs money).
Finally how much do you think the bank can get for a car that's, in theory, worth $4000. I'm guessing it's less than $4000.

Also, if a bank repossess a car and somehow manages to sell it for more than the outstanding value of the loan plus expenses they don't get to keep the difference.

Comment What is the net effect? (Score 4, Interesting) 907

It would be interesting to see what the net effect of these devices is.

Did it just move a bunch of people from the category of "You can have a car loan and if you don't pay we will go through a long process to repossess your car." to "You can have a car loan but we can shut it off as soon as you miss a payment."
Or did it move people from the category of "You don't get a car loan at all." to "You can have a car loan but we can shut it off as soon as you miss a payment."

I suspect it's both but it would be interesting to know what happens in aggregate.

Comment What will you do for me? (Score 1) 479

That's the question every employer is asking themselves about you.
They may not ask you directly but that's what they're trying to find out so you need to be able to answer it.
Keep in mind that the things that you are best at providing may not be the things that all or most companies need.

Start by figuring out what you can bring to the table and then look for companies that need that.
In my experience the thing that a PhD shows is that you can successfully complete a research project on your own. If you want to leverage that then you need to find a company that is trying to get research done. This doesn't need to be academic type research but it really only makes sense to hire research experts if you're doing something new.

While many programming jobs require you to be smart you don't necessarily need to be able to find new ways of doing things. In fact, finding a new way of doing something is usually pretty stupid since chances are pretty good that someone else already figured out a way to do whatever it is well enough that it's not worth wasting time finding a new way to do it.
But sometimes there isn't a good solution to a problem and if you find a company that is trying to solve a problem like that they'll be more likely to want to hire someone with a track record of being able to solve problems that they can't look up the answer to.

Comment Re:Poor comparison... (Score 4, Informative) 59

A "Carrington-level" event nowadays would most likely be much less disruptive, as back then all the early radio and spark gap stuff was well under 50 MHz, which is where almost all of the natural noise winds up in the spectrum. Ever notice, for example you can hear your shaver motor on an AM radio but not an FM one. This is not due to AM vs. FM, (well, it is a little) but mostly due to the fact that AM is about 1 MHz and FM is about 100 MHz, well above the "static line" around 50 MHz.

It would take a much stronger signal than back then to cause the same level of disruption. Not saying that can't happen, but modern radio communications are quite a bit more robust than they were back over 100 years ago.

The concern is not so much about the disruption of radio communications, but the power grid. Our society might not survive a massive, long-term (months or even years) blackout (a huge number of transformers might be destroyed all at once by the induced EMF).

Comment Re:No, not really (Score 4, Informative) 113

You still need very pure water or you poison the process. Where's that water coming from? How do you collect the gaseous hydrogen? You still need to liquify it and all the emrittlement and cryogenic issues are still there.

Even if hydrogen gas is free, it makes no sense as an energy carrier for cars.

They don't collect the gaseous hydrogen in the electrolyzer; they soak it up with a "liquid sponge" ("a recyclable redox mediator (silicotungstic acid) " according to the article's abstract. In principle at least, hydrogen could be stored and transported in this form (a liquid sponge soaked with hydrogen).; the hydrogen can be catalytically released (wrung out of the liquid sponge) when needed. Whether such a system could be built with a practical size, weight, and cost for use in vehicles is another matter.

Comment MUMPS (Score 1) 729

MUMPS, where every keyword has a 1-to-3 letter abbreviation, resulting in code like this:

%DTC
%DTC ; SF/XAK - DATE/TIME OPERATIONS ;1/16/92 11:36 AM
;;19.0;VA FileMan;;Jul 14, 1992
D I 'X1!'X2 S X="" Q
S X=X1 D H S X1=%H,X=X2,X2=%Y+1 D H S X=X1-%H,%Y=%Y+1&X2
K %H,X1,X2 Q
;
C S X=X1 Q:'X D H S %H=%H+X2 D YMD S:$P(X1,".",2) X=X_"."_$P(X1,".",2)
K X1,X2 Q
S S %=%#60/100+(%#3600\60)/100+(%\3600)/100 Q
;
H I X S %Y=$E(X,1,3),%M=$E(X,4,5),%D=$E(X,6,7)
S %T=$E(X_0,9,10)*60+$E(X_"000",11,12)*60+$E(X_"00000",13,14)
TOH S
%H=%M>2&'(%Y#4)+$P("^31^59^90^120^151^181^212^243^273^304^334","^",%M)+%D
S %='%M!'%D,%Y=%Y-141,%H=%H+(%Y*365)+(%Y\4)-(%Y>59)+%,%Y=$S(%:-
1,1:%H+4#7)
K %M,%D,% Q
;
DOW D H S Y=%Y K %H,%Y Q
DW D H S Y=%Y,X=$P("SUN^MON^TUES^WEDNES^THURS^FRI^SATUR","^",Y+1)_"DAY"
S:Y
[...]

Comment Re:Are You Kidding? (Score 1) 541

In order for a Northern European to evolve fair skin and hair, there has to be something that will kill a human of dark skin and hair. Since people with dark skin can survive in Northern Europe, it is not through evolution.

The "something" doesn't have to kill, just reduce the probability of reproductive success. Vitamin D deficiency fills the bill.

Comment Could be worse (Score 3, Insightful) 118

The US has military satellites for a reason.
Given that the US has a reputation for invading countries they don't like it only makes sense to defend against them and there are several potential strategies for doing so.
I feel much better about China going the defensive route (get ready to blow up the satellites) rather than the MAD route (start stockpiling nukes).

Submission + - Solar Wind Energy's Downdraft Tower Generates Its Own Wind All Year Round (gizmag.com)

Zothecula writes: When we think of wind power, we generally think of huge wind turbines sitting high atop towers where they can take advantage of the higher wind speeds. But Maryland-based Solar Wind Energy, Inc. is looking to turn wind power on its head with the Solar Wind Downdraft Tower, which places turbines at the base of a tower and generates its own wind to turn them.

Submission + - China must import more water than the US imports oil (sovereignman.com)

An anonymous reader writes: China does not have the capacity to feed itself. By the estimates of one state official, the country’s agricultural imports require more land to grow than the entire land mass of California.

The reasons are simple. For one, China doesn’t have enough fertile land in production to support its population’s growing food demand.

Theoretically this is fixable. With a bit of time, patience, and technology, barren soil can be rehabilitated In other words, China doesn’t have enough enough productive land capacity to support its population.

But the far greater issue is China’s massive freshwater deficiency. Chief Economist Qian Keming of China’s Agriculture Ministry summed it up by telling the audience at the Third China International Agribusiness Forum:

“Fresh water resources are only 2100 cubic meters per capita, which is only 28% of the world’s average level.”

and

“The shortage of [water for agricultural irrigation] each year is about 30 billion cubic meters. China imported about 148.6 billion cubic meters of water in 2013, which was equivalent to 38% of China’s agricultural water.”

Here’s that number in perspective: China water imports of 148.6 billion cubic meters last year handily exceeded the 569 MILLION (0.569 billion) cubic meters of oil that the United States imported.

Slashdot Top Deals

The faster I go, the behinder I get. -- Lewis Carroll

Working...