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Comment Re:Butlerian. (Score 2) 147

The Luddites weren't a class of backwards technophobes, they protested the uncontrolled introduction of technology that materially devastated their ability to exist in the labour market without social policy controls to avoid driving thousands into poverty in the name of increased profits to the company owners.

You know... exactly the issue at hand.

Comment Re:Only 128 bits? (Score 3, Interesting) 9

Even AES-256 thinks that 128-bit is good enough. The -192 and -256 variants increase the key length but not the cipher state - and the -128 key schedule has actually been shown to be stronger than -256.

The other variants were only developed because it was a contractual requirement that there _be_ a differentiation of three distinct levels. Not that they be stronger, they just have to be algorithmically incompatible so that e.g. a medium-security printer couldn't print high-security documents.

Comment Re:Heâ(TM)s not wrong (Score 2, Insightful) 99

The automatic and manual vetting on the App Store absolutely catches maliciously or accidentally insecure apps - and importantly is *re-run* to catch apps with insecure embedded dependencies after those vulnerabilities are found.

If you've had an app on the store, you probably know this first-hand; as I do.

I don't know where your assertion that it has never worked is based, but I assume it's from some land where the security of non-trivial applications and platforms is an all-or-nothing precept. Must be nice, there - what OS do you use?

Comment Re:Keep going (Score 1) 87

But when your app is 1.99USD and somebody in Australia buys it for 2.49AUD based on Apple's baseline price tier conversions, Apple still pays the Australian sales tax and GST due on that. Apple administer the international business and tax obligations for doing business in every jurisdiction. When the AUD falls by 25% against the USD because of a slump in domestic mining exports, Apple just absorb that cost.

Global digital sales aren't just a matter of processing money; and wouldn't be even _if_ credit card networks and digital banking had the coverage they claim. There are significant legal and business overheads and they all get subsumed by that 30% cut.

Is that profitable for Apple? Yes, but largely because they can leverage the legal and business synergies they were already committed to for their physical presence in so many countries, and the global data processing capacity they already need for their integrated online platforms.

Comment Re:Keep going (Score 1) 87

Stores make margins. They're not zero-cost, nor are they zero-value; why should they have zero revenue?

Since you seem to be saying that you'd rather get 30% of $1.99 than 2% of $500,000 and are willfully ignoring the per-transaction overheads, relative scale of the business, and the fact that Apple/Google/Valve etc. pay all currency conversions and tax obligations from their cut; you can excuse me while I go back to not taking your position on capitalist economics or international retail seriously.

Comment Re:Costs? Regulatory issues? (Score 4, Interesting) 124

Unfortunately the economic problem with nuclear isn't the $/kwh but the time-to-return on the capital. By the time a nuclear station has paid off enough of its construction financing to make any dollars for the financiers a coal plant has been raking in a solid return for three to five years.

Reducing the capital outlay and construction time by 2/3 almost regardless of thermal efficiency makes an enormous dent in the economic viability of new-nuclear.

Comment Re:Liquid sodium? (Score 4, Insightful) 124

I can come up with a better design, more compact, more portable and turn it up, turn it down, switch in on and switch it off.

Go on then. The world awaits the reactor design of Internet commenter rtb61 to put the trillion dollar energy market back in its place.

Put up or shut up.

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