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Comment Re:good ruck, chuck! (Score 1) 59

Passing down property to heirs can be socially dangerous...

Besides which, you're missing the main point of progressive taxation, which is that if a certain amount of taxes need to be raised, it's more fair for people to contribute what they can afford such that they feel the same amount of burden, rather than for the burden to be mathematically uniform but to have widely disparate effects in reality.

Citation? Or are these just your opinions based on YOUR interpretation of "fairness"?

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Comment Re:I think I speak for us all... (Score 1) 335

Because if more people paid with cash, businesses could lower their prices because they wouldn't have to pay as much for the credit card service fee.

I see this at some gas stations. They have one price for cash/debit cards and a higher price for credit cards. They make the customer pay for the service fee.

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Comment Re:not exactly a troll. IA made similar, met Ninte (Score 1) 87

Perhaps because Nintendo could buy the patents for almost nothing. If IA owes Nintendo 10 million and can't pay it, so they have a sheriff's sale to raise the money. Nintendo buys the patents for 7 million, get the money back as payment for the court judgement, and is still owed 3 million in case IA has any other assets.

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Comment Re: Get a real mail account (Score 2) 388

So, isn't it obvious this is the problem he is running into? If his email address is F.M.Last(at)gmail, he will receive FMLast, F.MLast, FM.Last, FML.ast, etc.

I'm a little surprised Gmail will allow a new email account that has dotted username if they already have a user that receives all related dotted username variations.

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Comment Re:HD (Score 1) 112

Unfortunately, most of your citations are from discussions back in 2007 when a 5MP camera was state of the art.

Imaging sensors, digital signal processors, and optics have all improved substantially since then. I'm not saying the quality is an order of magnitude better, but some of those calculations might need to be reviewed.

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Comment Re:Motion detector fixtures (Score 1) 944

You haven't given us enough information to agree or disagree with your conclusion. How have the fixtures saved you money? Do you need to turn the lights in the garage on every time you enter it? If your motion controlled lights turn on during daylight hours, isn't that wasting electricity? What about the energy needed to monitor the passive IR signal for the motion detection? If you don't go down into the basement for a week, why is it saving you electricity to monitor the staircase unnecessarily?

It seems like a simple light switch would do as well as your motion detection system and save you even more electricity. Or is there still more information you didn't post?

The other item is your statement that incandescent bulbs handle on/off cycling better than LEDs? Where did you get this information? Incandescent bulbs almost always fail during the initial power surge during turn on. LED bulbs last for 50,000 to 100,000 hours and don't have a problem with turning on and off. The LED driver circuit shouldn't have a problem either.

If a LED has a MTBF of 50,000 hours and you use your light 1 minute each and every day, your LED bulb would be expected to last over 8000 years. (50K*60/365=8219)

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Comment Re:Reliability? (Score 1) 107

Most of these systems are alternative ways of authenticating to Windows, but not the only way. (Most of the biometric systems require an enrollment process that is optional.) Most people will still have an Administrator account that uses the traditional password method.

~~(Mod -1 for too many uses of the word "most")

Comment Re:Not Secure (Score 1) 107

Not unless you can print a picture that will show different levels of reflection to the near-infrared wavelengths.

If you've seen a thermal images of a house showing where the heat loss is, compare that to the normal image of the house. This method is using the equivalent of a thermal image.

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Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 1143

Why would they be paying an extra $4000 every two years?

That $4000 is the difference between the 13 SEER model and the 16 SEER model. He said he would recoup that money in two years, so every two years after that would be a savings of $4000, or $2000 every year by switching to the more efficient model.

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Earth

Largest and Most Intense Tropical Cyclone On Record Hits the Philippines 160

mrspoonsi writes "A monstrous storm has arisen in the Western Pacific. The storm, called 'Supter-Typhoon Haiyan', has become the year's most intense. It bore down on the central Philippines this morning, packing winds up to 195 mph (314 km/h), with gusts up to 235 mph (378 km/h), threatening massive damage and sending over 100,000 people into evacuation centers. (Animation of landfall.) Flood waters went as high as 10 feet. The secretary general of the Philippine National Red Cross said, 'About 90% of the infrastructure and establishments were heavily damaged.'"

Comment Re:"New" high gain antennae? (Score 5, Insightful) 104

Directional antennas are not new. But configuring an array of directional antennas to precisely cover the seats in the lecture hall to minimize the number of users on any single access point is a new and novel way to deploy wireless access.

Deploying the same number of omnidirectional antennas in the same space would lead to massive overlap, interference, and clients unnecessarily switching between APs when they perceived a stronger signal from a different AP.

I haven't heard of a high density environment purposely set up this way therefor I think it is indeed newsworthy.

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Comment Re:WTF (Score 1) 375

* For example, schoolchildren having to cover their ears several times per hour due to the large number of painfully loud low-flying aircraft that pass endlessly pass overhead.

Citation? Where do Japanese schoolchildren have to cover their ears several times each hour? Where is this schoolhouse that can't be relocated from the end of some flightpath? This schoolhouse has been subject to some loud jet noise for over 50 years and they haven't moved it? Or is this an attempt to drum up some anti-military sentiment? (Wikipedia only lists 39 overseas Air Force locations not counting the ones closing in Afghanistan.)

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