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Comment Re:We should expect some wingnuts to say... (Score 1) 109

It would certainly be nice, but it's not realistic. For a simple paper, it would likely cost a few thousands, but for anything that requires fancy material, it could easily run in the millions. The only level where fraud prevention makes sense is at the institution (company, lab, university) level.

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Journal Journal: Trying to remember a conspiracy theory 7

Back in the early 1990s, when CD Roms were first invented, on major use of them was for the conspiracy dial up bulletin board system. With a CD Rom online on your bulletin board, you could "host" a CD full of downloadable text files on everything from government cover-ups to UFOs.

I was into such things at the time, and read many of these files.

Comment Re:It's Intended (Score 4, Interesting) 137

in some cases they're no better than gambling (ie: buy tokens to feed into this jackpot like system to win a random digital item!)

Not that I disagree with you, but what part of the gaming industry isn't preying off of exactly the same neurons as gambling? Nearly every game, be you buying the game itself, in-game purchases, or DLC, is getting its revenue almost entirely due to exploiting pleasure-seeking behavior.

Gaming typically relies on skill, not chance. If you play most games long enough, you'll be able to consistently beat certain levels. If you win at the roulette wheel, you're no more likely than before to win again. That's the difference. Otherwise, "exploiting pleasure-seeking behavior" could be stretched to describe every last industry in existence beyond the sales of food, water, shelter, and basic utilities.

With the model of directly purchasing the game itself (and no in-game purchases, like standard PC/console gaming) you can at least read about the game and have a reasonable expectation about what you are paying for. The real problem with in-game purchases is that the game is "free" or low-cost in the most technical sense, but after you invest many hours advancing the game you find that you can't really prosper without making additional purchases. It could be construed as a form of bait-and-switch.

The other problem would be that many of these games are aimed at children who make purchases the parents later get stuck with, but this problem begins in the home and should be solved within the home by actual parenting. That's not as convenient as using the tablet like a cheap babysitter but it would certainly be more worthwhile. If you wanted to solve this by government action, that's simple too: declare that these purchases are contractual in nature (the parent agreed to pay charges made to the phone bill or whatever) and that minors who make them cannot be held to a contract, therefore the companies cannot collect money when children make them. *Poof* - end of shitty business model.

Comment Re:The Amazon AppStore Auto-consent (Score 5, Insightful) 137

What is next, blame Ford because your kid was able to steal your keys off your dresser and wreck the car while you are sleeping?

...if Ford made the key fob in the shape of a cartoon character with a voice chip that kept saying "Hey kids! Pick me up and lets go for a drive" then, maybe.

Yes, parents should take responsibility for their kids - but that doesn't give businesses the right to exploit their slightest lapse.

Comment Re:R... (Score 1) 143

I didn't link to that one, but if you are persistent you can make it work with 3. Their next release is 3.0, so they will then support Python 3. For now you'd have to run the development version. If you are dependent on something that OpenCV can do that sk-learn can't then yeah, stick with 2.7 for now.

Comment Re:many are missing something important. (Score 1) 247

If you actually had one, you'd be aware where the superchargers within 100 miles of you are

I've looked. There isn't one.

To be fair, I live in the UK and they're only just starting to roll out. Last time I looked, the nearest one was in the Netherlands, but now there's one in London, which is about 125 miles away. However, the problem is that it is in London. With London traffic, even if your home or destination is in another part of London, that's not a lot of use. According to the Tesla site they'll have about 10 stations around England by the end of the year - but if they are likewise in the middle of major cities rather than motorway service areas they will be of limited use.

Looking at the US map, there are plenty of states with no chargers.

I've also looked at what I could do with a Leaf or something: there is actually a pretty comprehensive network of 'fast' chargers at motorway service areas, hotels etc. so in theory I could make my most common ~200 mile journey with a mid-way recharge and lunch break... except there's one small problem: these stations typically have one "fast" charger (go and have lunch) and one "slow" charger (check in to the nearest hotel). If you arrived for your charge and somebody had already plugged in and buggered off for a 4-course meal, you'd better hope that you've got enough juice to get to the next one - which means you're going to end up stopping for a top up ad every single bloody charger you pass 'just in case'.

The BMW i3 with range extender looks interesting - especially as the UK/EU version has a bigger petrol tank than the US one (which has been gimped to qualify as an EV in California) - but it costs a fortune compared with other small cars.

Comment Re:Not American, but... (Score 1) 247

For fuck's sake, read your choice of the article, the summary, or the title before posting. This is a $30,000 mid-range vehicle that would fulfil, entirely, the commuting needs of a vast segment of American commuters (who don't drive long distances or haul boats or other large things).

For fuck's sake, red and comprehend your choice of the article, the summary, or the title before flaming.

Nowhere in TFA does it say that the model E will cost $30,000. Telsa say that the E will be "realistically priced" (whatever that means) against the BMW 3 series and Audi A4. Whoever wrote the summary has helpfully looked up the starting price of an Audi A4 for you.

The Tesla E hasn't been launched yet - its unclear from TFA how far advanced the design is. There's no clue what the range is going to be, but if they're using heavy materials and have less space for the battery 'less than the Tesla S' would be a good bet.

Hint: BMW 3 and Audi A4 are already premium-priced cars. The E is still going to cost more and have less utility because of range limitations.

Comment Re:We should expect some wingnuts to say... (Score 1) 109

So you're saying that reviewers should have to reproduce the results (using their own funds) of the authors before accepting the papers or risk being disciplined? Aside from ending up with zero reviewers, I don't see what this could possibly accomplish. Peer review is designed to catch mistakes, not fraud.

Comment Not all that new, but what is personal? (Score 1) 206

As another pointed out, Russia isn't anywhere near the first country to do this; in fact, doesn't the European Union require it Union-wide?

Anyway, I'm most curious how the Kremlin defined "personal". Being that a lot of us are software industry programmers, product managers, etc., it'd be useful to know what kind of changes we need to make to our respective companies' international back-end infrastructure.

Comment Re:Simple: Peer review is badly broken (Score 1) 109

I think what is missing is that a) more reviewer actually need to be experts and practicing scientists and b) doing good reviews needs to get you scientific reputation rewards. At the moment,investing time in reviewing well is a losing game for those doing it.

Well, there's also the thing that one of the most fundamental assumption you have to make while reviewing is that the author's acting in good faith. It's really hard to review anything otherwise (we're scientists, not a sort of police)

I agree that good reviews do not need to be binary. You can also "accept if this is fixed", "rewrite as an 'idea' paper", "publish in a different field", "make it a poster", etc. But all that takes time and real understanding.

It goes beyond just that. I should have said "multi-dimensional" maybe. In many cases, I want to say "publish this article because the idea is good, despite the implementation being flawed". In other cases, you might want to say "this is technically correct, but boring". In the medical field, it may be useful to publish something pointing out that "maybe chemical X could be harmful and it's worth further investigation" without necessarily buying all of the authors' conclusion.

Personally, I prefer reading flawed papers that come from a genuinely good idea rather than rigorous theoretical papers that are both totally correct and totally useless.

Comment Iceland = poster child for EVs (Score 1) 247

You should offer a service: if one of us is feeling guilty about burning gas, but we're not sure if using electricity from gas, oil or nuclear, we can offset our carbon footprint by buying you a Tesla that you can run on 100% guaranteed green* Icelandic geothermal power.

(*well, all those volcanos and geysers probably pump out obscene amounts of CO2 and radioactive shit, but that's not humanity's fault and they're still gonna do that if you don't harvest the energy).

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