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Comment 26% is a made-up number (Score 1) 367

Citing the National Safety Council's own material:

How did the NSC estimate attributable risk percent for cell phones? The NSC attributable risk percent estimate of cell phones is based on two factors: 1) the prevalence of drivers talking on cell phones and 2) the relative risk of this activity compared to not using cell phones while driving.

It is not based actually accident statistics. It is a guess.

Comment Re:Remove the middleman (Score 1) 323

I disagree. The major studios have production facilities, access to capital for getting films made and know the business end of distribution, which are all things that a major film needs that the people "doing all the hard work" might not be able to provide. And it isn't like the studio always makes money. Look at what R.I.P.D. did last year. Studios have failed or have had to reorganize effectively because of the poor box office performance of a small number of films.

Note that studios don't do actual distribution of digital films to theaters now. It is done by a small number of companies like AccessIT and Technicolor. I believe that streaming distribution will continue to follow a similar model.

Comment Re:Remove the middleman (Score 1) 323

I hate to say this, as much as I sympathize more with Netflix than a major studio, but shouldn't the studios eventually stream their movies themselves? Is the tech really that hard, why are they outsourcing it to Amazon and Netflix?

Like TV channels, we should just surf the studio websites until we find what we want (using Google, perhaps). That seems the inevitable future rather than one or two clearinghouses. That's what tech does: removes the middleman (except when there's a man in the middle ;).

Streaming can be hard, particularly if everyone is trying to watch at the same time. Witness what happened to HBOGo the night that they made the season finale of 'True Detective' available.

From what I can tell, the major studios do not want to be in the content delivery business. I don't see an 'inevitable future' of the major studios streaming their own content. I think branded portals to the studio content, outsourced to a small number of content delivery companies, is more likely.

Comment GA Tech MOOC-based MSCS (Score 1) 370

I would gladly consider something like the new GA Tech MOOC-based MSCS degree program — in fact, I applied there, and was turned down. After the initial offering, they rewrote the admissions requirements to spell out the fact that only people with a completed 4-year degree would be considered, work experience notwithstanding.

Also, don't bother to apply if you got your 4-year degree more than a few years ago, work experience notwithstanding. The application process requires recommendations and the online recommendation form is completely oriented towards coursework. If your recommenders aren't former classmates or professors, it will be hard for them to complete the form.

Comment Re:Are they distributing their own model? (Score 1) 54

The OLPC laptop was rugged and repairable. It is great for an environment where you can't just ship it off for service when something breaks. Also, the keyboard is great for kid-sized hands.

The OLPC tablet is fragile (particularly in comparison to the OLPC laptop) and is not repairable by most users. It seems like it is really intended for a "first world"-type environment, not the same environment as the laptop.

My biggest complaint about my OLPC laptop is that it is slow. However, the target users wouldn't have as much experience using computers as I do, so wouldn't have the same expectations as I do and it wouldn't seem slow to them. I would love to have upgraded h/w that I could put in the case.

Comment Re:...just like "No Child Left Behind" (Score 1) 54

Did you do Give 1 Get 1 when OLPC was doing fulfillment or when Amazon was? When they were doing it, it was a disaster. I think I got mine five months after placing the order. On the other hand, I heard that things went more smoothly when Amazon was doing fulfillment (which is what you would expect).

Comment How would this have helped with MH370? (Score 5, Informative) 461

"Of course, that wouldn’t yield much information if a plane is blown out of the sky by a bomb, or suffers a sudden catastrophic structural failure at cruising altitude. But in those rare cases, conventional black boxes are really the only viable technology."

MH370 was sending data when it disappeared. The ADS-B data can be found on FlightRadar 24. Rolls Royce indicated that it was receiving ACARS data from the engines.

All of this stuff was either switched off or stopped working because of a sudden catastrophic failure.

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