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Comment "IPv6 Leakage"??? Give me a break. (Score 4, Insightful) 65

The study of fourteen popular VPN providers found that eleven of them leaked information about the user because of a vulnerability known as âIPv6 leakageâ(TM).

No.... That has nothing to do with IPv6, it has to do with what those VPN's support. What that statistic really means is that 11 out of fourteen VPN providers don't really support IPv6 in the first place.

Comment Re:Probably GPL, but depends on Apple (Score 2) 171

The GPL is "viral" in that if you use even a smattering of GPLed code, you are required to release ALL of your code as GPL as well.

Incorrect... Copyright says that you can't legally make a derivative work at all without permission from the copyright holder. The GPL gives people such permission when they agree to abide by its terms. If they don't agree, they don't have permission to do it in the first place, which is the default status for any copyrighted work, anyways.

What's viral about that?

Comment Re:well then (Score 1) 132

I think you misread my comment... I said that it takes *LONGER* than the duration of the loan for the money saved on gasoline to start to pay for itself in money saved compared to an otherwise comparable ICE vehicle. The example you gave, a Prius, which isn't even a full EV and requires you to still use gasoline, still costs nearly twice as much as some other new cars of similar size and quality. And even if it were a full EV, it would still work out to costing about $600 per month for just a 5 year loan compared to about $350 or so for a Corolla, for instance. The difference in monthly costs for the first five years being more than what you would spend on gasoline in that amount of time with a car of that size anyways. Saving money every month on gasoline doesn't really carry a whole lot of weight when the increased price of the car makes your monthly payments larger than what you would otherwise spend on a typical car *PLUS* gasoline.

Comment Re:well then (Score 1) 132

The problem with EV's that cost so much more initially is that it typically takes longer then the duration of the loan you would get for the car before it starts to pay for itself... so your monthly payments on the car are even more than what you would be spending on a conventional automobile *including* gasoline.

Comment Re:Economic suicide (Score 1) 308

This is a self fixing problem

You are right... in the sense that after a sufficient number of generations have passed with people expecting that the next generation will take care of it, the depleting resources of the world will be incapable of supporting what by that time will be a vastly larger population at what would be considered a modern level of industrialization... People will die because resource distribution won't meet people's needs, and all but the richest of our descendants will end up living much like people used to in the 16th or 17th centuries... without any ability to develop technology any further because there won't be enough resources left to do it.

So yeah... it's a self-correcting problem, as long as your idea of a good future for our society is having almost everyone live like the Amish.

Comment I remember seeing a carpool club in the 90's... (Score 1) 333

... where people could sign up to be drivers for people who wanted to share rides to work during rush hour commutes.

It was expected that passengers would at least be willing to compensate drivers for gasoline used, but there was also a general practice of passengers giving drivers an honorarium for their time, typically once every other week or so. The latter of these two was not actually permitted to be demanded by the driver, but it was still a general practice among club members, so in the long run, it was still profitable for a driver.

When I first saw Uber, I at first thought it that it was basically the same thing... Can someone explain why Uber can be against the law when the aforementioned carpool club was not?

Comment Re:Give firefighters shotguns (Score 1) 176

Birds don't comply with FAA rules... and it's not inconceivable that one to have a drone that looks like a bird from a distance.

Of course, then you might also risk having it shot down anyways...

But what happens when technology gets to the point that you can make a drone that believably (to a human being on the ground) looks like a protected species of bird?

Comment Re:Economic suicide (Score 1) 308

It's not an emergency.... Won't be one for my lifetime or my grand kids lifetimes for that matter... Prepare for the future? Sure. However, it's not time to panic about the issue and run out and do something stupid and rash.

Except to the extent that every generation that believes that it's not vital to be doing something about it right now only ends up making things harder for the next generation, because that excuse, even if it true, gives us the best reason in the world to procrastinate. Eventually... not in my lifetime or my grandchildren's lifetime, or maybe even in my grandchilrden's granchildren's lifetime, it *will* be too late to do anything about it... because the energy resources of this planet will be too used up to sustain what we, today, would recognize as a modern level of industrialization, and the technology for alternative energy sources will be too immature to meet the demands of the time because the generations that preceeded them didn't invest the time and energy into it right now that is needed *so* that it can become a viable option in the future.

So whether or not the real danger is imminent, treating it as anything less than something that we should be doing something about right now only means that you won't.

And the kicker is that we have the technology to do it.... today. It's just a lot of hard work, oh... and it's a bit expensive. Of course, the price isn't going to come down unless we are actively pursuing the technologies, and it's not going to get any easier if we just sit around waiting for the next generation to look after it, even if there is enough time.

Comment Re:Economic suicide (Score 1) 308

Even if you ignore the effects of global warming, there are pollution issues as well... and the differences in that *ARE* readily perceivable in a person's lifetime.

Besides... urgent or not, as the saying goes, why put off until tomorrow what you can do today? Of course I understand that it's really hard right now, quite expensive, and anything but convenient to do, but the reality is that something like this will not get any easier with time until people start caring about trying to do something about it (in fact, it's liable to only get harder as time goes by long as people aren't trying to do something about it, simply because of an ever-growing population and constantly growing energy needs). If we start using alternative energy sources now, then it seems to me there's a much better chance that we will be more ready and able to improve the technologies behind them as the demand grows, while if we just remain oil-based, then any possible advances are much more likely to remain undiscovered for much longer.

And at least this candidate cares enough about the issue to try and make a stand for it... and that much should be applauded, IMO. I am not American, but if I were, this position would weigh heavily among the factors that I would consider when I voted.... not necessarily outweighing everything else, but definitely enough to give the matter some serious consideration.

Comment Re:Can finally make that multi-million$ game on Li (Score 1) 57

Or maybe they understand long-term thinking. Only producing for one platform means you lock your fate to that platform. By supporting multiple platforms, you increase your bargaining power, goodwill from customers (who are often evangelists willing to spend more than others).

Obviously a game company should evolve to meet a changing platform market... but for now, in 2015, the market for Linux games is simply too low, and the royalties won't justify the money spent on making them.

Also, maybe people like making games, like people playing them, and want more people to do that, and want to give their customers what they want, even if it's not the best way to directly make money. That will produce more goodwill and fan support in the long run.

There's that, of course... and I don't intend to dismiss such incentives, but that sort of concurs with the point I was trying to make, which as that targetting Linux as a game platform is going to negatively impact your company's ROI on development, unless your overhead is obscenely low... probably on the order of a one or two-man outfit.

Sure, you can say that's all optimistic bullshit, and maybe, but look at Valve's success as a company that does things with long-term gain over short-term benefit.

In my experience developing games, while the studios and especially the developers may genuinely want to produce good games that people will enjoy playing, in the end, if they can't recover their costs for making those games because they've spent too much on salaries for the time spent supporting platforms with insufficient royalties or revenue to compensate that cost, then the studio can be in danger of going under.

Comment Re:The problem is that landfills are too cheap (Score 1) 371

The way you make them care about it is to issue fines. Kind of like how you make people care about shoveling their front walkways in the winter... when they don't do it, you fine them.

If the consumer lives in an apartment where garbage cannot be obviously traced to a single dwelling, then the entire complex is fined... this may eventually translate to increased apartment rents for everyone, but the more people do what they are supposed to do, the less likely that is to occur.

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