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Comment Re:Who eats doughnuts with the doughnut men? (Score 1) 468

That's not the case here, and it's irrelevant. When I noticed the discrepancy between my camera's reported speed and my speedometer, I then compared it with a GPS-based speedometer app in my iPhone. The iPhone and car speedometer were in perfect sync. The camera-indicated speed was indeed extremely low, and so low that I have to think it was made deliberately wrong in order to provide misleading information in court, to fight in jurisdictions where such things are overlooked.

Let's say I was in court for some kind of accident, and I was going 70 MPH in a 60 MPH zone. The video recording of the crash shows the camera says 60 MPH, so it never comes up that I'm partially at fault because I was speeding. The other party in the crash is screwed by faulty evidence.

Comment Re:physical access (Score 1) 375

"Of course, this comparison is also patently unfair -- Windows 7 was written in the 2000s, X11 was written in the 1980s. Expecting them to be comparable in terms of security is pretty ridiculous."

Which could be a good argument for replacing X. It is rather old technology, perhaps it is time to update it to something newer, rather than clinging to it and claiming it is all one needs.

Comment No. (Score 5, Insightful) 228

To be fair to Zuckerberg and Facebook, the company must obey the law of any country in which it operates.

No. He came out in support of a universal maxim and then went back to his board who showed him X dollars of income they get by operating in Turkey. Just like the revenue lost when Google left mainland China. Instead of sacrificing that revenue to some other social network in Turkey run by cowards, he became a coward himself in the name of money. It is an affront to the deaths and memory of the Charlie Hebdo editors. His refusal could have worked as leverage for social change in Turkey but now it will not.

So no, your statement isn't fair to Zuckerberg and his company and the platinum backscratcher he gets to keep with "TURKEY" inscribed on it. Fuck that greedy bastard and his petty meaningless lip service.

Comment MDisc (Score 1) 251

Asking myself the same question, I went with MDisc technology, in the BluRay capacity, in addition to my hard drive backups. MDisc uses an inorganic pigment as opposed to the organic dyes that are common on CD/DVD/BluRay recordables (and degrade over time).

I'll do an MDisc burn every year and move it offsite, to keep with the 4TB ZFS drive I rotate offsite weekly. The MDisc won't get my mp3 or mp4 files, but the stuff I can't recreate.

My best idea currently is to write PAR files of loop-back mounted LUKS volumes and include the PAR software source and ISO of the distro on the disc, in case I need the data in 20 years (emulators should be readily available for 2015 hardware).

I needed a BluRay writer anyway, so I went with this LG and it's been a great drive so far, and at the right price point for me.

Comment Re:why is the cap a good idea? (Score 1) 154

Hypothetically speaking, if I'm desperate to get somewhere, and I'm willing to pay *whatever it takes*, why is it a good idea to limit the surge pricing?

Because other people will pay for your desire.

Or what about having an auction system where each person that wants a ride indicates how much they're willing to pay for it? Would you want to cap that as well?

Economists are big fans of auctions and say that's the most fair method to distribute resources. Economists, however, are not known for taking social, cultural or human values into account in their simple models.

So yes, I would. Man, it really isn't so difficult. Get some history lessons on when and why the taxi business became regulated.

Comment Re:Success! (Score 0) 94

Until the fines are set to a level to remove all profit and THEN put a punishment on top, large business will continue to flout the law because it's more profitable.

You're absolutely right on the theory, but then take the next step to recognize that it's the purpose of government to ensure their profits and help them take money from us (in addition to the FCC taking money from us directly and giving it to the telco corporations).

This is evidenced by these fines never having been at a level such as you describe and, more recently, the move to no-plead agreements between prosecutors and corporations. You'll be shouting from your wheelchair in a retirement home that the government should increase fines on corporations to be proportional to their income, unless the fundamental bases of the system are changed.

Of course, if you do something wrong on the scale of millions of dollars of damage, you go to prison. If a corporation does something similarly wrong, they pay out some pocket change. Because "corporations are people, my friend."

Comment Re:So what will this accomplish? (Score 3, Informative) 154

In Econ 101 you also learn about horizontal and vertical pricing.

Basically, if the surge price is reasonably high, most drivers will be available. From 1.0 to 1.5 you may raise the number of drivers considerably, but from 3.0 to 3.5 you will probably not motivate many more drivers to go out and drive - most available drivers will already be on the road, and the few who decide against it will not change their mind here because if 3.0 doesn't motivate them, then 3.5 most likely won't because they have important reasons to stay home.

A cap on such elastic pricing is almost always a good idea.

Comment Re:Escaping only helps you until a war. (Score 1) 339

This exactly.

Why do rich people not live in Africa and Asia where the climate is good? Safety and convenience. If you don't want to spend your life in a castle defending your riches, you go somewhere where culture, society and government will do that job for you.

Strangely, many don't see this as a service worth paying for, which is largely a semantic problem. Maybe we should tackle it there, and instead of taxes, we should collect a "wealth-protection service fee".

Comment Re:"They" is us (Score 1) 339

From the very article you link to:

But Credit Suisse's report doesn't tell the whole story.

It doesn't take into account how much it costs to buy goods in each country, for example. Half a million pounds might buy a one-bedroom flat in central London, but in other countries it could buy a mansion.

It also doesn't take into account income. As a result, many well-paid young people in Western countries may fall into the bottom 50% of wealth - either because they still have student debt to pay off, or because they know how to live well, and spend all their income.

Comment never believe PR (Score 1) 339

I am extremely sceptical about all these doomsday scenario media reports.

If you do not know something for sure, "follow the money" is always good advise. For example, why would someone who makes his money on the stock market give free advise to the rest of the world by warning them about an imminent market collapse? It makes no sense. If I knew (or were sure about) such an event, I would put my money into short options and become mega-rich.

But, of course, if you expect the opposite, such a press statement can lead a critical mass of people to disinvest, temporarily lowering prices, convincing others that you are right and the crash has begun, so they do the same, and then you buy at the low point.

The same with all the "super-rich are investing in getaways" bullshit. It's a really great tool to convince the wannabe-super-rich (aka the simply rich) to follow (or believe they are following), because that's what they do. In all layers of society, people tend to emulate the next-higher-up from their own status, because that is where they want to be.

Maybe I'm overly cynical or just blind, but thinking about not only what is being said, but also who is saying it and why seems to me to be a good idea.

Comment Re:Lack Of Faith (Score 1) 90

Could be, as I rent and don't buy, I don't drive cars older than a few years.

I know the Toyotas and Hondas are famous for their reliability. My first car was a used Honda and it had almost no signs of being used before.

That said, old Mercedes cars are also legendarily reliable. My GF wants to buy a used SLK for exactly that reason - they are cute and almost as good as new, for a fraction the price.

Submission + - Valve's Economist Yanis Varoufakis Appointed Greece's Finance Minister (ibtimes.co.in)

eldavojohn writes: A turnover in the Greek government resulted from recent snap elections placing SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) in power — just shy of an outright majority by two seats. Atheist and youngest Prime Minister in Greek history since 1865 Alexis Tsipras has been appointed the new prime minister and begun taking immediate drastic steps against the recent austerity laws put in place by prior administrations. One such step has been to appoint Valve's economist Yanis Varoufakis to position of Finance Minister of Greece. For the past three years Varoufakis has been working at Steam to analyze and improve the Steam Market but now has the opportunity to improve one of the most troubled economies in the world.

Comment Re:Who eats doughnuts with the doughnut men? (Score 1) 468

I was recently doing 29 and a mobile trap claimed I was doing 35. Fortunately I have video camera evidence from the car to prove that I wasn't, but it means I have to go to court and argue it.

You might want to check your camera before heading into court. I have a gray market cam from DX.com that under-reports speed by a wide margin (it displays about 60MPH when my speedometer shows 70); when I use the viewing app they provided, it shows the GPS-plotted path on Google maps, and it shows my true speed.

You want to be sure it's accurate because there is no benefit to you in angering a judge by presenting incorrect evidence.

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