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Comment actually Australia does have some sanity (Score 4, Informative) 217

I will say though, that I credit Australia for having some rational procedures regarding security.

For example, there are some regional flights that arrive into Sydney from airports that cannot support full security screening. (on regional jets or turboprops) Instead of causing US-style security craziness and cost, after arrival they dump those passengers directly out into the non-sterile terminal public area (and then make them go back through security if connections are needed).

This in contrast to US security, which cannot be compartmentalized, and forces everyone in every small podunk airport to be screened, at huge cost and bureaucracy / apparatus / unionized idiot workforce creation.

Of course, this is partly because Australia has a few international / regional airports versus the US which has airports and connections galore. But still, you would think that in a place like Hawaii, for example, the US could try this approach and be more sane about applying various levels of rules.

Comment moron "journalist" (Score 1) 517

Can we stop quoting articles by Computerworld's idiot writer, Lucas Mearian, and rewarding such a shitty journalist with more airtime?

Gems like this shouldn't be allowed to see the light of day: "For the SW Utility, the all in average retail rate at 10% PV penetration is 23 cents/kWh (1.8%) higher over the first 10 years of the analysis period (i.e., from 2013 to 2022) than it is without PV."

$0.23 is the rate, not the difference in rate. For fuck's sake.

This is the same "journalist" that just the other day was posted here, talking about "The system is capable of producing up to 1,600 cubic liters of water per day"... http://hardware.slashdot.org/s...

Comment good news (Score 1) 155

Good for Tesla. And justly bad for entrenched sleazy car dealer interests.

The auto dealer protection laws were put in place to prevent local dealerships / franchisees from being screwed by automotive manufacturers at one time in history. Now they themselves wield that law to screw automotive manufacturers and the consumer.

Let them be screwed by a more innovative company again, and the tables be turned to the side of the consumer for once...

Comment Re:Urban Fetch (Score 1) 139

Well, not that it won't have some of the same pitfalls (and I think this is dangerous territory for them to be getting into), but most delivery companies start by trying to build the infrastructure for a delivery service with no other business to support / justify such an infrastructure.

Here, Uber already has a significant infrastructure that serves a somewhat profitable business, that it's trying to increase the utilization of. Like taxi services offering package delivery (but which you rarely hear about anyone using).

Comment a blip on the way to slow death (Score 1) 35

HP is a drowning man, desperately grasping for any lead, imaginary or not, that might save them. The leadership bankrupted and hollowed out a solid line of printer products and other devices, in order to prop up stupid, non-distinctive hardware whose design was phoned in to imagine grabbing some market share with no other purpose. Their PCs, laptops, tablets are a joke. The major purchaser of their equipment are corporations who buy because they extract big discounts from a struggling company with little direction on where to make the important investments.

Buying a position in the cloud will be a small hiccup on the way to significant slashing of their portfolio, whether they do it voluntarily or because they're forced to soon. HP is too late to the cloud game, where others have already rolled out products and services that customers actually want. They would have to bring a rockstar team to make this a piece of their business that sets them apart, and invest enough to catch up and turn helpful levels of profit. Otherwise, they just bought a huge commodity business that lets them say that they're "getting into cloud in a big way", which will turn into a quiet side pursuit within 2 years...

Comment Re:Not all contributions / sacrifice are equivalen (Score 1) 121

Yeah, sure. But most of the people in the military are hardly putting their lives on the line. They're working in warehouses, changing tires, sitting at a desk doing analysis.

I find it amusing / annoying / ignorant when random people go up to someone in uniform and "thank you for your sacrifice". That's part of the brainwashing of the public to believe that military = heroes. For every 1 hero there are 100 normal unremarkable people. Just like in regular life. Why do we treat all the military like they're the 1% ?

Comment Re:Free? (Score 3, Interesting) 121

Does patriotism today only count if you're in the military?

The way we glorify military service over all types of contribution / sacrifice for the national interest is pretty amazing these days. It's like the movies have brainwashed us into believing that soldiers are the only national heroes around.

Comment why are you volunteering information? (Score 1) 499

The thing about government checks is that they will take whatever you give them and examine it to death. Just deprive them of information -- by not volunteering things that are not verifiable -- and you will generally avoid getting into these situations. Not that it's reasonable to hold certain things against you, but just save yourself the trouble. Sometimes I think people are a little too honest for their own good.

Comment let's not go crazy here (Score 1) 471

I for one, am very uncomfortable with all this technology being suddenly rammed down our throats. I need to be eased into it, so I propose: the Apple Pocketwatch. For the 19th century styled gentleman. When you want to find out what time it is or read your messages, you pull out the Apple Pocketwatch, so you don't have to pull out the iPhone.

Comment Re:legal loopholes? (Score 2) 184

No, it doesn't interfere with other devices' radio signals. Those signals are untouched. It gives other devices a command that they choose to process and disconnect from the network. That's why it could be a loophole. The FCC statement regards jamming, noise, and analog kinds of interference. I don't think this falls into the FCC's traditional definitions of interference.

Comment legal loopholes? (Score 1) 184

Perhaps this device could actually fall through some legal loopholes?

It doesn't interfere with radio signals themselves (per FCC). It doesn't interfere with legally protected phone communications (also FCC). It takes advantage of wireless standards that have been adopted, but that themselves have little legal protection.

All it's doing is sending instructions that devices happen to listen to and obey. Bad on the hardware protocols that they allow any equipment to issue these unverified types of commands?

Comment cost-benefit (Score 2, Interesting) 105

When you compare against all the other assinine things that $58 M have been spent on (to the tune of being merely a drop of the bucket in larger spending bills) within pork programs, we should be jumping to take advantage of helping in this situation. The level of waste in this kind of spending is close to zero.

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