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Comment Re:Competition Sucks (Score 1) 507

If Uber were really offering legitimate competition, I would be more sympathetic. But they're partly undercutting existing taxis through ridiculous things like using drivers who lack commercial vehicle insurance, which is rather irresponsible.

Competition doesn't have to be fair to be legitimate. Cab companies also generally underinsure to the extent permitted by law. In New York, they carry some ridiculously low number like $25,000 of insurance, and each cab is incorporated so that there's no way to get to the company that actually owns them.

Fundamentally, if Uber can insure at least comparably to cab companies, are roughly as reliable, and can offer an equivalent service cheaper, they *should* win.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1) 519

Tenure exists to ensure that professors can pursue unpopular lines of inquiry without being troubled by university politics. It makes no sense in primary or secondary education.

Tenure exists because senior faculty exerts substantial political power at universities and those universities compete for faculty. The theoretical reason--unpopular lines of inquiry--is mostly a crock. Tenure is much more likely to protect an incompetent professor than a dischordant one.

At the secondary or elementary level, the only real rationale is job security. Teachers don't get paid as well as they should be and tenure is something they can be given that doesn't show up as a big item in the budget.

Comment Hard Science v Soft Science (Score 1) 432

Next you'll say that Turing machines were a thought experiment and never meant to perform calculations in the real world.

the Turing Test is much more of a soft science test. It's at least as much about psychology as it is about math.

Turing machines are about math.

Thought experiments about math have no need to be applied to the real world.

Comment Keep in Mind (Score 3, Insightful) 216

Keep in mind that this was in the First Circuit. (Liberal circuit, includes Boston, case law there based on cops trying to stop someone from filming *on Boston Common*). If you try this in Alabama, Nevada, or LA you are more likely to get the shit kicked out of you by the cops and then for them to arrest you.

Comment Also Snowden's Fault (Score 1) 207

And of course they are blaming the economic damage on getting caught as opposed to, well, what they were doing.

Of *course* they are. They're responsible for the consequences--but they also are right, Snowden's whistleblowing was also a cause. He has (with them) done probably billions of dollars of harm to the US tech industry.

Without him, it wouldn't have happened. Without them, it wouldn't have happened. They both did it for motives that they believed justified the cost.

Comment Engineering (Score 2) 238

That's all true, but manufacturers go to great lengths to inflate the figure.

I do wonder how someone so odiously dishonest as to participate in the practices you describe could ever become an engineer for a successful international brand.

Then, as someone who has been self-employed since 2003 and who has seen such a huge change in the way clients behave over the past decade, I wonder whether odious dishonesty today is a job requirement.

You have it backwards. They move toward dishonesty because they are working in a culture that (without calling it dishonesty) does dishonest things. For example, recently there was a memo in the News showing that GM prohibited engineers from using certain words like "defect" so that those words wouldn't show up in future lawsuits. This process is insidious--by itself it doesn't *have* to be dishonest, but it distorts the truth enough to make people a little more comfortable with distorting the truth.

Comment Military Action (Score 0) 225

There isn't much that can be done in response to Russia. Military action is out of the question: One does not start an open war with a nuclear superpower lightly. Economic sanctions hurt both sites, and Europe needs Russia as much as Russia needs Europe. They supply the gas that keeps the lights on.

Military action is not out of the question--there is simply some criteria for it that has not been met yet. If Putin believed he could swallow up all of Europe, he would. He's taking Ukraine piecemeal to give his forces time to consolidate power and to make it seem like smaller moves, each of which is more tolerable. At some point he will move beyond Ukraine, and if he moves too far military force or a demonstrated willingness to use it (i.e. U.S. or British boots on the ground in the next likely targets) will be a necessary response.

Comment Prisons Breaking Rights (Score 2) 186

Prisons break laws constantly, they are expected to violate rights, violate laws, etc... they are there only for punishing poor people.

Show me millionaires that are in prison that go to general population prison.

Um... not quite. Rich people are less likely to go to jail period (because they can afford better lawyers, are targeted less, and less frequently have incentive to commit crimes like bank robbery and burglary that get people caught). You really have to look at rich people who are convicted of burglary and poor people who are convicted of burglary before saying that the jails really just exist to punish the poor.

As for rights, yes, prisons frequently violate rights, but consider the *flipside* of that. In the United States, we make it relatively easy for criminals to *sue* for violation of their rights. So pretty much *every* prison guard, no matter how good or honest, gets sued by prisoners. It's not like prisons are trying to violate rights--they're generally trying to not get sued.

Comment Comcast is undervalued (Score 1) 286

Actually, Comcast is severely undervalued right now, so their investors stand to profit either way.

Their EPS shows about a 5% return on market value, with near 20% annual earnings growth (geometric mean over five years, although mostly in the last three), but their market value is actually less than their equity. Now a lot of the equity is intangibles, but even if you take out fifty billion or so, they could still earn back their market value within three years.

(Pretax earnings are around 3B/quarter, total market cap is around 22B).

Comment Not to a jury (Score 2) 43

Way to sensationalize.

In the United States, prosecutors have the job of sensationalizing in order to get a conviction and longer sentences. They are spinning a story they design out of the facts, so they pick the facts which make someone seem as guilty as possible and of as big a crime as possible.

The defense attorney's job is to whittle that down. The jury has the job of guessing the truth from two competing false narratives (the prosecution and the defense). Only the judge can ask witnesses questions impartially, and he or she generally doesn't do that a lot.

Comment Networks (Score 1) 557

They are allowed to start counting the votes before the voting ends ??? We only spawn 5.5 time zones but that`s still not allowed and well enforced.

They generally are, although it's up to the particular state. More importantly, the *exit polls*, which are not the actual vote but in which people say who they voted for, come out relatively quickly and can influence later voting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

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