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Comment Re: Tesla Is Good For All (Score 4, Insightful) 356

And that has been Tesla's argument for the last ten years, yet they still lose about $9,000 on each car they make.

"On" each car, or "for" each car?

"On" makes it sound like their marginal costs are negative -- that, literally, producing one more car increases their losses by $9K. Were it "for" each car, then they're losing money only after fixed costs, R&D, etc. are taken into account.

That latter makes considerably more sense -- folks can legitimately decide to back a company investing in itself rather than taking out a profit; indeed, Amazon has done that for years.

Comment Re:Heart valves? Refrigerators? Pah! (Score 3, Interesting) 65

please enlighten us as to why the fountain pin and/or feathered quill is superior to the free pens I get from the bank?

Y'know, I actually don't mind giving this a serious answer.

You don't need pressure to write with a fountain pen -- at all. (The modern competitor is a rollerball, not a ballpoint; rollerballs don't give you amount of flexibility on nib grind or opportunities for flex and shading effects that you get with a fountain, but at least you're not forced to use tons of pressure). Allows different, more comfortable grips.

Also, they're refillable with water-based inks -- meaning that they're not disposable, and that you have a huge amount of choice in terms of color and properties of your ink. Want an ink that's still viscous in below-freezing weather? I've got a bottle on my desk! Want an ink that changes from yellow to red depending on how much you're putting down on the paper? That too! Want an ink that responds to ultraviolet and is completely waterproof you can mix in with other inks that are water-soluable, so you can see where writing that's been washed away used to be under a blacklight?

Lots of room for geekery. :)

Comment Re:Out of curiosity (Score 1) 321

> 6: Secure your servers so we aren't being
> attacked from letting your ads through

Dear advertisers: Start with that. I will absolutely continue to block as many ads as possible until you fix this. If you're going to annoy me, at LEAST don't potentially harm me. It's like walking through a department store and getting sprayed with perfume which might also contain anthrax.

Comment Re:They were better before (Score 5, Insightful) 236

The other motto is "hide everything, because we don't understand the difference between 'actually making something simple to use' and merely hiding complexity."

Dear Mozilla (and everyone else), fuck you. This shit is RETARDED. "Look everyone! We got rid of all those confusing menus! Now there's just one button! ... Which spawns a bunch of menus.

Oh, and the regular menus also all still exist.

Oh, and we have TWO buttons like that, because we are in full-on shithead mode. Why hide everything behind one button, when you can force user to FIRST choose from one of TWO buttons! Mwa ha ha ha ha! One looks like a fox, the other looks like a hamburger. NEITHER has ANYTHING to do with what lies underneath! Hey, "New Private Window" is pretty important... put it in BOTH! But only put "new tab" in one. But make "new tab" a menu, and put "new window" underneath it. Got all that? Good. I need another drink. It's almost 10am!

Seriously -- I couldn't make this shit up. There's a special spot in hell waiting for you douchebags. You are collectively wasting YEARS of people's lives with this monkey shit.

Comment ... and the horse you rode in on. (Score 1) 387

"When was the last time you used a piece of chalk to express yourself? Kids don't express themselves with chalk or in cursive. Kids text."

Yeah, well, kids aren't trying to teach 30 other kids long division, are they? Fucking idiot. Took me 2 whole seconds to tear down your premise.

Kids also push each other to be first in line (no matter WHAT they're lining up for, they want to be first) and call each other "poopyhead." Does that indicate radical new teaching methods? LET'S DO WHAT CHILDREN DO, HERP DERP! Fucking A.

Comment Re:Straw vegans (Score 1) 94

Far opposite from the truth. I'm no vegan myself -- but growing meat animals requires vastly more inputs (grain, water, etc) than would be needed if skipping the (delicious) intermediate step. Humans consume less grains in sum when consuming them directly, rather than via an intermediate layer.

Comment Re:Not yet statistically significant (Score 1) 408

Well it is interesting in so far as knowing when the companies think they need to have human operators still.

Actually, having a licensed human operator ready to take over is a legal precondition for putting an autonomous car on the road (in all US states where they're legal at all).

Comment Oh shit (Score 3, Insightful) 128

I take it no one on Slashdot's esteemed editorial team has every lived in an earthquake area? As a former northern CA resident, I'm here to agree with the others that anything less than a 5.0 is not news. Seriously, if I felt a 4.0 at night, I probably wouldn't even mention it to friends the next day. If they're going to start posting about every 4.0 earthquake, I'll have to leave. There are a lot of those. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...

Comment Re:Well done! (Score 1) 540

Prepare for another culture-shock, my dear passport-less American. Tokyo has competing privately-owned subway lines. Japan's wonderful highspeed trains are privately-owned too.

Which shock would this be, exactly? Major American cities used to have competing privately-owned commuter rail lines as well -- mostly torn down in the first half of the 1900s in favor of the highway model. This is by no means a surprise to anyone who knows even local transportation history.

If a government is doing it, it can not be smart...

You lecture me about fallacies, and then pull out that?! I find it hard to believe that you're actually interested in making a good-faith attempt at a meeting of the minds.

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