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Comment Re:nobody saw it coming... (Score 2) 335

I bought Tesla Stock at a marvelous point in time for my portfolio's value. But I realized it's grossly overvalued. But... just because something is grossly overvalued doesn't mean it won't go up.. and it has, over and over and over. If I had sold it off where I thought Tesla was actually valued I would have missed out on enough of a bump that short of the stock going bankrupt and hitting $0 I can take a pretty huge bubble pop and still come out ahead of where "sensible" people would have bailed. But people aren't sensible. And I don't see people getting sensible any time soon.

Comment Re:cover everything with mirrors (Score 1) 185

Let's take a 100kw laser system like being demonstrated. Let's say your mirror is a 90% mirror (very good mirror) free of dirt. That's still 10kw on something maybe 2" across. If you've got a polycarbonate cover for your mirror surface it's now black. If you're using polished chrome it's already been burned off down to the metal underneath which is also probably charred. Also the lasers are often in the near-infrared range not the optical range.

Comment Re:The goal hasn't changed. (Score 1) 185

I would say the goal hasn't changed but they found applications short of the goal. The author seems to suggest that this is dishonest--it's not dishonest at all. Missile defense is/was a multi-billion dollar boondoggle but the current anti-mortar systems employed in the middle east are functional and effective. Just because we can't have megawatt class lasers yet doesn't mean that the current demonstrations of useful applications for lightweight lasers are smoke and mirror deception. His premise is completely misguided "Since these aren't megawatt lasers, these are useless." Maybe in the cold war less than megawatt lasers were useless but we aren't fighting the soviet union we're fighting guys in a rubber dingy.

Comment Re:Mac/Linux support removed... mildly surprised (Score 1) 227

Ummm... I have no idea what you consider equivalent of a "unix workstation" but most VFX facilities are nearly exclusively linux and they just buy commodity workstations from companies like:

Boxx http://www.boxxtech.com/
HP http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campa...
Dell http://www.dell.com/us/busines...

etc..

Comment Re:Ungreatful Cunt (Score 2) 214

And I would rather it goes to the actor than the executives at Fox. At least he actually *is* creating the show not just profiting from the creativity and labors of artists.

$14m is nothing compared to what Murdoch is pulling in for owning the Simpsons. It's the same problem in sports, people complain about how much the athletes are making while the owners and league executives get a pass. If it's going to be highly profitable then yeah the players should get rewarded too.

Comment Re:She deserved more money. (Score 1) 776

Being on call doesn't mean you work 24/7. I had a job, best job I've ever had where I was on call 24/7 and that translated into about 3-5 hours a week at $500/week.

If she has flexible hours and is able to work wherever her phone is she could work several jobs (and according to the story she was working two jobs) that overlap and double or triple dip.

Comment Re:No. (Score 1) 94

Except that in the case of earthquakes we're practically blind. It would be like a dog catching a ball but not being able to look up. So unless there is some sort of relationship between the average number of Buzzfeed posts in a given week to seismic activity in Brunei you can't accurately predict earthquakes from our very limited information. So far this hasn't been demonstrated.

Comment Re:And what of false positives? (Score 2) 94

It's not just economics it also strikes at the heart of whether or not the system actually *works*. If I create an algorithm that predicts an earthquake every 30 days in every major earthquake prone region I'll be right every single month because there is a major earthquake in one of the regions every month. It's like putting a bet on every horse in a race. You're guaranteed to win!

Comment Re:Adobe? (Score 1) 199

Never had CC DRM fail. Don't know anyone who has had a license problem with CC. Do you even have Creative Cloud or are you just listening to the people who heard it from someone who heard it from someone who thinks CS6 is good enough?

What I have seen is that Adobe now releases a RED SDK update on a regular schedule instead of waiting 12 months for them to support the latest R3D features.

Comment Re:Does This Make Sense? (Score 1) 318

In the U.S., the vast majority of electricity still comes from Coal.

If my address was 1153 U.S. Street that would mean something. Meanwhile in Washington State where I live:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

For those who don't like images...
Renewables:
Hydroelectric: 76.6%
Nuclear: 8.0%
Wind: 5.6%
Biomass: 1.4%

Fossil Fuels
Natural Gas: 4.7%
Coal: 3.2%
?Other: 0.5%?

Comment Re:Snowball effect (Score 1) 469

Also incredibly important on top of that, lots of people had a personal interest it succeeding:
  - Red Hat, Novell etc on the software front.
  - Also companies like HP needed a *nix and BSD was currently engulfed in FUD.

If you want your product to succeed you're far more likely to be successful when other people can profit as well from your project's success. "What's in it for me?" is the rally cry of any potential investor of time or money. In the case of Linux there was a lot in it for a lot of people.

The people who most profited from BSD (AT&T, IBM etc) were dinosaurs who history has proven have been bad at reacting quickly, at least in the 90s and early 00's. IBM is getting more nimble but the parties who profited from a successful BSD turned out to be the least suitable advocates.

Comment Re:EU Common Market (Score 2) 114

There are practical considerations though. Currently if you release a film you can get a german distributor a french distributor a british distributor and a spanish distributor. Each country's distributor is responsible for marketing as well as selling the product. So who would get the royalties in this instance? While the EU is a common market if you go to France a BMW will not cost the same as it costs in Germany.

My prediction is that this will go nowhere. It sounds great in theory to say that you should sell a movie download of The Avengers in Spain for the same price as The Avengers in Germany but The Avengers is really being resold. It would be like you expecting every supermarket in Europe to sell milk for the same price! "It's all milk! I should be able to buy milk for 2 Euros in Germany or 2 Euros in Greece!"

If anything they'll simply remove geo blocking for content you already managed to purchase. So if you buy a film in Germany you'll be able to still watch it in France. But that's not I believe what most people are hoping this to accomplish.

Comment Re:VR is a fad (Score 1) 84

There is no demand for a crappy head mounted 3D screen

That's because they've been crappy. If it was effectively as immersive as going to the movie theater or IMAX there clearly is a market for giant screen experiences even in 2D.

Also great would be on airplanes. I brought my Oculus on my last intercontinental flight and it was great to just get out of the 'claustrophobia' of being around 300 other people. Put on your VR headset and load up a movie in a "theater" with noise cancelling headphones and you're instantly transported into a more relaxing environment. It's not really "VR" but just head tracking a 3D Screen eliminates motion sickness from turbulence etc.

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