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Comment Re:Not For Me (Score 1) 194

No one said it's easy for Tesla, but they have clearly demonstrated that they can make it easy for you - in fact easier than filling a tank of gas! I don't have any insight into their strategic plans, but I can imagine they would want to first install the easier (for them) alternative before rolling out nation-wide something as complicated as battery swap. I can imagine such solution has huge fixed costs that will not be covered until they become considerably more popular. They have not pushed away from the concept, however - it's still there on their web site: http://www.teslamotors.com/bat...

Comment Re:Awesome (Score 1) 283

You keep repeating the same thing, but you don't provide any explanation. I don't think you know what inflation does, but, unlike you, I'm actually going to explain why I think so.

Considering all other factors equal (we both know they aren't, but the argument is about inflation, nothing else), consider two scenarios:
1) have $10k now, don't spend them, don't invest them, in 10 years you still have the same $10k
2) have $10k now, buy something worth $10k now, in 10 years you still have this thing that cost $10k originally, but because of inflation (=increase in prices) it now costs $11k.

In scenario 1 you have less value than in scenario 2. Like I said, this disregards all other economic factors that affect value, but the idea is to show how inflation influences it.

Comment Re:Yes yes yes (Score 1) 405

Those numbers don't have the meaning you give them.
When one person is producing enough food to feed all 100 people, yet he only eats for one, does it mean that the other 99 people are fed and don't need to work? No. Until he actually shares the food he produces, the 99 people still need to work to get their own food.
So how do they get food?
1) They ask and receive it for free, because the producer is generous. If producer is OK with that, there's no problem to solve. This is the "kid" example you started with.
2) They make something that the producer needs, and trade with producer. This is where we are now pretty much. Basic economy, no new problem to solve.
3) The producer doesn't want anything they are willing to give, so they make their own food. The producer is now overproducing and is forced to decrease his prices, or to reallocate his efforts to something else (could be something completely new that was not done before - like actual space exploration). Again, basic economy, no problem to solve.

So where's the problem again? It's not related to "labor participation rate", but rather in the ability of everyone to take their life in their hands (see point 3). This ability can be severely damaged if a small portion of population is hogging up all the limited resources (such as land or intellectual property) necessary to do so. And the result is that option 3 is no longer available, forcing people to take option 2 no matter the price. Instead of solving this problem you're just implying that option 1 should be forced somehow.

Comment Re:CPU cycle != 1 second (Score 1) 189

While there are AIs that are proven to be better at playing chess than the best of humans, they cannot achieve the same performance with just 1 clock cycle per move that a human can achieve with 1 second per move (see the so called bullet games). 1 CPU clock cycle is clearly not comparable to 1 human second - even at a task that AIs are already better at!

Comment Re:Brazil aims low, film at 11 (Score 1) 130

I think the cost of damage is what matters, not profit taken. In fact, if the cost of damage is negligible compared to the profit, something is wrong. With the law or with the perception of the damage. In that case it should probably simply be legal, but expensive. Like cutting down trees can be "paid for" by planting 2 or 3 times as many trees as were cut down.

Comment Re:Brazil aims low, film at 11 (Score 1) 130

Now, you strawman'd the size of the company. But the size of the fine should be at least the cost of the damage done plus a punitive amount to act as a sufficient deterrent. What I'm saying here is that $500,000 is worth less that the money Google will make off using said personal data, and is thus ineffectual. The punitive amount on top of the calculated amount of profits they could make off the data should be high enough to deter Google from doing it in Brazil again... and thus wasting taxpayer dollars prosecuting them.

But you yourself are mixing things up. First you're talking about "the damage done", then you're talking about "calculated amount of profits". So which one is it? And how could you possibly calculate it in this case?

Comment Re:As soon as the smart car counts as the driver (Score 1) 662

Un-take-controllable? Wouldn't a simple log of who was in control at which point in time suffice? Law enforcement can easily check whether you were controlling the car when you shouldn't have, but cannot prevent you from doing so in the future without a just cause. Just like they cannot prevent you from drunk driving now.

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