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Comment Because someone will do it (Score 1) 231

Either states will decide you don't need insurance if you have a self driving car, or a company will spring up that will insure self driving cars for a lot less money.

It is one area where capitalism can work. Lets say all the existing insurance underwriters charge $100/month for normal insurance based on human drivers. At that rate they can cover the rate of claims and make a nice profit. Say $20/month ends up being net profit after their operations costs and payout are factored in, and operations are another $20/month.

Well lets say that self driving cars then have a 0.01% accident rate compared to human drivers (it may end up being lower than that). That will drop their payouts by a similar amount, so from $60/person/month to $0.60/person/month. Ok but they decide to keep the price the same, just make more money.

Thing is, they'd still be really profitable at $41/month, instead of $100. Someone else will realize that, and work to steal their business. They might not go that low, maybe $80/month, but it'll happen. Then they'll try to get it back and so on and so forth.

Remember that your costs aren't just based on your specifically, they are based on actuary data of accident likeness. Sure you've had no accidents, but there is a statistical probability that you will. You are in the lowest risk group likely, but it is there. If self driving cars are much lower, rates can again be much lower.

Also, have you checked around? My rates haven't gone up in a long time. Maybe your company is just screwing you because they can, and you'd save if you took your business elsewhere.

For comparison purposes I pay about $350/6 months for $200k/$500k liability insurance on an old, cheap, car.

Comment Re:Software engineer fails to understand business (Score 5, Insightful) 133

If programmers are left to their own devices, no code will ever get released, because complex systems have too many variables to test, take a long time to code, by the time you get to the end you realized you could have done the beginning better.
There are so many times I go back to my old code and say to myself what was I thinking? There is a much easier way to do this.

Sometimes it is cheaper to leave the bloat and use more hardware to compensate.

I have a lot of half done apps in production. There are thing I want to do to make them better, however I probably won't get to them by EOL because the customer is generally happy with it, and I have other higher priority projects in my queue.

Comment America != Hollywood (Score 2) 132

American media companies to remember is that they're not American in thought, taste or outlook.
What is American thought, taiste and outlook.
Americans are a rather diverse group of people. Ranging from extreamly liberal to hard conservative and with a lot of points in between.
Sure we have some cultural norms, like every other country. But judging our culture from our media doesn't give a full picture.
Based off of media.
1 out of every 4 people is an aspiring actor.
80% of the population lives in California
15% lives in New York City, no one lives upstate.
4% lives in Illinois .
1% elsewhere
(There is a wide range of cultural diversity across each state, most of it isn't covered my the media)
Nearly everyone is self centered/as some odd quark.

What is called American culture is just Hollywood culture, that isn't representative of the full United States.

Heck I live next to a Mennonite community in the middle of nowhere, we have High speed internet, decent cell coverage... And a diversity of pleasant friendly people and jerks who have no regulard for others. And like real life often they are one and the same based on the situation.

Comment That may well be what happens (Score 1) 184

Which is why this is pretty stupid. H.264 is "good enough" for most things. Particularly as bandwidth continues to grow. A more efficient encoding scheme would be nice, but it isn't necessary. We can already do 1080p60 video over most net connections with reasonable quality.

So H.265 will have to be appealing not only in terms of bandwidth saved, but in terms of cost. Companies won't move to use it if they have to pay a bunch extra for the privilege. They'll just keep using H.264 and more bandwidth.

Comment Re:So why? (Score 1) 480

I think it is the case HP R&D was running a bit too informal. As in they were not doing any real good Research and Development, and were mostly slaking off.
I mean what do you think that is new and exciting from HP now? Printers Color and Black and White? While they are still the leader in printers they are mostly the same thing that has been around for decades. I can still find some Laserjet 4 kicking around and printing the same quality as the newest ones, they are just a little slower to do it. Desktop and Laptops? HP PCs are more or less the cheap mans out. On the PC Side Lenovo has been winning on the professional end, then a slew of cheaper makers on the consumer end.
HP does a lot of other stuff too... But much of it isn't giving much press, and is falling behind.

R&D May be slacking off, enjoying the care free "creative" work environment, a bit too much. Putting in a dress code, is to remind them that yes you are at work, not social time.

Business casual dress isn't any more uncomfortable then dress down is it? But when you get up in the morning you say to yourself I need to dress for work.

Comment Sometimes popular things die. (Score 4, Insightful) 58

I miss the single player adventure games like from Sierra and Lucas Arts where you can engross yourself in a story game line, and have work to solve puzzles and you celibate when you continue the story plot, without having to use twitch like hand eye coordination, or play online with a bunch of people just trying to mess you up.

But those times have ended. It is too easy and tempting to get spoilers on line, people tolerance towards game frustration has diminished...

Now he made a popular open source game, people liked it and it grew for a time. That is great... however times change, and popular games soon become tiresome. Updates and fixes and new content doesn't really excite as much after a while.

There isn't really that much to gain in Open Source games, because of the entertainment value of the game vs practical value. A game will offer a few months of joy perhaps a couple of years, then it will get old and tiresome, and they will be a new one out. You are better off selling it make a lot of money from it, then go on to new projects once it has peaked. I am not trying to be Mr. Anti Open Source, but Open Source works better on serious infrastructure type of projects, Operating Systems, Web Servers, Databases, programming languages... These tend to have long term demand, and invested interests on maintaining the project, including full time support. If my company is dependent on the success of an Open Source project, it may be useful, to hire resources to contribute to it, it may be a better value then buying stock into a closed source company, as you are actively contributing you get a better say on what goes on in your critical infrastructure software needs.

Comment Re:Don't (Score 1) 219

But he used vague requirements so not to give enough information for an actual informed decision.

But in general it sounds like it is going to be expensive and a lot of work, with working out a lot of details more then storing and backing up data.
Then the question but how do you present it back to the clients? That is a different can of worms.

The real question should be.
Which consulting company should I work with on a big data project?
Have you worked with some that seems to be able to give you a clear goal and time lines, and meet the budget specified.

Comment Re:84 US ISPs offer ***RESIDENTIAL*** gigabit acce (Score 2) 120

It is in theory... However right now I am not seeing the need for it. I am currently at 10-15mbs about 100x slower... I am able to stream HD video, while browsing the web at the same time. Unlike the old days of dial up when I started at 2400bps and even when I went to 14.4k and 28.8k even when I got to college and we had about 1-5mbs It was a point where we wanted more speed. However now unless I am downloading the latest Linux/BSD distribution ISO that I feel like playing with. It doesn't feel slow or non-responsive any more.

However I expect once a good portion of people switch to GB speeds, I will need to upgrade, because sites and services will be designed to handle the new average bandwidth Streaming 8k video, more teleconferencing tools etc...

Comment Re:i haven't bought a car in a while... (Score 1) 252

The big assumption is that a majority people want a car sharing system.
We still have people using cars as a status symbols, people putting special customization to make them more effective for their life style. And a lot of people do live off the beaten path, having to wait an hour for a car ton come to drive an hour to get to your destination isn't very practical.
Yes I heard the reports about those crazy millennials who will change everything...
Just as those baby boomers who were hippies who then became yuppies then to be tea party.

As the economy improves and these people get settled, they will most likely go back to the traditional American Dream, a car for each person, with enough room for the full family, with the power and build to survive a military conflict.

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