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Comment Re:Jewelry (Score 1) 399

by SunTzuWarmaster (#46863165) Attached to: Japanese and Swiss Watchmakers Scoff At Smartwatches

Planet Money summed this up pretty well for me:
Announcer: "Zoe, let's say I give you two investment vehicles. One is a piece of art, with a drawing on it. The other is a Government bond. Let's say they both will appreciate at the same rate, say, 3% above inflation. Which would you prefer to have?"
Zoe: "Is the Government bond pretty? Does looking at it, feeling it, or smelling it give me any form of pleasure?"
Announcer: "No, it looks, feels, and smells like a Government bond. It has a picture of an eagle on it."
Zoe: "I'm, um, going with the art."

This is a pretty simple example of why art underperforms typical investment vehicles. All things being equal, people prefer the art to the bond. That said, it drives demand for art up, and return for art down. While art may _hold_ its value (keep pace with inflation), it will not compare in its performance with similar investment vehicles (even if kept in pristine condition).

More info here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...
and here: http://people.stern.nyu.edu/jm...

Comment Re:Shuffles (Score 1) 386

by SunTzuWarmaster (#46832719) Attached to: iPad Fever Is Officially Cooling

I agree that the iPod classic is a product separate from those of other categories. Additionally, I agree with your views regarding being amazed about not having large-storage HDD-based music players. However, the following situation occurred recently to me:
  - I got a new phone (replacing the 4 year old one).
  - I uploaded all of my music on my iPod (40ish Gb) to Google Music (20,000 songs for free)
  - I cached my frequently-played favorites ("Running mix", "Workout mix", "Yard Word mix") on the HD of the phone, using about 1 Gb of space
  - I stream my music collection from Google Music
  - I also have many other capabilities, such as streaming from Pandora, downloading podcasts, using car stereo BlueTooth, etc.
  - I haven't turned on my iPod since

I have 'unlimited' (5 Gb) bandwidth from my cell carrier when roaming, and truely 'unlimited' bandwidth from the places where I listen to the most music (gym Wifi, home Wifi, work wifi, girlfriend Wifi, etc.). In short, my phone has access to my entire music collection as part of its normal operation ($25/month, unlimited calls/data).

I use a Moto X phone (now), from Republic Wireless, which cost $299 (https://republicwireless.com/phones/moto-x), and $25/month. It effectively replaces the functionality of my previous phone ($50/month, free phone).
An iPod Classic (40K songs) starts at $249 (http://www.apple.com/ipodclassic/). An iPod Touch (1750-7K songs) starts at $229.

iPods are products which will die.

PS - Shameless plug for a company with which I am happy. You can switch to Republic Wireless using this link for the first month free: http://rwshar.es/OWQc

Comment Re:No advocating banning guns (Score 1) 1633

by SunTzuWarmaster (#46773423) Attached to: Retired SCOTUS Justice Wants To 'Fix' the Second Amendment

Not greatly, considering how many people are considered to be in the "unorganized militia" (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311). Short version: all men between 18 and 45 are considered part of the unorganized militia. Also, some other people (women in the national guard, etc.).

Comment Re: DeVry (Score 1) 370

by SunTzuWarmaster (#46578569) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Fastest, Cheapest Path To a Bachelor's Degree?

My alma mater averages $210/credit hour (http://tuitionfees.smca.ucf.edu/). The engineering degree, when I graduated, was 128 credit hours. This brings the cost of the degree close to $27000 ($6000/year). It appears that GP paid 50% more than traditional education (in-state tuition) for his non-traditional degree program.

Comment Re:Makers and takers (Score 1) 676

by SunTzuWarmaster (#46462585) Attached to: 70% of U.S. Government Spending Is Writing Checks To Individuals

I hate to rain on your parade with facts, but here are some relevant facts:
The Minimum Retirement Age (MRA) for someone currently in the workforce is around 57 (or any age with 25 years of service).
Payments don't start until you actually hit MRA.
The average federal worker makes 78K/year (let's not debate this too much, as president Obama is in these numbers).
While you can start payments at MRA with only 5 years in service (woo!) the amount of that pay is 1% of your average salary for your three highest salaried years per year. In other words, you'd get less than 5% of your ending salary (about $325/month).

The person in your example works for 20 years (let's say 18-38), "retires", begins receiving payments at 57 (no inflation adjustments during this time period). Let's pretend that this is the first year they receive payments (they retired in 1995) and that they made average salary ($61,000) at that time. They are now entitled to begin those lucrative payments you speak so highly about... $12200/year.

Your point that they will receive this payment until the end of their life is accurate, and they may receive this $12K/year (which is now adjusted upwards yearly for inflation) until they are 90 years old.

Sources:
https://www.opm.gov/retirement...
https://www.opm.gov/retirement...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0605-35.pdf

Comment Re:PowerPoint? (Score 1) 181

by SunTzuWarmaster (#46428303) Attached to: Physics Forum At Fermilab Bans Powerpoint

Perhaps by using this: http://tx.technion.ac.il/~zvik...
Also, by drawing it in a drawing program and saving it as an image (http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/fimg88.gif).

Note: I am a scientist and use PowerPoint daily. There is a place for each goal:
Giving a scientific talk at a conference (20 minute presentation, 10 minute Q/A) - PowerPoint
Giving a project/program briefing of monthly activity - PowerPoint
Giving a classroom presentation - PowerPoint

It is a good format for one-way presenting. It is not a substitute for dialogue, decision making, collaborative pro/con analysis, or documentation. There are other solutions for that (whiteboard, whiteboard-handout combo, briefing-whiteboard combo, whitepaper, respectively).
Censorship

Major Internet Censorship Bill Passes In Turkey 104

Posted by timothy from the so-you're-in-favor-of-violence? dept.
First time accepted submitter maratumba writes to explain a bill in Turkey that extends what are already hefty Internet curbs in place under a controversial 2007 law that Earned Turkey equal ranking with China as the world's biggest web censor according to a Google Transparency report published in December. The text notably permits a government agency, the Telecommunications Communications Presidency (TIB), to block Access to websites without court authorization if they are deemed to violate privacy or with content Seen as 'insulting.' Erdogan, Turkey's all-powerful leader since 2003, is openly suspicious of the Internet, branding Twitter a 'menace' for being Utilized in organisation of mass nationwide protests in June in which six people died and thousands were injured."
Security

Target's Data Breach Started With an HVAC Account 232

Posted by samzenpus from the sneaking-in dept.
Jim Hall writes "Security blogger Krebs reports that Target's data breach started with a stolen HVAC account. Last week, Target said the initial intrusion into its systems was traced back to network credentials that were stolen from a third party vendor. Sources now claim that the vendor in question was a refrigeration, heating and air conditioning subcontractor that has worked at a number of locations at Target and other top retailers. Attackers stole network credentials from Fazio Mechanical Services, then used that to gain access to Target's network. It's not immediately clear why Target would have given an HVAC company external network access, or why that access would not be cordoned off from Target's payment system network."
The Military

Military Electronics That Shatter Into Dust On Command 221

Posted by samzenpus from the poof-it's-gone dept.
First time accepted submitter MAE Keller writes "Two U.S. companies are joining a military research program to develop sensitive electronic components able to self-destruct on command to keep them out of the hands of potential adversaries who would attempt to counterfeit them for their own use. From the article: 'Last Friday DARPA awarded a $2.1 million contract to PARC, and a $3.5 million contract to IBM for the VAPR program, which seeks to develop transient electronics that can physically disappear in a controlled, triggerable manner.'"
Networking

The Standards Wars and the Sausage Factory 234

Posted by timothy from the these-things-take-time dept.
Esther Schindler writes "We all know how important tech standards are. But the making of them is sometimes a particularly ugly process. Years, millions of dollars, and endless arguments are spent arguing about standards. The reason for our fights aren't any different from those that drove Edison and Westinghouse: It's all about who benefits – and profits – from a standard. As just one example, Steven Vaughan-Nichols details the steps it took to approve a networking standard that everyone, everyone knew was needed: 'Take, for example, the long hard road for the now-universal IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi standard. There was nothing new about the multiple-in, multiple-out (MIMO) and channel-bonding techniques when companies start moving from 802.11g to 802.11n in 2003. Yet it wasn't until 2009 that the standard became official.'"
Space

New Type of Star Can Emerge From Inside Black Holes, Say Cosmologists 193

Posted by Soulskill from the cross-black-holes-off-your-list-of-good-hiding-places dept.
KentuckyFC writes "Black holes form when a large star runs out of fuel and collapses under its own weight. Since there is no known force that can stop this collapse, astrophysicists have always assumed that it forms a singularity, a region of space that is infinitely dense. Now cosmologists think quantum gravity might prevent this complete collapse after all. They say that the same force that stops an electron spiraling into a nucleus might also cause the collapsing star to 'bounce' at scales of around 10^-14cm. They're calling this new state a 'Planck star' and say its lifetime would match that of the black hole itself as it evaporates. That raises the possibility that the shrinking event horizon would eventually meet the expanding Planck star, which emerges with a sudden blast of gamma rays. That radiation would allow any information trapped in the black hole to escape, solving the infamous information paradox. If they're right, these gamma rays may already have been detected by space-based telescopes meaning that the evidence is already there for any enterprising astronomer to tease apart."

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