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Comment Re:Dumbing down (Score 1) 111

PBS is primarily (85%) privately funded. It will continue to produce shows like Masterpiece, Nova, Frontline, and Sesame Street and people in places like Boston or Philadelphia will continue to benefit from them.

What public funding does is give viewers in poorer, more rural areas access to the same information that wealthy cities enjoy. It pays for access for people who don't have it.

By opting out, Arkansas public broadcasting saves 2.5 million dollars in dues, sure. But it loses access to about $300 million dollars in privately funded programming annually.

Comment This rubbish again? (Score 2) 97

A reminder that the Energiewende was a general policy and not at all focused on the grid. Here's some of the things that the Energiewende funded:
- Gas boilers in homes.
- New pipelines oil and gas pipelines.
- Local charging points for cars.
- Railway electrification
- Subsidies for window replacements and insulation.
- University grants for battery and hydrogen research.

Only a small portion of the Energiewende was actually spent on anything related to the grid. And among the grid related things the Energiewende funded:
- New Gas powerplants.
- New HV transmission links.

The idea that Germany spent that money on greening the grid and failed is simply outright bullshit pushed out of ignorance or because you want to push some kind of failure narrative.

Comment Re:Math... (Score 1) 61

He's only charged with 3, but has been doing this a while. That said you could do this. I know my colleague (who simulates the stress on undersea support cables on their laptop) has a laptop that retails for $12k.

I asked her to teach me how to do it so I could justify to IT to get something better than the low tier bullshit I was saddled with XD

Comment Re:Reddit is not social media (Score 1) 54

I'm not sure what Reddit you are using, but mine is wall to wall picture posts, mixed with picture related adverts, and if I click the popular button I get wall to wall targeted algorithmically picture posts. You may use reddit for text based discussions, but posts without images are in the minority in literally all of the over 100 subs I'm subscribed to.

Reddit is social media in every definition.

Comment Re:Aussie teens already defeating the block (Score 1) 54

Of course they will, the goal was never to block everything. It was to put in place a barrier that stops a portion of the population from engaging. And have a think about this: If the block isn't doing anything, then why is Reddit suing?

The reality is some people will bypass anything (I myself had no problems using Facebook in China), that doesn't mean that the laws don't have a significant impact, which is precisely why they are being sued by a for profit organisation.

Also telling the prime minster to fuck off is sort of how Australians say hello. ... sometimes on national television. https://youtu.be/5wpV3lHK90o?s... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... :-)

Comment Re:US car companies are their own enemy (Score 1) 158

and whatever the Mustang Mach-E is supposed to be

This is the best description for what is hands down one of the worst EVs I've ever driven. And I travel professionally so I drive a LOT of different cars. I honestly do not know what they were thinking with this. It's everything the Mustang was not - in a bad way. It's feels chunky, slow, somehow disconnected between steeringwheel and wheels, and while Europeans often shit on US cars for their inability to go around corners at any speed without ramming into a tree, Ford somehow made the Mustang's poor handling even worse. The fit and finish is rubbish, the seats were uncomfortable, the dash was ... Ford ... and somehow for how massive the car is on the outside it felt incredibly cramped.

If I were given it for free I'd sell it and buy something else.

Comment Re:What's a reasonable fee? (Score 1) 96

The reasonable fee is 0%. You can't charge a fee for your customer engaging in business with another company. Apple are free to charge whatever the fuck their want for their own service, but they can't charge or restrict you for using a different one (and that's fundamentally the point of antitrust laws and this case here).

Comment Re:I'm still missing why Apple needs to bend the k (Score 1) 96

Because you do have a choice, just like Apple has a choice in what to charge.

No, objectively Apple does not have a choice in what to charge you dealing with someone else. The USA is only the latest in a string of regions which have ruled Apple is breaching the law in this regard.

If you think otherwise, great, I will charge you a fee for every character you type into the Slashdot comment window, so think carefully about what you write.

Comment Re:I'm still missing why Apple needs to bend the k (Score 1) 96

You missed the point spectacularly for a number of reasons. Let's address them in order:

1. The presence of an alternative does not prevent a walled garden from existing: See Android. The user can have the choice.
2. Apple doesn't need a monopoly. No one does. Monopoly is not a requirement for any anti-trust law. To be in violation of the law you need to "monopolise" which is the use of market power to limit or unduly affect competition. Apple absolutely have an insane amount of market power both in the cell phone space (which is not relevant here) and in the app store ecosystem (which is the point under discussion). They are objectively using this market power over developers to prevent developers engaging with other business - monopolizing the payments industry within their market. That is illegal in all countries where antitrust laws exist and they have been found in violation of this in multiple countries already.
3. They can set their market place fee to whatever they want. Their fee is not under question. What they can't do is predicate your use of their market place to place a fee on you for doing something outside their market place. This is what they are in trouble for here: applying a fee to *external* transactions.
4. The idea of "making an app for someone else" is akin to giving up a market. When a developer would significantly lose out then that very idea is what gives Apple market power and means they fall under the increased scrutiny of anti-trust laws. Market power is a predicator to monopolisation. Without one you can't have the other. Apple has the former and were deemed to be doing the latter.
5. This doesn't have to do with access to an ecosystem. It has to do with restricting access to others. (If you disagree with this point then remember when to reply I'm going to charge you per character you type into Slashdot) - that's what Apple is doing.
6. Having or not having an iPhone is irrelevant. The consumer has zero to do with this in this case.
7. Apple can set its own price policies how it wants. What it can't do is set a price policy for a customer to go and talk to another customer. That is fundamentally everything Apple has been in trouble for all over the world these past few years.

Comment Re:What was the test to say 27% was unreasonable? (Score 1) 96

The test says it is unreasonable to limit any business to business transaction of another company. That is the foundation of antitrust law. It doesn't matter if it is 27% or 1%. You can charge for your services, but you can't charge someone for using someone else's services.

That's the unreasonable part of it.

If you think otherwise please note that in order to respond to me you agree to pay me $1 per letter in your response.

Comment Re:Still going? (Score 3, Informative) 26

Not sure what flower icon you're talking about. Not sure why you care about it being a 'prequel' or why you put that in quotes, Doom isn't exactly dependent on any major story telling. The prequel aspects of it were just an excuse to bring different kinds of monsters into the story with a more medieval backdrop.

By the way you say you don't meet the minimum requirements as if Doom is some kind of poorly optimised disaster. The reality is the minimum requirements are:
1. A bottom tier video card from 6 years ago.
2. A mid tier gaming CPU from 6 years ago.
3. Sufficient RAM that wouldn't make you put your fist through your computer monitor while running Windows.

There should be no expectation that you can play any AAA game on 7 year old bottom tier hardware. And those specs are designed to give you stable 60fps (because ID actually provides meaningful minimum specs that make their games playable), it would probably run on your system anyway.

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