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Comment: Re:Cross country? (Score 2) 138

by jeffmeden (#43786945) Attached to: Transporting a 15-Meter-Wide, 600-Ton Magnet Cross Country

It's going by barge for most of the journey. From the article: "It will float from New York Harbor in June, down the East Coast, around Florida, up the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River by July."

I got the barge part, but the Mississippi part was buried a bit further. I pictured a trip across the Great Lakes. Don't they know about the Erie Canal?

Comment: Re:rather have money (Score 1) 461

by jeffmeden (#43785103) Attached to: Do Developers Need Free Perks To Thrive?

I'd rather have a larger paycheck.

I would take the 25c/day pay cut it would cost to have someone stock the fridge with sodas so that I didn't have to go to the bother. On one hand "perks" are about employers differentiating without paying more, on the other hand there are economies of scale that do your employees a lot of good, if you pick the things that a good portion of your employees partake in. Free coffee/tea is pretty standard for this reason, why shouldn't that apply to other (more modern) common consumables?

Of course, don't let your company health care provider hear that you have a fridge of 240-calorie insulin-bombs stalking the corridor...

Comment: Re:I'm on a boat (Score 1) 164

by jeffmeden (#43784619) Attached to: I am fairly prepared for a storm outage of ...

Is it a land yacht? Because tornadoes only occur on land.

They can -- and do -- cross bodies of water. They can even form there. I guess technically, if you're on a boat, you wouldn't get hit by a tornado -- because it's called a "waterspout" when it's over a lake, river, harbor, inlet, canal, bay, ocean, whatever. But it would still ruin your day.

You are correct, but waterspouts are on average (at least from common information) a lot smaller than tornadoes. They don't, at least according to record, go apeshit and grow to 2 miles wide with 250mph winds.

Comment: Re:Depends on how hot it is (Score 1) 164

by jeffmeden (#43784337) Attached to: I am fairly prepared for a storm outage of ...

What kind of battery would run your fridge/freezer? If you're thinking an inverter and a car battery will do it, you'd better give that a trial run before you really need it. Two things every home should have is a generator and a water pump (and a gun, but I don't want to drag politics into this). And the WORST time to try and buy those are when you really need them.

Good point on the water. I kept my old well when I hooked up to public water, which I can run off the generator during the Zombie Apocalypse. But even that won't help if it was contaminated from a flood.

I have a 3000W full sine inverter (among other bits of 120V hardware) and several hundred AH of 12V batteries on hand. So, the freezer gets the juice, and the fridge would just be used as a defrost zone for stuff leaving the freezer.

And what is the water pump for if one doesn't have a well? I have a sump pump, but that is probably not what you meant.

Comment: Re:and because of this. (Score 1) 474

by jeffmeden (#43784269) Attached to: Working Handgun Printed On a Sub-$2,000 3D Printer

In the animal kingdom I don't think we have seen evidence that any predator hunted its prey to extinction

That's a pretty grandiose claim and certainly false. There was still an ecosystem on this planet before we came around with thousands of species that went extinct.

In front of me sits no evidence that a predator species has hunted a prey species to extinction. So, it is true so far. If it is "certainly false", then surely you have such evidence sitting in front of you. So, out with it.

Comment: Depends on how hot it is (Score 4, Informative) 164

by jeffmeden (#43782459) Attached to: I am fairly prepared for a storm outage of ...

My food in the freezer would last me a good month, but that's only true if it stays frozen (easy in winter, hard in summer)... If the power goes out I would keep the freezer running on battery while I stuffed myself with as much fatty food as I could eat.

You would live a lot longer without food than you think. It's the lack of water that will get you. Missing poll option: "I am Bear Grylls, and am drinking my own piss while i type this"

Comment: Re:and because of this. (Score 0) 474

by jeffmeden (#43782325) Attached to: Working Handgun Printed On a Sub-$2,000 3D Printer

Of course, it will result in a cat and mouse game, but in a cat and mouse game, the cat almost always wins.

Sorry for the digression, but real predator-prey dynamics are more complicated than that. Predators are far short of 100% efficient (citation needed; I am lazy!), and predator and prey populations are interdependent. I can only speculate about the analogy to regulation and disobedience, but it seems possible that it still holds up. There could be the same back-and-forth between the success of regulators and the success of those who circumvent or evade the regulation.

In the animal kingdom I don't think we have seen evidence that any predator hunted its prey to extinction (the bar for 100% efficiency) but humans, on the other hand, are pretty good at hitting the 100% mark.

Comment: Re:Requires more metal (Score 1) 474

by jeffmeden (#43782231) Attached to: Working Handgun Printed On a Sub-$2,000 3D Printer

Both use a metal firing pin and are designed with the non-functional metal piece, the Lulz version also uses some screws for structural strength that would be much harder to replace with something non-metallic.

You underestimate the strength of carbon fiber. The screws were added for strength but a number of alternative processes would lend just as much strength (but not be as easy to assemble).

Comment: Re:Did they break any laws? (Score 5, Insightful) 614

by jeffmeden (#43780717) Attached to: Web of Tax Shelters Saved Apple Billions, Inquiry Finds

The point of the scrutiny is to shine enough light on the loophole that there will be political will to close it without just the usual one-sided "they are raising taxes!!!".

Last I checked, Apple doesn't write the laws. They don't even spend that much money lobbying. In fact, it is Congress that writes the laws.

Apple is huge, highly profitable, highly visible, and probably the US company with the single highest net favorable opinion among voters... If you want to make a splash, you start at the top. In case it's not obvious, the point of these hearings is not to actually find out how/why Apple or any other company does what they do (congress has no problem knowing all of that), it is to raise visibility so that there is political will that can be capitalized upon to change the tax code.

Comment: Re:Why do we still bother with corporate taxes? (Score 4, Insightful) 614

by jeffmeden (#43780499) Attached to: Web of Tax Shelters Saved Apple Billions, Inquiry Finds

I'm hoping someone with some econ knowledge can enlighten me, although I fear since this is the Internet and Slashdot comments it's probably not going to happen ;-) I've never heard of a situation where companies tried to pay taxes because they like them and if they're publicly traded they had a fiduciary responsibility to avoid them in order to maximize returns to the shareholders, and when forced to pay them they just try to find ways to force the cost down to the customer.

So why do we bother at all? Personally, I'd rather pay higher property/income taxes and abandon corporate taxes so that money comes back into the country for reinvestment and so that the companies don't leave the country and expand their business elsewhere.

If a corporation's income were tax free (or if the base rate were significantly lower) you would simply see everyone in the country start their own one-owner corporation and proceed to funnel all of their income in and out, tax free. See the problem? Then you need *another* rule to stop that from happening. The tax code looks as ugly as it does due to the vicious cycle of constituents rallying for less complex taxes, and corporations using political clout to make only everyone elses' taxes "less complex" (i.e. preserving the loopholes they cherish). Sadly, the political system as it stands is not well equipped to actually do the will of the people, and instead creates token efforts to appease the masses, while for the most part doing whatever it is that large corporations want.

Comment: Re:Did they break any laws? (Score 4, Insightful) 614

by jeffmeden (#43780385) Attached to: Web of Tax Shelters Saved Apple Billions, Inquiry Finds

Because the world is changing and it's no longer socially acceptable to just pay what's legal, it's considered inappropriate to pay less than what people would consider to be a fair amount. If you're paying $1 of tax on $1000 of earnings because you've cleverly nested your business assets overseas in a complex web of tax avoidance schemes, then most people would consider that unfair, even if it is legal.

A company is doing its shareholders a dis-service if they pay more tax than legally required.

If you don't like the amount of tax a corporation pays, due to their corporate structure, petition your government to close the loophole.

No one is challenging that, you just keep restating the obvious. The point of the scrutiny is to shine enough light on the loophole that there will be political will to close it without just the usual one-sided "they are raising taxes!!!".

Comment: Re:Wait, what? (Score 1) 41

by jeffmeden (#43775963) Attached to: Book Review: Locked Down: Information Security For Lawyers

I always carefully add:

"Confidentiality: The information contained in this e-mail is intended only for the
personal and confidential use of the designated recipients of the email. This message
may be an attorney-client communication and, as such, is privileged and confidential. If
you are not an intended recipient of this message or an agent responsible for delivering
it to an intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this message
in error, and that any review, dissemination, distribution, or copying of this message is
strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please delete it and all
copies and notify us immediately by reply e-mail or by telephone"

To the signature section of all my emails. Surely that qualifies as due-diligence concerning information security?

Sounds iron clad, you can just lock up everyone who calls/emails as they have obviously already broken your rule... [/snark]

Q: What do you say to a Puerto Rican in a three-piece suit? A: Will the defendant please rise?

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