Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:Surprising! (Score 1) 58

Telescreen monitoring would have required a crazy amount of manpower.

Probably the closest real-world analog was the East German Stasi, which may have accounted for nearly 1 in 6:

The ratio for the Stasi was one secret policeman per 166 East Germans. When the regular informers are added, these ratios become much higher: In the Stasi's case, there would have been at least one spy watching every 66 citizens! When one adds in the estimated numbers of part-time snoops, the result is nothing short of monstrous: one informer per 6.5 citizens. It would not have been unreasonable to assume that at least one Stasi informer was present in any party of ten or twelve dinner guests. Like a giant octopus, the Stasi's tentacles probed every aspect of life.

— John O. Koehler, German-born American journalist, quoted from Wikipedia

Comment Re:Thanks for the research data (Score -1, Troll) 105

The entire EU is a protectionist bloc Canada is protectionist coffee. Tariffs are wonderful, useful tools when other countries use them. But when Trump does them they're bad. As are so many other policies like deporting illegal aliens. Obama and Biden did more and entire states and cities did not rebelv and nullify federal authority like it was fort Sumter 1865. Pure TDS.

Comment Re:Honest man [and smart timing, too?] (Score 3, Interesting) 64

He used to win these market timing games because no one was paying attention to huge short positions. You could quietly bet against a company, or, better yet, you could quietly amass a short position and then release stunning negative news that you had uncovered and watch the stock price tank.

These days it is more likely that online investors will notice a large short, and drive the price of the stock up until the person holding the short gets margin called and loses all of their money. The shorters then provide the liquidity you need to get out of the position. There used to be good money in shorting terrible companies, but in an age where hordes of armchair investors can drive the price of GameStop to the moon that strategy is just too risky.

Comment Re: Make them occasionally? (Score 1) 171

In the USA is it common to have self service tills at supermarkets that accept coins?

If it accepts cash, it should accept both coins and bills. Any change I manage to accumulate usually gets fed into the coin slot at a self-checkout before I swipe a card to provide the rest of the payment. It's better than handing it off to a Coinstar machine, as those skim off a percentage of what you feed them.

Comment Re:tool prep time is not really an commute or is r (Score 1) 181

"I like things simple. I really don't deal with milage, or all the other things I consider minutiae. I deal with simple numbers. What this means is not filling out milage reports and the other stuff that clutters up to work. Perhaps I'm eccentric. But I like simple because my actual work is quite complex."

As is my work -- however, my mileage report isn't "minutiae". It' averages $300-$500 every two weeks (I do a lot of driving --- particularly for projects). And the process isn't complicated. Basically a date, destination and total miles per line. In a text file. No clutter -- just a review of my travel calendar for 5 mins every two weeks and another 2-5 mins to transfer that to my expense report. Automagically appears in my pay check 8 days later.

Comment Re:How many direct jobs, Toyota? (Score 1) 39

If you want to know these things have you looked for the answer?

It's Toyota. They are known. They employ over 63,000 Americans already. They are good jobs. This announcement marks the start of producing batteries - not some hazy "agreement" about the future if this and if that and if the other. It's a done deal and it's a good thing.

Comment Re:Depends on the meaning of "shelf life" (Score 1) 59

Not sure because these chips cost so much to operate in energy costs. If enough efficiency gains are made it would be cheaper to buy and run new ones than to run old ones to do the same tasks. When data center companies start building their own nuclear power plants you know there is a LOT of money to be saved by increasing efficiency.

Slashdot Top Deals

Stinginess with privileges is kindness in disguise. -- Guide to VAX/VMS Security, Sep. 1984

Working...