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Comment: Re:kickstarter: (Score 1) 71

by synaptik (#43764575) Attached to: After Kickstarter Record, Pebble Smartwatch Lands $15M From VCs
Kickstarters are not angel investors. Usually-- and this was the case with Pebble-- Kickstarters are prepaying for the device, and those prepayments fund development and initial manufacturing. And, the amount raised through Kickstarter was $10M, not $15M. (The latter is the figure that the VC is adding.)
Yes, I was a Kickstarter backer for Pebble. And, I received mine, at the stated discount. So I got my expected ROI.

Comment: Re:I'd be pissed (Score 2) 71

by synaptik (#43764567) Attached to: After Kickstarter Record, Pebble Smartwatch Lands $15M From VCs
Kickstarters are not angel investors. Usually-- and this was the case with Pebble-- Kickstarters are prepaying for the device, and those prepayments fund development and initial manufacturing.
Yes, I was a Kickstarter backer for Pebble. And, I received mine, at the stated discount. So I got my expected ROI.
Earth

Electronics-Loving 'Crazy Ants' Invading Southern US 136

Posted by timothy
from the but-ants-are-nice dept.
From an article at the Houston Chronicle (not The Onion) comes a report of concern to anyone in a warm climate with, well, electronics. From the article: "According to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, invasive 'crazy ants' are slowly displacing fire ants in the southeastern United States. These 'Tawny Crazy Ants' have a peculiar predilection toward electronics as well. 'They nest in electronics and create short circuits, as they create a contact bridge between two points when they get electrocuted they release an alarm pheromone,' says UT research assistant Edward LeBrun. 'The other ants are attracted to the chemicals that other ants give off,' he adds. At this point, more ants arrive and create a larger nest." The L.A. Times also has a report, which says "Thus far, the crazy ants are not falling for the traditional poisons used to eliminate fire ant mounds. And when local mounds are destroyed manually, they are quickly regenerated. 'They don't sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests,' LeBrun said. 'There are videos on YouTube of people sweeping out dustpans full of these ants from their bathroom. You have to call pest control operators every three or four months just to keep the infestation under control. It's very expensive.'"
Data Storage

WD Explains Its Windows-Only Software-Based SSHD Tech 286

Posted by timothy
from the horse-before-the-cart dept.
crookedvulture writes "Seagate and Toshiba both offer hybrid hard drives that manage their built-in flash caches entirely in firmware. WD has taken a different approach with its Black SSHD, which instead uses driver software to govern its NAND cache. The driver works with the operating system to determine what to store in the flash. Unfortunately, it's Windows-only. You can choose between two drivers, though. WD has developed one of its own, and Intel will offer a separate driver attached to its upcoming Haswell platform. While WD remains tight-lipped on the speed of the Black's mechanical portion, it's confirmed that the flash is provided by a customized SanDisk iSSD embedded on the drive. The iSSD and mechanical drive connect to each other and to the host system through a Serial ATA bridge chip, making the SSHD look more like a highly integrated dual-drive solution than a single, standalone device. With Intel supporting this approach, the next generation of hybrid drives appears destined to be software-based."

Comment: Re:Well the ultimate value of a dollar is (Score 1) 605

by synaptik (#43418599) Attached to: BitCoin Value Collapses, Possibly Due To DDoS

Another thing that plays against these bitcoin idiots is that their "currency" is limited, there will only every be 21M bitcoins

It's not as bad as that. BTC is the wrong unit of measurement here. It's only being used because we are still at the beginning of the BTC inflation ramp. BTCs are divisible down to 8 decimal places, meaning there are 100,000,000 satoshis per BTC. Eventually, at these valuations, prices will be quoted in satoshis (or, if you prefer, decimal fractions of BTC.)

Earth

Microbes Likely Abundant Hundreds of Meters Below Sea Floor 68

Posted by samzenpus
from the hollow-world dept.
sciencehabit writes "Samples drilled from 3.5-million-year-old seafloor rocks have yielded the strongest evidence yet that a variety of microorganisms live deeply buried within the ocean's crust. These microbes make their living by consuming methane and sulfate compounds dissolved in the mineral-rich waters flowing through the immense networks of fractures in the crust. The new find confirms that the ancient lavas formed at midocean ridges and found throughout deep ocean basins are by volume the largest ecosystem on Earth, scientists say."

A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough For Love"

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