Comment Re: Wait a minute... (Score 1) 249
They are a shell slapping their brand on Chinese designs like RCA or Polaroid or Westinghouse or a slew of other dead companies with marketable brands. Quarterly numbers look great though without all that pesky employee overhead.
Comment Just wait for the exploit packages (Score 3, Insightful) 152
This whole stupid scheme to have open residential WiFi everywhere is going to blow up in their faces. Sooner or later a script kiddie package will come out that sets up fake APs spoofing all the ISPs login pages to steal credentials and grab sensitive data.
Comment Re:America Needs Dream Chaser (Score 2) 24
What else can you do with it?
I bet it'll fly the Kessel run in 12 parsecs. Dragon? No way in hell.
Comment Re:If you're surprised (Score 1) 120
This isn't new. Data aggregators have been operating since before ARPANET existed. Every electronic transaction you make is sold to private brokers for a little extra profit and there are zero regulations on what they do with that data.
Comment Re:Do you actually own a Smart Watch? Then you don (Score 1) 60
All while having to inanely repeat "Ok Google" to wake up the device. I wish their marketing department would be dragged out and shot so we could get a customizable activation phrase like the Moto X has.
Comment Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA (Score 1) 317
I worked in a building right next to a small hydro plant built into a waterfall. A large manufacturing facility nearby also had its own power plant that supplied some of the local houses. During the northeast US blackout of 2003 I rode home after dark and didn't realize the power was out until I got beyond those facilities. Small scale can work.
Comment Re:Not surprising (Score 2) 117
What they really want is a continuation of the payola system they have now with radio where they get to manipulate the market, promoting only the artists they've anointed and locking everyone else out. Free streaming internet music disrupts that.
Comment Re:Reminds of of something at a past job (Score 3, Insightful) 765
Remind me again what "wellHungLo" was supposed to represent?
I wouldn't consider someone who wrote code like that a "superstar". He sounds more like a cowboy coder who couldn't give a shit about code maintenance after he moved on to something else. I would have complained about his shitty naming and if management was too scared to fix such a massive fuckup then you're better off working elsewhere.
Comment Not just Monsanto (Score 3, Informative) 179
Glyphosate has been off patent for years. It is a simple chemical that is cheap to make which is why it's in almost all herbicides now from every manufacturer under the sun.
Comment Re:So like the banks and Wall Street (Score 1) 121
More like "Here's my bona fides. Please keep me in mind when it comes time for me to leave for the private sector and you need some wheels greased"
Comment Re:Or maybe... (Score 4, Interesting) 417
the only thing that will help is all those water-wasters going bankrupt
More like getting massive federal subsidies to make up for their losses from growing crops in a desert.
Comment Lack of funding (Score 4, Insightful) 89
The delay was necessitated by a lack of investment funding
Maybe because they don't have a rocket, a ship, a way to land, a way to ferry supplies, a way to fund those supplies, or a way to live on another planet long term. Only a fool would dump money on this adventure.
Comment Re:How well forethought of dice (Score 1) 119
Yeah. It's not like Slashdot.jp patched slashcode to support Unicode 10+ years ago.
Comment Nice Godwin (Score 4, Informative) 110
Mainframes didn't exist in WW2. IBM sold Germany tabulator machines like they sold to many other countries around the world. What the Germans did with them aren't IBM's responsibility.