Posts by Tom 13

My winter heating bill and summer electric bills say otherwise.

Re: Show me somebody excited about 3D printing

Just because it isn't currently useful for making guns and seems to us to be favored by geeks who still live in their mother's basement to make minatures for their war gaming clubs doesn't mean there aren't areas that exciting and useful. For instance:

http://3dprintingindustry.com/medical/

Re: But if it was plasticy enough not to show up on an x-ray, it would also be useless as a gun.

For purposes of the current iterations of 3D printers, what you claim is true, but it is not universally true. When Taurus first introduced one of their lines of polymer pistols there was considerable concern that because so much of it was plastic, it would not be detected by the then standard detectors. I recall a number of solutions being proposed including impregnating the polymer with iron so it would show up. Ultimately Taurus made the barrel portion from steel and that calmed down law enforcement. What I don't recall if whether the decision to use steel was completely political or to what degree it made the engineering simpler.

Re: So you like the double dipping the ISPs want to do?

Except that's not something any of the net neutrality proposals will fix. What they will do is put the US government in charge of what the maximum speed of the internet will be.

If you want those issues addressed that goes through the FTC not the FCC.

@ Allan George Dyer

I think I found your problem:

...but there is a certain quality about, for example, "my breakfast" that is not interchangeable with "a drug patent" or "a performance of Beethoven's 5th".

You don't understand anything about economics, because comparing those equally and making them interchangeable is EXACTLY what economics is all about.

Re: But for Southern Europe or US, it could be a brilliant technology

Cali may get all the attention for population, but take a good look at the US. The real population density is east of the Mississippi river (in fact, mostly east of the Ohio river) and for the most part north of the Mason-Dixon line. In fact if you look at electoral vote counts at less than 65% the land mass they have 8 more electoral votes after deducting for the Senate variance. And that's after 30 years of people migrating from the Northeast to the South and West.

We get the same weather as Northern Europe, only perhaps a bit colder; well, except for the Scandinavian countries. But I'll bet Maine would be willing to go toe to toe with them.

Re: Didn't Regan try trickle down in the 80's? How did that work out?

Very well thank-you very much. Inflation was reduced, unemployment fell, interest rates dropped. Oil production increased and the economy boomed. In fact it was the start of 25 years of sustained economic growth.

But haters don't like admitting to the truth, so they like to credit it to Bill Clinton instead.

Re: So what do you call it when they 'invest' large sums

Protection money.

Re: Why supply-side / trickle-down failed...

Except it didn't fail. It did exactly what Reagan expected it would do: increased tax receipts received by the federal government, and more so from rich people than poor people. What didn't happen and what Progs improperly blame him for is control spending. Tip O'Neill (the ultimate Prog of the 1980s) insisted on spending twice as much as Reagan increased revenue. Meanwhile, an economy that had been cratered by Jimmie Carter to the point that it was the worst recession since the Great Depression rebounded and started a sustained 25 year expansion that Billie "Blue Dress" Clinton later took credit for. It took another Democratic regime in 2006 to crater the economy in 2008. Once again they shifted blame to George W. Bush.

Re: Whereas with streaming

If this statement from El Reg is factually accurate:

One estimate of Pandora's statements was that one million plays yielded the songwriter as much as they'd get from selling one T-shirt.

There's no way the the streaming revenue will EVER match the upfront 70p and £1.20 (times a million albums), even if it is over your lifetime.

Re: People will definitely pay for music.

Actually, that's the question. If we assume your statement

I think the answer is that Spotify is too cheap. But maybe that's all the cash consumers are willing to part with for it as a service?

is true, then no, people will not definitely pay for music, at least not at a level that supports the production of more music as a living.

It is true that some people will pay for music. In fact it is probably true that some people will pay a LOT for music. And we can see even here in the comments section at El Reg that some people will NEVER pay for music. The question then becomes can you achieve a mix of sales across those various groups such that some people will produce music to make money? Right now that is a very open question.

Re: It could be in the nature of a defensive patent

This is Disney we're talking about. When it comes to mean, they make Dick Butkus look like a cub scout helping a little old lady across the street. After loosing rights to a character he considered his own, he waged a lifelong war to purchase and destroy every copy of the work that existed.

Re: When all else fails, find a scapegoat.

A team of US engineers designed the craft and are responsible for the ongoing servicing of the program.

That bit cannot be repeated often enough. Even if when the investigation is concluded we find that there is a fatal flaw in the engine design, the US engineering team still holds ultimate responsibility because they chose to use that rocket.

Re: Blown up not blew up

The range safety guy is there to blow up the rocket before the rocket blows up when it looks like the rocket might be about to blow up. We are told that's because when the range safety officer blows it up, he blows it up more safely than it would blow up if the rocket simply blew up. So it really is arguing semantics.

Re: even a tried and proven 50 year old design

Except it ISN'T a proven design. In fact, to the extent it is proven, it is proven bad. This particular engine was put into mothballs because of how many problems the Soviets had with it when working on their moon shot program. Not just the design, but the engines themselves.

Re: The engines, albeit 50+ years old, are solid.

No, they aren't. OSC has blown up over half the engines they used to date. The Soviets canceled their moon shot program because they had too many problems with these rocket engines. That's the whole reason these rockets have been mothballed in Siberia for the last 55 years. Maybe the design in good and the manufacture was flawed. Maybe the design has a flaw we haven't recognized. I'll grant the most likely cause was a problem with the OSC refurb or the assembly of the rocket on the pad. But no matter how you slice it, using this particular engine was a BAD decision.

Yes, the root cause of the program is the US Shuttle program. It pretty much scuttled our own rocket engine manufacturing base for the last 30 years. Everybody is now relearning things that should already be well known.

Re: Blade Runner mentality

Given your post, I believe the cop is correct and you did not stop at the stop sign as required.

@DNTP

I saw him at an sf con a little while back. He's still angling for a guest appearance with that other sf Doctor who doesn't have a name. He'll take most rolls, just so long as he doesn't have to play another deranged/pedo killer. Apparently he's had too many of those rolls recently.

@ Loyal Commenter

Look on the bright side. At least this time we bought a piece of it first. We could have just launched the investigation because of trade interference or some such.

Re: cost per aircraft climbing from under $150m to over $400m.

But part of the question there is what is the wording in the contracts for cost cutbacks? The manufacturers are all going to have fixed capital equipment costs regardless of how many planes they make. That still has to be recovered. You do that by upping your per-plane cost or just flat out having a cost to cancel built into the contract. Still it does look like they managed to "save" one third over the original projection.

Yeah I know. Friend of mine works in R&D for the military and I hear all kinds of horror stories about the competency of the people making the machines of war. But even so the problem of covering the capital investment stands.

Re: Rail Guns..

Are you putting a Vulcan gunner on that Gatling Railgun?

Re: Numbers

Maybe. Maybe not. Depends where all the numbers come in. Which you can only figure out from testing.

So can we have our $10 billion for this year? We'll let you know how much we need next year in 360 days.

Re: don't want people knowing how they found out about a plot

That's the key bit. Any time you reveal information about any given specific plot, there is some risk you expose sources and/or methods without realizing that you are doing so. The way a plot develops different people usually know about different pieces. The bad guys know who got nicked as well as who didn't. The mastermind also knows who knew what. That lets them start piecing together likely leaks.

But you're right, more people knowing could lead to better confidence in the bits that are kept secret. It's a tough balancing act.