Posts by AdamSweetman

33,500 employees, not 3,500, still amazing productivity.

What exactly are they trying to do?

It seems a very specific piece of legislation. Its not going to stop people who wish to perform an illegal act anyway (unauthorised surveillance) from performing that act, they are already determined to break 1 law, what's another one?

More sensibly, how about mandating that all remotely operating devices with cameras carry a flashing orange light clearly visible from both the air and ground, this would seem to resolve the hidden surveillance problem whilst also covering a multitude of other potential problems as well, but not limiting legitimate users from enjoying the capability that camera mounted flying toys can bring.

Hilarious

Getting really fed up of the slight of hand distraction politicking lately.

Lets try and get the masses up in arms that the big fat central pot of pay-thrice broadband pork barrel won't be available to subsidize network build out by former-state owned national monopolies who should be doing it anyway!

At least they won't be talking about where the remaining money is actually being spent, for example funding 56,000 bureaucrats on fat expat private school high pension deals.

The question is, what can we do about it?

What avenues are available to the general public to get this disturbingly expensive farce appropriately and independently investigated?

Capture opportunity in 2029?

What would it take to tag and bag this thing in 2029, or at least fiddle with it enough that the subsequent approach places it in a relatively harmless orbit? Delta V would be huge 2029 for sure but it may be worth exploring what force would need to be applied to not leave the next pass to chance, as well as secure it for future use.

Lots of grumbling about the cost of sending meat bags to asteroids, would be a bit silly to pass up an opportunity to grab a juicy one when it comes so close. Exploring an asteroid in NEO would be significantly simpler.

Is this thing big enough to act as an anchor for a nanotube tether?

The one advantage that physical retail has..immediate availability

Last time I went into my local Comet retail store I was shopping for a slimline dishwasher, being the impatient arse that I am, I wanted it to take away. They had 3 in stock TOTAL, and the 3 were all the budget brand. the display range was about 25 models+.

One of the last competitive advantages for physical stores is instant availability, take away now, yet Comet failed to capitalize on this single advantage. If the customer walks in, selects a model, then gets told it will be 8-10 days for delivery, of course they will go home and order it from someone who can deliver it next day. Having a very small selection of take home today items is pretty much useless unless you are very crafty with model selection, which in my case they clearly were not.

Having a shop isn't a bad thing in today's world, but you need to build your model to capitalize on its unique selling points, not try to out-compete the on-line environment by being an advice/selection centre with piss-poor fulfilment.

Looks like a great time to start making drone to drone interceptors, UAV air to air is going to become a decent market pretty soon.

Might be good for the viewing experience, but what does it do to the business model?

Programs need to be funded, revenue generation is essential to the creation process, so....the consumer wants ad-free viewing which is fair enough. Dish are simply serving that need, but what they are not doing is partnering to build an alternative model which is mutually satisfactory between content producer, provider and consumer.

Dish works well due to its subscription model (ironic for Murdoch), but you get charged twice, you pay your subs to Dish, the content networks get a proportion of this, then they also monetize your viewing choice by advert revenue.

One alternative may be to provide add-free channels at a premium over the regular, inserted add model. the other would be move invasion of the product into the program (overlays, placements etc). Another may be to shift the advertising to DISH vs. the network channel, but this marginalizes them further.

What you can't do, and expect it not to have consequences, is just strip away a revenue generator without reconsidering the whole model. I think everyone agrees that the current system isn't ideal, maybe something like nominal subscription fee then micro-transaction per episode may emerge soon (I don't mean iTunes gouging), clearly the consumer wants an add-free model, the real question is how you fund it.

Actually a genius idea

Given that the high quality pirated versions generally get circulated as the discs get near repo (1-2 weeks before retail availability), this 4 week lead time above physical media could potentially lead more people to buy the legitimate version vs. take the torrent then not buy the disk.

Of course, they have to get the pricing attractive, but none the less this is a solid strategy.

UV is by far and away the least contained approach to DRM usage, its built around how MOST people will actually want to consume/use the media. UV in combination with accelerated release time could be a winner.

Power consumption and Thermals?

Yes there will be price pressure, but unless the spinning disks can get the power drain down as well you will have both battery and thermal challenges in what are mostly fan-less designs.

Arguably cheaper SSDs are the way forward, not hybrids, let the market get the price down vs. compromising on the tech.

Resource sub-surface extraction and refining nearing 90%, time they came to collect

Its about time our overlords came to wipe us out anyway, we've nearly done extracting all the usable heavy elements from the crust and refining them into usable grade metals/alloys. Much simpler to upskill a bunch of monkeys and let them dig them out for a few years than get their own hands dirty.

Job nearly done! We've nearly finished the terraforming phase for our CO2 breathing masters as well, what good underlings we are!

Polywell

ITER is more a political activity rather than a scientific endeavor, its also one of the least promising approaches to fusion currently being researched. an awful lot of scientific careers are attached to ITER and its incredibly embarrassing that fundamental technical issues such as confinement still remain unsolved. Its a turkey.

Bussard's take on the Fusor, Polywell, is looking exceedingly promising and is being funded by the US Navy, next year for the next set of results. EMC2 are looking towards commercializing the technology and seeking funding to do so. Its a more promising approach on a quicker path than ITER with a considerably lower cost.