Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Framing? (Score 5, Insightful) 315

This is possibly the most deliberately confusing way to try to explain our chances of war to anyone. Twenty minutes to midnight means a 0% chance? Why are we restricting a scale designed to have 720 minutes to just 20? This is just designed to scare people (for whatever reason) into thinking war is more probable than it really is. I have no problem with the panel, just the manner in which they displayed their results.

Comment Re:Small time (Score 1) 111

Part of it is that when you inflate an asset class domestically, there will be a reaction abroad. Let's say the real asset value of a house in the US is $X, and an equivalent property elsewhere is $Y. If in the US $X house is overpriced to, say aX where a>1, we would expect to see an equivalent investment abroad rise to bY, where there is a function f(a) = b (as there won't be a perfect correlation). HOWEVER, the net result is that one could hedge out most of the location/currency risk and be left purely investing on the value of the home. So, abroad people start buying houses at bY, which appears to be the rational price. Then, when everyone finds out that in the US the real value of the home is $X, prices fall, and pull down houses abroad to $Y. TLDR: housing abroad is affected because housing getting more expensive in the US makes housing more attractive elsewhere, and investors will try to arbitrage that.

Comment Re:PGP, GPG, etc. (Score 1) 71

Because the encryption technology currently available to the average user is pretty much useless if the NSA or other government agency takes an interest in your e-mail..

THIS is misleading. Maximum strength PGP encryption is virtually uncrackable, first of all. Second, the laws concerning cracking encrypted files are different from the authority necessary to get emails without a court order. I fault the courts here - make the court order process easier, but never, ever let anything be done without the approval of the justice system.

Comment Re:Removes more than it adds (Score 4, Insightful) 202

As a University of Chicago student, something that I think many people won't take into consideration here is how the library is geared toward the student body. The majority of students use the library as a place to work, rather than a place to get books. And honestly, as someone who does a fair amount of (economic) research, I don't even go to the library until I know what book I'm going to get (I have access to the online library catalog). I think most students view the new library as a cool new place to do work, rather than another place to find books at.

Comment Re:Nothing new to see here (Score 1) 373

I remember reading an interview with a Prison Break executive who said "So and so died in the 2nd season but we found a way to plausibly bring her back." Although I don't watch that show, if I did something like that would be a deal breaker for my continued viewership. I hate, hate HATE cheap plot toys to keep characters around.

On the other hand, sometimes a show like Fringe comes up with a clever way of retaining a character, e.g. flashbacks or alternate reality where a character is still alive.

Comment Re:'understand' ? (Score 2) 150

But what can one legally do? I wish there was a career path or something that I could do to stop this and similar abuses of power by the government, but short of spending 30 years entrenching myself in the system (at which point I'm sure the economic benefits of prolonging corruption will outweigh any lasting moral compulsions not to) to right some minor wrongs, what can a citizen do? Sadly, I think nothing. Most people I speak to about their rights either don't understand what the rights are, or why we need them, and some think that less privacy means more safety. I don't think the masses can comprehend what is occurring, and the educated few don't have the manpower or public outrage to take a stand. It's depressing, really...

Slashdot Top Deals

"Well, social relevance is a schtick, like mysteries, social relevance, science fiction..." -- Art Spiegelman

Working...