Comment Re: Make them occasionally? (Score 1) 110
Show me the how you can create a system where the price totals of all possible combinations of inventory selections result in only (3 or 4) mod 5.
Comment Re: Make them occasionally? (Score 1) 110
So back then, prices were incremented by more than today's quarter.
People need to consider: Rounding to a nickle isn't going to be greater than 2 cents more inaccurate than rounding to pennies. Let's say you live in a backwater state, and still only make $7.25 per hour. Each transaction could potentially cost you at most 10 seconds of extra wages. However, transactions randomly round up and down, so the average error gets reduced by the square root of the number of transactions you make. Statistically speaking, you'll gain or lose only a couple of seconds of your time per purchase. Probably less time than it took to fumble for all those pennies.
But it sucks to be poor. Without pennies, someone who makes $50k per year will gain or lose only milliseconds worth of salary per transaction on average.
"But the stores will set prices so that it always rounds up!!!!1!" -- That only works for one item at most. Savvy shoppers would strategically buy combinations of items that always round down.
Comment Re:Depends on the meaning of "shelf life" (Score 1) 50
Not sure because these chips cost so much to operate in energy costs. If enough efficiency gains are made it would be cheaper to buy and run new ones than to run old ones to do the same tasks. When data center companies start building their own nuclear power plants you know there is a LOT of money to be saved by increasing efficiency.
Comment Look at the bright side (Score 1) 50
In a few years, all of these GPUs will be available on eBay for a few bucks each.
Then I'll finally be able to snag a whole bunch of them and build a Beowulf cluster to run SETI@home faster than anybody else.
Comment Re:Wishful Thinking (Score 1) 178
By the same token, I was reading for years how China's construction market was the biggest bubble in history and was going to pop so hard the nation would be an economic black hole. Is that still going to happen or what?
Comment Re:Fixing CVE Slop? (Score 4, Interesting) 107
Because someone still has to take time to read the slop. Over and over.
That work sounds like a great candidate to offload onto AI!
Submission + - Scientists Discover a Viral Cause of One of The Most Common Cancers (sciencealert.com)
alternative_right writes: The virus, known as beta-HPV, was thought in rare cases to contribute to skin cancer by worsening UV damage, but a recent study suggests it can actually hijack the body's cells to directly drive cancer growth.
A closer genetic analysis revealed something surprising: the beta-HPV had actually integrated itself into the DNA of the woman's tumor, where it was producing viral proteins that helped the cancer thrive.
Before now, beta-HPV had never been found to integrate into cellular DNA, let alone actively maintain a cancer.
A closer genetic analysis revealed something surprising: the beta-HPV had actually integrated itself into the DNA of the woman's tumor, where it was producing viral proteins that helped the cancer thrive.
Before now, beta-HPV had never been found to integrate into cellular DNA, let alone actively maintain a cancer.
Comment Re: Yet CO2 levels have gone up... (Score 1) 166
Look what he responded to.
People toss out a throwaway allegation and then expect you write a dissertation to rebut it.
Submission + - Thanks to a computer model, five Vietnam War MIAs come home (phys.org)
alternative_right writes: In the decades after the war, joint U.S., Laotian and Vietnamese teams mounted several expeditions to search the peak, recovering several of the men lost that day. But the dense vegetation, remote environs and possibility of unexploded munitions at the site, not to mention the sheer size of the mountain, complicated the search for the remaining missing Airmen.
With the expertise of Russell Quick, a Ph.D. graduate in anthropology from UIC and member of the CRIM team, the researchers scanned the mountain with drones to make a digital 3D model of the site. They used a remote sensing technology called LiDAR, which maps the terrain using laser beams aimed at the ground and measuring their reflection back to the aircraft.
The program, trained on images of tropical forests, will ping when it detects an area that looks different from the rest.
"It will not give any alarms to rocks or trees or what you see in a tropical forest. But if you have a belt or something like that, it's an unusual object, and it'll create an alert," said Cetin.
The researchers homed in on several areas of interest and submitted their findings to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
With the expertise of Russell Quick, a Ph.D. graduate in anthropology from UIC and member of the CRIM team, the researchers scanned the mountain with drones to make a digital 3D model of the site. They used a remote sensing technology called LiDAR, which maps the terrain using laser beams aimed at the ground and measuring their reflection back to the aircraft.
The program, trained on images of tropical forests, will ping when it detects an area that looks different from the rest.
"It will not give any alarms to rocks or trees or what you see in a tropical forest. But if you have a belt or something like that, it's an unusual object, and it'll create an alert," said Cetin.
The researchers homed in on several areas of interest and submitted their findings to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.
Comment Re:It won't last. (Score 1) 40
Another way to go would be to keep burning jet fuel but purchase bricks of carbon from a sequestration company that captures it from the air.
I know there are more efficient types of carbon credits, like investing in cleaner energy in the first place, or increased efficient at the point of usage such as insulation, or preserving rainforest that would otherwise be developed.
The problem is all that gets complicated and thus subjective. Maybe carbon credits could work if it is based on a new type of 'coin' that is 1 kg of pure carbon that is chucked into an old mine.
Comment Re:How about (Score 1) 54
That truly is the question for Apple. I don't know how they've held off smartphone commoditization as long as they have.
Submission + - ISRAEL UNVEILS âMILK WITHOUT COWSâ(TM)⦠WOULD YOU DRINK IT? (nerds.xyz)
BrianFagioli writes: A new product called The New Milk is rolling out across Israel, produced through fermentation instead of farming. Remilk and Gad Dairies say it tastes and behaves exactly like traditional dairy, but contains no lactose, no cholesterol, and is certified kosher-pareve. Itâ(TM)s showing up first in cafés before heading to supermarkets in 2026. Supporters call it the future of dairy. Critics say itâ(TM)s science experiment milk.
Comment Re:That dog won't bring home Huntsman's Rewards (t (Score 1) 157
I agree with GP, it's a big kickback scheme for employees that have discretion over business expenses. Most types of card rewards are not reportable as income, which sweetens the deal even further. Score one for the upper-middle-class little guy, I guess...
Comment Re:In theory not a bad idea (Score 3, Insightful) 157
The merchants need to consider that if their competitor down the street still accepts rewards cards, the customers might just switch, and then they've just lost the whole sale. All this over a 1% extra cost to the merchant.
In the meantime, they think nothing of offering things like buy-one-get-one-free deals to lure in a few more customers.
Comment Re:Why does THE STATE have to pay for all this? (Score 1) 235
You can lament all you want, Ken Fluffernutter, but I will not work to pay for your vacation. That's not going to happen. Stop trying to make it happen.
No amount of definition twisting and and grandstanding will change the fact that no, I will not pay for your plane tickets and parcel deliveries.
The taxes I pay are extracted from my income. And my income is compensation for the time I spend working away from my family, breaking my back or numbing my brain and a return on the the skills and education I spent years and many thousands of bucks to get. With the costs of living and housing rising sharply, it's difficult enough as it is. I will NOT spend a single dime on taxes to pay for the vacations of other people.
Not happening, Ken. Pay for your own stuff.
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