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Comment: Re:LTE for the win (Score 1) 105

by sir-gold (#46361821) Attached to: Crowded US Airwaves Desperately In Search of Spectrum Breathing Room

LTE's coverage has little to do with the LTE technology itself, and more to do with the very high frequencies that are usually used for LTE, because the lower frequencies were already in use (the higher the frequency is, the shorter the range and wall penetration will be)

Once the older technologies like EDGE and HSPA are deactivated, it will free up the lower frequencies for LTE, and LTE's range and wall penetration ability will automatically improve

Comment: They shouldn't have published the list (Score 1) 172

by sir-gold (#46301151) Attached to: Google Fiber Pondering 9 New Metro Areas



I have yet to hear of a single fiber rollout (other than fios) that hasn't been challenged in court at least once

Comment: Dr Who is paid with taxes (Score 2) 116

by sir-gold (#46262087) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Is Crowd Funding the Future of Sci-Fi?

Dr Who isn't made by netflix, and the fact that netflix carries it has nothing to do with the production of the show

Dr Who is created using a third method that you completely glossed-over, which is government aid for the arts.

The BBC has been making great entertainment and news programs since the early days of radio, paid entirely by every Americans favorite dirty word: TAXES

Comment: Re:Pre-scarcity = revolution (Score 1) 888

by sir-gold (#46256647) Attached to: Star Trek Economics

it's invested in low-risk, high to moderate-liquidity investments.

So it's just like a bank account, except they get MORE money than what they put in?

Stock dividends are capital gains, which are taxed

Capital gains taxes go down every year, and are now lower than the income tax rate

Even if it's shipped offshore, it can be taxed if there is political will to do so.

There doesn't seem to be "the will to do so" in Ireland, Bermuda, or the Cayman Islands, which is where most of these offshore account are.

Comment: Re:Stop Sniveling! (Score 1) 717

by sir-gold (#46256497) Attached to: Your 60-Hour Work Week Is Not a Badge of Honor

Why do people blame Obama for this? It's not his fault that the rich bankers built themselves a house of cards. He isn't the one who invented balloon payments, or gave home loans to people who clearly couldn't pay them back.

The only thing he did wrong was trying to bail out the banks instead of just letting them fail

Comment: Management's Idea (Score 2) 717

by sir-gold (#46256409) Attached to: Your 60-Hour Work Week Is Not a Badge of Honor

The Papa John's Pizza franchise in Minnesota (PJCOMN corp) would pay it's general managers (GMs) a salary based on a 40-hour work week, but required that all GMs schedule themselves for a minimum of 50 hours per week.

At the store I worked at, 2 of our shift leads quit at the same time, leaving only the GM and one shift lead to run it for over a month. This meant that both of those people were working 60+ hours a week. Because shift leads are paid hourly, and GMs were paid fixed-salary, the shift lead ended up making more than twice as much per week as the GM.

In other words, people on salary who work more than 40 hours a week are simply being taken advantage of by their employer, and the employer loves it when you work 60 hours for 40 hours worth of pay

Comment: Re:Pre-scarcity = revolution (Score 1) 888

by sir-gold (#46253391) Attached to: Star Trek Economics

It's not "going somewhere," unless that somewhere is an off-shore bank account.

The company isn't going to spend more than it absolutely has to on wages and overhead. The surplus money goes into stock dividends, executive bonuses, political contributions, and (anti-)competitive acquisitions.

Trickle-down economics didn't work in the 80s, and it doesn't work today either.

Comment: Re:Pre-scarcity = revolution (Score 1) 888

by sir-gold (#46249429) Attached to: Star Trek Economics

In the longer term, competition will drive out the crazy profit margins and goods will just be fantastically cheap

Your assumption is that those crazy profits won't be used to stifle competition, which is exactly what DOES happen right now.

Company A makes some product with a 50% markup, while Company B makes the same thing at a 20% markup. Your assumption is that people will start buying from company B, and the price of the product will drop.
What happens in reality is that Company A feels threatened by this competition and uses all the profit from their 50% markup to either buy Company B outright (forming Company AB with a 50% markup), or if that isn't possible, Company A will use those profits to bribe politicians into making company B illegal (which is happening right now in Utah with Tesla Motors)

Comment: Re:Horseshit ... (Score 1) 888

by sir-gold (#46249297) Attached to: Star Trek Economics

We have unequal distribution of resources because of greed and opportunism, not because of scarcity.

There is more than enough food and energy for everyone, but there are too many powerful people trying to convince us of scarcity, in order to artificially deflate perceived supply and inflate demand to maximize profits.

Comcast internet is a perfect example of this. They claim that there is a very limited supply of bandwidth, and that is the reason for low speeds and high prices, but then they put a lie to that claim by turning home routers into wifi hotspots, using the bandwidth that they claimed doesn't exist.

People aren't starving in Africa because there is "not enough food", people are starving because it's more profitable to sell that food to someone else.

Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file!