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Comment: If it was related to the car... (Score 2) 329

by Dastardly (#46251931) Attached to: Tesla Model S Caught Fire While Parked and Unplugged

Some rare, but possible causes if it has anything to do with the car.

FOD... (Foreign Object Debris) - shorting power to ground anywhere. Doesn't take much especially on a circuit board somewhere, rapidly heats up and melts solder creating and even bigger short and more heat until fire.

Dendrite formation - Very rare and probably requires more than 4 months to happen, but certain components on a high density BGA array the solder can form tendrils towards other solder balls. As the dendrites get close to each other they will short and break kind of like a fuse, but eventually it can become big enough to hold and sustain current generating enough heat to start the solder balls melting driving more current and heat until fire.

Comment: Re:Nice summary (Score 3, Informative) 278

by Dastardly (#44769597) Attached to: Jury Finds Google Guilty of Standards-Essential Patents Abuse Against MS

And, the argument being made by Microsoft and Apple is that patents on rounded corner or bouncing when you slide for a page, or any number of other non-SEP patents should cost more than the patents for the standard and that when a patent is contributed to a standard under FRAND terms that holder loses there ability to enforce that patent via injunction when others choose not to even negotiate a royalty rate. The end result is no patents being contributed to standards, and ending the standard process entirely because the standards can't avoid patents.

Basically, Microsoft and Apple are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs because without standards the whole ecosystem on which their non-essential patents gain their value goes away.

Comment: Re:increase inflation (Score 1) 649

by Dastardly (#42792433) Attached to: Richard Stallman's Solution To 'Too Big To Fail'

If inflation and returns on saved money are consistent then it will have little impact on savings rate. But, in general it is a good idea to try to stabilize the value of the currency, although demand pull inflation needs to be separated from commodity shock inflation since their causes and the actions taken to mitigate are likely different. Demand pull inflation as a result of there being more financial assets (currency) chasing a relatively fixed amount of real goods is mitigated by draining currency via narrowing the deficit of the currency issuing government by raising taxes and/or decreasing spending. And, the reverse when deflation threatens due to recession.

Some of this is automatic, and already exists. On the revenue side, income tax receipts increase as more people have jobs and income tax receipts increase, if incomes increase enough, a progressive income tax causes the deficit to narrow even more. On the spending side, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other safety net spending will tend to decrease, narrowing the deficit further. In an economic down turn when deflation threatens these act in the opposite direction. I would prefer additional more powerful automatic stabilizers, but these are a few examples of controls on demand pull inflation/deflation.

I don't know enough on the commodity side to say how that should be handled, but hoarding of useful commodities via ETFs backed by actual warehoused commodities held off the market should be banned.

Comment: Re:Richard, let me suggest an alteration to your i (Score 1) 649

by Dastardly (#42792293) Attached to: Richard Stallman's Solution To 'Too Big To Fail'

Tax rent seeking revenue progressively, tax profit for sales of goods and services like today.

Rent seeking - Interest, dividends, trading profits, licensing fees (RMS would like that one), political contributions, ...

Allow for a certain amount of rent seeking revenue can be treated as regular revenue and subject to expense deduction. Becoming TBTF is actually a rent seeking behavior, so setting making the rate progressive is an act of taxing rent seeking.

Of note, Adam Smith proposed that taxes on rents are desirable.

Comment: Re:Do you always let interns tell you what to thin (Score 1) 507

by Dastardly (#42553103) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To React To Coworker Who Says My Code Is Bad?

Some times it just takes a different set of eyes. You get buried in the code and things that are not quite right do not jump out at you because you understand it and know it so intimately that you develop blind spots. A fresh set of eyes no matter experience will see things that you simply accept because it does not trigger your "that does not look right" alarms.

Comment: Use the panels for 1080P Passive 3D (Score 4, Insightful) 442

by Dastardly (#42541097) Attached to: The Trouble With 4K TV

The more interesting step to me would be 1920x2160 panels for 1080P passive 3D. Right now passive 3D polarizes alternate lines so at 1080P it is more like 1920x540 per eye. Which probably is perceived by the brain like 1920x700 or something like that. If no one makes a 1920x2160 panel I presume it could be done with a 4K panel.

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