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What is your "never again" brand, item, store, or restaurant ? by radbrad7in AskReddit

[–]mdreed 0 points1 point ago

Thats not really true anymore. People have been having a lot of trouble competing with the MacBook Air on price, for example. Or the iPad. And the other products are comparable to equivalently high end PC products.

I agree it usually makes no sense to get one for gaming, which is why I built my own. And I agree with OP, it is a lot of fun to tinker and build your own.

What is your favorite logo? Hartford rebranding campaign underway. by kendo581in Connecticut

[–]mdreed 1 point2 points ago

I don't really like any, but two is the best. Three reminds me of Enron.

Endgame for the Euro? by spikein Economics

[–]mdreed 1 point2 points ago

The effective value of a bond, if you were to sell it before it comes to term, is a function both of the initial capital and the interest rate compared to what you could get with a new bond. If you were to buy a bond, then have the interest rate on new bonds go up, you would only be able to sell your old bond at a price lower than your capital investment.

This is of course also a function of how long the bond has until coming to term, so any bond value will asymptote to its capital backing as it approaches maturity.

Entitled rich kid by babblingblingin AdviceAnimals

[–]mdreed 5 points6 points ago

I bet that's not true.

The Wall Street Journal Has Been Fox-ified by RaoulRubinin politics

[–]mdreed 13 points14 points ago

*couldn't care less

President Obama Endorses Gay Marriage on ABC Nightly News by mike8787in politics

[–]mdreed 0 points1 point ago

You have that account? Does it come up that often?

DPReview on the D800 by testing78378in photography

[–]mdreed 0 points1 point ago

You joke, but Canon's camera of the future concept was basically that. It just always films ultra high resolution video, and you post select from that pictures you like.

http://gizmodo.com/5580300/canons-camera-of-the-future

Lately the GOP base believe Obama should be tried for treason yet these same people say G.W. Bush was innocent and should go free. Do they live on another planet? by one_of_redditin politics

[–]mdreed 0 points1 point ago

Putting aside what Bush did, it may be worth noting that impeachment does not require specific laws to have been violated. Only that Congress holds that the president is not fit to continue to hold office.

House approves Sunday sales of alcohol, 116-27 by bender28in Connecticut

[–]mdreed 2 points3 points ago

Okay. But why do I care? It unambiguously helps the consumer. Why should the government help prop up these businesses at a direct cost to customers?

TIL the Soviet Union created a laser tank by Kanteiin todayilearned

[–]mdreed 0 points1 point ago

I am extremely doubtful of this explanation. A Ruby laser has a very narrow spectrum that would be almost trivial to filter out. It would literally be a matter of painting an additional optical coating on your sensors.

Moreover, the optics would absolutely not be "destroyed" as you say above. At worst, they would be disabled during the time the laser was shining on them. Which wouldn't be long with a laser that big powered by batteries.

I just realized that my daughter is a stuck up bitch. How do i punish her? by pretzelchipin AskReddit

[–]mdreed 1 point2 points ago

Come on man, that was a pretty good answer. It's like you're trying to pick a fight here.

TIL Superfluid Helium-4 can leak through glass, climb over walls, and has zero friction by godulousin todayilearned

[–]mdreed 8 points9 points ago

Well hopefully without the pop.

Wouldn't signal strength be the most important metric? by samaddamsin iphone

[–]mdreed 1 point2 points ago

Probably not. Signal to noise ratio is much more important. The reason they don't show it is because it typically changes very rapidly, and people get confused or upset that their SNR changes by a factor of ten or whatever every few minutes. Signal strength is more constant and somewhat indicative of strength, so they use that instead.

Modern Kitchen [1280x801] by boding_bunnyin RoomPorn

[–]mdreed 6 points7 points ago

Why do they have that wall blocking the water view in the kitchen? Also, I dont like having glass doors on the fridge. I have to keep that neat and tidy too now? ;-)

What the hell Drawsomething!?! by morningscifiin iosgaming

[–]mdreed 0 points1 point ago

or bbiirrdd. or birdbird

Why do Space Shuttles burn up on re-entry, but not when they are leaving the Earth? by footlong24sevenin askscience

[–]mdreed 1 point2 points ago*

Erm.. your calculations seem off by a factor of a thousand or so. 1/2 m v2 + mgh for your altitude and velocity, given that the mass of the shuttle is about 2,000 tonnes is more like 2 million megajoules. That's also excluding, of course, loss from air resistance and the entire mass of the fuel, rocket engines, and fuel tanks.

Edit: Integrating the thrust of the shuttle (from Wikipedia, it says 83% of the takeoff thrust is 2 * 12.5 MN) using your 45 km altitude and assuming the trajectory is well-approximated by a quarter of a circle gives a similar number, 2.1 million megajoules, which implies that not much energy is lost to air resistance, and likely that the weight I found is really the takeoff weight and not the shuttle alone.

Edit 2: Yep 2000 tonnes is the liftoff weight, including everything.

Dr. Tyson by rplushin vertical

[–]mdreed 6 points7 points ago

I could see that regarding iOS, but why with Macs? The OS is based on an open source kernel, the developer tools are free, there is a huge open source effort based at apple (Darwin, WebKit, etc), and so on.

Now if you're talking about the hardware itself, that may be a different matter. But I don't really see why not being able to upgrade your graphics card on an iMac is something to be "opposed".

Is it possible to make an alpha particle gun? by RobRobsterin askscience

[–]mdreed 0 points1 point ago

It should also probably be noted that alpha particles are exceptionally easy to shield against. A few mm of lead or other dense metal would attenuate the beam by many orders of magnitude.

How Apple is perpetuating throw-away culture by designing it's devices to be near impossible to open or fix by rollercoasterbaffoonin TrueReddit

[–]mdreed 0 points1 point ago

I think ifixit's point is not the obsolescence it's the recyclability. Apple makes a big point of saying their devices are largely recyclable glass and metal, but that is useless if those materials cannot be easily separated from non-recyclable components like the battery.

Obviously it would also be nice for components to be easily third-party replaceable, but that's not the argument they're making.

Moving to New Haven for Grad School by carina1225in yale

[–]mdreed 1 point2 points ago

This man speaks the truth. Living the places you mentioned would require a car, and is off the Yale bus route so it would be difficult for other people to visit you. If you're okay with commuting and never having anyone visit, go for it! But otherwise I'd look at one of those three places mentioned above. I might add the Dwight street area also, which is sort of downtown but much cheaper because its closer to the 'bad' side of town. But don't go too far north, or it actually does get bad.

New York Times CEO leaves with $23 million in compensation. The paper made less than $3 million in the last 4 years. by delbinin news

[–]mdreed 5 points6 points ago

I wish they would lower their prices. I would absolutely get a subscription if it were $5-10/mo with iphone and ipad included, but I am willing to put up with the inconvenience of bypassing their paywall when the alternative costs what they ask. I wouldn't be surprised if this were true of enough people that cutting the price would increase total revenue.

What is one non-sexual thing you do that makes you want to moan with pleasure every time? by contagious6in AskReddit

[–]mdreed 1 point2 points ago

Taking out my contacts after a long day.

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