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merrillii's comments

merrillii | 11 years ago | on: PCB rework

Right! That is an awesome repair job but don't try to fix your RaspberryPi board like this. :)

merrillii | 11 years ago | on: Capital vs. labor: who risks more?

They are not practically nothing. After loopholes the average corporate tax rate is something like 17% [1]. This is far lower than the often stated 35% but it is not nothing.

This whole blog post seems to neglect the point that Labor generates Capital. Whether that money is invested or spent it has already been taxed once. Now if the capital generates more money as an investment it will get taxed again on the profits. Likewise if Labor continues to work the income will get taxed as well. The Capital investment has the risk of going to absolute zero. The potential Labor investment cannot go to zero unless the person dies.

[1] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/effective-corpo...

merrillii | 11 years ago | on: Capital vs. labor: who risks more?

One thing to keep in mind is that capital has already been taxed once when it was first generated. Sure, you can bring up tax loopholes and inequality but generally it's true that the remaining capital is after taxes. So an investor risks losing 100% of their after-tax money. Labor risks their pre-tax money only and it is very likely they ca "re-invest" by moving to another job. Once capital is gone it is gone forever.

merrillii | 11 years ago | on: Elon Musk: With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon

For those interested in this topic I would recommend checking out the researcher Nick Bostrom and his book "Superintelligence".

Here's a review snippet: "Nick Bostrom makes a persuasive case that the future impact of AI is perhaps the most important issue the human race has ever faced. Instead of passively drifting, we need to steer a course. Superintelligence charts the submerged rocks of the future with unprecedented detail. It marks the beginning of a new era."—Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science, University of California, Berkley

merrillii | 11 years ago | on: Open-source metal 3D printer

I think your bar is a bit high. Standard milling tolerences are almost 50x higher than what you state. Casting is much worse. The point is that additive printing won't take over the metal world any time soon but it does have some advantages. Try to machine a hollow sphere for example. There are plenty of shapes that can't be traditionally machined.

merrillii | 11 years ago | on: Open-source metal 3D printer

Heating things with a laser is not quite as easy as you might think. Different materials will absorb different wavelengths of light at different rates. So for example a 1um laser might not heat white polyethylene enough while it would melt black ABS. Hot air has the advantage that it is always a consistent temperature regardless of the material.

merrillii | 11 years ago | on: Open-source metal 3D printer

That is true in the USA. In the UK, for example, there is an academic exemption. Practically there would be very little damages that could be shown by infringing a patent once in a lab.

merrillii | 11 years ago | on: Open-source metal 3D printer

In the USA if you knowingly violate a patent you will be responsible for triple damages. For software that would be 3X the revenue generated. This is true even if the violator does not charge - because the person with the patent is still suffering damages (lost revenue). So practically they can force you to remove it if they can show damages - which wouldn't be that hard to show in the Shazam example.
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