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User: davolfman

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  1. Statistics analysis on Big Talk About Small Samples · · Score: 1

    Basic stats Margin of Error for 95% confidence on the first stat is plus-or-minus 12.2%
    Same confidence is plus or minus 12.4% on the second.
    .23*47 = 10.81 at least 10 successes and failures expected (just barely)
    .3*54 = 16.2 at least 10 successes or failures

    Randomness of the sample is unknown. This could be a problem.

    We have less than 10% of the population so we don't have to worry about a sample that's too large.

    Conclusion: if the sampling method is reasonably random then assuming a normal model is reasonably valid.

    Unfortunately both values are within .57 standard deviations of eachother. There is a very good chance with sample sizes this small that both are recording the same population parameter with different sampling errors. Larger sample sizes would reduce the standard deviation (proportional to inverse square root of number of sample) and make it easier to say that there was a definitive difference between the two.

  2. Re:The answer is obvious on Ask Slashdot: E-ink Reader For Academic Papers? · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nook Simple Touch's and Glowlights are technically Android and once rooted can run Moon+ last I checked. Rooted Nooks alse run the Kindle app if you pick the right version. Best of all worlds.

  3. Reduce range, not power on Ask Slashdot: Dealing With an Advanced Wi-Fi Leech? · · Score: 1

    If you're running something like dd-wrt reduce the accepted round trip time (ACK timing). It looks like the default is over a mile. If you reduce it to about 50 meters give-or-take you might be able to cut him off entirely.

  4. Re:You'd think they'd have learned their lesson. on Apple Considering Switch Away From Intel For Macs · · Score: 1

    True, but... Multithreaded design is hard (except in shell scripting). Watt usage will be important for the vast majority of the market, namely laptops and smaller, and even now power is getting expensive enough to move me to my laptop for all light usage. Streaming instructions are best for problems that would already benefit well from multiple cores and OpenCL in many cases. Not saying your wrong, just adding some counter detail.

  5. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson. on Apple Considering Switch Away From Intel For Macs · · Score: 2

    Not to knock ARM, but A: I don't know that they have a design for a desktop processor yet (most of their designs seem to be in the Atom/Bobcat realm tops) B: With the absolutely massive amounts of money Intel put's into their Tick-Tock development cadence they have both pretty much the most optimized desktop/laptop architecture their is, and probably the most significant process advantage in the history of semiconductors. Honestly given the way both Intel and AMD have been able to use out-of-order execution and pipelining to achieve multiple Instructions Per Clock and multi-gigahertz clocks on a CISC-backed-by-microcode architecture I'm not convinced RISC actually has an advantage in practice. In addition Apple is stuck with the foundries, the same as pretty much anybody but IBM, and so pretty much CAN'T begin to produce a chip that will compete with Intel's best when comes to raw performance or performance-per-watt. For those reasons this would be pretty foolish any time in the next several years. Even if a decade from now they can work past it they will still be stuck fighting off the suspicion that they don't have the advantage they claim to, the one that more or less was true at the end of their use of PowerPC chips.

  6. Re:It's in all those funny looking headlights on Where Has All the Xenon Gone? · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because the a-hat tailgating you in a lifted truck with xenon headlights ruins your nightvision.

  7. Re:SystemC on Startup Claims C-code To SoC In 8-16 Weeks · · Score: 2

    Last I heard from people who use it on a daily basis, SystemC's synthesis tools weren't really mature enough to use seriously. It IS great for building a model to test your simulations from a purpose-built HDL against though.

  8. Like that's going to happen. on Denver Must Prove Red-Light Cameras Improve Safety · · Score: 1

    We are talking about a state that makes traffic stops with UNMARKED VEHICLES! Denver's respect for public safety is essentially nill.

  9. Re:Flint is extremely sharp on Ask Slashdot: One Framework To Rule Them All? · · Score: 1

    Could you provide links and details? Mostly to satisfy my curiosity. Steel is NOT a singular substance. If you vary the formula you get different hardnesses and different grain sizes and structures. And last I saw some flint it looked pretty grainy. I could easily believe that obsidian could take a sharper edge than surgical steels for at least a single cut (especially since it looks like they may be formulated for hardness and corrosion resistance resulting in large grains). I bet you though that a good high-vanadium alloy or similar like the stuff in some high-end pocket knives probably attains a sharper edge than surgical steel with a good sharpening technique. And after a few cuts it probably has a better edge than the obsidian. Absolute sharpness is probably NOT the overriding market consideration for surgical steels. It might be worth noting that Wikipedia's pages for steels seem to be much worse than they used to be.

  10. Less than useful - it uses EBL! on Table Salt Could Help Boost HDD Storage Density By a Factor of 5 · · Score: 1

    Honestly why does no one seem to notice the part about this where the salt is being used in a "photo" resist for Electron Beam Lithography. That's beam - as in every single surface feature needs to be drawn by a beam of electrons one at a time. The amount of time and expense that would go into the construction of even one 3.5" platter is staggering. Yes it's cool and all but only a military application or James Bond could justify it; ever. An improvement to a mass-produced technology that makes it impossible (and I do mean impossible unless someone comes up with a magical quantum mechanical wave interference pattern that forms the magnetic regions all at once or something) to mass produce is no improvement at all.

  11. Re:Someone's math is wrong on Department of Justice: FBI Too Focused On Child Porn · · Score: 1

    Removing a market is blatantly impossible. The market is always the larger target. For example: prohibition, the war on drugs, filesharing, knockoff merchandise. You can't even always take out the producers but you'll never get more than an endless stream of arrests out of targeting the market.

  12. You can tape my punchtape when you pry it... on UK Controllers Say Air Traffic System 'Not Safe' · · Score: 2

    Am I the only who seems to notice that the old system apparently ran off ticker tape somehow? WTF! How do you even make that work? If these people have been working on such a system that long no wonder they have trouble training them to a new system, it must all be reflex by now like driving a stick shift.

  13. Re:Top Ten Things to do with FBI Tracking Devices on College Student Finds GPS On Car, FBI Retrieves It · · Score: 1

    How about use the FCC ID on the thing to look up the manual and other related documents. Apparently it's meant for surveying work originally. "The GRS receiver is a single-frequency, GPS+GLONASS L1 L2receiver and hand-held controller built to be the most advanced, compact, and portable receiver for the GIS surveying market. An integrated electronic compass and digital camera make the GRS an all-purpose, GIS field mapping unit." https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?mode=Exhibits&RequestTimeout=500&calledFromFrame=N&application_id=933914&fcc_id='O9EQ2438F-M'

  14. Re:HDR? on HDR Video a Reality · · Score: 4, Informative

    They used more of a dragan-ish style of HDR here. They set it up to preserve local contrast at the expense of actually mapping brightnesses linearly. That's why it looks so freakish: some tones are brighter than other tones that should have a physically higher brightness.

  15. Re:funny on Charles Darwin's Best-Kept Secret · · Score: 1

    That almost sounds like a similar amount of CO2 to Earth atmosphere, with everything else stripped away. With enough nitrogen and enough water that almost sounds to me like you could grow some sort of photosynthetic life. Not that you'd ever have enough oxygen for much animal life.

  16. Re:Also worth watching on 9 Ideas For Coping With Space Junk · · Score: 1

    Don't forget "A woman saving human spaceflight and thereby current human civilization so she can finally get a smoke break."

  17. Re:The perfect solution has already been worked ou on 9 Ideas For Coping With Space Junk · · Score: 1

    Planetes: Never has the orbital equivalent of litter picking been portrayed as more of an epic job.

  18. Re:Will the same happen to phones? on Technology Changes To Kill Netbooks? · · Score: 1

    Nobody likes netbooks, because of a lack of margin, so they keep trying to make newer more expensive models which I'm not sure are ever purchased. They would like to believe that they are insufficient for most users, but they aren't. A system that I can watch television-quality streaming video on (Hulu stutters alot more than Youtube) is not underperforming. They've been making bank for so many years on expensive desktop replacements that they really don't like the idea of people switching to a cheaper, better desktop for power and a cheaper, better netbook for portability like the geeks have been doing and killing all their margin.

  19. Re:Shoot em up? on Space Sails Could Bring Used Rockets Back To Earth · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yeah, no. We don't have anywhere near the weapons tech needed to actually vaporize orbiting objects, it would just take too much power. All we can do is push them out of orbit, or scatter them into even more orbits as shrapnel.

  20. Re:Troll? Really? on Why Republicans Won't Retake Silicon Valley · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a troll because it's insulting. It needs no other reason.

  21. Re:Another use on A Monster LED Array For Irresponsible Fun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's functional on IE 6. Which really doesn't do much for this guys geek cred.

  22. Re:Great idea on New Data Center Will Heat Homes In London · · Score: 1

    It's how I heat my bedroom.

  23. Re:Amazing(not) on Visualizing Data Inside the 30-ft Allosphere · · Score: 1

    University of Utah has been doing haptics like that for a long time.

  24. Re:How about a method for electronically hailing c on NYC Wants Ideas For "Taxi Technology 2.0" · · Score: 1

    Every livery cab service in New York already does this. You aren't allowed to pick up hailing passengers unless your a medallion-holding yellow cab. Obviously there some convenience or efficiency advantage in hailing a cab or else these licenses wouldn't cost a small fortune like they do. I'm not sure why New York keeps squeezing the shield-holders like this, they get criticized more than enough for even having the shield system in the first place without forcing extra expensive changes on the cab owners.

  25. Re:But on Using Net Proxies Will Lead To Harsher Sentences · · Score: 1

    Ignorance of the law would be no excuse if the code of law was rational, knowable, and sane. Like it was for the Romans who probably coined the phrase. We left that behind long ago.