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User: warrior389

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  1. ECG iphone app on Fighting the Number-One Killer In the US With Data · · Score: 1

    I just bought this iphone case with built in wireless ecg. Its a little disappointing as I don't get the display thats on the picture. All I get is a notification box that says "normal" with no readouts or gauges, and not even what my heart rate was. Theres an option to turn on prescription mode, but you have to get a prescription from your doctor, scan it, and send it in to the manufacturer. I think this is a good start, but it would be better if it had the option of adding more electrodes and actually showing the user some useful information.

  2. Let down on Myst Was Supposed To Change the Face of Gaming. What Is Its Legacy? · · Score: 2

    I remember being excited waiting for it to come out, then it turned out to not be a real 3d game. I was so disappointed. Doom and Duke Nukem 3D were the ones that changed gaming.

  3. Re:Just buy insurance...it's honestly that simple. on Ask Slashdot: IT Contractors, How's Your Health Insurance? · · Score: 1

    I agree, everybody should include their location when they post these prices. I posted earlier but didn't include the state. $1200/mo for family group BCBS PPO medical+prescription in Maryland. An equivalent plan through the same BCBS provider but not through a group was $1500/mo. ($10/$20/$50 office/specialist/hospital) $10 generics. $0 deductible. 100% in-network coverage on most thing.

  4. Contractor on Ask Slashdot: IT Contractors, How's Your Health Insurance? · · Score: 1

    I'm a contractor through a medium-sized employer of about 1000 people. My family of 5 (wife + 3 kids) pays about $1200/mo for our BCBS group medical+prescription PPO. Dental is another $50/mo. No vision coverage -- paid out of pocket for laser surgery about 5 years ago. My employer pays half and I pay the other half. We have no deductible, $10 co-pays, and $10 generics prescriptions. We are a generally healthy family, eat well, and exercise (triathlons!)

    We had one kid, it was going well and thought "lets just have one more"... ended up with twins. Our twins were born last year, 10 weeks early due to an emergency c-section after the wife got sick from our oldest kid. It was $10k each for the c-sections (you'd think there would be a discount to get the second one out!) After all the delivery expenses plus wife's week in the hospital the total delivery cost $30k. The girls then had to stay in the Level IIIC NICU for 6 weeks. Total amount that the insurance company PAID ended up being just over $300,000. The providers asked for about $500,000. Only thing they didn't cover was the $500 ambulance ride to the hospital. We spent about 3 months getting them to pay for the c-sections due to an incorrect billing code that neither the provider nor the insurance company seemed to care about fixing.

    Overall it seems pretty expensive, but I hardly ever have any problems with them. I've never tested it for anything serious besides the twins, however. When comparing prices, make sure to factor in both the employer and employee payments. I have no idea where these $300/mo plans for a family of 5 are coming from. I looked for an individual health plan 2 years ago when I was thinking about going out own my own and at first BCBS said they wouldn't give somebody an individual plan after they had been on a group plan. Finally they gave us a price of $1500/mo.

    I often review the claims when the insurance company sends them to me. It is almost universal that the provider asks for 2x to 4x more than insurance ends up paying. I'm not sure if I'd get a discount or not if I offered to pay cash before a regular visit.

  5. Corporate Intranets on Windows 8 To Fight Piracy With the Cloud · · Score: 1

    That sounds great for corporate intranets. More security features that make it hard for paying people to get their work done.

  6. Moving to LotRO on World of Warcraft Finally Loses Subscribers · · Score: 1

    Everybody I know has been moving over to LotRO

  7. The Quest, from Redshift on Ask Slashdot: Best Adventure Game To Start With? · · Score: 1

    I was looking for the old dungeons and dragons games a while back and I ran across The Quest, from Redshift. They have it for iOS also. Its very cool and is only $10. They have an expansion pack as well. Also, there are good 3rd party expansions from Zarista Games. Its very fun.

  8. Re:Interpret it correctly on Publishing Company Puts Warning Label on Constitution · · Score: 1

    mod up

  9. Re:Can a nettop that can run media centre software on XBMC Discontinues Xbox Support · · Score: 1

    I got an Acer Aspire Revo with the single core from best buy for $199. It runs windows 7 and boxee just fine. 1080p h.264 videos are flawless over hdmi. I also like the boxee remote control for the iPhone.

  10. Re:Interesting, but... on Russian Man Aims To Reinvent "Taser" Technology · · Score: 1

    There's a show on now that follows Oregon police. I don't remember its name or the channel, but they show regular taser use. The police use the tasers to force compliance to their orders, not to defend themselves. Often the citizen isn't being agressive. So much for being a replacement to the firearm.

  11. Re:Mohammed? on Pakistan Court Orders Facebook Ban Over Mohammed Images · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You mean just like Saint Joseph the pedophile, husband of Mary the Mother of Jesus. Just seems like you're implying that Islam is unique in this. It was common at the time for girls to marry around 13.

  12. Re:Cloud? on Diskless Booting For the Modern Age · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My grandfather was telling me about how he used to walk inside of an old cray with 5 processors like 50 years ago. What happened to the people who used to know how to program those things efficiently? Apparently multi-core programming isn't so new.

  13. Re:"Not for ________ use" on Wii Balance Board Gives $18,000 Medical Device a Run For Its Money · · Score: 1

    A fair profit margin is 100% or more.

    I don't know what business *you're* in, but 100% is ridiculous. It looks like the average US corporate profit margin in 2006 was 8.5%.

    I'm in a government regulated business and Washington sets our profit at 8% or even 4% sometimes. No reason health care shouldn't get fixed at 4% profit margin too.

  14. Text 'haiti' to 90999 on Digital Fundraising Booms For Haiti Relief · · Score: 1

    Text 'haiti' to 90999

    I can't believe its not in the article or been edited to go in the summary.

    http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/01/14/cashmore.haiti.earthquake.relief.technology/

    Also this was on Colbert last night

  15. Snap Circuits on Science Gifts For Kids? · · Score: 1

    These are awesome, and are good for younger kids too!

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=snap+circuits&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10

  16. Re:Reduced Effort in World of Warcraft on Ask Blizzard About Starcraft2, Diablo III, WoW, or Battle.net · · Score: 1

    This is the same thing that would happen in the real world if we were all immortal. It is why life has meaning. Characters should die when they get old. Items that are bound to that character will disappear. There could be a memorial wall for important characters.

  17. Re:Missing the point. on Feds At DefCon Alarmed After RFIDs Scanned · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You can buy these systems now. I did the 3d tracking interface for this. Low cost phased array antenna with a really long read range. http://www.rfctrls.com/ If they had this at the conference they could have done realtime 3d tracking of everybody threre and had the cameras follow people.

  18. webservice? on US Federal Government Launches Data.gov · · Score: 1

    is this just a list of data from other government sites? why no central proxy, web services, atom feeds, or other useful features besides just linking?

  19. It was like the whole net was down on Confirmed Gmail / Google App Outage · · Score: 1

    while I was trying to get work done today. This was pretty scary. I mean, besides not being able to search google and check my email, there are other sites that wouldn't work. Some apache projects and also nabble use google analytics apparently, so I couldn't even load those pages. Also, I couldn't load slashdot's main page because it apparently uses googleads or something like that. What suggestions to people have for this? What other sites were not accessible during the outage?

  20. Date? on Rubber Band Machine Gun · · Score: 1

    Is there a date on the patent for this "patented star-shaped wheel?" I've had a 12 shot rubber band gun rifle with one of these stars for about 10 years. I got it at a state fair back in the day, and they had one of these gatling guns there too, but I was younger and didn't have the money to get one.

  21. Re:Too much "head-down time" on Complete PC instead of a Car Stereo · · Score: 1

    You know, I've been thinking about that too. How would you account for different positions of the drivers head? I have a simple HUD in my car with RPM, speed, gas, oil, etc., but if I move more than a couple inches in either direction, I have to adjust it again. Now if this setup covered the whole windshield I couldn't just shift the thing left or right when I moved my head. And that completly leaves out the front passenger. They wouldn't see the right thing at all.

    Ideas?

  22. Re:Communication to the dark side (of the moon).. on Putting An Observatory On The Moon's 'Dark' Side · · Score: 1

    Alternatively have 2 geostationary sats such that the observatory can transmit to one, and that one transmits to another one it can "see" which has line of sight to earth.

    Wouldn't that be selenecentric then?

  23. Re:DOS Software on MS DOS: A Eulogy · · Score: 1

    These guys are german, aren't they.

  24. Who'duv thought they'd gone this long... on Slashback: Retail, Preparedness, Games · · Score: 1

    Also, this story today says a U.S. spy tipped off the Germans that the Enigma code had been broken but they didn't believe it.

    And after all this time... silly Germans ;)

  25. Re:Funny Posts on Slashdot Updates · · Score: 1

    I agree. I posted the same request before but was never modded up. As a graduate student in CS, I often find myself hiding in the corner with my laptop after 3 hour long lectures, frantically searching for those rare but satisfying "5, Funny"s

    So, I second this... how about a "Funniest First"