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  1. Re: Canâ(TM)t participate in the study :-( on Can Researchers Detect Irregular Heart Rhythms with the Apple Watch? (usatoday.com) · · Score: 1

    If you have a fib, even intermittent a fib, then presumably you are being treated or at least was given the option for treatment. I would presume they did a study comparing the watch to implantable rhythm monitors to determine its accuracy. It would be nice if they published this info.

  2. No it cannot unless the person has symptoms in which case they probably have been diagnosed. The purpose of the study is to detect a fib in those who do not know that they have it. These are going to be almost exclusively intermittent a fib and asymptomatic. The watch will be constantly monitoring for an irregularly irregular pulse,

  3. Re:How hard is it to find emails? on FBI Finds 14,900 More Documents From Hillary Clinton's Email Server (go.com) · · Score: 1

    You do know that at least her top aide Huma Abedin also used that private server. So yes, with better computer hygiene, those emails would have been wiped as well.

  4. Re:There had to be a first case... on US Regulators Investigating Tesla Over Use of 'Autopilot' Mode Linked To Fatal Crash (cnbc.com) · · Score: 1

    It looks like this is an area that the car sensor's do not see. Similar to this accident. http://www.techtimes.com/artic... The solution I think is to turn off autopilot until they put in sensors that see higher in front of the car.

  5. Re: I would hardly call R obscure. on The Most Important Obscure Languages? · · Score: 1

    I loved APL. Unless it got more popular after the early 80s, I think it was obscure. At Rice, it was used only by the Chemical Engineers which was about 7% of the student body.

  6. Re: Wrong! on The Groups Behind Making Distributed Solar Power Harder To Adopt · · Score: 1

    Why do solar PV fans continue to think the you do anything to reduce peak power? In the summer - peak power extends well beyond sundown. Therefore, you have to build a "brown" usually natural gas - producing plant that sits and only produces power for a few hours to compensate when the PV panels stop producing electricity. Those guys should get fuel rates for excess power only and are being subsidized by everyone else. Solar thermal on the other hand - see Andasol - produces power through the peak - those guys actually reduce peak power demands on other plants and should be paid accordingly.

  7. Re:So which kind of solar is it? on Apple Invests $848 Million Into Solar Farm · · Score: 2

    Peak load goes for about 4 hours beyond sunset. Solar thermal can cover this peak load. With Solar PV - you have to build plants that are only used 4 hours per day. http://www.caiso.com/outlook/S... Cooking birds is a real problem for some forms of solar thermal plants but not the solar trough plants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.... If your only goal is to prevent CO2 release and cost of electricity does not matter - then Solar PV is the way to go. If your goal is to minimize total daily electric cost while decreasing CO2 - Solar thermal is probably a better option.

  8. Data does not suggest this at all on Is the Tablet Market In Outright Collapse? Data Suggests Yes · · Score: 2

    In 2012, week before Christmas - full size tablets and small tablets were 33% of the market. iPad for the quarter was 22.9 million units. In 2013, week before Christmas - full size tablets and small tablets were 29% of the market (decline 14%). iPad for the quarter was 26 million units (growth of 14%). Of course IDC - and their made up numbers had Apple market share down from 38.2% to 33.8%. This year - 2014 - flurry has the market shrinking to 22%. Apple numbers will be out soon and my be down but collapse - complete BS. Junk tablets may be collapsing but IDC makes those numbers up so who really knows.

  9. Re: Who has the market share? on Windows XP Falls Below 25% Market Share, Windows 8 Drops Slightly · · Score: 1

    US data shows mac at 15.4% Linux 1.5% - so windows has lost market share. 8 years ago - I think mac had less than 5% US market share of users and 2-3% of sales.

  10. Re:Move to Android on BlackBerry Posts $4.4 Billion Loss, Will Outsource To Foxconn · · Score: 1

    Stuffing the channel? I don't hear stories about huge write downs. If anything Nokia was supply constrained most of the year on most models.

    The number sold isn't that small. That's the point, the number sold is larger than BlackBerry at its height.

    They are making progress - but 8.8 million windows phone sales is not "larger than Blackberry at its height". http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/29/5041666/nokia-lumia-sales-q3-2013 Blackberry's top was http://aaplinvestors.net/stats/iphone/bbvsiphone/ . Revenue wise - ASP is falling for lumia and is well below what Blackberry was dosing. Lumia is making headway against the low end android market.

  11. Re:Expensive Apple on Smartphone Sales: Apple Squeezed, Blackberry Squashed, Android 81.3% · · Score: 1

    And in 18 months you will no longer get OS updates. How long do you intend to keep your phone?

  12. Apple is not more expensive now. on Smartphone Sales: Apple Squeezed, Blackberry Squashed, Android 81.3% · · Score: 1
    The only data source I can see for how long people keep their phones in use is flickr. If you look at the various vendors (www.flicker.com/cameras) you will see a drop off in high end phones beginning as early as 12 months for some models, 18 months for others. iPhones maintain their use on flicker much longer. The drop off is the iphone 4 was very gradual during the last year.

    I do not think one can compare different manufacturers use rate since OS and geography has an impact, but you probably can compare Galaxy S4 to S3 to S2. Notice that the S4 is selling very poorly compared to the S3 at this time.

    I think the total cost of ownership of an iPhone is much less than a high end Android phone due to its longevity and OS upgrade policy.

  13. It should be about "positive job growth" on Obama Praises Amazon At One of Its Controversial Warehouses · · Score: 1
    Amazon, Sam's, Walmart, Home Depot - etc. all cost less because they either - make a smaller profit margin, pay less for what they sell, or pay less to run their business or some combination of the above. All of these mega-stores have put lots of smaller stores out of business and the result is a net job loss in the retail industry. Folks are paying less money for stuff so it may be a net gain overall but to think these are great jobs - as Obama does - is not very smart.

    Contrast that with the Keystone Pipeline - high level blue-collar jobs with further job creation in the refineries. If we do not build the pipeline here, the Canadians are likely to build one to the ocean and export the stuff to be refined somewhere else and the result will be the loss of well paying jobs. When we choose to not develop ANWR and states elect to not drill for oil and gas - then we are shipping these jobs overseas.

  14. Re:The Insanity of "Obviousness" on Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents · · Score: 1

    Yes you are missing something. A proximity sensor itself is not obvious but was already covered by another Motorola patent (http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/12/motorola-patent-defeats-another-in.html). The extension from the prior patent to the new patent is what is obvious. Motorola could sue based upon the prior patent if they had not let it expire.

  15. Re:How is this not a good idea? on Obama Wants To Fund Clean Energy Research With Oil & Gas Funds · · Score: 1

    Get back to me when Tesla makes a dollar of profit.

  16. simple experiment on Are Plastic Bag Bans Making People Sick? · · Score: 1
    Given the correlation - the next step is to see if there is causation. Given the typical "if it will save only one life" attitude - I would propose the following:

    Require the return to single use plastic bags for one quarter.

    Go back to reusable bags.

    Study hospital data.

  17. Re:"Flaw"? on Google Store Sends User Information To App Developers · · Score: 1

    Apple adds the tax and remits to the taxing authority. The developer gets their 30%. Apple maintains the inventory (digital copies ready for download) and is the seller.

  18. Re:Oh give them a break on Fox News: US Solar Energy Investment Less Than Germany Because US Has Less Sun · · Score: 2

    Funny has the Dept of Energy price chart http://energy.gov/science-innovation/energy-sources cuts off in 2008 (despite it being labeled as 2009) and shows rising natural gas prices which peaked in 2008 and have fallen dramatically http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_a.htm . Artificially increasing energy prices is the worse form of taxation.

  19. Re:Try using maps; but other options also exist on Why Apple Replaced iOS Maps · · Score: 1

    If anything, Google should be the one to blame. Why didn't it have an app ready to replace Maps like it did for YouTube?

    Because Google is too busy watching Apple flounder with this PR nightmare. Why should Google be in any hurry?

    Because most users are not going to have any problems with Apple's version of Maps and will stick with it. I am in Houston, Tx which is a large city with flyover. The longer Google waits to offer their service, the smaller the audience they will get.

    I have noticed that Apple does not have the individual buildings labeled at Rice University. On the other hand, they have a current picture of the new Dynamo Stadium (opened March 2012) where Google maps shows an empty lot.

  20. Re:Vaccines should be mandatory. on Study Finds Unvaccinated Students Putting Other Students At Risk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The flu vaccine does not really prevent the flu (20% effective). Instead, it prevents serious complications of the flu (80% effective). I am surprised that no one has mentioned that vaccines are actually cost effective. Virtually all other treatments and screenings are not. So there is a medical cost to society when people choose to not vaccinate.

  21. Re:What? on East Texas Getting Compressed Air Energy Storage Plant · · Score: 1

    They are not going to burn natural gas (at least not in their turbines) to store the air. Average wholesale prices in Texas are less than $80 per MWH, peak is $3000 per MWH during summer months, over-night gets close to $0 in areas with lots of wind turbines and constrained transmission lines. They will buy when prices are cheap overnight (nuclear plants don't like to slow down, wind mills max out in most of Texas, harder to spin up and down coal plants) and sell during peak loads during the day. Unclear to me what is the plant capacity to work out a $/day formula.

  22. planet heating on Oil May Be Finite, But U.S. Production Is Ramping Up · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Pretty clear from the charts that the CO2 levels are rising because of man made contributions. It is also completely clear that the models linking rising CO2 to rising temperature are not quantitatively accurate (temperature flat for 10 years while CO2 continues the predicted rise). http://www.climate.gov/#climateWatch . The question now is whether or not the the models are even qualitatively accurate. Being an engineer, I do not think the climate scientist have models to the 4th significant figure.

  23. Re:Global warming has become hopelessly politicize on Atlas Takes Heat For Melting Glacier Claim · · Score: 1

    Actually, if you look at the data the trend may still be rising but much more slowly then "the experts" ever predicted. The current rate for the last 10 years appears to be less than 0.1 degrees C. The two decades before were also lower than predicted and in the range of 0.2 to 0.25 degrees C. The rate of rise is just as critical to global planning as the fact that the temperature is actually rising. I don't hold out much hope for the models ever being able to predict the temperature to 4 significant figures but that is what "the experts" claim they can do. When they have a model that starts in 1980 and currently predicts through 2010, I will listen.

  24. Re:Cost to install on Solar Panels Increase Home Value · · Score: 1

    Are you actually paying $0.24 per kwH? Here in Texas it runs about $0.10.

  25. Re:just go to 350% on Amazon, Not Developers, Will Set New App Store's Prices · · Score: 1

    I am one of the developers of iheadache. The ad free version is currently $9.99 on the Blackberry App World and Apple App Store. Don't you think we will see a backlash if we list it for $35 with Amazon? I think we will have to steer clear of this store.