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User: queazocotal

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  1. Re:The study was flawed on Bees Prefer Nectar Laced With Neonicotinoids · · Score: 0

    That doesn't mean it wasn't flawed.
    Bees don't drink sugar water in nature.
    The checking of the 'taste' of neonics is only one aspect that needs tested.
    Is this masked by non-taste responses to normal nectar?

  2. Re:People with makeup and dyed hair aren't logical on Oklahoma Says It Will Now Use Nitrogen Gas As Its Backup Method of Execution · · Score: 5, Informative

    It doesn't work the same as holding your breath.
    When you breath a gas containing no oxygen, oxygen streams out of your blood, as it is lower oxygen than the blood, and that is how the blood 'knows' to dump oxygen.
    This means that what's coming out of the lungs is largely deoxygenated blood, not oxygenated.
    This rapidly causes unconsciousness - much faster than just holding your breath.
    It's a not uncommon industrial accident.
    You don't really notice it - there is no shortness of breath, you simply feel a bit woozy one breath, and then are unconscious the next, and the next breath may not happen.

  3. Re:Less accessible on Norway Will Switch Off FM Radio In 2017 · · Score: 2

    The components used to make a DAB reciever, while they have come down lots in price and power use recently - still use a _LOT_ of power - from the point of view of something running on small batteries.
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Robert... - for example.
    4-5 hours on two AA cells.
    FM radios (at modest volume on headphones) can last over 200, with the same cells.

  4. I'm gonna go out on a limb. on Cannabis Smoking Makes Students Less Likely To Pass University Courses · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And say that availability of alcohol has a vastly higher effect than 5%.

  5. Re:Unpublished on 9th Circuit Rules Netflix Isn't Subject To Disability Law · · Score: 1

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... - would seem to have come to the other conclusion in a somewhat similar case.
    Was this under a different section of the ADA - or is this discriminated from in some manner.

  6. Re:Cut energy use by WHAT? on Graphene Light Bulbs Coming To Stores Soon · · Score: 1

    mW= 1/1000th of a watt.
    mW=W = parts per 1000 efficiency.

    480mW/W = 0.48W of light out for every watt of electricity in.
    This is a deep blue LED.
    It is very bad if you measure it in lumens per watt because the eye is quite insensitive to blue light.

    Whatever the answer - 30%/44% (and you can't do it that way, you've got to integrate over the spectral response of the eye and see if you actually care about colour - green light at 600lm/W is not a functional white light) - is still vastly higher than 10%.

    You cannot get the highest efficiency per watt LED bulbs, simply because they would require more LEDs than are absolutely required, and cost more, for no consumer visible benefit other than the watts.

  7. Re:Cut energy use by WHAT? on Graphene Light Bulbs Coming To Stores Soon · · Score: 2

    Err - no.
    Look at the URL, there is a clue why you're spectacularly wrong.

    Current LEDs (blue ones, which white is based on) exceed 50% quantum efficiency.

    http://www.digikey.com/product... - for example - does 48% electricity to light.

  8. What they are probably meaning: on Graphene Light Bulbs Coming To Stores Soon · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://optics.org/news/6/2/6
    http://www.nature.com/nmat/jou...

    The writer of the original article should be shot, hung, shot, and then boiled.

    It is riddled with so many inaccuracies that it's meaningless.
    '10%' - yes - 10% is mentioned ' Our first devices already exhibit an extrinsic quantum efficiency of nearly 10% and the emission can be tuned over a wide range of frequencies by appropriately choosing and combining 2D semiconductors'
    But going from that to LED efficiency is ridiculous.

    It is comedically ridiculous to claim that it's going to result in products this year.

    It's worth noting that the best existing 'warm white' LEDs bulbs can already produce about twice as much light per watt as compact florescent.
    (if they are made with around double the normal number of LEDs and a more efficient power supply).

  9. Re:Yet another makes the same mistake. on Better Disaster Shelters than FEMA Trailers (Video) · · Score: 1

    This perfectly answers the question of where to get emergency housing in a place easily accessible by trucks for people who have wifi to
    entertain themselves and are in areas secure enough that going to the external toilet is not dangerous.

  10. Re:Opposite of loser edit on Technology's Legacy: the 'Loser Edit' Awaits Us All · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's called an autobiography.

  11. Re:So much for the 2nd Amendment on FedEx Won't Ship DIY Gunsmithing Machine · · Score: 1

    Is the mill in question over $50/lb?

  12. Re:Shifting the blame. on Resistant Bacterial Infection Outbreak At California Hospital · · Score: 1

    Violating the manufacturers instructions runs the risk of damaging equipment - and - for example - having sharp bits of the broken equipment stab the patient.

  13. Re:Bad idea with current laws on Iowa Wants To Let You Carry Your Driver's License On Your Phone · · Score: 2

    You are not required to incriminate yourself.
    This however does not mean you cannot be compelled to give physical items,or access to physical items (including fingerprints).
    The cops have no right to demand you produce your passphrase.
    They have a right to demand the bit of paper they know you wrote the passphrase on.

  14. Done right, this could be quite secure. on Iowa Wants To Let You Carry Your Driver's License On Your Phone · · Score: 2

    Licence has a qrcode or similar onto the DMV website.
    (proper verification apps ensure that the URL is actually the DMV website and ignore any other URL)

  15. Re:Just don't connect to a network on Ask Slashdot: Affordable Large HD/UHD/4K "Stupid" Screens? · · Score: 1

    Just be aware that that doesn't work everywhere.
    You don't get emergency calls in the uk, for example.

  16. Can we do it? on Winston Churchill's Scientists · · Score: 1

    Oh yes!

  17. Re:"AI" vs Strong AI on An Open Letter To Everyone Tricked Into Fearing AI · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That is not hardware.
    The hardware - the FPGA has remained constant.

  18. Re:"AI" vs Strong AI on An Open Letter To Everyone Tricked Into Fearing AI · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Software runs on hardware - yes.
    Software cannot increase the capabilities of hardware - well - not quite.
    The most literal meaning of this - apart from limited things like overclocking is of course broadly true but may be hugely misleading.
    If you've got a really advanced program on each of a network of computers, doing a given task - there are many ways in which it can seem to increase its capabilities, without really doing so.

    Giving up the designated task and freeing resources.
    Co-opting other systems into adding to its resource.
    Optimising the way it performs the task so that it at least does it reasonably well, but much cheaper.
    Sharing computations over multiple devices which were expected to be done on one.

    There are many systems where 'dumb' algorithms are tens, or thousands of times less efficient than optimum ones.
    Optimum algorithms are in many cases intractable for humans to find.

    Optimising computational efficiency over time as machine learning is a really valuable thing to do.
    Looked at from another angle, this can come quite close to 'evolution'.

  19. Accurate journalism would at least be nice. on An Open Letter To Everyone Tricked Into Fearing AI · · Score: 1

    However, at this stage, it is not required.
    Simply as the threat is well over ten years out.
    How much over - good question.
    Is it too early to raise concerns and encourage people to go into fields where they may think seriously about this topic - no.

  20. Re:Open Source Tax Preparation Software on Intuit Charges More For Previously Offered TurboTax Features, Users Livid · · Score: 1

    If the tax code was rational.
    The problems are that multiple levels of tax code interact in complex ways that vary with the exact addresses involved in the claim.
    So, you're not writing one codebase which does taxes, but in a very real sense, thousands.

  21. The above comment is especially fun - because it varies.
    Some animals you keep you have no liability over their actions, and some you do.
    (in the UK)
    http://www.legislation.gov.uk/...

    For example - you are liable for the damage livestock causes to others property.
    But this is only "cattle, horses, asses, mules, hinnies, sheep, pigs, goats and poultry, and also deer not in the wild state and, in sections 3 and 9, also, while in captivity, pheasants, partridges and grouse; poultry” means the domestic varieties of the following, that is to say, fowls, turkeys, geese, ducks, guinea-fowls, pigeons, peacocks and quails"

    Ostriches, camels, llamas, kangaroos, cats, dogs, parrots, peacocks are not listed, so you aren't.

    Unless your dog damages other peoples livestock.
    If it savages a Kangaroo - no liability.
    Or if your cat kills chickens.

    in short - the exact legislation matters.

  22. Re: Perjury on Sony Sends DMCA Notices Against Users Spreading Leaked Emails · · Score: 2

    For added fun - this varies.
    In the EU, 'sweat of brow' copyright is generally recognised - if you spent a lot of effort doing something, you may have it copyrighted - even though it is merely a collection of facts.
    In the US, this is much less true.

  23. Re:They said that about cell phones on The One Mistake Google Keeps Making · · Score: 2

    There is no reason for much of this stuff for it to be your car.
    And, indeed, it might be considerably more efficient if it wasn't.

  24. Re:I'm the app's developer. Happy to answer questi on App Gives You Free Ebooks of Your Paperbacks When You Take a "Shelfie" · · Score: 1

    It's a pity that seemingly devices without working flash aren't supported - some of us have adequate lighting.

  25. Re:Interesting on Hotel Group Asks FCC For Permission To Block Some Outside Wi-Fi · · Score: 1

    You sort-of-can control the range.
    In the case of a hotel - a wifi AP per room, with very low power, and another box - also set to very low power to do deauthentication attacks on the client in that room.
    Each rooms 'jammer' is only active when a strong local signal tries to access the outside AP - and only has enough power to jam that room.

    It would not affect people outside the hotel more than marginally - as the 'jammer' would not be recievable by them due to its low power.

    No, a simple per-hotel jammer can't do this, and the above is much more expensive than such a thing.