Alkim

"We are assembling a lean, cracked team..." says it all.

...and an effectively unlimited labour supply

One question I had but was not answered by the FAQ is whether the London Mainnet updates will require updates to Beacon / validator implementations. Apologies if the answer is obvious to everyone else, but is is not obvious to me.

An important aspect of this is that it is located in Singapore. Singapore is a heavily regulated sandbox in many, many areas. And it is small. For example, there is only a single companies registry and only a single tax authority. And Singapore has a history of mandating big changes. And a lot of effort sunk into presenting itself as cutting edge in terms of government services and management of its population. I'd suggest that it may be possible for Legalese to try some things in Singapore, perhaps in concert with one of the government authorities, that could be an interesting demonstrator.

(Disclosure: One of the founders is a good friend, and I am wishing them success.)

Are you saying that trading on market sentiment is an invalid trading strategy?

I am with you brother. If there is an argument for bitcoin, this is it. Large banks that impose their own priorities over that of their customers.

I got a little from the Bitcoin Faucet too. The wallet is long since lost...let alone the password.

"Why should I take a 125% hit when I'm providing a convenience for the patient by doing all their scans on the same day?"

You don't see what is wrong here? If your mechanic told you he wanted you to come to the shop 3 times instead of one for his convenience, you would find another mechanic.

I'm from the US and I've lived in Singapore and the UAE for many years. And I've had to deal with the US system from time to time as well. Medical services cost a fraction in Asia and the Middle East compared to the US and the paperwork is much simpler. And most of the doctors are educated in Europe. And lately I've seen more US doctors moving abroad simply out of frustration.

One time I was in West Virginia with my family and I had trouble catching my breath so we went to the ER. 1.5 hours of waiting, literally a 5 minute visit from the ER doctor and a 3600 USD bill. No treatment. No meds. Later I had to negotiate with the hospital over the bill. Eventually they told me that the insurance reimbursement rate for my vist would have been 600 bucks, but because I had no insurance, I was expected to pay 3600. I eventually got it down to 2200 after much angst and effort. Sick people don't need this aggro. Nor do they need the pain and discomfort for visiting the medical facility 3 times instead of 1 because of the vagaries of the US insurance/hospital billing system.

The US system is broken.

This sounds both interesting and audacious. I'm nearing retirement and considering various options for what to do next. Could you explain how you earn $$ from 'social presence'? I'm a personable guy, but I don't know that I could convince anyone to give me money just for showing up to something.

REALLY bad article. Don't waste your time.

I was just in Singapore for the past few days, after living there for several years. It really is awful this year.

The haze did make the laser show from the top of the Marina Sands really spectacular. ;-)

It is a fantastic automobile and a great video from Jay Leno, whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for preserving our technological legacy, similarly to Bill Harrah from a generation earlier.

Imagine what a Doble could be with a few processors handling all the complexity....

Thank you for pointing that out. It was interesting reading.

I was hoping that someone in this community would know someone in indegogo responsible enough to say wait a minute, this is not plausible. I took a look at indegogo's terms of service and found only this:

"If the Campaign is claiming to do the impossible or it's just plain phony, don't post it. "

Which is pretty weak.

But I suppose the old saw that 'a fool and his money are soon parted' still applies in the crowdfunding world...

And here's a -real- battery powered CPAP machine, taking a laptop-type lithium ion battery:

http://www.cpap.com/productpage/Hoffman-Laboratories-Breathe...

Well I never took the PE exam, and it is a couple of decades since my undergrad and graduate engineering degrees that included a couple of courses in thermo, so things are a little rusty, but prodded by a few of these posts I've just dusted off the math and made a go of it. BEST case, requires an 8 oz zinc-air battery. And they are going to sell that, and the device itself for $3..?!

Part of my reaction is that I am a patent attorney, and every patent attorney gets 'inventions' that come through the door from well-meaning but essentially clueless people. After a while you get to develop a bullsh*t detector. This one just rang my gong. I suffer from sleep apnea and I know what a real thing it is, and the idea of these guys just walking away with $$ from desperate people, just, again, rang my gong.

I will say that it has been fun seeing these posts--thank you!

Well now I guess I have to do the math:

W = P(b)V(b) ln(P(a)/P(b))

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage)

CPAP requires roughly 10 cm of water pressure = 0.01 Bar Sea level atmospheric pressure is roughly 1 bar So the device has to pressurize to 1.01 Bar Now I’ve looked it up, and a typical CPAP machine moves 20 to 60 liters per minute Let’s say 30 liters per minute = 1800 liters per hour

W = (1.007)(1.8)ln(1/1.007) = (1.81)*(-00698) = 0.0127 MJ = 3.53 Watt Hour

So assuming perfect efficiency you would still need 28.64 watt hours of battery, just to do the compression.

470 Wh/kg for Zinc-air battery implies this device requires a 60gm battery (2 oz to those of us of a certain age)

I looked up CPU fan efficiency (what they say they derived it from) and PEAK fan efficiency only approaches 25%

http://www.nmbtc.com/fans/white-papers/fan_efficiency_import...

So, you’d really need an 8 oz battery hanging from your nose to make this work, not counting what you need to run the electronics, etc.

Couldn't agree with your reply more.

Re the flappy fan, I know I've read sometime in the past couple of years about a design that was trying to replace rotary fans, and it was piezoelectric in nature. I found a few but none that looked like they would develop any appreciable pressure. I think stacked piezeoelectrics could be built up in such away that you could create a material pressure differential, but not in something the size of a tootsie roll, and not anything that could move enough volume to let people breath.

..and if you've used a CPAP you know that it actually assists you quite a bit--it partially moves your chest for you, which is a quite substantial mass.

Well it has been a few years from when I took my Thermo course, and yes the proper way to do this is to compute the work required for compression. I'd invite this thread to do a proper job with the math. And if you've used a CPAP as I have you know that it actually assists your chest in moving, which is even a more considerable mass--there's a lot of energy being used in my CPAP device.

I don't follow your logic at all.

And you do not escape the fact that the device has got to move almost 3 kg of mass with about 1 watt.

The doctors looked suspiciously like models. I tried google image searching them but I think the oval surrounds threw it off. I'd bet they are fake as well.

Recent events in the Silk Road criminal trials suggest that governments have the ability to trace BTC transactions to a useful degree--witness the guilty pleas of two former federal law enforcement personnel for enriching themselves via extorting bitcoin. Yes, it does take a different mind set from conventional banking records, but ultimately everything is recorded in the blockchain.

Some think the modest rise in bitcoin prices is a consequence of the Greek difficulties. For example:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-eurozone-greece...

It is interesting to speculate how the climate in Greece might be different if bitcoin had been more widely adopted there prior to this meltdown. No central control. No banks to close.

It is something that Greek officials joke about: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/05/us-digital-currenc...

It is interesting to think about the motivation of the Greek elected officials. To me it looks like they are trying to avoid the responsibility of making a painful decision. It also appears quite likely that the Greek citizens will vote against reducing pensions, etc.

So with that in mind, what happens after 5 July? The rest of the EU will be placed in the uncomfortable position of either caving to the demands of the Greek citizens or somehow taking the position that the referendum is irrelevant--which will look very undemocratic. But to cave to Greece would mean the rest of the EU taking on an indefinite financial drain.

I don't see how this ends any way other than Greek banks collapsing or Greece leaving the EU.