mcmancini

I wonder, will the principals at a software consulting firm be required to hold a PE?

> Sigh, par for the course for any patent-related reporting on Ars.

Honestly, I think there's a quality drop all around and not just in patent-related articles. Reading the comments on any legal-related articles is as much fun though as people watching in the homeopathy section of Whole Foods.

On 1, I didn't look at the cited references, but it'd be interesting to see if any of the Bluetooth-related patents were included.

On 2, I guess the only objection I have to NPEs are the type operating through shell corporations wherein their risk-exposure is so low that they can fill the courts up with frivolous crap. It'd be interesting to see if there was a way to curb that behavior (like putting up a bond or something). Are you aware of any proposals?

Doesn't mean that they're building a car; maybe they're building OBD3 for electric cars and need people with domain knowledge. With Apple's NDAs and general secrecy policies, it's not like your colleagues would be able to even hint at what they're working on at Apple.

I find it more believable that these Apple car rumors are actually test mules for their CarPlay system and future extensions.

Parents have a strikingly similar situation in VA, except they can't even get DSL. They eventually went with Verizon over LTE after years of crappy satellite internet. You can't purchase more than 30GB/mo, but otherwise, it's worked great for them.

The only problem with the LTE service is that so many things like to silently update in the background---they can bump up against that 30GB limit without intending to.

Maybe contact your board of supervisors or whatever they're called in your neck of the woods? At least you could get them thinking about the problem next time the service contracts are up for negotiations.

Isn't Barclaycard issuing Chip-and-PIN cards, albeit signature priority, that work in PIN-only situations?

It would be really great if somehow, automagically, a downloaded app would trim away all the unneeded assets for the device it's installed on. My iPad 2 doesn't need 3x iPhone 6 Plus assets.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

I read the preface and this sounds exactly like what I was looking for. Many thanks!

Is there a good practical resource for learning about applying formal proof systems like Coq or Spin, but for those without a CS background? I'm interested in provably correct systems, but a lot of the material seems to be heavy on the theoretical side. I guess you could say I'm searching for the Art of Electronics, but for formal proofs.

I don't think your read on Clausen is accurate.

Krakauer's excerpt of Cole's article was poorly done. If you go to the source article, Clausen says,

“First, it seems like a rather remarkably lucky shot in the dark for a person to suspect the presence of a specific toxin on so little evidence," he wrote. "Couple this with the observation that ODAP is only reported in certain plants of the genus lathyrus which is not the genus hedysarum and the conclusions are even more remarkable (though not impossible). I would be much more convinced if I was reading the report from a credible peer-reviewed professional journal such as the Journal of Natural Products or equivalent. I have often heard a key indicator of bad science that is highly suspect is having its results published in the popular media."

...

"Again, I don't make any claims that the report is wrong since I have no data to analyze, but I am skeptical and will remain so until I see a better forum for the results to be published in." [1]

which to me sounds reasonable and, as a professional scientist, sounds just like what I (and I expect, my colleagues) would say. The peer review process isn't perfect, but it is consistently superior to the crap that is scientific journalism appearing outside of peer reviewed journals. Here's why, and why I don't understand why you would hold Krakauer as an example of citizen science.

Krakauer made (by his own admission) a "rash intuitive leap" [2] that an unidentified alkaloid contributed to McCandless' death, based on one of McCandless' journal entries and unpublished preliminary research by Clausen. As an aside, if one wants to piss off a scientist, that's a good way to go about it. When Clausen completes his research and finds the mystery alkaloid theory doesn't work, Krakauer intuits that a mystery toxic mold must have been involved, a theory he announces on Oprah and NPR. This second theory doesn't hold up (as was demonstrated by Clausen, again). Despite your conjecture, it sounds like Clausen actually investigated Krakauer's theories, up to a point. Krakauer then latches on to ODAP, which was close but still not there. His fourth theory may be correct, but Krakauer disseminated a lot of incorrect information along the way. I wonder, did he publish retractions as a professional scientist would?

I'm not sure why you would hold Krakauer's methodology as "citizen science FTW", but I'm interested to hear.

[1]: http://www.adn.com/article/20130917/krakauers-wild-theory-mc... [2]: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/how-chris-mccandl...

If it is illegal at the federal level, I would think it wouldn't be an enforcement priority if it was allowed by the state. On the other hand, it's probably part of the tax code and that does tend to be a powerful enforcement motivator.

> Keep in mind home distilling is illegal in most states, some have alternative fuel creation exceptions or small allowable amounts.

Isn't it still illegal on the federal level?

> I would hate to see my kids read this article and get any ideas.

Better keep them away from the library and internet in general then. There's ideas everywhere! (Said jokingly, I get the parental concern)

> I wonder how often they make methanol in these stills as well.

Every time. The distilling process doesn't make it though, it's a natural product of fermentation.

Making and operating a still isn't hard (clearly!) and the risks associated with consuming "homemade" product are greatly overstated. The risks associated with fire/explosion are greater, but should be reduced in this situation since there's not an open flame. I wouldn't be surprised if the prisoners are tossing the "heads cut", but even if they didn't, there shouldn't be enough methanol to cause toxicity (especially when consumed with the ethanol!). I've read that a lot of the methanol toxicity stories originate from the Prohibition era and were caused by failed attempts to remove methanol out of denatured alcohol sold as degreaser, not due to hooch.

edit: I'm sorry to be blunt about it, but "think of the children" and the appeal for censorship is responsible for the abomination that is the modern chemistry set.

It's pretty amazing how the difference in object quality between the enthusiast and professional systems has evaporated.

I would be interested to hear how frequently the Printrbot gets a clogged extruder vs. the Stratasys, what print quality on ABS looks like between the two units, what happens when you have a more complex shape with a lot of overhangs, etc. Aside from warranty service, what are the advantages of the professional system?

That's an idiotic response.

Think of, for example, medical offices: patient names are PHI. Assuming Microsoft does with Sunrise that it did with Acompli, I could easily see a small medical office thinking, "hey, this calendar is really cool and it's from Microsoft, so it's okay to use".

Should they have read the FAQ and seen that it's not HIPAA compliant? Of course. I can also see easily how Microsoft's reputation in business could lead to the assumption that their new acquisitions are business-grade, in spite of their consumer origins.

To bring it around to my original point, I'm interested to see how Microsoft can improve these apps to the point where they meet the expectations for Microsoft's business products.

If you ever have the opportunity, you should try to go to the Waffle House museum in Atlanta. Incredibly fascinating for at least two reasons: one is that the original looks pretty much the same as a brand new Waffle House, and the other is that there's been a ton of industrial engineering applied to Waffle House courtesy of numerous Georgia Tech alumni.

As with Acompli, Sunrise looks nice and has some nice features, but I can't get over the privacy/security problems. I'm interested to see how Microsoft can improve things.

An intro course would hardly seem to qualify as "a lot of study".

Statics, dynamics, and thermo would seem to leave out EE's, wouldn't it?

This list is nonsense. Video game designers get a 'B' for benefit to society? The first engineering position is #37? Clickbait junk.

Neat app. A cool feature would be the ability to extract colors from a photo (like Adobe Kuler) and use those in the Abstract Colors pattern.

Interesting, IRAC sounds a lot like SOAP (subjective, objective, assessment, plan) notes used in medicine.

For me, I grew progressively more frustrated with (putative) subject matter experts that were anything but. Perhaps the adage "those who can't, teach" could also be stated "those who can't, become journalists".

This article makes me weep for our species, mostly for the absurdity of the premise, but also for the diminished quality of a once great website and the mockery of journalism it's become.

Don't these also have poor indoor air quality since they don't frequently exchange air with the outside?

Mancini's corollary: the robustness of the scientific foundation of an article is inversely proportional to the frequency of the word "chemicals" in the article

Hospitals can be a pretty dangerous place. You're a braver person than I if you're willing to treat a likely benign and possibly asymptomatic meningioma without fully investigating the lesion, including rate of progression.

I coauthored a paper a few years ago on the intra-observer variability of measurements of brain tumors when using the bidimensional product. An increase of 25% in the BP is taken as an indicator of brain tumor progression. We found that the intra-observer variability is so high, you can get that 25% increase purely by chance. The first recommendation of the medical team, to wait and see, is understandable.

It seems reasonable to assume that Apple, being a competent design house, did some research and listed "x hours of battery life for function y" on their market requirements docs. I guess I don't understand how meeting their design goals is a profound observation.

As far as battery life goes, the one feature I'm jealous of on Samsung phones is the extended battery life mode. Do they still do that? Anyone know if it's on other Android phones? I'm happy to compromise with a sleeker phone, a la Apple, if I can get some extra battery life while traveling.

Emory?