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Comment Re:This is why enforced code standards are bad (Score 5, Insightful) 66

Standards for indenting, variable names, where documentation goes etc don't affect if code is good or bad, just if other people can quickly understand what's going on based on experience with other parts of the same code base. Coding standards are crucial for any work that is produced by a large team or will be maintained by another organization.

The first step of writing good code is to get your ego out of the way. Once you realize that you suck, your ideas suck, the implementation isn't very good, and the documentation needs improvement, you're on the right path. Maintaining that attitude is the hard part.

Comment Of course it's about climate change (Score 2) 50

by ellbee (#60161936) Attached to: Golden Gate Bridge Starts To 'Sing' After Design Fix

From what I've read this was needed because the old railings had so much resistance the bridge became unsafe when the wind reach ~68mph. The new railings are thinner allowing more airflow which raises the safety margin up to 100mph. The new design necessary because they've observed over the past decade that storms have been getting stronger which is attributed to changing climate.

Comment Tech marches on (Score 1) 74

by ellbee (#60088718) Attached to: Sabrent Unveils Record-Breaking 8TB Rocket Q NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD

This is great news - it's not a world changer, just an expected signpost on the road of progress.

I don't need one today, but they will come down in price and eventually I'll put together a 4-stick desktop NVMe array. 16-32TB in something the size of a deck of cards will be a huge upgrade, both capacity and reliability.

Submission + - FCC To Vote On Adding 6Ghz Band To Wi-Fi 6 To Improve Speeds (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Devices with Wi-Fi 6 started rolling out at the end of 2019, but now, a new vote proposed by the FCC could open up the 6Ghz band to unlicensed wifi and add a massive speed boost to wireless gadgets. Backed by Chairman Pai, the FCC vote is scheduled to take place on April 23rd, and if passed would add 1200MHz of available bandwidth to the usable wifi spectrum which the FCC says would “effectively increase the amount of spectrum available for Wi-Fi almost by a factor of five.”

Not only would this improve things like latency and download and uploads speeds, because the 6Ghz band was previously mostly used to support things like wireless backhaul, microwave services, and a limited number of public safety services, new 6GHz wifi devices wouldn’t really have to compete with other gadgets for spectrum, unlike the existing 2.4Ghz wifi band which often suffers from interference caused by household appliances.

Submission + - SPAM: China Created a Fail-Safe System to Track Contagions. It Failed.

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: "After SARS, Chinese health officials built an infectious disease reporting system to evade political meddling. But when the coronavirus emerged, so did fears of upsetting Beijing."

After doctors in Wuhan began treating clusters of patients stricken with a mysterious pneumonia in December, the reporting was supposed to have been automatic. Instead, hospitals deferred to local health officials who, over a political aversion to sharing bad news, withheld information about cases from the national reporting system — keeping Beijing in the dark and delaying the response.

The central health authorities first learned about the outbreak not from the reporting system but after unknown whistle-blowers leaked two internal documents online.

Even after Beijing got involved, local officials set narrow criteria for confirming cases, leaving out information that could have provided clues that the virus was spreading among humans.

Resistance to sending bad news up the chain is typical of any authoritarian regime.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Woman can smell parkinsons in others, years before symptoms manifest (npr.org)

Submitted by doug141
doug141 writes: Joy Milne's husband's natural odor changed when he was 31. He was diagnosed with parkinson's at 45. When Joy walked into a parkinson's support group, she smelled the same odor on on everybody. A parkinson's research tested her with blind samples from early stage patients, late-stage patients, and controls. She aced the test.

Comment Updated FDA Guidance (Score 1) 43

by ellbee (#59882528) Attached to: Some Researchers are Trying Mass Testing for Covid-19 Antibodies

On Thursday the FDA updated is guidance for serological (blood) tests that detect COVID-19 antigens, allowing more than two dozen for diagnostic use. Though none of the tests have been fully tested and do not have "FDA approval". This is a big change and great progress.

The allowed tests and guidelines (under 'what serology tests') are listed at:
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations-medical-devices/faqs-diagnostic-testing-sars-cov-2

Submission + - Italy Covid-19 death toll passes 10,000 as 889 die from virus in one day (rt.com)

Submitted by lobello
lobello writes: Italian officials have confirmed that at least 10,023 people died in the sweeping coronavirus pandemic, with the number of infected now standing at over 92,000 and the death rate creeping towards 11 percent.
Another night of grim casualty numbers has added 889 deaths in Italy on Saturday, the country’s Civil Protection Agency said. On Friday, Italy recorded its largest daily death toll since the outbreak began, as 919 people died.
The virus-stricken country accounts for more than a quarter of all Covid-19 fatalities worldwide.Nearly twice as many people have died in Italy as in Spain, which has the world’s second-highest number of Covid-19 deaths. Worldwide, more than 645,000 people have been infected by the deadly virus, with just under 30,000 dying.
As casualties mount, the Italian government is reportedly considering an extension to the nationwide lockdown measures currently in place. Newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that the government is planning on extending the lockdown for two weeks beyond its original end date of April 3. While the country’s northern regions are the worst-hit, Michele Emiliano, governor of the southern region of Puglia, told Reuters that his region may remain locked down until mid-May.

Comment Bioscience is making progress (Score 3, Interesting) 88

by ellbee (#59882482) Attached to: America's FDA Grants Emergency Approval for a 15-Minute Coronavirus Test

Between RNA molecular tests like this that detect active virus and progress in blood tests that detect antibodies in people that have acquired immunity we will be able to get a handle on infection rates and progress towards herd immunity. This is a more likely outcome than waiting for a possible vaccine in the summer/fall of 2021.

On Thursday the FDA allowed use of more than two dozen blood tests - that aren't all fully tested and there are many caveats, but they should become inexpensive and universal. The tests that work well will come to the fore and will quickly dominate the market.

The FDA list (under 'serology tests') is at:
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations-medical-devices/faqs-diagnostic-testing-sars-cov-2

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