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Comment: Re:Use the telephone (Score 1) 85

by JimWise (#39515955) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Home Testing For Solar Roof Coverage?

There may be one sun, but there are many other variables involved where I could see a longer or larger sample size being quite useful. Overhanging and changing objects such as tall nearby structures or trees (which also lose leaves for part of the year which greatly changes the amount of sunlight that can reach the roof), seasonal variations in cloud cover, the change in strength and duration of daily sunlight due to the tilt of the earth throughout the year, etc would make me very wary of a single, short test period.

Comment: Re:Keep it Up (Score 5, Informative) 495

by JimWise (#38713764) Attached to: House Kills SOPA

Official listing of contact info (mailing address, phone numbers, and web e-mail) for US Senators:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Since any bill would have to pass both houses, and since the Representatives from your state should also have some influence on the Senators from your state you may want to contact them too:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/

Comment: Re:Submitter did NOT RTFA (Score 1) 129

by JimWise (#38585236) Attached to: Genetically Modifying Silk Worms For Super Silk

You are complaining that the submitter did not read the BBC article, when everything in the submission is taken directly from the article. Even the scientific abstract itself states:

Furthermore, these composite fibers were, on average, tougher than the parental silkworm silk fibers and as tough as native dragline spider silk fibers.

Now you use someone else's post for your support, which refers to tables and figures that I do not see in the BBC article, and not even in the scientific abstract. You have to pay to access the full scientific paper since it is not in print yet, which I suppose is where the table mentioned is located.

It is well and good to point out that the scientific results may not be as strong as what the BBC article makes it out to be, but claiming that the submitter did not read the full BBC article was a (presumably) false statement and did not point to anything that showed why the claim of the strength of the modified silk worms was incorrect.

Comment: Re:Submitter did NOT RTFA (Score 2) 129

by JimWise (#38584800) Attached to: Genetically Modifying Silk Worms For Super Silk

Commenter did NOT RTFFA (Read The Full Fine/F*cking Article):

Smack dab in the middle of the article is the actual quote:

GM worms produced by a team led by Professor Don Jarvis of Wyoming University seem to be producing a composite of worm and spider silk in large amounts - which the researchers say is just as tough as spider silk.

Comment: Smart heat pump thermostat (Score 1) 192

by JimWise (#37863368) Attached to: Making a Learning Thermostat

I have a heat pump, and would like a reasonably priced smart heat pump thermostat. I can't use a standard programmable thermostat since if I tell it to go down to go down to 60 at night, then 68 shortly before I get up it will flip into Auxiliary Mode (actually more likely bump all the way up to Emergency Mode) and use the MUCH less efficient electrical backup systems. Heat pumps alone can be pretty efficient but often MUCH more gradual, needing a fair bit of lead time.

A smart heat pump thermostat would probably need external sensors for the outdoor temperature, and maybe even add things like wind speed, ambient heat from direct sunlight vs overcast, etc to determine when to start up the heat pump and stay only in the most efficient heat pump mode yet still get to the desired temperature at the desired time. It would learn over time how differing outdoor conditions altered its efficiency and adjust accordingly.

I grew up with a gas furnace and we had a fairly inexpensive thermostat that could be programmed for 6 changes a day, with the ability to customize all 7 days individually if desired, or have one setting for M-F and another for Sat and one for Sun. You could manually make an adjustment and have it kick back into the programmed settings at the next programmed interval. I don't see much need for going beyond that for non-heat pump systems.

Comment: Re:To be honest, I'm not against this. (Score 1) 271

by JimWise (#37611558) Attached to: Sony Bringing PSN Pass To All First-Party Games

Transferring ownership of the account should have no impact on the developer/host/game company. I agree that players should not expect a server to continue hosting games years after they have stopped selling them without receiving compensation, but this should be done through a yearly access fee or something similar. If a game passes hands ten times in a year, while another copy is held by the same owner for ten years, why should the hosting company require $100 for a single year of use from the first copy, while being perfectly happy with receiving $10 for ten years of use for the second copy?

The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary?

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