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Comment Cashed out and how the F*ck do you buy any? (Score 1) 461

Price dropped because people needed money for Christmas shopping.
Second reason is purchasing bitcoin is very difficult, go ahead see if you can purchase it in 30 minutes or less...not easy unless you have a seasoned coinbase account.
Third reason, 11 Transactions per second worldwide ... really? As people now warming up to "hey I can send you money by scanning your QR code from your screen to pay you" realize bitcoin ain't gonna cut it ... yet they are confused which "cryptocurrency" will become mainstream and see the futile use of bitcoin at the moment.

Comment Re:woozy (Score 1) 120

I've been working around MRI's for the last 20 years, yes you can get woozy, not so much at 1.5 Tesla definitely at 3 Tesla and at 7 Tesla people have been known to loose their lunch. It's nice they figured out the mechanics of why it happens, the magnetic field affects people differently.

FYI during the scan coils change the magnetic field rapidly to produce the cross sectional image aka "slice" this rapid change of the magnetic field in the coils, X,Y and Z plane while in the main magnetic field is similar to what a speaker does to make sound. Anyone who has been around speakers knows there is a main magnet on the back two leads to a voice coil, which moves in the magnetic field to produce sound. This is why MRI make so much noise, it's like a big speaker, except we don't mean to make sound just to focus on the slice. Hence nothing is moving in an MRI to make the picture.

BTW during the scan we can change the magnetic field so fast a voltage can be induced on nerve endings, which can cause uncontrolled twitching, scanners have limits imposed to prevent this.

Also limits on the amount of RF used is limited and strictly monitored, transmitted RF causes heating, similar to microwave ovens but at a different frequency, if it's a little cool in the room and you are being imaged by a 3T MRI, skip the blanket, you are about to get warmer ;)

Comment Do no evil? (Score 1) 1276

It's amazing to me to read the comments of all the /. readers freak out against GB for "suggesting" Google may have to personnel & Internet muscle to dabble in directing nation(s) political affairs.
We live in a completely different world then in the past "Get your news from Walter Cronkite" generation. The individual has to be responsible now where they get their information from and has to be able to look past the spin/entertainment from both sides, I'm saddened to see so many fellow /.'ers so completely brainwashed that GB is bad vs. stating any facts that Jared Cohen is doing no evil.
Keith Olbermann had entertainment value too, and /. (one of my news sources) got a raging post just by mentioning GB

Comment Re:Someone forgot about the Cradlepoint! (Score 1) 202

Yes Cradlepoint Rox! I've used a cradlepoint router with unlimited sprint access, hey it's way better than dialup and it's cool to have internet in the car. I leave access open. As far as denying access to someone ... just move, btw I've never had a problem with people leeching my network while moving down the highway.

Comment Re:Medical equipment (Score 1) 816

As a Siemens Field Engineer I can confirm that Siemens MRI systems do run on Windows, they left SunOS back in the 90's for WindowsNT and have evolved up to Windows XP64. There have been challenges with windows running MRI systems yet the major benefit is that users can be productive very quickly since they are familiar with the GUI. Recently Siemens changed the OS on the image reconstruction computer from Windows to Suse Linux. The image reconstruction computer takes the raw digitized signals, up to 32 channels of 24bit data at 10M samples/sec from the scanner and crunches them to create your image. Previously we used Windows and it made little but no sense to continue since Linux is much more efficient, the image reconstruction computer is not interfaced by anyone it simply hands off the completed image to the Main Console computer.

Since your exam was research they usually take liberties to tweak the system which could make a bit unstable, your average hospital scanner is pretty well locked down and it clearly communicated to the techs that the intent of the scanner is to scan. Any extracurricular activities should not be done on the scanner, like web surfing, although a MRI scanner could have the capacity to browse the Internet it's just stupid considering the amount of lost revenue and patient care just because someone was to lazy to find another computer nearby to surf.

Updates have been a challenge as well, we could not have the system stop and do an update and reboot in the middle of your exam, it has fallen on Engineers to go onsite and do the update although we are moving to having the update downloaded and asked if it is o.k. to do during startup.

There have been rumors Linux may be running the MRI Scanner in the future, also I've seen some well made image review stations running Apple OS.

Yes MRI scanners have to close to the patient and in the middle of a magnetic field. Image quality is based on how even the magnetic field is made, the sound is actually the result of rapid changes in the magnetic field, which by the way is the same principle your average speaker works, a permanent magnet with a voice coil to make sound, the difference in MRI is we do not intend to make sound, just rapidly change the magnetic field to focus on the image slice. Siemens has made wider "tubes" in the Espree and Verio MRI scanners, the Espree is full power MRI 1.5T and the Verio is Ultra High Field 3T, which makes high quality images compared to regular open magnets. I'm a little biased but if you need a bigger magnet to be comfortable you should seek out the Siemens Espree or Verio. As for the running Windows on a MRI you are preaching to the choir here, for now it's a necessary evil.

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