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Comment Re:I am old enough... (Score 1) 57

Back in 85 when I took typing in High School (It was a pre-req requirement for the computer class), the teacher started out lecturing us on how bad hunting and pecking was and how typing at any significant speed required us to learn how to touch-type properly. She then had us take typing speed tests hunting and pecking with the leading statement that you could not hunt and peck faster than 20wpm. By that point I had been hunting and pecking for 6 years and on the test I tested at 42 wpm hunting and pecking. You could hear her teeth grinding, hopefully I didn't cause her to have to get dental work. By the end of the class I could touch-type at 34 wpm (These days it's closer to 110wpm) and hunt and peck at 60wpm :)

Comment Re:Its called TRUST (Score 2) 58

Oddly enough, I DONT Trust Apple, and I suspect many of the developers out there also do not trust them, so why spend the money to implement another payment method (or in the case of say... Amazon enable the payment method for books) when the odds are that Apple will come up with some way to break it?

Comment Re:It's about money, not being oppositional. (Score 1) 127

They also did an absolutely HORRIBLE job of implementing the rolling blackouts. Every meter in Texas is an individually addressable smart meter, enabling them to implement a disconnect/reconnect cycle remotely. What they did is the equivilent of using a hatchet to do fine carving. Lots of big swathes offline for extended periods when they could have surgically taken out subsequent 20% segments of the grid with carve-outs for emergency services (Hospitals, Police Stations, Communication infrastructure, Fire Stations, Warming Centers, etc. ) through code. (I.E. Meters with serial numbers ending with 1 and 2 offline, Wait one hour, take Meters with serial numbers ending with 3 and 4 offline, wait one hour, take meters with serial numbers ending with 5 and 6 offline, put meters with serial numbers ending with 1 and 2 online, etc.)

Comment Re:rooftop solar (Score 3, Interesting) 127

If you have Tesla PowerWalls along with your rooftop solar you can get Tesla Electric as your provider and sell back for 90% of the wholesale price (At least in the Houston area... Availability likely depends on the region), I sold over $500 worth of electricity back to the grid from my batteries this way last August.

Comment Re:May 8th... (Score 4, Interesting) 127

It topped $.37 per kwh earlier today on the Houston segment of the grid (I know 'cause my PowerWalls started dumping full blast to the grid to make me money ($3, but every penny saved counts)). https://www.ercot.com/gridmkti... . Note that there were times last year when the wholesale price hit $5 per kwh, so this is comparatively mild.

Comment Is /. going to have to change? (Score 0) 19

" It bans platforms from using "system design features to increase, sustain, or extend the use of the online product," including autoplaying media, rewarding users for spending more time on the platform, and spamming users with notifications." I think awarding moderation points as a reward for being active on the platform might run afoul of this...

Comment Rubbing my hands together and laughing... (Score 1) 1

Looks like my electric bill will be lower this month (If you are on solar and have Tesla PowerWalls with Tesla Energy as your provider in Texas you can sell back to the grid from your batteries or production at 90% of the spot price), though there were spots last year when we hit the $5 per KWH price, so this is nothing unusual for Texas. Part of why I am actually currently resisting net metering. I sold enough back in August of last year to zero my bill until Feb of this year.

Submission + - Texas Spot Power Prices Jump Almost 100-Fold on Tight Supply (yahoo.com) 1

ArchieBunker writes: Texas electricity prices soared almost 100-fold as a high number of power-plant outages raised concerns of a potential evening shortfall.

Spot prices at the North Hub, which includes Dallas, jumped to more than $3,000 a megawatt-hour just before 7 p.m. local time, versus about $32 at the same time Tuesday, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

This morning, Ercot, as the state’s main grid operator is known, issued a “watch” for a potential capacity reserve shortage from about 7-9 p.m., meaning the buffer of spare supplies could fall to low enough levels to call on back-up generation, cancel or delay outages or curb usage.

The conditions are the tightest of the year so far and raises the risk of prices rising to the $5,000 cap — which they last did on April 16, when Ercot also warned of a potential shortfall. Unusually hot weather in the region has boosted demand for cooling and lowered the efficiency of many power plants. Wind output has also fallen from a day earlier and there are more outages.

“Ercot has not called for conservation this evening,” it said by email. “The grid is operating under normal conditions at this time.”

Submission + - Chinese Doctors Cure Type 2 Diabete Using Patient's Own Stem Cells (nature.com)

hackingbear writes: Researchers at the Second Naval Medical University's Changzheng Hospital in Shanghai, China performed the world's first Type 2 diabetes (T2D) curing pancreatic cell transplantation with E-islet cells derived from the patient's own stem cells. These E-islets, generated from the patient's own non-tumorigenic human endoderm stem cells (EnSCs), were tested for quality and safety, showing no contamination or unwanted growths, and were found to function similarly to natural pancreatic cells from human donors. The patient received a transplant of these E-islets through an injection into the liver's portal vein. Following the transplant, the patient's blood sugar levels were closely monitored using various tests and devices. Notably, the insulin requirements were reduced gradually until complete withdrawal at the end of week 11, and the oral antidiabetic medications were tapered since week 44 and discontinued at weeks 48 (acarbose) and 56 (metformin). The first 27-month data revealed significant improvements in glycemic control, and provided the first evidence that stem cell-derived islet tissues can rescue islet function in late-stage T2D patients. The grafts were well tolerated with no tumor formation or severe graft-related adverse events. This approach also avoids complications related to immune rejection and provides a potentially safer alternative to using cells from donors. The success of this study suggests that stem cell-derived islet transplantation could be a promising treatment for diabetes, potentially eliminating the need for lifelong insulin injections and other diabetes medications. Future research will focus on refining this treatment for broader use and exploring its application in other types of diabetes. [Summarization by the submitter.]

Comment Hopefully they are not offering it on CrunchyRoll. (Score 1) 36

Hopefully they are not offering to make the content available on crunchyroll... Moving from Funimation which always works to CrunchyRoll which only works reliably on days that don't end with a "y" won't gain many happy results... (4 months in at this point of Crunchyroll not being reliable on FireTV Stick, Cube and now Roku)

Comment Re:When I hear "Air Conditioning", I think COLDER. (Score 1) 160

You could use water to transfer the heat generated to a radiator coil outside or to a radiator coil inside. Toggling the electric field whenever the material reaches ambient temperature and switching between pumping hot water outside and cold water inside will give you your Air Conditioning effect. You can operate at a relatively low pressure and your heat transfer material is both readily available and non-damaging to the environment. Plus Water pumps are dead cheap and extremely reliable in general (Compare a centrifugal pump's complexity to the complexity of a compressor used in a classic Air Conditioner...) You can operate the whole thing at a low pressure and top off anything that leaks with a bottle of distilled water from your local grocery store.

Comment It would be stupid for them NOT to hire these folk (Score 2) 43

This is like saying you are all for people earning their money and then refusing to pick up a $20 bill you found on the street 'cause you didn't earn it. MS is doing the rational thing by picking up proven skillset individuals after their company has discarded them. Nothing disingenious about this.

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