invaliddata's comments

For someone who doesn't want to buy American made cars, you sure speak fondly of some of them. Tundra and Sequoia have only ever been made in the us, matrix was once upon a time made in the nummi factory that is now Tesla's, and have been made in North America since, crv have also mostly been made in the us, otherwise North American production, same with all newer fits. The only car you mentioned made outside of North America would be the first generation fit, made in Japan.

I had a friend's dad who was one of the few people I talked to who, as a Japanese brand enthusiast, went out of his way to find a Chevy/Geo prizm - same mechanical bits as a Corolla, built in the same factory, but way cheaper because of all the people who reflexively avoided American brands.

The cost for generating electricity is much cheaper at utility scale, but electrical generation costs are only a part of what it costs to provide electrical service. A similarly large cost goes to electricity distribution. By generating where it's used, the electrical distribution system is less taxes (provided it doesn't have to absorb a lot of surplus electricity). So to a certain extent, rooftop generation still makes sense as an efficient allocation of resources.

Please do so

I'd love to hear more from the perspective of Hong Kong residents and natives. In the us we get relatively little coverage of the situation in Hong Kong.

Unfortunately there is no generic for Epipen. Unless you have been written a prescription for Adrenaclick specifically, you can't get it, or the generic version.

It's your doctor's fault if you didn't get the substitute earlier. As adrenaclick and epipen are not actually equivalent (even though ultimately they deliver the same medicine, in the same dose, in the same manner), the pharmacist is not supposed to do anything but provide what was prescribed.

The adrenaclick generic is much cheaper than the epipen, with or without insurance. Although technically different epinephrine auto injectors cannot be substituted (you can only be prescribed the one written by your doctor, or its generic equivalent), practically speaking the only difference between the epipen and the adrenaclick design is the instructions for use. I would hope there isn't a case of doctors being unaware of the alternatives.

Most of the people I know use the internal speakers on their phones extensively, and hardly ever use audio over either Bluetooth or the 3.5mm jack. In this case, how would battery life be improved. The DAC and amplifier cannot be removed unless the on board speaker is also. I hope this is not the case.

We all have shortcomings. It is hard to work with people who refuse to acknowledge their shortcomings and then try to remediate or at least work around them. Even worse are those who seek to blame others for their circumstances or and arr not willing to admit anything personally embarassing.

I applaud the author and although I'm not in a position to hire anyone, I'd be more likely to hire him (ceteres paribus) because he's put this out there.

Does anyone know to what extent this affects news organizations in Hong Kong?

I worked in embedded development for much of my career. There is a pretty small supply of people who are interested and capable in the field, relative to the jobs available, especially for more junior positions. What Ive seen happen is companies will hire java developers to do C development because they have few other options (it often doesn't work out well). Just apply and you are likely to get people who will talk to you.

Does anyone know if all (or a majority of) android device makers have licensing agreements in place with Ericsson for said patents?

Agricultural use of colistin worldwide, and especially in China, dwarfs this:

http://www.lancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(...

(see cached version for the full text, standard link has full text behind paywall)

... China is the world's largest poultry and pig producer, and in 2014 produced 17·5 million tonnes and 56·7 million tonnes, respectively.25 Most of the production is for domestic consumption with about 10% for export.26 The global market value of veterinary drugs increased from US$8·7 billion in 1992 to $20·1 billion in 2010, and in 2018 is anticipated to reach $43 billion.27, 28, 29 China is also one of the world's highest users of colistin in agriculture.29 Driven largely by China, the global demand for colistin in agriculture is expected to reach 11 942 tonnes per annum by the end of 2015 (with associated revenues of $229·5 million), rising to 16 500 tonnes by the year 2021, at an average annual growth rate of 4·75%.29 Of the top ten largest producers of colistin for veterinary use, one is Indian, one is Danish, and eight are Chinese. Asia (including China) makes up 73·1% of colistin production with 28·7% for export including to Europe.29 In 2015, the European Union and North America imported 480 tonnes and 700 tonnes, respectively, of colistin from China.29

A number of sources I've found indicate that (see links below for sources): 1) China consumes about 50% of the total global antibiotic production (roughly half for agriculture and half for human use). 2) Per capita human consumption of antibiotics is on the order of 10 times greater in China compared to the US.

Some of these articles are several years old, and from sources I'd classify as more internal than foreign. It is likely that these figures would be conservative.

If this data is approximately correct, I think we could say that 1) China has an outsized effect on the problem of antibiotic resistance (even considering it's large population). 2) The US problem of antibiotic use is mostly an agricultural one (which deserves a lot of attention), and the Chinese overuse of antibiotics is not confined to either human or agricultural use.

I'm sure the chinese leadership is aware of the issue, and given their ability to make changes when something is very important (ie, air pollution during high profile events), the fact that little has been done is telling. It is likely that this simply isn't a high priority issue and thus we are unlikely to see any movement on it anytime soon.

http://china.org.cn/china/2015-07/14/content_36057168.htm http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/14/c_134411007.htm http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2103733,00...

I've worked at sv companies of all sizes, and I think that for a fresh grad especially, the most important thing as some have stated is to find a team (manager, coworkers) and project that are right for you. You want a place where you will be supported, where you will have interesting work, and where you'll be able to develop in all the aspects (not just technical ones) that you'll need as a more senior developer. You'll want to avoid toxic cultures and places where no real work gets done. In companies of all sizes and stripes there is a huge amount of variation internally. Unfortunately it's often difficult to know what a particular team is like unless you know an insider. This advice may seem like common sense, but in my own experience and through talking to junior colleagues, many people don't have much of a clue for what to look for in a job (beyond - they pay a bit better / I've heard of them and its a prestigious name / I have some idea about what they want me to do and it sounds vaguely intetesting).

For fresh grads there is almost no negotiating room on compensation. Additionally, what one learns and experiences is critical to career growth. At one sv bigco I got paid intern level wages to manually label machines in a server room for a month (hired as a developer). I'm sure this is not represent tative of that company. At another bigco I have seen fresh grads and interns get plum work assignments (and pretty good compensation, according to surveys), and I know that's not the case for many other parts of that company. Neither of these companies is appamagoogsoftbookflix, but I know both these scenarios can be found pretty much anywhere.

Even midcareer professionals should care a great deal about the people and projects they will be working with, but there the ability and need to optimize compensation can be more acute. So, avoiding optimizing for compensation and company prestige early in ones career is something to be cognizant of.

Until recently O2 sensors were not used on diesels. There are a host of reasons for this, one of the main ones being that until recently, diesel fuel in most places had high levels of sulfur, which is a known poison for Pt and some of the other metals which are used in both catalysts and O2 sensors.

As for EGR monitoring, most OBD2 systems I've seen monitor the presence of the egr solenoid by looking for the back emf. So you'd need an inductor or a solenoid for that. Additionally, they usually will often do a test of the manifold pressure while cycling the valve, to confirm the flow rate (obviously this can only be done of the engine in question has a MAP sensor). And if the MAP sensor is the primary sensor for doing fuel monitoring (ie, no MAF sensor), then there would be no easy way of defeating this monitor without messing up the normal performance of the engine. So in my experience, defeating EGR and passing the EGR related OBD2 monitors is non trivial. But then, since there is usually an allowance (in the current CA smog check schemes) for some of the monitors to not have completed running while still passing the test, it doesn't matter too much in practice (can't disconnect the EGR valve, but the egr readiness monitor is moot). The EGR monitor is usually the last one to run anyway, so this makes passing the smog check with what would otherwise be a egr related OBD2 failure, fairly easy.

Beating O2 monitors is actually much more difficult in practice. First of all, an increasing number of O2 sensors in cars are wideband sensors which don't output the traditional switching signal one could simulate with a 555. Even some older cars use wideband O2 sensors (I have personal experience with two MY 1998 Toyotas [california cars] for which this is the case). Secondly, even if you do have all narrowband O2 sensors on a car, the way the O2 monitors work is that the downstream (of the catalyst) O2 sensor(s) output is compared to the upstream (of the catalyst) O2 sensor(s) to see, not whether the O2 sensor is working, but that the catalyst efficiency is above some threshold. Simply simulating one or both signals with a naive switching circuit will trip the catalyst efficiency monitor. And why would you want to disable the upstream O2 sensor(s) anyway, it's main job is to provide an error signal to the fuel system which would otherwise be a completely open loop system? Without a working feedback loop your fuel system won't be running very well, and usually falls back to a super conservative fuel mapping because of the danger of unknowingly running lean (obviously a concern for gas engines only, not diesels).

Defeating OBD2 monitoring in these sorts of ways is not an issue in any meaningful sense. Enthusiasts often will replace their ECUs wholesale with an aftermarket one. When the ecu hardware and its programming is completely outside of the manufacturer's control, who can say anything about the validity of it's outputs for emissions compliance purposes?

That's traditional "external" egr. Many newer engines have an "internal" egr implementation, which just changes valve timing so that some amount of the combustion products are never evacuated from the cylinder in the first place. With cam phasing becoming commonplace, internal egr can be implemented without adding any additional parts, and is thus cheaper. So the "recirculation" part of egr is becoming more and more of a misnomer.

Personally I like internal egr because external egr systems have a tendency to clog in either the passageways or the solenoid controlled valve. EGR valve sticking is a common cause of cars stalling when slowing to a stop after cruising at medium-high speed. And even without the stalling egr is a common cause for check engine lights and smog test failures.

A bit of a puzzling blog post. F5's CMP implementation has been around a long time, and all the issues noted rise from some of the fundamental design decisions. TMM instances are self contained and don't communicate with their peers. So the overhead of sharing any information like what would be required for applying real time connection limits is high, forcing either period aggregation at a reasonable frequency (the active health check issue), or by not sharing it at all (the connection limits issue). So it's not like a new version or updated hardware is going to make this behavior go away.

It seems pretty clear that china has done a better job in raising the overall circumstances of the poorest of its citizens than many other developing countries over a similar time span. I'm not just talking about a bunch of African basket cases either. Look at India; for all the progress they have made, the poorest of their people live in horrible circumstances, the likes of which one doesn't find in the same enormous magnitude. I'm sure china could have done much worse. I know which country I'd rather be destitute in. Now how much of that is attributable to something like the one child policy where the have essentially mortgaged their future in exchange for fantastic present growth? We will find out eventually.

Unless never does not apply to any history older than about three decades past, I think Vietnam and India would have serious problems with the characterization that china has not been (militarily) offensive.

That's not to draw any comparison to the history of the us, but china is hardly a paragon of restraint, even in the relatively recent past.