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modulusprime's comments

modulusprime | 12 years ago | on: Leaked transcript of censored Bret Victor talk

At least one regional electric utility uses an Excel macro to scrape its own public web site to gather aggregate usage and price data. This method allows them to save the data, and maybe analyze it later.

Just... absorb that for a few seconds.

modulusprime | 13 years ago | on: Show HN: My seven minute workout timer evening project

For Android, there is a very simple free app called ExerTime ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aisknab.ex... ). It's not pretty and the configuration UI is both annoying and confusing (you must enter the total elapsed time at each step, not the time-per-step), but the normal use case works really well. The right options are available (notification sound, audio channel, text-to-speech, screen lock).

modulusprime | 13 years ago | on: Nexus 4 Unusable for VoIP Calls

I get GSM quality calls on my Nexus 4 (at minimum) via cSIPsimple, pbxes.org, and Google Voice, usually over a mediocre repeated WiFi connection. If there's interest, I'll write it up.

Mild configuration hassle but reliable. Helps to move Google Voice to an account where where you never IM.

modulusprime | 13 years ago | on: Healthcare tech ideas we'd like to fund

1) A mega platform on top of existing EHR's won't be an easy thing. It would require them to play ball and large players, like Epic, probably won't.

They definitely won't play ball with a platform attempting to integrate all of them. That's just a risk; there's no upside. It's possible that none of them would welcome a "platform" at all.

But survey the landscape of EHR vendors. There are a few unique positions of strength out there. Each aspect of uniqueness defines a hypothetical market. The mere existence of some of those markets would develop an asymmetry that simultaneously penalizes competitors and solves a big problem for the partner. Build the spark of the market and you have a significant ally with a strong incentive to nurture your business.

Idea quality indicator: you want the existing player aligned with you, not buying your company (then killing it). They should need you externally.

I'm building a business on one of these hypothetical markets. I made my choice based on my personal capability and fit with the details of the problem. But there are a huge number of different ways to improve both the quality and efficiency of healthcare. (You don't get to solve big problems if there are no big problems.)

modulusprime | 13 years ago | on: Last in Beauty Contests May Be First on Tracks

EDIT: See the video posted by stevenrace above. It's a sort of controlled road test with some good engineering moments. In sum, there are a lot of subtle factors that make the car surprisingly stable and maneuverable - for more obvious reasons, it just doesn't behave exactly as we'd intuitively expect.

modulusprime | 13 years ago | on: Designing a New Electronic Medical Record

Please excuse the off-topic rant: It's my mission right now to change something a little different about EMR design. You're looking at the output. That's wonderful and I am really happy about it. We also need to fix input. EMR/EHR interfaces are mostly terrible; that has significant negative consequences for both patients and providers.

You're looking for an output design that is effective as a physical document. Please consider a follow-up challenge for EMR input UI/UX.

modulusprime | 14 years ago | on: Pixel-fitting – how antialiasing can ruin your logos and icons

Thanks to commieneko and ssp for a couple of good posts.

Followup questions:

What do you think about the effect that pixel-alignment produces specifically in the context of this comparison?

There seem to be a couple of basic problems with the "clarity" of the pixel-aligned images (please correct):

- As lines diverge from rectilinear, aliasing is inevitable. Either the aliasing or the anti-aliasing will produce discontinuity.

- High-contrast neighbors on pixel boundaries are more likely to highlight perceptual problems related to frequency.

The part that interests me here is the presentation of this comparison on Dustin Curtis' site. His site seems to be pursuing visual impact as an ultimate goal, and contrast is a big part of that: http://i.imgur.com/UC8ZX.png (OP with histogram overlay)

Does the context minimize the negative effects you've described? Do the filtered images look out of place in such a stark environment?

modulusprime | 14 years ago | on: Your doctor doesn't want you to see this -- diagnosis using AI

This should be targeted toward two groups: doctors (site) and EHR vendors (API). I also think you should get some expertise involved sooner rather than later. Do a serious search and find some docs, including all the major specialties, that are both good at their jobs and sympathetic to your goals. No armchair MD's, use clinicians.

I have a side gig helping docs transition to EHRs. I started by helping an immunologist family member back in 2003. She's on her second EHR now. So far, her transitions have been the first and second most difficult of the bunch.

Right now it looks like SymCAT has the same problem as every EHR I've seen: the immunology side of allergy/immunology must be considered explicitly in your design, or the system will never work well. In immunology, you get weird sets of symptoms, you get multiple problems presenting, you get unusual systemic interactions and feedback loops.

For example, I just cruised through a few of the signs a less articulate person (not a medical pro) with common variable immunodeficiency might mention, along with a history of asthma. When I also include my "itchy scalp" (because you offered it in the "related" section) a bunch of potential diagnoses are excluded. None of them were correct, but a few were on the right track.

You're asking people to come up with their own symptoms and have a clue about which terminology will work. In practice, a big portion of the difference between a good doc and a mediocre/bad doc is the ability to construct a usable history from poor reporting. Via interview. Patients often do not have the tools to make connections (or ignore them) between symptoms.

That said, good luck. It's a great problem. If you get this right, it will be huge. Again, I'd encourage a public side for marketing and a different kind of input, but put your money on licensing.

modulusprime | 14 years ago | on: WolframAlpha FM Synthesizer

Miller Puckette is the primary author of pure-data (pd)and the original author (while at IRCAM) of Max. In Max/MSP/Jitter, MSP is the DSP portion of the code, named in homage to Puckette. (Max itself is named in honor of Max Mathews.)

David Zicarelli's Cycling74 maintains the original Max tree, though their contribution far exceeds "maintenance". Puckette's pd is a rewrite of Max intended to transcend some architectural limitations; as its name suggests, its conception of "data" is more fully abstracted away from the C underpinnings still visible in Max/MSP. In my opinion, pd is a more mature architecture while Max is a more mature product.

As far as I know, the only drama in the timeline revolves around Opcode (particularly its sale to Gibson), which led Zicarelli to start Cycling74. Beyond that, my impression is of mutual respect.

The tradeoff between maturity and elegance is sometimes maddening, but both are worth exploring. Max has a 30-day trial and pd is gratis/libre.

Some development history, including detail possibly of interest to hackers: http://xavier.amatriain.net/Thesis/html/node77.html Miller Puckette: http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/ Max Mathews: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Mathews pure-data: http://puredata.info/ Max/MSP/Jitter: http://cycling74.com/

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