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Comment: Re:Move to Android (Score 1) 141

by texas neuron (#45753343) Attached to: BlackBerry Posts $4.4 Billion Loss, Will Outsource To Foxconn

Stuffing the channel? I don't hear stories about huge write downs. If anything Nokia was supply constrained most of the year on most models.

The number sold isn't that small. That's the point, the number sold is larger than BlackBerry at its height.

They are making progress - but 8.8 million windows phone sales is not "larger than Blackberry at its height". http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/29/5041666/nokia-lumia-sales-q3-2013 Blackberry's top was http://aaplinvestors.net/stats/iphone/bbvsiphone/ . Revenue wise - ASP is falling for lumia and is well below what Blackberry was dosing. Lumia is making headway against the low end android market.

Comment: Apple is not more expensive now. (Score 1) 390

The only data source I can see for how long people keep their phones in use is flickr. If you look at the various vendors (www.flicker.com/cameras) you will see a drop off in high end phones beginning as early as 12 months for some models, 18 months for others. iPhones maintain their use on flicker much longer. The drop off is the iphone 4 was very gradual during the last year.

I do not think one can compare different manufacturers use rate since OS and geography has an impact, but you probably can compare Galaxy S4 to S3 to S2. Notice that the S4 is selling very poorly compared to the S3 at this time.

I think the total cost of ownership of an iPhone is much less than a high end Android phone due to its longevity and OS upgrade policy.

Comment: It should be about "positive job growth" (Score 1) 435

by texas neuron (#44435179) Attached to: Obama Praises Amazon At One of Its Controversial Warehouses
Amazon, Sam's, Walmart, Home Depot - etc. all cost less because they either - make a smaller profit margin, pay less for what they sell, or pay less to run their business or some combination of the above. All of these mega-stores have put lots of smaller stores out of business and the result is a net job loss in the retail industry. Folks are paying less money for stuff so it may be a net gain overall but to think these are great jobs - as Obama does - is not very smart.

Contrast that with the Keystone Pipeline - high level blue-collar jobs with further job creation in the refineries. If we do not build the pipeline here, the Canadians are likely to build one to the ocean and export the stuff to be refined somewhere else and the result will be the loss of well paying jobs. When we choose to not develop ANWR and states elect to not drill for oil and gas - then we are shipping these jobs overseas.

Comment: Re:The Insanity of "Obviousness" (Score 1) 121

Yes you are missing something. A proximity sensor itself is not obvious but was already covered by another Motorola patent (http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/12/motorola-patent-defeats-another-in.html). The extension from the prior patent to the new patent is what is obvious. Motorola could sue based upon the prior patent if they had not let it expire.

Comment: Re:Oh give them a break (Score 2) 644

Funny has the Dept of Energy price chart http://energy.gov/science-innovation/energy-sources cuts off in 2008 (despite it being labeled as 2009) and shows rising natural gas prices which peaked in 2008 and have fallen dramatically http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_pri_sum_dcu_nus_a.htm . Artificially increasing energy prices is the worse form of taxation.

Comment: Re:Try using maps; but other options also exist (Score 1) 561

by texas neuron (#41481647) Attached to: Why Apple Replaced iOS Maps

If anything, Google should be the one to blame. Why didn't it have an app ready to replace Maps like it did for YouTube?

Because Google is too busy watching Apple flounder with this PR nightmare. Why should Google be in any hurry?

Because most users are not going to have any problems with Apple's version of Maps and will stick with it. I am in Houston, Tx which is a large city with flyover. The longer Google waits to offer their service, the smaller the audience they will get.

I have noticed that Apple does not have the individual buildings labeled at Rice University. On the other hand, they have a current picture of the new Dynamo Stadium (opened March 2012) where Google maps shows an empty lot.

Comment: Re:Vaccines should be mandatory. (Score 2, Interesting) 1025

by texas neuron (#41108513) Attached to: Study Finds Unvaccinated Students Putting Other Students At Risk
The flu vaccine does not really prevent the flu (20% effective). Instead, it prevents serious complications of the flu (80% effective). I am surprised that no one has mentioned that vaccines are actually cost effective. Virtually all other treatments and screenings are not. So there is a medical cost to society when people choose to not vaccinate.

Comment: Re:What? (Score 1) 248

by texas neuron (#40657939) Attached to: East Texas Getting Compressed Air Energy Storage Plant
They are not going to burn natural gas (at least not in their turbines) to store the air. Average wholesale prices in Texas are less than $80 per MWH, peak is $3000 per MWH during summer months, over-night gets close to $0 in areas with lots of wind turbines and constrained transmission lines. They will buy when prices are cheap overnight (nuclear plants don't like to slow down, wind mills max out in most of Texas, harder to spin up and down coal plants) and sell during peak loads during the day. Unclear to me what is the plant capacity to work out a $/day formula.

Comment: planet heating (Score 3, Insightful) 745

by texas neuron (#37653882) Attached to: Oil May Be Finite, But U.S. Production Is Ramping Up
Pretty clear from the charts that the CO2 levels are rising because of man made contributions. It is also completely clear that the models linking rising CO2 to rising temperature are not quantitatively accurate (temperature flat for 10 years while CO2 continues the predicted rise). http://www.climate.gov/#climateWatch . The question now is whether or not the the models are even qualitatively accurate. Being an engineer, I do not think the climate scientist have models to the 4th significant figure.

Comment: Re:Global warming has become hopelessly politicize (Score 1) 429

by texas neuron (#37449910) Attached to: Atlas Takes Heat For Melting Glacier Claim
Actually, if you look at the data the trend may still be rising but much more slowly then "the experts" ever predicted. The current rate for the last 10 years appears to be less than 0.1 degrees C. The two decades before were also lower than predicted and in the range of 0.2 to 0.25 degrees C. The rate of rise is just as critical to global planning as the fact that the temperature is actually rising. I don't hold out much hope for the models ever being able to predict the temperature to 4 significant figures but that is what "the experts" claim they can do. When they have a model that starts in 1980 and currently predicts through 2010, I will listen.
