656 reputation
313
bio website ubasics.com
location Ann Arbor, MI
age 37
visits member for 2 years, 2 months
seen Feb 13 at 20:46
stats profile views 78

Embedded engineer, hardware and software on custom and mobile hardware.

adavis@ubasics.com - 734-418-8418 - Twitter - Google+


Mar
22
awarded  Yearling
Jun
11
comment Does urine, used topically, clear pimples?
Sounds like a practical joke gone too far...
Mar
22
awarded  Yearling
Mar
20
awarded  Enlightened
Mar
20
awarded  Nice Answer
Nov
19
comment Can smartphone Apps detect EMF?
The Radio inside the phones can send and receive RF, some very small part of which is EMF, however apps on the phone are not allowed to access this hardware at a low enough level to be useful for EMF detection and interpretation. The magnetometer in most phones is very insensitive and very slow, so while it can report very large fields that don't vary much, it isn't going to be good for finding local magnetic phenomena from a distance of more than a few feet. Those apps likely use the magnetometer, but they are as limited as the magnetometer in what they can sense and report.
Oct
28
awarded  Nice Answer
Aug
17
comment Do most professional bicycle racers take performance enhancing drugs?
Very interesting information on the biological passport - test for the physiological changes that are out of norm, rather than individual drugs or drug markers, since "New drugs are produced at an unprecedented pace today and there is often a lag of several years between the availability of a new drug and the application of an effective detection method."
Aug
17
awarded  Quorum
Aug
12
awarded  Nice Question
Aug
8
comment Is a barcode misread less frequent than cashier giving out the wrong change?
Due to the check digit, a barcode would have to be very badly misread to produce a number (most misreads simply produce an error output). Further, that number has to correspond to a real item in the database, and UPC codes in use today for products are not fully packed - you can't guarantee that by changing one number to another, you'll get a valid product, nevermind a valid product that this store actually carries and has a database entry for. All these factors combined mean that there's a very, very, very tiny chance of this happening.
Aug
8
awarded  Citizen Patrol
Aug
8
comment Do the BBC have TV detector vans and how can they tell if you aren't paying a license fee?
"If you have a TV receiver that only receives digital signal then there is no local oscillator for the detectors to detect." Digital TV receivers still have local oscillators. It's a basic RF receiver requirement, and digital signals are still RF signals.
Aug
7
comment Does “fracking” cause earthquakes?
Notably 1.5 and 2.3 magnitude earthquakes are common, and hardly noticable. Also, keep in mind that they may have stopped drilling not because they are afraid they're causing the quakes - they have to stop once quakes occur, and let things settle down, since earthquakes can cause disruptions in the shaft and drilling equipment. Better to wait until the area is geologically stable before resuming drilling.
Aug
6
comment Is the Bible the most read book?
"Is the Bible the most read book?" "Most read" as in, "book which more people have read some or all of than any other book" or "book which has accrued the most man-hours of reading and study than any other book"? The first probably correlates more closely with sales figures than anything. I don't know there's a way to measure the second, but I do know there people who devote an hour a day of study to the book for their entire life. One person doing this would certianly swamp, for instance, several hundred sold copies of the entire Harry Potter series, even if read multiple times.
Aug
6
comment Is the Bible the most read book?
@Ophir I am skeptical of your claim. What studies support it?
Aug
6
comment Are shorter lines easier to read?
@dmckee Yes, but keep in mind that LaTeX was meant to produce printed material, on limited size sheets of paper - largely meant to go into books of smaller than 8.5x11 size paper, with larger gutters and margins. I suspect that even if they based line length on various studies, that data was probably combined with more practical concerns, such as paper size, etc.
Aug
6
comment Are shorter lines easier to read?
@ratchet If I perform that test on myself, am I testing what is inherent in my biology, or am I testing a learned behavior from reading short line lengths for decades?
Aug
6
awarded  Student
Aug
6
comment Can diabetics with pumps be killed from a half mile away?
Patients who are on an infusion pump are typically receiving very high doses of insulin. While the doctor and patient set limits so they cannot give themselves an obviously too large dose, it's quite possible that at the right time the maximum dose could be pushed and result in a significant medical problem. The serial number is all that's required to make a radio remote for the pump, so using social engineering one could probably get that. I don't think it could easily be brute forced due to lack of feedback (unless observing the patient directly, you don't know you dosed them).