It looks very much like an experimental error. The fact they didn't use a multichannel analyser to look at the energy of the signal makes it very hard to exclude background signal (like from the sun, a massive radiation source).
They didn't even use much of a lead shield - 5mm, which is hardly anything for higher energy photons.
Looks like an error confusing absorbed dose (in gray) with effective dose (in sieverts). The effective dose would include the weighting factor for breast tissue and would be ~10 or 20 times smaller.
It is slightly disingenius to suggest there is no evidence for the linear no-threshold model. All the epidemiological data at higher doses supports it. Low dose data is weak, we know that and it is a problem.
That said, it is clear from cell studies and animal studies that the type of radiation, dose rates, fractionation and the possible priming of repair mechanisms all play a part in low dose risk. It is reasonable to assume that low dose radiation risk is non-linear, but it is damn near impossible to actually plot the relationship.
I know there a strong proponents of the idea of a threshold. That's where this 100mSv number keeps coming from. Do keep in mind that there is a lot of money in cleaning up waste etc, and a lot of people with vested interests.
While the ICRP support the LNT as the best practical model, I'll keep using it. When they pick a better one, I (and my colleagues) will move to that.
Exposure (Roentgens) is a measure of radiation in air. Useful for physicists, but not for anyone else.
Absorbed dose (gray, J/kg) is a meaure of the energy deposited. Useful for single organ tissue effects (look up deterministic effects).
Equivalent dose (sievert) is absorbed dose corrected with a radiation weighting factor, as high energy transfer radiation is more damaging (ie alpha radiation).
Effective dose (also sievert) reflects the biological risk by including a tissue weighting factor. This is important when doses are received only by certain organs. More useful for estimating cancer risk.
Rads and Rems are old and deprecated non-SI units.
I have my concerns that the Slashdot crowd seem to have immediately disregarded this research, particularly that "correlation is not causation" rant. In this case, they *have* been looking for causation.
There is, however, already a response from researchers at Texas A&M discussing the flaws of this particular paper (link below), including selection bias and apparent contradictions from other evidence. In short, peer-review is acting just as it should. It is only because Anderson has jammed out a press release to get his 15 minutes that we are even discussing it.
Link to A&M paper
http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/Much%20Ado.pdf
Seems like a sensible plan. Afterall, don't all the computer shops force you to separately buy an over-priced USB lead to go with a new printer?
Why not do the same for an OS? Then, those in the know can do like we do with the USB leads - get it somewhere cheaper.
The license they use does NOT enforce sharing. But they believe that people OUGHT to share. So, when someone doesn't share (for example by adding GPL components) they try to use insults, blackmail and bad PR to force them to share.
It is exactly like Theo did over openSSH. Does no-one remember the bullying that Theo tried to get money and equipment out of users of openSSH? http://kerneltrap.org/node/6550
They were low on funds, so he decided that anyone who uses the FREE software they made OUGHT to donate to openBSD.
This behaviour is very like the behaviour of those who own MP3 patents - let it go out and become the standard THEN hit everyone up for cash. The only difference is that the BSD license means no-one is FORCED to pay, they just get slagged off by Theo.
ATI still have not released their drivers as open, and the closed ones are complete ass.
The open ones are severely limited, no surprise given the lack of help from ATI.
Intel, on the other hand, has excellent open source graphics drivers.
Re:I have no problem with this kind of thing
on
Manhattan 1984
·
· Score: 1
A brilliant plan, except that DNA matches are not 100% unique.
DNA, like fingerprints, works on the basis that you sample a small number of likely suspects, and then compare them to the crime scene. Now, if you have an allmighty great database with millions of people on, the chance you will get false positives increases. In that event, we can look forward to totally innocent people being arrested and detained. Think I am over-reacting? Did Jean-Charles de Menezes do anything wrong other than live in the wrong place? How many people have the americans kidnapped to gitmo without evidence? What would happen to YOUR life if YOU were held without trial for 28 days, or even the proposed 90 days?
If you went to trial and the prosecution said "there is a one in 10 million chance of a false positive" would you expect to be convicted? Now, if there are 60 million people in the UK, even one in 10 million ought to hit half a dozen innocent by pure chance. Expand that to international databases, and your DNA or fingerprint techniques need to be one in several-hundred-billion to be trustworthy. What you achieve is the destruction in trust in DNA and fingerprints. Which is stoopid.
If a known burglar is stopped down the road from a burgled house with a crow-bar and a bag labelled swag, then sure, his fingerprints at the crime prove his guilt. But database trawling will just yield up innocent people to be persecuted.
The government is full of non-scientists who think technology is infallable. We have to protect ourselves.
If you all insist on voting for people because of their religious affiliations (and indeed, expressly WOULDN'T vote for atheists) then what did you expect?
Vote for religious people, and they protect religious ideas. No matter how perverse they are. To allow you to deride Scientology would risk allowing you to deride born again christians or catholics.
Come on, we all know that despite a similar or larger number of firearms per person in Canada that violent crime and gun crime in particular is much lower there.
It is obvious that having the opportunity to get cheap pirate movies keeps Canadians from killing each other.
As such, I call on the US government to decriminalise piracy.
Won't someone please think of the children!
Does opening your product up risk a competing fork? Yes.
Should you, who wrote the software, be best placed to support and develop the product? Yes.
So does the competing fork stand much of a chance? Only if you drop the ball.
Think MySQL. We could fork it, but why bother?
Of course, sometimes forks do succeed - like Xorg. Which turns out better for the community. And that only happens when there is trouble with the original that can't be rectified.
P.S. Please don't link Matt Hartley articles, he has not been insightful in any article I have ever read. Feel free to look back through his previous nonsense.
iTunes didn't start up because people only wanted one or two songs. Singles sales have been crap since albums on cd became decently affordable. The point of iTunes was two-fold.
1) Sell DRM crap to people so they HAVE to buy another iPod when their's packs in.
2) Allow one song impulse buys of radio classics.
The point about the extra 30% price is that Jobs has been FORCED to make this move by the DRM being declared illegal in several European countries, and he is smoke-screening to try and make a profit out of being forced to un-DRM the music.
Jobs is a master of illusion. With sleight of hand he makes a 0% price hike look like he is fighting for what the people want. It's the same nonsense we get when apple pretend to be so friendly and chummy with their geek bars in Apple stores, while crushing any journalists that dare to even comment on conjecture of what Apple might be offering in their next product line.
Jobs is a control freak but king of PR. The fact so many people fall for his bullshit is a testament to his skill.
It may well be the case that Microsoft are being forced to under-charge for these protocols - but the fact is they have been found guilty of anti-competitive behaviour by the EU.
Now, rather than pay the fine and be apologetic, even after trying to lie and bully their way to not being found guilty, they continue to try and lie and bully. Remember the "ooh, well, maybe we'll just pull out of the EU" threat they tried?
So they lie, cheat, and bully, and suddenly expect the EU to sit down and give them a fair hearing now? Sorry, but the individuals involved in the case have been prejudiced against microsoft because of microsoft's previous dishonest behaviour.
So is the price fair on the protocols? It doesn't matter. The EU is going to make Microsoft pay for abusing its position, an pay DEARLY for trying to avoid the initial fines and trying to bully their way to success.
The EU isn't the US - we aren't just going to vote in the Republicans to make it all go away.
About the competition aspect, if AMD were to move over onto the intel bus, then suddenly anyone can swap amd/intel processors at will.
A bad analogy: Washing machines
If washing powder A needs washing machine type 1, and washing powder B needs machine type 2, then everyone with machine 1 or 2 is tied to a manufacturer. This is good if your machines are better than your opponents, but not if your washing powder is, because people can't easily switch.
Instead, if both powders work with the common machine, then people can (and will) switch more. So if your powder is better, you can expect to lure more and keep more customers.
Yes, probably. But unless there is reasonable suspicion you shouldn't test for it.
I mean, do we really need the cops spending every waking moment testing bottles of shampoo and bars of soap?
...and more about appropriate use.
No test is ever going to be 100%, and certainly not el cheapo on the street tests. So the important point is WHEN the tests are used. The cops need to have a good reason to suspect a certain substance is present. If they go round testing every bottle or tub they find on anyone they ever search, they will collect HUNDREDS of false positives.
If, on the other hand, they only apply the tests to appropriate materials (I wonder if soap is an appropriate GHB delivery system?) and in situations where they have a reason to suspect an illegal substance (like a stoned suspect puffing on a spliff, or a needle-tracked junkie with a syringe in one hand) then the number of false positives will be low, and the police won't be accused of testing people willy-nilly.
As the original poster says, the sample is sent off to a proper lab for testing. Cheapo field test kits don't go to court, so the original poster's comment about people having resources to defend themselves is inaccurate.
If you want maximum exposure/use, the BSD license. GPL zealots will most likely fork and relicense it almost immediately if they wish to use it themselves, however.
If the acceptance of at least certain tragically vocal elements of the existing FOSS userbase is a priority to you, the GPL is your only real choice. The cult...sorry, community can have a tendency to refuse to use/develop anything that isn't GPL licensed on reflex, even if it is licensed under the BSD/MIT license. You may want to try slightly less aggressive language. It makes you look bad and does nothing to further your argument.
Realise that if you do use the GPL, you are actually relinquishing control of your work far more effectively than if you were to use the BSD/MIT licenses, and that this is what Stallman originally intended. Although the openly viral element is distasteful enough in itself, its' most dangerous elements are actually the entirely subjective and unwritten ones; the insistence that you not only follow the letter of the license as it is currently written, but also that you accept Stallman and the FSF as (at least ideological, and very possibly legal) authority figures, which also means unconditional acceptance of any future version of the license, irrespective of what terms such future versions might contain. The welfare of the collective in abstract terms is the priority; the welfare of the individual is not considered. You are free to say "GPLv2" or "GPLv2 or later" as you wish. You don't have to accept any new license terms at all. The Linux kernel is a good example.
Heavens no! Now I will have to open the video in one tab, switch to another tab and keep reading slashdot, and switch back to the video when the adverts are over.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269312002341
from the article itself.
It looks very much like an experimental error. The fact they didn't use a multichannel analyser to look at the energy of the signal makes it very hard to exclude background signal (like from the sun, a massive radiation source).
They didn't even use much of a lead shield - 5mm, which is hardly anything for higher energy photons.
Looks like an error confusing absorbed dose (in gray) with effective dose (in sieverts). The effective dose would include the weighting factor for breast tissue and would be ~10 or 20 times smaller.
That said, it is clear from cell studies and animal studies that the type of radiation, dose rates, fractionation and the possible priming of repair mechanisms all play a part in low dose risk. It is reasonable to assume that low dose radiation risk is non-linear, but it is damn near impossible to actually plot the relationship.
I know there a strong proponents of the idea of a threshold. That's where this 100mSv number keeps coming from. Do keep in mind that there is a lot of money in cleaning up waste etc, and a lot of people with vested interests.
While the ICRP support the LNT as the best practical model, I'll keep using it. When they pick a better one, I (and my colleagues) will move to that.
Exposure (Roentgens) is a measure of radiation in air. Useful for physicists, but not for anyone else.
Absorbed dose (gray, J/kg) is a meaure of the energy deposited. Useful for single organ tissue effects (look up deterministic effects).
Equivalent dose (sievert) is absorbed dose corrected with a radiation weighting factor, as high energy transfer radiation is more damaging (ie alpha radiation).
Effective dose (also sievert) reflects the biological risk by including a tissue weighting factor. This is important when doses are received only by certain organs. More useful for estimating cancer risk.
Rads and Rems are old and deprecated non-SI units.
According to the HPA, 0.03 microSv. Pretty low, compared to the flight. http://www.hpa.org.uk/Topics/Radiation/UnderstandingRadiation/UnderstandingRadiationTopics/BodyScanners/
http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/Much%20Ado.pdf
I have my concerns that the Slashdot crowd seem to have immediately disregarded this research, particularly that "correlation is not causation" rant. In this case, they *have* been looking for causation. There is, however, already a response from researchers at Texas A&M discussing the flaws of this particular paper (link below), including selection bias and apparent contradictions from other evidence. In short, peer-review is acting just as it should. It is only because Anderson has jammed out a press release to get his 15 minutes that we are even discussing it. Link to A&M paper http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/Much%20Ado.pdf
Seems like a sensible plan. Afterall, don't all the computer shops force you to separately buy an over-priced USB lead to go with a new printer? Why not do the same for an OS? Then, those in the know can do like we do with the USB leads - get it somewhere cheaper.
I contacted my Primary Care Trust under the FoI and asked them. The last year they spent £0 on homeopathy.
The license they use does NOT enforce sharing. But they believe that people OUGHT to share. So, when someone doesn't share (for example by adding GPL components) they try to use insults, blackmail and bad PR to force them to share. It is exactly like Theo did over openSSH. Does no-one remember the bullying that Theo tried to get money and equipment out of users of openSSH? http://kerneltrap.org/node/6550 They were low on funds, so he decided that anyone who uses the FREE software they made OUGHT to donate to openBSD. This behaviour is very like the behaviour of those who own MP3 patents - let it go out and become the standard THEN hit everyone up for cash. The only difference is that the BSD license means no-one is FORCED to pay, they just get slagged off by Theo.
ATI still have not released their drivers as open, and the closed ones are complete ass.
The open ones are severely limited, no surprise given the lack of help from ATI.
Intel, on the other hand, has excellent open source graphics drivers.
A brilliant plan, except that DNA matches are not 100% unique.
DNA, like fingerprints, works on the basis that you sample a small number of likely suspects, and then compare them to the crime scene. Now, if you have an allmighty great database with millions of people on, the chance you will get false positives increases. In that event, we can look forward to totally innocent people being arrested and detained. Think I am over-reacting? Did Jean-Charles de Menezes do anything wrong other than live in the wrong place? How many people have the americans kidnapped to gitmo without evidence? What would happen to YOUR life if YOU were held without trial for 28 days, or even the proposed 90 days?
If you went to trial and the prosecution said "there is a one in 10 million chance of a false positive" would you expect to be convicted? Now, if there are 60 million people in the UK, even one in 10 million ought to hit half a dozen innocent by pure chance. Expand that to international databases, and your DNA or fingerprint techniques need to be one in several-hundred-billion to be trustworthy. What you achieve is the destruction in trust in DNA and fingerprints. Which is stoopid.
If a known burglar is stopped down the road from a burgled house with a crow-bar and a bag labelled swag, then sure, his fingerprints at the crime prove his guilt. But database trawling will just yield up innocent people to be persecuted.
The government is full of non-scientists who think technology is infallable. We have to protect ourselves.
If you all insist on voting for people because of their religious affiliations (and indeed, expressly WOULDN'T vote for atheists) then what did you expect? Vote for religious people, and they protect religious ideas. No matter how perverse they are. To allow you to deride Scientology would risk allowing you to deride born again christians or catholics.
Come on, we all know that despite a similar or larger number of firearms per person in Canada that violent crime and gun crime in particular is much lower there. It is obvious that having the opportunity to get cheap pirate movies keeps Canadians from killing each other. As such, I call on the US government to decriminalise piracy. Won't someone please think of the children!
Does opening your product up risk a competing fork? Yes.
Should you, who wrote the software, be best placed to support and develop the product? Yes.
So does the competing fork stand much of a chance? Only if you drop the ball.
Think MySQL. We could fork it, but why bother?
Of course, sometimes forks do succeed - like Xorg. Which turns out better for the community. And that only happens when there is trouble with the original that can't be rectified.
P.S. Please don't link Matt Hartley articles, he has not been insightful in any article I have ever read. Feel free to look back through his previous nonsense.
iTunes didn't start up because people only wanted one or two songs. Singles sales have been crap since albums on cd became decently affordable. The point of iTunes was two-fold. 1) Sell DRM crap to people so they HAVE to buy another iPod when their's packs in. 2) Allow one song impulse buys of radio classics. The point about the extra 30% price is that Jobs has been FORCED to make this move by the DRM being declared illegal in several European countries, and he is smoke-screening to try and make a profit out of being forced to un-DRM the music. Jobs is a master of illusion. With sleight of hand he makes a 0% price hike look like he is fighting for what the people want. It's the same nonsense we get when apple pretend to be so friendly and chummy with their geek bars in Apple stores, while crushing any journalists that dare to even comment on conjecture of what Apple might be offering in their next product line. Jobs is a control freak but king of PR. The fact so many people fall for his bullshit is a testament to his skill.
great post. Also, don't forget the low voltage screen and parts so that a child can safely take it apart in the field.
It may well be the case that Microsoft are being forced to under-charge for these protocols - but the fact is they have been found guilty of anti-competitive behaviour by the EU. Now, rather than pay the fine and be apologetic, even after trying to lie and bully their way to not being found guilty, they continue to try and lie and bully. Remember the "ooh, well, maybe we'll just pull out of the EU" threat they tried? So they lie, cheat, and bully, and suddenly expect the EU to sit down and give them a fair hearing now? Sorry, but the individuals involved in the case have been prejudiced against microsoft because of microsoft's previous dishonest behaviour. So is the price fair on the protocols? It doesn't matter. The EU is going to make Microsoft pay for abusing its position, an pay DEARLY for trying to avoid the initial fines and trying to bully their way to success. The EU isn't the US - we aren't just going to vote in the Republicans to make it all go away.
About the competition aspect, if AMD were to move over onto the intel bus, then suddenly anyone can swap amd/intel processors at will. A bad analogy: Washing machines If washing powder A needs washing machine type 1, and washing powder B needs machine type 2, then everyone with machine 1 or 2 is tied to a manufacturer. This is good if your machines are better than your opponents, but not if your washing powder is, because people can't easily switch. Instead, if both powders work with the common machine, then people can (and will) switch more. So if your powder is better, you can expect to lure more and keep more customers.
Yes, probably. But unless there is reasonable suspicion you shouldn't test for it. I mean, do we really need the cops spending every waking moment testing bottles of shampoo and bars of soap?
...and more about appropriate use. No test is ever going to be 100%, and certainly not el cheapo on the street tests. So the important point is WHEN the tests are used. The cops need to have a good reason to suspect a certain substance is present. If they go round testing every bottle or tub they find on anyone they ever search, they will collect HUNDREDS of false positives. If, on the other hand, they only apply the tests to appropriate materials (I wonder if soap is an appropriate GHB delivery system?) and in situations where they have a reason to suspect an illegal substance (like a stoned suspect puffing on a spliff, or a needle-tracked junkie with a syringe in one hand) then the number of false positives will be low, and the police won't be accused of testing people willy-nilly.
As the original poster says, the sample is sent off to a proper lab for testing. Cheapo field test kits don't go to court, so the original poster's comment about people having resources to defend themselves is inaccurate.
If the acceptance of at least certain tragically vocal elements of the existing FOSS userbase is a priority to you, the GPL is your only real choice. The cult...sorry, community can have a tendency to refuse to use/develop anything that isn't GPL licensed on reflex, even if it is licensed under the BSD/MIT license.
You may want to try slightly less aggressive language. It makes you look bad and does nothing to further your argument. Realise that if you do use the GPL, you are actually relinquishing control of your work far more effectively than if you were to use the BSD/MIT licenses, and that this is what Stallman originally intended. Although the openly viral element is distasteful enough in itself, its' most dangerous elements are actually the entirely subjective and unwritten ones; the insistence that you not only follow the letter of the license as it is currently written, but also that you accept Stallman and the FSF as (at least ideological, and very possibly legal) authority figures, which also means unconditional acceptance of any future version of the license, irrespective of what terms such future versions might contain. The welfare of the collective in abstract terms is the priority; the welfare of the individual is not considered.
You are free to say "GPLv2" or "GPLv2 or later" as you wish. You don't have to accept any new license terms at all. The Linux kernel is a good example.
Heavens no! Now I will have to open the video in one tab, switch to another tab and keep reading slashdot, and switch back to the video when the adverts are over.
...but until they guarantee their hardware will work with a certain version of the linux kernel, they aren't going to get any business from me.