The case stretches back to the end of the First World War, when the well-established German drug company Merck was split up by the victorious powers, leaving a German rum company (Merck KGaA) and a multinational (Merck & Co). Both companies still exist, and as the preceding links show, have managed to deal with the potential "namespace" collisions on the general Internet.
Merck KGaA entered into an "agreement" (by implication, a contract) with Facebook to use the page http://www.facebook.com/Merck in 2010, and they were getting some use out of the page, needing to get administrative rights for several employees. So far, so good ; Merck KGaA are obviously relatively savvy to how the Internet works and have done "the right thing" (including, from a typical-Slashdot-user's IT-worker-friendly perspective, assigning a budget and staff to this part of their IT and internet presence).
But on October 11, 2011, Merck KGaA's staff found that the page now pointed to content from their competitors Merck & Co, and that they had lost administrative control of the page.
So, what is going on? Well, it's not clear. The staff at Facebook are not responding in any meaningful sense (according to the Beeb's report). There are a number of possible scenarios where genuine mistakes have been made, or seemingly-reasonable policies have had unintended consequences While researching for TFS (This Fucking Summary) I originally got to the Merck KGaA website by guessing "merck.de" , at which point I got a redirect ; which is what you'd expect. Equally I got to Merck & Co by guessing at [drum roll] merck.com ; which is again what you'd expect to happen. This reflects the essential separation of the.de and.com TLDs.
In effect Facebook has itself become an important TLD. So collisions in this new namespace are to be expected. And what policies Facebook applies to resolve namespace disputes is a matter of general interest."
To reiterate one of my questions : it is possible for this to be either a genuine misunderstanding, or a mis-applied policy, or an unintended consequence of a seemingly reasonable policy. However, after an initial period of "WTF has happened?", silence is not an appropriate response from FB.
No. Detain the external dangling organs of the lawyers (different organs for male of female) in the court room. The rest of the lawyers may leave - indeed, should be encouraged to leave, or just plain dragged away. But the dangly organs should be detained in the court room.
If you're feeling so inclined, you could provide the lawyers with a knife. As long as it's blunt.
What was that creepy-fun film I saw a while ago... ? 127 Hours.
Picture the same general situation, but with much less appealing characters without redeeming features. And a blunter knife. Making them drink their own piss wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Hey, this is beginning to sound good! Something useful to do with lawyers. Or we could use them for street lamps, I suppose.
These programs churn out extremely effective weaponry and force multipliers built with a focus on today's battles and the future, and all of Iran's military might wouldn't be able to contain a multi-national invasion spearheaded by the U.S.
And which other nations would be members of this "multi-national coalition"? The member of my family who have been stupid enough to join the military would go into the glass house (military prison) if they weren't allowed to leave the army in preference to being lackies for the Americans (though to be honest, I think they're likely to finish their careers before it becomes an issue). Politically, there would be rioting in the streets if the government tried to get involved in such an attack. We've got no real problem with Iran, and there is significant trade with the country which would be adversely affected by going to war with them at the behest of the Americans.
You've just made very explicit why Iran needs to acquire nuclear weapons. Indeed, why they've got a moral right to have them. The Iranian government may not be the nicest people in the world, but they're not the worst people in the area either.
The second word of the summary is "suspect" ; it could equally well be "accused person" ; it is not "convicted person".
I believe that the country being referred to has a constitutional principle that amounts to people being presumed innocent until proven guilty. Or has that constitution been superseded? And that would be the same constitution that bans the free expression of political opinion? Sorry, that should have been "permits", not "bans" ; a Freudian slit, if ever there was one.
There is also no indication in TFS (I can't be bothered wasting my time on reading further about foreigner's inability to follow their own laws) that the disputed blog actually contains material that may be considered offensive. The commentary is about the blog being banned because the blogger is (allegedly) a terrorist. But TFS doesn't actually inform us whether the blog is bomb-making instructions, a list of the blogger's stamp collection, or the blogger's (constitutionally protected) free speech making a rational case for the introduction of Sharia law to the country. Or an irrational case for the unanaesthetised clitoridectomy of all bankers and sentators, regardless of their gender (which proposal might gain considerable popular support from the non-terrorist portion of the population).
But sometime before I die, I would like to be able to use the phrase, "my personal submersible" if only for the way it makes my mouth feel to say those words.
There are machines that fit the definition of a "personal submersible" which only cost around a thousand IBT (note at foot of message)
These are rather like underwater mopeds with a head/ shoulders shroud which is supplied with air by a SCUBA system (there's also a "bail-out bottle" in the ones I've seen advertised) ; this provides buoyancy at the top ; a waterproof housing with a car battery hangs at the bottom ; the two are joined by solid body incorporating a moped-like seat, with several thrusters in the body and steering controls for the user. Allegedly, no training is necessary. 10m depth limit though.
If you're not into SCUBA, they're not unbelievably expensive - I saw them advertised for tourist trips at moderately interesting prices on a Tenerife beach promenade, but I was getting my SCUBA ticket. (If you are into SCUBA... you don't need this.)
I suppose I'd better RTFA now. Bad form, I know.
Fricke never observed reproduction, predation or juveniles, but believes the total Comoros population holds 300 to 400 individualsâ"a number he regards as viable.
As a population base, that's probably viable. But seeing no juveniles for what is obviously a long-lived period species... that's a cause for concern. Ah... but later there are reports of juveniles seen deeper using an un-manned ROV. Which makes perfect sense - it's not uncommon for juveniles and adults to have substantially different habitats and life styles.
Using Fricke's customized submersible JAGO
Fricke's sub ; not Allen's. [...]
To explore potential juvenile and adult habitat deeper than Fricke's census area, Paul Allen - the cofounder of Microsoft - lent his ROV to Fricke for three dives.
An ROV system in this sort of depth capability range could only cost a few 10s of thousand IBTs. Substantial, but far less than the "JAGO" submarine. It'd need less deck space too, which is really important.
In commenting on the original article, I mentioned this book, which is the current standard reference on fossil coelacanths. (Dr Forey, the author, is "Prof Coelacanth" at the NHM as much as Richard Fortey is "Prof. Trilobite" ; by all accounts I've heard of Prof.Trilobite in "lecture mode", the easiest way to distinguish the two is that one has a beard and is talking about something recognisably fishy, while the other is clean-shaven and talking about something with no good modern comparison. Mad as hatters, both of them. In a good sense.) I'm sure that Dr Forey has noted Fricke's work for inclusion in the next edition of his monograph.
[Note : IBT = International Beer Token ; while the absolute cost of a beer varies around the world, relative to other commodities it's less variable. A "beer" is equivalent to about 3-4 loaves of bread ; 1.25 "beers" plus the son of your deity of choice will feed around 1/5th milli-crowd ; a "beer" is approximately equivalent to 6-8 ready-rolled cigarettes.
Well, I find it useful. I also use the IBT concept for comparing pay rates in different continents to decide which jobs to accept.]
Counter-reference : Jesus and Mo : no significant evidence of the "crazies" (i.e. lunatics following an Abrahamic religion, like Christianity) attacking the author, at least since his insistence that "Mo" is played by a body-double.
My evil sense of humour wonders if the university "club" for "Friends of Earth" etc has been given office space there.
(No question mark ; it's a flat statement. I do wonder thus. I would have assigned so, given a chance. I refer you to the previous statement about "evil sense of humour". And if I thought it was safe enough for them, I'd have been happy to take the adjoining office ; otherwise, pass the pump of barytes-laden cement.)
Which is why you persuade the planning official to do the laying in the mud, squirming, while you go off to the pub for a quick couple of pints, a bag of peanuts, and the End of The World As We Know It.
In this case, the fools being the ones paying £26 for a dozen cakes. But then again, they're idiots who haven't got out of London, so they're probably not worth worrying about.
The contents of number plates have been defined quite closely for decades, to ensure that plates remain readable by humans. Here, the rules are (I think) simply that the plates be readable by a human with good eyesight at 20m range, and that the plates have no unusual spacing or fonts that prevent recognition. Some countries (Germany springs to mind) specify the precise font to be used (which is designed to have low ambiguity to mechanised readers, and are also used on cheques, official documents, etc) ; I think that the UK rules also specify (approximately) the background colours to be used (white front, yellow rear), that the lettering must be in plain black...
Putting "dazzle" like camouflage onto such a constrained item is going to be a real challenge ; your convenient muddy puddle is likely to be more effective. But you'd be lucky to get away with it twice.
... the OOL theory that attracts least interest from the OOL (Origin Of Life) researchers, because it does damned-all to explain the origin of life (it merely moves the locus of the problem to some other, unknown, location and conditions).
You may not get this impression from watching Discovery Channel. But then again, the producers and writers of Discovery Channel aren't OOL researchers.
Meh. Fingerprint false matches have been proved - to the satisfaction of the courts - for several years now. The proof of concept case in Britain was a police worker who specialised in fingerprint collection being misidentified as the source of a fingerprint in a case that she had been working on. The presence of the alleged fingerprint of hers was taken as evidence that she'd violated procedures and contaminated a crime scene. When she denied this, she was (eventually) sacked for misconduct, took it to court, and the court accepted that the police's fingerprint examiners had, multiple times, misidentified the mystery print as hers.
I believe the case has now moved on to restitution (she wants her job back and the allegations removed from her record ; the police don't want her back), but the principle that experienced fingerprint examiners can mis-attribute a print to the wrong person has already been established.
Not that that's any surprise anyway. If the "coverage space" of fingerprints is large enough to allow for (say) 10billion fingerprints with enough differences to be differentiated by current techniques, then in a world of 7(+) billion, false matches are going to become common enough.
Oh, sorry, is that not the message of utter confidence in our Lords and Masters that our Lords and Masters wish us to suck from the nipple of the media. So sorry for being off-message.
Anyway - being a false hit on an expanded US database where they tag an entire country as "suspect", isn't going to be an issue as long as I don't go to the States. Which I don't have any intention of doing.
But we homo sapiens did kill off the other hominids. So there will me a brutal mass murder sometime by the most well-suited species.
Current theory is that Homo Sapiens Sapiens interbred with Homo Sapiens Neaderthalensis until there were no Neaderthals left. Essentially, slow, pleasant, maybe tender, genocide by Snu Snu.
The most recent that I heard (in either a 'Nature' or 'Science' podcast when the recent papers about the Denisoivans were being discussed) was that the Neanderthal contribution to modern genomes is only in the order of 5-10%. There was some interbreeding, but not a lot.
This does not directly imply the blood-soaked history that the GP AC (? - below my threshold) implies : displacement by out-competing for hunting territory doesn't necessarily imply lots of acts of murder. If the Cro-Magnon AMHs did their hunting in groups of 25 while the Neanderthals hunted in groups of 5, then any confrontation would have resulted in displacement of the Neanderthals without the necessity for any actual fighting to take place.
And if the water is impacted by radiation, how is that going to render it dangerous?
water consists of hydrogen and oxygen ; radiation of interest consists of high-energy protons, neutrons, and photons (electrons don't have sufficient penetrating power to be a real concern).
Hydrogen absorbing one of {proton ; neutron ; photon} yields {two medium-energy protons, most likely as ions ; deuterium ; ionised hydrogen }. Since absolutely pure water contains one mole of hydrogen ions per 10^7 moles of water, in a dynamic equilibrium with water molecules and hydroxyl ion, I remain unmoved by the lethal potential of this reaction.
Oxygen absorbing one of {proton ; neutron ; photon} yields {fluorine (probably as an ion) ; a heavier oxygen isotope and an excited oxygen nucleus }. Again, I find myself not exactly quivering with terror at the prospect. I might include a source of calcium ions in my filtration system - something relatively soluble like gypsum. "Meh."
There are other nuclear species in cosmic radiation (which is relatively homogeneous compared to the much more variable solar radiation), often iron. But by the time they've been stopped by your shielding, I find myself less than quivering in terror.
There are rational reasons for being concerned by radiation, but that is not a reason for having irrational fear of the word. Do you have a rational basis for being afraid of water that has (successfully) been used as radiation shielding?
Reverse osmosis is energetically more efficient, and more importantly the equipment is likely to be lighter, more maintainable, and more compact than a still. Which is why reverse osmosis systems are the industrial standard for making drinking water in remote locations.
Having said that, although this page makes reference to "distillation", their actual description of the pee processing doesn't : "The first step is a filter that removes particles and debris. Then the water passes through the "multi-filtration beds," which contain substances that remove organic and inorganic impurities. And finally, the "catalytic oxidation reactor" removes volatile organic compounds and kills bacteria and viruses." Which sounds like activated charcoal and (probably) ozonolysis to zap all the organics. However, later the page says "the water recycling systems produce a small amount of unusable brine" ; which does sound like a reverse osmosis system.
More likely 9 characters of password giving access to a bare-bones install of WinXP that occupies a gig or so (it's been a while since I looked at an XP system).
We make planes out of this lighter-than-air material, and now we don't need engines or fuel.
If the payload were also lighter than air, then you wouldn't need to use engines to provide lift, but you would still need to provide thrust to overcome drag, to accelerate and decelerate the loads (vehicle load and payload), and to steer.
Well done. You've re-invented the airship. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing!)
Slashdot Mirror
Subject says it all.
Or you could just use a hydraulic motor that is piloted and tapped into the rest of the ROV's hydraulics. Experience exists.
To reiterate one of my questions : it is possible for this to be either a genuine misunderstanding, or a mis-applied policy, or an unintended consequence of a seemingly reasonable policy. However, after an initial period of "WTF has happened?", silence is not an appropriate response from FB.
If you're feeling so inclined, you could provide the lawyers with a knife. As long as it's blunt.
What was that creepy-fun film I saw a while ago ... ? 127 Hours.
Picture the same general situation, but with much less appealing characters without redeeming features. And a blunter knife.
Making them drink their own piss wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Hey, this is beginning to sound good! Something useful to do with lawyers. Or we could use them for street lamps, I suppose.
With the beard and the time inside the mountains, he'd be more of a Dwarf Lord.
And which other nations would be members of this "multi-national coalition"? The member of my family who have been stupid enough to join the military would go into the glass house (military prison) if they weren't allowed to leave the army in preference to being lackies for the Americans (though to be honest, I think they're likely to finish their careers before it becomes an issue). Politically, there would be rioting in the streets if the government tried to get involved in such an attack. We've got no real problem with Iran, and there is significant trade with the country which would be adversely affected by going to war with them at the behest of the Americans.
You've just made very explicit why Iran needs to acquire nuclear weapons. Indeed, why they've got a moral right to have them. The Iranian government may not be the nicest people in the world, but they're not the worst people in the area either.
Stop being reasonable. That's a good way to make everybody hate you.
I'll consider that a positive result then.
Thanks for the feedback ; it's appreciated.
I believe that the country being referred to has a constitutional principle that amounts to people being presumed innocent until proven guilty. Or has that constitution been superseded? And that would be the same constitution that bans the free expression of political opinion? Sorry, that should have been "permits", not "bans" ; a Freudian slit, if ever there was one.
There is also no indication in TFS (I can't be bothered wasting my time on reading further about foreigner's inability to follow their own laws) that the disputed blog actually contains material that may be considered offensive. The commentary is about the blog being banned because the blogger is (allegedly) a terrorist. But TFS doesn't actually inform us whether the blog is bomb-making instructions, a list of the blogger's stamp collection, or the blogger's (constitutionally protected) free speech making a rational case for the introduction of Sharia law to the country. Or an irrational case for the unanaesthetised clitoridectomy of all bankers and sentators, regardless of their gender (which proposal might gain considerable popular support from the non-terrorist portion of the population).
There are machines that fit the definition of a "personal submersible" which only cost around a thousand IBT (note at foot of message)
These are rather like underwater mopeds with a head/ shoulders shroud which is supplied with air by a SCUBA system (there's also a "bail-out bottle" in the ones I've seen advertised) ; this provides buoyancy at the top ; a waterproof housing with a car battery hangs at the bottom ; the two are joined by solid body incorporating a moped-like seat, with several thrusters in the body and steering controls for the user. Allegedly, no training is necessary. 10m depth limit though.
If you're not into SCUBA, they're not unbelievably expensive - I saw them advertised for tourist trips at moderately interesting prices on a Tenerife beach promenade, but I was getting my SCUBA ticket. (If you are into SCUBA ... you don't need this.)
I suppose I'd better RTFA now. Bad form, I know.
As a population base, that's probably viable. But seeing no juveniles for what is obviously a long-lived period species ... that's a cause for concern. Ah ... but later there are reports of juveniles seen deeper using an un-manned ROV. Which makes perfect sense - it's not uncommon for juveniles and adults to have substantially different habitats and life styles.
Fricke's sub ; not Allen's.
[...]
An ROV system in this sort of depth capability range could only cost a few 10s of thousand IBTs. Substantial, but far less than the "JAGO" submarine. It'd need less deck space too, which is really important.
In commenting on the original article, I mentioned this book, which is the current standard reference on fossil coelacanths. (Dr Forey, the author, is "Prof Coelacanth" at the NHM as much as Richard Fortey is "Prof. Trilobite" ; by all accounts I've heard of Prof.Trilobite in "lecture mode", the easiest way to distinguish the two is that one has a beard and is talking about something recognisably fishy, while the other is clean-shaven and talking about something with no good modern comparison. Mad as hatters, both of them. In a good sense.) I'm sure that Dr Forey has noted Fricke's work for inclusion in the next edition of his monograph.
[Note : IBT = International Beer Token ; while the absolute cost of a beer varies around the world, relative to other commodities it's less variable. A "beer" is equivalent to about 3-4 loaves of bread ; 1.25 "beers" plus the son of your deity of choice will feed around 1/5th milli-crowd ; a "beer" is approximately equivalent to 6-8 ready-rolled cigarettes.
Well, I find it useful. I also use the IBT concept for comparing pay rates in different continents to decide which jobs to accept.]
And if I want to buy a tablet, but not a lifestyle?
Thanks, but no thanks.
(Incidentally, I am unconvinced by buying a tablet. Full Stop. Benefits over a netbook? Minimal.)
Counter-reference : Jesus and Mo : no significant evidence of the "crazies" (i.e. lunatics following an Abrahamic religion, like Christianity) attacking the author, at least since his insistence that "Mo" is played by a body-double.
My evil sense of humour wonders if the university "club" for "Friends of Earth" etc has been given office space there.
(No question mark ; it's a flat statement. I do wonder thus. I would have assigned so, given a chance. I refer you to the previous statement about "evil sense of humour". And if I thought it was safe enough for them, I'd have been happy to take the adjoining office ; otherwise, pass the pump of barytes-laden cement.)
Which is why you persuade the planning official to do the laying in the mud, squirming, while you go off to the pub for a quick couple of pints, a bag of peanuts, and the End of The World As We Know It.
In this case, the fools being the ones paying £26 for a dozen cakes. But then again, they're idiots who haven't got out of London, so they're probably not worth worrying about.
The contents of number plates have been defined quite closely for decades, to ensure that plates remain readable by humans. Here, the rules are (I think) simply that the plates be readable by a human with good eyesight at 20m range, and that the plates have no unusual spacing or fonts that prevent recognition. Some countries (Germany springs to mind) specify the precise font to be used (which is designed to have low ambiguity to mechanised readers, and are also used on cheques, official documents, etc) ; I think that the UK rules also specify (approximately) the background colours to be used (white front, yellow rear), that the lettering must be in plain black ...
Putting "dazzle" like camouflage onto such a constrained item is going to be a real challenge ; your convenient muddy puddle is likely to be more effective. But you'd be lucky to get away with it twice.
Actually, I have a tweet the @BBCScienceNews that some degree of contact has been re-established with Phobos-Grunt.
Which doesn't get the mission back under way, but it's a necessary first step.
... the OOL theory that attracts least interest from the OOL (Origin Of Life) researchers, because it does damned-all to explain the origin of life (it merely moves the locus of the problem to some other, unknown, location and conditions).
You may not get this impression from watching Discovery Channel. But then again, the producers and writers of Discovery Channel aren't OOL researchers.
I believe the case has now moved on to restitution (she wants her job back and the allegations removed from her record ; the police don't want her back), but the principle that experienced fingerprint examiners can mis-attribute a print to the wrong person has already been established.
Not that that's any surprise anyway. If the "coverage space" of fingerprints is large enough to allow for (say) 10billion fingerprints with enough differences to be differentiated by current techniques, then in a world of 7(+) billion, false matches are going to become common enough.
Oh, sorry, is that not the message of utter confidence in our Lords and Masters that our Lords and Masters wish us to suck from the nipple of the media. So sorry for being off-message.
Anyway - being a false hit on an expanded US database where they tag an entire country as "suspect", isn't going to be an issue as long as I don't go to the States. Which I don't have any intention of doing.
The most recent that I heard (in either a 'Nature' or 'Science' podcast when the recent papers about the Denisoivans were being discussed) was that the Neanderthal contribution to modern genomes is only in the order of 5-10%. There was some interbreeding, but not a lot.
This does not directly imply the blood-soaked history that the GP AC (? - below my threshold) implies : displacement by out-competing for hunting territory doesn't necessarily imply lots of acts of murder. If the Cro-Magnon AMHs did their hunting in groups of 25 while the Neanderthals hunted in groups of 5, then any confrontation would have resulted in displacement of the Neanderthals without the necessity for any actual fighting to take place.
water consists of hydrogen and oxygen ; radiation of interest consists of high-energy protons, neutrons, and photons (electrons don't have sufficient penetrating power to be a real concern).
Hydrogen absorbing one of {proton ; neutron ; photon} yields {two medium-energy protons, most likely as ions ; deuterium ; ionised hydrogen }. Since absolutely pure water contains one mole of hydrogen ions per 10^7 moles of water, in a dynamic equilibrium with water molecules and hydroxyl ion, I remain unmoved by the lethal potential of this reaction.
Oxygen absorbing one of {proton ; neutron ; photon} yields {fluorine (probably as an ion) ; a heavier oxygen isotope and an excited oxygen nucleus }. Again, I find myself not exactly quivering with terror at the prospect. I might include a source of calcium ions in my filtration system - something relatively soluble like gypsum. "Meh."
There are other nuclear species in cosmic radiation (which is relatively homogeneous compared to the much more variable solar radiation), often iron. But by the time they've been stopped by your shielding, I find myself less than quivering in terror.
There are rational reasons for being concerned by radiation, but that is not a reason for having irrational fear of the word. Do you have a rational basis for being afraid of water that has (successfully) been used as radiation shielding?
Having said that, although this page makes reference to "distillation", their actual description of the pee processing doesn't : "The first step is a filter that removes particles and debris. Then the water passes through the "multi-filtration beds," which contain substances that remove organic and inorganic impurities. And finally, the "catalytic oxidation reactor" removes volatile organic compounds and kills bacteria and viruses." Which sounds like activated charcoal and (probably) ozonolysis to zap all the organics. However, later the page says "the water recycling systems produce a small amount of unusable brine" ; which does sound like a reverse osmosis system.
Hmmm, not clear what they're actually doing.
More likely 9 characters of password giving access to a bare-bones install of WinXP that occupies a gig or so (it's been a while since I looked at an XP system).
I don't think that even fluorine can get iron up to +4 or higher though. But it does give me an excuse to link to this collection of delights.
If the payload were also lighter than air, then you wouldn't need to use engines to provide lift, but you would still need to provide thrust to overcome drag, to accelerate and decelerate the loads (vehicle load and payload), and to steer.
Well done. You've re-invented the airship. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing!)