So they're only revamping one out of three of the 70-m DSN antennae? I hope that they plan to do Canberra and Madrid, too. You need all three of them to get good 24-hr coverage. Actually, we need more of them. There are just too many missions needing 70-m time to downlink data right now. And nothing was sadder than watching good observations (which were otherwise totally possible) get killed because some other mission had priority on the big dishes.
Thank you. Now read what I wrote before replying, your post will look less ridiculous. The summary is selling the "underground" as a bonus feature rather than as a harsh necessity. I object to this cheap salesmanship.
You entirely missed my point and didn't seem to have read what I wrote. I was quite explicit that there are benefits to living underground. However, I don't see living underground as a benefit itself. I'd much rather live above ground, thank you very much. I'm pretty sure most people agree with me. (Yes, if that's not a viable option, so be it. But don't try to sell "underground" as a bonus. It's like claiming that the leak in the roof of the house is a value-adding feature.)
While there are benefits to living underground, I don't think that living underground is itself a benefit. If it were, then more people on Earth would be living underground already. [Insert joke about Slashdot readers and basements here.] So I'm a little hazy on why the summary passed that off as the third "benefit". (And no, living like a science fiction movie isn't a benefit either. Not all SciFi is Utopian.)
I agree, but that wasn't the way you phrased your post. Corporations don't care a whit about the mileage of a given car since the mileage is as important to their bottom line as safety features (which you've just asserted they don't care about).
On the other hand, as I noted, they do add hidden safety features (like sensors to tell me when someone is sitting in a seat without a buckled seatbelt; as far as I know, this is not mandated), so I think you've far from proven your case.
The weight of a few sensors is probably negligible. They put them in the car seats to tell if you've got an occupant who isn't buckled up (whoops, sensors there, too). If the car can handle that, they can certainly handle a few sensors for the black box, I'm sure.
For it not to change gears generally requires that whatever bug is affecting the accelerator also affects the gear shift, which seems increasingly unlikely. Possible, but not probable. And it's certainly worth a shot.
presumably using the exact same input controlling the engine
Why would you presume that, though? I, for one, would never want a black box to rely on the same command chain that actively does things. I'd set up independent sensors. (Sure, it increases cost, but I doubt that a separate sensor to see if the brake is depressed costs that much.)
Double-blind studies don't weed out the placebo effect. If a patient reports feeling less pain, that's that. (Until someone figures out how to quantify pain in an objective manner, anyway.)
Double-blind techniques remove the researcher's bias from the results. As a researcher assessing the outcomes, it's easy to read your biases into your measurements when the measurements are any but the most objective. (eg, I can be reasonably sure I'm not introducing a lot of bias when I read a temperature probe, but I can't be if I look at a patient's overall health on a new vitamin.)
Either way, you're right: double blinds aren't needed. The blind on the researcher is, though, since she was assessing the health of the trees.
It's my understanding that Sinclair held the rights until her death in 1988, which was after the song "Land Down Under" came out (1979 and with the flute riff in 1983, it looks like). However, I can't find an outright statement to this effect. The BBC has a more informative story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10518787.stm
This is not a perfect experiment... no experiment is. But the methodology is laid out. The experiment is reproducible, and that's what matters. I think it may spark interest in study... very likely from people who are VERY skeptical that RF could be the cause, and that's perfect.
Yes, but it's also sparking headlines now. Headlines which don't really make people realize that this study is crazy inconclusive. So later, when more research is done (which will probably show no effect, that's my prediction), people won't see that report. Negative results seldom make headlines and even if it did, the same people wouldn't necessarily read it or internalize it. We've seen this time and again: someone publishes an sensational piece and later all or part of it proves to be wrong. People never remember the correction. That's why politicians overstate things and correct themselves later.
So announcing this very inconclusive study to the media at all really does do harm, I'd say.
The Cease and Desist letter certainly doesn't in any way demonstrate that this was happening. It sure implies it via broad innuendo, but very definitely doesn't want to say it was happening. Then again, the whole letter reads more like it was meant to be shown to the voters than like a legal document, full of carefully biased language that you hear in a debate, not coming from a law office. I'm guessing that the salvo has no legal objective at all, but is entirely a PR move. It sure smells like it to me.
In fact, reading the cease and desist letter, it barely sounds like something a lawyer would write. It reads far more like a political attack via innuendo and careful word choice than your usual dry legalese. (Who says "nefarious" in a legal document? Or suggests that "surely" someone didn't have devious plans in motion?)
Four years!? These kinds of decisions tend to have more to do with Congress than the White House. Congress likes bringing in pork to their districts, but doesn't like spending a lot of money that won't go right there. So science and innovation tend to take a back seat to building stuff that we may or may not need. (See also: half of the military hardware we have lying around that we don't need, generally don't want, and often can't even use.)
You're assuming that they think no one will find out that they lied. Given the scale of this story, so many people will be scrutinizing their findings that that makes no sense.
It'd be far better to lose one researcher's grants than to lose many.
So please stop trying to cast aspersions. The panel made its findings and there's every reasons to believe them. All you're doing is trying to justify you're own untenable position by name-calling people you know nothing about, apart from the fact that they didn't find what you wanted them to.
Just for the record, $500 K over 5 years is pretty small change for research, overall. That won't even hire a post-doc once you take out the overhead.
Re:University panel declares university innocent
on
Climategate's Final Days
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I started to worry about your credibility when you started claimed that scientists (I am one) are all about Gaia. Nearly all of us think it's fringe nonsense.
If you haven't bought into the Gaia hypothesis and are the least bit sceptical about anthropogenic climate change the surest way to a failing grade is to try to discuss this with a professor.
While I won't say that no professors ever lowered a grade over something so dubious, I will note that at virtually every school this is a firing offense and therefore happens rarely. This doesn't stop people like yourself from claiming academic bullying though. (Seldom do you guys ever seem to come up with examples, and never anything that would show a systematic wave of suppression going on.)
The money train will stop, not just for Mann, but quite probably for a lot of Penn State researchers, if it turns out that the Penn State investigation was not doing due diligence and lied about the findings. So I again say: it's in Penn State's best interest to come out with the truth, not lie.
And if the NSF discovers that Mann was committing fraud and Penn State did nothing... what do you think the NSF will do to not just Mann's funding, but everyone else's at Penn State? It's in Penn State's best interest to be extra careful over allegations of fraud (especially very public ones that the NSF is certainly aware of), not try to wave it away.
Your conspiracy theory, while I'm sure it lets you ignore contrary evidence well, doesn't make any sense.
Re:University panel declares university innocent
on
Climategate's Final Days
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Universities regularly find faculty guilty of various forms of misconduct. Check out the Ward Churchill case, for example. Or any number of the recent data falsification scandals in Physics.
It's in the university's best interests to appear to support honest investigators. Not doing so reduces applications, donations, and ability to land grants.
* There are certain exceptions, of course. If there are formal, precise, agreed upon rules for the communication, as with internet protocols or spacecraft uplinks, you can generally say who was at fault for a mistake.
Slashdot Mirror
So they're only revamping one out of three of the 70-m DSN antennae? I hope that they plan to do Canberra and Madrid, too. You need all three of them to get good 24-hr coverage. Actually, we need more of them. There are just too many missions needing 70-m time to downlink data right now. And nothing was sadder than watching good observations (which were otherwise totally possible) get killed because some other mission had priority on the big dishes.
Thank you. Now read what I wrote before replying, your post will look less ridiculous. The summary is selling the "underground" as a bonus feature rather than as a harsh necessity. I object to this cheap salesmanship.
You entirely missed my point and didn't seem to have read what I wrote. I was quite explicit that there are benefits to living underground. However, I don't see living underground as a benefit itself. I'd much rather live above ground, thank you very much. I'm pretty sure most people agree with me. (Yes, if that's not a viable option, so be it. But don't try to sell "underground" as a bonus. It's like claiming that the leak in the roof of the house is a value-adding feature.)
While there are benefits to living underground, I don't think that living underground is itself a benefit. If it were, then more people on Earth would be living underground already. [Insert joke about Slashdot readers and basements here.] So I'm a little hazy on why the summary passed that off as the third "benefit". (And no, living like a science fiction movie isn't a benefit either. Not all SciFi is Utopian.)
I agree, but that wasn't the way you phrased your post. Corporations don't care a whit about the mileage of a given car since the mileage is as important to their bottom line as safety features (which you've just asserted they don't care about).
On the other hand, as I noted, they do add hidden safety features (like sensors to tell me when someone is sitting in a seat without a buckled seatbelt; as far as I know, this is not mandated), so I think you've far from proven your case.
The weight of a few sensors is probably negligible. They put them in the car seats to tell if you've got an occupant who isn't buckled up (whoops, sensors there, too). If the car can handle that, they can certainly handle a few sensors for the black box, I'm sure.
For it not to change gears generally requires that whatever bug is affecting the accelerator also affects the gear shift, which seems increasingly unlikely. Possible, but not probable. And it's certainly worth a shot.
presumably using the exact same input controlling the engine
Why would you presume that, though? I, for one, would never want a black box to rely on the same command chain that actively does things. I'd set up independent sensors. (Sure, it increases cost, but I doubt that a separate sensor to see if the brake is depressed costs that much.)
Double-blind studies don't weed out the placebo effect. If a patient reports feeling less pain, that's that. (Until someone figures out how to quantify pain in an objective manner, anyway.)
Double-blind techniques remove the researcher's bias from the results. As a researcher assessing the outcomes, it's easy to read your biases into your measurements when the measurements are any but the most objective. (eg, I can be reasonably sure I'm not introducing a lot of bias when I read a temperature probe, but I can't be if I look at a patient's overall health on a new vitamin.)
Either way, you're right: double blinds aren't needed. The blind on the researcher is, though, since she was assessing the health of the trees.
It's my understanding that Sinclair held the rights until her death in 1988, which was after the song "Land Down Under" came out (1979 and with the flute riff in 1983, it looks like). However, I can't find an outright statement to this effect. The BBC has a more informative story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment_and_arts/10518787.stm
This is not a perfect experiment... no experiment is. But the methodology is laid out. The experiment is reproducible, and that's what matters. I think it may spark interest in study... very likely from people who are VERY skeptical that RF could be the cause, and that's perfect.
Yes, but it's also sparking headlines now. Headlines which don't really make people realize that this study is crazy inconclusive. So later, when more research is done (which will probably show no effect, that's my prediction), people won't see that report. Negative results seldom make headlines and even if it did, the same people wouldn't necessarily read it or internalize it. We've seen this time and again: someone publishes an sensational piece and later all or part of it proves to be wrong. People never remember the correction. That's why politicians overstate things and correct themselves later.
So announcing this very inconclusive study to the media at all really does do harm, I'd say.
Actually, the Sun isn't all that bright in the radio. The brightest source in the radio sky is Sag. A*, the center of our galaxy.
(Or so I was taught the summer I did research at the VLA.)
The Cease and Desist letter certainly doesn't in any way demonstrate that this was happening. It sure implies it via broad innuendo, but very definitely doesn't want to say it was happening. Then again, the whole letter reads more like it was meant to be shown to the voters than like a legal document, full of carefully biased language that you hear in a debate, not coming from a law office. I'm guessing that the salvo has no legal objective at all, but is entirely a PR move. It sure smells like it to me.
In fact, reading the cease and desist letter, it barely sounds like something a lawyer would write. It reads far more like a political attack via innuendo and careful word choice than your usual dry legalese. (Who says "nefarious" in a legal document? Or suggests that "surely" someone didn't have devious plans in motion?)
Linked filings would tend to agree, they're from Nevada.
Four years!? These kinds of decisions tend to have more to do with Congress than the White House. Congress likes bringing in pork to their districts, but doesn't like spending a lot of money that won't go right there. So science and innovation tend to take a back seat to building stuff that we may or may not need. (See also: half of the military hardware we have lying around that we don't need, generally don't want, and often can't even use.)
Lasts longer than any other milk, dog's milk.
You're assuming that they think no one will find out that they lied. Given the scale of this story, so many people will be scrutinizing their findings that that makes no sense.
It'd be far better to lose one researcher's grants than to lose many.
So please stop trying to cast aspersions. The panel made its findings and there's every reasons to believe them. All you're doing is trying to justify you're own untenable position by name-calling people you know nothing about, apart from the fact that they didn't find what you wanted them to.
Just for the record, $500 K over 5 years is pretty small change for research, overall. That won't even hire a post-doc once you take out the overhead.
I started to worry about your credibility when you started claimed that scientists (I am one) are all about Gaia. Nearly all of us think it's fringe nonsense.
If you haven't bought into the Gaia hypothesis and are the least bit sceptical about anthropogenic climate change the surest way to a failing grade is to try to discuss this with a professor.
While I won't say that no professors ever lowered a grade over something so dubious, I will note that at virtually every school this is a firing offense and therefore happens rarely. This doesn't stop people like yourself from claiming academic bullying though. (Seldom do you guys ever seem to come up with examples, and never anything that would show a systematic wave of suppression going on.)
The money train will stop, not just for Mann, but quite probably for a lot of Penn State researchers, if it turns out that the Penn State investigation was not doing due diligence and lied about the findings. So I again say: it's in Penn State's best interest to come out with the truth, not lie.
And if the NSF discovers that Mann was committing fraud and Penn State did nothing... what do you think the NSF will do to not just Mann's funding, but everyone else's at Penn State? It's in Penn State's best interest to be extra careful over allegations of fraud (especially very public ones that the NSF is certainly aware of), not try to wave it away.
Your conspiracy theory, while I'm sure it lets you ignore contrary evidence well, doesn't make any sense.
Universities regularly find faculty guilty of various forms of misconduct. Check out the Ward Churchill case, for example. Or any number of the recent data falsification scandals in Physics.
It's in the university's best interests to appear to support honest investigators. Not doing so reduces applications, donations, and ability to land grants.
To be fair to Phil, he said pretty much said the same thing in the actual post linked in the summary.
I forgot my footnote:
* There are certain exceptions, of course. If there are formal, precise, agreed upon rules for the communication, as with internet protocols or spacecraft uplinks, you can generally say who was at fault for a mistake.