Problem is in random noise data you can always find statistics like this to prove your point. "The hottest X." "The coolest Y." Whatever. It's something everyone should have to do in a basic statistics class, finding patterns in noise to prove their point.
Claiming incredible accuracy and precision dosn't help here either.
Single data points cannot be used to make an argument - on either side - even if you're actually right. Intellectual dishonesty on both sides of the debate has made global warming/climate change a toxic topic.
Another problem is trying to draw a "linear trend" from the data. When there are well known cyclic elements involved.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is still an unproven hypothesis because the models being used are failing and the computational engines they are being hosted on do not have enough "power" to run complex enough models to even approach the needed detail to make any statement one way or the other.
Thowing more computing power at a problem dosn't always help much. If the underlaying assumptions behind a model are wrong all that's going to do is mean that you get the wrong answer more quickly. Of course even if something is obviously wrong that may be little help in finding out exacly how and why it is wrong.
Some economists at Harvard got busted publishing fake crap that support hokey rightwing anti-tax ideology and nothing happened, they just said "oops, gosh, we just made a mistake using Excel" and it blew over. The lamest part is it was published in a supposedly peer reviewed journal yet their fraud was only exposed by an undergrad a public university.
Most likely "peer reviewers" only checked that the paper is consistent with "economics" (or whatever the specific "science" in question is). How often do they look for errors with mathematics or logic? No doubt such reviewers also tend to assume things like measuring instruments, software packages, etc being used correctly and that things which depend on another science havn't been misinterpreted/misunderstood. Also this case appears to be a "genuine mistake". Whereas with actual fraud you'd expect at least some attempt at obsucation.
I have a lot of respect for physical sciences but these "human sciences" like economics and psychology are full of shit.
Those possibly arn't even the best examples. This sort of thing even has a specific term in the field of medical research:)
Some of the papers in the field are highly cited, yes, because well, and here's the problem, everyone keeps citing each other in circles regardless of the actual impact.
Which can create a sort of positive feedback when it comes to citation. There will also be people who will take the amount of citations as being a measure of "quaility". Even when what they actually have is a "circular argument". Then there's the issue of what happens if someone, especially an "outsider", discovers a problem with the original paper. With "lynch the kid (and deny the problem)" being the alternative ending to "The Emperor's New Clothes". (Possibly especially where there is no evidence of malicious action.)
The trick to being a lead researcher is finding a rich problem space for the students to work on that will attract grants.
This is likely to also result in all sorts of politics being attached to getting funding. At best only a subset of possible research areas, which happen to be PC, will get funding. At worst getting the "wrong" results means it then becomes even more difficult to attract grants. Such a situation can easily lead to "research" which is either poor, even pseudo, science. Since there can be a lot more money in attempts at confirmation than attempts at falsification.
Seriously - why? There are less than 100,000 K-12 schools in the US, we're talking about $10,000 PER SCHOOL in the US, each year.
Probably considerably less than that once you account for all the costs associated with awarding contracts. Including "bidding" and multi layer sub contracting. Even if the whole thing is free from any kind of bribary.
I just upgraded my office (12 Ubiquiti access points, covering 45,000 square feet - probably about the average size of a school campus)
Area is rather less meaningful than number/density of clients. Also schools typically have what is effectivly a whole site shift change every hour or so. Schools tend to "punch above their weight" in comparison to businesses when it comes to things like network bandwidth requirements. Even though Unify is cost effective both in terms of the prices of access points and not requiring a separate management system if it's not on some "approved list" a school may not be able to buy it with this money anyway. Also in a school environment you'd most likely be looking at at least one access point per room for decent coverage.
Are you sure that your area doesn't have access to this: http://www.wa-k20.net/
Most schools, libraries, and public institutions in Washington state use the Washington K-20 educational network. Districts and towns can opt out of the program if they want. If your area is not using it for the library or the schools you should start asking them why.
A quick look at the website showed quite a bit of "corporate speak". Maybe a poll of school network admins would paint a different picture.
I work as an admin for a very LARGE business and do this professionally and I've never seen the cluster-fsck that 2 dozen high school kids can make of a network in 10 minutes without even really trying.
Hardware and software companies need to get these kids to be beta testers.
It would be a mistake to assume that the most destructive users in a school environment are the students though.
Goliath is stomping ten Davids every time one David throws a rock, and a hundred if it's a credible throw (e.g. a rocket).
It seem more that they will blame "David" every time a rock gets thrown. Some of these rockets are being fired from Lebanon yet Hamas, rather than Hezbollah, being blamed. Co-operation between Shia and Sunni not being likely either. Those launcing the rockets are also being refered to as "Hamas supporters". Rather implying "With friends like these who needs enemies".
After reading the article, his reasoning is that the Iron Dome is mostly chasing the rockets from behind, and therefore cannot be effective, because a rocket cannot effectively be caught from behind, or from the side.
Without knowing the actual flight characteristics of both the rockets and the missiles you can't really say if "tail chasing" is a viable interception approach or not.
Furthermore, previous anti-missile systems (the patriot) have had their success rate exaggerated.
It's likely to be harder hit an unstable missile than one which stable. IIRC this was one of the issues with Scuds. Ironically "proper" rockets might be easier to intercept than something scratch built from whatever materials might be to hand.
Actually, I've been calling for someone to graft the THC-production complex into kudzu. That way, either we get government help to wipe it out, or the government finally gives up; either way, kudzu becomes useful for something.
It's mainly targets and not a single target. Bombing on a bus, mall, disco, market, etc all involve densely packed people to inflict maximum casualties.
Note that an intended target may be someone from a specific group rather than a specific individual.
if you're considering a large death toll as a terrorist goal, then you're wrong. Terror is the goal, and having people killed are only the means.
People tend need to be alive to be terrified. Another similar idea is military weapons intended to wound, Since they can potentially remove three times the number of wounded soldiers from the battlefield.
So, as others pointed out acetaminophen is actually fairly dangerous as drugs go. However, let's pick on something like ibuprofen instead which is definitely safer.
In intersting irony is that many illegal drugs are less dangerous than many available "over the counter".
Pain-killers in general have the deck stacked against them. For something like a heart medication to get on the market you basically have to show that it saves more lives than it takes. So, if it prevents 10k more heart attacks per year than any other drug on the market, and it kills 10 people per year due to liver toxicity, then it isn't hard to get it approved.
That process appears to have failed with HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors though. Drugs which havn't been shown to be of any benefit to other than a small minority of people. Which actually work by disrupting an important metabolic function.
This/is/ possible. For example on the US-Mexican border, people often don't know they carry drugs. They pass the border regularly by car, and on one side their bag gets replaced (break into their car, whatever) with a same-looking second one, having special content. On the other side, the same exchange happens just reverse. They don't even realize they have carried drugs, and when the police officers find the drugs, the innocent gets blamed.
A similar thing has been known to happen with airline passengers' luggage. The criminal gangs involved are probably delighted with "TSA approved" locks.
Sounds to me like the police need to seize those ATC recordings as part of their investigation into this incident. When the police have the evidence in their possession about what happened, then they'll let us know what evidence they want to let us see in accordance to what verdict they want the outcome to have.
Presumably soon after doing this NYPD won't be flying anything due to lack of certificates of airwothyness and pilot's licenses. Even if they do have jurisdiction over FAA recordings the FAA can quite literally "ground" them. Probably invite the NTSB along too. Given that this incident has now become more serious. Since a mid air collision involving something as large as an NYPD chopper could easily kill everyone aboard both aircraft. (Whereas a drone is the equivalant of a single large bird, potentially expensive but very unlikely to pose any actual danger.)
So when are reckless endangerment charges going to be filed against the pilot? He intentionally steered his craft towards an object that they admit through their own filings presented a risk of a crash.
Was the pilot the only occupant of this aircraft? Possibly more important what happens to the two men falsely arrested? Are there procedures to "annull" any record of their arrest?
What disturbs me is the apparently lockstep between the UK and the US in the subversion of democracy and installation of fascist totalitarianism.
What I find interesting is that neither UKIP or The BNP have much to say about UK/US relationship. Even though both claim to be "nationalist". Whilst UKIP has plenty to say about "Europe" their silence is deafening with respect to how the UK government interacts with most of the world.
OK, to clarify... disappearances and purges are bad news, but it's not as if these historical dictatorships were all fine and dandy up until the point where people started disappearing.
Historically the majority of the public may see little wrong even when people are disappearing. Many people appear to have a great deal of faith in both politicians and governments. It can be far easier to believe that the disappeared were somehow to blame.
In the US the FBI is recommending that anyone who knows such things as "Encryption" or "VPNs" be turned in to their local police immediately as a terrorist. So, because I am good at my job and understand complex concepts, that means that I am a terrorist? That's funny, it used to be called "American pride".
There's a good chance that actual terrorists will be using some communication method so "low tech" that it would be un-noticed. Only a terrorist group which is geographically dispersed is going to need "telecommunications" in the first place. Even then dead drops and codes even broadcasting (e.g. spam) maybe more use to them than any form of cypher. Maybe there is a super special watch list for anyone who has ever read http://www.amazon.com/Codes-Se...
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Problem is in random noise data you can always find statistics like this to prove your point. "The hottest X." "The coolest Y." Whatever. It's something everyone should have to do in a basic statistics class, finding patterns in noise to prove their point.
Claiming incredible accuracy and precision dosn't help here either.
Single data points cannot be used to make an argument - on either side - even if you're actually right. Intellectual dishonesty on both sides of the debate has made global warming/climate change a toxic topic.
Another problem is trying to draw a "linear trend" from the data. When there are well known cyclic elements involved.
Anthropogenic Global Warming is still an unproven hypothesis because the models being used are failing and the computational engines they are being hosted on do not have enough "power" to run complex enough models to even approach the needed detail to make any statement one way or the other.
Thowing more computing power at a problem dosn't always help much. If the underlaying assumptions behind a model are wrong all that's going to do is mean that you get the wrong answer more quickly. Of course even if something is obviously wrong that may be little help in finding out exacly how and why it is wrong.
Some economists at Harvard got busted publishing fake crap that support hokey rightwing anti-tax ideology and nothing happened, they just said "oops, gosh, we just made a mistake using Excel" and it blew over. The lamest part is it was published in a supposedly peer reviewed journal yet their fraud was only exposed by an undergrad a public university.
:)
Most likely "peer reviewers" only checked that the paper is consistent with "economics" (or whatever the specific "science" in question is). How often do they look for errors with mathematics or logic? No doubt such reviewers also tend to assume things like measuring instruments, software packages, etc being used correctly and that things which depend on another science havn't been misinterpreted/misunderstood.
Also this case appears to be a "genuine mistake". Whereas with actual fraud you'd expect at least some attempt at obsucation.
I have a lot of respect for physical sciences but these "human sciences" like economics and psychology are full of shit.
Those possibly arn't even the best examples. This sort of thing even has a specific term in the field of medical research
Some of the papers in the field are highly cited, yes, because well, and here's the problem, everyone keeps citing each other in circles regardless of the actual impact.
Which can create a sort of positive feedback when it comes to citation. There will also be people who will take the amount of citations as being a measure of "quaility". Even when what they actually have is a "circular argument".
Then there's the issue of what happens if someone, especially an "outsider", discovers a problem with the original paper. With "lynch the kid (and deny the problem)" being the alternative ending to "The Emperor's New Clothes". (Possibly especially where there is no evidence of malicious action.)
The trick to being a lead researcher is finding a rich problem space for the students to work on that will attract grants.
This is likely to also result in all sorts of politics being attached to getting funding. At best only a subset of possible research areas, which happen to be PC, will get funding. At worst getting the "wrong" results means it then becomes even more difficult to attract grants.
Such a situation can easily lead to "research" which is either poor, even pseudo, science. Since there can be a lot more money in attempts at confirmation than attempts at falsification.
Seriously - why? There are less than 100,000 K-12 schools in the US, we're talking about $10,000 PER SCHOOL in the US, each year.
Probably considerably less than that once you account for all the costs associated with awarding contracts. Including "bidding" and multi layer sub contracting. Even if the whole thing is free from any kind of bribary.
I just upgraded my office (12 Ubiquiti access points, covering 45,000 square feet - probably about the average size of a school campus)
Area is rather less meaningful than number/density of clients. Also schools typically have what is effectivly a whole site shift change every hour or so. Schools tend to "punch above their weight" in comparison to businesses when it comes to things like network bandwidth requirements.
Even though Unify is cost effective both in terms of the prices of access points and not requiring a separate management system if it's not on some "approved list" a school may not be able to buy it with this money anyway. Also in a school environment you'd most likely be looking at at least one access point per room for decent coverage.
Are you sure that your area doesn't have access to this: http://www.wa-k20.net/
Most schools, libraries, and public institutions in Washington state use the Washington K-20 educational network. Districts and towns can opt out of the program if they want. If your area is not using it for the library or the schools you should start asking them why.
A quick look at the website showed quite a bit of "corporate speak". Maybe a poll of school network admins would paint a different picture.
I work as an admin for a very LARGE business and do this professionally and I've never seen the cluster-fsck that 2 dozen high school kids can make of a network in 10 minutes without even really trying. Hardware and software companies need to get these kids to be beta testers.
It would be a mistake to assume that the most destructive users in a school environment are the students though.
Goliath is stomping ten Davids every time one David throws a rock, and a hundred if it's a credible throw (e.g. a rocket).
It seem more that they will blame "David" every time a rock gets thrown. Some of these rockets are being fired from Lebanon yet Hamas, rather than Hezbollah, being blamed. Co-operation between Shia and Sunni not being likely either. Those launcing the rockets are also being refered to as "Hamas supporters". Rather implying "With friends like these who needs enemies".
After reading the article, his reasoning is that the Iron Dome is mostly chasing the rockets from behind, and therefore cannot be effective, because a rocket cannot effectively be caught from behind, or from the side.
Without knowing the actual flight characteristics of both the rockets and the missiles you can't really say if "tail chasing" is a viable interception approach or not.
Furthermore, previous anti-missile systems (the patriot) have had their success rate exaggerated.
It's likely to be harder hit an unstable missile than one which stable. IIRC this was one of the issues with Scuds. Ironically "proper" rockets might be easier to intercept than something scratch built from whatever materials might be to hand.
Applying the "sewage' attribute to pure water molecules would be superstitio
:)
Or "homeopathy".
unless you assumed the sewage was somehow radioactive.
Unless it's been kept isolated for a few hundred years it probably will be slightly radioactive
Actually, I've been calling for someone to graft the THC-production complex into kudzu. That way, either we get government help to wipe it out, or the government finally gives up; either way, kudzu becomes useful for something.
Anyway you could call it "superweed".
My point is that someone specific in that crowd probably was targeted, but to us the public, it remains a random crowd of people.
That is more a "possibility" rather than a "probability".
At least that's what I've been told by someone who was in some special forces somewhere.
You ca't really generalise this to all terrorists. Even those supported by nation states.
It's mainly targets and not a single target. Bombing on a bus, mall, disco, market, etc all involve densely packed people to inflict maximum casualties.
Note that an intended target may be someone from a specific group rather than a specific individual.
if you're considering a large death toll as a terrorist goal, then you're wrong. Terror is the goal, and having people killed are only the means.
People tend need to be alive to be terrified.
Another similar idea is military weapons intended to wound, Since they can potentially remove three times the number of wounded soldiers from the battlefield.
So, as others pointed out acetaminophen is actually fairly dangerous as drugs go. However, let's pick on something like ibuprofen instead which is definitely safer.
In intersting irony is that many illegal drugs are less dangerous than many available "over the counter".
Pain-killers in general have the deck stacked against them. For something like a heart medication to get on the market you basically have to show that it saves more lives than it takes. So, if it prevents 10k more heart attacks per year than any other drug on the market, and it kills 10 people per year due to liver toxicity, then it isn't hard to get it approved.
That process appears to have failed with HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors though. Drugs which havn't been shown to be of any benefit to other than a small minority of people. Which actually work by disrupting an important metabolic function.
This /is/ possible. For example on the US-Mexican border, people often don't know they carry drugs. They pass the border regularly by car, and on one side their bag gets replaced (break into their car, whatever) with a same-looking second one, having special content. On the other side, the same exchange happens just reverse. They don't even realize they have carried drugs, and when the police officers find the drugs, the innocent gets blamed.
A similar thing has been known to happen with airline passengers' luggage. The criminal gangs involved are probably delighted with "TSA approved" locks.
I'm betting most explosives, being highly combustible, can be set off with a static charge.
There are explosives, such as RDX, which will burn, but require a shockwave to cause them to detonate.
Sounds to me like the police need to seize those ATC recordings as part of their investigation into this incident. When the police have the evidence in their possession about what happened, then they'll let us know what evidence they want to let us see in accordance to what verdict they want the outcome to have.
Presumably soon after doing this NYPD won't be flying anything due to lack of certificates of airwothyness and pilot's licenses.
Even if they do have jurisdiction over FAA recordings the FAA can quite literally "ground" them.
Probably invite the NTSB along too. Given that this incident has now become more serious. Since a mid air collision involving something as large as an NYPD chopper could easily kill everyone aboard both aircraft. (Whereas a drone is the equivalant of a single large bird, potentially expensive but very unlikely to pose any actual danger.)
So when are reckless endangerment charges going to be filed against the pilot? He intentionally steered his craft towards an object that they admit through their own filings presented a risk of a crash.
Was the pilot the only occupant of this aircraft?
Possibly more important what happens to the two men falsely arrested? Are there procedures to "annull" any record of their arrest?
What disturbs me is the apparently lockstep between the UK and the US in the subversion of democracy and installation of fascist totalitarianism.
What I find interesting is that neither UKIP or The BNP have much to say about UK/US relationship. Even though both claim to be "nationalist". Whilst UKIP has plenty to say about "Europe" their silence is deafening with respect to how the UK government interacts with most of the world.
Direct democracy only works with small populations. Especially ones that are mostly ethnically homogenous and don't have much to disagree about.
It dosn't appear to have actually been tried that often. Nor has "classical democracy" for that matter.
OK, to clarify... disappearances and purges are bad news, but it's not as if these historical dictatorships were all fine and dandy up until the point where people started disappearing.
Historically the majority of the public may see little wrong even when people are disappearing. Many people appear to have a great deal of faith in both politicians and governments. It can be far easier to believe that the disappeared were somehow to blame.
In the US the FBI is recommending that anyone who knows such things as "Encryption" or "VPNs" be turned in to their local police immediately as a terrorist. So, because I am good at my job and understand complex concepts, that means that I am a terrorist? That's funny, it used to be called "American pride".
There's a good chance that actual terrorists will be using some communication method so "low tech" that it would be un-noticed.
Only a terrorist group which is geographically dispersed is going to need "telecommunications" in the first place.
Even then dead drops and codes even broadcasting (e.g. spam) maybe more use to them than any form of cypher.
Maybe there is a super special watch list for anyone who has ever read http://www.amazon.com/Codes-Se...