Lots of gambling involves some skill. There's skill in playing poker. Sure, it involves some luck of the draw, but it also involves playing the odds and manipulating opponents. Lots of games have some skill, but they're still generally banned as illegal gambling when money is involved.
Fantasy sports are still legal, just not these sites. I can see that playing over the course of a full season is very much a game of skill. Drafting well for the season, making trades, and dropping and adding players all involve skill. Over the course of a season, the performance of a player is generally fairly predictable. It's far from perfect, but it's predictable. And that makes it more a game of skill than a game of chance.
Daily fantasy sports are more a game of chance, with much more limited skill. The performance of players is highly variable from game to game and week to week. A lousy hitter in baseball can have a great week and put up big numbers. A really good QB in football can throw four interceptions in a game and have an awful week. There's a lot of luck involved. As they say in the NFL, any given Sunday...
These sites focus on daily or weekly leagues rather than full season leagues. For that short amount of time, there's a huge amount of chance involved. Over the course of a season, the random luck usually averages out and it becomes much more a game of skill.
There's also the issue that the statistics about draft decisions aren't generally available to the public. But an employee of a daily fantasy sports site can get access to that information. Those statistics are likely to be similar with other daily fantasy sports sites. The employee has insider information that they can use to gain an edge over competitors on other sites.
I don't think jargon in scientific writing is always a bad thing. It's important to be precise. When I conduct an experiment, I need to be precise about my procedure. If I'm precise, readers can identify caveats in my methods that would affect the outcome of my work. It also means someone else can duplicate my experiment. It's important for scientific experiments to be repeatable. It's also important to be precise about conclusions. I work in meteorology, a field that's next of kin to climatology. A lot of research about global warming is misunderstood or exaggerated when the general public hears about it. If I write a paper about global warming, I need to be precise in my conclusions so I don't contribute to this problem. If jargon helps me be precise, it's a good thing. If jargon exaggerates the importance of my work or obfuscates its meaning, it's a problem.
I think scientific writing is difficult to understand because so much is written in the passive voice. It was once acceptable to use first person pronouns, so writing has more active voice. First person pronouns fell out of favor in scientific writing about a century ago. Writers should be free to use first person pronouns if they make the writing easier to understand.
I also don't like how so many papers try to exaggerate their importance in the introduction. The first paragraph describes a very important problem while the rest of the paper only addresses a tiny part of that problem. It's done to persuade editors that a paper is of interest to more of their journal's audience. But it also contributes to misunderstanding.
No, it isn't especially frequent, but it does take place. There are two reasons it isn't more frequent: 1) Most transmitters aren't located in buildings that are high enough to be in the line of sight of airport weather radars. Generally the enforcement actions are against operators of transmitters in or atop tall buildings. Your transmitter a couple of floors above ground is highly unlikely to ever interfere with a radar. And if the radar beam was refracted severely enough for this to occur, there would almost certainly be a lot more interference from ground clutter than your wi-fi transmitter. This is more of an issue in tall buildings. The actual buildings are normally pretty unlikely to cause problems because they are stationary point targets that get filtered as ground clutter. Wi-fi, however, would probably contaminate an entire radial, similar to a sun spike. 2) Transmitters operating on either of the 5.25-5.35 GHz and 5.47-5.725 GHz bands are required to use dynamic frequency selection. They are supposed to listen for the signals transmitted by weather radars and, upon detection, switch to a frequency that does not cause interference.
The transmitters are locked into a frequency set. However, this is shared with the frequencies used by terminal doppler weather radars (TDWRs). Wi-fi equipment is supposed to detect when a radar is operating on a particular frequency and, upon detection, switch to a frequency that's not in use by a radar. Normally this isn't an issue if you're operating a transmitter near the ground. However, if it's located higher up in or atop a building that happens to be within the line of sight of a radar, it can cause interference. Locking wi-fi transmitters out of any frequencies used by TDWRs would greatly reduce the available spectrum and it isn't necessary. Most wi-fi in the 5 GHz band won't interfere with TDWRs because it either a) detects the radar and switches frequencies or b) is located such that it is out of the line of sight of the radar and can't interfere.
These radars are used to detect hazardous weather, not aircraft. There are about 45 terminal doppler weather radars installed in the US, which share the 5 GHz band with wi-fi. They are primarily used to detect wind shear and microbursts, which are dangerous to aircraft.
Terminal Doppler weather radars (TDWRs) are installed at about 40 major airports. They operate in the 5 GHz range and are used to detect things like wind shear and microbursts, which are dangerous to aircraft. The higher resolution than the WSR-88D (Nexrad) radars probably makes it easier to detect these features. Also, if the nearest WSR-88D is a significant distance away from the, the beam will be significantly above the ground over the airport. Interference from wi-fi isn't an issue for the WSR-88D radars because they operate around 2.7-3.0 GHz.
As I understand it, the 5 GHz band used for wi-fi systems is shared with TDWRs. This allows wi-fi to operate on TDWR frequencies in areas where there isn't a TDWR using that frequency. Wi-fi equipment is required to detect when a TDWR is operating and, upon detection, switch to another frequency to avoid interference. There have been quite a few enforcement actions by the FCC for wi-fi interfering with TDWR operation: https://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/weather-radar-interference-enforcement.
The FCC actually has investigated many complaints of transmissions from wireless devices interfering with terminal doppler weather radars. Here's a list of enforcement actions by the FCC: https://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/weather-radar-interference-enforcement. So, yes, there have been investigations of the source of interference and penalties for doing so.
I read the Nature article and, frankly, it's very troubling.
Erlich has studied the potential for unmasking the identities of anonymous donors of genetic data, and the study's consent document warns participants that “we cannot guarantee that your identity and/or data will never become known, which could have significant implications in some scenarios. We estimate that the risk for such a confidentiality breach is low but not zero.” Erlich and Pickrell have adopted what they call a “skin in the game” philosophy by making their own genomes publicly available.
"Usually, genomics studies suggest discussing your decision to participate with close family members," Meyer says. "Here, genomic data is combined with parents' names and dates of birth, both identifiers, so it was surprising that there was no mention of risks to family members."
My DNA is unique to me, so there really is no anonymity to begin with. It's just not linked to my name, address, SSN, etc. This information would be a gold mine to insurance companies, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and perhaps potential employers. There's so much potential for abuse and so little security involved. Furthermore, it doesn't seem like relatives have the option to opt out from being referenced here, which means my privacy might be at risk without my consent. Sure, it won't include my own DNA, but it's still a huge risk.
I understand the scientific value of such a data set, but there's just way too much risk involved.
There are versions for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Amazon supports the Snowball Client for Ubuntu 12+ and RHEL 6+, but no doubt it can run on other systems. https://aws.amazon.com/importexport/tools/
Also, as per this link, they're working on chain-of-custody tracking using GPS. Amazon has already considered the possibility of theft and it doesn't seem likely to be an issue.
Well, for one, it provides evidence of human activity in that region. It's not entirely clear when humans migrated into that area, so it provides information about human migration. It also provides some information about the climate of the area because the mammoth was limited to surviving in certain habitats. Yes, it's obvious that humans hunted the woolly mammoth, but it's new for that region.
I do think the woolly mammoth will eventually be created again by scientists. But I don't think it's quite as close as you'd think.
I think it should be tested on perhaps a simpler type of animal and one where there's less of a gap between generations. The passenger pigeon is a good candidate for this, in part because it might be easy to get funded and the timescale for animals to reproduce is much quicker. Of the 32 or so passenger pigeons that have had their genomes sequenced, there aren't a lot of differences. That means it might not be necessary to create huge numbers of them with large genetic diversity for them to survive. This also requires sequencing the genome of a similar animal, in this case the band-tailed pigeon. Then it's necessary to determine what genes made the passenger pigeon what it was, rather than another type of pigeon, and creating a chimera by inserting passenger pigeon genes into the band-tailed pigeon genetic sequence. Even if a passenger pigeon can be created through this process, there's still the challenge of teaching the passenger pigeon to behave like one. Simply creating an animal with similar genetic code to a passenger pigeon doesn't make it a passenger pigeon.
The same process could be done with the woolly mammoth by creating a chimera with the Asian elephant. Sequencing the genome is probably the simpler part, and that's underway. But it would be good to see the process done successfully with another animal like the passenger pigeon, which should be faster than the woolly mammoth. I'd guess it's probably 50 years away, but I think it'll eventually happen.
Sadly, I don't think another famous extinct animal, the dodo, will be so fortunate. I'm not sure there will be as good of a close relative since it evolved in isolation for a long time on Mauritius. It's also old enough and in a climate warm enough that genetic preservation is much less likely.
I would argue that this kind of bugs constitute a defective product. Then I could invoke my rights for compensation/repair (at least based on EU law regarding sales of defective products).
I agree it's a defective product and I started thinking about this after I made my post. My idea was to try to force manufacturers to honor their warranty, which is supposed to protect against defects. Also, because Samsung knew about this vulnerability in August 2014 and continued to sell the Galaxy S4, they're knowingly selling a defective product. That ought to be more serious than simply selling a defective product.
I don't understand why phone manufacturers and carriers don't get sued for things like this. Carriers have typically required two year contracts for phone subsidies, and normally it's possible to buy a phone two years old and get it free. At least that's how it is in the US. That means you can buy a phone that's as much as three years old and have a reasonable expectation to use it for two years because that's the contract with your carrier. That means manufacturers and carriers should provide support for a minimum of five years. That means a phone released in October 2015 should have support until October 2020. I think a customer has a reasonable expectation of this. If nothing else, that should be grounds for a lawsuit against manufacturers and carriers. There's also the issue of delays in fixing vulnerabilities both with the manufacturers and then the carriers. Again, I think there's a reasonable expectation for security updates in a timely manner. Also, when phones ship with locked bootloaders and customers can't choose to unlock them, it makes it very difficult to install a patched version of the OS. This also voids the warranty if you're able to do it. Customers are screwed no matter what they do in this situation, which is why carriers and manufacturers should be sued in the absence of specific laws to protect customers.
I can't help but wonder if the decision to not provide software updates to older phones is partly because people don't see a huge difference between models and this is one way to push people to buy newer and more expensive phones. I can't say it for certain, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's part of the decision process.
I'm actually less bothered by researchers getting access to data to answer specific questions than I am about the potential for data breaches.
Almost invariably, giving researchers access to administrative data means creating a copy of that data. While it may not be easy to obtain illegally in its original storage location, creating a copy of the data increases the potential for a breach by the mere fact that another copy exists. It's also easy to see how researchers might not safeguard the data to the extent that its original owner does.
I work at a university and do scientific research. Some of it involves running massive jobs on supercomputers. Access to those systems is tightly controlled, much more so than most other computing resources at the university, because it's been a frequent target of intruders. Within the past couple of weeks, I've gotten an email about phishing attacks specifically directed at getting passwords to those systems. Clearly the data on those machines is of value to criminals, otherwise they wouldn't be trying to obtain it. There are rules about how long data can be stored in what's essentially scratch space as well as prohibiting the storage of data protected by laws like HIPAA. I know for a fact that the rules about the use of scratch space as temporary storage are frequently broken by many users. I have no reason to trust that rules about what types of data can be stored on those systems are followed more frequently. Even if researchers aren't malicious, I generally believe that they are careless with data.
When these data are given to researchers, it's an inviting target for criminals. These are data breaches waiting to happen. Just say no to sharing administrative data with researchers.
I don't think this is nonsense, and it's actually been reported before. See this Bill Moyers transcript for another, much older, source. Here are a couple more sources from 2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081601358.html. Basically, the White House was so desperate to have DoJ authorization for the program, they visited a man in the hospital who was very ill, almost certainly very medicated, and in no condition to make decisions about the legality of domestic surveillance. It seems like they were trying to take advantage of Ashcroft's state and trick him into signing the papers. Notably, Alberto Gonzales, an attorney general later in the Bush administration, was among those visiting from the White House. Also, Ashcroft wasn't even the Attorney General at the time; because of his illness, he had transferred the power to Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey. Bush went around Comey to try to take advantage of a very ill man to try to get the surveillance authorized.
There's no truth to that. Ashcroft had been hospitalized with acute pancreatitis. He had surgery the day before Bush and other White House staff members visited him. Bush didn't cause it, but it certainly says something about the legitimacy of the program when Ashcroft's authorization was sought while he was extremely ill and likely quite medicated.
I'm wondering how these apps made it through in the first place. Apple is known for being strict about vetting apps and what's allowed to enter the walled garden. If so many apps were able to make it past the vetting, it ought to raise concerns about what other malicious apps might be in the app store on a smaller scale. The vetting process probably lulls many users into a false sense of security that any app downloaded is going to be safe because Apple wouldn't let unsafe apps through. Obviously that's not the case, and it's not possible to know before downloading an app whether it's safe or not. Even reputable publishers could be compromised in this way. Although I think the walled garden is actually a good idea, it's obviously not sufficient, and there needs to be other layers of security. As much as I despise most antivirus software, it might be another good line of defense. I'd like to see more about app permissions like the old Android Market listing, and perhaps firewalling and only whitelisting certain sites for apps to connect to. It's reasonable that the browser you download would be able to connect to any site; that game, not so much. What's there now isn't enough and there really is no way for a user to know that an application is safe prior to installing it.
Those are incredibly ignorant comments. I'm sure there are some lazy idiots on teams. But there are also some pretty smart people out there. I was always amazed at how Peyton Manning would read the defense and call audibles on just about every play. There's a lot of practice involved, but it also takes a lot of intelligence to do that.
There are also some really smart coaches out there. Whether you like him or hate him, Bill Belichick is a really smart guy, finding ways to bend the rules and, probably quite often, break them without getting caught. He's hardly the only smart coach. And the front offices? They're filling up with nerds. Statistics and biometrics are taking over sports.
Many teams make their player personnel decisions based largely on advanced metrics. They also are making their way into in-game decisions. There's a LOT of money to be made from winning, and teams are willing to spend a lot of money to hire some really smart people to find ways to gain an edge, legal or otherwise. It's a far cry from a bunch of jocks who only know their playbooks. Baseball is probably the most advanced of the four major sports in this respect, but the others aren't that far behind.
And don't even get me started on sports like racing, which are even more advanced. Some of the more financially well-off Formula 1 teams employ a pretty large number of engineers to monitor the performance of their drivers and cars, to gain even a tiny edge over their competitors. I'd bet for every driver, you have at least 50 nerds working behind the scenes for an F1 team. It's really quite impressive.
Oh, and the announcers? The guys doing play-by-play tend to be people who went to college and studied journalism or broadcasting. They're not idiots, either. And it takes a lot to do decent PBP, especially for football, basketball, and hockey. Hell, I'd even call a few of those guys nerds. Bob Costas is definitely a baseball nerd, and it makes the games he calls really enjoyable to listen to.
UND and NDSU are, indeed, rivals. There's actually a trophy for the rivalry, called the Nickel Trophy. Haakenson did actually attend NDSU, as your quote says. However, I'm obviously wrong about his motivations here since the article says as much and I clearly just skimmed the article or didn't pick up on it due to lack of sleep. I'm a little embarrassed about being dead wrong and posting more than once about it.
It's a waste of public money to actually defend this through trademarks. It's doomed to failure. It's clever but doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of working.
Regarding the actual name, I'm not sure I agree with changing the name. The NCAA declared the name hostile, but it doesn't appear that they did so by contacting the actual Native American tribes portrayed. This caused quite a controversy with Florida State, who are called the Seminoles and actually have the support of the tribes. The NCAA told FSU to change the name without ever asking the tribes if they wanted the name changed. With regard to the UND situation, I don't really agree with changing the name. There are two tribes involved, the Spirit Lake tribe and the Standing Rock tribe. The Standing Rock tribe never officially voted on the matter, and only 8 percent of the people in Sioux County, where most of the reservation is located, voted when it was put to a public vote. It seems like the Standing Rock tribe really doesn't care if UND uses the name or not. However, the view of the Spirit Lake tribe was very different. They affirmed that they support the Fighting Sioux name and some of the members of the Spirit Lake tribe sued to try to get UND to keep the Fighting Sioux name. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.
In summary, one tribe doesn't really care about the nickname and, therefore, doesn't seem too offended. The other tribe involved seems passionate that the Fighting Sioux name ought to be kept. Yet the name was deemed hostile by the NCAA, who didn't bother to find out if it really offended anyone, and UND was threatened with sanctions if they didn't change the name. I think it's a terrible ploy to use trademarks to try to force UND to keep the Fighting Sioux name. That said, the Fighting Sioux name ought to stay. It seems like Haakenson's heart is in the right place, but it's a desperate attempt that's bound to failure.
In this case, nicknames are the names used by the school's athletic teams in intercollegiate athletics. My school, the University of Missouri, competes under the name Tigers. For large universities, it's actually one of the most recognizable aspects of the school for the general public. I'll bet most people not from Missouri or who didn't attend the school don't know much about them academically. But if they follow college sports at all, they've probably heard of the Missouri Tigers.
However, a few schools do have nicknames that are recognizable enough to be trademarked. There are a few that come to mind. My school, the University of Missouri, is commonly known as Mizzou. That's actually a contraction of Missouri State University, which was a name the school used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Washington State is the same way; they're known as Wazzu. Kansas State goes by K-State. The Georgia Institute of Technology is commonly known as Georgia Tech. While not the official name of those universities, they're recognizable enough to merit being trademarked.
In this case, UND has to come up with a new name for their athletic teams because the NCAA won't let them use "Fighting Sioux" any longer. Many replacement names have been suggested. A graduate of a rival school is trying to trademark some of those suggestions for the purpose of trolling UND fans. I highly doubt he will be successful in the endeavor, and I think he's just trying to piss off UND fans.
If he actually was granted the trademarks and tried to defend them, then yes, he should face a penalty for wasting someone's money in a frivolous lawsuit. In this particular case, that would be the money of North Dakota taxpayers who fund UND. But simply trying to register the trademarks, which really should be denied, really isn't hurting anyone. He's throwing away some of his own money, but that's about it. I highly doubt he's serious about defending the trademarks in court, and I think he's just saying that to rile up fans of UND. Lighten up, Francis.
The NCAA ordered all schools using Native American nicknames to change otherwise they would face certain penalties from the NCAA. The exception is for schools with the support of local tribes, which is how Florida State gets to be the Seminoles and, I believe, Utah gets to stay the Utes. UND wasn't so lucky as the Sioux didn't give their blessing to continued use of the name.
The guy registering the trademarks is actually an ND State grad (source: http://www.startribune.com/und-nickname-issue-mucked-up-by-former-mayor/327720071/), so I doubt he cares about UND being called the Fighting Sioux. I assume there's an intrastate rivalry between the two schools and it's an ND State grad trying to give shit to UND and their fans. I don't think he's serious about keeping the trademarks. I think he's just trying to get attention and troll rival fans. It won't be successful, and I think he knows as much. One of the names he tried to trademark is "North Stars," which I'm guessing is actually trademarked by the NHL's Dallas Stars.
As for the other ND, Notre Dame, I'm not offended by their name. I am, however, offended by their refusal to join a conference for football.
If he was being serious then, yes, I might agree. But unless I'm reading this situation completely wrong, it's a guy trying to troll a rival school. I'd bet he knows he won't actually get to keep the trademarks, and is just trying to give some shit to a rival school. If so, he's thrown away a bit of money, but no real harm was done. It reminds me of the time someone registered mizzou.us and made it redirect to ku.edu. That's probably the only clever thing a kU grad has ever done, and it's actually pretty damn funny. If this guy is just giving shit to UND fans, it shouldn't be penalized. I hate IP trolls as much as the next person, but I hope common sense wins out here.
I suppose it's trolling, in the sense of trying to troll a rival intrastate school. I'm assuming UND and North Dakota State have a rivalry, as is the case in many states. The NCAA has cracked down on the use of Native American names for collegiate teams. Florida State gets to remain the Seminoles and I think Utah can stay the Utes. But many other schools haven't been able to keep their names, and UND is one of them. This guy is trying to register many potential names in order to keep his rival school from choosing a name for their teams. It's highly unlikely to succeed, and I don't think there's any way he could get a trademark on at least one of the names. That name is "North Stars," which was the name of the NHL's Dallas Stars prior to moving from Minnesota to Texas. I'm assuming the Dallas Stars still maintain that trademark, which is probably why the new NHL team there is the Minnesota Wild. It really seems like an attempt to annoy a rival fan base, not actually obtain and defend those trademarks.
I don't know about the accuracy, but MetaWare seems to be a fairly good alternative. You'd need to develop a wearable to put the hardware in, but it looks pretty good to me. Add in a good bluetooth heart rate monitor and your smartphone and you can duplicate the functionality of any fitness tracker out there while also being less expensive.
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Lots of gambling involves some skill. There's skill in playing poker. Sure, it involves some luck of the draw, but it also involves playing the odds and manipulating opponents. Lots of games have some skill, but they're still generally banned as illegal gambling when money is involved.
Fantasy sports are still legal, just not these sites. I can see that playing over the course of a full season is very much a game of skill. Drafting well for the season, making trades, and dropping and adding players all involve skill. Over the course of a season, the performance of a player is generally fairly predictable. It's far from perfect, but it's predictable. And that makes it more a game of skill than a game of chance.
Daily fantasy sports are more a game of chance, with much more limited skill. The performance of players is highly variable from game to game and week to week. A lousy hitter in baseball can have a great week and put up big numbers. A really good QB in football can throw four interceptions in a game and have an awful week. There's a lot of luck involved. As they say in the NFL, any given Sunday...
These sites focus on daily or weekly leagues rather than full season leagues. For that short amount of time, there's a huge amount of chance involved. Over the course of a season, the random luck usually averages out and it becomes much more a game of skill.
There's also the issue that the statistics about draft decisions aren't generally available to the public. But an employee of a daily fantasy sports site can get access to that information. Those statistics are likely to be similar with other daily fantasy sports sites. The employee has insider information that they can use to gain an edge over competitors on other sites.
I don't think jargon in scientific writing is always a bad thing. It's important to be precise. When I conduct an experiment, I need to be precise about my procedure. If I'm precise, readers can identify caveats in my methods that would affect the outcome of my work. It also means someone else can duplicate my experiment. It's important for scientific experiments to be repeatable. It's also important to be precise about conclusions. I work in meteorology, a field that's next of kin to climatology. A lot of research about global warming is misunderstood or exaggerated when the general public hears about it. If I write a paper about global warming, I need to be precise in my conclusions so I don't contribute to this problem. If jargon helps me be precise, it's a good thing. If jargon exaggerates the importance of my work or obfuscates its meaning, it's a problem.
I think scientific writing is difficult to understand because so much is written in the passive voice. It was once acceptable to use first person pronouns, so writing has more active voice. First person pronouns fell out of favor in scientific writing about a century ago. Writers should be free to use first person pronouns if they make the writing easier to understand.
I also don't like how so many papers try to exaggerate their importance in the introduction. The first paragraph describes a very important problem while the rest of the paper only addresses a tiny part of that problem. It's done to persuade editors that a paper is of interest to more of their journal's audience. But it also contributes to misunderstanding.
Actually, there are many examples of FCC enforcement against transmitters on certain 5 GHz bands interfering with terminal doppler weather radars: https://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/weather-radar-interference-enforcement. This is actually a real issue.
No, it isn't especially frequent, but it does take place. There are two reasons it isn't more frequent:
1) Most transmitters aren't located in buildings that are high enough to be in the line of sight of airport weather radars. Generally the enforcement actions are against operators of transmitters in or atop tall buildings. Your transmitter a couple of floors above ground is highly unlikely to ever interfere with a radar. And if the radar beam was refracted severely enough for this to occur, there would almost certainly be a lot more interference from ground clutter than your wi-fi transmitter. This is more of an issue in tall buildings. The actual buildings are normally pretty unlikely to cause problems because they are stationary point targets that get filtered as ground clutter. Wi-fi, however, would probably contaminate an entire radial, similar to a sun spike.
2) Transmitters operating on either of the 5.25-5.35 GHz and 5.47-5.725 GHz bands are required to use dynamic frequency selection. They are supposed to listen for the signals transmitted by weather radars and, upon detection, switch to a frequency that does not cause interference.
The transmitters are locked into a frequency set. However, this is shared with the frequencies used by terminal doppler weather radars (TDWRs). Wi-fi equipment is supposed to detect when a radar is operating on a particular frequency and, upon detection, switch to a frequency that's not in use by a radar. Normally this isn't an issue if you're operating a transmitter near the ground. However, if it's located higher up in or atop a building that happens to be within the line of sight of a radar, it can cause interference. Locking wi-fi transmitters out of any frequencies used by TDWRs would greatly reduce the available spectrum and it isn't necessary. Most wi-fi in the 5 GHz band won't interfere with TDWRs because it either a) detects the radar and switches frequencies or b) is located such that it is out of the line of sight of the radar and can't interfere.
These radars are used to detect hazardous weather, not aircraft. There are about 45 terminal doppler weather radars installed in the US, which share the 5 GHz band with wi-fi. They are primarily used to detect wind shear and microbursts, which are dangerous to aircraft.
Terminal Doppler weather radars (TDWRs) are installed at about 40 major airports. They operate in the 5 GHz range and are used to detect things like wind shear and microbursts, which are dangerous to aircraft. The higher resolution than the WSR-88D (Nexrad) radars probably makes it easier to detect these features. Also, if the nearest WSR-88D is a significant distance away from the, the beam will be significantly above the ground over the airport. Interference from wi-fi isn't an issue for the WSR-88D radars because they operate around 2.7-3.0 GHz.
As I understand it, the 5 GHz band used for wi-fi systems is shared with TDWRs. This allows wi-fi to operate on TDWR frequencies in areas where there isn't a TDWR using that frequency. Wi-fi equipment is required to detect when a TDWR is operating and, upon detection, switch to another frequency to avoid interference. There have been quite a few enforcement actions by the FCC for wi-fi interfering with TDWR operation: https://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/weather-radar-interference-enforcement.
The FCC actually has investigated many complaints of transmissions from wireless devices interfering with terminal doppler weather radars. Here's a list of enforcement actions by the FCC: https://www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/weather-radar-interference-enforcement. So, yes, there have been investigations of the source of interference and penalties for doing so.
I read the Nature article and, frankly, it's very troubling.
Erlich has studied the potential for unmasking the identities of anonymous donors of genetic data, and the study's consent document warns participants that “we cannot guarantee that your identity and/or data will never become known, which could have significant implications in some scenarios. We estimate that the risk for such a confidentiality breach is low but not zero.” Erlich and Pickrell have adopted what they call a “skin in the game” philosophy by making their own genomes publicly available.
"Usually, genomics studies suggest discussing your decision to participate with close family members," Meyer says. "Here, genomic data is combined with parents' names and dates of birth, both identifiers, so it was surprising that there was no mention of risks to family members."
My DNA is unique to me, so there really is no anonymity to begin with. It's just not linked to my name, address, SSN, etc. This information would be a gold mine to insurance companies, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and perhaps potential employers. There's so much potential for abuse and so little security involved. Furthermore, it doesn't seem like relatives have the option to opt out from being referenced here, which means my privacy might be at risk without my consent. Sure, it won't include my own DNA, but it's still a huge risk.
I understand the scientific value of such a data set, but there's just way too much risk involved.
There are versions for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Amazon supports the Snowball Client for Ubuntu 12+ and RHEL 6+, but no doubt it can run on other systems. https://aws.amazon.com/importexport/tools/
Also, as per this link, they're working on chain-of-custody tracking using GPS. Amazon has already considered the possibility of theft and it doesn't seem likely to be an issue.
Well, for one, it provides evidence of human activity in that region. It's not entirely clear when humans migrated into that area, so it provides information about human migration. It also provides some information about the climate of the area because the mammoth was limited to surviving in certain habitats. Yes, it's obvious that humans hunted the woolly mammoth, but it's new for that region.
I do think the woolly mammoth will eventually be created again by scientists. But I don't think it's quite as close as you'd think.
I think it should be tested on perhaps a simpler type of animal and one where there's less of a gap between generations. The passenger pigeon is a good candidate for this, in part because it might be easy to get funded and the timescale for animals to reproduce is much quicker. Of the 32 or so passenger pigeons that have had their genomes sequenced, there aren't a lot of differences. That means it might not be necessary to create huge numbers of them with large genetic diversity for them to survive. This also requires sequencing the genome of a similar animal, in this case the band-tailed pigeon. Then it's necessary to determine what genes made the passenger pigeon what it was, rather than another type of pigeon, and creating a chimera by inserting passenger pigeon genes into the band-tailed pigeon genetic sequence. Even if a passenger pigeon can be created through this process, there's still the challenge of teaching the passenger pigeon to behave like one. Simply creating an animal with similar genetic code to a passenger pigeon doesn't make it a passenger pigeon.
The same process could be done with the woolly mammoth by creating a chimera with the Asian elephant. Sequencing the genome is probably the simpler part, and that's underway. But it would be good to see the process done successfully with another animal like the passenger pigeon, which should be faster than the woolly mammoth. I'd guess it's probably 50 years away, but I think it'll eventually happen.
Sadly, I don't think another famous extinct animal, the dodo, will be so fortunate. I'm not sure there will be as good of a close relative since it evolved in isolation for a long time on Mauritius. It's also old enough and in a climate warm enough that genetic preservation is much less likely.
I would argue that this kind of bugs constitute a defective product. Then I could invoke my rights for compensation/repair (at least based on EU law regarding sales of defective products).
I agree it's a defective product and I started thinking about this after I made my post. My idea was to try to force manufacturers to honor their warranty, which is supposed to protect against defects. Also, because Samsung knew about this vulnerability in August 2014 and continued to sell the Galaxy S4, they're knowingly selling a defective product. That ought to be more serious than simply selling a defective product.
I don't understand why phone manufacturers and carriers don't get sued for things like this. Carriers have typically required two year contracts for phone subsidies, and normally it's possible to buy a phone two years old and get it free. At least that's how it is in the US. That means you can buy a phone that's as much as three years old and have a reasonable expectation to use it for two years because that's the contract with your carrier. That means manufacturers and carriers should provide support for a minimum of five years. That means a phone released in October 2015 should have support until October 2020. I think a customer has a reasonable expectation of this. If nothing else, that should be grounds for a lawsuit against manufacturers and carriers. There's also the issue of delays in fixing vulnerabilities both with the manufacturers and then the carriers. Again, I think there's a reasonable expectation for security updates in a timely manner. Also, when phones ship with locked bootloaders and customers can't choose to unlock them, it makes it very difficult to install a patched version of the OS. This also voids the warranty if you're able to do it. Customers are screwed no matter what they do in this situation, which is why carriers and manufacturers should be sued in the absence of specific laws to protect customers.
I can't help but wonder if the decision to not provide software updates to older phones is partly because people don't see a huge difference between models and this is one way to push people to buy newer and more expensive phones. I can't say it for certain, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's part of the decision process.
I'm actually less bothered by researchers getting access to data to answer specific questions than I am about the potential for data breaches.
Almost invariably, giving researchers access to administrative data means creating a copy of that data. While it may not be easy to obtain illegally in its original storage location, creating a copy of the data increases the potential for a breach by the mere fact that another copy exists. It's also easy to see how researchers might not safeguard the data to the extent that its original owner does.
I work at a university and do scientific research. Some of it involves running massive jobs on supercomputers. Access to those systems is tightly controlled, much more so than most other computing resources at the university, because it's been a frequent target of intruders. Within the past couple of weeks, I've gotten an email about phishing attacks specifically directed at getting passwords to those systems. Clearly the data on those machines is of value to criminals, otherwise they wouldn't be trying to obtain it. There are rules about how long data can be stored in what's essentially scratch space as well as prohibiting the storage of data protected by laws like HIPAA. I know for a fact that the rules about the use of scratch space as temporary storage are frequently broken by many users. I have no reason to trust that rules about what types of data can be stored on those systems are followed more frequently. Even if researchers aren't malicious, I generally believe that they are careless with data.
When these data are given to researchers, it's an inviting target for criminals. These are data breaches waiting to happen. Just say no to sharing administrative data with researchers.
I don't think this is nonsense, and it's actually been reported before. See this Bill Moyers transcript for another, much older, source. Here are a couple more sources from 2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/15/AR2007051500864.html and http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/16/AR2007081601358.html. Basically, the White House was so desperate to have DoJ authorization for the program, they visited a man in the hospital who was very ill, almost certainly very medicated, and in no condition to make decisions about the legality of domestic surveillance. It seems like they were trying to take advantage of Ashcroft's state and trick him into signing the papers. Notably, Alberto Gonzales, an attorney general later in the Bush administration, was among those visiting from the White House. Also, Ashcroft wasn't even the Attorney General at the time; because of his illness, he had transferred the power to Deputy Attorney General Jim Comey. Bush went around Comey to try to take advantage of a very ill man to try to get the surveillance authorized.
There's no truth to that. Ashcroft had been hospitalized with acute pancreatitis. He had surgery the day before Bush and other White House staff members visited him. Bush didn't cause it, but it certainly says something about the legitimacy of the program when Ashcroft's authorization was sought while he was extremely ill and likely quite medicated.
I'm wondering how these apps made it through in the first place. Apple is known for being strict about vetting apps and what's allowed to enter the walled garden. If so many apps were able to make it past the vetting, it ought to raise concerns about what other malicious apps might be in the app store on a smaller scale. The vetting process probably lulls many users into a false sense of security that any app downloaded is going to be safe because Apple wouldn't let unsafe apps through. Obviously that's not the case, and it's not possible to know before downloading an app whether it's safe or not. Even reputable publishers could be compromised in this way. Although I think the walled garden is actually a good idea, it's obviously not sufficient, and there needs to be other layers of security. As much as I despise most antivirus software, it might be another good line of defense. I'd like to see more about app permissions like the old Android Market listing, and perhaps firewalling and only whitelisting certain sites for apps to connect to. It's reasonable that the browser you download would be able to connect to any site; that game, not so much. What's there now isn't enough and there really is no way for a user to know that an application is safe prior to installing it.
Those are incredibly ignorant comments. I'm sure there are some lazy idiots on teams. But there are also some pretty smart people out there. I was always amazed at how Peyton Manning would read the defense and call audibles on just about every play. There's a lot of practice involved, but it also takes a lot of intelligence to do that.
There are also some really smart coaches out there. Whether you like him or hate him, Bill Belichick is a really smart guy, finding ways to bend the rules and, probably quite often, break them without getting caught. He's hardly the only smart coach. And the front offices? They're filling up with nerds. Statistics and biometrics are taking over sports.
Many teams make their player personnel decisions based largely on advanced metrics. They also are making their way into in-game decisions. There's a LOT of money to be made from winning, and teams are willing to spend a lot of money to hire some really smart people to find ways to gain an edge, legal or otherwise. It's a far cry from a bunch of jocks who only know their playbooks. Baseball is probably the most advanced of the four major sports in this respect, but the others aren't that far behind.
And don't even get me started on sports like racing, which are even more advanced. Some of the more financially well-off Formula 1 teams employ a pretty large number of engineers to monitor the performance of their drivers and cars, to gain even a tiny edge over their competitors. I'd bet for every driver, you have at least 50 nerds working behind the scenes for an F1 team. It's really quite impressive.
Oh, and the announcers? The guys doing play-by-play tend to be people who went to college and studied journalism or broadcasting. They're not idiots, either. And it takes a lot to do decent PBP, especially for football, basketball, and hockey. Hell, I'd even call a few of those guys nerds. Bob Costas is definitely a baseball nerd, and it makes the games he calls really enjoyable to listen to.
UND and NDSU are, indeed, rivals. There's actually a trophy for the rivalry, called the Nickel Trophy. Haakenson did actually attend NDSU, as your quote says. However, I'm obviously wrong about his motivations here since the article says as much and I clearly just skimmed the article or didn't pick up on it due to lack of sleep. I'm a little embarrassed about being dead wrong and posting more than once about it.
It's a waste of public money to actually defend this through trademarks. It's doomed to failure. It's clever but doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of working.
Regarding the actual name, I'm not sure I agree with changing the name. The NCAA declared the name hostile, but it doesn't appear that they did so by contacting the actual Native American tribes portrayed. This caused quite a controversy with Florida State, who are called the Seminoles and actually have the support of the tribes. The NCAA told FSU to change the name without ever asking the tribes if they wanted the name changed. With regard to the UND situation, I don't really agree with changing the name. There are two tribes involved, the Spirit Lake tribe and the Standing Rock tribe. The Standing Rock tribe never officially voted on the matter, and only 8 percent of the people in Sioux County, where most of the reservation is located, voted when it was put to a public vote. It seems like the Standing Rock tribe really doesn't care if UND uses the name or not. However, the view of the Spirit Lake tribe was very different. They affirmed that they support the Fighting Sioux name and some of the members of the Spirit Lake tribe sued to try to get UND to keep the Fighting Sioux name. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.
In summary, one tribe doesn't really care about the nickname and, therefore, doesn't seem too offended. The other tribe involved seems passionate that the Fighting Sioux name ought to be kept. Yet the name was deemed hostile by the NCAA, who didn't bother to find out if it really offended anyone, and UND was threatened with sanctions if they didn't change the name. I think it's a terrible ploy to use trademarks to try to force UND to keep the Fighting Sioux name. That said, the Fighting Sioux name ought to stay. It seems like Haakenson's heart is in the right place, but it's a desperate attempt that's bound to failure.
My sources?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120614/us-north-dakota-primary-fighting-sioux/
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7881221/judge-throws-tribes-lawsuit-north-dakota-fighting-sioux-name
In this case, nicknames are the names used by the school's athletic teams in intercollegiate athletics. My school, the University of Missouri, competes under the name Tigers. For large universities, it's actually one of the most recognizable aspects of the school for the general public. I'll bet most people not from Missouri or who didn't attend the school don't know much about them academically. But if they follow college sports at all, they've probably heard of the Missouri Tigers.
However, a few schools do have nicknames that are recognizable enough to be trademarked. There are a few that come to mind. My school, the University of Missouri, is commonly known as Mizzou. That's actually a contraction of Missouri State University, which was a name the school used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Washington State is the same way; they're known as Wazzu. Kansas State goes by K-State. The Georgia Institute of Technology is commonly known as Georgia Tech. While not the official name of those universities, they're recognizable enough to merit being trademarked.
In this case, UND has to come up with a new name for their athletic teams because the NCAA won't let them use "Fighting Sioux" any longer. Many replacement names have been suggested. A graduate of a rival school is trying to trademark some of those suggestions for the purpose of trolling UND fans. I highly doubt he will be successful in the endeavor, and I think he's just trying to piss off UND fans.
If he actually was granted the trademarks and tried to defend them, then yes, he should face a penalty for wasting someone's money in a frivolous lawsuit. In this particular case, that would be the money of North Dakota taxpayers who fund UND. But simply trying to register the trademarks, which really should be denied, really isn't hurting anyone. He's throwing away some of his own money, but that's about it. I highly doubt he's serious about defending the trademarks in court, and I think he's just saying that to rile up fans of UND. Lighten up, Francis.
That's close, but not quite correct.
The NCAA ordered all schools using Native American nicknames to change otherwise they would face certain penalties from the NCAA. The exception is for schools with the support of local tribes, which is how Florida State gets to be the Seminoles and, I believe, Utah gets to stay the Utes. UND wasn't so lucky as the Sioux didn't give their blessing to continued use of the name.
The guy registering the trademarks is actually an ND State grad (source: http://www.startribune.com/und-nickname-issue-mucked-up-by-former-mayor/327720071/), so I doubt he cares about UND being called the Fighting Sioux. I assume there's an intrastate rivalry between the two schools and it's an ND State grad trying to give shit to UND and their fans. I don't think he's serious about keeping the trademarks. I think he's just trying to get attention and troll rival fans. It won't be successful, and I think he knows as much. One of the names he tried to trademark is "North Stars," which I'm guessing is actually trademarked by the NHL's Dallas Stars.
As for the other ND, Notre Dame, I'm not offended by their name. I am, however, offended by their refusal to join a conference for football.
If he was being serious then, yes, I might agree. But unless I'm reading this situation completely wrong, it's a guy trying to troll a rival school. I'd bet he knows he won't actually get to keep the trademarks, and is just trying to give some shit to a rival school. If so, he's thrown away a bit of money, but no real harm was done. It reminds me of the time someone registered mizzou.us and made it redirect to ku.edu. That's probably the only clever thing a kU grad has ever done, and it's actually pretty damn funny. If this guy is just giving shit to UND fans, it shouldn't be penalized. I hate IP trolls as much as the next person, but I hope common sense wins out here.
I suppose it's trolling, in the sense of trying to troll a rival intrastate school. I'm assuming UND and North Dakota State have a rivalry, as is the case in many states. The NCAA has cracked down on the use of Native American names for collegiate teams. Florida State gets to remain the Seminoles and I think Utah can stay the Utes. But many other schools haven't been able to keep their names, and UND is one of them. This guy is trying to register many potential names in order to keep his rival school from choosing a name for their teams. It's highly unlikely to succeed, and I don't think there's any way he could get a trademark on at least one of the names. That name is "North Stars," which was the name of the NHL's Dallas Stars prior to moving from Minnesota to Texas. I'm assuming the Dallas Stars still maintain that trademark, which is probably why the new NHL team there is the Minnesota Wild. It really seems like an attempt to annoy a rival fan base, not actually obtain and defend those trademarks.
I don't know about the accuracy, but MetaWare seems to be a fairly good alternative. You'd need to develop a wearable to put the hardware in, but it looks pretty good to me. Add in a good bluetooth heart rate monitor and your smartphone and you can duplicate the functionality of any fitness tracker out there while also being less expensive.