I hope they're using programs that've had a few computer scientists' eyes over them.
Seeing as how the lead researcher holds M.Sc. and Ph.D. degees in Computer Science, is cross-appointed to the Departments of Computer Science and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto, and is a Visiting Scientist with IBM's Center for Advanced Studies in Toronto...
...it seems likely that a computer scientist may have cast his eyes over the code once or twice.
Where on Earth does this idea come from that multicenter, multimillion-dollar research projects are run by idiots? Neither funding nor talent are in particularly short supply in the field of cancer research, and squeezing extra speed and power out of massive bioinformatic analyses is a hot area.
So, everyone in this thread was just manipulated into giving him better counterarguments than the ones he already paid for--and you all did it for free.
Imagine that you or your mom or your kid has a problem with their recent surgery and is desperately trying to reach their doctor who went to a movie, but some smug asshole with a jammer is blocking the call. Kinda puts it in a different light, huh?
Not to put too fine a point on it, but what kind of highly-educated, technologically-aware people (say, a surgeon and a sysadmin) don't realize that there's often wretched reception inside big, concrete block buildings (like, hypothetically speaking, a cinema multiplex) regardless of whether or not jamming equipment is being used?
Probably just a matter of time before an emergency requires a quick call to 911 that gets blocked by this illegal tactic.
Really? Where are you finding these restaurants, cafes, and theaters that don't have staff and landline telephones? Where are these buses and commuter trains that don't have drivers, conductors, or emergency call buttons that can contact emergency services rapidly and efficiently?
But I'm coming out with guns blazing the day I can't get emergency help for me or someone who needs it because some gutless wonder is using one of these devices and my cell phone is rendered more useless than it already is.(emphasis added.)
So, you're already aware that your cellular phone is an inherently unreliable communications tool, and that it would be foolhardy to count on it in an emergency situation. It may not be available because the battery is dead, because you're in a building and the signal's too weak, because you sat on it, because your wife borrowed it, because personal electronic devices are naturally perverse, or because it's being jammed.
If your response, in an emergency, to an absence of cellular reception is "Oh my paws and whiskers! Whatever shall I do?" you're useless and better off out of the gene pool anyway. This isn't going to affect your ability to call for help when you're alone in a ditch after you rolled your car off the highway in the middle of the night--there's nobody out there with a jammer.
You don't stop obnoxious car drivers by blockading the interstate.
Perhaps not. But I can certainly keep obnoxious drivers out of my driveway by installing a gate.
Re:They should take a look in the mirror.
on
Science vs. Homeopathy
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Do you actually have specific examples, or are you offering a baseless rant?
Yes, many conditions could be improved - even cured - through lifestyle changes. The incidence of diabetes, many cancers, assorted psychological problems, headaches, tooth decay, and many other ailments could be sharply reduced if people ate right, got enough sleep, brushed their teeth, stopped smoking, and drank in moderation.
And yet, these people have real diseases, and real problems with their health. Were the problems avoidable? Yep. Can your doctor force you to eat better and get more exercise? Nope. Do they still need to be treated? Yep.
So, are drugs costly? Some of them, absolutely. Nevertheless, drugs are required to be tested for efficacy. The doctors who prescribe them are familiar with the effects and side effects, and are generally competent to help a patient make an informed decision about the tradeoffs involved in a particular therapy. Are drug companies evil? Mostly--at least, in any way that makes them a buck. Do they fudge data to suppress information about side effects? Sometimes--but it usually costs them a bundle in the end, and most drugs do actually work as advertised, and have accurately reported side effects.
I have difficulty seeing why it's the fault of western medicine that some people are lazy and have bad habits. And at least 'western' drugs are tested for efficacy, and have some oversight.
A recent study examined three groups, one with no acupuncture, one with acupuncture in the traditionally prescribed locations, and one with acupuncture in random locations. Both of the latter two groups were better than the first (no treatment), but interestingly they weren't different from each other.
Do you have any information about that study? Absent further information, the study you've described seems to show support for the placebo effect. (It's difficult to do a proper blinded trial of acupuncture, in that most people notice when you stick needles into their bodies.)
For those who are interested, the author of the above comment (MSTCrow5429) has been blocked several times on Wikipedia for making personal attacks on other editors.
Sour grapes much? While I certainly agree that there are aspects of Wikipedia that deserve both criticism and scrutiny, I am somewhat disinclined to trust the judgement of MSTCrow on this.
It's the truth. 0.08 is below any significant level of impairment under normal driving conditions....
First of all, you need to cite some sort of source for a statement like that. (A review by Fell and Voas reports that reducing the legal limit from 0.10 to 0.08 reduced alcohol-related crashes, injuries, and fatalities by between 5% and 16% in the United States; they report further statistically significant reductions in fatalities in jurisdictions that have moved to a limit of 0.05.)
Second - as other posters have noted - how prepared are you to deal with a surprise abnormal condition?
Third, nice weasel word--below any 'significant' level of impairment? What does that mean?
Fourth, I should hope that the limit would be below the level of significant impairment under any condition. There's no compelling reason why anyone should have to drive with any alcohol in their blood; any limit ought sensibly to include a margin of safety.
Or are you just taking advantage of Slashdot's (un?)healthy population of paranoid conspiracy freaks with mod points?
Insurance companies don't want to control you. They don't care how you live your life. They don't care if you smoke. They don't care if you drive a Ferrari. They don't care if you live close to, or far away from, a fire station.
Insurance companies want to make money. They don't particularly care what happens to you, your house, or your car. You could die and they wouldn't bat an eye. Their actuarial tables know how many people just like you will die in a given year, and they'll charge you accordingly. If you want to make life choices that are likely to result in more insurance claims, that's fine by your insurance company--but they're going to charge you more money for the privilege, because it's going to cost them more money.
Insurance companies will go to all manner of evil lengths to avoid paying claims, and they will squeeze every twisted drop of perversity from the mounds of legalese in your policy. They will at turns be cheap, obnoxious, patronizing, pedantic, confusing, deceptive, and vile. But...they're not out to control you. They just want to empty your wallet.
I don't see why writing down defeats a password its security. As long as you guard that piece of paper, it's totally safe.
Indeed. I don't need a secret password to get into my apartment, to start my car, or to open my filing cabinet. The security of my apartment is only defeated if I leave the key taped to a Post-It note, affixed to the door frame when I go out. It's rather stunning that people will do exactly the same thing with their computer passwords.
We're heading toward a future where people will have an ipod full of 1000 different artists, one song each. They won't know the name of the artist.
Whyever not? If I've found something that I like, why wouldn't I look for more things like it? Why would I go groping in the dark for random new artists when I have a name I can search for on iTunes sitting right there on the screen of my iPod?
Is it possible that I won't like the artist's other tracks? Yep. Would I still tend to search for music from an artist who wrote at least one song I liked? Yep.
Methinks maybe some/. editors have been spending a bit too much time in Chernobyl themselves, and it's had a deleterious affect on their "1337 categorization skillz".
Yeah, someone isnt thinking energy alternatives through again. 1,000 people a day probably visit my grocery store. How are they going to pull 13 gallons of starch each? Where will by store put 13,000 gallons a day. In the cereal aisle?
I think the idea is not that everyone would buy their fuel starch at the grocery store. Rather, the idea is that it would require no special infrastructure to do so, and that it would be safe to do so.
Compare this with the distribution of other fuels. Your gas station has a very expensive set of underground tanks that require costly monitoring, maintenance, and regular replacement--and which still sometimes leak and create an environmental nightmare. Natural gas blows up houses every now and then. Propane is stored in tanks outdoors, in special fenced-off areas. Ethanol is a volatile liquid. You definitely don't smoke around any of these fuels. Special training, permits, and equipment are used to handle all of them in any substantial quantity.
Contrast with starch. It's safe to ingest. Spills can be swept up or hosed down the drain. If a starch supertanker runs aground off the coast of Alaska, everybody just shrugs. (Not, of course, that you'd need starch tankers.) There are no special rules or regulations regarding its storage indoors or out. If your grocery store wanted to sell it in fifty-gallon drums, they could.
It has an ingredient called cochineal extract. Sounds kinda exotic like vanilla extract. FDA proposed labeling standard requiring manufacturers to say "cochineal extract (insect derived)" but food manufacturers argued that would turn off consumers so they deleted the insect derived portion.
Unless and until you argue that "vanilla extract" needs to be changed to "vanilla bean extract (plant derived)", and "chicken" needs to appear on packaging as "chicken (animal derived)", you're out of luck. "Cochineal extract" is a specific term, describing a product that is always insect derived. Adding the stuff in brackets is just redundant.
Just remember the next time you rinse with Listerine Citrus Burst that you're swishing crushed dead pregnant beetles in your mouth.
Meh. Substitute FD&C Red #40 and you'll be telling me that you're appalled because I'm swishing with an artificial chemical. Whatever. At least in the Listerine I know it's sterile.
If a presenter is reading their own slides, it is a dead givaway that they dont really know the subject matter.
To be fair, this isn't always the case. I regularly attend scientific meetings. In many cases, the presenters reading their slides are doing so because English is a second or third language, and they're working from the assumption that boring the audience to tears is better than completely confusing us.
In some other cases, the presenter is scared to death of public speaking, and is using the slides as a crutch to keep them from being reduced to a gibbering pool of sweat.
A passenger jet, supposedly, harms the environment as much per passenger, as five passenger cars would over the same distance if you ignore the impact of building and maintaining the roads.
You might want to check that statistic. U.S. air carriers report that for Q3 2006, they managed to squeeze 50.1 revenue passenger miles out of each gallon of jet fuel.
Now, it's possible that you get higher output of certain nasty things - you probably get more nitrogen oxides, for instance - but I can't imagine that they're five times worse. And, as you say, that doesn't include the mess that roads make.
Actually, it's probably more a perq that comes with being terminally ill. Having late stage metastatic cancer probably means that she'll be dead within the year. Juries have a habit of finding weakened, dying women to be rather sympathetic defendants.
It's a good thing that they can't invoke the War Measures Act, then. It was replaced by the Emergencies Act in 1988, no doubt in large part because the provisions of the War Measures Act would have been deemed unconstitutional under the Canadian Constitution (in particular, the terms of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, adopted in 1982).
The Emergencies Act is more circumscribed in the powers which it grants. Declaration of a 'state of emergency' is subject to a review and vote by Parliament. Uses of the Act's powers are subject to judicial review, under reasonably strict constitutional tests.
Slashdot Mirror
Seeing as how the lead researcher holds M.Sc. and Ph.D. degees in Computer Science, is cross-appointed to the Departments of Computer Science and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto, and is a Visiting Scientist with IBM's Center for Advanced Studies in Toronto...
Where on Earth does this idea come from that multicenter, multimillion-dollar research projects are run by idiots? Neither funding nor talent are in particularly short supply in the field of cancer research, and squeezing extra speed and power out of massive bioinformatic analyses is a hot area.
Suckers.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but what kind of highly-educated, technologically-aware people (say, a surgeon and a sysadmin) don't realize that there's often wretched reception inside big, concrete block buildings (like, hypothetically speaking, a cinema multiplex) regardless of whether or not jamming equipment is being used?
Really? Where are you finding these restaurants, cafes, and theaters that don't have staff and landline telephones? Where are these buses and commuter trains that don't have drivers, conductors, or emergency call buttons that can contact emergency services rapidly and efficiently?
So, you're already aware that your cellular phone is an inherently unreliable communications tool, and that it would be foolhardy to count on it in an emergency situation. It may not be available because the battery is dead, because you're in a building and the signal's too weak, because you sat on it, because your wife borrowed it, because personal electronic devices are naturally perverse, or because it's being jammed.
If your response, in an emergency, to an absence of cellular reception is "Oh my paws and whiskers! Whatever shall I do?" you're useless and better off out of the gene pool anyway. This isn't going to affect your ability to call for help when you're alone in a ditch after you rolled your car off the highway in the middle of the night--there's nobody out there with a jammer.
Perhaps not. But I can certainly keep obnoxious drivers out of my driveway by installing a gate.
American suckers. Paying taxes and not getting anything worthwhile. Hm.
Yes, many conditions could be improved - even cured - through lifestyle changes. The incidence of diabetes, many cancers, assorted psychological problems, headaches, tooth decay, and many other ailments could be sharply reduced if people ate right, got enough sleep, brushed their teeth, stopped smoking, and drank in moderation.
And yet, these people have real diseases, and real problems with their health. Were the problems avoidable? Yep. Can your doctor force you to eat better and get more exercise? Nope. Do they still need to be treated? Yep.
So, are drugs costly? Some of them, absolutely. Nevertheless, drugs are required to be tested for efficacy. The doctors who prescribe them are familiar with the effects and side effects, and are generally competent to help a patient make an informed decision about the tradeoffs involved in a particular therapy. Are drug companies evil? Mostly--at least, in any way that makes them a buck. Do they fudge data to suppress information about side effects? Sometimes--but it usually costs them a bundle in the end, and most drugs do actually work as advertised, and have accurately reported side effects.
I have difficulty seeing why it's the fault of western medicine that some people are lazy and have bad habits. And at least 'western' drugs are tested for efficacy, and have some oversight.
Do you have any information about that study? Absent further information, the study you've described seems to show support for the placebo effect. (It's difficult to do a proper blinded trial of acupuncture, in that most people notice when you stick needles into their bodies.)
Why would you put something not supposed to be transported on the tip of a cruise missile?
Sheesh. The military mind.
For those who are interested, the author of the above comment (MSTCrow5429) has been blocked several times on Wikipedia for making personal attacks on other editors.
His current project appears to be shilling for Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma)'s position denying anthropogenic climate change by citing out-of-date and rejected journal articles. By so doing, he appears to be neglecting important Wikipedia policies demanding reliable sources and requiring material be presented from a neutral point of view.
Sour grapes much? While I certainly agree that there are aspects of Wikipedia that deserve both criticism and scrutiny, I am somewhat disinclined to trust the judgement of MSTCrow on this.
First of all, you need to cite some sort of source for a statement like that. (A review by Fell and Voas reports that reducing the legal limit from 0.10 to 0.08 reduced alcohol-related crashes, injuries, and fatalities by between 5% and 16% in the United States; they report further statistically significant reductions in fatalities in jurisdictions that have moved to a limit of 0.05.)
Second - as other posters have noted - how prepared are you to deal with a surprise abnormal condition?
Third, nice weasel word--below any 'significant' level of impairment? What does that mean?
Fourth, I should hope that the limit would be below the level of significant impairment under any condition. There's no compelling reason why anyone should have to drive with any alcohol in their blood; any limit ought sensibly to include a margin of safety.
Or are you just taking advantage of Slashdot's (un?)healthy population of paranoid conspiracy freaks with mod points?
Insurance companies don't want to control you. They don't care how you live your life. They don't care if you smoke. They don't care if you drive a Ferrari. They don't care if you live close to, or far away from, a fire station.
Insurance companies want to make money. They don't particularly care what happens to you, your house, or your car. You could die and they wouldn't bat an eye. Their actuarial tables know how many people just like you will die in a given year, and they'll charge you accordingly. If you want to make life choices that are likely to result in more insurance claims, that's fine by your insurance company--but they're going to charge you more money for the privilege, because it's going to cost them more money.
Insurance companies will go to all manner of evil lengths to avoid paying claims, and they will squeeze every twisted drop of perversity from the mounds of legalese in your policy. They will at turns be cheap, obnoxious, patronizing, pedantic, confusing, deceptive, and vile. But...they're not out to control you. They just want to empty your wallet.
Whyever not? If I've found something that I like, why wouldn't I look for more things like it? Why would I go groping in the dark for random new artists when I have a name I can search for on iTunes sitting right there on the screen of my iPod?
Is it possible that I won't like the artist's other tracks? Yep. Would I still tend to search for music from an artist who wrote at least one song I liked? Yep.
Compare this with the distribution of other fuels. Your gas station has a very expensive set of underground tanks that require costly monitoring, maintenance, and regular replacement--and which still sometimes leak and create an environmental nightmare. Natural gas blows up houses every now and then. Propane is stored in tanks outdoors, in special fenced-off areas. Ethanol is a volatile liquid. You definitely don't smoke around any of these fuels. Special training, permits, and equipment are used to handle all of them in any substantial quantity.
Contrast with starch. It's safe to ingest. Spills can be swept up or hosed down the drain. If a starch supertanker runs aground off the coast of Alaska, everybody just shrugs. (Not, of course, that you'd need starch tankers.) There are no special rules or regulations regarding its storage indoors or out. If your grocery store wanted to sell it in fifty-gallon drums, they could.
In some other cases, the presenter is scared to death of public speaking, and is using the slides as a crutch to keep them from being reduced to a gibbering pool of sweat.
Now, it's possible that you get higher output of certain nasty things - you probably get more nitrogen oxides, for instance - but I can't imagine that they're five times worse. And, as you say, that doesn't include the mess that roads make.
a) better, or
b) worse
if Bush were to jump in and started saber-rattling?
Honestly, do you think a peaceful resolution and return of the soldiers would be more likely if the Great Satan started making ultimatums?
'You have blank stares? The parent post has answers!'
The Emergencies Act is more circumscribed in the powers which it grants. Declaration of a 'state of emergency' is subject to a review and vote by Parliament. Uses of the Act's powers are subject to judicial review, under reasonably strict constitutional tests.
No problem; here you go: "It's not just the weather that's cooler in Canada", by Samantha Bennett.
Oh, and Canada is also superior to the United States because Budweiser 'beer' isn't made there.