Am I the only one beginning to feel a little skepticism about some of these claims? They keep finding giant planets closer to stars than Mercury, which seems to fly in the face of many previously established theories of planetary system formation.
I think it's mostly down to the fact that these large planets close to their parent stars are easier to see.
If you're looking at a Jupiter-sized object that orbits closer than Mercury, then you're going to have an orbital period on the order of days or weeks. On the other hand, if you want to detect a Jupiter-sized object orbiting at that same distance Jupiter does from our Sun, then your orbital period ends up as years or tens of years (Jupiter completes one orbit in a bit less than twelve years.)
Depending on the technique you use to detect a planet, you often need to show a pattern that persists through at least two or three consecutive orbits.
In the case discussed here, very small changes in brightness (less than 1%) were observed every time there was a transit (the planet passed between us and the other star); these events took place every three days. In principle, one could get sufficient data in a week or so. If we were looking at an object with an orbit like Jupiter's, we'd need to have at least a quarter century of careful monitoring of the star. Other techniques also require significantly more data collection time or more sensitive equipment as the planets get smaller and their orbits grow longer. The reason why we're detecting massive gas giants in close orbits is because they're the easiest planets to see. We're definitely not getting a random sample of all planets.
Yes, the planets we are seeing seem unusual, but they're still quite few in absolute number. Perhaps in twenty years when we can reliably start detecting rocky, Earth-type planets in Earth-type orbits we'll be able to make more definitive statements. Right now we're like biologists trying to understand human life--but only being allowed to study specimens weighing more than 600 lbs.
Now your WMD example is ridiculous. A p2p app is used to copy files from one place to another, the "bad" part of that is that it can illegally copy files. Now a WMD is used for mass destruction or the threat of mass destruction, I don't see any other way to use a WMD.
Of course, if you read the parent post in its entirety, you'd see that the same conclusion was reached--authoring, distribution, and use of P2P applications should be legal because there are significant legal uses for them.
On the other hand, software with no redeeming qualities (viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, etc.) are more akin to the WMD of the digital world. Their only uses are destructive, and rightly should be heavily restricted.
Most things, like PET plastic use more energy in the recycling process than manufacturing the things from scratch (once you include sorting and transportation costs, which are not insignificant).
On the other hand, it should also be noted that most plastics are derived from petroleum products--and acquiring petroleum products has been getting both more expensive and more bloody of late.
The software is fallible. When judging email that I don't want, the only infallible person is me.
The problem is that you're fallible too. Sure, your record will be damn near perfect if you're only screening twenty or thirty emails per day, and most of them are ham (the good stuff).
On the other hand, there are some people here who receive one or two or more hundred emails per day, most of which are spam. It's very easy when going quickly through a long list of messages to inadvertently hit 'delete', or not recognize someone's name, or make some other error. Even so, we human beings are very good at all sorts of pattern recognition, so we tend to still be better than 99% accurate at recognizing ham.
You may think you're infallible, but a worthwhile message probably sneaks past on occasion, a victim of inadvertent deletion. Do you filter your trash? Do you know you haven't misclassified something?
My father recently retired from teaching high school. Although he taught in the maths and sciences (with many an interesting tale of cheating there) his best plagiarism tale comes from a coworker who taught French. We will call the teacher Mrs. Smith, and the student Billy. Names have been changed to protect the amusing.
Billy was to write a brief essay on some topic--I forget what. A few paragraphs. No big deal, right?
Billy didn't hand in the essay all term. Mrs. Smith allowed him repeated extensions, hoping to get Billy to turn at least something in. Billy performed poorly on tests, but survived some of the assignments, probably through the assistance of his fellow students.
Mrs. Smith fully expected Billy to wash out during the exam, but was willing to give him every opportunity to get his act together. Finally, on the last day of French class, Billy proudly presented his paper, then dashed off to his next lecture.
After the exam, Mrs. Smith sat down with Billy.
"Billy," said she, "I'm a little bit concerned about the paper you handed in."
"Really, Mrs. S? What...what seems to be the trouble?" Billy plays it cool.
"Well, I'm a bit worried that it might not be entirely your own work..."
"Why would you think that?"
"For one thing, the language seems awfully advanced in places. I'm wondering if you perhaps had some help for parts of it...?" Relief bloomed on Billy's face. He was saved. He had an out.
"Well, yes, Mrs. Smith. I did..um..have someone help me..put a few words down...but I pretty much wrote it."
"And then there's the second thing. The paper is in Spanish."
You misspelled 'invasion of privacy'. I always thought 'innocent until proven guilty' was somewhat dominant idea of US justice system. Obviously I was wrong.
Yes, you're obviously wrong--you're just mistaken about which particular way you happen to be wrong.
'Innocent until proven guilty' does not mean that police can only investigate crimes after they prove the guilt of the suspect. That doesn't make any sense.
To search your home, car, or office, the police must obtain a search warrant. Do they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you're guilty? No. They have to get a judge to sign off that they have 'probable cause'--a valid reason to carry out more invasive investigation, though not necessarily sufficient evidence to convict you.
Presumably there will be similar judicial tests for VOIP wiretaps as for conventional wiretaps. Although recent 'anti-terrorism' legislation has watered that down, my understanding is that a judge still has to sign off on wiretaps. The proposal in question is not that the FBI demands a feed of all VOIP traffic. They are only asking that VOIP providers ensure that wiretaps are technically feasible in the event that law enforcement serves an appropriate warrant.
Interesting concept. What private attorney is going to risk the forclosure of his house so that he can take on a bank? You do understand my point, don't you?
Actually no, I don't.
In this instance the lawyer is afraid of...what? Not being permitted to buy DVDs? The MPAA barring him from theatres, or trying to confiscate his DVD collection? Oooh--worse: all kinds of publicity that will ensure his continued wealth and success.
FTR, although it cost an unpleasant amount of money ($800 or $900), the repair was lightning fast and they even shipped it to a third location (where I was on a trip) once it was fixed (which was well before their estimate). IBM Rul0rz.
For that kind of money--yeah, I'd hope they could demonstrate that level of service.
How much did the laptop cost to purchase? Two, three, four thousand dollars? Assume that a not-insignificant portion of the purchase price is profit, and then they charge another 30% on top for the service plan.
Assume that perhaps one in three customers requires a repair or extensive discussion with customer service costing Big Blue an average of $300 per incident. If one out of six customers do something bad enough to require outright replacement of the laptop ($3000, or less as the model ages) IBM is still ahead by $200 on each ($800) service plan sold.
On the other hand, if the laptop is something that you must have with fast turnaround and snappy service, the premium can be well worth the cost. It's just another type of insurance. Since you're dealing directly with the manufacturer, there shouldn't be as much buck-passing, either.
Life is not a right. We all have to keep up our end. Absent that ethic, everything ultimately falls apart.
Come again? It's a founding principle of the United States.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Quite apart from the quality of the images. 3.2MPxl is a minimum. Okay the web can get away with 640x480 or less, but for prints? C'mon...
I agree with you, to a point...I would never be happy with a 1.2 megapixel camera. I like to be able to crop after I shoot pictures, and I like to blow up the occasional good one. On the other hand, for people who are just going to be printing snapshots to stuff in a shoebox or tack up on a bulletin board or something, high resolution just isn't all that important. For that matter, some people may only want to put the pictures on the web--in which case they'll probably downsample them further anyway.
There is also the issues of privacy when the pictures are of any, uh, salacious nature. How do you know your pictures won't end up where you don't intend?
This is an issue? People will drop off 35mm film at Wal-Mart that has their homemade porn on it. There always was the analog hole (*ahem*). Very few people bother to develop their own colour film, now or ever. Those same people will not worry about using their disposable digital to share their intimate moments with the clerks at the grocery store. Everybody else who wants to take their own naughty pictures will use Polaroid or buy their own digital camera. Home porn is probably not the target market for this technology....
Also, one of the major errors - the inclusion of a chant of verses from the Koran in Kakuto Chojin - was made by Japanese developers.
On the other hand, this instance wasn't one of ignorance entirely. From the article:
One mistake that caused catastrophic offence was a game called Kakuto Chojin, a hand to hand fighting game. The fighting went on with rhythmic chanting in the background which in reviewing the game Mr Edwards noticed appeared to be Arabic.
"I checked with an Arabic speaker in the company who was also a Muslim about what the chant meant and it was from the Koran. He went ballistic. It was an incredible insult to Islam." He asked for the game to be withdrawn but it was issued against his advice in the United States in the belief that it would not be noticed.
Ignorance would be preferable. The "It's okay if we do something really inappropriate because nobody will notice" attitude rather emphasizes the (usually unfair) perception that those loutish Americans don't have any respect for other cultures or religions. The Japanese developers were just sloppy for failing to check out their source material. The Americans were warned that the use of the chants would be highly offensive.
Or else the copyright would have been signed over to the Free Software Foundation, and IBM wouldn't be defending it right now.
Yes, IBM would. Among other things, SCO claims that IBM is distributing code that belongs to SCO. IBM would definitely be a defendant, even if they had later signed over their purported rights to another entity like the FSF.
It's always ironic that the people who scream most about free speech, liberals, are the ones most likely to attempt to censor to their opponents.
On the other hand, the practice of smearing one's opponents by associating them with the most radical practices of anyone their half of the political spectrum is still alive and well among pundits of all stripes...
I'm sure those censoring liberal hippies would be glad to frankly exchange views on the restriction of free speech with you from their designated protest area at the RNC. I'm sure they don't mind the recent polite vists they've received from the FBI, either. (See? I can present isolated anecdotes as conclusively damning evidence too.)
From an earlier post, someone indicated the volume of the lake was 393 cubic miles. I'm not going to verify that, but that is 1.02 * 10^12 gallons.
Looks like you missed a multiplication. Google pegs one cubic mile as 1.1 * 10^12 gallons.
I haven't checked the rest of the figures, but assuming they're correct that means that they would go through one volume of lake in about 8000 years.
Depending on the figures you choose, the residence time (flushing time) for Lake Ontario water is six to eight years--so nature is turning over the water in the lake a lot faster than this project can.
...the fact that billions of billions of billions "disappeared" due to dot coms being overhyped and over valued and going bust destroyed huge ammounts of investment capital.
You can't 'destroy' that capital. It still exists. It just happens to be in the hands of other people. Yes, there were paper gains that went away, but that wasn't real money. People who lost money when they bought Yahoo! at $100 per share are balanced by the money made by the folks that sold shared at $100 apiece. Money isn't created or destroyed in the stock market.
Meanwhile, why did the dotcoms themselves go bust? Ultimately, it comes down to them spending more money than they had. (The companies that still are in the black are still in business, right?) Again, they didn't just bury that money in the yard, or burn it in the furnace. They spent it; it went right back into the economy.
There was probably a loss of confidence caused by the dotcom bust, but you can't lay an entire recession at the feet of that. The economy hasn't been helped by the recent accounting fiascos, either (Enron, Worldcom, Anderson, etc.)
But is statistics the only way? Can every ill health effect be demonstrated via the appropriate confidence interval and a large enough sample size? (Godel's Incompleteness Theorem?)
Well, we're talking biochemistry here, so there's really no cause or need to invoke the Incompleteness Theorem.
Further, no--it's not possible to demonstrate every ill health effect. A thought experiment, if you will...
Consider the very rare but highly feared disease
X, which affects one of every million people. Consider also potentially toxic compound Y. It is present in the drinking water of every person in Los Angeles (population approximately ten million), and nowhere else in the state.
One would expect approximately ten cases of disease X in the city population, but there will be some deviation due to random clustering. One expects the number of cases to follow a Poisson distribution, giving a standard deviation of about three cases.
Under those circumstances, there's a 95% chance that the number of cases observed in the city will fall between 5 and 15. To have any hope of discerning a risk associated with compound Y, you need to see more than fifteen cases. Realistically, you probably need to get out to about twenty cases observed before you can start saying anything about the 'dangers' of Y. In other words, for this compound and this population, if chemical Y increases your risk of disease X by less than about a factor of two, you're not going to be able to clearly see it.
If Wired saw thirteen cases in LA, they'd say that compound Y causes a dramatic (thirty percent!) increase in disease X. If a scientist saw thirteen cases in LA, they'd say that's interesting, but easily attributable to noise.
Clearly a jump from 4 to 8 leukemia cases means practically nothing -- statistically. But I don't think it's always good science, esp. when dealing in real-world non-controlled systems with intangible variables, to rely on statistical analysis as the impetus for public policy decisions.
If there is sound evidence (good animal or at least biochemical models) that particular conditions are harmful, then by all means such evidence should be considered. Controlled trials in the laboratory are very useful for sorting out cause and effect. In the absence of demonstrated mechanisms for harm in the lab, epidemiological data are all that we have. If sound statistical analysis reveals a significant correlation--that cannot be reasonably explained by other means or attributed to confounding factors--then it may be a fair basis for policy decisions.
I suppose the problem arises when one asks what constitutes a 'sound' analysis...and in some cases that's a difficult question.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's mostly down to the fact that these large planets close to their parent stars are easier to see.
If you're looking at a Jupiter-sized object that orbits closer than Mercury, then you're going to have an orbital period on the order of days or weeks. On the other hand, if you want to detect a Jupiter-sized object orbiting at that same distance Jupiter does from our Sun, then your orbital period ends up as years or tens of years (Jupiter completes one orbit in a bit less than twelve years.)
Depending on the technique you use to detect a planet, you often need to show a pattern that persists through at least two or three consecutive orbits.
In the case discussed here, very small changes in brightness (less than 1%) were observed every time there was a transit (the planet passed between us and the other star); these events took place every three days. In principle, one could get sufficient data in a week or so. If we were looking at an object with an orbit like Jupiter's, we'd need to have at least a quarter century of careful monitoring of the star. Other techniques also require significantly more data collection time or more sensitive equipment as the planets get smaller and their orbits grow longer. The reason why we're detecting massive gas giants in close orbits is because they're the easiest planets to see. We're definitely not getting a random sample of all planets.
Yes, the planets we are seeing seem unusual, but they're still quite few in absolute number. Perhaps in twenty years when we can reliably start detecting rocky, Earth-type planets in Earth-type orbits we'll be able to make more definitive statements. Right now we're like biologists trying to understand human life--but only being allowed to study specimens weighing more than 600 lbs.
That's no moon!
For anyone who was wondering, here's the Last Page of the Internet.
Of course, if you read the parent post in its entirety, you'd see that the same conclusion was reached--authoring, distribution, and use of P2P applications should be legal because there are significant legal uses for them.
On the other hand, software with no redeeming qualities (viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, etc.) are more akin to the WMD of the digital world. Their only uses are destructive, and rightly should be heavily restricted.
I know of very few successful pickup lines that start with the phrase, "Did you know I was the subject of dozens of research studies?"
On the other hand, it should also be noted that most plastics are derived from petroleum products--and acquiring petroleum products has been getting both more expensive and more bloody of late.
The problem is that you're fallible too. Sure, your record will be damn near perfect if you're only screening twenty or thirty emails per day, and most of them are ham (the good stuff).
On the other hand, there are some people here who receive one or two or more hundred emails per day, most of which are spam. It's very easy when going quickly through a long list of messages to inadvertently hit 'delete', or not recognize someone's name, or make some other error. Even so, we human beings are very good at all sorts of pattern recognition, so we tend to still be better than 99% accurate at recognizing ham.
You may think you're infallible, but a worthwhile message probably sneaks past on occasion, a victim of inadvertent deletion. Do you filter your trash? Do you know you haven't misclassified something?
Um, weren't we saying this to IBM a decade or two ago?
Hm. Maybe it worked.
Or you can spend $5 on tickets and eat before you go...isn't it possible to not eat or drink for two hours?
Billy was to write a brief essay on some topic--I forget what. A few paragraphs. No big deal, right?
Billy didn't hand in the essay all term. Mrs. Smith allowed him repeated extensions, hoping to get Billy to turn at least something in. Billy performed poorly on tests, but survived some of the assignments, probably through the assistance of his fellow students.
Mrs. Smith fully expected Billy to wash out during the exam, but was willing to give him every opportunity to get his act together. Finally, on the last day of French class, Billy proudly presented his paper, then dashed off to his next lecture.
After the exam, Mrs. Smith sat down with Billy.
"Billy," said she, "I'm a little bit concerned about the paper you handed in."
"Really, Mrs. S? What...what seems to be the trouble?" Billy plays it cool.
"Well, I'm a bit worried that it might not be entirely your own work..."
"Why would you think that?"
"For one thing, the language seems awfully advanced in places. I'm wondering if you perhaps had some help for parts of it...?" Relief bloomed on Billy's face. He was saved. He had an out.
"Well, yes, Mrs. Smith. I did..um..have someone help me..put a few words down...but I pretty much wrote it."
"And then there's the second thing. The paper is in Spanish."
Yes, you're obviously wrong--you're just mistaken about which particular way you happen to be wrong.
'Innocent until proven guilty' does not mean that police can only investigate crimes after they prove the guilt of the suspect. That doesn't make any sense.
To search your home, car, or office, the police must obtain a search warrant. Do they have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you're guilty? No. They have to get a judge to sign off that they have 'probable cause'--a valid reason to carry out more invasive investigation, though not necessarily sufficient evidence to convict you.
Presumably there will be similar judicial tests for VOIP wiretaps as for conventional wiretaps. Although recent 'anti-terrorism' legislation has watered that down, my understanding is that a judge still has to sign off on wiretaps. The proposal in question is not that the FBI demands a feed of all VOIP traffic. They are only asking that VOIP providers ensure that wiretaps are technically feasible in the event that law enforcement serves an appropriate warrant.
Actually no, I don't.
In this instance the lawyer is afraid of...what? Not being permitted to buy DVDs? The MPAA barring him from theatres, or trying to confiscate his DVD collection? Oooh--worse: all kinds of publicity that will ensure his continued wealth and success.
Frightening things, those.
For that kind of money--yeah, I'd hope they could demonstrate that level of service.
How much did the laptop cost to purchase? Two, three, four thousand dollars? Assume that a not-insignificant portion of the purchase price is profit, and then they charge another 30% on top for the service plan.
Assume that perhaps one in three customers requires a repair or extensive discussion with customer service costing Big Blue an average of $300 per incident. If one out of six customers do something bad enough to require outright replacement of the laptop ($3000, or less as the model ages) IBM is still ahead by $200 on each ($800) service plan sold.
On the other hand, if the laptop is something that you must have with fast turnaround and snappy service, the premium can be well worth the cost. It's just another type of insurance. Since you're dealing directly with the manufacturer, there shouldn't be as much buck-passing, either.
Come again? It's a founding principle of the United States.
Cheers.I agree with you, to a point...I would never be happy with a 1.2 megapixel camera. I like to be able to crop after I shoot pictures, and I like to blow up the occasional good one. On the other hand, for people who are just going to be printing snapshots to stuff in a shoebox or tack up on a bulletin board or something, high resolution just isn't all that important. For that matter, some people may only want to put the pictures on the web--in which case they'll probably downsample them further anyway.
There is also the issues of privacy when the pictures are of any, uh, salacious nature. How do you know your pictures won't end up where you don't intend?
This is an issue? People will drop off 35mm film at Wal-Mart that has their homemade porn on it. There always was the analog hole (*ahem*). Very few people bother to develop their own colour film, now or ever. Those same people will not worry about using their disposable digital to share their intimate moments with the clerks at the grocery store. Everybody else who wants to take their own naughty pictures will use Polaroid or buy their own digital camera. Home porn is probably not the target market for this technology....
Indeed. Forget Microsoft...The U.S. Marines can't even get the flag of Canada right side up . (1992 World Series, in case anyone was wondering.) :D
On the other hand, this instance wasn't one of ignorance entirely. From the article:
Ignorance would be preferable. The "It's okay if we do something really inappropriate because nobody will notice" attitude rather emphasizes the (usually unfair) perception that those loutish Americans don't have any respect for other cultures or religions. The Japanese developers were just sloppy for failing to check out their source material. The Americans were warned that the use of the chants would be highly offensive.Contact Nestle. Though I didn't realize they had a furniture division....
Yes, IBM would. Among other things, SCO claims that IBM is distributing code that belongs to SCO. IBM would definitely be a defendant, even if they had later signed over their purported rights to another entity like the FSF.
You just need to deploy the new P-P-P-Powerbook.
On the other hand, the practice of smearing one's opponents by associating them with the most radical practices of anyone their half of the political spectrum is still alive and well among pundits of all stripes...
I'm sure those censoring liberal hippies would be glad to frankly exchange views on the restriction of free speech with you from their designated protest area at the RNC. I'm sure they don't mind the recent polite vists they've received from the FBI, either. (See? I can present isolated anecdotes as conclusively damning evidence too.)
Looks like you missed a multiplication. Google pegs one cubic mile as 1.1 * 10^12 gallons.
I haven't checked the rest of the figures, but assuming they're correct that means that they would go through one volume of lake in about 8000 years.
Depending on the figures you choose, the residence time (flushing time) for Lake Ontario water is six to eight years--so nature is turning over the water in the lake a lot faster than this project can.
You can't 'destroy' that capital. It still exists. It just happens to be in the hands of other people. Yes, there were paper gains that went away, but that wasn't real money. People who lost money when they bought Yahoo! at $100 per share are balanced by the money made by the folks that sold shared at $100 apiece. Money isn't created or destroyed in the stock market.
Meanwhile, why did the dotcoms themselves go bust? Ultimately, it comes down to them spending more money than they had. (The companies that still are in the black are still in business, right?) Again, they didn't just bury that money in the yard, or burn it in the furnace. They spent it; it went right back into the economy.
There was probably a loss of confidence caused by the dotcom bust, but you can't lay an entire recession at the feet of that. The economy hasn't been helped by the recent accounting fiascos, either (Enron, Worldcom, Anderson, etc.)
Well, we're talking biochemistry here, so there's really no cause or need to invoke the Incompleteness Theorem.
Further, no--it's not possible to demonstrate every ill health effect. A thought experiment, if you will...
If Wired saw thirteen cases in LA, they'd say that compound Y causes a dramatic (thirty percent!) increase in disease X. If a scientist saw thirteen cases in LA, they'd say that's interesting, but easily attributable to noise.Clearly a jump from 4 to 8 leukemia cases means practically nothing -- statistically. But I don't think it's always good science, esp. when dealing in real-world non-controlled systems with intangible variables, to rely on statistical analysis as the impetus for public policy decisions.
If there is sound evidence (good animal or at least biochemical models) that particular conditions are harmful, then by all means such evidence should be considered. Controlled trials in the laboratory are very useful for sorting out cause and effect. In the absence of demonstrated mechanisms for harm in the lab, epidemiological data are all that we have. If sound statistical analysis reveals a significant correlation--that cannot be reasonably explained by other means or attributed to confounding factors--then it may be a fair basis for policy decisions.
I suppose the problem arises when one asks what constitutes a 'sound' analysis...and in some cases that's a difficult question.