I've been using some form of linux for the last 13 years, starting with redhat, then suse and now ubuntu. And I am increasingly tempted to switch to OSX. The comment about power management that works is spot on. My macbook pro is a very sweet machine -- and I'm not talking about the speed of the dvd burner, or the processor, or how much ram it has, or any other tech spec. I'm talking about how it just bloody works and works well, in an aesthetically pleasing manner. And there are some other draws, such as commercial software that is only Windows and OS X. (And, no, most software doesn't run well enough under wine to be more than "usable" -- I use computers to get work done, not to fiddle with.) Unfortunately, virtual machines don't present a seamless experience. They get kinda close on OS X where VMWare or Parallels lets you have a single desktop, launch apps from the dock, etc. -- but not on linux.
Honestly, I don't think I'll give up my linux desktop. OSX Spaces is *not* a replacement for what KDE provides, and there are a variety of other issues. But it *is* tempting, particularly when linux screws things up (currently, that would include esata not working for no apparent reason). Or when the (on by default) special graphical effects prevent proper operation (such as not being able to watch movies full screen after the first launch that boot).
Debian derived distros get a lot of things right (I absolutely love apt-get and the integration where typing a missing command results in a message that has *the exact command* to execute to install it), but they aren't perfect.
As to avoiding Apple's OS X applications -- as it happens in general I prefer them. For example, Safari works better for me on OS X than FireFox (or its derivatives). I use applications for their merits -- just because Apple writes an application doesn't make it better or worse than a different application. By your logic I shouldn't use KMail or K3B because I prefer and use the KDE desktop manager. I think that fetish is of your own invention.
If you said "This isn't an issue worth any risk of any sacrifice -- I don't care about my freedoms" then you would at least be up front about your cowardice. But hiding behind it and calling others idiots is fairly idiotic.
I wouldn't say they lied, but it definitely isn't true. You are assuming, like whoever wrote that error message, that all disks intended for use on hardware with a PC BIOS are "pc formatted" -- that is the partition information is recorded as "DOS Partitions" -- the (up to) four primary partitions with extended partition scheme that Microsoft evolved. There *are* other partition schemes and they are completely valid for use. You may not be able to *boot* from such a disk, but that doesn't have anything to do with the operating system using it.
Microsoft's behavior is precisely why GPT uses a "protective" DOS partition in the first sector to fake Windows into thinking the drive is already partitioned. The DOS partition is "fake", however, and the real partition information starts in the second sector.
"their own explanation describes that they're storing all the data needed to get your location except the final calculation"
As long as that "final calculation" includes fetching additional information. Maybe you're weak on the concept, but triangulation works like this: take three known points and for each of them measure the distance to an unknown point. That distance measurement allows a circle to be drawn around each known point. The unknown point lies at an intersection of the three circles. Due to limitations in accuracy, this intersection is going to be larger than a point -- and may in fact cover a sizeable region.
Here's the thing: the cache only included the crowd-sourced information, that is the locations for the known points. The "final calculation" involves collecting *additional* data, the distance from those three known points. So, no, the cache does *not* have all the data needed. It is missing the distance calculations. Which only makes sense because it changes constantly -- and is supported by what the third party individuals who have looked into it have found. No need to trust Apple.
"Which is exactly what the researchers did."
Really! Amazing, can you point a link to that because I've read what the researchers (original and others) have said and that is *not* what they did. The application that was written does not magically triangulate past locations (how could it, without distance data), it just displays the locations of towers and hot spots. That you may or may not have been near to at the logged time. Apple says up to 100 miles. Someone who checked his database found even larger discrepancies.
"Michigan's recent purchase of equipment to download all your cell phone's data during traffic stops"
Okay, you read the headlines and never the article. The "purchase" was not recent, the fact that they buy the forensic devices just got brought up again. It isn't a recent phenomena at all and should come as a surprise to no one. (The ACLU's interest isn't that they were purchased, but what and how they are being used for.) Further, "download all your cell phone's data during traffic stops" -- there is no reasonable belief that this is happening, but if it/is/ happening they won't get "all" of *my* cell phone's data. Okay, let's assume for a minute that it was routine to hand over my cell phone at a traffic stop and that they imaged it. All that they get for their trouble is SIM data (problematic) and an encrypted blob. Why? Because my cell phone runs iOS 4 and I have set a password. But don't take my word for it, google iphone forensics, pay attention to iOS4 and read more than the front page or a quick marketing blurb. Or, even better, learn how to image an iPhone and demonstrate to yourself the difference.
Now, I do wish all the data were encrypted, but it isn't (and isn't on any phone I know of) -- but they won't get my email, SMS messages, notes, voice recordings, etc. There is no evidence that cache data is on the unencrypted data store of an otherwise encrypted iPhone.
Lesson 1: if you wish to do *something* to protect sensitive data on an iPhone -- which for most people is much more than geolocation data, and more serious -- then get it to iOS4 and set a passcode, or even better use a password (iOS4 allows that). And set it to wipe after 10 failed attempts. Wish I could set it to 3 (or fewer, even).
Lesson 2: it helps to know what the heck it is you are talking about.
Give them ideas? Admittedly without having read it, I suspect that is the ultimate goal of the filing. "Oh, woe is us, our network is bursting at the seams due to our demanding customers." Later, lobbyists will refer to the filing when petitioning for a government funded build out of network to enable their customers to reach resources on the Internet which the depend on for their work and daily living. They love the fluff pieces put out by Apple about how Company X is doing new and wonderful things that "are only possible because of Product Y and high speed Internet access". If the government doesn't help them out, it will be stifling innovation and preventing entrepreneurs from establishing new businesses.
As a pointy haired boss it makes absolute sense to maximize short term profit by minimizing expenditures and later lobbying the government for a handout to meet demand -- and being careful to paint a picture that never reflects the cold calculation behind the decisions.
The big picture is that, but pushing it to a "calories in > calories out" *is* oversimplifying. True statements aren't always useful.
In the case of caloric intake and output all the stuff I've seen completely disregards metabolism, relegating it to "inconsequential" influence assuming that there is no significant metabolic variance between humans. In most cases, the same is done for build when doing an estimate of height/weight to body fat (only one of the reasons I hate the BMI meaningless index).
When I was young I was rarely able to eat to the point of being full, much less satiated. As a young adult I was not particularly active (otherwise known as a stationary bookworm), tried hard to lower my metabolism (paying for my own food wasn't cheap), and despite the intake I never gained any appreciable weight. Later, I was somewhat more active (regular, though not intense or long, physical exercise). I added up calories and when I was active (not running marathons, doing field labor, or anything truly exerting) I would consume 4,000 to 6,000 calories per day. And all I managed to do was maintain my weight. My normal consumption was around 3,000 to 4,000 calories per day.
Eventually, age caught up with me and my metabolism is closer to normal.
The truth is that there are more complications in the real world than a simple calories in vs calories out analysis. How do you even measure calories out? Or do you think you can measure the external work done by your body and the rest is irrelevant? Unfortunately, it doesn't add up -- even the oversimplified calculations for caloric consumption in a 24-hour period attempt to account for metabolism (meaning, what it takes to keep your heart pumping, lungs going, etc.). And (at least all the ones I've seen) assume metabolic consumption of calories is controlled by three variables: weight, age and sex. A dangerous assumption that I've never seen any evidence to support. It is an oversimplification that, roughly, matches the anecdote about my metabolic variation with age. But it utterly fails to explain the significant variation among a gender at a particular age.
But its also more than just a matter of calories in, calories out and accounting for the role of metabolism. Others have tried to explain this to you and biochemistry is probably my weakest point so I won't even attempt to. But claiming "calories in / calories out" and invoking thermodynamics doesn't demonstrate any biochemistry expertise on your part.
In sum: yes, trivial truths like banking on the third law are, well, true. But they aren't all that useful as the sole means of analyzing complex systems.
Re:"Processed" vs. "Natural" is Magical Thinking
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Is Sugar Toxic?
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I'm not meaning to pick on you in particular, but I think you stated the point clearly enough for me to ask: if the "processed" food is identical to the "natural" food then how can you say it is processed?
Okay, too simple and basic. Let me back up. I've killed a cow, butcher it and eat the meat. To get to this point I have "processed" the cow from being a living being with a body in a single piece into several hunks of meat. The final product differs from the original in some minor ways (minor from the perspective of chemistry, but the cow sure isn't moving of its own volition anymore...).
Another step, after butchering the cow I then further "process" it by taking a sirloin cut and cooking it to medium rare. Are you going to assert that this hasn't changed the meat chemically or biologically? If it hasn't, I'm wondering why it tastes a bit different -- something I can directly experience. It isn't "magic" that the meat has changed, it is a solid fact. And, if I keep applying heat to the meat it will continue to change. Sure, apart from some minor changes it has largely the same elements comprising it -- but after all, I'm more than just a pile of carbon and other elements that make up my body.
Processing is easy to illustrate. It is real and, yes, it makes real changes in what is being processed. That is rather the point. There is no "magical thinking" going on. The thing is, processing covers a lot of ground. A huge amount of ground. Sweeping statements about processing being good, or better than "natural" or worse than "natural" are almost certainly wrong -- simply because there is so much ground being covered it rather makes it difficult to be correct for the entire range.
Dismissing any particular claim about processed vs "natural" on the basis "invalid! magical thinking!" is... well, not using your noggin. Use it. Hopefully the claim will have some sort of evidence to back it. The evidence can be analyzed to determine its merits. If there is no evidence offered, just "oooo all processed food is bad for you" (whatever "all processed food" is) then dismiss it out of hand as specious. Conversely, if a claim is made that "oooo all processed food is good and non harmful" -- equally without evidence -- then it should be dismissed out of hand as readily.
Youngsters. Once upon a year, Seagate was well known for selling dodgy drives, but they cleaned up their act and built up a reputation. So, did Maxtor's suckiness follow Seagate? Or did Seagate simply revert?
Are you sure. Seagate is ahead of you. Four of my drives (no longer in use) were Seagate (or Maxtor brand, but post Seagate takeover and afflicted by the Seagate issues). They ranged from 500MB to 750MB. They have a firmware bug (that Seagate never admitted to) that if the internal drive logging, which is a circular buffer, happens to be full when the drive is powered on... tough luck, it will not work unless/until someone connects to the drive's serial port and clears it.
Nothing wrong with the media, nothing wrong with the file system. Nothing for anything to detect. Effectively randomly on a power up it will simply and permanently (barring obtaining special equipment or paying Seagate) die.
Not only did Seagate never acknowledge the issue, they provided firmware updates that bricked some drives. And silently replaced the bad firmware update with a new one having the same revision number. The original and subsequent updated firmware having the same revision number, and never a comment from Seagate about it being a problem, had different hashes. Given the silent replacement with a different firmware it is clear that Seagate was aware of the firmware being a problem for some drives but never admitted it and those unfortunate enough to be bit by it were out of luck -- Seagate's policy is uniformly "your fault if you update the firmware and anything goes wrong."
I was never foolish enough to attempt flashing my drives. I didn't (and still don't) have enough excess capacity to pull the data off of them so they sit powered off waiting for such time. And I'm hoping that they power up fine. They probably will (per boot up the risk is fairly low), but is definitely not guaranteed.
I can't be bothered to provide a google link to the issue, but it was all over Seagate's forums and was mentioned on slashdot. The explanation, by the way, was provided anonymously by someone claiming to be a Seagate engineer. So it may not be true, but it very much fit the seemingly random nature of the failure and the method of fixing the drives (which some individuals did do) worked.
The two cases are not really the same. Google has no interest in fracturing Java, or locking it into a single platform and thus eliminating one of its touted benefits. But that is exactly what MS attempted to do. They did so very effectively by producing a better development environment that just happened to produce bytecode that wouldn't run properly on a non-MS JVM. Yes, Microsoft produced the better produce (development environment).
The key is the MS Java development environment became dominant (due to its superiority) but produced not-quite-standard Java bytecode to ensure it only ran on Windows. As the enticement was effective, an increasing number of "Java" applications were not really quite Java and would only run on Windows using the MS JVM.
What Google is doing is leveraging developer experience with Java to produce applications for a non-Java platform that just happens to be bytecode equivalent. This is really the opposite angle from Microsoft. You could argue harm to the owner of Java either way, but it is entirely different harm.
Microsoft wanted to destroy Java, or at least relegate it to "just another development platform for Windows." Google wants to short circuit paying licensing fees, but still ride Java's coat tails -- a free ride.
Different methods, different goals, different stories.
and kind of necessary when done without any concern for confidence in the result... See the "real" scientists generally at least believe they are doing things in a statistically meaningful manner. But when you don't you *will* get wrong results from time to time, no matter how good the general principles are.
Maybe I'm the only one that remembers physics labs, but considering they demonstrate very well established principles its amazing how often they don't. But then you consider the typical procedure in a freshman physics lab and realize there's a lot of room for variance. And even a good engineer with good procedures will still have variance, hence concerns about statistics.
As someone who recently posted on the subject you bring up... my comment was not about *them* but their *show*. While things like this may cloud the issue for those who can't distinguish between the two the *show* is entertainment, and as such abides by the rules for a successful entertainment show.
But to claim that Mythbusters teaches scepticism? They may talk about scepticism, but the show doesn't do a good job of illustrating it. The empiricism they teach is on the level of shooting wet telephone books to test bullets. Or blowing apart melons to demonstrate the effect of hydrostatic shock.
I know, they'd do a better job than that, but it is on the same "feel good" level. It serves to reinforce reliance on anecdotal data (which is all they *ever* offer on the show -- do they even mention confidence levels?).
I'm not arguing against the show's entertainment value. Clearly it entertains a sizeable segment of the population sufficiently to justify continued production. I'm not saying the people involved aren't good people, or that they don't do things which are more than entertainment. But entertainment is what the show is all about.
I'm not about to give you statistics because I don't have them. I do have anecdotal, I can tell you that every keygen I've ever seen was a trojan. While any given one may in fact have generated legit keys (hard for me to tell, I wasn't using trying to use the keys), they certainly did act as a first step downloader for infecting the system. My interest in all of this? Finding the source of infections. One of the most infected systems I've seen (competing remote controllers) had no legit software other than what came with it. Lots and lots of pirated software.
"That's exactly what the software distributors want you to think" -- very true
"All the statistics created about the effects of piracy are fabricated" -- possibly true, but sweeping statements such as this ("all the statistics...") are generally not true due to needing only a single exception to falsify
Did it ever occur to you that just because the "software distributors" have a vested interest they might not be wrong about everything? Did it ever occur to you that it is easier to infect the back channels used by piracy rather than the official distribution channels? (Not that they are sacred or pure, there have been cases where the CD masters were created with a virus.)
In the ~30 years I've been using computers the strong connection between software piracy and viruses has remained fairly constant. Anecdotal? Yes. But, call me crazy, I'm not going to run a keygen outside of a virtual environment (and preferably someone *else's* virtual environment -- I like http://anubis.iseclab.org/).
I get rather annoyed by Myth Busters. People I know who watch it will refer to it as if something done on the show actually proved something. "Well, Myth Buster's covered that and..." Its bullshit. It doesn't matter if people involved in the show are active skeptics or not, Myth Busters does a disservice to science in general because it functions as entertainment, not science, and their misapplication of scientific method misleads people.
While I've seen only a small number of their shows not a single one actually demonstrated anything other deliberately misengineering something will cause it to fail (but, hey, its all good when were laughing at early inventors, right?), or carefully rigging the final, "real" effort to produce the desired result. My data set is only a small portion of the population (I haven't observed that many shows), but it does not lead me to expect something different from the rest -- especially when they are predictable in presenting a particular entertainment-oriented point of view. That is the key, Myth Busters is about providing entertainment, some good laughs, and that is it. Their angle is to appeal to the McGuyver in the audience, the Missouri motto of "Show Me." That can lead to some fun viewing, but it doesn't tend to go with good methodology.
In short, I concur, and would extend, "I don't think we should hold up an entertainment show as an example of skepticism..." or science. I'm not against entertainment, and entertainment shows are frequently divorced from reality. When I watch Burn Notice the narration will blithely state various absurdities as being "taught in spy school" -- but it is a fiction/fantasy show, I've never had anyone try to tell me that reality works the way it does in Burn Notice, but I have with Myth Busters, and that is what is annoying.
so where is this fantasy world you live in? I'd like to go visit. The vaccination-causes-autism claim is bs. Well and good. But viruses grow and mutate regardless of vaccinations. In point of fact, vaccination can reasonably be expected to increase the variations of a disease due to it making the current strain less fit for survival compared to mutations.
Maybe in your fantasy world the over usage of penicillin has had no effect and vaccinating against any and every disease is a useless hope to somehow rid the world of all disease can be successful. But in the real world this simply isn't the case.
For some diseases, such as polio, vaccination makes a lot of sense. For the flu, where an AMA study established that those with the vaccine had a 2% chance of contracting the flu vs a whopping 3% for those who didn't, it really doesn't make any sense. Influenza is a constantly mutating disease and each year the vaccine is a pot-puris of guesswork as to what it might be like -- it really isn't a good case for vaccination. But the military requires it of every member.
Have you ever heard of napster? They were kinda held accountable for hosting mp3 files. Now, they also indexed it which rapidshare does not, but rapid share pushes very hard for users to pay them money which is not something napster did and is one of the things that has gotten limewire into a lot of trouble. In fact, post napster, a major point (Bearshare, Kazaa and limewire at the least) has been the company knowing about the primary purpose of their service (copyright infringement) and attempting to profit from that.
I'm not going to argue ethics or morals, I'm not a lawyer nor do I have any great knowledge of the details of this particular case, I'm just pointing out that it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if rapidshare ended up losing a case like this at some point for the foregoing reasons.
Have you ever actually seen a slot machine? They are very up front with clear and conspicuous labeling for the rate at which they will fleece you. I don't think I ever saw a machine as low as 85% payout and it has been a few years but I think they were all well above 93%. But regardless, they are marked for their payout rate. It is obvious to any player that a machine marked as 95% payout won't return $4.75 on a $5 pay in, instead most of the time there are losses, but there are staged payout sums that are programmed to result in the rated payout rate on average.
The casinos (at least in Vegas) don't manipulate those numbers, they don't need to. Gamblers are morons and soon parted from their money. Playing slots is more expensive than plunking quarters into an arcade machine, gives you less play time, and its sole thrill is from being parted with your money. But somebody who subverts the system is definitely cheating.
Or would you say that subverting the system by taking illicit notes into a closed-note/book exam is not cheating because the proctor wasn't smart enough to strip search the test takers?
This lack of ethics is why we had a banking crisis. The lack of ethics is why we end up with successively worse oil spills. But its all okay as long as your "sticking it to the man"?
I don't think every sort of science is like this. Probably in physics and chemistry, you can get unpopular work published just by being overwhelmingly right. But in softer non-falsifiable sciences, it's mostly about politics, and saying the right things.
As others have said, if your grant money is on the line... 20+ years ago when I was a freshman I was waiting outside a professor's office and a couple of profs in the hall had an interesting talk. Being a freshman I guess I didn't reach any level of significance because their conversation was about falsifying research data, something about "if we don't show any results the funding will stop." The field? Chemistry.
It is popular, especially among those who consider themselves to be in a "hard" science to denigrate and look down on the "soft" sciences. Exactly which are "hard" and which are "soft" varies depending on who is doing the sneering. I've yet to see any objective criteria for determining the "hardness" or "softness" of a field.
when I was a comp sci student one professor did not care about results, only presentation. He made it abundantly clear that he didn't care if the source code attached to the paper could compile, only that you gave pretty results. You can guess what happened.
On the other hand his approval rating was high and his students consistently had high marks in his class so he must have been a very effective teacher, right?
although more research money may be spent on clinical trials rather than basic research, you are aware that far more money is spent on marketing the drugs than on researching them?
and how is GOTO different than exception handling? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.
I haven't programmed in BASIC in many a year and it was my first programming language so I didn't know much about it. From what I can recall the main issue with GOTO was that it was a crutch for not having user defined functions.
I recently employed "goto" in a Perl application. You put a label and can then jump to the label. Its just a more generalized version of using break, continue, etc. In this particular case it was clearer to use the label and jump to it (as part of error handling) than trying to kludge some nasty code up for the sole purpose of avoiding a goto.
Its also the first time I've used such an explicit jump in many years because, generally, there *are* cleaner syntaxes. But those other syntaxes aren't always the best syntactic sugar.
And break, return, throw -- these are all goto statements. Gussied up and renamed, but goto nonetheless
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I've been using some form of linux for the last 13 years, starting with redhat, then suse and now ubuntu. And I am increasingly tempted to switch to OSX. The comment about power management that works is spot on. My macbook pro is a very sweet machine -- and I'm not talking about the speed of the dvd burner, or the processor, or how much ram it has, or any other tech spec. I'm talking about how it just bloody works and works well, in an aesthetically pleasing manner. And there are some other draws, such as commercial software that is only Windows and OS X. (And, no, most software doesn't run well enough under wine to be more than "usable" -- I use computers to get work done, not to fiddle with.) Unfortunately, virtual machines don't present a seamless experience. They get kinda close on OS X where VMWare or Parallels lets you have a single desktop, launch apps from the dock, etc. -- but not on linux.
Honestly, I don't think I'll give up my linux desktop. OSX Spaces is *not* a replacement for what KDE provides, and there are a variety of other issues. But it *is* tempting, particularly when linux screws things up (currently, that would include esata not working for no apparent reason). Or when the (on by default) special graphical effects prevent proper operation (such as not being able to watch movies full screen after the first launch that boot).
Debian derived distros get a lot of things right (I absolutely love apt-get and the integration where typing a missing command results in a message that has *the exact command* to execute to install it), but they aren't perfect.
As to avoiding Apple's OS X applications -- as it happens in general I prefer them. For example, Safari works better for me on OS X than FireFox (or its derivatives). I use applications for their merits -- just because Apple writes an application doesn't make it better or worse than a different application. By your logic I shouldn't use KMail or K3B because I prefer and use the KDE desktop manager. I think that fetish is of your own invention.
If you said "This isn't an issue worth any risk of any sacrifice -- I don't care about my freedoms" then you would at least be up front about your cowardice. But hiding behind it and calling others idiots is fairly idiotic.
I wouldn't say they lied, but it definitely isn't true. You are assuming, like whoever wrote that error message, that all disks intended for use on hardware with a PC BIOS are "pc formatted" -- that is the partition information is recorded as "DOS Partitions" -- the (up to) four primary partitions with extended partition scheme that Microsoft evolved. There *are* other partition schemes and they are completely valid for use. You may not be able to *boot* from such a disk, but that doesn't have anything to do with the operating system using it.
Microsoft's behavior is precisely why GPT uses a "protective" DOS partition in the first sector to fake Windows into thinking the drive is already partitioned. The DOS partition is "fake", however, and the real partition information starts in the second sector.
Okay, some people are slow.
"their own explanation describes that they're storing all the data needed to get your location except the final calculation"
As long as that "final calculation" includes fetching additional information. Maybe you're weak on the concept, but triangulation works like this: take three known points and for each of them measure the distance to an unknown point. That distance measurement allows a circle to be drawn around each known point. The unknown point lies at an intersection of the three circles. Due to limitations in accuracy, this intersection is going to be larger than a point -- and may in fact cover a sizeable region.
Here's the thing: the cache only included the crowd-sourced information, that is the locations for the known points. The "final calculation" involves collecting *additional* data, the distance from those three known points. So, no, the cache does *not* have all the data needed. It is missing the distance calculations. Which only makes sense because it changes constantly -- and is supported by what the third party individuals who have looked into it have found. No need to trust Apple.
"Which is exactly what the researchers did."
Really! Amazing, can you point a link to that because I've read what the researchers (original and others) have said and that is *not* what they did. The application that was written does not magically triangulate past locations (how could it, without distance data), it just displays the locations of towers and hot spots. That you may or may not have been near to at the logged time. Apple says up to 100 miles. Someone who checked his database found even larger discrepancies.
"Michigan's recent purchase of equipment to download all your cell phone's data during traffic stops"
Okay, you read the headlines and never the article. The "purchase" was not recent, the fact that they buy the forensic devices just got brought up again. It isn't a recent phenomena at all and should come as a surprise to no one. (The ACLU's interest isn't that they were purchased, but what and how they are being used for.) Further, "download all your cell phone's data during traffic stops" -- there is no reasonable belief that this is happening, but if it /is/ happening they won't get "all" of *my* cell phone's data. Okay, let's assume for a minute that it was routine to hand over my cell phone at a traffic stop and that they imaged it. All that they get for their trouble is SIM data (problematic) and an encrypted blob. Why? Because my cell phone runs iOS 4 and I have set a password. But don't take my word for it, google iphone forensics, pay attention to iOS4 and read more than the front page or a quick marketing blurb. Or, even better, learn how to image an iPhone and demonstrate to yourself the difference.
Now, I do wish all the data were encrypted, but it isn't (and isn't on any phone I know of) -- but they won't get my email, SMS messages, notes, voice recordings, etc. There is no evidence that cache data is on the unencrypted data store of an otherwise encrypted iPhone.
Lesson 1: if you wish to do *something* to protect sensitive data on an iPhone -- which for most people is much more than geolocation data, and more serious -- then get it to iOS4 and set a passcode, or even better use a password (iOS4 allows that). And set it to wipe after 10 failed attempts. Wish I could set it to 3 (or fewer, even).
Lesson 2: it helps to know what the heck it is you are talking about.
Damn, I wish I had mod points.
Give them ideas? Admittedly without having read it, I suspect that is the ultimate goal of the filing. "Oh, woe is us, our network is bursting at the seams due to our demanding customers." Later, lobbyists will refer to the filing when petitioning for a government funded build out of network to enable their customers to reach resources on the Internet which the depend on for their work and daily living. They love the fluff pieces put out by Apple about how Company X is doing new and wonderful things that "are only possible because of Product Y and high speed Internet access". If the government doesn't help them out, it will be stifling innovation and preventing entrepreneurs from establishing new businesses.
As a pointy haired boss it makes absolute sense to maximize short term profit by minimizing expenditures and later lobbying the government for a handout to meet demand -- and being careful to paint a picture that never reflects the cold calculation behind the decisions.
The big picture is that, but pushing it to a "calories in > calories out" *is* oversimplifying. True statements aren't always useful.
In the case of caloric intake and output all the stuff I've seen completely disregards metabolism, relegating it to "inconsequential" influence assuming that there is no significant metabolic variance between humans. In most cases, the same is done for build when doing an estimate of height/weight to body fat (only one of the reasons I hate the BMI meaningless index).
When I was young I was rarely able to eat to the point of being full, much less satiated. As a young adult I was not particularly active (otherwise known as a stationary bookworm), tried hard to lower my metabolism (paying for my own food wasn't cheap), and despite the intake I never gained any appreciable weight. Later, I was somewhat more active (regular, though not intense or long, physical exercise). I added up calories and when I was active (not running marathons, doing field labor, or anything truly exerting) I would consume 4,000 to 6,000 calories per day. And all I managed to do was maintain my weight. My normal consumption was around 3,000 to 4,000 calories per day.
Eventually, age caught up with me and my metabolism is closer to normal.
The truth is that there are more complications in the real world than a simple calories in vs calories out analysis. How do you even measure calories out? Or do you think you can measure the external work done by your body and the rest is irrelevant? Unfortunately, it doesn't add up -- even the oversimplified calculations for caloric consumption in a 24-hour period attempt to account for metabolism (meaning, what it takes to keep your heart pumping, lungs going, etc.). And (at least all the ones I've seen) assume metabolic consumption of calories is controlled by three variables: weight, age and sex. A dangerous assumption that I've never seen any evidence to support. It is an oversimplification that, roughly, matches the anecdote about my metabolic variation with age. But it utterly fails to explain the significant variation among a gender at a particular age.
But its also more than just a matter of calories in, calories out and accounting for the role of metabolism. Others have tried to explain this to you and biochemistry is probably my weakest point so I won't even attempt to. But claiming "calories in / calories out" and invoking thermodynamics doesn't demonstrate any biochemistry expertise on your part.
In sum: yes, trivial truths like banking on the third law are, well, true. But they aren't all that useful as the sole means of analyzing complex systems.
I'm not meaning to pick on you in particular, but I think you stated the point clearly enough for me to ask: if the "processed" food is identical to the "natural" food then how can you say it is processed?
Okay, too simple and basic. Let me back up. I've killed a cow, butcher it and eat the meat. To get to this point I have "processed" the cow from being a living being with a body in a single piece into several hunks of meat. The final product differs from the original in some minor ways (minor from the perspective of chemistry, but the cow sure isn't moving of its own volition anymore...).
Another step, after butchering the cow I then further "process" it by taking a sirloin cut and cooking it to medium rare. Are you going to assert that this hasn't changed the meat chemically or biologically? If it hasn't, I'm wondering why it tastes a bit different -- something I can directly experience. It isn't "magic" that the meat has changed, it is a solid fact. And, if I keep applying heat to the meat it will continue to change. Sure, apart from some minor changes it has largely the same elements comprising it -- but after all, I'm more than just a pile of carbon and other elements that make up my body.
Processing is easy to illustrate. It is real and, yes, it makes real changes in what is being processed. That is rather the point. There is no "magical thinking" going on. The thing is, processing covers a lot of ground. A huge amount of ground. Sweeping statements about processing being good, or better than "natural" or worse than "natural" are almost certainly wrong -- simply because there is so much ground being covered it rather makes it difficult to be correct for the entire range.
Dismissing any particular claim about processed vs "natural" on the basis "invalid! magical thinking!" is... well, not using your noggin. Use it. Hopefully the claim will have some sort of evidence to back it. The evidence can be analyzed to determine its merits. If there is no evidence offered, just "oooo all processed food is bad for you" (whatever "all processed food" is) then dismiss it out of hand as specious. Conversely, if a claim is made that "oooo all processed food is good and non harmful" -- equally without evidence -- then it should be dismissed out of hand as readily.
Youngsters. Once upon a year, Seagate was well known for selling dodgy drives, but they cleaned up their act and built up a reputation. So, did Maxtor's suckiness follow Seagate? Or did Seagate simply revert?
Are you sure. Seagate is ahead of you. Four of my drives (no longer in use) were Seagate (or Maxtor brand, but post Seagate takeover and afflicted by the Seagate issues). They ranged from 500MB to 750MB. They have a firmware bug (that Seagate never admitted to) that if the internal drive logging, which is a circular buffer, happens to be full when the drive is powered on... tough luck, it will not work unless/until someone connects to the drive's serial port and clears it.
Nothing wrong with the media, nothing wrong with the file system. Nothing for anything to detect. Effectively randomly on a power up it will simply and permanently (barring obtaining special equipment or paying Seagate) die.
Not only did Seagate never acknowledge the issue, they provided firmware updates that bricked some drives. And silently replaced the bad firmware update with a new one having the same revision number. The original and subsequent updated firmware having the same revision number, and never a comment from Seagate about it being a problem, had different hashes. Given the silent replacement with a different firmware it is clear that Seagate was aware of the firmware being a problem for some drives but never admitted it and those unfortunate enough to be bit by it were out of luck -- Seagate's policy is uniformly "your fault if you update the firmware and anything goes wrong."
I was never foolish enough to attempt flashing my drives. I didn't (and still don't) have enough excess capacity to pull the data off of them so they sit powered off waiting for such time. And I'm hoping that they power up fine. They probably will (per boot up the risk is fairly low), but is definitely not guaranteed.
I can't be bothered to provide a google link to the issue, but it was all over Seagate's forums and was mentioned on slashdot. The explanation, by the way, was provided anonymously by someone claiming to be a Seagate engineer. So it may not be true, but it very much fit the seemingly random nature of the failure and the method of fixing the drives (which some individuals did do) worked.
If you value your data do not use Seagate.
The two cases are not really the same. Google has no interest in fracturing Java, or locking it into a single platform and thus eliminating one of its touted benefits. But that is exactly what MS attempted to do. They did so very effectively by producing a better development environment that just happened to produce bytecode that wouldn't run properly on a non-MS JVM. Yes, Microsoft produced the better produce (development environment).
The key is the MS Java development environment became dominant (due to its superiority) but produced not-quite-standard Java bytecode to ensure it only ran on Windows. As the enticement was effective, an increasing number of "Java" applications were not really quite Java and would only run on Windows using the MS JVM.
What Google is doing is leveraging developer experience with Java to produce applications for a non-Java platform that just happens to be bytecode equivalent. This is really the opposite angle from Microsoft. You could argue harm to the owner of Java either way, but it is entirely different harm.
Microsoft wanted to destroy Java, or at least relegate it to "just another development platform for Windows." Google wants to short circuit paying licensing fees, but still ride Java's coat tails -- a free ride.
Different methods, different goals, different stories.
and don't forget the ever popular "Guy who peed outdoors"
and kind of necessary when done without any concern for confidence in the result... See the "real" scientists generally at least believe they are doing things in a statistically meaningful manner. But when you don't you *will* get wrong results from time to time, no matter how good the general principles are.
Maybe I'm the only one that remembers physics labs, but considering they demonstrate very well established principles its amazing how often they don't. But then you consider the typical procedure in a freshman physics lab and realize there's a lot of room for variance. And even a good engineer with good procedures will still have variance, hence concerns about statistics.
As someone who recently posted on the subject you bring up... my comment was not about *them* but their *show*. While things like this may cloud the issue for those who can't distinguish between the two the *show* is entertainment, and as such abides by the rules for a successful entertainment show.
But to claim that Mythbusters teaches scepticism? They may talk about scepticism, but the show doesn't do a good job of illustrating it. The empiricism they teach is on the level of shooting wet telephone books to test bullets. Or blowing apart melons to demonstrate the effect of hydrostatic shock.
I know, they'd do a better job than that, but it is on the same "feel good" level. It serves to reinforce reliance on anecdotal data (which is all they *ever* offer on the show -- do they even mention confidence levels?).
I'm not arguing against the show's entertainment value. Clearly it entertains a sizeable segment of the population sufficiently to justify continued production. I'm not saying the people involved aren't good people, or that they don't do things which are more than entertainment. But entertainment is what the show is all about.
I'm not about to give you statistics because I don't have them. I do have anecdotal, I can tell you that every keygen I've ever seen was a trojan. While any given one may in fact have generated legit keys (hard for me to tell, I wasn't using trying to use the keys), they certainly did act as a first step downloader for infecting the system. My interest in all of this? Finding the source of infections. One of the most infected systems I've seen (competing remote controllers) had no legit software other than what came with it. Lots and lots of pirated software.
"That's exactly what the software distributors want you to think" -- very true
"All the statistics created about the effects of piracy are fabricated" -- possibly true, but sweeping statements such as this ("all the statistics...") are generally not true due to needing only a single exception to falsify
Did it ever occur to you that just because the "software distributors" have a vested interest they might not be wrong about everything? Did it ever occur to you that it is easier to infect the back channels used by piracy rather than the official distribution channels? (Not that they are sacred or pure, there have been cases where the CD masters were created with a virus.)
In the ~30 years I've been using computers the strong connection between software piracy and viruses has remained fairly constant. Anecdotal? Yes. But, call me crazy, I'm not going to run a keygen outside of a virtual environment (and preferably someone *else's* virtual environment -- I like http://anubis.iseclab.org/).
I get rather annoyed by Myth Busters. People I know who watch it will refer to it as if something done on the show actually proved something. "Well, Myth Buster's covered that and..." Its bullshit. It doesn't matter if people involved in the show are active skeptics or not, Myth Busters does a disservice to science in general because it functions as entertainment, not science, and their misapplication of scientific method misleads people.
While I've seen only a small number of their shows not a single one actually demonstrated anything other deliberately misengineering something will cause it to fail (but, hey, its all good when were laughing at early inventors, right?), or carefully rigging the final, "real" effort to produce the desired result. My data set is only a small portion of the population (I haven't observed that many shows), but it does not lead me to expect something different from the rest -- especially when they are predictable in presenting a particular entertainment-oriented point of view. That is the key, Myth Busters is about providing entertainment, some good laughs, and that is it. Their angle is to appeal to the McGuyver in the audience, the Missouri motto of "Show Me." That can lead to some fun viewing, but it doesn't tend to go with good methodology.
In short, I concur, and would extend, "I don't think we should hold up an entertainment show as an example of skepticism..." or science.
I'm not against entertainment, and entertainment shows are frequently divorced from reality. When I watch Burn Notice the narration will blithely state various absurdities as being "taught in spy school" -- but it is a fiction/fantasy show, I've never had anyone try to tell me that reality works the way it does in Burn Notice, but I have with Myth Busters, and that is what is annoying.
so where is this fantasy world you live in? I'd like to go visit. The vaccination-causes-autism claim is bs. Well and good. But viruses grow and mutate regardless of vaccinations. In point of fact, vaccination can reasonably be expected to increase the variations of a disease due to it making the current strain less fit for survival compared to mutations.
Maybe in your fantasy world the over usage of penicillin has had no effect and vaccinating against any and every disease is a useless hope to somehow rid the world of all disease can be successful. But in the real world this simply isn't the case.
For some diseases, such as polio, vaccination makes a lot of sense. For the flu, where an AMA study established that those with the vaccine had a 2% chance of contracting the flu vs a whopping 3% for those who didn't, it really doesn't make any sense. Influenza is a constantly mutating disease and each year the vaccine is a pot-puris of guesswork as to what it might be like -- it really isn't a good case for vaccination. But the military requires it of every member.
Have you ever heard of napster? They were kinda held accountable for hosting mp3 files. Now, they also indexed it which rapidshare does not, but rapid share pushes very hard for users to pay them money which is not something napster did and is one of the things that has gotten limewire into a lot of trouble. In fact, post napster, a major point (Bearshare, Kazaa and limewire at the least) has been the company knowing about the primary purpose of their service (copyright infringement) and attempting to profit from that.
I'm not going to argue ethics or morals, I'm not a lawyer nor do I have any great knowledge of the details of this particular case, I'm just pointing out that it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if rapidshare ended up losing a case like this at some point for the foregoing reasons.
Have you ever actually seen a slot machine? They are very up front with clear and conspicuous labeling for the rate at which they will fleece you. I don't think I ever saw a machine as low as 85% payout and it has been a few years but I think they were all well above 93%. But regardless, they are marked for their payout rate. It is obvious to any player that a machine marked as 95% payout won't return $4.75 on a $5 pay in, instead most of the time there are losses, but there are staged payout sums that are programmed to result in the rated payout rate on average.
The casinos (at least in Vegas) don't manipulate those numbers, they don't need to. Gamblers are morons and soon parted from their money. Playing slots is more expensive than plunking quarters into an arcade machine, gives you less play time, and its sole thrill is from being parted with your money. But somebody who subverts the system is definitely cheating.
Or would you say that subverting the system by taking illicit notes into a closed-note/book exam is not cheating because the proctor wasn't smart enough to strip search the test takers?
This lack of ethics is why we had a banking crisis. The lack of ethics is why we end up with successively worse oil spills. But its all okay as long as your "sticking it to the man"?
Is it a two-tier Internet, or is it a glorified video-caching service? How is this different from Akamai?
I don't think every sort of science is like this. Probably in physics and chemistry, you can get unpopular work published just by being overwhelmingly right. But in softer non-falsifiable sciences, it's mostly about politics, and saying the right things.
As others have said, if your grant money is on the line... 20+ years ago when I was a freshman I was waiting outside a professor's office and a couple of profs in the hall had an interesting talk. Being a freshman I guess I didn't reach any level of significance because their conversation was about falsifying research data, something about "if we don't show any results the funding will stop." The field? Chemistry.
It is popular, especially among those who consider themselves to be in a "hard" science to denigrate and look down on the "soft" sciences. Exactly which are "hard" and which are "soft" varies depending on who is doing the sneering. I've yet to see any objective criteria for determining the "hardness" or "softness" of a field.
when I was a comp sci student one professor did not care about results, only presentation. He made it abundantly clear that he didn't care if the source code attached to the paper could compile, only that you gave pretty results. You can guess what happened.
On the other hand his approval rating was high and his students consistently had high marks in his class so he must have been a very effective teacher, right?
although more research money may be spent on clinical trials rather than basic research, you are aware that far more money is spent on marketing the drugs than on researching them?
If you are not already aware of the massive amounts spent on marketing you might consider http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050001
and how is GOTO different than exception handling? You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.
I haven't programmed in BASIC in many a year and it was my first programming language so I didn't know much about it. From what I can recall the main issue with GOTO was that it was a crutch for not having user defined functions.
I recently employed "goto" in a Perl application. You put a label and can then jump to the label. Its just a more generalized version of using break, continue, etc. In this particular case it was clearer to use the label and jump to it (as part of error handling) than trying to kludge some nasty code up for the sole purpose of avoiding a goto.
Its also the first time I've used such an explicit jump in many years because, generally, there *are* cleaner syntaxes. But those other syntaxes aren't always the best syntactic sugar.
And break, return, throw -- these are all goto statements. Gussied up and renamed, but goto nonetheless
you might try converting -40F to Celsius and see what you get... Or do it the other way around. Kind of the same difference, really.