As an admin, I have ways to make it safe enough. My post was targeted to the large part of slashdot crowd that runs Ubuntu and would have just copied the Wikileaks instructions verbatim.
In which case, they would have given anyone who would have intercepted a HTTP request for a key full root access.
While I am kinda rooting for wikileaks in this, I think anyone who is considering to sign up to think about this:
1. you give them shell access to your host 2. you grant access on the basis of a ssh public key, which you're getting from an unencrypted page. It could be anyone's and it could be coming from anywhere.
Consider the risks carefully before you sign up.
Wikileaks: please put some more thinking into your backup plans, even if you have to come up with them in emergency.
If what the Guardian says is true (I haven't been able to locate the cable files to read for myself yet), there is a lot of fact and rumour about many foreign leaders that isn't known to their constituencies.
E.g. the FSB (formerly KGB) using mafia network to do diplomacy on behalf of the various energy projects with leaders of some European countries, exposing links to mafia of the said leaders.
That is very useful information if you live in one of those countries, which are a part of the project, but where the public's access to government information is quite restricted. Most of ex-Eastern Europe would nicely fall in that category.
I see a potential for good coming out of these leaks, and it is likely that a significant portion of the fallout will, in the end, favor the US publicly professed policies of honesty and cleanness in government.
I use facebook occasionally, and since Monday I've been looking for something that even remotely resembles a revolutionary and useful messaging interface.
I just can't find it, the messaging system I see is the same useless shit as it always was.
Are they enabling it on a per-user basis and skipping those of us who log into facebook less often than once in an hour?
Ah, tech reporters, will they ever tire of blowing up nonsense into "world-shaking" pseudo-news. This one is worse than Segway and iStuff combined.
Facebook, Amazon, Skype, Twitter, Apple, eBay and Google
Yes, one can do comfortably without all these. I don't shop at Amazon, instead, I shop at several other places, which vigorously compete with Amazon.
I've never used online auction site, and still manage to buy shit online cheaply.
I check my facebook account once a week if that, and I still manage.
I switch between several search engines, and I think they've gone more or less on par.
Twitter and Apple? Monopolies? Lolwut.
It seems the author isn't very well versed in economics and uses words like "monopoly" and "free market" colloquially.
Also, he has his bearings wrong. The only thing that allows any kind of "monopoly" in information is the government and its fucked up system of copyright and related rights, which is being tended by lawyers who are probably students of the author in the quagmire of "Intellectual property". Now, this is the REAL danger, but he somehow misses it altogether.
Not impressive at all.
Maybe the professor should concentrate on his studies in law, and not venture with superficial sensationalism in areas he doesn't know much about -- like economics -- before learning the basics.
many companies have already issued large number of iPads to their employees for specific purposes, and very successfully so
Yes, this kind of underlines the seeming pointlessness of the discussed political initiative. iPads are promised without a specific purpose and application in mind.
his party was committed to giving doctors the tools they needed to provide the best care to Victorian patients.
Having done a few projects with medical institutions of various sizes, my impression is that there are quite a lot of stringent and rather divergent requirements for "tools they need to provide the best care" depending on the specialty, in addition to a ton of general and institution-specific requirements regarding, between others, payments, data security and privacy.
Giving everyone an iPad doesn't strike me like a policy implementation in response to a specific need, but rather as trying to win an influential group with shiny presents.
Are the doctors going to bite on such a small bait?
Science is not intended to prove theories, it's intended to find underlying truth
Exactly. That's why it is important to make qualified statements, like the one the original research makes, and not jump to conclusions, like the linked article and the headline do.
Besides, this research, while interesting, is not fundamental in any way -- and proving or disproving evolutionary response in this case has no bearing on the validity of evolution theory at all.
I don't believe my own hypothesis is likely either, I just made the point that you can't tell the nature of the response simply from the statistical evidence presented.
You're right that the fish in the tank will eventually produce a clearer result, so let's wait and see - and feel illuminated if it is, indeed, an evolutionary response.
Still, I won't despair even if it isn't, as the argument here is not fundamental to the evolution theory in any way - although some people in the discussion seem to have inferred so for some reason.
Well, you can rant about the sick humanity, or you can just accept that you were proven wrong on a minor point in a slashdot thread, and learn that looking for evidence and reason behind a phenomenon is better than "belief" in something, even if it comes from a luminary of Sagan's caliber. I don't recall him ever implying he's error-free;)
While I'd doubt him a lot less on topics in physics or astronomy, I'd still check any point I don't understand and care about, even if it is only for self-education.
it is acquired for the individual, but not for its children.
My point exactly - there could be other explanations to the ability of fish to resist than evolutionary response - or alongside an evolutionary response. It need not be simple, one-factor thing; and just like the TFA is saying "religious ceremony is the cause" I was oversimplifying.
The original paper puts it best -- there is statistical evidence, let's see if we can find the real reason, which we suspect is evolutionary response. The linked popular article inflates this to a level that was never implied by the scientists, and I wrote my first comment when I was only halfway through the other one.
It will be very illuminating if an evolutionary response is established as the reason for the fish endurance.
At any rate, the approach taken -- to look at smaller populations which are strongly affected by one factor -- may be scientifically valuable, even if evolutionary response isn't proven for the particular case of this fish.
Thanks for the support on logic fallacies, it isn't even amusing anymore when people throw in labels they've read in another thread instead of arguments.
'mithridization' refers to dosing yourself with small amounts of a poison until you build up an immunity. It has nothing to do with acquired characteristics (or epigenetics).
From what little biology I remember from school, the immunization that would result from mithridization would be precisely an acquired trait.
It's not necessary to understand the biochemistry or the underlying mechanisms in order to deduce an evolutionary response, it's sufficient to note that the fish are more resistant to the leaf-throwing than those upstream.
Really? Even (unlike the Darwin's case) if there are other feasible explanations? Have you heard of, for instance, mithridization -- the ability of plants and animals to acquire partial immunity from acute poisoning if a low dosage is administered for a long time beforehand?
It is an acquired trait (not passed genetically) that can quite nicely explain this phenomenon and dispense with the need for evolution.
I didn't see anything in the article that would discount this possibility. Without understanding the biochemistry, claiming evolutionary response is just a hypothesis, especially in a small population like the one, discussed in the article.
Also, while you have modpoints, you obviously don't know what is a "strawman argument", go look it up;)
The conclusion about the differences in reaction to the toxin is kind of speculative, as the research was done on fish, which was extracted from natural habitat, placed in stressful conditions, etc. Pinning this squarely on "evolution" and human influence is an interesting proposition, but that's it.
This is even more true of the "evolution" part of the article. The paper presents some statistical evidence that fish from different parts of the water body respond differently to introduction of the plant toxin, but it all ends there.
There is no information at all about whether this is a genetic or acquired trait; there is nothing on the supposed mechanisms of the said difference; nothing to suggest what the eventual genetic differences that account for this effect may be.
It is an interesting observation, maybe a cool hypothesis, but saying "ceremony leads to evolution" is certainly over-stretching it.
I would be even happier if, when such proposals go to the European Parliament, someone will remember to add a clause mandating the member governments to respect this right.
Compared to government abuse, company data retention is much less dangerous.
Actually, every country is free to implement the details of the directive in question regarding data deletion and privacy as they see fit. There is no magic "removal" wand, and many countries will keep some data, officially or not.
Some EC member countries even immediately abused the directive to mean extra data collection. Some countries decided to interpret it as a requirement for the police to have direct, real-time access to such information. In some countries, the fight to protect citizen privacy due to this directive is still not won by a wide margin.
Ignoring the schizophrenic inconsistency of the EC and not taking them to task is why they've turned the way they are.
The same European Commission is, for example, currently conspiring with several other governments and big business organizations to promote even more surveillance and enforcement with ACTA, and denies the European Parliament access to the text of the proposal agreements.
Slashdot Mirror
As an admin, I have ways to make it safe enough. My post was targeted to the large part of slashdot crowd that runs Ubuntu and would have just copied the Wikileaks instructions verbatim.
In which case, they would have given anyone who would have intercepted a HTTP request for a key full root access.
While I am kinda rooting for wikileaks in this, I think anyone who is considering to sign up to think about this:
1. you give them shell access to your host
2. you grant access on the basis of a ssh public key, which you're getting from an unencrypted page. It could be anyone's and it could be coming from anywhere.
Consider the risks carefully before you sign up.
Wikileaks: please put some more thinking into your backup plans, even if you have to come up with them in emergency.
[quote]A treatment that does not require diet and exercise modifications is sorely needed.[/quote]
Absolutely. Because quality of life is measured by how much you can eat in front of your computer without gaining weight.
If what the Guardian says is true (I haven't been able to locate the cable files to read for myself yet), there is a lot of fact and rumour about many foreign leaders that isn't known to their constituencies.
E.g. the FSB (formerly KGB) using mafia network to do diplomacy on behalf of the various energy projects with leaders of some European countries, exposing links to mafia of the said leaders.
That is very useful information if you live in one of those countries, which are a part of the project, but where the public's access to government information is quite restricted. Most of ex-Eastern Europe would nicely fall in that category.
I see a potential for good coming out of these leaks, and it is likely that a significant portion of the fallout will, in the end, favor the US publicly professed policies of honesty and cleanness in government.
It is a sword that cuts in complicated ways.
I call shenanigans. I'm quite sure it is algorithmic and properly parametrized.
Can I make it at home? And use it in a 3D printer?
That was not what the news and announcements implied though. That shows how much reason is there to trust Facebook with your email.
/ Google too.
To be fair, Slashdot doesn't claim to be the next Internet.
I use facebook occasionally, and since Monday I've been looking for something that even remotely resembles a revolutionary and useful messaging interface.
I just can't find it, the messaging system I see is the same useless shit as it always was.
Are they enabling it on a per-user basis and skipping those of us who log into facebook less often than once in an hour?
Ah, tech reporters, will they ever tire of blowing up nonsense into "world-shaking" pseudo-news. This one is worse than Segway and iStuff combined.
This article is full of sensationalist bullshit.
Facebook, Amazon, Skype, Twitter, Apple, eBay and Google
Yes, one can do comfortably without all these. I don't shop at Amazon, instead, I shop at several other places, which vigorously compete with Amazon.
I've never used online auction site, and still manage to buy shit online cheaply.
I check my facebook account once a week if that, and I still manage.
I switch between several search engines, and I think they've gone more or less on par.
Twitter and Apple? Monopolies? Lolwut.
It seems the author isn't very well versed in economics and uses words like "monopoly" and "free market" colloquially.
Also, he has his bearings wrong. The only thing that allows any kind of "monopoly" in information is the government and its fucked up system of copyright and related rights, which is being tended by lawyers who are probably students of the author in the quagmire of "Intellectual property". Now, this is the REAL danger, but he somehow misses it altogether.
Not impressive at all.
Maybe the professor should concentrate on his studies in law, and not venture with superficial sensationalism in areas he doesn't know much about -- like economics -- before learning the basics.
many companies have already issued large number of iPads to their employees for specific purposes, and very successfully so
Yes, this kind of underlines the seeming pointlessness of the discussed political initiative. iPads are promised without a specific purpose and application in mind.
his party was committed to giving doctors the tools they needed to provide the best care to Victorian patients.
Having done a few projects with medical institutions of various sizes, my impression is that there are quite a lot of stringent and rather divergent requirements for "tools they need to provide the best care" depending on the specialty, in addition to a ton of general and institution-specific requirements regarding, between others, payments, data security and privacy.
Giving everyone an iPad doesn't strike me like a policy implementation in response to a specific need, but rather as trying to win an influential group with shiny presents.
Are the doctors going to bite on such a small bait?
there's a chance of hot babes in leather and armored bikinis
Not unless they hire an eccentric Hollywood type for a manager. TFA didn't mention such thing.
Haha. Sure.
Science is not intended to prove theories, it's intended to find underlying truth
Exactly. That's why it is important to make qualified statements, like the one the original research makes, and not jump to conclusions, like the linked article and the headline do.
Besides, this research, while interesting, is not fundamental in any way -- and proving or disproving evolutionary response in this case has no bearing on the validity of evolution theory at all.
I don't believe my own hypothesis is likely either, I just made the point that you can't tell the nature of the response simply from the statistical evidence presented.
You're right that the fish in the tank will eventually produce a clearer result, so let's wait and see - and feel illuminated if it is, indeed, an evolutionary response.
Still, I won't despair even if it isn't, as the argument here is not fundamental to the evolution theory in any way - although some people in the discussion seem to have inferred so for some reason.
Well, you can rant about the sick humanity, or you can just accept that you were proven wrong on a minor point in a slashdot thread, and learn that looking for evidence and reason behind a phenomenon is better than "belief" in something, even if it comes from a luminary of Sagan's caliber. I don't recall him ever implying he's error-free ;)
While I'd doubt him a lot less on topics in physics or astronomy, I'd still check any point I don't understand and care about, even if it is only for self-education.
it is acquired for the individual, but not for its children.
My point exactly - there could be other explanations to the ability of fish to resist than evolutionary response - or alongside an evolutionary response. It need not be simple, one-factor thing; and just like the TFA is saying "religious ceremony is the cause" I was oversimplifying.
The original paper puts it best -- there is statistical evidence, let's see if we can find the real reason, which we suspect is evolutionary response. The linked popular article inflates this to a level that was never implied by the scientists, and I wrote my first comment when I was only halfway through the other one.
It will be very illuminating if an evolutionary response is established as the reason for the fish endurance.
At any rate, the approach taken -- to look at smaller populations which are strongly affected by one factor -- may be scientifically valuable, even if evolutionary response isn't proven for the particular case of this fish.
Thanks for the support on logic fallacies, it isn't even amusing anymore when people throw in labels they've read in another thread instead of arguments.
'mithridization' refers to dosing yourself with small amounts of a poison until you build up an immunity. It has nothing to do with acquired characteristics (or epigenetics).
From what little biology I remember from school, the immunization that would result from mithridization would be precisely an acquired trait.
I could be wrong though.
Apparently, the story in the video isn't true.
http://crustacea.nhm.org/people/martin/publications/pdf/103.pdf
So, maybe I'll stick to my disbelief until I see clear evidence.
Allow me to refer you to the REAL research paper, which says no such thing:
http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/09/06/rsbl.2010.0663.full?sid=b26a2194-7a63-4bfc-acdd-b62460fffa9a
It's not necessary to understand the biochemistry or the underlying mechanisms in order to deduce an evolutionary response, it's sufficient to note that the fish are more resistant to the leaf-throwing than those upstream.
Really? Even (unlike the Darwin's case) if there are other feasible explanations? Have you heard of, for instance, mithridization -- the ability of plants and animals to acquire partial immunity from acute poisoning if a low dosage is administered for a long time beforehand?
It is an acquired trait (not passed genetically) that can quite nicely explain this phenomenon and dispense with the need for evolution.
I didn't see anything in the article that would discount this possibility. Without understanding the biochemistry, claiming evolutionary response is just a hypothesis, especially in a small population like the one, discussed in the article.
Also, while you have modpoints, you obviously don't know what is a "strawman argument", go look it up ;)
Reading the TFA, I'd say it mostly speculation.
The conclusion about the differences in reaction to the toxin is kind of speculative, as the research was done on fish, which was extracted from natural habitat, placed in stressful conditions, etc. Pinning this squarely on "evolution" and human influence is an interesting proposition, but that's it.
This is even more true of the "evolution" part of the article. The paper presents some statistical evidence that fish from different parts of the water body respond differently to introduction of the plant toxin, but it all ends there.
There is no information at all about whether this is a genetic or acquired trait; there is nothing on the supposed mechanisms of the said difference; nothing to suggest what the eventual genetic differences that account for this effect may be.
It is an interesting observation, maybe a cool hypothesis, but saying "ceremony leads to evolution" is certainly over-stretching it.
I would be even happier if, when such proposals go to the European Parliament, someone will remember to add a clause mandating the member governments to respect this right.
Compared to government abuse, company data retention is much less dangerous.
Actually, every country is free to implement the details of the directive in question regarding data deletion and privacy as they see fit. There is no magic "removal" wand, and many countries will keep some data, officially or not.
Some EC member countries even immediately abused the directive to mean extra data collection. Some countries decided to interpret it as a requirement for the police to have direct, real-time access to such information. In some countries, the fight to protect citizen privacy due to this directive is still not won by a wide margin.
Ignoring the schizophrenic inconsistency of the EC and not taking them to task is why they've turned the way they are.
The same European Commission is, for example, currently conspiring with several other governments and big business organizations to promote even more surveillance and enforcement with ACTA, and denies the European Parliament access to the text of the proposal agreements.