Even science has a problem of touting the best data and "leaving the devil in the details." Research is driven by money just as much as industry. If you're not producing good results, you won't get funding.
If you do produce results that are consistently not reproducible by your peers, then you'll quickly no longer have a career, much less funding. It may not happen right away but it will happen in reasonable course, especially the more impressive your claimed results are and the more clear it becomes that you were not trying to practice "good science" but rather were just looking to make a name for yourself.
I have to wonder if this has less to do with the format of email and more to do with the disappearance of secretaries.
That's a good point. Much like the web allows almost anyone to publish just about whatever they want, it seems that technology has also allowed every idiot to [and those of us who just play idiots in print =) ] to escape the watchful eyes of those more skilled at proper correspondence. Sometimes lowering the barriers to entry (as technology such as email and the internet do) do more than just let more people get in on it -- it also lets more crap in with all the good.
Had you read the article or studied multivariate statistical analysis you would know that no-one is worried about when the "gains correlate well with the counties in which Bush previously did the most poorly". They are worried about when voting methods become statistically significant variables in predicting changes in voter outcomes over time.
You missed the whole point of my last post didn't you? The authors imply a causal relationship that isn't purely supported by their data. Moreover, without substantially discussing all the possible implications they're promoting incorrect conclusions on the part of the public at large. This is irresponsible in addition to being biased and sloppy. Additionally, in response to your comment that it should be a worrisome thing that voting methods become a statistically significant predictors -- well, yes it could be, but it could also be that previous inaccuracies or fraud had been corrected with the new system. This isn't worrisome except in some retrospective sense. And that, my friend is/my/ point, which you squarely missed.
This is excellent social science. Much of what passes for excellent in the social sciences is bad science, plain and simple. How do I say this? I say it from experience. I did my undergraduate work in one of the social sciences and currently work advising researchers in the social and clinical sciences.
So how about downloading the datasets and runing your opinions through SPSS before you toss them out?
Again, you missed the point. SPSS isn't telling you how to interpret the data. Moreover, I fundamentally mistrust anyone that relies on SPSS and holds it up as the exemplar of statistical packages. Anyone with any skill in statistics will find their way to SAS, Stata, R or some other real statistical package.
This article is questionable science (and needs to point references to some of its claims, but that's just me knit-picking)-- again, all in my opinion.
err hem, ironically, I mean, nit-picking (figured I'd do it to myself before anyone else did)
Did you read the paper that all of this is coming from? The argument doesn't actually imply that they miscounted this time The authors of the paper would seem to like you to believe that, but it's faulty reasoning, IMHO because of one fundamental reason... The statistical estimates are based primarily on the results of the 2000 election (and the 1996 election using the same voting systems as 2000). Given that the 2000 election in Florida was a primary reason for the major calls for voting technology reform because the previous methods were deemed to be poor methods of reporting the will of the voters, then why in the world should that very same vote count be used as a basis for statistical extrapolation that is then used to argue that votes were either added or misattributed to one candidate in the current election!?
All this does is call in to question ALL the election results. It might well mean that the previous system failed to accurately register votes for President Bush just as much as it might mean that there were additional votes given to him in error this time.
For reference, I didn't vote for either of the major-party-monkeys so don't accuse me of just siding with Bush because I voted for him -- I'm neither siding with him nor did I vote for him. All I am saying is that the logic of the argument doesn't prove vote tampering or incorrect counting in this election. It simply means that based on data collected with the previous balloting systems, one would expect President Bush to have received between 130,000-260,000 fewer votes. So, logically, that either means that the new system is flawed/biased, or that the old one was or that they're both biased but in opposite directions.
The fact that the gains correlate well with the counties in which Bush previously did the most poorly in doesn't mean anything other than supporting the idea that one or both of the contrasted vote collection methodologies is biased.
I mistrust electronic voting, but I also mistrust punch-cards and party ballot box stuffing. Don't think for a moment that the latter never happens.
Evidence of fraud in one or both elections (i.e. eyewitness accounts or other similar evidence) is the only thing that can clear this up at the moment. Otherwise, better electronic voting systems that are more open/reliable/tamper-proof and auditable and a few more elections using those "reliable" measurements as the basis for comparison to this year's and the 2000 election are the only way to differentiate between the various possibilities.
This article is questionable science (and needs to point references to some of its claims, but that's just me knit-picking)-- again, all in my opinion.
Right, except in this case, if you RTFA, the access points in question are in use by students using third party ISPs such as Comcast or some DSL provider. Your point is right on but doesn't particularly apply in the specific case that this article is referencing.
"Overpriced is in the eye of the beholder." Indeed. Overpriced? Not to anyone that's sat down and compared or used their products. My Bose tower speakers sounded far and away better than any others in their price range.
I've always "shown it" by using it and not making a big deal about it, but jumping back and forth between tabs, as needed for whatever it is I'm working on with someone...it's in those cases where I'm just using it as another tool that it gets noticed and commented on.
As for migrating from IE, I've never had a problem encouring people. The built-in popup blocker is almost an instant 'OK! I'm converted!'.
The thing that always gets noticed when I show people (certain) browser alternatives is the tabbed browsing, though the popup blocker also gets noticed, of course.
Lots of people say that, yet I don't seem to be suffering the least using any of a number of non MSIE browsers, on my non MS OS.
I guess I'm just lame or something and am not using the "hot" or "cutting-edge" web sites... or perhaps the claim that " if you do not use IE, your missing out on imporatant sites etc.." is just plain FUD.
But, so as to not make waves, I'll opt for the "I'm lame" answer...
The bandwidth only "belongs" to the ISP because they have, themselves, purchased it, and in turn sold it to you. If it isn't "yours," it isn't "theirs" either.
While that argument makes sense on the surface, it's underpinnings fail to hold up to more scrutiny... If bandwidth were a tangible, time invariant (or at least semi-persistent) product (read: object) then I'd agree with you, KFG. Bandwidth, if anything, is a service and an agreement to carry information. Therefore, they have much more leeway on what they will and won't retransmit, if you want to go down that road. Moreover, any good ISP will have written such restrictions into the agreement that was made with the purchaser. Capitalism would seem to suggest that any ISP that jumped the gun too much about NTD's would loose business or would attract only the most placid and benign customers, leaving the individuals more concerned about such content restrictions to go to another ISP.
Getting back to the sale and property idea...let's assume that bandwidth is a product...one could argue that since this "bandwidth" relies on routers and other network infrastructure that the ISP owns, then the ISP manufactures the bandwidth, at least while the information is within their network. As such, they didn't purchase it per se. They purchase the up-stream bandwidth for transmission to other networks.
And that's exactly the sort of balance that needs to be there when the NTD is making the ISP afraid that they'd be sued from the other side.
Where's the harm in walking the fine line because if you don't either side might sue you? It's kinda unfortunate, but it's certainly very American (well, America of the late 1990's and early 2000's.. (no flamebait meant there))
I think one of the possible differences is that the RFID solution has a much lower bar to entry for those who would like to use it. Yes, I know, anyone can look at a plate and record the number but it takes a lot more to OCR it (and hence the higher bar to entry). Another disturbing thing about the RFID solution is that it makes it all much easier to automate and therefore do on a much much larger scale. Instead of needing a slick camera and computer based system all you need is an inexpensive reader. Those differences will make proliferation of the system much much more likely. Where will they be instituted and for what purposes? That's what has a lot of us worried.
FWIW, I've even talked to a couple of photographers that shoot for the Chicago Sun Times (or was it the Chicago Tribune?) and they swear by the Nikon D70, even over a D10 (and far and away above the Digital Rebel).
Sure, the price is a bit high for an entry SLR, but not, in my opinon, for a entry *digital* SLR, at this point in time. If you want to be on the hot technology side of life, you do end up paying a bit of a premium...but to get what the poster wants, that is an SLR that is full-featured and won't need to be exchanged for a better model soon, the D70 is the clear choice.
While I had thought about this, I realized that my iPod is also the bit of storage that I own most likely to be stolen. Having my critical files (i.e. financial records, tax returns, address books, etc.) on a device that has a (relatively) high likelihood of being lost or stolen seems like a very bad idea.
On second thought, of course, you could always encrypt everything that you store there, but that's a more complex backup system and one that I'd bet a lot of people aren't as likely to keep up with...
But yeah, encryption is an option, dare I say a necessity, if you want to use your iPod for backup.
you could at least use the space to save backups of all your vital files so, should your house burn while you're out biking around you'll have a remote backup that survives.
While I had thought about this, I realized that my iPod is also the bit of storage that I own most likely to be stolen. Having my critical files (i.e. financial records, tax returns, address books, etc.) on a device that has a (relatively) high likelyhood of being lost or stolen seems like a very bad idea.
The question isn't can a person run for more than 2 hours, but can they be decisive enough to pick just enough music for their run and not change their mind during the run? Because with the smaller, flash memory based mp3 players, that's what you've got to do...
IANAL-BIWGPLOS (I am not a lawyer but I will gladly play one on slashdot) but I'd argue there's nearly implied consent when chatting, especially in a chat room.
When chatting, especially with multiple parties, but via computer systems, it's common practice and common knowledge that network activity (and hence the chat itself) may be logged, sometimes without the explicit intention of the user (example: a firewall log may record the date/time, IP address and other sorts of information about the sender and the conversation.) Similarly, the data may remain in temporary files, again without the explicit intent of the receiver. All of these sorts of inadvertent logging and data retention are, I believe, arguably necessary to the standard operation various portions of the computer system being used to chat and as those sorts of things are fairly well known, it opens the door for an argument of implied consent.
Now, there's another angle to this... Voice conversations are temporally limited by their ephemeral existence in a medium that will quickly return to a "normal" state and leave little or no persistent evidence of the existence of the (attempt at) communication. As such, voice communications rely on the temporal coexistence of all parties to the conversation. Recording, therefore differs from normal conversation by a transformation across mediums (from sound waves to whatever relatively permanent medium of recording is used, such as digital sampling or the grooves of a record). Thus, recordings also differ from the original conversation by their temporal stability -- they'll persist across time much more readily than the original conversation. Neither of these is as clearly true in the case of digital text chats. It is common practice to IM someone when they're away and *rely* on the temporal persistence of the IM itself to allow the recipient to read the IM whenever they're able...and to re-read it as many times as they like (presumably with the IM/chat text remaining open. on-screen). Indeed, IM's in their natural state function, effectively, as a short-term logging system by design and intended function. Therefore, arguing that IM's and text chats should be subject to the same rules as fundamentally different communication mediums threatens the very existence of the textual chat medium, if the ramifications are fully considered.
In many markets (Chicago, and Minneapolis/St. Paul, esp., both from my limited experience), many more places are starting to offer free wireless net access and that makes it less likely that the multitudes of people with laptops will head out to specifically internet cafes.
Examples include Dunn Bros. coffee in Minneapolis/St. Paul, they give away wireless at almost all of their shops, and here in chicago, even brew-pubs like Goose Island are getting in on the act. And who could forget the likes of Starbucks and their wireless AP's (though not free, I believe, still cheap)
In short, the specialty of providing internet access is loosing its high bar to entry and thus is becoming an easily integrated part of many other business plans.
Stupid, pointless rant? Yes. But I've not spoken to anyone about this incident (how do you bring it up in normal conversation?) and this is truly a release to get it off my chest.
I know your pain. That sort of thing happened to me a few times... it's a bit of true geek pride and hence you can't really rant about it to many people, only your geekiest friends...and of course, that's made doubly hard if you refuse to admit that you're a geek, which you'd have to be to actually feel a rant coming on about something like screw size or what does and does not constitute cat 5 wiring.
But, of course, I wouldn't know anything about any of that.
Let's bash the shit out of MS. In fact, you can do that while installing the 35th sendmail patch this week. Or the 54th SSH. Or the... (etc etc)
Whatever makes you feel less like an angry hate monger:)
The difference is that they actually patch sendmail and SSH for the security problems found...in the MSIE case, a number of problems have yet to be patched (so here comes the other usual response...did you actually read the article??)
Slashdot Mirror
If you do produce results that are consistently not reproducible by your peers, then you'll quickly no longer have a career, much less funding. It may not happen right away but it will happen in reasonable course, especially the more impressive your claimed results are and the more clear it becomes that you were not trying to practice "good science" but rather were just looking to make a name for yourself.
I'm more than willing to accept that I can be an example of the very point I was making. Irony seems to be my constant companion.
That's a good point. Much like the web allows almost anyone to publish just about whatever they want, it seems that technology has also allowed every idiot to [and those of us who just play idiots in print =) ] to escape the watchful eyes of those more skilled at proper correspondence. Sometimes lowering the barriers to entry (as technology such as email and the internet do) do more than just let more people get in on it -- it also lets more crap in with all the good.
Had you read the article or studied multivariate statistical analysis you would know that no-one is worried about when the "gains correlate well with the counties in which Bush previously did the most poorly". They are worried about when voting methods become statistically significant variables in predicting changes in voter outcomes over time.
You missed the whole point of my last post didn't you? The authors imply a causal relationship that isn't purely supported by their data. Moreover, without substantially discussing all the possible implications they're promoting incorrect conclusions on the part of the public at large. This is irresponsible in addition to being biased and sloppy. Additionally, in response to your comment that it should be a worrisome thing that voting methods become a statistically significant predictors -- well, yes it could be, but it could also be that previous inaccuracies or fraud had been corrected with the new system. This isn't worrisome except in some retrospective sense. And that, my friend is /my/ point, which you squarely missed.
This is excellent social science. Much of what passes for excellent in the social sciences is bad science, plain and simple. How do I say this? I say it from experience. I did my undergraduate work in one of the social sciences and currently work advising researchers in the social and clinical sciences.
So how about downloading the datasets and runing your opinions through SPSS before you toss them out?
Again, you missed the point. SPSS isn't telling you how to interpret the data. Moreover, I fundamentally mistrust anyone that relies on SPSS and holds it up as the exemplar of statistical packages. Anyone with any skill in statistics will find their way to SAS, Stata, R or some other real statistical package.
err hem, ironically, I mean, nit-picking (figured I'd do it to myself before anyone else did)
All this does is call in to question ALL the election results. It might well mean that the previous system failed to accurately register votes for President Bush just as much as it might mean that there were additional votes given to him in error this time.
For reference, I didn't vote for either of the major-party-monkeys so don't accuse me of just siding with Bush because I voted for him -- I'm neither siding with him nor did I vote for him. All I am saying is that the logic of the argument doesn't prove vote tampering or incorrect counting in this election. It simply means that based on data collected with the previous balloting systems, one would expect President Bush to have received between 130,000-260,000 fewer votes. So, logically, that either means that the new system is flawed/biased, or that the old one was or that they're both biased but in opposite directions.
The fact that the gains correlate well with the counties in which Bush previously did the most poorly in doesn't mean anything other than supporting the idea that one or both of the contrasted vote collection methodologies is biased.
I mistrust electronic voting, but I also mistrust punch-cards and party ballot box stuffing. Don't think for a moment that the latter never happens.
Evidence of fraud in one or both elections (i.e. eyewitness accounts or other similar evidence) is the only thing that can clear this up at the moment. Otherwise, better electronic voting systems that are more open/reliable/tamper-proof and auditable and a few more elections using those "reliable" measurements as the basis for comparison to this year's and the 2000 election are the only way to differentiate between the various possibilities.
This article is questionable science (and needs to point references to some of its claims, but that's just me knit-picking)-- again, all in my opinion.
Right, except in this case, if you RTFA, the access points in question are in use by students using third party ISPs such as Comcast or some DSL provider. Your point is right on but doesn't particularly apply in the specific case that this article is referencing.
"Overpriced is in the eye of the beholder." Indeed. Overpriced? Not to anyone that's sat down and compared or used their products. My Bose tower speakers sounded far and away better than any others in their price range.
You'll know they've really hit the bottom of the barrel when they breakout the Tigon and Liger releases (http://www.greenapple.com/~jorp/amzanim/cross02a. htm)
I've always "shown it" by using it and not making a big deal about it, but jumping back and forth between tabs, as needed for whatever it is I'm working on with someone...it's in those cases where I'm just using it as another tool that it gets noticed and commented on.
The thing that always gets noticed when I show people (certain) browser alternatives is the tabbed browsing, though the popup blocker also gets noticed, of course.
Funny...
Lots of people say that, yet I don't seem to be suffering the least using any of a number of non MSIE browsers, on my non MS OS.
I guess I'm just lame or something and am not using the "hot" or "cutting-edge" web sites... or perhaps the claim that " if you do not use IE, your missing out on imporatant sites etc.." is just plain FUD.
But, so as to not make waves, I'll opt for the "I'm lame" answer...
While that argument makes sense on the surface, it's underpinnings fail to hold up to more scrutiny... If bandwidth were a tangible, time invariant (or at least semi-persistent) product (read: object) then I'd agree with you, KFG. Bandwidth, if anything, is a service and an agreement to carry information. Therefore, they have much more leeway on what they will and won't retransmit, if you want to go down that road. Moreover, any good ISP will have written such restrictions into the agreement that was made with the purchaser. Capitalism would seem to suggest that any ISP that jumped the gun too much about NTD's would loose business or would attract only the most placid and benign customers, leaving the individuals more concerned about such content restrictions to go to another ISP.
Getting back to the sale and property idea...let's assume that bandwidth is a product...one could argue that since this "bandwidth" relies on routers and other network infrastructure that the ISP owns, then the ISP manufactures the bandwidth, at least while the information is within their network. As such, they didn't purchase it per se. They purchase the up-stream bandwidth for transmission to other networks.
just my take,
-tcp
And that's exactly the sort of balance that needs to be there when the NTD is making the ISP afraid that they'd be sued from the other side.
Where's the harm in walking the fine line because if you don't either side might sue you? It's kinda unfortunate, but it's certainly very American (well, America of the late 1990's and early 2000's.. (no flamebait meant there))
I think one of the possible differences is that the RFID solution has a much lower bar to entry for those who would like to use it. Yes, I know, anyone can look at a plate and record the number but it takes a lot more to OCR it (and hence the higher bar to entry). Another disturbing thing about the RFID solution is that it makes it all much easier to automate and therefore do on a much much larger scale. Instead of needing a slick camera and computer based system all you need is an inexpensive reader. Those differences will make proliferation of the system much much more likely. Where will they be instituted and for what purposes? That's what has a lot of us worried.
FWIW, I've even talked to a couple of photographers that shoot for the Chicago Sun Times (or was it the Chicago Tribune?) and they swear by the Nikon D70, even over a D10 (and far and away above the Digital Rebel).
Sure, the price is a bit high for an entry SLR, but not, in my opinon, for a entry *digital* SLR, at this point in time. If you want to be on the hot technology side of life, you do end up paying a bit of a premium...but to get what the poster wants, that is an SLR that is full-featured and won't need to be exchanged for a better model soon, the D70 is the clear choice.
On second thought, of course, you could always encrypt everything that you store there, but that's a more complex backup system and one that I'd bet a lot of people aren't as likely to keep up with...
But yeah, encryption is an option, dare I say a necessity, if you want to use your iPod for backup.
While I had thought about this, I realized that my iPod is also the bit of storage that I own most likely to be stolen. Having my critical files (i.e. financial records, tax returns, address books, etc.) on a device that has a (relatively) high likelyhood of being lost or stolen seems like a very bad idea.
The question isn't can a person run for more than 2 hours, but can they be decisive enough to pick just enough music for their run and not change their mind during the run? Because with the smaller, flash memory based mp3 players, that's what you've got to do...
IANAL-BIWGPLOS (I am not a lawyer but I will gladly play one on slashdot) but I'd argue there's nearly implied consent when chatting, especially in a chat room.
When chatting, especially with multiple parties, but via computer systems, it's common practice and common knowledge that network activity (and hence the chat itself) may be logged, sometimes without the explicit intention of the user (example: a firewall log may record the date/time, IP address and other sorts of information about the sender and the conversation.) Similarly, the data may remain in temporary files, again without the explicit intent of the receiver. All of these sorts of inadvertent logging and data retention are, I believe, arguably necessary to the standard operation various portions of the computer system being used to chat and as those sorts of things are fairly well known, it opens the door for an argument of implied consent.
Now, there's another angle to this... Voice conversations are temporally limited by their ephemeral existence in a medium that will quickly return to a "normal" state and leave little or no persistent evidence of the existence of the (attempt at) communication. As such, voice communications rely on the temporal coexistence of all parties to the conversation. Recording, therefore differs from normal conversation by a transformation across mediums (from sound waves to whatever relatively permanent medium of recording is used, such as digital sampling or the grooves of a record). Thus, recordings also differ from the original conversation by their temporal stability -- they'll persist across time much more readily than the original conversation. Neither of these is as clearly true in the case of digital text chats. It is common practice to IM someone when they're away and *rely* on the temporal persistence of the IM itself to allow the recipient to read the IM whenever they're able...and to re-read it as many times as they like (presumably with the IM/chat text remaining open. on-screen). Indeed, IM's in their natural state function, effectively, as a short-term logging system by design and intended function. Therefore, arguing that IM's and text chats should be subject to the same rules as fundamentally different communication mediums threatens the very existence of the textual chat medium, if the ramifications are fully considered.
Examples include Dunn Bros. coffee in Minneapolis/St. Paul, they give away wireless at almost all of their shops, and here in chicago, even brew-pubs like Goose Island are getting in on the act. And who could forget the likes of Starbucks and their wireless AP's (though not free, I believe, still cheap)
In short, the specialty of providing internet access is loosing its high bar to entry and thus is becoming an easily integrated part of many other business plans.
I know your pain. That sort of thing happened to me a few times... it's a bit of true geek pride and hence you can't really rant about it to many people, only your geekiest friends...and of course, that's made doubly hard if you refuse to admit that you're a geek, which you'd have to be to actually feel a rant coming on about something like screw size or what does and does not constitute cat 5 wiring.
But, of course, I wouldn't know anything about any of that.
The difference is that they actually patch sendmail and SSH for the security problems found...in the MSIE case, a number of problems have yet to be patched (so here comes the other usual response...did you actually read the article??)
"Small victiories...make everything work."
even if I can't spell.
I was starting to worry that everyone else was crazy and the whole country, the legal system especialy was just out of touch with reality.
Small victiories...make everything work.