Well... pardon me for being just a little bit sceptical about this. In short: I'll believe it when I see it.
The pdf file referred to in the article is authored by the "The first amendment project" (I hadn't heard of them before), and refers to a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" (NPRM). I believe that there are probably lots of NPRM's that never make it into any sort of bill that is to be submitted to the House or the Senate.
Now while I can believe that some people in the current administration would entertain such thoughts, any such proposal would have to pass both the House and the Senate, and somehow I just can't see that happening.
In addition there are doubts about whether it's contitutional to bar people from travelling abroad unless authorised to by the government, so that any such laws will be open to challenge in a New-York minute.
The question as to whether Wikipedia can be taken seriously is not a black-and-white one, despite the debate in this thread about the probability of faulty information being noticed and corrected. I think that Wikipedia certainly deserves to be taken seriously, but that it has its own unique place among the sources of information. I would rate its reliability about on par with that of a paper written by a student without supervision. Let me explain that.
Most scientists learn early on in their career to assess the informativenes, credibility and dependability of their sources. Sometimes sources such as newspaper articles, popular magazines highlighting an issue, television programmes covering a particular topic can be used to give you ideas and to serve as a source of things to add to your list of "things to investigate", but rarely (except in historical or political research) as source of raw data or as an authoritative opinion.
Autoritative opinion
Now what is an authoritative (scientific) opinion? I agree with the posters earlier in this thread that it's a considered opinion from someone that you know has mastered the field, who is schooled in and committed to the scientific methodology used in that field, and who is prepared to go on record for that opinion. I.e. that opinion is published among everyone who works in the field under his name and if that opinion is wrong you'll know which individual was wrong.
Tracing ideas and opinions
This means that whoever wrote that opinion cannot (ever) be allowed to change the original publication. There may be debates in which the original author may or may not change his mind, and retract or amend his opinion. But the original author can only ever do this in the form of a new publication, lets call it [Authorname (YYYY) Title 2], in which he can then write "In [Authorname (YYYY) Title 1] I said this, but in the light of developments xyz, additional data abc, and/or further thought I now think such-and-such". This is what happens in scientific journals. Despite all debates and changes of opinion that may follow, the article [Authorname (YYYY) Title 1] remains archived for further reference, comments, study, and sometimes as an example of what pitfalls to avoid. Scientists are only human after all... but all their colleagues and students can read the entire (unedited) debate and then make up their own mind.
The value of peer reviewed journals
Most autoritative scientific (and technical) journals are peer-reviewed. So what is peer-review? Peer review is when person abc things he's got something good to report and sends it to a journal. The journal editor figures out who else is working in the field to which the article relates and sends it to those other people before any decision is taken to publish it. They read the article and give their opinion about a number of aspects:
(1)- is the question addressed in the article well-defined? Does it use generally accepted theory and concepts with which to state the problem? If not, why not?
(2)- has the author done a thorough review of the existing literature that deals with this area, and has he either pointed out an error, a weakness or a gap (complete lack of coverage) in the literature?
(3)- is the methodology used valid? Is statistical methods were used are they appropriate and correct?
(4)- is the data used to support the conclusions used relevant? Can somethinf be said about whether the data is valid?
(5)- is the reasoning made sufficiently explicit and is it correct and valid?
(6)- are the conclusions supported by the work described in the article?
Questions such as an expert in the field under consideration should be able to answer. The editor receives the reviews, reads them, andthe ndecides whether or not to accept the original article for publication, to reject it outright, or to have the original author patch up the more serious problems and try again. Pee
"So you are saying that to find your broomstick-cutter, you go to the appropriate room and look in the appropriate cupboard? [...]"
Yes and no, but you missed the point completely.
If you are looking for something by _functionality_ you can't use a conventional search engine bu you'll have to use your brain for that, in other words you'll have to search for it by going through an inventory of things that are likely to be of use and to decide if any of them can be used. The more you can narrow that down the better. That could be in terms of directories or in terms of a virtual 3-D world. Both would do the job. Alternatively you could remember the name of the utensil you are looking for and then use a search engine to find it.
However to know _where_ to look... without needing to look it up, or to dig up the name of this utensil a virtual 3-D environment connects to primitives in your brain that simply aren't there for folders. That's the point.
It could be that you aren't convinced of the advantage of using the 3-D circuitry of your brain, but just for your information, one of the exercises for people who want to train their memory is to imagine a house with rooms in the house and drawers in the rooms and items in the drawers. It's quite hard to do when you have to *imagine* the whole house with drawers, but it's relatively easy to do when you actually see this house (wheter in reality or in a virtual 3-D environment). It's just how people's brains are put together (yours too) whether you like it or not.
Well.. I'd say look at how many objects you know where to find in your home.
There is the kitchen, the living room, the study, the bathroon, the bedroom, perhaps a cellar, maybe an attic, and the garage.
Now think of all the cupboards you have in each room... from kitchen to garage, and then think of all the different objects you have somewhere in those cupboards. Say that you have perhaps 20-odd cupboards in total. Now I bet you have a fair idea of what's in each of those cupboards.
Now suppose I asked you to find: something to clip your toenails, something to saw a piece off a broomstick, and something to hold a hot dish from the oven.
Chances are that you know if you possess a dedicated toenail clipper, where to look for it if you do, and that you'll look for a good pair of scissors if you don't possess a dedicated toenail clipper. And you probably wouldn't look in the cellar or the attic for it. Same thing for something to saw a piece off a broomstick. You probably wouldn't look in the bathroom (unless that's where you left your toolkit).
My point is that you are able to organise a large amount of information in your own head, and retrieve it very efficiently in this 3-D environment called your home.
Now imagine that you had this virtual home. You also have a conventional search-engine for that home, but it will look only for specific objects.
Now I have formulated my questions so that you won't be able to directly use a search engine... you have associate the object with the functionality first, only then can you let a conventional search-engine look for it. But that first step requires quite a lot of knowledge on your part. In your home you would probably know immediately, but in a filing cabinet or on your hard-disk??
And even if you didn't know whether you had something that could be used to perform a specific service, you could go into a room and... rummage for something that would do the job since you would tend to place things with the same characteristics in groups.
And now think of how much you know about the neighbourhood where you live, and perhaps the city you live in. And how easily you can learn and remember the same sort of information for a *new* city or a new home.
In short, I think that you can store and retrieve more information much more easily and effectively in terms of this virtual 3-D environment than in an ordinary set of folders.
After all... the secret of a good interface isn't that it's efficient for the computer, it's that it's efficient for us.
Remember that we're all descendents of monkeys who depended for their survival on being able to remember where the ripe fruit hung, where the edible roots were, and where they could expect to find some suitable animal to eat, which routes were safe and which not... etc. etc.. This amounts to lots and lots of information, all organised in a 3-D frame and accessible on demand. How can we possibly learn and remember that much information with such ease? Well... we all have the facility to do this sort of thing hardwired in.
So why not use this strength?
That's why I would like to have a virtual office in addition to my ordinary computer.
I have sent E360Insight the following reply, while giving them the following email address: e360insight.3.golodh@spamgourmet.com
Let me explain this first. Spamgourmet is an organistion that allows you to give out limited-use email aliases of the form anyname.n.yourname@spamgourmet.com.
-Anyname can be any alphanumerical string (i don't know how long, but be sensible).
-n stands for the number of emails that will be relayed to your own email account (called the "protected account").
-yourname is the alias you gave Spamgourmet to link to your real, protected, email address.
Spamgourmet keeps a counter for each email address. After the counter has hit "n", any further emails are redirected to dev/null. So in the above address to e360Insight I will receive at most 3 emails, after which everything is consigned to the bit-bucket. Neat eh?
Open letter to E360Insight
Dear Sirs,
It may have escaped your notice that your reasoning that somehow US courts would have jurisdiction over the _compilation_ of spammer-block-lists is at fault, as Spamhaus is a UK based organisation and as such immune from US laws (except for such acts as it commits in venues under US jurisdiction). For that reason the proper venue for binging lawsuits agains Spamhaus for _compilation_ of their spam-block-list is the UK.
I would further like to call your attention to the fact that Spamhaus as such does not, in any way or description, block or censor emails. This is an inaccuracy on your part. Spamhaus merely holds available, and distributes on demand, lists of domains and IP addresses that, on the balance of probability, belong to, are under the control of, or fail to take reasonable precautions against, senders of unsollicited bulk email. Spammers in short. It is then up to the system administrators of organisations and/or ISP's to actually block or flag such email. Therefore the proper defendants who are subject to US laws in your case would be the system administrators of individual ISP's or organisations who block your emails or even individual Internet users who _authorise_ their ISP to apply email blocking technology.
I view the phenomenon of unsollicted commercial email (spam) in itself a form of theft since it uses a disproportionate amount of bandwidth and infrastructure (that I pay for through connection fees to my ISP) without proper compensation, and effectively renders unprotected individual email accounts unusable by deluging them with spam. I hope you agree.
Given the awful volume of spam clogging the Internet I consider it unreasonable for organisations that collate spam blocklists, system administrators who use such blocklists, or users who authorise their ISP to use automatic spam filtering technology, to give any possible spammer the benefit of the doubt. Given the known fact that all spammers attempt to disguise their activities, assume a patina of legitimacy, use unprotected email relays, or otherwise attempt to bypass blocking measures, servers and IP addresses must simply be blocked upon a "balance of probability" or "reasonable suspicion". If not this creates an opportunity for abuse that spammers can drive a truck through (or, as is more likely, a load of spam). Unfortunately it would seem that in your case the "balance of probability" does not come down in your favour.
In addition it is my considered opinion that this purely pragmatic consideration trumps all and any "freedom of speech" arguments that one hears against proper filtering. Concerning your freedom of speech argument, I as an Internet user, am perfectly happy not to receive any commercial emails (bona-fide or otherwise), I have absolutely no difficulties with bona-fide commercial emails being inadvertantly blocked, and I am happy to authorise my ISP to block or flag any email that even remotely resembles spam (even if there should be false positives). If I miss an important email (unlikely) I will take steps with my ISP. If I want informat
Oh my ... can we suppress this story?
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School Bans 'Tag'
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I think there is a good case to be made that this story should be suppressed... in the National Interest.
Just imagine what would happen if word of this ever got out... the sniggering, the laughter... the disrespect... the loss of credibility. Imagine how the French would ridicule us if they knew. Now estimate how much this could cost in lost contracts and in Political Capital. Political Capital that is needed more than ever to combat Terrorism.
I propose an immediate news blackout and containment of all persons involved. This story cannot be allowed to leak out.
Ensuring US superiority in space... that's what the new policy boils down to.
I just wonder what the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians the Brazilians, the Japanese, and the Europeans are going to think of it. Will they agree to US space superiority or might they perhaps start space weaponisation programs of their own?
And what about the cost? Could it be that in the long run it will cost the US less to secure its national interests by aiming for parity and a reasonable deterrent instead of starting yet another arms race in search of superiority? I wonder.
I'll say one thing for the current administration... if there is even a remote chance of turning a conflict on interest into a real conflict they can be relied on to identify it and steer that way.
For better or worse, trading people's identity information is legal.
There is no sense in complaining about it since the whole US legal system happens to be designed to protect people's freedoms (such as the one to trade other people's identity information) from the snap judgement of their fellow man, especially when those freedoms are unpopular. And as we all know it's common business practice to disregard most "moral" considerations in the pursuit of revenues. Of course there is always the possibility of those revenues being affected by the backlash of being unpopular, but the decision criterion is always revenue, never morals or ethics. So impopularity only works if the backlash is large enough and inescapable enough. And that only for as long as the costs outweigh the benefits.
Which it probably won't be of course... there are far too many issues clamouring for everyone's attention to guarantee that anyone who doesn't devote his whole spare time (or even his whole life) to being angry and upset about this or that abuse or scandal just won't have the time to much of an effective force. A handful of grumblers won't matter, but one powerful grumbler does. From the article it's interesting to see that when an individual complains to this company to have his own information removed, he is ignored. When HP complains, the information is taken down pronto. A clear case of cost-benefit tradeoff: an individual's ire (he hasn't got rights, but he might make a nuisance of himself) doesn't count for much. A large company's ire (they don't have any rights either, but they can afford a battery of lawyers to make life difficult for you) is something to be taken very seriously. Elementary economics.
Therefore, as I see it, new legislation is the only way to stop this sort of thing. Personally I would be in favour of legislation stating that you and you alone "own" your identity data, and that no-one (especially no companies) may hold or store any piece of it without your permission, and that they are obliged by law to fully disclose all information they hold on you upon first request, and that they are obligated to allow you to correct any information they hold on you, say within 20 business days. All of this enforceable on pain of say a 1000$ fine per case.
That would be too bad for companies that make a living from trading information, but I happen to rank my privacy over their survival and I wouldn't mind seeing them go.
The point is of course that the majority doesn't seem to support any such law. So unless there is enough political will to enact some legislation to protect our identity information from being sold it's no use grumbling. Unless you manage to grumble loudly enough to make an impact of course.
I found this link: http://haccp.tamu.edu/alliance/BeefGrindGuide.pdf
A guide for beef grinders. Curiously enough it mentions Salmonella and Escherichia Coli in extenso, but makes no mention of Listeria bacteria except in appendix 2, where the resistance of these mircro-organisms to irradiation is tabulated.
From this publication I get the impression that Listeria isn't the focus of hygiene in raw meat products, and that the main problems are Eschirichia Coli (the bacteria we all carry in our intestines) and Salmonella.
So perhaps a Listeria spray will not affect the standards of safety and hygiene as those might be driven by the need to keep the counts for E. Coli and Salmonella down. Therefore it could be that I was too hasty in my earlier criticism.
The authors of that webpage note that development of resistance can be countered by changing the phages. This means that whoever produces that Listeria killer would have to keep changing it.
It also states that bacteriophages are extremely bacterium-specific.
Therefore I conjecture that we may see a mutant strain, or possibly another bacteria altogether, profit from the ecological niche created by the absence of Listeria and the (I feel) to-be-expected drop in hygienic standards and quaity control.
From the article the idea is to cut down on illnes and deaths Listeriosis, particulerly in "primarily in pregnant women, newborns and adults with weakened immune systems" caused by a bacterium called "Listeria". These bacteria grows in e.g. meat and are readily killed by cooking, so Listeria only has a chance when meat is kept uncooked.
I consider this a very mixed blessing for the following reasons:
- it substitutes "spray and forget" for good hygiene and quality control for food. Bluntly speaking it provides meat vendors with more leeway to get away with poor quality control, poor hygiene and meat that's too old because it takes away some of the bacteria. Economic pressure being what it is, there will be vendors who will take advantage of this and who will then have a competitive advantage over vendors that *do* pay attention to proper hygiene and quality control
- it proposes to launch an enormously broad application of this bacterium-killing virus when only a select target group (mentioned in the article) needs it. When meat leftovers containing this virus are disposed of, they will spread this virus throughout compost heaps and perhaps even into sewage sludge, providing a great opportunity for billions of bacteria to encounter this virus in great dilution under a variety of conditions. Who is willing to bet that no bacteria will develop immunity? In this closely resembles the same irresponsible attitude that was a the bottom of the American habit to prescribe Penicillin indiscriminately for everything from coughs, colds, to sprained ankles. A habit that led directly to the emergence of the current nasty strains antibiotic-resistant bacteria (MRSA comes to mind).
- there are no safeguards against the emergence of a new strain of Listeria that might develop and that is resistant to this particular virus.
- bacteria live in an ecosystem with competitive pressures. If you remove one bacterium (Listeria) you create an open invitation for any bacterium that isn't targeted by this specific virus. What are the chances that we will be surprised by a newspaper article decrying the death of 100 elderly because they had (sprayed) luncheon meat in which very rare but virus-immune bacteria had developed (and had chance to develop because standards of hygiene went down and the meat was kept out of the fridge for say 24 hours)
In summary I am pessimistic about applying this virus on a grand scale:
- it's a sizeable intervention that isn't really needed, because with proper hygiene and fresh produce you will not have difficulties for ordinary healthy people, and those with a weakened immune system or special vulnerabilities can simply take special care.
- due to its intended broad and indiscriminate application, there are no safeguards whatsoever against this novel anti-bacterial weapon not being blunted by allowing billions of bacteria to encounter in in great dilution, develop immunity, and pass that immunity on to their colleagues (which is a known mechanism in bacteria).
- it only seems to benefit the producers of this virus by creating competitive pressures to use it if your competitor does so too (which is of course their good right, but not necessarily beneficial for society as a whole)
I don't need to spend my time with Microsoft's beta releases (there's no critical need in my work that they address), and I'll see it when it's fully released and my employer's IT department rolls it out. So... what's in it for me?
And on my home machine I don't have Office... I'm happily using Open Office. No hassle with licenses, it's free, and it runs on both Linux and Windows.
So err... to me this is a bit of a non-event really. How about you?
*sighs* There is a reason that Americans are distrustful of governments, their own included. The article may have identified one. Mindless stupidity.
Why? Because even if governments adhere to what we might call the "industry-average in mindless stupidity" governments can cause far more damage than most industries. From the article:
"Q: What kind of impact would it have for a flying individual to be named in an SDR?
A: That could have serious impact... They could be placed on a watch list. They could wind up on databases that identify them as potential terrorists or a threat to an aircraft. It could be very serious," said Don Strange, a former agent in charge of air marshals in Atlanta. He lost his job attempting to change policies inside the agency."
Ok, this former agent lost his job because he tried to change policies inside the agency. Anyone want to bet this was over SDR quota? And what other enlightened "policies" are in effect? And yes... such things will stick around... if only because it's a bit hard to shop around for alternative governments.
Ok... so putting someone's name in an SDR has potentially serious consequences for that person. Add to this the (probably MBA-driven) desire for "quantifiable targets" and see the result. From the article "Although the agency strongly denies any presence of a quota system, Las Vegas-based air marshals have produced documents that show their performance review is directly linked to producing SDRs.".
Great... just great. That leaves us with only one option... don't fly near the end of the month.
First off... I admit that in the situation you sketch the boss you portray acts unreasonably. If the EU acted like that, then Microsoft would have a legitimate cause for complaint.
Having said that, I am trying to understand whether the horror-scenario you sketch is the one that actually happened, and to be frank I am totally skeptical. I cannot think of any motive for the EU to deliberately allow Microsoft to produce documentation that is useless. Ordinary everyday incompetence on part of the EU, yes (the EU are a Government organisation after all...) but not sabotage. And... forgive me if I repeat myself from previous posts, but Microsoft was charged with producing a specific result, and not with sticking to a format or a process. Can it not be blamed for trying to take advantage of the EU's (apparent) incompetence in assessing the technical documentation as an excuse not to have to deliver?
Since the correspondence between Microsoft and the EU will likely not be public, I am looking for different ways to get a handle on whether their claim is true. If you can give me any (verifiable) information I would be happy to study it.
I think the problematic bit with the argument you make is that it makes assumptions (they're evil) about the intention of Microsoft and use those assumptions to reinforce the original argument (they are evil. so their intention in producing industry standard documentation was to obfuscate and be useless. Therefore they are evil).
Circular reasoning on my part to decide "Microsoft is Evil"?
If I did commit circular reasoning, then I retract that part of what I said. I do admit that my previous post seems a bit disorganised. Sorry about that, I'll do better. However I didn't mean to commit circular reasoning, and frankly I don''t think I did. My argument has two parts: first arguing that Microsoft is inherently untrustworthy, second combining that with the motive they have to err... present the facts as other than they really are.
I mean that I believe that, given Microsoft's conduct in court cases over the past 10 years, we have excellent cause to be distrustful of Microsoft's good intentions. Why? I base that on:
- the material presented at this http://www.kmfms.com/whatsbad.html#deception site.
a)the doctored video(s) that Microsoft presented, purportedly showing the "crash" of MS Windows after Explorer was removed. I think that any ordinary person who pulled a stunt like that would have faced prosecution for perjury. For some reason Microsoft didn't suffer any comparable penalty
b)Microsoft going back on the promise to support JAVA when it needed people to believe that Microsoft would in fact support Java
c)Bill Gates' claim that Windows doesn't have bugs in an interview with FOCUS. If Allchin was aware of the problems with Windows message queues, then Gates would have been to. He simply told untruths.
d)Microsoft's misleading claims regarding the security of it's passport service.
- Microsoft's use of astroturfing (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing). "In 2001, the Los Angeles Times accused Microsoft of astroturfing when hundreds of similar letters were sent to newspapers voicing disagreement with the United States Department of Justice and its antitrust suit against Microsoft. The letters, prepared by Americans for Technology Leadership, had in some cases been mailed from deceased citizens or nonexistent addresses. [3] " According to this article, Microsoft actually sent letters of support with the address of (among others) of deceased citizins, which clearly proves that the letters were in fact written by Microsoft and posted under other names.
I did try to read the reports, but the main themes in them seemed to be:
(1) it's industry standard to have incomplete documentation for something as complicated as that, so Microsoft complied by providing incomplete docs (Broy)
(2) such docs are aimed at specialists anyway, so only people with lots of background knowledge about Windows architecture, and Windows networking will be able to read and use them (Broy)
(3) Barnett asked for silly things and made mistakes (Broy)
(4) Barnett based his opinion on the documentation delivered by October 2005, and there was an update (Broy)
(5) Barnett used the documentation to try and figure out how to do two things: (a) add a user, and (b) propagate a password change (Finkelstein)
Damaging criticism for certain, but of course these reports were written to highlight Microsoft's point of view.
With all respect, but when you read e.g. SCO's pleading without being aware of their context you'd think that they had a point... and a case. Then when you read Groklaw's comments and IBM's pleadings, you see how wrong you were. Reports like this are like camera's: they show you exactly what they show you, but you have no idea what they skirt. Microsoft does seem to have legitimate gripes, and I tried to find the original trustee report to see for myself, but I couldn't. So could you please tell me where I can find the trustee report so that I can verify the criticism?
But for me the bottom line is that Microsoft choose to describe their protocols in words. Text. Nowadays there are better ways of doing that.
They state that Andrew Tridgell (of Samba) estimated that Microsoft's protocols can be described in about 30,000 lines of IDL (Interface Definition Language), of which Samba has deciphered about 13,000 lines.
If what they claim is true (and I admit I can't judge that), then Microsoft could have delivered the entire interface specification in just 30,000 lines of formal description, and simply and deliberately choose the most inefficient method of documentation possible. In that sense directing a major effort at producing text-only documentation could just as well be seen as a major effort to pass the compliance test without actually producing any useful documentation. In other words the "written primarily to maximize volume (page count) while minimizing useful information." accusation by Taeus comes to mind.
Summing up
I'm sorry, but again given Microsoft's track record where it concerns honesty and fair dealing, and its ongoing insistence on providing "solutions" that exclude Opens Source competitors, it's hard not to lend credence to the claims by the FSFE and Taeus. Notwithstanding the reports from admittedly reputable experts provided at Microsoft's behest, which uniformly tend to take the position that protocol documentation can only mean giving dedicated experts a few clues about where to look, I remain deeply sceptical.
The Commission ordered Microsoft to produce "documentation" that's sufficient to allow others to produce intereoperable software, not how. If Microsoft chose to provide terribly voluminous and inefficient documentation, an obfuscation exercise in its own right, then I cannot see why this would excuse Microsoft from providing error-free and self-standing documentation (even though th
I would say that the effort has been a good faith effort. Guys have been working nearly 24x7 to get our protocols (not APIs) documented now that we have an idea what format the EU wants.
Well... I'm happy to see what might actually be a response with inside knowledge. However... first of all I'm afraid that, given its public record in the area of "honesty" and "fair dealing", Microsoft is facing rather serious credibility challenge here.
Could it really be that bad?
So... are we to understand that Microsoft really had no documentation of its main client-server interaction protocol (whether API or protocol description) that it could use to produce documentation for the EU? Do you really expect us to believe that?
Well... sadly enough we might, because we remember the efforts by Jim Allchin to put Microsoft's Windows development on a more systematic footing (see: http://asay.blogspot.com/2005/09/news-microsoft-ad mits-its-development.html). So if that holds for Windows development as a whole, then might it not hold as well for something like a communication protocol? *shrugs* Ok... I give up. It might be that Microsoft as a company really hadn't got a clue what it's most important client-server communication protocol looks like. So... yes. If you had to dig through mountains of Windows source code to figure out all instances where client-server interaction can occur (because you don't have a clue really) it could take a lot of time. But even if that were so, why didn't Microsoft warn the EU that it wouln't be able to finish withing the alotted time? Perhaps that is why it got the extra year to complete its documentation. But even so why keep mum and come up with hollow-sounding excuses about "formats" at the latest possible time? Could it be that whoever was in charge of this project didn't know how to manage it?
Unfortunately the choice seems to be between
(a) downright incompetence (the project manager in charge of producing the documentation couldn't count and couldn't read a calender)
(b) the problem was too big (we ain't got no docs anywhere boss, honest, only source), or
(c) stonewalling.
Forgive me for being just the tiniest bit sceptical of Microsoft's good intentions and good faith (with Microsoft's long history of outright chicanery in mind whenever things didn't suit them).
So... the EU caused Microsoft to miss its delivery target for Windows?
And please... if your company had to actually interrupt its work on Vista to introduce disciplined software engineering, do you really expect me to lend credence to claims that delays in Vista delivery aren't 100% self-inflicted? And all those vanishing features... caused by the EU's interference as well, yes? I'm sorry, but if you're saying that Microsoft really didn't have its act together when it comes to software engineering, it's very hard for me to lend credence to any claims that the EU's requirements has cause Vista to be delayed by even a single day.
Formats as fig-leaves?
And secondly... sorry if I sound a bit grumpy, but this "now that we have an idea what format the EU wants" sounds like a poor cop-out. What do you care what format the EU wants? They specified an effect, not a procedure. They didn't specify a format in order not to impose undue constraints on you. If other developers can use your specs to produce something that will be intereoperable, the EU is satisfied. And sorry but if you knew your business, you ought to know what a workable specification looks like. So pushing the EU for a precise definition seems either:
- fishing for an excuse to produce unworkable documentation ("we
In essence Technomonics takes the view that the EU's requirements were so unclear that Microsoft couldn't reasonably be expected to comply.
Demand for trade-secrets to be compromised?
To me, the EU is demanding documentation while it does not spell out exactly what it is looking for, other than the total and complete release of all trade secrets of the Microsoft Corporation.
I respectfully disagree. The EU made it clear that they do not *want* any source-code. They want an API specification: (here I quote from the EU decision of 2004).
To the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area(6), Microsoft would be entitled to reasonable remuneration. The disclosure order concerns the interface documentation only, and not the Windows source code, as this is not necessary to achieve the development of interoperable products.
And besides, what part of (here I quote from the EU decision of 2004):
As regards interoperability, Microsoft is required, within 120 days, to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers.
Microsoft has been making a good faith reply to all of the EU demands, which is not a diminuitive task.
Again I have to disagree. Prof. Neil Barrett (proposed as a monitoring trustee by Microsoft itself) characterised the documentation as: "entirely inadequate" (see http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/03/11/eu_ms_res ponse/). I absolutely cannot believe that Microsoft, with all its software engineers, would be incapable of documenting their own communication protocol if they put their mind to it. Or alternatively recognising that they couldn't do it in short order and saying as much.
Microsoft has published significant information regarding APIs and continues to provide resources for integrating third-party software solutions into Windows.
Err... significant? In what respect? Again I point to the statement by Barrett that the documentation was "entirely inadequate". But it gets better. The commission also quotes from an independent analysis of Microsoft's protocol documentation conducted by Taeus (see http://www.taeus.com/ for general information on this company).
Taeus compared Microsoft's submissions to a car manufacturer selling a car without wheels, handbrake, or steering wheel, and only fitting each begrudgingly after the customer complains.
[...]
Taeus concluded that what documentation Microsoft had provided was "devoted to obsolete functionality", "self-contradictory" and was written "primarily to maximize volume (page count) while minimizing useful information.".
I feel that the above two statements destroy the theory that that Microsoft made a good-faith attempt at documentation. And as to the meaning of the EU's request being uncle
I must say that I find the EU the embodiment of reasonableness in this case. Not only do I consider the fine fully justified, the EU is evidently taking very special care not to (unduly) hurt Microsoft while still getting their full attention. The EU is clearly after compliance.. not revenues. To a company such as Microsoft, the amount of 280 million Euros is quite affordable (as many others noticed), but it still is a lot of money.
As I see it, the EU is telling Microsoft:
"Ok, Microsoft you had your chance to document your API's two years ago as you were told to, but instead you chose to try and mess with us and we just don't believe you when you said you made an honest effort to comply. So here is your fine. If you think you are going to appeal your way out of this... good luck to you. Now we know that you are working to better your lives, and we want your compliance more than your money, so we won't hurt you as much as we could have. We actually want you to do business in the EU, and for that reason we will go easy on you this time. Only... if you think you can make a fool of us again, prepare for fines that *are* hurtful."
After all both the House and the Senate rejected the idea of enacting regulating to enforce net-neutrality. That at least documents the intention of the law-givers to let telco's charge any which way they want. Net-neutrality supporters (including myself) simply lost that case.
As I understand it (but someone knowledgeable please correct me if needed) anti-trust legislation only applies if you can prove that a market party (a) abuses its market position to stifle competition and that (b) it harms customers in doing so. Afaik it does not protect competitors or cuctomers per se... it protects competition, but only if you can *prove* that the market isn't functioning. Now that might take some doing.
After all, with the possibility of Telco's introducing a tiered internet by citing overcrowding, then introducing premium service, and "allowing" content suppliers to pick up part of the tab for premium service, where are the hurt customers? Sure... the Internet got changed aways from a utility to a bottled-water selling operation. But telco's seem to be able to construct their new pricing schemes in ways in which they can argue that in order to deal with burgeoning demand for data-transport they can't be expected to meet demand across the board, so they are letting the market do its work... by offering premium service. And how are they to blame if this also turns out to be financially interesting for them? Telco's weren't born yesterday.
All in all, I fear that there would be slim legal grounds for objections.
What I do see is (potentially) a little bad publicity for the US laissez-faire approach. After all... in Europe telcoms seems to be fairly strictly regulated, even if in some places they separated the *infrastructure* suppliers (structured as pure utility companies) from *service* providers (ISP's). Yet they do seem capable of supplying a wide (if not total) broadband coverage at modest prices. Without two-tier nonsense.
Well you have a point. People will use such tools. I use Latex too, but I hate it. I have been using Scientific Word just to get away from the messy syntax. But this applies only to a fairly small subset of authors: typically Physicists, Electronics Engineers, Statisticians, and Mathematicians. I haven't seen many chemists or biologists publish in Latex.
Rbrinkman, I stand corrected in the special case you mention, thank you for pointing this out to me. However I would like to emphasise your comment that
A key requirement is the development of software tools that implement these ontologies, so that end users are not required to download and understand the backend OWL, as the parent post suggests.
, and I'd like to note that unless this key requirement is met, the cost benefit of using formal ontologies is likely to be so bad that they are going nowhere.
According to the Nature articles you refer to, in the special case of bioinformatics, and research on genomics and experiments using microarrays the amount of information needed to describe an experiment and its results seems to be so large that you would actually save time and effort by specifying what you did in a formal language. There would seem to be a net benefit in using the formal specification of your experiment for colleagues and reviewers, even when compared to the amount of time and effort needed to (a) define the ontologies and (b) learn how to use them, and (c) actually code your experiment up in those terms. Ok, I had no idead.
I think that I will stick to my earlier point however as regards experiments that don't require large amounts of data to describe, and don't generate vast amounts of relevant data. In fact, most experiments in the literature would fall in this category I feel. In those cases the effort of setting up ontologies (and standardising them!) and then using intuitively seems to outweigh the advantages (at least for authors).
In addition see the interesting comment by radtea (see below) in which he points out a philosophical problem with the ontologies mentioned (and a notion that I found echoed in the first article you refer to: there are many many ways to take raw observations and categorise them.
See radtea's example of finding an unambiguous definition of "granite". If you thought you were going to work around this by listing the actual chemical composition of the rocks, I'm afraid that you'd be disappointed. You can't determine that in the field I think (and no, I'm not a geologist either), so what is or is not "granite" is an expert judgement. So you raw data are going to be "expert judgements" (as in " is this granite or not?"). You would face the problem of standardising your terminology across field teams first, and then the problem of how to come up with a rigorous, unambiguous, and internationally standardised definition. I don't see that happening very soon.
But lets assume that we limit ourselves to experiments that contain no "expert judgement" values, just machine readings. Even then for the ontologies to catch on, you would need a clear incentive for the authors. Being easily retrievable is such an incentive, but is it strong enough to overcome inertia and the required additional effort? The cost/benefit ratio of formalisation would depend on the field I guess. So until we have point-and-click software with which to encode our experiments I remain pessimistic.
Really... I wouldn't say a word against Communications Majors (as miss Didio is according to the Wikipedia), except where you propose to rely on them to tell you anything accurate, or anything about technical matters.
Others have already commented on the lack of clarity, the need to read between the lines, the absence of the most elementary numbers and facts about this "study" (as in: how many respondents, how recruited, how many rejected and why, how was uptime defined and measured, what were the uptime numbers, (contingency table by OS this year, contingency table by OS previous year)).
If any students read this, let me take this opportunity to warn you. Submit a "report" like this to any serious faculty and look forward to an F grade. Unless you're a "Communications Major" obviously, in which case you'll be complimented on the flow of your prose.).
I'm guessing here of course, but I think that the real study was conducted and written by someone totally different, and miss Didio got the write the "teaser": i.e. the part that you can release without divulging any real information that you would otherwise be required to pay for.
The New Scientist article was clear enough but a little short on technical detail. Note: I'didn't know any of this until I read the article, so my comments are based on nothing more than a few minutes of experience.
What is it?
EXPO is a piece of software (written in a formal language called "owl", but they didn't tell you that), which provides a formal dictionary especially for experiments. The terms in this dictionary let you describe your experiment in a formal way. That's a bit messy, but then you're supposed to use an editor to help you. An editor for this language (called "protégé")can be fund at http://protege.stanford.edu/index.html. Download it (61 Mb., or 31 Mb. without the JVM) and use it to read the EXPO document.
What's it good for (in principle)?
Once an experiment is decribed in the OWL language using this dictionary, it can be searched automatically. You could automate queries such as "list me all published 3-factor experiments that test Ohm's law". Or "give me all 2-factor experiments that deal with lung-cancer, smoking, and gender and that use tomography as a diagnostic instrument".
Now at the moment you can do that too, but you'd have to spend quite a bit of time and know quite a bit about the field to be able to do this because you won't be able to do a full-text search (thanks to the publishers of scientific journals for this). And then you'd find that not everyone uses the same terms, and then you'll find only English-language results because you wouldn't know how to spell "lung-cancer" or "2-factor experiment" in Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese or whatever, but then again neither can many foreign language authors spell it in English (which doesn't ever seem to stop them from publishing however).
Such a schema (provided it's universal and standardised like the Dewey decimal system) would allow you to find your way in the fog of language. Unfortunately however, if anything we will probably see lots and lots of different standards ("standards are good... we should all have one !") and properietary solutions with "enhancements" and "extensions" (read safeguards against portability).
What can we expect in the next 3 years?
Nothing useful, I'm afraid.
In theory it's great but don't hold your breath. Any author would have to download an OWL editor, understand the editor, understand the formal language used, and then code up his/her article in OWL using the EXPO distionary, and submit it (in electronic form) along with his article. Good luck to you authors! Lets just hope no-one makes any tiny but significant mistake in describing their experiment, and that all authors take the time to learn this formal language and then use it.
If within the nect 10 years any significant amount (say more than 5% of all publications) annually will be coded in such a schema I'd be more than surprised.
Although I am not a chemist, I do know something about chemistry from my secondary education and... exprience from experiments at home. I am sorry to say that I see myself compelled to contradict Mr. Underbridge in certain respects, although I readily agree with the general thrust of his comments.
Mr. Underbridge certainly has a valid point
I would say that Mr. Underbridge is quite correct in stating that some of the chemicals mentioned in the article are genuinely dangerous (e.g. powdered Aluminium, Potassium perchlorate), and should not be used or stocked in homes. Especially in quantities larger than you can fit in a teaspoon. But so is a pound of gunpowder, so is drain cleaner, so is a gallon of gasoline, and so are firearms.
But it's not the whole story I would say
However I would submit that the amount of and concentration of the chemicals used is (in most cases) much more relevant than the type of chemical. Certainly where it concerns strong oxidizers (perchlorate, nitrate) and chemicals with a high energy content that are easily oxidised (e.g. metallic aluminium), strong acids (undiluted sulphuric acid, concentrated nitric acid, etc.).
The importance of quantity and concentration
What I really miss from the discussion is a sense of proportion... or quantity. Chemistry is after all a quantitative science. For example: 100 ml of a properly diluted solution of sulphuric acid (say a 10% dilution) can't cause serious problems (where a gallon of drain cleaner can), and neither can, say, 1 tablespoon full (say 3 grams) of potassium perchlorate. With "serious problems" I mean problems for someone other than the experimenter. And as to fume hoods... how much fumes can you create when you work with small amounts of chemicals? In my childhood experiments I did have to run out of the room a few times, coughing, and I did inhale some HCL gas and chlorine gas... but due to the fact that I was using small amounts of chemicals (never more than half a teaspoon) that never was a serious problem, and it most certainly didn't have a negative influence on my health. If anything... it taught me respect for chemicals.
As long as you wear goggles to prevent anything from getting into your eyes (this is something you can teach in schools), and you have a quick and safe getaway planned... I feel that amateur scientists should be ok with diluted and/or small amounts of chemicals. Even caustic ones. Even without proper training, and without formal safety procedures.
Shouldn't people be educated to recognise what's really dangerous?
And as to glassware (erlenmeyers coming with mandatory registration) I would agree with the article that it's way over the top. To quote from the article: ""A lot of retailers are scared to carry a real chemistry set now because of liability concerns," McGuire explains. "The stuff under your kitchen sink is far more dangerous than the things in our kits, but put the word chemistry on something and people become terrified.""
Summary and conclusion
I feel that you can be too cautious, and that caution should never spill over into hysteria, especially uneducated hysteria. The whole atmosphere strongly reminds me of how witchcraft was portrayed in the Middle Ages. People didn't know, didn't have a perspective, but just knew that they were terrified.
Personally I feel that making chemicals available from apothecaries in gram amounts for amateur science (with sales only to adults, registration identical to medicine registration, and an automatic waiver of responsability for the dispensing chemist or kit manufacturer) is a good option and safe enough. You won't be able to make suitable explosives for terrorist attacks with gram amounts of chemicals sold in chemistry kits, but you can with a truckload of fertiliser.
Slashdot Mirror
The pdf file referred to in the article is authored by the "The first amendment project" (I hadn't heard of them before), and refers to a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" (NPRM). I believe that there are probably lots of NPRM's that never make it into any sort of bill that is to be submitted to the House or the Senate.
Now while I can believe that some people in the current administration would entertain such thoughts, any such proposal would have to pass both the House and the Senate, and somehow I just can't see that happening.
In addition there are doubts about whether it's contitutional to bar people from travelling abroad unless authorised to by the government, so that any such laws will be open to challenge in a New-York minute.
Most scientists learn early on in their career to assess the informativenes, credibility and dependability of their sources. Sometimes sources such as newspaper articles, popular magazines highlighting an issue, television programmes covering a particular topic can be used to give you ideas and to serve as a source of things to add to your list of "things to investigate", but rarely (except in historical or political research) as source of raw data or as an authoritative opinion.
Autoritative opinion
Now what is an authoritative (scientific) opinion? I agree with the posters earlier in this thread that it's a considered opinion from someone that you know has mastered the field, who is schooled in and committed to the scientific methodology used in that field, and who is prepared to go on record for that opinion. I.e. that opinion is published among everyone who works in the field under his name and if that opinion is wrong you'll know which individual was wrong.
Tracing ideas and opinions
This means that whoever wrote that opinion cannot (ever) be allowed to change the original publication. There may be debates in which the original author may or may not change his mind, and retract or amend his opinion. But the original author can only ever do this in the form of a new publication, lets call it [Authorname (YYYY) Title 2], in which he can then write "In [Authorname (YYYY) Title 1] I said this, but in the light of developments xyz, additional data abc, and/or further thought I now think such-and-such". This is what happens in scientific journals. Despite all debates and changes of opinion that may follow, the article [Authorname (YYYY) Title 1] remains archived for further reference, comments, study, and sometimes as an example of what pitfalls to avoid. Scientists are only human after all ... but all their colleagues and students can read the entire (unedited) debate and then make up their own mind.
The value of peer reviewed journals
Most autoritative scientific (and technical) journals are peer-reviewed. So what is peer-review? Peer review is when person abc things he's got something good to report and sends it to a journal. The journal editor figures out who else is working in the field to which the article relates and sends it to those other people before any decision is taken to publish it. They read the article and give their opinion about a number of aspects:
(1)- is the question addressed in the article well-defined? Does it use generally accepted theory and concepts with which to state the problem? If not, why not?
(2)- has the author done a thorough review of the existing literature that deals with this area, and has he either pointed out an error, a weakness or a gap (complete lack of coverage) in the literature?
(3)- is the methodology used valid? Is statistical methods were used are they appropriate and correct?
(4)- is the data used to support the conclusions used relevant? Can somethinf be said about whether the data is valid?
(5)- is the reasoning made sufficiently explicit and is it correct and valid?
(6)- are the conclusions supported by the work described in the article?
Questions such as an expert in the field under consideration should be able to answer. The editor receives the reviews, reads them, andthe ndecides whether or not to accept the original article for publication, to reject it outright, or to have the original author patch up the more serious problems and try again. Pee
Yes and no, but you missed the point completely.
If you are looking for something by _functionality_ you can't use a conventional search engine bu you'll have to use your brain for that, in other words you'll have to search for it by going through an inventory of things that are likely to be of use and to decide if any of them can be used. The more you can narrow that down the better. That could be in terms of directories or in terms of a virtual 3-D world. Both would do the job. Alternatively you could remember the name of the utensil you are looking for and then use a search engine to find it.
However to know _where_ to look ... without needing to look it up, or to dig up the name of this utensil a virtual 3-D environment connects to primitives in your brain that simply aren't there for folders. That's the point.
It could be that you aren't convinced of the advantage of using the 3-D circuitry of your brain, but just for your information, one of the exercises for people who want to train their memory is to imagine a house with rooms in the house and drawers in the rooms and items in the drawers. It's quite hard to do when you have to *imagine* the whole house with drawers, but it's relatively easy to do when you actually see this house (wheter in reality or in a virtual 3-D environment). It's just how people's brains are put together (yours too) whether you like it or not.
There is the kitchen, the living room, the study, the bathroon, the bedroom, perhaps a cellar, maybe an attic, and the garage.
Now think of all the cupboards you have in each room ... from kitchen to garage, and then think of all the different objects you have somewhere in those cupboards. Say that you have perhaps 20-odd cupboards in total. Now I bet you have a fair idea of what's in each of those cupboards.
Now suppose I asked you to find: something to clip your toenails, something to saw a piece off a broomstick, and something to hold a hot dish from the oven.
Chances are that you know if you possess a dedicated toenail clipper, where to look for it if you do, and that you'll look for a good pair of scissors if you don't possess a dedicated toenail clipper. And you probably wouldn't look in the cellar or the attic for it. Same thing for something to saw a piece off a broomstick. You probably wouldn't look in the bathroom (unless that's where you left your toolkit).
My point is that you are able to organise a large amount of information in your own head, and retrieve it very efficiently in this 3-D environment called your home.
Now imagine that you had this virtual home. You also have a conventional search-engine for that home, but it will look only for specific objects.
Now I have formulated my questions so that you won't be able to directly use a search engine ... you have associate the object with the functionality first, only then can you let a conventional search-engine look for it. But that first step requires quite a lot of knowledge on your part. In your home you would probably know immediately, but in a filing cabinet or on your hard-disk??
And even if you didn't know whether you had something that could be used to perform a specific service, you could go into a room and ... rummage for something that would do the job since you would tend to place things with the same characteristics in groups.
And now think of how much you know about the neighbourhood where you live, and perhaps the city you live in. And how easily you can learn and remember the same sort of information for a *new* city or a new home.
In short, I think that you can store and retrieve more information much more easily and effectively in terms of this virtual 3-D environment than in an ordinary set of folders.
After all ... the secret of a good interface isn't that it's efficient for the computer, it's that it's efficient for us.
Remember that we're all descendents of monkeys who depended for their survival on being able to remember where the ripe fruit hung, where the edible roots were, and where they could expect to find some suitable animal to eat, which routes were safe and which not ... etc. etc.. This amounts to lots and lots of information, all organised in a 3-D frame and accessible on demand. How can we possibly learn and remember that much information with such ease? Well ... we all have the facility to do this sort of thing hardwired in.
So why not use this strength?
That's why I would like to have a virtual office in addition to my ordinary computer.
Let me explain this first. Spamgourmet is an organistion that allows you to give out limited-use email aliases of the form anyname.n.yourname@spamgourmet.com.
-Anyname can be any alphanumerical string (i don't know how long, but be sensible).
-n stands for the number of emails that will be relayed to your own email account (called the "protected account").
-yourname is the alias you gave Spamgourmet to link to your real, protected, email address.
Spamgourmet keeps a counter for each email address. After the counter has hit "n", any further emails are redirected to dev/null. So in the above address to e360Insight I will receive at most 3 emails, after which everything is consigned to the bit-bucket. Neat eh?
Open letter to E360Insight
Dear Sirs,
It may have escaped your notice that your reasoning that somehow US courts would have jurisdiction over the _compilation_ of spammer-block-lists is at fault, as Spamhaus is a UK based organisation and as such immune from US laws (except for such acts as it commits in venues under US jurisdiction). For that reason the proper venue for binging lawsuits agains Spamhaus for _compilation_ of their spam-block-list is the UK.
I would further like to call your attention to the fact that Spamhaus as such does not, in any way or description, block or censor emails. This is an inaccuracy on your part. Spamhaus merely holds available, and distributes on demand, lists of domains and IP addresses that, on the balance of probability, belong to, are under the control of, or fail to take reasonable precautions against, senders of unsollicited bulk email. Spammers in short. It is then up to the system administrators of organisations and/or ISP's to actually block or flag such email. Therefore the proper defendants who are subject to US laws in your case would be the system administrators of individual ISP's or organisations who block your emails or even individual Internet users who _authorise_ their ISP to apply email blocking technology.
I view the phenomenon of unsollicted commercial email (spam) in itself a form of theft since it uses a disproportionate amount of bandwidth and infrastructure (that I pay for through connection fees to my ISP) without proper compensation, and effectively renders unprotected individual email accounts unusable by deluging them with spam. I hope you agree.
Given the awful volume of spam clogging the Internet I consider it unreasonable for organisations that collate spam blocklists, system administrators who use such blocklists, or users who authorise their ISP to use automatic spam filtering technology, to give any possible spammer the benefit of the doubt. Given the known fact that all spammers attempt to disguise their activities, assume a patina of legitimacy, use unprotected email relays, or otherwise attempt to bypass blocking measures, servers and IP addresses must simply be blocked upon a "balance of probability" or "reasonable suspicion". If not this creates an opportunity for abuse that spammers can drive a truck through (or, as is more likely, a load of spam). Unfortunately it would seem that in your case the "balance of probability" does not come down in your favour.
In addition it is my considered opinion that this purely pragmatic consideration trumps all and any "freedom of speech" arguments that one hears against proper filtering. Concerning your freedom of speech argument, I as an Internet user, am perfectly happy not to receive any commercial emails (bona-fide or otherwise), I have absolutely no difficulties with bona-fide commercial emails being inadvertantly blocked, and I am happy to authorise my ISP to block or flag any email that even remotely resembles spam (even if there should be false positives). If I miss an important email (unlikely) I will take steps with my ISP. If I want informat
Just imagine what would happen if word of this ever got out ... the sniggering, the laughter ... the disrespect ... the loss of credibility. Imagine how the French would ridicule us if they knew. Now estimate how much this could cost in lost contracts and in Political Capital. Political Capital that is needed more than ever to combat Terrorism.
I propose an immediate news blackout and containment of all persons involved. This story cannot be allowed to leak out.
Previously there have been some trial balloons by the Airforce (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,13 45460,00.html and http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /higher_ground_040222.html) who really wanted to add "space warfare" to their portfolio, and now it's been enshrined in national policy.
Ensuring US superiority in space ... that's what the new policy boils down to.
I just wonder what the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians the Brazilians, the Japanese, and the Europeans are going to think of it. Will they agree to US space superiority or might they perhaps start space weaponisation programs of their own?
And what about the cost? Could it be that in the long run it will cost the US less to secure its national interests by aiming for parity and a reasonable deterrent instead of starting yet another arms race in search of superiority? I wonder.
I'll say one thing for the current administration ... if there is even a remote chance of turning a conflict on interest into a real conflict they can be relied on to identify it and steer that way.
There is no sense in complaining about it since the whole US legal system happens to be designed to protect people's freedoms (such as the one to trade other people's identity information) from the snap judgement of their fellow man, especially when those freedoms are unpopular. And as we all know it's common business practice to disregard most "moral" considerations in the pursuit of revenues. Of course there is always the possibility of those revenues being affected by the backlash of being unpopular, but the decision criterion is always revenue, never morals or ethics. So impopularity only works if the backlash is large enough and inescapable enough. And that only for as long as the costs outweigh the benefits.
Which it probably won't be of course ... there are far too many issues clamouring for everyone's attention to guarantee that anyone who doesn't devote his whole spare time (or even his whole life) to being angry and upset about this or that abuse or scandal just won't have the time to much of an effective force. A handful of grumblers won't matter, but one powerful grumbler does. From the article it's interesting to see that when an individual complains to this company to have his own information removed, he is ignored. When HP complains, the information is taken down pronto. A clear case of cost-benefit tradeoff: an individual's ire (he hasn't got rights, but he might make a nuisance of himself) doesn't count for much. A large company's ire (they don't have any rights either, but they can afford a battery of lawyers to make life difficult for you) is something to be taken very seriously. Elementary economics.
Therefore, as I see it, new legislation is the only way to stop this sort of thing. Personally I would be in favour of legislation stating that you and you alone "own" your identity data, and that no-one (especially no companies) may hold or store any piece of it without your permission, and that they are obliged by law to fully disclose all information they hold on you upon first request, and that they are obligated to allow you to correct any information they hold on you, say within 20 business days. All of this enforceable on pain of say a 1000$ fine per case.
That would be too bad for companies that make a living from trading information, but I happen to rank my privacy over their survival and I wouldn't mind seeing them go.
The point is of course that the majority doesn't seem to support any such law. So unless there is enough political will to enact some legislation to protect our identity information from being sold it's no use grumbling. Unless you manage to grumble loudly enough to make an impact of course.
From this publication I get the impression that Listeria isn't the focus of hygiene in raw meat products, and that the main problems are Eschirichia Coli (the bacteria we all carry in our intestines) and Salmonella.
So perhaps a Listeria spray will not affect the standards of safety and hygiene as those might be driven by the need to keep the counts for E. Coli and Salmonella down. Therefore it could be that I was too hasty in my earlier criticism.
The authors of that webpage note that development of resistance can be countered by changing the phages. This means that whoever produces that Listeria killer would have to keep changing it.
It also states that bacteriophages are extremely bacterium-specific. Therefore I conjecture that we may see a mutant strain, or possibly another bacteria altogether, profit from the ecological niche created by the absence of Listeria and the (I feel) to-be-expected drop in hygienic standards and quaity control.
For a description of how bacteria swap genetic material, see: http://www.slic2.wsu.edu:82/hurlbert/micro101/page s/Chap9.html
I consider this a very mixed blessing for the following reasons:
- it substitutes "spray and forget" for good hygiene and quality control for food. Bluntly speaking it provides meat vendors with more leeway to get away with poor quality control, poor hygiene and meat that's too old because it takes away some of the bacteria. Economic pressure being what it is, there will be vendors who will take advantage of this and who will then have a competitive advantage over vendors that *do* pay attention to proper hygiene and quality control
- it proposes to launch an enormously broad application of this bacterium-killing virus when only a select target group (mentioned in the article) needs it. When meat leftovers containing this virus are disposed of, they will spread this virus throughout compost heaps and perhaps even into sewage sludge, providing a great opportunity for billions of bacteria to encounter this virus in great dilution under a variety of conditions. Who is willing to bet that no bacteria will develop immunity? In this closely resembles the same irresponsible attitude that was a the bottom of the American habit to prescribe Penicillin indiscriminately for everything from coughs, colds, to sprained ankles. A habit that led directly to the emergence of the current nasty strains antibiotic-resistant bacteria (MRSA comes to mind).
- there are no safeguards against the emergence of a new strain of Listeria that might develop and that is resistant to this particular virus.
- bacteria live in an ecosystem with competitive pressures. If you remove one bacterium (Listeria) you create an open invitation for any bacterium that isn't targeted by this specific virus. What are the chances that we will be surprised by a newspaper article decrying the death of 100 elderly because they had (sprayed) luncheon meat in which very rare but virus-immune bacteria had developed (and had chance to develop because standards of hygiene went down and the meat was kept out of the fridge for say 24 hours)
In summary I am pessimistic about applying this virus on a grand scale:
- it's a sizeable intervention that isn't really needed, because with proper hygiene and fresh produce you will not have difficulties for ordinary healthy people, and those with a weakened immune system or special vulnerabilities can simply take special care.
- due to its intended broad and indiscriminate application, there are no safeguards whatsoever against this novel anti-bacterial weapon not being blunted by allowing billions of bacteria to encounter in in great dilution, develop immunity, and pass that immunity on to their colleagues (which is a known mechanism in bacteria).
- it only seems to benefit the producers of this virus by creating competitive pressures to use it if your competitor does so too (which is of course their good right, but not necessarily beneficial for society as a whole)
I don't need to spend my time with Microsoft's beta releases (there's no critical need in my work that they address), and I'll see it when it's fully released and my employer's IT department rolls it out. So ... what's in it for me?
And on my home machine I don't have Office ... I'm happily using Open Office. No hassle with licenses, it's free, and it runs on both Linux and Windows.
So err ... to me this is a bit of a non-event really. How about you?
Why? Because even if governments adhere to what we might call the "industry-average in mindless stupidity" governments can cause far more damage than most industries. From the article:
"Q: What kind of impact would it have for a flying individual to be named in an SDR?
A: That could have serious impact ... They could be placed on a watch list. They could wind up on databases that identify them as potential terrorists or a threat to an aircraft. It could be very serious," said Don Strange, a former agent in charge of air marshals in Atlanta. He lost his job attempting to change policies inside the agency."
Ok, this former agent lost his job because he tried to change policies inside the agency. Anyone want to bet this was over SDR quota? And what other enlightened "policies" are in effect? And yes ... such things will stick around ... if only because it's a bit hard to shop around for alternative governments.
Ok ... so putting someone's name in an SDR has potentially serious consequences for that person. Add to this the (probably MBA-driven) desire for "quantifiable targets" and see the result. From the article "Although the agency strongly denies any presence of a quota system, Las Vegas-based air marshals have produced documents that show their performance review is directly linked to producing SDRs.".
Great ... just great. That leaves us with only one option ... don't fly near the end of the month.
Having said that, I am trying to understand whether the horror-scenario you sketch is the one that actually happened, and to be frank I am totally skeptical. I cannot think of any motive for the EU to deliberately allow Microsoft to produce documentation that is useless. Ordinary everyday incompetence on part of the EU, yes (the EU are a Government organisation after all ...) but not sabotage. And ... forgive me if I repeat myself from previous posts, but Microsoft was charged with producing a specific result, and not with sticking to a format or a process. Can it not be blamed for trying to take advantage of the EU's (apparent) incompetence in assessing the technical documentation as an excuse not to have to deliver?
Since the correspondence between Microsoft and the EU will likely not be public, I am looking for different ways to get a handle on whether their claim is true. If you can give me any (verifiable) information I would be happy to study it.
Circular reasoning on my part to decide "Microsoft is Evil"? If I did commit circular reasoning, then I retract that part of what I said. I do admit that my previous post seems a bit disorganised. Sorry about that, I'll do better. However I didn't mean to commit circular reasoning, and frankly I don''t think I did. My argument has two parts: first arguing that Microsoft is inherently untrustworthy, second combining that with the motive they have to err ... present the facts as other than they really are.
I mean that I believe that, given Microsoft's conduct in court cases over the past 10 years, we have excellent cause to be distrustful of Microsoft's good intentions. Why? I base that on:
- the material presented at this http://www.kmfms.com/whatsbad.html#deception site. a)the doctored video(s) that Microsoft presented, purportedly showing the "crash" of MS Windows after Explorer was removed. I think that any ordinary person who pulled a stunt like that would have faced prosecution for perjury. For some reason Microsoft didn't suffer any comparable penalty b)Microsoft going back on the promise to support JAVA when it needed people to believe that Microsoft would in fact support Java c)Bill Gates' claim that Windows doesn't have bugs in an interview with FOCUS. If Allchin was aware of the problems with Windows message queues, then Gates would have been to. He simply told untruths. d)Microsoft's misleading claims regarding the security of it's passport service.
- Microsoft's use of astroturfing (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing). "In 2001, the Los Angeles Times accused Microsoft of astroturfing when hundreds of similar letters were sent to newspapers voicing disagreement with the United States Department of Justice and its antitrust suit against Microsoft. The letters, prepared by Americans for Technology Leadership, had in some cases been mailed from deceased citizens or nonexistent addresses. [3] " According to this article, Microsoft actually sent letters of support with the address of (among others) of deceased citizins, which clearly proves that the letters were in fact written by Microsoft and posted under other names.
- Microft's deceit (again) by astroturfing (see http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/st
Microsoft's side: a camera's view
I did try to read the reports, but the main themes in them seemed to be:
(1) it's industry standard to have incomplete documentation for something as complicated as that, so Microsoft complied by providing incomplete docs (Broy)
(2) such docs are aimed at specialists anyway, so only people with lots of background knowledge about Windows architecture, and Windows networking will be able to read and use them (Broy)
(3) Barnett asked for silly things and made mistakes (Broy)
(4) Barnett based his opinion on the documentation delivered by October 2005, and there was an update (Broy)
(5) Barnett used the documentation to try and figure out how to do two things: (a) add a user, and (b) propagate a password change (Finkelstein)
Damaging criticism for certain, but of course these reports were written to highlight Microsoft's point of view.
With all respect, but when you read e.g. SCO's pleading without being aware of their context you'd think that they had a point ... and a case. Then when you read Groklaw's comments and IBM's pleadings, you see how wrong you were. Reports like this are like camera's: they show you exactly what they show you, but you have no idea what they skirt. Microsoft does seem to have legitimate gripes, and I tried to find the original trustee report to see for myself, but I couldn't. So could you please tell me where I can find the trustee report so that I can verify the criticism?
But for me the bottom line is that Microsoft choose to describe their protocols in words. Text. Nowadays there are better ways of doing that.
FSFE's take on the matter
The FSFE gives a pertinent suggestio. See this link for FSFE's take on the matter: http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-relea se/2006q2/000137.html
They state that Andrew Tridgell (of Samba) estimated that Microsoft's protocols can be described in about 30,000 lines of IDL (Interface Definition Language), of which Samba has deciphered about 13,000 lines.
If what they claim is true (and I admit I can't judge that), then Microsoft could have delivered the entire interface specification in just 30,000 lines of formal description, and simply and deliberately choose the most inefficient method of documentation possible. In that sense directing a major effort at producing text-only documentation could just as well be seen as a major effort to pass the compliance test without actually producing any useful documentation. In other words the "written primarily to maximize volume (page count) while minimizing useful information." accusation by Taeus comes to mind.
Summing up
I'm sorry, but again given Microsoft's track record where it concerns honesty and fair dealing, and its ongoing insistence on providing "solutions" that exclude Opens Source competitors, it's hard not to lend credence to the claims by the FSFE and Taeus. Notwithstanding the reports from admittedly reputable experts provided at Microsoft's behest, which uniformly tend to take the position that protocol documentation can only mean giving dedicated experts a few clues about where to look, I remain deeply sceptical.
The Commission ordered Microsoft to produce "documentation" that's sufficient to allow others to produce intereoperable software, not how. If Microsoft chose to provide terribly voluminous and inefficient documentation, an obfuscation exercise in its own right, then I cannot see why this would excuse Microsoft from providing error-free and self-standing documentation (even though th
Well ... I'm happy to see what might actually be a response with inside knowledge. However ... first of all I'm afraid that, given its public record in the area of "honesty" and "fair dealing", Microsoft is facing rather serious credibility challenge here.
Could it really be that bad?
So ... are we to understand that Microsoft really had no documentation of its main client-server interaction protocol (whether API or protocol description) that it could use to produce documentation for the EU? Do you really expect us to believe that?
Well ... sadly enough we might, because we remember the efforts by Jim Allchin to put Microsoft's Windows development on a more systematic footing (see: http://asay.blogspot.com/2005/09/news-microsoft-ad mits-its-development.html). So if that holds for Windows development as a whole, then might it not hold as well for something like a communication protocol? *shrugs* Ok ... I give up. It might be that Microsoft as a company really hadn't got a clue what it's most important client-server communication protocol looks like. So ... yes. If you had to dig through mountains of Windows source code to figure out all instances where client-server interaction can occur (because you don't have a clue really) it could take a lot of time. But even if that were so, why didn't Microsoft warn the EU that it wouln't be able to finish withing the alotted time? Perhaps that is why it got the extra year to complete its documentation. But even so why keep mum and come up with hollow-sounding excuses about "formats" at the latest possible time? Could it be that whoever was in charge of this project didn't know how to manage it?
Unfortunately the choice seems to be between
(a) downright incompetence (the project manager in charge of producing the documentation couldn't count and couldn't read a calender)
(b) the problem was too big (we ain't got no docs anywhere boss, honest, only source), or
(c) stonewalling.
Forgive me for being just the tiniest bit sceptical of Microsoft's good intentions and good faith (with Microsoft's long history of outright chicanery in mind whenever things didn't suit them).
So ... the EU caused Microsoft to miss its delivery target for Windows?
And please ... if your company had to actually interrupt its work on Vista to introduce disciplined software engineering, do you really expect me to lend credence to claims that delays in Vista delivery aren't 100% self-inflicted? And all those vanishing features ... caused by the EU's interference as well, yes? I'm sorry, but if you're saying that Microsoft really didn't have its act together when it comes to software engineering, it's very hard for me to lend credence to any claims that the EU's requirements has cause Vista to be delayed by even a single day.
Formats as fig-leaves?
And secondly ... sorry if I sound a bit grumpy, but this "now that we have an idea what format the EU wants" sounds like a poor cop-out. What do you care what format the EU wants? They specified an effect, not a procedure. They didn't specify a format in order not to impose undue constraints on you. If other developers can use your specs to produce something that will be intereoperable, the EU is satisfied. And sorry but if you knew your business, you ought to know what a workable specification looks like. So pushing the EU for a precise definition seems either:
- fishing for an excuse to produce unworkable documentation ("we
Demand for trade-secrets to be compromised?
I respectfully disagree. The EU made it clear that they do not *want* any source-code. They want an API specification: (here I quote from the EU decision of 2004).
(see http://news.com.com/EUs+statement+on+end+of+Micros oft+investigation/2100-1014_3-5178465.html?tag=nl) So: no source code. Furthermore I really don't understand how publishing an API specification would disclose trade secrets.
Unclarity?
And besides, what part of (here I quote from the EU decision of 2004):
(see http://news.com.com/EUs+statement+on+end+of+Micros oft+investigation/2100-1014_3-5178465.html?tag=nl) is hard to understand and what part is unclear? I just don't see it.
A good-faith attempt?
Again I have to disagree. Prof. Neil Barrett (proposed as a monitoring trustee by Microsoft itself) characterised the documentation as: "entirely inadequate" (see http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/03/11/eu_ms_res ponse/). I absolutely cannot believe that Microsoft, with all its software engineers, would be incapable of documenting their own communication protocol if they put their mind to it. Or alternatively recognising that they couldn't do it in short order and saying as much.
Err ... significant? In what respect? Again I point to the statement by Barrett that the documentation was "entirely inadequate". But it gets better. The commission also quotes from an independent analysis of Microsoft's protocol documentation conducted by Taeus (see http://www.taeus.com/ for general information on this company).
I feel that the above two statements destroy the theory that that Microsoft made a good-faith attempt at documentation. And as to the meaning of the EU's request being uncle
As I see it, the EU is telling Microsoft:
"Ok, Microsoft you had your chance to document your API's two years ago as you were told to, but instead you chose to try and mess with us and we just don't believe you when you said you made an honest effort to comply. So here is your fine. If you think you are going to appeal your way out of this ... good luck to you. Now we know that you are working to better your lives, and we want your compliance more than your money, so we won't hurt you as much as we could have. We actually want you to do business in the EU, and for that reason we will go easy on you this time. Only ... if you think you can make a fool of us again, prepare for fines that *are* hurtful."
There are worse attitudes I suppose.
After all both the House and the Senate rejected the idea of enacting regulating to enforce net-neutrality. That at least documents the intention of the law-givers to let telco's charge any which way they want. Net-neutrality supporters (including myself) simply lost that case.
As I understand it (but someone knowledgeable please correct me if needed) anti-trust legislation only applies if you can prove that a market party (a) abuses its market position to stifle competition and that (b) it harms customers in doing so. Afaik it does not protect competitors or cuctomers per se ... it protects competition, but only if you can *prove* that the market isn't functioning. Now that might take some doing.
After all, with the possibility of Telco's introducing a tiered internet by citing overcrowding, then introducing premium service, and "allowing" content suppliers to pick up part of the tab for premium service, where are the hurt customers? Sure ... the Internet got changed aways from a utility to a bottled-water selling operation. But telco's seem to be able to construct their new pricing schemes in ways in which they can argue that in order to deal with burgeoning demand for data-transport they can't be expected to meet demand across the board, so they are letting the market do its work ... by offering premium service. And how are they to blame if this also turns out to be financially interesting for them? Telco's weren't born yesterday.
All in all, I fear that there would be slim legal grounds for objections.
What I do see is (potentially) a little bad publicity for the US laissez-faire approach. After all ... in Europe telcoms seems to be fairly strictly regulated, even if in some places they separated the *infrastructure* suppliers (structured as pure utility companies) from *service* providers (ISP's). Yet they do seem capable of supplying a wide (if not total) broadband coverage at modest prices. Without two-tier nonsense.
Remember that admiral Poindexter with his Total Information Awareness (TIA) programme? It looks as if his ideas have been implemented from the first to the last. Links: http://www.p2pnet.net/issue03/page1.html and http://www.p2pnet.net/issue05/page1.html
Well you have a point. People will use such tools. I use Latex too, but I hate it. I have been using Scientific Word just to get away from the messy syntax. But this applies only to a fairly small subset of authors: typically Physicists, Electronics Engineers, Statisticians, and Mathematicians. I haven't seen many chemists or biologists publish in Latex.
According to the Nature articles you refer to, in the special case of bioinformatics, and research on genomics and experiments using microarrays the amount of information needed to describe an experiment and its results seems to be so large that you would actually save time and effort by specifying what you did in a formal language. There would seem to be a net benefit in using the formal specification of your experiment for colleagues and reviewers, even when compared to the amount of time and effort needed to (a) define the ontologies and (b) learn how to use them, and (c) actually code your experiment up in those terms. Ok, I had no idead.
I think that I will stick to my earlier point however as regards experiments that don't require large amounts of data to describe, and don't generate vast amounts of relevant data. In fact, most experiments in the literature would fall in this category I feel. In those cases the effort of setting up ontologies (and standardising them!) and then using intuitively seems to outweigh the advantages (at least for authors).
In addition see the interesting comment by radtea (see below) in which he points out a philosophical problem with the ontologies mentioned (and a notion that I found echoed in the first article you refer to: there are many many ways to take raw observations and categorise them.
See radtea's example of finding an unambiguous definition of "granite". If you thought you were going to work around this by listing the actual chemical composition of the rocks, I'm afraid that you'd be disappointed. You can't determine that in the field I think (and no, I'm not a geologist either), so what is or is not "granite" is an expert judgement. So you raw data are going to be "expert judgements" (as in " is this granite or not?"). You would face the problem of standardising your terminology across field teams first, and then the problem of how to come up with a rigorous, unambiguous, and internationally standardised definition. I don't see that happening very soon.
But lets assume that we limit ourselves to experiments that contain no "expert judgement" values, just machine readings. Even then for the ontologies to catch on, you would need a clear incentive for the authors. Being easily retrievable is such an incentive, but is it strong enough to overcome inertia and the required additional effort? The cost/benefit ratio of formalisation would depend on the field I guess. So until we have point-and-click software with which to encode our experiments I remain pessimistic.
Others have already commented on the lack of clarity, the need to read between the lines, the absence of the most elementary numbers and facts about this "study" (as in: how many respondents, how recruited, how many rejected and why, how was uptime defined and measured, what were the uptime numbers, (contingency table by OS this year, contingency table by OS previous year)).
If any students read this, let me take this opportunity to warn you. Submit a "report" like this to any serious faculty and look forward to an F grade. Unless you're a "Communications Major" obviously, in which case you'll be complimented on the flow of your prose.).
I'm guessing here of course, but I think that the real study was conducted and written by someone totally different, and miss Didio got the write the "teaser": i.e. the part that you can release without divulging any real information that you would otherwise be required to pay for.
What is it?
EXPO is a piece of software (written in a formal language called "owl", but they didn't tell you that), which provides a formal dictionary especially for experiments. The terms in this dictionary let you describe your experiment in a formal way. That's a bit messy, but then you're supposed to use an editor to help you. An editor for this language (called "protégé")can be fund at http://protege.stanford.edu/index.html. Download it (61 Mb., or 31 Mb. without the JVM) and use it to read the EXPO document.
What's it good for (in principle)?
Once an experiment is decribed in the OWL language using this dictionary, it can be searched automatically. You could automate queries such as "list me all published 3-factor experiments that test Ohm's law". Or "give me all 2-factor experiments that deal with lung-cancer, smoking, and gender and that use tomography as a diagnostic instrument".
Now at the moment you can do that too, but you'd have to spend quite a bit of time and know quite a bit about the field to be able to do this because you won't be able to do a full-text search (thanks to the publishers of scientific journals for this). And then you'd find that not everyone uses the same terms, and then you'll find only English-language results because you wouldn't know how to spell "lung-cancer" or "2-factor experiment" in Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese or whatever, but then again neither can many foreign language authors spell it in English (which doesn't ever seem to stop them from publishing however).
Such a schema (provided it's universal and standardised like the Dewey decimal system) would allow you to find your way in the fog of language. Unfortunately however, if anything we will probably see lots and lots of different standards ("standards are good ... we should all have one !") and properietary solutions with "enhancements" and "extensions" (read safeguards against portability).
What can we expect in the next 3 years?
Nothing useful, I'm afraid. In theory it's great but don't hold your breath. Any author would have to download an OWL editor, understand the editor, understand the formal language used, and then code up his/her article in OWL using the EXPO distionary, and submit it (in electronic form) along with his article. Good luck to you authors! Lets just hope no-one makes any tiny but significant mistake in describing their experiment, and that all authors take the time to learn this formal language and then use it.
If within the nect 10 years any significant amount (say more than 5% of all publications) annually will be coded in such a schema I'd be more than surprised.
Mr. Underbridge certainly has a valid point
I would say that Mr. Underbridge is quite correct in stating that some of the chemicals mentioned in the article are genuinely dangerous (e.g. powdered Aluminium, Potassium perchlorate), and should not be used or stocked in homes. Especially in quantities larger than you can fit in a teaspoon. But so is a pound of gunpowder, so is drain cleaner, so is a gallon of gasoline, and so are firearms.
But it's not the whole story I would say
However I would submit that the amount of and concentration of the chemicals used is (in most cases) much more relevant than the type of chemical. Certainly where it concerns strong oxidizers (perchlorate, nitrate) and chemicals with a high energy content that are easily oxidised (e.g. metallic aluminium), strong acids (undiluted sulphuric acid, concentrated nitric acid, etc.).
The importance of quantity and concentration
What I really miss from the discussion is a sense of proportion ... or quantity. Chemistry is after all a quantitative science. For example: 100 ml of a properly diluted solution of sulphuric acid (say a 10% dilution) can't cause serious problems (where a gallon of drain cleaner can), and neither can, say, 1 tablespoon full (say 3 grams) of potassium perchlorate. With "serious problems" I mean problems for someone other than the experimenter. And as to fume hoods ... how much fumes can you create when you work with small amounts of chemicals? In my childhood experiments I did have to run out of the room a few times, coughing, and I did inhale some HCL gas and chlorine gas ... but due to the fact that I was using small amounts of chemicals (never more than half a teaspoon) that never was a serious problem, and it most certainly didn't have a negative influence on my health. If anything ... it taught me respect for chemicals.
As long as you wear goggles to prevent anything from getting into your eyes (this is something you can teach in schools), and you have a quick and safe getaway planned ... I feel that amateur scientists should be ok with diluted and/or small amounts of chemicals. Even caustic ones. Even without proper training, and without formal safety procedures.
Shouldn't people be educated to recognise what's really dangerous?
And as to glassware (erlenmeyers coming with mandatory registration) I would agree with the article that it's way over the top. To quote from the article: ""A lot of retailers are scared to carry a real chemistry set now because of liability concerns," McGuire explains. "The stuff under your kitchen sink is far more dangerous than the things in our kits, but put the word chemistry on something and people become terrified.""
Summary and conclusion
I feel that you can be too cautious, and that caution should never spill over into hysteria, especially uneducated hysteria. The whole atmosphere strongly reminds me of how witchcraft was portrayed in the Middle Ages. People didn't know, didn't have a perspective, but just knew that they were terrified.
Personally I feel that making chemicals available from apothecaries in gram amounts for amateur science (with sales only to adults, registration identical to medicine registration, and an automatic waiver of responsability for the dispensing chemist or kit manufacturer) is a good option and safe enough. You won't be able to make suitable explosives for terrorist attacks with gram amounts of chemicals sold in chemistry kits, but you can with a truckload of fertiliser.
And serious