It's more a function of the fact that antibiotics attack a very definite metabolic activity that's vital for the bacterium to survive. The beta-lactams (think penicillin) interfere with the production of the peptidoglycan cell wall, whereas others interfere with bacterial protein synthesis. So, if the cell can come up with something to negate this attack (pumping the antibiotic out before it can do any damage, producing a protein that neutralizes the antibiotic) then it becomes resistant. On the contrary, something like bleach or alcohol massively disrupts the cell and kills it in a variety of ways all at once.
Unlikely. There's plenty of trace evidence he could leave behind that contains his native DNA--hair, skin cells, saliva, semen, probably. So if he was arrested for a crime, it would be a simple enough matter to test a hair sample, or do a cheek swab, which would yield his native DNA. It might create more grounds for reasonable doubt, because the presence of two different sets of DNA might increase the likelihood of contamination during testing. I think it's a stretch, though.
I'm not really clear what you're trying to argue here. It seems to me that whether you're talking about judging stero quality or artistic quality, there's going to be a large element of subjective bias (though I'd expect more for art than the audio gear--after all, if I hate portraits, I'm not likely to appreciate the Mona Lisa). Nonetheless, if the rater claims that there is a characteristic of 'quality' intrinsic to the items, then it stands to reason that if we brought large numbers of raters in, they'd be able to (with reasonable consistency) identify the superior item. On the other hand, if no intrinsic difference in quality exists, and the rater isn't told beforehand which item is supposed to be better, then we would expect preferences to be split more or less at random.
As to the question of single blind versus double blind, why would you say that a single blind "amplifies the significance"? In the case you present, the raters are blinded (they don't know the good items from the bad). A double blind would ensure that the presenters are also ignorant. In this case, though, the only measured variable is "proportion of raters choosing x as better than y"--the only way this would be influenced by the presenter's knowledge is if he gives off some indication that enables the raters to choose more accurately (like snickering when then show bad paintings). Therefore we'd expect the single blind case to suffer from more bias than the double, and therefore a lower 'signal to noise' ration.
Like I said, we obviously interpret the merit of his speech differently. You see somebody asking legitimate questions in a public forum, and I see the kid acting out. I'd point out that the kid apparently has a history of conducting public pranks, and that before he stood up to ask his question, he gave the girl sitting next to him his camera and said "make sure you get all this." As a result, I feel my initial assessment is accurate--the kid was goofing around, and the cops moved it to put a stop to it.
But even if we disagree on that point, you seem to be suggesting that a couple of boneheaded cops (over)reacting to this kid's rant is some kind of evil portent, as though this was some kind of government facism writ large. I, on the other hand, regard this as merely another example of cops being dicks. So maybe I'm just 'too far down the slope,' but it sounds to me like you just need to loosen up your tin foil hat a little.
I've gotta cry foul here. The taser boy had a chance to stand up and say his piece. Now, maybe we disagree on this, but from every video I've seen, he basically seems to be reciting a line, and although he does ask two questions, at no point does he pause to wait for any answers. After about two minutes of this, somebody signals the police to take the mic from him, he starts fighting, and from there it escalates.
Point is though, it wasn't about suppressing his speech, per say (UoF campus cops not exactly being the stormtroopers of the NWO); it was about quieting down somebody who was being inappropriately rowdy. If he'd stood up and asked whether the Senator thought Bush was in league with the Saucer Men, much the same thing would have happened, but nobody would be arguing that the kid's rights were violated.
Maybe it's just an editorial thing, but I'm sick of every new brain scanning technology or application thereof being headlined as 'mind reading.' We're quite a ways from the point where we can pull anything like a comprehensible, complete thought from someone's head--being able to monitor blood flow or track EEGs or whatever doesn't give you much more insight into what the person is really thinking than a polygraph machine would. So enough baseless hype, if you please.
You wanna know how to deal with bullies? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's how you deal with bullies. That's the *Chicago* way!
I doubt that anyone really JUST wants money--it's about as close as you can get to a pure means, as opposed to an end. What people really want are security, power, fancy toys, celebrity--all things that go along with sufficient cash. Even to your point: with Bill Gates' bank account, you could do a lot of good.
I don't claim to be an expert, but I've never heard about a suicide bomb rigged to the carrier's pulse. It seems it would be excessively complicated with pretty low return (because after all, how often do you hear about a bomber being shot before he could detonate himself?).
The dead man's switch, on the other hand, is perfectly plausible, but in that situation the cops can choose to not shoot and let the bomb go off, or shoot and hope that the bomb isn't on a dead man's switch. Tough to say what the individual might do in that case.
What are you, stupid? If you don't like the way airport security works, then do something productive about it: write letters, vote for candidates who have good security track records, maybe get a job in the TSA yourself to influence it positively. This might actually change things, as opposed to ranting in the face of some minimum-wage TSA screener like a maniac. Not that your way doesn't make for amusing headlines, it's just, you know, pointless.
So yeah, if I want change, I'll do something intelligent to make it happen, and in the meantime, I'll adhere to the well-defined and nigh-universally understood patterns of behavior that get me onto the plane without being strip searched, tasered, or held at gunpoint.
Seriously, could you shut the fuck up? Blah blah blah, Americans are stupid, Americans are racist, Americans don't have healthcare. But frankly, all countries, including yours, whatever it is, have their share of problems. And in your country, there are probably plenty of people trying to fix those problems who are frustrated when they can't make progress, just as there are here. How ignorant would I sound if I attributed the negative stereotypes of any nation to every one of its citizens? Does it occur to you that your kind of contemptuous attitude, writ large, just reinforces divisiness between America and other countries? Americans have a (probably deserved) reputation for arrogance, but comments such as yours show that we're not the only ones who could stand a little humility.
Don't bother replying; I'll just imagine you said something about how all Americans are fat, or stupid, or lazy. It'll be like reading your posts, but with less of my time wasted.
"The irony though is if she really had a bomb, how is pointing a gun at her going to help?"
Depends. If it's on a dead man's switch, killing her is a bad idea. Otherwise though, a few 9mm slugs in the brain could bring the situation to a relatively acceptable conclusion.
Also, different types of plastique are more resistant to physical trauma than others, so it's tough to assess how much abuse it might take to make it explode. One bullet? A barrage? Beats me.
Moreover, these are cops we're talking about. They're trained intently to point their guns at dangerous people. "When the only tool you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail," etc etc.
Are you kidding me? When I saw a picture of her, I almost wished the security folks had put her down as an act of mercy. Yee gods, I think I need to go find some alka seltzer...
Was swarming the girl with MP5s overreaction? Yeah, probably. But airport security has always been on a hair trigger. Take, for example, the check in questions. No terrorist is going to admit, "Why, now that you mention it, I DO have a bomb in my luggage!", yet the screeners are required to ask, and if you respond with anything but a somber "no" you're likely to end up it trouble. So walking around an airport with something that the typical, ignorant layman mistakes for a bomb, and then refusing to say anything about it, is similarly likely to cause trouble.
Does it make anyone any safer? No, but this particular bit of institutional insanity should be well enough known by now that the girl could have responded in a more appropriate fashion.
I agree with you generally, but please, if they'd tased her, you know there'd be people posting on here right now about how the facist police state is just out to suppress free expression through art. You can't please all of the people all of the time, etc.
Is that same 'condition' responsible for the other practical jokes/stunts he advertises so openly on his website (www.theandrewmeyer.com, I believe it was)? Did schizophrenia cause him to hand his video camera to the girl next to him (who spoke to CNN about it after the fact) and saying "make sure you film everything."
While the 1% prevalence of schizophrenia is accurate, the only study I turned up in a quick search classified only about 35% of the enrolled schizophrenics as being of the paranoid subtype (Fenton et al., 1997). The bulk of patients with schizophrenia are dominated by negative symptoms (as opposed to the positive symptoms associated with paranoid subtype); they lie in bed all day, they're largely disconnected from reality. Not exactly what seems to be going on here.
As for his fear, well, if I was being manhandled by a pack of cops, and one of them started threatening to taser me, I'd be pretty freaked out, too. But I think it's a huge, huge stretch to claim serious mental illness here.
Without making any statement as to the overall appropriateness of the cops's behavior, it's pretty clear from the video that the four of them don't have his ass under control--after all, they wanted to cuff him, and his failure to cooperate was preventing them from doing so at the level of force they were using. Which is why they increased the level of force. In this case it was a taser, but it could just as easily have been a physical blow from either a hand or a nightstick. At this point, his resistance decreased to the point that they were able to control him, and he was cuffed and hauled off.
I thought as you did at first, but on a second reading it sounds more like the OP was suggesting that a sporulating fungus could be spread by the impact in the same way that spores of anthrax might--not that anthrax is actually a fungus itself. Sloppy writing--it'll get ya every time.
To the contrary, before Tasers were available, if a suspect was struggling, chances are pretty good the official police response was to beat him senseless.
The thing about Tasering is that it's a bit less nuanced than good ol' whuppin.' For example, a cop who is striking you with his fist can decide how hard to punch, where to hit you, whether to hit you multiple times, etc. A less resistant subject might only need a quick sock, or an arm bar, in order to be controlled; a more resistant subject might get beaten pretty badly with a night stick. The Taser, on the other hand, is usually pretty definitive. You get zapped, you stop struggling (usually).
So, are Tasers better than more physical means of controlling suspects? Depends. No doubt there are police agencies studying this even now.
Well, obviously different people are going to interpret the video in different ways, which will in turn determine whether they regard his behavior as inappropriate or not. I think we can agree, though, that there is a point where such behavior becomes sufficiently disruptive as to warrant putting a stop to it. The cops (or whoever dispatched them) felt that point had been reached. The problem is that the kid then made the decision to resist, which is never a good diea (particularly in the southern US--'Cool Hand Luke' must be required viewing for all cops below the Mason-Dixon line).
You're right. One person should be allowed to cause as much disruption as he wants without regard to the rest of the audience who might want a chance to ask their own questions. And it would have been so much better to give him a nice bop on the head with a nightstick, like in the old days. Or maybe just a few quick punches to loosen him up. And after that, they should have completely regarded due process--you know, the part of the legal system where they formally levy action against you, thus giving you the chance to seek legal redress in court for any inappropriate behavior.
And man, those UoF cops are TOTALLY fascist pigs just trying to crush resistance and maintan the status quo. Break out zee jackboots! Long live zee Floridian Reich!
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It's more a function of the fact that antibiotics attack a very definite metabolic activity that's vital for the bacterium to survive. The beta-lactams (think penicillin) interfere with the production of the peptidoglycan cell wall, whereas others interfere with bacterial protein synthesis. So, if the cell can come up with something to negate this attack (pumping the antibiotic out before it can do any damage, producing a protein that neutralizes the antibiotic) then it becomes resistant. On the contrary, something like bleach or alcohol massively disrupts the cell and kills it in a variety of ways all at once.
I like your fire analogy, though. Very apt.
Unlikely. There's plenty of trace evidence he could leave behind that contains his native DNA--hair, skin cells, saliva, semen, probably. So if he was arrested for a crime, it would be a simple enough matter to test a hair sample, or do a cheek swab, which would yield his native DNA. It might create more grounds for reasonable doubt, because the presence of two different sets of DNA might increase the likelihood of contamination during testing. I think it's a stretch, though.
I'm not really clear what you're trying to argue here. It seems to me that whether you're talking about judging stero quality or artistic quality, there's going to be a large element of subjective bias (though I'd expect more for art than the audio gear--after all, if I hate portraits, I'm not likely to appreciate the Mona Lisa). Nonetheless, if the rater claims that there is a characteristic of 'quality' intrinsic to the items, then it stands to reason that if we brought large numbers of raters in, they'd be able to (with reasonable consistency) identify the superior item. On the other hand, if no intrinsic difference in quality exists, and the rater isn't told beforehand which item is supposed to be better, then we would expect preferences to be split more or less at random.
As to the question of single blind versus double blind, why would you say that a single blind "amplifies the significance"? In the case you present, the raters are blinded (they don't know the good items from the bad). A double blind would ensure that the presenters are also ignorant. In this case, though, the only measured variable is "proportion of raters choosing x as better than y"--the only way this would be influenced by the presenter's knowledge is if he gives off some indication that enables the raters to choose more accurately (like snickering when then show bad paintings). Therefore we'd expect the single blind case to suffer from more bias than the double, and therefore a lower 'signal to noise' ration.
"Once again Dr. Jones, we see that there is nothing that you can possess which I cannot take away."
There was a photo of her up on Sony BMG's site, but then she realized that they had stolen her image and demanded that they remove it.
Like I said, we obviously interpret the merit of his speech differently. You see somebody asking legitimate questions in a public forum, and I see the kid acting out. I'd point out that the kid apparently has a history of conducting public pranks, and that before he stood up to ask his question, he gave the girl sitting next to him his camera and said "make sure you get all this." As a result, I feel my initial assessment is accurate--the kid was goofing around, and the cops moved it to put a stop to it.
But even if we disagree on that point, you seem to be suggesting that a couple of boneheaded cops (over)reacting to this kid's rant is some kind of evil portent, as though this was some kind of government facism writ large. I, on the other hand, regard this as merely another example of cops being dicks. So maybe I'm just 'too far down the slope,' but it sounds to me like you just need to loosen up your tin foil hat a little.
I've gotta cry foul here. The taser boy had a chance to stand up and say his piece. Now, maybe we disagree on this, but from every video I've seen, he basically seems to be reciting a line, and although he does ask two questions, at no point does he pause to wait for any answers. After about two minutes of this, somebody signals the police to take the mic from him, he starts fighting, and from there it escalates.
Point is though, it wasn't about suppressing his speech, per say (UoF campus cops not exactly being the stormtroopers of the NWO); it was about quieting down somebody who was being inappropriately rowdy. If he'd stood up and asked whether the Senator thought Bush was in league with the Saucer Men, much the same thing would have happened, but nobody would be arguing that the kid's rights were violated.
Maybe it's just an editorial thing, but I'm sick of every new brain scanning technology or application thereof being headlined as 'mind reading.' We're quite a ways from the point where we can pull anything like a comprehensible, complete thought from someone's head--being able to monitor blood flow or track EEGs or whatever doesn't give you much more insight into what the person is really thinking than a polygraph machine would. So enough baseless hype, if you please.
You wanna know how to deal with bullies? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's how you deal with bullies. That's the *Chicago* way!
I doubt that anyone really JUST wants money--it's about as close as you can get to a pure means, as opposed to an end. What people really want are security, power, fancy toys, celebrity--all things that go along with sufficient cash. Even to your point: with Bill Gates' bank account, you could do a lot of good.
I don't claim to be an expert, but I've never heard about a suicide bomb rigged to the carrier's pulse. It seems it would be excessively complicated with pretty low return (because after all, how often do you hear about a bomber being shot before he could detonate himself?).
The dead man's switch, on the other hand, is perfectly plausible, but in that situation the cops can choose to not shoot and let the bomb go off, or shoot and hope that the bomb isn't on a dead man's switch. Tough to say what the individual might do in that case.
What are you, stupid? If you don't like the way airport security works, then do something productive about it: write letters, vote for candidates who have good security track records, maybe get a job in the TSA yourself to influence it positively. This might actually change things, as opposed to ranting in the face of some minimum-wage TSA screener like a maniac. Not that your way doesn't make for amusing headlines, it's just, you know, pointless.
So yeah, if I want change, I'll do something intelligent to make it happen, and in the meantime, I'll adhere to the well-defined and nigh-universally understood patterns of behavior that get me onto the plane without being strip searched, tasered, or held at gunpoint.
Seriously, could you shut the fuck up? Blah blah blah, Americans are stupid, Americans are racist, Americans don't have healthcare. But frankly, all countries, including yours, whatever it is, have their share of problems. And in your country, there are probably plenty of people trying to fix those problems who are frustrated when they can't make progress, just as there are here. How ignorant would I sound if I attributed the negative stereotypes of any nation to every one of its citizens? Does it occur to you that your kind of contemptuous attitude, writ large, just reinforces divisiness between America and other countries? Americans have a (probably deserved) reputation for arrogance, but comments such as yours show that we're not the only ones who could stand a little humility.
Don't bother replying; I'll just imagine you said something about how all Americans are fat, or stupid, or lazy. It'll be like reading your posts, but with less of my time wasted.
"The irony though is if she really had a bomb, how is pointing a gun at her going to help?"
Depends. If it's on a dead man's switch, killing her is a bad idea. Otherwise though, a few 9mm slugs in the brain could bring the situation to a relatively acceptable conclusion.
Also, different types of plastique are more resistant to physical trauma than others, so it's tough to assess how much abuse it might take to make it explode. One bullet? A barrage? Beats me.
Moreover, these are cops we're talking about. They're trained intently to point their guns at dangerous people. "When the only tool you have is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail," etc etc.
Are you kidding me? When I saw a picture of her, I almost wished the security folks had put her down as an act of mercy. Yee gods, I think I need to go find some alka seltzer...
Was swarming the girl with MP5s overreaction? Yeah, probably. But airport security has always been on a hair trigger. Take, for example, the check in questions. No terrorist is going to admit, "Why, now that you mention it, I DO have a bomb in my luggage!", yet the screeners are required to ask, and if you respond with anything but a somber "no" you're likely to end up it trouble. So walking around an airport with something that the typical, ignorant layman mistakes for a bomb, and then refusing to say anything about it, is similarly likely to cause trouble.
Does it make anyone any safer? No, but this particular bit of institutional insanity should be well enough known by now that the girl could have responded in a more appropriate fashion.
I agree with you generally, but please, if they'd tased her, you know there'd be people posting on here right now about how the facist police state is just out to suppress free expression through art. You can't please all of the people all of the time, etc.
Is that same 'condition' responsible for the other practical jokes/stunts he advertises so openly on his website (www.theandrewmeyer.com, I believe it was)? Did schizophrenia cause him to hand his video camera to the girl next to him (who spoke to CNN about it after the fact) and saying "make sure you film everything."
While the 1% prevalence of schizophrenia is accurate, the only study I turned up in a quick search classified only about 35% of the enrolled schizophrenics as being of the paranoid subtype (Fenton et al., 1997). The bulk of patients with schizophrenia are dominated by negative symptoms (as opposed to the positive symptoms associated with paranoid subtype); they lie in bed all day, they're largely disconnected from reality. Not exactly what seems to be going on here.
As for his fear, well, if I was being manhandled by a pack of cops, and one of them started threatening to taser me, I'd be pretty freaked out, too. But I think it's a huge, huge stretch to claim serious mental illness here.
Without making any statement as to the overall appropriateness of the cops's behavior, it's pretty clear from the video that the four of them don't have his ass under control--after all, they wanted to cuff him, and his failure to cooperate was preventing them from doing so at the level of force they were using. Which is why they increased the level of force. In this case it was a taser, but it could just as easily have been a physical blow from either a hand or a nightstick. At this point, his resistance decreased to the point that they were able to control him, and he was cuffed and hauled off.
I thought as you did at first, but on a second reading it sounds more like the OP was suggesting that a sporulating fungus could be spread by the impact in the same way that spores of anthrax might--not that anthrax is actually a fungus itself. Sloppy writing--it'll get ya every time.
Because it's ridiculous, that's why.
To the contrary, before Tasers were available, if a suspect was struggling, chances are pretty good the official police response was to beat him senseless.
The thing about Tasering is that it's a bit less nuanced than good ol' whuppin.' For example, a cop who is striking you with his fist can decide how hard to punch, where to hit you, whether to hit you multiple times, etc. A less resistant subject might only need a quick sock, or an arm bar, in order to be controlled; a more resistant subject might get beaten pretty badly with a night stick. The Taser, on the other hand, is usually pretty definitive. You get zapped, you stop struggling (usually).
So, are Tasers better than more physical means of controlling suspects? Depends. No doubt there are police agencies studying this even now.
Well, obviously different people are going to interpret the video in different ways, which will in turn determine whether they regard his behavior as inappropriate or not. I think we can agree, though, that there is a point where such behavior becomes sufficiently disruptive as to warrant putting a stop to it. The cops (or whoever dispatched them) felt that point had been reached. The problem is that the kid then made the decision to resist, which is never a good diea (particularly in the southern US--'Cool Hand Luke' must be required viewing for all cops below the Mason-Dixon line).
You're right. One person should be allowed to cause as much disruption as he wants without regard to the rest of the audience who might want a chance to ask their own questions. And it would have been so much better to give him a nice bop on the head with a nightstick, like in the old days. Or maybe just a few quick punches to loosen him up. And after that, they should have completely regarded due process--you know, the part of the legal system where they formally levy action against you, thus giving you the chance to seek legal redress in court for any inappropriate behavior.
And man, those UoF cops are TOTALLY fascist pigs just trying to crush resistance and maintan the status quo. Break out zee jackboots! Long live zee Floridian Reich!
The problem is that 95% of /. will only read the blurb and we'll be deluged with "OMG POLICE BRUTALITY!!!1!"