You mean Gayzilla [snicker snort giggle]

I may be responding to a troll here, but, no, the GP is correct. P-values are about probability. They're often used in the context of evaluating a correlation, but they needn't be. Specifically, p-values specify the probability that the observed statistical result (which may be a correlation) could be a result of random selection of a particularly bad sample. Good sampling techniques can't eliminate the possibility that your random sample just happens to be non-representative, and the p value measures the probability that this has happened. A p value of 0.05 means that there's a 5% chance that your results are bogus in this particular way.

The problem with p values is that they only describe one way that the experiment could have gone wrong, but people interpret them to mean overall confidence -- or, even worse -- significance of the result, when they really only describe confidence that the sample wasn't biased due to bad luck in random sampling. It could have been biased because the sampling methodology wasn't good. I could have been meaningless because it finds an effect which is real, but negligibly small. It be meaningless because the experiment was just badly constructed and didn't measure what it thought it was measuring. There could be lots and lots of other problems.

There's nothing inherently wrong with p values, but people tend to believe they mean far more than they do.

Equal Opportunity Outsourcing

You never see a cat coming from a dog, or a duck from a crocodile...

Booyah!

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/entries/...

You're gonna raise some really screwed up kids ... but screwed up in an interesting way.

Did you hear about the dyslexic agnostic insomniac?

He stayed up all night wondering if there is a Dog.

I seriously doubt it. I don't see how location reporting for a payment transaction in which location data is irrelevant could possibly pass Google's privacy policy review process. Collection of data not relevant to the transaction is not generally allowed[*], and if the data in question is personally identifiable (mappable to some specific individual), then a really compelling reason for collection is required, as well as tight internal controls on how the data is managed and who has access. I don't see what could possibly justify it in this case, and I can see a lot of risk in collecting it.

FYI, Google product teams have to develop privacy design docs for all new products, and the designs have to be reviewed by the privacy team (or their delegates) and pass the privacy review before they can be launched. Although Google set these processes up before the FTC settlement, I believe they became part of the consent decree and are now mandated by the FTC and validated in regular audits, so Google can't skip or violate them without potentially-significant consequences.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Google spokesperson and this is not an official statement. It is my personal perspective on the process and requirements. However, I'm a Google engineer who's been involved in launching privacy-sensitive products, so I think my perspective is accurate. I also do security reviews of Google projects, which sometimes touches on privacy issues (though privacy review is separate from security review, as it should be).

[*] Just to head off a likely riposte: No, StreetView Wifi collection and the Safari do-not-track workaround are not counterexamples. They predated the privacy review processes and, as I understand it, were part of the motivation for establishing the processes.

Microminiature accelerometers are really cheap and very very light, and you don't have to wait for them to spin up or deal with their mechanical issues. I doubt you will see a gyro used as a sensor any longer.

Similarly, computers make good active stabilization possible and steering your engine to stabilize is a lot lighter than having to add a big rotating mass.

As opposed to what? Cremation? Burial in a box at temperatures well above freezing? You can't seriously argue that this approach makes it less likely that she could be repaired and restarted at some point in the future than typical corpse disposal methods.

If this keeps up, there may someday be a huge ring around Saturn.

Not directly. Not as an individual. But diverting resources to quackery is bad for society; not so bad in this case that it's high on my list as "health supplements", but not totally benign either.

When you last flew a jet somewhere, why wasn't it a seaplane? Surely such things would be an easier problem to solve than building airports.

Short of giving you the starter course in rocket engineering, I can only say no, it's not easier.

That's speculation. Feasibility is no guarantee of performance.

I read the attached article, and there were two specific complaints cited. The first was security, which is a non-functional requirement; that could well be a failure of the customer to do his homework on requirements but presumably a competent and honest vendor could have done a better job on security. It's often the vendor's job to anticipate customer needs, particularly in projects of the type customers don't necessarily have experience with.

The other complaint is that the curriculum wasn't completely implemented. If the vendor failed to deliver something it agreed to, that's purely the vendor's fault.

Sometimes bad vendors happen to good customers. Bad vendors happen more often to bad customers, but every project involves taking a calculated risk.

Well, until the details of how the contract was awarded and how the vendor failed have been thoroughly investigated, it's premature to fire anyone.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for accountability and decisiveness, but picking someone plausible and throwing them under the bus isn't accountability. In fact that may actually shield whoever was responsible.