RockDoctor - Slashdot User

Submission + - Hitchens Razor : a tool for dismissing trolls. (wordpress.com)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Monday December 26, 2011 @04:09AM

RockDoctor writes: The excellent WEIT (Why Evolution Is true) blog has, unsurprisingly, been sharing reminiscences of Christopher Hitchens.

One reader has proposed a variant of the well-known "Occam's Razor", which was used by Hitchens in the past (in the final paragraph). In the proposer's words :

Hitchens’ Razor: What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
"I have conducted extensive research (ie: Googled for it) and have not found the phrase used anywhere as an official razor, but would it be nice if it came to be? Whenever the faithful or trolls leap into the fray with some baseless assertion, just cutting it short with a “That violates Hitchens’ Razor” would save a lot of time and effort."

Submission + - Disputes over company pages on FaceBook (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Sunday November 27, 2011 @08:40PM

RockDoctor writes: The Beeb are reporting a rather complex case with potentially quite deep implications for social media.

The case stretches back to the end of the First World War, when the well-established German drug company Merck was split up by the victorious powers, leaving a German rum company (Merck KGaA) and a multinational (Merck & Co). Both companies still exist, and as the preceding links show, have managed to deal with the potential "namespace" collisions on the general Internet.

Merck KGaA entered into an "agreement" (by implication, a contract) with Facebook to use the page http://www.facebook.com/Merck in 2010, and they were getting some use out of the page, needing to get administrative rights for several employees. So far, so good ; Merck KGaA are obviously relatively savvy to how the Internet works and have done "the right thing" (including, from a typical-Slashdot-user's IT-worker-friendly perspective, assigning a budget and staff to this part of their IT and internet presence).

But on October 11, 2011, Merck KGaA's staff found that the page now pointed to content from their competitors Merck & Co, and that they had lost administrative control of the page.

So, what is going on? Well, it's not clear. The staff at Facebook are not responding in any meaningful sense (according to the Beeb's report). There are a number of possible scenarios where genuine mistakes have been made, or seemingly-reasonable policies have had unintended consequences While researching for TFS (This Fucking Summary) I originally got to the Merck KGaA website by guessing "merck.de" , at which point I got a redirect ; which is what you'd expect. Equally I got to Merck & Co by guessing at [drum roll] merck.com ; which is again what you'd expect to happen. This reflects the essential separation of the .de and .com TLDs.

In effect Facebook has itself become an important TLD. So collisions in this new namespace are to be expected. And what policies Facebook applies to resolve namespace disputes is a matter of general interest.

Submission + - Theologian attempts censorship after losing public (wordpress.com) 3

Submitted by RockDoctor on Tuesday November 01, 2011 @04:29PM

RockDoctor writes: Theologian John Haught publicly debated prominent evolutionary scientist and atheist Jerry Coyne at the University of Kentucky back in October. Before the debate, both parties agreed to the debate being video-taped. Coyne is of the opinion that he convincingly won the debate over Haught. But we'll never know, because Haught, with the assistance of staff at University of Kentucky who sponsored the debate, is banning publication of the video of the event. They are even refusing to release the half of the debate containing Coyne's comments and questions, which is his intellectual property. And that latter is theft, plain and simple, in addition to Haught's cowardice.

Submission + - Concerns over popular contraceptive and AIDS infec (thecitizen.co.tz)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Sunday October 09, 2011 @11:12AM

RockDoctor writes: The Citizen (of Dar) is reporting that the WHO and others are concerned about claims that use of popular hormonal contraceptives (oral and injectable such as Depo-Provera) is associated with increased infection rates by AIDS in both the women receiving the contraceptive and their male partners.

Spottily reported in the popular press, the reports are based on a paper presented in The Lancet Infectious Diseases on October 4th. (Paper online here) Transmission rates from men to women were 3.78(/100 person-years) without use of the contraceptives and 6.61 (same units) with the contraceptive. The corresponding figures from women to men were 1.51 and 2.61 (it is well known that it is twice as hard for men to catch HIV as it is for women to catch it).

The study refers to transmission within a couple, discounting infection that comes from outside the couple (all couples had one member who was HIV positive at the start of the study). The results were corrected to account for (reported) condom use (which disposes of my immediate explanatory hypothesis).

Over the expected duration of the HIV epidemic, this may account for a few million to a few tens of million deaths. As such, it is probably of less significance then the launch of another iPhone.

Submission + - Collar-bomber tracked by Gmail accesses (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @10:07PM

RockDoctor writes: Reports are that a suspect has been arrested in the Australian "collar bomb" hostage/ extortion case. The allegation is that the suspect had set up a Gmail account, through which he (allegedly) planned to communicate with the extortion victims and arrange delivery of the payment.

Unfortunately for him, sufficient records have been kept that the location and time that the account was set up can be identified, and also for a number of accesses. This information combined with "CCTV footage and motor vehicle records" allowed the police to put an identity to the suspect, and arrange for his arrest and to start extradition proceedings.

So, if you're planning an extortion, don't drive your car to the internet cafe, don't set up the account from an airport, wear anonymous clothes (like Jason Bourne does?) and do all your accesses through hacked shell accounts somewhere in Outer Mongolia.

But this being Slashdot, everyone knew that already.

Submission + - Planetary collision candidate (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Tuesday August 16, 2011 @09:57AM

RockDoctor writes: Science Magazine's news section is reporting (main link) the claimed discovery of a planetary collision around a white dwarf in the constellation of Hercules. Specifically, the white dwarf "NLTT 43806" (a.k.a WD 1653+385, thanks to SIMBAD for that, has visible spectral lines indicating the presence of significant aluminium but very little iron. This is strange and draws attention, as iron is generally a considerably more abundant metal cosmologically. The authors of this paper suggest that the collision of two planets in orbit around the star in the recent past would have sprayed the surface of the star with the (aluminium-rich) surface materials from the collision, while the iron-rich cores merge with little debris.

So, that planet that was blown up in Star Wars would have possibly left a mark on it's star, visible for myriads of millennia.

Submission + - The truth behind M$ and Skype (damnlol.com)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Saturday June 25, 2011 @11:53PM

RockDoctor writes: Some cunning (or perverse) people have worked out what is really happening behind the scenes that lead to the Skype — MicroSoft merger.
(Look at the link now)

Submission + - Unacceptable packaging. (wdc.com)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Friday June 03, 2011 @09:37AM

RockDoctor writes: I'm fully aware that this is hardly news, but while preparing a device for shipping for warranty repair, I glanced through the WD "Rogues Gallery" of improperly-packaged items that had been returned for repair/ replacement.

Some are people being shoddy on the packing front (e.g. wrapping bare hard drives in newspaper in lieu of anti-static bags), but others are such pathetic attempts at fraud (Items captioned "Real WD label on non-WD drive", "Counterfeit label, Photocopy of real WD label ") and obviously (non-warranty) damaged goods (Items captioned "Dented", "Missing Screws ") that you have to wonder what hope the people who sent them in had of getting them repaired/ replaced.

"Connector, Bent Pins = Acceptable defect" is a worthwhile picture to attend to. Or it was in the days of IDE cables (does modern SCSI use the same connectors? Possibly.)

Submission + - BigQuake offshore Sendai. (emsc-csem.org)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Thursday June 02, 2011 @08:37PM

RockDoctor writes: Large magnitude quake almost directly offshore from Sendai, Japan. As is normal, initial estimates of magnitude vary slightly, 6.2-6.4 quoted so far. Parameters (at current estimate) : Magnitude mb 6.2 Region OFF EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN Date time 2011-06-03 00:05:01.0 UTC Location 37.37 N ; 143.99 E Depth 13 km

No word (at time of writing) of tsunami risk. In my (geologist but not seismologist) opinion, fair to high. But they'll be ashore by now already. I don't see anything on the telly at this time.

Submission + - PhD summarises Dark Matter (phdcomics.com)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Monday May 16, 2011 @09:45PM

RockDoctor writes: The popular and well known tale of procrastination, "PhD", has suffered it's own bout of procrastination recently. To make up for neglecting his readers, Jorge has put together a summary of our current understanding of the whole question of "Dark Matter." It's a fun, but reasonably accurate, summary of our understanding of the question which puts it well in context with the rest of our understanding of the universe.

Submission + - Suck that cream 'til you cream? (reuters.com)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Thursday February 24, 2011 @02:20PM

RockDoctor writes: A London ice cream shop has obtained (i.e. brought) a supply of human milk, fresh from the udder, and is making it into ice cream for the titty-starved masses of Slashdot.

All your fervid dreams are belong to us.

Submission + - Flying parking meters (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Friday February 18, 2011 @06:25AM

RockDoctor writes: Flying cars may be 10 years or more away, as they have been for longer than fusion power has, but the (ab-)normally quiet town of St.Johns, Newfoundland, has evidently plans for the future and this winter has been trialling parking meters for their expected fleets (flocks?) of flying cars. Or something.
(Well, it made me laugh when I saw it on the telly!)

Submission + - Humans invade Gonorrhea ... (asm.org)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Wednesday February 16, 2011 @11:16AM

RockDoctor writes: A paper released on 14th February documents the discovery of elements of human genetic material found in the genome of the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, otherwise known as the 'goniococcus', the causative agent of one of the world's commonest sexually transmitted diseases, Gonorrhaea. The "horizontal gene transfer" event is not uniquely difficult — transfers between bacteria and yeast are known to have occurred too, and yeast are eukaryotes just like humans — but it is a long, long step in biochemistry and in particular in the biochemical machinery for processing genetic material. But nonetheless, the bacteria do appear to have acquired and incorporated material from their only host species, and to have done it since the bacteria separated from their meningitis-causing closest relatives. This begs the question of whether the bacteria are using the genetic material in some way to help compete with the human immune system.

One has to wonder, why the paper was published on this particular date.

mBio is an open-access journal, so all readers should be able to read the paper for themselves.

Submission + - pantomime dress broke Geneva Convention (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Friday January 07, 2011 @03:08PM

RockDoctor writes: No, it is a serious news story, honestly. Copyright, protecting trademarks or losing them, yadda yadda.

The Red Cross (as in ICRC, etc) has certain symbols reserved unto it by international conventions and agreements, including, unsurprisingly, the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of warfare. Which is not, in itself unreasonable. But reasonable things can lead to unreasonable consequences, in this case having to threaten to shut down a show designed for children's entertainment on account of it including a character in a nurse's uniform replete with red crosses. Which is unreasonable. Particularly unreasonable considering that the show apparently includes a much better reason for keeping children away, in that it's a pantomime including cross-dressing men, other men in tights, and quite bizarre practices with Little Johnny and a long bow.

Submission + - RIM set for a fail? (darkreading.com)

Submitted by RockDoctor on Saturday August 14, 2010 @05:42AM

RockDoctor writes: Rob Enderle, writing at security blog "Dark REading", discusses the problems of R.I.M. with the Saudis and others and thinks that the company may be repeating the errors that Palm made towards the end of their major position in the handheld computer market.
Of the handset choices that are sold broadly on the market, the BlackBerry platform is the most inherently secure. To appeal to the business market it targets, it had to be better than any other handset or mobile solutions vendor. But with Saudi Arabia blocking the service and other countries expected to follow — coupled with mistakes on its new flagship Blackberry Torch — RIM could be on the brink of a Palm-like failure.

The main punch of Rob's discussion is that if R.I.M. did deploy a technical fix that created a space for a master decryption key for any particular country, than that would be the end of R.I.M.'s technical lead in the market in that country, and rapidly in the world. Without that technical lead, R.I.M's other, Palm-like, failings would show, and ... splat.
I'm just wondering if the opposite could be true : if the Saudi government get (for example) a RIM server to which they have keys which allow them into any message, then could the CIA (for example) buy up large quantities of Saudi-configured Blackberries and flood their domestic market with them at reduced price, then simply pay the Saudi security services to send them the plain text of all messages. I don't know if it's possible, but it could be cheaper than trying to challenge that pesky Constitution thing. And it would make RIM an awful lot of money. And the Saudis. And wherever there is bribe money to be dispensed, there will be intermediaries happy to line their pockets from the flow.

Slashdot Top Deals