Interesting how MS's astroturfers now have to stage a defense against FUD. It was not so long ago that they were the ones propagating FUD galore.

Or there are those of us who don't give a flying fig who is spreading the FUD...we disagree with anyone spreading FUD regardless of the source.

Not everyone is on a particular side of the Microsoft / Linux holy war.

You can't excuse bad behavior by pointing to other people's bad behavior. Most of us learned in kindergarten that "But Johnny was doing it too!" is not a valid excuse.

Ching ching ching? We haven't even heard a clank clank clank coming from Chernobyl for decades now. And won't for decades more (or at least until they're forced to go in there and rebuild the fucking dome that hides that "oops".)

Prosperity measured in half-life is anything but.

Using Chernobyl (or Fukushima) as a reason not to build more reactors is the same logic as saying we shouldn't build boats because of the Titanic.

443 reactors provide 10% of the worlds power needs right now. Safely. citation. It would not be by any means an insurmountable endeavor to build 2500 additional reactors and get us completely off of coal/oil/gas.

Even better would be 1000 additional reactors, and supplement the remaining with hydro/solar/wind/etc.

Build more nuclear plants, and use the power to operate the desalination plants you also build.

BONUS! By removing sea water from the oceans for the purpose of desalination, you mitigate the ocean level rise due to global warming!

DOUBLE BONUS! By building nuclear plants, you mitigate the production of greenhouse gasses, reducing global warming!

TRIPLE BONUS! By having an excess of water, you can grow more cattle and crops and increase the planets carrying capacity!

QUADRUPLE BONUS! Excess fresh water allows you to address ongoing desertification!

Ching ching ching ching ching ... -- human net prosperity slot machine paying out

Although I am a proponent of nuclear power (and wind and solar and geothermal etc), you'd have to be REALLY bad at math to believe that the amount of water pulled from the oceans for desalination would have any meaningful impact on ocean levels.

Great, Now we're at war with SOUTH Korea and are all going to die of anthrax.

Thanks Obama

If you don't understand the difference between a pithy remark and an actual desire to do someone harm, then there's no helping you.

Or are you making the "insightful" claim that all football players are sociopaths?

. The buyers will get some unreliable software, possibly reducing the "trust" on the warez hacker and sowing discord among the pirates and their customers.

More likely, I would think this would reduce the trust of the software and original software developer. After all, the software appears to be working, other than the "bugs". Most users aren't sophisticated enough to think "maybe that shady warez site did something that affected the original software!", they'll just think the original software is crap. Especially when they go online and see complaints for exactly the same bugs from other (unbeknownst to them) warez users.

This seems like a really bad idea. I would suggest to have it work for a while (say 6 months), then pop up a message indicating that this is illegally copied software. Long enough that the warez hacker doesn't realize, but not so long that they get full use of the product.

I'm guessing the joke is that he only ever logs in once since he doesn't save the private key anywhere?

In any case, needs a "not particularly funny" mod.

I have fake passwords on a post-it note stuck to my monitor.

My REAL passwords are on a post-it note stuck to the bottom of my keyboard.

You fools with your single layer of misdirection, thinking it will keep you safe!

Please RTFA before posting. Seriously.

From TFA, and the linked lawsuit:
- She was required to keep the phone on her person (and turned on) 24/7 to handle customer calls.
- Her manager was using the app to track her location during personal time.

Even if it was a company owned phone, and even if she were allowed to turn it off, don't you find that second point significantly creepy enough to warrant a lawsuit?!?! IMHO, it's creepy enough to warrant criminal charges.

Her employer required her to use the company issued phone, and to have it on 24/7 (from the lawsuit).

Your "solution" would result in the exact same thing hers did: termination.

If the allegations are true, it sounds like both her manager and CEO were douchebags. And stupid ones at that.

They should be allowed to know where their property is. She has no case.

Even if that is the case, that is not what they were using the functionality for.

From the article:
"Management never made mention of mileage. They would tell her co-workers and her of their driving speed, roads taken, and time spent at customer locations. Her manager made it clear that he was using the program to continuously monitor her, during company as well as personal time." (emphasis mine)

They were not using the GPS functionality to track the phone. They were using it to track employees both on and off-work.

This is creepy as heck. IMHO, there should be criminal laws against this sort of behavior. This should be a criminal case her manager, not a civil one against the company.

Did you even study statistics? If you want to prove it's not a warp drive you need to do an experiment where it being a warp drive is the null hypothesis.

You are mistaken about what the null hypothesis is. The null hypothesis says there is no relationship between two phenomena. i.e. in this case, that the "device" has no relationship to thrust

You would never try to prove that the thing is NOT a warp drive. You cannot prove a negative assertion. The proper experiment would be to prove it is a warp drive (i.e. to reject the null hypothesis).

A basic intro to all this can be found in the usual place.

Plenty of good science has been done, it's not conclusive yet, you must imagine good science does everything in one fell swoop and takes no time or budget. I guess you didn't study science either.

No, good science will have been "done" when they actually publish their results, including experimental setup, raw data, statistical analysis, etc. and these results are peer reviewed.

What they have done so far is take some very initial observations that are currently unexplained, and decide to go ahead and release these results to the media. That is not "good" science, especially given that every single person in that lab knows damn well it is extremely unlikely this is some magical new form of propulsion.

Wake me up when you don't summarize your position with an appeal to authority.

That is not what "appeal to authority" means. An appeal to authority would be "Dan McCleese says this thing is a warp drive, and he's really smart! It must be a warp drive!"

My appeal is to have someone else independently verify their results. Requiring JPL was just a bit of facetiousness. What I would really want is independent verification by a number of other labs/researchers.

Good science takes time and proper diligence. Releasing unverified "observations" to the media for hype does science a disservice.

No. These tests prove that the device is real, and that it produces force.

No, they didn't.

The tests so far have proven that in certain experimental circumstances readings are observed that might indicate a micro-force being generated by the device

They have not yet proven:
1) The device is actually causing the force
2) The readings are correct (e.g. measuring devices calibrated correctly)
3) The readings are not the result of some other factor they are failing to take account of (e.g. Earth's magnetic field).

To establish these things they first need to:
a) Publish their experimental setup, testing methodology and analysis
b) Have someone else replicate that setup "cleanly" (No, the Chinese experiment does not count)

Dozens of additional experiments from numerous labs will be required to verify this. As it is, I would be extremely surprised if this turned out to be something other than:
a) Experimental error
or
b) Fraud

The "results" they have "released" so far are extremely preliminary. They have not yet been published, nor peer reviewed. Claiming that this device is real is similar to the scientific rigour of claiming Bigfoot is real on the basis of some fuzzy photographs.

Actually, that last line is a little harsh.

Better would be:
Eagleworks is like a really boring X-Files version of scientific investigation. They investigate very fringe science, test it under controlled condition, but alas, it never turns out to be something extraordinary.

My issue with them isn't that they do bad science as much as that they keep releasing this crazy fringe stuff to the media before finalizing experimental testing/peer review. This gets the public all hot and bothered about how NASA is going to solve interstellar travel shortly...but then nothing.

Unfortunately, this also gets in the way of other scientific results as the media/public start seeing Science as the boy who cries wolf but never sees a wolf.

Yes, this probably has to do with continued funding / publicity / etc, but even so, I believe it does more harm than good. Publish actual results. Don't publish "we're not sure what this is (or even if it's not just experimental error), so it might be a warp drive!"

the first real space trial is likely coming soon.

No, it won't.

They haven't even completed the first round of formal experiments. You know, the kind with scientific write-ups and peer review of experimental setup and such.

So far there have been some tiny anomalous observations that may or may not be due to a force we don't understand. They are far more likely due to a force that we understand perfectly, but have failed to take into account while making the observations.

NASA hasn't published anything definitive on this. The have (quite stupidly, IMHO) given some of their initial results to the press, who (of course) blew the story up beyond any sensible measure.

The next thing we will likely see is a better experimental setup at higher power, which will likely explain the completely conventional reasons we see these results. These will be published, and not picked up by the press (cause it's "boring"), and in a few years people will wonder "whatever happened to that EmDrive thing?" Conspiracy nuts will claim government cover-up, illuminati, stolen by bigfoot, etc.