since you have a slashdot account, I'm sure you don't mind your ISP, their transit provider, and slashdot's CDN seeing your password going over their network in cleartext when you log in.

Even if you use a throwaway password for sites like this (and I hope you do), don't you think it would be better to make a small change that has no effect on how end users interact with the site but somewhat increases their security?

given that tumour cells (for solid tumours) normally have defects in extra-cellular matrix related genes (eg genes in the collagen family are sometimes mutated in advanced gastric cancer) that help the tumour invade and spread through tissues, I wonder if using such a treatment increases the chances of either tumours forming, or tumours becoming higher grade/more serious more quickly...

recently we had a power cord melt and nearly start a fire in our server room while power maintenance was occurring (so power was only going to 1 PSU instead of both PSUs). Turns out the cables don't meet the appropriate standards (IEC 60950) despite being stamped with "10A".

The cross-section of the copper strands in the failed cable was smaller than that of a 'proper' cable. These cables were illegal, but are being imported from cheap manufacturers in China (obviously without testing to Western standards) and being sold at somewhat reputable stores. Beware of cables marked "PVC YOUZHI DIANXIAN 3x0.75mm2" :)

there's a version of REM's "What's the frequency Kenneth" recorded live where, near the end of the song, Michael Stipe deliberately replaces "I'll never understand the frequency" with "I'll never understand, don't f*ck with me" rather subtlely....

I don't know if ancient samples are processed differently, but for 'fresh' samples, the DNA gets broken up into small fragments (200-1000 base-pairs long), and then these fragments get sequenced. All bits of the genome have roughly even chance of getting sequenced, and with thousands or millions of copies of each fragment, you normally get reasonably even coverage over the whole genome.

The problem is when you map your sequences back onto a reference genome (ie the currently known chr1, chr2, chrX, etc). The aligning software will have trouble deciding where to place a fragment that is part of a highly repetitive sequence (like centromeres or telomeres) , or is duplicated several/many times (eg large gene families that have large sections of the genes in common, or pseudogenes that look like copies of other genes). In addition, we don't even know the exact sequence for some of these regions, so our reference human genome is contantly being updated (currently up to version 38).

For bioinformatics analysis, sometimes it is easier to sweep some of this under the rug. For example, some people use a reference genome that masks out the centromeres and telomeres (ie our reference sequence just has NNNNNNNNNNNN bases here, instead of As,Cs,Gs and Ts). Otherwise there are databases that list the regions containing repeated sequences or duplicated segments, so you can check any of your findings to make sure they aren't in a suspicious region.

That's generally what each country does to the companies operating inside it.

But here's the problem. Lets say an iPhone costs $400 to make, and sells retail for $1000. One Apple-related company pays $400 to get the phone made in china, and then sells the phone to Apple Ireland. Apple Ireland pays $450 to get the phone, then sells the phone for $995 to Apple Australia or Apple USA or whatever. Australia/USA can tax the profits of the local company, but the local company only made $5 per phone, and then used most of that for local expenses/advertising. Apple Ireland books most of the profit, and at a tax rate far less than other Western countries.

what if I told you that every single launch has had some worker bees who thought their part of their module wasn't up to scratch, or might not work in the current conditions, and voiced this opinion to their manager? People with an engineering mind-set don't like uncertainty....

I don't have any evidence that this is actually the case, but it seems likely when so many people are involved in a project.

No, it's the merchant who bears all the risk. If someone disputes a charge, the merchant's acquiring bank writes a friendly letter asking for proof of the card-holder's authorization, eg a signed receipt. If you can't offer evidence that it was authorized, then you get a chargeback (ie they deduct the purchase amount from your account) and you are out of the value of whatever you mailed out to the customer.

When we sold stuff online, obviously we don't get physical signatures, but normally we could convince the customer that they had made the purchase (normally they forgot, or didn't recognise our name on their credit card bill) and the customer cancelled the dispute.

Why would the bank voluntarily eat the loss for fraud/disputes? :)

most solid tumours in organs are like that... they are asymptomatic until they get to an advanced stage.

But in this case, 95% of pancreatic cancers are in the tissue around the pancreatic duct. The other 5% are in a different type of pancreatic tissue and aren't as aggressive, so if they are detected and removed then most patients survive.