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Comment Re:Will this support the right to record police? (Score 1) 420

Yes, some people are trying to do that. That's the point. The way to fight it is to get some solid legal precedents established that clearly state that citizens have the right to record in public, including police doing their duty. Any decision that establishes that right or builds towards it helps. And this one might be a building block that helps the case.

Comment Re:Could be a honeypot (Score 1) 157

Comment Will this support the right to record police? (Score 2) 420

I hope someone will soon put to the legal test the assertion that what this allows police to do without a warrant can be done by any citizen, including by any citizen towards the police. This may help to support the rights of citizens to record police officers while they are on duty. Hey, if any property that doesn't have a building on it is fair game for surveillance, by anyone, it opens up opportunity for all of the citizenry. Not saying I like this, but maybe there is a positive side to it.

Comment Re:Could be a honeypot (Score 4, Informative) 157

Yeah, and the "who".

Their thought: "hey, well catch the bad guys who are trying to get around security!"
Reality: they catch the nerds who know how to hack barcodes and want to save 10 minutes of waiting in a security line.

But this is giving them too much credit. They are not thinking that far ahead. They are still stuck on shoe bombs (22 Dec 2001).

Medicine

Gut Bacteria Cocktail May End Need for Fecal Transplants 183

sciencehabit writes "A tonic of gut microbes may be the secret recipe for treating a common hospital scourge. Researchers have pinpointed the exact mix of microbes required to cure mice of chronic infection by Clostridium difficile. The hard-to-treat bacterium infects alomst 336,000 in the US each year and causes bloating, pain, & diarrhea. A similar bacterial cocktail may be able to replace the current controversial treatment involving the intake of a healthy person's fecal matter to restore the right balance of microbes in the gut."

Comment Re:Wait (Score 4, Insightful) 48

Yes. That's what jumped out at me too. Revealing medical mistakes is a reason to do *more* autopsies. And any doctors or hospitals who are "uncomfortable" with that need to get out of the business. If you are not interested in having some QC to improve your processes, I don't want you involved in my medical care.

Comment Why are you asking permission? (Score 5, Insightful) 383

Why are you explaining and asking permission to use a tool? Download git, install it, use it, done. Standard practice, free, so what's the issue? Just do it. The management doesn't want to see how the sausage is made.

Also, there is a "manage your management" issue here. When the bosses ask if you need anything, you need to provide answers that they understand and can accomplish. Asking for something they don't understand and don't know how to get for you leads to them feeling stupid and ineffective. Line up your own tools without bothering them. When they ask what you need be ready with something that they can easily accomplish, like stocking the fridge with Mt. Dew.

Comment Re:What a sham (Score 1) 526

Well if the ER just gives the patient more homeopathic treatment it will save those 10s of thousands of pounds. Mission accomplished.

BTW, reading your .sig, I should have sprinkled my post liberally with ~s.

To some extent I am just being a smart-ass agitator. But the serious point within the snarking is that large health care institutions like NHS or Medicare don't care if you are healthy. They just want you to live and die while pulling as few dollars as possible from the pool, and without making a fuss that will cause them trouble. No one judges the administrators of these programs by how healthy the people in their program are.

Comment Re:What a sham (Score 5, Funny) 526

There is zero scientific evidence homeopathy works. Absolutely none.

Wrong. Your problem is in your definition of "works". Works mean achieves some goal you were trying to reach, and perhaps the goal you are thinking of is not the one NHS is trying to reach. Their job is not to cure everyone of everything. Their job is to *control expenses* while *minimizing complaints*. And it is very likely that providing homeopathy will help achieve those goals. Therefore it "works". Remember, even the homeopathy supporters admit that often treatments do not contain even a single molecule of the diluted substance. (cite ) I cannot think of a more cost effective treatment than water, maybe with a bit of food coloring. Even a small reduction in whining would make it cost effective. From an institutional health perspective it's pure genius!!

Comment Re:No longer vocalizations (Score 1) 173

Our vocal chords make clicks. In very low tones I can hear the individual clicks. I can see it being possible to for a person to gain the control over their voice to be able to make a single click, then do that at whatever interval they want. That doesn't really seem like a "tone" to me, but this must be what they are doing here.

Comment That was the beauty of Feynman (Score 1) 259

Feynman reveled in the multitude of phenomena that we do not yet understand, and he had a way of sharing that fascination and excitement with the student/listener/reader. Many of his lectures, to me at least, seem to primarily be attempts to describe the landscape of science, which things are known and where there is unexplored territory, or at least unanswered questions. And the picture he paints indicates that what we understand is a small percentage of the world/universe around us. There are so many basic things that we can observe, describe, and even predict, but we don't actually understand how they work. Like gravity.

Comment Smart people are dangerous (Score 5, Insightful) 374

Smart people are a threat to those who hold power. Especially the subset of smart people who are politically engaged and willing to put themselves at risk to protest and demand change. And among them, the subset who are world famous and therefore have easy access to the press, well, they are just beyond dangerous.

There is a long history of new dictatorial regimes wiping out, killing, or scaring away all of the educated class, thus making the general populace less likely to organize, garner international attention, or outsmart anyone in the regime. This fits the pattern.

Comment Re:Provide an API (Score 1) 186

Well, I don't know if any of those really have "value", except possibly the image sorting. But in all cases I can probably build algorithms that do it faster, cheaper, and possibly better than the average person getting paid a dollar an hour to do it.

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I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning. -- Plato

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