Having acknowledged the sometimes extreme security issues PHP has had in the past, I have to say it's getting a LOT better. PHP was designed as something like a blogging system, not a general purpose programming language. Because people are using it for general programming, they have made huge improvements.

Now if only people would read the giant warning at the top of the SuExec documentation: "SuExec can result in severe security risks. Do not consider using SuExec unless you are knowledgeable about ...". That warning is there for a reason. SuExec / suPHP really is dangerous as hell, just like it's documentation says.

No, he "admitted" than any 3rd grader can reboot Windows. $4 hosting companies don't get server admins, the get phone monkeys. I used to get frustrated with their "admins" being clueless, but then it happened. I was working with HostGator, a top hosts who has the same business model as GoDaddy hosting, and I found out their "admins" don't have access to the datacenter. They are literally just a phone bank and marketing company, with The Planet running the servers. So yeah, it's easier to hire Windows phone monkeys than Linux phone monkeys. (Maybe because Linux users tend not to be the phone monkey type?)

If you want actual qualified admins, people who know the difference between a gigabit and a gigabyte, you're going to pay no matter which OS. (Though I do know a _certified_ Windows admin who doesn't know the difference between bits and bytes ...)

A while back Microsoft was paying hosts and registrars with large numbers of domains parked, or $30 / year type, to switch over.
I don't know if that program is still active.

funny

First, you're looking at the wrong number mathematically. The proper statistic would be "X% of black people are criminals". Remember you're trying to estimate whether or not a particular person is a criminal, not who a particular crime was committed by. because a very small number of black people or white people are criminals race is not a good indicator that a particular person is engaging in criminal behavior.

Secondly, there are behaviors that are suspicious and other evidence. In my city, for example crack dealers circle the block on bicycles in the middle of the night. If X% of crack dealers are black, approximately X% of the people circling the block in the middle of the night will be black. If you focus on the specific suspicious behavior, you'll get more accurate results AND whatever racial proportion is correct will be looked at as a side effect, without ever considering race. So mathematically, it's best to ignore race when stronger indicators are available.

Lastly, other commentors have discussed the EFFECTS of racial profiling. Harassing people on racial grounds also has negative effects.

Interestingly, your concept of "true probabilities" DOES work for solving a specific crime. If, in a certain city, the italian mob does professional hits, then when investigating a professional hit it's mathematically correct to have a look at Italian mobsters. I'll say it - if young middle eastern men are normally the ones who hijack planes, it makes sense mathematically to check which young middle eastern men are booked on the flight, AFTER you have evidence that flight is involved in a hijacking attempt

Ps. I don't think that means there can be no effective study. To find people who want to sober up, and therefore might be helped to do so, look at people CHOSE to go to AA as opposed to people who were ordered to visit.

That's what you'd do with a fertility drug - you'd study people who were trying to get pregnant.

Agreed. Further, I think you hit an important point:

"If you send alcoholics to AA, you can divide them into three groups."

It would be wise to recognize that if you're SENDING people to AA, those are people who didn't already choose to be there,
so most of them will be in group #1, people who don't want to be there.

So if you count all of the people SENT to AA by a court or whatever, you're counting mostly people who shouldn't be counted. Not for the purpose of determining how well AA works.

Empirical evidence says roughly about 6% of those sent by court want to sober up.
6% want to sobering up, 4% do sober up. Since the purpose is to help people who want to stop, that's an 66% success rate or so
for the first attempt. (success meaning helping people achieve their goal of sobering up - not forcing the someone's goal upon them).

Another 6% will want to quit at some future time in their lives. For many of them, their exposure to AA plants a seed that gets them somewhat
sooner than they would have sobered up otherwise. When those 6% decide they want to, they know where to go.

If the NRA wasn't the source, then indeed you wouldn't cite NRA, you'd cite the source.

> the app will then wait until the user is trying to install another app and will pop up an extra dialog box asking for permission

A couple of weeks ago when I described this attack, some commenters said it was impossible - an app can't wait until the user was expecting a permission prompt from a different app, then request more permissions itself, they said.

I wonder if they still think it's impossible now that it's publicly reported to be in the wild.

> What part of
> > These periods of elevated and variable CO2 levels are so different from the typical measurements that is easy to >
> > remove them from the final data set using a simple mathematical “filter.”

> don't you understand?

What part of 4:30 AM don't you understand? It's right there int he subject line.
If you look at the data, 4:30 NOT "so different from" 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM that there's any objective reason to include one and exclude the other. As it happens, these readings that entirely subjective, like 4:30 AM, are precisely the peak readings people are getting excited about.

> And, given that it comes up with the same results as all the other measurements we have, what is your problem?

I've been asking and asking for citations to any other similar result. Dozens of people have replied to those posts, but not one has cited a single measurement, anywhere in the world, even in the middle of LA, with readings anywhere NEAR that high. I just checked the reading in downtown Houston, TX, one of the country's dirtiest cities. It's 0.2 ppm. These guys are claiming overall atmospheric C02 of 400 ppm.
So according to them, Houston has air 2000 times cleaner than the atmosphere is general. I call bullshit. If you know of any other readings coming anywhere near 400, cite them. Since you don't, you just thought that's what Jon Stewart said, stop repeating it. It's bull. 2000X bull.

Oh yes, wikipedia is great. Of course _I_ am one of the authors there, so GP would probably agree it's not the most reliable source, er non-source.
A lot of what's in wikipedia is cited. A lot isn't. Some came directly from my rear end. Overall, it's a great summary, and a great place to FIND citations
to actual sources, which you might then cite yourself.

I just wouldn't cite it, because anyone interested in viewing the the source has to go to wikipedia, see if it's cited there, find the citation, and follow it, then look to see if the cited source is reputable. Better to just cite the source. Compare these two citations from the same actual source:

"Guns are great" [wikipedia.org]
"Guns are great" [nra.org]

If NRA is the course, citing the source directly means the reader doesn't have to click ANYTHING to find out what the source is, and if they consider
that source to be credible. Citing the wikipedia citation instead obscures the actual source. For the same reason, you don't cite Britannica, you cite
the same source Britannica does.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

In a discussion about not citing wikipedia or any encyclopedia, you cited wikipedia saying "wikipedia is reliable".
I'm shocked an amazed that wikipedia isn't critical of itself. ;) Seriously though, that IS a good summary and list of citations.
If I had more time, I'd read more of it.

Yes of course they need to disregard some of the data from this particular station, which is the problem with this monitoring station. In the sample graph on the page, they chose to include the 4:30 AM reading, which looks like it may well be part of the volcanic breeze. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's entirely subjective whether or not you want to include that.

Subjective massaging of data like that represents the person's OPINION, not an objective measurement.

Prove it? You think they were lying? They said they disregarded 15% of the days. They selected 15% as opposed to 14% or 18%, which would have given different results. The data is there if you want to calculate it for different values than the 15% they chose.

Prove it? You think they were lying? They said they disregarded 15% of the days. They selected 15% as opposed to 14% or 18%, which would have given different results. The data is there if you want to calculate it for different values than the 15% they chose.

Yes, they did. They said they disregarded 15% of the days. They selected 15% as opposed to 14% or 18%, which would have given different results.