lostraven - Slashdot User

Comment Re:More complaining and second-guessing (Score 1) 77

by lostraven on Sunday September 28, 2008 @07:09AM (#25183399) Attached to: Disappointing Cancer Study Results Go Unreported

"Published negative studies dissuade doctors from using certain offlabel treatments. Published negative studies prevent other docs from wasting time and money to discover the same results."

This is my gut reaction to reading TFA. I understand that in a sense, this isn't new news. Some of the commenters have talked about the time and cost associated with organizing and publishing negative/unintended results. However, from a scientific point of view, this seems like the single most important reason to publish that data; to allow other scientists to both learn from other's mistakes and improve on said mistakes if possible.

Submission + - Swiss DMCA quietly adopted (boingboing.net)

Submitted by roady on Thursday November 29, 2007 @03:47PM

roady writes: We have seen a lot of talk about the Canadian DMCA. But few know about the Swiss version recently adopted by law makers, not even the Swiss people. The government and media have been very quiet, probably to avoid a referendum. Indeed, Switzerland is a direct democracy and if 50'000 citizens sign a referendum, the whole country will have a chance to vote against the new copyright law. In this version of the DMCA, sharing a file on P2P networks will land you one year in jail, even though the law mandates a levy on blank media. The history of the law can be read here.

Submission + - Mixed news on Wiretapping from 9th Circuit USCoA

Submitted by abb3w on Sunday November 18, 2007 @02:32AM

abb3w writes: The bad news: the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled that the Al-Haramain lawyers may not submit into evidence their recollections of the top secret document handed to them detailing the warrantless electronic scrutiny they received. "Once properly invoked and judicially blessed, the state secrets privilege is not a half-way proposition." The good news: they have declined to answer and directed the lower court to consider whether "FISA preempts the common law state secrets privilege" with respect to the underlying nature of the program itself... which also keeps alive hopes for the EFF and ACLU to make those responsible answer for their actions.

Coverage at CNET, the NYTimes, and elsewhere; PDF of ruling here.

Submission + - Astronomers Announce 5-planet System

Submitted by on Tuesday November 06, 2007 @04:35PM

An anonymous reader writes: Astronomers have detected a record-breaking 5th planet orbiting the star 55 Cancri. This planet orbits within the Habitable Zone, where water could presumably exist, but it's probably another gas like Saturn, so any liquid water would have to be on a moon. There's still a big gap between this planet and the outermost planet where no planets detected yet, so there could yet be a rocky planet in the system.

Child's Play 2007 Gets Underway 42

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 02, 2007 @07:15PM from the give-in-five-countries-this-time dept.

It is well worth mentioning that a post by Tycho over on the Penny Arcade site signals the kickoff for Child's Play 2007. This year they have over 30 hospitals spread across five countries, and (as always) every little bit helps. From Mr. Brahe's post: "At the last Child's Play dinner, a man whose son was currently staying at Seattle Children's Hospital - he'd left him temporarily, to attend - literally could not produce the words to thank me. The depth of his appreciation bordered on anguish. I hardly knew how to respond, other than attribute those comforts to their true authors. The opportunity to be excellent has arisen again. Just as in years past, visit the site proper, choose your favorite hospital, and select your toy. We promise to let you know how incredible you are at regular intervals."

Submission + - Can Govt Study Says P2P Downloaders Buy More Music 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02, 2007 @05:50PM

An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist reports that a newly study commissioned by the Government of Canada, which includes some of the most extensive surveying to date of the Canadian population on music purchasing habits, finds what many have long suspected — there is a positive correlation between peer-to-peer downloading and CD purchasing. The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study For Industry Canada was conducted collaboratively by two professors from the University of London, Industry Canada, and Decima Research, who surveyed over 2,000 Canadians on their music downloading and purchasing habits.

Submission + - Netflix confirms it, Blockbuster is dying (cnet.com)

Submitted by Mattintosh on Friday November 02, 2007 @02:41PM

Mattintosh writes: So maybe it's not Netflix, just some blogger from C|Net, but it's still an external pundit's assessment that Blockbuster is failing as a company. Some notable highlights include heavy losses ($35 million), job cuts ($45 million worth), store closings (526 of them), a stock price in freefall ($5.06 at the end of Thursday), and an executive with his head in the sand.

Vinyl To Signal the End for CDs? 883

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday October 29, 2007 @05:27PM from the wtb-10-disc-changer-for-my-car dept.

PJ1216 writes to mention that vinyl seems poised to make a comeback in the music industry. Some are even predicting that this comeback coupled with the surge in digital music sales could possibly close the door on CDs. "Portability is no longer any reason to stick with CDs, and neither is audio quality. Although vinyl purists are ripe for parody, they're right about one thing: Records can sound better than CDs. Although CDs have a wider dynamic range, mastering houses are often encouraged to compress the audio on CDs to make it as loud as possible: It's the so-called loudness war. Since the audio on vinyl can't be compressed to such extremes, records generally offer a more nuanced sound. Another reason for vinyl's sonic superiority is that no matter how high a sampling rate is, it can never contain all of the data present in an analog groove, Nyquist's theorem to the contrary."

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