Posts by DocJames

Google robo-car suffers brain freeze after seeing hipster cyclist

Re: Crushed nut algorithm @Joey M0usepad

All to save the weight of a little ratchet mechanism on the back hub! (20grams?)

Additional weight is saved: you don't need brakes. This (again) isn't too much in itself. But then you don't need braking surfaces on your rims (or disc brakes, which are heavy). And rim mass obviously has significant impact on acceleration.

And finally, you've seriously negated the chance of something breaking or need for maintenance. No gears/sprockets/freewheel, no brakes - just about all that can go wrong is the headset, tubes or chain. This is a good bike for riding around town. It is of course perfect for riding round a track.

Still agree they're bloody lethal (and I quite want one; wouldn't ride on roads in the UK though). My grandmother told me about all the hard men in her cycling club riding fixies (freewheels were for wimps) for pretty much all the reasons I've outlined above. 1930s were a while ago though in terms of bike technology...

Mine's the fluorescent one (with long sleeves, long back short front and weird back pockets: design is everywhere, once you start looking)

All pixels go: World's biggest sky-gazing camera gets final sign-off

Re: 3.2 gigapixel camera

No no, Apple will do that next year. I heard from my friend who works for them.

A Fanboi.

The Raspberry Pi is succeeding in ways its makers almost imagined

Re: Rant

As soon as we persuade the politicians that they need to give up on handwriting. I doubt they'll have the insight however... Apparently Tony Blair was gobsmacked when he stopped being prime minister and discovered that everyone used computers and nobody handwrote anything any more. There was quite a change between 1997 and 2005; it just shows how isolating government is that he didn't notice.

Actually, one of my teacher friends says that the kids don't handwrite anything any more (except jottings to act as memory prompts). Really the next big change will be exam essays - when they can be typed rather than written, there will be no incentive to maintain handwriting at all. Hooray!

Icon of luddite.

French woman gets €800 a month for electromagnetic-field 'disability'

Disappointing

I am sure she is incapacitated by her symptoms, but they are secondary to her beliefs. Exposure to EM radiation does not cause them; lack of exposure is not helpful in reducing them. Therefore she shouldn't receive "disability" payments (as she is handicapped, not disabled - she is fully able but doesn't believe it); she should be encouraged towards a model of the world which allows her to participate in society (assuming that she lives in a society which helps those worse off - not being in Britain must be an advantage). This would likely be careful repeated proof that she is not affected by EM radiation, explained by someone nice in a non-judgemental way.

A previous boss managed to convince a patient that they didn't have the problem they thought they did through a double-blind exposure trial. It had an awesome effect - they are happily living their life without bothering doctors; doctors are not becoming disgruntled about wasting time on such nonsense; they can take the meds they thought they couldn't. Abrupt confrontation sadly just reinforces beliefs; you can't change people's mind by shouting at them no matter how right you are (see: Richard Dawkins, homoeopathy, astrology, etc etc)

Labour Party website DDoS'd by ruly democratic mob

Re: Sky TV is in no way "formerly the BBC".

How can the BBC be considered left-wing when its main political pundit is a former national chair of the Young Conservatives and its main political presenter is a former Bullingdon boy?

By listening to the rest of the British media, purveyors of opinions of right wing billionaires masquerading as public opinion.

It is of course difficult to tell what public opinion is, given people's propensity for agreeing with what is popular and permanently being told that [insert relevant extremist right wing cant here] is popular. And for anyone taking exception to my use of extremist, listening to the talk emerging from Britain about refugees is pretty scary. It does put paid to any Whiggish belief in inevitable progress.

Russian billionaire: GET me the ALIENS ON THE PHONE. Do it NOW

Re: Only one? @ AC

"Hawking Trinity: The Radiation"

Coffee/keyboard. That's brilliant! Have a pint.

BZZZT! NHS e-Referral system flatlines again

It is astonishing...

...that nobody in the media has yet covered the need or want for this.

It was wanted by the government (and civil servants) in order to remove control from doctors. It has achieved this. Sadly it seems to have not given control to anyone else, and in the process damaged patient care. (It's also removed control from patients - previously they could say to their GP "I want to go to hospital X" if they felt strongly - most didn't and just want the closest - and the GP would sent the referral to the appropriate place.)

Attention dunderheads: Taxpayers are NOT giving businesses £93bn

Re: The majority of UK Tax burden is not being paid by companies...

OK, how about we leave the thinly-veiled antisemitic conspiracy theories out of it for today? They'll only complicate things.

This statement of yours is probably why you were asked if Amazon and Starbucks are predominately Jewish organisations. It's pretty obvious when reading the thread. You introduced it; you were asked by puzzled commentards about it.

The idea that they're screwing the honest worker by finagling the system in some way to avoid paying their fair share is an old antisemitic conspiracy theory with a thin layer of makeup smeared on it.

Thanks for the explantion. However I think that this idea has a broader history than just antisemitism. And although there are conspiracy theories around, I also think that there is truth in some assertions that companies avoid tax, hence screwing the honest worker who has to either 1) live in a less salubrious environment as there is no money to pay for upgrades or 2) pay more in tax themselves in order to allow the government to invest in society.

DEA agent slugged a MEELLION dollars for Silk Road snipe

Good news story

Criminal loses the proceeds of their crime (and a bit more). Not sure why he is in solitary though - doesn't sound like it is for his own protection (DEA agent in prison probably not a low insurance risk) given his lawyers are asking for it to be lifted. Seems like the system turning on its own and providing a bit of extra-judicial punishment; depressing but not surprising.

Surviving Hurricane Katrina: A sysadmin's epic DR (as in Didn't Realise) odyssey

Re: rewards?

An awesome story. That's what you got out of it (along with the aforementioned wife).

Really enjoyed the warts and all approach. Interesting and thought provoking.

I cannae dae it, cap'n! Why I had to quit the madness of frontline IT

Re: skills shortage

I am not sure that you can always equate IT skills with computer science graduates, unfortunately.

Icon, cos of the teaching. Or curriculum. Right?

It always entertains me when people start talking about a decade in terms of it being a lot. Its about 1/4 or 1/5th of a career.

If you haven't learnt a skill in a decade of trying, I'd suggest that it's not one you're going to manage. Trevor is clearly talking about something which he has repeatedly tried to do better in, yet failed. Your point would be valid(ish) if it was a skill which he had simply not had time to work on, and was now about to start. And finally, I think that quarter of a career is a significant time in a human's lifespan, especially given the frequency of changing paths means you might have moved to an entirely different field now.

The rest of your post is bang on.

How many top-level domains are there now? 300? 500? No, it's 1,000

Re: I've always wondered...

Because as far as US companies are concerned, they are the world. (TIC, but only slightly: American exceptionalism lives on)

A more sensible answer is that if you're selling .com, you don't really care who buys as long as they have cash. This would have been particularly prevalent in the early days when trying to expand; perhaps less so now if trying to protect the brand.

China wants to build a 200km-long undersea tunnel to America

Re: Transcontinental railway over several continents

+/-0.5mm tolerance over what distance?

Robot SHOOTS into the air with hot gas from its soft round behind

Re: Terms?

Flatulence Activated Robotic Travel is the droid you're looking for.

NASA pops open a big can of red planet whup-ass with Mars Trek

Re: mind blowing

Well it's obviously the poor wikipedia style which (seems to me) to be harder to follow than much other published writing, but I don't see how than is a "difficult" paragraph.

Pirate Bay founders 'cleared of copyright crimes' in Belgium

Re: You have to convict the current owners

Most crims are deterred by prison and high fines but some crimes are rotten to the core and will need to be exterminated to end their reign of crime.

Err, no. Taking a personal example, I am not deterred from committing murder by the likelihood of jail, I do not want to commit murder because this would seem (to me) to be ethically wrong. Piracy is a less ethically extreme example, and I suspect the deterrence comes more from the need to fit in socially. It is the fear of capture (and hence the likelihood of being caught) that determines crime rates, rather than the punishment.

Your conclusion does not follow. There are other ways to prevent those who would commit crimes from doing so; jail would seem an obvious example.

I'm not sure your post deserves such a reasoned response; the first 3 sentences seem rational but from then on it's nonsense.

What do you MEAN, 'Click on the thing which looks like a Mondrian?'

Re: How many points?

I hope that a supertanker, or indeed any ship, does not turn using 3-, 6- or any point turns. It should turn in a smooth arc. If it has to do a U turn, something has gone very wrong with the world (or the minicab driver was inadvertently made the captain and was using the GPS)

Icon - well, a U turn might be acceptable in this setting

Don't believe the hype: When that DATA seems just too good

Re: Arse about face

You're right about understanding the incentives for rip off merchants that set up predatory publishing. I was referring to incentives for scientists (or medical researchers, as is the current fashionable phrase for biomedical scientists).

I don't think you get the scientific mindset. It is in favour of sharing knowledge that has been found, with the benefit (to you) of impressing your peers and (to others) of knowledge without having to do the work themselves.

The payment, as I clearly failed to explain above, usually comes from the grant(s) that funded the research. You shouldn't be paying this money personally. If you are, then yes this stands a chance of being vanity publishing, but read the (long, boring) explanation I gave above for why this obvious answer is not always right.

Re: Arse about face

The problem in medical research is that this is considered a public good: the information should be distributed as widely as possible in order that the maximum number of patients (via their doctors) can benefit.

Lengthy further explanation below. TL;DR: Laura's wrong because she doesn't understand the incentives.

The traditional model was "reader pays". Simple: you buy your copy of the Lancet (or NEJM, or whatever) each week/month. However there are a vast number of journals, and no matter how well paid doctors are (not well enough, if you believe people respond to market forces and you look at the GP shortage), we cannot afford to buy all the journals we wish to read: often following up on references from one article is the most useful aspect of reading a paper. So, doctors often are associated with institutions that pay institutional subscriptions: these are charged at a high rate, and often at ridiculous rates - if the journal is good enough it is necessary, and if it is necessary then the limit on the price is very high. This means that 3rd world countries cannot afford to buy important journals: we have restricted the ability for information to be disseminated, which was the original point.

So a new model was invented: author pays: if you're from a rich country, you are expected to pay the costs of publishing your article. (Authors from the 3rd world are usually still subsidised.) This is an open access article: anyone can read it, anywhere in the world, for the cost of their internet access ie as close to free as the journal can manage. Some journals run both models side by side - you can pay to have open access or you don't pay, but your work is hidden behind a firewall.

This cost is usually defrayed for major studies as part of the funding arrangement (ie drug company or other funding body). There are many more papers (due to the "publish or perish" environment in academia) than journals to publish in, as hinted at in the article. Finally "ask for payment"? You're clearly not in medicine; this isn't why people write papers. Fame yes, fortune no.

I would point out in a good article this would have been explained, probably better than I have.

Re: Low standards in 'proper' journals is much more of a problem...

Yes, but the major problems with Wakefield's paper were that the conclusions announced at the Lancet press conference were not those contained within the paper and the conclusions reiterated by the media subsequently were not related to the paper. Why was there a press conference? To ensure that the maximum publicity was obtained for their papers that week.

The original Wakefield Lancet article is worth reading (if you can find a copy) to see how different the (later proven to be faked) claims were different from the reporting by the media. (Along with how you can publish utter crap in magazines published by landmine manufacturers, but that's another argument: at least Elsevier respond promptly(ish) to some of my letters pointing out errors, unlike some other medical publishers).

WikiLeaks offers $100k for copies of the Trans-Pacific Partnership – big biz's secret govt pact

Re: It's not just the Pacific!

Given it's a trade treaty (albeit only partially) and there is a transnational court (which will meet in secret iirc, in keeping with the original negotiations) to enforce the regulations, I think any government refusing to agree to what the company wants will be screwed over badly. They will be instructed to reverse their decision, pay a fine (probably, if there is enough between the positions to warrant recompense) to the relevant company and if they tell said company to piss off, they may find that they're no longer in the trade club, their ratings slide and their economy starts acting like Greece.

They've been discussing the rules for 10 years; I think they will have considered enforcement.

IT-savvy US congressmen to Feds: End your crypto-backdoor crusade

Re: In other news GPG still supports 2048-bit RSA keys

It's already there. Now where's my tin foil hat?

Paris, cos...

Swordfish fatally stabs man after man stabs, fatally, swordfish

Re: Cool title @Chris Miller

Good pick up! Completely bypassed me

NHS blows £5 MILLION on delayed Care.data

Thank god the NHS is flush with cash. Imagine wasting all that money if funds were tight.

(it's the ragged one)

It's not over 'til Saturn's spongy moon sings: Cassini probe set for final Hyperion fly-by

Re: Altogether now...

I presume you load up on antihistamines ASAP after a sting, and if you hear buzzing and go to investigate, pre-emptively.

Wearable fitness tech: Exercising your self-motivation skills

I think it's about shifting the bell curve of the population's exercise.

Those who currently do 5 000 steps are encouraged to do 8 000.

Those who currently do 8 000 push harder to achieve 10 000

etc etc

Friend has discovered that she easily achieves her 12 000 during the week, but is remarkably sedentary at the weekends. Now pushes herself and routinely achieves 12 000 daily.

And remember, cardiovascular fitness (achieved through moderate to vigorous exertion) is different from having an active lifestyle (10 000 steps a reasonable example). Both are good for your 1) longevity and 2) shortening the period of poor health at the end of your life.

Taming the Thames – The place that plugged London's Great Stink

Prince Albert died of...

Cholera? Really?

The contemporaneous diagnosis was typhoid fever. Current thinking is that it was either Crohns or intraabdominal malignancy, given the 2 year course...

Re: Agree.

And why would a minimal wage be a bad thing? Reply to include empirical evidence, not handwaving please. I was surprised (only kidding) to find that it's more complex than basic economic models suggest, and essentially the evidence is that it has no significant effect on the economy overall. Clearly it is very helpful to those receiving the minimal wage.

see: http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf

Silk Road boss Ross Ulbricht to spend LIFE in PRISON without parole

Re: Options....

the more you piss of the people in charge (or the darker your skin) the more time you serve

If your skin's dark enough in the states, you just get executed.

Mine's not bulletproof: I'm white and middle class.

@ Kaltern

Agree with you until your final para. Which is just weird; why do you think legality and morality are the same? This is what most of the commentards are trying to say: illegal drugs are worse for morality than the same drugs would if legal. (I appreciate many people on internet fora make such errors; it's just odd following your nice logic above.)

I agree he was doing illegal things with full knowledge (not that lack of knowledge should protect you) and for his own profit. He is guilty (albeit with some skepticism around his defence being adequate) and should be sentenced. The other debate is around whether 2 life sentences without parole are appropriate. I'd suggest not; I very much doubt that 1) anyone who would do this will be less deterred by 20 years without parole and 2) he will be able to still harm society after 20 years in prison. The only other reason for keeping him in jail after this is "punishment" and I'd think 20 years is easily enough. YVMV.

Good article on wired about him if you want to know more. Definitely written from the "he should go down" viewpoint, but good background.

Make Something Up, The Water Knife and Girl at War

I had understood

that much of the problem in California was due to ever increasing irrigation, both in state and upstream. Once the groundwater levels start dipping, there's trouble. And there's been more than is sustainable for a few decades, which wasn't noticed due to higher than usual rainfall. Once the drought started, the shortfall became obvious, although not the long term nature of the problem.

Is this not right? Next you'll be telling me that Australia doesn't have a problem!

Icon cos it's the more relevant one with a question mark.

Sex disease surge in US state partly blamed on hook-up apps

RE: Sex disease surge in US state partly blamed on hook-up apps

Do you consider oral sex as being on the same parallel as anal penetration ? I sincerely hope not, for everyone's sake...

I reiterate the suggestion that minds should be broadened. And suggest that if you had a broader experience of life (not necessarily personally - just listening to others) you might be more tolerant of others' choices.

OTOH, if you are referring to risk of HIV transmission, you're right: about 10x less (comparing receptive v receptive, penetrative v penetrative obviously)

I think it's fair to say that heterosexual transmission has always far outweighed homosexual transmission, it just took a while to start caring about Africans. Improving now though. And we're even including women in studies!

Who's the big Swiss bunch that wants to take Sir Jony's lunch? It's... SWATCH!

I am disappointed in the reg

"Swiss time is running out" would seem an obvious heading

Insurer tells hospitals: You let hackers in, we're not bailing you out

Forget the leaks, fix the patient

That is one very sick patient. I'd be suing for $4.1million if someone was standing around taking photos of my monitor. And sweating/swearing profusely if I was looking after the patient. I think the medical term for this is "perideath".

It's the white one...

World loses John Nash, the 'Beautiful Mind'

Re: Medication

Nash was tried on chlorpromazine but he didn't like its "flattening" effect (much like many others) and so argued enough to stop it. He essentially avoided drug treatment for many years, only occasionally receiving it when things were worse than usual. It meant that he didn't run into all the drug s/e (tardive dyskinesias, cardiovascular risks, etc) but also meant that for a significant proportion of his life the world passed him by.

His story challenges the "requirement" for antipsychotics in schizophrenia. Having said that, I think I'd take them if needed.

COI: not a psychiatrist, but occasionally have to look after those with schizophrenia

Re: John Nash, Ladia Diana, when will it end.

They're not the people to whom the rules refer.

Or at least, I presume that's what they think. I used to say that they didn't think, but that seems unlikely for Nash. Presumably he didn't see the noncooperative oncoming vehicle.

Vietnam-lovin' VoIP man's 50-nation tally couldn't hold him back

RTA

He talks about being 19 and abroad. I don't think he bothered with acquiring debt going to college. He's had at least 4 years. I agree not what you'd usually call an expat but given this is a slightly humorous online series of articles on working overseas, I don't think pedantry is really called for.

NEVER MIND the B*LLOCKS Osbo peddles, deficits don't really matter

Re: Impulsive voting

Your implicit assumption, from your last sentence, seems to be that a 'centrist' position is in some sense optimal

I read it differently: his implicit assumption was that in a coalition the need to gain support through debate means higher standard of legislation than the whipped lobby fodder of majority governments under FPTP provides. (My implicit assumptions about party politics may be evident in that statement)

You're going to have stop calling people 'cold fish': THIS one is HOT-BLOODED

Re: Warm blooded? @ P Lee

and what feature could you find in an animal which would disprove evolution?

Well, you'd not find one in an animal (or plant, fwiw) alive today. You'd find an organism that occupied a space that was inconsistent with evolution.

Like "rabbit fossils in the precambian." R A Fisher's succinct response to how to disprove evolution, dating from the 1920s or 30s. Strangely, despite all the angst over evolution (or more precisely, what it implies about humanity and its place in the universe) nobody has taken up this challenge.

US Air Force launches not-so-secret space plane. Thanks Russia

Ahem.

Here! Here!

I think "Hear! Hear!" is what you're trying to say.

Attack of the possibly-Nazi clone parakeet invaders

Re: Time for biocontrol

Yes, because biocontrol has worked so well in the past.

The invading hordes are clones; this does not necessarily apply to the original population. If it does, I doubt that there are any useful vectors for biocontrol (as they would have wiped out the original population already); if it doesn't then it will be hard to work out what is actually useful.

Massive police 'heavy equipment' robot drags out suspect who hid inside television

Breaking bad

I assume he was an associate of Walter White. Albuquerque means nothing else...

Lies, damn lies and election polls: Why GE2015 pundits fluffed the numbers so badly

Re: Poll effect

The SNP pulling Labour's strings? Just like the Lib Dems have with the Tories for the past 5 years?

I agree it may well have been a major factor, but don't think this was based it reality: remember, we're talking about politics here.

Lord Ashcroft

did exactly as you suggested - he polled individual constituencies. Didn't actually do it on a national level (UK politics has too much money in, but not so much that a pollster can manage 650 statistically valid polls - as you suggest nobody can afford it) but concentrated on what were thought to be the interesting "swing" seats.

Still found much the same as everyone else. He's a Tory (to be more precise, he resigned his Conservative seat in the House of Lords because he was more interested in the statistics of polls - my kinda politician) and his polls did find slightly more leaning to the Conservatives, but still well within the now-famous Margin Of Error.

FWIW, the SNP rise has been predictable and predicted for a while. The unionist parties (read: everyone but SNP) in the referendum got destroyed; it was only FUD from the last couple of weeks that won it convincingly. A convincing win (either way) was much better IMHO, but after the referendum the prompt abandonment of Scotland and its interests meant most people felt the SNP were probably right. The other relevant issue it raised was that ordinary people suddenly realised they could find things out for themselves - remember the reason Nick Robinson was castigated for something or other* was because 10 000 Scots** had already watched the actual event he described for the 10 o'clock news on youtube, and some decided that his reporting was biased.

* I can't remember; shows how trivial these political campaigns often are

** assumption, based on the fact it was probably of no interest to anyone else

Survation's poll would have put them on the front page of every paper, even if the Guardian would have been complaining about it (you'll note, despite the Tory claims of left wing bias, the others would all have been gleeful). I don't think the example of how they suppressed their poll supports your argument that they are all short termists.

(Obviously they're short termists. They couldn't just wait until May 8th; had to try and predict the future.)

OTOH, I like your final point.

Going up hills past blokes with coke-bottle legs: The Smart E-bike

Re: 26.1kg?

Yes, I have been riding mountain bikes since about 1993 and so have followed developments for a while also. I agree that XC bikes shouldn't weigh much. This is a bike aimed at a very different market though. And needs to fit a battery in somewhere...

Your final statement was what I was trying to say too.

Re: 26.1kg?

Look at the design. The rear swingarm is massive. Suspension adds weight not just in springs/pivots etc, but in increased engineering around it. The diamond frame bike is one of the great designs (Graeme Obree aside) of all time, and it is only when people try to alter it that this becomes apparent.

Re: Weak forever or strong tomorrow?

last year, I felt like dying... Today I... felt great

I refer you to the great Greg Lemond* (also one of The Rules iirc, link above): it never gets easier, you just get faster.

* only USAian to have won the Tour de France.