Rediscovering what they were supposed to already know

by TheMarque

1997 Warning on Deep Blowouts: ‘Options Are Limited’
[Via Dot Earth]

It should come as no surprise that experts in avoiding and stopping blowouts of oil and gas wells long ago saw the deep-ocean drilling frontier as particularly dangerous terrain.

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As often happens in human endeavors, people get complacent and take shortcuts. The only way to prevent this is to make sure there is a cultural focus on doing it right. This often means that some people who fail to follow proper procedure need to be tried criminally.

And not just the poor guys on the platform but their bosses who pressured them.

Yep, I’m a liberal because I believe that might actually work. Well, it would actually work if we ever held anyone accountable. Lack of accountability by those in charge has been a hallmark of the last 20 years.

Snopes kills myths for people who seek a reality-based world

Snopes Shoots Down Latest Rightwing Myth
[Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars

I'm sure you've heard the latest one: President Obama is not going to be at Arlington National Cemetary on Memorial Day to honor the soldiers, he's sending Biden instead -- and this is the first time a president has ever snubbed the precious memories of dead heroes like this! Obama hates the troops!

Except, of course, this is utter bullshit. Snopes points out that not only is that false, it is routinely done by Republican presidents -- even conservative heroes like Ronald Reagan, who missed it four times in eight years. And you know who didn't miss a single Memorial Day at Arlington? Bill Clinton. Another stupid rumor shot to hell.

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I use Snopes all the time when I get all sorts of emailed urban myths that people take for truth. First thing I do when I read one of these missives is check out Snopes. I’d say 90% of the time, the email is based on a total myth.

Yet, people would rather believe a falsehood and pass it on than simply do a little bit of fact-checking. Most people appear love it when something confirms what they already know, even if that something is factually wrong.

Such is the demonstration of rational-thinking skills by most Americans. I sometimes wish that people had to pass some sort of rational-thinking test in order to vote but I guess if we believe liberal democracy is the best political approach – and the fact that the number of such countries has doubled in the last 40 years or so – then we have to let idiots vote also.

The iPad is forcing the industry to regroup

by nDevilTV

Looking Silly, Indeed
[Via Daring Fireball]

Paul Thurrott, back on January 6, reporting from CES:

In the meantime, I wanted to briefly discuss some of the stuff Lenovo is doing. I spent about an hour and a half meeting with them this morning and while I am charitably described as a ThinkPad fanboy, the truth is, they just make the best notebooks on earth. And now they’re getting even better. It’s dizzying. I posted a bit about this yesterday, but there is so much going on here. In fact, their near-final version of a tiny notebook with a breakaway tablet screen absolutely kills anything Apple could possibly announce later this month. It’s not even close. […]

IdeaPad U1 hybrid notebook. Shipping in the second half of 2010, this is the device that will make Apple’s supposed tablet look silly. It’s basically a clamshell netbook-class computer running Windows 7. But you can pop-off the screen and use just that as a tablet.

Three days ago, Lenovo announced that they’re killing the product and starting over from scratch with Android.

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To get an idea of what a gamechanger the iPad is you only have to look at the multitude of announced hardware that is being revamped or outright killed. HP’s Slate, which MS made such a big deal about – gone; maybe to be back with a whole new operating system. The MS Courier – gone. Fusion Garage’s JooJoo – less than a hundred sold. Lots of announcements for sale in September or later.

If you read news about tablets, everyone is announcing new approaches, because their old ones simply didi not compete with the iPad. Their battery life sucks. They weight more or they cost more. No one has yet provided a competing device that hits all the sweet spots the iPad does, and also includes an superior touch screen experience.

Android may be the only choice for many companies, as MS seems to be years away from a useful mobile, touchscreen interface. And HP bought the only other OS that has any chance of competing with the iPhone OS.

Competition is good but these guys have to really hurry because time does march on.

For now, having to revamp may have a huge effect on one important event – the Holiday season. It seems unlikely that many of the serious competitors can get a device redesigned to effectively compete with the iPad, and get the marketing engine going, in time for the Holiday rush.

This can push back any real competition for market share on iPads quite a bit. And by next year, I expect we will be almost onto the 3rd version of the iPad, while others are still on their first. Apple is not siting still with the iPad.

So, not only does the competition have to match or exceed what the iPad has now, but they also have to be creative enough to set themselves on a path to compete with where the iPad will be a year from now.

How many iPads would have been sold in a normal economy?

Apple Sells Two Million iPads in Less Than 60 Days
[Via Apple Hot News]

Apple today announced that iPad sales have topped two million in less than 60 days since its launch on April 3. “Customers around the world are experiencing the magic of iPad, and seem to be loving it as much as we do,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We appreciate their patience, and are working hard to build enough iPads for everyone.”

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That has to be over $1 billion in 2 months. Not to bad for something many people called just a big iPod touch. I have found that I use my iPad for times when it is just too inconvenient to lug my laptop. Like eating lunch at a cafe. I can have my laptop out and up, connected to their WiFi and be checking emails, news, or playing a quick game, all in the time it would have taken me to get my laptop out and start it up.

And my iPad can do this over multiple days without needing any charging. I use my iPhone for times when I can not access WiFi, although those are getting fewer in number

I’m finding that there are lots of times during the day when I simply do not need the heavy lifting that a laptop or desktop provides. Now if they could just add a couple of new things – printing is one, and it sounds like it may come shortly; and wireless transfer of files. Having to go through iTunes can be a pain. And it would be nice to be able to transfer files from one iPad to another.

Finally, it would be nice to have a wireless phone company in the US allow tethering of an iPhone to an iPad. That would be very nice.

Science is still apparently a partisan issue

by Listener42

BREAKING: Third time’s a charm, Congress passes science act
[Via Bad Astronomy]

After Republicans twice stalled it, the America COMPETES Act was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 262-150.

Hurray!

I have the history of this bill outlined in an earlier post. It failed the first time it went to vote because a Republican Congressman used some shameful politics to derail it, and the second time because to bring the Act to the House Floor for a vote, the Democratic majority had to put it in to pass with a 2/3 majority. Too many Republicans still voted against it, claiming it was too much spending.

That, to be blunt, is garbage. This Act makes sure we have enough money funding science and technology to grow our economy. Not passing it would be like eating your seed corn. As Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ) says,

“It shouldn’t take three votes to pass legislation to support the research vital to long term economic growth. If half of economic growth in the last half century is attributable to technological developments and innovations, then we can’t afford to presume that U.S. leadership in innovation is a given. If we intend to lead the global economy, we must tend to our innovation infrastructure, as this bill does.”

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I wrote about the antics of the Republicans with regard to this bill a week or so ago. Once again, while the GOP voted overwhelmingly for this just a few years ago, essentially all of them voted against this now. They stopped the bill twice before, even after the Democrats altered the bill because of Republican concerns.

All 150 no votes were Republican. Only 17 members of the GOP voted for this. Even after several weeks of voting and compromise, there was little movement.

As I said before, scientific research used to have bipartisan support. Now it is just a political football with the GOP trying to play the role of Lucy. Perhaps someday the Democrats will realize that Lucy ALWAYS pulls the football away and simply not negotiate with them at all.

Fear the tabnap phish

Beware Tabnabbing, a New Type of Phishing Attack
[Via TidBITS]

I can never decide whether I’m happy when a good guy discovers and publicizes a new way of potentially exploiting Internet users. After all, it’s better that we learn about the problem before it appears in the wild, but there’s always a worry that the bad guys wouldn’t have figured it out on their own without the hint. The latest trick, dubbed “tabnabbing,” comes from Aza Raskin, Creative Lead for Firefox (and son of Jef Raskin).

Here’s how it works, and you can watch it happen yourself by loading the proof-of-concept (which is also the page where Raskin explains the exploit). Although Aza Raskin tested primarily with Firefox, I was able to verify that the exploit also works in the Mac versions of Safari, Camino, Opera, and OmniWeb, though not quite in the same way in each. The current version of Google Chrome (5.0.375.55) appears to be immune from the problem, though it’s possible that Google fixed it quickly, since others have previously reported Chrome as vulnerable.

Imagine you’re browsing the Web and you end up at a particular page, call it SneakyPage. It doesn’t look evil, and it may in fact be a totally legitimate site that has been compromised by a bad guy. But it contains a tiny bit of malicious JavaScript that loads with the page, and that JavaScript does nothing unless you switch to another tab, leaving the tab holding SneakyPage open.

At that point, the malicious JavaScript springs into action, replacing the SneakyPage tab’s favicon, title, and page content. Remember, you’re off in another tab, or even in another program, so you’re not paying attention at this point.

SneakyPage could pretend to be Gmail or Hotmail or Citibank or any other commonly used site. The specifics don’t matter; all it has to do is make you believe that the tab contains a legitimate login form for a service you use.

At some point later, you come back to the tab, see the login form, and decide that yes, you do want to log back in to check your email or your account balance. Once you do so, SneakyPage’s JavaScript snags your login credentials for future nefarious purposes and redirects you to the actual site, so you’re none the wiser that you’ve just fallen victim to a phishing attack.

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This is really a scary approach as it can work even if you take normal precautions. The Javascript will morph the page into a new one when you are not looking. Then you come back to is, see that your log-in timed out and decide to log back in. However, even though the page may look like a Gmail page or even your bank’s, it is a fake. It will grab your login information, sent that to its own servers, and then pass you on to the page you thought you were going to. You are none the wiser. The webpages all look right but now someone else has your login information.

To stop this, you can either shut off Javascript, which makes the web pretty much unusable. Or you have to change your behavior. Only login from a new window, not from an old tab.

Most phishing attempts are based on using human nature. Often simply being safe about where one goes is enough. And not clicking links you do not know about.

But this one is really sneaky and requires a major change in behavior in order to be safe.

I have to hope that the browser makers find a way to stop this.

Surely the police would not make stuff up?

by taberandrew

Police Just Guessing When They Can’t Clearly Read License Plate In Red Light Camera Photos
[Via Techdirt]

We recently wrote about a guy “caught” by a redlight camera who had to decode the numerical codes on the photos sent to him to prove he didn’t actually run the red light. It was disturbing enough to find out that police were sending motorists tickets when they obeyed the law, but reader Brent points us to an even more problematic situation. Apparently, at least some police are simply taking guesses on license plates if they can’t read all the letters correctly — and they’re sending tickets to the wrong people because of it. The police in the story insist that if they can’t read the plate, they won’t send a ticket, but the reporter covering the story shows at least two cases where that’s simply not true, and where it seems clear that police just took a guess — sending tickets to the wrong parties.

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We are starting to see those red light cameras around here. I sure hope they have a process that does not entangle innocent people simply because they want to collect fines. Part of the reason I do not want automatic methods for detecting criminals. They almost always work less effectively than humans.

Investigating the oil plume with a blog

from the Walton Smith

Well it looks like that grant from the NSF I mentioned a few days ago is being put to use.

Remember plumes of underwater oil found a few weeks ago? They are back in science news. The same researchers are on a new ship and back out for two weeks. They are taking samples and letting us know about their work via a blog. It is fascinating reading.

They are working 24/7 on gathering and analyzing data, including looking at methane levels. This work is funded by the National Science Foundation and has some researchers from UCSB on it. Since that is who got the grant from NSF, I think it is likely that some of that money is going to help fund this trip, perhaps their methane analysis. David Valentine has an opinion piece in Nature about the work that needs to be done over the next few months by the research community. He says this about dissolved methane:

A promising technique is to measure the plumes of dissolved methane emanating from the site. Methane gas is the most abundant compound in the spill, constituting approximately 40% of the leaking petroleum by mass, according to energy company BP, which controls the reservoir. Although methane from surface-vessel spills or shallow-water blowouts escapes into the air, I expect that the vast majority of methane making the long trip to the sea surface from a deep water spill would dissolve. Unlike oil, methane dissolves uniformly in seawater. And the tools are available to measure it accurately and sensitively.

And get used to hearing about CDOM – colored dissolved organic mater. Because this ship is finding a lot of it.

It turns out that the plume has moved from where it was last time. And its general character has changed:

The plume was located between 800m and 1300m in the water column and there appeared to be three distinct layers. The sensor signal for colored dissolved organic showed a robust increase in signal between 800 and 900m; then increased by about five times between 1000 and 1200m; and, between 1200 and 1300m, the signal doubled again. In these same depth ranges, the signal from the transmissometer also increased, suggesting a different suite of particles in the water between these different depths.

They are also examining methane and oxygen levels in the water. It seems that the more methane present, the lower the oxygen levels.

On Thursday they found a new plume, with very interesting features. There was less CDOM, more methane and less oxygen. It appears very likely that the degradation of the oil and methane is reducing the amount of oxygen in the water. So that this may be an older plume. The oxygen levels are not low enough to be hazardous to life, yet.

It is really cool to see the up-to-date recordings of working scientists as they find out all sorts of new and exciting bits of information about the world around us. Perhaps some researchers are seeing the benefits of putting preliminary data and insights out a little early. I’m looking forward to seeing what more they find.

Airplane’s homage to Zero Hour revealed

Airplane! side by side with original 50s flick
[Via Boing Boing]

Neatorama points us to an interesting factoid about the movie Airplane! — it’s essentially a remake of a 50s flick called Zero Hour!. You can see some side by side comparisons in the video above.

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I had heard about that Airplane! was based on an old movie called Zero Hour but experiencing the side by side makes you realize how much of the original dialogue was carried over. Simple adding the right phrasing changed it from banal words to really funny dialogue.

What is amazing is how many of the set pieces (Jimmy, Have you ever been in a cockpit before? Looks like I picked a bad day to give up smoking.) were all in the original movie.

Airplane! is almost like a colorized, Fractured Flickers version of the original. We would know for certain if Hans Conreid had been around.

UPDATED = Remember all that spilled oil after Katrina

Cox Bay spill from NOAA

It is so very easy to get apocalyptic about what is happening in the Gulf. And there definitely are some very important things we should change in our drilling process.

But ecosystems have a tremendous ability to adapt and survive. Hurricane Katrina caused 113 oil platforms to be completely destroyed, resulting in 124 offshore spills. The largest single spill, at Cox Bay, disgorged 3.7 million gallons of oil.

Pictures of the oil slicks from Katrina look eerily similar to what we see today. Yet the Gulf survived.

The Ixtoc spill in 1979 leaked oil for about 9 months, spilling an estimated 10 thousand or more barrels a day into the Gulf. Over 3 million barrels of oil were released. Yet the Gulf continued to survive.

Look at the area around Mount St. Helens, where entire ecosystems exist where only total destruction once stood.

Life will do fine. The major effects will be on us and on what we decide to do. There will be huge amounts of harm to human endeavors, jobs and economies. There will be trillions of dollars spent that did not have to. The social effects will not recover as easily as life does. We need to make some hard decisions.

This is not meant to be an apologia for BP. They need to have the book thrown at them. We need to recognize that Deep Sea drilling is as fraught with engineering perils as the Space shuttle is. We operate very close the the limits of our abilities in these areas but have apparently gotten too lax in our oversight.

This is not an area to cut corners, yet that appears to be exactly what happened. I have read that in Canada, a relied well is dug in parallel with the main well, so that it can very quickly be brought to bear in case of a blowout. If true, that demonstrates a much more realistic attitude towards the hazards of these engineering endeavors than the ad-speak we hear of “no one could have foreseen this happening.”

Of course, these things make the up front costs higher but is very much a case of pay me now or pay me later. We are definitely paying later.

Perhaps forcing more of the costs up front will make it much less likely that we have something like this happen again.

[Update - Found the article which mentioned how Canada and other countries drill relief wells at the same time in order to deal with blowouts. In fact, oil companies were trying to get that requirement removed saying that current technologies made blowouts a thing of the past. Guess they are not so sure about things now.]]

Renting a movie for $25 bucks!

Movies could be available as a VOD rental before DVD, Blu-ray — for $20 to $30 each
[Via Engadget]

The MPAA has often stated its desire to offer movies through video on-demand ahead of their release on DVD or Blu-ray — provided the analog hole was closed — and now that it has been, the Wall Street Journal reports Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. are considering a pitch from Time Warner Cable to do just that. The price for cutting the usual four month wait for home viewing to just 30 days? As much as $20 to $30 for a rental. Sony’s already tried experimenting with a higher price point on early delivery of Hancock and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs to BRAVIA HDTV owners, but at least they threw in a free Blu-ray copy with the former. So far the studios have only agreed that their current release strategy needs some sort of change, but unless they add some sweeteners we don’t see this one shifting us from our current rental/purchase habits.

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Am I really going to pay as much for a rental as I would for the DVD? I guess the studios just figure no one will really buy the DVD anyway. I for certain am not going to spend that amount of money when I can get a physical copy I can watch anytime I want.

Or use Netflix and spend a lot, lot less.

This is really stupid. They charge more than the movie price for something that really costs them very little to distribute. When was the last time anyone got excited with the pricing of any content when the publishers/studios had direct control? It is only when someone else, such as Apple or Amazon, pushes the price down that we get exciting pricing models.

The content companies – not so much.

How an efficient company makes a ton of money

[Crossposted at SpreadingScience]

by NeoGaboX

Apple’s Incredibly Efficient Growth
[Via Daring Fireball]

Steve Cheney analyzes Apple’s R&D expenditures and acquisition pace:

Organic growth is the term coined for growing internally, not via merger or acquisition. Apple has embraced this strategy over its existence, averaging only about 1 acquisition per year during the past 25 years. In contrast — during the past four years alone — Microsoft bought 45 companies, Google 40, and Cisco 30.

Microsoft spent seven times as much as Apple on R&D over the past four years.

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I saw this while working at Immunex – a well-designed and well-run company with a culture of innovation can beat larger, more well-funded companies every time.

Big Phama outspent us by a huge amount, and had many more people working on the same projects, yet we continued to get things done before them. Same with Apple.

It is possible to grow quite large and still maintain this culture. It helps tremendously if the guys at the top are not sales or marketing types, who generally seem to have no clue about rapid innovation and efficient management design.

Buying companies sucks away energy that could have been more efficiently used. It seems that MBAs think the mergers and acquisitions are the way to grow. Immunex did not think so and neither does Apple.

Big Day for David Valentine, UCSB Oil Slick Researcher

by Schristia

Researcher: we’re not doing enough to track oil spill
[Via Ars Technica]

The US has a fleet of research vessels that it could deploy to monitor the spread of oil trough the Gulf of Mexico, and deploying them would cost a few million dollars or less. That argument comes courtesy of the University of California’s David Valentine, who makes a plea for action in an editorial released by Nature over the weekend. Although most of the editorial focuses on what the vessels might do to track the size and spread of the spill, Valentine wraps up by pointing out that unless there’s a concerted effort by the research community to spur the government into action, inertia might end up leaving the research vessels on the sidelines.

Valentine, who’s based at UC’s Santa Barbara campus, points out that nobody is even sure how much oil is coming out of the ruptured well; published estimates have ranged from 1,000 to 100,000 barrels daily. Although we can track some of the oil that has made its way to the surface, it has become increasingly clear that a large portion of the leak is spreading through currents that travel at intermediate depths. Without knowing how much is there or where it’s headed, just about everything we need to do about the spill—plan for mitigation, assess damage, assign liability—is a matter of educated guesswork.

His solution would be to turn the methane spewing from the leak, which caused problems from day one, into a tool. BP has said that about 40 percent of the leak, by mass, is methane (even if we consider most of what the company has said so far as unreliable, the amount of methane appears to be substantial).

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Well, the same day this editorial is being discussed, he gets a major grant from the NSF to research the oil slick. I hope he is able to do some methane monitoring. Maybe that is in another grant.

NSF funding research on Gulf oil spill

by marinephotobank

Gulf Oil Spill: NSF Awards Rapid Response Grant to Study Microbes’ Natural Degradation of Oil
[Via NSF News]

To understand how the use of dispersants impacts the degradation of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a rapid response grant to scientist David Valentine of the University of California at Santa Barbara and colleagues.

The massive release of oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident on April 20, 2010, has led to an unprecedented use of oil dispersants, which include a mix of surfactant compounds designed to dissolve oil and to prevent slick …

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Nice to see some rapid funding of an ongoing event. This should provide some information regarding the effects of dispersants and microbes on the degradation of the slick.

Maybe this will be useful next time.

Venter’s lifeform – revolutonary or incremental

by jurvetson

NYT, Chronicle, more: Venter’s synthetic cell–Landmark or ho-hum?
[Via Knight Science Journalism Tracker]

Page A17?

That’s where the New York Times plays Craig Venter’s announcement of a computer-generated synthetic genome able to take over a cell’s operations–and reproduce. In the second graf, Nicholas Wade quotes Venter as saying this is “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.”

That’s obviously a carefully crafted comment, and reporters are free to react with skepticism–indeed, that’s exactly what they should do. But when a prominent and highly accomplished scientist makes that claim, doesn’t that deserve better than Page A17? Or, to put it another way, how the hell can that NOT make Page 1?????

The Times didn’t even put it on the National page; it’s merely one in a grab-bag of national stories. The National page leads with student protests over budget cuts at Puerto Rican campuses, a story few of us will remember tomorrow, unless we happen to be students at a Puerto Rican college. Do you remember the last student protests over budget cuts? Of course not.

Also placed more prominently than Venter’s research are a story on a Harrisburg, Pa. incinerator, one on the White House gate crashers, and, on the front page, one on the sex life of a Chinese computer science professor and another on inflated pensions in Yonkers, N.Y.

No comment.

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A really nice compilation of some of the articles ranging from its one of mankind’s greatest achievements to its a small technical advance. I would probably lean towards the latter.

To me, the big deal is getting the one large chromosome constructed, with all the appropriate genes. Once that hurdle is overcome, the rest is a pretty straightforward shot. It still requires a living cell to start things up.

But being able to make a self-replicating cell using DNA that you created is really neat.

This opens up all sorts of possibilities regarding examination of genes and proteins. That is pretty exciting but does not seem to be the paradigm-shifting event some are heralding. To me, Venter’s greatest paradigm shift was one of his first – instead of sequencing chromosomal DNA from humans, sequence the mRNAs that correspond to genes. That way we can ignore all the complicating ‘junk’ DNA.