“You’d be nuts to go thorugh a scanner”

DHS documents show agency isn’t sure pornoscanners are safe
[Via Boing Boing]

The Electronic Privacy Information Center is going great guns with its Freedom of Information requests to the DHS on the full-body radiation scanners (“pornoscanners”) used in airports. EPIC’s liberated documents suggest that the DHS itself has failed to adequately test scanners for radiation risk, that they’re worried about this, and that they’re taking steps to cover this up. Based on this stuff, I think you’d be nuts to go through a scanner — and that the DHS’s employees should refuse to operate them.

 

EPIC v. DHS Lawsuit — FOIA’d Documents Raise New Questions About Body Scanner Radiation Risks : In a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, EPIC has just obtained documents concerning the radiation risks of TSA’s airport body scanner program. The documents include agency emails, radiation studies, memoranda of agreement concerning radiation testing programs, and results of some radiation tests. One document set reveals that even after TSA employees identified cancer clusters possibly linked to radiation exposure, the agency failed to issue employees dosimeters – safety devices that could assess the level of radiation exposure. Another document indicates that the DHS mischaracterized the findings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, stating that NIST “affirmed the safety” of full body scanners. The documents obtained by EPIC reveal that NIST disputed that characterization and stated that the Institute did not, in fact, test the devices. Also, a Johns Hopkins University study revealed that radiation zones around body scanners could exceed the “General Public Dose Limit.” For more information, see EPIC: EPIC v. Department of Homeland Security – Full Body Scanner Radiation Risks and EPIC: EPIC v. DHS (Suspension of Body Scanner Program). (Jun. 24, 2011)

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So, our choice now when we fly is to either get felt up or submit to a scanner whose safety has not been effectively proven?

Isn’t it great to be an American?

Other tablets still have some ways to go

Review roundup: HP TouchPad billed as ‘mediocre tablet’
[Via AppleInsider]

Hewlett Packard’s entry into the tablet market has drawn praise for its external beauty and criticism as reviewers dug beneath the surface, with one journalist calling the device a “mediocre tablet.”

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Okay hardware with little software available does not make a useful ecosystem. Perhaps in 6-12 months but where will iPad be by then?

Record high temperatues in Texas

Hottest day on record in Texas Panhandle; fire threatens Los Alamos
[Via Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog]

The hottest temperatures in recorded history scorched large portions of the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma Panhandle, and southwestern Kansas on Sunday. Amarillo hit 111°, breaking its hottest day-ever record of 109° (set just two days previously, on June 24). Borger, Texas hit 113°, smashing the previous hottest day-ever record set on June 24, 2011 of 108°. Dalhart, Texas had its hottest day on record, 110°, beating the 108° on June 24, 2011. Dodge City, Kansas tied its all-time record with 110° (last seen on June 29, 1998). Dodge City has temperature records back to 1874. Yesterday saw the hottest temperatures of the month for Texas with 116.2° at Childress, Northfield, and Memphis (all in the panhandle region.) These readings are not far from the state record of 120° set at Monahas on June 28, 1994 and at Seymore on August 12, 1936. 

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Not only record drought in the state but some terribly high numbers. Pecos, Texas has had no rain since September of last year – normal is over 4 inches. Amarillo’s temperature of 111ª was the hottest it has gotten in recorded history back to 1892. In San Angelo, 22 of the first 26 days of the month were over 100°.

It is going to be a miserable summer. I wish some of that water in South Dakota wold make its way to Texas.

Getting arrested for breaking no law? – all on film

by Bruce R

Two Reporters Arrested For Daring To Photograph/Videotape Public DC Taxi Commission Meeting
[Via Techdirt]

It really is quite amazing how so many authority types these days can’t seem to comprehend the idea that people can and will take phones and record public events. Sinan Unur alerts us to the news of how two reporters were arrested in Washington DC while attending a public meeting of the DC Taxi Commission, which was meeting over a planned medallion system for taxis (used in many other cities, but somewhat controversial due to the ability to artificially restrict the market). Apparently, a reporter by the name of Pete Tucker was arrested for taking a photograph, and then Reason’s Jim Epstein filmed the arrest and subsequent outrage by pretty much everyone in attendance. He then tried to leave, and the police tried to get his camera and then arrested him as well. You don’t see him arrested in the video, but the woman at the end who declares that he has no right to film her (false, since this is a public place) apparently is told by a police officer that Epstein’s phone would be turned over to her, which raises questions as to why police would be handing a phone over to someone else.

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And the nice way to get around the First Amendment – a cop stating they will arrest you for not following a direct order to leave, even if nothing illegal was done. Then you are not arrested for taking pictures but for refusing to obey an officer.

Of course, it will all be cleared up in court after a lot of money but the cop will never be censored and the government’s ability to crush your First Amendment rights can continue unabated.

We will continue to go through these things until everyone realizes that cameras at an open public meeting will always be there and that there is no reason to keep them out.  THey are not disruptive in any real sense of the word. The law will eventually get settled. But I do love what the immediate response of authority is.

That never changes, no matter which party is in power.

Physicists who do not play baseball

by basheertome

Baseball, cheating, and physics
[Via Boing Boing]

Some good news for Sammy Sosa fans still whispering, “Say it ain’t so.” Back in 2003, Sosa was caught using a corked bat—a normal wooden bat hollowed out in the center and stuffed with lighter cork material. That embarrassing incident did happen, and it does go against baseball rules. But, according to physicists at the University of Illinois and Washington State University, a corked bat probably doesn’t offer much of an advantage. Sure, Sosa technically cheated. But he didn’t actually cheat in a practical sense, they say. At least, not by altering his bat.

There was some anecdotal information from players that there’s something like a ‘trampoline effect’ when the ball bounces off a corked bat,” says Nathan, one of the authors of the new study. So the researchers hollowed out a bat, stuffed it with bits of cork and fired a ball at the bat from a cannon. If anything, the ball came off the corked bat with a slower speed than off a normal bat. Less velocity means a shorter hit. Their conclusion: the trampoline effect was bogus.

But there was another way corking might work: a corked bat is a few ounces lighter than an unadulterated one, and a lighter bat means a batter can swing faster, which means he can generate more force and hit the ball farther. Right? Not quite, as it turns out.

A batter indeed can swing a lighter bat faster, but a lighter bat has less inertia. So there’s a trade-off, says Lloyd Smith, an associate professor of engineering at Washington State University and a co-author on the paper. By once again firing a ball at a bat at WSU’s Sports Science Laboratory, the researchers found that a heavier bat still hit the ball harder (and therefore farther) than a lighter, corked bat. “Corking will not help you hit the ball farther,” says Smith.

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As anyone who has played baseball really knows, a corked bat is not about hitting the ball harder. It is about being able to make a long bat lighter so that one can hit balls that would be impossible to hit with a heavy long bat.

Baseball needs to use a hard wood – so that it does not break all the time. But these are dense and heavy. Lighter woods are easier to swing quickly but more prone to breaking. (Part of the reason aluminum bats are so popular is that a long bat can still be very light.)

So there has always been a tradeoff between a long, but heavy bat that allows one to cover the entire strike zone and a shorter but light bat whose light weight lets one wait longer before starting the swing.

Corking a bat changes its density, allowing one to get the benefits of a shorter bat while maintaining the plate coverage of a long bat.

A batter using a corked bat can make good contact with a much greater range of pitches than one using either a short, light bat or a long, heavy one.

The power comes from the steroids. The cork just let them get a bat on more balls.

The researchers were really studying the wrong question. Can a corked bat be swung easier and faster? Does the change in density actually make a difference?

Killing replay value of games will create a death spiral

by wwarby

Capcom crushes replay value of new game by making saved games permanent
[Via Ars Technica]

When you open your brand-new copy of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D today, you may find something interesting in the manual. “Note: Saved data on this software cannot be reset,” you are warned. When you play the game and your progress is saved, there is no way to take it back. That is your game forever.

Let me explain why this is so infuriating if you’re unclear on just how hostile this is to gamers. Once you’ve beaten the game, you can’t erase your progress and start over. If you want to loan the game to a friend, they won’t be able to start their own game from the beginning. You may be able to trade the game into a store or sell it, but I wouldn’t suggest buying it from someone used, since you won’t be able to start from the beginning and unlock all the content yourself.

“Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision, so we hope that all our consumers will be able to enjoy the entirety of the survival-action experiences that the game does offer,” Capcom said in a statement given to Giant Bomb.

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The inability to return to point zero after starting a game would kill its replay value for me and for many others. I like to try different strategies, check things out, see if I can ‘win’ fast or slow, etc.

But this thing, whose only real purpose seems to be to prevent anyone else from every replaying the game after one starts, will simply kill the game.

To these companies, resale is worse than piracy. I really think that these sorts of games – requiring large development teams and costing $50 or more – are dinosaurs and will quickly be overshadowed by small app economy companies. We are already seeing some of this disruption.

The gaming  industry will never be the same.

Why you should lock your phone – police searches

Arizona Police Told To Search Arrestee iPhones For Anti-Police Apps
[Via Techdirt]

Last week’s big LulzSec (pre-disbandment) dump of Arizona police info apparently included some documents telling police to search the iPhones of arrestees for specific apps, including OpenWatch, a simple app for recording people (targeted at authorities) without it displaying on the phone that they’re being recorded. The police were also told to look for speed trap identifying apps and an app that lets people spoof caller ID numbers. As we’ve discussed a few times, there are some legal questions about whether or not cops can just search your iPhone during, say, a routine traffic stop, but tragically a few courts have said it’s fine. That seems rather troubling, as the cops can search your phone after just a routine traffic stop… and then potentially get you in more trouble just because they don’t like the types of apps you have?

Separately, the article notes that the Justice Department has been sending around notices to local law enforcement, telling them to be aware that iPhone users have a feature that lets them remotely wipe their phones. This is part of the mobile me service, and the wiping has a perfectly legitimate purpose: to let someone who has lost their phone or had it stolen, to wipe the data from the phone. It’s pretty useful, really. But, to police who are seizing phones and want to search them later, they’re scared that evidence can be destroyed this way, so the Justice Department is telling them to store the phone in Faraday bags to keep them disconnected from any network, so they can’t receive the “wipe” signal.

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If they really, really want to get your information, they will get it but it is a good thing to make it a little harder.

But I do wonder what the police would do if they found some of these apps – apps that are perfectly legal to possess. What possible legal reason would there be to look on someone’s phone for these apps?

Getting power from space

by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Space Solar Power – Recent Conceptual Progress
[Via The Oil Drum - Discussions about Energy and Our Future]

This is a guest post by Keith Henson. Keith can be reached at hkeithhenson at gmail dot com.

Power satellites are an idea that has been around since the late 1960s [1] but not developed commercially because we don’t know how to build an inexpensive space transport system.  That may have changed recently, at least in theory.

We have known for decades that solar power satellites can send energy to the earth.  Communication satellites do it every day, just not at levels useful for power.  Power satellites scale to humanity’s need; a calculation by G. Harry Stein back in the 1980s noted that there was room for 177 TW in geosynchronous orbit (more than ten times current energy use).

The concept is to make electric power in space (thermal or photovoltaic [2]), turn the power into microwaves, beam the microwaves to Earth and convert them back to electric power at “rectennas.”  The rectennas are simple (though large) structures that stop so little sunlight that the intention is to place them over farmland within a few hundred km of cities.

The biggest obstacle to solar power satellites is the cost of putting the necessary hardware in space.[3] There have been several previous discussions [4] [5] [6] about solar power satellites on The Oil Drum.  What this current post does is describe a way to reduce the cost of putting the materials into space far enough that energy from power satellites can compete with coal (2 cents per kWh), assuming we amortize the total cost over a 10-year period.

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Now this would be a wonderful, forward looking project for us to embark on. The technology is there. It just needs to be scaled up.

But it would get us to a future where fossil-based fuels are no longer a problem. We could then concentrate on ameliorating the effects of too much carbon but we could not be producing more.

Will we have the courage to tackle this problem?

How more education produces two different results

by Phil Roeder

“A Little Knowledge”: Why The Biggest Problem With Climate “Skeptics” May Be Their Confidence
[Via DeSmogBlog - Clearing the PR Pollution that Clouds Climate Science]

AlexanderPope.jpg

Last week, an intriguing study emerged from Dan Kahan and his colleagues at Yale and elsewhere–finding that knowing more about science, and being better at mathematical reasoning, was related to more climate science skepticism and denial–rather than less.

Kahan’s team simply structured a survey in a way that no one—to my knowledge, at least—has done before. In a sample of over 1,500 people, they gathered at least four different types of information: how much scientific literacy they possessed (e.g., how well they answered questions about things like the time it takes for the Earth to circle the sun and the relative sizes of electrons and atoms), how “numerate” they were (e.g., their ability to engage in mathematical reasoning), what their cultural values were (how much they favored individualism and hierarch in the ordering of society, as opposed to being egalitarian and communitarian), and what their views were on how serious a risk global warming is.

The surprise—for some out there, anyway—lay in how the ingredients of this stew mix together. For citizens as a whole, more literacy and numeracy were correlated with somewhat more, rather than somewhat less, dismissal of the risk of global warming. When you drilled down into the cultural groups, meanwhile, it turned out that among the hierarchical-individualists (aka, conservatives), the relationship between greater math and science knowledge and dismissal of climate risks was even stronger. (The opposite relationship occurred among egalitarian communitarians—aka liberals).

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This is now the fifth study to show essentially the same thing – the more math and science a liberal has, the more likely they are to acknowledge AGW; the more math and science a conservative has, the less likely they are to acknowledge AGW.

The data from all these surveys show that this dichotomy, which is only seen in the US and not in Europe, derives from what political – especially conservative – leaders espouse. As the conservative leadership has become more and more disconnected with the science, so has the educated conservative population.

This is not to pick on conservatives as many liberals can be found espousing views about alternative medicine that hold no scientific validity.

It simply shows the common human trait of relying on leaders to provide simple heuristics and rules of thumb to deal with a complex world.

It also means that solving the problem is not a simple matter of convincing those who refuse to recognize the science that the science is correct. They do not acknowledge the science because of the fear that to do so would likely require them to acknowledge policy changes they find abhorrent.

As Upton Sinclair stated: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.”

At base, it is not the science but the policy changes that the science might lead to that determines a skeptic’s views.

It is easier to deny AGW than to envision how to correct the problem using conservative principles. If, for the sake of argument, cap and trade was the only solution to AGW – I know it is not but this is a hypothetical – it becomes easier to simply deny AGW for a conservative. Just as a liberal would have a problem if the only solution was to give all our money to our billionaires.

But the real problem here is that there might be a conservative solution, or a moderate solution or one better than has been proposed. But since one side refuses to acknowledge the problem, that solution may never be espoused.

We are starting to see a few conservative leaders begin to acknowledge AGW. I expect more will in the next few years, simply because it is harder and harder to ignore the changes.

Perhaps then this dichotomy will reverse itself and we can actually have a discussion on how to fix the problem.

Maybe space-based solar would be a way to get off of carbon fueled power as well as provide strategic benefits.

Some perspective on austerity as we gut our future

Priorities
[Via Boing Boing]

Fact: The United States military spends more money in Afghanistan and Iraq, on just air conditioning alone, than NASA gets in their entire budget. (Via Matthew Francis)

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We could quibble some about the exact cost but we are spending about $15 billion a month on Iraq and Afghanistan. A huge amount of that goes to energy costs needed to fight in that climate.

NASA gets about $18 billion a year. In the next budget –2012 – it may get as much as it got in 2010. If it is lucky.

But a better understanding of how to create more efficient energy will most likely involve NASA.

NASA is just the highest profile department that demonstrates our continuing efforts to destroy the seed corn of research  in America. We are seeing similar things happen in the research arms of the USDA, FDA, EPA, NIH, HSF, NOAA and just about every other government agency.

We simply are not planning ahead well at all.

More women, smarter groups?

Add Women to Groups to Make Them Smarter
[Via danielmiessler.com]

There’s some fascinating new research showing that adding women to a group of problem solvers makes them more effective. The reason is clear and unsurprising to me: smart men tend to dominate and restrict the flow of ideas, while smart women focus more on sharing and nurturing ideas, which assists the overall progress. ::

(thanks to @laurenroth for the link)

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This sounds all sorts of  interesting until I looked at some of the data.

They created mixed groups from 0% to 100% women and asked them to do some creative things. IQ scores did not correlate with the ability to solve these problems but they claim that the amount of women in the group did.

But the online interview has a figure that makes me think that, if this correlation exists, it is very slight.

You can draw a straight line through almost any set of points but the correlation coefficient – a measure of how close each point comes to that line – would be very small here because there are so many outliers.

In a strongly correlated set of data, one would expect that the 100% men would perform worse than the 100% women, with the 50/50 group being intermediate. Here the 50/50 is one of the worse performing groups. And there are huge error bars. The error bars for the 0% and 100% women groups overlap, indicating that there is no statistical difference between them.

In addition, those groups that intersect the trend line all have error bars that hit the average line. Again, this would indicate that there is no real statistical significance here.

Statistical significance is usually defined as a less than 5% chance that the data is due to random chance. Overlapping error bars usually indicates an inability to demonstrate statistical significance.

And the 30% women group is ‘smarter’ than the 60% woman and as ‘smart’ as the 70% women. In fact, if you look at the five groups that intersect the trend line, their error bars all overlap.

If you wanted to believe this data as presented, the best groups would be those with either 30% or 70% women. But stay away from 50/50.

There may be something there. It is certainly an interesting hypothesis. But they need to get a lot more data to reduce the error bars and provide more statistical rigor before I can believe this data.

Pissing off Apple not a smart move

Apple rumored to move production of custom ‘A6′ chip away from Samsung in 2012
[Via AppleInsider]

Apple is rumored to further distance itself from its rival Samsung starting with the “A6″ chip in 2012, when the iPhone maker will allegedly transition production of its custom ARM chips to a new chipmaker.

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Samsung is going to lose a lot of business from Apple for its copycat ways. I wonder if sales from its tablets will make up for the loss of $8 billion or so?

Steve Job’s describing the future – from 1997

Steve Jobs’s Closing Keynote at WWDC 1997
[Via Daring Fireball]

I linked to this off-handedly the other day, to source Jobs’s “Focus is saying no” quote, but the whole thing — a Q&A session with WWDC attendees — is extraordinary. The video is poor quality but the content is utterly compelling.

It was post-NeXT acquisition so Jobs was back at Apple, but only as an advisor, not yet as CEO. But the man clearly had a vision then for what Apple could be. And we now know he was right. He was unbelievably right. And then he made it happen.

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This is pretty amazing to relive. Check in at about 15 minutes. Steve essentially describes his vision for the cloud – access to all personal files from any device through a network.

How rapidly the world has changed in 15 years.

And how much Steve Jobs has changed also.

UPDATED:New business evil – repurchasing vested options to screw employees

Report: Skype and investor Silver Lake screwed employees out of stock options
[Via Boing Boing]

Skype and Silver Lake, a large investor, recently fired a bunch of senior executives, allegedly to prevent their stock gaining real value in a forthcoming acquisition by Microsoft. Digging into the contracts’ legalese reveals an obfuscated clause that decodes to something like “we can buy your stock back at the grant price, even if it has vested, prior to any sale of the company.” Felix Salmon at Wired:

I no longer think that what Skype did here is pretty evil: I now think it’s downright evil, and destroys the balance of trust on which Silicon Valley has been built. What’s more, I simply don’t believe that Skype did all of this itself, without detailed input from Silver Lake. … I don’t know where they got these techniques from, but they’re very alien to Silicon Valley and indeed the rest of the business world. And they do no good at all for the reputation of private equity companies more generally.

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What happens is that an employee is given options to buy a certain number of shares at a set price. It takes several years for all the shares to become vested and available to the optionee.

When the company gets bought out, usually at a price higher than the set option price, the employee gets to share in the pot of money.

Unless you are Skype. They have an agreement that allows them to repurchase all the options at the set price, meaning the employee gets nothing and the company gets all the profit.

All they have to do is fire the employee. Which is what they did. See it is not illegal to fire anyone simply so the investors can make more money.

I imagine that any company trying this sort of thing in the future will have a hard time getting good programmers.In fact, I think some of the real software problems Skype has had recently may be due to the fact that many of the really good programmers saw the problem with this clause and went elsewhere.

The evil that Skype has become seems to fit well with the corporation buying them.

UPDATE: and another evil thing is that the forced sale of these options  creates a taxable event that will require the employee to deal with the IRS about these options. It’ll be interesting to see just what the IRS comes up with.

Why we live in wonderful times

We often complain about technology and the changes it brings. But it is important to remind ourselves of the incredibly rich world that it provides. Here we have an example.

Not that technology created those wonderful voices. Those have been around since humans came out of the trees.

No, it is the fact that we can now listen to those wonderful voices on a computer. The music was recorded on a video camera and edited using tools that cost hundreds of  thousands of dollars just a few years ago. It is presented on an open website for free and we can watch that video over networks that used to only be available to the government.

This technology, which is roiling our very civilization because of the disruptive uses it is being put to, provides us with power that our ancestors would have had in the hands of the Gods.

Like any technology, its uses depends on the types of people who access it. But the use of technology changes us also, making it very hard to know just what we and society will become. The fear this change creates drives the lives of many people.

So, let’s also remember to embrace the aspects of technology that help us to remember what sort of society and people we wish to be.

The sort that can listen to such wonderful voices – that can help support the continuing production of such lovely voices in the coming years – whenever it wants to.

Here is another great clip: