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3551

Living Room / Re: Am I the only person that has a real big problem with software like this?

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2013, 05:47 PM »

It's one thing to have an explicit agreement with your young kids that you are going to be monitoring their online/mobile activity in exchange for them getting such a device.  But doing it secretly seems like it's teaching them some wrong lessons.

-mouser (October 03, 2013, 08:48 PM)

Well, that might be true if you told them about it, but not if you kept it a secret. True?

In any event, whilst I used to be ambivalent towards the idea of "spying" on one's children - because I could see points on either side - from personal experience I would have to come down firmly on the side of the case for spying. I do mean spying, and that implies that it is to be kept secret.

(See rest of post - here.)

3552

Living Room / Re: Adobe admits 2.9 million customer accounts compromised

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2013, 02:19 PM »

At a bigger level Adobe is supposed to be "reputable", aka not a "cheap 2 bit op". Skipping all the zero day stuff, presumably their raw customer logins were supposed to be "standardly protected".
So I'm getting increasingly grumpy about the "Cloud" - "create accounts, good for only X years before they get hacked!"

-TaoPhoenix (October 08, 2013, 05:21 AM)

Start of rant:------------------------------------
Yes, it is a depressing reflection on the technical capability of the service suppliers how common a failing this "hackability" seems to have been. The evidence is there as plain as a pikestaff: the techos implementing these systems that get hacked - and hacked with such frequency and apparent ease - are clearly failing to implement sometimes even the most basic/elementary security procedures, never mind the appropriately more sophisticated security procedures.
The thing about good IT security is that it should employ a proactive and pre-emptive risk-averse approach to potential risk/threat.

I am thus wholly unimpressed by the Adobe blog post (linked to at the ZDnet link given by @tomos, above), where it says this:

Important Customer Security Announcement
Posted by Brad Arkin, Chief Security Officer on October 3, 2013 8:08 AM in Executive Perspectives   

Cyber attacks are one of the unfortunate realities of doing business today. Given the profile and widespread use of many of our products, Adobe has attracted increasing attention from cyber attackers. Very recently, Adobe’s security team discovered sophisticated attacks on our network, involving the illegal access of customer information as well as source code for numerous Adobe products. We believe these attacks may be related. ...
...We value the trust of our customers. We will work aggressively to prevent these types of events from occurring in the future. Again, we deeply regret any inconvenience this may cause you. If you would like additional information, please refer to Adobe’s Customer Support page.

This would seem to include:
 - argumentum ad populum (appeal to the people/consensus, popular sentiment - appeal to the majority; appeal to loyalty);
 - argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority; conventional propriety);
 - argumentum ad misericordiam - appeal to pity; to arouse pity for getting one's conclusion accepted);
 - argumentum ad baculum (appeal to fear);
 - argumentum ad ignorantiam (forwarding a proposition without any certain proof) - we are not offered any evidence as to the "sophistication" of this attack.

That is, there's not only an implicit:

"Hey, everyone knows that security can be a BIG PROBLEM - right? I mean, heck, it's not like it's MY fault, #sshole - I mean, like, it's a bad, bad world out there - y'know?"

- which could be a classic rejection of responsibility for the success of the hack attack and a pathetic, anticipatory whining self-defence, but also, the phrase "sophisticated attacks on our network" could arguably be a massive spin/euphemism for the truth, which could perhaps be better interpreted as:

"We were wholly unprepared for this hack attack, which was far more sophisticated than we had been prepared for with our hopelessly inadequate, immature and unsophisticated security systems. We thought we'd be able to get away with minimal spending on that part, but I guess we got screwed anyway. Oops. I guess calculating the statistical probability of risk was never one of our strong-points, eh? Oh dear, what a pity, never mind. Sorry about that. Well, this has certainly been a learning experience for us, and I promise we'll do real good now and start thinking ahead a bit. OK? So stop being all bitter and twisted about it, see?
Oh, and in case we've not already covered ourselves with explicit ZERO LIABILITY for this sort of thing, we will soon, 'cause we're already reviewing our Terms & Conditions to make damn sure of that one, and we'll unilaterally change it all, as necessary. So you can go suck on that."

It's bad enough, but at least it's understandable if/when people accidentally and without thinking use logical fallacies in a discussion/debate - because we're only human after all. However, if/when apparently fully-considered public statements/propositions are made by responsible and accountable people whilst in damage-control mode, and if those statements/propositions contain logical fallacies, then this could presumably be deliberate. That is, the truth could be being deliberately twisted in an attempt to avoid liability and shape public perception in a desired manner. This is the world of marketing and politics where "Perception is everything". It is BS.

The antics of Adobe over the years in consistently pushing and manipulating the market for its various ubiquitous and sometimes crappy offerings - e.g., including .PDF and Shockwave/Flash - had already put them relatively low down in my table of expectations, but by this latest foul-up and in particular their response to it they have just placed themselves smack at the bottom. Avoid.

End of rant:------------------------------------

3553

General Software Discussion / Re: Run a security check on your Gmail account - if not already done

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2013, 12:12 PM »

You can also turn on 2-stage authentication.  It works really well.

-wraith808 (October 08, 2013, 09:30 AM)

+1 - absolutely - kudos to Google - that's why I wrote:

The hack attempt apparently had been noted as it came from an unusual device (one we had not used before) and it failed one of the (very useful!) secondary verification challenges that has been introduced to Gmail since we set up the account.

3554

General Software Discussion / Re: Run a security check on your Gmail account - if not already done

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2013, 02:38 AM »

A reminder to run that security check.
I revived this thread because something similar just cropped up. Some years back, I had set up a Gmail account that is shared with several other users. It was a bit of an experiment and is used like a Google Group for us all to communicate on issues of common interest, but avoids all the fussing-about with administering a Google Group. Security is not a real issue, and the password was unchanged from the original - a string of several numeric digits, based on part of the phone number of one of the members.

This is the sequence of events:

• 1. Email warning received today from Google accounts admin.:
  

  Hi XXXX,
  Someone recently used your password to try to sign in to your Google Account [email protected]. This person was using an application such as an email, client or mobile device.
  We prevented the sign-in attempt in case this was a hijacker trying to access your account. Please review the details of the sign-in attempt:
  

  • Monday, 7 October 2013 14:11:58 o'clock UTC
  • IP Address: xxx.xx.xxx.xx (xxx-xx-xxx-xx.aaaaaa.xxxxxx.co.nz.)
  • Location: Auckland, New Zealand

  If you do not recognise this sign-in attempt, someone else might be trying to access your account. You should sign in to your account and reset your password immediately.
  ____________________________
  

  
  
• 2. I signed in to the Gmail account. A similar warning popped up recommending a password reset because:
  

  03:11 Application/device sign-in attempt (prevented).

  
  
• 3. I checked "recent activity" on the Gmail account (per the procedure described in the opening post). The hack attempt apparently had been noted as it came from an unusual device (one we had not used before) and it failed one of the (very useful!) secondary verification challenges that has been introduced to Gmail since we set up the account.
  
  
• 4. I generated a new and much higher-strength password, using LastPass, and set that PW.
  
  
• 5. I logged out of all sessions.
  
  
• 6. I Logged out of the Gmail account and then logged in again to check it had all worked OK.
  
  
• 7. I checked WHOIS and made a note of the email address (from WHOIS screenclip) at the ISP to notify of the hack attempt from an IP address in their domain.
  
  

3555

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2013, 01:23 AM »

Obamacare gets some attention from the medical professions:

The American Medical Association has weighed in on Obama's new health care package. The Allergists were in favor of scratching it, but the Dermatologists advised not to make any rash moves. The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve. Meanwhile, Obstetricians felt certain everyone was laboring under a misconception, while the Ophthalmologists considered the idea shortsighted.

Pathologists yelled, "Over my dead body!" while the Pediatricians said, "Oh, grow up!" The Psychiatrists thought the whole idea was madness, while the Radiologists could see right through it. Surgeons decided to wash their hands of the whole thing and the Internists claimed it would indeed be a bitter pill to swallow. The Plastic Surgeons opined that this proposal would "put a whole new face on the matter". The Podiatrists thought it was a step forward, but the Urologists were pissed off at the whole idea. Anaesthesiologists thought the whole idea was a gas, and those lofty Cardiologists didn't have the heart to say no.

In the end, the Proctologists won out, leaving the entire decision up to the #ssholes in Washington.

3556

Living Room / Re: Adobe admits 2.9 million customer accounts compromised

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2013, 12:46 AM »

Heh, yes, I got am email from them telling me to change my account password. Being a bit paranoid,  I don't have any personal details saved in that account, so am not worried.
But what a palaver to get the account password reset! It took ages, and then just hung, so you had to restart the process. I kept at it, because from experience I knew Adobe's website tended to be somewhat constipated, but after 30 mins wasted time and getting nowhere I gave up and will try again sometime later.
I think their servers must be getting hammered. I would guess that their operation is probably not scaled up enough to cope with the peak load that is hitting them at the moment with people trying to reset their account passwords.

3557

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Cannot delete single clips

« Last post by IainB on October 08, 2013, 12:33 AM »

I wouldn't perform a reinstall if you don't need to.
What version of CHS do you have? Do you update it with DCUpdater?
The version should be as per the latest version shown in the DCUpdater = 2.19.01.
I have 2.20.01 (which is a test ß or something).

If you did do a reinstall of the latest/current version, it shouldn't blow away your settings. CHS reinstalls are usually OK like that.

3558

Kyrathaba Software / Re: Kyrathasoft GoodReads Manager

« Last post by IainB on October 07, 2013, 03:18 AM »

@kyrathaba: Thanks! Shall try it out...

3559

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Cannot delete single clips

« Last post by IainB on October 07, 2013, 02:16 AM »

Odd. Deleting via right-click+delete or via Delete button are usually consistently reliable.

One suggestion left: When I have had "sticky" problems with CHS like this, I use blind panic and run:
    View | Options | Backup Maintenance | Verify or Repair Database
 - after backing up the database, of course (JIC).

Otherwise I am at a loss, sorry. Maybe someone else on the forum will be able to assist.
It might be of some use in diagnosis if you posted an image clip of the:
 View | Options | Statistics

3560

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on October 06, 2013, 10:51 PM »

@Arizona Hot: Loved the rotating moon, so did my 11¾ y/o daughter - she spotted the joke right away.

@Renegade: Thanks for the Cthulhu cartoon. Looks like quite a rare item according to what @Arizona Hot quotes. I have taken a copy.

Here's a contribution from me - a post by Advocatus Diaboli. Fortunately he answers one of the most pressing questions about skeptics that has troubled me for years.

What's a sceptic anyway?
What is a sceptic? What makes someone a sceptic? How do you know if you are one? Aren't sceptics just boring closed minded people? How do I get sceptics to have sex with me? All very good questions, which I will endeavour to answer here:

What is a sceptic?
Basically a sceptic is someone who doesn't believe a claim unless there is evidence to support it. If a friend walked up to you and said "I can fly", most people would ask to see their friend fly before accepting that claim. If you are wise you might go a bit further and check that there are no wires allowing your friend to fake flight. You might even ask an expert in illusions to investigate further before accepting the extraordinary claim of flight.

What makes someone a sceptic?
There are very few people who would believe their friend could fly just because they said they could. We would require some kind of evidence. In that regard, we're all sceptical to an extent. Interpreting the evidence and deciding if it supports the claim can actually be pretty difficult. Learning about fair experimental procedures and data analysis takes a bit of time and effort. Many sceptics take this time because a)it's fun and b)you get benefits from not falling for false claims. Future posts will discuss how to develop your sceptic-fu.

It is important to note that sceptics may not automatically accept a claim, but once the evidence is clear they should accept the conclusion the evidence leads to. This is what separates sceptics from denialists. Denialists dismiss a claim despite the evidence, a sceptic doesn't accept a claim unless there is evidence. This does mean new evidence can and should change your mind. It's best not to take arguments with a sceptic personally as they're not personally attached to their 'beliefs' so are a little more callous about them than non-sceptics.

How do I know if I'm a Sceptic?
Well, if you want some proof before you believe stuff people tell you, that's it. You're a Sceptic. Congratulations! If you want to be good at Scepticism, it takes a bit more. But trust me, it's worth learning about. (Hopefully, you didn't accept that based on my word or you haven't learned anything).

Aren't Sceptics just boring close-minded people?
Scepticism isn't about being close-minded. The opposite is in fact true. A Sceptic should be open-minded. They also should be sceptical about those new ideas and not accept them as true until the evidence is taken into account. Be warned though, Sceptics have often heard the same claims many times and some may get a bit impatient about hearing them again. If you want to challenge a Sceptic, it is advisable to do so with new evidence instead of the same tired old arguments.

As for being boring, well, I guess the term 'boring' is subjective. I haven't measured the 'boringness' level of a representative sample of sceptics so I can't say for sure but I am pretty sceptical that they are more or less boring than any other subgroup (see what I did there).

How do I get Sceptics to have sex with me?
I'd suggest being honest and not trying to use pick up lines or asking what their sign is. Perhaps "Hey, would you like to have sex with me?" might work. Just make sure you try it on a large enough sample size before you reject the approach.

Advocatus Diaboli
Posted by Sceptics NZ at 12:34 AM

3561

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Copy/store/paste the highlighted text and any related metadata.

« Last post by IainB on October 06, 2013, 05:38 AM »

@dcwul62: No, I don't think I meant quite what I think you seem to be talking about!  
What I wrote was very specific, and entailed making the/any Firefox-related clipping add-on redundant, and for all of the clip functionality and options for meta-data capture to remain within CHS.

I suspect it might be in the "too hard" basket to actually implement, though if the feature were made available in CHS I suspect a large number of CHS users might be blown away by it when they woke up to its potential.
That's kinda like I am when I explore/discover some of the amazing functionality in MS OneNote - in fact, I have even mulled over somehow getting this CHS functionality into OneNote with (say) an AHK macro. The drawback to that is that it would probably make CHS redundant for me, and would be using OneNote awkwardly and in a manner it was not really designed to be used in - i.e., a kludge.

3562

Living Room / EditGrid service is ending May 1, 2014

« Last post by IainB on October 05, 2013, 09:32 AM »

From their website:

EditGrid service is ending May 1, 2014
Dear EditGrid user,
After keeping EditGrid.com up and running for a few years as a hobby, it's about time for EditGrid.com to turn its lights off.
On May 1, 2014 at 11:59:59 pm PST, EditGrid.com services will be discontinued. After this date users will no longer be able to log in to EditGrid.com. Content stored on EditGrid.com will be deleted and no longer be accessible. We recommend that you sign in to EditGrid.com before May 1, 2014 and download all your spreadsheets to your computer.
Thank you for using and supporting EditGrid.

David

The EditGrid Team

Some pretty impressive Featured Spreadsheets.

3563

Living Room / Re: Peer Review and the Scientific Process

« Last post by IainB on October 05, 2013, 06:33 AM »

I'm not a geologist or a climatologist, so I won't address specifics, but watching the Easterbrook testimony reminded me of many people I have come across who have built what they believe to be an irrefutable case for some crackpot theory or another.  Unless you have a really deep understanding of the issues involved, it can be hard to challenge them because they know enough to sound as if they really do know what they are talking about.
As it happens, the geology department of Western Washington University, from which Dr. Easterbrook retired some time ago, issued a statement dissociating themselves from his testimony, which they describe as "filled with misrepresentations, misuse of data and repeated mixing of local vs. global records."  I'd suggest reading that before accepting his ideas as valid.
______________________________

-xtabber (October 04, 2013, 05:13 PM)

@xtabber: Thankyou for that comment. Being something of an information/data junkie by training and inclination, I followed up the link and other, related references on the issue that I could find. I found your comments and those at the link rather illuminating.
Your comment was in response to mine (above) where I refer to three instances of apparently peer-reviewed research seemingly being abused by publication bias (for whatever reason) or being otherwise abused, buried or even avoided so as to (deliberately or otherwise) obfuscate or pervert the valid conclusions of science and/or avoid testing and the risk of falsifiability:

• (a) in the fields of space-related science and climate science.
• (b) in the field of scientific medical research.
• (c) in the field of climate science.

Points that should probably be made here:

• 1. The subject of this thread: is categorically about Peer Review and the Scientific Process.
  Thus, the issue is not "whether what Easterbrook says is true" but more like "whether this adds to our knowledge and understanding of the use of peer-reviews in the scientific process".
  Whilst you profess ignorance of the facts or specific issues involved, your comments above would nevertheless seem to be arguing against or pointing to other people's "arguments" against the truth of what Easterbrook says in his presentation.
  This would seem to be irrelevant to the subject - ignoratio elenchi (a "red herring" or genetic fallacy).
  Furthermore you seem to have introduced:
  
  • - argumentum ad hominem (argument against the person).
  • - argumentum ad ignorantiam (forwarding a proposition without any certain proof).
  • - argumentum ad populum (appeal to the people/consensus, popular sentiment - appeal to the majority; appeal to loyalty).
  • - argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority; conventional propriety).
  • - non sequitur ("it does not follow"; or irrelevant conclusion: diverts attention away from a fact in discussion rather than addressing it directly.
    ______________________
    
  Examples of outcomes of fallacy in "scientific" or "rational" thought:
  
  Spoiler

   "Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."
   -- Dr. Lee DeForest,  "Father of Radio & Grandfather of  Television."
   
  "The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in  explosives."
   -- Admiral William  Leahy , US Atomic Bomb Project
  
  "There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the  atom."
   -- Robert Millikan,  Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923
   
  "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5  tons."
   -- Popular  Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science,  1949
   
  "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
   -- Thomas Watson,  chairman of IBM, 1943
   
  "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
   --The editor in charge  of business books for Prentice Hall,  1957
   
  "But what is it good for?"
   -- Engineer at the  Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting  on the microchip.
  
  "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
   -- Bill Gates, 1981
  
  "This 'telephone'has too many shortcomings to be seriously  considered as a means of communication. The device is  inherently of no value to us,"
   -- Western Union  internal memo, 1876.
   
  "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in  particular?"
   -- David Sarnoff's  associates in response to his urgings for investment in the  radio in the 1920s.
   
  "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible,"
   -- A Yale  University management professor in response to Fred Smith's  paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith  went on to found Federal Express  Corp.)
   
  "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper,"
   --Gary Cooper on his  decision not to take the leading role in  "Gone With The Wind."
  
  "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make,"
   -- Response to Debbi  Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields'  Cookies.
   
  "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way  out,"
   -- Decca Recording  Co. rejecting the Beatles,  1962.
  
  "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible,"
   -- Lord Kelvin,  president, Royal Society,  1895.
  
  "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the  experiment.  The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this,"
   -- Spencer Silver on  the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It"  Notepads.
   
  "Drill for oil?  You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy,"
   -- Drillers who  Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for  oil in 1859.
   
  "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high  plateau."
   -- Irving Fisher,  Professor of Economics, Yale University ,  1929.
   
  "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value,"
   -- Marechal Ferdinand  Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre ,  France .
   
  "Everything that can be invented has been invented,"
   -- Charles H. Duell,  Commissioner, US Office of Patents,  1899.
  
  "The super computer is  technologically impossible. It would take all of the water that flows over Niagara Falls to cool the heat generated by the number of vacuum tubes required."
   -- Professor of Electrical  Engineering, New York University
  
  "I don't know what use any one could find for a machine that would make copies of documents. It certainly couldn't be a feasible business by itself."
   -- the head of IBM,  refusing to back the idea, forcing the inventor to found  Xerox.
  
  "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction."
   -- Pierre Pachet,  Professor of Physiology at Toulouse ,  1872
  
  "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon,"
   -- Sir John Eric  Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary  to Queen Victoria 1873.
  
  "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their  home."
  -- Ken Olson,  president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,  1977.
  
  
  I would therefore recommend the approach that I try to take, which is that one takes responsibility for making the effort to do one's own thinking, using the available data, rather than deferring to or allowing the thinking of others to be a substitute for one's own thinking.
  
  In other words, one follows the Royal Society's motto: "Nullius in verba/verbo." Literally, "Take nobody's word for it; see for yourself".
  
  Spoiler

  "Nullius in verba/verbo." Motto of the Royal Society, London. Literally, "Take nobody's word for it; see for yourself".
  This motto indicates that currently, legitimate science seems to be based on the rejection of trust.
  Thus, saying something purely on the basis of trust does not resemble genuine knowledge.
  This is a new paradigm from the old, where scientific method can be seen to have developed from the 16th century perspective (Montaigne - no harm in the fact that "almost all the opinions we have are taken on authority and credit".) to the 17th century perspective (Gilbert, Bacon, Descartes and Boyle) where the approach is to take nothing on trust/authority.
  So today we seek natural knowledge founded in evidence in nature - using individual reason - NOT in authority of tradition.
  Thus real knowledge is NOT based on trust but on direct experience. - because reliance on the views of others produces errors.
  The best scientist is thus incapable of functioning as a member of society.
  The puzzle is that objective truth may exist, but human nature may preclude us from being able to experience it.
  
  
  More on broken trust in peer review and how to fix it:
  
  Spoiler

  Shoring Up the Mantra of Science: Take Nobody's Word for It
  
  Shoring Up the Mantra of Science: Take Nobody's Word for It
  Ronald Bailey|Aug. 17, 2012 12:34 pm
  
  Broken trust in peer review
  The cited mantra is a general translation of "Nullius in verba," the motto of the British Royal Society, one of the world's first scientific organizations. Real science does not credit arguments from authority, but accepts the results from experiment and demonstration. The idea is that other researchers would check each others results to see if they could be reproduced. In the modern world, there's a lot less experimental replication and the result is lots of unreproduced experimental results are strewn throughout the scientific literature.
  
  Earlier this year, two cancer researchers reported that that nine out of 10 preclinical peer-reviewed cancer research studies cannot be reproduced. As I explained in my column, "Can Most Cancer Research Be Trusted?":
  
      The academic system encourages the publication of a lot of junk research, and former vice president for oncology research at the pharmaceutical company Amgen Glenn Begley and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center researcher Lee Ellis agree. “To obtain funding, a job, promotion or tenure, researchers need a strong publication record, often including a first-authored high-impact publication,” they note. And journal editors and grant reviewers make it worse by pushing researchers to produce “a scientific finding that is simple, clear and complete—a ‘perfect’ story.” This pressure induces some researchers massage data to fit an underlying hypothesis or even suppress negative data that contradicts the favored hypothesis. In addition, peer review is broken. If an article is rejected by one journal, very often researchers will ignore the comments of reviewers, slap on another cover letter and submit to another journal. The publication process becomes a lottery; not a way to filter out misinformation.
  
  The company Science Exchange has proposed its "Reproducibility Initiative" as an innovative way to fix this problem at the heart of experimental science. As Science Daily reports:
  
      Scientists who want to validate their findings will be able to apply to the initiative, which will choose a lab to redo the study and determine whether the results match.
  
      The project sprang from the growing realization that the scientific literature - from social psychology to basic cancer biology - is riddled with false findings and erroneous conclusions, raising questions about whether such studies can be trusted. Not only are erroneous studies a waste of money, often taxpayers', but they also can cause companies to misspend time and resources as they try to invent drugs based on false discoveries.
  
      "‘Published' and ‘true' are not synonyms," said Brian Nosek, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and a member of the initiative's advisory board....
  
      The initiative's 10-member board of prominent scientists will match investigators with a lab qualified to test their results, said Elizabeth Iorns, Science Exchange's co-founder and chief executive officer. The original lab would pay the second for its work. How much depends on the experiment's complexity and the cost of study materials, but should not exceed 20 percent of the original research study's costs. Iorns hopes government and private funding agencies will eventually fund replication to improve the integrity of scientific literature.
  
      The two labs would jointly write a paper, to be published in the journal PLoS One, describing the outcome. Science Exchange will issue a certificate if the original result is confirmed.
  
  Here's hoping that lots of researchers will take advantage of this new initiative. For more background check out epidemiologist John Ioannides' 2005 classic article, "Why Most Published Research Findings are False" at PLoS Medicine.
  
  
  I would also suggest that, in some contradiction to what you suggest, the evidence would seem to demonstrate that one categorically does not necessarily need to be a geologist or a climatologist - or, for that matter a member of any secular priesthood - to be able to contribute rational discussion on the subject of peer reviews or outcomes of climate science research, or other science for that matter. For example, many of the IPCC report authors/contributors over the years are or have been similarly and unashamedly not necessarily qualified and/or nor from what you might consider to be relevant scientific disciplines, but that apparently does not preclude their contribution - mistaken or otherwise (QED) - though some of them apparently do seem to consider themselves to be select members of a priesthood (QED per Climategate emails).
  
  
• 2. The need for critical thinking, reason/rationality when discussing the subject of peer-review in science:
  Given the above, having even (say) 2 or so classical logical fallacies in a row would seem to be bad enough, but 5 or more would probably generally be regarded as going a tad too far and a pretty poor showing for the principles of rational thought.
  Furthermore, as supposed substantiation of what you say or refer to, material from the link you provide would seem  to employ the use of some of these fallacies - apparently by scientists/academics.
  Just to recap on the importance of this: Critical thinking helps us to look for the presence of a fallacy in a rational argument, which would indicate an invalid point in its logical structure. If a single point in a logical structure is invalid, then the whole structure is deemed invalid (not true). If groups of people employ or use the same logical fallacy/fallacies, then that does not substantiate or reduce the fallacy nor validate what they say - e.g., including groups advocating witch-burning, Lysenkoism, McCarthyism, Climate Catastrophism, Heaven's Gate, and Phrenology - though it might appeal to our confirmational bias or inherent irrationality (beliefs).
  
  
• 3. The implications of this for peer review in the scientific process:
  The link you pointed to - statement - was illuminating, not so much for what refutation or truth it might have contained but for the light it shed on the use of:
  
  • - argumentum ad hominem (argument against the person).
  • - argumentum ad ignorantiam (forwarding a proposition without any certain proof).
  • - argumentum ad populum (appeal to the people/consensus, popular sentiment - appeal to the majority; appeal to loyalty).
  • - argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority; conventional propriety).
  • - non sequitur ("it does not follow"; or irrelevant conclusion: diverts attention away from a fact in discussion rather than addressing it directly.
  • - peer review consensus ( argumentum ad populum and  argumentum ad verecundiam)
  - as mechanisms for making something out to be absolutely and unquestionably true because unfortunately they were for some reason unable to provide proof to do that (though the proof might have been available nonetheless).
  

Some conclusions we could arrive at here would include:

• A. Truth: You can't make something true out of a collection of logical fallacies. That would be an assault upon reason. Once you accept one invalid premise, you can accept infinitely more.
  However, the depressing reality seems too often to be that many people are so unable to think rationally for themselves that they seem gullible to this kind of barrage of logical fallacy. One's head would be full of a confusing and probably conflicting mass of invalid premises, with ergo no real knowledge or understanding of truth.
  
  
• B. Peer review per se is not crucial as it cannot and does not certainly establish truth: We have already seen, in this discussion thread and others - e.g., including, the thread on CAGW, Thermageddon? Postponed! - that there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate pretty conclusively that peer review is an unreliable instrument for determining truth, as it can be and has been, and probably will continue to be used/abused to rationalise whatever careless or unethical/misguided scientists might want, because they cannot otherwise scientifically prove a pet theory or preferred/biased conclusion.
  This is also well-documented in the literature - e.g., including as referred to in one of the spoilers above("…on broken trust in peer review and how to fix it").
  
  
• C. Falsifiability is crucial:
  

  Falsifiability or refutability is the property of a statement, hypothesis, or theory whereby it could be shown to be false if some conceivable observation were true. In this sense, falsify is synonymous with nullify, meaning not "to commit fraud" but "show to be false". Science must be falsifiable. - Wikipedia.
  

As to a discussion of whether the IPCC theory/research and conclusions of CAGW are provable, or if the contrary facts/conclusions that Easterbrook was providing that it was falsifiable stood up to scrutiny - i.e., whether what the IPCC or Easterbrook are saying can be discredited/refuted on a factual and rational footing - I think that an evidence-based discussion of that would be very interesting, but is probably best be left to another, more relevant discussion thread, and so I shall continue with it in the discussion Thermageddon? Postponed!
(I hope that's OK.)

3564

Living Room / Re: Peer Review and the Scientific Process

« Last post by IainB on October 04, 2013, 09:13 AM »

Thanks! I shall try that later. I use FlasgGot + Getright. I was download ing 230 or so items the other night and to my great surprise GetRight repeatedly crashed. I wonder how it will cope with 600 or so?

3565

Living Room / Re: Peer Review and the Scientific Process

« Last post by IainB on October 04, 2013, 07:03 AM »

I am beginning to wonder whether we have forgotten what the point of peer review is.
After posting this on 2013-10-02 I was pretty annoyed:

I think this kind of pay-walling stinks. It shows a complete lack of ethics and professional scientific integrity and it goes hand-in-hand with the equally odious practice of deliberate restriction of access - by blocking FOI access, or locking-up and in some cases deletion - of/to data/information used in dubious scientific/academic research which has been partly/wholly funded by the public purse. This seems to be invariably attributable to a desperate need to avoid critical and open review leading to the very real risk that the research can be falsifiable - e.g., (QED) Climategate, S-E Anglia CRU research FOIA and the now apparently discredited hockey-stick chart from Mann (Penn.U.).

These all seem to be reflections of the same thing: a complete lack of ethics and professional scientific integrity.
________________________

-IainB (October 02, 2013, 06:46 PM)

- but I then became more annoyed after reading in washingtonpost.com that a medical doctor-scientist and CEO of a biotech company is facing some pretty stiff criminal charges after apparently falsely inflating the statistical health improvement outcomes (the research for which had been peer reviewed) for his drug, with the motivation apparently being money ($200 million, or something - i.e., lots of it):
The press-release conviction of a biotech CEO and its impact on scientific research

I then just now finally got around to watching the vidcast of Prof./PhD Don Easterbrook testifying before a hearing for a senate commission in Washington on 2013-03-26. He is a geologist. Start watching at 10 minutes and 30 seconds. Basically, using just raw, unadulterated data, Easterbrook explains to the senators all about "climate change" and why the theories, models and manipulated data (GISS, NASA, CRU) used by IPCC/CAGW alarmists are bunk. It's like watching a curious and highly rational child knock down a row of standing dominoes, each one onto the next.
Scam exposed. Time spent: approx. 1:20hrs, including Q&A.

Towards the end of it, even though he has kept mentioning that this or that point has been substantiated/verified by other scientists with whom he works, Easterbrook is asked if his work has been peer reviewed, and he says "Everything I have spoken about today, all this work, has been peer reviewed by other scientists, astronomers, physicists" (OWTTE).
He is also asked if he can explain how the IPCC with its peer-reviewed material can come to such different conclusions, and he politely says he can't explain it.

By the way, is there some way I could record that video? I don't know how, but I would love to have a copy. The guy has a giant intellect. Reminds me of WE Deming, whom I once had the opportunity to learn from for 4 days in succession, which experience changed me and my life.

3566

General Software Discussion / Re: LastPass - What are your thoughts?

« Last post by IainB on October 03, 2013, 06:08 AM »

...Momentary heart stoppage here...

-x16wda (October 03, 2013, 05:16 AM)

Same here!   

3567

Living Room / Re: Blacked Out Government Websites Available Through Wayback Machine

« Last post by IainB on October 03, 2013, 03:28 AM »

Ahem... Can we say "theater"? Drama queens. Pfft.

-Renegade (October 03, 2013, 01:33 AM)

Yep. I guess we can! That's very silly/pathetic.
In NZ, deliberately withdrawing in angry fashion is called "spitting the dummy" - it's immature.
That arguably seems to be what we have here.
Moronic.

Well, they say you get the government leadership you elect and thus deserve, and that it's a reflection of the voting majority...

3568

Living Room / The issue of Ad-Blocking in our browsers.

« Last post by IainB on October 02, 2013, 11:02 PM »

I thought this was priceless. A rather fatuous and self-aggrandising post in http://blog.pagefair.com was somewhat pwned in classic manner in the comments - where is made a lot of sense arguably reflecting the feelings of a lot of users (including myself).
For posterity (in case it gets deleted), an .mht copy of the page is attached as a .txt file, if you want it (just change the extension to view it in a browser).
Detect Adblock_ Our Secret Sauce- PageFair Blog mht.txt (254.79 kB - downloaded 753 times.)

Detect Adblock: Our Secret Sauce
Published October 2, 2013 by Cody Beck

How do we do it?
[Image] How do they do it?How do they do it? [Discovery Channel]
We’re often asked how our adblock detection script works its magic: how do we detect that someone is blocking ads? Most people expect us to guard this secret closely, but the truth is we use an approach that’s widely discussed online. We observe what happens when a web page loads and detect the effects of adblocking plugins.

Understand Ad Blocking
In order to know what effects to look out for we need to understand how adblock stops ads from loading. The first technique used to block ads is to intercept requests from the browser to particular domains or for particular files. Most publishers use hosted ad servers that operate from well known domains; for example Google’s display ads are served from doubleclick.net. The adblock community maintains ‘filter lists’ of these domains that are updated regularly with the latest ad server domains. Filter lists also name particular files for which requests should be blocked regardless of domain; for example any javascript file called ads.js.

The second technique used to block ads is to hide ad-related page elements based on css rules. Publishers carefully design their web pages with space for both content and advertising, but when ads are blocked this could leave large, empty areas on screen. The adblock community’s filter lists specify page elements that should be hidden, for example any element with the ID ‘leaderboard-ad’. Page elements that match standard ad dimensions are also hidden. By hiding these page elements, adblock ensures that the space they would have taken up can be re-used by other parts of the page, such as the main page text. This has the bonus side-effect of also hiding any ads that slip by the first blocking technique.

Choose Your Bait Carefully
With these techniques in mind we insert bait elements into the page that adblock will attempt to block; including a javascript file, an image and an iframe. We then carefully observe what happens when a page loads. onLoad and onError events tell us if they’re successfully retrieved or if requests have been blocked. Their css style tells us if they are visible or have been hidden. We have run these tests billions of times, and have now refined them to the point that we can accurately detect when a user is blocking ads using adblock.

The Devil is in the Detail
As always, there’s more to this than meets the eye. Anyone who’s tried their hand at web development will be familiar with the frustration of cross-browser (in)compatibility and the challenge of staying current with a shifting landscape of browser and plugin technologies. Not to mention the challenge of  building a scalable server infrastructure that can handle vast quantities of analytics traffic in real-time.  We won’t bore you with complaints here though; hopefully you’ve now got enough information to understand what’s going on in the background when you sign up to use our free adblock measurement service.

Tags: adblock, detect adblock, technology
← Ad-news For Publishers
END OF POST============================

Comments:

    PhasmaFelis
    So has anybody ever tried to address the root cause of adblocker use, i.e. ads are really fucking annoying? I don’t like ads in general, nobody does, but that alone wouldn’t be enough to make me bother to install and maintain AdBlock. What does it is strobing “YOU MAY HAVE ALREADY WON” and animated “one weird trick” scams and softcore porn. This shit is *everywhere*, even on allegedly respectable news sites.

    If you want me to turn off AdBlock, you need to insist on reasonable, non-offensive, non-animated ads. If your ad provider doesn’t do that, get a better one, or lean on yours until they do. If this industry spent one-tenth as much energy pushing ad services for better quality standards as they do wringing their hands about ad blocking, shit would happen.
        http://brandonbrown.io/ Brandon Brown

        I whole-heartedly agree.
        oGMo

        Yeah seriously. And if your site refuses to load or whatever due to adblock, it wasn’t worth reading anyway. Your content is not that special. I’ll just go elsewhere.

        (Also the techniques discussed in the article are pretty much nothing special and exactly what I would have expected. Expect the next wave of adblockers to alter reporting for elements they block if this becomes necessary.)
            Rick Burgess

            How would you suggest paying for the content? are paywalls less annoying?
                PhasmaFelis

                I would, and did, suggest less offensive ads.
                    Rick Burgess

                    Lets be honest though, ad blockers originally came about to block pop-ups because they were horrible. pop-ups are dead on all but adult sites for the most part and what you have now are small text or image ads thats really aren’t a big deal.

                    You could also argue that even if they made ads that were less “offensive” you would never see them because of your blocker :p
                http://www.trisweb.com/ Tristan

                I suggest a simple and universal “tip” service. You would dedicate a certain amount, such as $5 per month, to be used for tips, and every time you click “tip” (a universal and recognizable UI) it’s recorded. Your $5 budget is then split amongst all the tips clicked that month.

                Obviously you could do a certain micro-payment amount as well if required. Or a simple pay-switch (rather than a wall) — the key is to make it a seamless and universal experience, as easy and ubiquitous as this Disqus form, so you’re not inconveniencing users at all.

                Add a “pay wall” and people will not climb over it. Hell no. But make it easy and fun to pay for content, and people will embrace it and feel good about it.

                This is a UX problem, not an economic problem.
                    Toranaga

                    marketing is the tax you pay for not being interesting. Pony up!
                    Rick Burgess

                    I agree that solution would be better in theory, if people were to actually use it. I fear that the majority of users are used to what they perceive as free content online and will simply not pay if they don’t have to.

                    We have the paypal donate type functionality which has been around for years and has a standard (although not nice) UI but I would guess (as i have no data to back it up) that the actual donation rate is pretty low.

                    The only way I can see a tipping type service working is if there is some benefit to the user for doing so, much like subscriptions on twitch.tv for example.
                oGMo

                First you need actual content. This means not a link chain to some other site or some blathering commentary piece. Hint: If I can skip your site and find the same or very similar content in the next link down the chain, your content is worthless.

                Yes, this means doing real work. This means having something to actually say, some research or something of value you’ve actually done. Then a paywall isn’t even necessary: I’ll subscribe to you even if I block your ads. For instance, I subscribe to places like di.fm and Destructoid which provide real, actual content I can’t find elsewhere.

                If you can’t be bothered to do the work and you just have drivel that no one is even willing to see an ad to read, your “content” doesn’t deserve monetary support. However, if you have quality content, you will get support.
        pagefair

        We agree that intrusive ads are bad! In fact we highlighted this issue in a previous blog post ‘Dealing With Adblock: 5 Options That Don’t Work’. The problem is that existing alternatives are bad for both publishers (less revenue) and web users (less access to information). The ad industry is gigantic and sadly change is slow to happen.
        Justizin

        Having worked at (and left in disgust) an ad-driven company, the answer is simple and clear: The most annoying ads yield the best click-through rates, but I can’t possibly believe they yield the best consumers. Companies like Google who once tried to challenge the shittiest ad strategies are now serving them up, and many companies relying on those ads have offices full of people using AdBlock “because our fucking site doesn’t load otherwise”. I think we should organize to boycott sites with the most visually distracting and CPU intensive ads (FLASH).

        What would astound you, BTW, is that for direct sales, you can barely sign an agreement anymore without a large % of video ads, so sites with no substantial video content have to invent an excuse to have video content and TRY THEIR BEST to distract their users away from the actual site, to watch these 1:00 ads on top of :15 video clips, sometimes bought wholesale.

        It’s abhorrent and it’s a fucking ponzi scheme, but it pays. :/
    kjs3atl

    An even more important reason to run an ad blocker is that the ad networks have become very effective malware distribution mechanisms. I have huge numbers of events like the following (edited slightly for readability):

Code: Text [Select]

1. GET /7f01baa99716452bda5bba0572c58be9/afr-zone.php HTTP/1.1::
2.     ~~Accept: text/html, application/xhtml+xml, */*::~~
3.     Referer: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/_uac/adpage.html::
4.     ~~Accept-Language: en-US:: ~~
5.     User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64;Trident/5.0)::
6.     ~~Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate::~~
7.     Host: delivery.globalcdnnode.com::
8.     ~~Connection: Keep-Alive::~~::~~

   See that referer? HuffPo ad launch page. That host? That’s not a CDN, it’s a malware farm registered to some guy out of RU. That GET? It eventually leads to a Darkleech exploit toolkit.

    We’ve seen these coming from all sorts of legitimate sites and ad distribution networks. We’ve had to block a couple of big ad networks in our web hygiene proxies, and they’ll likely stay blocked until they clean up their content, and that’s probably going to take a lot of big sites to make them.

    Haven’t had a single complaint from the users, tho.
    ende

    We’ve tried the same technique to detect ad blocker and then show the people an unobtrusive “Please switch off the ad blocker, that’s how we are paid”-banner. It took 3 days for the ad blockers to adjust the rules to not block the bait. It seems the only way to have even such an unobtrusive banner displayed is pay ABP for the exception.
    flamer96845312

    Good job linking to jQuery’s API when talking about JavaScript events.
    Also, if you start complaining about compatibility issues when talking about a few lines of JS, you must be quite the pro.
    Don’t write “technical” posts to attract clients when they’re only a display of how skillless you are.

    Tweets by Pagefair
    tweets

3569

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Cannot delete single clips

« Last post by IainB on October 02, 2013, 07:53 PM »

It should work. Pressing the Delete key also works by deleting the clip(s) selected.
As a longtime CHS user, when I find something inexplicable/odd like this happens in CHS, the quickest workaround is to shut CHS down and restart it.
You will invariably find that does the trick and the problem has gone away.

3570

Living Room / Re: NASA puts first Curiosity Rover scientific papers behind a paywall?

« Last post by IainB on October 02, 2013, 06:46 PM »

I think this kind of pay-walling stinks. It shows a complete lack of ethics and professional scientific integrity and it goes hand-in-hand with the equally odious practice of deliberate restriction of access - by blocking FOI access, or locking-up and in some cases deletion - of/to data/information used in dubious scientific/academic research which has been partly/wholly funded by the public purse. This seems to be invariably attributable to a desperate need to avoid critical and open review leading to the very real risk that the research can be falsifiable - e.g., (QED) Climategate, S-E Anglia CRU research FOIA and the now apparently discredited hockey-stick chart from Mann (Penn.U.).

These all seem to be reflections of the same thing: a complete lack of ethics and professional scientific integrity.

3571

Living Room / Blacked Out Government Websites Available Through Wayback Machine

« Last post by IainB on October 02, 2013, 06:08 PM »

This could arguably also go into the jokes section...
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Blacked Out Government Websites Available Through Wayback Machine
Posted on October 2, 2013 by brewster   

Congress has caused the U.S. federal government to shut down and many important websites have gone dark.  Fortunately, we have the Wayback Machine to help.
Many sites are displaying messages that say that they are not being updated or maintained during the government shut down, and the following sites are some who have shut their doors today.  Clicking the logos will take you to a Wayback Machine archived capture of the site.    Please donate to help us keep the government websites available.
noaa.gov - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - noaa.gov
parkservice - National Park Service - nps.gov
LOClogo3 - Library of Congress - loc.gov
NSF_Logo - National Science Foundation - nsf.gov
fcc-logo - Federal Communication Commission - fcc.gov
CensusBureauSeal - Bureau of the Census - census.gov
usdalogo - U.S. Department of Agriculture - usda.gov
usgs - United States Geological Survey - usgs.gov
usitc - U.S. International Trade Commission - usitc.gov
FTC-logo - Federal Trade Commission - ftc.gov
Corporation_for_National_and_Community_Service - Corporation for National and Community Service - nationalservice.gov
trade.gov - International Trade Administration - trade.gov
 
This entry was posted in Announcements, News, Wayback Machine and tagged blackout, Wayback Machine. Bookmark the permalink.
← Celebrate at the Internet Archive — 1024 — Thursday Oct. 24th
One Response to Blacked Out Government Websites Available Through Wayback Machine

    Pingback: YSK that the Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine" has cached versions of all government websites before the shutdown. | Awesome Facts

3572

General Software Discussion / Re: LastPass - What are your thoughts?

« Last post by IainB on October 02, 2013, 05:39 PM »

+ 1 for LastPass - which I have been using since I started trialling it in June 2011. (FREE version - I don't need the paid version's features, but would be happy pay for it if I did.)

LastPass periodically seems to get improved/updated, and previous peculiar idiosyncratic features tend to get fixed.
I initially started trialling both LastPass and Xmarks. I had stopped using Xmarks because it started duplicating my bookmarks and I had to invest a lot of time in clearing the mess up. However, LastPass later acquired Xmarks, and I gather the two now work pretty seamlessly together.

By the way, if you have been running LastPass for a while, there is an adjustment you might need to make (for potentially improved security) - as per the LastPass account Help: (my emphasis)

LastPass also performs a large number of rounds of PBKDF2 server-side. This implementation of PBKDF2 client-side and server-side ensures that the two pieces of your data - the part that's stored offline locally and the part that's stored online on LastPass servers- are thoroughly protected:
     (screen capture image, not copied)

By default, the x number of rounds that LastPass uses is 5000. LastPass allows you to customize the number of rounds performed during the client-side encryption process. If you log in to LastPass, open your LastPass vault from the LastPass Icon, and launch Account Settings, you will see the "Password Iterations" field displaying the current number of rounds used for your account. Although 5000 is currently the default number of rounds, your number may be lower if your account is older.
___________________________

The notes on the account settings page recommend that you tweak up the round to 5000 if your setting is less.

As some kind of comparison, I wouldn't touch NortonIdentitySafe-v1 FREE with a bargepole though. (No trust.)

3573

Living Room / Re: Yay! I've got the old style of Gmail Compose back - in Firefox!

« Last post by IainB on October 01, 2013, 04:41 AM »

Many thanks, IainB!  I thought I'd pretty much reconciled myself to using the ugly, annoying new style until I read your message, downloaded the add-on, and tried it out.  What a pleasure!   

-cyberdiva (September 30, 2013, 11:25 PM)

Yes, I was dee-lighted about it too.   

3574

Living Room / Re: Yay! I've got the old style of Gmail Compose back - in Firefox!

« Last post by IainB on October 01, 2013, 04:40 AM »

also featured in Lifehacker, there is another add-on which automates the UA trick called 'Old Compose'.
• http://lifehacker.co...rings-the-1308260149

-lanux128 (September 30, 2013, 11:58 PM)

Yes, thanks for getting that link. I referred to the Chrome/Chromium extension in my opening post, but I had not trialled it. Actually, I went to trial it before making the post, but then abandoned it when I read:

...Old Compose is free, but it requires you to share the link on Twitter or Facebook before you get the download. ...

Not with a 10-foot bargepole.

3575

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on September 30, 2013, 12:14 AM »