edafe.org » articles

Beware the creeping cracks of bias

edafe — Sat, 12 May 2012 12:19:46 +0000

“Nothing will corrode public trust more than a creeping awareness that scientists are unable to live up to the standards that they have set for themselves.” Daniel Sarewitz worries that over-selection and over-reporting of false positive results will increasingly put the value of science into question.
www.nature.com

Seeing terror risk, US asks journals to cut flu study facts

edafe — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 17:16:47 +0000

“Ever since the tightening of security after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, scientists have worried that a scientific development would pit the need for safety against the need to share information. Now, it seems, that day has come.” Denise Grady and William Broad report on moves by the US government to effectively censor influenza research.
www.nytimes.com

Airport security — this house believes that changes made to airport security since 9/11 have done more harm than good

edafe — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 10:15:04 +0000

“Spending billions to force the terrorists to alter their plans in one particular way does not make us safer. It is far more cost-effective to concentrate our defences in ways that work regardless of tactic and target: intelligence, investigation and emergency response.” Bruce Schneier debates the former head of the Transportation Security Administration, Kip Hawley, on airport security. This is from the first of Schneier’s three statements on the topic.
www.economist.com 20 March, 23 March, 28 March

Sebastian Junger remembers Tim Hetherington

edafe — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 09:11:38 +0000

“You and I were always talking about risk because she was the beautiful woman we were both in love with, right? The one who made us feel the most special, the most alive? We were always trying to have one more dance with her without paying the price.” Sebastian Junger writes after the death of photojournalist Tim Hetherington in April 2011.
www.vanityfair.com

Facebook can tell you if a person is worth hiring

edafe — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:07:37 +0000

“But there’s another good reason for checking out a candidate’s Facebook page before inviting them in for an interview: it may be a fairly accurate reflection of how good they’ll be at the job.” Kashmir Hill reports on a study that will be read by HR consultants the world over.
www.forbes.com

The eurozone, the ant and the grasshopper

edafe — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:59:19 +0000

“When the ants and the grasshoppers are distributed across the division separating surplus from deficit nations within a badly designed monetary union, the stage is set for a depression that sets all against all in a vicious spiral from which only losers can emerge.” Yanis Varoufakis explains why he thinks that countries in the euro zone can neither bail out nor be bailed out of the current crisis.
www.channel4.com

Der Anruf des Bundespräsidenten

edafe — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 18:28:45 +0000

In German
“Für alle, die keine Fans der ‘Bild’ sind, ist es schon schwer erträglich zu lernen, daß der Bundespräsident das Blatt als eine Art Verfassungsorgan behandelt. Besonders deprimierend aber ist der Umstand, daß er auch in dieser einseitigen und insgesamt übersichtlichen Kommunikation zu keinem klaren Wort fähig ist.” Nils Minkmar explores Christian Wulff‘s attitudes towards the editorial independence of the press.
www.faz.net

“German President Wulff reportedly sought to prevent tabloid Bild from publishing a damaging article about his private loan arrangements.”

How doctors die

edafe — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 23:02:44 +0000

“Doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little.” Meanwhile, Ken Murray is determined to go gentle into that good night.
zocalopublicsquare.org

DNA sequencing is caught in deluge of data

edafe — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:05:10 +0000

“We are going to have to come up with really clever ways to throw away data so we can see new stuff.” Andrew Pollack reports on how the recent plunge in the cost of DNA sequencing is presenting scientist with new, as yet unresolved, challenges of a different kind.
www.nytimes.com

The curse of TINA

edafe — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:51:38 +0000

“Think Tanks surround politics today and are the very things that are supposed to generate new ideas. But if you go back and look at how they rose up—at who invented them and why—you discover they are not quite what they seem.” Adam Curtis looks at the history of the Think Tank in the UK and asks why modern politics, for all its Think Tanks, seems so paradoxically short of new ideas.
www.bbc.co.uk

At 52, an exonerated man is victorious in the ring

edafe — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 21:21:37 +0000

“Four rounds in a boxing ring could not undo 26 years in prison, but Dewey Bozella made the most of them, winning a unanimous decision Saturday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in what he says will be his only professional fight.” Peter Applebome reports on Dewey Bozella’s debut as a professional boxer. Death penalty, anyone?
www.nytimes.com

This story immediately reminds me of Rubin Carter, a man who was wrongly convicted and spent 20 years in jail.

This Dianamania is a slur on Jobs

edafe — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:54:34 +0000

“What the Jobs hyperbole means is that your world is no bigger than your media. Or your computer. There can’t be a more tragic expression of the internet’s self-absorption.” Following the media’s response to the death of Steve Jobs, Andrew Orlowski would like to keep things in perspective.
www.theregister.co.uk

Meanwhile, Richard Stallman is not sitting on anybody’s fence and declares Steve Jobs to have had a predominantly “malign influence on people’s computing”.

It’s the end of the web as we know it

edafe — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:59:31 +0000

“You can turn your back on the social networks that matter in your field and be free and independent running your own site on your own domain. But increasingly that freedom is just the freedom to be ignored, the freedom to starve.” Owing to the exponential growth of social networking, Adrian Short regards the original dream of a common information space to be under threat.
adrianshort.co.uk

For 10 years, we’ve lied to ourselves to avoid asking the one real question

edafe — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:20:31 +0000

“When the Israeli Prime Minister gets even the US Congress to grovel to him, the American people are not going to be told the answer to the most important and ‘sensitive’ question”. For Robert Fisk, large gaps remain in our knowledge surrounding events since 9/11.
www.independent.co.uk

Don’t be fooled by the lull—the NHS is still at great risk

edafe — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 07:29:26 +0000

“New research in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine this week shows the UK is among the most efficient health services in the world, in lives saved per pound spent.” Polly Toynbee further questions imminent public service reforms … Continue reading →

Testosterone and high finance do not mix: so bring on the women

edafe — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 09:20:27 +0000

“There’s been a lot of academic research suggesting that men think they know what they’re doing, even when they really don’t know what they’re doing.” Tim Adams reports on why a sufficiently high percentage of women in decision-making positions might have prevented the 2008 financial crash.
www.guardian.co.uk

Why isn’t Wall Street in jail?

edafe — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:17:50 +0000

“Evidence indicates that when it comes to Wall Street, the justice system not only sucks at punishing financial criminals, it has actually evolved into a highly effective mechanism for protecting financial criminals.” Financial crisis ongoing, Matt Taibbi’s article should be of interest to anyone.
www.rollingstone.com

NHS turmoil is just the start of Tory ideology run wild

edafe — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:04:34 +0000

“Cameron’s government can be voted out but it will be virtually impossible to return services to a public realm that no longer exists. Ownership of the contracts and companies moves on, and the public sector loses any capacity to take them back.” Polly Toynbee casts doubt on public service reforms in the UK.
www.guardian.co.uk

Passagierselektion macht es Terroristen leicht

edafe — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:57:23 +0000

In German

“Natürlich müssen wir uns darum bemühen, die Kontrollen an den Flughäfen effektiver zu machen. Profiling nach Herkunft und Religionszugehörigkeit aber ist eine schlechte Idee, die das Fliegen weder bequemer noch sicherer macht.” Peter Neumann believes that the use of passenger profiling would actually have detrimental effects on aviation security.
www.spiegel.de

Apple v Google

edafe — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:19:26 +0000

“Apple’s and Google’s war for the phone in our pockets is the biggest clash since Apple v Microsoft for the space on our desktops” and, according to Robert Lane Greene, likely to impact the way we experience the world around us.
moreintelligentlife.com

Lies, damned lies, and medical science

edafe — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:21:34 +0000

“I’m not sure that more than a very small percentage of medical research is ever likely to lead to major improvements in clinical outcomes.” David Freedman reports on John Ioannidis and his quest to improve the quality of medical research.
www.theatlantic.com

Growing up digital, wired for distraction

edafe — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:38:47 +0000

“Video games don’t make the hole; they fill it,” says Sean, a student at Woodside High School. Matt Richtel highlights the ways in which technology causes young, developing brains to become habituated to distraction and to switching tasks, not to focus.
www.nytimes.com

Small change

edafe — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 00:25:10 +0000

“Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is.” Malcolm Gladwell looks back at the beginnings of the civil-rights movement and tells why the next revolution will not be tweeted.
www.newyorker.com

Ban homeopathy from NHS, say doctors

edafe — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:45:03 +0000

“Tom Dolphin, a member of the BMA’s junior doctors’ committee, backed the motion. He said he had previously described homeopathy as witchcraft, but now wanted to apologise to witches for making that link.” The British Medical Association calls for an effective end to the funding of homeopathic remedies by the NHS.
www.guardian.co.uk

Is aviation security mostly for show?

edafe — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:29:09 +0000

“Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country’s way of life; it’s only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage.” In the wake of last week’s failed bombing of an airplane over Detroit, Bruce Schneier asks us to leverage the inherent strengths of our democracies.
edition.cnn.com

How constant beatings have caught up with campaigner Peter Tatchell

edafe — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:18:57 +0000

“Only Peter Tatchell could be so enraged by something that is meant to calm him down. But as he grapples with the complicated security locks on his front door to let me out, it strikes me that perhaps the rest of us are lucky that he cares enough to carry on fighting, whatever the cause.” Elizabeth Day talks to Peter Tatchell, a man deserving of some respect.
www.guardian.co.uk

After Iraq, it’s not just North Korea that wants a bomb

edafe — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:36:32 +0000

“The idea that there is something irrational in North Korea’s attempt to acquire nuclear weapons is clearly absurd. This is, after all, a state that has been targeted for regime change by the US ever since the end of the cold war, included as one of the select group of three in George Bush’s axis of evil in 2002, and whose Clinton administration guarantee of ‘no hostile intent’ was explicitly withdrawn by his successor.” Seumas Milne identifies the single greatest driver of nuclear proliferation.
www.guardian.co.uk

How to stop the drug wars

edafe — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:19:04 +0000

“The war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs.”
www.economist.com

Twenty reasons never to fly Ryanair

edafe — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 23:52:49 +0000

“Depressingly, all publicity is good publicity when you are the world’s leading budget airline and Ryanair doesn’t give a damn whether you like it or not. But while the airline can be cheap, the customer service truly sucks. So, here are 20 things to remember next time you are led into temptation by those 1p flights.” Laura Whateley has done her research.
timesbusiness.typepad.com

Why they might miss Dubya when he’s gone

edafe — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:14:51 +0000

“Like it or not, I fear it will not only be the cartoonists and impressionists who will miss the easy target in the White House when he has gone”, writes Mick Hume on the day George W Bush leaves office.
spiked-online.com

Welcome to the Police Academy state

edafe — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 17:47:26 +0000

“Sir Ian Blair captured the febrile nature of this climate, giddy on nightmares, when he said that de Menezes was killed in the ‘fog of war’. Given that this fog engulfed those giving the orders, little wonder officers stopped behaving rationally.” Tim Black reflects on what the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes tells us about the institutions of the British state.
spiked-online.com

Still sending naked email?

edafe — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:17:38 +0000

“In a world of repressive governments and a growing reliance on insecure networks, there’s no way anyone can be sure their most sensitive messages aren’t intercepted by the forces of darkness. But you can make it mathematically improbable that all but the most well-funded snoops could ever make heads or tales of your communications.” Use Dan Goodin’s step-by-step guide to email encryption and keep your communications private.
www.theregister.co.uk

OpenOffice.org 3.0

edafe — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:09:42 +0000

“OpenOffice.org has an impressive feature set, a generally lucid interface, pure open-source credentials, and the decisive advantage of being absolutely free.” Edward Mendelson reviews OpenOffice.org 3.0.
www.pcmag.com

The roots of the crisis

edafe — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:06:15 +0000

“It is the intersection of several underlying trends that have brought us to this point, not a breakdown in any specific part of the financial sector.” Michael Flynn looks at the underlying reasons for the current Wall Street crisis.
www.reason.com

The Legacy

edafe — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 21:20:36 +0000

“It would have been nice to let Bush’s two terms marinate a while before invoking Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan from the cellar of worst presidents. But then—over the last two weeks—he completed the trilogy of national disasters that will be with us for a generation or more.” Timothy Egan assesses the Bush Presidency.
egan.blogs.nytimes.com

Hardy Heron makes Linux worth another look

edafe — Wed, 07 May 2008 21:59:27 +0000

“If you’ve flirted with the idea of switching your desktop operating system to Linux but never took the leap, the time is now.” Kevin Purdy highlights key features of the latest Ubuntu Long Term Support (LTS) release.
lifehacker.com

Overload

edafe — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:32:08 +0000

“The brain is like a hybrid engine, constantly switching back and forth between reasoned calculation and rapid intuition. But what determines how we will handle a particular problem in life? How do we know what part of our cognitive repertoire will be in play today?”
www.newsweek.com

Bike commuting: a better way to travel

edafe — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:29:06 +0000

“Nothing has enhanced my life as much as the decision to start bike commuting. I’ve stopped smoking, I don’t drink any more, and I’m always outdoors. I’m saving money, I feel all self-righteous about not polluting, and I can eat plenty without worrying about getting fat. And I arrive at just about any city destination faster than if I’d driven.” Paul Dorn enjoys his ride.
www.runmuki.com

Sheldon Brown

edafe — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:00:30 +0000

“If Sheldon Brown had been only an excellent bicycle mechanic, the esteem in which he was held, while great, could not have extended much beyond his native Massachusetts.” Instead, Sheldon Brown used the Internet to become the most widely read bicycle mechanic in the world. He died on February 3, 2008.
www.timesonline.co.uk

Off the record

edafe — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:30:07 +0000

“Record company insiders are aghast at the demise of what was their golden goose. And some of them know that they were partly responsible for killing it.” Robert Sandall looks at reasons for the decline in the value of recorded music over recent years.
www.prospect-magazine.co.uk

Riding advice for urban cyclists

edafe — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:46:32 +0000

“Understand the principles and then apply them to develop a style that suits your needs and personality.” Read Patrick Field’s excellent guide to riding in traffic.
www.leedscyclists.org.uk

The case for email security

edafe — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:32:01 +0000

“It may not be surprising for you to learn that email is not a secure medium of communication; however, it may surprise you to learn just how inherently insecure it really is.” Erik Kangas on how email really works, what the security issues are and where you can make the difference.
luxsci.com (PDF file, 112 kb)

Make your bike time count

edafe — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:01:34 +0000

“Simply riding your bike will help improve your fitness and your handling skills, but there are training techniques you can adopt to make sure you get a decent workout.” Joe Beer with a few tips on how to spend your time in the saddle more effectively.
www.bikeradar.com

That’s me: radical superhero of the streets

edafe — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:48:48 +0000

“Cycling in London is an extreme sport, little safer than base jumping. A journey begins with trepidation and ends with me slightly high that I’m still alive.” Janice Turner does not depend on timetables or traffic. On two wheels, she enjoys the pleasure of knowing exactly what time she’ll arrive.
www.timesonline.co.uk

Shares go up and down – economy going nowhere

edafe — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:37:58 +0000

“Western capitalism will be able to cope with instability in the markets. But at what price in terms of economic and social stagnation? The danger is that our wider aspirations and horizons are falling further while we remain fixated with the ups and downs of share and property prices”, writes Mike Hume.
www.spiked-online.com

Metabolic fatigue

edafe — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:53:07 +0000

“Every cyclist loves to eat, and half of the fun of cycling is in having a built-in excuse to eat in large quantities.” Yesterday I “bonked big-time” for not having eaten enough. Stephen Cheung explains the factors that come into play.
www.pezcyclingnews.com

Das elektronische Briefgeheimnis

edafe — Thu, 31 May 2007 21:57:56 +0000

In German

“Wer eine E-Mail verschickt, muß damit rechnen, daß seine Nachricht von Dritten gelesen wird.” Brief article outlining steps you can take to keep your email communications private.
www.sueddeutsche.de

We had the very best of intentions

edafe — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:57:28 +0000

“We did not go into Iraq to impose representative government on the Iraqis. We went there to manage a threat to our own safety.” Richard Perle explains why, in his view, the United States of America had to invade Iraq and topple Sadam Hussein.
commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

A cost analyis of Windows Vista content protection

edafe — Sat, 19 May 2007 19:41:52 +0000

“Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called ‘premium content’.” Peter Gutmann looks at the many ways in which Vista will increase the cost of using computers.
www.cs.auckland.ac.nz

News from Tester Tim—aka Tim ‘Fingers’

edafe — Sat, 12 May 2007 18:59:08 +0000

“Just a quick piece of advice for you fellow bikers. Be careful when your messing with disc brakes, even if you have done it 100’s of times like me. I now have 9.8 digits!”
www.on-one.co.uk

Upgrade rage

edafe — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:10:10 +0000

“Future archaeologists will be able to identify a Vista upgrade layer when they go through our landfill sites.” Tim Dowling considers the implications of upgrading the software on his current computer.
www.guardian.co.uk

Open secrets

edafe — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 17:38:26 +0000

“Enron proves that in an age of increasing financial complexity the idea that the more a company tells us about its business, the better off we are, has become an anachronism.” Malcolm Gladwell on why Woodward and Bernstein would never have broken the Enron story.
www.newyorker.com

Why you shouldn’t use HTML email

edafe — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:21:03 +0000

“Spammers use HTML emails to confirm your address.” There are other drawbacks to using HTML-formatting when sending and receiving emails. Consider this list of potential pitfalls that Martin Favreau has compiled for you.
www.freeantispam.org

Bicycle crash statistics

edafe — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 14:51:24 +0000

“Contrary to intuition, cyclists riding on bicycle paths have a higher crash rate than cyclists riding on roads, although not as high a crash rate as cyclists riding on sidewalks.” The Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition looks at crash data for cyclists and reaches valuable and often surprising conclusions.
www.massbike.org

Why use email encryption?

edafe — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 21:54:42 +0000

Email encryption should be used by everyone. Here’s why.
rffr.de

Diary of a collapsing superpower

edafe — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 18:59:58 +0000

“Gorbachev has been a persona non grata in his own country ever since. In the West he remains a hero, a respected historical figure, a man who peacefully cut a superpower down to its true size.” Newly published minutes from meetings of the Politburo reveal what really happened behind closed doors.
www.spiegel.de

Joined-up experiences

edafe — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 23:00:00 +0000

“Is it worth trading choice for simplicity? The problem is that vertical integration gives suppliers so much control that they can manipulate prices.” Jack Schofield looks at manufacturers’ attempts to dominate our digital lifestyles by selling us experiences instead of products.
www.guardian.co.uk

Thoughts on moving from Debian to Ubuntu Server

edafe — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 22:03:45 +0000

“If Canonical keeps its update schedule and support commitments along with the legendary Debian robustness, we may have a keeper.” Staff at Advosys Consulting are considering Ubuntu for entirely practical reasons.
www.advosys.ca

Privatsphäre ist wie Sauerstoff

edafe — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 19:37:02 +0000

In German

“Der politische Stand ist eine Symbiose mit der Medienindustrie eingegangen, die aus finanziellen Gründen den Terrorismus in einem Maße ausschlachtet, das objektiv nicht zu rechtfertigen ist.” Privacy is like oxygen, argues Pär Ström. You’ll miss it when it’s gone…
www.bundestag.de

Per Anhalter durchs Pluriversum

edafe — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 20:12:41 +0000

In German

With services such as MySpace and YouTube dominating headlines everywhere, Joe Public has finally begun taking over the Internet. Thomas Gross reports on the seven rules that he thinks will govern the Web 2.0.
www.zeit.de