wikileaks
oracknows | September 15, 2016When I first heard that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for President, was scheduled to appear on The Dr. Oz Show, my first thought was, basically, “Of course he is. What took him so long?” After all, it’s a crank pairing made in heaven. Given that, I considered it my skeptical blogging duty at least to watch the show, even if I never actually blogged about it. So I dutifully set my DVR to record it, and, after I got home from work, did my evening bike ride and ate dinner, I settled down in front of the television to see if this appearance would be as bad as I predicted in my mind.
I’m…
oracknows | April 21, 2015It would appear that some people got the impression that, just because I questioned whether a recent publicity stunt in which ten doctors and researchers, led by a well-known pro-GMO activist working for the Hoover Institution, Dr. Henry Miller, sent a letter to the dean at Columbia University in essence asking him to fire Oz for his promotion of quackery and, pointedly, anti-GMO fear mongering on his show was a good idea, somehow I'm going easy on Dr. Oz. Not at all. Miller and his compatriots at the Hoover Institution and the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) made what I see as…
stoat | September 1, 2011There is a Wikileaks fiasco going about. Der Spiegel has what looks like a plausible story. If you read the Wikileaks version after that, the latter looks rather incomplete and self-serving. The Grauniad also says "not us guv" which isn't quite true: if they hadn't been dumb enough to publish the password, all would have been well. But assuming DS has this right, fundamentally this is a Wikileaks foul up.
h/t Bruce (not Steve) Schneier.
[Update: no-one has dented the DS story as far as I can see. So I think that, as told, this remains fundamentally a WL foul up. However (whilst I think the…
sastyk | February 10, 2011
(Yes, I will eventually explain this ;-))
I don't usually participate in the Huffington Post bashing that goes on at science blogs. Not because I don't often agree with it, but because my colleagues seem to have it covered when it comes to autism/vaccine links and dubious medical studies. Still, Raymond Learsy's column about Wikileaks did catch my attention, and it seems to have all the best qualities of a bad HuffPo piece.
If it's in Wikileaks, it's got to be true. Certainly it was a moment of triumphal satisfaction for the Peak Oil Pranksters. There it was in "cloud" black and white…
stoat | December 9, 2010David Appell's recent post is excellent, so I'll steal most of it, a quote from Hillary Clinton in January:
During his visit to China in November, President Obama held a town hall meeting with an online component to highlight the importance of the internet. In response to a question that was sent in over the internet, he defended the right of people to freely access information, and said that the more freely information flows, the stronger societies become. He spoke about how access to information helps citizens to hold their governments accountable, generates new ideas, and encourages…
gregladen | December 2, 2010 There has been much talk about whether the recent Wikileaks leak of diplomatic cables will be a good thing or a bad thing. I would assume (and that is an assumption ... which is why I used the word assume) that there would be some of both, some forward movement of progressive ideals including honest government and reasonably transparent diplomatic policies that value human rights and the environment, etc., and some damage to ongoing diplomatic processes or exposure of ammunition that can be used for nefarious purposes by nefarious figures and organizations. But, since some of that would…
gregladen | November 28, 2010The following is an accurate account of a recent conversation in which illegal, and possibly dangerous acts against the Federal and State governments were planned.
"I'm glad you guys could come over for dinner," said our host, as we shared the task of moving dishes and serving plates, silverware and glasses from the dining room table to the kitchen.
"Get out of here, no need to help cleaning up," he continued, shooing the three of us away from the kitchen and into the living room, where we distributed ourselves on various pieces of furniture.
I had known Bill years ago in school, and we…
rallain | August 9, 2010Here is a quick one. One of the big news stories recently was this regarding WikiLeaks and the release of the Afghan War Diary. There could be tons of things to discuss regarding this - but I am not going to do that. The first thing that struck my mind was "over 91,000 documents". That seems like a lot.
If each one of these documents were printed on one page, how big would the stack of paper be?
I could just estimate this - fermi-problem style. But instead, I thought would use a stack of paper. Here is a pack of 500 sheets of paper.
Opening it, I can measure the thickness:
How thick…