obfuscated.org

A seemingly well informed blog about the Floyd Landis situation has popped up. From the “about” section:

My understanding of the underlying issues goes beyond the mere anecdotal. I’ve worked professionally as a researcher in gene toxicology at the NIEHS and later helped start two organizations in the US federal government that evaluate governmental test method standards both in the US and internationally. Let’s just say I’m accustomed the the bureaucratic influences involved in setting standards like the ones used for detecting drug use in pro athletes. I have been first-hand witness to a phenomenon worse than groupthink: political machinations, dictated by greed, deliberately undermining the quality of well-researched test standards.

Four days after the tour ends, it seems like 2006 champion Floyd Landis has failed a doping test. I’ll be considerably less impressed with his riding if this turns out to be true.

Tour de France champion Floyd Landis tested positive for high levels of testosterone during the race, his Phonak team said Thursday on its Web site.

The statement came a day after the UCI, cycling’s world governing body, said an unidentified rider had failed a drug test during the Tour.

So, we’ll see, I guess. I honestly hope that this turns out to be much to do about nothing. Otherwise it’ll be right back to that damn headbutt.

While not the most terse way to make this particular point, I think it’s pretty effective.

From information aesthetics

Note that this infographic is (hopefully) dated by now, as “US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for an urgent ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, conditional on both sides addressing the root cause of the conflict.”

Lance Armstrong isn’t riding this year, and my cable provider decided that OLN was a premium channel. Between not being able to watch for a twelve-peat or whatever and it being damn inconvienent to go to the pub at 9am, I’ve not watched any of the race this year, and that’s a damn shame, as it’s shaping up to be on of the most interesting yet.

In the 16th stage, top American rider and general classification leader Floyd Landis cracked and dropped to over eight minutes behind the leader. Now, 8:08. That’s a lot of time. One minute is considered a comfortable lead between top riders in this race. With only four racing days to go, Landis considered himself pretty much out of the race.

Out of the race didn’t even last a day, as Landis went on to beat the entire field by over five minutes. Now only 30 seconds behind the GC leader with three stages — one of which is a time trial, and Landis is the best time trialer of the race leaders — remaining.

So anyway, yeah. Good race this year. I recommend it.

Wired has a pretty grim analysis of Specter’s “compromise” bill. Could somebody explain to me why giving the executive branch secret powers to spy on the citizenry without being accountable to anybody isn’t a bad thing?

So, under Specter’s bill, the Attorney General could order AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft to send a copy of every instant message to the government, every credit card company to send a copy of every transaction of every one of its customers, and every email provider to siphon off to the FBI a copy of every email sent by and to Americans — all WITHOUT ever seeing a judge. And none of these companies or organizations could say anything publicly or contest the order in court (though they would get paid for the service).

Because I have a little mind and I need my hobgoblins, I’ve created a service_mongrel_rails Wigwam package. The wiki writeup of it is super-incomplete for the time being, but it should be useful if you already know wigwam and you want to play around with ruby on rails. Some time soon I’ll do a more complete writeup and try to address some of the questions that I have about this setup, including but not limited to “Why not just use Capistrano.” (I don’t currently have an answer for this better than “I know Wigwam and I don’t know Capistrano.”)

Once I’m satisfyed that these packages, you know, work, I’ll talk to the folks at Idealab and see about getting them in to the “official” package archive.

This came in from a friend the other day. Webmeme Ho!, I guess.

Welcome to the NEIL edition of getting to know your friends! Okay here’s what you’re supposed to do, and try not to be lame and spoil the fun! Just copy this entire e-mail and paste into a new e-mail that you can send. Change all the answers so that they apply to SOMEBODY FAMOUS— either a real person or fictional character. Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person that sent it to you. Some of you may get this several times … that means you have lots of friends!

What is your occupation? I’m unemployed

What color are your socks right now? Socks?

What are you listening to right now? Creedence

What was the last thing that you ate? In and Out Burger

Can you drive a stick shift? I don’t remember

If you were a crayon, what color would you be? The color of cream and Kalua

Last person you spoke to on the phone? Walter

Do you like the person who sent this to you? I don’t get to West LA very often

How old are you today? Early 50’s

Favorite drink? Oat Soda

What is your favorite sport to watch? Bowling

Have you ever dyed your hair? No.

Do you wear contacts or glasses? Sunglasses

Pets? I briefly had a marmot.

Favorite food? White Russians

What was the last movie you watched? Logjammin’

Favorite day of the year? April 20th

What do you do to vent anger? Bowl.

What was your favorite toy as a child? Blotter paper

Fall or spring? What season is this? Is this….

Hugs or kisses? Hugs

Cherry or Blueberry? Blueberry

Do you want your friends to email you back? Ok.

Who is most likely to respond? Donny

Who is least likely to respond? Maud

Living arrangements? Apt in LA.

When was the last time you cried? When Creedence stopped touring

What is on the floor of your closet? Bowling ball, bowling shoes, all of my clothes, my stash

Who is the friend you have had the longest? Walter

What did you do last night? Drove around and went bowling

Favorite smell? Incense

What inspires you? 1987 Bowling league playoffs

What are you afraid of? Malibu cops

Favorite Hamburger? In and out burger

Favorite car? Dodge Dart

Favorite dog breed? Anything as long as it isn’t a Pomeranian

Number of keys on your key ring? 1

How many credit cards do you have? None. One Ralph’s club card

Favorite day of the week? Can’t tell the difference

How many states have you lived in? Do altered states count?

Favorite holiday? Nope

Name one place you’d like to visit in your lifetime. Pasadena

So the funny web meme going around over the weekend was The Politics of Paranoia and Intimidation, which breaks down Bush’s domestic spying program in terms of its statistical usefulness. I don’t think it comes as a great shock to anybody that the program isn’t really designed to accomplish anything. Bush learned well from Clinton that it’s not the steak, it’s the sizzle. So police state be damned, let’s make it seem like we want to try to catch terrorists. Or something.

Anyway, it’s a funny article, in that staring-at-the-NSA-while-its-pants-are-around-its-ankles kind of way.

Suppose that NSA’s system is really, really, really good, really, really good, with an accuracy rate of .90, and a misidentification rate of .00001, which means that only 3,000 innocent people are misidentified as terrorists. With these suppositions, then the probability that people are terrorists given that NSA’s system of surveillance identifies them as terrorists is only p=0.2308, which is far from one and well below flipping a coin. NSA’s domestic monitoring of everyone’s email and phone calls is useless for finding terrorists.

NSA knows this. Bayes’ Theorem is elementary common knowledge. So, why does NSA spy on Americans knowing it’s not possible to find terrorists that way? Mass surveillance of the entire population is logically sensible only if there is a higher base-rate. Higher base-rates arise from two lines of thought, neither of them very nice:

1. McCarthy-type national paranoia;
2. political espionage.

The whole NSA domestic spying program will seem to work well, will seem logical and possible, if you are paranoid. Instead of presuming there are 1,000 terrorists in the USA, presume there are 1 million terrorists. Americans have gone paranoid before, for example, during the McCarthyism era of the 1950s. Imagining a million terrorists in America puts the base-rate at .00333, and now the probability that a person is a terrorist given that NSA’s system identifies them is p=.99, which is near certainty. But only if you are paranoid. If NSA’s surveillance requires a presumption of a million terrorists, and if in fact there are only 100 or only 10, then a lot of innocent people are going to be misidentified and confidently mislabeled as terrorists.

To use WPA “Pre-Shared Key” authentication with a Linksys WRT54G router and Mac OSX 10.4, choose “TKIP” for the WPA algorithm on the router and “WPA Personal” for the wireless security mode on the client.

And now you know.

Wow, the One Red Paperclip guy actually did it.

1. As a new resident to our community you will receive a Community Welcome Package containing local information and promotions from local businesses.
2. The Kipling Chamber of Commerce will give you $200 in Kipling Cash. This Cash can be spent at any local Chamber of Commerce business.
3. You will be given a Key to the Town of Kipling
4. You will become Honorary Mayor of Kipling for One Day.
5. You will be named an Honorary Lifelong Citizen of the Town of Kipling
6. The day we make the trade will be decreed One Red Paperclip Day by our Town Council and everyone will be encouraged to wear a red paperclip in honor of your achievements.
7. Will build the world’s largest red paperclip in dedication to you and your “one red paperclip project”
8. Most importantly to allow you to complete your quest…We will trade to you a house. The house was built in the 1920’s and has been recently renovated. It is locate at 503 Main Street Kipling, SK Canada. It is approximately 1100 square feet on two floors. There are three bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, kitchen, living room and dinning room. It has white vinyl siding, a new roof and eaves troughs that have been put on in the last few years. We will be sending you pictures of the house as soon as we have had time to touch up the paint.

Kyle MacDonald, do you accept our offer of one house in Kipling for one role in Corbin Bernsen’s movie “Donna on Demand”?

I love it when a silly plan comes together. Bravo, One Red Paperclip.