A study of YouTube videos about vaccinations found that those presenting a negative view were more likely to have unsubstantiated information in them, and also tended to be more popular. I’m not sure why anyone is surprised by this.

This is a case of self selection bias. Positive messages are already widely distributed through push media by governments and other PR programs. It would follow that that those searching for vaccination information on YouTube are more likely to be looking for other viewpoints not already well represented. Once a viewer’s negative opinion of vaccination programs is validated by a video, they’re more likely to rank the video higher and generate additional traffic by sharing the content with others. I expect a similar analysis of 911 related videos would find a similar bias towards conspiracy theories.

The study really just highlights how those holding passionate views on a topic can skew the outcome of an analysis. In this case reviewers should be careful not to assume both sides are equally likely to take the time to rank and share a video.

The Australian is reporting (via the INQUIRER) that security experts have found that jihadi terrorists groups can using virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft as training grounds.

Online worlds represent another communications medium, but are poor alternatives to web sites and online forums. World of Warcraft is a game with strict play rules - about all it could offer is improving team coordination. Second Life residents do have the Second Life Liberation Army creating problems at times, but they are little more than pranksters whose worst offense is probably taking a game a little too seriously.

The best quote is from Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, who says,

terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment, using weapons that are identical to real-world armaments.

It’s pretty clear that Mr. Zuccato has never looked at or played WoW. Nothing in the game even remotely resembles real-world arms, nor are in-game tactics of any use in the real world. I doubt even the most fervent radical islamist believes a Bringer of Death would be of much use out here.

I’ve just upgraded to Kubuntu 6.10 - actually I did a full reinstall since I hadn’t had much time to use the install I did at the beginning of the summer. This install went a lot smoother than 6.06 did in June. The graphical install worked, and the disk partition tool was able to change the partitions on my disk that already had an XP install on it without any problems.

After the base install was done, I had to spend a couple of hours sorting out a variety of small problems while trying to get to a usable system state. The time spent made me realize just how far Linux is from being accepted at the desktop by average users.

I am surprised to see that basic items like MP3 support still aren’t part of the default install. I understand the licensing concerns, but surely something can be done to solve them. Accessing media on network shares is still problematic, too. A share can be seen, but the media can’t play off it without editing /etc/fstab - try explaining that to a non-technical friend.

When I started configuring the wireless network I found three different tools installed, each of which had a different interface and only one of which could support WPA. In the end the wireless service didn’t get configured because my network card (Broadcom based) wasn’t supported. The system didn’t tell me that either - I remembered from earlier work that the Dell notebooks required extra monkeying around to get wireless working.

Software remains complicated to install, and standard ways of doing things aren’t in place yet. Getting packages I wanted to use required editing the apt configuration files by hand. Even after downloading some packages, the installs failed until I updated the /bin/sh link to point to bash instead of dash.

One area where Linux has simplified things better than Windows is updates. If you stick to using the default package manager for a given distribution, updates for the entire system are simple. There’s no need to connect back to the update service repeatedly (like one must in Windows), or to update individual software packages one by one.

It seems to me that there is too much focus on evangelism and ideals, and too little focus on the actual needs and wants of the average user. Decisions can’t be made simply based on performance, or licenses, or idealistic views of what an OS should be. Usability and consistency are vitally important.

When creating documents in HTML that make use of <div> blocks to position elements on the page links can appear to stop working if they are in the area bound by the block. Browsers appear to render HTML code in different orders, so a block that appears after a link will suppress the link in the rendered page. It is obvious once you understand the problem, but took some time to sort out when I could see the text clearly, especially since in one case the link worked in IE but not Firefox
An example:

<div style="position: relative;">
    <p style="position: relative;">
        <a href="">
            This link likely won't work.
        </a>
    </p>
    <div style="position: absolute;
                top: 0px;
                width: 100%;
                border:solid 1px;">
        <p style="text-align: right">
            DIV block text on the right.
        </p>
    </div>
</div>

Fortunately the fix in some cases is as simple as reordering the link and <div> blocks so that the block gets rendered first:

<div style="position: relative;">
    <div style="position: absolute;
                top: 0px;
                width: 100%;
                border:solid 1px;">
        <p style="text-align: right">
            DIV block text on the right.
        </p>
    </div>
    <p style="position: relative;">
        <a href="">
            This link should work.
        </a>
    </p>
</div>

Clear as day once you know what’s happening - the text has rendered properly and appears to be a link, but it cannot be clicked in some browsers. The <div> that has been layered over top of the text can be seen through, but the hotspot for the link is in the layer under the block.

The guys on Cranky Geeks were discussing the merits of cellular phones having all sorts of extra features on them. North Americans are less inclined to see their phones as all-purpose devices as Europeans do. One comment made was that Europeans refer to their phones as their “mobile”, instead of “phone”. The cranks overlooked the fact that here in NA we refer to them as our “cell” - a word that usually describes a really small living organism not normally thought of as being multitasking. Perhaps it’s the name that’s holding us back?

I think Claude Lewis missed the point of the science in Stop ‘medicalizing’ bad behavior (Philadelphia Inquirer - 2006-06-07). The commentary was written in response news “intermittent explosive disorder” (IED), a condition doctors suggesting may cause road rage, or other anger that is out of proportion to the situation. Lewis is concerned that research provides excuses:

The risk is this: The more things we label disease, the less we label as transgression. If you think of your problem as a “disease,” to be treated like a disease, that lets you off the obligation to change that behavior.

Of course, one only needs to look at the examples of drug addiction and alcholism Lewis uses to see this isn’t true. While alcholism is now understood better by the medical community, the effects of it are still not excused by society. Increased understanding does not “lend legitimacy” , but improves our ability to deal with the conditions. It helps those surrounding someone with the condition to understand why the solution isn’t always as simple as it would appear it should be. “Stop taking drugs” is easy for the us to say, but known to be incredibly hard for the addict to do.

I’m a proponent of individual responsiblity. It bothers me that society allows lawsuits against tobacco companies to include anyone under 35 (they knew it was addictive), or that any of the endless “it’s not my fault I was an idiot” suits can actually waste the court’s time. People need to responsible for their own actions, and must account for their own circumstances. If you’re prone outbursts, then it is your responsiblity to recognize the signs, and take steps to keep yourself on the safe side of the anger threshold. Similarly, if you’re an alcholic, you shouldn’t find yourself in a bar.

The viagra example is a good one. Fixing the medical condition doesn’t necessarily fix the underlying factors that caused the condition. If the problems are internal to a relationship, viagra fixes nothing, but if factors external to the relationship are the source of the problems, perhaps the little blue pill helps keep the relationship strong so that the external issues can be faced. The individual is responsible for looking at his circumstances and knowing if he’s dealing with the right problems.

Lewis ends off with his alternative to the scientific approach to understanding a problem - it’s not his problem:

One cure for road rage, our new “disease,” is quite simple: Suspend the errant driver’s license for two, five or 10 years.

Thankfully, the medical community isn’t content to just lay blame, and beat the offender with the biggest stick around. They don’t excuse the behaviour, but work to find the underlying causes to of the behaviour so that those engaging in it can understand themselves better. If you know what the problem is, finding the solution is much easier.

So why do the research? It’s part of the illness called the scientific mind: it causes those afflicted to seek to know why simply for the sake of knowing why.

I cancelled my World of Warcraft subscription this week. I’ve been playing since October of last year, but have become bored with it over the last couple of months. Lately I’ve reduced my playing to flipping auctions in the AH - something I started in February, and have made about 15,000g doing it. Having reached 60, and become “rich” in the game, it’s time to move on - I want the time back. There’s too much to do in a day already, without committing countless hours each week to a game.

Jim went to Colorado for a week on business, and in accordance with Murphy’s Law his internet connection went down, or at least appeared to. The web sites were offline, and worse, the mail server was unreachable. As a temporary fix, I rerouted all incoming mail to another linux box that had postfix running and returned to reading mail in pine for a week.

We use Amavis and Spamassassin for system-wide spam tagging, and then individual users use procmail for additional filtering and tossing mail to folders. These filters have been in place for a couple of years at least, so the return to no filtering was a shock. My email inbox became almost unusable as a flood of spam, viruses, and bounces for spam I didn’t send filled it. Over the course of the week I received several hundred messages of which about 20 were important.

We’ve been talking about setting up redundancy on the systems for 18 months now, but it’s always been bumped by more important (and not-so-important ) distractions. Manually filtering spam for a week has renewed my interest in getting redundancy in place.

Rob Enderle’s article, Why Linux may never be a true desktop OS raises some interesting points that apply to a lot more than just Linux.  The entire doing what is necessary section highlights a mistake we’re all guilty of making at various times.

When it comes to competition, typically you have the folks who are willing to do what is necessary to win and the folks who aren’t. In my personal experience, I’ve seen again and again scenarios where a team would lay out a plan for what they deemed was needed in order to be successful in a market and then they’d watch as the executive in charge cherry picked the things he/she wanted to do. As a result, the project failed, often disastrously.

This statement paints a common problem in a new light for me.  I’ve seen (and committed) this error many times, but hadn’t ever thought of it in terms of “cherry picking“, and that being the ultimate downfall of a project.  We like to think that life is full of gray areas and nothing is truly ever an all-or-nothing proposition.  Perhaps it’s the ability to see things in black and white that separates the winner from second place?

Have a purpose before you get together. The group should not be trying to develop terms of reference for periodic meeting from a completely blank slate after they’ve met. Groups should have a purpose that is separate and distinct from other groups - you don’t want to be discussing the same issues over and over again in different forums.

Set an agenda, and stick to it. Be as specific as possible on the agenda, it helps define the purpose of this specific meeting. Where possible ask people to submit presentations and reports in advance. Circulate the agenda ahead of the meeting with enough time that participants can come prepared to discuss the specific topics. During the meeting avoid letting discussions drift to issues the group isn’t able to address unless they directly affect the ability of this group to function (and then assign to someone, and move on).

Have the right number of people involved. Involving more people is good for information sharing meetings where status updates, presentations and reports are made to keep others informed. Fewer people should be invited to working meetings at which decisions are to be made. Avoid having $1000 meetings to solve $10 problems.