Barrel Clipping Box

Scientific slag-off

2009-11-23T23:09:00.003Z

Such news items deserve an exceptional double bill. Hope you enjoy as much as I do that what is linked below proves that scientists are humans and some time not even of the best mind disposition.

23 November 2009

UK hack reveals climate science's ugly side, little more

John Timme, Ars Technica

23 November 2009

Darpa’s Simulated Cat Brain Project a ‘Scam’: Top Scientist
Noah Shachtman WIRED.com

I am sure your heart is bug enough for my boss's wallet

2009-11-22T22:19:00.003Z

22 November 2009
In the name of charity, get rid of chuggers (only the first paragraph is relevant)
Julian Knight

Sad truth: Charity is just another business

Eastern (broken) promises

2009-11-22T00:12:00.002Z

20 November 2009
Sushi DNA Tests Reveal Fraud
Aaron Rowe Wired Online

What the world has come to? You cannot even trust sushi any more.

MP Expenses around Europe

2009-11-20T23:32:00.004Z

20 November 2009
Edel-Stifte mit Steuergeldern gekauft (should read: Precious pins [pens] purchased with tax money, according to Google Translator)

Apparently the Germans, instead of cleaning up their moats, as their British counterparts, prefer classy pens.

Queen's speech 2009: What the fan (voters) say

2009-11-19T23:00:00.003Z

18 November 2009
What voters think of the Queen's speech: the view from Hyndburn
Helen Carter
Interesting quotes
[...]
"I have always voted for them [Labour] and nothing is going to change that," said Margaret Wilson
and [...]
"I am not going to change my mind. I have never voted Labour and I never will. They are not the party of the working man."

More and more evidence that politics is like football only with more evolved bribes, less clubs (only 3 big ones in this country), hence, ultimately, only more boring.

Data mining 007

2009-06-09T09:40:00.002+01:00

Bec Gill
James Bond prefers brunettes, says Cleveland State study
News.com June 8, 2009

Yet another ground-breaking result advertised on the news. I spot a worrying trend in what makes the headlines when it is about research results.

Current Italian affairs: a machist and slightly forgetful interpretation

2009-05-04T18:48:00.003+01:00

Beppe Severgnini
Silvio Berlusconi: An Italian Mirror
Time 30th April 2009

The idea that the current prime minister is so popular because he is so similar to the average Italian or represents a widespread aspiration is not new and is the core of the article above.
However, I frankly struggle to understand how a woman identifies in the Italian PM, do our other halves see in him their ideal husband?
Moreover, even more obscure is the sentence: "We are too anarchic to allow anyone to tell us what do for long (they all failed, from Caesar Augustus to Benito Mussolini)"

Now, Mussolini ruled Italy until 1943 (for 21 years) whilst Augustus was the Emperor of something slightly bigger than Italy alone for 41 years. Although neither is an example of illuminated government, surely we cannot talk of them as underachievers in the tightness of the grip they imposed on the state and its subjects, for not exactly one week.

Sleep on it

2009-03-01T00:18:00.003Z

Sleep better than sex, say tired Britons
The Independent 28 February 2009

Well, I knew it! Even more shocking are some of the comments to this article.
Notwithstanding the shocking amount of alcohol consumed to loosen inhibitions, and the stoic efforts men and women undergo every weekend night braving the British cold in fewer and fewer layers of clothing, for 8 out of 10 Brit, bed has only one purpose...

Speaking about clichè

2009-01-25T22:20:00.003Z

Toby Litt
The Italian Job
The Guardian, Saturday 24 January 2009 (Review inset)

I happen to have read the book. I happen to disagree on many points of this review, however that is not the point.

The article is introduced by the following lines (I quote): "Toby Litt has fun with a novelist who delights in cliché and coincidence".

Toby Litt underlines the use of clichès in the novel but his review's title is just the millionth time the famous movie has been used to refer to something conceived or implemented in Italy. I say, if you have to pick on something, at least try and refrain to do the same thing it the title of your piece(*).

(*) I know the authors, often, do not pick the titles themselves, still I think a little coherence is lacking there

Stating the obvious

2009-01-14T22:22:00.002Z

Julian Glover
Britain loses faith in economy
The Guardian, Wednesday 14 January 2009

I decided to save this clipping (form today's front page) because it is a proof that statistics when not used with a pinch of salt are as as informative as the prediction of the outcome of a coin toss (er...).

A big survey carried out worldwide concluded the following, as reported in the article linked above:

1) "confidence in the banking system appears lower in Britain - 4.2 out of 10 - than in bankrupt Iceland, which polled 4.6". Now, in order to assess that people worldwide and, particular in Britain, do not trust banks, we needed a survey
2) "Not surprisingly, pessimism about personal finances is greatest in Iceland, and lowest in fast-growing economies such as India". At least the author said not surprisingly. Do we really need statistics to say that the average Icelandic who is about to lose a lifetime's savings in the banks meltdown up there is not really willing to look on the bright side? Or that the average Indian, on one of the poorest wages worldwide is not really positive he is going to become rich in the next couple of months?

I leave the rest of the amazing results to your curiosity

Psichological damages for a tasteless prank on MySpace

2008-11-21T21:15:00.002Z

Kim Zetter
Government's Star Witness Stumbles: MySpace Hoax Was Her Idea, Not Drew's
Wired online 20 November 2008

Astonishing and depressing how people think they can escape from reality and find something different on the Internet. Personally, I also find exaggerated the protection that law gives to the gullible. It is a sad case this one, but I doubt that the parents of the little suicidal girl are less guilty than those who played that distasteful prank.

Code of conduct rules: can't behave like an animal with animals anymore

2008-11-05T11:20:00.002Z

Maev Kennedy
Pet owners reined in by conduct code
The Guardian Wednesday November 5 2008

On the same day US made history electing their first African-American president, UK
proved to one step forward, establishing a code of conduct for pet owners. I quote from the article linked above

'[...] The codes advise not just on food and housing; readers learn about likes and dislikes. The cat code alone runs to 26 pages and notes that felines need "entertainment and mental stimulation", that given their climbing nature they might need access to high shelves, and that they are solitary by nature.
Dogs, as pack animals, need company, while donkeys "have particular socialisation needs and can ... become ill if separated from a companion."'

Good job animals can't read, so far. Otherwise imagine little kitty dwindling the code in front of your eyes next time you tell it of for climbing on the kitchen sink, and then telling you to get lost and leave it alone in order to second its solitary nature. Or the dog complaining about you always staying in the office and neglecting it...

Intrusive pictures

2008-11-02T10:38:00.002Z

USCD Jacobs News
Keys Can be Copied From Afar, Jacobs School Computer Scientists Show
Thursday 30 October 2008

Well after reading this I bet there will be no more showing off at the bar on who's got the flashiest keys, or as it often happens between young males, who's got the longest keys. I can also predict a suspicious increase in the enrollment in Computer Science courses.
In my case, however, I doubt burglars will bother about taking a picture of my keys and learning Matlab & Computer Vision basics. There is indeed another security hole in my door: if you sneeze strong enough in front of it, you can break it.

The constant slag-off

2008-10-22T22:16:00.003+01:00

John Hooper

Crime and punishment, Italian-style
The Guardian, Wednesday October 22 2008

This is only the hundredth time I find an article in the British press that ridicules or harshly criticise Italy.
Honestly, I can only guess why this has intensified lately on the Guardian, but it not the case of discussing the contingent reasons here.
The content, rather than the style of this article, is appalling. The journalist, attacks the Italian judiciary institution of the civil party in crime trial. He reports, I hope partly, the authoritative opinion of an Italian magistrate, the equivalent of the British QC. The Italian expert explains that such "civil party" is there to seek compensation representing the victims' next of kin. In the UK, the journalist continues, such thing can be pursued only in a separate civil action. Why is it better to lead two separate proceedings for the same fact is left unsaid. On the contrary, the sole acknowledgment of a third party damaged by a criminal conduct, and the permission to have a say in the trial gives dignity and substance to those left to mourn. Not considering the obvious redundancy of a double procedure, before different judges, that have different competencies. Our right has very deep roots and frankly I think we have very few to learn about fundamentals in the field, especially from this kind of shallow articles. More to the point, however, the third party represented in the case mentioned is an English couple whose daughter was murdered in Italy last year. Now, if someone has to pick on Italy, there is plenty to choose from, but t least when we apply the fairest conditions, we should be left alone.

Unlikely conspiracies and the paranoia of being so close

2008-10-16T22:51:00.000+01:00

Oliver Burkeman

How often can you say 'beaten at the box-office by a Hollywood Chihuahua'?
The Guardian, Thursday October 16 2008

Very funny. Although, I start to perceive, in US and in the more Democrat-friendly part of the UK, a sort of paranoia. The Republicans are in the unusual role of those alleging a conspiracy whilst Obama's folk are in the uncomfortable position (as they are not used to it) of having to dissipate the doubt. Moreover, the syndrome of the imponderable overturn is hunting. The pressure is rising and I bet all Obama's supporters would give the world for it to be already the day after Election Day

The memory police

2008-10-16T22:39:00.000+01:00

Timothy Garton Ash
The freedom of historical debate is under attack by the memory police
The Guardian. Thursday October 16 2008

The problem of governments, or individuals that think it is their business to:
"[...] to define historical truth and to restrict the liberty of the historian by penal sanctions [...]" (quoted from the link above), is closer than one often thinks.

People jeer at you, yell at you, even forbid you to speak out your mind, government can put you to jail. The easiest thing to do, instead, as the author of the article above rightly puts it, is to refute the false. I wonder why, on the contrary people want to outsource thought control?