Pandora: music radio and recommendations

Jacob Reider pointed to Pandora

Ad supported radio that suggests music based on one's likes. Oldest trick in the book (I think Firefly did this in the early '90s), but surprisingly rarely done. I'm suprised the Apple Store doesn't do this ... Amazon used to, but their recommendations service has all but vanished ...

Airport security 1995 - an insider's story

via Schneier. The beautiful thing about the web is all kinds of people can tell their stories, and people like Schneier tell us about the interesting ones. An insider's story about working airport security in 1995 is quite good. I liked the trick where he learned to carry any of the FAA test items through the metal detector without activating the alarm.

I wonder if things are different now; the security people I see at airports now seem a cut above this description. On the other hand, airport security is not terribly important. As has been pointed out many times, the most important post-9/11 security measures are:

1. armored cockpit door
2. pilots treat a hijacking as a suicide attack
3. passengers are inclined to resist (1 and 2 are more imporant).

Spolsky on pricing theory

Why does what you buy cost what it costs? Read Camels and Rubber Duckies - Joel on Software. I have a seriously dense textbook on pricing theory. Spolsky covers the key points in a single article. If you buy anything, it's worth reading.

It's non-trivial.

BTW, one technique he doesn't mention is sandwiching. Apple does this brilliantly. Sell one thing cheaply, one in between, one expensive. The cheap one is a bargain, but it's missing something everyone wants. The expensive one is wicked. The result is people will happily buy the middle one, and will pay more than they would have if the cheap one (which has a crummy margin) didn't exist.

The bottom price exists only to elevate the middle price.

An Interview with Charles (Bell Curve) Murray

About 10 years ago Charles Murray and Richard Hernstein wrote "The Bell Curve", a book that caused great outrage on the American left. I never read the book, but I dimly recall that the authors claimed that there was a general intellectual capacity that was roughly measured by IQ testing, that IQ was largely genetically determined, and that some ethnic groups had bigger average IQs than others. I think he was fond of South Koreans in particular, but I may be losing it there (I have a family relationship to Korea that probably affects my memory).

At the time I didn't say much, because, although I didn't care for the tone of the quotes I read, I suspected the substance would hold up. I thought the evidence even then was pretty strong that IQ was genetically determined [1], and that the main environmental effects were intrauterine and served only to lower the genetic limit. I also felt, with less data, that it was likely that there was indeed a general ability to synthesize and problem solve, and that it had some correlation with IQ test results. As to the ethnic relationships I was and am agnostic, but I didn't think the data was there to rule it out. So the book seemed plausible, albeit infected by an off-putting arrogance.

So I was interested in this Charles Murray interview featured in an obscure web site. Murry may even have mellowed slightly, though his religious devotion to Libertarianism is only mildly abated. It is interesting reading.

By the way, one way in which I believe I differ from Murray is that I don't think being smarter makes a person a more deserving human being. I value traits like integrity, compassion, mercy, wisdom, humility, curiousity, kindness, forgiveness... Murray seems to have adopted the Libertarian faith that intellect is the measure of perfection. (I wonder how they'll feel about our silicon heirs?)

[1] Yes, I've read some recent reviews claiming environment was more important than we'd thought. I thought the articles (NYT) were so dull and confused they weren't worth writing about.

Stress, disease and early aging

The NYT Magazine has a long article on disease and aging though I think the lead family photo is a big misleading (look yourself and contemplate). It doesn't have many surprises in it. It's one of a series of discoveries and reviews that show we age more slowly than we once did, largely because we're sick less often.

The main environmental influences are probably prenatal and certainly before age two (mothers should never smoke), but, there are later effects too. At least for the moment, we are spared much of the disease, parasites, and malnutrition that afflicted our ancestors. As a consequence, we age more slowly.

This is not a surprise to anyone who's studied old family photos. Our ancesters were old at 40 -- rather than 50-55.

FuturePundit, which pointed me to the NYT article, also features a related post about a gene that can be used to tell a person's biological age rather than their chronologic age.

I'm still waiting for the article that shows that aging is non-linear, and that we experience 'bursts' of aging after certain environmental triggers. The old folk tale about 'aging a year in a night' will be shown to be correct.

Geeks don't use Travelers Insurance

JOS calls out a comically stupid and offensive ad campain by Travelers Insurance. I wonder how much business they once had in Silicon Valley.

I assume that each year ad execs gather to nominate the absolutely worst ad effort of the year. This one is reaching for the decade award.

Dyer has about 10 new articles online

The journalist, military historian, arabist and eccentric web author has about 10 new June/July articles. This journlist doesn't do he said/she said articles -- and his record is good. Dig in.

The Ultra Portable Mobile Computer is doomed

The UPMC is crushed by a 10 year old Apple Newton in a head-to-head struggle. That's pathetic. The UPMC is dead. Move along folks ...

Black skin, SPF, and when a feature becomes a bug

[Update 7/31: read the comments. The BBC article really mangled the study, and my imagination was overly active. As our commentator notes, these melanomas aren't even clearly sun related. Detection was also not a problem, the involved skin is pale. I really don't know what to make of any of this, but you probably shouldn't waste your time on this post!]

Very black skin has SPF 13; I assume that very pale skin has SPF 1-2 (the BBC article didn't say) ...

BBC NEWS | Health | Dark skin 'does not block cancer'

...people with dark skin are more likely to die from skin cancer than those with fairer skin...

Dark skin has increased epidermal melanin which provides a natural skin protection factor (SPF) - a measure of how long skin covered with sunscreen takes to burn compared with uncovered skin.

Very dark, black skin has a natural SPF of about 13 and filters twice as much UV radiation as white skin, for example.

The BBC article is pretty weak. We're talking about melanoma. Very black skin is protective against melanoma, but it also makes it harder to spot early melanoma. The detection impact is only relevant when melanoma can be treated -- a modern phenomena.

In low tech societies black skin protects against death by melanoma, in high tech societies we can cure early melanoma. So the detection problmes mean that black skin has gone from being a 'feature' to a 'bug' -- at least in terms of melanoma protection. It's still a feature in terms of protection against sunburn, even the best sunscreens require frequent reapplication.

This is analogous to climate change and fur color. White fur is protective when there's snow, a problem when the snow melts. The difference is that our environment is technological.

Asians and other brown skinned persons may have the best compromise here. A reasonable SPF protection (maybe 8?) with reasonably easy detection as well. Sunscreen there just improves the odds. Good news for my younger kids. Getting black kids and adults to wear sunscreen will be damn hard. An effective SPF 13 sunscreen that doesn't wash is good enough to avoid a lot of sunburn, and without the scourge of sunburn kids and adults aren't going to put sunscreen on...

Hezbollah, collective punishment, and the falling cost of havoc

In the winter of 2001 I thought a lot about the falling cost of havoc. Technology changes the course and nature of conflict, and the relation between states and entities.

The theme returns:

Israel Finding a Difficult Foe in Hezbollah - New York Times

.... Never before in history has a terrorist organization had such state-of-the-art military equipment,” from medium-range rockets and laser-guided antitank missiles to well-designed explosive mines that can cripple an advanced tank, General Amidror said.

The cost of advanced weaponry is falling relative to income. Offense is cheaper than defense. The "IED" (improvised explosive device) is not really improvised, and it has changed the balance of power in Iraq.

In time missiles that travel hundreds of miles, with a great deal of "intelligence" and optional remote guidance, will become commonplace.

We still haven't thought enough about how technology is changing the nature of conflict. I fear collective punishment and police states will become the rule. I wish we thought about this more.

Landis: the odd thing about the test results

On NPR a specialist in doping described Landis results differently from the news stories. This is typical of what we're reading:

KRT Wire | 07/27/2006 | Landis denies cheating, admits Tour win will be questioned

...The test conducted at France's anti-doping laboratory in Chatenay-Malabry turned up high levels of testosterone, which medical experts say can increase stamina in the short run.

According to a statement posted on the Web site of Phonak, a cycling union official informed Landis' team that the rider's sample revealed 'an unusual level of testosterone/epitestosterone' when he was tested July 20.

The story on NPR was that his free testosterone was not in fact elevated. The epitestosterone was very low, so the ratio was elevated to about 11. Anything above 6 is out of the accepted range, so a value of 11 is extreme.

I was hoping someone on medlogs would do a more clinical analysis, but so far the press reports are just repeating the elevated testosterone line. I admit I'm harboring the faint hope it's something innocent, but I'm also curious about what would mess up the ratio. An effect of another banned substance? It's been too long since I knew my endocrinology ...

Shrillblog: The History of the Shrill

DeLong writes The History of the Shrill. Made me look back to the first post. I think I joined on the 2nd post. Been reading every since.

Damn, I'm going to have to pay the NYT so I can read Krugman again ...

The most important MS Office preferences

SIVACRACY.NET: MS Office Upgrade, With Important New Features. I loved the one about "same ... default attributes". There are so many I could add that are MS Word specific. Maybe 'Destroy document after every third style applied ...'.

DeLong's top 20

DeLong lists the twenty blogs he reads most frequently. I'll check out the few I don't know.

Hijacked by the right, a scientist disembarks

A few years back a real scientist published a well respected paper noting some cooling trends in parts of Antarctica. The author became an unwitting recruit of the arational right - including performance artists like Crichton and Coulter. He chose the New York Times as his exit from the madness. My favorite line is emphasized ...

Cold, Hard Facts - New York Times

... Our results have been misused as “evidence” against global warming by Michael Crichton in his novel “State of Fear” and by Ann Coulter in her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism.” Search my name on the Web, and you will find pages of links to everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents — all citing my 2002 study as reason to doubt that the earth is warming. One recent Web column even put words in my mouth. I have never said that “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle.” I have never thought such a thing either.

Our study did find that 58 percent of Antarctica cooled from 1966 to 2000. But during that period, the rest of the continent was warming. And climate models created since our paper was published have suggested a link between the lack of significant warming in Antarctica and the ozone hole over that continent. These models, conspicuously missing from the warming-skeptic literature, suggest that as the ozone hole heals — thanks to worldwide bans on ozone-destroying chemicals — all of Antarctica is likely to warm with the rest of the planet. An inconvenient truth?

Also missing from the skeptics’ arguments is the debate over our conclusions. Another group of researchers who took a different approach found no clear cooling trend in Antarctica. We still stand by our results for the period we analyzed, but unbiased reporting would acknowledge differences of scientific opinion.

The disappointing thing is that we are even debating the direction of climate change on this globally important continent. And it may not end until we have more weather stations on Antarctica and longer-term data that demonstrate a clear trend.

In the meantime, I would like to remove my name from the list of scientists who dispute global warming. I know my coauthors would as well.

Never even thought. That is pretty definite.

There's still important science to be done about what's happening over antarctica, and there's work to be done to improve climate models and better characterize all the contributors to global warming and climate change.

There's also important social science research to be done on the nature of irrationality in the American right ....

I didn't miss his slightly strained pitch for more monitoring stations in Antarctica. I'm sure that's a good thing on the merits, but it also reflects a scientist's love for his domain of study ...