Science, Technology & Health: December 2005 Archives
I recently bought a Panasonic PV-GS19 (which I love) and have been making a lot of movies starring my family and my new wife. As you can imagine I'd like these movies to last for years, so I've been burning them to DVD. How long should they stay good? Apparently it's a matter of technology and quality. As with other products, DVD manufacturers mass-produce a huge number of units, many of which come off the assembly line with defects. The near-perfect units are sold under expensive brand names, and the slightly defective units are sold more cheaply through side companies. A knowledgable friend recommended Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs to me through SuperMediaStore, and I haven't had any problems with them yet... but it's only been a couple of months.
Update 060117:
Reader John V. passes on this additional article about recordable media quality.
I suppose many people would find this article about the difficulty of finding an abortionist in South Dakota to reflect some sort of "primitive" moral value system, but since the Supreme Court has decreed that killing unborn babies shall be legal no matter what the public wants, social ostracism is probably one of the most effective ways to save lives.
Sioux Falls, S.D. -- The waiting room at the Planned Parenthood clinic was packed by the time the doctor arrived -- an hour late because of weather delays in Minneapolis.It was clinic day, the one day a week when the only clinic in South Dakota that provides abortions could take in patients. This time it was a Wednesday. The week before it was a Monday.
The day changes depending on the schedules of four doctors from Minnesota who fly to Sioux Falls on a rotating basis to perform abortions, something no doctor in South Dakota will do. The last doctor in South Dakota to perform abortions stopped about eight years ago; the consensus in the medical community is that offering the procedure is not worth the stigma of being branded a baby killer. ...
[Kate] Looby, [Planned Parenthood's state director,] whose father is an obstetrician-gynecologist, said she has talked to many doctors in South Dakota who say they have no personal objection to performing abortions but cannot risk their careers and community standing by offering the procedure.
The abortionists and the mothers should be ashamed of themselves. They and the men who fathered these children (when they enabled the abortion) should all be thrown in jail.
Apparently the Moschidae Deer is a real thing, but I'm sure glad they don't pull Santa's sleigh. Instead of antlers, they have fangs.
How'd you like to see a few of those nasties climbing around your roof at night?
Flatirons Surveying has a great page that describes the difference between accuracy and precision.
Precision: the degree of refinement in the performance of an operation, or the degree of perfection in the instruments and methods used to obtain a result. An indication of the uniformity or reproducibility of a result. Precision relates to the quality of an operation by which a result is obtained, and is distinguished from accuracy, which relates to the quality of the result. ...Accuracy: the degree of conformity with a standard (the "truth"). Accuracy relates to the quality of a result, and is distinguished from precision, which relates to the quality of the operation by which the result is obtained.
So precision tells you how good your method is, and accuracy tells you how good your measurement is. As Yiding Wang is quoted at the top of the page, "Accuracy is telling the truth . . . Precision is telling the same story over and over again."
Pilot lights have always bothered me. They seem so out of place in a modern society, reminiscent of the hot coals that cavemen would hoard from lightning strikes so they could start fires back at camp. My car doesn't have a pilot light, so I'm sure there's some alternate technology that could be used to light natural gas, and yet even new appliances like water heaters require you to have a standing open flame in your house. I just counted in my head, and there are at least five pilot lights in my house burning gas continually.
I wonder if there's a way to build a gas-powered television that doesn't just convert the gas directly into electricity?
My poor dog was neutered when we took him from the pound and he just doesn't look right anymore... but there's hope, thanks to Neuticles, the artificial testicle implants for dogs! They're also available for horses and bulls... but I wouldn't advise implanting bull testicles in your dog.
Orin Kerr raises an interesting question: when can machines be treated like people? He cites two cases.
In the first, a poorly-programmed ATM machine in Australia incorrectly dispensed money to a man who purposefully exploited its programming flaw. The man then argued that the bank, through the ATM, gave its consent for him to take the money, and that the money wasn't stolen. The Austrailian High Court rejected his defense and said that machines can't give consent.
In the second case, the American government had the phone company monitor the numbers dialed by a criminal suspect so they could record the conversations when he dialed certain numbers. The suspect argued that this was an invasion of privacy, but the Supreme Court rejected his appeal on the basis that if he had been using an old-style phone with an operator on the other end rather than a computer, he would have had no expectation of privacy and that operator could have legally told the police every number that was dialed. The SCOTUS said that, "We are not inclined to hold that a different constitutional result is required because the telephone company has decided to automate."
So in the first case, the ATM could not give consent for the thief to take the bank's money, but in the second case the presence of a machine serving in a capacity that used to be filled by a human could prevent an expectation of privacy. Fascinating stuff, and certain to become even more important as computers continue to replace humans.
