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Friday, April 07, 2006 |
Wiretap Whistleblower's Statement. Former AT&T technician Mark Klein speaks out in support of the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T for its alleged complicity in the NSA's extrajudicial electronic surveillance. Wired News presents Klein's public statement on the purported spying. [Wired News: Top Stories]
9:43:53 PM 
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Hoops Hypothesis.
Hypothesis: The outcome of any pick-up basketball game depends more strongly on the match-up between the two worst players on each team than the match-up between the two best players on each team.
Argument: If the talent differential between the worst players is sufficiently large, then on defense, the better of the two is essentially free to double-team the other team's best player on every single possession, while the reverse is not true. Thus, the team with the single worst player is effectively playing four-on-five against the team with the second-worst player, and it's rare for the best player to be better than the second-best player by enough to overcome that numerical disadvantage.
Conclusion: This means that, when it comes time to pick teams, it's more important to avoid getting the worst player on your team than to actively seek to get the best player on your team.
Discuss.
Read the comments on this post...
[Uncertain Principles]
9:42:46 PM
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Sense of Injustice Can Lead Scientists to Act Unethically, Study
Finds, by Lila Guterman, CHE (subscription required).
The researchers published their study of the links between
perceived injustice and scientific misbehavior this week in the
inaugural issue of
The Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics.
...
When scientists perceive injustice in their workplace, particularly
regarding how rewards are distributed, they are more likely to
compromise their integrity, the researchers found.
What's more, the correlation is stronger for scientists whose
"scientific identity is vulnerable," Mr. De Vries said. Younger
researchers and women in male-dominated fields were more likely to
respond to perceived injustices by cutting corners.
The authors of the ethics paper caution that, as a result of such
pressures, simple training in ethics at individual institutions may not
be enough to encourage scientists to play by the rules. Instead,
journal editors, peer reviewers, and leaders of professional societies
must find ways to judge work fairly and bestow rewards based on merit,
not simply because of a research project's "glamour" or grant size.
Still, responsibility for good behavior ultimately rests with each
scientist, the authors conclude. "As disheartening as it may be to work
under conditions of unfairness," they counsel early-career scientists,
"it is a potentially career-ending event to be found guilty of
violating professional rules, regulations, or laws."
11:31:55 AM
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In 1965, Yoko Ono performed an art piece in which she sat silently on a stage while audience members would come up and snip off pieces of her clothes. Here's a video. 