Dialogue with the Oxford Chiropractic Clinic

Skeleton, by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

So, a few people have been contacting their local friendly chiropractors regarding the recent ASA ruling. I think Martin was the first; jdc325 and Tristan have also done their bit, the latter with remarkable success!

The ASA ruling states that the chiropractor could not “refer to the treatment of IBS, colic and learning difficulties” in his advertising. Now, it should be noted that the ASA do not regulate advertising on websites (but, randomly, they do on leaflets!) However, the General Chiropractic Council’s own Code of Practice states that chiropractors may “publicise their practices or permit another person to do so consistent with the law and the guidance issued by the Advertising Standards Authority.” My interpretation of the GCC guidelines is that they extend the ASA’s recommendations from advertising to all information published by GCC members.

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Recording scanner output dictaphone-style, with silence detection

I tried to find a Linux solution to automatically record scanner traffic, something like Scanner Recorder for Windows. It looks like I am not alone. Anyway, I figured it out.

This is how I did it under Ubuntu:

  1. Download xpvox here.
  2. Compile it (I had to install libforms and then change all instances of #include "forms.h" to #include <X11/forms.h>).
  3. Install speex.
  4. Make sure /dev/dsp0 exists (if not, mknod /dev/dsp0 c 14 3).
  5. Run xpvox -ios | speexenc -V --rate 44100 - out.spx.

After you quit xpvox, you’ll find a file called out.spx which contains all recorded traffic, with silent bits cut out.

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Culinary adventures in France

Fifty grams of fat?

20080328-174425-1.jpg
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A land of a thousand islands

Apparently, British Airways wants to assure its customers that its routes will not change after the polar ice caps have melted. Take a look at this scan from the February 2008 edition of their in-flight High Life magazine, pages 96-97.

This is what BA thinks Europe looks like:
BA’s view of Europe
Cropped around Finland:
BA’s view of Finland
Google Earth’s view on the same area:
Google Earth’s view of Europe

The map is proudly produced by Oxford Cartographers.

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FPGA test

Just something to generate video output.

20080125-102856.flv

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Most viewed pages on Conservapedia

Kieran Healy of Crooked Timber has unearthed some interesting statistics on Conservapedia, that beacon of piety in the secular world. As of right now, Conservapedia’s most viewed pages are as follows:

  1. Main Page‎ [1,907,392]
  2. Homosexuality‎ [1,575,873]
  3. Homosexuality and Hepatitis‎ [517,112]
  4. Homosexuality and Promiscuity‎ [420,721]
  5. Gay Bowel Syndrome‎ [391,120]
  6. Homosexuality and Parasites‎ [388,155]
  7. Homosexuality and Domestic Violence‎ [367,707]
  8. Homosexuality and Gonorrhea‎ [331,558]
  9. Homosexuality and Mental Health‎ [292,100]
  10. Homosexuality and Syphilis‎ [265,330]
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Why have I never heard of Béla Fleck before?

These guys are amazing:
Béla Fleck

Hat tip to CC.

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If cryptography is outlawed…

Some animal rights terrorists have been asked to hand over decryption keys under Part III Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) a mere few weeks after it was activated. Completely apart from the fact that I disagree with their cause, I think this is a worrying development. I hope it accelerates the development and adoption of deniable encryption.

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Wht is the SI unit for car fuel consuption?

The SI system of units is a wonderfully logical and functional system of units of measurement. In the SI system all units can be expressed in terms of a few fundamental, independently defined base units such as the second, the metre and the kilogram. (I freely admit that the fact the kilogram as a base unit is one of the less logical parts of the system.) When working in the base-10 SI system, no conversion factors are required and everything fits together beautifully.

The other day I realised we are routinely using at least one unit which is more complex than it need be. It is that of vehicle fuel consumption, typically expressed in SI countries in litres per 100 kilometres. (It’s interesting to note that in countries that use Imperial units, the custom is to use the reciprocal unit, that is, miles per gallon.)

So, what would be a better unit? Let’s simplify! Volume (in litres) divided by distance (in kilometres) is area.

1l/100km = 1dm3/100km = 1*10-3m3/105m = 1*10-8m2 = 10000μm2.

The beauty of this unit is that it does not feature the distance driven anywhere. It is superfluous because the distance driven is directly proportional to the fuel consumption. A neat way to visualise this is to imagine that when you drive, your car leaves behind it cylinder (or cuboid) of fuel with its cross-sectional area as above and its length the distance you’ve travelled.

So when you’re buying your next car, make sure it consumes less than 50 thousand square micrometers of fuel.

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If you need to monitor the boot process of a security-sensitive system…

…do it off-screen. Sometimes obscurity helps.

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