More trouble for Myki?

It appears researchers in London have cracked the Tube's new ticketing system.

At the heart of [the] card is the Mifare chip, made by Philips spin-off NXP.

Designed in the 1990s before processors of that size could handle strong encryption, Mifare has suffered at least three published cracks, according to security experts who have urged TfL to upgrade the system. (link)

Given that Melbourne's Myki is probably a very similar technology, could that mean all the money they've already spent on Myki is a waste?

RIP George Carlin

RIP George Carlin

Very funny man and a great comedian

Here he is at his finest!

Portishead Interview!

For those who don't know, I managed to score an exclusive interview with Portishead.

I chatted to Adrian Utley about a range of things and I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

No, unfortunately I didn't get to speak to Beth, she still doesn't speak to the media.

But you're welcome to read it on inthemix.com.au and I may even put the audio up online soon, which contains Adrian discussing Public Enemy and a whole lot more besides.

Science sucks!

The current trend of media reporting on science experiments as fact about the entire population is really starting to annoy me.

What I want to know is why 14,000 out of 21 Million people is an OK sample size to determine that Australia is a nation of fatties? (source)

Why 13 people out of 6 Billion is an OK sample size to see that brain patterns are different when playing games? (source)

Why 21 people out of 6 billion is an OK sample size to determine that marijuana shrinks brains? (source)

It's ridiculous! The sample sizes are so small that it makes the reports questionable, if not thoroughly erroneous.

It's like looking at the moon and determining all moons are like that. Yes, we used to think that when we could only see our moon, but now we've got the technology we look at more moons and find that a lot of what we used to think about moons is wrong.

When looking at humans, we've got every opportunity to look at millions more than we do now.

So why are we looking at a mere handful and saying "they're representative of the 6 billion of us here", and worse still, bringing in policies and laws to restrict those 6 billion based on not even 1% of that population?