Confirmed: a plausible rumour isn’t actually a fact

It’s an Apple scoop! From Forbes.com, on Saturday:

Confirmed: New iPhone Will Be Longer and Thinner and Have Smaller Dock Connector

Confirmed? Not so fast. iLounge editor Jeremy Horowitz posted some rumours, and…

These details match up with and expand upon his earlier reports, so this is seeming pretty credible.

That isn’t confirmation, and the Forbes piece was quickly and rightly mocked for its headline. The writer was quick to publish an apology:

Confirmed or Not, New iPhone Screen Size Makes Sense for LTE and Personal Cinema

Skipping gaily past the bit where the writer says that of course, nothing is official until Steve Jobs unveils it — a task that, as we know, has become more difficult since his death — the writer then explains all.

The old model of journalism, which I am as steeped in as anyone (even if I have spent most of my career on the visual side of the equation), was great for absolute quality, but tended to suppress individual voices in favor of institutional ones. What’s great about the blogging model, which Forbes.com has embraced full force, is that we are all out here trying to add ideas to the news cycle.

For fuck’s sake.идея за подарък

Fatherhood, depression and bullshit

Many new fathers are filled with great joy on becoming parents, but for some it’s the beginning of a long, dark period of depression. Writing in the Observer, Barbara Ellen completely misrepresents the issue and writes the kind of heartless column you’d expect from the Daily Mail’s Jan Moir:

I would have been more concerned that the mothers in question were having to put up with such exhausting narcissists as partners – men incapable of hiding their sulky self-absorption

As Ally Fogg writes on Comment is Free, Ellen’s column is based on a Daily Mail piece that’s hardly fair, balanced or even accurate. A study found that some fathers suffered from depression in the early stages of parenthood; the Mail’s Robert Lefever claimed that the “poor dears” had post-natal depression, which is something else entirely.

Lefever misreported the study’s findings as being that 5% of fathers develop post-natal depression. He went on to sarcastically ask whether men would get pre-menstrual tension next, and revealed his true colours by worrying that “politicians, of the bleeding heart tendency, will say that these men should be treated sympathetically – at the expense of their employers”.

Cue Lefever and Ellen telling everyone to man up. Fogg again:

Both Lefever and Ellen strongly imply that paternal depression is little more than whiny men wishing to jump aboard the PND bandwagon. Their prescription would appear to be: man up and suck it up. The reality emerging from medical and psychological research is precisely the opposite. Again and again, researchers point out that the biggest problem is that many men will not admit to depression and will not seek help when needed.

Ignore the Ellens and Lefevers of this world: depression is a serious illness with horrible consequences not just for the sufferer, but for the people around them. If you’re a dad and you’re depressed, you need to speak to somebody about it – sooner rather than later.

I think you’ll find that I’m taking the piss

Me, taking the piss out of iPad 3 speculation that gets entire articles out of analysing an invitation:

If you look at the launch invitation the Calendar app icon is nice and clear and Retina-y, but just look at the Keynote icon to the right. It’s so blurry you can barely make it out.

It’s clear what Apple’s doing here: because its Retina display is so powerful and awesome and amazing, it probably uses quite a lot of battery power. Apple’s solution? Make the bits you aren’t looking at go blurry to save pixels. Thinking like this is why Android can never win.

In the comments:

so its not just out of focus, apple has invented a display that knows where you are looking?

Muppetry.

The economics of piracy

This is fascinating: Internet Regulation & the Economics of Piracy

Suppose the CEO of Wal-Mart came to Congress demanding a $50 million program to deploy FBI agents to frisk suspicious-looking teens in towns near Wal-Marts. A lawmaker might, without for one instant doubting that shoplifiting is a bad thing, question whether this is really the optimal use of federal law enforcement resources. The CEO indignantly points out that shoplifting kills one million adorable towheaded orphans each year. The proof is right here in this study by the Wal-Mart Institute for Anti-Shoplifting Studies. The study sources this dramatic claim to a newspaper article, which quotes the CEO of Wal-Mart asserting (on the basis of private data you can’t see) that shoplifting kills hundreds of orphans annually. And as a footnote explains, it seemed prudent to round up to a million. I wish this were just a joke, but as readers of my previous post will recognize, that’s literally about the level of evidence we’re dealing with here.

“EU says water is not healthy”, says made-up man

The Express:

EU SAYS WATER IS NOT HEALTHY

In a scarcely believable ­ruling, a panel of experts threw out a claim that regular water consumption is the best way to rehydrate the body.

The bizarre diktat from Brussels has far-reaching implications for member states, including Britain, as no water sold in the EU can now claim to protect against dehydration.

Any producer breaching the order, signed by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, faces being jailed for up to two years.

The Guardian:

This isn’t really a rule so much as a piece of advice, which member states are free to interpret as they wish… The claim wasn’t submitted for a genuine product, but was created as a deliberate ‘test’ exercise by the two professors, who were apparently already unhappy with the European Food Standards Authority. The panel were well aware of it’s absurdity too, noting drily that “the proposed risk factors,” the conditions addressed by the hypothetical product, in this case water loss, “are measures or water depletion and thus are measures of the disease (dehydration).”

Executive summary: the EFSA decided to be pedantic, and point out that water alone doesn’t prevent dehydration; you need sufficient water, as well as various other odds and sods such as salt.

The Guardian, again:

So the ruling seems pretty sensible to me, or at least as sensible as a ruling can be when the claim being tested is vexatious in the first place. It’s accurate advice, and it prevents companies selling bottled water from making exaggerated claims for their products, which is a good thing.

Comment on the Express article:

This must be the same group of so called scientist that made the false claim that man and CO2 is causing global warming. No wonder no body has any respect for science anymore.

When health scares have wider consequences

The MMR scare strikes again. From the Brighton Argus:

Nine children at two Hove schools have been diagnosed with the potentially fatal infectious disease in the past couple of weeks – more than the entire number of cases in the whole of Sussex last year.

…In some cases babies too young to be vaccinated have contracted the illness from contact with infected older children who have not been given the jabs.

Arguing with RJ Ellory

I don’t usually edit or remove posts, no matter how much of an arse they make me look, but I’m making an exception this time: I went off the deep end about a series of tweets by the novelist RJ Ellory, and in doing so I made an arse of myself.

The tweets were about aspartame, and I felt that Ellory was rehashing internet conspiracy theory nonsense and being dismissive of anyone who disagreed. I still think that, but my original post was over the top.

It’s turned into a fun discussion thread, though.

Ryanair’s porn plan is a smokescreen to hide price hikes

Whenever I see a stupid Ryanair story, I wonder what bit of financial news it’s drawing your attention away from. There’s a good example this week.

The real story, in the Irish Times: the average cost of a Ryanair flight increased by 13% over the last year, and it’s about to go up again.

At a press briefing in Dublin, deputy chief executive Michael Cawley said that to “stand still” next year, the airline would have to increase fares by €3 a passenger to cover the increase in its fuel costs.

The story most people will see, in The Sun:

RYANAIR is planning to screen PORN on its flights.

“This website, and any page on the website, is based loosely off a true story, but has been modified in multiple ways including, but not limited to: the story, the photos, and the comments.”

I hate pop-ups in general, but I particularly hate pop-ups that pretend to be real articles in order to flog quackery.

we here at The Consumer Reporter London Online News are a little skeptical and aren’t sure that we’ve seen any real proof that these pills work for weight loss. So we decided to put these products to the test. What better way to find out the truth than to conduct our own study?

You’ve got to love the disclaimer, though.

It is important to note that this site and the comments/answers depicted above is to be used as an illustrative example of what some individuals have achieved with this/these products. This website, and any page on the website, is based loosely off a true story, but has been modified in multiple ways including, but not limited to: the story, the photos, and the comments. Thus, this page, and any page on this website, are not to be taken literally or as a non-fiction story. This page, and the results mentioned on this page, although achievable for some, are not to be construed as the results that you may achieve on the same routine. I UNDERSTAND THIS WEBSITE IS ONLY ILLUSTRATIVE OF WHAT MIGHT BE ACHIEVABLE FROM USING THIS/THESE PRODUCTS, AND THAT THE STORY/COMMENTS DEPICTED ABOVE IS NOT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY.

A more sober analysis of the WHO/phones/cancer story

The tabloids are leading with headlines of the MOBILE PHONES WILL EAT YOUR FACE variety, but the WHO/phone/cancer story is something of a non-story. Here’s what Cancer Research has to say.

It is understandable that people are concerned about mobile phones, especially because they are so widely used. But so far, the published studies do not show that mobile phones could increase the risk of cancer.  This conclusion is backed up by the lack of a solid biological mechanism, and the fact that brain cancer rates are not going up significantly.

However, all of the studies so far have weaknesses, which make it impossible to entirely rule out a risk. Mobile phones are still a new technology and there is little evidence about effects of long-term use.

For this reason, the UK Government advises a precautionary stance. It suggests that if adults want to use a mobile phone, they can choose to minimise their exposure by keeping calls short. It also advises discouraging children under the age of 16 from making non-essential calls as well as also keeping their calls short.

And, as IARC’s working group said, there needs to be more research.