More insanity in the made-up numbers department

I was just reading this about people claiming the amount of global cybercrime outstripped the international drug trade by $1T against $400Bn. As the reporter pointed out, do they expect us to believe that the global cybercrime trade is higher than Saudi Arabias annual domestic product of $555Bn from 2007. As if.
What particularly troubled me was the comment by security firm Finjan about justifying the touting of these numbers: "In our Q1 2009 report on cybercrime, for example, we revealed that one single rogueware network are raking in $10,800 a day, or $39.42 million a year," it said. "If you extrapolate those figures across the many thousands of cybercrime operations that exist on the Internet at any given time, the results easily reach a trillion dollars."
Can anyone else see the problem here? These people are supposed to be experts and not even their statistics make any sense. I am not a statistician or an economist but let us expose the error in their logic.
1) The example they used of a company taking in $11K per day would not have been making this every day for a year. They would more than likely either been tracked down and shut down or their source of revenue would have dried up as virus-checkers are updated or stolen credit card details are blocked.
2) This example of a company would be at the high end of cybercrime. Most people who write worms either don't make any money or certainly not as much as they might want and certainly not $11 per day. How many people would really make that much in a day amongst the 'many thousands of operations'? Not many!
So the evidence that was probably "company X made $11K in a day last year" becomes "every cybercrime company makes $11K every day of every year" it has been multiplied by 365 and then by thousands. To think these people probably get paid!!

"people with nothing to hide wouldn't be so opposed to them"

I read the title in an article about Polygraph machines or 'lie detectors' and it reminded me of similar things I had read about ID cards, routine DNA testing and just about everything else that a government churns out for 'our security'. The problem is that the phrase is so common, most people won't notice that the logic is very much flawed.
The logic to the statement is based on the assumption that the piece of equipment or system is 100% foolproof. If indeed a lie detector was 100% accurate then surely only a liar would be concerned with taking one (ignoring people who might *have* to tell lies like security services or government officials protecting the public). Of course the problem is that none of these things are foolproof.
Take a lie-detector for example. Suppose you were interviewed in a murder investigation and failed a lie-detector test. The information was then presented in a Court alongside other circumstantial or inconclusive evidence. You might very well be found guilty. Take ID cards, there could be any one of a number of technical errors that might make your card read as a fake or that would enable someone to copy it and make it look you were somewhere else to where you actually were etc. Imagine the DNA information from your routine test is mis-entered or polluted into the system and 'your' DNA is then found at a crime scene. Can you imagine getting out of that by accusing the system of a defect somewhere?
Quite honestly the original statement is nonsense and I for one will ensure I do not agree to any of these man-made systems that somehow promise our security at the expense of liberty, annonymity, money and security.

Wind Energy the Truth?

I've talked before about truth. Truth is absolute in most cases but what do we base our truth on? Most of the time it is based on other people's ideas, conjecture, experimentation or even lies and what a great area to visit this than wind energy. The reason I thought about it was after stumbling across http://www.windenergy-the-truth.com/ and reading through it. The good thing about a well thought out and presented treatise of the subject is you can then try and find any holes in the logic.
It is not enough for somebody simply to say, "wind farms are a good idea" or "wind farms are a bad idea" you need all the information. You are not just talking about potentially lots of money spent on something that is less than useful but electricity supply itself and all of the industry and services based on electricity, i.e. 99% of everything. We cannot afford to be blaze about something so important and I would invite others to read the article and comment on whether the man's conclusions are reasonable or not.

Walkers Crisps Competition

I have now tried all 6 proposed flavours of Walkers crisps and can safetly say the only ones I would buy are Fish and Chips. Builders Breakfast should be called Dogs Dinner, Chilli and Chocolate is NOT a good combination, Cajun Squirrel is OK but tastes just like Barbeque flavour. Onion bargee is OK but quite bitter, hoisin crispy duck has an accurate flavour but made me feel sick.
What I thought of was going to the Walkers site and saying that as well as liking Fish and Chips the most, I also wanted to deride some of the other entries. Polls are a bit rubbish in that regard which should be surprising since there are people who have degrees in things like marketing and information systems. A poll should allow negative as well as positive voting. If it was a general election, you might expect people who vote Labour would 'un-vote' the Tories and vice-versa but compare the following two sets of data, which would appear to demonstrate two quite different opinions:

Traditional Poll shows labour clearly more favourite
Labour 53,000
Tory 40,000
Lib Dem 20,000

My Poll
Labour 53,000 for, 120,000 against
Tory 40,000 for, 30,000 against
Lib Dem 20,000 for, 100,000 against

What would that tell you? That the opinion against is much more signficant than the opinion for. Who should be put into power with the above statistics? According to the first poll, Labour, according to the second, probably Tory. Makes you think.
On a similar note, remember the 2012 Olympics proposal. Many people I spoke to were either indifferent or opposed to the hassle or particularly the cost of staging the Olympics despite whatever feeble assurances the government gave (and which, surprise, surprise, have already been shown to be grossly wrong). When the bid was being put together, they showed a few hundred people in Trafalger Square going nuts when it was awarded to the UK. What about the other 60,000,000 people who either didn't want it or weren't interested? How were their views taken into account? In short they weren't. Just proves that the system does not want to know the truth, they want to spin whatever they can to conclude whatever they want.

Between the floors!

Have you ever thought about what is between your floors when you are doing building work? They are very important spaces so here is some wisdom:

1. Do not leave wood shavings in the gaps when you drill joists and floorboards, think how well that would go up in flames if you had a fire or electrical fault! Vacuum is your friend.


2. If you drill significant holes into a plaster ceiling, you have compromised its fire stopping ability and the building regs say you need to mitigate this. If you drill downlighters into the ceiling, either you must use the closed back ones which block fire (and cost more!) or put in a false ceiling to drill into or use a fire blocking device above the downlighter to prevent any compromise of the ceiling due to a fire.


3. If you can, fill the spaces with 'rockwool' type insulation which helps keep noises to a minimum, provides heat insulation so that warmer rooms are not heating up cooler rooms unintentionally and also it reduces the effects of drafts on potential fires - floor voids are wonderful places for fires because there are often drafts from leaky brickwork which if left un checked would feed a fire.


4. Make sure you know what you are allowed to do when notching or drilling joists for pipe and cables. You are not allowed to drill too large or too close together so find out from the building regulations guidelines. You do not want a joist to give way, especially one under a water tank, wall or bath which would go very quickly.


5. If you are pulling in cables or flexible pipes, invest in some fibre-glass pull rods. You can pull through voids that are perhaps 20 feet or more long without having to pull up any floorboards in the process.


6. If you drill outside from a floor void, close the gap afterwards with fire-rated expanding foam both to reduce chills from drafts, prevent vermin getting in and also reduce the effects of fire.


7. Watch out for noggins. They are (usually) blocks of wood which cross the void in an X shape and are to stop the joists twisting under load and over time. They can be a pain when pulling cables and pipes through. If you can raise an odd floorboard, do it near the noggins. Try and consider avoiding airlocks as well by passing water pipes under the noggins rather than over them (like I did!)

Heating, Thermostats and TRVs

I was fitting some heating controls last night and wondered about the best position for a room thermostat so did a little web search and found some big argument about whether a room thermostat (RT) is a good idea or not. Interestingly the Building Regs say you need one (or probably need one?) to comply with Part L (conservation of fuel and power) so you don't really get to decide if you want a legal house! Anyway, I dug a bit deeper and it is a good example of 'flawless' logic meets the big bad government when in reality the logic is flawed.
Most people were saying something like, 'how can a single RT add anything to heat sensors (TRVs) effectively in each room?'. Although someone suggested that TRVs are not very well positioned or accurate etc. it was correct that they could always be turned up to a suitable number which might be higher in one room for the same temperature as another. It was worrying that apparently even some plumbers are ignorant of the purposes of the RT and would appear to be suggesting not bothering until fortunately, someone who actually knew what they were talking about appeared on the forum.
The reason you need a RT is for the following situation. What happens when all your rooms are warm enough and the TRVs all close? You will either have a single radiator with no TRV as a bypass or a pressure operated bypass valve which allows the water to go somewhere when no radiators are open. So for a period of time, which in the warmer spring/autumn months would be longest, the boiler is STILL heating water and this is going round a certain amount of pipe losing its heat for no reason and not giving the boiler a rest. When the temperature of the water drops too much, it will fire up again and simply waste gas. The RT job is to literally switch the boiler off when the whole house is up to temperature so that zero gas is used until the house gets cooler. This of course begs the question of where to put it.
Do NOT put it in a room that always gets warm because of sunlight or because the radiator is turned up high (bathroom, kitchen). Do NOT put it in the lounge if either you have the lounge turned up high or you have another source of heat in the room (open fire etc) that would otherwise switch the thermostat off and let the rest of the house get cold. Do NOT put it somewhere that is often cold such as a back lobby or near the door of an entrance hall which might never get warm enough to switch the thermostat off. My own suggestion is to use the lounge if you do not have any alternative heat sources or otherwise the upstairs landing which is a reasonable indication of the overall heat of the house. You can set the temperature slightly higher (a couple of degrees) than you would otherwise have it for that area to ensure that the rest of the house gets enough time to heat up. If you find that it works perfectly while some rooms never get warm, you will need to balance up the system. Ideally, the rooms should all warm up at the same rate although some will switch off earlier than others. If when you turn the heating on, one radiator or room gets noticeabley hotter quicker than the others, turn down the 'close down' valve (the one on the other end to the TRV) by about 1/2 a turn. If a rad never seems to get warm or as hot as the others, open its valve up by 1/2 a turn. Over a few days, you should notice a much more even heating up.

DIY Bathroom Top Tips

My bathroom is close to being finished after many months. It was quite difficult because I was installing it into a room that was previously a bedroom (no pipes) and the fact that I was changing the hot water system quite drastically at the same time. Anyway, most of the issues you will come across can be avoided with some simple tips.

1. Plan, plan, plan. Get some graph paper (there was some on the back of a Wickes bathroom booklet I had) and get the measurements of the suites you are looking at. You will be amazed at how things fit or don't compared to what you assume. Go and look at some of your friend's bathrooms to make sure you haven't forgotten something like a towel rail or a toilet!


2. If you are trying to meet existing soil pipes or the like then ensure you know how much space the pipe fittings will take up. For instance, your toilet cannot go right against the soil stack because there will be no room for the fittings. The toilet soil fittings will be the worst because they are the largest but don't underestimate the annoyance you can get with a waste pipe that is perfect for the room but somehow has to get past a load of wood under the floor or such like. The builder didn't design the house around your choice of bathroom so some thought at this stage will help a lot.


3. Curved shower trays or baths can cause fun with the floor tiling. If, for example, you are using natural stone tiles you will need a special cutter to make the curves. Are you sure you want to choose them?


4. Shop around. There is loads of stuff available and savings to be made. Also, you will find some items in certain stores that are perfect for you that might not be available in other stores. Web sites are pretty good for trawling these things.


5. Before you install anything, plan where all the pipes and wires are going to go. There is nothing worse than thinking you will worry about a certain pipe later when you install the bath over all the floorboards you need to lift up!! For the most part you should install all services before even thinking about putting in the furniture.


6. Most of you will not have the luxury of a false wall to hide pipes behind and it is unlikely that all the walls you will use for the bath, toilet and sink are external for quick exit of waste pipe. Think VERY carefully about where the waste pipes will go, you do NOT want to be cutting loads of 40mm holes in floor joists and most of you won't have a drill that will fit anyway. Also, trying to fit wastes from bath too pipe next to joists can be difficult so measure where the bath and shower tray wastes need to go and check that you will have plenty of room to move the waste around to fit. Under my bath, the waste was too tall and I had to cut floorboards away - be warned.


7. Run the pipes and fix them if required as close as you can get to where they need to go. You can use flexible hoses from pipe to taps and toilet cistern if you want so don't worry too much. If you are reusing pipe, you will need to make loads of measurements to see whether a flex-hose will do the job or whether you will need to do some more major modifications on the existing pipework.


8. The bath and shower tray should usually go down on the floor before tiling (unless it is a free-standing unit that sits on the main floor) so these can go in first. Adjust the height of the bath so that you get a full height tile or two up to the window sill if you have one. You don't want 1.75 tiles from bath to sill!! Work out roughly where the tiles need to come to with an edging strip to correctly meet the horizontal tiles on the sill because it is much easier adjusting the bath feet that mucking around with slivers of tiles. In my case my sill had a lot of room for play because it had no internal sill so I can pack it up to suit my bath height.


9. With the bath in the right place, ensure it is spirit levelled in both directions (L-R and Front-Back) and then draw a line under it against the wall. Fix a length of 2 x 1 timber up to this line so the bath can sit on the wood (as well as its feet) and not flex (cracking the tile joins).


10. Ensuring the bath will not have to come out for any other work, glue it in with silicone or similar against all walls it is touching. Do not move it for 24 hours to give the sealant time to go off.


11. The shower tray needs to be plumb level. I wouldn't worry about the floor being slightly off true but if it is fairly bad you will have to level the floor. If it is the ground floor (i.e. concrete), you can get levelling compound which is like runny mortar which will do the job. Levelling up a wooden floor can be a pain and might involve some 12mm plywood and various wedges and packers to make it level. A little work here and you won't suffer from water pooling in the tray and smelling after a few days! Make sure the tray is fully supported as per the instructions. You do not want your tray cracking from movements it is not supposed to make


12. Depending on the flooring, you might want to put the toilet and sink (assuming it's floor standing) in first and worry about the floor later but if like me you are planning to use ceramic floor tiles, you will want to tile first and then plonk the things on top of the tiles. Cutting ceramic around curves is not fun. That said, you will have to cut around a curved shower tray. Before you start any tiling, lay out a row in each direction in a cross and make sure you do not have any tiles that will need to be very narrow. If you start from a wall and work to the other side, you might need strips of 25mm x 300mm which looks rubbish and is not always easy to cut either. It would be preferable to cut the tiles on both ends of the row and something more like 140mm + (rest of 300mm tiles) + 135mm. Also do not assume that your room has square corners. If you start in the corner and work outwards you might find the wall coming in slightly and you will not be able to get the tiles to line up. Again, lay them out and check before you stick anything.


13. Tile adhesive likes to crack to make sure your floor is solid and flat before laying tiles. Put down some 9 or 12mm plywood as a base to tile onto but if your boards are very uneven, you might need strips of laminate floor insulation board, which is very thin, to make the plywood stay rigid.