This week's edition of Nature has a brief paper (doi:10.1038/nature07390) reporting on the identification of an HIV positive tissue sample collected in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) in what was then the Belgian Congo, and now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Sequence data derived from the tissue was used to investigate the chronology of the appearance of HIV from its likely simian origin.

This is a piece of research which hit the news services (see for example this page at the BBC news website).  The research has a number of features which earmark it for media interest: an important virus, a serious disease with a global spread, and a simple take-home message as to the origin of the virus.  This raised my interest and I looked at the paper.  Incidentally, the paper raises issues to do with complexity of statistical analysis: I imagine many readers such as I, and the journos who wrote articles in the press, have little or no chance of understanding what an "unconstrained Bayesian Markov chain Monte Carlo method" is, and are similarly limited in one's real critical analysis of conclusions reached by that means!  I am forced to assume that all is above board in the statistical and computational aspects of this paper, and that the referees have done their job!  In addition, it's always interesting in studies of ancient DNA (and cases where sample preservation was not originally intended to preserve nucleic acids) to know what measures were taken to ensure that contamination with modern DNA did not happen.

The Times online reports that UK Government ministers have agreed in principle to spend £12 billion to enable GCHQ to monitor every phone call , every email and all our browsing habits.

If true, this must be unprecedented in peace-time, and exceeds even the East German Stasi in its level of monitoring the population.  It's an extremely worrying development, particularly given the draconian powers HMG have pushed through in recent years.  We are presently living in a State where merely reading material deemed inappropriate can result in prosecution.

Cyclingnews.com reports that Alexander Vinokourov, dumped in spectacular style during the 2007 Tour de France for blood doping (which fuelled a spectacular return to form after an injury-plagued race) is planning a come-back.  He says he's likely to return to the Astana team (the same team now run by Lance Armstrong's mate Johan Bruyneel and which Armstrong will ride for in his comeback season).

Has the world gone mad, or just Vinokourov?  It was Vino and his fellow team mates that earned Astana such a reputation for doping that they were excluded from the 2008 Tour de France.  Vino's ban for doping was astonishingly light, at a mere 12 months, and was the subject of a CAS appeal by the UCI, who suspended it following Vinokourov's retirement.  What responsible cycling team would touch him, even with a ten foot bargepole?

So Frank Schleck transfers 7000 euros to Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, who he claims never to have met, has never sought to make use of a prohibited substance or method. Should I send him my bank details so he can send me 7000 euros? (Report at cyclingnews.com)

Seriously, how stupid does he think we are? What was the payment for, then?  He goes on to offer a DNA test to match the blood bags retrieved during the investigation.  Whats that?  The blood's not available for testing?  That's OK then.

4 good reasons not to take part in the BT Webwise Trial An excellent summary from the Open Rights Group explaining many of the issues at stake.  Includes many useful links.

Wikipedia has a pretty good synopsis of Phorm, its history and its system.  (This is the page that Phorm itself tried to edit to paint them in a better light).

The BT support forum has a thread for BT/Webwise questions.  There are never any answers, but it's worth looking at.

I got my MAC, now to switch to a new ISP, an ISP that respects users' privacy, and which won't deal with Phorm.

I also finally got a response to my email requesting my web pages not be scanned by Phorm, a request that was NOT sent to an obviously Phome address, but which was read by at least 12 Phorm employees.

Ofcom have published a consultation document entitled "Delivering super-fast broadband in the UK": this is an interactive affair, and I notice that the comments on one particular paragraph exceed the others.  Guess what that's about?

1.38  The introduction of new business models can be controversial, but may be very important in the delivery of new access networks. Regulation can have a role, for example in helping to increase consumer confidence in new services. One example is improving consumers' perception of behavioural advertising. We are interested in views on where else Ofcom can assist in new commercial developments.

I have to confess to being something of a novice with mobile comms.  I have steadfastly refused to have a mobile phone on the grounds that I don't want people phoning me up!  The various acronyms associated with mobile comms still confuse me a bit, and I have never sent a text message! However, I find myself travelling quite a bit, and within the UK, it seems  to me that in British hotels internet access is often just another way to extract cash from the guests.  (This is is contrast to my experiences in the USA and Japan).  One criterion I had for selecting a system was that some support for Linux should be available.  Browsing various fora, I decided to have a go with the Vodafone system.

Vodafone have a quite a large website covering development of drivers etc for their mobile devices including the USB modems.  The associated Betavone Forge site has a forum which was very helpful in getting the system working on Linux (Ubuntu 8.04).

Lest readers feel I (and others) overstate the dangers of the deep packet inspection that is about to be perpetrated on BT Internet customers, here is a quote from Kent Ertegrul, CEO of Phorm, Inc.:

The information at the BT Webwise page seems to me to avoid discussing BT's real motives in proposing to employ this system.  The quoted blocks below come from BT's Webwise page.

BT Webwise increases your protection against online fraud and makes ads that appear on participating websites more relevant to your interests. It's completely free for BT Total Broadband customers and you don't have to download or install any software for it to work.

This is rather disingenuous.  Most modern browsers offer protection against phishing sites.  I strongly suspect that most broadband users would prefer to minimise all advertising: certainly this is one reason I use Firefox with its adblock add-on.  Of course it's free, BT will be selling our browsing history

I just read on The Register that British Telecom will begin their third trial of the despicable Phorm data pimping service.  For reasons why this is so appalling, visit the nodpi and badphorm websites.

Alex Hanff over at nodpi reckons that the opt in/out system it seems that the BT data pimps will use still falls foul of legal requirements.  For my part, I believe that the whole system is vile, immoral and underhand.  There are a variety of aspects to the antics that the BT Data Pimps have conducted over the last few year that leave a particularly sour taste.

Cyclingnews.com reports that Floyd Landis, who tested positive for testosterone and was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title only days after finishing in Paris, has launched an appeal against the final CAS decision to uphold their verdict of his guilt.  Oh, and the $100k bill he got stuck with.  The bases for this action are two-fold - firstly that the three arbitrators on the panel (including the one chosen by Landis and his team) had conflicts of interest, and that the decision on dumping the costs on Landis was made in a way that prevented any right for his team to respond.

What's less certain is whether the appeal can actually go anywhere - it is an appeal to a US Federal court, while the CAS arbitration was decided at their HQ in Switzerland.  Landis is due to return to racing in 2009, having served his ban.  There seems to be a curious pattern with high profile sports doping cases involving American athletes, with defence often hinging on perceived (and often minor) procedural defects.  Rarely are the athletes really able to challenge the laboratory tests themselves.  I recently wrote about an opinion piece in the journal Nature, which seemed to me to be rather cautious on the statistics of positive dope tests, particularly during lengthy sports events such as the Grand Tours.

I just received the Glasvegas album (cover to left).  I came across this (believe it or not) from listening to the BBC World Service very early one morning.  I was taken by the strange Glaswegian wall of sound.  To be honest they do remind me at times of Win, particularly in the vocals, but that's no bad thing, particularly combined with an appealing sort of indie version of a wall of sound!

A still, clear, and quite chilly morning, with a few wisps of mist greeted the riders who turned out for the North Bucks Hill Climb Championship for 2008.  As usual, held on F5z/H (for the uninitiated, the climb from Bow Brickhill to the golf course on top of the hill).  There were loads of mountain bikers hanging around and starting their ride in the woods, but none could be persuaded to take part.

I have to say at this point that I hate hill climbs.  I like cycling up big long hills, but sprinting up short steep hills seems foolhardy to day the least.  Anyway, my effort in the 2008 championship came to a quick end, as I got stopped on the steepest part of the climb by some twerp in a 4X4 who decided to stop to hold a conversation with someone.  That kind of buggered up my ride, and I lost enthusiasm after that.  Oh well.  

Slide:ology

The art and science of creating great presentations

Cyclingnews.com reports that there is evidence that Frank Schleck was a client of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, the notorious Spanish sports doctor that offered blood doping services to a seemingly large swathe of the pro peleton (and a bunch of other sports - but that seems to have been swept neatly under the carpet).  Frank Schleck is implicated as "Amigo di Birillo", Birillo being the code name for Ivan Basso.  Basso of course denied involvement until sufficient evidence piled up, then accepted a ban.

The Fuentes case seems to have gone a bit cold, but the bags of blood - each labeled with a puerile codename - are still being held.  It's about time these cheats got identified for once and all by DNA testing.

I came across a link to Excrementum Can. (canine faeces) in a comment left at the excellent quackometer site.  Helios Homeopathy do indeed sell Excrementum Can. at a variety of extreme dilutions (can't be much fun doing those preparations, at least for the early dilutions).  Dilutions offered are 6C - 10M, but while I know that 6C is six 100 fold dilutions, what's 10M?  Is that ten 1000 fold dilutions? [Edit: at this site, it is revealed that 1M = 1000C.  This reaches the heights of absurdity.  10M must therefore be 10000C, or 10000 successive 100-fold dilutions! I am losing track of this level of dilution - perhaps someone less mathmatically challenged that I am first thing in the morning can calculate this...do they really mean 10^-20000?]

More about this quack stuff at provings.info, but it's not terribly obvious what it's supposed to do.  The onward link is in German, with registration required, so I didn't go there.

The Duo Normand two-up team time trial is held annually in September on a 54.3km circuit based in the Normandy town of Marigny.  from a British time triallist's point of view, it's a spectacular event - not only because of the numbers of spectators, but because of the large numbers of competitors (in many categories from unlicenced to professional) and the virtually closed roads.  All the teams can have a following car in case of mechanical problems, though Team Grumpy have never availed themselves of this in the 5 occasions we've ridden it.

This year, Team Grumpy made a fifth visit to the Duo Normand time trial, and of course Carol and I were keen to make a holiday of it.  We stayed in a house south of St Lo.  We took our trusty Dawes tandem to explore the surrounding countryside.  In the descriptions below, each day has it's own photo gallery: click on the thumbnail to see the full image; click on the large image to advance to the next in the series.

The report on the Duo Normand itself is in a separate blog entry.