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Nope. I am not making that argument at all.

Rather I say this can be the case.

Program A. Good enough code. Free. (GPL)
Program B. Better code than A at the moment. Non-Free.

Currently for some, Program is better than program B. because of the Freedom.

Later today...

Program B is put under the GPL as well and so is now Free.

Now Program B is better than program A as it is Free and currently has better code.

That is more the argument people make.

And it is even more nuanced than that here in the real world. Like which has a better development community? Which has professional level paid support available al la carte and via long term contract. Etc.

all the best,

drew
--
Join The Free Music Push

"The point is, that while there is public consensus on the use of open source for infrastructure, there is no similar enthusiasm for viral obligations nor is there any interest in opening up the value-add/secret sauce on the top of the stack."

Are you sure the consensus you speak of exists?

That said, the secret sauce model denies the Open Source theory on the face of it and certainly is not in accord with the Free Software theory.

Open Core Model and Software Quality - the Open Software Take

all the best,

drew

Adoption is legal, but not exactly an easy option for the mother. (Also, bear in mind that an awful lot of the US adoption agencies are Christian in nature.)

Perelman's proof is fairly skeletal, though most/all now agree it contains all the required components and enough of a sketch of the missing details. However,some Chinese mathematicians (Cao and Zhu) filled in some of the details in a massive 300-page journal article. A famous Chinese mathematician, Shing-Tung Yao, was accused of promoting the Cao-Zhu article as the real proof, and taking away credit rightfully due to Perelman. There were other shenanigans alleged on both sides.

To some extent it comes down to a question of insight vs. work, with some on the Chinese mathematicians' side claiming that Perelman basically came up with the high-level breakthrough, but didn't follow through with the work to actually prove the theorem, which they claim is non-trivial--- and so the credit for the proof should go to Cao-Zhu, while Perelman gets credit for coming up with the major ideas that inspired the proof. Others view Perelman as essentially coming up with the proof.

Here's a brief bloggy summary with some links.

Dave Richards is well known in the Gnome community for working with thin clients, specifically for the city of largo, florida. if you wanted some input on the subject you might want to ask him. he's on gnome's planet, or http://davelargo.blogspot.com/

"That's obese!"

exactly: doesn't the Wii Fit do this already? If you're obese according to BMI it makes your avatar obese, if you're underweight it makes your avatar very skinny. Since the Wii Fit came out in 2007 and Microsoft didn't file until June 2008 I'd say that's enough prior air.

Is Microsoft going to sue Nintendo for Wii Fit?

"I would be ok with the occasional banner ad or something along those lines, but we all know that for every advertiser that attempts to play nicely, a dozen others will come up with some new obnoxious ad." - by Thyamine (531612) on Thursday December 17, @10:11AM (#30473552) Homepage

The worst example of those "obnoxious ads" you speak of? See my "p.s." below, for examples of where malware payloads have been found numerous times in banner ad code no less...That being the case?

I can show anyone here how to get a FASTER & SAFER "HBO-Style" internet online, easily, & from a SIHGLE EASILY OBTAINED + EASILY EDITED FILE (that uses no excess CPU cycles or is as buggy as other solutions are or can be (nanely DNS servers &/or browser addons).

Also - Per my subject-line above: How about a GLOBAL solution, instead, & one that extends to ALL of your "webbound apps", instead, AND acts as "layered security" in combination with the FF/Mozilla only methods you use (which slow your browser down, use CPU cycles & more... where this solution does not & covers ALL webbound apps, globally)??

Ok, well then - Here we go, & on that note, specifically:

Here is a GOOD SOLID & GLOBAL WORK-AROUND, CALLED A HOSTS FILE!

(It works for more speed online, AND SECURITY ESPECIALLY...)

HOSTS files also work for your money too!

(I state that because you pay for your linetime out of pocket most likely as I do, you can get back your speed, AND, gain security easily, & from a single easily edited file & a file eats no CPU cycles like a local DNS server can (& are not as security vulnerable either if you protect write access to a HOSTS file also)...

SO - "that all said & aside"? Well, per your reply??

I use a custom HOSTS file, in addition to the tools others here in this thread have noted (which MANY like FF addons only really function for FireFox/Mozilla products, but don't extend globally to all other webbound applications, & that is part of what HOSTS files give you above the methods you extoll + utilize: "GLOBAL COVERAGE", & of ALL webbound apps, not just FireFox/Mozilla ones via the addons you noted + use yourself...).

HOSTS files can also be used to blockout KNOWN "bad" adserves, maliciously coded sites or adbanners, and "botnet C&C servers" too!

You can obtain reliable HOSTS files from reputable lists for more security online, but also for speed!

(More on that later & WHY/HOW (I use reliable lists for that, such as these HOSTS @ Wikipedia.com -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file or those from mvps.org (a good one this one))

I also further populate & keep current my custom HOSTS file with up to date information in regards to all of those threats, via:

----

A.) Spybot "Search & Destroy" updates (populates HOSTS and browser block lists)

B.) Sites like ZDNet's Mr. Dancho Danchev's blog -> http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/

C.) Sites like FireEye -> http://blog.fireeye.com/

D.) SRI -> http://mtc.sri.com/

----

My HOSTS file incorporates ALL of the entries from the HOSTS files shown @ wikipedia as well... gaining me speed online (by blocking adbanners, which have been compromised many times the past few years now by malscripted exploits (examples below)).

(I combined ALL reputable HOSTS files with one of my own (30,000 entries), & I removed duplicates removed via a Borland Delphi app I wrote to do so called "APK HOSTS File Grinder 4.0++". That program also functions to change the default larger & SLOWER 127.0.0.1 blocking 'loopback adapter' IP address to either 0.0.0.0 (for VISTA/Windows Server 2008/Windows 7, smaller & thus faster than 127.0.0.1 default) or the smalles

"I use advertisements on most of my sites not because I want to make money, but because I want to pay for the site. It's not cheap running a dedicated server" - by gnick (1211984) on Thursday December 17, @10:45AM (#30474120) Homepage

Nor is it cheap for an end user to pay his monthly online fee, nor is it cheap for they to have to remove a malware infestation when they get one & they do not know how to remove it themselves (& yes, banner ads have been shown to harbor malicious script over time quite a bit also). See my "p.s." section below for evidences thereof...

Also - Per my subject-line above: How about a GLOBAL solution, instead, & one that extends to ALL of your "webbound apps", instead, AND acts as "layered security" in combination with the FF/Mozilla only methods you use (which slow your browser down, use CPU cycles & more... where this solution does not & covers ALL webbound apps, globally)??

Ok, well then - Here we go, & on that note, specifically:

Here is a GOOD SOLID & GLOBAL WORK-AROUND, CALLED A HOSTS FILE!

(It works for more speed online, AND SECURITY ESPECIALLY...)

HOSTS files also work for your money too!

(I state that because you pay for your linetime out of pocket most likely as I do, you can get back your speed, AND, gain security easily, & from a single easily edited file & a file eats no CPU cycles like a local DNS server can (& are not as security vulnerable either if you protect write access to a HOSTS file also)...

SO - "that all said & aside"? Well, per your reply??

I use a custom HOSTS file, in addition to the tools others here in this thread have noted (which MANY like FF addons only really function for FireFox/Mozilla products, but don't extend globally to all other webbound applications, & that is part of what HOSTS files give you above the methods you extoll + utilize: "GLOBAL COVERAGE", & of ALL webbound apps, not just FireFox/Mozilla ones via the addons you noted + use yourself...).

HOSTS files can also be used to blockout KNOWN "bad" adserves, maliciously coded sites or adbanners, and "botnet C&C servers" too!

You can obtain reliable HOSTS files from reputable lists for more security online, but also for speed!

(More on that later & WHY/HOW (I use reliable lists for that, such as these HOSTS @ Wikipedia.com -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file or those from mvps.org (a good one this one))

I also further populate & keep current my custom HOSTS file with up to date information in regards to all of those threats, via:

----

A.) Spybot "Search & Destroy" updates (populates HOSTS and browser block lists)

B.) Sites like ZDNet's Mr. Dancho Danchev's blog -> http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/

C.) Sites like FireEye -> http://blog.fireeye.com/

D.) SRI -> http://mtc.sri.com/

----

My HOSTS file incorporates ALL of the entries from the HOSTS files shown @ wikipedia as well... gaining me speed online (by blocking adbanners, which have been compromised many times the past few years now by malscripted exploits (examples below)).

(I combined ALL reputable HOSTS files with one of my own (30,000 entries), & I removed duplicates removed via a Borland Delphi app I wrote to do so called "APK HOSTS File Grinder 4.0++". That program also functions to change the default larger & SLOWER 127.0.0.1 blocking 'loopback adapter' IP address to either 0.0.0.0 (for VISTA/Windows Server 2008/Windows 7, smaller & thus faster than 127.0.0.1 default) or the smallest & fastest 0 "blocking 'IP ADDRESS'" (for Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 which can STILL use it (& it was added in a service pack on Windows 2000, only on 12/09/2008 MS

"I'm in this boat. I have nothing against online ads if they're not intrusive, annoying, and excessive. I never go back to sites which excessive ads because they clearly care less about their own content. I'd rather see a few simple ads on a quality site than block ads on a crappy site." - by truthsearch (249536) on Thursday December 17, @10:32AM (#30473916) Homepage

Neither do I, until they began infecting systems worldwide that is... (see some of the links in my P.S. below, many are from THIS website ( /. ) so you can feel safe enough about clicking on them etc. et al, hopefully). If not? Check their titles, news will abound on each one most likely & on various sites via GOOGLE searches.

Anyways/anyhow?

Per my subject-line above: How about a GLOBAL solution that not only blocks out ads, giving you an "HBO-Style Internet Experience" & a much faster websurfing experience in the same pass, but one that also secures you vs. maliciously coded banner ads & known bad servers/sites too... & it's also a solution that extends to ALL of your "webbound apps", instead of just 1 family like mozilla browser addsons do only (AND this is a solution that acts as "layered security" in combination with the FF/Mozilla only methods you use (which slow your browser down, use CPU cycles & more... where this solution does not, + is 100% FREE (you already have one is why, it's just a matter of populating it from reliable sources), & it's a solution that GLOBALLY covers ALL webbound apps as well)??

Ok, well then - Here we go, & on that note, specifically:

Here is a GOOD SOLID & GLOBAL WORK-AROUND, CALLED A HOSTS FILE!

(It works for more speed online, AND SECURITY ESPECIALLY... Also, it works for your money, because you pay for your linetime out of pocket most likely as I do, you can get back your speed, AND, gain security easily, & from a single easily edited file & a file eats no CPU cycles like a local DNS server can (& are not as security vulnerable either if you protect write access to a HOSTS file also)... Anyhow/anyways - Here goes:

SO - "that all said & aside"? Well, per your reply??

I use a custom HOSTS file, in addition to the tools others here in this thread have noted (which MANY like FF addons only really function for FireFox/Mozilla products, but don't extend globally to all other webbound applications, & that is part of what HOSTS files give you above the methods you extoll + utilize: "GLOBAL COVERAGE", & of ALL webbound apps, not just FireFox/Mozilla ones via the addons you noted + use yourself...).

HOSTS files can also be used to blockout KNOWN "bad" adserves, maliciously coded sites or adbanners, and "botnet C&C servers" too!

You can obtain reliable HOSTS files from reputable lists for more security online, but also for speed!

(More on that later & WHY/HOW (I use reliable lists for that, such as these HOSTS @ Wikipedia.com -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file or those from mvps.org (a good one this one))

I also further populate & keep current my custom HOSTS file with up to date information in regards to all of those threats, via:

----

A.) Spybot "Search & Destroy" updates (populates HOSTS and browser block lists)

B.) Sites like ZDNet's Mr. Dancho Danchev's blog -> http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/

C.) Sites like FireEye -> http://blog.fireeye.com/

D.) SRI -> http://mtc.sri.com/

----

My HOSTS file incorporates ALL of the entries from the HOSTS files shown @ wikipedia as well... gaining me speed online (by blocking adbanners, which have been compromised many times the past few years now by malscripted exploits (examples below)).

(I combined ALL reputable HOSTS files with one of m

"All that said, most places have it absolutely wrong which is why AdblockPlus and NoScript are my first two stops when installing FireFox." - by gnick (1211984) on Thursday December 17, @10:45AM (#30474120) Homepage

Per my subject-line above: How about a GLOBAL solution, instead, & one that extends to ALL of your "webbound apps", instead, AND acts as "layered security" in combination with the FF/Mozilla only methods you use (which slow your browser down, use CPU cycles & more... where this solution does not & covers ALL webbound apps, globally)??

Ok, well then - Here we go, & on that note, specifically:

Here is a GOOD SOLID & GLOBAL WORK-AROUND, CALLED A HOSTS FILE!

(It works for more speed online, AND SECURITY ESPECIALLY... Also, it works for your money, because you pay for your linetime out of pocket most likely as I do, you can get back your speed, AND, gain security easily, & from a single easily edited file & a file eats no CPU cycles like a local DNS server can (& are not as security vulnerable either if you protect write access to a HOSTS file also)... Anyhow/anyways - Here goes:

SO - "that all said & aside"? Well, per your reply??

I use a custom HOSTS file, in addition to the tools others here in this thread have noted (which MANY like FF addons only really function for FireFox/Mozilla products, but don't extend globally to all other webbound applications, & that is part of what HOSTS files give you above the methods you extoll + utilize: "GLOBAL COVERAGE", & of ALL webbound apps, not just FireFox/Mozilla ones via the addons you noted + use yourself...).

HOSTS files can also be used to blockout KNOWN "bad" adserves, maliciously coded sites or adbanners, and "botnet C&C servers" too!

You can obtain reliable HOSTS files from reputable lists for more security online, but also for speed!

(More on that later & WHY/HOW (I use reliable lists for that, such as these HOSTS @ Wikipedia.com -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file [wikipedia.org] or those from mvps.org (a good one this one))

I also further populate & keep current my custom HOSTS file with up to date information in regards to all of those threats, via:

----

A.) Spybot "Search & Destroy" updates (populates HOSTS and browser block lists)

B.) Sites like ZDNet's Mr. Dancho Danchev's blog -> http://ddanchev.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]

C.) Sites like FireEye -> http://blog.fireeye.com/ [fireeye.com]

D.) SRI -> http://mtc.sri.com/ [sri.com]

----

My HOSTS file incorporates ALL of the entries from the HOSTS files shown @ wikipedia as well... gaining me speed online (by blocking adbanners, which have been compromised many times the past few years now by malscripted exploits (examples below)).

(I combined ALL reputable HOSTS files with one of my own (30,000 entries), & I removed duplicates removed via a Borland Delphi app I wrote to do so called "APK HOSTS File Grinder 4.0++". That program also functions to change the default larger & SLOWER 127.0.0.1 blocking 'loopback adapter' IP address to either 0.0.0.0 (for VISTA/Windows Server 2008/Windows 7, smaller & thus faster than 127.0.0.1 default) or the smallest & fastest 0 "blocking 'IP ADDRESS'" (for Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 which can STILL use it (& it was added in a service pack on Windows 2000, only on 12/09/2008 MS patch tuesday was it removed for VISTA onwards (& now all these "phunny little bugs" are showing up as FLAWS in this new NDIS6 approach via WFP as well in the firewall, which ROOTKIT.COM has stated (with code too no less on how it is done) -> http://www.rootkit.com/newsread.php?newsid=952 that it is EASIER

One other thing to keep in mind is that quite a few of the people in .NET languages team came from other companies where they worked on other languages, bringing their ideas with them. Most people know about Anders' authorship of Turbo Pascal and first Delphi release, but there are more recent cases of this, such as Neal Gafter - those who track Java language evolution should know the name, and for others - see here.

I guess I should have been more specific on the performance thing. Mostly I was referring to two things: GUI performance, since Swing has traditionally been pretty turgid, and the ability to easily link with native libraries, which I have always assumed C# handles more elegantly than Java+JNI. As for general purpose performance, the jury's still out on that:

C# beats Java (most of the time): http://reverseblade.blogspot.com/2009/02/c-versus-c-versus-java-performance.html

C# beats Java: http://www.bentuser.com/article.aspx?ID=323&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Java beats C#: http://blogs.sun.com/dagastine/entry/sun_java_is_faster_than1

When it comes to WORA, again it depends on what you're doing. Recently I had to write an app to do serial port communication on Windows. Unless I missed something, that's only achievable in Java land by using a native library via JNI, meaning my code won't run elsewhere. Another example is when I used to work at IBM about seven years ago. We frequently had UI or I18N issues with our Java code that only cropped up on certain platforms (e.g. AIX) but not others (Windows).

That said, the non-graphical server code I write using Java runs pretty much everywhere. So for that class of application WORA really works.

1. You're just being cute, but I'm still going to say it: if you had followed the LTS release cycles closely, you'd know it never was like that.
2. Read the Lucid release planning. Nice summary here: http://anotherubuntu.blogspot.com/2009/11/lucid-lynx-this-is-plan.html and you may also be interested in this http://fridge.ubuntu.com/node/1916 and this https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LTS

"when there are billions of dollars riding on cap & trade and the whole green industry behind it"

Funny. I could have sworn, I read something about a leading climate scientist opposing cap and trade in his fight against global warming.

http://www.georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2009/12/worlds-leading-global-warming-crusader.html

Just because there are billions of dollars to be made, doesn't at all mean the climate scientists are the ones to pocket any of it as part of *any* action against climate change.

He looks pretty big to me: http://nofishnonuts.blogspot.com/2007_05_13_archive.html

Geezus Freaking H. Christ... What 565 lbs. looks like.

I must agree. After a few months with OmniFocus, it really does help me reduce stress and stay focused (well, more focused anyway ;-).

I wrote a personal review last summer: Getting Things Done App Reviews: OmniFocus, Things, Life Balance, ThinkingRock and Chandler (no ads link). Chandler being open source.

Thanks to the EU and its various treaties, the word 'queen' doesn't mean anything anymore. She may still be referred to as such, but she is now a citizen just like the rest of us: http://archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/2008/06/royal-assent-of-treaty-of-lisbon.html

AT&T knows how to bullshit and cover when their network has a massive failure and they were doing it decades before everyone else.

http://jsn13.blogspot.com/2008/07/amazon-s3-july-2008-and-bell-systems.html

Seriously, If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free Music more.

Join the Free Music Push

Change has to start somewhere. Three is some good stuff out there with Free licenses on it. Give it some attention and some love.

drew

WaTunes is a social media distribution service that enables artists, groups, and record labels to sell music, music videos, and audiobooks through iTunes! Artists and labels can sell unlimited music and earn 100% of their profits – ALL FOR FREE! http://watunes2.blogspot.com/ http://watunesthenewmusicindustry.blogspot.com/ http://www.facebook.com/pages/WaTunes/58620878763?ref=search&sid=6142163... Youtube advertisements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJhsSKB2-u4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2AYrcDVhCs Check out our Reviews, add your comments & feedback too: http://www.rateitall.com/i-1125252 watunes.aspx Sneak Preview: http://tinyurl.com/dh3mum

WaTunes is a social media distribution service that enables artists, groups, and record labels to sell music, music videos, and audiobooks through iTunes! Artists and labels can sell unlimited music and earn 100% of their profits – ALL FOR FREE! http://watunes2.blogspot.com/ http://watunesthenewmusicindustry.blogspot.com/ http://www.facebook.com/pages/WaTunes/58620878763?ref=search&sid=6142163... Youtube advertisements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJhsSKB2-u4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2AYrcDVhCs Check out our Reviews, add your comments & feedback too: http://www.rateitall.com/i-1125252 watunes.aspx Sneak Preview: http://tinyurl.com/dh3mum

Otherwise, why not exercise some self-constraint and try products from Yahoo, or even host your own?

I'm sort of in the same position as the question asker; I use a huge range of Google services (my personal pictures are on Picasa, I use Latitude and MyTracks on my Android phone. I even use Google DNS). Google knows virtually everything about me - including things I wouldn't share with my best friend. But...

Yahoo knows virtually nothing about me. Microsoft knows virtually nothing about me.... EBay/PayPal/Skype also know, collectively, more about me than I'm strictly comfortable with, but that's a slightly different matter (and I'm moving from Skype to Google Chat for just this reason)

If we are to use the Web as it currently exists to the fullest we have to share information. You can either use a scattergun approach which spreads your data across a range of potentially unscrupulous companies, or you can pick one company which you hope will remain moderately honest. If Google turn out to have a bad security breach, or suddenly decide to sell my information to the highest bidder, I'm in trouble. But if you spread your information around then a security breach at any of the big search engine companies puts you in trouble.

Even if you trust Microsoft to be honest, do you trust them to be competent?

In summary: relax, Lintilla, and enjoy your shoes.

It is not stored indefinitely.

To Andrés Monroy-Hernández (and everyone else that has asked about forking).

You can fork the GPL code, but not the business around it. This means that a lot of the current users (who brings money to the table) can never use the fork. In addition you can't fork the manual, trademark which makes it very hard for the fork to get to be known and survive. In practice, it's not that hard to slowly kill an infrastructure GPL project like MySQL. I have described this in my previous blog at:

http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/10/importance-of-license-model-of-mysql-or.html

Me, I have no skin in this game. Have enjoyed using MySQL on a few home projects running my own web server, but my job is an all-Oracle shop. I just like to see Open Source succeed on general principles.

But even a neutral observer can offer an obvious riposte: Mr. Widenius is clearly not a helpless bug about to be stepped on. Wikipedia says his capital gains hit 16M Euros in 2008, around $25M US. He has that wealth, and another wealth you can't buy with money: He's the famous and beloved Monty Widenius, and open source contributors will listen to him and rally about him in the right cause - he IS a "brand".

Younger programmers, at least, eager for the resume decoration, would probably work for him pretty cheerfully for about $50K per year. A single million bucks a year would get him a respectable programming shop of 20 people rolling. I suspect even with a large project like MySQL, that's enough to do a lot of maintenance and even some development. Then there are those free contributors, which can include whole companies, not just kids-in-parents-basements. If his Oracle-as-quicksand fears are shared, many companies not wanting to end up in quicksand will switch to "NewSQL", or "FreeSQL" or whatever he re-brands it as. Switch, not just their usage, but their code contributions.

I wouldn't allocate a dime to promotion and sales and PR - the best advertising in a move like this is word-of-mouth among server room admins and DBAs.

Needless to say, any SERIOUS challenge, like that, could quickly bring Oracle back to a bargaining table to perhaps concede all those demands he has. They might have more to gain by letting MySQL molder away than by keeping it healthy, but they don't have so much to gain that it's worth the risk of simply losing the whole purchase value if everybody starts bailing to the newer fork.

So he can probably solve this problem for a single million, just 4% of his 2008 capital gains. He's just trying to do it with a blog post, that being cheaper still.

I encourage anyone who mistakes Monty for a friend of Open Source to do a little reading...

The case against the case against Oracle-MySQL

MySQL and a tale of two biases

Monty Program AB's Suggestion to EU Commission to Get Rid of the GPL on MySQL

How Many Times Can Monty Sell MySQL?

But i take anything Monty says these days with a heavy dosage of salt, especially if it happens to coincide with Microsofts current viewpoint.

http://www.codeplex.org/board-of-directors.aspx

Recommended reading is this from his blog:

http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/09/codeplex-foundation-why-is-microsoft.html

Doing a character assasination with those gems in mind would be redundant. Its obvious Microsoft is scared shit that Oracle will undercut it in the SMB market with MySQL and Oracles wast support structure. Call in the drones.

The scenario which scares me is: the idiots vote Sarah Palin into office, and she prevents control of greenhouse gases until a massive global catastrophe

Unlike the Obama administration, Sarah Palin supports nuclear power, which is currently the best way we have to reduce greenhouse gases.

I doubt Sarah Palin supports anything, she will playback any tape inserted into her drive by the conservative thinktanks (as long as it doesn't interfere with her down-to-earth common sense mavericky image). Government bad, businesses good...

It's pretty damn freezing. Tell me when I can wear shorts and a muscle T in December and I'll believe in AGW.

I'm wearing shorts and the air conditioning is on at full blast. I live in Brazil.

Why does the tree-ring data end specifically in 1960 when the plotted temps dive downward?

Because there were better measurement methods available in 1960. You *could* keep using tree-ring data after 1960, but the result would be noisier.
How do you think tree-ring data is calibrated? They compare tree-ring with thermometer data for the period after reliable thermometers were available.

Why, at the end of the tree ring series, are there only a few trees selected at all rather than the entire set?

To eliminate extraneous factors. There are other influences than temperature that affect tree rings and one must select the cases where we are reasonably sure that those other influences did not play a major part.

Why universally the raw data adjusted in precisely the same way. Earlier temperatures are adjusted downward, later temperatures are adjusted upwards.

Not universally, the data is adjusted case by case, depending on the particular circumstances. It's *you* who are looking just at those particular cases where earlier data was adjusted downwards.

Why is the Medieval Warming Period completely eliminated by AGW "proofs"? Are you suggesting that documented colonization of Greenland by the vikings during the MWP followed by the gradual destruction of the colony during the Little Ice Age ... didn't happen?

Are you suggesting the documented colonization of Uganda by the British during the nineteenth century followed by gradual destruction of the colony in the second half of the twentieth century didn't happen?
I have some news for you, the part of Greenland for which the country was named is still green today.

Curiously in most areas of science it is the proponents of a theory that are responsible for proving it. Only in AGW is the onus on the detractors.

AGW has been *amply* proved. I have seen a demonstration of this personally, I have a photo of myself at the end of a glacier in 1967, where today there's only bare rock. It's up to the AGW skeptics to prove the ice isn't melting.

The scenario which scares me is: the idiots vote Sarah Palin into office, and she prevents control of greenhouse gases until a massive global catastrophe

Unlike the Obama administration, Sarah Palin supports nuclear power, which is currently the best way we have to reduce greenhouse gases.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

What was the the design failure rate for the shuttle when it was in development? How did that turn out?

On claimed rocket reliability

The mere mention of Schlesinger's name in this kind of article prompts a lot of replies such as the parent post.

If anyone is interested in knowing why, this timeline of events can be a good read.

I'm reminded of Digby's comments during the Gates incident back in July:

"I have discovered that my hackles automatically going up at such authoritarian behavior is not necessarily the common reaction among my fellow Americans, not even my fellow liberals. The arguments are usually something along the lines of "that guy was an idiot to argue with the cops, he should know better," ...

"Now, on a practical, day to day level, it's hard to argue that being argumentative with a cop is a dangerous thing. They have guns. They can arrest you and can cost you your freedom if they want to do it badly enough. They can often get away with doing violence on you and suffer no consequences. You are taking a risk if you provoke someone with that kind of power, no doubt about it.

"Indeed, it is very little different than exercising your right of free speech to tell a gang of armed thugs to go f*ck themselves. It's legal, but it's not very smart. But that's the problem isn't it? We shouldn't have to make the same calculations about how to behave with police as we would with armed criminals. The police are supposed to be the good guys who follow the rules and the law and don't expect innocent citizens to bow to their brute power the same way that a street gang would do. The police are not supposed wield what is essentially brute force on the entire population.

I don't care what it contains ... you asked for a list of peer reviewed papers, I gave you a list of 450 with the general theme of skepticism.

I have too much to do to look at this right now, however, I noted that Roger Pielke Jr objects to his papers being considered “skeptic”. He has 21 papers in the list, so that makes only 429 left. Pielke Jr is a frequent critic of AGW science, however, he doesn’t believe that climate change is not man made. Because he has read the literature. See here.

I’d like to seriously consider an honest enquiry here. If we choose 10 papers at random, and none of them are really skeptic-friendly, what would that mean about the list. Hypothetically speaking.

If you are genuinely interested, then I’ll send you the results of my investigation. However, first I’d like to get something from you in return.

How many out of the 10 papers (you can choose the random numbers if you like) are required for the list to be valid. 9, 8, 5? What is you threshold.

Furthermore, if the list turns out to be bogus, and you can find no other list, and no resource that lists non-refuted skeptic science, then, hypothetically speaking, what does that mean about the skeptic arguments?

Again, I repeat, I am being genuine here, since I believe that we are both on the threshold of a discovery. Either the 450 papers (429) is legit, and I will look further in skeptics claims of conspiracy, or the 450 papers is a fabrication, in which case, you’d have to consider scientists claims of a skeptic conspiracy.

Are you open to that honest intellectual skepticism?

Gallium3d is the planned future of graphics drivers in linux. OpenCL is what is going to be used for general purpose computing on GPUs.

This area really isn't my forte, but you can find a bit more information at: http://zrusin.blogspot.com/2009/02/opencl.html

Yes I have had a similar experience - you can read about it here.

All I'm saying is that our peer review process, even with its flaws...

...such as mostly successful attempts by global-warming cultists such as Michael "Hockey Stick" Mann to manipulate the process into excluding contrary viewpoints? Have a look at this or this if you don't believe me.

You know why dont you? Because the specific data in question was under contract at that time between the scientists and the company they got the data from. The scientists were not allowed to give away the private data for free. The deniers knew this, and were trying to get the data specifically to void their contract, and to disrupt the work of the scientists by destroying their access to data.

You have evidence of this? Sounds like one of those conspiracy theories (you know, like George Soros was orchestrating the entire AGW thing in order to make more money). Even if true, it's because climate science is playing in a huge economic pool. They have to meet high standards even if the opposition plays dirty pool.

Say you were a scientist researching lung cancer, and there was another scientist who worked for the tobacco companies, who consistently published results that you found questionable denying any link. In the peer review process, would you approve their work, even though you found it wrong?

What do you mean by "wrong"? Was the paper flawed or just the conclusions? If it is a sound paper, even if I disagreed with the conclusions, I'd approve it. It's not the role of a reviewer to decide what is permissible research.

After a consistent pattern of this, would you grumble in private emails to your friends? And while it is troubling that any scientist would talk about suppressing alternate viewpoints, there has been NO evidence that they actually did suppress those views.

I was thinking of James Saiers who served as editor at Geophysical Research Letters (a publication of the professional society, American Geophysical Union). In an email, someone called for his ouster on the basis that he was some sort of climate change skeptic. Fortunately, Saiers doesn't seem to have been affected by thisb though he did step down as editor after his term was up. So I withdraw that complaint.

http://denialdepot.blogspot.com/2009/12/smoking-gun.html

There were book readers before the e-ink displays came around, but very few people used them because they suffered from 2 major drawbacks. The first was the power consumption of their displays meant that you had to plug them in and let them charge on a daily or twice daily basis. People already have to charge their cell phones on a daily basis, but charging one twice a day when you use it a lot is pretty annoying, and a huge amount of power is spent on the display when a cell phone is being used.

But e-ink isn't the only solution to that problem. Look at Pixel Qi which are starting to produce *now* displays with 1/2 or less the power draw of an LCD screen and full color (with backlight, b/w without backlight) and video capabilities. Make sure to see the videos of an Acer netbook with such an display. IMHO e-ink will be very soon something nobody wants to have anymore (except in very special applications).

The problem is NOT that GNU/Linux is insecure, the problem is that some users refuse to learn how to properly administer their systems. The weakest link in any operating system is the user. I've outlined some basic security practices that everyone should use. Computer security is a process, not a product.

Actually, support for extensions is part of the Windows and Linux betas.

We've all heard the stories of people walking out of Federal Research Laboratories with paperwork and thumb drives full of information such as Jessican Quintana. While stealing nuclear secrets might be a bit harder to use/sell than say 10million email addresses plus associated personal information. I'd be a bit more concerned about some angry employee grabbing a tape (which I doubt they back much up to tape) or just copying off some data onto a thumb drive and walking out the door.

This might not be so hard under their "20% personal projects plan"...

"Hey boss, I've got an idea for a personal project.. I'd like to create a google map that maps someone and all of their friend's email addresses on it! Kind of like overlaying their email address next to their home address and phone number. I just need access to that personal data."

While the CEO can say all sorts of stuff about privacy, there's nothing stopping some kid who makes 1000x less than the CEO and will never become a millionaire from walking out the door with this information and becoming a millionaire that way. If you don't want people to know a secret, don't tell them. Google shouldn't be allowed to collect this stuff anyhow, that way it can't leak out to begin with.

Silly kid. He’ll learn someday...

Whenever speech-making hits the news (party conference season) Max Atkinson seems to be the UK media's favourite talking head.

Just need something that forces Amazon to keep innovating and keep pricing competitive.

Thanks, B&N!

The innovation I want most right now is the ability to cleanly borrow DRM'd library books. Right now, libraries are hashing out their e-book lending schemes. From the San Francisco Public Library, I can borrow some e-books in one or more of several formats, some with DRM (epub, mobi) some without (PDF, mobi). (SFPL doesn't roll their own e-book lending system, they use OverDrive and NetLibrary.)

So on my kindle2, I can read non-DRM'd books and DRM'd mobis (legally, but through a clunky process to overcome kindle's hostility towards books not bought from Amazon). But I can't read the stuff that requires Adobe Digital Editions, which is a lot of the good stuff. (And after using a kindle, reading a book on the PC is unbearable.) IIRC the Sony Reader does support Adobe Digital Editions (but Sony doesn't have the online commercial library of Amazon or B&N, plus is it safe to stop hating Sony yet?).

Dear Amazon Kindle Team,

Please improve Kindle's support for commonly used public library e-book formats. Specifically:

1) Support legally acquired DRM'd mobi's without requiring clunky conversion with kindlefix or the like.

2) Support Adobe Digital Editions (DRM'd epub).

Thank you, and have a nice day.

It's obvious why Amazon would prefer you to buy a new bestseller from their store rather than borrow it for free from a public library, but I want to do some of both, and I hope competition from device makers will spur improvement in the public library lending scene.

No. I write cross platform developer tools that ship on windows, mac and Linux. I go through much pain making our product work well on those 3 platforms. I can't help but laugh at the level of triviality that you people get upset about.

So, what qualifies you to comment on the state of web browsers?

You do understand that the Web is meant to be platform-independent, right?

You can deride them or call them stupid if that makes you feel better about your opinion. But remember, you're relying on them for business, not the other way round.

I don't see what relevance that has to the current discussion. The point wasn't to deride them, it was to point out that whether these things matter has nothing at all to do with what the majority of people think.

This was countering your point, which seemed to be implying that people "not giving a shit" was a reason that this wasn't an issue.

Performance is a vague term. I assume you mean JS performance tested with something like sunspider.

Yes, that would be one way.

Which FWIW is not a real world test.

Can you suggest a "real-world test" which shows IE having better performance?

So, take the 10000 most popular websites and compare the time it takes to load the page.

Yes, because page load time is the only relevant metric.

I could point to Google Wave, the reason behind Google Chrome Frame. IIRC, it was the Javascript performance which drove them to this -- even Google can't ignore IE users, but IE was too slow to make Wave work properly. From the Wave developer blog:

Google Wave depends on strong JS and DOM rendering performance to provide a desktop-like experience in the browser. HTML5's offline storage and web workers will enable us to add great features without having to compromise on performance. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer, still used by the majority of the Web's users, has not kept up with such fairly recent developments in Web technology...

In the past, the Google Wave team has spent countless hours solely on improving the experience of running Google Wave in Internet Explorer. We could continue in this fashion, but using Google Chrome Frame instead lets us invest all that engineering time in more features for all our users, without leaving Internet Explorer users behind.

As a developer, that sounds all too familiar to me.

But note that Wave is one of many web applications, for which page load time isn't nearly as relevant as actual performance once the page is loaded.

You seem convinced that somehow IE users are unhappy and miserable with their experience.

No, I'm convinced that I am unhappy and miserable at having to develop for it, and at the number of cool things that I could develop which are either impossible on IE, or are nightmarishly difficult to make work (CSS), certainly if I want them to be fast (Javascript).

Thats not even getting into the fact that other benchmarks such as HTML parsing, rendering, network perf, etc are all valid performance benchmarks.

Good point. Does IE do significantly better on this? I remember it being worse, last I checked.

And neither of these are relevant to app performance -- DOM manipulation is much more important. I expect any decent Javascript benchmark would include that.

That said, IE8's protected mode and chromes process/tab isolation wins against any performance that the safari or FF can bring to the table for average users that aren't spending their day playing games written w/ CANVAS.

Except that Chrome also supports canvas and is as fast (and often faster) at Javascript than Firefox or Safari. The one edge IE has over Firefox (isolate

If the laptop goes missing, I know the bad guy isn't able to access my web accounts - and my Gmail accounts are important to me.

Google was ahead of you: Remote sign out on GMail.

If the government doesn't control the media, why was this interview of George Bush by an Irish journalist, using only pre-approved questions, never shown on any american news channel? Simply, because unlike in america, journalists in europe do not allow politicians to turn a news "interview" into a soapbox where they can talk interrupted without having to say anything meaningful or answer hard questions. Carole Coleman was a lot more accomodating interviewing George Bush than she would be interviewing an Irish politician, (she tends to ask them questions, and go for the jugular when the bullshit detectors start blaringing) and for this she received death threats from some of the few americans who did get to see it.