Slashdot Mirror

http://books.google.com.au/books?printsec=frontcover&id=zmpxV1ygjvsC

"To the end of the solar system .. the story of the Nuclear Rocket." By James A. Dewar

Every page appears to be there. Thanks Google!

NASM is still alive and kicking, it's latest release was about 3 days ago, there are plenty of tutorials and plenty of example code around to get you up to speed.

Personally, my fav x86 assembly program was A86, i found it much easier to use that NASM.

...he actually started hearing that one hard drive gives better bass and another gives better trebble. And he can hear that difference.

This guy (or a similar one) responded to one of my posts on a previous topic. (Holy shit, Google actually found it. O.o)

Anyway he was thought it was reasonable to claim that the sound coming out of his Hi-Fi system was audibly different when the computer was sitting on the floor to when it was on pads, among other things.

<flamebait>this will head asplode you</flamebait>

Great, now your post is the #1 hit....
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=solar+flare+crystal+planet

It makes perfect sense to me. Go to google switch off safe search, go to image search, a lot of pretty innocuous searches come up with stuff you probably dont want children seeing....

e.g...

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=cream&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=yummy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=pussy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=doggy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

;P

I rest my case. I mean lets get real here, what sort of job would they be doing to let kids access that stuff?

I think any software product like this would be totally ineffectual without search engine integration.

It makes perfect sense to me. Go to google switch off safe search, go to image search, a lot of pretty innocuous searches come up with stuff you probably dont want children seeing....

e.g...

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=cream&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=yummy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=pussy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=doggy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

;P

I rest my case. I mean lets get real here, what sort of job would they be doing to let kids access that stuff?

I think any software product like this would be totally ineffectual without search engine integration.

It makes perfect sense to me. Go to google switch off safe search, go to image search, a lot of pretty innocuous searches come up with stuff you probably dont want children seeing....

e.g...

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=cream&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=yummy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=pussy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=doggy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

;P

I rest my case. I mean lets get real here, what sort of job would they be doing to let kids access that stuff?

I think any software product like this would be totally ineffectual without search engine integration.

It makes perfect sense to me. Go to google switch off safe search, go to image search, a lot of pretty innocuous searches come up with stuff you probably dont want children seeing....

e.g...

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=cream&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=yummy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=pussy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

http://images.google.com.au/images?gbv=2&hl=en&safe=off&sa=1&q=doggy&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

;P

I rest my case. I mean lets get real here, what sort of job would they be doing to let kids access that stuff?

I think any software product like this would be totally ineffectual without search engine integration.

it seems to me you don't understand links either... or the preview button

http://www.google.com.au/search?q="the+mummy+returns"+avi+torrent

http://www.google.com.au/search?q="the+mummy+returns"+avi+torrent

Is Judge Tomas Norström going to go after google now? Does he understand links? Does he understand the law? Dumb ass.

"You've got to be kidding me....[the hockey stick]...has also been discredited"

He isn't kidding you but someone obviously is. Can you name an institution with more credible statistical expertise than the national academies? Again, here is the link to their testiomony in the Mann/McIntyre beat up that supposedly discredited Mann.

And very profitable it can be too.

This is the best joke of all, the scientists who write the IPCC reports do not get paid. Even if they did the IPCC has a budget of a measly $5-6 million a year despite being sourced from the governments of 300+ politically diverse nations. I've worked in busnisses with twice that budget for 25 people, the IPCC reports have a tad more than 25 people behind them, people who collectively REPRESENT every major science body on the planet. Personally I think the IPCC ranks as one of the most robust peer-reveiw process ever undertaken and it has been acomplished for less than what it costs to make a hollywood block-buster.

Of course they could be wrong and any scientist worth their salt will demonstrate that with error bars, that's how science progresses, but given the track record of science do you know of a better philosophy for understanding the natural world?

Do not take the following rant as pertaining to you personally, for all I know you could be a teenager who hates his science teacher.

Creationists are a rare sight on slashdot but moderate belivers who are conflated with creationists are not so rare. I am not relious in the slightest but I have been accused of subscribing to "AGW religion", "worshiping Al Gore", etc. In fact similar comments when not aimed at a particular person but at some general group (such as greenies, IPCC, Al Gore and his mates), will regularly be modded +5 insightfull.

Perhaps the most despised religion on slashdot however are the scientologists, their method of shouting lies untill you belive them is bizzare but for some reason it does work on a suprising number of people. There are genuine disagreements in climate science and there is are general consensus represented by the IPCC reports yet a good number of slashdotters attack these claims with the same methods the shop keeper uses in monty python's dead parrot sketch, and in some cases the same methods as scientologists.

To be fair to all slashdotters these posts only stay positive until the cult mebers blow all their mod points, by the time it's at the bottom of the page the moderation is more...well...moderate. This must be a dilema for them wrt do they blow all the points early, wait until near archiving, or just concentrate on keeping the best machevellian posts up at +5?

I'm 50yrs old and remember the "tabacco scientists" with great clarity, when that enevitably collapsed in total ridicule many of the same "tabacco scientists" became "climate skeptics". They go by names such as the Heartland institute, Marshall institute, Frontiers of Freedom, etc, and are backed by people such as ex-senator Malcolm Wallop, senator Inhofe, and a sizable number of politicians around the planet that have a coal mine on their turf. ExonMobile also fund this anti-science campaing, not because they are an oil company but because they have large investments in coal. The same machevelian bullshit goes on here in Oz but ranting about that on a US centric site would require a shitload of links to people most slashdotters have never heard of.

As I said above, I'm not from the US, I couldn't care less about the 2000 election but I can smell the anti-science lobbyists in those organisations from half a world away. Thing is I don't know if slashdotters who drink their kool aid are simply ignorant, misinformed, practicing luddities

You have have been misinformed.

The NW passage was not suitable for cruise ships in 1906. Besides none of the crossings via a temporary route say anything much about climate.

"Al's famous hockey stick is dirty data taken from weather stations that have experienced heat islands being installed in the form of pavement. Go check out surface data.org. Sometimes one needs to "scrub" the data, and throw out obviously tainted data from a compromised station."

First of all it's Mann et al's hockey stick not Al Gore's, second there is no such "surface data.org" web site, third the source of your half truth is the national academies testimony to the senate which states...

"The basic conclusion of the 1999 paper by Dr. Mann and his colleagues was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on icecaps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years ....[snip]... We also question some of the statistical choices made in the original papers by Dr. Mann and his colleagues. However, our reservations with some aspects of the original papers by Mann et al. should not be construed as evidence that our committee does not believe that the climate is warming, and will continue to warm, as a result of human activities." /end_quote

"Remember all the data pointed to a new ice age in 1970, now the same data points to warming..."

No, but I am old enough to remember reading a whole lot of newspaper articles based on one national geographic article that by chance I also read when in HS. I do remember when the negative forcing of soot was offsetting the positive forcing of CO2 more than in is now. Again looking at the national academies, they first warned of global warming in the 50's, nothing has changed in those warnings except the credibility and urgency have increased by orders of magnitute.

"Turns out that just about all dust in antarctic PENINSULA ice record comes from Patagonia." /fixed

Not sure what your point is here because more dust/soot sitting on the ice speeds up the rate of melting, your link correctly states that the dust levels are low right now because the glaciers are MELTING in patagonia?

I'm not sure where you get your information but if I were you I would start to question them since the sources you do give, are now publishing papers that make Al Gore's movie look optimistic.

Yep that was Lorenz. I assume the brain map in TFA will be useful to the Blue brain project

...the chebyshev limit says there is still a whopping 11% chance that the actual value is outside the range... I don't see any statistics experts mentioned in that link, so I gotta assume that we cannot expect a normally distributed error, that in fact they have no idea what the distribution might be.

There are some 50 published papers from the journals Nature and Science alone, when your finished teaching them stats maybe you can teach them risk management.

...the chebyshev limit says there is still a whopping 11% chance that the actual value is outside the range... I don't see any statistics experts mentioned in that link, so I gotta assume that we cannot expect a normally distributed error, that in fact they have no idea what the distribution might be.

There are some 50 published papers from the journals Nature and Science alone, when your finished teaching them stats maybe you can teach them risk management.

"Better yet, just google IPCC politics and read for yourself."

What's the point in that? Like you I will only find the politics I want to see and we would simply hurl links to our favorite political hacks at each other for a few posts and get nowhere.

I suggest we short circit that argument with some old fashioned intellectual honesty. Try googling for the IPCC BUDGET and other financial information, the main points of which you will find sumarised in my other posts. It is not the "only credible authority", it is a peer review process that is endorsed and performed by virtually EVERY "credible authority" on the planet.

The fact that you posted a link to the heartland institute means we obviously have different interpretations of the meaning of "credible authority", it is run by the geriatric ex tabacoo scientist Fred Singer. Perhaps you could look up who funds them and let us all know, a similar googling makes it look impossible to find out from their own site?

Once you have defeated your political conspiracy delusion, you may want to actually read what the reports say rather than let political hacks tell you what's in them. If you do manage to filter out your own politics and gain a decent understanding of the basic science you may recognise Lindzen for what he is, ie: a WSJ opinion columnist with a political axe to grind.

I sure hope he's fronting the $8B in debt forgiveness for that new share.

Maybe he will have to sell his little boat (second link is a pdf).

I know, it's a drop in the ocean compared to the actual sums being dealt with, but to think this guy is the second richest guy in Microsoft. At least the Channel shareholders have some idea where the money goes.

"Explain why we are still not in an ice age if the "natural contributions of the Earth's own systems" are stable and don't cause climate change."

He said stable enough to live in, you will learn more by reading something than you will by building strawmen.

It took 50yrs to plan and build all the existing coal plants, I don't see why we can't replace them with something cleaner over the next 50yrs as they reach their end of life, but it will only happen if the market has an incentive to do so. If they don't get that incentive we will still be talking about it in 2060, by that time the flat-earth army will have their "proof".

My personal preference is cap and trade as espoused by the Brazilian proposal since it addresses the inequities of GH gasses released since 1960. If you want a credit then I think you should be able to point to a one ton block of carbon that you have taken out of the system long term (eg: biochar). This would put coal on an equal footing with renewables and nukes, ie: you buy credits/permits to burn coal but you get reimbursed with credits for whatever you capture in the chimney. And yeah, a dutch auction is a good way to maximise the return to state coffers and they can then use that cash to offset the cost to consumers with tax breaks....well...I can dream can't I?

If I'm not mistaken all US federal and state web sites are in the domain .gov, here in Australia they are in .gov.au which is further broken into state domains such as vic.gov.au. This makes a global search easy using google's "site:" search modifier, eg: pork site:gov gets around 248K hits - that's a lot of pork!

Holy crap, it is! O.o

I see you are unwilling to look at evidence that refutes your dogma, please carry on making a fool of yourself.

So let's count Walmart, Cost-Co, and the numerous other places that retail consumer electronics. After all, their share of the electronics market is obviously going to go up, and nobody's ever claimed Walmart wasn't competitive.

[citation needed]

"Walmart isn't competitive"

I live in Glasgow, I've passed by Faslane on many a weekend drive, it's on the scenic route between Glasgow and the Highlands, with some excellent views over Loch Gare and an excellent pub in Arochar at the end (IE, it's the one all the tourists take)

Faslane's location is not secret, infact, until recently, they had an infestation of protesting hippies not far from it.

The only thing Secret about faslane is it's layout, and any submarines that may have surfaced in it's dock at the time the photo was taken. That is what's causing a kerfuffle. It's a general...

what I want to know is, what the fuck is this?

You do know that Clarkson is an entertainer and says all sorts of things to incite people who take themselves a little too seriously, right?

"It was a smear piece because he's a hydrogen nut."

The point of his contradictory claims and inflamatory comments is to get people to think for themselves, when have you ever seen Clarkson without his tounge firmly planted in his cheek?

I don't know anything about your background or travels, but I find the picture that you paint of russia contrasts strongly with that of what I've seen.

Bear in mind that Moscow has been the world's most expensive city to live in for multiple consecutive years now [ 1 2 ]

What you seem to be regurgitating in your post is rhetoric, which you've taken it upon yourself to extrapolate wildly.

There are multiple vectors for disassembling your post, but the most obvious ones are:

So what have we got? Millions and millions of PCs, which run OS that cannot be patched or updated. So, guess what, these millions PCs neither patched, not updated.

The last check of google reports over 194,000 hits for WGA cracks [3].

I'd love to see the data behind your bold claim, in which you plead ignorance, but continue to fabricate 'statistics'.

A lot of computers in Russia run cracked version of Windows. I do not know the exact figure, but I would think 99%.

On a closing note, I'm amazed noone else has yet flamed you for posting:

When I try to use an alternative OS, like Linux, a lot of scanners, USB devices, video-cards, etc. just do not work, as drivers either non-existent or bad, made by rear-engineering. Because the hardware vendors provide drivers only for 1 and only OS.

Maybe you should do some research in general, and pay a visit to distrowatch...

Or you could complain to the Minister for Transport", David Campbell. Alternatively find your electorate by doing an Electoral District search, then look at this list to see who your state member is.

For all those in the U.S. - NSW is one state in a big landmass. Not all State governments do this sort of stupidity. NSW is in terminal decline at the moment, it's only a few years till us poor New South Welshmen get to kick them out of government. Unfortunately, my member of parliament is Joe Tripodi. Oops, did I type that into Google? Silly me.

OTOH, if you booby trap your home in anticipation of or in response to ssuspected warrantless or sneak-and-peek operations, then, again, THEY ASKED FOR IT if they get hurt. You don't have to be a criminal to want to punish sneak-and-peek activity. After all, ANYONE in your abode who is not invited is a trespasser, even a paramedic if they insist on remaining present after realizing there is no emergency, no body, no blood, no validity in being present at the address because the address is WRONG due to admittedly a faulty dispatch order...

I don't know how Australian law approaches this

A quick google found this page. Unfortunately I can't see an obvious way to cut and paste from it so you will have to follow the link.

Thank you captain obvious

No one is disputing boarding as a common sailing ship tactic. The dispute is over ramming as a common sailing ship tactic.

At times in history it was a common tactic, More specifically I refer to bronze age naval warfare (Greek and Roman) and early Ironclads (between the Post Napoleon and Pre-Dreadnought times). The first British built Ironclads were specifically designed for Ramming.

You say ramming was meant to break "the main beam", whatever that is, by physical force.

I'm in Thailand at the moment and my English often suffers here, the "main beam" is not the correct term but I'd hoped you'd figure out that it was the length of wood which ran down the middle of a ship forming the keel, this is the first piece of wood laid down in the construction of a sailing ship. it is often the thickest and strongest part of the vessel as it is also the most vulnerable, if this piece breaks the entire ship will break with it. After doing some research I think this particular part is simply called the keel. It's been a while since I looked into this subject.

You also say fireships rammed other ships.

Fireships needed to make contact with another vessel to be effective, even by your own omission. They are deliberately driven towards another vessel, this is ramming regardless of how you want to argue about the definition.

You said "the Japanese were particularly fond of Ramming/beaching in WWII", which either implies they are the same, or you just throw in random facts which have no bearing on anything else. Now adding suicide tactics has nothing to do with the dispute over ramming by sailing ships.

This was to add context to the discussion, but you seem to have gotten hung up over the details at the cost of the larger argument.

Sailing ships had incredibly thick tough sides and weak bows and sterns. That is why raking the stern with cannon fire was so effective.

This is flat out wrong There is considerably less wood horizontally then there is vertically across a ship. Broadsides were the preferred tactics when using cannons. You forget that the preferred outcome of combat between two sailing vessels was not to sink it but to capture it primarily for the Ships Prize or Prize money. When a sail warship fired at the bow or stern from ahead or behind of another ship their objective was often to damage or destroy the sails, this is why chain shot was used. Cannons were used primarily to kill crew, secondary to damage sails and masts before being used to sink ships. It's incredibly difficult to sink a wooden vessel with a blunt cannonball. Hitting the side of the ship was preferred as it would do more damage, a cannon blast at point blank range had a greater chance of penetrating both sides of the ship and whatever or whoever was in between as well as allowing more cannons to hit the target. During combat few people would be in the bow or stern, the stern on most British sailing ships was used as storage anyway.

Ships do not have "main beams". This is not a mere language problem. There is no such structural member, period. The closest to that is the keel, the lowest point in a ship, also centered,Ships do not have "main beams". This is not a mere language problem. There is no such structural member, period. The closest to that is the keel, the lowest point in a ship, also centered, and hardly likely to be important in sinking by ramming

Yes, yes, finally. I admit that my English does suffer when I travel in SE

You may also be interested in the facts behind the Sheahans.

The council minutes can be found here (bulky pdf), the interesting bit (sans formating) is reproduced below. I don't know what happened to the felled trees but my estimation is that they would have yeilded at least 5000 tons of timber after processing. Seems odd that with a few mouse clicks I could find what every so called journalist on the planet seems to have missed...

ORDINARY COUNCIL MINUTES 12 SEPTEMBER 2005 Page 12174 9.6 COUNCIL SIGN AND SEAL SECTION 173 AGREEMENT - L & D SHEAHAN Author David Huxtable - Environmental Services Manager File No: 9538560930 Reference: Item 9.13 - 14 June 2005 Summary This report seeks that Council resolve to sign and seal a Section 173 Agreement under the Planning and Environment Act 1987 between the Council and L & D Sheahan of 93 Thompson Spur Road Reedy Creek relating to a cost settlement in the matter, Mitchell Shire Council v LP & DE Sheahan. Background On the 6 November 2002, Council's Planning and Development Enforcement Officer, responding to telephone complaints, attended at 93 Thompson Spur Road Reedy Creek. The Officer recorded that approximately 3 to 4 acres of native vegetation had and was in the process of being felled and removed. No owners were present at the property. The Officer returned to the Council Offices and searched Council's property and Planning databases. It was established that the current owners of the property were LP & DE Sheahan and that a Planning Permit would be required for the works undertaken. It was further established that no Planning Permit existed for the removal of native vegetation. Officers made contact with the owners of the property and arranged for an inspection and meeting onsite for the 7 November 2002. This commenced the investigation into the alleged destruction of native vegetation. On the 8 November 2002 further evidence was collected in the form of photos etc. An initial evaluation of the evidence collected over the 3 days concluded that a breach of the Mitchell Planning Scheme (MPS) may have occurred and a 'Notice to Show Cause' letter was sent by the Chief Executive Officer. This letter was forwarded to Mr and Mrs Sheahan. Council received a reply to that letter on the 21 November 2002 refuting the allegations and advising that the works had been conducted with regard to fire prevention and therefore they were exempt from obtaining a permit under the Scheme. The evidence collected rebutted the reasons put forward by the Sheahan's. However, Council engaged an aborist to provide independent and expert advice specifically in the following areas: Species and number of felled trees Assessment of the felled trees - Health and Structure If the trees presented a danger to owners or animals Value of felled trees An expert in the field of Fire Prevention was also engaged to provide Council with independent and expert advice with regard to: ORDINARY COUNCIL MINUTES 12 SEPTEMBER 2005 COUNCIL SIGN & SEAL SECTION 173 AGREEMENT - L & D SHEAHAN (CONT'D) Page 12175 Establishing if the nature of the clearing was exempt as prescribed by the MPS Was the extent of the clearing excessive in terms of Fire Prevention Following receipt of the independent advice, which confirmed all the evidence collected by Officers, a Brief of Evidence was prepared and submitted as per Council's Prosecution Policy. It had been established that 259 old growth Eucalyptus trees had been destroyed over a 4 acre site. The Brief was duly authorised and charges were submitted to the Seymour Magistrate Court on the 20 February 2003 and a Summons issued to the owners of the property. The matter was listed for Mention at the Seymour Magistrate Court on the 7 March 2003. On the 27 February 2003 a request on behalf of the Sheahans by Legal representatives Puglisi, Heffey & Pavlidis w

"I'm a working scientist (ok, PhD student), so I read journal articles pretty often."

And how would you read them if your institution did not foot the bill for subscriptions?

"In almost all cases, the only people who actually benefit from access to particular data are a small handful of specialists."

When you amalgamate "almost all cases" you end up with "almost all publications". The rest of your post smacks of elitisim, trivializes scientific curiosity and completely ignores the social and scientific impact of radical improvements in communicating knowledge.

I would have thought working scientists would actually be proud of their work and want to diseminate it to the largest audience possible but in your case I'm obviously mistaken.

I was hoping people could read between the lines but let me spell this out for you....

1. Victoria is basically made out of coal.
2. Anti-environment minister is in the pocket of the coal industry.
3. Anti-environment minister spots small contingent of NIMBY's and large wind farm investment.
4. Anti-environment minister attempts to kill off a competior of said coal industry by over-riding state planning process.
5. When asked to explain himself, anti-environment minister makes transparent attempt to blame greenies by lying about non-existant protesters and mis-representing environmental impact studies.
6. Anti-environment minister feels political heat and after costly delays to wind farm investors, is forced to back-flip.
7. Australian people kick the living shit out of anti-environment government in a landslide election.

Incidently, what was the point you were trying to make?

I interpet the Pink Floyd quote in my sig as refering to ideological cages rather than physical ones. "Left leaning greenie" is how others would usually describe me (particulaly on a US centric site such as this one). OTOH I have also been described by fellow "enviornmentalists" as a captialist pig and an environmental rapist because of some of the following actions and opinions that are offensive to the dogma held by many in the green left.

I spent a year working in an old growth sawmill, some of the trees were 350yo, 12-14 feet in diameter and took two log trucks to carry. As you can see from this link the forest is still there almost 30yrs later. It is still being logged in a responsible/sustainable manner and I see no reason why it cannot continue to provide jobs and timber in perpetuity.

I spent another year working on fishing trawlers - somehow this makes me a dolphin killer even though it's impossible to catch dolphins with a scallop drag unless they lay on the seabed and commit suicide.

I think culling kangaroos and using them for dog/human food is more humane than letting them starve due to over-population.

I think we (Australia) should dig up our vast uranium resource and sell it to nations where renewables are impractical. If it wasn't for the embarrasing wealth of renewables in Australia I would also argue we use the uranium at home.

Probably the biggest herasy I have is that I belive trees are valuable in their own right and should NOT be included as a credit in a CO2 cap & trade scheme. The science of the matter is that CO2 uptake by vegetation is too difficult to quantify on anything but a global scale and even then there are large error bars. The idea is ripe for corruption and will have the opposite effect to that desired by it's advocates (re: biofuels and Indonesian palm oil plantations).

Anyway I wish you well in your efforts to chip away the dogma from the inside, but whatever you do, don't let the bastards put you in a cage. :)

even to the extent of having the individual cells pressed into rectangular shapes in order to maximize the amount of the space actually dedicated to batteries.

Sadly for Apple's 'innovation department', prismatic batteries are nothing new.

The current situation with the stimulus package is not the same as this Internet filtering proposal.

Firstly, its important to note that the Greens party hold five seats in the House of Representatives. That gives them the ability to vote against a proposal, and assuming the Coalition party are on the same side, the proposal is dead, regardless of the position of the independents.

Regarding Labor's stimulus package, the Greens were open to the overall plan, and indicated early on they were willing to let the bill pass with a few minor changes. The events of the past 24 hours show they came through with this promise. It was one of the independents that brought the stimulus package unstuck (Nicholas Xenophon).

Regarding Labor's Internet censorship proposal, the Greens have stated clearly that they are against it. This will be a problem for Labor, especially since the Coalition has also stated they are against the policy.

The Greens and the Coalition combined gives a majority vote against the proposal, so they're dead in the water, assuming the Coalition don't change their position (which I think is unlikely).

That's why using the European spelling makes it easier to differentiate.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the SI unit is spelled metre, not meter.

Micrometre / Micrometer.

That's why using the European spelling makes it easier to differentiate.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure the SI unit is spelled metre, not meter.

Micrometre / Micrometer.

I thought it was just my nethack patches search that was doing it...

I get the joke but I'm not sure how we ended up on limits of growth and horse shit, that is not what TFPaper is about.

What it says is that IFF we stopped pumping out GHG tomorrow it would take thousands of years for the ocean to regain it's pre-industrial PH level. The ocean (and the shelled critters in it) is the largest C02 sink, too much CO2 makes the ocean slightly more acidic and this is already having a negative affect on said shelled critters ability to make shells, loss of coral reefs is the most publicised of these effects. Personally I hardly think it's surprising that it would take a long time for makind's CO2 spike to be aborsbed into the system if we all dropped dead tomorrow but science is about measurement and evidence, the question of "how long would it take" is as valid as any other.

limits of growth and horse shit

I like the horse story but the Dodo bird meat industry didn't fare quite as well. Tecnology may one day overcome that "temporary" glitch but until it does the Dodo meat industry went past it's own limit to growth in the 1700's(?). While we are LIMITED by our lack of terra-forming technology I think the most obvious limit to growth comes from from human shit, not horse shit.

As far as I am concerned we have no choice but to turn to technology to fix technology. However it's nice to have a "bug report" that clearly lays out what the problem is. Science is that bug report, without these kind of studies we wouldn't even recoginse the problem, and in fact many people still don't (just look at this thread for examples).

I doubt freedom of speech is in the treaty. I also doubt that Indymedia are incompetent when it comes to keeping their 'information' safe and accessible.

"What really concerns me, though (since I can disable cookies and still watch the videos), is that..[snip]...the White House is promoting YouTube, a private, for-profit company. [snip] So, I suggest that the govt. procure a YouTube-like system from YouTube, and then use that."

Where do you stop? Should the pentagon buy up every company who's products it supports (eg: Lockheed C-130 Hercules or IBM WebShere)? That's going to get expensive very quickly, are you prepared for the inevitable 4000% tax hike - or will you just lament the fact that removing the logo's to avoid massive tax hikes has reduced transparency? /sarcasm

In a democracy the answer is simple, but it's also at odds with human nature: Watch your government more than they watch you.

"What really concerns me, though (since I can disable cookies and still watch the videos), is that..[snip]...the White House is promoting YouTube, a private, for-profit company. [snip] So, I suggest that the govt. procure a YouTube-like system from YouTube, and then use that."

Where do you stop? Should the pentagon buy up every company who's products it supports (eg: Lockheed C-130 Hercules or IBM WebShere)? That's going to get expensive very quickly, are you prepared for the inevitable 4000% tax hike - or will you just lament the fact that removing the logo's to avoid massive tax hikes has reduced transparency? /sarcasm

In a democracy the answer is simple, but it's also at odds with human nature: Watch your government more than they watch you.

You need to read "Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan" by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. It's a recent book and the definitive academic examination of the surrender of Japan and the events surrounding it, including the bomb. The author has discarded the propaganda and legend which has built up over the years and restarted from scratch with the source documents. The conclusions are fascinating.

Well, if subscribers can apparently see articles in the future, maybe people in *cough* web space *cough* can see even further!

And then there's always the google "search tomorrow" function.

Although I haven't read 1984 yet, isn't Newspeak about eliminating terms with no distinction between them?

Newspeak was primarily for the control of thought and discussion. IIRC they would be unable to articulate the declaration of independence or some other revolutionary document because the concepts necessary would have been eliminated from the language. Reduction of vocabulary through the elimination of words reduces your ability to think.

Found a link http://books.google.com.au/books?id=yxv1LK5gyV4C&pg=PA311&lpg=PA311&dq=orwell+1984+declaration+of+independence&source=bl&ots=ol73x86YS7&sig=4e504XEf5pSj4PyPRICYpWH3SgE&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

"I seriously doubt that if their were a scientifically founded protection for EM radiation, these people wouldn't use it."

It's called a Faraday cage, you could probably get one made in the shape of a pyramid and kill too birds with one stone.

"If I have to listen to people complain about second hand smoke so much that I feel like a goddamned leppar then why can't I complain even the least little bit about electromagnetic radiation?"

You can complain all you like, just don't expect anyone to listen until you have robust scientific evidence like the second hand smoker's do. I'm also a smoker and I'm willing to act reasonably by smoking outside. However when a second-hand smoker waves their face while walking past a leppar colony on a smog filled street I feel justified in telling them to wear a gas mask if they don't like it.

Same deal for EM radition, either put up the evidence or STFU and let me use my mobile.

Disclaimer: I saw Woodstock on the news when I was 8-9yo, had hair down to my arse in the 70's. The Hippie ideal of maximum freedom and minimum harm is still very appealing to me. I'm simply unwilling to ignore human nature and throw out the philosophy of scientific skepticisim. Unlike any "other way of thinking" it is demonstratably usefull to me beyond a healthy body and control of my emotional state (not that I have either:). One of scientific skepticisim's prime uses is to judge claims from others against what you "know" (eg: does EM radiation harm anyone?).

Like Yoga in wich the rituals can be useful for a healthy mind/body, scientific skepticisim is also a usefull skill that can be taught, of course you then have to work at it for a while before you see the benifits. The hardest part of that "work" for a good skeptic is accepting that you cannot "know" anything but you can have scientific evidence that goes beyond reasonable doubt.

I agree. In fact I would go so far as to say that in general active volcanos stink and produce more "pollution" than the people living on their flanks. I also think that long before we were human we evolved a survival mechanisim that perceives the stink as a warning to stay away, when we learned to write that mechanisim became the Bible's "fire and brimstone". Many tribal religions that actually live on volcanos are more sophisticated than that, they recognise that the volcano can also bring new life in the form of rain and fertilzer. The mistake that all these tribes make is that they think they can appeal to the volcano's "good side", nature doesn't have a "good side" and doesn't care one bit if she covers you and your tribe with molten rock.

/rant

The tribal view is also applicable to the industrial revolution. Factories provide us with a lifestyle that few of us are willing/able to give up, but it's clear those factories are killing environmental canaries at an alarming rate.

I witnessed Mao's famine on a B&W TV as a child and that's what would happen if we stopped the industrial revolution, but I also recognise we are now so numerous that to continue with bussiness as usual means a global Easter Island is a real risk for my grandkids (first one due in March). It's not that we don't have the technology to have our environmental cake and eat it, it's that (until recently) most of our "chiefs" have been busy fighting each other over the right to kiss the factory god's arse. The world's witch doctors who collectively create our technology are ignored when they point out fatal but potentialy fixable bugs such as the tradjedy of the commons. Like the tribal witch-doctors appealing to the "good side" of the volcano god's I fear that our witch-doctors are appealing to the "good side" of human nature.

There are now over twice as many people on the planet than when I was born, I was a moderate greenie before the term "greenie" was invented. I watched the rural town where I grew up swallowed by the city of Melbourne. I have been visiting the local beach where I now live for 45yrs, over that time it went from clean to filthy and back to clean again, in fact the entire bay did likewise (Port Phillip Bay) and the fishing is slowly returning to what it used to be in the 60's (recreational fishing licenses were introduced to buy back commercial scallop boat licences). The strip of wetlands on the other side of where I live is a paradise for birds and a breeding ground for fish. It's still a shit farm but not like the original one that ruined the beach in the 70's, this one produces "drinkable" water and fertlizer for nearby turf farms. OTOH like a more intense version of California, much of the land that supported Melboune's growth is dead, dying, in drought, or in flames.

Technological supremacy is what seperates us from other animals, if we don't use it to our long term advantage we are just like any other predatorless mammal and will soon eat and shit ourselves into a population crash that according to the witch doctors will also drag much of the planets biosphere down with it. Currently middle eastern goat hearders are best equiped to deal with the aftermath of the witch-doctors visions.

/rant

"Assuming that market forces are going to work all the time is what got us into the current meltdown of both the economy as well as the internet hardware."

Exactly, market forces are defined as "the interaction between supply and demand". That interaction at it's most basic level is provided by "property rights" (ie: market_forces == regulation). The word "free" in the term "free market" does not mean free of regulation since that would translate to "regulation free regulation" which is either anarchy or a tautology. I'm not sure which but it's obviously not an answer that can sustain a civilization.

The opportunity for personal wealth is only part of the equation, but for some people the existing "market forces" that provided that wealth are the answer to everything, unsurprisingly a large proportion of people who think ths way are rich and/or powerfull. I'm not saying that I have the answer just that the tradgedy of the commons and the fact that average income is always much higher than median income tells me "trickle down economics" has always been a miserable failure. If we don't want our grandkids to become goat hearders we have to at least somehow include "the commons" in the economy. To do that we need a system a tad more elaborate than the simplistic dog eat dog regulations typically expoused by over zealous libertarians.

"Free to participate": short of becoming a self-sufficient hermit living undetected in some forgotten wilderness you are forced to participate in the prevailing system. A few generations ago that was still a practical option but there are now so many of us that the entire biosphere is forced to participate in our system.

P.S. In case you think that Bryan Cantrill quote is made up, check it out yourself on Google groups:

1. Original message
2. Cantrill's reply
3. Hilarious response by David Miller
4. Miguel de Icaza astounded response