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Might be a good deal faster than that, but it will be decades before we know.

See http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_15/

Or http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf (skip to "summary discussion", 7c: "Paleoclimate records include cases in which sea level rose several meters per century, even though known natural positive forcings are much smaller than the human-made forcing. This implies that ice sheet disintegration can be a highly nonlinear process.")

Hansen proposes to fit an exponential curve with 10-year doubling, but initially you can't tell the difference between exponential and quadratic, and the possible mechanisms for rapid sea level rise and not entirely known (as in, can glaciers really move that fast?). He bases his argument on "best data from the paleoclimate says several meters per century happened in the past, and temperatures not far from where we are now".

The paper in which the fast paleoclimate sea level rise is studied: http://www.planetwork.net/climate/Hansen2007.pdf
One question I don't see an answer to (yet) is whether the fastest rise occurred earlier in the glacial melt -- i.e., when ice sheets all over the northern hemisphere were melting, not just Greenland. But (apparently) Antarctica has plenty of potential.

tagging is another important component of what i'm sure some genius will call web 3.0 in a couple of years. rss will also be integral. ultimately, as natural language processing improves, the way we will be able to search and organize data will be vastly improved. imagine being able to subscribe to feeds of searches based on criteria like reputation! it's an interesting field but it's late now . . .

I found the following article on XDI a good introduction: The Social Web: Creating An Open Social Network with XDI I encourage anyone interested in trust networks and reputation systems to read it.

I suppose mentioning Myspace is no way to ingratiate myself with the Slashdot mods but I think that the underlying model paves the way towards The Net in Osrson Scot Card's novel Ender's Game. For those unaware, The Net is a global forum of governance. Different "salons" debate policy issues and are voted upon. It's distributed democracy.

To just wrap up my short post (it's too early still), these issues are rather abstract, but will become more important as our world becomes increasingly interconnected. Another essay on the general subject is by Shawn Murphy, the man behind Nooron. He explains the idea behind nooron in How to Build a Global Brain I've submitted links on nooron and XDI to slashdot before, only to have them rejected in favor of the latest iPod "killer." So it's good to see something finally published . . .

I'll post more later after breakfast and coffee . . .

I'm generally opposed to biometrics (don't want a finger chopped off so someone else can get access ; ) but agree with your sentiment about a better reputation system. You may be interested in the XDI initiative. A good introduction can be found here:
http://journal.planetwork.net/article.php?lab=reed 0704

A friend got me to sign up for friendster a few years ago. I never really used it although I did run into a couple of folks I hadn't seen in years. We've now pretty much switched to Myspace but re-entering all the information was an annoyance.

Which brings up the big issue in my head: when will we have an open XML schema so migrating between different sites is a bit more seemless. Sorry, but FOAF and XFN just don't cut it. So far the closest thing I've seen to a workable solution is the XDI initiative(Web 3.0?). The W3C has passed on the proposal so far but I see something like it as an inevitable development of the Net. The closest analogy I can think of at the moment is a turbocharged vCard.

I've been researching Drupal and Wordpress in depth for a while now. These packages can offer many features of Myspace if you install the right modules . . . or you could hold your nose, join myspace and try to make the best of it.

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