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Hey crackpot

Maybe pick up the phone and give your colleauge Bill Wilson over there at UNSW a call, he can explaing to you the similarities between WEighted aritmetic mean and geometric mean, Bill Wilson . I honestly didn't think that the entire UNSW cadre could be that bad, knew someone there could learn you your maths.

Well would you look at this that we find. GNU Emacs Calc 2.02 Manual from UNSW website "The u G (calc-vector-geometric-mean) [vgmean] command computes the geometric mean of the data values. This is the Nth root of the product of the values.
This is also equal to the exp of the arithmetic mean of the logarithms of the data values. "

Hey crackpot

Maybe pick up the phone and give your colleauge Bill Wilson over there at UNSW a call, he can explaing to you the similarities between WEighted aritmetic mean and geometric mean, Bill Wilson . I honestly didn't think that the entire UNSW cadre could be that bad, knew someone there could learn you your maths.

Well would you look at this that we find. GNU Emacs Calc 2.02 Manual from UNSW website "The u G (calc-vector-geometric-mean) [vgmean] command computes the geometric mean of the data values. This is the Nth root of the product of the values.
This is also equal to the exp of the arithmetic mean of the logarithms of the data values. "

Anyway, this whole discussion is beside the point: In http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/s cience/McKitrick Tim Lambert's blog I found a reference to ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/MBH98/TREE/IT RDB/NOAMER/pca-noamer.fMike Mann's tree-ring source program (fortran), which he apparently has made public. Happy refuting!

how much publicly-funded researchers should be required to disclose - should they be allowed to generate 'closed-source' solutions at the taxpayers' expense?

It's worth noting that, while it makes sense that taxpayer-funded research should generate 'open-source' solutions, federal law dictates otherwise.

The Bayh-Dole Act was passed 25 years ago, which dictates:

Universities were encouraged to collaborate commercial concerns to promote the utilization of inventions arising from federal funding.

It was clearly stated that universities may elect to retain title to inventions developer through government funding.

Universities must file patents on inventions they elect to own.

So in other words the government has dictated since 1980 that government-funded research should not produce open-source solutions, necessarily, as the results of research are to be considered private-sector profit-generating centers for the host universities. (The implications for the 'next BSD4.3 TCP/IP stack', or similar advanced research, are obvious.)

Anyway, regarding the 'hockey stick' controversy, Tim Lambert's weblog is worth a read.

• denies that average temperature is meaningful,
• confuses degrees with radians,
• invents a whole new temperature scale,
• replaces missing data with zeroes

I have been a struggling UNIX systems programmer and only recently have I realized I have not done computer architecture, complexity theory, or a good OS subject with some programming in it. My progress has generally been slow in becoming a UNIX "hacker". My advice to people is to do as much theoretical subjects at university because practical ones like .NET, ASP or whatever can easily be learned afterwards.

I have been a struggling UNIX systems programmer and only recently have I realized I have not done computer architecture, complexity theory, or a good OS subject with some programming in it. My progress has generally been slow in becoming a UNIX "hacker". My advice to people is to do as much theoretical subjects at university because practical ones like .NET, ASP or whatever can easily be learned afterwards.

• Rural Australians for Refugees
• Refugees Australia
• Children Out Of Detention
• Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
• SievX National Memorial Project
• We Are All Boat People
• Refugee Claimants Support Centre
• Australians for Just Refugee Programs
• Refugee Council of Australia
• Edmund Rice Centre
• Refugee Action Collective Australia
• Nauru Wire
• Amnesty International (Australia)
• Project Safe
• Australian Catholic Migrant & Refugee Office
• Jesuit Refugee Services
• Australian Catholic Social Justice Council
• Australian Human Rights Centre
• Asylum Support Service
• Centre for Refugee Research, University of NSW
• Coalition for Justice for Refugees
• Fair Go for Refugees
• Refugees Online Queensland
• Mercy Refugee Service

Then there are those who are working for refugees, but don't set up websites about it.

There are hosts of similar sites, set up by those working to do good (unlike our government) on the issues of Aborigines, invading other countries and being a good global citizen.

Australia is a diverse community, about which generalisations cannot be made. I agree Australia's image is tarnished, but I also point out that a lack of shine does not sit well with many Australians.

Milloy is an industry shill.

Check out the following books for a great introduction to exactly how public relations companies are used by industries, companies, and even politicians to cover up the dirty secrets they don't want you to know about.

Toxic Sludge Is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry

Trust Us We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future

Here's a resonable summary of the differences between flash and director. I asked the people here in the office (one uses flash and another uses director) and they were unsure too. Flash is apparently better suited for the web, Director for things like multimedia CDs...

I suspect both general purpose and scientific computing can benefit from nested data parallelism.
The Nepal Project at the University of New South Wales concentrates on Multiple Program Multiple Data (MPMD). In a nutshell, any problem that can be specified as array operations can be flattened, unrolled, and automatically parallelized. This is not the holy grail of general purpose transparent parallelization of purely functional programs, but instead nested data parallelism. This extends research done in data parallel languages such as Nesl, Sisal, and really nifty algorithm shape research done in FISh.
This is the best approach to transparent parallelism that I've seen yet. Anyone know anything better?

or maybe they didn't, and the anti-climate-change astroturf operation is in full force, in turn ignoring McIntyre and McKitrick's statistical errors -- like not understanding the difference between degrees and radians.

I'll stick with the real scientists, thanks.

But the small size doesn't make most systems faster. Running the same Unix API, L4 adds execution time overhead beyond the default monolithic Linux kernel, about 5%. (Does anyone know the figure for Linux-on-Mach? I know it's much greater than 5%....) However, there are some significant advantages having to do with debugging, maintainability, SMP, real time gaurentees, memory management, configurability, robustness, etc. Detailed discussion here.

From the overview:

Kernels based on the L4 API are second-generation -kernels. They are very lean and feature fast, message-based, synchronous IPC, simple-to-use external paging mechanisms, and a security mechanism based on secure domains (tasks, clans and chiefs). The kernels try to implement only a minimal set of abstractions on which operating systems can be built flexibly.

Other links: L4KA homepage, background info, more info with some historical L3 links.

Frankly, I think L4 is very much the right way to do things. I wish I could say the same for other parts of HURD.

Well, the LBD mailing list archive might be a good place to start, since I specifically mentioned it.

Patch 1

Patch 2

Says Tony:
"Here is an "example" patch to fix some of the LBD issues with various
filesystems (ext3, xfs, reiserfs, afs). Unfortunately it looks like
there are many more LBD problems with the filesystems that I didn't fix,
so I am just calling this an "example" patch that shows some of what
needs to be done, but doesn't fix everything."

He later mentions the only XFS fix is in some debugging code, and it appears to be the cleanest of them.

Well, the LBD mailing list archive might be a good place to start, since I specifically mentioned it.

Patch 1

Patch 2

Says Tony:
"Here is an "example" patch to fix some of the LBD issues with various
filesystems (ext3, xfs, reiserfs, afs). Unfortunately it looks like
there are many more LBD problems with the filesystems that I didn't fix,
so I am just calling this an "example" patch that shows some of what
needs to be done, but doesn't fix everything."

He later mentions the only XFS fix is in some debugging code, and it appears to be the cleanest of them.

For another take on post-textual programming, check out Intentional Programming. A little-known screencast demo is at http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs3141/ip.asf/. Unfortunately all their work is shrouded in mystery and non-disclosure agreements. The most complete account I have found is in Generative Programming

I believe that in the not-to-distant future the practice of programming in ASCII text will seem as antiquated as punched-cards

Why should their killer product be a BSD filesystem?

In Australia, colleges are closer to halls of residence - they don't offer any courses of study at all. They do offer tutorials and other assistance for courses offered at university, however.

The college that you linked to is located within the University of Sydney, and I'd be somewhat surprised if they didn't offer a range of engineering degrees, although the other big university in Sydney, UNSW used to be USyd's engineering faculty.

In any case, the University of Queensland (where I go - I used to live in Emmanuel College here) has a Womens College too - it may be a sister college, I don't know.

(Good luck with the college links, I think that the server room is currently running off a generator.)

In any case, within Australia, the public vs private university question is kind of moot, since all of our big universities are public, and our one big private university (Bond) doesn't offer most degrees - such as science or engineering.

Increasingly large numbers of masters degrees are by coursework these days, not research - at least, they are in Australia - particularly in IT and management related fields. As an example, see this masters, which is totally by coursework, although you can replace two of the 16 subjects with a research project - not a massive part of the program.

• Why the microkernel part? Although I don't have much experience in this, I'd say it should be quite simple, relatively speaking. Look at Linux, most of the kernel tree is drivers. The kernel itself is pretty small.

The Linux kernel actually implements a good compromise, which is to allow kernel modules to be plugged in and out, which is one of ideas behind microkernels. However, there are still user-facing problems with this approach that could be cured without going the microkernel route.

For example, Linux does not provide stable binary interfaces between the kernel and modules, so you can't just plug in any driver -- it has to be compiled against your kernel. This is a political decision; Linus does not want binary drivers. A solution would be something like a source driver package that the driver manager GUI could access and transparently compile; but this, or any other solution, would require the Linux developers to put some thought into kernel user-friendliness, and that is not their strong suit by any means.

The other issue is that of security. At the moment, device driver loading and file-system mounting are superuser operations, but they shouldn't need to be. (User-friendly security in general is one of Linux/Unix' weakest points.)

Btw, I believe the argument that microkernels are inherently slow has been shot down.

The Speculative Search Game allows you to predict which web pages will rank more highly on Google in the future. The output of the game will be used to build a Speculative Search Engine that ranks those web pages more highly today.

http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~amichail/spec/

http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~amichail/spec/faq.html

The Speculative Search Game allows you to predict which web pages will rank more highly on Google in the future. The output of the game will be used to build a Speculative Search Engine that ranks those web pages more highly today.

http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~amichail/spec/

http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~amichail/spec/faq.html

Quit perpetuating this stupid myth. Read.

cold
getting warmer
so-so hot
hot!

cold
getting warmer
so-so hot
hot!

http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/clio2.jpg

Tsk.

You should have linked to a google image search - after all, we just want to see pics.

Here's a link to the book cover

Pic of book Cover

Here is a bio page with photograph of the author, for anyone interested.

sort of. there are important differences between the US and China, for sure. with the exception of recent (post-9/11) abominations, the process of imprisoning people in the states is much more transparent and the involved parties have much greater accountability. we seem to be past the stage of our history where we slaughter our native population, by several decades maybe. the fact that we still have a death penalty is, by broader western or industrialized standards, appalling, but at least the same accountability exists there as for imprisonment, unlike China.

but it is flatly not true that the US isn't killing large numbers of "anyone else's" citizens: numbers say otherwise.

Actually you can "superheat" water using a microwave but the water and this superheated state is unstable. Add something to the water like coffee or sugar and the water will go wild and froth all over the place. Infact many accidents happen where people heat water in a microwave then get scoulded when they add something to the water like coffee. This site provides details

Bible code!!!

35Wh/kg is a bit low for automobile use.
It's great for an electric boat though!
Read about them at developers site.

new way to harness the power of the sun

this is at least viable alternative to biodisel

one more link is Center for materials research in energy conversion

You mean, stringent tests like this?

Stringent tests indeed... Only in a global-warming denier publication could someone screw up degrees vs. radians conversions and still get published.

You global-warming deniers are as pathetic as creationists.

"First, if I remember correctly from grade school, humans have been on this planet for an very small fraction of the earths "life", so how can they even pretend to assume they have any clue what is going on here?"

This argument could be used against most science.

There are just so many posts like this in this thread. Are really so many slashdotters global warming deniers? No one reads Deltoid?

Suprisingly many of you also have low user IDs. This may say something about the initial audience of slashdot, or it might, it just possibly, very unlikely of course, possibly imply that there is some astroturfing going on with bought IDs. To see if I can verify or deny either hypothesis, I'm placing all of you five-digits GW deniers into my enemies list. It's nothing personal, it's just to remember so I can check it up later. Bye.

Tim Lambert has a good article on your source.

When someone as prominent and as much an annoyance to the coporate capitalist power structure as Richard Stallman has a nearly fatal accident we SHOULD start asking if there is a conspiracy to murder him.

The free software movement is in the crosshairs. Why do you think software patents have become such an issue recently? Did SCO come up with the idea of its copyright attack on Linux on its own all of a sudden? Some investor immediately gave it the cash infusion it needed to persue the lawsuit, recall (BayStar etc.) Was it SCO, by itself, that got the De Toqueville Institute to issue an article questioning the originality of Linux? In fact a lot of "think tanks" have been piling on the free software movement.

Free software is a loose cannon, the normal mechanisms that keep sources of consumer products and innovation from stepping on the toes of governments and governments' interests don't work with free software.

How happy do you think the United States is that free software has given China and countries like it an operating system which is guaranteed free of any CIA / NSA backdoors?

For christs sakes, how fucking naive do you have to be, of course they are going to start killing leaders of the free software movement.

I hope RMS isn't himself so naive and starts taking precautions (for all the good that will do him if the CIA wants him dead).

Some other highly suspicious accidents:
Microbiologists http://www.rense.com/general20/mic.htm
Free software authors (google translation from German) http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F %2Fwww.debian.org%2FNews%2F2004%2F20040515&langpai r=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&prev=%2Flanguage_too ls
Alan Gibbs, founder of TruVote (electronic voting machines) http://conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid= 31&contentid=1110&page=1

Can't adaptive optics improve the images from a mid-latitude observatory?

To some extent yes, but you will always win by starting with better natural seeing. Adaptive optics is a technique for cancelling out atmospheric turbulence by using deformable mirrors (i.e., mirrors that can change shape hundreds of times per second to compensate for the atmosphere). Adaptive optics allows you to extract the maximum performance from a given observing site. However, the technique has a number of problems: it only sharpens the image in the immediate vicinity of reference star(s) or laser beam(s), it is largely limited to infrared wavelengths, it leads to errors in measuring the brightness of stars, and it is very expensive. There are no realistic prospects for achieving significant adaptive optics correction at visible wavelengths at mid-latitude observatories.

The article from a few days ago about seeing at Dome C explains this: they get very, very little snowfall there. However, they do get blown ice crystals, but not very many at the proposed location. The linked article makes great reading.

You can view the health reports (temperature etc.) that that telescope sent back via Iridium here.

There may be other tasties too -- I haven't dug too much.

The PC/104 computer was also on the RS-485 bus, and we reasoned that by rewriting the Linux device driver (which we had written in the first place, so we knew what we were doing) we could make the computer impersonate the control panel, and convince the engine that it should keep running. Fortunately, we had a snapshot of the communication traffic between the engine and the control panel from earlier testing in the lab with the manufacturer's MSDOS-based software. But with no hardware available to test our code, we had to modify the driver, send patches over the 2400 baud Iridium link, and rmmod/insmod the driver to try to restart the engine.

They claim it's great in the winter when the sun is below the horizon. The reason they claim they can't see anything in the summer is because they are all covering their faces (see here for an example of what I mean!

This poor motherfucker is the one that is actually there in the Winter (when they claim the telescope is controlled via sat. phone). Notice how *HE* can see!

The other guys are such wimps. Fur lined face masks and goggles. Sheesh!

They claim it's great in the winter when the sun is below the horizon. The reason they claim they can't see anything in the summer is because they are all covering their faces (see here for an example of what I mean!

This poor motherfucker is the one that is actually there in the Winter (when they claim the telescope is controlled via sat. phone). Notice how *HE* can see!

The other guys are such wimps. Fur lined face masks and goggles. Sheesh!

The link that the submitter provided to himself doesn't work. The correct link is: Michael Ashley

Look at this photo. It is the author's Kyocera mobile phone with a web page showing the temperatures, memory usage and free disk space. Says battery temperature is -34.5 (is that C or F?)

True, but Kleck's research suggests that a very large minority do involve the weapon being fired. Kleck's survey suggested that the weapon was fired in 24% of DGUs source.

Some more problems with Kleck's methodology: link

> I don't think you can make this assumption - defensive uses will tend to have a lower fatality
> rate simply because the shooter is likely to be suffering from a substantial loss of fine motor
> control due to the fight-or-flight response.

Loss of fine motor control will cause fewer hits, but in no way makes those bullets hit with any less energy or wounding power. Besides, firearm wound lethality statistics already take this into account by considering large numbers of criminal shootings, which aren't likely to be any better trained than civilian shootings.

A moment with Google and a quick look at the actual homicide statistics in Canada shows that the parent poster is completely wrong. The summary of Canada's homicide trend in the last several years is:

The national homicide rate fell 7% last year [2003] to its lowest level in over 35 years.


> John Lott has an article discussing the abysmal failure of Canada's gun control program here.

If you're getting your information from John Lott, that helps explain why you have no idea what the truth is. Lott is a known liar whose research has come under increasing fire as poorly supported and possibly entirely fabricated.

If you want a pro-gun researcher to tout, check out Kleck. His studies have some serious methodological problems, too, but at least he seems honest.

I call BS on the site which raises questions on F9/11. In the very first section he links to a study by someone who has been completely discredited in the academic community: John Lott.

This statistic is a little crude because it doesn't take into account very very different levels of gun ownership from place to place. For instance, guns are entirely banned in Washington DC, and DC is often the most likely place to be murdered by a gun in the US.

But given that most of the US has very little gun laws compared to the UK it should show up overall (all other things being equal). It's also true that even if DC doesn't allow any guns at all, it's much easier to get a gun into DC than into the UK (no border, for example).

A much bigger problem is that it doesn't take into account the differences in how crime is categorized in the UK and US. For instance if you just have a gun on you in the UK it's going to be a big deal no matter what you've done (and probably counted as "gun crime"), where in the US it's not.

So you are left to looking at the studies in the US, and in summary they don't support your position.