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Well clearly you didn't teach him to cock his head at the right angle

I'm not aware of "overwhelming scientific evidence" that directly links pollution to global warming. I see totally normal warming, historically speaking, but I don't know of anything that can tie it to pollution.

I'm genuinely asking, not being smarmy, I honestly don't know. I have to admit I'm terribly poorly educated about the subject in general.

where in this 'long history of global warming and global cooling' did the average temperature rise 0.56C (1F) a degree in 50 years?

This is a point that is brought up frequently, and with good reason: it's the rate we should be concerned with, rather than the fact that we're warming a couple of degrees. However, thinking of the data I've seen, I'm not sure we know for a fact that the planet hasn't warmed this quickly over the past few hundred thousand years. (I am an earth scientist, so although climate isn't my specialty, I have been exposed to some data in a rigorous and rational setting.)

The only record I can think of that would even have a chance at resolving something on the ~50 year scale is the ice core record (see this figure). There are definitely some major swings in that record on short enough time scales that they get smeared out on that chart, but I don't know if they are anywhere near the rate that we've seen in the past 100 years (~1 degC). The people who work on this core claim precision on the annual scale back something like 200k years to where the ice starts to flow and layers representing annual snow fall are lost. Because the temperatures are based on isotopic data, there are some other factors (diffusion, etc.) that need to be considered; I haven't ever heard all the assumptions discussed, but I'm sure people have looked into it.

My point is, anyway, that there may have been a time where we saw a similar rate, but our proxies for paleoclimate might not be sensitive enough to resolve them. (see also this graph for variations in raw isotopic data in Greenland ice core

That being said, the CO2 record is much, much more troubling. We've had concentrations near what we're seeing now, but as I recall, that was back in the Cretaceous when dinosaurs were enjoying near tropical paradise at all latitudes.

There is decreasing amounts of doubt that the world is warming up. The disconnect occurs in the automatic assumption that

1. humans are causing it

Indeed. The problem most skeptics see isn't in the argument itself for global warming--it's in the argument, nay assumption, that it MUST be manmade. Because recent warming trends coincide with the Industrial Revolution, greens cry "It's obvious the two are connected!" and climate scientists, who have an overwhelmingly self-selected green bias (after all, the field attracts certain kinds of people), have a vested interest in minimizing the Little Ice Age and Mediaeval Warm Period and making the recent warming seem more intense and unprecedented than it actually is. If we pull back and look at a 100,000-year cycle (thanks to ice core data) instead of just the past 1,000 or 2,000 years, we see that current temperatures aren't unsurprising at all and that indeed we're overdue for warmer temperatures (overdue, because for reasonse which we still can't explain temperatures in the Holocene were relatively steady for about 10,000 years at a time when, according to the cyclical ice core temperature graph, they should have risen as they're finally doing now):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Ice_Age_Temperature.png

And heck, if we look back even further with million-year timescales, we see that the Earth was significantly warmer for long geologic periods of time:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png

There's just no logical reason to ascribe a majority of current climate change to anthropogenic causes.

2. we MUST do something DRASTIC AND IMMEDIATE to stop it

That's the one that loses most people, even those willing to assume that current warming is anthropogenic. How can we assume these changes will be bad for mankind--so bad, in fact, that possibly destroying all industrialized civilizations and dragging them back into stagnation through oppressive resource taxes is preferable to using technology to adapt? When larger timescales show such temperatures aren't unusual, where's the justification? While undeniably bad for small island nations which will be submerged, and for some poor and unstable nations which may see more instability as a result of climate change, the already-industrialized world could easily adapt, survive, and prosper. Given that, why should anyone in the already-industrialized world risk economic meltdown and chaos to avert something they can probably adapt to easily?

For some nations, global warming may even be a big plus. While the southwestern U.S. will probably suffer, the farming belt will just shift north and the country at large will continue to prosper. Canada will benefit greatly from more usable farmland. Europe is a toss-up because ocean and air currents which currently heat it are unpredictable, so anything could happen; but no matter what does, they have the economic and industrial power to cope. Wealthy island nations like Japan will find ways to cope and build sea walls and other defenses or adaptations. China will probably see desert shifting, but increased desertification isn't a foregone conclusion especially with their rapidly-expanding industrialization and huge workforce. Russia would probably benefit.

Indeed, it's only the third world--Africa, parts of Latin America, small island areas like Micronesia--which will certainly be negatively impacted. And while the humanitarian in me says, "It would be nice to help them," the realist in me says "Our civilizations got to the next level first. If the unadvanced civilizations wither away so that the advanced can prosper, that's how it should be."

We are never going to get off this rock and expand into space, safeguarding our civ

There is decreasing amounts of doubt that the world is warming up. The disconnect occurs in the automatic assumption that

1. humans are causing it

Indeed. The problem most skeptics see isn't in the argument itself for global warming--it's in the argument, nay assumption, that it MUST be manmade. Because recent warming trends coincide with the Industrial Revolution, greens cry "It's obvious the two are connected!" and climate scientists, who have an overwhelmingly self-selected green bias (after all, the field attracts certain kinds of people), have a vested interest in minimizing the Little Ice Age and Mediaeval Warm Period and making the recent warming seem more intense and unprecedented than it actually is. If we pull back and look at a 100,000-year cycle (thanks to ice core data) instead of just the past 1,000 or 2,000 years, we see that current temperatures aren't unsurprising at all and that indeed we're overdue for warmer temperatures (overdue, because for reasonse which we still can't explain temperatures in the Holocene were relatively steady for about 10,000 years at a time when, according to the cyclical ice core temperature graph, they should have risen as they're finally doing now):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Ice_Age_Temperature.png

And heck, if we look back even further with million-year timescales, we see that the Earth was significantly warmer for long geologic periods of time:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png

There's just no logical reason to ascribe a majority of current climate change to anthropogenic causes.

2. we MUST do something DRASTIC AND IMMEDIATE to stop it

That's the one that loses most people, even those willing to assume that current warming is anthropogenic. How can we assume these changes will be bad for mankind--so bad, in fact, that possibly destroying all industrialized civilizations and dragging them back into stagnation through oppressive resource taxes is preferable to using technology to adapt? When larger timescales show such temperatures aren't unusual, where's the justification? While undeniably bad for small island nations which will be submerged, and for some poor and unstable nations which may see more instability as a result of climate change, the already-industrialized world could easily adapt, survive, and prosper. Given that, why should anyone in the already-industrialized world risk economic meltdown and chaos to avert something they can probably adapt to easily?

For some nations, global warming may even be a big plus. While the southwestern U.S. will probably suffer, the farming belt will just shift north and the country at large will continue to prosper. Canada will benefit greatly from more usable farmland. Europe is a toss-up because ocean and air currents which currently heat it are unpredictable, so anything could happen; but no matter what does, they have the economic and industrial power to cope. Wealthy island nations like Japan will find ways to cope and build sea walls and other defenses or adaptations. China will probably see desert shifting, but increased desertification isn't a foregone conclusion especially with their rapidly-expanding industrialization and huge workforce. Russia would probably benefit.

Indeed, it's only the third world--Africa, parts of Latin America, small island areas like Micronesia--which will certainly be negatively impacted. And while the humanitarian in me says, "It would be nice to help them," the realist in me says "Our civilizations got to the next level first. If the unadvanced civilizations wither away so that the advanced can prosper, that's how it should be."

We are never going to get off this rock and expand into space, safeguarding our civ

where in this 'long history of global warming and global cooling' did the average temperature rise 0.56C (1F) a degree in 50 years?

It's hard to tell because the resolution of our proxy isn't that good.

It is possible to see, however, that the increasingly erratic temperature trends started about 3 million years ago.

Also the correlation between CO2 levels and temperature on geological timescales isn't exactly clear.

If only there were ample evidence that the recent warming trend is wholly unprecedented and cannot be reasonably ascribed to the ending of the previous glacial period!

After all, the Earth has been warming globally for over WELL OVER 10,000 years during the time the last Ice Age receeded until the present.

When you look at it from a longer timescale the ice age isn't completely over yet.

A better example is that we've been wandering around on the beach during low tide and now are getting all upset because the water level is rising.

except perhaps as a red herring to distract people from the real controversy, which is about causation

Careful - start asking people why the climate started getting increasingly erratic 3 million years ago and they'll lable you as a troll.

It's been pretty cold recently.

It's been pretty cold recently.

Think about it this way - does it really matter where things go specifically, so long as you can get there easily? Do I really care that I can find and open a picture at ~/Documents/Pictures/2010/07/28 in seven double-clicks and nearly as many context changes, or do I care that I can go to "Pictures"->"Sort by date"->double-click on today's photo in four mouse-clicks and get a more holistic view of what's on my machine at a given moment? Do I care that I can find some music at ~/Documents/Music/Artist/Album/trackname.ogg, or would I rather just be able to "Play all songs in album Foo by artist Bar"?

What you seem to be describing is a meta-data based filesystem. Believe me, I have NO issue with that. The filesystem itself I see as outdated. HOWEVER, that's not what Gnome will be acheiving with this. They're shaking up the desktop metaphor, and needlessly IMHO.

I mean, seriously, look at this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/GNOME_Shell.png

Do you realize how much of that screen is wasted by unneeded UI clutter? And none of it is really doing some great revolution in the way we store or perceive our data. It's just goofing around and shaking things up.

As to your statement about the different between the way we perceive information on the net vs locally, I've always viewed that more as a side effect of the limitation of HTML pages. I know that personally, I can typically find something much faster, and have it presented in a cleaner fashion, if it's on my local system vs a web page. Granted, I like the centralized storage options (hence, I do use Gmail), but that goes but so far.

Also, here's a bit more on the general state of the int'l angle:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state#International_views

Add to that these bikes are infamous for dropping their chain and hence the only braking system while going downhill at an intersection (they're cheap cruiser bikes).

This is completely false, not a single bike made in the past 10+ years has this characteristic. Furthermore, it's illegal to ride such a bike in California (reg VC 21201a). Google may be paranoid of safety about it's employees (the famous bus-number comes into play here), but the situation you describe with the bikes is a complete fabrication.

Does this remind anyone else of a scene in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry?
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/I_Now_Pronounce_You_Chuck_and_Larry (See the first sentence in the third paragraph of the plot summery)
I just find it (the counter protest) funny that something similar happened in real life.

try the A2000, launched at the same time.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Amiga_2000

5 zorro 2 slots, 2 16-bit isa, 2 8-bit isa. Sadly, it was sold only by way of specialist retailers, and so had less exposure then the A500.

Forgetting the powerful video slot and the even more powerful CPU slot there?

Can't remember those in the IBM XT. You remember the 68030 CPU/mem expansion card from C=? Even the expansion card was expandable! (Years later with 100 times the memory of the original computer).

try the A2000, launched at the same time.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Amiga_2000

5 zorro 2 slots, 2 16-bit isa, 2 8-bit isa. Sadly, it was sold only by way of specialist retailers, and so had less exposure then the A500.

According to Wiki, around a quarter to a half of all internet traffic is torrents.

Generously, if 90% of that is illegal, that means that about 20% to 45% of all traffic on the internet is illegal.

Obviously, what he have here is not a problem with the populace, but a problem with the law itself.

Sadly, the 'War on Copyright Infringement' looks like it's going to be every bit as damaging on the 'War on Drugs', with the possible silver lining that we don't pay for the former with our tax dollars. YET.

I also have no clue about the sharks. I just found the idea funny (sharks with lasers and all).

During WW2 Nazi scientist's did experiments equipping sharks with lasers to hunt allied subs. It was found that the sharks where too uncontrollable and several U boats where lost after the sharks turned on their masters and so the program was finally terminated in 1947. Hitler was not pleased and had several high ranking scientists rounded up and fed to the last two remaining breeder sharks... After the war ended in 1949 and the secret lab was finally raided, the tanks where found to be empty and no one knows what happened to these final two sharks. Some fear they might have escaped to South America or the Bermuda triangle but no credible sightings have ever been reported and so the file was finally closed in 1965. All this came to light in 1997 after several freedom of information acts where filed. There was a rather shocking press conference held and the media outlets covered the story for at least a week so I'm surprised you've never heard about it.

You can read more about the history here. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/operation_vengence_shark

Remember that those equations give you the wavelength of peak intensity - there would likely be some of what we call visible light in that spectrum. There would be a lot more X- and gamma rays from that star than from the sun, through. Can you say mutation-a-go-go?

Using the percentile table here and the spectral energy density function mentioned here, I calculate that a 40000 C star has less than of 1% its radiation in wavelengths that we consider visible. Additionally, the vast majority of that visible light would be at the violet end of the spectrum - talk about blue skies! 90% of its radiation would be in wavelengths shorter than 291 nm (UV), 99% in wavelengths shorter than 710nm (deep red), and 99.9% in wavelengths shorter than 1600nm (IR). Oddly, in space you wouldn't feel warmth from the star (little IR), but would get a heck of a sunburn (lots of UV+). Conversely only about 1% of the spectrum is in visible light and longer wavelengths (800-700nm and up).

You can create graphs of the spectra by evaluating this equation over the desired wavelength range and temperature of interest (I'd suggest scaling them so that all of the irradiance values are a percentage of the max value for that object). You'll see that the spectrum of your uber star is very narrow compared to the Sun or a typical 288K planet in absolute wavelength terms, but that the spectral curves are identical when viewed with the X axis as a logarithmic scale.

Doing your best? Can you please try to work at home first? Here is a map of the country which signed the Kyoto protocol : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2009.png/400px-Kyoto_Protocol_participation_map_2009.png Notice anyone missing?

If you want to sound the least bit credible, for the love of monkey, learn the difference between magazines and clips.

Clips:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Clip_M1-SKS.JPG

Magazines (except for the en bloc on the left):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/M1-M14-M16-magazines.JPG

If you use a clip to load a .

Magazines are what you change to reload the weapon.

In other words, YOU DO NOT CHANGE CLIPS.

If you want to sound the least bit credible, for the love of monkey, learn the difference between magazines and clips.

Clips:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Clip_M1-SKS.JPG

Magazines (except for the en bloc on the left):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/M1-M14-M16-magazines.JPG

If you use a clip to load a .

Magazines are what you change to reload the weapon.

In other words, YOU DO NOT CHANGE CLIPS.

Hm. You're right; you dunno much about child development. I submit, as a bare case study, Lagrange.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Starglider

Pontiac Aztek

Barfy McBarfson, Batman! That looks like someone glued a Prius onto a Hilux.

I remember a very vivid dream from my youth, in which I went into a gas station and bought a pack of Marlboro joints. They looked like cigarettes, and even had filters, and the box looked like a pack of Marlboro 100s except in deep green instead of red.

You weren't dreaming, but they weren't joints. Maybe you were stoned.

Wow, the number is really high. I mean, I should have guessed it from youtube comments, but it's still surprising.

Yeah, that's already happening... even the director who fucked a minor was not extradited to the US by Switzerland...

Wow - you mean experts in subjects with subjective criteria are intrinsically incapable of knowing their own biases and accounting for them?

I can only assume you consider McDonalds cooking and the White House chef objectively equal, since there's no objective way to really compare the two.

Alternatively:
-----
However, although Consumer Reports was eventually forced to compromise, there is little doubt that there were safety compromises on the Suzuki SJ. Suzuki’s own internal documents prove the company knew of the Samurai’s rollover problem, but marketed the car anyway. A Suzuki memorandum dated July 14, 1985 stated: "It is imperative that we develop a crisis plan that will primarily deal with the ‘roll’ factor. Because of the narrow wheel base, similar to the Jeep, the car is bound to turn over."
-----
It's just feasible you've been listening to that left wing radical media I keep hearing Limbaugh talk about again. Wish I could find some of it.

Pug

I found out some years later after some academic success that they have been using my name as an example of the caliber of student that they could produce.

so sue them already

Please link to Incarceration rate per capita, as opposed to gross incarceration rate. (Why? Because it's even more shocking!)

They are also incredibly bad-ass, but they still make kids cry.

Dumb question - What was wrong with the old Rupee symbol?

It wasn't a symbol, but rather just two letters ("Rs"). Which isn't "cool", I guess...

It wasn't a symbol AND Pakistan , Sri Lanka and Nepal all use the name rupee for their currency, and the INR needed to be distinguished from these, since rupee, or Rs. 500, for example is equally valid for the currency of all 4 nations.

Dumb question - What was wrong with the old Rupee symbol?

It wasn't a symbol, but rather just two letters ("Rs"). Which isn't "cool", I guess...

It wasn't a symbol AND Pakistan , Sri Lanka and Nepal all use the name rupee for their currency, and the INR needed to be distinguished from these, since rupee, or Rs. 500, for example is equally valid for the currency of all 4 nations.

Dumb question - What was wrong with the old Rupee symbol?

It wasn't a symbol, but rather just two letters ("Rs"). Which isn't "cool", I guess...

It wasn't a symbol AND Pakistan , Sri Lanka and Nepal all use the name rupee for their currency, and the INR needed to be distinguished from these, since rupee, or Rs. 500, for example is equally valid for the currency of all 4 nations.

Not necessarily:

"The craft will spend six months traveling to Venus, and then it will begin a three-year journey to the far side of the Sun." from wikipedia

and

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Solar_sail#H-reversal_sun_flyby_trajectory

Not necessarily:

"The craft will spend six months traveling to Venus, and then it will begin a three-year journey to the far side of the Sun." from wikipedia

and

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Solar_sail#H-reversal_sun_flyby_trajectory

The parent is missing quite a lot of facts.

You are a citizen of the State _AND_ of the united States. You can Renounce your united States citizen and still keep your State Citizenship. The capitalization difference between united States and United States is IMPORTANT; the Founding Fathers knew of this differences when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and specifically used the phrase "united States of America".
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Us_declaration_independence.jpg

Yes, I know people who have successfully legally opted out Federal Citizenship (and by extension of all Socialist Slave Programs), and never had to legally pay taxes again. Personally, I wouldn't waste years in the sovereignty movement, when it won't really matter in the long run. e.g. Good luck going in debt as you try to educate ignorant judges of this fact, researching the 3 types of U.S. definitions, fighting banks who can't understand the concept that you can still own assets even though you don't have a SSN, trying to get people to understand that the Constitution means shit since you never _signed_ it (_ALL_ contracts must be agreed either written or orally for them to be legally binding), etc.

Ownership is mostly a myth these days anyways. You used to truely own your own land, via allodial title, but the governement didn't like it that you didn't have to pay for the privelege (tax) to use your own land, so that was quickly abolished last century.

Actually, what I've now read on Apple users forums even they are furious. They expected a real fix and they get what, a rubber band you put around the phone? That looks so slick and awesome.

Oh look, it's a Snuggie...

What you have to understand about China is that their government is an expression of their religious philosophies.

Whose philosophy do you support in this picture?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d8/Tianasquare.jpg

Malaria causes about 250 million cases of fever and approximately one million deaths annually. The vast majority of cases occur in children under 5 years old.

Hehe, LOL, what can I say ?

OnLive is a gaming-on-demand platform, announced in 2009[3] and launched in the United States in June 2010. The service is a gaming equivalent of cloud computing: the game is synchronized, rendered, and stored on a remote server and delivered via the Internet.

Sounds very interesting to me, as I'm pretty sick of upgrade treadmills. OnLive would probably also wipe out hacked-client based cheating (though bots and such might still be doable). It would also allow bleeding-edge games to be enjoyed by those without the best hardware, increasing adoption rates for those types of games.

The paper's abstract is actually about how the proteins work that let hard eggshells form.

The mothers of the first chickens were probably Red Jungle Fowl or related birds, and they're not significantly more dinosaur-like.

And there's no reason to assume natural selection based evolution here - it's more likely to have been human-guided crossbreeding between partially domesticated birds of several related species.

You seriously think the there isn't plastic waste in there from any of the other countries that have Northern Pacific coastlines? The currents that cause the concentration of pelagic garbage pass by Paupa New Guinea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, and Russia. Perhaps not all humanity is responsible for it, but the responsibility extends well beyond North America.

... that the number 4 is very unlucky. From a scientific viewpoint, since these things were manufactured in China, perhaps there is some self-fulfilling prophecy going on here.

... that the number 4 is very unlucky. From a scientific viewpoint, since these things were manufactured in China, perhaps there is some self-fulfilling prophecy going on here.

The egg that had the first chicken embryo in it might still have been a not-quite-chicken egg. Depends on what the differences are between the first "real" chicken and its parents - did they include the structure of the eggshells or the interior plumbing of the egg, or was that stuff all the same and maybe the feathers or feet or eyes or something were different. I think the egg would have been close enough to chicken-egg-like that it still wins, even if it's not identical.

Also, it's not clear that chickens evolved through natural selection - proto-chickens did, but the chickens themselves may have come from human-managed crossbreeding of multiple kinds of domesticated birds.

there are lots of legal challenges that are leaning towards that they won't be able to do so.

Those "legal challenges" appear to just melt away when you waive a "National Security" orders around.