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User: LogicalError

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  1. Re:Let me be the first on EU Parliament Rejects ACTA In a 663 To 13 Vote · · Score: 1

    It'll take a fortnight before he figures out how long that is ...

  2. Re:Hi folks formwarm Cali and India on Unfriendly Climate Greets Gore At Apple Meeting · · Score: 1

    "GLOBAL" temperature is not the same as "LOCAL" temperature, and it's measured across an entire year. Just because we have an unusual cold year in the northern hemisphere, does not say a damn thing about the validity of AGW. Perhaps if we have cold winters for a decade and the summers aren't much warmer than usual, THEN you can draw your conclusions.

  3. Re:This is Italy on Google Italy Execs Convicted Over YouTube Bullying Video · · Score: 1

    No, believe it or not, but the word mafia originates from arabic. Used to describe those pesky people who fought back when they invaded Sicily. At least, that's what I've been told ;)

  4. Virus at link? on An Early Look At Halo: Reach · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Hmm.. when I checked out the link my virus scanner reported that it blocked a virus on the site..

  5. Re:Fly-by-wireless-link for the win! on What Happens In Vegas Happens In Afghanistan · · Score: 1

    "Death is just a learning experience"?

  6. Re:No wonder you posted AC on Utah Assembly Passes Resolution Denying Climate Change · · Score: 1

    AFAIK it wasn't just cocaine, it was also alcohol abuse if I'm not mistaken..

    And AFAIK (I'm definitely not an expert) cocaine definitely does do some serious brain damage and is a really different category compared to marijuana.

    Marijuana is more like cigarettes, it does damage to your body, it's really stupid to use it, but if it does kill you it will only kill you slowly. AFAIK nobody ever overdosed on marijuana.

    Take this with a grain of salt though, coming from somebody who doesn't even smoke or drink (well maybe one or two drinks a year).

    But anyway, whatever bushes intelligence is, I believe he was easily manipulatable and manipulated by Cheney et al.
    Don't think he meant any harm in anything he did.
    Maybe he did, but there's no way of knowing for sure.

    That's all just my opinion of course.

  7. Re:No wonder you posted AC on Utah Assembly Passes Resolution Denying Climate Change · · Score: 1

    Not to start a flamewar or anything. But I can imagine that with all the substance abuse Bush jr. did when he was younger, I can imagine it could've had certain effects on the workings of his brain..

  8. Re:No wonder you posted AC on Utah Assembly Passes Resolution Denying Climate Change · · Score: 1

    Not to pick sides in this democrat vs republican thing you've got going here, but your previous, republican, president wasn't exactly the epitome of intelligence... yet the democrats are supposedly the stupid ones? ok.

  9. Re:I Don't Think This Was Well Thought Out on Utah Assembly Passes Resolution Denying Climate Change · · Score: 1

    Ok, then. More rain and snow prove global warming. And drought proves global warming. So..... given that any changes in the weather prove global warming, what would disprove global warming?

    First of all, global warming is a terrible name for the thing, global climate change is a better name.
    So in this case, if climate changes, it proves that the climate is changing.

    Second of all, even though the temperature might be going up at a -global- level, weather patterns will change differently at different parts of the planet.
    At some places it'll get dryer, at other places it'll get wetter.
    At some places it'll get warmer, at other places it'll get colder.

    Does it make sense to you now?

  10. Re:When... on Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US · · Score: 1

    As for my "reality has turned out worse than predicted" comment, just look at all the IPCC reports.

    Sorry, I'd rather have a look at real science as compared to the latest IPCC reports which are not based on hard science but on opinion reports by environmental groups ;)

    Well that's definitely convenient for you that if a report doesn't fit into your world view, then it surely must be unscientific!
    Just because they made one or two mistakes in a report of more than 3000 pages, doesn't mean anything. That's actually pretty good!
    If anything, Climatologists have been complaining that the IPCC reports have been watered down by politicians.

    Why? No where before in earth's history has CO2 been a driver of temperature .... and that CO2 for the first time in history is the driver, not the result, of increasing temperatures.

    Err.. I'm not sure where you're getting that, but that's bullocks.
    That goes completely against everything I've read and heard from experts in the field.

    PS: "huge"? Where? The CO2 levels in our atmosphere have been more than an order of magnitude higher before without ill effects ("runaway" scenarios)

    The last time CO2 levels where as high as now was about 15 million years ago,
    and sea levels where also about 22 to 36 meters higher.
    Global temperature was 5 to 10 degrees Celsius warmer.
    I never said anything about "runaway" scenarios.
    I did mention that there is a danger that we tip the balance that gave us this ridiculously stable climate for the last 20.000 years, compared to how the climate was before.

  11. Brilliant on Operation Titstorm Hits the Streets · · Score: 1

    So by giving the Australian government more ammunition to pass this piece of legislation, how does this help?

  12. Re:When... on Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US · · Score: 1

    Again, true. However, when it comes to AGW and the scenarios being reported - and acted upon by politicians.

    Acted upon by politicians? That's almost a Contradiction in terminis! :)

    the ONLY data behind those scenarios is the output from models

    Yes, that's why there are thousands of pages in IPCC reports..

    Wrong. You're either ignorant or lying deliberately. Why?

    You know we can start insulting and name calling here, but that won't do any good in any way.

    From my point of view I could use the exact same sentence back at you.

    As for my "reality has turned out worse than predicted" comment, just look at all the IPCC reports. Every time they release a new report, roughly their worst cases turned out to be the best case in the next report.

    You're assuming we know of all the inputs and outputs to Earth, which we don't.

    Like I said before, science is always a best guess.

    If you want a 100% accuracy you'll have to wait until it's too late to do anything, does that sound rational to you?

    Your position is however the same as the one behind AGW - "something happened and we don't know the cause - it must be due to us!" which is, of course, laughable.

    No, my position is: when you look at the correlation between CO2 and temperature, which records, theories and models suggest to be tied together, and then look at the -huge- increase of CO2 released since the industrial revolution, then you should be worried.

    If climatology wasn't so extremely infected by a "holier than thou" attitude

    Pot.. kettle?

    and if some of its proponents stepped down from their ivory towers

    I'm sure a lot of people who didn't believe in it before believe it now. What's your point?

    [with regards to the debate about climate change being "over"]

    Well I think this is mainly because we seem to have a short time frame to take any meaningful action. People get emotional when they think time is running out and people aren't listening or simply don't want to listen.

    It's gotten to the point where talking about climate change is almost a religious discussion.

    I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. - Phil Jones, CRU

    Most seem to disagree with him: http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

  13. Re:When... on Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US · · Score: 1

    I do. Science is based on observation, refutation of hypothesis etc. Creating a model and claiming that it's science even though it hasn't been validated in any way (anyone can fit an algorithm to historical data - that's easy) is a sham, however.

    So you're assuming that climatologists don't make observations, don't form hypothesis which they then peer review? Are you for real? There's more to climatology than just "a model" As for validation, the models that climatologists have been using have not been correct over time, that's true. Reality, so far, has turned out to be worse than predicted. (and no one cold winter doesn't mean anything about -global- temperature) Besides all that, what you expect? Double blind tests? We only have one world! Science is always about best guesses, and this is our best guess. To ignore and belittle it is unwise to say the least.

    Btw, the last part of your post is in error. It's not easier to predict global changes and the world (of which I assume you mean the Earth) is absolutely not a closed system.

    In a sense, when comparing climatology to meteorology, it is. Because at a global level you can determine, roughly, what the heat input and output is. And when you take that into account, anything you do from then on is essentially a closed system. At a local level -nothing- is isolated. That's why climatologists are way more certain about global trends compared to local trends. I may not have been correct to the letter when I said that, but I'm certainly correct in what I was trying to convey.

  14. Re:When... on Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US · · Score: 1

    the numbers strongly suggest

    Numbers from models. Models without predictive power.

    That these models have no predictive power is your opinion. These models where designed to make an attempt at predicting the future of climate with the current day knowledge, so these are actually a best guess at what's to come. Can we ask for anything more? And don't confuse with predicting global temperature change with predicting the weather. Local changes are harder to predict than global changes, since the world as a whole is, sort of, a closed system.

    Do science.

    Good advice, maybe you should take your own.

  15. Re:When... on Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US · · Score: 1

    First alarmists were preaching global cooling, then global warming.

    Keep in mind that journalists don't always convey what the scientific community is trying to say very accurately. I'll try to explain it to you. In the last 20.000 the climate has been really stable, ridiculously stable compared to the climate before that. Before the temperature would go up and down like a roller coaster ride, I'm not talking about centuries here, I'm talking about periods of decades to years The thing that keeps climatologists up all night is that the numbers strongly suggest that human activity seems to bringing us back to this unstable climate. Why is that bad? Well it would, for example, make modern agriculture extremely challenging, and feeding the world would become more and more difficult over time.

    and now that global warming is proving to be a farce

    And it looks like the propagandists are getting better and better at their game. And you fell for it.

  16. Re:Premature on Gov't Proposes "National Climate Service" For the US · · Score: 1

    Climate science is in its infancy

    Are you kidding? Climate science goes way back to at least a hundred years ago!

    ... as anyone who has been really following the "Global Warming" debate knows

    The problem is that the "debate" is 99.99% among the people who have no background in the material (or worse; have a reason to bring confusion into the 'debate'), and then make all kinds of bold claims without working through the details.

    but the greenhouse gas aspect of it is still very much up in the air

    No, that's actually the best understood part of Climatology, and it's not "up in the air" at all. Did you know the greenhouse theory is already more than a 100 years old?

  17. It's about used games on Game Industry Vets On DRM · · Score: 5, Insightful

    DRM, nowadays at least, isn't so much about piracy but more about killing the used games market. Of course they'll tell you it's about piracy, but it really isn't

  18. Re:Gee, let's outsource governing to private firms on NASA To Propose Commercial Space Initiative · · Score: 1

    Why do Americans (most? I don't know, that's my impression anyway) when they throw up socialism, communism, marxism and even with nazism, they usually seem to have absolutely no clue what they're talking about. Didn't they get this topic at school? (Horrible teachers?) Or is this is because of decades of anti-soviet propaganda? Not intended as flame bait, just honestly wondering why. disclaimer: I do not belong to any of the above political groups ;o)

  19. Re:Oh God, not the bourbon. on Organ Damage In Rats From Monsanto GMO Corn · · Score: 1

    Any shareholder ... is a fool of an investor.

    No it's not foolish, it's short term thinking. The same kind of short term thinking which is the norm in, oh, just about everything we've been doing the last 20 years or so. It gave us such wonderful things as the financial crisis, our addiction to oil and the continued destruction of the eco system we actually happen to live in. Okay.... I take that back, it IS foolish

  20. Re:incompetence on One Expert Pegs Yearly Cost of IT Failure At $6.2 Trillion · · Score: 1

    No, it means that the monopoly provider of the world's computer desktop software is greedy and takes profits at the expense of progress, interoperability and stability.

    Oh please, so all software bugs are suddenly the fault of microsoft? I've seen plenty of bugs in open source projects and I'm pretty sure no microsoft engineer had anything to do with that

  21. Hmmm.. on 22 Million Missing Bush White House Emails Found · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Don't get me wrong, I actually like Obama, but isn't it somewhat... suspicious?.. that these emails where found a year after Obama's administration took office.. right around the time when his ratings are at an all time low?

  22. Re:Now let the Endless French Surrender jokes begi on French Military Contributes To Thunderbird 3 · · Score: 1

    Well, you don't hear many jokes about Poland, The Netherlands or Belgium being invaded by the Germans.

    The Netherlands never stood a chance. We had canons more than a century old for protection! When we refused to surrender they just completely levelled Rotterdam and threatened to do the same to other major cities. If we continued to fight, there wouldn't have been much left of the Netherlands and we'd still have lost.

  23. Re:It's over... it's all over on French Military Contributes To Thunderbird 3 · · Score: 1

    Also keep in mind that the French just lost an entire generation in a very brutal war (world war I) and weren't exactly in the mood to repeat that -horrific- experience

  24. Re:Latency on OnLive and Gaikai — How To Stop a Gaming Revolution · · Score: 1

    You argue that latency is not going to be overcome anytime soon.

    Yes, pretty soon now we'll just increase the speed of light... oh wait

  25. Re:We have the technology... on How Much Longer Will Physical Game Distribution Survive? · · Score: 1

    Well as long as steam keeps their prices 30-70% higher than retail for most Europeans (and sometimes as much as 200% higher prices for Europeans compared to the prices in America) Steam won't replace retail any time soon in Europe. It used to be cheaper.. but then they decided last December it was okay to **** their European customers over by simply replacing the Dollar sign with the Euro sign, keeping the prices the same in Europe when prices drop in America (& European retail) & prices where already inflated for Europeans in the first place. Even valve's own games are cheaper in retail!