First, I got the link backwards (I put "IIRC" in there because I wasn't sure I had it right). It's high level clouds that link cosmic ray flux to increased warming in the skeptics' Solar Cycle theory (they are what are increased by cosmic ray activity, and they reflect IR back without increasing albedo). Though I got the linkage wrong, it doesn't affect what the theory says, only why I thought it said it. My statement of what the theory says stands.
Second, my comment was in regards to the parent assertion that lower activity + increased warming debunks the skeptics' claims. The theory predicts that lower activity would lead to increased warming, so to the extent that his anecdotal evidence is meaningful, which is not much, it would tend to support those claims, not refute them. That was the full extent of the argument I was making, and your response was either negligently or intentionally misleading in mischaracterizing it.
Finally, do you really think that any study I could link to on the web would really lead to a definitive answer all by itself? No, I'm sure you're just looking for opportunities to make rhetorical points. Go find your own evidence from whatever you consider reputable sources.
Never mind that solar activity has trended downwards since 1980, and yet we have experienced the most significant GLOBAL warming since then The solar cycle theory of GW says that decreased solar activity increases temperature, not lowers it. It has to do with, IIRC, the solar magnetic field blocking cosmic ray flux, cosmic rays being a major influence on low level cloud formation, and low-level clouds reflecting infrared back into the atmosphere.
So even your short-term statistical anecdotal evidence supports one of the skeptics' theories.
I won't even bother with your misleading arctic ice assertion, because I'm sure you won't care. Anthropogenic catastrophic global warming is no less a hoax than 9-11 truthers, HIV not causing AIDS, vaccinations causing autism, the "staged" moon landing, UFOs, intelligent design, and Rusty from K5 being Cowboy Neal's secret gay lover...
It should be possible to perform experiments to prove the hypothesis too. He reasons that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual. Except that if our reality was replaced with a VR, then that VR is reality from our prespective. So we have no criteria to distinguish what information processing can and cannot do from what reality itself can or cannot do. What this argument boils down to then is that if we observe reality doing something that reality can't do, then reality is something other than what we thought it was.
This argument is very, very old.
The problem is that our ideas of what reality can and cannot do arises from testing various phenomenon against reality itself. If we observe reality doing "something reality can't do", we assume it really means "reality just did something we didn't know it could do", look for a theory that allows us to understand how reality allows it.
If reality itself is a perfect VR, then the distinction is utterly meaningless. If it is an imperfect VR, such that we can observe the disconnect and deduce the nature of it, then it is a VR that is itself running in a larger reality, and we're reduced to wondering whether we're all stars in some cosmic Truman Show - but it has no bearing on the nature of reality.
It tasted better than all the other dogs in China - sorry, I can't provide a cite for that. I hear the lab mix gives a bit of a bitter aftertaste, anyway. I think it's from all that adrenaline constantly pumping through them.
You "keed", but my dog (Heinlein) is a lab/shar-pei mix. Prior to around the late '70's/early '80's, before they started being imported to the US and elsewhere, shar-peis had gone almost extinct because the Chicoms put a tax on all dogs in China in order to try and relieve the massive food shortages they had created. Food shortage + dog tax = extinction of the most delicious Chinese dog breeds.
It can be done a lot more tastefully. Yeah, they could get about a million red, green, and blue lights and string them up in a grid, with a computer to control each light individually instead of entire strands. Then they could port Firefox into the code that controls the lights and just show the damn Trans Siberian Orchestra house video on it.
You think they have a solid monopoly now? Wait till they have the power of government regulators helping them out.
You really think that a newly created powerful bureaucracy will not be "embraced and extended" by the most powerful, wealthiest player under their purview? This would be in the pocket of Microsoft and turned against Opera, Linux, and "fair use" of IP faster than you can say "where'd all the FOSS go?"
This is infact just like the building codes in place in any civilized town
on the planet that keep houses and offices from falling down on your head. Yes it is, in that the codes themselves are separate from the question whether they should be enforced by governments. Enforce the code and you slightly reduce the problem of renegade builders not using them.
On the other hand, you create incentives for bribery by renegade builders who don't want to use them to underpaid bureaucratic inspectors; you stifle innovation; you take away options from people who would make different cost/benefit analyses; you assure minimal compliance by taking away incentives for exceeding the spec; and you lock in poor practices that were not known as such (or were politically impossible to demonstrate as such) prior to adoption of the code; you create incentives for connected players to tweak the code to their benefit; you raise the barrier for entry to new players - locking many of them out completely; and you create a whole industry of lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants to help you navigate the bureaucracy that only they and their friends seem to be able to make any progress with.
If you think that's a good trade, or want to pretend that the "other hand" could never happen with "proper oversight" and "accountability", you're either dishonest or really clueless.
but they usually do provide an improvement. No, they usually improve the most visible part of the problem space just slightly, while wreaking havoc across the less visible portions.
Don't judge a whole group due to a poor analogy made by one idiot in the crowd. I've judged them on their own merits - that "one idiot" is a fair representation of their typical character and competence, even if he is an extreme example specifically in terms of general tech knowledge.
I don't think it's coding standards that are the point here, or aesthetic standards. It's the functional standards of a published format that is in question here.
Your example would be to require houses to have a certain brand or color of paint. Once they open the door to regulating code, there's nowhere it will stop. But more importantly, they are not competent to regulate even functional specs - and never will be. They'll spend six months debating the minimum diameter tube the browser must support.
There are in fact towns where the color you can paint your house is regulated by the government, and not just historic preservation districts.
...require Microsoft to follow fundamental and open Web standards accepted by the Web-authoring communities...
This one does get interesting. Maybe this is the avenue required to get Microsoft to move closer to compliance on the accepted standards. There certainly hasn't been any bending to pressures from developers."
Yeah, that's what we need, governments enforcing coding standards. Just wait till you get fined $100 for using 4 spaces instead of a tab.
Of course, supporting the software might turn into a secondary revenue stream, or it might be the kernel of a start-up for someone else.
Or, better yet, it could be something he could recruit other businesses into supporting with some cash, so that it increases the odds that he (and the others) will get a quality piece of software ("QPOS"), and that the coders will find a market for books (like "QPOS Unleashed in 24 Hours for Dummies: The Missing Bible in a Nutshell") and for support/customization contracts, thus possibly reducing their demands for cash.
The lottery example was meant to be analogous to looking at the problem from a different perspective, not to literally analogize the universe and the fact that we are possible in it to a lottery.
The alternatives in the post I responded to both came at the problem from a perspective of: given us, what are the chances the universe could support us? That's like saying: given my lottery ticket, what are the odds the number drawn will be the same?
The other perspective says: given the universe, what are the chances that something is possible in it that can say "we"? Which is analogous to: given the lottery number drawn, what are the odds that someone's ticket matches the numbers?
That's the problem with being the ones that get to ask the question, we think that we are the premise, rather than the conclusion.
Or how about: There's only one universe, and we are what happened to be possible in it.
The odds of winning the lottery are tens of millions to one. The chance that someone will win the lottery is 100%.
So can we assume you don't work as a programmer? Afterall, nobody that writes software produces any product whatsoever, just "a collection of bits on a hard drive somewhere".
SL is a game, it is entertainment, and the content of the game is created mostly by the users. Those who produce a better entertainment experience make some money. Those who just want a better entertainment experience pay money for that. It's no different than what Sid Meiers does, except that the work is distributed.
I believe it was planned that way from the start. It ran as "You bet your sweet Aspercreme" for only a few days before being changed. I figure they knew they wouldn't get away with the original jingle for long, but also that it would take the busybodies a while to get their outrage fully in gear. So they planned all along to pull it before it could get booted. Think Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football.
Now, anybody who's heard the original remembers it that way whenever they hear the new, tame version. Would Aspercreme even be on your radar otherwise? And there was another product since then that did essentially the same thing - ran a double-ententre commercial for just a few days before revising it to something similar, but non controversial. It looks like a pattern to me.
Re:Doesn't work on white boards either
on
A GUI For Books
·
· Score: 1
At my last job, they gave me a whiteboard, and I asked them if I could order a black board instead. They said OK, and so I also ordered two erasers (can't clap just one). Old school, but at least you can get a blackboard completely clean, and the chalk doesn't smell like p*ss.
Slashdot Mirror
Second, my comment was in regards to the parent assertion that lower activity + increased warming debunks the skeptics' claims. The theory predicts that lower activity would lead to increased warming, so to the extent that his anecdotal evidence is meaningful, which is not much, it would tend to support those claims, not refute them. That was the full extent of the argument I was making, and your response was either negligently or intentionally misleading in mischaracterizing it.
Finally, do you really think that any study I could link to on the web would really lead to a definitive answer all by itself? No, I'm sure you're just looking for opportunities to make rhetorical points. Go find your own evidence from whatever you consider reputable sources.
So even your short-term statistical anecdotal evidence supports one of the skeptics' theories.
I won't even bother with your misleading arctic ice assertion, because I'm sure you won't care. Anthropogenic catastrophic global warming is no less a hoax than 9-11 truthers, HIV not causing AIDS, vaccinations causing autism, the "staged" moon landing, UFOs, intelligent design, and Rusty from K5 being Cowboy Neal's secret gay lover...
Ooops, I wasn't supposed to let that one out yet.
This argument is very, very old.
The problem is that our ideas of what reality can and cannot do arises from testing various phenomenon against reality itself. If we observe reality doing "something reality can't do", we assume it really means "reality just did something we didn't know it could do", look for a theory that allows us to understand how reality allows it.
If reality itself is a perfect VR, then the distinction is utterly meaningless. If it is an imperfect VR, such that we can observe the disconnect and deduce the nature of it, then it is a VR that is itself running in a larger reality, and we're reduced to wondering whether we're all stars in some cosmic Truman Show - but it has no bearing on the nature of reality.
It tasted better than all the other dogs in China - sorry, I can't provide a cite for that. I hear the lab mix gives a bit of a bitter aftertaste, anyway. I think it's from all that adrenaline constantly pumping through them.
You "keed", but my dog (Heinlein) is a lab/shar-pei mix. Prior to around the late '70's/early '80's, before they started being imported to the US and elsewhere, shar-peis had gone almost extinct because the Chicoms put a tax on all dogs in China in order to try and relieve the massive food shortages they had created. Food shortage + dog tax = extinction of the most delicious Chinese dog breeds.
You really think that a newly created powerful bureaucracy will not be "embraced and extended" by the most powerful, wealthiest player under their purview? This would be in the pocket of Microsoft and turned against Opera, Linux, and "fair use" of IP faster than you can say "where'd all the FOSS go?"
On the other hand, you create incentives for bribery by renegade builders who don't want to use them to underpaid bureaucratic inspectors; you stifle innovation; you take away options from people who would make different cost/benefit analyses; you assure minimal compliance by taking away incentives for exceeding the spec; and you lock in poor practices that were not known as such (or were politically impossible to demonstrate as such) prior to adoption of the code; you create incentives for connected players to tweak the code to their benefit; you raise the barrier for entry to new players - locking many of them out completely; and you create a whole industry of lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants to help you navigate the bureaucracy that only they and their friends seem to be able to make any progress with.
If you think that's a good trade, or want to pretend that the "other hand" could never happen with "proper oversight" and "accountability", you're either dishonest or really clueless.
There are in fact towns where the color you can paint your house is regulated by the government, and not just historic preservation districts.
This one does get interesting. Maybe this is the avenue required to get Microsoft to move closer to compliance on the accepted standards. There certainly hasn't been any bending to pressures from developers."
Yeah, that's what we need, governments enforcing coding standards. Just wait till you get fined $100 for using 4 spaces instead of a tab.
Or, better yet, it could be something he could recruit other businesses into supporting with some cash, so that it increases the odds that he (and the others) will get a quality piece of software ("QPOS"), and that the coders will find a market for books (like "QPOS Unleashed in 24 Hours for Dummies: The Missing Bible in a Nutshell") and for support/customization contracts, thus possibly reducing their demands for cash.
The alternatives in the post I responded to both came at the problem from a perspective of: given us, what are the chances the universe could support us? That's like saying: given my lottery ticket, what are the odds the number drawn will be the same?
The other perspective says: given the universe, what are the chances that something is possible in it that can say "we"? Which is analogous to: given the lottery number drawn, what are the odds that someone's ticket matches the numbers?
That's the problem with being the ones that get to ask the question, we think that we are the premise, rather than the conclusion.
Or how about: There's only one universe, and we are what happened to be possible in it. The odds of winning the lottery are tens of millions to one. The chance that someone will win the lottery is 100%.
If we never get the news, will it actually have exploded, or not?
So can we assume you don't work as a programmer? Afterall, nobody that writes software produces any product whatsoever, just "a collection of bits on a hard drive somewhere". SL is a game, it is entertainment, and the content of the game is created mostly by the users. Those who produce a better entertainment experience make some money. Those who just want a better entertainment experience pay money for that. It's no different than what Sid Meiers does, except that the work is distributed.
I believe it was planned that way from the start. It ran as "You bet your sweet Aspercreme" for only a few days before being changed. I figure they knew they wouldn't get away with the original jingle for long, but also that it would take the busybodies a while to get their outrage fully in gear. So they planned all along to pull it before it could get booted. Think Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football. Now, anybody who's heard the original remembers it that way whenever they hear the new, tame version. Would Aspercreme even be on your radar otherwise? And there was another product since then that did essentially the same thing - ran a double-ententre commercial for just a few days before revising it to something similar, but non controversial. It looks like a pattern to me.
At my last job, they gave me a whiteboard, and I asked them if I could order a black board instead. They said OK, and so I also ordered two erasers (can't clap just one). Old school, but at least you can get a blackboard completely clean, and the chalk doesn't smell like p*ss.
Almost as big as :CueCat, I'll bet. And almost as useful.
Wow, they use white boards in school now?