According to the NOAA animation, my particular area, though approximately sub-polar, is expected to be drier than in the past, not wetter. The last three years have been the opposite.
I am aware that these are only approximations based on models. But in my experience, my particular region has so far not done anything even close to what was predicted for the last 10 years or so.
"Interestingly this is exactly what is being observed."
Well, I will play Devil's Advocate and make the argument that others have made to me about the same kinds of observations: weather is not climate, and we cannot judge by one year alone.
I did think the situation in my area was worthy of mention, as an anecdote, but I don't expect anyone to try to draw real conclusions from it.
"For most of the USA the likely outcome appears to be less rainfall..."
Do you have a source for this? It certainly contradicts what I read about it. I am not far from Canada, and while it has been unusually warm this year, it has also been very abnormally humid.
"That's supposed to make us feel better? Talk about a distinction without a difference..."
No, I wasn't trying to make anybody feel better... just to point out where the real vulnerability is. These "hacks" of Bitcoin sites don't reflect on Bitcoin itself. The real issues have nothing to do with Bitcoin, other than it's the thing being stolen.
When someone robs a bank, people don't go around screaming "Cash! It's all cash's fault!" No, they talk about failure of bank security.
"IANAH, but I'm pretty sure the communal toilet facilities (which were also uni-sex) in Roman baths had a shared sponge-on-a-stick."
Could be that the commoners used a shared sponge. I had only read about the Legionnaires. I know that they were each issued one of their own. I imagine it was probably pretty embarrassing to lose your sponge and have to borrow one.
Not only would most of our volunteer soldiers refuse to fight their own people, they actually took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not whatever bozo happens to be President or Congressman on that particular day.
"Actually I wouldn't be surprised if both of your fake examples were true, by the same logic that you try and argue about guns."
Why do you assume that his examples are "fake"?
I live in an area where the winters can be harsh at times. I keep jumper cables, usually some extra clothing, some form of shelter (space blankets, sometimes sleeping bag and tent), food, and bottled water in the trunk of my car.
Granted, that means that the water sometimes gets frozen... you have to use sturdy bottles and leave some airspace. But that's kind of beside the point.
Apparently you don't live in such an area, or if you do, don't take what I would consider to be even rudimentary precautions.
"The problem lies right there, the fact that you feel that you need to defend yourself implies that the system has an underlying issue that should be solved."
Insisting on retaining the right to defend oneself is not even remotely the same as feeling a need to do so.
"They used the technology for centuries to delight and entertain people...and nothing more."
Not really. That came later. The originally used the technology to convince the populace that the local ruler had invincible magical powers, so you'd better not fuck with him.
Pretty much the same purpose that bullets are used for.
"The mistake is thinking that because the "real" economy needs a "bank" or a "exchange" then a virtual one just naturally of course without thinking needs to replicate the real world."
Even the "real" economy does not need them... but that's another issue. Your point is exactly the same one I was going to make.
Since Bitcoin is a secure protocol, and technically a bitcoin "belongs" to whoever holds the hash, then "banking" them is just plain stupid. There isn't a single reason in the world to do so. As long as you keep your own data protected, your own hard drive is just as good a "bank" as any other.
"Another post about bitcoin service being hacked..."
But have you noticed? Just like with the banks and finance companies, the big data breaches haven't been due to "hacking" accounts... they have almost invariably been related to gaining access to unencrypted data... which is a failure of the "victim" institution. I would not even be surprised if most of them were inside jobs.
Similar example: a bank some years ago "lost" some hard drives containing an unencrypted backup, while they were being transported to off-site storage. They didn't even claim it was stolen... just somehow "lost". Well, what the hell, eh? Any money that got stolen as a result is guaranteed by the government.
Bitcoin is a secure protocol. The recent "hacks" had to do with other data that was not adequately protected by the holders of the bitcoins. Those people are fully responsible. It is not a failure on the part of Bitcoins themselves.
Human failure is where this so-called "web of trust" breaks down. Stuff sent over the internet is (or can be, anyway), pretty darned secure. What happens to it once it gets there is where the big point of failure has been.
A "web of trust" means nothing if the people you are ultimately supposed to trust are careless with your data once they get it.
"Preferable, although I'm not all that sure about the communal-wet-sponge-on-a-stick idea."
It wasn't communal. Each Roman soldier had his own sponge on a stick, carried in a leather holster.
The public latrines had troughs of running water. After you did your business, you rinsed off your sponge in the trough. Of course, somebody upstream might be washing off HIS sponge, too... presumably they knew enough to watch out for this, but maybe not.
As primitive as it may seem, it was a breakthrough in sanitation and hygiene.
" I have thousands of people using my app every day... In an average month, I receive $3 in donations... Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to profit off of this version of my software and I appreciate even the $1.00 donations. But the data here illustrates my point nicely.
No, it doesn't.
The only way it would illustrate your point at all -- nicely or otherwise -- were if you could demonstrate that people felt it was worth more, but refused to pay more.
How much do they actually use it once they've got it? How well do they like it? Maybe they really think it's only worth $0.001 per copy. How would we know?
My wife is a teacher. Do you know what teachers do during "Teacher Work Days"?
I didn't imply they weren't working, or anything like that. I simply said that those days when students are absent should be made up with further attendance days.
According to NCES, the average school year is 180 days long, so they miss 15 of those days due to holidays or whatever. (Personally, I think it's more than that due to "special" days like teachers' conferences, but let's go with that.)
So... let the school year be 15 days longer to compensate, and let them get their full 195 days in.
Leave summers alone, and instead actually make the students (and teachers) attend during the school year!
These days they have so many days off, due to things like parent-teacher conferences, teachers' meetings, holidays, etc. etc. that it's just ridiculous.
Letting kids out for the summer might no be so bad if they actually had to BE in school the rest of the year.
I suppose sooner or later, someone had to suggest the "duct tape" approach to space suit repair. And why not? A small puncture or tear would probably not compromise insulation very much, so just sealing the hole temporarily would seem to be a good solution.
Well, I think they're talking about hard-shell suits here, so I am assuming a "scrape" is probably a breach more like a scratch or tear than a hole.
Unless you have some kind of seal at the neck area, an "open cycle" breathing system is probably too inefficient. You have too great a volume of air that you are exhaling directly into. That in turn would probably cause serious moisture problems, as well as having to scrub CO2 from the air in the suit (as opposed to just supplying more fresh air ala Scuba).
"the battle was won ENTIRELY on record time. when beta came out with long-play modes, they were suddenly at less quality than VHS for the same record time."
Horsepuckey. The battle was won on perceived price / performance. Now, don't misunderstand: the Betamax DID outperform VHS in many ways, particularly in the beginning. But most users at the time did not see those "frills" (like a nice and static "freeze-frame", and smoother fast-forward and rewind preview) as being important enough to justify the additional price. What they wanted was to watch videotapes reasonably well, cheap.
Yes, the Beta was better. But no, the PERCEIVED value to most consumers was not sufficient to justify the price.
That may well have been due to nothing more than weak advertizing on the part of Sony.
Jobs' sense of his specialness and his rush to get things done before he died was there way before the cancer was found.
This.
On his return to the company, he revamped apple -- very solidly and successfully -- before he was diagnosed with cancer. That he continued to do so ANYWAY is a tribute to his already held belief in himself and what he was doing... not a result of some kind of psychological compensation because he had a terminal disease. Sorry, but but in our macroscopic world -- at least at our current level of technology -- you cant take something that happened after time t and say it caused something before time t.
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According to the NOAA animation, my particular area, though approximately sub-polar, is expected to be drier than in the past, not wetter. The last three years have been the opposite.
I am aware that these are only approximations based on models. But in my experience, my particular region has so far not done anything even close to what was predicted for the last 10 years or so.
"Interestingly this is exactly what is being observed."
Well, I will play Devil's Advocate and make the argument that others have made to me about the same kinds of observations: weather is not climate, and we cannot judge by one year alone.
I did think the situation in my area was worthy of mention, as an anecdote, but I don't expect anyone to try to draw real conclusions from it.
"For most of the USA the likely outcome appears to be less rainfall..."
Do you have a source for this? It certainly contradicts what I read about it. I am not far from Canada, and while it has been unusually warm this year, it has also been very abnormally humid.
"That's supposed to make us feel better? Talk about a distinction without a difference..."
No, I wasn't trying to make anybody feel better... just to point out where the real vulnerability is. These "hacks" of Bitcoin sites don't reflect on Bitcoin itself. The real issues have nothing to do with Bitcoin, other than it's the thing being stolen.
When someone robs a bank, people don't go around screaming "Cash! It's all cash's fault!" No, they talk about failure of bank security.
"IANAH, but I'm pretty sure the communal toilet facilities (which were also uni-sex) in Roman baths had a shared sponge-on-a-stick."
Could be that the commoners used a shared sponge. I had only read about the Legionnaires. I know that they were each issued one of their own. I imagine it was probably pretty embarrassing to lose your sponge and have to borrow one.
This.
Not only would most of our volunteer soldiers refuse to fight their own people, they actually took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not whatever bozo happens to be President or Congressman on that particular day.
"Actually I wouldn't be surprised if both of your fake examples were true, by the same logic that you try and argue about guns."
Why do you assume that his examples are "fake"?
I live in an area where the winters can be harsh at times. I keep jumper cables, usually some extra clothing, some form of shelter (space blankets, sometimes sleeping bag and tent), food, and bottled water in the trunk of my car.
Granted, that means that the water sometimes gets frozen... you have to use sturdy bottles and leave some airspace. But that's kind of beside the point.
Apparently you don't live in such an area, or if you do, don't take what I would consider to be even rudimentary precautions.
If so, watch out. Evolution can be a bitch.
"The problem lies right there, the fact that you feel that you need to defend yourself implies that the system has an underlying issue that should be solved."
Insisting on retaining the right to defend oneself is not even remotely the same as feeling a need to do so.
Two different things.
"I don't think firing it down a hollowed tube was all that obvious."
I don't think he meant "obvious" to the people of the time, but the next step that is obvious to us, using hindsight.
After all, his whole point was that it took a long time to take those "obvious" steps.
"They used the technology for centuries to delight and entertain people...and nothing more."
Not really. That came later. The originally used the technology to convince the populace that the local ruler had invincible magical powers, so you'd better not fuck with him.
Pretty much the same purpose that bullets are used for.
"The mistake is thinking that because the "real" economy needs a "bank" or a "exchange" then a virtual one just naturally of course without thinking needs to replicate the real world."
Even the "real" economy does not need them... but that's another issue. Your point is exactly the same one I was going to make.
Since Bitcoin is a secure protocol, and technically a bitcoin "belongs" to whoever holds the hash, then "banking" them is just plain stupid. There isn't a single reason in the world to do so. As long as you keep your own data protected, your own hard drive is just as good a "bank" as any other.
"Another post about bitcoin service being hacked..."
But have you noticed? Just like with the banks and finance companies, the big data breaches haven't been due to "hacking" accounts... they have almost invariably been related to gaining access to unencrypted data... which is a failure of the "victim" institution. I would not even be surprised if most of them were inside jobs.
Similar example: a bank some years ago "lost" some hard drives containing an unencrypted backup, while they were being transported to off-site storage. They didn't even claim it was stolen... just somehow "lost". Well, what the hell, eh? Any money that got stolen as a result is guaranteed by the government.
Bitcoin is a secure protocol. The recent "hacks" had to do with other data that was not adequately protected by the holders of the bitcoins. Those people are fully responsible. It is not a failure on the part of Bitcoins themselves.
Human failure is where this so-called "web of trust" breaks down. Stuff sent over the internet is (or can be, anyway), pretty darned secure. What happens to it once it gets there is where the big point of failure has been.
A "web of trust" means nothing if the people you are ultimately supposed to trust are careless with your data once they get it.
"Preferable, although I'm not all that sure about the communal-wet-sponge-on-a-stick idea."
It wasn't communal. Each Roman soldier had his own sponge on a stick, carried in a leather holster.
The public latrines had troughs of running water. After you did your business, you rinsed off your sponge in the trough. Of course, somebody upstream might be washing off HIS sponge, too... presumably they knew enough to watch out for this, but maybe not.
As primitive as it may seem, it was a breakthrough in sanitation and hygiene.
"With transparent they'd be surprised."
Well, they wouldn't see you coming, that's for sure.
" I have thousands of people using my app every day... In an average month, I receive $3 in donations... Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to profit off of this version of my software and I appreciate even the $1.00 donations. But the data here illustrates my point nicely.
No, it doesn't.
The only way it would illustrate your point at all -- nicely or otherwise -- were if you could demonstrate that people felt it was worth more, but refused to pay more.
How much do they actually use it once they've got it? How well do they like it? Maybe they really think it's only worth $0.001 per copy. How would we know?
The majority of monitors are also monitored by the community. That's what block lists are for.
If they can't connect to you, they can't see what you have.
I know of one maintained block list for "unfriendlies" that has over 200,000 addresses. I have no doubt some are bigger.
My wife is a teacher. Do you know what teachers do during "Teacher Work Days"?
I didn't imply they weren't working, or anything like that. I simply said that those days when students are absent should be made up with further attendance days.
5 days a week for 3/4 of the year is 195 days.
According to NCES, the average school year is 180 days long, so they miss 15 of those days due to holidays or whatever. (Personally, I think it's more than that due to "special" days like teachers' conferences, but let's go with that.)
So... let the school year be 15 days longer to compensate, and let them get their full 195 days in.
Leave summers alone, and instead actually make the students (and teachers) attend during the school year!
These days they have so many days off, due to things like parent-teacher conferences, teachers' meetings, holidays, etc. etc. that it's just ridiculous.
Letting kids out for the summer might no be so bad if they actually had to BE in school the rest of the year.
I suppose sooner or later, someone had to suggest the "duct tape" approach to space suit repair. And why not? A small puncture or tear would probably not compromise insulation very much, so just sealing the hole temporarily would seem to be a good solution.
Well, I think they're talking about hard-shell suits here, so I am assuming a "scrape" is probably a breach more like a scratch or tear than a hole.
Unless you have some kind of seal at the neck area, an "open cycle" breathing system is probably too inefficient. You have too great a volume of air that you are exhaling directly into. That in turn would probably cause serious moisture problems, as well as having to scrub CO2 from the air in the suit (as opposed to just supplying more fresh air ala Scuba).
"the battle was won ENTIRELY on record time. when beta came out with long-play modes, they were suddenly at less quality than VHS for the same record time."
Horsepuckey. The battle was won on perceived price / performance. Now, don't misunderstand: the Betamax DID outperform VHS in many ways, particularly in the beginning. But most users at the time did not see those "frills" (like a nice and static "freeze-frame", and smoother fast-forward and rewind preview) as being important enough to justify the additional price. What they wanted was to watch videotapes reasonably well, cheap.
Yes, the Beta was better. But no, the PERCEIVED value to most consumers was not sufficient to justify the price.
That may well have been due to nothing more than weak advertizing on the part of Sony.
"What are children's stories?"
THESE are children's stories. Which is why each and every one of those other adult companies should be ashamed at having been featured in them.
Jobs' sense of his specialness and his rush to get things done before he died was there way before the cancer was found.
This.
On his return to the company, he revamped apple -- very solidly and successfully -- before he was diagnosed with cancer. That he continued to do so ANYWAY is a tribute to his already held belief in himself and what he was doing... not a result of some kind of psychological compensation because he had a terminal disease. Sorry, but but in our macroscopic world -- at least at our current level of technology -- you cant take something that happened after time t and say it caused something before time t.
"10,000 people disagree with you."
Well, if you want to put it that way: approximately 6,973,728,433 people do not disagree with me.