I don't have high hopes that Apple will "get iTunes right". In fact, I predict a disaster that will have me looking for another entertainment hub.
iTunes has been the music player version of the large A/V companies. Mostly useless new features, and they can be summed up in the word "bloat". I stopped updating years ago, especially after a couple of spectacularly botched installation that fouled up the registry on a windows machine (had to go through and remove each and every reference to itunes, apple, and one of their protocols (can't recall the name ATM). The mac it occurred on required an OS re-install.
I have an iPod touch, and that's the only reason I continue to use iTunes. It's slightly amusing when the music player of dubious choice can't really be considered "running in the background" simply because of the wealth of system resources it consumes.
'The new iTunes is taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right'
Translation: "It's taking much longer then expected to fix our badly rushed maps debacle, and because our egos demanded the sacrifice of Forstall, our focus has been elsewhere. We need a little more time before we release the new itunes with it's new and unwanted maps feature!"
Garrus and Boba Fett standing next to each other as a thresher maw eats the sarlacc? Han Solo shuffling crews around to the broken mass relays? Joker and C-3PO duking it out for the affection of EDI?
Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
While I was referring strictly to the Star Wars games (noteably KOTOR), those words do paint some vivid pictures =D
Knowing the cast is easy:) Figuring out their roles, that is the trick. Anyone care to guess ?
Felicia Day as....
Alexis Denisof as...
Summer Glau as...
Eliza Dushku as...
Fran Kranz as...
Already guessed at Nathan Fillion's role, and I'll jest at a few more:
Felicia Day as Jar Jar Binks, finally making the character less hate-able.
Summer Glau as Jaina Solo
Eliza Dushku as Mara Jade
Emperor is dead. Vader comes back from the Dark Side and also dies. Luke & Leia know they're siblings.
Seriously, what's the plot going to be?
There was basically a plot clue in Episode 6. Luke's hand had turned black. He succumbed to rage while defeating his father (using the "dark side", taking the first steps). Basically he will rediscover the ways of the Sith while Leia becomes the "mother" of a new order of Jedi.
Yeah, hands tend to turn black when you put gloves on them to hide your robotic prosthesis.
I assume you've never seen a disney movie before? Someones daughter (Han and Leia?) is now a disney princess, and being a young woman her only purpose in life in the movie is finding herself a man, about 8 musical numbers, dancing ewoks and dancing jar jar, the new happy couple sails into the sunset on a landcruiser with mr tall dark and handsome and they live happily ever after, finally licensed pink backpacks with the princess's face marketed to my daughter. Great stuff.
You forgot the evil sith lord who's:
a(loved by all the other girls)
b(ugly and scheming to take over her father's planet)
c(just plain evil)
and he has to be thwarted before jar jar can do his happy dance. However it pans out, I'll be happy as long as Jar Jar is dead by the end of it =D
What if...
Disney would fix the crap Lucas changed in the first movies back to they way they were and re-made Episodes I to III (especially getting rid of the crap acting by the two young Anakin Skywalker actors).
Then, maybe, I would see Episode VII.
Episodes I-III? *waves hand* Those aren't the Episodes you're looking for. Move along.
Unholy, actually. Darth Plagueis created him from midiclorians, so he was intended to be a soulless bastard who would replace Sidious/Palpatine from the get-go. Palpatine recognized him for what he was after having already slain Plagueis and worked to corrupt him (it didn't take much pushing to make him slaughter innocents).
Which just goes to show that midiclorians are a gateway drug to things one might consider...unnatural.
Maybe they'll have a genius moment and hire the some of the scribes from Bioware. They've captured the flavor of the original trilogy far better then Lucas did in the prequels.
Hint: It doesn't involve predicting when or how large an earthquake will be, or the probability of one, which is the incorrect idea you appear to be stuck on.
Let me just quote the wp article, it's decent introduction to the topic: "Quantitative risk assessment requires calculations of two components of risk (R):, the magnitude of the potential loss (L), and the probability (p) that the loss will occur.".
Probability the loss will occur in an earthquake, not the probability of an earthquake, seeing as we can't predict earthquakes. Quoting an article and understanding it are two different things.
I'm not going to get involved in your mudslinging...
Sling the first mud and accuse the other of mudslinging, you should be a politician!
...but I can't help but add that I'm pretty sure that only one of us has studied mathematics and actually works as a mathematician.
Have a nice day, sir!
I work in a field that at times involves risk assessment myself, admittedly not the seismic type. While your math is undoubtedly greater then mine, it's only a portion of risk assessment. Knowing where to get your numbers from and what points to focus on (IE, the ones you CAN gather useful data from) is the larger part. Obviously, our viewpoints are at odds, but I can at least agree with your last comment, a good day to you as well =D
If your house is built well, inside it is the safest place. If your house is not built well, you are fucked.
Now you're just so insistent on being "right" that you're missing the obvious. If your house is not built well, outside your house becomes the safest place for you. Your statements would make it seem like a good idea to run INTO a house during an earthquake if you were already outside.
But the point here is that I cannot see how blaming the scientists for the deaths is remotely fair, since the implication is that had the advice been different lives would have been saved, and further that the effect of different advice could reasonably have been foreseen. I don't think either of those statements are true. I think people died simply because they were living in unsafe buildings in a seismic zone.
I apologize if you are unable to see things from the perspective of others. The implication is if the advice had never been given, or if the panel had not been convened at all, more people would have survived. That is partially why this is so serious. The panel meant to reduce risk actually increased it, due to their political motivations.
Are you suggesting that the resident who was 'predicting' the earthquakes was right? Not in the sense of being accidentally correct (wasn't he out by 100km or something anyway), but in the sense of actually having a reliable earthquake prediction method?
Not in the slightest. His presence is only brought up to show the misdirected motives of the panel. This wasn't merely "earthquake prediction is not currently possible so please ignore the ravings those who claim it is, and here's what you CAN do to reduce your risk and increase your safety". It was effectively "That guy doesn't know what he's talking about, a large earthquake is actually LESS likely right now because of the small tremblers redusing stress on the faults. There is no danger, why doesn't everybody get drunk!"
Let me ask you this - what should the risk assessment panel's advice been, and how would things have worked out differently?
You're asking me? A non-seismologist, non-scientist? Sad. While I can (sometimes) recognize when a government panel uses their political power to squash a bug (the resident), I'm not well equipped to dispense the particulars of risk assessment in a earthquake preparedness settings. I already addressed what the general nature or focus of the assessments were above, and Risk Assessment is about recognizing what you can do NOW (by adjusting either situations (buildings, survival supplies) or during (shelter or evacuation plan, depending on the situation).
If your risk assessment says "This house WILL collapse in a large earthquake, and it will do so in it's entirety", do you think they would recommend standing in a door way or under a table? Or would they recommend placing the bed near a large open window for a quick exit?
Because it's true. When has running out into the street during a large earthquake - of the type that causes buildings to fall down - helped? And I don't mean those stories about how everyone in the village would run into the square whenever there was a tremor. Those are examples of it helping when there wasn't a large earthquake.
I recall a family that survived a brick house's collapse in '87 because they ran out during a 6.1 quake. The advice for the area was to take shelter under a table or in a doorway, but that would have been their end. I'm not ignorant of quakes as I used to live in a very seismically active area, and if the closest doorway leads to the outside, standing in it is pointless when the larger safety is only steps past.
How about ways to mitigate the risk in the event of an earthquake?
Like building houses that don't fall down, for instance?
I'm not sure what you're getting at in your last paragraph, but I don't see how anyone can be at fault except those who allow the populace to live in dangerous housing in an earthquake zone. You suggest that the scientists on the panel should have, I don't know, told everyone that an earthquake was imminent?
How about basic earthquake preparedness? Wasn't even mentioned. How about what to expect if a large scale quake was to occur? Barely touched on. Those should have been the focus of the risk assessment panel, instead they focused on earthquake prediction because they wanted to discredit/silence the resident who was predicting them.
Perhaps you should endeavor to understand even the most basic ideas of risk assessment before you attempt debating this point again.
There is no known way to quantify the probability of an earthquake. There is no known way to predict the size of an earthquake, i. e. the amaount of damage an earthquake will cause. Hence there is no way to quantify the risk. Do you think that your insults strengthen your point?
You think it an insult because I point out where your knowledge is lacking? Ignorance is solved by learning. Those who are ignorant and refuse to learn, they earn themselves the title of "stupid". Where will you place yourself? Learn what risk assessment is before you humiliate yourself further.
Hint: It doesn't involve predicting when or how large an earthquake will be, or the probability of one, which is the incorrect idea you appear to be stuck on.
Which is a pointless exercise. A large earthquake can hit at any time, with or without prior 'smaller' shakes. The only way these people would have been safe is if they had spent their entire lives sleeping in their cars.
How do you come to the conclusion that a routine that saved lives in the past is pointless? Actually, how dare you? If it saved, or could have saved lives, that's the only point that needs to be made.
And the real reason so many people died is nothing to do with a lack of earthquake prediction, which is impossible, but because they were all living in unreinforced sub-standard earthquake-prone ancient buildings. The people that built those, or allowed people to continue living in them, or issued building consents for them, or however it works in Italy, are the ones culpable.
These scientists were on a government-appointed risk-assessment committee. They were supposed to be the ones giving the advice. Not even attempting to predict earthquakes, but assessing and communicating the factors of risk in the area. That would fulfill your aspect of "however if works in Italy". The advice they gave however, was "no danger", go drink some wine, and that many small tremors are favorable because they relieve seismic stress. How about ways to mitigate the risk in the event of an earthquake?
Moreover, it did not issue any specific recommendations for community preparedness, according to Picuti, thereby failing in its legal obligation "to avoid death, injury and damage, or at least to minimize them".
There seems to be a general notion here that 'running into the street' is a good plan when you're living in a big old stone building and you get an earthquake. This is false - when a bit earthquake hits you have literally seconds to get clear, and you're not going to make it. Dive under a table, stand in a doorway, and hope. The best advice if you live in a seismic zone is to live in safe housing. Nice wooden single-story houses do not fall down in earthquakes. I'd suggest living in those.
You are operating on advice given to you that is appropriate for your area. I suspect you don't live in stone housing, because I've received that very same advice, and none of the homes in my region were stone medieval housing. Unless you're a seismologist or on a risk assessment panel, I'd wager your received knowledge is good for your circumstances but needing adjustments in others. Sadly, it appears you gave more direction then those seismologists in Italy.
Elevated radon levels can't be used to predict earthquakes in any way. A series of small earthquakes can not be used to predict a big earthquake. There were 2 comparable earthquakes in that region in the last 1000 years. The situation one day before the big quake was from a scientific point of view exactly the same as on every other day the last couple of thousand years.
And now your focus is on diminishing him. However, another more open-minded slashdotter pointed out this interesting read.
I wouldn't call that a theory; it's a hypothesis at best. There currently is no evidence to support it. I can see your argument that they might have overstepped their bounds here but it is unclear what they actually said and how they presented their hypothesis. Even if they presented their assessment poorly convicting them of manslaughter is way out of line.
Bad choice of wording on my part. The article doesn't even call it a hypothesis, it refers to it as "the suggestion". However, considering the source, it may have well carried the full weight with the public, that the word "theory" carries with scientists.
It is impossible with current knowledge to quantify the probability of an earthquake happening in the next 24 hours. What you claim was their job is simply impossible to do.
Wow, you just put words in my mouth there. Where do I say anything that would require them to predict earthquakes, or even the probability of an earthquake in a timeframe? If you think my pointing out the dissenting scientists applies, I'm merely highlighting how far they were willing to go to silence the resident who was making predictions, and how quickly they (appeared to have) backtracked after the fact. They effectively made a prediction through their "no danger" statements, which was foolish.
Risk assessment is not earthquake prediction. Perhaps you should endeavor to understand even the most basic ideas of risk assessment before you attempt debating this point again. Their focus, as is yours, was in the wrong place.
Doesn't the fact that the content doesn't scroll at all (i.e., that there is no rubber banding effect) provide the exact same information?
Not really. I've had scrollable content not scroll at all because the iOS was stalled out thinking. Then I've had content that looked like it was supposed to scroll but gave no feedback. Made me wonder if the iOS was stalled out again or if it really wasn't scrollable. At least the MacOS has the beachball on the cursor to let you know when the OS is stuck on itself.
You'd still have to make an "impotent attempt to scroll" to see the rubber band effect so it really doesn't save any steps, and iOS is generally responsive enough that if it doesn't scroll when you try you know that that's on purpose and not the OS lagging behind input.
The "generally" being in your experience, not in mine nor my associates.
The seismic history according to the Nature article is that similar events likely happened in 1461 and 1703. What sane person, scientist or otherwise, would not draw the conclusion that such an event is extremely unlikely and thus that there is essentially no danger. Sure that doesn't mean absolutely no danger, but you can't just come with 20/20 hindsight and say that because it happened, it was likely to happen.
If this was an armchair scientist, I would agree. But these were seismologists on a government-appointed risk-assessment committee. It was their job and duty to assess and communicate the risks in the area. "No danger" and go drink some wine are obvious failures in that job. The theory that was presented at the meeting was dissented from by two of the scientists on the panel (after the quake, of course), and basic earthquake preparedness advice was not given.
A risk assessment group is supposed to examine all the factors (seismic, structural integrity, etc) and then give advice to mitigate or remove risk where possible, saving lives. 20/20 hindsight should be catching only minor, rare and unusual circumstances, not plain, large and obvious ones. Plain large and obvious (to someone trained and experienced) is precisely what the risk assessment panel should have addressed. It's the WHOLE REASON for the panel. But they did not address it. They instead focused on discrediting the resident who was making earthquake predictions, and in so doing, they claimed "no danger" despite the structural state of many buildings in the area.
From your link: "According to an open letter to the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, signed by more than 5,000 members of the scientific community, the seven Italians essentially face criminal charges for failing to predict the earthquake — even though pinpointing the time, location and strength of a future earthquake in the short term remains, by scientific consensus, technically impossible." And "The view from L'Aquila [the public prosecutor in this case], however, is quite different. Prosecutors and the families of victims alike say that the trial has nothing to do with the ability to predict earthquakes, and everything to do with the failure of government-appointed scientists serving on an advisory panel to adequately evaluate, and then communicate, the potential risk to the local population." They were charged and convicted for not doing something that would be technically impossible to do.
Even if we assume for the sake of the argument that L'Aquila is to stupid to distinguish between potential risk and expected damage and meant the latter, the charge is still ridiculously stupid.
You chose to quote the scientific community at large. But they didn't deliver the message. The panel did. What was their message? A theory that 2 of their own dissented from (after the quake), about the smaller quakes being favorable as they release seismic stress, followed by a proclamation of "no danger" and go drink some wine. They were there to discredit and silence a local resident who had been making earthquake predictions, and in so doing, they not only neglected the duty of their position, they misrepresented the facts. They were charged and convicted for not doing something that fits directly into their scientific specialties, namely assessing and communicating the risks in the area.
Read the rest of that article, see how unusual this particular meeting was. How the usually private meeting was allowed to have multiple people sitting in. How the minutes were not prepared until AFTER the quake. How the usual suggestions for safety were neglected. There was carelessness written all over this meetings, and people died as a result.
Your homework is to read the wikipedia article on "Philosophy of Science" and possibly "empiricism".
Your homework is to re-read the above comments and understand the context in which they were placed. I never said the scientists were operating on faith. That would be you inserting words into my mouth. You got both the statement and it's target wrong, I applaud your blindness, although yours was more likely due to your haste to diminish me, or to prove someone "wrong" on the internet.
I said that there were many on slashdot that were operating on the same basis as blind faith, basically the perspective of "they're scientists, so they can't be wrong". They believe with no attempt to even gather even the most basic of facts. It's the more wordy version of the same complaint we've seen for ages on slashdot: "Read TFA". Your disdain of the comparison doesn't make it less true.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't this the same type of behavior that the Apple faithful hated about Microsoft in years past? Or was that just the Slashdot crowd in general?
Has *anyone* at Apple ever used iTunes on Windows? What do they do, punish poor coders by forcing them to work on the Windows code?
It's all part of the Apple experience. When it breaks, they blame microsoft.
Except it barely works anymore.
I don't have high hopes that Apple will "get iTunes right". In fact, I predict a disaster that will have me looking for another entertainment hub.
iTunes has been the music player version of the large A/V companies. Mostly useless new features, and they can be summed up in the word "bloat". I stopped updating years ago, especially after a couple of spectacularly botched installation that fouled up the registry on a windows machine (had to go through and remove each and every reference to itunes, apple, and one of their protocols (can't recall the name ATM). The mac it occurred on required an OS re-install.
I have an iPod touch, and that's the only reason I continue to use iTunes. It's slightly amusing when the music player of dubious choice can't really be considered "running in the background" simply because of the wealth of system resources it consumes.
'The new iTunes is taking longer than expected and we wanted to take a little extra time to get it right'
Translation: "It's taking much longer then expected to fix our badly rushed maps debacle, and because our egos demanded the sacrifice of Forstall, our focus has been elsewhere. We need a little more time before we release the new itunes with it's new and unwanted maps feature!"
Garrus and Boba Fett standing next to each other as a thresher maw eats the sarlacc? Han Solo shuffling crews around to the broken mass relays? Joker and C-3PO duking it out for the affection of EDI?
Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
While I was referring strictly to the Star Wars games (noteably KOTOR), those words do paint some vivid pictures =D
I really don't see NPH as Luke. But you know, Fran Kranz might work.
Could have Alexis Denisof as Obi Wan Kenobi :)
NPH should be someone from the empire.
Douse him in blue, and he could be the most hilarious Thrawn ever conceived.
Knowing the cast is easy :) Figuring out their roles, that is the trick. Anyone care to guess ?
Felicia Day as ....
Alexis Denisof as ...
Summer Glau as ...
Eliza Dushku as ...
Fran Kranz as ...
Already guessed at Nathan Fillion's role, and I'll jest at a few more:
Felicia Day as Jar Jar Binks, finally making the character less hate-able.
Summer Glau as Jaina Solo
Eliza Dushku as Mara Jade
Let the reviling commence...
Emperor is dead. Vader comes back from the Dark Side and also dies. Luke & Leia know they're siblings.
Seriously, what's the plot going to be?
There was basically a plot clue in Episode 6. Luke's hand had turned black. He succumbed to rage while defeating his father (using the "dark side", taking the first steps). Basically he will rediscover the ways of the Sith while Leia becomes the "mother" of a new order of Jedi.
Yeah, hands tend to turn black when you put gloves on them to hide your robotic prosthesis.
I assume you've never seen a disney movie before? Someones daughter (Han and Leia?) is now a disney princess, and being a young woman her only purpose in life in the movie is finding herself a man, about 8 musical numbers, dancing ewoks and dancing jar jar, the new happy couple sails into the sunset on a landcruiser with mr tall dark and handsome and they live happily ever after, finally licensed pink backpacks with the princess's face marketed to my daughter. Great stuff.
You forgot the evil sith lord who's:
a(loved by all the other girls)
b(ugly and scheming to take over her father's planet)
c(just plain evil)
and he has to be thwarted before jar jar can do his happy dance. However it pans out, I'll be happy as long as Jar Jar is dead by the end of it =D
What if... Disney would fix the crap Lucas changed in the first movies back to they way they were and re-made Episodes I to III (especially getting rid of the crap acting by the two young Anakin Skywalker actors). Then, maybe, I would see Episode VII.
Episodes I-III? *waves hand* Those aren't the Episodes you're looking for. Move along.
Holy Conception for Anakin?
Unholy, actually. Darth Plagueis created him from midiclorians, so he was intended to be a soulless bastard who would replace Sidious/Palpatine from the get-go. Palpatine recognized him for what he was after having already slain Plagueis and worked to corrupt him (it didn't take much pushing to make him slaughter innocents).
Which just goes to show that midiclorians are a gateway drug to things one might consider...unnatural.
Maybe they'll have a genius moment and hire the some of the scribes from Bioware. They've captured the flavor of the original trilogy far better then Lucas did in the prequels.
You know, if Joss Whedon takes over writing AND directing, it might actually work.
Nathan Fillion as the son of Han Solo....it might. just. work.
Anonymous might put their Guy Fawkes masks on and you'd have a full-blown 8-person protest outside the Hoover building.
They tried that today and got blown away...
Hint: It doesn't involve predicting when or how large an earthquake will be, or the probability of one, which is the incorrect idea you appear to be stuck on.
Let me just quote the wp article, it's decent introduction to the topic: "Quantitative risk assessment requires calculations of two components of risk (R):, the magnitude of the potential loss (L), and the probability (p) that the loss will occur.".
Probability the loss will occur in an earthquake, not the probability of an earthquake, seeing as we can't predict earthquakes. Quoting an article and understanding it are two different things.
I'm not going to get involved in your mudslinging...
Sling the first mud and accuse the other of mudslinging, you should be a politician!
...but I can't help but add that I'm pretty sure that only one of us has studied mathematics and actually works as a mathematician.
Have a nice day, sir!
I work in a field that at times involves risk assessment myself, admittedly not the seismic type. While your math is undoubtedly greater then mine, it's only a portion of risk assessment. Knowing where to get your numbers from and what points to focus on (IE, the ones you CAN gather useful data from) is the larger part. Obviously, our viewpoints are at odds, but I can at least agree with your last comment, a good day to you as well =D
If your house is built well, inside it is the safest place. If your house is not built well, you are fucked.
Now you're just so insistent on being "right" that you're missing the obvious. If your house is not built well, outside your house becomes the safest place for you. Your statements would make it seem like a good idea to run INTO a house during an earthquake if you were already outside.
But the point here is that I cannot see how blaming the scientists for the deaths is remotely fair, since the implication is that had the advice been different lives would have been saved, and further that the effect of different advice could reasonably have been foreseen. I don't think either of those statements are true. I think people died simply because they were living in unsafe buildings in a seismic zone.
I apologize if you are unable to see things from the perspective of others. The implication is if the advice had never been given, or if the panel had not been convened at all, more people would have survived. That is partially why this is so serious. The panel meant to reduce risk actually increased it, due to their political motivations.
Are you suggesting that the resident who was 'predicting' the earthquakes was right? Not in the sense of being accidentally correct (wasn't he out by 100km or something anyway), but in the sense of actually having a reliable earthquake prediction method?
Not in the slightest. His presence is only brought up to show the misdirected motives of the panel. This wasn't merely "earthquake prediction is not currently possible so please ignore the ravings those who claim it is, and here's what you CAN do to reduce your risk and increase your safety". It was effectively "That guy doesn't know what he's talking about, a large earthquake is actually LESS likely right now because of the small tremblers redusing stress on the faults. There is no danger, why doesn't everybody get drunk!"
Let me ask you this - what should the risk assessment panel's advice been, and how would things have worked out differently?
You're asking me? A non-seismologist, non-scientist? Sad. While I can (sometimes) recognize when a government panel uses their political power to squash a bug (the resident), I'm not well equipped to dispense the particulars of risk assessment in a earthquake preparedness settings. I already addressed what the general nature or focus of the assessments were above, and Risk Assessment is about recognizing what you can do NOW (by adjusting either situations (buildings, survival supplies) or during (shelter or evacuation plan, depending on the situation).
If your risk assessment says "This house WILL collapse in a large earthquake, and it will do so in it's entirety", do you think they would recommend standing in a door way or under a table? Or would they recommend placing the bed near a large open window for a quick exit?
Actually, how dare you?
Because it's true. When has running out into the street during a large earthquake - of the type that causes buildings to fall down - helped? And I don't mean those stories about how everyone in the village would run into the square whenever there was a tremor. Those are examples of it helping when there wasn't a large earthquake.
I recall a family that survived a brick house's collapse in '87 because they ran out during a 6.1 quake. The advice for the area was to take shelter under a table or in a doorway, but that would have been their end. I'm not ignorant of quakes as I used to live in a very seismically active area, and if the closest doorway leads to the outside, standing in it is pointless when the larger safety is only steps past.
How about ways to mitigate the risk in the event of an earthquake?
Like building houses that don't fall down, for instance?
I'm not sure what you're getting at in your last paragraph, but I don't see how anyone can be at fault except those who allow the populace to live in dangerous housing in an earthquake zone. You suggest that the scientists on the panel should have, I don't know, told everyone that an earthquake was imminent?
How about basic earthquake preparedness? Wasn't even mentioned. How about what to expect if a large scale quake was to occur? Barely touched on. Those should have been the focus of the risk assessment panel, instead they focused on earthquake prediction because they wanted to discredit/silence the resident who was predicting them.
Perhaps you should endeavor to understand even the most basic ideas of risk assessment before you attempt debating this point again.
There is no known way to quantify the probability of an earthquake. There is no known way to predict the size of an earthquake, i. e. the amaount of damage an earthquake will cause. Hence there is no way to quantify the risk. Do you think that your insults strengthen your point?
You think it an insult because I point out where your knowledge is lacking? Ignorance is solved by learning. Those who are ignorant and refuse to learn, they earn themselves the title of "stupid". Where will you place yourself? Learn what risk assessment is before you humiliate yourself further.
Hint: It doesn't involve predicting when or how large an earthquake will be, or the probability of one, which is the incorrect idea you appear to be stuck on.
Which is a pointless exercise. A large earthquake can hit at any time, with or without prior 'smaller' shakes. The only way these people would have been safe is if they had spent their entire lives sleeping in their cars.
How do you come to the conclusion that a routine that saved lives in the past is pointless? Actually, how dare you? If it saved, or could have saved lives, that's the only point that needs to be made.
And the real reason so many people died is nothing to do with a lack of earthquake prediction, which is impossible, but because they were all living in unreinforced sub-standard earthquake-prone ancient buildings. The people that built those, or allowed people to continue living in them, or issued building consents for them, or however it works in Italy, are the ones culpable.
These scientists were on a government-appointed risk-assessment committee. They were supposed to be the ones giving the advice. Not even attempting to predict earthquakes, but assessing and communicating the factors of risk in the area. That would fulfill your aspect of "however if works in Italy". The advice they gave however, was "no danger", go drink some wine, and that many small tremors are favorable because they relieve seismic stress. How about ways to mitigate the risk in the event of an earthquake?
Moreover, it did not issue any specific recommendations for community preparedness, according to Picuti, thereby failing in its legal obligation "to avoid death, injury and damage, or at least to minimize them".
Source.
There seems to be a general notion here that 'running into the street' is a good plan when you're living in a big old stone building and you get an earthquake. This is false - when a bit earthquake hits you have literally seconds to get clear, and you're not going to make it. Dive under a table, stand in a doorway, and hope. The best advice if you live in a seismic zone is to live in safe housing. Nice wooden single-story houses do not fall down in earthquakes. I'd suggest living in those.
You are operating on advice given to you that is appropriate for your area. I suspect you don't live in stone housing, because I've received that very same advice, and none of the homes in my region were stone medieval housing. Unless you're a seismologist or on a risk assessment panel, I'd wager your received knowledge is good for your circumstances but needing adjustments in others. Sadly, it appears you gave more direction then those seismologists in Italy.
Elevated radon levels can't be used to predict earthquakes in any way. A series of small earthquakes can not be used to predict a big earthquake. There were 2 comparable earthquakes in that region in the last 1000 years. The situation one day before the big quake was from a scientific point of view exactly the same as on every other day the last couple of thousand years.
And now your focus is on diminishing him. However, another more open-minded slashdotter pointed out this interesting read.
I wouldn't call that a theory; it's a hypothesis at best. There currently is no evidence to support it. I can see your argument that they might have overstepped their bounds here but it is unclear what they actually said and how they presented their hypothesis. Even if they presented their assessment poorly convicting them of manslaughter is way out of line.
Bad choice of wording on my part. The article doesn't even call it a hypothesis, it refers to it as "the suggestion". However, considering the source, it may have well carried the full weight with the public, that the word "theory" carries with scientists.
It is impossible with current knowledge to quantify the probability of an earthquake happening in the next 24 hours. What you claim was their job is simply impossible to do.
Wow, you just put words in my mouth there. Where do I say anything that would require them to predict earthquakes, or even the probability of an earthquake in a timeframe? If you think my pointing out the dissenting scientists applies, I'm merely highlighting how far they were willing to go to silence the resident who was making predictions, and how quickly they (appeared to have) backtracked after the fact. They effectively made a prediction through their "no danger" statements, which was foolish.
Risk assessment is not earthquake prediction. Perhaps you should endeavor to understand even the most basic ideas of risk assessment before you attempt debating this point again. Their focus, as is yours, was in the wrong place.
A: Associates is plural. It would be "You're all holding it wrong".
B: Har har.
Doesn't the fact that the content doesn't scroll at all (i.e., that there is no rubber banding effect) provide the exact same information?
Not really. I've had scrollable content not scroll at all because the iOS was stalled out thinking. Then I've had content that looked like it was supposed to scroll but gave no feedback. Made me wonder if the iOS was stalled out again or if it really wasn't scrollable. At least the MacOS has the beachball on the cursor to let you know when the OS is stuck on itself.
You'd still have to make an "impotent attempt to scroll" to see the rubber band effect so it really doesn't save any steps, and iOS is generally responsive enough that if it doesn't scroll when you try you know that that's on purpose and not the OS lagging behind input.
The "generally" being in your experience, not in mine nor my associates.
The seismic history according to the Nature article is that similar events likely happened in 1461 and 1703. What sane person, scientist or otherwise, would not draw the conclusion that such an event is extremely unlikely and thus that there is essentially no danger. Sure that doesn't mean absolutely no danger, but you can't just come with 20/20 hindsight and say that because it happened, it was likely to happen.
If this was an armchair scientist, I would agree. But these were seismologists on a government-appointed risk-assessment committee. It was their job and duty to assess and communicate the risks in the area. "No danger" and go drink some wine are obvious failures in that job. The theory that was presented at the meeting was dissented from by two of the scientists on the panel (after the quake, of course), and basic earthquake preparedness advice was not given.
A risk assessment group is supposed to examine all the factors (seismic, structural integrity, etc) and then give advice to mitigate or remove risk where possible, saving lives. 20/20 hindsight should be catching only minor, rare and unusual circumstances, not plain, large and obvious ones. Plain large and obvious (to someone trained and experienced) is precisely what the risk assessment panel should have addressed. It's the WHOLE REASON for the panel. But they did not address it. They instead focused on discrediting the resident who was making earthquake predictions, and in so doing, they claimed "no danger" despite the structural state of many buildings in the area.
From your link: "According to an open letter to the president of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano, signed by more than 5,000 members of the scientific community, the seven Italians essentially face criminal charges for failing to predict the earthquake — even though pinpointing the time, location and strength of a future earthquake in the short term remains, by scientific consensus, technically impossible." And "The view from L'Aquila [the public prosecutor in this case], however, is quite different. Prosecutors and the families of victims alike say that the trial has nothing to do with the ability to predict earthquakes, and everything to do with the failure of government-appointed scientists serving on an advisory panel to adequately evaluate, and then communicate, the potential risk to the local population." They were charged and convicted for not doing something that would be technically impossible to do.
Even if we assume for the sake of the argument that L'Aquila is to stupid to distinguish between potential risk and expected damage and meant the latter, the charge is still ridiculously stupid.
You chose to quote the scientific community at large. But they didn't deliver the message. The panel did. What was their message? A theory that 2 of their own dissented from (after the quake), about the smaller quakes being favorable as they release seismic stress, followed by a proclamation of "no danger" and go drink some wine. They were there to discredit and silence a local resident who had been making earthquake predictions, and in so doing, they not only neglected the duty of their position, they misrepresented the facts. They were charged and convicted for not doing something that fits directly into their scientific specialties, namely assessing and communicating the risks in the area.
Read the rest of that article, see how unusual this particular meeting was. How the usually private meeting was allowed to have multiple people sitting in. How the minutes were not prepared until AFTER the quake. How the usual suggestions for safety were neglected. There was carelessness written all over this meetings, and people died as a result.
Your homework is to read the wikipedia article on "Philosophy of Science" and possibly "empiricism".
Your homework is to re-read the above comments and understand the context in which they were placed. I never said the scientists were operating on faith. That would be you inserting words into my mouth. You got both the statement and it's target wrong, I applaud your blindness, although yours was more likely due to your haste to diminish me, or to prove someone "wrong" on the internet.
I said that there were many on slashdot that were operating on the same basis as blind faith, basically the perspective of "they're scientists, so they can't be wrong". They believe with no attempt to even gather even the most basic of facts. It's the more wordy version of the same complaint we've seen for ages on slashdot: "Read TFA". Your disdain of the comparison doesn't make it less true.