In just two hours searching the Wikileaks archive The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given full identification....
In an inside page they quote examples, with names redacted (redactions by The Times, not Wikileaks).
Some important points are commonly lost in the climate change debate, not helped by the fact that the loudest voices are as likely to be motivated by ideology as informed by science.
There are few certainties- even the strongest advocates accept the increase by 2050 could be anything from 1 degree (manageable) to 5 degrees (catastrophic). There is definitely a finite probability (in my judgemement- but I'm not a climate scientist- high) that the planet is getting warmer, and also a finite probability (in my judgement less high but still significant) that the effect is man made.
So why don't we just cool it a bit, and see climate change policy for what it is- an exercise in risk management.
I don't think I'm about to wreck my car, and my house probably isn't going to burn down, but I insure both, because either event would hurt me seriously. I apply the classic risk management approach: concern=probability of occurence * severity of consequence.
There's a simple reason for Windows' dominance that hasn't been mentioned.
A correctly configured and installed Linux system is as simple to use as a Windows system.
A modern Linux distro is at least as easy to install and configure as Windows (anyone who disagrees has a limited experience of installing either from scratch, at least recently).
Software installs and updates on Linux are as easy as point and click on Synaptic.
But Windows is _still_ easier, because it's already installed on nearly every computer sold (blame Microsoft's licensing tactics). And to the average punter it still looks like it's free for the same reason.
And of course the very simple fact that Windows and the Mac are marketed, Linux isn't./p
Well, I've dual booted Windows and Linux (currently Kubuntu) for years- Linux for preference, Windows for the odd vertical application where there's no alternative, and I've never understood this "Linux isn't user friendly" line either.
The only reason that Linux has a reputation for user hostility is that either people haven't looked at it for about 7 years, or they've always got their computers with Windows pre-installed and always had to install Linux themselves. Speaking as someone who has used the same computer for about 15 years, just bought five new motherboards, eight new CPUs, seven new video cards, etc, etc, I can report that Linux is a _lot_ more tractable (even ignoring the XP registration nonsense). Anyone who thinks Linux is difficult to install has never installed Windows from scratch. Software installation using Synaptic or similar is a cinch. Because you are using a six-month old distro instead of five year old XP, you are more likely to get your hardware recognised out of the box: I'm still struggling to get my SATA 2 drive to run in AHCI in XP, in Dapper it just worked. I will accept there's a bit of an issue (idealogical in origin) with glx and NVidia, but even there I've occasionally had to do a re-install of Windows to get a new graphics card to work.
At the other end of the scale, my wife (who _is_ a grandmother) runs Linux and doesn't even know she's doing it.
The introduction of the option to vote by post has already caused enough trouble. I won't bother to post all the links, just google "postal vote fraud uk". Now consider how much easier it is for these guys to hire a hacker.
We Brits used to consider ourselves superior to nations like the US (hanging chads anyone?) because we had a well tried voting system that worked perfectly (ie: a piece of paper and a blunt soft pencil). Unfortunately we now have a government which believes that democracy requires that equal weight should be given to the views of those who are too apathetic to travel a few hundred yards to a polling station.
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Sure people will get hurt.
From today's London Times:
In just two hours searching the Wikileaks archive The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with providing intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given full identification....
In an inside page they quote examples, with names redacted (redactions by The Times, not Wikileaks).
There's a line- this is the wrong side.
Some important points are commonly lost in the climate change debate, not helped by the fact that the loudest voices are as likely to be motivated by ideology as informed by science.
There are few certainties- even the strongest advocates accept the increase by 2050 could be anything from 1 degree (manageable) to 5 degrees (catastrophic). There is definitely a finite probability (in my judgemement- but I'm not a climate scientist- high) that the planet is getting warmer, and also a finite probability (in my judgement less high but still significant) that the effect is man made.
So why don't we just cool it a bit, and see climate change policy for what it is- an exercise in risk management.
I don't think I'm about to wreck my car, and my house probably isn't going to burn down, but I insure both, because either event would hurt me seriously. I apply the classic risk management approach:
concern=probability of occurence * severity of consequence.
How about the same logic to the planet?
There's a fashion these days for getting the perpetrator and victim to confront each other. And who's the victim if it isn't Bill Gates?
There's a simple reason for Windows' dominance that hasn't been mentioned.
A correctly configured and installed Linux system is as simple to use as a Windows system.
A modern Linux distro is at least as easy to install and configure as Windows (anyone who disagrees has a limited experience of installing either from scratch, at least recently).
Software installs and updates on Linux are as easy as point and click on Synaptic.
But Windows is _still_ easier, because it's already installed on nearly every computer sold (blame Microsoft's licensing tactics). And to the average punter it still looks like it's free for the same reason.
And of course the very simple fact that Windows and the Mac are marketed, Linux isn't./p
Well, I've dual booted Windows and Linux (currently Kubuntu) for years- Linux for preference, Windows for the odd vertical application where there's no alternative, and I've never understood this "Linux isn't user friendly" line either. The only reason that Linux has a reputation for user hostility is that either people haven't looked at it for about 7 years, or they've always got their computers with Windows pre-installed and always had to install Linux themselves. Speaking as someone who has used the same computer for about 15 years, just bought five new motherboards, eight new CPUs, seven new video cards, etc, etc, I can report that Linux is a _lot_ more tractable (even ignoring the XP registration nonsense). Anyone who thinks Linux is difficult to install has never installed Windows from scratch. Software installation using Synaptic or similar is a cinch. Because you are using a six-month old distro instead of five year old XP, you are more likely to get your hardware recognised out of the box: I'm still struggling to get my SATA 2 drive to run in AHCI in XP, in Dapper it just worked. I will accept there's a bit of an issue (idealogical in origin) with glx and NVidia, but even there I've occasionally had to do a re-install of Windows to get a new graphics card to work. At the other end of the scale, my wife (who _is_ a grandmother) runs Linux and doesn't even know she's doing it.
The introduction of the option to vote by post has already caused enough trouble. I won't bother to post all the links, just google "postal vote fraud uk". Now consider how much easier it is for these guys to hire a hacker. We Brits used to consider ourselves superior to nations like the US (hanging chads anyone?) because we had a well tried voting system that worked perfectly (ie: a piece of paper and a blunt soft pencil). Unfortunately we now have a government which believes that democracy requires that equal weight should be given to the views of those who are too apathetic to travel a few hundred yards to a polling station.