The conclusion that we are making the world warmer certainly does not depend on reconstructions of temperature prior to direct records.
Most researchers would agree that while the original hockey stick can - and has - been improved in a number of ways, it was not far off the mark. Most later temperature reconstructions fall within the error bars of the original hockey stick. Some show far more variability leading up to the 20th century than the hockey stick, but none suggest that it has been warmer at any time in the past 1000 years than in the last part of the 20th century.
The "Hockey Stick" was investigated by the 2006 report of the US National Academy of Science, which found:
the key conclusion is the same: it's hotter now than it has been for at least 1000 years
in any case, we're pretty sure life in the Ocean will adapt to such a small change with relative ease
If by "adapt", you mean that some species will become extinct, some won't, and possibly some will evolve over many years to adapt to the new environment, then yes, that is all possible. But, as already pointed out, the issue is not life itself adapting (bacteria are life, and they probably will adapt) - the issue is the cost of human adaptation. 500 million people depend on coral reefs for food, coastal protection, building materials and income from tourism. Of those, 30 million are totally dependent. Figures from Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2008 (registration required) report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. Around 19% of the world's coral reefs have already died, 15% are seriously threatened with loss in the next 10-20 years, and 20% under threat of loss in 20-40 years. Acidification due to climate change is one of the factors, but so are pollution and fishing.
I have never seen anyone bring a laptop to a movie theater, ever.
Bizarrely enough, I have. Half way through a movie, some guy sitting in one of the front rows pull out his laptop and starts typing an email or something. Bright screen - incredibly annoying. He was an Apple user.
Think about that for a minute - you have to be 65 to collect, and the average life span is in the upper 70's.
Average life span has been increasing for a while now, and society will adapt. The idea of social security was never to enable people to spend the last 15 years of their life living on benefits. When the 65 years age limit was introduced, the average life span for a man was only a couple of years above that. What will happen now is that the retirement age will gradually increase, and we are probably going to see a unified male and female age of 70 years old by 2025.
Submitter asks (paraphrased) "I'm currently in the UK been offered a job in the gambling industry and thinking about going to work in US in the future. Any potential problems?"
Pointing out that several British men involved in the gambling industry have been arrested, some extradited, and prosecuted in the US is Trolling and Offtopic?! How does that work? If the article submitter is serious about wanting to emigrate to the US in the future, then entering an industry where many, if not most, British and offshore companies violate US law on an ongoing basis, and which the US government has already made moves against, is probably something that should be considered.
And then at least one of them has the poor sense to enter the country whos laws he is currently violating? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
As far as I recall, his flight was refuelling in the US and at some point it became mandatory for all passengers to "enter" the US before they could reboard the plane, there's an amusing anecdote about that here.
If I set up an Internet-based gun store to sell guns (which is not only legal but protected by the Constitution of the United States) and began selling handguns (or rifles/shotguns to the non-upper class) in the UK, you better believe that the UK authorities would attempt to have me extradited.
Bad analogy. I'm pretty sure you'd be arrested for various offences in the US first. Gun sales are regulated within the US - the 2nd Amendment doesn't give you the right to sell guns to just anyone, plus isn't it illegal to sell firearms online (except to licensed dealers)? And also illegal to ship weapons and munitions to other nations without an export license?
A better analogy would be the UK trying to extradite a US citizen for posting literature on the internet which violates some UK laws but which would be covered by the 1st Amendment in the US. Obviously a US court would not allow an extradition, because the activity is legal in the US. Or how about another analogy, where the US government would request extradition of porn web site operators in Holland, where the legal age for porn is 16? I doubt the Dutch government would extradite its own citizens for this activity which is legal in their own nation.
A lot of the British companies doing online gambling have British offices and employees but are actually incorporated in Costa Rica, Panama, Gibraltar, and various other countries with advantageous tax regimes and very little or no regulation. e.g. BetOnSports - Antigua / Costa Rica corporations with UK based holding company, Pokerstars - Costa Rica / Isle of Man; the Isle of Man company appeared after IoM enacted a streamlined deregulation of online gambling which explicitly states it's legal to offer such services to the US at about the same time they introduced 0% corporation tax, quite a fewer companies are now based there, also here's a list for Gibraltar, some big names there include Ladbrokes which is one of the UK's largest gambling operations, and PartyGaming which is one of the largest online poker providers in the world.
Please explain, how is it trolling to point out that several British men (there have been others, e.g. Peter Dicks) were are/were involved in the online gambling industry - activities which are completely legal in the UK - have been arrested and prosecuted by US authorities? There is no legal guarantee that being based in the UK would make you immune to prosecution in the US, and now it seems that the British government are happy to extradite citizens to the US for actions that aren't actually a crime in the UK (e.g. Ian Norris of Morgan Crucible).
British, working in the gambling industry, and possibly wanting to visit the US in the future? Why don't you ask David Carruthers, Gary Kaplan how that worked out for them?
(To be fair, they were the guys at the top and I haven't heard of any lower level staff being arrested, but still, I doubt US immigration would look too kindly on it if you ever were to apply for a green card.)
CBS Interactive is being sued because they are US based and distributed the software.
TFA alleges ZDNet China distributed the software. ZDNet China may be a subsidiary of CBS Interactive, but they are a completely separate legal entity. CBS Interactive is not liable for their actions.
CBS American is liable for the actions of its subsidiaries.
Unfortunately this is where your argument likely fails. Bhopal disaster precedent:
In May, litigation was transferred from the US to Indian courts by US District Court Judge. Following an appeal of this decision, the US Court of Appeals affirmed the transfer, judging, in January 1987, that UCIL was a "separate entity, owned, managed and operated exclusively by Indian citizens in India".
Union Carbide India, Limited was a subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation, UCC was a US. based corporation.
An international corporation is a separate legal entity that exists within a specific national legal jurisdiction. If CBS American were liable in the U.S. for copyright violations by a Chinese corporation in China, then it would also be liable for violations of other laws by that company. If that were the case, the U.S. courts would be filled with cases filed on behalf of people in the third world wanting better working conditions.
A corporation generally isn't even liable for wrongdoing by its subsidiaries within the same nation, quote:
It is a general principle of corporate law that a parent corporation is not liable for the acts of its subsidiaries.
PACER was accessed by computers from outside the library utilizing login information from two libraries participating in the pilot project.... Investigation has determined that the Amazon IP address used to access the PACER system belongs to Aaron Swartz.
The FBI report states PACER was accessed by computers from outside the library utilizing login information from two libraries participating in the pilot project.
Ok, there is conflicting information here. Swartz says he ran the script only on the library computer. The FBI report states PACER was accessed by computers from outside the library utilizing login information from two libraries participating in the pilot project.
Didn't RTFA eh? What he actually did was access the PACER database using the username/password of the library from his Amazon IP address. One request every 3 seconds (which apparently counts as "inundated"), worth an imaginary $1.5 million. So they investigate the IP address, Amazon helpfully coughs up all the accounts details, with the name they find his web page and from Accurint get his social security number and other details, then gain access to his LinkedIn and Facebook accounts, drivers license, drive by his house and get photos (they suggest surveillance will be difficult), then he gets interviewed by the New York Times. After all that, they drop the case.
Possibly the best quote from the FBI: AARON SWARTZ would have known his access was unauthorized because it was with a password that did not belonged to him.
It's better to think of a continuum of service speeds rather than a discrete separation between bullet trains and local trains. This high speed railroad map of Europe shows there are lines within England which are handling >200km/h trains. Network Rail has proposed upgrading the London to Edinburgh line to 320km/h+ by 2020 but they need funding to the tune of £34 billion.
Britain has a serious problem with over population
By what metric is a country "overpopulated"? The idea that the UK has a high population density in contrast to other nations is ridiculous - check List of countries and dependencies by population density, the United Kingdom is way down the list at 52nd, just behind Vietnam. Nobody ever says Vietnam is overpopulated, so by what reasoning could the UK be said to be overpopulated?
There have been many calls for jury trials for complex cases to be dismissed. The problem is that there is no perfect solution. You just end up put the finding of guilt in to the hands of one or more chosen people, rather than a random set of people. As to the complexity of modern trials, The Times had an interesting article about this recently - Does the jury system still work? The comments by QCs and Judges there suggest that it is the job of the court to distill the argument into normal English and make it understandable to the jury. From this perspective, it is a failure of a specific court trial if this doesn't happen, rather than a failure of the system as a whole. As for the prospect of professional judges trying dependents in juryless trials, there is the worrying and high profile case of Al Megrahi, who was convicted in a jury-less trial by three professional judges based upon the flimsiest of evidence.
For balance then we need a system where by we, the public, can vacate a judge on the same grounds...,
The problem is that any judge who rules on a sensitive issue which has the tabloids up in arms would therefore be removed. There would be no way to ensure that a sentence was fair if the judge's employment immediately following a sensitive trial would be decided by the tabloid media.
The bizarre thing is that the judge originally ruled in favour of Microsoft in 2006, but his ruling was overturned on appeal, with the appeals court saying there should've been a jury trial. Now he's overruled the findings of a jury trial and gone against the findings of the appeal to his own 2006 judgement. Surely that won't be the end of it? I'd imagine there's scope for appealing against this. I also find it odd that he only ruled against the jury after they went against his previous personal decision. Surely if he disagreed with the findings of the appeals court he should've appealed against the necessity of a jury trial, not held a jury trial and ignored the outcome when it went against him? From the article:
The judge had ruled in favour of Microsoft in 2006, but an appeals court overturned his decision, saying there was a "genuine issue of material fact" and that he should not have ruled on the case without hearing from a jury.
But in his order today vacating the jury's decision, Judge Smith said the jury "lacked a grasp of the issues before it and reached a finding without a legally sufficient basis".
Slashdot Mirror
Wow. You managed to hit quite a few Global Warming Myths in a single post. Your basic arguments have already been replied to many times:
"Does that make you feel uneasy at all?"
If that's supposed to be a dig at the old hockey stick, I hope you are aware that the hockey stick has been analysed by several groups, and was found to be a reasonably valid reconstruction of the temperature record? Climate myths: The 'hockey stick' graph has been proven wrong, quote:
The conclusion that we are making the world warmer certainly does not depend on reconstructions of temperature prior to direct records.
Most researchers would agree that while the original hockey stick can - and has - been improved in a number of ways, it was not far off the mark. Most later temperature reconstructions fall within the error bars of the original hockey stick. Some show far more variability leading up to the 20th century than the hockey stick, but none suggest that it has been warmer at any time in the past 1000 years than in the last part of the 20th century.
The "Hockey Stick" was investigated by the 2006 report of the US National Academy of Science, which found:
the key conclusion is the same: it's hotter now than it has been for at least 1000 years
in any case, we're pretty sure life in the Ocean will adapt to such a small change with relative ease
If by "adapt", you mean that some species will become extinct, some won't, and possibly some will evolve over many years to adapt to the new environment, then yes, that is all possible. But, as already pointed out, the issue is not life itself adapting (bacteria are life, and they probably will adapt) - the issue is the cost of human adaptation. 500 million people depend on coral reefs for food, coastal protection, building materials and income from tourism. Of those, 30 million are totally dependent. Figures from Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2008 (registration required) report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. Around 19% of the world's coral reefs have already died, 15% are seriously threatened with loss in the next 10-20 years, and 20% under threat of loss in 20-40 years. Acidification due to climate change is one of the factors, but so are pollution and fishing.
This would be awesome for OpenAerialMap. It's a shame there's no freely available photography dataset of the world yet.
I have never seen anyone bring a laptop to a movie theater, ever.
Bizarrely enough, I have. Half way through a movie, some guy sitting in one of the front rows pull out his laptop and starts typing an email or something. Bright screen - incredibly annoying. He was an Apple user.
Think about that for a minute - you have to be 65 to collect, and the average life span is in the upper 70's.
Average life span has been increasing for a while now, and society will adapt. The idea of social security was never to enable people to spend the last 15 years of their life living on benefits. When the 65 years age limit was introduced, the average life span for a man was only a couple of years above that. What will happen now is that the retirement age will gradually increase, and we are probably going to see a unified male and female age of 70 years old by 2025.
Submitter asks (paraphrased) "I'm currently in the UK been offered a job in the gambling industry and thinking about going to work in US in the future. Any potential problems?"
Pointing out that several British men involved in the gambling industry have been arrested, some extradited, and prosecuted in the US is Trolling and Offtopic?! How does that work? If the article submitter is serious about wanting to emigrate to the US in the future, then entering an industry where many, if not most, British and offshore companies violate US law on an ongoing basis, and which the US government has already made moves against, is probably something that should be considered.
And then at least one of them has the poor sense to enter the country whos laws he is currently violating? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
As far as I recall, his flight was refuelling in the US and at some point it became mandatory for all passengers to "enter" the US before they could reboard the plane, there's an amusing anecdote about that here.
If I set up an Internet-based gun store to sell guns (which is not only legal but protected by the Constitution of the United States) and began selling handguns (or rifles/shotguns to the non-upper class) in the UK, you better believe that the UK authorities would attempt to have me extradited.
Bad analogy. I'm pretty sure you'd be arrested for various offences in the US first. Gun sales are regulated within the US - the 2nd Amendment doesn't give you the right to sell guns to just anyone, plus isn't it illegal to sell firearms online (except to licensed dealers)? And also illegal to ship weapons and munitions to other nations without an export license?
A better analogy would be the UK trying to extradite a US citizen for posting literature on the internet which violates some UK laws but which would be covered by the 1st Amendment in the US. Obviously a US court would not allow an extradition, because the activity is legal in the US. Or how about another analogy, where the US government would request extradition of porn web site operators in Holland, where the legal age for porn is 16? I doubt the Dutch government would extradite its own citizens for this activity which is legal in their own nation.
A lot of the British companies doing online gambling have British offices and employees but are actually incorporated in Costa Rica, Panama, Gibraltar, and various other countries with advantageous tax regimes and very little or no regulation. e.g. BetOnSports - Antigua / Costa Rica corporations with UK based holding company, Pokerstars - Costa Rica / Isle of Man; the Isle of Man company appeared after IoM enacted a streamlined deregulation of online gambling which explicitly states it's legal to offer such services to the US at about the same time they introduced 0% corporation tax, quite a fewer companies are now based there, also here's a list for Gibraltar, some big names there include Ladbrokes which is one of the UK's largest gambling operations, and PartyGaming which is one of the largest online poker providers in the world.
Please explain, how is it trolling to point out that several British men (there have been others, e.g. Peter Dicks) were are/were involved in the online gambling industry - activities which are completely legal in the UK - have been arrested and prosecuted by US authorities? There is no legal guarantee that being based in the UK would make you immune to prosecution in the US, and now it seems that the British government are happy to extradite citizens to the US for actions that aren't actually a crime in the UK (e.g. Ian Norris of Morgan Crucible).
British, working in the gambling industry, and possibly wanting to visit the US in the future? Why don't you ask David Carruthers, Gary Kaplan how that worked out for them?
(To be fair, they were the guys at the top and I haven't heard of any lower level staff being arrested, but still, I doubt US immigration would look too kindly on it if you ever were to apply for a green card.)
Doesn't a major part of the funding for McMaster University also come from the government?
Interesting. You aren't the only one talking about Shanzhai.
CBS Interactive is being sued because they are US based and distributed the software.
TFA alleges ZDNet China distributed the software. ZDNet China may be a subsidiary of CBS Interactive, but they are a completely separate legal entity. CBS Interactive is not liable for their actions.
CBS American is liable for the actions of its subsidiaries.
Unfortunately this is where your argument likely fails. Bhopal disaster precedent:
In May, litigation was transferred from the US to Indian courts by US District Court Judge. Following an appeal of this decision, the US Court of Appeals affirmed the transfer, judging, in January 1987, that UCIL was a "separate entity, owned, managed and operated exclusively by Indian citizens in India".
Union Carbide India, Limited was a subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation, UCC was a US. based corporation.
An international corporation is a separate legal entity that exists within a specific national legal jurisdiction. If CBS American were liable in the U.S. for copyright violations by a Chinese corporation in China, then it would also be liable for violations of other laws by that company. If that were the case, the U.S. courts would be filled with cases filed on behalf of people in the third world wanting better working conditions.
A corporation generally isn't even liable for wrongdoing by its subsidiaries within the same nation, quote:
It is a general principle of corporate law that a parent corporation is not liable for the acts of its subsidiaries.
From the FBI report:
PACER was accessed by computers from outside the library utilizing login information from two libraries participating in the pilot project. ... Investigation has determined that the Amazon IP address used to access the PACER system belongs to Aaron Swartz.
The FBI report states PACER was accessed by computers from outside the library utilizing login information from two libraries participating in the pilot project.
Ok, there is conflicting information here. Swartz says he ran the script only on the library computer. The FBI report states PACER was accessed by computers from outside the library utilizing login information from two libraries participating in the pilot project.
Install unauthorized software on a government
Didn't RTFA eh? What he actually did was access the PACER database using the username/password of the library from his Amazon IP address. One request every 3 seconds (which apparently counts as "inundated"), worth an imaginary $1.5 million. So they investigate the IP address, Amazon helpfully coughs up all the accounts details, with the name they find his web page and from Accurint get his social security number and other details, then gain access to his LinkedIn and Facebook accounts, drivers license, drive by his house and get photos (they suggest surveillance will be difficult), then he gets interviewed by the New York Times. After all that, they drop the case.
Possibly the best quote from the FBI: AARON SWARTZ would have known his access was unauthorized because it was with a password that did not belonged to him.
It's better to think of a continuum of service speeds rather than a discrete separation between bullet trains and local trains. This high speed railroad map of Europe shows there are lines within England which are handling >200km/h trains. Network Rail has proposed upgrading the London to Edinburgh line to 320km/h+ by 2020 but they need funding to the tune of £34 billion.
Britain has a serious problem with over population
By what metric is a country "overpopulated"? The idea that the UK has a high population density in contrast to other nations is ridiculous - check List of countries and dependencies by population density, the United Kingdom is way down the list at 52nd, just behind Vietnam. Nobody ever says Vietnam is overpopulated, so by what reasoning could the UK be said to be overpopulated?
Eric Slye: Jury service is a complete waste of time. I would rather count the wrinkles on my dog's balls.
There have been many calls for jury trials for complex cases to be dismissed. The problem is that there is no perfect solution. You just end up put the finding of guilt in to the hands of one or more chosen people, rather than a random set of people. As to the complexity of modern trials, The Times had an interesting article about this recently - Does the jury system still work? The comments by QCs and Judges there suggest that it is the job of the court to distill the argument into normal English and make it understandable to the jury. From this perspective, it is a failure of a specific court trial if this doesn't happen, rather than a failure of the system as a whole. As for the prospect of professional judges trying dependents in juryless trials, there is the worrying and high profile case of Al Megrahi, who was convicted in a jury-less trial by three professional judges based upon the flimsiest of evidence.
For balance then we need a system where by we, the public, can vacate a judge on the same grounds...,
The problem is that any judge who rules on a sensitive issue which has the tabloids up in arms would therefore be removed. There would be no way to ensure that a sentence was fair if the judge's employment immediately following a sensitive trial would be decided by the tabloid media.
The bizarre thing is that the judge originally ruled in favour of Microsoft in 2006, but his ruling was overturned on appeal, with the appeals court saying there should've been a jury trial. Now he's overruled the findings of a jury trial and gone against the findings of the appeal to his own 2006 judgement. Surely that won't be the end of it? I'd imagine there's scope for appealing against this. I also find it odd that he only ruled against the jury after they went against his previous personal decision. Surely if he disagreed with the findings of the appeals court he should've appealed against the necessity of a jury trial, not held a jury trial and ignored the outcome when it went against him? From the article:
The judge had ruled in favour of Microsoft in 2006, but an appeals court overturned his decision, saying there was a "genuine issue of material fact" and that he should not have ruled on the case without hearing from a jury.
But in his order today vacating the jury's decision, Judge Smith said the jury "lacked a grasp of the issues before it and reached a finding without a legally sufficient basis".