How is sandboxing easier in 64bit, and in what way is security better in 64bit vs 32bit? And I need a better reason than "well nobody is writing exploits for 64bit yet".
Hello? They just had to release Windows 7, and breaking a myriad of poorly written third-party drivers was a primary factor in Vista's failure. What planet have you been living on?
The fact is, Microsoft (usually) works harder than any other OS manufacturer to maintain backwards compatibility and ensure new changes don't break old software. They did not do that with Vista, and they got their asses kicked for it.
Apple gets away with telling OSX to pound sand every year because they've been doing it that way forever. Seriously, try to run three year old software on a new Mac. Chances are it won't work. Now do the same with a Windows box. I'd be surprised if it didn't work, because almost everything does (though bad security practices of the past cut out more apps than most Windows upgrades do).
The Motorola 68000 was a 16/32 bit processor, meaning it had a 16 bit data bus but 32 bit registers and was capable of 32 bit arithmetic. This means if you sent your 32 bit instructions in two 16 bit chunks, you could run at 32 bits. The Amiga did this, and I can only assume the Genesis did not, since it was clearly labeled 16 bit and I would assume they'd have preferred to push 32 bit if they were writing 32 bit games.
Either way your memory was limited by the 16 bit data bus - you could process at 32 bits but you couldn't use anywhere near 4gb of RAM.
Having a data bus at half the size of the general purpose registers is not really that uncommon. The Intel 8088 was a 16 bit processor with an 8 bit bus, same thing there.
It truly amazes me how little the average person understands about economics.
A business exists to make money. A company doesn't sell a sound card out the kindness of their heart, and they don't write drivers for said sound card out of the kindness of their heart either. They can't survive if they do. If being pro-active does not generate more income than it costs, then it is economic suicide to be pro-active.
It's called return on investment, and any halfway decent developer is going to do at least a rudimentary ROI analysis before beginning even a small upgrade, let alone a complete overhaul of their code.
Basically what you are asking developers to do is exactly the same as your boss telling you you need to work evenings and weekends for no pay. You'll do it if it means losing your job, but otherwise you'll tell your boss to either pay you for it or fuck off. Getting an updated driver is no different. If it's free, expect it to take a while - they'll have to spread the cost over a long period of time to make the investment feasible. If it means losing customers because they didn't write the driver, well then you'll get it pretty quickly.
Is it fair that you have to worry for decades and pay for further credit monitoring when they are to blame for your information ending up in the wrong hands?
For fuck's sake, is it fair that someone stole your data in the first place? No, of course it isn't. But ultimately, it's your problem and nobody else's. Trying to make it someone else's problem is childish and irresponsible. They did their best (at least for the amount of money you spent on the service), but there hasn't been a security system invented that is 100% foolproof. So now you have to watch your information like a hawk because someone is a thief. You can hire that out too if you want, but there is a chance it will happen again. There was a chance it could happen even if you were managing your information security yourself. Thieves take shit that doesn't belong to them. It sucks but it's reality.
An amazing thing happens when people set out to prove something is false when the data says otherwise: often, they become disenchanted with their own position, and they tend to shut the hell up. On rare occasions they'll become advocates for the position they used to oppose, but that's rare, especially if they were very vocal in their opposition to begin with.
Misrepresentations of data are easily debunked when all someone has to do in response is to say "That's not true, look here and see for yourself".
I hate to break it to you, but that has always been the case for controversial science. Read a biography of such titans as Galileo or Newton - politics made their lives a living hell.
But you know what? They are considered some of the greatest minds in the history of science for the simple fact that they were willing to take the abuse. And in both their cases, the potential was not the piddly annoyances of bloggers or being forced to work on the fringes of the scientific community. No, they faced imprisonment, ostracism, excommunication, the works.
If you aren't willing to deal with all the bullshit from the people you will offend by doing great science, you probably aren't cut out to do great science. If those scientists you mentioned quit their work because of the pressure and move into an easier field, they will almost certainly go down in history as nobody's. If they continue the struggle in the face of adversity, their stories could potentially inspire young scientists for centuries to come.
You've just got to ask yourself, is greatness worth the suffering?
They *aren't* interested in "finding something wrong with it". No, they're interested in waging a PR war. As such, they don't attack the science. They simply misquote the science.
I'm assuming you are referring to the two peer review papers that Jones attempted (unsuccessfully, fortunately) to have blocked from the journal, correct?
I suppose the only way one can "attack the science" is by completely agreeing with whatever conclusion the original researcher reached, and not questioning the methods he used to reach those conclusions, correct? Mann has been exonerated - his work was not misleading, and his data has been verified based on the studies he used. Jones, however, still appears to have been intentionally misleading. The report somehow clears Jones of wrong doing even while acknowledging that he took out everything in Mann's study that made the graphs clear and understandable. On that score, I disagree with the review, and frankly, Jones is a selfish ass who has contributed little to the field of climatology and is simply trying to maintain what little he has.
The media certainly had a field day, and Fox News was definitely waging a PR war, but that was only possible because bloggers found evidence of scientists attempting to block other scientists from reviewing their work. If there is a better way to throw shit at a fan, I don't know it.
well, in fact, the paper was not suppressed, so apparently that argument is faulty.
Do you know if other peer review papers have ever been successfully silenced?
The fact that an attempt failed is hardly proof that the system is working. It sounds to me like something that should be looked into. If it isn't really possible to silence opposition, then wonderful, but that fact that one man failed does not stand as proof that nobody has succeeded. Not at all.
If Russia or some other national-level foe wipes out the US, there's really little reason to counterattack. Revenge, btw, isn't a good reason.
However, revenge is a fantastic incentive not to attack in the first place. That's how the concept works, and you can see how it works (and when it doesn't) in more mundane circumstances every day.
If a person knows with certainty there will be negative consequences for an action, they will only take that action if their perceived benefit outweighs the consequence.
For example, when people drive down a well-known speed trap, they almost always drive within the speed limit - far more so than on those roads that rarely have speed traps. The primary reason for this is it isn't worth $100 or more to save two minutes on your trip. If it is ever worth more than that, you can bet your ass that person is going to speed. If the fine were only $5, people would speed like crazy, because it is far more likely to be worth more than $5 to save a couple minutes on a trip than it is to be worth more than $100.
Another example: Vinni is good friends with the Italian Mafia. He may be screwing over the Russian Mob with his crooked real estate deals, but they don't dare attack Vinni because they know the Italians will retaliate in force, and it just isn't worth it. However, if they can devise a situation where the Italians won't retaliate, Vinni's ass is grass.
Same thing with MAD. I'm not going to attack you, because before my missiles hit the ground you'll have already launched just as many at me, and we're both dead. I don't want to die, therefore I won't attack you, even though I hate your guts. Since there are very few people who aren't interested in self preservation, and so far there has been nobody like that who has ever had access to a nuclear weapon, the system works very well (even if it's a frightening concept).
Your position of non-retaliation eliminates the consequence for the action, and therefore makes it far more likely that the action will take place. In other words, the willingness to nuke Russia off the face of the reason is likely the very reason we never had to nuke Russia off the face of the earth (and were never wiped out ourselves), and almost certainly never will.
The review you link to theorizes that it is a problem of "global dimming", where less solar radiation is available for photosynthesis, and that if this is true trees in northern climates would be more sensitive to this effect. That happens to match up what we observe - growth rates for trees in the north have not matched temperature readings as consistently as trees closer to the equator. It is also not clear whether or not this divergence is anthropogenic.
That tells me that a.) for the time being, tree ring data from northern climates is not a reliable source for temperature readings, and b.) it's entirely possible that trees from northern climates will never be a reliable source for temperature readings. Honestly, given the difficulty of studying the problem due to the various factors that affect tree growth, it sounds like tree rings were never a very reliable indicator of temperature to begin with.
The controversial studies at the center of "Climate-gate" were those conducted on tree-ring data from northern climates.
See the problem? It doesn't just "limit the confidence" of the data, until the question is answered one way or another the data is currently completely unreliable. The best case scenario for northern tree-rings as a temperature gauge is if the divergence is shown to be anthropogenic. Then Mann's insertion of modern temperature readings is perfectly legitimate. If it is shown to be non-anthropogenic, then the entire study is worthless, because the trees themselves are not a reliable indicator of temperature data. Until the question is answered the study is in limbo, and shouldn't be relied upon.
And you act like these guys had any intention of ever releasing their data.... don't be silly, that was never on their agenda anyway. Ever. Their data. It was going to be the source for many, many papers, for the rest of their careers, and to hell with any good any other person or people could have potentially done with that data; they've figured out job security, humanity be damned.
This has actually been a real problem in the history of science. Look at any game-changing new discovery - the scientists who make the discovery have to spend years, sometimes decades defending their theory against the establishment until they have absolute irrefutable proof that the established theory is definitely wrong and their theory more completely describes nature. Even then it's often a huge political battle among scientific communities to change the status quo.
Most scientists have a major stake in the current status quo. Some brilliant scientist somewhere came up a fantastic theory that fit so perfectly at one point that these scientists dove in to prove one particular aspect of it or another. They've spent the last 20 years working on it, and aren't really interested in doing anything new. Sure, things have been getting a little uncomfortable with the theory - certain anomalies have been popping up since the instruments got better, but you can ignore those - they aren't significant. Now some whipper snapper has a hot new theory that fits all the observations perfect, even the anomalies, but it just happens to invalidate half the field's entire life's work. Do you think they are going to be at all receptive? Or are they going to do everything they can to bury it for as long as possible?
That's the dirty secret of science - in a profession where the whole purpose is to discover the true nature of our universe, very few scientists are actually open to new ideas. Usually people who push the boundaries are those who have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and if they are successful they will become just as entrenched and resistant to new ideas as their predecessors.
String theory is a perfect example. Scientists have known for a long time that the current model for sub-atomic physics doesn't work, yet most were unwilling to even look at an alternative that might explain things. If it didn't fall right in line with the current theory they didn't want to hear it. The mere mention of a theory that actually does work quite nicely, but comes from way out in left field, is enough to kill certain scientist's careers for over a decade. They are only recently being vindicated as it is becoming clear that string theory really is better at everything than the current model of physics.
The vast, vast majority of climate scientists believe climate change is happening and humans are most likely the cause; Big Energy would like you think that the science is immature and there is no consensus.
Considering that even Exxon Mobil has said human-caused global warming is real, and considering that Exxon Mobil is by far the largest oil company in the world, you may want to re-evaluate where the controversy may lie. That article is from well before "Climategate", by the way.
There definitely is a controversy; it's in what we should be doing about global warming and what the consequences of not doing enough may be. Trying to dismiss the argument by propping up a straw man is disingenuous.
The only controversy is political, not scientific.
If there's no controversy in the science, then it isn't science. There is a consensus on the data - that the temperature has been rising for the last century, and it correlates to CO2 emissions - even Exxon's mouthpieces have said that.
There is, however, no consensus on the long term effects of that warming, there is no consensus on the climate models being used to predict such effects, and there is no consensus on what should be done to limit or reverse the effects of that warming, or even if anything needs to be done.
"Climategate" was a bunch of theatrics, but the climate scientists were not allowing their data to be peer reviewed, and were basically demanding that their conclusions be taken on faith. A stink was necessary to shake the data loose, and the scientists have since been vindicated of any wrong doing (except for being pretentious, selfish assholes who were desperately attempting to maintain their relevance - and source of income, of course).
Now hopefully we can get a lot more qualified experts involved to solve what is potentially the greatest problem human kind has ever faced.
In other words, this hobby horse has plenty more ride left in her, and if it's true science the controversy will probably never be over (just have a look at any well-established field of science to see what I mean - physics and cosmology are especially hot right now).
The scientists at the LHC are being paid to produce a specific result.
The scientists at the various fusion reactor research facilities are being paid to produce a specific result (and failing miserably, much to my dismay).
In fact, all experimental scientists are paid to produce a specific result, and I'd be willing to wager most theoretical scientists are paid to produce a specific result. Maybe cosmologists and physicists would be the exceptions. Climatologists should be an exception as well, but I'd very much doubt that they actually are.
Being paid to produce a result is common in science, in fact it's how most science works. It's how you get grants. Most governments spend very little on pure research - if they are going to spend money on something, they want something in return. Most science in general is funded by private companies for exactly the same reason. There is nothing wrong with getting paid by a private corporation to produce a paper with a specific result so long as that result is genuine.
The GP's link doesn't say whether or not any scientists were actually paid $10,000 for an anti-climate change paper, and there is no evidence given that suggests such papers would not be based on real data or contain legitimate conclusions.
The source of the money makes them suspect (if any such papers actually exist), but it in no way invalidates them. This logical fallacy is very common in politics especially, but it only speaks to how trustworthy the source is, not how accurate the information or how valid the conclusion is.
People like you are going to have to get used to true experts who simply lack a degree in the field in question.
I just want to point out that there is no such thing as a Climatology degree.
The majority of people's arguments here against sharing the data, if carried to their logical conclusion, suggest that there is no such thing as a climatologist - the people hiding the data don't have degrees in climatology, so obviously they aren't qualified to analyze it either. I guess we should give up the research now eh?
Statistics is important, but it's far from the only important thing in climate science.
Uhh... statistics is practically the only thing in climate science. Seriously. You get spatterings of other fields, but it's very minor: Go somewhere and dig up core samples - ice, mud, rock, whatever (geology). Figure out how various compound concentrations correspond to temperature (geology/statistics). Write down numbers for temperatures that correspond to dates (statistics). Trend those numbers to find patterns (statistics). Measure and calculate the various heat-trapping qualities of compounds in the air (statistics - the physics were done a long time ago). Create a model to predict what the climate will be like in the future based on the trends generated from the data collected (statistics).
Seriously, the meat of climatology is pure statistics, you touch a few other fields just barely in the collection of the data, but the heart and soul of climatology is statistics and there very few climatologists with statistics degrees of any kind.
Well, the American Meteorological Society gave him their seal of approval (for informative, well communicated, and scientifically sound weather information), so he can't be all bad.
I also call bullshit on the idea that only an expert in a given field could possibly understand when the facts don't jive. The basic concepts of science are very simple, and while the details may be hard or strange, what you do with the information is very familiar to anyone who has any scientific interests. A statistician is exactly the right person to analyze a climatologist's (as in, not a statistician) statistical models. That's what McIntyre does, and he's very good at it.
A famous weather blogger known for only pushing scientifically sound information is a perfect mouthpiece to raise a stink when the qualified statistician can't get the data needed to analyze the statistical models of a climatologist who is not as qualified to perform the same analysis.
No, he just doesn't want a bunch of people funded by exxon-mobil selectively quoting tiny portions of his data to support bullshit positions,
Which is pretty much always obliterated by those who are opposed to the bullshit positions if said position is a manipulation and not actually supported by the data.
In fact, I can't think of a single significant case in which information is available to anybody who wants view it, yet the predominant opinion is not supported by the data.
It's never a good idea to hide information in order to be sure the truth is known. That pretty much gives those who wish to twist the data a free hand.
The guy's field of study is the human retina, so I'm sure he is aware, though he mentions neither. In fact, from what I've just dug up, dithering and jitter do indeed help you see, but they don't necessarily increase spatial resolution.
Dithering, at least, would actually reduce the resolution in order to reduce resolution-related artifacts. Things look smoother, but you actually see them less clearly.
With jitter, the primary purpose is to keep the image "alive", without it as soon as you looked at an image it would begin to fade from view - not cool. It's possible that it does piece together bits from the jittered images to get better resolution - we do the same thing with cameras in some cases (which I'm sure is where that idea came from). In any case, I'm not sure that hurts anything when the screen is high enough detail that the resolution falls well within the limits of what the eye can see at any one time. Crappy security cameras certainly don't qualify, so I think that's why we see such a huge improvement in resolution. Just a guess though.
Oh, and totally sucks for developers to work with non-square pixels. Reminds me of 8-bit Atari, Graphics 11. 80×192 in landscape aspect ratio, pixels half a millimeter tall, half a centimeter wide.
I don't see what the problem is, the iPhone's pixel's are not shaped much different than previous iPhones, and the overall pixel+black space is the same, so I don't see how this would make a developer's job any harder.
It depends on what you're doing, of course, but if you're messing with individual pixels you're probably doing it wrong anyway.
Be fair now, I'm never going to buy another Apple product (and I've only ever bought a couple ipod nano's), but I still find this impressive.
I'm not as impressed as some people, because the iPhone 4 display simply edges out a couple other phones in the resolution arena, but it's still the highest resolution display on the market.
What I find pretty cool is it seems we've reached (or are at least pretty close to) the physical limits of what the eye can truly distinguish in a display. I think it's cool.
You're holding it close, though. 640x480 20 inches from your face is going to show more detail than 1080x1920 at 15 feet. There is also a lot more to the clarity of the video than just the resolution - color quality and contrast have a big impact on how detailed the image is as well, and these two features are much better today than they were a few years ago.
In other words, the camera is going to pick up everything if you hold it in your hand. You'd also better hold it up, or they'll be staring into your nose.
They were a distinct visible improvement over the previous generations of 300dpi ones....but all this really boils down to is the fact that you've got what amounts to a fairly respectable desktop screen that's been shrunk down the the point that you can't see anything on it because everything is so small.
There is such a thing as "scaling" - you can make an image bigger and pack more pixels in it. If it's a vector image, you keep the sharpness the small pixels provide while maintaining an easy to read screen.
Furthermore, if you're having trouble seeing all small devices, chances are it's your eyes that are the culprit. See, as we age, the lenses in our eyes harden and loose the ability to adjust the focal length. This means people tend to become a little far-sighted, and require reading glasses to see any detail within arm's length. Anybody in that situation needs reading glasses for small, detailed devices, period.
Young people with flexible eyes do not have a problem with it. My eyes are still young, and I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable reading on my HTC Hero is. That's with a piddly 181ppi, barely more than half of the iPhone 4's.
In other words, if your OS isn't stupid then increasing the resolution only makes things clearer. People are used to higher resolution making everything tiny because Windows made some retarded moves early on, and has been stuck with them since. There is no real need for it.
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The IE that ships with 64bit Windows 7 is 32 bit.
How is sandboxing easier in 64bit, and in what way is security better in 64bit vs 32bit? And I need a better reason than "well nobody is writing exploits for 64bit yet".
Hello? They just had to release Windows 7, and breaking a myriad of poorly written third-party drivers was a primary factor in Vista's failure. What planet have you been living on?
The fact is, Microsoft (usually) works harder than any other OS manufacturer to maintain backwards compatibility and ensure new changes don't break old software. They did not do that with Vista, and they got their asses kicked for it.
Apple gets away with telling OSX to pound sand every year because they've been doing it that way forever. Seriously, try to run three year old software on a new Mac. Chances are it won't work. Now do the same with a Windows box. I'd be surprised if it didn't work, because almost everything does (though bad security practices of the past cut out more apps than most Windows upgrades do).
The Motorola 68000 was a 16/32 bit processor, meaning it had a 16 bit data bus but 32 bit registers and was capable of 32 bit arithmetic. This means if you sent your 32 bit instructions in two 16 bit chunks, you could run at 32 bits. The Amiga did this, and I can only assume the Genesis did not, since it was clearly labeled 16 bit and I would assume they'd have preferred to push 32 bit if they were writing 32 bit games.
Either way your memory was limited by the 16 bit data bus - you could process at 32 bits but you couldn't use anywhere near 4gb of RAM.
Having a data bus at half the size of the general purpose registers is not really that uncommon. The Intel 8088 was a 16 bit processor with an 8 bit bus, same thing there.
It truly amazes me how little the average person understands about economics.
A business exists to make money. A company doesn't sell a sound card out the kindness of their heart, and they don't write drivers for said sound card out of the kindness of their heart either. They can't survive if they do. If being pro-active does not generate more income than it costs, then it is economic suicide to be pro-active.
It's called return on investment, and any halfway decent developer is going to do at least a rudimentary ROI analysis before beginning even a small upgrade, let alone a complete overhaul of their code.
Basically what you are asking developers to do is exactly the same as your boss telling you you need to work evenings and weekends for no pay. You'll do it if it means losing your job, but otherwise you'll tell your boss to either pay you for it or fuck off. Getting an updated driver is no different. If it's free, expect it to take a while - they'll have to spread the cost over a long period of time to make the investment feasible. If it means losing customers because they didn't write the driver, well then you'll get it pretty quickly.
Is it fair that you have to worry for decades and pay for further credit monitoring when they are to blame for your information ending up in the wrong hands?
For fuck's sake, is it fair that someone stole your data in the first place? No, of course it isn't. But ultimately, it's your problem and nobody else's. Trying to make it someone else's problem is childish and irresponsible. They did their best (at least for the amount of money you spent on the service), but there hasn't been a security system invented that is 100% foolproof. So now you have to watch your information like a hawk because someone is a thief. You can hire that out too if you want, but there is a chance it will happen again. There was a chance it could happen even if you were managing your information security yourself. Thieves take shit that doesn't belong to them. It sucks but it's reality.
Life isn't fair - deal with it!
Christ.
An amazing thing happens when people set out to prove something is false when the data says otherwise: often, they become disenchanted with their own position, and they tend to shut the hell up. On rare occasions they'll become advocates for the position they used to oppose, but that's rare, especially if they were very vocal in their opposition to begin with.
Misrepresentations of data are easily debunked when all someone has to do in response is to say "That's not true, look here and see for yourself".
I hate to break it to you, but that has always been the case for controversial science. Read a biography of such titans as Galileo or Newton - politics made their lives a living hell.
But you know what? They are considered some of the greatest minds in the history of science for the simple fact that they were willing to take the abuse. And in both their cases, the potential was not the piddly annoyances of bloggers or being forced to work on the fringes of the scientific community. No, they faced imprisonment, ostracism, excommunication, the works.
If you aren't willing to deal with all the bullshit from the people you will offend by doing great science, you probably aren't cut out to do great science. If those scientists you mentioned quit their work because of the pressure and move into an easier field, they will almost certainly go down in history as nobody's. If they continue the struggle in the face of adversity, their stories could potentially inspire young scientists for centuries to come.
You've just got to ask yourself, is greatness worth the suffering?
They *aren't* interested in "finding something wrong with it". No, they're interested in waging a PR war. As such, they don't attack the science. They simply misquote the science.
I'm assuming you are referring to the two peer review papers that Jones attempted (unsuccessfully, fortunately) to have blocked from the journal, correct?
I suppose the only way one can "attack the science" is by completely agreeing with whatever conclusion the original researcher reached, and not questioning the methods he used to reach those conclusions, correct? Mann has been exonerated - his work was not misleading, and his data has been verified based on the studies he used. Jones, however, still appears to have been intentionally misleading. The report somehow clears Jones of wrong doing even while acknowledging that he took out everything in Mann's study that made the graphs clear and understandable. On that score, I disagree with the review, and frankly, Jones is a selfish ass who has contributed little to the field of climatology and is simply trying to maintain what little he has.
The media certainly had a field day, and Fox News was definitely waging a PR war, but that was only possible because bloggers found evidence of scientists attempting to block other scientists from reviewing their work. If there is a better way to throw shit at a fan, I don't know it.
well, in fact, the paper was not suppressed, so apparently that argument is faulty.
Do you know if other peer review papers have ever been successfully silenced?
The fact that an attempt failed is hardly proof that the system is working. It sounds to me like something that should be looked into. If it isn't really possible to silence opposition, then wonderful, but that fact that one man failed does not stand as proof that nobody has succeeded. Not at all.
If Russia or some other national-level foe wipes out the US, there's really little reason to counterattack. Revenge, btw, isn't a good reason.
However, revenge is a fantastic incentive not to attack in the first place. That's how the concept works, and you can see how it works (and when it doesn't) in more mundane circumstances every day.
If a person knows with certainty there will be negative consequences for an action, they will only take that action if their perceived benefit outweighs the consequence.
For example, when people drive down a well-known speed trap, they almost always drive within the speed limit - far more so than on those roads that rarely have speed traps. The primary reason for this is it isn't worth $100 or more to save two minutes on your trip. If it is ever worth more than that, you can bet your ass that person is going to speed. If the fine were only $5, people would speed like crazy, because it is far more likely to be worth more than $5 to save a couple minutes on a trip than it is to be worth more than $100.
Another example: Vinni is good friends with the Italian Mafia. He may be screwing over the Russian Mob with his crooked real estate deals, but they don't dare attack Vinni because they know the Italians will retaliate in force, and it just isn't worth it. However, if they can devise a situation where the Italians won't retaliate, Vinni's ass is grass.
Same thing with MAD. I'm not going to attack you, because before my missiles hit the ground you'll have already launched just as many at me, and we're both dead. I don't want to die, therefore I won't attack you, even though I hate your guts. Since there are very few people who aren't interested in self preservation, and so far there has been nobody like that who has ever had access to a nuclear weapon, the system works very well (even if it's a frightening concept).
Your position of non-retaliation eliminates the consequence for the action, and therefore makes it far more likely that the action will take place. In other words, the willingness to nuke Russia off the face of the reason is likely the very reason we never had to nuke Russia off the face of the earth (and were never wiped out ourselves), and almost certainly never will.
The review you link to theorizes that it is a problem of "global dimming", where less solar radiation is available for photosynthesis, and that if this is true trees in northern climates would be more sensitive to this effect. That happens to match up what we observe - growth rates for trees in the north have not matched temperature readings as consistently as trees closer to the equator. It is also not clear whether or not this divergence is anthropogenic.
That tells me that a.) for the time being, tree ring data from northern climates is not a reliable source for temperature readings, and b.) it's entirely possible that trees from northern climates will never be a reliable source for temperature readings. Honestly, given the difficulty of studying the problem due to the various factors that affect tree growth, it sounds like tree rings were never a very reliable indicator of temperature to begin with.
The controversial studies at the center of "Climate-gate" were those conducted on tree-ring data from northern climates.
See the problem? It doesn't just "limit the confidence" of the data, until the question is answered one way or another the data is currently completely unreliable. The best case scenario for northern tree-rings as a temperature gauge is if the divergence is shown to be anthropogenic. Then Mann's insertion of modern temperature readings is perfectly legitimate. If it is shown to be non-anthropogenic, then the entire study is worthless, because the trees themselves are not a reliable indicator of temperature data. Until the question is answered the study is in limbo, and shouldn't be relied upon.
And you act like these guys had any intention of ever releasing their data.... don't be silly, that was never on their agenda anyway. Ever. Their data. It was going to be the source for many, many papers, for the rest of their careers, and to hell with any good any other person or people could have potentially done with that data; they've figured out job security, humanity be damned.
This has actually been a real problem in the history of science. Look at any game-changing new discovery - the scientists who make the discovery have to spend years, sometimes decades defending their theory against the establishment until they have absolute irrefutable proof that the established theory is definitely wrong and their theory more completely describes nature. Even then it's often a huge political battle among scientific communities to change the status quo.
Most scientists have a major stake in the current status quo. Some brilliant scientist somewhere came up a fantastic theory that fit so perfectly at one point that these scientists dove in to prove one particular aspect of it or another. They've spent the last 20 years working on it, and aren't really interested in doing anything new. Sure, things have been getting a little uncomfortable with the theory - certain anomalies have been popping up since the instruments got better, but you can ignore those - they aren't significant. Now some whipper snapper has a hot new theory that fits all the observations perfect, even the anomalies, but it just happens to invalidate half the field's entire life's work. Do you think they are going to be at all receptive? Or are they going to do everything they can to bury it for as long as possible?
That's the dirty secret of science - in a profession where the whole purpose is to discover the true nature of our universe, very few scientists are actually open to new ideas. Usually people who push the boundaries are those who have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and if they are successful they will become just as entrenched and resistant to new ideas as their predecessors.
String theory is a perfect example. Scientists have known for a long time that the current model for sub-atomic physics doesn't work, yet most were unwilling to even look at an alternative that might explain things. If it didn't fall right in line with the current theory they didn't want to hear it. The mere mention of a theory that actually does work quite nicely, but comes from way out in left field, is enough to kill certain scientist's careers for over a decade. They are only recently being vindicated as it is becoming clear that string theory really is better at everything than the current model of physics.
The vast, vast majority of climate scientists believe climate change is happening and humans are most likely the cause; Big Energy would like you think that the science is immature and there is no consensus.
Considering that even Exxon Mobil has said human-caused global warming is real, and considering that Exxon Mobil is by far the largest oil company in the world, you may want to re-evaluate where the controversy may lie. That article is from well before "Climategate", by the way.
There definitely is a controversy; it's in what we should be doing about global warming and what the consequences of not doing enough may be. Trying to dismiss the argument by propping up a straw man is disingenuous.
The only controversy is political, not scientific.
If there's no controversy in the science, then it isn't science. There is a consensus on the data - that the temperature has been rising for the last century, and it correlates to CO2 emissions - even Exxon's mouthpieces have said that.
There is, however, no consensus on the long term effects of that warming, there is no consensus on the climate models being used to predict such effects, and there is no consensus on what should be done to limit or reverse the effects of that warming, or even if anything needs to be done.
"Climategate" was a bunch of theatrics, but the climate scientists were not allowing their data to be peer reviewed, and were basically demanding that their conclusions be taken on faith. A stink was necessary to shake the data loose, and the scientists have since been vindicated of any wrong doing (except for being pretentious, selfish assholes who were desperately attempting to maintain their relevance - and source of income, of course).
Now hopefully we can get a lot more qualified experts involved to solve what is potentially the greatest problem human kind has ever faced.
In other words, this hobby horse has plenty more ride left in her, and if it's true science the controversy will probably never be over (just have a look at any well-established field of science to see what I mean - physics and cosmology are especially hot right now).
How?
The scientists at the LHC are being paid to produce a specific result.
The scientists at the various fusion reactor research facilities are being paid to produce a specific result (and failing miserably, much to my dismay).
In fact, all experimental scientists are paid to produce a specific result, and I'd be willing to wager most theoretical scientists are paid to produce a specific result. Maybe cosmologists and physicists would be the exceptions. Climatologists should be an exception as well, but I'd very much doubt that they actually are.
Being paid to produce a result is common in science, in fact it's how most science works. It's how you get grants. Most governments spend very little on pure research - if they are going to spend money on something, they want something in return. Most science in general is funded by private companies for exactly the same reason. There is nothing wrong with getting paid by a private corporation to produce a paper with a specific result so long as that result is genuine.
The GP's link doesn't say whether or not any scientists were actually paid $10,000 for an anti-climate change paper, and there is no evidence given that suggests such papers would not be based on real data or contain legitimate conclusions.
The source of the money makes them suspect (if any such papers actually exist), but it in no way invalidates them. This logical fallacy is very common in politics especially, but it only speaks to how trustworthy the source is, not how accurate the information or how valid the conclusion is.
People like you are going to have to get used to true experts who simply lack a degree in the field in question.
I just want to point out that there is no such thing as a Climatology degree.
The majority of people's arguments here against sharing the data, if carried to their logical conclusion, suggest that there is no such thing as a climatologist - the people hiding the data don't have degrees in climatology, so obviously they aren't qualified to analyze it either. I guess we should give up the research now eh?
Statistics is important, but it's far from the only important thing in climate science.
Uhh... statistics is practically the only thing in climate science. Seriously. You get spatterings of other fields, but it's very minor: Go somewhere and dig up core samples - ice, mud, rock, whatever (geology). Figure out how various compound concentrations correspond to temperature (geology/statistics). Write down numbers for temperatures that correspond to dates (statistics). Trend those numbers to find patterns (statistics). Measure and calculate the various heat-trapping qualities of compounds in the air (statistics - the physics were done a long time ago). Create a model to predict what the climate will be like in the future based on the trends generated from the data collected (statistics).
Seriously, the meat of climatology is pure statistics, you touch a few other fields just barely in the collection of the data, but the heart and soul of climatology is statistics and there very few climatologists with statistics degrees of any kind.
That should kind of scare you.
Well, the American Meteorological Society gave him their seal of approval (for informative, well communicated, and scientifically sound weather information), so he can't be all bad.
I also call bullshit on the idea that only an expert in a given field could possibly understand when the facts don't jive. The basic concepts of science are very simple, and while the details may be hard or strange, what you do with the information is very familiar to anyone who has any scientific interests. A statistician is exactly the right person to analyze a climatologist's (as in, not a statistician) statistical models. That's what McIntyre does, and he's very good at it.
A famous weather blogger known for only pushing scientifically sound information is a perfect mouthpiece to raise a stink when the qualified statistician can't get the data needed to analyze the statistical models of a climatologist who is not as qualified to perform the same analysis.
No, he just doesn't want a bunch of people funded by exxon-mobil selectively quoting tiny portions of his data to support bullshit positions,
Which is pretty much always obliterated by those who are opposed to the bullshit positions if said position is a manipulation and not actually supported by the data.
In fact, I can't think of a single significant case in which information is available to anybody who wants view it, yet the predominant opinion is not supported by the data.
It's never a good idea to hide information in order to be sure the truth is known. That pretty much gives those who wish to twist the data a free hand.
The guy's field of study is the human retina, so I'm sure he is aware, though he mentions neither. In fact, from what I've just dug up, dithering and jitter do indeed help you see, but they don't necessarily increase spatial resolution.
Dithering, at least, would actually reduce the resolution in order to reduce resolution-related artifacts. Things look smoother, but you actually see them less clearly.
With jitter, the primary purpose is to keep the image "alive", without it as soon as you looked at an image it would begin to fade from view - not cool. It's possible that it does piece together bits from the jittered images to get better resolution - we do the same thing with cameras in some cases (which I'm sure is where that idea came from). In any case, I'm not sure that hurts anything when the screen is high enough detail that the resolution falls well within the limits of what the eye can see at any one time. Crappy security cameras certainly don't qualify, so I think that's why we see such a huge improvement in resolution. Just a guess though.
Oh, and totally sucks for developers to work with non-square pixels. Reminds me of 8-bit Atari, Graphics 11. 80×192 in landscape aspect ratio, pixels half a millimeter tall, half a centimeter wide.
I don't see what the problem is, the iPhone's pixel's are not shaped much different than previous iPhones, and the overall pixel+black space is the same, so I don't see how this would make a developer's job any harder.
It depends on what you're doing, of course, but if you're messing with individual pixels you're probably doing it wrong anyway.
Be fair now, I'm never going to buy another Apple product (and I've only ever bought a couple ipod nano's), but I still find this impressive.
I'm not as impressed as some people, because the iPhone 4 display simply edges out a couple other phones in the resolution arena, but it's still the highest resolution display on the market.
What I find pretty cool is it seems we've reached (or are at least pretty close to) the physical limits of what the eye can truly distinguish in a display. I think it's cool.
You're holding it close, though. 640x480 20 inches from your face is going to show more detail than 1080x1920 at 15 feet. There is also a lot more to the clarity of the video than just the resolution - color quality and contrast have a big impact on how detailed the image is as well, and these two features are much better today than they were a few years ago.
In other words, the camera is going to pick up everything if you hold it in your hand. You'd also better hold it up, or they'll be staring into your nose.
That's one big pocket!
They were a distinct visible improvement over the previous generations of 300dpi ones. ...but all this really boils down to is the fact that you've got what amounts to a fairly
respectable desktop screen that's been shrunk down the the point that you can't see
anything on it because everything is so small.
There is such a thing as "scaling" - you can make an image bigger and pack more pixels in it. If it's a vector image, you keep the sharpness the small pixels provide while maintaining an easy to read screen.
Furthermore, if you're having trouble seeing all small devices, chances are it's your eyes that are the culprit. See, as we age, the lenses in our eyes harden and loose the ability to adjust the focal length. This means people tend to become a little far-sighted, and require reading glasses to see any detail within arm's length. Anybody in that situation needs reading glasses for small, detailed devices, period.
Young people with flexible eyes do not have a problem with it. My eyes are still young, and I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable reading on my HTC Hero is. That's with a piddly 181ppi, barely more than half of the iPhone 4's.
In other words, if your OS isn't stupid then increasing the resolution only makes things clearer. People are used to higher resolution making everything tiny because Windows made some retarded moves early on, and has been stuck with them since. There is no real need for it.