The main building is about 150m wide. The two vehicles parked inside it, on the right side, are bulldozers / tractors. The "weird U-shaped thing" is the size of a house... might even *be* a house. The whole thing looks like an ag school field station or, at worst, a work camp (see the stuff to the right of the main building).
How many other industries have consequences of the same magnitude when they fuck up?
Ethics aside: If you can't absorb the risk, you shouldn't make the wager... unless you have no qualms about being forced to walk away from the game.
Being an oil company is a choice. Being an oil company that does deepwater drilling is a choice. Being an oil company that does deepwater drilling poorly is a choice.
Since when does being bad at your risky job entitle you to privileges unavailable to people who aren't as stupid as you are?
(Oh yeah, sorry, that's a long list right now. I guess we know how this will turn out.)
I really don't like to play devil's advocate here since I do agree with HSF/exploration *on environmental grounds*, but here's a strong point:
Justification for HSF/exploration: "The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next."
Justification for canning CxP in favor of (probably) more influence at SMD: "The history of man is hung on a timeline of *resource exploitation* and this is what's next."
Exploration and resource exploitation - and I mean exploitation in its literal meaning, not in some negatively-laden connotation - are entwined as far back as we can imagine and certainly as far back as we can historically support. Exploration is the initial step toward resource acquisition. (And notice that "step" is, in English, inextricable from "progress," "advancement," etc.) This way of thinking has brought us incredibly far.
But this way of thinking has also brought us to the brink of disaster many times, sometimes over, but never before to a potential disaster as serious as the one we can imagine now. The risk trades on this one are terrifying. But I think the argument here is this: 1. A refocus to Earth/planetary science will yield known-meaningful, known-valuable advances, regardless of how useful our current climate models prove to be. 2. Technology will advance, especially through commercial spaceflight, regardless of government focus. Punting to the private sector is not crazy at this point, and may be beneficial. 3. No one else is going to do the science NASA already does; NASA capabilities are second to none and are a world resource at this point. 4. If our models do prove to be close to correct, then we need an Apollo-style focus on Earth science *now*... exploration can wait and that work may prove more efficient after just a few more years' development.
Just sayin'. I've worked on analogues and will be sad to see 'em go (though I don't think they should, there's no reason to stop researching ops concepts even with CxP cancelled).
The thing a lot of people seem to be missing here is that the two poles are very different. Yes, they are poles, and have some similarity in the style of their extremes. But Antarctica is a continent surrounded by oceans. The Arctic is primarily ocean.
There are two really obvious related factors in the Arctic. One factor is, oddly enough, the melting point of sea ice. And the frequently overlooked part of that is that *it's a state change*. At a threshold temperature, the stuff changes state. So subtle changes in the central tendency of an oscillation around the melting point can bring the system suddenly out of apparent equilibrium and into... feedback. One factor is albedo. With less reflection from the sea ice, there's more thermal absorption, which leads to less reflection... feedback.
The *real* problem with the global warming evidence is that it's more and more frequently explained in simplistic terms by people who don't understand it, resulting in backlash. There are also a ton of advocacy people out there who lack actual scientific background. These are really complicated systems, and one of the reasons we model them is that they're too complicated for any one person to understand every single aspect; models are a sane way to integrate the results of studies requiring disparate expertise (or at least different people).
And yes, colder winters, longer summers, whatever... as you've pointed out, talking about this is useless without at least a clear and common reference. This story pulls one very interesting result out of context and into casual conversation. So I suppose I'll be going now. I would highly recommend a literature search to you. It's not difficult stuff to understand, experiment by experiment, it's just an incredibly complex set of interactions combined with frustrating (i.e. real-world) experimental conditions.
CHARIOT does have GPS, in fact. Part of the point of these analog campaigns is to develop and refine specifications for what is and isn't needed. The consensus is that GPS is a very good thing. Remember that we are still about 10 years from launch. Within that time, work will be done on positioning systems. No, it will probably not look a lot like GPS in terms of implementation - but there will almost certainly be some sort of (near?) real-time positioning system. It's actively discussed.
The other thing GPS provides - and at this stage it's almost more important - is hugely useful data about the actual test parameters. GPS ties a lot of this work together. CHARIOT has GPS, and so do the various suits and backpacks (for shirtsleeve ops) the suit subjects wear. High resolution spatial data is good for linking all the other data.
I really don't have anything bad to say about DS Organize, a homebrew app. As a bonus, it includes a somewhat old-school web browser - but it's much faster than Opera DS. Have fun getting your hands on a homebrew cartridge these days though. Grr. And when you find a seller, do your homework first. R4 is a good cartridge. I and everyone I know has been very happy with it.
as i understand it, the telecom immunity provided by that bill provides only immunity to civil suits. which means criminal suits are fair game. an obama administration might actually do something with that. he does know constitutional law.
Hi Gori, I would also appreciate a pointer to more info - the simulations running on this machine could be interesting within my research. You can reach me at the name of this site @ phossie.com. Thanks!
How about +5......sounds good if you want to believe it?
i mean, seriously. even dept of commerce branch NOAA *completely* disagrees with you. please note this *peer-reviewed* info (yes, this entire site is a published study): http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/indicators.shtml
and yes, this is merely the most digestible and easily accessible of the info out there.
Close, but not quite right. Looks like it is the City and the Tribal Council or Tribal Government that are filing suit. All the village corporations in the NANA region (except Kotzebue) merged with NANA.
Ah... I thought I saw something about Cd incorporated in part of the production process, maybe a separation layer or something, but I can't find the reference now. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. If so... then good!
I have to apologize for this comment up front because my chemistry is really rusty and my biochem is non-existent, but here it is...
Thin-film PV was a problem last I checked due to the use of cadmium. While you get a nice solar product as a result, you also get a highly toxic, difficult to handle material to dispose of... somehow. (The nice thing about silicon is that it's not terribly reactive with much of anything.) AFAIK, CIGS *sometimes* uses a problematic form of cadmium. If there's one thing we need to remember from our experience with oil, it's that we need to check the life cycle analysis before jumping in whole-hog.
That said, the cadmium problem is probably easier than the emissions problem. Probably.
First, a reference: Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Federal Rules of Statutory Interpretation, 115 Harv. L. Rev. 2085 (2002). Definitely worth a read, good stuff. You don't need some tweak to the process, you just need consistent *language* - to extend the metaphor, instead of switching from waterfall to XP, start using a programming language instead of excerpts from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Of course, that would take a lot of the fun out of politics.
The problem is most clear if you take a look in the back of Black's Law Dictionary. There you'll find a collection of legal canons, generally Latin phrases that are supposed to illuminate how to think about the law. Judges and lawyers sometimes use these as grasping-straws... the problem with adages like these is that there's always one that fits, no matter which side you're on. So another reference is in order - this one's a classic, a fun and depressing read: Karl N. Llewellyn, Remarks on the Theory of Appellate Decision & the Rules or Canons About How Statutes are to Be Construed, 5 Green Bag 2d 297 (2002) [Originally published at 3 Vand. L. Rev. 395 (1950)]. Notice the date. People have been frustrated with this stuff for a *long* time.
Better oversight *by the public* solves a lot of problems, and this might be one of the first. At the risk of sounding like a shill, take a look at Obama's tech positions. (Come on, you know you want to, he got opinions from Lessig...)
Sorry I won't go find the reference right now, since I should be sleeping, but there have been a number of life cycle analyses of various photovoltaic technologies. (Do a lit search if you can, better than reading this lousy post.) Most of these conclude that solar repays its energy debt long before end of useful life. It's also ok on carbon, compared to most other energy - I was surprised about this because I went into the research thinking about Si production, but it actually works out pretty well. The place to be careful with solar right now in terms of environmental damage is some of the newer tech: thin films are often manufactured with cadmium, which is a big problem.
No kidding. I don't know where these "oboes stay in tune the best" people are coming from. Yeah, maybe the instrument might not need adjusting. I don't know about that. But the embouchure... oh, the embouchure. Pitch for any given note can range all over the place with no change in the instrument itself. Listening to even an advanced-beginner oboist is cause for any of a number of violent acts. Far worse than the endless mississippi-hot-dogging of beginning violinists (also a fearsome instrument as far as intonation goes).
The funny thing is that the oboe is the instrument with the most difficult intonation problems. So every single oboist I've ever heard of keeps a tuner on the stand *at all times*. It also has a sound that can cut through the entire orchestra alone.
My natural reaction is to agree. As a wilderness junkie and a bit of a hermit, my view is that if you can't handle it don't go/stay there. But here's a very simplified story: a lot of Alaska's residents were born there. For the strongest argument, look to the Native people. They want to keep living in their ancestral homes. But if their children are going to have options in this world, they need to be familiar with it - they need to live in some extension of modern society. To get transportation to Anchorage, etc., you need a bunch of money. That means participation in the modern economy.
The result of these pressures - history, family, culture, economy, consumerism, and future need (aka sustainability) - is a real conflict. The traditional ways would work if the modern benefits were sacrificed. People really like some of the modern stuff. And they *always* want their kids to have the widest range of choices. It's a huge dissonance; it's a compromise that few can make successfully. And it's more difficult without the basic infrastructure that much of the rest of the country takes for granted.
So yes - if it doesn't work, maybe people shouldn't do it. But the damage associated with not doing it is also tremendous. In your way, only the people that really cared would stay in the bush - but in reality, those people are pulled in two different directions because they want options for the future.
On one hand, you're right. On the other, you clearly don't know much about the realities of economic development in Alaska. Most of Alaska is wilderness. To develop modern local economies, modern "conveniences" like roads and docks and harbors are required. And in a wilderness those projects are incredibly expensive. Count the number of towns in Alaska. Then count the number of towns with roads connecting them.
Yes, Alaska receives many barrels filled with pig meat. Yes, that kind of investment is the deciding factor in the future sustainability of the state (and all the people in it). Everyone knows the oil and gas won't last forever. By the time that money is gone, Alaska either needs to have a sustainable economy or a population that still knows all the old subsistence ways. Halfway between the two will be a disaster.
Cruise ships make or break communities. If the ships come, you win. If the ships don't come, you lose. The cruise companies wield that power in ways that would make you cringe even if your business didn't rely on them. In this and other ways, Alaska *isn't* a reasonable place - it's a strange sort of modern frontier. That's not just marketing jargon. Go visit the Bush.
I went to a tiny bush village in Alaska with a big chip on my shoulder against Ted Stevens. I lived there for three years. I saw why people keep voting for him. It's not usually greed. Sometimes it's self-preservation.
Problem is that those of us who actually pay attention to these things must have some sort of a priori bias against whoever did them bad things, or else we wouldn't be paying attention in the first place. Therefore my opinion is worthless to anyone not already interested in it, and anyone interested in it cannot be trusted to have an unbiased opinion.
What's wrong with you if you don't want to "work"?! Change careers if you don't like it. A million people are waiting to take your place, and since they enjoy what they do, I'd bet at least a few of them will do better "work" than you.
Oh, the horror of doing what you love every day. Don't like it? Then quit.
If you're sane, I'd argue that we're in a frightening environment no matter your place on the multidimensional political spectrum.
I am a fiscal conservative, an environmental conservative (I often think, "that word, it does not mean what you think it means"), and a civil liberties freak. I label myself as a leftist because I believe the first two points of my platform can be accomplished through enlightened application of the third.
But part of the problem is that the political spectrum in the US is distorted almost beyond belief. We can't even talk rationally about our positions without explaining them in detail, because political campaigning has so skewed the meaning of most of our vocabulary. When I say "conservative," I mean something quite close to the accepted dictionary definition of many years. I don't mean that I support the status quo or the prevailing religious viewpoint. But if all I said was that I am conservative, you might think I'm a warmonger and your mistake would be understandable.
We are dealing with a terrible dearth of honesty and clarity in public discourse.
"Is warming a catastrophe? Even IF you buy into the Cassandras, for every "coral reef is gonna die because the water's too warm!" it's hard to believe that there's not a corresponding expansion (northward) of coral-reef-able zones. For every acre of expanded desert, there's another acre of former-tundra that now has a growing season."
Sure, maybe your picture makes sense. Here's a question which assumes it's correct: where are the myriad marine species that need the nutrition, temperature, current signatures, and other facets of our colder waters going to go? What happens to them? We're seeing some pretty major effects of climate change up here. I live and work in a fishing village in the Aleutians. We are perfectly situated to view the ecosystem interaction between the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Our economy depends on the health of the ecosystem, and yes, we all know it (we're not mindless resource extractors up here). We want sustainability, and so we work - slowly, as an institution - towards making our livelihood (and thus that of the fish, etc.) as sustainable as possible.
But there is not a whole lot we can do about climate change on our own. The ice edge is farther north every year. There are fewer and fewer salmon. Other fisheries are suffering too. Recent research on a few different marine species indicates that there are a lot of environmental signals that guide migrations, and lots of these are strongly affected by climate change. Look too at the sea between Japan and Russia/Kamchatka, which used to freeze over. Nutrient levels in the water are dropping.
The tundra needs to remain tundra for so many different reasons, and not all of them are explicitly conservationist. Traditional sustainable ways of life become impossible when the traditional food sources cannot survive even without harvesting. This land is not exactly suitable for agriculture, but humans have been living on it for many centuries with success. The conservative estimate is that the Aleut civilization was continuously successful for 8000 years. Eight thousand years... some say ten. In other words, one of the oldest continuous civilizations anywhere on the planet, and in one of the harshest environments. And as in much of Alaska, life here is considerably better with subsistence methods than without.
This climate change stuff is lot more serious and a lot more urgent than most people think. Look at what the northern people are doing and thinking. You can almost use us as an indicator class - when traditional methods begin to fail, examine them for longevity and then consider the contributing factors.
The middle-ground system I can imagine happening sometime soon is this: a balanced user interface standard which specifies a unified set of best practices for both CL and GU interfaces.
The GUI is all about rapid and focused information retrieval, while the CL is all about rapid and focused information manipulation. GUI is therefore good for discovery - it's natural for new users and can manifest in varying degrees of sophistication.
Every GUI program presents a command-line alternative for every GUI-accessible function (and perhaps more, as CLI is well suited to esoterica). A general terminal client with a customizable GUI discovery mode provides an interface for CLI-only programs.
It might be useful to present two numbers at the top of every article. One is the current contention score, which is a measure of changes to existing content (scaled by recentness). The other is the average contention score (weighted somehow?). In this way, users have an immediate clue as to whether the article is currently the subject of contentious revisions as well as an idea of the general controversy of the subject since its introduction.
Slashdot Mirror
The main building is about 150m wide. The two vehicles parked inside it, on the right side, are bulldozers / tractors. The "weird U-shaped thing" is the size of a house... might even *be* a house. The whole thing looks like an ag school field station or, at worst, a work camp (see the stuff to the right of the main building).
See you again in another few years.
Ethics aside: If you can't absorb the risk, you shouldn't make the wager... unless you have no qualms about being forced to walk away from the game.
Being an oil company is a choice. Being an oil company that does deepwater drilling is a choice. Being an oil company that does deepwater drilling poorly is a choice.
Since when does being bad at your risky job entitle you to privileges unavailable to people who aren't as stupid as you are?
(Oh yeah, sorry, that's a long list right now. I guess we know how this will turn out.)
The summaries were intriguing but lame. Here's the real thing (preprint):
http://arxiv.org/abs/1002.2858
Author's page is here:
http://users.dimi.uniud.it/~massimo.franceschet/
Interesting stuff.
I really don't like to play devil's advocate here since I do agree with HSF/exploration *on environmental grounds*, but here's a strong point:
Justification for HSF/exploration:
"The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration and this is what's next."
Justification for canning CxP in favor of (probably) more influence at SMD:
"The history of man is hung on a timeline of *resource exploitation* and this is what's next."
Exploration and resource exploitation - and I mean exploitation in its literal meaning, not in some negatively-laden connotation - are entwined as far back as we can imagine and certainly as far back as we can historically support. Exploration is the initial step toward resource acquisition. (And notice that "step" is, in English, inextricable from "progress," "advancement," etc.) This way of thinking has brought us incredibly far.
But this way of thinking has also brought us to the brink of disaster many times, sometimes over, but never before to a potential disaster as serious as the one we can imagine now. The risk trades on this one are terrifying. But I think the argument here is this:
1. A refocus to Earth/planetary science will yield known-meaningful, known-valuable advances, regardless of how useful our current climate models prove to be.
2. Technology will advance, especially through commercial spaceflight, regardless of government focus. Punting to the private sector is not crazy at this point, and may be beneficial.
3. No one else is going to do the science NASA already does; NASA capabilities are second to none and are a world resource at this point.
4. If our models do prove to be close to correct, then we need an Apollo-style focus on Earth science *now*... exploration can wait and that work may prove more efficient after just a few more years' development.
Just sayin'. I've worked on analogues and will be sad to see 'em go (though I don't think they should, there's no reason to stop researching ops concepts even with CxP cancelled).
The thing a lot of people seem to be missing here is that the two poles are very different. Yes, they are poles, and have some similarity in the style of their extremes. But Antarctica is a continent surrounded by oceans. The Arctic is primarily ocean.
There are two really obvious related factors in the Arctic. One factor is, oddly enough, the melting point of sea ice. And the frequently overlooked part of that is that *it's a state change*. At a threshold temperature, the stuff changes state. So subtle changes in the central tendency of an oscillation around the melting point can bring the system suddenly out of apparent equilibrium and into... feedback. One factor is albedo. With less reflection from the sea ice, there's more thermal absorption, which leads to less reflection... feedback.
The *real* problem with the global warming evidence is that it's more and more frequently explained in simplistic terms by people who don't understand it, resulting in backlash. There are also a ton of advocacy people out there who lack actual scientific background. These are really complicated systems, and one of the reasons we model them is that they're too complicated for any one person to understand every single aspect; models are a sane way to integrate the results of studies requiring disparate expertise (or at least different people).
And yes, colder winters, longer summers, whatever... as you've pointed out, talking about this is useless without at least a clear and common reference. This story pulls one very interesting result out of context and into casual conversation. So I suppose I'll be going now. I would highly recommend a literature search to you. It's not difficult stuff to understand, experiment by experiment, it's just an incredibly complex set of interactions combined with frustrating (i.e. real-world) experimental conditions.
CHARIOT does have GPS, in fact. Part of the point of these analog campaigns is to develop and refine specifications for what is and isn't needed. The consensus is that GPS is a very good thing. Remember that we are still about 10 years from launch. Within that time, work will be done on positioning systems. No, it will probably not look a lot like GPS in terms of implementation - but there will almost certainly be some sort of (near?) real-time positioning system. It's actively discussed.
The other thing GPS provides - and at this stage it's almost more important - is hugely useful data about the actual test parameters. GPS ties a lot of this work together. CHARIOT has GPS, and so do the various suits and backpacks (for shirtsleeve ops) the suit subjects wear. High resolution spatial data is good for linking all the other data.
I really don't have anything bad to say about DS Organize, a homebrew app. As a bonus, it includes a somewhat old-school web browser - but it's much faster than Opera DS. Have fun getting your hands on a homebrew cartridge these days though. Grr. And when you find a seller, do your homework first. R4 is a good cartridge. I and everyone I know has been very happy with it.
as i understand it, the telecom immunity provided by that bill provides only immunity to civil suits. which means criminal suits are fair game. an obama administration might actually do something with that. he does know constitutional law.
Hi Gori, I would also appreciate a pointer to more info - the simulations running on this machine could be interesting within my research. You can reach me at the name of this site @ phossie.com. Thanks!
How about +5...
i mean, seriously. even dept of commerce branch NOAA *completely* disagrees with you.
please note this *peer-reviewed* info (yes, this entire site is a published study):
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/indicators.shtml
and yes, this is merely the most digestible and easily accessible of the info out there.
Close, but not quite right. Looks like it is the City and the Tribal Council or Tribal Government that are filing suit. All the village corporations in the NANA region (except Kotzebue) merged with NANA.
- a former ANCSA village corp general manager.
Ah... I thought I saw something about Cd incorporated in part of the production process, maybe a separation layer or something, but I can't find the reference now. Maybe I imagined the whole thing. If so... then good!
I have to apologize for this comment up front because my chemistry is really rusty and my biochem is non-existent, but here it is...
Thin-film PV was a problem last I checked due to the use of cadmium. While you get a nice solar product as a result, you also get a highly toxic, difficult to handle material to dispose of... somehow. (The nice thing about silicon is that it's not terribly reactive with much of anything.) AFAIK, CIGS *sometimes* uses a problematic form of cadmium. If there's one thing we need to remember from our experience with oil, it's that we need to check the life cycle analysis before jumping in whole-hog.
That said, the cadmium problem is probably easier than the emissions problem. Probably.
First, a reference: Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, Federal Rules of Statutory Interpretation, 115 Harv. L. Rev. 2085 (2002). Definitely worth a read, good stuff. You don't need some tweak to the process, you just need consistent *language* - to extend the metaphor, instead of switching from waterfall to XP, start using a programming language instead of excerpts from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Of course, that would take a lot of the fun out of politics.
The problem is most clear if you take a look in the back of Black's Law Dictionary. There you'll find a collection of legal canons, generally Latin phrases that are supposed to illuminate how to think about the law. Judges and lawyers sometimes use these as grasping-straws... the problem with adages like these is that there's always one that fits, no matter which side you're on. So another reference is in order - this one's a classic, a fun and depressing read: Karl N. Llewellyn, Remarks on the Theory of Appellate Decision & the Rules or Canons About How Statutes are to Be Construed, 5 Green Bag 2d 297 (2002) [Originally published at 3 Vand. L. Rev. 395 (1950)]. Notice the date. People have been frustrated with this stuff for a *long* time.
Second, reemul is on the right track IMO:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=449194&cid=22380198
Better oversight *by the public* solves a lot of problems, and this might be one of the first. At the risk of sounding like a shill, take a look at Obama's tech positions. (Come on, you know you want to, he got opinions from Lessig...)
Sorry I won't go find the reference right now, since I should be sleeping, but there have been a number of life cycle analyses of various photovoltaic technologies. (Do a lit search if you can, better than reading this lousy post.) Most of these conclude that solar repays its energy debt long before end of useful life. It's also ok on carbon, compared to most other energy - I was surprised about this because I went into the research thinking about Si production, but it actually works out pretty well. The place to be careful with solar right now in terms of environmental damage is some of the newer tech: thin films are often manufactured with cadmium, which is a big problem.
Good luck to us all.
No kidding. I don't know where these "oboes stay in tune the best" people are coming from. Yeah, maybe the instrument might not need adjusting. I don't know about that. But the embouchure... oh, the embouchure. Pitch for any given note can range all over the place with no change in the instrument itself. Listening to even an advanced-beginner oboist is cause for any of a number of violent acts. Far worse than the endless mississippi-hot-dogging of beginning violinists (also a fearsome instrument as far as intonation goes).
The funny thing is that the oboe is the instrument with the most difficult intonation problems. So every single oboist I've ever heard of keeps a tuner on the stand *at all times*. It also has a sound that can cut through the entire orchestra alone.
My natural reaction is to agree. As a wilderness junkie and a bit of a hermit, my view is that if you can't handle it don't go/stay there. But here's a very simplified story: a lot of Alaska's residents were born there. For the strongest argument, look to the Native people. They want to keep living in their ancestral homes. But if their children are going to have options in this world, they need to be familiar with it - they need to live in some extension of modern society. To get transportation to Anchorage, etc., you need a bunch of money. That means participation in the modern economy.
The result of these pressures - history, family, culture, economy, consumerism, and future need (aka sustainability) - is a real conflict. The traditional ways would work if the modern benefits were sacrificed. People really like some of the modern stuff. And they *always* want their kids to have the widest range of choices. It's a huge dissonance; it's a compromise that few can make successfully. And it's more difficult without the basic infrastructure that much of the rest of the country takes for granted.
So yes - if it doesn't work, maybe people shouldn't do it. But the damage associated with not doing it is also tremendous. In your way, only the people that really cared would stay in the bush - but in reality, those people are pulled in two different directions because they want options for the future.
On one hand, you're right. On the other, you clearly don't know much about the realities of economic development in Alaska. Most of Alaska is wilderness. To develop modern local economies, modern "conveniences" like roads and docks and harbors are required. And in a wilderness those projects are incredibly expensive. Count the number of towns in Alaska. Then count the number of towns with roads connecting them.
Yes, Alaska receives many barrels filled with pig meat. Yes, that kind of investment is the deciding factor in the future sustainability of the state (and all the people in it). Everyone knows the oil and gas won't last forever. By the time that money is gone, Alaska either needs to have a sustainable economy or a population that still knows all the old subsistence ways. Halfway between the two will be a disaster.
Cruise ships make or break communities. If the ships come, you win. If the ships don't come, you lose. The cruise companies wield that power in ways that would make you cringe even if your business didn't rely on them. In this and other ways, Alaska *isn't* a reasonable place - it's a strange sort of modern frontier. That's not just marketing jargon. Go visit the Bush.
I went to a tiny bush village in Alaska with a big chip on my shoulder against Ted Stevens. I lived there for three years. I saw why people keep voting for him. It's not usually greed. Sometimes it's self-preservation.
What do you mean? We *are* revolting.
Har har. *sob*
Problem is that those of us who actually pay attention to these things must have some sort of a priori bias against whoever did them bad things, or else we wouldn't be paying attention in the first place. Therefore my opinion is worthless to anyone not already interested in it, and anyone interested in it cannot be trusted to have an unbiased opinion.
Speaking as a musician...
What's wrong with you if you don't want to "work"?! Change careers if you don't like it. A million people are waiting to take your place, and since they enjoy what they do, I'd bet at least a few of them will do better "work" than you.
Oh, the horror of doing what you love every day. Don't like it? Then quit.
If you're sane, I'd argue that we're in a frightening environment no matter your place on the multidimensional political spectrum.
I am a fiscal conservative, an environmental conservative (I often think, "that word, it does not mean what you think it means"), and a civil liberties freak. I label myself as a leftist because I believe the first two points of my platform can be accomplished through enlightened application of the third.
But part of the problem is that the political spectrum in the US is distorted almost beyond belief. We can't even talk rationally about our positions without explaining them in detail, because political campaigning has so skewed the meaning of most of our vocabulary. When I say "conservative," I mean something quite close to the accepted dictionary definition of many years. I don't mean that I support the status quo or the prevailing religious viewpoint. But if all I said was that I am conservative, you might think I'm a warmonger and your mistake would be understandable.
We are dealing with a terrible dearth of honesty and clarity in public discourse.
"Is warming a catastrophe? Even IF you buy into the Cassandras, for every "coral reef is gonna die because the water's too warm!" it's hard to believe that there's not a corresponding expansion (northward) of coral-reef-able zones. For every acre of expanded desert, there's another acre of former-tundra that now has a growing season."
Sure, maybe your picture makes sense. Here's a question which assumes it's correct: where are the myriad marine species that need the nutrition, temperature, current signatures, and other facets of our colder waters going to go? What happens to them? We're seeing some pretty major effects of climate change up here. I live and work in a fishing village in the Aleutians. We are perfectly situated to view the ecosystem interaction between the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Our economy depends on the health of the ecosystem, and yes, we all know it (we're not mindless resource extractors up here). We want sustainability, and so we work - slowly, as an institution - towards making our livelihood (and thus that of the fish, etc.) as sustainable as possible.
But there is not a whole lot we can do about climate change on our own. The ice edge is farther north every year. There are fewer and fewer salmon. Other fisheries are suffering too. Recent research on a few different marine species indicates that there are a lot of environmental signals that guide migrations, and lots of these are strongly affected by climate change. Look too at the sea between Japan and Russia/Kamchatka, which used to freeze over. Nutrient levels in the water are dropping.
The tundra needs to remain tundra for so many different reasons, and not all of them are explicitly conservationist. Traditional sustainable ways of life become impossible when the traditional food sources cannot survive even without harvesting. This land is not exactly suitable for agriculture, but humans have been living on it for many centuries with success. The conservative estimate is that the Aleut civilization was continuously successful for 8000 years. Eight thousand years... some say ten. In other words, one of the oldest continuous civilizations anywhere on the planet, and in one of the harshest environments. And as in much of Alaska, life here is considerably better with subsistence methods than without.
This climate change stuff is lot more serious and a lot more urgent than most people think. Look at what the northern people are doing and thinking. You can almost use us as an indicator class - when traditional methods begin to fail, examine them for longevity and then consider the contributing factors.
Please, take this issue seriously.
The middle-ground system I can imagine happening sometime soon is this: a balanced user interface standard which specifies a unified set of best practices for both CL and GU interfaces. The GUI is all about rapid and focused information retrieval, while the CL is all about rapid and focused information manipulation. GUI is therefore good for discovery - it's natural for new users and can manifest in varying degrees of sophistication. Every GUI program presents a command-line alternative for every GUI-accessible function (and perhaps more, as CLI is well suited to esoterica). A general terminal client with a customizable GUI discovery mode provides an interface for CLI-only programs.
It might be useful to present two numbers at the top of every article. One is the current contention score, which is a measure of changes to existing content (scaled by recentness). The other is the average contention score (weighted somehow?). In this way, users have an immediate clue as to whether the article is currently the subject of contentious revisions as well as an idea of the general controversy of the subject since its introduction.