Standby devices and other phantom loads look a lot different when you're producing your own power. They make a noticeable difference to your energy availability - and my experience isn't primarily with solar (and all its attendant caveats), it's with hydroelectric. I want my heaters rated correctly (few are) and I want real switches. Relays are good.
I'm going to give/. some credit and leave it to everyone else to work out where the logic ends.
Ok, then we agree on that. I'm not arguing for proof - heck, there isn't such a thing in an empirical setting - but rather that a viewpoint based on some degree of scientific review bears consideration. This means that, for example, if a couple of scientists doing work with repeatable/verifiable results end up contradicting the understanding of the vast majority in their field then their opinions bear consideration.
The possibility of the majority being wrong is exactly the argument I'm having with that other poster in regard to market valuation of oil. And I'm suggesting that the problem is too important to leave to the probability that the market is right - we need to look at the science and the practical aspects and base our decisions on those... and I think there is a fairly clear route to take to prepare for something other than the easy-case scenario.
In the end we have to evaluate all the experiments and models and conclusions and hypotheses as best we can, throw out those that don't work (and probably try to fix their problems and try them again) and think carefully about the results of ones that do. Come up with more to try to fill in any gaps we can find. Et cetera. Just keep the process going, keep trying to learn more. And on the practical side, recognize that we don't have a proof and we don't understand everything.
In other words, I'm arguing for applying the scientific method. I apologize if my long-winded ranting is not clear enough, because I'm just trying to clarify this simple thing which so many people seem to want to misunderstand or apply selectively. I'm failing if that isn't obvious.
Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry I took your comment the wrong way.
So based on this statement, the most rational course of action is to assume that one day the oil will go dry
No, the most rational course of action is to assume nothing. Assumptions without any basis don't make it with me.
There are a couple of points to make here. First is that this is not an assumption with no basis - it's based on a good deal of research. No, that research may not be conclusive, and that's fine. But at the least it does hint at a particular outcome. The actual assumption that I'm making is this: we don't want to be unexpectedly screwed, we don't want to burn our bridges before we finish crossing them. IF oil is a limited resource and IF we are at all close to experiencing a decline in its availability THEN we should be conserving it and developing practical alternatives NOW. IF, as you argue, we don't know the answers to the first two questions, THEN we should assume that the answers are yes, based on our initial assumption (which is that we don't want to get screwed).
If you think you're not making assumptions, you're not thinking. You've just decided that instead of having to make a bunch of judgements about each individual situation you want to think about, you're instead going to make a single judgement about the reliability of markets. In my opinion, which of course doesn't count for much in the market, that's a very dangerous leap - far outside my acceptable risk profile, for sure.;-) But it's also an opinion that has served me well (and profitably) over the years. YMMV, obviously.
I don't trust scientists that I don't know. The market lets me ignore them.
You don't need to trust the scientists, you need to trust the scientific method. The only personal trust you need is that all the scientists will not collude to fake all the data. And if you don't actually understand or trust the scientific method, then we have very little to talk about. Of course individual scientists, groups of scientists, all scientists should be questioned. Of course we should be skeptical of their conclusions. But that skepticism IS SCIENCE. It's the whole point when you combine it with the empiricism.
But instead of going directly to the people doing the analysis, you're taking the herd mentality of a bunch of investors and treating *that* as a more worthwhile and trustworthy opinion. (If I'm going to go with a herd mentality, I'll go with the one that is directly concerned with the problem in question, not the one that is concerned with a different problem, eg profitability.) You can argue statistical analysis, sure, but I will only turn around and ask you to perform the same analysis on the actual data rather than the generated metadata which is created by a lot more factors than merely the facts we are attempting to determine.
The price of oil has no *necessary* relation to oil reserves and their accessibility. In a perfectly informed market, it *would*. But we do not have a perfectly informed market, and beyond that we do not have perfect markets. (Though we *do* know the availability of starfruit this year, and we probably have reasonable projections for the next 3-5 years.)
To pick up your other example, you know the condition of the poor in your town. You can see what's going on, and you can make an informed choice about doing something about the situation. Apparently you do not actually see the poor in California, and so you're withholding any help that you could give. I see that as a perfectly rational way of doing things. Crude perhaps, but rational. But consider this analogy based on your argument: the poor in your town are starfruit, and the poor in California are oil. We can quantify the starfruit harvest, and we can study the past production of starfruit and many of the conditions for future production of starfruit (which the price is likely based on at least in part). Oil is somewhere else entirely. Product
If that's a critique, it's asinine. If 97% of astronomers - not the people - believe that the earth is the center of the universe, etc., well then that's a theory that bears investigation. If 3% of astronomers believe otherwise, then that too is a theory that bears investigation. The assumptions: that all these astronomers have research and clearly reasoned arguments to back their beliefs. If some of them don't, then they should be excluded from the sampling.
None of what I said is about believing the majority, and if you read it a bit more closely you'll see that. In addition, I'm talking about scientists, whom we *hope* are following the scientific method and behaving rationally. In other words, pre-scientific examples *should not apply*.
Of course, given how carefully you read my previous post, I don't expect you to read this one carefully either. Not sure why I'm bothering with a reply, except that perhaps it bothers me to see such a stupid knee-jerk pseudo-intellectual reaction to an actual reasoned argument.
the best of all possible worlds
on
Forecasting Doomsday
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"For every 10 "the sky is falling" articles I read, I see 10 "everything is OK" articles."
Unfortunately, this is the result of equal publicity funding, not equal scientific opinion. I'm sorry I won't be providing you with a reference (but you didn't provide one either, so whatever) but I have the distinct impression that about 97% of climatologists and other scientists in related disciplines agree: we have a problem.
"I see relatively cheap gas, so I believe that gas is not running out."
This is a fundamental problem with the global economy and markets. Markets are interesting - they provide a metric for the value which *most monies* would assign to a given resource. "Most monies" refers to people weighted by their investable wealth. Unfortunately, as many past market events should demonstrate, these metrics don't necessarily have anything to do with reality. They have everything to do with perception and popular understanding, which may or may not be actually correct.
As an analogy, consider presidential/PM elections. We elect people who are visible, or want to be elected, and who have the means and support to get elected. We don't necessarily elect the best possible leader because most of us may not know who that is, and that person may be lacking the accessories with which reaching the public is highly unlikely. On a large scale, elections have very little to do with absolute achievement in personal merit, and a lot to do with publicity. Obviously everyone would prefer to choose between the people best suited for the job, but that's not how it works. There are barriers to entry that has nothing to do with merit, qualifications, skills, or talent.
"...geophysicist. He tells me they have no idea what is going on deeper than a few miles..."
So based on this statement, the most rational course of action is to assume that one day the oil will go dry. By the same conservative logic, we should also assume that climate change is a real problem (not only future, I live in Alaska and we're seeing major effects *now*). In this way we can be prepared - maybe not for the worst, but at least for some case worse than the best. Because a large proportion of experts do agree, it's important that we take the possibilities they suggest seriously. I would say this even if the climate change people were a minority opinion and I disagreed with them.
I don't understand how people claiming to be "conservative" can possibly think that doing nothing different is a rational course of action. A truly conservative viewpoint calls for considering all the possibilities and being prepared so that we are never faced with an actual crisis, but these pretenders are calling for ignoring a major [potential] problem because it's not hurting [them] badly enough [yet].
Why in the world would you stake something as important as species survival on a best-case-scenario viewpoint? That makes no sense at all. Go read "Candide" and come back when you understand it.
huh, interesting... i have almost the opposite reaction. bebop is nice, entertaining... but i feel like champloo has a real sort of soul that bebop just doesn't quite get moving. the music i'll leave out of it - they each have their strengths in terms of their place in the show (though maybe bebop's is 'better').
i guess it's the wrap-up that really pushes me to my opinion. i have never been a fan of the typical man-woman-entanglement stuff. untypical stuff, sure, but not the depressingly typical stuff in bebop. (the human relationship between spike and faye is a lot more interesting than the one between spike and julia.) champloo's emotional resolution - or lack thereof - is beautiful to me, much more real... something i actually don't mind watching. i get irritated enough in real life by the stupid way people go about their relationships, i don't need to see it in entertainment... and the flip side of that is i think entertainment influences people, so i really disapprove of unhelpful stuff.
well, to each their own.:) they're both great series.
i am no anime aficionado by any means, but the samurai champloo fansubs are the best thing i have seen in probably the last two years. and i'm not confining that to anime - they are fantastically good. ok, so the hip-hop-historical style appeals to me, but it's the content and the emotion, the humanity of it... really works for me. i highly recommend finding these fansubs.
the show is amazingly well-crafted: beautifully animated, great rhythm and flow to the plot and the scenes, wonderful sense of humor. cowboy bebop was good but samurai champloo is definitely a couple of levels up from there. an achievement.
i recommend the fansubs because they're really informative. they fill you in on a bit of the language and japanese historical background stuff in a way that's both entertaining and makes a difference to understanding the show. i took a "cultural history of kyoto" class back in school so i have a basis for a lot of it, but my friends that didn't have the same high opinion of the show i do.
one thing that is never discussed and should be is the environmental impact and quality of "conventionally" grown food.[1] this stuff has much lower nutritional value per product meaning you have to supplement your diet with a lot more vitamins (ie resort to less-efficacious chemicals). not only this, but the harvested crop is covered with toxins meant to protect it from insects, it's gassed during transport to keep it looking fresh while allowing more to be crammed on a truck, the various agents will seep into the product regardless of washing, and the production of all the additional tools and materials needed causes an environmental impact that is totally left out of the damage analysis.
if everybody converted to "conventionally" farmed foods the environmental impact would be horrific, and hundreds of millions of people would die of subtle malnutrition and contamination effects.
oh wait, that is already happening.
do you know that most of the vegetables you can buy in most stores have been bred specifically to allow easier mechanical processing? do you know that is the number one concern, and that details like nutritional value and even taste lie in that shadow?
and yes: if you argue that there's no other way to feed the world population, i will argue that the world population has become unsustainable and there *will* be a crash - one way or the other. and yes, i've thought about how that affects the people i love. simple fact is that if we have to create a big problem to deal with a big problem, we still have a big problem... only now it's more complicated and carries more unexpected side effects.
if you don't know what goes into producing your food first-hand i suggest you learn. i have done this... in fact, i have done this at an organic *demonstration* farm. and you know what? conditions weren't good enough to make me feel alright about the whole thing. organic is no panacea. what *does* work is small-scale, locally grown and distributed food (plant or animal). the real problem, the crucial problem, is not so much even the chemicals or the overcrowding - the real problem is the willful ignorance of most everyone in regard to the problems presented by distribution of food on a massive scale. the distribution itself is the root problem. it is the single point of failure. and it is the location of nearly all of the failures in the economic analysis of our environmental situation.
(as a side note, if you think organic can't compete on production you haven't done your research. and that's just the style of organic that's developed out of this 'no chem' half-assedness. you've certainly never heard of biointensive techniques. no, it doesn't work on a large scale - it requires care and does not adapt to mechanical harvest. if more people did it, we wouldn't *need* it to work on a large scale, because it is incredibly, ridiculously productive on a small scale. it even works here in alaska.)
[1] ok, so it is discussed. but it's not usually discussed well, and most of the time everyone involved gets hysterical and stupid about it. there is no simple solution, the ideal is already out of reach, and we're all going to have to compromise. but we need to take the best of the best for our techne, we need to try to solve the root problems rather than simply reacting to the symptoms, and maybe most of all we need to stop thinking there's either no problem or a quick fix. none of this usda organic crap is the final answer. but large scale farming has in most cases already been proven not to be the final answer. we all need to learn the issues, cooperate with each other, and try. just. actually. try.
Not only were US citizens of Japanese descent sent to internment camps, Aleuts - also US citizens, though you wouldn't know it from the way they'd been treated - were also sent to internment camps.
"For their own protection."
Perhaps believable if conditions had been humane, the bureaucracy had not expressed open and recorded contempt, etc. But none of that was the case. The government ruined their homes, their livelihoods, and killed off a good number with preventable disease, malnutrition and inadequate housing. And said government also did its best to prevent them from helping themselves.
Of course, this is even less well known than the story of the Japanese-Americans.
It's amazing what we can do to a 10,000-year-old continuous civilization when we don't stay alert. (And at the point in time I'm talking about, we were pretty much adding insult to injury already for these people. Plenty more where that came from.)
look at it as doing as much as you can by expending as few Joules as possible, and getting those Joules from some sort of renewable source where possible
Right on... and don't forget to think about the energy it takes to produce the products and situations you make decisions about. Yes, you can buy an "energy efficient" refrigerator, but don't forget about the manufacturing and distribution costs (in energy, which is not adequately reflected in price).
Best place I ever lived had a refrigerator made out of a cooler. Filtered gravity-feed water line (from nearby stream) comes in through a hole, does a few circuits in copper pipe, goes back out. Wipe it down once a week (five minutes) for the condensation and no problems... and no need for supplemental energy input.
if it's feasible, i think you should seriously consider taking the time to do a little work on your driveway. i've lived in a few spots in rural, hill-country vermont, i've lived way off the road in south texas, and i currently live way way out in the bush in alaska...
yeah, some people have trucks, and when you're really "out in the country" those people tend to need them for one reason or another. but there are also plenty of people driving honda civics, etc., "out in the country". you'd be surprised where a decent car can go on a daily basis without sustaining damage. part of it is learning to drive sensibly. the other really important part is gravel.
part of the reason the geo is "unsafe": other people's choices. (it's definitely not the best car out there, those things have some problems.) but just think about this: it *shouldn't* be that unsafe to drive a vehicle that's optimal on a pvaed road on that same paved road, right? i don't want my purchasing decisions to be informed by an arms race with my neighbors, and i refuse to let that happen even if it means taking my life in my hands. i want the *freedom* that making decisions for myself gives me, that's what we all want. the issue is that some people's decisions affect more people rather than less, and so those decisions should be subject to greater scrutiny and greater criticism. make sense?
so you might fall into the minority of truck owners that actually need the truck. just try to step back from the argument if that's the case, nobody's going to take away your vehicle. you might take shit for it that you don't deserve - and in that case, i suggest you take a stand against the people who do deserve it. if you do that, even with just a bumper sticker, i think you'll find that most (if not all) of the people giving you shit before are now more likely to give you a pat on the back.
it's just that there are so many idiot-sheep out there, it's easy to lose track of the fact that some hummer drivers might not be. it's especially easy when your car goes home to the backcountry and their hummer goes home to a big house in the burbs.
i'm not the o.p.. and yours isn't the comment i was originally replying to. but heck, you put more effort into your post. i'd like to point out that the family size thing is not my concern, either way - don't want to get into it.
self-righteousness? self-importance? i'd say that the self-righteous, self-important folks are those who are totally disregarding the safety of every other living thing on the planet.
i was going to say something a little less tree-hugger, but once i starting saying something about the other road users, the gas, the wasted money, the image, etc., i realized that all these things together are screwing everything else.
these days, is it self-righteous and self-important to be concerned about someone or something other than yourself? it's hatred, envy, and jealousy to point out that not every product out there is purchased by people that have a real need (think engineering) for it? WTF?!?! of course the suburban, hummer, whatever, is the right tool for the job sometimes. i live in the alaskan bush now, you see these things around sometimes. (used to live in SF, boston, detroit, rural VT, etc.) you also see a lot of vehicles you'd think wouldn't survive a year out here. (probably because people can afford them.) so i have to question anybody living almost anywhere that thinks they need a hummer or suburban or whatever. it's like the exurb folks driving F-350's around because they move a fridge every once in a while. it's just not well thought out, and it wastes lot of resources (including the buyer's money), and the buyer is NOT the only person affected by his/her decision.
but you say anybody saying that someone else made a bad decision is a self-righteous, envious, jealous, self-important, center-of-the-universe hate-monger?
please explain. self-righteousness is irritating, but doesn't affect the logic of the argument. the other stuff you're projecting... i very much doubt that someone having such a problem with hummers secretly wants one. seriously. that's a ridiculous point of view, and i urge you to reconsider.
As an immunologist, do you have a grasp of how (or whether) allergy fits into the evolutionary discussion? Many people reading/. may have a much more personal connection to that aspect than they do to the idea of deadly contagion - it's another factor influencing what people do, and how and where they do it, and presumably that has an evolutionary implication.
Immunodeficiency trends are very interesting too, but I don't expect most people to be acquainted with the range of possibilities there.
You know, I hadn't really thought about it. It has been almost 10 years. Eeek.
I'd never heard of info, but I also didn't get any kind of formal introduction... when I needed to do something, I'd ask, somebody would say "use 'pine'" or "try 'ls'" and I'd be off. I was probably using Solaris for about a year before I found out about 'man'. That was wonderful.:) But nobody ever mentioned info, and after enough exposure, and finding 'apropos' in 'man man', it just didn't come up. But it would have been very nice, and I'm skimming it now.
I see it is linked now, just not in a way I've seen before. This may be exactly what I was talking about. I appreciate the education - thanks!
hmmm.... so/dev/fd0 (short for DEVices: Floppy Drive #0) is cryptic and unguessable but A: is perfectly intuitive?
Why do you assume I think A: is an intuitive path? A: is not intuitive.
[You think because I'm attacking an interface element of things *nixy I must think DOS is great? Let me take a moment to attack that part of your response: it's useless, and even counterproductive. Leave the fallacies behind, please. There are plenty out there already.]
The point was mostly that there is no obvious, self-directed, built-in educational resource. This would help with learning more than commands - it could and should include a brief overview of things like file organization, too... along with pointers to more resources, highlighting those considered canonical.
"Help" is taken
Ok, I didn't research this more than typing "help" on a Debian stable box and "help" on an OS X box, both under tcsh. Neither found anything. I'd argue that the function I describe should supercede, and could include a short reference to the new name of the function you mention. By definition the one should include the other, but not vice versa.
Google's not so useful if you're not online. You're right that info is something closer, but (a) I've been in userland in Solaris since '94, linux since '99, and OS X since '01, and I've never heard of it before; (b) it's basically flat. Some of the information is there, but even a pile of HTML running in lynx (etc) would be easier. I do think a good rework of info would be the place to start... and if I get the chance I'll see if anybody's working on it and either help out or get started.
I do think it's important that "help" bring up information-root level help, rather than something more specific. I'm frankly surprised I'd never thought to try 'info' - it would have been more useful a few years ago. If you get somewhere with 'helpme', and it fits the bill, consider pushing for it to take 'help' instead.
that should answer your question. while i can read your command just fine, please notice that no part of it contains "format" or "floppy" or even "disk". to even begin parsing it, you need to be able to guess that fs means "filesystem", that mke means "make", that 2 stands for "into". oh, and then you need to understand/dev/fd0.
i know this stuff isn't rocket science, and it's obvious once you know it, but the barrier to entry is needlessly high. but i'm not suggesting that programs be renamed with long descriptive names that take ages to type and use lots of space.
a CLI program called "help": you type "help", it runs. it gives a menu of help options - matching natural language to a man page for a command, or giving a general introduction to the filesystem structure, or maybe even a glossary, or the jargon file... whatever. but presented quickly, nicely, in natural language, with obvious (read: printed on-screen) navigation commands... how hard is it to understand how many people this would help?
i'm not asking anyone to make it. i don't have time (or even all the knowledge) myself. just recognize that people need it, and drop the attitude.
I don't do this often, but this statement is right on:
"You both are hitting the mark, but you aren't dead-on and it's that wild swing left and right that is the real trouble these days.... My point is, few people are absolutely correct these days about either side of the issue."
Thanks... way to transcend the rhetoric. We need more of this.
farmers can get extremely *well-adapted* seeds just by working with *local* seed companies and within our own communities. we can *select* the plants we save seed from.
good farmers *do not* need, or want, monsanto. though there is one caveat: we must be working at a sane scale, we must care about what we're doing, and we must be good at it.
i've never understood why the government insisted on propping up bad farmers. what a waste, and look at the results. sad.
i'm sorry if i've offended anyone, but that's the way it is. if you can't grow food without a pile of toxic chemicals or dangerously novel genes, you shouldn't be farming. there are plenty of people that want to take your place and will do things right, but can't afford the land.
For the Northeast, I recommend High Mowing Seeds in Vermont. Tom's a visionary, and he and his crew do great work. I took a seminar from him once: he's passionate about what he does and really knows his stuff.
(No financial or personal interest involved.)
i think the real key is that they're no longer irritated, and so everything is glowing happylike.
i don't claim that my mac glows happylike all the time - the gratuitous glowing bugs me, actually - but i sure am a lot less irritated. for that reason alone, i get more done, because in many more areas i have the right tool for the job. CLI or GUI.
they might not like the new finder, but the old finder sucked a lot more. they just can't admit it because they put so much effort into working around it.
oh, it was fast. sure. ok. it was also junk. new finder has its share of problems, but at least it's usable and advertises its capabilities.
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Standby devices and other phantom loads look a lot different when you're producing your own power. They make a noticeable difference to your energy availability - and my experience isn't primarily with solar (and all its attendant caveats), it's with hydroelectric. I want my heaters rated correctly (few are) and I want real switches. Relays are good.
I'm going to give
Ok, then we agree on that. I'm not arguing for proof - heck, there isn't such a thing in an empirical setting - but rather that a viewpoint based on some degree of scientific review bears consideration. This means that, for example, if a couple of scientists doing work with repeatable/verifiable results end up contradicting the understanding of the vast majority in their field then their opinions bear consideration.
The possibility of the majority being wrong is exactly the argument I'm having with that other poster in regard to market valuation of oil. And I'm suggesting that the problem is too important to leave to the probability that the market is right - we need to look at the science and the practical aspects and base our decisions on those... and I think there is a fairly clear route to take to prepare for something other than the easy-case scenario.
In the end we have to evaluate all the experiments and models and conclusions and hypotheses as best we can, throw out those that don't work (and probably try to fix their problems and try them again) and think carefully about the results of ones that do. Come up with more to try to fill in any gaps we can find. Et cetera. Just keep the process going, keep trying to learn more. And on the practical side, recognize that we don't have a proof and we don't understand everything.
In other words, I'm arguing for applying the scientific method. I apologize if my long-winded ranting is not clear enough, because I'm just trying to clarify this simple thing which so many people seem to want to misunderstand or apply selectively. I'm failing if that isn't obvious.
Thanks for the reply. I'm sorry I took your comment the wrong way.
There are a couple of points to make here. First is that this is not an assumption with no basis - it's based on a good deal of research. No, that research may not be conclusive, and that's fine. But at the least it does hint at a particular outcome. The actual assumption that I'm making is this: we don't want to be unexpectedly screwed, we don't want to burn our bridges before we finish crossing them. IF oil is a limited resource and IF we are at all close to experiencing a decline in its availability THEN we should be conserving it and developing practical alternatives NOW. IF, as you argue, we don't know the answers to the first two questions, THEN we should assume that the answers are yes, based on our initial assumption (which is that we don't want to get screwed).
If you think you're not making assumptions, you're not thinking. You've just decided that instead of having to make a bunch of judgements about each individual situation you want to think about, you're instead going to make a single judgement about the reliability of markets. In my opinion, which of course doesn't count for much in the market, that's a very dangerous leap - far outside my acceptable risk profile, for sure. ;-) But it's also an opinion that has served me well (and profitably) over the years. YMMV, obviously.
You don't need to trust the scientists, you need to trust the scientific method. The only personal trust you need is that all the scientists will not collude to fake all the data. And if you don't actually understand or trust the scientific method, then we have very little to talk about. Of course individual scientists, groups of scientists, all scientists should be questioned. Of course we should be skeptical of their conclusions. But that skepticism IS SCIENCE. It's the whole point when you combine it with the empiricism.
But instead of going directly to the people doing the analysis, you're taking the herd mentality of a bunch of investors and treating *that* as a more worthwhile and trustworthy opinion. (If I'm going to go with a herd mentality, I'll go with the one that is directly concerned with the problem in question, not the one that is concerned with a different problem, eg profitability.) You can argue statistical analysis, sure, but I will only turn around and ask you to perform the same analysis on the actual data rather than the generated metadata which is created by a lot more factors than merely the facts we are attempting to determine.
The price of oil has no *necessary* relation to oil reserves and their accessibility. In a perfectly informed market, it *would*. But we do not have a perfectly informed market, and beyond that we do not have perfect markets. (Though we *do* know the availability of starfruit this year, and we probably have reasonable projections for the next 3-5 years.)
To pick up your other example, you know the condition of the poor in your town. You can see what's going on, and you can make an informed choice about doing something about the situation. Apparently you do not actually see the poor in California, and so you're withholding any help that you could give. I see that as a perfectly rational way of doing things. Crude perhaps, but rational. But consider this analogy based on your argument: the poor in your town are starfruit, and the poor in California are oil. We can quantify the starfruit harvest, and we can study the past production of starfruit and many of the conditions for future production of starfruit (which the price is likely based on at least in part). Oil is somewhere else entirely. Product
If that's a critique, it's asinine. If 97% of astronomers - not the people - believe that the earth is the center of the universe, etc., well then that's a theory that bears investigation. If 3% of astronomers believe otherwise, then that too is a theory that bears investigation. The assumptions: that all these astronomers have research and clearly reasoned arguments to back their beliefs. If some of them don't, then they should be excluded from the sampling.
None of what I said is about believing the majority, and if you read it a bit more closely you'll see that. In addition, I'm talking about scientists, whom we *hope* are following the scientific method and behaving rationally. In other words, pre-scientific examples *should not apply*.
Of course, given how carefully you read my previous post, I don't expect you to read this one carefully either. Not sure why I'm bothering with a reply, except that perhaps it bothers me to see such a stupid knee-jerk pseudo-intellectual reaction to an actual reasoned argument.
"For every 10 "the sky is falling" articles I read, I see 10 "everything is OK" articles."
Unfortunately, this is the result of equal publicity funding, not equal scientific opinion. I'm sorry I won't be providing you with a reference (but you didn't provide one either, so whatever) but I have the distinct impression that about 97% of climatologists and other scientists in related disciplines agree: we have a problem.
"I see relatively cheap gas, so I believe that gas is not running out."
This is a fundamental problem with the global economy and markets. Markets are interesting - they provide a metric for the value which *most monies* would assign to a given resource. "Most monies" refers to people weighted by their investable wealth. Unfortunately, as many past market events should demonstrate, these metrics don't necessarily have anything to do with reality. They have everything to do with perception and popular understanding, which may or may not be actually correct.
As an analogy, consider presidential/PM elections. We elect people who are visible, or want to be elected, and who have the means and support to get elected. We don't necessarily elect the best possible leader because most of us may not know who that is, and that person may be lacking the accessories with which reaching the public is highly unlikely. On a large scale, elections have very little to do with absolute achievement in personal merit, and a lot to do with publicity. Obviously everyone would prefer to choose between the people best suited for the job, but that's not how it works. There are barriers to entry that has nothing to do with merit, qualifications, skills, or talent.
"...geophysicist. He tells me they have no idea what is going on deeper than a few miles..."
So based on this statement, the most rational course of action is to assume that one day the oil will go dry. By the same conservative logic, we should also assume that climate change is a real problem (not only future, I live in Alaska and we're seeing major effects *now*). In this way we can be prepared - maybe not for the worst, but at least for some case worse than the best. Because a large proportion of experts do agree, it's important that we take the possibilities they suggest seriously. I would say this even if the climate change people were a minority opinion and I disagreed with them.
I don't understand how people claiming to be "conservative" can possibly think that doing nothing different is a rational course of action. A truly conservative viewpoint calls for considering all the possibilities and being prepared so that we are never faced with an actual crisis, but these pretenders are calling for ignoring a major [potential] problem because it's not hurting [them] badly enough [yet].
Why in the world would you stake something as important as species survival on a best-case-scenario viewpoint? That makes no sense at all. Go read "Candide" and come back when you understand it.
huh, interesting... i have almost the opposite reaction. bebop is nice, entertaining... but i feel like champloo has a real sort of soul that bebop just doesn't quite get moving. the music i'll leave out of it - they each have their strengths in terms of their place in the show (though maybe bebop's is 'better').
i guess it's the wrap-up that really pushes me to my opinion. i have never been a fan of the typical man-woman-entanglement stuff. untypical stuff, sure, but not the depressingly typical stuff in bebop. (the human relationship between spike and faye is a lot more interesting than the one between spike and julia.) champloo's emotional resolution - or lack thereof - is beautiful to me, much more real... something i actually don't mind watching. i get irritated enough in real life by the stupid way people go about their relationships, i don't need to see it in entertainment... and the flip side of that is i think entertainment influences people, so i really disapprove of unhelpful stuff.
well, to each their own.
i am no anime aficionado by any means, but the samurai champloo fansubs are the best thing i have seen in probably the last two years. and i'm not confining that to anime - they are fantastically good. ok, so the hip-hop-historical style appeals to me, but it's the content and the emotion, the humanity of it... really works for me. i highly recommend finding these fansubs.
the show is amazingly well-crafted: beautifully animated, great rhythm and flow to the plot and the scenes, wonderful sense of humor. cowboy bebop was good but samurai champloo is definitely a couple of levels up from there. an achievement.
i recommend the fansubs because they're really informative. they fill you in on a bit of the language and japanese historical background stuff in a way that's both entertaining and makes a difference to understanding the show. i took a "cultural history of kyoto" class back in school so i have a basis for a lot of it, but my friends that didn't have the same high opinion of the show i do.
one thing that is never discussed and should be is the environmental impact and quality of "conventionally" grown food.[1] this stuff has much lower nutritional value per product meaning you have to supplement your diet with a lot more vitamins (ie resort to less-efficacious chemicals). not only this, but the harvested crop is covered with toxins meant to protect it from insects, it's gassed during transport to keep it looking fresh while allowing more to be crammed on a truck, the various agents will seep into the product regardless of washing, and the production of all the additional tools and materials needed causes an environmental impact that is totally left out of the damage analysis.
if everybody converted to "conventionally" farmed foods the environmental impact would be horrific, and hundreds of millions of people would die of subtle malnutrition and contamination effects.
oh wait, that is already happening.
do you know that most of the vegetables you can buy in most stores have been bred specifically to allow easier mechanical processing? do you know that is the number one concern, and that details like nutritional value and even taste lie in that shadow?
and yes: if you argue that there's no other way to feed the world population, i will argue that the world population has become unsustainable and there *will* be a crash - one way or the other. and yes, i've thought about how that affects the people i love. simple fact is that if we have to create a big problem to deal with a big problem, we still have a big problem... only now it's more complicated and carries more unexpected side effects.
if you don't know what goes into producing your food first-hand i suggest you learn. i have done this... in fact, i have done this at an organic *demonstration* farm. and you know what? conditions weren't good enough to make me feel alright about the whole thing. organic is no panacea. what *does* work is small-scale, locally grown and distributed food (plant or animal). the real problem, the crucial problem, is not so much even the chemicals or the overcrowding - the real problem is the willful ignorance of most everyone in regard to the problems presented by distribution of food on a massive scale. the distribution itself is the root problem. it is the single point of failure. and it is the location of nearly all of the failures in the economic analysis of our environmental situation.
(as a side note, if you think organic can't compete on production you haven't done your research. and that's just the style of organic that's developed out of this 'no chem' half-assedness. you've certainly never heard of biointensive techniques. no, it doesn't work on a large scale - it requires care and does not adapt to mechanical harvest. if more people did it, we wouldn't *need* it to work on a large scale, because it is incredibly, ridiculously productive on a small scale. it even works here in alaska.)
[1] ok, so it is discussed. but it's not usually discussed well, and most of the time everyone involved gets hysterical and stupid about it. there is no simple solution, the ideal is already out of reach, and we're all going to have to compromise. but we need to take the best of the best for our techne, we need to try to solve the root problems rather than simply reacting to the symptoms, and maybe most of all we need to stop thinking there's either no problem or a quick fix. none of this usda organic crap is the final answer. but large scale farming has in most cases already been proven not to be the final answer. we all need to learn the issues, cooperate with each other, and try. just. actually. try.
Not only were US citizens of Japanese descent sent to internment camps, Aleuts - also US citizens, though you wouldn't know it from the way they'd been treated - were also sent to internment camps.
"For their own protection."
Perhaps believable if conditions had been humane, the bureaucracy had not expressed open and recorded contempt, etc. But none of that was the case. The government ruined their homes, their livelihoods, and killed off a good number with preventable disease, malnutrition and inadequate housing. And said government also did its best to prevent them from helping themselves.
Of course, this is even less well known than the story of the Japanese-Americans.
It's amazing what we can do to a 10,000-year-old continuous civilization when we don't stay alert. (And at the point in time I'm talking about, we were pretty much adding insult to injury already for these people. Plenty more where that came from.)
Right on... and don't forget to think about the energy it takes to produce the products and situations you make decisions about. Yes, you can buy an "energy efficient" refrigerator, but don't forget about the manufacturing and distribution costs (in energy, which is not adequately reflected in price).
Best place I ever lived had a refrigerator made out of a cooler. Filtered gravity-feed water line (from nearby stream) comes in through a hole, does a few circuits in copper pipe, goes back out. Wipe it down once a week (five minutes) for the condensation and no problems... and no need for supplemental energy input.
What we need is more people thinking every day.
Anybody - and I mean anybody - with an imagination.
I use the RME HDSP Multiface. Pardon the shouting, but
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
Kick ass! You make me (and a lot of other people) happy.
if it's feasible, i think you should seriously consider taking the time to do a little work on your driveway. i've lived in a few spots in rural, hill-country vermont, i've lived way off the road in south texas, and i currently live way way out in the bush in alaska...
yeah, some people have trucks, and when you're really "out in the country" those people tend to need them for one reason or another. but there are also plenty of people driving honda civics, etc., "out in the country". you'd be surprised where a decent car can go on a daily basis without sustaining damage. part of it is learning to drive sensibly. the other really important part is gravel.
part of the reason the geo is "unsafe": other people's choices. (it's definitely not the best car out there, those things have some problems.) but just think about this: it *shouldn't* be that unsafe to drive a vehicle that's optimal on a pvaed road on that same paved road, right? i don't want my purchasing decisions to be informed by an arms race with my neighbors, and i refuse to let that happen even if it means taking my life in my hands. i want the *freedom* that making decisions for myself gives me, that's what we all want. the issue is that some people's decisions affect more people rather than less, and so those decisions should be subject to greater scrutiny and greater criticism. make sense?
so you might fall into the minority of truck owners that actually need the truck. just try to step back from the argument if that's the case, nobody's going to take away your vehicle. you might take shit for it that you don't deserve - and in that case, i suggest you take a stand against the people who do deserve it. if you do that, even with just a bumper sticker, i think you'll find that most (if not all) of the people giving you shit before are now more likely to give you a pat on the back.
it's just that there are so many idiot-sheep out there, it's easy to lose track of the fact that some hummer drivers might not be. it's especially easy when your car goes home to the backcountry and their hummer goes home to a big house in the burbs.
it's all about appropriate technology.
i'm not the o.p.. and yours isn't the comment i was originally replying to. but heck, you put more effort into your post. i'd like to point out that the family size thing is not my concern, either way - don't want to get into it.
self-righteousness? self-importance? i'd say that the self-righteous, self-important folks are those who are totally disregarding the safety of every other living thing on the planet.
i was going to say something a little less tree-hugger, but once i starting saying something about the other road users, the gas, the wasted money, the image, etc., i realized that all these things together are screwing everything else.
these days, is it self-righteous and self-important to be concerned about someone or something other than yourself? it's hatred, envy, and jealousy to point out that not every product out there is purchased by people that have a real need (think engineering) for it? WTF?!?! of course the suburban, hummer, whatever, is the right tool for the job sometimes. i live in the alaskan bush now, you see these things around sometimes. (used to live in SF, boston, detroit, rural VT, etc.) you also see a lot of vehicles you'd think wouldn't survive a year out here. (probably because people can afford them.) so i have to question anybody living almost anywhere that thinks they need a hummer or suburban or whatever. it's like the exurb folks driving F-350's around because they move a fridge every once in a while. it's just not well thought out, and it wastes lot of resources (including the buyer's money), and the buyer is NOT the only person affected by his/her decision.
but you say anybody saying that someone else made a bad decision is a self-righteous, envious, jealous, self-important, center-of-the-universe hate-monger?
please explain. self-righteousness is irritating, but doesn't affect the logic of the argument. the other stuff you're projecting... i very much doubt that someone having such a problem with hummers secretly wants one. seriously. that's a ridiculous point of view, and i urge you to reconsider.
As an immunologist, do you have a grasp of how (or whether) allergy fits into the evolutionary discussion? Many people reading
Immunodeficiency trends are very interesting too, but I don't expect most people to be acquainted with the range of possibilities there.
You know, I hadn't really thought about it. It has been almost 10 years. Eeek.
:) But nobody ever mentioned info, and after enough exposure, and finding 'apropos' in 'man man', it just didn't come up. But it would have been very nice, and I'm skimming it now.
I'd never heard of info, but I also didn't get any kind of formal introduction... when I needed to do something, I'd ask, somebody would say "use 'pine'" or "try 'ls'" and I'd be off. I was probably using Solaris for about a year before I found out about 'man'. That was wonderful.
I see it is linked now, just not in a way I've seen before. This may be exactly what I was talking about. I appreciate the education - thanks!
Why do you assume I think A: is an intuitive path? A: is not intuitive.
[You think because I'm attacking an interface element of things *nixy I must think DOS is great? Let me take a moment to attack that part of your response: it's useless, and even counterproductive. Leave the fallacies behind, please. There are plenty out there already.]
The point was mostly that there is no obvious, self-directed, built-in educational resource. This would help with learning more than commands - it could and should include a brief overview of things like file organization, too... along with pointers to more resources, highlighting those considered canonical.
Ok, I didn't research this more than typing "help" on a Debian stable box and "help" on an OS X box, both under tcsh. Neither found anything. I'd argue that the function I describe should supercede, and could include a short reference to the new name of the function you mention. By definition the one should include the other, but not vice versa.
Google's not so useful if you're not online. You're right that info is something closer, but (a) I've been in userland in Solaris since '94, linux since '99, and OS X since '01, and I've never heard of it before; (b) it's basically flat. Some of the information is there, but even a pile of HTML running in lynx (etc) would be easier. I do think a good rework of info would be the place to start... and if I get the chance I'll see if anybody's working on it and either help out or get started.
I do think it's important that "help" bring up information-root level help, rather than something more specific. I'm frankly surprised I'd never thought to try 'info' - it would have been more useful a few years ago. If you get somewhere with 'helpme', and it fits the bill, consider pushing for it to take 'help' instead.
totally obscure, completely cryptic, entirely unguessable?
/dev/fd0 .
that should answer your question. while i can read your command just fine, please notice that no part of it contains "format" or "floppy" or even "disk". to even begin parsing it, you need to be able to guess that fs means "filesystem", that mke means "make", that 2 stands for "into". oh, and then you need to understand
i know this stuff isn't rocket science, and it's obvious once you know it, but the barrier to entry is needlessly high. but i'm not suggesting that programs be renamed with long descriptive names that take ages to type and use lots of space.
a CLI program called "help": you type "help", it runs. it gives a menu of help options - matching natural language to a man page for a command, or giving a general introduction to the filesystem structure, or maybe even a glossary, or the jargon file... whatever. but presented quickly, nicely, in natural language, with obvious (read: printed on-screen) navigation commands... how hard is it to understand how many people this would help?
i'm not asking anyone to make it. i don't have time (or even all the knowledge) myself. just recognize that people need it, and drop the attitude.
you may want to look at Jack and Soundflower too.
I don't do this often, but this statement is right on:
... My point is, few people are absolutely correct these days about either side of the issue."
"You both are hitting the mark, but you aren't dead-on and it's that wild swing left and right that is the real trouble these days.
Thanks... way to transcend the rhetoric. We need more of this.
farmers can get extremely *well-adapted* seeds just by working with *local* seed companies and within our own communities. we can *select* the plants we save seed from.
good farmers *do not* need, or want, monsanto. though there is one caveat: we must be working at a sane scale, we must care about what we're doing, and we must be good at it.
i've never understood why the government insisted on propping up bad farmers. what a waste, and look at the results. sad.
i'm sorry if i've offended anyone, but that's the way it is. if you can't grow food without a pile of toxic chemicals or dangerously novel genes, you shouldn't be farming. there are plenty of people that want to take your place and will do things right, but can't afford the land.
it's not just for IT. Monsanto has openly admitted it's part of their strategy.
For the Northeast, I recommend High Mowing Seeds in Vermont. Tom's a visionary, and he and his crew do great work. I took a seminar from him once: he's passionate about what he does and really knows his stuff. (No financial or personal interest involved.)
i think the real key is that they're no longer irritated, and so everything is glowing happylike.
i don't claim that my mac glows happylike all the time - the gratuitous glowing bugs me, actually - but i sure am a lot less irritated. for that reason alone, i get more done, because in many more areas i have the right tool for the job. CLI or GUI.
they might not like the new finder, but the old finder sucked a lot more. they just can't admit it because they put so much effort into working around it.
oh, it was fast. sure. ok. it was also junk. new finder has its share of problems, but at least it's usable and advertises its capabilities.