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User: Beezlebub33

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  1. Re:Oh, hey, on Where the Global Warming Data Is · · Score: 1

    If carbon dioxide increases global temperature, did carbon dioxide stop increasing since 1998?

    No, the CO2 level continues to rise. The issue is that there is significant year-to-year variation in the global temperature. The climate question is whether or not CO2 will (and has) over the long term affect the climate, and how, and how much. The consensus is that the overall trend is that the temperatures are going up significantly over the long term and will continue to go up.

    So, why is 1998 higher than the years since? Because of the statistical variation along with a very strong El Nino (see: El Nino). An analogy, since they are popular on Slashdot: If the stock price of a company has been going up for the past 10 years with significant fluctuations, had a spike because someone tried to buy the company, but went down in the last week, it is not evidence that the stock has lost value over the longer term, or that the stock will continue to lose value. It _might_ go down in the future of course, but you can't tell from a short term fluctuation. Similarly, the global temperature has rising for the past 100 years or so, and a single year spike in 1998 doesn't change that.

    The temperature data is fundamentally noisy. That's the nature of weather data. Take a look at the data that NASA produces. There's lots of noise. See the big spike in 1998? Well, that doesn't mean the "globe is cooling". The trend is definitely up. The deniers will claim that the data in that plot is 'cooked', or 'manipulated', or 'corrected' to show a politically-desired outcome. The scientists who produced it will say that they are handling huge volumes of data, from different data sources, and have to be combined, and they are doing it the correct way. And that's the fundamental argument in this entire page. Are they, or are they not, cooking the long term data? The "whole globe is cooling because 1998 was hottest" is a complete red herring. What the data really says about the long term is the question.

  2. Re:Damned if they do Damned if they don't on Where the Global Warming Data Is · · Score: 1

    That's odd, because I see clear parallels between the anti-GW movement and the creationists.

    The parallels are that they:

    o Both ignore the fundamental issues of what is happening in nature. People and other animals evolved; the world is warming, and probably because humans are pumping the atmosphere full of CO2 and other things.

    o Both snipe with regards to data, picking out small inconsistencies (as there are in all scientific data) and claim that the entire enterprise is incorrect. The entire 'the world is cooling!' statement based on 1998 being the warmest year is the perfect example.

    o Both take (admittedly stupid) statements out of context, in an attempt to muddy the waters and discredit the researchers. The CRU emails indicate that the researchers are imperfect people, sloppy, and not very nice people, and politically stupid. The deniers think this is evidence of a world-wide scientific conspiracy; I think that its a sign that they are humans.

    o Both are basically political / religious / worldview based rather than science-based. In particular, they are based on a far-right, fundamentalist point of view.

  3. Re:Why are people getting so worked up on Where the Global Warming Data Is · · Score: 1

    Personally, I've resigned myself to accept the fact that the shit is going to hit the fan some decades from now.

    Agreed. I am fully expecting us (meaning humans) to continue to spew CO2 into the atmosphere despite consensus science view that it's going to be really bad for us and the planet in general. In fact, given that India and China are not going to cut emissions much, and the U.S. is not going to cut emissions much, I'm all for the U.S. (where I live) continuing to use (and increasing use of) natural gas and coal, and saying 'screw you all'.

    And then I expect some of the worst outcomes predicted from the models to occur. Actually, the sooner it happens, the better. I think that when the crash comes (and I think it will), it will be less catastrophic if it happens sooner than a larger catastrophe later. A reversal of the gulf stream, or long term drought for a decade in Asia, or some similar event will cause huge loss of life, and major upheavals. But, it will be better than bigger, and worse, things later. What could be worse? A continued CO2 based economy that continues while we wipe out species (without understanding the ecological relationsips) for the next 50 years, to the point that there is a massive shift in the climate, a complete collapse of the food web, and almost everybody starving to death.

    In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out what to do personally to protect myself and my family from the worst of the events. I'm thinking that having a cabin someplace north and away from the rest of (so called) civilization is a good idea. Then, stocking it with food and water, and then when the ship hits the fan, hanging out there for a couple of years.

  4. Re:Some numbers... I think it might work! on The World's First Osmotic Power Plant · · Score: 1

    While the energy appears to be there, you would have to completely destroy the ecology of the Mississippi river delta to do it.

    The water does not just flow straight from 'river' to 'ocean'. There is a complicated ecological system that depends on the interactions of the river dumping it's silt into the delta, an enormous (mostly-fresh water) marsh, and slowly becoming brackish. There's a lot of plants and animals living there, and a lot of humans using that area both directly and indirectly, since it's a vital fish breeding ground. It's not as if you can divert the river to a power plant, suck in large amounts of seawater from the Gulf of Mexico, mix them in your osmosis system, and then dump it into the ocean; you would be bypassing the delta entirely.

    So, yes, the power is there, but you can't use most of it. That said, you could divert some of the river and create a power plant for New Orleans. The hard part is determining how much, and what the consequences are.

  5. Re:Ah, Uracil! on NASA Reproduces a Building Block of Life In the Lab · · Score: 1

    You need to read: Evolution as Fact and Theory. Evolution is a fact as far as science is concerned. It's also a correct theory.

  6. Re:How can that be? on Why Doesn't Exercise Lead To Weight Loss? · · Score: 1

    My solution: Tae Kwon Do, where you are sparring younger, higher ranked, more flexible people. I swear nothing makes you pay attention more than a 14 year old girl who will kick you in the head hard if you drop your guards or stop moving. In a real fight, I'd kick her ass because I know more wrestling and joint locks, but during sparring, they are agile and have lots of weapons.

    Really though, you need to have a sport that you find intellectually interesting and provides the sort of workout that you need. You won't find a lot of basketball players, or racquetball players, or other dynamic sports people that are very overweight.

  7. Re:shouldn't they be able to design the cable also on LaserMotive Finds Success In Space Elevator Competition · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Mod parent up: One of the arguments of the Augustine group against a return-to-Moon-first strategy is that we would have to first climb out of the Earth's gravity well, only to go into the Moon gravity well, and then have to climb out of that. If the space elevator would work on the moon (without unobtainium cabling), then it solves a large part of the moon gravity well problem.

    In addition, a moon space elevator will not have a number of the serious problems that an earth space elevator would have, in particular flying space junk (though there is some around the moon at this point), hurricane force winds, and terrorists. Don't think for a minute that a space elevator is not a juicy target for some pissed off group that knows how to fly planes.

  8. Re:Windows and OS X versions, please. on X11 Chrome Reportedly Outperforms Windows and Mac Versions · · Score: 1

    As a non-GUI developer, what's the Mac and Windows equivalent to X11? Would it be Quartz on the Mac? I don't know what it would be on Windows, since I avoid developing windows-specific things and have always viewed Windows as a monolithic, integrated mess.

  9. Re:Prior art on Amazon Patents Changing Authors' Words · · Score: 1

    But for those ~80k words, there are 80k whitespace elements that can be made larger or smaller. And vertical whitespace can be used as well, and there has got to be thousands of those. In addition, if you look at the way the DNA genealogy is done, you can do a very good job of reconstructing the relationships.

  10. Re:Patentable? on Amazon Patents Changing Authors' Words · · Score: 1

    There is no reason to use the actual words. You can use the white space. In certain places, you insert two spaces rather than one, and vice versa, or add a tab, or slightly more or less vertical space.

    Like steganography or adding identifying information in music, the information can be encoded such that there is no human-discernible way to identify them.

  11. Re:Laptop on Low-Power Home Linux Server? · · Score: 1

    I use VNC all the time. The thing about VNC is that it is rock solid, always works, and works cross-platform.

  12. Re:125 MORE years until the US gets time... on 125 Years of Longitude 0 0' 00" At Greenwich · · Score: 1

    Agreed. And when do you this in your file names, they sort correctly. For example, look at the logs for tomcat. It's so...logical, why would you do it any other way?

  13. Re:125 MORE years until the US gets time... on 125 Years of Longitude 0 0' 00" At Greenwich · · Score: 1

    Here's the whole thing.

    As someone who has had to help teach my 3 children how to spell, English is a horrible language to have to write. The inconsistencies are simply infuriating, and cause years of unnecessary stress and wasted time.

    As a native English speaker, I have to say my greatest difficulty in learning other languages was gender. There is simply no reason that two objects should have different genders. Why, oh why, would a car (automobile) be one gender, but a car (train) be a different gender in french. They are both an 'it'.

  14. Re:Not really light, is it? on First Black Hole For Light Created On Earth · · Score: 1

    Electromagnetic radiation at all frequencies is 'light'. It's just not visible light, which is a narrow band of frequencies.

  15. Re:blackouts on High-Temp Superconductors To Connect Power Grids · · Score: 1

    The problem is only partially an engineering problem. It's also a huge political and financial problem. To have a stable grid, you need to pay for the infrastructure and you need to build powerlines. These are difficult because the politicians do not want to spend the money on the infrastructure for the grid, and people don't want to have the powerlines go near their houses.

  16. Alternative: Numenta on Image Recognition Neural Networks, Open Sourced · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you want to see a neural network (-like) implementation that actually works well, you should look at Numenta's NuPic application and their vision toolkit. It works pretty amazingly well. They also have a nice architecture, in that the core is c++ but they use python for UI, file IO, and other utility stuff. It's under a 'research license' which means that you are allowed to do research and play with it, but if you want to sell a product with their technology, you need to get a real license.

  17. Re:Not reviewing them in any way? Really? on Palm Frees Up webOS Development · · Score: 1

    But you can download apps from anywhere now. Take a look at precentral and their homebrew apps area.

    The Pre is not a walled garden. If you want to install something, go right ahead, they won't stop you. If you want to install something from their app store or have them provide help in downloading an app, then they want some control. At this point, what they are proposing seems reasonable.

  18. Re:A matter of credibility on De Icaza Responds To Stallman · · Score: 1

    If you implement a patented algorithm or process in C, then you are likely to be sued. It's the process or algorithm that is patented, not the language.

  19. Re:So did he upload the FOIA? on FBI Investigates Liberator of Court Records · · Score: 1

    1. Techniques 2. Names and telephone numbers of FBI agents 3. Names and telephone numbers of other people

  20. Re:It's not news on Electric Car Nano-Batteries Aim For 500-Mile Range · · Score: 1

    Actually, Dr. Manhattan will be producing all the lithium that we need.

  21. Re:Wait, Google != Android on Android Modder Tries To Outmaneuver Google · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Creating a company is a pretty trivial process, at least in the US. In addition, it provides nice legal separation between personal assets and company assets (though not completely impervious) in case something goes horribly wrong and he gets sued.

    The catch is, how much does it cost? The OHA FAQ is silent on the subject.

  22. Re:He wanted to write some python code... on Porn Surfing Rampant At US Science Foundation · · Score: 1

    Wow. Just wow. You know, I just tried that.

    The best thing about this is that it provides plausible deniability. "But, I was just trying to get the latest Python update". Of course, the question is why I spent 20 on the site looking for a patch. In addition, I'm guessing that the IT guys skimming through the logs will totally miss this. Yes, they'll catch 'dirtycoeds.com', but I doubt they will look twice at something with python in it.

  23. Re:To clarify... on Porn Surfing Rampant At US Science Foundation · · Score: 1

    How do you quantify the cost of porn surfing? Presumably the person (or persons) involved did not use govt credit cards to buy subscriptions, which would be amazing at $13,800, so they are doing some other computation.

    Do they count a day on which a porn site was viewed as a day lost, and then declare the person's salary as 'cost'? That's stupid.

  24. Re:G-Mail? on Bank Goofs, and Judge Orders Gmail Account Nuked · · Score: 1

    I don't believe this. Why, in the middle of a huge financial crisis, followed by a huge debate about health care, is the party that is trying to pass health care reform (i.e. the Democrats), not discussing this at every turn?

    That doesn't make any sense at all. I can't see a political downside for the president not talking about this at his recent speech.

  25. Re:Splat! on New Motorcycle World Speed Record, 367.382 mph · · Score: 1

    When you say 'they have to turn it around', I have to ask whether this means that the driver has to make a U-turn in the thing, or whether they have a team at the other end picking it up and turning it around.

    I have the same feeling that others in this thread have had, that what they have built is really cool, but it barely counts as a motorcycle. Yes, it has two wheels, but I'd feel a lot better if the driver (rider??)had to actually turn it around themselves. I mean, do you have to countersteer in the thing, do you have to actually lean at all, what sort of turning radius does it have?