I mentioned this in a comment about Bangladesh on this story - and I agree, fundamentally, this is a dignified way to try and deal with this problem - but is it unreasonable for a country to be "undignified" if "don't have the luxury of money" to buy their way out of this problem? If you agree that global warming is man made, then is it unreasonable to think that the people suffering the most consequences (like the Maldives or Bangladesh) or some of the people least responsible?
Well, I'd argue that it takes some money to immigrate, especially these days - the vast majority of truly poor people in Bangladesh can't do this (which is why the Indian government is so angry about poor Bangladeshis sneaking into India).
There's actually an interesting class distinction here - many of Bangladeshis in England were poorer (and did things like manual labor, restaurants, etc.) while those that immigrated to the U.S. in the 60s and 70s where much better educated and middle class and entered those jobs in the U.S. (education, medicine, and engineering). WIth tighter immigration restrictions in both England (and that's a joke! The English took out the last Mughal king in Bangladesh!) and the U.S. I suspect the poorest in Bangladesh have no chance at getting out legitimately.
Incidentally, how long before a Londoner of Bangladeshi background is no longer Bangladeshi and is just a Londoner? Three generations? Four? The impression that I get is that though Bangladesh and England have been tied together for such a long time, no matter how long a Bangladeshi's lived in England s/he's still Bangladeshi and not English.
Nasheed's quote at the end of the summary really made me recall Bangladesh, where my parents are from. It's another country that is under major threat from climate change. I've often wondered what Bangladeshi people would do when the flood waters finally get bad enough to make the country uninhabitable, through no fault of their own (most of the people there are remarkably poor). I once read a touching BBC article where a village farmer complained that he was losing his country so Westerners could drive in their cars.
I always thought most Bangladeshis not killed by cataclysmic flooding would escape into neighboring countries, especially West Bengal in India, but the Maldives seems to have a "good" (at least practical) idea. Sadly the Bangladeshi government is too inefficient, corrupt, and schizophrenic to manage something as well thought out, costly, and long term as that.
I fully expect to have to explain to my kids that Bangladesh was where their grandparents were from but that it no long exists (above the ocean, anyway).
Since there are already many comments already posted I doubt this will get read and I suspect the OP is a troll, but this is really an unpalatable level of ignorance.
Amphibians aren't a "species," they're an entire class of interesting, ecologically important animals. Their continued existence is in our best interest for a number of reasons;
First, amphibians tend to be important bell weather species in their habitats. Since they take in water in the first part of their life cycles, they are important barometers of the amount of pollution in an environment.
Second they are ecologically important. As predators we depend on them to keep the number of insects down. In a world without amphibians I suspect insect borne human disease will become more rampant. They also are important food sources for larger animals.
Third, it is not a issue of "adaptation." Most scientists seem to agree the biggest threat facing amphibians is pollution (again because part of their life cycle is spent completely in water and even after that their skin is porous). While factors like global warming, UV radiation, etc. are no doubt important, the trend seems to be pollution being a major factor.
A note to my third point - you are almost as bad as Creationist "scientists." You say amphibians should "evolve," but you fundamentally don't understand how evolution works. It takes time for a species to do so and moreover, it has to respond to environmental conditions (changes in the environment, in predators or prey), not to pollution.
Fourth, amphibians are hugely important in human science. The chemicals they produce, the aspects of embryonic life they can teach us, and the clues they might give us to the move that fish made onto land is of large scientific importance. Not to mention the fact that a number of problems now affecting amphibians is sure to (if it hasn't already - it would seem harder to gauge with completely aquatic life than it would with amphibians) be a problem for fish and other scientifically and commercially important wildlife.
I'm a huge Mac fan (I'm typing this on an older MacBook Pro), but man, I really think these new laptops are ugly as sin. I really prefer the look of previous model MacBooks and MacBook Pros, though when the Air came out it was probably inevitable that the other laptops would follow its lead.
Yeah, my address is set up at a certain block of Inuotose, but since I live in a very small town, I can usually just use the town, the block, and the apartment and get my mail.
What an interesting article to be up here right now; I am starting my third year living in Japan and last afternoon walked out of my apartment with my current gf to go get lunch, much to the giggling of the next door second grader. While I live in the countryside, people still live close together and I think between me and my neighbors being noisy at different times we've all gotten on each others nerves.
But as the article suggests, people understand that's the cost of living close together and there is an amount of privacy people are willing to give you. As Google grows bigger here (the internet hub, really is Yahoo, but I've noticed some people using Google Maps for routes and things) this might become more and more of an issue, especially in places like Tokyo with many technologically savvy people and a high population density.
This will probably never get seen and not get modded up, but while you are correct in one sense you are not in another; as a Muslim let me explain:
A fundamental belief in Islam is that through the ages, the uncorrupted Bible became rife with revisions and mistakes - the resurrection of Jesus being a prime example (the other big one being the trinity). For Muslims then, this version of the Bible bolsters the belief that Christianity during the time when Islam was beginning, was corrupted - not the word of God, but the word of man, if you will.
Without these changes there isn't a need for Islam because Islam (like Christianity) and Muslims perceive Islam as a correction to faiths before it.
I say all this as a Muslim and you are right - most Muslims do and all should respect the other people of the book (and other faiths as well - I was born in the West and other people's religions are none of my business). Moreover, there is an overlap in the views of people of faith especially extremists): Muslim-Americans voted in droves for George W. Bush in droves the first time around because they saw the Christian's right family/conservative values issues as overlapping with their own (as a small L liberal I found that particularly disgusting and as a result refuse to have anything to do with CAIR, who endorsed Bush).
Some Muslims may see a "hierarchy of infidels" but I think calling anyone an infidel, regardless of their faith or lack thereof, is pretty blasphemous myself.
I actually read this article earlier today (they're coming for my slashdot credibility card!) and it mentioned the amount of asbestos and other materials in the cars. Does anyone know how that comes into play in a marine environment?
I have a Wii I left in the U.S. and now I am considering buying one in my current location.
The thing about the Wii is while games like Mario Galaxy, Smash Brothers, etc. look fun, it seems like there are fewer longer games, or gamer's games (SRPGs, for example; the only one that comes to mind is Fire Emblem) for the system.
I see WiiWare as being an excellent antidote. Someone who wants to code a SNES style SRPG or RPG that last for 40 hours has the resources to do so. Moreover, with limits on file size, the developers are going to have to take some time with gameplay to make a successful game (the forthcoming Crystal Chronicles WiiWare title seems to encapsulate this; it looks good, but there is obviously some limit to what it can do graphically - this I hope will be made up for by richer game play).
As big name artists like NIN and Radiohead pave they way, I fervently hope and pray we are seeing the end of the RIAA.
I haven't bought an American CD in years because of how the RIAA strong armed colleges and effectively shut down web radio.
This system is far fairer to the artists as well; they get a far bigger piece of the pie. There will be fallout for artists I am sure, but I think it will lead to a far richer music industry in the U.S.
In short, I am just really happy that a few bands are beginning to pave the way to a world without an RIAA.
I guess my only real question is, are any of these novels any good? Or are they appealing just because of the gimmick used to compose them?
From what I hear they're awful. A lot are written by high school students, according to my coworker, and he personally found them rather stupid and boring. But he recommended them to me as a way to pick up contemporary spoken Japanese.
That said it's not because they're composed on cellphones that makes them interesting - they originally were cellphone downloads, if I am not mistaken. So a lot of people downloaded them when they had nothing else to do and read them during down time. Plus I think they tend to probably appeal to the high school set (in regard to themes, style, etc).
Keitai shousetsu, or mobile/cellphone novels are interesting. I was actually talking about them at work last week since one of my co-workers recommended them for picking up the nuance on contemporary spoken Japanese to me. He did mention however, that a lot of the authors were high school girls, and so he personally found the novels boring. I ended up doing an amazon search on published versions of the novels and checking the library, both of which turned up several books.
The books aren't brilliant works of art by any stretch of the imagination, from what I've gathered, but are mostly for people to read on their phones when there is nothing else going on (train rides, etc.). But like my coworker said they are probably a brilliant way to pick up contemporary Japanese; the writing style is that of young people today and the kanji used are a lot less (because these are high school kids not Akutagawa).
I live in Japan too, and I love it, but this assessment is rather disingenuous.
First, there is a lot of hand wringing here about the country falling behind the U.S., India, and other countries in terms of tech research and development. I don't believe war is great but it does spur technological development.
Second, the development of some of these applications is almost as pernicious as war. The reason the robots are being developed to take care of the elderly is, partially at least, to keep an influx of immigrants, especially from Southeast Asia, coming in as low cost labor as nurses and such.
Slashdot Mirror
I caught this on Joystiq and Kotaku and one of the titles really caught my eye:
A Moogle Kupo d'Etat - Evil in Small Doses
Now, I don't play Final Fantasy XI and I don't even play MMOs.
But the idea of killer Moogles?
Oh your god. ...
Excuse me fellas, I have to go wash up.
I mentioned this in a comment about Bangladesh on this story - and I agree, fundamentally, this is a dignified way to try and deal with this problem - but is it unreasonable for a country to be "undignified" if "don't have the luxury of money" to buy their way out of this problem? If you agree that global warming is man made, then is it unreasonable to think that the people suffering the most consequences (like the Maldives or Bangladesh) or some of the people least responsible?
One would hope - but the government's poor and there is no political will to do anything. Bangladesh is no Maldives.
Well, I'd argue that it takes some money to immigrate, especially these days - the vast majority of truly poor people in Bangladesh can't do this (which is why the Indian government is so angry about poor Bangladeshis sneaking into India).
There's actually an interesting class distinction here - many of Bangladeshis in England were poorer (and did things like manual labor, restaurants, etc.) while those that immigrated to the U.S. in the 60s and 70s where much better educated and middle class and entered those jobs in the U.S. (education, medicine, and engineering). WIth tighter immigration restrictions in both England (and that's a joke! The English took out the last Mughal king in Bangladesh!) and the U.S. I suspect the poorest in Bangladesh have no chance at getting out legitimately.
Incidentally, how long before a Londoner of Bangladeshi background is no longer Bangladeshi and is just a Londoner? Three generations? Four?
The impression that I get is that though Bangladesh and England have been tied together for such a long time, no matter how long a Bangladeshi's lived in England s/he's still Bangladeshi and not English.
Feel free to leave in the giant bugs and mutants though...
Hey, if you're going to talk about John Howard at least mention him by name!
I leave it to the reader to guess whether he's a giant bug or a mutant. Or both. ;-)
Nasheed's quote at the end of the summary really made me recall Bangladesh, where my parents are from. It's another country that is under major threat from climate change. I've often wondered what Bangladeshi people would do when the flood waters finally get bad enough to make the country uninhabitable, through no fault of their own (most of the people there are remarkably poor). I once read a touching BBC article where a village farmer complained that he was losing his country so Westerners could drive in their cars.
I always thought most Bangladeshis not killed by cataclysmic flooding would escape into neighboring countries, especially West Bengal in India, but the Maldives seems to have a "good" (at least practical) idea. Sadly the Bangladeshi government is too inefficient, corrupt, and schizophrenic to manage something as well thought out, costly, and long term as that.
I fully expect to have to explain to my kids that Bangladesh was where their grandparents were from but that it no long exists (above the ocean, anyway).
Since there are already many comments already posted I doubt this will get read and I suspect the OP is a troll, but this is really an unpalatable level of ignorance.
Amphibians aren't a "species," they're an entire class of interesting, ecologically important animals. Their continued existence is in our best interest for a number of reasons;
First, amphibians tend to be important bell weather species in their habitats. Since they take in water in the first part of their life cycles, they are important barometers of the amount of pollution in an environment.
Second they are ecologically important. As predators we depend on them to keep the number of insects down. In a world without amphibians I suspect insect borne human disease will become more rampant. They also are important food sources for larger animals.
Third, it is not a issue of "adaptation." Most scientists seem to agree the biggest threat facing amphibians is pollution (again because part of their life cycle is spent completely in water and even after that their skin is porous). While factors like global warming, UV radiation, etc. are no doubt important, the trend seems to be pollution being a major factor.
A note to my third point - you are almost as bad as Creationist "scientists." You say amphibians should "evolve," but you fundamentally don't understand how evolution works. It takes time for a species to do so and moreover, it has to respond to environmental conditions (changes in the environment, in predators or prey), not to pollution.
Fourth, amphibians are hugely important in human science. The chemicals they produce, the aspects of embryonic life they can teach us, and the clues they might give us to the move that fish made onto land is of large scientific importance. Not to mention the fact that a number of problems now affecting amphibians is sure to (if it hasn't already - it would seem harder to gauge with completely aquatic life than it would with amphibians) be a problem for fish and other scientifically and commercially important wildlife.
I'm a huge Mac fan (I'm typing this on an older MacBook Pro), but man, I really think these new laptops are ugly as sin. I really prefer the look of previous model MacBooks and MacBook Pros, though when the Air came out it was probably inevitable that the other laptops would follow its lead.
Half Hour News Hour was FOX not CNN.
And yes, it was awful.
taco, you sound like my mother.
I'm not fat, I'm just smart.
Yeah, my address is set up at a certain block of Inuotose, but since I live in a very small town, I can usually just use the town, the block, and the apartment and get my mail.
What an interesting article to be up here right now; I am starting my third year living in Japan and last afternoon walked out of my apartment with my current gf to go get lunch, much to the giggling of the next door second grader. While I live in the countryside, people still live close together and I think between me and my neighbors being noisy at different times we've all gotten on each others nerves.
But as the article suggests, people understand that's the cost of living close together and there is an amount of privacy people are willing to give you. As Google grows bigger here (the internet hub, really is Yahoo, but I've noticed some people using Google Maps for routes and things) this might become more and more of an issue, especially in places like Tokyo with many technologically savvy people and a high population density.
This will probably never get seen and not get modded up, but while you are correct in one sense you are not in another; as a Muslim let me explain:
A fundamental belief in Islam is that through the ages, the uncorrupted Bible became rife with revisions and mistakes - the resurrection of Jesus being a prime example (the other big one being the trinity). For Muslims then, this version of the Bible bolsters the belief that Christianity during the time when Islam was beginning, was corrupted - not the word of God, but the word of man, if you will.
Without these changes there isn't a need for Islam because Islam (like Christianity) and Muslims perceive Islam as a correction to faiths before it.
I say all this as a Muslim and you are right - most Muslims do and all should respect the other people of the book (and other faiths as well - I was born in the West and other people's religions are none of my business). Moreover, there is an overlap in the views of people of faith especially extremists): Muslim-Americans voted in droves for George W. Bush in droves the first time around because they saw the Christian's right family/conservative values issues as overlapping with their own (as a small L liberal I found that particularly disgusting and as a result refuse to have anything to do with CAIR, who endorsed Bush).
Some Muslims may see a "hierarchy of infidels" but I think calling anyone an infidel, regardless of their faith or lack thereof, is pretty blasphemous myself.
i have a question for slashdot.
This is slashdot, of course none of us are layers...since none of you are layers
Aw, I just made myself sad.
As the author puts it, 'Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop.'
What part of that sentence did I understand?
I actually read this article earlier today (they're coming for my slashdot credibility card!) and it mentioned the amount of asbestos and other materials in the cars. Does anyone know how that comes into play in a marine environment?
I just would hate to give you my bloody underpants
I would get that checked out. You could have a serious medical problem there.
I have a Wii I left in the U.S. and now I am considering buying one in my current location.
The thing about the Wii is while games like Mario Galaxy, Smash Brothers, etc. look fun, it seems like there are fewer longer games, or gamer's games (SRPGs, for example; the only one that comes to mind is Fire Emblem) for the system.
I see WiiWare as being an excellent antidote. Someone who wants to code a SNES style SRPG or RPG that last for 40 hours has the resources to do so. Moreover, with limits on file size, the developers are going to have to take some time with gameplay to make a successful game (the forthcoming Crystal Chronicles WiiWare title seems to encapsulate this; it looks good, but there is obviously some limit to what it can do graphically - this I hope will be made up for by richer game play).
As big name artists like NIN and Radiohead pave they way, I fervently hope and pray we are seeing the end of the RIAA.
I haven't bought an American CD in years because of how the RIAA strong armed colleges and effectively shut down web radio.
This system is far fairer to the artists as well; they get a far bigger piece of the pie. There will be fallout for artists I am sure, but I think it will lead to a far richer music industry in the U.S.
In short, I am just really happy that a few bands are beginning to pave the way to a world without an RIAA.
Considering the bile that pours out of his ginormous mouth everyday (Michael J. Fox, anyone) I hope he totally gets ignored.
I guess my only real question is, are any of these novels any good? Or are they appealing just because of the gimmick used to compose them?
From what I hear they're awful. A lot are written by high school students, according to my coworker, and he personally found them rather stupid and boring. But he recommended them to me as a way to pick up contemporary spoken Japanese.
That said it's not because they're composed on cellphones that makes them interesting - they originally were cellphone downloads, if I am not mistaken. So a lot of people downloaded them when they had nothing else to do and read them during down time. Plus I think they tend to probably appeal to the high school set (in regard to themes, style, etc).
Keitai shousetsu, or mobile/cellphone novels are interesting. I was actually talking about them at work last week since one of my co-workers recommended them for picking up the nuance on contemporary spoken Japanese to me. He did mention however, that a lot of the authors were high school girls, and so he personally found the novels boring. I ended up doing an amazon search on published versions of the novels and checking the library, both of which turned up several books.
The books aren't brilliant works of art by any stretch of the imagination, from what I've gathered, but are mostly for people to read on their phones when there is nothing else going on (train rides, etc.). But like my coworker said they are probably a brilliant way to pick up contemporary Japanese; the writing style is that of young people today and the kanji used are a lot less (because these are high school kids not Akutagawa).
Exactly.
Not all Japanese people are like this, but I've heard it as a reason to develop the robots.
I live in Japan too, and I love it, but this assessment is rather disingenuous.
First, there is a lot of hand wringing here about the country falling behind the U.S., India, and other countries in terms of tech research and development. I don't believe war is great but it does spur technological development.
Second, the development of some of these applications is almost as pernicious as war. The reason the robots are being developed to take care of the elderly is, partially at least, to keep an influx of immigrants, especially from Southeast Asia, coming in as low cost labor as nurses and such.