I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. Most of what you write has nothing to do with my point.
The important step is to put the formal proving systems into mainstream,
Yes, and there have been lots of systems trying to do that. This wiki seems no easier to use than many of the other attempts at doing this; so what's MIT's contribution?
Yeah, I missed that and I'm still missing it because it doesn't seem to be in TFA. TFA talks about "not handing over" your data and that you "should not use web applications".
In any case, cloud computing is a standard technical term. Furthermore, the kind of services Amazon and others provide are the most open source and control-friendly in that you have full control over your virtual machine. That's different from mashups and web services.
However, it doesn't matter what RMS thinks (and I agree with his concerns), what matters is that cloud computing, mashups, and web services are compelling and people will use them. This is bad for FOSS, but complaining about it won't help.
He is right that cloud computing is a potential threat to the progress we have made on free software, open standards, etc. However, he's wrong that it's marketing hype. Being able to move noisy, power-hungry hardware somewhere else and have other people deal with repairing and replacing it is a big win.
Fortunately, since a lot of cloud computing uses virtual machines, you do get full control and it ends up being not so much of a threat to free software. If anything, FOSS is a natural match to virtual machines, in the cloud or elsewhere.
You're right that the graph includes some positive feedback; what I meant by "positive feedback" was unknown extra positive feedback that can really screw us, not the effects that are already included (water vapor, ice, etc.).
The reason I gave the graph originally was because if CO2 absorption were saturated, then there should be no increase at all, since you can only have positive feedback if there is some growth.
You're basically right, and the original poster (rightly) approximated that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere (which I'm not even sure mankind can accomplish!) resulting in an increase in temperature of 0.2 degrees C or so is "zero extra warming effect".
The original poster is full of shit. You can see the expected temperature increases here:
You can find the science and references behind that graph in the report.
A doubling of CO2 gives us an extra 4C global temperature, provided there is no positive feedback. With positive feedback, things can get a lot worse, and with a lot less CO2.
Real science. Grandparent is correct, and if you spend a few minutes researching the subject you'll (easily) find his missing link.
No, the grandparent is wrong. Claims that absorption is saturated are based on incorrectly looking at peak wavelengths. If you don't recognize this obvious error yourself, you can just look in Section 1.3.1 of TAR:
It has been suggested that the absorption by CO2 is already saturated so that an increase would have no effect. This, however, is not the case. Carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation in the middle of its 15 mm band to the extent that radiation in the middle of this band cannot escape unimpeded: this absorption is saturated. This, however, is not the case for the band's wings. It is because of these effects of partial saturation that the radiative forcing is not proportional to the increase in the carbon dioxide concentration
One can argue at length about what the exact relationship is, but it is certainly not saturated.
Furthermore, the radiative relationship is not where the big danger lies; the big danger is in the feedback mechanisms.
You know, I suggest you read up a bit on moral reasoning; there are writings going back millennia.
As for Apple and Microsoft, there is no legal, ethical, or constitutional reason not to impose these costs on those companies, and if the people decide to do it because they feel it's the right thing to do, they can and will. I'm sorry you don't like it.
"probably warmer water"... Yeah, nothing to do with the fact we're sitting on a huge fucking lump of molten rock and metal.
That lump was no less molten when those clathrates formed. The fact is that the water temperatures have been going up and that the methane that was trapped long ago is now being released.
All the corporate overlord-ship and patent trolling of Tivo with all the reliability and efficiency of a Windows desktop! Thanks, but I think I'll pass.
That's an excellent reason in a democracy, even if emotionally defective people don't understand it.
If users dislike the fact that software X lacks accessibility features, they can buy a competing package or else do without.
Since they are nearly a duopoly, I actually can't.
Even if could, I don't want to. I'd much rather use the democratic process to force Apple and Microsoft to do what I consider the right and moral thing to do.
Define "regular" - the Air has a 13.3" screen, same size and res as the regular MacBooks, well within the range of other smaller "regular" laptops
Regular laptops have screens of 15" now. 12-13" has been subnotebook class for several years.
The "netbook" market didn't exist when Apple conceived the Air. The real, end-of-argument, unique selling point of the netbook concept, for my money, is that they are dirt cheap
You can get laptops for about the same price as netbooks. And a gold-plated netbook is still a netbook. What defines a netbook is that it's not useful as a full laptop, but instead mostly useful for web browsing, presentations, and editing. That makes the MacBook Air a netbook.
Which was probably considerably cheaper than a "proper" laptop back in the late 90s.
Not as I recall; I looked at the eMate but went with a laptop for not much more money.
Why should they provide accessibility features? For the same reason restaurants, hotels, airports, schools, hospitals, and lots of other places have to: as a society, we decided it's the right thing to do and therefore to impose this cost on our economy.
And can we impose that on corporations? Of course, we can. Corporations only exist and only can operate because the public supports them and the public created the legal framework for them. If Apple or Microsoft dislike some regulation so much, they can always dissolve; nobody's private property is taken by regulating how corporations operate or imposing costs on them.
I would argue that software is not a fundamental right and part of existence.
Is eating in a particular restaurant a "fundamental right of existence"? Shopping for clothes? Going to the zoo? Using the public water fountain?
Getting the lawyers involved threatens to open a frightening floodgate of frivolous lawsuits.
Lawsuits are only "frivolous" if people are suing over things that the law isn't intended to cover. But if the law says that accessibility must be provided, then suing to make sure companies comply isn't "frivolous".
What I consider "frivolous" is your blatant disregard for the needs and suffering of your fellow human beings.
Even if only half of the unreported studies were because of poor results, that's enough to skew things very, very badly.
The basic idea is that you should only use drugs or drug combinations for which there is evidence that they work and are not harmful. If there's nothing published, don't use it!
but by not publishing results they're creating fraudulent overall data, with possibly deadly results. This needs to stop.
There's nothing "fraudulent" about it. Studies often fail for many reasons completely unrelated to the drugs themselves.
Scientific experiments are usually one-sided: a positive result tells you something, a negative result tells you nothing.
I thought private companies weren't required to make their software accessible, which is a policy that I fully agree with.
And why would you "fully agree" with that? Why should Apple or Microsoft not be required to do in their software what companies have to do in the physical world?
I had been under the impression that Apple had at least as much accessibility support as other platforms. If it takes this long for one of their main audio apps to become accessible to blind users, Apple is doing poorly on accessibility.
You're right: the MacBook Air is too expensive and too heavy. But Apple was going for the netbook market with the device, they just missed.
its a regular 13.3" widescreen form-factor laptop
It most certainly is not. Regular laptops have bigger screens, optical drives, faster processors, replaceable batteries, etc. Most serious road warriors can't get by with the MacBook Air as their only laptop. I know: I was seriously considering it.
Just for the record, I own 0 (zero) MacBook Airs and 1 (one) EEE PC 701 (and am tempted to upgrade to a 901) - but I just find the comparison bizzarre
And I also own an EEE PC. But I certainly looked at the MacBook Air; a netbook with a full sized keyboard would have been nice. In the end, the price, lack of interchangeable battery, and operating system on the MacBook Air made me go with the EEE PC. The MacBook Air was neither a good netbook nor a full laptop replacement.
And Apple seems to be genetically incapable of producing inexpensive machines. The eMate was the closest they ever had to something that met the requirements of a netbook, and it was $800.
Slashdot Mirror
Just like the RIAA made an "honest mistake", the judge made an "honest mistake", too.
I partly disagree.
I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. Most of what you write has nothing to do with my point.
The important step is to put the formal proving systems into mainstream,
Yes, and there have been lots of systems trying to do that. This wiki seems no easier to use than many of the other attempts at doing this; so what's MIT's contribution?
Yeah, I missed that and I'm still missing it because it doesn't seem to be in TFA. TFA talks about "not handing over" your data and that you "should not use web applications".
In any case, cloud computing is a standard technical term. Furthermore, the kind of services Amazon and others provide are the most open source and control-friendly in that you have full control over your virtual machine. That's different from mashups and web services.
However, it doesn't matter what RMS thinks (and I agree with his concerns), what matters is that cloud computing, mashups, and web services are compelling and people will use them. This is bad for FOSS, but complaining about it won't help.
Formally verified mathematics has been around for decades; it's just hard. Putting it into a wiki won't make it any easier.
He is right that cloud computing is a potential threat to the progress we have made on free software, open standards, etc. However, he's wrong that it's marketing hype. Being able to move noisy, power-hungry hardware somewhere else and have other people deal with repairing and replacing it is a big win.
Fortunately, since a lot of cloud computing uses virtual machines, you do get full control and it ends up being not so much of a threat to free software. If anything, FOSS is a natural match to virtual machines, in the cloud or elsewhere.
You're right that the graph includes some positive feedback; what I meant by "positive feedback" was unknown extra positive feedback that can really screw us, not the effects that are already included (water vapor, ice, etc.).
The reason I gave the graph originally was because if CO2 absorption were saturated, then there should be no increase at all, since you can only have positive feedback if there is some growth.
You're basically right, and the original poster (rightly) approximated that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere (which I'm not even sure mankind can accomplish!) resulting in an increase in temperature of 0.2 degrees C or so is "zero extra warming effect".
The original poster is full of shit. You can see the expected temperature increases here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IPCC_AR4_WGIII_GHG_concentration_stabilization_levels.png
You can find the science and references behind that graph in the report.
A doubling of CO2 gives us an extra 4C global temperature, provided there is no positive feedback. With positive feedback, things can get a lot worse, and with a lot less CO2.
Real science. Grandparent is correct, and if you spend a few minutes researching the subject you'll (easily) find his missing link.
No, the grandparent is wrong. Claims that absorption is saturated are based on incorrectly looking at peak wavelengths. If you don't recognize this obvious error yourself, you can just look in Section 1.3.1 of TAR:
One can argue at length about what the exact relationship is, but it is certainly not saturated.
Furthermore, the radiative relationship is not where the big danger lies; the big danger is in the feedback mechanisms.
Next time, send the data anonymously to Wikileaks.
GWP is not really a good summary of the danger from global warming gases.
Where do you people come up with this sort of nonsense?
Here's the projected relationship between CO2 concentrations and temperature increase:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:IPCC_AR4_WGIII_GHG_concentration_stabilization_levels.png
Notice how it keeps going up?
That's assuming we don't hit some kind of positive feedback loop.
You know, I suggest you read up a bit on moral reasoning; there are writings going back millennia.
As for Apple and Microsoft, there is no legal, ethical, or constitutional reason not to impose these costs on those companies, and if the people decide to do it because they feel it's the right thing to do, they can and will. I'm sorry you don't like it.
Methane has an atmospheric half-life of about 7 years (turning into CO2 and water), fairly independent of any biosphere.
CO2 has an atmospheric half-life of somewhere between 50-100 years, with some nasty feedback (more CO2 = higher temperatures = longer half life).
So, per-volume, methane is worse, but what's gonna get us is the CO2 because that hangs around much longer and has the positive feedback.
"probably warmer water"... Yeah, nothing to do with the fact we're sitting on a huge fucking lump of molten rock and metal.
That lump was no less molten when those clathrates formed. The fact is that the water temperatures have been going up and that the methane that was trapped long ago is now being released.
All the corporate overlord-ship and patent trolling of Tivo with all the reliability and efficiency of a Windows desktop! Thanks, but I think I'll pass.
That's not a reason.
That's an excellent reason in a democracy, even if emotionally defective people don't understand it.
If users dislike the fact that software X lacks accessibility features, they can buy a competing package or else do without.
Since they are nearly a duopoly, I actually can't.
Even if could, I don't want to. I'd much rather use the democratic process to force Apple and Microsoft to do what I consider the right and moral thing to do.
Define "regular" - the Air has a 13.3" screen, same size and res as the regular MacBooks, well within the range of other smaller "regular" laptops
Regular laptops have screens of 15" now. 12-13" has been subnotebook class for several years.
The "netbook" market didn't exist when Apple conceived the Air. The real, end-of-argument, unique selling point of the netbook concept, for my money, is that they are dirt cheap
You can get laptops for about the same price as netbooks. And a gold-plated netbook is still a netbook. What defines a netbook is that it's not useful as a full laptop, but instead mostly useful for web browsing, presentations, and editing. That makes the MacBook Air a netbook.
Which was probably considerably cheaper than a "proper" laptop back in the late 90s.
Not as I recall; I looked at the eMate but went with a laptop for not much more money.
Why should they provide accessibility features? For the same reason restaurants, hotels, airports, schools, hospitals, and lots of other places have to: as a society, we decided it's the right thing to do and therefore to impose this cost on our economy.
And can we impose that on corporations? Of course, we can. Corporations only exist and only can operate because the public supports them and the public created the legal framework for them. If Apple or Microsoft dislike some regulation so much, they can always dissolve; nobody's private property is taken by regulating how corporations operate or imposing costs on them.
I would argue that software is not a fundamental right and part of existence.
Is eating in a particular restaurant a "fundamental right of existence"? Shopping for clothes? Going to the zoo? Using the public water fountain?
Getting the lawyers involved threatens to open a frightening floodgate of frivolous lawsuits.
Lawsuits are only "frivolous" if people are suing over things that the law isn't intended to cover. But if the law says that accessibility must be provided, then suing to make sure companies comply isn't "frivolous".
What I consider "frivolous" is your blatant disregard for the needs and suffering of your fellow human beings.
Even if only half of the unreported studies were because of poor results, that's enough to skew things very, very badly.
The basic idea is that you should only use drugs or drug combinations for which there is evidence that they work and are not harmful. If there's nothing published, don't use it!
but by not publishing results they're creating fraudulent overall data, with possibly deadly results. This needs to stop.
There's nothing "fraudulent" about it. Studies often fail for many reasons completely unrelated to the drugs themselves.
Scientific experiments are usually one-sided: a positive result tells you something, a negative result tells you nothing.
Ah, yes, the subtleties of language.
"World's oldest rock found" = "Among the many rocks that we studied, this is the oldest."
The adjective "oldest" refers to the set of known rocks, not the set of all rocks.
Have you tried actually using OS X from the keyboard alone? I have, and it doesn't work.
All that verbiage from Apple is just trying to cover up that fact. In particular, the section "Full keyboard navigation" is misleading.
I thought private companies weren't required to make their software accessible, which is a policy that I fully agree with.
And why would you "fully agree" with that? Why should Apple or Microsoft not be required to do in their software what companies have to do in the physical world?
I had been under the impression that Apple had at least as much accessibility support as other platforms. If it takes this long for one of their main audio apps to become accessible to blind users, Apple is doing poorly on accessibility.
For heaven's sake folks, the Air isn't a Netbook
You're right: the MacBook Air is too expensive and too heavy. But Apple was going for the netbook market with the device, they just missed.
its a regular 13.3" widescreen form-factor laptop
It most certainly is not. Regular laptops have bigger screens, optical drives, faster processors, replaceable batteries, etc. Most serious road warriors can't get by with the MacBook Air as their only laptop. I know: I was seriously considering it.
Just for the record, I own 0 (zero) MacBook Airs and 1 (one) EEE PC 701 (and am tempted to upgrade to a 901) - but I just find the comparison bizzarre
And I also own an EEE PC. But I certainly looked at the MacBook Air; a netbook with a full sized keyboard would have been nice. In the end, the price, lack of interchangeable battery, and operating system on the MacBook Air made me go with the EEE PC. The MacBook Air was neither a good netbook nor a full laptop replacement.
And Apple seems to be genetically incapable of producing inexpensive machines. The eMate was the closest they ever had to something that met the requirements of a netbook, and it was $800.