Actually when planes stopped flying during 9/11 the temperature drop noticeably. The short term correlation between C02 and temperature is rather weak (this remains a Nobel prize caliber puzzle for whoever can explain this), which also suggests that rapid decreases could potentially be felt rather early.
Climate change is a reality and scientific consensus, long-into-the-future predictions of gloom and doom are speculations over which little is (yet) known.
West Antarctica appears to have begun and is almost certainly unstoppable,
The "unstoppable" part is gratuitous and meant to create a sense of urgency. The melting is supposed to take place over hundreds of years, so if by some miracle of science we could reduce C02 production by 50% in 30 years, likely the melting process would stop. If only we had a clean source(s) of energy growing exponentially that could replace fossil fuels. I don't know something powered by either nuclear fusion on Earth or fission high above in outer space where it is safe to store a massive fission reactor from which we could collect energy in the form of radiation.
BTW you haven't posted health risks in future for the individuals by whose photographs you declared them non-overweight.
Neither have you posted the contrary. This is just a random request. Anyhow, I've posted links showing that waist to height is preferable and given examples how it is incorrect (estimates range around 5-10%). I'll leave it at that for those who are interested about the facts.
This may sound crass, but this is a problem that'll solve itself in a couple of decades,
Erh, if couples are having less than two children on the average, as indeed they are, the problem won't "solve itself in a couple of decades".
This trend will simply carry on for many decades with the population steadily dwindling. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since not long ago Japan had less than 60m people, but the skewed ratio ain't going away.
I will never use it because, guess what, I want to be on time!
That's exactly my point. In cities with real public transit, like Paris or New York you are likelier to make it on time if you take the subway than if you drive.
In the example quoted in my posting, the bus is only slightly slower than the car, runs on a precise schedule with buses every 15 minutes at most, and much more frequent than that during rush hour. The result was a large increase in riderships.
The media certainly did go for skinny types. A few years back we were browsing through a collection of Hollywood pinups and hunks through the years and the stars were severely underweight aroud the late 70s. Look for example at these three 70s "hotties":
The 70s are a bad period to compare to. The ideal back then was the emaciated "i'm on drugs" look. It is true that the "really skinny" kid seems to have disappeared. Nowadays most people in USA range between normal and morbidly obese, with very few examples on the low side.
Americans as a whole (albeit less so in the huge metropolitan areas like NYC), actively avoid public transit.
Your statement would be true if America had any public transit. It doesn't with the exception of Boston and NYC. And guess what? in those two cities people do use public transit.
The same thing happened around here. A nearby city had nominal public transit with a bus every 30-60 minutes moving rather slowly. A forward thinking manager increased the frequency and speed of buses so that it would be properly be called public transit and ridership went through the roof. In there have been times during rush hour the bus is so full that it cannot pick up all passengers. Capacity continues to be added while load factor is now at highest ever.
Los Angeles reported similar outcomes: increasing the bus frequency on a route lead to increased load factors.
I hadn't realized how screwed up the BMI could be until it happened to me. I exercise regularly and have six-pack abs yet the BMI consistently ranks me between overweight and nearly obese, whereas my percentage of body fat is considered "lean" for my age, and my waste measurement is well within recommended normal parameters for my height.
Which brings up another point: BMI doesn't account for age. Male adults under heavily regulated regimes of diet and exercise still add about a pound of weight every two years. This seems to be part of the normal process of aging and it is not accounted for in the BMI.
However, unless you are a weightlifter or outrageously fit (not just "skinny fit", but bulging muscles) it's a pretty good indicator.
Not at the overweight scale. This is well documented. People have collected actual examples of people together with their BMI and you'll see that there are plenty of examples of "overweight" people which are perfectly fine.
Look, as long as we have H1-B visas allowing spouses to work is the right thing to do. Would you suggest that we allow H1-B visa holders to come here but deny them the right to register their kids to school? Of course not. Well, the ability of their spouse to seek gainful employment is no different.
Now if you want to can H1-B visas or at the very least make sure people brought under them are paid above market rates (sign of a true shortage), I have no qualms with that, but don't take it on the spouses.
develop new breeds of farm animals that can stand up to the hazards of global warming.
Currently we graze cattle from the frozen plains of North Dakota to the deserts of Africa. From the dry lands of Texas to the Alpine mountains of Vevey, Switzerland. From the Northern outback in Australia to the Amazon jungle of Manaus.
It seems to me that we already have the breeds for all possible climates and the whole article is just scientists doing whipping up yet another crisis to score more funding.
Non sequitur. People are not dying fast enough. Life expectancy increases everywhere.
Population will start declining around 2040. So we need to ramp up food production until then and thereafter problem is solved.
Even if the population decreases, demand for meat is currently soaring, especially in the so-called emerging markets.
Beef consumption per person has been falling worldwide since 1975. Most of the increase in consumption has been in poultry and pork, which demand much less resources than beef. I do expect all meats to go up in price somewhat over the next thirty years, but none of this is a "sky is falling" scenario.
Of course, I will be rapidly down moderated by the malthusians who have been wrong for over 200 years but don't like being reminded of this fact.
to the point where two or three truly random characters is as strong or stronger. "battery horse correct staJ&%v1ple" is effectively no stronger than adding one additional random character to "staJ&%v1ple" and dropping the real words entirely.
This is BS, There are 95 ascii character choices for the one character to be inserted in any one of the 12 positions of staJ&%v1ple, so the size of the space to be searched goes up by a factor of 12*95=1140.
English, on the other hand has about 10K commonly used words, so adding three words like "battery horse correct" increases the size of the space by a factor of 1,000,000,000,000.
An English word has about as much entropy as 2 random characters. So assuming you use an application to select a random nonsense "sentence" 6 words long (say out of/usr/dict/words) you have just matched a completely random 12 character long password. In particular your horse stapler has the same entropy as a 20 character random password which is way higher than your alternate ten character "9vbCHS10f" password.
Point taken, I've heard the same thing. This is also a problem with ancient languages: they have really primiitve malloc routines that call the kernel every time there is a malloc. The consequence is people roll out their own memory management routines.
Don't get me wrong, I used C heavily and really liked it, back in the late 70s and early 80s. Thirty years later is long on the tooth and with very little progress in between. The original version was released in 1973, the first revision took place 16 years later (ANSI C) and it was rather modest. Since then things have moved slightly faster with C99 and C11, but still not fast enough to correct what are, in retrospect, clear flaws in the language.
Second, there needs to be an emphasis on using languages that are not susceptible to buffer overrunning. This isn't 1975 any more.
This. It is high time that by default C compilers did buffer overrun check. Maybe deep inside some kernel routine we cannot afford the 0.5nanosecond it takes to check the buffer size, and we can always have a pragma that disables the checking for that piece of code. All other usages should be subject to buffer overrun check.
You are confusing giving access to the code and making such access free. I know of several companies that, for example, put the code in escrow so that if the product ever stops being supported customers can access it and modify it. Notice how this reaches a balanced compromise between your need as a user to see the code and the company to earn an honest buck from providing you software services.
..and it quickly gets modded down, since it breaks the echo chamber here.
Seriously people, think about it, giving your services away for free makes no sense. No one else does and, contrary to say, volunteer doctors who help poor people (doctors without borders) free software benefits mostly corporations.
Open source software makes sense. Free (as in gratis) software makes no sense and the proposition that people shouldn't be paid for the software they develop is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. No other profession gives away its services like that (where can lawyer to handle my divorce for free?).
Often corporations are the main beneficiaries of your free labor when they should have paid for your services. A much preferable alternative is software released for free for personal use, but with a modest cost per seat for commercial use.
And yes, when I was young I contributed to several Open Source projects, before the term had even been coined.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually when planes stopped flying during 9/11 the temperature drop noticeably. The short term correlation between C02 and temperature is rather weak (this remains a Nobel prize caliber puzzle for whoever can explain this), which also suggests that rapid decreases could potentially be felt rather early.
Climate change is a reality and scientific consensus, long-into-the-future predictions of gloom and doom are speculations over which little is (yet) known.
West Antarctica appears to have begun and is almost certainly unstoppable,
The "unstoppable" part is gratuitous and meant to create a sense of urgency. The melting is supposed to take place over hundreds of years, so if by some miracle of science we could reduce C02 production by 50% in 30 years, likely the melting process would stop. If only we had a clean source(s) of energy growing exponentially that could replace fossil fuels. I don't know something powered by either nuclear fusion on Earth or fission high above in outer space where it is safe to store a massive fission reactor from which we could collect energy in the form of radiation.
Dude, the header is not mine. I wouldn't call it a lie. I would say "often incorrect".
BTW you haven't posted health risks in future for the individuals by whose photographs you declared them non-overweight.
Neither have you posted the contrary. This is just a random request. Anyhow, I've posted links showing that waist to height is preferable and given examples how it is incorrect (estimates range around 5-10%). I'll leave it at that for those who are interested about the facts.
Do you have an alternative ?
Yes, waist to height ratio which is superior. I posted the link elsewhere in this thread.
I'm wondering if you're one of these of people who's in denial about being overweight? :)
Nope, my body fat percentage is in the lean range and this can easily be glanced from my waist measurements, apropos of which:
Waist to height ratio 'more accurate than BMI'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/hea...
This may sound crass, but this is a problem that'll solve itself in a couple of decades,
Erh, if couples are having less than two children on the average, as indeed they are, the problem won't "solve itself in a couple of decades".
This trend will simply carry on for many decades with the population steadily dwindling. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since not long ago Japan had less than 60m people, but the skewed ratio ain't going away.
well the angels in Charlie's angels weren't at all overweight, granted, but neither were they malnourished waifs either.
They were underweight under the BMI index as were most television starlets back then.
I will never use it because, guess what, I want to be on time!
That's exactly my point. In cities with real public transit, like Paris or New York you are likelier to make it on time if you take the subway than if you drive.
In the example quoted in my posting, the bus is only slightly slower than the car, runs on a precise schedule with buses every 15 minutes at most, and much more frequent than that during rush hour. The result was a large increase in riderships.
The media certainly did go for skinny types. A few years back we were browsing through a collection of Hollywood pinups and hunks through the years and the stars were severely underweight aroud the late 70s. Look for example at these three 70s "hotties":
http://content.time.com/time/p...
Today they wouldn't qualify for the job.
The 70s are a bad period to compare to. The ideal back then was the emaciated "i'm on drugs" look. It is true that the "really skinny" kid seems to have disappeared. Nowadays most people in USA range between normal and morbidly obese, with very few examples on the low side.
Americans as a whole (albeit less so in the huge metropolitan areas like NYC), actively avoid public transit.
Your statement would be true if America had any public transit. It doesn't with the exception of Boston and NYC. And guess what? in those two cities people do use public transit.
The same thing happened around here. A nearby city had nominal public transit with a bus every 30-60 minutes moving rather slowly. A forward thinking manager increased the frequency and speed of buses so that it would be properly be called public transit and ridership went through the roof. In there have been times during rush hour the bus is so full that it cannot pick up all passengers. Capacity continues to be added while load factor is now at highest ever.
Los Angeles reported similar outcomes: increasing the bus frequency on a route lead to increased load factors.
Really? I think the following people aren't overweight:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
I hadn't realized how screwed up the BMI could be until it happened to me. I exercise regularly and have six-pack abs yet the BMI consistently ranks me between overweight and nearly obese, whereas my percentage of body fat is considered "lean" for my age, and my waste measurement is well within recommended normal parameters for my height.
Which brings up another point: BMI doesn't account for age. Male adults under heavily regulated regimes of diet and exercise still add about a pound of weight every two years. This seems to be part of the normal process of aging and it is not accounted for in the BMI.
However, unless you are a weightlifter or outrageously fit (not just "skinny fit", but bulging muscles) it's a pretty good indicator.
Not at the overweight scale. This is well documented. People have collected actual examples of people together with their BMI and you'll see that there are plenty of examples of "overweight" people which are perfectly fine.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...
Here's another overweight person:
http://www.klikk.no/multimedia...
Look, as long as we have H1-B visas allowing spouses to work is the right thing to do. Would you suggest that we allow H1-B visa holders to come here but deny them the right to register their kids to school? Of course not. Well, the ability of their spouse to seek gainful employment is no different.
Now if you want to can H1-B visas or at the very least make sure people brought under them are paid above market rates (sign of a true shortage), I have no qualms with that, but don't take it on the spouses.
Here are the dry lands of Texas:
http://www.worldatlas.com/webi...
develop new breeds of farm animals that can stand up to the hazards of global warming.
Currently we graze cattle from the frozen plains of North Dakota to the deserts of Africa. From the dry lands of Texas to the Alpine mountains of Vevey, Switzerland. From the Northern outback in Australia to the Amazon jungle of Manaus.
It seems to me that we already have the breeds for all possible climates and the whole article is just scientists doing whipping up yet another crisis to score more funding.
Non sequitur. People are not dying fast enough. Life expectancy increases everywhere.
Population will start declining around 2040. So we need to ramp up food production until then and thereafter problem is solved.
Even if the population decreases, demand for meat is currently soaring, especially in the so-called emerging markets.
Beef consumption per person has been falling worldwide since 1975. Most of the increase in consumption has been in poultry and pork, which demand much less resources than beef. I do expect all meats to go up in price somewhat over the next thirty years, but none of this is a "sky is falling" scenario.
Of course, I will be rapidly down moderated by the malthusians who have been wrong for over 200 years but don't like being reminded of this fact.
to the point where two or three truly random characters is as strong or stronger. "battery horse correct staJ&%v1ple" is effectively no stronger than adding one additional random character to "staJ&%v1ple" and dropping the real words entirely.
This is BS, There are 95 ascii character choices for the one character to be inserted in any one of the 12 positions of staJ&%v1ple, so the size of the space to be searched goes up by a factor of 12*95=1140.
English, on the other hand has about 10K commonly used words, so adding three words like "battery horse correct" increases the size of the space by a factor of 1,000,000,000,000.
An English word has about as much entropy as 2 random characters. So assuming you use an application to select a random nonsense "sentence" 6 words long (say out of /usr/dict/words) you have just matched a completely random 12 character long password. In particular your horse stapler has the same entropy as a 20 character random password which is way higher than your alternate ten character "9vbCHS10f" password.
Point taken, I've heard the same thing. This is also a problem with ancient languages: they have really primiitve malloc routines that call the kernel every time there is a malloc. The consequence is people roll out their own memory management routines.
Don't get me wrong, I used C heavily and really liked it, back in the late 70s and early 80s. Thirty years later is long on the tooth and with very little progress in between. The original version was released in 1973, the first revision took place 16 years later (ANSI C) and it was rather modest. Since then things have moved slightly faster with C99 and C11, but still not fast enough to correct what are, in retrospect, clear flaws in the language.
Second, there needs to be an emphasis on using languages that are not susceptible to buffer overrunning. This isn't 1975 any more.
This. It is high time that by default C compilers did buffer overrun check. Maybe deep inside some kernel routine we cannot afford the 0.5nanosecond it takes to check the buffer size, and we can always have a pragma that disables the checking for that piece of code. All other usages should be subject to buffer overrun check.
Simply changing the license would achieve this. The point is FSF/OSF fundamentalists aren't even trying.
Programmers need to stop and think about the fact that giving away your labor for free to the benefit of corporations is absurd.
You are confusing giving access to the code and making such access free. I know of several companies that, for example, put the code in escrow so that if the product ever stops being supported customers can access it and modify it. Notice how this reaches a balanced compromise between your need as a user to see the code and the company to earn an honest buck from providing you software services.
..and it quickly gets modded down, since it breaks the echo chamber here.
Seriously people, think about it, giving your services away for free makes no sense. No one else does and, contrary to say, volunteer doctors who help poor people (doctors without borders) free software benefits mostly corporations.
Open source software makes sense. Free (as in gratis) software makes no sense and the proposition that people shouldn't be paid for the software they develop is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. No other profession gives away its services like that (where can lawyer to handle my divorce for free?).
Often corporations are the main beneficiaries of your free labor when they should have paid for your services. A much preferable alternative is software released for free for personal use, but with a modest cost per seat for commercial use.
And yes, when I was young I contributed to several Open Source projects, before the term had even been coined.