Actually you got it wrong. The author was not contacted by someone "trying" to operate a link-trading scheme, but rather by someone with whom the author already engaged with (he admittedly used some infographics from that site).
This is basically someone revolted that somebody else is making money on the internet.
The subject is always hotly debated and my impression is that some interest groups are trying to keep it that way (something similar to creationism vs evolution). The fact that the OP could name the two top "alternative" explanations for global warming and still put them forward as reasonable speaks to me of ill intent, because they are frankly bullshit.
There is no controversy. Anthropogenic global warming is real. The crushing majority of climatologists and the data point to that conclusion.
Humanity is the really big thing that happened last century.
We went from 1.6 billion people to 6, we altered the environment on an unseen before scale, we began mass producing and dumping waste at a pace that couldn't have possibly be without consequence.
Referring strictly to CO2, the levels we have now haven't been seen in at least 650.000 years and that's without considering other gases which are mostly man made (they occur rarely or not at all in nature).
Ignorance is not an excuse. The alternative explanations you mention have been thoroughly debunked.
Yeah, they can be like that. However, on occasion, I learned to appreciate this approach, especially when concerning more difficult concepts. I've used the website recently to get a better grasp on statistics and, for me at least, it worked.
P.S. Since Romania IS part of ESA it will participate in ExoMars and we have no legal concept of illegal download, so maybe US turning into a balkanic country isn't such a bad idea
Oh FFS. This is the point where I should defend my trade.
Instead I'll ask you a question:
What stops you from working on what you like and spending time with your friends and family?
The answer is absolutely NOTHING.
Start a commune, join the Amish, emigrate in Panama, do whatever leads you to that goal. The problem is that you won't and you'll continue to find scapegoats instead of looking in the mirror.
No it's not a conundrum. If you accept the existence of God you also accept that it's unknowable. Rational knowledge cannot play any role in this acceptance , only the mystical type.
So it's true: you can't prove that God exists, you can't prove that God doesn't exist. The act of believing or not is thus a choice, with no rationality (other than cultural factors) involved.
People keep forgetting that there are two sides to the Turing test: on one you have the AI and on the other the human observer.
The really sad part is that you can pass the test not only through improving the AI, but also through dumbing down the human counterpart. I believe that this is what happened here.
... from a very, very long time ago. It deals with the same topic, but it's much better. So good that I chose to take it as a mantra of my own. Definitely worth reading: link
It was an XML glitch, corrupting the config.xml and/or shared.xml files, which are locally stored. They need to be removed manually, since a reinstall won't touch them. Anyway, this led to a surge of traffic to skype.com, the predictable/. effect and a lot of FUD.
... on the "known" part. It seems like a fairly intelligent move to me. It is indeed a low probability scenario that someone will actually release smallpox as a biological weapon, but still the consequences of such an outlier would be devastating enough to warrant the adoption of such a policy.
I call BS on this one. There were plenty of cases when legitimate websites got hacked and subsequently infected their readership. I know it's hip and cool to go all out righteous, but technology can and does play a part in this mess.
Comcast did not help us fix The Pirate Bay. The problem was GBLX using reverse path filtering. We shut down one of our transits because it was flapping. The result was that all outgoing traffic to GBLX got filtered even though the packets took the same path as before. The Pirate Bay is using different paths for incoming and outgoing traffic to avoid beeing traced. We don’t even know where their servers are. We resolved the issue by activating our other transit again.
I still believe that the best solution is to leave the censorship to professional mods, who at lest know what's really forbidden and what's not.
If you accept my assumption then the answer to your question lies in pattern analysis. If the people reporting are very tightly clustered, as in being friends with one another, having the same interests, liking the same pages or belonging to the same groups then the likelihood of mob behavior increases. The relevancy of such analysis can be determined by looking at the previous cases.
Now in order to establish if a page is merely controversial you have to look at the number of followers. A high profile page on a controversial issue will most likely generate a lot of reports, quite often from scattered groups of people.
Basically this analysis should generate some tags like "Possible mob behavior" or "Controversial issue" which would warrant more care from the mods.
Space races bring some footprints and not much else. What I'd want to see is a killer app, some use of space that makes sense from a commercial standpoint. I know that not many agree with me, but when space becomes profitable we'll become a spacefaring race.
Slashdot Mirror
Try blind dating, urban exploration or volunteering at a local clinic.
Actually you got it wrong. The author was not contacted by someone "trying" to operate a link-trading scheme, but rather by someone with whom the author already engaged with (he admittedly used some infographics from that site).
This is basically someone revolted that somebody else is making money on the internet.
Good point. And btw, why the heck is this article tagged with "spam"?
The subject is always hotly debated and my impression is that some interest groups are trying to keep it that way (something similar to creationism vs evolution). The fact that the OP could name the two top "alternative" explanations for global warming and still put them forward as reasonable speaks to me of ill intent, because they are frankly bullshit.
There is no controversy. Anthropogenic global warming is real. The crushing majority of climatologists and the data point to that conclusion.
Humanity is the really big thing that happened last century.
We went from 1.6 billion people to 6, we altered the environment on an unseen before scale, we began mass producing and dumping waste at a pace that couldn't have possibly be without consequence.
Referring strictly to CO2, the levels we have now haven't been seen in at least 650.000 years and that's without considering other gases which are mostly man made (they occur rarely or not at all in nature).
Ignorance is not an excuse. The alternative explanations you mention have been thoroughly debunked.
What the heck has Slashdot turned into?
You'll get there. Eventually.
It was a one in a million shot. Of course it worked.
+1 Painful truth
Yeah, they can be like that. However, on occasion, I learned to appreciate this approach, especially when concerning more difficult concepts. I've used the website recently to get a better grasp on statistics and, for me at least, it worked.
Tell me about it.
Hey, I'm from Romania you insensitive prick.
P.S. Since Romania IS part of ESA it will participate in ExoMars and we have no legal concept of illegal download, so maybe US turning into a balkanic country isn't such a bad idea
Oh FFS. This is the point where I should defend my trade.
Instead I'll ask you a question:
What stops you from working on what you like and spending time with your friends and family?
The answer is absolutely NOTHING.
Start a commune, join the Amish, emigrate in Panama, do whatever leads you to that goal. The problem is that you won't and you'll continue to find scapegoats instead of looking in the mirror.
No it's not a conundrum. If you accept the existence of God you also accept that it's unknowable. Rational knowledge cannot play any role in this acceptance , only the mystical type.
So it's true: you can't prove that God exists, you can't prove that God doesn't exist. The act of believing or not is thus a choice, with no rationality (other than cultural factors) involved.
People keep forgetting that there are two sides to the Turing test: on one you have the AI and on the other the human observer.
The really sad part is that you can pass the test not only through improving the AI, but also through dumbing down the human counterpart. I believe that this is what happened here.
The achievement system is also a great part of it.
... from a very, very long time ago. It deals with the same topic, but it's much better. So good that I chose to take it as a mantra of my own. Definitely worth reading: link
Oh well, this is how I've done it and since it works... I figured I shouldn't skip any steps.
It was an XML glitch, corrupting the config.xml and/or shared.xml files, which are locally stored. They need to be removed manually, since a reinstall won't touch them. Anyway, this led to a surge of traffic to skype.com, the predictable /. effect and a lot of FUD.
Step 1: Uninstall Skype
Step 2: Go to %AppData%\Skype\YourUsername rename config.xml to config.bak
Step 3: Go to %AppData%\Skype rename shared.xml to shared.bak
Step 4: Reinstall Skype
Step 5: Profit!
... on the "known" part. It seems like a fairly intelligent move to me. It is indeed a low probability scenario that someone will actually release smallpox as a biological weapon, but still the consequences of such an outlier would be devastating enough to warrant the adoption of such a policy.
Fair point, but still giving admin rights BY DEFAULT seems pretty idiotic.
I call BS on this one. There were plenty of cases when legitimate websites got hacked and subsequently infected their readership. I know it's hip and cool to go all out righteous, but technology can and does play a part in this mess.
From the front page of serioustubes.org
Comcast did not help us fix The Pirate Bay. The problem was GBLX using reverse path filtering. We shut down one of our transits because it was flapping. The result was that all outgoing traffic to GBLX got filtered even though the packets took the same path as before. The Pirate Bay is using different paths for incoming and outgoing traffic to avoid beeing traced. We don’t even know where their servers are. We resolved the issue by activating our other transit again.
I still believe that the best solution is to leave the censorship to professional mods, who at lest know what's really forbidden and what's not.
If you accept my assumption then the answer to your question lies in pattern analysis. If the people reporting are very tightly clustered, as in being friends with one another, having the same interests, liking the same pages or belonging to the same groups then the likelihood of mob behavior increases. The relevancy of such analysis can be determined by looking at the previous cases.
Now in order to establish if a page is merely controversial you have to look at the number of followers. A high profile page on a controversial issue will most likely generate a lot of reports, quite often from scattered groups of people.
Basically this analysis should generate some tags like "Possible mob behavior" or "Controversial issue" which would warrant more care from the mods.
Space races bring some footprints and not much else. What I'd want to see is a killer app, some use of space that makes sense from a commercial standpoint. I know that not many agree with me, but when space becomes profitable we'll become a spacefaring race.