It is no secret the American Health care system is based on how much you can pay. When hasn't it ever been? Honestly I look at the posts here about Roger Moore's movie like everyone is shocked and amazed or angry.
Gimme a break!
Even if we ever get Socialized medical care in this country, do you HONESTLY BELIEVE you will get access to the same medical technology and doctors as say the average Millionaire?
Your kidding yourself if you think so. Your just going to get long lines, and "hack" doctors bought by the pharma companies to proscribe more Ritalin for Johnny.
The best medical care you can give yourself is the same that I do every day:
1) Cut back on crap food. Eat vegetables and fruit and SOME meat. I have a steak about ounce a month and I have chicken in my salad 3 times a week. Take a vitamin once in awhile if you know your eating bad (usually when I go on vacation!)
Go for a day without eating every once in awhile. 1/3rd of the people on the planet only eat 3 times a week anyway. Just because its 12PM doesn't mean you have to eat. Listen to your body when its hungry it will tell you, otherwise don't eat.
I think if half the people did this we would see less fat Americans.
2) Get off your fat arse and exercise. I take evening walks (about 2-3 miles) and I bike. in fact I am going to biking after I type this! Give yourself some time alone, so you can calm down.
3) Get 8 hours of sleep a day.
If your job interferes with the above, your going to live a short life, probably painful death too. Get rid of the job. Besides, most American companies don't provide insurance coverage anymore, so Moore's film is sort of Academic.
Do the above and you should have a decent run. (60-70 years with minor issues.)
But I find it incredible that people are talking about this stupid movie like it "discovered" something awful that nobody knew about.
You could do the same movie about the legal system, and political system in this country because they are both tied to Health Care and just as corrupted.
But everyone already knows that.
Get a clue: we are living in a Empire, not a republic anymore. Don't worry about it, because there isn't anything you can do about it. It is a natural cycle that every country or civilization invented so far goes through.
Have a nice day! Now, go take a nice 2-3 mile walk and think about this post.
1) Hans doesn't appear to have a history of violence. Going from no violence to murder, without a shred of real evidence beyond the circumstantial appears too good to be true. He would have had to screw something up. Unlike his friend who might I add is an accomplished assassin.
2) He seems very gullible to me, and wasn't taking the advice of people who knew him. (Father calls him up to tell him the money is disappearing and he thinks the chix is soaking him.)
3) Marries the chix after a cheap one nighter. Obviously exhibit 2b. (How many stories of woe must we post because of what happens between the legs? I feel pity for Hans.)
4) I concur that Russia is a mighty big place, and I could retire in some small village in Siberia quite nicely after knocking off a couple of hundred K in American dollars from my X.
I have no idea what this guys problem is, but from my own perspective of selling embedded solutions/canned software to companies using the GPL I fail to see how he infers, you can't make a living unless he uses closed source.
I haven't found that to be the case so far, if anything, most companies I.T. departments offer me or suggest a source contract for about 6-8 more months beyond the project to train I.T. programmers and related staff to assist them in making modifications that are safe, secure.
What typically happens is giving people access to the source code opens up a lot more questions than answers, usually, and they come back for more.
Not only that, but I have seen companies with the attitude, "Oh yeah, this guys is stupid!! he is giving us the source code with our new network monitoring system!!!"
Only to find that yeah, they have the source code, but the time that is required to make use of it, doesn't come with it.
So they end up hiring me to maintain the code, add modifications, etc because management at said company finds out nobody wants to work on weekends on top of all the other responsibilities they have during the day.:-)
If they decide to point out what systems the open source community infringes on, then we will work around them.
Microsoft will get nothing.
If they decide to fight, and sue literally the entire far east, lots of thier customers and millions of open source users in the USA, the response will be the acceleration in reducing Microsoft software poo all around.
In short they lose, we win.
I guess silly things like better medical care, child care assistance, tuition reimbursement and training from the cost savings of Open Source are those things companies like CISCO and Microsoft don't think you need.
First of all, I do not know of any open source projects that are free.
Someone, somewhere is paying or compensating the person for the time he spends writing the code.
Even if you are living on welfare, and are writing code your still being compensated obviously by the government because you are making the decision to write the code with your own free time.
Green has the montra of GREED that has twisted logic that works like this:
1) If you walk down the street, and you pick up garbage, your not being compensated by the city and therefore are wronged because all garbage workers get compensation.
2) If you help a little old lady accross the street, you are being wronged because social services pays people to transport the elderly.
3) If you listen to a tune without paying for it, even if it is comming from your roomates CD player, this is a gross carriage of "intellectual property misappropriation" and well, Green just doesn't see how that sort of thing is "sustainable" to the music industry.
I think the problem with Mr. Green's doubts is that he has not made the connection yet that OSS economics operates on self interest principles that make it superior to what he has learned in his MBA class when it comes to building software.
The reason why OSS works, is because the access to the technology:
1) Isn't restricted.
2) Doesn't have restrictions on anything to learn.
3) Contributions are not only welcome, but encouraged, particularly if it is GNU Software.
It has nothing to do with the Ferrari Green thinks he should have for all ideas he thinks of or collects.
That statement he made about sustainability speaks volumes about how little the guy understands open source economics in general.
I think Mr. Green should get out more.
Perhaps a trip to Redhat, spend the day there and ask some questions.
I mean, looking back at my University Wisconsin Madison days, it became clear: If you could buy a computer to put in your room, you could spend a lot more time on that compiler project. Sorta makes it a cinch doesn't it for a decent grade in the class.
Did I happen too mention compilers are complicated and take lots of time to code, especially if you never wrote one before?
I was stuck with the mostly broken computers in the computer lab, and to make matters worse, they only functioned decently at around 2AM in the morning. Otherwise they were excrutiatingly slow to use during the middle of the day.
Not that it mattered, you couldn't get on a computer in the middle of the day anyway.
It was a frustrating experience.
But little did I realize that passing the entrance hoops to get into Madison was just one part of the intellectual game.
The money game was the one I had to win. Once you get in, you have to STAY in school and I lost that one, unforunately.
I think it is ironic I am 40 now and going back to finish my degree work. I got a ton of money now but time is the problem.
I think it is a MUCH easier problem to solve though.
It does call into question though degree requirements to obtain or do a particular job function.
Obviously, you do not need the degrees the university requires to do the job she was doing for the past 10 years, let alone 28.
i think this is a good thing, because University Degrees are increasingly only for the rich and well off.
How many can afford to go to a University school and take 5 years off and go to class every day and accept the "financial serfdom" that comes with graduation.
It would seem in most jobs that I have interviewed for in my past, University Degree requirements where mostly "justifying" well, the university or government institution I was applying for.
Some do not even consider my references or accomplishments for the job I am applying for.
I personally believe that University Degrees or any restrictions that come with job applications are simply a method by society to control a limited number of resources. (i.e. Jobs that we can provide for societies members that have decent health care and salaries.)
I am having ethical problems as well with these sorts of approaches to job and candidate selections because University Degrees are increasingly for those who can pay, and those who can't, well....sorry.
Universities are suppose to be institutions of learning for the spiritual and intellectual advancement of the human condition. When you start preventing people from pursuing those aspirations over cash, I find it ethically problematic.
So when you are looking at that college graduate keep in mind, your looking at someone who was selected partly by the fact he could pay the fees, probably not because he is outstanding or the brightest there is out there.
1) T1, down at 3AM saturday. No problem, people are working on it.
Business class DSL: Bawahahahahaha...call who? Cable: We don't work weekends.
2) Reliability. The infrastructure difference between DSL and Cable vs T1's are incredibly different.
T1's are simple in comparison compared to a DSL or Cable infrastructure. Too many people and too many things that can go wrong.
When I run a NAGIOS report for all my DSL lines and Cable lines and compare it to my T1 line over a complete 365 day interval:
My T1 had one incident in July of last summer with a direct lightening strike, was down for 3 hours. Didn't even have to call anyone, they had people working on it Sunday evening, and I got a voice mail it would be up in about 3-5 hours.
I have Sangoma cards in my Linux routers, and from what I can tell there was also a down/up event last year for about 1 second in my logs.
DSL line: It has had over 20 down events which I would call momentary lapses, 13 outright drops for 30-40 minutes at a time, and 80-100 quality alerts that indicated dropped packets or packet loss. I have two NAGIOS servers too, one for monitoring the internal network and one to monitor the outside network.
I made the NAGIOS box to monitor the ISP's so that I could tell if they were having an external or internal problem with thier networks.
6 times I had to dial in and remotely login to the AC strip and dump the power to the DSL unit to reset it, which would then "fix" whatever it was that made it loose its marbles.
One instance one of my facilities was down for almost 3 days, no DSL service. Something happened when SBC upgraded the line, as I asked SBC for a bandwidth increase. The SBC rep told me it was "standard practice" to change your IP address space with a line speed increase.
WT? When I pointed out changing the static IP's without telling your customers could have adverse affects on businesses VPN links, I got the "Well, thats what we do." I prompted told them to put the service I had back in place, they couldn't. They erased the passwords on the DSL modem and didn't have them.
They wanted me to drive 35 miles to a facility to put the password back into the modem.
I promptly dropped the DSL service. It didn't bother me anyway as all my locations have cable and dsl, linked through a BGP topology.
I also had the DSL modem replaced 8 times in the last 2 years at all 8 of my DSL/Cable facilities. The speedstream units suck arse. The netopia units are much better, but they still screw up once in awhile.
I even update the firmware myself, doesn't seem to make any difference so I stopped doing that.
Bottom Line: DSL saves money, it certainly does....but it isn't a 24x7 service, the customer service for business class sucks. For what you get with SBC business class cable its REALLY overpriced.
In fact, I would not call SBC business class cable anything remotely associated with "business". Its a consumer line with static IP's.
SBC can cackle all they want, but don't buy from them if your application needs anything but casual line use. It was so bad I had to buy cable as well so I could keep my facilities up 24x7.
This isn't limited to just one facility. I have Linux BGP routers in 10 facilities spread out over 50 miles. Every SBC facility equipped DSL service has the same issues.
Cable: Cable is better than DSL, only had 12 incidents. All of them related to the fact that the cable company keeps changing the signaling on the modems as the seasons go by. So, all 12 incidents were related to high packet loss due to bad signal. When they change the signaling to the cable modem, the line freaks, and they have to send a tech out to install a filter on the line. That must get REALLY expensive.
Cable is better, but running a BGP topology with multiple redundant pathways presented problems with cable and DSL.
Mmmmm, it is a little bit more serious than that I am afraid.
Some of the reports I see rolling in about this problem seems to point to a "synergistic" effect between genetically engineered crops with built in, pesticides to increase resistance to bugs, and topical pesticides being sprayed on the genetically modified plants.
It would appear, when combined, the topical pesticide combined with the resistant/genetically engineered plant proteins are weakening the honey bees immune systems.
These are just preliminary reports, based on one or two collected bees.
This problem however, is unique in that the bees are just "disappearing". When the bee keepers go to the hive, no dead bees.
Kinda hard to diagnose the killer when the bodies are no where to be found.
I would like to point out however, there is a general decline in all pollenator species such as bats as well.
Would you be happy if such a job provided you with all the food you could eat, a house to keep you warm and dry and free time to do other stuff like schmooze the ladies?:-)
I think that is all I really want in a occupation if I want to contribute to the society that I live in.
But everyone has different requirements. Happiness cannot be ultimately determined simply by a check.
Many people find that the "only ifs" in life bring other problems.
I can remember as a homeless UW-Madison student one summer that I thought "Wow, if only I made $40K a year, that would be so cool. I would not have a care in the world."
I find that thought many years past now that I am 40 was "qaint".
It would seem the grass is always greener on someone else's side of the fence!
In anything that you do, always do it because it makes you happy. Once you find happiness you can then share yourself with others.
Helping others achieve happiness is a major accomplishment for a human being.
"You make a lot of accusations against drug companies. Do you have first-hand evidence for these supposed board room conversations, or are you making this up based on hearsay?"
Yes, I have worked in I.T. support at a Biotech company.
What I overheard one day was shocking.
Not all Biotech companies are alike, and I still do work for some who are a little more enlightened.
"As for patents - how would you suggest the research be paid for? Remember that bringing a drug to market costs upward of $500M on average, and this does not (necessarily) include the costs of all the failed research that went nowhere."
I suggested, that research be a societal endeavor, society would set the pace and price for the research.
This would be through a political process of various sorts. Progress would be slow, due to the political nature of the process, but progress would be based on societies needs.
I make an exception to the rule that the "market knows best" when it comes to human suffering. Not all aspects of capitalism are universally good in the pursuit of allocating resources for doing certain things a society needs.
I feel exactly oppposite about space exploration for example. I think space should be also a private effort. There is a lot of money to be made in space, and a lot of risk, due to the resources there.
A huge business opportunity exists.
"Democratization of science - huh? The vast majority of science is NOT done in secret at all - it's done primarily in the university setting, which has ethics committees, grant review committees, etc. Additionally, all scientists ultimately publish in peer-reviewed journals. Yes, even industrial scientists; if you bother to read journals like the Journal of Organic Chemistry you will quickly find top-notch research coming from authors at such establishments as "Merck Process Research" and "Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development." I can only conclude from your statements that you are not a practicing scientist, or if you are that you do not read (or referee) any of the literature."
Mmmm. Lets examine this for a moment.
Are we talking about the science done by say, a University or the science done by a coporation. I think I was being pretty blunt about the science I was talking about and where it was done.
As for your statement that "all scientists publish in peer reviewed journals".
That simply is positively, not true.
There are lots of research projects I can name that have broke ground in Aerospace, that positively due not peer review in journals. If they did, the scientists would experience a tragic "accident" and/or they would never be heard from again.
The military industrial complex DWARFS the scientists employed at Universities in the USA. These people do not publish.
Particularly those working on Biotech Weaponry.
Those in the private sector cannot publish due to IP restraints or PATENT issues.
What is left is a small handful of public institutions with enough funding in the USA to do any sort of ground breaking research, and those are rapidly shrinking. These are the people who publish in NATURE, etc...
Publish is a strong term here. Publish WHAT is more the asking question.
You can bet your bottom hiney, that if you are publishing in NATURE and you work for a major pharmacology business, what you are publishing is not really ground breaking and more about maintaining a professional presence in the journals so you can remain relevant in your professional career.
No company in thier right mind would invest the kinds of dollars you cite only to have the competition spend a few days reading and get caught up on 12 months of research.
I am sorry if I seem cynical, but the truth is journals such as NATURE and others have trouble policing the good science from the bad science AS IS right now. They certainly do not permit anyone to peer review a PATENTED process of any real value such as a real
Human Ethics is going to need a MAJOR overhaul to deal with possibilities of genetic research.
I am all for improving/fixing the human condition and the elimination of all diseases from the human genetic tree.
But what exactly does that mean?
I would like to remind everyone:
1) Right now, at this very moment in fine boards rooms with leather covered chairs the conversation inside drug company board rooms is not very pleasant: How do we best make money off of peoples misery.
OUR misery.
2) These discussions are normally about how NOT to make cures and how to spread out research and development so that cures do not destroy "market potential" or profit margins. More to the point, how can we understand the problem in the context of a "subscription" medication so that if anyone does make a product from the disease, the individual has to continually buy the product to maximize profit stability.
3) I am not even going to get into the ethics of patenting medical procedures for profit or what it means if you cannot get treatment because of a patent problem. People with half a brain should understand the full impact of such a sick system that could only be fashioned from the finest human greed the human mind can envision.
Make no doubt, we have the finest medical/patent science system in the United State of America that human greed can fashion.
Quite frankly I do not see a way to curb the problem of human misery or to break this cycle as long as medical science and research can only be accomplished for profit.
The entire premise, that medical science cannot advance without payment from the victims of disease speaks VOLUMEs about how pathetic we are as human beings:
a) How we respect each other. b) How compassionate we are.
I see a very BLEAK and very DARK medical treatment future for the vast majority of human beings far into the future.
I love the ability to pursue knowledge, but these kinds of knowledge we are obtaining for private use with regards to genetics makes it quite clear we are not ready.
We have some "house cleaning" to do with respect to points A and B first. I love science, but I would enact a law forbidding further advance of gentic research REQUIRING we work out A and B first before continuing.
Some ways to fix this:
1) Make it illegal for privitization of any sort of medical research.
2) Form a world wide medical research establishment dedicated to the elimination of the top 10 human afflictions, with neurological and systemic diseases such as cancer at the top of that list for massive funding, with all nations contributing materials required to do the research.
3) Form highly publicized media outlets and channels to scrutinize this work being done so that the general public is kept informed on the progress of cures for these diseases.
Any medical team or individual who comes up with such a cure shuld be treated as a "rock star" and a foot note should be made in the history books of this individuals name.
4) Make it a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY for any group or individuals to use such information in the development of a weapons system, or to block the progress or spirit of research to obtain cures for these conditions. Said court can take each case by cause and effect and pass judgement as agreed.
Anyone caught dealing with a Bio Weapon should be terminated with the weapon they built.
A fitting end for a mad man and his lifes work IMHO.
5) Allow the deomcratization of science for this institution with scientists running for office at such institution with elections held world wide.
# 5 is something we could do to make science more of a daily discussion and much more political. We have too many private PhD's hidden away with no guidance.
Society MUST take control of science and make it a informed and political activity.
It CERTAINLY isn't that way right now and it gives me the "Willies" these people are not under some sort of par
I am not suggesting the current design will be OK in 2500.
Furthermore, that arguement is stupid because the people discussed in the story line who propose "fixing" the internet certainly don't have what it takes topside to come up with a design that will last till 2500 either.
Finally this isn't about progress it is about the motive OPERANDI of the people in the story.
Speaking from experience, I just kicked out all of my CISCO routers from my network last year and replaced them with a Linux Kernel and Quagga (bgp) GPL software.
Good riddens I say!
Overpriced junk and slow as crap.
Last year I did a full source code audit of all 15 of my router/vpn/firewall images.
Can you say you did the same?
I hope a CISCO employee doesn't get disgruntled someday and decides to insert a backdoor in that softpak update!
Lets rebuild the internet because it uses too much open source software and we are not making enough money. I know! Lets get all the vendors together and rebuild it using proprietary crud so that it is impossible for any of these "open source" guys to make server platforms that are freely available.
Lets kill open standards too, because well....who needs those IETF guys anyway! They are just a bunch hippies!
Seriously, though. The internet works better than my cell phone does.
It doesn't need "fixing".
It just needs a few upgrades.
IPV6 would be a nice place to start!
GAD.
The thought of CISCO having a hand in anything the future internet could be makes me want to quit my current network manager job and open an Italian Restraunt.
If any of you care to do any of the most basic research on the history of climate studies, you will find some very strong "opinions" with regards to human induced climate change.
I do not think, or at least I haven't found one scientist yet that doesn't think the climate is changing.
Everyone agrees on that.
The human part is the sticky issue. I don't believe for example burning fossil fuels is making the sort of climate changes I have witnessed.
I DO know that when you follow THE MONEY on the issue here is what I come up with:
1) Hollywood has made millions off the idea. 2) Al Gore, has made a VERY comfortable living proclaiming it to be so, with a carbon "footprint" even George Bush would be impressed with, even though he has absolutely no expertise scientifically as a proponent of the idea. 3) Every major university institution is giving position and power to those who "TOW THE LINE" about human induced climate change based on Federal funding and NSF grants, which is very lucrative. 4) Every major prediction proclaimed since this idea has come about has been revised every year. Nobody it would seem can predict climatic change, even though, everyone working on the very lucrative professionally and financially idea of human induced climate change, has got the "research numbers down pat" they all assure us.
Contrast that sort of "fish bowl" science research with those in the astrophysics/solar weather fields that say our sun has/is going "berzerk" in the past 30 years.
Why is it, that academic elitists and government cronies are always trying to convince the population through out history that it would be best to only believe in this that or the other "state" endorsed view of reality?
Anything as long as there is no "deity" that knows more than they do or usurps their power?
"God" obviously does that so lets just kill God!
Sometimes I do not know who is worse. In my time we have "fundamentialists" killing people who do not believe in a "G O D" or scientists claiming that no God exists because the only way to gain knowledge is through "Hypothesis, Experimentation, Conclusion."
Did I happen to mention the fact that you cannot prove God exists in the first place using "HEC"? When I point that out they tell me "If it cannot be measured or put through gas spectrograph, it doesn't exist."
Lets just throw out love and compassion in the world too because well, it doesn't exist....its all in the brain and doesn't exist!
I personally, do not have a spectroscopic profile of Love or Compassion either to prove otherwise. So shoot me!
Besides, if no God exists, you get to make the rules, which is much more practical.....for those in power anyway that want to tell you how and what to think about.
So now we are hardwired to believe in God. Whats next I wonder?
We are hardwired to kill, maim, destroy, be selfish...
But those of us who study history know sometimes it is more easily digested than the truth.
Furthermore, the internet as many people have observed, cares more about your contribution to the community as a whole, and very much less about how much money your worth, or if you have the cash to even buy a PhD.
That is also a lie, as many of you know who work in the "real world" vs the virtual one, the opposite is almost always true.
I think this story would be much easier to understand if we consider what the difference is between law and morality.
Law is a social mechanism to make a society/nation state work smoothly and to keep the status quo for those in power.
It has nothing to do with the human condition or morality.
I think the interesting questions are the ones that ask why are societies constructed by human beings that do not address the human condition oreven the questions surrounding morality?
Obviously something is wrong with a grown male, spending all of his time writing about how to entice young boys and view pictures of boys in private.
I would be REALLY interested to know why he decided on writing about boys in the first place.
The state/law enforcement is obviously not interested in morality as this persons private life was violated.
I myself am a very private person, and I find is that this individual who broke into apparently thousands of personal computers willing broke the law and morality, and there is no question he did so.
I do not see him in private lockup.
Yes, the judge had illegal pictures of boys in sex acts on his computer.
But, you cannot arrest or convict people on thier private thoughts or wishes, only upon thier actions. So, given the fact I can pull up a ton of web sites with child porn available for public consumption, that makes me a law breaker if I chose to do so.
However, there is something not right about pulling information from the web in a non consequential manner that doesn't sit right with me. Simply pulling child porn from the web is not in itself immoral.
Whats next? Do we need to pass a law that requires everyone to write down thier private thoughts for review before a panel to prevent us from breaking the law? What happens if someone uses my computer to download kitty porn without my knowledge?
What happens if someone just dumps all sorts of illegal stuff on my machine, then steals it and hands it over to the police if they simply do not like me?
In my opinion I think this chaos from the non intersection of morality and law really serves nobodies interest except for the powers that be.
But make no doubt, the root cause of this problem can be found with people, and in this case begins with the judges own actions to write about and view pictures of boys in private.
The question here is, does he have that right to do so in private and if not, what other laws can or will be made about what you can do or not do in private if we say he cannot?
Why do I have this feeling that the individuals making those types of laws will be the ones who will insure those rules do not apply to them and enforce thier private agendas for power and wealth?
We know WAY too little about the planet to start screwing around with its Biosphere.
Not only that, but you do not get a second chance if you screw it up.
I say we start someplace else and experiment there, so if we do screw it up, no biggy.
Even the dumbest WINDOZE admin knows you always experiment on a TEST server before doing anything to your production server if you do not want downtime.
"Downtime" in this case would mean the Earths Biosphere.....I hope I do not have to explain what that means.
Besides, if we experiment with a different world, the WORST that can happen is it doesn't work.
Best possible thing that can happen is we get another planet to live on.
Half the people on this planet belong on Mars anyway....IMHO.:-)
I think finding a single scientist that is skeptical about the primary cause of Global Warming as strictly human based CO2 generation, is easy to do with google.
But like I said, you already made up your mind. Don't bother then.
Which is my continual point in these matters that the science is bad, is corrupt and short sighted and ignorant because a DOGMA exists in the community right now. All other ideas are blocked out. That is too bad. You my friend are an excellent example, thanks for proving my point.
Yes, most of the rates that I have seen, which due to such poor models and lack of understanding, they keep revising year to year to match observed polar climate changes, your right.
10 years is a long time. It seems like it is quickening.
As for curbing CO2, why don't we go one step further before every place on earth smells like New York in a few years.
Why don't we track all green house gases, particularly the one I am worried about and gets very little attention: Methane.
How do you propose to curb CO2/Methane output on a scale that would moderate warming, and not force most of the developing world into crushing poverty?
Personally, I would have them plant more trees, and invest say, 460 Billion over the next 10 years buying up the rain forest, and most of South America and moving the people here who are displaced.
Turn them all into Americans.:-)
With that many people we could do some interesting things socially and economically here in the USA. We could jump start and entire generation and turn them into highly skilled professionals, or more ditch diggers. Whatever they want. Plenty of stuff to do here that needs fixing.
As I said, before. I am NOT GOING TO GET INTO A PAPER PISSING CONTEST.
This isn't a debate about research DOGMA in the current scientific community. I think it is clear for a variety of reasons many have already made up their mind we are the primary reason for CO2 based climate change. I just don't think the problem is that simple, and I think current conclusions are based on greed and bad science.
Its one of the reasons why, we refuse to put better instrumentation into orbit and pretty much build a better view of our Earths Biosphere in general, IMHO.
After all, if you already know everything about everything, why put better instrumentation in orbit. Sorry if I sound pedantic, but Bob Meyer, my prof when I was an undergrad at UW Madison told me once never to make this mistake: "The greatest barrier to science is revelation because singular understanding of nature leads to ignorance."
I think that puts the current science of global warming in an excellent frame of mind.
Google and spend your own time researching alternative viewpoints, I am not doing it for you. Its a FREE INTERNET.
Besides, I already proposed a SIMPLE EXPERIMENT for all concerned here:
Watch the solar neighborhood over the next decade. Here is a page at NASA to get you started:
http://eos.nasa.gov/imswelcome (Seems to be down right now....but don't worry, it comes and goes....depending on funding. I think they take it down because they already know everything about that science and consider it a waste of money to do anything else with it. When they forget something, they put it back up.:-) http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/Ktable.html (Place your bets! Up or down 10 years from now? I say they are all up along with the Earth if our current solar cycles continue to strengthen.)
Like I said, if I am full of crap, in the next 10 years the mean temps of all the bodies in the solar system should have NO correlation to earths own warming.
If I am right, then there should be precipitous increases in average temperature/radiation in the infra red band for all bodies in our solar system with a postive net increase.
Slashdot Mirror
To say I don't give a crap about people is a bit of a stretch I think from my post.
If anything, I am making a point about the movie "Sicko" which seems to point out just how naive people are that are posting here.
Something I didn't expect from slashdot crowd generally.
-Hack
It is no secret the American Health care system is based on how much you can pay. When hasn't it ever been? Honestly I look at the posts here about Roger Moore's movie like everyone is shocked and amazed or angry.
Gimme a break!
Even if we ever get Socialized medical care in this country, do you HONESTLY BELIEVE you will get access to the same medical technology and doctors as say the average Millionaire?
Your kidding yourself if you think so. Your just going to get long lines, and "hack" doctors bought by the pharma companies to proscribe more Ritalin for Johnny.
The best medical care you can give yourself is the same that I do every day:
1) Cut back on crap food. Eat vegetables and fruit and SOME meat. I have a steak about ounce a month and I have chicken in my salad 3 times a week. Take a vitamin once in awhile if you know your eating bad (usually when I go on vacation!)
Go for a day without eating every once in awhile. 1/3rd of the people on the planet only eat 3 times a week anyway. Just because its 12PM doesn't mean you have to eat. Listen to your body when its hungry it will tell you, otherwise don't eat.
I think if half the people did this we would see less fat Americans.
2) Get off your fat arse and exercise. I take evening walks (about 2-3 miles) and I bike. in fact I am going to biking after I type this! Give yourself some time alone, so you can calm down.
3) Get 8 hours of sleep a day.
If your job interferes with the above, your going to live a short life, probably painful death too. Get rid of the job. Besides, most American companies don't provide insurance coverage anymore, so Moore's film is sort of Academic.
Do the above and you should have a decent run. (60-70 years with minor issues.)
But I find it incredible that people are talking about this stupid movie like it "discovered" something awful that nobody knew about.
You could do the same movie about the legal system, and political system in this country because they are both tied to Health Care and just as corrupted.
But everyone already knows that.
Get a clue: we are living in a Empire, not a republic anymore. Don't worry about it, because there isn't anything you can do about it. It is a natural cycle that every country or civilization invented so far goes through.
Have a nice day! Now, go take a nice 2-3 mile walk and think about this post.
-Hack
I would like to add here that:
1) Hans doesn't appear to have a history of violence. Going from no violence to murder, without a shred of real evidence beyond the circumstantial appears too good to be true. He would have had to screw something up. Unlike his friend who might I add is an accomplished assassin.
2) He seems very gullible to me, and wasn't taking the advice of people who knew him.
(Father calls him up to tell him the money is disappearing and he thinks the chix is soaking him.)
3) Marries the chix after a cheap one nighter. Obviously exhibit 2b.
(How many stories of woe must we post because of what happens between the legs? I feel pity for Hans.)
4) I concur that Russia is a mighty big place, and I could retire in some small village in Siberia quite nicely after knocking off a couple of hundred K in American dollars from my X.
Honestly though, I vote not guilty...
For now.
-Hack
I have no idea what this guys problem is, but from my own perspective of selling embedded solutions/canned software to companies using the GPL I fail to see how he infers, you can't make a living unless he uses closed source.
:-)
I haven't found that to be the case so far, if anything, most companies I.T. departments offer me or suggest a source contract for about 6-8 more months beyond the project to train I.T. programmers and related staff to assist them in making modifications that are safe, secure.
What typically happens is giving people access to the source code opens up a lot more questions than answers, usually, and they come back for more.
Not only that, but I have seen companies with the attitude, "Oh yeah, this guys is stupid!! he is giving us the source code with our new network monitoring system!!!"
Only to find that yeah, they have the source code, but the time that is required to make use of it, doesn't come with it.
So they end up hiring me to maintain the code, add modifications, etc because management at said company finds out nobody wants to work on weekends on top of all the other responsibilities they have during the day.
-Hack
Either Microsoft puts up or shuts up.
If they decide to point out what systems the open source community infringes on, then we will work around them.
Microsoft will get nothing.
If they decide to fight, and sue literally the entire far east, lots of thier customers and millions of open source users in the USA, the response will be the acceleration in reducing Microsoft software poo all around.
In short they lose, we win.
I guess silly things like better medical care, child care assistance, tuition reimbursement and training from the cost savings of Open Source are those things companies like CISCO and Microsoft don't think you need.
-Hackus
First of all, I do not know of any open source projects that are free.
Someone, somewhere is paying or compensating the person for the time he spends writing the code.
Even if you are living on welfare, and are writing code your still being compensated obviously by the government because you are making the decision to write the code with your own free time.
Green has the montra of GREED that has twisted logic that works like this:
1) If you walk down the street, and you pick up garbage, your not being compensated by the city and therefore are wronged because all garbage workers get compensation.
2) If you help a little old lady accross the street, you are being wronged because social services pays people to transport the elderly.
3) If you listen to a tune without paying for it, even if it is comming from your roomates CD player, this is a gross carriage of "intellectual property misappropriation" and well, Green just doesn't see how that sort of thing is "sustainable" to the music industry.
I think the problem with Mr. Green's doubts is that he has not made the connection yet that OSS economics operates on self interest principles that make it superior to what he has learned in his MBA class when it comes to building software.
The reason why OSS works, is because the access to the technology:
1) Isn't restricted.
2) Doesn't have restrictions on anything to learn.
3) Contributions are not only welcome, but encouraged, particularly if it is GNU Software.
It has nothing to do with the Ferrari Green thinks he should have for all ideas he thinks of or collects.
That statement he made about sustainability speaks volumes about how little the guy understands open source economics in general.
I think Mr. Green should get out more.
Perhaps a trip to Redhat, spend the day there and ask some questions.
-Hack
Actually I am sorta Jealous. :-)
I mean, looking back at my University Wisconsin Madison days, it became clear: If you could buy a computer to put in your room, you could spend a lot more time on that compiler project. Sorta makes it a cinch doesn't it for a decent grade in the class.
Did I happen too mention compilers are complicated and take lots of time to code, especially if you never wrote one before?
I was stuck with the mostly broken computers in the computer lab, and to make matters worse, they only functioned decently at around 2AM in the morning. Otherwise they were excrutiatingly slow to use during the middle of the day.
Not that it mattered, you couldn't get on a computer in the middle of the day anyway.
It was a frustrating experience.
But little did I realize that passing the entrance hoops to get into Madison was just one part of the intellectual game.
The money game was the one I had to win. Once you get in, you have to STAY in school and I lost that one, unforunately.
I think it is ironic I am 40 now and going back to finish my degree work. I got a ton of money now but time is the problem.
I think it is a MUCH easier problem to solve though.
-Hack
My take on this is that she lied.
Misrepresentation is never a good idea.
It does call into question though degree requirements to obtain or do a particular job function.
Obviously, you do not need the degrees the university requires to do the job she was doing for the past 10 years, let alone 28.
i think this is a good thing, because University Degrees are increasingly only for the rich and well off.
How many can afford to go to a University school and take 5 years off and go to class every day and accept the "financial serfdom" that comes with graduation.
It would seem in most jobs that I have interviewed for in my past, University Degree requirements where mostly "justifying" well, the university or government institution I was applying for.
Some do not even consider my references or accomplishments for the job I am applying for.
I personally believe that University Degrees or any restrictions that come with job applications are simply a method by society to control a limited number of resources. (i.e. Jobs that we can provide for societies members that have decent health care and salaries.)
I am having ethical problems as well with these sorts of approaches to job and candidate selections because University Degrees are increasingly for those who can pay, and those who can't, well....sorry.
Universities are suppose to be institutions of learning for the spiritual and intellectual advancement of the human condition. When you start preventing people from pursuing those aspirations over cash, I find it ethically problematic.
So when you are looking at that college graduate keep in mind, your looking at someone who was selected partly by the fact he could pay the fees, probably not because he is outstanding or the brightest there is out there.
-Hack
Let me count the ways.....
1) T1, down at 3AM saturday. No problem, people are working on it.
Business class DSL: Bawahahahahaha...call who?
Cable: We don't work weekends.
2) Reliability. The infrastructure difference between DSL and Cable vs T1's are incredibly different.
T1's are simple in comparison compared to a DSL or Cable infrastructure. Too many people and too many things that can go wrong.
When I run a NAGIOS report for all my DSL lines and Cable lines and compare it to my T1 line over a complete 365 day interval:
My T1 had one incident in July of last summer with a direct lightening strike, was down for 3 hours. Didn't even have to call anyone, they had people working on it Sunday evening, and I got a voice mail it would be up in about 3-5 hours.
I have Sangoma cards in my Linux routers, and from what I can tell there was also a down/up event last year for about 1 second in my logs.
DSL line: It has had over 20 down events which I would call momentary lapses, 13 outright drops for 30-40 minutes at a time, and 80-100 quality alerts that indicated dropped packets or packet loss. I have two NAGIOS servers too, one for monitoring the internal network and one to monitor the outside network.
I made the NAGIOS box to monitor the ISP's so that I could tell if they were having an external or internal problem with thier networks.
6 times I had to dial in and remotely login to the AC strip and dump the power to the DSL unit to reset it, which would then "fix" whatever it was that made it loose its marbles.
One instance one of my facilities was down for almost 3 days, no DSL service. Something happened when SBC upgraded the line, as I asked SBC for a bandwidth increase. The SBC rep told me it was "standard practice" to change your IP address space with a line speed increase.
WT? When I pointed out changing the static IP's without telling your customers could have adverse affects on businesses VPN links, I got the "Well, thats what we do." I prompted told them to put the service I had back in place, they couldn't. They erased the passwords on the DSL modem and didn't have them.
They wanted me to drive 35 miles to a facility to put the password back into the modem.
I promptly dropped the DSL service. It didn't bother me anyway as all my locations have cable and dsl, linked through a BGP topology.
I also had the DSL modem replaced 8 times in the last 2 years at all 8 of my DSL/Cable facilities. The speedstream units suck arse. The netopia units are much better, but they still screw up once in awhile.
I even update the firmware myself, doesn't seem to make any difference so I stopped doing that.
Bottom Line: DSL saves money, it certainly does....but it isn't a 24x7 service, the customer service for business class sucks. For what you get with SBC business class cable its REALLY overpriced.
In fact, I would not call SBC business class cable anything remotely associated with "business". Its a consumer line with static IP's.
SBC can cackle all they want, but don't buy from them if your application needs anything but casual line use. It was so bad I had to buy cable as well so I could keep my facilities up 24x7.
This isn't limited to just one facility. I have Linux BGP routers in 10 facilities spread out over 50 miles. Every SBC facility equipped DSL service has the same issues.
Cable: Cable is better than DSL, only had 12 incidents. All of them related to the fact that the cable company keeps changing the signaling on the modems as the seasons go by. So, all 12 incidents were related to high packet loss due to bad signal. When they change the signaling to the cable modem, the line freaks, and they have to send a tech out to install a filter on the line. That must get REALLY expensive.
Cable is better, but running a BGP topology with multiple redundant pathways presented problems with cable and DSL.
For example, as our business grew ove
One thing I am going to be watching is where McBride goes after SCO eats itself.
A warning to any company that hires this guy.
I won't buy your products, if a customer of mine is using your products they won't for very long.
McBride=Blacklisted from the computer industry.
If the guy gets a different job in a different industry, more power to him.
-Hack
Mmmmm, it is a little bit more serious than that I am afraid.
Some of the reports I see rolling in about this problem seems to point to a "synergistic" effect between genetically engineered crops with built in, pesticides to increase resistance to bugs, and topical pesticides being sprayed on the genetically modified plants.
It would appear, when combined, the topical pesticide combined with the resistant/genetically engineered plant proteins are weakening the honey bees immune systems.
These are just preliminary reports, based on one or two collected bees.
This problem however, is unique in that the bees are just "disappearing". When the bee keepers go to the hive, no dead bees.
Kinda hard to diagnose the killer when the bodies are no where to be found.
I would like to point out however, there is a general decline in all pollenator species such as bats as well.
-Hack
Would you be happy if such a job provided you with all the food you could eat, a house to keep you warm and dry and free time to do other stuff like schmooze the ladies? :-)
I think that is all I really want in a occupation if I want to contribute to the society that I live in.
But everyone has different requirements. Happiness cannot be ultimately determined simply by a check.
Many people find that the "only ifs" in life bring other problems.
I can remember as a homeless UW-Madison student one summer that I thought "Wow, if only I made $40K a year, that would be so cool. I would not have a care in the world."
I find that thought many years past now that I am 40 was "qaint".
It would seem the grass is always greener on someone else's side of the fence!
In anything that you do, always do it because it makes you happy. Once you find happiness you can then share yourself with others.
Helping others achieve happiness is a major accomplishment for a human being.
Well, it should be!
-Hack
"You make a lot of accusations against drug companies. Do you have first-hand evidence for these supposed board room conversations, or are you making this up based on hearsay?"
Yes, I have worked in I.T. support at a Biotech company.
What I overheard one day was shocking.
Not all Biotech companies are alike, and I still do work for some who are a little more enlightened.
"As for patents - how would you suggest the research be paid for? Remember that bringing a drug to market costs upward of $500M on average, and this does not (necessarily) include the costs of all the failed research that went nowhere."
I suggested, that research be a societal endeavor, society would set the pace and price for the research.
This would be through a political process of various sorts. Progress would be slow, due to the political nature of the process, but progress would be based on societies needs.
I make an exception to the rule that the "market knows best" when it comes to human suffering. Not all aspects of capitalism are universally good in the pursuit of allocating resources for doing certain things a society needs.
I feel exactly oppposite about space exploration for example. I think space should be also a private effort. There is a lot of money to be made in space, and a lot of risk, due to the resources there.
A huge business opportunity exists.
"Democratization of science - huh? The vast majority of science is NOT done in secret at all - it's done primarily in the university setting, which has ethics committees, grant review committees, etc. Additionally, all scientists ultimately publish in peer-reviewed journals. Yes, even industrial scientists; if you bother to read journals like the Journal of Organic Chemistry you will quickly find top-notch research coming from authors at such establishments as "Merck Process Research" and "Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development." I can only conclude from your statements that you are not a practicing scientist, or if you are that you do not read (or referee) any of the literature."
Mmmm. Lets examine this for a moment.
Are we talking about the science done by say, a University or the science done by a coporation. I think I was being pretty blunt about the science I was talking about and where it was done.
As for your statement that "all scientists publish in peer reviewed journals".
That simply is positively, not true.
There are lots of research projects I can name that have broke ground in Aerospace, that positively due not peer review in journals. If they did, the scientists would experience a tragic "accident" and/or they would never be heard from again.
The military industrial complex DWARFS the scientists employed at Universities in the USA. These people do not publish.
Particularly those working on Biotech Weaponry.
Those in the private sector cannot publish due to IP restraints or PATENT issues.
What is left is a small handful of public institutions with enough funding in the USA to do any sort of ground breaking research, and those are rapidly shrinking. These are the people who publish in NATURE, etc...
Publish is a strong term here. Publish WHAT is more the asking question.
You can bet your bottom hiney, that if you are publishing in NATURE and you work for a major pharmacology business, what you are publishing is not really ground breaking and more about maintaining a professional presence in the journals so you can remain relevant in your professional career.
No company in thier right mind would invest the kinds of dollars you cite only to have the competition spend a few days reading and get caught up on 12 months of research.
I am sorry if I seem cynical, but the truth is journals such as NATURE and others have trouble policing the good science from the bad science AS IS right now. They certainly do not permit anyone to peer review a PATENTED process of any real value such as a real
Human Ethics is going to need a MAJOR overhaul to deal with possibilities of genetic research.
I am all for improving/fixing the human condition and the elimination of all diseases from the human genetic tree.
But what exactly does that mean?
I would like to remind everyone:
1) Right now, at this very moment in fine boards rooms with leather covered chairs the conversation inside drug company board rooms is not very pleasant: How do we best make money off of peoples misery.
OUR misery.
2) These discussions are normally about how NOT to make cures and how to spread out research and development so that cures do not destroy "market potential" or profit margins. More to the point, how can we understand the problem in the context of a "subscription" medication so that if anyone does make a product from the disease, the individual has to continually buy the product to maximize profit stability.
3) I am not even going to get into the ethics of patenting medical procedures for profit or what it means if you cannot get treatment because of a patent problem. People with half a brain should understand the full impact of such a sick system that could only be fashioned from the finest human greed the human mind can envision.
Make no doubt, we have the finest medical/patent science system in the United State of America that human greed can fashion.
Quite frankly I do not see a way to curb the problem of human misery or to break this cycle as long as medical science and research can only be accomplished for profit.
The entire premise, that medical science cannot advance without payment from the victims of disease speaks VOLUMEs about how pathetic we are as human beings:
a) How we respect each other.
b) How compassionate we are.
I see a very BLEAK and very DARK medical treatment future for the vast majority of human beings far into the future.
I love the ability to pursue knowledge, but these kinds of knowledge we are obtaining for private use with regards to genetics makes it quite clear we are not ready.
We have some "house cleaning" to do with respect to points A and B first. I love science, but I would enact a law forbidding further advance of gentic research REQUIRING we work out A and B first before continuing.
Some ways to fix this:
1) Make it illegal for privitization of any sort of medical research.
2) Form a world wide medical research establishment dedicated to the elimination of the top 10 human afflictions, with neurological and systemic diseases such as cancer at the top of that list for massive funding, with all nations contributing materials required to do the research.
3) Form highly publicized media outlets and channels to scrutinize this work being done so that the general public is kept informed on the progress of cures for these diseases.
Any medical team or individual who comes up with such a cure shuld be treated as a "rock star" and a foot note should be made in the history books of this individuals name.
4) Make it a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY for any group or individuals to use such information in the development of a weapons system, or to block the progress or spirit of research to obtain cures for these conditions. Said court can take each case by cause and effect and pass judgement as agreed.
Anyone caught dealing with a Bio Weapon should be terminated with the weapon they built.
A fitting end for a mad man and his lifes work IMHO.
5) Allow the deomcratization of science for this institution with scientists running for office at such institution with elections held world wide.
# 5 is something we could do to make science more of a daily discussion and much more political. We have too many private PhD's hidden away with no guidance.
Society MUST take control of science and make it a informed and political activity.
It CERTAINLY isn't that way right now and it gives me the "Willies" these people are not under some sort of par
That could or might be true.
But the most important contributing protocols involving networking looks like they come from IBM Research labs.
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1655
Do you have any examples?
-Hack
I am not suggesting the current design will be OK in 2500.
Furthermore, that arguement is stupid because the people discussed in the story line who propose "fixing" the internet certainly don't have what it takes topside to come up with a design that will last till 2500 either.
Finally this isn't about progress it is about the motive OPERANDI of the people in the story.
Speaking from experience, I just kicked out all of my CISCO routers from my network last year and replaced them with a Linux Kernel and Quagga (bgp) GPL software.
Good riddens I say!
Overpriced junk and slow as crap.
Last year I did a full source code audit of all 15 of my router/vpn/firewall images.
Can you say you did the same?
I hope a CISCO employee doesn't get disgruntled someday and decides to insert a backdoor in that softpak update!
Good Luck with that.
-Hack
LOL
Translation:
Lets rebuild the internet because it uses too much open source software and we are not making enough money. I know! Lets get all the vendors together and rebuild it using proprietary crud so that it is impossible for any of these "open source" guys to make server platforms that are freely available.
Lets kill open standards too, because well....who needs those IETF guys anyway! They are just a bunch hippies!
Seriously, though. The internet works better than my cell phone does.
It doesn't need "fixing".
It just needs a few upgrades.
IPV6 would be a nice place to start!
GAD.
The thought of CISCO having a hand in anything the future internet could be makes me want to quit my current network manager job and open an Italian Restraunt.
-gc
-hack
Chuckle, chuckle chuckle.
6 /s /sun_activity.html
a rminexplodes.htm
3 434
If any of you care to do any of the most basic research on the history of climate studies, you will find some very strong "opinions" with regards to human induced climate change.
I do not think, or at least I haven't found one scientist yet that doesn't think the climate is changing.
Everyone agrees on that.
The human part is the sticky issue. I don't believe for example burning fossil fuels is making the sort of climate changes I have witnessed.
I DO know that when you follow THE MONEY on the issue here is what I come up with:
1) Hollywood has made millions off the idea.
2) Al Gore, has made a VERY comfortable living proclaiming it to be so, with a carbon "footprint" even George Bush would be impressed with, even though he has absolutely no expertise scientifically as a proponent of the idea.
3) Every major university institution is giving position and power to those who "TOW THE LINE" about human induced climate change based on Federal funding and NSF grants, which is very lucrative.
4) Every major prediction proclaimed since this idea has come about has been revised every year. Nobody it would seem can predict climatic change, even though, everyone working on the very lucrative professionally and financially idea of human induced climate change, has got the "research numbers down pat" they all assure us.
Contrast that sort of "fish bowl" science research with those in the astrophysics/solar weather fields that say our sun has/is going "berzerk" in the past 30 years.
http://www.intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/Library/118
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/
http://physics.gmu.edu/~jevans/astr103/CourseNote
http://www.spacew.com/astroalert.html
The solar cycles are completly out of "whack" right now.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2005/15sep_sol
The suns behavior is anything but predictable and just this past January I was looking at beautiful aurora while I was visiting Chicago, IL.
Every major planet in the solars system is ALSO experiencing a warming trend.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/
That could be due to all of the human colonies we have on mars for example as well as Jupitor's moons.
There is plenty of evidence for alternative explanations to climate change.
So why are we not hearing them?
ANSWER: No money to be made.
I mean look at some of the truly outrageous projects given considered SERIOUS thought by proponents of global warming:
http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=8897
HOW MUCH do you think a project like that would cost and WHO DO you think is going to get the money for it?
It sure isn't the third world countries who are being asked to starve to death and endure this climate change.
There is no suggestion of planting more trees either as you can't make money off of planting trees. It costs too much.
I SEMLL A RAT.
-Hackus
-Hackus
Nonsense of course.
Why is it, that academic elitists and government cronies are always trying to convince the population through out history that it would be best to only believe in this that or the other "state" endorsed view of reality?
Anything as long as there is no "deity" that knows more than they do or usurps their power?
"God" obviously does that so lets just kill God!
Sometimes I do not know who is worse. In my time we have "fundamentialists" killing people who do not believe in a "G O D" or scientists claiming that no God exists because the only way to gain knowledge is through "Hypothesis, Experimentation, Conclusion."
Did I happen to mention the fact that you cannot prove God exists in the first place using "HEC"? When I point that out they tell me "If it cannot be measured or put through gas spectrograph, it doesn't exist."
Lets just throw out love and compassion in the world too because well, it doesn't exist....its all in the brain and doesn't exist!
I personally, do not have a spectroscopic profile of Love or Compassion either to prove otherwise. So shoot me!
Besides, if no God exists, you get to make the rules, which is much more practical.....for those in power anyway that want to tell you how and what to think about.
So now we are hardwired to believe in God. Whats next I wonder?
We are hardwired to kill, maim, destroy, be selfish...
???
-Hack
A lie is never a good idea.
But those of us who study history know sometimes it is more easily digested than the truth.
Furthermore, the internet as many people have observed, cares more about your contribution to the community as a whole, and very much less about how much money your worth, or if you have the cash to even buy a PhD.
That is also a lie, as many of you know who work in the "real world" vs the virtual one, the opposite is almost always true.
-Hack
I think this story would be much easier to understand if we consider what the difference is between law and morality.
Law is a social mechanism to make a society/nation state work smoothly and to keep the status quo for those in power.
It has nothing to do with the human condition or morality.
I think the interesting questions are the ones that ask why are societies constructed by human beings that do not address the human condition oreven the questions surrounding morality?
Obviously something is wrong with a grown male, spending all of his time writing about how to entice young boys and view pictures of boys in private.
I would be REALLY interested to know why he decided on writing about boys in the first place.
The state/law enforcement is obviously not interested in morality as this persons private life was violated.
I myself am a very private person, and I find is that this individual who broke into apparently thousands of personal computers willing broke the law and morality, and there is no question he did so.
I do not see him in private lockup.
Yes, the judge had illegal pictures of boys in sex acts on his computer.
But, you cannot arrest or convict people on thier private thoughts or wishes, only upon thier actions. So, given the fact I can pull up a ton of web sites with child porn available for public consumption, that makes me a law breaker if I chose to do so.
However, there is something not right about pulling information from the web in a non consequential manner that doesn't sit right with me. Simply pulling child porn from the web is not in itself immoral.
Whats next? Do we need to pass a law that requires everyone to write down thier private thoughts for review before a panel to prevent us from breaking the law? What happens if someone uses my computer to download kitty porn without my knowledge?
What happens if someone just dumps all sorts of illegal stuff on my machine, then steals it and hands it over to the police if they simply do not like me?
In my opinion I think this chaos from the non intersection of morality and law really serves nobodies interest except for the powers that be.
But make no doubt, the root cause of this problem can be found with people, and in this case begins with the judges own actions to write about and view pictures of boys in private.
The question here is, does he have that right to do so in private and if not, what other laws can or will be made about what you can do or not do in private if we say he cannot?
Why do I have this feeling that the individuals making those types of laws will be the ones who will insure those rules do not apply to them and enforce thier private agendas for power and wealth?
-Hack
Errrrr.......no.
:-)
Leave the planet alone please.
We know WAY too little about the planet to start screwing around with its Biosphere.
Not only that, but you do not get a second chance if you screw it up.
I say we start someplace else and experiment there, so if we do screw it up, no biggy.
Even the dumbest WINDOZE admin knows you always experiment on a TEST server before doing anything to your production server if you do not want downtime.
"Downtime" in this case would mean the Earths Biosphere.....I hope I do not have to explain what that means.
Besides, if we experiment with a different world, the WORST that can happen is it doesn't work.
Best possible thing that can happen is we get another planet to live on.
Half the people on this planet belong on Mars anyway....IMHO.
-Hack
I think finding a single scientist that is skeptical about the primary cause of Global Warming as strictly human based CO2 generation, is easy to do with google.
:-)
But like I said, you already made up your mind. Don't bother then.
Which is my continual point in these matters that the science is bad, is corrupt and short sighted and ignorant because a DOGMA exists in the community right now. All other ideas are blocked out. That is too bad. You my friend are an excellent example, thanks for proving my point.
Yes, most of the rates that I have seen, which due to such poor models and lack of understanding, they keep revising year to year to match observed polar climate changes, your right.
10 years is a long time. It seems like it is quickening.
As for curbing CO2, why don't we go one step further before every place on earth smells like New York in a few years.
Why don't we track all green house gases, particularly the one I am worried about and gets very little attention: Methane.
How do you propose to curb CO2/Methane output on a scale that would moderate warming, and not force most of the developing world into crushing poverty?
Personally, I would have them plant more trees, and invest say, 460 Billion over the next 10 years buying up the rain forest, and most of South America and moving the people here who are displaced.
Turn them all into Americans.
With that many people we could do some interesting things socially and economically here in the USA. We could jump start and entire generation and turn them into highly skilled professionals, or more ditch diggers. Whatever they want. Plenty of stuff to do here that needs fixing.
-Hack
As I said, before. I am NOT GOING TO GET INTO A PAPER PISSING CONTEST.
:-)
This isn't a debate about research DOGMA in the current scientific community. I think it is clear for a variety of reasons many have already made up their mind we are the primary reason for CO2 based climate change. I just don't think the problem is that simple, and I think current conclusions are based on greed and bad science.
Its one of the reasons why, we refuse to put better instrumentation into orbit and pretty much build a better view of our Earths Biosphere in general, IMHO.
After all, if you already know everything about everything, why put better instrumentation in orbit. Sorry if I sound pedantic, but Bob Meyer, my prof when I was an undergrad at UW Madison told me once never to make this mistake: "The greatest barrier to science is revelation because singular understanding of nature leads to ignorance."
I think that puts the current science of global warming in an excellent frame of mind.
Google and spend your own time researching alternative viewpoints, I am not doing it for you. Its a FREE INTERNET.
Besides, I already proposed a SIMPLE EXPERIMENT for all concerned here:
Watch the solar neighborhood over the next decade. Here is a page at NASA to get you started:
http://eos.nasa.gov/imswelcome (Seems to be down right now....but don't worry, it comes and goes....depending on funding. I think they take it down because they already know everything about that science and consider it a waste of money to do anything else with it. When they forget something, they put it back up.
http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/Ktable.html (Place your bets! Up or down 10 years from now? I say they are all up along with the Earth if our current solar cycles continue to strengthen.)
Like I said, if I am full of crap, in the next 10 years the mean temps of all the bodies in the solar system should have NO correlation to earths own warming.
If I am right, then there should be precipitous increases in average temperature/radiation in the infra red band for all bodies in our solar system with a postive net increase.
Very simple hypothesis, very simple experiment.
Good Luck.
-Hack