I made one error in this post I would like to correct:
"I also said that the output of our star is no match for our current activity and is the master control for climate change, short term with the primary solar cycle of 11 years, and long term due to orbital variations in the earth. I also believe there is evidence to suggest that the up and down motion of our solar system through the galactic equator also plays a part. Not enough evdence for that though...but I thought I would mention it as it is interesting to think how interconnected the planet is to things strange and surreal far outside our daily reality."
Should be:
"I also said that the output of our star dwarfs our current ability to directly influence climate via CO2, and the SUN is the master control for climate change, short term with the primary solar cycle of 11 years, and long term due to orbital variations in the earth. I also believe there is evidence to suggest that the up and down motion of our solar system through the galactic equator also plays a part. Not enough evdence for that though...but I thought I would mention it as it is interesting to think how interconnected the planet is to things strange and surreal far outside our daily reality."
I will leave you with some thoughts to get you thinking about other possibilities:
As I said before, I believe the solar radiation and volcanism are the two primary climate regulators, with the Biosphere comming in 3rd. The rest, if there is any influence, such as man, is shall we say, "debris influence" and doesn't add up too much.
I also said that the output of our star is no match for our current activity and is the master control for climate change, short term with the primary solar cycle of 11 years, and long term due to orbital variations in the earth. I also believe there is evidence to suggest that the up and down motion of our solar system through the galactic equator also plays a part. Not enough evdence for that though...but I thought I would mention it as it is interesting to think how interconnected the planet is to things strange and surreal far outside our daily reality.
If the primary argument is solar, then it makes sense that other planets in the solar system should be warming as well, not just the earth.
I encourage you to look for such information and watch it closely. If I am full of crap, there should be no correlation between planetary temperature inceases in our solar system and the earths own climate change.
In the next decade, we will have more probes flying around out there than the UFO's over chicago O'Hare airport so it shouldn't be too hard to find stuff in either Nature, Science or published findings at JPL/NASA for such info in the comming decades. Those are my primary sources of information to form my own conclusions.
Whatever your conclusion is, we don't seem to be doing much about climate change or the root problems of the human condition on this planet.
God help us all wherever this climate shift leads to as people find themselves flooded out of thier homes, no food to eat and no shelter for thier families.
I think the idea of this thread, and as I said before, without getting into a paper pissing contest of academic citations, I have been quite specific in that I do not believe the CO2 cycle and man are directly related in this problem.
I think the problem is much more complex and it involves the natural climate changes that happen to the earth with regards to Solar activity, and vulcanism specifically. I certainly agree there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the biosphere in various degrees, regulates the carbon cycle on the planet but I think mans roll is nebulous due to the lack of good sensor data on the ground and in space.
When the powers that be get around to putting some good gear in orbit and on the ground/oceans my position may change.
The point is I do not think we are directly responsible for global warming. We may play a roll, but exactly what that roll is beyond burning down the trees, and running cars I do not believe is terribly clear. For example, if the point source emissions could be localized for CO2 and there was a direct relation between uptake of CO2 and the cutting down of trees, the simple solution would be to plant more trees.
Problem is, you can't make much money off of doing that, so that tanks that solution.
But I do not even think there is enough research to suggest such a simple solution as planting more trees would work. I think we may find out rather harshly when the last of the Amazon rain forest is finally torched. Fortunately, that uncontrolled experiment will come to an end within the next 10-20 years and we should know the results soon. Could be a hard lesson though....
Hence the debate is largely about politics and money, in my opinion and not about good science.
I also never said there is a vast democratic party conspiracy. There could very well be a republican party conspiracy supressing science for human induced global warming, which would be par for the course if you believe this is all about politics and money.
But this game is played by so many DOGMATICS like my friend here, and politicians that the whole question of human induced climate change has become a circus act.
The above thread, if you like conspiracy theories is probably the only area where I and the current presidential administration agree on. The models need better measurements, which means more funding for better space, ocean and land gear to measure not just CO2 but solar radiation and vulcanism and other problematic gases such as methane. The rest of the report is dubious at best, and is a great example of how both political parties in the US distort the facts.
I think the models used for atmospheric regulation are indeed on the right track. But with computers, GARBAGE IN equals GARBAGE out, and better more refined measurements of the dynamics of global climate change need to be more precisely measured to start improving atmospheric modeling before we take any steps.
Problem is, not a whole lot of money in building a "Biosphere Sensor GRID" as it would cost a lot of money to operate. Hence, that won't see the light of day anytime soon.
I personally think, that the Kyoto treaty for example is nothing but vieled attempt to keep the 3 billion of that can't find enough food on a daily basis in check.
The protocol also seems to be a bit whacked if not unrealistic. For example, if your in the minority like I am, and believe that the Biospeher could probably help moderate climate change to a tolerable degree (Like it has always done throughout history which is a given and no research is needed..), then the Kyoto accord is worthless. I specifically site the protcols lack of real direction for developing nations, which are the ones ironically destroying most of the biospeheres carbon regulation capabilities: Translation: Stop cutting down the trees.
"In fact, they are totally made up. We don't need any more direct observational data or longer observation time to know what the current CO2 removal rate is. If you think we need more, show the calculation of how much more we "need"."
Of course the numbers are made up. I can't tell you those things because no good models exist. They are all crude, and don't predict squat. HENCE THE REASON FOR MORE STUDY MORE PLATFORMS, BETTER SENSING GEAR. You believe we know everything there is to know about CO2, without question.
That my friend is dangerous, and its called "DOCTRINE." Unfortunately DOCTRINE follows DOGMA and anyone out there that has questions about CO2 are politely showed the door in University Departments around the United States, or pushed under the rug along with a whole MOUNTAIN OF QUESTIONS that need to be answered about CO2 recycling.
I am just another victim here.
"Your logic is broken. Just because worst-case scenario Y is worse than worst-case scenario X doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about X.
Incidentally, the lack of mass extinctions over the last tens of millions of years suggests that "releasing poisonous amounts of methane into the atmosphere" is not a common scenario. Releasing enough to produce climate change is a different matter (and what makes you think we don't know anything about how methane is absorbed by the ocean?)."
I am not suggesting methane release is a common scenario. I also was talking about temperature increase. I didn't say I did not care about CO2 emissions. You are making the assumption that just because I pointed out that methane is a possible scenario, I do not care about CO2 and we shouldn't worry about it.
I am not talking about "poisonous" amounts of methane. You do not need that much. I am talking about, very small amounts, (i.e..5% for example.). It is clear in simple lab experiments that methane and oxygen do not get along very well. I won't go into the specifics, you can read about the corellation between oxygen and methane concentrations in the atmosphere anywhere online. The research is crude, but it warrants more time spent at the real possibility there would be a lot less oxygen to breathe, not that we would be poisoned by methane. I think it is obvious what would happen if methane rose to one half a percentage point in the atmosphere.
I do think we have a good understanding of what is the better green house gas and why in comparing CO2 and methane, I will challenge anyone on that fact and the experiments to that effect are simple enough for a high school student.....well, a far east high school student, not a US one. We would need some sort of picture pages to make that totally clear I think.
I would also like to point out, that you presume way too much. There hasn't been enough study to verify your statement:
"Incidentally, the lack of mass extinctions over the last tens of millions of years suggests that "releasing poisonous amounts of methane into the atmosphere" is not a common scenario."
I think it is dubious at best to make such a statement, that atmospheric changes in composition has not played some part in all biospehere diversity events. I will point out, compared to CO2 release or cycling, methane is far more powerful in increasing surface temperature, is a very fickle gas as it doesn't last very long in the atmosphere and is even harder to track using geochemistry of any kind, in deep historical time.
Just how "fickle" however won't be known with the current scientific establishment we have right now in the US. The few crude studies done on this sort of scenario paint entirely different reasons for various major extinction events in history and how plants and animals died. (i.e. for example Deccan traps event, KT boundry just too name the most popular ones that are studied because they make money for the discovery channel or can make money on the discovery channel, public radio, or any other pop culture science program on today.)
"Wow, more made-up numbers. 50 platforms. 300 years. Let's see that calculation. Considering that you apparently don't know anything at all about CO2 sink rates, this should be amusing. "
I didn't throw those numbers out as an exact number. I was being....GENEROUS in pointing out though that with such crude computer models of CO2 and atmospheric knowledge as we have right now, we need more direct observational data be it 50 or a 100 such platforms. We need more AND a longer observational time.
If it serves your purpose, I mean to say we just need more data to figure out where the CO2 is comming from, how the oceans absorb volcanic activity and better space weather platforms.
I do not believe we have the technology yet to make such platforms, but that is a different arguement we can explore. With the research on the ISS we are doing, maybe in another 30-50 years...maybe we culd have the technology. But, I think there is plenty of evidence that current climate "experts" presume way too much about human induced climate change simply because it furthers research dollars and a cushy tenure. Its BS.
My biggest concern is: Since we know so little about what is underneath the oceans in volcanic activity, what do you think would happen if a 50 mile wide outpouring of molten Lava anywhere in the vicinity of a Methane ice trap would do?
I am not specifically talking about methanes ability to trap IR EM band type energy better than CO2 either. That in itself could be incredibly damaging to the enviroment.
What I am specifically talking about is Methanes ability to remove free oxygen from the atmosphere with ruthless efficiency. What do you think that would do to the Ozone production in the atmosphere?
Quite frankly I could give a rats ass about a 5 degree temperature increase world wide. Who the hell cares about the temperature increase when you can't breathe.
Nobody that I know of talks about these sorts of things because methane isn't a money maker. Would you believe we have better sensors on the MARS express probe to detect methance on mars than we do on any Earth based sat platform right now, excluding the ISS?
"Pinatubo did emit a lot of aerosols which cause cooling, and which, like all aerosols, get flushed out of the atmosphere within a few centuries. (By contrast, CO2 takes centuries to flush.)"
Statements like this are not only diatribe, but impossible to prove.
We haven't had sat data for centries to backup your statements, in fact most of your statements are simply temporally unproven. There is no way we understand the carbon cycle on this planet to that detail to see how much carbon gets recycled at what rate to say "Oh its just a couple of centuries."
Every friggin year they are revising the global climate change probabilities for climate change, depending on who kisses what ass to get a paper published in Science or Nature.
Your head is up your rear end and your telling me I MAKE UP FALSE DATA?
You do not need data to see how stupid a statement like:
"Pinatubo did emit a lot of aerosols which cause cooling, and which, like all aerosols, get flushed out of the atmosphere within a few centuries. (By contrast, CO2 takes centuries to flush.)"
You don't have that kind of model detail or any sort of direct observational evidence to back that statement up. We haven't had the science or the equipment in orbit for the past couple hundred years to support that statement. In fact, sensing equipment is still fairly primitive and what we do have that is decent only went up in the past 3-4 years on the ISS, and that is just one sat platform. We would need about 50 such platforms operating continuously for about 300-400 years to even start getting a feeling for CO2 recycling rates in the Atmosphere.
I also didn't say Pinatubo emitted CO2. I said a Volcanic eruptions LIKE pinatubo CAN emit BOTH gases. (Sulphuric aerosols COOLING or CO2/Methane..etc WARMING.)
You obviously have a reading comprehension problem, like most indoctrinated science idiots who worship at the altar of the Gods: Hypothesis, Experimentation, Conclusion.
Personally, I sometimes wonder who is worse. The Islamic Fundamentalists saying "Convert or Die." or large number of science "professionals" working really hard on a daily basis to put our species back into the stone age.
For every paper you can point to, I can point to another paper that contradicts your findings. SO I am not going to get into a paper citation pissing contest.
I am going to attack your statements only.
We do not have the data to support human induced climate change.
Your way out in left field to when it comes to your even most basic understanding of what can effect long term weather and climate patterns, with this statement you made:
"Both of those are known to be false. The Sun has a noticeable but minor effect. Vulcanism has a very small effect."
Remember Mount Penetubo in the early 1990's? "It was called the year without a summer in some parts of the world."
I remember it very well, it was June, 28th and the temperature in Madison WI was 68 degrees. Just a BIT OFF from the norm of 77-79.
Just ONE eruption lowered global temperatures for two years by almost a full degree point.
Climate disruptions were felt all around the globe for almost 5 years afterwards.
I don't call that a "small effect".
Your smokin crack guy. By far vulcanism and solar intensity drive long term and short term climate variations.
The only reason why it isn't undisputed yet is because we do not have the proper sensor gear in orbit around the earth to measure greenhouse gas sources in the oceans. That is a MAJOR gap in our understanding of how climate change works.
FOLLOW THE MONEY is what I say, and if you look at people say tha human beings are the cause of the problem it is because:
1) Thier tenure depends on it. 2) Have stock in the energy sector, or recieve funding in the government sectors for research into alternative energy. 3) Have shuffled a large amount of alternative view points under the rug that do not support 1 or 2. (i.e. If it ISN't US we can't really do anything about it, so A No money to be made and B I don't want to upset the funding people.)
The oceans cover 75% of the surface of the planet. We don't know Jack whats going on down there either.
So I think I am going to stick with Global warming can be blamed on oceanic vulcanism both for source gas emissions and also water temperature impacts, which are a wild card (i.e. what happens when hundreds of square miles of molten rocks spills out on the ocean floor in direct contact with water.) and solar activity.
Just one volcanic eruption like Penetubo can inject more quanitities of green house gases, as well as gases that have an opposite effect, such as sulphur dioxide, into our atmosphere than the entire combined industrial age of man kind of burning fossil fuel cars, burning forests and industrial plant actitvity over the past 200 years since we started such nonsense.
Just ONE eruption of that scale.
Yeah, that certainly makes sense with your statement above indictaing Vulcanism has a "small effect".
Stop watching TV News and start doing some investigation yourself.
"Ice cores don't actually indicate that, unless you mean the theory that perturbations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun affect the sunlight it receives.
Regardless, it's still a specious argument. There are many things that have had more influence on the climate than humans have. But that doesn't mean that the climate change caused by humans is of negligible impact on on human societies."
There are tons of direct evidence to relate solar activity in deep time to climate change using ice core data....data which was collected before we got here.
I would also like to point out, that I do not think it is coincidence that the earth is warming during a time when scientists are describing some of the most intense flare ups of solar activity since indirect/direct measurement began of space weather in the past 80 years.
Point out just one study everyone agrees that man has changed the climate. You can't find one, in the scientific literature. All of the studies I have seen make extremely large assumptions about cause and effect, and no one has been able to model these effects to produce the changes we see in the earths climate at the moment.
Like I said before, these so called "scientists" advocating climate change by man, can't even design a weather model that predicts or acccurate describes any future weather pattern we see on a daily basis without weather sat info.
I would also like to point out, that we have very little understanding about ocean volcanic events. In the next couple of decades we will be deploying sats that will be able to monitor COMPLETE volcanic activity under the oceans. Which besides Solar activity I think there is plenty of evidence in the fossil record and today, to suggest volcanism is playing a role in the earths warming as well and is the second major factor in climate change.
Not running your car, or cows farting or Al Gore saying cows farting is an inconvienent truth.
For the record, Al Gore is an idiot and should stick to politics and leave science alone.
"That is, again, a specious argument; predicting the weather is a very different problem from predicting the climate. Furthermore, why do you bring up being unable to predict the weather without satellites and such? Of course you can't predict much if you have no data. But in the real world, we do have data.
You are also comparing apples and oranges; you point out observational evidence of species extinction, and then turn around and compare it to predictive power in the future. Of course prediction is harder than observation. Try comparing observational evidence of species extinction to observational evidence of man's past and present influence on the climate."
Let me get this straight. You are claiming that predicting small weather patterns, or localized weather phenomina, has no correlation and is of no help in predicting large scale climate change?
You must have studied logic at a American Univerisity.
I am not comparing Apples to Oranges. There is a clear solar cycle pattern, every 10-12 years that directly corresponds with climate change.
If you think human civilization can match the power output of a star to change a planets surface temp your just as brain dead as our "pretend to be climate advocate" Al Gore. (Did I mention the guy is a moron and could care less about the environment? Check out the car he drives and the 12,000 square foot mansion he lives in! Just the plane trips he takes to his book signings is probably killing all of us.)
"The fact that the Earth has been warmer and colder in the past has nothing to do with whether climate change is good for us as a species.
All that being said, I agree that biodiversity and other envir
I am not a big believer in the evidence for Human climate change. You can pull ice cores from the antarctic and find that the sun has far more influence on climate than man ever will.
I do however advocate that human change to the Biosphere on this planet, which I must say is becomming irreversible in its damage and scale, is going to be our undoing. Primarily, look at what people are doing to fresh water lakes....they are sucking them dry and whole seas of fresh water are literally disappearing from the sattellite images.
Unlike climate which has changed and will change long after we are gone, the number of species that are extinct and can be easily shown to be so through direct human action is far more convincing than climate change from scientists who cannot even forecast the weather properly even today without actually a camera in space looking at where it is going to rain tomorrow, let alone what cliamet will be in 10 -20 or even 30 years.
The planet earth, can probably support 500 Million human beings comfortably. The rest, shall we say....have to go.
If we do not do something about the sheer scale of our population, Mother nature I can assure you will step in and do the job.
All it takes is a super volcano, an asteroid strike or a "solar event" or any number of natural and very real forces of nature to enforce Mother Natures wishes.
All you looney climate people should wake up and realize what the real threat starts with our attack on the Biosphere.
Climate is really not the root cause. The earth has been MUCH warmer in the past, and much colder, without any people around so get over it.
The US I.T. skill set basically is composed of a bunch of people that buy "certificate training" on the weekend, and then push OK or CANCEL during the weekday.
Is it any wonder? How can you gain any introspective into systems that are as rigid and brittle as those of a closed source OS like Cisco's IOS or Windows, and really expect your I.T. department to do anything innovative?
American I.T. does exactly what the closed source products tell them to do, and you can't do more than that without the source.
If you want to consider possibilities, that are completely impossible in a closed source infrastructure, take a can opener to your brain and start using and building systems that come with source code and get crackin.
Can I appeal to everyones common sense for a moment?
Your a civilization, a sentient race.
You have mastered and solved the distance problem between Stars and have decided to explore space. (i.e. I am assuming that they would be like us, since we haven't solved the distance problem, we know it is impractical to do so, due to the time constraints of waiting for all the probes to return/radio signals etc. Using this train of thought, they wouldn't even try until they solved the distance problem, just like us.)
What would be your first mission?
I will assume like us, they are interested in other forms of sentient life.
Like us, I assume they will have technology to seek out star systems using automated telescopes for worlds that have chemical signatures that make it very probable higher forms of life exist there.
I am assuming they wouldn't systematically look at EVERY planet using a brute search such as what the professor is proposing.
Even WE can get spectrographic information about worlds now outside our solar system, I assume this for them would be a trivial problem to automate a search.
Given this information, I think the professor needs to go back to the drawing board, as even WE wouldn't look for sentient life at the center of the milky way, for example, as we know active star regions are too violent to allow life to follow a undisturbed evolutionary/creationary cycle for sentient life. (My Apologies to those who worship the dogma of science or those who worship the dogma of religion. For those of you in between and do both, congratulations your a sane human being.)
Again, if the scientific model of discovering information is truly the same no matter where you are in the Universe, I assume these assumptions hold true for any life, and that we are not special.
A intelligent search could be completed far faster than the quoted "billions of years".
I assume these Aliens have common sense enough not to use a intelligent sorting/search algorithm, unlike what the professor suggests. (i.e. What worlds have intelligent life? Mmmm..I know! Lets Bubble sort them into life vs. probably no life.)
I wish I could comment on our own search attempts. Ok I will.:-)
SETI=Looking for Radio Signals=Wate of cash to the tune of over a billion and counting.
If the whole idea of looking for an advanced civilization using radio search methods hasn't dawned on anyone here as stupid, let me enlighten you with a few facts SETI doesn't want you to know about:
1) Radio waves are absorbed by just about any sort of gas or dust material. Don't believe me? Ever use your cell phone lately? Think its crappy listening to someone a few miles away? Try it a billion miles away.
The likely hood SETI is going to pick up a signal is so small, I wager 100 Trillion dollars later, they still won't have a signal.
Why does our society insist on making women do things more like men?
There seems to be some sort of predisposition by the academic elitist camps that are always suggesting, if women are not doing the same things as men they are repressed or are not given the chance.
I am getting tired of listening too it primarily because the topic always seems to be about how much STUFF a women can purchase vs a man can as a comparison to wealth. I think we have enough consumerism thank you very much to draw my own opinions.
Which is quite simple, women do not enjoy analytical thinking as much as men do. Men also do not enjoy organizing social groups as much as women do.
Thats my experience, and this fact has nothing to do with how much a women can buy to make her happy.
I would like to suggest, perhaps there is a DIFFERENCE between men and women, that is fundamental here in thinking styles and that what men enjoy isn't what women enjoy and vice versa.
I tried pointing this out once while I was an undergrad at the UW Madison campus and I was almost kicked off campus.
The audacity for a government to dictate to its citizens that unless you buy a product at X dollars, you cannot communicate with us is a obvious setup by Microsoft or its vast lobbyists.
There is just so many obvious free formats to use to do this, I refuse to accept that this was an accident, and wasn't a obvious coercion of some sort.
Secondly, you have to be a real ethically corrupt die hard EU Union rep not to see the ethics problems with this.
In the USA this is business as usual. For you Europeans...perhaps you are starting to learn that as a satellite of the USA Empire, you do what you are told.:-)
But in my defense, I have investigated it, and I know what components are required for a.net solution because as a independant consultant with my own practice, I have to defend myself quite often from customers who ask me "Why not.Net".
Thankfully, I do not have to think too hard when I start rolling out all of the tools, server hardware that Microsoft requires to license a.Net solution, in addition to the support charges per hour. I just lay it out in front of the customer, compared to, Oh I don't know.....a Linux box with Tomcat and Java for example.
The customer looks at the two and just says....."Oh."
I just smile and get too work.:-)
-gc
PS: Not too be overly sarcastic or anything, but if you take the average cost of a.Net solution which for most of my clients is $80K, vs $12K for a Linux solution.....I very much like the fact that I can save the customer a ton O cash....OR BETTER, the difference between the two figures goes into my pocket, not Ballmer & Co's.
And yes, I accept part of the responsibility of not leaving the job sooner.
However, my employer will have to accept the responsibility of paying Microsoft the thousands of dollars in tech support calls to solve endless problems with its products.
As for your suggestions........
I fail to C how 2 Microsoft servers will help matters accept for the fact that I will have to reboot TWICE as many servers TWICE as often.
Monitoring doesn't help when the thing would crash or lock up. Unless of course, you have a piece of software that could push the reset button.
I will go further and suggest that this lawsuit is really about who owns the file content.
If the idea of ownership is the creation and using the data the product allows you to create, only by AutoCAD products, then, essentially, you do not own the data in AutoCAD format. The company does.
This will be borne out if a customer tries to reverse engineer the data, find that they cannot and therefore for all practical purposes the data becomes worthless because it is way to expensive to that information and rebuild it in another product.
By virtue of cost, this insures the data is owned, and effectively not changed without AutoCAD company authority.
So if AutoCAD can determine what you can do with the data, how it can be used for example because it cannot be moved, then you really do not own the data.
I don't wish to be pedantic or anything, but ownership means normally being able to do whatever you wish with your own data.
So in essence, you have given up ownership of some sort to AutoCAD of any of the information you produce with the program.
This sort of thing is unethical in my opinion, because it is equivalent to saying a carpenter owns your home because he built it with his tools and you cannot reproduce anything in the home with other tools except the carpenters if you wish to make a modification to your diagrams.
Sadly however, ethics are something time and again the US Court system seems to know very little about.
1) A company that charges $150 per phone call for problems with its software, has no incentive to create decent software. In fact, they get paid to write poor software. 2) Standards in Web Design cost the industry Billions just to write specific Mikeysoft Explorer Code. 3) The free Virus/Malware kit features since 1998 that this company just can't seem to fix with all the PhD's it hires and fundamentally, doesn't understand why LINUX, SELinux are going to become the defacto standard in CIA and Corporate computing security. 4) The Endless nights of pages way back when I was a Mikeysoft dork admin, just to reboot a computer at 3AM, EVERY night for 2 years. Some things never change. 5) The balls this company has to push the industry.net as a "Business Solution" as if we are all just stupid and don't recognize it for what it is: A bloated Framework designed to sell more Microsoft servers and software and a feeble attempt to kill java. NOT a software framework to solve your business problems. 6)The whole Microsoft Office thing. Gad where do I start? How about Incompatible with Itself, specifically designed so that Excel 97 Macro's don't quite import perfectly into 2000. 7) DICTATING to everyone that Windows 2000 is no longer supported, we refuse to fix bugs in our software unless you upgrade. If you don't we do not care if 2000 meets your business needs, our shareholders demand you buy licenses for all your stuff AGAIN. 8) Reboot the OS everytime you make a friggin change. Reboot! Reboot! Reboot! Reboot! 9) Trying to Kill Linux with the whole trusted computing thing and working on proprietary BIOS'es. How SAD. 10) And last but not least....creating legions of Idiot Admins that can't do anything unless they are lead around by a OK or CANCEL button. God help them if they don't have a setup Icon someplace! One company who single handedly has put the US back into the Dark ages while the rest of the world MOVES ON without us.
-Hack Thanks Mikeysoft for all the fun and thank god I left that fun to everyone else 12 years ago when I switched to Linux.
Mono is pretty much irrelevant to me..Net isn't even a business solution. I think most people see it as a response from Microsoft product/marketing divisions to destroy Java and has nothing to do with providing tools to solve business or computing problems.
What I can't understand, is people pick a Linux distro to avoid the heinous costs of doing business with Microsoft in the first place.
If I was a Novell exec and I knew this, why would I form a relationship with Microsoft and risk alienating my customers?
Something bizarre is going on here.
In any case, I am worried about this as 90% of my server infrastructure is SuSe and 10% Redhat/Fedora Core at the moment.
Who knows what went on behind closed doors with this stuff. Whats next? I have to load Active Directory on all my SuSe servers to log in?
This isn't going to be a long term positive thing for Novell. But before Novell bites it, the executives will get nice golden parachutes for thier efforts.
"With the BSD license, you retain the rights to your software and you have the right to improve the software. Perhaps you should go read the BSD license agian?"
Perhaps you should read my post again. I specifically didn't say BSD didn't provide you the means to imrpove the software, I said I want my rights to FORCE the improvement of the software. (i.e. if you use it, you can't close it off like you can with BSD and make it proprietary.)
"So taking away certain rights away from those that use your sourcecode is not a form of greed?"
Yes, the right to be greedy is taken away.
Very unpopular conception in this 5th and FINAL AGE of mankind, where there is NO God, life is cheap and morals are those positions best supported when they are most comfortable to do so.
"People every day reap the benefits of BSD software licensing, and fail to make the connection that it the source code and the lack of restrictions that allowed such widespread adoption of the things we takes for granted today."
Yeah, like corporations taking wholesale lots of code BSD style and contributing nothing, and essentially getting free labor.
I understand exactly what sweat shop labor is high tech style, and the BSD license is the best way to get there for corporate empires every where.
"Without that "Intelectualy property B.S.", the GPL would be nothing more than a plea to the people that download your source code."
True, but you quoted out of context. Intellectual property BS as in patents, which the GPL v3 actively seeks to destroy the current patent system for software.
The faster the patent system dies, the more software companies and innovation we will get.
"It's also not stealing because the license allows it. Also, the BSD license prohibits claiming that it's 'all yours'."
What is really the damn diff if a company includes the TCP/IP stack for windows from BSD Unix and doesn't share the source code?
In my opinion, stealing is the profiting of work from others without sharing the revenue or seeking to restrict rights that prevent others from competing.
BSD does this wuite nicely, and is the primary reason why as a license it has failed miserably, while the GPL has become the largest license for software in the world....and the most useful to those in developing countries who couldn't possible compete against corporate empires in the world today on BSD terms.
GPL levels the playing field by insuring everyone plays nice, regardless of the money exchanged for labor or services.
Which in the end, is what computing should be about: People writing great software and not Software Licensing.
"The Windows 2000 IP stack was not based on BSD code. If it was, it probably would have performed better."
tftv256 has pointed out that the winsock.h that comes with VC++6 also contains the Berkeley copyright notice.
"The argument then becomes, well if youre willing enough to sleep with someone then you should be willing enough to raise a family with them."
Man, are you on the left side of the spectrum or what?
If you have sex with someone, you have to accept the consequences of your actions.
Anything else is B.S.
There is a risk involved, (i.e. pregnancy).
If you can't handle the risk, put the thing back in your pants.
The biggest reason why we have these sorts of problems is this attitude I can do whatever the hell I want, and let society pick up the tab sorta mentality is crapola.
I for one would like to see laws that use the technology of genetics to make dead beat women/men pay child support to the single mom/dad if they find out the 5 minutes they spent in the sack isn't worth helping raise the kid. Including garnishing wages, or forced labor.
It is perfectly fine to care little or nothing for another human being you have sex with, if that is what you want. So be it.
But don't come off like its is my responsibility to pay for your poor, destructive and disgusting lack of compassion to the children of this world.
But there is no way I am going to publish anything with a BSD license unless I want to start a state run slave labor system for software engineers.
GNU is where Linux is, and consequently, where all the differences that matter are being made in OS technology and application design AND the new economy of complete knowledge of software systems.
Sorry, but I like retaining the rights to my software, and I want those rights to improve the software. Call it a protection against HUMAN GREED.
People have an inherent right to source code, they also have an inherent right to be paid for the labor they do...
AND more importantly, that labor shouldn't be able to be compromised in any way by stealing source code and incorporating it into software we now don't get the source code for, and are stuck with: ALA Micosoft's IP stack for Windows 2000.
If software is ever going to improve, the leachers have to stop stealing other peoples work, incoporating that work into software and then claim its all theirs and you don't get the source code.
People everyday reap the benefits of GNU software licensing, and fail to make the connection that its the source code and the restrictions to force people to PLAY NICE and not be greedy little thought police wishing to control our lives and wallets because they don't want us to see what the hell the machines are doing with our data.
All in the name of some kind of "intellectual property" B.S.
This is a scary world proprietary software is building, complete with voting machines which nobody knows how they work except the power brokers. (Well, that and the Chinese investors who are funding a lot of the software for these "Voting Machines".)
Stop, refuse and just do not use proprietary or BSD software or more importantly, any software that doesn't allow you to see how it works, or even WORSE, BSD style licenses that do not force restrictions on individual who use it to ABUSE it, by not sharing the source code back into the community, or building bastard products that can be used to destroy our civil liberties, freedoms by conceiling how it works.
Sometimes in this industry I feel like the serfs....way back in the dark ages where anyone caught reading and wasn't a noble was run through with a sword. (i.e. If you don't have a lawyer, and your reading the code you can end up in jail without a intellectual property agreement.)
BSD=Sucketh to the Maxeth.
BSD the OS is nice though, it just needs to be nicer and relicensed under the GNU License.:-)
"An open letter to antitrust, competition, consumer and trade practice monitoring agency officials worldwide."
"The role of trade practice and antitrust legislation is to provide the consumer with protection from abusive business practices and monopolies. In one of the most serous cases of monopolization in the information technology industry, the agencies charged with protecting the competitive process and the consumer have utterly failed to stem the offending corporation's anti-competitive practices."
Translation: Microsoft is a Corporate Citizen of the US empire. It has legally bought and installed judges, congressman and lawyers to insure its rights. These rights supercede any rights of any individual Private Citizen. Those rights not afforded to Microsoft can be and will be purchased in a court of law.
"The Microsoft corporation has been under continuous investigation by antitrust policing agencies since 1989. Despite this scrutiny, the Microsoft corporation, using covert and overt anti-competitive business tactics, has maintained an unabated campaign against alternatives to Microsoft Windows operating system platforms and Microsoft applications."
Translation: These are normal business practices. You have no case.
I will have to check in the mirror again as I might be living in a different universe where my Linux boxes always have to be remotely rebooted on a weekly basis and my Windows machines have 400 days worth of uptime.
The GPL is a method and a means to design, build and execute software engineering that is self sustaining, and allows others to contribute, pass those contributions on and be rewarded for thier labor in real cash.
Something the BSD style licenses doesn't do. (i.e. take our our code we don't give a damn we are your slaves.)
By forcing contribution back into a products process and life cycle, which is what the GPL does, better products are produced because people are allowed to build on each others work.
Patents and intellectual property laws as defined in the USA seek to prevent this, and in essence prevent new products from being built because Patents can be formed about the evolutionary processes of science, technology and human social interactions.
Whats worse, you don't even have to make a product, or a prototype of your idea. All you need is a bigger pile of cash than anyone else to enforce a patent filing.
I am all for the GPL v3, because it specifically attacks patent law and american corporate interests in such law as currently defined, and prevents said companies who participate in the open source engineering and scientific methods from destroying the communities creativity by attempting to inject code or ideas that restricts or prevent the use of open source software/ideas.
This has a chilling effect on innovation. (i.e. look at ANY Microsoft product family and it is easy to see each product is designed to make you spend more money and lock you in rather than solve a business or scientific problem.) I point out, that there is no freaking way, a company like Microsoft should be writing anything about code quality procedures in their Hypocritical and quite hilarious "Microsoft Press" series of building better software. Oh yeah, I can see how that plays out in board meetings....
"Bill: Mmmmm, so....we are charging $150 an incident to fix our crappy software.....lemme see now.......why are we improving code quality again and how does that make good business sense to spend more money to produce better quality software?"
Another example is the current pathetic state of affairs with Display drivers for BSD, Linux, etc.
It is plain to see the only reason why a company would not release the drivers to old hardware (release the entire engineering spec to the public domain) it wholly owns and no longer supports, and is like selling less than 2% of thier product family per year (i.e. ATI's 9250 series etc) is because the whole patent/intellectual property system is nothing but a scam.
If you don't think ATI or Invidia purchase each others products, reverese engineer them to see how they work and or have employees that use to work at either company currently working for one or the other you are living in dream land.
In truth, the intellectual property laws don't prevent stealing but ACTIVELY ENCOURAGE IT. Even though ATI or Nvidia copy or reverse engineer their designs, they don't have to worry about being caught. Priamrily due to the fact that in order for either one to figure out if either has reveresed engineered or copied a design, they would have to reverse engineer the product in the first place which is against the law. Any employee that squeals about it too breaks the law, so it cannot be used in court.
Sheer rubbish.
This sort of circular logic and reasoning specifically built into the USA Patent system was put there for a reason. That reason is to lock up markets for decades and prevent new companies from forming.
The only way companies can grow in the USA is to purchase other companies that already have enourmous amounts of market share or by purchasing a patent, not really a product.
New companies that startup are hard to find, and it isn't because there isn't a market for a better OS.
Thats why we have crappy software, with only 1 primary vendor for an OS in the USA for example.
Slashdot Mirror
I made one error in this post I would like to correct:
"I also said that the output of our star is no match for our current activity and is the master control for climate change, short term with the primary solar cycle of 11 years, and long term due to orbital variations in the earth. I also believe there is evidence to suggest that the up and down motion of our solar system through the galactic equator also plays a part. Not enough evdence for that though...but I thought I would mention it as it is interesting to think how interconnected the planet is to things strange and surreal far outside our daily reality."
Should be:
"I also said that the output of our star dwarfs our current ability to directly influence climate via CO2, and the SUN is the master control for climate change, short term with the primary solar cycle of 11 years, and long term due to orbital variations in the earth. I also believe there is evidence to suggest that the up and down motion of our solar system through the galactic equator also plays a part. Not enough evdence for that though...but I thought I would mention it as it is interesting to think how interconnected the planet is to things strange and surreal far outside our daily reality."
-Hack
I am not going to follow your response anymore.
I will leave you with some thoughts to get you thinking about other possibilities:
As I said before, I believe the solar radiation and volcanism are the two primary climate regulators, with the Biosphere comming in 3rd. The rest, if there is any influence, such as man, is shall we say, "debris influence" and doesn't add up too much.
I also said that the output of our star is no match for our current activity and is the master control for climate change, short term with the primary solar cycle of 11 years, and long term due to orbital variations in the earth. I also believe there is evidence to suggest that the up and down motion of our solar system through the galactic equator also plays a part. Not enough evdence for that though...but I thought I would mention it as it is interesting to think how interconnected the planet is to things strange and surreal far outside our daily reality.
If the primary argument is solar, then it makes sense that other planets in the solar system should be warming as well, not just the earth.
I encourage you to look for such information and watch it closely. If I am full of crap, there should be no correlation between planetary temperature inceases in our solar system and the earths own climate change.
In the next decade, we will have more probes flying around out there than the UFO's over chicago O'Hare airport so it shouldn't be too hard to find stuff in either Nature, Science or published findings at JPL/NASA for such info in the comming decades. Those are my primary sources of information to form my own conclusions.
Whatever your conclusion is, we don't seem to be doing much about climate change or the root problems of the human condition on this planet.
God help us all wherever this climate shift leads to as people find themselves flooded out of thier homes, no food to eat and no shelter for thier families.
-Hack
I think the idea of this thread, and as I said before, without getting into a paper pissing contest of academic citations, I have been quite specific in that I do not believe the CO2 cycle and man are directly related in this problem.
I think the problem is much more complex and it involves the natural climate changes that happen to the earth with regards to Solar activity, and vulcanism specifically. I certainly agree there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the biosphere in various degrees, regulates the carbon cycle on the planet but I think mans roll is nebulous due to the lack of good sensor data on the ground and in space.
When the powers that be get around to putting some good gear in orbit and on the ground/oceans my position may change.
The point is I do not think we are directly responsible for global warming. We may play a roll, but exactly what that roll is beyond burning down the trees, and running cars I do not believe is terribly clear. For example, if the point source emissions could be localized for CO2 and there was a direct relation between uptake of CO2 and the cutting down of trees, the simple solution would be to plant more trees.
Problem is, you can't make much money off of doing that, so that tanks that solution.
But I do not even think there is enough research to suggest such a simple solution as planting more trees would work. I think we may find out rather harshly when the last of the Amazon rain forest is finally torched. Fortunately, that uncontrolled experiment will come to an end within the next 10-20 years and we should know the results soon. Could be a hard lesson though....
Hence the debate is largely about politics and money, in my opinion and not about good science.
I also never said there is a vast democratic party conspiracy. There could very well be a republican party conspiracy supressing science for human induced global warming, which would be par for the course if you believe this is all about politics and money.
But this game is played by so many DOGMATICS like my friend here, and politicians that the whole question of human induced climate change has become a circus act.
http://www.wunderground.com/education/hoax.asp
The above thread, if you like conspiracy theories is probably the only area where I and the current presidential administration agree on. The models need better measurements, which means more funding for better space, ocean and land gear to measure not just CO2 but solar radiation and vulcanism and other problematic gases such as methane. The rest of the report is dubious at best, and is a great example of how both political parties in the US distort the facts.
I think the models used for atmospheric regulation are indeed on the right track. But with computers, GARBAGE IN equals GARBAGE out, and better more refined measurements of the dynamics of global climate change need to be more precisely measured to start improving atmospheric modeling before we take any steps.
Problem is, not a whole lot of money in building a "Biosphere Sensor GRID" as it would cost a lot of money to operate. Hence, that won't see the light of day anytime soon.
I personally think, that the Kyoto treaty for example is nothing but vieled attempt to keep the 3 billion of that can't find enough food on a daily basis in check.
The protocol also seems to be a bit whacked if not unrealistic. For example, if your in the minority like I am, and believe that the Biospeher could probably help moderate climate change to a tolerable degree (Like it has always done throughout history which is a given and no research is needed..), then the Kyoto accord is worthless. I specifically site the protcols lack of real direction for developing nations, which are the ones ironically destroying most of the biospeheres carbon regulation capabilities: Translation: Stop cutting down the trees.
The whole protocol is borked, instead focu
"In fact, they are totally made up. We don't need any more direct observational data or longer observation time to know what the current CO2 removal rate is. If you think we need more, show the calculation of how much more we "need"."
.5% for example.). It is clear in simple lab experiments that methane and oxygen do not get along very well. I won't go into the specifics, you can read about the corellation between oxygen and methane concentrations in the atmosphere anywhere online. The research is crude, but it warrants more time spent at the real possibility there would be a lot less oxygen to breathe, not that we would be poisoned by methane. I think it is obvious what would happen if methane rose to one half a percentage point in the atmosphere.
Of course the numbers are made up. I can't tell you those things because no good models exist. They are all crude, and don't predict squat. HENCE THE REASON FOR MORE STUDY MORE PLATFORMS, BETTER SENSING GEAR. You believe we know everything there is to know about CO2, without question.
That my friend is dangerous, and its called "DOCTRINE." Unfortunately DOCTRINE follows DOGMA and anyone out there that has questions about CO2 are politely showed the door in University Departments around the United States, or pushed under the rug along with a whole MOUNTAIN OF QUESTIONS that need to be answered about CO2 recycling.
I am just another victim here.
"Your logic is broken. Just because worst-case scenario Y is worse than worst-case scenario X doesn't mean that we shouldn't worry about X.
Incidentally, the lack of mass extinctions over the last tens of millions of years suggests that "releasing poisonous amounts of methane into the atmosphere" is not a common scenario. Releasing enough to produce climate change is a different matter (and what makes you think we don't know anything about how methane is absorbed by the ocean?)."
I am not suggesting methane release is a common scenario. I also was talking about temperature increase. I didn't say I did not care about CO2 emissions. You are making the assumption that just because I pointed out that methane is a possible scenario, I do not care about CO2 and we shouldn't worry about it.
I am not talking about "poisonous" amounts of methane. You do not need that much. I am talking about, very small amounts, (i.e.
I do think we have a good understanding of what is the better green house gas and why in comparing CO2 and methane, I will challenge anyone on that fact and the experiments to that effect are simple enough for a high school student.....well, a far east high school student, not a US one. We would need some sort of picture pages to make that totally clear I think.
I would also like to point out, that you presume way too much. There hasn't been enough study to verify your statement:
"Incidentally, the lack of mass extinctions over the last tens of millions of years suggests that "releasing poisonous amounts of methane into the atmosphere" is not a common scenario."
I think it is dubious at best to make such a statement, that atmospheric changes in composition has not played some part in all biospehere diversity events. I will point out, compared to CO2 release or cycling, methane is far more powerful in increasing surface temperature, is a very fickle gas as it doesn't last very long in the atmosphere and is even harder to track using geochemistry of any kind, in deep historical time.
Just how "fickle" however won't be known with the current scientific establishment we have right now in the US. The few crude studies done on this sort of scenario paint entirely different reasons for various major extinction events in history and how plants and animals died. (i.e. for example Deccan traps event, KT boundry just too name the most popular ones that are studied because they make money for the discovery channel or can make money on the discovery channel, public radio, or any other pop culture science program on today.)
"Wow, more made-up numbers. 50 platforms. 300 years. Let's see that calculation. Considering that you apparently don't know anything at all about CO2 sink rates, this should be amusing. "
I didn't throw those numbers out as an exact number. I was being....GENEROUS in pointing out though that with such crude computer models of CO2 and atmospheric knowledge as we have right now, we need more direct observational data be it 50 or a 100 such platforms. We need more AND a longer observational time.
If it serves your purpose, I mean to say we just need more data to figure out where the CO2 is comming from, how the oceans absorb volcanic activity and better space weather platforms.
I do not believe we have the technology yet to make such platforms, but that is a different arguement we can explore. With the research on the ISS we are doing, maybe in another 30-50 years...maybe we culd have the technology. But, I think there is plenty of evidence that current climate "experts" presume way too much about human induced climate change simply because it furthers research dollars and a cushy tenure. Its BS.
My biggest concern is: Since we know so little about what is underneath the oceans in volcanic activity, what do you think would happen if a 50 mile wide outpouring of molten Lava anywhere in the vicinity of a Methane ice trap would do?
I am not specifically talking about methanes ability to trap IR EM band type energy better than CO2 either. That in itself could be incredibly damaging to the enviroment.
What I am specifically talking about is Methanes ability to remove free oxygen from the atmosphere with ruthless efficiency. What do you think that would do to the Ozone production in the atmosphere?
Quite frankly I could give a rats ass about a 5 degree temperature increase world wide. Who the hell cares about the temperature increase when you can't breathe.
Nobody that I know of talks about these sorts of things because methane isn't a money maker. Would you believe we have better sensors on the MARS express probe to detect methance on mars than we do on any Earth based sat platform right now, excluding the ISS?
Why do you think that is?
-Hackus
"Pinatubo did emit a lot of aerosols which cause cooling, and which, like all aerosols, get flushed out of the atmosphere within a few centuries. (By contrast, CO2 takes centuries to flush.)"
Statements like this are not only diatribe, but impossible to prove.
We haven't had sat data for centries to backup your statements, in fact most of your statements are simply temporally unproven. There is no way we understand the carbon cycle on this planet to that detail to see how much carbon gets recycled at what rate to say "Oh its just a couple of centuries."
Every friggin year they are revising the global climate change probabilities for climate change, depending on who kisses what ass to get a paper published in Science or Nature.
Your head is up your rear end and your telling me I MAKE UP FALSE DATA?
You do not need data to see how stupid a statement like:
"Pinatubo did emit a lot of aerosols which cause cooling, and which, like all aerosols, get flushed out of the atmosphere within a few centuries. (By contrast, CO2 takes centuries to flush.)"
You don't have that kind of model detail or any sort of direct observational evidence to back that statement up. We haven't had the science or the equipment in orbit for the past couple hundred years to support that statement. In fact, sensing equipment is still fairly primitive and what we do have that is decent only went up in the past 3-4 years on the ISS, and that is just one sat platform. We would need about 50 such platforms operating continuously for about 300-400 years to even start getting a feeling for CO2 recycling rates in the Atmosphere.
I also didn't say Pinatubo emitted CO2. I said a Volcanic eruptions LIKE pinatubo CAN emit BOTH gases. (Sulphuric aerosols COOLING or CO2/Methane..etc WARMING.)
You obviously have a reading comprehension problem, like most indoctrinated science idiots who worship at the altar of the Gods: Hypothesis, Experimentation, Conclusion.
Personally, I sometimes wonder who is worse. The Islamic Fundamentalists saying "Convert or Die." or large number of science "professionals" working really hard on a daily basis to put our species back into the stone age.
We are doomed.
-Hack
For every paper you can point to, I can point to another paper that contradicts your findings. SO I am not going to get into a paper citation pissing contest.
I am going to attack your statements only.
We do not have the data to support human induced climate change.
Your way out in left field to when it comes to your even most basic understanding of what can effect long term weather and climate patterns, with this statement you made:
"Both of those are known to be false. The Sun has a noticeable but minor effect. Vulcanism has a very small effect."
Remember Mount Penetubo in the early 1990's? "It was called the year without a summer in some parts of the world."
I remember it very well, it was June, 28th and the temperature in Madison WI was 68 degrees. Just a BIT OFF from the norm of 77-79.
Just ONE eruption lowered global temperatures for two years by almost a full degree point.
Climate disruptions were felt all around the globe for almost 5 years afterwards.
I don't call that a "small effect".
Your smokin crack guy. By far vulcanism and solar intensity drive long term and short term climate variations.
The only reason why it isn't undisputed yet is because we do not have the proper sensor gear in orbit around the earth to measure greenhouse gas sources in the oceans. That is a MAJOR gap in our understanding of how climate change works.
FOLLOW THE MONEY is what I say, and if you look at people say tha human beings are the cause of the problem it is because:
1) Thier tenure depends on it.
2) Have stock in the energy sector, or recieve funding in the government sectors for research into alternative energy.
3) Have shuffled a large amount of alternative view points under the rug that do not support 1 or 2.
(i.e. If it ISN't US we can't really do anything about it, so A No money to be made and B I don't want to upset the funding people.)
The oceans cover 75% of the surface of the planet. We don't know Jack whats going on down there either.
So I think I am going to stick with Global warming can be blamed on oceanic vulcanism both for source gas emissions and also water temperature impacts, which are a wild card (i.e. what happens when hundreds of square miles of molten rocks spills out on the ocean floor in direct contact with water.) and solar activity.
Just one volcanic eruption like Penetubo can inject more quanitities of green house gases, as well as gases that have an opposite effect, such as sulphur dioxide, into our atmosphere than the entire combined industrial age of man kind of burning fossil fuel cars, burning forests and industrial plant actitvity over the past 200 years since we started such nonsense.
Just ONE eruption of that scale.
Yeah, that certainly makes sense with your statement above indictaing Vulcanism has a "small effect".
Stop watching TV News and start doing some investigation yourself.
-Hack
"Ice cores don't actually indicate that, unless you mean the theory that perturbations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun affect the sunlight it receives.
/
Regardless, it's still a specious argument. There are many things that have had more influence on the climate than humans have. But that doesn't mean that the climate change caused by humans is of negligible impact on on human societies."
Wrong, flat wrong.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icecores.html
There are tons of direct evidence to relate solar activity in deep time to climate change using ice core data....data which was collected before we got here.
I would also like to point out, that I do not think it is coincidence that the earth is warming during a time when scientists are describing some of the most intense flare ups of solar activity since indirect/direct measurement began of space weather in the past 80 years.
Point out just one study everyone agrees that man has changed the climate. You can't find one, in the scientific literature. All of the studies I have seen make extremely large assumptions about cause and effect, and no one has been able to model these effects to produce the changes we see in the earths climate at the moment.
Like I said before, these so called "scientists" advocating climate change by man, can't even design a weather model that predicts or acccurate describes any future weather pattern we see on a daily basis without weather sat info.
I would also like to point out, that we have very little understanding about ocean volcanic events. In the next couple of decades we will be deploying sats that will be able to monitor COMPLETE volcanic activity under the oceans. Which besides Solar activity I think there is plenty of evidence in the fossil record and today, to suggest volcanism is playing a role in the earths warming as well and is the second major factor in climate change.
Not running your car, or cows farting or Al Gore saying cows farting is an inconvienent truth.
For the record, Al Gore is an idiot and should stick to politics and leave science alone.
"That is, again, a specious argument; predicting the weather is a very different problem from predicting the climate. Furthermore, why do you bring up being unable to predict the weather without satellites and such? Of course you can't predict much if you have no data. But in the real world, we do have data.
You are also comparing apples and oranges; you point out observational evidence of species extinction, and then turn around and compare it to predictive power in the future. Of course prediction is harder than observation. Try comparing observational evidence of species extinction to observational evidence of man's past and present influence on the climate."
Let me get this straight. You are claiming that predicting small weather patterns, or localized weather phenomina, has no correlation and is of no help in predicting large scale climate change?
You must have studied logic at a American Univerisity.
I am not comparing Apples to Oranges. There is a clear solar cycle pattern, every 10-12 years that directly corresponds with climate change.
http://www.intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/Library/1186
If you think human civilization can match the power output of a star to change a planets surface temp your just as brain dead as our "pretend to be climate advocate" Al Gore.
(Did I mention the guy is a moron and could care less about the environment? Check out the car he drives and the 12,000 square foot mansion he lives in! Just the plane trips he takes to his book signings is probably killing all of us.)
"The fact that the Earth has been warmer and colder in the past has nothing to do with whether climate change is good for us as a species.
All that being said, I agree that biodiversity and other envir
I am not a big believer in the evidence for Human climate change. You can pull ice cores from the antarctic and find that the sun has far more influence on climate than man ever will.
I do however advocate that human change to the Biosphere on this planet, which I must say is becomming irreversible in its damage and scale, is going to be our undoing. Primarily, look at what people are doing to fresh water lakes....they are sucking them dry and whole seas of fresh water are literally disappearing from the sattellite images.
Unlike climate which has changed and will change long after we are gone, the number of species that are extinct and can be easily shown to be so through direct human action is far more convincing than climate change from scientists who cannot even forecast the weather properly even today without actually a camera in space looking at where it is going to rain tomorrow, let alone what cliamet will be in 10 -20 or even 30 years.
The planet earth, can probably support 500 Million human beings comfortably. The rest, shall we say....have to go.
If we do not do something about the sheer scale of our population, Mother nature I can assure you will step in and do the job.
All it takes is a super volcano, an asteroid strike or a "solar event" or any number of natural and very real forces of nature to enforce Mother Natures wishes.
All you looney climate people should wake up and realize what the real threat starts with our attack on the Biosphere.
Climate is really not the root cause. The earth has been MUCH warmer in the past, and much colder, without any people around so get over it.
-gc
Quite frankly nobody can be surprised at this.
The US I.T. skill set basically is composed of a bunch of people that buy "certificate training" on the weekend, and then push OK or CANCEL during the weekday.
Is it any wonder? How can you gain any introspective into systems that are as rigid and brittle as those of a closed source OS like Cisco's IOS or Windows, and really expect your I.T. department to do anything innovative?
American I.T. does exactly what the closed source products tell them to do, and you can't do more than that without the source.
If you want to consider possibilities, that are completely impossible in a closed source infrastructure, take a can opener to your brain and start using and building systems that come with source code and get crackin.
-Hack
Can I appeal to everyones common sense for a moment?
:-)
Your a civilization, a sentient race.
You have mastered and solved the distance problem between Stars and have decided to explore space.
(i.e. I am assuming that they would be like us, since we haven't solved the distance problem, we know it is impractical to do so, due to the time constraints of waiting for all the probes to return/radio signals etc. Using this train of thought, they wouldn't even try until they solved the distance problem, just like us.)
What would be your first mission?
I will assume like us, they are interested in other forms of sentient life.
Like us, I assume they will have technology to seek out star systems using automated telescopes for worlds that have chemical signatures that make it very probable higher forms of life exist there.
I am assuming they wouldn't systematically look at EVERY planet using a brute search such as what the professor is proposing.
Even WE can get spectrographic information about worlds now outside our solar system, I assume this for them would be a trivial problem to automate a search.
Given this information, I think the professor needs to go back to the drawing board, as even WE wouldn't look for sentient life at the center of the milky way, for example, as we know active star regions are too violent to allow life to follow a undisturbed evolutionary/creationary cycle for sentient life.
(My Apologies to those who worship the dogma of science or those who worship the dogma of religion. For those of you in between and do both, congratulations your a sane human being.)
Again, if the scientific model of discovering information is truly the same no matter where you are in the Universe, I assume these assumptions hold true for any life, and that we are not special.
A intelligent search could be completed far faster than the quoted "billions of years".
I assume these Aliens have common sense enough not to use a intelligent sorting/search algorithm, unlike what the professor suggests. (i.e. What worlds have intelligent life? Mmmm..I know! Lets Bubble sort them into life vs. probably no life.)
I wish I could comment on our own search attempts. Ok I will.
SETI=Looking for Radio Signals=Wate of cash to the tune of over a billion and counting.
If the whole idea of looking for an advanced civilization using radio search methods hasn't dawned on anyone here as stupid, let me enlighten you with a few facts SETI doesn't want you to know about:
1) Radio waves are absorbed by just about any sort of gas or dust material. Don't believe me? Ever use your cell phone lately? Think its crappy listening to someone a few miles away? Try it a billion miles away.
The likely hood SETI is going to pick up a signal is so small, I wager 100 Trillion dollars later, they still won't have a signal.
-Hack
I think your missing the point.
Why do people have to make a profit when it comes to peoples health.
There is something....not quite right about that.
Primarily due to the fact it is making a coin from human misery, illness.
Capitalism is great for a lot of things, but it should be removed from the decision logic tree when it comes to peoples well being.
Otherwise we have a society like we have today, secret health care for the wealthy and the powerful, and public health care for the rest of us.
-Hack
Why does our society insist on making women do things more like men?
There seems to be some sort of predisposition by the academic elitist camps that are always suggesting, if women are not doing the same things as men they are repressed or are not given the chance.
I am getting tired of listening too it primarily because the topic always seems to be about how much STUFF a women can purchase vs a man can as a comparison to wealth. I think we have enough consumerism thank you very much to draw my own opinions.
Which is quite simple, women do not enjoy analytical thinking as much as men do. Men also do not enjoy organizing social groups as much as women do.
Thats my experience, and this fact has nothing to do with how much a women can buy to make her happy.
I would like to suggest, perhaps there is a DIFFERENCE between men and women, that is fundamental here in thinking styles and that what men enjoy isn't what women enjoy and vice versa.
I tried pointing this out once while I was an undergrad at the UW Madison campus and I was almost kicked off campus.
-Hack
I have to agree.
:-)
The audacity for a government to dictate to its citizens that unless you buy a product at X dollars, you cannot communicate with us is a obvious setup by Microsoft or its vast lobbyists.
There is just so many obvious free formats to use to do this, I refuse to accept that this was an accident, and wasn't a obvious coercion of some sort.
Secondly, you have to be a real ethically corrupt die hard EU Union rep not to see the ethics problems with this.
In the USA this is business as usual. For you Europeans...perhaps you are starting to learn that as a satellite of the USA Empire, you do what you are told.
-Hack
No, no I have not.
.net solution because as a independant consultant with my own practice, I have to defend myself quite often from customers who ask me "Why not .Net".
.Net solution, in addition to the support charges per hour. I just lay it out in front of the customer, compared to, Oh I don't know.....a Linux box with Tomcat and Java for example.
:-)
.Net solution which for most of my clients is $80K, vs $12K for a Linux solution.....I very much like the fact that I can save the customer a ton O cash....OR BETTER, the difference between the two figures goes into my pocket, not Ballmer & Co's.
But in my defense, I have investigated it, and I know what components are required for a
Thankfully, I do not have to think too hard when I start rolling out all of the tools, server hardware that Microsoft requires to license a
The customer looks at the two and just says....."Oh."
I just smile and get too work.
-gc
PS: Not too be overly sarcastic or anything, but if you take the average cost of a
Please C Quote #1.
And yes, I accept part of the responsibility of not leaving the job sooner.
However, my employer will have to accept the responsibility of paying Microsoft the thousands of dollars in tech support calls to solve endless problems with its products.
As for your suggestions........
I fail to C how 2 Microsoft servers will help matters accept for the fact that I will have to reboot TWICE as many servers TWICE as often.
Monitoring doesn't help when the thing would crash or lock up. Unless of course, you have a piece of software that could push the reset button.
No thanks.
-Hack
I will go further and suggest that this lawsuit is really about who owns the file content.
If the idea of ownership is the creation and using the data the product allows you to create, only by AutoCAD products, then, essentially, you do not own the data in AutoCAD format. The company does.
This will be borne out if a customer tries to reverse engineer the data, find that they cannot and therefore for all practical purposes the data becomes worthless because it is way to expensive to that information and rebuild it in another product.
By virtue of cost, this insures the data is owned, and effectively not changed without AutoCAD company authority.
So if AutoCAD can determine what you can do with the data, how it can be used for example because it cannot be moved, then you really do not own the data.
I don't wish to be pedantic or anything, but ownership means normally being able to do whatever you wish with your own data.
So in essence, you have given up ownership of some sort to AutoCAD of any of the information you produce with the program.
This sort of thing is unethical in my opinion, because it is equivalent to saying a carpenter owns your home because he built it with his tools and you cannot reproduce anything in the home with other tools except the carpenters if you wish to make a modification to your diagrams.
Sadly however, ethics are something time and again the US Court system seems to know very little about.
I expect the company to win this suit.
-Hack
1) A company that charges $150 per phone call for problems with its software, has no incentive to create decent software. In fact, they get paid to write poor software. .net as a "Business Solution" as if we are all just stupid and don't recognize it for what it is: A bloated Framework designed to sell more Microsoft servers and software and a feeble attempt to kill java. NOT a software framework to solve your business problems.
2) Standards in Web Design cost the industry Billions just to write specific Mikeysoft Explorer Code.
3) The free Virus/Malware kit features since 1998 that this company just can't seem to fix with all the PhD's it hires and fundamentally, doesn't understand why LINUX, SELinux are going to become the defacto standard in CIA and Corporate computing security.
4) The Endless nights of pages way back when I was a Mikeysoft dork admin, just to reboot a computer at 3AM, EVERY night for 2 years. Some things never change.
5) The balls this company has to push the industry
6)The whole Microsoft Office thing. Gad where do I start? How about Incompatible with Itself, specifically designed so that Excel 97 Macro's don't quite import perfectly into 2000.
7) DICTATING to everyone that Windows 2000 is no longer supported, we refuse to fix bugs in our software unless you upgrade. If you don't we do not care if 2000 meets your business needs, our shareholders demand you buy licenses for all your stuff AGAIN.
8) Reboot the OS everytime you make a friggin change. Reboot! Reboot! Reboot! Reboot!
9) Trying to Kill Linux with the whole trusted computing thing and working on proprietary BIOS'es. How SAD.
10) And last but not least....creating legions of Idiot Admins that can't do anything unless they are lead around by a OK or CANCEL button. God help them if they don't have a setup Icon someplace! One company who single handedly has put the US back into the Dark ages while the rest of the world MOVES ON without us.
-Hack
Thanks Mikeysoft for all the fun and thank god I left that fun to everyone else 12 years ago when I switched to Linux.
Interesting commentary on the .net stuff.
.Net isn't even a business solution. I think most people see it as a response from Microsoft product/marketing divisions to destroy Java and has nothing to do with providing tools to solve business or computing problems.
Mono is pretty much irrelevant to me.
What I can't understand, is people pick a Linux distro to avoid the heinous costs of doing business with Microsoft in the first place.
If I was a Novell exec and I knew this, why would I form a relationship with Microsoft and risk alienating my customers?
Something bizarre is going on here.
In any case, I am worried about this as 90% of my server infrastructure is SuSe and 10% Redhat/Fedora Core at the moment.
Who knows what went on behind closed doors with this stuff. Whats next? I have to load Active Directory on all my SuSe servers to log in?
This isn't going to be a long term positive thing for Novell. But before Novell bites it, the executives will get nice golden parachutes for thier efforts.
-Hack
"With the BSD license, you retain the rights to your software and you have the right to improve the software. Perhaps you should go read the BSD license agian?"
0 in%20Windows
Perhaps you should read my post again. I specifically didn't say BSD didn't provide you the means to imrpove the software, I said I want my rights to FORCE the improvement of the software. (i.e. if you use it, you can't close it off like you can with BSD and make it proprietary.)
"So taking away certain rights away from those that use your sourcecode is not a form of greed?"
Yes, the right to be greedy is taken away.
Very unpopular conception in this 5th and FINAL AGE of mankind, where there is NO God, life is cheap and morals are those positions best supported when they are most comfortable to do so.
"People every day reap the benefits of BSD software licensing, and fail to make the connection that it the source code and the lack of restrictions that allowed such widespread adoption of the things we takes for granted today."
Yeah, like corporations taking wholesale lots of code BSD style and contributing nothing, and essentially getting free labor.
I understand exactly what sweat shop labor is high tech style, and the BSD license is the best way to get there for corporate empires every where.
"Without that "Intelectualy property B.S.", the GPL would be nothing more than a plea to the people that download your source code."
True, but you quoted out of context. Intellectual property BS as in patents, which the GPL v3 actively seeks to destroy the current patent system for software.
The faster the patent system dies, the more software companies and innovation we will get.
"It's also not stealing because the license allows it. Also, the BSD license prohibits claiming that it's 'all yours'."
What is really the damn diff if a company includes the TCP/IP stack for windows from BSD Unix and doesn't share the source code?
In my opinion, stealing is the profiting of work from others without sharing the revenue or seeking to restrict rights that prevent others from competing.
BSD does this wuite nicely, and is the primary reason why as a license it has failed miserably, while the GPL has become the largest license for software in the world....and the most useful to those in developing countries who couldn't possible compete against corporate empires in the world today on BSD terms.
GPL levels the playing field by insuring everyone plays nice, regardless of the money exchanged for labor or services.
Which in the end, is what computing should be about: People writing great software and not Software Licensing.
"The Windows 2000 IP stack was not based on BSD code. If it was, it probably would have performed better."
tftv256 has pointed out that the winsock.h that comes with VC++6 also contains the Berkeley copyright notice.
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=BSD%20Code%2
Me thinks you have more homework to do.
There is BSD code all over the place in Windows, and not for the betterment of BSD the OS that I can assure you.
-Hack
"The argument then becomes, well if youre willing enough to sleep with someone then you should be willing enough to raise a family with them."
Man, are you on the left side of the spectrum or what?
If you have sex with someone, you have to accept the consequences of your actions.
Anything else is B.S.
There is a risk involved, (i.e. pregnancy).
If you can't handle the risk, put the thing back in your pants.
The biggest reason why we have these sorts of problems is this attitude I can do whatever the hell I want, and let society pick up the tab sorta mentality is crapola.
I for one would like to see laws that use the technology of genetics to make dead beat women/men pay child support to the single mom/dad if they find out the 5 minutes they spent in the sack isn't worth helping raise the kid. Including garnishing wages, or forced labor.
It is perfectly fine to care little or nothing for another human being you have sex with, if that is what you want. So be it.
But don't come off like its is my responsibility to pay for your poor, destructive and disgusting lack of compassion to the children of this world.
-Hack
BSD licenses suck.
:-)
I am sorry.
But there is no way I am going to publish anything with a BSD license unless I want to start a state run slave labor system for software engineers.
GNU is where Linux is, and consequently, where all the differences that matter are being made in OS technology and application design AND the new economy of complete knowledge of software systems.
Sorry, but I like retaining the rights to my software, and I want those rights to improve the software. Call it a protection against HUMAN GREED.
People have an inherent right to source code, they also have an inherent right to be paid for the labor they do...
AND more importantly, that labor shouldn't be able to be compromised in any way by stealing source code and incorporating it into software we now don't get the source code for, and are stuck with: ALA Micosoft's IP stack for Windows 2000.
If software is ever going to improve, the leachers have to stop stealing other peoples work, incoporating that work into software and then claim its all theirs and you don't get the source code.
People everyday reap the benefits of GNU software licensing, and fail to make the connection that its the source code and the restrictions to force people to PLAY NICE and not be greedy little thought police wishing to control our lives and wallets because they don't want us to see what the hell the machines are doing with our data.
All in the name of some kind of "intellectual property" B.S.
This is a scary world proprietary software is building, complete with voting machines which nobody knows how they work except the power brokers.
(Well, that and the Chinese investors who are funding a lot of the software for these "Voting Machines".)
Stop, refuse and just do not use proprietary or BSD software or more importantly, any software that doesn't allow you to see how it works, or even WORSE, BSD style licenses that do not force restrictions on individual who use it to ABUSE it, by not sharing the source code back into the community, or building bastard products that can be used to destroy our civil liberties, freedoms by conceiling how it works.
Sometimes in this industry I feel like the serfs....way back in the dark ages where anyone caught reading and wasn't a noble was run through with a sword.
(i.e. If you don't have a lawyer, and your reading the code you can end up in jail without a intellectual property agreement.)
BSD=Sucketh to the Maxeth.
BSD the OS is nice though, it just needs to be nicer and relicensed under the GNU License.
-gc
Sorry, couldn't resist.
"An open letter to antitrust, competition, consumer and trade practice monitoring agency officials worldwide."
"The role of trade practice and antitrust legislation is to provide the consumer with protection from abusive business practices and monopolies. In one of the most serous cases of monopolization in the information technology industry, the agencies charged with protecting the competitive process and the consumer have utterly failed to stem the offending corporation's anti-competitive practices."
Translation: Microsoft is a Corporate Citizen of the US empire. It has legally bought and installed judges, congressman and lawyers to insure its rights. These rights supercede any rights of any individual Private Citizen. Those rights not afforded to Microsoft can be and will be purchased in a court of law.
"The Microsoft corporation has been under continuous investigation by antitrust policing agencies since 1989. Despite this scrutiny, the Microsoft corporation, using covert and overt anti-competitive business tactics, has maintained an unabated campaign against alternatives to Microsoft Windows operating system platforms and Microsoft applications."
Translation: These are normal business practices. You have no case.
-Hackus
Do I look studpid?
I will have to check in the mirror again as I might be living in a different universe where my Linux boxes always have to be remotely rebooted on a weekly basis and my Windows machines have 400 days worth of uptime.
-Hack
The GPL is a method and a means to design, build and execute software engineering that is self sustaining, and allows others to contribute, pass those contributions on and be rewarded for thier labor in real cash.
Something the BSD style licenses doesn't do. (i.e. take our our code we don't give a damn we are your slaves.)
By forcing contribution back into a products process and life cycle, which is what the GPL does, better products are produced because people are allowed to build on each others work.
Patents and intellectual property laws as defined in the USA seek to prevent this, and in essence prevent new products from being built because Patents can be formed about the evolutionary processes of science, technology and human social interactions.
Whats worse, you don't even have to make a product, or a prototype of your idea. All you need is a bigger pile of cash than anyone else to enforce a patent filing.
I am all for the GPL v3, because it specifically attacks patent law and american corporate interests in such law as currently defined, and prevents said companies who participate in the open source engineering and scientific methods from destroying the communities creativity by attempting to inject code or ideas that restricts or prevent the use of open source software/ideas.
(i.e. Trusted Computing Nonsense, DMCA Act Nonsense)
This has a chilling effect on innovation. (i.e. look at ANY Microsoft product family and it is easy to see each product is designed to make you spend more money and lock you in rather than solve a business or scientific problem.) I point out, that there is no freaking way, a company like Microsoft should be writing anything about code quality procedures in their Hypocritical and quite hilarious "Microsoft Press" series of building better software. Oh yeah, I can see how that plays out in board meetings....
"Bill: Mmmmm, so....we are charging $150 an incident to fix our crappy software.....lemme see now.......why are we improving code quality again and how does that make good business sense to spend more money to produce better quality software?"
Another example is the current pathetic state of affairs with Display drivers for BSD, Linux, etc.
It is plain to see the only reason why a company would not release the drivers to old hardware (release the entire engineering spec to the public domain) it wholly owns and no longer supports, and is like selling less than 2% of thier product family per year (i.e. ATI's 9250 series etc) is because the whole patent/intellectual property system is nothing but a scam.
If you don't think ATI or Invidia purchase each others products, reverese engineer them to see how they work and or have employees that use to work at either company currently working for one or the other you are living in dream land.
In truth, the intellectual property laws don't prevent stealing but ACTIVELY ENCOURAGE IT. Even though ATI or Nvidia copy or reverse engineer their designs, they don't have to worry about being caught. Priamrily due to the fact that in order for either one to figure out if either has reveresed engineered or copied a design, they would have to reverse engineer the product in the first place which is against the law. Any employee that squeals about it too breaks the law, so it cannot be used in court.
Sheer rubbish.
This sort of circular logic and reasoning specifically built into the USA Patent system was put there for a reason. That reason is to lock up markets for decades and prevent new companies from forming.
The only way companies can grow in the USA is to purchase other companies that already have enourmous amounts of market share or by purchasing a patent, not really a product.
New companies that startup are hard to find, and it isn't because there isn't a market for a better OS.
Thats why we have crappy software, with only 1 primary vendor for an OS in the USA for example.
There is NO POSSIBLE WAY for a company in the U