Let's see...spend four years in college, another year getting a masters, another four years getting a PhD, and another two years doing post doc research. Then make 40,000 a year teaching at a B level university for the next ten years. If you get tenure then your pay goes up to 80,000, but most likely you don't get tenure and end up effectively getting fired.
OR work go to business school and make 250,000 your first year out of college.
I'm sure the world's climate scientists are all just in it for the money.
Certainly they would get a lot more money to prove that global warming wasn't real despite the fact that CO2 concentrations are way higher than they have ever been in the last ten thousand years. Fixing global warming will cost certain companies billions of dollars, although with carbon trading the economy as a whole doesn't really suffer. Even still though, I'd bet the big companies would be willing to pay a people a lot of money to say the problem isn't real, no?
Anyone notice how when everyone was saying global warming was seven or eight years ago, Slashdot was all for the Kyoto protocol. And now that the tide of scientific consensus is overwhelmingly saying that global warming exists and is a real problem, Slashdot is now saying it's fake?
Hint: Just because something is unpopular doesn't make it right. This is why people dislike nerds.
I'd recommend Undercover by Orbicule. It runs continuously in the background, and if your laptop is ever stolen then you call up the company and they set it to transmit it's location every time it connects to a network. Of course since my laptop has never actually been stolen I can't really tell you whether it works or not.
What this really means is that global warming is already even worse than it appears, because it is being offset somewhat by temporary smog.
As for the water vapor, water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas. When the earth gets warmer more water vapor is in the atmosphere. The reason we don't know exactly how warm it will get is because we don't know exactly where the water vapor sits in the atmosphere yet. However, just because water vapor is a greenhouse gas doesn't mean that humans aren't causing global warming. Far from it. Water vapor is just a magnifier of human activity, and is the reason why relatively small increases in CO2 in the atmosphere are having such a huge effect on global temperatures.
The poll wasn't taken by Environmental Defense, they are just reporting it. I believe the poll was done by Pew or someone similar. Also, while the article calls them an advocacy group, Environmental Defense employs more PhDs than any other environmental group. You can see their past acheivements and mission statement on their website if you want a better handle on their biases and what they believe.
There is no way that we can get by without coal power any time soon. What we can do is install scrubbers on top of the stacks and filter the fine particulates out of the air. This way there is still greenhouse gas, but at least kids aren't getting asthma attacks on the soccer field. Then once we have alternative power in place we can work to phase out fossil fuels.
There is a great new Ad Council campaign on global warming. There are two ads available online, here and here. What's even cooler is that every single one of the scientific claims made in the ads is documented at fightGLOBALwarming.com. The campaign itself is non-political, the goal is to teach people what actions they can take themselves without the government needing to pass new laws.
Also of note, there is a new movie starring Al Gore coming out soon. It features him traveling around the country giving talks on climate change. Anyway, as Salon said this morning, all revolutions begin with hope, not despair. And there is every reason to be optimistic here.
That's funny, there is a bug is Tiger where the arrange-by-kind option doesn't work with desktop icons. Instead of sorting the icons by type and lining them up, it snaps them to random locations on the desktop. When I went to the Apple store to try to get it fixed they "genius" told me that arrange-by-kind was just a feature Apple made for stupid windows users, and that cool Apple users shouldn't be using it anyway. Currently if I create a new account my laptop won't let me log into it. It always tells me that the password is wrong, even if there isn't a password for the account! Same deal with the geniuses. Apple's approach with me has always been, "yeah well the cool kids don't use this feature anyway." Lame.
The "killer apps" of tomorrow's mobile infocom industry won't be hardware devices or software programs but social practices. --Howard Rheingold
In his recent essay, Paul Graham pans Web 2.0 because it can't be used to make predictions. Paul is right; the reason is that we have been classing Web 2.0 by its technology instead of its social implications.
Because, really, who gives a shit about technology? I don't care about technology, I care about me. I don't want to know how Web 2.0 will get me AJAX, I want to know how Web 2.0 well get me laid.
When caught in the throes of our meme 2.0 ideations, it should be the social over the technological that inspires. When we do this, not only can we make falsifiable predictions, but we can make actionable business plans and compelling emotional appeals as well.
So if you think it's too late to start a billion dollar AJAX business... You're right. But don't worry; the revolution isn't over, it's barely begun.
From reading your response it sounds like your problem is self-confidence more than anything else. Don't overthink this stuff because then you'll only convince yourself that it's BS. I know that goes against everything the book of Slashdot teaches, but just trust me on this one.
I used to have this problem, but then I just realized I didn't know what to look for. Like me, I'd guess you just have a bad case of Slashdotters. Here are a few signs for starters:
For girls you are seeing across the room: She plays with her hair, licks her lips, smiles at you, will make eye contact with you.
For girls you are interacting with: You squeeze her hand and she squeezes back, you ask her a question and she asks you the question back, you touch her arm and she doesn't flinch or move away, she compliments you on anything, you look like you are going to go somewhere and she asks if she can come, she laughs at your jokes, you walk away and she is waiting for you when you return, she is the one to initiate conversation with you, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Why Pennsylvania? Do you associate intercourse with brotherly love?
Fine, but compare today's discussion to what people were saying on Slashdot about global warming in 1998.
Of course back then Slashdot was about Linux, military technology, and Jon Katz, so the demographic may have changed somewhat over the years.
The government agency in charge of US security runs windows?
What next, making Ron Jeremy the pornography czar?
Actually by Slashdot by meant the consensus of Slashdot readers, rather than the website itself. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
What would the state have to gain by promoting global warming? Is everyone on Slashdot insane?
Let's see...spend four years in college, another year getting a masters, another four years getting a PhD, and another two years doing post doc research. Then make 40,000 a year teaching at a B level university for the next ten years. If you get tenure then your pay goes up to 80,000, but most likely you don't get tenure and end up effectively getting fired.
OR work go to business school and make 250,000 your first year out of college.
I'm sure the world's climate scientists are all just in it for the money.
Certainly they would get a lot more money to prove that global warming wasn't real despite the fact that CO2 concentrations are way higher than they have ever been in the last ten thousand years. Fixing global warming will cost certain companies billions of dollars, although with carbon trading the economy as a whole doesn't really suffer. Even still though, I'd bet the big companies would be willing to pay a people a lot of money to say the problem isn't real, no?
Anyone notice how when everyone was saying global warming was seven or eight years ago, Slashdot was all for the Kyoto protocol. And now that the tide of scientific consensus is overwhelmingly saying that global warming exists and is a real problem, Slashdot is now saying it's fake?
Hint: Just because something is unpopular doesn't make it right. This is why people dislike nerds.
Because the world's climate scientists have so much to gain by tricking people into driving more fuel efficient cars.
I'd recommend Undercover by Orbicule. It runs continuously in the background, and if your laptop is ever stolen then you call up the company and they set it to transmit it's location every time it connects to a network. Of course since my laptop has never actually been stolen I can't really tell you whether it works or not.
What this really means is that global warming is already even worse than it appears, because it is being offset somewhat by temporary smog.
As for the water vapor, water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas. When the earth gets warmer more water vapor is in the atmosphere. The reason we don't know exactly how warm it will get is because we don't know exactly where the water vapor sits in the atmosphere yet. However, just because water vapor is a greenhouse gas doesn't mean that humans aren't causing global warming. Far from it. Water vapor is just a magnifier of human activity, and is the reason why relatively small increases in CO2 in the atmosphere are having such a huge effect on global temperatures.
In short, this article == full of shit.
If millions of people know you, isn't that the definition of famous?
That was so long ago. That kid must be like 30 by now.
You think individual cold days disprove Global Warming, and you are calling who an idiot?
The poll wasn't taken by Environmental Defense, they are just reporting it. I believe the poll was done by Pew or someone similar. Also, while the article calls them an advocacy group, Environmental Defense employs more PhDs than any other environmental group. You can see their past acheivements and mission statement on their website if you want a better handle on their biases and what they believe.
There is no way that we can get by without coal power any time soon. What we can do is install scrubbers on top of the stacks and filter the fine particulates out of the air. This way there is still greenhouse gas, but at least kids aren't getting asthma attacks on the soccer field. Then once we have alternative power in place we can work to phase out fossil fuels.
There is a great new Ad Council campaign on global warming. There are two ads available online, here and here. What's even cooler is that every single one of the scientific claims made in the ads is documented at fightGLOBALwarming.com. The campaign itself is non-political, the goal is to teach people what actions they can take themselves without the government needing to pass new laws.
Also of note, there is a new movie starring Al Gore coming out soon. It features him traveling around the country giving talks on climate change. Anyway, as Salon said this morning, all revolutions begin with hope, not despair. And there is every reason to be optimistic here.
That's funny, there is a bug is Tiger where the arrange-by-kind option doesn't work with desktop icons. Instead of sorting the icons by type and lining them up, it snaps them to random locations on the desktop. When I went to the Apple store to try to get it fixed they "genius" told me that arrange-by-kind was just a feature Apple made for stupid windows users, and that cool Apple users shouldn't be using it anyway. Currently if I create a new account my laptop won't let me log into it. It always tells me that the password is wrong, even if there isn't a password for the account! Same deal with the geniuses. Apple's approach with me has always been, "yeah well the cool kids don't use this feature anyway." Lame.
From something I wrote on this subject:
The "killer apps" of tomorrow's mobile infocom industry won't be hardware devices or software programs but social practices. --Howard Rheingold
In his recent essay, Paul Graham pans Web 2.0 because it can't be used to make predictions. Paul is right; the reason is that we have been classing Web 2.0 by its technology instead of its social implications.
Because, really, who gives a shit about technology? I don't care about technology, I care about me. I don't want to know how Web 2.0 will get me AJAX, I want to know how Web 2.0 well get me laid.
When caught in the throes of our meme 2.0 ideations, it should be the social over the technological that inspires. When we do this, not only can we make falsifiable predictions, but we can make actionable business plans and compelling emotional appeals as well.
So if you think it's too late to start a billion dollar AJAX business... You're right. But don't worry; the revolution isn't over, it's barely begun.
It would normally be inappropriate, except for the fact that she writes about sex for a living makes her kind of an exception.
Gabe and Tycho would be proud. Especially Gabe.
Do you have a source on this? Your low UID makes me less inclined to trust you on these matters.
From reading your response it sounds like your problem is self-confidence more than anything else. Don't overthink this stuff because then you'll only convince yourself that it's BS. I know that goes against everything the book of Slashdot teaches, but just trust me on this one.
I used to have this problem, but then I just realized I didn't know what to look for. Like me, I'd guess you just have a bad case of Slashdotters. Here are a few signs for starters:
For girls you are seeing across the room: She plays with her hair, licks her lips, smiles at you, will make eye contact with you.
For girls you are interacting with: You squeeze her hand and she squeezes back, you ask her a question and she asks you the question back, you touch her arm and she doesn't flinch or move away, she compliments you on anything, you look like you are going to go somewhere and she asks if she can come, she laughs at your jokes, you walk away and she is waiting for you when you return, she is the one to initiate conversation with you, etc.
Is there even a story here? This is possibly the most content-free Slashdot post ever.