Actually, I can live without the internet. However, I really do need food in order to keep living. Monsanto's evil deeds or forcing farmers to destroy seed banks because of a neighbor's negligence or wind drift is of concern. If every year a farm has to buy seed from Monsanto rather than banking, then food prices go up. With monocrops comes greater vulnerabilities to diseases, blights, etc - and thus greater need for pesticides and other artificial inputs, driving up food costs. Heck, with their ability to go after an individual's garden, thus forcing them to buy products produced by farmers who were forced to buy Monsanto's product after a violation was found by Monsanto's agents trespassing on a farmer's property, food costs will go up. When food becomes unaffordable, I worry. If the internet gets priced out of my range or locked down (as I suspect it will), I can find alternatives. So, yes, we should be more worried about Monsanto's evil deeds than the internet disappearing - though both are important issues.
The contamination in the documentary I saw came from the spill of a careless neighboring farmer. Monsanto trespassed onto the farmer's property to collect samples and shut him down. They also go after seed bankers - people who process grain into seeds for the next year. You see, due to the patent any seeds from the plants are technically Monsanto's because you didn't pay a license to plant their genetically modified crop. Fewer and fewer farmers now bank their own seeds to plant for the next year, instead having to rely on buying seeds from Monsanto and other agricorps every year. They forced one man to discard his entire set of seeds, a strain that his ancestors helped cultivate - a tragedy for the genetic diversity of our crops.
The same is happening with maize in Mexico - monocrops are creating vulnerabilities where a genetically diverse but lower yield planting are no longer viable or ripped out when "infringing" fields are found. Yup, doesn't matter if the wind carried it from a neighbor's property onto yours without your knowledge - it is still infringement. My analogy? A neighbor owns a book of poems, rips out the pages, and the wind blows it into your back yard - then the publishing company sues you for copyright infringement because you didn't pay for your copy of the poem you now possess in your back yard. Oh yeah, in the analogy you don't go into your back yard, so you didn't even know you have it.
The most frightening thing to me is this: the precedent being set also influences individuals. If you grow a food garden, any contamination could put you in violation of their patent - meaning paying thousands of dollars and only growing plants that are from seeds you buy from Monsanto each year. I know, why would Monsanto ever go after the individual like that - after all, its not like the RIAA or anyone is getting away with extorting individuals for thousands of dollars by threatening much more costly lawsuits against them, right?
As for "decency", how do you know this wasn't an automated price setting based on number of purchases, in which case the ones to blame are the hyenas who rushed to the scene to buy the music of someone they never gave a fuck about when she lived?
I didn't get very far in economics, but I always thought the more units you sold meant the lower the unit price could go due to scales of economy. Now I know scales of economy don't work with a digital good in the same way - after all, you probably have a fixed price for transmitting it over the internet and giving the device a license to play the song (plus a minimal future expected cost of allowing them the right to activate it on a few devices in the future, which have minimal bandwidth usages), thus there is no savings by increasing unit production.
However, digital music is not a tangible good and thus can have a nearly infinite quantity (ie, limited only by the bandwidth of the selling service, which would mean all songs on the service should increase if bandwidth was reaching maximum usage, not just one subset), thus there is no scarcity issue to drive up the price. Supply should always exist to meet any demand. Thus with infinite supply, cost should either remain steady or go down.
The only way I can see the company actively choosing to increase the cost is to increase their profits on an arbitrary basis. Okay, maybe not so arbitrary - maybe the stigma of the artist drove down the price, but Sony recognized the stigma was removed upon death (as people seem to be adverse to holding their bad opinions of when people die, Hitler and several other dictators being the exception to this rule) and restored their normal pricing structure. After all, I doubt that Vanilla Ice or Milli Vanilli sell as well as Adele or Lady Gaga right now, but who knows - maybe if Vanilla Ice had a horrible tragic death then there would be a resurgence in his sales that would result in a normal pricing structure.
However, for now I will just think of it as Sony price-gouging based on a blip of popularity due to an artist's tragic death.
Tablets have been called a niche item since the days of Tablet PCs - my killer tablet? What I have been crying for all along, a digital artist's tablet. This means a higher resolution screen (better than 1280x800 - try more like a full 1080p screen resolution so that most programs will work in portrait - and preferably in a 4:3 format), dedicated graphics (many digital art programs benefit from this), a Wacom digitizer, and a dual battery design so you can carry a couple of extra cells and swap them out without having to power down.
That is the problem most Tablet PC manufacturers made. They thought they could make a device for the business world that would replace the very low cost and versatile pen/pencil and paper. No tablet will ever be as thin as paper, so carrying a dozen tablets and spreading them out will never work (and there are many times when people want to look over several sheets at once and "100% zoom"). However, if they had focused on the artist and the art student, created a series of specialty pens that had the look and feel of traditional media (a square "charcoal/pastel stick", a fine brush, a wide brush, etc) then marketed it as "get unlimited art tools and supply for only $1500, and carry your entire studio in you bag" or "never worry about using hazardous chemicals to clean up, just click save and go" then they might have had a chance.
Anyway, there is my take on it. You want to differentiate yourself on the market? Think who would benefit from a pen input and design the system around them. I don't want an over-bloated eReader with LCD screen. I don't want a dumbed-down laptop. I don't want a walled garden of apps that only some single company wants to restrict myself to. I don't want a giant smartphone that doesn't work as a phone. I want a portable digital art studio, and I do believe that pen input tablets are the ideal solution. A shame not one company had the foresight to create one.
That makes me wonder how they would handle the rental market. If they make special disks that can be used with full features from machine to machine, then what is to stop rental places from buying tons of copies, making their money on each, then selling them used for extra profit? If they don't make special disks, then only the first renter would get the full content - thus making renting pointless.
This may be a good time to use the low-tech equivalent to check the validity of the arguments. I don't know anything about the two apps in question, but ask yourself this: at what point would a variant of the board game Monopoly be different enough to ensure Parker Brothers couldn't sue you? Would be keeping the same rules, same basic board layout, and same "props" (player tokens, money, property cards, dice, and two decks of event cards) while changing the color, name, and art style of those keep you from being sues? For example, could I make the tokens space ships, the properties different star systems, the money "space credits" that use plastic coins instead of paper bills, and use public domain images of the star systems and call is "Stellar Baron" and not get sued?
Now back to the user interface. If this was the user interface of an operating system, would the original OS UI maker have a court case? What if it was a general application interface? What about making a knock-off of Farmville in the same manner... or replicating its mechanics with a new graphical interface and naming convention - would the developer of the game get sued, and would it be successful?
Finally, if there is a lawyer in the house, what court cases have set precedent in these areas? Honestly, I do not know the answer to these as law is not my field of study. However, I do know I need to know the history of how courts have ruled before I can say whether this is a legal violation or not. (My personal bias: I believe large companies have successfully sued, while small independent game developers of boardgames often have not - but this is based only on a one week investigation into the board game developer career.)
Imagine if Google went "dark" - I bet our politicians use many of their services. Imagine if google search, google+, gmail, youtube, and so forth for a 24 hour period was reduced to a simple message that this is what SOPA may result in on a more permanent basis. I think that would send the message loud and clear - but why would google loose all that revenue? After all, if the big guys like Google and Facebook wanted to stop SOPA they would just put the money into lobbyists. (My suspicion, they are paying lobbyists, but since they believe the government wouldn't take them down while taking down their competitors, guess which way I suspect they are trying to influence the vote). The Wild West days of internet are fading fast, but not because the internet is getting deeds - its because Intellectual Property laws are giving away deeds to concepts and ideas.
Depends on when they are releasing the LTS versions. After all, it doesn't do me a whole lot of good if it comes in middle of the semester - and I agree with other posters, 2 or 3 years might be nice to have. Oh well, at least Firefox is easy to sequence for App-V.
It does bother me a bit that Nature (the journal, not the mom) is continuing to take a very politically polarized editorial stance. They're really egging on the creationists (pun intended, I guess).
The result, they say, is a challenge to proponents of intelligent design who maintain that complex biological systems can only have been created by a divine force.
And to intelligent-design proponents, Thornton adds, the results say that “complexity can appear through a very simple stepwise process — there is no supernatural process required to create them.”
I think I am missing something in the reading. I hear that ID (Intelligent Design) proponents want biology classes to teach their beliefs, specifically that cells are too complex to have evolved in a stepwise fashion and that evolution is "just a theory" (kind of like gravity is "just a theory", using the colloquial definition of theory that means guess rather than the scientific definition of theory which is a hypothesis that makes a prediction and has not been proven false yet through many, many, many repeated tests throughout many, many, many independent laboratories). The comments I read are a direct addressing to their statements.
In other words, if someone says "thunder and lightening are only the direct product of the gods fighting and forging in their realm in the clouds," then you are not egging them on when you recreate lightning in a laboratory and say "gee, then either I am a god or your hypothesis has been proven false."
ID proponents argue that complexity can only exist due to a powerful creator. They don't say "God" directly, because they lost that court battle - and I have yet to see any on them say we were created by visiting aliens. The scientists stated that they produced it in their lab by allowing natural processes to occur. Two obvious choices bubble up to the top: 1) you state the hypothesis has been falsified in part (again), and thus cast serious doubt on its scientific validity OR 2) the scientists are actually powerful creators that willed the protein into existence by the mere power of their divine or beyond-human nature, in which case we should probably seriously consider worshiping them as Creators lest they unmake us. There are other possibilities, but these are the two big ones that come to mind.
A book high on my next to read list is "Doubt is their Product" by David Michaels. Doubt has been sold to the American public many times - with lead based products (paints, gasoline, etc), synthetic hormones (DES - used with postmenopausal women, pregnant women, in chickens, and beef because "animal tests do not equate to humans" and industry science with no controls and conducted in improper ways outweighed the significant amount of existing non-industry research at the time; BPA), chemical additives (like in microwave popcorn), with tobacco products, with anthropogenic climate change (how can anyone think the amount of vegetation we have clear cut didn't impact our climate in some shape, form, or manner, but can see how a forest fire does?), and even with evolution. There does not need to be contention in the field - all you need to do is hire some industry scientists to say what you want, then push those results out on the public media and say "see, there is a controversy over the issue." People in the US don't care, they believe what they see and read in popular media. This is a tried and true tactic used by industry for quite some time - sell doubt where there is none. Unfortunately, scientists make poor speakers and so many in the US make their decisions based on "the Bible says so, and it says in the Bible that it is the word of God so it must be true" - so whenever a scientist responds to an accusation made by ID and creationism they are "attacking religion", but when religion makes statements that refute generations of scientific research they are merely "stating their beliefs and asking f
anything that appears to support your idea that you're in a climate crisis is valid data. Anything that does not is pooh-pooh'ed away
Ah, yes - because every time it snows I never hear the climate change deniers say "where's your climate change now", but when we're in Wisconsin yet again without any snow and temps in the 40s they immediately say "ah, here's your climate change".
However, I do agree with the point that one region's local weather does not equate to the global mean temperature - so, yes, this is weather and not climate. However, read the peer reviewed research and you will get a nice picture of the climate and how it is changing... and study some history and you will learn that climate change has wiped out civilizations in the past.
Didn't read the responses yet, but as a long-time tablet PC I will advocate the following:
If on a budget and one of you is rather computer savvy, go to ebay and look for a Toshiba M400. It should cost less than an iPad, you get a dual core processor, and Journal Writer will have all your note taking needs (or OneNote). If you don't have outlets, then you need to invest a couple of hundred into something like a Tekkeon universal battery and extra battery to give you several hours battery life - but should still cost about the same as an iPad 2 (but have a stylus and the ability to run full applications)
The HP TM2 I own can actually run Civ V (I have the dedicated graphics model with a mobile i5 chip from eBay, about $700 with 8GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, etc) - however, the digitizer is flaky and I am disappointed. If tech savvy, you can work with it, but I may be investing in some repair parts soon... of course, it was a factory refurb so it may have underlying issue.
Buy the Asus EEE Slate. No digitized graphics, comes with a bluetooth keyboard and an okay cover. Still can run ArtRage on it, but probably not Corel Painter. (Stupid Intel graphics... *grumble*). Go for the 64GB SSD model with 4GB RAM, its $100 more but well worth it. Hopefully you can find one... whenever I tried, none were available or only the 32GB SSD model was available.
I've looked at other solutions. HTC put out the Flyer, but the inking only works in certain programs and not with the general interface. It sucks, not worth it. I've even tried the PRS-T1 sony reader to buy ebooks since it allows inked notes, but it has a flaw where it starts flipping pages forward after a couple of hours use (on many models, including both mine and my wife's Reader). Really, if you are in school, there is no decent substitute for a good tablet PC.
The original comment of weather != climate was not quite accurate. Climate is defined as:
The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.
A region with particular prevailing weather conditions
Wikipedia opens with "Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count, and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods.
Your reflection based on memory over the last 30 years is admirable, but unfortunately not detailed enough in data for climatological study. We do have significantly longer periods of time where scientists have recorded daily highs, daily lows, precipitation, and other important data. That is the data they analyze. In an above post, I noted that if you go to WICCI you will see that daily highs in Wisconsin are actually falling. However, nightly lows are warming (when most are typically sleeping and not personally observing the differences in temperature), and general spring and winter warming trends are extending the growing season. This may sound great until you realize that this also benefits weeds and invasive species, which is not only a problem in ecological restoration but for growing crops.
Also, I take it you are refuting a few key pieces of scientific and statistical evidence based on the term "Magic Carbon Pixie believers". These would be:
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and thus has no effect on global temperatures. Thus, carbon dioxide levels had no influence on global temperatures.
That humans do not produce any carbon by burning fossil fuels, and that the measurements of carbon dioxide outputs are false and made up. After all, we could not measure the amount of emissions of a car and multiply it by the numbers sold, add the emissions from various power plants, and so forth to come up some sort of knowable amount of carbon output done by humans and calculate how that alters the levels in our atmosphere.
Scientists use to talk of "Global Warming" - which was a mean global temperature increase. You are right, no single warm event and no single cold event can be used to say 'see, global warming!' - instead, we look at long term trends and statistical probabilities. When we have many anomalous events in a later period over an earlier period, such as found in river flow rates during the Midwest floods of May-June 2008, we can say that it is fairly improbable that they occurred by chance and that there is good reason to believe there was an underlying cause to the unusual climate event. Finally, we no longer talk in terms of just "Global Warming". Climatologists have been trying to say there is more going on than just temperature changes, and thus have been for at least a decade talking of "climate change" (with many feeling this is anthropogenic-based climate change).
So which is it? Take some time out to do research with scholarly sources. Visit berkeleyearth.org to get a warming-skeptic's viewpoint (hint: he's the one in the media for confirming the warming trend despite being a skeptic) or talk to someone at a large public (typically land-grant) university who is a specialist in the field. Talk to your venerable weather man at your local TV stations, or maybe even local farmers (if you still have any left in your area). Many of these people research patterns that look for the 11 year sunspot cyclical period - and they will tell you that some climate variation does occur due to this. However, they do take these events into account when looking at longer term trends, and they have plenty of evidence that takes into account the noise of natural cycles. Don't worry, the noise will get drown out by the main signal - and then you won't have to worry about how we should mitigate climate change (it is probably too late for that), and then you can focus on how we are going to adapt to the inevitable changes that will occur.
If you can, sign up for a cheap university course so you can get access to databases of scholarly journals like JStor. Then start researching papers on climate change, and look at the studies. Also, feel free to look into sites like WICCI (Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts) to get free access to tons of peer reviewed resources.
Some examples of articles I have found doing a simple climate change paper on Southern Wisconsin:
"Phenological Changes Reflect Climate Change in Wisconsin" - Phenology is the study of annual biological cycles such as flowering, fruiting, migrations, and reproductive cycles. Of the 55 cycles studied, 1/3 were occurring earlier in the season, 1/3 are non-respondent (such as those based on photoperiods for regulation), and 1/3 lacked statistical significance to be a trend. These include such things as ice melt on Lake Mendota, arrival of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, blooming of the Forest Phlox, and even satellite photosynthesis analysis (Bradley et al, 1999)
"The 2008 Spring Midwest Floods: A Signal of Changing Climatic Conditions?" - Statistical analysis of flow rates of rivers in the Upper Mississippi River basin on 16 stations would have an expected 1-2 years of the last 21 years on a list of the top 5 major flow events. However, there are 6 with 3-4 years of the last 21 on that list, with 10 having 4-5 years of the last 21 years on that list. Also, when considering 90 day precipitation totals that exceed the 20-year average, the last 25 years has seen a 20% increase in the number of events over the prior 25 years (Strope and Budikova, 2011)
"Climate Change and Ecological Restoration at the Unive5rsity of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum" - The number of days exceeding 32.2 C has not statistically increased in the period analyzed (1950-2006), and in many areas of Wisconsin have actually seen daily highs decrease by 1.5C. However, first freeze occurs later in the year and last freeze earlier, meaning the growing season in Wisconsin has extended 1-4 weeks. Additionally, the number of days belove -17.8C have decreases and there has been statistically significant warming trends in overnight lows in summer and fall. (Glass et all, 2009)
So, yeah, I'm not hanging my hat on one study - but on many. When doing this paper I threw out anything before 1999 and I still only needed 2 pages of a simple database search to get 3 articles pertaining to my region. Imagine if I wasn't so selective (any climate change study back to any year of publication) how much research I could find. Climatologists have long since held a consensus about climate change, with a strong belief that it was anthropomorphic in causation. However, there are those who "teach the controversy" (to coin an Intelligent Design phrase) and persuaded many that there is none. In fact, if you look at the "lack of consensus" from scientists in general, then you have to also say almost no congressional vote was ever a "consensus" - for there is a far greater percentage of scientists that believe in climate change and anthropogenic-based climate change then there is needed to pass federal legislation. Think of it that way - if climate change was a bill, it would now be a law... or if laws were held to the same consensus as required by the public for climate change, then congress would have enacted almost nothing.
Makes me wonder - would they ever give the protein folding gamers a Nobel prize? Probably not - but they did make a significant contribution to science. Then again, maybe award it to the project to help it fund further crowd-sourced applications.
"This is all just a publicity stunt, seems to be working quite well..."
I hope so. A little consumer awareness of how products are produced during the entire life cycle is a good thing - even if only 1% of them actually react with any kind of empathy and start applying pressure on our their political systems. Why shouldn't social justice issues get more coverage? You make it sound like its a bad thing to discuss the implicit cost of our consumer society - costs that we do have some influence other.
The postal system is an archaic but necessary system - however, I think it should be scaled back. Personal to-your-door delivery service when most people drive everywhere? Why? Instead, limit home delivery routes to those who show a need - elderly, disabled, etc who cannot physically make it to a central depot. Then, create neighborhood depots This would reduce the number of employees needed, lower fleet costs (number of vehicles and fuel cost), and allow regular service days to be maintained. For example, in many small towns in the USA, the post office would be in walking distance - and in large urban areas like New York City you could expand the network so that it remains in walking distance for the majority of customers. (As an aside, maybe add a law that says any unsolicited mail can be returned to the sender at that companies cost... that would take care of the tons of junk mail shipped every day.)
If your into biofuels/fuel cells and looking for ways to make a better car, you might want to do Mechanical + Chemical engineering. Alternatively, if you were into alternative energy, I think Mechanical Engineering + a Wind Power associate-level certificate program might be a good way to go. If you are talking about creating control systems, you might like Mechanical + Computer Engineering. Computer Science is more about algorithm design and problem solving, optimization and complexity - it is a specialization of mathematics. I prefer to think of Computer Science more as Computational Theory. (There is also Software Engineering, which is different from Computer Science). I am only talking degrees here, not what type of career you get with the degree. Oh yeah, also don't forget the greater options of graduate school - there is a world of difference between an undergraduate course and graduate courses (although many upper level undergraduate courses and honors courses are also more fun and challenging). Then there is the certificate route - for example, at UW-Madison you could avoid the whole business degree route and get a business certificate, focusing on human resources for your electives (6 courses, 2 electives) with the intent of enhancing your opportunities at being a team supervisor. My final mistake I have made is not going for more internships and getting to know more people in the industry - they may be more beneficial than a second degree. Real-world experience is what you need on top of a degree - take a look at the hiring requirements of your field. Ever wonder how people at entry level jobs get 2-3 years experience? Internships.
I read a book about a year ago where they stated one of the original purposes of playground equipment was to help children learn risk-assessment. In other words, it wasn't meant to be 100% safe for all the kids - it was so kids could learn what risks they found acceptable and that sometimes when you fail there are moderately painful consequences. Now I have read stories about merry-go-round type playground equipment that didn't have the proper safety covering on them that caught a girls long hair and caused her injury - incidents like those are good reasons for lawsuits. However, when a child risks going down a slide face first and knocks out a tooth, then the parents and child should take personal responsibility for unsafe and risky use of the equipment. (Personally, I'm glad I had "dangerous" playground equipment when growing up - its so boring to be a kid now... no wonder so many stay inside playing video games.)
I was working towards this as my goal with my education, but looks like someone beat me to the punch. After all, why do we send kids home to work with parents and bore them with lectures during class time? More importantly, why does a physics professor have to come to a lecture hall of 200-300 students, half of which are on Facebook or reading a paper, when he can just make them watch it online? If you lecture live, a person has to hear it the first time you go through the material (I'm not a morning person at all... so a 8:50am lecture doesn't sink in for me) - with online you can play it when you are most alert and replay it if you don't get it the first time. Anyway, glad to see that at least one teacher gets that we need to rethink how we educate....
What are my most useful courses to date? Which has had the most significant impact on my life? I'd have to say English I (5 paragraph composition, which my wife taught me in 10 minutes and then I mastered over a semester) and Advanced Composition (the basic logic and style of writing arguments).
Course I have enjoyed? Introductory drawing (the only early morning class my mind could handle since it was mostly studio work), neurobiology: mechanisms and disorders of sleep, environmental dispute resolution (actually just dispute resolution/art of negotiation with exercises themed in environmental issues), cultural anthropology and human diversity (because of the professor - any professor that throws candy at you during a review session as long as you are asking a question to 'simulate the pressure of an exam' is awesome), global environmental issues and solutions (again, mainly for the professor, but also some of the most difficult writing I ever did - sum up that weeks reading, typically 200-400 pages, in one paragraph - use specifics to demonstrate you read the material and synthesize the material into a novel analysis), and current directions in contemporary art (my TA commented that the readings were at the graduate level, and the essay exams were synthesis and novel analysis - NOT regurgitation).
Courses I think all students should leave with? Basic understanding of the sciences - chemistry, biology, and physics - along with a second language. I use to think that language requirements were pointless, but I now understand that once you learn to think in another language, you learn to think in another manner.
I understand this is a lot of work, but don't view gen ed requirements as a restriction - view it as an opportunity to explore. It gives you a broader framework to draw upon, makes you more rich and diverse, increases your flexibility of though, and gives you unique insights that you could not achieve normally. Which course do you think you'll enjoy the most - the discrete mathematics, theory of computer science, and machine language courses you will take for your major or the exploratory liberal arts courses that challenge you in new and unique ways (like Scandinavian literature, Kendo, astronomy, bacteriology, 3D design, or writing in the wild - a creative writing course that takes you out into the wilderness)!
Heck, I have been struggling in my undergraduate work. I'm officially declared in biology with a neurobiology emphasis, with the intent of going into computer science. Since my start I have found I am more and more drawn to art and environmental issues (including issues of social justice). Where is this all leading? Last semester I took a course in Human Computer Interface (HCI) design - a field that draws on computer science, psychology, social science, and art. I will most likely follow suit of another student and design an HCI major for myself rather than complete my biology, computer science, or art degree,
As for what to do? Since you feel - and may well be - adequately skilled, perhaps you can come up with a few products to develop and become an entrepreneur. Employers often look for the diverse background that show you are a well-rounded person with interests that lie outside your field of expertise, and without a degree you job prospects are equally limited. However, with the right idea, you can be the boss - perhaps you should try that route.
If I recall, anyone who brings any form of material compensation (goods or supplies) to an organization that is a terrorist organization or supports a terrorist organization is in turn guilty of supporting a terrorist organization. What the US Government is trying to do is make it illegal to directly or indirectly support any organization they deem 'terrorist', with the original intent of cutting down the 'money pushers' - the people who procure funding under false pretense and transfer it to entities hostile to the US Government. Since many criminal organizations will have ties with organizations that either directly or indirectly support 'terrorist organizations', the US Government is probably fairly confident that they could draw a line of connection and thus find the company guilty. After all, $100k is a significant amount of money. [As to the post stating that this is BS post, it may be - but it does not change the thought-exercise component of this exercise... think about it: if the Red Cross provides humanitarian aid to members of a terrorist organization and you have donated to Red Cross, then you are guilty also. Welcome to the new USA - a little less liberty for a little more security.]
I am sure seismologists are like other scientists and talk in terms of the probability of an event happening - thus no scientist is every certain of something, they merely talk of most likely outcomes and most likely explanations based on current information and models. However, when the media and other public sources get their hands on the information, they like to turn them into absolutes - and thus if a scientist says "there is an 80% chance of such-and-such happening" and it causes a panic, they are liable for the damages based on the information to provide. However, if they say it is unlikely it gets reported as "all clear" and then suddenly they are liable for the damages when it does happen!
If such a case was won, it would have a chilling effect on science in the region. Maybe scientists would continue to do research, but you would make it private and never release it to the public due to liability issues - and then what's the point. We'll be back to having the only predictors be religious nutcases like Mr. Rapture is coming in 1994, oops early 2011... oops late 2011, I guarantee it giving us the essential information. While this might make the Roman Catholic church and other religious institutions quite happy, I actually prefer the physics and chemistry that make my eyeglasses and contacts (and in the future, corrective laser eye surgery) along with the pharmaceutical industry that makes my wife's asthma medication over some clergyman's laying of hands. Lets hope the courts throw this one out and instead chooses to go after those who violated the building codes instead...
I agree with the poster that scored low. I think the Unabomber is of historical and academic interest, and that his resources should be put into a format to be used by academics who wish to do further research on this historically significant figure. By auctioning off the items to a private party who will gain exclusive ownership rights, we are commercializing the relevant historical documents and restricting who can have access to them. I guess the question is this: do you feel ownership of information about historical figures should be a private property to be bought and sold, or should a figure who impacted society in general have the information about them available in a open source manner - or is there another alternative I did not think about?
Exactly - everything has a cost associated with it. Why do I not like nuclear? A few reasons. First, it still relies on mining and shipping of feedstock. Second, there is a long term cost associated with storing its waste products. Third, the US has made it abundantly clear that this is not a global solution - we will actively block many nations from obtaining this source of power. Fourth, the last numbers I heard were if all the power generated across the globe was replaced by nuclear power, we could mine enough to last the world about 3 years (I do need to redo the research, as I don't recall the original sources - and I know many will not take what I learned in a college course as a reliable source). I often wonder what our wind and solar technology would be like in the US if they didn't pull the Production Tax Credit every few years (which causes the industry to collapse after a period of strong growth), and wonder if other energy production systems lost their government backing what would have happened to their viability in terms of cost....
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Actually, I can live without the internet. However, I really do need food in order to keep living. Monsanto's evil deeds or forcing farmers to destroy seed banks because of a neighbor's negligence or wind drift is of concern. If every year a farm has to buy seed from Monsanto rather than banking, then food prices go up. With monocrops comes greater vulnerabilities to diseases, blights, etc - and thus greater need for pesticides and other artificial inputs, driving up food costs. Heck, with their ability to go after an individual's garden, thus forcing them to buy products produced by farmers who were forced to buy Monsanto's product after a violation was found by Monsanto's agents trespassing on a farmer's property, food costs will go up. When food becomes unaffordable, I worry. If the internet gets priced out of my range or locked down (as I suspect it will), I can find alternatives. So, yes, we should be more worried about Monsanto's evil deeds than the internet disappearing - though both are important issues.
The contamination in the documentary I saw came from the spill of a careless neighboring farmer. Monsanto trespassed onto the farmer's property to collect samples and shut him down. They also go after seed bankers - people who process grain into seeds for the next year. You see, due to the patent any seeds from the plants are technically Monsanto's because you didn't pay a license to plant their genetically modified crop. Fewer and fewer farmers now bank their own seeds to plant for the next year, instead having to rely on buying seeds from Monsanto and other agricorps every year. They forced one man to discard his entire set of seeds, a strain that his ancestors helped cultivate - a tragedy for the genetic diversity of our crops.
The same is happening with maize in Mexico - monocrops are creating vulnerabilities where a genetically diverse but lower yield planting are no longer viable or ripped out when "infringing" fields are found. Yup, doesn't matter if the wind carried it from a neighbor's property onto yours without your knowledge - it is still infringement. My analogy? A neighbor owns a book of poems, rips out the pages, and the wind blows it into your back yard - then the publishing company sues you for copyright infringement because you didn't pay for your copy of the poem you now possess in your back yard. Oh yeah, in the analogy you don't go into your back yard, so you didn't even know you have it.
The most frightening thing to me is this: the precedent being set also influences individuals. If you grow a food garden, any contamination could put you in violation of their patent - meaning paying thousands of dollars and only growing plants that are from seeds you buy from Monsanto each year. I know, why would Monsanto ever go after the individual like that - after all, its not like the RIAA or anyone is getting away with extorting individuals for thousands of dollars by threatening much more costly lawsuits against them, right?
As for "decency", how do you know this wasn't an automated price setting based on number of purchases, in which case the ones to blame are the hyenas who rushed to the scene to buy the music of someone they never gave a fuck about when she lived?
I didn't get very far in economics, but I always thought the more units you sold meant the lower the unit price could go due to scales of economy. Now I know scales of economy don't work with a digital good in the same way - after all, you probably have a fixed price for transmitting it over the internet and giving the device a license to play the song (plus a minimal future expected cost of allowing them the right to activate it on a few devices in the future, which have minimal bandwidth usages), thus there is no savings by increasing unit production.
However, digital music is not a tangible good and thus can have a nearly infinite quantity (ie, limited only by the bandwidth of the selling service, which would mean all songs on the service should increase if bandwidth was reaching maximum usage, not just one subset), thus there is no scarcity issue to drive up the price. Supply should always exist to meet any demand. Thus with infinite supply, cost should either remain steady or go down.
The only way I can see the company actively choosing to increase the cost is to increase their profits on an arbitrary basis. Okay, maybe not so arbitrary - maybe the stigma of the artist drove down the price, but Sony recognized the stigma was removed upon death (as people seem to be adverse to holding their bad opinions of when people die, Hitler and several other dictators being the exception to this rule) and restored their normal pricing structure. After all, I doubt that Vanilla Ice or Milli Vanilli sell as well as Adele or Lady Gaga right now, but who knows - maybe if Vanilla Ice had a horrible tragic death then there would be a resurgence in his sales that would result in a normal pricing structure.
However, for now I will just think of it as Sony price-gouging based on a blip of popularity due to an artist's tragic death.
Tablets have been called a niche item since the days of Tablet PCs - my killer tablet? What I have been crying for all along, a digital artist's tablet. This means a higher resolution screen (better than 1280x800 - try more like a full 1080p screen resolution so that most programs will work in portrait - and preferably in a 4:3 format), dedicated graphics (many digital art programs benefit from this), a Wacom digitizer, and a dual battery design so you can carry a couple of extra cells and swap them out without having to power down.
That is the problem most Tablet PC manufacturers made. They thought they could make a device for the business world that would replace the very low cost and versatile pen/pencil and paper. No tablet will ever be as thin as paper, so carrying a dozen tablets and spreading them out will never work (and there are many times when people want to look over several sheets at once and "100% zoom"). However, if they had focused on the artist and the art student, created a series of specialty pens that had the look and feel of traditional media (a square "charcoal/pastel stick", a fine brush, a wide brush, etc) then marketed it as "get unlimited art tools and supply for only $1500, and carry your entire studio in you bag" or "never worry about using hazardous chemicals to clean up, just click save and go" then they might have had a chance.
Anyway, there is my take on it. You want to differentiate yourself on the market? Think who would benefit from a pen input and design the system around them. I don't want an over-bloated eReader with LCD screen. I don't want a dumbed-down laptop. I don't want a walled garden of apps that only some single company wants to restrict myself to. I don't want a giant smartphone that doesn't work as a phone. I want a portable digital art studio, and I do believe that pen input tablets are the ideal solution. A shame not one company had the foresight to create one.
That makes me wonder how they would handle the rental market. If they make special disks that can be used with full features from machine to machine, then what is to stop rental places from buying tons of copies, making their money on each, then selling them used for extra profit? If they don't make special disks, then only the first renter would get the full content - thus making renting pointless.
This may be a good time to use the low-tech equivalent to check the validity of the arguments. I don't know anything about the two apps in question, but ask yourself this: at what point would a variant of the board game Monopoly be different enough to ensure Parker Brothers couldn't sue you? Would be keeping the same rules, same basic board layout, and same "props" (player tokens, money, property cards, dice, and two decks of event cards) while changing the color, name, and art style of those keep you from being sues? For example, could I make the tokens space ships, the properties different star systems, the money "space credits" that use plastic coins instead of paper bills, and use public domain images of the star systems and call is "Stellar Baron" and not get sued?
Now back to the user interface. If this was the user interface of an operating system, would the original OS UI maker have a court case? What if it was a general application interface? What about making a knock-off of Farmville in the same manner... or replicating its mechanics with a new graphical interface and naming convention - would the developer of the game get sued, and would it be successful?
Finally, if there is a lawyer in the house, what court cases have set precedent in these areas? Honestly, I do not know the answer to these as law is not my field of study. However, I do know I need to know the history of how courts have ruled before I can say whether this is a legal violation or not. (My personal bias: I believe large companies have successfully sued, while small independent game developers of boardgames often have not - but this is based only on a one week investigation into the board game developer career.)
Imagine if Google went "dark" - I bet our politicians use many of their services. Imagine if google search, google+, gmail, youtube, and so forth for a 24 hour period was reduced to a simple message that this is what SOPA may result in on a more permanent basis. I think that would send the message loud and clear - but why would google loose all that revenue? After all, if the big guys like Google and Facebook wanted to stop SOPA they would just put the money into lobbyists. (My suspicion, they are paying lobbyists, but since they believe the government wouldn't take them down while taking down their competitors, guess which way I suspect they are trying to influence the vote). The Wild West days of internet are fading fast, but not because the internet is getting deeds - its because Intellectual Property laws are giving away deeds to concepts and ideas.
Depends on when they are releasing the LTS versions. After all, it doesn't do me a whole lot of good if it comes in middle of the semester - and I agree with other posters, 2 or 3 years might be nice to have. Oh well, at least Firefox is easy to sequence for App-V.
It does bother me a bit that Nature (the journal, not the mom) is continuing to take a very politically polarized editorial stance. They're really egging on the creationists (pun intended, I guess).
The result, they say, is a challenge to proponents of intelligent design who maintain that complex biological systems can only have been created by a divine force.
And to intelligent-design proponents, Thornton adds, the results say that “complexity can appear through a very simple stepwise process — there is no supernatural process required to create them.”
I think I am missing something in the reading. I hear that ID (Intelligent Design) proponents want biology classes to teach their beliefs, specifically that cells are too complex to have evolved in a stepwise fashion and that evolution is "just a theory" (kind of like gravity is "just a theory", using the colloquial definition of theory that means guess rather than the scientific definition of theory which is a hypothesis that makes a prediction and has not been proven false yet through many, many, many repeated tests throughout many, many, many independent laboratories). The comments I read are a direct addressing to their statements.
In other words, if someone says "thunder and lightening are only the direct product of the gods fighting and forging in their realm in the clouds," then you are not egging them on when you recreate lightning in a laboratory and say "gee, then either I am a god or your hypothesis has been proven false."
ID proponents argue that complexity can only exist due to a powerful creator. They don't say "God" directly, because they lost that court battle - and I have yet to see any on them say we were created by visiting aliens. The scientists stated that they produced it in their lab by allowing natural processes to occur. Two obvious choices bubble up to the top: 1) you state the hypothesis has been falsified in part (again), and thus cast serious doubt on its scientific validity OR 2) the scientists are actually powerful creators that willed the protein into existence by the mere power of their divine or beyond-human nature, in which case we should probably seriously consider worshiping them as Creators lest they unmake us. There are other possibilities, but these are the two big ones that come to mind.
A book high on my next to read list is "Doubt is their Product" by David Michaels. Doubt has been sold to the American public many times - with lead based products (paints, gasoline, etc), synthetic hormones (DES - used with postmenopausal women, pregnant women, in chickens, and beef because "animal tests do not equate to humans" and industry science with no controls and conducted in improper ways outweighed the significant amount of existing non-industry research at the time; BPA), chemical additives (like in microwave popcorn), with tobacco products, with anthropogenic climate change (how can anyone think the amount of vegetation we have clear cut didn't impact our climate in some shape, form, or manner, but can see how a forest fire does?), and even with evolution. There does not need to be contention in the field - all you need to do is hire some industry scientists to say what you want, then push those results out on the public media and say "see, there is a controversy over the issue." People in the US don't care, they believe what they see and read in popular media. This is a tried and true tactic used by industry for quite some time - sell doubt where there is none. Unfortunately, scientists make poor speakers and so many in the US make their decisions based on "the Bible says so, and it says in the Bible that it is the word of God so it must be true" - so whenever a scientist responds to an accusation made by ID and creationism they are "attacking religion", but when religion makes statements that refute generations of scientific research they are merely "stating their beliefs and asking f
anything that appears to support your idea that you're in a climate crisis is valid data. Anything that does not is pooh-pooh'ed away
Ah, yes - because every time it snows I never hear the climate change deniers say "where's your climate change now", but when we're in Wisconsin yet again without any snow and temps in the 40s they immediately say "ah, here's your climate change".
However, I do agree with the point that one region's local weather does not equate to the global mean temperature - so, yes, this is weather and not climate. However, read the peer reviewed research and you will get a nice picture of the climate and how it is changing... and study some history and you will learn that climate change has wiped out civilizations in the past.
Didn't read the responses yet, but as a long-time tablet PC I will advocate the following:
I've looked at other solutions. HTC put out the Flyer, but the inking only works in certain programs and not with the general interface. It sucks, not worth it. I've even tried the PRS-T1 sony reader to buy ebooks since it allows inked notes, but it has a flaw where it starts flipping pages forward after a couple of hours use (on many models, including both mine and my wife's Reader). Really, if you are in school, there is no decent substitute for a good tablet PC.
The original comment of weather != climate was not quite accurate. Climate is defined as:
Wikipedia opens with "Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count, and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods.
Your reflection based on memory over the last 30 years is admirable, but unfortunately not detailed enough in data for climatological study. We do have significantly longer periods of time where scientists have recorded daily highs, daily lows, precipitation, and other important data. That is the data they analyze. In an above post, I noted that if you go to WICCI you will see that daily highs in Wisconsin are actually falling. However, nightly lows are warming (when most are typically sleeping and not personally observing the differences in temperature), and general spring and winter warming trends are extending the growing season. This may sound great until you realize that this also benefits weeds and invasive species, which is not only a problem in ecological restoration but for growing crops.
Also, I take it you are refuting a few key pieces of scientific and statistical evidence based on the term "Magic Carbon Pixie believers". These would be:
Scientists use to talk of "Global Warming" - which was a mean global temperature increase. You are right, no single warm event and no single cold event can be used to say 'see, global warming!' - instead, we look at long term trends and statistical probabilities. When we have many anomalous events in a later period over an earlier period, such as found in river flow rates during the Midwest floods of May-June 2008, we can say that it is fairly improbable that they occurred by chance and that there is good reason to believe there was an underlying cause to the unusual climate event. Finally, we no longer talk in terms of just "Global Warming". Climatologists have been trying to say there is more going on than just temperature changes, and thus have been for at least a decade talking of "climate change" (with many feeling this is anthropogenic-based climate change).
So which is it? Take some time out to do research with scholarly sources. Visit berkeleyearth.org to get a warming-skeptic's viewpoint (hint: he's the one in the media for confirming the warming trend despite being a skeptic) or talk to someone at a large public (typically land-grant) university who is a specialist in the field. Talk to your venerable weather man at your local TV stations, or maybe even local farmers (if you still have any left in your area). Many of these people research patterns that look for the 11 year sunspot cyclical period - and they will tell you that some climate variation does occur due to this. However, they do take these events into account when looking at longer term trends, and they have plenty of evidence that takes into account the noise of natural cycles. Don't worry, the noise will get drown out by the main signal - and then you won't have to worry about how we should mitigate climate change (it is probably too late for that), and then you can focus on how we are going to adapt to the inevitable changes that will occur.
If you can, sign up for a cheap university course so you can get access to databases of scholarly journals like JStor. Then start researching papers on climate change, and look at the studies. Also, feel free to look into sites like WICCI (Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts) to get free access to tons of peer reviewed resources.
Some examples of articles I have found doing a simple climate change paper on Southern Wisconsin:
So, yeah, I'm not hanging my hat on one study - but on many. When doing this paper I threw out anything before 1999 and I still only needed 2 pages of a simple database search to get 3 articles pertaining to my region. Imagine if I wasn't so selective (any climate change study back to any year of publication) how much research I could find. Climatologists have long since held a consensus about climate change, with a strong belief that it was anthropomorphic in causation. However, there are those who "teach the controversy" (to coin an Intelligent Design phrase) and persuaded many that there is none. In fact, if you look at the "lack of consensus" from scientists in general, then you have to also say almost no congressional vote was ever a "consensus" - for there is a far greater percentage of scientists that believe in climate change and anthropogenic-based climate change then there is needed to pass federal legislation. Think of it that way - if climate change was a bill, it would now be a law... or if laws were held to the same consensus as required by the public for climate change, then congress would have enacted almost nothing.
Makes me wonder - would they ever give the protein folding gamers a Nobel prize? Probably not - but they did make a significant contribution to science. Then again, maybe award it to the project to help it fund further crowd-sourced applications.
"This is all just a publicity stunt, seems to be working quite well..."
I hope so. A little consumer awareness of how products are produced during the entire life cycle is a good thing - even if only 1% of them actually react with any kind of empathy and start applying pressure on our their political systems. Why shouldn't social justice issues get more coverage? You make it sound like its a bad thing to discuss the implicit cost of our consumer society - costs that we do have some influence other.
The postal system is an archaic but necessary system - however, I think it should be scaled back. Personal to-your-door delivery service when most people drive everywhere? Why? Instead, limit home delivery routes to those who show a need - elderly, disabled, etc who cannot physically make it to a central depot. Then, create neighborhood depots This would reduce the number of employees needed, lower fleet costs (number of vehicles and fuel cost), and allow regular service days to be maintained. For example, in many small towns in the USA, the post office would be in walking distance - and in large urban areas like New York City you could expand the network so that it remains in walking distance for the majority of customers. (As an aside, maybe add a law that says any unsolicited mail can be returned to the sender at that companies cost... that would take care of the tons of junk mail shipped every day.)
If your into biofuels/fuel cells and looking for ways to make a better car, you might want to do Mechanical + Chemical engineering. Alternatively, if you were into alternative energy, I think Mechanical Engineering + a Wind Power associate-level certificate program might be a good way to go. If you are talking about creating control systems, you might like Mechanical + Computer Engineering. Computer Science is more about algorithm design and problem solving, optimization and complexity - it is a specialization of mathematics. I prefer to think of Computer Science more as Computational Theory. (There is also Software Engineering, which is different from Computer Science). I am only talking degrees here, not what type of career you get with the degree. Oh yeah, also don't forget the greater options of graduate school - there is a world of difference between an undergraduate course and graduate courses (although many upper level undergraduate courses and honors courses are also more fun and challenging). Then there is the certificate route - for example, at UW-Madison you could avoid the whole business degree route and get a business certificate, focusing on human resources for your electives (6 courses, 2 electives) with the intent of enhancing your opportunities at being a team supervisor. My final mistake I have made is not going for more internships and getting to know more people in the industry - they may be more beneficial than a second degree. Real-world experience is what you need on top of a degree - take a look at the hiring requirements of your field. Ever wonder how people at entry level jobs get 2-3 years experience? Internships.
I read a book about a year ago where they stated one of the original purposes of playground equipment was to help children learn risk-assessment. In other words, it wasn't meant to be 100% safe for all the kids - it was so kids could learn what risks they found acceptable and that sometimes when you fail there are moderately painful consequences. Now I have read stories about merry-go-round type playground equipment that didn't have the proper safety covering on them that caught a girls long hair and caused her injury - incidents like those are good reasons for lawsuits. However, when a child risks going down a slide face first and knocks out a tooth, then the parents and child should take personal responsibility for unsafe and risky use of the equipment. (Personally, I'm glad I had "dangerous" playground equipment when growing up - its so boring to be a kid now... no wonder so many stay inside playing video games.)
I was working towards this as my goal with my education, but looks like someone beat me to the punch. After all, why do we send kids home to work with parents and bore them with lectures during class time? More importantly, why does a physics professor have to come to a lecture hall of 200-300 students, half of which are on Facebook or reading a paper, when he can just make them watch it online? If you lecture live, a person has to hear it the first time you go through the material (I'm not a morning person at all... so a 8:50am lecture doesn't sink in for me) - with online you can play it when you are most alert and replay it if you don't get it the first time. Anyway, glad to see that at least one teacher gets that we need to rethink how we educate....
What are my most useful courses to date? Which has had the most significant impact on my life? I'd have to say English I (5 paragraph composition, which my wife taught me in 10 minutes and then I mastered over a semester) and Advanced Composition (the basic logic and style of writing arguments).
Course I have enjoyed? Introductory drawing (the only early morning class my mind could handle since it was mostly studio work), neurobiology: mechanisms and disorders of sleep, environmental dispute resolution (actually just dispute resolution/art of negotiation with exercises themed in environmental issues), cultural anthropology and human diversity (because of the professor - any professor that throws candy at you during a review session as long as you are asking a question to 'simulate the pressure of an exam' is awesome), global environmental issues and solutions (again, mainly for the professor, but also some of the most difficult writing I ever did - sum up that weeks reading, typically 200-400 pages, in one paragraph - use specifics to demonstrate you read the material and synthesize the material into a novel analysis), and current directions in contemporary art (my TA commented that the readings were at the graduate level, and the essay exams were synthesis and novel analysis - NOT regurgitation).
Courses I think all students should leave with? Basic understanding of the sciences - chemistry, biology, and physics - along with a second language. I use to think that language requirements were pointless, but I now understand that once you learn to think in another language, you learn to think in another manner.
I understand this is a lot of work, but don't view gen ed requirements as a restriction - view it as an opportunity to explore. It gives you a broader framework to draw upon, makes you more rich and diverse, increases your flexibility of though, and gives you unique insights that you could not achieve normally. Which course do you think you'll enjoy the most - the discrete mathematics, theory of computer science, and machine language courses you will take for your major or the exploratory liberal arts courses that challenge you in new and unique ways (like Scandinavian literature, Kendo, astronomy, bacteriology, 3D design, or writing in the wild - a creative writing course that takes you out into the wilderness)!
Heck, I have been struggling in my undergraduate work. I'm officially declared in biology with a neurobiology emphasis, with the intent of going into computer science. Since my start I have found I am more and more drawn to art and environmental issues (including issues of social justice). Where is this all leading? Last semester I took a course in Human Computer Interface (HCI) design - a field that draws on computer science, psychology, social science, and art. I will most likely follow suit of another student and design an HCI major for myself rather than complete my biology, computer science, or art degree,
As for what to do? Since you feel - and may well be - adequately skilled, perhaps you can come up with a few products to develop and become an entrepreneur. Employers often look for the diverse background that show you are a well-rounded person with interests that lie outside your field of expertise, and without a degree you job prospects are equally limited. However, with the right idea, you can be the boss - perhaps you should try that route.
If I recall, anyone who brings any form of material compensation (goods or supplies) to an organization that is a terrorist organization or supports a terrorist organization is in turn guilty of supporting a terrorist organization. What the US Government is trying to do is make it illegal to directly or indirectly support any organization they deem 'terrorist', with the original intent of cutting down the 'money pushers' - the people who procure funding under false pretense and transfer it to entities hostile to the US Government. Since many criminal organizations will have ties with organizations that either directly or indirectly support 'terrorist organizations', the US Government is probably fairly confident that they could draw a line of connection and thus find the company guilty. After all, $100k is a significant amount of money. [As to the post stating that this is BS post, it may be - but it does not change the thought-exercise component of this exercise... think about it: if the Red Cross provides humanitarian aid to members of a terrorist organization and you have donated to Red Cross, then you are guilty also. Welcome to the new USA - a little less liberty for a little more security.]
I am sure seismologists are like other scientists and talk in terms of the probability of an event happening - thus no scientist is every certain of something, they merely talk of most likely outcomes and most likely explanations based on current information and models. However, when the media and other public sources get their hands on the information, they like to turn them into absolutes - and thus if a scientist says "there is an 80% chance of such-and-such happening" and it causes a panic, they are liable for the damages based on the information to provide. However, if they say it is unlikely it gets reported as "all clear" and then suddenly they are liable for the damages when it does happen!
If such a case was won, it would have a chilling effect on science in the region. Maybe scientists would continue to do research, but you would make it private and never release it to the public due to liability issues - and then what's the point. We'll be back to having the only predictors be religious nutcases like Mr. Rapture is coming in 1994, oops early 2011... oops late 2011, I guarantee it giving us the essential information. While this might make the Roman Catholic church and other religious institutions quite happy, I actually prefer the physics and chemistry that make my eyeglasses and contacts (and in the future, corrective laser eye surgery) along with the pharmaceutical industry that makes my wife's asthma medication over some clergyman's laying of hands. Lets hope the courts throw this one out and instead chooses to go after those who violated the building codes instead...
I agree with the poster that scored low. I think the Unabomber is of historical and academic interest, and that his resources should be put into a format to be used by academics who wish to do further research on this historically significant figure. By auctioning off the items to a private party who will gain exclusive ownership rights, we are commercializing the relevant historical documents and restricting who can have access to them. I guess the question is this: do you feel ownership of information about historical figures should be a private property to be bought and sold, or should a figure who impacted society in general have the information about them available in a open source manner - or is there another alternative I did not think about?
You're right - we should decommission the sun before a Tsunami or Earthquake on the planet Earth damages it and causes a risk of explosion....
Exactly - everything has a cost associated with it. Why do I not like nuclear? A few reasons. First, it still relies on mining and shipping of feedstock. Second, there is a long term cost associated with storing its waste products. Third, the US has made it abundantly clear that this is not a global solution - we will actively block many nations from obtaining this source of power. Fourth, the last numbers I heard were if all the power generated across the globe was replaced by nuclear power, we could mine enough to last the world about 3 years (I do need to redo the research, as I don't recall the original sources - and I know many will not take what I learned in a college course as a reliable source). I often wonder what our wind and solar technology would be like in the US if they didn't pull the Production Tax Credit every few years (which causes the industry to collapse after a period of strong growth), and wonder if other energy production systems lost their government backing what would have happened to their viability in terms of cost....