There are a few misconceptions evident in the thread so far: This quote, from the ucsusa.org, makes it clearer:
5. Is ozone depletion related to global warming?
No. Ozone depletion and global warming are separate problems, though some agents contribute to both. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are the principle cause of ozone deletion, but they also happen to be potent heat-trapping gases. Still, CFCs are responsible for less than 10 percent of total atmospheric warming, far less than the 63 percent contribution of carbon dioxide. Thus, attention paid to CFCs has been on their ozone depletion role. This will change as CFCs are phased out and replaced by hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs such as R-134a). These chemicals have little or no effect on the ozone layer but are strong heat-trapping gases. As their concentration in the atmosphere is already rising, the likely net effect in the future is that reductions in the CFC-related contribution to global warming will be offset by the presence of HCFCs and HFCs.
One common solution to avoid that problem is to write "if (NULL == ptr)", but that just doesn't read well to me.
I've seen people recommend that idiom, which can also be used for any comparison against a constant, such as "if (5 == varx)". I agree that it doesn't read well to me, but I have another reason I don't like it.
This may be belaboring the point, but the argument for the construct is that you type "if (5 = varx)", the code won't compile, and you'll catch your mistake.
But I'm not sure how much this actually helps, because it may ultimately reduce your vigilance about "=" vs. "=="; you start to learn that the compiler catches most of those mistakes. Unfortunately, if this reduced vigilance leads to you typing "if (varx = vary)", the trick doesn't help, the code compiles, and a bug gets through.
The goal of this was to prove that one should read all EULAs
This is not a goal I want to be moving towards.
I mean, I can go to home depot and buy a nail gun and a welding torch without having to read, parse, and agree to any complex and lengthy legal agreement. Why should I have to do this to buy and use software?
The papers given by RealClimate.org show that in some cases there were instances where models were not judged by how well they reproduced data. (I'll assume that they show it for the sake of argument -- I have not read them.) I repeat: so what? This does *not* show that *in all cases* it is true, and this could very well be precisely what Chrichton is bemoaning.
Again, I have to go back to the original text: "No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality".
Crichton statement is that the judging of models based on real-world correlation has ceased. The models are judged by how well they reproduce data (among other things.) The papers cited show examples of models being judged.
Had Crichton said, "There exist models that have not judged on how well they model the real world" you would be right And nobody would be arguing against that statement other than to say that such poorly scrutinized models don't get much respect. But Crichton said something much more absolute, and that's where he went awry.
It is you, not RealClimate.org, who is introducing this notion of "climate prediction" into the discussion.
When Crichton says "Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?", he compares two predictions. The first is a weather prediction; what's the second prediction?
How do I know it's not just as bad as Chrichton claims it to be? Since I do not trust those scientists making those claims, I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The way you know it's not "just as bad as Crichton claims it to be" is believe your eyes: the list of authors is right there in black and white on every paper pubished in every peer-reviewed journal I've ever seen. The amount of fence-hopping is out in the open.
I have no interest in conspiracy theories. I think their motives are the destruction of capitalism, not scientific inquiry.
I think the second blanket statement, that all climate scientists that are presenting evidence that humans are causing global warming are motivated by the destruction of capitalism, requires a conspiracy theory of Crichtion proportions.
Have you bounced around the body of climate science writing? There are not a lot of blind assertions or unquestioned assumptions anywhere in the peer-reviewed articles; there is skepticism and cross-checking galore. There are people coming up with multiple new approaches to re-measure past phenomenon my independant means. There are articles correcting and refining past observations.
It does not strike me as body of science that could be put together by a group of politically motivated anti-capitalists.
That is *not* the point of science and you know it! Furthermore, science is performed by humans, not by infallible angels.
But you're arguing for my point: science is all about questioning every step, precisely because of human failings.
I think captitalism is moral and the destruction of it is immoral. I think observation and reason are the keys to knowledge, and capitalism is deduced through reason and the axioms that I have chosen.
The only thing I disagree with here is the implication that anything the climate scientists are saying is at odds with capitalism. Would efforts to curtail global warming cause some companies some pain? Certainly. But you're making it sound as if it's strike to the heart of capitalism, when at most it's a boundary at one of the edges of capitalism. The statement "You can't pollute in this way" always has economic consequences, but it also always gives birth to a new round of inventions and companies to find new ways to solve the new problems. I have no doubt capitalism will come through in this case, too.
IvyMike:RealClimate is objecting to the second part: the models are not treated as a reality...in fact, observed data are used to evaluate the performance of climate models.
Loudry:Argument by assertion.
I maintain (and augment) my argument: RealClimate.org attempted to show that Chrichton's claim that the drunks & lampposts phenomonon was increasing by revealing some examples in which they believed that such a thing did not happen.
Let's go back to the orignal text from Crichton: "No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality".
Are you asserting that the models are not judged by how well they reproduce data? The papers cited show that this is not true--the models are judged by that criteria, and they lay out examples of that critical evaluation.
RealClimate didn't object to the little snippet of "increasingly, models provide the data"--they objected to the entire statemtent, which is meant to convey that models are the sole source of data, isolated from reality, and are not measured against anything else. Not true.
IvyMike(me):Crichton is drawing a parallel between a weather prediction and a climate prediction. Why would he engage in this false parallel if he's clear about the difference between the two?
Loundry:Crichton said nothing about "climate prediction." He mentioned "weather prediction" and RealClimate.org defined climate as "weather prediction" (and then acted like superior assholes, a sign of a weak argument).
Let's take a look at what Crichton says: "Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?"
When Crichton mentions the prediction that goes out 100 years into the future, is he talking about a weather prediction that went 100 years into the future? No, he's talking about a climate prediction on that time scale. While Crichton carefully avoided using the words "climate prediction", he is in fact comparing a weather prediction against a climate prediction. I'm gettin a little suspicious of you here, because I'm pretty sure you know that.
IvyMike:Crichton implies that the group of people who create models is identical to the group of those who evaluate, and this implication simply isn't true.
Loundry: Stating is one thing, and showing is another. How do you intend to convince me of this particular claim of falsehood? What evidence will you show me?
Crichton calls for "separation of those who make the models from those who verify them". The groups consist of mostly disjoint groups of people; the papers cited have different authors, working for different organizations at different places.
Are they all climate scientists? Yes. So I had to say "mostly disjoint" above because scientists sometimes change their focus and move from one side of the fence to others. Still, I read Crichton statement as implying that there was no separation at all, which simply isn't true.
Given this lack of absolute isolation, is it possible that the entire field is nothing more than a giant conspiracy of anti-industry, anti-capitalistic scientists (all runaways from the environmental movement) who are all in it together? Personally, I find that hard to swallow, but I will admit it sounds like a good idea for a work of fiction.
How do you intend for me to take their arguments and "data" seriously if I don't trust them?
The whole point of science is nobody should trust anybody. Every experiment should be reproducable. Every piece of data should be scrutinized. Everything should be laid out on the table, gone over by as many eyes as possible, and vigorously debated. In this case, I personally have been more convinced by the science of the climate scientists than the science from Crichton. I guess you've been convinced the other way.
Read what he wrote: "increasingly, models provide the data."
The objection is to the full phrase: "No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality". RealClimate is objecting to the second part: the models are not treated as a reality...in fact, observed data are used to evaluate the performance of climate models.
Moving on to your strike two, Crichton wrote:
"Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?"
Crichton is drawing a parallel between a weather prediction and a climate prediction. Why would he engage in this false parallel if he's clear about the difference between the two?
As to your strike three: If, by RealClimate.org's admission, the communities of science are not completely independent, then how is RealClimate.org so sure that such a phenomenon is not precisely the complaint that Chrichton has?
Chrichton is implying a strong coupling; RealClimate points out that the coupling is weak. "Broadly distinct communities of scientists specialize in processing and analyzing observational climate data, constructing and running climate models, and developing and applying methods for statistically comparing observed and modeled attributes of the climate."
In other words, there are separate groups, which is exactly what Crichton calls for. They are all climate scientists, so there is cross-polination, but Crichton implies that the group of people who create models is identical to the group of those who evaluate, and this implication simply isn't true.
A prime of the form (2^n)-1. This means that in binary, it's a big string of "1"s.
The reason that mersenne primes are usually the biggest is because for primes of this form, there is a primality test (Lucas-Lehmer) that is exceedingly efficient.
The scientists at RealClimate.org have posted several articles examining the science in Cricton's new book, and also posted an detailed examinination of Crichton's speech mentioned above. I highly recommend the article, but if you're too lazy to click through, here's their conclusion:
We find it disappointing that a prominent individual such as Crichton did not take greater care in acquainting himself with all of the facts before making such rather inflammatory public pronouncements as those detailed above.
I am in the middle of reading Michael Crichton's book State of Fear. It is a novel but based on solid science.
Unfortunately, this isn't so much the case. The climate scientists over at RealClimate.org reviewed the book (Part 1, Part 2, and found it to be "selective (and occasionally mistaken) about the basic science." The articles even address the local Antarctic cooling you mention above. I encourage everyone to read the articles; but for those too lazy to read the whole thing, here the conclusion:
In summary, I am a little disappointed, not least because while researching this book, Crichton actually visited our lab and discussed some of these issues with me and a few of my colleagues. I guess we didn't do a very good job. Judging from his reading list, the rather dry prose of the IPCC reports did not match up to the some of the racier contrarian texts. Had RealClimate been up and running a few years back, maybe it would've all worked out differently...
Anyone else read Michael Crichton's latest novel State of Fear?
The scientists at RealClimate read it; they're not impressed. For the lazy, here's the conclusion:
In summary, I am a little disappointed, not least because while researching this book, Crichton actually visited our lab and discussed some of these issues with me and a few of my colleagues. I guess we didn't do a very good job. Judging from his reading list, the rather dry prose of the IPCC reports did not match up to the some of the racier contrarian texts. Had RealClimate been up and running a few years back, maybe it would've all worked out differently...
I've seen reasonable proposals that suggest normal volcanic activity produces greenhouse gasses on an order of magnitude far greater than human activity. If so, changing our habits will only have an effect until some ubervolcano erupts someplace, dumping a ton of CO2 into the atmosphere. Others disagree, saying that human activity dwarfs volcanic CO2 activity.
The question is: How much and how fast will human pollution change the climate by? This is where I disagree with people and say: We don't know.
There are wide variations in the historical climate record that we can't explain yet, so clearly we don't know everything. But this doesn't change the fact that our best computer models, with the most conservative settings, all predict that CO2 will cause global warming. We don't know exactly how much, but most of the better models (the ones that have survived being challenged and questioned constantly by their peers) actually agree to a large amount. The scientists on realclimate often make this point: just because we don't know everything doesn't mean we can't say some things with a high degree of certainty.
Instead, we seem to run around trying to pass "feel good" treaties such as Kyoto without considering their effectiveness on global warming or their human cost.
I think this is an exaggeration: the costs were considered--in fact, the majority of the debate around Kyoto is centered on that very issue.
Honestly, I'm not sure exactly the point you're making, but since you mentioned "State of Fear", I'm going to take this opportunity to point out Realclimate.org's great commentary on "State of Fear". It's not a short article, so here's the summary:
In summary, I am a little disappointed, not least because while researching this book, Crichton actually visited our lab and discussed some of these issues with me and a few of my colleagues. I guess we didn't do a very good job. Judging from his reading list, the rather dry prose of the IPCC reports did not match up to the some of the racier contrarian texts. Had RealClimate been up and running a few years back, maybe it would've all worked out differently...
They have a followup article here., in which they comment a little more on the book, and they also comment on Crichton's lecture Aliens Cause Global Warming.
If you're not RealClimate.org, here's how the site describes itself: "RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science." I really think it's one of the better sites on the topic.
My personal take on it? Based on themes present in almost all of his fiction, Crichton really doesn't like scientists.:)
Not the whole AOL browser thing: as everyone has pointed out, totally lame.
But this: "...features such as tabbed browsing that displays a thumbnail of the page as you pass your cursor over it." I'm sure AOL will make it annoying somehow, but if done right, that could actually be pretty cool.
Of course, I expect an extension that does this for Firefox to show before the end of the year, if one doesn't already exist.;)
If I were an evil hacker, and I wanted a shot a notoriety, what better way than to delay the release of the most anticipated video game ever? I would not be surprised if someone, somewhere, is attempting a denial-of-service attack on their servers.
Given all the hatred for Steam that a lot of people seem to have, I was suprised nobody tried to take the system down the day it shipped. (I too was gleefully playing HL2 at 12:15 the night it was released!)
Back in March, the selective service began planning the procedures for a "Speical Skills" draft, which is a hypothetical draft of "Americans with special skills in computers and foreign languages."
"Talking to the manpower folks at the Department of Defense and others, what came up was that nobody foresees a need for a large conventional draft such as we had in Vietnam," said Richard Flahavan, a spokesman for the Selective Service System. "But they thought that if we have any kind of a draft, it will probably be a special skills draft."
Just to clarify: they're not talking about actually drafting such workers yet; they just want procedures in place if they do need to do a draft. (This strikes me as somewhat ominous, in spite of their claims that it's a remote possiblity, but that could be my own paranoia.)
They already have the procedures in place to draft medical workers (up to age 44!) if it ever becomes necessary. The article doesn't say, but I would anticipate that an IT worker draft would have a similar age spread.
This article was back in March; anybody have any more recent news?
This month's IEEE Computer magazine has an article titled "Do Agile Methods Marginalize Problem Solvers?"
That article uses the example of Isaac Newton as someone not well suited to Agile methods. I propose that a genius at the level of Isaac Newton is equally poorly suited to every existing software methodology out there. (The thought of Newton in a meeting, gathering buyoff for his requirements document is so depressing it makes me sick.)
Slashdot Mirror
One common solution to avoid that problem is to write "if (NULL == ptr)", but that just doesn't read well to me.
I've seen people recommend that idiom, which can also be used for any comparison against a constant, such as "if (5 == varx)". I agree that it doesn't read well to me, but I have another reason I don't like it.
This may be belaboring the point, but the argument for the construct is that you type "if (5 = varx)", the code won't compile, and you'll catch your mistake.
But I'm not sure how much this actually helps, because it may ultimately reduce your vigilance about "=" vs. "=="; you start to learn that the compiler catches most of those mistakes. Unfortunately, if this reduced vigilance leads to you typing "if (varx = vary)", the trick doesn't help, the code compiles, and a bug gets through.
The goal of this was to prove that one should read all EULAs
This is not a goal I want to be moving towards.
I mean, I can go to home depot and buy a nail gun and a welding torch without having to read, parse, and agree to any complex and lengthy legal agreement. Why should I have to do this to buy and use software?
The papers given by RealClimate.org show that in some cases there were instances where models were not judged by how well they reproduced data. (I'll assume that they show it for the sake of argument -- I have not read them.) I repeat: so what? This does *not* show that *in all cases* it is true, and this could very well be precisely what Chrichton is bemoaning.
Again, I have to go back to the original text: "No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality".
Crichton statement is that the judging of models based on real-world correlation has ceased. The models are judged by how well they reproduce data (among other things.) The papers cited show examples of models being judged.
Had Crichton said, "There exist models that have not judged on how well they model the real world" you would be right And nobody would be arguing against that statement other than to say that such poorly scrutinized models don't get much respect. But Crichton said something much more absolute, and that's where he went awry.
It is you, not RealClimate.org, who is introducing this notion of "climate prediction" into the discussion.
When Crichton says "Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?", he compares two predictions. The first is a weather prediction; what's the second prediction?
How do I know it's not just as bad as Chrichton claims it to be? Since I do not trust those scientists making those claims, I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The way you know it's not "just as bad as Crichton claims it to be" is believe your eyes: the list of authors is right there in black and white on every paper pubished in every peer-reviewed journal I've ever seen. The amount of fence-hopping is out in the open.
I have no interest in conspiracy theories.
I think their motives are the destruction of capitalism, not scientific inquiry.
I think the second blanket statement, that all climate scientists that are presenting evidence that humans are causing global warming are motivated by the destruction of capitalism, requires a conspiracy theory of Crichtion proportions.
Have you bounced around the body of climate science writing? There are not a lot of blind assertions or unquestioned assumptions anywhere in the peer-reviewed articles; there is skepticism and cross-checking galore. There are people coming up with multiple new approaches to re-measure past phenomenon my independant means. There are articles correcting and refining past observations.
It does not strike me as body of science that could be put together by a group of politically motivated anti-capitalists.
That is *not* the point of science and you know it! Furthermore, science is performed by humans, not by infallible angels.
But you're arguing for my point: science is all about questioning every step, precisely because of human failings.
I think captitalism is moral and the destruction of it is immoral. I think observation and reason are the keys to knowledge, and capitalism is deduced through reason and the axioms that I have chosen.
The only thing I disagree with here is the implication that anything the climate scientists are saying is at odds with capitalism. Would efforts to curtail global warming cause some companies some pain? Certainly. But you're making it sound as if it's strike to the heart of capitalism, when at most it's a boundary at one of the edges of capitalism. The statement "You can't pollute in this way" always has economic consequences, but it also always gives birth to a new round of inventions and companies to find new ways to solve the new problems. I have no doubt capitalism will come through in this case, too.
IvyMike:RealClimate is objecting to the second part: the models are not treated as a reality...in fact, observed data are used to evaluate the performance of climate models.
Loudry:Argument by assertion.
I maintain (and augment) my argument: RealClimate.org attempted to show that Chrichton's claim that the drunks & lampposts phenomonon was increasing by revealing some examples in which they believed that such a thing did not happen.
Let's go back to the orignal text from Crichton: "No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality".
Are you asserting that the models are not judged by how well they reproduce data? The papers cited show that this is not true--the models are judged by that criteria, and they lay out examples of that critical evaluation.
RealClimate didn't object to the little snippet of "increasingly, models provide the data"--they objected to the entire statemtent, which is meant to convey that models are the sole source of data, isolated from reality, and are not measured against anything else. Not true.
IvyMike(me):Crichton is drawing a parallel between a weather prediction and a climate prediction. Why would he engage in this false parallel if he's clear about the difference between the two?
Loundry:Crichton said nothing about "climate prediction." He mentioned "weather prediction" and RealClimate.org defined climate as "weather prediction" (and then acted like superior assholes, a sign of a weak argument).
Let's take a look at what Crichton says: "Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?"
When Crichton mentions the prediction that goes out 100 years into the future, is he talking about a weather prediction that went 100 years into the future? No, he's talking about a climate prediction on that time scale. While Crichton carefully avoided using the words "climate prediction", he is in fact comparing a weather prediction against a climate prediction. I'm gettin a little suspicious of you here, because I'm pretty sure you know that.
IvyMike:Crichton implies that the group of people who create models is identical to the group of those who evaluate, and this implication simply isn't true.
Loundry: Stating is one thing, and showing is another. How do you intend to convince me of this particular claim of falsehood? What evidence will you show me?
Crichton calls for "separation of those who make the models from those who verify them". The groups consist of mostly disjoint groups of people; the papers cited have different authors, working for different organizations at different places.
Are they all climate scientists? Yes. So I had to say "mostly disjoint" above because scientists sometimes change their focus and move from one side of the fence to others. Still, I read Crichton statement as implying that there was no separation at all, which simply isn't true.
Given this lack of absolute isolation, is it possible that the entire field is nothing more than a giant conspiracy of anti-industry, anti-capitalistic scientists (all runaways from the environmental movement) who are all in it together? Personally, I find that hard to swallow, but I will admit it sounds like a good idea for a work of fiction.
How do you intend for me to take their arguments and "data" seriously if I don't trust them?
The whole point of science is nobody should trust anybody. Every experiment should be reproducable. Every piece of data should be scrutinized. Everything should be laid out on the table, gone over by as many eyes as possible, and vigorously debated. In this case, I personally have been more convinced by the science of the climate scientists than the science from Crichton. I guess you've been convinced the other way.
Read what he wrote: "increasingly, models provide the data."
The objection is to the full phrase: "No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality". RealClimate is objecting to the second part: the models are not treated as a reality...in fact, observed data are used to evaluate the performance of climate models.
Moving on to your strike two, Crichton wrote:
"Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?"
Crichton is drawing a parallel between a weather prediction and a climate prediction. Why would he engage in this false parallel if he's clear about the difference between the two?
As to your strike three:
If, by RealClimate.org's admission, the communities of science are not completely independent, then how is RealClimate.org so sure that such a phenomenon is not precisely the complaint that Chrichton has?
Chrichton is implying a strong coupling; RealClimate points out that the coupling is weak. "Broadly distinct communities of scientists specialize in processing and analyzing observational climate data, constructing and running climate models, and developing and applying methods for statistically comparing observed and modeled attributes of the climate."
In other words, there are separate groups, which is exactly what Crichton calls for. They are all climate scientists, so there is cross-polination, but Crichton implies that the group of people who create models is identical to the group of those who evaluate, and this implication simply isn't true.
A prime of the form (2^n)-1. This means that in binary, it's a big string of "1"s.
The reason that mersenne primes are usually the biggest is because for primes of this form, there is a primality test (Lucas-Lehmer) that is exceedingly efficient.
Also worth reading is their original article examining the science in State of Fear.
When they try to pull this next time, remember this handy formula:
RFID badge + 3 seconds in a microwave = piece of dead plastic.
Unfortunately, this isn't so much the case. The climate scientists over at RealClimate.org reviewed the book (Part 1, Part 2, and found it to be "selective (and occasionally mistaken) about the basic science." The articles even address the local Antarctic cooling you mention above.
I encourage everyone to read the articles; but for those too lazy to read the whole thing, here the conclusion:
This has been popping up on del.icio.us/popular for a while now:
Speeding up Firefox the right way.
This page contains detailed tips about getting the fastest firefox experience, customized to different speed computers and network connections.
I've seen reasonable proposals that suggest normal volcanic activity produces greenhouse gasses on an order of magnitude far greater than human activity. If so, changing our habits will only have an effect until some ubervolcano erupts someplace, dumping a ton of CO2 into the atmosphere. Others disagree, saying that human activity dwarfs volcanic CO2 activity.
Realclimate.org has an article titled "How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?". Maybe it will make the CO2 situation less ambiguous in your mind.
The question is: How much and how fast will human pollution change the climate by?
This is where I disagree with people and say: We don't know.
There are wide variations in the historical climate record that we can't explain yet, so clearly we don't know everything. But this doesn't change the fact that our best computer models, with the most conservative settings, all predict that CO2 will cause global warming. We don't know exactly how much, but most of the better models (the ones that have survived being challenged and questioned constantly by their peers) actually agree to a large amount. The scientists on realclimate often make this point: just because we don't know everything doesn't mean we can't say some things with a high degree of certainty.
Instead, we seem to run around trying to pass "feel good" treaties such as Kyoto without considering their effectiveness on global warming or their human cost.
I think this is an exaggeration: the costs were considered--in fact, the majority of the debate around Kyoto is centered on that very issue.
They have a followup article here., in which they comment a little more on the book, and they also comment on Crichton's lecture Aliens Cause Global Warming.
If you're not RealClimate.org, here's how the site describes itself: "RealClimate is a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary. The discussion here is restricted to scientific topics and will not get involved in any political or economic implications of the science." I really think it's one of the better sites on the topic.
My personal take on it? Based on themes present in almost all of his fiction, Crichton really doesn't like scientists.
Not the whole AOL browser thing: as everyone has pointed out, totally lame.
;)
But this: "...features such as tabbed browsing that displays a thumbnail of the page as you pass your cursor over it." I'm sure AOL will make it annoying somehow, but if done right, that could actually be pretty cool.
Of course, I expect an extension that does this for Firefox to show before the end of the year, if one doesn't already exist.
Stolen from some comedian: "The same machine that teaches my kids the alphabet also brings me porn."
"Computer use" does not really describe the activity with any amount of precision.
You can use the Google Image Search (GIS) on non-porn related searches
You know, now that I think about it, I've never tried that!
It's mentioned in the SecurityFocus article, but for those too lazy to search for it, the device in question was a KEYKatcher.
Anybody try one of these? Do they work well?
Yes, as so was your boses behavior when he, while driving drunk, killed a woman.
Well, that's pretty much off the topic--so what? That doesn't change the fact that what he's saying is correct.
But if we're merely trading partisan barbs, it is fascinating how many prominent politicians are guilty of drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter.
Rumor has it this is fixed in the next release of firefox.
.
But until then, hit CTRL+ and then CTRL- (or Ctrl-Mousewheel) instead of reloading.
If I were an evil hacker, and I wanted a shot a notoriety, what better way than to delay the release of the most anticipated video game ever? I would not be surprised if someone, somewhere, is attempting a denial-of-service attack on their servers.
Given all the hatred for Steam that a lot of people seem to have, I was suprised nobody tried to take the system down the day it shipped. (I too was gleefully playing HL2 at 12:15 the night it was released!)
Back in March, the selective service began planning the procedures for a "Speical Skills" draft, which is a hypothetical draft of "Americans with special skills in computers and foreign languages."
"Talking to the manpower folks at the Department of Defense and others, what came up was that nobody foresees a need for a large conventional draft such as we had in Vietnam," said Richard Flahavan, a spokesman for the Selective Service System. "But they thought that if we have any kind of a draft, it will probably be a special skills draft."
Just to clarify: they're not talking about actually drafting such workers yet; they just want procedures in place if they do need to do a draft. (This strikes me as somewhat ominous, in spite of their claims that it's a remote possiblity, but that could be my own paranoia.)
They already have the procedures in place to draft medical workers (up to age 44!) if it ever becomes necessary. The article doesn't say, but I would anticipate that an IT worker draft would have a similar age spread.
This article was back in March; anybody have any more recent news?
Seems like the joint's gone downhill ever since Perens left.
The joint started going downhill when Carly Fiorina took over.
This month's IEEE Computer magazine has an article titled "Do Agile Methods Marginalize Problem Solvers?"
That article uses the example of Isaac Newton as someone not well suited to Agile methods. I propose that a genius at the level of Isaac Newton is equally poorly suited to every existing software methodology out there. (The thought of Newton in a meeting, gathering buyoff for his requirements document is so depressing it makes me sick.)
I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am.
Hey lady, if it's such an important, time-sensitive meeting, next time consider taking a vehicle with steering.