The potential of these studies is always framed in terms of identifying victims of depression so that they can be helped, but the truth (in the U.S. anyway) is that this will be turned into a screening method for employment, insurance, and law enforcement purposes.
There is nothing inherently wrong with these interfaces that can't be fixed by requiring a co-pilot in all moving vehicles. Some might complain, but that's progress.
My hypothetical conservative friend says butterflies don't matter, and neither do frogs or furry animals or lower-class humans. When the Job Creators start spawning hideous offspring, then maybe we've got a story here.
Unfortunately this shit is endemic to the system now. Unless somebody is elected on an explicit platform of reigning it in, I don't see any president from either party taking the risk of offending the security establishment. There is too much money in it, they can cause too many problems overtly and covertly, and if anything at all goes wrong everyone will be quick to blame the president who "let down our guard".
This would have been a serious scandal in the 1960s or 70s, but no generation since then has given a rat's ass.
Do you really think this kind of thing doesn't go on in the corporate world, too, and nearly every day? The difference is whether it's behind a veil or out in the open. But what you can't see won't hurt you, right?
Yes, and the other day I was reading that we shouldn't bother to learn algebra, because c'mon! - how often do you use it? Well, if you don't know it I'm sure you won't be using it at all, so Q.E.D.
Having at least passing familiarity with an assembler language is valuable whether you use it directly or not, because it gives you a sense of what's going on "under the hood" in CPUs, GPUs, devices, etc.
As a hiring manager, I wouldn't even look at you.
As a hiring manager, I might indeed look at you as a code monkey for simple tasks, but your obvious disinterest in basic computing fundamentals - and contempt for those who don't share it - would limit your potential severely, IMHO.
I think the only choices I was asked to make for my last Linux install were the language and time zone, and even those had defaults. In my experience, those "mainstream" users who truly can't handle installing (or using) Linux aren't much better at Windows or whatever else they were using before.
Absolutely we can. The "system" didn't appear out of nowhere from pure intentions. It was designed, bought and paid for by the very interests that are now abusing it for profit. It's how politics works now.
Demonstrations don't work when you have to hold them in free speech areas located far away from anyone that actually might pay attention
Then you don't hold them there. When exercising civil disobedience, the whole point is to be a thorn in the side of the power structure, in a way it can't ignore. Oh yes, you will likely be arrested and maybe assaulted, too. I thought we learned this back in the 1960s.
Well yes, if you're dependent on a particular proprietary software that runs only on your platform, then I suppose you're stuck with it.
But there's a good chance you can run it under Linux using wine, which is included with all of the major distributions. The sewing machine app might still be a problem, though, if it needs proprietary drivers.
how about the fact that opening MS Office docs on Linux with one of the many "Open Office" solutions is still a nightmare?
This tripped my FUD detector, because I've rarely/never had a problem reading or writing.doc files with OpenOffice/LibreOffice. Then again, I don't see many of the crazier examples you might find out there.
But the implications of your reasoning are troubling: Let's all choose the crappiest, most proprietary format for documents, because the company that offers it has market power and wants us to. It's like swimming in the pond with the most turds floating around in it, because we've already paid to get in and who wants to carry their floaty toys to the clean, free lake over the hill?
You're right. It's always an incoherent attack on a particular observation, data point, or (ad hominem) scientist, while ignoring the great bulk of the evidence. With all of the corporate money being thrown around to sow confusion and doubt amongst the public, you'd think that the fossil carbon industry would at least attempt to construct a defensible, competitive climate model that takes account of this body of evidence and produces the result they (and thus conservatives generally) want. But, of course they don't. PR may not be any cheaper, but at least they can be confident of the results.
If this is going to be a bona fide scientific controversy, then both sides have to be doing some compelling, quality science. So far only one side has.
The "problem here" is that the AGW crowd has been politicizing this thing since before many of us were even born and now they're shocked, dismayed, and angered that people ask for the data.
No. This became political when the fossil energy industry threw their money at PR firms for the explicit purpose of making it political, largely through ad hominem attacks on individual scientists. That gets funneled through the usual conservative commentators and blogosphere, and that's why you believe what you do. If there were a strong scientific case to make, the industry would hire all of the scientists it takes to make it. But they don't. It's easier to fool the public with conspiracy theories and tales of evil scientists who are somehow hell-bent to undermine our god-given dependance on fossil fuels.
For goodness sake just listen to yourself sometime.
Well, you're just wrong about that. "Science" is not some oracle out of the Wizard of Oz that pronounces on the truth and falsehood of things. I don't know a single scientist who thinks that way, and I've known quite a few.
But you're right about not expecting science - or reason - to be a universal value that dictates (or even informs) policy. Politics is about balancing interests, and the weight of an interest is measured in dollars, not papers. I've heard people say that Republicans are scientifically illiterate, but I don't think that's true at all, at least not at the top. The GOP rejects science and reason not because they're ignorant, but because once you commit to a rational basis for government, your power is immediately diminished. Real power is power you can exercise arbitrarily, according to the side your toast is buttered on at the moment. You don't want a bunch of eggheads with their studies forcing your hand in one direction when the big money wants something else. We've been through this with the tobacco industry, we're going through it now with the fossil energy industry, and we'll go through it again with other moneyed interests.
The petroleum industry can afford to hire all of the scientists they want and more, but they know that won't get them the results they need. So why not just knock science off of its pedestal completely, in the eyes of the public?
Ummm... You assert that editors of peer-reviewed journals are refusing to publish quality papers, but you support this assertion by referring to "leftist friends" who post on Facebook, ignoring studies claiming that "fracking is not bad". That doesn't even make sense.
Was there ever a time when the mean global temperature was warmer than it is today, and even warmer than most models project it will be by the end of this century? Of course there was, and for millions of years. What's your point?
No study will ever show that "fracking is always bad" or "fracking is always good" because good and bad are not scientifically defined concepts. Fracking may have repercussions (like seismicity or groundwater contamination) in some instances and not others, depending on the specific geological formations and other factors. The research you'll see will mostly be aimed at characterizing those effects and identifying the situations (if any) in which they are likely to occur. I'm not a geologist or hydrologist, so I have no horse in this race intellectually. But if there is real chance of adverse effects, I'd like to see that investigated before they start fracking underneath my town. At the very minimum, the companies involved should be able to secure sufficient insurance to settle any claims if something goes awry, and insurance companies will need to know how to price those risks.
The journals and their readers absolutely love a good scientific controversy, and the citations you give are good examples of that. But, all sides are required to be equally rigorous in their treatment of data and the construction of their arguments, no exceptions. Anyone who can't manage to do that is likely to go away mumbling about politics and conspiracies, as we've seen here.
Surely you can't be serious. If I wanted to assure my political future I'd pull a Dick Cheney and tell Americans that they should forget about climate change, CO2 and "peak oil" and burn all of the gasoline they can afford. That's what they want to hear. And if I wanted to keep my campaign coffers full and bring in all of that corporate PAC money, I'd be pandering my butt off not to climatologists but to the oil industry, because that is where the real money is.
But sure, Hitler campaigned on a platform of environmental protection and universal health care, if you say so...
So one guy controls all of the climate data ever collected, and the state of the entire field of climatology depends on his analysis? That's unadulterated horse shit and possibly the most idiotic thing I've heard this week. I don't care if you can find a climatologist that eats puppies raw for breakfast: It's nothing but character assassination, and whether it's warranted or not it's not a scientific argument. There's plenty of data out there. If you can build a convincing model with it, then just goddamn do it. The whole field will thank you for it.
Well, I guess you just stumbled into the Great Liberal Conspiracy that all scientists are required to join before they are granted their PhDs. Why anybody puts any credence in them when ExxonMobil's PR firms are saying something completely different is beyond me.
Seriously, though... Taking a potshot at this data point or that, or citing professional rivalries between climatologists (re: "climategate") isn't going to be enough. It's like pointing to a "gap" in the fossil record and calling it a flaw in the theory of evolution. If you have the requisite training and can produce a bona fide model that takes the body of existing data and produces a different result, then maybe you have something. A Nobel prize even, if one was awarded in climatology. If you've done this, then I'd like to see the citation. Surely there is at least one reputable peer-reviewed journal that isn't part of the great conspiracy and would publish a solid paper that makes a convincing argument.
When some of us question the shaky science of AGW we are called anti-science, 'deniers' and worse
Then perhaps you'd be well advised to start making formal scientific arguments in the peer-reviewed literature, rather than going through public relations firms hired to appeal directly to the public. If the data is on your side, then work it up to the same standards as everyone else and present it. Unless you do that, it's not science.
Or, like the GOP, you could just claim that more research is needed before actionable conclusions are made, all the while trying to cut funding for the very research you say we have too little of.
Slashdot Mirror
The potential of these studies is always framed in terms of identifying victims of depression so that they can be helped, but the truth (in the U.S. anyway) is that this will be turned into a screening method for employment, insurance, and law enforcement purposes.
There is nothing inherently wrong with these interfaces that can't be fixed by requiring a co-pilot in all moving vehicles. Some might complain, but that's progress.
My hypothetical conservative friend says butterflies don't matter, and neither do frogs or furry animals or lower-class humans. When the Job Creators start spawning hideous offspring, then maybe we've got a story here.
Vote Romney... yeah that's a good one.
Unfortunately this shit is endemic to the system now. Unless somebody is elected on an explicit platform of reigning it in, I don't see any president from either party taking the risk of offending the security establishment. There is too much money in it, they can cause too many problems overtly and covertly, and if anything at all goes wrong everyone will be quick to blame the president who "let down our guard".
This would have been a serious scandal in the 1960s or 70s, but no generation since then has given a rat's ass.
I've been seeing this image in image processing texts for decades, and never had a clue where it came from. I am not disappointed.
Takes this guy a while to get to the point, doesn't it? It's just one teaser paragraph after another.
Do you really think this kind of thing doesn't go on in the corporate world, too, and nearly every day? The difference is whether it's behind a veil or out in the open. But what you can't see won't hurt you, right?
Yes, and the other day I was reading that we shouldn't bother to learn algebra, because c'mon! - how often do you use it? Well, if you don't know it I'm sure you won't be using it at all, so Q.E.D.
Having at least passing familiarity with an assembler language is valuable whether you use it directly or not, because it gives you a sense of what's going on "under the hood" in CPUs, GPUs, devices, etc.
As a hiring manager, I wouldn't even look at you.
As a hiring manager, I might indeed look at you as a code monkey for simple tasks, but your obvious disinterest in basic computing fundamentals - and contempt for those who don't share it - would limit your potential severely, IMHO.
Ummm... Small point, but 2-propanol IS isopropyl alcohol. So, no billion dollars to make the switch.
I think the only choices I was asked to make for my last Linux install were the language and time zone, and even those had defaults. In my experience, those "mainstream" users who truly can't handle installing (or using) Linux aren't much better at Windows or whatever else they were using before.
Absolutely we can. The "system" didn't appear out of nowhere from pure intentions. It was designed, bought and paid for by the very interests that are now abusing it for profit. It's how politics works now.
> convert all the skeptics in the scientific population by defunding their grants
Except that it's the Republicans that have been trying to de-fund climate research...
Demonstrations don't work when you have to hold them in free speech areas located far away from anyone that actually might pay attention
Then you don't hold them there. When exercising civil disobedience, the whole point is to be a thorn in the side of the power structure, in a way it can't ignore. Oh yes, you will likely be arrested and maybe assaulted, too. I thought we learned this back in the 1960s.
Stuff that Comcast would prefer you to buy from them, probably...
Well yes, if you're dependent on a particular proprietary software that runs only on your platform, then I suppose you're stuck with it.
But there's a good chance you can run it under Linux using wine, which is included with all of the major distributions. The sewing machine app might still be a problem, though, if it needs proprietary drivers.
how about the fact that opening MS Office docs on Linux with one of the many "Open Office" solutions is still a nightmare?
This tripped my FUD detector, because I've rarely/never had a problem reading or writing .doc files with OpenOffice/LibreOffice. Then again, I don't see many of the crazier examples you might find out there.
But the implications of your reasoning are troubling: Let's all choose the crappiest, most proprietary format for documents, because the company that offers it has market power and wants us to. It's like swimming in the pond with the most turds floating around in it, because we've already paid to get in and who wants to carry their floaty toys to the clean, free lake over the hill?
You're right. It's always an incoherent attack on a particular observation, data point, or (ad hominem) scientist, while ignoring the great bulk of the evidence. With all of the corporate money being thrown around to sow confusion and doubt amongst the public, you'd think that the fossil carbon industry would at least attempt to construct a defensible, competitive climate model that takes account of this body of evidence and produces the result they (and thus conservatives generally) want. But, of course they don't. PR may not be any cheaper, but at least they can be confident of the results.
If this is going to be a bona fide scientific controversy, then both sides have to be doing some compelling, quality science. So far only one side has.
The "problem here" is that the AGW crowd has been politicizing this thing since before many of us were even born and now they're shocked, dismayed, and angered that people ask for the data.
No. This became political when the fossil energy industry threw their money at PR firms for the explicit purpose of making it political, largely through ad hominem attacks on individual scientists. That gets funneled through the usual conservative commentators and blogosphere, and that's why you believe what you do. If there were a strong scientific case to make, the industry would hire all of the scientists it takes to make it. But they don't. It's easier to fool the public with conspiracy theories and tales of evil scientists who are somehow hell-bent to undermine our god-given dependance on fossil fuels.
For goodness sake just listen to yourself sometime.
Well, you're just wrong about that. "Science" is not some oracle out of the Wizard of Oz that pronounces on the truth and falsehood of things. I don't know a single scientist who thinks that way, and I've known quite a few.
But you're right about not expecting science - or reason - to be a universal value that dictates (or even informs) policy. Politics is about balancing interests, and the weight of an interest is measured in dollars, not papers. I've heard people say that Republicans are scientifically illiterate, but I don't think that's true at all, at least not at the top. The GOP rejects science and reason not because they're ignorant, but because once you commit to a rational basis for government, your power is immediately diminished. Real power is power you can exercise arbitrarily, according to the side your toast is buttered on at the moment. You don't want a bunch of eggheads with their studies forcing your hand in one direction when the big money wants something else. We've been through this with the tobacco industry, we're going through it now with the fossil energy industry, and we'll go through it again with other moneyed interests.
The petroleum industry can afford to hire all of the scientists they want and more, but they know that won't get them the results they need. So why not just knock science off of its pedestal completely, in the eyes of the public?
Ummm... You assert that editors of peer-reviewed journals are refusing to publish quality papers, but you support this assertion by referring to "leftist friends" who post on Facebook, ignoring studies claiming that "fracking is not bad". That doesn't even make sense.
Was there ever a time when the mean global temperature was warmer than it is today, and even warmer than most models project it will be by the end of this century? Of course there was, and for millions of years. What's your point?
No study will ever show that "fracking is always bad" or "fracking is always good" because good and bad are not scientifically defined concepts. Fracking may have repercussions (like seismicity or groundwater contamination) in some instances and not others, depending on the specific geological formations and other factors. The research you'll see will mostly be aimed at characterizing those effects and identifying the situations (if any) in which they are likely to occur. I'm not a geologist or hydrologist, so I have no horse in this race intellectually. But if there is real chance of adverse effects, I'd like to see that investigated before they start fracking underneath my town. At the very minimum, the companies involved should be able to secure sufficient insurance to settle any claims if something goes awry, and insurance companies will need to know how to price those risks.
The journals and their readers absolutely love a good scientific controversy, and the citations you give are good examples of that. But, all sides are required to be equally rigorous in their treatment of data and the construction of their arguments, no exceptions. Anyone who can't manage to do that is likely to go away mumbling about politics and conspiracies, as we've seen here.
Surely you can't be serious. If I wanted to assure my political future I'd pull a Dick Cheney and tell Americans that they should forget about climate change, CO2 and "peak oil" and burn all of the gasoline they can afford. That's what they want to hear. And if I wanted to keep my campaign coffers full and bring in all of that corporate PAC money, I'd be pandering my butt off not to climatologists but to the oil industry, because that is where the real money is.
But sure, Hitler campaigned on a platform of environmental protection and universal health care, if you say so...
So one guy controls all of the climate data ever collected, and the state of the entire field of climatology depends on his analysis? That's unadulterated horse shit and possibly the most idiotic thing I've heard this week. I don't care if you can find a climatologist that eats puppies raw for breakfast: It's nothing but character assassination, and whether it's warranted or not it's not a scientific argument. There's plenty of data out there. If you can build a convincing model with it, then just goddamn do it. The whole field will thank you for it.
Well, I guess you just stumbled into the Great Liberal Conspiracy that all scientists are required to join before they are granted their PhDs. Why anybody puts any credence in them when ExxonMobil's PR firms are saying something completely different is beyond me.
Seriously, though... Taking a potshot at this data point or that, or citing professional rivalries between climatologists (re: "climategate") isn't going to be enough. It's like pointing to a "gap" in the fossil record and calling it a flaw in the theory of evolution. If you have the requisite training and can produce a bona fide model that takes the body of existing data and produces a different result, then maybe you have something. A Nobel prize even, if one was awarded in climatology. If you've done this, then I'd like to see the citation. Surely there is at least one reputable peer-reviewed journal that isn't part of the great conspiracy and would publish a solid paper that makes a convincing argument.
When some of us question the shaky science of AGW we are called anti-science, 'deniers' and worse
Then perhaps you'd be well advised to start making formal scientific arguments in the peer-reviewed literature, rather than going through public relations firms hired to appeal directly to the public. If the data is on your side, then work it up to the same standards as everyone else and present it. Unless you do that, it's not science.
Or, like the GOP, you could just claim that more research is needed before actionable conclusions are made, all the while trying to cut funding for the very research you say we have too little of.