I'll try to clarify my arrogant, unjustified and ignorant rants to a cultivated and sensitive european public:
The EU is already as largely economically uncompetitive as it gets due to extreme bureaucratic inefficiencies (producing nothing but paper)
A bureaucracy in itself produces little value. We cannot eat what it produces, it doesn't clothe us or keep us warm, and we do not gain wisdom or entertainment from it. We've been trained to ignore the fact that a lot of people are being paid for what is essentially busy-work, instead of providing valuable goods and services.
There are quite a few economic problems in the EU. Bankrupcies and unemployment are at all time highs. By diverting effort towards producing more bureaucracy instead of services and goods, the economy ends up being less productive, and we all end up poorer as a result.
A lot of people are isolated from the real economy. They are living in a fantasy world where producing something valuable doesn't seem necessary, as if goods and services magically appear out of nowhere.
The economic decline is hidden because the capital that has been extracted (stolen) from former colonies is being spent to keep up appearances.
It's no secret that Europe has accumulated its capital by exploiting the natural resources (including slaves) outside its borders. Now that capital is slowly eroding, as it is being spent on unproductive ventures (bankrupcies above) or on paying for the magically appearing goods and services. Those having or managing this capital frankly do not talk about it. If you're one of the have-nots (no offense) you can deduce this by studying the disinvestment of "old money" - a staggering amount of formerly private companies have been sold out.
Kyoto is just there to establish a base from which to launch new taxes. These taxes will further foster the power of this bureaucracy, and divert money towards funding pork-barrel projects and more junk science studies.
It's a question of time before we'll see a CO2 tax on every product and service. More taxes mean you get to spend less money yourself on what you value. The political system gets more money to spend on what it likes: that what causes its power to grow. Give a bureaucracy more money, and they will use it to grow their bureaucracy. More taxes, however noble the cause, produce more bureaucracy. It's that simple, and it's the reason why politicians are so fond of Kyoto. It will increase their power base.
Instead of people desigining and producing interesting technology, they'll be pushing paper and develop convoluted emission trading systems.
Kyoto is about trading emission rights. Now that's a derivative. It's like trading banana futures: that doesn't create valued bananas, it just shifts money around. Since you seem so fed-up about the stereotypical americans (can't blame you, they really have bad representatives from time to time) you may find the Enron history an amusing (for the Europeans) and embarassing (for the Americans) tale of what happens when the focus shifts from value (energy production, in this case) to derivatives (trading energy).
Finally:
Thanks for your concern, but I'm not worried about being taken for an American. I am worried about the sickening slide of productivity and wealth, and that should worry you too.
If such a market develops and there are fortunes to be made, you can be sure the Americans will come.
Sure, the Americans will start a big enronesque emission trading company that pays it's CEO and inner circle ungodly amounts of money, lines the politicians' pockets, goes belly up, and kills investors and pension funds in the process.
No, another nail in the coffin of the EU. The EU is already as largely economically uncompetitive as it gets due to extreme bureaucratic inefficiencies (producing nothing but paper). The economic decline is hidden because the capital that has been extracted (stolen) from former colonies is being spent to keep up appearances.
Kyoto is just there to establish a base from which to launch new taxes. These taxes will further foster the power of this bureaucracy, and divert money towards funding pork-barrel projects and more junk science studies.
In the end, Kyoto will slow down development, including development in alternative energy, because the money and (human) energy isn't put to work in the most productive way. Instead of people desigining and producing interesting technology, they'll be pushing paper and develop convoluted emission trading systems.
Already Kyoto has made me post this, instead of spending my time on better things. QED.
It would be interesting to calculate the amount of energy contained in the angular momentum of the spinning earth. That limits the amount we can extract from it.
Yes, as in lies, damn lies and $1 ? That aside, I've got no problems at all with statistics, if only they are properly applied.
Once again, you confuse specifics with averages
No, I don't, the doomsayers do. That's the whole point. They extrapolate a supposed trend, which they've selectively extracted out of a time series produced by a highly chaotic system. At which point my BS detector runs off the scale.
Why is it that you think that casual observations during a long life and travel make you more qualified to discuss climatology than the many climatologists who have spent their long lives and travel in the active and specific study of the subject?
Why did you stop beating your wife ? I said that I understand the difference between weather and climate, nothing more.
Who are these "global warming doomsayers"?
They're easy enough to find. They're not the honest scientists studying climate, they're the ones making extremely bold and extrapolated predictions singled out by media (because they have interest in telling a spectacular story) and politicians (because they can turn a perceived problem into political power).
Is your problem only with them or with all climatologists who make predictions? If the latter, can you please prove that all these people act "as if they fully know the system"?
Yes. N/A.
The point is this: it is easy to prove false your arguments that predictions that are not absolutely certain hold no worth and that a failure to be able to be able to make completely certain short-term predictions about weather indicates an inability to make informative long-term predictions about climate.
That's not my argument. My argument is that, given chaotic behaviour of weather, predicting it past a certain time interval is extrapolation. And predicting huge changes over a short time interval for a complex, incompletely known and glacially moving system from limited data with utter confidence, is doomsaying.
I'd like to see this statement proven, but I doubt you can prove it any time soon (note that anecdotes are not an acceptable measure of uncertainty
I don't think you really would like that statement proven; it wouldn't tell you anything anyway...
Since you seem to think the ability to predict local weather is related to the ability to predict climate change
I don't. One may be have a cunning ability to predict the local weather, yet fail completely at predicting climate change. The prediction abilities are not related.
Look at whether and by how much the 3-day temperature forecast for a set of randomly selected localities in the US is better than just random guesses -- the data should all be publicly available. Then, can you find a system that makes a 3-day forecast of values for a set of randomly selected stocks that is more accurate than that?
The concrete challenge itself is interesting, but too much work for the limited value of the outcome. I leave it as an excercise for the reader who is intrigued by my statement;-). But to simplify things even more, it would be interesting to check the predictive accuracy of statements "the temperature in K at location L will be the same tomorrow as today within X%" and "the value of the stock S will be the same tomorrow as today within X%".
the money from the stock prediction system should provide you with a substantial income to use during this time
I fully comprehend the difference between weather and climate. I've been living long enough and I've traveled enough places, and read enough (natural) history articles to know the difference, but also to know how wildly both weather and climate behave during a significant time interval.
I have no problem with someone predicting the average of 100 coin tosses, on the condition that all is known beforehand about the coin tossing system. But if the behaviour of that system is opaque, what to conclude from a history of tossing 60 heads and 60 tails ? Nothing. The next 500 tosses (weather) may end up all heads, and the long term average (climate) may turn out to be 1/10 heads/tails.
So I do have a problem with global warming doomsayers acting as if they fully know the system underneath their predictions. They don't. Hence their predictions are not convincing, neither for the short, neither for the long term.
Predicting climate 10 years out is even more uncertain than predicting the average movement of the DJ over 10 years. Good luck with the latter; you've proven my point.
With roulette, you KNOW what the odds are. With weather, you don't.
Global warming doomsayers act as if they KNOW what the long terms odds are. Well, they don't.
They extrapolate short term trends into the future. Fine, but if they cannot extrapolate a trend three days out, why are they amazed when we don't trust their predictions decades out ?
For your example, if you don't know that there is a roulette wheel behind your winnings or losings, what does a three (four, five,...) turn winning streak tell you ? Are you going to win continuously ?
So you are saying geeks should use "octopii", no ?
Maybe "octopxvi" would be better - to emphasize that a plurarility of said animals (*) have at least 16 arms, unless some have been bitten off - but that's hardish to pronounce.
(*) I wrote^H^H^H^H^Hread too many software patent applications recently, and it shows up in my posting; really sorry 'bout that.
That aside, I'd recommend listen to some recent trance (as featured on di.fm's trance channel)carefully. While the above 4/4 foundation is still there, you'd be amazed by what is built on top of it in terms of sound complexity. Unfortunately most people don't listen that carefully, and end up being bored.
The "then don't" part will become increasingly difficult over time, as the eID becomes obligatory for even the most mundane tasks.
It's like saying: "You don't want to pay 80% withholdings and taxes on your income ? Then don't work ! You don't want to pay 20% VAT ? Then don't buy stuff !"
Yeah, right.
That aside, I don't have a problem with the card, due to the fact that we Belgians don't have a history of being abused by the government (save for taxes, that is). Let's hope that doesn't change for the worse.
As to the foreign population, the grandparent is very wrong and very right at the same time. The question is, what is a native Belgian ? A pure 100% Eburonic descendant, maybe ? Belgium has been trampled so often by foreign invaders/settlers/liberators that the gene pool is quite thoroughly mixed.
I attended his keynote to the developer community this morning, and quite frankly, I was amazed at the casual atmosphere and the low level of security. Anyone of the attendees could have carried and fired a gun at him at close range.
I appreciate it that Bill still has the guts to appear in public. He must know that it takes only one wacko, and that one day he WILL walk into one.
As posters have pointed out, active noise cancelling isn't required.
I use inexpensive Sony MDR-EX71SLB Fontopia in-ear headphones. I like their sound very much (not too harsh on the high end, and with a very deep and solid bass). You don't need to turn the volume all the way up to make all disturbances (including a yakking wife or girlfriend;-) disappear.
I find them much more comfortable than over the ear headphones (YMMV), and they're very inconspicuous.
To me, both chip design and FPGA design seem quite plausible but too laborous to even try to pursue on my own.
I agree on the chip design, but FPGAs definitely should be within your capabilities. With modern tools, some knowledge of digital electronics and software experience, 'designing' an FPGA is a breeze, and not really laborous.
I've you ever get the chance, try it. You might like it.
Nowhere it says that development of the Itanium will stop completely. It only says that HP will no longer co-develop with Intel; Intel will continue development alone.
I received a presentation last week on 64-bit systems from HP where they actually promoted the Itanium for its higher scalability in multiway systems. As HP also offers Xeon and AMD Opteron SMP systems, maybe they aren't too heavily biased. The guy was actually rather upbeat about Itanium's prospects.
At least one other manufacturer has placed a bet on Itanium for replacing a proprietary 48-bit (!) processor. Itanium won't die so soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Symbol change tomorrow:1 .html
http://ca.us.biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050217/lath062_
The EU is already as largely economically uncompetitive as it gets due to extreme bureaucratic inefficiencies (producing nothing but paper)
A bureaucracy in itself produces little value. We cannot eat what it produces, it doesn't clothe us or keep us warm, and we do not gain wisdom or entertainment from it. We've been trained to ignore the fact that a lot of people are being paid for what is essentially busy-work, instead of providing valuable goods and services.
There are quite a few economic problems in the EU. Bankrupcies and unemployment are at all time highs. By diverting effort towards producing more bureaucracy instead of services and goods, the economy ends up being less productive, and we all end up poorer as a result.
A lot of people are isolated from the real economy. They are living in a fantasy world where producing something valuable doesn't seem necessary, as if goods and services magically appear out of nowhere.
The economic decline is hidden because the capital that has been extracted (stolen) from former colonies is being spent to keep up appearances.
It's no secret that Europe has accumulated its capital by exploiting the natural resources (including slaves) outside its borders. Now that capital is slowly eroding, as it is being spent on unproductive ventures (bankrupcies above) or on paying for the magically appearing goods and services. Those having or managing this capital frankly do not talk about it. If you're one of the have-nots (no offense) you can deduce this by studying the disinvestment of "old money" - a staggering amount of formerly private companies have been sold out.
Kyoto is just there to establish a base from which to launch new taxes. These taxes will further foster the power of this bureaucracy, and divert money towards funding pork-barrel projects and more junk science studies.
It's a question of time before we'll see a CO2 tax on every product and service. More taxes mean you get to spend less money yourself on what you value. The political system gets more money to spend on what it likes: that what causes its power to grow. Give a bureaucracy more money, and they will use it to grow their bureaucracy. More taxes, however noble the cause, produce more bureaucracy. It's that simple, and it's the reason why politicians are so fond of Kyoto. It will increase their power base.
Instead of people desigining and producing interesting technology, they'll be pushing paper and develop convoluted emission trading systems.
Kyoto is about trading emission rights. Now that's a derivative. It's like trading banana futures: that doesn't create valued bananas, it just shifts money around. Since you seem so fed-up about the stereotypical americans (can't blame you, they really have bad representatives from time to time) you may find the Enron history an amusing (for the Europeans) and embarassing (for the Americans) tale of what happens when the focus shifts from value (energy production, in this case) to derivatives (trading energy).
Finally:
Thanks for your concern, but I'm not worried about being taken for an American. I am worried about the sickening slide of productivity and wealth, and that should worry you too.
FYI: I'm european.
Today, on national (government-sponsored) radio news in your typical EU country:
"Not respecting the Kyoto protocol could lead to natural disasters like tsunamis"
I'm not making this up. If you understand dutch, check out this letter by someone else who heard it.
Sure, the Americans will start a big enronesque emission trading company that pays it's CEO and inner circle ungodly amounts of money, lines the politicians' pockets, goes belly up, and kills investors and pension funds in the process.
Way to go.
No, another nail in the coffin of the EU. The EU is already as largely economically uncompetitive as it gets due to extreme bureaucratic inefficiencies (producing nothing but paper). The economic decline is hidden because the capital that has been extracted (stolen) from former colonies is being spent to keep up appearances.
Kyoto is just there to establish a base from which to launch new taxes. These taxes will further foster the power of this bureaucracy, and divert money towards funding pork-barrel projects and more junk science studies.
In the end, Kyoto will slow down development, including development in alternative energy, because the money and (human) energy isn't put to work in the most productive way. Instead of people desigining and producing interesting technology, they'll be pushing paper and develop convoluted emission trading systems.
Already Kyoto has made me post this, instead of spending my time on better things. QED.
It would be interesting to calculate the amount of energy contained in the angular momentum of the spinning earth. That limits the amount we can extract from it.
Let's see, assuming the earth is a solid sphere:
The angular velocity:
w = 2.pi/T = 7.26e-5 rad/s
Moment of inertia:
I = 2/5.M.r^2 = 9.71e37 kg.m^2
Angular momentum:
L = Iw = 7.05e33 kg.m^2/s
Kinetic energy:
E = I.w^2/2 ( = L.w/2) = 2.55e29 J
That should keep us going for a while.
Yes, as in lies, damn lies and $1 ? That aside, I've got no problems at all with statistics, if only they are properly applied.
Once again, you confuse specifics with averages
No, I don't, the doomsayers do. That's the whole point. They extrapolate a supposed trend, which they've selectively extracted out of a time series produced by a highly chaotic system. At which point my BS detector runs off the scale.
Why did you stop beating your wife ? I said that I understand the difference between weather and climate, nothing more.
Who are these "global warming doomsayers"?
They're easy enough to find. They're not the honest scientists studying climate, they're the ones making extremely bold and extrapolated predictions singled out by media (because they have interest in telling a spectacular story) and politicians (because they can turn a perceived problem into political power).
Is your problem only with them or with all climatologists who make predictions? If the latter, can you please prove that all these people act "as if they fully know the system"?
Yes. N/A.
The point is this: it is easy to prove false your arguments that predictions that are not absolutely certain hold no worth and that a failure to be able to be able to make completely certain short-term predictions about weather indicates an inability to make informative long-term predictions about climate.
That's not my argument. My argument is that, given chaotic behaviour of weather, predicting it past a certain time interval is extrapolation. And predicting huge changes over a short time interval for a complex, incompletely known and glacially moving system from limited data with utter confidence, is doomsaying.
I'd like to see this statement proven, but I doubt you can prove it any time soon (note that anecdotes are not an acceptable measure of uncertainty
I don't think you really would like that statement proven; it wouldn't tell you anything anyway...
Since you seem to think the ability to predict local weather is related to the ability to predict climate change
I don't. One may be have a cunning ability to predict the local weather, yet fail completely at predicting climate change. The prediction abilities are not related.
Look at whether and by how much the 3-day temperature forecast for a set of randomly selected localities in the US is better than just random guesses -- the data should all be publicly available. Then, can you find a system that makes a 3-day forecast of values for a set of randomly selected stocks that is more accurate than that?
The concrete challenge itself is interesting, but too much work for the limited value of the outcome. I leave it as an excercise for the reader who is intrigued by my statement ;-). But to simplify things even more, it would be interesting to check the predictive accuracy of statements "the temperature in K at location L will be the same tomorrow as today within X%" and "the value of the stock S will be the same tomorrow as today within X%".
the money from the stock prediction system should provide you with a substantial income to use during this time
Please explain how !
I fully comprehend the difference between weather and climate. I've been living long enough and I've traveled enough places, and read enough (natural) history articles to know the difference, but also to know how wildly both weather and climate behave during a significant time interval.
I have no problem with someone predicting the average of 100 coin tosses, on the condition that all is known beforehand about the coin tossing system. But if the behaviour of that system is opaque, what to conclude from a history of tossing 60 heads and 60 tails ? Nothing. The next 500 tosses (weather) may end up all heads, and the long term average (climate) may turn out to be 1/10 heads/tails.
So I do have a problem with global warming doomsayers acting as if they fully know the system underneath their predictions. They don't. Hence their predictions are not convincing, neither for the short, neither for the long term.
Predicting climate 10 years out is even more uncertain than predicting the average movement of the DJ over 10 years. Good luck with the latter; you've proven my point.
The little year that could.
Bullshit, my dear.
...) turn winning streak tell you ? Are you going to win continuously ?
With roulette, you KNOW what the odds are. With weather, you don't.
Global warming doomsayers act as if they KNOW what the long terms odds are. Well, they don't.
They extrapolate short term trends into the future. Fine, but if they cannot extrapolate a trend three days out, why are they amazed when we don't trust their predictions decades out ?
For your example, if you don't know that there is a roulette wheel behind your winnings or losings, what does a three (four, five,
So you are saying geeks should use "octopii", no ?
Maybe "octopxvi" would be better - to emphasize that a plurarility of said animals (*) have at least 16 arms, unless some have been bitten off - but that's hardish to pronounce.
(*) I wrote^H^H^H^H^Hread too many software patent applications recently, and it shows up in my posting; really sorry 'bout that.
s/listen/&ing/
s/\)c/) c/
w
q
No, it's: (OOOnka oonka oonka oonka)+
That aside, I'd recommend listen to some recent trance (as featured on di.fm's trance channel)carefully. While the above 4/4 foundation is still there, you'd be amazed by what is built on top of it in terms of sound complexity. Unfortunately most people don't listen that carefully, and end up being bored.
This lady, perhaps ?
The "then don't" part will become increasingly difficult over time, as the eID becomes obligatory for even the most mundane tasks.
It's like saying: "You don't want to pay 80% withholdings and taxes on your income ? Then don't work ! You don't want to pay 20% VAT ? Then don't buy stuff !"
Yeah, right.
That aside, I don't have a problem with the card, due to the fact that we Belgians don't have a history of being abused by the government (save for taxes, that is). Let's hope that doesn't change for the worse.
As to the foreign population, the grandparent is very wrong and very right at the same time. The question is, what is a native Belgian ? A pure 100% Eburonic descendant, maybe ? Belgium has been trampled so often by foreign invaders/settlers/liberators that the gene pool is quite thoroughly mixed.
'dares' is the word indeed.
I attended his keynote to the developer community this morning, and quite frankly, I was amazed at the casual atmosphere and the low level of security. Anyone of the attendees could have carried and fired a gun at him at close range.
I appreciate it that Bill still has the guts to appear in public. He must know that it takes only one wacko, and that one day he WILL walk into one.
But then, maybe it was a döppelgänger...
I simply dial 0, 00, country code, phone #.
Couldn't care less because calling whatever country is cheaper than calling a cell phone in my own country. Weird. Just plain weird.
As posters have pointed out, active noise cancelling isn't required.
;-) disappear.
I use inexpensive Sony MDR-EX71SLB Fontopia in-ear headphones. I like their sound very much (not too harsh on the high end, and with a very deep and solid bass). You don't need to turn the volume all the way up to make all disturbances (including a yakking wife or girlfriend
I find them much more comfortable than over the ear headphones (YMMV), and they're very inconspicuous.
I agree on the chip design, but FPGAs definitely should be within your capabilities. With modern tools, some knowledge of digital electronics and software experience, 'designing' an FPGA is a breeze, and not really laborous.
I've you ever get the chance, try it. You might like it.
I'm not giving it to you straight, but here's a hint: multics lineage.
Nowhere it says that development of the Itanium will stop completely. It only says that HP will no longer co-develop with Intel; Intel will continue development alone.
I received a presentation last week on 64-bit systems from HP where they actually promoted the Itanium for its higher scalability in multiway systems. As HP also offers Xeon and AMD Opteron SMP systems, maybe they aren't too heavily biased. The guy was actually rather upbeat about Itanium's prospects.
At least one other manufacturer has placed a bet on Itanium for replacing a proprietary 48-bit (!) processor. Itanium won't die so soon.
But he didn't succeed...
You could keep a VMWare image on the key.