I keep seeing people talk about these scientists and their grant money. As if that somehow adds doubt to their trustworthiness.
Don't you think that scientists, with excellent credentials, could find money from "Big Oil" or other business interests if he could disprove AGW?
The money is for sure on the side of the anti-AGW crowd. Not to mention, if you were the scientist that could conclusively prove that all the other climate scientists were wrong, you'd be the most famous scientist in the world.
40% of our oil comes from OPEC though, and Saudi Arabia has a lot of influence when it comes to deciding what their partner OPEC nations are going to do.
When the post your responded to said: "Which is why I'd like to see us get off the imported oil habit to the point we could tell the House of Saud to pound sand."
It should have said: "Which is why I'd like to see us get off the imported oil habit to the point we could tell the OPEC to pound sand."
OPEC could level our economy any time it felt like it. It would be much preferable to be importing oil from independent sources rather than a large unified block of sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC
Read the wiki's section production disputes.
"These demands conflict with Saudi Arabia's stated long-term strategy of being a partner with the world's economic powers to ensure a steady flow of oil that would support economic expansion.[17] Part of the basis for this policy is the Saudi concern that expensive oil or oil of uncertain supply will drive developed nations to conserve and develop alternative fuels."
I'm not familiar with all the details of that, but from googling a bit, it sounds like further review is needed.
There are criticisms of the Wegman's report on the wikipedia page about the hockey stick.
The Wegman report has itself been criticized on several grounds: The report was not subject to formal peer review.[46][47] At the hearing, Wegman listed 6 people that participated in his own informal peer review process via email after the report was finalized and said they had no objection to the subcommittee submitting it.[44] Dr. Thomas Crowley, Professor of Earth Science System, Duke University, testified at the committee hearing, "The conclusions and recommendations of the Wegman Report have some serious flaws."[44] The result of fixing some of the alleged errors in the overall reconstruction does not change the general shape of the most recent part of the reconstruction.[48] Similarly, studies that use completely different methodologies also yield very similar reconstructions[48]. The social network analysis is not based on meaningful criteria, does not prove a conflict of interest and did not apply at the time of the 1998 and 1999 publications. Such a network of co-authorship is not unusual in narrowly defined areas of science.[49] During the hearing, Wegman defined the social network as peer reviewers that had "actively collaborated with him in writing research papers" and answered that none of his peer reviewers had.[44] Gerald North, chairman of the National Research Council panel that studied the hockey-stick issue and produced the report Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, stated the politicians at the hearing at which the Wegman report was presented "were twisting the scientific information for their own propaganda purposes. The hearing was not an information gathering operation, but rather a spin machine."[46] In testimony when asked if he disputed the methodology conclusions of Wegman's report, he stated that "No, we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report. But again, just because the claims are made, doesn’t mean they are false."[44] Mann has himself said that the report "uncritically parrots claims by two Canadians (an economist and a mineral-exploration consultant) that have already been refuted by several papers in the peer-reviewed literature inexplicably neglected by Barton's 'panel'. These claims were specifically dismissed by the National Academy in their report just weeks ago."[50]
From a cursory googling of Wegman and North's credentials, they do look like they have the right tools. Whether their conclusion is correct, is a matter of further peer review taking place.
Right now, the volume of studies agreeing with AGW far surpasses the 4 scientists being critical of it.
"Emphasis mine. I'm a math major, granted, but I can understand it just fine. It's just basic statistics. It's numbers, if you will."
But it also requires researching the actual weather stations, knowing their history, in order to homogenize the data as accurately as possible. Just having a raw data set and math skills won't necessarily result in an accurate final trend.
Experience in the field, knowledge of local conditions, knowledge of cycles like nina/nino, ability to analyze correlating data (ice core, tree ring) and determine when data is an outlier or not, etc..
There are many variables that a pure math approach would not take into account.
Can anyone provide a link to one single anti AGW paper that has solid, unbiased scientists behind it?
I googled a bit trying to find one and could not. The best I could find was lists like this: http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
But going down the list, and searching the history of the authors, their connections and business associations, every one of them is questionable. And each paper had numerous papers refuting it, or the original authors had later changed their mind.
Before I hit submit I found one more http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84E9E44A-802A-23AD-493A-B35D0842FED8 But was from 2007 and seems to be largely refuted. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/09/climate-insensitivity/
Is there one single anti AGW paper that most climate scientists say "yes, this is a pretty valid counter argument and we need to study if further"?
"We aren't talking particle physics here; you don't need a billion dollar accelerator to reproduce this kind of analysis"
The required tools aren't equipment. The required tools are education (specific to the field), knowledge, experience, and wisdom. One of the "controversies" is how the data was homogenized. Deciding how to "fiddle" with the data, requires the above mentioned "tools".
And once someone "fiddles" with the data and produces a resulting trend, the correct way a lay person should judge the quality of the result, is by checking out the reviews of that result by other people who posses the correct "tools". Other experienced, peer reviewed scientists.
You don't think there is some limit to what one should have to respond to?
If someone adamantly believed that they had conclusive proof that the sky was red, should a scientist have to take the time pointing out why the person is wrong?
In an ideal world, the "sky is red" believer wouldn't get any air time or attention. However, because controversy sells, and because there are many large cash sources paying to create controversy, news agencies cover it as if a real debate existed.
This is EXACTLY the same as the tobacco "debates" when there was a scientific consensus that smoking was harmful. Counter "scientists" and counter views sprung out of the woodwork. Funding came from institutes, funded by other institutes, back several layers to business interests in the tobacco industry.
For just about every blog post you find being skeptical, anyone can find one countering it. It really isn't a game anyone can win.
The best we can do is keep the scientific journals, method, and research as transparent as possible. And then, since none of us has the expertise to evaluate the actual science, and for every "pro" blog there is a "con" blog, we have to trust the judgement of the actual scientists and the reviews of them by other independent scientists.
This is one of the problems. People can't seem to verify the validity of anything. People think if they see charts and math/formulas that it must be real... Look, I'm sure that the Robinson's believe in what they are doing, but it doesn't make them correct. Full of errors, cherry picked data, and obvious ideology based motivations.
I'd love it if someone could link a real paper, by a real climate scientist with good credentials, that has at least been discussed by a couple other independent climate scientists (for some review) that refutes AGW.
I don't know about banning, say, an entire city area from smoking outdoors, but in some areas it makes sense.
I work for a community college, and every time I try to walk from one place to another on campus, every corner, ever entrance outside ever building, there is a pack of students smoking.
You cannot, literally, walk anywhere without walking past gangs of smokers. Of course it isn't as concentrated as being indoors, but there have been days when the wind blows just right, and I have to do a lot of walking around that day, that my clothes actually smell of smoke when I get home.
Would it be acceptable for me to hire 100 people to man every corner of every building and let off stink bombs round the clock? That is what I feel smoking is like, plus the added health detriment.
I just shouldn't have to smell that shit everywhere I go. The college recently implemented a ban on smoking on campus, and it is so much nicer.
While I couldn't see how it would be practical to ban smoking in a city, I could certainly see some measures put in place to get the smokers out of the way, perhaps in walled in but open aired mini parks or something.
The problem isn't so much a lone smoker on the corner, it is that every single corner has a smoker. Doorways, corners, building exits, pretty much anywhere you want to go, some smoker has stepped outside and is clouding the air.
Obama had already done many things, including changing world opinion.
Polls taken around the world showed that the US was once again admired. Prior to him traveling around the world during the campaign, prior to his speech in Egypt, prior to his meeting with many world leaders, and prior to several stateside speeches declaring our change in foreign policy, polls taken about the US showed that the vast majority of the world did not view us favorably.
Changing the tone of the entire world's opinion isn't something to be taken lightly. Did he really deserve a noble peace prize? Well probably yes, given that the prize has evolved into more of an approval of someone's methods or actions, rather than recognition of actual physical change in a region or the world.
Now would I like to see the prize return to rewarding something more along the lines of a life's worth of concrete action? Yes and no. It is very important to reward the Mother Teresa's of the world, but I think it is equally important that the world have a means of approving or disproving of behavior.
The Nobel group isn't exactly the whole world, but they are orders of magnitude more neutral than something like the UN, or a specific set of countries.
ArcherB, I'd like to thank you for your service. However, I think you need to have some perspective on what was done, what could have been done, and use a bit of logic when it comes to rationalizing our actions.
There are two main points I'd like to make: 1. Timing. We had been attacked by people from Saudi A. and planned in Afghan., why choose to attack Iraq now? The answer is most likely, without the sting of 9/11 still on our minds, they would not have been able to get support for the war.
2. Many times the justification for invading Iraq is that they defied international law, and that Hussein killed many 10's of thousands of his people. If that is the criteria for invading a country, why not pick one that is 10 times worse? What about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide
Brutal dictators all over Africa defy international law and let hundreds of thousands of their civilians die each year. We do nothing, because they have no oil or do not have an impact near our oil producing partners.
So as long as you are clear about what your mission really was, an economic one, and can be proud of doing that job well, be proud. As long as Americans know that they traded hundreds of thousands of Iraq lives, and thousands of American lives, for oil and greater Middle East stability, then it is fine to be proud of it. Be proud of the bravery of our solidiers, or proud of the economic mission.
Iraq becoming more democratic was a side effect. You can still choose to feel good about that side effect having happened, but don't pretend it was: 1. The real reason we went, or 2. That Iraq deserved it more than other countries.
Curious, how is television advertising controlled in Canada? In the US corporations, collectives, etc.. usually spend tons of money advertising "their views" for a candidate. They didn't donate, they are just exercising "free speech".
" I know that punishing "big business" is politically popular right now but in the end corporate taxes are nothing more than a hidden tax on individuals."
Giving them a tax break rarely results in a cheaper product or more pay for their employees. They will sell a product for the highest price that consumers will accept, and pay their employees the lowest salary that they will accept.
Trickle down is the least efficient way of giving an individual consumer/worker more money.
"Yet they can't distinguish between a movie trailer and real life."
Thats a bit oversimplified. Unlike most movies, this one has years of blog/forum/internet sites devoted to exploring the 2012 theories. Searching for it reveals page after page of people all across the world who think 2012 means that 'something' will happen.
So rather than being stupid, these people lack research skills that most college educated people probably take for granted. Googling for 2012 nirburu reveals 3,410,000 hits.
The very first one is: Planet X Nibiru Projected Orbital Return - 2012 This means that PlanetX/Nibiru is visible every 2000 (2160) years during its orbital pass. ( Sumerian and Mayan text both state that Nibiru is clearly... churchofcriticalthinking.org/planetx.html - Cached - Similar -
Church of critical thinking huh.... Now you tell me how and elderly person without a college education is supposed to filter through 3 million web sites when the vast majority do their absolute best to sound credible despite the authors of many of them being conspiracy nuts.
But ya.... we really need to work on our education system.
I found that surprising that other networks would stick up for Fox. It is pretty common knowledge that most of the other news organizations look down upon Fox.
Found an article confirming what you said: http://www.fancast.com/blogs/tv-news/networks-refused-white-house-after-fox-news-boycott/ No idea if the source is trustworthy though:) just a quick google.
I started thinking why, and then it occurred to me, that letting the white house decide what's news is a slippery slope for sure. Although I think Fox news is a horribly biased agency, and is responsible for most other networks following the money trail to crap reporting and lowered levels of true journalistic research.... I suppose we should stick up for them.
It makes me wonder though, just because you have a high number of viewers, and call yourself news, is there no way to actually make an objective call whether it is news or not? How extreme would Fox News have to get before the vast majority of America would say "Hey... that's not news, it is entirely opinion supporting a pre-determined agenda"?
You need about 10^14, or 100 teraflops, or 100 trillion calculations per second, in parallel. That's the best guess for the raw computation power of the brain.
Now thats just matching it, with no software and little understanding of many parts of the brain. Some people suggest that the brain has other stuff going on that might be very hard to figure out from current mapping/scanning techniques. I forget his name, but one researcher suspects that there are quantum effects, maybe even quantum level calculations, happening inside tiny parts of the brain that are affecting the outcomes. And other researchers are looking at the effect of signal strength in neuron firing. So not only are there 100 billion neurons each connected in a network performing 100 trillion neuron firings per second, but those firings are of various strengths which means that it is conveying more information than just "fired" or "not fired".
I think thats how I remember a summary from some AI article. It boils down to the brain most likely having orders of magnitude more calculations per second than Hans Morvec estimated. And your computer running the simulation is going to have all the overhead of creating the virtual biology. That is, unless we can really understand what is important to the brain and what is not. You can simulate an analog signal in a digital computer, but there is overhead involved. 100 trillion analog signals means your computer simulation is going to be doing way more than 100 trillion calculations.
Seems to me this is just another example of a religious institution redesigning where their God fits into the gaps in current scientific knowledge./puts on tinfoil hat What makes me curious though, is if this is being driven by an unannounced discovery? I've always wondered what the process would be if we really made contact with a higher life form, or even definitive proof of of a lesser life form. Would NASA hold off telling the public and instead talk to religious leaders first to let them have time to integrate the findings? Fear of panic? etc.../puts hat away
guy1: "It's not that you don't "deserve" compensation or that it "should" be free, it's that simply that technology is changing everything."
guy2: "There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it."
guy1: "It's ludicrous to say that you own a particular configuration of 1s and 0s"
guy2: "That's the stupidest fucking argument on the topic I've ever heard."
I think your both right to some extent. What happens when nano forges are common place and anyone can build a Mercedes Benz in their garage in one night from a pile of dirt? The same thing that is happening to 1's and 0's now.
I've often wondered why the big software companies haven't moved more aggressively to software as a service models. I think one of the reasons, is that a certain amount of piracy is considered a good thing by software companies. Growing up with windows or mac os and photoshop leads to a designer expecting those items from their future employers, for example. Exposure and market penetration are always a good thing for any product. Companies often give their product away for free for that very reason.
I think eventually we'll see software moving away from a boxed, tangible product model, and into the realm of software as a service. It will be a slow road, but we'll eventually need to be paying for services, and not a static set of 1's and 0's running locally. Most likely initially as a hybrid service, data local, 50% of the software remote.
If the music industry had moved towards more of a cable company, streaming service, multiple packages, unlimited viewing, service oriented model, instead of still trying to sell discs, they would have been much better off by now.
Sell me ease of use. Sell me being able to listen to any set of artists in my packaged deal, on my stereo, tv, computer, freely downloadable to any device, for 20-40 bucks a month. There would be customers for that. They simply have to move to a service model at some point.
Why? Well what happens when someone can download or swap music collections in a split second? Say, the entire archives of Warner Brothers in a split second. It is mildly annoying now to wait for downloads, or to find what you want, but computer speed and search power isn't going to go backwards.
The only reason we software/music/movies as a service wouldn't replace the tangible "in a box" product that we have now, is if the levels of piracy are acceptable as a means of market penetration and exposure. But I think that the levels are only going to go up over time, as searching, indexing, bandwidth, tor, etc.. become more powerful.
"the system makes every possible effort to interpret the code in such a way so that it doesn't have to do what you instructed it to do"
Na, it just hasn't been tested in every possible environment. It probably worked very well in the limited scope of testing that the original programmer did. 5 years from the creation date, society is using "society environment 2.1" instead of 2.0, and the code has unexpected errors in the new societal operating system.
Gah, I wish people would stop trying to make everything black/white, liberal vs conservative.
So liberals are pro wheel chair ramps and conservatives are against wheel chair ramps?
While there isn't a lot of legal precedent about video games and the ADA, you should take note that a video game store itself, would, in fact, have to comply with the ADA (wheel chair ramp for example).
Any public building has to have simple things like ramps to help the disabled. And these include buildings that are not 'essential services'.
And the quote that set you off with your "conservative tirade" (I assume I can call your post conservative right, as it was attempting to counter that "liberal post"...)
"In my humble opinion, providing access for the disabled is not only the right thing to do but it will generate more profit for Sony."
Is actually more right than you might imagine. I create web applications. I've done so for hospital chains and colleges for 10 years now. Currently I create online registration, billing, etc.. type portals for a large community college. 30,000+ registrations per term.
When we became serious about making sure that all our applications, across the line, were fully ADA compliant, we noticed that non-disabled people had a much easier time with them also.
Fully thinking through usability , clarity, color/contrast, menu placement and other things, with the ADA in mind, has actually greatly benefited non-disable people. We have actual data on usability tests, that proves that making our web applications ADA compliant improved usability test scores across the boards.
So I'd fully expect that if Sony invested some time and money into making sure that their products where reasonably (key word) ADA compliant, that their regular non-disabled gamers would also have a better experience.
While it might be in our power to change things if we, the people, all stood up and demanded change....the average person doesn't care.
Are the citizens in Europe somehow more demanding and therefore get better government? No. I'd care to wager that the exact same percent of people in Europe are as apathetic as in the US.
So whats the difference? Money, power, and specifically corporate money and power. The US is a center of money and power unlike any other country. It costs millions of dollars to run for most political offices in Washington, and the biggest donors are always the corporations.
And I'd argue that our lower turn out in elections is a direct result of people never having their voices heard. As lobbying, corporate influence, etc.. slowly crept into our political scene to a greater and greater extent, our voices, our needs, slowly became less important to directly winning elections. Well.. let me rephrase: a politician still needs to pretend like he cares, but he doesn't have to actually deliver on too many of his promises to get relected.
The left, right, and middle can all basically just make stuff up, lie, and get away with it. We've slowly become accustomed to it, and it is why many folks just don't give a damn anymore.
There is rarely a third party candidate to even vote for, and when faced between two people that aren't going to act any different from one another, why bother voting?
Until the money is removed from elections, things will never change, and in fact they will get worse.
The American people are not more apathetic by nature, we've just slowly come to realize that we are not in control. The path to regaining control is going to be a long, hard fought battle, and you can be sure that long time incumbent politicians will continue to distract the population will meaningless troll topics to prevent any real reform from taking place.
Openness is an attribute that can help you to learn more objectively, and often get a truer picture of whatever you are looking at.
But I think the key driver, long term, is work ethic. I've seen many ultra bright people slowly dull over time, as their work ethic isn't keeping their mind stimulated, and continuing to feed it a diverse set of challenges.
Slashdot Mirror
I keep seeing people talk about these scientists and their grant money. As if that somehow adds doubt to their trustworthiness.
Don't you think that scientists, with excellent credentials, could find money from "Big Oil" or other business interests if he could disprove AGW?
The money is for sure on the side of the anti-AGW crowd. Not to mention, if you were the scientist that could conclusively prove that all the other climate scientists were wrong, you'd be the most famous scientist in the world.
40% of our oil comes from OPEC though, and Saudi Arabia has a lot of influence when it comes to deciding what their partner OPEC nations are going to do.
When the post your responded to said:
"Which is why I'd like to see us get off the imported oil habit to the point we could tell the House of Saud to pound sand."
It should have said:
"Which is why I'd like to see us get off the imported oil habit to the point we could tell the OPEC to pound sand."
OPEC could level our economy any time it felt like it. It would be much preferable to be importing oil from independent sources rather than a large unified block of sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC
Read the wiki's section production disputes.
"These demands conflict with Saudi Arabia's stated long-term strategy of being a partner with the world's economic powers to ensure a steady flow of oil that would support economic expansion.[17] Part of the basis for this policy is the Saudi concern that expensive oil or oil of uncertain supply will drive developed nations to conserve and develop alternative fuels."
I'm not familiar with all the details of that, but from googling a bit, it sounds like further review is needed.
There are criticisms of the Wegman's report on the wikipedia page about the hockey stick.
The Wegman report has itself been criticized on several grounds:
The report was not subject to formal peer review.[46][47] At the hearing, Wegman listed 6 people that participated in his own informal peer review process via email after the report was finalized and said they had no objection to the subcommittee submitting it.[44]
Dr. Thomas Crowley, Professor of Earth Science System, Duke University, testified at the committee hearing, "The conclusions and recommendations of the Wegman Report have some serious flaws."[44]
The result of fixing some of the alleged errors in the overall reconstruction does not change the general shape of the most recent part of the reconstruction.[48]
Similarly, studies that use completely different methodologies also yield very similar reconstructions[48].
The social network analysis is not based on meaningful criteria, does not prove a conflict of interest and did not apply at the time of the 1998 and 1999 publications. Such a network of co-authorship is not unusual in narrowly defined areas of science.[49] During the hearing, Wegman defined the social network as peer reviewers that had "actively collaborated with him in writing research papers" and answered that none of his peer reviewers had.[44]
Gerald North, chairman of the National Research Council panel that studied the hockey-stick issue and produced the report Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years, stated the politicians at the hearing at which the Wegman report was presented "were twisting the scientific information for their own propaganda purposes. The hearing was not an information gathering operation, but rather a spin machine."[46] In testimony when asked if he disputed the methodology conclusions of Wegman's report, he stated that "No, we don’t. We don’t disagree with their criticism. In fact, pretty much the same thing is said in our report. But again, just because the claims are made, doesn’t mean they are false."[44]
Mann has himself said that the report "uncritically parrots claims by two Canadians (an economist and a mineral-exploration consultant) that have already been refuted by several papers in the peer-reviewed literature inexplicably neglected by Barton's 'panel'. These claims were specifically dismissed by the National Academy in their report just weeks ago."[50]
From a cursory googling of Wegman and North's credentials, they do look like they have the right tools. Whether their conclusion is correct, is a matter of further peer review taking place.
Right now, the volume of studies agreeing with AGW far surpasses the 4 scientists being critical of it.
"http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif [geocraft.com]
This is undisputed (really) science. The big question is, why's everyone pretending as if it wasn't?"
Scientists aren't ignoring it.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/High-CO2-in-the-past-Part-2.html
In summary, there are more factors than co2, and scientists do look at them.
"Emphasis mine. I'm a math major, granted, but I can understand it just fine. It's just basic statistics. It's numbers, if you will."
But it also requires researching the actual weather stations, knowing their history, in order to homogenize the data as accurately as possible. Just having a raw data set and math skills won't necessarily result in an accurate final trend.
Experience in the field, knowledge of local conditions, knowledge of cycles like nina/nino, ability to analyze correlating data (ice core, tree ring) and determine when data is an outlier or not, etc..
There are many variables that a pure math approach would not take into account.
Can anyone provide a link to one single anti AGW paper that has solid, unbiased scientists behind it?
I googled a bit trying to find one and could not. The best I could find was lists like this:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html
But going down the list, and searching the history of the authors, their connections and business associations, every one of them is questionable. And each paper had numerous papers refuting it, or the original authors had later changed their mind.
Before I hit submit I found one more
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=84E9E44A-802A-23AD-493A-B35D0842FED8
But was from 2007 and seems to be largely refuted.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/09/climate-insensitivity/
Is there one single anti AGW paper that most climate scientists say "yes, this is a pretty valid counter argument and we need to study if further"?
"We aren't talking particle physics here; you don't need a billion dollar accelerator to reproduce this kind of analysis"
The required tools aren't equipment. The required tools are education (specific to the field), knowledge, experience, and wisdom. One of the "controversies" is how the data was homogenized. Deciding how to "fiddle" with the data, requires the above mentioned "tools".
And once someone "fiddles" with the data and produces a resulting trend, the correct way a lay person should judge the quality of the result, is by checking out the reviews of that result by other people who posses the correct "tools". Other experienced, peer reviewed scientists.
You don't think there is some limit to what one should have to respond to?
If someone adamantly believed that they had conclusive proof that the sky was red, should a scientist have to take the time pointing out why the person is wrong?
In an ideal world, the "sky is red" believer wouldn't get any air time or attention. However, because controversy sells, and because there are many large cash sources paying to create controversy, news agencies cover it as if a real debate existed.
This is EXACTLY the same as the tobacco "debates" when there was a scientific consensus that smoking was harmful. Counter "scientists" and counter views sprung out of the woodwork. Funding came from institutes, funded by other institutes, back several layers to business interests in the tobacco industry.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/willis_eschenbach_caught_lying.php
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/08/climate_fraudit.php
For just about every blog post you find being skeptical, anyone can find one countering it. It really isn't a game anyone can win.
The best we can do is keep the scientific journals, method, and research as transparent as possible. And then, since none of us has the expertise to evaluate the actual science, and for every "pro" blog there is a "con" blog, we have to trust the judgement of the actual scientists and the reviews of them by other independent scientists.
Read MacCracken's response paper.
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=OISM
http://www.climate.org/about/maccracken-bio.html
This is one of the problems. People can't seem to verify the validity of anything. People think if they see charts and math/formulas that it must be real... Look, I'm sure that the Robinson's believe in what they are doing, but it doesn't make them correct. Full of errors, cherry picked data, and obvious ideology based motivations.
I'd love it if someone could link a real paper, by a real climate scientist with good credentials, that has at least been discussed by a couple other independent climate scientists (for some review) that refutes AGW.
I don't know about banning, say, an entire city area from smoking outdoors, but in some areas it makes sense.
I work for a community college, and every time I try to walk from one place to another on campus, every corner, ever entrance outside ever building, there is a pack of students smoking.
You cannot, literally, walk anywhere without walking past gangs of smokers. Of course it isn't as concentrated as being indoors, but there have been days when the wind blows just right, and I have to do a lot of walking around that day, that my clothes actually smell of smoke when I get home.
Would it be acceptable for me to hire 100 people to man every corner of every building and let off stink bombs round the clock? That is what I feel smoking is like, plus the added health detriment.
I just shouldn't have to smell that shit everywhere I go. The college recently implemented a ban on smoking on campus, and it is so much nicer.
While I couldn't see how it would be practical to ban smoking in a city, I could certainly see some measures put in place to get the smokers out of the way, perhaps in walled in but open aired mini parks or something.
The problem isn't so much a lone smoker on the corner, it is that every single corner has a smoker. Doorways, corners, building exits, pretty much anywhere you want to go, some smoker has stepped outside and is clouding the air.
Obama had already done many things, including changing world opinion.
Polls taken around the world showed that the US was once again admired. Prior to him traveling around the world during the campaign, prior to his speech in Egypt, prior to his meeting with many world leaders, and prior to several stateside speeches declaring our change in foreign policy, polls taken about the US showed that the vast majority of the world did not view us favorably.
Changing the tone of the entire world's opinion isn't something to be taken lightly. Did he really deserve a noble peace prize? Well probably yes, given that the prize has evolved into more of an approval of someone's methods or actions, rather than recognition of actual physical change in a region or the world.
Now would I like to see the prize return to rewarding something more along the lines of a life's worth of concrete action? Yes and no. It is very important to reward the Mother Teresa's of the world, but I think it is equally important that the world have a means of approving or disproving of behavior.
The Nobel group isn't exactly the whole world, but they are orders of magnitude more neutral than something like the UN, or a specific set of countries.
ArcherB, I'd like to thank you for your service. However, I think you need to have some perspective on what was done, what could have been done, and use a bit of logic when it comes to rationalizing our actions.
There are two main points I'd like to make:
1. Timing. We had been attacked by people from Saudi A. and planned in Afghan., why choose to attack Iraq now? The answer is most likely, without the sting of 9/11 still on our minds, they would not have been able to get support for the war.
2. Many times the justification for invading Iraq is that they defied international law, and that Hussein killed many 10's of thousands of his people. If that is the criteria for invading a country, why not pick one that is 10 times worse?
What about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide
Brutal dictators all over Africa defy international law and let hundreds of thousands of their civilians die each year. We do nothing, because they have no oil or do not have an impact near our oil producing partners.
So as long as you are clear about what your mission really was, an economic one, and can be proud of doing that job well, be proud. As long as Americans know that they traded hundreds of thousands of Iraq lives, and thousands of American lives, for oil and greater Middle East stability, then it is fine to be proud of it. Be proud of the bravery of our solidiers, or proud of the economic mission.
Iraq becoming more democratic was a side effect. You can still choose to feel good about that side effect having happened, but don't pretend it was:
1. The real reason we went, or
2. That Iraq deserved it more than other countries.
Curious, how is television advertising controlled in Canada? In the US corporations, collectives, etc.. usually spend tons of money advertising "their views" for a candidate. They didn't donate, they are just exercising "free speech".
" I know that punishing "big business" is politically popular right now but in the end corporate taxes are nothing more than a hidden tax on individuals."
Giving them a tax break rarely results in a cheaper product or more pay for their employees. They will sell a product for the highest price that consumers will accept, and pay their employees the lowest salary that they will accept.
Trickle down is the least efficient way of giving an individual consumer/worker more money.
"Yet they can't distinguish between a movie trailer and real life."
Thats a bit oversimplified. Unlike most movies, this one has years of blog/forum/internet sites devoted to exploring the 2012 theories. Searching for it reveals page after page of people all across the world who think 2012 means that 'something' will happen.
So rather than being stupid, these people lack research skills that most college educated people probably take for granted. Googling for 2012 nirburu reveals 3,410,000 hits.
The very first one is: ...
Planet X Nibiru Projected Orbital Return - 2012
This means that PlanetX/Nibiru is visible every 2000 (2160) years during its orbital pass. ( Sumerian and Mayan text both state that Nibiru is clearly
churchofcriticalthinking.org/planetx.html - Cached - Similar -
Church of critical thinking huh.... Now you tell me how and elderly person without a college education is supposed to filter through 3 million web sites when the vast majority do their absolute best to sound credible despite the authors of many of them being conspiracy nuts.
But ya.... we really need to work on our education system.
I found that surprising that other networks would stick up for Fox. It is pretty common knowledge that most of the other news organizations look down upon Fox.
Found an article confirming what you said: http://www.fancast.com/blogs/tv-news/networks-refused-white-house-after-fox-news-boycott/ No idea if the source is trustworthy though:) just a quick google.
I started thinking why, and then it occurred to me, that letting the white house decide what's news is a slippery slope for sure. Although I think Fox news is a horribly biased agency, and is responsible for most other networks following the money trail to crap reporting and lowered levels of true journalistic research.... I suppose we should stick up for them.
It makes me wonder though, just because you have a high number of viewers, and call yourself news, is there no way to actually make an objective call whether it is news or not? How extreme would Fox News have to get before the vast majority of America would say "Hey... that's not news, it is entirely opinion supporting a pre-determined agenda"?
You need about 10^14, or 100 teraflops, or 100 trillion calculations per second, in parallel. That's the best guess for the raw computation power of the brain.
Now thats just matching it, with no software and little understanding of many parts of the brain. Some people suggest that the brain has other stuff going on that might be very hard to figure out from current mapping/scanning techniques. I forget his name, but one researcher suspects that there are quantum effects, maybe even quantum level calculations, happening inside tiny parts of the brain that are affecting the outcomes. And other researchers are looking at the effect of signal strength in neuron firing. So not only are there 100 billion neurons each connected in a network performing 100 trillion neuron firings per second, but those firings are of various strengths which means that it is conveying more information than just "fired" or "not fired".
I think thats how I remember a summary from some AI article. It boils down to the brain most likely having orders of magnitude more calculations per second than Hans Morvec estimated. And your computer running the simulation is going to have all the overhead of creating the virtual biology. That is, unless we can really understand what is important to the brain and what is not. You can simulate an analog signal in a digital computer, but there is overhead involved. 100 trillion analog signals means your computer simulation is going to be doing way more than 100 trillion calculations.
"Enjoy your superstition. It has no effect on reality."
Unfortunately, as history has shown, it does effect reality. At least in terms of our behavior. Crusades, burning people alive, etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
Seems to me this is just another example of a religious institution redesigning where their God fits into the gaps in current scientific knowledge. /puts on tinfoil hat /puts hat away
What makes me curious though, is if this is being driven by an unannounced discovery? I've always wondered what the process would be if we really made contact with a higher life form, or even definitive proof of of a lesser life form. Would NASA hold off telling the public and instead talk to religious leaders first to let them have time to integrate the findings? Fear of panic? etc...
guy1: "It's not that you don't "deserve" compensation or that it "should" be free, it's that simply that technology is changing everything."
guy2: "There's a reason why things are like this, and that's because no one would bother writing professional-quality software if they didn't get paid enough for it."
guy1: "It's ludicrous to say that you own a particular configuration of 1s and 0s"
guy2: "That's the stupidest fucking argument on the topic I've ever heard."
I think your both right to some extent. What happens when nano forges are common place and anyone can build a Mercedes Benz in their garage in one night from a pile of dirt? The same thing that is happening to 1's and 0's now.
I've often wondered why the big software companies haven't moved more aggressively to software as a service models. I think one of the reasons, is that a certain amount of piracy is considered a good thing by software companies. Growing up with windows or mac os and photoshop leads to a designer expecting those items from their future employers, for example. Exposure and market penetration are always a good thing for any product. Companies often give their product away for free for that very reason.
I think eventually we'll see software moving away from a boxed, tangible product model, and into the realm of software as a service. It will be a slow road, but we'll eventually need to be paying for services, and not a static set of 1's and 0's running locally. Most likely initially as a hybrid service, data local, 50% of the software remote.
If the music industry had moved towards more of a cable company, streaming service, multiple packages, unlimited viewing, service oriented model, instead of still trying to sell discs, they would have been much better off by now.
Sell me ease of use. Sell me being able to listen to any set of artists in my packaged deal, on my stereo, tv, computer, freely downloadable to any device, for 20-40 bucks a month. There would be customers for that. They simply have to move to a service model at some point.
Why? Well what happens when someone can download or swap music collections in a split second? Say, the entire archives of Warner Brothers in a split second. It is mildly annoying now to wait for downloads, or to find what you want, but computer speed and search power isn't going to go backwards.
The only reason we software/music/movies as a service wouldn't replace the tangible "in a box" product that we have now, is if the levels of piracy are acceptable as a means of market penetration and exposure. But I think that the levels are only going to go up over time, as searching, indexing, bandwidth, tor, etc.. become more powerful.
"the system makes every possible effort to interpret the code in such a way so that it doesn't have to do what you instructed it to do"
Na, it just hasn't been tested in every possible environment. It probably worked very well in the limited scope of testing that the original programmer did. 5 years from the creation date, society is using "society environment 2.1" instead of 2.0, and the code has unexpected errors in the new societal operating system.
"That's a fine-sounding liberal opinion"
Gah, I wish people would stop trying to make everything black/white, liberal vs conservative.
So liberals are pro wheel chair ramps and conservatives are against wheel chair ramps?
While there isn't a lot of legal precedent about video games and the ADA, you should take note that a video game store itself, would, in fact, have to comply with the ADA (wheel chair ramp for example).
Any public building has to have simple things like ramps to help the disabled. And these include buildings that are not 'essential services'.
And the quote that set you off with your "conservative tirade" (I assume I can call your post conservative right, as it was attempting to counter that "liberal post"...)
"In my humble opinion, providing access for the disabled is not only the right thing to do but it will generate more profit for Sony."
Is actually more right than you might imagine. I create web applications. I've done so for hospital chains and colleges for 10 years now. Currently I create online registration, billing, etc.. type portals for a large community college. 30,000+ registrations per term.
When we became serious about making sure that all our applications, across the line, were fully ADA compliant, we noticed that non-disabled people had a much easier time with them also.
Fully thinking through usability , clarity, color/contrast, menu placement and other things, with the ADA in mind, has actually greatly benefited non-disable people. We have actual data on usability tests, that proves that making our web applications ADA compliant improved usability test scores across the boards.
So I'd fully expect that if Sony invested some time and money into making sure that their products where reasonably (key word) ADA compliant, that their regular non-disabled gamers would also have a better experience.
"THAT IS OUR FAULT."
While it might be in our power to change things if we, the people, all stood up and demanded change....the average person doesn't care.
Are the citizens in Europe somehow more demanding and therefore get better government? No. I'd care to wager that the exact same percent of people in Europe are as apathetic as in the US.
So whats the difference? Money, power, and specifically corporate money and power. The US is a center of money and power unlike any other country. It costs millions of dollars to run for most political offices in Washington, and the biggest donors are always the corporations.
A few politicians are at any given time trying to reform elections, but it never seems to become a big ticket item. Here's a senator talking about it: http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4773857
And I'd argue that our lower turn out in elections is a direct result of people never having their voices heard. As lobbying, corporate influence, etc.. slowly crept into our political scene to a greater and greater extent, our voices, our needs, slowly became less important to directly winning elections. Well.. let me rephrase: a politician still needs to pretend like he cares, but he doesn't have to actually deliver on too many of his promises to get relected.
The left, right, and middle can all basically just make stuff up, lie, and get away with it. We've slowly become accustomed to it, and it is why many folks just don't give a damn anymore.
There is rarely a third party candidate to even vote for, and when faced between two people that aren't going to act any different from one another, why bother voting?
Until the money is removed from elections, things will never change, and in fact they will get worse.
The American people are not more apathetic by nature, we've just slowly come to realize that we are not in control. The path to regaining control is going to be a long, hard fought battle, and you can be sure that long time incumbent politicians will continue to distract the population will meaningless troll topics to prevent any real reform from taking place.
Openness is an attribute that can help you to learn more objectively, and often get a truer picture of whatever you are looking at.
But I think the key driver, long term, is work ethic. I've seen many ultra bright people slowly dull over time, as their work ethic isn't keeping their mind stimulated, and continuing to feed it a diverse set of challenges.