Just out of curiosity--by what standards exactly, is China "making the US look pretty bad" in space tech?
They've managed--using Russian derivative technology--to put one man into space. Nothing shoddy, true, however the US and Russia each, with completely new technologies, doing something never done before, put people into space over 45 years ago. We put men on the moon about 35 years ago.
I'm all in favor of furthering space exploration, and China is a very welcome addition to the frame (I hope their involvement makes us go to the moon again frankly). Saying that they make NASA look bad though is ludicrous and ill-informed.
Right, it's the exact same way on the PC--you get to select where you store your iTunes library in the iTunes preferences.
However doing the way I described, you keep the same playlists, same album art, same play history, same preferences--it's all identical between users, and all in one place
itunes by default stores stuff in a folder called "iTunes" under your user "My Music" folder, and th library itself in "iTunes Music" which is a folder under the iTunes directory.
You can make your "My Music" folder be the same for all your accounts, and then you don't have to worry about different libraries. use TweakUI to change the default location of your "My Music" folder.
So why is selling people products that they want, evil?
I don't get it--is this some kind of elitism? Is Wal-Mart too "low class" or something? Such anti-Wal Mart comments on slashdot always interest me, as polls (such as by Rasmussen and I believe Zogby too) have consistently showed Wal-Mart with approval ratings around 70%--higher than just about any politician arround!
Wow that's one of the most -- I don't even know what -- comments I've ever read on slashdot! I'll go with ignorant.
1) The mere fact that he finds the law interesting shows he must be shallow? Well, what a sheltered life you must have led--believe it or not there are a HUGE number of law geeks out there, just do some googling. Law blogs (blawgs as they are sometimes called) are HUGE.. The same kind of people that often become engineers--think INTP types--are often drawn to law--love of details, of rule oriented systems, of order, and of the functioning of systems. Just because he doesn't meet your standard of... whatever... is a pretty lame standard to call lawyers by nature shallow.
2) A true genius would be eager to use his... (etc, BS, etc). Right, Because geniuses are always the most completely functional of people, and moreover they OWE it to everyone else to do not what they want to do, but what others want them to do. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need?" what an enlightened philosophy.
3) Well DancesWithBlowTorch, I certainly hope that you're spending every one of your idle seconds doing something to advance the human condition, and picking a career etc based not on anything that you want, but what is needed by humanity. Believe it nor, others may think that spending hours and hours reading slashdot and posting comments makes you out to be a shallow person...
I don't see the need to go around judging people and entire professions based on some arbitrary set of human standards defined by YOU--let's let people do what they want, and be happy the way they want, yeah?
Well, my first response would be, you don't have any reason to respond, as afaict, you didn't post the comment I was replying to... unless I missed something?
Wow, bashing someone for having the DISEASE Alzheimers. Really classy there...
Having a grandmother who currently has alzheimers, I only hope for your sake that you--or anyone else--ever have to go through the same thing... it's completely awful, and regardless of your political feelings, your statement was incredibly without class and basic decency.
Okay. Climatologists worldwide are convinced; you seem to be saying that they should be less confident than they are. I'm not going to debate the science with you, here on slashdot, but answer me this: If the downside to them being right and the world not doing anything about it is a worldwide catastrophe, how much evidence should we have before dismissing their claims as "not certain"?
My judgement is that the consensus you speak of worldwide is not at all like you make it out to be. If you're clear that there is a consensus in global climate change, tending towards heating, I would absolutely accept that. But there are many "dissident" scientists who differ as to what will continue to happen and why it is happening. I had a professor in undergrad whose theory was that the environment went through relatively short periods of rapid flux (ie, over several hundred years) before reaching a different equilibrium. He personally thought that we could be heading eventually towards another ice age in thousand+ years, and that erratic changes in temperature were to be expected. (but according to your later link, he died in mid-1975.)
Let me reverse your question, and put this in terms of a cost calculus--what if you're wrong, and we kill economies worldwide for nothing? How many millions will suffer because of that? It's the poor that will suffer the most, as they always do. Which is going to be worse, a 1/1.5 degree rise in global average temperature over a hundred years (I hypothesize on your theory of a fairly high amount of global warming) or shutting down the vast segments of our economy that we would need to to make a dent in something like CO2.
I'm all for conservation and preservation--they are very important to me. CO2 I just don't get... Your other assumption is that we have this great control over the environment and can change it at will--I don't believe this either.
Why should things ALWAYS be the way they are today? It's somewhat interesting as the kind of ultimate in conservatism.
That's so ridiculous that I think I'll just let it stand on its own:-).
Conservatism as in the core of not wanting things to change. (as in a social conservative wants social mores to stay the same. You might say, you're an environmental conservative, as you want it to stay the same--fair?) You say "the ice caps are melting this is terrible"... "permafrost is melting this is terrible" "sea levels are changing this is terrible"... Even *IF* all these things are universally true, they've done so many times before, and will no doubt continue to change long after we're gone. I don't understand the attitude that the earth climate should remain the exact same as it was February 3, 1978 or whatever arbitrary date you want to pick. We know from historical records that climate patterns have changed DRASTICALLY in only the last 10k--even in the last 2000 years. Look at the old civilization in northern china, and large parts of the middle east and north africa. They used to be signfigicantly wetter. Likewise, the example of Greenland and Vineland has been mentioned to death, but it is there too. The environment isn't static!
Re: global cooling
this is the exact reason why I think we should be careful--it's a chapter of science being totally hidden away now. From CIA reports, to popular books, science reports, to Time magazine, to Isaac Asimov, people WERE worried about global cooling. The whole era was filled with fears of cooling--nobody ever talks about nuclear winter anymore. The link to the global warming site about cooling you provide is rather targeted, and I don't think addresses many points.
Glaciers are growing in some areas because of increased precipitation, which is often a local effect of global warming (as is local drought; it depends on the area). Are you actually saying that that means that the ice caps aren't melting right now?
Well, we know that when the dinosaurs were around, they live
Zinc mine: Was originally revelead by the Wash. Times I believe, not "WingNutDaily." I have to wonder why the mine closed--did it run out of zinc, or did something else change? Even so, if the mine was closed in 2003, that's something, though I still think the zinc mine is an example of double standards and hypocrisy.
I would be interested in the sources of the USA Today author vs the statement made by Gore press in regards to green power. Not sure which I believe here. Kind of reminds me of the recent deal when Obama lectured an audience on fuel efficiency and rode off in his SUV. Then his press guys said "yeah, he likes SUVs, but he uses E85" (which I find VERY debatable whether is a net energy loss or not)... and then others have said his model SUV can't even take E85. Suspicious to say the least.
I will retract claims about Gore CURRENTLY benefitting from a zinc mine, though again, he was fine with it for decades... Not like Gore's environmental positions have changed that much lately--so what changed with the zinc mine. I will say only to be suspicious of the green energy claim (as AFAICT no retraction was made, nor mention of Gore's other houses). However, I had forgotten from the article--Gore has *3* houses. How anyone with 3 houses can claim to be ecologically neutral boggles my mind. And I find the pollution credits / CO2 credits / whatever to be nonsense. So he gets to pollute and pay for it and feel good? Great, I don't see why that's so good.
The thing that bothers me about Gore is the same thing that bothers me about Kerry, Bush, and so many others. I'm sick and tired of these congenital politicians. Let's get some people who have actually DONE something, and haven't just grabbed onto a fad or theme and ridden it to death off daddy's coattails.
Sudden massive uptrend in CO2? So what? If, as you choose to believe, the uptick in CO2 is purely manmade, and the uptrick in CO2 is purely the cause of global change, then you might have a point. I'm not at all so sure that either are established. Well to be clear, it seems the link between CO2 levels as a cause of global warming versus an effect are not clearly established.
Record-hot years, year after year? I assume this is part of your anecdotal evidence for global warming? How far do we have accurate and extensive temperature records? If you stress "accurate" let's be generous and say a hundred years. A hundred years out of a billion? Seems like anecdotal to me. We KNOW that without any manmade interference at all, the Earth has gone through countless cycles of change. Melting icecaps--well, that doesn't totally jive with actual evidence out there--in fact there's been some recent articles discussing glacial growth. I guess I have really no idea why you think that the earth must be a totally static thing, when we KNOW that it is constantly dynamic. Why should things ALWAYS be the way they are today? It's somewhat interesting as the kind of ultimate in conservatism.
"Oh wait -- didn't have very many hurricanes one season. Never mind" is EXACTLY the point I'm making. We have ONE year of record hurricane activity (though let's compare to the 30s when we had not satellite imaging, eh?) and it's global warming. On the other hand, we have a below average year and it's a blip, an anomaly. You seem awfully invested in being sure that EVERYTHING that happens environmentally is a sign of the coming apocalypse that you laid out in your last post--THIS is the reason I have trouble with people that take stands like you, and I don't think the so-called global consensus is anything like you make it out to be. Besides which, since when has "consensus" EVER had anything to do with science? Science isn't a consensus game--we're not talking english lit or such here.
Again, let's talk the 1970s--30 years ago, there was STRONG consensus towards global cooling. The CIA published reports that have been recently released about the impact of global cooling and crop failures worldwide. So what changed? Did our KNOWLEDGE change, or did Earth trends change? I'll give you a hint, it was our knowledge..
When I read your post I see fear fear fear, in that many words--look back on your posts--they are obsessed with how bad things will be. I don't get it. Things always change.
As I said in my post--I don't know what's going to happen. Given how much our scientific knowledge is changing, it seems short-sighted to say the least to make such serious and excessive claims. Just last year everyone claimed that due to global warming, this year would, like last year, be hugely abnormal in the number and strength of hurricanes. Indeed this year HAS been abnormal so far--it's been below average. And then there are articles like these: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867 ,20332352-601,00.html.
Your zeal and fervor is quite frankly blatantly obvious from what you write and the way you say it.
Actually though, let me explain my basis for the faith comments--you're willing to respond, and politely--which I ALWAYS appreciate. I'm history grad student, and I've specialized in Islamic histories. One of the huge themes in early Islamic history is that of apocalypticism--that is, the belief that the world's about to come to an end. I won't bore you with the history, but these kinds of apocalyptic beliefs are INCREDIBLY common across the entire world. Noah's arc. Revelations. The comming of a messiah and the end of the world. the year 1000 was widely believed by church leaders to be the end of the world at the time. Similar religious debates raged across Europe with the Spirituals and other messianic / apocalyptic groups. Today--y2k was believed by many to be the end of the world, you see religious nutcases all the time talking about the end of whatever because of ours sins. We seem them (and imho, RIGHTLY so) as nutcases. But then it struck me as I watched a TV news special on how a sea earthquake could cause a tsunami that would wipe NYC off the map... we're no different. People seem to have some kind of innate NEED to believe that things are awful, getting worse, and the world is going to end. The majority of us may no longer believe the world is going to be struck down by God, seized up in the rapture, etc whatever else, but majority of people do now believe that because of unstoppable forces--global warming--we're going to suffer horrific climate change (you cite floods--sounds like noah's arc to me) that will destroy our world. FURTHERMORE, this is happening because of ours SINS--because we don't live the good life--an ecologically sound life.
Now, you can just laugh that off, but I think it's a profoundly interesting correlation.
It goes both ways buddy. I would bet that if this were the 1970s you would be chiding everyone for not realizing the threat of global cooling and the problems of falling crop levels world wide as colder temperatures prevailed. I can't say for sure either way what's going to happen--and the truth is, neither can you. Yet for you, the situation seems to have taken on a faith and devotion level. I challenge you to the same challenge--let's see where we are in 20 years. Are you going to feel ashamed for having put so much devotional energy and so much zeal and fervor into the issue?
Would he be considered a hero for not buying green energy at his Tennesse mansion when it's available, or not partaking of that option at his OTHER homes? (I guess Gore is so green that he can afford to have 2 homes... not like that increases his ecological footprint). Then again, the DNC doesn't even buy green energy, so I probably shouldn't complain about Gore.
Maybe Gore will be considered a hero for the generous donation of his land for the usage of a Zinc mine--sure it's had some pollution problems, but Gore also gets 20k a year from it--that's nothing to spit at.
the guy can make movies as much as he wants, the truth of the matter is he could move into the woods and live life as an ascetic for the rest of his days, and yet he could never offset the ecological weight of his multiple homes, constant flying, and zinc mines. He can act carbon neutral all he wants, but an ecological footprints an ecological footprint, and Gore's got a big one.
Let's see...gore doesn't opt to pay the extra for "green "energy at his Tennessee mansion (though he DOES allow a local zinc mining company to operatore on his property--sure they've had some environmental problems, but they also get Gore a 20k land usage royalty). Gore's other home away from home also doesn't partake in the green energy program--then again, neither do the DNC headquarters. One man like Gore--multiple homes, a mansion, and flying constantly, does more harm to the environment than the vast majority of people.
I'll leave it to you to decide if stock interests in Big Oil is disingenuous or not.
A friend of mine went through ECT a couple of years ago. I can't say that it helped his condition (but I can't say that it didn't either). What I will say is that it F*CKED his memory up. The entire roughly 4 month period he was getting ECT is gone--no memory at all of events that happened during that time, and his short-term memory is much, much worse than it used to be. I've heard similar stories from others.
I have no doubt that ECT can create some positive outcomes, but the costs seems REALLY high to me.
This is the period of great Byzantine growth, of the rule of Heraclius, of the rule of Justinian and his famous laws, and of the construction of the Hagia sophia--Ayasofya today--one of the most magnificent buildings I've had the pleasure of visiting.
Also of the splendor of the Mesopotamian city of Ctesiphon and the Persian Empire that expanded east to the Mediterranean, west towards India, south to Oman and Africa and north into the caucuses. Many magnificent architecture and structures such as qanats (underground water aqueduct) and other hydraulic engineering feats were built in this time.
This is the period of the explosive growth of Islam, the construction of Cairo and Fustat and Baghdad, and great breakthroughs in the fields of medicine, mathematics, chemistry, and optics in particular. The period of the growth of Umayyad / Moorish spain.
In Europe this is the period of Charlemagne, still a highly celebrated ruler. It is the time of the birth of Venice and Genoa. The period of the birth of the great monastic orders and development of Christian theology and form.
In China, this is the period of the reunification of China under the Sui, and the flowering of arts and civilization under the T'ang dynasty. There's a really excellent book called "The Golden Peaches of Samarkand" that discusses this period of T'ang cultural efflorescence. I'd highly recommend it.
We could discuss the Americas, India, even less known African civilizations (that we have only few archaeological remains, thanks to the dearth of written sources)..
--
europe may not have been as politically organized as it was under the Romans, nor as prosperous _relative the rest of the world_ as it would be later, but it hardly makes sense to call this period a dark age.
Interesting, by your standards, Europe left the Dark Ages oh...around...1945. Actually, we saw warring factions, gangs, families, and walled cities play a role in the Balkans over the past two decades as well. Starving to death from crop failures? Ukraine sound familiar?
The "Dark Ages" weren't as bad as you think they were. It's true, that tiny corner of the globe--the European peninsula--may not have been quite so orderly as during, for instance, Roman times, but neither was it bereft of civilization, learning, and advancement. I can provide examples should you be interested in the specifics.
Slashdot Mirror
Just out of curiosity--by what standards exactly, is China "making the US look pretty bad" in space tech?
They've managed--using Russian derivative technology--to put one man into space. Nothing shoddy, true, however the US and Russia each, with completely new technologies, doing something never done before, put people into space over 45 years ago. We put men on the moon about 35 years ago.
I'm all in favor of furthering space exploration, and China is a very welcome addition to the frame (I hope their involvement makes us go to the moon again frankly). Saying that they make NASA look bad though is ludicrous and ill-informed.
Right, it's the exact same way on the PC--you get to select where you store your iTunes library in the iTunes preferences.
However doing the way I described, you keep the same playlists, same album art, same play history, same preferences--it's all identical between users, and all in one place
This is also ideal for BootCamp.
Annoying for me ..maybe this can help.
itunes by default stores stuff in a folder called "iTunes" under your user "My Music" folder, and th library itself in "iTunes Music" which is a folder under the iTunes directory.
You can make your "My Music" folder be the same for all your accounts, and then you don't have to worry about different libraries. use TweakUI to change the default location of your "My Music" folder.
So why is selling people products that they want, evil?
I don't get it--is this some kind of elitism? Is Wal-Mart too "low class" or something? Such anti-Wal Mart comments on slashdot always interest me, as polls (such as by Rasmussen and I believe Zogby too) have consistently showed Wal-Mart with approval ratings around 70%--higher than just about any politician arround!
Wow that's one of the most -- I don't even know what -- comments I've ever read on slashdot! I'll go with ignorant.
... whatever ... is a pretty lame standard to call lawyers by nature shallow.
... (etc, BS, etc). Right, Because geniuses are always the most completely functional of people, and moreover they OWE it to everyone else to do not what they want to do, but what others want them to do. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need?" what an enlightened philosophy.
1) The mere fact that he finds the law interesting shows he must be shallow? Well, what a sheltered life you must have led--believe it or not there are a HUGE number of law geeks out there, just do some googling. Law blogs (blawgs as they are sometimes called) are HUGE.. The same kind of people that often become engineers--think INTP types--are often drawn to law--love of details, of rule oriented systems, of order, and of the functioning of systems. Just because he doesn't meet your standard of
2) A true genius would be eager to use his
3) Well DancesWithBlowTorch, I certainly hope that you're spending every one of your idle seconds doing something to advance the human condition, and picking a career etc based not on anything that you want, but what is needed by humanity. Believe it nor, others may think that spending hours and hours reading slashdot and posting comments makes you out to be a shallow person...
I don't see the need to go around judging people and entire professions based on some arbitrary set of human standards defined by YOU--let's let people do what they want, and be happy the way they want, yeah?
Chill!
Nice quote, thanks for that!
I've had a copy of Mere Christianity of my shelf for a year or two...might go pick it up.
Well, my first response would be, you don't have any reason to respond, as afaict, you didn't post the comment I was replying to... unless I missed something?
Wow, bashing someone for having the DISEASE Alzheimers. Really classy there...
Having a grandmother who currently has alzheimers, I only hope for your sake that you--or anyone else--ever have to go through the same thing... it's completely awful, and regardless of your political feelings, your statement was incredibly without class and basic decency.
Okay. Climatologists worldwide are convinced; you seem to be saying that they should be less confident than they are. I'm not going to debate the science with you, here on slashdot, but answer me this: If the downside to them being right and the world not doing anything about it is a worldwide catastrophe, how much evidence should we have before dismissing their claims as "not certain"?
:-).
... "permafrost is melting this is terrible" "sea levels are changing this is terrible" ... Even *IF* all these things are universally true, they've done so many times before, and will no doubt continue to change long after we're gone. I don't understand the attitude that the earth climate should remain the exact same as it was February 3, 1978 or whatever arbitrary date you want to pick. We know from historical records that climate patterns have changed DRASTICALLY in only the last 10k--even in the last 2000 years. Look at the old civilization in northern china, and large parts of the middle east and north africa. They used to be signfigicantly wetter. Likewise, the example of Greenland and Vineland has been mentioned to death, but it is there too. The environment isn't static!
My judgement is that the consensus you speak of worldwide is not at all like you make it out to be. If you're clear that there is a consensus in global climate change, tending towards heating, I would absolutely accept that. But there are many "dissident" scientists who differ as to what will continue to happen and why it is happening. I had a professor in undergrad whose theory was that the environment went through relatively short periods of rapid flux (ie, over several hundred years) before reaching a different equilibrium. He personally thought that we could be heading eventually towards another ice age in thousand+ years, and that erratic changes in temperature were to be expected. (but according to your later link, he died in mid-1975.)
Let me reverse your question, and put this in terms of a cost calculus--what if you're wrong, and we kill economies worldwide for nothing? How many millions will suffer because of that? It's the poor that will suffer the most, as they always do. Which is going to be worse, a 1/1.5 degree rise in global average temperature over a hundred years (I hypothesize on your theory of a fairly high amount of global warming) or shutting down the vast segments of our economy that we would need to to make a dent in something like CO2.
I'm all for conservation and preservation--they are very important to me. CO2 I just don't get... Your other assumption is that we have this great control over the environment and can change it at will--I don't believe this either.
Why should things ALWAYS be the way they are today? It's somewhat interesting as the kind of ultimate in conservatism.
That's so ridiculous that I think I'll just let it stand on its own
Conservatism as in the core of not wanting things to change. (as in a social conservative wants social mores to stay the same. You might say, you're an environmental conservative, as you want it to stay the same--fair?) You say "the ice caps are melting this is terrible"
Re: global cooling
this is the exact reason why I think we should be careful--it's a chapter of science being totally hidden away now. From CIA reports, to popular books, science reports, to Time magazine, to Isaac Asimov, people WERE worried about global cooling. The whole era was filled with fears of cooling--nobody ever talks about nuclear winter anymore. The link to the global warming site about cooling you provide is rather targeted, and I don't think addresses many points.
Glaciers are growing in some areas because of increased precipitation, which is often a local effect of global warming (as is local drought; it depends on the area). Are you actually saying that that means that the ice caps aren't melting right now?
Well, we know that when the dinosaurs were around, they live
Zinc mine: Was originally revelead by the Wash. Times I believe, not "WingNutDaily." I have to wonder why the mine closed--did it run out of zinc, or did something else change? Even so, if the mine was closed in 2003, that's something, though I still think the zinc mine is an example of double standards and hypocrisy.
... and then others have said his model SUV can't even take E85. Suspicious to say the least.
I would be interested in the sources of the USA Today author vs the statement made by Gore press in regards to green power. Not sure which I believe here. Kind of reminds me of the recent deal when Obama lectured an audience on fuel efficiency and rode off in his SUV. Then his press guys said "yeah, he likes SUVs, but he uses E85" (which I find VERY debatable whether is a net energy loss or not)
I will retract claims about Gore CURRENTLY benefitting from a zinc mine, though again, he was fine with it for decades... Not like Gore's environmental positions have changed that much lately--so what changed with the zinc mine.
I will say only to be suspicious of the green energy claim (as AFAICT no retraction was made, nor mention of Gore's other houses).
However, I had forgotten from the article--Gore has *3* houses. How anyone with 3 houses can claim to be ecologically neutral boggles my mind. And I find the pollution credits / CO2 credits / whatever to be nonsense. So he gets to pollute and pay for it and feel good? Great, I don't see why that's so good.
The thing that bothers me about Gore is the same thing that bothers me about Kerry, Bush, and so many others. I'm sick and tired of these congenital politicians. Let's get some people who have actually DONE something, and haven't just grabbed onto a fad or theme and ridden it to death off daddy's coattails.
Sure thing. the zinc mine is well known and very verifiable--google "al gore zinc mine"
... we get a couple nice links:
for the others, let's google "al gore green energy"
USA Today (same article was rn elsewhere as well)
Worldned daily
and many others.
Sudden massive uptrend in CO2? So what? If, as you choose to believe, the uptick in CO2 is purely manmade, and the uptrick in CO2 is purely the cause of global change, then you might have a point. I'm not at all so sure that either are established. Well to be clear, it seems the link between CO2 levels as a cause of global warming versus an effect are not clearly established.
Record-hot years, year after year? I assume this is part of your anecdotal evidence for global warming? How far do we have accurate and extensive temperature records? If you stress "accurate" let's be generous and say a hundred years. A hundred years out of a billion? Seems like anecdotal to me. We KNOW that without any manmade interference at all, the Earth has gone through countless cycles of change. Melting icecaps--well, that doesn't totally jive with actual evidence out there--in fact there's been some recent articles discussing glacial growth. I guess I have really no idea why you think that the earth must be a totally static thing, when we KNOW that it is constantly dynamic. Why should things ALWAYS be the way they are today? It's somewhat interesting as the kind of ultimate in conservatism.
"Oh wait -- didn't have very many hurricanes one season. Never mind" is EXACTLY the point I'm making. We have ONE year of record hurricane activity (though let's compare to the 30s when we had not satellite imaging, eh?) and it's global warming. On the other hand, we have a below average year and it's a blip, an anomaly. You seem awfully invested in being sure that EVERYTHING that happens environmentally is a sign of the coming apocalypse that you laid out in your last post--THIS is the reason I have trouble with people that take stands like you, and I don't think the so-called global consensus is anything like you make it out to be. Besides which, since when has "consensus" EVER had anything to do with science? Science isn't a consensus game--we're not talking english lit or such here.
Again, let's talk the 1970s--30 years ago, there was STRONG consensus towards global cooling. The CIA published reports that have been recently released about the impact of global cooling and crop failures worldwide. So what changed? Did our KNOWLEDGE change, or did Earth trends change? I'll give you a hint, it was our knowledge..
When I read your post I see fear fear fear, in that many words--look back on your posts--they are obsessed with how bad things will be. I don't get it. Things always change.
As I said in my post--I don't know what's going to happen. Given how much our scientific knowledge is changing, it seems short-sighted to say the least to make such serious and excessive claims. Just last year everyone claimed that due to global warming, this year would, like last year, be hugely abnormal in the number and strength of hurricanes. Indeed this year HAS been abnormal so far--it's been below average. And then there are articles like these: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867 ,20332352-601,00.html.
Your zeal and fervor is quite frankly blatantly obvious from what you write and the way you say it.
Actually though, let me explain my basis for the faith comments--you're willing to respond, and politely--which I ALWAYS appreciate. I'm history grad student, and I've specialized in Islamic histories. One of the huge themes in early Islamic history is that of apocalypticism--that is, the belief that the world's about to come to an end. I won't bore you with the history, but these kinds of apocalyptic beliefs are INCREDIBLY common across the entire world. Noah's arc. Revelations. The comming of a messiah and the end of the world. the year 1000 was widely believed by church leaders to be the end of the world at the time. Similar religious debates raged across Europe with the Spirituals and other messianic / apocalyptic groups. Today--y2k was believed by many to be the end of the world, you see religious nutcases all the time talking about the end of whatever because of ours sins. We seem them (and imho, RIGHTLY so) as nutcases. But then it struck me as I watched a TV news special on how a sea earthquake could cause a tsunami that would wipe NYC off the map... we're no different. People seem to have some kind of innate NEED to believe that things are awful, getting worse, and the world is going to end. The majority of us may no longer believe the world is going to be struck down by God, seized up in the rapture, etc whatever else, but majority of people do now believe that because of unstoppable forces--global warming--we're going to suffer horrific climate change (you cite floods--sounds like noah's arc to me) that will destroy our world. FURTHERMORE, this is happening because of ours SINS--because we don't live the good life--an ecologically sound life.
Now, you can just laugh that off, but I think it's a profoundly interesting correlation.
It goes both ways buddy. I would bet that if this were the 1970s you would be chiding everyone for not realizing the threat of global cooling and the problems of falling crop levels world wide as colder temperatures prevailed. I can't say for sure either way what's going to happen--and the truth is, neither can you. Yet for you, the situation seems to have taken on a faith and devotion level. I challenge you to the same challenge--let's see where we are in 20 years. Are you going to feel ashamed for having put so much devotional energy and so much zeal and fervor into the issue?
Probably.
Would he be considered a hero for not buying green energy at his Tennesse mansion when it's available, or not partaking of that option at his OTHER homes? (I guess Gore is so green that he can afford to have 2 homes ... not like that increases his ecological footprint). Then again, the DNC doesn't even buy green energy, so I probably shouldn't complain about Gore.
Maybe Gore will be considered a hero for the generous donation of his land for the usage of a Zinc mine--sure it's had some pollution problems, but Gore also gets 20k a year from it--that's nothing to spit at.
the guy can make movies as much as he wants, the truth of the matter is he could move into the woods and live life as an ascetic for the rest of his days, and yet he could never offset the ecological weight of his multiple homes, constant flying, and zinc mines. He can act carbon neutral all he wants, but an ecological footprints an ecological footprint, and Gore's got a big one.
Let's see...gore doesn't opt to pay the extra for "green "energy at his Tennessee mansion (though he DOES allow a local zinc mining company to operatore on his property--sure they've had some environmental problems, but they also get Gore a 20k land usage royalty). Gore's other home away from home also doesn't partake in the green energy program--then again, neither do the DNC headquarters. One man like Gore--multiple homes, a mansion, and flying constantly, does more harm to the environment than the vast majority of people.
I'll leave it to you to decide if stock interests in Big Oil is disingenuous or not.
Interesting.. looks like this is very breaking
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mod parent up
Why on earth are you comparing a laptop and a dedicated game playing console? Not hardly a fair comparison.
my *7* year old desktop can play a lot of games ok, and if I got a simple video card upgrade, almost all.
You could also be one of the many people that picked an enhanced video card for their laptop--ATI and Nvidia both make mobile chipsets.
My truly sincere condolences on your loss..
A very good friend of mine was recently diagnosed with inoperable, multi-tumor stomach cancer.. life can really be a bitch.
Hah, had no idea there were so many. The schultz at state was a good friend's adviser there.
Personally I'd claim to be the olympian--get no guff from anyone!
Are you by any chance the David Shultz that teaches at ncsu? A good friend of mine graduated a few years ago from the state chem program.
A friend of mine went through ECT a couple of years ago. I can't say that it helped his condition (but I can't say that it didn't either). What I will say is that it F*CKED his memory up. The entire roughly 4 month period he was getting ECT is gone--no memory at all of events that happened during that time, and his short-term memory is much, much worse than it used to be. I've heard similar stories from others.
I have no doubt that ECT can create some positive outcomes, but the costs seems REALLY high to me.
Oh come on, you're just being pedantic.
(tongue firmly in cheek)
Sure, roughly 500-1000 AD? (less? 500-800?)..
This is the period of great Byzantine growth, of the rule of Heraclius, of the rule of Justinian and his famous laws, and of the construction of the Hagia sophia--Ayasofya today--one of the most magnificent buildings I've had the pleasure of visiting.
Also of the splendor of the Mesopotamian city of Ctesiphon and the Persian Empire that expanded east to the Mediterranean, west towards India, south to Oman and Africa and north into the caucuses. Many magnificent architecture and structures such as qanats (underground water aqueduct) and other hydraulic engineering feats were built in this time.
This is the period of the explosive growth of Islam, the construction of Cairo and Fustat and Baghdad, and great breakthroughs in the fields of medicine, mathematics, chemistry, and optics in particular. The period of the growth of Umayyad / Moorish spain.
In Europe this is the period of Charlemagne, still a highly celebrated ruler. It is the time of the birth of Venice and Genoa. The period of the birth of the great monastic orders and development of Christian theology and form.
In China, this is the period of the reunification of China under the Sui, and the flowering of arts and civilization under the T'ang dynasty. There's a really excellent book called "The Golden Peaches of Samarkand" that discusses this period of T'ang cultural efflorescence. I'd highly recommend it.
We could discuss the Americas, India, even less known African civilizations (that we have only few archaeological remains, thanks to the dearth of written sources)..
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europe may not have been as politically organized as it was under the Romans, nor as prosperous _relative the rest of the world_ as it would be later, but it hardly makes sense to call this period a dark age.
Interesting, by your standards, Europe left the Dark Ages oh...around...1945. Actually, we saw warring factions, gangs, families, and walled cities play a role in the Balkans over the past two decades as well. Starving to death from crop failures? Ukraine sound familiar?
The "Dark Ages" weren't as bad as you think they were. It's true, that tiny corner of the globe--the European peninsula--may not have been quite so orderly as during, for instance, Roman times, but neither was it bereft of civilization, learning, and advancement. I can provide examples should you be interested in the specifics.