Frankly I think it may be a bit better than the original series which I like.
It might be a fine program, but my understanding is they've completely gutted the original storyline. Cylons? No longer metal machines but Terminator-like machines that look like humans. Goal? No longer to get to earth--what is the goal? Starbuck? No longer a flirty flyboy but now a chick. Boomer is a female too.
It looks like they have a perfectly original story on their hands. I wish they would've kept on being original and come up with an original title.
Worst case scenario you waste a few hours and get to say "yep I was right, they screwed it over".
No, worst case scenario is I waste a few hours, hate it, and can't get it out of my mind whenever I want to sit down and watch the real Battlestar Galactica I have on DVDs. No, I'd rather no risk it. It seems they've changed just about everything that made the original BSG enjoyable to me; I don't see any reason to risk my memories of the original to see a darker version that has little to do with the original other than sharing the title and some character names.
Maybe in 30 years when I'm rich I'll buy the rights to Star Wars and remake the entire trilogy. Han Solo will be a chick, Yoda will be a 12 foot towering beast, and Princess Lea will still be a chick so we can get an entire lesbian spin into the "Han Solo after Princess Lea" thing. That is, if George Lucas doesn't do it first.
Re:From the Ivy Perspective
on
Who Needs Harvard?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I don't mean to disparage U of M or other public schools - U of M is, in fact, an excellent school. But don't discount the Ivy Aura.
I agree that the Ivy aura is fading fast. At least in technology.
14 years ago I was interviewing for my first software job and I hadn't even finished my degree at a public university. The interviewer told me, "You know, earlier today I interviewed a guy with a degree from Harvard. Tell me why I should hire you instead?" It was my first real interview and thinking about it now I think I did a poor job, but I gave him a copy of a small Quicken-like finance program I had written for my own use and told him that I thought I had real experience while the guy from Harvard probably just had theoretical experience.
I got the job.
So 14 years ago a high school graduate working on a degree from a public university beat out a Harvard graduate. And that was 14 years ago. When I later moved to a new country I responded to one job offer in the local paper by sending them my resume and a disk with some software I had written. I got the job even though I wasn't yet fluent in the local language.
It's not about where you spent 4 years of your life. It's about what you can do and whether you can provide the employer with any reason to believe that you can do the things you say you can do. If you can, you'll get the job and the Harvard grad will still be looking.
Not to everyone. While I'm fine with ignoring Galactica 1980 which was trash, ignoring the original guaranteed that I would never watch the new version.
They should have done what they did with Star Trek: Bring back as many of the original crew as possible, do a few movies or at least a few 2-hour TV programs, and then give way to a Battlestar Galactica: The New Generation. From there they could go wherever they wanted and I'd have no issue. And I would have watched it.
I got the DVD of the original 1977/78 miniseries for Christmas from my wife. Obviously it seems a lot more cheesey now and the poor acting is quite glaring when you're 34 rather than 7, but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing it again and I know I'll be watching quite a few episodes on the DVD many times in the future. The original movie, The Living Legend, War of the Gods, the Hand of God. Excellent stuff. My wife never saw it back in the 70's and she only grudgingly sat through the initial episodes with me. But she got hooked and now has to admit she liked it.
I'm sorry, I'll never watch the new Battlestar. Woman cylons screwing humans, the goal isn't even to get to earth? Is it Starbuck that's a woman or Apollo? I don't care. It might be a perfectly good program but I wish they hadn't hijacked the BSG title and character names if they weren't going to base themselves off of the original. Heck, a re-do of the original using new actors would even be tolerable and then they could, again, take it anywhere they want.
Oh well, rant mode off. All the people that like the new version can now mod me down.
As we clean up more and more of our visible pollution without cleaning up our CO2 pollution we may face a much bigger temperature increase than we were expecting.
Solution: Don't clean up either one.
Re:Engineering within limits brings great results
on
Where's My 10 Ghz PC?
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· Score: 1
My experience was different. I finally moved from Windows to Linux on my laptop when I bought a new 1.5GHz laptop with XP and Word 2000 opened slower than it did under Win98 on a 550Mhz laptop.
I subsequently installed Linux and bought Win4Lin for my legacy Windows apps. Under Win4Lin under Linux my Word 2000 open time was similar to what it was before and definitely faster than the same machine with XP.
So I guess your mileage may vary. I got much better speed out of Linux than XP.
That adds up to what, about 6% of the GDP? But if the governments take 35% of my paycheck, plus another 6% of what I can keep when I spend it, that's at least 41%. I don't think my income is as heavily taxed as some, so the average figure may be closer to 50%.
No, the highest tax bracket is 35% and based on your message you must be in the highest tax bracket. Very few people are taxed more than you and the vast majority are taxed far less--between 10% and 25% of their last dollar (so their real tax rate is far less).
There is plenty of evidence that our tax dollars are not being spent reasonably, but citing a 35% tax bracket and government spending of 6% of GDP is not one of those pieces of evidence.
While I know we're supposed to like Google and everything, but if I have to jump through 14 hoops to get a job, I'm looking elsewhere. If they can't figure out if they want you after 14 interviews then their bueracracy has either bloated to astronomical levels or they simply can't make a decision. Either way unless they're offering boatloads of cash it sounds like a waste of my time.
Irrelevant. Nobody's impressed when a billionare donates ten bucks to charity.
We're not donating 10 bucks. We're donating $350 million so far. And it has nothing to do with impressing anyone. It has to do with helping people. So far our contribution to the effort will help the victims more than any other contributor.
The GOP is planning on spending twice as much money for Bush's second inaguration as the amount currently earmarked for disaster aid for the survivors. Tells you where the priorities are...
The GOP is planning on spending $700 million on Bush's second inauguration? That's news to me. It seems to me your propaganda is a little out of data.
There are people that believe a lot of weird things about HAARP including that it can control the weather and create earthquakes. It's a bunch of conspiracy nonsense. Get the truth here.
But hey, we Americans don't care. Since only 8 Americans died (thus far) in the trajedy, the news isn't covering it the way you might think they would for a single event that has caused (so far) over 20,000 dead.
It has nothing to do with being American and everything to do with how far away it is and the fact that we know what happened. There was an earthquake, tsunamis, and people died. Terrible natural disaster but there's not a whole lot more we can know about what happened other than watch the death count go up.
I live in Mexico and even though Mexican TV broadcasts covered 9/11 non-stop for the rest of that week, this tragedy isn't pre-empting Mexican broadcasting either.
Feel free to criticize all of us as human beings but for once in your life try to avoid the temptation of blaming it on nasty, unsympathetic Americans. Your liberal bias is showing.
If I ran the The Gimp project, I'd be running down the e-halls screaming "fix the interface! fix the interface!" right now.
I really wish they would fix it. That Gimp's interface sucks is one of the few reasons I still need to open Win4Lin from time to time: To run Paint Shop Pro. PSP 4.3 used to run under Wine but it no longer ran on the version that came with RH9 so I have to run Win4Lin to get PSP to work.
Heck, I'd buy the latest version of PSP if it ran natively under Linux.
I'm sure Gimp has lots of nice features but the interface is a joke. And to those that tell me that I should just learn the interface, no thanks. All my other Linux applications make sense and have an interface that is easy to sit down and use. Gimp is a major exception even within the Linux application area. I really don't know what they were smoking when they came up with that interface but I wish they'd stop inhaling and get a more standardized interface in there so I could stop needing to go into Win4Lin to do graphical work.
Surely you don't have to resort to this kind of casuistry. That's for the years 1979-1998! If you restrict your sample to 19 years, yes there is doubt. The instrumental record goes back 150 years, try harder next time.
Ok, so there was some global warming in the past. But there hasn't been any significant warming in the last two decades. If we assume that the warming from 150 to 20 years ago was real and the temperature hasn't risen significantly in the last 20 years then it looks to me like we've reached some kind of plateau and perhaps we should figure out what's happening before assuming that global warming will continue the way it did from 150 to 20 years ago.
Either way there isn't any evidence of any significant global warming during the time that global warming has become a major issue.
Like I said, I haven't had a huge amount of experience with them. Mostly with electrical engineers and a lot of them might not be human, too.:)
Again, you're not reading the literature. Plenty of people win their spurs from publishing theories that dispute anthropogenic climate changes, or by positing hypotheses that negate any warming that might occur.
Ok, so based on that should we assume that the Science article wasn't just useless but also just plain wrong? Or perhaps Science just reduced its sample set to a universe that matches what they wanted to write in the article?
Yeah, because everybody signed that Kyoto Accord and put it into action, right? C'mon - your statement is ludicrous and you know it. Scientists have little influence on politics unless they've found a way to blow people up.
Apparently most of the world has signed Kyoto and they originally hoped that the U.S. would too--that's quite a bit of influence for scientists. Scientists that find new ways to blow people up don't influence politics they just give politicians the means to enforce the whims of the politicians. Perhaps the climate scientists haven't influenced U.S. politicians into passing Kyoto, but they have influenced quite a few other countries and even some U.S. political moves are harder now that every third word has to be environment and a given plans' impact on it.
Me: So why the hell did Science publish this silly article that proves nothing?
You: To sell ads, maybe?
So at least we agree that scientists aren't immune to selfish motives.
To encourage further discussion from the scientists that suspect that global warming is hooey but haven't found proof yet?
To enocurage them? Do you really think this is going to encourage a scientist to publish his or her paper questioning global warming? It's going to hinder it. Many might just prefer not to go against their entire field. Others that may have been considering publishing might hold off and do even more research because they want to be dang sure they're right before opening themselves up to ridicule. Either way this seems to me to be something that would have a chilling effect, not an encouraging one.
To keep the thing interesting? Scientists read dozens of new articles every month, and a little light entertainment is sometimes just what the doctor ordered.:)
Entertainment? Anything wrong with the comics or Michael Moore? This is the kind of sensationalist nonsense that gets picked up by the mainstream press completely out of context and reported as "All scientists now agree with global warming." That's a disservice being performed by Science.
No, no, no, read that carefully now. What I said was no paper has been published which posits that climate change is (as in, is now) independent of human activity.
Actually what you said was "When reliable evidence that supports the theory that climate change occurs independent of human activity surfaces, it will be published." CLimate change does occur independent of human activity. Period. Perhaps you meant to write "When reliable evidence that supports the theory that current climate change is occuring independently of human activity surfaces, it will be published." But that's not what you wrote.
Certainly before humans existed, climate change was independent of human activity. The global warming debate boils down to whether or not this is still the case. Stop playing semantics.
Oh, please. I replied to what you wrote. You mistyped and now are complaining that I'm playing semantics. Fine, we'll move on. But I'm not the only one that read what you wrote the exact way I did.
Again, that's not what the Science article says.
But that is what the Science article says. Obviously we can (and
What are you talking about? That was my first post in the thread.
Don't get your panties in a knot, I was referring to "you" collectively to those that are towing the global warming line.
I said no such thing. There are vested interests on both sides, but one side has a noticeable lack of scientists and neutral observers.
So there are vested interests behind the neutral observers and scientists? Just how neutral and scientific are these people supposed to be when they are backed by vested interests? That's kind of like expecting a Microsoft employee to be vocally supporting Linux. There might be a few but they're the exception, not the rule.
No paper stating that climate change is wholly unaffected by human activity exists, to my knowledge.
Who's going to make that claim? Of course human activity must effect the climate. Heck, a fly farting is going to have some effect on the climate. The question is whether we are anything but dust in the cogs of the environmental machine? Or are we grains of salt? Or are we rocks or even small boulders? I tend to believe that we're probably dust or maybe small grains of salt.
Before we invest so much money on analyzing the human impact on global climate change I think we should spend a heck of a lot more time and money understanding natural climate change. I personally think that clouds and the sun contribute to global climate change by absolutely staggering proportions compared to human activity.
In the meantime the instrumental record has been corrected for this effect. There's no longer any doubt about warming.
Incorrect.
"The best microwave sounding unit estimate of average global temperature change in the lower troposphere for 1979-98 is an increase of 0.06C per decade. The error associated with this estimate is ±0.11C." (Source)
In other words, the temperature change could be as much as +0.17C per decade or it could be as little as -0.05C per decade! Even "corrected" for instrument readings the satellite record is showing virtually no significant warming and may even be showing cooling. That, to me, is doubt.
What was the conclusion from a panel that analyzed the difference between the surface and instrument record? According to the same link they determined that the increase in surface temperature is real (which wasn't the question but I guess they felt it necessary to reaffirm their position), that even though the highly accurate satellites disagree that this does not invalidate the surface record (interesting conclusion), that adjustments to satellite data have reduced the difference between the two records but there is still serious discrepancy, and finally came up with a "possible" explanation that lets both the satellite record and the surface record be right without reconciling the two. Basically they said that maybe the troposhere warmed slower than the surface. So rather than reject the surface record as inaccurate they basically raised a hypothetical possibility of why the satellite record doesn't agree. Or, perhaps, they should have considered the very real possibility that the surface record is just wrong.
In any case, most weather doesn't happen on the surface of the earth but a little bit higher. For questions of analyzing global warming the satellite record is still the better choice of datasets. Of course you still don't see much mention of that in the literature because it doesn't allow for as much scaremongering and, if the error is on the lower side of the data point, actually invalidates global warming over what has been often called the "hottest decade" in recent history.
Are you an atmospheric scientist? You make some good points, but your general attitude leads me to believe that you don't have much experience in dealing with scientists.
I'm not a scientist but have had some experience dealing with them. I have, however, had lots of experience dealing with human beings. All scientists that I've met have, thus far, been human.
Scientists think about funding, but pushing an agenda to acheive funding is ultimately a career-limiting move when the political pendulum shifts, as it has in recent years. And as with most things, the scientific ego supercedes the need to seek acceptance through funding - scientists will push theories they believe in, and try to swing funding their way, not vice versa.
"Career-limiting move" is what a scientist would be engaging in today by trying to publish research that proved global warming was not happening or was not significantly human-induced. That's even more the case after Science has published an article which is basically telling the public (and scientists) "Think twice about publishing your anti-global warming research because everyone disagrees with you."
Have you actually read any of the literature regarding climate change? It doesn't sound like it - you don't see much politicizing in peer-reviewed journals.
I'm not suggesting that there are blatant politics in the articles themselves. I'm suggesting that global warming is inherently political. If we accept that global warming is real and that it is significantly human-induced we must consider that proposals such as Kyoto should be implemented which would have an unprecedented impact on the national and worldwide economy. Any paper that supports the idea of human-induced global warming is effectively forwarding that political agenda. At no time in human history have scientists had so much influence on politics as global warming scientists do today.
I don't think stating that no scientific paper reviewed discounts anthropomorphic climate change will have a chilling effect on climate research: scientists are well aware that correlation is not the same as causation, after all.
So why the hell did Science publish this silly article that proves nothing?
When reliable evidence that supports the theory that climate change occurs independent of human activity surfaces, it will be published.
We already know that climate change occurs independent of human activity. Or are we to believe that the climate was static until we humans started messing things up?
The Science article merely states that the bulk of peer-reviewed literature allows for the possibility of anthropogenic climate change, nothing more.
Actually, the Science article states that the bulk of peer-reviewed literatures claims an antropogenic source of climate change. 25% didn't dispute it, but 75% outright advocated for that position. In their sample of peer-reviewed literature, anyway... of the literature that was actually published, anyway...
Anyways, take it as you will - I doubt seriously you're prepared to think critically about this topic.
Sure I am. Althought right now we aren't really discussing global warming but whether every scientist agrees with it. That's what the Science article implies and it's just silly.
But making blanket statements accusing scientists of massive malfeasance to further a political agenda that counters your own smacks more of conspiracy theory than a reasoned argument, and it certainly doesn't impress the average scientific Slashdot reader.
The average scientific reader of Slashdot? Hahaha.
Are you utterly clueless? Have you seen the Los Angeles skyline, or worse Mexico City? Decreasing emissions is beneficial whether or not they cause global warming.
Kyoto and most global warming advocates are not primarily concerned with the emissions that cloud the L.A. or Mexico City skyline. They're concerned about CO2 which is invisible and not poisonous.
The first thing the government should be thinking about is the health of the people, not the economy.
There is no evidence that CO2 negatively impacts the health of the people. I think if CO2 were linked to human health you'd find far less opposition to the proposition of reducing it.
And your basically saying "I have no credible proof of my side of the agrument, so it must mean all the credible proof is magically hidden from us".
We're not arguing global warming in this thread. We're arguing whether or not all scientists really agree with it.
There as much money to be maid refuting global warming (Halberton and the auto-industry would dearly love to see a credible study refuting climate change) as there are supporting global warming.
See above in this thread. They've funded their studies and there is reasonable doubt as to global warming. More studies from the same industries probably isn't going to sway public opinion since everyone cynically believes that if an industry funded it it's automatically suspect whereas if someone else (including environmental organizations) funded it them it's somehow pure and untainted. Likewise scientists that publish papers on global warming are looked upon as progressive while those that question it would be ridiculed as industry stooges, etc. and have their credibility questioned.
And you must be one of those people that has nothing constructive to add to a debate so decides to try to flame or mock the other side. Sad but typical.
Me: Any time you see every scientist agree...
You: All scientists agree that the Earth is round. All scientists agree that the sun is made up of Hydrogen. All scientists agree that gravity pulls things down. All scientists agree that smoking is bad for you. All scientists agree that splitting the atom will produce energy.
I knew that was coming when I posted it. That's why my original post was written "Any time you see every scientist agree on a very controversial topic, be very suspicious." The issues you mentioned are not controversial.
Convenient quoting on your part. Usually indicative of an agenda.
Why is it that when all scientists agree that human activity is having an effect on Global Climate, all of a sudden your hear all these people begin to doubt them.
If all scientists truly agreed that human activity is having an effect on global climate (lower case is fine) then I don't think you'd have a lot of people doubting them (not just beginning, we've doubted them for a long time!). The fact is that all scientists do not agree this is true. The only thing this article proves is that the collection of articles they selected from the subset of scientific literature that they deemed worthy of reviewing supports their conclusion. You don't even have to be a scientist to recognize just how hokey the whole basis for this article is.
Claiming that all that these scientists care about is their funding is ludicrous
I'm not claiming it's the only thing they care about. But you're naive if you think it doesn't enter their mind.
... because many of them will get funding either way.
Oh really? Who is going to fund research proving that global warming is not real. Industry, that's about it. So they'll be quickly labeled an industry stooge by their colleagues (just as you did in your message) and their standing in the community will go down. Not because they're wrong but because they're going against the grain.
And those that would (or would have) funded research to prove that global warming is not ocurring has already done that. We know that there is a lot of doubt regarding global warming. Anyone with an open mind and critical thinking skills can recognize that there is more than reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the predictions of the pro-global warming crowd. As their models become "more accurate" their predictions of natural calamities slowly become less and less severe. And they spend more time engaging in gloom and doom and explaining why the satellite record doesn't confirm their predictions than actually getting real science done.
In exchange they'll get huge grants from industries whose profits might be diminished by scientific enquiry.
Or by "junk science." Take your pick of terms.
Personally, I'd rather not take the chance. If Global Warming has only a 10% chance of being true, then the odds are still way too high, because the consequences are catastrophic.
Sorry, that's extremism talking. If there is a 10% chance of it being true and it's going to cost a trillion dollars worldwide to fix the problem then we had better be avoiding at least $10 trillion worth of damage. If not then it was not a worthwhile investment. It may be cheaper to just move the people that live too close to the ocean than to try to keep the ocean from rising and pay a little more in insurance for the supposedly more frequent severe storms.
Not to mention no-one really knows what the consequences of global warming is if it's true. All we have are models created by scientists that find themselves, quite frankly, in a position of power and public importance that scientists would not normally find themselves.
So, in response to you, I say that if every scientist agrees (or at least no scientist disagrees) that Global Climate Change threatens us, then we should be very concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
It might be a fine program, but my understanding is they've completely gutted the original storyline. Cylons? No longer metal machines but Terminator-like machines that look like humans. Goal? No longer to get to earth--what is the goal? Starbuck? No longer a flirty flyboy but now a chick. Boomer is a female too.
It looks like they have a perfectly original story on their hands. I wish they would've kept on being original and come up with an original title.
Worst case scenario you waste a few hours and get to say "yep I was right, they screwed it over".
No, worst case scenario is I waste a few hours, hate it, and can't get it out of my mind whenever I want to sit down and watch the real Battlestar Galactica I have on DVDs. No, I'd rather no risk it. It seems they've changed just about everything that made the original BSG enjoyable to me; I don't see any reason to risk my memories of the original to see a darker version that has little to do with the original other than sharing the title and some character names.
Maybe in 30 years when I'm rich I'll buy the rights to Star Wars and remake the entire trilogy. Han Solo will be a chick, Yoda will be a 12 foot towering beast, and Princess Lea will still be a chick so we can get an entire lesbian spin into the "Han Solo after Princess Lea" thing. That is, if George Lucas doesn't do it first.
I agree that the Ivy aura is fading fast. At least in technology.
14 years ago I was interviewing for my first software job and I hadn't even finished my degree at a public university. The interviewer told me, "You know, earlier today I interviewed a guy with a degree from Harvard. Tell me why I should hire you instead?" It was my first real interview and thinking about it now I think I did a poor job, but I gave him a copy of a small Quicken-like finance program I had written for my own use and told him that I thought I had real experience while the guy from Harvard probably just had theoretical experience.
I got the job.
So 14 years ago a high school graduate working on a degree from a public university beat out a Harvard graduate. And that was 14 years ago. When I later moved to a new country I responded to one job offer in the local paper by sending them my resume and a disk with some software I had written. I got the job even though I wasn't yet fluent in the local language.
It's not about where you spent 4 years of your life. It's about what you can do and whether you can provide the employer with any reason to believe that you can do the things you say you can do. If you can, you'll get the job and the Harvard grad will still be looking.
And you know what a completely one-sided and biased "documentary" is, like the stuff spewed by Moore? It's called propaganda.
They should have done what they did with Star Trek: Bring back as many of the original crew as possible, do a few movies or at least a few 2-hour TV programs, and then give way to a Battlestar Galactica: The New Generation. From there they could go wherever they wanted and I'd have no issue. And I would have watched it.
I got the DVD of the original 1977/78 miniseries for Christmas from my wife. Obviously it seems a lot more cheesey now and the poor acting is quite glaring when you're 34 rather than 7, but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing it again and I know I'll be watching quite a few episodes on the DVD many times in the future. The original movie, The Living Legend, War of the Gods, the Hand of God. Excellent stuff. My wife never saw it back in the 70's and she only grudgingly sat through the initial episodes with me. But she got hooked and now has to admit she liked it.
I'm sorry, I'll never watch the new Battlestar. Woman cylons screwing humans, the goal isn't even to get to earth? Is it Starbuck that's a woman or Apollo? I don't care. It might be a perfectly good program but I wish they hadn't hijacked the BSG title and character names if they weren't going to base themselves off of the original. Heck, a re-do of the original using new actors would even be tolerable and then they could, again, take it anywhere they want.
Oh well, rant mode off. All the people that like the new version can now mod me down.
Solution: Don't clean up either one.
I subsequently installed Linux and bought Win4Lin for my legacy Windows apps. Under Win4Lin under Linux my Word 2000 open time was similar to what it was before and definitely faster than the same machine with XP.
So I guess your mileage may vary. I got much better speed out of Linux than XP.
No, the highest tax bracket is 35% and based on your message you must be in the highest tax bracket. Very few people are taxed more than you and the vast majority are taxed far less--between 10% and 25% of their last dollar (so their real tax rate is far less).
There is plenty of evidence that our tax dollars are not being spent reasonably, but citing a 35% tax bracket and government spending of 6% of GDP is not one of those pieces of evidence.
We're not donating 10 bucks. We're donating $350 million so far. And it has nothing to do with impressing anyone. It has to do with helping people. So far our contribution to the effort will help the victims more than any other contributor.
The GOP is planning on spending twice as much money for Bush's second inaguration as the amount currently earmarked for disaster aid for the survivors. Tells you where the priorities are...
The GOP is planning on spending $700 million on Bush's second inauguration? That's news to me. It seems to me your propaganda is a little out of data.
Let me answer your question: More than any other country.
It has nothing to do with being American and everything to do with how far away it is and the fact that we know what happened. There was an earthquake, tsunamis, and people died. Terrible natural disaster but there's not a whole lot more we can know about what happened other than watch the death count go up.
I live in Mexico and even though Mexican TV broadcasts covered 9/11 non-stop for the rest of that week, this tragedy isn't pre-empting Mexican broadcasting either.
Feel free to criticize all of us as human beings but for once in your life try to avoid the temptation of blaming it on nasty, unsympathetic Americans. Your liberal bias is showing.
I really wish they would fix it. That Gimp's interface sucks is one of the few reasons I still need to open Win4Lin from time to time: To run Paint Shop Pro. PSP 4.3 used to run under Wine but it no longer ran on the version that came with RH9 so I have to run Win4Lin to get PSP to work.
Heck, I'd buy the latest version of PSP if it ran natively under Linux.
I'm sure Gimp has lots of nice features but the interface is a joke. And to those that tell me that I should just learn the interface, no thanks. All my other Linux applications make sense and have an interface that is easy to sit down and use. Gimp is a major exception even within the Linux application area. I really don't know what they were smoking when they came up with that interface but I wish they'd stop inhaling and get a more standardized interface in there so I could stop needing to go into Win4Lin to do graphical work.
Ok, so there was some global warming in the past. But there hasn't been any significant warming in the last two decades. If we assume that the warming from 150 to 20 years ago was real and the temperature hasn't risen significantly in the last 20 years then it looks to me like we've reached some kind of plateau and perhaps we should figure out what's happening before assuming that global warming will continue the way it did from 150 to 20 years ago.
Either way there isn't any evidence of any significant global warming during the time that global warming has become a major issue.
Like I said, I haven't had a huge amount of experience with them. Mostly with electrical engineers and a lot of them might not be human, too. :)
Again, you're not reading the literature. Plenty of people win their spurs from publishing theories that dispute anthropogenic climate changes, or by positing hypotheses that negate any warming that might occur.
Ok, so based on that should we assume that the Science article wasn't just useless but also just plain wrong? Or perhaps Science just reduced its sample set to a universe that matches what they wanted to write in the article?
Yeah, because everybody signed that Kyoto Accord and put it into action, right? C'mon - your statement is ludicrous and you know it. Scientists have little influence on politics unless they've found a way to blow people up.
Apparently most of the world has signed Kyoto and they originally hoped that the U.S. would too--that's quite a bit of influence for scientists. Scientists that find new ways to blow people up don't influence politics they just give politicians the means to enforce the whims of the politicians. Perhaps the climate scientists haven't influenced U.S. politicians into passing Kyoto, but they have influenced quite a few other countries and even some U.S. political moves are harder now that every third word has to be environment and a given plans' impact on it.
Me: So why the hell did Science publish this silly article that proves nothing?
You: To sell ads, maybe?
So at least we agree that scientists aren't immune to selfish motives.
To encourage further discussion from the scientists that suspect that global warming is hooey but haven't found proof yet?
To enocurage them? Do you really think this is going to encourage a scientist to publish his or her paper questioning global warming? It's going to hinder it. Many might just prefer not to go against their entire field. Others that may have been considering publishing might hold off and do even more research because they want to be dang sure they're right before opening themselves up to ridicule. Either way this seems to me to be something that would have a chilling effect, not an encouraging one.
To keep the thing interesting? Scientists read dozens of new articles every month, and a little light entertainment is sometimes just what the doctor ordered. :)
Entertainment? Anything wrong with the comics or Michael Moore? This is the kind of sensationalist nonsense that gets picked up by the mainstream press completely out of context and reported as "All scientists now agree with global warming." That's a disservice being performed by Science.
No, no, no, read that carefully now. What I said was no paper has been published which posits that climate change is (as in, is now) independent of human activity.
Actually what you said was "When reliable evidence that supports the theory that climate change occurs independent of human activity surfaces, it will be published." CLimate change does occur independent of human activity. Period. Perhaps you meant to write "When reliable evidence that supports the theory that current climate change is occuring independently of human activity surfaces, it will be published." But that's not what you wrote.
Certainly before humans existed, climate change was independent of human activity. The global warming debate boils down to whether or not this is still the case. Stop playing semantics.
Oh, please. I replied to what you wrote. You mistyped and now are complaining that I'm playing semantics. Fine, we'll move on. But I'm not the only one that read what you wrote the exact way I did.
Again, that's not what the Science article says.
But that is what the Science article says. Obviously we can (and
Don't get your panties in a knot, I was referring to "you" collectively to those that are towing the global warming line.
I said no such thing. There are vested interests on both sides, but one side has a noticeable lack of scientists and neutral observers.
So there are vested interests behind the neutral observers and scientists? Just how neutral and scientific are these people supposed to be when they are backed by vested interests? That's kind of like expecting a Microsoft employee to be vocally supporting Linux. There might be a few but they're the exception, not the rule.
Who's going to make that claim? Of course human activity must effect the climate. Heck, a fly farting is going to have some effect on the climate. The question is whether we are anything but dust in the cogs of the environmental machine? Or are we grains of salt? Or are we rocks or even small boulders? I tend to believe that we're probably dust or maybe small grains of salt.
Before we invest so much money on analyzing the human impact on global climate change I think we should spend a heck of a lot more time and money understanding natural climate change. I personally think that clouds and the sun contribute to global climate change by absolutely staggering proportions compared to human activity.
Incorrect.
"The best microwave sounding unit estimate of average global temperature change in the lower troposphere for 1979-98 is an increase of 0.06C per decade. The error associated with this estimate is ±0.11C. " (Source) In other words, the temperature change could be as much as +0.17C per decade or it could be as little as -0.05C per decade! Even "corrected" for instrument readings the satellite record is showing virtually no significant warming and may even be showing cooling. That, to me, is doubt.
What was the conclusion from a panel that analyzed the difference between the surface and instrument record? According to the same link they determined that the increase in surface temperature is real (which wasn't the question but I guess they felt it necessary to reaffirm their position), that even though the highly accurate satellites disagree that this does not invalidate the surface record (interesting conclusion), that adjustments to satellite data have reduced the difference between the two records but there is still serious discrepancy, and finally came up with a "possible" explanation that lets both the satellite record and the surface record be right without reconciling the two. Basically they said that maybe the troposhere warmed slower than the surface. So rather than reject the surface record as inaccurate they basically raised a hypothetical possibility of why the satellite record doesn't agree. Or, perhaps, they should have considered the very real possibility that the surface record is just wrong.
In any case, most weather doesn't happen on the surface of the earth but a little bit higher. For questions of analyzing global warming the satellite record is still the better choice of datasets. Of course you still don't see much mention of that in the literature because it doesn't allow for as much scaremongering and, if the error is on the lower side of the data point, actually invalidates global warming over what has been often called the "hottest decade" in recent history.
I'm not a scientist but have had some experience dealing with them. I have, however, had lots of experience dealing with human beings. All scientists that I've met have, thus far, been human.
Scientists think about funding, but pushing an agenda to acheive funding is ultimately a career-limiting move when the political pendulum shifts, as it has in recent years. And as with most things, the scientific ego supercedes the need to seek acceptance through funding - scientists will push theories they believe in, and try to swing funding their way, not vice versa.
"Career-limiting move" is what a scientist would be engaging in today by trying to publish research that proved global warming was not happening or was not significantly human-induced. That's even more the case after Science has published an article which is basically telling the public (and scientists) "Think twice about publishing your anti-global warming research because everyone disagrees with you."
Have you actually read any of the literature regarding climate change? It doesn't sound like it - you don't see much politicizing in peer-reviewed journals.
I'm not suggesting that there are blatant politics in the articles themselves. I'm suggesting that global warming is inherently political. If we accept that global warming is real and that it is significantly human-induced we must consider that proposals such as Kyoto should be implemented which would have an unprecedented impact on the national and worldwide economy. Any paper that supports the idea of human-induced global warming is effectively forwarding that political agenda. At no time in human history have scientists had so much influence on politics as global warming scientists do today.
I don't think stating that no scientific paper reviewed discounts anthropomorphic climate change will have a chilling effect on climate research: scientists are well aware that correlation is not the same as causation, after all.
So why the hell did Science publish this silly article that proves nothing?
When reliable evidence that supports the theory that climate change occurs independent of human activity surfaces, it will be published.
We already know that climate change occurs independent of human activity. Or are we to believe that the climate was static until we humans started messing things up?
The Science article merely states that the bulk of peer-reviewed literature allows for the possibility of anthropogenic climate change, nothing more.
Actually, the Science article states that the bulk of peer-reviewed literatures claims an antropogenic source of climate change. 25% didn't dispute it, but 75% outright advocated for that position. In their sample of peer-reviewed literature, anyway... of the literature that was actually published, anyway...
Anyways, take it as you will - I doubt seriously you're prepared to think critically about this topic.
Sure I am. Althought right now we aren't really discussing global warming but whether every scientist agrees with it. That's what the Science article implies and it's just silly.
But making blanket statements accusing scientists of massive malfeasance to further a political agenda that counters your own smacks more of conspiracy theory than a reasoned argument, and it certainly doesn't impress the average scientific Slashdot reader.
The average scientific reader of Slashdot? Hahaha.
Kyoto and most global warming advocates are not primarily concerned with the emissions that cloud the L.A. or Mexico City skyline. They're concerned about CO2 which is invisible and not poisonous.
The first thing the government should be thinking about is the health of the people, not the economy.
There is no evidence that CO2 negatively impacts the health of the people. I think if CO2 were linked to human health you'd find far less opposition to the proposition of reducing it.
There you go again, implying that only those that question global warming could be influenced by vested interests. That's just plain naive.
We're not arguing global warming in this thread. We're arguing whether or not all scientists really agree with it.
There as much money to be maid refuting global warming (Halberton and the auto-industry would dearly love to see a credible study refuting climate change) as there are supporting global warming.
See above in this thread. They've funded their studies and there is reasonable doubt as to global warming. More studies from the same industries probably isn't going to sway public opinion since everyone cynically believes that if an industry funded it it's automatically suspect whereas if someone else (including environmental organizations) funded it them it's somehow pure and untainted. Likewise scientists that publish papers on global warming are looked upon as progressive while those that question it would be ridiculed as industry stooges, etc. and have their credibility questioned.
Hmm, I wonder which path they're going to choose?
I knew that was coming when I posted it. That's why my original post was written "Any time you see every scientist agree on a very controversial topic, be very suspicious." The issues you mentioned are not controversial.
Convenient quoting on your part. Usually indicative of an agenda.
Why is it that when all scientists agree that human activity is having an effect on Global Climate, all of a sudden your hear all these people begin to doubt them.
If all scientists truly agreed that human activity is having an effect on global climate (lower case is fine) then I don't think you'd have a lot of people doubting them (not just beginning, we've doubted them for a long time!). The fact is that all scientists do not agree this is true. The only thing this article proves is that the collection of articles they selected from the subset of scientific literature that they deemed worthy of reviewing supports their conclusion. You don't even have to be a scientist to recognize just how hokey the whole basis for this article is.
Claiming that all that these scientists care about is their funding is ludicrous
I'm not claiming it's the only thing they care about. But you're naive if you think it doesn't enter their mind.
Oh really? Who is going to fund research proving that global warming is not real. Industry, that's about it. So they'll be quickly labeled an industry stooge by their colleagues (just as you did in your message) and their standing in the community will go down. Not because they're wrong but because they're going against the grain.
And those that would (or would have) funded research to prove that global warming is not ocurring has already done that. We know that there is a lot of doubt regarding global warming. Anyone with an open mind and critical thinking skills can recognize that there is more than reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the predictions of the pro-global warming crowd. As their models become "more accurate" their predictions of natural calamities slowly become less and less severe. And they spend more time engaging in gloom and doom and explaining why the satellite record doesn't confirm their predictions than actually getting real science done.
In exchange they'll get huge grants from industries whose profits might be diminished by scientific enquiry.
Or by "junk science." Take your pick of terms.
Personally, I'd rather not take the chance. If Global Warming has only a 10% chance of being true, then the odds are still way too high, because the consequences are catastrophic.
Sorry, that's extremism talking. If there is a 10% chance of it being true and it's going to cost a trillion dollars worldwide to fix the problem then we had better be avoiding at least $10 trillion worth of damage. If not then it was not a worthwhile investment. It may be cheaper to just move the people that live too close to the ocean than to try to keep the ocean from rising and pay a little more in insurance for the supposedly more frequent severe storms.
Not to mention no-one really knows what the consequences of global warming is if it's true. All we have are models created by scientists that find themselves, quite frankly, in a position of power and public importance that scientists would not normally find themselves.
So, in response to you, I say that if every scientist agrees (or at least no scientist disagrees) that Global Climate Change threatens us, then we should be very concerned.