I guess I'm writing from ignorance, but was there
a price difference in the system depending on the
OS the machine came pre-installed with? If so
(and assuming that Linux was the cheaper option:)
then it sucks that Linux users will be paying
a "Windows Tax" for an operating system that probably never sees the light of boot, having been
fdisk'ed before it's time.:)
It's possible, but this topic thread may have generated the lowest SNR ratio of any Slashdot topic I've ever read. Thanks, Katz! Starting the discussion off with a public-opinion survey of a scientific topic is like filling the kiddie pool with kerosene and handing Junior a Zippo. Massive flamage occurs, and it's not so good for Junior, either. Is it possible to moderate Katz' post as Flamebait?:) Please, please, move along...there's nothing to see here but carnage. I'm a nerd, and this is definitely Stuff That Matters to me, but Jesus Christ already, how many more computer geeks are gonna post ignorant rants about a topic which nobody has a good handle on? I mean, c'mon, can't we get back to good, old-fashioned Linux advocacy?:)
Heh...apparently, science is something that is not being taught at the high-school level anymore, as this poster adequately demonstrates. Let's see...
Point the Zeroth: Droughts and rising sea levels...
Frankly, I don't see how you can have droughts AND rising sea levels at the same time...
Read a book on climatology. There's several of 'em out there...STW. Look specifically for ice-albedo feedback effects.
Point the First: Boneheaded Ice Argument
Yes, ice is less dense than water, and ergo takes up more volume. But nobody's worried about the frappin' icebergs, kid, it's the continental ice sheets sitting on land (you know, like Antarctica? Greenland? Study geography at all?) that causes concern. Do this experiment: fill up a tub nearly to the top with water. Wait a while. Put a wire rack above the tub and put some ice on it. Let the ice melt into the tub. Notice your floor getting wetter as the tub gets fuller and fuller? That's what people are concerned about. Illustrative analogies only work when they're accurate
Point the Second: Kooky CFC arguments
One word, kid. References. Who said that CFC's don't act as catalysts in mixed-phase oxidation of ozone? Published where? Peer reviewed by whom? See, in science, we can't just say whatever we want and make it true. I want the facts.
Look, I know I come accross harshly in this post. The reason I am so harsh about issues such as these is they display the
underlying problem with America: Apathy.
Been listening to Rage Against the Machine again, huh? I agree that people tend to believe whatever they're told. You're a perfect example. What you should know is this: having an viewpoint that differs from the popular viewpoint does not make you right if your alternate viewpoint is based on bullshit too. Global climate change is a phenominally complex system that is not possible to describe in simple "cause-effect" arguments. Most of the scientific community understands this. Media (of popular and alternate forms alike) does not do so well, however, with situations that cannot be easily explained in a two-minute soundbite. Certainly jabbering on/. isn't going to do anything about the situation except blow off steam and expose ignorance (mine included:)
How do we get people to finally think for themselves?
Demonspawn, at least you want to try.:) Go out and read...although you can't "blow away" scientific arguments like you can a Counterstrike opponent, you can learn more about the problem and lead by example.
Bollocks. CO2 is the greenhouse gas. Its effect isn't as strong as some others, but it makes up for it by being present (and being produced) in vastly bigger quantities.
Bollocks.:) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but water vapor is by far the greenhouse gas with the greatest impact, insofar as it present in quantities to make CO2 insignificant, as well as in a radiative transfer sense. Check out the excellent book "Contemporary Climatology" by Ann Henderson-Sellers and Peter J. Robinson for more info.
Nobody had the technology in 1950, and I doubt we do now, to measure the temperature around the globe and get a global, annual average accurate to a tenth of a degree. Forget it.
Three words, buddy: satellite remote sensing. You're right about one thing - we didn't have that technology back in the '50s. But starting with the TIROS satellites, that all changed. Currently, there exists a plethora of satellite sensing systems which not only measure temperature, but moisture content, cloud cover, and a whole slew of other relevant parameters, all with reasonable accuracy.
One other thing that bugs the crap out of me about "global warming". NOBODY EVER TALKS ABOUT CONCRETE, STEEL, AND ASPHALT!!! Hasn't ANYBODY ever noticed how hot a street or roof gets in the sun?!? I expect a few temperature measurements in growing cities would be more than enough to throw off their temperature measurements.
Just because you're not listening doesn't mean we're not talking about it.
Greenland was green when it got its name, folks.
Actually, Leif Eriksson named the island "Greenland" because he thought people would want to move there if the island had an attractive name. Read "Greenlander's Saga" for more information.
Concidering that planktin, not rain-forests as the greenies would like you to think, fix something like 70-80% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, it would appear that the earth is more than capable of absorbing whatever increase in CO2 we're providing.
Care to post a reference? IANABiologist, but I would assume that water-borne plankton would absorb CO2 from the ocean - so the ocean (not the plankton) would have to provide the additional uptake of CO2 for the plankton to make a difference. But I could be wrong - I'm not really good with fish.:)
There are two things to consider when talking about the climate: one, that the climate has definitely warmed in the recent years. Two, we have yet to figure out why. Certainly climate models show the impact of CO2, but they're designed to do so. Other climate models use different, more natural phenomenon to produce the same warming. Essentially, if you want to say that "X causes global warming" it's possible to create a model that will indeed show that X causes global warming. Climate modelling is just too complicated to come up with a definitive answer. But, given the possible outcome of anthropogenic climate change, do we simply ignore the problem as a Chicken Little scenario, as you tritely suggest?
Buy my book! I just lost a fortune in tech stocks and I need money!
Hehehe...did you invest all your money in DrKoop.com?:)
Heh...say hi to Agbeli for me...I went to school with him. And yeah, MPI works fine for machines running relatively new weather forecast models. I currently run an MPI-based LES model for stratocumulus research. Long-term climate models vs. weather forecast models, however are completely different animals...especially when you consider the fact that we've been doing climate models for many, many years - way before the message-passing interface was dreamed up. Like the previous poster (from Argonne) mentioned - converting the old dinosaur code to newer machines is _not_ a SMOP. So MPI might be the way to go with newer weather models, but not be okay for climate models. See?
cheers,
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I'm writing from ignorance, but was there a price difference in the system depending on the OS the machine came pre-installed with? If so (and assuming that Linux was the cheaper option :)
then it sucks that Linux users will be paying
a "Windows Tax" for an operating system that probably never sees the light of boot, having been
fdisk'ed before it's time. :)
It's possible, but this topic thread may have generated the lowest SNR ratio of any Slashdot topic I've ever read. Thanks, Katz! Starting the discussion off with a public-opinion survey of a scientific topic is like filling the kiddie pool with kerosene and handing Junior a Zippo. Massive flamage occurs, and it's not so good for Junior, either. Is it possible to moderate Katz' post as Flamebait?
Heh...apparently, science is something that is not being taught at the high-school level anymore, as this poster adequately demonstrates. Let's see...
Point the Zeroth: Droughts and rising sea levels...
Frankly, I don't see how you can have droughts AND rising sea levels at the same time...
Read a book on climatology. There's several of 'em out there...STW. Look specifically for ice-albedo feedback effects.
Point the First: Boneheaded Ice Argument
Yes, ice is less dense than water, and ergo takes up more volume. But nobody's worried about the frappin' icebergs, kid, it's the continental ice sheets sitting on land (you know, like Antarctica? Greenland? Study geography at all?) that causes concern. Do this experiment: fill up a tub nearly to the top with water. Wait a while. Put a wire rack above the tub and put some ice on it. Let the ice melt into the tub. Notice your floor getting wetter as the tub gets fuller and fuller? That's what people are concerned about. Illustrative analogies only work when they're accurate
Point the Second: Kooky CFC arguments
One word, kid. References. Who said that CFC's don't act as catalysts in mixed-phase oxidation of ozone? Published where? Peer reviewed by whom? See, in science, we can't just say whatever we want and make it true. I want the facts.
Look, I know I come accross harshly in this post. The reason I am so harsh about issues such as these is they display the underlying problem with America: Apathy.
Been listening to Rage Against the Machine again, huh? I agree that people tend to believe whatever they're told. You're a perfect example. What you should know is this: having an viewpoint that differs from the popular viewpoint does not make you right if your alternate viewpoint is based on bullshit too. Global climate change is a phenominally complex system that is not possible to describe in simple "cause-effect" arguments. Most of the scientific community understands this. Media (of popular and alternate forms alike) does not do so well, however, with situations that cannot be easily explained in a two-minute soundbite. Certainly jabbering on
How do we get people to finally think for themselves?
Demonspawn, at least you want to try.
Bollocks. CO2 is the greenhouse gas. Its effect isn't as strong as some others, but it makes up for it by being present (and being produced) in vastly bigger quantities.
:) CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but water vapor is by far the greenhouse gas with the greatest impact, insofar as it present in quantities to make CO2 insignificant, as well as in a radiative transfer sense. Check out the excellent book "Contemporary Climatology" by Ann Henderson-Sellers and Peter J. Robinson for more info.
Bollocks.
Cheers!
Nobody had the technology in 1950, and I doubt we do now, to measure the temperature around the globe and get a global, annual average accurate to a tenth of a degree. Forget it.
e nces/Meteorology/Urban_Climate/
:)
:)
Three words, buddy: satellite remote sensing. You're right about one thing - we didn't have that technology back in the '50s. But starting with the TIROS satellites, that all changed. Currently, there exists a plethora of satellite sensing systems which not only measure temperature, but moisture content, cloud cover, and a whole slew of other relevant parameters, all with reasonable accuracy.
One other thing that bugs the crap out of me about "global warming". NOBODY EVER TALKS ABOUT CONCRETE, STEEL, AND ASPHALT!!! Hasn't ANYBODY ever noticed how hot a street or roof gets in the sun?!? I expect a few temperature measurements in growing cities would be more than enough to throw off their temperature measurements.
Try this on for size:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Science/Earth_Sci
Just because you're not listening doesn't mean we're not talking about it.
Greenland was green when it got its name, folks.
Actually, Leif Eriksson named the island "Greenland" because he thought people would want to move there if the island had an attractive name. Read "Greenlander's Saga" for more information.
Concidering that planktin, not rain-forests as the greenies would like you to think, fix something like 70-80% of the CO2 in the atmosphere, it would appear that the earth is more than capable of absorbing whatever increase in CO2 we're providing.
Care to post a reference? IANABiologist, but I would assume that water-borne plankton would absorb CO2 from the ocean - so the ocean (not the plankton) would have to provide the additional uptake of CO2 for the plankton to make a difference. But I could be wrong - I'm not really good with fish.
There are two things to consider when talking about the climate: one, that the climate has definitely warmed in the recent years. Two, we have yet to figure out why. Certainly climate models show the impact of CO2, but they're designed to do so. Other climate models use different, more natural phenomenon to produce the same warming. Essentially, if you want to say that "X causes global warming" it's possible to create a model that will indeed show that X causes global warming. Climate modelling is just too complicated to come up with a definitive answer. But, given the possible outcome of anthropogenic climate change, do we simply ignore the problem as a Chicken Little scenario, as you tritely suggest?
Buy my book! I just lost a fortune in tech stocks and I need money!
Hehehe...did you invest all your money in DrKoop.com?
Heh...say hi to Agbeli for me...I went to school with him. And yeah, MPI works fine for machines running relatively new weather forecast models. I currently run an MPI-based LES model for stratocumulus research. Long-term climate models vs. weather forecast models, however are completely different animals...especially when you consider the fact that we've been doing climate models for many, many years - way before the message-passing interface was dreamed up. Like the previous poster (from Argonne) mentioned - converting the old dinosaur code to newer machines is _not_ a SMOP. So MPI might be the way to go with newer weather models, but not be okay for climate models. See? cheers,