Good point, but remember, Napster was bought by the recording industry - a much larger company with more resources (say, rights to all the recorded songs) to make their projects a reality. Sometimes getting bought out is a bad thing, especially if you're a newcomer in a market dominated by one or two companies.
Holy crap...do you even read posts before replying to them? Let's take it step by step:
Your hypothesis, however, is that the ice is residing at exactly 0 C (notwithstanding the seasonal changes which I'm glad you realize my education has been nebulous enough to encompas) and you use the increase in kinetic energy in your equations to purely take the ice from solid to liquid, not to apply any of that energy to transitioning between sub-0 temperatures to 0 itself.
First off, it's thermal energy. Thermal energy. Say that to yourself three times: thermal energy thermal energy thermal energy. Kinetic energy is the energy of motion i.e. my head banging against this desk.:) Furthermore, my hypothesis does not state that the ice resides at 0C. Further-furthermore, I stated quite clearly that the thermal energy argument isn't how the whole deal works. Go back and read that again. Next:
The most significant part of what you say above is the status of graudually weakening the ice as it weakens and strengthens during the summer and winter seasons.
...good so far...
But I have a feeling the year-to-year fluctuations in average temperature varies by far more than two degrees.
No! The average temperature is 2.0 (plus/minus a few tenths) of a degree above the multi-decadal average! That's the whole point of the discussion! Sure, the seasonal change in temperature is much greater - maybe 30 Kelvin or so - but if you add up all the temperatures and then divide by the number of measurements, you get the average increase of: *ding* *ding* 2 degrees.
Perhaps this year wouldn't quite have been enough to cause the breakup with out the global warming effect, but I really can't say. Perhaps if not for this year, plus global warming, the temperature would never again have gotten high enough to weaken it to the point of collapse, that's only something we can only tell once we've seen the years pass by.
...which is what we've been doing since the 1970s, incidentally. Hence all the smoke and noise. What is the cause of that global increase of 2 degrees has yet to be determined, but the fact that the mean global temperature has steadily risen is not in doubt. Please, please, for the sake of my sanity, actually go out and read about what global warming is before replying again. We don't know for sure that anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of the warming, but that the warming has occurred is not in doubt. We measure it, we watch it over decades, and we're seeing ice floes in Antarctica (and glaciers in the Yukon and Siberia) melting as a result.
However, I've really ceased to care, the thing broke up, global warming undoubtedly contributed to it in some scale, and we're likely the only ones left reading this thread.
Christ, well never mind then...if you don't care about the fact that you've posted nonsense twice without even thinking about what you were saying, then you're absolutely right. Just go home, fire up the microwave, watch the Simpsons, and forget that you posess the capability for cogent thought processes. Maybe I assumed too much in thinking you were interested in informed debate about facts - this is, afterall, Slashdot:)
Meanwhile I'm going to hop back in my gas powered car, go home, wonder how much ozone that burns off, feel bad about it, then go on about my life until a better option comes along.
Fine - I'll do the same, but come Monday, there will be people who will be working on coming up with that better option, to serve to you on a silver platter, oh great consumer. Don't you even feel like you owe those people the five minutes it would take to be informed on what's actually going on?
Good...I majored/degreed in physics and am now doing graduate work in atmospheric science. But your two-semester introduction should be enough to follow me through the next few derivations.
First of all, you didn't understand my argument. Second of all, you've committed a classic double-error - your hypothesis as to why ice floes melt is wrong, and the physics you use to support your incorrect hypothesis are also wrong. We'll deal with the latter first. Since we don't want to 'condense atmospheric energy' as you, um, uniquely put it:) we'll just deal with the bottom kilometer of air, which may or may not bring us out of the boundary layer of the atmosphere. Constants we'll be using:
density of dry air: rho_a = 1.293 kg m-3
isobaric specific heat capacity of dry air: c_p = 1.005e3 J kg-1 K-1
specific latent heat of fusion for ice: l_f = 3.34e5 J kg-1
density of water ice: rho_i = 9.17e2 kg m-3
Ready? Here we go:
Over 1 m2 of ice, we have 1000 m3 of air.
That air has a mass of rho_a * volume = 1293 kg.
Warming that air by two degrees Kelvin represents an energetic increase of:
2.6 MJ, if you care. Thermodynamic equilibrium of state will necessitate the ice adjust to maintain continuity with the air above it (we see this in the Clausius-Clapeyron equation) - we won't work through that math, since you just took "college physics.":) But let's see how much ice that 2.6 MJ will melt, shall we?
2598900 J * 1 kg / 3.34e5 J = 7.78 kg ice melted. 7.78 kg ice * 1 m3 ice / 917 kg ice = 8.5e-3 m3 of ice.
Over our original area of 1m2, that's 8.5e-3 m of ice melted, or roughly 8mm of ice, pulled into liquid phase, by a two-degree increase of just the bottom kilometer of air. Thermodynamics doesn't necessitate 'condensing of energy', it only requires equilibrium.
Of course, that's not how it works in Nature - that just shows you how much energy it takes to warm the atmosphere compared to what it takes to melt ice. It's illustrative, of course, and a simple analogy which notes that continually losing 8mm of ice over the period of a few decades might weaken an ice floe enough to cause it to break apart, but it just doesn't work that way. Let's work on your major error now: how ice floes melt. Here's what you said:
All of that aside, the fact is that if the entire earth's surface has only raised two degrees, then that includes the ice floe, regardless of energies distributed elsewhere on the planet. If this floe was hanging out at -1 degree C, then yeah, that two degrees will melt this thing, but then a fly farting as it passes by would have melted it too.
First of all, it's the atmosphere that's warmed, not the the planetary surface. Thermodynamic equilibrium is of course maintained, but the real factor here isn't in the few MJ/m2 of surface area - that's kid stuff. I'm sure in your extensive education, you've somewhere learned about the seasons, and how temperature varies profoundly as the seasons change. The ice floe in question here was of course, affected by the seasonal variations in temperature. During the antarctic summer, the temperatures rose to above freezing, during which time the ice floe slowly melted and weakened. During the winter, temperature were significantly below freezing, and the ice floe grew and strengthened. The overall status of the ice floe is therefore a function of the amount of time spent growing and weakening. What an average increase of two degrees does is increase the amount of time the ice floe spends above freezing while simultaneously decreasing the amount of time the ice floe spends below freezing. Basically, over the course of a year (when the temperature is above average) the ice floe melts more than it gains. After a few decades of this, the ice floe is weak enough to...you guessed it...break up. It doesn't require any massive temperature increase, or anything catastrophic, just a two- or three-decade period where the average temperature is a tad higher than average. And that's what's happening.
You're welcome to your farting-fly theory, of course, but if you choose to be trite with somebody, you'd damn well better get the facts straight first.
Meanwhile when you figure out how to take the entire delta kinetic energy in the earth's atmosphere and condense it in to one area, I suggest that rather than using that energy for evil (melting the earth's ice caps), you use it instead for good and develop a generator out of it as an alternate power source.
And similarly, you're welcome to snide, snotty, and smart-ass remarks, but if you fail the test of basic science, you're gonna look like a pompous ass. Something to think about next time you flame somebody without engaging your brain, huh?
d'oh - I mistyped. IIRC, you're the name-caller here...I believe the word "stupid" is yours as well. My use of the word was intended to show that putting ads in Linux wouldn't confound all of those "stupid" free software advocates out there, and that in fact, they weren't so stupid. As I read my original post, I see that I didn't make that very clear. My bad. But anyways...
So anyway, smarty-pants (since we're resorting to name-calling). How would *you* make money off a free product that no one pays for?
I dunno, I do actual work for a living. Try asking Red Hat, though - they do a pretty good job without putting ads in Linux. (How would that work, BTW? Instead of Tux in the console framebuffer, a pr0n banner? Product jingles when you grep() something? Easily blockable ads on Slashdot? Oh wait a minute...:)
2 degrees have melted this ice floe? What are you smoking?
You make an interesting point, but in doing so, show a lack of understanding of fundamental thermodynamics. Consider, if you will, the amount of energy required to increase the mean temperature of the globe by two degrees Celsius, and then keep it there. It's not too hard - just take the heat capacity of dry air and multiply by the volume of the atmosphere and a delta of two degrees. You'll come up with an unholy number of Joules, I think. Just because the scale of the ice floe is large, don't discount that the scale of the atmospheric energetics aren't just as large. Given that preponderance of energy in the atmosphere, melting 500 million tons of ice is no harder than melting an ice cube in your refrigerator. And we didn't even melt all the ice...we just melted enough of the structure that the ice floe collapsed. Read the article.
Also remember that temperatures vary over the year. During the Antarctic summer, temperatures on the edge will get above freezing, during the winter, they drop below. If you shift that average up by two degrees across the board, you're spending a longer time above the freezing point in the summer.
All these things combined should tell you that yes, indeed a change of two degrees can (and will) melt even the largest ice floes. Remember - the freezing point of water is 0 degrees Celsius, exactly. Go above that, and you shouldn't be shocked when things start melting.
Although this is probably a troll, i'll respond. I used to have a setup in one of my cars that easily sounded better than any stereo equipment i have in the house, even going 80. now, admittedly, it wasn't a "thump-thump mobile", you couldn't really hear it outside the vehicle, but inside you could feel every bass note and hear every high note w/o distortion. It sounded really nice.
Nope, it's not a troll, and if you really think the stereo in your car combined with road noise (negligible at 80mph? Whaddya drive, a Lexus?:) sounds better than a comparably-priced indoor stereo, then I guess I have nothing more to say to you, especially since you're an AC.
Bear in mind that those that are truly dedicted to having a 'thumping ride' are too into the quality of the sound they send soaring through the subdivision to possibly consider something of this nature.
Riiight...these morons care about sound quality??? Of what, the bass signal? C'mon, maybe what you say works for a sales pitch, but don't try and tell me that mixing road noise with bass-biased eq's and 18" speakers mounted in the back of some yahoo's Gremlin combines to yield "quality sound." That's a load of hooey, and you know it. Nobody who does this kind of activity cares the least about maintaining fidelity to the original signal - if you don't believe me, try out one of these systems on a harpsichord melody, or maybe a flute solo. What these systems are meant to do is project the driver's music as far as possible, to the annoyance of all the people who surround them. That's all. You want "sound-good" you turn on the stereo at home.
I understand that some/. users, like Mr_Matt, like to portray themselves as intellectually superior, or at least more so than those technophobe "lusers", (but only because if it came right down to it, they wouldn't be able to compete with folks who actually use factual information and reasoning to form opinions, before blurting them out.), but did anyone else find this particular post a little more stupifying than usual?
Since I don't know your name, you flaming coward, I'll just call you "Strawman" since you're very good about constructing strawman arguments that suit your purposes, without ever requiring the inconvenience of engaging your brain.
Maybe you've read the thread by now, and have since changed your mind, but in case you missed it (hint: you missed it) the point of my post was that since this was an op-ed piece, and did not contain any specific arguments against the SSSCA, it wasn't really what the Slashdot headline said it was. RTFH (that's read the fucking headline): Fox Explains Why SSSCA Is Bad. And the op-ed piece didn't do this. But thanks for pointing out the obvious. At least you posess some cognitive skills.:)
And as for not being able to compete with people who use factual information and reasoning - you're free to your opinion, but if it's not worth putting your name to it, then I'll take it for what it really is: the rantings of a coward, the words of someone whose image is more important than their ideas. Sam Adams had some words about people who prefer quiet prosperity to the animating contest of freedom, and if you're too chicken to participate in that contest, then frankly, shut up.
Whoopee...slow day at work. Look, we're talking about different things: you're talking about the voting power of each individual citizen, I'm talking about what it takes to change the Constitution. Sure, each individual voter in Wyoming has 68.5 times the voting power of each individual voter of California, but who cares? We _know_ the outcome of the state vote - Wyoming votes to not change the Constitution, while California does. (BTW, assuming Californians will do something according to logic is always a dangerous assumption.:) Now we're where I'm up to - the California (aggregate) vote is 1/38th of what it takes to change the Constitution, while Wyoming has 1/13th of what it takes to not change the Constitution. That's a 2.9:1 ratio, like I said. Now we're on the same page.
I know, I know, now I have too much time on my hands, pot calling kettle, etc. etc. etc. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.:) But that's what so great about Slashdot - number-anal geeks scrabbling endlessly in the dust over minor matters while the World goes to Hell in the proverbial Handbasket. Thanks for the fun!
I could be reading too much into this, but as I said, the most interesting fact is that it ran at all.
...on Slashdot, at least. Fox News can run whatever the heck they want to. I think if you'll go back and read my replies, you'll see that I was more concerned with the fact that this was posted to Slashdot as why Fox thinks the SSSCA is bad, as per the headline on the article, when it's really just an op-ed piece with a moderate buzzword quotient. I should have been more clear in making that statement (my use of the word 'article' in place of 'opinion' was most egregious:) and the fact that this is my first multiple-moderation post that ended up breaking even (there's a jinx...here come 50 '-1 Offtopics':) shows me the error of my ways. *sigh*
Well, you have a point.:) I prefer the term "little-l libertarian" or simply "someone who thinks that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had some pretty good ideas" because anytime you break it down into a one-word label, people are gonna screw it up.
I do like to think the dictionary definition applies to me, however, so maybe I am a liberal. Something to chew on...thanks!
Only one reply to ACs per day, and congratulations, you're it! Log in next time, and risk some karma - it's kind of fun.:)
Great job... but why did you bother "pointing out" than an opinion piece, which never claims or intends to be "an informed arguement against the SSSCA", was not "an informed arguement against the SSSCA"?
Read the headline of the slashdot article: "Fox says SSSCA is Bad." Slashdot calls the op-ed piece an "article" in the description, too. I post "no, it's not so much an article as it is an op-ed piece, and as such, doesn't stick to the slashdot title" and thousands upon thousands of Captains Obvious reply "Hey, it's not an article!!!1! It's an opinion piece!!!1! RTFH!":)
Good, I'm glad we agree then. I too watch Fox News as a secondary source to my daily NPR (but I still look for liberal bias in my NPR, and sometimes I find it, too:) And I'm sorry that my post came across as partisan - although I wonder if the thoughtless "liberal-bashing" replies that immediately followed my post didn't help to create that impression - because I'm not a member of a political party, and despise those who blindly follow political agendas and theories as opposed to critically thinking about the world which surrounds them.
But that's just a little bit of my (little l) libertarian views, so they're probably off-topic.:) Thanks for the replies!
Watch the name-calling bucko - morons have already flamed me four times as a liberal, perhaps because they only see the world in black-and-white, and if I scoff at a pro-Republican hatchet job being presented as fact, then I must be a Democrat, right?
Wrong. I'm pointing out that an opinion piece need not be an informed argument against the SSSCA, as this op-ed piece isn't. Were the parties switched, I'd say the exact same thing. You have some preconceptions that would better be left behind, it seems.
Ahh, you see my point then.:) Don't get me wrong - the SSSCA is just one more of a laundry list of egregious affronts to our freedoms, but posting drivel op-ed pieces as fact does nothing to forward our cause, except mire it in the murky depths of political flamewars. I've already been flamed as a "liberal" (erroneously) in this thread twice, and I'm not even on my third cup of coffee yet.:)
I just don't see how the Fox piece does anything to promote our rights in an intelligent manner.
...and yet it on Slashdot it's presented as "Fox says SSSCA is bad." Nowhere do I say that Fox has to maintain "journalistic integrity" (if such an abstract notion of human nobility exists or has existed since Watergate) but I do take issue with the opinion piece being presented as a list of reasons why the SSSCA is bad.
Maybe I should have clarified that by not using the word "article" in my post, but the gist of my idea is the same: we've been slipped an opinion piece under a headline that suggests otherwise. Just thought I'd point the incongruity of that out.
I understand that Fox News likes to portray itself as the "alternative" news source, free of "liberal bias" (but only because they wouldn't be able to compete with other real news organizations if they didn't do something to distinguish themselves:) but did anybody else find this article more of a hatchet job than an intelligent article about the SSSCA?
I mean, c'mon, linking to a Wired article and then speaking endlessly about "opportunities for Republicans" doesn't sound like an informative article about the evils of the SSSCA. Maybe they forgot about the other evil crap that John Ashcroft has brought us: the PATRIOT Act, monitoring of cable modems, what have you. It's clear that neither party is wholly clean of messing with our rights, but this article just skews the discussion into endless political ranting. Kind of like this topic will devolve into, I foresee.:)
Fair use is a defense to a charge of copyright infringement. You do not have an entitlement to access copyrighted information in any manner you want to.
No, actually fair use is defined as an exemption to copyright law. Fair Use is delineated in Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 of the U.S. Code and I heartily recommend you check it out. You say it yourself, actually, when you say:
"Fair use" just means that there are some situations in which it is acceptable for you to reproduce copyrighted information, even though such reproduction would otherwise be infringing.
...which means that in the excepted case of "fair use" you are entitled to access copyrighted information in any manner available to you, provided you're within the bounds of U.S. Code.
They already are, dude. Heck, I could've said there were a half-billion people online three months ago...I got at least that many "I send you this file for your advice" spams.:)
Wow...it's been awhile since I've met somebody so endlessly self-amused that they reply to their own posts.:) But seriously - after I posted, I did a little thinking and decided that yeah, I shouldn't be surprised, since the minimum number of congresspeople is independent of population. I'll have to check out the census site and see what the ratios are for other, more populated states - say, Texas versus California. I suspect their ratios are more in line with a 1:1 power ratio. But I need to work out those numbers still...
We've established the fact that the per-capita voting power of Wyoming is substantially higher than that of California, so I'm not sure what the point of your calculations are, except to show that you have way too much time on your hands. Your numbers seem spurious - not that it matters, since I don't really care anymore - but remember that once the 2/3 majority is reached (and recall also that California has ~12% of the total vote in Congress) then it's simply the 1/38 to 1/13 ratio for each state, respectively, or a 2.9:1 ratio of voting power in favor of Wyoming, not 200:1. You can't add all those ratios up like you've done- they're independent acts of different parts of government. But like I said - who cares anyways, so ranting replies will probably not even be read, much less replied to. Go bother somebody else.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Good point, but remember, Napster was bought by the recording industry - a much larger company with more resources (say, rights to all the recorded songs) to make their projects a reality. Sometimes getting bought out is a bad thing, especially if you're a newcomer in a market dominated by one or two companies.
Holy crap...do you even read posts before replying to them? Let's take it step by step:
:) Furthermore, my hypothesis does not state that the ice resides at 0C. Further-furthermore, I stated quite clearly that the thermal energy argument isn't how the whole deal works. Go back and read that again. Next:
:)
Your hypothesis, however, is that the ice is residing at exactly 0 C (notwithstanding the seasonal changes which I'm glad you realize my education has been nebulous enough to encompas) and you use the increase in kinetic energy in your equations to purely take the ice from solid to liquid, not to apply any of that energy to transitioning between sub-0 temperatures to 0 itself.
First off, it's thermal energy. Thermal energy. Say that to yourself three times: thermal energy thermal energy thermal energy. Kinetic energy is the energy of motion i.e. my head banging against this desk.
The most significant part of what you say above is the status of graudually weakening the ice as it weakens and strengthens during the summer and winter seasons.
...good so far...
But I have a feeling the year-to-year fluctuations in average temperature varies by far more than two degrees.
No! The average temperature is 2.0 (plus/minus a few tenths) of a degree above the multi-decadal average! That's the whole point of the discussion! Sure, the seasonal change in temperature is much greater - maybe 30 Kelvin or so - but if you add up all the temperatures and then divide by the number of measurements, you get the average increase of: *ding* *ding* 2 degrees.
Perhaps this year wouldn't quite have been enough to cause the breakup with out the global warming effect, but I really can't say. Perhaps if not for this year, plus global warming, the temperature would never again have gotten high enough to weaken it to the point of collapse, that's only something we can only tell once we've seen the years pass by.
...which is what we've been doing since the 1970s, incidentally. Hence all the smoke and noise. What is the cause of that global increase of 2 degrees has yet to be determined, but the fact that the mean global temperature has steadily risen is not in doubt. Please, please, for the sake of my sanity, actually go out and read about what global warming is before replying again. We don't know for sure that anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of the warming, but that the warming has occurred is not in doubt. We measure it, we watch it over decades, and we're seeing ice floes in Antarctica (and glaciers in the Yukon and Siberia) melting as a result.
However, I've really ceased to care, the thing broke up, global warming undoubtedly contributed to it in some scale, and we're likely the only ones left reading this thread.
Christ, well never mind then...if you don't care about the fact that you've posted nonsense twice without even thinking about what you were saying, then you're absolutely right. Just go home, fire up the microwave, watch the Simpsons, and forget that you posess the capability for cogent thought processes. Maybe I assumed too much in thinking you were interested in informed debate about facts - this is, afterall, Slashdot
Meanwhile I'm going to hop back in my gas powered car, go home, wonder how much ozone that burns off, feel bad about it, then go on about my life until a better option comes along.
Fine - I'll do the same, but come Monday, there will be people who will be working on coming up with that better option, to serve to you on a silver platter, oh great consumer. Don't you even feel like you owe those people the five minutes it would take to be informed on what's actually going on?
Good...I majored/degreed in physics and am now doing graduate work in atmospheric science. But your two-semester introduction should be enough to follow me through the next few derivations.
First of all, you didn't understand my argument. Second of all, you've committed a classic double-error - your hypothesis as to why ice floes melt is wrong, and the physics you use to support your incorrect hypothesis are also wrong. We'll deal with the latter first. Since we don't want to 'condense atmospheric energy' as you, um, uniquely put it
Ready? Here we go:
Over 1 m2 of ice, we have 1000 m3 of air.
That air has a mass of rho_a * volume = 1293 kg.
Warming that air by two degrees Kelvin represents an energetic increase of:
delta_E = m_air * c_P * delta_T
= 1293 * 1005 * 2 = 2598900 J
2.6 MJ, if you care. Thermodynamic equilibrium of state will necessitate the ice adjust to maintain continuity with the air above it (we see this in the Clausius-Clapeyron equation) - we won't work through that math, since you just took "college physics."
2598900 J * 1 kg / 3.34e5 J = 7.78 kg ice melted.
7.78 kg ice * 1 m3 ice / 917 kg ice = 8.5e-3 m3 of ice.
Over our original area of 1m2, that's 8.5e-3 m of ice melted, or roughly 8mm of ice, pulled into liquid phase, by a two-degree increase of just the bottom kilometer of air. Thermodynamics doesn't necessitate 'condensing of energy', it only requires equilibrium.
Of course, that's not how it works in Nature - that just shows you how much energy it takes to warm the atmosphere compared to what it takes to melt ice. It's illustrative, of course, and a simple analogy which notes that continually losing 8mm of ice over the period of a few decades might weaken an ice floe enough to cause it to break apart, but it just doesn't work that way. Let's work on your major error now: how ice floes melt. Here's what you said:
All of that aside, the fact is that if the entire earth's surface has only raised two degrees, then that includes the ice floe, regardless of energies distributed elsewhere on the planet. If this floe was hanging out at -1 degree C, then yeah, that two degrees will melt this thing, but then a fly farting as it passes by would have melted it too.
First of all, it's the atmosphere that's warmed, not the the planetary surface. Thermodynamic equilibrium is of course maintained, but the real factor here isn't in the few MJ/m2 of surface area - that's kid stuff. I'm sure in your extensive education, you've somewhere learned about the seasons, and how temperature varies profoundly as the seasons change. The ice floe in question here was of course, affected by the seasonal variations in temperature. During the antarctic summer, the temperatures rose to above freezing, during which time the ice floe slowly melted and weakened. During the winter, temperature were significantly below freezing, and the ice floe grew and strengthened. The overall status of the ice floe is therefore a function of the amount of time spent growing and weakening. What an average increase of two degrees does is increase the amount of time the ice floe spends above freezing while simultaneously decreasing the amount of time the ice floe spends below freezing. Basically, over the course of a year (when the temperature is above average) the ice floe melts more than it gains. After a few decades of this, the ice floe is weak enough to...you guessed it...break up. It doesn't require any massive temperature increase, or anything catastrophic, just a two- or three-decade period where the average temperature is a tad higher than average. And that's what's happening.
You're welcome to your farting-fly theory, of course, but if you choose to be trite with somebody, you'd damn well better get the facts straight first.
Meanwhile when you figure out how to take the entire delta kinetic energy in the earth's atmosphere and condense it in to one area, I suggest that rather than using that energy for evil (melting the earth's ice caps), you use it instead for good and develop a generator out of it as an alternate power source.
And similarly, you're welcome to snide, snotty, and smart-ass remarks, but if you fail the test of basic science, you're gonna look like a pompous ass. Something to think about next time you flame somebody without engaging your brain, huh?
d'oh - I mistyped. IIRC, you're the name-caller here...I believe the word "stupid" is yours as well. My use of the word was intended to show that putting ads in Linux wouldn't confound all of those "stupid" free software advocates out there, and that in fact, they weren't so stupid. As I read my original post, I see that I didn't make that very clear. My bad. But anyways...
:)
So anyway, smarty-pants (since we're resorting to name-calling). How would *you* make money off a free product that no one pays for?
I dunno, I do actual work for a living. Try asking Red Hat, though - they do a pretty good job without putting ads in Linux. (How would that work, BTW? Instead of Tux in the console framebuffer, a pr0n banner? Product jingles when you grep() something? Easily blockable ads on Slashdot? Oh wait a minute...:)
Whatever
Han Solo - "Sorry about the mess" *flips coin*
I won't even be suprised when they start inserting ads into your fave linux distro.
:)
Aaaugh! That'd be the end of the world! Oh no, wait, I have the source code to my fave linux distro, I'll just take those ads right back out.
Ah. Problem solved. You were talking about...stupid?
Sheesh.
dammit... s/volume/mass/g in the heat capacity argument, or equivalently, multiply by the mean density of dry air. I blame the weak-ass coffee. :)
2 degrees have melted this ice floe? What are you smoking?
You make an interesting point, but in doing so, show a lack of understanding of fundamental thermodynamics. Consider, if you will, the amount of energy required to increase the mean temperature of the globe by two degrees Celsius, and then keep it there. It's not too hard - just take the heat capacity of dry air and multiply by the volume of the atmosphere and a delta of two degrees. You'll come up with an unholy number of Joules, I think. Just because the scale of the ice floe is large, don't discount that the scale of the atmospheric energetics aren't just as large. Given that preponderance of energy in the atmosphere, melting 500 million tons of ice is no harder than melting an ice cube in your refrigerator. And we didn't even melt all the ice...we just melted enough of the structure that the ice floe collapsed. Read the article.
Also remember that temperatures vary over the year. During the Antarctic summer, temperatures on the edge will get above freezing, during the winter, they drop below. If you shift that average up by two degrees across the board, you're spending a longer time above the freezing point in the summer.
All these things combined should tell you that yes, indeed a change of two degrees can (and will) melt even the largest ice floes. Remember - the freezing point of water is 0 degrees Celsius, exactly. Go above that, and you shouldn't be shocked when things start melting.
Although this is probably a troll, i'll respond. I used to have a setup in one of my cars that easily sounded better than any stereo equipment i have in the house, even going 80. now, admittedly, it wasn't a "thump-thump mobile", you couldn't really hear it outside the vehicle, but inside you could feel every bass note and hear every high note w/o distortion. It sounded really nice.
:) sounds better than a comparably-priced indoor stereo, then I guess I have nothing more to say to you, especially since you're an AC.
Nope, it's not a troll, and if you really think the stereo in your car combined with road noise (negligible at 80mph? Whaddya drive, a Lexus?
It's pr0n you dumbass..
:)
...unless it's pr0n made of ASCII text characters, in which case it's...you guessed it...asciipr0n.
Click the link, genius.
Bear in mind that those that are truly dedicted to having a 'thumping ride' are too into the quality of the sound they send soaring through the subdivision to possibly consider something of this nature.
Riiight...these morons care about sound quality??? Of what, the bass signal? C'mon, maybe what you say works for a sales pitch, but don't try and tell me that mixing road noise with bass-biased eq's and 18" speakers mounted in the back of some yahoo's Gremlin combines to yield "quality sound." That's a load of hooey, and you know it. Nobody who does this kind of activity cares the least about maintaining fidelity to the original signal - if you don't believe me, try out one of these systems on a harpsichord melody, or maybe a flute solo. What these systems are meant to do is project the driver's music as far as possible, to the annoyance of all the people who surround them. That's all. You want "sound-good" you turn on the stereo at home.
I understand that some /. users, like Mr_Matt, like to portray themselves as intellectually superior, or at least more so than those technophobe "lusers", (but only because if it came right down to it, they wouldn't be able to compete with folks who actually use factual information and reasoning to form opinions, before blurting them out.), but did anyone else find this particular post a little more stupifying than usual?
:)
Since I don't know your name, you flaming coward, I'll just call you "Strawman" since you're very good about constructing strawman arguments that suit your purposes, without ever requiring the inconvenience of engaging your brain.
Maybe you've read the thread by now, and have since changed your mind, but in case you missed it (hint: you missed it) the point of my post was that since this was an op-ed piece, and did not contain any specific arguments against the SSSCA, it wasn't really what the Slashdot headline said it was. RTFH (that's read the fucking headline): Fox Explains Why SSSCA Is Bad. And the op-ed piece didn't do this. But thanks for pointing out the obvious. At least you posess some cognitive skills.
And as for not being able to compete with people who use factual information and reasoning - you're free to your opinion, but if it's not worth putting your name to it, then I'll take it for what it really is: the rantings of a coward, the words of someone whose image is more important than their ideas. Sam Adams had some words about people who prefer quiet prosperity to the animating contest of freedom, and if you're too chicken to participate in that contest, then frankly, shut up.
Whoopee...slow day at work. Look, we're talking about different things: you're talking about the voting power of each individual citizen, I'm talking about what it takes to change the Constitution. Sure, each individual voter in Wyoming has 68.5 times the voting power of each individual voter of California, but who cares? We _know_ the outcome of the state vote - Wyoming votes to not change the Constitution, while California does. (BTW, assuming Californians will do something according to logic is always a dangerous assumption. :) Now we're where I'm up to - the California (aggregate) vote is 1/38th of what it takes to change the Constitution, while Wyoming has 1/13th of what it takes to not change the Constitution. That's a 2.9:1 ratio, like I said. Now we're on the same page.
:) But that's what so great about Slashdot - number-anal geeks scrabbling endlessly in the dust over minor matters while the World goes to Hell in the proverbial Handbasket. Thanks for the fun!
I know, I know, now I have too much time on my hands, pot calling kettle, etc. etc. etc. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
I could be reading too much into this, but as I said, the most interesting fact is that it ran at all.
:) and the fact that this is my first multiple-moderation post that ended up breaking even (there's a jinx...here come 50 '-1 Offtopics' :) shows me the error of my ways. *sigh*
...on Slashdot, at least. Fox News can run whatever the heck they want to. I think if you'll go back and read my replies, you'll see that I was more concerned with the fact that this was posted to Slashdot as why Fox thinks the SSSCA is bad, as per the headline on the article, when it's really just an op-ed piece with a moderate buzzword quotient. I should have been more clear in making that statement (my use of the word 'article' in place of 'opinion' was most egregious
Well, you have a point. :) I prefer the term "little-l libertarian" or simply "someone who thinks that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had some pretty good ideas" because anytime you break it down into a one-word label, people are gonna screw it up.
I do like to think the dictionary definition applies to me, however, so maybe I am a liberal. Something to chew on...thanks!
Only one reply to ACs per day, and congratulations, you're it! Log in next time, and risk some karma - it's kind of fun. :)
:)
Great job... but why did you bother "pointing out" than an opinion piece, which never claims or intends to be "an informed arguement against the SSSCA", was not "an informed arguement against the SSSCA"?
Read the headline of the slashdot article: "Fox says SSSCA is Bad." Slashdot calls the op-ed piece an "article" in the description, too. I post "no, it's not so much an article as it is an op-ed piece, and as such, doesn't stick to the slashdot title" and thousands upon thousands of Captains Obvious reply "Hey, it's not an article!!!1! It's an opinion piece!!!1! RTFH!"
Got it?
Good, I'm glad we agree then. I too watch Fox News as a secondary source to my daily NPR (but I still look for liberal bias in my NPR, and sometimes I find it, too :) And I'm sorry that my post came across as partisan - although I wonder if the thoughtless "liberal-bashing" replies that immediately followed my post didn't help to create that impression - because I'm not a member of a political party, and despise those who blindly follow political agendas and theories as opposed to critically thinking about the world which surrounds them.
:) Thanks for the replies!
But that's just a little bit of my (little l) libertarian views, so they're probably off-topic.
Watch the name-calling bucko - morons have already flamed me four times as a liberal, perhaps because they only see the world in black-and-white, and if I scoff at a pro-Republican hatchet job being presented as fact, then I must be a Democrat, right?
Wrong. I'm pointing out that an opinion piece need not be an informed argument against the SSSCA, as this op-ed piece isn't. Were the parties switched, I'd say the exact same thing. You have some preconceptions that would better be left behind, it seems.
Ahh, you see my point then. :) Don't get me wrong - the SSSCA is just one more of a laundry list of egregious affronts to our freedoms, but posting drivel op-ed pieces as fact does nothing to forward our cause, except mire it in the murky depths of political flamewars. I've already been flamed as a "liberal" (erroneously) in this thread twice, and I'm not even on my third cup of coffee yet. :)
I just don't see how the Fox piece does anything to promote our rights in an intelligent manner.
...and yet it on Slashdot it's presented as "Fox says SSSCA is bad." Nowhere do I say that Fox has to maintain "journalistic integrity" (if such an abstract notion of human nobility exists or has existed since Watergate) but I do take issue with the opinion piece being presented as a list of reasons why the SSSCA is bad.
Maybe I should have clarified that by not using the word "article" in my post, but the gist of my idea is the same: we've been slipped an opinion piece under a headline that suggests otherwise. Just thought I'd point the incongruity of that out.
...but this article is a very left-ist piece of FUD.
:)
Funny, sounded kinda right-wing to me.
I understand that Fox News likes to portray itself as the "alternative" news source, free of "liberal bias" (but only because they wouldn't be able to compete with other real news organizations if they didn't do something to distinguish themselves :) but did anybody else find this article more of a hatchet job than an intelligent article about the SSSCA?
:)
I mean, c'mon, linking to a Wired article and then speaking endlessly about "opportunities for Republicans" doesn't sound like an informative article about the evils of the SSSCA. Maybe they forgot about the other evil crap that John Ashcroft has brought us: the PATRIOT Act, monitoring of cable modems, what have you. It's clear that neither party is wholly clean of messing with our rights, but this article just skews the discussion into endless political ranting. Kind of like this topic will devolve into, I foresee.
Fair use is a defense to a charge of copyright infringement. You do not have an entitlement to access copyrighted information in any manner you want to.
No, actually fair use is defined as an exemption to copyright law. Fair Use is delineated in Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 of the U.S. Code and I heartily recommend you check it out. You say it yourself, actually, when you say:
"Fair use" just means that there are some situations in which it is acceptable for you to reproduce copyrighted information, even though such reproduction would otherwise be infringing.
...which means that in the excepted case of "fair use" you are entitled to access copyrighted information in any manner available to you, provided you're within the bounds of U.S. Code.
D'oh...I guess virii aren't really spams...need more coffee. Crap! :)
They already are, dude. Heck, I could've said there were a half-billion people online three months ago...I got at least that many "I send you this file for your advice" spams. :)
Wow...it's been awhile since I've met somebody so endlessly self-amused that they reply to their own posts. :) But seriously - after I posted, I did a little thinking and decided that yeah, I shouldn't be surprised, since the minimum number of congresspeople is independent of population. I'll have to check out the census site and see what the ratios are for other, more populated states - say, Texas versus California. I suspect their ratios are more in line with a 1:1 power ratio. But I need to work out those numbers still...
:)
We've established the fact that the per-capita voting power of Wyoming is substantially higher than that of California, so I'm not sure what the point of your calculations are, except to show that you have way too much time on your hands. Your numbers seem spurious - not that it matters, since I don't really care anymore - but remember that once the 2/3 majority is reached (and recall also that California has ~12% of the total vote in Congress) then it's simply the 1/38 to 1/13 ratio for each state, respectively, or a 2.9:1 ratio of voting power in favor of Wyoming, not 200:1. You can't add all those ratios up like you've done- they're independent acts of different parts of government. But like I said - who cares anyways, so ranting replies will probably not even be read, much less replied to. Go bother somebody else.