The people who think it is a bad thing when evidence is found that human activity is causing CO2 levels to rise haven't thought it through[*]. If you are in a car accelerating towards a wall, would you prefer it to be because you are going down hill, or because you absent mindedly put your foot on the accelerator?
Absolutely. The fact that natural processes produce more CO2 than we do and are highly variable in the amount they produce scares me. The potential for a natural disaster based on a sudden release of large volumes of CO2 is real, and has probably happened before (some explanations of the permian/triassic mass extinction, approximately ~245 million years ago, involve a large release of CO2, probably from vulcanism).
Yes. I have heard a theory that high temperatures cause the Earth to release large amounts of CO2; I believe the primary culprit is believed to be the oceans, whose capacity for holding CO2 decreases with rising temperature (? not certain about that one).
Actually, while the Mars Direct mission plan is highly ambitious, I wouldn't say they "hand-wave" away anything. They have extensive plans on how to deal with these issues, as you can see by browsing the Mars Society web site.
If I starve to death because farming failed because of global warming, am I really going to die happy if I know it was a perfectly natural process?
Obviously not, but with the information in question you can determine that merely reducing our CO2 output isn't enough -- in fact, it will achieve next to nothing. We ought to be investigating ways to manage CO2 levels, whatever is generating that CO2.
I ought to correct a mistake I made in my previous post. It seems that CO2 levels are actually higher now than they have been for at least 400,000 years, although still not as bad as it seems if you compare with only more recent figures. reference here.
The readings on this page only go back 1000 - 2000 years. They are probably based on statistics gathered for a report by Michael Mann. There are systematic statistical errors in this report, as was detailed last year in a paper that examined his methodology and alternative sources of data. Correction of these errors shows a gradual decline starting from substantially higher figures at the start of the period, then a sudden upturn to about 50% of the difference between top and bottom (unfortunately I can't find the study in question ATM).
Also, samples from much earlier periods are frequently a _lot_ higher than present day figures. I recall hearing about a period where scientists had trouble explaining how the CO2 levels got so high.
The fact is, there IS NO OTHER SIDE. The scientific evidence that humans are affecting the climate with CO2 is as clear as day, and scientists who say otherwise are hired by special interest groups or oil companies.
As a layman with a little scientific background, I think I can see both sides here. There are two sides, whatever you may say. There is the side saying that our CO2 emissions are going to bring about serious climate change that could be disastrous to us, and there is the side that says the other side is overreacting. The latter frequently point to evidence in this planet's fossil record that suggests that CO2 levels vary dramatically whether we're here or not, and that the amount of CO2 we produce is a drop in the ocean compared to what is produced and consumed every year by the rest of the planet. The argument is convincing, and I haven't heard a good counterargument.
The AC may be being an asshole, but I believe he's (at least approximately) right. As a British author, I don't need to register my copyrights in the US to receive the same protection that US authors do. I can easily sue a US citizen for infringing my copyright in a US court and would have the full scope of possible damages available; a US citizen would have to register their copyright to gain this privelege. It's a crazy system, I know, but that's copyright registration for you...
That's not quite true -- the problem is when something is subjective (as your two examples of ugly and boring are) as opposed to objective (there are commonly accepted measurements for intelligence).
I think he would have a case. Of course, that isn't an expert opinion, as IANAL.
You have the right to speak, but don't have the right to stop other from speaking.
Actually, I believe that restriction only applies to the government. Private citizens can do whatever they want (that is otherwise legal) in an attempt to stop anyone from speaking. In the end, though, they're very unlikely to be powerful enough to achieve it.
It isn't a violation unless the copyright holders say it is, and since they're the ones that have (presumably) failed to release the source code, I doubt they have a huge problem with it.
I suspect it uses the URLMON COM objects to connect back to the gmail servers. These are packaged with IE, so apps that use them state a required IE version to get the version of these objects they require.
Maybe slightly ironic, but I highly doubt any of them are running a recent Windows system that doesn't have IE installed. Too much shit breaks if you don't.
I also don't think you'll have to _use_ IE for it to work. I suspect it just relies on some of IE's DLLs, most probably URLMON for making the requests to gmail.
Its a kludge. It only works through the shell, the same as Windows XP's "compressed folder" system that lets you do stuff with ZIP files. You have to copy the files locally before you can open them.
I don't know if OSX supports such a ridiculous concept, but if it does it would probably be easier to implement than a full filesystem.
tag in it and it swallows your console, i.e. your keyboard stops working.
My experience of Solaris (which is, admittedly, many years ago) suggests that this would only be an irritation there; IIRC another process opening the tty you were using would only receive alternating keystrokes, so you would still be able to use the system.
No part of the electoral process would be disrupted here. Even if this convention wasn't held, the election could still go ahead, there would still be republican candidates, and everything would be fine. They might not get quite as many votes, because they wouldn't have been able to organise their campaign as well, but that's what democracy's about -- the power of people to influence how the government is run.
Slashdot Mirror
The people who think it is a bad thing when evidence is found that human activity is causing CO2 levels to rise haven't thought it through[*]. If you are in a car accelerating towards a wall, would you prefer it to be because you are going down hill, or because you absent mindedly put your foot on the accelerator?
Absolutely. The fact that natural processes produce more CO2 than we do and are highly variable in the amount they produce scares me. The potential for a natural disaster based on a sudden release of large volumes of CO2 is real, and has probably happened before (some explanations of the permian/triassic mass extinction, approximately ~245 million years ago, involve a large release of CO2, probably from vulcanism).
Yes. I have heard a theory that high temperatures cause the Earth to release large amounts of CO2; I believe the primary culprit is believed to be the oceans, whose capacity for holding CO2 decreases with rising temperature (? not certain about that one).
Actually, while the Mars Direct mission plan is highly ambitious, I wouldn't say they "hand-wave" away anything. They have extensive plans on how to deal with these issues, as you can see by browsing the Mars Society web site.
If I starve to death because farming failed because of global warming, am I really going to die happy if I know it was a perfectly natural process?
Obviously not, but with the information in question you can determine that merely reducing our CO2 output isn't enough -- in fact, it will achieve next to nothing. We ought to be investigating ways to manage CO2 levels, whatever is generating that CO2.
No it won't. The smart ones'll put it on kazaa & all the stupid ones will download it from them.
He'll have no idea whether you're using it or not. Using it but not clicking through on any of his links would do just as well.
This data seems to disagree with yours.
Which do you believe?
I ought to correct a mistake I made in my previous post. It seems that CO2 levels are actually higher now than they have been for at least 400,000 years, although still not as bad as it seems if you compare with only more recent figures. reference here.
The readings on this page only go back 1000 - 2000 years. They are probably based on statistics gathered for a report by Michael Mann. There are systematic statistical errors in this report, as was detailed last year in a paper that examined his methodology and alternative sources of data. Correction of these errors shows a gradual decline starting from substantially higher figures at the start of the period, then a sudden upturn to about 50% of the difference between top and bottom (unfortunately I can't find the study in question ATM).
Also, samples from much earlier periods are frequently a _lot_ higher than present day figures. I recall hearing about a period where scientists had trouble explaining how the CO2 levels got so high.
I think if Cthulhu were to come, it wouldn't bother with heating us all up a little first.
The fact is, there IS NO OTHER SIDE. The scientific evidence that humans are affecting the climate with CO2 is as clear as day, and scientists who say otherwise are hired by special interest groups or oil companies.
As a layman with a little scientific background, I think I can see both sides here. There are two sides, whatever you may say. There is the side saying that our CO2 emissions are going to bring about serious climate change that could be disastrous to us, and there is the side that says the other side is overreacting. The latter frequently point to evidence in this planet's fossil record that suggests that CO2 levels vary dramatically whether we're here or not, and that the amount of CO2 we produce is a drop in the ocean compared to what is produced and consumed every year by the rest of the planet. The argument is convincing, and I haven't heard a good counterargument.
Err... the summary starts "Roland Piquepaille writes", so I think it _is_ from him.
The AC may be being an asshole, but I believe he's (at least approximately) right. As a British author, I don't need to register my copyrights in the US to receive the same protection that US authors do. I can easily sue a US citizen for infringing my copyright in a US court and would have the full scope of possible damages available; a US citizen would have to register their copyright to gain this privelege. It's a crazy system, I know, but that's copyright registration for you...
That's not quite true -- the problem is when something is subjective (as your two examples of ugly and boring are) as opposed to objective (there are commonly accepted measurements for intelligence).
I think he would have a case. Of course, that isn't an expert opinion, as IANAL.
You have the right to speak, but don't have the right to stop other from speaking.
Actually, I believe that restriction only applies to the government. Private citizens can do whatever they want (that is otherwise legal) in an attempt to stop anyone from speaking. In the end, though, they're very unlikely to be powerful enough to achieve it.
WHats the point of using a shell hack?
They're a hell of a lot easier to write. You don't need to be administrator to install them.
Though, at least in Outlook, a simple change to the registry will allow you to enable any extension you please.
There's actually a preference for it. No registry change required.
One of the things that annoys me about it is that PDFs are one of the file types it blocks. I mean... what???
It isn't a violation unless the copyright holders say it is, and since they're the ones that have (presumably) failed to release the source code, I doubt they have a huge problem with it.
Google don't take full rights to your e-mail. You're thinking of hotmail.
I suspect it uses the URLMON COM objects to connect back to the gmail servers. These are packaged with IE, so apps that use them state a required IE version to get the version of these objects they require.
Maybe slightly ironic, but I highly doubt any of them are running a recent Windows system that doesn't have IE installed. Too much shit breaks if you don't.
I also don't think you'll have to _use_ IE for it to work. I suspect it just relies on some of IE's DLLs, most probably URLMON for making the requests to gmail.
I wonder how he did this for Windows.
Its a kludge. It only works through the shell, the same as Windows XP's "compressed folder" system that lets you do stuff with ZIP files. You have to copy the files locally before you can open them.
I don't know if OSX supports such a ridiculous concept, but if it does it would probably be easier to implement than a full filesystem.
It's a namespace extension similar to Windows XP's "compressed folder" extension (which allows you to manipulate files inside a ZIP file).
Yes. You'll have to copy the file to a local drive before you can use it with most applications. Windows will handle this transparently in most cases.
The linux filesystem implementation mentioned above is much better.
It's a DoS on Linux, probably *n*x. A page has a
tag in it and it swallows your console, i.e. your keyboard stops working.
My experience of Solaris (which is, admittedly, many years ago) suggests that this would only be an irritation there; IIRC another process opening the tty you were using would only receive alternating keystrokes, so you would still be able to use the system.
No part of the electoral process would be disrupted here. Even if this convention wasn't held, the election could still go ahead, there would still be republican candidates, and everything would be fine. They might not get quite as many votes, because they wouldn't have been able to organise their campaign as well, but that's what democracy's about -- the power of people to influence how the government is run.