I'm sure the people that live along that very geologically active strip of turf will be happy to know that Ron Paul considers them essentially expendable in his quest for ideological purity.
That is simply untrue and completely preposterous. To make such baseless accusations, you should be ashamed of yourself. We all know that Ron Paul considers everyone to be expendable in his quest for ideological purity.
I highly doubt Bell labs could be created today by any American corporation. Well maybe Google, but that's about it. Investment in basic research would be seen as a drag on corporate profits and there'd be shareholder pressure to "cut the waste". After all, it's much cheaper to simply use the research someone else did. It's the Microsoft model of business: buy what you can, steal what you can't and abuse your power for profit.
I didn't present myself as someone qualified to analyze the situation. Did I use a phrase like "In my professional opinion"? Or "I'm an expert on British Copyright Law"? I gave my opinion of the case based on my understanding of the law. I'm not an English citizen and I'm not particular interested in EU copyright law.
There's no reason to be so confrontational in your post, you could have merely pointed out the relevant law in a friendly manner instead of coming across as a pompous ass.
Which looks even worse since you're correction has only a minor impact on my analysis, they still have to prove that the list should be protected, you've merely shown that the bar is a little lower than I first supposed. But thanks for being a miserable bastard about it.
That might not have been clear but it needs to have merit beyond the value of the data. For instance, you generally can't protect a list of publicly available information no matter how much work was involved in creating the list. They'd have to show that the information on the list is secret, but if it is actually secret then it shouldn't be published in the manual, or the police should have had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before receiving the manual.
Specifically, the article alleges that they used (part of) a list of results from the manual of a private system when they developed a competing application. The case seems flimsy, they're going to have to prove that the list should be considered "a work" as opposed to just data. Data isn't protected unless it has some merit of it's own. Lists are generally not protected.
He's an idiot who doesn't understand that Climate Change is the general process and AGW is the current way the climate is changing. He's the kind of guy who walks into a car dealership and mocks them for selling "Toyotas" or "Fords" when they're all "obviously cars".
That sounds like a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Everything you've said may be true but is largely inconsequential to the current anthropogenic climate change. In addition, climate change researchers are well aware of the natural climate cycles, they know the next natural glacial period is expected in about 130,000 years.
Where you go completely off the rails in in explaining how this has any relation to your claims. I don't see how a system you describe as "regular as clockwork" system on an approximately 100,000 year cycle could start 80,000 years ahead of schedule. It seems to me you're just ignorant and confused.
I'm not a scientist so I'm going to try and explain the basic mechanism which "has never been explained to you".
Light enters the atmosphere and strikes the earth, some of it is re-radiated away from the earth. Some of that energy is absorbed by CO2 and re-radiated back towards the earth. Increase the CO2 and you increase the amount that gets re-radiated back to earth generating additional warming. Water vapor does that as well, but because water precipitates out of the atmosphere quickly (days), it can't build up over time like CO2 (which can stay in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years). Also, increasing temperatures because of increased CO2 may trigger a water vapor feedback because warmer air can hold more water.
It's pretty basic science, even if I'm not very good at explaining it, that was first discovered in the 19th century.
Actually it is. Because it is possible for climate to both change naturally and for human activity to be driving the current climate change. More specifically, the scientists studying climate change are fully aware of both the rate and nature of natural climate change. Trying to imply that they deny it exists is exactly a strawman argument.
For example, it's a natural process for cars to eventually rust, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for you to wrap a car around a street light, nor does it mean that the process of wrapping your car around a street light is natural.
Humans activities appear to be overriding natural climate change and pushing it at about 100 times the natural rate.
There's nothing wrong with being skeptical, however, claiming to be a skeptic while actually already having determined which side you'll support is now just part of the book of dirty tactics. It has been used by the pro-tobacco lobby, the pro-asbestos lobby, and others to cloud the public perception of the truth. They usually pay a few people to pretend to be skeptical*. After all, it's really easy to say your skeptic and simply refuse to believe anything the "other" side presents. These "false skeptics", of course, will believe anything their side presents on the faintest and feeblest of explanation.
In other word's I'm skeptical that your claim of being a skeptic is true. I've seen no evidence to support the assertion.
* If you care, you can find out more about this in books like "Merchants of Doubt" and "Don't Get Fooled Again".
Republicans don't owe the Tea Party, they owe the other Republicans who "control" the Tea Party. Some Republican incumbents defeated for one of two reasons: first the Tea Party is only mostly controlled and second some of them wouldn't play ball with the people who are really in charge of the Tea Party. So those who wouldn't play ball were replaced by people who better matched what the Tea Party owners want*.
I'm not sure if you noticed but usually it's around 95% of incumbents who get re-elected. Gerrymandering was supposed to mean that politicians didn't actually have to listen to the plebs. Now, thanks to a change in voting patterns, almost 15% of them might have to actually pretend to listen... The U.S. electoral systems are deeply screwed up.
The United States has the second highest murder rate in the G20, it's second only to Russia.
Repression is the hallmark of dictatorships, not communism.
Terror? Most of the active terrorist organisations are fighting the U.S. and it's allies and I don't know of any that want communism. What they want is to avenge the wrongs (real or imagined) done to them by the U.S.
Starvation? You're probably talking about Lysenkoism. For those that can't be bothered to read the link, the Soviet government ignored the evidence of evolution and genetics and invested in a charlatan, named Trofim Lysenko, and his pseudo-science. Not unexpectedly, millions starved when it turned out his theories didn't work. Unfortunately, before the evidence of his failure became obvious Lysenko persecuted anyone who questions his miraculous discoveries. I see a lot of the same behaviour under the Republican party, including the political persecution of scientists who say things the politicians don't like, and I'm given to understanding that they are not communists.
Those aren't points against communism. They are plenty of good points against communism that you really shouldn't need to invent ones that are pathetically bad.
This is bullshit that assumes that people that take loans that they cant afford simply don't know what they are doing. Poor people arent naive. Most of the time they know exactly what they are doing.
I'm not so sure about that. Poor people tend to have the least education and lower intelligence. Sure some of them knew what they were doing or thought that they knew what they were doing. But many of them may have been influenced by aggressive sales tactics and marketing. Companies aren't stupid. They use those tools because they work.
Also, they might not be naive but they might still be desperate enough to do it anyway.
Well the reason more people on/. are not calling this complete bunk is because we have some minimal level of reading comprehension. In the context above "deforestation" is obviously an unfortunate typo. The diseases carried by those sailors are exactly what caused the depopulation of Central and South America which allowed the forests to grow back (reforestation). The estimated death toll of around 90% of the population or between 36-72 million allowed a lot of forest growth until they were replaced through immigration and natural population growth. The argument is that the diseases were virulent enough to actually have an impact on the climate. At least, that's what the article says. Of course you'd know that if you read more and didn't jump to conclusions.
Quite true. One problem is that people can continually argue against paying anything more than we have too right now, which will just lead to a continually increasing cost to climate change until we run out carbon sequestering resources.
To some people that's actually preferable because ideologically they see a difference between something they have to pay and something they chose to pay. Strangely, libertarians seem to want people to be able to choose to pay for things but seem to want societies which are unable to choose to pay.
You're thinking too U.S. centric, the primary populations centers of pre-contact America were in the south. The North American hunter-gatherers were more resistant to the European plagues because of their greater isolation from one another, however, in South and Central America there were actual cities which were destroyed by the combination of war and disease brought by the Europeans (particularly the Spanish).
Of course, the reforestation that took place after the cities were abandoned was eventually reversed when Europeans began to settle the Americas. Some cities, of course, never recovered (like Machu Pichu) and others that are occasionally discovered in the rain forests of Brazil.
There's also opportunity costs to consider as well, of course, money spent fighting climate change could be spent on other projects instead. The issue is always going to be about putting the money to the best overall use.
I think, iif done correctly we could mitigate the effects of climate change with relatively little cost. A small but increasing tax on previously-sequestered* CO2 emissions would likely have a large effect on curbing emissions without excessive cost. Businesses would naturally reduce emissions to reduce the cost, where possible.
There are numerous estimates of what the costs of climate change will be, but those estimates rarely break down to the level of determine who's going to pay what costs, but the vast majority agree that it's cheaper to prevent/slow down climate change than to pay the costs to adapt to the changing climate.
* I put previously-sequestered here for the mouth breathers who get hysterical over the imaginary possibility of a tax on mouth-breathing, of course, they probably won't read this.
It's the reforestation that had the huge effect, and who's to say we haven't?
I think this one might be particularly important because of the magnitude of the disaster. It wasn't just one deadly pandemic, it was half a dozen of them sweeping the Americas one after the other. The article says they estimate that close to 90% of the Native American population was wiped out over the course of less than a century by disease.
Much of the problem will eventually resolve itself. There's a limited supply of oil, and gas prices are likely going to rise faster than inflation until they reach the point where synthetic gasoline becomes price-competitive. At point, the economic situation will likely be that you'd have to be rich, an idiot, or both to drive a gasoline powered car.
The fight now is just over whether we want to spend a smaller amount now or a larger amount later to deal with the problem. Thanks to the economic collapse it'll probably be more later.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure the people that live along that very geologically active strip of turf will be happy to know that Ron Paul considers them essentially expendable in his quest for ideological purity.
That is simply untrue and completely preposterous. To make such baseless accusations, you should be ashamed of yourself. We all know that Ron Paul considers everyone to be expendable in his quest for ideological purity.
I highly doubt Bell labs could be created today by any American corporation. Well maybe Google, but that's about it. Investment in basic research would be seen as a drag on corporate profits and there'd be shareholder pressure to "cut the waste". After all, it's much cheaper to simply use the research someone else did. It's the Microsoft model of business: buy what you can, steal what you can't and abuse your power for profit.
So you're saying a Ron Paul presidency would promote bipartisan co-operation in both the house and senate as they unite to destroy him?
I didn't present myself as someone qualified to analyze the situation. Did I use a phrase like "In my professional opinion"? Or "I'm an expert on British Copyright Law"? I gave my opinion of the case based on my understanding of the law. I'm not an English citizen and I'm not particular interested in EU copyright law.
There's no reason to be so confrontational in your post, you could have merely pointed out the relevant law in a friendly manner instead of coming across as a pompous ass.
Which looks even worse since you're correction has only a minor impact on my analysis, they still have to prove that the list should be protected, you've merely shown that the bar is a little lower than I first supposed. But thanks for being a miserable bastard about it.
That might not have been clear but it needs to have merit beyond the value of the data. For instance, you generally can't protect a list of publicly available information no matter how much work was involved in creating the list. They'd have to show that the information on the list is secret, but if it is actually secret then it shouldn't be published in the manual, or the police should have had to sign a non-disclosure agreement before receiving the manual.
Specifically, the article alleges that they used (part of) a list of results from the manual of a private system when they developed a competing application. The case seems flimsy, they're going to have to prove that the list should be considered "a work" as opposed to just data. Data isn't protected unless it has some merit of it's own. Lists are generally not protected.
He's an idiot who doesn't understand that Climate Change is the general process and AGW is the current way the climate is changing. He's the kind of guy who walks into a car dealership and mocks them for selling "Toyotas" or "Fords" when they're all "obviously cars".
That sounds like a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Everything you've said may be true but is largely inconsequential to the current anthropogenic climate change. In addition, climate change researchers are well aware of the natural climate cycles, they know the next natural glacial period is expected in about 130,000 years.
Where you go completely off the rails in in explaining how this has any relation to your claims. I don't see how a system you describe as "regular as clockwork" system on an approximately 100,000 year cycle could start 80,000 years ahead of schedule. It seems to me you're just ignorant and confused.
I'm not a scientist so I'm going to try and explain the basic mechanism which "has never been explained to you".
Light enters the atmosphere and strikes the earth, some of it is re-radiated away from the earth. Some of that energy is absorbed by CO2 and re-radiated back towards the earth. Increase the CO2 and you increase the amount that gets re-radiated back to earth generating additional warming. Water vapor does that as well, but because water precipitates out of the atmosphere quickly (days), it can't build up over time like CO2 (which can stay in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years). Also, increasing temperatures because of increased CO2 may trigger a water vapor feedback because warmer air can hold more water.
It's pretty basic science, even if I'm not very good at explaining it, that was first discovered in the 19th century.
Actually it is. Because it is possible for climate to both change naturally and for human activity to be driving the current climate change. More specifically, the scientists studying climate change are fully aware of both the rate and nature of natural climate change. Trying to imply that they deny it exists is exactly a strawman argument.
For example, it's a natural process for cars to eventually rust, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for you to wrap a car around a street light, nor does it mean that the process of wrapping your car around a street light is natural.
Humans activities appear to be overriding natural climate change and pushing it at about 100 times the natural rate.
There's nothing wrong with being skeptical, however, claiming to be a skeptic while actually already having determined which side you'll support is now just part of the book of dirty tactics. It has been used by the pro-tobacco lobby, the pro-asbestos lobby, and others to cloud the public perception of the truth. They usually pay a few people to pretend to be skeptical*. After all, it's really easy to say your skeptic and simply refuse to believe anything the "other" side presents. These "false skeptics", of course, will believe anything their side presents on the faintest and feeblest of explanation.
In other word's I'm skeptical that your claim of being a skeptic is true. I've seen no evidence to support the assertion.
* If you care, you can find out more about this in books like "Merchants of Doubt" and "Don't Get Fooled Again".
It's ok, the search won't actually return any results.
So... No?
Republicans don't owe the Tea Party, they owe the other Republicans who "control" the Tea Party. Some Republican incumbents defeated for one of two reasons: first the Tea Party is only mostly controlled and second some of them wouldn't play ball with the people who are really in charge of the Tea Party. So those who wouldn't play ball were replaced by people who better matched what the Tea Party owners want*.
* Simply put they want lower taxes.
Is Ben & Jerry really a "major corporation"?
I'm not sure if you noticed but usually it's around 95% of incumbents who get re-elected. Gerrymandering was supposed to mean that politicians didn't actually have to listen to the plebs. Now, thanks to a change in voting patterns, almost 15% of them might have to actually pretend to listen... The U.S. electoral systems are deeply screwed up.
Thanks for proving that you are ignorant.
Those aren't points against communism. They are plenty of good points against communism that you really shouldn't need to invent ones that are pathetically bad.
That doesn't take education
Really? How do you design and build a new computer, if you don't know how computers work?
This is bullshit that assumes that people that take loans that they cant afford simply don't know what they are doing. Poor people arent naive. Most of the time they know exactly what they are doing.
I'm not so sure about that. Poor people tend to have the least education and lower intelligence. Sure some of them knew what they were doing or thought that they knew what they were doing. But many of them may have been influenced by aggressive sales tactics and marketing. Companies aren't stupid. They use those tools because they work.
Also, they might not be naive but they might still be desperate enough to do it anyway.
Well the reason more people on /. are not calling this complete bunk is because we have some minimal level of reading comprehension. In the context above "deforestation" is obviously an unfortunate typo. The diseases carried by those sailors are exactly what caused the depopulation of Central and South America which allowed the forests to grow back (reforestation). The estimated death toll of around 90% of the population or between 36-72 million allowed a lot of forest growth until they were replaced through immigration and natural population growth. The argument is that the diseases were virulent enough to actually have an impact on the climate. At least, that's what the article says. Of course you'd know that if you read more and didn't jump to conclusions.
Quite true. One problem is that people can continually argue against paying anything more than we have too right now, which will just lead to a continually increasing cost to climate change until we run out carbon sequestering resources.
To some people that's actually preferable because ideologically they see a difference between something they have to pay and something they chose to pay. Strangely, libertarians seem to want people to be able to choose to pay for things but seem to want societies which are unable to choose to pay.
You're thinking too U.S. centric, the primary populations centers of pre-contact America were in the south. The North American hunter-gatherers were more resistant to the European plagues because of their greater isolation from one another, however, in South and Central America there were actual cities which were destroyed by the combination of war and disease brought by the Europeans (particularly the Spanish).
Of course, the reforestation that took place after the cities were abandoned was eventually reversed when Europeans began to settle the Americas. Some cities, of course, never recovered (like Machu Pichu) and others that are occasionally discovered in the rain forests of Brazil.
There's also opportunity costs to consider as well, of course, money spent fighting climate change could be spent on other projects instead. The issue is always going to be about putting the money to the best overall use.
I think, iif done correctly we could mitigate the effects of climate change with relatively little cost. A small but increasing tax on previously-sequestered* CO2 emissions would likely have a large effect on curbing emissions without excessive cost. Businesses would naturally reduce emissions to reduce the cost, where possible.
There are numerous estimates of what the costs of climate change will be, but those estimates rarely break down to the level of determine who's going to pay what costs, but the vast majority agree that it's cheaper to prevent/slow down climate change than to pay the costs to adapt to the changing climate.
* I put previously-sequestered here for the mouth breathers who get hysterical over the imaginary possibility of a tax on mouth-breathing, of course, they probably won't read this.
It's the reforestation that had the huge effect, and who's to say we haven't?
I think this one might be particularly important because of the magnitude of the disaster. It wasn't just one deadly pandemic, it was half a dozen of them sweeping the Americas one after the other. The article says they estimate that close to 90% of the Native American population was wiped out over the course of less than a century by disease.
Much of the problem will eventually resolve itself. There's a limited supply of oil, and gas prices are likely going to rise faster than inflation until they reach the point where synthetic gasoline becomes price-competitive. At point, the economic situation will likely be that you'd have to be rich, an idiot, or both to drive a gasoline powered car.
The fight now is just over whether we want to spend a smaller amount now or a larger amount later to deal with the problem. Thanks to the economic collapse it'll probably be more later.