That's what this means. When they got out of the PC business they just sold it to china. And now they're apparently doing the same thing with their research division.
Companies don't survive that. The logo might survive. But it will be hollowed out mask.
Oh well. Ironic that this was once the company said to be an unbeatable monopoly.
These things always look great but the maintenance costs are insane.
I live in california and we've been building wind farms since the 70s. Practically all of them are abandoned now. We keep building them... and abandoning them. They get enough money or loans to build the farm. They farm operates for five years and then shuts down. Leaving yet another forest of rusting windmills in the desert.
Understand, I'd be all for this if I weren't sure it would depreciate in about six seconds flat. But that has been our experience with wind power. You have to basically replace the whole farm every five to ten years which at any rational energy price is unsustainable. Possibly it would work if the farm itself had the ability to manufacture the turbines but since they all seem to come out of Germany the replacement costs are very high.
Companies need control if they're going to rely on it. They can't have it not work.
As to really big companies possibly coming up with their own Roms for certain phone models... sure. But they don't need android for that. Those companies would probably be even happier to just make it from scratch and not bother with foreign code that wasn't designed for application.
The only way the mobiles are interacting with the corporate system right now is through webpages which will work with just about anything. The companies are comfortable with that. But that application is also fairly limited. It requires internet access like a PC requires electricity. Pull the internet and it's dead.
Whatever, it's not like Apple is making their money by winning over the business community. They're making it in the consumer market. It's a toy. A really great toy.
But the desktop is so much more then that. Until the mobile platform opens up such that it can become anything... it won't be competing.
While I think you make a lot of good points. I don't think your comments are that constructive on the matter. I don't say that to be critical. Merely, that rather then dismissing the whole attempt, you should say what they specifically did wrong and how to fix it.
The notion that the interface doesn't work on for mobile is irrelevant. The interface isn't the OS. The interface is a skin thrown over the OS. Take explorer out of windows and OS still works. I think it would be possible to strip out the GUI from desktop windows and fit it with a Mobile GUI. it would be a big deal especially in the corporate world if they could push their software directly on to a mobile without having to recode it. Companies are not writing apple Apps for their internal use. They might waste their time with that for customers but for internal use... they'll sooner push everything to a web/cloud service. And that only works when the internet is up which if you're in a mobile environment is spotty. Even in New York... get on a subway...
Either apple or MS or some palatable version of Linux needs to hit the phone. We need these devices to have a grown up OS for grown up programs.
All of that is true but it isn't for lack of processing power... at least now. THe average smart phone is faster then most of the windows desktops over the last 20 years.
If MS got real about stripping the OS down to brass tacks... JUST what was needed and nothing more to retain compatability. And then throw in a custom interface and possibly some limited system services that are seen as required...
I appreciate that phones go into sleep mode at the snap of the fingers and come out again. Clearly it would have to be tweaked. But I think at the very ABSOLUTE LEAST a windows mobile phone should be able to emulate a windows environment with decent performance.
We have quad core phones now... I'm not expecting anything amazing... WIndows 3.1 level graphics would be fine at least for a demo. THe point is to get the cross compatibility. And once you have a non-linux phone running desktop applications it will be a game changer.
Spend my gas tax on the f'ing road please. If you want to pay for mass transit or some other project that's fine. Just don't take it from the gas tax. The gas tax is FOR the roads. PERIOD. And it goes without saying that the mass transit if it uses gas should pay the gas tax too. No more of this tax exempt bs.
Sure, the real test would be reversing the system by using the model built from this test to examine other corporate memos in companies that may or may not have corruption. If it can detect it with any degree of accuracy then it's valid. At this point, it's still very young.
They're adding this to Watson already. One of the more expensive things you can do in law is a corporate discovery procedure. It requires in some cases THOUSANDS of lawyers all sitting in a giant room reading hundreds of thousands of documents. IBM used this tactic to shut down a Federal Anti Trust suit. Basically IBM buried the US government in so much paperwork that it wasn't practical to sue them. It would take ten years of just reading these stupid documents just to have a case.
So the idea is that rather then having the lawyers read it, you feed all the documents into a super computer like Watson and all the documents are crunched. The system will have some command of the law. Some idea of what it is looking for. And it will have various algorithms designed to look for anything in the memos that is atypical... and it will cross reference everything.
This is going to be applied to everything. And it's generally a good thing. It will eliminate a great deal of the mind numbing work in many professions and make much of the information overload we're all dealing with more manageable.
What are you thinking? That the boss will call you in and say "Tim, the computer is saying your sentence patterns might indicate deceptive behavior. Do you have something to tell me?"...
Might a stupid boss make this an issue/ Sure. But then a stupid boss is going to make something an issue no matter what. So what exactly are you losing here. Idiots will be idiots. They don't need help.
I believe this was more of an analysis. They fed thousands of time stamped memos into an algorithlim. The idea was to look for differences in speech pattern or word choice in reference to the conspiracy.
What they found in Enron at least was that as people behaved increasingly corrupt they became increasingly formal with each other. Casual comments tended to be innocent ones where as memos concerning the corruption tended to unusually professional.
Personally, I don't care what the company does with my corporate email. Scan away. It's so boring that I understand why they want to have a computer read it instead. And who knows, they might actually uncover a problem.
Obviously people will be worried about false positives. But I doubt anyone is going to take the computer's opinion as gospel. Likely, the computer will just point to a given collection of emails and suggest management read those specifically. Where upon management can decide if they have a problem or not.
Windows mobile was really pretty great for when it came out. It had decent integration with office, a more extensive library of programs then any competing system, and a similar structure to windows in many respects. It even had a registry.
But MS blew it. They didn't take the platform seriously and they left it to rot on the vine.
That said, lets not forget that what is really making apple so strong here is itunes. And that isn't MS's mistake so much as it is the content providers. Apple is eating the publishing industry and nibbling on MS, motorola, and a few other companies. But indifferent to apple's successes, MS screwed up on windows mobile.
99 percent of scientists aren't involved in climate science.
The scientific community could have distanced themselves from these people or groups. They didn't. That weakness will be billed to the prestige of their institution.
In the future, if you wish to preserve that authority, do not get involved in politics or distance your institution from members that do get involved. Pointblank.
As to your compaint about the denalists... that is valid. However, what happens when both involve themselves in politics is that they become equal and thus cancel each other out.
How does that help your cause if you're nullified? You can't claim a position of superiority to a biased entity when you're biased yourself. You have to be objective if you want to claim that. And the price of objectivity is cutting all ties with all political groups and standing on principle alone.
If you can't do that then you can't claim to be with science. Science doesn't care who wins the next election. The republicans and democrats do care. If you take sides then you're not objective.
That is the Guardian, one of the most left wing papers in England reporting that the IPCC is admitting the error.
If you blindly dismiss what everyone else says then you're no longer a rational player. You're just a foaming at the mouth zealot.
Listen. I am being exceedingly reasonable and patient with you.
As to your reference to anyone that doesn't agree on AGW as a denier which is a reference to holocaust deniers... you label yourself with that rather then insult me. You say for all the world you're a tool. A mindless implement for the use of another's hand.
Use your own words or it will be obvious that not only are you parroting the words of another but that you're not even expressing your own thoughts. That someone else's opinions have been grafted into your mind without consideration. THINK FOR YOURSELF.
As to the tax issue, I know the gas tax isn't there to reduce consumption. However, much of the interference in energy is designed to obstruct consumption. So if you can see the big picture it operates much same way.
One hand of the government acts to restrict consumption and then another hand starves for lack of funding because they reduced consumption.
As to the issue in california, its an issue anywhere the roads are falling apart. California was merely an example of a place where the idiots got everything they wanted and it is destroying them. Ironically, Georgia is healthier because those political elements are not as relevant.
The green house effect is well known. However, there are many ways to get a green house effect. Water vapor for example could be a green house element or via clouds it could actually cool the planet.
The issue is extremely complicated.
For example, there are glaciers in Africa that are withering away and people initially thought it was because of warming temperatures. But they found the temperatures hadn't gone up at all. So why was the glacier disappearing? Turns out, it was being eroded by sand particles in the wind. This is something that has gone on for millions of years BUT in the past the ice removed was replaced by tiny ice particles in the air. So the real issue in this specific case is a lack of humidity. So then the question becomes why is the humidity lower? Turns out that in the last hundred years of so the whole lowlands around the mountain has been clear cut by slash and burn farms. These forests trapped humidity around the mountain and allowed the glacier to form. Without the forests the humidity goes down and the glacier "appears" to melt.
point? The world is complicated.
There is a series of islands call the Maldives that claim or have been told by activists that their islands are being submerged by rising seas. That isn't the case however. The oceans haven't gone up enough to matter to the Maldives. The real issue is that their islands are eroding. Waves come in... sand goes out. I don't know the exact reason for that but it isn't rising oceans.
We have issues like this all over the world. For example, many of the glaciers in alaska that are thought to be shrinking also have a darker albedo then the glaciers that are growing. That is, the whole thing could come down to which glacier has a lighter surface and thus absorbs more sunlight.
Beyond that, the absolute rejection of geoengineering options is entirely unacceptable. If this issue is a threat to all mankind then everything has to be on the table. Killing the global hydrocarbon industry isn't practical. We can't do it for various political and economic reasons. Even if we stopped the third world won't without a nuclear war. So whatever reductions we make in the first world will be entirely meaningless. UTTERLY WITHOUT MEANING.
That is pointless. What we should do is double check our science to make sure it's accurate. I'm not saying it isn't accurate... I'm saying double check it before we start spending a trillions on solutions. That's reasonable. And if it all comes back positive then everything we can ACTUALLY do has to be on the table. For example, we can increase cloud cover over the oceans thus reflecting more light back into space. Or we can release certain gases into the upper atmosphere that will block or reflect some of the sun's radiation.
Everything has to be on the table. Attacking hydrocarbons is something we might be able to do in 100 years. But today? Not even close.
That was the mistake. When you launched it, you made it political.
You publish your paper like every other scientist and if the press or the politicians care they'll read it. If not, then go back and do more science.
It's similar to the stupid musicians that keep trying to get people to care about a political cause. No one cares. The only reason anyone listens to those people at all is because they make music. People like the music. They don't care about the political advocacy and no one is going to change their politics because a singer embraces something.
Here's what I'm saying.
Scientists should do science. Artists should make art.
Leave the political shitslinging to the politicians and DO NOT allow yourself to be made an agent of their agendas.
The politicians don't care about the environment. They want power. The whole point of the popular environmentalist movement is political power.
That's what you did when you made it political. You instantly made it a game piece on a big complicated political board. The democrats pretend to care about it but if you told they could get power forever if they abandoned AGW forever they'd NEVER talk about it again. Because they like power more then they like whatever the real environmentalists care about. Republicans are the same way. Tell them they could get power forever by embracing AGW forever... they'd do it.
In politics all anyone cares about is power.
Do you understand? If you want your issues to matter... Distance yourself from the politics. The environmentalists have done so much damage to their cause at this point that it might take a decade out of the lime light to fix the issue.
Break all existing political ties. Make strong bipartisan or non-partisan statements. Make it clear you're not for any side but the environment. And then refuse to associate with any political group beyond a very clear quid pro quo relationship for specifically what you want.
If you suggest that a whole political party is good or bad again then you're failing. You have to not care. You have to not care who has power to make it not about power. You have to make it about your issue and nothing else. You have to be willing to shake hands with either side at any moment without irony.
If you can't bring yourself to do that, then you're hurting the cause.
Democrats and republicans will never totally dominate the political system. They will always exist in struggle and conflict. If you want your issue to be something political parties push around the game table then play into their hands. If you want your issue to be something sacrosanct that is held to be above politics then you have to be above politics yourself.
This isn't rocket science. If you want to be seen as objective and above it all then you need to be objective and above it all.
If you don't care what people think then stop issuing press releases, accepting invitations for political junkets, and attaching yourself to lobbying groups.
When you do that, you cease to be a scientist and become a political/media entity.
I didn't say Al Gore was a scientist. I said he used it. And the scientists allied with him and thus they became associated.
As to using the science not politicizing it. That depends on whether the scientists personally involve themselves in the politics. Hanson and most of the other big names have done so fairly shamelessly. And that has a price.
The piper will be paid.
As to the scientists involved in the IPCC, you mean the ones that used a misquote from a climbing magazine to claim the Himalayas will be gone in 20 years?
Come now. The IPCC is horribly tainted at this point again because of politics.
Put the science first and you won't have these problems. Abandon all ties to your ideology. Ignore all factional distinctions in the political struggle. Just report the science indifferent to how it will be precieved. It is not the job of scientists to get political action. It is their job to do science.
it is not the job of scientists to inform the public at large. It is not the job of scientists to make public service announcements. it is not the job of scientists to involve themselves in complex economic issues outside their fields.
If you think the world is warming because of increased CO2 concentrations as a result of human industry. Report that. And move on. It is not your responsibility as a scientist to make anyone listen to you or care. It is your job to do the science.
Involve yourself in the political struggles as a scientist and your scientific objectivity is gone.
*poof*... no more. Hanson and a few others should probably just retire at this point or at least take jobs that keep them away from the press for the rest of their careers. They're not helpful to the process. It's not possible for the political system to objectively examine the science under these circumstances. The democrats see advantage and the republicans see a threat. That disposes the democrats to be a friend to the AGW movement whether they believe it or not. They see the potential for power in it. They don't care about anything beyond that point. The republicans likewise are unable to be objective on the issue since they see a political threat.
This is what happens when you politicize it. Stop it. These so called scientists are probably some of the least professional glory hounds in scientific history. Get off the news. Get off the TV. File your reports. Do the science. That's your job. Leave the politics to professions that don't stake their reputations on objectivity.
Some how modern lawyers are still suing people even though people signed waivers that should have protected them from liability. Simple things like people slipping on ice at an ice rink when there is a sign above that says "slippery"... Then the hot coffee situation where someone sued McDonalds because they burned themselves on hot coffee. It's just stupid. I'm sure kickstarter is worried about liability. That's the only rational reason I can think they're nervous about this... make this girl sign a waiver. Make her parents sign it. Make the f'ing justice system sign it so that it's made very god damn clear that if the girl is stalked and then gang raped by 4chan through kickstarter... it isn't kickstarter's fault.
This extends to a thousand other issues in our society. If you sign a waiver... they're not liable. Period. Want to go hug a wild bear? Sign this waiver. If the bear decapitates you, then that isn't my fault.
Just take some personal responsibility. If this girl isn't worried about being stalked then clearly she either wants to be stalked or isn't afraid. Absolve kickstarter of liability and then have fun with the drooling stalkers.
People need to believe the scientists don't care about politics, economics, ideology, and the political factionalism that is inherent in human societies. They have to be like monks that go off to their mountain top, make their quiet calculations, and are otherwise detached from the rest of the world.
Whenever a scientist attaches himself to the right or left or some larger political coalition it immediately taints everything they've done.
Had they made clear point from the start of NOT taking sides and simply making their case things would have worked out differently. Had they scrupuliously avoided their work being used as a weapon against either side or for either side things would be different.
But they didn't do any of that. Al Gore largely launched this movement and they helped him. They allowed themselves to be used as pawns in the political games of large political factions that honestly don't care about the environment. Neither the right nor left actually cares. They both care about power. If you told the democrats to throw the whole AGW argument under the bus BUT they'd get power they'd throw it under the bus in a heartbeat. And if you told the republicans that they'd get power if they just embraced AGW they'd do that in a heart beat.
Neither side cares. The democrats saw political advantage and the republicans saw a political threat. They responded to the issue in those terms. Nothing more or less. Period.
As AGW is a largely frustrated political movement being so tainted by partisan politics it's political backers are going to start abandoning it. It's not a viable weapon anymore. Doubtless many will still say they support it but it won't be a rallying cry or a center piece of any agenda. It's burned up.
Honestly, I would suggest the scientists back up and try again... this time as scientists and not as activists. Talk to both sides. Involve them both in the process equally. Make a point of taking no sides. If EITHER side tries to use you, distance yourself from them immediately and make it clear that you don't have an affiliation. Don't speak at political functions. Don't offer any support for either side.
You will not get everything you want. But you'll get something and you won't trigger a knee jerk political rejection.
And it goes without saying... Al Gore needs to be pilloried out of the movement. He's a polarizing influence which is the opposite of what you want.
Or you can keep doing what you're doing and encounter increasingly entrenched political positions that are increasingly effective at shutting down your objectives. That's how politics work. Just stay out of it. Stick to science.
I'm not even going to get into the science or the models. That's a whole other argument. From a straight forward PR perspective your ONLY authority in this matter is as men of science. And to maintain that you must remain objective. Take sides and that's gone... and with it any authority.
It's weird. When they're in charge they never have this opinion or at least never act on it. people from the outside say this and they say we're naive or ill informed. Then when they get out of office they start agreeing with the very people they had previously said were naive.
Wtf?
I can't wait till Eric Holder steps down... he'll suddenly spill the beans on fast and furious and etc (I know, different department but same difference)... anyway...
Food for thought the next time one of these bozos tells everyone they're naive. Just wait a couple years and he'll agree. Conveniently after his opinion no longer matters...
The same place I said I didn't want to pay my fair share?
The problem with fuel taxes is similar to the problem with tobacco taxes.
You set up policies to reduce consumption and having grown dependent on the revenue you need to increase taxes further or put them upon something else.
Many states are considering putting a tax on Soda for example simply to make up for all the people that aren't smoking. Does Soda cause lung cancer? No. Nor does diet soda cause a health problem but they want to put a special tax on it all the same. Why? Because they need the money.
This is what you get when you don't compartmentalize your budget. You get mission drift, various programs stealing from each other, and stealth subsidization.
Keep the revenue streams compartmentalized and any excess in a given program becomes evident. And you can of course increase taxes if required to supply that service. Or perhaps the public will decide that rather then raising taxes that service should be limited.
The potholes are a basic issue. It's one of the few things you take care of after paying the police and fire department. It's fundamental. And we pay several taxes that supposidly go to fund nothing but road maintenance. But the money is often diverted to ANYTHING else.
My state for example is building a high speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco at a cost of probably over 100 billion dollars. Do we need it? No. We have air traffic between these destinations that is faster, cheaper, more flexible, and has radically lower maintenance costs.
Why are we building it? Feel good, slack jawed, drooling, idiocy. That or rank corruption by justifying a huge public bond which may or may not be spent on the rail at all and may find its way into side projects and private hands.
It's a continuous issue. Enough.
Take care of basic services. Pay off all the debt. And THEN propose a new idea.... in twenty years because that's about how long it will take to pay the debt off assuming no new debt is suffered in the meantime.
I am more then happy to pay my share. Stop making my share unaffordable. I don't want to pay for the f'ing moon. I want to pay for my road to not have pot holes in it. If people can't manage that then f' it. We might as well just declare the US a third world country, release a bunch of wild chickens onto the streets, and give up any pretense at having a modern society.
For f*cks sake. The god damn Romans were better at patching potholes then some of these idiots and I doubt very much a request to fix a pot hole that had been sitting there for months would have been answered with infantile whining.
Your impression of our resources is inaccurate. If you've been paying attention to new developments it should be obvious to you that we have lots of domestic oil. More then saudi arabia ever had. It's simply not light sweet crude. It's heavy and much of it is in shale formations. But using new technology we can extract it.
In any case, that has nothing to do with your interference with off shore extraction. Currently we're only issuing permits to drill in the gulf of mexico. No permits are being issued for the east or west coast.
Anyway, you've proved my point. Your interference justifies almost anything from me in response. You have no right to interfere with the US energy supply. None. And I can respond to that hostility in practically any way I see fit.
How am I being a dick for wanting my car to be quiet?
Oh that's right... I'm not.
Should I counter that your argument is the statists argument... "boss everyone around because we think society is made up of stupid peasants that wouldn't wipe their asses if there weren't a relevant law"?
Every time you pass a stupid law you erode the credibility of the state. Every time you make it harder for someone to not be a criminal you create more criminals.
Go for it. This is one of the many stupid laws out there that is totally unenforceable. Follow this one up by passing a law against nose picking in the privacy of your own home.
Slashdot Mirror
That's what this means. When they got out of the PC business they just sold it to china. And now they're apparently doing the same thing with their research division.
Companies don't survive that. The logo might survive. But it will be hollowed out mask.
Oh well. Ironic that this was once the company said to be an unbeatable monopoly.
These things always look great but the maintenance costs are insane.
I live in california and we've been building wind farms since the 70s. Practically all of them are abandoned now. We keep building them... and abandoning them. They get enough money or loans to build the farm. They farm operates for five years and then shuts down. Leaving yet another forest of rusting windmills in the desert.
Understand, I'd be all for this if I weren't sure it would depreciate in about six seconds flat. But that has been our experience with wind power. You have to basically replace the whole farm every five to ten years which at any rational energy price is unsustainable. Possibly it would work if the farm itself had the ability to manufacture the turbines but since they all seem to come out of Germany the replacement costs are very high.
... I think this touches on the issue to some extent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4EbCkotKPU
Companies need control if they're going to rely on it. They can't have it not work.
As to really big companies possibly coming up with their own Roms for certain phone models... sure. But they don't need android for that. Those companies would probably be even happier to just make it from scratch and not bother with foreign code that wasn't designed for application.
The only way the mobiles are interacting with the corporate system right now is through webpages which will work with just about anything. The companies are comfortable with that. But that application is also fairly limited. It requires internet access like a PC requires electricity. Pull the internet and it's dead.
Whatever, it's not like Apple is making their money by winning over the business community. They're making it in the consumer market. It's a toy. A really great toy.
But the desktop is so much more then that. Until the mobile platform opens up such that it can become anything... it won't be competing.
While I think you make a lot of good points. I don't think your comments are that constructive on the matter. I don't say that to be critical. Merely, that rather then dismissing the whole attempt, you should say what they specifically did wrong and how to fix it.
The notion that the interface doesn't work on for mobile is irrelevant. The interface isn't the OS. The interface is a skin thrown over the OS. Take explorer out of windows and OS still works. I think it would be possible to strip out the GUI from desktop windows and fit it with a Mobile GUI. it would be a big deal especially in the corporate world if they could push their software directly on to a mobile without having to recode it. Companies are not writing apple Apps for their internal use. They might waste their time with that for customers but for internal use... they'll sooner push everything to a web/cloud service. And that only works when the internet is up which if you're in a mobile environment is spotty. Even in New York... get on a subway...
Either apple or MS or some palatable version of Linux needs to hit the phone. We need these devices to have a grown up OS for grown up programs.
All of that is true but it isn't for lack of processing power... at least now. THe average smart phone is faster then most of the windows desktops over the last 20 years.
If MS got real about stripping the OS down to brass tacks... JUST what was needed and nothing more to retain compatability. And then throw in a custom interface and possibly some limited system services that are seen as required...
I appreciate that phones go into sleep mode at the snap of the fingers and come out again. Clearly it would have to be tweaked. But I think at the very ABSOLUTE LEAST a windows mobile phone should be able to emulate a windows environment with decent performance.
We have quad core phones now... I'm not expecting anything amazing... WIndows 3.1 level graphics would be fine at least for a demo. THe point is to get the cross compatibility. And once you have a non-linux phone running desktop applications it will be a game changer.
I called it.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303815404577333631864470566.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
They're diverting funds.
Spend my gas tax on the f'ing road please. If you want to pay for mass transit or some other project that's fine. Just don't take it from the gas tax. The gas tax is FOR the roads. PERIOD. And it goes without saying that the mass transit if it uses gas should pay the gas tax too. No more of this tax exempt bs.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303815404577333631864470566.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
I called it. They spend less then 65 cents of every dollar from the gas tax on road maintenance. The rest is intercepted for other programs.
I live in Los Angeles. I god damn called it.
Sure, the real test would be reversing the system by using the model built from this test to examine other corporate memos in companies that may or may not have corruption. If it can detect it with any degree of accuracy then it's valid. At this point, it's still very young.
They're adding this to Watson already. One of the more expensive things you can do in law is a corporate discovery procedure. It requires in some cases THOUSANDS of lawyers all sitting in a giant room reading hundreds of thousands of documents. IBM used this tactic to shut down a Federal Anti Trust suit. Basically IBM buried the US government in so much paperwork that it wasn't practical to sue them. It would take ten years of just reading these stupid documents just to have a case.
So the idea is that rather then having the lawyers read it, you feed all the documents into a super computer like Watson and all the documents are crunched. The system will have some command of the law. Some idea of what it is looking for. And it will have various algorithms designed to look for anything in the memos that is atypical... and it will cross reference everything.
This is going to be applied to everything. And it's generally a good thing. It will eliminate a great deal of the mind numbing work in many professions and make much of the information overload we're all dealing with more manageable.
I don't see how this could be used against you.
What are you thinking? That the boss will call you in and say "Tim, the computer is saying your sentence patterns might indicate deceptive behavior. Do you have something to tell me?"...
Might a stupid boss make this an issue/ Sure. But then a stupid boss is going to make something an issue no matter what. So what exactly are you losing here. Idiots will be idiots. They don't need help.
I believe this was more of an analysis. They fed thousands of time stamped memos into an algorithlim. The idea was to look for differences in speech pattern or word choice in reference to the conspiracy.
What they found in Enron at least was that as people behaved increasingly corrupt they became increasingly formal with each other. Casual comments tended to be innocent ones where as memos concerning the corruption tended to unusually professional.
Personally, I don't care what the company does with my corporate email. Scan away. It's so boring that I understand why they want to have a computer read it instead. And who knows, they might actually uncover a problem.
Obviously people will be worried about false positives. But I doubt anyone is going to take the computer's opinion as gospel. Likely, the computer will just point to a given collection of emails and suggest management read those specifically. Where upon management can decide if they have a problem or not.
Windows mobile was really pretty great for when it came out. It had decent integration with office, a more extensive library of programs then any competing system, and a similar structure to windows in many respects. It even had a registry.
But MS blew it. They didn't take the platform seriously and they left it to rot on the vine.
That said, lets not forget that what is really making apple so strong here is itunes. And that isn't MS's mistake so much as it is the content providers. Apple is eating the publishing industry and nibbling on MS, motorola, and a few other companies. But indifferent to apple's successes, MS screwed up on windows mobile.
99 percent of scientists aren't involved in climate science.
The scientific community could have distanced themselves from these people or groups. They didn't. That weakness will be billed to the prestige of their institution.
In the future, if you wish to preserve that authority, do not get involved in politics or distance your institution from members that do get involved. Pointblank.
Riiight, because the person demonizing the opposition and using ad verecundiam and ad popularium is speaking for science.
You're too ignorant to know what you're talking about.
As to your compaint about the denalists... that is valid. However, what happens when both involve themselves in politics is that they become equal and thus cancel each other out.
How does that help your cause if you're nullified? You can't claim a position of superiority to a biased entity when you're biased yourself. You have to be objective if you want to claim that. And the price of objectivity is cutting all ties with all political groups and standing on principle alone.
If you can't do that then you can't claim to be with science. Science doesn't care who wins the next election. The republicans and democrats do care. If you take sides then you're not objective.
As to your request for a citation regarding the IPCC... This was common knowledge and all over the main press.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/20/ipcc-himalayan-glaciers-mistake
That is the Guardian, one of the most left wing papers in England reporting that the IPCC is admitting the error.
If you blindly dismiss what everyone else says then you're no longer a rational player. You're just a foaming at the mouth zealot.
Listen. I am being exceedingly reasonable and patient with you.
As to your reference to anyone that doesn't agree on AGW as a denier which is a reference to holocaust deniers... you label yourself with that rather then insult me. You say for all the world you're a tool. A mindless implement for the use of another's hand.
Use your own words or it will be obvious that not only are you parroting the words of another but that you're not even expressing your own thoughts. That someone else's opinions have been grafted into your mind without consideration. THINK FOR YOURSELF.
As to the tax issue, I know the gas tax isn't there to reduce consumption. However, much of the interference in energy is designed to obstruct consumption. So if you can see the big picture it operates much same way.
One hand of the government acts to restrict consumption and then another hand starves for lack of funding because they reduced consumption.
As to the issue in california, its an issue anywhere the roads are falling apart. California was merely an example of a place where the idiots got everything they wanted and it is destroying them. Ironically, Georgia is healthier because those political elements are not as relevant.
The green house effect is well known. However, there are many ways to get a green house effect. Water vapor for example could be a green house element or via clouds it could actually cool the planet.
The issue is extremely complicated.
For example, there are glaciers in Africa that are withering away and people initially thought it was because of warming temperatures. But they found the temperatures hadn't gone up at all. So why was the glacier disappearing? Turns out, it was being eroded by sand particles in the wind. This is something that has gone on for millions of years BUT in the past the ice removed was replaced by tiny ice particles in the air. So the real issue in this specific case is a lack of humidity. So then the question becomes why is the humidity lower? Turns out that in the last hundred years of so the whole lowlands around the mountain has been clear cut by slash and burn farms. These forests trapped humidity around the mountain and allowed the glacier to form. Without the forests the humidity goes down and the glacier "appears" to melt.
point? The world is complicated.
There is a series of islands call the Maldives that claim or have been told by activists that their islands are being submerged by rising seas. That isn't the case however. The oceans haven't gone up enough to matter to the Maldives. The real issue is that their islands are eroding. Waves come in... sand goes out. I don't know the exact reason for that but it isn't rising oceans.
We have issues like this all over the world. For example, many of the glaciers in alaska that are thought to be shrinking also have a darker albedo then the glaciers that are growing. That is, the whole thing could come down to which glacier has a lighter surface and thus absorbs more sunlight.
Beyond that, the absolute rejection of geoengineering options is entirely unacceptable. If this issue is a threat to all mankind then everything has to be on the table. Killing the global hydrocarbon industry isn't practical. We can't do it for various political and economic reasons. Even if we stopped the third world won't without a nuclear war. So whatever reductions we make in the first world will be entirely meaningless. UTTERLY WITHOUT MEANING.
That is pointless. What we should do is double check our science to make sure it's accurate. I'm not saying it isn't accurate... I'm saying double check it before we start spending a trillions on solutions. That's reasonable. And if it all comes back positive then everything we can ACTUALLY do has to be on the table. For example, we can increase cloud cover over the oceans thus reflecting more light back into space. Or we can release certain gases into the upper atmosphere that will block or reflect some of the sun's radiation.
Everything has to be on the table. Attacking hydrocarbons is something we might be able to do in 100 years. But today? Not even close.
... Don't launch it.
That was the mistake. When you launched it, you made it political.
You publish your paper like every other scientist and if the press or the politicians care they'll read it. If not, then go back and do more science.
It's similar to the stupid musicians that keep trying to get people to care about a political cause. No one cares. The only reason anyone listens to those people at all is because they make music. People like the music. They don't care about the political advocacy and no one is going to change their politics because a singer embraces something.
Here's what I'm saying.
Scientists should do science.
Artists should make art.
Leave the political shitslinging to the politicians and DO NOT allow yourself to be made an agent of their agendas.
The politicians don't care about the environment. They want power. The whole point of the popular environmentalist movement is political power.
That's what you did when you made it political. You instantly made it a game piece on a big complicated political board. The democrats pretend to care about it but if you told they could get power forever if they abandoned AGW forever they'd NEVER talk about it again. Because they like power more then they like whatever the real environmentalists care about. Republicans are the same way. Tell them they could get power forever by embracing AGW forever... they'd do it.
In politics all anyone cares about is power.
Do you understand? If you want your issues to matter... Distance yourself from the politics. The environmentalists have done so much damage to their cause at this point that it might take a decade out of the lime light to fix the issue.
Break all existing political ties. Make strong bipartisan or non-partisan statements. Make it clear you're not for any side but the environment. And then refuse to associate with any political group beyond a very clear quid pro quo relationship for specifically what you want.
If you suggest that a whole political party is good or bad again then you're failing. You have to not care. You have to not care who has power to make it not about power. You have to make it about your issue and nothing else. You have to be willing to shake hands with either side at any moment without irony.
If you can't bring yourself to do that, then you're hurting the cause.
Democrats and republicans will never totally dominate the political system. They will always exist in struggle and conflict. If you want your issue to be something political parties push around the game table then play into their hands. If you want your issue to be something sacrosanct that is held to be above politics then you have to be above politics yourself.
This isn't rocket science. If you want to be seen as objective and above it all then you need to be objective and above it all.
If you don't care what people think then stop issuing press releases, accepting invitations for political junkets, and attaching yourself to lobbying groups.
When you do that, you cease to be a scientist and become a political/media entity.
I didn't say Al Gore was a scientist. I said he used it. And the scientists allied with him and thus they became associated.
As to using the science not politicizing it. That depends on whether the scientists personally involve themselves in the politics. Hanson and most of the other big names have done so fairly shamelessly. And that has a price.
The piper will be paid.
As to the scientists involved in the IPCC, you mean the ones that used a misquote from a climbing magazine to claim the Himalayas will be gone in 20 years?
Come now. The IPCC is horribly tainted at this point again because of politics.
Put the science first and you won't have these problems. Abandon all ties to your ideology. Ignore all factional distinctions in the political struggle. Just report the science indifferent to how it will be precieved. It is not the job of scientists to get political action. It is their job to do science.
it is not the job of scientists to inform the public at large. It is not the job of scientists to make public service announcements. it is not the job of scientists to involve themselves in complex economic issues outside their fields.
If you think the world is warming because of increased CO2 concentrations as a result of human industry. Report that. And move on. It is not your responsibility as a scientist to make anyone listen to you or care. It is your job to do the science.
Involve yourself in the political struggles as a scientist and your scientific objectivity is gone.
*poof*... no more. Hanson and a few others should probably just retire at this point or at least take jobs that keep them away from the press for the rest of their careers. They're not helpful to the process. It's not possible for the political system to objectively examine the science under these circumstances. The democrats see advantage and the republicans see a threat. That disposes the democrats to be a friend to the AGW movement whether they believe it or not. They see the potential for power in it. They don't care about anything beyond that point. The republicans likewise are unable to be objective on the issue since they see a political threat.
This is what happens when you politicize it. Stop it. These so called scientists are probably some of the least professional glory hounds in scientific history. Get off the news. Get off the TV. File your reports. Do the science. That's your job. Leave the politics to professions that don't stake their reputations on objectivity.
Some how modern lawyers are still suing people even though people signed waivers that should have protected them from liability. Simple things like people slipping on ice at an ice rink when there is a sign above that says "slippery"... Then the hot coffee situation where someone sued McDonalds because they burned themselves on hot coffee. It's just stupid. I'm sure kickstarter is worried about liability. That's the only rational reason I can think they're nervous about this... make this girl sign a waiver. Make her parents sign it. Make the f'ing justice system sign it so that it's made very god damn clear that if the girl is stalked and then gang raped by 4chan through kickstarter... it isn't kickstarter's fault.
This extends to a thousand other issues in our society. If you sign a waiver... they're not liable. Period. Want to go hug a wild bear? Sign this waiver. If the bear decapitates you, then that isn't my fault.
Just take some personal responsibility. If this girl isn't worried about being stalked then clearly she either wants to be stalked or isn't afraid. Absolve kickstarter of liability and then have fun with the drooling stalkers.
People need to believe the scientists don't care about politics, economics, ideology, and the political factionalism that is inherent in human societies. They have to be like monks that go off to their mountain top, make their quiet calculations, and are otherwise detached from the rest of the world.
Whenever a scientist attaches himself to the right or left or some larger political coalition it immediately taints everything they've done.
Had they made clear point from the start of NOT taking sides and simply making their case things would have worked out differently. Had they scrupuliously avoided their work being used as a weapon against either side or for either side things would be different.
But they didn't do any of that. Al Gore largely launched this movement and they helped him. They allowed themselves to be used as pawns in the political games of large political factions that honestly don't care about the environment. Neither the right nor left actually cares. They both care about power. If you told the democrats to throw the whole AGW argument under the bus BUT they'd get power they'd throw it under the bus in a heartbeat. And if you told the republicans that they'd get power if they just embraced AGW they'd do that in a heart beat.
Neither side cares. The democrats saw political advantage and the republicans saw a political threat. They responded to the issue in those terms. Nothing more or less. Period.
As AGW is a largely frustrated political movement being so tainted by partisan politics it's political backers are going to start abandoning it. It's not a viable weapon anymore. Doubtless many will still say they support it but it won't be a rallying cry or a center piece of any agenda. It's burned up.
Honestly, I would suggest the scientists back up and try again... this time as scientists and not as activists. Talk to both sides. Involve them both in the process equally. Make a point of taking no sides. If EITHER side tries to use you, distance yourself from them immediately and make it clear that you don't have an affiliation. Don't speak at political functions. Don't offer any support for either side.
You will not get everything you want. But you'll get something and you won't trigger a knee jerk political rejection.
And it goes without saying... Al Gore needs to be pilloried out of the movement. He's a polarizing influence which is the opposite of what you want.
Or you can keep doing what you're doing and encounter increasingly entrenched political positions that are increasingly effective at shutting down your objectives. That's how politics work. Just stay out of it. Stick to science.
I'm not even going to get into the science or the models. That's a whole other argument. From a straight forward PR perspective your ONLY authority in this matter is as men of science. And to maintain that you must remain objective. Take sides and that's gone... and with it any authority.
It's weird. When they're in charge they never have this opinion or at least never act on it. people from the outside say this and they say we're naive or ill informed. Then when they get out of office they start agreeing with the very people they had previously said were naive.
Wtf?
I can't wait till Eric Holder steps down... he'll suddenly spill the beans on fast and furious and etc (I know, different department but same difference)... anyway...
Food for thought the next time one of these bozos tells everyone they're naive. Just wait a couple years and he'll agree. Conveniently after his opinion no longer matters...
The same place I said I didn't want to pay my fair share?
The problem with fuel taxes is similar to the problem with tobacco taxes.
You set up policies to reduce consumption and having grown dependent on the revenue you need to increase taxes further or put them upon something else.
Many states are considering putting a tax on Soda for example simply to make up for all the people that aren't smoking. Does Soda cause lung cancer? No. Nor does diet soda cause a health problem but they want to put a special tax on it all the same. Why? Because they need the money.
This is what you get when you don't compartmentalize your budget. You get mission drift, various programs stealing from each other, and stealth subsidization.
Keep the revenue streams compartmentalized and any excess in a given program becomes evident. And you can of course increase taxes if required to supply that service. Or perhaps the public will decide that rather then raising taxes that service should be limited.
The potholes are a basic issue. It's one of the few things you take care of after paying the police and fire department. It's fundamental. And we pay several taxes that supposidly go to fund nothing but road maintenance. But the money is often diverted to ANYTHING else.
My state for example is building a high speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco at a cost of probably over 100 billion dollars. Do we need it? No. We have air traffic between these destinations that is faster, cheaper, more flexible, and has radically lower maintenance costs.
Why are we building it? Feel good, slack jawed, drooling, idiocy. That or rank corruption by justifying a huge public bond which may or may not be spent on the rail at all and may find its way into side projects and private hands.
It's a continuous issue. Enough.
Take care of basic services. Pay off all the debt. And THEN propose a new idea.... in twenty years because that's about how long it will take to pay the debt off assuming no new debt is suffered in the meantime.
I am more then happy to pay my share. Stop making my share unaffordable. I don't want to pay for the f'ing moon. I want to pay for my road to not have pot holes in it. If people can't manage that then f' it. We might as well just declare the US a third world country, release a bunch of wild chickens onto the streets, and give up any pretense at having a modern society.
For f*cks sake. The god damn Romans were better at patching potholes then some of these idiots and I doubt very much a request to fix a pot hole that had been sitting there for months would have been answered with infantile whining.
Your impression of our resources is inaccurate. If you've been paying attention to new developments it should be obvious to you that we have lots of domestic oil. More then saudi arabia ever had. It's simply not light sweet crude. It's heavy and much of it is in shale formations. But using new technology we can extract it.
In any case, that has nothing to do with your interference with off shore extraction. Currently we're only issuing permits to drill in the gulf of mexico. No permits are being issued for the east or west coast.
Anyway, you've proved my point. Your interference justifies almost anything from me in response. You have no right to interfere with the US energy supply. None. And I can respond to that hostility in practically any way I see fit.
How am I being a dick for wanting my car to be quiet?
Oh that's right... I'm not.
Should I counter that your argument is the statists argument... "boss everyone around because we think society is made up of stupid peasants that wouldn't wipe their asses if there weren't a relevant law"?
Every time you pass a stupid law you erode the credibility of the state. Every time you make it harder for someone to not be a criminal you create more criminals.
Go for it. This is one of the many stupid laws out there that is totally unenforceable. Follow this one up by passing a law against nose picking in the privacy of your own home.