For more info, see The Ultimate Resource [juliansimon.org] by Julian Simon [juliansimon.org], and The Skeptical Environmentalist [cambridge.org] by Bjorn Lomborg [lomborg.com].
Frankly I'm much more inclinded to believe this list of Research/Studies from Oxford University. Than some lacky for the Petro-Chemical industry. Simple application of Occams Razor
What is it about you rabid anti-environmentalists? Are you a Troll or mindless Fool ? I'm going to assuming the latter even though I strongly suspect assume the former.
You choose to believe the obvious propaganda of entities that clearly a vested interest and seek to belittle these FACTS of global climate change and environmental damage.
Yet simply ignore the counter or impartial evidence, (http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Issues/Ec onomic/Environmental/?tc=1) which surounds us.
I constantly wonder how somebody could be quite so greedy and short sighted, to ignore the evidence of massive damage to the environment and ecosystem, from the most trustworthy sources in the world, Science, EPA's, Governments, NGO's, etc.
It should be a simple matter of the application of Occams Razor, 'who is more likely to be telling the truth' the vested interests of global Polluters like Monsanta, Exon, Shell, or the UK Metrological Office (http://www.met-office.gov.uk/corporate/annualrepo rt0001/4_customer_needs/4_climate.html)
I cannot help drawing a parallel with the the myopic mindless creationists, they too unable to see what is plain to everybody who has a brain.
Before I (and I imagine a fair few others) decide whether to lend a hand, I'd like to know why people are emailing you in a manner you seem abusive. Respond and put your side of the case forward, and show us the web site so we can make up our own mind.
Whilst I also wondered, I did my own research/data mining and turned up rather than jumping to conclusions.
1) The poster sheetzam[at]earthlink.net also posted these messages.
These suggest he is Anthony M Sheetz, the postmaster or SysOp for the Washington post.
This search seems to confirm this.
In 90 Seconds we seem to have confirmed, this is not junk emailer, troll and has nothing to do with RIAA/MPI. Indeed it would seem to be a legit bastion of free press.
The people sending abusive email, assuming they are actually offensive, are almost certainly violating their Term of Service or Acceptable Usage Policy. Complaining to their ISP will almost cetainly result a termination of service.
added http://www.microsoft.com under criminal skills.
microsoft.com does not stick, but oracle.com did:)
Also rather that a direct assault, label them accuratly but rather extremely, and rely on Human nature to do the rest. so riaa.com is Entertainment, and Entertainment is likley to be commonly banned on commercial networks. fast.co.uk become Political, and so does the bsa.org.uk.
What I want to know is how much my lack of a degree will count against me in the present job market? And what can I do to make my lack of a degree less of a liability?
I suggest this will depend on the culture/people of the prospectve employer. As a CS Graduate who is involved with recruitment I usually expect an IT related degree for technical staff, particularly for more senior positions. In my experience graduates have more breadth, and on average better skills, however I've come across a few extremely talented indivuals without [CS|IT|IS] ]degrees that seriously impress.
If they hold degrees themselves or consider themselves Software Engineers it may well be a problem. If a strong hacker|hero culture exists, they can be exactly the opposite. A degree can be a liability, indeed in one Interview I had, an apparent none graduate said, and I paraphrase, 'a CS degree was useless, programming is not about thinging it's about doing' and managed to keep a strait face.
The two most obvious problems with the Microsoft Passport is that 1) It shares your personal data with vendors in countries that do not protect that data. That is a breach of the Eight Data Protection Principal. 2) The Data must be secure, if not this is a violation of the Seventh Principal.
The UK Data Protection Act 1998 (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980029.htm ) governs how 'data-holders' make capture and process personal data.
This Act is an EU treaty obligation ( http://www.privacy.org/pi/intl_orgs/ec/final_EU_Da ta_Protection.html ) and replaces a similar act from 1984
The UK Government can be rightly criticised on many aspects of IT legislation, however the Data Protection is not one.
The Act codifies 'Eight Principals'.
1. fairly and lawfully processed; 2. processed for limited purposes; 3. adequate, relevant and not excessive; 4. accurate; 5. kept no longer than necessary; 6. processed in accordance with the data subject's rights; 7. secure; 8. not transferred to countries without adequate protection.
It seem likely to me that the MS-Passport violates several of these, though most notable numbers 7 and 8.
Well, since we have yet to discover what exactly makes us sentient
This is not strictly speaking true evolutionary science has a pretty good hypothesis.
Evoloution is a balance between Natural Selection (survival) and Sex Selection (propagation). When a species achieves top carnivore status it is no longer predated it become possible to seek out alternative strategies. Natural selection become relatively less important than sexual selection. One such strategy is the development of intelligence, communications ability, even altruism. In the same way that Natural Selection can cause an arms race, Sex Selection drives a similar race in intelligence, communications ability and altruism.
A similar features appear in many top carnivores, Whales and African Wild Dogs for two examples exhibit a very high intelligence, unusual communication abilites and altruism.
In the past I was involved in a similar operation and faced the same problem.
The solution adopted was stack it high and sell it cheap. Use a low margin/mark-up (~5%) on componets price and a published price list list. Gain a reputation for being the cheapest, keep your margins low and offer a build to spec service for the component price + 25 pounds (dollars/euros).
Target special groups like schools, with blanket advertising and make special approaches to the new University/College intake each year and can shift 200-400 units in two weeks. This can be enough to get your volumes up to the level where YOUR purchasing discount is really worth having.
Get your suppliers to discount based on your monthly volume rather than on each order and play your suppliers off against each other.
Also talk direct to the big players, they are constantly changing the case designs and upgrading and always have end of lines that are perfect OK and heavily discounted.
As it happened I didn't agree with this strategy, though it was doomed to ever more discounting and wanted to go up market with value added services, so I went my own way. I was wrong, The chain has gotten stronger going from 1 to 4 stores in 3 years.
If they changed the wording just a little bit it would make Spammers face charges.
Unsolicited Bulk Email is almost certainly illegal (though untested) under the Section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 if sending or receipt of UCE is against your AUP/TOS. Any unauthorised access to a computer is illegal under the Computer Misuse Act Section 1.
The problem is enforcement, the Police seem to have neither the inclination nor ability to enforce it.
--- 1.--(1) A person is guilty of an offence if-- (a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer; (b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and (c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that is the case. (2) The intent a person has to have to commit an offence under this section need not be directed at-- (a) any particular program or data; (b) a program or data of any particular kind; or (c) a program or data held in any particular computer. (3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to both. ---
So when the RIAA kills a file-sharing server in Scotland because US law specifically permits it
Decriminalisation in not the same as specifically permiting something.
whose national sovereignty will be degraded?
Neither, since crime would be committed in the UK and the USA/UK have a extradiction treaty. The the Individual would be etradited, tried and imprisoned in the UK.
Though the idea of sticking one on the RIAA (or MPA) is appealing. This is not really a good idea. It would be the geek on trial not the people that gave the orders. I'm not so keen on my taxes being used to finance a nice break at some home counties open prison.
A lot of people seem impressed (I wonder if they've even tried to use it), I have a contrary opinion.
Whilst I found the area of letter an interesting idea. I found it extremely difficult / practically impossible to use in practice. It's just a appears chaotic jumble of letters, it is difficult to find the correct letter, I think a better approach would be to it use letter frequency to govern the letter placement, with common letters being closer to the centre line.
I think the random jumble of colours made me feel dizzy, though this may be fixable by using a grey scale.
It is too easy to lose letters over the edge, if the letters moved around the edge to produce a curve, may be a better approach.
There is no way to get special characters or upper case letters, though this problem could be fixed by clicking the mouse or touching the screen to toggle case.
So to some approximation, the chances of the asteroid hitting earth if it travels within 120,000 km of the planet is: 110,000,000/11,000,000,000 = 0.01 = 1%
This is certainly not a zero probability, but it is still pretty small.
'Pretty small' you are missing the point, if this happens it is certainly devastating and potentially threatens our very existence.
But even when one of these asteroids passes this close - which is only known to have happened 6 times since we've been able to record these events (about 50 years?) - there is still only about a 1 in 100 chance it will hit the planet
This is the second event in 3 month, on both occasions, they where only detected afterwards, this suggests your estimates are way off.
62 nautical miles (114 kilometers) in the atmosphere (12 miles higher than the 50-mile altitude largely regarded as the boundary of space). (MSN version here)"
62 miles high is not space it does not even achieve a stable orbit never mind escape velocity. In my book this is not space.
Slashdot Mirror
A win for common sense and free speech.
http://www.internetparodies.org/FalwellDecision
For more info, see The Ultimate Resource [juliansimon.org] by Julian Simon [juliansimon.org], and The Skeptical Environmentalist [cambridge.org] by Bjorn Lomborg [lomborg.com].
Frankly I'm much more inclinded to believe this list of Research/Studies from Oxford University. Than some lacky for the Petro-Chemical industry. Simple application of Occams Razor
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/
'The problem with Lomborg's conclusion is that the scientists themselves disavow it.'
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F
Perhaps you might be able to understand this
'Global warming for 12-16yo' by DEFRA, the UK Governments Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechan
What is it about you rabid anti-environmentalists? Are you a Troll or mindless Fool ? I'm going to assuming the latter even though I strongly suspect assume the former.
You choose to believe the obvious propaganda of entities that clearly a vested interest and seek to belittle these FACTS of global climate change and environmental damage.
Yet simply ignore the counter or impartial evidence, (http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Issues/E
I constantly wonder how somebody could be quite so greedy and short sighted, to ignore the evidence of massive damage to the environment and ecosystem, from the most trustworthy sources in the world, Science, EPA's, Governments, NGO's, etc.
It should be a simple matter of the application of Occams Razor, 'who is more likely to be telling the truth' the vested interests of global Polluters like Monsanta, Exon, Shell, or the UK Metrological Office (http://www.met-office.gov.uk/corporate/annualrep
I cannot help drawing a parallel with the the myopic mindless creationists, they too unable to see what is plain to everybody who has a brain.
Before I (and I imagine a fair few others) decide whether to lend a hand, I'd like to know why people are emailing you in a manner you seem abusive. Respond and put your side of the case forward, and show us the web site so we can make up our own mind.
U TF -8&q=sheetzam%40earthlink.net&btnG=Google+Sear ch
Whilst I also wondered, I did my own research/data mining and turned up rather than jumping to conclusions.
1) The poster sheetzam[at]earthlink.net also posted these messages.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=
These suggest he is Anthony M Sheetz, the postmaster or SysOp for the Washington post.
This search seems to confirm this.
In 90 Seconds we seem to have confirmed, this is not junk emailer, troll and has nothing to do with RIAA/MPI. Indeed it would seem to be a legit bastion of free press.
The people sending abusive email, assuming they are actually offensive, are almost certainly violating their Term of Service or Acceptable Usage Policy. Complaining to their ISP will almost cetainly result a termination of service.
I've just labelled all their affaliate sites found here:
http://mpaa.org/relatedsites/index.htm
as either political or entertainment.
added http://www.microsoft.com under criminal skills.
microsoft.com does not stick, but oracle.com did
Also rather that a direct assault, label them accuratly but rather extremely, and rely on Human nature to do the rest.
so riaa.com is Entertainment, and Entertainment is likley to be commonly banned on commercial networks.
fast.co.uk become Political, and so does the bsa.org.uk.
Also relable friendly sites as unlisted.
What I want to know is how much my lack of a degree will count against me in the present job market? And what can I do to make my lack of a degree less of a liability?
I suggest this will depend on the culture/people of the prospectve employer. As a CS Graduate who is involved with recruitment I usually expect an IT related degree for technical staff, particularly for more senior positions. In my experience graduates have more breadth, and on average better skills, however I've come across a few extremely talented indivuals without [CS|IT|IS] ]degrees that seriously impress.
If they hold degrees themselves or consider themselves Software Engineers it may well be a problem. If a strong hacker|hero culture exists, they can be exactly the opposite. A degree can be a liability, indeed in one Interview I had, an apparent none graduate said, and I paraphrase, 'a CS degree was useless, programming is not about thinging it's about doing' and managed to keep a strait face.
Ignorance excused.
The two most obvious problems with the Microsoft Passport is that 1) It shares your personal data with vendors in countries that do not protect that data. That is a breach of the Eight Data Protection Principal. 2) The Data must be secure, if not this is a violation of the Seventh Principal.
The UK Data Protection Act 1998 (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/19980029.htm ) governs how 'data-holders' make capture and process personal data.
a ta_Protection.html ) and replaces a similar act from 1984
This Act is an EU treaty obligation ( http://www.privacy.org/pi/intl_orgs/ec/final_EU_D
The UK Government can be rightly criticised on many aspects of IT legislation, however the Data Protection is not one.
The Act codifies 'Eight Principals'.
1. fairly and lawfully processed;
2. processed for limited purposes;
3. adequate, relevant and not excessive;
4. accurate;
5. kept no longer than necessary;
6. processed in accordance with the data subject's rights;
7. secure;
8. not transferred to countries without adequate protection.
It seem likely to me that the MS-Passport violates several of these, though most notable numbers 7 and 8.
The Data Protection Registra/Commissioner.
http://www.dataprotection.gov.uk
I think that some of the marketing/PR people of MS have been sick / on holidays / away these times
:)
This is not a first for MS Marketing.
The # symbol is read/verbalised as Hash in UK English; So C# is:
a C Hash - A messed-up or muddled C.
or
C-hash - Cash.
Your choice
1. What's the probability that primitive life evolved?
2. What's the probability that intelligent life evolved?
The probabilities for either event are infinitesimal, at least in my opinion.
Well your opinion is wrong, the probability of both is 1, since as you quaintly put it 'here we are'.
Well, since we have yet to discover what exactly makes us sentient
This is not strictly speaking true evolutionary science has a pretty good hypothesis.
Evoloution is a balance between Natural Selection (survival) and Sex Selection (propagation). When a species achieves top carnivore status it is no longer predated it become possible to seek out alternative strategies. Natural selection become relatively less important than sexual selection. One such strategy is the development of intelligence, communications ability, even altruism. In the same way that Natural Selection can cause an arms race, Sex Selection drives a similar race in intelligence, communications ability and altruism.
A similar features appear in many top carnivores, Whales and African Wild Dogs for two examples exhibit a very high intelligence, unusual communication abilites and altruism.
In the past I was involved in a similar operation and faced the same problem.
The solution adopted was stack it high and sell it cheap. Use a low margin/mark-up (~5%) on componets price and a published price list list. Gain a reputation for being the cheapest, keep your margins low and offer a build to spec service for the component price + 25 pounds (dollars/euros).
Target special groups like schools, with blanket advertising and make special approaches to the new University/College intake each year and can shift 200-400 units in two weeks. This can be enough to get your volumes up to the level where YOUR purchasing discount is really worth having.
Get your suppliers to discount based on your monthly volume rather than on each order and play your suppliers off against each other.
Also talk direct to the big players, they are constantly changing the case designs and upgrading and always have end of lines that are perfect OK and heavily discounted.
As it happened I didn't agree with this strategy, though it was doomed to ever more discounting and wanted to go up market with value added services, so I went my own way. I was wrong, The chain has gotten stronger going from 1 to 4 stores in 3 years.
IMHO this review is thinly veiled self promotion dressed up as pretentious twaddle.
Role on story moderation.
The Computer Misuse act is criminal law not civil law anybody breaking goes to Prison.
If they changed the wording just a little bit it would make Spammers face charges.
0 01 8_en_1.htm
Unsolicited Bulk Email is almost certainly illegal (though untested) under the Section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 if sending or receipt of UCE is against your AUP/TOS. Any unauthorised access to a computer is illegal under the Computer Misuse Act Section 1.
The problem is enforcement, the Police seem to have neither the inclination nor ability to enforce it.
---
1.--(1) A person is guilty of an offence if--
(a) he causes a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access to any program or data held in any computer;
(b) the access he intends to secure is unauthorised; and
(c) he knows at the time when he causes the computer to perform the function that is the case.
(2) The intent a person has to have to commit an offence under this section need not be directed at--
(a) any particular program or data;
(b) a program or data of any particular kind; or
(c) a program or data held in any particular computer.
(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to both.
---
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/Ukpga_1990
So when the RIAA kills a file-sharing server in Scotland because US law specifically permits it
Decriminalisation in not the same as specifically permiting something.
whose national sovereignty will be degraded?
Neither, since crime would be committed in the UK and the USA/UK have a extradiction treaty. The the Individual would be etradited, tried and imprisoned in the UK.
Though the idea of sticking one on the RIAA (or MPA) is appealing. This is not really a good idea. It would be the geek on trial not the people that gave the orders. I'm not so keen on my taxes being used to finance a nice break at some home counties open prison.
A lot of people seem impressed (I wonder if they've even tried to use it), I have a contrary opinion.
Whilst I found the area of letter an interesting idea. I found it extremely difficult / practically impossible to use in practice. It's just a appears chaotic jumble of letters, it is difficult to find the correct letter, I think a better approach would be to it use letter frequency to govern the letter placement, with common letters being closer to the centre line.
I think the random jumble of colours made me feel dizzy, though this may be fixable by using a grey scale.
It is too easy to lose letters over the edge, if the letters moved around the edge to produce a curve, may be a better approach.
There is no way to get special characters or upper case letters, though this problem could be fixed by clicking the mouse or touching the screen to toggle case.
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=34509& cid=3742297
There is the Google Answers Service (answers.google.com) only problem is it riddled with frauds.
So to some approximation, the chances of the asteroid hitting earth if it travels within 120,000 km of the planet is: 110,000,000/11,000,000,000 = 0.01 = 1%
3 /1 9/1917201&mode=thread&tid=160
This is certainly not a zero probability, but it is still pretty small.
'Pretty small' you are missing the point, if this happens it is certainly devastating and potentially threatens our very existence.
But even when one of these asteroids passes this close - which is only known to have happened 6 times since we've been able to record these events (about 50 years?) - there is still only about a 1 in 100 chance it will hit the planet
This is the second event in 3 month, on both occasions, they where only detected afterwards, this suggests your estimates are way off.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/0
Even accepting your figures, this makes a major strike likely ever hundred years so.
This is not a threat we should glibly ignore.
62 nautical miles (114 kilometers) in the atmosphere (12 miles higher than the 50-mile altitude largely regarded as the boundary of space). (MSN version here)"
62 miles high is not space it does not even achieve a stable orbit never mind escape velocity. In my book this is not space.