"Since we are all pretty well aware that we are between ice ages it doesn't say much at all and it gives absolutely no indication if the current warming trend is usual or not."
It is guaranteed that the atmosphere is definitely unusual because we have dug up and combusted carbon which was sequestered geologically since long before many many interglacial/ice age cycles.
Perhaps, but you have to infer that, it is NOT contained in the graph. In other words, it might support an argument for anthropogenic global warming but it does nothing to refute my claim that the graph that was supposed to be "in context" certainly wasn't.
That's pretty poor context. That graph is pure distortion. It's has the time from 1870 to now at one scale and the rest in thousands of years. Moreover, it clearly shows that temperatures have been rising for years before civilization was around and is now at the high point.
Since we are all pretty well aware that we are between ice ages it doesn't say much at all and it gives absolutely no indication if the current warming trend is usual or not.
In my experience that's a fallacy. If you say that spewing hate-filled bullshit is "okay" and "harmless", it will catch on.
Dismissing dangerous political ideas as somehow "inherently self-destructing" flies in the face of all experience with human history, which includes a lot of dangerous political ideologies - like Communism and Nazism.
The reason preposterous or dangerous ideologies tend not to catch on in developed societies is because people react to them. If people stop reacting to them, they catch on.
My problem is that it'll be those in authority deciding what is "hate-filled bullshit" and, as has happened again and again in history, ultimately the definition will be "anything that is a threat to my power". Don't forget, "Democracy" was also a "dangerous idea" to governments, especially in 19th century Europe.
Ultimately, while the "will of the people" worries me at times, I'd much rather people be able to express their opinions, even ones I don't favor, than trust the government (or University, or other authority) as to what I can and can not say.
Finally there is a large part of the population that research shows find themselves attracted to angry conservative type opinions and actually become MORE attracted to the opinion when evidence of its incorrectness is presented.
It's not just "angry conservative type opinions" but ALL opinions are potentially affected by this form of confirmation bias. Left wing, right wing, social conventions, even food preferences. Here's an excellent book on the subject.
Any land owned by the University system is part of the "campus".
No, son. "Any land owned by the University system" is not considered part of the "campus".
I won't argue what "campus" means but, the bill never mentions "campus". here' the text of the bill:
Senate Bill 367 (P.N. 2349) – This bill establishes the Indigenous Mineral Resource Development Act, allowing the Department of General Services to make and execute contracts or leases for the mining or removal of coal, oil, natural gas, coal bed methane and limestone found in or beneath land owned by the state or state system of higher education.
In other words, the article from Mother Jones was entirely misleading making people think of gas rigs next to dormitories when, in reality, the bill opened up all state lands pending government approval. Typical Mother Jones scare tactics.
The Templeton Foundation
that funded this research is often highly criticized for religious bias. It's kind of like oil companies providing money for research. It might be good in that it provides research funding but there's always a worry that the money from an organization with a particular point of view might skew the science.
I'm not saying that this invalidates the research, but it does cast some doubt on it and the reasons it is being done.
It meant abandoning all my mods on this story but this intrigued me and I had to look up it up.
In fact, while the number of smokers may have dropped the TAX REVENUES from smokers has been increasing steadily and at pace far faster than inflation.
I think that lends some good evidence to sls1j's assertion that taxing pollution will lead to government dependence on that taxation. Obviously smoking and pollution aren't exactly the same but I think there's a good point made there.
There are discoveries made for the sake of discovery and those made for financial gain.
As long as we can support the latter without destroying the former, proceed.
There is ABSOLUTELY no way to tell the difference in most cases. Since "discovery" research is usually funded the researchers have quite a strong vested financial interest in it. Moreover, don't you think GlaxoSmithKline will just classify every scrap of research they possibly can as "for the sake of discovery". It'll be like Hollywood accounting.
This is really measuring the wealth of countries, not the cheapness of beer since it measures the number of minutes worked to pay for a beer. Even the major European economies have per capita GDP's 20%-30% lower than the US when measure via PPP (Purchasing power parity).
According to the muslims who riot, it is absolutely appropriate for people to stand up and violently destroy property, and take people lives. ?
While I wholeheartedly agree I'll also point out that in the USA we frequently see riots, including property destruction and arson, when sports teams win championships. Which is worse, "They said something deeply offensive to us, let's go set fire to something" or "Our team won, let's go set fire to something!"
According to all known studies on happiness, there are only 2 things that affect happiness overall - everything else people adapt to after a while and get back to their normal levels of happiness.
1. Get a pet dog - people are always happier with this on average and the buzz doesn't wear off.
2. Have a long commute - people are always unhappy with this on average and they never get used to it.
That's ridiculous. Studies have found that lots of things bring long term happiness including Money,
Marriage,
Social ties among many others.
This is a bill to force telcoms to not dispose of the data they've collected for at least two years. There's nothing in hear about "a plan to capture the online data...". Now the data is being retained to help in investigations but there's a HUGE difference between the telcom having it and the government having to subpoena it and the government collecting it all themselves.
Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up.
Had you followed the links you would have seen that the US has "networks technically capable of 100 megabit-plus speeds to over 80 percent of the population through cable’s DOCSIS 3.0 rollout" which exactly matches your claims of what Iceland has. A surprising amount of those without broadband access are on tribal lands which are governed by different laws.
Not to say that the US couldn't do better on this front but the idea that Iceland is wonderful and the US "Suck(s) that bad" is hyperbole and ignores the facts.
It's a book about a father and his young son trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world where most remaining people have turned to cannibalism. Scary stuff.
Note: I had a typo and my spell checker turned "cannibalism" to "Canadianism". I was inclined to leave it but that premise for a book is just too scary for publication!
The difference between software development and most manufacturing is that they produce the same or very similar product thousands or millions of times where we produce a different product every time. This "building an app is like mass producing a chemical" philosophy is one reason why most software shops have insane amounts of unneeded documentation and overhead. I certainly agree that some standards, processes and documentation is needed but it should be kept to the bare essentials as every bit of work done that doesn't directly build a product could well just be a waste of time.
I'll be that pedantic grammar slashdotter, but it's actually "incorrectly." Wrongly denotes more along the lines of the subject being incorrect, rather than the action being taken. Hence, incorrectly.
Stop using your grammar jargon on us! You are preventing me from using my core competencies to leverage mind share in the forum space!
Haven't you been listening to the media? Global warming is 100% bad with no possible benefits to anyone. You must be one of those evil greedy capitalists maybe even one of those... gasp... frackers!
Of all the days not to have mods points! While long this post is well reasoned, well argued and fits into my preconceived biases (in other words, I think it's right on but recognize I'm coming from a particular viewpoint).
Slashdot Mirror
Here
"Since we are all pretty well aware that we are between ice ages it doesn't say much at all and it gives absolutely no indication if the current warming trend is usual or not."
It is guaranteed that the atmosphere is definitely unusual because we have dug up and combusted carbon which was sequestered geologically since long before many many interglacial/ice age cycles.
Perhaps, but you have to infer that, it is NOT contained in the graph. In other words, it might support an argument for anthropogenic global warming but it does nothing to refute my claim that the graph that was supposed to be "in context" certainly wasn't.
I prefer mine with some context. Like this one.
That's pretty poor context. That graph is pure distortion. It's has the time from 1870 to now at one scale and the rest in thousands of years. Moreover, it clearly shows that temperatures have been rising for years before civilization was around and is now at the high point.
Since we are all pretty well aware that we are between ice ages it doesn't say much at all and it gives absolutely no indication if the current warming trend is usual or not.
In my experience that's a fallacy. If you say that spewing hate-filled bullshit is "okay" and "harmless", it will catch on.
Dismissing dangerous political ideas as somehow "inherently self-destructing" flies in the face of all experience with human history, which includes a lot of dangerous political ideologies - like Communism and Nazism.
The reason preposterous or dangerous ideologies tend not to catch on in developed societies is because people react to them. If people stop reacting to them, they catch on.
My problem is that it'll be those in authority deciding what is "hate-filled bullshit" and, as has happened again and again in history, ultimately the definition will be "anything that is a threat to my power". Don't forget, "Democracy" was also a "dangerous idea" to governments, especially in 19th century Europe.
Ultimately, while the "will of the people" worries me at times, I'd much rather people be able to express their opinions, even ones I don't favor, than trust the government (or University, or other authority) as to what I can and can not say.
Finally there is a large part of the population that research shows find themselves attracted to angry conservative type opinions and actually become MORE attracted to the opinion when evidence of its incorrectness is presented.
It's not just "angry conservative type opinions" but ALL opinions are potentially affected by this form of confirmation bias. Left wing, right wing, social conventions, even food preferences. Here's an excellent book on the subject.
Not to mention decades of atomic testing at Bikini and other pacific islands.
No, son. "Any land owned by the University system" is not considered part of the "campus".
I won't argue what "campus" means but, the bill never mentions "campus". here' the text of the bill:
Senate Bill 367 (P.N. 2349) – This bill establishes the Indigenous Mineral Resource Development Act, allowing the Department of General Services to make and execute contracts or leases for the mining or removal of coal, oil, natural gas, coal bed methane and limestone found in or beneath land owned by the state or state system of higher education.
In other words, the article from Mother Jones was entirely misleading making people think of gas rigs next to dormitories when, in reality, the bill opened up all state lands pending government approval. Typical Mother Jones scare tactics.
I'm not saying that this invalidates the research, but it does cast some doubt on it and the reasons it is being done.
It meant abandoning all my mods on this story but this intrigued me and I had to look up it up. In fact, while the number of smokers may have dropped the TAX REVENUES from smokers has been increasing steadily and at pace far faster than inflation. I think that lends some good evidence to sls1j's assertion that taxing pollution will lead to government dependence on that taxation. Obviously smoking and pollution aren't exactly the same but I think there's a good point made there.
There was a MUCH stronger association between employment and fracking sites.
There are discoveries made for the sake of discovery and those made for financial gain.
As long as we can support the latter without destroying the former, proceed.
There is ABSOLUTELY no way to tell the difference in most cases. Since "discovery" research is usually funded the researchers have quite a strong vested financial interest in it. Moreover, don't you think GlaxoSmithKline will just classify every scrap of research they possibly can as "for the sake of discovery". It'll be like Hollywood accounting.
I'm not much of a grammar Nazi but I can't help myself here. It's FEWER test, If it can be counted it's "fewer" if not, it's "less".
This is really measuring the wealth of countries, not the cheapness of beer since it measures the number of minutes worked to pay for a beer. Even the major European economies have per capita GDP's 20%-30% lower than the US when measure via PPP (Purchasing power parity).
According to the muslims who riot, it is absolutely appropriate for people to stand up and violently destroy property, and take people lives. ?
While I wholeheartedly agree I'll also point out that in the USA we frequently see riots, including property destruction and arson, when sports teams win championships. Which is worse, "They said something deeply offensive to us, let's go set fire to something" or "Our team won, let's go set fire to something!"
According to all known studies on happiness, there are only 2 things that affect happiness overall - everything else people adapt to after a while and get back to their normal levels of happiness.
1. Get a pet dog - people are always happier with this on average and the buzz doesn't wear off. 2. Have a long commute - people are always unhappy with this on average and they never get used to it.
That's ridiculous. Studies have found that lots of things bring long term happiness including Money, Marriage, Social ties among many others.
Are you implying that having no beak ISN'T a health problem? Sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils.
This is a bill to force telcoms to not dispose of the data they've collected for at least two years. There's nothing in hear about "a plan to capture the online data...". Now the data is being retained to help in investigations but there's a HUGE difference between the telcom having it and the government having to subpoena it and the government collecting it all themselves.
Free would be a huge step up! Since I use Windows I am, in fact, inviting hackers into my system every day and paying for the privilege.
Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up.
Not to say that the US couldn't do better on this front but the idea that Iceland is wonderful and the US "Suck(s) that bad" is hyperbole and ignores the facts.
It's a book about a father and his young son trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world where most remaining people have turned to cannibalism. Scary stuff. Note: I had a typo and my spell checker turned "cannibalism" to "Canadianism". I was inclined to leave it but that premise for a book is just too scary for publication!
The difference between software development and most manufacturing is that they produce the same or very similar product thousands or millions of times where we produce a different product every time. This "building an app is like mass producing a chemical" philosophy is one reason why most software shops have insane amounts of unneeded documentation and overhead. I certainly agree that some standards, processes and documentation is needed but it should be kept to the bare essentials as every bit of work done that doesn't directly build a product could well just be a waste of time.
I'll be that pedantic grammar slashdotter, but it's actually "incorrectly." Wrongly denotes more along the lines of the subject being incorrect, rather than the action being taken. Hence, incorrectly.
Stop using your grammar jargon on us! You are preventing me from using my core competencies to leverage mind share in the forum space!
Haven't you been listening to the media? Global warming is 100% bad with no possible benefits to anyone. You must be one of those evil greedy capitalists maybe even one of those... gasp... frackers!
Of all the days not to have mods points! While long this post is well reasoned, well argued and fits into my preconceived biases (in other words, I think it's right on but recognize I'm coming from a particular viewpoint).