Slashdot Mirror


User: The+Askylist

The+Askylist's activity in the archive.

Stories
0
Comments
229
First seen
Last seen
Profile
(view on slashdot.org)

Comments · 229

  1. Re:Oh, the delicious irony! on Ecuador Grants Asylum To Julian Assange · · Score: 0

    You have to understand - Dewani is of subcontinental extraction, and thus to be protected, while Assange is hideously white.

  2. Re:Oh, the delicious irony! on Ecuador Grants Asylum To Julian Assange · · Score: 2

    Douchebaggy - maybe.

    Informative - definitely.

    If some asshat in the Foreign Office hadn't tried to force the issue by invoking a law not designed for this sort of situation, perhaps a less pissed-off Ecuador would have made a different choice. I'm no fan of Assange, but the legal process in which he is enmeshed appears to be ever so slightly fishy, and invites reactions like the Ecuadorean one.

  3. Re:Bah. on How Intuit Manages 10 Million Lines of Code · · Score: 1
    It doesn't even understand that a loan is made up of both interest and principle

    That'd be principal. But hey, English isn't needed for accounts, is it?

  4. Re:HALLELUJAH yes! on Teenager Arrested In England For Criticizing Olympic Athlete On Twitter · · Score: 1

    I think you'll find that Mitt Romney is a 100% owned subsiduary of Likud, and may in fact be even more craven than the average politician when it comes to singing for his supper.

    But please, believe otherwise if you wish.

  5. Re:Common Sense prevailed on "Bomb Threat" Tweet Conviction Overturned By UK Appeals Court · · Score: 1

    This case was brought under the last Labour government - and it is well known that the self-righteous lefties have no sense of humour or of proportion.

    Only under the totalitarian comrades would such a case be brought - the problem now is that we have a CPS full of part-trained 'ooman rights idiots for the foreseeable future.

  6. Re:Springsteen, weaponized. on F-Secure Report: Another SCADA Attack in Iran — This Time With AC/DC · · Score: 1

    That would be Neil Young, the Canadian?

  7. Blair had it nailed on How NY Gov. Cuomo Sidesteps Freedom of Information Requests With His Blackberry · · Score: 1

    Here in the UK, we learn that during the "cash for honours" scandal, a separate non-government computer was operating in No. 10 specifically for the purpose of doing business without oversight.

    The arsehole also shredded all his expense data just before the storm over MPs claiming for duck ponds and tennis courts broke.

    Labour, Democrat - it seems they are all in it together.

  8. Re:Headline should say... on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 1

    If the result of doing nothing is incredibly dire

    That's a very big if, and is the nub of the matter. If the continued release of CO2 will definitely cause catastrophe, then there is a reason to act.

    However, all we have are very poor models and pretty poor data, at least for pre-1950s temperatures. To take action based on something which is by no means certain is another misappliance of the precautionary principle - a principle which it seems can be stretched ever further by those with an anti-capitalist agenda.

    You go ahead and reduce your emissions if you like - I'd rather let the market and human ingenuity take care of things.

  9. Re:El Reg anti-AGW propaganda again on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 1

    Both the Guardian and the Indy allow opinion to leak into their reporting (all papers do). The Guardian is the voice of the public service worker, and the Indy is, alas, now controlled by an oligarch and much poorer for it.. The Indy also put up with the ridiculous plagiarist Johann Hari, not even sacking him when he was found out.

    By choice, I read the Telegraph, but also read the Indy frequently - I only browse the Mail for Littlejohn's amusing and irreverent invective.

    The secret is to be able to notice the bias of each rag - as I say, all of them are guilty of proselytising in their news coverage.

  10. Re:El Reg anti-AGW propaganda again on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 1

    I do have them occasionally ;-)

  11. Re:Headline should say... on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 2

    The problem is not that I don't believe in the greenhouse effect, but that the current political actions appear to be based on the premise that CO2 is the only driver of climate, when solar variation, orbital variation and precession are just as likely to be influential.

    The statement "CO2 is a greenhouse gas" is falsifiable but true.

    The statement "atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing" is falsifiable but true

    The statement "Man is dumping a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere" is falsifiable but true

    Any conclusions based on these statements, however, are conjectures that are neither falsifiable nor demonstrably true - they are guesses based on necessarily incomplete models and are neither scientific nor useful.

    I'm all for reducing reliance on fossil fuels - they are dirty and pollute from their extraction to their consumption, and are in any case running out. But to impose controls on human action based on what is a very wobbly piece of thinking is wrong.

  12. Re:Headline should say... on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 1

    I'm with you on the need to move away from fossil fuels, but we part ways when you propose trying to change behaviour through taxation.

    My view on the AGW question is that yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and yes, we have chucked a lot of it into the atmosphere over the past 250 years or so, but to base our conclusions only on data from the past 150 years is likely to overstate the effects of CO2 when orbital variations and precession act over a longer timescale.

    But yes - I'm a libertarian and every new regulation is another nail in the coffin of individual freedom.

  13. Re:Headline should say... on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 1

    Wrong.

    As a sceptic, I want to reduce dependence on coal, oil and gas, because they all cause pollution in their extraction, and they appear to be running out.

    The political action by AGW proponents is likely to make it more difficult to come up with ways to do this, because it is a direct attack on the industrialised world.

    Or do you believe that progress towards cleaner, more sustainable energy is likely to come as a result of politicians? The only way that could be true is if we had a politician breeding program and burnt the buggers as fuel.

  14. Re:El Reg anti-AGW propaganda again on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 1

    The Mail is not a "red top". It is trashy, and often filled with hyperbole masquerading as reporting, but then again so are the Guardian and the Independent, albeit from the opposite perspective.

  15. Re:El Reg anti-AGW propaganda again on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 2

    Trends depend critically on the time window chosen. Over the 2,000 year period, there is a noticeable downward trend. If you choose your window size carefully, you can identify several periods with a "steep upwards trend".

    The value of this study is that it may give a better idea of the magnitude and frequency of orbital forcing in the pre-carbon era, which could and should be used in the analysis of the current, carbon era data.

  16. Re:Headline should say... on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 1

    Only if you can confidently assert that the major factor affecting that rate of change is known.

    The usefulness of long term proxies such as this is that they should lead to better analysis of non-CO2 effects on temperature over time, which will allow the CO2 forcing to be better estimated.

  17. Re:Headline should say... on Nature: Global Temperatures Are a Falling Trend · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Since the sceptics do not demand precipitate action as a result of their analysis, while the AGW proponents do, then surely the burden of proof is on the latter.

    Beggaring the industrialised world on the basis of disputed science is not, I would submit, a wise course of action, however much it might appeal to the sense of guilt that the Left seem to nurture and treasure.

  18. Re:Is the judge a member of Anon? on UK Judge: Galaxy Tab "Not Cool" Enough To Infringe iPad · · Score: 1

    Not much of an engineer then...

  19. Re:This is an Ad. on Choosing the Right Security Tools To Protect VMs · · Score: 1

    20? Man, you must read slow.

    I just wasted 2 minutes, dismissed the article as shallow and ill thought out pap, and thought I'd see how many others thought the same.

  20. Re:Time and Place on Home Office To Ignore Wikipedia Founder's Petition Against O'Dwyer Extradition · · Score: 1

    If you're schizophrenic, don't both of you surf the net at the same time anyway?

    Brings to mind the '79 LP by Ian Hunter - "You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic"

  21. Re:I admit, I was wrong ! on Home Office To Ignore Wikipedia Founder's Petition Against O'Dwyer Extradition · · Score: 4, Informative

    It was the last lot that signed the extradition agreement in the first place. Why we are extraditing someone for "copyright" offences, which should really be a civil matter, is beyond me. I would have thought that the correct course of action would be for the copyright holders to bring a case for damages in the UK courts and take their chances. This lot, the last lot? They're all cunts by definition. An honest politician is all too rare a commodity these days - the web of intertwined lobbying interests seems to strangle truth at birth.

  22. Re:It's no surprise.. on Dotcom Search Warrants Ruled Illegal · · Score: 1

    Bullshit.

    It was the Blair/Brown government that signed the treaty, and if they had bent over any further to gratify Blair's wish to be seen as loyal lapdogs, they'd have won a Nobel for limbo dancing.

    The shower we have now aren't much better, but at least they're trying.

  23. Re:Nonexistent UK car manufacturing? on After Legal Fight, NCI Researchers Publish Study Linking Diesel Exhaust, Cancer · · Score: 0

    owing to the serial incompetence of British managements

    Not forgetting, of course, the wonderful job the British Trades Union movement did in making a success of car manufacturing in the UK.

    Yes - the management were crap, but it seems that only by building new plants and making sure the workforce understood that striking every couple of months was counterproductive could Honda, Toyota, Nissan and to an extent Ford and GM make UK production competitive.

  24. Re:As Winston Churchill Said on Scientists Say People Aren't Smart Enough For Democracy To Flourish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ah, but without the ideal of minimal government, there is no yardstick with which to measure how bad the excess of government is - realism tells us that a certain amount of government is a necessary evil, while socialism tries to convince us that too much government is good for us and that nanny knows best.

    I prefer the honesty of the position that all government is bad, but that some is necessary to the arrogance of those who would govern my every move for my own good.

  25. Re:Today's dose of fearmongering... on Iran's Smart Concrete Can Cope With Earthquakes and Bombs · · Score: 1

    If you believe that the CIA needed to "counter fiascos such as the Bay of Pigs" in 1953, then you must be even more retarded than the average Zionist stooge.

    I think you'll find the Bay of Pigs was almost a decade later, but then that's history for you - always throwing goddamned timelines at your dumbass theories.