Ticket pricing is an interesting one because I have an easy comparison: I live very near a good quality second run cinema - the theatres are all decent quality, it's just that the films are all second run. Matinees and Tuesdays are $3 (Canadian), evenings sessions are $4.25. At that price I've found mself going to the movies far more often than I ever used to, and seeing a lot more films on a whim. That means I've sat through some crap, but I've also run into films that I enjoyed far more than I might have expected. It is surprising how much more motivating it is to see a film when it will cost you less than $5.
Would be nice to see something like this for all platforms.
Well it's not exactly identical, but one of the people who works on SELinux has been running a test machine on and off since Fedora Core 2. Details are here. Similar to the OS X box that was hacked in 30 minutes he does have SSH open and provides you with local account access, the local account being root. I wouls suggest that that shows a certain amount of confidence in its security. Also note that SELinux is coming to Ubuntu soon.
And compare that to LaTeX. LaTeX may be a bitch to get running. But once you have a working it can be quite nice for handling technical documents.
That's really very much a Windows thing. On Linux, Solaris, BSD etc. LaTeX is there workign perfectly out of the box. I can't speak for OS X, but I'm guessing, given the BSD based userland, LaTeX is either working out of the box or trivial to install there too.
If you're doing your presentations in LaTeX then you might want to look at my package that allows you to custom design LaTeX presentation styles in Inkscape. It isn't a replacement for Beamer if you have particularly complex presentation needs, but if you just want something simple to hammer out great looking presentations it may well be worth your time.
It would be simple enough to do - the hard work is in reading the SVG and converting things like font sizes and positioning into something in LaTeX. Given a different base class (instead of the presentation class) it should be easy enough. Perhaps I'll work on that if I get some time.
So SSH was on and accessible? Dumb move. Like saying "I dare you to steal my jewelry from my bedroom -- oh, and my house is unlocked with the windows open."
There have been SELinux security competitions that gave out SSH access as root and the boxes remained quite safe. There do exist standards of security which make your standards look remarkable poor and forgiving. Good security does exist, and pretending that it doesn't does not make you any more secure.
So if you want security, don't turn on those remote services, and don't give out SSH accounts!
SELinux people have run security competitions similar to the one described here where they not only gave out SSH accounts to everyone, they gave out SSH access as root. Despite this the webpages were unable to be defaced, and the box remained quite safe. Good security is possible, and pretending that it isn't only makes it harder for systems with good security to get traction. Is SELinux perfect? No, nothing is perfectly secure. Does it provide an order of magnitude better security? Pretty much, yes.
I have a feeling you could build a very powerful presentation program out of the Inkscape codebase. It is, of course, well beyond my meager skillset (or available time) to do such a thing (hence my short and simple hack to make Inkscape useful for the LaTeX presentations I do now), but I would imagine that if a group of people got serious then quite a lot could be achieved.
Nearly every single one of my UI-related annoyances from Red Hat 5.1 and Mandrake 6.0 is still in Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, etc. today, along with quite a few new ones from the various half-assed attempts at making things easier for newbies.
Out of curiousity, what are the various UI-related annoyances that are kicking around still? I'm not arguing, I'm just honestly curious as to what bugs you - maybe I, or someone, can try and help fix some of it.
sure, it might enhance productivity, but if you want an MSFT office killer you need the pretty visuals to win people over.
What you need is "can't live without it once you've used it" features that aren't available elsewhere. I would have to say, after reading through his PDF submission, that, at the very least, there is the beginnings of a much more overview and workflow oriented approach to working with office documents that could be exceptionally powerful. Yes it needs to be implemented well and have decent scope. Ideally some manner of workflow view for an entire corpus of related documents - reports, spreadsheets, presentations, the lot - would be ideal. It takes a little imagination to see the full possibilities, but I think they really might be on to something here, and I am keen to see the final results.
I'm not sure how I feel about an application having a "desktop" which is separate from the actual OS' desktop; it seems like it would lead to a situation where every application has its own desktop, possibly with conflicting UI metaphors, and that's not a good end result for the user.
I think you need to view it less as the application having its own desktop so much as the office suite having a "workflow" view. There's plenty of space in the office suite market for such an overview option, particularly if it can provide a workflow overview of a inter-related corpus of various documents (spreadsheets, presentations, reports, etc.) as well as just a single document. Think in terms of how Aperture is a workflow oriented overview for photographers and imagine a workflow oriented overview for office workers. I think there's plenty of scope for dramatic improvements there.
Mars is experiencing local warming. Ay the southern pole. Because it is summer there. Given the combination of mars tilt and the eccentricity of its orbit the seasonal cycle can be complicated and have patterns over a much longer time scale than earth. For more try here.
The last 5 yaers are the hottest in recorded history. I'm sorry, but how far back do our climate records go? Not that far in the grand scheme of things.
We have a number of temperature reconstructions going back about 2000 years. They do vary because they use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Tempe rature_Comparison.pnga variety of different sources, from glaciers, to ice cores, to tree rings, but there is pretty good general agreement. That latest such study, putting together data from a wide variety of difference sources to cross reference temperatures for the last 1200 years showed the previous century was the warmest. For records going further back there are the Greenland ice cores with detailed data going back 120,000 years. Further back than that we have the Antarctic Vostok and DomeC ice cores which provide data going back 650,000 years. That gives a pretty good general picture of temperature historically at least over a large chunk of human history, and in the end its human history that counts: whether the planet continues on its merry way matters little to us - what matters is the impact any warming has on humans.
Change is the natural way of things. I think it's pretty presumptious of us to think we're causing it.
Well there are the remarkable correlations between atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature, even over the 650,000 years spanned by Antarctic ice cores. Combine that with the present spike in carbon dioxide, which is verifiably anthropogenic, and the absorption spectra of carbon dioxide which makes it an effective greenhouse gas, together with the close correlation between the recent spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature, and you have some good reasons to start thinking we may be causing it. Is that conclusive? No. But then there's plenty more evidence than what I can pack into a quick paragraph.
Volcanoes put out far more greenhouse gasses than anything humans do.
This one is just a bizarre bit of disinformation that keeps getting circulated. It is quite false. Volcanoes put out around 130 to 230 teragrams of carbon dioxide a year. The US alone puts out around 5844 teragrams. Atmospheric carbon dioxide from volcanoes is less than 1% of the amount from human activities. Please, put this particular myth to bed.
But why it is dangerous is that we DO NOT KNOW WHY THIS IS HAPPENING.
I think fairly good guesses can be made. We do know that atmospheric carbon dioxide, by dint of its absorption spectra, will tend to trap heat in the atmosphere. We also know that historically temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide correlate very closely. We also know that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have spiked to a level completely unprecedented in the last 650,000 years, with the majority spike occuring as an exponentially since about 200 years ago. We know that many different temperature reconstructions over the last 2000 years all show a dramatic spike in temperature correlating to, and lagging slightly behind, the spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide. We even know, in case you were curious, that the spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide was caused by human activity. We have strong correlation, and independent reasons (see absorption spectra of carbon dioxide) to expect causation. That's reasonably significant evidence.
Of course the atmosphere and climate are a very complex system, with many factors coming into play. For instance water vapour can be a significant greenhouse gas, or if it forms clouds it can be reflective and help cool the atmosphere. Methane and many other gases also have an impact as greeenhouse gases. There are also questions of solar variation. Fortunately we have people who are well educated in all these matters spending vast amounts of effort collating and considering all this data, testing and validating climate models, reconstructing better historical records, and reporting their results...
If we were to "accept" the opinions of a few climatologists...
...although apparently you want to ignore all of them. I would go so far as to point out the fact that it is not just "a few climatologists" but in fact almost all of them - around 350 on the IPCC alone. I would also urge you to actually look through the IPCC reports, particularly the more recent ones. You'll find that, rather than ignoring any other possibility, the reports are remarkably objective and try to consider as much as possible using generous error tolerances wherever there significant dispute or uncertainty. Despite that the results are still remarkably clear: by far the most likely conclusion is that the majority of warming is anthropogenic.
the changes in behaviour we would have to make to try not to warm the atmosphere would be very damaging to the economy.
That, actually is less clear. It really depends on what changes are made and how they are effected. Kyoto may well be a rather poor blunt instrument, but one bad implementation does not mean it cannot be done. For instance, a lot of effort can be directed toward energy efficiency - managing to do the same, or more with less. In the mid to long term ebergy efficiency is going to be far and away a net gain for the economy. There's also the question of how much economic impact warming, or climate change in general, may have. Sea level rises could well see much greater likelihood of flooding and damage to coastal areas, potentially costing hundreds of billions in cleanup or relocation. The same can be said of stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic, or of sudden changes in the viability of agricultural areas as a result of changing climate. Balanced against the costs to the economy of climate change the costs of some degree of prevention and mitigation may well be negligible. Mostly you seem to be looking for excuses to do nothing.
How can the rate of an observation be "alarming" if it has only recorded 3 of 6,000,000,000 years of existense?
As far as we are concerned all of earth's history is unimportant - what matters is how it compares to human history, because while sea levels might have been rising faster some time in the Jurassic it wasn't anything humans ever had to cope with. From the planet's point of view it might indeed be trivial, but from the point of view of humans in the here and now who have to adapt to the changes it may well be significant.
So, how does 0.4mm per year compare to human history? The last 3000 years have (according to Wikipedia) seen sea levels rise at an average rate of 0.1mm to 0.2mm per year. More recent data shows a rate of around 1mm to 2mm per year since 1850, and 3mm per year using satellite altimetry since 1992. On that sort of scale 0.4mm per year does represent a significant amount. Given the previous lack of certainty as to whether the Antarctic was losing or gaining ice with worst case estimates of about 0.2mm per year worth of ice being lost it is indeed alarming.
Sure, it isn't the end of the world, but then nobody with any sense was worried about that. The concern is the vast economic impact that could result from the forced relocation or rebuilding efforts caused by greater risks of flooding for the many many urban areas close to sea level. It may not be an epic disaster, but it could well be very expensive, so it's worth knowing about it so we can be forewarned and take preventative action now.
Or a meter every 2500 years? Wow.... better shore up the levees, Waterworld is coming soon!
0.4mm per year just from the Antarctic ice sheet, and 2500 years for a meter presuming a constant rate. On the other hand there are other factors at play such as the Greenland glaciers, which are accelerating their slide into the sea, which means it might be worth considering the possibility of acceleration of the loss of Antarctic ice. There's also thermal expansion as another factor causing sea levels to rise.
It's also worth noting that, in the grand scheme of things, 0.4mm per year is quite a lot: sea level change over the last 3000 years averages to about 0.1mm to 0.2mm per year.
Is this a clear indication of catastrophic distaster? Far from it. Nor is it the least bit implicit of any sort of bizarre Waterworld scenario. However, even a 1 meter change in sea will have signficant impact given the large numbers of cities very close to sea level - even a small rise makes them far more susceptible to flooding from, say, storm swell or similar. In practice even a small change is going to displace an awful lot of people, costing an awful lot of money, and having a significant economic impact. It may not be a disaster of biblical proportions, but it is most definitely something to be concerned about and to keep an eye on.
The government doesn't need new tools; they just need to learn how to use the tools they already have.
And this is precisely the problem. Because sufficient fear and anxiety surrounding the threat of terrorism has been engendered in the populace politicians find themselves in a quandry: they have to be seen to be doing something regardless of whether it works or not. The tools they already have are not good enough because they don't involve politicians doing anything, or taking any action. The PATRIOT act, the war in Iraq, etc. get a lot of support for the sake of changing perception rather than changing reality. It's not about fixing the problem, it's about being seen to take visible action.
Well, you see, that's the problem. For the most part, the age of geologic layers are defined by the fossils we find in them- and then we turn around and claim the age that the fossils are by the geologic layer we found them in. That's a circular definition right there.
Well, it would be. If it were true. Unfortunately it's not.
For the most part dating of strata is determined by which layers are on top of which, and more recently confirmed via radioactive dating methods. It's worth noting that dating of geologic strata notably predates the theory of evolution.
Current primary science education certainly does nothing to teach the rules of scientific logic.
This point I agree with entirely, and I feel it is indeed a probelm. I guess, in a sense, that was my point: we need to focus more on teaching how to think, and how to arrive at conclusions, and focus a little less on the immediate facts. Facts are useful for bootstrapping people into usefulness - teaching people multiplication tables gets them suffciently numerate to operate in the world far faster than teaching them predicate logic and the Peano axioms - but in the end it is how you arrive at answers that counts, and understanding how to interpret claims, and how to spot logical fallacies (which can often be quite subtle).
The point is that you are trying to teach the principles of scientific thought and debate. It doesn't matter whether an auto mechanic "knows" that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but he's going to fall for a lot of bad advertising and propaganda if he can't recognize bad science.
The problem is that mere debate on the issue is not enough - you still need to actually just teach the basic ground rules of logic or else your debate descends into senselessness. Consider, for example, the sort of guy who writes an "axiomatic proof" of Time Cube. You can try and debate him on the issue if you like, several peoplehave. When you're arguing with someone who argues on faith and has little knowledge of logic, or how it actually works, you'll not get very far. When one side is constrained to science and logic and the other is not then it is quite possible to end up with bizarre and convoluted, but logically invalid, arguments that, none the less, sound impressive to those not suitably schooled.
Real palyer has been and forever will be the WORST video player I have ever used, it is bloated so much that it makes me want to use Windows media player.
Having used Real player on Windows a couple of times I would have to agree, it's truly horrible. But just to show Real isn't all bad, check out Real player on Linux some time. It's incredibly clean, stripped down, with a straighforward and minimalist interface - it is, quite simply, an excellent media player.
Slashdot Mirror
Ticket pricing is an interesting one because I have an easy comparison: I live very near a good quality second run cinema - the theatres are all decent quality, it's just that the films are all second run. Matinees and Tuesdays are $3 (Canadian), evenings sessions are $4.25. At that price I've found mself going to the movies far more often than I ever used to, and seeing a lot more films on a whim. That means I've sat through some crap, but I've also run into films that I enjoyed far more than I might have expected. It is surprising how much more motivating it is to see a film when it will cost you less than $5.
Jedidiah.
They are simply applying Vesilind's laws of experimentation:
Jedidiah.
Would be nice to see something like this for all platforms.
Well it's not exactly identical, but one of the people who works on SELinux has been running a test machine on and off since Fedora Core 2. Details are here. Similar to the OS X box that was hacked in 30 minutes he does have SSH open and provides you with local account access, the local account being root. I wouls suggest that that shows a certain amount of confidence in its security. Also note that SELinux is coming to Ubuntu soon.
Jedidiah.
Sure if you like. SELinux comes standard in Fedora these days, and is eing integrated into Ubuntu as well - should be available in the next release.
Jedidiah.
And compare that to LaTeX. LaTeX may be a bitch to get running. But once you have a working it can be quite nice for handling technical documents.
That's really very much a Windows thing. On Linux, Solaris, BSD etc. LaTeX is there workign perfectly out of the box. I can't speak for OS X, but I'm guessing, given the BSD based userland, LaTeX is either working out of the box or trivial to install there too.
Jedidiah.
If you're doing your presentations in LaTeX then you might want to look at my package that allows you to custom design LaTeX presentation styles in Inkscape. It isn't a replacement for Beamer if you have particularly complex presentation needs, but if you just want something simple to hammer out great looking presentations it may well be worth your time.
Jedidiah.
It would be simple enough to do - the hard work is in reading the SVG and converting things like font sizes and positioning into something in LaTeX. Given a different base class (instead of the presentation class) it should be easy enough. Perhaps I'll work on that if I get some time.
Jedidiah.
So SSH was on and accessible? Dumb move. Like saying "I dare you to steal my jewelry from my bedroom -- oh, and my house is unlocked with the windows open."
There have been SELinux security competitions that gave out SSH access as root and the boxes remained quite safe. There do exist standards of security which make your standards look remarkable poor and forgiving. Good security does exist, and pretending that it doesn't does not make you any more secure.
Jediiah.
So if you want security, don't turn on those remote services, and don't give out SSH accounts!
SELinux people have run security competitions similar to the one described here where they not only gave out SSH accounts to everyone, they gave out SSH access as root. Despite this the webpages were unable to be defaced, and the box remained quite safe. Good security is possible, and pretending that it isn't only makes it harder for systems with good security to get traction. Is SELinux perfect? No, nothing is perfectly secure. Does it provide an order of magnitude better security? Pretty much, yes.
Jedidiah.
Just need a good presentation program now.
I have a feeling you could build a very powerful presentation program out of the Inkscape codebase. It is, of course, well beyond my meager skillset (or available time) to do such a thing (hence my short and simple hack to make Inkscape useful for the LaTeX presentations I do now), but I would imagine that if a group of people got serious then quite a lot could be achieved.
Jedidiah.
Nearly every single one of my UI-related annoyances from Red Hat 5.1 and Mandrake 6.0 is still in Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, etc. today, along with quite a few new ones from the various half-assed attempts at making things easier for newbies.
Out of curiousity, what are the various UI-related annoyances that are kicking around still? I'm not arguing, I'm just honestly curious as to what bugs you - maybe I, or someone, can try and help fix some of it.
Jedidiah.
sure, it might enhance productivity, but if you want an MSFT office killer you need the pretty visuals to win people over.
What you need is "can't live without it once you've used it" features that aren't available elsewhere. I would have to say, after reading through his PDF submission, that, at the very least, there is the beginnings of a much more overview and workflow oriented approach to working with office documents that could be exceptionally powerful. Yes it needs to be implemented well and have decent scope. Ideally some manner of workflow view for an entire corpus of related documents - reports, spreadsheets, presentations, the lot - would be ideal. It takes a little imagination to see the full possibilities, but I think they really might be on to something here, and I am keen to see the final results.
Jedidiah.
I'm not sure how I feel about an application having a "desktop" which is separate from the actual OS' desktop; it seems like it would lead to a situation where every application has its own desktop, possibly with conflicting UI metaphors, and that's not a good end result for the user.
I think you need to view it less as the application having its own desktop so much as the office suite having a "workflow" view. There's plenty of space in the office suite market for such an overview option, particularly if it can provide a workflow overview of a inter-related corpus of various documents (spreadsheets, presentations, reports, etc.) as well as just a single document. Think in terms of how Aperture is a workflow oriented overview for photographers and imagine a workflow oriented overview for office workers. I think there's plenty of scope for dramatic improvements there.
Jedidiah.
Mars is seeing global warming.
Mars is experiencing local warming. Ay the southern pole. Because it is summer there. Given the combination of mars tilt and the eccentricity of its orbit the seasonal cycle can be complicated and have patterns over a much longer time scale than earth. For more try here.
Jedidiah.
life, turtles don't bounce very well...(But they are nature's suction cup!)
What a great film. Thanks for the reminder.
Jedidiah.
The last 5 yaers are the hottest in recorded history. I'm sorry, but how far back do our climate records go? Not that far in the grand scheme of things.
e rature_Comparison.pnga variety of different sources, from glaciers, to ice cores, to tree rings, but there is pretty good general agreement. That latest such study, putting together data from a wide variety of difference sources to cross reference temperatures for the last 1200 years showed the previous century was the warmest. For records going further back there are the Greenland ice cores with detailed data going back 120,000 years. Further back than that we have the Antarctic Vostok and DomeC ice cores which provide data going back 650,000 years. That gives a pretty good general picture of temperature historically at least over a large chunk of human history, and in the end its human history that counts: whether the planet continues on its merry way matters little to us - what matters is the impact any warming has on humans.
We have a number of temperature reconstructions going back about 2000 years. They do vary because they use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temp
Change is the natural way of things. I think it's pretty presumptious of us to think we're causing it.
Well there are the remarkable correlations between atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature, even over the 650,000 years spanned by Antarctic ice cores. Combine that with the present spike in carbon dioxide, which is verifiably anthropogenic, and the absorption spectra of carbon dioxide which makes it an effective greenhouse gas, together with the close correlation between the recent spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature, and you have some good reasons to start thinking we may be causing it. Is that conclusive? No. But then there's plenty more evidence than what I can pack into a quick paragraph.
Volcanoes put out far more greenhouse gasses than anything humans do.
This one is just a bizarre bit of disinformation that keeps getting circulated. It is quite false. Volcanoes put out around 130 to 230 teragrams of carbon dioxide a year. The US alone puts out around
5844 teragrams. Atmospheric carbon dioxide from volcanoes is less than 1% of the amount from human activities. Please, put this particular myth to bed.
Jedidiah.
I think fairly good guesses can be made. We do know that atmospheric carbon dioxide, by dint of its absorption spectra, will tend to trap heat in the atmosphere. We also know that historically temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide correlate very closely. We also know that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have spiked to a level completely unprecedented in the last 650,000 years, with the majority spike occuring as an exponentially since about 200 years ago. We know that many different temperature reconstructions over the last 2000 years all show a dramatic spike in temperature correlating to, and lagging slightly behind, the spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide. We even know, in case you were curious, that the spike in atmospheric carbon dioxide was caused by human activity. We have strong correlation, and independent reasons (see absorption spectra of carbon dioxide) to expect causation. That's reasonably significant evidence.
Of course the atmosphere and climate are a very complex system, with many factors coming into play. For instance water vapour can be a significant greenhouse gas, or if it forms clouds it can be reflective and help cool the atmosphere. Methane and many other gases also have an impact as greeenhouse gases. There are also questions of solar variation. Fortunately we have people who are well educated in all these matters spending vast amounts of effort collating and considering all this data, testing and validating climate models, reconstructing better historical records, and reporting their results...
That, actually is less clear. It really depends on what changes are made and how they are effected. Kyoto may well be a rather poor blunt instrument, but one bad implementation does not mean it cannot be done. For instance, a lot of effort can be directed toward energy efficiency - managing to do the same, or more with less. In the mid to long term ebergy efficiency is going to be far and away a net gain for the economy. There's also the question of how much economic impact warming, or climate change in general, may have. Sea level rises could well see much greater likelihood of flooding and damage to coastal areas, potentially costing hundreds of billions in cleanup or relocation. The same can be said of stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic, or of sudden changes in the viability of agricultural areas as a result of changing climate. Balanced against the costs to the economy of climate change the costs of some degree of prevention and mitigation may well be negligible. Mostly you seem to be looking for excuses to do nothing.
Jedidiah.
How can the rate of an observation be "alarming" if it has only recorded 3 of 6,000,000,000 years of existense?
As far as we are concerned all of earth's history is unimportant - what matters is how it compares to human history, because while sea levels might have been rising faster some time in the Jurassic it wasn't anything humans ever had to cope with. From the planet's point of view it might indeed be trivial, but from the point of view of humans in the here and now who have to adapt to the changes it may well be significant.
So, how does 0.4mm per year compare to human history? The last 3000 years have (according to Wikipedia) seen sea levels rise at an average rate of 0.1mm to 0.2mm per year. More recent data shows a rate of around 1mm to 2mm per year since 1850, and 3mm per year using satellite altimetry since 1992. On that sort of scale 0.4mm per year does represent a significant amount. Given the previous lack of certainty as to whether the Antarctic was losing or gaining ice with worst case estimates of about 0.2mm per year worth of ice being lost it is indeed alarming.
Sure, it isn't the end of the world, but then nobody with any sense was worried about that. The concern is the vast economic impact that could result from the forced relocation or rebuilding efforts caused by greater risks of flooding for the many many urban areas close to sea level. It may not be an epic disaster, but it could well be very expensive, so it's worth knowing about it so we can be forewarned and take preventative action now.
Jedidiah.
Or a meter every 2500 years? Wow.... better shore up the levees, Waterworld is coming soon!
0.4mm per year just from the Antarctic ice sheet, and 2500 years for a meter presuming a constant rate. On the other hand there are other factors at play such as the Greenland glaciers, which are accelerating their slide into the sea, which means it might be worth considering the possibility of acceleration of the loss of Antarctic ice. There's also thermal expansion as another factor causing sea levels to rise.
It's also worth noting that, in the grand scheme of things, 0.4mm per year is quite a lot: sea level change over the last 3000 years averages to about 0.1mm to 0.2mm per year.
Is this a clear indication of catastrophic distaster? Far from it. Nor is it the least bit implicit of any sort of bizarre Waterworld scenario. However, even a 1 meter change in sea will have signficant impact given the large numbers of cities very close to sea level - even a small rise makes them far more susceptible to flooding from, say, storm swell or similar. In practice even a small change is going to displace an awful lot of people, costing an awful lot of money, and having a significant economic impact. It may not be a disaster of biblical proportions, but it is most definitely something to be concerned about and to keep an eye on.
Jedidiah.
The government doesn't need new tools; they just need to learn how to use the tools they already have.
And this is precisely the problem. Because sufficient fear and anxiety surrounding the threat of terrorism has been engendered in the populace politicians find themselves in a quandry: they have to be seen to be doing something regardless of whether it works or not. The tools they already have are not good enough because they don't involve politicians doing anything, or taking any action. The PATRIOT act, the war in Iraq, etc. get a lot of support for the sake of changing perception rather than changing reality. It's not about fixing the problem, it's about being seen to take visible action.
Jedidiah.
Observed speciation? Here are some examples. Here is a more detailed account of more examples. Oh, and here are yet more examples. All of it well documented and referenced. Argument by ignorance is not really effective.
Jedidiah.
Well, you see, that's the problem. For the most part, the age of geologic layers are defined by the fossils we find in them- and then we turn around and claim the age that the fossils are by the geologic layer we found them in. That's a circular definition right there.
Well, it would be. If it were true. Unfortunately it's not.
For the most part dating of strata is determined by which layers are on top of which, and more recently confirmed via radioactive dating methods. It's worth noting that dating of geologic strata notably predates the theory of evolution.
Jedidiah.
Current primary science education certainly does nothing to teach the rules of scientific logic.
This point I agree with entirely, and I feel it is indeed a probelm. I guess, in a sense, that was my point: we need to focus more on teaching how to think, and how to arrive at conclusions, and focus a little less on the immediate facts. Facts are useful for bootstrapping people into usefulness - teaching people multiplication tables gets them suffciently numerate to operate in the world far faster than teaching them predicate logic and the Peano axioms - but in the end it is how you arrive at answers that counts, and understanding how to interpret claims, and how to spot logical fallacies (which can often be quite subtle).
Jedidiah.
The point is that you are trying to teach the principles of scientific thought and debate. It doesn't matter whether an auto mechanic "knows" that the Earth revolves around the Sun, but he's going to fall for a lot of bad advertising and propaganda if he can't recognize bad science.
The problem is that mere debate on the issue is not enough - you still need to actually just teach the basic ground rules of logic or else your debate descends into senselessness. Consider, for example, the sort of guy who writes an "axiomatic proof" of Time Cube. You can try and debate him on the issue if you like, several people have. When you're arguing with someone who argues on faith and has little knowledge of logic, or how it actually works, you'll not get very far. When one side is constrained to science and logic and the other is not then it is quite possible to end up with bizarre and convoluted, but logically invalid, arguments that, none the less, sound impressive to those not suitably schooled.
Jedidiah.
Real palyer has been and forever will be the WORST video player I have ever used, it is bloated so much that it makes me want to use Windows media player.
Having used Real player on Windows a couple of times I would have to agree, it's truly horrible. But just to show Real isn't all bad, check out Real player on Linux some time. It's incredibly clean, stripped down, with a straighforward and minimalist interface - it is, quite simply, an excellent media player.
Jedidiah.