I'm sorry but this is such utter bollocks I don't know where to stand. Most reputable science recognises global warming as well proven now.
Excuse me? Oh wait, you mean you've a good many hundred years of information to predict something on the scale of a few million years, such as ice-ages.
And a bunch of scientists got together and agreed that it had to be true, so it must be true. Consensus science - so yeah, global warming must indeed be because of all the evil global warmers.
Gotcha!
We're at the peak of a warm cycle after the end of an ice-age, I think it's only natural that the world is getting warmer. In fact, maybe we should try keeping it warm, before we slip into a cold-phase once again, rather than the other way around.
Before you're quick to blame America for anything and everything that goes wrong, remember that we are indeed at the end of an ice-age. Natural sources such as volcanos and Sun's behavioral cycles cause a lot more harm than the gas guzzlers that you speak of.
Get this into your head - global warming is a theory based on very little information, to begin with.
And countries like China which surprisingly exempt from the tenets of Kyoto pollute a lot, but somehow the world is quick to point the finger at the US, even when the linked article talks about warming in Europe and not the US.
The Earth has withstood much worse conditions and so has life, thank you very much. If the worst were to come, we'll adapt and pull through quite fine. It's not like life on this planet hasn't been through the crucible before.
There's a far greater risk of us blowing ourselves up or a rock from space sending us off to extinction than from a half-baked theory on global warming with hardly a century's data on climate.
And ofcourse, I'm quite certain American gas guzzlers would be held responsible for some rock hitting the planet, too. Undoubtedly, the epitome of pure evil and greed.
My bad, the choice of words was poor. By common place, I meant common place among the guys intending to sneak into your stuff. Guess who're working hard to get the first QCs up and running at the moment? A lot of three lettered organizations, for one. That should give you a clue or two:)
making our existing encryption methods quite obscure and easy to crack.
No, you're not overlooking anything in the property of quantum computing - but you are, however, forgetting the fact that Quantum Computers first need to be as widespread as regular ones for such a balance to exist. You can be fairly certain that at the outset, only large corporations and government agencies can afford to have them.
No - I see the opposite. I forsee something like quantum computing becoming commonplace and making our existing encryption methods quite obscure and easy to crack.
And besides, corporations *cannot* afford to lose the ability to encrypt. More than the government, they're scared of other corporations spying on them.
They already have it up and running with over 5,000 members. They're just removing the website trackers and making the clients into trackers in and of themselves. It's not so hard, and it's a good idea too.
But as anothe user pointed out, it would slow down your system a real lot.
I was waiting for your comment on this -- was quite certain that it would be one of the spot-on ones in comparison to the slew of guesswork stuff that usually crops up at Slashdot.
Funny, after watching Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, am not too sure about what people would do with these kinda robots.
On one hand, it's sad that people need robots to talk to, rather than each other. On the other hand, this is eerily reminiscent of Solaria in Asimov's books.
Oh wait, wasn't Solaria itself modeled on the Emperor-ruled Japan? Looks like some cultural influences never leave, they merely come to haunt the people in different disguises.
Like another poster said, take up some of the other areas of engineering or hard sciences.
For instance, if you get a Ph.D. in physics or molecular biology, it's quite unlikely that you'd ever be out of a job - in fact, if you're even half decent at what you do, you'd be paid quite amazingly well, too.
And ofcourse, people forget one other thing - not all Opensource alternatives are as good as the enterprise ones. GIMP is good, but it's not photoshop. There is no Opensource equivalent of a lot of what companies like Rational or Oracle produce.
At the moment, I'm working on something called Godel for automated formalisms of set-theory proofs in something called Otter - however, both do not work very well on Mathematica in Linux and hence am on Windows.
If Linux served a particular need better, I'd use Linux. A computer is a tool, nothing more.
What about Google cache? If BBC News is blocked, I can always check the Google cache of BBC News.
Also, a lot of the news sites get information from other news sources such as AP or Reuters - I'm sure that one can find alternate sources of news from sites other than those that have been blocked.
I could never understand all of the Wesley Crusher detractors -- in fact, he was one of my most favourite characters in the whole TNG crew.
I watched Coming of Age as a kid, and that inspired me beyond words. Made me build a Tesla coil a few weeks later (facts apart that I almost burnt down the house because of that;-)
Today, am pursuing the stuff of my dreams, literally -- but those early episodes of Wesley on the bridge have not lost any of their charm. You rock, Wil!
That said -- has the role affected you in real life? How much of Wesley Crusher are you, I've heard that sometimes actors tend to take on their roles in real life too.
Rather, let me rephrase -- how has the role and character of Wesley Crusher influenced Wil Wheaton?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry but this is such utter bollocks I don't know where to stand. Most reputable science recognises global warming as well proven now.
Excuse me? Oh wait, you mean you've a good many hundred years of information to predict something on the scale of a few million years, such as ice-ages.
And a bunch of scientists got together and agreed that it had to be true, so it must be true. Consensus science - so yeah, global warming must indeed be because of all the evil global warmers.
Gotcha!
We're at the peak of a warm cycle after the end of an ice-age, I think it's only natural that the world is getting warmer. In fact, maybe we should try keeping it warm, before we slip into a cold-phase once again, rather than the other way around.
And oh, maybe you should read Michael Crichton's talk at Caltech - Aliens cause Global Warming!
You might learn a thing or two on how real science is done.
Before you're quick to blame America for anything and everything that goes wrong, remember that we are indeed at the end of an ice-age. Natural sources such as volcanos and Sun's behavioral cycles cause a lot more harm than the gas guzzlers that you speak of.
Get this into your head - global warming is a theory based on very little information, to begin with.
And countries like China which surprisingly exempt from the tenets of Kyoto pollute a lot, but somehow the world is quick to point the finger at the US, even when the linked article talks about warming in Europe and not the US.
The Earth has withstood much worse conditions and so has life, thank you very much. If the worst were to come, we'll adapt and pull through quite fine. It's not like life on this planet hasn't been through the crucible before.
There's a far greater risk of us blowing ourselves up or a rock from space sending us off to extinction than from a half-baked theory on global warming with hardly a century's data on climate.
And ofcourse, I'm quite certain American gas guzzlers would be held responsible for some rock hitting the planet, too. Undoubtedly, the epitome of pure evil and greed.
You do realize that we're at the end of an ice-age right?
Maybe the human activity has a small part to play, but either way it's going to happen.
>assuming the state has sane home defence laws
:-)
US - probably the only country where the right to shoot someone who comes into your house is considered sane
My bad, the choice of words was poor. By common place, I meant common place among the guys intending to sneak into your stuff. Guess who're working hard to get the first QCs up and running at the moment? A lot of three lettered organizations, for one. That should give you a clue or two :)
Exactly!
And often, I've downloaded stuff off Suprnova, only to realize that I liked the series a real lot and end up ordering entire seasons off eBay.
In fact, I've purchased more because watching a few episodes gets me into the series, and I end up buying whole seasons.
But nope - the **AA will conveniently ignore these things.
Which is why, I said -
making our existing encryption methods quite obscure and easy to crack.
No, you're not overlooking anything in the property of quantum computing - but you are, however, forgetting the fact that Quantum Computers first need to be as widespread as regular ones for such a balance to exist. You can be fairly certain that at the outset, only large corporations and government agencies can afford to have them.
No - I see the opposite. I forsee something like quantum computing becoming commonplace and making our existing encryption methods quite obscure and easy to crack.
And besides, corporations *cannot* afford to lose the ability to encrypt. More than the government, they're scared of other corporations spying on them.
Hardly.
They already have it up and running with over 5,000 members. They're just removing the website trackers and making the clients into trackers in and of themselves. It's not so hard, and it's a good idea too.
But as anothe user pointed out, it would slow down your system a real lot.
Hmm, but the overheads would be *enormous* - think about it. Even for a simple search, you'd need to be able to decrypt and see the file.
But -- maybe we could use checksums of the encrypted files and have some kinda hash table to make it faster.
Waste + Decentralized Bittorrent --> Death of RIAA + MPAA.
w00t!
Okay, except for the vaccine bit - I must add.
I was waiting for your comment on this -- was quite certain that it would be one of the spot-on ones in comparison to the slew of guesswork stuff that usually crops up at Slashdot.
Turns out am right =)
Funny, after watching Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, am not too sure about what people would do with these kinda robots.
On one hand, it's sad that people need robots to talk to, rather than each other. On the other hand, this is eerily reminiscent of Solaria in Asimov's books.
Oh wait, wasn't Solaria itself modeled on the Emperor-ruled Japan? Looks like some cultural influences never leave, they merely come to haunt the people in different disguises.
> I don't think that it was an assult on your "geekness;" just an observation.
I never construed it as one, what made you think so?
Like another poster said, take up some of the other areas of engineering or hard sciences.
For instance, if you get a Ph.D. in physics or molecular biology, it's quite unlikely that you'd ever be out of a job - in fact, if you're even half decent at what you do, you'd be paid quite amazingly well, too.
And ofcourse, people forget one other thing - not all Opensource alternatives are as good as the enterprise ones. GIMP is good, but it's not photoshop. There is no Opensource equivalent of a lot of what companies like Rational or Oracle produce.
Nah, unlikely under either.
Trudeau may have raised a hue and a cry, but nothing more. He had balls, I agree - but even he'd not have done something like this.
Really well said.
Vigilante style justice does not always work out. For one, you open yourself up to illegal attacks from them, too.
If I legally took a spammer to court and if he DDoSed me, it would only strengthen my case. I have the legal recourse to support my stand.
However, if you did something like what Lycos did, what're you going to tell the judges? They hacked me for hacking them?
As much as I'd love to see spammers get kicked in the nuts, this is not the path to take. It makes us no different from them.
I use whatever serves the task at hand best.
At the moment, I'm working on something called Godel for automated formalisms of set-theory proofs in something called Otter - however, both do not work very well on Mathematica in Linux and hence am on Windows.
If Linux served a particular need better, I'd use Linux. A computer is a tool, nothing more.
Hmm, let me wager a guess, you're TC?
:-)
Yeah, that's why am reconsidering the whole PhD thing. GTech to Caltech is like from the frying pan into the fire
BBC NEWS is, as always, blocked.
What about Google cache? If BBC News is blocked, I can always check the Google cache of BBC News.
Also, a lot of the news sites get information from other news sources such as AP or Reuters - I'm sure that one can find alternate sources of news from sites other than those that have been blocked.
No?
On Slashdot, of all places?
Maybe they missed the one about Canada Arresting Bush?
Thank you :)
I couldn't agree more.
I could never understand all of the Wesley Crusher detractors -- in fact, he was one of my most favourite characters in the whole TNG crew.
I watched Coming of Age as a kid, and that inspired me beyond words. Made me build a Tesla coil a few weeks later (facts apart that I almost burnt down the house because of that
Today, am pursuing the stuff of my dreams, literally -- but those early episodes of Wesley on the bridge have not lost any of their charm. You rock, Wil!
That said -- has the role affected you in real life? How much of Wesley Crusher are you, I've heard that sometimes actors tend to take on their roles in real life too.
Rather, let me rephrase -- how has the role and character of Wesley Crusher influenced Wil Wheaton?