Nonsense. The parent demonstrated intolerance for Diversity of Opinion. I'm guessing you are also an authoritarian that believes there is a 'right' position on the unilateral and Orwellian re-definition of 'marriage' by the Left - and thus you pull out your XKCD as a justification for your support of shutting down the Free Speech of religious people via the Heckler's Veto.
You are part of the problem. I don't agree with positions of many people, but shutting them down by implying they are 'a$$holes' or 'sad' because they have a different opinion is wrong. Address their arguments, not the person.
I'm an atheist. Your assumption is false. However, Islam is uniquely evil, deceptive and totalitarian (it claims to apply to believers and non-believers) - thus it must be resisted by all Free Men.
CO2 has a non-linear diminishing effect on LW radiation with concentration. Nearly all the goodness that keeps us from freezing happens below 100 ppm. Below 150 ppm plants cannot survive so we always need a level higher than that. In pre-history the level was 5000 ppm and the animal and plant life was *MEGA* as a result.
Most of the CO2 follows temperature changes, because the biosphere emits more CO2 as it flourishes in the warmth.
Murray Salby (who wrote a graduate textbook on atmospheric figures) explains how the AGW models do not include significant factors:
"Climate Scientist Murry Salby Demolishes the Global Warming Alarm" [67 mins] https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The IPCC conclusion is written by bureaucrats. They need 'green' taxes to prop up their socialist systems because the West is in demographic decline and the Ponzi Scheme of socialist economics is about to fail worldwide (Greece is only the start). This is also why the politicians are encouraging mass immigration into the West - because Westerners are failing to have children at replacement levels.
ps. the cure for Islam is not censorship, it is telling the truth. And the truth is that Islam is man-made and invented by Caliph Abd al-Malik *after* the time Mohammed was said to have died. If you defeat the Narrative of Islamic ideology then the whole thing falls apart, including the motivation for the current worldwide jihad and the transformation of Western culture to be more Sharia-compliant.
As always, the answer to bad speech is not censorship, but more speech. But the more speech has to be knowledgeable and decisive to counter the bad speech. We can defeat the jihadi but we have to know the truth about it. Tom Holland's "In the Shadow of the Sword" is a good place to start, or some of the talks by jay Smith (who is a Christian so he has 'skin in the game', but the Christians seem to be paying attention while most geeks are not):
"An Historical Critique of Islam's Beginnings - Jay Smith" [72 mins] https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
As an evidence-based person you might find the video interesting, especially the satellite imagery that shows the narrative of orthodox Islam cannot be true. Making this knowledge widely available is how we defeat the global jihad without resorting to the evils of censorship.
And you don't seem to like Free Speech and are intolerant of Diversity of Opinion. How sad it is that you are so narrow minded you cannot accept that others may have different worldviews than merely following the herd-like Leftist ideology.
To defeat jihad you have to defeat the underlying ideology, called "Islam". Simply show the archeological evidence that shows the claims of Islam cannot be true. Here is a taste of modern archeology that is exposing Islam as a gigantic fraud meant to promote imperialism, misogyny, cultural supremacism and enslave human beings for the benefit of the Caliph (Emperor):
"An Historical Critique of Islam's Beginnings - Jay Smith" [71 mins] https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm sorry the linked video is presented by a Christian, they seem to be the only ones paying attention to the march of the Global Jihad worldwide, and its goal of replacing all of Enlightenment Civilization either through force (jihad) or cultural change.
France doesn't need to censor Islam It merely needs to tell the truth about it - that it is a man-made system of control invented by Caliph Abd al-Malik in the late 7th Century in order to enslave and control other human beings.
Could not compact nuclear engines (eg. similar to those on submarines or on earlier probes like Voyager) not solve the energy problem for Mars? Are we so superstitious of nuclear power that we'd give up a perfectly good, long-term, powerful source without even considering it as an option? Nuclear power can and has been launched into space before, and as long as the risks of launch failure are mitigated (eg. launch over open ocean) then dry ice sublimation engines are not needed.
There was Java-in-hardware on phones in the past. Please Google it.
All you folks are talking about how Direct3D works. OpenGL GLSL works differently and you compile from source directly for you hardware at runtime (usually propgram startup, but can be while the program is running). I know, I do GLSL every day and OpenGL is awesome for this - you get REPL-like functionality where you can edit a shader, recompile and re-link the shader program and have it apply the next frame. It is fun to give demos where you have a MiG-29A flying along, edit the shader and apply it while the aircraft is still moving and doesn't miss a beat (the GLSL shader compillers are really, really fast). I've not looked at the Vulkan API but it'll be a step backward if it loses this capability (which Direct3D is also missing).
I think the problem with AGW studies is that most of the policy is based on 'computer models' and almost none-of it from real data (even ignoring the fact that a significant portion of the supposed 'real data' is made-up estimates anyway for weather stations that have long gone). Since the real data is stubbornly refusing to agree with the CAGW wealth-redistribution scheme it appears that the EPA want to use the model predictions without others being able to scrutinize them.
Perhaps this is too conspiratorial of me, but there seems to be no other explanation as to why they are so secretive about how their AGW predictions were arrived at - but don't want to take the criticism that computer models are not only not reality, they have not even matched reality over the last two decades. As a former physicist myself, I'm ashamed for how many climate 'scientists' are behaving - in a very opaque and anti-scientific way.
If marijuana were harmless then it'd be cool. Unfortunately, recent research has shown that regular marijuana use reduces IQ. In the case of adolescents with still-developing brains the IQ loss is permanent. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is the state of the science at present. Here's a popularized reference for you (from a Left-leaning source): http://www.pnas.org/content/11... http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11...
Like I said, if marijuana was harmless then it'd be cool with me- I'm not here to start a flamewar. I'm just here to point folks in the direction of the most recent medical studies. Rather than mod me down, if you disagree then please give me a link to a study that is as good as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and we can all learn (ie. "High Times" is neither an impartial nor scientific source, so I'm looking for something better than that).
There is too much regulation already! Do you guys really need more? especially from Big Government bureaucracies that feel they can intrude into EVERY aspect of your lives?
How come Slashdotters love to talk about the Big State, but when the Big State comes in the form of the EPA and other unaccountable and job-killing organizations they are all for it? I just don't get it, amigos. The EPA has a role to play, but having your elected representatives put them on a leash so they can only use verifiable science for their decision making is just 'common sense' (which doesn't seem to be common at all these days).
Have you not learned from the IRS and NSA scandals that the Government must be kept on a leash? and the EPA has been waaayyyy too aggressive. Which is why I don't get why Slashdotters complain about Big Government but then scream 'blue murder' when elected representatives try to give more power to Individuals and less to States. Have a think about it folks:)
Why is skepticism about Humans as the dominant factor in Global Warming equated with 'Holocaust denial'? (which is why the word was deliberately chosen).
What if it turns out that Nye is wrong and the majority of the population is right? Could that not be a possibility - especially given the evidence that the melting rate in Antarctica is 159 GT/year, which seems like a lot, until you understand that it would take something like a quarter of a million years for the Antarctic ice to fully melt (which means it is melting at a rate slower than has been seen between ice ages in the past)? what about the fact that the Arctic summer ice cover was lowest in 2012 and is now putting on ice each year? It all looks like natural variability so far, and man-made warming is not the dominant factor. So isn't the public smarter than the elitists give them credit for (like Al Gore's multiple failed predictions that the Arctic would be permanently ice free last year.)
As bad as these videos are, censorship is a vastly greater evil. Who decides what is censored and what is not? Who appoints the censors? This is a problem which even the Romans wrestled with.
Don't think censorship is bad? if your are:
A Modern Liberal/Progressive - do you want social conservatives to be able to censor your speech?
A Classic Liberal/Constitutional Conservative - do you want the neo-Marxists to be able to censor your speech?
A scientist - do you want an Intelligent Designer to be able to censor your speech?
Religious - do you want anti-theists to be able to censor your speech?
An Israel - do you want the jihadis to be able to censor you speech?
A Muslim - do you want the Jews to be able to censor your speech?
An atheist - do you want the Islamic State/Caliphate to be able to censor your speech?
An American - do you want the North Koreans to be able to censor your speech?
Chinese - do you want the Americans to be able to censor your speech?
You all get the picture. Censorship is bad. In the formerly-Free West we understood that censorship was worse than most bad speech. But now there are very, very many who believe so fervently in their cause that they are willing to silence all dissenting voices - this is a great regression in the World (but unfortunately, even Slashdotters ardently apply censorship through their mod points [not modding up posts they like, but deliberately trying to silence posts they don't agree with]).
The true solution to Bad Speech is *more speech*. This is what Free Speech is all about - let ideas compete in the open arena of public discourse - no matter how offensive and uncomfortable for those with political, religious or financial power.
Only authoritarians or totalitarians which to censor the speech of others:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall (often misattributed to Voltaire)
This is the principle that should reign - and the US 1st Amendment to the Constitution is brilliant in allowing Free Speech to flourish. Too bad the powers in the US, EU and UN (eg. the disgusting UN HRC 16/18) are working to destroy Free Speech criticism of the powerful - and ensuring that you don't get a vote or say in the matter.
Actually, the most useful definition of "Fascism" is the economics one:
"State control of the Fruits of Production, while the Means of Production remain in Private Hands".
Fascism is a Far Left ideology.
Contrast this with the Extreme Left of Communism where:
"State Control of the Fruits of Production, and the State controls the Means of Production".
It is a complete lie of the Extreme Left that Fascism is somehow politically "Right" (well, it is just to the Left of communism, so is right from their point of view, but far left from everyone else's).
This is why the Nazis were Nationalist *Socialists*, and the Italian Fascists came from the Socialist Party. Fascism is a type of socialism that is not the opposite of communism, it is its rival.
Now according to this definition it is Obama who is taking the US in a fascist direction - at least according to Standford University Economics Professor Thomas Sowell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Don;'t fall for the deception of the Communists. Understand that Fascism is a form of socialism, and nothing to do with the political Right (which is anti-Collectivist and thus cannot be socialist).
Exactly. Well said. Of course, the written Arabic language as we know it did not exist when the fragments of the Koran were supposed to have been written. They would have been in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic - which makes sense, because much of the material was plagiarized. Only later was the back-story created and the first Arabic versions created (although they contained only 43 Sura, and the other Suras were added later - all which show that neither Mohammed nor Allah were the authors of the Koran, as Islam claims).
Sorry, it's not "Arabs" that dream of virgins as the reward for al jihad al asghar against their hated infidels, it is Muslims (subscribers to the political ideology invented by Caliph Abd al-Malik called "Islam"). There are many Arabs who are Christians (Assyrians, Copts, etc), Druze, Yazidis, even a few Zoroastrians have not yet been slaughtered by the various Muslim sects. An Arab is a member of an ethnic group who may or may not believe in the ideology called "Islam", and tens of millions of Arabs do not.
ps. for those Slashdotters who think Islam was created by Mohammed (which is the orthodox Islamic fiction) you are well behind the current historical scholarship. See Dr Tom Holland's research (acessible through his very readable book "In the Shadow of the Sword") for the evidence that shows that the Koran was neither original (much of it plagiarised from early Christian and Jewish stories of the region) and satellite imagery shows that from 630 CE to 725 CE the qibla of all mosques pointed to Petra, not Mecca (decisively showing that the Islamic narrative of its origins is completely false). The story about what the First Arab Emperor (Mohammed) did, where he came from, what he said, and the origins of the Koran are all fictions added well after Caliph Mohammed was dead. The superstition/supernatural aspects of Islam were (badly) plagiarised from the Arian heresy of Christianity and seem designed to provide divine justification for the Arab Empire to counter-balance the Jewish and Christian traditions of the Eastern Roman ("Byzantine") Empire. These are new historical discoveries - we live in interesting times!
For those wanting to know some of the arguments but don't want to read Dr Holland's book, you can get a flavor of the emerging scholarship on the origins of Islam (and the complete falsehoods of orthodox Islamic doctrine) at YouTube discussions such as:
"An Historical Critique of Islam's Beginnings - Jay Smith" [72 mins] https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Sorry to wander off-topic there Slashdotters. I just had to respond to that incorrect identification of the Arab ethnic group with a doctrine of Islam. I hoped you find the rest of the post informative - because believing that Islam was created by Mohammed has now shown to be as out-of-date as believing the Sun goes around the Earth (although a lot of people are yet to catch up to the new information; and of course, those with a vested interest will resist the new information - but it is the truth, amigos and amigas).
Actually it is Billionaires like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Thomas Steyer, and the Wall Street cronies who are all Democratic Party donors because the the Democratic Party has no problem with using political control over the economy. The Establishment Republicans are bad, but at least have a veneer of Free Market principles (which means, citizens free from Government interference, which is what this is really about).
The Tea Partiers are the only real ones in the US who oppose the revolving door of cronyism and government corporatism. Of course, the media doesn't want you to know this, which is why so many Slashdotters get in a lather based on propaganda rather than listening to the economic arguments of the Tea Partiers, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, etc who all oppose the distortion of the marketplace that Government brings, with the distortion of the political space that corporatism (which is only possible through Big Government) brings.
The only solution is Limited Government. A Limited Government can't hurt its citizens, can't fund massive deficits and can't enable cronyism. This is what the US Founding Fathers wanted, and why the Tea Party was actually formed (most Slashdotters believe the Tea Party is what the Extreme Left says they are, and confuses prudent fiscal conservatism with social conservatism when they are not the same at all).
Thanks for replying in a manner where we can have rational debate. Your Exhibit A talks about relative death rates between countries (which they attribute to domicile quality), not relative death rates as a function of energy cost. Can you see the difference? can you see how your Exhibit A actually does not address my point at all?
Ignoring all the jobs that would be created with large scale clean energy adoption....not to mention stability.
This is a fair enough comment. What needs to be factored in is which creates more jobs, the 'general economy' or the 'green economy'. While I don't have any figures it would seem to me that 'green' jobs are probably much more capital intensive than general economy jobs. That means far fewer green jobs are created. Would you admit that this could indeed be a possibility? that fewer green jobs would replace more general economy jobs as money is sucked out of the economy and given to the green economy through the government subsidies that seem required for any 'green' project to be sustained? Green jobs probably pay more than regular jobs, so that is something in favor of that - but that doesn't help for those out of work because the government is sucking more tax out of the productive sector and giving it to their crony projects (eg. the Solyndra debacle, which was but one of dozens and dozens).
North Dakota is about to loose all the jobs they just got because Saudi Arabia feels like it.
Indeed. Saudi Arabia is spending $750 Billion to destroy the recent energy independence of America. And your President Obama seems very pleased by this. This seems quite disturbing as an outsider. But this has nothing to do with 'green jobs' vs general economy jobs. This is a trade war which is massively distorting the marketplace (aided and abetted by an Administration ideologically opposed to cheap energy).
And I guess you didn't see any of the examples I cited where sweeping environmental regulations were put in place that fixed the potential problem without any overall economic damage. (For exhibit B see my other post)
Apologies, I did not see your post. I don't think you'll find anyone arguing about environmental protection. The debate comes at whether the environment must be preserved as pristine at any price or not. I mean, do you think that any industrialization should be allowed at all?
Thanks for the "and Then There's Physics " post. As a physicist (PhD in Astrophysics, specifically Gravitational Microlending) I can see an immediate problem with the post, and understand why he doesn't get Salby's argument. Can you see the problem? I'll give you a hint, take a look at the diagram of CO2 exchange. What's wrong with this picture? furthermore, looking at other posts by that author he seems completely unaware that CO2 has a decreasing effect on the wavelengths of interest as concentration increases, ie. "diminishing returns" in terms of greenhouse efficiency. This is demonstrable in the lab and is no small thing.
Whatreallyhappened...classic data cherry picking for misdirection. I've debunked those enough in similar threads, I'm over it.
I'm pretty sure the AGW hypothesis says that the following shouldn't happen, right? http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenlan...
A massive increased in the Arctic ice sheet - right after record Antarctic ice levels.
But the real question is (following Karl Popper): At what point does AGW become falsifiable based on the data?
What that statement ignores is that neither of those conditions supported human society!
Huh? do you not know about the Roman warm period? or the Medieval Warm Period? of the Little Ice Age? or the Dustbowl 1930s? I'm sure you do. Stop fearing change.
"So tell my why addressing CO2 emissions is a bad idea"
Because it raises the costs of energy. In Germany, use of 'green energy' has increased the price. That means a measurable increase in deaths from old people who cannot afford to heat their homes in winter using this 'green' energy. Then we have the impact on manufacturing leading to job losses.
Reducing CO2 follows the "Law of Unintended Consequences" - killing people. The case of CO2 has not been made conclusively, and there are massive problems with global surface temperature measurements. Furthermore, many climate scientists are now showing how the climate models are inaccurate (which is why zero of the climate models can match the current 'warming pause'):
"Climate Scientist Murry Salby Demolishes the Global Warming Alarm" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
What does "climate change" actually mean? since the climate has always been changing. And how does handing over your earnings and freedoms to politicians solve climate change anyway?
Reducing CO2 may become necessary, but at the moment many real climate scientists state that the case is not clear that it is yet necessary, and it is not clear how de-industrialization of the West could actual reverse temperature variability that seems far more dominated by natural processes than human emissions.
Here is some of the temperature data (taking out the estimated values, which produce false increases): http://whatreallyhappened.com/...
ps: if you feel I'm wrong then I'm happy to be corrected. No need to mod me down for a difference of opinion which can be resolved reasonably (there are a lot of trigger-happy anti-Free Speech Slashdotters these days, it seems).
OpenGL needs to be better on Linux. If you have NVidia hardware then you are covered. ATI has very poor drivers and they are a pain to upgrade. Intel is ok for the drivers, but the hardware is not in the same league as discrete GPUs for high-end hardware video processing and transformation.
How would I know? I'm developing a cross-platform modern jet combat flight simulator using OpenGL. I hate to say it, but Windows has the best drivers by far. NVidia on Linux is also a fairly pleasant experience. ATI on Linux is ok, its just the installation is not a happy path for regular users. Mac also has good drivers, and the OpenGL profiling tools that come with XCode are extremely good.
Unfortunately, the Apple OpenGL drivers for the Mac Pro (I splashed out on one recently and got the dual D700 GPUs) are really bad, they run at half the speed of the Windows drivers on the same hardware (some people installed Windows on the Mac Pro for testing), and the Crossfire is not supported by the driver. It unbelievable that such and expensive bit of gear could be so massively let down by subpar drivers from Apple:( Plus, Apple is still stuck on OpenGL 4.1, which is many years old (the current version is at 4.5 and has some good changes, like the vastly better error reporting mechanism in OpenGL 4.3).
I love working with OpenGL, but only NVidia is doing a good job with installation and performance of OpenGL drivers on Linux (and cross-platform).
why yes, I've see the light, from now on it, I'm going to stop reading historicaly relivant documents essential to the formation of various political ideas, and start reading conspiracy laden blog posts written by advertisers who only see history through the lense of the last 30 or so years.
Your definition of "socialism" was actually the definition of communism. I pointed out you were wrong, using the definitions given by Stanford Economics Professor Thomas Sowell (who studied under Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
For example, he defines "fascism" in this talk on "Obama's Failed Economic Policies" [5 min] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
You can invent a strawmen scenario about me, but you are arguing against Sowell, not me about these definitions.
Now I'm fairly intrested in where you got this information. I got my information from reading historically relevant documents and even talking to proponents of all thre ideaologies.
Thanks for your references. A good start I would suggest for you is Sowell's "Basic Economics" which is a complete classic.
Communism is a subsection of Socialism. There is no "state" in communism, along with no nations, no class, wealth,(some even say no recognition of gender, etc....).
Agree completely, Communism is a subsection of Socialism. That is why I found you using the definition of communism as the definition of socialism as rather odd, your "workers owning the means of production" is part of the definition of communism; socialism in general is, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", predating but popularised by Marx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Depends whether you are talking about French Communism or Marxism-Leninism (which which case)
There has yet to be a communist society, but only "Socialist States run by Communists"
This statement shows you are a dangerous ideologue. You think that after a century of failure after failure after failure and tried in dozens of countries that somehow you will be able to "get it right". Of course, when your socialism comes apart at the seams (because it CANNOT work as it does not understand that wealth is created by individuals acting in their own interest which benefits all of society) you will end up first with propaganda, then repression, then oppression and then comes the tens of million of bodies - it is INEVITABLE unless some other external forces stops you crazy ideologues who refuse to Get Real and understand the World as it really is, rather than your ideological fantasy (which is a control-freak fantasy, where you are one of the "enlightened" and deserve to use force to control others "for their own good").
Um no, communism everything is shared evenly, not all socialists are communists.
I didn't say everything was shared evenly (you control freaks always take more than the common prole gets), I said that is was based on the ***idea*** that everything should be shared evenly. Without this idea it would become obvious that the non-voluntary forms of socialism are merely stealing by the politically empowered using the coercive force of the State to do so.
Voluntary forms of socialism are still based on the idea of equal contribution. On my World travels I visited an Israeli kibbutz and it was interesting to hear how they were counter-productive to one talented inhabitant. That inhabitant was a software developer and had a well-paying job outside their kibbutz. But their earnings were brought in to the kibbutz and given to those who were lazy. When this person was a young man and an idealist this didn't matter, but now
They are "jihadis", not "terrorists" (which is disinformation term designed to disguise the motivations they themselves state as their reason for acting).
With regard to you "hundred million" statement, you are wrong by nearly an order of magnitude. According to a 2012 Pew survey around 50% of the World's 1.6 Billion Muslims agree with one or more tenets of the barbaric Sharia:
"Ben Shapiro: The Myth of the Tiny Radical Muslim Minority " [6 mins 18 secs] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
With regard to your "bogeymen" statement, it appears you have not been paying attention at all. A significant fraction of the World's Muslims are working to subjugate the entire World under Islam (as Koran 9:29, the ahadith, etc says they must). They have been doing it for 1400 years and are not going to stop just because you decide you want to ignore it:
"Why We Are Afraid, A 1400 Year Secret, by Dr Bill Warner" [45 mins] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I also suggest you learn about what was discovered about the so-called "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood during the "Holy Land Foundation Trial" in the US. Or what was learned about "The Project" in Switzerland. At the moment you are in the dark and speculating. They want you that way so you do not see what it coming until it is too late. The Caliphate in Syria and Iraq is just the start.
You'll learn much if you watch what MEMRITV has to say from the jihadis and Islamic societies themselves. Again, you are just projecting your own wishful thinking instead of looking at the objective facts laid out in what they say to each other.
With regard to Free Speech you are indeed making arguments that claim to support Free Speech while actually undermining it. Free Speech must be absolute or it is meaningless. Again, the powers that are moving our culture (Cultural Marxism and their petrodollar-wielding Islamic allies) want you to think that 'limited and reasonable Free Speech' is somehow Free Speech. It is not !
Here's Mark Steyn's analysis for you: http://fullcomment.nationalpos...
One can be for Free Speech, or not. Why not admit to yourself that you are not. That you don't mind having Governments (or, via international bodies like the UN and its disgusting UN HRC 16/18, foreign Governments) dictate what you can write, say, joke about, sing about, criticize, mock, and think. You don't mind being a slave to totalitarians and Orwellian speech-codes are just peachy with you because " There is no Freedom of Speech, the Press, or even Life in Nature. ". You position is nonsense. We are all born free and are enslaved only by other men. I choose to fight the chains. You do not - which is your choice, but you should at least accept the truth that you don't mind being a slave and are advocating others agree with your position. Screw that!
Slashdot Mirror
Nonsense. The parent demonstrated intolerance for Diversity of Opinion. I'm guessing you are also an authoritarian that believes there is a 'right' position on the unilateral and Orwellian re-definition of 'marriage' by the Left - and thus you pull out your XKCD as a justification for your support of shutting down the Free Speech of religious people via the Heckler's Veto.
You are part of the problem. I don't agree with positions of many people, but shutting them down by implying they are 'a$$holes' or 'sad' because they have a different opinion is wrong. Address their arguments, not the person.
I'm an atheist. Your assumption is false. However, Islam is uniquely evil, deceptive and totalitarian (it claims to apply to believers and non-believers) - thus it must be resisted by all Free Men.
CO2 has a non-linear diminishing effect on LW radiation with concentration. Nearly all the goodness that keeps us from freezing happens below 100 ppm. Below 150 ppm plants cannot survive so we always need a level higher than that. In pre-history the level was 5000 ppm and the animal and plant life was *MEGA* as a result.
Most of the CO2 follows temperature changes, because the biosphere emits more CO2 as it flourishes in the warmth.
Murray Salby (who wrote a graduate textbook on atmospheric figures) explains how the AGW models do not include significant factors:
"Climate Scientist Murry Salby Demolishes the Global Warming Alarm" [67 mins]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The IPCC conclusion is written by bureaucrats. They need 'green' taxes to prop up their socialist systems because the West is in demographic decline and the Ponzi Scheme of socialist economics is about to fail worldwide (Greece is only the start). This is also why the politicians are encouraging mass immigration into the West - because Westerners are failing to have children at replacement levels.
$29 Billion of taxpayer money is given for those supporting AGW. Too bad the temperature has stabilized for the last 18 years.
Great post.
ps. the cure for Islam is not censorship, it is telling the truth. And the truth is that Islam is man-made and invented by Caliph Abd al-Malik *after* the time Mohammed was said to have died. If you defeat the Narrative of Islamic ideology then the whole thing falls apart, including the motivation for the current worldwide jihad and the transformation of Western culture to be more Sharia-compliant.
As always, the answer to bad speech is not censorship, but more speech. But the more speech has to be knowledgeable and decisive to counter the bad speech. We can defeat the jihadi but we have to know the truth about it. Tom Holland's "In the Shadow of the Sword" is a good place to start, or some of the talks by jay Smith (who is a Christian so he has 'skin in the game', but the Christians seem to be paying attention while most geeks are not):
"An Historical Critique of Islam's Beginnings - Jay Smith" [72 mins]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
As an evidence-based person you might find the video interesting, especially the satellite imagery that shows the narrative of orthodox Islam cannot be true. Making this knowledge widely available is how we defeat the global jihad without resorting to the evils of censorship.
And you don't seem to like Free Speech and are intolerant of Diversity of Opinion. How sad it is that you are so narrow minded you cannot accept that others may have different worldviews than merely following the herd-like Leftist ideology.
To defeat jihad you have to defeat the underlying ideology, called "Islam". Simply show the archeological evidence that shows the claims of Islam cannot be true. Here is a taste of modern archeology that is exposing Islam as a gigantic fraud meant to promote imperialism, misogyny, cultural supremacism and enslave human beings for the benefit of the Caliph (Emperor):
"An Historical Critique of Islam's Beginnings - Jay Smith" [71 mins]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I'm sorry the linked video is presented by a Christian, they seem to be the only ones paying attention to the march of the Global Jihad worldwide, and its goal of replacing all of Enlightenment Civilization either through force (jihad) or cultural change.
France doesn't need to censor Islam It merely needs to tell the truth about it - that it is a man-made system of control invented by Caliph Abd al-Malik in the late 7th Century in order to enslave and control other human beings.
Could not compact nuclear engines (eg. similar to those on submarines or on earlier probes like Voyager) not solve the energy problem for Mars? Are we so superstitious of nuclear power that we'd give up a perfectly good, long-term, powerful source without even considering it as an option? Nuclear power can and has been launched into space before, and as long as the risks of launch failure are mitigated (eg. launch over open ocean) then dry ice sublimation engines are not needed.
There was Java-in-hardware on phones in the past. Please Google it.
All you folks are talking about how Direct3D works. OpenGL GLSL works differently and you compile from source directly for you hardware at runtime (usually propgram startup, but can be while the program is running). I know, I do GLSL every day and OpenGL is awesome for this - you get REPL-like functionality where you can edit a shader, recompile and re-link the shader program and have it apply the next frame. It is fun to give demos where you have a MiG-29A flying along, edit the shader and apply it while the aircraft is still moving and doesn't miss a beat (the GLSL shader compillers are really, really fast). I've not looked at the Vulkan API but it'll be a step backward if it loses this capability (which Direct3D is also missing).
I think the problem with AGW studies is that most of the policy is based on 'computer models' and almost none-of it from real data (even ignoring the fact that a significant portion of the supposed 'real data' is made-up estimates anyway for weather stations that have long gone). Since the real data is stubbornly refusing to agree with the CAGW wealth-redistribution scheme it appears that the EPA want to use the model predictions without others being able to scrutinize them.
Perhaps this is too conspiratorial of me, but there seems to be no other explanation as to why they are so secretive about how their AGW predictions were arrived at - but don't want to take the criticism that computer models are not only not reality, they have not even matched reality over the last two decades. As a former physicist myself, I'm ashamed for how many climate 'scientists' are behaving - in a very opaque and anti-scientific way.
If marijuana were harmless then it'd be cool. Unfortunately, recent research has shown that regular marijuana use reduces IQ. In the case of adolescents with still-developing brains the IQ loss is permanent. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this is the state of the science at present. Here's a popularized reference for you (from a Left-leaning source):
http://www.pnas.org/content/11...
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11...
Like I said, if marijuana was harmless then it'd be cool with me- I'm not here to start a flamewar. I'm just here to point folks in the direction of the most recent medical studies. Rather than mod me down, if you disagree then please give me a link to a study that is as good as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and we can all learn (ie. "High Times" is neither an impartial nor scientific source, so I'm looking for something better than that).
There is too much regulation already! Do you guys really need more? especially from Big Government bureaucracies that feel they can intrude into EVERY aspect of your lives?
How come Slashdotters love to talk about the Big State, but when the Big State comes in the form of the EPA and other unaccountable and job-killing organizations they are all for it? I just don't get it, amigos. The EPA has a role to play, but having your elected representatives put them on a leash so they can only use verifiable science for their decision making is just 'common sense' (which doesn't seem to be common at all these days).
Have you not learned from the IRS and NSA scandals that the Government must be kept on a leash? and the EPA has been waaayyyy too aggressive. Which is why I don't get why Slashdotters complain about Big Government but then scream 'blue murder' when elected representatives try to give more power to Individuals and less to States. Have a think about it folks :)
Why is skepticism about Humans as the dominant factor in Global Warming equated with 'Holocaust denial'? (which is why the word was deliberately chosen).
What if it turns out that Nye is wrong and the majority of the population is right? Could that not be a possibility - especially given the evidence that the melting rate in Antarctica is 159 GT/year, which seems like a lot, until you understand that it would take something like a quarter of a million years for the Antarctic ice to fully melt (which means it is melting at a rate slower than has been seen between ice ages in the past)? what about the fact that the Arctic summer ice cover was lowest in 2012 and is now putting on ice each year? It all looks like natural variability so far, and man-made warming is not the dominant factor. So isn't the public smarter than the elitists give them credit for (like Al Gore's multiple failed predictions that the Arctic would be permanently ice free last year .)
Well said. The Guardian is a massive source of disinformation and 'lies by omission'. I'm surprised they haven't renamed themselves 'Pravda' by now.
As bad as these videos are, censorship is a vastly greater evil. Who decides what is censored and what is not? Who appoints the censors? This is a problem which even the Romans wrestled with.
Don't think censorship is bad? if your are:
You all get the picture. Censorship is bad. In the formerly-Free West we understood that censorship was worse than most bad speech. But now there are very, very many who believe so fervently in their cause that they are willing to silence all dissenting voices - this is a great regression in the World (but unfortunately, even Slashdotters ardently apply censorship through their mod points [not modding up posts they like, but deliberately trying to silence posts they don't agree with]).
The true solution to Bad Speech is *more speech*. This is what Free Speech is all about - let ideas compete in the open arena of public discourse - no matter how offensive and uncomfortable for those with political, religious or financial power.
Only authoritarians or totalitarians which to censor the speech of others:
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall (often misattributed to Voltaire)
This is the principle that should reign - and the US 1st Amendment to the Constitution is brilliant in allowing Free Speech to flourish. Too bad the powers in the US, EU and UN (eg. the disgusting UN HRC 16/18) are working to destroy Free Speech criticism of the powerful - and ensuring that you don't get a vote or say in the matter.
There is no substitute for Liberty!
Actually, the most useful definition of "Fascism" is the economics one:
"State control of the Fruits of Production, while the Means of Production remain in Private Hands".
Fascism is a Far Left ideology.
Contrast this with the Extreme Left of Communism where:
"State Control of the Fruits of Production, and the State controls the Means of Production".
It is a complete lie of the Extreme Left that Fascism is somehow politically "Right" (well, it is just to the Left of communism, so is right from their point of view, but far left from everyone else's).
This is why the Nazis were Nationalist *Socialists*, and the Italian Fascists came from the Socialist Party. Fascism is a type of socialism that is not the opposite of communism, it is its rival.
Now according to this definition it is Obama who is taking the US in a fascist direction - at least according to Standford University Economics Professor Thomas Sowell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Don;'t fall for the deception of the Communists. Understand that Fascism is a form of socialism, and nothing to do with the political Right (which is anti-Collectivist and thus cannot be socialist).
Exactly. Well said. Of course, the written Arabic language as we know it did not exist when the fragments of the Koran were supposed to have been written. They would have been in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic - which makes sense, because much of the material was plagiarized. Only later was the back-story created and the first Arabic versions created (although they contained only 43 Sura, and the other Suras were added later - all which show that neither Mohammed nor Allah were the authors of the Koran, as Islam claims).
Sorry, it's not "Arabs" that dream of virgins as the reward for al jihad al asghar against their hated infidels, it is Muslims (subscribers to the political ideology invented by Caliph Abd al-Malik called "Islam"). There are many Arabs who are Christians (Assyrians, Copts, etc), Druze, Yazidis, even a few Zoroastrians have not yet been slaughtered by the various Muslim sects. An Arab is a member of an ethnic group who may or may not believe in the ideology called "Islam", and tens of millions of Arabs do not.
ps. for those Slashdotters who think Islam was created by Mohammed (which is the orthodox Islamic fiction) you are well behind the current historical scholarship. See Dr Tom Holland's research (acessible through his very readable book "In the Shadow of the Sword") for the evidence that shows that the Koran was neither original (much of it plagiarised from early Christian and Jewish stories of the region) and satellite imagery shows that from 630 CE to 725 CE the qibla of all mosques pointed to Petra, not Mecca (decisively showing that the Islamic narrative of its origins is completely false). The story about what the First Arab Emperor (Mohammed) did, where he came from, what he said, and the origins of the Koran are all fictions added well after Caliph Mohammed was dead. The superstition/supernatural aspects of Islam were (badly) plagiarised from the Arian heresy of Christianity and seem designed to provide divine justification for the Arab Empire to counter-balance the Jewish and Christian traditions of the Eastern Roman ("Byzantine") Empire. These are new historical discoveries - we live in interesting times!
For those wanting to know some of the arguments but don't want to read Dr Holland's book, you can get a flavor of the emerging scholarship on the origins of Islam (and the complete falsehoods of orthodox Islamic doctrine) at YouTube discussions such as:
"An Historical Critique of Islam's Beginnings - Jay Smith" [72 mins]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Sorry to wander off-topic there Slashdotters. I just had to respond to that incorrect identification of the Arab ethnic group with a doctrine of Islam. I hoped you find the rest of the post informative - because believing that Islam was created by Mohammed has now shown to be as out-of-date as believing the Sun goes around the Earth (although a lot of people are yet to catch up to the new information; and of course, those with a vested interest will resist the new information - but it is the truth, amigos and amigas).
Actually it is Billionaires like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Thomas Steyer, and the Wall Street cronies who are all Democratic Party donors because the the Democratic Party has no problem with using political control over the economy. The Establishment Republicans are bad, but at least have a veneer of Free Market principles (which means, citizens free from Government interference, which is what this is really about).
The Tea Partiers are the only real ones in the US who oppose the revolving door of cronyism and government corporatism. Of course, the media doesn't want you to know this, which is why so many Slashdotters get in a lather based on propaganda rather than listening to the economic arguments of the Tea Partiers, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, etc who all oppose the distortion of the marketplace that Government brings, with the distortion of the political space that corporatism (which is only possible through Big Government) brings.
The only solution is Limited Government. A Limited Government can't hurt its citizens, can't fund massive deficits and can't enable cronyism. This is what the US Founding Fathers wanted, and why the Tea Party was actually formed (most Slashdotters believe the Tea Party is what the Extreme Left says they are, and confuses prudent fiscal conservatism with social conservatism when they are not the same at all).
But it is ok that George Soros has spent $7 Billion to promote Collectivist tyranny?
Thanks for replying in a manner where we can have rational debate. Your Exhibit A talks about relative death rates between countries (which they attribute to domicile quality), not relative death rates as a function of energy cost. Can you see the difference? can you see how your Exhibit A actually does not address my point at all?
Ignoring all the jobs that would be created with large scale clean energy adoption....not to mention stability.
This is a fair enough comment. What needs to be factored in is which creates more jobs, the 'general economy' or the 'green economy'. While I don't have any figures it would seem to me that 'green' jobs are probably much more capital intensive than general economy jobs. That means far fewer green jobs are created. Would you admit that this could indeed be a possibility? that fewer green jobs would replace more general economy jobs as money is sucked out of the economy and given to the green economy through the government subsidies that seem required for any 'green' project to be sustained? Green jobs probably pay more than regular jobs, so that is something in favor of that - but that doesn't help for those out of work because the government is sucking more tax out of the productive sector and giving it to their crony projects (eg. the Solyndra debacle, which was but one of dozens and dozens).
North Dakota is about to loose all the jobs they just got because Saudi Arabia feels like it.
Indeed. Saudi Arabia is spending $750 Billion to destroy the recent energy independence of America. And your President Obama seems very pleased by this. This seems quite disturbing as an outsider. But this has nothing to do with 'green jobs' vs general economy jobs. This is a trade war which is massively distorting the marketplace (aided and abetted by an Administration ideologically opposed to cheap energy).
And I guess you didn't see any of the examples I cited where sweeping environmental regulations were put in place that fixed the potential problem without any overall economic damage. (For exhibit B see my other post)
Apologies, I did not see your post. I don't think you'll find anyone arguing about environmental protection. The debate comes at whether the environment must be preserved as pristine at any price or not. I mean, do you think that any industrialization should be allowed at all?
Thanks for the "and Then There's Physics " post. As a physicist (PhD in Astrophysics, specifically Gravitational Microlending) I can see an immediate problem with the post, and understand why he doesn't get Salby's argument. Can you see the problem? I'll give you a hint, take a look at the diagram of CO2 exchange. What's wrong with this picture? furthermore, looking at other posts by that author he seems completely unaware that CO2 has a decreasing effect on the wavelengths of interest as concentration increases, ie. "diminishing returns" in terms of greenhouse efficiency. This is demonstrable in the lab and is no small thing.
Whatreallyhappened...classic data cherry picking for misdirection. I've debunked those enough in similar threads, I'm over it.
I'm pretty sure the AGW hypothesis says that the following shouldn't happen, right?
http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenlan...
A massive increased in the Arctic ice sheet - right after record Antarctic ice levels.
But the real question is (following Karl Popper): At what point does AGW become falsifiable based on the data?
What that statement ignores is that neither of those conditions supported human society!
Huh? do you not know about the Roman warm period? or the Medieval Warm Period? of the Little Ice Age? or the Dustbowl 1930s? I'm sure you do. Stop fearing change.
"So tell my why addressing CO2 emissions is a bad idea" Because it raises the costs of energy. In Germany, use of 'green energy' has increased the price. That means a measurable increase in deaths from old people who cannot afford to heat their homes in winter using this 'green' energy. Then we have the impact on manufacturing leading to job losses.
Reducing CO2 follows the "Law of Unintended Consequences" - killing people. The case of CO2 has not been made conclusively, and there are massive problems with global surface temperature measurements. Furthermore, many climate scientists are now showing how the climate models are inaccurate (which is why zero of the climate models can match the current 'warming pause'):
"Climate Scientist Murry Salby Demolishes the Global Warming Alarm"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
What does "climate change" actually mean? since the climate has always been changing. And how does handing over your earnings and freedoms to politicians solve climate change anyway?
Reducing CO2 may become necessary, but at the moment many real climate scientists state that the case is not clear that it is yet necessary, and it is not clear how de-industrialization of the West could actual reverse temperature variability that seems far more dominated by natural processes than human emissions.
Here is some of the temperature data (taking out the estimated values, which produce false increases):
http://whatreallyhappened.com/...
ps: if you feel I'm wrong then I'm happy to be corrected. No need to mod me down for a difference of opinion which can be resolved reasonably (there are a lot of trigger-happy anti-Free Speech Slashdotters these days, it seems).
OpenGL needs to be better on Linux. If you have NVidia hardware then you are covered. ATI has very poor drivers and they are a pain to upgrade. Intel is ok for the drivers, but the hardware is not in the same league as discrete GPUs for high-end hardware video processing and transformation.
How would I know? I'm developing a cross-platform modern jet combat flight simulator using OpenGL. I hate to say it, but Windows has the best drivers by far. NVidia on Linux is also a fairly pleasant experience. ATI on Linux is ok, its just the installation is not a happy path for regular users. Mac also has good drivers, and the OpenGL profiling tools that come with XCode are extremely good.
Unfortunately, the Apple OpenGL drivers for the Mac Pro (I splashed out on one recently and got the dual D700 GPUs) are really bad, they run at half the speed of the Windows drivers on the same hardware (some people installed Windows on the Mac Pro for testing), and the Crossfire is not supported by the driver. It unbelievable that such and expensive bit of gear could be so massively let down by subpar drivers from Apple :( Plus, Apple is still stuck on OpenGL 4.1, which is many years old (the current version is at 4.5 and has some good changes, like the vastly better error reporting mechanism in OpenGL 4.3).
I love working with OpenGL, but only NVidia is doing a good job with installation and performance of OpenGL drivers on Linux (and cross-platform).
why yes, I've see the light, from now on it, I'm going to stop reading historicaly relivant documents essential to the formation of various political ideas, and start reading conspiracy laden blog posts written by advertisers who only see history through the lense of the last 30 or so years.
Your definition of "socialism" was actually the definition of communism. I pointed out you were wrong, using the definitions given by Stanford Economics Professor Thomas Sowell (who studied under Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
For example, he defines "fascism" in this talk on "Obama's Failed Economic Policies" [5 min]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
You can invent a strawmen scenario about me, but you are arguing against Sowell, not me about these definitions.
Now I'm fairly intrested in where you got this information. I got my information from reading historically relevant documents and even talking to proponents of all thre ideaologies.
Thanks for your references. A good start I would suggest for you is Sowell's "Basic Economics" which is a complete classic.
Communism is a subsection of Socialism. There is no "state" in communism, along with no nations, no class, wealth,(some even say no recognition of gender, etc....).
Agree completely, Communism is a subsection of Socialism. That is why I found you using the definition of communism as the definition of socialism as rather odd, your "workers owning the means of production" is part of the definition of communism; socialism in general is, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", predating but popularised by Marx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... Depends whether you are talking about French Communism or Marxism-Leninism (which which case)
There has yet to be a communist society, but only "Socialist States run by Communists"
This statement shows you are a dangerous ideologue. You think that after a century of failure after failure after failure and tried in dozens of countries that somehow you will be able to "get it right". Of course, when your socialism comes apart at the seams (because it CANNOT work as it does not understand that wealth is created by individuals acting in their own interest which benefits all of society) you will end up first with propaganda, then repression, then oppression and then comes the tens of million of bodies - it is INEVITABLE unless some other external forces stops you crazy ideologues who refuse to Get Real and understand the World as it really is, rather than your ideological fantasy (which is a control-freak fantasy, where you are one of the "enlightened" and deserve to use force to control others "for their own good").
Um no, communism everything is shared evenly, not all socialists are communists.
I didn't say everything was shared evenly (you control freaks always take more than the common prole gets), I said that is was based on the ***idea*** that everything should be shared evenly. Without this idea it would become obvious that the non-voluntary forms of socialism are merely stealing by the politically empowered using the coercive force of the State to do so.
Voluntary forms of socialism are still based on the idea of equal contribution. On my World travels I visited an Israeli kibbutz and it was interesting to hear how they were counter-productive to one talented inhabitant. That inhabitant was a software developer and had a well-paying job outside their kibbutz. But their earnings were brought in to the kibbutz and given to those who were lazy. When this person was a young man and an idealist this didn't matter, but now
They are "jihadis", not "terrorists" (which is disinformation term designed to disguise the motivations they themselves state as their reason for acting).
With regard to you "hundred million" statement, you are wrong by nearly an order of magnitude. According to a 2012 Pew survey around 50% of the World's 1.6 Billion Muslims agree with one or more tenets of the barbaric Sharia:
"Ben Shapiro: The Myth of the Tiny Radical Muslim Minority " [6 mins 18 secs]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
With regard to your "bogeymen" statement, it appears you have not been paying attention at all. A significant fraction of the World's Muslims are working to subjugate the entire World under Islam (as Koran 9:29, the ahadith, etc says they must). They have been doing it for 1400 years and are not going to stop just because you decide you want to ignore it:
"Why We Are Afraid, A 1400 Year Secret, by Dr Bill Warner" [45 mins]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
I also suggest you learn about what was discovered about the so-called "moderate" Muslim Brotherhood during the "Holy Land Foundation Trial" in the US. Or what was learned about "The Project" in Switzerland. At the moment you are in the dark and speculating. They want you that way so you do not see what it coming until it is too late. The Caliphate in Syria and Iraq is just the start.
You'll learn much if you watch what MEMRITV has to say from the jihadis and Islamic societies themselves. Again, you are just projecting your own wishful thinking instead of looking at the objective facts laid out in what they say to each other.
With regard to Free Speech you are indeed making arguments that claim to support Free Speech while actually undermining it. Free Speech must be absolute or it is meaningless. Again, the powers that are moving our culture (Cultural Marxism and their petrodollar-wielding Islamic allies) want you to think that 'limited and reasonable Free Speech' is somehow Free Speech. It is not !
Here's Mark Steyn's analysis for you:
http://fullcomment.nationalpos...
One can be for Free Speech, or not. Why not admit to yourself that you are not. That you don't mind having Governments (or, via international bodies like the UN and its disgusting UN HRC 16/18, foreign Governments) dictate what you can write, say, joke about, sing about, criticize, mock, and think. You don't mind being a slave to totalitarians and Orwellian speech-codes are just peachy with you because " There is no Freedom of Speech, the Press, or even Life in Nature. ". You position is nonsense. We are all born free and are enslaved only by other men. I choose to fight the chains. You do not - which is your choice, but you should at least accept the truth that you don't mind being a slave and are advocating others agree with your position. Screw that!