Take a look at quarterly reports for Novell and Red Hat. Red Hat's sales are increasing more over-seas than they are here in the US, and they are pushing HARD in Europe and Asia.
I'm not trying to make this "us vs them". I like both companies, and I'm really thrilled that Novell picked up Ximian... I just hope that Ximian's dekstop smarts and SuSE's distribution are wielded correctly by Novell. I understand that Mono looks like a nice shiny thing to Novell, but they bought a world-class desktop vendor and they should take advantage of it with more moves like the HP laptop deal.
The REALLY big advantage there is that Red Hat has no interest in competing for that market.
I don't understand this attitude that a lot of people who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change seem to have
Ok, I'm taking that at face value, and assuming that you really don't get my position. I'll try to explain.
First off, I do not not believe in anthropogenic climate change. To say that I didn't believe in a theory would be as bad as to say that I don't believe in the wall street journal.
It's a real theory, and I accept that it has a basis in some very good science. I just don't agree that it's a foregone conclusion, and I think there's some very good science on the other side.
that a whole bunch of scientists just woke up one day and decided that humans were causing the Earth's temperature to increase
Not at all. What happened was that a theory was introduced to describe the climate of Venus... a bit of simple logic landed us in the unfortunate position of saying, "hey, aren't we increasing the levels of gasses that that theory suggests are causing Venus's high temperatures?"
Around the same time, we started to clue in to the fact that global temperatures were, in fact, rising.
Now, there were several points of debate:
1. Were temperatures rising (it now seems, yes) 2. Were we right about Venus (it now seems, mostly... we understand the greenhouse theory better now). 3. Were we right about our contribution to a Venus-like change here...
That last one is the sticky part for several reasons. First, lots of people fought very hard to get the idea that temperatures are rising and the mechanism of the greenhouse effect accepted. There was also a lot of press around those two points that was widely misunderstood.
So, we're in a situation where the media is jumping the gun saying "global warming has been proven" which is a bit misleading outside of appropriate circles. This leads to political responses in terms of directing funding (in some cases, un-directing it) and opening up an international dialog about a crisis... which we have yet to verify.
In that atmosphere, it's now very hard to start working on the hard problem: are humans the cause of the global temperature increase, or is this a natural process of warming (as it was 500-1000 years ago)?
To this day, that question is probably number three on the list of hot-buttons in US public policy, and we've certainly not reached a state of balanced consensus.
No, I don't think that anyone decided anything "one day". I think that from the day that we had solved the "is the Earth heating up" problem, we locked ourselves in to an answer to the followup question, and that's where legislators and the press really hosed us.
While both those statements are true, it's missing the point. SuSE is good for a lot more than "small and medium" businesses. Keep in mind, SuSE maintains a close relationship with IBM and has been first with ports for IBM mainframes, minis and the Power architecture, which are not exactly mom-and-pop systems.
Well, the mainframe might be a good niche for Novell, but I don't see it having a large impact. Most large organizations I've dealt with that have mainframes are looking to transition to Linux to get away from them, not to just switch OSes.
Really, I just don't see anyone even considering SuSE in the US, and from what I hear they're not even retaining European market share... Perhaps it will do well as an upgrade for Netware, but I don't see that impacting Red Hat sales any time soon.
This example is great. You suggest SuSE Enterprise server for options and price... heh, well you do get options and price, I'll grant....
On Novell's SuSE Enterprise 9 page they say that it will only cost you $35 for a single-CPU copy of SuSE Enterprise 9. Wow, nice deal, eh?
Then they give you a link for complete pricing. After you start to claw your eyes out, you'll find you're in a twisty maze of horrid excel files (no, really, worse than your average excel file by a LOT). Finally you get to pricing. Support is listed in the file,
on line 3488 (I can't make up stuff this silly, really), you will find the entry for "SUSE LINUX Server Support per Server". It's not clear which price is the one you pay, but it lists $900 and $1010.
So, you can get a shrink-wrapped box of free software for $35... and support is $900.
They do offer a "small business support" package for $3,800 and a 5-incidents pack for $1,900 as well (which might be more cost-effective).
For little companies that just want to buy a shrink-wrap box, and are never going to call for support SuSE is fine. For the enterprise, Red Hat is price and service competitive in the extreme.
Exactly, Red Hat is marketing Red Hat Enterprise Linux to the enterprise, not mom-and-pops or even the average 100-person company. They're aiming for the Fortune 500 (and international equivalents) and those companies who provide services to same.
This should come as no shock.
SuSE is a fine choice for the small and medium business customers.
Why would a republican congress and the president not want to fund research that says global warming is not going on?
Hi again, killjoe. Nice to hear from you.
First off, I don't think anyone in congress sits around saying, "let's cut off this guys funding so that that guy can remain undisputed." It's been a long, slow process, and this is only ONE field that it has affected.
Controversy is what's being avoided, not a particular point of view. If someone thinks that environmentalists are going to picket their next fundraiser because they funded a research group, there's no way in hell that research group is showing up on anything that congress person has to vote on.
In fact everytime anybody publishes a contrary book they become celebirties
I don't know of any celebrities who gained fame writing such books, but let's see what the current round of books on the topic are, shall we?
Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment The Carbon War: Global Warming and the End of the Oil Era Climate Change Policy: A Survey Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis--And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster
One of those books sounds (I only say this because it uses a conservative catch-phrase, "climate change", which I dispise as a thinly veild tool the likes of which George Orwell would be proud, much like "death tax" which is another term introduced by the same conservative strategist) like it might be speculating that global warming is not human induced.
The others, quite obviously from their titles, are in the opposite camp. These are the books that searching for "global warming" brought up on Amazon. Are you sure that one becomes a celebrity by publishing a book saying that global warming isn't happening, or are you confusing celebrity with constant outpourings of public scorn?
Thanks again for replying. I'm glad people are concerned. It's better than apathy by far.
"There are some facts which are undisputed in the scientific community"
I imagine you can start off just about any statement that way. I also cannot think of a single fact that I would put into that category. Even the most basic mathematical concepts are constantly assaulted.
1) The greenhouse effect exists. The presence of CO2* in the atmosphere makes the Earth hotter than it would otherwise be
You are correct in that is the prevailing view that the greenhouse theory is correct. You're also correct in your footnote that water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. You did fail to note that water is a FAR more effective greenhouse gas than CO2.
2) Human activity has greatly increased the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the last century or so.
This we don't know. I *think* (research needed) we have measurements to suggest that in the lower atmosphere that's fairly true. We don't have a good way to measure changes in water vapor into the past very accurately at all, however.
Global warming is taking place. Average temperatures have been raising in the last century or so.
Actually yes. You're quite correct.
This at the very least suggests that human activity is the primary cause of global warming
I disagree. First off, let me go over the current theory as I understand it. The party line right now is based on a few things:
1. The Sun's output is variable. 2. Volcanic CO2/H20 output is variable. 3. Various other natural sources vary.
This is why we had intense global warming 500 years ago (at least as bad as today), which wiped out a number of groups of humans and animals in Europe and Africa.
Now, plotted on a graph you can connect those two sources plus a bit of fudge for the third, "everything else" to global temperature records from ice cores taken in the arctic.
What current, human-induced, global warming theory says is that the plot goes off-track sometime in the mid 60s, and that proves that humans are to blame for the delta between pre-60s rates of warming and post-60s rates.
Ok, now getting back to my point. Let's talk about "everything else". This includes several factors:
Fires. Human activity has an impact here, so this might point to non-fossil fuel, human induced global warming.
The Sun. We have only sketchy data for the sun until fairly recently. Could our historical data not include some factors which have begun to increase only recently (i.e. factors that do not correlate to sunspot activity).
The oceans. We have absolutely no idea how and why evaporation changes over time, and yet water vapor is our single most significant greenhouse gas. Again, human induced global warming could be present here, but not as a result of fossil fuels. Then again, there could be vast changes to the climate that result simply from changes in currents and sea-floor vulcanism
These are just a few of the possible factors.
I think you'll find that, with any theory of climate the first thing to do is start with the Sun. After you understand the Sun's impact (hard) you move on to the oceans. After you understand the oceans (good luck) you move on to tiny factors like forests and volcanic activity. Then... and only then.. you move on to insignificant specs like humans.
There is (and always will be) room for disagreement, but to dismiss the best science available altogether as simple-minded bias is to misunderstand how science works.
I would, of course, agree with that. I also submit to you that I never did any such thing. I do think that the valuable data that we have is incomplete, and I don't think it's worth drawing conclusions from as such. Don't throw it away. Just add to it.
And such additions ARE happening, they're just happening very slowly. For example, the idea that the earth has been warming for at least 60 years and it has nothing to do with humans w
To be fair, I do reject the make-a-crisis theory. Most of the researchers I've known are fairly ethical... if they were not passionate about the science, most would have left for a quick buck elsewhere or they would be in much more lucrative fields (e.g. drug research).
No, I think it's the other way around. I think a lot of people feel they have to pick-and-choose research that won't put them in the position of having to publish scary results. God forbid they should make it through the peer review process and get published... then they might as well go get a better paying job because the only science they'll be allowed to do will be on the payroll of the companies who are biased the other way. There is just no such thing as neutral any more.
Look back at any great discovery and imagine if the answer that we came to were simply ruled out from day one. You'd find good scientists with very complelling evidence on the other side(s) of the debate. It's not like I think the people saying that human-induced global warming is real are crackpots or liars. They're good scientists doing good science. Hell, they might even be RIGHT... but we can't know that... at least not in the US. Perhaps if I knew some other country's scientific funding situation better I'd feel like I could trust their results.
How many were rejected from the peer review process which suggested or concluded otherwise? More to the point (and obviously, this cannot be known) how many were never submitted for peer review in the first place because of concern over the backlash?
Most US science funding in climate and solar research comes from the federal govt (in geological and oceanic research sizable amounts can come from private groups). When politicians don't want to look like they're anti-environment they screen funding to make sure it's not going to go to "enemies of the planet" (I kid you not, that's the phrase).
How can a survey of peer reviewed journals be a valid source of data when people are afraid to publish "the wrong results"?
Perhaps global warming is caused by adult white male toenail clippings, but I'm pretty sure we have no reasonable way of finding that out right now.
Actually, they describe it as being better than google because of the SuperTarget feature. This appears to be roughly the same as putting a "+" in front of a search term in your Google search, but Accoona has a GUI for it.
When I've heard Stern (which is rarely), I have heard things that I would agree meet the 3 criteria that the FCC uses.
Oprah fails to meet the third: in general, you can reasonably argue that there is a valid educational purpose in what she (or her guests in most cases) are discussing (e.g. the above quoted salad-tossing and rainbow party examples).
That's just my opinion, and I don't agree with banning things that match the 3 criterea anyway, but the FCC does seem to be following the rules that the law and they have cobbled together, which is more than you get from some US govt. institutions.
What I find confusing is that no one has clued in and started the 24 sex ed channel... it would be a HUGE hit, and the FCC would be powerless against it. Of course, there'd be a movement to get a law drawn up against it in about 25 minutes, but still... it'd be a cool hack;-)
You would get the same results with a Mac. He's not running into an OS limitation, but the limitations of using a generic flatbed scanner for slides. You just don't get useful results that way, regardless of the software (I've tried).
Correct. For quality results, you need a real slide scanner. They're much higher resolution and don't use any of the lame tricks that slide-adapters do.
I don't dislike google groups, or the user interface changes. I don't care about those in the least, as they're almost entirely eye candy.
I understand that.
Sorry, I thought I was being clear. I was agreeing with you, and further clarifying WHY I think people are responding the way they did (despite your well observed points).
HOWEVER, since my post, I've realized that it's not all good. Some of the tricks they're playing with JavaScript really suck for posting. For example, if you type up a huge post (I was replying to a question in comp.lang.perl.misc) and then submit it then checks to see if you've accepted the new terms of use. If you have not, it directs you to the accept page, and then back to a blank posting form. When you try to go "back" to your post, it's gone.
A few other elements of posting are broken in similar ways and need to be addressed. If I get time, I'll submit a more complete bug report directly to Google.
Folks at Google: remember the old song: JavaScript and a pig just don't mix.
It's just typical reactionary UI response. People see something that doesn't do what they expect in exactly the way they expect it, and they cry foul before looking into the advantages.
Things I see that are good:
1. More user-centric (highlighting names, etc.) rather than message centric. 2. The GMail style expando-headers makes for faster drilling down. 3. Much faster page loading (might just be new hardware).
The down-sides:
1. I think the tree mode is the more usable, and yet you have to click to get to it. Suggestion: make it the default (and add it to GMail). 2. Put the "original" link on the page by default, don't require 2 clicks to get to it. 3. It's still Usenet;-)
What's more: if you really don't like google groups, just stop using it. For pete's sake, you can just use trn or Mozilla or any of a dozen other clients to feed off your ISP. Google has no obligation to provide your favorite UI features to Usenet.
No, there are lots of things that the government is the domain expert on (or, more globally, that governments are the domain experts on). Open source projects are created to scratch an itch (at least the successful ones) and who better to scratch than the itchee.
This is not the way to do it, however.
The right way to go about letting government build open source software is to have a very small organization that approves projects (e.g. clearing a project as releasable and not a national security risk like missile guidance systems) and then another organization that does nothing but act as a repository for software (e.g. like Sourceforge).
This site could easily mutate into the latter, though right now it's pretty bad (about half of the links were broken, and the rest were just pages that collected and described the broken links).
Having some general guidelines for sharing code would make sense too. Not to tell people how they CAN'T share code, but rather to make government agencies feel more free to actually start sharing code and using code from other agencies.
Nope, I was wrong. I was aware it had won emmys and that it had had three seasons, but upon doing some research, most of the second two seasons seem to be a mix of MoWs, unaired first-season episodes and a few new ones.
What little I saw of it was quite good though. Too bad people couldn't get over "but it's not Ford"itis.
Welcome to the obligatory MySQL flame that must be attached to all database-related postings.
Any second now, the parent is going to be modded down, right? Everything noted in the parent is well documented functionality in MySQL, which takes the approach of not generating application-breaking exceptions, and allowing you to split of data validation as either a pre-processing step or a more macroscopic endevor.
You may not like this approach. If you don't, then don't use MySQL. There are lots of other (very good) choices. Slashdot doesn't need your redundant and off-topic flames.
Mods, please start swinging that clue-bat.
Re:I will help YOU get a JOB! (Programming puzzles
on
Programming Puzzles
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· Score: 3, Interesting
ITA Software also has some great puzzles related to employment.
Don't tell me, tell Nova and the scientist who was doing the emissions testing. Their test seemed quite reasonable to me, and their measurements seemed conclusive. The episode in question was, "Fire Wars".
"Of course this can only mean that all peer reviewed is wrong, or at least none of it can be trusted to be right."
Hyperbole much?
No, of course I did not say, nor intend that.
What I did say and intend to convey is that we cannot rely on peer review to provide unbiased results, only LESS BIASED than they would be by default.
I do not claim that the scientific community would be any better off without peer review (others have, and I leave this bean in their pockets, as I have no educated opinion on the alternatives).
In other words: be a critical thinker, and never let any process or organization make you think that you no longer NEED to think.
"Since we can not trust any methodology which is not 100% perfect we can go on believing in whatever we want."
Now you've created your second level of straw man.
"We can safely ignore all science and scientists and just open up the bible or listen to Rush Limbaugh."
I'm a bit tired, and it's been a long week. Pardon me if I'm getting gruf. No offense intended. I started off the week by spending my birthday in the emergency room, so I may not be at my conversational best;-)
RDBMSs also have features that insure referential integrity, not just that you can do a JOIN... i.e. you can't insert that record because the value you have for fForKey is not in the set of values that exist in KeyTable.fPriKey. Similarly, you can't delete the record in KeyTable because a record in OtherTable still contains a reference to the record in KeyTable.
I understand that that's the myth that that's been floated on Slashdot for 3 years running. I want you to understand that I understand that.
Now, listen to me: that's not what an RDBMS is. It's just not.
Almost all of the existing ones out there DO do these things, but to say that, "you chose not to so you're not an RDBMS," makes no sense. These are design choices you make AFTER you decide to write an RDBMS, not criteria for determining if something is or is not an RDBMS.
This subtle rhetorical trick has been played on you because it works. It makes you think, "hey, if it's not an RDBMS then why are people using it like one?! They're using a toy as an RDBMS!" when in reality nothing could be further from the truth. Is MySQL limited? Sure, in some places it is. Is that bad? Ask the folks who started using Linux in 1998. Linux had a great deal going for it at the time, but it didn't have a journaling filesystem (AIX and Irix did). It didn't have decent multiprocessor support, and was unable to run on >2 processors (Solaris, AIX and Irix did not have this problem). It had a really bad NFS implementation (Solaris and BSD did not). And yet an entire industry was built, mostly on the back of this thing that many at the time were saying, "isn't really an OS." or "Isn't an 'enterprise class' OS."
"Also, as I said before and you affirmed"
You go on to make a fiarly long and winding statement, most of which I did not "affirm". Not sure which part of it you thought I was in agreement with, but suffice to say it's not a very big chunk.
"MySQL does do a great job for certain types of applications [...] people use it to address problems that the lack of support in MySQL may cause issues [...] It's not that you can't make the same mistakes in other RDBMSs [...people] recommend the wrong tools for the wrong job while posing as experts"
I just can't make sense of most of that paragraph, but it sounds like you're saying, "consultants who do their job poorly can cause the products that they specify to look bad, and when those products are open source that can extend to the entire OSS world."
If that's an accurate paraphrase, then I agree. I do not, however, see how that has much to do with what we've been discussing. I could, for example, specify a general purpose Linux system as a fileserver. Someone else then comes along and points out that a hardware fileserver like a NetApp or EMC would have been faster, more reliable and more scalable. I would have to grudgingly agree, and my specfication would reflect poorly on Linux. This does not mean that Linux is bad (it's a great technical or development desktop, application or utility server, etc), it just means that I should not have specified it in a place where it was ill suited.
Slashdot Mirror
Take a look at quarterly reports for Novell and Red Hat. Red Hat's sales are increasing more over-seas than they are here in the US, and they are pushing HARD in Europe and Asia.
I'm not trying to make this "us vs them". I like both companies, and I'm really thrilled that Novell picked up Ximian... I just hope that Ximian's dekstop smarts and SuSE's distribution are wielded correctly by Novell. I understand that Mono looks like a nice shiny thing to Novell, but they bought a world-class desktop vendor and they should take advantage of it with more moves like the HP laptop deal.
The REALLY big advantage there is that Red Hat has no interest in competing for that market.
I don't understand this attitude that a lot of people who don't believe in anthropogenic climate change seem to have
Ok, I'm taking that at face value, and assuming that you really don't get my position. I'll try to explain.
First off, I do not not believe in anthropogenic climate change. To say that I didn't believe in a theory would be as bad as to say that I don't believe in the wall street journal.
It's a real theory, and I accept that it has a basis in some very good science. I just don't agree that it's a foregone conclusion, and I think there's some very good science on the other side.
that a whole bunch of scientists just woke up one day and decided that humans were causing the Earth's temperature to increase
Not at all. What happened was that a theory was introduced to describe the climate of Venus... a bit of simple logic landed us in the unfortunate position of saying, "hey, aren't we increasing the levels of gasses that that theory suggests are causing Venus's high temperatures?"
Around the same time, we started to clue in to the fact that global temperatures were, in fact, rising.
Now, there were several points of debate:
1. Were temperatures rising (it now seems, yes)
2. Were we right about Venus (it now seems, mostly... we understand the greenhouse theory better now).
3. Were we right about our contribution to a Venus-like change here...
That last one is the sticky part for several reasons. First, lots of people fought very hard to get the idea that temperatures are rising and the mechanism of the greenhouse effect accepted. There was also a lot of press around those two points that was widely misunderstood.
So, we're in a situation where the media is jumping the gun saying "global warming has been proven" which is a bit misleading outside of appropriate circles. This leads to political responses in terms of directing funding (in some cases, un-directing it) and opening up an international dialog about a crisis... which we have yet to verify.
In that atmosphere, it's now very hard to start working on the hard problem: are humans the cause of the global temperature increase, or is this a natural process of warming (as it was 500-1000 years ago)?
To this day, that question is probably number three on the list of hot-buttons in US public policy, and we've certainly not reached a state of balanced consensus.
No, I don't think that anyone decided anything "one day". I think that from the day that we had solved the "is the Earth heating up" problem, we locked ourselves in to an answer to the followup question, and that's where legislators and the press really hosed us.
Really, I just don't see anyone even considering SuSE in the US, and from what I hear they're not even retaining European market share... Perhaps it will do well as an upgrade for Netware, but I don't see that impacting Red Hat sales any time soon.
On Novell's SuSE Enterprise 9 page they say that it will only cost you $35 for a single-CPU copy of SuSE Enterprise 9. Wow, nice deal, eh?
Then they give you a link for complete pricing. After you start to claw your eyes out, you'll find you're in a twisty maze of horrid excel files (no, really, worse than your average excel file by a LOT). Finally you get to pricing. Support is listed in the file, on line 3488 (I can't make up stuff this silly, really), you will find the entry for "SUSE LINUX Server Support per Server". It's not clear which price is the one you pay, but it lists $900 and $1010.
So, you can get a shrink-wrapped box of free software for $35... and support is $900.
They do offer a "small business support" package for $3,800 and a 5-incidents pack for $1,900 as well (which might be more cost-effective).
For little companies that just want to buy a shrink-wrap box, and are never going to call for support SuSE is fine. For the enterprise, Red Hat is price and service competitive in the extreme.
Exactly, Red Hat is marketing Red Hat Enterprise Linux to the enterprise, not mom-and-pops or even the average 100-person company. They're aiming for the Fortune 500 (and international equivalents) and those companies who provide services to same.
This should come as no shock.
SuSE is a fine choice for the small and medium business customers.
Why would a republican congress and the president not want to fund research that says global warming is not going on?
Hi again, killjoe. Nice to hear from you.
First off, I don't think anyone in congress sits around saying, "let's cut off this guys funding so that that guy can remain undisputed." It's been a long, slow process, and this is only ONE field that it has affected.
Controversy is what's being avoided, not a particular point of view. If someone thinks that environmentalists are going to picket their next fundraiser because they funded a research group, there's no way in hell that research group is showing up on anything that congress person has to vote on.
In fact everytime anybody publishes a contrary book they become celebirties
I don't know of any celebrities who gained fame writing such books, but let's see what the current round of books on the topic are, shall we?
Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment
The Carbon War: Global Warming and the End of the Oil Era
Climate Change Policy: A Survey
Boiling Point: How Politicians, Big Oil and Coal, Journalists and Activists Are Fueling the Climate Crisis--And What We Can Do to Avert Disaster
One of those books sounds (I only say this because it uses a conservative catch-phrase, "climate change", which I dispise as a thinly veild tool the likes of which George Orwell would be proud, much like "death tax" which is another term introduced by the same conservative strategist) like it might be speculating that global warming is not human induced.
The others, quite obviously from their titles, are in the opposite camp. These are the books that searching for "global warming" brought up on Amazon. Are you sure that one becomes a celebrity by publishing a book saying that global warming isn't happening, or are you confusing celebrity with constant outpourings of public scorn?
Thanks again for replying. I'm glad people are concerned. It's better than apathy by far.
I imagine you can start off just about any statement that way. I also cannot think of a single fact that I would put into that category. Even the most basic mathematical concepts are constantly assaulted.
1) The greenhouse effect exists. The presence of CO2* in the atmosphere makes the Earth hotter than it would otherwise be
You are correct in that is the prevailing view that the greenhouse theory is correct. You're also correct in your footnote that water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. You did fail to note that water is a FAR more effective greenhouse gas than CO2.
2) Human activity has greatly increased the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the last century or so.
This we don't know. I *think* (research needed) we have measurements to suggest that in the lower atmosphere that's fairly true. We don't have a good way to measure changes in water vapor into the past very accurately at all, however.
Global warming is taking place. Average temperatures have been raising in the last century or so.
Actually yes. You're quite correct.
This at the very least suggests that human activity is the primary cause of global warming
I disagree. First off, let me go over the current theory as I understand it. The party line right now is based on a few things:
1. The Sun's output is variable.
2. Volcanic CO2/H20 output is variable.
3. Various other natural sources vary.
This is why we had intense global warming 500 years ago (at least as bad as today), which wiped out a number of groups of humans and animals in Europe and Africa.
Now, plotted on a graph you can connect those two sources plus a bit of fudge for the third, "everything else" to global temperature records from ice cores taken in the arctic.
What current, human-induced, global warming theory says is that the plot goes off-track sometime in the mid 60s, and that proves that humans are to blame for the delta between pre-60s rates of warming and post-60s rates.
Ok, now getting back to my point. Let's talk about "everything else". This includes several factors:
These are just a few of the possible factors.
I think you'll find that, with any theory of climate the first thing to do is start with the Sun. After you understand the Sun's impact (hard) you move on to the oceans. After you understand the oceans (good luck) you move on to tiny factors like forests and volcanic activity. Then... and only then.. you move on to insignificant specs like humans.
There is (and always will be) room for disagreement, but to dismiss the best science available altogether as simple-minded bias is to misunderstand how science works.
I would, of course, agree with that. I also submit to you that I never did any such thing. I do think that the valuable data that we have is incomplete, and I don't think it's worth drawing conclusions from as such. Don't throw it away. Just add to it.
And such additions ARE happening, they're just happening very slowly. For example, the idea that the earth has been warming for at least 60 years and it has nothing to do with humans w
To be fair, I do reject the make-a-crisis theory. Most of the researchers I've known are fairly ethical... if they were not passionate about the science, most would have left for a quick buck elsewhere or they would be in much more lucrative fields (e.g. drug research).
No, I think it's the other way around. I think a lot of people feel they have to pick-and-choose research that won't put them in the position of having to publish scary results. God forbid they should make it through the peer review process and get published... then they might as well go get a better paying job because the only science they'll be allowed to do will be on the payroll of the companies who are biased the other way. There is just no such thing as neutral any more.
Look back at any great discovery and imagine if the answer that we came to were simply ruled out from day one. You'd find good scientists with very complelling evidence on the other side(s) of the debate. It's not like I think the people saying that human-induced global warming is real are crackpots or liars. They're good scientists doing good science. Hell, they might even be RIGHT... but we can't know that... at least not in the US. Perhaps if I knew some other country's scientific funding situation better I'd feel like I could trust their results.
How many were rejected from the peer review process which suggested or concluded otherwise? More to the point (and obviously, this cannot be known) how many were never submitted for peer review in the first place because of concern over the backlash?
Most US science funding in climate and solar research comes from the federal govt (in geological and oceanic research sizable amounts can come from private groups). When politicians don't want to look like they're anti-environment they screen funding to make sure it's not going to go to "enemies of the planet" (I kid you not, that's the phrase).
How can a survey of peer reviewed journals be a valid source of data when people are afraid to publish "the wrong results"?
Perhaps global warming is caused by adult white male toenail clippings, but I'm pretty sure we have no reasonable way of finding that out right now.
Actually, they describe it as being better than google because of the SuperTarget feature. This appears to be roughly the same as putting a "+" in front of a search term in your Google search, but Accoona has a GUI for it.
"LinVDR [...] PC [...] DVB [...] PVR [...] MB [...] CD [...] MPEG [...] DVD"
;-)
Ding! We have an acronym winner!
Oh, and by the way, Slashdot's caps filter is annoying... I have to type random noise like this just to get the darn thing to post!
When I've heard Stern (which is rarely), I have heard things that I would agree meet the 3 criteria that the FCC uses.
;-)
Oprah fails to meet the third: in general, you can reasonably argue that there is a valid educational purpose in what she (or her guests in most cases) are discussing (e.g. the above quoted salad-tossing and rainbow party examples).
That's just my opinion, and I don't agree with banning things that match the 3 criterea anyway, but the FCC does seem to be following the rules that the law and they have cobbled together, which is more than you get from some US govt. institutions.
What I find confusing is that no one has clued in and started the 24 sex ed channel... it would be a HUGE hit, and the FCC would be powerless against it. Of course, there'd be a movement to get a law drawn up against it in about 25 minutes, but still... it'd be a cool hack
You would get the same results with a Mac. He's not running into an OS limitation, but the limitations of using a generic flatbed scanner for slides. You just don't get useful results that way, regardless of the software (I've tried).
Correct. For quality results, you need a real slide scanner. They're much higher resolution and don't use any of the lame tricks that slide-adapters do.
I don't dislike google groups, or the user interface changes. I don't care about those in the least, as they're almost entirely eye candy.
I understand that.
Sorry, I thought I was being clear. I was agreeing with you, and further clarifying WHY I think people are responding the way they did (despite your well observed points).
HOWEVER, since my post, I've realized that it's not all good. Some of the tricks they're playing with JavaScript really suck for posting. For example, if you type up a huge post (I was replying to a question in comp.lang.perl.misc) and then submit it then checks to see if you've accepted the new terms of use. If you have not, it directs you to the accept page, and then back to a blank posting form. When you try to go "back" to your post, it's gone.
A few other elements of posting are broken in similar ways and need to be addressed. If I get time, I'll submit a more complete bug report directly to Google.
Folks at Google: remember the old song: JavaScript and a pig just don't mix.
It's just typical reactionary UI response. People see something that doesn't do what they expect in exactly the way they expect it, and they cry foul before looking into the advantages.
;-)
Things I see that are good:
1. More user-centric (highlighting names, etc.) rather than message centric.
2. The GMail style expando-headers makes for faster drilling down.
3. Much faster page loading (might just be new hardware).
The down-sides:
1. I think the tree mode is the more usable, and yet you have to click to get to it. Suggestion: make it the default (and add it to GMail).
2. Put the "original" link on the page by default, don't require 2 clicks to get to it.
3. It's still Usenet
What's more: if you really don't like google groups, just stop using it. For pete's sake, you can just use trn or Mozilla or any of a dozen other clients to feed off your ISP. Google has no obligation to provide your favorite UI features to Usenet.
No, there are lots of things that the government is the domain expert on (or, more globally, that governments are the domain experts on). Open source projects are created to scratch an itch (at least the successful ones) and who better to scratch than the itchee.
This is not the way to do it, however.
The right way to go about letting government build open source software is to have a very small organization that approves projects (e.g. clearing a project as releasable and not a national security risk like missile guidance systems) and then another organization that does nothing but act as a repository for software (e.g. like Sourceforge).
This site could easily mutate into the latter, though right now it's pretty bad (about half of the links were broken, and the rest were just pages that collected and described the broken links).
Having some general guidelines for sharing code would make sense too. Not to tell people how they CAN'T share code, but rather to make government agencies feel more free to actually start sharing code and using code from other agencies.
Nope, I was wrong. I was aware it had won emmys and that it had had three seasons, but upon doing some research, most of the second two seasons seem to be a mix of MoWs, unaired first-season episodes and a few new ones.
What little I saw of it was quite good though. Too bad people couldn't get over "but it's not Ford"itis.
"Didn't they learn their lesson the first time when they released "Young Indiana Jones"."
Of course they did. You do realize that that was a highly successful series, right?
Welcome to the obligatory MySQL flame that must be attached to all database-related postings.
Any second now, the parent is going to be modded down, right? Everything noted in the parent is well documented functionality in MySQL, which takes the approach of not generating application-breaking exceptions, and allowing you to split of data validation as either a pre-processing step or a more macroscopic endevor.
You may not like this approach. If you don't, then don't use MySQL. There are lots of other (very good) choices. Slashdot doesn't need your redundant and off-topic flames.
Mods, please start swinging that clue-bat.
ITA Software also has some great puzzles related to employment.
Most of what I said still holds.
Take care and good luck with whatever RDBMS you choose. Personally, I try to touch them as little as possible these days.
Don't tell me, tell Nova and the scientist who was doing the emissions testing. Their test seemed quite reasonable to me, and their measurements seemed conclusive. The episode in question was, "Fire Wars".
"Of course this can only mean that all peer reviewed is wrong, or at least none of it can be trusted to be right."
;-)
Hyperbole much?
No, of course I did not say, nor intend that.
What I did say and intend to convey is that we cannot rely on peer review to provide unbiased results, only LESS BIASED than they would be by default.
I do not claim that the scientific community would be any better off without peer review (others have, and I leave this bean in their pockets, as I have no educated opinion on the alternatives).
In other words: be a critical thinker, and never let any process or organization make you think that you no longer NEED to think.
"Since we can not trust any methodology which is not 100% perfect we can go on believing in whatever we want."
Now you've created your second level of straw man.
"We can safely ignore all science and scientists and just open up the bible or listen to Rush Limbaugh."
Or "Nature"
I'm a bit tired, and it's been a long week. Pardon me if I'm getting gruf. No offense intended. I started off the week by spending my birthday in the emergency room, so I may not be at my conversational best ;-)
RDBMSs also have features that insure referential integrity, not just that you can do a JOIN... i.e. you can't insert that record because the value you have for fForKey is not in the set of values that exist in KeyTable.fPriKey. Similarly, you can't delete the record in KeyTable because a record in OtherTable still contains a reference to the record in KeyTable.
I understand that that's the myth that that's been floated on Slashdot for 3 years running. I want you to understand that I understand that.
Now, listen to me: that's not what an RDBMS is. It's just not.
Almost all of the existing ones out there DO do these things, but to say that, "you chose not to so you're not an RDBMS," makes no sense. These are design choices you make AFTER you decide to write an RDBMS, not criteria for determining if something is or is not an RDBMS.
This subtle rhetorical trick has been played on you because it works. It makes you think, "hey, if it's not an RDBMS then why are people using it like one?! They're using a toy as an RDBMS!" when in reality nothing could be further from the truth. Is MySQL limited? Sure, in some places it is. Is that bad? Ask the folks who started using Linux in 1998. Linux had a great deal going for it at the time, but it didn't have a journaling filesystem (AIX and Irix did). It didn't have decent multiprocessor support, and was unable to run on >2 processors (Solaris, AIX and Irix did not have this problem). It had a really bad NFS implementation (Solaris and BSD did not). And yet an entire industry was built, mostly on the back of this thing that many at the time were saying, "isn't really an OS." or "Isn't an 'enterprise class' OS."
"Also, as I said before and you affirmed"
You go on to make a fiarly long and winding statement, most of which I did not "affirm". Not sure which part of it you thought I was in agreement with, but suffice to say it's not a very big chunk.
"MySQL does do a great job for certain types of applications [...] people use it to address problems that the lack of support in MySQL may cause issues [...] It's not that you can't make the same mistakes in other RDBMSs [...people] recommend the wrong tools for the wrong job while posing as experts"
I just can't make sense of most of that paragraph, but it sounds like you're saying, "consultants who do their job poorly can cause the products that they specify to look bad, and when those products are open source that can extend to the entire OSS world."
If that's an accurate paraphrase, then I agree. I do not, however, see how that has much to do with what we've been discussing. I could, for example, specify a general purpose Linux system as a fileserver. Someone else then comes along and points out that a hardware fileserver like a NetApp or EMC would have been faster, more reliable and more scalable. I would have to grudgingly agree, and my specfication would reflect poorly on Linux. This does not mean that Linux is bad (it's a great technical or development desktop, application or utility server, etc), it just means that I should not have specified it in a place where it was ill suited.