This is NOT how government-funded science operates, at all.
Many scientists whose research is funded by the government are in no danger of losing funding if any particular piece of research they are working on turns up null results. Yes, specific project funding may end, assuming that's the kind of funding they're working from (hint: most government funding is broad-based), but they're not in any danger of being out on the streets if they don't show positive results.
This effect is less apparent in the physical sciences (yes, there are unexplained anomalies in physical sciences, too, but they are much fewer and farther between than the philosophical sciences). Physical experiments are much easier to replicate and are replicated repeatedly, especially in the classroom.
Seriously, I had to check which site I was on when I started reading that article.
If the FCC was as evil as it is painted in that article, BBSs would never have come into existence. Instead, FCC regulation ENABLED BBSs to exist, and at a level that could be afforded by most anyone.
There is also precedent for private action being much more harmful than expected.
1) Standard Oil cartel price-fixing 2) Ma Bell before the breakup (pretty much a government-backed, yet *private* monopoly -- very similar to many ISPs in the US right now). 3) The entire broadband industry in the 90s, taking hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money, mandated to deliver state-of-the-art broadband across the US, but instead giving us ISDN and DSL. 4) Microsoft monopoly. Whether you consider the merits of the "browser wars" worthy, the fact is that they have abused their position with control of the OS to drive competing application producers out of the market.
The question boils down to which is the lesser of two evils. At least with the government, there is someone charged with caring about the consumer. In industry, there are no consumer advocates.
You would help your argument if you actually knew what the law said. If your income is so low that you normally don't pay taxes anyway ($0 qualifies here, btw), then you will be exempt from the mandate "penalty".
I know it is a challenge to many people who let their emotions run their lives instead of reason, but learn how the law actually works before condemning it.
The exceptions to the rule include people without coverage for less than 90 days, American Indians, people in prison and Americans living outside the United States. Others who are exempt include people who don’t file taxes because their income is too low and those for whom the least expensive plan costs more than 8 percent of their income in 2014. The secretary of Health and Human Services also has authority to grant exemptions if buying insurance violates an individual’s religious beliefs or would pose an economic hardship. Criteria for the religious exemption has not yet been established, and a Treasury spokeswoman said no religious groups have received exemptions.
No, you still have the choice on whether to buy health insurance or not. The difference is that, if you don't, you don't get to keep as much of your income because, most likely, you'll be taking advantage of the government for it when you have serious healthcare needs, since you won't have private insurance.
In other words, if you DON'T maintain health insurance, what happens when you are diagnosed with cancer, and the treatment options run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars? Can you and/or your family afford that? If not, likely the government will end up paying for it after you've exhausted all your savings, and have sold everything but the bathtub to pay for what you can. Then, since you are indigent, you will qualify for indigent care. Who pays for that? Taxpayers. If it isn't funded, then it is paid for by the government printing more money, which means your (and everyone else's) kids will be paying MUCH more for it later.
If you truly want to "celebrate liberty" when it comes to issues of social welfare, then when you find yourself in a pinch, refuse all forms of social help outside your means. In the case where you find out that you have a terminal disease, don't get any more treatment than you can afford, and just suck it up when the piper comes along to collect on your bill.
Would it make you feel better if they simply added a universal tax increase, and then offered everyone who maintained a healthcare plan a tax rebate or healthy (heh) tax deduction, even though it would amount to the same thing mathematically?
Besides, I never expected the law to be "done", even if it passed. It will be amended to death over the next few years, and likely we will see the return of the public option. After all, those who opt out of private plans should get something for their tax money paid into the system.
Sure, anything is possible. However, the (literally endless) possibilities of what happened are not subject to debate. What is probable IS subject to debate.
Then it simply comes down to what is more probable. Is it more probable that Assange is a scumbag that committed a sex crime, or that the supposed victims are scumbags trying to take him down for whatever reason? Only an objective look at some of the facts surrounding the case is going to lend probability to either theory.
1) What is Assange's criminal background? Does anything in his history indicate a pattern of abuse? People don't just become rapists overnight; usually, there are a number of factors 2) What, specifically, is he accused of? Is the law itself sound and reasonable? "Sex by surprise" and "unexpected sex" sound pretty strange, especially since they are differentiated from "rape" by Swedish law. 3) Why would Assange, who was forewarned of the potential to be ensnared by some kind of sex (or other) scandal, blithely exhibit such behavior? 4) What motivations would the women have to bear false witness? Quite a few, actually. Fame/notoriety chief among them. Were they indeed recruited to do so, or did they have their own axe to grind with Assange? 5) Did the women, as reported, brag about their "conquest" of bedding Assange after-the-fact?
The "seeking to obtain/exercise power over another" excuse can work both ways.
As it stands, Assange has a LOT more to lose than both of those women, and they have/had everything to gain, no matter which way it goes. As such, I think the probability that this is some kind of fabricated smear (for whatever reason) is significantly higher than the probability that Assange is a closet sex predator who lost his mind in some kind of "mad power rush".
If you want a single-player game, stay away from SC2.
No worries there; they couldn't PAY me enough to install that crap on my system.
On the other hand, the online multiplayer is a sensitive environment that needs to be protected.
Then they should have done their client/server homework and not created a steaming pile that is subject to EASY cracking.
For example, I paid $70 to play the game. You got matched to play against me, but instead of playing, you turned on your "instant win" hack. I cannot play the game any longer. Who will reimburse my $70 loss and another $100 for lost utility (having no comparable alternative)? Someone should sue the hacker for $170 * number of copies sold! Dragging the copyright in is wrong, but the copyright laws got so out of hand lately, so why not use them for just things as well, eh?
In a word: precedent. Once the courts give companies carte blanche to use copyright law in a way in which copyright law was NEVER meant to be used, to enforce contracts of adhesion, it will be open season on games, movies, music, etc. Want to play your movie after midnight? It's not in the EULA, so it is disabled. Crack it? Get sued for copyright infringement under this kind of precedent.
The typical argument in response to this goes something like: "But I would NEVER buy something with such a ridiculous EULA!" Do you read EVERY bit of EVERY EULA for EVERYthing you buy that has one? Somehow, I seriously doubt it. "well, once I find out, I will take it back to the store and get my money back!" Assuming a) you didn't already register it online, and b) the store accepts returns for registerware products, you still have the time, expense, and hassle of buying a pig in a poke, and then returning it back to the store, lesson learned.
If you are an expert security expert who knows how to stop hacks in their tracks by software design alone, why don't you offer "actiblizzard" your consulting services? You could make a bundle!
1) They couldn't afford me. 2) The security rules they violate are the most basic ones that ANYone with more than two brain cells to rub together can mitigate. The First Rule in client-server systems architecture is: NEVER TRUST THE FUCKING CLIENT, for it is in the hands of the INFIDELS!
I don't agree with ActiBlizzendi. If they wanted to make a MMO out of it, they should have gone ahead and done so. Making it a SP game with "tight online bindings" for both SP and MP is an engineering choice. The fact that people can hack the game on their own systems is precisely why that kind of design DOES NOT WORK.
So, basically ActiBlizzendi substitutes having a legal team for not having a development team that knows wtf they are doing. They don't innovate any more, they litigate, like the worst of the patent and copyright trolls out there.
This is why I haven't been a customer of theirs since D2, when they first showed this wholly depraved behavior in the bnetd case.
GUIs are perfectly fine for the jobs they are designed to handle, just as CLIs are perfectly fine for the jobs THEY are designed to handle. No one tool paradigm is overall better than the other in all (or even most) cases.
This is, of course, assuming that the tools in question of both paradigms are quality tools. You can most certainly have a PoS CLI tool, just like a PoS GUI tool.
If it's not in their paper, then it hasn't been checked... even if it has.
Except that it *IS* in their paper, and HAS been checked. Most people (including probably you) don't READ the damn paper and just make stupid assumptions about what is and is not in it.
In the specific case of what the gp poster said about tectonics affecting measurements, the papers and data observations SPECIFY the quality of measurements based on a number of Captain Obvious criteria, INCLUDING tectonics. Durrrrrrrr...
Because knowing a lot does not mean they know everything, and also does not mean that someone with limited knowledge can never ask a Good Question.
While that may be true, the vast majority of the time, the latter part is not the case. Asking the obvious without even bothering to READ the research, and just armchair quarterbacking completely invalidates your otherwise salient point.
A college degree does not a Scientist make. Nor is it a requisite. Some of the greatest scientists in history never attended any formal University.
As it turns out, many more scientists DO have college degrees than don't; the exceptions don't make the rule. Not everyone is or can be an Einstein. For most real people, the college route *IS* the best route for such, as very few have the discipline or capacity to "roll their own" science credentials.
The best way to learn, is to ask questions. It is, in fact, one of the fundamental portions of the Scientific process.
I never said people shouldn't ask questions; in fact, I have said quite the opposite. Challenge everything. Just make sure you put forth some real effort to ask meaningful questions beforehand.
In fact, if such questions bother you, I suggest a career in Religion; they welcome blind faith and discourage questions so it should be right up your ally.
Stupid, willfully uninformed questions bother me.Religion has nothing to do with anything I said, despite your misguided attempt to paint it as such.
The fallacy in your take on it is that scientists can study the effects of climate change for a large number of reasons not necessarily directly related to climate change. Many researchers are paid to study things like ice thickness in the arctic for reasons like transportation/shipping and even energy reserve accessibility. There is (now) a lot money to study climate change directly, but a great deal of the existing research came about long before that money was even planned for appropriation.
Not identifying all known causal sources for sea level change in a research paper is just stupid, and such papers should/would never pass peer review. The problem is not that they aren't in the papers; the problem is that lay people don't read the damn papers and make assumptions based on their a priori ignorance of the subject.
Sure scientists want to be paid; it's their career, after all. That said, the vast majority of them want to be paid for doing valid research, especially since having it revealed that they were paid to generate garbage research to suit their employers is pretty much a career-ending scenario...and, that said, there are a few "scientists" who DO make their careers out of being paid to generate "research" for their "patrons". Ones like Dr. Fred Singer, who has whored out his scientific credentials and "research" to the tobacco and oil companies for decades.
One other point I wanted to make is as I said in another reply below: don't listen to the goddamned media -- GO TO THE SOURCE(S) OF THE SCIENCE ITSELF! If you don't understand it, ASK someone who does that you trust to explain it to you, or learn enough of the science yourself to understand.
The thing is that good science has not really made such prognostications as claimed. As you say, it is the media's interpretation of the science that is at fault in the vast majority of those hyperbolic scenarios. You can even add pathological science items such as Polywater to that list, too, but I will point out that even Polywater was debunked thoroughly by the scientific method fairly quickly.
That's an important point that I make to a lot of people who decry the value of scientific research out-of-hand.
I ask them: Do you fly? If so, you are trusting your very LIFE on a consensus of scientific research on the subject of aerodynamics, let alone a mountain of research on materials science.
Unfortunately, the original comment direct from Nerem et al is in a paywalled scientific journal, but this blog entry posts a goodly bit of it, along with a bit of character attack on Mörner, but the evidence against him is pretty serious.
With respect to the original gp post, the PSMSL dataset "defined the following criteria for selecting records from the PSMSL which were long, reliable, and avoided large vertical geologic changes:"
1. Each record should be at least 60 years in length
2. Not be located at collisional plate boundaries
3. At least 80% complete
4. Show reasonable agreement at low frequencies with nearby gauges sampling the same water mass
5. Not be located in regions subject to large post-glacial rebound
So, yah, I think the scientists took into account the obvious issues asked about by the gp: "Is the sea level rising? Or are plate tectonics lowering the land level in relation to the sea?".
Need more? Or is that enough to keep you busy reading for a little while?
It's because science says one thing one day, and weeks later says the opposite. Also, scientists argue among themselves about what the conclusion should be.
Despite your hyperbole, the fact remains that science is never static. No one EVER gets it right on their first try. Many don't get it right on their 20th try. That's the WHOLE POINT of the scientific method and the research process. Science isn't about proving anything; proofs are exclusive only to mathematics and can be dubious even then. Instead, science is about DISproving things. Like in a crucible, irrelevancies, false observations, improper procedures, incorrect conclusions, etc are burned away, usually a bit at a time, to get a PURER product (note not a PURE product, simply a PURER product) that enhances our knowledge and understanding of the world. Ongoing falsification is at the core of the scientific method.
As such, sure, science says one thing one day, then some time later, IMPROVES upon that, either refining it via specificity, OR refutation, even. Unlike what most people understand about science, refutation is a GOOD thing -- it demonstrates that the scientific method is WORKING. No true scientist wants to cling to the wrong answers!
Sure, scientists argue about a lot of things; it is in their nature. However, just because they argue doesn't mean they ignore each others' established and (thus far) unfalsified research. Two scientists could argue vehemently all day long over the specificity of a nearly insignificant point in a pair of competing research studies which otherwise support each other. However, when you ask them about the general consensus of their respective research, they will fully admit to being in near total agreement.
Bottom line, journalism makes science look like a bunch of bumbling clowns because it can't summarize research correctly, and the scientists sometimes do a bad enough job themselves that they don't need help bungling the conclusion. I have this argument all the time with people who don't understand how the scientific method works, and the difference between internet news and peer-reviewed journals.
That's why I pretty much ignore what journalists and pundits say; I go STRAIGHT to the science/research itself. Hell, I still consider myself a skeptic of what scientists say about a lot of things, but if I don't have the knowledge/training and haven't done the research, I will give a scientist who does/has the benefit of a doubt until such time as I do have better information from a more reliable source, or from my own research into the subject.
As such, I (and others) would appreciate direct links to papers, rather than regurgitation of "talking points"-style articles in popular rags, which often cherry-pick and distort salient bits to suit the whims of the article author/editor/publisher. Hence:
Just like in the Thurner and Hanel paper recently published, I think that Dr. Ioannidis makes valid and important points in his observations. However, again, they are hypothetical in nature. He doesn't actually review or provide specific evidence for statistical analysis to support his contention that "Most Published Research Findings Are False". Again, that doesn't invalidate his contentions (at least directly), but it also does not indict any specific body of research in any meaningful way. In simpler words, you can't use that as a litmus to automatically disregard any particular research paper "just because Dr. Ioannidis said that 'Most Published Research Findings Are False', thus this paper's findings are false". That's being grossly disingenuous and not a little intellectually dishonest.
Finally, regarding gp post, you seem overly sensitive. I didn't read that as a "here's the obvious, maybe that explains it?" post. But maybe I give people more credit than they
Well, unlike the vast majority of/. readers/posters, I actually read the paper in question. It might be a good idea if you read it, too.
It describes a hypothetical case of how the peer review process can go wrong, but does not provide nor reference any evidence where it has gone wrong.
That isn't to say that the peer review process, as it currently exists in vivo, is flawless; however, the paper does not address the current stringent efforts made by the most distinguished groups of scientists (such as the AAAS and the NAS) and journals (like Nature and Science), to maintain as high a quality as presently possible.
That's not a flaw in the paper, but it is a flaw in people ignorantly attempting to use it in any way to discredit the peer review process as a whole. Yes, sure, some instances of peer review have failed miserably (take, for instance, the Soon and Baliunas Controversy / Climate Research Journal), and it will happen again. However, like the vast majority of science and the scientific method, it is simply (a small) part of the process to improving our knowledge and understanding of the natural world.
Personally, I laud such papers, as they only serve to improve the quality of science and the process of pursuing knowledge and understanding through it for the betterment of all.
I don't understand why people automatically assume that scientists who spend DECADES studying a particular phenomenon are totally blind to the Captain Obvious answers and don't bother to check them out as part of their research. In your job, do you ignore the bleedingly obvious, to the point of gross incompetence? Why do you automatically assume the same of other people who know a HELL OF A LOT MORE about a subject than you do?
Yes, sea levels are rising, measured in many places with and without local tectonic activity. Yes, scientists have checked against such obvious things and have filtered any such "noise" from them out of their findings.
If you want to challenge the findings of scientific research, get your arse out of that chair and back into college, then get out there and DO the research to prove them wrong. Failing that, I'll take the word of people who know wtf they are talking about over some anonymous coward on the intarwebs.
All talk, and no action. It doesn't matter what they said - it was five years ago and nothing has happened so what was the point of bringing that up?
It DOES matter what they say, because if they find it will increase their profits, they most certainly WILL do it. If they SAY it, it is that much more likely that they will DO it.
The point in bringing it up is that it illustrates the controlling mindset that the ISPs have, and that they are ACTIVELY considering how to go about making it happen. I would be MORE worried if they weren't saying it, though, because I *KNOW* they are making plans for it.
And you are saying Network Neutrality would make that happen? In fact it would not since they are blocking all VOIP traffic, so there's yet another REAL problem the regulation doesn't do anything about.
In fact, it most certainly would, since, as an ISP, they would be required not to interfere in legitimate IP traffic, INCLUDING VOIP. Now, if they want to charge YOU more for aggregate packet data usage as a result, that's perfectly fine. What they CAN'T do is charge you more for VOIP traffic, specifically.
Maybe what you see as network neutrality regulation is different from what I see it as, but I most certainly see it stopping these very kinds of abuses.
BTW I can do Skype from a 3G iPad or iPhone just fine, are those rules specific to some service?
Wait, which is it, you just said they are blocking ALL VOIP traffic, but now they aren't?
Right, but they do not serve you directly. If you cannot control how they go about performing that task they do not serve you. The mandate they have is distinct from who they serve - it's like a mission statement for a company that tells you what the goals are - it's the equivalent of Google's "Don't be evil".
They serve me a HELLUVA lot more directly than AT&T, Comcast, etc ever will. Their mandate is to serve the people, of which I am a concerned constituent that they actually do listen to, even if only in aggregate most of the time. The ISPs mandate is to server their bottom line. It is more than a simple "mission statement" from a company, who has NO incentive to follow it, heh, just like your example -- "Don't be evil" Google. They sure as hell haven't lived up to that motto, now have they?
Besides, how does "Don't be evil" even remotely mention serving "the people"? The fact that government agencies at least TRY to fulfill their missions and mandates (and have SIGNIFICANT incentive to do so) leads me to believe that they have a much better chance of doing a good job of righting the applecart than any corporation ever will.
And it's an excellent example of your dangerous level of naiveté.
Hardly. Your complete refusal to see of the dangers of corporate-only stewardship of the Internet betrays quite a depth of ignorance on your part.
As noted, not in ways Network Neutrality would have stopped. So it doesn't fix the only problem you can find.
We can play this game all day. It most certainly would have stopped it, and it isn't the only problem I have given. Nice try, though.:)
Another problem it doesn't fix. So what's the point of the regulation again?
It most certainly would have fixed it, as that is the POINT of network neutrality. Go back and read the goddamn mandate of the FCC again.. here.. allow me:
"ensure that the American people have available, at reasonable costs and without discrimination, rapid, efficient, Nation- and world-wide communication services; whether by radio, television, wire, satellite, or cable"
What part of "without discrimination" do you not understand? Blocking VOIP over wireless is discrimination of the kind which should not be allowed.
I see little need to respond to anything else you wrote
Slashdot Mirror
This is NOT how government-funded science operates, at all.
Many scientists whose research is funded by the government are in no danger of losing funding if any particular piece of research they are working on turns up null results. Yes, specific project funding may end, assuming that's the kind of funding they're working from (hint: most government funding is broad-based), but they're not in any danger of being out on the streets if they don't show positive results.
This effect is less apparent in the physical sciences (yes, there are unexplained anomalies in physical sciences, too, but they are much fewer and farther between than the philosophical sciences). Physical experiments are much easier to replicate and are replicated repeatedly, especially in the classroom.
Seriously, I had to check which site I was on when I started reading that article.
If the FCC was as evil as it is painted in that article, BBSs would never have come into existence. Instead, FCC regulation ENABLED BBSs to exist, and at a level that could be afforded by most anyone.
There is also precedent for private action being much more harmful than expected.
1) Standard Oil cartel price-fixing
2) Ma Bell before the breakup (pretty much a government-backed, yet *private* monopoly -- very similar to many ISPs in the US right now).
3) The entire broadband industry in the 90s, taking hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money, mandated to deliver state-of-the-art broadband across the US, but instead giving us ISDN and DSL.
4) Microsoft monopoly. Whether you consider the merits of the "browser wars" worthy, the fact is that they have abused their position with control of the OS to drive competing application producers out of the market.
The question boils down to which is the lesser of two evils. At least with the government, there is someone charged with caring about the consumer. In industry, there are no consumer advocates.
You would help your argument if you actually knew what the law said. If your income is so low that you normally don't pay taxes anyway ($0 qualifies here, btw), then you will be exempt from the mandate "penalty".
I know it is a challenge to many people who let their emotions run their lives instead of reason, but learn how the law actually works before condemning it.
AARP Bulletin - Health Care Reform Explained:
Who is exempted from the requirement?
The exceptions to the rule include people without coverage for less than 90 days, American Indians, people in prison and Americans living outside the United States. Others who are exempt include people who don’t file taxes because their income is too low and those for whom the least expensive plan costs more than 8 percent of their income in 2014. The secretary of Health and Human Services also has authority to grant exemptions if buying insurance violates an individual’s religious beliefs or would pose an economic hardship. Criteria for the religious exemption has not yet been established, and a Treasury spokeswoman said no religious groups have received exemptions.
No, you still have the choice on whether to buy health insurance or not. The difference is that, if you don't, you don't get to keep as much of your income because, most likely, you'll be taking advantage of the government for it when you have serious healthcare needs, since you won't have private insurance.
In other words, if you DON'T maintain health insurance, what happens when you are diagnosed with cancer, and the treatment options run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars? Can you and/or your family afford that? If not, likely the government will end up paying for it after you've exhausted all your savings, and have sold everything but the bathtub to pay for what you can. Then, since you are indigent, you will qualify for indigent care. Who pays for that? Taxpayers. If it isn't funded, then it is paid for by the government printing more money, which means your (and everyone else's) kids will be paying MUCH more for it later.
If you truly want to "celebrate liberty" when it comes to issues of social welfare, then when you find yourself in a pinch, refuse all forms of social help outside your means. In the case where you find out that you have a terminal disease, don't get any more treatment than you can afford, and just suck it up when the piper comes along to collect on your bill.
Would it make you feel better if they simply added a universal tax increase, and then offered everyone who maintained a healthcare plan a tax rebate or healthy (heh) tax deduction, even though it would amount to the same thing mathematically?
Besides, I never expected the law to be "done", even if it passed. It will be amended to death over the next few years, and likely we will see the return of the public option. After all, those who opt out of private plans should get something for their tax money paid into the system.
..or Attorney General. Oh, wait..
Sure, anything is possible. However, the (literally endless) possibilities of what happened are not subject to debate. What is probable IS subject to debate.
Then it simply comes down to what is more probable. Is it more probable that Assange is a scumbag that committed a sex crime, or that the supposed victims are scumbags trying to take him down for whatever reason? Only an objective look at some of the facts surrounding the case is going to lend probability to either theory.
1) What is Assange's criminal background? Does anything in his history indicate a pattern of abuse? People don't just become rapists overnight; usually, there are a number of factors
2) What, specifically, is he accused of? Is the law itself sound and reasonable? "Sex by surprise" and "unexpected sex" sound pretty strange, especially since they are differentiated from "rape" by Swedish law.
3) Why would Assange, who was forewarned of the potential to be ensnared by some kind of sex (or other) scandal, blithely exhibit such behavior?
4) What motivations would the women have to bear false witness? Quite a few, actually. Fame/notoriety chief among them. Were they indeed recruited to do so, or did they have their own axe to grind with Assange?
5) Did the women, as reported, brag about their "conquest" of bedding Assange after-the-fact?
The "seeking to obtain/exercise power over another" excuse can work both ways.
As it stands, Assange has a LOT more to lose than both of those women, and they have/had everything to gain, no matter which way it goes. As such, I think the probability that this is some kind of fabricated smear (for whatever reason) is significantly higher than the probability that Assange is a closet sex predator who lost his mind in some kind of "mad power rush".
If you want a single-player game, stay away from SC2.
No worries there; they couldn't PAY me enough to install that crap on my system.
On the other hand, the online multiplayer is a sensitive environment that needs to be protected.
Then they should have done their client/server homework and not created a steaming pile that is subject to EASY cracking.
For example, I paid $70 to play the game. You got matched to play against me, but instead of playing, you turned on your "instant win" hack. I cannot play the game any longer. Who will reimburse my $70 loss and another $100 for lost utility (having no comparable alternative)? Someone should sue the hacker for $170 * number of copies sold! Dragging the copyright in is wrong, but the copyright laws got so out of hand lately, so why not use them for just things as well, eh?
In a word: precedent. Once the courts give companies carte blanche to use copyright law in a way in which copyright law was NEVER meant to be used, to enforce contracts of adhesion, it will be open season on games, movies, music, etc. Want to play your movie after midnight? It's not in the EULA, so it is disabled. Crack it? Get sued for copyright infringement under this kind of precedent.
The typical argument in response to this goes something like: "But I would NEVER buy something with such a ridiculous EULA!" Do you read EVERY bit of EVERY EULA for EVERYthing you buy that has one? Somehow, I seriously doubt it. "well, once I find out, I will take it back to the store and get my money back!" Assuming a) you didn't already register it online, and b) the store accepts returns for registerware products, you still have the time, expense, and hassle of buying a pig in a poke, and then returning it back to the store, lesson learned.
If you are an expert security expert who knows how to stop hacks in their tracks by software design alone, why don't you offer "actiblizzard" your consulting services? You could make a bundle!
1) They couldn't afford me.
2) The security rules they violate are the most basic ones that ANYone with more than two brain cells to rub together can mitigate. The First Rule in client-server systems architecture is: NEVER TRUST THE FUCKING CLIENT, for it is in the hands of the INFIDELS!
I don't agree with ActiBlizzendi. If they wanted to make a MMO out of it, they should have gone ahead and done so. Making it a SP game with "tight online bindings" for both SP and MP is an engineering choice. The fact that people can hack the game on their own systems is precisely why that kind of design DOES NOT WORK.
So, basically ActiBlizzendi substitutes having a legal team for not having a development team that knows wtf they are doing. They don't innovate any more, they litigate, like the worst of the patent and copyright trolls out there.
This is why I haven't been a customer of theirs since D2, when they first showed this wholly depraved behavior in the bnetd case.
I hope they choke on their legal briefs.
Turned evil? They've been evil in this way since bnetd.
Works for Wall Street. .
"Use the right tool for the job".
GUIs are perfectly fine for the jobs they are designed to handle, just as CLIs are perfectly fine for the jobs THEY are designed to handle. No one tool paradigm is overall better than the other in all (or even most) cases.
This is, of course, assuming that the tools in question of both paradigms are quality tools. You can most certainly have a PoS CLI tool, just like a PoS GUI tool.
If it's not in their paper, then it hasn't been checked... even if it has.
Except that it *IS* in their paper, and HAS been checked. Most people (including probably you) don't READ the damn paper and just make stupid assumptions about what is and is not in it.
In the specific case of what the gp poster said about tectonics affecting measurements, the papers and data observations SPECIFY the quality of measurements based on a number of Captain Obvious criteria, INCLUDING tectonics. Durrrrrrrr...
Because knowing a lot does not mean they know everything, and also does not mean that someone with limited knowledge can never ask a Good Question.
While that may be true, the vast majority of the time, the latter part is not the case. Asking the obvious without even bothering to READ the research, and just armchair quarterbacking completely invalidates your otherwise salient point.
A college degree does not a Scientist make. Nor is it a requisite. Some of the greatest scientists in history never attended any formal University.
As it turns out, many more scientists DO have college degrees than don't; the exceptions don't make the rule. Not everyone is or can be an Einstein. For most real people, the college route *IS* the best route for such, as very few have the discipline or capacity to "roll their own" science credentials.
The best way to learn, is to ask questions. It is, in fact, one of the fundamental portions of the Scientific process.
I never said people shouldn't ask questions; in fact, I have said quite the opposite. Challenge everything. Just make sure you put forth some real effort to ask meaningful questions beforehand.
In fact, if such questions bother you, I suggest a career in Religion; they welcome blind faith and discourage questions so it should be right up your ally.
Stupid, willfully uninformed questions bother me.Religion has nothing to do with anything I said, despite your misguided attempt to paint it as such.
The fallacy in your take on it is that scientists can study the effects of climate change for a large number of reasons not necessarily directly related to climate change. Many researchers are paid to study things like ice thickness in the arctic for reasons like transportation/shipping and even energy reserve accessibility. There is (now) a lot money to study climate change directly, but a great deal of the existing research came about long before that money was even planned for appropriation.
Not identifying all known causal sources for sea level change in a research paper is just stupid, and such papers should/would never pass peer review. The problem is not that they aren't in the papers; the problem is that lay people don't read the damn papers and make assumptions based on their a priori ignorance of the subject.
Sure scientists want to be paid; it's their career, after all. That said, the vast majority of them want to be paid for doing valid research, especially since having it revealed that they were paid to generate garbage research to suit their employers is pretty much a career-ending scenario. ..and, that said, there are a few "scientists" who DO make their careers out of being paid to generate "research" for their "patrons". Ones like Dr. Fred Singer, who has whored out his scientific credentials and "research" to the tobacco and oil companies for decades.
Please don't mod parent as a troll, jeez.
He made a fair request.
One other point I wanted to make is as I said in another reply below: don't listen to the goddamned media -- GO TO THE SOURCE(S) OF THE SCIENCE ITSELF! If you don't understand it, ASK someone who does that you trust to explain it to you, or learn enough of the science yourself to understand.
The thing is that good science has not really made such prognostications as claimed. As you say, it is the media's interpretation of the science that is at fault in the vast majority of those hyperbolic scenarios. You can even add pathological science items such as Polywater to that list, too, but I will point out that even Polywater was debunked thoroughly by the scientific method fairly quickly.
That's an important point that I make to a lot of people who decry the value of scientific research out-of-hand.
I ask them: Do you fly? If so, you are trusting your very LIFE on a consensus of scientific research on the subject of aerodynamics, let alone a mountain of research on materials science.
Apologies, that link is outdated.
Unfortunately, the original comment direct from Nerem et al is in a paywalled scientific journal, but this blog entry posts a goodly bit of it, along with a bit of character attack on Mörner, but the evidence against him is pretty serious.
Sure thing; as if there wasn't an avalanche of research that anyone with 5 minutes couldn't Google up for consumption. *rolls eyes*
Laury Miller and Bruce Douglas "On the rate and causes of twentieth century sea-level rise" Douglas has several seminal papers on the subject.
Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level -- if you want the raw data itself
Scientific reticence and sea level rise
The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast
60+ references on Current Sea Level Rise @ Wikipedia (yeah, it's wikipedia; take the article with a pillar of salt and read the referenced papers and articles instead.. durrr)
With respect to the original gp post, the PSMSL dataset "defined the following criteria for selecting records from the PSMSL which were long, reliable, and avoided large vertical geologic changes:"
1. Each record should be at least 60 years in length
2. Not be located at collisional plate boundaries
3. At least 80% complete
4. Show reasonable agreement at low frequencies with nearby gauges sampling the same water mass
5. Not be located in regions subject to large post-glacial rebound
So, yah, I think the scientists took into account the obvious issues asked about by the gp: "Is the sea level rising? Or are plate tectonics lowering the land level in relation to the sea?".
Need more? Or is that enough to keep you busy reading for a little while?
It's because science says one thing one day, and weeks later says the opposite. Also, scientists argue among themselves about what the conclusion should be.
Despite your hyperbole, the fact remains that science is never static. No one EVER gets it right on their first try. Many don't get it right on their 20th try. That's the WHOLE POINT of the scientific method and the research process. Science isn't about proving anything; proofs are exclusive only to mathematics and can be dubious even then. Instead, science is about DISproving things. Like in a crucible, irrelevancies, false observations, improper procedures, incorrect conclusions, etc are burned away, usually a bit at a time, to get a PURER product (note not a PURE product, simply a PURER product) that enhances our knowledge and understanding of the world. Ongoing falsification is at the core of the scientific method.
As such, sure, science says one thing one day, then some time later, IMPROVES upon that, either refining it via specificity, OR refutation, even. Unlike what most people understand about science, refutation is a GOOD thing -- it demonstrates that the scientific method is WORKING. No true scientist wants to cling to the wrong answers!
Sure, scientists argue about a lot of things; it is in their nature. However, just because they argue doesn't mean they ignore each others' established and (thus far) unfalsified research. Two scientists could argue vehemently all day long over the specificity of a nearly insignificant point in a pair of competing research studies which otherwise support each other. However, when you ask them about the general consensus of their respective research, they will fully admit to being in near total agreement.
Bottom line, journalism makes science look like a bunch of bumbling clowns because it can't summarize research correctly, and the scientists sometimes do a bad enough job themselves that they don't need help bungling the conclusion. I have this argument all the time with people who don't understand how the scientific method works, and the difference between internet news and peer-reviewed journals.
That's why I pretty much ignore what journalists and pundits say; I go STRAIGHT to the science/research itself. Hell, I still consider myself a skeptic of what scientists say about a lot of things, but if I don't have the knowledge/training and haven't done the research, I will give a scientist who does/has the benefit of a doubt until such time as I do have better information from a more reliable source, or from my own research into the subject.
As such, I (and others) would appreciate direct links to papers, rather than regurgitation of "talking points"-style articles in popular rags, which often cherry-pick and distort salient bits to suit the whims of the article author/editor/publisher. Hence:
Here is Dr. Ioannidis's paper referenced by your linked article.
Just like in the Thurner and Hanel paper recently published, I think that Dr. Ioannidis makes valid and important points in his observations. However, again, they are hypothetical in nature. He doesn't actually review or provide specific evidence for statistical analysis to support his contention that "Most Published Research Findings Are False". Again, that doesn't invalidate his contentions (at least directly), but it also does not indict any specific body of research in any meaningful way. In simpler words, you can't use that as a litmus to automatically disregard any particular research paper "just because Dr. Ioannidis said that 'Most Published Research Findings Are False', thus this paper's findings are false". That's being grossly disingenuous and not a little intellectually dishonest.
Finally, regarding gp post, you seem overly sensitive. I didn't read that as a "here's the obvious, maybe that explains it?" post. But maybe I give people more credit than they
Well, unlike the vast majority of /. readers/posters, I actually read the paper in question. It might be a good idea if you read it, too.
It describes a hypothetical case of how the peer review process can go wrong, but does not provide nor reference any evidence where it has gone wrong.
That isn't to say that the peer review process, as it currently exists in vivo, is flawless; however, the paper does not address the current stringent efforts made by the most distinguished groups of scientists (such as the AAAS and the NAS) and journals (like Nature and Science), to maintain as high a quality as presently possible.
That's not a flaw in the paper, but it is a flaw in people ignorantly attempting to use it in any way to discredit the peer review process as a whole. Yes, sure, some instances of peer review have failed miserably (take, for instance, the Soon and Baliunas Controversy / Climate Research Journal), and it will happen again. However, like the vast majority of science and the scientific method, it is simply (a small) part of the process to improving our knowledge and understanding of the natural world.
Personally, I laud such papers, as they only serve to improve the quality of science and the process of pursuing knowledge and understanding through it for the betterment of all.
It is far more common in armchair quarterbacks than in hard-core researchers.
If you ignore Captain Obvious answers in your research, it will get peer-reviewed right into the wastebasket, where it belongs.
Nils-Axel Mörner is a discredited scientist on the subject; there are a number of refutations of his supposed "research" on sea levels. Here's one:
Nils' research cut to ribbons
No wonder the Maldives president is ignoring him.
I don't understand why people automatically assume that scientists who spend DECADES studying a particular phenomenon are totally blind to the Captain Obvious answers and don't bother to check them out as part of their research. In your job, do you ignore the bleedingly obvious, to the point of gross incompetence? Why do you automatically assume the same of other people who know a HELL OF A LOT MORE about a subject than you do?
Yes, sea levels are rising, measured in many places with and without local tectonic activity. Yes, scientists have checked against such obvious things and have filtered any such "noise" from them out of their findings.
If you want to challenge the findings of scientific research, get your arse out of that chair and back into college, then get out there and DO the research to prove them wrong. Failing that, I'll take the word of people who know wtf they are talking about over some anonymous coward on the intarwebs.
All talk, and no action. It doesn't matter what they said - it was five years ago and nothing has happened so what was the point of bringing that up?
It DOES matter what they say, because if they find it will increase their profits, they most certainly WILL do it. If they SAY it, it is that much more likely that they will DO it.
The point in bringing it up is that it illustrates the controlling mindset that the ISPs have, and that they are ACTIVELY considering how to go about making it happen. I would be MORE worried if they weren't saying it, though, because I *KNOW* they are making plans for it.
And you are saying Network Neutrality would make that happen? In fact it would not since they are blocking all VOIP traffic, so there's yet another REAL problem the regulation doesn't do anything about.
In fact, it most certainly would, since, as an ISP, they would be required not to interfere in legitimate IP traffic, INCLUDING VOIP. Now, if they want to charge YOU more for aggregate packet data usage as a result, that's perfectly fine. What they CAN'T do is charge you more for VOIP traffic, specifically.
Maybe what you see as network neutrality regulation is different from what I see it as, but I most certainly see it stopping these very kinds of abuses.
BTW I can do Skype from a 3G iPad or iPhone just fine, are those rules specific to some service?
Wait, which is it, you just said they are blocking ALL VOIP traffic, but now they aren't?
Here's one article on it; Google for more
Right, but they do not serve you directly. If you cannot control how they go about performing that task they do not serve you. The mandate they have is distinct from who they serve - it's like a mission statement for a company that tells you what the goals are - it's the equivalent of Google's "Don't be evil".
They serve me a HELLUVA lot more directly than AT&T, Comcast, etc ever will. Their mandate is to serve the people, of which I am a concerned constituent that they actually do listen to, even if only in aggregate most of the time. The ISPs mandate is to server their bottom line. It is more than a simple "mission statement" from a company, who has NO incentive to follow it, heh, just like your example -- "Don't be evil" Google. They sure as hell haven't lived up to that motto, now have they?
Besides, how does "Don't be evil" even remotely mention serving "the people"? The fact that government agencies at least TRY to fulfill their missions and mandates (and have SIGNIFICANT incentive to do so) leads me to believe that they have a much better chance of doing a good job of righting the applecart than any corporation ever will.
And it's an excellent example of your dangerous level of naiveté.
Hardly. Your complete refusal to see of the dangers of corporate-only stewardship of the Internet betrays quite a depth of ignorance on your part.
As noted, not in ways Network Neutrality would have stopped. So it doesn't fix the only problem you can find.
We can play this game all day. It most certainly would have stopped it, and it isn't the only problem I have given. Nice try, though. :)
Another problem it doesn't fix. So what's the point of the regulation again?
It most certainly would have fixed it, as that is the POINT of network neutrality. Go back and read the goddamn mandate of the FCC again.. here.. allow me:
"ensure that the American people have available, at reasonable costs and without discrimination, rapid, efficient, Nation- and world-wide communication services; whether by radio, television, wire, satellite, or cable"
What part of "without discrimination" do you not understand? Blocking VOIP over wireless is discrimination of the kind which should not be allowed.
I see little need to respond to anything else you wrote