We know that humans have slightly increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but hard evidence linking that to temperature rises is minimal.
You can't get lots of hard evidence until it's too late to avoid massive costs, financial and humanitarian. Demanding hard eveidence when the experiment more or less puts your existence at stake is meaningless. Informed estimates and simulations are all we have to go on.
Industry uses risk analyses on analogous problems all the time, and even if the probability of the human-caused global warming scenario was very low (which it is not), the potential cost is unbelievably huge. If this was a company-internal issue, a standard risk analysis would flag it so red, no sane management would ignore it the way governments (even the ones who have signed up for kyoto) are now doing.
From the media you get the impression either that scientists are roughly equally divided about the issue, or that there are just a few flakes still whining about global warming. The truth is that the "no need to worry" camp are a completely marginal fringe within the field.
The only reason they get heard is because people have heard the warnings for ages, many have grown up with them, so it isn't news and doesn't "sell", wheras the critics go "against the grain", say what people like to hear, and gives the outlets a fake veneer of "balancedness", so the masses lap it up.
'Global Warming' is a multi-billion dollar a year industry
What you're basically saying is all research is bogus if the scientists get paid. How do you propose to generate any real information?
You're upset that people who disagree with you seem to be in the majority among slashdot posters? What would you suggest to remedy that? Affirmative action to ensure all viewpoints get equal exposure on public messageboards, regardles of actual readership support? Which opinions get to qualify for a slot?
The reason for the perceived slant is simple demographics: support for Bush is lower among academics and other well-informed people than in the general US population, and (unbelievable though it may be sometimes) the share of well-educated people is presumably much higher on slashdot than in the general US population. In addition, a significant portion of slashdotters are non-US posters, and outside the US practically noone wants Bush back, except possibly Tony Blair and Al Quaeda.
As for planning: there are some things I'd raher not have to plan my life around, thank you very much.
In any case: just the single issue of how he lied to people (and about stuff that's important to the nation and the world, not his private life) should on its own be more than enough reason to kick him out just on principle, even if you do support his politics in general. Noone should get away with dishonesty like that in office, and I'd gladly sit out four years of the "wrong" government" to help make the point very clearly that we do not reward that kind of manipulation.
In a two-party system the voters have very limited means to directly affect actual policy. The main function of elections there is as a corrective measure: when your temporary dictator gets too evil, you get to kick them out. It's not exacly "the people's rule", but it is what separates it from a total dictatorship and the difference is huge and valuable, even though it may not alway seem like it. But iot only works if you actually use that power to reprimand offenders. Bush blew it, he did it in a big way, straight to your face, in front of everyone to see, and it shocks me that this is not crystal clear to very single citizen of America. Go out and tell him that there are some things you will not accept in your leader, for whatever cause!
No slant-messages? No can do. You cannot discuss anyting to do with society without a political slant. If someone sounds like they are neutral to you, it's because they are on your side. You think you are neutral? Don't kid yourself.
While I do agree with the more harm than good argument later in your comment (and I'm still wondering what gruesome fate exactly it is people think awaits any young Homo sapiens that get to witness normal procreation in their own species before well after sexual maturity), I'm getting really tired of that "it's up to the parents" line. It's such blantantly illogical cop-out.
When people worry publically about some supposed effect on children, it is (or pretends to be) one of two scenarios:
a) Some effect that is assumed to be harmful to the child. In this case, the "up to parents" argument is basically the same as saying "well, if your parents are scum, you deserve this. In addition to all the other shitty things your family situation will do to you". Way to go. Has it simply not occurred to them that the parents are not the only stakeholders here, or do they just not give a fuck?
b) Some effect that will eventually make the child harmful to others. In that case, "up to the parents" equates to "it's not my fault. Problem solved". Yeah, that'll help. "We have a huge problems with junkies robbing our houses!" "Yeah, well, it's the junkies' own fault". "Oh, that's OK, then." Helloo?
Sure, I'm tired of the "what about the children!"-cries too, but that's because people use them to get all sorts of ill-founded panic-driven reactions. When countering them, please please pretty please: counter them by attacking what is actually wrong with the argument. Attack the lack of evidence of the supposed causailty. Attack the overblown dangers of the supposed effect. Expose the lack of any relevance to children and their well being at all.
But "it's up to the parents" just doesn't cut it. Sorry, but those are the facts. If you do accept that as argument, it means it can be used against any and all methods of dealing with legigitmate threats to children. Seat belts for children? Let the parents decide! Rules against glass in baby food? Parents should check it is safe themselves!
And if you are the type to say stuff like "parents should make sure their children don't become criminals", unless you actually have som suggestions on how to make parents do that, why not just cut out the middleman and just say "people shuld refrain from criminal activity". Then sit back and bask in your glory for having solved crime. Placing blame does not equate to problem solving, folks.
And maybe they don't want to encourage social gaming: that leads to playing the same game over and over in stead of buying a steady stream of new ones...
But did you offer to advertise for them in return? How about selling for them at the venue?
So, after five minutes of extremely unprofessional research and wild conjectures, I'd say it looks like the stories are true: some Linux programs may be vulnerable too. Yikes!
I don't know much of Linux internals, but I don't think it is obvious that it is vulnerable just because programs can get confused by unexpected data.
UNIX generally has separate code and data segments, and with modern CPUs with memory management the OS should be able to enforce the separation very strictly. Doesn't Linux do this?
It has long been a mystery to me why Windows did not (up until XP SP2). Whole classes of overflow exploits and system threats from bugs are just not be possible if you can't execute code that's not explicitly loaded into executable segments, and if normal data-writes simply don't have write access to executable memory.
Saying it was "for the oil", as if the oil was a spoil of war we could easily ship back to the US in one fell swoop, is disingenious
Well, yes. But there's more than one way to loot a country. As an abbreviation for "wreck everything, hire me and my pals' companies to fix it, and sell their oil in order to pay us very handsomely for the favor" it really isn't too bad.
Not claimimg that's the whole reason for the war, but it's demonstrably happening, and the bucks are very big indeed.
That was sort of the point: it is conductive and from the lighting's point of view it is effectively grounded in any case. And when it strikes it will conduct _a _lot_ of electricity very quickly and get _very_ hot indeed, and probably evaporate or at the very least burn.
There's probably some solution I haven't though of, but I don't think it's a trivial problem.
right! science shouldn't be expected to solve these very difficult socioeconomic problems
They're not difficult. Not in rich western countries, anyway. There's just not the political will to do what it takes in many countries. Several other countries have had homelessness effectively eradicated for longer or shorter periods in the past, though the tendency recently ahs been to not give a fuck.
Cancer, cleaner energy etc, those are hard problems that need science to solve. Many problems have already been solved by science, many have a science based solution that isn't being applied, and many have trivial common-sense solutions that aren't being applied. If the people in charge (and their voters) say "no thanks, I think I'll have the tax cut in stead", there's not a lot science can do about that.
Sure. But since the usual trick of nkinf the rod taller than the thing it protects won't work in this case, how does the lightning tell which is which?
The thing I always wonder about the space elevator: What happens when a lightning storm passes through the area where you've got a great big conductive carbon cable running from the sky to the ground?
But what I'd really like, and which would need LCDs is this:
Track my face, and the sun, and blot out the glare with a well-placed blob of "dark" in betwen them. But don't dim the rest of the view.
Especially nice in a car, but my office (and my mood) would benefit too. When I don't have to shut out the view of a mice day every time it's a nice day. Now for that paper-white reflective monitor and I'm all set for next summer...
I thought the issue with older methods was that although they converge easily on any root, it becomes non-trivial to find out where to start in order to hit some of the roots when you get to the higher orders. If this method reliably finds them efficiently and is suitable as an automated algorithm, that is certainly a useful result, though it might be not exactly revoloutionary to the field of mathematics.
Sounds nice. As long as it comes potty trained from the factory.
I must admit I'm a bit jealous of the ones who thought this up, though: Imagine being "the guy who invented robot poo". Gives a whole new dimension to the "gray goo scenario".
So what if it's leftist? Do you expect every reporting channel to be neutral? Who defines what neutral is? Do you think both extremes will agree that yuo're neutral? You can never expect anyone to be neutral. And even if you were, that doesn't mean you should always dish out evenly in each direction. Soemtimes one side does deserve more flak than another. Presuming the sides are qual is aq fallcy.
Isn't it better to apply some competition: let people report the things they care about, and if the total picture seems unbalanced to you, report your side and fix it. If someone finds the same level of disturbing and important stories that are discrediting to democrats but have received surprisingly little coverage, let them publish that as an answer. By that I don't mean sayiong you could easily find..", I mean actually finding them. If you can't find them, maybe it's time to consider what that means.
Just calling stuff "leftist" without arguing against the content is basically the same as, and carries no more weigt than, saying "I don't want this to be true". Hmm, that reminds me of someone...
Second: Although the recent french initiatives against merely advertising internationally something that would be illegal in France is more than a little suspect, if you actually do ship something to France, then yes you do have the obligation to check that you are not breaking french law by doing so. Just like the US can convict you for shipping heroin to the US from a hypothetical free-heroin country. Of course you have.
Now, if your country has no extradition treaty with France, you can of course choose to ignore any French sanctions against you. Provided you are happy to stay only in countries that have no extradition treaty with france and not hold any assets in France.
No, it's the first step that's dubious. The last two statements really are equivalent.
The first statement does not involve a facor of two at all, it implies a factor of 1.5 for speed or a factor of 2/3 for time (or the opposite if you start with the new product).
Speed = change/time. Half the time = double the speed, if the change is the same.
Slashdot Mirror
We know that humans have slightly increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but hard evidence linking that to temperature rises is minimal.
You can't get lots of hard evidence until it's too late to avoid massive costs, financial and humanitarian. Demanding hard eveidence when the experiment more or less puts your existence at stake is meaningless. Informed estimates and simulations are all we have to go on.
Industry uses risk analyses on analogous problems all the time, and even if the probability of the human-caused global warming scenario was very low (which it is not), the potential cost is unbelievably huge. If this was a company-internal issue, a standard risk analysis would flag it so red, no sane management would ignore it the way governments (even the ones who have signed up for kyoto) are now doing.
From the media you get the impression either that scientists are roughly equally divided about the issue, or that there are just a few flakes still whining about global warming. The truth is that the "no need to worry" camp are a completely marginal fringe within the field.
The only reason they get heard is because people have heard the warnings for ages, many have grown up with them, so it isn't news and doesn't "sell", wheras the critics go "against the grain", say what people like to hear, and gives the outlets a fake veneer of "balancedness", so the masses lap it up.
'Global Warming' is a multi-billion dollar a year industry
What you're basically saying is all research is bogus if the scientists get paid. How do you propose to generate any real information?
The sex industry are always the first to make real money from anything new. It will be interesting to see how they exploit this one, though.
-wonder if this heavy North Korean presence on the scene might explain all the lousy english spelling we see from the "h@X0r" crowd.
...the pope recommends catholicism for an optimal afterlife.
You're upset that people who disagree with you seem to be in the majority among slashdot posters? What would you suggest to remedy that? Affirmative action to ensure all viewpoints get equal exposure on public messageboards, regardles of actual readership support? Which opinions get to qualify for a slot?
The reason for the perceived slant is simple demographics: support for Bush is lower among academics and other well-informed people than in the general US population, and (unbelievable though it may be sometimes) the share of well-educated people is presumably much higher on slashdot than in the general US population. In addition, a significant portion of slashdotters are non-US posters, and outside the US practically noone wants Bush back, except possibly Tony Blair and Al Quaeda.
As for planning: there are some things I'd raher not have to plan my life around, thank you very much.
In any case: just the single issue of how he lied to people (and about stuff that's important to the nation and the world, not his private life) should on its own be more than enough reason to kick him out just on principle, even if you do support his politics in general. Noone should get away with dishonesty like that in office, and I'd gladly sit out four years of the "wrong" government" to help make the point very clearly that we do not reward that kind of manipulation.
In a two-party system the voters have very limited means to directly affect actual policy. The main function of elections there is as a corrective measure: when your temporary dictator gets too evil, you get to kick them out. It's not exacly "the people's rule", but it is what separates it from a total dictatorship and the difference is huge and valuable, even though it may not alway seem like it. But iot only works if you actually use that power to reprimand offenders. Bush blew it, he did it in a big way, straight to your face, in front of everyone to see, and it shocks me that this is not crystal clear to very single citizen of America. Go out and tell him that there are some things you will not accept in your leader, for whatever cause!
No slant-messages? No can do. You cannot discuss anyting to do with society without a political slant. If someone sounds like they are neutral to you, it's because they are on your side. You think you are neutral? Don't kid yourself.
Why the hell aren't you watching your kids
While I do agree with the more harm than good argument later in your comment (and I'm still wondering what gruesome fate exactly it is people think awaits any young Homo sapiens that get to witness normal procreation in their own species before well after sexual maturity), I'm getting really tired of that "it's up to the parents" line. It's such blantantly illogical cop-out.
When people worry publically about some supposed effect on children, it is (or pretends to be) one of two scenarios:
a) Some effect that is assumed to be harmful to the child. In this case, the "up to parents" argument is basically the same as saying "well, if your parents are scum, you deserve this. In addition to all the other shitty things your family situation will do to you". Way to go. Has it simply not occurred to them that the parents are not the only stakeholders here, or do they just not give a fuck?
b) Some effect that will eventually make the child harmful to others. In that case, "up to the parents" equates to "it's not my fault. Problem solved". Yeah, that'll help.
"We have a huge problems with junkies robbing our houses!" "Yeah, well, it's the junkies' own fault". "Oh, that's OK, then." Helloo?
Sure, I'm tired of the "what about the children!"-cries too, but that's because people use them to get all sorts of ill-founded panic-driven reactions. When countering them, please please pretty please: counter them by attacking what is actually wrong with the argument. Attack the lack of evidence of the supposed causailty. Attack the overblown dangers of the supposed effect. Expose the lack of any relevance to children and their well being at all.
But "it's up to the parents" just doesn't cut it. Sorry, but those are the facts. If you do accept that as argument, it means it can be used against any and all methods of dealing with legigitmate threats to children. Seat belts for children? Let the parents decide! Rules against glass in baby food? Parents should check it is safe themselves!
And if you are the type to say stuff like "parents should make sure their children don't become criminals", unless you actually have som suggestions on how to make parents do that, why not just cut out the middleman and just say "people shuld refrain from criminal activity". Then sit back and bask in your glory for having solved crime. Placing blame does not equate to problem solving, folks.
And maybe they don't want to encourage social gaming: that leads to playing the same game over and over in stead of buying a steady stream of new ones...
But did you offer to advertise for them in return? How about selling for them at the venue?
Bt surely you could make it difficult/unlikely to get the instruction pointer to ever end up over there?
In addition, they'd probably melt the materials inside a block of non-reactive metal to make sure the materials stay in a solid form.
If regulatons would let them get away with plastic? Shyeah, right.
So, after five minutes of extremely unprofessional research and wild conjectures, I'd say it looks like the stories are true: some Linux programs may be vulnerable too. Yikes!
I don't know much of Linux internals, but I don't think it is obvious that it is vulnerable just because programs can get confused by unexpected data.
UNIX generally has separate code and data segments, and with modern CPUs with memory management the OS should be able to enforce the separation very strictly. Doesn't Linux do this?
It has long been a mystery to me why Windows did not (up until XP SP2). Whole classes of overflow exploits and system threats from bugs are just not be possible if you can't execute code that's not explicitly loaded into executable segments, and if normal data-writes simply don't have write access to executable memory.
Someone has finally posted an exploit to Usenet.
Let me guess: the subject was "Good Times"?
Saying it was "for the oil", as if the oil was a spoil of war we could easily ship back to the US in one fell swoop, is disingenious
Well, yes. But there's more than one way to loot a country. As an abbreviation for "wreck everything, hire me and my pals' companies to fix it, and sell their oil in order to pay us very handsomely for the favor" it really isn't too bad.
Not claimimg that's the whole reason for the war, but it's demonstrably happening, and the bucks are very big indeed.
That was sort of the point: it is conductive and from the lighting's point of view it is effectively grounded in any case. And when it strikes it will conduct _a _lot_ of electricity very quickly and get _very_ hot indeed, and probably evaporate or at the very least burn.
There's probably some solution I haven't though of, but I don't think it's a trivial problem.
right! science shouldn't be expected to solve these very difficult socioeconomic problems
They're not difficult. Not in rich western countries, anyway. There's just not the political will to do what it takes in many countries. Several other countries have had homelessness effectively eradicated for longer or shorter periods in the past, though the tendency recently ahs been to not give a fuck.
Cancer, cleaner energy etc, those are hard problems that need science to solve. Many problems have already been solved by science, many have a science based solution that isn't being applied, and many have trivial common-sense solutions that aren't being applied. If the people in charge (and their voters) say "no thanks, I think I'll have the tax cut in stead", there's not a lot science can do about that.
Sure. But since the usual trick of nkinf the rod taller than the thing it protects won't work in this case, how does the lightning tell which is which?
The thing I always wonder about the space elevator: What happens when a lightning storm passes through the area where you've got a great big conductive carbon cable running from the sky to the ground?
But what I'd really like, and which would need LCDs is this:
Track my face, and the sun, and blot out the glare with a well-placed blob of "dark" in betwen them. But don't dim the rest of the view.
Especially nice in a car, but my office (and my mood) would benefit too. When I don't have to shut out the view of a mice day every time it's a nice day. Now for that paper-white reflective monitor and I'm all set for next summer...
A piece of software that has room for furhter improvements? Whatever will they think of next.
But how about:
...
"If-block."
if( [condition] ){
[body]
}
"Condition or."
if( [left side] or [right side] ){
"Right side I lessthan zero. Left side parens equals zero."
if( ([number])==0 or i < 0 ){
"Number invar bit-or hex three."
if ( ( inVar | 0x3 ) = 0 or i < 0 ) {
"Body."
I might not switch, but I'm sure it could be made usable with some good design.
-Joahcim.
I thought the issue with older methods was that although they converge easily on any root, it becomes non-trivial to find out where to start in order to hit some of the roots when you get to the higher orders. If this method reliably finds them efficiently and is suitable as an automated algorithm, that is certainly a useful result, though it might be not exactly revoloutionary to the field of mathematics.
You did say "when entering the lithosphere", right?
Sounds nice. As long as it comes potty trained from the factory.
I must admit I'm a bit jealous of the ones who thought this up, though: Imagine being "the guy who invented robot poo". Gives a whole new dimension to the "gray goo scenario".
So what if it's leftist? Do you expect every reporting channel to be neutral? Who defines what neutral is? Do you think both extremes will agree that yuo're neutral? You can never expect anyone to be neutral. And even if you were, that doesn't mean you should always dish out evenly in each direction. Soemtimes one side does deserve more flak than another. Presuming the sides are qual is aq fallcy.
Isn't it better to apply some competition: let people report the things they care about, and if the total picture seems unbalanced to you, report your side and fix it. If someone finds the same level of disturbing and important stories that are discrediting to democrats but have received surprisingly little coverage, let them publish that as an answer. By that I don't mean sayiong you could easily find..", I mean actually finding them. If you can't find them, maybe it's time to consider what that means.
Just calling stuff "leftist" without arguing against the content is basically the same as, and carries no more weigt than, saying "I don't want this to be true". Hmm, that reminds me of someone...
Suddenly, somebody from France extradites you
First, look up "extradite".
Second: Although the recent french initiatives against merely advertising internationally something that would be illegal in France is more than a little suspect, if you actually do ship something to France, then yes you do have the obligation to check that you are not breaking french law by doing so. Just like the US can convict you for shipping heroin to the US from a hypothetical free-heroin country. Of course you have.
Now, if your country has no extradition treaty with France, you can of course choose to ignore any French sanctions against you. Provided you are happy to stay only in countries that have no extradition treaty with france and not hold any assets in France.
No, it's the first step that's dubious. The last two statements really are equivalent.
The first statement does not involve a facor of two at all, it implies a factor of 1.5 for speed or a factor of 2/3 for time (or the opposite if you start with the new product).
Speed = change/time. Half the time = double the speed, if the change is the same.