They can't do that because they exist to make money, and being honest in this particular case would affect their bottom line. IBM just happens to be one of the many companies that place shareholders above all else, including ethics.
At first I thought that you could just "disinfect" your shower head by running it scalding hot for 30 seconds before jumping in. However, Mycobacterium Avium has a 90% survival rate in water at 120F, the typical temperature in your water heater. Bleach and CLR won't help either, since Mycobacterium Avium is much less affected by it than other competing germs, so you end up worsening the situation.
Are you just making this stuff up?
NASA's Goddard Institute ranks July 2009 as the 2nd warmest July globally ever (right behind July 1998). http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1285&tstamp=
And I don't know what 'scientists' you're talking about, but 97% of climatologists agree that global warming exists, and is being influenced by humans. http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0122-climate.html
I've seen the 'petitions' put out by conservative think tanks asking 'scientists' who disagree with global warming to put their names on a list. Their definition of 'scientist' is anyone with a Bachelor of Science. Sorry...but if you're an econ major, you're opinion on global warming pretty much holds no weight. I'll stick with what the climatologists have to say, since they're the ones who would know.
Um....WRONG AGAIN!
The term "Climate Change" was pretty much invented by Republicans. In fact, in 2002, a memo encouraged Republicans to use the term "climate change" because it "sounds a more controllable and less emotional challenge," whereas global warming sounds like it has "catastrophic connotations."
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/11/09/terms/
To your typical user, cloud computing is not very interesting. However, it's very interesting for business users. One of the big things that cloud computing gives you is instant access to preconfigured virtual machines. For example, what IBM is doing with cloud computing is offering virtual machines where their enterprise software is already installed and configured. Some of that software requires lots of prerequisite software to be installed (e.g. DB2, WebSphere Application Server, etc...). Installing, configuring, and tuning that software can be quite labor intensive and prone to mistakes. Hardware might be cheap, but labor still isn't. By offering virtual machines in the cloud, businesses can avoid all of that up-front cost. If they want to try out an IBM product, IBM can give them a trial virtual machine to work with for a limited amount of time. If they like it, then they can purchase the software and put it on a real machine. Or if they plan on using it for a limited amount of time, they may decide it's cheaper to 'rent' the virtual machine.
I used to be a full-fledged Libertarian who believed the mantra that all regulation is bad. But unfettered capitalism is not the panacea you think it is. Unregulated capitalism is like a race car without brakes. It can go really fast, but is prone to horrific crashes. And unregulated capitalism essentially means NO middle class. If you want to see what unregulated capitalism looks like, look at what it was like in the United States at the turn of the 20th century (or look at China today). You had two classes of people...the haves and have-nots. The lower class had to work 14-16 hours a day, 6 days a week, for slave wages, with no job security (you get hurt, you get fired). Don't like working like a slave? Tough luck! It was good for the economy though. Sick people didn't live long enough to be much of a drain on the economy. The so-called "socialist" policies put in place during the 1930's resulted in the expansion of the middle class in the 40's and 50's. Otherwise, you'd likely still be working in a sweatshop right now.
Of course too much regulation is bad for the economy. But no regulation at all leads to hell-on-earth working conditions for most, and all wealth concentrated in a very small population. Therefore, the best choice is some limited regulation and intervention by the government when absolutely necessary.
The assumptions made in this post are ridiculous. Everything would have be rosy if GM had just been allowed to go bankrupt? GM wasn't ENTIRELY at fault for their downfall. Don't forget that nobody is purchasing cars because of the financial crisis. They would still be around if that had not occurred. You say that someone like Toyota would have swooped in an bought up the pieces. But how realistic is that? NO car companies are doing well right now, not even Toyota. This isn't the environment for car companies to be expanding. Maybe in a couple of years they could have bought up the pieces. But by then, all the domestic parts manufacturers would have long gone bankrupt (but I guess you'd blame their demise on bad management also, right?), and people would have been out of a job for years. That would have had a devastating ripple effect on the rest of the economy (25% unemployment, etc...). Fear of working for a Japanese or French boss has nothing to do with it.
I'm no fan of GM (or unions for that matter), but letting GM and Chrysler disappear would have decimated our economy. Obama made the best choice given the grim options he had. Implying that free-market principles would have fixed everything in the end is just plain wrong, unless you think that letting the U.S. economy go in the toilet is okay, since other economies (like China, which isn't burdened with things like environmental regulations and minimum wage laws) would "fill the gap".
Geeze...what's with this incessant need for conservatives to resort to childish name calling? Hussein Obama? Real mature. And how the heck does a post like this get modded up to 5? Is Slashdot being overrun by GOP comment-for-hires?
The claim is not that shuttle launches are the cause for all noctilucent clouds, but rather the recent dramatic increase in sightings of this previously rare phenomenon.
Uh yea....
First, your definition of 'half' is suspect (more like 25% of warming occurred before 1940). And saying that the earth has been cooling since 1998 is practically lying. 1998 was indeed the warmest year, but to say we've been cooling since then is VERY misleading. The eight warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080116114150.htm
Your examples are easily refutable, yet never seem to go away on the conservative talk show circuit.
Pluto is warming up because it is on a highly-elliptical orbit, and has just recently passed the point at which it is closest to the Sun. So it is expected that it be going through a warming phase. And a little bit of logic would tell you that since Pluto is so much farther away from the Sun than the Earth, if energy output from the Sun were responsible for warming on Pluto, the effect on Earth would be many magnitudes greater (i.e. it would have to be hot enough on Earth to melt lead before you'd notice an appreciable temperature difference on Pluto).
Mars is indeed warming up slightly, but that can be explained by Milankovitch cycles, and Mars is much more susceptible to climate change because it does not have any large moons to stabilize it's rotation axis.
Conservatives jumped on the news that Jupiter was experiencing "climate change". But it only takes two minutes to find out that the climate change being talked about is a shift in temperature (warmer near the equator, colder near the poles). Jupiter is not warming overall. Of course, that little clarification doesn't seem to make it into news stories from Fox News.
And there are 5 other planets (and many many moons) in the solar system which show no signs of warming.
Sorry...but anthropomorphic global warming is likely true. Without any CO2 in the atmosphere, Earth would be entirely covered in ice. And therefore, you cannot double CO2 levels in the atmosphere (which could happen by the end of this century) without expecting some effects. And you cannot deny that increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere are not the result of human activity (we've burned approximately 1 trillion barrels of oil so far....do you really think that would have no effect?).
And even if AGW is all bunk, so what? We should be trying to reduce our oil consumption and investing in alternate energy for other reasons, like national security, and the fact that we've very likely reached, or are about to reach peak oil production, and that future oil price spikes are going to be the norm from now on.
Detroit has essentially been doing this for years. Except they've been doing it piecemeal (tearing down homes as they become condemned). Some of the worst neighborhoods that used to be packed with houses are now only sparsely populated... http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=42.399134,-83.006119&spn=0.003549,0.008261&t=h&z=18
What would be awesome is if there was a Wiki site for new technology claims like this where you could go and see what the current state of the technology is. For example, if you're curious about whatever happened to bla bla that you heard about 5 years ago, you can go look it up and find out why nothing ever came of it (instead of assuming the power industry bought it up and killed it).
If we could figure out what mechanism is at work here, perhaps in the distant future, we could learn to alter the half-lives of elements. That could lead to 100% utilization of Uranium in nuclear reactors (instead of being left with a bunch of leftover fissionable material that cannot be used), or perhaps even being able to use other fissionable materials other than Uranium as an energy source.
While I somewhat agree with your argument (for $15k, you get a lifetime of hope), what you're forgetting about is that the lottery makes some people less concerned about their day-to-day finances. They somewhat justify large credit card debt by thinking that they can always get out of it "as soon as I win the lottery", and therefore do not put enough effort into paying off debt.
Re:Let me put it in terms you can understand.
on
eBay Sues Craigslist
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· Score: 1
We don't know for certain whether the issuing of new shares is the reason for the lawsuit. The quote 'unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest by more than 10%' could mean anything. The term 'economic interest' is suspect. For example, perhaps Craigslist executives decided to reiterate that they will not be placing ads on their site. This caused the value of the stock to be worth less (since some shareholders are holding out hope that it will one day start serving ads and become a money machine), and eBay is unhappy about the decision because it 'diluted the economic interests' of eBay.
The media, and the people, have very short attention spans. I seriously doubt that come November anyone is even going to remember the Obama/Clinton race. They'll all be focused on Obama/McCain at that point.
Ron Paul does stay in the race, and gets a whole bunch of delegates from people who won't vote for McCain. Paul doesn't become a serious contender, but gets enough momentum to get the V.P. post. McCain/Paul wins election. McCain encounters age-related health issues that causes him to retire. Ron Paul becomes president!
Slashdot Mirror
They can't do that because they exist to make money, and being honest in this particular case would affect their bottom line. IBM just happens to be one of the many companies that place shareholders above all else, including ethics.
I was going to suggest just writing 1,000,000,000, but then I remember in Europe that would be written 1.000.000.000.
Hrm....just how "universal" is this signal if humans can't detect it?
At first I thought that you could just "disinfect" your shower head by running it scalding hot for 30 seconds before jumping in. However, Mycobacterium Avium has a 90% survival rate in water at 120F, the typical temperature in your water heater. Bleach and CLR won't help either, since Mycobacterium Avium is much less affected by it than other competing germs, so you end up worsening the situation.
Sounds ideal....but how are you gonna keep the telescope lenses from frosting up?
Are you just making this stuff up?
NASA's Goddard Institute ranks July 2009 as the 2nd warmest July globally ever (right behind July 1998). http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1285&tstamp=
And I don't know what 'scientists' you're talking about, but 97% of climatologists agree that global warming exists, and is being influenced by humans. http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0122-climate.html
I've seen the 'petitions' put out by conservative think tanks asking 'scientists' who disagree with global warming to put their names on a list. Their definition of 'scientist' is anyone with a Bachelor of Science. Sorry...but if you're an econ major, you're opinion on global warming pretty much holds no weight. I'll stick with what the climatologists have to say, since they're the ones who would know.
Um....WRONG AGAIN! The term "Climate Change" was pretty much invented by Republicans. In fact, in 2002, a memo encouraged Republicans to use the term "climate change" because it "sounds a more controllable and less emotional challenge," whereas global warming sounds like it has "catastrophic connotations." http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/11/09/terms/
To your typical user, cloud computing is not very interesting. However, it's very interesting for business users. One of the big things that cloud computing gives you is instant access to preconfigured virtual machines. For example, what IBM is doing with cloud computing is offering virtual machines where their enterprise software is already installed and configured. Some of that software requires lots of prerequisite software to be installed (e.g. DB2, WebSphere Application Server, etc...). Installing, configuring, and tuning that software can be quite labor intensive and prone to mistakes. Hardware might be cheap, but labor still isn't. By offering virtual machines in the cloud, businesses can avoid all of that up-front cost. If they want to try out an IBM product, IBM can give them a trial virtual machine to work with for a limited amount of time. If they like it, then they can purchase the software and put it on a real machine. Or if they plan on using it for a limited amount of time, they may decide it's cheaper to 'rent' the virtual machine.
I used to be a full-fledged Libertarian who believed the mantra that all regulation is bad. But unfettered capitalism is not the panacea you think it is. Unregulated capitalism is like a race car without brakes. It can go really fast, but is prone to horrific crashes. And unregulated capitalism essentially means NO middle class. If you want to see what unregulated capitalism looks like, look at what it was like in the United States at the turn of the 20th century (or look at China today). You had two classes of people...the haves and have-nots. The lower class had to work 14-16 hours a day, 6 days a week, for slave wages, with no job security (you get hurt, you get fired). Don't like working like a slave? Tough luck! It was good for the economy though. Sick people didn't live long enough to be much of a drain on the economy. The so-called "socialist" policies put in place during the 1930's resulted in the expansion of the middle class in the 40's and 50's. Otherwise, you'd likely still be working in a sweatshop right now. Of course too much regulation is bad for the economy. But no regulation at all leads to hell-on-earth working conditions for most, and all wealth concentrated in a very small population. Therefore, the best choice is some limited regulation and intervention by the government when absolutely necessary.
The assumptions made in this post are ridiculous. Everything would have be rosy if GM had just been allowed to go bankrupt? GM wasn't ENTIRELY at fault for their downfall. Don't forget that nobody is purchasing cars because of the financial crisis. They would still be around if that had not occurred. You say that someone like Toyota would have swooped in an bought up the pieces. But how realistic is that? NO car companies are doing well right now, not even Toyota. This isn't the environment for car companies to be expanding. Maybe in a couple of years they could have bought up the pieces. But by then, all the domestic parts manufacturers would have long gone bankrupt (but I guess you'd blame their demise on bad management also, right?), and people would have been out of a job for years. That would have had a devastating ripple effect on the rest of the economy (25% unemployment, etc...). Fear of working for a Japanese or French boss has nothing to do with it. I'm no fan of GM (or unions for that matter), but letting GM and Chrysler disappear would have decimated our economy. Obama made the best choice given the grim options he had. Implying that free-market principles would have fixed everything in the end is just plain wrong, unless you think that letting the U.S. economy go in the toilet is okay, since other economies (like China, which isn't burdened with things like environmental regulations and minimum wage laws) would "fill the gap".
Geeze...what's with this incessant need for conservatives to resort to childish name calling? Hussein Obama? Real mature. And how the heck does a post like this get modded up to 5? Is Slashdot being overrun by GOP comment-for-hires?
You don't get it. Sure you could do this with any cellphone, but being able to do it on an iPhone makes terrorism "cool".
The claim is not that shuttle launches are the cause for all noctilucent clouds, but rather the recent dramatic increase in sightings of this previously rare phenomenon.
Uh yea.... First, your definition of 'half' is suspect (more like 25% of warming occurred before 1940). And saying that the earth has been cooling since 1998 is practically lying. 1998 was indeed the warmest year, but to say we've been cooling since then is VERY misleading. The eight warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080116114150.htm
This sounds like a troll, but I'll bite.
Your examples are easily refutable, yet never seem to go away on the conservative talk show circuit.
Pluto is warming up because it is on a highly-elliptical orbit, and has just recently passed the point at which it is closest to the Sun. So it is expected that it be going through a warming phase. And a little bit of logic would tell you that since Pluto is so much farther away from the Sun than the Earth, if energy output from the Sun were responsible for warming on Pluto, the effect on Earth would be many magnitudes greater (i.e. it would have to be hot enough on Earth to melt lead before you'd notice an appreciable temperature difference on Pluto).
Mars is indeed warming up slightly, but that can be explained by Milankovitch cycles, and Mars is much more susceptible to climate change because it does not have any large moons to stabilize it's rotation axis.
Conservatives jumped on the news that Jupiter was experiencing "climate change". But it only takes two minutes to find out that the climate change being talked about is a shift in temperature (warmer near the equator, colder near the poles). Jupiter is not warming overall. Of course, that little clarification doesn't seem to make it into news stories from Fox News.
And there are 5 other planets (and many many moons) in the solar system which show no signs of warming.
Sorry...but anthropomorphic global warming is likely true. Without any CO2 in the atmosphere, Earth would be entirely covered in ice. And therefore, you cannot double CO2 levels in the atmosphere (which could happen by the end of this century) without expecting some effects. And you cannot deny that increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere are not the result of human activity (we've burned approximately 1 trillion barrels of oil so far....do you really think that would have no effect?).
And even if AGW is all bunk, so what? We should be trying to reduce our oil consumption and investing in alternate energy for other reasons, like national security, and the fact that we've very likely reached, or are about to reach peak oil production, and that future oil price spikes are going to be the norm from now on.
Detroit has essentially been doing this for years. Except they've been doing it piecemeal (tearing down homes as they become condemned). Some of the worst neighborhoods that used to be packed with houses are now only sparsely populated...
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=42.399134,-83.006119&spn=0.003549,0.008261&t=h&z=18
"Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continues... AAY!"
They can still save face by claiming 6-eights up time, which is more than 5-nines.
How about "They Might Be Giants"?
What would be awesome is if there was a Wiki site for new technology claims like this where you could go and see what the current state of the technology is. For example, if you're curious about whatever happened to bla bla that you heard about 5 years ago, you can go look it up and find out why nothing ever came of it (instead of assuming the power industry bought it up and killed it).
If we could figure out what mechanism is at work here, perhaps in the distant future, we could learn to alter the half-lives of elements. That could lead to 100% utilization of Uranium in nuclear reactors (instead of being left with a bunch of leftover fissionable material that cannot be used), or perhaps even being able to use other fissionable materials other than Uranium as an energy source.
While I somewhat agree with your argument (for $15k, you get a lifetime of hope), what you're forgetting about is that the lottery makes some people less concerned about their day-to-day finances. They somewhat justify large credit card debt by thinking that they can always get out of it "as soon as I win the lottery", and therefore do not put enough effort into paying off debt.
We don't know for certain whether the issuing of new shares is the reason for the lawsuit. The quote 'unfairly diluted eBay's economic interest by more than 10%' could mean anything. The term 'economic interest' is suspect. For example, perhaps Craigslist executives decided to reiterate that they will not be placing ads on their site. This caused the value of the stock to be worth less (since some shareholders are holding out hope that it will one day start serving ads and become a money machine), and eBay is unhappy about the decision because it 'diluted the economic interests' of eBay.
The media, and the people, have very short attention spans. I seriously doubt that come November anyone is even going to remember the Obama/Clinton race. They'll all be focused on Obama/McCain at that point.
Here's an interesting scenario....
Ron Paul does stay in the race, and gets a whole bunch of delegates from people who won't vote for McCain. Paul doesn't become a serious contender, but gets enough momentum to get the V.P. post. McCain/Paul wins election. McCain encounters age-related health issues that causes him to retire. Ron Paul becomes president!
It seems plausible.