Its like going after Boeing because someone put some tape over the port that allows outside air to get at the gauge that measures air pressure and estimates elevation on a 757.
You can point your finger all you want at the maintenance worker who didn't read the warnings in GIANT PRINT - but Boeing was still sued and paid.
Boeing was not being irresponsible. I do not think the same can be said of Microsoft because many of the security problems have been pointed out CONSTANTLY since before 1995.
Why can't we organise a class action against Microsoft? It is their shitty code that is responsible for most of this... their shitty code and really poorly thought out security measures.
Then we should go after some of the large ISP who hide their brains in the sand (shit anyone) and pretend they do not know certain customer's machines are spewing night and day.
There are probably enough people who don't like this to start a Novell boycott.
Many people who read slashdot are consultants or know consultants and these people are actually closely connected to those who control the purse strings.
If Novell goes bankrupt over this then we can be assured other companies will notice.
We can accomplish a little with spamd and server side scripting. Spam assasin also helps.
Nothing is going to be totally effective until we get actual law enforcment.
While the net has been viewed as the wild west and with a certain degree of nostalgia, its becoming clear that the reason we have laws and law enforcement is because of the bad apples like our spammer friends. I see spam as not being a whole lot different than if every merchant in the area sent people around who threw their flyers and junk mail on people's front lawns. Its called litering.
Law enforcement could start with ISP's being required to release the identity of anyone who contacts via email. If this is combined with the ability to bill them for mail sent... then perhaps the problem goes away. You see - you can spoof an address, but in order for the mail systems to work, the deamons need physical addresses. Using physical addresses it is not possible to hide. However it might not be possible to obtain realiable physical addresses from some countries or companies. One solution is to black list them. Do I recall reading a few years back that Telstra was dropped into a black hole? If so - how long did it take them to clean up their act?
The thing is there are some bad apple ISP's who greatly contribute to the problem. IMHO, when ISP refuses to disconnect a cracked machine until the owners take responsibility, then this ISP is a bad apple. But the general public is guilty of contributory negligence as well.
I would prefer to not make a "big" example out of a small number of people... I would rather make a small example of a larger number of people.
Shutting people's connections down and holding them responsible for costs say up to some number people consider "reasonable" is a way to start. People who abuse the credit of the phone company often receive disconnection notices with a reconnection charge. If the ISP uses a strategy like this then they may have an opportunity to make a few bux consulting as part of their reconnection charge.
Thing is there are large ISP's who actively contribute to the problem by even hosting spammers and who think this is ok. Some have even offered reduced connection rates because of high volumes.
Anyone who is really conserned about CO2 emissions can do something about it simply by stuffing R50 insulation into the walls of their house. This is about 1 foot thick. The time to do it is during new construction (best) and during any renovation and failing that doing it room by room when painting for instance needs to be done.
Cost of the insulation is about $1 bux per square foot. Labour is extra but a do-it-yourselfer can eliminate most of these costs.
This will already pay for itself from the cost of energy alone.
You said it well. The issue with the global warming folks however is that they can look at a graph and proclaim to have a background in science and they cannot read the graph. This reminds me when I was in High School math and the teacher asked the class to VOTE on the correct answer. I typically declined on the basis that it wasn't a popularity contest. Sometimes I voted for the worng answer to see what the reaction would be. Yup - the other kids were playing follow the leader. The teacher once commented that he didn't think I would miss the question. I replied that I didn't miss the question, I wanted to know how many classmates would follow me and vote for an answer that is clearly incorrect.
The issue with Global Warming is that were it real and were it driven by CO2 and were the dire consequences as predicted, then there would be reason for alarm. So many people take the safe route and proclaim that we should limit the emissions of CO2.
Well - CO2 is a plant nutrient. I'm for increased levels of CO2 on this basis. I'm for land irrigation as well. I'm also in favour of nuclear power.
It is our technology that has created the ability for 6 billion people to live on this planet. I am not in favour of the population increasing to 12 billion. However there is a lot of irresponsible human breading activity that is taking place. I think if we get the REAL problems under control that we won't need to worry about CO2. But we are a long ways away from even focusing on the right questions.
In all liklihood we are over the peak of world oil production now and there is going to be all hell to pay. I do not think global warming will be the story of interest by 2008.
Meanwhile we can do something to curb CO2 if we wish - and we can make money doing it. We can start by re-insulating our houses.
It costs about $1 bux per square foot of building envelope surface to bring insulation up to R50 when the building is being put up. This keeps the house warmer in winter and cooler in summer and it cuts the CO2 emissions by a HUGE amount. For some reason I do not see those who are alarmed about Global Warming proposing any practical solutions.
If a room is to be repainted, or if a house is to be re-sided, then the insulation can be brought up to R50 quite inexpensively. But do people do it? No - they sit around and grip about Global Warming and think being worried is going to achieve something - providing the next guy does it. But they usually NEVER do anything practical themselves even if it will save them money.
When oil reaches $300 per barrel and natural gas is back over $17 bux then I wonder... will we see insulation going into our horribly built houses? I just don't know what it will take.... but I do expect we will see people freezing in the dark long before anything practical is done.
The short of it is that if we could snap our fingers and put R50 in the building envelope of every house in North America, then we could reduce the amount of Natural Gas burned to produce electricity and heat by a factor of close to 50%. We could reduce the amount of coal burned and the amount of heating oil we use. We would create employment and we would probably make money in the process. We could defer the construction of nuclear power plants for probably over a decade. We would all enjoy life better because our houses would become far more comfortable.
We can do this now. Those who worry about Global Warming caused by CO2 can feel warm and fuzzy.
Fungus are very significant. There are perhaps 50 million species. We maybe know something about 50,000 species and perhaps a significant amount about less than 5.000.
Other than making bread and beer and wines and such - Fungus provide many meds. They are very closely associated biologically with mammals.
Fungus also digest the detrital biological mass of the earth and as such they release all the Carbon trapped up by plants.
Hey - there are many factors. See if you can track down Dr. Tim Patterson's course on paleo-climatology. Comes from Carleton university and is on tape and he is excellent.
Magnetic reversals occur very frequently. Some estimates suggest it can flip in under 100 years.
The magnetic pole flips are not correlated with climate change. Mountains are. Its a very complex picture.
You are totally correct that solar output was less a billion years ago.
This explains why we have tilites covered with limestones. CO2 levels back in the preCambrian did drive global climate. When the earth totally froze over - right down to the equator - CO2 could not be absorbed and the concentrations increased. They increased above the 7,000 ppm levels. Currently they are at 379 ppm.
Note the numbers please.
Some estimates put the concentrations of CO2 up to 20,000 ppm. At these levels the CO2 is fatal to everything but plant life and its probably fatal to plant life as well. The issue is the resperatory chemistry simply doesn't work.
But you are correct that solar output was less and we have tilites at the equator to prove you are right. Then we have limestones overlaying the titlites. What this means is that the earth flipped from frozen to melted and did so rather quickly... like a few million years.
How? CO2 did it. This process operated over a billion years ago and it is entirely consistant with the paleoclimatology models of the last 500 million years. These models say that CO2 at levels below 1000 ppm are not relevant.
Water vapour is relevant. Water vapour is the green house gas that keeps the earth warm - not CO2.
Nice that you reference Dr. Tim Patterson to support your argument and at the same time suggest he and his peers are mostly "kooks".
If you don't believe his message - then why don't you call him up and take his course. He is an excellent prof. His paleo-climatolgy course has also been taped. You might be able to organise something through your favorite university.
At least you are not posting anonymously like many who are asking if I'm a troll!
Now your comment: Comparing carbon levels with temperature only makes sense when all other relevant factors are held constant
This is simply a weak understanding of the issue. It is rare that we can hold all aspects of an experiment "constant". This is certainly true of the geological and paleo record of the earth.
The issue is this. Presuming Dr. Tim Patterson and his collegues know what they are doing (and I rather think they do), then if the CO2 concentrations and temperatures of the planet have not been correlated for the last 500 million years, then why should they suddenly correlate now?
Because there are people around? I think a better explanation is because there are alarmist people around who can't understand the science... and this is partly why they are alarmed.
I'm one of those people who think if there is global warming then good. If people think sea levels are going to suddenly start to climb then good. I want to buy some land on the coast and if some dummy wants to sell his ocean front property because he or she is all conserned about global warming and sea levels rising then I'm in the market and I will vote with my money!
in the 1800s, large parts of the midwest of the US were basically deserts
This is true.
On the farm in Saskatchewan where I grew up, when my grandfather came into the area it was prairie. This was in the 1920's. As my father grew up the area became parkland.
During the worst of the dirty thirties it was still parkland and the pond on the farm never dried up. In 2000 the pond as dry. This was the first time in my life I ever saw it dry.
The trees in the area are dying. It may well be prairie again.
Climate variability is a normal state of affairs. The bears will simply move to where they are happiest. The population might increase and it might decline. But the species likely will survive.
Populations of rabbits and ungulates also rise and fall. Populations of people will rise and fall also. We have a long way to go before we will control mother nature. The abject lack of understanding of the global warming issue is proof enough.
You just proved you can't read a graph. The Ordovician ice age was pretty severe. Our present ice age is really only since the Eocene and the interglacial we are enjoying now eneded only about 10,000 years ago.
In fact the plunge into our current cold phase is about the same shape as the plunge during the Ordovician. We can come out of the present cold phase just as quickly... but it might last another 5 million years before this happens.
The Ordovician cooling correlates with the Taconic orogeny.
Our present cooling corrlelate with the upthrust of the Himalayn mountains, the Colorado and Tibetian plateaus, the Pyrannes, Rockies, Andies and hellenic mountain ranges.
Too bad you can't read what it says. I'm sure TIm Patterson can read it but it you think not you can ask him. You might not be able to pass his courses mind you - but I am sure he has an open mind even for closed minds.
If you want to call the people who did the video incompetant or suggest they are lying, then may I suggest you contact them?
If you are a student you might want to take this up with your own professors. If not you might want to contact your closest university. You are going to have to get some cedible people on your side because you are looking very lonely at the moment.
Personally I find them far more credible than the people who flame away with the global warming tripe. One reason is that I don't see them doing credible science.
Your comment for instance: carbon levels 450 million years ago to today is inane.
How are you planning on backing up that statment? Are you next planning on suggesting that geology is inane or that paleontology is inane or that paleoclimatology is inane. Are these disiplines inane because they happen to conflict with your closely held religeous beliefs? Or are they inane because you need something to feel guilty about?
Mod the artical as a troll. Global warming is a political creation by the same people who brought us Original Sin. Its meant to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy and guilty.
A number of top scientists - some from the UofC - have spoken out and are starting to debunk the crap we've been fed by the media.
I just love segment #4 of the video - its on CO2. When CO2 levels were more than 10 times higher than now, about 400 million years ago, the planet plunged into the coldest ice age of the last 1/2 billion years.
This just illustrates how little people understand software development. If blind managers were designing houses I'm sure we would end up with the boss saying "here is a functional bathroom - can you patch it to this functional kitchen?". Well maybe yes - and the toilet would be under the table.
Finding analogies is difficult.
Why not walk into a roomfull of stories written by a creative writing class and try to cob them together into a best seller?
Many years ago IBM was touting the line that with the new faster hardware companies could get away with cheaper programmers. The latest incarnation of that idea is outsourcing to 3rd world countries. Now I'm not trying to run down programmers who are born and live in the 3rd world. What I am saying is that trying to cut costs by gutting programming talent is foolishness and it illustrates a complete lack of understanding on the part of people who coger up such notions... regardless of what guise they do it in.
The only thing that comes from patching together gobs of code is a mess... and undocumented and unreliable and unsupportable mess.
With all the comments on junk DNA and non-functioning parts of the genome, its pretty clear than M$ has learned from mother nature and uses a similar development strategy for their code. No wonder Windows is so robust.
The issue is the law is not logical. Certainly the application of the law is not logical. There is a HUGE component of hysteria involved... and self interest as well.
In another 20 years these problems will be somewhat behind us. The issue is the present generation of legal begals do not have the systems-technical knowledge base and neither do most of their collegues. So the judge, the prosecutors, and indeed, the jury have no landmarks from which to judge what he did and why. Now, if the jury were composed of his "peers" then there is no way they could make anything stick. Alas, they don't want people like me for instance on the jury.
Most people get by with the idea that if you can make something happen, then you have succeeded. This is the opposite notion of what is required for security and making working systems. I learned this very early on and I'm a seasoned programmer with more than 25 years experiance.
In order to develop a system that can be relied upon you have to design so that it cannot fail. This is at least an order of magnitude greater level of achievment than getting something to work. An example if we are dealing with a plane for instance is that the Wright Brothers managed to get it into the air. Boeing is still not at the point where it cannot fail.
Computer systems and security are even more sensitive to failure than jet aircraft. One can assume that mother nature will throw stuff at a plane and we can design to survive what she throws at us. But mother nature is random. Mother nature does not intelligently seek out any weakness and then systematically exploit it. Hacker-crakers do. Terrorists will. Most terrorists lack the sophistication of the hacker-crackers. Most hacker-crackers are not terrorists. If we end up with a terrorist cell which developes the technical skills of the hacker-cracker community then we are all in deep shit.
You are correct this chap will probably not get a fair trial... that is unless people who do understand become very vocal and very public. Becomming very angry might help too. Dimitri Sklyarov would have been left to rot in prison had there not developed a rather large voice crying foul. We need to do it here.
In another 20 years... by then the lawyers and judges will have grown up with computers. Some may even have hacked a few for fun. They certainly will have friends who have. These people will know at the gut level that what this fellow did is necessary.
We need security systems that work. We don't want well meaning but systematically flawed systems that are trivial to exploit. All this fellow did is point out that for over 3 years now the TSA has been delusional. He was not the first. Tossing him in jail might make him the last and any terrorist will clearly love that outcome.
Most people want good things to happen. What most people need to understand is that by doing bad things and by deluding ourselves we don't get good things to happen. We get good things to happen when smart and alarmed people point out mistakes and demand they get corrected. The phrase comes to mind "Deal with reality or reality will deal with you".
Clearly this is a case of attempting to shoot the messenger.
Since you are a lawyer I'll suggest you volunteer some time pro-bono. Clearly you understand what is going on. He deserves and needs your help. I think the EFF should get involved as well. And it will not hurt if people start to call up the media and start demanding some quality journalizm. One way is by writing stories. Many reporters are either overworked or lazy. A well written story that tells the truth may be printed. This is all part of being "effective".
There is already enough written here in slashdot to form the basis of a number of good stories and good stories sell papers.
Slashdot Mirror
Its like going after Boeing because someone put some tape over the port that allows outside air to get at the gauge that measures air pressure and estimates elevation on a 757.
You can point your finger all you want at the maintenance worker who didn't read the warnings in GIANT PRINT - but Boeing was still sued and paid.
Boeing was not being irresponsible. I do not think the same can be said of Microsoft because many of the security problems have been pointed out CONSTANTLY since before 1995.
Why can't we organise a class action against Microsoft? It is their shitty code that is responsible for most of this... their shitty code and really poorly thought out security measures.
Then we should go after some of the large ISP who hide their brains in the sand (shit anyone) and pretend they do not know certain customer's machines are spewing night and day.
So just how much code from the *BSD (unix) projects have shown up in M$ products.
Then they threaten us! Seems we have the dogs biting the hands who fed them.
There are probably enough people who don't like this to start a Novell boycott.
Many people who read slashdot are consultants or know consultants and these people are actually closely connected to those who control the purse strings.
If Novell goes bankrupt over this then we can be assured other companies will notice.
We can accomplish a little with spamd and server side scripting. Spam assasin also helps.
Nothing is going to be totally effective until we get actual law enforcment.
While the net has been viewed as the wild west and with a certain degree of nostalgia, its becoming clear that the reason we have laws and law enforcement is because of the bad apples like our spammer friends. I see spam as not being a whole lot different than if every merchant in the area sent people around who threw their flyers and junk mail on people's front lawns. Its called litering.
Law enforcement could start with ISP's being required to release the identity of anyone who contacts via email. If this is combined with the ability to bill them for mail sent... then perhaps the problem goes away. You see - you can spoof an address, but in order for the mail systems to work, the deamons need physical addresses. Using physical addresses it is not possible to hide. However it might not be possible to obtain realiable physical addresses from some countries or companies. One solution is to black list them. Do I recall reading a few years back that Telstra was dropped into a black hole? If so - how long did it take them to clean up their act?
The thing is there are some bad apple ISP's who greatly contribute to the problem. IMHO, when ISP refuses to disconnect a cracked machine until the owners take responsibility, then this ISP is a bad apple. But the general public is guilty of contributory negligence as well.
I would prefer to not make a "big" example out of a small number of people... I would rather make a small example of a larger number of people.
Shutting people's connections down and holding them responsible for costs say up to some number people consider "reasonable" is a way to start. People who abuse the credit of the phone company often receive disconnection notices with a reconnection charge. If the ISP uses a strategy like this then they may have an opportunity to make a few bux consulting as part of their reconnection charge.
Thing is there are large ISP's who actively contribute to the problem by even hosting spammers and who think this is ok. Some have even offered reduced connection rates because of high volumes.
WHERE are the peer reviewed articles that debunk global warming.
Here: http://friendsofscience.org/
Especially here: http://friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=7
Anyone who is really conserned about CO2 emissions can do something about it simply by stuffing R50 insulation into the walls of their house. This is about 1 foot thick. The time to do it is during new construction (best) and during any renovation and failing that doing it room by room when painting for instance needs to be done.
Cost of the insulation is about $1 bux per square foot. Labour is extra but a do-it-yourselfer can eliminate most of these costs.
This will already pay for itself from the cost of energy alone.
If
Too bad I don't have moderator points today.
You said it well. The issue with the global warming folks however is that they can look at a graph and proclaim to have a background in science and they cannot read the graph. This reminds me when I was in High School math and the teacher asked the class to VOTE on the correct answer. I typically declined on the basis that it wasn't a popularity contest. Sometimes I voted for the worng answer to see what the reaction would be. Yup - the other kids were playing follow the leader. The teacher once commented that he didn't think I would miss the question. I replied that I didn't miss the question, I wanted to know how many classmates would follow me and vote for an answer that is clearly incorrect.
The issue with Global Warming is that were it real and were it driven by CO2 and were the dire consequences as predicted, then there would be reason for alarm. So many people take the safe route and proclaim that we should limit the emissions of CO2.
Well - CO2 is a plant nutrient. I'm for increased levels of CO2 on this basis. I'm for land irrigation as well. I'm also in favour of nuclear power.
It is our technology that has created the ability for 6 billion people to live on this planet. I am not in favour of the population increasing to 12 billion. However there is a lot of irresponsible human breading activity that is taking place. I think if we get the REAL problems under control that we won't need to worry about CO2. But we are a long ways away from even focusing on the right questions.
In all liklihood we are over the peak of world oil production now and there is going to be all hell to pay. I do not think global warming will be the story of interest by 2008.
Meanwhile we can do something to curb CO2 if we wish - and we can make money doing it. We can start by re-insulating our houses.
It costs about $1 bux per square foot of building envelope surface to bring insulation up to R50 when the building is being put up. This keeps the house warmer in winter and cooler in summer and it cuts the CO2 emissions by a HUGE amount. For some reason I do not see those who are alarmed about Global Warming proposing any practical solutions.
If a room is to be repainted, or if a house is to be re-sided, then the insulation can be brought up to R50 quite inexpensively. But do people do it? No - they sit around and grip about Global Warming and think being worried is going to achieve something - providing the next guy does it. But they usually NEVER do anything practical themselves even if it will save them money.
When oil reaches $300 per barrel and natural gas is back over $17 bux then I wonder... will we see insulation going into our horribly built houses? I just don't know what it will take.... but I do expect we will see people freezing in the dark long before anything practical is done.
The short of it is that if we could snap our fingers and put R50 in the building envelope of every house in North America, then we could reduce the amount of Natural Gas burned to produce electricity and heat by a factor of close to 50%. We could reduce the amount of coal burned and the amount of heating oil we use. We would create employment and we would probably make money in the process. We could defer the construction of nuclear power plants for probably over a decade. We would all enjoy life better because our houses would become far more comfortable.
We can do this now. Those who worry about Global Warming caused by CO2 can feel warm and fuzzy.
Gondwana is too recent. You need to look back to Rodinia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodinia
Fungus are very significant. There are perhaps 50 million species. We maybe know something about 50,000 species and perhaps a significant amount about less than 5.000.
Other than making bread and beer and wines and such - Fungus provide many meds. They are very closely associated biologically with mammals.
Fungus also digest the detrital biological mass of the earth and as such they release all the Carbon trapped up by plants.
This is the point.
You are 100% correct.
Type of biomass? Angeosperms?
Evolved during the Creataceous. Almost 100% of the food sources of mammals comes from Angeosperms.
Tied in with the consumption of CO2 is the production. Most CO2 comes from fungus.
Hey - there are many factors. See if you can track down Dr. Tim Patterson's course on paleo-climatology. Comes from Carleton university and is on tape and he is excellent.
Magnetic reversals occur very frequently. Some estimates suggest it can flip in under 100 years.
The magnetic pole flips are not correlated with climate change. Mountains are. Its a very complex picture.
CO2 is not correlated.
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Give yourself a pat on the back.
You are totally correct that solar output was less a billion years ago.
This explains why we have tilites covered with limestones. CO2 levels back in the preCambrian did drive global climate. When the earth totally froze over - right down to the equator - CO2 could not be absorbed and the concentrations increased. They increased above the 7,000 ppm levels. Currently they are at 379 ppm.
Note the numbers please.
Some estimates put the concentrations of CO2 up to 20,000 ppm. At these levels the CO2 is fatal to everything but plant life and its probably fatal to plant life as well. The issue is the resperatory chemistry simply doesn't work.
But you are correct that solar output was less and we have tilites at the equator to prove you are right. Then we have limestones overlaying the titlites. What this means is that the earth flipped from frozen to melted and did so rather quickly... like a few million years.
How? CO2 did it. This process operated over a billion years ago and it is entirely consistant with the paleoclimatology models of the last 500 million years. These models say that CO2 at levels below 1000 ppm are not relevant.
Water vapour is relevant. Water vapour is the green house gas that keeps the earth warm - not CO2.
Nice that you reference Dr. Tim Patterson to support your argument and at the same time suggest he and his peers are mostly "kooks".
If you don't believe his message - then why don't you call him up and take his course. He is an excellent prof. His paleo-climatolgy course has also been taped. You might be able to organise something through your favorite university.
At least you are not posting anonymously like many who are asking if I'm a troll!
Now your comment: Comparing carbon levels with temperature only makes sense when all other relevant factors are held constant
This is simply a weak understanding of the issue. It is rare that we can hold all aspects of an experiment "constant". This is certainly true of the geological and paleo record of the earth.
The issue is this. Presuming Dr. Tim Patterson and his collegues know what they are doing (and I rather think they do), then if the CO2 concentrations and temperatures of the planet have not been correlated for the last 500 million years, then why should they suddenly correlate now?
Because there are people around? I think a better explanation is because there are alarmist people around who can't understand the science... and this is partly why they are alarmed.
I'm one of those people who think if there is global warming then good. If people think sea levels are going to suddenly start to climb then good. I want to buy some land on the coast and if some dummy wants to sell his ocean front property because he or she is all conserned about global warming and sea levels rising then I'm in the market and I will vote with my money!
in the 1800s, large parts of the midwest of the US were basically deserts
This is true.
On the farm in Saskatchewan where I grew up, when my grandfather came into the area it was prairie. This was in the 1920's. As my father grew up the area became parkland.
During the worst of the dirty thirties it was still parkland and the pond on the farm never dried up. In 2000 the pond as dry. This was the first time in my life I ever saw it dry.
The trees in the area are dying. It may well be prairie again.
Climate variability is a normal state of affairs. The bears will simply move to where they are happiest. The population might increase and it might decline. But the species likely will survive.
Populations of rabbits and ungulates also rise and fall. Populations of people will rise and fall also. We have a long way to go before we will control mother nature. The abject lack of understanding of the global warming issue is proof enough.
You just proved you can't read a graph. The Ordovician ice age was pretty severe. Our present ice age is really only since the Eocene and the interglacial we are enjoying now eneded only about 10,000 years ago.
/ image277.gif
In fact the plunge into our current cold phase is about the same shape as the plunge during the Ordovician. We can come out of the present cold phase just as quickly... but it might last another 5 million years before this happens.
The Ordovician cooling correlates with the Taconic orogeny.
Our present cooling corrlelate with the upthrust of the Himalayn mountains, the Colorado and Tibetian plateaus, the Pyrannes, Rockies, Andies and hellenic mountain ranges.
The graph you referenced is excellent.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images
Too bad you can't read what it says. I'm sure TIm Patterson can read it but it you think not you can ask him. You might not be able to pass his courses mind you - but I am sure he has an open mind even for closed minds.
If you want to call the people who did the video incompetant or suggest they are lying, then may I suggest you contact them?
If you are a student you might want to take this up with your own professors. If not you might want to contact your closest university. You are going to have to get some cedible people on your side because you are looking very lonely at the moment.
Personally I find them far more credible than the people who flame away with the global warming tripe. One reason is that I don't see them doing credible science.
Your comment for instance: carbon levels 450 million years ago to today is inane .
How are you planning on backing up that statment? Are you next planning on suggesting that geology is inane or that paleontology is inane or that paleoclimatology is inane. Are these disiplines inane because they happen to conflict with your closely held religeous beliefs? Or are they inane because you need something to feel guilty about?
Mod the artical as a troll. Global warming is a political creation by the same people who brought us Original Sin. Its meant to make everyone feel warm and fuzzy and guilty.
Check this out: http://www.friendsofscience.org/
Watch the video here: http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?ide=3
A number of top scientists - some from the UofC - have spoken out and are starting to debunk the crap we've been fed by the media.
I just love segment #4 of the video - its on CO2. When CO2 levels were more than 10 times higher than now, about 400 million years ago, the planet plunged into the coldest ice age of the last 1/2 billion years.
Let him spend his life in prison - never spoken to nor replied to ever again. Death is to easy
This just illustrates how little people understand software development. If blind managers were designing houses I'm sure we would end up with the boss saying "here is a functional bathroom - can you patch it to this functional kitchen?". Well maybe yes - and the toilet would be under the table.
Finding analogies is difficult.
Why not walk into a roomfull of stories written by a creative writing class and try to cob them together into a best seller?
Many years ago IBM was touting the line that with the new faster hardware companies could get away with cheaper programmers. The latest incarnation of that idea is outsourcing to 3rd world countries. Now I'm not trying to run down programmers who are born and live in the 3rd world. What I am saying is that trying to cut costs by gutting programming talent is foolishness and it illustrates a complete lack of understanding on the part of people who coger up such notions... regardless of what guise they do it in.
The only thing that comes from patching together gobs of code is a mess... and undocumented and unreliable and unsupportable mess.
The whole idea is just pure bull.
With all the comments on junk DNA and non-functioning parts of the genome, its pretty clear than M$ has learned from mother nature and uses a similar development strategy for their code. No wonder Windows is so robust.
The dealer will refuse. Be my guest... try it.
We don't want you. Stay home and solve your own problems.
The fools who continue to use M$ software deserve the crap they get.
The issue is the law is not logical. Certainly the application of the law is not logical. There is a HUGE component of hysteria involved... and self interest as well.
In another 20 years these problems will be somewhat behind us. The issue is the present generation of legal begals do not have the systems-technical knowledge base and neither do most of their collegues. So the judge, the prosecutors, and indeed, the jury have no landmarks from which to judge what he did and why. Now, if the jury were composed of his "peers" then there is no way they could make anything stick. Alas, they don't want people like me for instance on the jury.
Most people get by with the idea that if you can make something happen, then you have succeeded. This is the opposite notion of what is required for security and making working systems. I learned this very early on and I'm a seasoned programmer with more than 25 years experiance.
In order to develop a system that can be relied upon you have to design so that it cannot fail. This is at least an order of magnitude greater level of achievment than getting something to work. An example if we are dealing with a plane for instance is that the Wright Brothers managed to get it into the air. Boeing is still not at the point where it cannot fail.
Computer systems and security are even more sensitive to failure than jet aircraft. One can assume that mother nature will throw stuff at a plane and we can design to survive what she throws at us. But mother nature is random. Mother nature does not intelligently seek out any weakness and then systematically exploit it. Hacker-crakers do. Terrorists will. Most terrorists lack the sophistication of the hacker-crackers. Most hacker-crackers are not terrorists. If we end up with a terrorist cell which developes the technical skills of the hacker-cracker community then we are all in deep shit.
You are correct this chap will probably not get a fair trial... that is unless people who do understand become very vocal and very public. Becomming very angry might help too. Dimitri Sklyarov would have been left to rot in prison had there not developed a rather large voice crying foul. We need to do it here.
In another 20 years... by then the lawyers and judges will have grown up with computers. Some may even have hacked a few for fun. They certainly will have friends who have. These people will know at the gut level that what this fellow did is necessary.
We need security systems that work. We don't want well meaning but systematically flawed systems that are trivial to exploit. All this fellow did is point out that for over 3 years now the TSA has been delusional. He was not the first. Tossing him in jail might make him the last and any terrorist will clearly love that outcome.
Most people want good things to happen. What most people need to understand is that by doing bad things and by deluding ourselves we don't get good things to happen. We get good things to happen when smart and alarmed people point out mistakes and demand they get corrected. The phrase comes to mind "Deal with reality or reality will deal with you".
Clearly this is a case of attempting to shoot the messenger.
Since you are a lawyer I'll suggest you volunteer some time pro-bono. Clearly you understand what is going on. He deserves and needs your help. I think the EFF should get involved as well. And it will not hurt if people start to call up the media and start demanding some quality journalizm. One way is by writing stories. Many reporters are either overworked or lazy. A well written story that tells the truth may be printed. This is all part of being "effective".
There is already enough written here in slashdot to form the basis of a number of good stories and good stories sell papers.