While the judge may not quite grasp what a website is I can assure anyone reading this that I am _almost_ as old as this judge and I do grasp why he doesn't grasp what a website is. This person was cast in stone the day he entered his 20's. Some people are like this. They can't adapt.
People like this choose careers which are filled with rules and the less change for them the better. What better field than law?
Another comment made the point that public servants should be limited to 2-4 year terms. I will go along with this and further suggest that they should be older than 50 as well. This way the free enterprise system will weed out the inpractical ones long before they can do harm.
I can only guess as to the judgments this fellow has inflicted. Fortunately I am not British.
Banks have a much bigger problem than this. With the amount of spyware out there and the almost total lack of understanding of what vulnerabilities this exposes, probably more than 1/3 of the passwords and account details are known by Black Hats.
There are many ways to slip money out of accounts it isn't funny.
Trading accounts:
Create a series of bad trade orders. Offset these with legitimate trade orders in legitimate accounts. There are many thinly traded companies where it is easy to figure out who has the buy order and who has the sell order. All one has to do on a thinly traded company for instance is place a lowball buy order and have the victim's account buy shares at whatever price and then sell them into the lowball. This can be triggered from instance by a stop loss order. Once the shares are owned they can then be sold to another victim.
Chequing accounts: Create fraudulent transactions by paying for goods not ordered. These goods can even be shipped to create a semblance of legitimacy. By the time any of these goods arrive and the transactions are noticed the perpetrators are long gone with their loot.
Its quite easy to create a series of dummy companies to accomplish this. Of course, since this is e-commerce one would obtain valid certificates ahead of time.
This is one reason that secure communications offer limited protection. A felon in Jail can always get his lawyer to register a corporation for him and these are legitimate corporations. Its just they are run by crooks. But then Enron was run by crooks too it would seem. In fact, there are a HUGE number of companies run by crooks. Lots of people invest in them.
Takin the bait Re:The Phone Company DOES care!
on
AT&T Dumps VOIP Customers
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· Score: 2, Informative
1) we exchanged names. I know who he is. I have not mentioned names.
2) I back up the bills paid with paper work.
3) They had from February 2006 until Nov 2006 to fix the bill. They didn't do it. I complained every month.
4) My answering service has not been running from Nov 2006 until now.
5) They have my phone # my fax # and my email address(s). I am easy to get ahold of. I do not put people on hold.
6) I usually pay my bills before the due date. I walk over to the bank which is within about 2 blocks once or twice a month. I take my bills due over the next couple weeks with me and pay them.
Your interpretation is posted for the world to view. If it goes to court you can get transcripts.
(short form)
I did nothing wrong here. I am illustrating in a fashion that does not expose the management of any firms what the issues are. I do not know if the CEO of the firm in question reads/. I suspect many of their technical staff do read/.
I do think that many people might look at several strategies required to deal with the issues and I have posted elsewhere in this thread comments on what the companies are facing... which is perhaps a death sentence... but I won't go that far.
From your comments I would also conclude that you have not been in court as often as I have. If so... then I recommend you avoid court. To get $10 bux out be prepared to put $100 in. You have to convince the judge and these people are very experienced. You have to choose the correct side. If you plan on going to court then you better be prepared to back up what you say.
My strategy in small claims which is available to me here in Canada and which for the most part seems to be pretty fair is this.
1) file.
2) ask for a court order to reconnect the service.
3) While doing #2, pay into the court about $1000 bux to back up my request. I owe them $71 bux.
4) have all the paper work in order.
This gives the Judge the latitude to find me at fault if he wishes to do so and totally puts the telephone company in the defensive. The dispute becomes clearly one of service offered and payment offered and the payment is in the court. If the service is not offered then they have to defend their position.
I simply want my answering service running. I don't need to care how they do it even if I actually do know how they do it... and I do. What I don't know is why it is not working. This is their problem.
I think a court will find it unreasonable for them to expect me to wait on hold while they sort out why something they are responsible is not working. All that should be required is for me to communicate to them that the service they offer is not working.
I have communicated this over several months and so far - they have not picked up the ball.
I will say to anyone contemplatimg court. Put your money where your mouth is. If you ask for something be prepared to back it up with more than a whine.
You are correct you know. Power makes right. They can lose money on an individual as long as they make enough elsewhere to make up for it.
Monday Morning I need to go to the bank anyways and I'll pay their bill in full. I already have the high ground on their Pres and I'll keep it.
When choosing any strategy one has to size up the playing field.
Good counsel.
Perhaps what I will do since we have letters in the mail is declare that I will pay the bills one (1) week late until my answering service is running or something like this and refuse to pay their late fees.
One has to look at where a phone company is vulnerable.
(1) Sales departments. These people _always_ answer the phone.
(2) Investor relations.
(3) Legal. This is a very very vulnerable target because litigation is expensive and profit margins are getting thinner. Other comments were how a lawyer loved a challenge. Sure. But when the bean counters start to add up the cost the lawyer is not going to be so glib.
(4) Letter. Always have a track record and always stay on the winning side of the case. Chose your strategy wisely.
Perhaps I didn't. But I can still pay on Monday and it was a Damn good Rant even for SlashDot and I feel good!:-)
besides. I can live without the answering service or plug in my machine from 15 years ago. It is an AT&T machine! Yup. I bought the best even tho I'm in Canada! ha!
With systems like Asterix, the very core of the telecommunications business is threatened.
For DECADES they supported a huge beauracracy through usary long distance rates. A telephone switch is really a computer. As the prices of computers and electonics went down, very little was returned to the customer by way of cost savings. One might note that the present generation of the telecommunications industry has inherited a substantial infrastructure from our grandparents. In many respects and especially when it comes to the "last mile", the industry has not upgraded from what was built prior to the 1960's.
Next, advances in technology have increased the available bandwidth by orders of magnitude.
This puts the telephone company in the position where they bill on T1 or E1 service for instance in the vicinity of $1000 per month for the same bandwidth that they wish to bill $29 bux a month for by way of data services. The problem is further complicated by the fact that for an individual subscriber they want o bill for the voice bits PLUS the data bits. We all know the data bits can carry the voice as well.
The problem is that its all data. The switches and the routers see voice and data the same way. This is not true of antiquated systems used in some 3rd world areas, but it has been true of the 1st world telecommunications industry and especially North America for at least 30 years.
So, how do they justify billing one bloke over $1000 bux and billing the next bloke $29 bux for the same damn thing? How? By trying to keep the underlying technology mysterious. By hiding this from the general public. By dirty tactics like delaying certain packet types. By being deceitful.
The thing is that once _anyone_ has a broadband connection in place, the POTS voice dial up side uses so little bandwidth that it can easily be run over the digital link. The issue is time delays and here is where there are some problems.
The data on the telecommuncations system is multiplexed and thus a byte of data placed into a switch will show up at its destination within a known number of milliseconds. This is not true of the IP traffic.
What one could do if one had control over the "whole system" is set it up so that part of the bandwidth would be filled with time sensitive traffic and the remainder would be filled with IP traffic. This is basically how ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) works now. I won't bore anyone with details.
By doing this we can guarantee that a byte dropped into the channel will arrive within "x" milliseconds. Probably the IP traffic which takes the back seat will also arrive within "x" milliseconds as well. Voice over IP takes advantage of this.
Voice traffic is digitized at 64kB/sec = 8192 bytes per second with switching and signalling stollen from the bit stream. This is where 56kb comes from. Instead of multiplexing the voice bytes, we can instead gather up a bunch of the bytes and drop them in a packet and hope they arrive in time. If we gathered up say about 8000 bytes then we would have 1 second of voice. If instead we gather up say 80 then we have 1/100th of a second of voice. A UDP packet with say 80 bytes or 1/100th of a second of voice will probably arrive in time.
We can also do some cleaver things. We can put some imperceptible delays into the bit stream and create a little buffering - a few milliseconds worth - and gain tolerance of the bunchyness we get in the byte stream of VOIP. As most people know. Its pretty good.
But it leaves the telecommunications industry in a dilemma because they offered a reliable time guaranteed transmission mechanism for voice data via the ATM transmission method and now we don't want to use it because its priced too high. Too high here means higher than what they could sell the surplus bandwidth of their networks for. So in effect by offering IP traffic at $29 per month they cut their own throats and what saves their bacon for now is that most people don't understand how
The Phone Company DOES care. You damn right they care. They like to get paid.
I refuse to wait on hold. Any phone company that offers an answering service for its customers certainly should be able to set one up where its customers can leave a message for them.
My answering service for instance has not been working since last November. I actually think they shut it off deliberately because when I didn't like the over billing I contacted Investor Relations and their legal department. Seems the phone company cares about its Investors. Seems this is a direct line into the corporate management. Go figure eh?
Note: The legal department has to deal with legal issues. If you want something done then write a letter or fax the legal department and threaten them. They are smart and they are high priced help. The Legal Department does not want to deal with this shit either.
Well - seems the COMPANY PRESIDENT phoned me. Seems he didn't like me suggesting that after my bill has been PAID IN FULL BEFORE THE DUE DATE that its not ok for them to restrict my line and seems they also don't like me changing the amount owing and paying what I owe and telling them it is THEIR job to straighten their accounting out not mine and I'm not willing to wait on hold while they do it
Seems they think it is My responsibility to take up with the bank the time it takes for the bank to transfer the money into their accounts. This is despite the fact that they admitted the money was in their account at the time they restricted the service and they simply didn't check. The bank was excellent. Note when the line is restricted someone will answer the phone. This person noted the bill had been paid in full. They left the line restricted for about 4 days. They restricted it the day the bill was due. I paid in advance.
My Position: THE BANK IS YOUR AGENT, NOT MINE. You pay the bank for this service. Not me. If YOU have an issue with the bank then YOU take it up with the bank. Not Me! I told the guy to walk down the hall and ask his legal department.
Next day the bill was corrected. Same day my answering service quit.
Ok. I have quit paying their bill. When their accounting people call me I tell them: YUP. THE BILL IS NOT PAID! If you want it paid, get my answering service running and the bill will be paid in full within 1/2 hour. NO! I AM NOT WILLING TO WAIT ON HOLD. If YOU need someone to wait on hold while YOU do YOUR JOB then get YOUR COMPANY to hire someone to do it. I'm not willing to!
Its at a stalemate. Its been there for 2 months. There are letters in the mail. These are legal threats. If they restrict my service I WILL file in court and I will serve them and I will ask for a court order to force them to reconnect the service. They will lose. They do not have a leg to stand on.
See. The phone company does care? They care about their money. Rather than complain. Refuse to pay the bill until they deal with what they need to deal with. Its really simple actually!
The copyright act allows fair usage. This was interpreted in the past as an excerpt. One could for instance quote and attribute a passage from a book and this could even include pictures. To do so is not copyright infringement. A for instance of this is a critic or a book report. I would think a film trailer would fall into this category as well.
Dawns the Digital age and networks. Say one places one frame of a football game in each of millions of networked computers. Each frame can be noted as a quote and have proper attribution. Each frame can have an index number... say seconds into the game.
A cleaver app could simply download each frame individually from all the separate machines not as a torrent as currently defined... much more grainy. And said cleaver app could use the attribution information to stitch the game right back together. By doing so one would stay within the current legal interpretation of fair usage and at the same time totally subvert the copyright.
This would be no different than downloading a book where each character comes from a separate source. While this might sound screwy... the thing is it can be done and if legal it subverts copyright. But who is to say that 10 million people cannot excerpt from a published copyrighted work separate overlapping or non-overlapping segments? This would be like assigning a book review to a class and then if two students happen to excerpt the same passage or at least some of it - claiming they colluded and hence are guilty of copyright infringement. I think in a court of law one would have to charge a significant portion of the alleged perpetrators.
Then the question might be asked: Would it be legal to download all book reports and look at all excerpts and attempt to do an analysis of the amount of overlap and the distribution of the excepts over the entire book? In order to do this one would need to stitch the book back together from its pieces. I'm sure there is code to do this. I happen to know a chap who stitched the files off his hard drive back together using this technique after the partition resize was botched.
But let me ask... if we are talking about text as in a book then would it be copyright infringement if all of the letter "A"'s come from a small group of machines? What if one machine is programmed to hold only the 1st word or 1st letter of many different works and perhaps is programmed to do a statistical analysis of the usage frequency in position #1 across many types of books each identified by a book reference ID and a list of tags one might like to analyse over. Sound hookey or contrived? Of course. But is it legal research?
This ends up being nothing more than a linked list structure and it can be indexed and thus downloaded in parallel. Perhaps this is how torrents are put together.
The thing is that if _any_ excerpt is legal then everything in the area if infringement becomes increasingly gray as the sophistication increases. Well with Major Exceptions... the law also looks at the PURPOSE in mind. One can excerpt for a book report because the purpose of the excerpt is to support the book report. If 1 million people each write a book report and each use a different excerpt and their ultimate purpose is to subvert the authors copyright then the courts I think would find them guilty of infringement. However if 1 million people write a book report and have no intention of being able to put humpty dumpty back together again then they would not be guilty of infringement.
But what if Cleaver Programmer comes along and realises he can download all these said book reports and from them reconstruct humpty dumpty. Then is Cleaver Programmer guilty of infringement? Its a gray area. In a way yes. In a way no. Cleaver Programmer may for instance legally purchase the material and stitch it back together to illustrate it can be done. That would constitute Fair Usage. Cleaver Programmer for instance might be working on a PhD thesis on reconstruction technigues.
The law suit was dismissed without prejudice which means they can sue him again... and he wasn't offered costs! His lawyer should have asked for costs and should also ask the case be struck with prejudice.
My god. How many steps back has Thermodynamics taken with this artical and others cited!
Why not just pick up the CO and CO2 at the tail pipe and run it through the magic chemistry and put the gasoline back in the tank?
Why can't people see it take more energy to reverse the reactions than it does to run them in the forward direction? If you can do these magic things then you have a perpetual motion machine.
The reason trees can do it is because the sun provides the required energy.
Please note the scale is in microns = 10E-6 anot not nanometers. The visible spectrum is at wavelengths shorter than 780 nm which is less than one (1) um. We see our 1st CO2 hole at about 2.7-2.9 um and the next at 4.2-4.3 um and then a HUGE water vapour hole between 5.5-7.7 um. Water Vapour is a much more important absorber.
In the tropics and subtropics with temperatures in the vicinity of 35-40C we will find the concentration of water vapour is about 35,000 - 40,000 PPM and more. CO2 is about 375 PPM. This is about 100:1 and this is about the same as the ratio of a sheet of paper to a small tree stump. Mind you the change in CO2 levels is about 90 PPM estimated and we have no idea if water vapour has increased 90 or 1000 or if its decreased. We simply cannot measure water vapour accurately enough.
It is quite correct to say that water vapour can leave the atmosphere very quickly. It can also be replentished equally quickly. Plants transpire all the time and then we have straight evaporation. So pretty much all of the water that we use for irrigation except for that fraction which ends up in the water table will be forced into the atmosphere where it will cycle some number of times dependant on the local environment.
Thus one would expect that if we chop down the tropical rain forests and force massive areas into desserts that we should see reduced water vapour levels in those areas. If we reclaim desserts through irrigation and plant crops - then we should see increased water vapour levels in the areas we reclaim.
The increase will be a permanent as the crops are and the decrease will be as permanent as any desserts we create.
Also if we chop down enough tropical rain forests we might be able to shut down enough photosynthesis to cause a significant increase in CO2 from this factor alone.
I watched a documentary on the effects of Global Warming on Antarctic wildlife a few days back. Fortunately this was misbilled. The point is they said that "Global Warming" was affecting the Penguins. It seems the Emperor Penguins were nesting a little farther south as were some other species of penguins. Damn - those birds are smart. I'll bet if we have Global cooling they will move farther North. You might say they have adapted to a changing climate and know how to cope... especially since they have been around for a few million years. Either that or they have a survival strategy that doesn't take too much thought... like when you want to nest you get out of the water then you walk south for "n" days or miles or whatever metric they use and when you have gone as far as you think you should go then you find a nest. One could use such an algorithm in a robot!
I happen to know there were trees North of the Arctic circle 5 million years ago because a good friend's drilling crew drilled into wood 200 meters down in a kimberlite they were looking for diamonds in. In order to have trees North of the Arctic circle you need a much warmer climate. The earth climate is always in flux.
We already have CO2 absorbers in constant action on the planet. They are called trees. I would suggest instead of chopping them down faster than they can grow that we just let them do their jobs.
But then the trees of course are often replaced with a concrete jungle. Well folks! Concrete absorbs CO2. It really likes it when it is in the form of Calcium Oxide and Calcium Hydroxide (in portland cement).
So one way to do this chemically is to simply stack barrels of either Calcium Oxide or Calcium Hydroxide around and after they turn into Calcium Carbonate we can tote that back to the Cement Factory and roast it to (say way?) "drive off the CO2". and then reuse the stuff.
If ANYONE has missed the obvious. Its going to cost as much in energy terms to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere as we gained from the fuel we burned when we put it there! This is REGARDLESS how you do it and if they've got a way that doesn't require this energy then they better trot on down to the patent office (along with all the other lame brains) and patent their perpetual motion machine.
If we can get the taxpayer to fund this stupidy then we are well on our way to getting rich at the expense of the masses which seems to be the normal way things are going these days considering the amount of useless paper pushing going on, crap wannabe documentaries created by pollies which show up on movie channels (which I am about to cancel), and law suits such as the joy created by SCO.
Of course as a programmer I am caught in the same crap that many other programmers are caught in and that is that if we want to create something useful we'll probably be sued by a patent troll. Then if my kids want to listen to a tune they may well be sued by the RIAA. In fact when I look back the stupidity that seems to be going on is maybe worse than during the Vietman war... and what did they sing then? "1, 2, 3, 4 what are we fighting for?"
Oh.. we are fighting a war on drugs. This throws innocent single mothers in Jail. Oh... we are fighting a war on terror. But really it is an oil war meant to free middle eastern oil for a terribly inefficient USA automotive fleet. Oh... we are fighting a war on Global Warming! Yet its becoming more and more apparent that the idea of Global Warming driven by CO2 is bad science. Comparing CO2 concentrations for instance to water vapour concentrations is about the same as comparing the thickness of a sheet of toilet paper to a tree stump. We CANNOT MEASURE WATER VAPOUR ACCURATELY ENOUGH TO DETERMINE IF IT IS INCREASING, DECREASING or STAYING THE SAME AND CERTAINLY NOT WHY Yet it is Water Vapour that is the principal green house gas.
I would suggest to anyone worried about CO2 levels to (1) plant some trees and (2) put some insulation in their houses and (3) figu
The thread is a little off topic but you are dead on the mark here. Its the abuse of the legal system that is out of control and actually getting worse.
Judges and lawyers do abuse the system... there is no question on that. Cops also abuse the system. So do our pollies and public servants who administer the system. In part, the cops are just doing what they are ordered to do.
You are correct that if you go to court the state loses money. They count on people not going to court. Hence I think it is perfectly reasonable to fight all charges. Sometimes the cops don't show up. Then you win. Sometimes they don't have their paper work in order. Then you win.
Of course, the cop wins anyways because as you point out - he's being paid overtime. Its the state (IE. the taxpayer who loses). But then... consider that its the state that is running the system and most people look at these tickets as little different than another form of taxation.
On this basis one might forecast that we'll see computer software track people who always fight tickets and these people might be bypassed in the future when the cops write the tickets. As I write this "tongue in cheek" it occurs to me that tracking the propensity to fight would be pretty easy to tie to the drivers license or car license plate and a "code" could be flashed up telling the cops in essence: Don't charge this guy - we lose money on him!
Cynical comment? You bet.
But then the story is cynical. Its about judges who don't read the submissions. I've had this happen. I was in court accused of failing to show up for a discovery. The fact that the lawyer in question canceled the discovery and didn't re-schedule was lost on the master. The lawyer lied to the master. My lawyer for some strange reason didn't challenge this.
So... I was "suppose to be sanctioned and was suppose to pay $1000 bux and was ordered to discovery". The fact that the other side had been staunchly avoided discovery for two (2) years was also lost. Typical legal manouverings I suppose.
What happened? The discovery never took place. The other side's lawyers were fired from the firm in question and it appears they don't even practice law anymore. Perhaps they were lying to other judges as well. Next, the ordered discovery got canceled. This was a summary judgment anyways. We didn't care if there was a discovery or not. There was nothing for them to discover. The sanction? That means nothing. The ordered $1000 bux? That means nothing. The other side eventually settled out of court and paid me what I was owed net of all the bullshyte.
My costs? Well - one appearance where my lawyer didn't really challenge the lies told to the master and maybe he didn't do this because he just wanted to get out of there and could deal with it down the track. He charged me under $1000 bux for everything. The other side paid out over $5,000. I found out later they paid over $30,000 in legal fees and costs.
So all can laugh at how stupid people can be! It was over some lumber they ordered and used and didn't pay for. The amount they owed was about $5,000 bux. So rather than keep the lumber and pay for it and use it for their project, instead they hired lawyers and went into the courts and spent over $25,000 and paid for the lumber in the end on top of their legal bills... and get this... bought the exact same lumber anyways to build their project... and eventually sold their unfinished project. As for my lumber? Well - I got paid for it and got to keep it... however, it had been slightly used.
I learned many lessons. But the issue with the master not reading the submissions... very real. And the issue of the lawyers having a somewhat cavalier attitude for the truth? Also very true. One explanation is that the system is set up like a meat grinder and they just turn the crank. Nobody wants to spend time reading these submissions. However they do like to bill for making them. This is where the money is.
I installed the new firefox and installed a selection of tools I thought would be quite useful. Now the browser seems slow.
Is there a way to toggle these tools on and off?
The one that I think might be the problem is the JaJah interface. It works... but seems akward. There are things like you have to type in the number you want to call yet JaJah has a phone number list. The issue is that the browser interface doesn't seem to know about the phone number list so you get caught in a catch-22.
I am under the impression that it might be the JaJah code that is slowing the browser down because their website seems to really slow things down.
Your anaology would better be served if you used the idea of a courier who shows up at the baker's shop to pick up the cookies for delivery but doesn't wnat to pay for them.
Input costs for the cookies include gas, sugar, flour, fat, labour, and so forth.
Input costs for web content include electricity, artists, webmasters, servers, systems administration and so forth.
The ISP is involved in the delivery just as a courier is involved with delivery. So the ISP shows up to pick up the content requested by THE ISP's customers and wants the website to pay for the delivery.
This is no differnet than a cookie courier organizing a group of customers who like cookies, billing them on a monthly basis for cookie delivery then showing up at the baker's shop asking for cookies and demanding to be paid by the cookie shop as well.
Remeber that it is the end user who is the consummer and who needs to pay for the services they ask for. Websites are not consumers. They are the people who provide the content end users consume and often they have done this in the hope of finding a business model that works. More typically websites are subsidized by other business units and if this source of revenue is not available they eventually pull the plug.
The latest website that I use which is in the process of pulling the plug is www.stockwatch.com
Meanwhile www.wikipedia.org was in the news recently asking for donations.
The truth of the matter is that its the content that drives adoption of the net and drives expansion of the infrastuture, not the other way around, however the content and infrastructure are symbiotic, nto parasitic.
However, the idea of an ISP billing a content provider is parasitic.
In the hey day of the dot.com's, huge amounts of content were created using investor cash which was "burned". Now that the cash has been burned, for the most part this content is drying up.
Without an ability to make money, most websites, other than those that are put up by businesses or for advertising reasons, will cease to exist.
Non-net neutrality will hasten this... although I personally thing the issue with non-net neutrality os one of finding a way to kill VoIP and related technologies... IE to find a way to kill the competition by offering preferential communication speeds to packets the carriers favour verses those they carry from their competition.
In any event, IMHO it doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a computer scientist to see what is afoot here.
I was talking about Natural Gas. Go check what I wrote. Oil production may not may not be at peak at present. Besides, that chart is world production and its a horrible chart. I've seen much better.
Note my notation. I'm going to compute some weights and one way would be to show this as a vector: W(O2, H2O, CO2) = (blah, blah, blah). I didn't use this notation. I instead used W(O2), W(H2O) and W(CO2) and in some cases varied some of these weights to illustrate the effect it has. The notational change would make what I'm writing more rigerous but it should be clear anyways... and the non-vector notation is the one most often used anyways.
There are two problems with this. (at least)
1. In order to add these effects together one needs to weight the concentrations of the various gases. Oxygen is at 21% so its absorbtion at the three (3) spikes shown will contribute most of the total effect at these wave lengths.
H2O varies a lot! It is also not found in significant quantites above the tree line. At high elevation its is practically non-existant because its absolute concentration drops almost to zero as the temperature drops to the freezng point. This is the dew point curve. At high latititude it is practically non-existant. This is why Antarctica is the dryest continent. In the tropics and sub-tropics for instance it will be concentrated at levels above 4% which is 40,000 PPM. Most of the surface area of the planet is at low latitude.
One needs to contour the average water vapour concentrations and integrate the effect and this is very complex.
CO2 is distributed throughout the atmosphere just as O2 is. But its concentration is at about 370 PPM.
So we have O2 at 210,000 ppm, H20 at 40,000 ppm (variable from 0.00 to upwards of 80,000) and CO2 at 370 ppm
The weights are thus 210000/(210000+40000+370), 40000/(210000+40000+370) and 370/(210000+40000+370)
This is ignoring the wide H2O distribution which needs to be integrated and the proper factor used above. Next this ignores the fact that most of the atmosphere is also at low elevation... at the top of Mount Everest for instance the atmospheric pressure is about 1/3 at sea level. At this low pressure and temperature the H2O is long gone! It fell out about base camp!
But the weights are: W(O2)=0.8387586, W(H2O)=0.1597635, W(CO2)=0.0014778 (4% H2O - subtropical sealevel)
Note I used a double floating point to do this calc. With single precision numbers there are 6.9 decimals of precision and I showed 7 so this is approximately the numerical precision of the floating point feild typically used in the modeling software.
Note the comparison of the 0.1597635 value to the 0.0014778 value. There are HUGE problems here.
Here is a quick and dirty sensitivity analysis on this weight.
Suppose CO2 were 300: then W(300)=0.0011986
This is a change in the 4th decimal. So we can rewrite the number as 0.001x??? Everything after the x is not relevant to calculations. Here I am analysing the CO2 effects at 300 PPM and 370 PPM is a rough pre-industrial post-industrial comparison to show where in the numbers one would expect this change to show up. It is in the 4th decimal position.
Now, water vapour. We already know it has a huge variation. It varies with temperature (dew point curves) and elevation. It varies for other reasons. Desserts are dry. But what of irrigated cropland? Irrigation pumps water into the atmosphere on a continous basis.
If we play with the water vapour fraction we see that it is 100 times larger. Then we see that we cannot realy measure it all that well. The change in CO2 used to compute global warming hypothesis shows up in the 4th decimal. What of water vapour changes? Are there water vapour changes? If so - how big and where would that change show up.
It is immediately apparent that the water vapour factor since it starts out 100 times greater introduces an uncertainty which is in the order of 100 times greater than the 4th decimal point and thus 100 times greater than the total ef
It would be really nice if you started to check your facts! H2O is a more effective absorber than CO2 is. It is found at concentrations many many times CO2. H2O will be anywhere from 0% to over 4%. That is up to 40,000 PPM compared to 370.
Note: Your 1st link is not found.
It does not take centuries for the CO2 to be absorbed. At most a little over a decade. Plants absorb CO2 from the Air. Water vapour condenses. Both gases move into and out of the atmosphere.
The idea of equilibrium is also misleading. CO2 has been present in the past at concentrations many times what it is now. Geologically speaking, CO2 is not correlated with climate change.
Where do you get the idea of a saturation point? CO2 levels in the Ordovician were 13x to 17x higher than now. There is no evidence this was past a saturation point. During the precambrian CO2 levels were 100's of times higher than now. Now, CO2 levels are actually very low.
Note the temperature of the earth before the Permian-Triassic extinction was about 10 degrees warmer than now. This increased ANOTHER 5 degrees during the event.
Note the development of the Siberian Traps. This was a larger volcanic event than the Deccan Traps in India. It is possible the Deccan Traps were associated with the K-T extinction. Simailarly the Siberain Traps may have been responsible for the P-Tr extinction.
I'm having issues with the idea of a huge buildup of fungal detrital material. Fungi are inhibited by high CO2 levels. At even 1000 ppm we get huge morphological changes in many species. Plants will often do much better at these CO2 levels. Check this: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm But perhpas this does explain it. If the fungi are inhibited then they may well have consumed part of the detrital material but were unable to complete the process and hense ended up themselves becoming the detrital material. This would greatly impede the ability of plants to obtain nutrients since many if not most plants form mychorrizal relationships with fungi.
Suppose CO2 at the time got upwards of 5000 ppm. This would be about 14x the present levels (370 ppm). This is at a level which is dangerous. Its high enough to severely impede fungal growth. At 5% which is 50,000 ppm its lethal. So I see no reason to believe it ever reached into the 50,000 PPM range in the recent geological history and I sort of doubt it was much over a 1000 ppm if it even got up that high during the Pr-T extinction... but it is possible that the fossil record which shows the high percentage of fungal fossiles is providing evidence of how high the CO2 levels actually were.
Quote: "Figure 18: Young Eldarica pine trees were grown for 23 months under four CO2 concentrations and then cut down and weighed. Each point represents an individual tree (56). Weights of tree parts are as indicated.
Figure 18 summarizes the increased growth rates of young pine seedlings at four CO2 levels. Again, the response is remarkable, with an increase of 300 ppm more than tripling the rate of growth.
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Does this mean my dual core 200 mHz Pentium 1 system won't run their latest and greatest?
While the judge may not quite grasp what a website is I can assure anyone reading this that I am _almost_ as old as this judge and I do grasp why he doesn't grasp what a website is. This person was cast in stone the day he entered his 20's. Some people are like this. They can't adapt.
People like this choose careers which are filled with rules and the less change for them the better. What better field than law?
Another comment made the point that public servants should be limited to 2-4 year terms. I will go along with this and further suggest that they should be older than 50 as well. This way the free enterprise system will weed out the inpractical ones long before they can do harm.
I can only guess as to the judgments this fellow has inflicted. Fortunately I am not British.
Banks have a much bigger problem than this. With the amount of spyware out there and the almost total lack of understanding of what vulnerabilities this exposes, probably more than 1/3 of the passwords and account details are known by Black Hats.
There are many ways to slip money out of accounts it isn't funny.
Trading accounts:
Create a series of bad trade orders. Offset these with legitimate trade orders in legitimate accounts. There are many thinly traded companies where it is easy to figure out who has the buy order and who has the sell order. All one has to do on a thinly traded company for instance is place a lowball buy order and have the victim's account buy shares at whatever price and then sell them into the lowball. This can be triggered from instance by a stop loss order. Once the shares are owned they can then be sold to another victim.
Chequing accounts: Create fraudulent transactions by paying for goods not ordered. These goods can even be shipped to create a semblance of legitimacy. By the time any of these goods arrive and the transactions are noticed the perpetrators are long gone with their loot.
Its quite easy to create a series of dummy companies to accomplish this. Of course, since this is e-commerce one would obtain valid certificates ahead of time.
This is one reason that secure communications offer limited protection. A felon in Jail can always get his lawyer to register a corporation for him and these are legitimate corporations. Its just they are run by crooks. But then Enron was run by crooks too it would seem. In fact, there are a HUGE number of companies run by crooks. Lots of people invest in them.
Somebody should have told this guy about OSS.
1) we exchanged names. I know who he is. I have not mentioned names.
/. I suspect many of their technical staff do read /.
2) I back up the bills paid with paper work.
3) They had from February 2006 until Nov 2006 to fix the bill. They didn't do it. I complained every month.
4) My answering service has not been running from Nov 2006 until now.
5) They have my phone # my fax # and my email address(s). I am easy to get ahold of. I do not put people on hold.
6) I usually pay my bills before the due date. I walk over to the bank which is within about 2 blocks once or twice a month. I take my bills due over the next couple weeks with me and pay them.
Your interpretation is posted for the world to view. If it goes to court you can get transcripts.
(short form)
I did nothing wrong here. I am illustrating in a fashion that does not expose the management of any firms what the issues are. I do not know if the CEO of the firm in question reads
I do think that many people might look at several strategies required to deal with the issues and I have posted elsewhere in this thread comments on what the companies are facing... which is perhaps a death sentence... but I won't go that far.
From your comments I would also conclude that you have not been in court as often as I have. If so... then I recommend you avoid court. To get $10 bux out be prepared to put $100 in. You have to convince the judge and these people are very experienced. You have to choose the correct side. If you plan on going to court then you better be prepared to back up what you say.
My strategy in small claims which is available to me here in Canada and which for the most part seems to be pretty fair is this.
1) file.
2) ask for a court order to reconnect the service.
3) While doing #2, pay into the court about $1000 bux to back up my request. I owe them $71 bux.
4) have all the paper work in order.
This gives the Judge the latitude to find me at fault if he wishes to do so and totally puts the telephone company in the defensive. The dispute becomes clearly one of service offered and payment offered and the payment is in the court. If the service is not offered then they have to defend their position.
I simply want my answering service running. I don't need to care how they do it even if I actually do know how they do it... and I do. What I don't know is why it is not working. This is their problem.
I think a court will find it unreasonable for them to expect me to wait on hold while they sort out why something they are responsible is not working. All that should be required is for me to communicate to them that the service they offer is not working.
I have communicated this over several months and so far - they have not picked up the ball.
I will say to anyone contemplatimg court. Put your money where your mouth is. If you ask for something be prepared to back it up with more than a whine.
You are correct you know. Power makes right. They can lose money on an individual as long as they make enough elsewhere to make up for it.
:-)
Monday Morning I need to go to the bank anyways and I'll pay their bill in full. I already have the high ground on their Pres and I'll keep it.
When choosing any strategy one has to size up the playing field.
Good counsel.
Perhaps what I will do since we have letters in the mail is declare that I will pay the bills one (1) week late until my answering service is running or something like this and refuse to pay their late fees.
One has to look at where a phone company is vulnerable.
(1) Sales departments. These people _always_ answer the phone.
(2) Investor relations.
(3) Legal. This is a very very vulnerable target because litigation is expensive and profit margins are getting thinner. Other comments were how a lawyer loved a challenge. Sure. But when the bean counters start to add up the cost the lawyer is not going to be so glib.
(4) Letter. Always have a track record and always stay on the winning side of the case. Chose your strategy wisely.
Perhaps I didn't. But I can still pay on Monday and it was a Damn good Rant even for SlashDot and I feel good!
besides. I can live without the answering service or plug in my machine from 15 years ago. It is an AT&T machine! Yup. I bought the best even tho I'm in Canada! ha!
Thanx man!
With systems like Asterix, the very core of the telecommunications business is threatened.
For DECADES they supported a huge beauracracy through usary long distance rates. A telephone switch is really a computer. As the prices of computers and electonics went down, very little was returned to the customer by way of cost savings. One might note that the present generation of the telecommunications industry has inherited a substantial infrastructure from our grandparents. In many respects and especially when it comes to the "last mile", the industry has not upgraded from what was built prior to the 1960's.
Next, advances in technology have increased the available bandwidth by orders of magnitude.
This puts the telephone company in the position where they bill on T1 or E1 service for instance in the vicinity of $1000 per month for the same bandwidth that they wish to bill $29 bux a month for by way of data services. The problem is further complicated by the fact that for an individual subscriber they want o bill for the voice bits PLUS the data bits. We all know the data bits can carry the voice as well.
The problem is that its all data. The switches and the routers see voice and data the same way. This is not true of antiquated systems used in some 3rd world areas, but it has been true of the 1st world telecommunications industry and especially North America for at least 30 years.
So, how do they justify billing one bloke over $1000 bux and billing the next bloke $29 bux for the same damn thing? How? By trying to keep the underlying technology mysterious. By hiding this from the general public. By dirty tactics like delaying certain packet types. By being deceitful.
The thing is that once _anyone_ has a broadband connection in place, the POTS voice dial up side uses so little bandwidth that it can easily be run over the digital link. The issue is time delays and here is where there are some problems.
The data on the telecommuncations system is multiplexed and thus a byte of data placed into a switch will show up at its destination within a known number of milliseconds. This is not true of the IP traffic.
What one could do if one had control over the "whole system" is set it up so that part of the bandwidth would be filled with time sensitive traffic and the remainder would be filled with IP traffic. This is basically how ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) works now. I won't bore anyone with details.
By doing this we can guarantee that a byte dropped into the channel will arrive within "x" milliseconds. Probably the IP traffic which takes the back seat will also arrive within "x" milliseconds as well. Voice over IP takes advantage of this.
Voice traffic is digitized at 64kB/sec = 8192 bytes per second with switching and signalling stollen from the bit stream. This is where 56kb comes from. Instead of multiplexing the voice bytes, we can instead gather up a bunch of the bytes and drop them in a packet and hope they arrive in time. If we gathered up say about 8000 bytes then we would have 1 second of voice. If instead we gather up say 80 then we have 1/100th of a second of voice. A UDP packet with say 80 bytes or 1/100th of a second of voice will probably arrive in time.
We can also do some cleaver things. We can put some imperceptible delays into the bit stream and create a little buffering - a few milliseconds worth - and gain tolerance of the bunchyness we get in the byte stream of VOIP. As most people know. Its pretty good.
But it leaves the telecommunications industry in a dilemma because they offered a reliable time guaranteed transmission mechanism for voice data via the ATM transmission method and now we don't want to use it because its priced too high. Too high here means higher than what they could sell the surplus bandwidth of their networks for. So in effect by offering IP traffic at $29 per month they cut their own throats and what saves their bacon for now is that most people don't understand how
The Phone Company DOES care. You damn right they care. They like to get paid.
I refuse to wait on hold. Any phone company that offers an answering service for its customers certainly should be able to set one up where its customers can leave a message for them.
My answering service for instance has not been working since last November. I actually think they shut it off deliberately because when I didn't like the over billing I contacted Investor Relations and their legal department. Seems the phone company cares about its Investors. Seems this is a direct line into the corporate management. Go figure eh?
Note: The legal department has to deal with legal issues. If you want something done then write a letter or fax the legal department and threaten them. They are smart and they are high priced help. The Legal Department does not want to deal with this shit either.
Well - seems the COMPANY PRESIDENT phoned me. Seems he didn't like me suggesting that after my bill has been PAID IN FULL BEFORE THE DUE DATE that its not ok for them to restrict my line and seems they also don't like me changing the amount owing and paying what I owe and telling them it is THEIR job to straighten their accounting out not mine and I'm not willing to wait on hold while they do it
Seems they think it is My responsibility to take up with the bank the time it takes for the bank to transfer the money into their accounts. This is despite the fact that they admitted the money was in their account at the time they restricted the service and they simply didn't check. The bank was excellent. Note when the line is restricted someone will answer the phone. This person noted the bill had been paid in full. They left the line restricted for about 4 days. They restricted it the day the bill was due. I paid in advance.
My Position: THE BANK IS YOUR AGENT, NOT MINE. You pay the bank for this service. Not me. If YOU have an issue with the bank then YOU take it up with the bank. Not Me! I told the guy to walk down the hall and ask his legal department.
Next day the bill was corrected. Same day my answering service quit.
Ok. I have quit paying their bill. When their accounting people call me I tell them: YUP. THE BILL IS NOT PAID! If you want it paid, get my answering service running and the bill will be paid in full within 1/2 hour. NO! I AM NOT WILLING TO WAIT ON HOLD. If YOU need someone to wait on hold while YOU do YOUR JOB then get YOUR COMPANY to hire someone to do it. I'm not willing to!
Its at a stalemate. Its been there for 2 months. There are letters in the mail. These are legal threats. If they restrict my service I WILL file in court and I will serve them and I will ask for a court order to force them to reconnect the service. They will lose. They do not have a leg to stand on.
See. The phone company does care? They care about their money. Rather than complain. Refuse to pay the bill until they deal with what they need to deal with. Its really simple actually!
The copyright act allows fair usage. This was interpreted in the past as an excerpt. One could for instance quote and attribute a passage from a book and this could even include pictures. To do so is not copyright infringement. A for instance of this is a critic or a book report. I would think a film trailer would fall into this category as well.
Dawns the Digital age and networks. Say one places one frame of a football game in each of millions of networked computers. Each frame can be noted as a quote and have proper attribution. Each frame can have an index number... say seconds into the game.
A cleaver app could simply download each frame individually from all the separate machines not as a torrent as currently defined... much more grainy. And said cleaver app could use the attribution information to stitch the game right back together. By doing so one would stay within the current legal interpretation of fair usage and at the same time totally subvert the copyright.
This would be no different than downloading a book where each character comes from a separate source. While this might sound screwy... the thing is it can be done and if legal it subverts copyright. But who is to say that 10 million people cannot excerpt from a published copyrighted work separate overlapping or non-overlapping segments? This would be like assigning a book review to a class and then if two students happen to excerpt the same passage or at least some of it - claiming they colluded and hence are guilty of copyright infringement. I think in a court of law one would have to charge a significant portion of the alleged perpetrators.
Then the question might be asked: Would it be legal to download all book reports and look at all excerpts and attempt to do an analysis of the amount of overlap and the distribution of the excepts over the entire book? In order to do this one would need to stitch the book back together from its pieces. I'm sure there is code to do this. I happen to know a chap who stitched the files off his hard drive back together using this technique after the partition resize was botched.
But let me ask... if we are talking about text as in a book then would it be copyright infringement if all of the letter "A"'s come from a small group of machines? What if one machine is programmed to hold only the 1st word or 1st letter of many different works and perhaps is programmed to do a statistical analysis of the usage frequency in position #1 across many types of books each identified by a book reference ID and a list of tags one might like to analyse over. Sound hookey or contrived? Of course. But is it legal research?
This ends up being nothing more than a linked list structure and it can be indexed and thus downloaded in parallel. Perhaps this is how torrents are put together.
The thing is that if _any_ excerpt is legal then everything in the area if infringement becomes increasingly gray as the sophistication increases. Well with Major Exceptions... the law also looks at the PURPOSE in mind. One can excerpt for a book report because the purpose of the excerpt is to support the book report. If 1 million people each write a book report and each use a different excerpt and their ultimate purpose is to subvert the authors copyright then the courts I think would find them guilty of infringement. However if 1 million people write a book report and have no intention of being able to put humpty dumpty back together again then they would not be guilty of infringement.
But what if Cleaver Programmer comes along and realises he can download all these said book reports and from them reconstruct humpty dumpty. Then is Cleaver Programmer guilty of infringement? Its a gray area. In a way yes. In a way no. Cleaver Programmer may for instance legally purchase the material and stitch it back together to illustrate it can be done. That would constitute Fair Usage. Cleaver Programmer for instance might be working on a PhD thesis on reconstruction technigues.
The law suit was dismissed without prejudice which means they can sue him again... and he wasn't offered costs! His lawyer should have asked for costs and should also ask the case be struck with prejudice.
My god. How many steps back has Thermodynamics taken with this artical and others cited!
Why not just pick up the CO and CO2 at the tail pipe and run it through the magic chemistry and put the gasoline back in the tank?
Why can't people see it take more energy to reverse the reactions than it does to run them in the forward direction? If you can do these magic things then you have a perpetual motion machine.
The reason trees can do it is because the sun provides the required energy.
I didn't forget about absorption curves at all. Check here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared and especially this curve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Atmospheric_tra nsmittance_infrared.gif
Please note the scale is in microns = 10E-6 anot not nanometers. The visible spectrum is at wavelengths shorter than 780 nm which is less than one (1) um. We see our 1st CO2 hole at about 2.7-2.9 um and the next at 4.2-4.3 um and then a HUGE water vapour hole between 5.5-7.7 um. Water Vapour is a much more important absorber.
In the tropics and subtropics with temperatures in the vicinity of 35-40C we will find the concentration of water vapour is about 35,000 - 40,000 PPM and more. CO2 is about 375 PPM. This is about 100:1 and this is about the same as the ratio of a sheet of paper to a small tree stump. Mind you the change in CO2 levels is about 90 PPM estimated and we have no idea if water vapour has increased 90 or 1000 or if its decreased. We simply cannot measure water vapour accurately enough.
It is quite correct to say that water vapour can leave the atmosphere very quickly. It can also be replentished equally quickly. Plants transpire all the time and then we have straight evaporation. So pretty much all of the water that we use for irrigation except for that fraction which ends up in the water table will be forced into the atmosphere where it will cycle some number of times dependant on the local environment.
Thus one would expect that if we chop down the tropical rain forests and force massive areas into desserts that we should see reduced water vapour levels in those areas. If we reclaim desserts through irrigation and plant crops - then we should see increased water vapour levels in the areas we reclaim.
The increase will be a permanent as the crops are and the decrease will be as permanent as any desserts we create.
Also if we chop down enough tropical rain forests we might be able to shut down enough photosynthesis to cause a significant increase in CO2 from this factor alone.
I watched a documentary on the effects of Global Warming on Antarctic wildlife a few days back. Fortunately this was misbilled. The point is they said that "Global Warming" was affecting the Penguins. It seems the Emperor Penguins were nesting a little farther south as were some other species of penguins. Damn - those birds are smart. I'll bet if we have Global cooling they will move farther North. You might say they have adapted to a changing climate and know how to cope... especially since they have been around for a few million years. Either that or they have a survival strategy that doesn't take too much thought... like when you want to nest you get out of the water then you walk south for "n" days or miles or whatever metric they use and when you have gone as far as you think you should go then you find a nest. One could use such an algorithm in a robot!
I happen to know there were trees North of the Arctic circle 5 million years ago because a good friend's drilling crew drilled into wood 200 meters down in a kimberlite they were looking for diamonds in. In order to have trees North of the Arctic circle you need a much warmer climate. The earth climate is always in flux.
We already have CO2 absorbers in constant action on the planet. They are called trees. I would suggest instead of chopping them down faster than they can grow that we just let them do their jobs.
But then the trees of course are often replaced with a concrete jungle. Well folks! Concrete absorbs CO2. It really likes it when it is in the form of Calcium Oxide and Calcium Hydroxide (in portland cement).
So one way to do this chemically is to simply stack barrels of either Calcium Oxide or Calcium Hydroxide around and after they turn into Calcium Carbonate we can tote that back to the Cement Factory and roast it to (say way?) "drive off the CO2". and then reuse the stuff.
If ANYONE has missed the obvious. Its going to cost as much in energy terms to remove the CO2 from the atmosphere as we gained from the fuel we burned when we put it there! This is REGARDLESS how you do it and if they've got a way that doesn't require this energy then they better trot on down to the patent office (along with all the other lame brains) and patent their perpetual motion machine.
If we can get the taxpayer to fund this stupidy then we are well on our way to getting rich at the expense of the masses which seems to be the normal way things are going these days considering the amount of useless paper pushing going on, crap wannabe documentaries created by pollies which show up on movie channels (which I am about to cancel), and law suits such as the joy created by SCO.
Of course as a programmer I am caught in the same crap that many other programmers are caught in and that is that if we want to create something useful we'll probably be sued by a patent troll. Then if my kids want to listen to a tune they may well be sued by the RIAA. In fact when I look back the stupidity that seems to be going on is maybe worse than during the Vietman war... and what did they sing then? "1, 2, 3, 4 what are we fighting for?"
Oh.. we are fighting a war on drugs. This throws innocent single mothers in Jail. Oh... we are fighting a war on terror. But really it is an oil war meant to free middle eastern oil for a terribly inefficient USA automotive fleet. Oh... we are fighting a war on Global Warming! Yet its becoming more and more apparent that the idea of Global Warming driven by CO2 is bad science. Comparing CO2 concentrations for instance to water vapour concentrations is about the same as comparing the thickness of a sheet of toilet paper to a tree stump. We CANNOT MEASURE WATER VAPOUR ACCURATELY ENOUGH TO DETERMINE IF IT IS INCREASING, DECREASING or STAYING THE SAME AND CERTAINLY NOT WHY Yet it is Water Vapour that is the principal green house gas.
I would suggest to anyone worried about CO2 levels to (1) plant some trees and (2) put some insulation in their houses and (3) figu
The thread is a little off topic but you are dead on the mark here. Its the abuse of the legal system that is out of control and actually getting worse.
Judges and lawyers do abuse the system... there is no question on that. Cops also abuse the system. So do our pollies and public servants who administer the system. In part, the cops are just doing what they are ordered to do.
You are correct that if you go to court the state loses money. They count on people not going to court. Hence I think it is perfectly reasonable to fight all charges. Sometimes the cops don't show up. Then you win. Sometimes they don't have their paper work in order. Then you win.
Of course, the cop wins anyways because as you point out - he's being paid overtime. Its the state (IE. the taxpayer who loses). But then... consider that its the state that is running the system and most people look at these tickets as little different than another form of taxation.
On this basis one might forecast that we'll see computer software track people who always fight tickets and these people might be bypassed in the future when the cops write the tickets. As I write this "tongue in cheek" it occurs to me that tracking the propensity to fight would be pretty easy to tie to the drivers license or car license plate and a "code" could be flashed up telling the cops in essence: Don't charge this guy - we lose money on him!
Cynical comment? You bet.
But then the story is cynical. Its about judges who don't read the submissions. I've had this happen. I was in court accused of failing to show up for a discovery. The fact that the lawyer in question canceled the discovery and didn't re-schedule was lost on the master. The lawyer lied to the master. My lawyer for some strange reason didn't challenge this.
So... I was "suppose to be sanctioned and was suppose to pay $1000 bux and was ordered to discovery". The fact that the other side had been staunchly avoided discovery for two (2) years was also lost. Typical legal manouverings I suppose.
What happened? The discovery never took place. The other side's lawyers were fired from the firm in question and it appears they don't even practice law anymore. Perhaps they were lying to other judges as well. Next, the ordered discovery got canceled. This was a summary judgment anyways. We didn't care if there was a discovery or not. There was nothing for them to discover. The sanction? That means nothing. The ordered $1000 bux? That means nothing. The other side eventually settled out of court and paid me what I was owed net of all the bullshyte.
My costs? Well - one appearance where my lawyer didn't really challenge the lies told to the master and maybe he didn't do this because he just wanted to get out of there and could deal with it down the track. He charged me under $1000 bux for everything. The other side paid out over $5,000. I found out later they paid over $30,000 in legal fees and costs.
So all can laugh at how stupid people can be! It was over some lumber they ordered and used and didn't pay for. The amount they owed was about $5,000 bux. So rather than keep the lumber and pay for it and use it for their project, instead they hired lawyers and went into the courts and spent over $25,000 and paid for the lumber in the end on top of their legal bills... and get this... bought the exact same lumber anyways to build their project... and eventually sold their unfinished project. As for my lumber? Well - I got paid for it and got to keep it... however, it had been slightly used.
I learned many lessons. But the issue with the master not reading the submissions... very real. And the issue of the lawyers having a somewhat cavalier attitude for the truth? Also very true. One explanation is that the system is set up like a meat grinder and they just turn the crank. Nobody wants to spend time reading these submissions. However they do like to bill for making them. This is where the money is.
Look at
I installed the new firefox and installed a selection of tools I thought would be quite useful. Now the browser seems slow.
Is there a way to toggle these tools on and off?
The one that I think might be the problem is the JaJah interface. It works... but seems akward. There are things like you have to type in the number you want to call yet JaJah has a phone number list. The issue is that the browser interface doesn't seem to know about the phone number list so you get caught in a catch-22.
I am under the impression that it might be the JaJah code that is slowing the browser down because their website seems to really slow things down.
Your anaology would better be served if you used the idea of a courier who shows up at the baker's shop to pick up the cookies for delivery but doesn't wnat to pay for them.
Input costs for the cookies include gas, sugar, flour, fat, labour, and so forth.
Input costs for web content include electricity, artists, webmasters, servers, systems administration and so forth.
The ISP is involved in the delivery just as a courier is involved with delivery. So the ISP shows up to pick up the content requested by THE ISP's customers and wants the website to pay for the delivery.
This is no differnet than a cookie courier organizing a group of customers who like cookies, billing them on a monthly basis for cookie delivery then showing up at the baker's shop asking for cookies and demanding to be paid by the cookie shop as well.
Remeber that it is the end user who is the consummer and who needs to pay for the services they ask for. Websites are not consumers. They are the people who provide the content end users consume and often they have done this in the hope of finding a business model that works. More typically websites are subsidized by other business units and if this source of revenue is not available they eventually pull the plug.
The latest website that I use which is in the process of pulling the plug is www.stockwatch.com
Meanwhile www.wikipedia.org was in the news recently asking for donations.
The truth of the matter is that its the content that drives adoption of the net and drives expansion of the infrastuture, not the other way around, however the content and infrastructure are symbiotic, nto parasitic.
However, the idea of an ISP billing a content provider is parasitic.
In the hey day of the dot.com's, huge amounts of content were created using investor cash which was "burned". Now that the cash has been burned, for the most part this content is drying up.
Without an ability to make money, most websites, other than those that are put up by businesses or for advertising reasons, will cease to exist.
Non-net neutrality will hasten this... although I personally thing the issue with non-net neutrality os one of finding a way to kill VoIP and related technologies... IE to find a way to kill the competition by offering preferential communication speeds to packets the carriers favour verses those they carry from their competition.
In any event, IMHO it doesn't take a rocket scientist or even a computer scientist to see what is afoot here.
So are you saying chemists don't know how to do weights?
This might explain some things about global warming!
Actually there is good data to support this. Read Matt Simmon's book "Twilight in the dessert". You might note the price of oil?
You might also actually check the BP statistical review.
No NGPL is Natural gas plant liquids which is commonly just refered to as Natural gas liquids.
I highly recomend you download the statistical review from the BHP website.
If you have good ideas, which most slashdotters have, then I think its a good idea to augment these tools with data.
I was talking about Natural Gas. Go check what I wrote. Oil production may not may not be at peak at present. Besides, that chart is world production and its a horrible chart. I've seen much better.
Re. http://brneurosci.org/co2.html
Fig #2 is obviously not correctly done!
Note my notation. I'm going to compute some weights and one way would be to show this as a vector: W(O2, H2O, CO2) = (blah, blah, blah). I didn't use this notation. I instead used W(O2), W(H2O) and W(CO2) and in some cases varied some of these weights to illustrate the effect it has. The notational change would make what I'm writing more rigerous but it should be clear anyways... and the non-vector notation is the one most often used anyways.
There are two problems with this. (at least)
1. In order to add these effects together one needs to weight the concentrations of the various gases. Oxygen is at 21% so its absorbtion at the three (3) spikes shown will contribute most of the total effect at these wave lengths.
H2O varies a lot! It is also not found in significant quantites above the tree line. At high elevation its is practically non-existant because its absolute concentration drops almost to zero as the temperature drops to the freezng point. This is the dew point curve. At high latititude it is practically non-existant. This is why Antarctica is the dryest continent. In the tropics and sub-tropics for instance it will be concentrated at levels above 4% which is 40,000 PPM. Most of the surface area of the planet is at low latitude.
One needs to contour the average water vapour concentrations and integrate the effect and this is very complex.
CO2 is distributed throughout the atmosphere just as O2 is. But its concentration is at about 370 PPM.
So we have O2 at 210,000 ppm, H20 at 40,000 ppm (variable from 0.00 to upwards of 80,000) and CO2 at 370 ppm
The weights are thus 210000/(210000+40000+370), 40000/(210000+40000+370) and 370/(210000+40000+370)
This is ignoring the wide H2O distribution which needs to be integrated and the proper factor used above. Next this ignores the fact that most of the atmosphere is also at low elevation... at the top of Mount Everest for instance the atmospheric pressure is about 1/3 at sea level. At this low pressure and temperature the H2O is long gone! It fell out about base camp!
But the weights are: W(O2)=0.8387586, W(H2O)=0.1597635, W(CO2)=0.0014778 (4% H2O - subtropical sealevel)
Note I used a double floating point to do this calc. With single precision numbers there are 6.9 decimals of precision and I showed 7 so this is approximately the numerical precision of the floating point feild typically used in the modeling software.
Note the comparison of the 0.1597635 value to the 0.0014778 value. There are HUGE problems here.
Here is a quick and dirty sensitivity analysis on this weight.
Suppose CO2 were 300: then W(300)=0.0011986
This is a change in the 4th decimal. So we can rewrite the number as 0.001x??? Everything after the x is not relevant to calculations. Here I am analysing the CO2 effects at 300 PPM and 370 PPM is a rough pre-industrial post-industrial comparison to show where in the numbers one would expect this change to show up. It is in the 4th decimal position.
Now, water vapour. We already know it has a huge variation. It varies with temperature (dew point curves) and elevation. It varies for other reasons. Desserts are dry. But what of irrigated cropland? Irrigation pumps water into the atmosphere on a continous basis.
If we play with the water vapour fraction we see that it is 100 times larger. Then we see that we cannot realy measure it all that well. The change in CO2 used to compute global warming hypothesis shows up in the 4th decimal. What of water vapour changes? Are there water vapour changes? If so - how big and where would that change show up.
It is immediately apparent that the water vapour factor since it starts out 100 times greater introduces an uncertainty which is in the order of 100 times greater than the 4th decimal point and thus 100 times greater than the total ef
It would be really nice if you started to check your facts! H2O is a more effective absorber than CO2 is. It is found at concentrations many many times CO2. H2O will be anywhere from 0% to over 4%. That is up to 40,000 PPM compared to 370.
e sis This is not a CO2 gun.
Note: Your 1st link is not found.
It does not take centuries for the CO2 to be absorbed. At most a little over a decade. Plants absorb CO2 from the Air. Water vapour condenses. Both gases move into and out of the atmosphere.
The idea of equilibrium is also misleading. CO2 has been present in the past at concentrations many times what it is now. Geologically speaking, CO2 is not correlated with climate change.
Where do you get the idea of a saturation point? CO2 levels in the Ordovician were 13x to 17x higher than now. There is no evidence this was past a saturation point. During the precambrian CO2 levels were 100's of times higher than now. Now, CO2 levels are actually very low.
Note the temperature of the earth before the Permian-Triassic extinction was about 10 degrees warmer than now. This increased ANOTHER 5 degrees during the event.
The artical you cited talks about a Calthrate gun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypoth
Note the development of the Siberian Traps. This was a larger volcanic event than the Deccan Traps in India. It is possible the Deccan Traps were associated with the K-T extinction. Simailarly the Siberain Traps may have been responsible for the P-Tr extinction.
I'm having issues with the idea of a huge buildup of fungal detrital material. Fungi are inhibited by high CO2 levels. At even 1000 ppm we get huge morphological changes in many species. Plants will often do much better at these CO2 levels. Check this: http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm But perhpas this does explain it. If the fungi are inhibited then they may well have consumed part of the detrital material but were unable to complete the process and hense ended up themselves becoming the detrital material. This would greatly impede the ability of plants to obtain nutrients since many if not most plants form mychorrizal relationships with fungi.
Suppose CO2 at the time got upwards of 5000 ppm. This would be about 14x the present levels (370 ppm). This is at a level which is dangerous. Its high enough to severely impede fungal growth. At 5% which is 50,000 ppm its lethal. So I see no reason to believe it ever reached into the 50,000 PPM range in the recent geological history and I sort of doubt it was much over a 1000 ppm if it even got up that high during the Pr-T extinction... but it is possible that the fossil record which shows the high percentage of fungal fossiles is providing evidence of how high the CO2 levels actually were.
Quote: "Figure 18: Young Eldarica pine trees were grown for 23 months under four CO2 concentrations and then cut down and weighed. Each point represents an individual tree (56). Weights of tree parts are as indicated.
Figure 18 summarizes the increased growth rates of young pine seedlings at four CO2 levels. Again, the response is remarkable, with an increase of 300 ppm more than tripling the rate of growth.