My favourite bit is where Bender is meshing programs with the ship. He's running away from the ship's program through a circuit-board maze, and runs up against a diode facing the wrong way.
That's the type of humour you won't find on Family Guy.
Science's website tells us that it's "an early ornithuran bird". Okay, so it's still a bird, just different from the birds we have today.
The whole point is that it's a "bird" that is different from the birds we have today. It's also much more closely-related to older birds and bird-like creatures. That's why we call it a transitional fossil. You provide us with no source or explanation of why this isn't another feather in the cap of evolution.
Then you attack the media and slashdot for reporting it, once again without pointing out exactly what you think is wrong.
You can't simply spout off ID talking points here. We're pretty logical-minded people, and will demand claims that can be researched so we can see the evidence for ourselves.
When I see an ID proponent who does that - and then admits to any falsehoods in his claims - I'll mod him insightful. "This is just a bird" is not insightful, and sort of misses the whole point. The thing is, I have yet to meet an ID proponent who actually understands evolutionary theory.
If someone well-educated in human biology finds a human femur, they're likely to be able to tell what species it came from. Same thing if they find a femur from a gorilla - they'll recognize where on the body the bone came from, but they'll also recognize that it's not human.
There are a lot of transitional fossils like this - where only small bits have been found. You can still match up what type of bone it is, and which species it most resembles. If it has a feature of species A, and another feature of species B, which appears later in the evolutionary tree, then you can consider it transitional.
Of course, I wouldn't consider it prudent to consider these partial fossils as reliable as the full skeleton, which is why it's good to get a full one.
Evolution might be a mechanism set in place by the aliens when the mothership left Earth, for all we now.
I don't think any respectable scientist has denied that this is a possibility, in the strictest sense of the word. Maybe earth was seeded by aliens and evolution took its course from there. Maybe we didn't evolve from lower life forms, but instead were placed here overnight (over-7-nights?) by some higher being. Maybe we just popped into existence a millisecond ago with all of our memories pre-installed.
But if you look at the historical data, evolution is the most likely answer. My biggest beef with ID isn't that it's wrong (it may not be), but that it masquerades as science. The ID movement is more interested in falsifying evolution than in building a case as to why ID is a better theory (or a "theory" at all).
As someone who started out with C++ and moved to web programming, I can tell you web programming has totally ruined me if I ever want to do something speedy. I'd have to take a few weeks and a few test programs to unlearn the bad and relearn the good.
Releasing memory? Pointers? Anything I write now is going to be eating memory and segfaulting like mad.
That said, web programming is fun. It's instant gratification, and you can ignore so many of the worries you had when you were programming C/ASM.
Good programmers won't knock or promote languages or technologies out of whim or fad or zealotry;
Yes they will - they're prone to the "Go Team!" mentality as much as anyone else. The emacs/vi dichotomy is a bit hyped, but the cliche is there for a reason - there really were (good) programmers who hated emacs/vi, and wouldn't give so much as grudging respect to it.
So basically, ask for a reason *why* a technology is bad if you get conflicting reports. If you get a rant, it's probably emotion getting in the way of reason.
I learned Java in school, and am starting a new project on it. Just a quick look at the docs tells me that it really does provide everything to everyone.
So I've found it's better to spend 2 hours just searching the web exhaustively than try to write anything I'm not *absolutely sure* is unique to my project.
Wow - I appreciate all the sources. I'll take a closer look when I'm off work.
But a quick google search shows I'm not "wrong", just that there are a huge number of additional factors. CO2 increases do increase plant growth.
Another thing to remember is that our current plant population is quite well-suited to current CO2 levels. The few that are better-suited to higher CO2 levels aren't thriving because this isn't the right environment. I'd wager there are a number of genes in remission that would return after a few hundred years of high CO2 levels.
I don't want to minimize the concern - but would rather people didn't maximize it either.
Also, "tragedy of the commons" is usually used as an example of how private property works more efficiently than a centralized authority, so I'm not even sure you're entirely familiar with the concept.
Actually, the exciting meteor scene was only the start of the story, and the dieoff was long, drawn-out, and seemed to go on forever. That strikes me more as an anti-climactic change.
It's the "nothing will survive that" statement I take issue with. I believe humans have a significant impact on the environment and atmosphere. But I also believe that the world in general has been through much worse, and not once (that we can tell anyway) has has to "start from scratch".
Somewhere out there, amongst the trillions of plankton roaming the ocean, is one who isn't as fast as the others, or as bright. He eats more food than his brethren, but he's still sort of a shrimp (hah!).
However, he'll have the last laugh when his great-great-grandchildren prove to be able to survive in higher temperatures and salinity. They'll mate with the few other survivors, and suddenly you'll have a thriving population with all the same traits the old plankton had, but able to survive in the new environment.
And don't worry about what happens to all these guys if humans step in and decrease the salinity, acidity, and temperature of the ocean. All those old genes are still in place - just dormant 'til they're needed again.
That said, there will still be a "transition period", which means hard times for all. But I doubt it will even be this bad. These little guys have survive meteors, ice ages, times of extremely high and extremely low oxygen. They're survivors.
Prove? No, but remember that a number of plants thrive on increased CO2 levels. We don't need as much oxygen as we have - we can survive with a lot less (we'll be breathing quicker and less productive, but still manage to survive). In the meantime, the plants will be reproducing like mad, increasing their O2 output.
Ah - but what if life on earth *improves* due to increased CO2 levels?
I mean, increased CO2 means insane growth rates in some plants, which could solve some hunger problems. It could increase the temperature near the poles, increasing inhabitable land. An with an increased heat you'll have more hurricanes (bad), but you may also find you're getting more precipitation, and precipitation to much farther reaches than has been seen in recent times. In other words, irrigating the deserts of the world.
No, I'm not saying global warming is the key to paradise on earth, but all of the carbon that we're pumping from the ground part of our carbon cycle once. We're not adding any more than we've had prehistorically - just historically.
Yeah - like a lot of smart people, Galileo was an ass.
Now, this is just an anecdote from my grade 12 physics teacher (Hey, Mr Lillo!), so like all things, don't take it as gospel.
When Galileo invented the telescope, he went to some of the merchants in the area and said "Hey - this device will let you see ships coming long before your competitors, so you'll be able to get to the piers first and get all the best wares!"
They said "Great! Here's some money! But our advantage evaporates if anyone else has it, so here's some extra money to not sell this to anyone else".
And Galileo's all like, "Awesome - it's a deal!". Then goes and sells the telescope to everyone else.
Pure anecdote as far as I know (which isn't very far), but he just seems like the type of guy.
It is morally wrong, because it assumes American lives are so much more valuable than other lives, and American interests so much more important. It's like slaughtering all Russians for the sins of Stalin.
You can't treat countries like children or animals that need to be "trained" - they're hugely dynamic "beings" that need to be treated with the utmost caution. The way countries react to certain things today is completely different than the would a century ago, or will a century from now, or would under a different leader. So I think the "making an example" idea is far too dangerous - there are simply too many factors to determine how a few million unnecessary deaths would be taken by the rest of the world - particularly the parts of the world with nukes that know it could happen to them next.
Slashdot Mirror
My favourite bit is where Bender is meshing programs with the ship. He's running away from the ship's program through a circuit-board maze, and runs up against a diode facing the wrong way.
That's the type of humour you won't find on Family Guy.
Wait - so health care premiums have been rising about 10%/year for years and this debunks skyrocketing prices?
Aside from that, though - good points.
About your sig - this seems a mistake: tgt
....wow - bad enough to be pedantic about grammar, but this...
Shouldn't it be tgy? It throws the rest of the sig off balance.
I'm really out of my league here, but I think that's right. Of course, the initial "guesswork" is often vindicated by later findings, as this one was.
Science's website tells us that it's "an early ornithuran bird". Okay, so it's still a bird, just different from the birds we have today.
The whole point is that it's a "bird" that is different from the birds we have today. It's also much more closely-related to older birds and bird-like creatures. That's why we call it a transitional fossil. You provide us with no source or explanation of why this isn't another feather in the cap of evolution.
Then you attack the media and slashdot for reporting it, once again without pointing out exactly what you think is wrong.
You can't simply spout off ID talking points here. We're pretty logical-minded people, and will demand claims that can be researched so we can see the evidence for ourselves.
When I see an ID proponent who does that - and then admits to any falsehoods in his claims - I'll mod him insightful. "This is just a bird" is not insightful, and sort of misses the whole point. The thing is, I have yet to meet an ID proponent who actually understands evolutionary theory.
Top-notch post sir. Someone give this guy a Funny rating right away.
If someone well-educated in human biology finds a human femur, they're likely to be able to tell what species it came from. Same thing if they find a femur from a gorilla - they'll recognize where on the body the bone came from, but they'll also recognize that it's not human.
There are a lot of transitional fossils like this - where only small bits have been found. You can still match up what type of bone it is, and which species it most resembles. If it has a feature of species A, and another feature of species B, which appears later in the evolutionary tree, then you can consider it transitional.
Of course, I wouldn't consider it prudent to consider these partial fossils as reliable as the full skeleton, which is why it's good to get a full one.
Evolution might be a mechanism set in place by the aliens when the mothership left Earth, for all we now.
I don't think any respectable scientist has denied that this is a possibility, in the strictest sense of the word. Maybe earth was seeded by aliens and evolution took its course from there. Maybe we didn't evolve from lower life forms, but instead were placed here overnight (over-7-nights?) by some higher being. Maybe we just popped into existence a millisecond ago with all of our memories pre-installed.
But if you look at the historical data, evolution is the most likely answer. My biggest beef with ID isn't that it's wrong (it may not be), but that it masquerades as science. The ID movement is more interested in falsifying evolution than in building a case as to why ID is a better theory (or a "theory" at all).
Sorry, but if they're not manufactured,and there's no service, then they're hardly able to use them.
As someone who started out with C++ and moved to web programming, I can tell you web programming has totally ruined me if I ever want to do something speedy. I'd have to take a few weeks and a few test programs to unlearn the bad and relearn the good.
Releasing memory? Pointers? Anything I write now is going to be eating memory and segfaulting like mad.
That said, web programming is fun. It's instant gratification, and you can ignore so many of the worries you had when you were programming C/ASM.
Good programmers won't knock or promote languages or technologies out of whim or fad or zealotry;
Yes they will - they're prone to the "Go Team!" mentality as much as anyone else. The emacs/vi dichotomy is a bit hyped, but the cliche is there for a reason - there really were (good) programmers who hated emacs/vi, and wouldn't give so much as grudging respect to it.
So basically, ask for a reason *why* a technology is bad if you get conflicting reports. If you get a rant, it's probably emotion getting in the way of reason.
I learned Java in school, and am starting a new project on it. Just a quick look at the docs tells me that it really does provide everything to everyone.
So I've found it's better to spend 2 hours just searching the web exhaustively than try to write anything I'm not *absolutely sure* is unique to my project.
Nope - I just looked - you were using it right, I was interpreting wrong. Ummm...you win.
Wow - I appreciate all the sources. I'll take a closer look when I'm off work.
But a quick google search shows I'm not "wrong", just that there are a huge number of additional factors. CO2 increases do increase plant growth.
Another thing to remember is that our current plant population is quite well-suited to current CO2 levels. The few that are better-suited to higher CO2 levels aren't thriving because this isn't the right environment. I'd wager there are a number of genes in remission that would return after a few hundred years of high CO2 levels.
I don't want to minimize the concern - but would rather people didn't maximize it either.
Also, "tragedy of the commons" is usually used as an example of how private property works more efficiently than a centralized authority, so I'm not even sure you're entirely familiar with the concept.
I'm afraid it's you who is not entirely familiar with the concept.
Even taking your definition, how do you propose we partition off atmosphere and privatize it so we can all avoid a tragedy of that particular commons?
And a planet-wide climactic change
Actually, the exciting meteor scene was only the start of the story, and the dieoff was long, drawn-out, and seemed to go on forever. That strikes me more as an anti-climactic change.
It's the "nothing will survive that" statement I take issue with. I believe humans have a significant impact on the environment and atmosphere. But I also believe that the world in general has been through much worse, and not once (that we can tell anyway) has has to "start from scratch".
Evolution will almost certainly keep up.
Somewhere out there, amongst the trillions of plankton roaming the ocean, is one who isn't as fast as the others, or as bright. He eats more food than his brethren, but he's still sort of a shrimp (hah!).
However, he'll have the last laugh when his great-great-grandchildren prove to be able to survive in higher temperatures and salinity. They'll mate with the few other survivors, and suddenly you'll have a thriving population with all the same traits the old plankton had, but able to survive in the new environment.
And don't worry about what happens to all these guys if humans step in and decrease the salinity, acidity, and temperature of the ocean. All those old genes are still in place - just dormant 'til they're needed again.
That said, there will still be a "transition period", which means hard times for all. But I doubt it will even be this bad. These little guys have survive meteors, ice ages, times of extremely high and extremely low oxygen. They're survivors.
Prove? No, but remember that a number of plants thrive on increased CO2 levels. We don't need as much oxygen as we have - we can survive with a lot less (we'll be breathing quicker and less productive, but still manage to survive). In the meantime, the plants will be reproducing like mad, increasing their O2 output.
:)
Now prove I'm wrong
I'm not really looking forward to a runaway greenhouse effect; I'm fairly certain that nothing would survive that.
I'm fairly certain you're wrong. Our CO2 levels may be high compared to recent numbers, but not compared to prehistoric CO2 levels.
Ah - but what if life on earth *improves* due to increased CO2 levels?
I mean, increased CO2 means insane growth rates in some plants, which could solve some hunger problems. It could increase the temperature near the poles, increasing inhabitable land. An with an increased heat you'll have more hurricanes (bad), but you may also find you're getting more precipitation, and precipitation to much farther reaches than has been seen in recent times. In other words, irrigating the deserts of the world.
No, I'm not saying global warming is the key to paradise on earth, but all of the carbon that we're pumping from the ground part of our carbon cycle once. We're not adding any more than we've had prehistorically - just historically.
Yeah - like a lot of smart people, Galileo was an ass.
Now, this is just an anecdote from my grade 12 physics teacher (Hey, Mr Lillo!), so like all things, don't take it as gospel.
When Galileo invented the telescope, he went to some of the merchants in the area and said "Hey - this device will let you see ships coming long before your competitors, so you'll be able to get to the piers first and get all the best wares!"
They said "Great! Here's some money! But our advantage evaporates if anyone else has it, so here's some extra money to not sell this to anyone else".
And Galileo's all like, "Awesome - it's a deal!". Then goes and sells the telescope to everyone else.
Pure anecdote as far as I know (which isn't very far), but he just seems like the type of guy.
It is morally wrong, because it assumes American lives are so much more valuable than other lives, and American interests so much more important. It's like slaughtering all Russians for the sins of Stalin.
You can't treat countries like children or animals that need to be "trained" - they're hugely dynamic "beings" that need to be treated with the utmost caution. The way countries react to certain things today is completely different than the would a century ago, or will a century from now, or would under a different leader. So I think the "making an example" idea is far too dangerous - there are simply too many factors to determine how a few million unnecessary deaths would be taken by the rest of the world - particularly the parts of the world with nukes that know it could happen to them next.
Wow - you're worse than any dictator I've ever heard of.
At least they only murder their own people.
I'd take touchy-feely over punchy-bomby any day.