Only zero emmission treaties with military penalties (enforced by Global Warming Alliance countries) need be considered here. Kyoto is just a huge strawman. The real issue is not reducing the rate of human produced CO2, but eliminating it entirely. Outlawing all combustion. All else is nothing more than political posturing. Is delaying doomsday by a few years or even a few decades really going to matter? We are talking about the end of all terrestrial life on our planet here. If it truly is going to happen, we should be stopping it instead of just slowing it down a bit. Or is your goal to just live out your normal lifespan after which the next generation dies like a bunch of microwaved cats as a result?
The entire nuclear industry for one. Horse and other pack animal breeders as well as any pack animal driven carriage manufacturers that may still be around. And the entire industry of surrounding horse care and feeding. As well as producers of alternative energy sources: photovoltaics, wind generators, construction companies that specializing in dams (we will need to dam up most large rivers). Also, manufacturers of air conditioners along with all the associated needs of OEM a/c manufacturers from air compressors to refrigerant producers. Sail and sailboat manufacturers. Especially if all 'non-essential' civilian aircraft are grounded. We will still have to trade goods. Firearm manufacturers will also be quite happy, since policing anti-combustion regulations worldwide will be quite an ambitious undertaking. There are always people who stand to gain from any political decision.
Sex as a form of exercise? Training for it? Are you out of your mind? Not all of us have a 'love life' you insensitive clod. I need to pay if I want sex. Maybe I get some action once every 3-5 years as a sex tourist. Being ugly really sucks. Time for a rousing game of Russian Roulette.
Sounds like the makers of that list are over 30 at least. I played and enjoyed SpaceWar (an ASCII star trek game like Super StarTrek) on my friend's DEC PDP-11. IIRC, there was no monitor, just a dot matrix printer (or teletype?) that crudely printed out the klingon ships as plus/minus signs or maybe asterisks (I can't remember which). I liked it a lot at the time, although I must have been like 9 years old or something. Those huge floppy disks were really something special as well (8"?). I would list some classic older games as (in no particular order): SpaceWar, Zork, Cranston Manor, Wizard and the Princess, Akalabeth, Crush, Crumble, and Chomp, LodeRunner, Choplifter, Archon, Castle Wolfenstein (both 2D and 3D), Pole Position, Breakout, Pong, Space Invaders, and Doom. Of course the original Adventure should be mentioned as well. For me the order was: DEC PDP-11 games like Adventure and SpaceWar, then Atari 2600 games, then Atari 400/800 and Apple II games. I think Wolfenstein3D and Doom really started the modern era of computer games. After that games became more graphically advanced. Although one of my favorite games of all time, Ultima Underworld beat (in terms of time) both games to that style of flight sim 3D graphics. But it was an RPG, not a shooter. I envy the children of today, who have games so much more graphically advanced.
I don't object to your being a newbie. What I object to is your insistence on talking about something about which you obviously know nothing. Zork was a major game at the time of release. Lots of people had it. I remember reading a review of it in Creative Computing (written by Isaac Asimov iirc) before I bought it. A glowing review. Just because you weren't alive at the time of a game's release doesn't mean it wasn't significant.
I'm not an expert, but can the population really do anything without support (or at least inaction) from the army?
No. Those ideas date back to a time when the highest tech weaponry consisted of firearms that fired musketballs or cannonballs. Unfortunately, one side effect of the volunteer-based armed forces is a natural tendency of said volunteers to believe in 'my government right or wrong'. In any case, dropping leaflet bombs into military facilities would be far more effective than any armed revolt with.38 caliber handguns and the like. Truly an instance where the pen is the only weapon worth a damn.
1. How much effect did one million Brits protesting in the streets have on Blair's policy towards Iraq?
Was indeed impressive, but it can't be compared with an actual vote on the subject. What about the other 49 million or so English citizens who weren't there. Of course all of the opinion polls indicated that the anti-war citizens strongly out-numbered the pro-war, which is the fact you should have cited instead.
Very well. I stand corrected on the availability of the technology today, if you can afford it. Here is a link for Class A platinum RTDs So I would then ask how long has that tech been around with such accuracy? Do 'resistance temperature detectors' not require digital electronics to record or even read the data? Were such things really around in, say, the 1920s? Can even the poorest countries afford such technology? Were they able to afford it 30 years ago? 100 years ago? The problem is this kind of stuff is never discussed by either side and it is important. Just saying "The scientists discuss it. Have faith in them!" is not sufficient. Scientists are human too. And quite fallible. The data relied upon for climate change should only be used from weather stations with this sort of hyper-accurate technology. Otherwise GIGO.
Urban heat island effects have been studies extensively.
Yes. I acknowledged that. But have they been accounted for sufficiently? IOW, how accurately can we measure such effects? Remember any changes in climate so far have been relatively small. So even a small change in such estimates could have a significant effect on predictions.
I am sure you apply this skepticism to deny the validity of every other scientific result that has ever been published as well.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. To subjuct such evidence (for the extraordinary claim that we are actually causing the entire planet to heat up) to intense scrutiny should be every person's responsibility. Our response to these claims could change or even destroy most of our species. We should at least be paying attention to the evidence behind the claims. And to our own limitations as fallible human beings. To record any effect accurately over such a long period of time and over such a vast geographical area is neither simple nor easy. Rather it is extremely complex and difficult. This needs to be taken into account sufficiently in terms of the uncertainty of any conclusions based on that data.
The temperature increases that have been measured are much greater than the limits of thermometer precision.
Got any data to back that up? We are talking both accuracy and precision. I want to see the manufacturer specs on the actual equipment that has been used at the hundreds of temperature measurings stations around the world for the past 100 years or even 30 years. Go ahead and try to find that data. Or are you claiming that it is not relevant to the discussion? I want to see numbers. After all numbers, quantitative data, is what we are talking about here. If it is so obvious then show me. If you can't do that at least talk about the temperature measurement tech we are dealing with here. Do the temperature measurement stations use infrared tech? At least cite which type or types of thermometer have been used around the world to measure these obvious changes.
The simple fact is that temperature measuring technology that is actually used to measure the air within a useable temperature range is highly imprecise and highly inaccurate. Most will only be able to measure temperature to within +/- 2C! And that assumes calibration that needs to be performed on a periodic basis. And digitals generally fare even worse than analogs at least if you ignore miniscus parallax issues (which of course you should not). It is interesting to me that everyone (on both sides) seems to dance around the very issue of where the rubber meets the road, the nature of the very equipment that seems to be predicting the end of our species, not in the distant future, not 10,000 years from now, but in less than a century. That would seem serious enough to at least warrant a discussion of such issues.
Francis Bacon, the great philosopher of science, cautioned against letting a theory stray too far from the data. This theory is so far from it that hardly anyone even bothers to talk about the uncertainties in that data. As if our methods of measurement, not just in the US in 2007, but in the Soviet Union in 1943, were perfect and absolutely without error. And what about human error, errors in recording the data? We seem to be assuming no human error whatsoever in the the recording of the temperature readings. Did they have automated computer temperature logging in the 1920s in Indonesia or Siberia? Do they even have it today? Such questions should at least be occuring to you. The fact that they are not makes me wonder about whether you really care about the truth.
5-10 degrees F warmer is quite possible and is nothing to sneer at, even in non-equatorial regions.
I would sneer at the idea that it would mean the end of our species and openly laugh when you claim to have evidence that would prove it without the slightest doubt. So much so that any person to deny it is a crank. In fact, barring any unproven, unforeseen, effects, I would quite like an extra 5-10F increase at the lattitude where I currently live. Just means that there would be some migration away from equatorial regions. Some of us already regard them as inhospitable, especially at midday. Bad for some, good for others. On the whole, it sounds like a wash. Certainly not the end of all terrestrial life on our planet.
A great many of the world's population centers, and a number of entire nations, are close to sea level at the ocean front.
Actually all of them are. hehe. Okay. Sorry about that. Couldn't resist.
In fact, poor people will be disproportionately affected, as is usual.
But in a positive way. Show me someplace, anyplace in the world where property on the coast is worth less than inland (discounting the costs within cities)? The owners of such property tend to be (comparitively at least) wealthy. It is true even in Indonesia (one of the poorest countries in Asia).
You're also neglecting the damages and deaths from
Okay let's say the pro-warming folks are actually right. The evidence is not there. And computer models don't prove shite. To say they have been wrong before would be an understatement. And we're about to run out of the stuff (fossil fuels) soon anyway. But let's just say that the amount of human produced CO2 is affecting our climate, perhaps even enough to cause the extinction of some species, including humans, before the fossil fuels run sufficiently low to make them economically unfeasable. Seems like science fiction to me. But let's just suppose all of this really would come to pass.
What precisely is it that you folks are proposing we do about it? Seriously. If we really are going to be extinct within the next 50-100 years (before fossil fuels run out), then perhaps it is worth trying to introduce a worldwide death penalty for any sort of combustion. After all, it is to save our entire species. In fact such an extreme measure might even work. Would you be in favor of that? And as far as enforcing it worldwide, surely The Ministries of Peace of most countries would be willing to go to war, perhaps even nuclear war to enforce these requirements against any rogue nation. Again, we are talking about the exctinction of our species. Surely it would be justified. Also, you can't possibly be thinking that the majority of the human population would be willing to voluntarily go back to pack animals and sails as the sole methods of transportation.
I could see nuclear fission plants as being a possible solution, albeit a stopgap one since uranium ore also will not last forever, especially as the sole source for human energy needs. I believe nuclear airplanes have been shown to be possible. And cars and trucks could reduce their range and be powered by batteries recharged by nuclear generated electricity. I particularly like the idea of safer (but less efficient) nuclear tech like pebble bed reactors. Needless to say we would need some place to put all that nuclear waste. And more than a handful of serious nuclear accidents around the globe could also cause the extinction of our (and many other) species. Still the problem with nuclear fission (or even fusion, assuming it will ever be feasible) as a solution is that if combustion is still a cheaper method of energy production, stopping it will still require the use of a World Police State to enforce the global ban on combustion, since the majority of people will still choose the cheapest option.
I think that the question of whether there has in fact been any measurable increase in global temperature at all is still open for debate. No one seems to want to discuss the actual mechanisms used for measuring said temperatures. Their reliability. Their accuracy. Not just in the US of course, but in all of the temperature stations around the world. Global warming is, after all, a global phenomenon. Go out and find me an accurate and precise general purpose thermometer. I dare you. Read the actual specifications and see the limits to temperature measuring technology that is actually used to measure air temperatures. Then come back and tell me how we can be so certain of increases of only a fraction of 1 degree celsius. And that is without even measuring whether urban heat island effects have been adequately taken into account at all times. Was that station in Siberia really so accurate 30 years ago? How about 50 years ago? Was it properly calibrated at all times. Human arrogance certainly has not diminished in the past 50 years. Of that I am certain. Every 5 year old seems certain that they know everything there is to know about the world. So our confidence in our ability to make such grand predictions should not surprise me.
That was a myth? I remember reading about and even slightly worrying about that as a kid. Kids these days worry about it getting too hot. In those days (the 70s) everyone was breathlessly waiting for the next ice age. It was more than just a single National Geographic article, at least if iirc. It was a long time ago. I am guessing, before you were born or at least old enough to read?
Sounds like you haven't read much David Hume. He makes a pretty damn good argument that causation is merely a kind of correlation. Correlation that occurs a sufficient number of times to give us some confidence in predicting it. I find his position both interesting and curious. Definitely worth a read.
By 'slow down' of exchange of goods are you referring to the fact that anything not powered by nuclear fission, wind, solar, hydro, or tides/currents will not be useable without the combustion of fossil fuels? This would preclude any form of (long distance) transportation other than horse drawn carriages on land and sails or oars on the water. Any global exchange of goods would (nearly) cease to exist. Not because it would be impossible, just too expensive. Ironically there would also have to be a human migration on a global scale away from colder parts of the planet which are not really fit for human habitation without the burning of at least wood. Unless of course we (all) go nuclear on a sufficiently vast scale that we could heat our homes with electrical resistance elements in a cost effective manner. I hope you are prepared to live with a nuclear power plant within 100km of your home. Don't get me wrong, I am not particularly objecting to any of this. Just pointing out the real destination that this particular road leads to. Needless to say, enforcing all of this non-combustion would require a very impressive (albeit mostly nuclear-electric powered) police state. I also wonder how we are going to mine and refine enough uranium ore without burning fossil fuels. Electricallly powered mining equipment? Maybe. And what happens when all of the easily mined uranium is used up? Do we switch back to our remaining fossil fuels again? Or just accept pre-industrial civilization as our destiny?
So what you are saying, more or less, is that the ease of predicting weather (or anything else for that matter) is inversely proportional to the usefulness of said predictions? Can't disagree with that. If I say that there will be some warm and some cold days in 100 years time it will be hard to disagree with that as well.
There should be a rule against citing wikipedia in the case of *any* controversial theory. A majority rules 'encyclopedia' where the main page constantly changes as people argue about which side is right? Give me a break. Don't get me wrong. I think wikipedia is great (although still unreliable) for non-controversial topics. Even for uncontroversial topics citing it to prove any point is a bit ridiculous. May as well cite your own web page.
I think that the fact that climate modelling is difficult was kind of his point. Personally the main issue I have with the whole global warming hypothesis is just that. Climate modelling is a joke. Yes, I think you were wasting your time. I also don't trust the accuracy of temperature measuring stations around the globe for the past 100 years. And GIGO. IMO, we simply don't know whether the earth as a whole is heating up and we just can't handle that fact. So we prefer to think that we know.
The reality: maybe there is an increase in global temperatures due to excess human CO2 production and maybe not. There is just insufficient evidence. And anyway we will be running out of fossil fuels in like 50 years, so who gives a rats arse? And it may become too expensive for most applications way before then anyway. With the small (barely detectable by the limits of thermometer accuracy and precision) tempurature increases the earth is not going to become like venus in 50 years time. Hell, it hasn't even been proven in any even remotely scientific way that increased average surface temperatures will have any significant negative effect on, well, anything. We know that plants would be happy. Although, no doubt equatorial folks would be a bit miffed at having to deal with days that are a few degrees warmer on average. And if sea levels really do rise the rich people who own ocean front homes will be a bit ticked off if they have several feet of seawater in their house. Would sort of make it difficult for the maid to clean up.
According to economic theory, when a minimum wage is above the 'market' wage it causes unemployment. When it is below the market wage it is completely ineffectual. You would need more than just a 'minimum' wage. You would also need some kind of worker quota or 'freeze', such that a company would always have to have at least that many workers. Some kind of complicated system like that would be necessary.
Apples and oranges. Console games and PC games are marketed for different demographics. PC games for the old timers and console games for the kiddies and ultra-casual gamers. This is changing somewhat in certain markets where a certain game is ported from one to the other. So you end up with a compromise between the two such that neither the 12 year olds nor the 35 year olds are completely happy or totally frustrated.
but once the program is running it will be about the same as the equivalent C/C++ code.
Will repeating this to myself 100 times help me believe it? Not that I would be one to dis Java. Of the languages in common use it seems most suited to the difficulties due to the SMP environments which are quickly becoming the standard. That reason alone may be enough to use it for high performance code especially once quad and higher cores become common. I suspect in a couple of years nearly everyone will be running quad cores and enthusiasts will be running them in a dual (or even quad) socket motherboard.
In practice it certainly seems to me that Java programs tend to be resource hogs as compared to C programs. I have to wonder how much of that is due to the fact that the programmers most interested in making use of every last cycle have historically tended to use C/C++ (with purists avoiding the OOP extensions of C++). Despite continuallly improving compiler performance, I think the programmer who designs the algorithms and overall strategies still has the most effect on efficiency. No code is more efficient than that which you can avoid completely with a more streamlined design. I'm sure a programmer with the right outlook/attitude toward runtime efficiency could write efficient code in any (non-interpreted) language. I just think they may have to try harder and bend over backwards with languages that tend to isolate you more from what's under the hood.
we have a culture where implementation speed is valued over everything else.
Here here. Well said. That, precisely, is the core of the problem. The only way that is going to change is if the market forces their hand. If/when the speed of a single core finally does hit a wall, we may see this. It's all about priorities. Developers are making an explicit choice in favor of reduced development time at the expense of exploding minimum machine requirements for nearly identical tasks. The end user really has no way to know how efficient the code is or how much faster it might have been if the developer had been using C/C++, Ada, or whatever fast language with ample hand coded assembly where needed (yes, different routines for each platform).
Not that development time is a non-issue. It is very important. There needs to be a balance struck between code efficiency/optimization and development time. Right now there is no balance. For modern developers, it is efficiency that is the non-issue.
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Only zero emmission treaties with military penalties (enforced by Global Warming Alliance countries) need be considered here. Kyoto is just a huge strawman. The real issue is not reducing the rate of human produced CO2, but eliminating it entirely. Outlawing all combustion. All else is nothing more than political posturing. Is delaying doomsday by a few years or even a few decades really going to matter? We are talking about the end of all terrestrial life on our planet here. If it truly is going to happen, we should be stopping it instead of just slowing it down a bit. Or is your goal to just live out your normal lifespan after which the next generation dies like a bunch of microwaved cats as a result?
The entire nuclear industry for one. Horse and other pack animal breeders as well as any pack animal driven carriage manufacturers that may still be around. And the entire industry of surrounding horse care and feeding. As well as producers of alternative energy sources: photovoltaics, wind generators, construction companies that specializing in dams (we will need to dam up most large rivers). Also, manufacturers of air conditioners along with all the associated needs of OEM a/c manufacturers from air compressors to refrigerant producers. Sail and sailboat manufacturers. Especially if all 'non-essential' civilian aircraft are grounded. We will still have to trade goods. Firearm manufacturers will also be quite happy, since policing anti-combustion regulations worldwide will be quite an ambitious undertaking. There are always people who stand to gain from any political decision.
Sex as a form of exercise? Training for it? Are you out of your mind? Not all of us have a 'love life' you insensitive clod. I need to pay if I want sex. Maybe I get some action once every 3-5 years as a sex tourist. Being ugly really sucks. Time for a rousing game of Russian Roulette.
Sounds like the makers of that list are over 30 at least. I played and enjoyed SpaceWar (an ASCII star trek game like Super StarTrek) on my friend's DEC PDP-11. IIRC, there was no monitor, just a dot matrix printer (or teletype?) that crudely printed out the klingon ships as plus/minus signs or maybe asterisks (I can't remember which). I liked it a lot at the time, although I must have been like 9 years old or something. Those huge floppy disks were really something special as well (8"?). I would list some classic older games as (in no particular order): SpaceWar, Zork, Cranston Manor, Wizard and the Princess, Akalabeth, Crush, Crumble, and Chomp, LodeRunner, Choplifter, Archon, Castle Wolfenstein (both 2D and 3D), Pole Position, Breakout, Pong, Space Invaders, and Doom. Of course the original Adventure should be mentioned as well. For me the order was: DEC PDP-11 games like Adventure and SpaceWar, then Atari 2600 games, then Atari 400/800 and Apple II games. I think Wolfenstein3D and Doom really started the modern era of computer games. After that games became more graphically advanced. Although one of my favorite games of all time, Ultima Underworld beat (in terms of time) both games to that style of flight sim 3D graphics. But it was an RPG, not a shooter. I envy the children of today, who have games so much more graphically advanced.
I don't object to your being a newbie. What I object to is your insistence on talking about something about which you obviously know nothing. Zork was a major game at the time of release. Lots of people had it. I remember reading a review of it in Creative Computing (written by Isaac Asimov iirc) before I bought it. A glowing review. Just because you weren't alive at the time of a game's release doesn't mean it wasn't significant.
Got any data to back that up? We are talking both accuracy and precision. I want to see the manufacturer specs on the actual equipment that has been used at the hundreds of temperature measurings stations around the world for the past 100 years or even 30 years. Go ahead and try to find that data. Or are you claiming that it is not relevant to the discussion? I want to see numbers. After all numbers, quantitative data, is what we are talking about here. If it is so obvious then show me. If you can't do that at least talk about the temperature measurement tech we are dealing with here. Do the temperature measurement stations use infrared tech? At least cite which type or types of thermometer have been used around the world to measure these obvious changes.
The simple fact is that temperature measuring technology that is actually used to measure the air within a useable temperature range is highly imprecise and highly inaccurate. Most will only be able to measure temperature to within +/- 2C! And that assumes calibration that needs to be performed on a periodic basis. And digitals generally fare even worse than analogs at least if you ignore miniscus parallax issues (which of course you should not). It is interesting to me that everyone (on both sides) seems to dance around the very issue of where the rubber meets the road, the nature of the very equipment that seems to be predicting the end of our species, not in the distant future, not 10,000 years from now, but in less than a century. That would seem serious enough to at least warrant a discussion of such issues.
Francis Bacon, the great philosopher of science, cautioned against letting a theory stray too far from the data. This theory is so far from it that hardly anyone even bothers to talk about the uncertainties in that data. As if our methods of measurement, not just in the US in 2007, but in the Soviet Union in 1943, were perfect and absolutely without error. And what about human error, errors in recording the data? We seem to be assuming no human error whatsoever in the the recording of the temperature readings. Did they have automated computer temperature logging in the 1920s in Indonesia or Siberia? Do they even have it today? Such questions should at least be occuring to you. The fact that they are not makes me wonder about whether you really care about the truth.
I would sneer at the idea that it would mean the end of our species and openly laugh when you claim to have evidence that would prove it without the slightest doubt. So much so that any person to deny it is a crank. In fact, barring any unproven, unforeseen, effects, I would quite like an extra 5-10F increase at the lattitude where I currently live. Just means that there would be some migration away from equatorial regions. Some of us already regard them as inhospitable, especially at midday. Bad for some, good for others. On the whole, it sounds like a wash. Certainly not the end of all terrestrial life on our planet.
Actually all of them are. hehe. Okay. Sorry about that. Couldn't resist.
But in a positive way. Show me someplace, anyplace in the world where property on the coast is worth less than inland (discounting the costs within cities)? The owners of such property tend to be (comparitively at least) wealthy. It is true even in Indonesia (one of the poorest countries in Asia).
Okay let's say the pro-warming folks are actually right. The evidence is not there. And computer models don't prove shite. To say they have been wrong before would be an understatement. And we're about to run out of the stuff (fossil fuels) soon anyway. But let's just say that the amount of human produced CO2 is affecting our climate, perhaps even enough to cause the extinction of some species, including humans, before the fossil fuels run sufficiently low to make them economically unfeasable. Seems like science fiction to me. But let's just suppose all of this really would come to pass.
What precisely is it that you folks are proposing we do about it? Seriously. If we really are going to be extinct within the next 50-100 years (before fossil fuels run out), then perhaps it is worth trying to introduce a worldwide death penalty for any sort of combustion. After all, it is to save our entire species. In fact such an extreme measure might even work. Would you be in favor of that? And as far as enforcing it worldwide, surely The Ministries of Peace of most countries would be willing to go to war, perhaps even nuclear war to enforce these requirements against any rogue nation. Again, we are talking about the exctinction of our species. Surely it would be justified. Also, you can't possibly be thinking that the majority of the human population would be willing to voluntarily go back to pack animals and sails as the sole methods of transportation.
I could see nuclear fission plants as being a possible solution, albeit a stopgap one since uranium ore also will not last forever, especially as the sole source for human energy needs. I believe nuclear airplanes have been shown to be possible. And cars and trucks could reduce their range and be powered by batteries recharged by nuclear generated electricity. I particularly like the idea of safer (but less efficient) nuclear tech like pebble bed reactors. Needless to say we would need some place to put all that nuclear waste. And more than a handful of serious nuclear accidents around the globe could also cause the extinction of our (and many other) species. Still the problem with nuclear fission (or even fusion, assuming it will ever be feasible) as a solution is that if combustion is still a cheaper method of energy production, stopping it will still require the use of a World Police State to enforce the global ban on combustion, since the majority of people will still choose the cheapest option.
I think that the question of whether there has in fact been any measurable increase in global temperature at all is still open for debate. No one seems to want to discuss the actual mechanisms used for measuring said temperatures. Their reliability. Their accuracy. Not just in the US of course, but in all of the temperature stations around the world. Global warming is, after all, a global phenomenon. Go out and find me an accurate and precise general purpose thermometer. I dare you. Read the actual specifications and see the limits to temperature measuring technology that is actually used to measure air temperatures. Then come back and tell me how we can be so certain of increases of only a fraction of 1 degree celsius. And that is without even measuring whether urban heat island effects have been adequately taken into account at all times. Was that station in Siberia really so accurate 30 years ago? How about 50 years ago? Was it properly calibrated at all times. Human arrogance certainly has not diminished in the past 50 years. Of that I am certain. Every 5 year old seems certain that they know everything there is to know about the world. So our confidence in our ability to make such grand predictions should not surprise me.
That was a myth? I remember reading about and even slightly worrying about that as a kid. Kids these days worry about it getting too hot. In those days (the 70s) everyone was breathlessly waiting for the next ice age. It was more than just a single National Geographic article, at least if iirc. It was a long time ago. I am guessing, before you were born or at least old enough to read?
Sounds like you haven't read much David Hume. He makes a pretty damn good argument that causation is merely a kind of correlation. Correlation that occurs a sufficient number of times to give us some confidence in predicting it. I find his position both interesting and curious. Definitely worth a read.
By 'slow down' of exchange of goods are you referring to the fact that anything not powered by nuclear fission, wind, solar, hydro, or tides/currents will not be useable without the combustion of fossil fuels? This would preclude any form of (long distance) transportation other than horse drawn carriages on land and sails or oars on the water. Any global exchange of goods would (nearly) cease to exist. Not because it would be impossible, just too expensive. Ironically there would also have to be a human migration on a global scale away from colder parts of the planet which are not really fit for human habitation without the burning of at least wood. Unless of course we (all) go nuclear on a sufficiently vast scale that we could heat our homes with electrical resistance elements in a cost effective manner. I hope you are prepared to live with a nuclear power plant within 100km of your home. Don't get me wrong, I am not particularly objecting to any of this. Just pointing out the real destination that this particular road leads to. Needless to say, enforcing all of this non-combustion would require a very impressive (albeit mostly nuclear-electric powered) police state. I also wonder how we are going to mine and refine enough uranium ore without burning fossil fuels. Electricallly powered mining equipment? Maybe. And what happens when all of the easily mined uranium is used up? Do we switch back to our remaining fossil fuels again? Or just accept pre-industrial civilization as our destiny?
So what you are saying, more or less, is that the ease of predicting weather (or anything else for that matter) is inversely proportional to the usefulness of said predictions? Can't disagree with that. If I say that there will be some warm and some cold days in 100 years time it will be hard to disagree with that as well.
There should be a rule against citing wikipedia in the case of *any* controversial theory. A majority rules 'encyclopedia' where the main page constantly changes as people argue about which side is right? Give me a break. Don't get me wrong. I think wikipedia is great (although still unreliable) for non-controversial topics. Even for uncontroversial topics citing it to prove any point is a bit ridiculous. May as well cite your own web page.
I think that the fact that climate modelling is difficult was kind of his point. Personally the main issue I have with the whole global warming hypothesis is just that. Climate modelling is a joke. Yes, I think you were wasting your time. I also don't trust the accuracy of temperature measuring stations around the globe for the past 100 years. And GIGO. IMO, we simply don't know whether the earth as a whole is heating up and we just can't handle that fact. So we prefer to think that we know.
The reality: maybe there is an increase in global temperatures due to excess human CO2 production and maybe not. There is just insufficient evidence. And anyway we will be running out of fossil fuels in like 50 years, so who gives a rats arse? And it may become too expensive for most applications way before then anyway. With the small (barely detectable by the limits of thermometer accuracy and precision) tempurature increases the earth is not going to become like venus in 50 years time. Hell, it hasn't even been proven in any even remotely scientific way that increased average surface temperatures will have any significant negative effect on, well, anything. We know that plants would be happy. Although, no doubt equatorial folks would be a bit miffed at having to deal with days that are a few degrees warmer on average. And if sea levels really do rise the rich people who own ocean front homes will be a bit ticked off if they have several feet of seawater in their house. Would sort of make it difficult for the maid to clean up.
And here's an emule link. Don't think they'll be taking down these copies any time soon.
According to economic theory, when a minimum wage is above the 'market' wage it causes unemployment. When it is below the market wage it is completely ineffectual. You would need more than just a 'minimum' wage. You would also need some kind of worker quota or 'freeze', such that a company would always have to have at least that many workers. Some kind of complicated system like that would be necessary.
Apples and oranges. Console games and PC games are marketed for different demographics. PC games for the old timers and console games for the kiddies and ultra-casual gamers. This is changing somewhat in certain markets where a certain game is ported from one to the other. So you end up with a compromise between the two such that neither the 12 year olds nor the 35 year olds are completely happy or totally frustrated.
And the idea of saving it is a myth.
What about the idea of putting a stitch in time to save nine? Al says there's no such thing as time anyway.
I think that was more or less what he was trying to say, but in a much more bloated, slow, and inefficient manner.
And these advances will allow 5.32 million mothers to have one baby in less than .00002531 femtoseconds. Not every problem can be parallelized.
but once the program is running it will be about the same as the equivalent C/C++ code.
Will repeating this to myself 100 times help me believe it? Not that I would be one to dis Java. Of the languages in common use it seems most suited to the difficulties due to the SMP environments which are quickly becoming the standard. That reason alone may be enough to use it for high performance code especially once quad and higher cores become common. I suspect in a couple of years nearly everyone will be running quad cores and enthusiasts will be running them in a dual (or even quad) socket motherboard.
In practice it certainly seems to me that Java programs tend to be resource hogs as compared to C programs. I have to wonder how much of that is due to the fact that the programmers most interested in making use of every last cycle have historically tended to use C/C++ (with purists avoiding the OOP extensions of C++). Despite continuallly improving compiler performance, I think the programmer who designs the algorithms and overall strategies still has the most effect on efficiency. No code is more efficient than that which you can avoid completely with a more streamlined design. I'm sure a programmer with the right outlook/attitude toward runtime efficiency could write efficient code in any (non-interpreted) language. I just think they may have to try harder and bend over backwards with languages that tend to isolate you more from what's under the hood.
we have a culture where implementation speed is valued over everything else.
Here here. Well said. That, precisely, is the core of the problem. The only way that is going to change is if the market forces their hand. If/when the speed of a single core finally does hit a wall, we may see this. It's all about priorities. Developers are making an explicit choice in favor of reduced development time at the expense of exploding minimum machine requirements for nearly identical tasks. The end user really has no way to know how efficient the code is or how much faster it might have been if the developer had been using C/C++, Ada, or whatever fast language with ample hand coded assembly where needed (yes, different routines for each platform).
Not that development time is a non-issue. It is very important. There needs to be a balance struck between code efficiency/optimization and development time. Right now there is no balance. For modern developers, it is efficiency that is the non-issue.