I'll bite. The video describes the problem of a 4C increase in temperature that then causes methane trapped as ice in the permafrost and oceans to melt and go into the atmosphere. It's a positive feedback loop that results in at least a 10C increase (methane being a much more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2). The first step is warming by CO2, which then results in warming by methane. Several scientists are predicting a 20C increase by 2050 if the methane is allowed to escape into the atmosphere, which is essentially a planetary extinction event. The only thing that seems likely to prevent this scenario is total economic collapse, immediately. More details available in the second link. Hope that helps.
If you aren't concerned about this subject, you should be. It is possible that a 4C increase would lead to a 10C increase, wiping out nearly everyone and everything. A good BBC summary of the Permian mass extinction can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
No self-respecting behavioral scientist would say that they have proven something conclusively with their research. It's just not how research works, and we don't start out with the assumptions that we can "prove" anything. The data support one hypothesis, but the way that this is stated is that the researchers have failed to reject the alternative hypothesis: video games produce [violent] behavior. The null hypothesis was rejected (video games have no effect on [violent] behavior.
In the article, the researchers say, "And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts. Such exposure also increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior."
It's correlational data from a metanalytic study, but it is quite possible that the metanalytic study covers several true experiments. In any case, we should probably state that the evidence is mounting for causal link between violent video games and violent behavior.
I tried to use this language/RAD environment. Kept getting hit with show stopping bugs. There's a million of them. For starters, the plugin for web content apparently runs continuously as a process in the background. Don't know if they fixed that yet. Of if they will. Uninstallers and updaters didn't work (uninstaller corrupted my Windows registry for version 3.5). The memory management is awful, and leaks abound when using externals (for example, databases and browsers). The list goes on. And on. Right now this is a very pretty package, but it's not ready for the big leagues. The underlying code needs to be vetted. I'd recommend sticking with open source alternatives such as wxpython or Tcl/Tk if you want to avoid these issues. There is nothing more frustrating than having a show stopping bug and having to deal with a commercial vendor that won't give you the time day or treats you like a child. I think "opacity" is the word that describes them.
A big problem here is that there is a niche of programmers that wants/needs to create commercial applications, especially for entertainment and education needs, but the RAD tools have really gone to hell from the commercial vendors. I started out using Authorware in 1998, which was quite lovingly "discontinued," but was very stable. Then came Macromedia Director, which was god damned rock solid through MX 2004 (although essentially abandoned for Flash by Macromedia; they had like one engineer working on it at the time of the sale to Adobe). Adobe took Director and sent the code base to Bangalore, India, to a bunch of engineers who've made a complete mess out of things from what I can tell. I don't think its a coincidence that the CEO of Adobe is a graduate of the universities of India himself. Anyway, they're stuck at version 11.5, which is an unholy pile of junk (and it will cost you a cool grand, btw). Director, the program that built Macromedia, is essentially dead and along with it just about the only commercial programming alternative for the unwashed masses without computer science degrees.
The fact of the matter is that RunRev doesn't "dumb down" anything except the programmer. It's a complete struggle to use, but really only because it's not a stable programming environment. If it worked as advertised, we would be awash in RunRev apps. In my opinion, and it's just my opinion (as the owner of an Enterprise license from RunRev), Runtime Revolution is amateur night in the programming world. On the other hand, Tcl/Tk has a totally whacked syntax (upvar anyone?) but it is very fast and very very stable. Especially version 8.4 (you can get it from ActiveState for Windows). wxPython is probably the best choice, however, and you can create binary apps if commercial is your thing.
Is it just me, or is commercial development software in general becoming more buggy?
It would take another incredible invention to get usable photos from this thing, photos with any decent resolution. Seems like a fun toy, but how could a camera composite the images?
We don't need to be scared at all to enjoy a game. Many years ago the most popular games around, and arguably some of the most inventive, were adventure games, a la Lucasarts, including Grim Fandango, Curse of Monkey Island, etc. These games were engaging, funny, and downright pleasant to play. Immersive as hell, too. I recently tried Quake 4 and was blown away by the stupidity of the game. Get bigger guns. Get ammo. Throw grenade. Shoot and kill. How bloody novel. Hour after hour after hour of the same old sh*t. I haven't like a first person shooter since I played Theif. Boy, what a rant, but games today suck ass because idiots think that adrenaline is needed or it won't sell. So we end up with shelf after shelf stocked with the same f*cking game in fifty different boxes. Hell, at this point I'd be happy to play Zork:(
I'm agreed about this. Michael's design to to "sexy," and the Web 2.0 theme with scrollers is just too much AJAXiness. Jason's design seems to strike a nice balance between the two, with big buttons and a sleek design...
The big impact might be on software distribution methods that rely on a virtual machine, in other words, every software distribution method known to man at this point. It pushes the security model toward one of distributed applications, such as those created through AJAX or XUL. In the future, people won't trust the installation process from independent developers enough (or MS won't let the users trust the install process), thereby limiting the future to remote applications accessible through web browsers or the next incarnation thereof.
I seem to remember reporting numbers worked for McDonalds; heck, it was on every roadside sign (I think they stopped at 92 billion after Seinfeld made fun of them). Yes, I think its important to let people know that A LOT of other people trust the product that is not under the dominion of Microsoft, because otherwise they wouldn't use it.
Essentially, it suggests that if the airplanes stopped throwing their exhaust in the sky for a month or two, things would heat up rather quickly as the exhaust serves as a reflective blanket for a lot of solar radition. Pretty heavy stuff.
Oh yeah, do I remember the days... This little baby back in 1981 was so super-pimp that it had a cassette recorder as a hard drive. I almost lost my life once or twice when I bumped the card table that my brother was using the ZX81 on to program a chess game. All of the data would just disappear. Poof! And then my brother would chase me around the house, red with rage.
After version 4.0, Photoshop became way too much for non-professional users, prompting for additional "scratch disks" during the install and requiring gig after gig of memory to run (even then) slow as molasses. Gimp is a welcome relief to both casual and advanced graphic designers, with just the right amount of power to keep us happy. Gimp's feature set shouldn't be driven by psycho "power users" anyway. It's fine the way it is.
Use an existing environment, such as Moodle. You'll need to stick with the web browser and what the browser can present if you'd like to have people developing their own materials. True programming is probably out of the question for your users; they're interested in content development. I'd suggest Moodle version 1.5 (also integrates with Hot Potatoes, etc.)
All of the news coverage of Google's "slide" is designed to punish Google for their refusal to comply with the wishes of the Republicans... "Release your search data to us or else bad things will happen to you[r stock]." Hopefully Google will hold on for the ride.
Debian 3.1 is a dream. Easy to install, no more updating (except for security updates), and rock solid as my desktop OS. FreeBSD was similarly solid, but the package management and printer control for Debian is just so darned easy. Hats off to Debian!
Linux is a pain in the ass, plain and simple. I used Debian for years before I said FORGET IT. Updates to packages would turn something off in what seemed a totally random way (i.e., networking) and without developer docs readily accessible, there was no recourse.
FreeBSD has it's own handbook, a calm development group, and an escape from "37337" developers without engineering standards.
While a lot of the media is directed at New Orleans, the major damage can be seen elsewhere. Take a look at this lengthy video clip if you really want to see some jaw dropping footage: Mississippi Gulf Coast Damage from Skycopter 3. It looks a lot like the images of tsunami a while back.
Because Classic Theaters are Like American Versions of Cathedrals
Classic Films Become Brand New Experiences
The shared experience of moviegoers is a critical piece of the picture, valued so much at one time that theatres were designed like ornate cathedrals in homage to our cultural prowess presented on the silver screen.
At this point, whatever we did to curb our emissions, it would be too late. Ten thousand billion tons of methane, a greenhouse gas eight times stronger than carbon dioxide, would be released into the atmosphere. The Earth's climate would be spinning out of control, heading towards temperatures unseen in four billion years.
This article is probably the one that will turn people from "concerned" to "worried." We are talking about making the planet uninhabitable. On any continent. It's amazing that people are talking about this as "pop science garbage." How comforting it is to take such a position, because otherwise you'd actually have to be worried about this issue.
Thus patent-related risks, for example, were increasingly having an effect on decisions made by public administrations and private organizations on whether "in view of infrastructures and their possibilities to purchase software and services from small and medium-sized companies."
People are finally getting it: small and medium-sized businesses won't be able to produce software products and services if the patent directive is initiated. IBM holds 40,000 patents, any one of which can be used against a small company, essentially bankrupting them. Microsoft is in a similar position. Amazing that Europeans are seeing the light.
Slashdot Mirror
3. Extinguish
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)
You should probably spend some time reading this:
http://www.rollingstone.com/po...
I'll bite. The video describes the problem of a 4C increase in temperature that then causes methane trapped as ice in the permafrost and oceans to melt and go into the atmosphere. It's a positive feedback loop that results in at least a 10C increase (methane being a much more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2). The first step is warming by CO2, which then results in warming by methane. Several scientists are predicting a 20C increase by 2050 if the methane is allowed to escape into the atmosphere, which is essentially a planetary extinction event. The only thing that seems likely to prevent this scenario is total economic collapse, immediately. More details available in the second link. Hope that helps.
If you aren't concerned about this subject, you should be. It is possible that a 4C increase would lead to a 10C increase, wiping out nearly everyone and everything. A good BBC summary of the Permian mass extinction can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
For a really unsettling update:
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/0...
No self-respecting behavioral scientist would say that they have proven something conclusively with their research. It's just not how research works, and we don't start out with the assumptions that we can "prove" anything. The data support one hypothesis, but the way that this is stated is that the researchers have failed to reject the alternative hypothesis: video games produce [violent] behavior. The null hypothesis was rejected (video games have no effect on [violent] behavior.
In the article, the researchers say, "And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts. Such exposure also increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior."
It's correlational data from a metanalytic study, but it is quite possible that the metanalytic study covers several true experiments. In any case, we should probably state that the evidence is mounting for causal link between violent video games and violent behavior.
I tried to use this language/RAD environment. Kept getting hit with show stopping bugs. There's a million of them. For starters, the plugin for web content apparently runs continuously as a process in the background. Don't know if they fixed that yet. Of if they will. Uninstallers and updaters didn't work (uninstaller corrupted my Windows registry for version 3.5). The memory management is awful, and leaks abound when using externals (for example, databases and browsers). The list goes on. And on. Right now this is a very pretty package, but it's not ready for the big leagues. The underlying code needs to be vetted. I'd recommend sticking with open source alternatives such as wxpython or Tcl/Tk if you want to avoid these issues. There is nothing more frustrating than having a show stopping bug and having to deal with a commercial vendor that won't give you the time day or treats you like a child. I think "opacity" is the word that describes them.
A big problem here is that there is a niche of programmers that wants/needs to create commercial applications, especially for entertainment and education needs, but the RAD tools have really gone to hell from the commercial vendors. I started out using Authorware in 1998, which was quite lovingly "discontinued," but was very stable. Then came Macromedia Director, which was god damned rock solid through MX 2004 (although essentially abandoned for Flash by Macromedia; they had like one engineer working on it at the time of the sale to Adobe). Adobe took Director and sent the code base to Bangalore, India, to a bunch of engineers who've made a complete mess out of things from what I can tell. I don't think its a coincidence that the CEO of Adobe is a graduate of the universities of India himself. Anyway, they're stuck at version 11.5, which is an unholy pile of junk (and it will cost you a cool grand, btw). Director, the program that built Macromedia, is essentially dead and along with it just about the only commercial programming alternative for the unwashed masses without computer science degrees.
The fact of the matter is that RunRev doesn't "dumb down" anything except the programmer. It's a complete struggle to use, but really only because it's not a stable programming environment. If it worked as advertised, we would be awash in RunRev apps. In my opinion, and it's just my opinion (as the owner of an Enterprise license from RunRev), Runtime Revolution is amateur night in the programming world. On the other hand, Tcl/Tk has a totally whacked syntax (upvar anyone?) but it is very fast and very very stable. Especially version 8.4 (you can get it from ActiveState for Windows). wxPython is probably the best choice, however, and you can create binary apps if commercial is your thing.
Is it just me, or is commercial development software in general becoming more buggy?
A good HTML editor comes directly from the W3C, found here: Amaya.
It would take another incredible invention to get usable photos from this thing, photos with any decent resolution. Seems like a fun toy, but how could a camera composite the images?
We don't need to be scared at all to enjoy a game. Many years ago the most popular games around, and arguably some of the most inventive, were adventure games, a la Lucasarts, including Grim Fandango, Curse of Monkey Island, etc. These games were engaging, funny, and downright pleasant to play. Immersive as hell, too. I recently tried Quake 4 and was blown away by the stupidity of the game. Get bigger guns. Get ammo. Throw grenade. Shoot and kill. How bloody novel. Hour after hour after hour of the same old sh*t. I haven't like a first person shooter since I played Theif. Boy, what a rant, but games today suck ass because idiots think that adrenaline is needed or it won't sell. So we end up with shelf after shelf stocked with the same f*cking game in fifty different boxes. Hell, at this point I'd be happy to play Zork :(
Use BitDefender. Ranked highest in PC Magazine (although the commercial version is pricey), the free version is up for Windows and Linux.
I'm agreed about this. Michael's design to to "sexy," and the Web 2.0 theme with scrollers is just too much AJAXiness. Jason's design seems to strike a nice balance between the two, with big buttons and a sleek design...
The big impact might be on software distribution methods that rely on a virtual machine, in other words, every software distribution method known to man at this point. It pushes the security model toward one of distributed applications, such as those created through AJAX or XUL. In the future, people won't trust the installation process from independent developers enough (or MS won't let the users trust the install process), thereby limiting the future to remote applications accessible through web browsers or the next incarnation thereof.
I seem to remember reporting numbers worked for McDonalds; heck, it was on every roadside sign (I think they stopped at 92 billion after Seinfeld made fun of them). Yes, I think its important to let people know that A LOT of other people trust the product that is not under the dominion of Microsoft, because otherwise they wouldn't use it.
Global dimming was mentioned a while ago, with reference to the following thread:
n /dimming_trans.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizo
Essentially, it suggests that if the airplanes stopped throwing their exhaust in the sky for a month or two, things would heat up rather quickly as the exhaust serves as a reflective blanket for a lot of solar radition. Pretty heavy stuff.
Oh yeah, do I remember the days... This little baby back in 1981 was so super-pimp that it had a cassette recorder as a hard drive. I almost lost my life once or twice when I bumped the card table that my brother was using the ZX81 on to program a chess game. All of the data would just disappear. Poof! And then my brother would chase me around the house, red with rage.
Those were the days..
After version 4.0, Photoshop became way too much for non-professional users, prompting for additional "scratch disks" during the install and requiring gig after gig of memory to run (even then) slow as molasses. Gimp is a welcome relief to both casual and advanced graphic designers, with just the right amount of power to keep us happy. Gimp's feature set shouldn't be driven by psycho "power users" anyway. It's fine the way it is.
Use an existing environment, such as Moodle. You'll need to stick with the web browser and what the browser can present if you'd like to have people developing their own materials. True programming is probably out of the question for your users; they're interested in content development. I'd suggest Moodle version 1.5 (also integrates with Hot Potatoes, etc.)
All of the news coverage of Google's "slide" is designed to punish Google for their refusal to comply with the wishes of the Republicans... "Release your search data to us or else bad things will happen to you[r stock]." Hopefully Google will hold on for the ride.
Debian 3.1 is a dream. Easy to install, no more updating (except for security updates), and rock solid as my desktop OS. FreeBSD was similarly solid, but the package management and printer control for Debian is just so darned easy. Hats off to Debian!
... but I'll only provide them if your book is to be released under the Open Document license.
Linux is a pain in the ass, plain and simple. I used Debian for years before I said FORGET IT. Updates to packages would turn something off in what seemed a totally random way (i.e., networking) and without developer docs readily accessible, there was no recourse.
FreeBSD has it's own handbook, a calm development group, and an escape from "37337" developers without engineering standards.
While a lot of the media is directed at New Orleans, the major damage can be seen elsewhere. Take a look at this lengthy video clip if you really want to see some jaw dropping footage:
Mississippi Gulf Coast Damage from Skycopter 3. It looks a lot like the images of tsunami a while back.
Nifty article on the contribution of theatres to the movie experience.
Particularly poignant seem to be:
- Movies Play Better with Big Audiences
- Because Classic Theaters are Like American Versions of Cathedrals
- Classic Films Become Brand New Experiences
The shared experience of moviegoers is a critical piece of the picture, valued so much at one time that theatres were designed like ornate cathedrals in homage to our cultural prowess presented on the silver screen.This article is probably the one that will turn people from "concerned" to "worried." We are talking about making the planet uninhabitable. On any continent. It's amazing that people are talking about this as "pop science garbage." How comforting it is to take such a position, because otherwise you'd actually have to be worried about this issue.
People are finally getting it: small and medium-sized businesses won't be able to produce software products and services if the patent directive is initiated. IBM holds 40,000 patents, any one of which can be used against a small company, essentially bankrupting them. Microsoft is in a similar position. Amazing that Europeans are seeing the light.