... The Earth changes and had always been. Entire ecosystems have many times went through great extinction events. What were once sea bed, are now mountain tops and vice versa. Rivers, lakes, even entire oceans had dried out. We humans will adapt or we will be replaced by other more successful species.
What's different this time is we caused it. And have the power to avert it. Only we won't because of silly things like "who has the bigger car" and "open windows with air condition on".
I have no doubt, though, that we will adapt. Our children will be missing out on large parts of nature, though, something that you may or may not give a shit about. Just consider that it won't be easy to replace 4 billions years of evolution.
As consistently as mean global temperatures have refused to rise for the past 20 years?
Seriously, how long are we going to keep funding Chicken Little to squawk that the sky is going to fall tomorrow, 4 REALZ TIHS TIEM!!!!!1!!?
What? I read in earlier (Score:5 Insightful) and (Score:5 Informative) posts by h4rm0ny (722443) and tygerstripes (832644) that nobody was denying that global warming was happening.
In any case, dear politically correctly attributed AGW sceptic, which facts are you basing your above assertion on?
Agreed. I stopped using it when I realized that the processor utilization when it was running raised my room temperature by 8 degrees. I'd wake up in the middle of the night uncomfortably warm. Not cool.
You can switch the rendering off, though. Then it only plays the downloaded sheep.
And why isn't this galaxy backlit by the overwhelming brightness of the Big Bang itself? It would seem if you looked just a little bit further back in time everything ought to be one gigantnormous flash bulb.
That gigantnormous flash bulb is on. Right now. It's called cosmic microwave background radiation. Only we can't see it with the naked eye because of the expansion of the universe.
If you want 1080p with no fan, just get a Blu-ray player. There's plenty of them that'll play media off the network and Internet (LG has good ones). But don't bitch that some people might want a computer that can play a game a little better than Nethack.
And if you wan't a car that doesn't use gas, get a bicycle.
This just goes to show that people don't really know what numbers are, at least when they are infinite decimal numbers. A finite decimal number corresponds to a rational number, e.g. 9.99 corresponds to 9 + 9/10 + 9/100. The way you describe infinite decimal numbers of by denoting a sequence of finite decimal numbers that goes towards this infinite decimal, in our case: 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc. This, by the way, is how you construct the real numbers (pi is described in such a way).
In doing so, however, there are multiply ways of describing the same number; the sequences 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc. and 1, 1, 1, etc. describe the same number, and this apparent non-uniqueness is probably what bugs people.
Wrong. We can sit and wait all day, but some portion of the human population will still do it, because some portion isn't content to sit and wait.
Exactly. And that's why, for the geniuses anyway, isn't the profit motive that drives them. It's the respect and the recognition they gain in society (which obviously depends on which society they live in). Nobel prize winners don't do it for the money. They do it for the medal.
I'm not saying people don't want to be rich, but I am saying they want to be rich because it frees them up to do the stuff they really wanted to do anyway. Profit or not.
Well, we've started to go down this road, so why not go all the way? Measuring the entropy of its input depends on the probabilistic model used. For instance, a compression algorithm dedicated to only describing the text of the Bible could do so with 1 bit. Either it's the Bible or nothing. Commonly used models for entropy calculations put the English language at 1.5 bits per character, so we've seemingly broken the above lower bound.
What you really should measure it in is Kolmogorov complexity, which is roughly speaking the length of the shortest algorithm that generates the input (in some predetermined language, bla bla).
Can you cite something for this? The highest spin rate I could find for a neutron star (XTE J1739-285) is 1122 times a second and it seems that it may not even be the correct rate.
Today countries all over the world cling to ethnic and religious differences as primary societal foundations. As long as that is true we will have never ending war. Global warming is a gift of a single unifying foundation for all of humankind to unite around. Working together to avert catastrophic climate change will diminish those cherished divisions along ethnic and religious lines. Once we are done, the young generations will see no reason to go back to hating each other.
Yeah, well, quite possibly that is because the majority of/. readers are from the USA. You know, where you are PRESUMED INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY....
Irreversible damage, to me, from a systems engineering perspective, means an unstable system or a system that trends according to a power law. No system that I can think of that involves climate or the earth behaves in that manner - rather, they all follow logarithmic or inverse power laws to trend to a steady state. And yet, somehow, you're telling me that all of the sudden we're going to see e^x where something like that hasn't existed for millions of years? Maybe there's a good reason I'm still skeptical.
e^x!? They're not saying the planet is going to blow up. They're saying it might go from one equilibrium to another at an unknown speed. Icebergs melting are a good example of this. As they melt their center of mass can change to the point that they suddenly turn upside down.
The real danger, though, is the derived effects on animal and plant life. It might be benign. It might be catastrophic.
Slashdot Mirror
... The Earth changes and had always been. Entire ecosystems have many times went through great extinction events. What were once sea bed, are now mountain tops and vice versa. Rivers, lakes, even entire oceans had dried out. We humans will adapt or we will be replaced by other more successful species.
What's different this time is we caused it. And have the power to avert it. Only we won't because of silly things like "who has the bigger car" and "open windows with air condition on".
I have no doubt, though, that we will adapt. Our children will be missing out on large parts of nature, though, something that you may or may not give a shit about. Just consider that it won't be easy to replace 4 billions years of evolution.
As consistently as mean global temperatures have refused to rise for the past 20 years?
Seriously, how long are we going to keep funding Chicken Little to squawk that the sky is going to fall tomorrow, 4 REALZ TIHS TIEM!!!!!1!!?
What? I read in earlier (Score:5 Insightful) and (Score:5 Informative) posts by h4rm0ny (722443) and tygerstripes (832644) that nobody was denying that global warming was happening.
In any case, dear politically correctly attributed AGW sceptic, which facts are you basing your above assertion on?
Agreed. I stopped using it when I realized that the processor utilization when it was running raised my room temperature by 8 degrees.
I'd wake up in the middle of the night uncomfortably warm. Not cool.
You can switch the rendering off, though. Then it only plays the downloaded sheep.
Give them a break. They just converted from rods per hogshead.
And why isn't this galaxy backlit by the overwhelming brightness of the Big Bang itself? It would seem if you looked just a little bit further back in time everything ought to be one gigantnormous flash bulb.
That gigantnormous flash bulb is on. Right now. It's called cosmic microwave background radiation. Only we can't see it with the naked eye because of the expansion of the universe.
If you want 1080p with no fan, just get a Blu-ray player. There's plenty of them that'll play media off the network and Internet (LG has good ones). But don't bitch that some people might want a computer that can play a game a little better than Nethack.
And if you wan't a car that doesn't use gas, get a bicycle.
This just goes to show that people don't really know what numbers are, at least when they are infinite decimal numbers. A finite decimal number corresponds to a rational number, e.g. 9.99 corresponds to 9 + 9/10 + 9/100. The way you describe infinite decimal numbers of by denoting a sequence of finite decimal numbers that goes towards this infinite decimal, in our case: 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc. This, by the way, is how you construct the real numbers (pi is described in such a way).
In doing so, however, there are multiply ways of describing the same number; the sequences 0.9, 0.99, 0.999, etc. and 1, 1, 1, etc. describe the same number, and this apparent non-uniqueness is probably what bugs people.
Discovering new habitable planets while seemingly not researching ways to get us there is kind of like going to a whorehouse with no money. ...
By your logic stone age people shouldn't be looking at the moon because they weren't researching rocketry.
Wrong. We can sit and wait all day, but some portion of the human population will still do it, because some portion isn't content to sit and wait.
Exactly. And that's why, for the geniuses anyway, isn't the profit motive that drives them. It's the respect and the recognition they gain in society (which obviously depends on which society they live in). Nobel prize winners don't do it for the money. They do it for the medal.
I'm not saying people don't want to be rich, but I am saying they want to be rich because it frees them up to do the stuff they really wanted to do anyway. Profit or not.
I think this guy is suggesting we buy some of his shoes, but I'm not quite sure.
Actually, a perfect compression algorithm would have the entropy of its input as the lower bound: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)
Well, we've started to go down this road, so why not go all the way? Measuring the entropy of its input depends on the probabilistic model used. For instance, a compression algorithm dedicated to only describing the text of the Bible could do so with 1 bit. Either it's the Bible or nothing. Commonly used models for entropy calculations put the English language at 1.5 bits per character, so we've seemingly broken the above lower bound.
What you really should measure it in is Kolmogorov complexity, which is roughly speaking the length of the shortest algorithm that generates the input (in some predetermined language, bla bla).
...At least one of the linked articles says the new OS, though home-grown, would run Windows software.
Before I read this I was imagining that they might give Theo a run for his money and develop a super awesome Linux-derived OS.
After I read this I was imagining a Windows ME clone based on Wine, with security through nobody-wants-to-touch-it.
I know, why here in the U.S. saying such a thing like that will get you and your wife tossed into jail.
You need to be Muslim, but then yes.
...so I really don't see how it wouldn't apply.
Then you should reread Gödel's theorem. And proof.
Can you cite something for this? The highest spin rate I could find for a neutron star (XTE J1739-285) is 1122 times a second and it seems that it may not even be the correct rate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar
Today countries all over the world cling to ethnic and religious differences as primary societal foundations. As long as that is true we will have never ending war. Global warming is a gift of a single unifying foundation for all of humankind to unite around. Working together to avert catastrophic climate change will diminish those cherished divisions along ethnic and religious lines. Once we are done, the young generations will see no reason to go back to hating each other.
Doesn't apply too well to current issues...
And the shift it would cause on the earths orbit.
He also flipped off a box of kittens and punched a baby in the face. In his defense, the baby was being a dick.
No, he throws cats in bins. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xtjFXTcQI
http://googlesightseeing.com/2009/07/the-buzzer-uvb-76/
No Street View!?
Yeah, well, quite possibly that is because the majority of /. readers are from the USA. You know, where you are PRESUMED INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY. ...
Unless of course you are a suspected terrorist.
What do they use tactical 3G networks for? Tactical tweeting?
Irreversible damage, to me, from a systems engineering perspective, means an unstable system or a system that trends according to a power law. No system that I can think of that involves climate or the earth behaves in that manner - rather, they all follow logarithmic or inverse power laws to trend to a steady state. And yet, somehow, you're telling me that all of the sudden we're going to see e^x where something like that hasn't existed for millions of years? Maybe there's a good reason I'm still skeptical.
e^x!? They're not saying the planet is going to blow up. They're saying it might go from one equilibrium to another at an unknown speed. Icebergs melting are a good example of this. As they melt their center of mass can change to the point that they suddenly turn upside down.
The real danger, though, is the derived effects on animal and plant life. It might be benign. It might be catastrophic.
When do we move on from whether or not the planet is warming up to why it's warming up?
And after that (estimating we'll waste 10 years before people accept it's man made):
When do we move on from why it's warming to who's fault is it? (10 years)
Who's going to pay? (20 years)
Ad nauseam.
Reminds me of USB High Speed and USB Full Speed. I still can't remember which is which. Is confusing the consumer a standard MBA course?
What happened to all of these people?
They stopped being communists.