That is an interesting theory - but your marketing sucks!
It would help if your username wasn't synonymous with an art movement that mocked the establishment by emphasizing the nonsensical and absurd....
(I kid, I kid. As someone with mild libertarian leanings, I can tell you've given this quite a bit of thought.)
It is not disingenuous at all. You perceive climate changes that make you feel unsettled. Did you expect to make people happy with this news? I'm not yet convinced that I overreacted.
I do not expect people to be happy with the news, I'm trying to discuss the subject. Which is plainly beyond your faculties. Why are you so threatened? Do you understand the supreme irony of you telling me that you are afraid that I am making people afraid? And lashing out at that?
I'm not selling anything.
Bullshit. I see you as a religious zealot sending a message for people to convert to your environmental religion. You create fear in other people and you offer them the "fix" (which is to adopt your point of view). Compare this to Christians: they create fear and guilt in people by telling them that they are going to hell, then they offer the "fix" which is to believe in Jesus and be saved. Dan Barker said this about Christians: "The Christian is like a salesman who cuts you with a knife and then offers to sell you a bandage." There is some bitter truth to that statement, but I don't think it's relegated only to Christians. The guilt/fear tactic is exploited by all flavors of zealots.
To what end? What the hell for? What would possibly be in it for me?
You are merely occupying that famous position - frankly, one that is intellectually lazy - that points to zealots on the left and right and says 'clearly they are all zealots, behold my wonderous rationality standing in the middle and calling out both sides'. Ridiculous. You offer nothing but hysterical platitudes.
I think it's all a bunch of handwringing, and I see your attempts to "talk about it" as blatant fearmongering. I will continue to label it as such because I see nothing that differentiates it from fearmongering in the past. I maintain: the fear you spread is more harmful than the thing you fear.
Then I cannot help you. Enjoy the view from the sand.
The message I'm relaying here, if it isn't clear enough, is I don't trust you.
You shouldn't trust me out of hand. What you should trust is the data. But you can't, and that is your undoing.
What are you pointing out Toronto's weather for? They're the ones who, seven years ago this week, called in the Canadian Army when they got a light dusting of snow...
Aren't you cute.
1st point: our Mayor at the time was an idiot, should never have called the military, and was roundly derided and mocked for that decision. Most Torontonians look on the episode with embarrasment.
2nd point: the amount of snow that fell over a 3-day period that year was the same as the entire accumulated snowfall for the entire previous year (1998). It wasn't a light dusting of snow, it was a fucking mountain of snow that paralyzed the country's main economic center.
But I'll assume you knew all that and were just joking.
Incendiary foaming at the mouth "warnings of planetary illness" do our overall chances of mitigating the reality of human-caused global warming no good either. Extremists undercut the message for anyone more moderate, and more likely to actually effect change.
I understand. And agree, to a certain extent. However I cannot help but fall back on the idea that extreme stories and happenings (assuming for the moment they are true) reported on people from the likes of the Royal Society deserve a modicum of credit. In other words, say the author is an eccentric genius, taken to fits of bombastic verbiage. Hey may also be right, and while you can call him bombastic, he does not deserve to be summarily dismissed based purely on writing style. Does that make sense? In other words, he might be a foaming-at-the-mouth incendiary character who may well have a point; it is up to me to see past the language and investigate/weigh the claim.
I'm also sympathetic to the view of the earth acting like a living organism, in fact you can make the same argument for the whole universe. But because it looks like that doesn't actually mean it is a living thing, although I'm not sure how you'd define it at that macro a level...
The question is whether it actually gives a shit whether or not it's hospitable to life. As a member of the Church of the Utterly Indifferent God, somehow I doubt it. It certainly will be a problem for us though.
You reminded me of an Onion article: "God Wonders Whatever Happened To That Planet With All The Monkeys"
The Euro's biggest problem is that they lack a common inflation standard. Eventually it will inflate itself so quickly that it will be worthless. I honestly foresee the Euro dead in 5 years and the EU dead in 10. It might be double both, but I believe I am closer to being right than almost any analyst....
We'll always have a fiat currency in the US, you're right. I believe we'll see a "gold holding" tax in 2-4 years: people with gold will have to pay a tax on how much they hold -- sort of like a property tax. Also, I believe we might see a remonetization of gold in the US (but not 100% reserves) in order to give the investors a feeling of safety. What will probably happen is we'll buy more gold than anyone, and just lease it all out to the central banks of the world. Fake gold standard.
I have to admit, I'm way out of my economic depth at this point. But I thank you for the insight and I will check out your blog.
Since you are the one who is "unsettled", perhaps your advice to relax is best self-applied. I think the reason why you feel "unsettled" is because you are fearful, and the reason why you are sharing this information is because you wish to spread fear. It may be that you are wrongfully accused of global destruction fantasies, but then the difference between what you spread and the false accustion would be a difference of degree, not kind.
I'm 'spreading' my opinion on this oversized blog. To attribute some kind of fearmongering agenda to my post is disingenuous at best. Admit you overreacted and we can continue the discussion.
How many more "unsettling" things do we need to hear? Butter will kill you! AIDS will kill us all! Global warming will heat/cool/soak/dry the earth! The ozone layer is gone! We're running out of oil! Bird flu is coming! GM foods have to be stopped! Jesus is the only way! Islam will rule the world!
I sympathize with your Outrage Overload but that is just as anecdotal as my original point. Here is what I am worried about - and try to contain yourself:
Hottest year ever: The global average temperature was slightly (0.06 degrees Celsius) warmer than 1998's average, when the warming Pacific currents spawned by El Nino made that year the warmest on record.
Least Arctic ice ever: The area covered by Arctic sea ice (the thick stuff that doesn't melt in the summer) in September 2005 was the least that satellites have ever recorded. The perennial sea ice cover has been shrinking by 9.8 per cent every decade.
Hottest Caribbean waters ever: Measurements taken throughout the Caribbean by regional monitoring systems show that water temperatures were hotter for longer than ever before. The WWF said that resulted in extensive bleaching of coral reefs. "Only this year's record-breaking hurricane activity limited additional bleaching," it said.
Worst Atlantic hurricane season ever: Actually, 2005 saw several records broken during the Atlantic hurricane season:
* Most named storms ever: There were 26 named storms in Atlantic waters in 2005 - so many that the official name list was exhausted and had to move into the Greek alphabet for the last five storms of the season.
* Most named hurricanes ever: There were 14 hurricanes in 2005, eclipsing the previous record of 12. The last hurricane of the season, Epsilon, formed up just before the official end of hurricane season on Nov. 30 and was still churning in the Atlantic during the first week of December.
* Most Category 5 storms ever: No fewer than three hurricanes in 2005 had winds over 249 kilometres an hour, crossing over into the rarely-reached top category.
* Most intense hurricane ever: Hurricane Wilma's internal pressure reading of 882 millibars was the lowest ever recorded for an Atlantic hurricane. And Wilma was the fastest-strengthening storm on record. In just 24 hours, its highest winds increased by 169 kilometres an hour as it swirled over those warm Caribbean waters.
* Most hurricane damage ever: The damage estimates are still being compiled. But insurance industry estimates put the total losses from hurricane Katrina alone at more than $100 billion US. The U.S. Congress has estimated the cost of rebuilding the New Orleans and Gulf Coast following Katrina at $200 billion US. And while Katrina wasn't the deadliest hurricane ever, its 1,300-plus fatalities made it the highest toll since 1928.
Record droughts: The WWF says 2005 saw a continuation of drought conditions around the planet. It cited 2005's drought in the Amazon as a "multidecadal if not century record" and noted that the western U.S. continued its multi-year drought.
That is for 2005. If you think this is all just a bunch of handwringing, fair enough. I'm going to render my own judgement on this dataset, and I'm going to talk about it too
I was one of the first people to write about the M3 figure (on my gold blog and in my printed gold newsletter). I've been living on a gold standard for 18 months and forecasted the M3 being dropped almost 2 years ago.
That's very prescient of you. Gold is a better standard, I agree.
I believe we fought the two Iraq wars to keep the USD as the standard oil currency, and I believe the the Euro will come and go in less than 5 years. I can only hope that Malaysia and UAE's upcoming gold trade standards will support a switch to hard currency.
I would say that's definitely a big part of it. Not sure I agree with the part about the Euro, though; and you know the US will fight like hell to retain a fiat currency of some sort.
Give me a break. This guy is just the exact opposite as the niche of corporate types who really don't care if they dump toxic waste into the groundwater near a preschool.
No - you give me a break. Disingenuously flogging a book is definitely not the 'exact oppposite' of dumping toxic waste into groundwater near a preschool. What a fucking terrible example. Both may have an agenda, but the perceived wrongs are galaxies apart.
I remember this same meme being around in the early 60's --- it was nuclear war then --- and in the mid-70's, with The Limits to Growth. Oh, and don't forget The Population Bomb. The expected date is always in the potential lifetime of younger readers, but comfortably in the future for older ones, and so far (note that you're reading this) it always fails to happen.
Sure, its not an unpopular kind of hysteria. And you are absolutely right.
I would only add one thing. This sentiment, the Boy Who Cried Wolf, is always cited in these situations. In the story, the boy yells about wolves so much that people stop taking him seriously.
But in the end, the wolves did actually show up. There are two morals to be learned; that of not raising the alarm prematurely, and also that of being aware of the possible danger, in the face of false alarms.
One other thing: I'm not quite so ready to demonize the guy based only on the fact that he's selling a book. He does make a living talking and writing about this sort of thing, after all. And I do not equate 'flogging a book sale' with 'flogging the environment to death for mountainous profits over many decades'.
(An offtopic aside: never liked that Boy-Wolf parable. Wolves don't kill people.)
I think oil is fairly cheap compared to the US dollar -- I track oil's price versus the US dollar versus the M3 money supply and oil has gone up slightly in the past year, but it is still cheaper than it has been in the past 150 years on average. Gold versus oil shows a different story (either gold is undervalued to oil or vice versa).
You won't be able to do that much longer. The Fed will start hiding the M3 data on money near the end of March, coincidentally when the Iranian Oil Bourse is supposed to materialize.
Weather is complicated. It has many many more inputs than you can predict or explain. Why is it that you choose to see "atypical" weather as evidence of impending catastrophe? Personally, I think you do it for the same reason that the right-wing zealots see every little thing that happens in Israel as the proof that armageddon is right around the corner. You like to spread fear as a means of garnering attention and swaying people to your point of view. Have leftist environmentalists not spit out fearful cataclysms every year for the past few decades? Have not Christian zealots done the same thing with their "the end is here!" prophecies? Forgive me if I don't partake in your global destruction fantasies...
Relax. I said it was 'unsettling'.
The 'fear spreading' and 'armageddon' and 'fearful cataclysms' and 'global destruction fantsies' are your words, bub. I said no such thing.
I will assume you are really referring to the author of the original article.
You reminded me of a conversation had with my friends, not too long ago. Same topic.
Shows your the nerd mind-set: most of them just automatically started mulling over a selection of classes. That's right. World goes to shit, we all want to turn into level 1 Fighters and Rangers.
In all seriousness, if the world falls apart, I will start carrying a sword. 'Cause, y'know, why not?
That's very scientific... You may be shocked to hear the Earth has been both much warmer and much cooler throughout history.
No, not shocked. And what I said was definitely not scientific, merely anecdotal.
However, it is worth noting that I really ought not to be able to notice significant changes to the climate within the span of my lifetime. And yet I find, very commonly (and again anecdotally - compare and contrast your own experiences) that the typical man-on-the-street view is that 'something is definitely up'. Don't you find that? Nearly everyone I talk to about the weather, at some point, shakes their head and expresses some concern about how it 'used to be' vs how it is now. And that's only in the cities. In the lower arctic circle, where they are watching the glaciers retreat and the permafrost declining, and it is screwing with their hunting, what must they be saying? Have you noticed mountaintop snowcaps disappearing?
What I find disingenuous about the old argument - the one that says 'earth has always changed' - is that it seems dismissive. Even if we aren't causing one iota of climate change, it is readily apparant that the Earth's weather is changing rapidly; shouldn't we be alarmed, even if we are not the cause of it? Saying "its natural" doesn't exactly make me feel better!
I will be adding some extra security to the system. But the average user cannot do what I will be doing.
Why don't you enlighten us oh gifted one?
I imagine he's using Mac user standard precautions; place router inside wall safe, wrapped in tinfoil, and smothered with secret sauce. Nothin' beats that. We've been discussing it on the official Apple Fanboy List and have deemed this to be the best approach.
I don't know who the guy is, but the article is completely useless. There are absolutely no hard facts in there. Please point us to ONE SINGLE virus, keylogger, adware, or any type of malware at all before making ridiculous claims like the old and completely bogus "it's just because of low market share".
Here's the key... its not so much about the message of the article (which, while true, involves a disproportionate amount of hand-wringing...)
"These days Apple users are almost unbearably smug when the subject turns to malware..."
"we got dozens of e-mails from complacent Mac users pointing out that they were safe..."
"Any Mac user who believes they are totally safe is being reckless..."
"Mac users demonstrate an indefensible smugness when it comes to the dangers of having their systems compromised..."
There's your answer. Do you really think this guy (the author) will rush to our aid when/if a Mac OS X virus actually hits? No, he's pissed off at the teeming, ignorant Mac users who 'act superior'. And he can now easily point back to this article when/if said virus hits and say 'told you so'. Pretty easy bet, actually. If nothing happens, no one will remember this editorial. If it does, he can crow about it.
Here's my plan: I run no AV software. I do no checks of any kind. My form of security is to not run MS Office (macro viruses). When/if a Mac OS X virus appears, it will be shouted so loudly from the rooftops by redeemed security geeks that I can hardly miss the news. Then I will go download the single virus definition. Until then, I will not concern myself with what is simply not there.
Besides - I take standard precautions, I back up my stuff weekly at a minumum. Hard drives crash without warning, that's a much bigger problem. Luckily I can mitigate a very real hd crash thread and a theoretical virus threat with that same rememdy.
I have the exact opposite experience; I don't remember anyone with big problems with any of the clones. I'm still a proud owner of a Power Computing Power Tower Pro 225... never had a hardware problem with the computer itself in about 10 years of ownership (and about 5 years of daily use).
Power Computing did some ok work on their clones (I wouldn't call it great - they beat Apple in shipping faster machines a few times, but were nothing exceptional), and Daystar had some interesting high-end multiproc towers... however all the other Mac clones were unbelievably bad, and deserve every bit of reputation they have. The Motorola, Umax, Radius, whatever that other acronym was, ABS or something. Ugh, I still cringe thinking about how many of those damn things I had to fix (was doing tech support at the time). The 8600/9600 were annoying to work with when expanding the memory or adding cards, but were always much more reliable than any of the clones; that was my experience.
I placed a Windows 95 CD in viewing distance of my linux machines and they never gave me troubles since. MS, ensuring your hardware behaves for two decades and counting.
That's pretty funny...
I used to do a similar thing with bad 3.5" floppy disks (Amiga era). When a disk would go bad, I would core that little bastard on the spot, ripping the metal disc out of the centre and trashing the rest. I would then hang these trophy disk-bits on a small metal tree made out of paperclips stuck into an eraser, next to the floppy drive, as an example to other wayward floppies who thought about misbehaving.
Yeah, but at least the retarded kid gets to play F.E.A.R. and Warhammer 40,000:Dawn of War. While driving the Ferrari.
Or does the metaphor break down at that point?
The retarded kid can take the wheel when he wants to play F.E.A.R. but he has to promise to sit quietly in the passenger seat* the rest of the time, and not fuck with the stereo.
Part of the Slashdot Editor's job is to make a submission "Presentable". Usually this means moving a few URLs around. I'd guess a good half of story submissions use the word 'here' or 'article' or something equally stupid as their anchor text. I prefer relevant words to be linked. There are other minor things tho, like taking off extra intros like "Hi guys I read Slashdot every day and thought you would like this". We want the Slashdot story to be mostly distilled down to the essentials. Just the key 3-4 sentences.
I've said it before, CmdrTaco, and you've answered me. I think you should spell check your summaries. You replied that it was 'not our character' or something like that. Fair enough.
But now you say your job is to make the submission "presentable".
If you and your editors work on your actual writing skills and presentation, and maybe I'll think about subscribing. I don't now, because of this, and I don't complain, because its free for me. (You can consider this post constructive criticism.) But if you are wondering about subscription rates... for me, that is the reason. Slashdot is not professional. It doesn't deserve money until it chooses to be so.
I am happy to take it as it is, while it is free. Ask for money, and the expectations are quite different.
Now don't get offended by this, but have you considered the fact that maybe the reason nobody seems to notice is because they're too busy having a good time to give a crap?
No offence taken. Considered and rejected. I'm sure that's the case for the few who noticed alongside me - no one left or anything.
Sometimes I really wonder where we get our perceptions of 'quality'....
I guess I am a graybeard now, I remember recording an FM signal off the radio, onto a casette tape (magnetized particles, young'ins! and we liked it!)... trying to get a clean 'rip' without the DJ trampling the beginning or end (impossible)... futzing with levels to hit that magical peak 0dB (but not too much over!)... applying Dolby B 'noise reduction'.... all of this took, usually, an entire afternoon to assemble one good tape. Which your buddy's car deck would then eat the next day.
Not that I miss any of that really, but now its 'Transcode the file from AAC to MP3?!? My ears would BLEED, such a thing is beyond the pale! Were you raised in a cave?'
Of course, a lot of it is bullshit. There are true audiophiles and then there are those who just want to know that they have The Best. These are the people who have $10k stereos that don't notice when the entire left channel disappears at a club. I find its usually me and maybe one or two other people in the vicinity who looked shocked when that happens... the rest have no idea....
Slashdot Mirror
That is an interesting theory - but your marketing sucks! It would help if your username wasn't synonymous with an art movement that mocked the establishment by emphasizing the nonsensical and absurd....
(I kid, I kid. As someone with mild libertarian leanings, I can tell you've given this quite a bit of thought.)
Here are the details. It was in the 'snowy region', but as I understand it this was a lot of snow even for that area.
It is not disingenuous at all. You perceive climate changes that make you feel unsettled. Did you expect to make people happy with this news? I'm not yet convinced that I overreacted.
I do not expect people to be happy with the news, I'm trying to discuss the subject. Which is plainly beyond your faculties. Why are you so threatened? Do you understand the supreme irony of you telling me that you are afraid that I am making people afraid? And lashing out at that?
I'm not selling anything.
Bullshit. I see you as a religious zealot sending a message for people to convert to your environmental religion. You create fear in other people and you offer them the "fix" (which is to adopt your point of view). Compare this to Christians: they create fear and guilt in people by telling them that they are going to hell, then they offer the "fix" which is to believe in Jesus and be saved. Dan Barker said this about Christians: "The Christian is like a salesman who cuts you with a knife and then offers to sell you a bandage." There is some bitter truth to that statement, but I don't think it's relegated only to Christians. The guilt/fear tactic is exploited by all flavors of zealots.
To what end? What the hell for? What would possibly be in it for me?
You are merely occupying that famous position - frankly, one that is intellectually lazy - that points to zealots on the left and right and says 'clearly they are all zealots, behold my wonderous rationality standing in the middle and calling out both sides'. Ridiculous. You offer nothing but hysterical platitudes.
I think it's all a bunch of handwringing, and I see your attempts to "talk about it" as blatant fearmongering. I will continue to label it as such because I see nothing that differentiates it from fearmongering in the past. I maintain: the fear you spread is more harmful than the thing you fear.
Then I cannot help you. Enjoy the view from the sand.
The message I'm relaying here, if it isn't clear enough, is I don't trust you.
You shouldn't trust me out of hand. What you should trust is the data. But you can't, and that is your undoing.
Aren't you cute.
1st point: our Mayor at the time was an idiot, should never have called the military, and was roundly derided and mocked for that decision. Most Torontonians look on the episode with embarrasment.
2nd point: the amount of snow that fell over a 3-day period that year was the same as the entire accumulated snowfall for the entire previous year (1998). It wasn't a light dusting of snow, it was a fucking mountain of snow that paralyzed the country's main economic center.
But I'll assume you knew all that and were just joking.
I understand. And agree, to a certain extent. However I cannot help but fall back on the idea that extreme stories and happenings (assuming for the moment they are true) reported on people from the likes of the Royal Society deserve a modicum of credit. In other words, say the author is an eccentric genius, taken to fits of bombastic verbiage. Hey may also be right, and while you can call him bombastic, he does not deserve to be summarily dismissed based purely on writing style. Does that make sense? In other words, he might be a foaming-at-the-mouth incendiary character who may well have a point; it is up to me to see past the language and investigate/weigh the claim.
I'm also sympathetic to the view of the earth acting like a living organism, in fact you can make the same argument for the whole universe. But because it looks like that doesn't actually mean it is a living thing, although I'm not sure how you'd define it at that macro a level...
The question is whether it actually gives a shit whether or not it's hospitable to life. As a member of the Church of the Utterly Indifferent God, somehow I doubt it. It certainly will be a problem for us though.
You reminded me of an Onion article: "God Wonders Whatever Happened To That Planet With All The Monkeys"
We'll always have a fiat currency in the US, you're right. I believe we'll see a "gold holding" tax in 2-4 years: people with gold will have to pay a tax on how much they hold -- sort of like a property tax. Also, I believe we might see a remonetization of gold in the US (but not 100% reserves) in order to give the investors a feeling of safety. What will probably happen is we'll buy more gold than anyone, and just lease it all out to the central banks of the world. Fake gold standard.
I have to admit, I'm way out of my economic depth at this point. But I thank you for the insight and I will check out your blog.
I'm 'spreading' my opinion on this oversized blog. To attribute some kind of fearmongering agenda to my post is disingenuous at best. Admit you overreacted and we can continue the discussion.
How many more "unsettling" things do we need to hear? Butter will kill you! AIDS will kill us all! Global warming will heat/cool/soak/dry the earth! The ozone layer is gone! We're running out of oil! Bird flu is coming! GM foods have to be stopped! Jesus is the only way! Islam will rule the world!
I sympathize with your Outrage Overload but that is just as anecdotal as my original point. Here is what I am worried about - and try to contain yourself:
Hottest year ever: The global average temperature was slightly (0.06 degrees Celsius) warmer than 1998's average, when the warming Pacific currents spawned by El Nino made that year the warmest on record.
Least Arctic ice ever: The area covered by Arctic sea ice (the thick stuff that doesn't melt in the summer) in September 2005 was the least that satellites have ever recorded. The perennial sea ice cover has been shrinking by 9.8 per cent every decade.
Hottest Caribbean waters ever: Measurements taken throughout the Caribbean by regional monitoring systems show that water temperatures were hotter for longer than ever before. The WWF said that resulted in extensive bleaching of coral reefs. "Only this year's record-breaking hurricane activity limited additional bleaching," it said.
Worst Atlantic hurricane season ever: Actually, 2005 saw several records broken during the Atlantic hurricane season:
* Most named storms ever: There were 26 named storms in Atlantic waters in 2005 - so many that the official name list was exhausted and had to move into the Greek alphabet for the last five storms of the season.
* Most named hurricanes ever: There were 14 hurricanes in 2005, eclipsing the previous record of 12. The last hurricane of the season, Epsilon, formed up just before the official end of hurricane season on Nov. 30 and was still churning in the Atlantic during the first week of December.
* Most Category 5 storms ever: No fewer than three hurricanes in 2005 had winds over 249 kilometres an hour, crossing over into the rarely-reached top category.
* Most intense hurricane ever: Hurricane Wilma's internal pressure reading of 882 millibars was the lowest ever recorded for an Atlantic hurricane. And Wilma was the fastest-strengthening storm on record. In just 24 hours, its highest winds increased by 169 kilometres an hour as it swirled over those warm Caribbean waters.
* Most hurricane damage ever: The damage estimates are still being compiled. But insurance industry estimates put the total losses from hurricane Katrina alone at more than $100 billion US. The U.S. Congress has estimated the cost of rebuilding the New Orleans and Gulf Coast following Katrina at $200 billion US. And while Katrina wasn't the deadliest hurricane ever, its 1,300-plus fatalities made it the highest toll since 1928.
Record droughts: The WWF says 2005 saw a continuation of drought conditions around the planet. It cited 2005's drought in the Amazon as a "multidecadal if not century record" and noted that the western U.S. continued its multi-year drought.
That is for 2005. If you think this is all just a bunch of handwringing, fair enough. I'm going to render my own judgement on this dataset, and I'm going to talk about it too
That's very prescient of you. Gold is a better standard, I agree.
I believe we fought the two Iraq wars to keep the USD as the standard oil currency, and I believe the the Euro will come and go in less than 5 years. I can only hope that Malaysia and UAE's upcoming gold trade standards will support a switch to hard currency.
I would say that's definitely a big part of it. Not sure I agree with the part about the Euro, though; and you know the US will fight like hell to retain a fiat currency of some sort.
No - you give me a break. Disingenuously flogging a book is definitely not the 'exact oppposite' of dumping toxic waste into groundwater near a preschool. What a fucking terrible example. Both may have an agenda, but the perceived wrongs are galaxies apart.
Sure, its not an unpopular kind of hysteria. And you are absolutely right.
I would only add one thing. This sentiment, the Boy Who Cried Wolf, is always cited in these situations. In the story, the boy yells about wolves so much that people stop taking him seriously.
But in the end, the wolves did actually show up. There are two morals to be learned; that of not raising the alarm prematurely, and also that of being aware of the possible danger, in the face of false alarms.
One other thing: I'm not quite so ready to demonize the guy based only on the fact that he's selling a book. He does make a living talking and writing about this sort of thing, after all. And I do not equate 'flogging a book sale' with 'flogging the environment to death for mountainous profits over many decades'.
(An offtopic aside: never liked that Boy-Wolf parable. Wolves don't kill people.)
You won't be able to do that much longer. The Fed will start hiding the M3 data on money near the end of March, coincidentally when the Iranian Oil Bourse is supposed to materialize.
Relax. I said it was 'unsettling'.
The 'fear spreading' and 'armageddon' and 'fearful cataclysms' and 'global destruction fantsies' are your words, bub. I said no such thing.
I will assume you are really referring to the author of the original article.
You reminded me of a conversation had with my friends, not too long ago. Same topic.
Shows your the nerd mind-set: most of them just automatically started mulling over a selection of classes. That's right. World goes to shit, we all want to turn into level 1 Fighters and Rangers.
In all seriousness, if the world falls apart, I will start carrying a sword. 'Cause, y'know, why not?
No, not shocked. And what I said was definitely not scientific, merely anecdotal.
However, it is worth noting that I really ought not to be able to notice significant changes to the climate within the span of my lifetime. And yet I find, very commonly (and again anecdotally - compare and contrast your own experiences) that the typical man-on-the-street view is that 'something is definitely up'. Don't you find that? Nearly everyone I talk to about the weather, at some point, shakes their head and expresses some concern about how it 'used to be' vs how it is now. And that's only in the cities. In the lower arctic circle, where they are watching the glaciers retreat and the permafrost declining, and it is screwing with their hunting, what must they be saying? Have you noticed mountaintop snowcaps disappearing?
What I find disingenuous about the old argument - the one that says 'earth has always changed' - is that it seems dismissive. Even if we aren't causing one iota of climate change, it is readily apparant that the Earth's weather is changing rapidly; shouldn't we be alarmed, even if we are not the cause of it? Saying "its natural" doesn't exactly make me feel better!
"Who are you gonna believe? Me, or your lying eyes?"
Just getting off a week of +5-10C weather, in January, in Toronto. (40-50F for the Americans.) That is really, really atypical.
So is the 28 days of rain the west coast just received.
So is the 13 feet of snow in Japan.
Its unsettling.
Why don't you enlighten us oh gifted one?
I imagine he's using Mac user standard precautions; place router inside wall safe, wrapped in tinfoil, and smothered with secret sauce. Nothin' beats that. We've been discussing it on the official Apple Fanboy List and have deemed this to be the best approach.
(Also we use characters like ü, ç, (TM) and © in our passwords which are nearly impossible to type in Windows.)
Here's the key... its not so much about the message of the article (which, while true, involves a disproportionate amount of hand-wringing...)
"These days Apple users are almost unbearably smug when the subject turns to malware..."
"we got dozens of e-mails from complacent Mac users pointing out that they were safe..."
"Any Mac user who believes they are totally safe is being reckless..."
"Mac users demonstrate an indefensible smugness when it comes to the dangers of having their systems compromised..."
There's your answer. Do you really think this guy (the author) will rush to our aid when/if a Mac OS X virus actually hits? No, he's pissed off at the teeming, ignorant Mac users who 'act superior'. And he can now easily point back to this article when/if said virus hits and say 'told you so'. Pretty easy bet, actually. If nothing happens, no one will remember this editorial. If it does, he can crow about it.
Here's my plan: I run no AV software. I do no checks of any kind. My form of security is to not run MS Office (macro viruses). When/if a Mac OS X virus appears, it will be shouted so loudly from the rooftops by redeemed security geeks that I can hardly miss the news. Then I will go download the single virus definition. Until then, I will not concern myself with what is simply not there.
Besides - I take standard precautions, I back up my stuff weekly at a minumum. Hard drives crash without warning, that's a much bigger problem. Luckily I can mitigate a very real hd crash thread and a theoretical virus threat with that same rememdy.
Power Computing did some ok work on their clones (I wouldn't call it great - they beat Apple in shipping faster machines a few times, but were nothing exceptional), and Daystar had some interesting high-end multiproc towers... however all the other Mac clones were unbelievably bad, and deserve every bit of reputation they have. The Motorola, Umax, Radius, whatever that other acronym was, ABS or something. Ugh, I still cringe thinking about how many of those damn things I had to fix (was doing tech support at the time). The 8600/9600 were annoying to work with when expanding the memory or adding cards, but were always much more reliable than any of the clones; that was my experience.
... there's a Windows version of WoW?!?
huh. learn somethin' everyday.
The detail you seem to have missed is: those of us who have not taken to resting a Power5 server on our laps have managed to keep our balls.
Seriously, a condescending server nerd is never a pretty sight. How's that working out for you?
That's pretty funny...
I used to do a similar thing with bad 3.5" floppy disks (Amiga era). When a disk would go bad, I would core that little bastard on the spot, ripping the metal disc out of the centre and trashing the rest. I would then hang these trophy disk-bits on a small metal tree made out of paperclips stuck into an eraser, next to the floppy drive, as an example to other wayward floppies who thought about misbehaving.
At least thats what I told myself.
The retarded kid can take the wheel when he wants to play F.E.A.R. but he has to promise to sit quietly in the passenger seat* the rest of the time, and not fuck with the stereo.
(* passenger seat = 2nd harddrive partition)
I've said it before, CmdrTaco, and you've answered me. I think you should spell check your summaries. You replied that it was 'not our character' or something like that. Fair enough.
But now you say your job is to make the submission "presentable".
If you and your editors work on your actual writing skills and presentation, and maybe I'll think about subscribing. I don't now, because of this, and I don't complain, because its free for me. (You can consider this post constructive criticism.) But if you are wondering about subscription rates... for me, that is the reason. Slashdot is not professional. It doesn't deserve money until it chooses to be so.
I am happy to take it as it is, while it is free. Ask for money, and the expectations are quite different.
No offence taken. Considered and rejected. I'm sure that's the case for the few who noticed alongside me - no one left or anything.
I guess I am a graybeard now, I remember recording an FM signal off the radio, onto a casette tape (magnetized particles, young'ins! and we liked it!)... trying to get a clean 'rip' without the DJ trampling the beginning or end (impossible)... futzing with levels to hit that magical peak 0dB (but not too much over!)... applying Dolby B 'noise reduction'.... all of this took, usually, an entire afternoon to assemble one good tape. Which your buddy's car deck would then eat the next day.
Not that I miss any of that really, but now its 'Transcode the file from AAC to MP3?!? My ears would BLEED, such a thing is beyond the pale! Were you raised in a cave?'
Of course, a lot of it is bullshit. There are true audiophiles and then there are those who just want to know that they have The Best. These are the people who have $10k stereos that don't notice when the entire left channel disappears at a club. I find its usually me and maybe one or two other people in the vicinity who looked shocked when that happens... the rest have no idea....