the problem I have with the James-Webb telescope is it isn't a *replacement* for Hubble. JW is a non-visible (infrared) scope, and won't produce the type of images Hubble has.
keeping the masses 'in favor' of spending on space involves giving them some of the stuff they want, namely the magnificent pictures Hubble has been providing for years.
If they can't see it, then they won't want to fund it as much.
Agreed, since big ships are generally registered in places like, say, Libya. Watch the current administration's face go purple when suggest giving them multiple nuclear reactors;-) *
*note, I am not picking Libya as a source of terrorism anymore, just that most ships aren't registered in any country considered remotely 'tough' in terms of regulations.
Giving such places nuclear reactors to 'not' regulate is as you say, a 'show-stopper'
A complete switch off of fossil fuels isn't likely as you say. However, if we can stop use of them in all but the places where there is no substitute, our overall problem likely comes down by orders magnitude no?
Shipping is a great example of something that, unless we really do invent "Mr. Fusion" from "Back to the Future", is going to need the high energy density and portability of liquid fossils fuels. Solar and wind energy on the ships can significantly reduce their needs (as much as 30%), but likely never eliminate it.
Trucks cross country can be done in other ways than fossil fuels, but not economically currently. Electric trains certainly can do that, though in a coarser manner than trucks. You'll still need local delivery options from stations.
The basic point is lets deal with the things we can, rather than waiting for that one perfect, solves everything, solution. Since likely it won't ever come.
The fact that some 'radioactive' type materials are released during normal coal power plant operation, isn't an argument against the previous poster. It's actually in favor of nuclear plants. Since as the poster said, you know where the waste is as opposed to dumping stuff into the atmosphere.
Most experts agree that if we stopped burning every fossil fuel today, it would take *decades* before we saw any significant reversal of the current trends.
It's like opening a parachute, you don't stop going down when you open the chute, it only starts to slow your decent; you're still going down fast enough to kill yourself if you landed right after opening the chute.
Or another way, if you're riding a rocket straight up and the rocket stops burning, you're still going up pretty damn fast. Eventually you'll come back down, but not immediately. The problem is if you don't stop the burn soon enough you'll end up beyond the atmosphere.
So, do we keep riding the rocket that is the climate change? (most studies have shown massive shifts in very short time scales not seen before). Or do we do what we can to mitigate the issue? Whether it's man made or not, the earth is warming up faster than at any point in the recorded history we've been able to uncover.
I'd prefer to 'air' on the side of caution since we don't have another 'earth' should this one become problematic to live on.
I dislike M$ as much as the next/. poster, but saying W2K is 'broken' in this case is a bit of a stretch. The gov't changed the rules governing daylight savings time; it's not like it *wasn't* right before.
Anyone who uses a study to prove/support their position, and it turns out *they* paid for that study, I'm going to be suspect of. Does it mean ignore the data? no, but certainly it's not exactly 'cleanly' obtained information.
Agreed, we all conveniently forget all the benefits that oil has given us.
'Big Oil' has certainly done it's share at making us unaware of the FULL COSTS of those benefits wouldn't you say? fyi, I include the current Bush administration as part of 'Big Oil' in that stmt.
All sides of the equation need to be on the table before we can say benefits are truly beneficial.
In so much as healthcare is socialized, yes you are right. It's not, however, socialized around the entire planet.
If the US population smokes, Africa doesn't really see much difference.
Does the same apply to affecting the planets climate? nope...the US population contributes way more than it's fair share to global warming and that most definitely affects everybody else.
Amazing I can completely agree and disagree with you at the same time.
My 'new age nonsense' isn't anything other than looking at things with a bigger field of view.
Are we 'out competing' everything on the planet, yep, pretty much anything we come up against, we have beaten and found a way to survive. That will be small comfort when our 'competition' side effects kill off things we *need* in the environment.
You say everything exists at the expense of other life. Again, true, but in a large picture everything exists 'in concert' with everything else. A lion kills weaker animals in a herd...it's easier to catch so why go for the lead animal? that helps the lion (food), and the herd is on average stronger because the weaker members are gone.
But if the lion kills the entire herd, the lion will die.
The biggest problem is we just assume we can't have enough of an effect to cause the earth to change...global warming causes numerous problems. Can we say for sure they *won't* be too harmful to species we need to survive? We just don't know.
All the science does is report facts...facts that we know are very much abnormal, more C02 than in a long long time, and it's gotten to these levels way way way faster than anytime in history. Might be benign...but then again, can we take the risk that it isn't?
Moderation of our behavior is the key...be it through behavior change (less energy use) or technology to limit our side effects (CO2 emissions).
agreed, parasites don't generally have self awareness. The point being made is that a parasite whose effects are mild and not life-threatening to it's host, are more likely to survive and continue to spread; i.e. success
We all have bacteria in our intestines. Without them we'd die. there's a case of a beneficial parasite.
Tape Worms can kill people, but take years to do it generally...so plenty of time to pass on to another host.
It's not the parasite 'knowning' it's effects, it's just how severe the effects are that determines the success of the parasite.
Because we are self-aware, we have the ability to change our environment for the better or correct our bad behavior.
Any animals that behaved like us (polluting, poisoning their environ) are extinct so you wouldn't see them anyway. Which, in the end, is the whole point.
but it *doesn't* kill the vast majority of it's victims. by definition that's success. As another poster pointed out, Ebola kills so fast it can't spread much, making it less 'successful' in propagating itself.
yes very correct. But in the grand scheme of things, we're more likely to be classified as a 'parasite' on the planet since 'modern' civilizations haven't been able to live in harmony with the environment we occupy.
*Successful* parasites don't kill the host...we on the other hand are doing are best to kill the earth, our 'host'.
Also a very old reply. "We don't take it literally" being an excuse that allows completely unfounded beliefs to continue to exist. The same moderation that allows you to say which parts of the Bible are 'right' and which aren't really the real words of God, allows extremists to say it's still ok to stone people to death, homosexuals are bad and to not associate with women on their period.
If you don't believe in certain parts of the Bible...by all means WRITE A NEW ONE. I just don't see that happening much these days, do you?
Religion was created by humans for humans...there is no 'God' except the one(s) we create for each of ourselves as needed.
Go read "End of Faith" by Sam Harris. *Any* religious beliefs are entirely and wholly incompatible with science.
In the old days before science became it's own field, religion *was* the science and of course they got along famously together. Once Science grew up, Religion wasn't so thrilled since it's basic prinicples were being overturned one by one.
Religion has been nothing more than the explanation of that which can't be explained right now. It rained? must be the Rain god is upset. It didn't rain? guess what, he's still upset, just differently. Repeat adnauseum for anything you need to explain.
'God' today is just the summation of all the different 'gods' so called 'primitive' cultures generally had.
And if you look at most religions, they all have the same basic beliefs - be nice to others, be 'good'. Funny how all the different 'human' groups came up with the same conclusions...we all like to live next to people who aren't going to hurt or kill us.
So religion is also a human expression of the desire for 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' to re-use a phrase.
There is no God...there is however the basic goodness that comes with being human expressed over and over again throughout history. (obviously bad apples will exist, even outside of nurture forces...but the *vast* majority of people don't want to hurt others)
The problem is if you keep the existing paper currency in circulation and production while producing a different type, the populace probably just keeps on using the current style. Likewise, as a maker of machines that handle the money, why expend money to change them to the new system when the old stuff still works?
You have to discontinue the paper equivalent if you want people to use the coins.
Cost wise it saves us a couple hundred million a year in production costs by going to dollar coins, mostly because the lifespan of coins is much greater than that of paper bills.
I seem to remember a special on the Bermuda triangle that suggested some ship disappearances were due to....wait for it....
Rising bubbles from the seafloor!
They even did a test and showed they could sink a normal sized powerboat. With 'air' underneath the boat, it did what all boats do in thin air...it fell down.
Good news: Ship goes really fast on air!
Bad news: It goes 'down'.
Of course I haven't read the article, but it just seemed sorta funny;-)
Stable is a relative term to be sure. How about we ignore what 'level' the CO2 concentrations are and just go with 'rate of change'. It's massively higher than anything in any recorded medium (ice cores for example) we've found. Oh and it's not slowing down either...it's getting faster. And it's all in just the last cpl hundred years or so. Seems damned coincidental that's when humans really started producing C02.
Irrefutable proof? that's sorta like religion in itself. Damage to something on the scale of our climate isn't likely to be irrefutable until it's too late. I'm not willing to let 'head in the sand' folks determine our future. There are real problems out there and we need to start tackling them now before we're royally screwed.
Most TS companies have *some* level of in-house development. See if you can get assigned to that even on a part-time basis. The company should like it because they'll pay you your current (below IT) rate, while you gain the experience you need.
If you company doesn't have any development oppurtunities...well it's time to look outside and yes you may need to take a pay cut short term to do this.
And many new Mom's do go back to work, it may be that you need to rethink that part of the situation. My brother's wife has been working since about 4 months after my niece arrived. Granted my preference is Mom or Dad at home (just like I had) but it ain't always in the cards financially. So if that's your situation, then suck it up for now in your current job till she can go back to work You'll have additional income to tide you over while you get experience in the lower paying intro-IT positions.
try pointing a loaded gun at someone and pull the trigger...seems it's 'too late' to do anything about that bullet.
The world/universe is rife with examples of things that will spiral out of control once a tipping point is reached. It's called a 'tipping point' for a reason. The longer you let things tip the harder it is to rebalance them later, and yes, sometimes it is completely impossible to re-balance them given your available resources.
The goal is to make sure you don't get to that point but start mitigating the situation as early as possible.
As for economic hardship...that's pretty much bunk. The hardship of *not* doing anything would be far far worse. And that doesn't even take into account the new technologies that would need to be developed to effect the changes needed to redress the C02 problems. A whole new economic sector sprouts overnight.
But it won't sprout without Govt's making investment in it worthwhile compared to existing technology. This comes back to the tipping point issue, you can't wait until the cost of our current economy grows to make new tech cheaper.
Slashdot Mirror
the problem I have with the James-Webb telescope is it isn't a *replacement* for Hubble. JW is a non-visible (infrared) scope, and won't produce the type of images Hubble has.
keeping the masses 'in favor' of spending on space involves giving them some of the stuff they want, namely the magnificent pictures Hubble has been providing for years.
If they can't see it, then they won't want to fund it as much.
well, that actually happened at the *after* party celebrating the success. So your worries are aleviated ;-)
Agreed, since big ships are generally registered in places like, say, Libya. Watch the current administration's face go purple when suggest giving them multiple nuclear reactors ;-) *
*note, I am not picking Libya as a source of terrorism anymore, just that most ships aren't registered in any country considered remotely 'tough' in terms of regulations. Giving such places nuclear reactors to 'not' regulate is as you say, a 'show-stopper'
A complete switch off of fossil fuels isn't likely as you say. However, if we can stop use of them in all but the places where there is no substitute, our overall problem likely comes down by orders magnitude no?
Shipping is a great example of something that, unless we really do invent "Mr. Fusion" from "Back to the Future", is going to need the high energy density and portability of liquid fossils fuels. Solar and wind energy on the ships can significantly reduce their needs (as much as 30%), but likely never eliminate it.
Trucks cross country can be done in other ways than fossil fuels, but not economically currently. Electric trains certainly can do that, though in a coarser manner than trucks. You'll still need local delivery options from stations.
The basic point is lets deal with the things we can, rather than waiting for that one perfect, solves everything, solution. Since likely it won't ever come.
The fact that some 'radioactive' type materials are released during normal coal power plant operation, isn't an argument against the previous poster. It's actually in favor of nuclear plants. Since as the poster said, you know where the waste is as opposed to dumping stuff into the atmosphere.
Most experts agree that if we stopped burning every fossil fuel today, it would take *decades* before we saw any significant reversal of the current trends.
It's like opening a parachute, you don't stop going down when you open the chute, it only starts to slow your decent; you're still going down fast enough to kill yourself if you landed right after opening the chute.
Or another way, if you're riding a rocket straight up and the rocket stops burning, you're still going up pretty damn fast. Eventually you'll come back down, but not immediately. The problem is if you don't stop the burn soon enough you'll end up beyond the atmosphere.
So, do we keep riding the rocket that is the climate change? (most studies have shown massive shifts in very short time scales not seen before). Or do we do what we can to mitigate the issue? Whether it's man made or not, the earth is warming up faster than at any point in the recorded history we've been able to uncover.
I'd prefer to 'air' on the side of caution since we don't have another 'earth' should this one become problematic to live on.
I dislike M$ as much as the next /. poster, but saying W2K is 'broken' in this case is a bit of a stretch. The gov't changed the rules governing daylight savings time; it's not like it *wasn't* right before.
Intel didn't *have* to allow people to disable CPU Ids.
There was a massive negative PR blitz, and people were actively looking for other chip suppliers.
Microsoft has no comparable competition for people to switch too.
the CPUs ran whatever you put on them, so the user wasn't affected in the way switching to *nix would affect them.
MS has a monopoly and they behave as such, film at eleven!
Anyone who uses a study to prove/support their position, and it turns out *they* paid for that study, I'm going to be suspect of. Does it mean ignore the data? no, but certainly it's not exactly 'cleanly' obtained information.
Agreed, we all conveniently forget all the benefits that oil has given us.
'Big Oil' has certainly done it's share at making us unaware of the FULL COSTS of those benefits wouldn't you say? fyi, I include the current Bush administration as part of 'Big Oil' in that stmt.
All sides of the equation need to be on the table before we can say benefits are truly beneficial.
In so much as healthcare is socialized, yes you are right. It's not, however, socialized around the entire planet.
If the US population smokes, Africa doesn't really see much difference.
Does the same apply to affecting the planets climate? nope...the US population contributes way more than it's fair share to global warming and that most definitely affects everybody else.
Do CF/SD cards/chips suffer the same multiple write problem that USB keys do? (my assumption is yes)
Specifically, can they handle *thousands/tens of thousands* of writes as Windows (or whatever OS) does it's behind the scenes busy work?
Amazing I can completely agree and disagree with you at the same time.
My 'new age nonsense' isn't anything other than looking at things with a bigger field of view.
Are we 'out competing' everything on the planet, yep, pretty much anything we come up against, we have beaten and found a way to survive. That will be small comfort when our 'competition' side effects kill off things we *need* in the environment.
You say everything exists at the expense of other life. Again, true, but in a large picture everything exists 'in concert' with everything else. A lion kills weaker animals in a herd...it's easier to catch so why go for the lead animal? that helps the lion (food), and the herd is on average stronger because the weaker members are gone.
But if the lion kills the entire herd, the lion will die.
The biggest problem is we just assume we can't have enough of an effect to cause the earth to change...global warming causes numerous problems. Can we say for sure they *won't* be too harmful to species we need to survive? We just don't know.
All the science does is report facts...facts that we know are very much abnormal, more C02 than in a long long time, and it's gotten to these levels way way way faster than anytime in history. Might be benign...but then again, can we take the risk that it isn't?
Moderation of our behavior is the key...be it through behavior change (less energy use) or technology to limit our side effects (CO2 emissions).
agreed, parasites don't generally have self awareness. The point being made is that a parasite whose effects are mild and not life-threatening to it's host, are more likely to survive and continue to spread; i.e. success
We all have bacteria in our intestines. Without them we'd die. there's a case of a beneficial parasite.
Tape Worms can kill people, but take years to do it generally...so plenty of time to pass on to another host.
It's not the parasite 'knowning' it's effects, it's just how severe the effects are that determines the success of the parasite.
Because we are self-aware, we have the ability to change our environment for the better or correct our bad behavior.
Any animals that behaved like us (polluting, poisoning their environ) are extinct so you wouldn't see them anyway. Which, in the end, is the whole point.
but it *doesn't* kill the vast majority of it's victims. by definition that's success. As another poster pointed out, Ebola kills so fast it can't spread much, making it less 'successful' in propagating itself.
The earth is 'alive' at least in comparison to say...Mars.
Feel free to go live there...
yes very correct. But in the grand scheme of things, we're more likely to be classified as a 'parasite' on the planet since 'modern' civilizations haven't been able to live in harmony with the environment we occupy.
*Successful* parasites don't kill the host...we on the other hand are doing are best to kill the earth, our 'host'.
Also a very old reply. "We don't take it literally" being an excuse that allows completely unfounded beliefs to continue to exist. The same moderation that allows you to say which parts of the Bible are 'right' and which aren't really the real words of God, allows extremists to say it's still ok to stone people to death, homosexuals are bad and to not associate with women on their period.
If you don't believe in certain parts of the Bible...by all means WRITE A NEW ONE. I just don't see that happening much these days, do you?
Religion was created by humans for humans...there is no 'God' except the one(s) we create for each of ourselves as needed.
Go read "End of Faith" by Sam Harris. *Any* religious beliefs are entirely and wholly incompatible with science.
In the old days before science became it's own field, religion *was* the science and of course they got along famously together. Once Science grew up, Religion wasn't so thrilled since it's basic prinicples were being overturned one by one.
Religion has been nothing more than the explanation of that which can't be explained right now. It rained? must be the Rain god is upset. It didn't rain? guess what, he's still upset, just differently. Repeat adnauseum for anything you need to explain.
'God' today is just the summation of all the different 'gods' so called 'primitive' cultures generally had.
And if you look at most religions, they all have the same basic beliefs - be nice to others, be 'good'. Funny how all the different 'human' groups came up with the same conclusions...we all like to live next to people who aren't going to hurt or kill us.
So religion is also a human expression of the desire for 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' to re-use a phrase.
There is no God...there is however the basic goodness that comes with being human expressed over and over again throughout history. (obviously bad apples will exist, even outside of nurture forces...but the *vast* majority of people don't want to hurt others)
The problem is if you keep the existing paper currency in circulation and production while producing a different type, the populace probably just keeps on using the current style. Likewise, as a maker of machines that handle the money, why expend money to change them to the new system when the old stuff still works?
You have to discontinue the paper equivalent if you want people to use the coins.
Cost wise it saves us a couple hundred million a year in production costs by going to dollar coins, mostly because the lifespan of coins is much greater than that of paper bills.
I seem to remember a special on the Bermuda triangle that suggested some ship disappearances were due to....wait for it....
;-)
Rising bubbles from the seafloor!
They even did a test and showed they could sink a normal sized powerboat. With 'air' underneath the boat, it did what all boats do in thin air...it fell down.
Good news: Ship goes really fast on air!
Bad news: It goes 'down'.
Of course I haven't read the article, but it just seemed sorta funny
doesn't the lottery exhibit gross hypocrisy?
;-)
No no...we have the ponies for that
Stable is a relative term to be sure. How about we ignore what 'level' the CO2 concentrations are and just go with 'rate of change'. It's massively higher than anything in any recorded medium (ice cores for example) we've found. Oh and it's not slowing down either...it's getting faster. And it's all in just the last cpl hundred years or so. Seems damned coincidental that's when humans really started producing C02.
Irrefutable proof? that's sorta like religion in itself. Damage to something on the scale of our climate isn't likely to be irrefutable until it's too late. I'm not willing to let 'head in the sand' folks determine our future. There are real problems out there and we need to start tackling them now before we're royally screwed.
Most TS companies have *some* level of in-house development. See if you can get assigned to that even on a part-time basis. The company should like it because they'll pay you your current (below IT) rate, while you gain the experience you need.
If you company doesn't have any development oppurtunities...well it's time to look outside and yes you may need to take a pay cut short term to do this.
And many new Mom's do go back to work, it may be that you need to rethink that part of the situation. My brother's wife has been working since about 4 months after my niece arrived. Granted my preference is Mom or Dad at home (just like I had) but it ain't always in the cards financially. So if that's your situation, then suck it up for now in your current job till she can go back to work You'll have additional income to tide you over while you get experience in the lower paying intro-IT positions.
try pointing a loaded gun at someone and pull the trigger...seems it's 'too late' to do anything about that bullet.
The world/universe is rife with examples of things that will spiral out of control once a tipping point is reached. It's called a 'tipping point' for a reason. The longer you let things tip the harder it is to rebalance them later, and yes, sometimes it is completely impossible to re-balance them given your available resources.
The goal is to make sure you don't get to that point but start mitigating the situation as early as possible.
As for economic hardship...that's pretty much bunk. The hardship of *not* doing anything would be far far worse. And that doesn't even take into account the new technologies that would need to be developed to effect the changes needed to redress the C02 problems. A whole new economic sector sprouts overnight.
But it won't sprout without Govt's making investment in it worthwhile compared to existing technology. This comes back to the tipping point issue, you can't wait until the cost of our current economy grows to make new tech cheaper.