I can't remember where I read this, but apparently our urban ancestors had different sleep habits than we have today.
If I recall correctly, they would go to bed early, wake up about midnight, play around and eat for a few hours, and then go back to sleep. Then they would wake up early in the morning.
You could find vendors who would go down the street offering apples and such for sale in the middle of the night at that time.
Pretty weird.
Our habit of sleeping all in one chunk is probably a result of World War II, where the military enforced that sleep habit. Other than that, rural people live like this (sun up-sun down) for obvious reasons. They couldn't miss a moment of daylight.
I wouldn't be surprised if various patterns of sleep were highly effective. I know my children like the naps during the day, even if it means they only get 8 hours of sleep at night instead of 10.
As long as the communists believe they can effectively censor their people, when in reality, they cannot, then we have won that war.
It's kind of odd reasoning. Let me explain.
If Google is able to operate in China, people will have greater access to information. Censoring on keywords will convince the government that they are doing a good job censoring, but the people are smarter than simple censoring software and will work around it. Censorship, after all, never works.
Inevitably, the ideas of democracy and liberty will penetrate more hearts and minds because Google makes access to that information easier. The communist government, convinced by Google (et al) that censoring is working, will be caught with their pants down when the people finally revolt.
What would be worse is if China shut down their internet to outside access completely, and didn't rely on 3rd parties to do their dirty work of censoring (which I doubt Google is going to do very vigorously anyway.) The DPRK is a good example of what could happen, and we are glad it is not.
There are several simple reason why felons can't vote, usually until they've served their time and paid their debts to society.
When you commit a felony, you have shown that you don't respect the people of this country enough to follow the laws. If you don't respect the people, should you be allowed to be a member of that society? Of course not. Allowing felons to vote is like allowing wolves to be a part of the sheep herd. We must keep them separate and distinct, and not afford them the rights of the people because they are dangerous and do not have society's best interests at heart.
There's other reasons too, dealing with punishment and justification. As part of the punishment of committing a crime, you become indebted to society, and thus, a slave to society, until that debt is paid. Slaves aren't masters, and they can't tell masters what to do.
The other reason I hear is that felons have demonstrated an impaired judgment. We can't trust their judgment in simple matters like "should I try to shoot someone dead or should I try to resolve matters peacesfully" based on their past behavior. Why should we trust their judgment in big manners such as who should lead the country?
Another reason is this. Imagine a society where the majority of people are felons. That is, over time, people have been caught, accused, convicted, and sentenced for committing felonies. If these people were allowed to change the law, what would the law say? Since we can't allow that, we can't allow them to have any say in the law.
Another reason is actually quite simple. We believe that men can't govern without the consent of the governed. Law-abiding citizens don't consent to law-breaking citizens governing them. So they don't get to vote.
I don't think your criticism of Bush's policy of expanding America's energy production are completely valid. President Bush has supported measures to reduce the energy needs of America through conservation and efficiency. He admits that that alone is not enough, however.
As a trained physicist, I learned that there is one universal currency: energy. In fact, it can be said that energy is the only thing of value to us. One of our jobs as a trained physicist is to discover new and better ways of accessing the vast resources of energy available in the universe and provide that to the masses. With energy safely harnessed, the imagination is the boundary of possibilities.
What would you be able to do if you could get gigawatts of electricity for pennies? What would you do if you had access to safe chemicals that had energy outputs similar to rocket fuel? I can barely imagine it. What if we could access this kind of energy safely, in an environmentally friendly way? Would you do it? Of course.
I don't think all the advances of the past century would've been possible without the efficient production and distribution of energy at the scale we had. We couldn't have a cost-effective aluminum industry without tremendous amounts of electricity to power the chemical refinement process. We couldn't build airplanes to travel across the continents without jet fuel and the machines that can turn it into thrust. We wouldn't have a lot of the modern conveniences and even necessities without all the energy we have available to us.
I hope the next century sees America and the rest of the world producing several orders of magnitude more energy and using it efficiently for new things we can barely imagine today. President Bush is right to explore all --- and he is exploring all --- viable sources of energy.
You are correct; The American way does not ensure the two absolute requirements: freedom of choice and information.
But you are missing the big picture. The American Way is MORE free and MORE informed than the others.
You are arguing for limited government. I am all for that as well. We need to reduce the scope of the regulations and kick government out of the places where it doesn't belong. For instance, the FDA has been shown to be plagued with fraud and scandals. Why not make it a private institution that relies solely on its reputation to make a profit? Why not allow other organizations to evaluate drugs and food and then convey which drugs and foods they find preferrable over others and why?
You are making another mistake as well. You are assuming that corporate executives are somehow less human than you are. I imagine you have never taken the time to get to know any at all. For the most part, and I do mean "most" as in the grand majority, corporate executives are actually very nice and noble people. They are not corrupt. They are not mean. Many of them see their role in life as producing good products for less money and at the same time creating well-paying jobs for Americans.
Of course, the minority, the small, tiny, minority, abuse their positions of power, try to hide their abuses, and commit fraud on a large scale.
I propose to you that America is the least tolerant of all nations towards this kind of abuse of power. Name one corporate executive that has committed this kind of crime and gotten away with it? When I mean, "get away with it", I mean, without facing any of the penalties, government-imposed or not, that comes with the discovery of the crime?
Now, I want you to shift the context to any other country. Name the people in that country who commit these kinds of crimes, are not discovered, or do not face the penalties of the crimes. I can tell you one country in particular is especially corrupt at high levels: Japan. You don't hear about it, but it's there if you look for it. Here's another, where bribery is a way of life for the corporate executive: France.
America can be better about this, and we should be better. I can't think of any American who says, "Well, we worked hard, we tried to eliminate all forms of oppression anywhere in our society, and guess what? We did it! Give yourself a pat on the back, we can all go home in peace because America is perfect and will be forever!" No! We are constantly striving in our own way to make our own corner of the country better.
But you know what else? America is the best there is. Not many countries come close to what America already has.
I will submit this: If we are more careful about the ethics and morality and in being informed and free in our economic decisions, we will only have brighter days ahead. The minute we stop being careful about this, then we will descend into poverty once again.
The nice thing about capitalism is that it is one of the few scientific theories of the 1700's to stand the test of time. Since capitalism, there have been several theories that have seen the light of day and have been burned by it. For example, socialism and communism have been shown to be absolute and complete failures.
The fascinating thing about capitalism is how simple the theory is. Go ahead and attack any of its fundamental principles and theories. But you'll be fighting a losing battle. After two hundred plus years, it is still logically sound.
Notice that you didn't attack the theory. You only tried to say that no theory is correct in practice. You probably accept the theory of evolution. How would you like to argue with someone about evolution when that person says, "It's a nice theory, but it's just a theory. We know reality and theories don't match."
Free market capitalism works in the labor market as well. Moving jobs overseas keeps Americans competitive. Would you rather force American companies to hire Americans on bloated salaries? What would be the net effect? The absolute destruction of our economy as American companies fail and foreign companies decide they would rather not hire Americans. Oh, you didn't know that did you? Foreigners have moved more jobs to America than we have lost to foreign countries! If we decided to stop exporting our jobs, then Japan and Europe would stop exporting theirs, and we would be worse off.
Unfortunately, your last bit is sorely misguided. In America, we not only are wealthier, we have the highest standard of living. How do I know this? Name one country you'd rather live in than the US because it has a higher standard of living. Now explain why you haven't left the US for that country. Now also explain why the people in that country are clamoring to live in the US.
There is a field of economics that is unfortunately loosely coupled with Adam Smith's basic theory of capitalism. That field is named "macro-economics" while Adam Smith's theories are called "micro-economics". Somehow, people get the picture that these two theories are equivalent when they are not.
Macro-economics is the field where we try to measure GDP, Cost of Living, and the interest rate. This is where government tries to set a tax-and-spend policy to boost the economy and smooth the cycles. Unfortunately, this field is not based on solid, simple theories that can be easily proven or disproven as easily as micro-economics. And unfortunately still, this field gets too muddled with politics to the point that it is misrepresented in the public arena. Recently, several key theories in macro-economics have been overturned. The idea that a nation can't endure deflation without a fiscal crisis has been disproven in practice. We have recently experienced actual deflation with only beneficial effects. Also, for a very long time, the US has had an unemployment rate far below what the macro-economists say is healthy. And our interest rates have been far lower than what they say we should. And we keep increasing the deficit and yet we haven't come to the catclysmic end predicted.
Wealth, if you paid attention to my earlier discussion, is not measured in dollars. It's not measured in anything tangible. It is purely subjective, dependent on the observer. You may look into my household finances, and then look into someone else's, and then say I am the poorer of the two. But I will disagree. I have everything I want, and then some, so I am wealthy, and I can't ask for anything more. And I have things the wealthier don't have: A wife that loves and tolerates me, three beautiful children who respect their mother. I also happen to have a piano and a computer. The piano is worth more than the most expensive stereo HD-DVD system money can buy to me. It's probably the most valuable item I own right now, because I enjoy it so much.
Wealth is not as simple a concept as you are making it out to be. Don't be fooled into thinking it is. There's no happiness in thinking wealth can be counted in dollars.
The elections department did produce documents that they wouldn't reveal during the trial later on to Stefan Sharkansky. He has some of the lawyers on record saying that had they known what they know now, the trial would've been much different.
You can go ahead and call Stefan whatever names you like. That doesn't change the fact that he has documents where the elections department admits to countin votes that they admit shouldn't have been counting, greater than the margin of victory. He also has documented proof of voter fraud, double votes, dead votes, and more that weren't available at the time of the trial. He has proof of a whole lot more things, if you'll take the time to see his evidence.
I think your entire world-view is warped. You're talking as if one company getting big precludes another from getting big, and you're saying that by having very rich people, others can't get rich.
Unfortunately, Adam Smith and his masterpiece "The Wealth of Nations" explains very profoundly how wealth is not a zero-sum game. It can be created and destroyed, sure. It can be siezed and redistributed, yes. But in a free market system, wealth is created with every transaction and even every non-transaction, as long as those transactions are informed and done by free will.
That's why the US is able to have a trade deficit for most of the past century yet still be the wealthiest country in the world. We create wealth faster and better than any other country. We can export that wealth in exchange for cheap products. In fact, by doing so, we create even more wealth.
In short, we can ALL get rich, we can ALL have big companies, and one person's success doesn't mean another's failure.
I will go into the simple explanation of why this is. It has to be what wealth and value really mean. Wealth is a measure of how much valuables you have. You are wealthy when you have more valuables than you really need, and poor when you don't have enough. (Wealth and poverty in this sense are very subjective.) But what is value? What makes one thing worth more than another?
Simply put, value is in the eye of the beholder.
When you walk into the grocery store, ask yourself some questions. Pick up one of the items in your cart, and ask yourself:
(1) What would life be like without this item? Imagine putting it back on the shelf and not buying it. Imagine what you would do without it. Perhaps you would buy something else, right?
(2) How much would I really pay for this item? (NOTE: Don't tell anyone, particularly the clerk what this number is!) That is, at what price would I stop buying this particular item? Think also about the price you are paying by engaging in this trade. You could've done any number of other things besides shopping that may have value.
(3) How much is the retailer willing to sell this item for? That is, at what price will they stop carrying the item? (Keep the cost of buying and shipping the item constant--we're concerned about profit.) Be sure not to exclude opportunity cost--the cost of not doing something else they could've done.
Now, hopefully you have two numbers: The maximum price you are willing to pay, and the minimum price they are willing to sell at. I know you can't guess these numbers precisely. Just rest assured that for our purposes the following is true:
(1) The maximum price you will pay is above the current price of the item. After all, if it was equal, why go through the trouble of carrying it to the checkout counter? You're just causing yourself unnecessary pain.
(2) The minimum price they will sell at is below the current price of the item. If it was equal, they would rather not sell it.
The magnitude really isn't important. What is important is that these numbers are greater than and less than the current price. (If you were a brilliant genius and knew everything, you would only be doing things that profited you the most. You'd probably be richer than the Google guys by now. But we're not, and we generally don't make the best decisions. That isn't to say we don't make good decisions.)
So, note what happens as you pay for it in the checkout line:
(1) You sly little fox, you just made yourself slightly wealthier! You gave away that worthless money for something with true value! Congratulations, you have won the jackpot, you have created wealth for yourself and thus your country. Walk home proud! In fact, go indulge yourself a bit with your newfound wealth.
(2) That cheating little store just made out like a fox in the henhouse! They gave away that cheap product and got in return more cash than they thought it was worth! They are walking to the bank laughing: "Can you believe he ACTUALLY paid THAT much
The stock market wouldn't exist if it weren't for those pesky civil liberties. You know, the ones that say you can do pretty much what you want with your money except buy hookers, drugs, and politicians.
Get rid of those freedoms, and you can get rid of the stock market. I'm just saying...
Which is why the majority of WA voters don't believe Christine Gregoire was elected governor.
There were repeated requests for basic information, but the King Co. elections department (run by D's) either didn't provide the information or covered it up or even openly lied about it, all this while an important trial is being held to uncover who was really elected. Based on admissions by the elections department, they manufactured votes and counted votes that should not have been counted.
What's even sadder is the Sec. of State (an R) promised to clean up the rolls with a statewide database, and promised that database to be online Jan 1. Except even now, nobody seems able to obtain a copy of that database, and the Sec. of State says it won't come out until February. We'll see if it really does.
For more information, go read the research Stefan Sharkansky has been doing at http://soundpolitics.com./ It'll give you great insight into how elections departments should act versus how they do act.
I'm an R, but I don't tolerate this kind of crap, not in Alaska, not here in Washington, and not anywhere. We must have a publically accountable voting system, or we'll have people who say the only way to affect change in government is through violence. I don't want another civil war, particularly if it could've been prevented by people running elections openly and honestly.
And if they ARE a prodigy...
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Chess for Kids?
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And if they ARE a prodigy, how are you going to recognize that unless you play with them?
But we all know that companies aren't intelligent about who they hire. If they were smart, they would hire 5 $15/hour testers instead of a developer. If they were smart, I'd have a personal secretary to help me keep on my meeting schedules, and even attend to take notes in my absence, and read my email for me.
The problem is probably the lack of educated black engineers. Up until a few years ago, here at the University of Washington, you could get a free ticket into the college if you were black or hispanic. But those minorities were also dropping out at frightening rates. And the ones that did graduate weren't graduating in the hard sciences. I imagine this is generally true across the country.
My father remembers working as an EE in a firm where they hired a token black guy to avoid threats of being racist. They brought the guy in, gave him a desk, and set him up for work. After a few conversations, the black guy freely admitted that he was there because he was black. He wasn't dumb. He wasn't totally incapable. He just wasn't at the same level of ability as the other engineers, and didn't have much desire to get there. I imagine if he faced the same threats of getting laid off or becoming obsolete, he would've worked just as hard as the others to make sure he was a good engineer. But there was no motivation because there was no threat.
With the passage of I-200 (banning the use of race as an entrance criteria), the graduation rate at UW has been climbing and the admittance rate or minorities has been restored to pre-I-200 levels. (Although, the Asians are much higher and the whites are much lower nowadays.) The general sentiment from the people I talk to is that blacks and hispanics are working harder in high school if they have college aspirations.
Overall, I believe folks in the IT world, being more highly educated, are far less racist than the less-educated professions. I say this from experience. I don't have any black people that I know of on my floor of the building. I imagine there are some somewhere in our company. But I also know that if there were a black guy, he would be treated the same way we treat each other, along with having to adhere to the same expectations.
If a company has some extra money to spend on head count, who are they going to hire? You, or another engineer?
For the same reason most companies don't have a 2:1 ratio of testers to developers (more likely, 1:50 testers to developers), most companies don't have a technical writer.
You might as well write a book about how to document your own code better. You'd probably make more money than you are now.
Even if they are required to do as you say and list the owners of all the software they use, this is easily handled.
Add a field for ownership on each software package in RPM or DEB format. A good distro that wants to support the corporate environment will go through each package and list the owners in that field, not to mention upstream providers who package their own content. Then run a script on any installed computer to list the owners.
This will result in thousands and thousands of names and such. But it will satisfy the requirement.
If the companies are violating the law, then they will be given a warning and given time to comply, just like if they file the wrong forms or if they report something that isn't quite correct.
What does this have to do with my original points?
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Plants Produce Methane
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What does this have to do with my original point, which was that I can't find any real evidence of global warming, just a bunch of shoddy reporting on incomplete research articles?
I am not in the oil industry, but from what I can tell (ANWR) the lack of oil has more to do with the US government forbidding the extraction of newly found oil sites and less to do with there actually being less oil. In fact, I've read several articles saying that some oil sites in Louisiana have filled up again, and they are extracting from the same sites again.
Have you heard about the theories that oil isn't a fossil fuel, but is generated by geothermic processes? The Russians have used this theory to find new and abundant oil sources. Some Americans are catching on.
What you are told about oil in the mass media is not the truth about oil.
1. Ask the residents of New Orleans if climate change is bad.
The hurricanes weren't caused by global warming. No scientist is saying that. In fact, if I recall correctly, meteorologists said the exact opposite after the hurricanes hit.
We don't understand exactly how the global temperature affects the number of hurricanes produced each year and their severity. We do know that corrupt governments that waste the taxpayer's money intended to reinforce ancient levies do cause major disasters, however.
Concerning points 2 and 3:
No, we DON'T know greenhouse gasses cause global warming. We THINK we know, but we don't. A lot of people say they know, but they aren't scientists. A lot of scientists say one of the causes of global warming COULD be greenhouse gasses, but they can't say for sure if they are being honest.
The US is NOT the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. That honor goes to Russia and China. The US is actually a net SINK of carbon in the atmosphere because we have more trees to consume CO2 than we produce from industry.
Why is the US hooked on oil? Because it is the only natural resource that can power the engines of economy. Can you name any other substance that is naturally occurring that when delivered to the furthest corners of the nation still deliver more energy than it cost to deliver? Only oil, coal, and a few other substances can do this, but oil is far better than the others, and far cheaper to refine to the highly energy-dense gasoline our cars use. Any country that wants to have televisions, cheap food, and the amenities of civilization MUST use oil to do so. There is no other way.
I'm not trying to substance capitalism for common sense. Capitalism IS common sense. If global warming truly is a problem that affects everyone, then they will pay the necessary price to overcome it. What you asking the US to do by abandoning oil is to give up EVERYTHING we have so that we have a few more days of winter each year. Does that make sense? No!
What exactly is the error in their reading? You say a few percent. Then why do the numbers disagree so much with other experiments trying to find the same data? Why do we see a period where the numbers vary almost 2 degrees C? If we discovered that, and the error was assumed to be 2%, well, then something has gone terribly wrong. There is some assumption being made that is not correct and it must be discovered and replaced with a more correct assumption.
My comparison to the mass of an electron is that when physicists show they results they are extremely careful to include error in their calculations to prevent the possibility of someone else coming along, performing a different experiment, and obtaining a completeld different result, and then totally discrediting the original work. It's called being careful because the worst thing that can happen is to be found out to have been utterly wrong with no other explanation than being foolish.
Let's talk about communism. Go ahead and roll your eyes. Your type rolled their eyes when some very observant people talked about the possibilities of massive terror attacks in America. That's okay. People who see an understand the threats need to address them appropriately.
When environmentalists come out and say, "Hey, this earth thingy is warming up", they always tack on the following statements.
1. This is bad.
2. The US is to blame, not China or Russia or anyone else. Just the US.
3. If only the US would stop driving their cars / stop being productive, we wouldn't have this problem.
A capitalist would respond to the basic concept of global warming as follows:
1. We don't know if this is bad or good.
2. We don't know if anyone is to blame. However, rather than pointing fingers, we should address real problems as they arise, and carefully weight the cost/benefit of each action we take. (Putting millions of people out of work is probably more damaging to the earth than losing a few thousand acres of tundra.)
3. When and if we face real challenges due to global warming, our only real hope to overcome them, or even reverse the damage, is through the free market.
When's the last time you read an article by a "leading" scientist who said that the free market will come up with ideal solutions for any problem we face? Never. Never does any of the leading scientists in the global warming advocate anything but communist, government-imposed, restrictive and anti-freedom solutions. Hence, they are communists.
I'd like to point out that in a more perfect world, we wouldn't need the GPL v3. What has happened is that the world has become tremendously more complicated since v2. The v3 helps to address some of those issues.
Let's look at some of the issues that make licensing your software more difficult to do properly.
PATENTS. Software patents have gotten out of control. At the time of v2, there was some concern about patents, but now we have had a direct attack on the GPL from the angle of patents trump copyright. What v3 does is spell out what patents mean and how companies can use patents and GPL in peace. It says that you can't distribute software under the GPL if you own a patent that doesn't allow others to distribute the same software. You have to license that patent to allow distribution by others. Isn't this what we want? This is one technical and hairy issue that most people never think about, but needs to be thought about.
DRM. The DRM issue is another viper's nest. What happens if Sony releases software under the GPL to play movies, and then try to protect the movies under DRM legislation? Think especially if Sony takes a GPL software out in the wild, and then adds their own things to it, and then to satisfy the GPL they try to distribute it under the GPL. Are they doing the right thing, even if it is legal? Of course not. If you build or work on a data interpretation program and then license it under the GPL, you can't ask people not to try to understand how your program works or write another program to deal with the same software. The v3 license is explicit about this.
BSD license folks like to pick on the GPL because it is getting so complicated. They forget that the BSD license has its own problems. The GPL is trying to solve those problems. If you don't understand what the problems with the BSD license are, you can't understand what the GPL is intended to do, nor can you be convinced to use it.
Hint about BSD's problems: MS Windows has a good portion of BSD code in the Windows kernel. They spend a great deal of time modifying and adapting the code and then turning around and selling it, without allowing people the same rights they had. I have a co-worker whose job was to work with this code. The folks who wrote the original code get NOTHING in return, except a by-line in the Windows documentation.
Imagine if I took the Linux Kernel, made it better, then turned around and started selling it for profit, without allowing people to see the changes, nor giving them an opportunity to do the same. The GPL forbids this, and it has been a perfect solution up 'til now. The FSF is trying to predict future "attack vectors" and closing them off before they can become a problem, perhaps through future legislation or actions.
That's the problem: THE ACTUAL RESULT HAS NO ERROR BARS. Who's being intellectually dishonest, the scientist who fails to disclose the error in their results, or the critic who questions them? Why do you think it is that physicists can explain the mass of an electron to a very high degree of precision, when leading scientists in the environmental movement had a major shift from global cooling to warming 30 years ago? Why do you even believe people who claimed that humanity would be wiped out 20 years ago when the obvious result is that we are stronger, more vibrant, and better-fed than ever? The bottom line is the whole field stinks to high-heaven, and a careful investigation by any honest scientist will reveal why.
You claim the fate of the world is at stake. If that is so, then the scientists should be even more careful with how they present their results, and should be doubly sure they mislead no one with results THAT HAVE NO ERROR BARS and propose suppositions as fact. (As I outlined, they did so in their summary. At least they were honest about being dishonest in this regard.)
I have also shown you the facts. Do some basic research on the scientists who are preaching the destruction of the world through industrialization. Guess what? They hold America accountable and let India, China, and Russia off the hook. They release paper after paper, many of which are questionable. They rush to the microphones and cameras before their papers are fully reviewed. They have an obvious agenda, obvious to anyone with an open mind. They are advocating the destruction of the free-market economy for one that is run by government officials who think they are smarter than everyone else. THAT'S COMMUNISM. Just because it isn't popular to accuse people of trying to destroy our country through lies and subversion and over-regulation doesn't mean it isn't true.
I'm being factual and honest. It's you who won't see the obvious facts.
Interesting. Go re-read the second and third paragraph. Here it is in layman's terms.
We don't know whether greenhouse gasses cause global warming, are an effect of global warming, or just happen to rise and fall together. We don't know how much the greenhouse gasses actually caused the earth to warm or cool, or how much was due to changes in the orbit or changes in the sun. But we're just going to pretend that greenhouse gasses are causing it because, hey, that's what everyone else is saying and we don't want to rock the boat.
Now, let me introduce a few ways to fool with the results. I'm surprised they didn't mention in the paper how to guard against this.
I could be a scientist handling the ice core samples and leave some samples out for longer than another. This would allow more gas to leech out. At what rate do the gasses leech out? Do some gasses leech out faster than others? Probably. But leaving them out for a while would also allow gasses in the atmosphere to leech in.
They also calibrated the gas measuring device using a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and CO2. If we wanted to get a different result, we could toy with the calibration.
There are a couple of assumptions they have been making, one of which was found to be incorrect. How old is the gas compared to the age of the ice it was found in? They used to think it was 6,000yrs. But someone found out it was actually closer to 6,000yrs, give or take a few hundred years. But that is only for the coldest periods. How did gas and ice accumulate in the warmer periods? No mention of this.
They made another interesting assumption in determining the historical temperatures of the samples. They assumed that the levels of O18 (isotope, not chemical) and D (deuterium) were related to the temperature. I can't find any reference to why this would be so.
The pretty graph on the page is missing one import feature: Error bars. I don't see any. Without error bars, I can't tell if the data is significant at all. Just the fact that they left out error bars means they either don't understand the science of measurements and modelling, or they do and are trying to hide the fact that the error is +/- 10 degreed C and 100 ppmv. In fact, just by data collected by other scientists, it says to me that the data is not good within 3 or 4 degrees C. And they have a friendly note on the bottom of the graph: Wider lines means more data, not more variability.
When physicists do something like measure the charge or mass of an electron, they have serious discussions over whether something is 5.000001 or 5.000002. If Scientist A said 5.000001 +/- 0.0000003, and Scientist B gets 5.000002 +/- 0.0000003, then we throw both results out until we discover what A or B (or both) did wrong. In the meantime, we put footnotes in our textbooks: Use 5.0000 +/- 0.00001 just to be on the safe side. Variations outside of the range of error are not tolerated. Why do you tolerate variations in people's assessment of the historical temperature?
Oh, and I can't find any documentation or reasoning on how they know the age of the ice or the air. That's odd... You'd think the most important part of their research would be mentioned somewhere.
I have research the global warming issue, carefully and studiously. There are not answers to most of the questions I pose. It's sad really. They are very basic questions. I can tell you all about the fundamental theories of physics and how they work in a matter of minutes. But you cannot, in thirty minutes time, answer a single of my simple questions. Isn't that odd?
25 years is not enough data to make any determinations, especially data collected so poorly and used so poorly.
We are not collecting enough data even during those 25 years to understand what the average temperature is and whether it is increasing.
The sun has far more impact on our atmosphere's temperature than any other factor.
The cost of limiting CO2 output is FAR greater than the cost of Global Warming.
And Global Warming would be a good thing, because it would turn Africa BACK into a rain forest, ending most of the starvation and disease there, and cause Europe's glaciers to recede, allowing people to grow wheat in the northern parts again.
I have also investigated why Global Warming is even so touted. Note that the forces behind Global Warming issue are not all or even most scientists. Most scientists don't care or don't know. I couldn't find one physicist at my university that "believed" in it and thought anything important of it. They were more concerned about nuclear war, not what kind of car they drive. The one professor who was investigating global warming was doing it because the government was giving money to him to do it, nothing more or less. The scientists that get behind global warming are not ones I have reason to respect anyway. I've read their papers, and they are not very thorough. Heck, a BS Physics guy can poke holes in their arguments on the first reading.
The Global Warming movement is powered by the old communists. It is a move to neutralize the US, not save the world. Hence, the Kyoto Protocols that harms the world's cleanest nation and NET CONSUMER of carbon in the atmosphere, and leaves the worst offenders and net producers of carbon in the atmosphere alone. Global Warming is about trying to convince Americans to stop being so productive, and give Europe and the old Soviet Union a chance to be superpowers again.
And the other conclusion I came to: The communists haven't gone away. They put on environmentalist clothing and are trying to advocate communism from that pedastal. If you can't see that, you're blind and believe whatever is published in the New York Times.
That's the conclusion I came to after careful study.
Next time you see a global warming article, go find the research paper and read it yourself. Question it thoroughly like a real scientist. Then go find other papers by the same scientist and read them as well. Ask yourself: Is this scientist neutral, or do they seem to have an agenda? Who is paying for their research? Who is reviewing it? Who is publishing it? (Nature, for the most part, has been shown to lack basic controls on what gets published and has turned into a political pedastal and is no longer worthy of being considered a science periodical.) For instance, if PETA publishes an paper that says that milk causes cancer, I wouldn't believe it anymore than Phillip-Morris publishing a paper saying cigarettes don't.
Be more like Einstein; stop following the herd and question fundamental yet unproven assumptions.
You are demonstrating why ad-hominem attacks are fundamentally weak. Whether I am male or female, black, white, red, or yellow, whether I am married or single, old or young, smart or stupid, and dare I say, Democrat or Republican, is completely irrelevant to the arguments I make. You are in the business, I assume, of trying to convince others of your point of view. Try to be more persuasive.
When you start your arguments with "My opponent is a fool", you are suddenly no longer arguing a counterpoint, and your opponent wins the day. When you do this, it sounds like you have no solid rebuttal. Remember the saying in law school: "When you have the facts on your side, cite the facts. Otherwise, pound the table." It sounds like you are pounding the table, so people assume you don't have the facts on your side.
My assertion was that no one has shown me definitively that there even is a phenomena called global warming, nor that CO2 is responsible for it.
Your argument says that I am stupid and that trees are carbon sinks and that the US is responsible for destroying the world (including Bush) through global warming. Oh, and by the way, you said that the "elites" don't care for you or me. These are all fascinating arguments, but my original question remains unanswered to this day.
You seem very convinced that global warming is a real phenonema and that CO2 emissions are the root cause. I assume, by logical corollary, that you are advocating that Global Warming is bad, but you have not proven that point either. I imagine you are one of the crowd that thinks we should stop driving cars, because the cost of driving a car (global warming) outweighs the benefits.
Tell me, why do you believe that global warming is occuring? Why are you certain that CO2 and not some other chemical or process (sun's radiation, earth's internal heat) is to blame? And why is global warming bad? Show me the cost/benefit analysis of global warming and driving my car, and show that it is advantageous for me to stop driving my car?
Now, stop thumping the table and calling me names, and start addressing my arguments.
My 4 year-old son can add, subtract, and multiply. He even understands how to add, subtract, and multiple negative numbers. He is always pestering me to teach him more. We bought a book for 1st graders on math and reading. He cracks it open and points to a page and demands that I teach it to him so he can do the work.
I think there is a chemical released in the brain upon learning a new principle that is addictive. The "smart" kids have discovered this and are addicted to it. They have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. I find myself up to 1 o'clock in the morning reading a book on parsers not because I need to learn it but because I want that high from learning.
School should be about bringing this chemical out, and getting kids addicted to it. It should be about opening horizons and teaching skills necessary for learning more. Unfortunately, one of the industries in our country that has mastered this is the video gaming industry. I play video games to learn new skills, like how to play a particular game. These skills are largely irrelevant in real life, however. That is, unless I want to be a race-car driver or a fighter pilot.
In my experience, the reason kids hate school is not because learning is no fun, but because no learning takes place at school. As I work with the school board and district in our local town to encourage them to challenge the students, I see a tremendous amount of inertia in the teachers. They know they are not doing a good job, but any criticism is unwarranted, and anything that might make their jobs better and more enjoyable and more productive is anti-teacher. New teachers have some energy, some spark of wanting to do something right, but the culture in our schools quickly extinguish that.
It's a rather simple question, but the answer cannot be.
Given any point on the surface of the earth, can you tell me what the temperature at that point is? In other words, what is the temperature everywhere on the earth? Let me break down this question into a thorough examination of how it needs to be answered.
We obviously can't measure every point on the surface of the earth. We only have a finite number of thermometers and there are an infinite number of points on the surface (or any surface). But the thermometers we do have give us a reasonably good picture of the total surface temperature. We can use some mathematics to discern what the temperature of the earth is between thermometers, but we have to make all kinds of assumptions that may not be correct. For instance, if me and you are holding thermometers that measure 65 degrees, it is reasonable that the space between us is also 65 degrees. But if that space between us is large enough, it is probable that the temperature can be 66 or 64, or even 90 or 32 degrees.
Here's another way to measure the entire surface temperature of the earth. I believe that NASA can take infrared picture of the earth and thus tell us what they see in space. But is this measuring the temperature at the surface of the earth, in the middle of the atmosphere, or at the top of the atmosphere? And how accurate is it? That is, if we get back a pixel from the infrared camera that says that the surface of the earth that corresponds to that pixel is 65 degrees, how do we know it is 65 and not 66 or 65.1 or 65.00001 degrees? And how big is that pixel? Can we rest assured that that pixel will represent the average temperature of the surface measured by that pixel, or is it measuring the maxima?
You see why this isn't a simple question. Even with our best technology, we simply don't know very well what the temperature of the entire earth is. Therefore, people who talk about the "average temperature" have to be more specific about what they mean the "average temperature", and show what methodologies they used to derive the numbers, or, if they are relying on someone else's numbers, point us to how that someone else derived their numbers.
Let's introduce the problem of time. Let's expand the question to "What is the temperature at any point on the earth at any time, past or future?" We obviously can't measure the future. So no one can tell us what will happen. They can only predict or guess what will happen based on the best information they have. This prediction may or may not be correct, and if history is any guide, scientific predictions about things that aren't very well understood tend to be wrong.
But let's look at temperatures in the past. What was the temperature at any point on the earth 5 minutes ago? 1 hour ago? 24 hours ago? 1 week ago? 1 month? 1 year? 10 years? These can all be reasonably answered based on similar methodology to answer the first question. Technology for measuring the earth's temperature really hasn't changed that much in 10 years time. (Has it? If it has, read on...)
What about 50 years ago? Did we have any spacecraft 50 years ago? No, unfortunately. How are you going to model the earth's temperature then? Obviously, there is far less data. And how can you compare the results of these measurements 50 years ago to today's?
What about 200 years ago? 200 years ago, body temperature was 100 degrees Fahrenheit on average. Either people were warmer back then, or our measurements were inaccurate. (It was the latter, if you must know.) So 200 years ago, somebody measures the temperature of Paris, France. They get 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Today, we use the same method and get 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Did the temperature increase, decrease, or stay the same? The bottom line is, we can't tell because the measurements 200 years ago were inaccurate.
What about 10,000 years ago? Now we have to find things like ice cores and tree rings to determine that. What are the errors for these measurements? How can we tell that we are i
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I can't remember where I read this, but apparently our urban ancestors had different sleep habits than we have today.
If I recall correctly, they would go to bed early, wake up about midnight, play around and eat for a few hours, and then go back to sleep. Then they would wake up early in the morning.
You could find vendors who would go down the street offering apples and such for sale in the middle of the night at that time.
Pretty weird.
Our habit of sleeping all in one chunk is probably a result of World War II, where the military enforced that sleep habit. Other than that, rural people live like this (sun up-sun down) for obvious reasons. They couldn't miss a moment of daylight.
I wouldn't be surprised if various patterns of sleep were highly effective. I know my children like the naps during the day, even if it means they only get 8 hours of sleep at night instead of 10.
As long as the communists believe they can effectively censor their people, when in reality, they cannot, then we have won that war.
It's kind of odd reasoning. Let me explain.
If Google is able to operate in China, people will have greater access to information. Censoring on keywords will convince the government that they are doing a good job censoring, but the people are smarter than simple censoring software and will work around it. Censorship, after all, never works.
Inevitably, the ideas of democracy and liberty will penetrate more hearts and minds because Google makes access to that information easier. The communist government, convinced by Google (et al) that censoring is working, will be caught with their pants down when the people finally revolt.
What would be worse is if China shut down their internet to outside access completely, and didn't rely on 3rd parties to do their dirty work of censoring (which I doubt Google is going to do very vigorously anyway.) The DPRK is a good example of what could happen, and we are glad it is not.
There are several simple reason why felons can't vote, usually until they've served their time and paid their debts to society.
When you commit a felony, you have shown that you don't respect the people of this country enough to follow the laws. If you don't respect the people, should you be allowed to be a member of that society? Of course not. Allowing felons to vote is like allowing wolves to be a part of the sheep herd. We must keep them separate and distinct, and not afford them the rights of the people because they are dangerous and do not have society's best interests at heart.
There's other reasons too, dealing with punishment and justification. As part of the punishment of committing a crime, you become indebted to society, and thus, a slave to society, until that debt is paid. Slaves aren't masters, and they can't tell masters what to do.
The other reason I hear is that felons have demonstrated an impaired judgment. We can't trust their judgment in simple matters like "should I try to shoot someone dead or should I try to resolve matters peacesfully" based on their past behavior. Why should we trust their judgment in big manners such as who should lead the country?
Another reason is this. Imagine a society where the majority of people are felons. That is, over time, people have been caught, accused, convicted, and sentenced for committing felonies. If these people were allowed to change the law, what would the law say? Since we can't allow that, we can't allow them to have any say in the law.
Another reason is actually quite simple. We believe that men can't govern without the consent of the governed. Law-abiding citizens don't consent to law-breaking citizens governing them. So they don't get to vote.
I don't think your criticism of Bush's policy of expanding America's energy production are completely valid. President Bush has supported measures to reduce the energy needs of America through conservation and efficiency. He admits that that alone is not enough, however.
As a trained physicist, I learned that there is one universal currency: energy. In fact, it can be said that energy is the only thing of value to us. One of our jobs as a trained physicist is to discover new and better ways of accessing the vast resources of energy available in the universe and provide that to the masses. With energy safely harnessed, the imagination is the boundary of possibilities.
What would you be able to do if you could get gigawatts of electricity for pennies? What would you do if you had access to safe chemicals that had energy outputs similar to rocket fuel? I can barely imagine it. What if we could access this kind of energy safely, in an environmentally friendly way? Would you do it? Of course.
I don't think all the advances of the past century would've been possible without the efficient production and distribution of energy at the scale we had. We couldn't have a cost-effective aluminum industry without tremendous amounts of electricity to power the chemical refinement process. We couldn't build airplanes to travel across the continents without jet fuel and the machines that can turn it into thrust. We wouldn't have a lot of the modern conveniences and even necessities without all the energy we have available to us.
I hope the next century sees America and the rest of the world producing several orders of magnitude more energy and using it efficiently for new things we can barely imagine today. President Bush is right to explore all --- and he is exploring all --- viable sources of energy.
You are correct; The American way does not ensure the two absolute requirements: freedom of choice and information.
But you are missing the big picture. The American Way is MORE free and MORE informed than the others.
You are arguing for limited government. I am all for that as well. We need to reduce the scope of the regulations and kick government out of the places where it doesn't belong. For instance, the FDA has been shown to be plagued with fraud and scandals. Why not make it a private institution that relies solely on its reputation to make a profit? Why not allow other organizations to evaluate drugs and food and then convey which drugs and foods they find preferrable over others and why?
You are making another mistake as well. You are assuming that corporate executives are somehow less human than you are. I imagine you have never taken the time to get to know any at all. For the most part, and I do mean "most" as in the grand majority, corporate executives are actually very nice and noble people. They are not corrupt. They are not mean. Many of them see their role in life as producing good products for less money and at the same time creating well-paying jobs for Americans.
Of course, the minority, the small, tiny, minority, abuse their positions of power, try to hide their abuses, and commit fraud on a large scale.
I propose to you that America is the least tolerant of all nations towards this kind of abuse of power. Name one corporate executive that has committed this kind of crime and gotten away with it? When I mean, "get away with it", I mean, without facing any of the penalties, government-imposed or not, that comes with the discovery of the crime?
Now, I want you to shift the context to any other country. Name the people in that country who commit these kinds of crimes, are not discovered, or do not face the penalties of the crimes. I can tell you one country in particular is especially corrupt at high levels: Japan. You don't hear about it, but it's there if you look for it. Here's another, where bribery is a way of life for the corporate executive: France.
America can be better about this, and we should be better. I can't think of any American who says, "Well, we worked hard, we tried to eliminate all forms of oppression anywhere in our society, and guess what? We did it! Give yourself a pat on the back, we can all go home in peace because America is perfect and will be forever!" No! We are constantly striving in our own way to make our own corner of the country better.
But you know what else? America is the best there is. Not many countries come close to what America already has.
I will submit this: If we are more careful about the ethics and morality and in being informed and free in our economic decisions, we will only have brighter days ahead. The minute we stop being careful about this, then we will descend into poverty once again.
The nice thing about capitalism is that it is one of the few scientific theories of the 1700's to stand the test of time. Since capitalism, there have been several theories that have seen the light of day and have been burned by it. For example, socialism and communism have been shown to be absolute and complete failures.
The fascinating thing about capitalism is how simple the theory is. Go ahead and attack any of its fundamental principles and theories. But you'll be fighting a losing battle. After two hundred plus years, it is still logically sound.
Notice that you didn't attack the theory. You only tried to say that no theory is correct in practice. You probably accept the theory of evolution. How would you like to argue with someone about evolution when that person says, "It's a nice theory, but it's just a theory. We know reality and theories don't match."
Free market capitalism works in the labor market as well. Moving jobs overseas keeps Americans competitive. Would you rather force American companies to hire Americans on bloated salaries? What would be the net effect? The absolute destruction of our economy as American companies fail and foreign companies decide they would rather not hire Americans. Oh, you didn't know that did you? Foreigners have moved more jobs to America than we have lost to foreign countries! If we decided to stop exporting our jobs, then Japan and Europe would stop exporting theirs, and we would be worse off.
Unfortunately, your last bit is sorely misguided. In America, we not only are wealthier, we have the highest standard of living. How do I know this? Name one country you'd rather live in than the US because it has a higher standard of living. Now explain why you haven't left the US for that country. Now also explain why the people in that country are clamoring to live in the US.
There is a field of economics that is unfortunately loosely coupled with Adam Smith's basic theory of capitalism. That field is named "macro-economics" while Adam Smith's theories are called "micro-economics". Somehow, people get the picture that these two theories are equivalent when they are not.
Macro-economics is the field where we try to measure GDP, Cost of Living, and the interest rate. This is where government tries to set a tax-and-spend policy to boost the economy and smooth the cycles. Unfortunately, this field is not based on solid, simple theories that can be easily proven or disproven as easily as micro-economics. And unfortunately still, this field gets too muddled with politics to the point that it is misrepresented in the public arena. Recently, several key theories in macro-economics have been overturned. The idea that a nation can't endure deflation without a fiscal crisis has been disproven in practice. We have recently experienced actual deflation with only beneficial effects. Also, for a very long time, the US has had an unemployment rate far below what the macro-economists say is healthy. And our interest rates have been far lower than what they say we should. And we keep increasing the deficit and yet we haven't come to the catclysmic end predicted.
Wealth, if you paid attention to my earlier discussion, is not measured in dollars. It's not measured in anything tangible. It is purely subjective, dependent on the observer. You may look into my household finances, and then look into someone else's, and then say I am the poorer of the two. But I will disagree. I have everything I want, and then some, so I am wealthy, and I can't ask for anything more. And I have things the wealthier don't have: A wife that loves and tolerates me, three beautiful children who respect their mother. I also happen to have a piano and a computer. The piano is worth more than the most expensive stereo HD-DVD system money can buy to me. It's probably the most valuable item I own right now, because I enjoy it so much.
Wealth is not as simple a concept as you are making it out to be. Don't be fooled into thinking it is. There's no happiness in thinking wealth can be counted in dollars.
The elections department did produce documents that they wouldn't reveal during the trial later on to Stefan Sharkansky. He has some of the lawyers on record saying that had they known what they know now, the trial would've been much different.
You can go ahead and call Stefan whatever names you like. That doesn't change the fact that he has documents where the elections department admits to countin votes that they admit shouldn't have been counting, greater than the margin of victory. He also has documented proof of voter fraud, double votes, dead votes, and more that weren't available at the time of the trial. He has proof of a whole lot more things, if you'll take the time to see his evidence.
I think your entire world-view is warped. You're talking as if one company getting big precludes another from getting big, and you're saying that by having very rich people, others can't get rich.
Unfortunately, Adam Smith and his masterpiece "The Wealth of Nations" explains very profoundly how wealth is not a zero-sum game. It can be created and destroyed, sure. It can be siezed and redistributed, yes. But in a free market system, wealth is created with every transaction and even every non-transaction, as long as those transactions are informed and done by free will.
That's why the US is able to have a trade deficit for most of the past century yet still be the wealthiest country in the world. We create wealth faster and better than any other country. We can export that wealth in exchange for cheap products. In fact, by doing so, we create even more wealth.
In short, we can ALL get rich, we can ALL have big companies, and one person's success doesn't mean another's failure.
I will go into the simple explanation of why this is. It has to be what wealth and value really mean. Wealth is a measure of how much valuables you have. You are wealthy when you have more valuables than you really need, and poor when you don't have enough. (Wealth and poverty in this sense are very subjective.) But what is value? What makes one thing worth more than another?
Simply put, value is in the eye of the beholder.
When you walk into the grocery store, ask yourself some questions. Pick up one of the items in your cart, and ask yourself:
(1) What would life be like without this item? Imagine putting it back on the shelf and not buying it. Imagine what you would do without it. Perhaps you would buy something else, right?
(2) How much would I really pay for this item? (NOTE: Don't tell anyone, particularly the clerk what this number is!) That is, at what price would I stop buying this particular item? Think also about the price you are paying by engaging in this trade. You could've done any number of other things besides shopping that may have value.
(3) How much is the retailer willing to sell this item for? That is, at what price will they stop carrying the item? (Keep the cost of buying and shipping the item constant--we're concerned about profit.) Be sure not to exclude opportunity cost--the cost of not doing something else they could've done.
Now, hopefully you have two numbers: The maximum price you are willing to pay, and the minimum price they are willing to sell at. I know you can't guess these numbers precisely. Just rest assured that for our purposes the following is true:
(1) The maximum price you will pay is above the current price of the item. After all, if it was equal, why go through the trouble of carrying it to the checkout counter? You're just causing yourself unnecessary pain.
(2) The minimum price they will sell at is below the current price of the item. If it was equal, they would rather not sell it.
The magnitude really isn't important. What is important is that these numbers are greater than and less than the current price. (If you were a brilliant genius and knew everything, you would only be doing things that profited you the most. You'd probably be richer than the Google guys by now. But we're not, and we generally don't make the best decisions. That isn't to say we don't make good decisions.)
So, note what happens as you pay for it in the checkout line:
(1) You sly little fox, you just made yourself slightly wealthier! You gave away that worthless money for something with true value! Congratulations, you have won the jackpot, you have created wealth for yourself and thus your country. Walk home proud! In fact, go indulge yourself a bit with your newfound wealth.
(2) That cheating little store just made out like a fox in the henhouse! They gave away that cheap product and got in return more cash than they thought it was worth! They are walking to the bank laughing: "Can you believe he ACTUALLY paid THAT much
The stock market wouldn't exist if it weren't for those pesky civil liberties. You know, the ones that say you can do pretty much what you want with your money except buy hookers, drugs, and politicians.
Get rid of those freedoms, and you can get rid of the stock market. I'm just saying...
Which is why the majority of WA voters don't believe Christine Gregoire was elected governor.
There were repeated requests for basic information, but the King Co. elections department (run by D's) either didn't provide the information or covered it up or even openly lied about it, all this while an important trial is being held to uncover who was really elected. Based on admissions by the elections department, they manufactured votes and counted votes that should not have been counted.
What's even sadder is the Sec. of State (an R) promised to clean up the rolls with a statewide database, and promised that database to be online Jan 1. Except even now, nobody seems able to obtain a copy of that database, and the Sec. of State says it won't come out until February. We'll see if it really does.
For more information, go read the research Stefan Sharkansky has been doing at http://soundpolitics.com./ It'll give you great insight into how elections departments should act versus how they do act.
I'm an R, but I don't tolerate this kind of crap, not in Alaska, not here in Washington, and not anywhere. We must have a publically accountable voting system, or we'll have people who say the only way to affect change in government is through violence. I don't want another civil war, particularly if it could've been prevented by people running elections openly and honestly.
And if they ARE a prodigy, how are you going to recognize that unless you play with them?
But we all know that companies aren't intelligent about who they hire. If they were smart, they would hire 5 $15/hour testers instead of a developer. If they were smart, I'd have a personal secretary to help me keep on my meeting schedules, and even attend to take notes in my absence, and read my email for me.
The problem is probably the lack of educated black engineers. Up until a few years ago, here at the University of Washington, you could get a free ticket into the college if you were black or hispanic. But those minorities were also dropping out at frightening rates. And the ones that did graduate weren't graduating in the hard sciences. I imagine this is generally true across the country.
My father remembers working as an EE in a firm where they hired a token black guy to avoid threats of being racist. They brought the guy in, gave him a desk, and set him up for work. After a few conversations, the black guy freely admitted that he was there because he was black. He wasn't dumb. He wasn't totally incapable. He just wasn't at the same level of ability as the other engineers, and didn't have much desire to get there. I imagine if he faced the same threats of getting laid off or becoming obsolete, he would've worked just as hard as the others to make sure he was a good engineer. But there was no motivation because there was no threat.
With the passage of I-200 (banning the use of race as an entrance criteria), the graduation rate at UW has been climbing and the admittance rate or minorities has been restored to pre-I-200 levels. (Although, the Asians are much higher and the whites are much lower nowadays.) The general sentiment from the people I talk to is that blacks and hispanics are working harder in high school if they have college aspirations.
Overall, I believe folks in the IT world, being more highly educated, are far less racist than the less-educated professions. I say this from experience. I don't have any black people that I know of on my floor of the building. I imagine there are some somewhere in our company. But I also know that if there were a black guy, he would be treated the same way we treat each other, along with having to adhere to the same expectations.
Technical writers need not apply.
If a company has some extra money to spend on head count, who are they going to hire? You, or another engineer?
For the same reason most companies don't have a 2:1 ratio of testers to developers (more likely, 1:50 testers to developers), most companies don't have a technical writer.
You might as well write a book about how to document your own code better. You'd probably make more money than you are now.
Even if they are required to do as you say and list the owners of all the software they use, this is easily handled.
Add a field for ownership on each software package in RPM or DEB format. A good distro that wants to support the corporate environment will go through each package and list the owners in that field, not to mention upstream providers who package their own content. Then run a script on any installed computer to list the owners.
This will result in thousands and thousands of names and such. But it will satisfy the requirement.
If the companies are violating the law, then they will be given a warning and given time to comply, just like if they file the wrong forms or if they report something that isn't quite correct.
What does this have to do with my original point, which was that I can't find any real evidence of global warming, just a bunch of shoddy reporting on incomplete research articles?
I am not in the oil industry, but from what I can tell (ANWR) the lack of oil has more to do with the US government forbidding the extraction of newly found oil sites and less to do with there actually being less oil. In fact, I've read several articles saying that some oil sites in Louisiana have filled up again, and they are extracting from the same sites again.
Have you heard about the theories that oil isn't a fossil fuel, but is generated by geothermic processes? The Russians have used this theory to find new and abundant oil sources. Some Americans are catching on.
What you are told about oil in the mass media is not the truth about oil.
1. Ask the residents of New Orleans if climate change is bad.
The hurricanes weren't caused by global warming. No scientist is saying that. In fact, if I recall correctly, meteorologists said the exact opposite after the hurricanes hit.
We don't understand exactly how the global temperature affects the number of hurricanes produced each year and their severity. We do know that corrupt governments that waste the taxpayer's money intended to reinforce ancient levies do cause major disasters, however.
Concerning points 2 and 3:
No, we DON'T know greenhouse gasses cause global warming. We THINK we know, but we don't. A lot of people say they know, but they aren't scientists. A lot of scientists say one of the causes of global warming COULD be greenhouse gasses, but they can't say for sure if they are being honest.
The US is NOT the largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. That honor goes to Russia and China. The US is actually a net SINK of carbon in the atmosphere because we have more trees to consume CO2 than we produce from industry.
Why is the US hooked on oil? Because it is the only natural resource that can power the engines of economy. Can you name any other substance that is naturally occurring that when delivered to the furthest corners of the nation still deliver more energy than it cost to deliver? Only oil, coal, and a few other substances can do this, but oil is far better than the others, and far cheaper to refine to the highly energy-dense gasoline our cars use. Any country that wants to have televisions, cheap food, and the amenities of civilization MUST use oil to do so. There is no other way.
I'm not trying to substance capitalism for common sense. Capitalism IS common sense. If global warming truly is a problem that affects everyone, then they will pay the necessary price to overcome it. What you asking the US to do by abandoning oil is to give up EVERYTHING we have so that we have a few more days of winter each year. Does that make sense? No!
What exactly is the error in their reading? You say a few percent. Then why do the numbers disagree so much with other experiments trying to find the same data? Why do we see a period where the numbers vary almost 2 degrees C? If we discovered that, and the error was assumed to be 2%, well, then something has gone terribly wrong. There is some assumption being made that is not correct and it must be discovered and replaced with a more correct assumption.
My comparison to the mass of an electron is that when physicists show they results they are extremely careful to include error in their calculations to prevent the possibility of someone else coming along, performing a different experiment, and obtaining a completeld different result, and then totally discrediting the original work. It's called being careful because the worst thing that can happen is to be found out to have been utterly wrong with no other explanation than being foolish.
Let's talk about communism. Go ahead and roll your eyes. Your type rolled their eyes when some very observant people talked about the possibilities of massive terror attacks in America. That's okay. People who see an understand the threats need to address them appropriately.
When environmentalists come out and say, "Hey, this earth thingy is warming up", they always tack on the following statements.
1. This is bad.
2. The US is to blame, not China or Russia or anyone else. Just the US.
3. If only the US would stop driving their cars / stop being productive, we wouldn't have this problem.
A capitalist would respond to the basic concept of global warming as follows:
1. We don't know if this is bad or good.
2. We don't know if anyone is to blame. However, rather than pointing fingers, we should address real problems as they arise, and carefully weight the cost/benefit of each action we take. (Putting millions of people out of work is probably more damaging to the earth than losing a few thousand acres of tundra.)
3. When and if we face real challenges due to global warming, our only real hope to overcome them, or even reverse the damage, is through the free market.
When's the last time you read an article by a "leading" scientist who said that the free market will come up with ideal solutions for any problem we face? Never. Never does any of the leading scientists in the global warming advocate anything but communist, government-imposed, restrictive and anti-freedom solutions. Hence, they are communists.
I'd like to point out that in a more perfect world, we wouldn't need the GPL v3. What has happened is that the world has become tremendously more complicated since v2. The v3 helps to address some of those issues.
Let's look at some of the issues that make licensing your software more difficult to do properly.
PATENTS. Software patents have gotten out of control. At the time of v2, there was some concern about patents, but now we have had a direct attack on the GPL from the angle of patents trump copyright. What v3 does is spell out what patents mean and how companies can use patents and GPL in peace. It says that you can't distribute software under the GPL if you own a patent that doesn't allow others to distribute the same software. You have to license that patent to allow distribution by others. Isn't this what we want? This is one technical and hairy issue that most people never think about, but needs to be thought about.
DRM. The DRM issue is another viper's nest. What happens if Sony releases software under the GPL to play movies, and then try to protect the movies under DRM legislation? Think especially if Sony takes a GPL software out in the wild, and then adds their own things to it, and then to satisfy the GPL they try to distribute it under the GPL. Are they doing the right thing, even if it is legal? Of course not. If you build or work on a data interpretation program and then license it under the GPL, you can't ask people not to try to understand how your program works or write another program to deal with the same software. The v3 license is explicit about this.
BSD license folks like to pick on the GPL because it is getting so complicated. They forget that the BSD license has its own problems. The GPL is trying to solve those problems. If you don't understand what the problems with the BSD license are, you can't understand what the GPL is intended to do, nor can you be convinced to use it.
Hint about BSD's problems: MS Windows has a good portion of BSD code in the Windows kernel. They spend a great deal of time modifying and adapting the code and then turning around and selling it, without allowing people the same rights they had. I have a co-worker whose job was to work with this code. The folks who wrote the original code get NOTHING in return, except a by-line in the Windows documentation.
Imagine if I took the Linux Kernel, made it better, then turned around and started selling it for profit, without allowing people to see the changes, nor giving them an opportunity to do the same. The GPL forbids this, and it has been a perfect solution up 'til now. The FSF is trying to predict future "attack vectors" and closing them off before they can become a problem, perhaps through future legislation or actions.
That's the problem: THE ACTUAL RESULT HAS NO ERROR BARS. Who's being intellectually dishonest, the scientist who fails to disclose the error in their results, or the critic who questions them? Why do you think it is that physicists can explain the mass of an electron to a very high degree of precision, when leading scientists in the environmental movement had a major shift from global cooling to warming 30 years ago? Why do you even believe people who claimed that humanity would be wiped out 20 years ago when the obvious result is that we are stronger, more vibrant, and better-fed than ever? The bottom line is the whole field stinks to high-heaven, and a careful investigation by any honest scientist will reveal why.
You claim the fate of the world is at stake. If that is so, then the scientists should be even more careful with how they present their results, and should be doubly sure they mislead no one with results THAT HAVE NO ERROR BARS and propose suppositions as fact. (As I outlined, they did so in their summary. At least they were honest about being dishonest in this regard.)
I have also shown you the facts. Do some basic research on the scientists who are preaching the destruction of the world through industrialization. Guess what? They hold America accountable and let India, China, and Russia off the hook. They release paper after paper, many of which are questionable. They rush to the microphones and cameras before their papers are fully reviewed. They have an obvious agenda, obvious to anyone with an open mind. They are advocating the destruction of the free-market economy for one that is run by government officials who think they are smarter than everyone else. THAT'S COMMUNISM. Just because it isn't popular to accuse people of trying to destroy our country through lies and subversion and over-regulation doesn't mean it isn't true.
I'm being factual and honest. It's you who won't see the obvious facts.
Now, let me introduce a few ways to fool with the results. I'm surprised they didn't mention in the paper how to guard against this.
I could be a scientist handling the ice core samples and leave some samples out for longer than another. This would allow more gas to leech out. At what rate do the gasses leech out? Do some gasses leech out faster than others? Probably. But leaving them out for a while would also allow gasses in the atmosphere to leech in.
They also calibrated the gas measuring device using a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, and CO2. If we wanted to get a different result, we could toy with the calibration.
There are a couple of assumptions they have been making, one of which was found to be incorrect. How old is the gas compared to the age of the ice it was found in? They used to think it was 6,000yrs. But someone found out it was actually closer to 6,000yrs, give or take a few hundred years. But that is only for the coldest periods. How did gas and ice accumulate in the warmer periods? No mention of this.
They made another interesting assumption in determining the historical temperatures of the samples. They assumed that the levels of O18 (isotope, not chemical) and D (deuterium) were related to the temperature. I can't find any reference to why this would be so.
The pretty graph on the page is missing one import feature: Error bars. I don't see any. Without error bars, I can't tell if the data is significant at all. Just the fact that they left out error bars means they either don't understand the science of measurements and modelling, or they do and are trying to hide the fact that the error is +/- 10 degreed C and 100 ppmv. In fact, just by data collected by other scientists, it says to me that the data is not good within 3 or 4 degrees C. And they have a friendly note on the bottom of the graph: Wider lines means more data, not more variability.
When physicists do something like measure the charge or mass of an electron, they have serious discussions over whether something is 5.000001 or 5.000002. If Scientist A said 5.000001 +/- 0.0000003, and Scientist B gets 5.000002 +/- 0.0000003, then we throw both results out until we discover what A or B (or both) did wrong. In the meantime, we put footnotes in our textbooks: Use 5.0000 +/- 0.00001 just to be on the safe side. Variations outside of the range of error are not tolerated. Why do you tolerate variations in people's assessment of the historical temperature?
Oh, and I can't find any documentation or reasoning on how they know the age of the ice or the air. That's odd... You'd think the most important part of their research would be mentioned somewhere.
I have research the global warming issue, carefully and studiously. There are not answers to most of the questions I pose. It's sad really. They are very basic questions. I can tell you all about the fundamental theories of physics and how they work in a matter of minutes. But you cannot, in thirty minutes time, answer a single of my simple questions. Isn't that odd?
25 years is not enough data to make any determinations, especially data collected so poorly and used so poorly.
We are not collecting enough data even during those 25 years to understand what the average temperature is and whether it is increasing.
The sun has far more impact on our atmosphere's temperature than any other factor.
The cost of limiting CO2 output is FAR greater than the cost of Global Warming.
And Global Warming would be a good thing, because it would turn Africa BACK into a rain forest, ending most of the starvation and disease there, and cause Europe's glaciers to recede, allowing people to grow wheat in the northern parts again.
I have also investigated why Global Warming is even so touted. Note that the forces behind Global Warming issue are not all or even most scientists. Most scientists don't care or don't know. I couldn't find one physicist at my university that "believed" in it and thought anything important of it. They were more concerned about nuclear war, not what kind of car they drive. The one professor who was investigating global warming was doing it because the government was giving money to him to do it, nothing more or less. The scientists that get behind global warming are not ones I have reason to respect anyway. I've read their papers, and they are not very thorough. Heck, a BS Physics guy can poke holes in their arguments on the first reading.
The Global Warming movement is powered by the old communists. It is a move to neutralize the US, not save the world. Hence, the Kyoto Protocols that harms the world's cleanest nation and NET CONSUMER of carbon in the atmosphere, and leaves the worst offenders and net producers of carbon in the atmosphere alone. Global Warming is about trying to convince Americans to stop being so productive, and give Europe and the old Soviet Union a chance to be superpowers again.
And the other conclusion I came to: The communists haven't gone away. They put on environmentalist clothing and are trying to advocate communism from that pedastal. If you can't see that, you're blind and believe whatever is published in the New York Times.
That's the conclusion I came to after careful study.
Next time you see a global warming article, go find the research paper and read it yourself. Question it thoroughly like a real scientist. Then go find other papers by the same scientist and read them as well. Ask yourself: Is this scientist neutral, or do they seem to have an agenda? Who is paying for their research? Who is reviewing it? Who is publishing it? (Nature, for the most part, has been shown to lack basic controls on what gets published and has turned into a political pedastal and is no longer worthy of being considered a science periodical.) For instance, if PETA publishes an paper that says that milk causes cancer, I wouldn't believe it anymore than Phillip-Morris publishing a paper saying cigarettes don't.
Be more like Einstein; stop following the herd and question fundamental yet unproven assumptions.
You are demonstrating why ad-hominem attacks are fundamentally weak. Whether I am male or female, black, white, red, or yellow, whether I am married or single, old or young, smart or stupid, and dare I say, Democrat or Republican, is completely irrelevant to the arguments I make. You are in the business, I assume, of trying to convince others of your point of view. Try to be more persuasive.
When you start your arguments with "My opponent is a fool", you are suddenly no longer arguing a counterpoint, and your opponent wins the day. When you do this, it sounds like you have no solid rebuttal. Remember the saying in law school: "When you have the facts on your side, cite the facts. Otherwise, pound the table." It sounds like you are pounding the table, so people assume you don't have the facts on your side.
My assertion was that no one has shown me definitively that there even is a phenomena called global warming, nor that CO2 is responsible for it.
Your argument says that I am stupid and that trees are carbon sinks and that the US is responsible for destroying the world (including Bush) through global warming. Oh, and by the way, you said that the "elites" don't care for you or me. These are all fascinating arguments, but my original question remains unanswered to this day.
You seem very convinced that global warming is a real phenonema and that CO2 emissions are the root cause. I assume, by logical corollary, that you are advocating that Global Warming is bad, but you have not proven that point either. I imagine you are one of the crowd that thinks we should stop driving cars, because the cost of driving a car (global warming) outweighs the benefits.
Tell me, why do you believe that global warming is occuring? Why are you certain that CO2 and not some other chemical or process (sun's radiation, earth's internal heat) is to blame? And why is global warming bad? Show me the cost/benefit analysis of global warming and driving my car, and show that it is advantageous for me to stop driving my car?
Now, stop thumping the table and calling me names, and start addressing my arguments.
My 4 year-old son can add, subtract, and multiply. He even understands how to add, subtract, and multiple negative numbers. He is always pestering me to teach him more. We bought a book for 1st graders on math and reading. He cracks it open and points to a page and demands that I teach it to him so he can do the work.
I think there is a chemical released in the brain upon learning a new principle that is addictive. The "smart" kids have discovered this and are addicted to it. They have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. I find myself up to 1 o'clock in the morning reading a book on parsers not because I need to learn it but because I want that high from learning.
School should be about bringing this chemical out, and getting kids addicted to it. It should be about opening horizons and teaching skills necessary for learning more. Unfortunately, one of the industries in our country that has mastered this is the video gaming industry. I play video games to learn new skills, like how to play a particular game. These skills are largely irrelevant in real life, however. That is, unless I want to be a race-car driver or a fighter pilot.
In my experience, the reason kids hate school is not because learning is no fun, but because no learning takes place at school. As I work with the school board and district in our local town to encourage them to challenge the students, I see a tremendous amount of inertia in the teachers. They know they are not doing a good job, but any criticism is unwarranted, and anything that might make their jobs better and more enjoyable and more productive is anti-teacher. New teachers have some energy, some spark of wanting to do something right, but the culture in our schools quickly extinguish that.
It's a rather simple question, but the answer cannot be.
Given any point on the surface of the earth, can you tell me what the temperature at that point is? In other words, what is the temperature everywhere on the earth? Let me break down this question into a thorough examination of how it needs to be answered.
We obviously can't measure every point on the surface of the earth. We only have a finite number of thermometers and there are an infinite number of points on the surface (or any surface). But the thermometers we do have give us a reasonably good picture of the total surface temperature. We can use some mathematics to discern what the temperature of the earth is between thermometers, but we have to make all kinds of assumptions that may not be correct. For instance, if me and you are holding thermometers that measure 65 degrees, it is reasonable that the space between us is also 65 degrees. But if that space between us is large enough, it is probable that the temperature can be 66 or 64, or even 90 or 32 degrees.
Here's another way to measure the entire surface temperature of the earth. I believe that NASA can take infrared picture of the earth and thus tell us what they see in space. But is this measuring the temperature at the surface of the earth, in the middle of the atmosphere, or at the top of the atmosphere? And how accurate is it? That is, if we get back a pixel from the infrared camera that says that the surface of the earth that corresponds to that pixel is 65 degrees, how do we know it is 65 and not 66 or 65.1 or 65.00001 degrees? And how big is that pixel? Can we rest assured that that pixel will represent the average temperature of the surface measured by that pixel, or is it measuring the maxima?
You see why this isn't a simple question. Even with our best technology, we simply don't know very well what the temperature of the entire earth is. Therefore, people who talk about the "average temperature" have to be more specific about what they mean the "average temperature", and show what methodologies they used to derive the numbers, or, if they are relying on someone else's numbers, point us to how that someone else derived their numbers.
Let's introduce the problem of time. Let's expand the question to "What is the temperature at any point on the earth at any time, past or future?" We obviously can't measure the future. So no one can tell us what will happen. They can only predict or guess what will happen based on the best information they have. This prediction may or may not be correct, and if history is any guide, scientific predictions about things that aren't very well understood tend to be wrong.
But let's look at temperatures in the past. What was the temperature at any point on the earth 5 minutes ago? 1 hour ago? 24 hours ago? 1 week ago? 1 month? 1 year? 10 years? These can all be reasonably answered based on similar methodology to answer the first question. Technology for measuring the earth's temperature really hasn't changed that much in 10 years time. (Has it? If it has, read on...)
What about 50 years ago? Did we have any spacecraft 50 years ago? No, unfortunately. How are you going to model the earth's temperature then? Obviously, there is far less data. And how can you compare the results of these measurements 50 years ago to today's?
What about 200 years ago? 200 years ago, body temperature was 100 degrees Fahrenheit on average. Either people were warmer back then, or our measurements were inaccurate. (It was the latter, if you must know.) So 200 years ago, somebody measures the temperature of Paris, France. They get 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Today, we use the same method and get 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Did the temperature increase, decrease, or stay the same? The bottom line is, we can't tell because the measurements 200 years ago were inaccurate.
What about 10,000 years ago? Now we have to find things like ice cores and tree rings to determine that. What are the errors for these measurements? How can we tell that we are i