What's with all these over-engineered solutions for the developing world? My mom still has an old foot-powered sewing machine. If people could run a sewing machine with their feet, why not a generator?
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I'm on a NT domain at work, and while Hoary's Evolution was flaky, Breezy's is total crap. It doesn't recognize the Outlook Web Interface at all. In addition, I can't access any of the shares on the network. I was able to browse them in Hoary, but couldn't write to them, even though I should have had permission. Now I can see the machines, but none of their shares. They see my machine as being in the MSHOME domain, which isn't how I configured it. Probably another instance of the GUI configuration tools ignoring what you put in their fields.
As slick as it is, Breezy still has some ridiculous bugs that have existed but not been acknowledged for at least six months. Among those that have caused me the most strife, the print setup GUI for SMB printers is horribly broken. The text fields put their contents into the wrong variables in the config file. You have to edit it by hand to get it to work. Tha took me two hours to figure out, which didn't make my boss very happy. Ubuntu is still the best distro out there, but it won't be the Windows killer I hoped it'd be unless they lay off the eye candy and fix some real bugs. Maybe this time around they'll get it right!
The article isn't very technical, but it suggests that the evidence was obtained from the suspect's computer, not from Google itself. In other words, they looked at his browser cache. I doubt Google keeps logs of every search -- at least, not for very long.
Now I can embed SVG images into my pages. Exported from OpenOffice Draw, of course. "This site best viewed with a modern browser. Get Firefox 1.5 now, you Neanderthal!"
My first foray into DB design was a PHP/MySQL site to support a meme on LiveJournal. I got 500,000 hits on the first day, and took down the entire shared server. I guess my $4.95 a month hosting wasn't designed for that.:o)
Now I'm making my living designing a Postgres DB for a major telco.
No, that is the point. C14 equilibrium is controlled by cosmic radiation, and when it comes to phenomena of that magnitude, 50,000 years is the blink of an eye. There is no evidence that there's been any significant variation in that time period. Now, there is an element of circular reasoning here: if the entire universe is actually much, much younger than we assume it to be, and we're currently on the shallow slope of some kind of negative exponential curve that affects ALL observable phenomena in the universe, then maybe you're right. But consider the possibility that, say, a million years ago the universe was aging at a much faster rate than it is now. This leads to some philosophical and metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. What does a "year" mean, if the entire universe was sped up and nobody was around to experience it anyway? Is there an absolute measure of time that isn't connected to space and matter? Either way, you still end up with the same answer: the universe has aged so many billions of years, even if it's not really that old. And as far as we're concerned, what difference does the distinction make?
As for how old the trees were... they counted the rings. Duh.:o) Year by year, each ring tested within 5% of the age they obtained by counting.
But it has been calibrated. Again, uniformitarianism is the huge assumption. However, we know exactly where the atmospheric C14 equilibrium stands today. By dating individual rings from tree cores, we know that it's been stable to within 5% for at least 2,000 years, right up to the beginning of the 20th Century. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, there's no reason to doubt that it has been just as stable for the past 50,000 years.
The sad thing is, this won't stop the FBI from doing it. They'll just request the information without a court order. Most people don't know their rights, and if an FBI agent comes up to them and tells them to provide information, they'll probably comply.
Cosmic radiation converts N14 into C14 in our biosphere. That's a fact.
Living things absorb C14 while they're alive. That's a fact.
They stop absorbing C14 when they die, and the concentration of C14 in their remains decreases with time. That's a fact.
The rate of decrease is known with great accuracy. That's a fact.
It's such a simple theory. I really don't see how anyone can criticize it... except, as I mentioned, with the possibility that the C14 equilibrium in our environment hasn't always been constant.
Oh, now we have three teams? OK. I have to admit I can't cite specific studies that were conducted as you describe. However, you might be interested to know that the earliest experiments designed to validate the theory of C14 dating were conducted on known-age samples. This page includes a chart showing how far off they were: http://www.c14dating.com/int.html. It also talks briefly about some of the more recent experiments which called C14 dating into question because it turned up ages that were younger than the known historical dates. But these have been explained (elsewhere) as contamination by newer material. For example, the Shroud of Turin was carbon dated to the mid-14th Century. However, we know that it was exposed to fire, and thus its fibers were impregnated with smoke particles containing more C14 than the linen itself. This renders the results of C14 dating inconclusive, and does not invalidate the belief that the Shroud was Christ's burial wrapping.
You may be a troll, but this has been interesting. I learned a few things about C14 dating that I can use the next time I run into a young-Earthers in real life. For example, carbon dating is only effective to about 60,000 years at best, so anyone who talks about carbon dating and dinosaurs in the same context can automatically be dismissed as an idiot. I'm interested to know where you actually think the theory of carbon dating breaks down. I bet you can't do any better than demanding a very specific test be performed, and then claiming the whole theory is invalid if it hasn't or can't be cited. I challenge you to learn how C14 dating is believed to work, and tell me where you think the theory is wrong. I doubt you have the slightest idea; you just repeat nonsense you heard at Bible Study or on talk radio.
And since we're on the Internet, I think it's rather ludicrous to talk about betting money to settle a scientific dispute. (It would be ludicrous in any context, actually.) But it makes you feel any better, I wager ten zillion dollars that I'm right!
The point is that she doesn't worry about her own child breaking into the school's computer system. It was clearly a figure of speech indicating that the computer system is so insecure that breaking into it is child's play. You twisted that phrase into an excuse to fly off on your nutty diatribe about parental responsibility. In so doing, you missed the point.
Clear now?
So what you're saying is that once we've all told our kids about integrity, there will be no reason to get worked up over what somebody could do? It will be OK to leave our front doors unlocked and our keys on the dashboard, huh? Riiight...
How about this: one team that's good at extracting samples (who won't introduce their own contamination) will extract the samples. They will, through an intermediary, give the sample to three separate teams of scientists, who must test the sample without communicating with anyone.
That's how I would design the experiment, yes. I thought that was a given, since you already specfied a double-blind test, and I agreed.
You really think they'll get the painting's date right within a margin of error?
If you mean the date the wood used to make the frame was cut down, yes. These kinds of tests have already been done many times.
Name your margin and your wager, or admit you're wrong.
What is up with you and betting money? Anyway, the margin of error would be 5%.
You refused this simple, basic test on the grounds that contamination might throw off the answer.
No, I most certainly did not. I said it would work if the scientists were careful to avoid contamination. Yes, I would agree to a double-blind test provided that condition is met. Is that clear enough for your kindergarten-level reading comprehension?
Ah, okay, cool, I gotcha, so we gotta make sure the samples are non-contaminated with anything to get radio-dating to work.
That's right. Pretty standard procedure when you're doing sensitive tests of any kind.
So, hey, um, what method do they use to verify 65 million year old samples weren't similarly contaminated?
If contamination produces an age older than the sample, it only means one thing: the contaminants were older than the sample. The contamination doesn't invalidate the technique, and it certainly doesn't support young-earth theory. (Not sure if you're a young-earther, but they're about the only ones who attack radiocarbon dating...) The bottom line is that if something tests to be 50,000 years old, then it's either 50,000 years old, or it's a mixture of materials averaging 50,000 years old.
You can keep trying if you want, but you haven't even scratched the surface with your weak, illogical arguments. Since I'm a good sport, I'll give you a tip: the biggest (and, really, only) hole in the theory of radiocarbon dating is uniformitarianism. The entire theory depends on the assumption that Carbon-14 has always been created in our biosphere at approximately the same rate. If there was a period of stronger cosmic radiation, samples from that period would appear younger. Conversely, if there were a period of weaker cosmic radiation, samples from that period would appear older. Good scientists acknowledge this possibility. So if you want to attack carbon dating, you'll have to come up with some evidence that cosmic radiation has not been uniform over the past ~100,000 years.
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What's with all these over-engineered solutions for the developing world? My mom still has an old foot-powered sewing machine. If people could run a sewing machine with their feet, why not a generator?
Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I'm on a NT domain at work, and while Hoary's Evolution was flaky, Breezy's is total crap. It doesn't recognize the Outlook Web Interface at all. In addition, I can't access any of the shares on the network. I was able to browse them in Hoary, but couldn't write to them, even though I should have had permission. Now I can see the machines, but none of their shares. They see my machine as being in the MSHOME domain, which isn't how I configured it. Probably another instance of the GUI configuration tools ignoring what you put in their fields.
As slick as it is, Breezy still has some ridiculous bugs that have existed but not been acknowledged for at least six months. Among those that have caused me the most strife, the print setup GUI for SMB printers is horribly broken. The text fields put their contents into the wrong variables in the config file. You have to edit it by hand to get it to work. Tha took me two hours to figure out, which didn't make my boss very happy. Ubuntu is still the best distro out there, but it won't be the Windows killer I hoped it'd be unless they lay off the eye candy and fix some real bugs. Maybe this time around they'll get it right!
Got a OTP, huh?
Those screenshots look exactly like Breezy. But then, what do you expect this early in the new branch?
The article isn't very technical, but it suggests that the evidence was obtained from the suspect's computer, not from Google itself. In other words, they looked at his browser cache. I doubt Google keeps logs of every search -- at least, not for very long.
Now I can embed SVG images into my pages. Exported from OpenOffice Draw, of course. "This site best viewed with a modern browser. Get Firefox 1.5 now, you Neanderthal!"
Still a lot better than, "If you're running Windows you're fucked."
Now I'm making my living designing a Postgres DB for a major telco.
Then the impaired workers should be complaining to Microsoft about their lack of support for the format.
As for how old the trees were... they counted the rings. Duh. :o) Year by year, each ring tested within 5% of the age they obtained by counting.
But it has been calibrated. Again, uniformitarianism is the huge assumption. However, we know exactly where the atmospheric C14 equilibrium stands today. By dating individual rings from tree cores, we know that it's been stable to within 5% for at least 2,000 years, right up to the beginning of the 20th Century. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, there's no reason to doubt that it has been just as stable for the past 50,000 years.
The sad thing is, this won't stop the FBI from doing it. They'll just request the information without a court order. Most people don't know their rights, and if an FBI agent comes up to them and tells them to provide information, they'll probably comply.
Cosmic radiation converts N14 into C14 in our biosphere. That's a fact.
Living things absorb C14 while they're alive. That's a fact.
They stop absorbing C14 when they die, and the concentration of C14 in their remains decreases with time. That's a fact.
The rate of decrease is known with great accuracy. That's a fact.
It's such a simple theory. I really don't see how anyone can criticize it... except, as I mentioned, with the possibility that the C14 equilibrium in our environment hasn't always been constant.
Which of these facts do you challenge?
You really work hard at being an idiot, don't you?
You may be a troll, but this has been interesting. I learned a few things about C14 dating that I can use the next time I run into a young-Earthers in real life. For example, carbon dating is only effective to about 60,000 years at best, so anyone who talks about carbon dating and dinosaurs in the same context can automatically be dismissed as an idiot. I'm interested to know where you actually think the theory of carbon dating breaks down. I bet you can't do any better than demanding a very specific test be performed, and then claiming the whole theory is invalid if it hasn't or can't be cited. I challenge you to learn how C14 dating is believed to work, and tell me where you think the theory is wrong. I doubt you have the slightest idea; you just repeat nonsense you heard at Bible Study or on talk radio.
And since we're on the Internet, I think it's rather ludicrous to talk about betting money to settle a scientific dispute. (It would be ludicrous in any context, actually.) But it makes you feel any better, I wager ten zillion dollars that I'm right!
The point is that she doesn't worry about her own child breaking into the school's computer system. It was clearly a figure of speech indicating that the computer system is so insecure that breaking into it is child's play. You twisted that phrase into an excuse to fly off on your nutty diatribe about parental responsibility. In so doing, you missed the point. Clear now?
Not one single thing you wrote is true.
So what you're saying is that once we've all told our kids about integrity, there will be no reason to get worked up over what somebody could do? It will be OK to leave our front doors unlocked and our keys on the dashboard, huh? Riiight...
That's how I would design the experiment, yes. I thought that was a given, since you already specfied a double-blind test, and I agreed.
You really think they'll get the painting's date right within a margin of error?
If you mean the date the wood used to make the frame was cut down, yes. These kinds of tests have already been done many times.
Name your margin and your wager, or admit you're wrong.
What is up with you and betting money? Anyway, the margin of error would be 5%.
No, I most certainly did not. I said it would work if the scientists were careful to avoid contamination. Yes, I would agree to a double-blind test provided that condition is met. Is that clear enough for your kindergarten-level reading comprehension?
That's right. Pretty standard procedure when you're doing sensitive tests of any kind.
So, hey, um, what method do they use to verify 65 million year old samples weren't similarly contaminated?
If contamination produces an age older than the sample, it only means one thing: the contaminants were older than the sample. The contamination doesn't invalidate the technique, and it certainly doesn't support young-earth theory. (Not sure if you're a young-earther, but they're about the only ones who attack radiocarbon dating...) The bottom line is that if something tests to be 50,000 years old, then it's either 50,000 years old, or it's a mixture of materials averaging 50,000 years old.
You can keep trying if you want, but you haven't even scratched the surface with your weak, illogical arguments. Since I'm a good sport, I'll give you a tip: the biggest (and, really, only) hole in the theory of radiocarbon dating is uniformitarianism. The entire theory depends on the assumption that Carbon-14 has always been created in our biosphere at approximately the same rate. If there was a period of stronger cosmic radiation, samples from that period would appear younger. Conversely, if there were a period of weaker cosmic radiation, samples from that period would appear older. Good scientists acknowledge this possibility. So if you want to attack carbon dating, you'll have to come up with some evidence that cosmic radiation has not been uniform over the past ~100,000 years.
...and the birth of Valentine Michael Smith.
Wow, you completely missed the point.
If the sample tested wasn't contaminated with varnish or anything like that, then yes, I'd expect the results to be very consistent.