I write fiction, so I look up all sorts of wierd things on the Internet. At one point I was researching the layout and construction of buildings at Cape Canaveral because one of my stories is about people stealing the space shuttle just before a category six hurricane. It wouldn't be hard for a paranoid sort to imagine that I was planning some attack.
Anyone remember the movie, "The Man with One Red Shoe?" Anyone can appear guilty if placed under enough scrutiny.
We need to fight back. We are losing the war on terror, because we are helping the terrorists. We are allowing our representatives to take away our liberties in exchange for empty promises of security. If we allow this to keep going forward, we'll be giving up our liberty for good. To paraphrase an old quote, all it takes for evil to triumph is for the rest of us to do nothing.
The U.S. has enemies and we need to be vigilant in our defense against them. But how is this change going help protect us? The sheer volume of information being kept will be prohibitive. Those that are really up to mischief will find a way around this monitoring. The rest of us will have our every experience on the web left open to scrutiny.
I can easily imagine people writing viruses that cause your computer to visit all sorts of questionable sites, so that millions of innocent people now have profiles that match those of the terrorists the government is looking for.
I don't know how to solve the problem of terrorism, but I do know that taking away my rights isn't part of the solution. The U.S. needs to stand as a beacon of liberty. We should be the one place in the world where you can be sure that you are in no danger from the government if you have done nothing wrong.
Fight back. Vote against anyone who tries to take away your rights, and remember, the Bill of Rights was meant to protect the most important rights, not to list the only rights you have.
There is an excellent little book, Global Warming, A Very Short Introduction, by Mark Maslin, which I just read. The author is one of the scientists doing research and it will clear up lots of questions about Global Warming.
The bottom line is, it's real and it's going to be the biggest challenge we face over the next century, possibly longer. The best way to stop it is by lowering our production of green house gases, mostly CO2 by 60-80%. That will cost 2-3% of the World GDP. That's a lot of money, but since the World's economy routinely grows at about 2-3% per year, you're trading off one year's growth to mediate a terrible problem.
Even if we cease polluting right now, we'll have to live with some effects. We've already done significant damage to the climate and it may take a very long time for things to return to what we think of as being normal.
It's true that cleaning up factories so they no longer emit so much sulfer dioxide means more sunlight gets through, but acid rain was a pretty serious problem. It's also true that by changing land use and replanting forests, we'll reduce the amount of iron that gets into the oceans, reducing it's capacity to take up extra CO2. But in the long term, the clean up has positive effects that outway the additions to the problem.
Chapter 7 is one of the scariest and most interesting. Maslin talks about the surprises that may be in store for us. For instance, the possibility that the extra fresh water entering the oceans will shut down the Antarctic Bottom Water (AABM) which could cause the North Atlantic Deep Water to expand. Since the NADW is less dense than the AABM, and since clathrates, which hold enormous reserves of Methane, are kept stable by high pressure and low temperatures, that could result in the release of billions of tons of Methane. Methane is an extremely potent green-house gas. There is evidence that this has happened in the past in an explosive slump. Just the release itself may have caused tsunamis up to 15 meters high. The additional methane would greatly accelerate the global warming process.
There are people fighting hard to stop these scientists from talking about their work. They are putting everyone at risk, but primarily they are putting those who are least able to adapt, the poor, at risk. It's countries like Bangladesh and those in Pacifica that will bear the brunt of the damage from Global Warming.
Of course, we'll wind up with plenty of problems here in the U.S. Not the least of which will be the blame that will be placed on us by everyone in the world who loses a family member because of the changing climate. If you think we had security problems before, just wait. It's no secret that the U.S. produces over 25% of the CO2 pollution and that we have only 5% of the World's population.
What makes the problem even harder is that countries like China and India are determined to secure the same economic advantages for their citizens that we in the U.S. enjoy. Those advantages, like a car for every family, will come with a huge increase in energy production and accompanying pollution. If ever we needed a clean safe replacement for oil, it's now.
I loved both of the Knights of the Old Republic games. The whole game was one big quest that culminated in an epic battle. Those are the only Star Wars games that really made me feel like I was living in the Star Wars universe.
Related Note: I like the quests in Dungeons and Dragons Online a lot better than most MMORPGs. If you pay attention, some of them have some great story lines, especially the Catacombs.
The irony of the NRA is that they continually argue that guns are vitally important to protecting our rights, but they've never used guns to achieve their aims. Instead, they show just how effective writing letters, donating money, and voting on the issues can really be.
This is one of the sanest most sensible comments I've ever seen on any forum.
As the poster says, voting makes a difference. It makes a difference at EVERY LEVEL of government. That means it's important that you know who you are really voting for in your local elections, your state elections, and the national elections. Don't just pull the party lever.
To be fair, it's also important to realize that not all Republicans are determined to destroy the Bill of Rights and not all Democrats are buddies with the ACLU. We need to pay careful attention to the record of anyone who asks for our vote. If they don't have a record, we better find out who their friends and supporters are.
Of course, if we allow bills like the one proposed to sail through the Congress unopposed, we'll send the message that none of us care about our rights. We're just terrified that we'll hear about the dirty stuff our President is doing in the name of keeping us safe. Eventually, Bush and his minions will find a way to shut down all opposition.
Believe it or not, you and your vote are the only way to stop this. I'm probably messing up the quote, but someone once said that all that is needed for evil to triumph is for the good to do nothing. Protecting our rights is not the responsibility of politicians, or the ACLU, it's our responsibility. If we don't do it, we deserve to lose them.
Because politicians don't like public scrutiny. They suddenly have an excuse to close off access for information which could be used to hold them accountable or embrassass them. They like to make decisions behind closed doors which benefit themselves and their supporters and not have the nosey public interfering, heaven forbid the information could be used to toss them from office.
Exactly right.
Democracy can't work in secrecy. In terms of government information, the only thing that absolutely must remain secret is who you voted for at the ballot box. Everything else should be weighed very carefully.
While there are some legitimate security concerns over some information, you don't have to think too hard to find excuses to classify anything you want to cover up. Don't want people to know you planned on invading Iraq all along? Classify it. Want to keep the public from learning about mistakes and coruption in the new Homeland Security Department? Eliminate whistleblower protection laws and classify the reports that reveal mistakes.
We could take the easy out and blame this all on President Bush who seems reluctant to hear anything he doesn't want to hear. Certainly, he has plenty of faults and seems to do a worse job every day. We could blame a flawed election system that allowed the Supreme Court to appoint Bush President in 2000 and left us wondering about the mistmatch between poll results and voting results in key states in 2004. But the real blame belongs squarely on the shoulders of the American Public. Because, to tell the truth, we've sent a clear message that we value security, even false security, over freedom. We don't want to question our election process, because we're afraid we'll find out that we've been manipulated all along and never really had a voice. We want to continue on in our energy guzzling lifestyles no matter how many Americans and foreign nationals have to die to insure the flow of that oil.
If reading this makes you angry and you want to scream out at me that I'm wrong, then good! Do something to demonstrate that I'm an idiot. Call your congressional representatives. Yell at them. Vote in every election like it matters, because it does. Get involved in the political system and take it back. Insist that talking about politics at parties isn't rude, it's vital to protecting our way of life. Get outraged about our complacency, which is destroying the values the Constitution was set up to protect.
Going to an asteroid made a lot of sense. The asteroid Amun, which is the smallest known metallic asteroid near Earth, has over a trillion dollars worth of metals. Mining it would pay back a hundred fold on the cost of developing the technology to do so. Instead, we have another pie-in-the-sky mission of going back to the Moon and on to Mars with no payback. It will just cost a fortune.
I'm all for going to the Moon and on to Mars, but I want a sustainable space program. I want to see us go out to space and develop the resources that are out there.
As has been pointed out on this thread, the Shuttle isn't the best way to do this. We need safe reliable transportation to space at a reasonable cost. I think the best answer is a space elevator. The folks over at www.liftport.com are working on actually building one -- well actually four of them. If LiftPort accomplishes it's goals, it will have four space elevators that will be able to carry a shuttle load of cargo to orbit on a WEEKLY basis. Since the elevator will extend out sixty thousand miles, it will also serve as an excellent launching platform for missions to anywhere in the inner solar system. The Earth's own momentum will supply the initial velocity needed.
Why would a chinese or indian buy an American product when they can buy something made in their own country by people making one tenth what our workers make?
Globalization works great for the rich people. It forces their entire workforce to take pay and benefit cuts in order to eek out a living. At the same time, the people who sit on the top of the pile are getting tax cuts and crying about how unfair it is that they be asked to contribute anything to the society that made them rich in the first place.
Again, this shows that Bush and his ilk have no connection with the citizens of this country.
And the fact that it winds up costing us even more tax money than if it had remained within the government. The incredible exploding deficit shows just how effective this privatization is.
It seems obvious that this is all some kind of deal done with the Arabs as part of some larger negotiation. Perhaps Bush believes that he can buy the terrorists off by turning over all our security to their friends. It makes about as much sense as invading Iraq with no plan for what to do after the government is toppled.
Unfortunately, we'll never know, since Bush seems to have established that he, as President, is entitled to complete privacy in how he runs the government, and we, the lowly citizens, have no privacy at all, since he's allowed to tap our phones without even having to consult with a judge.
It depends on the design. The classic designs that have been used in the U.S. have a serious problem. If coolent flow fails, the reactor can melt down.
Pebble bed reactors are designed to fail safely. If the flow of coolent stops, so does the reaction. The fuel is safely encased in tennis ball-sized graphite "pebbles" which are dropped in the top of the reactor and retrieved at the bottom. For there to be a release of the radioactive material, the pebble has to be broken open. Even if that happens, the amount that's released is very tiny.
There is a problem with fire, since the pebbles are graphite, but fire is a lot easier to deal with than a melt-down.
The point is that we need nuclear power in order to ween ourselves off of oil, but we also need to demand that safe reactor designs are used.
What sounds wrong to me is the claim that since cells protect themselves against change, they won't change slowly over time. It's well documented that radiation and chemicals can cause mutations, despite whatver protective measures the cells have. It's those mutations that have been thought to drive evolution. I'm not a paleontologist or anything, but it seems that all these guys are saying is that there are additional environmental stressors that might contribute to sudden change. As others have noted, this sounds like a rehash of Puntuated Equilibrium. When there are big changes in the environment, lots of species die off and you see lots of mutations. Eventually, the beneficial mutations create new species that fill in the gaps left by the ones that died off, or fill in new niches that have been created.
We're living through a dramatic extinction event right now. Species are dying out at an incredible rate because of the way we have polluted the environment and destroyed habitats. Polar bears will be extinct by the end of the century because of global warming. The ice floes they depend on are disappearing. Amphibians have been dying out at an unprecedented rate. It's become a much rarer thing to find frogs and toads in the average suburban backyard now.
We can also observe the adaptation of existing species to new environments: peregrine falcons in New York City, alligators in golf courses, skunks in suburbs. I've even noticed a species of moth in Florida that is colored exactly the same as the white concrete used around pools.
I don't think that any modern biologist believes that Darwin understood everything about evolution, but what these guys are proposing isn't all that revolutionary and it certainly doesn't 'refute' Darwin.
NASA still has a tiny budget, less than 1% of the entire federal budget and that budget has been shrinking, in real terms, for the past several administrations. NASA doesn't have any clear mission that is actually feasible with the current funding levels. Their scientists aren't allowed to speak on any controversial matters without having an administration handler present.
When JFK announced that we were going back to the moon, people believed him, because it was clear he meant it. How many of you really believe that Bush has any intention of us going back to the Moon? He seems to have some fantasy about going back to the Apollo days, one that apparently now involves scraping decades of advancement and retreating to using the original engines designed for Apollo.
What does it say about our space program when we are going backwards in terms of the technology we use, rather than forward?
I believe that NASA should be used to reach for the stars and develop technology that can be exploited by private enterprise to create a viable economic interest in space and space exploration. NASA should be offering prizes for development of specific technological goals that will eventually allow us to exploit the resources available on asteroids and the Moon. Once we can do that, the rest of space exploration will take care of itself. There are enough resources available in space that if we can develop economically viable access, it will transform the world economy.
Just a single average-sized metallic asteroid has enough iron to supply the world industries for years. Comets can supply water. The Moon can supply Helium-Three, an isotope that may promise clean nuclear fusion. The Moon might also have water at the poles, and definately has plenty of silicon and oxygen.
The problem is we need a leader that actually understands the economics involved and is truley capable of motivating people.
...in the same office? The one who uses the company phone location service to pursue and harass women in the office. What about the abusive husband who works for the same company as his wife and locates the women's shelter because of the company cell phone? As can be demonstrated by many abuses, companies aren't very good at keeping this kind of data protected from people that shouldn't have it. It's going to end up causing a certain amount of grief and accompanying lawsuits.
I'm sure that many people will accept this kind of intrusion into their privacy, simply because it will be a condition of employment. That giant stick that has been bashing holes in our personal privacy for some time now.
This technology will undoubtedly provide some useful services, but it will also be abused. My guess is that it will take quite a lot of abuse before proper rules and restrictions are put in place so that people can control when they are being monitored.
If we want to keep the Internet as open as it is, we're all going to have to fight. We can't count on corporations to do it for us. We should be calling and writing our representatives.
Verizon, back when it was GTE, wrote most of the Telecommunications Act. I don't think that most of the legislators who voted on it knew what was in it. More and more that's the case. It's the companies that write the legislation. The people we send to congress simply don't have the technical expertise and apparently don't make sure they have the staffers that do.
If you ever wonder why you don't have the government you want. You should ask yourself when was the last time you communicated your desires to your elected officials and when did you last vote.
How about this for devastating effects? Let's ignore, for the moment, the billion or so people that will be displaced by rising sea levels. We'll also ignore the fact that others will starve and that lots of animals will go extinct. Instead, lets talk about tropical storms and their economic effects.
The Atlantic Hurricane season lasted a bit longer than usual in 2005. It didn't really end until 12/31, rather than in November, like it's supposed to. The reason is because there was still enough warm water to feed the formation of tropical storms. As the global temperature continues to rise, the water in the tropics will stay warmer longer. If the ocean conveyor, the great heat engine that transfers much of the heat from the tropics northward, shuts down, the water in the tropics will be even hotter, even longer. Eventually there will be no end to the storm season. The water in the tropics will always be hot enough to support the formation of tropical storms. Those storms will do damage, just like they do now.
It's possible there are physical limits on the number of storms that can form. But it looks to me like it's possible to have one a week. And since there will be more heat available, it's possible those storms will be more violent as a result.
I doubt we'll have to wait twenty years to see this kind of stuff happen. Weather is, by nature (no pun intended), chaotic. It's sensitive to initial conditions. Small changes can result in dramatic effects. Tropical storms are a perfect example. Below the magic temperature (about 80F if I remember correctly), storms lose power and die. Above it, and they grow.
Most scientists have been unwilling to address the scariest scenerio, that the effects of global warming won't be linear. What happens if they are geometric, or exponential? That could mean that we aren't looking at problems that will face our grandchildren, but problems which are only a decade or so down the road.
Anyone who believes that it's safe to tinker with a chaotic system to the extent of increasing the concentration of a greenhouse gas by over 50% and doesn't expect there to be some pretty dramatic results, is someone who either doesn't understand the science or is willfully ignoring it. This isn't a philosophical debate. No one wins this argument, because the effects of global warming will play themselves out according to nature's laws, not our belief systems. All we can effect is our response to the crisis. What's more, even if we are only partially responsible for the warming, it will likely have terrible consequences and we should do what we can to mediate them.
Control over the election of the President of the United States is probably the biggest cash cow you could have. Couple that with control over the elections of the Congress, and you have a way to influence how a trillion dollar budget is spent. Now how much would you pay?
The only thing stopping wholesale cheating is the use of exit polls, and even they weren't enough in the last presidential election. If the exit polls and actual poll results differ by 30%, people will get upset. In reality, even a small deviation should raise alarm flags and cause a recount, except with the Diebold system there's no way to do that!
Ultimately, this isn't Diebold's fault. It's the fault of a public that has become disconnected from the political system. It's become rude to discuss politics. Those who do discuss things are so polarized that it alienates the rest of us. The result is that most people don't care. They no longer get excited about the fraud and cheating that's discovered. They've come to expect it.
The Press used to play an important role in keeping the public informed, but now the huge media companies are more concerned with protecting their bottom line than in providing objective reporting. In the last 30 years, the FCC has steadily increased the share of local markets that can be controlled by a single company, meaning there is little or no real competition in many major markets. The same company can own the radio, television and newspapers. If a story might hurt the interests of the larger corporate entity, do you think the average editor is going to risk his career?
People need to be reminded that we have a pluralistic society, meaning that, at least in theory, we tolerate people who have ideas we don't agree with. That's what has made us a great society. It's important that we reestablish that as an important cultural value. It should be okay to discuss politics at parties without causing fist fights. Dissent at the dinner table should be met with well reasoned arguments, not shouts.
Unlike you, I don't believe that Bush acted in good faith. Every president has access to legal counsel to warn him when he is going beyond the bounds of his constitutional powers. If Bush wasn't warned, than his counsel is incompetant.
I believe that Bush was advised by his political advisors to extend his powers in the hope of regaining some of the executive power that was lost after the Nixon debacle. It's not difficult for federal agents to get court orders to place wiretaps when they are needed. This was just another place where Bush could try to increase the power of the presidency.
I have one of the older readers, the RCA device. There were four major problems with it. It cost too much, the book selection wasn't there, the display was weak, and I couldn't upload my own files to it. The last was what really got me ticked off. Especially since the original advertising implied I could load my own files. If I got the story right, it was a "security" update that closed down that capability.
For me, and e-book will have to have a great display, be durable enough to give to a grade schooler, and must allow me to upload my own content. I want to be able to go to the Gutenberg Project and download some of the free classics that are stored there. I can't see why I should have to pay for books that are out of copyright to be put in some proprietary format.
The fact that Sony is making this device worries me a lot. The company has shown it can't be trusted with the whole root kit fiasco. Unfortunatly, I don't see consumers taking any concrete action to show their displeasure. Back in the 70's, I would have expected a boycott of Sony products, but now people just shrug off whatever these companies do. It's sad.
I'll probably wait until someone other than Sony comes out with a reader.
Microsoft still has plenty of venom and clout. It's still a dangerous company to deal with and one that is exerting a damaging influence on our economy and the advancement of our technology in general.
MS still takes every opportunity to attack open source software and open standards in general. Look, for instance, at the incredible attack that MS has launched, via it's pet columnists, at Mr. Quinn in Massecheusetts, who had the temerity to recommend that MA insist that the governement switch to software that used open document format, so that MS couldn't force the state to upgrade by changing file formats. Mr. Quinn has probably saved the MA taxpayers, like myself, untold amounts of money, and in return he's been attacked over and over in the press.
MS is patenting everything it can think of, obvious or not, in an attempt to preempt competition. Even if the patents are eventually overturned, they can be used to threaten software and hardware developers, retarding the advancement of technology in all the areas MS is getting patents in.
I think it's more likely that MS will become increasingly dangerous the more that Bill Gates retreats from management of the company. Ballmer has already shown that he is willing to do almost anything to increase the bottom line, legal or not.
MS still needs to be split up. It is still a monopoly and still defies the courts in the U.S. and Europe by continuing it's monopolistic practices.
But of course, only those laws that might cause it to lose substantial business, or cooperation on reducing piracy of it's products. And hey, if those laws result in the loss of some individual's basic human rights, what does Mr. Bill care?
As a nation, we should stand for freedom, most especially for freedom of speech, because that's the one freedom from which all the others come. As long as we can all talk, we don't necessarily have to resort to violence to bring about change.
Any corporation organized in the U.S. has a moral responsibility to act ethically as any other good U.S. citizen. I think that involves some civil disobedience when it comes to laws that deny the freedom of speech to citizens in other countries. If Microsoft wants to cater to China, it should move there. I wonder how Bill Gates will feel about freedom of speech then?
As the conservatives in our country are so fond of saying, "Freedom isn't Free." If we aren't willing to pay the price, we don't deserve it. That applies just as much to our corporate citizens as to anyone else. Perhaps given the special privileges corporations incresingly enjoy, they should bear a greater burden of that cost.
Perhaps the best measure of security would include the number of vulnerabilities, their priority, and the avg time to fix them once discovered. That might get us a nice measure for open source OSes where the vulnerabilites can be found by inspection, but it wouldn't help much with Windows.
It also might be good to take into consideration the number of users affected. Because of it's market dominance, every Windows vulnerability affects a far greater population than a vulnerability in any other OS, thus all those vulnerabilities have a higher overall cost to the computing population.
You are directly hurting the author by stealing his book. Just because it isn't available in the format you desire (i.e., price), doesn't give you the right to steal it. It's still theft. Authors are paid royalties based on the purchase price of the books. Hardcover books are the ones that really pay the rent, for those authors lucky enough to get into hardcover. This is exactly the same as you lifting the book off the rack at the bookstore and walking out with it.
I'm working on a book myself, hoping to become a writer. I actually support Googles idea of scanning books in so people can find where information is located. I also think it would be a good idea to make it easier to purchase books electronically. I'm hopeful that the developments by eInk will make it possible to read books on a book-size device soon. (Something with enough contrast that you can read it in the park. It should cost less than $100, too.)
With music, you might be able to hide behind the argument that you're only hurting the publishers who are, in turn, taking advantage of your favorite artists. You can't use that argument when you steal books, since authors are paid based on retail sales.
I don't support any of the draconian actions taken by the RIAA or MPAA. I don't want to turn anyone into a crook with new laws. But that doesn't mean that I think it's okay for you to steal books and music online. At least with books, if enough are stolen, the writer that you love so much won't be able to afford to continue to write. Very few writers can support themselves as it is, because book prices are quite low.
Then perhaps these corporations should step up to the plate and actually invest in the school systems. One of the reasons plants get built overseas is to avoid taxes. It's those taxes that would pay for the education that these companies keep bemoaning. If these companies kept jobs here in the U.S. the property taxes paid by high tech employees would also contribute. Many of those employees would also contribute to better education by sending their children to private schools, helping those schools improve.
If the jobs go overseas, where exactly is the money for education supposed to come from, all the people flipping burgers at fast food jobs?
It's possible to create usable specifications
on
Linus Says No to 'Specs'
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· Score: 2, Interesting
But one of the most important things to do when creating one is make sure that each and every element of the specification is testable. That prevents you from wandering off into wild-eyed ivory tower land. I know, because I've been very successful at writing specications documents. On the most successful one, we had 4 bugs at the end of a three month development effort. We were on time and under budget. On the previous iteration of the system, it took three years, was over six months late, and had over 300 bugs that took three months to stomp. Granted, a good specification was not the only factor. I was working with an excellent development team and a manager who enforced good practices, such as complete code reviews for every piece of code before it was checked in.
BTW, It's not unusual for Linus to say some pretty bizarre things. Often they are taken out of context, but sometimes, like any other human, he's flat out wrong. [ waiting for the god of programming to strike me down... ]
Anyone who blindly accepts statements made by someone else should become a religious disciple, not a programmer. If you want to be a good coder, investigate and make up your own mind, don't let people tell you what to believe.
Slashdot Mirror
I write fiction, so I look up all sorts of wierd things on the Internet. At one point I was researching the layout and construction of buildings at Cape Canaveral because one of my stories is about people stealing the space shuttle just before a category six hurricane. It wouldn't be hard for a paranoid sort to imagine that I was planning some attack.
Anyone remember the movie, "The Man with One Red Shoe?" Anyone can appear guilty if placed under enough scrutiny.
We need to fight back. We are losing the war on terror, because we are helping the terrorists. We are allowing our representatives to take away our liberties in exchange for empty promises of security. If we allow this to keep going forward, we'll be giving up our liberty for good. To paraphrase an old quote, all it takes for evil to triumph is for the rest of us to do nothing.
The U.S. has enemies and we need to be vigilant in our defense against them. But how is this change going help protect us? The sheer volume of information being kept will be prohibitive. Those that are really up to mischief will find a way around this monitoring. The rest of us will have our every experience on the web left open to scrutiny.
I can easily imagine people writing viruses that cause your computer to visit all sorts of questionable sites, so that millions of innocent people now have profiles that match those of the terrorists the government is looking for.
I don't know how to solve the problem of terrorism, but I do know that taking away my rights isn't part of the solution. The U.S. needs to stand as a beacon of liberty. We should be the one place in the world where you can be sure that you are in no danger from the government if you have done nothing wrong.
Fight back. Vote against anyone who tries to take away your rights, and remember, the Bill of Rights was meant to protect the most important rights, not to list the only rights you have.
There is an excellent little book, Global Warming, A Very Short Introduction, by Mark Maslin, which I just read. The author is one of the scientists doing research and it will clear up lots of questions about Global Warming.
The bottom line is, it's real and it's going to be the biggest challenge we face over the next century, possibly longer. The best way to stop it is by lowering our production of green house gases, mostly CO2 by 60-80%. That will cost 2-3% of the World GDP. That's a lot of money, but since the World's economy routinely grows at about 2-3% per year, you're trading off one year's growth to mediate a terrible problem.
Even if we cease polluting right now, we'll have to live with some effects. We've already done significant damage to the climate and it may take a very long time for things to return to what we think of as being normal.
It's true that cleaning up factories so they no longer emit so much sulfer dioxide means more sunlight gets through, but acid rain was a pretty serious problem. It's also true that by changing land use and replanting forests, we'll reduce the amount of iron that gets into the oceans, reducing it's capacity to take up extra CO2. But in the long term, the clean up has positive effects that outway the additions to the problem.
Chapter 7 is one of the scariest and most interesting. Maslin talks about the surprises that may be in store for us. For instance, the possibility that the extra fresh water entering the oceans will shut down the Antarctic Bottom Water (AABM) which could cause the North Atlantic Deep Water to expand. Since the NADW is less dense than the AABM, and since clathrates, which hold enormous reserves of Methane, are kept stable by high pressure and low temperatures, that could result in the release of billions of tons of Methane. Methane is an extremely potent green-house gas. There is evidence that this has happened in the past in an explosive slump. Just the release itself may have caused tsunamis up to 15 meters high. The additional methane would greatly accelerate the global warming process.
There are people fighting hard to stop these scientists from talking about their work. They are putting everyone at risk, but primarily they are putting those who are least able to adapt, the poor, at risk. It's countries like Bangladesh and those in Pacifica that will bear the brunt of the damage from Global Warming.
Of course, we'll wind up with plenty of problems here in the U.S. Not the least of which will be the blame that will be placed on us by everyone in the world who loses a family member because of the changing climate. If you think we had security problems before, just wait. It's no secret that the U.S. produces over 25% of the CO2 pollution and that we have only 5% of the World's population.
What makes the problem even harder is that countries like China and India are determined to secure the same economic advantages for their citizens that we in the U.S. enjoy. Those advantages, like a car for every family, will come with a huge increase in energy production and accompanying pollution. If ever we needed a clean safe replacement for oil, it's now.
I loved both of the Knights of the Old Republic games. The whole game was one big quest that culminated in an epic battle. Those are the only Star Wars games that really made me feel like I was living in the Star Wars universe.
Related Note: I like the quests in Dungeons and Dragons Online a lot better than most MMORPGs. If you pay attention, some of them have some great story lines, especially the Catacombs.
The irony of the NRA is that they continually argue that guns are vitally important to protecting our rights, but they've never used guns to achieve their aims. Instead, they show just how effective writing letters, donating money, and voting on the issues can really be.
This is one of the sanest most sensible comments I've ever seen on any forum.
As the poster says, voting makes a difference. It makes a difference at EVERY LEVEL of government. That means it's important that you know who you are really voting for in your local elections, your state elections, and the national elections. Don't just pull the party lever.
To be fair, it's also important to realize that not all Republicans are determined to destroy the Bill of Rights and not all Democrats are buddies with the ACLU. We need to pay careful attention to the record of anyone who asks for our vote. If they don't have a record, we better find out who their friends and supporters are.
Of course, if we allow bills like the one proposed to sail through the Congress unopposed, we'll send the message that none of us care about our rights. We're just terrified that we'll hear about the dirty stuff our President is doing in the name of keeping us safe. Eventually, Bush and his minions will find a way to shut down all opposition.
Believe it or not, you and your vote are the only way to stop this. I'm probably messing up the quote, but someone once said that all that is needed for evil to triumph is for the good to do nothing. Protecting our rights is not the responsibility of politicians, or the ACLU, it's our responsibility. If we don't do it, we deserve to lose them.
Because politicians don't like public scrutiny. They suddenly have an excuse to close off access for information which could be used to hold them accountable or embrassass them. They like to make decisions behind closed doors which benefit themselves and their supporters and not have the nosey public interfering, heaven forbid the information could be used to toss them from office.
Exactly right.
Democracy can't work in secrecy. In terms of government information, the only thing that absolutely must remain secret is who you voted for at the ballot box. Everything else should be weighed very carefully.
While there are some legitimate security concerns over some information, you don't have to think too hard to find excuses to classify anything you want to cover up. Don't want people to know you planned on invading Iraq all along? Classify it. Want to keep the public from learning about mistakes and coruption in the new Homeland Security Department? Eliminate whistleblower protection laws and classify the reports that reveal mistakes.
We could take the easy out and blame this all on President Bush who seems reluctant to hear anything he doesn't want to hear. Certainly, he has plenty of faults and seems to do a worse job every day. We could blame a flawed election system that allowed the Supreme Court to appoint Bush President in 2000 and left us wondering about the mistmatch between poll results and voting results in key states in 2004. But the real blame belongs squarely on the shoulders of the American Public. Because, to tell the truth, we've sent a clear message that we value security, even false security, over freedom. We don't want to question our election process, because we're afraid we'll find out that we've been manipulated all along and never really had a voice. We want to continue on in our energy guzzling lifestyles no matter how many Americans and foreign nationals have to die to insure the flow of that oil.
If reading this makes you angry and you want to scream out at me that I'm wrong, then good! Do something to demonstrate that I'm an idiot. Call your congressional representatives. Yell at them. Vote in every election like it matters, because it does. Get involved in the political system and take it back. Insist that talking about politics at parties isn't rude, it's vital to protecting our way of life. Get outraged about our complacency, which is destroying the values the Constitution was set up to protect.
Going to an asteroid made a lot of sense. The asteroid Amun, which is the smallest known metallic asteroid near Earth, has over a trillion dollars worth of metals. Mining it would pay back a hundred fold on the cost of developing the technology to do so. Instead, we have another pie-in-the-sky mission of going back to the Moon and on to Mars with no payback. It will just cost a fortune.
I'm all for going to the Moon and on to Mars, but I want a sustainable space program. I want to see us go out to space and develop the resources that are out there.
As has been pointed out on this thread, the Shuttle isn't the best way to do this. We need safe reliable transportation to space at a reasonable cost. I think the best answer is a space elevator. The folks over at www.liftport.com are working on actually building one -- well actually four of them. If LiftPort accomplishes it's goals, it will have four space elevators that will be able to carry a shuttle load of cargo to orbit on a WEEKLY basis. Since the elevator will extend out sixty thousand miles, it will also serve as an excellent launching platform for missions to anywhere in the inner solar system. The Earth's own momentum will supply the initial velocity needed.
Why would a chinese or indian buy an American product when they can buy something made in their own country by people making one tenth what our workers make?
Globalization works great for the rich people. It forces their entire workforce to take pay and benefit cuts in order to eek out a living. At the same time, the people who sit on the top of the pile are getting tax cuts and crying about how unfair it is that they be asked to contribute anything to the society that made them rich in the first place.
Again, this shows that Bush and his ilk have no connection with the citizens of this country.
And the fact that it winds up costing us even more tax money than if it had remained within the government. The incredible exploding deficit shows just how effective this privatization is.
It seems obvious that this is all some kind of deal done with the Arabs as part of some larger negotiation. Perhaps Bush believes that he can buy the terrorists off by turning over all our security to their friends. It makes about as much sense as invading Iraq with no plan for what to do after the government is toppled.
Unfortunately, we'll never know, since Bush seems to have established that he, as President, is entitled to complete privacy in how he runs the government, and we, the lowly citizens, have no privacy at all, since he's allowed to tap our phones without even having to consult with a judge.
It depends on the design. The classic designs that have been used in the U.S. have a serious problem. If coolent flow fails, the reactor can melt down.
Pebble bed reactors are designed to fail safely. If the flow of coolent stops, so does the reaction. The fuel is safely encased in tennis ball-sized graphite "pebbles" which are dropped in the top of the reactor and retrieved at the bottom. For there to be a release of the radioactive material, the pebble has to be broken open. Even if that happens, the amount that's released is very tiny.
There is a problem with fire, since the pebbles are graphite, but fire is a lot easier to deal with than a melt-down.
The point is that we need nuclear power in order to ween ourselves off of oil, but we also need to demand that safe reactor designs are used.
What I'd like to know is, does it run Dungeons & Dragons Online? I've been playing in the beta for DDO for months and I really enjoy the game.
The only reason I keep Windows is for games. I'd love it if I could finally get away from Windows once and for all.
What sounds wrong to me is the claim that since cells protect themselves against change, they won't change slowly over time. It's well documented that radiation and chemicals can cause mutations, despite whatver protective measures the cells have. It's those mutations that have been thought to drive evolution. I'm not a paleontologist or anything, but it seems that all these guys are saying is that there are additional environmental stressors that might contribute to sudden change. As others have noted, this sounds like a rehash of Puntuated Equilibrium. When there are big changes in the environment, lots of species die off and you see lots of mutations. Eventually, the beneficial mutations create new species that fill in the gaps left by the ones that died off, or fill in new niches that have been created.
We're living through a dramatic extinction event right now. Species are dying out at an incredible rate because of the way we have polluted the environment and destroyed habitats. Polar bears will be extinct by the end of the century because of global warming. The ice floes they depend on are disappearing. Amphibians have been dying out at an unprecedented rate. It's become a much rarer thing to find frogs and toads in the average suburban backyard now.
We can also observe the adaptation of existing species to new environments: peregrine falcons in New York City, alligators in golf courses, skunks in suburbs. I've even noticed a species of moth in Florida that is colored exactly the same as the white concrete used around pools.
I don't think that any modern biologist believes that Darwin understood everything about evolution, but what these guys are proposing isn't all that revolutionary and it certainly doesn't 'refute' Darwin.
Right?
NASA still has a tiny budget, less than 1% of the entire federal budget and that budget has been shrinking, in real terms, for the past several administrations. NASA doesn't have any clear mission that is actually feasible with the current funding levels. Their scientists aren't allowed to speak on any controversial matters without having an administration handler present.
When JFK announced that we were going back to the moon, people believed him, because it was clear he meant it. How many of you really believe that Bush has any intention of us going back to the Moon? He seems to have some fantasy about going back to the Apollo days, one that apparently now involves scraping decades of advancement and retreating to using the original engines designed for Apollo.
What does it say about our space program when we are going backwards in terms of the technology we use, rather than forward?
I believe that NASA should be used to reach for the stars and develop technology that can be exploited by private enterprise to create a viable economic interest in space and space exploration. NASA should be offering prizes for development of specific technological goals that will eventually allow us to exploit the resources available on asteroids and the Moon. Once we can do that, the rest of space exploration will take care of itself. There are enough resources available in space that if we can develop economically viable access, it will transform the world economy.
Just a single average-sized metallic asteroid has enough iron to supply the world industries for years. Comets can supply water. The Moon can supply Helium-Three, an isotope that may promise clean nuclear fusion. The Moon might also have water at the poles, and definately has plenty of silicon and oxygen.
The problem is we need a leader that actually understands the economics involved and is truley capable of motivating people.
...in the same office? The one who uses the company phone location service to pursue and harass women in the office. What about the abusive husband who works for the same company as his wife and locates the women's shelter because of the company cell phone? As can be demonstrated by many abuses, companies aren't very good at keeping this kind of data protected from people that shouldn't have it. It's going to end up causing a certain amount of grief and accompanying lawsuits.
I'm sure that many people will accept this kind of intrusion into their privacy, simply because it will be a condition of employment. That giant stick that has been bashing holes in our personal privacy for some time now.
This technology will undoubtedly provide some useful services, but it will also be abused. My guess is that it will take quite a lot of abuse before proper rules and restrictions are put in place so that people can control when they are being monitored.
If we want to keep the Internet as open as it is, we're all going to have to fight. We can't count on corporations to do it for us. We should be calling and writing our representatives.
Verizon, back when it was GTE, wrote most of the Telecommunications Act. I don't think that most of the legislators who voted on it knew what was in it. More and more that's the case. It's the companies that write the legislation. The people we send to congress simply don't have the technical expertise and apparently don't make sure they have the staffers that do.
If you ever wonder why you don't have the government you want. You should ask yourself when was the last time you communicated your desires to your elected officials and when did you last vote.
How about this for devastating effects? Let's ignore, for the moment, the billion or so people that will be displaced by rising sea levels. We'll also ignore the fact that others will starve and that lots of animals will go extinct. Instead, lets talk about tropical storms and their economic effects.
The Atlantic Hurricane season lasted a bit longer than usual in 2005. It didn't really end until 12/31, rather than in November, like it's supposed to. The reason is because there was still enough warm water to feed the formation of tropical storms. As the global temperature continues to rise, the water in the tropics will stay warmer longer. If the ocean conveyor, the great heat engine that transfers much of the heat from the tropics northward, shuts down, the water in the tropics will be even hotter, even longer. Eventually there will be no end to the storm season. The water in the tropics will always be hot enough to support the formation of tropical storms. Those storms will do damage, just like they do now.
It's possible there are physical limits on the number of storms that can form. But it looks to me like it's possible to have one a week. And since there will be more heat available, it's possible those storms will be more violent as a result.
I doubt we'll have to wait twenty years to see this kind of stuff happen. Weather is, by nature (no pun intended), chaotic. It's sensitive to initial conditions. Small changes can result in dramatic effects. Tropical storms are a perfect example. Below the magic temperature (about 80F if I remember correctly), storms lose power and die. Above it, and they grow.
Most scientists have been unwilling to address the scariest scenerio, that the effects of global warming won't be linear. What happens if they are geometric, or exponential? That could mean that we aren't looking at problems that will face our grandchildren, but problems which are only a decade or so down the road.
Anyone who believes that it's safe to tinker with a chaotic system to the extent of increasing the concentration of a greenhouse gas by over 50% and doesn't expect there to be some pretty dramatic results, is someone who either doesn't understand the science or is willfully ignoring it. This isn't a philosophical debate. No one wins this argument, because the effects of global warming will play themselves out according to nature's laws, not our belief systems. All we can effect is our response to the crisis. What's more, even if we are only partially responsible for the warming, it will likely have terrible consequences and we should do what we can to mediate them.
Is that if Fox brings it back, the bunch of idiots will make money. I really hope they release it to someone else with more sense.
Control over the election of the President of the United States is probably the biggest cash cow you could have. Couple that with control over the elections of the Congress, and you have a way to influence how a trillion dollar budget is spent. Now how much would you pay?
The only thing stopping wholesale cheating is the use of exit polls, and even they weren't enough in the last presidential election. If the exit polls and actual poll results differ by 30%, people will get upset. In reality, even a small deviation should raise alarm flags and cause a recount, except with the Diebold system there's no way to do that!
Ultimately, this isn't Diebold's fault. It's the fault of a public that has become disconnected from the political system. It's become rude to discuss politics. Those who do discuss things are so polarized that it alienates the rest of us. The result is that most people don't care. They no longer get excited about the fraud and cheating that's discovered. They've come to expect it.
The Press used to play an important role in keeping the public informed, but now the huge media companies are more concerned with protecting their bottom line than in providing objective reporting. In the last 30 years, the FCC has steadily increased the share of local markets that can be controlled by a single company, meaning there is little or no real competition in many major markets. The same company can own the radio, television and newspapers. If a story might hurt the interests of the larger corporate entity, do you think the average editor is going to risk his career?
People need to be reminded that we have a pluralistic society, meaning that, at least in theory, we tolerate people who have ideas we don't agree with. That's what has made us a great society. It's important that we reestablish that as an important cultural value. It should be okay to discuss politics at parties without causing fist fights. Dissent at the dinner table should be met with well reasoned arguments, not shouts.
That's my 2 cents.
Unlike you, I don't believe that Bush acted in good faith. Every president has access to legal counsel to warn him when he is going beyond the bounds of his constitutional powers. If Bush wasn't warned, than his counsel is incompetant.
I believe that Bush was advised by his political advisors to extend his powers in the hope of regaining some of the executive power that was lost after the Nixon debacle. It's not difficult for federal agents to get court orders to place wiretaps when they are needed. This was just another place where Bush could try to increase the power of the presidency.
I have one of the older readers, the RCA device. There were four major problems with it. It cost too much, the book selection wasn't there, the display was weak, and I couldn't upload my own files to it. The last was what really got me ticked off. Especially since the original advertising implied I could load my own files. If I got the story right, it was a "security" update that closed down that capability.
For me, and e-book will have to have a great display, be durable enough to give to a grade schooler, and must allow me to upload my own content. I want to be able to go to the Gutenberg Project and download some of the free classics that are stored there. I can't see why I should have to pay for books that are out of copyright to be put in some proprietary format.
The fact that Sony is making this device worries me a lot. The company has shown it can't be trusted with the whole root kit fiasco. Unfortunatly, I don't see consumers taking any concrete action to show their displeasure. Back in the 70's, I would have expected a boycott of Sony products, but now people just shrug off whatever these companies do. It's sad.
I'll probably wait until someone other than Sony comes out with a reader.
Microsoft still has plenty of venom and clout. It's still a dangerous company to deal with and one that is exerting a damaging influence on our economy and the advancement of our technology in general.
MS still takes every opportunity to attack open source software and open standards in general. Look, for instance, at the incredible attack that MS has launched, via it's pet columnists, at Mr. Quinn in Massecheusetts, who had the temerity to recommend that MA insist that the governement switch to software that used open document format, so that MS couldn't force the state to upgrade by changing file formats. Mr. Quinn has probably saved the MA taxpayers, like myself, untold amounts of money, and in return he's been attacked over and over in the press.
MS is patenting everything it can think of, obvious or not, in an attempt to preempt competition. Even if the patents are eventually overturned, they can be used to threaten software and hardware developers, retarding the advancement of technology in all the areas MS is getting patents in.
I think it's more likely that MS will become increasingly dangerous the more that Bill Gates retreats from management of the company. Ballmer has already shown that he is willing to do almost anything to increase the bottom line, legal or not.
MS still needs to be split up. It is still a monopoly and still defies the courts in the U.S. and Europe by continuing it's monopolistic practices.
But of course, only those laws that might cause it to lose substantial business, or cooperation on reducing piracy of it's products. And hey, if those laws result in the loss of some individual's basic human rights, what does Mr. Bill care?
As a nation, we should stand for freedom, most especially for freedom of speech, because that's the one freedom from which all the others come. As long as we can all talk, we don't necessarily have to resort to violence to bring about change.
Any corporation organized in the U.S. has a moral responsibility to act ethically as any other good U.S. citizen. I think that involves some civil disobedience when it comes to laws that deny the freedom of speech to citizens in other countries. If Microsoft wants to cater to China, it should move there. I wonder how Bill Gates will feel about freedom of speech then?
As the conservatives in our country are so fond of saying, "Freedom isn't Free." If we aren't willing to pay the price, we don't deserve it. That applies just as much to our corporate citizens as to anyone else. Perhaps given the special privileges corporations incresingly enjoy, they should bear a greater burden of that cost.
Perhaps the best measure of security would include the number of vulnerabilities, their priority, and the avg time to fix them once discovered. That might get us a nice measure for open source OSes where the vulnerabilites can be found by inspection, but it wouldn't help much with Windows.
It also might be good to take into consideration the number of users affected. Because of it's market dominance, every Windows vulnerability affects a far greater population than a vulnerability in any other OS, thus all those vulnerabilities have a higher overall cost to the computing population.
You are directly hurting the author by stealing his book. Just because it isn't available in the format you desire (i.e., price), doesn't give you the right to steal it. It's still theft. Authors are paid royalties based on the purchase price of the books. Hardcover books are the ones that really pay the rent, for those authors lucky enough to get into hardcover. This is exactly the same as you lifting the book off the rack at the bookstore and walking out with it.
I'm working on a book myself, hoping to become a writer. I actually support Googles idea of scanning books in so people can find where information is located. I also think it would be a good idea to make it easier to purchase books electronically. I'm hopeful that the developments by eInk will make it possible to read books on a book-size device soon. (Something with enough contrast that you can read it in the park. It should cost less than $100, too.)
With music, you might be able to hide behind the argument that you're only hurting the publishers who are, in turn, taking advantage of your favorite artists. You can't use that argument when you steal books, since authors are paid based on retail sales.
I don't support any of the draconian actions taken by the RIAA or MPAA. I don't want to turn anyone into a crook with new laws. But that doesn't mean that I think it's okay for you to steal books and music online. At least with books, if enough are stolen, the writer that you love so much won't be able to afford to continue to write. Very few writers can support themselves as it is, because book prices are quite low.
Then perhaps these corporations should step up to the plate and actually invest in the school systems. One of the reasons plants get built overseas is to avoid taxes. It's those taxes that would pay for the education that these companies keep bemoaning. If these companies kept jobs here in the U.S. the property taxes paid by high tech employees would also contribute. Many of those employees would also contribute to better education by sending their children to private schools, helping those schools improve.
If the jobs go overseas, where exactly is the money for education supposed to come from, all the people flipping burgers at fast food jobs?
But one of the most important things to do when creating one is make sure that each and every element of the specification is testable. That prevents you from wandering off into wild-eyed ivory tower land. I know, because I've been very successful at writing specications documents. On the most successful one, we had 4 bugs at the end of a three month development effort. We were on time and under budget. On the previous iteration of the system, it took three years, was over six months late, and had over 300 bugs that took three months to stomp. Granted, a good specification was not the only factor. I was working with an excellent development team and a manager who enforced good practices, such as complete code reviews for every piece of code before it was checked in.
BTW, It's not unusual for Linus to say some pretty bizarre things. Often they are taken out of context, but sometimes, like any other human, he's flat out wrong. [ waiting for the god of programming to strike me down... ]
Anyone who blindly accepts statements made by someone else should become a religious disciple, not a programmer. If you want to be a good coder, investigate and make up your own mind, don't let people tell you what to believe.