...and this, too, will eventually scroll beyond the bottom of the comments, and people will, as they always do, forget that such heresy has been said...
All this has happened before, and will happen again...... and that, my fellow sapients, is why we will continue to fail to break the cycle of our own history, our old hatreds, our old fears.
Go outside on a clear night and look at the stars; and then tell me about "god".
If I was a member of an alien research team sent here to evaluate earth, my conclusion would be "Let them alone for a another couple thousand years, they are still infants worshiping their mother's breast"
We have a long ways to go yet before we can consider ourselves a civilization, let alone a "mature" one.
When one considers the alternatives, this is a good thing.
It's a damned shame that our schools and teachers haven't been teaching them how to use the new medium as much as they could.
Before anyone gets a head on about what I say, I'm one of the increasingly small number of people who predate the internet, but still think it's the best thing that can happen to humanity.
Unfortunately (Shadowbearer dons his reading glasses and enables his spellchecker) there are entirely too many people who think that too much knowledge is a bad thing for children.
(Shadowbearer dons his flameproof suit) (hey, it was custom built!)
It's a damned shame that all these religious control freaks are so caught up in their superstitious nonsense that they can't see that the human race might benefit from being liberated (oh, that WORD! MY EYES!) from their preconceived notions of reality and figure out that yes, maybe, we can all get along and we have bigger problems than the ages old debate about whose deity has a bigger ego.
If the mass of irrational superstitious nuts want to have a real, REAL, implacable, undeafeatable, omnipotent enemy, perhaps they should consider confronting Reality. You know, that particular bit of scientific reality that says that not only does the universe not care, but it can't care, because it's not their God? Because their "God"(s) do not, and cannot, exist? Because we are just an insignificant bunch of modified apes on an insignificant planet in an insignificant galaxy in the middle of nowhere? That all their arrogance in thinking they are the end all, be all of the universe does is create more angst and harm more people? That was excusable, perhaps, back when we didn't know better; but we do now.
I weep for our species. I weep when I hear shit like this " [ some odd percentage ] believes in a supreme being, why don't you?"]
Fools. Show me your "supreme being". When you can't - and you can't - then Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Us rational people are sick of dealing with your superstitious fantasies.
(Angry, me? Hell, yes I am. Not in the "I'll kill you because you're a heretic" angry, tho. Figure that out on your own, and get some rationality already, will you?)
No. If that statement were really true, it'd be a justification for having maybe a couple dozen warheads. There are plenty of hardened targets in a place like Russia, but there aren't that many that could withstand a concerted conventional precision bombing for long.
Yeah. That's why, during the cold war, we built all those warheads, and had all those missiles aimed at those targets. Sure.
The thing that nuclear weapons provide for the US is near instant destruction of an foe's military capabilities, no matter how large that foe is.
Let me guess; you're too young to remember the cold war?
I'm not.
Overkill is overkill, in that I'll agree. But unless you provide a citation that says our global ICBM accuracy is good enough for conventional munitions to smash bunkers - with 20m accuracy - and that it'll be cheaper to develop that than to improve our already existing cruise missile and aircraft delivery abilities, no matter how much longer they take, I can't take you seriously.
I would think by now that our society had moved past the base point of science is evil and technology is amoral.
We will not do so until we rid ourselves of superstition, and start teaching morals based on science, rationality and respect for life, rather than variable definitions built around religious nonsense.
By the time this might actually be put into operational status, and the bugs worked out, OBL will likely have died of old age;-)
You know what I fail to understand?
The whole argument, even nowadays, for having nuclear tipped ICBMs hinges on the fact (discussed often here on slashdot) that our missiles aren't accurate enough for conventional warheads to be effective against point targets.
So... what's changed? Aha.... I wonder if the Pentagon has just advertised to the whole world that our modern suborbital rockets now have pinpoint strike capability?
In any case, the idea that missiles can be designed so that nuclear warheads can't be loaded on them is pure horseshit. If the missile can carry a conventional warhead large enough to matter even if our worldwide accuracy is 10 meters or so, then we could certainly place a nuclear warhead on the missile, probably with only an hour's notice.
Honestly; if we can design a racecar so that it's entire engine can be changed out in less than an hour...
I know, I know, can't stop the weapons race. Really doesn't mean anything to try and debate it in civilian forums anymore. Not that it ever really has. Sigh.
There is no such thing as a defensive nuclear weapon.
Deterrent, yes. Defensive, no. Those are not the same thing.
Sure, we could use a nuclear weapon to smash (part of) an invading army. In a tactical sense, that's defensive. But any such use of a nuclear weapon, even on our own soil, would escalate the situation to the point where defense and offense are the same thing.
Any use of a nuke to smash an opposing division that is forcing our forces back in some overseas conflict would automatically be offensive, since we are the ones who put our military into that conflict in the first place.
If you are from the US, put it in these terms - what happens if we invade Iran, and they use nukes to "defend" their sovereign territory?
First off, wouldn't assuming that Group B and Group A are collaborating taint any results that Group B come up with? The whole idea of independent confirmation of results depends on the other groups doing the experiment from scratch and coming up with the same results. Any exchange of information, no matter how innocent it really is, can and will likely bring charges of taint.
Furthermore, if Group B can't duplicate the experiment, they can't duplicate the experiment. If the experiment is so hideously expensive (or time consuming) to duplicate that no other team can try to do so, then there cannot be any confirmation of the first results, independent or not. That was point about experiments done at the LHC.
I disagree with your third point about other people using the same data to "scoop" the original teams because often the data set is so large there is no way that one team can possibly cover all the possible theoretical approaches nor analyze all the data. Two cases in point would be LHC and SETI data sets.
If someone else using the same data set finds something that the original team was unable to either because of time constraints, funding contraints, OR because the "someone else" had smarter or more experienced members on their team, then team A has nothing to bitch about. Those reasons are why scientific data should be open.
You said it was called "Broken Consensus" "or something like that" - "Shattered Consensus" is not even close to the same title nor meaning of title. Broken != Shattered, the two terms have very different meaning. Broken, in this meaning, would mean there are some people who disagree with the consensus - which is true. Shattered would mean that the majority of people don't agree with the consensus, and that indeed there is no consensus at all. Very different meanings. You of course were able to find the book you were looking for because you already knew what you were looking for; I did not.
I don't have quick access to the book, I looked over the reviews (the blurb is useless) and from what I can see in there, they are rehashing many of the same issues that have already been dealt with in the five years since the book was published. Several of those misconceptions, such as changes in thermometer technology and the understanding of stratospheric cooling - to name two- were dealt with well before the author wrote the book, so the author obviously was not abreast of current, or even older, papers on the subject.
In addition, many of the issues I see brought up in the reviews have even been dealt with repetitively here on slashdot in the discussions about global warming.
In any case, you're going to have to do better than basing your conclusions off of one five year old book, especially in the field of climatology, where things are changing so rapidly;-)
Relativity, molecular and evolutionary theory continue to undergo modifications even to this day. Nobody in those fields will say that those theories are the end-all of their particular forms of science, either, although they work pretty damned well.
(I'll grant you that relativity is still standing up pretty well, although few in the field will state categorically that it will not be eventually refined - NOT dismissed, just refined, as Newton's theories were, but refined, as our understanding of the structure of the universe gets better. Molecular theory undergoes constant revisions as our understanding of subatomic reactions evolves; evolutionary theory, while still strong and likely to stay so, has been refined quite a bit since Darwin - there's a lot of strong evidence that viruses and bacteria, and as a consequence larger organisms, can exchange genetic material outside of reproduction, for one. I could post a lot more but I'll leave that for you to find on your own. )
That is why those are called theories and not fact.. Facts are something we measure, like the increase of C02 and it's effects. Theories are the explanations we come up in order to try and figure out what is going on.
(I think you are doing MightyMartian a disservice - look at some of his other posts in this article, you and he are arguing much the same thing, and dismissing much of the same BS. In any case, he is correct about climatology being a statistical science, at this point, given that most of our data agglutination relies on statistical mathematics. Not that I disagree that GW is happening, or about the main cause of recent warming, which is human industrial activity. )
Unfortunately, the problem with news retractions, as another poster noted, is that they are usually buried; so it's likely that most people wouldn't notice a retraction in this particular case, especially after so long a period of time has passed.
People who were following this might also note that the retraction, if there is one, was posted effectively as the results of a lawsuit, and might not care to read more about why exactly it was posted, assuming that it was solely because of the lawsuit and not because of any real inaccuracy.
My personal opinion is that in cases such as this, with such a far-reaching and important impact, the author and/or editor of the original story should be forced by the judge to post a story in the same section of the paper detailing how they deliberately misled people and explaining why, and pointing people to places where they can find out the truth for themselves.
Would it cost the author and/or editor their jobs? Possibly. Would it destroy their integrity as journalists*? Almost certainly - which it should. (Although if a full apology,etc is posted it might actually save their reputations)
* Posting deliberately misleading articles should definitely cost them their jobs, if people who run the newspaper or magazine value both journalistic standards of integrity, and the reputation of their company. Unfortunately it seems like fewer and fewer do anymore.
(I'd like to note that although many of slashdot don't like them, New Scientist magazine, to my knowledge, always follows strict journalistic standards rules. Not only that, but they keep a sense of humor about their screwups, which is another thing missing in much of journalism nowadays... )
Wrong. If Group B cannot duplicate Group A's analysis of the data, that proves that Group A did something wrong and probably came to the wrong conclusion.
No, it doesn't. You are assuming that Group B didn't make any mistakes.
If Group B cannot duplicate the experiment and get the same data (and knowing that means being able to compare both sets) that calls the experiment as a whole into question.
In experiments as large as the LHC, how would propose that Group B "duplicates" the experiment?
This hubbub all came about because of the difficulty in prying the source data out of the hands of the guy who produced the "hockey stick" figures.
The downside to free and open access to all data is that research groups get grants to collect AND process the data to come up with results. Opening the data up for free access means that other groups, who have more interest in scooping than being right, have more ability to do that scooping.
Oh? Are you saying that other research done by individuals or groups can't come up with other theories? That's at odds with your statement wrt to "the guy who produced the hockey stick figures"
Your bias is unclothed.
It's covered in the book "Broken Consensus" I think it's called.
Which book would that be? Since you can't seem to be bothered to do a few seconds of research or remember the title, I'll try: Wait; can't find any book by that name, or even with those words included in the title or subject, that pertain to global warming. Perhaps you'd like to provide a real citation? It's possible that I missed it in a quick five minute search.
Something else to think about - you spoke of energy levels - just one of those granules is about the size of the Earth*, and the average temperature at the surface of the sun is around 6000 Kelvin. If the earth was magically transported there, everything on the surface would evaporate instantly, and the oceans would boil completely away in a matter of minutes. The rest of the planet might last a few days, at the most.
We humans, with our fusion weapons, think we have "harnessed the fury of the stars" while in reality we've barely touched upon the energy levels that are common everywhere - and our sun is just a "middle class" star in terms of energy levels. There are phenomenon out there that make our sun look like a spark in a nuclear explosion...
The universe is both beautiful, and terrible beyond imagination.
Welcome to astronomy:) One of the greatest pleasures I find is in expanding minds...
* roughly; the sun is about a million miles in diameter, and granule size varies. It's a close enough approximation, however.
Heh! I give it about two days before the solar prominence flare video is up on youtube, with appropriate music. If I had such talents (and time, could probably figure it out) I'd post something along those lines myself. That video is beautiful.
I wonder if Ebert would consider things like this to be "art"?
Myself, I think reality (nature, whatever) produces better art than anything humans will ever accomplish, both in beauty and in elegance... and certainly one-off works:=)
I _knew_ someone was going to moderate that as flamebait when I posted it.
Was it for castigating someone for wasteful criticism, or was it for the "idiot" moderator comment?
If the latter, well, I had mod points, so I could simply have moderated the poster down...
Oh, I know. It was for the 4chan comment!
(Any moderator who mods this post troll or flamebait deserves the description "idiot". The proper moderation would be offtopic, which would also have been the proper response not only to my other post, but to the parent to my other post. )
Sadly, at this time they can only post what they have ready for public consumption. Stay tuned, there are sure to be years worth of even better treats to come:-)
I'm glad you posted this sarcastic response to what you regard as a insignificant piece of data in an article about an incredible new piece of hardware that's already giving us new insights about our star. Your comment truly makes reading this website worthwhile.
Then some idiot moderator posted you insightful...
You know, some of us actually might find that piece of data interesting. Just because you do not, is not sufficient reason to criticize the author(s) of the article. Your post is much more of a useless waste of bits than the information you are being so sarcastic about.
I had a similar problem on a Dell system back about a year ago; it ended up being a bug in the Intel driver. What chipset do you have onboard?
You might try plugging an external video card in and disabling the onboard video, see if the problem goes away. IIRC that's how I determined it was with the driver for the onboard chipset.
Slashdot Mirror
All this has happened before, and will happen again... ... and that, my fellow sapients, is why we will continue to fail to break the cycle of our own history, our old hatreds, our old fears.
Because we fail in teaching it to our children.
(Mod redundant; it is)
SB
Go outside on a clear night and look at the stars; and then tell me about "god".
If I was a member of an alien research team sent here to evaluate earth, my conclusion would be "Let them alone for a another couple thousand years, they are still infants worshiping their mother's breast"
We have a long ways to go yet before we can consider ourselves a civilization, let alone a "mature" one.
SB
When one considers the alternatives, this is a good thing.
It's a damned shame that our schools and teachers haven't been teaching them how to use the new medium as much as they could.
Before anyone gets a head on about what I say, I'm one of the increasingly small number of people who predate the internet, but still think it's the best thing that can happen to humanity.
Unfortunately (Shadowbearer dons his reading glasses and enables his spellchecker) there are entirely too many people who think that too much knowledge is a bad thing for children.
(Shadowbearer dons his flameproof suit) (hey, it was custom built!)
It's a damned shame that all these religious control freaks are so caught up in their superstitious nonsense that they can't see that the human race might benefit from being liberated (oh, that WORD! MY EYES!) from their preconceived notions of reality and figure out that yes, maybe, we can all get along and we have bigger problems than the ages old debate about whose deity has a bigger ego.
If the mass of irrational superstitious nuts want to have a real, REAL, implacable, undeafeatable, omnipotent enemy, perhaps they should consider confronting Reality. You know, that particular bit of scientific reality that says that not only does the universe not care, but it can't care, because it's not their God? Because their "God"(s) do not, and cannot, exist? Because we are just an insignificant bunch of modified apes on an insignificant planet in an insignificant galaxy in the middle of nowhere? That all their arrogance in thinking they are the end all, be all of the universe does is create more angst and harm more people? That was excusable, perhaps, back when we didn't know better; but we do now.
I weep for our species. I weep when I hear shit like this " [ some odd percentage ] believes in a supreme being, why don't you?"]
Fools. Show me your "supreme being". When you can't - and you can't - then Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Us rational people are sick of dealing with your superstitious fantasies.
(Angry, me? Hell, yes I am. Not in the "I'll kill you because you're a heretic" angry, tho. Figure that out on your own, and get some rationality already, will you?)
SB
No. If that statement were really true, it'd be a justification for having maybe a couple dozen warheads. There are plenty of hardened targets in a place like Russia, but there aren't that many that could withstand a concerted conventional precision bombing for long.
Yeah. That's why, during the cold war, we built all those warheads, and had all those missiles aimed at those targets. Sure.
The thing that nuclear weapons provide for the US is near instant destruction of an foe's military capabilities, no matter how large that foe is.
Let me guess; you're too young to remember the cold war?
I'm not.
Overkill is overkill, in that I'll agree. But unless you provide a citation that says our global ICBM accuracy is good enough for conventional munitions to smash bunkers - with 20m accuracy - and that it'll be cheaper to develop that than to improve our already existing cruise missile and aircraft delivery abilities, no matter how much longer they take, I can't take you seriously.
SB
"White trash" still has it's own connotations. Not all idiots are white, although in the US they are certainly in the majority.
Idiots are still idiots, and that's the term I prefer.
SB
I would think by now that our society had moved past the base point of science is evil and technology is amoral.
We will not do so until we rid ourselves of superstition, and start teaching morals based on science, rationality and respect for life, rather than variable definitions built around religious nonsense.
IOW, not soon :(
SB
Thanks for that. That is by far the best way I've ever seen it said, and in three sentences, even.
My hat off to you, sir.
SB
Then again, having your hand grow another brain might not be as good as one thinks...
SB
Say we find out where bin Laden is hiding.
By the time this might actually be put into operational status, and the bugs worked out, OBL will likely have died of old age ;-)
You know what I fail to understand?
The whole argument, even nowadays, for having nuclear tipped ICBMs hinges on the fact (discussed often here on slashdot) that our missiles aren't accurate enough for conventional warheads to be effective against point targets.
So... what's changed? Aha.... I wonder if the Pentagon has just advertised to the whole world that our modern suborbital rockets now have pinpoint strike capability?
In any case, the idea that missiles can be designed so that nuclear warheads can't be loaded on them is pure horseshit. If the missile can carry a conventional warhead large enough to matter even if our worldwide accuracy is 10 meters or so, then we could certainly place a nuclear warhead on the missile, probably with only an hour's notice.
Honestly; if we can design a racecar so that it's entire engine can be changed out in less than an hour...
I know, I know, can't stop the weapons race. Really doesn't mean anything to try and debate it in civilian forums anymore. Not that it ever really has. Sigh.
SB
There is no such thing as a defensive nuclear weapon.
Deterrent, yes. Defensive, no. Those are not the same thing.
Sure, we could use a nuclear weapon to smash (part of) an invading army. In a tactical sense, that's defensive. But any such use of a nuclear weapon, even on our own soil, would escalate the situation to the point where defense and offense are the same thing.
Any use of a nuke to smash an opposing division that is forcing our forces back in some overseas conflict would automatically be offensive, since we are the ones who put our military into that conflict in the first place.
If you are from the US, put it in these terms - what happens if we invade Iran, and they use nukes to "defend" their sovereign territory?
Think about it.
SB
Thanks for the reply.
First off, wouldn't assuming that Group B and Group A are collaborating taint any results that Group B come up with? The whole idea of independent confirmation of results depends on the other groups doing the experiment from scratch and coming up with the same results. Any exchange of information, no matter how innocent it really is, can and will likely bring charges of taint.
Furthermore, if Group B can't duplicate the experiment, they can't duplicate the experiment. If the experiment is so hideously expensive (or time consuming) to duplicate that no other team can try to do so, then there cannot be any confirmation of the first results, independent or not. That was point about experiments done at the LHC.
I disagree with your third point about other people using the same data to "scoop" the original teams because often the data set is so large there is no way that one team can possibly cover all the possible theoretical approaches nor analyze all the data. Two cases in point would be LHC and SETI data sets.
If someone else using the same data set finds something that the original team was unable to either because of time constraints, funding contraints, OR because the "someone else" had smarter or more experienced members on their team, then team A has nothing to bitch about. Those reasons are why scientific data should be open.
You said it was called "Broken Consensus" "or something like that" - "Shattered Consensus" is not even close to the same title nor meaning of title. Broken != Shattered, the two terms have very different meaning. Broken, in this meaning, would mean there are some people who disagree with the consensus - which is true. Shattered would mean that the majority of people don't agree with the consensus, and that indeed there is no consensus at all. Very different meanings. You of course were able to find the book you were looking for because you already knew what you were looking for; I did not.
I don't have quick access to the book, I looked over the reviews (the blurb is useless) and from what I can see in there, they are rehashing many of the same issues that have already been dealt with in the five years since the book was published. Several of those misconceptions, such as changes in thermometer technology and the understanding of stratospheric cooling - to name two- were dealt with well before the author wrote the book, so the author obviously was not abreast of current, or even older, papers on the subject.
In addition, many of the issues I see brought up in the reviews have even been dealt with repetitively here on slashdot in the discussions about global warming.
In any case, you're going to have to do better than basing your conclusions off of one five year old book, especially in the field of climatology, where things are changing so rapidly ;-)
Cheers,
SB
Relativity, molecular and evolutionary theory continue to undergo modifications even to this day. Nobody in those fields will say that those theories are the end-all of their particular forms of science, either, although they work pretty damned well.
(I'll grant you that relativity is still standing up pretty well, although few in the field will state categorically that it will not be eventually refined - NOT dismissed, just refined, as Newton's theories were, but refined, as our understanding of the structure of the universe gets better. Molecular theory undergoes constant revisions as our understanding of subatomic reactions evolves; evolutionary theory, while still strong and likely to stay so, has been refined quite a bit since Darwin - there's a lot of strong evidence that viruses and bacteria, and as a consequence larger organisms, can exchange genetic material outside of reproduction, for one. I could post a lot more but I'll leave that for you to find on your own. )
That is why those are called theories and not fact.. Facts are something we measure, like the increase of C02 and it's effects. Theories are the explanations we come up in order to try and figure out what is going on.
(I think you are doing MightyMartian a disservice - look at some of his other posts in this article, you and he are arguing much the same thing, and dismissing much of the same BS. In any case, he is correct about climatology being a statistical science, at this point, given that most of our data agglutination relies on statistical mathematics. Not that I disagree that GW is happening, or about the main cause of recent warming, which is human industrial activity. )
SB
There needs to be an incentive
Carrot vs stick? ;-)
How about the incentive is, you keep your job, and can continue to work as a journalist?
SB
Unfortunately, the problem with news retractions, as another poster noted, is that they are usually buried; so it's likely that most people wouldn't notice a retraction in this particular case, especially after so long a period of time has passed.
People who were following this might also note that the retraction, if there is one, was posted effectively as the results of a lawsuit, and might not care to read more about why exactly it was posted, assuming that it was solely because of the lawsuit and not because of any real inaccuracy.
My personal opinion is that in cases such as this, with such a far-reaching and important impact, the author and/or editor of the original story should be forced by the judge to post a story in the same section of the paper detailing how they deliberately misled people and explaining why, and pointing people to places where they can find out the truth for themselves.
Would it cost the author and/or editor their jobs? Possibly. Would it destroy their integrity as journalists*? Almost certainly - which it should. (Although if a full apology,etc is posted it might actually save their reputations)
* Posting deliberately misleading articles should definitely cost them their jobs, if people who run the newspaper or magazine value both journalistic standards of integrity, and the reputation of their company. Unfortunately it seems like fewer and fewer do anymore.
(I'd like to note that although many of slashdot don't like them, New Scientist magazine, to my knowledge, always follows strict journalistic standards rules. Not only that, but they keep a sense of humor about their screwups, which is another thing missing in much of journalism nowadays... )
SB
Wrong. If Group B cannot duplicate Group A's analysis of the data, that proves that Group A did something wrong and probably came to the wrong conclusion.
No, it doesn't. You are assuming that Group B didn't make any mistakes.
If Group B cannot duplicate the experiment and get the same data (and knowing that means being able to compare both sets) that calls the experiment as a whole into question.
In experiments as large as the LHC, how would propose that Group B "duplicates" the experiment?
This hubbub all came about because of the difficulty in prying the source data out of the hands of the guy who produced the "hockey stick" figures.
The downside to free and open access to all data is that research groups get grants to collect AND process the data to come up with results. Opening the data up for free access means that other groups, who have more interest in scooping than being right, have more ability to do that scooping.
Oh? Are you saying that other research done by individuals or groups can't come up with other theories? That's at odds with your statement wrt to "the guy who produced the hockey stick figures"
Your bias is unclothed.
It's covered in the book "Broken Consensus" I think it's called.
Which book would that be? Since you can't seem to be bothered to do a few seconds of research or remember the title, I'll try: Wait; can't find any book by that name, or even with those words included in the title or subject, that pertain to global warming. Perhaps you'd like to provide a real citation? It's possible that I missed it in a quick five minute search.
SB
*grin*
My pleasure!
Something else to think about - you spoke of energy levels - just one of those granules is about the size of the Earth*, and the average temperature at the surface of the sun is around 6000 Kelvin. If the earth was magically transported there, everything on the surface would evaporate instantly, and the oceans would boil completely away in a matter of minutes. The rest of the planet might last a few days, at the most.
We humans, with our fusion weapons, think we have "harnessed the fury of the stars" while in reality we've barely touched upon the energy levels that are common everywhere - and our sun is just a "middle class" star in terms of energy levels. There are phenomenon out there that make our sun look like a spark in a nuclear explosion...
The universe is both beautiful, and terrible beyond imagination.
Welcome to astronomy :) One of the greatest pleasures I find is in expanding minds...
* roughly; the sun is about a million miles in diameter, and granule size varies. It's a close enough approximation, however.
SB
Heh! I give it about two days before the solar prominence flare video is up on youtube, with appropriate music. If I had such talents (and time, could probably figure it out) I'd post something along those lines myself. That video is beautiful.
I wonder if Ebert would consider things like this to be "art"?
Myself, I think reality (nature, whatever) produces better art than anything humans will ever accomplish, both in beauty and in elegance... and certainly one-off works :=)
SB
I _knew_ someone was going to moderate that as flamebait when I posted it.
Was it for castigating someone for wasteful criticism, or was it for the "idiot" moderator comment?
If the latter, well, I had mod points, so I could simply have moderated the poster down...
Oh, I know. It was for the 4chan comment!
(Any moderator who mods this post troll or flamebait deserves the description "idiot". The proper moderation would be offtopic, which would also have been the proper response not only to my other post, but to the parent to my other post. )
SB
What particularly struck me was the very "organic" looking cell structure
There's not much information Granule (solar physics) but it will give you a start on learning more.
(Solar astronomy is one of my hobbies, so I knew what to search for. Enjoy!)
SB
Sadly, at this time they can only post what they have ready for public consumption. Stay tuned, there are sure to be years worth of even better treats to come :-)
SB
I'm glad you posted this sarcastic response to what you regard as a insignificant piece of data in an article about an incredible new piece of hardware that's already giving us new insights about our star. Your comment truly makes reading this website worthwhile.
Then some idiot moderator posted you insightful...
You know, some of us actually might find that piece of data interesting. Just because you do not, is not sufficient reason to criticize the author(s) of the article. Your post is much more of a useless waste of bits than the information you are being so sarcastic about.
Go back and play on 4chan.
SB
Better article
This is incredible stuff. The CNN author called it "Hubble for the sun" and that's exactly what it is.
SB
There's some absolutely awesome video from SDO here
Wow.
SB
I had a similar problem on a Dell system back about a year ago; it ended up being a bug in the Intel driver. What chipset do you have onboard?
You might try plugging an external video card in and disabling the onboard video, see if the problem goes away. IIRC that's how I determined it was with the driver for the onboard chipset.
SB