I'm glad that civil discourse is not a lost art at UDub.
The consequences for being wrong "in action" are destroyed economies for a large number of countries and consequently even less ability to deal with the real problem when "science" realizes it was wrong. "Science" has been wrong before, it will be wrong again. When you've destroyed the economies of the industrial countries by demanding they stop producing CO2, who is going to have the money to work on the real solution? Kenya and Uganda? Hardly.
The consequences of being wrong "in inaction" are hardly as awful as all the chicken littles are saying. Billions of people aren't going to die if they have to move back from the coast. They won't die if the deserts get more rainfall, or if there are more clouds. Humans will adapt, just like they always do. Civilization "as we know it" keeps changing. It will continue to do so.
Cycles are normal. Had we been here while the last ice age was ending, we'd be complaining that it was getting too warm and the melting glaciers would make the planet uninhabitable. Had we been here at the end of the last volcanic period, we'd be complaining that the coming ice age was making things too cold and the planet would be uninhabitable. In both cases, the less fortunate would be pointing the fingers of blame at the more fortunate, demanding they stop being fortunate, just like the unindustrialized countries are doing now.
Do you know why there are so few outspoken academics who oppose the global warming zealots? Have you heard the terms "tenure" and "grants"?
Departments live off grants for global warming research, and tenure committees don't give tenure to people who don't toe the company line. It wasn't helpful to anyone's career to pronounce "Galileo is right!"; it was patently obvious to anyone with a brain that a feather fell slower than a cannonball because it was lighter. It's only through hindsight that we now understand. The fact that the zealots dish out ridicule instead of reasoned argument is another factor.
When science becomes a religion, the truth gets lost. You can tell when a theory has become dogma when the discussion becomes "fuck you troll" and fearmongering takes over. Global warming is a religion. It isn't the first scientific-religion dogma, it won't be the last. A line from "Operation Petticoat" sums it up perfectly. As the tropical island is under bombing attack, the sub's scrounger drives into the base, saying "in confusion, there is profit". s/confusion/fear/
and it's an even better fit to global warming mania.
We have pitifully little data about the long-term temperature on this planet. We've only been ON the planet for a relatively short time (in geological terms). We've only been collecting temperature data for a pitifully short fraction of that time. For almost all of the time we've been collecting data, we've collected very sparse samples, and almost always near or in population centers (since people are usually only interested in what temperature is it outside their door, and most people live in population centers.) At best, two hundred years of data is actual temperature data.
Scientists have been guessing at prior temperatures using all sorts of proxies for real temperature measures. Width of tree rings, concentrations of microscopic animals in ice, etc. Not true temperature measures, only things that might be caused by certain temperatures. (Other things can cause tree ring changes, etc.)
Now the satellites are telling us we are in deep trouble. Unfortunately, we've only twenty years of this data, and during that 20 years, there have been half a dozen different ways of measuring the temperature -- they don't actually have a thousand mile tall thermometer, after all. Infrared emission, etc, are all used to determine temperature, and the methods used don't give the same answers. So, change the method, change the answer.
And, as has been pointed out, we are actually in the recovery period from an ice age, so it is natural for the temperature to go up.
It is ridiculous to think that we can stop the planet from going through its natural cycles, even though human nature wants to make us think we can. We think that the way it is now is the way it has always been and must always be, and that just isn't true.
If you need an example, look at the Oregon coast. About 40 years ago, a river changed its course and created a hugh sand spit where the outlet of the river used to be (and a river outlet where sand used to be!) People started building their expensive, private resort houses on that spit, and now they are afraid that their spit might be eroded and dissappear. Well, it wasn't there 40 years ago, so it is a good bet that it won't be there in another 40 -- but don't tell them they were idiots for building on a sand spit.
It's the same thing with "protected species". Some people think "species X was here when I was born, it is a good thing to keep it around forever." Not true. Species come and go. It is a natural result of evolution. Trying to maintain the status quo when Momma Nature doesn't want it that way is like spitting into the wind.
What matters is the fact that dumping CO2 into the atmosphere is greasing the slide into hell. It doesn't matter if the warming is a "natural", normal turn of events.
Yeah, the hell with the facts, it's more fun to panic and run in circles being afraid of the world. Yes, it does matter if the way things are happening are natural or not. Well, it doesn't matter to those involved in trying to stop nature, since they are the ones who get the grant money to study the "problem". Profit from pandering fear -- it's a great way to make money!
We're melting. No semantics.
Take your fearmongering elsewhere, witch of the west, or you'll get another bucket of water tossed on you.
One point I don't see coming up in the replies is that the "100 year" lifetime for CD-R is a statistical measure, not a specific measure. MTBF
starts with the word "mean".
The actual life of any specific item depends on many factors: manufacturing quality, manufacturing materials, storage, number of plays, etc.
So, while it is fair to say that "audio tape" is a relatively short-lived, fragile medium (based on the average "audio tape") it is not unusual to have tapes that last 30 years without noticable degradation. I've had tapes that didn't survive the first pass through the recorder, because they were made with crappy glue holding brittle magnetic bits. I have tapes that I've kept in a box for twenty years that are just fine.
You'll find the same thing for CD's. If you use good quality CD-Rs, and store them correctly, I have little doubt that 100 years is a reasonable expected lifetime.
And as others have already pointed out, if the recording is really important, make multiple copies, and then make new copies from the old before they degrade. In this case, CD-R has it over tape, because each generation of tape gets worse, while each generation of CD-R is identical to the parent.
I'd be very interested to see how many of these people have ever experienced broadband,...
I'm one of them.
We have 100Mb throughout the work organization, with a link to Internet2. I've got a DSL connection to a remote system for work. Yes, I think I've experienced broadband.
I almost never surf at home. When I do, I sometimes think "I ought to get broadband", but when it comes down to doing it, it's not a high priority. Because it is slow, I never enable images or scripts, which means I never get popups or annoying ads.
I does email and sends a bit of data out to be posted on a website. Most of that is automatic.
I have more media (music, radio, and TV) than I can watch and listen to already, I don't need to download more. I gets distros on DVD or CD, either
from work or in Linux Format.
Why do I need broadband at home?
As an aside, I actually did "get" broadband, for a day. I experienced the Qwest "Spirit of service Inaction". The qwest sales team lied to me and told me that static IP was included in the price they had quoted me. When it came time to deliver,
they wanted $15/month more. That was after they installed the service on the wrong line, and then said it would take another week to get it right. They lied to the state public service commission when I complained, so
I never got any action taken against them for the fraud they committed.
Accountability is seriously lacking in todays life.
I used to be a subscriber to Wired.
Not long ago, they got a letter from someone quoted in one of their articles, complaining that the "pull-quote" (the material they print in big letters inline with an article to draw your attention to it) they had attributed to him was something he never said and was actually opposite his true position.
Wired excused their misquoting him by saying, in essence, "it's just a pull-quote".
That was all it took for me to realize that Wired had its own agenda and the truth didn't really matter to them.
That depends on what the medium it trying to present itself as.
If the medium is "peer reviewed scientific journal", then yes, all readers are seeking accuracy. If the medium is "comic book" (including tabloids like Enquiror(sp?) or Weekly World News, then readers are seeking entertainment.
When I read the NEWS section of a newspaper, I seek accuracy. I think most people do. When I want humor I read the funny pages. It is acceptable for the funny pages to be accurate, but not for the news pages to be inaccurate.
This is where so many publications fall apart on April Fool's day. They seek to be viewed as accurate sources of information for 11 months out of the year, and then fritter it away in an outburst of nonsense. It's almost a given -- throw away the April edition of any magazine because it will be a waste of time and source of deliberate misinformation.
The same sort of things hold true for TV. I expect TV news to be accurate. When it comes time for Leno or Letterman, I expect to hear lies every time they open their mouths, even when pretending to quote their source directly. E.g., when Rather says "Bush said..." he better be right. When Leno says "Bush said...", it reminds me to change the channel to something actually worth listening to.
Robots obviously can be given responsibilities (your job is to fit tab A into slot B),...
This is not a "responsibility" in the sense of "accepting responsibility". This is just a task.
What's the difference? If a human chooses to "fit tab A into slot B" and by doing so causes harm to someone, then "accepting responsibility" means that the human accepts whatever the consequences are for that action. For example, on the assembly line, someone gets between the tab and the slot when the human is doing the task, and he does it anyway. The interloper winds up skewered by tab A. Who is responsible? The human who didn't stop doing his task. (If the imagery does not work, imagine the huge welding robots that have replaced human welders, and make the task "weld part A onto part B.)
Would you punish a robot for doing the same thing, or would you punish the programmer/owner? How would you punish a robot? If it aint' smart enough
to "accept responsibility", then it ain't smart enough to punish -- which is the basis for the diminished capacity defense in human criminal trials.
As for animals accepting responsibility, try this. The cow does not feel any responsibility to give milk to keep humans fed. The dog, as smart as he is, doesn't accept responsibility for keeping his
owner from crossing a busy intersection, he is trained to do this and didn't have a say in the matter. Would you put the dog to death if his actions led the blind master into the path of a truck, or would you simply retire him from guide-dog service?
I didn't advocate that Comcast and all other cable companies deploy all digital set-top boxes with TiVo built in.
No, just that analog should be scrapped so that we can all buy or rent the digital set-tops that we don't have to now. You want digital cable, and you want everyone else to be forced to pay for it, but you're unhappy when you are expected to pay for system capacity increases that let others get ondemand. That's being a hypocrite.
...a whiner like you...
Yeah, everyone that disagrees with you is a whiner and you are just a sane, logical voice in the wilderness.
You missed my point completely.
And you missed mine. I wasn't whining about the cost of cable, like you were, I was pointing out the hypocritical nature of your argument.
The cable companies are using the customer service cost as a reason why they cannot offer *a la carte* as a billing option.
No, they are arguing that the cost is why they WILL NOT offer it as a subscription option. It is a lot more than just a billing option. Of course they could offer it, they just realize that people won't pay the extra costs associated with having to buy redundant hardware. It will cost the cable co more to provide this, and it will cost the customer more, and if they implement it they expect to be able to make a profit. That's why they are in business.
If the options were available on the net and someone could select the channels they wanted over the net, then the infrastructure costs are minimal...
That is not true. Even were they to pay for a network system of purchasing (and the costs associated with that), they would need a telephone based system to deal with people who do not have internet (and won't buy it just because
you want them to), and they will still have the infrastructure costs associated with dropping analog and providing digital settops to every customer.
Do the math. At $5/month rental, it takes 20 months minimum for a $100 settop to recover the costs, and that does not include the costs of stocking/maintaining/servicing/replacing those
boxes when customers break them, or the costs of initial installation. In some systems, the churn rate for subscribers is 10%. It's hard keeping a
sub for the necessary 20 months -- especially in a college town. And that assumes a really cheap settop. It will probably cost more like $200 to $400. (Even the Xbox, as highly subsidized by game sales as it is, costs $150 to purchase. The real cost is much higher.)
Instead of reading what I wrote, you wasted considerable effort in trying to make me look like a hypocrite.
It wasn't that much effort, all it took was reading what you wrote and thinking about the consequences to other people.
Hello, its the 21st century - if someone cannot afford a computer then perhaps they have no business signing up for cable
television.
Grow up. That's the only way I can politely answer that kind of comment.
Banks and other institutions charge money for "services" that are considered free if you do the stuff yourself online, so why should cable television channel selection be treated differently?
Because the cable company is not a bank and is not charging you for services to access your own money? I don't know, maybe?
In my experience, by the time you get a CD, half of its contents are out of date.
Not everyone wants the bleeding edge of free software. I spend way too much time trying to determine what has changed every time I change to a new distribution, and if something doesn't work
on a new install with a new distro, I'm stuck
trying to debug two different things at the same time.
Example: brand new system which is just like one I already loaded up. Tried Fedora Core 1 instead of RH7.3. No net, no audio. Was the problem Fedora or the PC? Dinked with Fedora Core 1 (which didn't have anyplace in the install to set the network address, but it did have someplace to set up an NTP client, which wouldn't work because the net didn't work!) but no joy. Must be Fedora! Installed RH7.3. Still no joy. Must be PC! (Was failure to
set "Plug and Play OS" to "NO" in the BIOS.)
So, stable is good. Bleeding edge is fun for smart people, but about all you accomplish is debugging bleeding edge stuff. By the time you've done that, the edge has moved and you are off into new territory again. For people who get their code at the library, two revisions out of date is stable enough to be useful.
You claim you don't want to have to pay for OnDemand which you won't use just because others do, and yet you want me to pay for multiple set-top boxes with a feature I will not use.
The tuners in all of my TVs and VCRs work just fine, thank you, and I appreciate the legislation that forces Cablecos to provide services without requiring extraneous hardware. I do not want to pay the Cableco $5/month per box for something my equipment can already do.
4. A la carte pricing will not cause a customer service issue. Any channel additions and subtractions could be made via the internet,
Except for those people who don't have internet connections. Yet another cost you want to push onto someone else.
You seem unhappy that you are paying to subsidize rebuilds that allow other people to get services they want, but you want me to pay for services you want that I do not. Pot, meet Kettle.
ClearChannel has an exclusive, government-granted monopoly over a large swath of the FM broadcast spectrum through their numerous, sweeping FCC licenses.
This is an interesting concept. Let's examine it.
Radio station licenses are inherently limited in scope, especially in the FM broadcast band. FM stations do not cover the entire US, which means that frequencies are reusable. You can have stations on the same frequency in Atlanta and San Fran.
Further, there are approximately 100 FM radio channels. If the FCC assigns them with one channel
in between, there are 50 channels in every market.
How many stations in each market does ClearChannel have? 5? That leaves 45 for other providers.
This is certainly not a monopoly based on limited
bandwidth. However, based on cost of entry, you could argue that it is. It costs a lot to create a radio station (or buy an existing one), but keeping "cost of entry" low is not a requirement of the first amendment.
Why does your org not use the reserved emergency bands for communication.
When we are in the field and have them available, we do. They are great for short-range tactical comms. Were we to use such radios for call-outs, you would certainly find it much more annoying since we would have to have them on all the time, and THEY don't have vibrating ringers and messaging capability. (And I do often carry such a radio, but not as the first line of contact. That way it can be off most of the time.)
There is an added expense for the equipment, but those bands and corresponding communications networks are less likely to become saturated with traffic, like the cell networks tend to during emergencies.
Cell phone systems do not tend to become saturated during small-scale emergencies, such as "missing child" or "lost adult". They are more private, so personal details may be more freely discussed, and the infrastructure is much broader than the typical public safety radio system. For example, if I am in the next big town over (just ten miles away) I get great cell service but crappy reception of even the primary county law enforcement channel. (That's ok, it is in the next county.)
And, unfortunately, yes, during large scale problems, even the standard public service radio systems get congested. The advanced digital trunked systems were supposed to help with this, but even they don't manage to keep up under stress. In fact, many of them are worse, since they don't provide simplex direct communications. If you are buried in a pile of rubble and cannot reach the closest trunk site, you don't communicate, even if your budies are in the next room. The old analog radios do much better at that -- and cell phones have the same problem. And then you have the problem of incompatible digital systems between different agencies.
Further, such radios are single purpose devices, while cell phones are multi-purpose. I cannot use such a radio to call home to say "I'm on the way to a search" or to call other people at their homes to get them involved. Having to carry multiple devices all the time is a real drag, as anyone who does it can tell you.
It's rather irresponsible for a rescue operation to depend on the standard cell networks.
That would be true if that was ALL that we used, but it isn't (because it would be irresponsible). If there was a major disaster we wouldn't depend on cell phones, but for normal operations they are pretty reliable and certainly more convenient than regular radios.
A few nights ago, someone a few rows up from me at the theater kept pulling their cell phone out to check something The light was so bright that it was distracting.
Oh, you poor darling. Perhaps we should tell you "if you are so easily distracted, stay home." That's what you are telling cell phone owners. How do you like it?
But all that said, I do think that people should be able to block cell phone calls in private businesses, as long as it is well posted that they are doing it.
If they do it without obtaining the requisite radio licenses, I think they ought to go to jail.
I can then take my business somewhere else if I don't like it.
"We don't serve no _insert_minority_here_ here. If you don't like it,
take your business elsewhere."
Once you open a business up to the public, you lose a large amount of control over that space. Shopping malls learned this the hard way when they wanted to ban petition gatherers and lost in court. And your "reserve the right" sign does not allow a restaurant to deny service to people based on skin color, religion, or any of the other similar civil rights categories. Even if they post it in three foot high letters, they do not have the right to deny service to people for any reason they want to. Nor does this "right" flow over into denying all cell phone use.
And even a private business does not control the airwaves. That's reserved to the FCC.
I hope the very first incoming call that is blocked on my cellphone is the one calling me to come look for you or your lost child. I'll happily
sit watching a movie instead of volunteering my time out in the forest looking for your sorry selfish ass.
What the hell makes you think you have some right to punish me just because I carry a cellphone that might vibrate while I am somewhere in your vicinity?
I suggest you get a life and stop trying to control every other person who happens to be unlucky enough to be within five feet of you.
Either that, or I'll figure out some way of punishing you just because I don't like you.
But, if you are in my airspace... Let's say it's a fancy restaurant. Or better yet, an opera house.
It isn't your airspace. It's a public place.
If I put forth the expectation that all guests are treated equally,
First of all, there is notthing inherently "equal" about preventing cell phone signals. Second of all, your "expectation" isn't binding on anyone else. I expect my cellphone to work when I am in a restaurant or theatre. I pay for it to work there.
Tough beans for your expectations.
Why? Because people all around you paid for a show.
There is nothing in the silent vibration of my cellphone that anyone around me will notice. If they notice me pull it out of my pocket and look at the screen, then it wasn't a very interesting show and you owe them their money back.
I may be stopping your right to receive a call, but if your phone is licensed in the US under our FCC laws, your phone must accept any interference, which may cause undesired operation.
This is the reason I bothered to respond to your selfish little rant. You are patently wrong. Primary licensees do not have to put up with any interference, they have the primary right to the frequency, and deliberate interference is illegal
and can subject the interferer to heavy fines.
What you are probably thinking of are Part 15 unlicensed devices like Wi-Fi or cordless phones and baby monitors. Those devices are not licensed any they do have to put up with interference from licensed users of the spectrum and each other. For example, as an amateur radio operator, I am a primary licensee in the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi band. If I decide to put up a station on one of those frequencies, I can do so, at a much higher power than you can ever hope to override, and YOUR use of the spectrum goes POOF!
I am a SAR volunteer, and my cellphone may be how I am notified that there is a lost child that needs to be found. I'm sorry if you think that your right to silence overrides the life of another human being, but get over it. If my cellphone vibrating in my pocket annoys you, then get your fucking hand out of my pocket and mind your own damn business.
You can defeat this plot by putting the homeless person in a microwave.
Yeah, but you need a microwave big enough for twenty of them.
Why do otherwise reputable information sources seem hell-bent on wasting their reputations by distributing nonsense one day a year? Are there not enough humor sources out there that we need
fake news from everywhere?
If they even begin to think that you didn't tell them about something you ought to have, they can pull you aside and search you and your baggage. They have zero sense of humour about this kind of thing. They have every reason to want to catch you, since the fines are much higher than the taxes, and they look good catching smugglers. It's their job.
If they ask you, and you lie, you can be easily caught. They will look at the data plate on the laptop and see the country of origin is the US. They will notice how new it looks and ask you to prove when you bought it, or when you brought it into the country and paid the VAT on it (you better have an accompanying entry stamp in your passport). They can also trace the serial number and determine when it was manufactured and sold.
This is why it is a good idea to register any foreign made products prior to leaving your home country. The US has a form for this; I assume the UK has one, too.
I can attest to the lack of humor. I was re-entering Australia after a two-day side-trip over to New Zealand. I had two food items in my bag -- a bag of US chocolate candy that had already cleared Oz quarantine where I had been told it was no problem, and a bag of Oz-produced, Oz-purchased chocolate easter bunnies. I didn't report either one. They have an X-ray machine that detects chocolate.:-( They were not amused.
The person who mentioned "personal item" if the computer is used while overseas is wrong. This exemption is for people who have resided abroad, not just visited. Governments, especially the US, are quite nit-picky about the difference. It is intended for people who have lived overseas and in the normal course of living have bought things like clothing and furniture to use while residing overseas, but want to bring them back home.
I've not done a UK resident form, but I know the US forms. If they are similar, you have to declare EVERYTHING (at least the cost) and pay only if X is above a certain amount.
And duty-free shops at JFK mean you don't pay the duty costs that would occur if the object entered the US. You are still liable for duties and customs fees when you take whatever it is into the UK. Duty-free shops are great when buying things that are high-duty in the host country and you are leaving, but not for things that don't have duty costs when bought in that country anyway.
They are particularly useful if you are buying liquor and drink it all on the flight. Then you don't run into import limits on the liquor! Otherwise, there are typically a one or two bottle limit on imports.
The service is not using "idle frequencies", it is using active frequencies but spare bandwidth. I.e., it is including its scrambled signal in with the standard digital broadcast signal of one or more other stations.
If these stations have the spare bandwidth, this is a win/win for both the station and USDTV, since they get the cost of a tower and transmitter underwritten by USDTV, and USDTV gets a medium they don't have to worry about licenses for.
This will be a benefit to those areas where the local stations are hard-pressed to come up with the funds to go digital (even though they must). It will also be a big help in areas currently served by translators, since those are sometimes operated by small groups within the community they serve. They can still translate, and sell the excess space to USDTV, who pays for the hardware.
...if you aren't a dedicated watcher of the show, multi-show stories are impossible to watch.
Which does not argue against them being made, only
against you spending your time watching them. I suppose you assume that you should be able to watch any show that pops up on your telly without having to exert any effort to think about it, but some of us don't make that assumption. Some of us allow that other people might like things we don't. Please do us the courtesy of doing the same.
I suggest you stop whining about what other people watch on TV...
If I wanted to whine about what other people watch on TV I could easily do so, and you'd know the difference when you saw it.
What I was doing was using several examples of the 'lowest common denominator' effect to back up a statement that we shouldn't expect any better after Joe Denominator got his right to access the Internet. Sorry I confused you.
We live in a society of lowest common denomenators.
We complain about the quality of our television programs ("I'm a TV Star, Get Me Out Of Here!", "Joe Millionaire", etc.), but they stay on the air because Joe Denomenator watches them. He doesn't watch "Babylon 5" or anything that makes him think. (A producer of Andromeda is reported to have left the show because the network wanted less story line and more action. It was "too hard" for Joe Denomenator to follow multi-show stories. Andromeda has been a mashed-potato show ever since.)
Other mass media has followed. In the checkout line we get tabloids shouting "Lose ten pounds in a week without getting off your sorry ass", and "Have better sex with whomever it is you are banging this week". The venerable TV Guide has become TV Gossip instead of a programming guide.
Big box stores filled with cheap imports smother smaller, local stores until they go out of business, leaving nothing but cheap imports available. Joe Denomenator doesn't want to pay $20 for a radio that will last for years, he wants to pay $10 for one that he'll have to replace in a month, because it is too much effort to keep track of the one he has for more than a month anyway.
Why would anyone think that the Internet would be different, after using it became a "right" for Joe Denomenator?
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The consequences for being wrong "in action" are destroyed economies for a large number of countries and consequently even less ability to deal with the real problem when "science" realizes it was wrong. "Science" has been wrong before, it will be wrong again. When you've destroyed the economies of the industrial countries by demanding they stop producing CO2, who is going to have the money to work on the real solution? Kenya and Uganda? Hardly.
The consequences of being wrong "in inaction" are hardly as awful as all the chicken littles are saying. Billions of people aren't going to die if they have to move back from the coast. They won't die if the deserts get more rainfall, or if there are more clouds. Humans will adapt, just like they always do. Civilization "as we know it" keeps changing. It will continue to do so.
Cycles are normal. Had we been here while the last ice age was ending, we'd be complaining that it was getting too warm and the melting glaciers would make the planet uninhabitable. Had we been here at the end of the last volcanic period, we'd be complaining that the coming ice age was making things too cold and the planet would be uninhabitable. In both cases, the less fortunate would be pointing the fingers of blame at the more fortunate, demanding they stop being fortunate, just like the unindustrialized countries are doing now.
Do you know why there are so few outspoken academics who oppose the global warming zealots? Have you heard the terms "tenure" and "grants"? Departments live off grants for global warming research, and tenure committees don't give tenure to people who don't toe the company line. It wasn't helpful to anyone's career to pronounce "Galileo is right!"; it was patently obvious to anyone with a brain that a feather fell slower than a cannonball because it was lighter. It's only through hindsight that we now understand. The fact that the zealots dish out ridicule instead of reasoned argument is another factor.
When science becomes a religion, the truth gets lost. You can tell when a theory has become dogma when the discussion becomes "fuck you troll" and fearmongering takes over. Global warming is a religion. It isn't the first scientific-religion dogma, it won't be the last. A line from "Operation Petticoat" sums it up perfectly. As the tropical island is under bombing attack, the sub's scrounger drives into the base, saying "in confusion, there is profit". s/confusion/fear/ and it's an even better fit to global warming mania.
Not fact.
We have pitifully little data about the long-term temperature on this planet. We've only been ON the planet for a relatively short time (in geological terms). We've only been collecting temperature data for a pitifully short fraction of that time. For almost all of the time we've been collecting data, we've collected very sparse samples, and almost always near or in population centers (since people are usually only interested in what temperature is it outside their door, and most people live in population centers.) At best, two hundred years of data is actual temperature data.
Scientists have been guessing at prior temperatures using all sorts of proxies for real temperature measures. Width of tree rings, concentrations of microscopic animals in ice, etc. Not true temperature measures, only things that might be caused by certain temperatures. (Other things can cause tree ring changes, etc.)
Now the satellites are telling us we are in deep trouble. Unfortunately, we've only twenty years of this data, and during that 20 years, there have been half a dozen different ways of measuring the temperature -- they don't actually have a thousand mile tall thermometer, after all. Infrared emission, etc, are all used to determine temperature, and the methods used don't give the same answers. So, change the method, change the answer.
And, as has been pointed out, we are actually in the recovery period from an ice age, so it is natural for the temperature to go up.
It is ridiculous to think that we can stop the planet from going through its natural cycles, even though human nature wants to make us think we can. We think that the way it is now is the way it has always been and must always be, and that just isn't true.
If you need an example, look at the Oregon coast. About 40 years ago, a river changed its course and created a hugh sand spit where the outlet of the river used to be (and a river outlet where sand used to be!) People started building their expensive, private resort houses on that spit, and now they are afraid that their spit might be eroded and dissappear. Well, it wasn't there 40 years ago, so it is a good bet that it won't be there in another 40 -- but don't tell them they were idiots for building on a sand spit.
It's the same thing with "protected species". Some people think "species X was here when I was born, it is a good thing to keep it around forever." Not true. Species come and go. It is a natural result of evolution. Trying to maintain the status quo when Momma Nature doesn't want it that way is like spitting into the wind.
What matters is the fact that dumping CO2 into the atmosphere is greasing the slide into hell. It doesn't matter if the warming is a "natural", normal turn of events.
Yeah, the hell with the facts, it's more fun to panic and run in circles being afraid of the world. Yes, it does matter if the way things are happening are natural or not. Well, it doesn't matter to those involved in trying to stop nature, since they are the ones who get the grant money to study the "problem". Profit from pandering fear -- it's a great way to make money!
We're melting. No semantics.
Take your fearmongering elsewhere, witch of the west, or you'll get another bucket of water tossed on you.
The actual life of any specific item depends on many factors: manufacturing quality, manufacturing materials, storage, number of plays, etc.
So, while it is fair to say that "audio tape" is a relatively short-lived, fragile medium (based on the average "audio tape") it is not unusual to have tapes that last 30 years without noticable degradation. I've had tapes that didn't survive the first pass through the recorder, because they were made with crappy glue holding brittle magnetic bits. I have tapes that I've kept in a box for twenty years that are just fine.
You'll find the same thing for CD's. If you use good quality CD-Rs, and store them correctly, I have little doubt that 100 years is a reasonable expected lifetime.
And as others have already pointed out, if the recording is really important, make multiple copies, and then make new copies from the old before they degrade. In this case, CD-R has it over tape, because each generation of tape gets worse, while each generation of CD-R is identical to the parent.
I'm one of them.
We have 100Mb throughout the work organization, with a link to Internet2. I've got a DSL connection to a remote system for work. Yes, I think I've experienced broadband.
I almost never surf at home. When I do, I sometimes think "I ought to get broadband", but when it comes down to doing it, it's not a high priority. Because it is slow, I never enable images or scripts, which means I never get popups or annoying ads.
I does email and sends a bit of data out to be posted on a website. Most of that is automatic. I have more media (music, radio, and TV) than I can watch and listen to already, I don't need to download more. I gets distros on DVD or CD, either from work or in Linux Format.
Why do I need broadband at home?
As an aside, I actually did "get" broadband, for a day. I experienced the Qwest "Spirit of service Inaction". The qwest sales team lied to me and told me that static IP was included in the price they had quoted me. When it came time to deliver, they wanted $15/month more. That was after they installed the service on the wrong line, and then said it would take another week to get it right. They lied to the state public service commission when I complained, so I never got any action taken against them for the fraud they committed.
So, why do I need broadband?
I used to be a subscriber to Wired.
Not long ago, they got a letter from someone quoted in one of their articles, complaining that the "pull-quote" (the material they print in big letters inline with an article to draw your attention to it) they had attributed to him was something he never said and was actually opposite his true position.
Wired excused their misquoting him by saying, in essence, "it's just a pull-quote".
That was all it took for me to realize that Wired had its own agenda and the truth didn't really matter to them.
That depends on what the medium it trying to present itself as.
If the medium is "peer reviewed scientific journal", then yes, all readers are seeking accuracy. If the medium is "comic book" (including tabloids like Enquiror(sp?) or Weekly World News, then readers are seeking entertainment.
When I read the NEWS section of a newspaper, I seek accuracy. I think most people do. When I want humor I read the funny pages. It is acceptable for the funny pages to be accurate, but not for the news pages to be inaccurate.
This is where so many publications fall apart on April Fool's day. They seek to be viewed as accurate sources of information for 11 months out of the year, and then fritter it away in an outburst of nonsense. It's almost a given -- throw away the April edition of any magazine because it will be a waste of time and source of deliberate misinformation.
The same sort of things hold true for TV. I expect TV news to be accurate. When it comes time for Leno or Letterman, I expect to hear lies every time they open their mouths, even when pretending to quote their source directly. E.g., when Rather says "Bush said ..." he better be right. When Leno says "Bush said ...", it reminds me to change the channel to something actually worth listening to.
This is not a "responsibility" in the sense of "accepting responsibility". This is just a task.
What's the difference? If a human chooses to "fit tab A into slot B" and by doing so causes harm to someone, then "accepting responsibility" means that the human accepts whatever the consequences are for that action. For example, on the assembly line, someone gets between the tab and the slot when the human is doing the task, and he does it anyway. The interloper winds up skewered by tab A. Who is responsible? The human who didn't stop doing his task. (If the imagery does not work, imagine the huge welding robots that have replaced human welders, and make the task "weld part A onto part B.)
Would you punish a robot for doing the same thing, or would you punish the programmer/owner? How would you punish a robot? If it aint' smart enough to "accept responsibility", then it ain't smart enough to punish -- which is the basis for the diminished capacity defense in human criminal trials.
As for animals accepting responsibility, try this. The cow does not feel any responsibility to give milk to keep humans fed. The dog, as smart as he is, doesn't accept responsibility for keeping his owner from crossing a busy intersection, he is trained to do this and didn't have a say in the matter. Would you put the dog to death if his actions led the blind master into the path of a truck, or would you simply retire him from guide-dog service?
No, just that analog should be scrapped so that we can all buy or rent the digital set-tops that we don't have to now. You want digital cable, and you want everyone else to be forced to pay for it, but you're unhappy when you are expected to pay for system capacity increases that let others get ondemand. That's being a hypocrite.
Yeah, everyone that disagrees with you is a whiner and you are just a sane, logical voice in the wilderness.
You missed my point completely.
And you missed mine. I wasn't whining about the cost of cable, like you were, I was pointing out the hypocritical nature of your argument.
The cable companies are using the customer service cost as a reason why they cannot offer *a la carte* as a billing option.
No, they are arguing that the cost is why they WILL NOT offer it as a subscription option. It is a lot more than just a billing option. Of course they could offer it, they just realize that people won't pay the extra costs associated with having to buy redundant hardware. It will cost the cable co more to provide this, and it will cost the customer more, and if they implement it they expect to be able to make a profit. That's why they are in business.
If the options were available on the net and someone could select the channels they wanted over the net, then the infrastructure costs are minimal ...
That is not true. Even were they to pay for a network system of purchasing (and the costs associated with that), they would need a telephone based system to deal with people who do not have internet (and won't buy it just because you want them to), and they will still have the infrastructure costs associated with dropping analog and providing digital settops to every customer.
Do the math. At $5/month rental, it takes 20 months minimum for a $100 settop to recover the costs, and that does not include the costs of stocking/maintaining/servicing/replacing those boxes when customers break them, or the costs of initial installation. In some systems, the churn rate for subscribers is 10%. It's hard keeping a sub for the necessary 20 months -- especially in a college town. And that assumes a really cheap settop. It will probably cost more like $200 to $400. (Even the Xbox, as highly subsidized by game sales as it is, costs $150 to purchase. The real cost is much higher.)
Instead of reading what I wrote, you wasted considerable effort in trying to make me look like a hypocrite.
It wasn't that much effort, all it took was reading what you wrote and thinking about the consequences to other people.
Hello, its the 21st century - if someone cannot afford a computer then perhaps they have no business signing up for cable television.
Grow up. That's the only way I can politely answer that kind of comment.
Banks and other institutions charge money for "services" that are considered free if you do the stuff yourself online, so why should cable television channel selection be treated differently?
Because the cable company is not a bank and is not charging you for services to access your own money? I don't know, maybe?
Not everyone wants the bleeding edge of free software. I spend way too much time trying to determine what has changed every time I change to a new distribution, and if something doesn't work on a new install with a new distro, I'm stuck trying to debug two different things at the same time.
Example: brand new system which is just like one I already loaded up. Tried Fedora Core 1 instead of RH7.3. No net, no audio. Was the problem Fedora or the PC? Dinked with Fedora Core 1 (which didn't have anyplace in the install to set the network address, but it did have someplace to set up an NTP client, which wouldn't work because the net didn't work!) but no joy. Must be Fedora! Installed RH7.3. Still no joy. Must be PC! (Was failure to set "Plug and Play OS" to "NO" in the BIOS.)
So, stable is good. Bleeding edge is fun for smart people, but about all you accomplish is debugging bleeding edge stuff. By the time you've done that, the edge has moved and you are off into new territory again. For people who get their code at the library, two revisions out of date is stable enough to be useful.
Perhaps get them a subscription to Linux Format magazine in the DVD edition, with an available DVD reader and CD writer somewhere nearby.
3. Dump analog, period.
You claim you don't want to have to pay for OnDemand which you won't use just because others do, and yet you want me to pay for multiple set-top boxes with a feature I will not use.
The tuners in all of my TVs and VCRs work just fine, thank you, and I appreciate the legislation that forces Cablecos to provide services without requiring extraneous hardware. I do not want to pay the Cableco $5/month per box for something my equipment can already do.
4. A la carte pricing will not cause a customer service issue. Any channel additions and subtractions could be made via the internet,
Except for those people who don't have internet connections. Yet another cost you want to push onto someone else.
You seem unhappy that you are paying to subsidize rebuilds that allow other people to get services they want, but you want me to pay for services you want that I do not. Pot, meet Kettle.
This is an interesting concept. Let's examine it.
Radio station licenses are inherently limited in scope, especially in the FM broadcast band. FM stations do not cover the entire US, which means that frequencies are reusable. You can have stations on the same frequency in Atlanta and San Fran.
Further, there are approximately 100 FM radio channels. If the FCC assigns them with one channel in between, there are 50 channels in every market. How many stations in each market does ClearChannel have? 5? That leaves 45 for other providers.
This is certainly not a monopoly based on limited bandwidth. However, based on cost of entry, you could argue that it is. It costs a lot to create a radio station (or buy an existing one), but keeping "cost of entry" low is not a requirement of the first amendment.
When we are in the field and have them available, we do. They are great for short-range tactical comms. Were we to use such radios for call-outs, you would certainly find it much more annoying since we would have to have them on all the time, and THEY don't have vibrating ringers and messaging capability. (And I do often carry such a radio, but not as the first line of contact. That way it can be off most of the time.)
There is an added expense for the equipment, but those bands and corresponding communications networks are less likely to become saturated with traffic, like the cell networks tend to during emergencies.
Cell phone systems do not tend to become saturated during small-scale emergencies, such as "missing child" or "lost adult". They are more private, so personal details may be more freely discussed, and the infrastructure is much broader than the typical public safety radio system. For example, if I am in the next big town over (just ten miles away) I get great cell service but crappy reception of even the primary county law enforcement channel. (That's ok, it is in the next county.)
And, unfortunately, yes, during large scale problems, even the standard public service radio systems get congested. The advanced digital trunked systems were supposed to help with this, but even they don't manage to keep up under stress. In fact, many of them are worse, since they don't provide simplex direct communications. If you are buried in a pile of rubble and cannot reach the closest trunk site, you don't communicate, even if your budies are in the next room. The old analog radios do much better at that -- and cell phones have the same problem. And then you have the problem of incompatible digital systems between different agencies.
Further, such radios are single purpose devices, while cell phones are multi-purpose. I cannot use such a radio to call home to say "I'm on the way to a search" or to call other people at their homes to get them involved. Having to carry multiple devices all the time is a real drag, as anyone who does it can tell you.
It's rather irresponsible for a rescue operation to depend on the standard cell networks.
That would be true if that was ALL that we used, but it isn't (because it would be irresponsible). If there was a major disaster we wouldn't depend on cell phones, but for normal operations they are pretty reliable and certainly more convenient than regular radios.
Oh, you poor darling. Perhaps we should tell you "if you are so easily distracted, stay home." That's what you are telling cell phone owners. How do you like it?
But all that said, I do think that people should be able to block cell phone calls in private businesses, as long as it is well posted that they are doing it.
If they do it without obtaining the requisite radio licenses, I think they ought to go to jail.
I can then take my business somewhere else if I don't like it.
"We don't serve no _insert_minority_here_ here. If you don't like it, take your business elsewhere."
Once you open a business up to the public, you lose a large amount of control over that space. Shopping malls learned this the hard way when they wanted to ban petition gatherers and lost in court. And your "reserve the right" sign does not allow a restaurant to deny service to people based on skin color, religion, or any of the other similar civil rights categories. Even if they post it in three foot high letters, they do not have the right to deny service to people for any reason they want to. Nor does this "right" flow over into denying all cell phone use.
And even a private business does not control the airwaves. That's reserved to the FCC.
I hope the very first incoming call that is blocked on my cellphone is the one calling me to come look for you or your lost child. I'll happily sit watching a movie instead of volunteering my time out in the forest looking for your sorry selfish ass.
What the hell makes you think you have some right to punish me just because I carry a cellphone that might vibrate while I am somewhere in your vicinity?
I suggest you get a life and stop trying to control every other person who happens to be unlucky enough to be within five feet of you. Either that, or I'll figure out some way of punishing you just because I don't like you.
It isn't your airspace. It's a public place.
If I put forth the expectation that all guests are treated equally,
First of all, there is notthing inherently "equal" about preventing cell phone signals. Second of all, your "expectation" isn't binding on anyone else. I expect my cellphone to work when I am in a restaurant or theatre. I pay for it to work there. Tough beans for your expectations.
Why? Because people all around you paid for a show.
There is nothing in the silent vibration of my cellphone that anyone around me will notice. If they notice me pull it out of my pocket and look at the screen, then it wasn't a very interesting show and you owe them their money back.
I may be stopping your right to receive a call, but if your phone is licensed in the US under our FCC laws, your phone must accept any interference, which may cause undesired operation.
This is the reason I bothered to respond to your selfish little rant. You are patently wrong. Primary licensees do not have to put up with any interference, they have the primary right to the frequency, and deliberate interference is illegal and can subject the interferer to heavy fines.
What you are probably thinking of are Part 15 unlicensed devices like Wi-Fi or cordless phones and baby monitors. Those devices are not licensed any they do have to put up with interference from licensed users of the spectrum and each other. For example, as an amateur radio operator, I am a primary licensee in the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi band. If I decide to put up a station on one of those frequencies, I can do so, at a much higher power than you can ever hope to override, and YOUR use of the spectrum goes POOF!
I am a SAR volunteer, and my cellphone may be how I am notified that there is a lost child that needs to be found. I'm sorry if you think that your right to silence overrides the life of another human being, but get over it. If my cellphone vibrating in my pocket annoys you, then get your fucking hand out of my pocket and mind your own damn business.
Yeah, but you need a microwave big enough for twenty of them.
Why do otherwise reputable information sources seem hell-bent on wasting their reputations by distributing nonsense one day a year? Are there not enough humor sources out there that we need fake news from everywhere?
What do you say when they run the serial number and the manufacturer says it was produced a month ago and sold just two days ago?
Re chocolate, they give you chocolate on the plane, so why not just carry it with you in your jacket.
Because all food items have to be declared. Even ones they give you on the plane. They even tell people right before they get off they can't do this.
You are required by law to tell them.
If they even begin to think that you didn't tell them about something you ought to have, they can pull you aside and search you and your baggage. They have zero sense of humour about this kind of thing. They have every reason to want to catch you, since the fines are much higher than the taxes, and they look good catching smugglers. It's their job.
If they ask you, and you lie, you can be easily caught. They will look at the data plate on the laptop and see the country of origin is the US. They will notice how new it looks and ask you to prove when you bought it, or when you brought it into the country and paid the VAT on it (you better have an accompanying entry stamp in your passport). They can also trace the serial number and determine when it was manufactured and sold.
This is why it is a good idea to register any foreign made products prior to leaving your home country. The US has a form for this; I assume the UK has one, too.
I can attest to the lack of humor. I was re-entering Australia after a two-day side-trip over to New Zealand. I had two food items in my bag -- a bag of US chocolate candy that had already cleared Oz quarantine where I had been told it was no problem, and a bag of Oz-produced, Oz-purchased chocolate easter bunnies. I didn't report either one. They have an X-ray machine that detects chocolate. :-( They were not amused.
The person who mentioned "personal item" if the computer is used while overseas is wrong. This exemption is for people who have resided abroad, not just visited. Governments, especially the US, are quite nit-picky about the difference. It is intended for people who have lived overseas and in the normal course of living have bought things like clothing and furniture to use while residing overseas, but want to bring them back home.
And duty-free shops at JFK mean you don't pay the duty costs that would occur if the object entered the US. You are still liable for duties and customs fees when you take whatever it is into the UK. Duty-free shops are great when buying things that are high-duty in the host country and you are leaving, but not for things that don't have duty costs when bought in that country anyway.
They are particularly useful if you are buying liquor and drink it all on the flight. Then you don't run into import limits on the liquor! Otherwise, there are typically a one or two bottle limit on imports.
The service is not using "idle frequencies", it is using active frequencies but spare bandwidth. I.e., it is including its scrambled signal in with the standard digital broadcast signal of one or more other stations.
If these stations have the spare bandwidth, this is a win/win for both the station and USDTV, since they get the cost of a tower and transmitter underwritten by USDTV, and USDTV gets a medium they don't have to worry about licenses for.
This will be a benefit to those areas where the local stations are hard-pressed to come up with the funds to go digital (even though they must). It will also be a big help in areas currently served by translators, since those are sometimes operated by small groups within the community they serve. They can still translate, and sell the excess space to USDTV, who pays for the hardware.
My name's not "Buck-o".
Which does not argue against them being made, only against you spending your time watching them. I suppose you assume that you should be able to watch any show that pops up on your telly without having to exert any effort to think about it, but some of us don't make that assumption. Some of us allow that other people might like things we don't. Please do us the courtesy of doing the same.
I suggest you stop whining about what other people watch on TV...
If I wanted to whine about what other people watch on TV I could easily do so, and you'd know the difference when you saw it.
What I was doing was using several examples of the 'lowest common denominator' effect to back up a statement that we shouldn't expect any better after Joe Denominator got his right to access the Internet. Sorry I confused you.
We complain about the quality of our television programs ("I'm a TV Star, Get Me Out Of Here!", "Joe Millionaire", etc.), but they stay on the air because Joe Denomenator watches them. He doesn't watch "Babylon 5" or anything that makes him think. (A producer of Andromeda is reported to have left the show because the network wanted less story line and more action. It was "too hard" for Joe Denomenator to follow multi-show stories. Andromeda has been a mashed-potato show ever since.)
Other mass media has followed. In the checkout line we get tabloids shouting "Lose ten pounds in a week without getting off your sorry ass", and "Have better sex with whomever it is you are banging this week". The venerable TV Guide has become TV Gossip instead of a programming guide.
Big box stores filled with cheap imports smother smaller, local stores until they go out of business, leaving nothing but cheap imports available. Joe Denomenator doesn't want to pay $20 for a radio that will last for years, he wants to pay $10 for one that he'll have to replace in a month, because it is too much effort to keep track of the one he has for more than a month anyway.
Why would anyone think that the Internet would be different, after using it became a "right" for Joe Denomenator?