The term of copyright is a limit on the protection of the intellectual property "music". The question to be asking musicians is: "Do you support the extension of medical patents, such as a potential cure for aids, to 50 years?". That is, how is the intellectual property "music", more deserving of protection than then intellectual property "cure for aids"? Really. I'd love to see Sir Paul answer that one.
Who are the mods who called this "inciteful". Certainly it is meant to incite, but there is little incite in this. A lot of ignorance about the impacts of melted ice caps, but incite . . . I don't think so.
Two points: 1:Canada is the largest exporter of oil to the US (look it up). 2:Ethanol produces more CO2 per joule of energy than octane (for comparison's sake). Look that up too. The heats of formation can be found in the handbook of chemistry and physics (or other authoritative reference). Don't forget that you form CO2 in the conversion of sugar to alcohol... which makes things even worse.
I'm guessing you don't have children in the age range of 8 to 14 years old. For them this show is great. Particularly that (majority) group that normally hates all things math and science. With respect to your second last statement, I think An Inconvenient Truth presents bad pseudo science as science too. And that show certainly never tried to give the impression that it was only entertainment. Finally, most scientific theories I am familiar with require that they be true every time. If one can show the theory fails once, you have proven it inconsistent. So, nothing wrong with generalising from one instance. To DISPROVE, one only needs one instance. It is only in proof that one must be universal.
Boy that would make life in the north great! To work at 10:00, home at 2:00. WooHooo, the four hour day. Ok, 9:00 to 3:00 in England, but sounds really good for Finland.
Please see: http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/06-07/oct28.html. This was a radio show with an interview with one of the researchers on an icebreaker that goes into the northwest passage in the high arctic every summer. This research shows that CO2 increases may indeed be an EFFECT of global warming. It is also claimed that warming will release large quantities of methane from arctic tundra. Also, you can find the Vostock data and plot it yourself. Finally, for those who support the "forcing" model that a small step wise increase in CO2 will cause a forcing of H2O that will in turn amplify the impact of the CO2, consider that eliminating CO2 also reduces aerosols and dust. The forcing (in the opposite direction) of aerosols and dust is (according to the IPCC Global Climate Model) much much larger than the forcing of CO2. So reducing human emmissions of CO2 will accelerate global warming. Indeed, pollution control seems to follow the recent (1940 to 2006) trends much more closely than CO2 levels do.
I suggest an alternate category for you. Not evolution or flat earth, but rather thermodynamics. In the late 1800's, Max Plank delved into thermodynamics in great detail. At the time he was derided because "everything that needed to be known was known". Einstein has credited his work as one of the underpinnings of relativity. A revolutionary break in science that turned much of what people thought they knew about thermodynamics on its head.
Consensus is not proof. In particular, with science, the devil is in the details.
I'm glad you aren't stupid enough to believe that climate change is not real. I suggest you look at the Vostok data. There you will see that this type of climate change has been happening for at least half a million years. You need to look at Vostock to go back more than 100,000 years. You see Greenland's ice all melted the last time this happened. It is pretty likely it will all melt this time too. You will also see that CO2 followed temperature each of the last four times the earth went through a climate change cycle, nearly identical to the current cycle. There weren't many SUV's 300,000 years ago. Must have been something else.
By sticking YOUR head in the sand and pretending that doing something about CO2 is actually doing something, you are ignoring the very real and very frightening fact that this has happened before without any help from humans. What pisses off those of us who are skeptics is the amount of money being wasted chasing the illusion of Kyoto while nature moves inexorably forward to a conclusion that will be devastating for all of us.
I'm not sure what the human eye can perceive, but my wife's migraines went away when we ditched our CFL's. And yes, they were the newer "not flickering" type. Interesting link. Looks like advocacy rather than information to me. Not as bad as a wikipedia ref, but almost.
Seeing as this seems to come up from time to time, I must assume that this is an RTFA test and the first person to find the "penis" wins a prize. If you read the article, carefully, you would understand. Cheers! JE
"I really hate to mess with your worldview, but science is always wrong. That's how science works - through constant refinement and revision of existing ideas to better reflect our evolving understanding. Despite many cycles of disproving accepted theories, science is still the best game in town. The only way we become dangerous is if we give in to pride and refuse to keep pace with new developments."
I'm guessing that you replied to this after most had read the article etc. once and hence little chance for modding up. You are not messing with my world view. Reread my original post. Carefully. My world view is: The media reporting of the IPCC et. al. would have us believe that science is absolutely correct in this. None of the proponents of man made global warming are standing up and saying "Hey we could be wrong". As you seem to understand, this is absurd. The enemies of science will grab this failure (if it is indeed a failure) and use it to forward a myriad of idiotic proposals, such as intelligent design and the dangers of immunization. They will get funding for science cut back. They will get people to stop donating to Sierra Defense and others. This issue is about as public an issue as science has had. If we have it wrong, science itself will be at stake. And by then it will be too late.
"It's because the Great Lakes are warmer than usual because of the unusually warm December and January,"
Actually, http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS58CT/200702051 80000_WIS58CT_0002968329.gifThis shows that the great lakes are currently freezing over. They do this in the winter to some degree or another. Hence the surface water temperature is 4 degrees celsius or lower. Almost certainly 0 degrees celsius. To be clear, the water temperature is NOT warmer. Also note that Lake Erie is now completely frozen over. While you are at the Environment Canada web site, I encourage you to look at the "past weather" data. In particular, plot up temperature data for the last 50 years or so. Note that from 1950 to about 1975, most sites will show a decrease. To really appreciate the trend, plot either the 12 month or 60 month running average. As those of us who are old farts will remember, in the 1970's this data was used as evidence that a new ice age was coming.
I said:
"This means that arguments against intelligient design will now have to show how the "certainty" about evolution is any different from the "certainty" about global warming. Similar issues will come up in arguments for vaccination and other issues where real deaths could follow. Arguments will come up about funding levels at universities and research institutes. Arguments will come up against new initiatives for reducing pollution."
You Said:
"Let's stop roping evolution into it, okay? Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with global warming. There are entire branches of science that function off of evolutionary theory, in these fields, evolution is something that no longer has to be "proved", it is simply used. Evolution happens. It's been proven time and time again. Scientists can watch micro-evolution happen in front of their eyes. We need to stop promoting anti-science as a movement. Maybe science could get it wrong, that's possible. Maybe most scientists could agree that global warming is caused by man and later be proven to be wrong, but that doesn't mean you throw away all the useful information you've learned through scientific theory and start acting like they got it all wrong. The scientific community isn't a unified religious organization, despite religious peoples' attempts to promote it as such."
And hence showed that you missed the entire point of my post. I am a believer in evolution. I value science and empirical evidence to support theory. I agree with you on evolution.
Now try to follow this carefully.
If the climate becomes stable for a decade or so AND if CO2 levels go through the roof, how will you respond with your rational argument when someone says "That's what they said about global warming". And every non-scientist listening will nod in agreement and think "yea, they lied to me about global warming, why wouldn't they lie to me about evolution". I fear this. You should fear this. You should start to point out that this type of assinine argument is going to be given credility because the same people who are proponents for (scientifically proven) evolution are also proponents for (scientifically inferred) global warming. Very few people who determine what becomes law or who gets money know the difference.
This article and the one earlier, concerning the causitive nature of cosmic rays on climate should be read together. Many of the readers here are scientists, engineers (applied scientists) or at least capable of a fundemental understanding of science. To those people I say: If you are a proponent of man influenced climate change, you had better be right. This issue has now progressed to the point where the majority of people on the planet believe that there is no scientific doubt whatsoever about human influence and more precisely carbon dioxide. If this is wrong, if humans are not influencing climate or if that influence has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, science will be at fault and science will (rightly) lose credibility.
This means that arguments against intelligient design will now have to show how the "certainty" about evolution is any different from the "certainty" about global warming. Similar issues will come up in arguments for vaccination and other issues where real deaths could follow. Arguments will come up about funding levels at universities and research institutes. Arguments will come up against new initiatives for reducing pollution.
There are a large number of interest groups out there that are waiting with increasing anticipation that this issue will blow up in the face of the global warming proponents. A large number of the rest of us will get hit by the shrapnel of that explosion. As an engineer and consultant who gets a great deal of work and money out of efforts to curb green house gasses, I personally love the hype. As a believer in the importance of science in all of our lives, I am now getting very nervous about the future reputation of science.
The short article talks a lot about 'social interactions' and such. It makes reference to things like the linux development model. All good ways to apply science. Learning applied science, (which is what my degree in engineering is technically called) comes first. You can't design a bridge without understanding shear stress, bending moments etc. And speaking from experience, you don't learn that stuff unless you are in the class, listening to the lectures and then doing a lot of problems.
I suspect the guy quoted is one of these people that learns easily and can't see that for most people his method is MUCH harder.
The popular media was not "Weekly World News", but Newsweek http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15391426/site/newsweek / and Time. They were quoting scientific opinion that the cooling trend that had begun in the 1940's may have been a precursor of a new natural ice age. I clearly remember this was something we were required to study in school. The scare we were faced with then was freezing in the dark. Interestingly, the solution to global cooling was: "Cut human emissions and reduce our environmental footprint" and the bad guys causing global cooling were big oil and big coal. The human impact that was very widely studied at that time was nuclear winter. It wasn't until the late 1980's that popular media began to talk about global warming. Prior to that if you wanted funding for research you talked about nuclear winter. Now if you want funding you talk about global warming.
Your attempt to belittle the response to your post indicates to me that you are not fully comfortable with your position. If you are fully comfortable with your position, defend it honestly or leave the defense to people who are more even tempered than you are.
The problem is not celebrities making comments without checking the facts. The problem is news producers giving them air play without checking the facts.
I seem to recall reading such things from Date et. al. for years. My copy of the second edition of the third manifesto (there's a mouthful!) is dated May 2000. This is a half decade old holy war. Not news, not really stuff that matters. For nerds maybe.
Cheers.
JE
How many people are going to post variants of "don't use this code for army stuff" proposals? Armies use almost everything known to man. Name one thing NOT used by the military. Conversely even things like guns and cannon have non military and even non violent uses. Cannon for instance are used to trigger controlled avalanches. Name one military tool that (in some form) DOES NOT have a peaceful use. How could this get a score of 2????
I've seen many comments that this is not reasonable and that MS sys admins are responsible. One thing needs to be pointed out:
Microsoft is agressively targetting the TCO of other operating systems. The difference in the TCO is the cost of competent admins.
Ergo, Microsoft is saying you don't NEED a competent sys admin. If this is the case, it is because the product is secure out of the box and does not need patches (One of the jobs of a sys admin is to know about and apply patches). JE
Were you aware that not too long ago, Microsoft infused a couple of million into Corel to keep them afloat? As such they are a partially owned subsidiary of Microsoft, NOT a competitor
One Word: Canada. Our system is an 'SMPD' system though we call it first past the post. We have had, in most jurisdictions, three parties for many decades. Federally we currently have five. Obviously there is an error somewhere in your logic or there would only be two parties in Canada.
Slashdot Mirror
The term of copyright is a limit on the protection of the intellectual property "music". The question to be asking musicians is: "Do you support the extension of medical patents, such as a potential cure for aids, to 50 years?". That is, how is the intellectual property "music", more deserving of protection than then intellectual property "cure for aids"?
Really. I'd love to see Sir Paul answer that one.
Cheers
JE
Who are the mods who called this "inciteful". Certainly it is meant to incite, but there is little incite in this. A lot of ignorance about the impacts of melted ice caps, but incite . . . I don't think so.
Cheers
JE
Two points:
1:Canada is the largest exporter of oil to the US (look it up).
2:Ethanol produces more CO2 per joule of energy than octane (for comparison's sake). Look that up too. The heats of formation can be found in the handbook of chemistry and physics (or other authoritative reference). Don't forget that you form CO2 in the conversion of sugar to alcohol... which makes things even worse.
Cheers
JE
I'm guessing you don't have children in the age range of 8 to 14 years old. For them this show is great. Particularly that (majority) group that normally hates all things math and science. With respect to your second last statement, I think An Inconvenient Truth presents bad pseudo science as science too. And that show certainly never tried to give the impression that it was only entertainment. Finally, most scientific theories I am familiar with require that they be true every time. If one can show the theory fails once, you have proven it inconsistent. So, nothing wrong with generalising from one instance. To DISPROVE, one only needs one instance. It is only in proof that one must be universal.
Cheers
JE
Boy that would make life in the north great! To work at 10:00, home at 2:00. WooHooo, the four hour day. Ok, 9:00 to 3:00 in England, but sounds really good for Finland.
JE
Please see: http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/06-07/oct28.html . This was a radio show with an interview with one of the researchers on an icebreaker that goes into the northwest passage in the high arctic every summer. This research shows that CO2 increases may indeed be an EFFECT of global warming. It is also claimed that warming will release large quantities of methane from arctic tundra. Also, you can find the Vostock data and plot it yourself. Finally, for those who support the "forcing" model that a small step wise increase in CO2 will cause a forcing of H2O that will in turn amplify the impact of the CO2, consider that eliminating CO2 also reduces aerosols and dust. The forcing (in the opposite direction) of aerosols and dust is (according to the IPCC Global Climate Model) much much larger than the forcing of CO2. So reducing human emmissions of CO2 will accelerate global warming. Indeed, pollution control seems to follow the recent (1940 to 2006) trends much more closely than CO2 levels do.
Cheers
JE
>The honest and hard hitting question is.. Who would win in a fight, Firefly or Millenium Falcon
Obviously, the answer is: Ditka. (am I showing my age with that reference?)
Cheers
JE
I suggest an alternate category for you. Not evolution or flat earth, but rather thermodynamics. In the late 1800's, Max Plank delved into thermodynamics in great detail. At the time he was derided because "everything that needed to be known was known". Einstein has credited his work as one of the underpinnings of relativity. A revolutionary break in science that turned much of what people thought they knew about thermodynamics on its head.
Consensus is not proof. In particular, with science, the devil is in the details.
I'm glad you aren't stupid enough to believe that climate change is not real. I suggest you look at the Vostok data. There you will see that this type of climate change has been happening for at least half a million years. You need to look at Vostock to go back more than 100,000 years. You see Greenland's ice all melted the last time this happened. It is pretty likely it will all melt this time too. You will also see that CO2 followed temperature each of the last four times the earth went through a climate change cycle, nearly identical to the current cycle. There weren't many SUV's 300,000 years ago. Must have been something else.
By sticking YOUR head in the sand and pretending that doing something about CO2 is actually doing something, you are ignoring the very real and very frightening fact that this has happened before without any help from humans. What pisses off those of us who are skeptics is the amount of money being wasted chasing the illusion of Kyoto while nature moves inexorably forward to a conclusion that will be devastating for all of us.
Cheers
JE
I'm not sure what the human eye can perceive, but my wife's migraines went away when we ditched our CFL's. And yes, they were the newer "not flickering" type. Interesting link. Looks like advocacy rather than information to me. Not as bad as a wikipedia ref, but almost.
Cheers
JE
Seeing as this seems to come up from time to time, I must assume that this is an RTFA test and the first person to find the "penis" wins a prize. If you read the article, carefully, you would understand.
Cheers!
JE
"I really hate to mess with your worldview, but science is always wrong. That's how science works - through constant refinement and revision of existing ideas to better reflect our evolving understanding. Despite many cycles of disproving accepted theories, science is still the best game in town. The only way we become dangerous is if we give in to pride and refuse to keep pace with new developments."
I'm guessing that you replied to this after most had read the article etc. once and hence little chance for modding up. You are not messing with my world view. Reread my original post. Carefully. My world view is: The media reporting of the IPCC et. al. would have us believe that science is absolutely correct in this. None of the proponents of man made global warming are standing up and saying "Hey we could be wrong". As you seem to understand, this is absurd. The enemies of science will grab this failure (if it is indeed a failure) and use it to forward a myriad of idiotic proposals, such as intelligent design and the dangers of immunization. They will get funding for science cut back. They will get people to stop donating to Sierra Defense and others. This issue is about as public an issue as science has had. If we have it wrong, science itself will be at stake. And by then it will be too late.
Cheers
JE
"It's because the Great Lakes are warmer than usual because of the unusually warm December and January,"
1 80000_WIS58CT_0002968329.gifThis shows that the great lakes are currently freezing over. They do this in the winter to some degree or another. Hence the surface water temperature is 4 degrees celsius or lower. Almost certainly 0 degrees celsius. To be clear, the water temperature is NOT warmer. Also note that Lake Erie is now completely frozen over. While you are at the Environment Canada web site, I encourage you to look at the "past weather" data. In particular, plot up temperature data for the last 50 years or so. Note that from 1950 to about 1975, most sites will show a decrease. To really appreciate the trend, plot either the 12 month or 60 month running average. As those of us who are old farts will remember, in the 1970's this data was used as evidence that a new ice age was coming.
Actually, http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS58CT/20070205
Cheers
JE
I said:
"This means that arguments against intelligient design will now have to show how the "certainty" about evolution is any different from the "certainty" about global warming. Similar issues will come up in arguments for vaccination and other issues where real deaths could follow. Arguments will come up about funding levels at universities and research institutes. Arguments will come up against new initiatives for reducing pollution."
You Said:
"Let's stop roping evolution into it, okay? Evolutionary theory has nothing to do with global warming. There are entire branches of science that function off of evolutionary theory, in these fields, evolution is something that no longer has to be "proved", it is simply used. Evolution happens. It's been proven time and time again. Scientists can watch micro-evolution happen in front of their eyes. We need to stop promoting anti-science as a movement. Maybe science could get it wrong, that's possible. Maybe most scientists could agree that global warming is caused by man and later be proven to be wrong, but that doesn't mean you throw away all the useful information you've learned through scientific theory and start acting like they got it all wrong. The scientific community isn't a unified religious organization, despite religious peoples' attempts to promote it as such."
And hence showed that you missed the entire point of my post. I am a believer in evolution. I value science and empirical evidence to support theory. I agree with you on evolution.
Now try to follow this carefully.
If the climate becomes stable for a decade or so AND if CO2 levels go through the roof, how will you respond with your rational argument when someone says "That's what they said about global warming". And every non-scientist listening will nod in agreement and think "yea, they lied to me about global warming, why wouldn't they lie to me about evolution". I fear this. You should fear this. You should start to point out that this type of assinine argument is going to be given credility because the same people who are proponents for (scientifically proven) evolution are also proponents for (scientifically inferred) global warming. Very few people who determine what becomes law or who gets money know the difference.
Cheers
JE
This article and the one earlier, concerning the causitive nature of cosmic rays on climate should be read together. Many of the readers here are scientists, engineers (applied scientists) or at least capable of a fundemental understanding of science. To those people I say: If you are a proponent of man influenced climate change, you had better be right. This issue has now progressed to the point where the majority of people on the planet believe that there is no scientific doubt whatsoever about human influence and more precisely carbon dioxide. If this is wrong, if humans are not influencing climate or if that influence has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, science will be at fault and science will (rightly) lose credibility.
This means that arguments against intelligient design will now have to show how the "certainty" about evolution is any different from the "certainty" about global warming. Similar issues will come up in arguments for vaccination and other issues where real deaths could follow. Arguments will come up about funding levels at universities and research institutes. Arguments will come up against new initiatives for reducing pollution.
There are a large number of interest groups out there that are waiting with increasing anticipation that this issue will blow up in the face of the global warming proponents. A large number of the rest of us will get hit by the shrapnel of that explosion. As an engineer and consultant who gets a great deal of work and money out of efforts to curb green house gasses, I personally love the hype. As a believer in the importance of science in all of our lives, I am now getting very nervous about the future reputation of science.
Cheers
JE
The short article talks a lot about 'social interactions' and such. It makes reference to things like the linux development model. All good ways to apply science. Learning applied science, (which is what my degree in engineering is technically called) comes first. You can't design a bridge without understanding shear stress, bending moments etc. And speaking from experience, you don't learn that stuff unless you are in the class, listening to the lectures and then doing a lot of problems.
I suspect the guy quoted is one of these people that learns easily and can't see that for most people his method is MUCH harder.
Cheers
JE
The popular media was not "Weekly World News", but Newsweek http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15391426/site/newsweek / and Time. They were quoting scientific opinion that the cooling trend that had begun in the 1940's may have been a precursor of a new natural ice age. I clearly remember this was something we were required to study in school. The scare we were faced with then was freezing in the dark. Interestingly, the solution to global cooling was: "Cut human emissions and reduce our environmental footprint" and the bad guys causing global cooling were big oil and big coal. The human impact that was very widely studied at that time was nuclear winter. It wasn't until the late 1980's that popular media began to talk about global warming. Prior to that if you wanted funding for research you talked about nuclear winter. Now if you want funding you talk about global warming.
Your attempt to belittle the response to your post indicates to me that you are not fully comfortable with your position. If you are fully comfortable with your position, defend it honestly or leave the defense to people who are more even tempered than you are.
Cheers
JE
GNU BSD ???? Would that be the Gnu's Not Unix Berkely Software Distribution of Unix? Because BSD IS Unix.http://www.freebsd.org/
Cheers
JE
The problem is not celebrities making comments without checking the facts. The problem is news producers giving them air play without checking the facts.
If I'm not mistaken, Canada is the largest supplier of oil to the US.
Cheers
I seem to recall reading such things from Date et. al. for years. My copy of the second edition of the third manifesto (there's a mouthful!) is dated May 2000. This is a half decade old holy war. Not news, not really stuff that matters. For nerds maybe.
Cheers.
JE
How many people are going to post variants of "don't use this code for army stuff" proposals? Armies use almost everything known to man. Name one thing NOT used by the military. Conversely even things like guns and cannon have non military and even non violent uses. Cannon for instance are used to trigger controlled avalanches. Name one military tool that (in some form) DOES NOT have a peaceful use. How could this get a score of 2????
I've seen many comments that this is not reasonable and that MS sys admins are responsible. One thing needs to be pointed out:
Microsoft is agressively targetting the TCO of other operating systems. The difference in the TCO is the cost of competent admins.
Ergo, Microsoft is saying you don't NEED a competent sys admin. If this is the case, it is because the product is secure out of the box and does not need patches (One of the jobs of a sys admin is to know about and apply patches).
JE
Were you aware that not too long ago, Microsoft infused a couple of million into Corel to keep them afloat? As such they are a partially owned subsidiary of Microsoft, NOT a competitor
One Word: Canada. Our system is an 'SMPD' system though we call it first past the post. We have had, in most jurisdictions, three parties for many decades. Federally we currently have five. Obviously there is an error somewhere in your logic or there would only be two parties in Canada.