Here's one example of us having a definite affect on the planet:
affect: I do not think that word means what you think it means.
if all of the thousands of nuclear weapons were detonated, there would be a definite affect on the planet.
OK, I'll grant you that that is a hypothesis, but it is not a proof. It has not been tested, nor do I wish it to be. You don't seem to grasp the difference between hypothesis and proof or even testing a hypothesis. Sad what passes for thinking these days.
Also, I don't think we can turn this planet into a moon. Figuring out the definition of a moon is left as an excercise to the intelligent.
As for your assertion that 6 billion human beings + powerful technologies..., I would contend that 6 billion humans period will have intentional and unintentional effects on anything. I consider agriculture to be a powerful technology as is the wheel. Both have had unitended consequences, as have newer creations, such as the telephone, radio, and welfare. The only way you can prevent unintended consequences is to kill everybody. Certainly that isn't what you want (I hope.)
So my advice to you is to look at a problem you want to solve, and try to solve it. You can't put a genie back in a bottle, but you can figure out what to do with it instead of running around screaming.
I fear for the futue. I have heard of these things you call libraries, and I have even been inside one or two. Hmm, history. Did you know that in England and Europe, temperatures dropped because of the Industrial Revolution? Yep, it's true. I even know why, but I doubt if you do, so I'll try to explain.
The industrial revolution was fueled (literally) by coal and wood burning. Now a principal result of the burning of coal and wood is liberation of stored energy along with residual product (I'll just call it "ash" in my own ignorant manner.) Now the result of all the ash being liberated into the atmosphere is believed to have raised the albedo of the Earth slighly, causing "cooling". (I'm using quotes there because it really is a reduction in heating from the sun, but the effect is the same.) (The increase in atmosperic pollutants can cause increased cloud formation as suspended water droplets coalesce around the ash seeds.)
World temperatures also have been know to drop due to natural phenomena. In the 1980's Mt. Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines. The resultant ash caused nice sunsets and lower temperatures.
I'm also sure that you have made use of your education to understand what solar max is, and that since we have passed it, we will be getting a little less radiation over the next 10-11 years or so until we start seeing an increase again. Right?
"global warming is not a good name - the word is climactic shift"
Yes, I've heard that the loony left is trying to wipe the fried egg of of their collective faces by claiming that they haven't really been shouting GLOBAL WARMING. USA EVIL. KYOTO PROTOCOL ONLY WAY TO SAVE LIFE ON EARTH! for the last 15+ years.
Face it, those who said you were full of crap were right. Now you are trying to pretend it wasn't you, it was all those whack jobs that you support and support you. I really hate to pop your fantasy balloon, but climate changes over time. You do know that 1000 years ago, the climate was warmer than it is now, right? Greenland was actually green when Eric the Red "discovered" it. It isn't green now because it is COLDER than it used to be.
You whack jobs used these same data points used in the GLOBAL COOLING/NEW ICE AGE scare tactics in the mid 1970's, but you decided that it was suddenly warming instead of cooling. The goal has always been to the same: to control people's behavior and lives through the application of fear and government force.
Find out my family was dead from the news instead of from a government flunky wouldn't change my degree of grief
I think you are wrong. Let me throw a scenaria at you:
Your child (say 14 years old) was on an airplane that crashed. The media comes to tell you. There isn't just one person, there are 50, with big lights, microphones, and 10 reporters yelling questions at you as soon as you open the door. When you finally understand that your child is dead, they start badering you with questions like "How does it feel to lose your child?", "Who do you think is to blame?", "Are you going to sue the airline?".
...AND YOU CAN'T MAKE THEM GO AWAY! Or would you prefer for one or two people to come to tell you, who will then leave you to your grief?
I found the judge's criteria, as quoted, quite disturbing.
OK, so I'm replying in the middle of an article several hours hold. Very few people will ever see this but...
Everybody is pretending to make a big deal of this, but I have a different perspective. I suspect the judge thought this was a stupid case. The action figures are meant to be played with as toys. They are not going to be cuddled, dressed, burped, changed, bathed, etc. like a Betsie Wetsie doll.
Common sense sometimes has to wear silly clothes in the courts.
nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb
The key to the above, here in the U.S. is the same offense part. There are so many laws to cover the same actions, that if you aren't convicted on one, there can be other charges brought to bear (or at least trumped up.)
For instance, if the gov't doesn't like something you do, they will hold either conspiracy or civil rights charges back so they can keep you in jail while they look for a more sympathetic jury.
This is McCarthyism all over again, folks. The Bush adminstration needs to be taken out of office NOW.... Could you imagine how f*cked we would have been in WWII if the Department of Homeland Security wouldn't let Einstein work on research in our country because he was German (and a supporter of Communism)?
Um, dude? You do know that Soviet archives do show that McCarthy was correct in his assertions about Communists trying to control content in Hollywood? (You do also know that Richard Nixon proved Alger Hiss to be a Communist working for the Soviet Union? Soviet archives showed him to be correct also.)
Just thought I would point these things out to your biggoted white liberal ass. Oh, sorry, did I make a wrong assumption there? Perhaps you are just one of the decadant Americans which must be converted to Islam or killed. Whoops, that would just be another biggoted statement on my part.
You can also be pretty damn sure the FBI did investigate Einstein before bringing him into any research. Just as they did for all the people on the Manhatten Project.
You do know that to get a security clearance, you need to get a background check, right? Or are you just professionally ignorant?
the government didn't make people buy color TV sets
The government did mandate a removal of B&W transmission from the spectrum however. Didn't you realized that? They FCC told all the broadcasters that they would have to stop broadcasting B&W and only broadcast color signals.
The only difference between the two cases is the length of time until the mandatory deadline. And the HDTV stuff has been delayed so long, that the FCC (or perhaps Congress, I forget offhand) actually postposed the signal changeover from 2006 to 2009.
(And to whoever modded my previous comment as a troll, huh? It was sarcasm, but it was actual commentary.)
Sure, but *NOT* by the government under any circumstances!
Damn the government for making us buy these new fangled Color TV thingies. I Love Lucy was just fine in Black & White. Why, oh why, can't they leave the perfectly fine alone?
(This sarcasm brought to you by the Luddites for a Better Tomorrow...)
You do realize that A) the technology price is dropping (about 50% in the last year from my personal pricing checks), and 2) adding a decent tuner will increase demand causing prices to fall even faster.
I would assume all those complainers don't have them there fancy VCR or DVD thingies because they are so expensive.
And remember this: The driver for acceptance of HDTV will be the same thing it always is, pr0n. So you whiners can get a big closeup view of what you don't see in real life:-)
(Ahh, what a way to start a new posting year, with a rant.)
I'd been following their website for the last few years and really thought they were going to do it. It looked so cool and seemed like a great commuter vehicle.
The Enterprise was about to be mothballed and had been in space dock for a while. They postponed the de-comissioning that for this final mission. Maybe Starfleet just uses dead ships as storerooms?
The next time you watch the movie, realized that it was Excelsior returning from a mission exploring gaseous nebulas when the Kronos moon exploded. Then when you reach the climax of the movie, ask yourself, "Why does the Enterprise have the equipment from Excelsior on board?"
I seem the be the only person who noticed this in the theater when it first came out. Nobody else ever notices until I mention it. Then they see it. It scares me.
There are lawyers that have souls, they're called criminal defense attorneys.... they genuinely want to help protect people from the inequities of the criminal "justice" system.
ROTFLMAO. Like the lawyers for OJ Simpson, and John Lind-Walker, and the Menendez brothers (you remember them, they are just poor orphan boys). Yeah, those poor victims of the criminal "justice" system. Like those the fight for the right for rapists and murderers and say that they really shouldn't be put in jail for killing only a few people...
I'm still waiting for somebody to explain to me why the ozone hole is over the South Pole. Let's see, most of the CFCs were released by the Evil American Populace ("Death to American Populace!", cry the Greens) so by my calculations, most CFCs were produced in the northern hemisphere. (I could be wrong, I'm an American and there force terrible at geography.)
So all these really nasty CFCs navigate to the South Pole area. Why? All I can figure is that they are sliding down the globe as it sits on the desk and spins. Is gravity heavier down there or what? Why doesn't all the air drop down there and hang out, suffocating the evil nasty Americans?
Actually, the water melecules are friction heated by the changing microwave field. The microwave emitter is tuned to frequencies that causes the molecules to align/de-align (crap, I can't think of the word) and that leads to friction which is what causes the cooking.
Am I the only one here disturbed by how all of the people in the article think of TiVo and Amazon as humans? They all talk about how it "thinks" of them and what they want to watch. Kind of creepy.
I mean if my machine (not named Biffy) could really think, it would be one thing. But it can do a little data mining and statistical correlation between what I watch and what other people watch, some actual people think it passes a Turing test.
Is this where we have arrived with technology? Can people no longer distinguish between simple software and things that think?
p.s. STOP POSTING EXTRA COPIES OF THE ARTICLE. THE MAIN LINK WORKS OK NOW.
Let's see, setting a fire and causing millions of dollars/euros in damage is wrong IN YOUR OPINIONWhy on Earth did you need to add the IMO here? Do you think that for some people this is an OK thing to do? Try to get the testicular fortitude to actually say some things are bad or even (God forbid) WRONG!
The wishy-washy, "Well in my opinion arson is kind of wrong, but I can see how some people feel good about it," thinking is dangerous. It leads to the ascension of those who don't believe in any right and wrong, such as the RIAA.
Man will create life. There's no doubt about it. It's a given. Eventually, we'll no doubt even create life that looks, acts, and feels human.
Some of us have already done this. They are called children. You do need a Woman to go with that Man, though. And perhaps a side order of intercourse.
such as the genes that recently jumped between soya and corn?
You didn't read the article. They ended up with both corn and soya growing in the same field because they didn't clean the field of the corn first. The genes didn't jump.
my in-laws in the Chicago suburbs can choose from 3 different cable providers
Great! I've lived in 5 different cities across the country in the past 13 years (now that's depressing.) All I've ever seen are monopolies. I'm glad somebody has some kind of choice.
Are you sure they are actually different companies with different parent companies?:-)
[Comcast] have a little state granted monopoly in my area
OK, I can't take it anymore! Yes bandwidth caps are evil. But EVERY CABLE COMAPNY IN AMERICA IS A MONOPOLY, as far as I know. Each one is granted a monopoly in a particular area (city, county, whatever) and no competition is allowed in. That is the reason the FCC allowed Comcast to buy AT&T. They didn't have competition against each other. If I have AT&T cable, I can't go and get Warner cable instead.
Until that problem is solved, there is no good solution except taking actual control of the provider company, either through shareholders or legislation (shudder).
Until I moved recently, I didn't have DSL or Cable broadband available. Now I have both and use DSL (though it drops if I use the telephone. Nobody knows why.)
I got a call from AT&T last weak telling me that "eventually" they were going to force me to go with Digital Cable. I told them I'd go with Dish Network instead when the forced the move. At least I have that choice now. Before the satellite networks, the govt. authorized monopolies controlled all my television access.
one day the geeks emerge from their underground lairs with powered suits of armor and enslave the world's population.
For the world to grow technologically stagnant, will take > 1 generation. I suspect the geeks will forget/be unable to take a willing breeding population.
Slashdot Mirror
Hear, Hear!
affect: I do not think that word means what you think it means.
if all of the thousands of nuclear weapons were detonated, there would be a definite affect on the planet.
OK, I'll grant you that that is a hypothesis, but it is not a proof. It has not been tested, nor do I wish it to be. You don't seem to grasp the difference between hypothesis and proof or even testing a hypothesis. Sad what passes for thinking these days.
Also, I don't think we can turn this planet into a moon. Figuring out the definition of a moon is left as an excercise to the intelligent.
As for your assertion that 6 billion human beings + powerful technologies..., I would contend that 6 billion humans period will have intentional and unintentional effects on anything. I consider agriculture to be a powerful technology as is the wheel. Both have had unitended consequences, as have newer creations, such as the telephone, radio, and welfare. The only way you can prevent unintended consequences is to kill everybody. Certainly that isn't what you want (I hope.)
So my advice to you is to look at a problem you want to solve, and try to solve it. You can't put a genie back in a bottle, but you can figure out what to do with it instead of running around screaming.
The industrial revolution was fueled (literally) by coal and wood burning. Now a principal result of the burning of coal and wood is liberation of stored energy along with residual product (I'll just call it "ash" in my own ignorant manner.) Now the result of all the ash being liberated into the atmosphere is believed to have raised the albedo of the Earth slighly, causing "cooling". (I'm using quotes there because it really is a reduction in heating from the sun, but the effect is the same.) (The increase in atmosperic pollutants can cause increased cloud formation as suspended water droplets coalesce around the ash seeds.)
World temperatures also have been know to drop due to natural phenomena. In the 1980's Mt. Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines. The resultant ash caused nice sunsets and lower temperatures.
I'm also sure that you have made use of your education to understand what solar max is, and that since we have passed it, we will be getting a little less radiation over the next 10-11 years or so until we start seeing an increase again. Right?
Yes, I've heard that the loony left is trying to wipe the fried egg of of their collective faces by claiming that they haven't really been shouting GLOBAL WARMING. USA EVIL. KYOTO PROTOCOL ONLY WAY TO SAVE LIFE ON EARTH! for the last 15+ years.
Face it, those who said you were full of crap were right. Now you are trying to pretend it wasn't you, it was all those whack jobs that you support and support you. I really hate to pop your fantasy balloon, but climate changes over time. You do know that 1000 years ago, the climate was warmer than it is now, right? Greenland was actually green when Eric the Red "discovered" it. It isn't green now because it is COLDER than it used to be.
You whack jobs used these same data points used in the GLOBAL COOLING/NEW ICE AGE scare tactics in the mid 1970's, but you decided that it was suddenly warming instead of cooling. The goal has always been to the same: to control people's behavior and lives through the application of fear and government force.
Go away, Henny Penny.
I think you are wrong. Let me throw a scenaria at you:
Your child (say 14 years old) was on an airplane that crashed. The media comes to tell you. There isn't just one person, there are 50, with big lights, microphones, and 10 reporters yelling questions at you as soon as you open the door. When you finally understand that your child is dead, they start badering you with questions like "How does it feel to lose your child?", "Who do you think is to blame?", "Are you going to sue the airline?".
Trust me, I know which one is better.
OK, so I'm replying in the middle of an article several hours hold. Very few people will ever see this but... Everybody is pretending to make a big deal of this, but I have a different perspective. I suspect the judge thought this was a stupid case. The action figures are meant to be played with as toys. They are not going to be cuddled, dressed, burped, changed, bathed, etc. like a Betsie Wetsie doll.
Common sense sometimes has to wear silly clothes in the courts.
The key to the above, here in the U.S. is the same offense part. There are so many laws to cover the same actions, that if you aren't convicted on one, there can be other charges brought to bear (or at least trumped up.)
For instance, if the gov't doesn't like something you do, they will hold either conspiracy or civil rights charges back so they can keep you in jail while they look for a more sympathetic jury.
Um, dude? You do know that Soviet archives do show that McCarthy was correct in his assertions about Communists trying to control content in Hollywood? (You do also know that Richard Nixon proved Alger Hiss to be a Communist working for the Soviet Union? Soviet archives showed him to be correct also.)
Just thought I would point these things out to your biggoted white liberal ass. Oh, sorry, did I make a wrong assumption there? Perhaps you are just one of the decadant Americans which must be converted to Islam or killed. Whoops, that would just be another biggoted statement on my part.
You can also be pretty damn sure the FBI did investigate Einstein before bringing him into any research. Just as they did for all the people on the Manhatten Project.
You do know that to get a security clearance, you need to get a background check, right? Or are you just professionally ignorant?
The government did mandate a removal of B&W transmission from the spectrum however. Didn't you realized that? They FCC told all the broadcasters that they would have to stop broadcasting B&W and only broadcast color signals.
The only difference between the two cases is the length of time until the mandatory deadline. And the HDTV stuff has been delayed so long, that the FCC (or perhaps Congress, I forget offhand) actually postposed the signal changeover from 2006 to 2009.
(And to whoever modded my previous comment as a troll, huh? It was sarcasm, but it was actual commentary.)
Damn the government for making us buy these new fangled Color TV thingies. I Love Lucy was just fine in Black & White. Why, oh why, can't they leave the perfectly fine alone?
(This sarcasm brought to you by the Luddites for a Better Tomorrow...)
You do realize that A) the technology price is dropping (about 50% in the last year from my personal pricing checks), and 2) adding a decent tuner will increase demand causing prices to fall even faster. I would assume all those complainers don't have them there fancy VCR or DVD thingies because they are so expensive.
And remember this: The driver for acceptance of HDTV will be the same thing it always is, pr0n. So you whiners can get a big closeup view of what you don't see in real life :-)
(Ahh, what a way to start a new posting year, with a rant.)
I'd been following their website for the last few years and really thought they were going to do it. It looked so cool and seemed like a great commuter vehicle.
The Enterprise was about to be mothballed and had been in space dock for a while. They postponed the de-comissioning that for this final mission. Maybe Starfleet just uses dead ships as storerooms?
Yes it did, but you missed it. :-)
The next time you watch the movie, realized that it was Excelsior returning from a mission exploring gaseous nebulas when the Kronos moon exploded. Then when you reach the climax of the movie, ask yourself, "Why does the Enterprise have the equipment from Excelsior on board?"
I seem the be the only person who noticed this in the theater when it first came out. Nobody else ever notices until I mention it. Then they see it. It scares me.
There are lawyers that have souls, they're called criminal defense attorneys. ... they genuinely want to help protect people from the inequities of the criminal "justice" system.
ROTFLMAO. Like the lawyers for OJ Simpson, and John Lind-Walker, and the Menendez brothers (you remember them, they are just poor orphan boys). Yeah, those poor victims of the criminal "justice" system. Like those the fight for the right for rapists and murderers and say that they really shouldn't be put in jail for killing only a few people...
So all these really nasty CFCs navigate to the South Pole area. Why? All I can figure is that they are sliding down the globe as it sits on the desk and spins. Is gravity heavier down there or what? Why doesn't all the air drop down there and hang out, suffocating the evil nasty Americans?
Actually, the water melecules are friction heated by the changing microwave field. The microwave emitter is tuned to frequencies that causes the molecules to align/de-align (crap, I can't think of the word) and that leads to friction which is what causes the cooking.
I mean if my machine (not named Biffy) could really think, it would be one thing. But it can do a little data mining and statistical correlation between what I watch and what other people watch, some actual people think it passes a Turing test.
Is this where we have arrived with technology? Can people no longer distinguish between simple software and things that think?
p.s. STOP POSTING EXTRA COPIES OF THE ARTICLE. THE MAIN LINK WORKS OK NOW.
Let's see, setting a fire and causing millions of dollars/euros in damage is wrong IN YOUR OPINIONWhy on Earth did you need to add the IMO here? Do you think that for some people this is an OK thing to do? Try to get the testicular fortitude to actually say some things are bad or even (God forbid) WRONG!
The wishy-washy, "Well in my opinion arson is kind of wrong, but I can see how some people feel good about it," thinking is dangerous. It leads to the ascension of those who don't believe in any right and wrong, such as the RIAA.
(Man, the things that set me off some days...)
Some of us have already done this. They are called children. You do need a Woman to go with that Man, though. And perhaps a side order of intercourse.
such as the genes that recently jumped between soya and corn?
You didn't read the article. They ended up with both corn and soya growing in the same field because they didn't clean the field of the corn first. The genes didn't jump.
Great! I've lived in 5 different cities across the country in the past 13 years (now that's depressing.) All I've ever seen are monopolies. I'm glad somebody has some kind of choice.
Are you sure they are actually different companies with different parent companies? :-)
How about Sim Lesbian Black Widows?
That's EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle.
OK, I can't take it anymore! Yes bandwidth caps are evil. But EVERY CABLE COMAPNY IN AMERICA IS A MONOPOLY, as far as I know. Each one is granted a monopoly in a particular area (city, county, whatever) and no competition is allowed in. That is the reason the FCC allowed Comcast to buy AT&T. They didn't have competition against each other. If I have AT&T cable, I can't go and get Warner cable instead.
Until that problem is solved, there is no good solution except taking actual control of the provider company, either through shareholders or legislation (shudder).
Until I moved recently, I didn't have DSL or Cable broadband available. Now I have both and use DSL (though it drops if I use the telephone. Nobody knows why.)
I got a call from AT&T last weak telling me that "eventually" they were going to force me to go with Digital Cable. I told them I'd go with Dish Network instead when the forced the move. At least I have that choice now. Before the satellite networks, the govt. authorized monopolies controlled all my television access.
I just zoomed beyond Zire and went into full out geek lust...
For the world to grow technologically stagnant, will take > 1 generation. I suspect the geeks will forget/be unable to take a willing breeding population.