This may be the first time the NAS have advised specific policies. However the first time NAS warned the US government of the problem was in 1958. This Bell Labs video summarises the contents of that first warning. The NAS has not suddenly flipped from cautious, the urgency has steadilly increased over the last 50yrs to the current position of virtually screaming at congress to pull their head out of their collective arses.
Hamming codes are designed for correcting transmission errors and are probably being used in the transmission. However what we are talking about is a fipped bit inside the code that produces the string to be transmitted, in such a case the ECC will simply ensure that the string of garbage it produces is transmitted correctly. Even in moern spacecraft they don't rely on ECC to verify a running program they use redundant systems; ie: 3 computers running the same code "vote" on the correct answer.
As another poster said, words have meanings. Tyranny is what you get from a tyrant, in politics it's a violent and oppressive dictatorship such as Stalin's regime. Mandated health insurance by a democratically elected body is in no way tyrany, calling it as such simply dilutes the meaning of the word tyranny to "some rule I don't like" which in turn trivialises the true horrors suffered by people living under a tyrant.
A couple of definitions for Tyranny:
1. Dictatorship: a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)
2. A government in which a single ruler (a tyrant) has absolute power; The office or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler; Absolute power, or its use; Extreme severity or rigour
"Wind and tidal power I personally think we are being just as short-sighted about as we were with oil. Sure, a few hundred wind generators isn't a problem, or a few tidal generators in the gulf stream is no big deal, but what about when you get tens of thousands of them? What is that going to do to the weather along the wind/water routes, and what will it do to the ecosystems?"
Yes because when the globe was covered with wind sapping trees it was an ecological disaster and humans easily consume enough energy to significantly shift the moon from it's current orbit./sarcasam
In other words you might as well claim that the increased friction of shag-pile carpet will stop your air conditioner from working.
Don't underestimate the importance of infrastructure and social institutions. The dark ages came AFTER the fall of the Roman empire and lasted well over half a millenia.
"So, what's a bricked phone worth? Not much as a phone. And when the guy found it, there was no way to tell that it was a prototype - it was in a gimmicked-up G3 case, but wasn't a G3 - which made it more likely that it was a knock-off. Not worth more than $100 working (and less bricked)."
And yet for some reason they offered this worthless peice of hardware to a magazine and got $5K for it? They and the magazine certainly can't be accused of high moral standards but IMHO to tie up resouces by turning this into a criminal matter seems a bit over the top.
I don't recall where I read it but there was an observation a while back of what they belived to be a star in the process of being ripped apart by a black hole. Basically it turns into a long arc of hot gas with a bulge in the middle that aligns with the trajectory of the star around the black hole. The effect was not dissimilar to how comet Schomaker-Levy (sic?) broke up and formed a long streak of debris before smashing into Jupiter. However since the star is entirely made of gas then the streak of debris forms a much smoother distribution.
I do believe we can officially cross North Korea out as a "communist state" and put it in the Theocracy column.
He is a god with Elvis at his right hand.... o.O
Christopher Hitchen's, who has been to NK, describes it as; "The world's only necopracy".
It definitely seems like the village idiot is running the local school. Nutritional regulations on school tuck-shops are common in the western world and for pretty sound reasons. I wonder what his religious convictions are? - IIRC some religious sects are dead set against candy and TV.
Wasn't meant as critsisim, just navel gazing as to why I accept QM as the best description of the atomic realm despite my shallow understanding of it. One of my favorite clips of Feynmen is where he exclaims he is "not frightened of not knowing".
I reiterate that I think you are genuine and I am taking you seriously. I have answered your post in my journal so it's easier to keep track for both of us, feel free to reply when you have had time to digest it.
The thing with QM is that it is undeniable that it works as a model of the very small scale universe but I don't really "get it" like I do with other scientific theories. I studied it a bit at uni and I've read quite a bit of it on my own, listened to Feynmen (particularly his famous quote about understanding QM), and had physicists on slashdot try to explain it to me. But I still can't make sense of things such as entanglement, I simply can't get my head around how it (and the cat) are different from hidden variables.
It bothers me that Popper's "republic of science" is the only justification I have for beliving it and I have a suspicion that many slashdotters feel the same way. I've never claimed that QC is impossible but is it really that suprising that educated laymen are hard to convince if Einstien had trouble accepting it?
"It's like the whole site has been inundated by young environmentalists.....Have you made an informed decision based on the hard facts? Or do you just think, that the skeptics are as loony as the anti-scientific groups, that you mentioned?
Young environmentalist, I wish. I have been following the science now for almost 30yrs, I was unconvinced either way until the 1997 IPCC reports. All scientists are skeptics and I also consider myself a skeptic and there is certainly no shortage of deatils in climate science that are still vigoursly debated in the litrature. However my claim to being a practising skeptic does not mean I accept character assasinations and propoganda such as climategate, nor does it mean I simply disagree with your POV and don't understand why I accept the established science behind AGW.
Now ask yourself the same question, how long did you take to form your opinion on climategate and what evidence do you have for your claim it revealed a "depressingly low quality of climate science"? Had you even heard of Jones and the CRU before the email scandal? What hard facts do have that falsify Fourier's 1824 work on spectral lines? What statistical methods do you use to refute the observed 0.14degC/decade trend in the instrumental record? How do you explain the loss of arctic sea ice? Why do you think the ocean is becoming more acidic? Have you actually read any of the IPCC reports?
I'm sure you get the idea, there is a lot of ground to cover and even after following it for 30yrs I am still far from being an expert.
"I don't know about you but I'm amazed at how the Slashdot readers react to Climategate and AGW in general."
That's a good thing, your amazement is a signal that you should apply some skeptcisim towards your own ideas and the sources they depend on. As I mentioned in another post when I first started debating climate science on slashdot a decade ago I knew a lot less and was definitely a minority voice. I have learnt a lot simply by attempting to refute other people's arguments over those years.
PS: There is no need to PM me I will check this post for a reply because I belive you are genuine and as such there is hope for a reasoned discussion on how it is that two people who put their faith in science can be so diametrically opposed in their thinking on this one issue.
I know of no "CRU like people" that Exxon fund so maybe you could back up that particular claim with a citation? Exxon-Mobile fund the heartland institute and the CEI, you know the band of ex-tabacoo lobbyists that have Steve McIntyre as a regular "guest" at their annual anti-science circus. Even the royal societies written request asking Exxon to stop funding these blatant propogandists fell on deaf ears.
However this is not to say there are no reasonable oilmen, Lord Oxburgh when he was the chairman of Shell is one such example and is the first person from the oil industry I recall who suggested a target on CO2 concentrations (450ppm). Also I belive that BP have joined Shell in their long standing call for regulatory certainty on the issue of CO2 emmissions. AFAIK both companies accept the reality of AGW and claim they want the politicians to set the rules for adressing it so they can get on with making their long term investment plans.
Shell even went so far as blaming their recent divestment of windfarms on the inability of politicians to make a concrete decision on emmission controls. I would not be surprised at all to find BP or Shell funding genuine climate research and alternitive energy technologies but it would cheer me up no end to find a citation showing that Exxon had abandoned it's propoganda campaign and joined them.
Why is it that those who advocate adaptation never include the most sensible and cost effective adaptation of reducing emissions?
The problem that the parent post was highlighting is that in the tropics warm mosit air rises, as it does so the moisture falls out. However the air is now moving in a convection current that dumps huge amounts of dry air onto the subtropics (thus creating the current deserts in those areas). As the temprature increases the tropical convection currents become stronger and dump more dry air thus extending the reach of the desert zone further toward the poles. If this was to occur over geologic time scales, (as it has done in the distant past), our agriculture could easily adapt. However since it's expected to happen over human time scales, (wich has not been seen in the geologic record), all bets on the required rapid adaptation of agriculture are at best wishfull thinking.
Like any other Aussie will tell you from first hand experience, modern agriculture is ill equiped to adapt to the sudden onset of a "permenant drought". Current practices push agricultural production to it limits, the slight climate change we have seen here in SE Oz over the past 15yrs is the proverbial straw that breaks the farmers back and has halved our grain harvest for 12 of those 15yrs. Fortunately this year is shaping up to be the 4th "normal" year of rainfall out of the past 16.
Why do you claim that climate models accurately can emulate historic climate when they cannot?
(That's what the whole debate on whether the MWP was global or not centers around - thus my comment)
Computer models actually do correctly emulate historical temprature records but that is irrelevant because the "debate" on the MWP has nothing to do with models it has to do with the interpretation and availability of proxies.
Initially the analysis of the available European proxies assumed the MWP and LIA to be global phenomena mearly because paleoclimotology was first developed using European proxies in the 1960's, had it been developed using southern hemisphere proxies you would now be agruing about the geographical reach of the EDP (extended dry period).
If you want the best assesment of past climate then you need to use all the proxies currently available not just the ones that were available in the 60's. When all these proxies are used the MWP, LIA, RWP, and EDP, all fade into background noise. Your insistance that the 1960's reconstructions are still correct amounts to insisting that a much more comprehensive data set will give much less accurate results. Why do you keep making these nonsense claims about climate science when you clearly have the capacity for critical thought in other subjects?
"The fallacy that most people don't seem to address is the fallacy that we can EVER predict the future to any useful degree of accuracy.
Yes, predicting the times of sunrise and sunset, total eclipses, the date of comet Halley's return, the amount of fuel required or an airliner to reach it's destination are all total bullshit. They are just numbers that someone plucked from their arse, we all know that humans are incapable of modeling the FSM's creation to any degree of accuracy./ridicule_of_stupid_statement
"I would be happy if anyone could predict the weather for the upcoming week with more accuracy."
For fuck's sake learn the difference between climate and weather rather than simply displaying you ignorance. As for making climate predictions I predict that summer will be warmer than winter in the year 32125 or any other year you care to pick. I have no fucking idea what the weather will be like two weeks from today.
Slashdot Mirror
"the current 10 year trend is actually cooling"
Ah timmarthy, your ignorance of climate statistics never ceases to amaze me.
you haven't sufficently proven that CO2 is the cause
RF=5.35*ln(C2/C1) - Fourier 1824.
"The EPA and others have begun pushing to label CO2 as a poison."
That statement is in dire need of a citation.
This may be the first time the NAS have advised specific policies. However the first time NAS warned the US government of the problem was in 1958. This Bell Labs video summarises the contents of that first warning. The NAS has not suddenly flipped from cautious, the urgency has steadilly increased over the last 50yrs to the current position of virtually screaming at congress to pull their head out of their collective arses.
Hamming codes are designed for correcting transmission errors and are probably being used in the transmission. However what we are talking about is a fipped bit inside the code that produces the string to be transmitted, in such a case the ECC will simply ensure that the string of garbage it produces is transmitted correctly. Even in moern spacecraft they don't rely on ECC to verify a running program they use redundant systems; ie: 3 computers running the same code "vote" on the correct answer.
As another poster said, words have meanings. Tyranny is what you get from a tyrant, in politics it's a violent and oppressive dictatorship such as Stalin's regime. Mandated health insurance by a democratically elected body is in no way tyrany, calling it as such simply dilutes the meaning of the word tyranny to "some rule I don't like" which in turn trivialises the true horrors suffered by people living under a tyrant.
A couple of definitions for Tyranny:
1. Dictatorship: a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)
2. A government in which a single ruler (a tyrant) has absolute power; The office or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler; Absolute power, or its use; Extreme severity or rigour
"The only check against that [the abuse of power] is a limitation on government power.
"Adding regulation only makes matters worse."
Is that a contradiction or just non-standard definitions of "regulation" and "limitation"?
[citation needed]
Biology and the riddle of life. - Charles Birch (1999).
"Wind and tidal power I personally think we are being just as short-sighted about as we were with oil. Sure, a few hundred wind generators isn't a problem, or a few tidal generators in the gulf stream is no big deal, but what about when you get tens of thousands of them? What is that going to do to the weather along the wind/water routes, and what will it do to the ecosystems?"
/sarcasam
Yes because when the globe was covered with wind sapping trees it was an ecological disaster and humans easily consume enough energy to significantly shift the moon from it's current orbit.
In other words you might as well claim that the increased friction of shag-pile carpet will stop your air conditioner from working.
Don't underestimate the importance of infrastructure and social institutions. The dark ages came AFTER the fall of the Roman empire and lasted well over half a millenia.
"Which list will you end up "getting around to" before the clock strikes 5?"
Neither, I'd knock of early in the expectation of seeing a story about the police commisoner snorting coke off a hookers arse in Monday's paper.
"So, what's a bricked phone worth? Not much as a phone. And when the guy found it, there was no way to tell that it was a prototype - it was in a gimmicked-up G3 case, but wasn't a G3 - which made it more likely that it was a knock-off. Not worth more than $100 working (and less bricked)."
And yet for some reason they offered this worthless peice of hardware to a magazine and got $5K for it? They and the magazine certainly can't be accused of high moral standards but IMHO to tie up resouces by turning this into a criminal matter seems a bit over the top.
I don't recall where I read it but there was an observation a while back of what they belived to be a star in the process of being ripped apart by a black hole. Basically it turns into a long arc of hot gas with a bulge in the middle that aligns with the trajectory of the star around the black hole. The effect was not dissimilar to how comet Schomaker-Levy (sic?) broke up and formed a long streak of debris before smashing into Jupiter. However since the star is entirely made of gas then the streak of debris forms a much smoother distribution.
I do believe we can officially cross North Korea out as a "communist state" and put it in the Theocracy column. He is a god with Elvis at his right hand.... o.O
Christopher Hitchen's, who has been to NK, describes it as; "The world's only necopracy".
I get a bigger kick from a funny mod than a karma boost, OTOH good humour is often born from great insight.
It definitely seems like the village idiot is running the local school. Nutritional regulations on school tuck-shops are common in the western world and for pretty sound reasons. I wonder what his religious convictions are? - IIRC some religious sects are dead set against candy and TV.
"Zero tolerance is for things like, violence, gun possesion, possesion of drugs, harassment, cheating, etc, etc."
I'm tempted to critique your proposals with a thoughtfull reply but I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance proponents.
"Especially seeing how Texas is a right to carry state.
Suggesting that parents should intimidate the teachers with firearms over a fucking candy rule is far more insane than the candy rule.
"Don't get me wrong"
Wasn't meant as critsisim, just navel gazing as to why I accept QM as the best description of the atomic realm despite my shallow understanding of it. One of my favorite clips of Feynmen is where he exclaims he is "not frightened of not knowing".
I reiterate that I think you are genuine and I am taking you seriously. I have answered your post in my journal so it's easier to keep track for both of us, feel free to reply when you have had time to digest it.
The thing with QM is that it is undeniable that it works as a model of the very small scale universe but I don't really "get it" like I do with other scientific theories. I studied it a bit at uni and I've read quite a bit of it on my own, listened to Feynmen (particularly his famous quote about understanding QM), and had physicists on slashdot try to explain it to me. But I still can't make sense of things such as entanglement, I simply can't get my head around how it (and the cat) are different from hidden variables.
It bothers me that Popper's "republic of science" is the only justification I have for beliving it and I have a suspicion that many slashdotters feel the same way. I've never claimed that QC is impossible but is it really that suprising that educated laymen are hard to convince if Einstien had trouble accepting it?
"It's like the whole site has been inundated by young environmentalists.....Have you made an informed decision based on the hard facts? Or do you just think, that the skeptics are as loony as the anti-scientific groups, that you mentioned?
Young environmentalist, I wish. I have been following the science now for almost 30yrs, I was unconvinced either way until the 1997 IPCC reports. All scientists are skeptics and I also consider myself a skeptic and there is certainly no shortage of deatils in climate science that are still vigoursly debated in the litrature. However my claim to being a practising skeptic does not mean I accept character assasinations and propoganda such as climategate, nor does it mean I simply disagree with your POV and don't understand why I accept the established science behind AGW.
Now ask yourself the same question, how long did you take to form your opinion on climategate and what evidence do you have for your claim it revealed a "depressingly low quality of climate science"? Had you even heard of Jones and the CRU before the email scandal? What hard facts do have that falsify Fourier's 1824 work on spectral lines? What statistical methods do you use to refute the observed 0.14degC/decade trend in the instrumental record? How do you explain the loss of arctic sea ice? Why do you think the ocean is becoming more acidic? Have you actually read any of the IPCC reports?
I'm sure you get the idea, there is a lot of ground to cover and even after following it for 30yrs I am still far from being an expert.
"I don't know about you but I'm amazed at how the Slashdot readers react to Climategate and AGW in general."
That's a good thing, your amazement is a signal that you should apply some skeptcisim towards your own ideas and the sources they depend on. As I mentioned in another post when I first started debating climate science on slashdot a decade ago I knew a lot less and was definitely a minority voice. I have learnt a lot simply by attempting to refute other people's arguments over those years.
PS: There is no need to PM me I will check this post for a reply because I belive you are genuine and as such there is hope for a reasoned discussion on how it is that two people who put their faith in science can be so diametrically opposed in their thinking on this one issue.
I know of no "CRU like people" that Exxon fund so maybe you could back up that particular claim with a citation? Exxon-Mobile fund the heartland institute and the CEI, you know the band of ex-tabacoo lobbyists that have Steve McIntyre as a regular "guest" at their annual anti-science circus. Even the royal societies written request asking Exxon to stop funding these blatant propogandists fell on deaf ears.
However this is not to say there are no reasonable oilmen, Lord Oxburgh when he was the chairman of Shell is one such example and is the first person from the oil industry I recall who suggested a target on CO2 concentrations (450ppm). Also I belive that BP have joined Shell in their long standing call for regulatory certainty on the issue of CO2 emmissions. AFAIK both companies accept the reality of AGW and claim they want the politicians to set the rules for adressing it so they can get on with making their long term investment plans.
Shell even went so far as blaming their recent divestment of windfarms on the inability of politicians to make a concrete decision on emmission controls. I would not be surprised at all to find BP or Shell funding genuine climate research and alternitive energy technologies but it would cheer me up no end to find a citation showing that Exxon had abandoned it's propoganda campaign and joined them.
Why is it that those who advocate adaptation never include the most sensible and cost effective adaptation of reducing emissions?
The problem that the parent post was highlighting is that in the tropics warm mosit air rises, as it does so the moisture falls out. However the air is now moving in a convection current that dumps huge amounts of dry air onto the subtropics (thus creating the current deserts in those areas). As the temprature increases the tropical convection currents become stronger and dump more dry air thus extending the reach of the desert zone further toward the poles. If this was to occur over geologic time scales, (as it has done in the distant past), our agriculture could easily adapt. However since it's expected to happen over human time scales, (wich has not been seen in the geologic record), all bets on the required rapid adaptation of agriculture are at best wishfull thinking.
Like any other Aussie will tell you from first hand experience, modern agriculture is ill equiped to adapt to the sudden onset of a "permenant drought". Current practices push agricultural production to it limits, the slight climate change we have seen here in SE Oz over the past 15yrs is the proverbial straw that breaks the farmers back and has halved our grain harvest for 12 of those 15yrs. Fortunately this year is shaping up to be the 4th "normal" year of rainfall out of the past 16.
Why do you claim that climate models accurately can emulate historic climate when they cannot?
(That's what the whole debate on whether the MWP was global or not centers around - thus my comment)
Computer models actually do correctly emulate historical temprature records but that is irrelevant because the "debate" on the MWP has nothing to do with models it has to do with the interpretation and availability of proxies.
Initially the analysis of the available European proxies assumed the MWP and LIA to be global phenomena mearly because paleoclimotology was first developed using European proxies in the 1960's, had it been developed using southern hemisphere proxies you would now be agruing about the geographical reach of the EDP (extended dry period).
If you want the best assesment of past climate then you need to use all the proxies currently available not just the ones that were available in the 60's. When all these proxies are used the MWP, LIA, RWP, and EDP, all fade into background noise. Your insistance that the 1960's reconstructions are still correct amounts to insisting that a much more comprehensive data set will give much less accurate results. Why do you keep making these nonsense claims about climate science when you clearly have the capacity for critical thought in other subjects?
"The fallacy that most people don't seem to address is the fallacy that we can EVER predict the future to any useful degree of accuracy.
/ridicule_of_stupid_statement
Yes, predicting the times of sunrise and sunset, total eclipses, the date of comet Halley's return, the amount of fuel required or an airliner to reach it's destination are all total bullshit. They are just numbers that someone plucked from their arse, we all know that humans are incapable of modeling the FSM's creation to any degree of accuracy.
"I would be happy if anyone could predict the weather for the upcoming week with more accuracy."
For fuck's sake learn the difference between climate and weather rather than simply displaying you ignorance. As for making climate predictions I predict that summer will be warmer than winter in the year 32125 or any other year you care to pick. I have no fucking idea what the weather will be like two weeks from today.