"I'd just like people to think about it before deploying such large scale new energy. From all the replies I read, it seems some people did, which is nice."
My bad, I incorrectly pinned you as a psuedo-skeptic.
"It seems to me we'd have to rape the earth in a way most of us would consider fairly extreme to erect giant concrete towers on every square meter of ocean and land. The ecolgical impact of billions of tonnes of raw materials being mined [to build windmills] would be astronomical."
We already mine and BURN over six billion tons of coal a year, That's one ton of coal for every man, woman and child on the planet.
Why does common sense and reason go out the window when people post on these stories? It's got to the stage where I feel like I'm arguing with young earth creationists.
"Like a lot of grand plans we do "in the name of science" nobody yet knows what throwing that many turbines up would do ecosystems around the world. It's a lot of energy to be robbing from systems that depend on that energy."
Most of the wind energy in the atmosphere is in the bottom 5,000m, the largest wind turbines are only 100m tall (about as tall as the largest trees which are much more effective at damping SURFACE winds), "robbing" the energy of the wind is the least of our problems. As for birds, modern prop turbines move slowly and kill fewer birds than the same number of high rise buildings with mirrored windows.
"Seriously", don't pretend you care about the environment by posting anti-science NIMBY twaddle, read some real science.
"No, I think he was right in saying "meet fellow geeks". He wants to be with someone like himself. Telling a "geek" to go get dance lessons is like telling a a christian to hang out in a biker bar to meet people."
30+yrs ago I used to hang out with the God Squad, I often ran into their members at the local "biker bar" because that was where their mission took them. A radiologist friend of mine introduced me, I couldn't wear the patch even if I had wanted to because I've always been an atheist, however they welcomed me and other non-christians at their club house and never tried to shove god down my throat even though they were big enough to do so if they wanted.
BTW: I'm not "telling" anyone to do anything but I do suggest you pull your head out of your arse and explore the world around you once in a while.
There's not a lot our government gets right but here in Oz we have a TFN (same thing as a SSN), private companies cannot request it except for specific tax related purposes and even then you can refuse (the drawback being you pay the highest tax and have to claim it back), the tax department rules are here. In other words a TFN is useless for checking someones credit rating.
Also monopoly deals as seen with Apple/phone_company_X, and Ebay/paypal are illegal.
I find it's the differences that make people interesting, try to "get" them. For example: The mother of my children was in her 30's before she "discovered" batteries had electricity in them, when I aksed what she had thought was in them she said "Ommph", and then told me off for laughing. My current lady friend is a deist (gasp) and has a Phd in Marketing (double gasp). The fastest way into any woman's heart (and pants) is to make them laugh.:)
I agree with the OP, dance class is a great way to meet women an keep fit, I also noticed in your question you asked "where do you meet fellow geeks", I think what you should be asking is "where do you meet people".
The internet is a fantastic library and is the last good invention I can think of, everything that's been invented since I turned 40 is unnatural, eg: eyes don't come in pods, peas do!
And another thing, keep your damned weed infested lawn off my rose bed.
I agree, I didn't say self was constant I said "persistence of self is constant". I am "me" no matter how I define "me" at any particular point in time. The exception to this persistence can come about in stroke victims or with the use of phycotropic drugs where some people report not being able to disinguish self from surroundings. I imagine when I'm dead all my perceptions will cease.
"There are many issues with the kinds of reconstruction you cite, particularly if they involve activist scientist Michael Mann, e.g. Proxy inconsistency and other problems in millennial paleoclimate reconstructions [pnas.org]."
To me this one sentance conclusively demonstrates you are a political troll, possibly a paid one. You are no doubt aware of the senate inquiry into Mann's hockey's stick to which anti-science lobbyists point as proof Mann is a "political acticvist". However the thing these luddites fail do do with monotonous regularity is point to the NAS Testimony on which they base their lies.
Quoting from the link:"our reservations with some
aspects of the original papers by Mann et al. should not be construed as evidence that our
committee does not believe that the climate is warming, and will continue to warm, as a
result of human activities.
Large-scale surface temperature reconstructions are only one of multiple lines of
evidence supporting the conclusion that climatic warming is occurring in response to
human activities, and they are not the primary evidence. The scientific consensus
regarding human-induced global warming would not be substantively altered if, for
example, the global mean surface temperature 1,000 years ago was found to be as warm
as it is today. This is because reconstructions of surface temperature do not tell us why
the climate is changing. To answer that question, one would need to examine the factors,
or forcings, that influence the climate system. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the
primary climate forcings were changes in volcanic activity and in the output of the Sun,
but the strength of these forcings is not very well known. In contrast, the increasing
concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the past century are consistent
with both the magnitude and the geographic pattern of warming seen by thermometers."
Aside from the facts not fitting your politics, who the hell (other than spanish inquisition types) holds a senate enquiry into a single scientific paper?
As for you slur about grants, you are obviously unaware that Mann and all the other scientists who write the IPCC reports DO NOT GET PAID for what is basically tedious peer-review work. The entire IPCC budget is less tha $6 million/yr and is sourced from 300+ politically diverse nations but lets not let the facts get in the way of your anti-science conspiracy theories.
IMHO you and your willfully ignorant bretheren at the Heartland institute are even more ridiculous than the young earth creationists at the discovery institute, I thank FSM that the only attention your diminishing circle of anti-science lunatics is recieving nowadys is ridicule.
... at which point the authour appears to give science the same deconstructionist treatment he has been arguing against for mathematics???
Qoute TFA (my emph.)- "Likewise, if your science teacher tried to convince you that
astronomy is about predicting a person's future based on their date of birth, you would know she
was crazy-- science has seeped into the culture to such an extent that almost everyone knows
about atoms and galaxies and laws of nature. But if your math teacher gives you the impression,
either expressly or by default, that mathematics is about formulas and definitions and
memorizing algorithms, who will set you straight?"
Modern science is the communal pursuit of truth and beauty via observation, imagination and critical thinking.
Personality is not persistence of self. Personality can change, memories are lost and corrupted but persistence of self remains a constant because if I am not me then who the hell am I?
To be fair to the mas-media they just reprint the lobbyists press-releases because conflict makes a good story and the psuedo-skeptics keep inventing new names for their think tanks but most of them can be tracked back to the Heartland Institute. If you remeber the "tabacco scientists" from the 80's you will recognise some of the names (eg: Fred Singer). They are nothing more than proffesional lobbyists in lab coats. That is not to say there are no arguments about the finer details but the idea our emmission can warm the Earth is now over a century old and the National academies of science first warned the US government that it was happening in the 50's.
Yes peer-review is imperfect but I challenge you to find one paper in a reputable journal such as Science or Nature that disputes the much maligned "consesus". As you can see there are nearly 40,000 papers in just those two prestigious journals alone. I realise that's an unfair challenge because it's a daunting task and since the IPCC have already done it I'm pretty sure you won't find anything. I would prefer genuine skeptics (and I think you may be one), read what the editors of (say) Nature think about the problem, talk to some IPCC scientists and look at thier reports.
I also agree it's true that it's possible to be paid by a FF company and still do honest science, however I ask you to be skeptical of people such as Carter who disagree with mainstream science, can't get a paper published on the subject and are paid by think tanks because, those traits put the in the same boat as young earth creationists. I also ask genuine skeptics to do a bit of their own geeky mythbusting before posting psuedo-skeptical drivel to slashdot as anything other than an example of anti-science.
B) The "gap" in opinions exists because one side is driven by lobbyists, the other by science. I agree it's a complex subject and I admit that without some background it can appear to be a simple case of experts who can't agree on basic answers. However that's exactly what the psuedo-skeptics want you to think in order to delay any action that would upset their sponsers. They are a cynical bunch of pricks who know they have lost the science argument, they just want to drag it out as long as it's possible to be paid to do so.
Here is just one example of that kind of political dishonesty.
"We're all going to look back 50 years from now and probably laugh at BOTH sides as more or less equally flawed."
In 50yrs I will either by getting a telegram from the Queen or be dead but I think in the next decade the coal industry are in for the same treatment the tabacoo companies recieved in the 90's. What this proponent of emmission control is saying is let's slow down this uncontrolled experiment on our biosphere and carefully examine how we can replace (or clean up) coal and let's do it with a free market based approach such as cap and trade rather than just another useless tax that allows the rich to pump out as much pollution as they can pay for while the rest of us suffer.
Disclaimer: Politically I describe myself as a "fiscally conservative, science based greenie" but I have not been interested enough to vote since 1978. OTOH I have followed the scientific and political arguments over AGW for almost three decades now and became convinced we have a serious problem when the IPCC released their 1997 resports, I have never seen Gore's movie simply because I knew
"Also, the Guardian's claim that there's a receipt for a duck-house in there is false, as that claim was rejected and no rejected claims have been released officially."
The Guardian doesn't make that claim, the summary does. The Gaurdian actually backs up your statement that it was rejected...
"...he admitted claiming £1,645 for a floating "duck island" in his garden...[snip]...a claim for a floating duck island designed to protect his ducks from foxes. This was rejected by the Commons authorities."
No wonder you posted AC, the funding argument is the biggest lie of all. The scientists who write the IPCC reports do not get paid for their work wich is basically agonisingly tedious peer-reviews of the previous 4yrs of publications. The annual budget for the IPCC is a piddling $5-6 million which is sourced from ~300 politically diverse nations, most of which is spent transporting "greedy scientists" to their workplace.
Unlike the heartland institute and other eternal fountains of this type of bullshit the IPCC post their financial reports on the web.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'd just like people to think about it before deploying such large scale new energy. From all the replies I read, it seems some people did, which is nice."
My bad, I incorrectly pinned you as a psuedo-skeptic.
"It seems to me we'd have to rape the earth in a way most of us would consider fairly extreme to erect giant concrete towers on every square meter of ocean and land. The ecolgical impact of billions of tonnes of raw materials being mined [to build windmills] would be astronomical."
We already mine and BURN over six billion tons of coal a year, That's one ton of coal for every man, woman and child on the planet.
Why does common sense and reason go out the window when people post on these stories? It's got to the stage where I feel like I'm arguing with young earth creationists.
Perhaps the birds are different in New York? - Where I live the birds don't stay in the trees during calm weather.
"I don't think we can gather enough processing power in my lifetime to do a reasonable simulation on a system that complex."
Sorry to hear of your premature passing. My condolences to your family.
"Like a lot of grand plans we do "in the name of science" nobody yet knows what throwing that many turbines up would do ecosystems around the world. It's a lot of energy to be robbing from systems that depend on that energy."
Most of the wind energy in the atmosphere is in the bottom 5,000m, the largest wind turbines are only 100m tall (about as tall as the largest trees which are much more effective at damping SURFACE winds), "robbing" the energy of the wind is the least of our problems. As for birds, modern prop turbines move slowly and kill fewer birds than the same number of high rise buildings with mirrored windows.
"Seriously", don't pretend you care about the environment by posting anti-science NIMBY twaddle, read some real science.
"No, I think he was right in saying "meet fellow geeks". He wants to be with someone like himself. Telling a "geek" to go get dance lessons is like telling a a christian to hang out in a biker bar to meet people."
30+yrs ago I used to hang out with the God Squad, I often ran into their members at the local "biker bar" because that was where their mission took them. A radiologist friend of mine introduced me, I couldn't wear the patch even if I had wanted to because I've always been an atheist, however they welcomed me and other non-christians at their club house and never tried to shove god down my throat even though they were big enough to do so if they wanted.
BTW: I'm not "telling" anyone to do anything but I do suggest you pull your head out of your arse and explore the world around you once in a while.
There's not a lot our government gets right but here in Oz we have a TFN (same thing as a SSN), private companies cannot request it except for specific tax related purposes and even then you can refuse (the drawback being you pay the highest tax and have to claim it back), the tax department rules are here. In other words a TFN is useless for checking someones credit rating.
Also monopoly deals as seen with Apple/phone_company_X, and Ebay/paypal are illegal.
I find it's the differences that make people interesting, try to "get" them. For example: The mother of my children was in her 30's before she "discovered" batteries had electricity in them, when I aksed what she had thought was in them she said "Ommph", and then told me off for laughing. My current lady friend is a deist (gasp) and has a Phd in Marketing (double gasp). The fastest way into any woman's heart (and pants) is to make them laugh. :)
I agree with the OP, dance class is a great way to meet women an keep fit, I also noticed in your question you asked "where do you meet fellow geeks", I think what you should be asking is "where do you meet people".
"I'm not sure if you realize this, but some people actually have to work when they get into the office."
I'm not sure if you realize this, but some people actually have a sense of humour.
Why not just wait until you get to the office and then browse the world's newspapers with google news?
Well said. I don't want a rock spider associated with my support for anti-censorship proponents either.
The internet is a fantastic library and is the last good invention I can think of, everything that's been invented since I turned 40 is unnatural, eg: eyes don't come in pods, peas do!
And another thing, keep your damned weed infested lawn off my rose bed.
"When was the last time a judge took your word over that of a cop?"
1979 - But that was only because I was bullshitting and the cop honestly answered the question "Was I wearing sunglasses?" with "I don't recall".
Your efforts to be a dick have been well above par, keep it up and you may get promoted to cunt.
I agree, I didn't say self was constant I said "persistence of self is constant". I am "me" no matter how I define "me" at any particular point in time. The exception to this persistence can come about in stroke victims or with the use of phycotropic drugs where some people report not being able to disinguish self from surroundings. I imagine when I'm dead all my perceptions will cease.
"There are many issues with the kinds of reconstruction you cite, particularly if they involve activist scientist Michael Mann, e.g. Proxy inconsistency and other problems in millennial paleoclimate reconstructions [pnas.org]."
To me this one sentance conclusively demonstrates you are a political troll, possibly a paid one. You are no doubt aware of the senate inquiry into Mann's hockey's stick to which anti-science lobbyists point as proof Mann is a "political acticvist". However the thing these luddites fail do do with monotonous regularity is point to the NAS Testimony on which they base their lies.
Quoting from the link:"our reservations with some aspects of the original papers by Mann et al. should not be construed as evidence that our committee does not believe that the climate is warming, and will continue to warm, as a result of human activities. Large-scale surface temperature reconstructions are only one of multiple lines of evidence supporting the conclusion that climatic warming is occurring in response to human activities, and they are not the primary evidence. The scientific consensus regarding human-induced global warming would not be substantively altered if, for example, the global mean surface temperature 1,000 years ago was found to be as warm as it is today. This is because reconstructions of surface temperature do not tell us why the climate is changing. To answer that question, one would need to examine the factors, or forcings, that influence the climate system. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the primary climate forcings were changes in volcanic activity and in the output of the Sun, but the strength of these forcings is not very well known. In contrast, the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the past century are consistent with both the magnitude and the geographic pattern of warming seen by thermometers."
Aside from the facts not fitting your politics, who the hell (other than spanish inquisition types) holds a senate enquiry into a single scientific paper?
As for you slur about grants, you are obviously unaware that Mann and all the other scientists who write the IPCC reports DO NOT GET PAID for what is basically tedious peer-review work. The entire IPCC budget is less tha $6 million/yr and is sourced from 300+ politically diverse nations but lets not let the facts get in the way of your anti-science conspiracy theories.
IMHO you and your willfully ignorant bretheren at the Heartland institute are even more ridiculous than the young earth creationists at the discovery institute, I thank FSM that the only attention your diminishing circle of anti-science lunatics is recieving nowadys is ridicule.
... at which point the authour appears to give science the same deconstructionist treatment he has been arguing against for mathematics???
Qoute TFA (my emph.)- "Likewise, if your science teacher tried to convince you that astronomy is about predicting a person's future based on their date of birth, you would know she was crazy-- science has seeped into the culture to such an extent that almost everyone knows about atoms and galaxies and laws of nature. But if your math teacher gives you the impression, either expressly or by default, that mathematics is about formulas and definitions and memorizing algorithms, who will set you straight?"
Modern science is the communal pursuit of truth and beauty via observation, imagination and critical thinking.
Yep, and why should we give a fuck about their privacy when they obviously don't give a rat's arse about ours.
Personality is not persistence of self. Personality can change, memories are lost and corrupted but persistence of self remains a constant because if I am not me then who the hell am I?
A) There isn't, that is media driven.
To be fair to the mas-media they just reprint the lobbyists press-releases because conflict makes a good story and the psuedo-skeptics keep inventing new names for their think tanks but most of them can be tracked back to the Heartland Institute. If you remeber the "tabacco scientists" from the 80's you will recognise some of the names (eg: Fred Singer). They are nothing more than proffesional lobbyists in lab coats. That is not to say there are no arguments about the finer details but the idea our emmission can warm the Earth is now over a century old and the National academies of science first warned the US government that it was happening in the 50's.
Yes peer-review is imperfect but I challenge you to find one paper in a reputable journal such as Science or Nature that disputes the much maligned "consesus". As you can see there are nearly 40,000 papers in just those two prestigious journals alone. I realise that's an unfair challenge because it's a daunting task and since the IPCC have already done it I'm pretty sure you won't find anything. I would prefer genuine skeptics (and I think you may be one), read what the editors of (say) Nature think about the problem, talk to some IPCC scientists and look at thier reports.
I also agree it's true that it's possible to be paid by a FF company and still do honest science, however I ask you to be skeptical of people such as Carter who disagree with mainstream science, can't get a paper published on the subject and are paid by think tanks because, those traits put the in the same boat as young earth creationists. I also ask genuine skeptics to do a bit of their own geeky mythbusting before posting psuedo-skeptical drivel to slashdot as anything other than an example of anti-science.
B) The "gap" in opinions exists because one side is driven by lobbyists, the other by science. I agree it's a complex subject and I admit that without some background it can appear to be a simple case of experts who can't agree on basic answers. However that's exactly what the psuedo-skeptics want you to think in order to delay any action that would upset their sponsers. They are a cynical bunch of pricks who know they have lost the science argument, they just want to drag it out as long as it's possible to be paid to do so.
Here is just one example of that kind of political dishonesty.
"We're all going to look back 50 years from now and probably laugh at BOTH sides as more or less equally flawed."
In 50yrs I will either by getting a telegram from the Queen or be dead but I think in the next decade the coal industry are in for the same treatment the tabacoo companies recieved in the 90's. What this proponent of emmission control is saying is let's slow down this uncontrolled experiment on our biosphere and carefully examine how we can replace (or clean up) coal and let's do it with a free market based approach such as cap and trade rather than just another useless tax that allows the rich to pump out as much pollution as they can pay for while the rest of us suffer.
Disclaimer: Politically I describe myself as a "fiscally conservative, science based greenie" but I have not been interested enough to vote since 1978. OTOH I have followed the scientific and political arguments over AGW for almost three decades now and became convinced we have a serious problem when the IPCC released their 1997 resports, I have never seen Gore's movie simply because I knew
"Also, the Guardian's claim that there's a receipt for a duck-house in there is false, as that claim was rejected and no rejected claims have been released officially."
The Guardian doesn't make that claim, the summary does. The Gaurdian actually backs up your statement that it was rejected...
"...he admitted claiming £1,645 for a floating "duck island" in his garden...[snip]...a claim for a floating duck island designed to protect his ducks from foxes. This was rejected by the Commons authorities."
False dichotomy, unless you think being a refugee is worse that being...well...a refugee.
No wonder you posted AC, the funding argument is the biggest lie of all. The scientists who write the IPCC reports do not get paid for their work wich is basically agonisingly tedious peer-reviews of the previous 4yrs of publications. The annual budget for the IPCC is a piddling $5-6 million which is sourced from ~300 politically diverse nations, most of which is spent transporting "greedy scientists" to their workplace.
Unlike the heartland institute and other eternal fountains of this type of bullshit the IPCC post their financial reports on the web.
They're obviously acidic, just look at the holes they burn in the Earth's crust. /jk