"He presupposes a lot of things that aren't necessarily true, or are pretty improbable."
Yes, I skimmed TFA but stopped after he asserted that the emergence of microbes on Earth was an extremely improbable event since he has no eveidence of such life before 3.8BYA. Perhaps it did exist and we haven't found it or perhaps it takes a few hundred million years for a newly formed planet to cool down enough to get the chemistry right - in other words his argument is not an argument it's just an assertion to back up his idea. And while I think SETI is a worthwhile project the lack of positive results only demonstrates that it's unlikely there are any aliens in our stellar neigbourhood who watch TV and/or listen to radio.
Anyone can make assertions about the unknown, for example I believe (but cannot prove) that...
1. Single celled life is common throughout the universe and there is a very good chance we will find it in the oceans of Europa or a similar subterranian ocean elsewhere in our solar system.
2. Multi-celled life less common but still a reasonable chance we will find it on said moon(s).
3. Technological species as 'advanced' as our own are a rare but non unique flash in the galatic pan that inevitably snuff out their natural life support systems with their own effluent well before they have a chance to colonise another star system.
Not that I want to be chained to a help desk and treated like a slave, but a quick scan of level 1 jobs here in Australia reveals advertised gross wages around 41-43K + 9% super ($AU, super is not taxed, universal health cover (UHC) is a 1.5% tax, 4 weeks paid vacation is the legal minimum and is always included in gross figures). So let's say $45K gross and an Aussie dollar is worth around $0.90 US. That makes it a little over $40K US gross on the first few jobs I found advertised. I don't know what the take-home pay would be in the US but on $40K (not including super) you would pay ~10K tax including UHC.
Total cost of employment including desk space, utilities, insurance, blah, blah, would be at least twice that amount. Unemployment insurance doesn't come into the picture in Australia because we have an "minimum effort to find a job limit" rather than a maximum time limit on social security payments, only people with well paid jobs (yours trully:) bother to take out private unemployment insurance.
Perhaps this is why we Aussies often refer to ourselves as "The land of Oz", we really are in an alternate universe!
My oldest is a network engineer for a large telco, he started by building his own BBS when he was ~13. I can't claim 4th generation just yet but my youngest is 23 and pregnant.:)
Speaking of old men and hardware. By far the best project manager I ever worked for had been in the bussiness for 40 odd years, shortly before he died in 2005 he travelled to the UK for a reunion with some of his old mates. The reunion party was held inside the computer they built which is now housed in one of London's many museams.
"I also recently inadvertently triggered an argument between my parents on the virtues of IDEs in software development. My dad likes them, my mom regards them as the bane of true programmers everywhere. What does/. think?"
I think finding a slashdotter who's parents can both code is a sign I am getting old. I taught my Dad to code in the same way as your parents taught you. Dad is a retired mechanical engineer, he's now 77 and has been programming childrens games as a hobby for the last 10yrs or so. He has also created web sites and other bits and pieces for both of my younger siblings bussinesses, one is a wholesale nursery the other is a safari operator in Kakadu.
I'm also self taught in what I know about the web, when I did my CS degree HTML didn't exist and a 'browser' was someone in a shop who was 'just looking'.
"This is beside the point that critical operations should not be run on a Windows machine at all."
I agree, critical operations should be run by a qualified surgical team.
Seriously worms bringing down heart monitors? - I agree with the OP, the hyperbole detracts from an otherwise reasonably interesting question. (To which my answer is: There is no such thing as a good worm)
Sure anything is possible and accidents do happen but AFAIK the worst incident involving computers in medicine was this famous example. As you say lives and money are serious considerations and I think it's a credit to the medical proffesion that incidents like the one in the link are so rare.
Regardless of the O/S used, no hospital is going to allow an uncertified machine/system to be plugged in to a power socket, much less attached to a patient. If they did and something went wrong the hospital directors would likely find themselves facing both a massive law suit and criminal negligence charges. Certification is one of the main reasons why medical suppliers can charge $50K or more for an otherwise very ordinary PC that goes beep.
Just to elaborate on the chaos/climate/weather thing.
The term chaotic is a description of how a system behaves mathematically, it has nothing to do with randomness. You can see a chaotic system at work in water coming out of a tap. Turn the tap on slowly utill there is a neat stream of water (clasical fluid dynamics), keep turning the tap very slowly, at some point the stream of water will become turbulent. The system is chaotic because a small change in the initial value (the valve opening) rapidly creates a large and unpredictable change in the behaviour of the stream.
Climate is not weather, it is the long term statistics of weather. (in the above example, climate is analogous to the rate water comes out of the tap)
Weather behaves in a (mathematically) chaotic manner since the accuracy of predictions deteriorates rapidly beyond a few days.
The climate is in a state of dynamic equilibrium and it's parameters can be predicted over much longer periods of time with much greater accuracy than the weatherman, yet they both use a similar forecasting models. What is programmed into the models are physical equations, the system that emerges behaves in a chaotic manner.
For example I can predict with a high degree of confidence that the average summer temp in the year 3000 will be higher than the average winter temp for the same year and location, the same would be true for a global average. A one degree change in average global temp over 100yrs is a significant trend and it seems to be enough to melt the Artic sea ice cap, yet a one degree change in the weather is imperceptible to most humans.
There is the idea of the climate hitting a "tipping point" that would see rapid change in climate in a (geologically) very short period of time before it settled into a new equilibrium. Going back to the tap analogy you can sometime see the water bounce between the smooth flow and turbulent states if you get the position of the tap just right, this is caused by minute changes in water preassure. From what I have read of paleoclimatology this scenario seems to have happened naturally in the distant past (ie: millions of years ago). In mathematical terms the different possible states of dynamic equilibrium are known as attractors.
Climatologists call the warming and cooling effects of various gasses and other phenomena "forcings", they can be positive(warm) or negative(cool). There is a excellent attribution graph here that describes the generally accepted estimates of these forcings.
As for chaotic systems being totally unpredictable this is absolute rubbish. The three body problem in physics is a chaotic system whose solution can only be approximated by numerical analysis (as found in climate models). Solutions to the three body problem are used to plan the trajectory of space probes to such an exquisite degree of accuracy that NASA was able to poke the Cassini probe through the gaps in Saturn's rings, twice!
Note that I do not belive climate models are anywhere near the accuracy of NASA's solutions to the three body problem since there are feedbacks in the climate that we do not even begin to understand. However as I have shown with the three body problem, an imperfect model does not imply a useless model.
I want to give you half the mods points I have gained from my post - seriously!
Here are a couple of reasons why...
I consider myself a skeptic in the traditional sense and find the 'gospel truth' a somewhat nauseating term when used in earnest. Specifically I subscribe to Carl Sagan's view of scientific skepticisim and I am a fan of James Randi.
Quoting Margret Mead.
On the subject of climate change in particular I am not a climatologist but I do have a BSc. I have been following the conversation since 1981 (I even recall reading the infamous national geographic article on the coming ice age as a teenager during the 70's). I was unconvinced that any of the theories and observations were significant until the mid to late 90's. Around 1999 I started swimming against the stream here on slashdot by posting comments supporting the work of the IPCC and the thousands of scientists who have contributed to it over the last couple of decades. I would describe myself as an informed layman in the area of climatology but I certainly don't claim to know the "gospel truth" about anything.
As for Gore's slide show faithfully representing the science in what was at the time the current IPCC report, here is a rewiew written by some climatoligists who contributed to the IPCC. Being an Aussie, Gore's political beliefs are of little interest to me and have zero relevance to determining the accuracy of his doco.
"as evidenced by the rush to invent credible explanations after criticism in the "inconvenient documentary" that followed"
I'm not sure what you are refering to when you say an "inconvienient documentary" but if you mean The Great Global Warming Swindle then I urge you to take a second look at that "evidence" now the dust has settled.
"some prevailing consensus"
By no means does any consensus represent "case closed" that is not how science works and I'm sure you understand that even if others don't. I was specifically refering to "the consensus" as defined in the third IPCC report and widely reported elsewhere. This particular consensus is not mearly opinion it is in fact an excellent example of how the "republic of science" is supposed to work.
A scientific consensus provides the credibility behind the journalistic phrase "scientists say" and is an intergral part of the scientific method. A strong scientific consensus is derived from many repeated experiments and observations over a period of time by a large number of independant investigators and data sets. A strong scientific consensus must not only survive healthy skepticisim but it must also continue to encourage attacks by genuine skeptics. Extrodinary claims, etc, etc.
IMHO a strong consensus is doomed to be overly conservative when applied to a complex problem which is still poorly understood in a miriad of ways, but that is simply my own opinion. The only anecdotal evidence I have to support that opinion is the speed at which the Artic ice cap has disintegrated. Again, that's how science works (slow and skeptical) and I'm confident the causes and implications of the rapidly vanishing ice cap will be vigoursly debated over the next few years until a new consensus emerges.
Again, thank-you for your refreshingly thoughtfull and insightfull reply.
"Its the reason people believe that 100 years of industrial evolution on this planet can corrupt over 4.5 billion years of naturally occuring weather cycles."
No, robust science is the reason I (and I dare say most people here) accept the message that has come from the IPCC and every other national science body on the planet.
It is intellectually lazy (at best cynical) to disagree with something just because some random lobbyist uses it to push an agenda. The problem with "for hire" lobbyists is they are members of the old boys club, expert liars, and schooled in the art of manipulation, they belive what they are paid to belive. If anything lobbyists (and in many cases politicians) have tried to hide and discredit the science in exactly the same way tobbaco lobbyists did in the 80's.
In fact if you look up one Fred Singer you will find a "fossil fuel lobbyists" and a "tobacco lobbyists" all wrapped up into one person, decorated with ancient qualifications and honarary degrees. Until the last couple of years Fred and other like-minded lobbyists had been very successfully spreading mis-information that is then repeated ad-nauseum on slashdot by geeks who often have sufficient education in physics and chemistry to know better. I also belive much of that derision on slashdot was due to the messenger, ie: people heard the IPPC's message coming out of Al Gore's mouth and instinctively started taking pot shots at what they percieved to be "Al Gore's crackpot theory".
However in the interests of "fair and balanced", I will point out there are still a tiny minority of scientists who disagree with some parts of the IPCC consensus, here is a list of them. You will find that their arguments have been debunked many times over, a good place to start looking for such mythbusting and the shenanigans of anti-science lobbyists is here
If you don't want to go through the pain of educating yourself on the science and politics of climate change then I have one simple question that may clear things up for you. Since CO2 is known to trap heat and we are pumping 10Gt/yr of it into the atmosphere, how is that trapped heat disipated back into space, or alternatively what absorbs the excess CO2 so that it unable to trap heat in the first place?
BTW: Please don't take the above as a personal attack, your only human and we are all vunerable to well crafted bullshit from outside our sphere of expertise (which incidently is the reason why the scientific method is considered usefull).
"The terrorists already hated the USA prior to the conflict in Iraq & Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden's main complaint was that Americans were in Saudi Arabia and contaminating the land by their presence"
OBL did want the US out of Saudi Arabia but he stated in a letter to the US that 911 was revenge for "US bombs raining on Lebanon" in the 80's. OBL had no connection at all to Iraq nor has it been shown that Iraq sponsered terrorists, however it is well known the CIA sponsered OBL and many other tinpot warlords to push the soviets out of Afghanistan.
Also if you want to be pedantic about the definition of words let's not be one sided, Iraqis attacking US troops are not terrorists they are a resistance force (ie: irregulars who's aim is to get the occupation to leave).
"On the other hand, there haven't been any terrorist attacks in the USA since then. Of course, correlation & causation are different things..."
Yes they are, here in Oz we haven't had a single Polar Bear attack since we sent troops to Iraq to stop Saudi born terrorists from attacking the US out of Afghanistan. OTOH we now have something I never thought I would see in Australia, a political prisoner who's 'crime' was to break a retrospective law that was written after he had already spent five years in Gitmo.
"I wonder if NYCL can say that the RIAA lawyers and the RIAA are a bunch of needle pricked mother fuckers who'd sell their own mother into prostitution."
He might be able to work it into parody somehow? Besides, pointing to a well researched "David and Goliath" article in a respected bussiness magazine and letting people paint thier own picture is much more effective.
Speaking of law, does anyone know if it would be illegal for think geek to print and sell a deck of cards using images of their faces?
"Right now, most of us reading about the RIAA don't directly associate them with Sony, Warner, EMI and Universal. And this is exactly what they intended! Let's not endulge them any further."
Actually I don't write a lot of SQL nowadays and what I do write is mainly aimed at sqlite. My first thought was a transaction around the delete-insert pair, not sure how well that compares to a trigger under a heavy load. Still, I like the trigger idea because it solves the problem for any app that uses the database (provided you always want the insert to do a replace).
US companies were responsible for ~50% of the 'corrupt' money that changed hands, it was the UNSC's responsiblity to police the sanctions they themselves set up, but they ignored all of it with a wink and a nod until the US found it convienient to do otherwise for political purposes.
I can no longer argue with such willfull ignorance as such arguments are pointless, fuck you and your perfect spelling.
If you investigate a little deeper you will find the Indonesians were fighting an armed sepratist group in the area and SOME generals in the Indonesian military voiced concern for the welfare of releif workers and the possibility of three way clashes between sepratists, marines and the Indonesian regulars. Keep digging and you will also find that the tsunami was the catalyst for the sepratists and the government to make peace with each other (again via the UN).
No nation on Earth will allow a foreign force into it's waters without first assessing the situation, to enter without permission is an act of war. The same concept holds true for the relationship between individual US states and the US military. The carrier group did not just get up and go to the nearest scene of devastation on the whim of an Admiral, politicians gave it that task and they did so in a very timely and compasionate manner.
BTW: Why are you taking islamo-facist rhetoric from the extreme fringe of middle eastern politics and putting it into the mouth of a SE Asian republic?
"Are you suggesting that cases of violence amongst the general population of a country are equivalent to systematic corruption within an organization?"
I have no idea how you read that into what I said, but I was suggesting that people who are constantly exposed to human trauma may appear cold and uncaring when complaining about the breakfast buffet. I am also suggesting certain political spin merchants will jump on such trivia to demonize others and fools will go along for the ride. I don't want to get into a debate on corruption since it will be seen a "yank bashing" in this context and said corruption (by the US or UN) is unrelated to the tsunami relief effort.
"Care to cite an example?"
Good greif man, where have you been living for the last half a decade or more. If the cold war is too distant a memory how about the fact Isreal has defied more UNSC resolutions that anyone else due to the US veto powers. How about the fact that the 'corruption' in the oil for food scandal was dilegently reported to the UNSC by the general assembly - while it was happening - yet ALL of the permenent members let it slide for years because they were ALL guilty. Why the hell would Clinton donate $2B worth of attack choppers to Burma in the 90's if he didn't see Burma as a pawn. Why (in the west) is an nuke considered more dangerous in Iran than in Saudi Arabia?
The planet was divided up 60yrs ago by the winners of WW2 and the fortunate five have been haggling and fighting to increase their share ever since. The UNSC is no different in concept to the Supreme Council of Iran, both are undemocratic authorities that oversee a democratic assembly and both are used to maintain the status-quo by force of arms. If you want half a chance at understanding why international politics succedes and fails in a particular senarios then stop blindly parroting the innane spin of certain US senators who are mearly offering a convienient scapegoat to distract attention from their from their own failings./rant
"Using a mutex-locked delete+insert instead of atomic replace in SQL is another popular mooooooo."
If your know your SQL will NEVER be used on MSSQL then fine, but understand that 'replace' is a luxury some of us don't have and your bull-ying cow-orkers doesn't help.
Slashdot Mirror
"He presupposes a lot of things that aren't necessarily true, or are pretty improbable."
Yes, I skimmed TFA but stopped after he asserted that the emergence of microbes on Earth was an extremely improbable event since he has no eveidence of such life before 3.8BYA. Perhaps it did exist and we haven't found it or perhaps it takes a few hundred million years for a newly formed planet to cool down enough to get the chemistry right - in other words his argument is not an argument it's just an assertion to back up his idea. And while I think SETI is a worthwhile project the lack of positive results only demonstrates that it's unlikely there are any aliens in our stellar neigbourhood who watch TV and/or listen to radio.
Anyone can make assertions about the unknown, for example I believe (but cannot prove) that...
1. Single celled life is common throughout the universe and there is a very good chance we will find it in the oceans of Europa or a similar subterranian ocean elsewhere in our solar system.
2. Multi-celled life less common but still a reasonable chance we will find it on said moon(s).
3. Technological species as 'advanced' as our own are a rare but non unique flash in the galatic pan that inevitably snuff out their natural life support systems with their own effluent well before they have a chance to colonise another star system.
"Xerox has always been inovative"
Yeah, but they stole this technology from the wallet photo in 'Back to the Future'.
Given the right circumstances that's all of them, unless of course you belive the George Washington fable. /ducks
Hmmm, that's interesting you say that.
Not that I want to be chained to a help desk and treated like a slave, but a quick scan of level 1 jobs here in Australia reveals advertised gross wages around 41-43K + 9% super ($AU, super is not taxed, universal health cover (UHC) is a 1.5% tax, 4 weeks paid vacation is the legal minimum and is always included in gross figures). So let's say $45K gross and an Aussie dollar is worth around $0.90 US. That makes it a little over $40K US gross on the first few jobs I found advertised. I don't know what the take-home pay would be in the US but on $40K (not including super) you would pay ~10K tax including UHC.
Total cost of employment including desk space, utilities, insurance, blah, blah, would be at least twice that amount. Unemployment insurance doesn't come into the picture in Australia because we have an "minimum effort to find a job limit" rather than a maximum time limit on social security payments, only people with well paid jobs (yours trully:) bother to take out private unemployment insurance.
Perhaps this is why we Aussies often refer to ourselves as "The land of Oz", we really are in an alternate universe!
Quit or go postal, preferably the second option if you can get away with it.
I'll bring the rope if someone is willing to lend me a pichfork.
My oldest is a network engineer for a large telco, he started by building his own BBS when he was ~13. I can't claim 4th generation just yet but my youngest is 23 and pregnant. :)
Speaking of old men and hardware. By far the best project manager I ever worked for had been in the bussiness for 40 odd years, shortly before he died in 2005 he travelled to the UK for a reunion with some of his old mates. The reunion party was held inside the computer they built which is now housed in one of London's many museams.
"I also recently inadvertently triggered an argument between my parents on the virtues of IDEs in software development. My dad likes them, my mom regards them as the bane of true programmers everywhere. What does /. think?"
I think finding a slashdotter who's parents can both code is a sign I am getting old. I taught my Dad to code in the same way as your parents taught you. Dad is a retired mechanical engineer, he's now 77 and has been programming childrens games as a hobby for the last 10yrs or so. He has also created web sites and other bits and pieces for both of my younger siblings bussinesses, one is a wholesale nursery the other is a safari operator in Kakadu.
I'm also self taught in what I know about the web, when I did my CS degree HTML didn't exist and a 'browser' was someone in a shop who was 'just looking'.
"This is beside the point that critical operations should not be run on a Windows machine at all."
I agree, critical operations should be run by a qualified surgical team.
Seriously worms bringing down heart monitors? - I agree with the OP, the hyperbole detracts from an otherwise reasonably interesting question. (To which my answer is: There is no such thing as a good worm)
Sure anything is possible and accidents do happen but AFAIK the worst incident involving computers in medicine was this famous example. As you say lives and money are serious considerations and I think it's a credit to the medical proffesion that incidents like the one in the link are so rare.
Regardless of the O/S used, no hospital is going to allow an uncertified machine/system to be plugged in to a power socket, much less attached to a patient. If they did and something went wrong the hospital directors would likely find themselves facing both a massive law suit and criminal negligence charges. Certification is one of the main reasons why medical suppliers can charge $50K or more for an otherwise very ordinary PC that goes beep.
"His name is Bubba, actually"
Bubba The Terrible, first tzar of Alabama. He's one mean mofo, plays a banjo while his victims fry in an oversized skillet.
Precisely, life on Earth is responsible for the chemical composition of our current day atmosphere.
Just to elaborate on the chaos/climate/weather thing.
The term chaotic is a description of how a system behaves mathematically, it has nothing to do with randomness. You can see a chaotic system at work in water coming out of a tap. Turn the tap on slowly utill there is a neat stream of water (clasical fluid dynamics), keep turning the tap very slowly, at some point the stream of water will become turbulent. The system is chaotic because a small change in the initial value (the valve opening) rapidly creates a large and unpredictable change in the behaviour of the stream.
Climate is not weather, it is the long term statistics of weather. (in the above example, climate is analogous to the rate water comes out of the tap)
Weather behaves in a (mathematically) chaotic manner since the accuracy of predictions deteriorates rapidly beyond a few days.
The climate is in a state of dynamic equilibrium and it's parameters can be predicted over much longer periods of time with much greater accuracy than the weatherman, yet they both use a similar forecasting models. What is programmed into the models are physical equations, the system that emerges behaves in a chaotic manner.
For example I can predict with a high degree of confidence that the average summer temp in the year 3000 will be higher than the average winter temp for the same year and location, the same would be true for a global average. A one degree change in average global temp over 100yrs is a significant trend and it seems to be enough to melt the Artic sea ice cap, yet a one degree change in the weather is imperceptible to most humans.
There is the idea of the climate hitting a "tipping point" that would see rapid change in climate in a (geologically) very short period of time before it settled into a new equilibrium. Going back to the tap analogy you can sometime see the water bounce between the smooth flow and turbulent states if you get the position of the tap just right, this is caused by minute changes in water preassure. From what I have read of paleoclimatology this scenario seems to have happened naturally in the distant past (ie: millions of years ago). In mathematical terms the different possible states of dynamic equilibrium are known as attractors.
Climatologists call the warming and cooling effects of various gasses and other phenomena "forcings", they can be positive(warm) or negative(cool). There is a excellent attribution graph here that describes the generally accepted estimates of these forcings.
As for chaotic systems being totally unpredictable this is absolute rubbish. The three body problem in physics is a chaotic system whose solution can only be approximated by numerical analysis (as found in climate models). Solutions to the three body problem are used to plan the trajectory of space probes to such an exquisite degree of accuracy that NASA was able to poke the Cassini probe through the gaps in Saturn's rings, twice!
Note that I do not belive climate models are anywhere near the accuracy of NASA's solutions to the three body problem since there are feedbacks in the climate that we do not even begin to understand. However as I have shown with the three body problem, an imperfect model does not imply a useless model.
You will NEVER get proof from science on any subject, stop asking for it.
Here are a couple of reasons why...
On the subject of climate change in particular I am not a climatologist but I do have a BSc. I have been following the conversation since 1981 (I even recall reading the infamous national geographic article on the coming ice age as a teenager during the 70's). I was unconvinced that any of the theories and observations were significant until the mid to late 90's. Around 1999 I started swimming against the stream here on slashdot by posting comments supporting the work of the IPCC and the thousands of scientists who have contributed to it over the last couple of decades. I would describe myself as an informed layman in the area of climatology but I certainly don't claim to know the "gospel truth" about anything.
As for Gore's slide show faithfully representing the science in what was at the time the current IPCC report, here is a rewiew written by some climatoligists who contributed to the IPCC. Being an Aussie, Gore's political beliefs are of little interest to me and have zero relevance to determining the accuracy of his doco.
"as evidenced by the rush to invent credible explanations after criticism in the "inconvenient documentary" that followed"
I'm not sure what you are refering to when you say an "inconvienient documentary" but if you mean The Great Global Warming Swindle then I urge you to take a second look at that "evidence" now the dust has settled.
"some prevailing consensus"
By no means does any consensus represent "case closed" that is not how science works and I'm sure you understand that even if others don't. I was specifically refering to "the consensus" as defined in the third IPCC report and widely reported elsewhere. This particular consensus is not mearly opinion it is in fact an excellent example of how the "republic of science" is supposed to work.
A scientific consensus provides the credibility behind the journalistic phrase "scientists say" and is an intergral part of the scientific method. A strong scientific consensus is derived from many repeated experiments and observations over a period of time by a large number of independant investigators and data sets. A strong scientific consensus must not only survive healthy skepticisim but it must also continue to encourage attacks by genuine skeptics. Extrodinary claims, etc, etc.
IMHO a strong consensus is doomed to be overly conservative when applied to a complex problem which is still poorly understood in a miriad of ways, but that is simply my own opinion. The only anecdotal evidence I have to support that opinion is the speed at which the Artic ice cap has disintegrated. Again, that's how science works (slow and skeptical) and I'm confident the causes and implications of the rapidly vanishing ice cap will be vigoursly debated over the next few years until a new consensus emerges.
Again, thank-you for your refreshingly thoughtfull and insightfull reply.
"Its the reason people believe that 100 years of industrial evolution on this planet can corrupt over 4.5 billion years of naturally occuring weather cycles."
No, robust science is the reason I (and I dare say most people here) accept the message that has come from the IPCC and every other national science body on the planet.
It is intellectually lazy (at best cynical) to disagree with something just because some random lobbyist uses it to push an agenda. The problem with "for hire" lobbyists is they are members of the old boys club, expert liars, and schooled in the art of manipulation, they belive what they are paid to belive. If anything lobbyists (and in many cases politicians) have tried to hide and discredit the science in exactly the same way tobbaco lobbyists did in the 80's.
In fact if you look up one Fred Singer you will find a "fossil fuel lobbyists" and a "tobacco lobbyists" all wrapped up into one person, decorated with ancient qualifications and honarary degrees. Until the last couple of years Fred and other like-minded lobbyists had been very successfully spreading mis-information that is then repeated ad-nauseum on slashdot by geeks who often have sufficient education in physics and chemistry to know better. I also belive much of that derision on slashdot was due to the messenger, ie: people heard the IPPC's message coming out of Al Gore's mouth and instinctively started taking pot shots at what they percieved to be "Al Gore's crackpot theory".
However in the interests of "fair and balanced", I will point out there are still a tiny minority of scientists who disagree with some parts of the IPCC consensus, here is a list of them. You will find that their arguments have been debunked many times over, a good place to start looking for such mythbusting and the shenanigans of anti-science lobbyists is here
If you don't want to go through the pain of educating yourself on the science and politics of climate change then I have one simple question that may clear things up for you. Since CO2 is known to trap heat and we are pumping 10Gt/yr of it into the atmosphere, how is that trapped heat disipated back into space, or alternatively what absorbs the excess CO2 so that it unable to trap heat in the first place?
BTW: Please don't take the above as a personal attack, your only human and we are all vunerable to well crafted bullshit from outside our sphere of expertise (which incidently is the reason why the scientific method is considered usefull).
"The terrorists already hated the USA prior to the conflict in Iraq & Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden's main complaint was that Americans were in Saudi Arabia and contaminating the land by their presence"
OBL did want the US out of Saudi Arabia but he stated in a letter to the US that 911 was revenge for "US bombs raining on Lebanon" in the 80's. OBL had no connection at all to Iraq nor has it been shown that Iraq sponsered terrorists, however it is well known the CIA sponsered OBL and many other tinpot warlords to push the soviets out of Afghanistan.
Also if you want to be pedantic about the definition of words let's not be one sided, Iraqis attacking US troops are not terrorists they are a resistance force (ie: irregulars who's aim is to get the occupation to leave).
"On the other hand, there haven't been any terrorist attacks in the USA since then. Of course, correlation & causation are different things..."
Yes they are, here in Oz we haven't had a single Polar Bear attack since we sent troops to Iraq to stop Saudi born terrorists from attacking the US out of Afghanistan. OTOH we now have something I never thought I would see in Australia, a political prisoner who's 'crime' was to break a retrospective law that was written after he had already spent five years in Gitmo.
Oh-oww, I've got a framed portrait of Marley!
"I wonder if NYCL can say that the RIAA lawyers and the RIAA are a bunch of needle pricked mother fuckers who'd sell their own mother into prostitution."
He might be able to work it into parody somehow? Besides, pointing to a well researched "David and Goliath" article in a respected bussiness magazine and letting people paint thier own picture is much more effective.
Speaking of law, does anyone know if it would be illegal for think geek to print and sell a deck of cards using images of their faces?
"Right now, most of us reading about the RIAA don't directly associate them with Sony, Warner, EMI and Universal. And this is exactly what they intended! Let's not endulge them any further."
Hear, hear. Henceforth let RIAA == SUW_MEI.
Actually I don't write a lot of SQL nowadays and what I do write is mainly aimed at sqlite. My first thought was a transaction around the delete-insert pair, not sure how well that compares to a trigger under a heavy load. Still, I like the trigger idea because it solves the problem for any app that uses the database (provided you always want the insert to do a replace).
"Well, except for the US."
US companies were responsible for ~50% of the 'corrupt' money that changed hands, it was the UNSC's responsiblity to police the sanctions they themselves set up, but they ignored all of it with a wink and a nod until the US found it convienient to do otherwise for political purposes.
I can no longer argue with such willfull ignorance as such arguments are pointless, fuck you and your perfect spelling.
/s "half a decade", "half a century".
If you investigate a little deeper you will find the Indonesians were fighting an armed sepratist group in the area and SOME generals in the Indonesian military voiced concern for the welfare of releif workers and the possibility of three way clashes between sepratists, marines and the Indonesian regulars. Keep digging and you will also find that the tsunami was the catalyst for the sepratists and the government to make peace with each other (again via the UN).
No nation on Earth will allow a foreign force into it's waters without first assessing the situation, to enter without permission is an act of war. The same concept holds true for the relationship between individual US states and the US military. The carrier group did not just get up and go to the nearest scene of devastation on the whim of an Admiral, politicians gave it that task and they did so in a very timely and compasionate manner.
BTW: Why are you taking islamo-facist rhetoric from the extreme fringe of middle eastern politics and putting it into the mouth of a SE Asian republic?
"Are you suggesting that cases of violence amongst the general population of a country are equivalent to systematic corruption within an organization?"
/rant
I have no idea how you read that into what I said, but I was suggesting that people who are constantly exposed to human trauma may appear cold and uncaring when complaining about the breakfast buffet. I am also suggesting certain political spin merchants will jump on such trivia to demonize others and fools will go along for the ride. I don't want to get into a debate on corruption since it will be seen a "yank bashing" in this context and said corruption (by the US or UN) is unrelated to the tsunami relief effort.
"Care to cite an example?"
Good greif man, where have you been living for the last half a decade or more. If the cold war is too distant a memory how about the fact Isreal has defied more UNSC resolutions that anyone else due to the US veto powers. How about the fact that the 'corruption' in the oil for food scandal was dilegently reported to the UNSC by the general assembly - while it was happening - yet ALL of the permenent members let it slide for years because they were ALL guilty. Why the hell would Clinton donate $2B worth of attack choppers to Burma in the 90's if he didn't see Burma as a pawn. Why (in the west) is an nuke considered more dangerous in Iran than in Saudi Arabia?
The planet was divided up 60yrs ago by the winners of WW2 and the fortunate five have been haggling and fighting to increase their share ever since. The UNSC is no different in concept to the Supreme Council of Iran, both are undemocratic authorities that oversee a democratic assembly and both are used to maintain the status-quo by force of arms. If you want half a chance at understanding why international politics succedes and fails in a particular senarios then stop blindly parroting the innane spin of certain US senators who are mearly offering a convienient scapegoat to distract attention from their from their own failings.
"Using a mutex-locked delete+insert instead of atomic replace in SQL is another popular mooooooo."
If your know your SQL will NEVER be used on MSSQL then fine, but understand that 'replace' is a luxury some of us don't have and your bull-ying cow-orkers doesn't help.