So, first they do their research with a significant amount of public money, then they want to try to make a killing on what they claim they found. It is highly suspect science when those publishing their research aim to directly benefit financially from what they claim they find.
In order to make a killing, they must first get people to believe that it is better. I think the example image shows how manipulative they are willing to be to lure us into believing.
Most of the fossil fuel consumed is in the form of coal, not oil. Yes, oil is necessary for vehicles, and they do generate a lot of carbon pollution.
Yet, while oil is starting on the decline, the world has enough coal to last hundreds of years. And most power generation is fueled by coal.
To get one's arms around the magnitude of coal consumed, let me cite this statistic, relayed to me by someone who works at a power plant near Nebraska City. That plant burns 780,000 lbs. of coal per hour, equivalent to 68 train-car loads per day.
You can add me to the long list of people who have been abused by PayPal. My experience is that the company couldn't care less about unsatisfied customers. They knows all the steps to the dance of avoiding taking action that benefits a customer.
...he tends to go around and carry a big stick to enforce his will on others.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persisits in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.
--George Bernard Shaw
I really don't understand the hostility and vilification directed toward Stallman. He is simply a man with ideals who tries to persuade others of the merit of his ideas (something we all do). I have read many of his articles and interviews and he speaks only with calm deliberation and conviction. He goes further than most of us in "living the life", so to speak, by offering freely his work and time to the cause he espouses, which has benefitted us all tremendously. One can take or leave what he offers. Nothing Stallman has done has ever harmed anyone or deprived them of anything they might otherwise enjoy. There are numerous other individuals who have tried to destroy, undermine, or deprive us of things we enjoy, but towards whom no one directs similar hostility and vilification.
This is my fear of getting involved with ebooks. When I buy a book, I have the freedom to read it when and where I want to. But with DRM, I loose this freedom and become enslaved to some degree, in that my investment is under their control. I have no trust for Sony, as they have tried again and again to push DRM-protectable formats so that they can have complete control over the content for the sole reason of controlling their revenue stream. If I invest any money into DRM-protected content, that investment can be wiped out in a second when either the hardware or the software that support it becomes obsolete or unsupported.
Case in point: I have a lot of important material on cassette tapes (talks and interviews). It is no trouble transferring that to CDs, MP3s or whatever. But, if I buy an SACD (another example of a proprietary DRM-protected Sony format), that material is lost when my last SACD player breaks, since I can never get it off of the SACD.
So, if I get this right, those 100 million bulbs will be responsible for 100,000,000 x 0.004 g = 400 kg of mercury into the environment. Considering that current releases of mercury into the environment, among other problems, have made tuna and other ocean fishes sufficiently contaminated that they must be carefully limited in one's diet, I don't think it is enough that the CLF merely reduces the amount released. We need to stop avenues of release of mercury into the environment; current releases are already orders of magnitude too much.
Just wait until someone accesses child porn through your open connection and the cops show up and confiscate all your equipment and you spend $50K and two years proving your innocence. Or the RIAA files suit against your for serving ripped music...
This is exactly why I selected Eiffel for a signifiant simulation project that survivied seven years of maintenance. There simply isn't a language that better supports maintenance. It's not just a programming language--it's a lifestyle!
Einstein's gravitational theory -- general relativity -- would no longer be completely correct, Martins says.
First of all, let me preface this by saying IAAP (I am a physicist):
All this talk of laws being "wrong" or no longer "correct" is just popular fluff the press either hypes or makes up.
No physical law is ever completely correct. A physical law is simply a description of reality to the degree to which we understand it, and is "correct" (i.e. produces predicitions which fit our measurements) within the realm of our present experience of the phenomenon it describes. As our understanding and experience of a phenomenon grows to encompass a wider range of circumstances (e.g. scale, velocity), the law needs to be either refined or replaced with new law, possibly based upon a new paradigm.
Newton's laws of motion are no less "correct" now than they ever were. Einstein determined that the realm in which they accurately described reality did not include large velocities near the speed of light (i.e. >0.1c). Quantum mechanics explained how at small scales these same rules no longer applied. Even today, no one yet knows how to reconcile the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics when their realms overlap--this is still pioneering work.
Yet Newton's laws are still taught as the foundation of physics to all new students because they are still valid within the realm or experience in which all of our normal lives are conducted. Models, and the laws derived with them, are valid only within the realm of experience within which they were formed (and, if the inventer is lucky, they hold even beyond that). And they remain valid within that realm even when we find later than they don't hold outside that realm. Even Aristotle's belief that heavier objects fall faster than light objects is valid to a point (within a realm where air friction is a significant contributor), even though Galileo later "proved" this was wrong (i.e. it is not a general law).
Software is not owned--publishers license its use. EULAs have always made this very clear. We do not own the software we license, so I don't understand how a government can tax something not owned. For the government to make a legal determination that conflicts with the legal definitions created by the software publishing industry raises very interesting issues and consquences, indeed!
I block ads in general because animated ads make it virtually impossible for me to read the content. The distractions of animated ads is too great for me.
First of all, let me say that I am a physicist.
This Slashdot article is an unfair description of what the OpEd piece is about. The piece does not condemn Darwinism. It does question Neo-Darwinism, which strays beyond the theories of Darwinism.
The realm of science is to describe the behavior or processes (i.e. develop theories or models) of the mechanisms underlying physical reality and test them againt their predictions.
When scientific theories (confirmed or not) go beyond describing behavior, into speculating on the purpose (or lack thereof) behind the processes, those theories are no longer science, but philosophy. It is inappropriate for science to assume that a correct description of a mechanism implies purpose or reason for that mechanism. Neo-Darwinism is Darwinism plus untestable (i.e. non-scientific) philosophical theories about purpose.
Oh, man! I had a friend who, years ago, had written a special ROM for a dot-matrix printer to play a Bach four-part fugue by assigning the appropriate frequencies to the the head movements, paper feed mechanisms, and dot-matrix hammers. It was really cool!
Has anyone else been getting unsolicited IM messages on YIM! from automated bots using randomized screennames? Once a week, or so, I will get an IM containing only a smiley from an obviously randomized screenname. Sending any reply gets a one-time automated response directing you to some porn website.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), doctors and their treatments are the third leading cause of death in the U.S.(behind heart disease and cancer), with 225,000 deaths per year (cancer is 500,000/year).
Slashdot Mirror
remove the sugar tariff and then you will see big changes.
And even bigger changes if you remove corn subsidies.
So, first they do their research with a significant amount of public money, then they want to try to make a killing on what they claim they found. It is highly suspect science when those publishing their research aim to directly benefit financially from what they claim they find.
In order to make a killing, they must first get people to believe that it is better. I think the example image shows how manipulative they are willing to be to lure us into believing.
The site states 90-100 m^3 of compressed air, which is equal to 100,000 liters.
Most of the fossil fuel consumed is in the form of coal, not oil. Yes, oil is necessary for vehicles, and they do generate a lot of carbon pollution.
Yet, while oil is starting on the decline, the world has enough coal to last hundreds of years. And most power generation is fueled by coal.
To get one's arms around the magnitude of coal consumed, let me cite this statistic, relayed to me by someone who works at a power plant near Nebraska City. That plant burns 780,000 lbs. of coal per hour, equivalent to 68 train-car loads per day.
You can add me to the long list of people who have been abused by PayPal. My experience is that the company couldn't care less about unsatisfied customers. They knows all the steps to the dance of avoiding taking action that benefits a customer.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persisits in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.
--George Bernard Shaw
I really don't understand the hostility and vilification directed toward Stallman. He is simply a man with ideals who tries to persuade others of the merit of his ideas (something we all do). I have read many of his articles and interviews and he speaks only with calm deliberation and conviction. He goes further than most of us in "living the life", so to speak, by offering freely his work and time to the cause he espouses, which has benefitted us all tremendously. One can take or leave what he offers. Nothing Stallman has done has ever harmed anyone or deprived them of anything they might otherwise enjoy. There are numerous other individuals who have tried to destroy, undermine, or deprive us of things we enjoy, but towards whom no one directs similar hostility and vilification.
Isn't all Google software still in beta?
This is my fear of getting involved with ebooks. When I buy a book, I have the freedom to read it when and where I want to. But with DRM, I loose this freedom and become enslaved to some degree, in that my investment is under their control. I have no trust for Sony, as they have tried again and again to push DRM-protectable formats so that they can have complete control over the content for the sole reason of controlling their revenue stream. If I invest any money into DRM-protected content, that investment can be wiped out in a second when either the hardware or the software that support it becomes obsolete or unsupported.
Case in point: I have a lot of important material on cassette tapes (talks and interviews). It is no trouble transferring that to CDs, MP3s or whatever. But, if I buy an SACD (another example of a proprietary DRM-protected Sony format), that material is lost when my last SACD player breaks, since I can never get it off of the SACD.
So, if I get this right, those 100 million bulbs will be responsible for 100,000,000 x 0.004 g = 400 kg of mercury into the environment. Considering that current releases of mercury into the environment, among other problems, have made tuna and other ocean fishes sufficiently contaminated that they must be carefully limited in one's diet, I don't think it is enough that the CLF merely reduces the amount released. We need to stop avenues of release of mercury into the environment; current releases are already orders of magnitude too much.
Just wait until someone accesses child porn through your open connection and the cops show up and confiscate all your equipment and you spend $50K and two years proving your innocence. Or the RIAA files suit against your for serving ripped music...
This is exactly why I selected Eiffel for a signifiant simulation project that survivied seven years of maintenance. There simply isn't a language that better supports maintenance. It's not just a programming language--it's a lifestyle!
Einstein's gravitational theory -- general relativity -- would no longer be completely correct, Martins says.
First of all, let me preface this by saying IAAP (I am a physicist):
All this talk of laws being "wrong" or no longer "correct" is just popular fluff the press either hypes or makes up.
No physical law is ever completely correct. A physical law is simply a description of reality to the degree to which we understand it, and is "correct" (i.e. produces predicitions which fit our measurements) within the realm of our present experience of the phenomenon it describes. As our understanding and experience of a phenomenon grows to encompass a wider range of circumstances (e.g. scale, velocity), the law needs to be either refined or replaced with new law, possibly based upon a new paradigm.
Newton's laws of motion are no less "correct" now than they ever were. Einstein determined that the realm in which they accurately described reality did not include large velocities near the speed of light (i.e. >0.1c). Quantum mechanics explained how at small scales these same rules no longer applied. Even today, no one yet knows how to reconcile the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics when their realms overlap--this is still pioneering work.
Yet Newton's laws are still taught as the foundation of physics to all new students because they are still valid within the realm or experience in which all of our normal lives are conducted. Models, and the laws derived with them, are valid only within the realm of experience within which they were formed (and, if the inventer is lucky, they hold even beyond that). And they remain valid within that realm even when we find later than they don't hold outside that realm. Even Aristotle's belief that heavier objects fall faster than light objects is valid to a point (within a realm where air friction is a significant contributor), even though Galileo later "proved" this was wrong (i.e. it is not a general law).
Software is not owned--publishers license its use. EULAs have always made this very clear. We do not own the software we license, so I don't understand how a government can tax something not owned. For the government to make a legal determination that conflicts with the legal definitions created by the software publishing industry raises very interesting issues and consquences, indeed!
I block ads in general because animated ads make it virtually impossible for me to read the content. The distractions of animated ads is too great for me.
First of all, let me say that I am a physicist. This Slashdot article is an unfair description of what the OpEd piece is about. The piece does not condemn Darwinism. It does question Neo-Darwinism, which strays beyond the theories of Darwinism. The realm of science is to describe the behavior or processes (i.e. develop theories or models) of the mechanisms underlying physical reality and test them againt their predictions. When scientific theories (confirmed or not) go beyond describing behavior, into speculating on the purpose (or lack thereof) behind the processes, those theories are no longer science, but philosophy. It is inappropriate for science to assume that a correct description of a mechanism implies purpose or reason for that mechanism. Neo-Darwinism is Darwinism plus untestable (i.e. non-scientific) philosophical theories about purpose.
Oh, man! I had a friend who, years ago, had written a special ROM for a dot-matrix printer to play a Bach four-part fugue by assigning the appropriate frequencies to the the head movements, paper feed mechanisms, and dot-matrix hammers. It was really cool!
Has anyone else been getting unsolicited IM messages on YIM! from automated bots using randomized screennames? Once a week, or so, I will get an IM containing only a smiley from an obviously randomized screenname. Sending any reply gets a one-time automated response directing you to some porn website.
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), doctors and their treatments are the third leading cause of death in the U.S.(behind heart disease and cancer), with 225,000 deaths per year (cancer is 500,000/year).