Well yes maybe it is a natural cycle, but I fail to see how cutting back on the pollution we are pumping into the atmosphere are going to have a negative affect on any of Earths natural processes.
I too can't see any justification in not working to clean up our emissions, where are the studies suggesting that releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere is a good thing ?
A lot of people say that it's impossible that anything we could do which would effect the world's climate in any way. I wonder if they are thinking that there is nothing we could do, ever, to cause climatic changes - if not at what point do they judge we may have an effect ?
Cleaner and more efficient energy production is surely a good thing on all fronts, why not do as much as we can to move forward now ?
"Not to mention that I have friends that have visited parts of England and have told me that the smog there is horrible."
What, your friends have somehow time travelled back to the Tyme Of Ye Olde Sherlock Holmes ?
I suggest your friends are winding you up, their are very strict rules governing air pollution in the UK, it's almost impossible to live anywhere where you allowed coal or wood fires and factories are tightly monitored for emmissions. I live in Birmingham which was once the industrial capital of the UK and probably the world and the air here is a clean and pure as could be.
Rather than expounding the results of your wonderful research here on./ perhaps you ought to publish some papers and convince all those other so called scientists spending their time not looking at science what's what.
You could probably revolutionise scientific accomplishment by starting a movement for "Scientists who look Science", imagine what you'd achieve. I mean I am utterly convinced by your scientifc opinion, now that you've pointed out that you've actually looked at some science rather than all those other loser ( loosers ? ) scientists just looking at, well whatever they look at that.
You have inspired me, I am going to go round to that Stephen Hawking fellows house and say "Look at the bloody science you fool ! Can't you please just look at the damn science ?"
Hundreds of thousands of years worth of data from ice cores, thousands of years worth of data from tree rings. This data may be basic but it gives scientists a good indication of what the global temperature was during the periods studied.
Obviously when compared to millions of years it's not such a big number but it's perfectly adequate to show us trends in the climate over useful human sized time periods.
Today and for the last 150 - 200 years or so we have got increasingly more accurate and reliable data and that is what is telling us that the world climate is warming.
I believe the first one was conducted in either Indonesia or Sri Lanka, over the country side and the sea. I am guessing the scientists realised, just as you have done, that conducting these studies under a vast cloud of smog might not give them very accurate results.
To set your mind at rest I had better point out that also managed to avoid doing the studies at night.
I've just read some of his journal. His thinking is perfectly clear and well elucidated, it's possible that other people may require help to achieve the same level of critical thought at what is going on around them and I think you may well be one such person who would benefit from that help.
So you've learnt a lot about humour in your studies so far then, maybe in a few more years you can write is all down on the back of stamp and send it over to me because I would surely be very interested in your conclusions.
I agree the gap between rich and poor is growing and I do like your idea in theory.
Isolationism and the increasing wealth of the rest of the world would ensure an exodus of most of the rich people in the US which would solve that problem.
But like I said earlier the rest of the world would forcibly intervene at some point once they deemed they could make believable threats of violence.
"Uh, isn't circumstances beyond your control making your life worse the very DEFINITION of unfair?"
I don't believe it is, falling prey to forces beyond your control is unfortunate but loosing a football game because the other team cheated is unfair.
Fairness and unfairness involve some kind of moral judgement and in the case of unfairness involves a moral judgement that first of all you deserved something and secondly that the thing which you deserved was maliciously denied to you.
The trouble with closing your borders is that sooner or later you would lose out in military power to other countries, you would alienate yourselves from countries which would like access to your market and at some point you would be forced to dance to the tune of other countries who are now more powerful than you.
They would point to your restrictive economic practices and encourage you to engage with them in business - on their terms - or else...
In the meantime Americans would see that a lot of the world seemed to have a much higher standard of living than they did, cooler gadgets, better education etc and ignore the fact that a lot of the world is still worse off. Without some kind of very repressive regime they would force the country back into the world market, on it's terms.
Really you are much better engaging with the world, isolation will get you nowhere in the long run. The US should use it's power to improve things now so that it doesn't set it's self up for a bigger fall later on.
If you have a bank account you are indirectly supporting a wide range of companies in whose activities you have no say, if you have a pension you own shares etc etc.
And even if it did it would probably cause mild sunburn at worst and not effect anything on the night side of the planet unless it lasted for a really really long time.
That is a very amusing statement but aside from that you just have a poor imagination, if you are willing to believe in God you may as well believe in an extremely energentic one, think of a sort of all powerful Mr Motivator type figure.
...and thus will the morans eke an existence in the forgotten places of the world, and they will breed and from their loins will spring forth a race of morans so numerous they will once again populate the Earth.
I've just spent the last 10 minutes on the Web trying to find out a) Who my MEP is and b) Who my agriculture and fisheries MEP is. I have drawn a blank in both cases.
I have found one MEP who may be my representative since she appears to cover the West Midlands area and on her website she says that "feedback is an opportunity for me to hear your views". Which is nice.
I would hazard a guess that 99% of people in the UK have no idea who their MEP is, have never seen them on TV or read about their opinions in the media, have never met them and have never been contacted by them. Doubtless this ignorance is partly our fault and we should take an interest but these people who are supposed to be representing us should I think make a much bigger effort to find out what our views are.
1) The major benefit is for companies which already have huge portfolios of software patents who can then make money licencing their patents to people.
2) The major negative is for everyone else who do not have large portfolios of software patents and will have to face the threat of court action when developing almost any piece of new software.
3) Patents are very useful in other areas where the idea being patented is clear and unambiguous and it can take a long time to develop an idea and bring it to market. Software is already covered by copyright which prevents outright theft of a persons work anyway so there is no reason for them to be covered by patents as well, especially since patents do not translate well to protecting software developments.
Yes life just happens, it's neither fair nor unfair but when circumstances beyond your control make your life worse it's not very nice at all.
I don't know what the answer is but I don't think any of us can escape from globalisation. The world is driven by trade and commerce on a global stage and there is no way it's going back into national borders.
What we need is a way to ensure companies operate in a way which will eventually lead to a level playing field and take account of the human cost of their operations; whether that is shutting down plants in the US or exploiting workers in the 3rd world. That would certainly cost us all money but we may be able ease growing pains.
We really need more say in how business works, probably everyone in the US and the UK holds shares in some companies indirectly or otherwise but that doesn't seem to translate into much in the way of control or input into how a business is run, maybe it should.
Maybe I wasn't very clear, I don't think it's India's problem or that India is a problem. The poster I was originally replying to said that it was unfair that India should be able outsource American jobs and I was pointing out that I didn't think that was unfair but an inevitable consequence of the way the world works at the moment.
Until the global inequalities have balanced themselves out to leave a level playing field these kind of problems are going to continue. Government's should be doing their best to improve poorer countries standard of living to something like a comparable level to our own.
If nothing else you can learn some lessons from this experience, first of all don't pay anyone until all the work has been completed to your satisfaction and secondly to use contracts which cover these circumstances and which you are confident you can enforce if needs be.
Since you have already paid for this contractors work he has no real reason to do any further work fixing it for you except the benefit of a positive recommendation if you speak to any other of his potential clients. It depends on your relationship with him and the market he works in whether this will give you any leverage.
Since he has sold you a closed source program he may be hoping for some work in the future from you upgrading it or whatever which again can be used for leverage.
Perhaps offering to upgrade so you get the source code as well may induce him to offer you that at a reduced price and finish the outstanding work, he'd get some more cash and you could rescue your work and ensure you can go to someone you trust next time it needs work done to it.
Ultimately though depending on the exact contract you were using a positive resolution is either down to his goodwill or whatever you can force through the relevant courts.
I see nothing unfair here, if Americans downsized to a smaller house ( or tent perhaps ), sold your cars, didn't go on holidays and ate only rice and some vegetables you could probably compete with the Indians. The fact is you choose not you, you enjoy a higher standard of living and expect your wages will cover that choice.
Ultimately things will even out, Indian taxes will go up and they will expect much the same lifestyle as you enjoy at which point everyones jobs will outsourced to the middle of africa.
Free markets and fair markets are really the only way for the entire worlds population to reach a comparable standard of living but it's not going to happen overnight and changes can be hard to adapt to.
1. Why don't they show where the hell Linux is violating anything, as they haven't yet?
Their theory appears to be that although they apparently can't find any code they own in Linux IBM has access to that code and may have used code a bit like it in their AIX which was then altered again and found it's way into Linux.
2. Why do they need to see more of IBM's code if they knew it was violating? Doesn't that go against logic that if they knew IBM's code was violating their IP that they wouldn't need IBM to point it out for them?
Despite everything they may have said in the Media about MIT deep divers and billions of lines of infringing code they don't actually have any proof at all except for IBM press releases where they say they are going to help improve Linux. The theory seems to be that IBM is incapable of developing improvements to Linx without using SCO's magical code.
As you say SCO doesn't actually own any of this code in the first place and simply has the power to manage the licences which are ultimately held by Novell, the fact that SCO are still paying something like 90% of the money they get from their licenee's back to Novell is a good indication that regardless of the image they present in the media this is actually the case.
The case SCO is fighting with Novell is about who actually owns the licence and if Novell win that then the IBM case will probably collapse anyway. Since SCO's evidence in that case relies on a deeply illogical reading of the various contracts between themselves and Novell I think Novell should easily win.
No, it means that they have gained a little extra delay.
IBM has lost nothing except a little time and effort producing this extra code for them.
Given that they already all the code for the current versions of AIX and don't seem to have found anything in that it's not too likely they find anything in all the code which didn't make it into AIX.
Even if they do find what they consider to be illegal code they will still have to prove that the contract does not allow IBM to use work it has created it's self however it likes.
Slashdot Mirror
Well yes maybe it is a natural cycle, but I fail to see how cutting back on the pollution we are pumping into the atmosphere are going to have a negative affect on any of Earths natural processes.
I too can't see any justification in not working to clean up our emissions, where are the studies suggesting that releasing vast amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere is a good thing ?
A lot of people say that it's impossible that anything we could do which would effect the world's climate in any way. I wonder if they are thinking that there is nothing we could do, ever, to cause climatic changes - if not at what point do they judge we may have an effect ?
Cleaner and more efficient energy production is surely a good thing on all fronts, why not do as much as we can to move forward now ?
"Not to mention that I have friends that have visited parts of England and have told me that the smog there is horrible."
What, your friends have somehow time travelled back to the Tyme Of Ye Olde Sherlock Holmes ?
I suggest your friends are winding you up, their are very strict rules governing air pollution in the UK, it's almost impossible to live anywhere where you allowed coal or wood fires and factories are tightly monitored for emmissions. I live in Birmingham which was once the industrial capital of the UK and probably the world and the air here is a clean and pure as could be.
Rather than expounding the results of your wonderful research here on ./ perhaps you ought to publish some papers and convince all those other so called scientists spending their time not looking at science what's what.
You could probably revolutionise scientific accomplishment by starting a movement for "Scientists who look Science", imagine what you'd achieve. I mean I am utterly convinced by your scientifc opinion, now that you've pointed out that you've actually looked at some science rather than all those other loser ( loosers ? ) scientists just looking at, well whatever they look at that.
You have inspired me, I am going to go round to that Stephen Hawking fellows house and say "Look at the bloody science you fool ! Can't you please just look at the damn science ?"
Hundreds of thousands of years worth of data from ice cores, thousands of years worth of data from tree rings. This data may be basic but it gives scientists a good indication of what the global temperature was during the periods studied.
Obviously when compared to millions of years it's not such a big number but it's perfectly adequate to show us trends in the climate over useful human sized time periods.
Today and for the last 150 - 200 years or so we have got increasingly more accurate and reliable data and that is what is telling us that the world climate is warming.
I believe the first one was conducted in either Indonesia or Sri Lanka, over the country side and the sea. I am guessing the scientists realised, just as you have done, that conducting these studies under a vast cloud of smog might not give them very accurate results.
To set your mind at rest I had better point out that also managed to avoid doing the studies at night.
I've just read some of his journal. His thinking is perfectly clear and well elucidated, it's possible that other people may require help to achieve the same level of critical thought at what is going on around them and I think you may well be one such person who would benefit from that help.
Well they would be able to broadcast reassuring messages such as
"We are your friends ! We come in peace ! We mean you no harm !"
In a variety of language thus endearing themselves to the local population. Then later on in the mission when the robot was broadcasting
"Help me ! I am stuck behing this rock ! I require your help !"
The loyal locals would immediately rush to reset the robot on it's path to glory.
So you've learnt a lot about humour in your studies so far then, maybe in a few more years you can write is all down on the back of stamp and send it over to me because I would surely be very interested in your conclusions.
England at one point was happy to encourage piracy and it didn't do us any harm. You could be on to something there.
I agree the gap between rich and poor is growing and I do like your idea in theory.
Isolationism and the increasing wealth of the rest of the world would ensure an exodus of most of the rich people in the US which would solve that problem.
But like I said earlier the rest of the world would forcibly intervene at some point once they deemed they could make believable threats of violence.
"Uh, isn't circumstances beyond your control making your life worse the very DEFINITION of unfair?"
I don't believe it is, falling prey to forces beyond your control is unfortunate but loosing a football game because the other team cheated is unfair.
Fairness and unfairness involve some kind of moral judgement and in the case of unfairness involves a moral judgement that first of all you deserved something and secondly that the thing which you deserved was maliciously denied to you.
The trouble with closing your borders is that sooner or later you would lose out in military power to other countries, you would alienate yourselves from countries which would like access to your market and at some point you would be forced to dance to the tune of other countries who are now more powerful than you.
They would point to your restrictive economic practices and encourage you to engage with them in business - on their terms - or else...
In the meantime Americans would see that a lot of the world seemed to have a much higher standard of living than they did, cooler gadgets, better education etc and ignore the fact that a lot of the world is still worse off. Without some kind of very repressive regime they would force the country back into the world market, on it's terms.
Really you are much better engaging with the world, isolation will get you nowhere in the long run. The US should use it's power to improve things now so that it doesn't set it's self up for a bigger fall later on.
If you have a bank account you are indirectly supporting a wide range of companies in whose activities you have no say, if you have a pension you own shares etc etc.
And even if it did it would probably cause mild sunburn at worst and not effect anything on the night side of the planet unless it lasted for a really really long time.
"A God who never tires? It seems unlikely"
That is a very amusing statement but aside from that you just have a poor imagination, if you are willing to believe in God you may as well believe in an extremely energentic one, think of a sort of all powerful Mr Motivator type figure.
...and thus will the morans eke an existence in the forgotten places of the world, and they will breed and from their loins will spring forth a race of morans so numerous they will once again populate the Earth.
I've just spent the last 10 minutes on the Web trying to find out a) Who my MEP is and b) Who my agriculture and fisheries MEP is. I have drawn a blank in both cases.
I have found one MEP who may be my representative since she appears to cover the West Midlands area and on her website she says that "feedback is an opportunity for me to hear your views". Which is nice.
I would hazard a guess that 99% of people in the UK have no idea who their MEP is, have never seen them on TV or read about their opinions in the media, have never met them and have never been contacted by them. Doubtless this ignorance is partly our fault and we should take an interest but these people who are supposed to be representing us should I think make a much bigger effort to find out what our views are.
1) The major benefit is for companies which already have huge portfolios of software patents who can then make money licencing their patents to people.
2) The major negative is for everyone else who do not have large portfolios of software patents and will have to face the threat of court action when developing almost any piece of new software.
3) Patents are very useful in other areas where the idea being patented is clear and unambiguous and it can take a long time to develop an idea and bring it to market. Software is already covered by copyright which prevents outright theft of a persons work anyway so there is no reason for them to be covered by patents as well, especially since patents do not translate well to protecting software developments.
Yes life just happens, it's neither fair nor unfair but when circumstances beyond your control make your life worse it's not very nice at all.
I don't know what the answer is but I don't think any of us can escape from globalisation. The world is driven by trade and commerce on a global stage and there is no way it's going back into national borders.
What we need is a way to ensure companies operate in a way which will eventually lead to a level playing field and take account of the human cost of their operations; whether that is shutting down plants in the US or exploiting workers in the 3rd world. That would certainly cost us all money but we may be able ease growing pains.
We really need more say in how business works, probably everyone in the US and the UK holds shares in some companies indirectly or otherwise but that doesn't seem to translate into much in the way of control or input into how a business is run, maybe it should.
Maybe I wasn't very clear, I don't think it's India's problem or that India is a problem. The poster I was originally replying to said that it was unfair that India should be able outsource American jobs and I was pointing out that I didn't think that was unfair but an inevitable consequence of the way the world works at the moment.
Until the global inequalities have balanced themselves out to leave a level playing field these kind of problems are going to continue. Government's should be doing their best to improve poorer countries standard of living to something like a comparable level to our own.
Well maybe so but that's America's choice not an imposition by the Indians so you can't really consider it to be unfair.
"...speak broken English."
;-)
If you are American the chances are you already do
If nothing else you can learn some lessons from this experience, first of all don't pay anyone until all the work has been completed to your satisfaction and secondly to use contracts which cover these circumstances and which you are confident you can enforce if needs be.
Since you have already paid for this contractors work he has no real reason to do any further work fixing it for you except the benefit of a positive recommendation if you speak to any other of his potential clients. It depends on your relationship with him and the market he works in whether this will give you any leverage.
Since he has sold you a closed source program he may be hoping for some work in the future from you upgrading it or whatever which again can be used for leverage.
Perhaps offering to upgrade so you get the source code as well may induce him to offer you that at a reduced price and finish the outstanding work, he'd get some more cash and you could rescue your work and ensure you can go to someone you trust next time it needs work done to it.
Ultimately though depending on the exact contract you were using a positive resolution is either down to his goodwill or whatever you can force through the relevant courts.
I see nothing unfair here, if Americans downsized to a smaller house ( or tent perhaps ), sold your cars, didn't go on holidays and ate only rice and some vegetables you could probably compete with the Indians. The fact is you choose not you, you enjoy a higher standard of living and expect your wages will cover that choice.
Ultimately things will even out, Indian taxes will go up and they will expect much the same lifestyle as you enjoy at which point everyones jobs will outsourced to the middle of africa.
Free markets and fair markets are really the only way for the entire worlds population to reach a comparable standard of living but it's not going to happen overnight and changes can be hard to adapt to.
1. Why don't they show where the hell Linux is violating anything, as they haven't yet?
Their theory appears to be that although they apparently can't find any code they own in Linux IBM has access to that code and may have used code a bit like it in their AIX which was then altered again and found it's way into Linux.
2. Why do they need to see more of IBM's code if they knew it was violating? Doesn't that go against logic that if they knew IBM's code was violating their IP that they wouldn't need IBM to point it out for them?
Despite everything they may have said in the Media about MIT deep divers and billions of lines of infringing code they don't actually have any proof at all except for IBM press releases where they say they are going to help improve Linux. The theory seems to be that IBM is incapable of developing improvements to Linx without using SCO's magical code.
As you say SCO doesn't actually own any of this code in the first place and simply has the power to manage the licences which are ultimately held by Novell, the fact that SCO are still paying something like 90% of the money they get from their licenee's back to Novell is a good indication that regardless of the image they present in the media this is actually the case.
The case SCO is fighting with Novell is about who actually owns the licence and if Novell win that then the IBM case will probably collapse anyway. Since SCO's evidence in that case relies on a deeply illogical reading of the various contracts between themselves and Novell I think Novell should easily win.
No, it means that they have gained a little extra delay.
IBM has lost nothing except a little time and effort producing this extra code for them.
Given that they already all the code for the current versions of AIX and don't seem to have found anything in that it's not too likely they find anything in all the code which didn't make it into AIX.
Even if they do find what they consider to be illegal code they will still have to prove that the contract does not allow IBM to use work it has created it's self however it likes.
SCO is going to lose, it's just a matter of time.