That's correct. Betamax is not only relevant, it is one of the primary reasons for the successful Grokster defense so far. I think everyone interested in this case should read (or listen to) the oral arguments from the previous appeal. It's very convincing (to me) in favour of Grokster and it makes it extremely clear how Betamax is important. (There's even a link to the Betamax decision.) Basically, in order to rule against Grokster it seems that Betamax would have to be overturned, which would make VCRs and other home recording devices illegal.
One common mistake is that if something has any legal use then it can't be ruled illegal. The transcript clearly indicates that the legal use needs to be "substantial". Although the threshold for "substantial" has not been etched in stone, Betamax had set an example of 7% of usage being legal as "substantial" (93% of usage infringing), but isn't a hard threshold. The best the appellates could do was claim 90% of P2P use was infringing (10% legal), which doesn't even meet the minimum Betamax threshold. So as long as the actual real usage of P2P keeps at least 7% legal there shouldn't be much of a problem.
My favorite quote: "First, it is a bad idea to decide the fate of a technology in its infancy." That's a message the RIAA and MPAA can't seem to get their heads around.
Of course judgements can often be surprising. Who knows how this will turn out?
but in the case of climate scientists they supposedly determine the truth as best as anyone can on this subject, using reason and evidence.
No, the survey was not on climate scientists who were studying the causes of global warming. The article is clear on that. It is a survey on how many papers included the premise of the belief in the cause of climate change. They are no more authoritative in the causes of global warming than a survey of accountants would be on the cheapest place to eat in Chicago (since they both deal with expenses).
The same applies to the "appeal to majority". These are people who haven't personally studied the cause of climate change, they just have a belief in one direction and have jobs related to climate. This does not mean they have any independent information as to the causes. The error of this appeal to majority and authority when there might be an appearance of expertise is easily evident from a case I ran into in grad school (as a Teaching Assistant). A certain topic was taught in two sections of the same course by different profs and they taught it differently. On the final exam, which was common for the whole course, answers differed based on which section the students attended. These students were "trained" scientists and would go out into the world with the belief that they were taught in their own section. If they had all be taught by one prof, they'd all have one belief in the "right" way, and if taught by the other prof they'd all have the other belief. As "experts" in the field, a survey of their beliefs on the topic would simply reveal what they were taught.
There is clearly no merit in such a survey. Only those who directly study the specific topic in question are authoritative on the topic. Another example is the failure of the "blogsphere" to properly call the 2004 election because, although many were keeping an eye on the election results, the call for a Kerry win came from one person and was propagated throughout the blogsphere which had the appearance of many people analyzing the results making the call. In fact, it was one person.
Now the rest of the article is a little more logical on the topic, referencing the expert committees who do study this topic, and even recognizing that they can be wrong. But the survey in question is quite useless as any sort of convincing evidence one way or the other. It's pseudo-science.
As an example I live in a city which is already running out of water (Sydney, Australia)
Yes, but is there any conclusive or even convincing evidence that (a) this is due to global warming (natural or otherwise), (b) it is due to the greenhouse effect (natural or otherwise) (b) it is due directly to human activity (other than directly using up the water, which isn't a global warming or greenhouse effect issue), and (c) reducing greenhouse gases, fossil fuel use, or any other such change in our behaviour will in any way stop, slow, or reverse this process?
There are many areas on the planet that were once thriving with water and life that have dried up, and none of it had to do with human activities. Such things do occur naturally, so things like reducing fossil fuel usage may have no effect whatsoever. And if they did occur naturally, if we took more active steps to stop them do we know what the repercussions are? Trying to "fix" nature by forcing it another way can easily result in worse problems. I've seen it first hand (albeit on a smaller scale) with respect to "fixing" erosion problems which resulted in flooding in other areas and replacement of sandy beaches with rocky and seaweed covered areas.
I sure hope that these predicitions are wrong
Personally, having studied chaos dynamics and seeing models of climate, I have little faith in the accuracy of these predictions. That doesn't mean I believe everything will be ok, I just mean I think a random guess is almost as accurate for those sorts of extrapolations of 50, 70, 100 years and beyond. They might be indicative of trends, so they're not without merit. The saying about a butterfly flapping its wings causing a hurricane (or affecting the price of tea in China, or various other versions) seem very much to be true. Even if we had a perfect model of the climate (which we don't), including the interaction with the earth, oceans, solar variations over time, etc., we can't measure all the current conditions of the variables to simulate that far into the future. Obviously these models and the computer power haven't existed long enough to see how far in the future they can make accurate predictions.
I find all this talk about the "chicken little's" (sic), the scientific conspiracy (from others, not you), etc to be extremely surreal. Let alone an argument that because the climate has never been static it's just cool that we actively make Earth's atmosphere resemble Venus'!
Well, thanks for not lumping me in with the "conspiracy theorists", I don't believe any of that crap. I try my best to be objective, but I've seen no convincing evidence that "we" (collectively) know what we're talking about in terms of climate, causes, effects, and "fixing" it. Not that we're not having an effect or it's pointless to do anything, but panicking about it and just doing something without understanding it can cause more harm than good.
But don't you think that your hyperbole about making Earth's atmosphere resemble Venus is a little too sureal in the opposite direction? There's no prediction of Earth turning into Venus. Natural disasters in the past (volcanoes, asteroids) have done by far many magnitudes worse as far as climatic change, including greenhouse gasses, and it hasn't turned the Earth into Venus. Sometimes we humans have a bit too much self-importance (and sometimes too little) with respect to how much we affect things compared to what occurs naturally. There is no reason to believe the Earth is that fragile.
The time for fart-arsing around about "legitimate philosophical questions" passed about 10 years ago.
Great. So does that mean you have the answers to them? If not, the time hasn't passed at all. If we don't answer them we are just as likely to do harm as to do good. Again, I don't mean to say that we should do things like reducing fossil fuel usage and move to more sustainable living. But that's for a lot of more direct reasons, like pollution, usin
Just because everybody is saying it, doesn't make it true.
Mod this way up. The "study" itself is pseudo-science. It basically says the majority of climate scientists believe something is true without questioning it or citing proof. There are at least two logical fallacies in this study, Appeal to Authority (they're climate scientists therefore their beliefs must be the truth) and Appeal to Majority (most believe it therefore it's true). Science magazine has taken flak for their silliness on global warming before.
When you look at the actual science behind global warming and its causes, things are a lot less clear. In the same link above, you can see that when atmospheric scientists actually studying the causes of global climate change, the data at leasts points to a significant amount (>80%?) of climate change due to solar activity. But this doesn't make for entertaining or shocking headlines. Boring old science just doesn't have the flash of wild claims and bizarre pseudo-science. Unfortunately, it seems more and more scientists are incapable of separating the two themselves.
so the solution is to deal with the symptoms rather than address the cause?
There is an inherent assumption in your response. Your implications is that there is something broken that needs to be fixed, as in an ailment of some sort. What the previous post seemed to be saying, at least my interpretation, is that the effects ("symptoms") are not inherently bad in themselves. Water levels rising will probably cost humans money. But that's different from an ecological disaster?
This seems to be a problem with the "chicken little's" of global warming. They report predictions that are easily dismissed as "so what?". (Me playing devil's advocate here, not expressing my opinions.) So the water levels will rise, what's the harm beyond economic cost? The Earth's climate has changed since it first formed. It's gone through massive geological and climate changes (ice ages), natural disasters (volcanoes, asteroid hits), magnetic field inversions, etc., etc., without humans causing or "fixing", and yet life flourished and adapted. So, why should we panic over something like water levels rising. It's not like even the most extreme activist is predicting Waterworld or anything.
OK, so my personal opinions are not as "so what?" as that. But there is a valid point to these objections. The climate is not and has never been static. Is our goal to make it static and unchanging? Isn't that human intervention into the climate to suit our own purposes, and therefore just as "harmful" as causing climate change? How do we separate human causes from natural causes? Is there even a difference, since we are here naturally? It's not like there is a "correct" way the Earth is suppose to be with a set of requirements we're trying to meet.
These are all legitimate philosophical questions that aren't really being addressed. Monitoring and predicting through science is good, but I'm not sure what the right way to apply it is.
only down side I see is it could also scare off buisnesses not willing to take the risk of spending all that money and then not getting the contract
It also has the downside that it favours large companies. Right now a small company can still get contracts and funding from NASA, helping grow companies and foster competition. With the "prize" approach, small companies can't afford to foot the bill in the first place even if they knew they'd win the prize in the end.
In that sense, it's sort of like the "monopoly by litigation" approach where a big company can afford to sue everybody and they can't afford to fight back. In this case, it just who can afford the R&D.
It's not an all bad idea, but anything that inherently favours the big guy over the little guy is somewhat biased and counter to the goals of efficiency through competition.
This sort of thing is why I can't stand watching those shows. They pretend to be science related but screw it up bad. There's "zoom in on sector A4 and enhance" like you mention. I've seen them take a saturated image of a car's license plate and just shrink the blooming in something like a Photoshop plug-in and have a clear picture of the plate. Perhaps the worst was when they "enhanced" a digital image so that they could get an image of a fingerprint that was on the lens, violoating I don't know how many optics laws. Better yet, the image had been deleted and the obtained it from "residual charge" of the flash memory.
If the CSI franchise is doing so well, how come they can't afford a simple science consultant? It's not like the story wouldn't be as "dramatic" if they solved the problems using actually physically possible science.
Will you be so flippant with regard to their education and "exciting lives" when you have to pay more in taxes to help pay for their welfare check and/or jail term?
That's not really a sound argument. The same could be said for anything we do that ends up costing tax payers money. People with bigger cars do more damage to the road. People who eat poorly require more medical attention (more hospitals, more medicare -- and in Canada health care is a direct drain on taxes). Are you saying we should regulate every individual's behaviour if it is going to affect the amount of taxes. Is that consistent with the concept of a free country?
There was always some probability that one's completely original invention would run afoul of a patent
Yup, true, though it was always a small probability. The problem nowadays is that even the most obvious things, things with prior art, and implemening some ordinary activity on a computer are getting patented left and right. The idea of patents is supposed to be that it is highly unlikely that a person would independently come up with the same thing. They are supposed to be so unobvious that requiring a search should by completely unnecessary for normal operations. I don't know how the patent system evolved into an anything new system.
So the system is broken. How long before it collapses? (Not that collapsing is a good thing, but it would certainly drive the reforms faster.)
I think you miss his point. Yes, pirating Windows is wrong and illegal, even if Microsoft uses pirated software. That's because "hypocricy" doesn't have legal standing. But it does have standing in the realm of public opinion. Nobody would particularly cry for MS if they claim that they're loosing money to piracy. (Not that anyone would cry for MS now, we just cry because of MS.) It's a credibility thing. There's a difference between doing something that's wrong and feeling bad about it.
Personally, I hope it makes the "powers that be" realize that piracy by private corporations for profit is more harmful than piracy for personal use at home.
I'm sorry, you seem to be saying that in burning fossil fuels there is no waste heat. By burning fossil fuels or creating a nuclear chain reaction we are heating at the source and heating at the use. Of course the flip side of this is that they are using climate modeling systems, which rarely work anyway.
No, sorry, that's not what I meant by "source", I'm talking about the energy source not the location at which it is produced. In fossil fuels and Nuclear the energy is stored in the material in the ground and in its natural state does not affect our environment. We extract the material and release the energy into the environment as heat (both at the power plant and at at the end use powered devices). In this model when we produce a total energy of X, that means we are generally releasing about X total new energy into the environment that wouldn't otherwise be there.
With "green" energy sources (wind, solar, hydro) we extract the energy (X) from the environment and then release it again at new locations as heat from the powered devices. In this case, there is no net energy change in the environment, but we are affecting the local environment twice, once when extracting it and once when releasing it, neither of which would occur naturally. So it's no surprise to me that this would affect the climate too.
I'm not really picking a "side" here. I'm all for greener energy sources, though I'm more concerned about pollution than climate change (which occurs quite naturally anyway). I'm just saying that anyone who thinks "green" sources of energy don't have an effect on the environment is dreaming.
I wouldn't go so far as to say they are always wrong, they are just in over their heads in many cases where they are trying to explain something they don't understand or are from outside the field being explained so they don't understand all of the issues (like what is "real" versus "pseudo-" science).
I certainly wouldn't take a news story as the source of knowledge on a subject. But I do use them to indicate "Hey, something interesting happened related to X" and then go and research the details at the source myself. (Of course this doesn't really work with recent world events because journalists are often the only source of information in that case.)
Seriously though, in the end any electricity we make gets turned into heat somewhere by whatever device uses it.
Which is why it is inevitable that we will affect the Earth's climate, despite what "green energy" proponents believe. No matter what the source, we are releasing heat energy from all of our power consuming devices in places where it wouldn't be naturally. In the case of "green" sources like wind, solar, or hydro-electric we are taking that energy away from where it naturally occurs and thereby also affecting the climate/environment at the source. With nuclear or fossil fuels we are releasing previously stored energy so it has the "benefit" of only affecting the environment at the output, not the input. On the other hand, this also means they are increasing the net heat energy in the environment wheras the green energy approaches just move it around.
Of course this doesn't address the pollution aspect. Nuclear and "green" sources are generally a lot less polluting than fossil fuels. Plus as the article points out the net environment change may be much less affected by green sources. But if anyone thinks the goal is to have zero effect on the environment they're dreaming.
This makes it a very strange license indeed. Microsoft doesn't own the rights to many of the things they are licensing and nobody has to actually accept or reject the license. Basically, that makes it Microsoft saying "Here is a list of stuff".
So why is Microsoft doing this? It could be as benign as clearing up any potential uncertainty to legal usage of Microsoft products. On the other hand, it could be a more subtle attempt at legal "squatting" as suggested by the original article. If say, in five years Microsoft points out they've been asserting their rights over something since 2004 it might hold more legal weight than if they just let it go. (For example, SCO asserting rights over something it does not appear to own, and the fact they haven't asserted these rights in the past is just another argument against them.)
Who knows? It's certainly a bizarre tale. Something drove them to do this, probably something in their legal department. It'd be nice to know.
Except that we don't need a license to use them, and by signing up to the license we are locked into something.
This looks very much like someone saying "Sign my free license and you will be able to use your own bank cards", which you can do now, but the license says you can only use money obtained through the bank card to buy Microsoft products. Why would anyone take that license?
This sounds very much like a bad scam. It's not clear what the purpose of it is or why Microsoft is doing this. It doesn't appear to give you anything you don't already have. (And yes, I RTFA.)
Well, it was mostly a sarcastic response to the "benefit" to Canada under Bush, but for the record his main screwups include ignoring the job problem, increasing the deficit, cutting taxes when it is clearly unsound to do so, funding a war he can't afford, and creating mandates that he can't afford. For example, see here, here, here, and here.
My favorite quote is "Look at the Canadian Dollar, it's worth almost 80 cents. 4 years ago it was worth 65 cents. Since Canada is our largest trading partner, and we're big importers of Canadian raw materials, this is killing us. You'd think Bush is a Canadian." (It's now worth about 82 cents, thanks to his election win, just look at the huge increase when it became clear he'd won.)
I think in a practical sense, Mr. Bush's election benefits Canada
Yes, if you limit your consideration to economics. Not only will Canada do better in trade, but Bush is such a fuckup he's screwing the U.S. economy enough that the Canadian dollar is soaring. So yes, if money is all you care about then it's good Bush won. Now, how many people dying, how much political instability in the world, how many more lost freedoms is worth that extra cash? Would you sell me your right to privacy for $20 USD? If I give you $100 will you let me kill one of your relatives? That's the tradeoff we're getting for the potential trade "benefits" from Bush, which by the way is considered at most negligibly better than with Kerry by most analysts.
I'd rather appreciate it if any of you Bush-bashers would not try to claim monopoly status on the Canadian sentiment.
Nobody claimed monopoly, but it is clearly the vast majority. Even you more or less conceded that. Yes, there are some in Canada who support Bush, about 15-20% depending on which poll you read.
Honestly, I think we are seeing the beginning of the disintegration of the American power. It is quickly becoming the new USSR in many ways: ruling through media propaganda, loss of freedoms, denial of the obvious, international outcast, unilateral self-interest military actions. It's a shame, I don't want to see that happen, it used to be such a great country.
Nope, it likely includes most of the rest of the world. It certainly includes Canada, the closest neighbour, ally, trading partner, and most culturely similar country to the U.S. Based on surveys, news, and workplace discussions, we can't understand how anyone could vote a major fuckup like Bush back in. On Sept. 11th, 2001 the U.S. had the sympathy of most of the world. Within a year Bush pissed off everyone and thumbed his nose at the international community. He's taken away freedoms of the American people in the name of security. He started a war for reasons that the world told him were wrong, have since been more than proven wrong, and it has turned sour just like everyone said it would (except Bush and friends). And he still says everything is fine. And the American people voted him back in.
We could understand that Americans didn't know he was a fuckup when they first (barely) voted him in, but it's hard not to know he's a fuckup now. Although I work with a number of Americans I respect, I've generally lost quite a bit of respect for American "intelligence" in general.
Yes, those are some good points, and I agree with the part about convincing execs about the value of Linux. Sure, it's cheap and most people's first impression probably is that Linux is built by a bunch of teens and basement geeks coding at home in their spare time, largely because there is a lot of truth behind that. (Of course the actual official implementation process is quite structured and formal, it's the implied lack of quality that is not true.)
What I'm more interested is where this idea that commmercial software is secure comes from. True, security is part of "quality" and that falls into the price assumptions you mention. Perhaps it's that simple, but there seems to be two assumptions going on -- one that commercial products are designed to be secure and one that FOSS development is low quality. To me these are separate assumptions, though related, since the first one stands alone even without the existence of FOSS.
Your experience very much matches mine. I've been going to the U.S. since I was a kid and although it is generally a good place, it has gone way downhill since 9/11. It's is less free, less tolerant, less informed, more paranoid, and more isolationist.
You hit the nail on the head with the use of national symbols as a means to justify things. It is very former Soviet Union-ish including the Department of Homeland Security which is quite similar to several USSR organizations.
As far as differences between Canada and the U.S., you've mentioned a few but missed one important one. The U.S. foreign policy is based on protecting (and spreading) the interests of the U.S. Canadian foreign policy is based on protecting the interest of the foreign countries.
...we have to assure our more senior executives that these boxes have the same level of security and protection as the commercial products
What I don't understand is where this assumption that commercial products are (more?) secure comes from. There are mountains of examples of unsecure commercial products. It's not the source (Ha ha, you know what I mean) that makes it secure, it's the process it goes through for security checking.
Commercial products are built to be done with the least amount of work to meet requirements and schedule. The fact that products are rushed to market with known flaws isn't an industry secret, it's even taught. (At least it is in the project management course I'm taking now.) Being first to market and release schedules are driving factors. Security is usually way down the list. There are exceptions of course, when the software is custom made and has to meet customer security requirements. But even then it is in the best interest of the developer to put in the least effort necessary to meet the requirements to reap the biggest profit.
FOSS doesn't generally have the same driving factors. Although schedule is sometimes important the driving force is usually the technical merits. This includes security.
Really, if security is an issue, the purchaser should have processes to test the security, not just assume it because it's commercial. Why can't these "executives" see this?
Wow. That's probably the most interesting thing I've ever learned that I've forgotten before I've even finished reading it.
P.S. I did know there were common mistakes using this latin pluralization, particularly the "octopi" case, which still seems to have made its way into dictionary acceptance. But I didn't know the reasons before. Now I do, though I don't remember them.
Slashdot Mirror
One common mistake is that if something has any legal use then it can't be ruled illegal. The transcript clearly indicates that the legal use needs to be "substantial". Although the threshold for "substantial" has not been etched in stone, Betamax had set an example of 7% of usage being legal as "substantial" (93% of usage infringing), but isn't a hard threshold. The best the appellates could do was claim 90% of P2P use was infringing (10% legal), which doesn't even meet the minimum Betamax threshold. So as long as the actual real usage of P2P keeps at least 7% legal there shouldn't be much of a problem.
My favorite quote: "First, it is a bad idea to decide the fate of a technology in its infancy." That's a message the RIAA and MPAA can't seem to get their heads around.
Of course judgements can often be surprising. Who knows how this will turn out?
Wow, you missed really great comeback by saying that you did write it that way but in Grafitti 2 so it came out wrong. Oh well, too late.
No, the survey was not on climate scientists who were studying the causes of global warming. The article is clear on that. It is a survey on how many papers included the premise of the belief in the cause of climate change. They are no more authoritative in the causes of global warming than a survey of accountants would be on the cheapest place to eat in Chicago (since they both deal with expenses).
The same applies to the "appeal to majority". These are people who haven't personally studied the cause of climate change, they just have a belief in one direction and have jobs related to climate. This does not mean they have any independent information as to the causes. The error of this appeal to majority and authority when there might be an appearance of expertise is easily evident from a case I ran into in grad school (as a Teaching Assistant). A certain topic was taught in two sections of the same course by different profs and they taught it differently. On the final exam, which was common for the whole course, answers differed based on which section the students attended. These students were "trained" scientists and would go out into the world with the belief that they were taught in their own section. If they had all be taught by one prof, they'd all have one belief in the "right" way, and if taught by the other prof they'd all have the other belief. As "experts" in the field, a survey of their beliefs on the topic would simply reveal what they were taught.
There is clearly no merit in such a survey. Only those who directly study the specific topic in question are authoritative on the topic. Another example is the failure of the "blogsphere" to properly call the 2004 election because, although many were keeping an eye on the election results, the call for a Kerry win came from one person and was propagated throughout the blogsphere which had the appearance of many people analyzing the results making the call. In fact, it was one person.
Now the rest of the article is a little more logical on the topic, referencing the expert committees who do study this topic, and even recognizing that they can be wrong. But the survey in question is quite useless as any sort of convincing evidence one way or the other. It's pseudo-science.
Yes, but is there any conclusive or even convincing evidence that (a) this is due to global warming (natural or otherwise), (b) it is due to the greenhouse effect (natural or otherwise) (b) it is due directly to human activity (other than directly using up the water, which isn't a global warming or greenhouse effect issue), and (c) reducing greenhouse gases, fossil fuel use, or any other such change in our behaviour will in any way stop, slow, or reverse this process?
There are many areas on the planet that were once thriving with water and life that have dried up, and none of it had to do with human activities. Such things do occur naturally, so things like reducing fossil fuel usage may have no effect whatsoever. And if they did occur naturally, if we took more active steps to stop them do we know what the repercussions are? Trying to "fix" nature by forcing it another way can easily result in worse problems. I've seen it first hand (albeit on a smaller scale) with respect to "fixing" erosion problems which resulted in flooding in other areas and replacement of sandy beaches with rocky and seaweed covered areas.
I sure hope that these predicitions are wrong
Personally, having studied chaos dynamics and seeing models of climate, I have little faith in the accuracy of these predictions. That doesn't mean I believe everything will be ok, I just mean I think a random guess is almost as accurate for those sorts of extrapolations of 50, 70, 100 years and beyond. They might be indicative of trends, so they're not without merit. The saying about a butterfly flapping its wings causing a hurricane (or affecting the price of tea in China, or various other versions) seem very much to be true. Even if we had a perfect model of the climate (which we don't), including the interaction with the earth, oceans, solar variations over time, etc., we can't measure all the current conditions of the variables to simulate that far into the future. Obviously these models and the computer power haven't existed long enough to see how far in the future they can make accurate predictions.
I find all this talk about the "chicken little's" (sic), the scientific conspiracy (from others, not you), etc to be extremely surreal. Let alone an argument that because the climate has never been static it's just cool that we actively make Earth's atmosphere resemble Venus'!
Well, thanks for not lumping me in with the "conspiracy theorists", I don't believe any of that crap. I try my best to be objective, but I've seen no convincing evidence that "we" (collectively) know what we're talking about in terms of climate, causes, effects, and "fixing" it. Not that we're not having an effect or it's pointless to do anything, but panicking about it and just doing something without understanding it can cause more harm than good.
But don't you think that your hyperbole about making Earth's atmosphere resemble Venus is a little too sureal in the opposite direction? There's no prediction of Earth turning into Venus. Natural disasters in the past (volcanoes, asteroids) have done by far many magnitudes worse as far as climatic change, including greenhouse gasses, and it hasn't turned the Earth into Venus. Sometimes we humans have a bit too much self-importance (and sometimes too little) with respect to how much we affect things compared to what occurs naturally. There is no reason to believe the Earth is that fragile.
The time for fart-arsing around about "legitimate philosophical questions" passed about 10 years ago.
Great. So does that mean you have the answers to them? If not, the time hasn't passed at all. If we don't answer them we are just as likely to do harm as to do good. Again, I don't mean to say that we should do things like reducing fossil fuel usage and move to more sustainable living. But that's for a lot of more direct reasons, like pollution, usin
Mod this way up. The "study" itself is pseudo-science. It basically says the majority of climate scientists believe something is true without questioning it or citing proof. There are at least two logical fallacies in this study, Appeal to Authority (they're climate scientists therefore their beliefs must be the truth) and Appeal to Majority (most believe it therefore it's true). Science magazine has taken flak for their silliness on global warming before.
When you look at the actual science behind global warming and its causes, things are a lot less clear. In the same link above, you can see that when atmospheric scientists actually studying the causes of global climate change, the data at leasts points to a significant amount (>80%?) of climate change due to solar activity. But this doesn't make for entertaining or shocking headlines. Boring old science just doesn't have the flash of wild claims and bizarre pseudo-science. Unfortunately, it seems more and more scientists are incapable of separating the two themselves.
There is an inherent assumption in your response. Your implications is that there is something broken that needs to be fixed, as in an ailment of some sort. What the previous post seemed to be saying, at least my interpretation, is that the effects ("symptoms") are not inherently bad in themselves. Water levels rising will probably cost humans money. But that's different from an ecological disaster?
This seems to be a problem with the "chicken little's" of global warming. They report predictions that are easily dismissed as "so what?". (Me playing devil's advocate here, not expressing my opinions.) So the water levels will rise, what's the harm beyond economic cost? The Earth's climate has changed since it first formed. It's gone through massive geological and climate changes (ice ages), natural disasters (volcanoes, asteroid hits), magnetic field inversions, etc., etc., without humans causing or "fixing", and yet life flourished and adapted. So, why should we panic over something like water levels rising. It's not like even the most extreme activist is predicting Waterworld or anything.
OK, so my personal opinions are not as "so what?" as that. But there is a valid point to these objections. The climate is not and has never been static. Is our goal to make it static and unchanging? Isn't that human intervention into the climate to suit our own purposes, and therefore just as "harmful" as causing climate change? How do we separate human causes from natural causes? Is there even a difference, since we are here naturally? It's not like there is a "correct" way the Earth is suppose to be with a set of requirements we're trying to meet.
These are all legitimate philosophical questions that aren't really being addressed. Monitoring and predicting through science is good, but I'm not sure what the right way to apply it is.
It also has the downside that it favours large companies. Right now a small company can still get contracts and funding from NASA, helping grow companies and foster competition. With the "prize" approach, small companies can't afford to foot the bill in the first place even if they knew they'd win the prize in the end.
In that sense, it's sort of like the "monopoly by litigation" approach where a big company can afford to sue everybody and they can't afford to fight back. In this case, it just who can afford the R&D.
It's not an all bad idea, but anything that inherently favours the big guy over the little guy is somewhat biased and counter to the goals of efficiency through competition.
This sort of thing is why I can't stand watching those shows. They pretend to be science related but screw it up bad. There's "zoom in on sector A4 and enhance" like you mention. I've seen them take a saturated image of a car's license plate and just shrink the blooming in something like a Photoshop plug-in and have a clear picture of the plate. Perhaps the worst was when they "enhanced" a digital image so that they could get an image of a fingerprint that was on the lens, violoating I don't know how many optics laws. Better yet, the image had been deleted and the obtained it from "residual charge" of the flash memory.
If the CSI franchise is doing so well, how come they can't afford a simple science consultant? It's not like the story wouldn't be as "dramatic" if they solved the problems using actually physically possible science.
That's not really a sound argument. The same could be said for anything we do that ends up costing tax payers money. People with bigger cars do more damage to the road. People who eat poorly require more medical attention (more hospitals, more medicare -- and in Canada health care is a direct drain on taxes). Are you saying we should regulate every individual's behaviour if it is going to affect the amount of taxes. Is that consistent with the concept of a free country?
Yup, true, though it was always a small probability. The problem nowadays is that even the most obvious things, things with prior art, and implemening some ordinary activity on a computer are getting patented left and right. The idea of patents is supposed to be that it is highly unlikely that a person would independently come up with the same thing. They are supposed to be so unobvious that requiring a search should by completely unnecessary for normal operations. I don't know how the patent system evolved into an anything new system.
So the system is broken. How long before it collapses? (Not that collapsing is a good thing, but it would certainly drive the reforms faster.)
I think you miss his point. Yes, pirating Windows is wrong and illegal, even if Microsoft uses pirated software. That's because "hypocricy" doesn't have legal standing. But it does have standing in the realm of public opinion. Nobody would particularly cry for MS if they claim that they're loosing money to piracy. (Not that anyone would cry for MS now, we just cry because of MS.) It's a credibility thing. There's a difference between doing something that's wrong and feeling bad about it.
Personally, I hope it makes the "powers that be" realize that piracy by private corporations for profit is more harmful than piracy for personal use at home.
No, sorry, that's not what I meant by "source", I'm talking about the energy source not the location at which it is produced. In fossil fuels and Nuclear the energy is stored in the material in the ground and in its natural state does not affect our environment. We extract the material and release the energy into the environment as heat (both at the power plant and at at the end use powered devices). In this model when we produce a total energy of X, that means we are generally releasing about X total new energy into the environment that wouldn't otherwise be there.
With "green" energy sources (wind, solar, hydro) we extract the energy (X) from the environment and then release it again at new locations as heat from the powered devices. In this case, there is no net energy change in the environment, but we are affecting the local environment twice, once when extracting it and once when releasing it, neither of which would occur naturally. So it's no surprise to me that this would affect the climate too.
I'm not really picking a "side" here. I'm all for greener energy sources, though I'm more concerned about pollution than climate change (which occurs quite naturally anyway). I'm just saying that anyone who thinks "green" sources of energy don't have an effect on the environment is dreaming.
I wouldn't go so far as to say they are always wrong, they are just in over their heads in many cases where they are trying to explain something they don't understand or are from outside the field being explained so they don't understand all of the issues (like what is "real" versus "pseudo-" science).
I certainly wouldn't take a news story as the source of knowledge on a subject. But I do use them to indicate "Hey, something interesting happened related to X" and then go and research the details at the source myself. (Of course this doesn't really work with recent world events because journalists are often the only source of information in that case.)
Which is why it is inevitable that we will affect the Earth's climate, despite what "green energy" proponents believe. No matter what the source, we are releasing heat energy from all of our power consuming devices in places where it wouldn't be naturally. In the case of "green" sources like wind, solar, or hydro-electric we are taking that energy away from where it naturally occurs and thereby also affecting the climate/environment at the source. With nuclear or fossil fuels we are releasing previously stored energy so it has the "benefit" of only affecting the environment at the output, not the input. On the other hand, this also means they are increasing the net heat energy in the environment wheras the green energy approaches just move it around.
Of course this doesn't address the pollution aspect. Nuclear and "green" sources are generally a lot less polluting than fossil fuels. Plus as the article points out the net environment change may be much less affected by green sources. But if anyone thinks the goal is to have zero effect on the environment they're dreaming.
This makes it a very strange license indeed. Microsoft doesn't own the rights to many of the things they are licensing and nobody has to actually accept or reject the license. Basically, that makes it Microsoft saying "Here is a list of stuff".
So why is Microsoft doing this? It could be as benign as clearing up any potential uncertainty to legal usage of Microsoft products. On the other hand, it could be a more subtle attempt at legal "squatting" as suggested by the original article. If say, in five years Microsoft points out they've been asserting their rights over something since 2004 it might hold more legal weight than if they just let it go. (For example, SCO asserting rights over something it does not appear to own, and the fact they haven't asserted these rights in the past is just another argument against them.)
Who knows? It's certainly a bizarre tale. Something drove them to do this, probably something in their legal department. It'd be nice to know.
Except that we don't need a license to use them, and by signing up to the license we are locked into something.
This looks very much like someone saying "Sign my free license and you will be able to use your own bank cards", which you can do now, but the license says you can only use money obtained through the bank card to buy Microsoft products. Why would anyone take that license?
This sounds very much like a bad scam. It's not clear what the purpose of it is or why Microsoft is doing this. It doesn't appear to give you anything you don't already have. (And yes, I RTFA.)
My favorite quote is "Look at the Canadian Dollar, it's worth almost 80 cents. 4 years ago it was worth 65 cents. Since Canada is our largest trading partner, and we're big importers of Canadian raw materials, this is killing us. You'd think Bush is a Canadian." (It's now worth about 82 cents, thanks to his election win, just look at the huge increase when it became clear he'd won.)
Yes, if you limit your consideration to economics. Not only will Canada do better in trade, but Bush is such a fuckup he's screwing the U.S. economy enough that the Canadian dollar is soaring. So yes, if money is all you care about then it's good Bush won. Now, how many people dying, how much political instability in the world, how many more lost freedoms is worth that extra cash? Would you sell me your right to privacy for $20 USD? If I give you $100 will you let me kill one of your relatives? That's the tradeoff we're getting for the potential trade "benefits" from Bush, which by the way is considered at most negligibly better than with Kerry by most analysts.
I'd rather appreciate it if any of you Bush-bashers would not try to claim monopoly status on the Canadian sentiment.
Nobody claimed monopoly, but it is clearly the vast majority. Even you more or less conceded that. Yes, there are some in Canada who support Bush, about 15-20% depending on which poll you read.
Honestly, I think we are seeing the beginning of the disintegration of the American power. It is quickly becoming the new USSR in many ways: ruling through media propaganda, loss of freedoms, denial of the obvious, international outcast, unilateral self-interest military actions. It's a shame, I don't want to see that happen, it used to be such a great country.
We could understand that Americans didn't know he was a fuckup when they first (barely) voted him in, but it's hard not to know he's a fuckup now. Although I work with a number of Americans I respect, I've generally lost quite a bit of respect for American "intelligence" in general.
What I'm more interested is where this idea that commmercial software is secure comes from. True, security is part of "quality" and that falls into the price assumptions you mention. Perhaps it's that simple, but there seems to be two assumptions going on -- one that commercial products are designed to be secure and one that FOSS development is low quality. To me these are separate assumptions, though related, since the first one stands alone even without the existence of FOSS.
You hit the nail on the head with the use of national symbols as a means to justify things. It is very former Soviet Union-ish including the Department of Homeland Security which is quite similar to several USSR organizations.
As far as differences between Canada and the U.S., you've mentioned a few but missed one important one. The U.S. foreign policy is based on protecting (and spreading) the interests of the U.S. Canadian foreign policy is based on protecting the interest of the foreign countries.
What I don't understand is where this assumption that commercial products are (more?) secure comes from. There are mountains of examples of unsecure commercial products. It's not the source (Ha ha, you know what I mean) that makes it secure, it's the process it goes through for security checking.
Commercial products are built to be done with the least amount of work to meet requirements and schedule. The fact that products are rushed to market with known flaws isn't an industry secret, it's even taught. (At least it is in the project management course I'm taking now.) Being first to market and release schedules are driving factors. Security is usually way down the list. There are exceptions of course, when the software is custom made and has to meet customer security requirements. But even then it is in the best interest of the developer to put in the least effort necessary to meet the requirements to reap the biggest profit.
FOSS doesn't generally have the same driving factors. Although schedule is sometimes important the driving force is usually the technical merits. This includes security.
Really, if security is an issue, the purchaser should have processes to test the security, not just assume it because it's commercial. Why can't these "executives" see this?
It got rated a Troll? Wow, somebody can't take a joke (or tell the difference).
That's easy. We call them the Southern States.
P.S. I did know there were common mistakes using this latin pluralization, particularly the "octopi" case, which still seems to have made its way into dictionary acceptance. But I didn't know the reasons before. Now I do, though I don't remember them.