"Okay well then listen carefully: When the poles are covered with ice, that is called an "Ice Age" by geologists."
Not really, there's no fixed definition of what is 'Ice Age' (when I was at university, it was used interchangeably with 'glaciation'). Earth indeed used to be much warmer (though it might have been covered with ice completely at one point of time), mostly because of high greenhouse gas content.
But it doesn't matter at all. The rate of the current climate change is about 100 times greater than can be explained by any conceivable natural long-term process.
Even if we try to account for short-term processes, we still can get only about 10% of global warming explained by them in the _best_ _case_. And current results point that natural effects are in fact responsible for slight _cooling_, so AGW probably accounts for about 110%-120% of temperature increase.
"No I think you're quite intelligent. The problem is that you are ACTING stupid. You are acting like you're still in your teen years, and prone to emotional outbursts (and insults), instead of like a mature adult that can have a calm, rational conversation with another adult."
About what? Round Earth versus Elephants-on-Turtles Earth hypotheses? Sorry, nope. You won't get anything but derision from me or other scientists.
Tens of millions of dollars were poured into anti-AGW 'think tanks', and so far they have not produced any real model that can be calibrated against historical data and explain the current global warming. With exactly zero results.
"Ironically that's what they used to say about Max Planck and his blackbody radiation experiments (late 1800s). It took almost 20 years until he was allowed to publish his results"
You not only need to be 'controversial'. You also need to be RIGHT. Climate change deniers demonstrably are NOT right.
And no, 'but they are not allowed to publish' is absolutely stupid idiotic brainless excuse. One can publish almost ANYTHING now. For example, McIntyre's papers were published just fine.
I know perfectly well how scientific process works. But anti-AGW folks don't care much about it, they just prefer to scream loudest. They outright lie, distort facts, engage in slander, etc. There's just NO reputable anti-AGW research.
"So that brings us 'round to the group of scientists who say "global warming is a natural part of earth's up-and-down cycle". These scientists get called idiots and they are not allowed to publish. Why are they being censored and insulted?"
Maybe because they are dumb and stupid? Would you wonder if flat-earth teorists are ridiculed?
"BTW where I live (North America) 2009 was one of the coldest summers on record. I'm curious where all this supposed heat was? It certainly wasn't here."
Planetwide. Just fucking google it. Do you think you can percieve sub-Celsius-degree variation?
"Oh and one more thought: Did you know that we're in the middle of an Ice Age?"
Nope, we don't. I fail to see ice sheets covering my home. So at least we're in the interglacial.
Look, we know about Milankovich cycles. Do you think we're that stupid?
"I also think it's weird that the planet has grown 1/2 a degree cooler since the mid-90s, and somehow this is used to justify warming."
Here it comes. You are a great example of deniers' stupidity.
Do me a favor, spend a couple of minutes doing Google searches. Last year was _the_ _hottest_ year on records. And this year is already setting climate temperature records left and right, even though we are just out of the solar minimum.
"Note that some of those listed Apple was part of creating from scratch. vCard, iCalendar, iWork formats, ZeroConf, HFS+. That's not a bad percentage."
vCard was not developed by Apple, but rather by a consortium (of which Apple was a part).
ZeroConf - yes.
HFS+ - as if anyone cares about it. GCD - is not a core Apple technology. iWork is also not a core technology.
As an example of their really core products - look at iTunes, iPhone and iPod. Both are notoriously closed. iPod even uses obfuscation schemes to PREVENT interoperability.
"Im not sure exactly what you mean here, but Mac apps are compiled with GCC currently, and will be with LLVM in the future. "
While one can compile MachO-files on other platforms, _ALL_ Apple's headers and libraries require Mac OS X by their license. So you won't even be able to compile Cocoa "Hello, world!" application on Linux.
"And yet the iPhone has changed its hardware to be significantly better 4 times. And each time it's been way ahead of any Android devices."
Except this time.
"The current one has a display that is far higher resolution than any Android device"
About 1.5 times larger (in PPI), Nexus One has about 220PPI. Nice, but not really groundbreaking. And quite easy to catch up with. Though a desktop-size display with high PPU would be a revolution...
"has a far better camera than any Android device"
Nope. Not much (if any) better than the ones in recent HTC phones.
"and has a gyroscope, which none of the Android devices has."
Gimmick. Also it's one small solid-state device, and quite easy for other manufacturers to add.
So, there's nothing in the new iPhone what is really groundbreaking.
Which might be great if you need to do a one-off calculation. If it takes you 5 minutes instead of 10 mins and runs 10 seconds instead of 1 second then you're saving 4 minutes 51 seconds:)
"But if central banks didn't exist, money would be a true representation of capital."
Then we'd have large banks to replace them. If we also somehow prevent them, then there won't be economic growth because it requires credit system.
he modern economy is quite amazing and counter-intuitive. For example, if Europe decides to be masochist (tighten monetary policy - it's tough times, so everybody should suffer) then you'd have stagnation and deflation.
"Rather than point fingers and toss accusations, I'd like to offer this thought to my fellow Slashdot readers: think back to what cell phones were like before the iPhone came out - and what they're like now."
There were prototypes of touch-driven phones back in 2002. I saw one at CeBIT in 2003, it even looked like iPhone and if I'm not mistaken it was finger-driven. Unfortunately, it was waaaaaaay outside of my salary at that time.
Then there was Palm Treo, they had grafitty-driven Phone-PDAs back in 2003.
So it's not like iPhone is an absolutely novel invention, it certainly used ideas from earlier products. They just found a combination of ideas that works really well.
"My guess from this is that DMP probably already had a buttoned-up solution for integrating 3D stereo vision with their GPU"
There's NOTHING which needs to be done from GPU's side for 3D-stereo.
Essentially, you just need to render two framebuffers for each frame instead of one. Which often can be achieved just by modifying projection matrix a little.
It's a bad example. If someone uncovers your spy network - too bad. Try better next time. By doing covert operations, which usually are illegal in the countries where they are conducted, you accept the risks. Also, if such material leaks to public domain, it probably had already leaked to other intelligence agencies.
Better example might be WikiLeaks blowing off operational security on a major anti-terror strike, for example. But usually most of these problems can be avoided if you wait a little (say, one year).
The US _is_ responsible for a lot barbarism. And keeps on doing stupid actions. That's why the view that only because of the US there's some peace in the Middle East is quite misguided.
So no, you can't use the argument "but we try to support peace" to support killing of civilians.
Slashdot Mirror
"Okay well then listen carefully: When the poles are covered with ice, that is called an "Ice Age" by geologists."
Not really, there's no fixed definition of what is 'Ice Age' (when I was at university, it was used interchangeably with 'glaciation'). Earth indeed used to be much warmer (though it might have been covered with ice completely at one point of time), mostly because of high greenhouse gas content.
But it doesn't matter at all. The rate of the current climate change is about 100 times greater than can be explained by any conceivable natural long-term process.
Even if we try to account for short-term processes, we still can get only about 10% of global warming explained by them in the _best_ _case_. And current results point that natural effects are in fact responsible for slight _cooling_, so AGW probably accounts for about 110%-120% of temperature increase.
"No I think you're quite intelligent. The problem is that you are ACTING stupid. You are acting like you're still in your teen years, and prone to emotional outbursts (and insults), instead of like a mature adult that can have a calm, rational conversation with another adult."
About what? Round Earth versus Elephants-on-Turtles Earth hypotheses? Sorry, nope. You won't get anything but derision from me or other scientists.
Tens of millions of dollars were poured into anti-AGW 'think tanks', and so far they have not produced any real model that can be calibrated against historical data and explain the current global warming. With exactly zero results.
"Ironically that's what they used to say about Max Planck and his blackbody radiation experiments (late 1800s). It took almost 20 years until he was allowed to publish his results"
You not only need to be 'controversial'. You also need to be RIGHT. Climate change deniers demonstrably are NOT right.
And no, 'but they are not allowed to publish' is absolutely stupid idiotic brainless excuse. One can publish almost ANYTHING now. For example, McIntyre's papers were published just fine.
I know perfectly well how scientific process works. But anti-AGW folks don't care much about it, they just prefer to scream loudest. They outright lie, distort facts, engage in slander, etc. There's just NO reputable anti-AGW research.
Also, how would you like this: http://scienceblogs.com/islandofdoubt/2009/11/record_high_and_low_temps_an_i.php while we're on the matter of temperature records?
"So that brings us 'round to the group of scientists who say "global warming is a natural part of earth's up-and-down cycle". These scientists get called idiots and they are not allowed to publish. Why are they being censored and insulted?"
Maybe because they are dumb and stupid? Would you wonder if flat-earth teorists are ridiculed?
"BTW where I live (North America) 2009 was one of the coldest summers on record. I'm curious where all this supposed heat was? It certainly wasn't here."
Planetwide. Just fucking google it. Do you think you can percieve sub-Celsius-degree variation?
"Oh and one more thought: Did you know that we're in the middle of an Ice Age?"
Nope, we don't. I fail to see ice sheets covering my home. So at least we're in the interglacial.
Look, we know about Milankovich cycles. Do you think we're that stupid?
"I also think it's weird that the planet has grown 1/2 a degree cooler since the mid-90s, and somehow this is used to justify warming."
Here it comes. You are a great example of deniers' stupidity.
Do me a favor, spend a couple of minutes doing Google searches. Last year was _the_ _hottest_ year on records. And this year is already setting climate temperature records left and right, even though we are just out of the solar minimum.
"So neither of us know which graphs this code may or may not have been used in. But if the code was never used, why was it written?"
For 'what if' simulations? When I was at university, I wrote a code which assumed that carbon is trivalent. Just to smoke-check some calculations.
"And why is it OK for YOU to blindly assume it was not used in published results?"
Because it wasn't found in anything of significance?
"Note that some of those listed Apple was part of creating from scratch. vCard, iCalendar, iWork formats, ZeroConf, HFS+. That's not a bad percentage."
vCard was not developed by Apple, but rather by a consortium (of which Apple was a part).
ZeroConf - yes.
HFS+ - as if anyone cares about it.
GCD - is not a core Apple technology.
iWork is also not a core technology.
As an example of their really core products - look at iTunes, iPhone and iPod. Both are notoriously closed. iPod even uses obfuscation schemes to PREVENT interoperability.
"Im not sure exactly what you mean here, but Mac apps are compiled with GCC currently, and will be with LLVM in the future. "
While one can compile MachO-files on other platforms, _ALL_ Apple's headers and libraries require Mac OS X by their license. So you won't even be able to compile Cocoa "Hello, world!" application on Linux.
However, you might note that almost all of the listed technologies were NOT created by Apple.
Things that are specific to Apple are very much closed: Cocoa, CoreAudio, etc.
You can't even cross-compile for Macs, which IS possible with Windows.
This time it won't take too long. And competition now has some interesting features missing in iPhone.
"And yet the iPhone has changed its hardware to be significantly better 4 times. And each time it's been way ahead of any Android devices."
Except this time.
"The current one has a display that is far higher resolution than any Android device"
About 1.5 times larger (in PPI), Nexus One has about 220PPI. Nice, but not really groundbreaking. And quite easy to catch up with. Though a desktop-size display with high PPU would be a revolution...
"has a far better camera than any Android device"
Nope. Not much (if any) better than the ones in recent HTC phones.
"and has a gyroscope, which none of the Android devices has."
Gimmick. Also it's one small solid-state device, and quite easy for other manufacturers to add.
So, there's nothing in the new iPhone what is really groundbreaking.
Which might be great if you need to do a one-off calculation. If it takes you 5 minutes instead of 10 mins and runs 10 seconds instead of 1 second then you're saving 4 minutes 51 seconds :)
Nope.
Stock market is NOT a game with zero sum. It's possible that EVERYONE wins, especially over the long distance.
Wow. That's seriously convoluted.
Thanks for sharing the info!
"But if central banks didn't exist, money would be a true representation of capital."
Then we'd have large banks to replace them. If we also somehow prevent them, then there won't be economic growth because it requires credit system.
he modern economy is quite amazing and counter-intuitive. For example, if Europe decides to be masochist (tighten monetary policy - it's tough times, so everybody should suffer) then you'd have stagnation and deflation.
"Why do you believe that the companies should be worth 25% less than last year?"
Because they won't be profitable during the recession? Because investors need money for other purposes and have to sell shares?
There are lot of reasons. Stock market is not 100%-rational, but it's also not completely irrational.
Even with the best theoretically possible computer you'll spend more than enough energy to boil all Earth's oceans to enumerate the 2^128 keyspace.
"Rather than point fingers and toss accusations, I'd like to offer this thought to my fellow Slashdot readers: think back to what cell phones were like before the iPhone came out - and what they're like now."
There were prototypes of touch-driven phones back in 2002. I saw one at CeBIT in 2003, it even looked like iPhone and if I'm not mistaken it was finger-driven. Unfortunately, it was waaaaaaay outside of my salary at that time.
Then there was Palm Treo, they had grafitty-driven Phone-PDAs back in 2003.
So it's not like iPhone is an absolutely novel invention, it certainly used ideas from earlier products. They just found a combination of ideas that works really well.
"My guess from this is that DMP probably already had a buttoned-up solution for integrating 3D stereo vision with their GPU"
There's NOTHING which needs to be done from GPU's side for 3D-stereo.
Essentially, you just need to render two framebuffers for each frame instead of one. Which often can be achieved just by modifying projection matrix a little.
I doubt it. Unless they have unbelievable good attacks, 256 bits give a WIDE margin of safety.
Schneier estimated that just cycling a counter through 2^220 bits requires energy of a Supernovae.
4096-bit RSA encryption and 256-bit symmetrical encryption are way outside of capabilities of any imaginable classical computer.
Now, the problem might be in a insecure passphrase used to generate AES keys...
It's a bad example. If someone uncovers your spy network - too bad. Try better next time. By doing covert operations, which usually are illegal in the countries where they are conducted, you accept the risks. Also, if such material leaks to public domain, it probably had already leaked to other intelligence agencies.
Better example might be WikiLeaks blowing off operational security on a major anti-terror strike, for example. But usually most of these problems can be avoided if you wait a little (say, one year).
"Until there is an Open Source flash player implementation that can run the vast majority of Flash applications, I don't want it."
Stop whining. So go out and write one - Flash specification is open (the only closed parts are related to DRM which you don't really need).
Fact of life: animated vector graphics is complex. Even HTML5 doesn't come close to capabilities of Flash.
Why? Because it's true?
The US _is_ responsible for a lot barbarism. And keeps on doing stupid actions. That's why the view that only because of the US there's some peace in the Middle East is quite misguided.
So no, you can't use the argument "but we try to support peace" to support killing of civilians.
Please note, that I'm not saying that US is responsible for ALL of the atrocities. But US directly caused a fair share of them.
"How did the US Military bring about Sharia Law?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban's_rise_to_power#Allegations_of_connection_to_United_States_CIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia-United_States_relations#Cold_War_.26_Soviet_Containment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat