Really? Slavery, abortion and infanticide is all centuries old. Unfortunately only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.
That has got to be the stupidest argument against abortion I have heard yet. Let me try another triplet. Stoning, religion and castration are all centuries old. Unfortunately, only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.
Alcohol and nicotine are both physically addictive (like heroin and cocaine)
Nah, you are lying there. I just checked the wikipedia article on alcohol, and there is no mention of addiction. Got you, sucker!;)
Seriously, the alcohol physical addiction is overrated. It takes a lot of alcohol, and even then I do not find the studies I have seen ( not many, I admit ) very convincing. This also meshes well with common statements from clinics dealing with alcoholism that "removing the cause removes the alcoholism".
Coffee/caffeine is much better example of a societally accepted drug that is physically additive. Even a moderately high intake will give most people headaches if they stop drinking any for a weekend.
Finally, judging by the amount of furious replies, I think I'd better hasten to add that it was meant tongue-in-cheek.
Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists
In what ways are these charities? I thought charity is about giving to people in need, not supporting political organisations.
Well, drug addicts are often in need;) As for the anti-abortion, they just *need* to be dragged screaming and kicking into the century of the fruitbat.
I have also had these guys tailgate me in an attempt to get me to drive faster than the speed limit.
Speaking freely here, but it takes a narrow following distance to observe the expiration date tags and individual's suspicious movement/behavior. Can't really do that from a distance.
Sure, there are some cops out there compensating for their own insecurity, but keep in mind that there are a lot of people in a lot of positions in life that do the same OR the opposite.
Give the poor cops a pair of binoculars already, then!
I got mine this summer, at the age of 34. I wanted to be able to drive my wife when she was giving birth, and later drive my daughter if she needed to go far.
I've had some jobs that were pretty inconvenient public transportation-wise. Though I'm also happy living near fairly dense population centers.
You sound like me, 10 years ago:o)
I don't exactly disagree with you. But I think it could be improved a whole lot. There are some really interesting and a little crazy ideas out there in the realm of public transportation that are being ignored. And in the US, getting a city to use trains is like pulling teeth even though when I've seen it done it turns out fantastically well.
Inside cities, it works fairly well, though not as well as bicycles. Especially metros does the job nicely, while I have always disliked buses. And trains into the city (like I use) is really the only way to get all the suburb-people like me into the city and back. But I don't see either as a replacement to the car, and I am not scared while driving either. It always felt safe, and people are mostly really nice (being a new driver, that is really appreciated).
The next best would be to have it done by a very small few in society so only their time was wasted, but people seem allergic to public transportation.
No wonder, have you ever tried using it? From my home, I have 1.5km (that's a bit below a mile for you yanks) to the train station. The train goes every 10 minutes. Then I have to change to a metro, and walk a short distance. Going the first bit by bicycle, I can do it in 50-60 minutes (not driving safely either). By car, I can do it in about 30 minutes. Now, there is a silver lining because I can get about 20 minutes done in a uncomfortable seat at maybe-quiet-but-possibly-not environment. I'd much prefer to have those 20 minutes at the office. The reason I don't is a) I can't afford a 2nd car and b) I can't afford to park the car. And that's with what I'd say is pretty perfect connection with public transport; there are lots of places around here that would 3 or even 4 times as long with public than car; time where you are a lot less comfortable than in a car. Oh, and you are much limited in luggage, too --- much more than an extra laptop, and it will get unwieldy.
And furthermore, public transport is hideously expensive outside dense populations, and I like to have a little garden to grow some carrots. Yeah, digging a garden is good for you when you work with machines all day:)
First of all, you cannot train folks to multitask because humans are incapable of doing it. The cops can't do it either. What you call multitasking is actually them selecting attention rapidly between their laptops and driving - if they're even doing that.
And yet, I can play 2 different rhythms on my piano, one with my left hand, and one with my right. It's not easy --- usually I take the easier route of learning the "combined" rhythm --- but it can be learned. But I suppose that is a bit different, as (at least my) brain sort of zooms out to be able to handle the multitasking. Actually, the feeling is not unlike the one I have when driving, where I also have to handle a number of tasks (gears need to be changed, mirrors checked, chat with my wife, check my daughter in the other mirror). And relatively speaking (compared to my wife) I am a poor driver.
Joe Sixpack doesn't give a shit about much of anything.
In that case, I doubt it would matter if he had a phone or not.. or are you trying to keep his eyes on the road by boredom?
Personally, I don't believe there are many people who takes killing lightly, even accidentally, and the driver's license schooling makes a rather big point about how dangerous cars can be. I'm sure that applies in UK as well.
Because you see, your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. And a car is a 4000lb fist, and I don't want to be hit with it.
If you are following your analogy, he would have the right to drive except over your body. Not exactly the best analogy:) But then I'd wager that even in America you are not allowed to go around a feint punches at people.
The problem is, everybody has their own ideas about what to teach the children, and the vast majority of those ideas will turn little Lisa into an imbecile, a sociopath, or a robot.
I do believe that is why children are so difficult to get to do what you want them to. Sort of a build-in defense against parents at the gene level.
There are indeed tasks that seem to require keeping ten xterms open, but wouldn't be a bit easier if they were labeled with more context than xterm(int)? Even pwd would help. (I debug some packages, and the package descriptions reside in one directory, the build trees are in yet another, and I usually invoke the build scripts from yet another xterm.)
(Here Expose shows its limitations-- you can't pick out a miniature xterm from sight alone.)
You might want to check out KDE's konsole. From memory, it uses host, current directory and/or user to identify each tab, as well as the window title. Pretty need.
What workspaces need though is the ability to create workspaces when you need them and destroy them when they're unneeded as opposed to having a fixed number of them, and possibly more refined or enhanced ways of identifying those spaces at a glance (without any further input needed).
You want activities is KDE, I think. They are a bit hidden, and not fully developed, but they offer the above.
I totally agree with you that a lot of alternative theories don't hold up to scrutiny. But that still doesn't prove AGW. You could disprove 1000 more counter-theories, and that wouldn't prove AGW. The only thing that can prove AGW is future data... And well into the future as well. What pisses me off is that people are talking about the next 50-100 years. Climate happens on the order of 100,000 years, not a few decades.
Actually, that the climate is changing in decades is rather the central point of the theory.
Humans have no sense of the timescale of this planet, and are quite full of themselves to be claiming they are powerful enough to change the course of the planet in just a few years.
Argument from personal disbelief?:)
We cannot make decisions based on computer models, because I have ran fairly accurate computer models that have shown Germany winning WWII (try having the AI face itself in Battlefield 1942, it's a computer simulation based on a limited amount of data). Computer models cannot give us certainty, they can give us a guess (a very educated guess, but a guess) of what MAY happen in the future. If you had to bet your job and life savings on these computer models, I'd bet you wouldn't. Any with cap-and-trade legislation, you may very well be betting your job and life savings.
Every time you cross a bridge, you are trusting your life to a computer model. Now, if you go back and find the modelled prediction from Hansen et al. (google for it, it's not hard to find) you will see that their predictions has held up pretty well for 25+ years. An impressive achievement, in my opinion, and well worth listening to.
In the case of the Higgs Boson, particle physicists don't exactly know how heavy it is. Based on a variety of previous experiments, they have placed lower (and upper?) bounds on its weight.
According to wikipedia, if the standard model is correct, there i 95% confidentiality that the lower bound is 170GeV and the upper is 186GeV
Indeed, but the scientific arguments have a bearing on a theory's popularity among experts:) The non-co2 crowd's arguments have so far all been inconsistent with actuals measurements, as I understand it (I have only followed a handful through to final rejection: sunspot, volcanos, cosmic radiation, and others)
Incidentally "climate change" is the trendy new word because "global warming" has the pesky tendency to be falsified whenever temperatures are cooler than expected. With a generic word like "climate change" you're only wrong if the temperature stays perfectly and exactly the same!
Maybe;) Or it could be an attempt to make a term that would not confuse the layman when some region or other gets colder due to global warming. What do you think?
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Really? Slavery, abortion and infanticide is all centuries old. Unfortunately only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.
That has got to be the stupidest argument against abortion I have heard yet. Let me try another triplet. Stoning, religion and castration are all centuries old. Unfortunately, only two of these barbaric practices were stopped.
Alcohol and nicotine are both physically addictive (like heroin and cocaine)
Nah, you are lying there. I just checked the wikipedia article on alcohol, and there is no mention of addiction. Got you, sucker! ;)
Seriously, the alcohol physical addiction is overrated. It takes a lot of alcohol, and even then I do not find the studies I have seen ( not many, I admit ) very convincing. This also meshes well with common statements from clinics dealing with alcoholism that "removing the cause removes the alcoholism".
Coffee/caffeine is much better example of a societally accepted drug that is physically additive. Even a moderately high intake will give most people headaches if they stop drinking any for a weekend.
Finally, judging by the amount of furious replies, I think I'd better hasten to add that it was meant tongue-in-cheek.
Oh wow, so anyone using marijuana is a drug addict. You ever drink coffee or alcohol, ya addict?
Yep! But I can give it up anytime I like!
That's sarcasm, in case you couldn't comprehend it.
Ah, I see what I did wrong in my original reply ;)
Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), Marijuana Policy Project and several anti-abortion groups were not finalists
In what ways are these charities? I thought charity is about giving to people in need, not supporting political organisations.
Well, drug addicts are often in need ;) As for the anti-abortion, they just *need* to be dragged screaming and kicking into the century of the fruitbat.
Thank god for IPv6 ?
I had no part in that, and I resent the accusation.
I have also had these guys tailgate me in an attempt to get me to drive faster than the speed limit.
Speaking freely here, but it takes a narrow following distance to observe the expiration date tags and individual's suspicious movement/behavior. Can't really do that from a distance.
Sure, there are some cops out there compensating for their own insecurity, but keep in mind that there are a lot of people in a lot of positions in life that do the same OR the opposite.
Give the poor cops a pair of binoculars already, then!
I've actually never had a driver's license. :-)
I got mine this summer, at the age of 34. I wanted to be able to drive my wife when she was giving birth, and later drive my daughter if she needed to go far.
I've had some jobs that were pretty inconvenient public transportation-wise. Though I'm also happy living near fairly dense population centers.
You sound like me, 10 years ago :o)
I don't exactly disagree with you. But I think it could be improved a whole lot. There are some really interesting and a little crazy ideas out there in the realm of public transportation that are being ignored. And in the US, getting a city to use trains is like pulling teeth even though when I've seen it done it turns out fantastically well.
Inside cities, it works fairly well, though not as well as bicycles. Especially metros does the job nicely, while I have always disliked buses. And trains into the city (like I use) is really the only way to get all the suburb-people like me into the city and back. But I don't see either as a replacement to the car, and I am not scared while driving either. It always felt safe, and people are mostly really nice (being a new driver, that is really appreciated).
That sounds like the best idea since the catapult seat in a helicopter!
I hope anyone who texts and drive hits a bridge at 80mph and dies in a painful and messy manner.
If you want painful, I think 80mph is a bit high, they are likely to just get killed instantly. Just a tip ;)
Ok, I should go to bed.
What exactly (besides the oversized ego) hinders you to stop talking to your passengers?
Are you suggesting a ban on conversations in cars?
And cars!
The next best would be to have it done by a very small few in society so only their time was wasted, but people seem allergic to public transportation.
No wonder, have you ever tried using it? From my home, I have 1.5km (that's a bit below a mile for you yanks) to the train station. The train goes every 10 minutes. Then I have to change to a metro, and walk a short distance. Going the first bit by bicycle, I can do it in 50-60 minutes (not driving safely either). By car, I can do it in about 30 minutes. Now, there is a silver lining because I can get about 20 minutes done in a uncomfortable seat at maybe-quiet-but-possibly-not environment. I'd much prefer to have those 20 minutes at the office. The reason I don't is a) I can't afford a 2nd car and b) I can't afford to park the car. And that's with what I'd say is pretty perfect connection with public transport; there are lots of places around here that would 3 or even 4 times as long with public than car; time where you are a lot less comfortable than in a car. Oh, and you are much limited in luggage, too --- much more than an extra laptop, and it will get unwieldy.
And furthermore, public transport is hideously expensive outside dense populations, and I like to have a little garden to grow some carrots. Yeah, digging a garden is good for you when you work with machines all day :)
First of all, you cannot train folks to multitask because humans are incapable of doing it. The cops can't do it either. What you call multitasking is actually them selecting attention rapidly between their laptops and driving - if they're even doing that.
And yet, I can play 2 different rhythms on my piano, one with my left hand, and one with my right. It's not easy --- usually I take the easier route of learning the "combined" rhythm --- but it can be learned. But I suppose that is a bit different, as (at least my) brain sort of zooms out to be able to handle the multitasking. Actually, the feeling is not unlike the one I have when driving, where I also have to handle a number of tasks (gears need to be changed, mirrors checked, chat with my wife, check my daughter in the other mirror). And relatively speaking (compared to my wife) I am a poor driver.
Joe Sixpack doesn't give a shit about much of anything.
In that case, I doubt it would matter if he had a phone or not.. or are you trying to keep his eyes on the road by boredom?
Personally, I don't believe there are many people who takes killing lightly, even accidentally, and the driver's license schooling makes a rather big point about how dangerous cars can be. I'm sure that applies in UK as well.
Because you see, your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. And a car is a 4000lb fist, and I don't want to be hit with it.
If you are following your analogy, he would have the right to drive except over your body. Not exactly the best analogy :) But then I'd wager that even in America you are not allowed to go around a feint punches at people.
The problem is, everybody has their own ideas about what to teach the children, and the vast majority of those ideas will turn little Lisa into an imbecile, a sociopath, or a robot.
I do believe that is why children are so difficult to get to do what you want them to. Sort of a build-in defense against parents at the gene level.
Hey! I'm a parent, I'm allowed!
or those with vanity blogs noone cared about.
I cared about them. They were cool!
Anyway, there is nothing wrong with striving.
I do believe the code is open source; I also think that is more or less the documentation :P
As for writing your own, don't. Find some suitable software instead. There are quite a lot.
There are indeed tasks that seem to require keeping ten xterms open, but wouldn't be a bit easier if they were labeled with more context than xterm(int)? Even pwd would help. (I debug some packages, and the package descriptions reside in one directory, the build trees are in yet another, and I usually invoke the build scripts from yet another xterm.)
(Here Expose shows its limitations-- you can't pick out a miniature xterm from sight alone.)
You might want to check out KDE's konsole. From memory, it uses host, current directory and/or user to identify each tab, as well as the window title. Pretty need.
What workspaces need though is the ability to create workspaces when you need them and destroy them when they're unneeded as opposed to having a fixed number of them, and possibly more refined or enhanced ways of identifying those spaces at a glance (without any further input needed).
You want activities is KDE, I think. They are a bit hidden, and not fully developed, but they offer the above.
I totally agree with you that a lot of alternative theories don't hold up to scrutiny. But that still doesn't prove AGW. You could disprove 1000 more counter-theories, and that wouldn't prove AGW. The only thing that can prove AGW is future data... And well into the future as well. What pisses me off is that people are talking about the next 50-100 years. Climate happens on the order of 100,000 years, not a few decades.
Actually, that the climate is changing in decades is rather the central point of the theory.
Humans have no sense of the timescale of this planet, and are quite full of themselves to be claiming they are powerful enough to change the course of the planet in just a few years.
Argument from personal disbelief? :)
We cannot make decisions based on computer models, because I have ran fairly accurate computer models that have shown Germany winning WWII (try having the AI face itself in Battlefield 1942, it's a computer simulation based on a limited amount of data). Computer models cannot give us certainty, they can give us a guess (a very educated guess, but a guess) of what MAY happen in the future. If you had to bet your job and life savings on these computer models, I'd bet you wouldn't. Any with cap-and-trade legislation, you may very well be betting your job and life savings.
Every time you cross a bridge, you are trusting your life to a computer model. Now, if you go back and find the modelled prediction from Hansen et al. (google for it, it's not hard to find) you will see that their predictions has held up pretty well for 25+ years. An impressive achievement, in my opinion, and well worth listening to.
In the case of the Higgs Boson, particle physicists don't exactly know how heavy it is. Based on a variety of previous experiments, they have placed lower (and upper?) bounds on its weight.
According to wikipedia, if the standard model is correct, there i 95% confidentiality that the lower bound is 170GeV and the upper is 186GeV
Indeed, but the scientific arguments have a bearing on a theory's popularity among experts :) The non-co2 crowd's arguments have so far all been inconsistent with actuals measurements, as I understand it (I have only followed a handful through to final rejection: sunspot, volcanos, cosmic radiation, and others)
Incidentally "climate change" is the trendy new word because "global warming" has the pesky tendency to be falsified whenever temperatures are cooler than expected. With a generic word like "climate change" you're only wrong if the temperature stays perfectly and exactly the same!
Maybe ;) Or it could be an attempt to make a term that would not confuse the layman when some region or other gets colder due to global warming. What do you think?
How come "all-climate-scientist-were-one-big-conspiracy" is so much more absurd than "all-global-warming-deniers-are-funded-by-big-oil"?
It isn't. It is just as absurd. The climate-scientists who are "deniers" (I hate that term) are much in the minority, though.