Read the site. The guy obviously knows nothing. Here's a clue, the Greenhouse Effect works (as in the reason the Earth is not a ball of ice at this moment) because of the mix of gasses. Many of these gasses block infra red light at various ranges of frequencies (called "windows"). The H2O windows are pretty much closed, adding more H2O to the air isn't going to have that much effect, apart from the significant effect of relative humidity (but that isn't temperature). The CO2 window is not closed, there isn't enough CO2 in the atmosphere to completely block IR in that window from leaving the atmosphere. Same with methane. So adding more H2O does nothing, adding more CO2 does do something , adding more methane does do a great deal of something. Conclusion: CO2 increase is bad. Why bad? Well if we were a bunch of nomads we could just move somewhere, but millions of people can't move somewhere without serious shit happening.
I think people are incredibly short sighted. I used to be pro-nuclear power until I realised something very fundabmental. How much does nuclear power cost when you factor in the full decommissioning of the power plant? Is it then economical? My conclusion was that it is not competitive. When I realised that I sold my uranium mine shares (no joke).
Nuclear combined with synroc has a future if it is economical, I just don't think it is economical at all.
My first distro was Slack which I really liked. Then I went to Redhat 4.2. These days I can't stand Redhat since about 9. Tried FC4 about 2 weeks ago... ugh. Back to Slack 10. Why? A lot of FC seems impenetrable because of proprietary config methods and non-standard locations of things... I finally lost patience when in RH9 I couldn't even modify the menus (some helpful reader told me where and how to modify the xml... but really... just so I can modify menus?). I think the major thing is that if you (meaning me) use Redhat or Mandrake etc for a while you start to forget how Linux actually works. Slackware requires me to know how linux works without pain. Fixing driver issues is still very painful as it is on any OS of course. If I drop Slack it will be for something like Ubuntu or more likely Kubuntu.
Re:Sensationalist Journalism?
on
A Flu Pandemic?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
One reason for cyclical epidemics is that new generations are not immune from the last time. Once the number of immune individuals drops below a certain amount then an epidemic can proceed. This is the reason why not everyone has to be immunised against measles to stop an epidemic.
Nice theory except that the contrails were found to COOL the climate down. So as the air gets cleaner there are fewer particulants to reflect light and so the Earth warms even more. This is now a recognised paradox, that if we start cleaning up the amount of pollution we put out we may boost global warming even further.
BTW. People don't realise that the upper limit of 5 degrees has been stated by some to be the trigger for a further change. One scenario to explain one past mass extinction argued that if the Earth's temperature went up by 5 degrees then this would be enough to destabilise the deposits of methane hydrate on the ocean floor... resulting in a further rise of 5 degrees. I leave it as a thought experiment to imagine a world 10 degrees C warmer. I doubt humans would survive it. I don't think it will go that high, but I'm an optimist, reality might think otherwise.
I have to say it. And it has been said before. Only Americans argue this way about global warming. The rest of us "got it" years ago. It is good to have a skeptical view, but generally the arguments here have little to do with skepticism but are soemthing else, as if it is some conspiracy to take over the country and steal their precious bodily fluids. Very odd. I mean genuinely odd. I really don't understand it, it is almost a religious thing.
Of course it shouldn't take too long for political parties in power to realise that the real enemy, who must never get access to this power themselves, is the opposing party. At this point the 90 days etc, can start looking like an effective political tool. Damn, if the country can work without an opposition for 90 days it can work without it for 90 years. It's so obvious.
ID is in fact the rebadging of the Teleological Argument for the existence of God. An old and venerable (and flawed) philosophical argument. This has always been a core component of Creationist ideas, and oft refuted (as in Dawkins' "The Blink Watchmaker"). It belongs in a philosophy class -- under its original name.
I don't understand why they don't take the path that Blizzard took with Starcraft. Have a spawn option that allows the use of installation of a multiplayer only version for use in local networks. Then you still need that one original installation with the CD. I think one thing that made Starcraft so popular was that at work you could easily create spawns to play after hours, then buy your own copy to play at home/online.
I didn't think much of Ringworld either. I think it was at the chapter titled "An Interlude with Sunflowers" that my unease was confirmed when I had the feeling I could see the creaking machinery of the novel. It was too mechanical. Good ideas, but no magic.
Most, if not all, the known space stories involved some mental power or attribute at the core of the story. So we get things like the intelligence of the Pak (Protector), the mind control of the Slavers (World of Ptavvs), telekinesis (Gil the ARM), the Teela Brown gene (Ringworld) and Plateau Eyes (A Gift from Earth). Just thought I'd throw that observation in for no particular reason.
To me the pinnacle of the Known Space stories was "Protector". A story that constantly surprised me and made me really feel I was looking at the actions of a super intelligent being, with a delicious and unexpected twist at the end.
This is a standard spiel copy and pasted in reply to linux issues. Just search around for it I'm sure you'll find an instance. In other words this is total propaganda... not even worth discussing.
Took the words right out of my mouth. BSG 79 was total crap. BSG Millenium Edition is the exact opposite, total mind warp associating both these series with the same name. Can't wait for continuing eps of the new BSG.
My personal preferences would include in the top 10 (no particular order cos I can't decide between some of them): Outer Limits (original), Twilight Zone, B5, Blake's 7, X-Files (yeah I know, but I reckon it's SF), SG-1, Dr Who, Battlestar Galactica (new). OK too hard now, too many I want add. I'll call it quits with some blank spots.
We shouldn't forget that bad press for FF is in the interests of the Black Hats who make money off of IE exploits. FF is harder to crack than IE. Not impossible just harder. Their aim is most likely to maintain the "good times" of IE. So we shouldn't be surprised that not only is an exploit released but a nasty application of it as well. The black hats wouldn't release the app for the IE version because it would be too useful, but by releasing the FF one they support their investment in IE.
Gees almost everything in your post is wrong. Where do I start?
Science isn't just about making predictions, it's also about providing explanations
How can you provide an explanation if it cannot be proven? An explanation must make a prediction, and an acid test to tell if it is false.
one of the reasons why some theories can provide accurate predictions is that they actually are correct
No no no no. Get a book on the philosophy of science. All theories are tentative. The reason Occam's Razor exists is that there are so many theories that can be constructed from a set of results. But any hypothesis we construct must not only predict but also be able to be proven false if it fails to meet an experimental test. The reason that relativity, for example, is so successful is that it's competitors have failed to match the experiment. A theory that does not have a prediction that could prove it false is not a scientific theory. That does not mean that it is correct, merely that it has not failed the current lot of experiments.
Lots of science is really unlikely to ever be shown to be false.
Monitor the journals for a couple of decades and try and say that again.
I think "hallucination" is in fact a good description of it. All theories are tentative. But they determine the way we view the world. Human beings, being the way they are, tend to reject evidence that doesn't fit their model of the world... scientists included. The scientific method is our only real weapon against this "flaw" in our makeup. It is our reality check... except we never ever do see reality. It is all an illusion, but it should be a 'useful' illusion.
I'd agree generally. Its a pity that "The Shockwave Rider" by Brunner just misses out considering its 1975 vintage it is an extraordinary view of the future. Or if you want another kind of view the first chapters of "Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon if you want your prescience in toxic concentrations. Stapledon's 'Other Men' battle with the addiction of widely available virtual reality (a minor part of the story compared to galactic wars, terraforming, artificial planets etc). Not quite computers yes, but there is something eerie about it nonetheless, especially for 1937.
I remember the article you are talking about it was one of the longest ad hominem arguments I have ever seen. But never once did it ask the question "Is global warming actually occurring?". I found the article to be totally vacuous, and I can't believe anyone with any training in analysis could read it and take it seriously.
Some years back I read a book of Crichton's called "Travels" which was autobiographical. A very good book with interesting insights. But his attitude to science was very negative. He described psychic events in his life that warranted some investigation but his attitude was that science is filled with too many people with agendas to see the truth about anything. Hmmm. He may be trained as a medical doctor but he has gone native. He's done a Carlos Castaneda or whatever. I actually have a deep soft spot for the mystical view of the world but it has to be tempered with the scientific. Crichton fails dismally.
Eventually, you are going to come across issues such as "How old is the Earth?", "How old is the Universe?". Is galaxy blah really one million light years away and does that mean it existed before genesis? If you discuss, radioactivity, the speed of light, astronomy you are in trouble. In fact from my discussions with Creationists they really really hate Relativity and Quantum Mechanics so those should go out as well.
Better still just throw the Creationists out.
If you want to teach about religious creation stories and consistencies with physics etc then teach Hinduism, from the little I know it is a better fit. I'm sure the Creationists will be happy. Heh heh.
Then you can tell them how Lotus 1-2-3 was a knock off of Dan Bricklin's "Visi-Calc"
True. but I didn't want their brains to explode.:)
I actually used Visi Calc but not enough to get a real feel for it. VC inspired a whole series of spreadsheets. And spreadsheets sold PCs. I remember running an in-house intro to PCs course, and whenever people were shown 123 they would start making up reasons (pitifully transparent ones) about why they needed a PC in their home. Ahhh... yeah the PC revoulution was kick started on self delusion. heh heh.
I remember the plain disbelief when I told people that Excel was originally a clone of 123. Gave me a look as if I was telling them the world was flat. 123 was THE spreadsheet, and when you got used to the keyboard commands you could do things incredibly quickly... like 10 times faster at least. Still Excel is now a fine product, and not like the old 123 but then if 123 had survived what would it have looked like by now? Interesting to see that in my copy of Excel (2002) you can still turn on Lotus-123 mode and use the Lotus commands directly... pretty cool. Which shows its original relationship to 123, it was the upstart.
Of course the macros are totally different. I never learnt Excel macros, by that time I was completely over spreadsheets.
One company I worked at I decided I finally (after all these years) ought to learn Perl. So I walk up to the resident perl guru and ask what he'd recommend for a quick intro (no the Camel book is not a quick intro). He says "Don't use Perl. I don't even understand the commented code I wrote 2 years ago. Use Python or better still use Awk... awk is available for just about any platform". Bit disappointing but I picked up Python again. Probably should get around to Perl, though looking at some of the examples in Mini Golf I think the perl programmers are missing a vital factor in their programming.
Just a nitpick. While birds may be direct descendants from one lineage of dinosaurs, dinosaurs trace ancestry from reptiles.
True. But we have to remember that by the end of the Cretaceous the Dinosaurs and Reptiles had been separate for a very long time. There is no reason why we should expect dinsoaurs to resemble reptiles, just as we don't expect mammals to be reptillian.
Slashdot Mirror
I remember reading a book on the animal origins of human behaviour by Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox. No joke. Google for "The Imperial Animal"
Read the site. The guy obviously knows nothing. Here's a clue, the Greenhouse Effect works (as in the reason the Earth is not a ball of ice at this moment) because of the mix of gasses. Many of these gasses block infra red light at various ranges of frequencies (called "windows"). The H2O windows are pretty much closed, adding more H2O to the air isn't going to have that much effect, apart from the significant effect of relative humidity (but that isn't temperature). The CO2 window is not closed, there isn't enough CO2 in the atmosphere to completely block IR in that window from leaving the atmosphere. Same with methane. So adding more H2O does nothing, adding more CO2 does do something , adding more methane does do a great deal of something. Conclusion: CO2 increase is bad. Why bad? Well if we were a bunch of nomads we could just move somewhere, but millions of people can't move somewhere without serious shit happening.
I think people are incredibly short sighted. I used to be pro-nuclear power until I realised something very fundabmental. How much does nuclear power cost when you factor in the full decommissioning of the power plant? Is it then economical? My conclusion was that it is not competitive. When I realised that I sold my uranium mine shares (no joke).
Nuclear combined with synroc has a future if it is economical, I just don't think it is economical at all.
My first distro was Slack which I really liked. Then I went to Redhat 4.2. These days I can't stand Redhat since about 9. Tried FC4 about 2 weeks ago ... ugh. Back to Slack 10. Why? A lot of FC seems impenetrable because of proprietary config methods and non-standard locations of things ... I finally lost patience when in RH9 I couldn't even modify the menus (some helpful reader told me where and how to modify the xml ... but really ... just so I can modify menus?). I think the major thing is that if you (meaning me) use Redhat or Mandrake etc for a while you start to forget how Linux actually works. Slackware requires me to know how linux works without pain. Fixing driver issues is still very painful as it is on any OS of course. If I drop Slack it will be for something like Ubuntu or more likely Kubuntu.
One reason for cyclical epidemics is that new generations are not immune from the last time. Once the number of immune individuals drops below a certain amount then an epidemic can proceed. This is the reason why not everyone has to be immunised against measles to stop an epidemic.
Nice theory except that the contrails were found to COOL the climate down. So as the air gets cleaner there are fewer particulants to reflect light and so the Earth warms even more. This is now a recognised paradox, that if we start cleaning up the amount of pollution we put out we may boost global warming even further.
BTW. People don't realise that the upper limit of 5 degrees has been stated by some to be the trigger for a further change. One scenario to explain one past mass extinction argued that if the Earth's temperature went up by 5 degrees then this would be enough to destabilise the deposits of methane hydrate on the ocean floor ... resulting in a further rise of 5 degrees. I leave it as a thought experiment to imagine a world 10 degrees C warmer. I doubt humans would survive it. I don't think it will go that high, but I'm an optimist, reality might think otherwise.
I have to say it. And it has been said before. Only Americans argue this way about global warming. The rest of us "got it" years ago. It is good to have a skeptical view, but generally the arguments here have little to do with skepticism but are soemthing else, as if it is some conspiracy to take over the country and steal their precious bodily fluids. Very odd. I mean genuinely odd. I really don't understand it, it is almost a religious thing.
Of course it shouldn't take too long for political parties in power to realise that the real enemy, who must never get access to this power themselves, is the opposing party. At this point the 90 days etc, can start looking like an effective political tool. Damn, if the country can work without an opposition for 90 days it can work without it for 90 years. It's so obvious.
Hey back in my day it was always 20 years away ... anyone remember the Zeta Machine ? [ sound of cricket chirping ]
Internet Versions of Office And Windows
A great idea! Just as long as the security is rock solid ... oh wait....
ID is in fact the rebadging of the Teleological Argument for the existence of God. An old and venerable (and flawed) philosophical argument. This has always been a core component of Creationist ideas, and oft refuted (as in Dawkins' "The Blink Watchmaker"). It belongs in a philosophy class -- under its original name.
I don't understand why they don't take the path that Blizzard took with Starcraft. Have a spawn option that allows the use of installation of a multiplayer only version for use in local networks. Then you still need that one original installation with the CD. I think one thing that made Starcraft so popular was that at work you could easily create spawns to play after hours, then buy your own copy to play at home/online.
I didn't think much of Ringworld either. I think it was at the chapter titled "An Interlude with Sunflowers" that my unease was confirmed when I had the feeling I could see the creaking machinery of the novel. It was too mechanical. Good ideas, but no magic.
Most, if not all, the known space stories involved some mental power or attribute at the core of the story. So we get things like the intelligence of the Pak (Protector), the mind control of the Slavers (World of Ptavvs), telekinesis (Gil the ARM), the Teela Brown gene (Ringworld) and Plateau Eyes (A Gift from Earth). Just thought I'd throw that observation in for no particular reason.
To me the pinnacle of the Known Space stories was "Protector". A story that constantly surprised me and made me really feel I was looking at the actions of a super intelligent being, with a delicious and unexpected twist at the end.
This is a standard spiel copy and pasted in reply to linux issues. Just search around for it I'm sure you'll find an instance. In other words this is total propaganda ... not even worth discussing.
How dumb do they think we are?
Took the words right out of my mouth. BSG 79 was total crap. BSG Millenium Edition is the exact opposite, total mind warp associating both these series with the same name. Can't wait for continuing eps of the new BSG.
My personal preferences would include in the top 10 (no particular order cos I can't decide between some of them): Outer Limits (original), Twilight Zone, B5, Blake's 7, X-Files (yeah I know, but I reckon it's SF), SG-1, Dr Who, Battlestar Galactica (new). OK too hard now, too many I want add. I'll call it quits with some blank spots.
We shouldn't forget that bad press for FF is in the interests of the Black Hats who make money off of IE exploits. FF is harder to crack than IE. Not impossible just harder. Their aim is most likely to maintain the "good times" of IE. So we shouldn't be surprised that not only is an exploit released but a nasty application of it as well. The black hats wouldn't release the app for the IE version because it would be too useful, but by releasing the FF one they support their investment in IE.
Do they kill you by Snu-Snu?
Gees almost everything in your post is wrong. Where do I start?
Science isn't just about making predictions, it's also about providing explanations
How can you provide an explanation if it cannot be proven? An explanation must make a prediction, and an acid test to tell if it is false.
one of the reasons why some theories can provide accurate predictions is that they actually are correct
No no no no. Get a book on the philosophy of science. All theories are tentative. The reason Occam's Razor exists is that there are so many theories that can be constructed from a set of results. But any hypothesis we construct must not only predict but also be able to be proven false if it fails to meet an experimental test. The reason that relativity, for example, is so successful is that it's competitors have failed to match the experiment. A theory that does not have a prediction that could prove it false is not a scientific theory. That does not mean that it is correct, merely that it has not failed the current lot of experiments.
Lots of science is really unlikely to ever be shown to be false.
Monitor the journals for a couple of decades and try and say that again.
I think "hallucination" is in fact a good description of it. All theories are tentative. But they determine the way we view the world. Human beings, being the way they are, tend to reject evidence that doesn't fit their model of the world ... scientists included. The scientific method is our only real weapon against this "flaw" in our makeup. It is our reality check ... except we never ever do see reality. It is all an illusion, but it should be a 'useful' illusion.
I'd agree generally. Its a pity that "The Shockwave Rider" by Brunner just misses out considering its 1975 vintage it is an extraordinary view of the future. Or if you want another kind of view the first chapters of "Star Maker" by Olaf Stapledon if you want your prescience in toxic concentrations. Stapledon's 'Other Men' battle with the addiction of widely available virtual reality (a minor part of the story compared to galactic wars, terraforming, artificial planets etc). Not quite computers yes, but there is something eerie about it nonetheless, especially for 1937.
I remember the article you are talking about it was one of the longest ad hominem arguments I have ever seen. But never once did it ask the question "Is global warming actually occurring?". I found the article to be totally vacuous, and I can't believe anyone with any training in analysis could read it and take it seriously.
Some years back I read a book of Crichton's called "Travels" which was autobiographical. A very good book with interesting insights. But his attitude to science was very negative. He described psychic events in his life that warranted some investigation but his attitude was that science is filled with too many people with agendas to see the truth about anything. Hmmm. He may be trained as a medical doctor but he has gone native. He's done a Carlos Castaneda or whatever. I actually have a deep soft spot for the mystical view of the world but it has to be tempered with the scientific. Crichton fails dismally.
Eventually, you are going to come across issues such as "How old is the Earth?", "How old is the Universe?". Is galaxy blah really one million light years away and does that mean it existed before genesis? If you discuss, radioactivity, the speed of light, astronomy you are in trouble. In fact from my discussions with Creationists they really really hate Relativity and Quantum Mechanics so those should go out as well.
Better still just throw the Creationists out.
If you want to teach about religious creation stories and consistencies with physics etc then teach Hinduism, from the little I know it is a better fit. I'm sure the Creationists will be happy. Heh heh.
Then you can tell them how Lotus 1-2-3 was a knock off of Dan Bricklin's "Visi-Calc"
True. but I didn't want their brains to explode. :)
I actually used Visi Calc but not enough to get a real feel for it. VC inspired a whole series of spreadsheets. And spreadsheets sold PCs. I remember running an in-house intro to PCs course, and whenever people were shown 123 they would start making up reasons (pitifully transparent ones) about why they needed a PC in their home. Ahhh ... yeah the PC revoulution was kick started on self delusion. heh heh.
I remember the plain disbelief when I told people that Excel was originally a clone of 123. Gave me a look as if I was telling them the world was flat. 123 was THE spreadsheet, and when you got used to the keyboard commands you could do things incredibly quickly ... like 10 times faster at least. Still Excel is now a fine product, and not like the old 123 but then if 123 had survived what would it have looked like by now? Interesting to see that in my copy of Excel (2002) you can still turn on Lotus-123 mode and use the Lotus commands directly ... pretty cool. Which shows its original relationship to 123, it was the upstart.
Of course the macros are totally different. I never learnt Excel macros, by that time I was completely over spreadsheets.
One company I worked at I decided I finally (after all these years) ought to learn Perl. So I walk up to the resident perl guru and ask what he'd recommend for a quick intro (no the Camel book is not a quick intro). He says "Don't use Perl. I don't even understand the commented code I wrote 2 years ago. Use Python or better still use Awk ... awk is available for just about any platform". Bit disappointing but I picked up Python again. Probably should get around to Perl, though looking at some of the examples in Mini Golf I think the perl programmers are missing a vital factor in their programming.
Just a nitpick. While birds may be direct descendants from one lineage of dinosaurs, dinosaurs trace ancestry from reptiles.
True. But we have to remember that by the end of the Cretaceous the Dinosaurs and Reptiles had been separate for a very long time. There is no reason why we should expect dinsoaurs to resemble reptiles, just as we don't expect mammals to be reptillian.