If the platform spew forth this plasma from a 32 meter nozzle, wouldn't this create a force on the platform that pushed it away from the direction the ship is supposed to fly? Did I overlook something? Can someone enlighten me, please?
hehe, that should be fun to watch;). I can't imagine what a body looks like after being penetrated by thousands of ultra small, ultra fast specs of dust.
you just don't get it. NASA doesn't even fart for 20mio$ much less get up 100kms. Small, baby steps procedure coupled with the profit and loss test of private enterprise will get us into orbit, cheaply, one day, if there is sufficient demand for it. Steady wins the race.
no, its obvious that Gates is implying that virii and other malware are programmed and deployed by people other than microsoft. Or by a 'third party' as the english language would prescripe. There can be no doubt that microsoft knows that its software doesn't safeguard its users from those threads very well, this being the reason for the new emphasis on security. While microsoft deserves blame for opening vectors of attack for no reason at all (I don't need a stinking DCOM service. I hate the stuff), it is not primarily to blame. Just as with GTA, bike theft, robbery, fraud, murder and rape, the actual perpetrator is at fault. From those realword examples alone, it also becomes appearant that in every-day-life, 'product' security (in the same sense as demanded from MS) is almost never provided. Take cars: No matter which car you drive, an experienced 'hacker' can open it and drive it away in under 10 seconds. Bike locks: absolutely no safety against 'professionals'. Door locks: useless, a standard west-european door can be kicked in quite easily. Our own bodies are full of exploits: the digestive system is insecure (poisions), the respiratory system is the main vector of attack (virii, bacteria), even the mind is not safe (brain washing). And yet, in all those cases, nobody would seriously blame the vendor because it is universally recognized that lacking security is not the issue, the criminals are.
have you forgotten about the part where microsoft got in trouble because it was disputed if a browser belongs to the operating system? now you want them to bundle anti-virus software? How many lawsuits of vendors being pissed off because they feel locked out of the platform will follow?
Your other points are well taken though. But it's still noteworthy that the 'stuff getting you into trouble' correlates directly to 'available stuff for the platform', so it's a small suprise that there is less malicious software for the mac.
the most funny thing about your post is that you probably think of yourself as possesing a scientific mindset. Well, lets review the scientific method and the achievements of the age of enlightement:
- accept no dogmas
- convince through argument
- name calling prooves nothing
- a theory must always rest on itself and not the credentials of its creator
- Skeptisims is key to refining our understanding of nature.
Can you see where you went wrong, yet? Instead of arguing in a fashion proper to scientific subjects, you are reminiscent of an Inquisitor of the middle ages: 'The church is always right, therefore, when the church says the earth is the center of the universe this must be true. What do you think you are galileo? Do you think you are smarter than the pope, the right hand of god?'.
A proper refusal would have included either explaining why this volcano is so special that it doesn't emit CO2 or what meassures where taken to compensate, in addition to an explanation why such meassurements where taken at a site that obviously biases the results.
You, on the other hand, additionally to providing the weakest of all arguments ('someone surely thought of that'), ridicule me for not being smart enough to anticipate it and yielding to it's superior logic. Really, that was pathetic.
This concludes our tour of the virtue of critical thinking, one of the main achievements in human history. This'll be 5$ please.
well, I think that conciousness is not a matter of degrees, especially when it regards morality. For me its a boolean function. So hopefully, if ever a mind arises from complexity (I believe this too), it'll share this view and treat us as like we treat it. Or two put it better: do onto others as others should do onto you.
yes, but wouldn't the heisenberg uncertainty principal make impossible the discovering, transmitting and restoration of that quantum state? If the state at the quantum level translates directly to our state of consciousness, this the implications of uncertainty can not be ignored. So, if I understand all this correctly, it is quite possible for us to discover all necessary state of computer ram (indeed, if we couldn't the whole question would not arise) but it is impossible to do the same to humans. In my view the moral implications are not the same then. Also, a human can always say 'I don't want this' while a computer is no 'I'. Just as it is perfectly moral to slam two rocks together, it is perfectly moral to do to my computer whatever I want. Now, the instance my computer becomes self aware, it's a different ball game.
In the concerned post, I wasn't arguing, I was mocking. If you want an argument, there you go: The 'atmospheric' CO2 levels where meassured at a site right next to a vulcano. It's incredible how not a single slahdotter caught on to the fact that volcanos emit CO2 constantly, even if they aren't active. An increase in CO2 levels at this site says everything about the state of the volcano and absolutly nothing about the state of the athmosphere.
it might well have started out random. But so have the atoms within a crystal. Yet, after much randomness, in distribution and process, there is order. So I don't disagree in the slightest that we originate from randomness, my opinion is just that now, we are something different. An alternative view on the subject would be to say: There is no randomness, just uttlery complex order.
the distribution of quarks, atoms, bakteria, cells, proteins whatever magnification you prefer is exactly not random. This makes you, firstly an 'it', an object, and later an 'I', a conciosness. Please don't dismiss the (I'm sure) wonderful being that is 'you' as random.
I was mocking your (and the worlds) obviously histerical reaction to CO2. In my own stupid little way I'm pointing out that CO2 is vital to life on earth, thus refering to it as 'the problem' when discussing the ecological 'disaster' that climate change is made out to be is just silly. I'm also painting a picture of what I believe is the ultimate (yet not concious) goal of most enviromental advocates: a static earth, frozen in time to preserve what they (you?) believe to be a perfect state, untainted by evil humans and their technology. I'm sorry if I put something in your mouth that would never be there. In that case, just take my post as generaly aimed at most people on the green side of this debate, not particularly directed at you. Also, I didn't rebutte anything. As Voltaire says: a witty saying prooves nothing.
1) correlation != causation. It could just as well be the other way around: higher temperature causes higher CO2 levels. Or it could be an unkown third factor that affects temperature and CO2 in the same way.
2) The diagram show important things though.
- the current temperature is not outside any bounds established by history
- increase in CO2 levels are not only/always caused by humans
- in history there has been a cycle of warm periods and ice ages
man, talk about short term memory. Hurricans have always wasted the carribeans and by extension florida, since records are kept. Floods, droughts ands fires where with us right from the beginning of civilization. In the last hundred years, earth population has exploded, most of which live near rivers, for obvious practical reasons. Of course, with an increase in the density of settlements, there are going to be more people affected by floodings. I vividly remember the great 'millenium' flood in germany. Firstly, the high water marks from the middle ages where never exceeded in any town and yet, moron reporters claimed that this was a singular event. Secondly, in the preceeding years, the government was busy with modifying major water ways so that their depth in the middle and the velocity of the current increased to accomodate shipping better. Needless to say, this was in no way benificial to the economy since the project costs 2 for ever 1 earned by it. But those modification are quite conductive to making floodings worse and yet, as it happenned, everyone agreed that this must be caused by global warming.
Whatever trends you think you might detect, they are useless if you lack the historical perspective. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons those scares can always take hold I think. People just don't know anything about the past.
i agree, CO2 is such a problem for the sterility of earth. It'd be so nice without *any* CO2! No pesky humans ruining it for anyone else. Just a blue pure diamont in the dark velvet of space. No living creature that could *gasph* change it. The earth would be conserved forever in the same state! We all agree that this is a worthwhile aim, right?
Implied they do claim that the climate is a constant. How else is it justifiable to show the 'hockey stick' chart that only extends a hundred years in the past? Presentation of this 'evidence' just screams: look, until here it's all steady then, bam, industrialization correlating with a warming trend'. It doesn't show that the climate has become steadiely warmer since the past ice age, with the exception of the roman climate optimum and the little ice age in the middle ages which where great variances from the trend. Not showing this general, actually more relevant, trend means either a) ignorance of the volatiale nature of the climate or b) willfull misleading of the puplic opinion by hiding vital context that would frame the question in a more accurate light. Now the rule 'never blame something on malicious intend when stupidity answers just as well' applies, thus the 'scientiest' must suffer from condition a).
That would be VB. Btw, the most wise programmer I ever spoke to (my father) thinks MI is not such a good idea. So your opinion is by far not that of the top 15%.
I have always had a hard time understanding how anyone can dismess global warming, considering that 95%
Repeat after me: the majority is always right. A minority of one is always insane. This has been so since the party invented the word revolution, shortly before it invented the plane. Everyone agrees to be sane, that must make you insane.
yes. This posts illustrates how any flavor of collectivist 'ethics' can not oppose tyranny. Its even inviting it. Communism will always create a earthly hell precisly because your line of reasoning is the logical one if you elate the community above the individual.
One sticks to this view until he overhears two women actually refering to guys by the physical features of thier cocks and asses. Last time I checked, sex was about instinct and we share it with all 'higher' animals. Of course it doesn't involve much reference to the opposite as 'person','soul' or whatever. Sex doesn't get much deeper than the physical layer unless it's love making. People are fully capabale of making the crucial difference and males as well as females desire sometimes 'sex' and sometimes 'lovemaking'.
Convieniently you forget that 'your' side is also afflicted by special interest. How useful is a climat researcher (appearantly anyone who has ever seen an uni from the inside) that tells the government that there is nothing to do? It is beyond doubt that anyone on the government payroll strives from problems, the bigger and the longer to resolve the better. Sucessfull 'programs' always get dismantelt after a set goal is archieved. For the people that get paid for solving the problems this obviously generates a conflict of interest. The research budget for 2000 climate researchers in the US has been 2 billion$ in 2002. When do you think that the budget is increased? The need for generating a problem to justify ones income clearly biases scientists on government payroll. Or why else do you think that the 'industry' is mainly concerned with churning out solutions while the government immediatly jumps unto any scare-train that runs past? Examples are numerous, the murderous scandal regarding DDT quite a ways ahead. Just to think that malaria was on the verge of disappearing and now, after the swift prohibition of DDT because some birds eggs might have fragile shells (utterly debunked claim by the way), it afflicts 500 million people. Incredible.
The effects of acting upon the fear of global warming, despite conflicting evidence (like the NASA satelite meassurement of global temperature), would be even worse. Civilization strives on energy. Restricting the use of affordable energy sources in the draconian manner that computer models would require will bring about widespread un-civilitation: poverty, hunger, diseases etc. For all people already living on the verge of civilitation this will be certain death. The cost of kyoto alone run into the hundred billion range depending on the actual country. The $150 billion predicted for germany amount to be 5% of the GDP. This is a huge dent for the productivity of an economy and by extension for the wealth of its participants. The extra cost inflicted on industries can have only one consequence: The companies that are already producing 'on the margin' (meaning that any slight increase in costs will convert profits to losses) will have to move somewhere else (presumably somewhere where the kyoto protocol is not in effect) or go broke. The consequential stagnation of tax revenue coupled with the increase in entitlement to government aid (the unemployed) will futher diminish the states chances of implementing necessary wellfare reforms an thereby bringing it closer to the point of 'state-default' with all the really scary effects this can have (see germany in the 1930ies)
But kyoto alone will hardly do anything if you believe the models that predict the catastrophic climate change.
Slashdot Mirror
If the platform spew forth this plasma from a 32 meter nozzle, wouldn't this create a force on the platform that pushed it away from the direction the ship is supposed to fly? Did I overlook something? Can someone enlighten me, please?
hehe, that should be fun to watch ;). I can't imagine what a body looks like after being penetrated by thousands of ultra small, ultra fast specs of dust.
potential profits are an expression of priority. Just on a scale much larger than your puny imagination could picture.
you just don't get it. NASA doesn't even fart for 20mio$ much less get up 100kms. Small, baby steps procedure coupled with the profit and loss test of private enterprise will get us into orbit, cheaply, one day, if there is sufficient demand for it. Steady wins the race.
no, its obvious that Gates is implying that virii and other malware are programmed and deployed by people other than microsoft. Or by a 'third party' as the english language would prescripe. There can be no doubt that microsoft knows that its software doesn't safeguard its users from those threads very well, this being the reason for the new emphasis on security. While microsoft deserves blame for opening vectors of attack for no reason at all (I don't need a stinking DCOM service. I hate the stuff), it is not primarily to blame. Just as with GTA, bike theft, robbery, fraud, murder and rape, the actual perpetrator is at fault.
From those realword examples alone, it also becomes appearant that in every-day-life, 'product' security (in the same sense as demanded from MS) is almost never provided. Take cars: No matter which car you drive, an experienced 'hacker' can open it and drive it away in under 10 seconds. Bike locks: absolutely no safety against 'professionals'. Door locks: useless, a standard west-european door can be kicked in quite easily. Our own bodies are full of exploits: the digestive system is insecure (poisions), the respiratory system is the main vector of attack (virii, bacteria), even the mind is not safe (brain washing). And yet, in all those cases, nobody would seriously blame the vendor because it is universally recognized that lacking security is not the issue, the criminals are.
have you forgotten about the part where microsoft got in trouble because it was disputed if a browser belongs to the operating system? now you want them to bundle anti-virus software? How many lawsuits of vendors being pissed off because they feel locked out of the platform will follow?
Your other points are well taken though. But it's still noteworthy that the 'stuff getting you into trouble' correlates directly to 'available stuff for the platform', so it's a small suprise that there is less malicious software for the mac.
the most funny thing about your post is that you probably think of yourself as possesing a scientific mindset. Well, lets review the scientific method and the achievements of the age of enlightement:
m ent
- accept no dogmas
- convince through argument
- name calling prooves nothing
- a theory must always rest on itself and not the credentials of its creator
- Skeptisims is key to refining our understanding of nature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Enlighten
Can you see where you went wrong, yet? Instead of arguing in a fashion proper to scientific subjects, you are reminiscent of an Inquisitor of the middle ages:
'The church is always right, therefore, when the church says the earth is the center of the universe this must be true. What do you think you are galileo? Do you think you are smarter than the pope, the right hand of god?'.
A proper refusal would have included either explaining why this volcano is so special that it doesn't emit CO2 or what meassures where taken to compensate, in addition to an explanation why such meassurements where taken at a site that obviously biases the results.
You, on the other hand, additionally to providing the weakest of all arguments ('someone surely thought of that'), ridicule me for not being smart enough to anticipate it and yielding to it's superior logic. Really, that was pathetic.
This concludes our tour of the virtue of critical thinking, one of the main achievements in human history. This'll be 5$ please.
well, I think that conciousness is not a matter of degrees, especially when it regards morality. For me its a boolean function. So hopefully, if ever a mind arises from complexity (I believe this too), it'll share this view and treat us as like we treat it. Or two put it better: do onto others as others should do onto you.
yes, but wouldn't the heisenberg uncertainty principal make impossible the discovering, transmitting and restoration of that quantum state? If the state at the quantum level translates directly to our state of consciousness, this the implications of uncertainty can not be ignored. So, if I understand all this correctly, it is quite possible for us to discover all necessary state of computer ram (indeed, if we couldn't the whole question would not arise) but it is impossible to do the same to humans. In my view the moral implications are not the same then. Also, a human can always say 'I don't want this' while a computer is no 'I'. Just as it is perfectly moral to slam two rocks together, it is perfectly moral to do to my computer whatever I want. Now, the instance my computer becomes self aware, it's a different ball game.
In the concerned post, I wasn't arguing, I was mocking. If you want an argument, there you go: The 'atmospheric' CO2 levels where meassured at a site right next to a vulcano. It's incredible how not a single slahdotter caught on to the fact that volcanos emit CO2 constantly, even if they aren't active. An increase in CO2 levels at this site says everything about the state of the volcano and absolutly nothing about the state of the athmosphere.
it might well have started out random. But so have the atoms within a crystal. Yet, after much randomness, in distribution and process, there is order. So I don't disagree in the slightest that we originate from randomness, my opinion is just that now, we are something different. An alternative view on the subject would be to say: There is no randomness, just uttlery complex order.
why must those two be mutual exclusive? Maybe consciousness does just emerge, as a side product of our incredible powers of reasoning etc.
seeing how this ram is 'powercycled' every couple of milliseconds (ok, I'll concede, not all at once), I think not ;)
the distribution of quarks, atoms, bakteria, cells, proteins whatever magnification you prefer is exactly not random. This makes you, firstly an 'it', an object, and later an 'I', a conciosness. Please don't dismiss the (I'm sure) wonderful being that is 'you' as random.
of course they are. Just look at how many posts in this thread make reference to CO2 as 'pollution' for example.
I was mocking your (and the worlds) obviously histerical reaction to CO2. In my own stupid little way I'm pointing out that CO2 is vital to life on earth, thus refering to it as 'the problem' when discussing the ecological 'disaster' that climate change is made out to be is just silly. I'm also painting a picture of what I believe is the ultimate (yet not concious) goal of most enviromental advocates: a static earth, frozen in time to preserve what they (you?) believe to be a perfect state, untainted by evil humans and their technology. I'm sorry if I put something in your mouth that would never be there. In that case, just take my post as generaly aimed at most people on the green side of this debate, not particularly directed at you. Also, I didn't rebutte anything. As Voltaire says: a witty saying prooves nothing.
1) correlation != causation. It could just as well be the other way around: higher temperature causes higher CO2 levels. Or it could be an unkown third factor that affects temperature and CO2 in the same way.
2) The diagram show important things though.
- the current temperature is not outside any bounds established by history
- increase in CO2 levels are not only/always caused by humans
- in history there has been a cycle of warm periods and ice ages
man, talk about short term memory. Hurricans have always wasted the carribeans and by extension florida, since records are kept. Floods, droughts ands fires where with us right from the beginning of civilization. In the last hundred years, earth population has exploded, most of which live near rivers, for obvious practical reasons. Of course, with an increase in the density of settlements, there are going to be more people affected by floodings. I vividly remember the great 'millenium' flood in germany. Firstly, the high water marks from the middle ages where never exceeded in any town and yet, moron reporters claimed that this was a singular event. Secondly, in the preceeding years, the government was busy with modifying major water ways so that their depth in the middle and the velocity of the current increased to accomodate shipping better. Needless to say, this was in no way benificial to the economy since the project costs 2 for ever 1 earned by it. But those modification are quite conductive to making floodings worse and yet, as it happenned, everyone agreed that this must be caused by global warming.
Whatever trends you think you might detect, they are useless if you lack the historical perspective. Indeed, this is one of the main reasons those scares can always take hold I think. People just don't know anything about the past.
i agree, CO2 is such a problem for the sterility of earth. It'd be so nice without *any* CO2! No pesky humans ruining it for anyone else. Just a blue pure diamont in the dark velvet of space. No living creature that could *gasph* change it. The earth would be conserved forever in the same state! We all agree that this is a worthwhile aim, right?
Implied they do claim that the climate is a constant. How else is it justifiable to show the 'hockey stick' chart that only extends a hundred years in the past? Presentation of this 'evidence' just screams: look, until here it's all steady then, bam, industrialization correlating with a warming trend'. It doesn't show that the climate has become steadiely warmer since the past ice age, with the exception of the roman climate optimum and the little ice age in the middle ages which where great variances from the trend. Not showing this general, actually more relevant, trend means either a) ignorance of the volatiale nature of the climate or b) willfull misleading of the puplic opinion by hiding vital context that would frame the question in a more accurate light. Now the rule 'never blame something on malicious intend when stupidity answers just as well' applies, thus the 'scientiest' must suffer from condition a).
That would be VB. Btw, the most wise programmer I ever spoke to (my father) thinks MI is not such a good idea. So your opinion is by far not that of the top 15%.
I have always had a hard time understanding how anyone can dismess global warming, considering that 95%
Repeat after me: the majority is always right. A minority of one is always insane. This has been so since the party invented the word revolution, shortly before it invented the plane. Everyone agrees to be sane, that must make you insane.
Show me the fucking data, meanwhile I'll stick to nasa satellite meassurements:
http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/hl_temp_glbave.
yes. This posts illustrates how any flavor of collectivist 'ethics' can not oppose tyranny. Its even inviting it. Communism will always create a earthly hell precisly because your line of reasoning is the logical one if you elate the community above the individual.
One sticks to this view until he overhears two women actually refering to guys by the physical features of thier cocks and asses. Last time I checked, sex was about instinct and we share it with all 'higher' animals. Of course it doesn't involve much reference to the opposite as 'person','soul' or whatever. Sex doesn't get much deeper than the physical layer unless it's love making. People are fully capabale of making the crucial difference and males as well as females desire sometimes 'sex' and sometimes 'lovemaking'.
Convieniently you forget that 'your' side is also afflicted by special interest. How useful is a climat researcher (appearantly anyone who has ever seen an uni from the inside) that tells the government that there is nothing to do? It is beyond doubt that anyone on the government payroll strives from problems, the bigger and the longer to resolve the better. Sucessfull 'programs' always get dismantelt after a set goal is archieved. For the people that get paid for solving the problems this obviously generates a conflict of interest. The research budget for 2000 climate researchers in the US has been 2 billion$ in 2002. When do you think that the budget is increased? The need for generating a problem to justify ones income clearly biases scientists on government payroll. Or why else do you think that the 'industry' is mainly concerned with churning out solutions while the government immediatly jumps unto any scare-train that runs past? Examples are numerous, the murderous scandal regarding DDT quite a ways ahead. Just to think that malaria was on the verge of disappearing and now, after the swift prohibition of DDT because some birds eggs might have fragile shells (utterly debunked claim by the way), it afflicts 500 million people. Incredible.
The effects of acting upon the fear of global warming, despite conflicting evidence (like the NASA satelite meassurement of global temperature), would be even worse. Civilization strives on energy. Restricting the use of affordable energy sources in the draconian manner that computer models would require will bring about widespread un-civilitation: poverty, hunger, diseases etc. For all people already living on the verge of civilitation this will be certain death. The cost of kyoto alone run into the hundred billion range depending on the actual country. The $150 billion predicted for germany amount to be 5% of the GDP. This is a huge dent for the productivity of an economy and by extension for the wealth of its participants. The extra cost inflicted on industries can have only one consequence: The companies that are already producing 'on the margin' (meaning that any slight increase in costs will convert profits to losses) will have to move somewhere else (presumably somewhere where the kyoto protocol is not in effect) or go broke. The consequential stagnation of tax revenue coupled with the increase in entitlement to government aid (the unemployed) will futher diminish the states chances of implementing necessary wellfare reforms an thereby bringing it closer to the point of 'state-default' with all the really scary effects this can have (see germany in the 1930ies)
But kyoto alone will hardly do anything if you believe the models that predict the catastrophic climate change.