> Case II: You buy some ephedrine, some lithuim batteries, > some drano and some Acetone. They are your property to > use as you wish. You decide to whip up a batch of Crack.
I think you're thinking of crystal meth. And possibly smoking it.
In case people get the wrong idea from the article, Tubthumping is *not* the only good record Chumbawamba have made, and it's not even very different stylistically from some of their other stuff.
In particular my I recommend "Give the Anarchist a Cigarette", "When I'm Bad" and "This Girl".
> I believe they obtained a special license to use > it how they wish. So it's not an example of > stealing code under the BSD license.
The special license *is* the BSD license. It pretty much says you're allowed to do what you want with the code, including putting it in your evil and bloated OS.
> Why would you need fast interrupt speed for > multimedia? If anything, a real-time kernel would > reduce efficiency for multimedia.
For watching DVDs etc that's correct, but for making music you *do* need low latency. You need to respond to musicians in *real-time*. The output from the bass player needs to be in the guitarist's headphones instantly, not 500ms later.
> That's a very insightful point, but I don't think > the USA has a monopoly on stupidity or anything. > It's just that this time we have data from the > USA.
Oh absolutely, stupidity crosses all national, religious and class boundaries. We certainly have plenty of it here in the UK. AIUI the particular stupidity that is creationism doesn't have much of a foothold outside the US though.
>> Surely the primary point of the vans is to >> convey the impression that you're likely to get >> caught watching TV without a licence. >> > No, they put posters up saying "two households > in this street don't have TV licenses".
In order to convey the same impression. I don't understand what the word 'no' is doing in that sentence - 'yes' would make more sense.
> So the fact that a van is in the area is not as > much of a giveaway as it once was
Giveaway? Surely the primary point of the vans is to convey the impression that you're likely to get caught watching TV without a licence.
> they assume that everyone has a TV set, so you > have to prove you DON'T have one in order for > them to leave you alone.
They have to prove that you DO have one in order for them to prosecute you. They will tend to send intimidating letters though.
> Also, they have automatic right of entry to your > home without a warrant
No they don't.
> They send you very strongly worded authoritarian > and intimidating letters to make you pay, > especially if you have no record of payment > because you don't have a TV set
> Having moved from the UK to Canada a few years > back, let me just say that I yearn with nostalgic > longing for the time when I could watch TV with > five-minute ad breaks only every fifteen minutes.
The BBC doesn't have advert breaks (although other UK commercial stations do).
That might go some way towards explaining why the figure given for North America's carbon emissions is less than a third of the figure given on wikipedia.
> What the hell do you suppose all those trees that > were already there are doing??? Trees *actively* > convert CO2 into O2+sequestered carbon. !!!!!!!!!
This is getting silly.
Ok, where does the sequestered carbon go? It goes into the *increased* mass of carbon in the forest. You are trying to count the carbon that had been being sequestered over previous millennia as carbon sunk between 1952 and 1992.
> The increase alone was enough to offset 25%. As > the quote stated, taking into account the > forestation that already existed, the US is a > net carbon sink, meaning in total we do not > contribute to the world's carbon emission.
Think about this for a minute. Over the given period, the amount of carbon stored by US forests increased by x, where x is 25% of the US' carbon emissions for the period. The amount of carbon sunk over that period is x, right? The 25%. Not the 25% + some extra amount for "the forestation that already existed".
The quote doesn't say that the US is a net carbon sink, it says the US' forests are a net carbon sink.
> because of forestation, the US *consumes* more > carbon than it emits.... > The *increase* in trees alone was enough to offset > 25% of the total carbon emissions.
I think you misunderstand. If the *increase* was sufficient to offset 25% of carbon emissions for the period then the forests offset a *total* of 25% of carbon emissions.
> Bob can create 1 slab of steal in an hour and > produces 10 units of CO2 to do it. Tom produces 1 > unit of CO2 to produce a slab of steal and can > produce 100 slabs in an hour. So in an hour Bob > produces 10 units of CO2 and Tom produces 100 > units. So who polluted more?
> The big unspoken reason the US rejected Kyoto was > it put US manufactures at a disadvantage versus > ones in China (and India, but less of a > consideration), because of different environmental > requirements. You must have a level playing field > to compete, and the US rejected Kyoto's attempt to > create a system that favoured China.
Hm.
The Chinese emit 2.3 Tons of CO2 per capita per year
Americans emit 20.1 Tons of CO2 per capita per year.
Clearly any idiot can see that the Chinese are the problem.
> are you going to listen to your paranoid > schizophrenic fantasies about who i am
I think you probably aren't a Monsanto astroturfer, otherwise you'd make more effort to sound polite and reasonable. But it's not as paranoid as you might think - astroturf is a real thing and it really happens.
> break into monsanto, steal their ip, hack it, > release ip free gm food to the poor of the world
OTOH if you *were* astroturfing then that would be a perfectly sensible thing to say, since what you're suggesting is totally unrealistic.
> giving toys to companies? what are you talking > about? > > they are giving it to themselves
Scientists are giving dangerous toys to people with a proven track record of irresponsibility. Bad things will happen.
> no one is in charge
Yes and no. Mostly no.
> I don't understand any strategic value to making > yourself look stupid on purpose
Saying "GM is a novel, far-reaching technology that is likely to have unpredictable consequenses" doesn't make you look stupid to reasonable people. OTOH I've heard some very stupid psuedoscience from anti-GE people, which I agree is very irritating.
> agriculture made cities and civilization possible
Which, as I said, is not necessarily an unqualified good.
> my religious beliefs?
You seem to have a religious fervour about science. You doggedly parrot pro-GE arguments because they suit your curious belief that anything to do with science is inherently good. You ignore counter-arguments because they are 'unscientific', without considering the real implications for real people.
> reverse engineer the gm foods, strip out the > herbicide dependence, give it to poor people for > free > > take the hacker ethos to genetic engineering > > be to monsanto what linux is to microsoft
Two obvious problems with that:
* You can't do GE in your bedroom, you need to be a large, well-funded institution. You don't normally get to be a large well-funded institution by giving stuff to poor people for free.
* Monsanto, or whoever, will sue the crap out of you. They do that sort of thing a lot.
the hysterical uneducated ignorant peasants were out to burn a creature that only wanted to help them.
You use that analogy and describe someone else as an "propagandized"? The nicest thing I can think of to say is that you are entitled to your religious beliefs.
> if you listen to what some of the morons say, they > aren't attacking monsanto, they are attacking the > science
I think what people are objecting to is giving irresponsible companies new and dangerous toys to play with. That seems reasonable to me.
> so why are people attacking the science, and not > the companies?
The companies have been attacked a fair amount. GM was a major PR disaster for Monsanto, iirc they pulled out.
But in practical terms, can you not see a strategic value to attacking the science? If you fear the results of GM (which obviously you don't) it's a much more productive avenue than trying to target the specifics of individual companies. For one thing most of the companies involved in GM have merged and/or changed their names several times in recent years.
You seem to be using 'science' as a bit of a mantra. Science doesn't exist in a vacuum. Ignoring the context in which it happens is, as you put it, "pure ignorance". Saying this is kind of heretical among scientific people, but it seems like a statement of the obvious to me.
Mostly true, but the conclusion "gmos don't cause cancer" is unwarranted.
It's probably reasonable to say "there's nothing inherent about genetic modification per-se that leads to cancer", but "gm won't cause cancer" is guesswork, hubris and blind optimism.
Yes, it would be theoretically possible to use gm to create better food. In reality the main application is to create food farmers can put more herbicide on. It would also be possible to only use gunpowder for pretty firework displays.
I've always felt that the IP implications of GE were the scariest aspect, and the health effects have probably been somewhat hyped. But seeing someone totally dismiss any concern about the use of this novel and far-reaching technology is like, as you put it, "talking to a creationist or something".
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> Case II: You buy some ephedrine, some lithuim batteries,
> some drano and some Acetone. They are your property to
> use as you wish. You decide to whip up a batch of Crack.
I think you're thinking of crystal meth. And possibly smoking it.
In case people get the wrong idea from the article, Tubthumping is *not* the only good record Chumbawamba have made, and it's not even very different stylistically from some of their other stuff.
In particular my I recommend "Give the Anarchist a Cigarette", "When I'm Bad" and "This Girl".
Also a great live act.
> I believe they obtained a special license to use
> it how they wish. So it's not an example of
> stealing code under the BSD license.
The special license *is* the BSD license. It pretty much says you're allowed to do what you want with the code, including putting it in your evil and bloated OS.
> Why would you need fast interrupt speed for
> multimedia? If anything, a real-time kernel would
> reduce efficiency for multimedia.
For watching DVDs etc that's correct, but for making music you *do* need low latency. You need to respond to musicians in *real-time*. The output from the bass player needs to be in the guitarist's headphones instantly, not 500ms later.
> That's a very insightful point, but I don't think
> the USA has a monopoly on stupidity or anything.
> It's just that this time we have data from the
> USA.
Oh absolutely, stupidity crosses all national, religious and class boundaries. We certainly have plenty of it here in the UK. AIUI the particular stupidity that is creationism doesn't have much of a foothold outside the US though.
There are parts of the world that aren't in the US
>> Surely the primary point of the vans is to
>> convey the impression that you're likely to get
>> caught watching TV without a licence.
>>
> No, they put posters up saying "two households
> in this street don't have TV licenses".
In order to convey the same impression. I don't understand what the word 'no' is doing in that sentence - 'yes' would make more sense.
> So the fact that a van is in the area is not as
> much of a giveaway as it once was
Giveaway? Surely the primary point of the vans is to convey the impression that you're likely to get caught watching TV without a licence.
> they assume that everyone has a TV set, so you
> have to prove you DON'T have one in order for
> them to leave you alone.
They have to prove that you DO have one in order for them to prosecute you. They will tend to send intimidating letters though.
> Also, they have automatic right of entry to your
> home without a warrant
No they don't.
> They send you very strongly worded authoritarian
> and intimidating letters to make you pay,
> especially if you have no record of payment
> because you don't have a TV set
True, and quite irritating.
> Having moved from the UK to Canada a few years
> back, let me just say that I yearn with nostalgic
> longing for the time when I could watch TV with
> five-minute ad breaks only every fifteen minutes.
The BBC doesn't have advert breaks (although other UK commercial stations do).
> America? I think you misspelled China.
The Chinese emit 2.3 Tons of CO2 per capita per year
Americans emit 20.1 Tons of CO2 per capita per year.
I think the OP's spelling is fine.
That's according to SEPP, a body funded by Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO. The article was written by the editor of a newsletter by CEI, an "organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government".
That might go some way towards explaining why the figure given for North America's carbon emissions is less than a third of the figure given on wikipedia.
> What the hell do you suppose all those trees that
> were already there are doing??? Trees *actively*
> convert CO2 into O2+sequestered carbon. !!!!!!!!!
This is getting silly.
Ok, where does the sequestered carbon go? It goes into the *increased* mass of carbon in the forest. You are trying to count the carbon that had been being sequestered over previous millennia as carbon sunk between 1952 and 1992.
> The increase alone was enough to offset 25%. As
> the quote stated, taking into account the
> forestation that already existed, the US is a
> net carbon sink, meaning in total we do not
> contribute to the world's carbon emission.
Think about this for a minute. Over the given period, the amount of carbon stored by US forests increased by x, where x is 25% of the US' carbon emissions for the period. The amount of carbon sunk over that period is x, right? The 25%. Not the 25% + some extra amount for "the forestation that already existed".
The quote doesn't say that the US is a net carbon sink, it says the US' forests are a net carbon sink.
> Sheesh. It should be based on land mass and NOT
> population.
Ok, let's try it your way:
China emits 2,893 million metric tons of CO2 per year.
The US emits 5,410 million metric tons of CO2 per year.
They have very similar land masses.
Sorry, still not convinced the Chinese are the problem.
> because of forestation, the US *consumes* more ...
> carbon than it emits.
> The *increase* in trees alone was enough to offset
> 25% of the total carbon emissions.
I think you misunderstand. If the *increase* was sufficient to offset 25% of carbon emissions for the period then the forests offset a *total* of 25% of carbon emissions.
> Bob can create 1 slab of steal in an hour and
> produces 10 units of CO2 to do it. Tom produces 1
> unit of CO2 to produce a slab of steal and can
> produce 100 slabs in an hour. So in an hour Bob
> produces 10 units of CO2 and Tom produces 100
> units. So who polluted more?
Tom polluted more.
> The big unspoken reason the US rejected Kyoto was
> it put US manufactures at a disadvantage versus
> ones in China (and India, but less of a
> consideration), because of different environmental
> requirements. You must have a level playing field
> to compete, and the US rejected Kyoto's attempt to
> create a system that favoured China.
Hm.
The Chinese emit 2.3 Tons of CO2 per capita per year
Americans emit 20.1 Tons of CO2 per capita per year.
Clearly any idiot can see that the Chinese are the problem.
> are you going to listen to your paranoid
> schizophrenic fantasies about who i am
I think you probably aren't a Monsanto astroturfer, otherwise you'd make more effort to sound polite and reasonable. But it's not as paranoid as you might think - astroturf is a real thing and it really happens.
> break into monsanto, steal their ip, hack it,
> release ip free gm food to the poor of the world
OTOH if you *were* astroturfing then that would be a perfectly sensible thing to say, since what you're suggesting is totally unrealistic.
> giving toys to companies? what are you talking
> about?
>
> they are giving it to themselves
Scientists are giving dangerous toys to people with a proven track record of irresponsibility. Bad things will happen.
> no one is in charge
Yes and no. Mostly no.
> I don't understand any strategic value to making
> yourself look stupid on purpose
Saying "GM is a novel, far-reaching technology that is likely to have unpredictable consequenses" doesn't make you look stupid to reasonable people. OTOH I've heard some very stupid psuedoscience from anti-GE people, which I agree is very irritating.
> agriculture made cities and civilization possible
Which, as I said, is not necessarily an unqualified good.
> my religious beliefs?
You seem to have a religious fervour about science. You doggedly parrot pro-GE arguments because they suit your curious belief that anything to do with science is inherently good. You ignore counter-arguments because they are 'unscientific', without considering the real implications for real people.
> are you a script generating random insults?
Yes, You?
> reverse engineer the gm foods, strip out the
> herbicide dependence, give it to poor people for
> free
>
> take the hacker ethos to genetic engineering
>
> be to monsanto what linux is to microsoft
Two obvious problems with that:
* You can't do GE in your bedroom, you need to be a large, well-funded institution. You don't normally get to be a large well-funded institution by giving stuff to poor people for free.
* Monsanto, or whoever, will sue the crap out of you. They do that sort of thing a lot.
True, but (I suspect you will struggle with this) agriculture is not necessarily an unqualified good.
You use that analogy and describe someone else as an "propagandized"? The nicest thing I can think of to say is that you are entitled to your religious beliefs.
> if you listen to what some of the morons say, they
> aren't attacking monsanto, they are attacking the
> science
I think what people are objecting to is giving irresponsible companies new and dangerous toys to play with. That seems reasonable to me.
> so why are people attacking the science, and not
> the companies?
The companies have been attacked a fair amount. GM was a major PR disaster for Monsanto, iirc they pulled out.
But in practical terms, can you not see a strategic value to attacking the science? If you fear the results of GM (which obviously you don't) it's a much more productive avenue than trying to target the specifics of individual companies. For one thing most of the companies involved in GM have merged and/or changed their names several times in recent years.
You seem to be using 'science' as a bit of a mantra. Science doesn't exist in a vacuum. Ignoring the context in which it happens is, as you put it, "pure ignorance". Saying this is kind of heretical among scientific people, but it seems like a statement of the obvious to me.
Mostly true, but the conclusion "gmos don't cause cancer" is unwarranted.
It's probably reasonable to say "there's nothing inherent about genetic modification per-se that leads to cancer", but "gm won't cause cancer" is guesswork, hubris and blind optimism.
Yes, it would be theoretically possible to use gm to create better food. In reality the main application is to create food farmers can put more herbicide on. It would also be possible to only use gunpowder for pretty firework displays.
I've always felt that the IP implications of GE were the scariest aspect, and the health effects have probably been somewhat hyped. But seeing someone totally dismiss any concern about the use of this novel and far-reaching technology is like, as you put it, "talking to a creationist or something".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Void