Why does everyone here think that they are smarter than climate scientists? Asimov's Corollary
"If a scientific heresy is ignored or denounced by the general public, there is a chance it may be right. If a scientific heresy is emotionally supported by the general public, it is almost certainly wrong... It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong....It is those who support ideas for emotional reasons only who can't change."
I think the problem is that science has become emotional, politicized, and suppressed on BOTH sides of the aisle. People know this and start to question ESPECIALLY when one side declares that the debate is over and a consensus has been reached. I personally sleep better at night knowing that global warming has joined the ranks of Newton's Three Laws of Motion and the Ideal Gas Law where a scientific consensus has been reached.
Scientists are not immune from politics, egos, or having vested interests. Want to get another grant from Bad Guy Oil Company? Better make sure your research supports the notion that global warming is a hoax.
Want to get another grant from Good Guy National Science Foundation? Better make sure your research supports the view that global warming is real and that humans are responsible.
Want to make money beyond the dreams of avarice on the speaker-circuit while planning future presidential pursuits? Push the panic button early and often and come up with the research to show that global warming will lead to the Ghostbusters Syndrome (tm):
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions. Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"? Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff. Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly. Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling. Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes... Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave. Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
hero -noun 1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. 2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child......
5. a large sandwich, usually consisting of a small loaf of bread or long roll cut in half lengthwise and containing a variety of ingredients, as meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes.
Hmmm... according to dictionary.com the definition of racism is:
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
So which category does his statement fall into? I'm so confused.
Yes it does. The day of year (day 273 for instance) is used extensively throughout the infrastructure (Kennedy, Johnson, various monitoring stations) that support the shuttle missions. Yes, it probably would screw up the accuracy of the logs (real-time databases) and no, you can't throw a sed script at it. Shuttle Engineers live and die by the accuracy of their logs. In addition there are possible side affects, such as ground-based commands being discarded by the shuttle since they are now "stale".
Thanks! You got to it before I did:) Here's some more items:
1) NASA has known about this at least as early as 1980, *before* the first shuttle flew. The computers onboard the shuttle are IBM AP101Ss with 64K of RAM and capable of a blindingly fast 1.2 million operations per second. Remember overlays from your DOS days? They are used extensively (major mission modes). Every *bit* of RAM is accounted for.
2) I haven't seen any FMEA/FMECA (Failure Modes Effects Criticality Analysis) posts here on Slashdot yet that would justify the change. Even if you decide to go through with it, you are going to be going through about 10 layers of meetings and reviews (or so it would seem). Not to mention the extensive regression testing that needs to occur. This is safety-critical stuff (i.e. you mess up, it doesn't get caught, someone is going to die). You don't make any changes unless you are able to come up with an overriding compelling reason. It's THAT simple.
3) Work-around procedures are in place and have been in place for quite a while. The crew of STS-116 have successfully trained and run the procedures. This is NOT a big deal.
It still is a great place to live. That is *strange* though that only Democrats seem to be having problems with the voting machines. This could point to a few possibilities:
1) Random computer error 2) It's a Republican conspiracy to rig the elections 3) Republicans are having problems too but the Miami Herald is only mentioning the problems affecting the Democrats 4) Democrats aren't REALLY having problems but are using it as an excuse for potential court battles 5) Republicans were able to design the machines to be really confusing to only Democratic voters 6) A cosmic ray particle came down and caused a bit flip (single event upset) inside the voting computer just as the vote was being cast (0 - Straight Democratic, 1 - Straight Republican). Ooh, the possibilities.... cosmic ray particles with political alignment and there is nothing we can do to stop them - except go back to punched cards and chads:) 7) Republicans studied hard, did their homework, and made an effort to be smart, and were able to vote. Democrats didn't and got stuck in the voting booth. 8) Us folks who live in Florida really are too stupid to vote. I mean really, who builds their houses in swamp land anyways? Sounds like something from Monty Python:
"Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one... stayed up! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands."
Incorrect on both counts. NASA and especially education have both seen overall successive budget increases with the current administration. NASA's budget was cut 5 out of the 8 years of the previous administration.
Budget of the United States Government Fiscal Year 2007
See 10 U.S.C. 331, 10 U.S.C. 332, and 10 U.S.C. 333. If they need any additional powers they'll just use Executive Orders. I'm not saying that it's right or consitutional, I'm just saying that it is the height of naivete and ignorance to believe that previous administrations, Democrat and Republican, have NOT had or used this authority.
Assignment of Emergency Preparedness Functions, October 11, 2004
The following EOs all fall under EO 12919: [7]
* EO 10990: "allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports." [8]
* EO 10995: Federal seizure of all communications media in the US.
* EO 10997: Federal seizure of all electric power, fuels, minerals, public and private.
* EO 10998: Federal seizure of all food supplies and resources, public and private and all farms and equipment.
* EO 10999: Federal seizure of all means of transportation, including cars, trucks, or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports and water ways.
* EO 11000: Federal seizure of American people for work forces under federal supervision, including the splitting up of families if the government so desires.
* EO 11001: Federal seizure of all health, education and welfare facilities, both public and private.
* EO 11002: Empowers the Postmaster General to register every single person in the US.
* EO 11003: Federal seizure of all airports and aircraft.
* EO 11004: Federal seizure of all housing and finances and authority to establish forced relocation. Authority to designate areas to be abandoned as 'unsafe,' establish new locations for populations, relocate communities, build new housing with public funds.
* EO 11005: Seizure of all railroads, inland waterways and storage facilities, both public and private.
* EO 11051: Provides FEMA complete authorization to put above orders into effect in times of increased international tension of economic or financial crisis (FEMA will be in control incase of 'National Emergency').
* EO 12919 "Apparently Allows Cabinet Heads to Make Direct Loans to Government Contractors." [9]
Some of these Executive Orders have been around since the days of JFK. The umbrella EO 12919 was signed by President Clinton when he was in office back in 1994.
A fictional memo written to President Clinton back in 1999 gives a nice legal summary, history, and analysis of the laws already in place that would permit him or any president to declare martial law. From the "memo":
You have statutory authority to intervene with military force in a state's domestic disputes, upon request from the state legislature (or governor), at 10 U.S.C. 331:
Whenever there is an insurrection in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection. [Emphasis added.]
Similar statutory authority permits you to use military force without any state request to address circumstances whenever and wherever you determine that the laws of the United States cannot be enforced (10 U.S.C. 332):(1)
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You summarized rather nicely the sometimes rancorous debate between Dr. Gilbert Levin and other scientists. Dr. Levin maintains to this day that the Viking Labeled Release Experiment did in fact detect life. The raw data as well as a useful experimenters notebook from the Viking LR experiment can be found here.
It all depends on what your requirements are. They have been completely and unambiguously defined, right?
You should already have the following defined:
1) Playback/Recording video resolution required (Standard broadcast resolution, High Definition (720i, 1040i,....)
2) Playback/Recording video quality required (What level of compression is considered acceptable?)
3) Audio playback/recording requirements (Number/quality of audio channels)
4) Archival requirements: ..... a) Maximum number of hours that needs to be available for instant playback ..... b) Maximum number of channels of simultaneous playback ..... c) Long term storage needs
5) Expandability requirements
6) Reliability/uptime requirements of both the hardware and software
7) Software development/Integration/Testing Costs and Schedule
8) Budget - Labor/Equipment
9) Need date
Once you answer those questions then you can easily answer whether it would be better/easier to spend the $50K for a COTS unit or the $100K in development costs for a homebrew solution.
I love Skype, I really do. The program is slick and works well. But they have SERIOUS problems handing purchases for Skype-Out (their PC-to-landline service). The complaints are numerous... so numerous in fact that Skype has had to set up a separate forum to handle them all. Here's a rundown of my personal nightmare with them. You really, and I mean REALLY, need to look at the problems that Skype is having before you go with them.
Ummmm... it could be worse... A LOT worse. You could go to one of those OTHER news for nerd sites where the users are in control of the content *cough* digg *cough* and everyone has mod points all the time. There have been recently at least 10 Bush/Republican/Religious-bashing articles a day that make it to the front page. HEAVEN-forbid you should disagree with the tone of the submission or the 3000 responses of "we-hate-Bush-he-is-worse-than-Hitler", you will get modded out of existence.
I say, thank goodness for Cmdr Taco and his set of minions to bring order out of the chaos, even if it means having to put up with occasional irrelevant articles such as politics, global warming, evil Republicans, and Apple Versus Microsoft. Hell, I'm even happy to see articles by Roland again:):)
So now I'm worried that some of these furious men will come after him and will instead throw their rocks through my windows, or worse. I feel like my well-being has been potentially endangered by this guy. What should I do?
Might I humbly suggest this as a potential solution?
Just a few years ago, a federal judge ruled that the ADA only applies to physical spaces. From the article:
In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies only to physical spaces, such as restaurants and movie theaters, and not to the Internet.
"To expand the ADA to cover 'virtual' spaces would be to create new rights without well-defined standards," Seitz wrote in a 12-page opinion dismissing the case. "The plain and unambiguous language of the statute and relevant regulations does not include Internet Web sites."
Since you now have a couple of federal judges in different districts disagreeing with each other, the Supreme Court may ultimately decide this one.
The Imaginary Toolstore carries a number of hard to find items. I recently picked up a left-handed screwdriver as well as a stretchable tape measure from them. You may want to shoot them an email inquiry for the left-handed version of XP. I'm sure they'll be quite helpful.
Unfortunately, the road out to Playa Linda and the beach itself is closed on launch days. Don't even think of sneaking past... the NASA SWAT team sports MP5s among other toys:)
Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide
on
Watching a Space Shot?
·
· Score: 5, Informative
If you do decide to go the route of buying a launch viewing ticket from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, please be aware of the rather mercenary policies in place if you buy a ticket and the launch is scrubbed. Delaware North runs the Visitors Center and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. They'll even charge astronaut families and invited guests for busing them out to the VIP viewing area -- at least they were three years ago. Don't know if that has changed.
Yes, I'm definitely going to replace all those evil incandescents with enviroment-friendly CFLs while building a second rail line to my own coal-powered electrical plant just so I can watch Captain Planet whenever I like...:):):)
EXACTLY. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm keeping that Feynmann quote:). Here's one from Asimov that I think applies as well.
Asimov's Corollary: "If a scientific heresy is ignored or denounced by the general public, there is a chance it may be right. If a scientific heresy is emotionally supported by the general public, it is almost certainly wrong... It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong....It is those who support ideas for emotional reasons only who can't change." (from 1977 essay "Asimov's Corollary," reprinted in Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright, 1977)
Slashdot Mirror
Why does everyone here think that they are smarter than climate scientists?
... It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong....It is those who support ideas for emotional reasons only who can't change."
Asimov's Corollary
"If a scientific heresy is ignored or denounced by the general public, there is a chance it may be right. If a scientific heresy is emotionally supported by the general public, it is almost certainly wrong
I think the problem is that science has become emotional, politicized, and suppressed on BOTH sides of the aisle. People know this and start to question ESPECIALLY when one side declares that the debate is over and a consensus has been reached. I personally sleep better at night knowing that global warming has joined the ranks of Newton's Three Laws of Motion and the Ideal Gas Law where a scientific consensus has been reached.
Scientists are not immune from politics, egos, or having vested interests.
Want to get another grant from Bad Guy Oil Company?
Better make sure your research supports the notion that global warming is a hoax.
Want to get another grant from Good Guy National Science Foundation?
Better make sure your research supports the view that global warming is real and that humans are responsible.
Want to make money beyond the dreams of avarice on the speaker-circuit while planning future presidential pursuits?
Push the panic button early and often and come up with the research to show that global warming will lead to the Ghostbusters Syndrome (tm):
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.
Has the GCM been validated?
From the dictionary definition of "hero"
.....
hero
-noun
1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.
5. a large sandwich, usually consisting of a small loaf of bread or long roll cut in half lengthwise and containing a variety of ingredients, as meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes.
I vote for number 5 myself with mayo and mustard.
Hmmm ... according to dictionary.com the definition of racism is:
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
So which category does his statement fall into? I'm so confused.
Chill out and go buy yourself a tshirt
Yes it does. The day of year (day 273 for instance) is used extensively throughout the infrastructure (Kennedy, Johnson, various monitoring stations) that support the shuttle missions. Yes, it probably would screw up the accuracy of the logs (real-time databases) and no, you can't throw a sed script at it. Shuttle Engineers live and die by the accuracy of their logs. In addition there are possible side affects, such as ground-based commands being discarded by the shuttle since they are now "stale".
Thanks! You got to it before I did :) Here's some more items:
1) NASA has known about this at least as early as 1980, *before* the first shuttle flew. The computers onboard the shuttle are IBM AP101Ss with 64K of RAM and capable of a blindingly fast 1.2 million operations per second. Remember overlays from your DOS days? They are used extensively (major mission modes). Every *bit* of RAM is accounted for.
2) I haven't seen any FMEA/FMECA (Failure Modes Effects Criticality Analysis) posts here on Slashdot yet that would justify the change. Even if you decide to go through with it, you are going to be going through about 10 layers of meetings and reviews (or so it would seem). Not to mention the extensive regression testing that needs to occur. This is safety-critical stuff (i.e. you mess up, it doesn't get caught, someone is going to die). You don't make any changes unless you are able to come up with an overriding compelling reason. It's THAT simple.
3) Work-around procedures are in place and have been in place for quite a while. The crew of STS-116 have successfully trained and run the procedures. This is NOT a big deal.
If you want some reading material on the computers onboard the shuttle have a look at the DPS (Data Processing System) section of the Shuttle Crew Operations Manual(highly recommended) as well as NASA publication SP-504 Space Shuttle Avionics System
It still is a great place to live. That is *strange* though that only Democrats seem to be having problems with the voting machines. This could point to a few possibilities:
.... cosmic ray particles with political alignment and there is nothing we can do to stop them - except go back to punched cards and chads :)
1) Random computer error
2) It's a Republican conspiracy to rig the elections
3) Republicans are having problems too but the Miami Herald is only mentioning the problems affecting the Democrats
4) Democrats aren't REALLY having problems but are using it as an excuse for potential court battles
5) Republicans were able to design the machines to be really confusing to only Democratic voters
6) A cosmic ray particle came down and caused a bit flip (single event upset) inside the voting computer just as the vote was being cast (0 - Straight Democratic, 1 - Straight Republican). Ooh, the possibilities
7) Republicans studied hard, did their homework, and made an effort to be smart, and were able to vote. Democrats didn't and got stuck in the voting booth.
8) Us folks who live in Florida really are too stupid to vote. I mean really, who builds their houses in swamp land anyways? Sounds like something from Monty Python:
"Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one... stayed up! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle in these islands."
Incorrect on both counts. NASA and especially education have both seen overall successive budget increases with the current administration. NASA's budget was cut 5 out of the 8 years of the previous administration.
s /hist04z1.xls
Budget of the United States Government
Fiscal Year 2007
HISTORICAL TABLES
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/sheet
Yes, I just picked a random post to reply to :) Can't even karma whore correctly. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.
Mozart - Lacrimosa
Some of these Executive Orders have been around since the days of JFK. The umbrella EO 12919 was signed by President Clinton when he was in office back in 1994.
A fictional memo written to President Clinton back in 1999 gives a nice legal summary, history, and analysis of the laws already in place that would permit him or any president to declare martial law. From the "memo":
"No one expects to be slashdotted...."
Shhhhhhhhhhhh. Don't give M$ any ideas.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You summarized rather nicely the sometimes rancorous debate between Dr. Gilbert Levin and other scientists. Dr. Levin maintains to this day that the Viking Labeled Release Experiment did in fact detect life. The raw data as well as a useful experimenters notebook from the Viking LR experiment can be found here.
It all depends on what your requirements are. They have been completely and unambiguously defined, right? ....)
..... a) Maximum number of hours that needs to be available for instant playback
..... b) Maximum number of channels of simultaneous playback
..... c) Long term storage needs
You should already have the following defined:
1) Playback/Recording video resolution required (Standard broadcast resolution, High Definition (720i, 1040i,
2) Playback/Recording video quality required (What level of compression is considered acceptable?)
3) Audio playback/recording requirements (Number/quality of audio channels)
4) Archival requirements:
5) Expandability requirements
6) Reliability/uptime requirements of both the hardware and software
7) Software development/Integration/Testing Costs and Schedule
8) Budget - Labor/Equipment
9) Need date
Once you answer those questions then you can easily answer whether it would be better/easier to spend the $50K for a COTS unit or the $100K in development costs for a homebrew solution.
I love Skype, I really do. The program is slick and works well. But they have SERIOUS problems handing purchases for Skype-Out (their PC-to-landline service). The complaints are numerous ... so numerous in fact that Skype has had to set up a separate forum to handle them all. Here's a rundown of my personal nightmare with them. You really, and I mean REALLY, need to look at the problems that Skype is having before you go with them.
Ummmm ... it could be worse ... A LOT worse. You could go to one of those OTHER news for nerd sites where the users are in control of the content *cough* digg *cough* and everyone has mod points all the time. There have been recently at least 10 Bush/Republican/Religious-bashing articles a day that make it to the front page. HEAVEN-forbid you should disagree with the tone of the submission or the 3000 responses of "we-hate-Bush-he-is-worse-than-Hitler", you will get modded out of existence.
:):)
I say, thank goodness for Cmdr Taco and his set of minions to bring order out of the chaos, even if it means having to put up with occasional irrelevant articles such as politics, global warming, evil Republicans, and Apple Versus Microsoft. Hell, I'm even happy to see articles by Roland again
So now I'm worried that some of these furious men will come after him and will instead throw their rocks through my windows, or worse. I feel like my well-being has been potentially endangered by this guy. What should I do?
Might I humbly suggest this as a potential solution?
Just a few years ago, a federal judge ruled that the ADA only applies to physical spaces. From the article:
In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz said the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies only to physical spaces, such as restaurants and movie theaters, and not to the Internet.
"To expand the ADA to cover 'virtual' spaces would be to create new rights without well-defined standards," Seitz wrote in a 12-page opinion dismissing the case. "The plain and unambiguous language of the statute and relevant regulations does not include Internet Web sites."
Since you now have a couple of federal judges in different districts disagreeing with each other, the Supreme Court may ultimately decide this one.
The Imaginary Toolstore carries a number of hard to find items. I recently picked up a left-handed screwdriver as well as a stretchable tape measure from them. You may want to shoot them an email inquiry for the left-handed version of XP. I'm sure they'll be quite helpful.
Very well stated. I don't think NASA could have done a better job.
Unfortunately, the road out to Playa Linda and the beach itself is closed on launch days. Don't even think of sneaking past ... the NASA SWAT team sports MP5s among other toys :)
The Unofficial Space Shuttle Launch Guide is perhaps one of the finest guides to seeing a shuttle launch and should be consulted first.
If you do decide to go the route of buying a launch viewing ticket from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, please be aware of the rather mercenary policies in place if you buy a ticket and the launch is scrubbed. Delaware North runs the Visitors Center and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. They'll even charge astronaut families and invited guests for busing them out to the VIP viewing area -- at least they were three years ago. Don't know if that has changed.
We on Slashdot have a fetish with saving the enviroment but don't have a problem building our own 30 KW petabyte TIVO servers?
... :):):)
Yes, I'm definitely going to replace all those evil incandescents with enviroment-friendly CFLs while building a second rail line to my own coal-powered electrical plant just so I can watch Captain Planet whenever I like
EXACTLY. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm keeping that Feynmann quote :). Here's one from Asimov that I think applies as well.
... It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong....It is those who support ideas for emotional reasons only who can't change." (from 1977 essay "Asimov's Corollary," reprinted in Quasar, Quasar, Burning Bright, 1977)
Asimov's Corollary: "If a scientific heresy is ignored or denounced by the general public, there is a chance it may be right. If a scientific heresy is emotionally supported by the general public, it is almost certainly wrong