I got the same "suspicious" for the same reasons (which is plain stupid) so for fun I tried the "Are you cracked?"-thingy at DShield but it's even worse as it logs failed torrent connections as "attacks" originating from my IP.
Do we need either? Are there anyone out there who actually uses this stuff for serious purposes?
If I am alive in June of 2015 I can look up at the stars and ponder the overall insignificance of a small number of bytes directly connected to me being close to Pluto rather than the overall insignificance of a (relatively) small number of molecules sitting on this planet and thinking about the bytes flying past Pluto.
And if humanity implodes I guess at least my name survives until the probe crashes somewhere or is destroyed by vacuum ablation:)
And maybe, just maybe, in 50.000 years I'll be a small part of making somebody wonder what the hell was going on back on Earth 50.000 years ago XD
The replies I got made me get off my ass and actually find the series and watch it, and it was very different from both what I thought it might be as well as what I did think it wouldn't be (if that makes any kind of sense). You're right that it's nothing like those I compared it too (including any typical Hollywood production).
It was enjoyable and I'm looking forward to the movie (and hopefully a future continuation of the series after that). I'm no super-fan but it's a lot better than most stuff.
That's fair enough although I do think we're talking past each other, at least slightly, as I did not intend to say that there can't be sexual or cultural differences in perception and cognition. Yesterday I read something somewhere on the net about a study comparing cultural differences in (visual) perception between white americans and chinese as well as chinese americans, sorry that I've forgot where it was - I would have provided a link if I did. I have no doubt there are plenty of such differences to be found which is a good thing that can enrich understanding, however I think it goes much further than that and that if studied closely enough one would be able to find huge differences in perception among individuals, maybe to such an extent that it lies at the core of individualism itself.
So my point was closer to what you mention in your last paragraph, the very high level of noise (both in communication but even more so in interpretation) in human languages -- which humorously we're both giving good examples of:). I do absolutely agree with you on the ambiguity and imprecision of human languages and perhaps I think it has even more noise than you do, at least when it comes to thoughts, emotions (try communicating those in predicate logic;) ), and the like instead of empirical objects and actions. This is why I utterly disagree with notions of anyone "instinctivly" or "subconsciously" understanding others, at least if based on various types of language; it's more of a social behavioural effect than anything else in my opinon.
Now whether or not this noise problem can be beaten by being conscious about it, to which degree, and how often I do not know but I did try to moderate the statement because like you I have a gut feeling that it does indeed apply to a high degree even if one consciously tries to avoid or lessen it (the worst case scenario would be that everybody actually already tries to do this, although I think that is unlikely). All in all it's easy to understand why Wittgenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein changed his mind a few times:)
Just a parting thought in relation to all this for anyone to reflect upon: add translation between languages (let's say between chinese, arabic, and english, or between body language, written language, and speech) as an additional source of noise into all of this.
Interesting to see your comment about the drop in news quality. I only have BBC World News but I too do feel there has been a (perhaps slight) drop over the last year (at least that's the timeframe it took me to perceive it). Hopefully it is temporary although I do wonder what might be the cause.
What is entertaining is someone bothering to post anonymously to put up a facade typical of insecure little boys (I don't even think you intended to troll).
Now you aren't ever likely to read this reply but I still can't help smiling condescendingly at your futile gesture as I'm sure plenty of others do as well, both on the net and in the real world:)
I would and I already do, at least I pay something to the BBC although it's not internet-specific per se. Yes I would be inclined to pay more, I'd even go so far as to be willing to pay a regular BBC license fee if no extra charges were levied on top of that for accessibility.
I'm tired so please excuse the rambling.
I get BBC World News as well as BBC Prime and BBC Food (hmm is that the correct name? I don't watch it that often) as part of my cable subscription (not US style cable with thousands of channels but only a handful or two, some of which I get to choose individually -- if one wants the US kind of overload one chooses to but a sattelite receiver instead here up north) and as far as I know the cable company pays a sum for those to the BBC. Oh and I intentionally chose the BBC package because CNN World Edition replaced BBC World News in the basic package and at the time I couldn't stand the idea of not being able to watch and listen to BBC World News (which I often leave on). Btw CNN World Edition isn't all that bad once one gets used to it although the american newscasters have an unfortunate tendency to look like plastic dolls from time to time lol. But they snatched Richard Quest from the BBC WN at some point, superb guy who isn't afraid to be himself.
To really go off the cliff regarding the topic; CNN WE beats BBC WN on the amount of live uncommented feeds on internal US policy matters like for example the full State of the Union address, various main news Congress hearings etc. while the BBC WN beats CNN WE on similar stuff more internationally inclined like open UN Security Council meetings and British stuff, mostly English politics like parliamental speeches and rows (which I usually enjoy a lot hehe). The two complement my anglophilic needs marvelously lol. As a peculiar sidenote CNN has a deal with ITV (ITN?) News which had better reporting than BBC WN in the aftermath of the latest London bombings.
Anyway back to the topic I believe I'm not alone or even rare in paying the BBC some money in this way, although it might not be much for BBC WN itself as they have about as many commercials as CNN WE. It's worth it simply for the mentual torture it inflicts me with if I ever watch how norwegian news (through public television or private) manage to completely butcher international news and who said what and how -- in other words a mixed blessing -- and especially to hear things directly from the horses mouth rather than some dumbed down, simplified, usually slightly (or very as the norwegian news would be) distorted, "analysis" by the newscasters themselves (I can do my own thinking thank you very much). Not that neither the BBC nor CNN is too horrible in their "value-added" stuff.
Of the things I would most dearly like to see the BBC make available on the net is every Hardtalk program ever made, there's a lot of excellent stuff hidden in that, and perhaps Panorama as well come to think of it.
And even if I'm inclined to pay I would hope that they actually released it for free, both for technical efficiency (torrents please - I'll seed until I'm blue in the face and then some) but also because 1. I think those who wouldn't be able to afford it should have access (a worldwide public service! think BBC World radio broadcasts) 2. I want to be able to reference whatever available so that others can watch it (for example in discussions) and if they have to pay up front it's just a pain in the ass
Anyway good luck BBC and may you succeed in every possible way.
And just a sidenote about commercials, if it can be done in a very unobtrusive manner (and I think Google has paved the way regarding unobtrusive advertising) I wouldn't mind it in the downloads. But it's not only what I find acceptable in this regard that counts but the extremely low threshold of pain among people in general on this subject. If that threshold is broken it will all fall apart in two seconds flat so it needs to be very (maybe even extremely) unobtrusive if done at all.
I just want to say that as someone who has had my share of bosses, I'm not impressed with people who mix up OS certifications with programming certifications. I find that many times they really have less understanding in the area that they are managing in than I'm comfortable with, and they have tended to make passing out directives rather than working with and understanding their employees their priority. On top of that, they seem to expect better pay than the good employees because they are bosses.
I understand that this is the universal trend in the industry.
;)
Seriously though, you are completely correct that certifications on their own isn't much good and that some of the people taking them somehow delude themselves as to how smart and experienced they are. However if you were to hire an unknown sysadmin/netadmin with knowledge of a particular OS or network equipment you wouldn't mind seeing that they've actually at least taken some relevant certifications because unlike in programming it isn't that easy for them to really show you their knowledge in a reasonable amount of time. The certifications are simply a way to have a third party back up any applicants claims to a certain level.
Hmm once again I find myself in possible disagreement with you and in the same thread nonetheless! Hope you don't mind too much, it's not personal:)
Anyway, would not most soap operas fit the bill as a "realistic drama" type show where the female characters are generally at least slightly smarter? I haven't seen many but remember seeing episodes with my mother of Dynasty (correct name?), and Falcon Crest which had plenty of strong female characters that outwitted the men in all sorts of fashions (my mom loved Alexis (lol scary) and whatever the female top boss was named in Falcon Crest). Maybe it is a function of those shows having a lot of female viewers and as such catering to them or the other way around (although these examples are above the ordinary ilk of soap operas and were shown during evening "prime time" when they were fresh - at least here in Norway - i.e. lots of men watched them as well).
I don't watch all that much tv but even though every CSI version has a male top dog there are plenty of smart intelligent female characters in those, a fairly egalitarian distrubition both on the good side and the bad. Same can be said (or even more so) about The 4400 series imo. Yes I know CSI isn't strictly speaking realistic and that The 4400 is far far away from it but the characters themselves and their personalities are realistic enough.
What about Martha Stewarts version of The Apprentice? (I haven't seen any of it myself but I've heard about it). Sex in the city? Not exactly realistic perhaps but isn't the whole concept there a group of "get-go" women? (I've just seen it briefly while channelsurfing). Whatever that female judge series is called? (or isn't there more than one?). Cold Case has an extremely intelligent female cop as the top dop (and is a nice series to boot). Ally McBeal (sp?) - yes drifting off into the unrealistic here... Alias? The psychic female investigator show, whatever it is called? Buffy? (decidedly unrealistic now, but still).
I think the list could go on, my point is that there should be plenty of shows where females characters in some way play roles that are smarter than "the men", and across the whole width of shows from highly realistic to complete fantasy. And I would say that these shows have plenty of stupid men in them.
I can't think of any show where absolutely all the men are slobbering dimwits but then again I can't think of any show where the same applies to women. However I can think of plenty where either (or even both sexes) are portrayed as, or actually are, nothing but dimwitted "sexual objects" (or at least intended to be "sexy") cue "reality tv".
I guess my point of contention is the not too uncommon focus on men having to be portrayed as dumber in order to refute the argument being made about "whatever" (uaually some claptrap ramblings about every woman being a slave unless so-and-so, which, interestingly enough, is usually the proponents of whatever argument shooting themselves in the foot by dismissing all the examples to the contrary up through history - especially the last centuries). It's not really an honest way to portray things, nor particularily efficient as it easily becomes anti-male rather than pro-female or pro-egalitarian.
Perhaps men tend to "go formalistic" and women tend to "just make-believe" but if so (and I don't believe it myself) then isn't that just a perfect example of "conveniently" removing a question rather than actually thinking about it?
"because they (the women) are used to being easily able to pick up these subtle hints themselves at a subconscious level"
Sorry but I find this to be 100% total bullshit (just like the "news"), nobody understands nobody else instinctively - they just think they do. It's just a matter of having enough similar assumptions in the lower level inner workings of the indivduals thought: people who have similar interpreations of similar experiences tend to "instinctively" understand each other although they of course do nothing of the sort; they simply jump to the same conclusions in the same manners (and usually when they find they were wrong in those assumptions and "instinct" they fool themselves into believing otherwise).
This is exactly what happens in "male bonding" or any situation where you get to know a person close enough for long enough. Experience enough with said person and you will have enough "data" (common experiences) to "know" things (or at least think you do). Even with a very big amount of data (like living with someone for years and years) there will be the possibility of new "surprises" both because people change and because the generalisations one has based the interpretations on are just that: generalisations rather than constant reflection and dessication of though.
It is also the reason why people have a hard time understanding those with contrary opinions and tend to behave like sheep. To avoid this not only does one have to identify every presumption and assumption one makes and convey this clearly to explain ones own reasoning, but in addition the majority of opposing opinions involved have to do the same and everybody has to be willing to do it this way. Language (speech, written, body, or otherwise implied) and other "cues" is a seriously imprecise method of communication when these things are simply glossed over (for examples read any media reporting on anything from any perspective or see the ususal Slashdot flamefests on anything (or at least anything remotely political)).
The above does not neccessarily apply when people actually spend some time to actually think and reflect, but that is uncommon enough during public discourse in society as a whole to be valid in statistical generalisations (and such generalisations are usually worthless anyway - que the "news").
One of the primary reasons why this "real communication" is so rare should be obvious: it's very timeconsuming and most people aren't that interested in "whatever" even if it concerns a husband, wife, family, or friends - they just want to feel "ok" and in an environment where they don't have to bother too much while still feeling "appreciated" and "understood".
Anyway, when people don't "get" each other and are bewildered and confused they usually either get uncomfortable and shy away or blame it on whatever scapegoat is socially acceptable within their frame of reference i.e. "men are insensitive", "women are bitches", "Bush is Hitler", "commie liberals" or any other such mindless crap we all use intermittently.
All the above applies to me as well of course - I'm not that different.
You seem to have been spared non-technical managers who spend all their time on toys! They are the worst and completely worthless, what is even worse is that they are close to being the definition of middle-management! *resists temptation to name people even if I don't work for them anymore* Not that there's any lack of doofuses in upper management either... however a few of the good ones are worth the company buildings weight in gold.
It's my experience that if you get a woman as a boss or manager in an otherwise typically male-dominated profession (ICT, military, law, etc.) you have a greater than average chance of getting a superb boss/manager/leader because they've had to fight tooth and nail to prove their real value, and they had to do so on merit rather than hear-say and dirty tricks.
If it is in a woman in a female-dominated profession your are overly likely to get just the same as with men in a male-dominated one: an absolute asshole/bitch - shit that floats - someone who has used all their dirty tricks to achieve a position.
By greater than average chance I mean that it's slightly more likely for a woman to be a great boss in those situations than it is to find a man who is a great boss - however both are sadly much less common than getting a bad leader no matter what sex.
To a lesser extent this also applies in the other direction as well; the ratio of good vs. poor workers is slightly better for women than men in ICT.
These opinions are of course subject to my personal experience and might not be true at all. It could be that I'm overestimating because there are so few women in the professions I'm thinking of and that this makes them stand out disporportionally when they are really good (then again I've met clueless women in these professions as well both as workers and bosses).
I watched the trailer (I haven't seen any of the episodes) and this looks like everything I thought silly and degrading to the story in the Matrix movies, everything I hate about Star Wars and Star Trek (wow watch that karma burn). It looked mindlessly stupid filled with corny one-liners, "sexy" bitches and studs that "kick ass". I mean how much more Hollywood can you get?
Now all those things considered it might not be a terrible movie, it might be a fun watch and I don't hate Hollywood, but from all the (Slashdot) hype I was hoping for something at least slightly cerebral (which is stupid of me since this is Slashdot after all).
That's the bottom line: I thought it would be in some regard something else than a sci-fi-themed slugfest. Anyone at all please feel free to correct me if I'm totally wrong.
I respecfully disagree with you, not completely but still substantially. I'd like to start with your main statement: "You are well aware that base research is not performed by corporate interest right?"
I find this to be a way too absolute statement, there are companies/commercial interests, private and semi-private interests (like universities) who do a significant amount of basic and fundamental scientific research either on their own or in conjunction with others be they other private enterprices, organisations, or the government.
But yes, U.S. governmental grants are an important source of funding for basic scientific research just like in other countries. I'm norwegian myself and a lot of norwegian scientists and academics wish they had as good a working relationship with the private sector as many U.S. universities have because it somewhat alleviates the bitter fight for governmental grants in relation to both fundamental science and, as you call it, technological refining (no, Norway is not a poor nation; it's the richest nation in Europe - but any government has to prioritize).
One can of course argue about the benefits and detriments of private funding of any kind of science but that is a long and seperate discussion.
In addition you seem to argue that basic science is more relevant than technological refinement into products/working solutions when it comes to addressing climate change. I say one without the other does us absolutely no good, I'll use the recent Slashdot topic "World's Largest Solar Array to use Stirling Engine" as an example http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/ 12/0047242&tid=232&tid=137. What good would it do if one only had the fundamental scientific research but not the technological refinement into a working prototype and product? Or if you had a working unit but no clue as to why it worked worse/better than other things? I'm sure you agree that both are needed and that both cost money, and in addition that the process of making those solar arrays using sterling engines was in all likelihood an iterative process including both fundamental and practical science and engineering. In addition as a at least partially private company they have a strong inherent incentive to be efficient and make a profit.
Btw how can you possibly say that technological innovation stopped in the U.S. during the seventies? The U.S. has been and continue to be a large source of both technological innovation and basic scientific research: american multinational companies aren't among the biggest by chance, neither are american universities among the most revered internationally by chance. This is not to say that things were dead in their tracks in other parts of the world, absolutely not. However if you are in doubt about these things then think of companies and industries like Xerox, IBM, Apple, pharmacautics etc. and have a look at the amount of peer-reviewed research published from the U.S. - all before, during, and after the seventies.
Your next argument is that a treaty drives scientific progress. Yes and no, it depends upon the treaty. It might provide incentives for the use of cleaner technology (this is after all what the Kyoto treaty attempts to do), which in turn might help drive scientific progress. However in my opinon Kyoto is not crafted in a way to actually achieve any of these things to a significant degree as it stands - but this is an extremely long discussion and I just realized that if I'm going to have to explain all the faults of the Kyoto treaty this is going to be an insanely long post. I do not believe the Kyoto treaty as it now stands will have any significant impact wheter or not the U.S. ratifies it, if one goes "the Kyoto way" the treaty will have to be much stricter and include China in a sensible way as well as developing nations (I think the link you gave from Wikipedia was very well writ
I quoted text to the same effect from both Lomborgs site (which I said should be taken with a grain of salt) as well as Wikipedia, the quoted text were largely identical in information. I recommended you read the whole Wikipedia entry. The quotes I made from Wikipedia were from both HAN as well as DSCD.
And all you do is come up with stuff like this?:
"...check it for yourself before spouting more corporate propaganda." - do you comprehend anything I've written?
"...an [sic] highly biased source (of course you "forgot" to mention the Wikipedia page was quoting that)." - a page I recommended you read in full... that's some excellent "hiding" on my part lol
"Lomborg's "exhoneration" came from a political body, not a scientific one. Furthermore, the main case for Lomborg was that his objective dishonesty was not sufficiently proven in the papers--i.e., it had not been excluded he was simply an ignorant fool. The incorrectness of his conclusions was never a topic in discussion." - are you talking about HAN or DSCD or perhaps both here? One of the quotes were attributed to DSCD at the Wikipedia entry; you do know what DSCD is and the role it played right? And do you realize just what you are saying with the last sentence? It is hard to believe you do...
"Lomborg taught a course in statistics, but that does not amount being a statistician. Bunches [sic] of professors in school teach history, and are not historians for that." - are you saying they teach history without having the faintest clue about history? More to the point: are you saying that an associate professor of statistics would be teaching statistics without having a clue about statistics?
"Quoting Lomborg's own website is plain useless, as the guy is just short of a compulsive liar." - I quoted nothing from his site that wasn't supported by Wikipedia, did you miss out on that? If this has triggered some sort of revision war at Wikipedia you can check the quotes in the post you replied to as well as in the Wikipedia revision history.
"I assume Kåre Fog's website is credible" - it seems you assume a whole lot of stuff, about him, about Lomborg, about me, and I'm sure it doesn't stop there.
Thank you for making me laugh:)
You obviously cherish lomborg-errors.dk since you link so much to it. Here is a collection of various critique and correspondence at Lomborgs site so that people can look at it from both sides: http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm
Unless something is done to either dramatically decrease the amount of bleeding from a would-be martian atmosphere or alternatively somehow manage to efficiently recycle the escaped atmosphere so that most of it just doesn't go riding on the solar wind out of the solar system, well, unless something like that is proposed and done it is hard to call it anything but waste. I don't mean waste in the sense that someone disagrees with it being worth doing in the first place, I mean waste as in throwing useful stuff away, and volatiles at that - the very stuff most in demand in any future space colonisation, planetary or not.
As for bias I guess one could call it that although it doesn't really say much about anything other than that you don't agree. I do have a preference for space habitats over terraforming, at least when it comes to the idea of terraforming mars, mainly because I see little logic in escaping a gravity well as a species just to plummet down into the next gravity well you come across.
However if one actually found a way to create a strong martian magnetosphere or similar I wouldn't have any objection to the idea although I would personally still prefer to stay out of the deep gravity wells if I got the choice:)
I wouldn't mind living on a self-sustained floating city/manmade island big enough to have it's own ecosystem and weathersystem, a space island which could position itself for as much free and clean energy as it wants until the sun dies out or there becomes so many of them as to form a rudimentary Dyson sphere.
I see no point in going into space solely to continue being a "planetary species".
And further, if we decide to do something then what has the highest likelihood of achieving that aim? A continued high rate of technological innovation governed largely by capitalistic incentives or a massive reduction of energy consuption based largely on treaties? Which will be the fastest and most effective in the long term outside of simply killing people or condemming them to live in squalid conditions?
The answer is probably a bit of both though technological innovation is the only way not to get stuck in a blind alley imho.
But why waste resources in this way? As many others have pointed out the synthetic atmosphere will bleed away. Yes it will happen over a very long timescale and can be offset by continuing to create the atmosphere but this will only ensure that even more resources are wasted unless one either finds a feasible way to strenghten the magnetosphere or something more esoteric. Why waste all that effort on a gravity well instead of using all those resources on (possibly quite large) space habitats which are not at the deep end of a gravity well? (The last argument holds true even if the atmosphere bleeding is stopped).
Btw you could still get your flying cheetahs if you so want to in a habitat:)
First of all the link he provided says that forest area is stable in industrialised countries and that in addition the volume of wood within this stable area is actually increasing in those countries. It then goes on to say that the situation is different in developing countries where about 0.8 percent is converted to agricultural use per year.
All this was in the first paragraph of text which you have obviously either not read or simply not understood.
You say: "The author is a CS professor..." but perhaps if you actually read his, John McCarthy's, statements they might not be in such contrast to your FAO link? If you read http://www.fao.org/forestry/foris/webview/forestry 2/index.jsp?siteId=101&sitetreeId=1191&langId=1&ge oId=0 there doesn't seem to be any outright contradictions as there is a positive net change in forest area in the non-tropics which would include most industrialised nations. Your link to lombog-errors.dk completely misses the point of what John McCarthy wrote as he goes as far back as to 1850 when talking about deforestation.
Anyway the author is not Bjørn Lomborg, nor is any of the links and references to him, even so you want him to be your scapegoat and so you write:
"...Bjørn Lomborg (who by the way has no knowledge of climatology nor statistics)..."
It's hard to take you seriously when you manage to be totally wrong about things that are so easy to check up on. Are you being willfully wrong? Your case would be better if you stopped injecting such nonsense.
First from his own site which should of course be taken with a few grains of salt. It has a biography at http://www.lomborg.com/biograph.htm: "Bjørn Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus." and of course it makes perfect sense that an assistant professor of statistics knows nil about statistics... (sarcasm).
Let's check with a source that strives for factual objectivity, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjorn_Lomborg: "He taught as an associate professor, lecturing in statistics, in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus." this too confirms that he ought to know a thing or two about statistics.
Read the Wikipedia article in full; it might surprise you and make you understand why some people dislike the decidedly unscientific attitude prevalent among many so-called environmentalists.
Choice quotes from the Wikipedia entry:
"12 March 2004: The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DSCD) have finally ended their case, rejecting the original complaints. They have decided that the original decision is invalid and has ended any further inquiry." i.e. they completely exhonerated Bjørn Lomberg.
"Having reached the conclusion that the concrete accusations against Lomborg largely don't hold, it is legitimate to question the approaches of Lomborg's opponents. Using some historical examples it is argued that almost all opponents use discussion tactics, which come very near to those of dogmatically driven pseudo-scientists"
So we have a guy who uses the knowledge he has in statistics to substansiate his scepticism about environmentalist claims, because of this he is more or less immediately hung out to dry and flamed by people who later on is caught with their pants down and their dicks in the pie -/* start sarcasm */ but oh! wait! Those are the good guys who think they're about the save the world, of course there is absolutely no way they could be misguided or *shudder* wrong, not in the least bit.../* end sarcasm */
This is a good point and there is a good solution: the originator/tracker-maintainer of the files should always have one or more super-seed slots running for the downloads, the old ones included, if (and only if) they decide to have the "back-catalog" on torrents.
Otherwise they should move old versions to http/ftp downloads.
This all does depend on the suave of the original distributer: I've seen lots of ugly use of bittorrents where the originator doesn't even super-seed (Zen linux comes to mind as a recent example, hopefully they've begun to do it right by now). For good quality use of bittorrent one doesn't just need to throw up a tracker, one also needs a real/official super-seeder so the torrent never dies.
Sorry but are you serious? Don't get me wrong I do understand your sentiment but don't compare the situation with downloading torrents with only a few thousand seeds or less.
To get a real feeling of how it would be I recommend trying out the Azureus bittorrent client, keep it around and fire it up when a new Azureus version has been released, then look at the speed with which it dowloads (through a torrent) the new version and self-updating/installing itself. It's blazingly fast when one has five-digit numbers of seeders and at least on my network the limiting factor becomes my local pipe-size and nothing else. And this even when I'm behind a router with NAT which I haven't poked a hole through for Azureus! (OT: fixing the router is on my todo-list of course).
Now imagine the same with Mozilla, Firefox, Open Office, and other similar large userbase F/OSS projects.
Want to increase the speed even further? Use the same bandwidth that would otherwise be used for fixed server2client downloads for torrent seeding instead as needed.
And I get ecstatic simply thinking about how it would be if at least the major F/OSS client software used something akin to Azureus' self-updating/installing (however that would not be good for server software which should not selfupdate in such a way).
Slightly off topic Azureus is the sweetest Java program I've ever come across, it has not been entirely flawless but it is getting close now, proving that Java can be "done right". And unless you're using the Safepeer plugin the startup is fast and smooth.
Back to the topic: once again Opera does something truly innovative, I recon the F/OSS community will see the beauty of the idea and be fast to do the same: a good idea is a good idea, no shame in using it. I hope to see this implemented in both Mozilla and Firefox since I use both, and I hope F/OSS also sees the ingenuity of the Azureus solution described above.
Do we want to leave IE7 dead on the start-line? Then integrate and make good use of bittorrent!
I've seen Screamers but I haven't read the P. K. Dick story (shame on me I know, everything he wrote that I haven't read yet is on my todo list). Anyway I highly recommend Screamers, it was very enjoyable. Afaik it is also one of the most true-to-the-book adaptations ever made and the differences that are there are imo added value (some hate the last twenty minutes while I think they follow a logical reasoning adding ambiguity I'm sure P. K. wouldn't neccessarily disapprove of). I'm confident P. K. would like Screamers better than any other of the movie adaptations.
So be prepared that the story wont be exactly the same and enjoy it for what it is.
Hopefully this is the beginning of reinventing the openness and availability of scientific knowledge and discourse.
What I really want to see is "transparent peer review" (a part of F/OSS methology these Open Access journals haven't implemented so far afaik). By that I mean that journals are willing to stick their neck out and publish the reviews they do in preparation for accepting or declining papers/articles (just like internal arguments in F/OSS projects can often be vieved by visiting the dev's mailing list/forum etc.). This would not only be a quality assurance measure but also educational on its own. It doesn't need to be long nor on the front page but it should be somewhere.
For those interested there are a lot of other open journals as well to be found at http://www.doaj.org/
Slashdot Mirror
I got the same "suspicious" for the same reasons (which is plain stupid) so for fun I tried the "Are you cracked?"-thingy at DShield but it's even worse as it logs failed torrent connections as "attacks" originating from my IP.
Do we need either? Are there anyone out there who actually uses this stuff for serious purposes?
If I am alive in June of 2015 I can look up at the stars and ponder the overall insignificance of a small number of bytes directly connected to me being close to Pluto rather than the overall insignificance of a (relatively) small number of molecules sitting on this planet and thinking about the bytes flying past Pluto.
:)
And if humanity implodes I guess at least my name survives until the probe crashes somewhere or is destroyed by vacuum ablation
And maybe, just maybe, in 50.000 years I'll be a small part of making somebody wonder what the hell was going on back on Earth 50.000 years ago XD
You're right and I agree after getting to watch the series.
:)
Thank you to you and the other repliers who made me check it out for myself
The replies I got made me get off my ass and actually find the series and watch it, and it was very different from both what I thought it might be as well as what I did think it wouldn't be (if that makes any kind of sense). You're right that it's nothing like those I compared it too (including any typical Hollywood production).
:)
It was enjoyable and I'm looking forward to the movie (and hopefully a future continuation of the series after that). I'm no super-fan but it's a lot better than most stuff.
Thanks for the reply/kick in the ass
That's fair enough although I do think we're talking past each other, at least slightly, as I did not intend to say that there can't be sexual or cultural differences in perception and cognition. Yesterday I read something somewhere on the net about a study comparing cultural differences in (visual) perception between white americans and chinese as well as chinese americans, sorry that I've forgot where it was - I would have provided a link if I did. I have no doubt there are plenty of such differences to be found which is a good thing that can enrich understanding, however I think it goes much further than that and that if studied closely enough one would be able to find huge differences in perception among individuals, maybe to such an extent that it lies at the core of individualism itself.
So my point was closer to what you mention in your last paragraph, the very high level of noise (both in communication but even more so in interpretation) in human languages -- which humorously we're both giving good examples of :). I do absolutely agree with you on the ambiguity and imprecision of human languages and perhaps I think it has even more noise than you do, at least when it comes to thoughts, emotions (try communicating those in predicate logic ;) ), and the like instead of empirical objects and actions. This is why I utterly disagree with notions of anyone "instinctivly" or "subconsciously" understanding others, at least if based on various types of language; it's more of a social behavioural effect than anything else in my opinon.
Now whether or not this noise problem can be beaten by being conscious about it, to which degree, and how often I do not know but I did try to moderate the statement because like you I have a gut feeling that it does indeed apply to a high degree even if one consciously tries to avoid or lessen it (the worst case scenario would be that everybody actually already tries to do this, although I think that is unlikely). All in all it's easy to understand why Wittgenstein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein changed his mind a few times :)
Just a parting thought in relation to all this for anyone to reflect upon: add translation between languages (let's say between chinese, arabic, and english, or between body language, written language, and speech) as an additional source of noise into all of this.
Interesting to see your comment about the drop in news quality. I only have BBC World News but I too do feel there has been a (perhaps slight) drop over the last year (at least that's the timeframe it took me to perceive it). Hopefully it is temporary although I do wonder what might be the cause.
What is entertaining is someone bothering to post anonymously to put up a facade typical of insecure little boys (I don't even think you intended to troll).
:)
Now you aren't ever likely to read this reply but I still can't help smiling condescendingly at your futile gesture as I'm sure plenty of others do as well, both on the net and in the real world
Hehe if I could I would give you a combined +2 funny and +2 insightful for that one :)
I would and I already do, at least I pay something to the BBC although it's not internet-specific per se. Yes I would be inclined to pay more, I'd even go so far as to be willing to pay a regular BBC license fee if no extra charges were levied on top of that for accessibility.
I'm tired so please excuse the rambling.
I get BBC World News as well as BBC Prime and BBC Food (hmm is that the correct name? I don't watch it that often) as part of my cable subscription (not US style cable with thousands of channels but only a handful or two, some of which I get to choose individually -- if one wants the US kind of overload one chooses to but a sattelite receiver instead here up north) and as far as I know the cable company pays a sum for those to the BBC. Oh and I intentionally chose the BBC package because CNN World Edition replaced BBC World News in the basic package and at the time I couldn't stand the idea of not being able to watch and listen to BBC World News (which I often leave on). Btw CNN World Edition isn't all that bad once one gets used to it although the american newscasters have an unfortunate tendency to look like plastic dolls from time to time lol. But they snatched Richard Quest from the BBC WN at some point, superb guy who isn't afraid to be himself.
To really go off the cliff regarding the topic; CNN WE beats BBC WN on the amount of live uncommented feeds on internal US policy matters like for example the full State of the Union address, various main news Congress hearings etc. while the BBC WN beats CNN WE on similar stuff more internationally inclined like open UN Security Council meetings and British stuff, mostly English politics like parliamental speeches and rows (which I usually enjoy a lot hehe). The two complement my anglophilic needs marvelously lol. As a peculiar sidenote CNN has a deal with ITV (ITN?) News which had better reporting than BBC WN in the aftermath of the latest London bombings.
Anyway back to the topic I believe I'm not alone or even rare in paying the BBC some money in this way, although it might not be much for BBC WN itself as they have about as many commercials as CNN WE. It's worth it simply for the mentual torture it inflicts me with if I ever watch how norwegian news (through public television or private) manage to completely butcher international news and who said what and how -- in other words a mixed blessing -- and especially to hear things directly from the horses mouth rather than some dumbed down, simplified, usually slightly (or very as the norwegian news would be) distorted, "analysis" by the newscasters themselves (I can do my own thinking thank you very much). Not that neither the BBC nor CNN is too horrible in their "value-added" stuff.
Of the things I would most dearly like to see the BBC make available on the net is every Hardtalk program ever made, there's a lot of excellent stuff hidden in that, and perhaps Panorama as well come to think of it.
And even if I'm inclined to pay I would hope that they actually released it for free, both for technical efficiency (torrents please - I'll seed until I'm blue in the face and then some) but also because
1. I think those who wouldn't be able to afford it should have access (a worldwide public service! think BBC World radio broadcasts)
2. I want to be able to reference whatever available so that others can watch it (for example in discussions) and if they have to pay up front it's just a pain in the ass
Anyway good luck BBC and may you succeed in every possible way.
And just a sidenote about commercials, if it can be done in a very unobtrusive manner (and I think Google has paved the way regarding unobtrusive advertising) I wouldn't mind it in the downloads. But it's not only what I find acceptable in this regard that counts but the extremely low threshold of pain among people in general on this subject. If that threshold is broken it will all fall apart in two seconds flat so it needs to be very (maybe even extremely) unobtrusive if done at all.
I just want to say that as someone who has had my share of bosses, I'm not impressed with people who mix up OS certifications with programming certifications. I find that many times they really have less understanding in the area that they are managing in than I'm comfortable with, and they have tended to make passing out directives rather than working with and understanding their employees their priority. On top of that, they seem to expect better pay than the good employees because they are bosses.
I understand that this is the universal trend in the industry.
;)
Seriously though, you are completely correct that certifications on their own isn't much good and that some of the people taking them somehow delude themselves as to how smart and experienced they are. However if you were to hire an unknown sysadmin/netadmin with knowledge of a particular OS or network equipment you wouldn't mind seeing that they've actually at least taken some relevant certifications because unlike in programming it isn't that easy for them to really show you their knowledge in a reasonable amount of time. The certifications are simply a way to have a third party back up any applicants claims to a certain level.
Hmm once again I find myself in possible disagreement with you and in the same thread nonetheless! Hope you don't mind too much, it's not personal :)
Anyway, would not most soap operas fit the bill as a "realistic drama" type show where the female characters are generally at least slightly smarter? I haven't seen many but remember seeing episodes with my mother of Dynasty (correct name?), and Falcon Crest which had plenty of strong female characters that outwitted the men in all sorts of fashions (my mom loved Alexis (lol scary) and whatever the female top boss was named in Falcon Crest). Maybe it is a function of those shows having a lot of female viewers and as such catering to them or the other way around (although these examples are above the ordinary ilk of soap operas and were shown during evening "prime time" when they were fresh - at least here in Norway - i.e. lots of men watched them as well).
I don't watch all that much tv but even though every CSI version has a male top dog there are plenty of smart intelligent female characters in those, a fairly egalitarian distrubition both on the good side and the bad. Same can be said (or even more so) about The 4400 series imo. Yes I know CSI isn't strictly speaking realistic and that The 4400 is far far away from it but the characters themselves and their personalities are realistic enough.
What about Martha Stewarts version of The Apprentice? (I haven't seen any of it myself but I've heard about it). Sex in the city? Not exactly realistic perhaps but isn't the whole concept there a group of "get-go" women? (I've just seen it briefly while channelsurfing). Whatever that female judge series is called? (or isn't there more than one?). Cold Case has an extremely intelligent female cop as the top dop (and is a nice series to boot). Ally McBeal (sp?) - yes drifting off into the unrealistic here... Alias? The psychic female investigator show, whatever it is called? Buffy? (decidedly unrealistic now, but still).
I think the list could go on, my point is that there should be plenty of shows where females characters in some way play roles that are smarter than "the men", and across the whole width of shows from highly realistic to complete fantasy. And I would say that these shows have plenty of stupid men in them.
I can't think of any show where absolutely all the men are slobbering dimwits but then again I can't think of any show where the same applies to women. However I can think of plenty where either (or even both sexes) are portrayed as, or actually are, nothing but dimwitted "sexual objects" (or at least intended to be "sexy") cue "reality tv".
I guess my point of contention is the not too uncommon focus on men having to be portrayed as dumber in order to refute the argument being made about "whatever" (uaually some claptrap ramblings about every woman being a slave unless so-and-so, which, interestingly enough, is usually the proponents of whatever argument shooting themselves in the foot by dismissing all the examples to the contrary up through history - especially the last centuries). It's not really an honest way to portray things, nor particularily efficient as it easily becomes anti-male rather than pro-female or pro-egalitarian.
Perhaps men tend to "go formalistic" and women tend to "just make-believe" but if so (and I don't believe it myself) then isn't that just a perfect example of "conveniently" removing a question rather than actually thinking about it?
"because they (the women) are used to being easily able to pick up these subtle hints themselves at a subconscious level"
Sorry but I find this to be 100% total bullshit (just like the "news"), nobody understands nobody else instinctively - they just think they do. It's just a matter of having enough similar assumptions in the lower level inner workings of the indivduals thought: people who have similar interpreations of similar experiences tend to "instinctively" understand each other although they of course do nothing of the sort; they simply jump to the same conclusions in the same manners (and usually when they find they were wrong in those assumptions and "instinct" they fool themselves into believing otherwise).
This is exactly what happens in "male bonding" or any situation where you get to know a person close enough for long enough. Experience enough with said person and you will have enough "data" (common experiences) to "know" things (or at least think you do). Even with a very big amount of data (like living with someone for years and years) there will be the possibility of new "surprises" both because people change and because the generalisations one has based the interpretations on are just that: generalisations rather than constant reflection and dessication of though.
It is also the reason why people have a hard time understanding those with contrary opinions and tend to behave like sheep. To avoid this not only does one have to identify every presumption and assumption one makes and convey this clearly to explain ones own reasoning, but in addition the majority of opposing opinions involved have to do the same and everybody has to be willing to do it this way. Language (speech, written, body, or otherwise implied) and other "cues" is a seriously imprecise method of communication when these things are simply glossed over (for examples read any media reporting on anything from any perspective or see the ususal Slashdot flamefests on anything (or at least anything remotely political)).
The above does not neccessarily apply when people actually spend some time to actually think and reflect, but that is uncommon enough during public discourse in society as a whole to be valid in statistical generalisations (and such generalisations are usually worthless anyway - que the "news").
One of the primary reasons why this "real communication" is so rare should be obvious: it's very timeconsuming and most people aren't that interested in "whatever" even if it concerns a husband, wife, family, or friends - they just want to feel "ok" and in an environment where they don't have to bother too much while still feeling "appreciated" and "understood".
Anyway, when people don't "get" each other and are bewildered and confused they usually either get uncomfortable and shy away or blame it on whatever scapegoat is socially acceptable within their frame of reference i.e. "men are insensitive", "women are bitches", "Bush is Hitler", "commie liberals" or any other such mindless crap we all use intermittently.
All the above applies to me as well of course - I'm not that different.
You seem to have been spared non-technical managers who spend all their time on toys! They are the worst and completely worthless, what is even worse is that they are close to being the definition of middle-management! *resists temptation to name people even if I don't work for them anymore* Not that there's any lack of doofuses in upper management either... however a few of the good ones are worth the company buildings weight in gold.
It's my experience that if you get a woman as a boss or manager in an otherwise typically male-dominated profession (ICT, military, law, etc.) you have a greater than average chance of getting a superb boss/manager/leader because they've had to fight tooth and nail to prove their real value, and they had to do so on merit rather than hear-say and dirty tricks.
If it is in a woman in a female-dominated profession your are overly likely to get just the same as with men in a male-dominated one: an absolute asshole/bitch - shit that floats - someone who has used all their dirty tricks to achieve a position.
By greater than average chance I mean that it's slightly more likely for a woman to be a great boss in those situations than it is to find a man who is a great boss - however both are sadly much less common than getting a bad leader no matter what sex.
To a lesser extent this also applies in the other direction as well; the ratio of good vs. poor workers is slightly better for women than men in ICT.
These opinions are of course subject to my personal experience and might not be true at all. It could be that I'm overestimating because there are so few women in the professions I'm thinking of and that this makes them stand out disporportionally when they are really good (then again I've met clueless women in these professions as well both as workers and bosses).
Time for me to loose some karma!
I watched the trailer (I haven't seen any of the episodes) and this looks like everything I thought silly and degrading to the story in the Matrix movies, everything I hate about Star Wars and Star Trek (wow watch that karma burn). It looked mindlessly stupid filled with corny one-liners, "sexy" bitches and studs that "kick ass". I mean how much more Hollywood can you get?
Now all those things considered it might not be a terrible movie, it might be a fun watch and I don't hate Hollywood, but from all the (Slashdot) hype I was hoping for something at least slightly cerebral (which is stupid of me since this is Slashdot after all).
That's the bottom line: I thought it would be in some regard something else than a sci-fi-themed slugfest. Anyone at all please feel free to correct me if I'm totally wrong.
I respecfully disagree with you, not completely but still substantially. I'd like to start with your main statement:
"You are well aware that base research is not performed by corporate interest right?"
I find this to be a way too absolute statement, there are companies/commercial interests, private and semi-private interests (like universities) who do a significant amount of basic and fundamental scientific research either on their own or in conjunction with others be they other private enterprices, organisations, or the government.
But yes, U.S. governmental grants are an important source of funding for basic scientific research just like in other countries. I'm norwegian myself and a lot of norwegian scientists and academics wish they had as good a working relationship with the private sector as many U.S. universities have because it somewhat alleviates the bitter fight for governmental grants in relation to both fundamental science and, as you call it, technological refining (no, Norway is not a poor nation; it's the richest nation in Europe - but any government has to prioritize).
One can of course argue about the benefits and detriments of private funding of any kind of science but that is a long and seperate discussion.
In addition you seem to argue that basic science is more relevant than technological refinement into products/working solutions when it comes to addressing climate change. I say one without the other does us absolutely no good, I'll use the recent Slashdot topic "World's Largest Solar Array to use Stirling Engine" as an example http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/ 12/0047242&tid=232&tid=137. What good would it do if one only had the fundamental scientific research but not the technological refinement into a working prototype and product? Or if you had a working unit but no clue as to why it worked worse/better than other things? I'm sure you agree that both are needed and that both cost money, and in addition that the process of making those solar arrays using sterling engines was in all likelihood an iterative process including both fundamental and practical science and engineering. In addition as a at least partially private company they have a strong inherent incentive to be efficient and make a profit.
Btw how can you possibly say that technological innovation stopped in the U.S. during the seventies? The U.S. has been and continue to be a large source of both technological innovation and basic scientific research: american multinational companies aren't among the biggest by chance, neither are american universities among the most revered internationally by chance. This is not to say that things were dead in their tracks in other parts of the world, absolutely not. However if you are in doubt about these things then think of companies and industries like Xerox, IBM, Apple, pharmacautics etc. and have a look at the amount of peer-reviewed research published from the U.S. - all before, during, and after the seventies.
Your next argument is that a treaty drives scientific progress. Yes and no, it depends upon the treaty. It might provide incentives for the use of cleaner technology (this is after all what the Kyoto treaty attempts to do), which in turn might help drive scientific progress. However in my opinon Kyoto is not crafted in a way to actually achieve any of these things to a significant degree as it stands - but this is an extremely long discussion and I just realized that if I'm going to have to explain all the faults of the Kyoto treaty this is going to be an insanely long post. I do not believe the Kyoto treaty as it now stands will have any significant impact wheter or not the U.S. ratifies it, if one goes "the Kyoto way" the treaty will have to be much stricter and include China in a sensible way as well as developing nations (I think the link you gave from Wikipedia was very well writ
Lol!
I quoted text to the same effect from both Lomborgs site (which I said should be taken with a grain of salt) as well as Wikipedia, the quoted text were largely identical in information. I recommended you read the whole Wikipedia entry. The quotes I made from Wikipedia were from both HAN as well as DSCD.
And all you do is come up with stuff like this?:
"...check it for yourself before spouting more corporate propaganda." - do you comprehend anything I've written?
"...an [sic] highly biased source (of course you "forgot" to mention the Wikipedia page was quoting that)." - a page I recommended you read in full... that's some excellent "hiding" on my part lol
"Lomborg's "exhoneration" came from a political body, not a scientific one. Furthermore, the main case for Lomborg was that his objective dishonesty was not sufficiently proven in the papers--i.e., it had not been excluded he was simply an ignorant fool. The incorrectness of his conclusions was never a topic in discussion." - are you talking about HAN or DSCD or perhaps both here? One of the quotes were attributed to DSCD at the Wikipedia entry; you do know what DSCD is and the role it played right? And do you realize just what you are saying with the last sentence? It is hard to believe you do...
"Lomborg taught a course in statistics, but that does not amount being a statistician. Bunches [sic] of professors in school teach history, and are not historians for that." - are you saying they teach history without having the faintest clue about history? More to the point: are you saying that an associate professor of statistics would be teaching statistics without having a clue about statistics?
"Quoting Lomborg's own website is plain useless, as the guy is just short of a compulsive liar." - I quoted nothing from his site that wasn't supported by Wikipedia, did you miss out on that? If this has triggered some sort of revision war at Wikipedia you can check the quotes in the post you replied to as well as in the Wikipedia revision history.
"I assume Kåre Fog's website is credible" - it seems you assume a whole lot of stuff, about him, about Lomborg, about me, and I'm sure it doesn't stop there.
Thank you for making me laugh :)
You obviously cherish lomborg-errors.dk since you link so much to it. Here is a collection of various critique and correspondence at Lomborgs site so that people can look at it from both sides: http://www.lomborg.com/critique.htm
Unless something is done to either dramatically decrease the amount of bleeding from a would-be martian atmosphere or alternatively somehow manage to efficiently recycle the escaped atmosphere so that most of it just doesn't go riding on the solar wind out of the solar system, well, unless something like that is proposed and done it is hard to call it anything but waste. I don't mean waste in the sense that someone disagrees with it being worth doing in the first place, I mean waste as in throwing useful stuff away, and volatiles at that - the very stuff most in demand in any future space colonisation, planetary or not.
As for bias I guess one could call it that although it doesn't really say much about anything other than that you don't agree. I do have a preference for space habitats over terraforming, at least when it comes to the idea of terraforming mars, mainly because I see little logic in escaping a gravity well as a species just to plummet down into the next gravity well you come across.
However if one actually found a way to create a strong martian magnetosphere or similar I wouldn't have any objection to the idea although I would personally still prefer to stay out of the deep gravity wells if I got the choice :)
I wouldn't mind living on a self-sustained floating city/manmade island big enough to have it's own ecosystem and weathersystem, a space island which could position itself for as much free and clean energy as it wants until the sun dies out or there becomes so many of them as to form a rudimentary Dyson sphere.
I see no point in going into space solely to continue being a "planetary species".
A possible starting point included for your conveniance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_habitat
Aim for the high ground :)
Well put.
And further, if we decide to do something then what has the highest likelihood of achieving that aim? A continued high rate of technological innovation governed largely by capitalistic incentives or a massive reduction of energy consuption based largely on treaties? Which will be the fastest and most effective in the long term outside of simply killing people or condemming them to live in squalid conditions?
The answer is probably a bit of both though technological innovation is the only way not to get stuck in a blind alley imho.
But why waste resources in this way? As many others have pointed out the synthetic atmosphere will bleed away. Yes it will happen over a very long timescale and can be offset by continuing to create the atmosphere but this will only ensure that even more resources are wasted unless one either finds a feasible way to strenghten the magnetosphere or something more esoteric. Why waste all that effort on a gravity well instead of using all those resources on (possibly quite large) space habitats which are not at the deep end of a gravity well? (The last argument holds true even if the atmosphere bleeding is stopped).
:)
Btw you could still get your flying cheetahs if you so want to in a habitat
First of all the link he provided says that forest area is stable in industrialised countries and that in addition the volume of wood within this stable area is actually increasing in those countries. It then goes on to say that the situation is different in developing countries where about 0.8 percent is converted to agricultural use per year.
All this was in the first paragraph of text which you have obviously either not read or simply not understood.
You say: "The author is a CS professor..." but perhaps if you actually read his, John McCarthy's, statements they might not be in such contrast to your FAO link? If you read http://www.fao.org/forestry/foris/webview/forestry 2/index.jsp?siteId=101&sitetreeId=1191&langId=1&ge oId=0 there doesn't seem to be any outright contradictions as there is a positive net change in forest area in the non-tropics which would include most industrialised nations. Your link to lombog-errors.dk completely misses the point of what John McCarthy wrote as he goes as far back as to 1850 when talking about deforestation.
Anyway the author is not Bjørn Lomborg, nor is any of the links and references to him, even so you want him to be your scapegoat and so you write:
"...Bjørn Lomborg (who by the way has no knowledge of climatology nor statistics)..."
It's hard to take you seriously when you manage to be totally wrong about things that are so easy to check up on. Are you being willfully wrong? Your case would be better if you stopped injecting such nonsense.
First from his own site which should of course be taken with a few grains of salt. It has a biography at http://www.lomborg.com/biograph.htm:
"Bjørn Lomborg is an associate professor of statistics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus." and of course it makes perfect sense that an assistant professor of statistics knows nil about statistics... (sarcasm).
Let's check with a source that strives for factual objectivity, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjorn_Lomborg:
"He taught as an associate professor, lecturing in statistics, in the Department of Political Science at the University of Aarhus." this too confirms that he ought to know a thing or two about statistics.
Read the Wikipedia article in full; it might surprise you and make you understand why some people dislike the decidedly unscientific attitude prevalent among many so-called environmentalists.
Choice quotes from the Wikipedia entry:
"12 March 2004: The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DSCD) have finally ended their case, rejecting the original complaints. They have decided that the original decision is invalid and has ended any further inquiry." i.e. they completely exhonerated Bjørn Lomberg.
"Having reached the conclusion that the concrete accusations against Lomborg largely don't hold, it is legitimate to question the approaches of Lomborg's opponents. Using some historical examples it is argued that almost all opponents use discussion tactics, which come very near to those of dogmatically driven pseudo-scientists"
So we have a guy who uses the knowledge he has in statistics to substansiate his scepticism about environmentalist claims, because of this he is more or less immediately hung out to dry and flamed by people who later on is caught with their pants down and their dicks in the pie - /* start sarcasm */ but oh! wait! Those are the good guys who think they're about the save the world, of course there is absolutely no way they could be misguided or *shudder* wrong, not in the least bit... /* end sarcasm */
Lol your grandma sounds cool.
This is a good point and there is a good solution: the originator/tracker-maintainer of the files should always have one or more super-seed slots running for the downloads, the old ones included, if (and only if) they decide to have the "back-catalog" on torrents.
Otherwise they should move old versions to http/ftp downloads.
This all does depend on the suave of the original distributer: I've seen lots of ugly use of bittorrents where the originator doesn't even super-seed (Zen linux comes to mind as a recent example, hopefully they've begun to do it right by now). For good quality use of bittorrent one doesn't just need to throw up a tracker, one also needs a real/official super-seeder so the torrent never dies.
Sorry but are you serious? Don't get me wrong I do understand your sentiment but don't compare the situation with downloading torrents with only a few thousand seeds or less.
To get a real feeling of how it would be I recommend trying out the Azureus bittorrent client, keep it around and fire it up when a new Azureus version has been released, then look at the speed with which it dowloads (through a torrent) the new version and self-updating/installing itself. It's blazingly fast when one has five-digit numbers of seeders and at least on my network the limiting factor becomes my local pipe-size and nothing else. And this even when I'm behind a router with NAT which I haven't poked a hole through for Azureus! (OT: fixing the router is on my todo-list of course).
Now imagine the same with Mozilla, Firefox, Open Office, and other similar large userbase F/OSS projects.
Want to increase the speed even further? Use the same bandwidth that would otherwise be used for fixed server2client downloads for torrent seeding instead as needed.
And I get ecstatic simply thinking about how it would be if at least the major F/OSS client software used something akin to Azureus' self-updating/installing (however that would not be good for server software which should not selfupdate in such a way).
Slightly off topic Azureus is the sweetest Java program I've ever come across, it has not been entirely flawless but it is getting close now, proving that Java can be "done right". And unless you're using the Safepeer plugin the startup is fast and smooth.
Back to the topic: once again Opera does something truly innovative, I recon the F/OSS community will see the beauty of the idea and be fast to do the same: a good idea is a good idea, no shame in using it. I hope to see this implemented in both Mozilla and Firefox since I use both, and I hope F/OSS also sees the ingenuity of the Azureus solution described above.
Do we want to leave IE7 dead on the start-line? Then integrate and make good use of bittorrent!
I've seen Screamers but I haven't read the P. K. Dick story (shame on me I know, everything he wrote that I haven't read yet is on my todo list). Anyway I highly recommend Screamers, it was very enjoyable. Afaik it is also one of the most true-to-the-book adaptations ever made and the differences that are there are imo added value (some hate the last twenty minutes while I think they follow a logical reasoning adding ambiguity I'm sure P. K. wouldn't neccessarily disapprove of). I'm confident P. K. would like Screamers better than any other of the movie adaptations.
So be prepared that the story wont be exactly the same and enjoy it for what it is.
Hear hear!
Hopefully this is the beginning of reinventing the openness and availability of scientific knowledge and discourse.
What I really want to see is "transparent peer review" (a part of F/OSS methology these Open Access journals haven't implemented so far afaik). By that I mean that journals are willing to stick their neck out and publish the reviews they do in preparation for accepting or declining papers/articles (just like internal arguments in F/OSS projects can often be vieved by visiting the dev's mailing list/forum etc.). This would not only be a quality assurance measure but also educational on its own. It doesn't need to be long nor on the front page but it should be somewhere.
For those interested there are a lot of other open journals as well to be found at http://www.doaj.org/