In total, the software for Second Life comprises five gigabytes of source code, according to Joe Miller, Linden's vice president for platform and technology development.
Is this a joke? I doubt that even if you include every texture and animation and sound file in what they call "source code " that it would be this much. Smells fishy.
We should have some kind of limit on immigration. It might be a very high limit, but there should be a limit because otherwise there would be a billion more people here overnight, and no economy can adapt that many people so quickly.
Haha. You seem to be under the assumption that the world envies your country. Maybe the less developed parts...
And in the 70's we were "observing" climate change cooling down we were told by scientists. And it was non-disputable then.
It is interesting to see how the media produced this global cooling myth. There was no global cooling theory in the seventies, and that's just the theory. No cooling was observed at all! You weren't "told" by the scientists! That is a nice touch how you add "non-disputable then", shows that you're making stuff up to make your argument seem more plausible.
Currently, we're observing that the planet is warming up. That is a simple fact. No scientific dispute.
To this observation, you can match models, to explain why the warming occurs. That is the theory. No scientific dispute exist about the theory either, that the warming is caused by human activities, specifically because of the burning of fossil fuels.
No reasonable human being can argue about the observation and if you want to argue about the theory, to explain the reason of the warming, you need to satisfy the scientific scrutiny.
"Why should I allow my body or my children to be filled with man-made chemicals, when I don't know what the health effects of these substances will be."
expert says:
Dr John Hoskins, toxicologist: "Away from the high doses of occupational exposure a whole host of unwanted chemicals finds its way into our bodies all the time. Most leave quickly but some stay: asbestos and silica in our lungs, dioxins in our blood. The most important thing is dose: one aspirin cures a headache, a hundred kills. The chemical baggage we carry is very small. It is only because of the great advances in analytical chemistry that we are able to detect it's there at all."
Yes, the body has a certain tolerance against synthetical chemicals, otherwise we wouldn't be here today, but that doesn't mean that certain chemicals you encounter in food, etc. doesn't have a bad effect on the body. In some cases we just don't know yet, and I believe this is what the celeb was saying.
Celeb says:
"We cannot go on force-feeding animals chemicals and growth stimulants the way we are. Why do you think cancer is roaring ahead at the moment?
expert says:
Prof John Toy, medical director, Cancer Research UK: "Cancer is not 'roaring ahead'. It is more common because mostly people are living longer. "It is essential that 'cancer-causing' claims are based only on scientifically proven facts, not scaremongering. There is no definitive evidence that controlled food additives cause cancer. We do know that half of cancers are caused by lifestyle factors such as being overweight."
The Celeb wasn't talking about food additives, but chemicals the animals receive and that is scientifically proven to cause problems. For example the documentary, "The Corporation", has a lengthy segment about harm caused by synthetic chemicals as told by an expert - Samuel Epstein (professor emeritus of environmental medicine, university of Illinois). The relevant example shown is the case with the Monsanto drug posilac. That drug is increasing the milk production of cows, at the expense of immense suffering on behalf of the cows and as it turned out it posed a health hazard to humans aswell. Although this is not an example of 'cancer', the prof specifically mentioned the history of synthetic chemicals. At first warning signs and then data emerged about the unintended consequences of the petrochemical era, that some of the chemicals that permiated through the food chain produce cancer, birth defects and other toxic effects.
I almost crashed a few days ago because of the difference. I was driving slightly above speed limit like everyone else, it was already early evening so it was dark already and suddenly people realized that the police were using a speedtrap by the road. People hit the brakes and it resulted nearly in multiple collisions.
Fine, if you want to openly break the law, à la Thoreau, as a form of protest, you have my respect. However, if you're breaking the law just because you feel like it, that's another story.
If I break a law I either do it accidentally or because I think it is not right. I guess the latter is a mixture of disregard of the law and protest, the ratio depends on the particular law.
In this particular case, there are the conflicting ideas. The law says, you can't smoke weed but the person wants to smoke weed presumably because it feels good. Now I believe that the human instinct is to do a risk assessment first: is it worth for me to violate the law for this thing (harshness of punishment, chance of being caught, etc.)? Now after this, people might start contemplating on whether it is in line with their morals to break this particular law. If they find that that smoking weed is worth both the risk and it is okay by their inner moral compass, then they'll go smoke weed.
I support those people breaking the law, because I think that the law is bad, not the action of those people. I don't think it matters why those people are breaking the law, the only thing that matters if the law is good or not. I guess I believe that laws shouldn't be upheld just because they are laws, I believe there has to be some rationality behind them, either moral or survival value.
As a personal note I'd add that I don't smoke anything, don't drink too much alcohol and use moderation in sugar, coffeine and chocolate. I personally regard people who do any of it excessively as irrational. They are all poison in large quantities. But I don't see anything wrong with people wanting to wreck their own body or lives as long as it doesn't affect others.
Back to the topic, I remember reading in the biography of John Nash, that he was fired from RAND for his homosexual tendencies, along with some other people, while in fact some of those people were completely open about it. The policy was to get rid of homosexuals, but there was no proper risk assessment done, if there is any blackmail potential to it, etc. The McCarthy era witchhunts did more harm than good and same applies to not properly evaluating the risk of blackmail or ideological cooperation.
However, it is illegal, so someone who smokes pot is already showing that they have a penchant for ignoring laws that they don't think apply to them.
I don't think there is a living adult person in the USA that hasn't broken a law yet. I would think that at least a huge percentage of the population breaks them on a regular basis (and please think in the broad sense - I don't mean just drug use).
The fact is, the legal system is not ideal, and that is an understatement. If it is not ideal, not all laws should be followed like lemmings, after all the law is for the people and not the other way around.
Laws are essentially codified behaviour rules, and behaviour rules stem from increasing the stability/success of a population and as well as from morals, which stem from the evolutionary advantage presented by cooperative, but grudge-bearing (in case of lack of cooperation) behaviour.
So basically, the simple fact is that breaking a law in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is useful to have the public think that, as it leads to a better enforcement of the law, which, if the law is alright leads to a more stable society. But, a balance must be struck, because as we established the law is not ideal, so it means there are bad laws. Now in order to fix those laws, we need to either get rid of them or rewrite them, but the process of recognizing and disobeying a law upon personal judgement or "morals" helps this process. So basically you want the population to generally obey laws, but also apply their personal judgement to help the process of improving the laws. This has to be done continously, as time passes the moral Zeitgeist of the previous era gets overwritten by the new moral rules and laws have to reflect that.
Having extreme right guy marked as foe? Yes.
Getting shivers from the thought of viewing the world as a huge liberal conspiracy? Yes.
Reading a post by the aforementioned guy in which his beliefs dominate what he sees? Priceless.
I would mod up parent if I could, as it perfectly catches the gist of the problem. The profanity is there to hilight the seriousness of what people who believe in democracy face. Anyone who belittles the problem by political correct weaselwords does a disservice and does not contribute to the/a solution.
Not knowing the source code for a voting machine is the equivalent to saying "a miracle happens here" at a critical part in a mathematical proof. Completely utterly unnaceptable.
The original link I gave deals with the criticism issue. Amongst other things, even if Iraq would be the healthiest nation in the world, the death certificates are still only recorded for 10% of the deaths.
Don't confuse the IBC with any serious academic organization. They do not do serious academic work. The statisticians back the report that was presented in the Lancet.
You didn't seriously think, that the IBC method with the two reputable news source requirement for the verification of every casualty gives a realistic number in the times when even a huge explosion killing 60 people is just a footnote in the news lately? The IBC number is the absolute minimum number of proven casualties, the realistic number is many times more as a.) shown from the Lancet study b.) being extrapolated from the IBC number assuming that most deaths never get reported. The Lancet study and the IBC numbers are in agreement over the most likely number of casualties if you think about it a little. The 655k figure is more than realistic. Political sides and pro/anti war sides have no relevance here, given that the IBC has an agenda too, to protect it's own results. They have good results, but they decided to misinterpret it. Instead of treating it as a minimum number, they are using it as an approximation or even as a maximum. Stupid.
As for sampling from the most violent areas, that's just not true. The study is statistically sound.
I'd add that pools of water on ice ("stripes") makes a runaway process. Water absorbs drastically more heat than ice. I think this effect was featured in the Inconvenient Truth aswell, when large sections of ice melted in a single season because of this process.
We had global warming 30 years ago? I thought we were all supposed to fear global cooling back then.
Go thank the press for that. Scientists didn't say that there is global cooling, the press conjured the "theory" up.
What is the frequency of such events?
Note, this is scientists speaking. When they say "this is the largest event of its kind in 30 years", it is NOT equivalent with saying "last time an event like this happened was 30 years ago". They are only saying, that from the events in the last 30 years, this is the largest so far. They don't say anything about what happened 32, 35 or 3500 years ago, because they might not have the data to confirm that such event like this DIDN'T happen. It is entirely possible that such event didn't happen in the last 2000 years, but then you have to verify or falsify this assumption with evidence.
To add to the local anecdotes, Europe experiences one of the ever recorded warmest winters so far. The weather resembled something close to what you'd expect in October a few weeks ago, and even though its getting colder now, my family spent christmas in disbelief at the lack of snow and warm weather.
I remember my grandparents telling me stories about the huge snow year after year at winter, how they were walking/going somewhere in 50cm snow, etc. In the last couple of years we barely had any amount of snow and I can't remember a time when we had more than 20cm.
That's almost correct. Floating ice melting can change water levels slightly when the ice that melts differs from the water. These big ice shelves are freshwater, while the water around them is seawater. The differences between the two kind can shut down currents and change water levels.
Slashdot Mirror
Prediction and observation.
Currently, we're observing that the planet is warming up. That is a simple fact. No scientific dispute.
To this observation, you can match models, to explain why the warming occurs. That is the theory. No scientific dispute exist about the theory either, that the warming is caused by human activities, specifically because of the burning of fossil fuels.
No reasonable human being can argue about the observation and if you want to argue about the theory, to explain the reason of the warming, you need to satisfy the scientific scrutiny.
You live in Royston Vasey?
Hey, religion claims prior art! Now you owe 1 billion dollars to the catholic church!
Celeb says: expert says: Yes, the body has a certain tolerance against synthetical chemicals, otherwise we wouldn't be here today, but that doesn't mean that certain chemicals you encounter in food, etc. doesn't have a bad effect on the body. In some cases we just don't know yet, and I believe this is what the celeb was saying.
Celeb says: expert says: The Celeb wasn't talking about food additives, but chemicals the animals receive and that is scientifically proven to cause problems. For example the documentary, "The Corporation", has a lengthy segment about harm caused by synthetic chemicals as told by an expert - Samuel Epstein (professor emeritus of environmental medicine, university of Illinois). The relevant example shown is the case with the Monsanto drug posilac. That drug is increasing the milk production of cows, at the expense of immense suffering on behalf of the cows and as it turned out it posed a health hazard to humans aswell. Although this is not an example of 'cancer', the prof specifically mentioned the history of synthetic chemicals. At first warning signs and then data emerged about the unintended consequences of the petrochemical era, that some of the chemicals that permiated through the food chain produce cancer, birth defects and other toxic effects.
The way spam disappeared by the end of 2006?
That is a very good point.
I almost crashed a few days ago because of the difference. I was driving slightly above speed limit like everyone else, it was already early evening so it was dark already and suddenly people realized that the police were using a speedtrap by the road. People hit the brakes and it resulted nearly in multiple collisions.
In this particular case, there are the conflicting ideas. The law says, you can't smoke weed but the person wants to smoke weed presumably because it feels good. Now I believe that the human instinct is to do a risk assessment first: is it worth for me to violate the law for this thing (harshness of punishment, chance of being caught, etc.)? Now after this, people might start contemplating on whether it is in line with their morals to break this particular law. If they find that that smoking weed is worth both the risk and it is okay by their inner moral compass, then they'll go smoke weed.
I support those people breaking the law, because I think that the law is bad, not the action of those people. I don't think it matters why those people are breaking the law, the only thing that matters if the law is good or not. I guess I believe that laws shouldn't be upheld just because they are laws, I believe there has to be some rationality behind them, either moral or survival value.
As a personal note I'd add that I don't smoke anything, don't drink too much alcohol and use moderation in sugar, coffeine and chocolate. I personally regard people who do any of it excessively as irrational. They are all poison in large quantities. But I don't see anything wrong with people wanting to wreck their own body or lives as long as it doesn't affect others.
Err, You must be new here!
Back to the topic, I remember reading in the biography of John Nash, that he was fired from RAND for his homosexual tendencies, along with some other people, while in fact some of those people were completely open about it. The policy was to get rid of homosexuals, but there was no proper risk assessment done, if there is any blackmail potential to it, etc. The McCarthy era witchhunts did more harm than good and same applies to not properly evaluating the risk of blackmail or ideological cooperation.
The fact is, the legal system is not ideal, and that is an understatement. If it is not ideal, not all laws should be followed like lemmings, after all the law is for the people and not the other way around.
Laws are essentially codified behaviour rules, and behaviour rules stem from increasing the stability/success of a population and as well as from morals, which stem from the evolutionary advantage presented by cooperative, but grudge-bearing (in case of lack of cooperation) behaviour.
So basically, the simple fact is that breaking a law in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is useful to have the public think that, as it leads to a better enforcement of the law, which, if the law is alright leads to a more stable society. But, a balance must be struck, because as we established the law is not ideal, so it means there are bad laws. Now in order to fix those laws, we need to either get rid of them or rewrite them, but the process of recognizing and disobeying a law upon personal judgement or "morals" helps this process. So basically you want the population to generally obey laws, but also apply their personal judgement to help the process of improving the laws. This has to be done continously, as time passes the moral Zeitgeist of the previous era gets overwritten by the new moral rules and laws have to reflect that.
So polygraph is a very expensive baseball bat?
"It would be a shame if something were to happen with your kneecaps..."
Having extreme right guy marked as foe? Yes.
Getting shivers from the thought of viewing the world as a huge liberal conspiracy? Yes.
Reading a post by the aforementioned guy in which his beliefs dominate what he sees? Priceless.
I would mod up parent if I could, as it perfectly catches the gist of the problem. The profanity is there to hilight the seriousness of what people who believe in democracy face. Anyone who belittles the problem by political correct weaselwords does a disservice and does not contribute to the/a solution.
Not knowing the source code for a voting machine is the equivalent to saying "a miracle happens here" at a critical part in a mathematical proof. Completely utterly unnaceptable.
The original link I gave deals with the criticism issue. Amongst other things, even if Iraq would be the healthiest nation in the world, the death certificates are still only recorded for 10% of the deaths.
Don't confuse the IBC with any serious academic organization. They do not do serious academic work. The statisticians back the report that was presented in the Lancet.
You didn't seriously think, that the IBC method with the two reputable news source requirement for the verification of every casualty gives a realistic number in the times when even a huge explosion killing 60 people is just a footnote in the news lately? The IBC number is the absolute minimum number of proven casualties, the realistic number is many times more as a.) shown from the Lancet study b.) being extrapolated from the IBC number assuming that most deaths never get reported. The Lancet study and the IBC numbers are in agreement over the most likely number of casualties if you think about it a little. The 655k figure is more than realistic. Political sides and pro/anti war sides have no relevance here, given that the IBC has an agenda too, to protect it's own results. They have good results, but they decided to misinterpret it. Instead of treating it as a minimum number, they are using it as an approximation or even as a maximum. Stupid.
As for sampling from the most violent areas, that's just not true. The study is statistically sound.
I'd add that pools of water on ice ("stripes") makes a runaway process. Water absorbs drastically more heat than ice. I think this effect was featured in the Inconvenient Truth aswell, when large sections of ice melted in a single season because of this process.
To add to the local anecdotes, Europe experiences one of the ever recorded warmest winters so far. The weather resembled something close to what you'd expect in October a few weeks ago, and even though its getting colder now, my family spent christmas in disbelief at the lack of snow and warm weather.
I remember my grandparents telling me stories about the huge snow year after year at winter, how they were walking/going somewhere in 50cm snow, etc. In the last couple of years we barely had any amount of snow and I can't remember a time when we had more than 20cm.