"deny" implies that there is no shadow of a question about the factuality AGW (or how significant it is), which is just not true-- hence why it is a theory.
Wow, a blast from the past--a rerun of the classic creationist objection to evolution: "It's only a theory."
Of course it's true. The only facts are direct observations. All scientific generalizations and explanations are "only" theory. So don't worry about driving off that cliff--gravity is only a theory.
Touch based phones are very well suited for some games. "Tilt to Live" on the iPhone, for example, is an amazing arcade-style game, on par with the classics of the genre. It is entirely tilt based, with no buttons required. Phones are great for many types of puzzle games and turn based adventure and strategy games. People who would never buy a dedicated game console or hand-held will buy a few games for their phones, so phones will remain a major game market.
But I think there will always be a market for dedicated systems that are designed primarily to play games, and that offer physical controls to enable a wider variety of game designs. If you have a phone, it makes sense to buy games for it--but it doesn't make sense to buy a phone to play games.
Ironically, the net effect of the hack is to put people with jailbroken iPhones at risk, because they don't have the fix, and the exploit is now known. Somebody will have to reproduce Apple's patch (or jailbreak the patched OS by another method) before jailbroken iPhones will be safe.
In fact, patents are denied or set aside frequently based upon prior art evidence, and the Supreme Court has recently strengthened the power of prior art challenges. So Apple would have little chance of obtaining a patent on the functionality or interface of "Where To" (if they were even trying to, which as the actual patent claim makes clear, they are not). And if by some error the patent were granted, it would not hold up in court.
It is certainly possible to patent a novel way of doing something that is not itself novel. I have not read the entirety of Apple's claim, nor am I an authority on computer algorithms, so I am not qualified to evaluate the novelty of Apple's claims. Perhaps you are. Not every patent claim is granted, and not every patent is upheld in court.
What is clear is that it would be a waste of time and money for Apple to try to patent ideas or user interfaces from apps, because any claim based on such a patent would immediately be thrown out of court on grounds of prior art
It certainly illustrates the kind of app that might make use of such a feature if Apple offered it as part of the iOS SDK. After all, Apple is not in the business of selling apps, it is in the business of selling hardware. One app would make them a little money. But thousands of developers writing apps with patented features that are unique to Apple's platforms will make Apple a lot of money
And it is likely that the Apple engineers got their ideas by looking at that particular app and asking themselves "what can we patent that's kind of like an extension of this app"
Or perhaps, "What patentable ideas do we have that we could build into the SDK so that guys like these will be able to enhance their app with new features that will be unique to our platforms?"
Obviously, Apple couldn't patent either the function or the interface of "Where to". Such a claim would be immediately dismissed on the basis of prior art. Apple is most likely thinking in terms of adding such a location-based feature to the iOS, as something that will enable app developers--like the creators of "Where to"--add a unique feature. Which of course will add value to iOS platforms.
In a proportionally spaced typeface, the period already has adequate space after it. I think the double space is excessive, unnecessary and looks ugly.
But old habits die hard. So after I finish writing something, I do a search-replace to fix all the double spaces that my fingers insist on inserting regardless.
You are talking about the guys who go around taking photos of temperature measurement stations. Their goal seems to be to create doubt about the reality of the warming trend in the temperature record by showing pictures of "poorly sited" stations. Notably, they have carefully avoided doing any actual analysis. But others have
It turns out that using the "good" sites leads to basically the same results (i.e. showing warming) that are obtained when correcting for "heat island" effects by other methods
This won't surprise anybody who has thought seriously about the issue, since a badly sited measurement station will measure the same trend as a well-sited station, plus or minus a constant bias. An error in the trend will occur only when a station goes from poorly-sited to well sited, or the reverse.
And if there is still any doubt, the warming trend shown by land stations is corroborated by ocean measurements, satellite measurements, and weather balloon measurements, none of which are subject to the same sources of error.
I think big-chain bricks-and-mortar bookstores are doomed. They tend to be boring and generic--you might as well go to Amazon and save money. If I go into a bookstore, I go to an independent one where I'm more likely to encounter books that are new to me. I think B&N was too slow into electronic distribution, although it is a good thing for the consumer for Amazon to have competition.
The strongest part of B&N's business is its college bookstores, which also tend to be less generic than B&N's mall shops, and have a bit of a captive clientele.
Right, and your TV is not really in full color, because it can only show red, blue and green.
Both reflect the fact that our eyes do not actually see in 3D, or in full color--our brains do. And our brains construct (or for real images, re-construct) this full color, 3D representation based upon sampling of limited color ranges of two 2D images projected onto our retinas. And if you give your brain that same information, by whatever means, it will construct that 3D representation for you.
As shown by this guy [wordpress.com], weather stations are positioned next to asphalt parking lots and air conditioner units which produce an unnaturally high reading. So until these monitors are placed elsewhere we will be getting reading that can be several degrees higher than the actual temperature [wattsupwiththat.com], which will skew the results upwards.
So here's a question. If civilization had arisen 10,000 years earlier, and someone observed how quickly the ice sheets were retreating, would there be a clamor to protect the glaciers that blanketed pretty much everything north of 50 degrees latitude? Would THAT climate change be seen as the Armageddon that the proposed climate change is being presented as?
Very likely. If over a thousands of years, people had adapted to living on the ice sheets, agricultural methods had been developed that depended upon growing plants specifically adapted to cold climates, and huge numbers of people were living on the edges of the ice sheets--and suddenly, there were the prospect of the ice sheets vanishing over a couple of hundred years, faster than any known climate change in the past, it would be an immense disaster with enormous costs, both financial and in terms of humans suffering.
So of course people would be clamoring for a way to protect the ice sheets.
More record temperatures and bigger snowstorms are expected consequences of global warming (weather is not climate, but climate does influence weather). They are not strong evidence of global warming (which is already well established by a huge mass of data, anyway), but they are examples of the consequences that we can expect, and that are likely to become increasingly common.
If the climate models that indicate anthropogenic causes were correct and rigorous, we could run them retrograde and accurately model the climate of the planet for the past few millennia. Then events like the Medieval Warm Period and the Maunder Minimum would show up. To my knowledge, no one has bothered to create such a model
You can work "for" a university and have your research funded by private companies or foundations. Universities don't much care who funds your research and pays your salary, so long as they get their cut in the form of "indirect costs."
Have to believe in their research because getting to do it is their only reward? Unfortunately lots of guys work their asses off to get tenure and then once they get it poof that's the end of all the intense effort or they just slowly decline...
I've heard those stories too, so I suppose that guys like that must exist somewhere, but in all of my years in academia, I've never met any of them. I do know plenty of older scientists who are well past retirement age and who are still scrabbling for grant funding and active in research. For most research scientists, doing science is the real reward. Tenure doesn't mean a lot in a research university, anyway. If you aren't bringing in the research dollars, they'll give you a tiny office and loads of teaching and administrative obligations--and if you don't meet those, they have grounds to get rid of you.
Oh, so you thought Al Gore was a scientist? Nobody told you that he was a politician?
As it happens, his account of the science seems to be pretty reasonable by journalistic standards (according to the real scientists). But nobody is asking you to take Gore's word for it, based on his personal example. If you want the science, you can find it in the primary literature, or for a more technical summary than Gore presents, in the IPCC reports.
UNLESS, the scientist hide their data and the computer models they use to arrive at the results.
This is an urban myth. To investigate allegations the CRU was hiding (or worse, altering) data and computer models, the Muir-Russell report actually went so far as to independently reproduce CRU's analysis. Here were their conclusions
Any independent researcher may freely obtain the primary station data. It is impossible for a third party to withhold access to the data. It is impossible for a third party to tamper improperly with the data unless they have also been able to corrupt the GHCN and NCAR sources. We do not consider this to be a credible possibility, and in any case this would be easily detectable by comparison to the original NMO records or other sources such as the Hadley Centre. The steps needed to create a global temperature series from the data are straightforward to implement. The required computer code is straightforward and easily written by a competent researcher.
Government funding isn't the only game in town. There are many, many wealthy businesses that stand to lose big bucks from the cost of controlling CO2 emissions. They've already spent huge amounts on lobbying. Funding some scientists to do climate studies is small change by comparison. And most scientists aren't picky about who gives them money; they just care about doing the research. I imagine that a climate scientist with real credentials and a contrarian view of CO2 would do quite well in terms of financial support for their research.
Unless, of course, it simply isn't possible to find any credible academic climate scientists whose research challenges the consensus regarding the role of CO2 in climate change. After all, nobody in academia gets rich off of doing research. The university thinks the grant money that you bring in belongs to them, not you. They keep a close eye to make sure that your aren't lining your pockets with your research funds, but are spending them on actual research. Your salary is constrained by the institution's salary scale, and academic salaries aren't that high. So academics generally really have to believe in the value of their research, because the only real reward for research success in academia is getting to do more of it.
If our weather men can't even predict the weather to an acceptable degree of accuracy the day before, than why should people believe predictions that far out.
Because long-term predictions are always more doubtful than short-term ones, right? So if I'm not sure whether it's going to be warmer or colder tomorrow than it is today, then I shouldn't worry about getting my heating system fixed before December, because that's long term.
Do these guys even think for 10 seconds before they open their mouth?
If Al Gore, one of the great leaders of the global warming movement, refuses to take his own advice, how credible is he?
Right, and the doctor on TV who is saying that being fat is bad for your health is overweight, so I'm going to cancel my gym subscription and buy a gallon of ice cream.
Al Gore isn't a scientist, and he didn't do the research, he's just the messenger, and only one of many, at that. Why would any sane person base a decision on how he runs his personal life?
Because "absolutely sure" means something different to a scientist than it does in common language. In scientific terms, nobody is absolutely sure how gravity works. On the other hand, if you are in your car, and you see that the bridge is out up ahead, none of your passengers are likely to say, "Let's not slow down just yet. We can't be absolutely sure that we'll be killed if we fall off the bridge, because we don't have a perfect understanding of gravity." Yet that is pretty much what is happening when it comes to climate change.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, a blast from the past--a rerun of the classic creationist objection to evolution: "It's only a theory."
Of course it's true. The only facts are direct observations. All scientific generalizations and explanations are "only" theory. So don't worry about driving off that cliff--gravity is only a theory.
Touch based phones are very well suited for some games. "Tilt to Live" on the iPhone, for example, is an amazing arcade-style game, on par with the classics of the genre. It is entirely tilt based, with no buttons required. Phones are great for many types of puzzle games and turn based adventure and strategy games. People who would never buy a dedicated game console or hand-held will buy a few games for their phones, so phones will remain a major game market.
But I think there will always be a market for dedicated systems that are designed primarily to play games, and that offer physical controls to enable a wider variety of game designs. If you have a phone, it makes sense to buy games for it--but it doesn't make sense to buy a phone to play games.
Ironically, the net effect of the hack is to put people with jailbroken iPhones at risk, because they don't have the fix, and the exploit is now known. Somebody will have to reproduce Apple's patch (or jailbreak the patched OS by another method) before jailbroken iPhones will be safe.
In fact, patents are denied or set aside frequently based upon prior art evidence, and the Supreme Court has recently strengthened the power of prior art challenges. So Apple would have little chance of obtaining a patent on the functionality or interface of "Where To" (if they were even trying to, which as the actual patent claim makes clear, they are not). And if by some error the patent were granted, it would not hold up in court.
It is certainly possible to patent a novel way of doing something that is not itself novel. I have not read the entirety of Apple's claim, nor am I an authority on computer algorithms, so I am not qualified to evaluate the novelty of Apple's claims. Perhaps you are. Not every patent claim is granted, and not every patent is upheld in court.
What is clear is that it would be a waste of time and money for Apple to try to patent ideas or user interfaces from apps, because any claim based on such a patent would immediately be thrown out of court on grounds of prior art
It certainly illustrates the kind of app that might make use of such a feature if Apple offered it as part of the iOS SDK. After all, Apple is not in the business of selling apps, it is in the business of selling hardware. One app would make them a little money. But thousands of developers writing apps with patented features that are unique to Apple's platforms will make Apple a lot of money
Or perhaps, "What patentable ideas do we have that we could build into the SDK so that guys like these will be able to enhance their app with new features that will be unique to our platforms?"
Obviously, Apple couldn't patent either the function or the interface of "Where to". Such a claim would be immediately dismissed on the basis of prior art. Apple is most likely thinking in terms of adding such a location-based feature to the iOS, as something that will enable app developers--like the creators of "Where to"--add a unique feature. Which of course will add value to iOS platforms.
In a proportionally spaced typeface, the period already has adequate space after it. I think the double space is excessive, unnecessary and looks ugly.
But old habits die hard. So after I finish writing something, I do a search-replace to fix all the double spaces that my fingers insist on inserting regardless.
You are talking about the guys who go around taking photos of temperature measurement stations. Their goal seems to be to create doubt about the reality of the warming trend in the temperature record by showing pictures of "poorly sited" stations. Notably, they have carefully avoided doing any actual analysis. But others have
It turns out that using the "good" sites leads to basically the same results (i.e. showing warming) that are obtained when correcting for "heat island" effects by other methods
This won't surprise anybody who has thought seriously about the issue, since a badly sited measurement station will measure the same trend as a well-sited station, plus or minus a constant bias. An error in the trend will occur only when a station goes from poorly-sited to well sited, or the reverse.
And if there is still any doubt, the warming trend shown by land stations is corroborated by ocean measurements, satellite measurements, and weather balloon measurements, none of which are subject to the same sources of error.
I think big-chain bricks-and-mortar bookstores are doomed. They tend to be boring and generic--you might as well go to Amazon and save money. If I go into a bookstore, I go to an independent one where I'm more likely to encounter books that are new to me. I think B&N was too slow into electronic distribution, although it is a good thing for the consumer for Amazon to have competition.
The strongest part of B&N's business is its college bookstores, which also tend to be less generic than B&N's mall shops, and have a bit of a captive clientele.
Right, and your TV is not really in full color, because it can only show red, blue and green.
Both reflect the fact that our eyes do not actually see in 3D, or in full color--our brains do. And our brains construct (or for real images, re-construct) this full color, 3D representation based upon sampling of limited color ranges of two 2D images projected onto our retinas. And if you give your brain that same information, by whatever means, it will construct that 3D representation for you.
Except
1) a detector next to a parking lot won't give you temperature increase over time unless the parking lot is getting hotter.
2) correcting for this effect doesn't make the warming go away.
3) satellite, weather balloon, and ocean measurements also show warming, despite the absence of parking lots.
4) restricting analysis to well-sited measuring stations doesn't make the warming go away
Very likely. If over a thousands of years, people had adapted to living on the ice sheets, agricultural methods had been developed that depended upon growing plants specifically adapted to cold climates, and huge numbers of people were living on the edges of the ice sheets--and suddenly, there were the prospect of the ice sheets vanishing over a couple of hundred years, faster than any known climate change in the past, it would be an immense disaster with enormous costs, both financial and in terms of humans suffering.
So of course people would be clamoring for a way to protect the ice sheets.
Did you have a point?
A review, with numerous citations to primary publications, may be found here.
More record temperatures and bigger snowstorms are expected consequences of global warming (weather is not climate, but climate does influence weather). They are not strong evidence of global warming (which is already well established by a huge mass of data, anyway), but they are examples of the consequences that we can expect, and that are likely to become increasingly common.
Or at least, you haven't bothered to look it up
Nobody knows for sure what gravity is. All we have are theories, and we know those theories have problems.
You can work "for" a university and have your research funded by private companies or foundations. Universities don't much care who funds your research and pays your salary, so long as they get their cut in the form of "indirect costs."
I've heard those stories too, so I suppose that guys like that must exist somewhere, but in all of my years in academia, I've never met any of them. I do know plenty of older scientists who are well past retirement age and who are still scrabbling for grant funding and active in research. For most research scientists, doing science is the real reward. Tenure doesn't mean a lot in a research university, anyway. If you aren't bringing in the research dollars, they'll give you a tiny office and loads of teaching and administrative obligations--and if you don't meet those, they have grounds to get rid of you.
Oh, so you thought Al Gore was a scientist? Nobody told you that he was a politician?
As it happens, his account of the science seems to be pretty reasonable by journalistic standards (according to the real scientists). But nobody is asking you to take Gore's word for it, based on his personal example. If you want the science, you can find it in the primary literature, or for a more technical summary than Gore presents, in the IPCC reports.
This is an urban myth. To investigate allegations the CRU was hiding (or worse, altering) data and computer models, the Muir-Russell report actually went so far as to independently reproduce CRU's analysis. Here were their conclusions
Government funding isn't the only game in town. There are many, many wealthy businesses that stand to lose big bucks from the cost of controlling CO2 emissions. They've already spent huge amounts on lobbying. Funding some scientists to do climate studies is small change by comparison. And most scientists aren't picky about who gives them money; they just care about doing the research. I imagine that a climate scientist with real credentials and a contrarian view of CO2 would do quite well in terms of financial support for their research.
Unless, of course, it simply isn't possible to find any credible academic climate scientists whose research challenges the consensus regarding the role of CO2 in climate change. After all, nobody in academia gets rich off of doing research. The university thinks the grant money that you bring in belongs to them, not you. They keep a close eye to make sure that your aren't lining your pockets with your research funds, but are spending them on actual research. Your salary is constrained by the institution's salary scale, and academic salaries aren't that high. So academics generally really have to believe in the value of their research, because the only real reward for research success in academia is getting to do more of it.
Because long-term predictions are always more doubtful than short-term ones, right? So if I'm not sure whether it's going to be warmer or colder tomorrow than it is today, then I shouldn't worry about getting my heating system fixed before December, because that's long term.
Do these guys even think for 10 seconds before they open their mouth?
Right, and the doctor on TV who is saying that being fat is bad for your health is overweight, so I'm going to cancel my gym subscription and buy a gallon of ice cream.
Al Gore isn't a scientist, and he didn't do the research, he's just the messenger, and only one of many, at that. Why would any sane person base a decision on how he runs his personal life?
Because "absolutely sure" means something different to a scientist than it does in common language. In scientific terms, nobody is absolutely sure how gravity works. On the other hand, if you are in your car, and you see that the bridge is out up ahead, none of your passengers are likely to say, "Let's not slow down just yet. We can't be absolutely sure that we'll be killed if we fall off the bridge, because we don't have a perfect understanding of gravity." Yet that is pretty much what is happening when it comes to climate change.