Actually, climate science seems to be one of the most open fields of science in terms of making data and software publicly available. One reason why there is no serious debate about the accuracy of CRU's conclusions is that they have been reproduced by other scientific groups, and even some amateur hobbyists, using publicly available data.
However, there are many "fake" skeptics. For fake skeptics, any flaw (and there is always a "flaw" if you look hard enough), no matter how minor, is sufficient to invalidate a result they don't not like (you'll recognize them in this discussion; they're the guys ignoring the fact that the inquiry found CRUs conclusions to be correct and condemning CRU for not having used state-of-the-art statistics to do it.
Yet when it comes to evidence that seems to support their preconceived ideas, fake skeptics are utterly gullible. These are the guys who will tell you, for example, that warming on Mars invalidates global warming, even the evidence that Mars actually is warming is quite weak, and anyway the atmosphere and orbit of Mars is radically different from Earth's.
You would think that given the gravity of their findings, the seriousness they attribute to the situation, the huge nature of the changes they propose, the affect the actions will have on everyone, the potential devastation to the world economy, etc. etc., that they would have bothered to fucking hire a few professional statisticians . Shoddy and careless is what this is.
In science, there is almost always room for improvement, and scientists welcome constructive criticism. Nevertheless, as the inquiry concluded, the methods used were adequate to obtain valid and correct results (not that it was ever actually in doubt; a number of other groups had already replicated their findings). One would have to be pretty biased to term that "shoddy and careless."
Well, yes, but Stross didn't say that computers are going to go away. He said that they will no longer be profitable enough to sustain a company such as Apple. Sure, the hobbyists will remain, but Apple doesn't want to turn into Heathkit. And there will continue to be uses for computers in the business and scientific worlds. But it will become less and less possible to sell a premium computer at a high profit margin. The consumer uses that have driven the growth of the computer market--web browsing, video, music, games--as well as the basic education/business functions--word processing, presentation, database, simple calculation--are migrating onto other devices, supported by data storage out on the web. Apple will likely continue to sell computers indefinitely, but they will be more like the the low end Powerbook and Mini, and command less and less of a premium price.
Uh, the problem with Flash was not just that it didn't take advantage of hardware acceleration on some Mac video cards--it was that it was constantly crashing on all Macs--to the point that Apple redesigned Safari to protect it from being brought down by Flash crashes. When Adobe has been unable, after years, to write a version of Flash that runs reliably on a Mac, why on earth would Apple want to have them on iPhone?
Pot, meet kettle? Wasn't that exactly Job's first point--that Adobe, like Apple, offers proprietary technologies (Flash being one of these)? He wasn't criticizing Adobe for offering a proprietary product, but rather for attacking Apple for doing the same thing.
Quit focusing on "Fox News". The fact is, original data was destroyed, and the metadata has been manipulated.
The actual fact is that the original data is still in the possession of the meteorological services that acquired it and own it. CRU never even had the original raw data, so they were never in a position to destroy it even if they wanted to. So who told you that CRU destroyed the data? Fox News maybe? Perhaps you should start getting your news from a more trustworthy source.
Yet the media is not reporting on the raw data as the raw data was deleted.
No, because it isn't true. The original raw data is still where it always was--in the possessions of the meteorological services that acquired it. Anybody who bothered to look into the issue at all quickly learned that CRU never had the original raw data--just copies, so they were never in the position to delete the original data even if they wanted to.
You might want to think about who told you this falsehood, and what their motivation might be to lie to you in this way.
Neither is in the pay of anyone, and have links to many, many more like themselves that are merely studying the science.
Every crank can claim to be "not in the pay of anyone." All that means is that they are amateurs who lack the knowledge, experience, and other qualifications required to do the work professionally. They aren't getting paid for their work because nobody thinks it is worth paying for.
Also, global warming would be a blessing in disguise, it would make much more of the planet habitable then is today ie Large Swaths of Canada and Northern Europe/Asia.
Yes, some people may benefit from global warming, particularly those that live in northern climates, which may experience a longer growing season.
Who loses? People who live near the oceans (where most major US major cities reside). People who live in countries that currently have a temperate climate and as a result enjoy high agricultural productivity (the United States for example).
Please, every time I hear about how pure the academic scientists are because they aren't in it for the money I want to puke. They may not have gone into the field for the money, but they need money to stay in the field, and guess which of the following two grants will get funded and which won't: 1) man is not the cause of global warming/we're along for the ride on a system controlled in large part by solar output and other effects, give us money to study what they are, or 2) MAN IS DESTROYING THE PLANET, WE MUST BE STOPPED, WE WILL ALL DIE IF YOU DON'T FUND THIS RESEARCH.
Why do you think people go into science, particularly academic science? It doesn't pay all that well--you don't make the sort of money that you could make as, say, a lawyer. Most scientists live pretty modestly. People go into science because they are fascinated with discovery, with learning new truths about the world. So what would you say about a scientific career dedicated to knowingly maintaining and promulgating a falsehood? Ask any scientist, and he will tell you that it is pretty close to his idea of Hell.
Yet the global warming deniers want us to believe that not one or two, but hundreds of scientists in countries all over the world are doing just that, and indeed are engaged in a massive conspiracy to maintain this falsehood. Why? So that they can continue to get more research funds to continue researching something that they know is wrong.
"Not content with its iPhone scoop, Gizmodo has probably ruined the career of a young engineer. The tech blog last night exposed the name of the hapless Apple employee who had one German beer too many and left a prototype iPhone G4 in a California bar some 20 miles from Apple's Infinite Loop campus.
Yeah, right, because we all know that Apple really doesn't really care much about security, so they probably don't bother to keep track of the individual prototypes and who has them. They'd surely never have known whose phone it was if Gizmodo hadn't told them.
It's very good, except that it's wrong. Apple did know about the iPhone packager, of course (there are approved apps in the AppStroe built with the prerelease versions of it, and Adobe has been bragging about it for a while) - and they did nothing to hint they would prevent it, up till the very last second.
And how do you know when Apple made this decision? Couldn't that have been at the last second as well? I wouldn't be surprised if there were significant debates within Apple. Perhaps they wanted to see how the Ipad sold before they made a decision. That's their prerogative. Apple provides a development package for the iPhone/iPad apps. All apps for the platforms have to be approved by Apple. There was never any guarantee that software produced via some kind of Flash cross-compiler would be acceptable to Apple. Adobe was developing on spec. They could certainly have consulted with Apple and decided not to embark on the project without prior approval, at least in principle, from Apple, but they chose to take their chances, presumably in hopes that Apple would give way in the face of a finished product. Apple didn't blink.
Microsoft has been doing it for years, on the XBox 360 (and before that, on the XBox). So has Sony, with the PS3 and PSP (and the PS2 before that, and the PS1 before that). So has Nintendo with the Wii and DS (and their predecessors). If you want to write programs for their platforms, you do it their way, you have to get their approval for your applications, and you give them a cut of the profits.
Needless to say, if there was anything the least bit illegal about this, they'd all have been sued out of existence long ago.
On release, multiple benchmarks showed that Safari on the original iPhone was faster at rendering web pages than competing devices. Obviously, everybody has gotten faster, but the iPhone still tests close to the head of the pack.
Obviously that does not mean that you can't find web sites that will bog down on the iPhone--or on a computer, for that matter.
In other words, the feature that Apple was touting was reliable battery life and performance. Apple's initial solution to this was limiting the iPhone to Apple produced and tested applications. They subsequently relaxed this to allow 3rd party applications, but requiring approval and not permitting background processing. And they have now further relaxed this by introducing a framework for 3rd party background processing that preserves these key features.
I oppose this not because I find it distasteful, or like something better. I'm sorry you automatically assume everything is that shallow. I oppose it because I believe it's wrong.
Insisting something is "wrong" without providing any justification is just lazy--an excuse for not thinking.
This already exists in the App Store, but the feature has to be coded specifically per-app.
Yes, the no-Ads people are a bit late to the party. Many of the free apps I use already have some advertising. All Apple is doing is providing additional support for something that developers are already doing (and looking for a cut of the profits in return, of course).
macbook air, first response to netbooks. ipad, second response...
What Apple realized is that the netbook is kind of a half-assed solution to two different needs:
1) People who need an ultralight computer to carry around with them. The Air fills this need with minimal compromise of function.
2) People who need a low-priced portable device mainly for browsing the net, and watching/reading media. The iPad fills this function.
I expect that Apple will continue both lines indefinitely, although as processors become more efficient and powerful, the line between the Air and the PowerBooks will probably blur.
If you don't want apps with ads, don't download them. As with computer software, it is likely that many apps will be available in free versions without ads and also in paid, add-free versions.
Wasn't the lack of multitasking a feature that made the iPad and iPhone so great?
Not particularly. In fact, they've always had multitasking, just not for 3rd party apps. What made them great was having a consistently fast, responsive user interface and reliable essential functions that did not bog down because of apps hogging the processor. But everybody figured that Apple would eventually work out a way to offer background processing to 3rd party developers while maintaining those strengths.
There exists no documented API to do several things that users demand, such as playing Internet radio in the background or finding Wi-Fi hotspots in a large area.
Except, of course, that users aren't really demanding those things. They are continuing to buy the iPhone in large numbers; indeed, a fair number are already on their second iPhone. So it looks like Apple was right in believing that there was a huge pool of potential customers for whom things like that don't much matter. Apple will doubtless eventually add multitasking to pick up the minority of customers for whom that is a critical issue. On the other hand, I doubt the number of people looking for WiFi hacking apps will ever be great enough to carry much weight with Apple.
No multitasking in the iPhone OS. Even cell phone OSes can do that
Common misconception. The iPhone does multitask, otherwise, you wouldn't be able to read your email while listening to music. What the current iPhone OS doesn't do right now is allow 3rd party applications to run in the background.
Apple will eventually allow multitasking for 3rd party applications. They will have to do so to remain competitive. But they would be nuts to do it at the same time as they release the iPad, because 3rd party multitasking introduces the potential for performance and security problems--not the sort of thing Apple wants to worry about when they're trying to get a new product to catch on. Remember, the iPhone didn't allow 3rd party applications at all when first release. Only once the iPhone was launched did Apple open the door to 3rd party developers, and now there are a huge number. We'll probably see 3rd party multitasking on the next major OS revision after the iPad is released. There's really no rush at the moment, since as the article makes clear, Apple has no real competition in this arena, and lack of 3rd party multitasking (or the other restrictions Apple has placed on app development) has not prevented the iPhone and Touch from accumulating a huge app library. Even then, I doubt if Apple will throw the multitasking door wide open. Most likely, there will be an additional approval step for apps that want to multitask apps. Remember, people who buy Apple products expect them to "just work." They will not put up with having to keep track of how many and which apps they can have running in the background before the phone's interface starts to bog down. So there will doubtless be additional hoops that developers will have to jump through to demonstrate that multitasking provides major additional functionality for their app, with minimal drain on the tablet's resources.
It's expensive each time it is triggered--but probably cheaper than the medical costs if it wasn't there. And by your argument, only careless operators will trigger it--in which case the cost provides an incentive for greater care that is a bit gentler than the loss of a finger or a hand.
You are correct that we don't have a good idea of its costs and benefits, since we didn't sit on the jury, and all we've seen are brief news reports. However, it is a safe bet that by the time the jury rendered its decision, they had heard quite a bit of expert testimony about its costs and benefits.
Slashdot Mirror
here you go
Actually, climate science seems to be one of the most open fields of science in terms of making data and software publicly available. One reason why there is no serious debate about the accuracy of CRU's conclusions is that they have been reproduced by other scientific groups, and even some amateur hobbyists, using publicly available data.
However, there are many "fake" skeptics. For fake skeptics, any flaw (and there is always a "flaw" if you look hard enough), no matter how minor, is sufficient to invalidate a result they don't not like (you'll recognize them in this discussion; they're the guys ignoring the fact that the inquiry found CRUs conclusions to be correct and condemning CRU for not having used state-of-the-art statistics to do it.
Yet when it comes to evidence that seems to support their preconceived ideas, fake skeptics are utterly gullible. These are the guys who will tell you, for example, that warming on Mars invalidates global warming, even the evidence that Mars actually is warming is quite weak, and anyway the atmosphere and orbit of Mars is radically different from Earth's.
In science, there is almost always room for improvement, and scientists welcome constructive criticism.
Nevertheless, as the inquiry concluded, the methods used were adequate to obtain valid and correct results (not that it was ever actually in doubt; a number of other groups had already replicated their findings). One would have to be pretty biased to term that "shoddy and careless."
Well, yes, but Stross didn't say that computers are going to go away. He said that they will no longer be profitable enough to sustain a company such as Apple. Sure, the hobbyists will remain, but Apple doesn't want to turn into Heathkit. And there will continue to be uses for computers in the business and scientific worlds. But it will become less and less possible to sell a premium computer at a high profit margin. The consumer uses that have driven the growth of the computer market--web browsing, video, music, games--as well as the basic education/business functions--word processing, presentation, database, simple calculation--are migrating onto other devices, supported by data storage out on the web. Apple will likely continue to sell computers indefinitely, but they will be more like the the low end Powerbook and Mini, and command less and less of a premium price.
Uh, the problem with Flash was not just that it didn't take advantage of hardware acceleration on some Mac video cards--it was that it was constantly crashing on all Macs--to the point that Apple redesigned Safari to protect it from being brought down by Flash crashes. When Adobe has been unable, after years, to write a version of Flash that runs reliably on a Mac, why on earth would Apple want to have them on iPhone?
Pot, meet kettle? Wasn't that exactly Job's first point--that Adobe, like Apple, offers proprietary technologies (Flash being one of these)? He wasn't criticizing Adobe for offering a proprietary product, but rather for attacking Apple for doing the same thing.
Global climate reconstructions do not support the existence of a global medieval warm period. See, for example,
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~mann/shared/articles/MannetalScience09.pdf
The actual fact is that the original data is still in the possession of the meteorological services that acquired it and own it. CRU never even had the original raw data, so they were never in a position to destroy it even if they wanted to. So who told you that CRU destroyed the data? Fox News maybe? Perhaps you should start getting your news from a more trustworthy source.
No, because it isn't true. The original raw data is still where it always was--in the possessions of the meteorological services that acquired it. Anybody who bothered to look into the issue at all quickly learned that CRU never had the original raw data--just copies, so they were never in the position to delete the original data even if they wanted to.
You might want to think about who told you this falsehood, and what their motivation might be to lie to you in this way.
Every crank can claim to be "not in the pay of anyone." All that means is that they are amateurs who lack the knowledge, experience, and other qualifications required to do the work professionally. They aren't getting paid for their work because nobody thinks it is worth paying for.
Yes, some people may benefit from global warming, particularly those that live in northern climates, which may experience a longer growing season.
Who loses? People who live near the oceans (where most major US major cities reside). People who live in countries that currently have a temperate climate and as a result enjoy high agricultural productivity (the United States for example).
Why do you think people go into science, particularly academic science? It doesn't pay all that well--you don't make the sort of money that you could make as, say, a lawyer. Most scientists live pretty modestly.
People go into science because they are fascinated with discovery, with learning new truths about the world. So what would you say about a scientific career dedicated to knowingly maintaining and promulgating a falsehood? Ask any scientist, and he will tell you that it is pretty close to his idea of Hell.
Yet the global warming deniers want us to believe that not one or two, but hundreds of scientists in countries all over the world are doing just that, and indeed are engaged in a massive conspiracy to maintain this falsehood. Why? So that they can continue to get more research funds to continue researching something that they know is wrong.
That is idiotic.
Yeah, right, because we all know that Apple really doesn't really care much about security, so they probably don't bother to keep track of the individual prototypes and who has them. They'd surely never have known whose phone it was if Gizmodo hadn't told them.
And how do you know when Apple made this decision? Couldn't that have been at the last second as well? I wouldn't be surprised if there were significant debates within Apple. Perhaps they wanted to see how the Ipad sold before they made a decision. That's their prerogative. Apple provides a development package for the iPhone/iPad apps. All apps for the platforms have to be approved by Apple. There was never any guarantee that software produced via some kind of Flash cross-compiler would be acceptable to Apple. Adobe was developing on spec. They could certainly have consulted with Apple and decided not to embark on the project without prior approval, at least in principle, from Apple, but they chose to take their chances, presumably in hopes that Apple would give way in the face of a finished product. Apple didn't blink.
Microsoft has been doing it for years, on the XBox 360 (and before that, on the XBox). So has Sony, with the PS3 and PSP (and the PS2 before that, and the PS1 before that). So has Nintendo with the Wii and DS (and their predecessors). If you want to write programs for their platforms, you do it their way, you have to get their approval for your applications, and you give them a cut of the profits.
Needless to say, if there was anything the least bit illegal about this, they'd all have been sued out of existence long ago.
On release, multiple benchmarks showed that Safari on the original iPhone was faster at rendering web pages than competing devices. Obviously, everybody has gotten faster, but the iPhone still tests close to the head of the pack.
Obviously that does not mean that you can't find web sites that will bog down on the iPhone--or on a computer, for that matter.
In other words, the feature that Apple was touting was reliable battery life and performance. Apple's initial solution to this was limiting the iPhone to Apple produced and tested applications. They subsequently relaxed this to allow 3rd party applications, but requiring approval and not permitting background processing. And they have now further relaxed this by introducing a framework for 3rd party background processing that preserves these key features.
Insisting something is "wrong" without providing any justification is just lazy--an excuse for not thinking.
This already exists in the App Store, but the feature has to be coded specifically per-app.
Yes, the no-Ads people are a bit late to the party. Many of the free apps I use already have some advertising. All Apple is doing is providing additional support for something that developers are already doing (and looking for a cut of the profits in return, of course).
What Apple realized is that the netbook is kind of a half-assed solution to two different needs:
1) People who need an ultralight computer to carry around with them. The Air fills this need with minimal compromise of function.
2) People who need a low-priced portable device mainly for browsing the net, and watching/reading media. The iPad fills this function.
I expect that Apple will continue both lines indefinitely, although as processors become more efficient and powerful, the line between the Air and the PowerBooks will probably blur.
If you don't want apps with ads, don't download them. As with computer software, it is likely that many apps will be available in free versions without ads and also in paid, add-free versions.
Not particularly. In fact, they've always had multitasking, just not for 3rd party apps. What made them great was having a consistently fast, responsive user interface and reliable essential functions that did not bog down because of apps hogging the processor. But everybody figured that Apple would eventually work out a way to offer background processing to 3rd party developers while maintaining those strengths.
Except, of course, that users aren't really demanding those things. They are continuing to buy the iPhone in large numbers; indeed, a fair number are already on their second iPhone. So it looks like Apple was right in believing that there was a huge pool of potential customers for whom things like that don't much matter. Apple will doubtless eventually add multitasking to pick up the minority of customers for whom that is a critical issue. On the other hand, I doubt the number of people looking for WiFi hacking apps will ever be great enough to carry much weight with Apple.
Common misconception. The iPhone does multitask, otherwise, you wouldn't be able to read your email while listening to music. What the current iPhone OS doesn't do right now is allow 3rd party applications to run in the background.
Apple will eventually allow multitasking for 3rd party applications. They will have to do so to remain competitive. But they would be nuts to do it at the same time as they release the iPad, because 3rd party multitasking introduces the potential for performance and security problems--not the sort of thing Apple wants to worry about when they're trying to get a new product to catch on. Remember, the iPhone didn't allow 3rd party applications at all when first release. Only once the iPhone was launched did Apple open the door to 3rd party developers, and now there are a huge number. We'll probably see 3rd party multitasking on the next major OS revision after the iPad is released. There's really no rush at the moment, since as the article makes clear, Apple has no real competition in this arena, and lack of 3rd party multitasking (or the other restrictions Apple has placed on app development) has not prevented the iPhone and Touch from accumulating a huge app library. Even then, I doubt if Apple will throw the multitasking door wide open. Most likely, there will be an additional approval step for apps that want to multitask apps. Remember, people who buy Apple products expect them to "just work." They will not put up with having to keep track of how many and which apps they can have running in the background before the phone's interface starts to bog down. So there will doubtless be additional hoops that developers will have to jump through to demonstrate that multitasking provides major additional functionality for their app, with minimal drain on the tablet's resources.
It's expensive each time it is triggered--but probably cheaper than the medical costs if it wasn't there. And by your argument, only careless operators will trigger it--in which case the cost provides an incentive for greater care that is a bit gentler than the loss of a finger or a hand.
You are correct that we don't have a good idea of its costs and benefits, since we didn't sit on the jury, and all we've seen are brief news reports. However, it is a safe bet that by the time the jury rendered its decision, they had heard quite a bit of expert testimony about its costs and benefits.