Here's what I remember having seen in my lifetime from the researchers on the subject.
1970's - Climate Science has advanced in the past few years. It is now possible to make accurate predications based on SCIENTIFIC models. All the predictions of a few years ago are meaningless. A new Ice Age is just around the corner. New York will be under year round Ice by the mid 1980's. It's all caused by Western Technology, mostly America.
The problem is with your memory, not the science. The notion that scientists in the '70's predicted an imminent ice age is an urban myth, and dates from a couple of sensationalistic articles in the popular press, written by journalists who misunderstood the science.
Even though heretics usually turn out to be wrong. But they do raise important questions, and Dyson does that.
I predict that Dyson's essay will be broadly acclaimed by global warming critics, even though what he said actually gives very little support to their critique of global warming.
He accepts that warming is occurring and that CO2 is a contributing factor. He accepts that climate is changing. Not what the anti-global warming guys are pushing
His strongest argument is that perhaps the biology will adapt to the increased CO2, or perhaps we can make it adapt.
He is correct that we really don't know the biological consequences of these changes. Biology is very complicated and nonlinear, much more so than atmospheric physics, and we cannot know how the biology will react to an increase in CO2 coupled with widespread increases in local temperature (which Dyson doesn't like to call "global warming").
Basically, he is saying, "Let's roll the dice and see what happens! Maybe it will all work out because the biology will compensate. Maybe we will find a biological fix."
I think that Dyson is is the kind of scientist who is simply unable to pass up such an interesting experiment. If we don't let CO2 increase, we will never really know what might have happened. Maybe it will all work out sort of OK. Perhaps global warming will turn out to be a catastrophe, but we'll learn something in the process.
From the point of view of people who live in the Sahara, for example, the prospect of rolling the climate dice does not look so bad. Their climate cannot get much worse, and maybe, as Dyson speculates, we might flip over into a "wet Sahara" global climate. On the other hand, countries that already have temperate climates with reasonable amounts of rainfall and weather that is not too violent--the US, for example--should think long and hard about rolling the climate dice.
If china were a democracy, I would expect that. The chinese gov does not care what their citizens want. They have a long term goal that radically differs from what they want. In fact, ALL govs. do. The difference is that in a true democracy or even republic, the citizen can change the course of the gov. In a totalitarian gov. it is the opposite.
Development of the ability to compete economically in the international marketplace is in the interests of the Chinese government whether their citizens want it or not.
And yet, Japan had (and has) NO intention of wiping us out or going to war with us. They simply competed against us economically. China is a VERY different matter. They are using the economy to be able to take on the west in a war. Laugh if you like, but I say, look at intentions, first.
You're kidding. Japan actually did go to war with us, remember? Do you imagine that they reformed overnight just because we dropped a couple of atom bombs on their heads? Nuclear bombs may win wars, but they don't generally win friends. Business relationships are much more successful in discouraging overt warfare. These days, the Japanese would rather sell to us to us than shoot at us--it's bad business to kill off (or even seriously piss off) your customers. Expect the same transition to occur with China.
Yes, I also remember the era of cheap Japanese copies. I think this is just a transitional stage of technology development. Once a country reaches the point that it is coming up with original technological discoveries and products, then it starts to want international protection of its own IP, which means that it will have to agree to respect the IP of other countries.
I'm not sure that it is even that much of a bad thing. A lot of the 3rd world purchasers of these knock-offs and counterfeits wouldn't be able to afford the real items, anyway, and the copies are too hard to smuggle into developed countries to have a big economic impact. And it provides an economic incentive for companies in the 3rd world to develop the technologies that they will need to compete in the global technology marketplace. From the point of view of consumers, it encourages original manufacturers to keep costs and prices down, to continue to develop new features, and to build the sort of reputation for reliability that makes people reluctant to accept copies.
I bought a PS3, but only because I couldn't find a Wii (except in expensive bundles that cost as much as a PS3). The PS3 is OK (and yes, I have a HD TV, and I do watch BR disks, and I'd use the other features if they were Mac compatible) But I'd still rather have a Wii.
I've been renting Blu-Ray disks at Blockbuster. The selection is a bit thin, but not that different from what it was in the early days of DVDs.
Still, I'm not sure just how quickly the market penetration will go. I can definitely see the improved resolution on my 42" TV, and it's enough to persuade me to rent BR disks when they're available, but it's not nearly as dramatic as the jump from 480i to 480p. I don't think that I would have been inclined to buy a standalone BR player--and I'm certainly not interested in paying for Microsoft's HD-DVD 360 add-on.
You know, sometimes software companies release a new version of software, including many of the same features, but with some smaller new features and general refinement in the software. This is a pretty common practice, and it even is appreciated by the customers of the software developers. Legend has it that there was even some developer near Seattle that would release newer versions which were worse than prior versions of their software, and for some reason people would still buy these "upgrades".
But it sounds like they have added a completely new photo management application. Presumably iPhoto will now become a standard part of the OS like iTunes, since it is needed for downloading your iPhone pictures.
There is a long, long list of consumer products without replaceable batteries. My electric razor's battery isn't user replaceable, and the manufacturer won't replace it either; you just have to buy a new razor. Neither is the battery for my electric toothbrush.
I don't for the moment believe that the guy didn't know that the battery wasn't replaceable going in--he heard about the iPod's non-user replaceable batteries and thought that he had a shot at a big payday. He and his lawyer are barely a half step up from the guys who intentionally get hit by cars so that they can sue. For frivolous lawsuits such as this, the plaintiff should have to pay court costs.
What the hell is a person supposed to do when they're in the bush for a few days and they can't swap out their old battery with a charged one?
Use a charger with an external battery? Or a solar charger? Or just be careful not to use it too much? After all, if all you are doing is making occasional phone calls (how many cell towers are there "out in the bush," anyway?) the iPhone lasts considerably longer than your average cell phone.
Here's another one. A big reason why many people get cable is for better quality. But with this new TiVo and an ordinary roof antenna, it is possible in many areas to pull in all of the network channels in full HD quality, and with TiVo, you can watch what you want when you want. So who needs hundreds of channels to flip through when you've got a 12 hour backlog saved on your TiVo? Of course, there are movie channels and cable channel special shows like The Sopranos, but are they really worth paying $50 a month for cable, when pretty much anything that's any good will be available soon on DVD and a basic NetFlix account costs just $5/ month?
The only thing they did poorly was fail to realize how much the techie world is hot and bothered over ANY news about the iPhone.
This hardly seems like a minor error. They apparently went public with a premature conclusion about a new product before they actually knew what was going on, thereby holding themselves and Duke University up to ridicule.
And it is an unfortunately typical knee-jerk reaction reflects the arrogance typical of many IT departments: "The problem isn't with our network; it must be your computer or software that is screwing things up."
This guy doesn't think that the detector for B will "fiddle" with the photons at A before they reach their fiddler? He also seems to be getting money from people who believe his BS. Not to mention publicity.
I don't think that he really believes that he will be able to send a signal backwards in time. But it's difficult to see how the experiment could fail, so the result should be interesting regardless. The most reasonable guess is that it will produce the same single-slit diffraction pattern independent of the position of the focal point on the long arm. But it's unclear why this should occur. If it does, he can shorten the length of the long arm. How long does it have to be to force the single slit diffraction pattern to appear? To avoid the potential for causal loops, presumably the critical length would be something like the distance between the detectors, adjusted for light speed in the light guide. But this would still be fairly weird.
You'll find that reading TFA first will allow you to make more intelligent criticisms. For example, your first criticism
According to Wikipedia, and the links it provides, HFCS comes in three "flavors": 90% fructose, 55% fructose, and 42% fructose. The HFCS in sodas are 55% fructose.
is stated specifically in TFA, and indeed, is part of the point. Your second criticism
HFCS *IS NOT* to blame for obesity. Sitting in front of the TV all day is...watching mind-numbing shows, playing video games, even reading slashdot all day. While doing this, your body becomes bored and craves bad food, maybe even good food. So you eat...and eat. And you eat too much. and you gain weight.
is addressed in the second paragraph of TFA
And of course everyone says well, that's because you're eating too much, and you're exercising too little and of course that's true. But the question is what about our physiology allows this to happen, we have some built-in negative feedback mechanisms that are supposed to stop us from gaining too much weight but clearly they are not working.
And the part about the "conspiracy theory," that's in TFA too (did you actually read it?):
Well I can't call it a conspiracy per se. I certainly know, and they certainly know that they sell more of it when they add the fructose to it. That's why it's in there, otherwise why would it be in there? Do they know that this is actually harmful? That's what I don't know.
Now, I don't know if the guy's right or wrong. One reason I bothered to read your comment was that I was hoping that somebody might have some intelligent criticisms, rather than just knee-jerk responses based on the article summary.
Independent corroberation. Try it sometime
So your idea of independent corroboration is...Wikipedia? So Wikipedia corroborated TFA with respect to the composition of corn syrup--and that proves that the article is FUD....How?
According to Wikipedia, and the links it provides, HFCS comes in three "flavors": 90% fructose, 55% fructose, and 42% fructose. The HFCS in sodas are 55% fructose.
Or instead of going to Wikipedia, you could have found the same information in TFA. If you'd bothered to read it.
Wal-mart's website has a good bundle that lets you select what games and accessories you want rather than forcing a pre-selected crap pile on you. It comes with an extra wiimote -- you did want two controllers right? -- so getting another nunchuck makes sense, and then I got 3 games I would have bought if I'd gotten a wii at retail anyway. Check your favorite wii tracker to see if they have it in stock.
You're kidding. It's listed for $538, more than double list. And no, I don't need an extra controller. It comes with 3 games, but at $50 or so per game (which is the maximum I'll pay for a game; I usually buy games used) that still comes out to a $138 rip-off. No thanks.
I want a bare console with one controller, and I want to pay no more than list price. When Nintendo can get the supply up enough that I can buy it off the shelf without a ripoff bundle, then I'll get it.
From my perspective, the PS3 is a me-too machine, offering basically the same features that I already have on the XBox 360, with a weaker games library. It is of interest to me primarily as a BluRay player and secondarily for the (very) small number of exclusive games. The Wii is a far more unique system due to its innovative control mechanism. So if I could find the Wii at list price (I simply refuse to pay extra for bundles of crap that I don't want), I'd certainly have bought it instead of the PS3. I still might have bought the PS3 eventually, but I'd probably have waited at least for the next price cut.
Are you sure? The last I heard, the PS was unable to scale the output of a number of games that run in 720p up to 1080i. This is a problem for TVs (most HD CRTs) that accept 1080i signals but not 720p. All other HD devices, including the XBox 360, support both 720p and 1080i monitors.
Can you point me to a reference where the upgrade is announced?
It has long been known that much of walking is reflex-driven. A decerebrate cat (i.e. with the brain disconnected) supported on a treadmill will go through normal walking movements (known as "fictive locomotion") and will even correct for "stumbles". It seems likely that the timing required for coordination of walking is simply too tight for the brain, with its longer transmission delays, to manage properly.
The Wizard has had that for three years now. Most smart phones have, regardless of the operating system they are based on. Heck, PalmOS has had that since the mid 1990s on their PDAs, Windows Mobile just copied it making it slightly more intuitive, and iPhone is just the latest revision of the same idea.
I've used Palm OS and other touchscreen interfaces, and none that I've tried even begin to come close to the feature that I like on the iPhone--the illusion that you can just flick a document with your finger and slide it around, or reach into the screen and stretch it with your fingers. Microsoft Surface sounds as if it offers this kind of thing, but Apple seems to have been the first to bring it to a handheld device.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is with your memory, not the science. The notion that scientists in the '70's predicted an imminent ice age is an urban myth, and dates from a couple of sensationalistic articles in the popular press, written by journalists who misunderstood the science.
We do need heretics in science.
Even though heretics usually turn out to be wrong. But they do raise important questions, and Dyson does that.
I predict that Dyson's essay will be broadly acclaimed by global warming critics, even though what he said actually gives very little support to their critique of global warming.
He accepts that warming is occurring and that CO2 is a contributing factor. He accepts that climate is changing. Not what the anti-global warming guys are pushing
His strongest argument is that perhaps the biology will adapt to the increased CO2, or perhaps we can make it adapt.
He is correct that we really don't know the biological consequences of these changes. Biology is very complicated and nonlinear, much more so than atmospheric physics, and we cannot know how the biology will react to an increase in CO2 coupled with widespread increases in local temperature (which Dyson doesn't like to call "global warming").
Basically, he is saying, "Let's roll the dice and see what happens! Maybe it will all work out because the biology will compensate. Maybe we will find a biological fix."
I think that Dyson is is the kind of scientist who is simply unable to pass up such an interesting experiment. If we don't let CO2 increase, we will never really know what might have happened. Maybe it will all work out sort of OK. Perhaps global warming will turn out to be a catastrophe, but we'll learn something in the process.
From the point of view of people who live in the Sahara, for example, the prospect of rolling the climate dice does not look so bad. Their climate cannot get much worse, and maybe, as Dyson speculates, we might flip over into a "wet Sahara" global climate. On the other hand, countries that already have temperate climates with reasonable amounts of rainfall and weather that is not too violent--the US, for example--should think long and hard about rolling the climate dice.
Development of the ability to compete economically in the international marketplace is in the interests of the Chinese government whether their citizens want it or not.
You're kidding. Japan actually did go to war with us, remember? Do you imagine that they reformed overnight just because we dropped a couple of atom bombs on their heads? Nuclear bombs may win wars, but they don't generally win friends. Business relationships are much more successful in discouraging overt warfare. These days, the Japanese would rather sell to us to us than shoot at us--it's bad business to kill off (or even seriously piss off) your customers. Expect the same transition to occur with China.
Yes, I also remember the era of cheap Japanese copies. I think this is just a transitional stage of technology development. Once a country reaches the point that it is coming up with original technological discoveries and products, then it starts to want international protection of its own IP, which means that it will have to agree to respect the IP of other countries.
I'm not sure that it is even that much of a bad thing. A lot of the 3rd world purchasers of these knock-offs and counterfeits wouldn't be able to afford the real items, anyway, and the copies are too hard to smuggle into developed countries to have a big economic impact. And it provides an economic incentive for companies in the 3rd world to develop the technologies that they will need to compete in the global technology marketplace. From the point of view of consumers, it encourages original manufacturers to keep costs and prices down, to continue to develop new features, and to build the sort of reputation for reliability that makes people reluctant to accept copies.
I bought a PS3, but only because I couldn't find a Wii (except in expensive bundles that cost as much as a PS3).
The PS3 is OK (and yes, I have a HD TV, and I do watch BR disks, and I'd use the other features if they were Mac compatible)
But I'd still rather have a Wii.
I wonder what fraction had HD TVs? If you only have a SD TV, then the HD capability of the PS3 or 360 is pretty academic.
I've been renting Blu-Ray disks at Blockbuster. The selection is a bit thin, but not that different from what it was in the early days of DVDs.
Still, I'm not sure just how quickly the market penetration will go. I can definitely see the improved resolution on my 42" TV, and it's enough to persuade me to rent BR disks when they're available, but it's not nearly as dramatic as the jump from 480i to 480p. I don't think that I would have been inclined to buy a standalone BR player--and I'm certainly not interested in paying for Microsoft's HD-DVD 360 add-on.
But it sounds like they have added a completely new photo management application. Presumably iPhoto will now become a standard part of the OS like iTunes, since it is needed for downloading your iPhone pictures.
There is a long, long list of consumer products without replaceable batteries. My electric razor's battery isn't user replaceable, and the manufacturer won't replace it either; you just have to buy a new razor. Neither is the battery for my electric toothbrush.
I don't for the moment believe that the guy didn't know that the battery wasn't replaceable going in--he heard about the iPod's non-user replaceable batteries and thought that he had a shot at a big payday. He and his lawyer are barely a half step up from the guys who intentionally get hit by cars so that they can sue. For frivolous lawsuits such as this, the plaintiff should have to pay court costs.
Use a charger with an external battery? Or a solar charger? Or just be careful not to use it too much? After all, if all you are doing is making occasional phone calls (how many cell towers are there "out in the bush," anyway?) the iPhone lasts considerably longer than your average cell phone.
Here's another one. A big reason why many people get cable is for better quality. But with this new TiVo and an ordinary roof antenna, it is possible in many areas to pull in all of the network channels in full HD quality, and with TiVo, you can watch what you want when you want. So who needs hundreds of channels to flip through when you've got a 12 hour backlog saved on your TiVo? Of course, there are movie channels and cable channel special shows like The Sopranos, but are they really worth paying $50 a month for cable, when pretty much anything that's any good will be available soon on DVD and a basic NetFlix account costs just $5/ month?
This hardly seems like a minor error. They apparently went public with a premature conclusion about a new product before they actually knew what was going on, thereby holding themselves and Duke University up to ridicule.
And it is an unfortunately typical knee-jerk reaction reflects the arrogance typical of many IT departments: "The problem isn't with our network; it must be your computer or software that is screwing things up."
I don't think that he really believes that he will be able to send a signal backwards in time. But it's difficult to see how the experiment could fail, so the result should be interesting regardless. The most reasonable guess is that it will produce the same single-slit diffraction pattern independent of the position of the focal point on the long arm. But it's unclear why this should occur. If it does, he can shorten the length of the long arm. How long does it have to be to force the single slit diffraction pattern to appear? To avoid the potential for causal loops, presumably the critical length would be something like the distance between the detectors, adjusted for light speed in the light guide. But this would still be fairly weird.
is stated specifically in TFA, and indeed, is part of the point. Your second criticism
is addressed in the second paragraph of TFA
And the part about the "conspiracy theory," that's in TFA too (did you actually read it?):
Now, I don't know if the guy's right or wrong. One reason I bothered to read your comment was that I was hoping that somebody might have some intelligent criticisms, rather than just knee-jerk responses based on the article summary.
So your idea of independent corroboration is...Wikipedia? So Wikipedia corroborated TFA with respect to the composition of corn syrup--and that proves that the article is FUD....How?
Or instead of going to Wikipedia, you could have found the same information in TFA. If you'd bothered to read it.
Wal-mart's website has a good bundle that lets you select what games and accessories you want rather than forcing a pre-selected crap pile on you. It comes with an extra wiimote -- you did want two controllers right? -- so getting another nunchuck makes sense, and then I got 3 games I would have bought if I'd gotten a wii at retail anyway. Check your favorite wii tracker to see if they have it in stock.
You're kidding. It's listed for $538, more than double list. And no, I don't need an extra controller. It comes with 3 games, but at $50 or so per game (which is the maximum I'll pay for a game; I usually buy games used) that still comes out to a $138 rip-off. No thanks.
I want a bare console with one controller, and I want to pay no more than list price. When Nintendo can get the supply up enough that I can buy it off the shelf without a ripoff bundle, then I'll get it.
From my perspective, the PS3 is a me-too machine, offering basically the same features that I already have on the XBox 360, with a weaker games library. It is of interest to me primarily as a BluRay player and secondarily for the (very) small number of exclusive games. The Wii is a far more unique system due to its innovative control mechanism. So if I could find the Wii at list price (I simply refuse to pay extra for bundles of crap that I don't want), I'd certainly have bought it instead of the PS3. I still might have bought the PS3 eventually, but I'd probably have waited at least for the next price cut.
Are you sure? The last I heard, the PS was unable to scale the output of a number of games that run in 720p up to 1080i. This is a problem for TVs (most HD CRTs) that accept 1080i signals but not 720p. All other HD devices, including the XBox 360, support both 720p and 1080i monitors.
Can you point me to a reference where the upgrade is announced?
It has long been known that much of walking is reflex-driven. A decerebrate cat (i.e. with the brain disconnected) supported on a treadmill will go through normal walking movements (known as "fictive locomotion") and will even correct for "stumbles". It seems likely that the timing required for coordination of walking is simply too tight for the brain, with its longer transmission delays, to manage properly.
Yes, I ordered a PS3 from Amazon. But if they'd had the Wii in stock, I'd definitely have ordered it instead.
I ordered a PS3 from Amazon. But if they'd had in in stock, I'd have ordered a Wii and waited on the PS3.
Has Sony rectified the problem of some games only being able to output in 720p and 480p, but not 1080i?
Maybe so. Supposedly, a patent filed by Apple has figures showing how to dial with a scroll wheel
I've used Palm OS and other touchscreen interfaces, and none that I've tried even begin to come close to the feature that I like on the iPhone--the illusion that you can just flick a document with your finger and slide it around, or reach into the screen and stretch it with your fingers. Microsoft Surface sounds as if it offers this kind of thing, but Apple seems to have been the first to bring it to a handheld device.