A warming climate means more rain overall (across the globe) as there is more water in the atmosphere.
That's new to me (there's always more to learn about climate science) but I don't doubt the veracity of your statement. What do do doubt is the likelihood of the rain falling where we want it and consistently as we've become accustomed. 'Global Weirding' does seem to be a fair description for the seemingly-random changes in weather patterns that are predicted to affect us.
First of all, a warmer climate also means overall more energy in the system.
Yes - more energy to drive upper atmospheric winds like the jetstream, ocean currents, higher-speed and less predictable winds at ground level (yay renewables), more energetic and frequent cyclonic formations, floods, less ice to reflect the endless torrent of radiation from Sol, dogs and cats living together, the baby Jebus crying.. ahem.
Secondly, because of advances in fossil fuel extraction like Fracking, there is no energy problem for anyone that actually needs energy.
Do those people also need air to breathe? I'm only half-joking when I ask this question - some suggest there may well be more fossil fuel still under the ground than there will be atmosphere left to safely burn it in.
It's just a matter of the thin veneer of pretending energy doesn't matter to civilization being stripped away, which happens quite rapidly.
Uh, that bit I didn't get, perhaps you can re-phrase? Do you mean to say that we're essentially 'three square meals from barbarism' as regards our dependence upon steady supplies of electricity? If so I heartily agree. Usually that's an indication that I've gotten it wrong.:)
And you are claiming that with temperature changes of 1-2c over 100 years, there is not enough time to bio-engineer new strains that like it slightly warmer?
That's a pretty reasonable argument. We may very well have time enough to adapt other organisms such as select crops and livestock as the climate changes. Such developmental work would be almost infinitely faster than evolution by natural selection (as I understand it) and may well be quite successful.
Whether we have time to implement some sort of industrial-scale solution to the impending scarcity of water that (A)GW will likely bring so we can keep these new crops alive remains to be seen. If one views such issues primarily as energy problems then we may well have something of a.. well, problem on our hands, given the baseload reliability of wind/solar and the lengthy, expensive process of building new nuclear generation capacity.
I use this as an example; I understand that (A)GW brings many more issues besides this to contend with. Many of these issues are, naturally, interdependent. Perhaps these the 'interesting times' the Chinese speak of.
You're essentially suggesting that/. is here so that nerds can come here to get group validation. Or are they allowed to disagree on occasion?
Hardly - I thought I made my feelings clear with my choice of words when describing the them as "entertaining conversations". Entertainment is what I'm here for after all; entertainment and often, education. Sometimes even TFA!
We have a moderation system here to improve the signal:noise ratio; pseudo-scientific crankology argued by nimrods constitutes more the latter than the former and is typically moderated accordingly. There are simply more interesting people who deserve the floor and Slashdotters are less likely than most to suffer fools.
Wow, do the pseudo-scientific types have mod points today. Mod away, I've got karma to burn.
The pseudo-scientifics that lurk on the 'dot have always fascinated me. Sometimes they're obvious trolls but often they're genuine and attempt to argue their case, giving rise to some of the more entertaining conversations.
Others skulk about the edges very quietly until a story like this arises (the homeopathy article from a day or so ago is also a good example). I really don't know what it is about a site aiming for rational discourse with an (actual) scientific basis that draws them out. Perhaps it is subconsciously compelling to them in the way a blue fly-light is attractive to flying insects?
Thanks, that was a lucid and easily-digestible summary of the matter.
The media and industry shills have managed to really cloud this issue.
I wonder how people would feel about the loud and ever-present AGW deniers if they realised the full extent of the scientific 'debate' amounted to determining
1) exactly how badly screwed we all are, - and 2) exactly when the screwing begins
Err.. sorry? Last I knew, it was cheaper to turn on the tap than it was to open a bottle of Evian.
The materials cost the same.
Ah, no, not really. That's just not how it works in the real world. Go read up on Economies of Scale for some rather desparately needed 101-level learning on this topic.
Alternatively, you can convince us all by trotting down to your local supermarket and coming back with a single pound of beef - but at the level of quality and price that McDonalds pays for it.
What British cover of a old American blues song starts off with what may very well be the greatest drum break in the history of rock and roll?
I'm confused. Assuming you're describing When the Levee Breaks by Led Zep, that song begins with a very vanilla 4/4 drumbeat (with the odd small frill) that could in no way be described as a 'great drum break'. Have I missed the song you were referring to?
Mod down for not being able to spell. Grate? Seriously?
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls but it seems only fair to remind everyone who thinks like this that people make typos too; they're not all spelling mistakes[1].
At 0.1% of lightspeed, the trip would be closer to 4300 years than 30,000. Yes, we don't know how to get to 300 km/s now.
Forgive me if I am incorrect but I thought with ion drives and the like we could indeed accelerate to some significant fraction of C over the course of a couple of years?
Assuming we could construct such a ship in space in the same manner as the ISS, oh, and assuming we can (politically) get multiple fission reactors into space, I was under the impression we largely had the technology we need for interstellar travel. Or perhaps I'm making the usual mistake and failing to separate science from science fiction..?
And wrong. The link you gave does not disprove it, it simply points out they don't know. [snip]
You really haven't read this stuff?
Whay do you feel qualified to discuss something you know so little about?
Two things:
One, you are replying to the wrong person, and
Two, people here are going to be discussing topics regardless of how 'qualified' you feel they are to offer an opinion - I'll judge people's posts on their own merit, thank you very much.
Heh, that'd be one way to get the pitchfork brigade worked up into a good lather, depending on where you live. Any mention of power generation incites some people.
Here in NZ - land of the NIMBY - 'nuclear' is a swearword to many. You're probably aware that we've enough of a bug up our collective arses about the technology that we even refuse port entry to the nuclear-powered ships of our allies.
We've been lucky enough to have a lot of hydro resources and we're also exploring geothermal but we need to look at other sources as well. The response is usually some variant of 'don't you dare put nasssty windmills on our precious countryside!' with lashings of 'we'll run you up a flagpole if you even mention nuclear power.'
Psst! Don't tell the proles NZ had its own small reactor for 19 years.
i agree, however we're not smart enough like other nations to be researching or building the reactors that can't melt down, make no long -term waste (as in decay in decades rather than millenia), and that can even burn our enormous cache of cooling pond and cask "spent fuel"
Exactly how would that put money into the pockets of the Big Oil corporate sponsors?
(in case it's not obvious, I agree with you completely)
Wow, it didn't even occur to me to report it. But you are right, I should have.
I absolutely don't blame you for not reporting it (that's a pretty goddamned nasty thing to do to a friend after all) but I don't envy you your contemplative time alone, considering the high likelihood of this officer having made a number of new victims since you heard the sheriff's anecdote.
That said, I imagine it's a similar situation for the cops. Nobody wants to be the arsehole who rats out their workmates.. so the date-rapes continue, as does the police brutality.
Officer cams that can only be lawfully disabled during a shift for restroom breaks (for example) would go a long way to helping clean this situation up, but only if the footage is well outside the Police's control. I'm fed up to the back teeth with the foxes running the henhouse when it comes to police conduct.
No, the sensible thing would have been to have gotten rid of them ALL on BOTH SIDES in the heady years right after the Wall fell.
A halcyon ideal but I'm not sure how much better off we'd actually be. There are plenty of nations besides the US and Russia who desire nuclear weapons so it seems rather a lot safer to be 'in the club' than out.
Israel was always going to want to arm itself regardless - who wouldn't in their situation? Pakistan had no choice but to follow suit after India repaid Canada's kindness by double-crossing them to kick-start its own weapons programme in a deeply destabilising move for the region. China would definitely be in on the party and France wasn't about to be left out.
Nope, I really don't think US/Russian disarmament would have made the blindest bit of difference. The world wanted nukes and by God it was going to have them.
You're generally right about Google but with DeepMind I think they've taken Alan Kay's advice to heart; "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
My guess is that it'll be Google, not IBM's Watson, that is first to market with the AutoSecretary 2000 for the low low price of $0.99/hr. Developing useful software robots is a whole lot cheaper and easier than building and programming meatspace robots and it probably doesn't hurt to have a whole mess of servers at one's disposal either.
Thanks, that was a great post and very informative.
I have a fifteen-year-old girl with terrible teeth that need to come out. Unfortunately she's prone to seizures and the advise is against attempting general anaesthetic, so the only option is painkillers and the occasional antibiotics (which I absolutely ensure are completed).
A couple of years of this and she now has a heart murmur. Whilst this is not unusual in older dogs, from your post it does cause me to wonder if the valves of her heart have become infected as a result of the rotten teeth.
I've since met someone who cleans her little dog's teeth after every meal. Her dog was seven years old at the time and had the most perfect teeth I've ever seen on a dog. According to her it was no trouble to clean the teeth if you start young and begin with something tasty like peanut butter as the 'toothpaste' to get them into the idea. A bit of effort but perhaps worth it for the dog - and the vet bills!
Slashdot Mirror
A warming climate means more rain overall (across the globe) as there is more water in the atmosphere.
That's new to me (there's always more to learn about climate science) but I don't doubt the veracity of your statement. What do do doubt is the likelihood of the rain falling where we want it and consistently as we've become accustomed. 'Global Weirding' does seem to be a fair description for the seemingly-random changes in weather patterns that are predicted to affect us.
First of all, a warmer climate also means overall more energy in the system.
Yes - more energy to drive upper atmospheric winds like the jetstream, ocean currents, higher-speed and less predictable winds at ground level (yay renewables), more energetic and frequent cyclonic formations, floods, less ice to reflect the endless torrent of radiation from Sol, dogs and cats living together, the baby Jebus crying.. ahem.
Secondly, because of advances in fossil fuel extraction like Fracking, there is no energy problem for anyone that actually needs energy.
Do those people also need air to breathe? I'm only half-joking when I ask this question - some suggest there may well be more fossil fuel still under the ground than there will be atmosphere left to safely burn it in.
It's just a matter of the thin veneer of pretending energy doesn't matter to civilization being stripped away, which happens quite rapidly.
Uh, that bit I didn't get, perhaps you can re-phrase? Do you mean to say that we're essentially 'three square meals from barbarism' as regards our dependence upon steady supplies of electricity? If so I heartily agree. Usually that's an indication that I've gotten it wrong. :)
And you are claiming that with temperature changes of 1-2c over 100 years, there is not enough time to bio-engineer new strains that like it slightly warmer?
That's a pretty reasonable argument. We may very well have time enough to adapt other organisms such as select crops and livestock as the climate changes. Such developmental work would be almost infinitely faster than evolution by natural selection (as I understand it) and may well be quite successful.
Whether we have time to implement some sort of industrial-scale solution to the impending scarcity of water that (A)GW will likely bring so we can keep these new crops alive remains to be seen. If one views such issues primarily as energy problems then we may well have something of a.. well, problem on our hands, given the baseload reliability of wind/solar and the lengthy, expensive process of building new nuclear generation capacity.
I use this as an example; I understand that (A)GW brings many more issues besides this to contend with. Many of these issues are, naturally, interdependent. Perhaps these the 'interesting times' the Chinese speak of.
You're essentially suggesting that /. is here so that nerds can come here to get group validation. Or are they allowed to disagree on occasion?
Hardly - I thought I made my feelings clear with my choice of words when describing the them as "entertaining conversations". Entertainment is what I'm here for after all; entertainment and often, education. Sometimes even TFA!
We have a moderation system here to improve the signal:noise ratio; pseudo-scientific crankology argued by nimrods constitutes more the latter than the former and is typically moderated accordingly. There are simply more interesting people who deserve the floor and Slashdotters are less likely than most to suffer fools.
Wow, do the pseudo-scientific types have mod points today. Mod away, I've got karma to burn.
The pseudo-scientifics that lurk on the 'dot have always fascinated me. Sometimes they're obvious trolls but often they're genuine and attempt to argue their case, giving rise to some of the more entertaining conversations.
Others skulk about the edges very quietly until a story like this arises (the homeopathy article from a day or so ago is also a good example). I really don't know what it is about a site aiming for rational discourse with an (actual) scientific basis that draws them out. Perhaps it is subconsciously compelling to them in the way a blue fly-light is attractive to flying insects?
I know you are stupid and small mined, byt many people aren't.
Why do you feel it necessary to be so damn rude to people?
Thanks, that was a lucid and easily-digestible summary of the matter.
The media and industry shills have managed to really cloud this issue.
I wonder how people would feel about the loud and ever-present AGW deniers if they realised the full extent of the scientific 'debate' amounted to determining
1) exactly how badly screwed we all are,
- and
2) exactly when the screwing begins
Dali - The world is full of hidden vaginas
Geiger - The world is full of not-at-all-hidden vaginas
It's not cheaper to mass produce.
Err.. sorry? Last I knew, it was cheaper to turn on the tap than it was to open a bottle of Evian.
The materials cost the same.
Ah, no, not really. That's just not how it works in the real world. Go read up on Economies of Scale for some rather desparately needed 101-level learning on this topic.
Alternatively, you can convince us all by trotting down to your local supermarket and coming back with a single pound of beef - but at the level of quality and price that McDonalds pays for it.
Take that, "Slashdot is dead" doomers. Where else are you gonna find comments like this?
What British cover of a old American blues song starts off with what may very well be the greatest drum break in the history of rock and roll?
I'm confused. Assuming you're describing When the Levee Breaks by Led Zep, that song begins with a very vanilla 4/4 drumbeat (with the odd small frill) that could in no way be described as a 'great drum break'. Have I missed the song you were referring to?
Mod down for not being able to spell. Grate? Seriously?
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls but it seems only fair to remind everyone who thinks like this that people make typos too; they're not all spelling mistakes[1].
[1] Ref: usual example
At 0.1% of lightspeed, the trip would be closer to 4300 years than 30,000. Yes, we don't know how to get to 300 km/s now.
Forgive me if I am incorrect but I thought with ion drives and the like we could indeed accelerate to some significant fraction of C over the course of a couple of years?
Assuming we could construct such a ship in space in the same manner as the ISS, oh, and assuming we can (politically) get multiple fission reactors into space, I was under the impression we largely had the technology we need for interstellar travel. Or perhaps I'm making the usual mistake and failing to separate science from science fiction..?
If I ever see your "friend" talking and driving around me, I'll shoot him in the fucking face.
Now that is indeed a solution, but it is to a different problem.
Still, having one less violently angry, psychopathic gun-wielding person on the road (and behind bars) can't all be bad.
And wrong. The link you gave does not disprove it, it simply points out they don't know. [snip]
You really haven't read this stuff?
Whay do you feel qualified to discuss something you know so little about?
Two things:
One, you are replying to the wrong person, and
Two, people here are going to be discussing topics regardless of how 'qualified' you feel they are to offer an opinion - I'll judge people's posts on their own merit, thank you very much.
I see you're one of the idiots...
Informative link, thanks.
Are you really so biologically illiterate that you are confusing my statement with the common "natural is good" fallacy? Geez.
Are you really so humour-impaired that you are mistaking his witticism for serious debate? :-D
You know what probably REALLY gives you brain damage? Superstition.
A pity superstition (like stupidity in general) isn't painful. Stupid should hurt, dammnit.
Heh, that'd be one way to get the pitchfork brigade worked up into a good lather, depending on where you live. Any mention of power generation incites some people.
Here in NZ - land of the NIMBY - 'nuclear' is a swearword to many. You're probably aware that we've enough of a bug up our collective arses about the technology that we even refuse port entry to the nuclear-powered ships of our allies.
We've been lucky enough to have a lot of hydro resources and we're also exploring geothermal but we need to look at other sources as well. The response is usually some variant of 'don't you dare put nasssty windmills on our precious countryside!' with lashings of 'we'll run you up a flagpole if you even mention nuclear power.'
Psst! Don't tell the proles NZ had its own small reactor for 19 years.
i agree, however we're not smart enough like other nations to be researching or building the reactors that can't melt down, make no long -term waste (as in decay in decades rather than millenia), and that can even burn our enormous cache of cooling pond and cask "spent fuel"
Exactly how would that put money into the pockets of the Big Oil corporate sponsors?
(in case it's not obvious, I agree with you completely)
Thanks, very interesting read!
Wow, it didn't even occur to me to report it. But you are right, I should have.
I absolutely don't blame you for not reporting it (that's a pretty goddamned nasty thing to do to a friend after all) but I don't envy you your contemplative time alone, considering the high likelihood of this officer having made a number of new victims since you heard the sheriff's anecdote.
That said, I imagine it's a similar situation for the cops. Nobody wants to be the arsehole who rats out their workmates .. so the date-rapes continue, as does the police brutality.
Officer cams that can only be lawfully disabled during a shift for restroom breaks (for example) would go a long way to helping clean this situation up, but only if the footage is well outside the Police's control. I'm fed up to the back teeth with the foxes running the henhouse when it comes to police conduct.
No, the sensible thing would have been to have gotten rid of them ALL on BOTH SIDES in the heady years right after the Wall fell.
A halcyon ideal but I'm not sure how much better off we'd actually be. There are plenty of nations besides the US and Russia who desire nuclear weapons so it seems rather a lot safer to be 'in the club' than out.
Israel was always going to want to arm itself regardless - who wouldn't in their situation? Pakistan had no choice but to follow suit after India repaid Canada's kindness by double-crossing them to kick-start its own weapons programme in a deeply destabilising move for the region. China would definitely be in on the party and France wasn't about to be left out.
Nope, I really don't think US/Russian disarmament would have made the blindest bit of difference. The world wanted nukes and by God it was going to have them.
You're generally right about Google but with DeepMind I think they've taken Alan Kay's advice to heart; "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
My guess is that it'll be Google, not IBM's Watson, that is first to market with the AutoSecretary 2000 for the low low price of $0.99/hr. Developing useful software robots is a whole lot cheaper and easier than building and programming meatspace robots and it probably doesn't hurt to have a whole mess of servers at one's disposal either.
this is misdirecting effort. smart people solving a problem that doesn't exist. we use energy we get better we don't need to pump more from the moon.
Sorry, it doesn't work that way. Counter-intuitive I know, but reality is often like that: improvements to energy efficiency paradoxically tend to stimulate further consumption.
Thanks, that was a great post and very informative.
I have a fifteen-year-old girl with terrible teeth that need to come out. Unfortunately she's prone to seizures and the advise is against attempting general anaesthetic, so the only option is painkillers and the occasional antibiotics (which I absolutely ensure are completed).
A couple of years of this and she now has a heart murmur. Whilst this is not unusual in older dogs, from your post it does cause me to wonder if the valves of her heart have become infected as a result of the rotten teeth.
I've since met someone who cleans her little dog's teeth after every meal. Her dog was seven years old at the time and had the most perfect teeth I've ever seen on a dog. According to her it was no trouble to clean the teeth if you start young and begin with something tasty like peanut butter as the 'toothpaste' to get them into the idea. A bit of effort but perhaps worth it for the dog - and the vet bills!