Iran: "Yes, we're enriching nuclear material, but we promise it's not to make warheads."
Iran: "Yes, we're employing nuclear scientists, but we promise it's not to make warheads."
Iran: "Yes, we're creating nuclear production facilities, but we promise it's not to make warheads."
Iran: "Yes, we're developing a missle for our space program, but we promise it's not to deliver warheads."
Wouldn't it be poetic justice and just a tad ironic if the US spent all this time and money on the "boogey man in Iraq", then like the boy who cried wolf, is criticized and ignored over Iran?
I'm fairly certain that there have been two sets of numbers:
1. The carbon levels projected by global warming researchers.
2. The carbon levels actually measured.
It's my understanding that these two have not matched up properly at all, which was why for the longest time global warming wasn't shiek or mainstream as it is now. However it eventually was supplanted by anecdotal accounts of temperature, which were then used as evidence for global warming despite there being no measureable link.
It's scary actually, because what we have here is human arrogance. We had one heavily studied model that projected increased temperatures, so of course we attributed any increased temperatures to it without the ability to relate the two.
So I guess what I'm getting at isn't so much that the question is "how could we miss this much carbon" but rather "is our understanding of cause and effect relationship flawed".
It always amazes me how much some people, (not necessarily the parent or GP specifically), attach themselves firmly to the posterier of their most tollerable politicians.
The thing about kissing-ass with a politician is that you can't get them to do anything differently, anything for you, from behind them.
I don't want to make this about liberal and conservative, but instead would venture that it's about idealists and non-idealists. Idealists, regardless of politics, seem to be more unable to understand their own partisan-ness.
You can, it is just that people who actually follow the scientific method, and/or are materialists and thus try and have evidence for what they say or believe in, will jump on you if you say something stupid.
Ahem.
So... it's not that Darwin bashing isn't allowed (completely avoiding the fact that evolution as it is now is vastly different from Darwin's version), it's just that Darwin bashers are stupid, and stupidity isn't allowed.
Kind of like making a claim that is factually false in a summary to try and artificially create a heated discussion between two belief groups by misrepresenting one groups beliefs as inconsistent with themselves.
Look, I've been both Christian and Ahtiest in my life. Christians, in large, suffer from the inability to change the way they think to accomodate the things that we know at this time. Atheists, in large, suffer from the inability to accept that the entire process of deconstructing a religious belief serves no purpose but to stroke your ego, since the existance of a false belief in a world where belief is a null sum game is by definition a null sum circumstance.
I'm not going to make sweeping statements about Slashdotters, but the fact that I had to scroll through as many comments as I did to find the GP is remarkable. For a system which professes to care for nothing but unbiased truth and fact, Atheists sure seem to not care about being factually correct when it comes to bashing religous types... kind of like the religious types they bash.
There are plenty of solid grounds for both religious and non-religious people to have informative debates about each others beliefs without making up things to try and discredit each other.
Our emissions represent something that we can control, and others can't. However, it also represents something others want to control. If we give it to them simply because it marginally benefits us, well... ok...
But in politics, particularly global politics, what you do is hold the things you can control hostage until others agree to your terms over something they control.
In this case, the effective difference in global pollution between us signing the Kyoto, and us waiting until we can use that political capital to pressure China/India into reducing emissions almost surely results in a net reduction in pollution.
Leading by example only works against the altruistic, and societies run from the top down are never altruistic.
That's all completely ignoring the fact that the Kyoto treaty was itself flawed, because it placed no value on progression of emissions. The Kyoto treaty was like the emissions version of a time share: you could pollute as much as you wanted in, say, a 10 square mile area, as long as you paid another Kyoto Treaty member to have zero emissions in a comparable 10 square mile area.
The net effect was that countries like Luxembourg could pay Russia to have a Luxembourg sized "pollution free zone" in Siberia, and then they were free to pollute as much as they wanted. Obviously, the US had no motivation to sign into that kind of system, (which would in all probabiliy result in net increases in pollution).
End result is less birds in the sky spewing out pollutants and more people being forced to holiday closer to home and using all them newfangled technologies like the intertubes to communicate with people far away. Heck, we might actually start seeing forms of transport that don't rely on keeping a huge hunk of metal airborne for an extended amount of time(trains).
If you think our transportation infrastructure, even in Europe, is even remotely close to adequately supplying alternatives to air travel, that are not also faced with the same exact fuel-squeeze efficiency problems, you are sorely mistaken.
Our train system isn't adequate to accomadate even a small portion of our air transportation, not even counting air freight. And that's not even considering the loss of millions, with an "M", of jobs that will occur. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but is a societal consideration.)
There is a huge difference between the car companies and the airlines. The car companies are largely where they are because of bad business decisions and an inability to adapt business models.
Airlines have literally no way out. For all the work done on alternative fuels, almost none of it is being applied to aeronautics, and their fuel-to-weight ratio of the commercial planes they can fly, even the newest ones, is getting really close to making it impossible to turn a profit given the supply-demand curves of our current economy for air travel.
In the end car manufacturers will survive whether or not we bail them out, because there is a giant void that must be filled. Our entire way of life depends on it.
But the problem the airlines are in is a middle area where it is important enough to drastically impact our day to day lives, but not drastic enough to ensure self-correction. When all is said and done the largest casualty of the oil companies may be international air travel. Someone is going to have to bail the airlines out soon, because Boeing/Exxon/Lockeed-Martin etc. are not providing them with the technologies to adequately meet demand or lift supply.
With car companies, the technologies exist, and it's a matter of infrastructure and implementation. With airlines, the technology does not, and no one is worried about that except for the airlines themselves.
Most posters here seem like they are completely lost.
Not surprised with the uninformative summary though. This is basically a digital subscription to a multimedia version of a PlayStation Magazine. It's a more convenient, and slightly cheaper, alternative for those who love picking up gaming mags. No grand scheme of villany here, just a giant company changing their business model to reflect the changes in technology and consumer expectations.
Which if I recall correctly is something people here are usually begging for.
If you don't provide equal opportunity to every child to excel and prove themselves in academia, then the chances of plucking the brightest from the far reaches of the bell curve diminish.
The US education system has a lot wrong with it, but those things have a WHOLE lot less to do with the amount of money spent or the cultural importance, than say, the state of union agreements or the burden of proof in situations where the school tries to do something someone somewhere finds objectionable.
Denmark for instance has a spectacular school system, and they use something very close to school vouchers, which get all the touchy-feely my-heart-will-go-on I-love-the-children people in this country on the verge of a heart attack. For some reason, amking schools *earn* the ability to retain students is *really* bad for students, even though history proves otherwise.
The Chinese sure seem to be doing a good job of pissing off the Japanese, Koreans (South), Taiwanese, Tibetans, and anyone who cares about them lately.
This isn't supposed to be a direct comparison. My point is that perspective is the only thing that seperates these situations.
So because of the second law in thermodynamics the earth will "try" to remove the blemish that is humanity?
I suppose the second law of thermodynamics also disproves evolution?
The earth is not a closed system. External energy is introduced through solar and extra-solar radiation, and even if that weren't the case you'd have to show that the goal we were talking about, removing or disabling humanity, is a state of lower energy than the state we're currently in; in physical terms.
Right, but this system is a group of parts that interact, not a single system that controls each of the parts. In this situation, "earth" is the superset of all the ecological parts, but it is simply a superset, not a system in itself.
There are only two solutions to the Fermi Paradox:
1. Our estimates are off because we are opperating with faulty data.
2. Life evolves into intelligent life nearly 100% of the time, and nearly 100% of intelligent life actively disguises itself from detection.
MS Lawyer: "Your honor, we move to have class action removed on the account that it's bad for us."
Judge: *throws gavel at lawyers face* "Overruled." *smirks* "With prejudice."
Their people are blinded by unfounded national pride.
While I appreciate the point your making, the difference between prevailing "national pride" in the US and "national pride" in China is night and day. In the United States, we have signifigant portions of the population that actually respect European countries more, (paradoxally). In China, national pride approaches levels of mob-rule racism. It's the only way to deceive a people that large on that large a scale.
Slashdot Mirror
I find this progression of events intersting...
Iran: "Yes, we're enriching nuclear material, but we promise it's not to make warheads."
Iran: "Yes, we're employing nuclear scientists, but we promise it's not to make warheads."
Iran: "Yes, we're creating nuclear production facilities, but we promise it's not to make warheads."
Iran: "Yes, we're developing a missle for our space program, but we promise it's not to deliver warheads."
Wouldn't it be poetic justice and just a tad ironic if the US spent all this time and money on the "boogey man in Iraq", then like the boy who cried wolf, is criticized and ignored over Iran?
I'm fairly certain that there have been two sets of numbers:
1. The carbon levels projected by global warming researchers.
2. The carbon levels actually measured.
It's my understanding that these two have not matched up properly at all, which was why for the longest time global warming wasn't shiek or mainstream as it is now. However it eventually was supplanted by anecdotal accounts of temperature, which were then used as evidence for global warming despite there being no measureable link.
It's scary actually, because what we have here is human arrogance. We had one heavily studied model that projected increased temperatures, so of course we attributed any increased temperatures to it without the ability to relate the two.
So I guess what I'm getting at isn't so much that the question is "how could we miss this much carbon" but rather "is our understanding of cause and effect relationship flawed".
It always amazes me how much some people, (not necessarily the parent or GP specifically), attach themselves firmly to the posterier of their most tollerable politicians.
The thing about kissing-ass with a politician is that you can't get them to do anything differently, anything for you, from behind them.
I don't want to make this about liberal and conservative, but instead would venture that it's about idealists and non-idealists. Idealists, regardless of politics, seem to be more unable to understand their own partisan-ness.
Ahem. So... it's not that Darwin bashing isn't allowed (completely avoiding the fact that evolution as it is now is vastly different from Darwin's version), it's just that Darwin bashers are stupid, and stupidity isn't allowed.
Kind of like making a claim that is factually false in a summary to try and artificially create a heated discussion between two belief groups by misrepresenting one groups beliefs as inconsistent with themselves.
Look, I've been both Christian and Ahtiest in my life. Christians, in large, suffer from the inability to change the way they think to accomodate the things that we know at this time. Atheists, in large, suffer from the inability to accept that the entire process of deconstructing a religious belief serves no purpose but to stroke your ego, since the existance of a false belief in a world where belief is a null sum game is by definition a null sum circumstance.
I'm not going to make sweeping statements about Slashdotters, but the fact that I had to scroll through as many comments as I did to find the GP is remarkable. For a system which professes to care for nothing but unbiased truth and fact, Atheists sure seem to not care about being factually correct when it comes to bashing religous types... kind of like the religious types they bash.
There are plenty of solid grounds for both religious and non-religious people to have informative debates about each others beliefs without making up things to try and discredit each other.
It's called political capital.
Our emissions represent something that we can control, and others can't. However, it also represents something others want to control. If we give it to them simply because it marginally benefits us, well... ok...
But in politics, particularly global politics, what you do is hold the things you can control hostage until others agree to your terms over something they control.
In this case, the effective difference in global pollution between us signing the Kyoto, and us waiting until we can use that political capital to pressure China/India into reducing emissions almost surely results in a net reduction in pollution.
Leading by example only works against the altruistic, and societies run from the top down are never altruistic.
That's all completely ignoring the fact that the Kyoto treaty was itself flawed, because it placed no value on progression of emissions. The Kyoto treaty was like the emissions version of a time share: you could pollute as much as you wanted in, say, a 10 square mile area, as long as you paid another Kyoto Treaty member to have zero emissions in a comparable 10 square mile area.
The net effect was that countries like Luxembourg could pay Russia to have a Luxembourg sized "pollution free zone" in Siberia, and then they were free to pollute as much as they wanted. Obviously, the US had no motivation to sign into that kind of system, (which would in all probabiliy result in net increases in pollution).
Allow the government to spy on us without haebeus corpus or warrants... Permanently disbar JT...
We might have gotten the better end of that trade.
(I kid...)
If you think our transportation infrastructure, even in Europe, is even remotely close to adequately supplying alternatives to air travel, that are not also faced with the same exact fuel-squeeze efficiency problems, you are sorely mistaken. Our train system isn't adequate to accomadate even a small portion of our air transportation, not even counting air freight. And that's not even considering the loss of millions, with an "M", of jobs that will occur. (Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but is a societal consideration.)
There is a huge difference between the car companies and the airlines. The car companies are largely where they are because of bad business decisions and an inability to adapt business models.
Airlines have literally no way out. For all the work done on alternative fuels, almost none of it is being applied to aeronautics, and their fuel-to-weight ratio of the commercial planes they can fly, even the newest ones, is getting really close to making it impossible to turn a profit given the supply-demand curves of our current economy for air travel.
In the end car manufacturers will survive whether or not we bail them out, because there is a giant void that must be filled. Our entire way of life depends on it.
But the problem the airlines are in is a middle area where it is important enough to drastically impact our day to day lives, but not drastic enough to ensure self-correction. When all is said and done the largest casualty of the oil companies may be international air travel. Someone is going to have to bail the airlines out soon, because Boeing/Exxon/Lockeed-Martin etc. are not providing them with the technologies to adequately meet demand or lift supply.
With car companies, the technologies exist, and it's a matter of infrastructure and implementation. With airlines, the technology does not, and no one is worried about that except for the airlines themselves.
I didn't say it took less skill, I implied that it's easier to describe programatically, which is very easy to see.
With Limit you have a very small ability to do things like bluff and a very narrow margin of pot odds and the ability to call other players bluffs.
Pot Limit would be more difficult to program than Limit, and No Limit more difficult still.
Programmed intelligence thrives on constants, and in Limit Poker, there are more of them.
Limit hold'em? No wonder they can write a computer program to play perfectly. Let's see them do no-limit and make the same claim.
I like how Goran Fransson was shortened to Gransson. Very economical of our editors.
Most posters here seem like they are completely lost.
Not surprised with the uninformative summary though. This is basically a digital subscription to a multimedia version of a PlayStation Magazine. It's a more convenient, and slightly cheaper, alternative for those who love picking up gaming mags. No grand scheme of villany here, just a giant company changing their business model to reflect the changes in technology and consumer expectations.
Which if I recall correctly is something people here are usually begging for.
The US education system has a lot wrong with it, but those things have a WHOLE lot less to do with the amount of money spent or the cultural importance, than say, the state of union agreements or the burden of proof in situations where the school tries to do something someone somewhere finds objectionable.
Denmark for instance has a spectacular school system, and they use something very close to school vouchers, which get all the touchy-feely my-heart-will-go-on I-love-the-children people in this country on the verge of a heart attack. For some reason, amking schools *earn* the ability to retain students is *really* bad for students, even though history proves otherwise.
I find it incredibly ammusing that Bukkake is only three clicks away from The Roman Catholic Church...
By way of the Japanese Language evidentally.
http://www.netsoc.tcd.ie/~mu/cgi-bin/shortpath.cgi?from=bukkake&to=catholic+church
The Chinese sure seem to be doing a good job of pissing off the Japanese, Koreans (South), Taiwanese, Tibetans, and anyone who cares about them lately.
This isn't supposed to be a direct comparison. My point is that perspective is the only thing that seperates these situations.
Alot of Germans were content with the Third Riech... a bit of perspective perhaps.
So because of the second law in thermodynamics the earth will "try" to remove the blemish that is humanity?
I suppose the second law of thermodynamics also disproves evolution?
The earth is not a closed system. External energy is introduced through solar and extra-solar radiation, and even if that weren't the case you'd have to show that the goal we were talking about, removing or disabling humanity, is a state of lower energy than the state we're currently in; in physical terms.
Right, but this system is a group of parts that interact, not a single system that controls each of the parts. In this situation, "earth" is the superset of all the ecological parts, but it is simply a superset, not a system in itself.
The major logical fallacy of that argument is ascribing intent, and thus intelligence, to "the earth".
It's kind of interesting how you misspelled "people that don't browse slashdot" as "us". To be fair, the keys are like right next each other.
Only 4 and 5 are not taken into account by the Drake equation.
The Fermi Paradox does not actually require that civilizations be space faring/colonizing.
There are only two solutions to the Fermi Paradox:
1. Our estimates are off because we are opperating with faulty data.
2. Life evolves into intelligent life nearly 100% of the time, and nearly 100% of intelligent life actively disguises itself from detection.