Absolutely. This could very well be a cheap ad stunt, an outright fabrication, or anything else. I suspect though that we should see some sort of Citi comment at some point.... we'll know more then.
Then the comment from the citi employees should have been"We're terminating your account because your business fails the following compliance checks: 1) blah 2) reblah 3) reblahblah"
Instead, they said: your site is objectionable. There is a huge, huge difference here. I don't think citi has a policy of discriminating against gays (hooray class action lawsuit if they do), so the only thing left is that there are some stupidly moronic people at citi who don't understand how to be professional. Considering how many of those people I have met while working in different places.... I'd say that's a fair assessment.
I'm sure the iPad will find an audience and will sell by the truckload, but come on...are they really claiming that people won't pay for a netbook, but they will pay the same price for something with half the functionality and none of the openness, just because it's pretty?
Yup. Why? Because a lot of people don't need that extra functionality. My mom's only introduction to computing, if it ever happens, will be an iPad. I will most likely get one, because it's the brain-dead way of watching movies, browse the web and talk to friends. For general computing, I keep my laptop around.
Notice again the separation of functionality.... iPad if I just want to do something simple. General PC for general computing. Many people indeed have no use for a general computing device.
If someone is so incapable of using a computer without fucking it up, they don't need a "locked down appliance", they just need to be kept the hell away from computers period.
To make a car analogy: if someone is so incapable of using a car that they can't shift gears without fucking it up, they don't need a car mechanic, they need to be kept the hell away from cars period.
You utterly, totally fail to understand how the vast majority of the population views computers and computing: as a tool to do something, while getting out of the way of doing said something. And since the vast majority of the population votes, you will never, ever get your idea to pass. Not unless you're the nation's benevolent dictator, in which case you need to watch out for someone else becoming benevolent dictator by offing your ass.
The magic in Apple's iPhone and iPad is that they get that. They get that people actually want an appliance to do specific stuff, not a general computing device. And that's why they keep making money hand over fist, to the general surprise of a lot of self-proclaimed computer experts.
Politicians have no clue about space technology, and are terrible managers to boot. Yet here they are, discussing merits of space technology and managing projects. What a country.
They are? Cuz I see the same assholes get re-elected on a regular basis. To me, that's the ultimate vote of confidence. Unless you mean "Some citizens blast the Senate for lacking vision", in which case I have to agree.
Ummm... you do realize that someone, somewhere, is going to have to come up with a long-term plan and put a few people in charge? Doesn't matter whether you call it politburo with a five year plan or a steering committee with a roadmap to success. There's nothing magically efficient about a company doing something versus a government doing it.
The main benefit is that a nation can have several companies, but only one government. This means that an idiot in one corporation has less impact on the nation's advance than an idiot in government.
As for NASA outsourcing its technology... could luck with that. Sounds like a commie plan to steal valuable IP from a department that could be a revenue center instead of a cost center. (I wish I was kidding. I'm sure somewhere, a politician is thinking exactly that.)
Newsflash: science works by subjecting everything to the scientific method. Including things that we think are obvious. Sometimes it confirms the obvious (like here), sometimes it throws everything into complete upheaval (like special relativity).
Next time I hear someone say "Durrr! Everyone knows that!" I'm going to smack them.
Because it means that robots and software can be creative. And what is the last bastion of the human aspect, the greatest thing, the most productive and valuable feature? Creativity. When robots and AI products exhibit creativity, it will be impossible to deny them a soul. And that's the end of humanity.
Or at least, that's how some people look at it. Personally, I think it's a very cool program, and worrying about it replacing humans in art creation is a silly worry. Humans create art because they want to, not because it shows others that they have a soul. At least I hope so.
Don't confuse common law countries with civil code countries. The judge in Italy cannot set precedent. Also, there's a reason we have stupid and/or corrupt politicians: people keep voting for them. Ultimately, in a democracy, the state of the political system has its roots in the voting public.
And peope wonder why democracy isn't always regarded as a panacea by everyone....
Because Youtube puts out into the public place what happens every day at the bar, in the office, at home: the completely un-checked dissemination of information.
To me, your approach is the equivalent of having some government employee follow every person in the US and make sure they're not disseminating illegally obtained information, plotting an illegal action or disseminating falsehoods. No thank you.
The privacy cat is out of the bag. We're back to a world where what you is known pretty quickly across the world. You're not going to put this genie back into the bottle anymore than the one of easy digital copies - because they're intimately tied together.
Of course - that's the standard broadcast model. Mostly. Of course, this model is also being ground into fine bits and pieces by the internet, and therefore represents a huge threat to Berlusconi's media control and business empire. This is nothing more than the use of government employees to help Berlusconi get rid of competition. Which is standard operating procedure for him. I'm almost surprised Google didn't see this coming.
Obviously innocent? You must have watched a different trial. She and her boyfriend had wildly differing stories about what happened, repeatedly changed their stories and had some other issues explaining what they were doing the night of the murder. Not to mention that it is entirely possible for more than one person to participate in a murder.
Yes, there were some obvious issues in the trial (her dna is found on a knife from their apartment? Shocking!) and there are plenty of well-deserved jokes about the Italian legal system, but to go as far as saying they're obviously innocent.... that's a stretch.
I'm pretty sure I know why this happened:Youtube is a serious threat to Berlusconi's stranglehold over all Italian TV stations.Considering how easy it is to set up a Youtube channel, traditional Italian TV is about to be pushed into irrelevance. Call Berlusconi whatever you want, but he isn't stupid. So he sends some favorable prosecutor after Youtube and will try to shut them down.
I don't know if this will lead to anything more than Youtube being pulled from Italy, because the Italian system isn't common law - judges don't create precedents. So I don't think this ruling means anything more than more "Youtube, stop interfering with our monopoly!" But other than that, yes it does reek of corruption and incompetence.
I would strongly suggest to you to take neither Friel nor Lomborg at his work, and read Lomborg's book first, then cross-reference the claims. While from my perspective, I do it because I don't trust Lomborg to tell me accurately whether the sun is shining, I would do it in your place because Friel might be subject to the same problem - and quoting Lomborg in his defense isn't very thorough when the claim is that Lomborg flat-out lies.
I don't know if I even agree with that premise. Arguing that there is no more work to be done in a scientific area is like saying in the late 19th century that we understood all there was about Physics, and that we only needed to fill in the details. There is ALWAYS more work to be done to improve the models. Just how much is determined by who thinks there are some interesting questions out there, not by the start of a political process.
This is how it works: scientists produce the data and create the models, economists and politicians figure out a way how to incorporate that data and those models into our society. Just because one starts working doesn't mean that the other stops.
Every time I hear or read something new from Lomborg, I find him to be exactly as I remember him: either outright misleading or an idiot. Heck, I have more respect for Monckton, who at least manages to come up with some credible math.
Here we get to the rub. You dismiss Lomberg based on a selective quotation of a supposed mistake and then bend over backwards to excuse data manipulation, censorship and interference in peer review, and other forms of scientific misconduct.
No. That's not a supposed mistake. Read the book, then come back.
Why should we, when you argue that every single quote from Bjorn Lomberg is dishonest and 'crap'.
Bjorn Lomborg is dishonest. You're doing yourself a massive disservice defending him. It means you don't understand data analysis. Not to mention that when you make a claim that every scientist in support of AGW is dishonest, you better support that claim by showing exactly that. I only have to show that Lomborg is dishonest when claiming that.... Lomborg id dishonest.
There are a number of scientists at least doing actual work to try to put a hole in the theory of AGW. Go to those. The guy who proposed that space radiation increases cloud cover might be wrong or might be right, but at least his stuff is worth looking into and talking about.
If the collection methods are normalized, it can work. What Lomborg did what take two different methods of accounting for forest cover, argue that they were identical, and that the resulting increase in forest cover was real. What in fact was going on was that the UN organization responsible for the data collection explicitly stated that the two data sets should not be directly compared.
Could he have normalized the data, and then compared the data sets? Sure. But he didn't. And considering that the warning was right there in the data sets that he used, I can only assume one of two things: he can't read, or he is being dishonest.
If he'd be interested in critique, he'd have published a paper rather than a book. This is par for the course for Lomborg. He's been pretty much laughed out of the room by any scientist. I haven't even seen the skeptics refer to his work in a long time.
Based on the fact that the numbers he used for deforestation were not applicable to the problem, aggregated over different collection methods, and completely irrelevant to the problem caused by deforestation: loss of habitat for endemic species.
And yes, I read his crap. It was a massive disappointment, and the only conclusion I could come to was that he was either ignorant beyond belief, or dishonest.
So yes, we can ignore him. As for your statement "that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research", that's not true either. The closest thing that has been demonstrated is that some researchers are human and petty in their responses to other people's requests and research. That's a long way from demonstrating that EVERY researcher has faked his research.
Feel free to argue otherwise, but to be credible, you're going to have to demonstrate that every single paper arguing for AGW is dishonest. Go ahead.
I'm a downhill skier myself. I'm well aware of the risks in skiing, and am amazed at the crashes that these athletes walk away from. However, there's a very specific reason why there are no trees on the course, and why there's netting all around. People crash, and these things are designed to minimize catastrophic injuries if something does go wrong. Finally, skiers have far more control over speed and direction than the lugers.
And yet, you won't find large metal beams around a corner of a downhill course - or anywhere that isn't protected by netting or foam.
Yes, Canadian lugers practiced without any deaths. But if you look at the track, what happened to the Georgian luger was a guaranteed event once the sled hit the inside edge. Just because no one else had died before doesn't mean that the track was designed in a fashion that minimized risks. Just shaving the inside of the track to make it impossible for the sled to just rid up and over would have drastically reduced the speed.
As for your examples of what else should be redesigned - again, there's a difference between designing something to be more dangerous than necessary and changing the sport. Raising the wall, putting padding on, cutting the inside corner - none of that would have reduced the speed or the difficulty of the course. All the other examples you provided change the sport. Understand the difference.
This isn't about "covering up" their "shame". It's about tastelessness. A news articl would have sufficed, and picture of the aftermath would have been plenty. but a video of someone hitting a pillar at 150KpH? It's certainly more attention grabbing, I'll give 'em that.
Really? The video is the only thing that demonstrates conclusively what happened. Everything else is hear say and assumption. I'm glad the video exists, because it allows me to cross-check claims and understand assertions.
Good point. I took the airtime from memory. I'm not even sure he could have put his arms in front of him if he tried - he hit pole the with his back side. So even going slower would have made only a negligible impact on his ability to brace himself somehow... The only thing that could have saved him was if he had been going slow enough to not flip over the barrier. And that wouldn't have been even close to an Olympic competition speed.
Because it shames the IOC's claim that it was only the luger's fault that he died. if you watch the video, you see that a basic miscalculation (misjudging the sled's speed when correcting the trajectory) caused him to an inside wall. After that came about 1 second of flying through the air, and hitting a metal pole with his head and upper back. It was pretty much game over after he hit the inside wall. There was absolutely nothing he or anybody else could have done once he overadjusted the trajectory of his sled.
That's the tragedy, and that's why it needs to stay up: the course was designed with deadly obstacles a minor mistake away. If the downhill was held by running the skiers around large, unprotected metal poles, people would be in an uproar - and justifiably so.
Sometimes, deadly videos are important to illustrate the deadly consequence of other people's actions.
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely. This could very well be a cheap ad stunt, an outright fabrication, or anything else. I suspect though that we should see some sort of Citi comment at some point.... we'll know more then.
Then the comment from the citi employees should have been"We're terminating your account because your business fails the following compliance checks:
1) blah
2) reblah
3) reblahblah"
Instead, they said: your site is objectionable. There is a huge, huge difference here. I don't think citi has a policy of discriminating against gays (hooray class action lawsuit if they do), so the only thing left is that there are some stupidly moronic people at citi who don't understand how to be professional. Considering how many of those people I have met while working in different places.... I'd say that's a fair assessment.
I'm sure the iPad will find an audience and will sell by the truckload, but come on...are they really claiming that people won't pay for a netbook, but they will pay the same price for something with half the functionality and none of the openness, just because it's pretty?
Yup. Why? Because a lot of people don't need that extra functionality. My mom's only introduction to computing, if it ever happens, will be an iPad. I will most likely get one, because it's the brain-dead way of watching movies, browse the web and talk to friends. For general computing, I keep my laptop around.
Notice again the separation of functionality.... iPad if I just want to do something simple. General PC for general computing. Many people indeed have no use for a general computing device.
If someone is so incapable of using a computer without fucking it up, they don't need a "locked down appliance", they just need to be kept the hell away from computers period.
To make a car analogy: if someone is so incapable of using a car that they can't shift gears without fucking it up, they don't need a car mechanic, they need to be kept the hell away from cars period.
You utterly, totally fail to understand how the vast majority of the population views computers and computing: as a tool to do something, while getting out of the way of doing said something. And since the vast majority of the population votes, you will never, ever get your idea to pass. Not unless you're the nation's benevolent dictator, in which case you need to watch out for someone else becoming benevolent dictator by offing your ass.
The magic in Apple's iPhone and iPad is that they get that. They get that people actually want an appliance to do specific stuff, not a general computing device. And that's why they keep making money hand over fist, to the general surprise of a lot of self-proclaimed computer experts.
Politicians have no clue about space technology, and are terrible managers to boot. Yet here they are, discussing merits of space technology and managing projects. What a country.
They are? Cuz I see the same assholes get re-elected on a regular basis. To me, that's the ultimate vote of confidence. Unless you mean "Some citizens blast the Senate for lacking vision", in which case I have to agree.
Ummm... you do realize that someone, somewhere, is going to have to come up with a long-term plan and put a few people in charge? Doesn't matter whether you call it politburo with a five year plan or a steering committee with a roadmap to success. There's nothing magically efficient about a company doing something versus a government doing it.
The main benefit is that a nation can have several companies, but only one government. This means that an idiot in one corporation has less impact on the nation's advance than an idiot in government.
As for NASA outsourcing its technology... could luck with that. Sounds like a commie plan to steal valuable IP from a department that could be a revenue center instead of a cost center. (I wish I was kidding. I'm sure somewhere, a politician is thinking exactly that.)
Newsflash: science works by subjecting everything to the scientific method. Including things that we think are obvious. Sometimes it confirms the obvious (like here), sometimes it throws everything into complete upheaval (like special relativity).
Next time I hear someone say "Durrr! Everyone knows that!" I'm going to smack them.
Because it means that robots and software can be creative. And what is the last bastion of the human aspect, the greatest thing, the most productive and valuable feature? Creativity. When robots and AI products exhibit creativity, it will be impossible to deny them a soul. And that's the end of humanity.
Or at least, that's how some people look at it. Personally, I think it's a very cool program, and worrying about it replacing humans in art creation is a silly worry. Humans create art because they want to, not because it shows others that they have a soul. At least I hope so.
Don't confuse common law countries with civil code countries. The judge in Italy cannot set precedent. Also, there's a reason we have stupid and/or corrupt politicians: people keep voting for them. Ultimately, in a democracy, the state of the political system has its roots in the voting public.
And peope wonder why democracy isn't always regarded as a panacea by everyone....
Because Youtube puts out into the public place what happens every day at the bar, in the office, at home: the completely un-checked dissemination of information.
To me, your approach is the equivalent of having some government employee follow every person in the US and make sure they're not disseminating illegally obtained information, plotting an illegal action or disseminating falsehoods. No thank you.
The privacy cat is out of the bag. We're back to a world where what you is known pretty quickly across the world. You're not going to put this genie back into the bottle anymore than the one of easy digital copies - because they're intimately tied together.
Of course - that's the standard broadcast model. Mostly. Of course, this model is also being ground into fine bits and pieces by the internet, and therefore represents a huge threat to Berlusconi's media control and business empire. This is nothing more than the use of government employees to help Berlusconi get rid of competition. Which is standard operating procedure for him. I'm almost surprised Google didn't see this coming.
Obviously innocent? You must have watched a different trial. She and her boyfriend had wildly differing stories about what happened, repeatedly changed their stories and had some other issues explaining what they were doing the night of the murder. Not to mention that it is entirely possible for more than one person to participate in a murder.
Yes, there were some obvious issues in the trial (her dna is found on a knife from their apartment? Shocking!) and there are plenty of well-deserved jokes about the Italian legal system, but to go as far as saying they're obviously innocent.... that's a stretch.
I'm pretty sure I know why this happened:Youtube is a serious threat to Berlusconi's stranglehold over all Italian TV stations.Considering how easy it is to set up a Youtube channel, traditional Italian TV is about to be pushed into irrelevance. Call Berlusconi whatever you want, but he isn't stupid. So he sends some favorable prosecutor after Youtube and will try to shut them down.
I don't know if this will lead to anything more than Youtube being pulled from Italy, because the Italian system isn't common law - judges don't create precedents. So I don't think this ruling means anything more than more "Youtube, stop interfering with our monopoly!" But other than that, yes it does reek of corruption and incompetence.
Correction: Lomborg is a statistician, and a bad one at that.
I would strongly suggest to you to take neither Friel nor Lomborg at his work, and read Lomborg's book first, then cross-reference the claims. While from my perspective, I do it because I don't trust Lomborg to tell me accurately whether the sun is shining, I would do it in your place because Friel might be subject to the same problem - and quoting Lomborg in his defense isn't very thorough when the claim is that Lomborg flat-out lies.
Final step that's missing in your demonstration: that the paper was actually worth publishing. Otherwise, it's just scientists in a petty squabble.
I don't know if I even agree with that premise. Arguing that there is no more work to be done in a scientific area is like saying in the late 19th century that we understood all there was about Physics, and that we only needed to fill in the details. There is ALWAYS more work to be done to improve the models. Just how much is determined by who thinks there are some interesting questions out there, not by the start of a political process.
This is how it works: scientists produce the data and create the models, economists and politicians figure out a way how to incorporate that data and those models into our society. Just because one starts working doesn't mean that the other stops.
Every time I hear or read something new from Lomborg, I find him to be exactly as I remember him: either outright misleading or an idiot. Heck, I have more respect for Monckton, who at least manages to come up with some credible math.
Here we get to the rub. You dismiss Lomberg based on a selective quotation of a supposed mistake and then bend over backwards to excuse data manipulation, censorship and interference in peer review, and other forms of scientific misconduct.
No. That's not a supposed mistake. Read the book, then come back.
Why should we, when you argue that every single quote from Bjorn Lomberg is dishonest and 'crap'.
Bjorn Lomborg is dishonest. You're doing yourself a massive disservice defending him. It means you don't understand data analysis. Not to mention that when you make a claim that every scientist in support of AGW is dishonest, you better support that claim by showing exactly that. I only have to show that Lomborg is dishonest when claiming that.... Lomborg id dishonest.
There are a number of scientists at least doing actual work to try to put a hole in the theory of AGW. Go to those. The guy who proposed that space radiation increases cloud cover might be wrong or might be right, but at least his stuff is worth looking into and talking about.
If the collection methods are normalized, it can work. What Lomborg did what take two different methods of accounting for forest cover, argue that they were identical, and that the resulting increase in forest cover was real. What in fact was going on was that the UN organization responsible for the data collection explicitly stated that the two data sets should not be directly compared.
Could he have normalized the data, and then compared the data sets? Sure. But he didn't. And considering that the warning was right there in the data sets that he used, I can only assume one of two things: he can't read, or he is being dishonest.
If he'd be interested in critique, he'd have published a paper rather than a book. This is par for the course for Lomborg. He's been pretty much laughed out of the room by any scientist. I haven't even seen the skeptics refer to his work in a long time.
You know Lomborg was dishonest? Based on what?
Based on the fact that the numbers he used for deforestation were not applicable to the problem, aggregated over different collection methods, and completely irrelevant to the problem caused by deforestation: loss of habitat for endemic species.
And yes, I read his crap. It was a massive disappointment, and the only conclusion I could come to was that he was either ignorant beyond belief, or dishonest.
So yes, we can ignore him. As for your statement "that global warming "scientists" were dishonest in their research", that's not true either. The closest thing that has been demonstrated is that some researchers are human and petty in their responses to other people's requests and research. That's a long way from demonstrating that EVERY researcher has faked his research.
Feel free to argue otherwise, but to be credible, you're going to have to demonstrate that every single paper arguing for AGW is dishonest. Go ahead.
I'm a downhill skier myself. I'm well aware of the risks in skiing, and am amazed at the crashes that these athletes walk away from. However, there's a very specific reason why there are no trees on the course, and why there's netting all around. People crash, and these things are designed to minimize catastrophic injuries if something does go wrong. Finally, skiers have far more control over speed and direction than the lugers.
And yet, you won't find large metal beams around a corner of a downhill course - or anywhere that isn't protected by netting or foam.
Yes, Canadian lugers practiced without any deaths. But if you look at the track, what happened to the Georgian luger was a guaranteed event once the sled hit the inside edge. Just because no one else had died before doesn't mean that the track was designed in a fashion that minimized risks. Just shaving the inside of the track to make it impossible for the sled to just rid up and over would have drastically reduced the speed.
As for your examples of what else should be redesigned - again, there's a difference between designing something to be more dangerous than necessary and changing the sport. Raising the wall, putting padding on, cutting the inside corner - none of that would have reduced the speed or the difficulty of the course. All the other examples you provided change the sport. Understand the difference.
This isn't about "covering up" their "shame". It's about tastelessness. A news articl would have sufficed, and picture of the aftermath would have been plenty. but a video of someone hitting a pillar at 150KpH? It's certainly more attention grabbing, I'll give 'em that.
Really? The video is the only thing that demonstrates conclusively what happened. Everything else is hear say and assumption. I'm glad the video exists, because it allows me to cross-check claims and understand assertions.
Good point. I took the airtime from memory. I'm not even sure he could have put his arms in front of him if he tried - he hit pole the with his back side. So even going slower would have made only a negligible impact on his ability to brace himself somehow... The only thing that could have saved him was if he had been going slow enough to not flip over the barrier. And that wouldn't have been even close to an Olympic competition speed.
Because it shames the IOC's claim that it was only the luger's fault that he died. if you watch the video, you see that a basic miscalculation (misjudging the sled's speed when correcting the trajectory) caused him to an inside wall. After that came about 1 second of flying through the air, and hitting a metal pole with his head and upper back. It was pretty much game over after he hit the inside wall. There was absolutely nothing he or anybody else could have done once he overadjusted the trajectory of his sled.
That's the tragedy, and that's why it needs to stay up: the course was designed with deadly obstacles a minor mistake away. If the downhill was held by running the skiers around large, unprotected metal poles, people would be in an uproar - and justifiably so.
Sometimes, deadly videos are important to illustrate the deadly consequence of other people's actions.