Freedom and Equality don't mix . Freedom is being free to be better than the person next to you . Be it science, power, wealth or sports.
This sort of freedom is impossible without some enforced equality at the beginning. Without it, you would not be free to be better than the person next to you, because those older and more powerful would beat you before you were born. There must be some mechanisms to allow the son of a poor man to overcome the obstacles placed in his path by the rich man. That's the basis for "freedom based on equality" as practiced in Western nations; total freedom without any enforced equality leads to the development of lords and serfs within a few generations.
Freedom is ambition.
Lots of people are amibitious. Real freedom is the availability of paths for people to follow their ambition. NOTE: success cannot be guaranteed; just the opportunity to try.
There are state-issued licenses to operate motor vehicles, but these are explicitly NOT identification cards for general use. No state requires its residents to hold a driver's license, and no ID is required to enter or exit or reside within the state.
A national ID is quite different in concept, in that it will explicitly be not only a citizen identification form (papers, please), but also a permit to travel--and that which is permitted can be limited. It's the polar opposite of freedom to move, which is one of the central tenets of American freedom.
If the government wants to coopt existing paperwork for such a purpose, why not use the passport or the Social Security card?? Passports are already needed for international travel, and Social Security cards are already issued to every single citizen at birth. If you're really a proponent of a national ID system, either one of these would be a much lighter lift to get there than state drivers licenses.
The biggest economic problem in the U.S. right now is our ballooning trade deficit. A weak dollar combats it by making U.S. exports cheaper on the world market, and bringing the price of U.S.-made goods more in line with the price of imported goods in our stores. That's why you see our government making only very tepid statements about the weak dollar, and doing nothing about it. They could never come out and just say they're managing for a weak dollar; world financial markets would clobber them. But that's what they're doing.
If you look at dollar-on-dollar inflation within the U.S., we're at a comfortably sustainable 2.5%.
Now, I don't claim I discribed a typical situation (at least in my field it is not); but please don't fool yourself into believing the system is perfect, and that "relations" play no role in getting articles accepted
Of course the system's not perfect; no one ever claimed it was. (Talk about naive.) That doesn't imply it "means little." The question is whether it's better than the alternative, and the answer is clearly yes. Peer review wasn't turned on like a light switch one day for fun and profit, it was developed by working scientists over decades because it was needed and helpful. It continues to be criticized and enhanced today, not that you're adding to that worthy process with an anonymous bitchfest on/. Grow some balls and speak attributably you think you've got a better mousetrap.
I'm so sick of hearing about how Americans are lazy, stupid, don't care, etc. It's a false stereotype, fabricated by people who simply do not understand the U.S.
Americans care, first and foremost, about rule of law and proper procedure. This is why you don't see huge impeachment protests, coups, assassinations, etc. We trust in our electoral system for making changes in government. We trust it enough to not constantly short-circuit it by impeaching people every time we disagree with them. That's why Clinton had even higher approval ratings after his impeachment than before--to most Americans the whole process was unnecessary and unseemly.
Americans are paying close attention, and in case you didn't notice, they voted their unhappiness pretty clearly last November. I know you want us to change right away, but here in the U.S. we believe in our laws enough to let things play out as prescribed. Even most of those who strongly oppose Bush's policies are willing to wait and see how things play out with a Democratic Congress. We voted a change and now we're going to see how it goes.
The FCC also thought they had the authority to unbundle the last mile network and set network access pricing...how'd that work out for them?
The fact of the matter is that the FCC is directed by Congress and their authority is limited by the laws that are passed. Even when Congress tries to specifically authorize them to do something--like unbundling--the committee can fail if the wording is not clear.
If we want to protect ourselves from abuse by the ISPs, the only sure way is for Congress to pass a clearly worded law that says so. I'm not saying that current bills do that; I haven't read them. I'm just saying that that is the minimum we should be happy with. Right now Internet services do not enjoy such protection under the telecommunication laws. They are specifically exempted from common carrier status, in fact. So the FCC does not have much of a leg to stand on, when it comes right down to it.
Net neutrality IS just a slogan, and not a very good one because it means different things to different people. To Robert Kahn it obviously means locking network protocols, which obviously he is against.
But the central issue already has a name--it's called "common carrier." ISPs need to be held to a standard that is content- and author-neutral. My Web site or e-mail or video should not be able to be blocked or slowed based simply on what it says or who wrote it. I don't care about the technology that gets it there--just get it there and don't let me be discriminated against.
Common carrier is so important, and so ingrained in our way of thinking, that to some people it's impossible to imagine that it can't exist. But the fact is that it must be specified by legislation, and right now for Internet services it is not. This is the essence of the issue.
Network protocols, frankly, are not. The network protocols used on telephone and cell phone networks change all the time, but the right to have your call delivered remains. Trucks and tracking technology are improved all the time, but the right to have your package delivered has not changed in over 100 years. There is no shortage of models for how common carrier can be enforced without hindering innovation.
I usually run repair permissions after installing a software update from Apple. They seem to do a very good job with their updates, but the utility often does find one or two things to fix.
This is strictly in the "preventative maintenance" camp though. I can't remember facing a performance problem that was solved by repairing permissions.
The longer that firefox maintains its current user base, the closer the time comes when a killer extension is released by someone (maybe you!).
I totally agree! The extension model of Firefox almost guarantees that it will become a vector for exploits at some point.
This killer extension would be something that so dramatically improves the browsing experience that pretty much everyone has to get it to be "really on the internet". By the time Microsoft rips off whatever it is, it will be too late. That is the best reason to support firefox, its extensibility means that at any moment, it could become develop a (albeit temporarily) insurmountable competitive advantage.
You can only quote someone directly if they spoke or wrote the quote to you directly. If you read the quote in someone else's work you must cite both the speaker and the author of the work. This is pretty basic source attribution, taught in beginning journalism and writing courses. For example, from the AP guidelines:
PROVIDING ATTRIBUTION: We should give the full name of a source and as much information as needed to identify the source and explain why he or she is credible. Where appropriate, include a source's age; title; name of company, organization or government department; and hometown.
If we quote someone from a written document - a report, e-mail or news release -- we should say so. Information taken from the Internet must be vetted according to our standards of accuracy and attributed to the original source. File, library or archive photos, audio or videos must be identified as such.
For lengthy stories, attribution can be contained in an extended editor's note, usually at the end, detailing interviews, research and methodology. The goal is to provide a reader with enough information to have full confidence in the story's veracity.
The point is that Gell-Mann hasn't written off Smolin, which may lend some degree of credence to him. The only reason Dawkins is mentioned is to properly attribute the quote. I understand your confusion though; proper attribution is so rare on the InterWebs these days.
To me the untold story is how Apple managed to build such a strong buzz for their product, while avoiding any of the negative backlash that can accompany such a campaign (compare to Sony's PSP debacle right before the holidays, for instance).
They waged a viral campaign so effective that analysts and customers were basically demanding to be given the opportunity to purchase the new product--and they did it so silently that I'll probably get responses arguing that Apple didn't even do a campaign. THAT, to me, is the real story of secret-keeping.
I don't recall ever crashing any threads, but I'll take a crack at your challenge.
In this thread I want to give you the opportunity to state whether your earlier trolling against cellphones with mp3 playback functionality was 100%-Apple-fanboyism or if you stand by it and think the iPhone should never have happened.
I don't think the iPhone should "never" have happened, but I do think it happened way too early. The technology--battery and network--just is not there yet to produce a seamless experience for most Americans.
I think at this point it's almost guaranteed to disappoint a lot of people. No matter how cool it is, the most important thing to any product's success is how it manages expectations. The iPod launched with low expectations--everyone thought it would fail. But with the iPhone, at this point, the hype and the "revolution" talk have pegged the expectation meter for a lot of people. Those people are going to be let down when the phone does not completely blow them away. There are tradeoffs in any device after all.
I'm going to stick to my cell phone and iPod for now. I think the iPhone will be an amazing product--someday. For now I like having the separate devices. I can run my iPod's battery down, but can still make calls...that's just one example of what you lose with a converged device. Another is freedom to choose--I can get a new iPod whenever I want without having to change a contract, and I'm free to choose whatever mobile provider I want (Verizon kills everyone else for coverage in WV for example). Finally most people use their iPod and their phone differently...phones get abused. And not only is this a candy bar phone, it's all screen. You're going to have to treat it well for it to last 2 years (the length of your contract with Cingular).
The problem is peering chokepoints, not transmission protocols or distributed content hosting or anything else he talks about. Consumer end users are only served by 1 to 3 broadband providers in any given market, so those providers can act like selective gatekeepers unless they are legally prevented from doing so. Without net neutrality (more properly referred to as common carriage), they can hold the audience "captive" and charge for access. This radically distorts the market.
For example it would really hurt Akamai's business model. Let's say I pay Akamai to host my content. Well my users still have to connect to Akamai's network through their local broadband service provider. Without net neutrality, my content could be lagged or even denied by that local service provider unless an additional fee is paid. So the speed advantage of Akamai is negated locally, plus there's an extra cost to me. Of course Akamai could just pay the local access fee for all their customers--thus raising their costs.
The argument that net neutrality would prevent all technological advancements is, to me, mostly a red herring. A bad bill might do that, but it's entirely possible to legislatively protect common carriage, while still allowing pay-for-service improvements like Akamai. The point is to prevent malicious slow downs (audience hostage situations), not to ensure total fairness for all when in comes to advancements. The former is the important fight, but most opponents of net neutrality focus their commentary on the latter.
2.15.3.78 providePonyUponWish (Emulate Word 5.x for the Macintosh Pony Provision)
This element specifies that applications shall emulate the behavior of a previously existing word processing application (WordPerfect 5.x) when providing a pony upon a user wishing it, using the userWish element (2.3.1.82). This emulation typically results in a pony which is reduced from its normal size and suffers from chronic diarrhea.
[Guidance: To faithfully replicate this behavior, applications must imitate the behavior of that application, which involves many possible behaviors and cannot be faithfully placed into narrative for this Office Open XML Standard. If applications wish to match this behavior, they must utilize and duplicate the output of those applications. It is recommended that applications not intentionally replicate this behavior as it was deprecated due to issues with its output, and is maintained only for compatibility with existing documents from that application. end guidance]
I didn't even bother to read the GPP; I'm just responding to a point in the parent that is a pet peeve.
It seems to me there are some people who are left-of-center who simply don't like the fact Fox News airs conservative viewpoints on the same level as liberal viewpoints, because they're so used to the rest of the media airing conservative viewpoints with derision as if they're a minority opinion that doesn't make up half the country.
The problem today stems exactly from this (false) idea that for any given issue there is a "liberal" viewpoint and a "conservative" viewpoint, each deserving of equal time. On some issues this is true, but on many issues the facts and opinions get lumped together in the cultural warfare--and stupidity is aired to "balance" unpopular truth.
In particular with scientific subjects, what you actually have is the science and the spin (in either direction). The severe problem today in the U.S. is the overwhelming failure to distinguish between the two--to have the courage to acknowledge the validity of investigation even when its conclusions challenge your ideology. It's a big reason that student interest in the sciences is waning. Why bother getting an advanced degree when anyone famous or powerful can weigh in like an authority? The celebrity "science expert" is just one more symptom of this overall problem.
Seeing everything through the lens of liberal vs. conservative is counterproductive to everyone but the select few who make their living in politics.
It's the definitive biography of Feynman. What you get in Feynman's own books is brilliant, hilarious, and iconoclastic, but it is the idealized image of himself that he chose to project.
Do you know how annoying it is when people selectively quote from an abstract to twist its conclusions?
And I'm not making an argument at all about the research--my point was that you misquoted and misinterpretted the abstract. If you want to argue about the substance of the research I recommend you contact the researchers.
As I've indicated earlier, I don't buy the pro-environment arguments about a switch to alternate energy being a boon to the economy. If it's not a natural switch based on the full costs and benefits, then it's inefficient. Environmental law and regulations have a history of going for grossly inefficient solutions to environmental problems IMHO.
Current markets are regularly and effectively distorted all the time by government laws and regulations. In this context the argument that environmental regulations are inefficient distortions is at least questionable--you'll have to prove to me substantively that their particular distortions are somehow worse than the other thousands of market distortions in force today.
At worst that sort of statement is lying by selective communication--implying that most subsidies/taxes/regulations have no effect, but these particular environmental subsidies will distort an otherwise perfectly natural market. It's just not true.
You conveniently cut off the end of the last sentence but I'll post it in full.
"Published snow/ice mass rates from remote sensing measurements indicate approximate ice mass balance in this region, suggesting that this feature is either from unquantified snow accumulation in this region or more likely due to unmodeled PGR."
Translation--they know how much snow and ice fell on the "Enderby Land region" (what they are referring to with "this region") from published reports by other researchers, so they know independently that the ice mass in this particular region should be in balance--i.e. NOT increasing so dramatically. They then speculate that the increase they measured is due to either snowfall no one knows about ("unquantified snow accumulation") or a problem in their modeling of post-glacial rebound ("more likely due to unmodeled PGR"). The latter, BTW, would imply no actual ice mass gain.
At no point does the abstract refute the current consensus regarding global glacial mass loss, or state that Antarctica as a whole is in mass balance.
So, with better data, it shows no net loss of ice in the region, consistant with earlier estimates...
No, bzzz, wrong. What it actually says is that in West Antactica they measured a loss, which is consistant with an earlier study. But in East Antarctica they measured a gain, which is NOT consistant with an earlier study. Hence the speculation at the end, which you conveniently cut off.
Most of your criticisms don't really apply to the books, particularly the later ones. Character names start to mis-apply more and more...Snape for example has a clearly evil-sounding name and evilly-painted character, but the (slowly revealed) truth is much more complicated. Dumbledore is revealed to be more manipulative and violent(although still basically good). Good Slytherin characters are introduced--they just happen to be cunning in their goodness. One of the most rewarding things about the series is the way in which motivations and backstories are revealed and intertwined. The movies simplify all this stuff quite a bit.
But in HP's world, magic stuff seems to be coming off a mass assembly-line, and is cheap and plentiful.
You've nailed it here--magic is basically an alternate technology base for a parallel society. Rowling does a pretty good job defining the rules and then exploring their implications. For one thing physical harm is not nearly as dangerous as magical harm. One of the characters is discovered to be a wizard when he falls out a second story window as a baby and simply bounces like a rubber ball. People are constantly breaking arms, having all their bones magicked out of their body, getting cut and bitten and burned--and all getting healed by magic. But no trauma to the psyche/soul is healable by magic (including death). The base concept seems to be making real the perceived distinction between body and mind.
Consider our technologies--we live in houses with electrical voltages that can kill us, natural gas lines, various powerful poisons, etc. We drive multi-ton vehicles down the road at 80 MPH. There's actually a fair amount of humor in the books based around technology differences--like the horror the main characters feel toward our medical practices ("They actually stitch people up with needle and thread? How barbaric!" - paraphrase) As we grow up we learn to manage and operate around our societal dangers. In the Harry Potter books the children are doing the same thing--the physical dangers are greatly exaggerated though, because the technology to mitigate/recover from them is so much better (magic). Thus it helps tell the story that all children know well--learning that things that seem scary at first are managable as you learn more and get older. When you're three, a stove is scary dangerous thing. When you're 13, you're expected to heat your own soup.:-)
If you're going to read the series, there's one more thing to keep in mind--they are written to the age of Harry in the book. So the first several books are shorter, simpler, and more rah-rah. But as Harry ages into a teenager, the books get longer, more morally complex, and darker. You have to set your expectations accordingly.
Slashdot Mirror
There are state-issued licenses to operate motor vehicles, but these are explicitly NOT identification cards for general use. No state requires its residents to hold a driver's license, and no ID is required to enter or exit or reside within the state.
A national ID is quite different in concept, in that it will explicitly be not only a citizen identification form (papers, please), but also a permit to travel--and that which is permitted can be limited. It's the polar opposite of freedom to move, which is one of the central tenets of American freedom.
If the government wants to coopt existing paperwork for such a purpose, why not use the passport or the Social Security card?? Passports are already needed for international travel, and Social Security cards are already issued to every single citizen at birth. If you're really a proponent of a national ID system, either one of these would be a much lighter lift to get there than state drivers licenses.
The biggest economic problem in the U.S. right now is our ballooning trade deficit. A weak dollar combats it by making U.S. exports cheaper on the world market, and bringing the price of U.S.-made goods more in line with the price of imported goods in our stores. That's why you see our government making only very tepid statements about the weak dollar, and doing nothing about it. They could never come out and just say they're managing for a weak dollar; world financial markets would clobber them. But that's what they're doing.
If you look at dollar-on-dollar inflation within the U.S., we're at a comfortably sustainable 2.5%.
Of course the system's not perfect; no one ever claimed it was. (Talk about naive.) That doesn't imply it "means little." The question is whether it's better than the alternative, and the answer is clearly yes. Peer review wasn't turned on like a light switch one day for fun and profit, it was developed by working scientists over decades because it was needed and helpful. It continues to be criticized and enhanced today, not that you're adding to that worthy process with an anonymous bitchfest on
I'm so sick of hearing about how Americans are lazy, stupid, don't care, etc. It's a false stereotype, fabricated by people who simply do not understand the U.S.
Americans care, first and foremost, about rule of law and proper procedure. This is why you don't see huge impeachment protests, coups, assassinations, etc. We trust in our electoral system for making changes in government. We trust it enough to not constantly short-circuit it by impeaching people every time we disagree with them. That's why Clinton had even higher approval ratings after his impeachment than before--to most Americans the whole process was unnecessary and unseemly.
Americans are paying close attention, and in case you didn't notice, they voted their unhappiness pretty clearly last November. I know you want us to change right away, but here in the U.S. we believe in our laws enough to let things play out as prescribed. Even most of those who strongly oppose Bush's policies are willing to wait and see how things play out with a Democratic Congress. We voted a change and now we're going to see how it goes.
The FCC also thought they had the authority to unbundle the last mile network and set network access pricing...how'd that work out for them?
The fact of the matter is that the FCC is directed by Congress and their authority is limited by the laws that are passed. Even when Congress tries to specifically authorize them to do something--like unbundling--the committee can fail if the wording is not clear.
If we want to protect ourselves from abuse by the ISPs, the only sure way is for Congress to pass a clearly worded law that says so. I'm not saying that current bills do that; I haven't read them. I'm just saying that that is the minimum we should be happy with. Right now Internet services do not enjoy such protection under the telecommunication laws. They are specifically exempted from common carrier status, in fact. So the FCC does not have much of a leg to stand on, when it comes right down to it.
Net neutrality IS just a slogan, and not a very good one because it means different things to different people. To Robert Kahn it obviously means locking network protocols, which obviously he is against.
But the central issue already has a name--it's called "common carrier." ISPs need to be held to a standard that is content- and author-neutral. My Web site or e-mail or video should not be able to be blocked or slowed based simply on what it says or who wrote it. I don't care about the technology that gets it there--just get it there and don't let me be discriminated against.
Common carrier is so important, and so ingrained in our way of thinking, that to some people it's impossible to imagine that it can't exist. But the fact is that it must be specified by legislation, and right now for Internet services it is not. This is the essence of the issue.
Network protocols, frankly, are not. The network protocols used on telephone and cell phone networks change all the time, but the right to have your call delivered remains. Trucks and tracking technology are improved all the time, but the right to have your package delivered has not changed in over 100 years. There is no shortage of models for how common carrier can be enforced without hindering innovation.
I usually run repair permissions after installing a software update from Apple. They seem to do a very good job with their updates, but the utility often does find one or two things to fix.
This is strictly in the "preventative maintenance" camp though. I can't remember facing a performance problem that was solved by repairing permissions.
I totally agree! The extension model of Firefox almost guarantees that it will become a vector for exploits at some point.
Ohhh, that kind of killer extension.
(Emphasis mine)
Source: http://www.ap.org/pages/about/whatsnew/wn_112905.
The point is that Gell-Mann hasn't written off Smolin, which may lend some degree of credence to him. The only reason Dawkins is mentioned is to properly attribute the quote. I understand your confusion though; proper attribution is so rare on the InterWebs these days.
To me the untold story is how Apple managed to build such a strong buzz for their product, while avoiding any of the negative backlash that can accompany such a campaign (compare to Sony's PSP debacle right before the holidays, for instance).
They waged a viral campaign so effective that analysts and customers were basically demanding to be given the opportunity to purchase the new product--and they did it so silently that I'll probably get responses arguing that Apple didn't even do a campaign. THAT, to me, is the real story of secret-keeping.
I don't think the iPhone should "never" have happened, but I do think it happened way too early. The technology--battery and network--just is not there yet to produce a seamless experience for most Americans.
I think at this point it's almost guaranteed to disappoint a lot of people. No matter how cool it is, the most important thing to any product's success is how it manages expectations. The iPod launched with low expectations--everyone thought it would fail. But with the iPhone, at this point, the hype and the "revolution" talk have pegged the expectation meter for a lot of people. Those people are going to be let down when the phone does not completely blow them away. There are tradeoffs in any device after all.
I'm going to stick to my cell phone and iPod for now. I think the iPhone will be an amazing product--someday. For now I like having the separate devices. I can run my iPod's battery down, but can still make calls...that's just one example of what you lose with a converged device. Another is freedom to choose--I can get a new iPod whenever I want without having to change a contract, and I'm free to choose whatever mobile provider I want (Verizon kills everyone else for coverage in WV for example). Finally most people use their iPod and their phone differently...phones get abused. And not only is this a candy bar phone, it's all screen. You're going to have to treat it well for it to last 2 years (the length of your contract with Cingular).
You needed a more cutting-edge name.
Data service providers aren't common carriers either--hence the fight.
The problem is peering chokepoints, not transmission protocols or distributed content hosting or anything else he talks about. Consumer end users are only served by 1 to 3 broadband providers in any given market, so those providers can act like selective gatekeepers unless they are legally prevented from doing so. Without net neutrality (more properly referred to as common carriage), they can hold the audience "captive" and charge for access. This radically distorts the market.
For example it would really hurt Akamai's business model. Let's say I pay Akamai to host my content. Well my users still have to connect to Akamai's network through their local broadband service provider. Without net neutrality, my content could be lagged or even denied by that local service provider unless an additional fee is paid. So the speed advantage of Akamai is negated locally, plus there's an extra cost to me. Of course Akamai could just pay the local access fee for all their customers--thus raising their costs.
The argument that net neutrality would prevent all technological advancements is, to me, mostly a red herring. A bad bill might do that, but it's entirely possible to legislatively protect common carriage, while still allowing pay-for-service improvements like Akamai. The point is to prevent malicious slow downs (audience hostage situations), not to ensure total fairness for all when in comes to advancements. The former is the important fight, but most opponents of net neutrality focus their commentary on the latter.
2.15.3.78 providePonyUponWish (Emulate Word 5.x for the Macintosh Pony Provision)
This element specifies that applications shall emulate the behavior of a previously existing word processing application (WordPerfect 5.x) when providing a pony upon a user wishing it, using the userWish element (2.3.1.82). This emulation typically results in a pony which is reduced from its normal size and suffers from chronic diarrhea.
[Guidance: To faithfully replicate this behavior, applications must imitate the behavior of that application, which involves many possible behaviors and cannot be faithfully placed into narrative for this Office Open XML Standard. If applications wish to match this behavior, they must utilize and duplicate the output of those applications. It is recommended that applications not intentionally replicate this behavior as it was deprecated due to issues with its output, and is maintained only for compatibility with existing documents from that application. end guidance]
The problem today stems exactly from this (false) idea that for any given issue there is a "liberal" viewpoint and a "conservative" viewpoint, each deserving of equal time. On some issues this is true, but on many issues the facts and opinions get lumped together in the cultural warfare--and stupidity is aired to "balance" unpopular truth.
In particular with scientific subjects, what you actually have is the science and the spin (in either direction). The severe problem today in the U.S. is the overwhelming failure to distinguish between the two--to have the courage to acknowledge the validity of investigation even when its conclusions challenge your ideology. It's a big reason that student interest in the sciences is waning. Why bother getting an advanced degree when anyone famous or powerful can weigh in like an authority? The celebrity "science expert" is just one more symptom of this overall problem.
Seeing everything through the lens of liberal vs. conservative is counterproductive to everyone but the select few who make their living in politics.
It's the definitive biography of Feynman. What you get in Feynman's own books is brilliant, hilarious, and iconoclastic, but it is the idealized image of himself that he chose to project.
Do you know how annoying it is when people selectively quote from an abstract to twist its conclusions?
And I'm not making an argument at all about the research--my point was that you misquoted and misinterpretted the abstract. If you want to argue about the substance of the research I recommend you contact the researchers.
Current markets are regularly and effectively distorted all the time by government laws and regulations. In this context the argument that environmental regulations are inefficient distortions is at least questionable--you'll have to prove to me substantively that their particular distortions are somehow worse than the other thousands of market distortions in force today.
At worst that sort of statement is lying by selective communication--implying that most subsidies/taxes/regulations have no effect, but these particular environmental subsidies will distort an otherwise perfectly natural market. It's just not true.
Translation--they know how much snow and ice fell on the "Enderby Land region" (what they are referring to with "this region") from published reports by other researchers, so they know independently that the ice mass in this particular region should be in balance--i.e. NOT increasing so dramatically. They then speculate that the increase they measured is due to either snowfall no one knows about ("unquantified snow accumulation") or a problem in their modeling of post-glacial rebound ("more likely due to unmodeled PGR"). The latter, BTW, would imply no actual ice mass gain.
At no point does the abstract refute the current consensus regarding global glacial mass loss, or state that Antarctica as a whole is in mass balance.
No, bzzz, wrong. What it actually says is that in West Antactica they measured a loss, which is consistant with an earlier study. But in East Antarctica they measured a gain, which is NOT consistant with an earlier study. Hence the speculation at the end, which you conveniently cut off.
I can even tell that you're reading this post right now.
Read the "The Dark is Rising" series by Susan Cooper.
You've nailed it here--magic is basically an alternate technology base for a parallel society. Rowling does a pretty good job defining the rules and then exploring their implications. For one thing physical harm is not nearly as dangerous as magical harm. One of the characters is discovered to be a wizard when he falls out a second story window as a baby and simply bounces like a rubber ball. People are constantly breaking arms, having all their bones magicked out of their body, getting cut and bitten and burned--and all getting healed by magic. But no trauma to the psyche/soul is healable by magic (including death). The base concept seems to be making real the perceived distinction between body and mind.
Consider our technologies--we live in houses with electrical voltages that can kill us, natural gas lines, various powerful poisons, etc. We drive multi-ton vehicles down the road at 80 MPH. There's actually a fair amount of humor in the books based around technology differences--like the horror the main characters feel toward our medical practices ("They actually stitch people up with needle and thread? How barbaric!" - paraphrase) As we grow up we learn to manage and operate around our societal dangers. In the Harry Potter books the children are doing the same thing--the physical dangers are greatly exaggerated though, because the technology to mitigate/recover from them is so much better (magic). Thus it helps tell the story that all children know well--learning that things that seem scary at first are managable as you learn more and get older. When you're three, a stove is scary dangerous thing. When you're 13, you're expected to heat your own soup.
If you're going to read the series, there's one more thing to keep in mind--they are written to the age of Harry in the book. So the first several books are shorter, simpler, and more rah-rah. But as Harry ages into a teenager, the books get longer, more morally complex, and darker. You have to set your expectations accordingly.