(I "get" where you're going, and it's an interesting point: Is our largely politicized skepticism about global warming change preventing us from investing in climate research? Basically I'm in sympathy with that question being asked, at least. But the data's still out on the actual results, isn't it?)
I get happily surprised every time on Slashdot when someone makes a polite and well reasoned argument. Thank you!
Well, perhaps the data might not convince everyone that the politics are in the way of science, but I believe it is so. Many conservative sources don't hesitate to make the same claim against the scientists who argue that global warming is real and man made, that they are doing bad science to further their own goals (get more money).
I was looking for the reports that the White House censored their own experts who made a climate report which didn't fit with the White House agenda. When I googled around I could find only far left with or far right wing blogs discussing it... perhaps not the most reliable sources. The newpapers that had articles on it (New York Times, Independent.uk) charged money for reading the articles. This was the best summary I could find for free:
Bush accused of censorship over global warming risk: The White House has again angered the green lobby by censoring and re-editing a government report to play down the threat of global warming and the contribution made to it by industrial and vehicle emissions. The report was commissioned in 2001 by Christine Todd Whitman, the outgoing head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whose two years in the job have seen a string of disputes between an increasingly disillusioned agency and the pro-business Bush administration. It is due to appear next week but only after initial drafts were altered heavily by the White House, eliminating suggestions that human activities were at least partly responsible for climate change and warnings of the danger this could pose to health and ecosystems. The final version omits references to a widely accepted 1999 study showing how sharply temperatures had risen over the previous decade, compared with the 1,000-year pattern. It cites a controversial later study, partly financed by the oil industry, which disputes these findings. (From the Citizens Against War blog.
As mentioned before, there is a distributed project called climateprediction.net for those who want to participate themselves. It is run by the University of Oxford in the UK, it is not affiliated with . So far only a windows client, but a Linux one is in the works. It is very CPU intensive, so if you have less than an 800mhz processor you shouldn't bother, it would take months to finish a single unit of work.
"In little more than a decade, the United States has fallen significantly behind other countries in its ability to simulate and predict long-term shifts in climate, according to a wide range of scientists and recent federal studies." "During the Clinton administration, the lack of American modeling leadership did not have a discernible impact on climate policy, various experts said. But it did prevent the United States from playing a more central role in writing critical sections of the Intergovernmental Panel's report -- particularly the part assessing the extent of human influence on the warming trend of recent decades.
In computing power, Dr. Sarachik said, "our top two centers together don't amount to one-fifth of the European effort."
In that article from the New York Times is from two years ago! It mentions the japanese plans to build the Earth Simulator.
Try using Knoppix! Its a bootable CD with Linux, you can test all sorts of programs and see how they work for you without having to touch your Windows partition, it all gets loaded to RAM. There is an option to create a/home directory on your windows drive if you want to, so you can save configurations and not have to do it again every time you reboot.
Nice to talk to someone sceptic of the subject who isn't condencending or agressive for once.
You are right, I may have overlooked the part where you wrote of extreme weather such as storms. I lumped it all together in my mind and thought that by proving that temperature had increased I had proved that the weather was more extreme.
I fear that it will be very difficult to prove that weather now has been more extreme than in the last, say 500 or 1000 years. Simply because we do not have scientific measurements from so long back. I don't think there have been any storms powerful enough to leave geographic evidence that we can study today, and I can't think of any other way to get accurate data. All we have is descriptions from people living at the time. While we can see for example that many people suffered in a storm at a particular date in history, it is very difficult to extract any hard data from it and say that this would be a, say, force 3 tornado by modern reconing. It may have been, or it might not. We can say that there have been periods in history where weather was more extreme, I agree with you there. For instance in the 17th century we went through a mini-ice age. The sea between Sweden and Denmark froze completely for instance, which made it possible in 1658 for the Swedish army to march over the ice and do a suprise attack on Denmark.
One of the few things we can measure for sure is temperature, and as the graphs showed weather is getting warmer now faster than ever before.
If you want scientific data over storms we have to look at maybe the last 100 years. I hate to use CNN as a reference (they should just rename themselves the Pentagon/White House Propaganda Network and get it over with), but here is an article which seems reasonably well researched: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WEATHER/07/03/wmo.extrem es /
I have been unable to find the reference, but I read somewhere that it was in Sweden or Denmark that people have been measuring weather data the longest, about 300 years. They took measurment of things like temperature, precipetation and wind strenght. According to these measurements we have the warmest weather since recording started.
However, to just accept that "the weather is getting more extreme" without any proof is what I take exception to, particularly in light of the mild weather we've been having in New England for the past several years (last time a hurricane hit here that was still at least a force 1 hurricane was Bob... more than 10 years ago).
Come on... I'm sure you know that with such a complex system as global weather patterns, we can get wildly different effects, and to measure just one area is misleading. Ask people in France or Italy about the weather, tens of thousands died from heat stroke this summer! Or take central Europe last year, Prague and other cities for instance in Germany, Poland, eastern Europe were completely flooded. We are probably going to see more cases of extreme droughts or extreme rainfall around the world.
Again, with good science there are no certainties, but what most scientists have been saying is that the oceans are getting warmer. Hurricanes get their energy from warm water, they lose their energy when they go over land or colder water. Warmer water should lead to more hurricanes, and that is what has happened the last couple of years.
Or for another example, the last 10 years weather has become much warmer in Sweden. Last two summers we have had days were weather approached 40 degrees C, which is what I'm more used to from Australia. Glaciers are melting, and as I mentioned before will likely disappear in decades if it continues at this speed. However - a lot of people have mentioned that the Gulf Stream might change its course or disappear alltogether (there were at least two posts by people in this topic talking about this), among other reasons bec
But most environmentalists beg that question, and accept it as a given that "the weather is getting more extreme". I disagree with that premise and defy someone to show me figures showing drastic increases in precipitation, temperature, storm destruction, etc. over a 30+ year span (to leave out the 20-year sunspot/storm cycle).
Here you go, enjoy. I could find only ONE link that disagreed that weather was getting more extreme, from NASA: Even with Needed Corrections, Data Still Don't Show the Expected Signature of Global Warming.
The rest say a definite YES that the weather is getting more extreme, most that it is caused by global warming, and some that this global warming is caused by humans:
NOVA and FRONTLINE join forces to investigate the science and politics of one of the most controversial issues of the 21st century: the truth about global warming.
I would especially like to draw your attention to this graph.
TESTIMONY OF THOMAS R. KARL, DIRECTOR NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL SATELLITE DATA AND INFORMATION SERVICES NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE.
WMO STATEMENT ON THE STATUS OF THE GLOBAL CLIMATE IN 2001
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Global Warming - Frequently Asked Questions
Could you point out some examples of this "more and more extreme" weather? I haven't made up my mind on global warming, but I really hate it when people say it must be true because it got up to 105, or because it rained in the middle of March instead of snowing. Do people really think stuff like that never happened before??
Well, for one thing, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf just broke in two pieces if you hadn't heard about it. The glaciers in Sweden are melting at an ever accelerating rate and will be gone in my lifetime if this continues.
There are hundreds of reports, there are climate models to support it. You can just google for it. I have done it before when debating this, I can't be really be bothered to do it again. The world scientific community is overwhelmingly agreeing, the only people who still deny that the weather is changing are complete kooks and oil company shills. Even the current US government agrees that the weather is changing now (after denying it for years), we only have to find out why. Note that I'm not saying that it HAS to be human caused. I just think it is likely.
And anyway, how exactly is a global temperature increase supposed to be creating more extreme weather, by magic?
*shakes head*
You are so ignorant I realise now that further debate is futile. Bye.
I'm giving up on debating global warming on Slashdot, it seems just about everyone is convinced its bunk. With the weather getting more and more extreme, could you at least understand why we are worried?
Well, I just wanted to make everyone aware of the new distributed project - www.climateprediction.net. Whether you agree with the theory of human caused global warming or not, with this you can help getting the world scientific community more accurate climate models.
Unfortunately only a Windows client available at the moment, but a Linux one is in development. Personally I think this project and the Folding at Home distributed project are much more deserving of peoples' clock cycles than Seti or distributed.net.
If you don't care about Free Software, that's all you've got to say.
What? I asked you an honest question. What stops you from using the original? Unless you can answer, I'm just going to assume you are trolling.
I care about Free Software alright. I use products licenced both under BSD and GPL. So far my contribution to GPL related projects has been limited to translating Mandrake to Swedish... And as I mentioned in a thread above, I am working on a BSD project.
BSD License is not a Free license. In fact, it specifically makes allowances for the usurpation of the Freedom of the Software.
So? The original code doesn't cease to exist just because someone makes a copy and changes the licence of the copy, does it? Just keep using the original.
This is a problem because while the software may be "free", the people are not. Nobody likes to be told what they can or cannot use from some bureucrat.
I think you will find that in Germany and other places were they are pushing for the use of free software, they are not forcing the PEOPLE to use anything, they are mandating that employees in goverment departments should use Open and Free Software. There is a big difference.
Also, since they are choosing open protocols and standards, the people have more choice now than when they used a proprietary format such as Word for communication.
And since the GPL isn't even the "free-est" license (the BSD is), how is this freedom at all?
So 99% more freedom than before isn't freedom at all in you mind?? Wow, you have some tough standards.
For the record, I work in the public sector in Sweden. I am working on a project dealing with digital books for dyslectics and blind people, it is licenced under BSD. If another goverment wants to use it for their people, fine. If a company use our code to make a vastly superior product and start to use it commercially, fine.
In the end, it benifits those we exist to serve, visually impared, dyslectics or others who are prevented an any way from reading normal books.
Re:Government involvement is a double edged sword
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The government is answerable to no one [...] In essence, we are throwing the Software to the lions and hoping for the best.
Well, what's to stop them from just TAKING Free Software and using it then, if they are so evil and so omnipotent? What are you going to do about it apart from saying that "we must be vigilant"? Do you propose we save Free Software by banning, for instance, governments from using it, or what?
Free Software are there to be used by anyone, that is the defenition of free. Governments are just as free to use it as anyone. Why are we throwing Free Software to the lions more now than before, just because they have started to use it?
As a taxpayer, I am happy that they are coming around to using something that is open, and if they add to it, can benifit all mankind.
Someone really needs to write a GameOS version of Linux, and basically give it away as open source. If one or two top games like Half Life 2 or Doom III were able to run on it, it would soon saturate the market and provide developers with a free alternative to developing purely for Microsoft. Heck, why doesn't Sun write it? It could be a whole new line for them and firmly establish them as a true competitor to Microsoft.
Java games on mobile phones are catching on in Europe at least. The ability to use Java on the phones is becoming a selling argument, I have had friends choose Motorola or Sony Ericsson mobiles before Nokia because they had Java. Also, didn't Sun and OpenGL recently announce that the multimedia APIs for Java (Java3d for instance) would tie into OpenGL?
So think of Suns point of view. They can either use a huge amount of resources to make GameOS version Linux as you suggest. It will take time, and considering how things went for Loki games and those who have tried to do a Linux console, a very risky project.
Or, they can continue to try to move everyone onto Java as a cross platform for gaming. This would probably be easier since they have open source people working on OpenGL for Linux and other platforms. It is beginning to have a market, as with the mobile phones mentioned above, and most importantly, is a technology they can control.
Not everything in games is Quake like 3d engines... in Europe, java games for mobile phones is quite popular.
Sun is working on a framework for creating MMORPG backends. A lot of the incredible amount of programming that goes into doing fast, cheat safe, bug free servers for online games could already be solved, and teams could concentrate on doing content, artwork, and a good frontend engine.
Not that I personally think the world need more MMORPGs, and we will have to see if Suns initiative becomes anything more than an intention, but anyway...
This is a very good point, one that the DotGNU Steering Committee agrees with. We would very much like to equally support C# and Java,
Sounds interesting! Were I a better programmer....
I realise I need to read up more about.NET, Mono and everything before posting more on this topic. You people seem to be fighting against a lot of anger and misconceptions out there, I would hate to spread FUD about the project... if I am wrong that is.:-)
When will people step down from their warhorses viewing others as the "enemy", and start realizing we're all here together?
Hey, why are you attacking me??;-)
Software is software, screw the politics and manipulations.
I'm sorry, but MS has shown us that software CAN and IS about politics and manipulations. I try not to get involved in flamewars about PHP vs C vs Perl vs Python vs... because in these cases, it is a matter of which flavour of language you prefer or are more comfortable with. In those cases I think you are correct, it is counterproductive to make up us vs them camps, to start designate enemies.
With MS the case is different, past behaviour has shown that they don't like what they don't control. I get annoyed when people try to force me to do something against my will, and I often get that feeling when I use software designed by Microsoft.
That is why there are so many strong feelings involved with the Mono project. Some see it as a way to break free from MS, others see it as a way for MS to get a foot in into the Open Source world, so they can start to push people around here too.
To answer to your more off topic subjects: The "enemy" are our thoughts that we are the "good guys" and the others are "evil". Thoughts of separation, which is the ONLY reason we go to war.
But what if someone goes to war against you? Are you just going to sit there and go "Wow, I must be having thoughts of separation...not good." Note that I consider myself a pacifist...but I believe there are limits.
I think you are doing a good job as programmers, but I have always been a bit worried that you are helping MS to slay Java. To me it seems they are fighting really hard on two fronts now, against Linux and against Java. If they manage to get.Net/C# and all that to be the business standard, with your help, won't that make it easier for them to turn against the one remaining target?
Even if it is Linux that becomes the favoured platform for.Net, do you think that will stop MS from boasting to the heavens how great their new framework is? And all the pointy haired bosses will buy more MS stock and products...
I'm sure Sun are no angels, but I happen to like both Linux and Java, so...
Of course there is also the fact that lots of web development on Linux is done in much more productive languages, like Perl, Python, and PHP. Amazon and Yahoo (on FreeBSD) do it, so it's probably good enough for your lame little site too.
I can't find the post now, but on a recent thread on Slashdot someone made a pretty convincing argument that the oft repeated claim that Amazon have built their site on Perl/PHP is a misunderstanding based on someone seeing that Amazon were looking for Perl programmers. A small part of their site uses scripts, but most of the content and presentation is actually managed by JSP/Servlets/EJB.
I believe you are right when it comes to Yahoo though, they had a big power point-ish presentation somewhere explaining the different choices they had, why they went with PHP and the problems and benefits they had come up with.
Me, I like Java best, but as long as I'm not forced to use.Net... I'm sure its easy and powerful, but its a complete ripoff of J2EE. Plus, I hated being locked into Windows with no alternative, I don't want it repeated with.Net.
> the original poster was already codemned by a JURY of his PEERS
Jurys can be, and have been, mistaken.
>he SHOULDN'T HAVE COMMITTED A CRIME.
As others have pointed out, he was judged and recieved a punishment. But rape was not a part of the punishment, nor should it be in any humane society. Not even you could claim it should be I hope?
>Prison is SUPPOSED to be unpleasent.
If you ask those who have been raped, I believe they would qualify it as more than just "unpleasant".
>If [prison] wasn't then what would be the fucking point of it???
There are many theories as to the point of prisons. Some claim it is a deterrent, but I believe it is rarely working as such and therefore we should look for other solutions. Others say it is to keep offenders away from society so they can do no harm in the meantime, and some say it is done simply so society can make a point that they think the behaviour is wrong, no matter what happens to the prisoners.
And then there are those who simply do it from a childish wish for revenge and power over others... probably caused by feelings of fear and insecurity. You seem to be one of them. Let go of your fear and dare to love, you will feel much better for it, I promise.
Re:Thank you - If I had mod points, you == +1
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Good points.
A relevant link: Stop Prison Rape http://www.spr.org/
As for the hostile jerks who said you had what was coming to you and deserve no sympathy, I really hope they get to spend a night in jail too. Let's see if they are so quick to condemn people after that.
Slashdot Mirror
(I "get" where you're going, and it's an interesting point: Is our largely politicized skepticism about global warming change preventing us from investing in climate research? Basically I'm in sympathy with that question being asked, at least. But the data's still out on the actual results, isn't it?)
I get happily surprised every time on Slashdot when someone makes a polite and well reasoned argument. Thank you!
Well, perhaps the data might not convince everyone that the politics are in the way of science, but I believe it is so. Many conservative sources don't hesitate to make the same claim against the scientists who argue that global warming is real and man made, that they are doing bad science to further their own goals (get more money).
I was looking for the reports that the White House censored their own experts who made a climate report which didn't fit with the White House agenda. When I googled around I could find only far left with or far right wing blogs discussing it... perhaps not the most reliable sources. The newpapers that had articles on it (New York Times, Independent.uk) charged money for reading the articles. This was the best summary I could find for free:
Bush accused of censorship over global warming risk: The White House has again angered the green lobby by censoring and re-editing a government report to play down the threat of global warming and the contribution made to it by industrial and vehicle emissions. The report was commissioned in 2001 by Christine Todd Whitman, the outgoing head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whose two years in the job have seen a string of disputes between an increasingly disillusioned agency and the pro-business Bush administration. It is due to appear next week but only after initial drafts were altered heavily by the White House, eliminating suggestions that human activities were at least partly responsible for climate change and warnings of the danger this could pose to health and ecosystems. The final version omits references to a widely accepted 1999 study showing how sharply temperatures had risen over the previous decade, compared with the 1,000-year pattern. It cites a controversial later study, partly financed by the oil industry, which disputes these findings.
(From the Citizens Against War blog.
As mentioned before, there is a distributed project called climateprediction.net
for those who want to participate themselves. It is run by the University of Oxford in the UK, it is not affiliated with . So far only a windows client, but a Linux one is in the works. It is very CPU intensive, so if you have less than an 800mhz processor you shouldn't bother, it would take months to finish a single unit of work.
Hey, do you find it suprising that the nation that knows the least about climate science is the one that is most skeptical about global warming?
"In little more than a decade, the United States has fallen significantly behind other countries in its ability to simulate and predict long-term shifts in climate, according to a wide range of scientists and recent federal studies."
"During the Clinton administration, the lack of American modeling leadership did not have a discernible impact on climate policy, various experts said. But it did prevent the United States from playing a more central role in writing critical sections of the Intergovernmental Panel's report -- particularly the part assessing the extent of human influence on the warming trend of recent decades.
In computing power, Dr. Sarachik said, "our top two centers together don't amount to one-fifth of the European effort."
In that article from the New York Times is from two years ago! It mentions the japanese plans to build the Earth Simulator.
"Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
Actually, I would prefer to ask it of just about anyone in the current US government, but Darl will do.
Try using Knoppix! Its a bootable CD with Linux, you can test all sorts of programs and see how they work for you without having to touch your Windows partition, it all gets loaded to RAM. There is an option to create a /home directory on your windows drive if you want to, so you can save configurations and not have to do it again every time you reboot.
Hello again,
Nice to talk to someone sceptic of the subject who isn't condencending or agressive for once.
You are right, I may have overlooked the part where you wrote of extreme weather such as storms. I lumped it all together in my mind and thought that by proving that temperature had increased I had proved that the weather was more extreme.
I fear that it will be very difficult to prove that weather now has been more extreme than in the last, say 500 or 1000 years. Simply because we do not have scientific measurements from so long back. I don't think there have been any storms powerful enough to leave geographic evidence that we can study today, and I can't think of any other way to get accurate data. All we have is descriptions from people living at the time. While we can see for example that many people suffered in a storm at a particular date in history, it is very difficult to extract any hard data from it and say that this would be a, say, force 3 tornado by modern reconing. It may have been, or it might not. We can say that there have been periods in history where weather was more extreme, I agree with you there. For instance in the 17th century we went through a mini-ice age. The sea between Sweden and Denmark froze completely for instance, which made it possible in 1658 for the Swedish army to march over the ice and do a suprise attack on Denmark.
One of the few things we can measure for sure is temperature, and as the graphs showed weather is getting warmer now faster than ever before.
If you want scientific data over storms we have to look at maybe the last 100 years. I hate to use CNN as a reference (they should just rename themselves the Pentagon/White House Propaganda Network and get it over with), but here is an article which seems reasonably well researched:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WEATHER/07/03/wmo.extrem es /
I have been unable to find the reference, but I read somewhere that it was in Sweden or Denmark that people have been measuring weather data the longest, about 300 years. They took measurment of things like temperature, precipetation and wind strenght. According to these measurements we have the warmest weather since recording started.
However, to just accept that "the weather is getting more extreme" without any proof is what I take exception to, particularly in light of the mild weather we've been having in New England for the past several years (last time a hurricane hit here that was still at least a force 1 hurricane was Bob... more than 10 years ago).
Come on... I'm sure you know that with such a complex system as global weather patterns, we can get wildly different effects, and to measure just one area is misleading. Ask people in France or Italy about the weather, tens of thousands died from heat stroke this summer! Or take central Europe last year, Prague and other cities for instance in Germany, Poland, eastern Europe were completely flooded. We are probably going to see more cases of extreme droughts or extreme rainfall around the world.
Again, with good science there are no certainties, but what most scientists have been saying is that the oceans are getting warmer. Hurricanes get their energy from warm water, they lose their energy when they go over land or colder water. Warmer water should lead to more hurricanes, and that is what has happened the last couple of years.
Or for another example, the last 10 years weather has become much warmer in Sweden. Last two summers we have had days were weather approached 40 degrees C, which is what I'm more used to from Australia. Glaciers are melting, and as I mentioned before will likely disappear in decades if it continues at this speed. However - a lot of people have mentioned that the Gulf Stream might change its course or disappear alltogether (there were at least two posts by people in this topic talking about this), among other reasons bec
But most environmentalists beg that question, and accept it as a given that "the weather is getting more extreme". I disagree with that premise and defy someone to show me figures showing drastic increases in precipitation, temperature, storm destruction, etc. over a 30+ year span (to leave out the 20-year sunspot/storm cycle).
Here you go, enjoy. I could find only ONE link that disagreed that weather was getting more extreme, from NASA:
Even with Needed Corrections, Data Still Don't Show the Expected Signature of Global Warming.
The rest say a definite YES that the weather is getting more extreme, most that it is caused by global warming, and some that this global warming is caused by humans:
NOVA and FRONTLINE join forces to investigate the science and politics of one of the most controversial issues of the 21st century: the truth about global warming.
I would especially like to draw your attention to
this graph.
2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
TESTIMONY OF THOMAS R. KARL, DIRECTOR NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL SATELLITE DATA AND INFORMATION SERVICES NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE.
WMO STATEMENT ON THE STATUS OF THE GLOBAL CLIMATE IN 2001
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Global Warming - Frequently Asked Questions
Cheers,
Lars
Could you point out some examples of this "more and more extreme" weather? I haven't made up my mind on global warming, but I really hate it when people say it must be true because it got up to 105, or because it rained in the middle of March instead of snowing. Do people really think stuff like that never happened before??
Well, for one thing, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf just broke in two pieces if you hadn't heard about it. The glaciers in Sweden are melting at an ever accelerating rate and will be gone in my lifetime if this continues.
There are hundreds of reports, there are climate models to support it. You can just google for it. I have done it before when debating this, I can't be really be bothered to do it again. The world scientific community is overwhelmingly agreeing, the only people who still deny that the weather is changing are complete kooks and oil company shills. Even the current US government agrees that the weather is changing now (after denying it for years), we only have to find out why. Note that I'm not saying that it HAS to be human caused. I just think it is likely.
And anyway, how exactly is a global temperature increase supposed to be creating more extreme weather, by magic?
*shakes head*
You are so ignorant I realise now that further debate is futile. Bye.
I'm giving up on debating global warming on Slashdot, it seems just about everyone is convinced its bunk. With the weather getting more and more extreme, could you at least understand why we are worried?
Well, I just wanted to make everyone aware of the new distributed project - www.climateprediction.net.
Whether you agree with the theory of human caused global warming or not, with this you can help getting the world scientific community more accurate climate models.
Unfortunately only a Windows client available at the moment, but a Linux one is in development. Personally I think this project and the
Folding at Home distributed project are much more deserving of peoples' clock cycles than Seti or distributed.net.
Cheers,
Lars
MEDIA KIT: Debunking Pseudo-Scholarship: Things a journalist should know about The Skeptical Environmentalist
If you don't care about Free Software, that's all you've got to say.
What? I asked you an honest question. What stops you from using the original? Unless you can answer, I'm just going to assume you are trolling.
I care about Free Software alright. I use products licenced both under BSD and GPL. So far my contribution to GPL related projects has been limited to translating Mandrake to Swedish... And as I mentioned in a thread above, I am working on a BSD project.
Cheers,
Lars
BSD License is not a Free license. In fact, it specifically makes allowances for the usurpation of the Freedom of the Software.
So? The original code doesn't cease to exist just because someone makes a copy and changes the licence of the copy, does it? Just keep using the original.
This is a problem because while the software may be "free", the people are not. Nobody likes to be told what they can or cannot use from some bureucrat.
I think you will find that in Germany and other places were they are pushing for the use of free software, they are not forcing the PEOPLE to use anything, they are mandating that employees in goverment departments should use Open and Free Software. There is a big difference.
Also, since they are choosing open protocols and standards, the people have more choice now than when they used a proprietary format such as Word for communication.
And since the GPL isn't even the "free-est" license (the BSD is), how is this freedom at all?
So 99% more freedom than before isn't freedom at all in you mind?? Wow, you have some tough standards.
For the record, I work in the public sector in Sweden. I am working on a project dealing with digital books for dyslectics and blind people, it is licenced under BSD. If another goverment wants to use it for their people, fine. If a company use our code to make a vastly superior product and start to use it commercially, fine.
In the end, it benifits those we exist to serve, visually impared, dyslectics or others who are prevented an any way from reading normal books.
The government is answerable to no one [...] In essence, we are throwing the Software to the lions and hoping for the best.
Well, what's to stop them from just TAKING Free Software and using it then, if they are so evil and so omnipotent? What are you going to do about it apart from saying that "we must be vigilant"? Do you propose we save Free Software by banning, for instance, governments from using it, or what?
Free Software are there to be used by anyone, that is the defenition of free. Governments are just as free to use it as anyone. Why are we throwing Free Software to the lions more now than before, just because they have started to use it?
As a taxpayer, I am happy that they are coming around to using something that is open, and if they add to it, can benifit all mankind.
How can software be free if its use is mandated by a government?
As long as they follow the GPL, why should this be a problem? They are only using it same as everybody else, they are not assuming control of it.
You might as well ask, How can air be free if its use is mandated by a government?
Not to mention the Giglibite, recently introduced Si unit of measurement for how badly a movie bites.
Is a Giblibite how good a movie is then? If you don't know what I am talking about, go see Spirited Away. I command you!
Someone really needs to write a GameOS version of Linux, and basically give it away as open source. If one or two top games like Half Life 2 or Doom III were able to run on it, it would soon saturate the market and provide developers with a free alternative to developing purely for Microsoft. Heck, why doesn't Sun write it? It could be a whole new line for them and firmly establish them as a true competitor to Microsoft.
Java games on mobile phones are catching on in Europe at least. The ability to use Java on the phones is becoming a selling argument, I have had friends choose Motorola or Sony Ericsson mobiles before Nokia because they had Java. Also, didn't Sun and OpenGL recently announce that the multimedia APIs for Java (Java3d for instance) would tie into OpenGL?
So think of Suns point of view. They can either use a huge amount of resources to make GameOS version Linux as you suggest. It will take time, and considering how things went for Loki games and those who have tried to do a Linux console, a very risky project.
Or, they can continue to try to move everyone onto Java as a cross platform for gaming. This would probably be easier since they have open source people working on OpenGL for Linux and other platforms. It is beginning to have a market, as with the mobile phones mentioned above, and most importantly, is a technology they can control.
Not everything in games is Quake like 3d engines... in Europe, java games for mobile phones is quite popular.
Sun is working on a framework for creating MMORPG backends. A lot of the incredible amount of programming that goes into doing fast, cheat safe, bug free servers for online games could already be solved, and teams could concentrate on doing content, artwork, and a good frontend engine.
Not that I personally think the world need more MMORPGs, and we will have to see if Suns initiative becomes anything more than an intention, but anyway...
This is a very good point, one that the DotGNU Steering Committee agrees with. We would very much like to equally support C# and Java,
.NET, Mono and everything before posting more on this topic. You people seem to be fighting against a lot of anger and misconceptions out there, I would hate to spread FUD about the project... if I am wrong that is. :-)
Sounds interesting! Were I a better programmer....
I realise I need to read up more about
Cheers,
Lars
When will people step down from their warhorses viewing others as the "enemy", and start realizing we're all here together?
;-)
Hey, why are you attacking me??
Software is software, screw the politics and manipulations.
I'm sorry, but MS has shown us that software CAN and IS about politics and manipulations. I try not to get involved in flamewars about PHP vs C vs Perl vs Python vs... because in these cases, it is a matter of which flavour of language you prefer or are more comfortable with. In those cases I think you are correct, it is counterproductive to make up us vs them camps, to start designate enemies.
With MS the case is different, past behaviour has shown that they don't like what they don't control. I get annoyed when people try to force me to do something against my will, and I often get that feeling when I use software designed by Microsoft.
That is why there are so many strong feelings involved with the Mono project. Some see it as a way to break free from MS, others see it as a way for MS to get a foot in into the Open Source world, so they can start to push people around here too.
To answer to your more off topic subjects:
The "enemy" are our thoughts that we are the "good guys" and the others are "evil". Thoughts of separation, which is the ONLY reason we go to war.
But what if someone goes to war against you? Are you just going to sit there and go "Wow, I must be having thoughts of separation...not good." Note that I consider myself a pacifist...but I believe there are limits.
More and more things will start to require it. .net is seeing admirable deployment on the server side.
I can't believe you are delighted to see that MS is increasing their stranglehold on the computing world.
owever, unlike java, it is also seeing some real-world apps on the client as well.
What about Eclipse then? And we could see a lot more of them if people wouldn't buy into the anti-java FUD.
Hi,
.Net/C# and all that to be the business standard, with your help, won't that make it easier for them to turn against the one remaining target?
.Net, do you think that will stop MS from boasting to the heavens how great their new framework is? And all the pointy haired bosses will buy more MS stock and products...
I think you are doing a good job as programmers, but I have always been a bit worried that you are helping MS to slay Java. To me it seems they are fighting really hard on two fronts now, against Linux and against Java. If they manage to get
Even if it is Linux that becomes the favoured platform for
I'm sure Sun are no angels, but I happen to like both Linux and Java, so...
Interesting! Thanks for the info...
Of course there is also the fact that lots of web development on Linux is done in much more productive languages, like Perl, Python, and PHP. Amazon and Yahoo (on FreeBSD) do it, so it's probably good enough for your lame little site too.
.Net... I'm sure its easy and powerful, but its a complete ripoff of J2EE. Plus, I hated being locked into Windows with no alternative, I don't want it repeated with .Net.
I can't find the post now, but on a recent thread on Slashdot someone made a pretty convincing argument that the oft repeated claim that Amazon have built their site on Perl/PHP is a misunderstanding based on someone seeing that Amazon were looking for Perl programmers. A small part of their site uses scripts, but most of the content and presentation is actually managed by JSP/Servlets/EJB.
I believe you are right when it comes to Yahoo though, they had a big power point-ish presentation somewhere explaining the different choices they had, why they went with PHP and the problems and benefits they had come up with.
Me, I like Java best, but as long as I'm not forced to use
> the original poster was already codemned by a JURY of his PEERS
Jurys can be, and have been, mistaken.
>he SHOULDN'T HAVE COMMITTED A CRIME.
As others have pointed out, he was judged and recieved a punishment. But rape was not a part of the punishment, nor should it be in any humane society. Not even you could claim it should be I hope?
>Prison is SUPPOSED to be unpleasent.
If you ask those who have been raped, I believe they would qualify it as more than just "unpleasant".
>If [prison] wasn't then what would be the fucking point of it???
There are many theories as to the point of prisons. Some claim it is a deterrent, but I believe it is rarely working as such and therefore we should look for other solutions. Others say it is to keep offenders away from society so they can do no harm in the meantime, and some say it is done simply so society can make a point that they think the behaviour is wrong, no matter what happens to the prisoners.
And then there are those who simply do it from a childish wish for revenge and power over others... probably caused by feelings of fear and insecurity. You seem to be one of them. Let go of your fear and dare to love, you will feel much better for it, I promise.
Good points.
A relevant link: Stop Prison Rape
http://www.spr.org/
As for the hostile jerks who said you had what was coming to you and deserve no sympathy, I really hope they get to spend a night in jail too. Let's see if they are so quick to condemn people after that.
in America, you can criticize the government, but not Darwin
Right, so that is why the Dixie Chicks have recieved death threats?