Agreed. IMO, the real power of Ubuntu isn't lowering the bar for average users, but lowering the bar for average IT professionals. I know several who have tried Ubuntu, and while they're not ready to give up their jobs doing Windows administration, Ubuntu is on their radar. However, the real power and draw of Linux is what we geeks can do with it. It's by far the worlds best platform for expressing our creative art of programming, and sharing our work with others. I've stopped worrying about what the rest of the world wants. Linux fills my needs like no other system ever built.
Er... no. Obama served 7 years as a state legislator before running for Senate. I'm almost done with his book, "The Audacity of Hope." All I can say is he is now my top choice for president, with McCain being my second. Can America elect a black man? If so, Obama's got a chance. I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to know what he stands for.
The web site that published this article (without, I might add, any kind of actual verifiable data) also carries right-wing & Christian blogging. This is just another typical media outlet misrepresenting the nature of the scientific debate. In fact, it's these kinds of media outlets that are the real problem - they tell a lie of a world unaffected by our presence, promoting inaction when action is required.
Err... no. The scientific community, including Bush's own team commissioned to study the issue, agree that we are causing global warming. It's only the dumb media outlets that perpetuate the myth that many scientists strongly disagree on whether we are causing climate change. When I meet an educated, generally well informed individual who buys into the media promoted myths about climate change, I react pretty strongly: go get educated. The information is out there, waiting for you to read it. Don't expect your local news to feed it to you.
I found an interesting Dell/Linux bit of hype. Dell pushed their new $400 Dimension e521 as a good Linux machine last fall, but it turned out that it wouldn't actually run Linux, due to BIOS bugs on Dell's system. I expected the community to report the bug, and move onto the next machine... wrong. There were at least hundreds of angry linux users out there making a stink... and then the unthinkable happened... Dell listened to the Linux community feedback and FIXED their BIOS! I bought one as soon as I read that. It makes a great Linux box, at least if you run Ubuntu Feisty:-)
There is a manual in OpenOffice format (yeah, I really AM a PITA). It was benchmarked heavily in the late 90's, internally at an EDA company before deciding to use the integer-based object references. All programs (including a placer and a router) sped up, and the range was from 10% to 20%, depending on the tool. The average was about 15%. Improvements were more pronounced in tools with larger amounts of data, which we felt was due to cache effects. It would be nice to redo the benchmarks, with open-source programs, but it takes a TON of work. You basically have to take a program that is already well optimized by hand, and convert it to use data in a DataDraw database rather than custom C structures. However, the trend has been that cache effects have become even more important, so I expect the benchmarks to be even better next time.
There was a C++ wrapper written for the old (and more stable) version of DataDraw. However, we really wanted it to generated C++ classes, and that turned into a mess. It required DataDraw to parse your C++ header files and insert code into your manually written classes. Microsoft pulled it off with their Class Wizard, but we just didn't have the bandwidth to finish it.
I've never heard the "magic compiler myth" phrase, but I'll help educate others about it. It's refreshing to hear someone who understands reality. Of course, a factor of 2 to 4 improvement in speed is less and less important every day...
This is more true all the time. I work in the EDA industry, in chip design. The databases sizes I work with are naturally well correlated with More's Law. In effect, I'm a permanent power user, but my circle of peers is shrinking into oblivion...
I write all my databases with the fairly generic DataDraw database generator. The resulting C code is faster that if you wrote it manually using pointers to C structures (really). http:datadraw.sourceforge.net. Its generic, and faster than anything EVER.
Oh, no! I can't believe I'd confuse the New York Times with the Washington Post! In this case, I hated the NYT article, and they were simply out-classed by the Post. At least I was able to guess the Wall Street Journal... Probably just a lucky guess. Of the three, the Post is the only one I thought I could reliably predict, as the other two are fairly objective, classy organizations. I occasionally read the Post's political coverage, mostly for a good laugh, and I've never felt they had a shred of unbiased reporting in them. They're just like Fox News, but they get their money from the left instead of the right. Can I try for best 2 out of three:-)
I agree about the flaws of a two party system. I doubt that's going to change any times soon, though, or it would be worth discussing more. The abortion issue is the typical test that separates religious conservatives from the rest. Most people, including me, agree with you that abortion should be a last resort, and highly restricted by the third trimester. I believe that to save the mother should be the main reason for such late abortions. I also feel we should all work together to reduce unwanted pregnancies, as other countries have done successfully. However, those who feel strongly that IUD's are murderous I have found to nearly always also be deeply religious. This includes some close friends of mine who are extremely intelligent, and who have strong ethical and moral values. I respect their point of view, and I also respect how these friends are able to reconcile science and Genesis in a way that I find not infeasible. We simply disagree about how late it's still ok to end a pregnancy.
I know this is no laughing matter, but this is/., so please excuse the following joke:
A Jewish rabbi, and Catholic Priest, and a Unitarian Minister are discussing abortion during lunch. A neutral party at the table asks, "So, when does life begin?" The Catholic priest without hesitation declares, "Life begins at conception, at which point God instills a soul in the unborn baby." The Jewish rabbi shakes his head, saying "We have always believed that life begins at the quickening, which is the true moment that God provides a soul." Everyone turns to the Unitarian minister, waiting for his view... after a silence he relents, and says, "I believe that life begins after your kids go to college."
I tend to agree that it's hard to see bias. However, I'll give my opinion of the three starting paragraphs:
1 - IMO, the most boring, in that it seems to cover mostly the emotional feel of a meeting. I have to endure enough meetings as it is, so I'm not impressed with this opening. It's hard to guess... I feel that more liberal papers tend to spew depressing touchy-feely stuff on their front page, so it could be them. On the other hand, I'd guess that less educated readers would prefer the more touchy feely stuff. However, the readership of all three is probably quite intelligent. I'm going to guess this is the most liberal of the papers.
2 - This second opening almost seems to favor Nardelli, focusing on how his proposed compromise was rejected. I also find it boring... who cares what he offered? I'm going to guess that this is the most conservative paper, protecting the actions of a wealthy leader. I do think guys like this get unfair press in the media, but that's just my opinion.
3 - This is the only opening that really grabs me, and gives me information I want. It points out the time period of is tenure, how Home Depot faired (doubling revenue, but flat stock), and states the value of the most contentious issues Americans have with top CEOs: their lavish pay packages. Everything stated seems objective, though it does pander to what we Americans want to hear. I'm guessing this is a middle-of-the-road class-act newspaper, with the typical unintended somewhat left leaning.
Frogblast is basically right... there is consensus in the scientific community that humans are causing the earth to get warmer (Oreskes, 2004, published in Science). Your statements about A causing B and such is true if all we have is some guy saying A and B are correlated, and then concluding that humans will cause B if they cause A. CO2 and temperature tracking each other for hundreds of thousands of years is only one small part of the puzzle. If you read the entire wikipedia.org article on global warming, I think you'll see what I mean.
On the other hand, we here non-climate-scientists will continue to debate everything. That's/. There will be no/. consensus:-)
True! If we tried to have a thoughtful discussion on why only 10% of Democrats think the earth is getting warmer, compared to 32% of Republicans, we'd get flame-bait-ed into -1 territory. I like that guy's sig that I often see, stating flame-bait and troll should not be used to punish opinions you disagree with.
Actually, I have growing respect for the Presbyterians. I sent both my kids to Presbyterian preschool. We can disagree as to whether evolution is a fact. IMO, the only way it isn't real is if God is intentionally trying to fool us, which is just too silly for words. Why bury 100 million year old dinosaurs? I myself am religious to a certain degree (I'm Unitarian). I believe there is meaning to it all, and not just some random coincidence. In a sense, I believe in God, but I'd be very surprised if he were at all like humans (or any creature). Intelligent design is a theory I'd respect more if most backers meant that God created the laws of the universe, and perhaps guided it's evolution, rather than pushing the clearly disproved story of Genesis.
As a Unitarian, respect for other's religious beliefs is a shared core value. In the past, I left Genesis and evolution alone, without trying to change anybody's mind. However, the rise in power of the religious right has obtained strains my ability to respect them, since they are not simply worshiping as they feel is best. They are trying to make the rest of us worship as they do. I'm a big fan of Thomas Jefferson (also a Unitarian). On his gravestone, he wrote his proudest three accomplishments. Authoring separation between church and state was one of them. The current attack on the science he helped create, and the religious freedom he cherished and promoted breaks my heart.
Michael Crichton makes money writing books huge numbers of people read. That's what he does best. "State of Fear" is no exception. People want to read that Global Warming is not real.
Al Gore may want to be president. Even if he is an expert on global warming (which he is), he may have an agenda. To his credit, after Katrina, he charted a plane and saved a hospital full of people before Bush did anything particularly useful. I suspect he may genuinely be trying to help save the world. I did watch the Gore video. It was entertaining, but it took several asides into politics, which I felt cheapened the message.
I strongly encourage those interested in global warming to read wikipeda.org.
Hmmm... you may be right. I can just imagine talk-shows with Britney Spears debating John Travolta over evidence that we are making the earth warmer...
I rely on Wikipedia.org, generally. In areas where I am an expert (not that many), I find they are dead-on, or pretty darned close. It lends credibility to the other scientific areas they cover.
Murdoch also is willing to help politicians win elections in trade for favorable treatment. Thus, Fox promotes global warming mis-information to help GW pander to his oil/gas/coal companies. I generally feel greed in a capitalist economy is a good thing, but there are exceptions... Murdoch is the best example I can point to. The real problem comes when you mix money and politics, which he does freely.
I also hear people complain that the New York Times is left-wing, which I never felt it was. Obviously, the Washington Post is massively biased, but they never claimed to be "fair and unbiased."
Found one! Read this poll on global warming opinions. I find it very interesting that 32% of Republicans feel that there is no solid evidence that the earth is getting warmer (which of course, it is). I don't think this shows traditional Republicans are dumber or less informed. I typically find the opposite to be true. I think it shows the influence of the Religious Right. But, that's just my unscientific speculation... it could be that they are simply listening to Rush and GW, and are simply mis-informed and ignorant of the fact.
I agree with you there. I could find plenty of articles talking about percentage of people who "believe in" global warming, but I could not find one that separated those who believe the earth isn't getting warmer from those who don't believe we're causing it. I'd be interested to find out.
legislation is still needed to reduce carbon emissions or millions of people will die
I'm on your side here, but... Many people are dying, in Darfur, for example, and there is evidence that global warming is partly or even largely to blame. Global warming may kill many millions of people, but those people are likely to live in poor countries that Americans mostly care little about. It's not likely that Americans will die from heat or lack or water, or starvation, or civil wars sparked because of these problems. We'll get our act together and stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at some point. If not the death of millions of poor people around the world, loosing much of our best ocean-front property will probably kick us into gear. It's just a matter of time.
Gotta love how this blog article (I can write articles like this, too) quotes only Fox News for sources... You go ahead and believe Wikipedia.org is the one that has an agenda, and is biased...
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. IMO, the real power of Ubuntu isn't lowering the bar for average users, but lowering the bar for average IT professionals. I know several who have tried Ubuntu, and while they're not ready to give up their jobs doing Windows administration, Ubuntu is on their radar. However, the real power and draw of Linux is what we geeks can do with it. It's by far the worlds best platform for expressing our creative art of programming, and sharing our work with others. I've stopped worrying about what the rest of the world wants. Linux fills my needs like no other system ever built.
Er... no. Obama served 7 years as a state legislator before running for Senate. I'm almost done with his book, "The Audacity of Hope." All I can say is he is now my top choice for president, with McCain being my second. Can America elect a black man? If so, Obama's got a chance. I highly recommend the book for anyone who wants to know what he stands for.
The web site that published this article (without, I might add, any kind of actual verifiable data) also carries right-wing & Christian blogging. This is just another typical media outlet misrepresenting the nature of the scientific debate. In fact, it's these kinds of media outlets that are the real problem - they tell a lie of a world unaffected by our presence, promoting inaction when action is required.
Err... no. The scientific community, including Bush's own team commissioned to study the issue, agree that we are causing global warming. It's only the dumb media outlets that perpetuate the myth that many scientists strongly disagree on whether we are causing climate change. When I meet an educated, generally well informed individual who buys into the media promoted myths about climate change, I react pretty strongly: go get educated. The information is out there, waiting for you to read it. Don't expect your local news to feed it to you.
I'm running Ubuntu Feisty-Faun without any trouble. However, other distros have not yet been reported to work, SFAIK.
I found an interesting Dell/Linux bit of hype. Dell pushed their new $400 Dimension e521 as a good Linux machine last fall, but it turned out that it wouldn't actually run Linux, due to BIOS bugs on Dell's system. I expected the community to report the bug, and move onto the next machine... wrong. There were at least hundreds of angry linux users out there making a stink... and then the unthinkable happened... Dell listened to the Linux community feedback and FIXED their BIOS! I bought one as soon as I read that. It makes a great Linux box, at least if you run Ubuntu Feisty :-)
There is a manual in OpenOffice format (yeah, I really AM a PITA). It was benchmarked heavily in the late 90's, internally at an EDA company before deciding to use the integer-based object references. All programs (including a placer and a router) sped up, and the range was from 10% to 20%, depending on the tool. The average was about 15%. Improvements were more pronounced in tools with larger amounts of data, which we felt was due to cache effects. It would be nice to redo the benchmarks, with open-source programs, but it takes a TON of work. You basically have to take a program that is already well optimized by hand, and convert it to use data in a DataDraw database rather than custom C structures. However, the trend has been that cache effects have become even more important, so I expect the benchmarks to be even better next time.
There was a C++ wrapper written for the old (and more stable) version of DataDraw. However, we really wanted it to generated C++ classes, and that turned into a mess. It required DataDraw to parse your C++ header files and insert code into your manually written classes. Microsoft pulled it off with their Class Wizard, but we just didn't have the bandwidth to finish it.
I've never heard the "magic compiler myth" phrase, but I'll help educate others about it. It's refreshing to hear someone who understands reality. Of course, a factor of 2 to 4 improvement in speed is less and less important every day...
This is more true all the time. I work in the EDA industry, in chip design. The databases sizes I work with are naturally well correlated with More's Law. In effect, I'm a permanent power user, but my circle of peers is shrinking into oblivion...
I write all my databases with the fairly generic DataDraw database generator. The resulting C code is faster that if you wrote it manually using pointers to C structures (really). http:datadraw.sourceforge.net. Its generic, and faster than anything EVER.
Oh, no! I can't believe I'd confuse the New York Times with the Washington Post! In this case, I hated the NYT article, and they were simply out-classed by the Post. At least I was able to guess the Wall Street Journal... Probably just a lucky guess. Of the three, the Post is the only one I thought I could reliably predict, as the other two are fairly objective, classy organizations. I occasionally read the Post's political coverage, mostly for a good laugh, and I've never felt they had a shred of unbiased reporting in them. They're just like Fox News, but they get their money from the left instead of the right. Can I try for best 2 out of three :-)
I agree about the flaws of a two party system. I doubt that's going to change any times soon, though, or it would be worth discussing more. The abortion issue is the typical test that separates religious conservatives from the rest. Most people, including me, agree with you that abortion should be a last resort, and highly restricted by the third trimester. I believe that to save the mother should be the main reason for such late abortions. I also feel we should all work together to reduce unwanted pregnancies, as other countries have done successfully. However, those who feel strongly that IUD's are murderous I have found to nearly always also be deeply religious. This includes some close friends of mine who are extremely intelligent, and who have strong ethical and moral values. I respect their point of view, and I also respect how these friends are able to reconcile science and Genesis in a way that I find not infeasible. We simply disagree about how late it's still ok to end a pregnancy.
/., so please excuse the following joke:
I know this is no laughing matter, but this is
A Jewish rabbi, and Catholic Priest, and a Unitarian Minister are discussing abortion during lunch. A neutral party at the table asks, "So, when does life begin?" The Catholic priest without hesitation declares, "Life begins at conception, at which point God instills a soul in the unborn baby." The Jewish rabbi shakes his head, saying "We have always believed that life begins at the quickening, which is the true moment that God provides a soul." Everyone turns to the Unitarian minister, waiting for his view... after a silence he relents, and says, "I believe that life begins after your kids go to college."
I tend to agree that it's hard to see bias. However, I'll give my opinion of the three starting paragraphs:
1 - IMO, the most boring, in that it seems to cover mostly the emotional feel of a meeting. I have to endure enough meetings as it is, so I'm not impressed with this opening. It's hard to guess... I feel that more liberal papers tend to spew depressing touchy-feely stuff on their front page, so it could be them. On the other hand, I'd guess that less educated readers would prefer the more touchy feely stuff. However, the readership of all three is probably quite intelligent. I'm going to guess this is the most liberal of the papers.
2 - This second opening almost seems to favor Nardelli, focusing on how his proposed compromise was rejected. I also find it boring... who cares what he offered? I'm going to guess that this is the most conservative paper, protecting the actions of a wealthy leader. I do think guys like this get unfair press in the media, but that's just my opinion.
3 - This is the only opening that really grabs me, and gives me information I want. It points out the time period of is tenure, how Home Depot faired (doubling revenue, but flat stock), and states the value of the most contentious issues Americans have with top CEOs: their lavish pay packages. Everything stated seems objective, though it does pander to what we Americans want to hear. I'm guessing this is a middle-of-the-road class-act newspaper, with the typical unintended somewhat left leaning.
How did I do?
Frogblast is basically right... there is consensus in the scientific community that humans are causing the earth to get warmer (Oreskes, 2004, published in Science). Your statements about A causing B and such is true if all we have is some guy saying A and B are correlated, and then concluding that humans will cause B if they cause A. CO2 and temperature tracking each other for hundreds of thousands of years is only one small part of the puzzle. If you read the entire wikipedia.org article on global warming, I think you'll see what I mean.
/. There will be no /. consensus :-)
On the other hand, we here non-climate-scientists will continue to debate everything. That's
True! If we tried to have a thoughtful discussion on why only 10% of Democrats think the earth is getting warmer, compared to 32% of Republicans, we'd get flame-bait-ed into -1 territory. I like that guy's sig that I often see, stating flame-bait and troll should not be used to punish opinions you disagree with.
Actually, I have growing respect for the Presbyterians. I sent both my kids to Presbyterian preschool. We can disagree as to whether evolution is a fact. IMO, the only way it isn't real is if God is intentionally trying to fool us, which is just too silly for words. Why bury 100 million year old dinosaurs? I myself am religious to a certain degree (I'm Unitarian). I believe there is meaning to it all, and not just some random coincidence. In a sense, I believe in God, but I'd be very surprised if he were at all like humans (or any creature). Intelligent design is a theory I'd respect more if most backers meant that God created the laws of the universe, and perhaps guided it's evolution, rather than pushing the clearly disproved story of Genesis.
As a Unitarian, respect for other's religious beliefs is a shared core value. In the past, I left Genesis and evolution alone, without trying to change anybody's mind. However, the rise in power of the religious right has obtained strains my ability to respect them, since they are not simply worshiping as they feel is best. They are trying to make the rest of us worship as they do. I'm a big fan of Thomas Jefferson (also a Unitarian). On his gravestone, he wrote his proudest three accomplishments. Authoring separation between church and state was one of them. The current attack on the science he helped create, and the religious freedom he cherished and promoted breaks my heart.
Michael Crichton makes money writing books huge numbers of people read. That's what he does best. "State of Fear" is no exception. People want to read that Global Warming is not real.
Al Gore may want to be president. Even if he is an expert on global warming (which he is), he may have an agenda. To his credit, after Katrina, he charted a plane and saved a hospital full of people before Bush did anything particularly useful. I suspect he may genuinely be trying to help save the world. I did watch the Gore video. It was entertaining, but it took several asides into politics, which I felt cheapened the message.
I strongly encourage those interested in global warming to read wikipeda.org.
Hmmm... you may be right. I can just imagine talk-shows with Britney Spears debating John Travolta over evidence that we are making the earth warmer...
I rely on Wikipedia.org, generally. In areas where I am an expert (not that many), I find they are dead-on, or pretty darned close. It lends credibility to the other scientific areas they cover.
Murdoch also is willing to help politicians win elections in trade for favorable treatment. Thus, Fox promotes global warming mis-information to help GW pander to his oil/gas/coal companies. I generally feel greed in a capitalist economy is a good thing, but there are exceptions... Murdoch is the best example I can point to. The real problem comes when you mix money and politics, which he does freely.
I also hear people complain that the New York Times is left-wing, which I never felt it was. Obviously, the Washington Post is massively biased, but they never claimed to be "fair and unbiased."
Found one! Read this poll on global warming opinions. I find it very interesting that 32% of Republicans feel that there is no solid evidence that the earth is getting warmer (which of course, it is). I don't think this shows traditional Republicans are dumber or less informed. I typically find the opposite to be true. I think it shows the influence of the Religious Right. But, that's just my unscientific speculation... it could be that they are simply listening to Rush and GW, and are simply mis-informed and ignorant of the fact.
I agree with you there. I could find plenty of articles talking about percentage of people who "believe in" global warming, but I could not find one that separated those who believe the earth isn't getting warmer from those who don't believe we're causing it. I'd be interested to find out.
I'm on your side here, but... Many people are dying, in Darfur, for example, and there is evidence that global warming is partly or even largely to blame. Global warming may kill many millions of people, but those people are likely to live in poor countries that Americans mostly care little about. It's not likely that Americans will die from heat or lack or water, or starvation, or civil wars sparked because of these problems. We'll get our act together and stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at some point. If not the death of millions of poor people around the world, loosing much of our best ocean-front property will probably kick us into gear. It's just a matter of time.
Gotta love how this blog article (I can write articles like this, too) quotes only Fox News for sources... You go ahead and believe Wikipedia.org is the one that has an agenda, and is biased...