I agree with you in the spirit of your comments but in your conclusion you do exactly what you are complaining about.
Tropical events (Hurricanes, cyclones, tropical depressions, etc) have occured throughtout human history but we only have a very small data set that we would call accurate. Most (I say most but what I mean is the scientists who dont jump to conclusions) climate scientist would say that looking only at the number of Atlantic/Gulf storms gives us an only slightly increase in the storm instensity/occurance. They only work with the data they have which they admit is not the data they want. They are often hard pressed to give good error bars. They would love to get and use more data but to do that they need to go to 2nd order sources that are either interpreted or somewhate unreliable (they tend not touse those). So when they come to a conclusion they give caviates. Caviates for the tropical storm increase activities include: the population is more exposed to storms; the data is inclomplete; it is only a statistical result, etc.
Yet you claim it is a simple fact that it is not true.
It is not a simple problem with a simple fact. The problem is most people dont want vague results. The media does not report "everything is fine". So we get doomsday reports, responses to doomsday reports, and a cloudy and confusing subject.
I think you have done the same in your comment. To a climate scientist hurricanes are only part of the data. Pacific typhoons have not increased but drought has.
If you couple drought data with sea surface temperature data with teleconnections data and outgoing longwave radiation data and so on it becomes more likely that there is more eneregy in oceans than there has been in the past. One possible result is increase in tropical storm activity. This is not ignoring accumulated data. This is giving a "what does this mean to the average joe" descrition. More often then not the media and politicians are the ones who state it as a simple fact.
There are hundreds of extreme whether event websites and teleconnections data that do describe an increase in atmospheric dynamis and extreme events. The scientist who collect, analyse and use this data will predict some possible outcomes but if they are a good scientist they will also give the error bars of their predictions.
for the record I think we will only see a slight increase in tropical events. The big changes are going to be rain/snow pattern changes.
Short Sightedness indeed. Not only would it wreak havoc on weather systems around the world. It could also have a different impact on their local enviroment. It has been suggested that sharks are more prevalent on the beaches in the gulf region because higher sea surface temperatures have changed the feeder fish population dynamics. The red tide problem could become more prevalent. Deep sea life that is only suited to a specific temperature range would be effected by the warm water pumped from the surface.
Now it is not certain that all these would happen but is it worth the chance to ruin a major food supply for the Americas, turn tourist beaches into shark infested sludge pools as well as effect the climate elsewhere just so we can avoid the short term cost of rebuilding/relocating.
I am an avid fan of linux and work on several boxes all with linux on them. Personally, I am more productive on linux than anything else but I am constantly bothered by my co-workers who use windows machines. I spend little time with the mac users vs. the 8 hours a week solving problems with people unable to print, wireless not working, installing software, virus checking, etc on windows (even XP). This would not be a big deal if I were the system admin and not a grad student but that is another complaint.
My basic observation is the majority of people know less about hardware and operating systems than they think. Macs are easier to get basic work done and encounter fewer problems. They have their downsides that have kept me from switching as well as the problems with supported software and they tend to cost more but if I were being paid by the hour this would be a big expense on our research group.
To keep manufactuing costs down and inventories low they tend to calculate exactly how many parts they will need for a production run and maybe some extra. They dont want to sit on a large inventory paying storage costs and have the risk that the parts will not be sold. But if 30% of their sales have service agreements with them they can plan for normal usage ware and tear and keep a more reasonable inventory on hand, or replace and refurbish.
This happens to most low to moderate priced items. Look at the television and VCR repair. Who would pay $50 to have a belt replaced on a 3year old VCR when a much better model is avaliable for $100.
Even desktops are almost always replaced as opposed to upgraded after 3 years.
This is a pain in the ass when somethng breaks but optimizing supply chains and reducing manufacturing costs have made the notebook availiable for a few hundred dollars less than it would be otherwise.
Now there are other factors than should also be considered when pricing something like enviromental costs and surprises in demand that also need to be factored in but we dont need to go into those now.
My suggestion is to find an alternate use of the laptop like the group that makes svga picture frames.
FoxNews suing Fox Broadcasting is a scam. The fans of Fox news will definitely keep watching the news for updates and Simpson fans will only wait for controversial episode with anticipation. Rupert Murdoc lets the offended persons go ahead with this and saves millions in advertising and possibly attracts even more viewers to both shows.
Basically all the news sources, including slashdot, become shills.
I might be getting more cynical but the more this stuff happens the more I believe it is planned.
Most homes off the grid have battery banks and low power appliances (which can be expensive). If they are not there durring the day the house recharges and then used in the evening. Heating and cooking is done by gas that is usually trucked in. If done right it is hard to notice the difference between a self sufficient home and one hooked to the grid. The main problem is the cost and upkeep. It can be worth it if you find a piece of property in the middle of nowhere and dont want to pay the utility companies to run power to the homes but few do it in suburbia when they find out it will take 10 years to make up the price difference of normal utility costs and solar/wind systems.
90% of tax revenue comes from the middle class. If you exoand the middle class your tax revenue expands. Durring the Clinton administration this happened(though not entirely by them but they did help it when they could). That is how the debt got paid.
The current gop plans will have little effect. It will raise the national debt thought spending much like Carter and Reagan and not help the middle class. This was Bush Sr fear when he called Reagans econ plan Voodoo economics( before he was on the ticket for VP).
Economics policy is much more complicated than taxes. Even though the Republicans AND Democrates act as if that is all there is. We will never have a time like the Reagan 80 or the Clinton 90. We wont be able to directly apply policies of those times and hope for the same outcome. There have been many times when taxes were cut and the economy got worse or taxes raised and the economy grows. Do not think that there is any easy soloution. If there was do you think there would still be such a debate.
While it is true that making bombs and airplanes for the war gave many people jobs, the bigger efffect was a complete stopage of consumer goods being made for the general public. Every company started making guns and tanks and airplane ball bearings. You can find guns made by typewritter manufactures. After the was some people had a bit of money and a bigger demand for a new car, typewritter, etc. That is what drove the boom after the war. Not the war itself. In fact if that did not happen we would still be paying off the debt the gov incurred durring the war(remember how your grandparents bought war bonds).
The problem now is the production of consumer goods will continue at its current rate but the war will still be expensive.
I will state the obvious for those who have not actually done scientific research.
The problem now is if we do not see immediate gains then the project should be scrapped. But, this is not the way science works. It actually takes engineering efforts to do real science. Delays and over runs when doing something no one has done before are unforuantely they way things work. The buisnesslike attitude of the government does not like to hear that. They want to know exactly how much something will cost and when it will be done. So, the scientist give their best estimates and then append them when they have more information.
Yes there are wasteful projects and unforunate tragedies but MOST of the time they are wastful because the end result is not useful and there was little technology spinoff. The better-cheaper-faster approach presented by Dan Goldin in the early ninties was wholehartedly praised by most everyone. Using comercial satelite technology, limiting expensive protective measures and minimizing staff were good ideas untill we lost three missions to mars and about the only thing we learned was we cutting corners on space exploration is risky.
Science is expensive. But so is everything else. Osprey V-22, 12B$ so far three years late and still not working but they expec to sink 38B$ for the whole program. NIF, 3.9B$ it violates treaties, two years late and we dont know if it works yet. I could go on.
It is not fair to cut the operating budget of the program and limit the growth of the project and then say there is no science going on. Bush and O'Keefe want a failure so Nasa's measily little budget (~=15B$) can be diverted to tax cuts or absorbed by Defence's everincreasing budget (~=360B$).
I saw on the special that Ted Copple hosted a few weeks ago how many parents want to use cloning to improve there future offspring's intelegence and health and eliminate such abnormalities. If my parents had done that who would program their vcr?
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you in the spirit of your comments but in your conclusion you do exactly what you are complaining about.
Tropical events (Hurricanes, cyclones, tropical depressions, etc) have occured throughtout human history but we only have a very small data set that we would call accurate. Most (I say most but what I mean is the scientists who dont jump to conclusions) climate scientist would say that looking only at the number of Atlantic/Gulf storms gives us an only slightly increase in the storm instensity/occurance. They only work with the data they have which they admit is not the data they want. They are often hard pressed to give good error bars. They would love to get and use more data but to do that they need to go to 2nd order sources that are either interpreted or somewhate unreliable (they tend not touse those). So when they come to a conclusion they give caviates. Caviates for the tropical storm increase activities include: the population is more exposed to storms; the data is inclomplete; it is only a statistical result, etc.
Yet you claim it is a simple fact that it is not true.
It is not a simple problem with a simple fact. The problem is most people dont want vague results. The media does not report "everything is fine". So we get doomsday reports, responses to doomsday reports, and a cloudy and confusing subject.
I think you have done the same in your comment. To a climate scientist hurricanes are only part of the data. Pacific typhoons have not increased but drought has.
If you couple drought data with sea surface temperature data with teleconnections data and outgoing longwave radiation data and so on it becomes more likely that there is more eneregy in oceans than there has been in the past. One possible result is increase in tropical storm activity. This is not ignoring accumulated data. This is giving a "what does this mean to the average joe" descrition. More often then not the media and politicians are the ones who state it as a simple fact.
There are hundreds of extreme whether event websites and teleconnections data that do describe an increase in atmospheric dynamis and extreme events. The scientist who collect, analyse and use this data will predict some possible outcomes but if they are a good scientist they will also give the error bars of their predictions.
for the record I think we will only see a slight increase in tropical events. The big changes are going to be rain/snow pattern changes.
Short Sightedness indeed. Not only would it wreak havoc on weather systems around the world. It could also have a different impact on their local enviroment. It has been suggested that sharks are more prevalent on the beaches in the gulf region because higher sea surface temperatures have changed the feeder fish population dynamics. The red tide problem could become more prevalent. Deep sea life that is only suited to a specific temperature range would be effected by the warm water pumped from the surface.
Now it is not certain that all these would happen but is it worth the chance to ruin a major food supply for the Americas, turn tourist beaches into shark infested sludge pools as well as effect the climate elsewhere just so we can avoid the short term cost of rebuilding/relocating.
Since Guardsmark does not allow them to enjoy coworkers company after work they should go have drinks with the competition.
http://www.transnationalsecurity.com/
http://www.krollworldwide.com/
http://www.alliedsecurity.com/
I am sure management would love it if their competition got to hear all their gripes of bosses and complaints about contracts.
Act Quick! If this is not already illegal then it will be soon.
1.) Open up accounting record and pricing models to explain current CD costs (Prove to your customers you are not price fixing).
2.) Remove monopolistics barriers in the markets (Allow independent labels to get their music to the market).
3.) Stop producing crap (Please, Stop prducing crap).
I am an avid fan of linux and work on several boxes all with linux on them. Personally, I am more productive on linux than anything else but I am constantly bothered by my co-workers who use windows machines. I spend little time with the mac users vs. the 8 hours a week solving problems with people unable to print, wireless not working, installing software, virus checking, etc on windows (even XP). This would not be a big deal if I were the system admin and not a grad student but that is another complaint.
My basic observation is the majority of people know less about hardware and operating systems than they think. Macs are easier to get basic work done and encounter fewer problems. They have their downsides that have kept me from switching as well as the problems with supported software and they tend to cost more but if I were being paid by the hour this would be a big expense on our research group.
To keep manufactuing costs down and inventories low they tend to calculate exactly how many parts they will need for a production run and maybe some extra. They dont want to sit on a large inventory paying storage costs and have the risk that the parts will not be sold. But if 30% of their sales have service agreements with them they can plan for normal usage ware and tear and keep a more reasonable inventory on hand, or replace and refurbish.
This happens to most low to moderate priced items. Look at the television and VCR repair. Who would pay $50 to have a belt replaced on a 3year old VCR when a much better model is avaliable for $100.
Even desktops are almost always replaced as opposed to upgraded after 3 years.
This is a pain in the ass when somethng breaks but optimizing supply chains and reducing manufacturing costs have made the notebook availiable for a few hundred dollars less than it would be otherwise.
Now there are other factors than should also be considered when pricing something like enviromental costs and surprises in demand that also need to be factored in but we dont need to go into those now.
My suggestion is to find an alternate use of the laptop like the group that makes svga picture frames.
FoxNews suing Fox Broadcasting is a scam. The fans of Fox news will definitely keep watching the news for updates and Simpson fans will only wait for controversial episode with anticipation. Rupert Murdoc lets the offended persons go ahead with this and saves millions in advertising and possibly attracts even more viewers to both shows.
Basically all the news sources, including slashdot, become shills.
I might be getting more cynical but the more this stuff happens the more I believe it is planned.
Most homes off the grid have battery banks and low power appliances (which can be expensive). If they are not there durring the day the house recharges and then used in the evening. Heating and cooking is done by gas that is usually trucked in. If done right it is hard to notice the difference between a self sufficient home and one hooked to the grid. The main problem is the cost and upkeep. It can be worth it if you find a piece of property in the middle of nowhere and dont want to pay the utility companies to run power to the homes but few do it in suburbia when they find out it will take 10 years to make up the price difference of normal utility costs and solar/wind systems.
90% of tax revenue comes from the middle class. If you exoand the middle class your tax revenue expands. Durring the Clinton administration this happened(though not entirely by them but they did help it when they could). That is how the debt got paid.
The current gop plans will have little effect. It will raise the national debt thought spending much like Carter and Reagan and not help the middle class. This was Bush Sr fear when he called Reagans econ plan Voodoo economics( before he was on the ticket for VP).
Economics policy is much more complicated than taxes. Even though the Republicans AND Democrates act as if that is all there is. We will never have a time like the Reagan 80 or the Clinton 90. We wont be able to directly apply policies of those times and hope for the same outcome. There have been many times when taxes were cut and the economy got worse or taxes raised and the economy grows. Do not think that there is any easy soloution. If there was do you think there would still be such a debate.
While it is true that making bombs and airplanes for the war gave many people jobs, the bigger efffect was a complete stopage of consumer goods being made for the general public. Every company started making guns and tanks and airplane ball bearings. You can find guns made by typewritter manufactures. After the was some people had a bit of money and a bigger demand for a new car, typewritter, etc. That is what drove the boom after the war. Not the war itself. In fact if that did not happen we would still be paying off the debt the gov incurred durring the war(remember how your grandparents bought war bonds).
The problem now is the production of consumer goods will continue at its current rate but the war will still be expensive.
--man are we way off topic
I will state the obvious for those who have not actually done scientific research.
The problem now is if we do not see immediate gains then the project should be scrapped. But, this is not the way science works. It actually takes engineering efforts to do real science. Delays and over runs when doing something no one has done before are unforuantely they way things work. The buisnesslike attitude of the government does not like to hear that. They want to know exactly how much something will cost and when it will be done. So, the scientist give their best estimates and then append them when they have more information.
Yes there are wasteful projects and unforunate tragedies but MOST of the time they are wastful because the end result is not useful and there was little technology spinoff. The better-cheaper-faster approach presented by Dan Goldin in the early ninties was wholehartedly praised by most everyone. Using comercial satelite technology, limiting expensive protective measures and minimizing staff were good ideas untill we lost three missions to mars and about the only thing we learned was we cutting corners on space exploration is risky.
Science is expensive. But so is everything else. Osprey V-22, 12B$ so far three years late and still not working but they expec to sink 38B$ for the whole program. NIF, 3.9B$ it violates treaties, two years late and we dont know if it works yet. I could go on.
It is not fair to cut the operating budget of the program and limit the growth of the project and then say there is no science going on. Bush and O'Keefe want a failure so Nasa's measily little budget (~=15B$) can be diverted to tax cuts or absorbed by Defence's everincreasing budget (~=360B$).
I saw on the special that Ted Copple hosted a few weeks ago how many parents want to use cloning to improve there future offspring's intelegence and health and eliminate such abnormalities. If my parents had done that who would program their vcr?