You're right: the Earth has experienced dramatic climate change in the past. But every time it has experienced dramatic climate change, it has also experienced mass extinctions.
And considering how close most of the world's population lives to the ocean coasts, and how much we rely on a relatively small number of dwindling species for survival, can we really say that we're not going to be on the extinction list this time around?
Known terrorist, not enough evidence for trial: should be put under surveillance...
You're already under surveillance, and the degree of surveillance is increasing. What? You're not a known terrorist? Guess what: the old, cynical cop statement, "Everyone is guilty of something," is turning into "Everyone is a potential terrorist" in the government's perspective.
The two most powerful parties both hold ELECTIONS to pick their candidates for the larger election.
That larger ELECTION has worked really well the last couple of times, hasn't it? If the entrenched oligarchy can do such a good job of fixing a popular election, do you really think party elections are any more democratic?
...my favored techniques involve providing tax incentives in cities to paint rooftops white. This results in an increased albedo, reflecting more sunlight (and heat) - not only reducing global warming directly, but indirectly in the form of reduced energy consumption for air conditioning and the like (the urban "heat island" effect). It's a simple, low-impact way to Do Something.
...and make the problem much, much worse. Increased albedo is a huge problem, from the light-gray scars that mark the existence of cities to the reduced dark green of the world's forests due to logging. Increasing the Earth's albedo leads to increased desertification--and the worst part is, this is a positive feedback cycle because increased desertification leads to increased albedo.
The best solution for roofs is not painting them white, but turning them green. Cover as many flat roofs as possible with plant cover, and increase evapotranspiration. Stop paying farmers not to farm, and pay them to grow hemp instead. Use hemp to replace all wood pulp and wood fiber applications, especially paper, and save millions of acres of trees, not in tropical rainforests, but in temperate rainforests, where the problem is just as dire.
The central problem with global warming is not the temperature in itself; it's the mechanism that is raising the temperature, which is primarily an increase in certain atmospheric gases. We don't need half-baked ideas involving producing millions of gallons of toxic paint, which will worsen the problem at every stage from the production of the paint, to its effect on albedo, to the contamination that will inevitably result from improper application and cleanup. We need to focus on reducing greenhouse gases. Period.
For the record, IANAEE (Environmental Engineer), but I will be in nine months.
...if my boss needs me to recover a document, I need to be able to do it, whether it is by interacting with the application, searching through cache data, or scouring the individual hard disk sectors.
Wow, you sure do a lot of work. When my boss needed me to recover a file, it was always...
Here it is in your inbox, along with the 5000 other e-mails you haven't sorted yet,
Here it is in the filesystem where you accidentally dragged it while trying to attach it to an e-mail,
Here it is, renamed to Hi, got your message yesterday... because you renamed it while trying to attach it to an e-mail,
I'll try to recover it from the backup tapes,
Sorry, the backup tapes are corrupted because they're six years old,
It's gone because you stored it in your Trash bin, you dumbass!
All of the above actually happened. Except the dumbass comment (unless you include mentally; then it happened every five minutes). It's so good to be out of there!
I especially like this gem from Club Drive (Jaguar):
Club Drive has invented its own bizarre set of rules where [really stupid game design]. It's hard to say whether it's a glimpse into the future of driving or just someone being an idiot.
The first comment on the video says it best: Wallace got Clintowned!
If you watch only one YouTube video today, watch the Clinton-Wallace interview... unless you've already read Richard Clark's book; then you know the story already.
In this case, TBA = right after Duke Nukem Forever?
...or, in more concrete terms, when the only people left to watch it are enslaved by sentient apes in the shadow of the broken remains of Lady Liberty?
Except sit in front of the TV getting fatter playing video games.
Not for long. You just know someone is going to sue the major video game companies for childhood obesity, and some wussy judge is going to allow the suit to proceed... and, of course, some uninformed jury is going to award millions to the plaintiff, who was only a victim of his own inability to get his ass off the couch once in a while.
To amend your statement: Thank you, opportunistic lawyers, wussy judges, and uninformed juries of America for creating a sue-me state that makes a simple game of tag a serious legal liability.
...Africa has suffered its droughts and famines, but rarely is it the case that there is no food.
Been there, seen that. I taught in Malawi about ten years ago. Malawi is a poor country (like almost every country in Africa), and many of its residents suffer from a number of nutritional deficiencies, such as vitamin A blindness. What struck me most about the situation is how unnecessary it is.
Here's a typical situation: A family works a tiny subsistence plot, growing vegetables. They take the vegetables they grow and sell them all at the local market. They use the money they make at the market to buy maize (corn), which they eat, from a government outlet.
So this typical family has the food it needs to prevent the typical nutrient deficiencies, but it's not enough bulk to survive on. They have to sell the food that would keep them healthy to buy the food that lets them survive.
I don't know if the situation has changed since then, but I doubt it has. The government was thoroughly corrupt and incompetent. Except for maize, the major cash crops are all owned by foreign interests that rape the country and give nothing back.
And the government mismanages what it does own. The year I was there, the government sold its excess maize to Zimbabwe, only to realize that they sold far more than they should have because of a very low yield that year. They had to buy it back at more than double the price. Who do you think ended up paying for the mistake? Not the government, but everyone who bought a bag of maize.
So the OP makes a very good point: it's not that the resources don't exist; it's that they are hopelessly mismanaged.
His trousers were perpetually under his protuberant belly.
Been there, done that... but I wore size 36 at that time. Trust me, it's possible for a slashdotter-computer geek to get in shape. Just find a form of exercise you enjoy doing.
Come on people, I know this is slashdot and all, buy some exercise won't kill you.
Exercise, eh? How about commuting 22km a day by bike in Vancouver, which isn't exactly flat? Or rock climbing twice a week at a 5.10 level? Do that for a few months and see what happens to your BMI.
...the study noticed a drop in 'cognitive function' in obese people...
Even that oversimplifies the situation. The study tied memory recall to high BMI, not to obesity. A high BMI does not necessarily make someone obese. I'm 5'8" and 190 pounds (173cm and 86kg for those outside North America), and my BMI says I'm not far from being obese. But I wear size 33 jeans (84cm). A lot of people I know have similar proportions.
So the question is, did this researcher choose people who were visibly obese for his high-BMI subjects, or did he mix in any muscular participants? Were all of the "fat people" pear-shaped, or were there a representative number of beer guts? Without that information, his results are worthless because they do not compensate for body morphology.
Then again, maybe the fact that steroids make you stupid would cancel some of the bias.;)
You think that's bad... I told someone I was taking Environmental Engineering. She thought that meant that I was training to drive an electric locomotive. Yes, she was blonde.
I've talked to many customer service reps who didn't know what they are talking about.
I think that's most likely the case here. Salespeople aren't hired for their technical knowledge; they're hired because they can close sales. So when a salesdude is sitting through his product knowledge training, he's probably sitting there in a haze of incomprehension, with "packets" and "protocols" zooming right over his head. Then, when he gets on the phone, it's "Use Comcast because Vonage will eat your babies!!
About dozen years ago, a guy who was writing a book about a modern-day civil war in the USA posted some of his chapters to sci.military...
About ten years ago I saw an HBO movie called "The Second Civil War". The premise was that Idaho decided to secede from the USA because it disagreed with federal immigration policy. It was done as a relatively light comedy, but it made you think. And watching it today, it's just a little bit scary.
Now, with all sorts of weapons like tanks and missles and fighter planes, it's impossible for civilians to take on the government one on one.
The scary thing is, when someone finally decides that the feds have gone too far, and is able to act on it, it's not going to be a grassroots group; it's going to be a group of states. States have tanks, missiles, and even fighter planes.
The weekend warriors of the various National Guards may not have the intensive training of the federal armed forces, but they would be defending their homes and their freedom, which makes for a powerful incentive. Just imagine being in a federal unit where you've been ordered to fire on fellow Americans who are doing nothing more than defending the rights your commander in chief swore to defend, and has been destroying instead.
In the end, it would be a bloody mess in which everyone loses.
Slashdot Mirror
No, no. He means that John Howard saw the draft.
He was reported as saying, "Yeah, that's a draft. Now where's my draught?"
You're right: the Earth has experienced dramatic climate change in the past. But every time it has experienced dramatic climate change, it has also experienced mass extinctions.
And considering how close most of the world's population lives to the ocean coasts, and how much we rely on a relatively small number of dwindling species for survival, can we really say that we're not going to be on the extinction list this time around?
You're already under surveillance, and the degree of surveillance is increasing. What? You're not a known terrorist? Guess what: the old, cynical cop statement, "Everyone is guilty of something," is turning into "Everyone is a potential terrorist" in the government's perspective.
So the only evidence you would accept would be handed out by a reliable source... like Fox News?
That larger ELECTION has worked really well the last couple of times, hasn't it? If the entrenched oligarchy can do such a good job of fixing a popular election, do you really think party elections are any more democratic?
...and make the problem much, much worse. Increased albedo is a huge problem, from the light-gray scars that mark the existence of cities to the reduced dark green of the world's forests due to logging. Increasing the Earth's albedo leads to increased desertification--and the worst part is, this is a positive feedback cycle because increased desertification leads to increased albedo.
The best solution for roofs is not painting them white, but turning them green. Cover as many flat roofs as possible with plant cover, and increase evapotranspiration. Stop paying farmers not to farm, and pay them to grow hemp instead. Use hemp to replace all wood pulp and wood fiber applications, especially paper, and save millions of acres of trees, not in tropical rainforests, but in temperate rainforests, where the problem is just as dire.
The central problem with global warming is not the temperature in itself; it's the mechanism that is raising the temperature, which is primarily an increase in certain atmospheric gases. We don't need half-baked ideas involving producing millions of gallons of toxic paint, which will worsen the problem at every stage from the production of the paint, to its effect on albedo, to the contamination that will inevitably result from improper application and cleanup. We need to focus on reducing greenhouse gases. Period.
For the record, IANAEE (Environmental Engineer), but I will be in nine months.
Wow, you sure do a lot of work. When my boss needed me to recover a file, it was always...
All of the above actually happened. Except the dumbass comment (unless you include mentally; then it happened every five minutes). It's so good to be out of there!
I especially like this gem from Club Drive (Jaguar):
The first comment on the video says it best: Wallace got Clintowned!
If you watch only one YouTube video today, watch the Clinton-Wallace interview... unless you've already read Richard Clark's book; then you know the story already.
In this case, TBA = right after Duke Nukem Forever?
...or, in more concrete terms, when the only people left to watch it are enslaved by sentient apes in the shadow of the broken remains of Lady Liberty?
Damn. Note to self: Get sufficient sleep before posting.
So... VISA Is A Goddamn Recursive Algorithm?
Not for long. You just know someone is going to sue the major video game companies for childhood obesity, and some wussy judge is going to allow the suit to proceed... and, of course, some uninformed jury is going to award millions to the plaintiff, who was only a victim of his own inability to get his ass off the couch once in a while.
To amend your statement: Thank you, opportunistic lawyers, wussy judges, and uninformed juries of America for creating a sue-me state that makes a simple game of tag a serious legal liability.
Been there, seen that. I taught in Malawi about ten years ago. Malawi is a poor country (like almost every country in Africa), and many of its residents suffer from a number of nutritional deficiencies, such as vitamin A blindness. What struck me most about the situation is how unnecessary it is.
Here's a typical situation: A family works a tiny subsistence plot, growing vegetables. They take the vegetables they grow and sell them all at the local market. They use the money they make at the market to buy maize (corn), which they eat, from a government outlet.
So this typical family has the food it needs to prevent the typical nutrient deficiencies, but it's not enough bulk to survive on. They have to sell the food that would keep them healthy to buy the food that lets them survive.
I don't know if the situation has changed since then, but I doubt it has. The government was thoroughly corrupt and incompetent. Except for maize, the major cash crops are all owned by foreign interests that rape the country and give nothing back.
And the government mismanages what it does own. The year I was there, the government sold its excess maize to Zimbabwe, only to realize that they sold far more than they should have because of a very low yield that year. They had to buy it back at more than double the price. Who do you think ended up paying for the mistake? Not the government, but everyone who bought a bag of maize.
So the OP makes a very good point: it's not that the resources don't exist; it's that they are hopelessly mismanaged.
[/Cue laughter from a married slashdotter who has a date this morning.]
Been there, done that... but I wore size 36 at that time. Trust me, it's possible for a slashdotter-computer geek to get in shape. Just find a form of exercise you enjoy doing.
Exercise, eh? How about commuting 22km a day by bike in Vancouver, which isn't exactly flat? Or rock climbing twice a week at a 5.10 level? Do that for a few months and see what happens to your BMI.
Even that oversimplifies the situation. The study tied memory recall to high BMI, not to obesity. A high BMI does not necessarily make someone obese. I'm 5'8" and 190 pounds (173cm and 86kg for those outside North America), and my BMI says I'm not far from being obese. But I wear size 33 jeans (84cm). A lot of people I know have similar proportions.
So the question is, did this researcher choose people who were visibly obese for his high-BMI subjects, or did he mix in any muscular participants? Were all of the "fat people" pear-shaped, or were there a representative number of beer guts? Without that information, his results are worthless because they do not compensate for body morphology.
Then again, maybe the fact that steroids make you stupid would cancel some of the bias. ;)
You misspelled money.
You think that's bad... I told someone I was taking Environmental Engineering. She thought that meant that I was training to drive an electric locomotive. Yes, she was blonde.
The first thing I thought on reading this headline was "Who the hell is Al? You mean the sidekick from Home Improvement?"
I guess he would occupy the flannel office.
I think that's most likely the case here. Salespeople aren't hired for their technical knowledge; they're hired because they can close sales. So when a salesdude is sitting through his product knowledge training, he's probably sitting there in a haze of incomprehension, with "packets" and "protocols" zooming right over his head. Then, when he gets on the phone, it's "Use Comcast because Vonage will eat your babies!!
About ten years ago I saw an HBO movie called "The Second Civil War". The premise was that Idaho decided to secede from the USA because it disagreed with federal immigration policy. It was done as a relatively light comedy, but it made you think. And watching it today, it's just a little bit scary.
The scary thing is, when someone finally decides that the feds have gone too far, and is able to act on it, it's not going to be a grassroots group; it's going to be a group of states. States have tanks, missiles, and even fighter planes.
The weekend warriors of the various National Guards may not have the intensive training of the federal armed forces, but they would be defending their homes and their freedom, which makes for a powerful incentive. Just imagine being in a federal unit where you've been ordered to fire on fellow Americans who are doing nothing more than defending the rights your commander in chief swore to defend, and has been destroying instead.
In the end, it would be a bloody mess in which everyone loses.