As I've brought up before, I worked in the IT department of a fairly large medical transcription company before. No employee was given access to patient medical records in our organization unless it was required, all access was logged, and violations were dealt with in a very heavy handed manner. There are always going to be a few breaches (including in our own organization) but the repercussions were serious enough to force people to pay attention.
We didn't give our end users the OPTION to ignore regulation. We had a member of our staff as a compliance officer (as regulation dictates) and we regularly audited our systems for unintended access. Because the regulations posed very serious consequences for non-compliance to the company as our contracts with the hospitals and clinics included sanctions and contract termination clauses should we cause violations; the employees, by extension, were absolutely NOT allowed to be lax.
We fired a good number of people who did things like personal shopping / web browsing / etc. on the computers which were primarily used for transcription work. We even fired an employee who refused to run anti-virus on their machine. We even went so far as to provide the PC's themselves (preloaded with all of the applications necessary) to be sure we could enforce those restrictions.
We did catch one employee looking for records on someone she knew (a friend) which happened to be treated at a hospital which was our client. Not only did this require a substantial amount of paperwork to rectify (including letters to the patient even though the employee never got a record pulled up), but the employee was fired, fined, and had her MT certification revoked and is likely to never work anywhere near healthcare organizations again.
So while this was an anecdotal story, you might rest a bit easier to know that in MOST places HIPAA regulations are taken very seriously and every organization I worked with over those years was very protective of your medical records.
You should know that when an employee is able to access records unfettered and unauthorized it already IS a breach of HIPAA regulations. I've worked for a medical transcription company and while we were not directly held to every regulation we DID have to notify the relevant authorities and hospitals (and a ton of other paperwork) if patient records were accidentally distributed to the wrong people INCLUDING our own staff which did not have a need-to-know (Happened once or twice via incorrect distribution groups in e-mail, was a very irritating situation, but we took many steps to prevent such issues.)
Internal employees do not get unfettered access to records even within an organization. Additionally, it is an actionable offense if they redistribute or use the information they uncover for any means not considered acceptable in the regulations, and the employer can be levied very large fines for employee misuse of patient records.
People rave because the gas tax actually IS a pretty good metric of how to appropriately tax most uses of the road. Big heavy vehicle? More tax paid. Lighter more efficient vehicle? Less tax paid. Road warrior? More tax paid. Bicyclist? Less tax paid... why the hell is that short sighted?
On a second note why should I be taxed differently because I own a fuel efficient vehicle? I already pay a given tax to renew my plates based on the style of vehicle (and weight class). I pay for the emissions test. I already pay a tax based on the miles I drive (fuel I consume). I paid a bit extra for a car which ran my 50mpg in my last 120mile road trip (and is NOT electric or hybrid but did not qualify for the tax rebate this year because it was not new when I bought it). And I pay tax for everything (including labor in my area) used in maintaining my vehicle.
So now I ask, how exactly am I being short sighted? I do, after all, save myself taxes and our roads wear and tear because I made conscious decisions.
If you have beef with the lower usage of gasoline contributing to lower taxes, then vote to tax the appropriate fuel or like some jurisdictions tack it onto the plate renewal cost of the vehicle.
As someone who manages roughly 160 HP servers (and trialed competing IBM products which had these nice little blue motherboard modules to license their remote management application with) "Blatantly ignorant or plain troll?" Indeed:
From HP: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/ilo/
"iLO is available in two forms, iLO Standard and iLO Advanced. iLO Standard provides basic system board management functions, diagnostics and essential Lights-Out functionality as standard features on iLO supported ProLiant servers. iLO Advanced provides remote administration functionality as a licensed option."
Also, only ilo2 is based on IPMI though you might be hard pressed to find the original ilo modules still around.
I hope your smug attitude gets you somewhere someday.
Aside from replacing faulty hardware (which developers may not have a clue about) they would be fine with an option like ILO, IPMI, IBM's thing, etc.
Just about any server which can rightfully be called a server and not a workstation-in-a-rackmount-case will have some sort of remote management component which runs separately from the motherboard in the system allowing you to do all of that.
If they simply HAVE to do SOMETHING about this "problem" then might I suggest incentivizing basic computer knowledge as such:
1. Optionally attach a basic computer literacy "certification" to your written drivers test which is renewed at the same place and time (license is imprinted with a symbol similar to the organ donor stuff). Leave the price of the ID / License the same.
2. Government $5-10 dollar tax break for persons acquiring the literacy certification with an equal portion donated to a public fund in charge of supplying our most underfunded public schools with updated computer equipment purchased from used corporate leased equipment (this would be a public bid by hardware vendors for the contracts) with an option to donate your $5-10 credit to the same.
ISP's could be compelled to give customers with this marking a small discount on their service since they will be a slightly lower risk than others.
If enough people got the certification I just HAVE to think that the net effect of a more educated society would have some cost savings SOMEWHERE in the economy the same way that drivers licenses have most certainly prevented or reduced the number of fatal / expensive collisions on the road.
I'm not generally a proponent of bigger government, but if we HAD to do something and massively f-ing expensive and complicated shit like computing licenses is already on the table then I would take my above approach instead of the more Orwellian approach in the summary.
I'm of the opinion that setting foot on the moon the very first time was the most expensive time considering it took the entirety of human knowledge up until that time to make it happen (plus a bit of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants engineering). Each trip after that would only require a fraction of the original research as it's a matter of tuning or tweaking a somewhat known quantity (albeit still expensive). . What do we value all of the knowledge and research which we gained from those missions at? . I too doubt that only the prize money is attracting them. But having 1.5B of your investment back isn't too shabby. Also being able to lay claim that you (and your corporate sponsors) were "the first to do X" for a given industry is quite important (especially to the investors). . Overall, I like the X-prize financing scheme (as someone NOT directly involved in any way). . For some reason I can't get paragraph breaks in my text. Pardon the periods.
I imagine it may have been a little bit more tense. (From: http://history.nasa.gov/ap16fj/a16summary.htm) (They had other issues before this excerpt too): "The descent propulsion system throttle down occurred on time, and at 2200 metres the LM pitched forward into its landing attitude. At this point it became clear that Orion would land approximately 600 metres north and 400 metres west of its target, unless corrective action was taken. Using the guidance computer, John Young redesignated the landing target, effectively telling the landing computer to offset where it was guiding the spacecraft to land. Despite this, it became clear that Orion was going to end up slightly north-west of its intended location. At about 140 metres above the Moon, Charlie Duke saw the shadow of the Lunar Module appear on the surface. As Orion descended below 60 metres, John Young yawed the spacecraft right, allowing him to see the shadow also. This then allowed both the crew to estimate their altitude above the surface and their descent rate. John Young flew the LM slowly forward as the lunar module descent rate reduced from eleven to five feet per second. As a LM descended below 25 metres, small traces of dust were blown across the surface by the engine. This increased as the LM descended to surface but John Young was still able to see craters and small boulders on the surface despite this. Orion landed at ( time), only 270 metres north and 60 metres west of its original target. Charlie Duke greeted their success with an exuberant "Wow! Wild man! Look at that!". John Young was more laconic - "Well, we don't have to walk far to pick up rocks, Houston. We're among them!" "
Obama's appeal to the younger audience tended to appeal to the middle-aged as well. I'm part of the first bracket you listed, however most of my friends are in the second bracket.
The fact that the man was "in touch" with technology, "in touch" with the general populace, and "in touch" with popular opinion distribution channels went a long ways for him for people of almost all age brackets.
Considering if you made a square 1" by 1" in dimensions you would have a square large enough for a quarter to fit inside of (being 1 square inch) since the quarter's diameter is 0.955 inches. I fail to see how you get 36 square inches out of that.
People like me just want confidence that what we are "believing in"
Ah. Now I see what the problem is. You're looking for faith. Science doesn't deal with absolutes. Unless you're looking for confidence intervals, which are available in pretty much every study and from pretty much every scientist ever quoted.
I do believe you failed to read my post. As a matter of fact I directly discuss the part about climate change requiring "faith" and how much distaste I have for that.
Confidence and faith are two very separate things. It's about the same difference as "relative certainty" and "objective belief". I seek the former, not the latter.
Having two very large sections on either side of this heavily polarized discussion makes a lot of people just not give a shit. I can wait until the argument dies down before taking any explicit actions.
Hit submit too early. My point earlier was that the data should have been well vetted for and all of this shit done before reaching the public eye where "scientists" will prop it up (for either "camp") in the evidence of the month club.
I'm not denying global climate change. I'm just sick of people who think they have "proved" everything, but then admit they can't point at anything concrete and agreed upon on a large enough scale to really show anything significant.
I choose to be a skeptic because when people get so sure of themselves that they are unable to reason with a counter point then if they are wrong they have doomed themselves to failure without being able to recognize it. Arrogance at it's finest.
After all, we have built unsinkable ships before. No?
It's exactly this: "Of course, the actual scientists know that such data is subject to revision and do not base important conclusions upon it."
So your conclusions are based on the data that actual scientists know not to base important conclusions on? Sounds like sound reasoning to me.
We (rightfully) will want a further look at the data used all along regardless.
OK, here you go, have fun. All the data in modern climate science is freely available in massive quantities. (The GISS datasets are just one example.)
It's certainly true that there's a lot of crap journalism around climate change; please don't confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself. Go read RealClimate, or Scientific American (hell, even New Scientist if you like comics) or (better yet) search out the specialist journals.
I used the term "we" in that sentence a bit loosely.
While I appreciate your directing me to an FTP directory full of stuff more fit for someone who actually is working in the field, or can make meaningful use of, you missed the entire perspective from which a person like myself stands. Like much of the public at large, I don't give a shit what sensor 102.WG-72 says. I don't really feel the need to be an individual detective either. It's not a big enough part of the "big picture" and I don't have enough experience to really know if I'm looking at faulty data or not. Hell, the Oxygen sensor in my car has been telling me my engine is messed up since I bought it even though the engine is working fine. What people like myself want is a credible and non-hysterical overview of the problem at hand.
Wanting a factually correct summary of the problem and the possible solutions once the scientific community reaches a relatively common understanding can't be bad. Having an apparently sound method of getting to that summary is better. Pointing me (someone untrained in the use of it) at individual data points is next to useless.
- Toast
P.S. If you want I could go read a whole pile of journals, make my own theories up, and come back in here and start screaming about my own (uneducated) views about how the system works based on information I barely understand, to people I hardly know. Seems to be common practice for people to fail to acknowledge that they, in fact, know shit about what they speak and do not qualify as even remotely knowledgeable experts (this would be the public polarization I'm in reference to).
Some of us tend to target the methods and data used as being the weakness in the arguments for climate change. We will point to the fact that they have been using faulty data at all no matter how hard people say "Nothing to see here, move along!". Logic dictates: If their data was wrong under their nose once in a ridiculous manner, it could have been wrong all along or in different ways. We (rightfully) will want a further look at the data used all along regardless.
I don't know of very many people who would openly deny that any climate change has happened over the last millennium in general. However, I know plenty of people who are (rightfully) skeptical of a bunch of "scientists" claiming "end of the world as we know it" apocalyptic scenarios. This is about the sixth major time in 40 years? Humanity has had to deal with everything from disease, insects, plague, war, famine, and politicians/lawyers. We want to know why this requires special attention. Having a major controversy surrounding it just polarizes people and brings into doubt the validity of the claims as stories like this come out.
After all, we have had a lot of these sorts of openly public fears about the end of the world throughout human history. And without concrete and testable data that our fears are founded on fact (as was shown with things like DDT, Mercury, Lead, etc.) there are a lot of people tired of living in an open ended state of panic about shit we don't feel we have too much direct control over let alone shit we have to "believe in" in order to support. Especially if we can't be sure that it is happening as people say it is because the data keeps coming into question in what outwardly appears to be ridiculous oversights.
As a person who is relatively concerned about their own energy usage and relative impact on the Earth in a more basic "because I want to be a good custodian of the earth" sort of way, I want to know really whats going on and really what I can do about it which will really make a lick of difference. I'm tired of the fact that even basic descriptions of localized problems which should be easy to demonstrate are awash in arm waiving and proselytizing instead of actual demonstrations of proof (note I didn't say making up facts). People like me just want confidence that what we are "believing in" is going to be actually functional for a greater good and won't make us part of a hysterical crowd when it's not warranted.
- Toast
P.S. The fact that there are "Denialists", "Believers", "Supporters" and "Followers" makes this area of science look a lot like religion. The fact that it also includes politicians, corporations, lawyers, and lots of appeals to emotion ("Someone think of the cuddly polar bears!") makes it look a lot like pork. Those two things alone removes much of it's potential appeal to me as I heavily devalue things of that nature as a waste of my time.
The phase of scientific research going on now, where the data is still under heavy scrutiny and the methods untested or unverified really should be taking place outside of the mainstream media involving every last person who watches the 6:00 news. The general populace would be much less polarized if the hypothesis was better tested before becoming politicized as it was. At least we would have less of a panic approach and look a bit less like the boy who cried wolf for the umpteenth time.
Ok, lets move a half-step up in the level of discussion and let me ask what basis you take the bible to be truth on? The only common answer I would expect to receive would be "faith". I personally cannot find faith to be "beyond reasonable doubt" though for obvious reasons. The flip side of your beliefs is that I find no reason that either of the biblical recounts of the beginning of man (written long after the actual beginning of man) would have any real factual information in it.
It was written in an era when men were still trying to build towers to heaven so they could talk to the gods and selling your daughters into slavery was common; and someone wants me to believe the fantastic stories about the entire earth flooding, their being a deity so powerful that earth and everything on it was created as it is now in 6 days, and that I have my very own savior from the wrath of hell (but only maybe)? Look, it's a fantastic read and it even has some pretty gripping parts with some good moral stories here and there, but taking it literally is just asking for a world of hurt once you actually try to understand what it is saying.
I could easily see why taking the whole bible instead of parts of the bible is a sensible thing to a conservative christian when they frame their beliefs. What I don't understand is what the difference in believing in the Bible (whole or parts) would be compared to the Koran, or the religious texts describing the ancient Greek / Roman gods and mythology. At this current day in age; all of us are atheists to most of the gods which have been thought into existence before. Some of us just go one god further. - (Paraphrased quote, can't remember the source)
As for taking everything the bible says literally you are opening yourself up for a very troubling bought with theologists who can point to natural inconsistencies strung throughout it(like having 2 different earth creation stories in it).
So lets not nitpick on the details of the bible (in which ever edition it is times however many translations it's been through) by which you frame your beliefs. I want to know what about, inside, around, or because of the bible would lead you to believe that it is anything more than a complex story of the trials and tribulations of a relatively early civilization of men looking for a moral framework by which they could live and rule? Just remember; Christianity has leveled peaceful civilizations and beliefs in it's own name for it's own "peace of mind".
- Toast
P.S. And yes, I drive the missionaries nuts when they come to my door to try to teach me about their personal revelations about god. Not because I want to cause them trauma or anything, but simply because I do not surrender my responsibility to have compassion, morals, ($other_religious_benefits) to another deity and I do not think one is necessary to administer them for me or threaten to punish me if I don't. Any shortcoming in my life is my own. I ask them questions that are important to me, yet equally unanswerable between both science and religion, and since they have no answers to my questions they are a waste of my time (and I of theirs). Many of them don't like to give up on such young "lost souls" such as myself though, which is quite troubling since I feel no need to be "saved".
These cars and lines are small enough and light enough to be attached to buildings or even run through the buildings themselves (no emissions, minimal vibrations due to rubber tires, etc.)
Elevating one of these things could cast about as much shadow as a telephone pole if the power lines made a solid surface. (maybe a foot or two high (sans car)).
Elevating a multi-ton train, even light rail, requires a lot of clearance and a robust track. The elevated train in Chicago takes up a 4 lane street worth of space (huge platform) for the multiple tracks in some places downtown. PRT would not have this problem since the individual cars can be simply attached to the buildings, or could be elevated on a track not much wider (or heavier) than roller coaster tracks. Additional tracks like the "through" lanes on freeways could be added for additional capacity with a very minimal outlay in ground clearance. A couple of telephone poles in the shape of a triangle with a brace is about as much support these would require (in general).
These cars are powered by electric induction motors (think of the old track cars toys from the 80's but with better motors, rubber tires, and enclosed tracks), there is very little impact footprint involved with them in total. (and the tires would last quite a while due to not being used much for sudden stops / starts / slips on asphalt / concrete.
My father has been working closely (and is an investor) in one of the PRT systems called taxi2000 (not sure how active the project is at this point) and the vast vast vast majority of their issues getting these systems installed, tested, and in-use on a wide scale is political backrubbing by existing transit authorities attempting to extoll the "virtues" of their systems. There is a phenomenal amount of money wasted in light rail / bus line funding.
I don't remember the exact numbers but the "track" these cars operate off of is a magnitude cheaper than even light rail, and has a necessary minimum clearance in the measure of inches instead of yards for passing around or through obstacles. The light rail in Minneapolis that was laid down recently is a perfect demonstration of cost overruns, schedule overruns, interrupted service (and road travel), etc. inherent in the sort of ridiculous attempt at installing rail.
More information on the system (with included videos and such) is found at: http://www.taxi2000.com/
The basic gist here is that the PRT / taxi2000 systems could very well actually MAKE money for a city employing such a system since it has such cheap operational costs. No other mass transit system could claim to get anywhere even close. All other mass transit systems widely in use are publicly subsidized all of the time in some manner.
- Toast
P.S. My last light rail travel (on that newer light rail line in Minneapolis) was quite unpleasant; loud (screeching metal) tires, crowded (and hot) train, lots of stops for bridges / ferries / traffic intersections, infrequent stops (because train platforms are freaking huge and cannot be placed frequently along the route), etc. I hope the idea that light rail is "green" for anything other than point-to-point mass transit for high volumes (between cities, or between airports / stadiums / downtown areas / other mass transit hubs) dies like the horrid idea it is. Light rail is really not light at all compared to these PRT systems.
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As I've brought up before, I worked in the IT department of a fairly large medical transcription company before. No employee was given access to patient medical records in our organization unless it was required, all access was logged, and violations were dealt with in a very heavy handed manner. There are always going to be a few breaches (including in our own organization) but the repercussions were serious enough to force people to pay attention.
We didn't give our end users the OPTION to ignore regulation. We had a member of our staff as a compliance officer (as regulation dictates) and we regularly audited our systems for unintended access. Because the regulations posed very serious consequences for non-compliance to the company as our contracts with the hospitals and clinics included sanctions and contract termination clauses should we cause violations; the employees, by extension, were absolutely NOT allowed to be lax.
We fired a good number of people who did things like personal shopping / web browsing / etc. on the computers which were primarily used for transcription work. We even fired an employee who refused to run anti-virus on their machine. We even went so far as to provide the PC's themselves (preloaded with all of the applications necessary) to be sure we could enforce those restrictions.
We did catch one employee looking for records on someone she knew (a friend) which happened to be treated at a hospital which was our client. Not only did this require a substantial amount of paperwork to rectify (including letters to the patient even though the employee never got a record pulled up), but the employee was fired, fined, and had her MT certification revoked and is likely to never work anywhere near healthcare organizations again.
So while this was an anecdotal story, you might rest a bit easier to know that in MOST places HIPAA regulations are taken very seriously and every organization I worked with over those years was very protective of your medical records.
You should know that when an employee is able to access records unfettered and unauthorized it already IS a breach of HIPAA regulations. I've worked for a medical transcription company and while we were not directly held to every regulation we DID have to notify the relevant authorities and hospitals (and a ton of other paperwork) if patient records were accidentally distributed to the wrong people INCLUDING our own staff which did not have a need-to-know (Happened once or twice via incorrect distribution groups in e-mail, was a very irritating situation, but we took many steps to prevent such issues.)
Internal employees do not get unfettered access to records even within an organization. Additionally, it is an actionable offense if they redistribute or use the information they uncover for any means not considered acceptable in the regulations, and the employer can be levied very large fines for employee misuse of patient records.
People rave because the gas tax actually IS a pretty good metric of how to appropriately tax most uses of the road. Big heavy vehicle? More tax paid. Lighter more efficient vehicle? Less tax paid. Road warrior? More tax paid. Bicyclist? Less tax paid... why the hell is that short sighted?
On a second note why should I be taxed differently because I own a fuel efficient vehicle? I already pay a given tax to renew my plates based on the style of vehicle (and weight class). I pay for the emissions test. I already pay a tax based on the miles I drive (fuel I consume). I paid a bit extra for a car which ran my 50mpg in my last 120mile road trip (and is NOT electric or hybrid but did not qualify for the tax rebate this year because it was not new when I bought it). And I pay tax for everything (including labor in my area) used in maintaining my vehicle.
So now I ask, how exactly am I being short sighted? I do, after all, save myself taxes and our roads wear and tear because I made conscious decisions.
If you have beef with the lower usage of gasoline contributing to lower taxes, then vote to tax the appropriate fuel or like some jurisdictions tack it onto the plate renewal cost of the vehicle.
I was mistaken that ILO1 was not IPMI. However the rest of my comment applies.
As someone who manages roughly 160 HP servers (and trialed competing IBM products which had these nice little blue motherboard modules to license their remote management application with) "Blatantly ignorant or plain troll?" Indeed:
From HP: http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/management/ilo/
"iLO is available in two forms, iLO Standard and iLO Advanced. iLO Standard provides basic system board management functions, diagnostics and essential Lights-Out functionality as standard features on iLO supported ProLiant servers. iLO Advanced provides remote administration functionality as a licensed option."
Also, only ilo2 is based on IPMI though you might be hard pressed to find the original ilo modules still around.
I hope your smug attitude gets you somewhere someday.
Quantum... heh... does that mean if you read your memory the data is destroyed? :-D
Aside from replacing faulty hardware (which developers may not have a clue about) they would be fine with an option like ILO, IPMI, IBM's thing, etc.
Just about any server which can rightfully be called a server and not a workstation-in-a-rackmount-case will have some sort of remote management component which runs separately from the motherboard in the system allowing you to do all of that.
http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/SIM.cfm
Some Super Micro Motherboards can have IPMI (which does all of that) added to them for a very small fee.
other brands like IBM / HP / etc also have some sort of functionality like this but will charge you licensing for the same feature set.
-Toast
If they simply HAVE to do SOMETHING about this "problem" then might I suggest incentivizing basic computer knowledge as such:
1. Optionally attach a basic computer literacy "certification" to your written drivers test which is renewed at the same place and time (license is imprinted with a symbol similar to the organ donor stuff). Leave the price of the ID / License the same.
2. Government $5-10 dollar tax break for persons acquiring the literacy certification with an equal portion donated to a public fund in charge of supplying our most underfunded public schools with updated computer equipment purchased from used corporate leased equipment (this would be a public bid by hardware vendors for the contracts) with an option to donate your $5-10 credit to the same.
ISP's could be compelled to give customers with this marking a small discount on their service since they will be a slightly lower risk than others.
If enough people got the certification I just HAVE to think that the net effect of a more educated society would have some cost savings SOMEWHERE in the economy the same way that drivers licenses have most certainly prevented or reduced the number of fatal / expensive collisions on the road.
I'm not generally a proponent of bigger government, but if we HAD to do something and massively f-ing expensive and complicated shit like computing licenses is already on the table then I would take my above approach instead of the more Orwellian approach in the summary.
- Toast
Unfortunately McDonalds at least has picked up on this: http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/students/mcdonalds_does_good/oil_opportunity.html
I'm of the opinion that setting foot on the moon the very first time was the most expensive time considering it took the entirety of human knowledge up until that time to make it happen (plus a bit of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants engineering). Each trip after that would only require a fraction of the original research as it's a matter of tuning or tweaking a somewhat known quantity (albeit still expensive).
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What do we value all of the knowledge and research which we gained from those missions at?
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I too doubt that only the prize money is attracting them. But having 1.5B of your investment back isn't too shabby. Also being able to lay claim that you (and your corporate sponsors) were "the first to do X" for a given industry is quite important (especially to the investors).
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Overall, I like the X-prize financing scheme (as someone NOT directly involved in any way).
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For some reason I can't get paragraph breaks in my text. Pardon the periods.
I imagine it may have been a little bit more tense. (From: http://history.nasa.gov/ap16fj/a16summary.htm)
(They had other issues before this excerpt too):
"The descent propulsion system throttle down occurred on time, and at 2200 metres the LM pitched forward into its landing attitude. At this point it became clear that Orion would land approximately 600 metres north and 400 metres west of its target, unless corrective action was taken. Using the guidance computer, John Young redesignated the landing target, effectively telling the landing computer to offset where it was guiding the spacecraft to land. Despite this, it became clear that Orion was going to end up slightly north-west of its intended location. At about 140 metres above the Moon, Charlie Duke saw the shadow of the Lunar Module appear on the surface. As Orion descended below 60 metres, John Young yawed the spacecraft right, allowing him to see the shadow also. This then allowed both the crew to estimate their altitude above the surface and their descent rate. John Young flew the LM slowly forward as the lunar module descent rate reduced from eleven to five feet per second. As a LM descended below 25 metres, small traces of dust were blown across the surface by the engine. This increased as the LM descended to surface but John Young was still able to see craters and small boulders on the surface despite this. Orion landed at ( time), only 270 metres north and 60 metres west of its original target. Charlie Duke greeted their success with an exuberant "Wow! Wild man! Look at that!". John Young was more laconic - "Well, we don't have to walk far to pick up rocks, Houston. We're among them!" "
Special, Yes. Desirable, No.
Obama's appeal to the younger audience tended to appeal to the middle-aged as well. I'm part of the first bracket you listed, however most of my friends are in the second bracket.
The fact that the man was "in touch" with technology, "in touch" with the general populace, and "in touch" with popular opinion distribution channels went a long ways for him for people of almost all age brackets.
- Toast
Considering if you made a square 1" by 1" in dimensions you would have a square large enough for a quarter to fit inside of (being 1 square inch) since the quarter's diameter is 0.955 inches. I fail to see how you get 36 square inches out of that.
- Toast
The Hacker Manifesto. by +++The Mentor+++ Written January 8, 1986 As seen in Phrack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_Manifesto
Attribution is a good thing.
- Toast
People like me just want confidence that what we are "believing in"
Ah. Now I see what the problem is. You're looking for faith. Science doesn't deal with absolutes. Unless you're looking for confidence intervals, which are available in pretty much every study and from pretty much every scientist ever quoted.
I do believe you failed to read my post. As a matter of fact I directly discuss the part about climate change requiring "faith" and how much distaste I have for that.
Confidence and faith are two very separate things. It's about the same difference as "relative certainty" and "objective belief". I seek the former, not the latter.
Having two very large sections on either side of this heavily polarized discussion makes a lot of people just not give a shit. I can wait until the argument dies down before taking any explicit actions.
- Toast
Hit submit too early. My point earlier was that the data should have been well vetted for and all of this shit done before reaching the public eye where "scientists" will prop it up (for either "camp") in the evidence of the month club.
I'm not denying global climate change. I'm just sick of people who think they have "proved" everything, but then admit they can't point at anything concrete and agreed upon on a large enough scale to really show anything significant.
- Toast
I choose to be a skeptic because when people get so sure of themselves that they are unable to reason with a counter point then if they are wrong they have doomed themselves to failure without being able to recognize it. Arrogance at it's finest.
After all, we have built unsinkable ships before. No?
It's exactly this: "Of course, the actual scientists know that such data is subject to revision and do not base important conclusions upon it."
So your conclusions are based on the data that actual scientists know not to base important conclusions on? Sounds like sound reasoning to me.
- Toast
OK, here you go, have fun. All the data in modern climate science is freely available in massive quantities. (The GISS datasets are just one example.)
It's certainly true that there's a lot of crap journalism around climate change; please don't confuse the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself. Go read RealClimate, or Scientific American (hell, even New Scientist if you like comics) or (better yet) search out the specialist journals.
I used the term "we" in that sentence a bit loosely.
While I appreciate your directing me to an FTP directory full of stuff more fit for someone who actually is working in the field, or can make meaningful use of, you missed the entire perspective from which a person like myself stands. Like much of the public at large, I don't give a shit what sensor 102.WG-72 says. I don't really feel the need to be an individual detective either. It's not a big enough part of the "big picture" and I don't have enough experience to really know if I'm looking at faulty data or not. Hell, the Oxygen sensor in my car has been telling me my engine is messed up since I bought it even though the engine is working fine. What people like myself want is a credible and non-hysterical overview of the problem at hand.
Wanting a factually correct summary of the problem and the possible solutions once the scientific community reaches a relatively common understanding can't be bad. Having an apparently sound method of getting to that summary is better. Pointing me (someone untrained in the use of it) at individual data points is next to useless.
- Toast
P.S. If you want I could go read a whole pile of journals, make my own theories up, and come back in here and start screaming about my own (uneducated) views about how the system works based on information I barely understand, to people I hardly know. Seems to be common practice for people to fail to acknowledge that they, in fact, know shit about what they speak and do not qualify as even remotely knowledgeable experts (this would be the public polarization I'm in reference to).
Some of us tend to target the methods and data used as being the weakness in the arguments for climate change. We will point to the fact that they have been using faulty data at all no matter how hard people say "Nothing to see here, move along!". Logic dictates: If their data was wrong under their nose once in a ridiculous manner, it could have been wrong all along or in different ways. We (rightfully) will want a further look at the data used all along regardless.
I don't know of very many people who would openly deny that any climate change has happened over the last millennium in general. However, I know plenty of people who are (rightfully) skeptical of a bunch of "scientists" claiming "end of the world as we know it" apocalyptic scenarios. This is about the sixth major time in 40 years? Humanity has had to deal with everything from disease, insects, plague, war, famine, and politicians/lawyers. We want to know why this requires special attention. Having a major controversy surrounding it just polarizes people and brings into doubt the validity of the claims as stories like this come out.
After all, we have had a lot of these sorts of openly public fears about the end of the world throughout human history. And without concrete and testable data that our fears are founded on fact (as was shown with things like DDT, Mercury, Lead, etc.) there are a lot of people tired of living in an open ended state of panic about shit we don't feel we have too much direct control over let alone shit we have to "believe in" in order to support. Especially if we can't be sure that it is happening as people say it is because the data keeps coming into question in what outwardly appears to be ridiculous oversights.
As a person who is relatively concerned about their own energy usage and relative impact on the Earth in a more basic "because I want to be a good custodian of the earth" sort of way, I want to know really whats going on and really what I can do about it which will really make a lick of difference. I'm tired of the fact that even basic descriptions of localized problems which should be easy to demonstrate are awash in arm waiving and proselytizing instead of actual demonstrations of proof (note I didn't say making up facts). People like me just want confidence that what we are "believing in" is going to be actually functional for a greater good and won't make us part of a hysterical crowd when it's not warranted.
- Toast
P.S. The fact that there are "Denialists", "Believers", "Supporters" and "Followers" makes this area of science look a lot like religion. The fact that it also includes politicians, corporations, lawyers, and lots of appeals to emotion ("Someone think of the cuddly polar bears!") makes it look a lot like pork. Those two things alone removes much of it's potential appeal to me as I heavily devalue things of that nature as a waste of my time.
The phase of scientific research going on now, where the data is still under heavy scrutiny and the methods untested or unverified really should be taking place outside of the mainstream media involving every last person who watches the 6:00 news. The general populace would be much less polarized if the hypothesis was better tested before becoming politicized as it was. At least we would have less of a panic approach and look a bit less like the boy who cried wolf for the umpteenth time.
Cable (both TV and internet) is so much less expensive here in the UK...
This is what we are so lacking here in the US...
$1 for a single episode...
...if it was closer to 50p/episode.
That must really be a lot of travel you do. Either that or you were typing this in an air plane while flying in circles over the Atlantic.
- Toast
Ok, lets move a half-step up in the level of discussion and let me ask what basis you take the bible to be truth on? The only common answer I would expect to receive would be "faith". I personally cannot find faith to be "beyond reasonable doubt" though for obvious reasons. The flip side of your beliefs is that I find no reason that either of the biblical recounts of the beginning of man (written long after the actual beginning of man) would have any real factual information in it.
It was written in an era when men were still trying to build towers to heaven so they could talk to the gods and selling your daughters into slavery was common; and someone wants me to believe the fantastic stories about the entire earth flooding, their being a deity so powerful that earth and everything on it was created as it is now in 6 days, and that I have my very own savior from the wrath of hell (but only maybe)? Look, it's a fantastic read and it even has some pretty gripping parts with some good moral stories here and there, but taking it literally is just asking for a world of hurt once you actually try to understand what it is saying.
I could easily see why taking the whole bible instead of parts of the bible is a sensible thing to a conservative christian when they frame their beliefs. What I don't understand is what the difference in believing in the Bible (whole or parts) would be compared to the Koran, or the religious texts describing the ancient Greek / Roman gods and mythology. At this current day in age; all of us are atheists to most of the gods which have been thought into existence before. Some of us just go one god further. - (Paraphrased quote, can't remember the source)
As for taking everything the bible says literally you are opening yourself up for a very troubling bought with theologists who can point to natural inconsistencies strung throughout it(like having 2 different earth creation stories in it).
So lets not nitpick on the details of the bible (in which ever edition it is times however many translations it's been through) by which you frame your beliefs. I want to know what about, inside, around, or because of the bible would lead you to believe that it is anything more than a complex story of the trials and tribulations of a relatively early civilization of men looking for a moral framework by which they could live and rule? Just remember; Christianity has leveled peaceful civilizations and beliefs in it's own name for it's own "peace of mind".
- Toast
P.S. And yes, I drive the missionaries nuts when they come to my door to try to teach me about their personal revelations about god. Not because I want to cause them trauma or anything, but simply because I do not surrender my responsibility to have compassion, morals, ($other_religious_benefits) to another deity and I do not think one is necessary to administer them for me or threaten to punish me if I don't. Any shortcoming in my life is my own. I ask them questions that are important to me, yet equally unanswerable between both science and religion, and since they have no answers to my questions they are a waste of my time (and I of theirs). Many of them don't like to give up on such young "lost souls" such as myself though, which is quite troubling since I feel no need to be "saved".
These cars and lines are small enough and light enough to be attached to buildings or even run through the buildings themselves (no emissions, minimal vibrations due to rubber tires, etc.)
Elevating one of these things could cast about as much shadow as a telephone pole if the power lines made a solid surface. (maybe a foot or two high (sans car)).
Elevating a multi-ton train, even light rail, requires a lot of clearance and a robust track. The elevated train in Chicago takes up a 4 lane street worth of space (huge platform) for the multiple tracks in some places downtown. PRT would not have this problem since the individual cars can be simply attached to the buildings, or could be elevated on a track not much wider (or heavier) than roller coaster tracks. Additional tracks like the "through" lanes on freeways could be added for additional capacity with a very minimal outlay in ground clearance. A couple of telephone poles in the shape of a triangle with a brace is about as much support these would require (in general).
These cars are powered by electric induction motors (think of the old track cars toys from the 80's but with better motors, rubber tires, and enclosed tracks), there is very little impact footprint involved with them in total. (and the tires would last quite a while due to not being used much for sudden stops / starts / slips on asphalt / concrete.
My father has been working closely (and is an investor) in one of the PRT systems called taxi2000 (not sure how active the project is at this point) and the vast vast vast majority of their issues getting these systems installed, tested, and in-use on a wide scale is political backrubbing by existing transit authorities attempting to extoll the "virtues" of their systems. There is a phenomenal amount of money wasted in light rail / bus line funding.
I don't remember the exact numbers but the "track" these cars operate off of is a magnitude cheaper than even light rail, and has a necessary minimum clearance in the measure of inches instead of yards for passing around or through obstacles. The light rail in Minneapolis that was laid down recently is a perfect demonstration of cost overruns, schedule overruns, interrupted service (and road travel), etc. inherent in the sort of ridiculous attempt at installing rail.
More information on the system (with included videos and such) is found at: http://www.taxi2000.com/
The basic gist here is that the PRT / taxi2000 systems could very well actually MAKE money for a city employing such a system since it has such cheap operational costs. No other mass transit system could claim to get anywhere even close. All other mass transit systems widely in use are publicly subsidized all of the time in some manner.
- Toast
P.S. My last light rail travel (on that newer light rail line in Minneapolis) was quite unpleasant; loud (screeching metal) tires, crowded (and hot) train, lots of stops for bridges / ferries / traffic intersections, infrequent stops (because train platforms are freaking huge and cannot be placed frequently along the route), etc. I hope the idea that light rail is "green" for anything other than point-to-point mass transit for high volumes (between cities, or between airports / stadiums / downtown areas / other mass transit hubs) dies like the horrid idea it is. Light rail is really not light at all compared to these PRT systems.
Just look at Gates' earlier comments about how open source ruins development models.
Something tells me that ship might sink rather than adapt (assuming the opinion piece on the direction of the market is correct in the first place).
- Toast