I won't get into the longer term, as that may be a legitimate debate. However, this "warmest in the last 400 years" crap is misleading rhetoric. The reason the earth is warmer now is that the earth has been in an "Ice Age" for the last 400 years and is now starting to come out of it.
Before you read this article, you should first read up on the "Mini Ice Age": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age. After you read it, you will see that articles like this are just unethical media outlets attempting to conjure up a story by preying on the stupid and uninformed.
This type of comparison is exactly the same as comparing a car going 10 mph to a car going 1 mph by saying "That 10mph car can go REALLY fast. It is 10x faster than other cars."
Here are the key points from the above article:
"The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling lasting approximately from the 14th to the mid-19th centuries, although there is no generally agreed start or end date: some confine the period to 1550-1850. This cooler period occurs after a warmer era known as the Medieval climate optimum. There were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals."
"There is no agreed beginning year to the Little Ice Age, although there are a frequently referenced series of events preceding the known climatic minima. Starting in the 13th century, pack ice began advancing southwards in the North Atlantic, as well as glaciers in Greenland. The three years of torrential rains beginning in 1315 ushered in an era of unpredictable weather in Northern Europe which did not lift until the 19th century. There is anecdotal evidence of expanding glaciers almost worldwide, but a climate reconstruction based on glacial length shows no great variation from 1600 to 1850, though it shows strong retreat thereafter. For this reason, scholars tend to use any of several dates ranging over 400 years for the beginning of the Little Ice Age:
1250 for when Atlantic pack ice began to grow
1300 for when warm summers stopped being dependable in Northern Europe
1315 for the rains and Great Famine of 1315-1317
1550 for theorized beginning of worldwide glacial expansion
1650 for the first climatic minimum."
"Causes:
Scientists have identified two causes of the Little Ice Age from outside the ocean/atmosphere/land systems: decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity. Research is ongoing on more ambiguous influences such as internal variability of the climate system, and anthropogenic influence (Ruddiman). Ruddiman has speculated that depopulation of Europe during the Black Death, with the resulting decrease in agricultural output and reforestation taking up more carbon from the atmosphere, may have prolonged the Little Ice Age."
I'm sorry, but this article blatently misstates the opinion.
The judge stated that an email address alone is not enough to constitute a signature for statute of frauds purposes. The judge DID NOT say that having a signature block on an email was sufficient.
Here is a key passage from the actual opinion:
As well know to anyone who uses email on a regular basis, What is relied upon is not inserted by the sender of the email in any active sense. It is inserted automatically. My knowledge of the technicalities of email is not sufficiently detailed to enable me to know whether it is inserted by the ISP with whom the sender or the recipient has his email account. However, I accept Mr Aslett's submission that as a matter of obvious inference, if it is inserted by the latter it can only be from information supplied by the former. Mr Mehta suggested that the address was inserted by his employee. I do not see how this could be so and certainly Mr Mehta was not able to give me a coherent explanation of how that might be so. It is possible that Mr Metha's employee was authorised to use Mr Metha;s email account remotely but, even if that is so, I do not see how that can impact on any of the issues I have to resolve since it is not in dispute that the email was sent on the instructions of Mr Metha and the method by which the sender address came to be inserted would not be affected even if that was the position.
It is submitted on behalf of JPF that the appearance of the sender's address at the top of the document constitutes a signature either by the sender or by "... some otherperson thereunto by him lawfully authorised... " because it is well known to all users of e mail that the recipient of the e mail will always be told the e mail address of the e mail account from which the e mail is sent in the form it appears on the e mail referred to in Paragraph 3 above. That being so, it is submitted that by authorising an agent to send an e mail using the sender's e mail account, to a third party the sender knows that his her or its e mail address will appear on the recipient's copy and that is sufficient for it to be held to be a signature for the purposes of Section 4.
It was submitted by Mr Aslett that intention was irrelevant -all that was required was a document that constituted a sufficient memorandum (which, as I have held, the e mail was) and the signature somewhere on the note or memorandum of either the person to be bound or his duly authorised agent. In support of this contention, Mr Aslett relied on the decision of the House of Lords in Elpis Maritime Company Limited v. Marti Chartering Company Limited [1991] 3 WLR 330. The facts of that case were very different to the facts of this case. There was no dispute in that case that the party to be charged had signed the document. The dispute in that case concerned whether or not the fact that the party to be bound signed the relevant document as agent made any difference given that there was a clause within the document that purported to create a guarantee by the party purporting to sign only as agent. It had been contended that if such was the case then the fact the agreement contained a clause under which the signing party personally agreed to guarantee certain obligations was not relevant. It was this last argument that was rejected by the House of Lords by reference to In re Hoyle [1893] 1 Ch 84 in which A.L. Smith LJ said: "The question is not what is the intention of the person signing the memorandum but is one of fact, vis is there a note or memorandum of the promise signed by the party to be charged?". It is because this is so that in other cases the courts have accepted letters to third parties, instructions to telegraph companies signed by the sender, and affidavits in unconnected actions as being a sufficient memorandum providing they are signed by the parties to be bound. It was this that led the House of Lords to conclude that it was irrelevant in what capacity or with what intention the document there being considered was sign
John,
Doesn't SOE feel even a LITTLE remorse about the way the SWG revamp (the "NGE") was announced in comparision with the sale of the last expansion? The REAL cause of most player's anger, is that SOE purposefully and blatently HID the fact that they were doing a revamp to encourage people to buy Trials of Obi-Wan. To explain the chain of events as I observed them:
(1) By SOE's own admission, they have been working on the new combat revamp (the "NGE") for at LEAST 6 months, at the same time as the Trials of Obi Wan (ToOW) expansion.
(2) Over the past 1 to 2 months, SOE has promised bug fixes and changes to MULTIPLE SWG classes/professions to keep people in the game. Some of the professions they have promised fixes to within the past 1 to 2 months will NOT EXIST after the NGE. Among those professions that were slated to be fixed were Ranger, Squad Leader, and Commando. SOE published documents detailing fixes for each of these professions that bear NO resemblance to what will exist after the combat revamp.
(3) Less than a month ago, SOE added a bunch of new special moves to the commando class/profession. Looking at the revamp documents, it is apparent that the commando profession will not have these specials after the combat revamp. The ONLY reason SOE would have added these specials, less than 2 months before the combat revamp was to go live, would be to preserve the illusion that there was no combat revamp coming.
(4) In advertising the Trials of Obi Wan expansion (ToOW) over the past month. SOE has continually published screenshots of new weapons, armor, crafter schematics, and items and their stats. Some of these items included items that allowed the creature handler profession to tame higher level pets. The expansion planet itself, Mustafar, was advertised to have new high level pets to tame that were available no where else. In fact, many creature handlers have specifically stated that the ONLY reason they bought the expansion was for the new abilities.
(5) Two weeks ago, several players noticed there was an item called the "Star Wars Galaxies: Starter Kit" on sale at amazon and several online gaming stores. Somewhere in the documentation of the kit or otherwise, some players ran across something about "Jedi as a starting profession." Players asked SOE's representatives (i.e. Tiggs and Thunderheart) about the Starter Kit, who specifically stated that it was an erroneous entry and meant nothing. Tiggs stated that she was asking the vendors to remove the entry because the product did not exist. SOE denied that Jedi would be a starting profession anytime soon.
(6) The day before (ONE day) SOE made the NGE revamp announcement, SOE sent out an email to most SWG subscribers, that basically said "Buy the Expansion; we are revamping many professions including Ranger and Squad Leader." The email linked to the "fix documents" mentioned in #2. You will note that NEITHER "Ranger" or "Squad Leader" will exist after the combat revamp. There will be "Spy" and "Officer" professions, but they are totally different from what SOE was promising.
(7) Around Tuesday (Nov. 1), Trials of Obi Wan, the new SWG expansion, went live.
(8) On the afternoon of Wednesday (Nov. 2), SOE/LA dropped the bombshell they were totally revamping the game (both combat and crafting) and that 2/3 of the current professions would be cut from the game. SOE announces that all stats for almost all items in the game will be changing (including the ones they published to advertise the expansion). SOE also announced that (1) players would only be able to choose ONE profession (no mix and matching, or switching, like many players enjoy); (2) that "trader" (crafting) would be a mutually exclusive class, so players that dabble in both crafting and combat will have to choose between them; (3) that the SWG "Starter Kit" DOES exist (contrary to their prior statements), and will be like the "Trial of the Isle" for EQ2...a starter zone where you get to try the first 10 or 20 levels of the game out; and (4) Jedi will be a starting profession, meaning that some of
Slashdot Mirror
I won't get into the longer term, as that may be a legitimate debate. However, this "warmest in the last 400 years" crap is misleading rhetoric. The reason the earth is warmer now is that the earth has been in an "Ice Age" for the last 400 years and is now starting to come out of it.
Before you read this article, you should first read up on the "Mini Ice Age": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age. After you read it, you will see that articles like this are just unethical media outlets attempting to conjure up a story by preying on the stupid and uninformed.
This type of comparison is exactly the same as comparing a car going 10 mph to a car going 1 mph by saying "That 10mph car can go REALLY fast. It is 10x faster than other cars."
Here are the key points from the above article:
"The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling lasting approximately from the 14th to the mid-19th centuries, although there is no generally agreed start or end date: some confine the period to 1550-1850. This cooler period occurs after a warmer era known as the Medieval climate optimum. There were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals."
"There is no agreed beginning year to the Little Ice Age, although there are a frequently referenced series of events preceding the known climatic minima. Starting in the 13th century, pack ice began advancing southwards in the North Atlantic, as well as glaciers in Greenland. The three years of torrential rains beginning in 1315 ushered in an era of unpredictable weather in Northern Europe which did not lift until the 19th century. There is anecdotal evidence of expanding glaciers almost worldwide, but a climate reconstruction based on glacial length shows no great variation from 1600 to 1850, though it shows strong retreat thereafter. For this reason, scholars tend to use any of several dates ranging over 400 years for the beginning of the Little Ice Age:
1250 for when Atlantic pack ice began to grow
1300 for when warm summers stopped being dependable in Northern Europe
1315 for the rains and Great Famine of 1315-1317
1550 for theorized beginning of worldwide glacial expansion
1650 for the first climatic minimum."
"Causes: Scientists have identified two causes of the Little Ice Age from outside the ocean/atmosphere/land systems: decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity. Research is ongoing on more ambiguous influences such as internal variability of the climate system, and anthropogenic influence (Ruddiman). Ruddiman has speculated that depopulation of Europe during the Black Death, with the resulting decrease in agricultural output and reforestation taking up more carbon from the atmosphere, may have prolonged the Little Ice Age."
John, Doesn't SOE feel even a LITTLE remorse about the way the SWG revamp (the "NGE") was announced in comparision with the sale of the last expansion? The REAL cause of most player's anger, is that SOE purposefully and blatently HID the fact that they were doing a revamp to encourage people to buy Trials of Obi-Wan. To explain the chain of events as I observed them: (1) By SOE's own admission, they have been working on the new combat revamp (the "NGE") for at LEAST 6 months, at the same time as the Trials of Obi Wan (ToOW) expansion. (2) Over the past 1 to 2 months, SOE has promised bug fixes and changes to MULTIPLE SWG classes/professions to keep people in the game. Some of the professions they have promised fixes to within the past 1 to 2 months will NOT EXIST after the NGE. Among those professions that were slated to be fixed were Ranger, Squad Leader, and Commando. SOE published documents detailing fixes for each of these professions that bear NO resemblance to what will exist after the combat revamp. (3) Less than a month ago, SOE added a bunch of new special moves to the commando class/profession. Looking at the revamp documents, it is apparent that the commando profession will not have these specials after the combat revamp. The ONLY reason SOE would have added these specials, less than 2 months before the combat revamp was to go live, would be to preserve the illusion that there was no combat revamp coming. (4) In advertising the Trials of Obi Wan expansion (ToOW) over the past month. SOE has continually published screenshots of new weapons, armor, crafter schematics, and items and their stats. Some of these items included items that allowed the creature handler profession to tame higher level pets. The expansion planet itself, Mustafar, was advertised to have new high level pets to tame that were available no where else. In fact, many creature handlers have specifically stated that the ONLY reason they bought the expansion was for the new abilities. (5) Two weeks ago, several players noticed there was an item called the "Star Wars Galaxies: Starter Kit" on sale at amazon and several online gaming stores. Somewhere in the documentation of the kit or otherwise, some players ran across something about "Jedi as a starting profession." Players asked SOE's representatives (i.e. Tiggs and Thunderheart) about the Starter Kit, who specifically stated that it was an erroneous entry and meant nothing. Tiggs stated that she was asking the vendors to remove the entry because the product did not exist. SOE denied that Jedi would be a starting profession anytime soon. (6) The day before (ONE day) SOE made the NGE revamp announcement, SOE sent out an email to most SWG subscribers, that basically said "Buy the Expansion; we are revamping many professions including Ranger and Squad Leader." The email linked to the "fix documents" mentioned in #2. You will note that NEITHER "Ranger" or "Squad Leader" will exist after the combat revamp. There will be "Spy" and "Officer" professions, but they are totally different from what SOE was promising. (7) Around Tuesday (Nov. 1), Trials of Obi Wan, the new SWG expansion, went live. (8) On the afternoon of Wednesday (Nov. 2), SOE/LA dropped the bombshell they were totally revamping the game (both combat and crafting) and that 2/3 of the current professions would be cut from the game. SOE announces that all stats for almost all items in the game will be changing (including the ones they published to advertise the expansion). SOE also announced that (1) players would only be able to choose ONE profession (no mix and matching, or switching, like many players enjoy); (2) that "trader" (crafting) would be a mutually exclusive class, so players that dabble in both crafting and combat will have to choose between them; (3) that the SWG "Starter Kit" DOES exist (contrary to their prior statements), and will be like the "Trial of the Isle" for EQ2...a starter zone where you get to try the first 10 or 20 levels of the game out; and (4) Jedi will be a starting profession, meaning that some of