Digital downloads and online registration bypasses the doctrine/right of first sale which states, essentially that copyright owners cannot control downstream sales of the product purchased. For some reason, this is more difficult to apply to computer software, most likely because of eulas being supported by the courts.
The interface is as configurable as needed for minimal operation, but it's pretty stinky. There are a lot of keymaps that can also be used, which are inobvious. Things like control-R to go to full impulse just aren't listed anywhere.
I pretty much agree with what you said... except for the following:
Most of WoW's innovations came FROM the community of plug-in's.
They've implemented only a few things from the community, and that doesn't mean that they took it from anyone, and some were so obvious that there's no way you could claim they suddenly got this bright insight due to someone else implementing it first.
Raid frames were obvious. Quest tracker was obvious (which really amounted to better maps with areas highlit). Auto-self-cast was obvious.
Outfit changer was not obvious, but clearly needed especially with talent switching. I still use Outfitter.
And how about some real innovations, previously unseen in a large-cap game like this: Mostly-bug-free code. Phasing, where the world can dramatically change based on character's progress. Addon plugin system, esp with secure functions. Torrent patch distribution. Deep storyline. Multi-world grouping (which is a non-issue on many games, but still very cool how it's done)
The only big idea I think they got from addon writers was an outfit changer. There are probably more, but really, nothing close to the "most of their innovations" quoted above.
Nasty. Here's some of the text from my cache. There are links directly to techcrunch. I have the full, saved files including comments, if anyone is interested.
Techcrunch Tablet Prototype B January 19th, 2009 Goto comments Leave a comment
There is an air of excitement permeating through Fusion Garage at the moment. Michael Arrington of Techcrunch just wrote an update on the Techcrunch Tablet Prototype B.
It's our software that is running on the tablet as demonstrated in the videos embedded in the article. We continue to work with Louis Monier on the feature set and the user experience. We are thrilled with this progress and would like to take the opportunity to thank Michael and Louis for giving us the opportunity to work with them on the Techcrunch Tablet.
Its early days yet but we are big believers of the Browser As An Operating System and the Techcrunch Tablet Initiative.
Ignoring the obvious innuendos... that leads to another interesting question:
If it was made from grown human cells, is eating it cannibalism?
What if it was grown from your own cells? I know I've consumed plenty of my own cells (don't go there, get your mind out of the gutter), but what if I grew myself some delicious Bugnuts Soggy Meat(tm)?
I believe a binary search is only performed on a sorted list of items. What you're describing sounds more like a well-trained decision tree.
If you think of each animal being reached by a traversal of yes/no questions, you can construct a "gene" consisting of 0s and 1s, which would tell you how to reach that particular animal. In that manner, the animals are actually sorted on the gene. The binary search is exactly like the tree with < and > leaves, but is instead a question with yes/no leaves. You'd still have balancing issues with the animal tree, similar to a sorted binary tree.
I was just saying that TFA's software interface reminded me of the animal game, even though it's considerably different under the hood. If I used the term "binary search" incorrectly, I'll go turn in my geek card, although I think it can be legitimately shoe-horned into such a tree.
In it, they state they are doing the software for it, and the entire vision of the product is from Arrington. There cannot be a product without a vision on what is needed. In patent law, the person that has the actual vision has rights to the patent, no matter how many people are involved in the technical aspects (i.e. building it).
My thoughts are that Arrington should hire a team to write the software to his specs, and get a product out the door.
Yes: Is it a frog? No: Please enter the type of animal.
This article reminds me of the old Animal game, where it does a binary search for whatever type of animal you're thinking. It's been expanded to handle all types of nouns, with a 15-questions interface that is uncanny.
For another computer-generated facial reconstruction test, take a look at the mona lisa.
Exactly. This reminded me of an old addon for macs that would make the trashcan do an animation of Grover, complete with him singing he likes trash, when it's emptied.
When discovered, a friend's kid threw away everything and emptied the trash, just to see the animation.
The big problem is really obvious. It's the quality of teachers.
It's not that obvious, nor that's the primary reason. It certainly might be contributing reason, but it's also unfair to a ton of good public teachers out there.
I think the pres touched on the real reasons: demand for a good education by the parents. It's really the quality of parents that's the problem, not the quality of teachers. The parents don't value science, and neither will their kids. If they did, more people would enter the field. If parents demanded good educations, they would not tolerate poor teachers. They would also want teachers to get more money to be retained.
Charter schools flourish because of the parents. Non-religious charter schools will lose all their students if they try to teach creationism as science, while religious schools might lose a good portion if they did the opposite. This is why charter schools flourish -- they teach what the parents want taught. When you shove them all together in a public school, you get conflicting parental desires for education, and then everything goes to hell.
Mars has gotten warmer, but since we were measuring the sun's output from the 1970's, it has not gone up. There's nothing "unseen" about the sun's output, since if it were putting out more energy we'd not only sense it, but ALL the solar system would be getting warmer. Not just Mars. You can't point to a single planet and claim that shows it's a normal thing, unless all the planets/moons/everything are likewise doing the same, which they are not.
My problem is this: "Climate change" is no longer a real science. The one thing that the hacked emails proved is that Climate Change has become far too political to be called a science. You don't need stolen emails to prove that proponents of the current climate change theory are doing what they can to stifle debate. When the debate is gone, there is no science.
That's my problem, too.
But poster boy Gore refusing to measure his penis with a heckler doesn't somehow mean "debate has been stifled". That's BS. Lomborg can challenge the science himself -- nobody had anything to gain with Gore debating him, and refusing the debate has nothing to do with trying to stifle all dissent. If I challenged Gore to debate me on the merits of virus scanning, he'd scoff at me, too.
I have a counter example. Thus, while any particular consensus may be wrong, your statement is still rendered false.
If you want to know the truth, you have to go to the evidence.
This is true. However, lacking a climate science background and barely being able to understand the statistics behind it (not to mention not willing to spend the time examining it), I defer to people who are experts in the field to help me form an opinion.
The opinion of these people who are capable of understanding the data, in the vast majority, is that AGW exists. It happens to be a consensus, but the consensus is not what makes them right. They might even be wrong. But they are far more able to understand the data you suggest are examined.
The way you prove this consensus wrong is to go to the data yourself and disprove their conclusions. You definitely won't convince anyone by making statements void of any support, such as "Consensuses are wrong." Finding a single example, like you did, is not an exhaustive search. Nor would disproving one consensus have any bearing on another.
So if you can go to the data (like you suggest) and disprove this consensus you claim is wrong, go for it! I wish you luck. And I'm sincere about that... I'd love to see this proven wrong. It'd give me a lot of hope for the planet and the amazing human ability to destroy it.
Is Richard S Lindzen using this leak, without using supporting scientific data, to make an anti-AGW claim?
If so, then yes he's an idiot. Reread what I said: "some idiot media personality will make claims to the contrary due to this."
Since he made that statement before this leak, it doesn't meet the criterion I stated.
I notice you and I both submitted this article, while you claimed the leak made the AGW beliefs out as a religion, and now you're simply using this opportunity to further your anti-AGW stance by misstating the point I made.
If the science supports anti-AGW, I'll change my viewpoint. Right now, your link is a minority. And I'm not a climate scientist, so I can't interpret the data myself. However, it seems really wrong to me that temperatures, despite fluctuating to similar temperatures in the past, have changed dramatically faster than in the known and inferred several hundred-thousands of years of the planet.
There's no question that there are fluctuations in average temperature; the point is that there aren't natural fluctuations of the magnitude seen in such a short period without a catastrophic event preceding it.
That's an incorrect and misleading representation of what I said.
Consensus among scientists, versed in the field, absolutely is part of science. It demonstrates that scientists are willing to bet their credibility on it, and credibility is the currency in most real sciences. It's not a declaration of truth -- they may still be wrong. If science was never wrong, there would be no need to test rockets, engines, safety mechanisms, etc.
But consensus among informed scientists in the field strengthens the likelihood that the hypothesis has truth to it. I use that term only to show the strength of the idea, not that the consensus itself is what makes it true.
The reason this thread is so quiet is all the AGW faithful know their cover is BLOWN. Forget it your bogus faith is DEAD.
Huh wut?
I submitted the article to/. myself, and I believe the science supports AGW, by far. I'm certainly not remaining quiet. There's not really any fear. Exposing something like this can only strengthen the science behind it... and if it's all shown to be some big conspiracy, then I'll change my viewpoint the same way I initially formed it: based on science. The anti-AGW group has their opinions based on... their opinions and what they think it might cost them. It has nothing to do with current science. That's a religion if I ever heard one.
The interest to/. is the risks to email, and how it's politically damning. Right now, all the anti-AGW groups are frantically deleting all their emails and backups, and shredding documents to prevent it from happening back.
If they were engaging in illegal activities, they should be subjected to appropriate punishments. If they weren't, they still will lose money as this political black-eye will haunt the involved scientists with lack of grants.
...but the data deletion conspiracies, the conspiring to disrupt the peer review process in various clever ways, the knowing avoidance of Freedom of Information Act Requests, the slurs against "sceptics", including celebrating their deaths, and so on.
Regarding deleting emails: Certain government organizations have to preserve email. I'm not convinced scientists must archive it, even when the government provides the grants. (I'm pretty sure some do have to archive it, so whether deleting emails is inappropriate or not is immaterial... what matters is if deleting them is illegal.) Is it illegal? I don't know.
Regarding FOIA, there are some very specific requirements on those requests. Subverting this, or hiding it might be illegal. But not all organizations are subject to FOIA anyway. You can't file an FOIA on my files or my research, e.g.
Regarding celebrating deaths of people... who cares? Does that somehow change the science? It might be distasteful, but again, who cares? Putting it down in email was probably a mistake, simply because of the possibility of it being displayed. If I dug through the last 10 years of pretty much any reader's email, I'm sure I'd find something they wouldn't want publicly displayed.
Regarding disrupting the peer review process... one email actually addresses how the skeptics are now buying/subverting journals, and publishing in those to establish credibility. This is a real issue, and slashdot has covered this in the past. It becomes a political issue, and it's pretty clear there are tons of attacks on the credibility of distinguished scientists... I see no issue with the huge AGW group recognizing it and firing back. This happens in all sciences, notably biology and psychology. This is science today, I'm afraid, and that's only because it's become politicized due to money or because it will cost polluters money. I don't like it any more than anyone else, but if you attack these guys for doing dirty tricks, you should have already disqualified most of the skeptics for engaging in the same tactics.
"Doubting" indeed. And these assholes have had the nerve to indignantly drape themselves in the flag of science.
I don't understand this. I agree they might be assholes, but the anti-GW group has been practicing these antics for decades. How does the science change when it's clear some of the dirty tactics are done back?
Scientists have academic fights all the time, attack published papers, call in favors, etc., all in an attempt to discredit those with opposing views. Science is based on making an hypothesis, gathering data, and determining if that supports the hypothesis. Then that is supposed to feed back into the hypothesis to make it stronger, and repeat. But note that they form a hypothesis first. This hypothesis is an opinion, and they try to support that opinion with gathered data. Trying to discredit those with opposing opinions/hypotheses is actually part of science.
Despite all that, note that most climate scientists, by far, do support AGW. These leaked emails have shaken my faith in the ability of the climate scientists to be politically savvy. I want to see if this affects the actual science, but I bet the strongest attacks will be ad hominem, not academic.
Many people who doubted AGW (humans causing the hockey stick graph, or the graph itself) are claiming this is some sort of smoking gun. I claim it's scientists being scientists, and failing at being politicians.
The very fact that this reveals some scientists are doubting some results is exactly what should happen in science. This is why there is a consensus among scientists. Doubting is a part of science and skeptics alike, but discovering the reasons for the doubt and changing a viewpoint when good, conflicting data are found are hallmarks of the scientist. Skeptics will cling to disproved data, hoping it somehow becomes true if they believe it hard enough.
There is no doubt that the earth is warmer, but mark my words: some idiot media personality will make claims to the contrary due to this. They thrive on confusion, and there's nothing more confusing (and humorous) than watching scientists wrestle with politics.
FLIP SIDE: Alternate reality where he decides to do nothing... one week later an individual in a trusted position commits horrible [sexual] crime, and the resulting investigation finds out he posted [sexual] comments to a website, and people with the ability to take action knew about it, but did nothing. NOW, replace [] with "radical Islamic" and see how it sounds like something recent at Ft. Hood. He was damned either way.
It's easy to sound like you're right when you're replacing [funny on-topic vulgarity] with [radical Islamic or sexual threats].
But you're wrong, and I doubt most slashdot readers are stupid enough to fall for your slippery-slope rhetoric.
And now you may replace [me calling your stupid argument out] with [me calling you a Nazi] and the world will be right again.
Denying people a public service such as Wifi hardly seems like "Collective Punishment". They were trying to take themselves off the liability list. Something illegal going down? Don't aid it.
I heard there was someone speeding down the 300 block!
The city tore up the street because of one person misusing it. They did not want to aid criminals.
Aye, that is exactly part of my point since they don't say what they're concluding, but make it sound like an exponential epidemic.
The statement about it increasing leads to all sorts of guesses. Is it increasing because more LiIon batteries are out there? Or is it because they're more dangerous? Or is it because more people are bringing electronics in general? Without per capital data or better yet, the degree of relevance, it's just a scary sounding, but meaningless statement.
Of course a lithium ban would have to apply to your cellphones, radios, laptops, etc.
But this is not a security issue (intentional shorting a battery to cause a fire and some hydrogen gas) but an issue of accidental fire. The airlines should, if they don't already, have some fireproof gloves and a burn-proof compartment to securely throw malfunctioning devices such as a dropped iphone or overloaded phaser.
Slashdot Mirror
Digital downloads and online registration bypasses the doctrine/right of first sale which states, essentially that copyright owners cannot control downstream sales of the product purchased. For some reason, this is more difficult to apply to computer software, most likely because of eulas being supported by the courts.
The interface is as configurable as needed for minimal operation, but it's pretty stinky. There are a lot of keymaps that can also be used, which are inobvious. Things like control-R to go to full impulse just aren't listed anywhere.
I pretty much agree with what you said... except for the following:
Most of WoW's innovations came FROM the community of plug-in's.
They've implemented only a few things from the community, and that doesn't mean that they took it from anyone, and some were so obvious that there's no way you could claim they suddenly got this bright insight due to someone else implementing it first.
Raid frames were obvious.
Quest tracker was obvious (which really amounted to better maps with areas highlit).
Auto-self-cast was obvious.
Outfit changer was not obvious, but clearly needed especially with talent switching. I still use Outfitter.
And how about some real innovations, previously unseen in a large-cap game like this:
Mostly-bug-free code.
Phasing, where the world can dramatically change based on character's progress.
Addon plugin system, esp with secure functions.
Torrent patch distribution.
Deep storyline.
Multi-world grouping (which is a non-issue on many games, but still very cool how it's done)
The only big idea I think they got from addon writers was an outfit changer. There are probably more, but really, nothing close to the "most of their innovations" quoted above.
AT&T happy to take customers money, not willing to spend millions for a working network.
Odd, I was sure TFA said they were not happy to take customers' money from those in NYC, which is where their network isn't working properly.
Nasty. Here's some of the text from my cache. There are links directly to techcrunch. I have the full, saved files including comments, if anyone is interested.
Techcrunch Tablet Prototype B
January 19th, 2009
Goto comments Leave a comment
There is an air of excitement permeating through Fusion Garage at the moment. Michael Arrington of Techcrunch just wrote an update on the Techcrunch Tablet Prototype B.
It's our software that is running on the tablet as demonstrated in the videos embedded in the article. We continue to work with Louis Monier on the feature set and the user experience. We are thrilled with this progress and would like to take the opportunity to thank Michael and Louis for giving us the opportunity to work with them on the Techcrunch Tablet.
Its early days yet but we are big believers of the Browser As An Operating System and the Techcrunch Tablet Initiative.
A nice way to begin 2009 here at FusionGarage !
Ignoring the obvious innuendos... that leads to another interesting question:
If it was made from grown human cells, is eating it cannibalism?
What if it was grown from your own cells? I know I've consumed plenty of my own cells (don't go there, get your mind out of the gutter), but what if I grew myself some delicious Bugnuts Soggy Meat(tm)?
I believe a binary search is only performed on a sorted list of items. What you're describing sounds more like a well-trained decision tree.
If you think of each animal being reached by a traversal of yes/no questions, you can construct a "gene" consisting of 0s and 1s, which would tell you how to reach that particular animal. In that manner, the animals are actually sorted on the gene. The binary search is exactly like the tree with < and > leaves, but is instead a question with yes/no leaves. You'd still have balancing issues with the animal tree, similar to a sorted binary tree.
I was just saying that TFA's software interface reminded me of the animal game, even though it's considerably different under the hood. If I used the term "binary search" incorrectly, I'll go turn in my geek card, although I think it can be legitimately shoe-horned into such a tree.
For some reason, the link where Fusion Garage gives their side of the story is missing in my browser. Can you provide me with it?
A tiny amount of digging would show that they have a blog.
In it, they state they are doing the software for it, and the entire vision of the product is from Arrington. There cannot be a product without a vision on what is needed. In patent law, the person that has the actual vision has rights to the patent, no matter how many people are involved in the technical aspects (i.e. building it).
My thoughts are that Arrington should hire a team to write the software to his specs, and get a product out the door.
Yes: Is it a frog?
No: Please enter the type of animal.
This article reminds me of the old Animal game, where it does a binary search for whatever type of animal you're thinking. It's been expanded to handle all types of nouns, with a 15-questions interface that is uncanny.
For another computer-generated facial reconstruction test, take a look at the mona lisa.
You don't need a worm. You need about a dozen 8yo's who like dolphins.
Exactly. This reminded me of an old addon for macs that would make the trashcan do an animation of Grover, complete with him singing he likes trash, when it's emptied.
When discovered, a friend's kid threw away everything and emptied the trash, just to see the animation.
Panic buttons should look scary, not friendly.
The big problem is really obvious. It's the quality of teachers.
It's not that obvious, nor that's the primary reason. It certainly might be contributing reason, but it's also unfair to a ton of good public teachers out there.
I think the pres touched on the real reasons: demand for a good education by the parents. It's really the quality of parents that's the problem, not the quality of teachers. The parents don't value science, and neither will their kids. If they did, more people would enter the field. If parents demanded good educations, they would not tolerate poor teachers. They would also want teachers to get more money to be retained.
Charter schools flourish because of the parents. Non-religious charter schools will lose all their students if they try to teach creationism as science, while religious schools might lose a good portion if they did the opposite. This is why charter schools flourish -- they teach what the parents want taught. When you shove them all together in a public school, you get conflicting parental desires for education, and then everything goes to hell.
Mars has gotten warmer, but since we were measuring the sun's output from the 1970's, it has not gone up. There's nothing "unseen" about the sun's output, since if it were putting out more energy we'd not only sense it, but ALL the solar system would be getting warmer. Not just Mars. You can't point to a single planet and claim that shows it's a normal thing, unless all the planets/moons/everything are likewise doing the same, which they are not.
My problem is this: "Climate change" is no longer a real science. The one thing that the hacked emails proved is that Climate Change has become far too political to be called a science. You don't need stolen emails to prove that proponents of the current climate change theory are doing what they can to stifle debate. When the debate is gone, there is no science.
That's my problem, too.
But poster boy Gore refusing to measure his penis with a heckler doesn't somehow mean "debate has been stifled". That's BS. Lomborg can challenge the science himself -- nobody had anything to gain with Gore debating him, and refusing the debate has nothing to do with trying to stifle all dissent. If I challenged Gore to debate me on the merits of virus scanning, he'd scoff at me, too.
Good answer. Thanks.
Consensuses are wrong.
I have a counter example. Thus, while any particular consensus may be wrong, your statement is still rendered false.
If you want to know the truth, you have to go to the evidence.
This is true. However, lacking a climate science background and barely being able to understand the statistics behind it (not to mention not willing to spend the time examining it), I defer to people who are experts in the field to help me form an opinion.
The opinion of these people who are capable of understanding the data, in the vast majority, is that AGW exists. It happens to be a consensus, but the consensus is not what makes them right. They might even be wrong. But they are far more able to understand the data you suggest are examined.
The way you prove this consensus wrong is to go to the data yourself and disprove their conclusions. You definitely won't convince anyone by making statements void of any support, such as "Consensuses are wrong." Finding a single example, like you did, is not an exhaustive search. Nor would disproving one consensus have any bearing on another.
So if you can go to the data (like you suggest) and disprove this consensus you claim is wrong, go for it! I wish you luck. And I'm sincere about that... I'd love to see this proven wrong. It'd give me a lot of hope for the planet and the amazing human ability to destroy it.
Is Richard S Lindzen using this leak, without using supporting scientific data, to make an anti-AGW claim?
If so, then yes he's an idiot. Reread what I said: "some idiot media personality will make claims to the contrary due to this."
Since he made that statement before this leak, it doesn't meet the criterion I stated.
I notice you and I both submitted this article, while you claimed the leak made the AGW beliefs out as a religion, and now you're simply using this opportunity to further your anti-AGW stance by misstating the point I made.
If the science supports anti-AGW, I'll change my viewpoint. Right now, your link is a minority. And I'm not a climate scientist, so I can't interpret the data myself. However, it seems really wrong to me that temperatures, despite fluctuating to similar temperatures in the past, have changed dramatically faster than in the known and inferred several hundred-thousands of years of the planet.
There's no question that there are fluctuations in average temperature; the point is that there aren't natural fluctuations of the magnitude seen in such a short period without a catastrophic event preceding it.
Consensus isn't science.
That's an incorrect and misleading representation of what I said.
Consensus among scientists, versed in the field, absolutely is part of science. It demonstrates that scientists are willing to bet their credibility on it, and credibility is the currency in most real sciences. It's not a declaration of truth -- they may still be wrong. If science was never wrong, there would be no need to test rockets, engines, safety mechanisms, etc.
But consensus among informed scientists in the field strengthens the likelihood that the hypothesis has truth to it. I use that term only to show the strength of the idea, not that the consensus itself is what makes it true.
The reason this thread is so quiet is all the AGW faithful know their cover is BLOWN. Forget it your bogus faith is DEAD.
Huh wut?
I submitted the article to /. myself, and I believe the science supports AGW, by far. I'm certainly not remaining quiet. There's not really any fear. Exposing something like this can only strengthen the science behind it... and if it's all shown to be some big conspiracy, then I'll change my viewpoint the same way I initially formed it: based on science. The anti-AGW group has their opinions based on ... their opinions and what they think it might cost them. It has nothing to do with current science. That's a religion if I ever heard one.
The interest to /. is the risks to email, and how it's politically damning. Right now, all the anti-AGW groups are frantically deleting all their emails and backups, and shredding documents to prevent it from happening back.
If they were engaging in illegal activities, they should be subjected to appropriate punishments. If they weren't, they still will lose money as this political black-eye will haunt the involved scientists with lack of grants.
...but the data deletion conspiracies, the conspiring to disrupt the peer review process in various clever ways, the knowing avoidance of Freedom of Information Act Requests, the slurs against "sceptics", including celebrating their deaths, and so on.
Regarding deleting emails: Certain government organizations have to preserve email. I'm not convinced scientists must archive it, even when the government provides the grants. (I'm pretty sure some do have to archive it, so whether deleting emails is inappropriate or not is immaterial... what matters is if deleting them is illegal.) Is it illegal? I don't know.
Regarding FOIA, there are some very specific requirements on those requests. Subverting this, or hiding it might be illegal. But not all organizations are subject to FOIA anyway. You can't file an FOIA on my files or my research, e.g.
Regarding celebrating deaths of people... who cares? Does that somehow change the science? It might be distasteful, but again, who cares? Putting it down in email was probably a mistake, simply because of the possibility of it being displayed. If I dug through the last 10 years of pretty much any reader's email, I'm sure I'd find something they wouldn't want publicly displayed.
Regarding disrupting the peer review process... one email actually addresses how the skeptics are now buying/subverting journals, and publishing in those to establish credibility. This is a real issue, and slashdot has covered this in the past. It becomes a political issue, and it's pretty clear there are tons of attacks on the credibility of distinguished scientists... I see no issue with the huge AGW group recognizing it and firing back. This happens in all sciences, notably biology and psychology. This is science today, I'm afraid, and that's only because it's become politicized due to money or because it will cost polluters money. I don't like it any more than anyone else, but if you attack these guys for doing dirty tricks, you should have already disqualified most of the skeptics for engaging in the same tactics.
"Doubting" indeed. And these assholes have had the nerve to indignantly drape themselves in the flag of science.
I don't understand this. I agree they might be assholes, but the anti-GW group has been practicing these antics for decades. How does the science change when it's clear some of the dirty tactics are done back?
Scientists have academic fights all the time, attack published papers, call in favors, etc., all in an attempt to discredit those with opposing views. Science is based on making an hypothesis, gathering data, and determining if that supports the hypothesis. Then that is supposed to feed back into the hypothesis to make it stronger, and repeat. But note that they form a hypothesis first. This hypothesis is an opinion, and they try to support that opinion with gathered data. Trying to discredit those with opposing opinions/hypotheses is actually part of science.
Despite all that, note that most climate scientists, by far, do support AGW. These leaked emails have shaken my faith in the ability of the climate scientists to be politically savvy. I want to see if this affects the actual science, but I bet the strongest attacks will be ad hominem, not academic.
Many people who doubted AGW (humans causing the hockey stick graph, or the graph itself) are claiming this is some sort of smoking gun. I claim it's scientists being scientists, and failing at being politicians.
The very fact that this reveals some scientists are doubting some results is exactly what should happen in science. This is why there is a consensus among scientists. Doubting is a part of science and skeptics alike, but discovering the reasons for the doubt and changing a viewpoint when good, conflicting data are found are hallmarks of the scientist. Skeptics will cling to disproved data, hoping it somehow becomes true if they believe it hard enough.
There is no doubt that the earth is warmer, but mark my words: some idiot media personality will make claims to the contrary due to this. They thrive on confusion, and there's nothing more confusing (and humorous) than watching scientists wrestle with politics.
FLIP SIDE: Alternate reality where he decides to do nothing... one week later an individual in a trusted position commits horrible [sexual] crime, and the resulting investigation finds out he posted [sexual] comments to a website, and people with the ability to take action knew about it, but did nothing.
NOW, replace [] with "radical Islamic" and see how it sounds like something recent at Ft. Hood. He was damned either way.
It's easy to sound like you're right when you're replacing [funny on-topic vulgarity] with [radical Islamic or sexual threats].
But you're wrong, and I doubt most slashdot readers are stupid enough to fall for your slippery-slope rhetoric.
And now you may replace [me calling your stupid argument out] with [me calling you a Nazi] and the world will be right again.
In response to the water utility plant sending notice that parent had been downloading water?
No, some unknown individual was flooding a downstream site.
Denying people a public service such as Wifi hardly seems like "Collective Punishment".
They were trying to take themselves off the liability list. Something illegal going down? Don't aid it.
I heard there was someone speeding down the 300 block!
The city tore up the street because of one person misusing it. They did not want to aid criminals.
Also there is a trend of finding slimmer women more attractive. In the past this ment that those would be having more children.
According to this article that's still the case.
So, don't fret too much guys. According to that study, women are getting better looking.
Aye, that is exactly part of my point since they don't say what they're concluding, but make it sound like an exponential epidemic.
The statement about it increasing leads to all sorts of guesses. Is it increasing because more LiIon batteries are out there? Or is it because they're more dangerous? Or is it because more people are bringing electronics in general? Without per capital data or better yet, the degree of relevance, it's just a scary sounding, but meaningless statement.
Of course a lithium ban would have to apply to your cellphones, radios, laptops, etc.
But this is not a security issue (intentional shorting a battery to cause a fire and some hydrogen gas) but an issue of accidental fire. The airlines should, if they don't already, have some fireproof gloves and a burn-proof compartment to securely throw malfunctioning devices such as a dropped iphone or overloaded phaser.