Imagine the heated firefights of Counterstrike in a 2D sidescrolling, ragdoll kungfoo -esque package. It's nothing like that. (or is it?) But it's still fun.
Being a student of geology, I agree with you completely. It's interesting that most of the data being used in studies and *ahem* certain slideshows/movies only deal with the last several thousand or more years of our planet. Look back in the millions of years and you will find that the average global temperature is warmer than we are now.http://www.blinkdrive.net/idaho/Climate_vs_co2 .jpg
Life was thriving on the warmer temperatures that peaked around the Triassic and Jurassic. Warmer temperatures, more CO2, more plant life, more animals and larger ones, too. This is where the dinosaurs enter and leave. For whatever reason, the climate cooled and CO2 levels dropped during the Cretaceous preceding the mass extinction event of the dinosaurs. The climate of the dinosaurs was much warmer than today's.
Anyway, so what? 2 million years BP, North America was covered by about 10 million km^2 of ice. The Tetons in eastern Wyoming were nearly covered with about 610 meters of ice around them. Even Kansas had a huge amount of ice covering it. That was the Pleistocene. Then about 12,000 years BP it all started to melt away. And we are still warming. We are currently in an inter-glacial period. It could get warmer, it cool back down.
So what's my point anyway... Our climate has changed, will change, and is changing. Carl Sagan was once heard to say something similar to "Global warming started with the first caveman's campfire." What about lightning strikes in the forest? Sorry Carl. Al Gore wants to warn us all about impending doom. It's a good way to get money behind an issue. But is it science? Is it even fact? I don't believe we caused global warming (...you can strip my weather anchor certificate now, not that I have one...), but I do believe we can do better with what we have. We've used resources that pollute in the past because that was what we had. We have a lot of budding alternatives now. (that's a whole different can of worms. Ethanol is supposed to burn cleaner in our cars, but is less efficient which means we would have to burn more, we are using food crop land to make fuel, and the machinery that converts corn or other crops to burnable ethanol produce more emissions from the extra load, all for a small perceived boost in climate cleanliness from the public when it could end up causing more emmissions anyway and someone gets a fat bank account for the idea. (Did I say that out loud?...)) But our reason to switch over shouldn't be to "stop global warming," that's nearly impossible. I do agree that we pollute too much for what we know. We should do what we can, but we shouldn't start a witch hunt.
(...SUVs, industry, China, Canada, Microsoft...well, maybe Microsoft, but definitely not those others...)
Dr. Crutzen, the atmospheric chemist that proposed the idea of deliberately spreading a layer of particulate matter in the upper atmosphere is himself "not enthusiastic about it," and that it was meant more for shock value. That's what is interesting about the scientific community. Sometimes if an idea could work it will still be suggested no matter how far out it seems. It's only a hypothesis that is placed on the table to be tested and researched if there is interest. Who knows, it could slow down our problem, it could speed it up.
Politics, however, can drive some scientists to look for a question instead of an answer. They already have the answer they want. I like to think that doesn't happen too often. The greater mixing of science and politics here is, when a scientist (and hopefully a scientist that is actually a specialist in the field they are reporting on) reports possibilities to uninformed officials they can take one of the possibilities, or predictions, for prophecy. Science is never 100% certain. It can get close though.
Yes global warming is real. The earth changes over time. We have not always been this temperature and we all know that. CO2 levels have also greatly fluctuated through time. (Similarities with our Present World URL:http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferou s_climate.html) In this article (replace anywhere where it talks about continental drift with plate tectonics as that is more accurate) the author outlines atmospheric CO2 levels corresponding to global temperature in the "Global Temp. & Atmos. CO2 over Geol. Time" graph. We are today most like the carboniferous period with our temperature and CO2 levels. The mesozoic had all the dinosaurs and look at the CO2 levels. Large animals eat small animals that eat plants that thrive on CO2. Plant life was incredibly abundant to soak up all that CO2.
The problem now is that we don't know what will happen next. We aren't sure if history will repeat itself as we are now getting warmer by getting incredibly more warm, or if this interglacial period will only continue into another full on ice age. Yes, volcanoes and other natural phenomena add to climate change (earth's interaction with the sun; and even though on average volcanoes only emit at most 3% of a years CO2, large single eruptions like Pinatubo can emit at least the amount of CO2 produced by the US in a single year: those volcano numbers are a little fuzzy so feel free to correct me on them), but we are adding to it with our industry. We've had to rely on fossil fuels till now because we didn't really have much better choices for the last few centuries. But now we have do. We can certainly change our ways and cause much fewer harmful emissions, but unfortunately it may come down to whether moneymakers think it is worth the effort and cost to switch away from todays fuels (which will definitely be a costly and world changing effort).
So did we really tip the iceberg? or was the earth going to do this anyway. You tell me.
I work at a Wal-Mart. I didn't work thursday night, but I was there to watch. We had been telling people all week that there was no official line, they could wait anywhere, but tickets for the midnight sale would be handed out at 10pm in layaway. Apparently, management changed their mind on Thursday and instead of doing something easy, like a day long raffle a nearby Wal-Mart decided to do, they decided to announce the location of where the tickets were to be handed out at 9:30pm over the intercom. We only had two of each kind of PS3, and we were giving out 8 rainchecks for future systems (rainchecks do not a guarantee make by the way).
I have never seen anything like it beofre. Nearly all of the people in the store were waiting for the announcement, just standing at the heads of aisle waiting to run. It felt like something from a cheesy treasure hunt movie. I'd guess around 200 people waiting, and no one was buying anything at the registers. (Of course, what else do people do in retail stores when they're not really doing anything? Making a mess in the aisles for the associates to clean up, but I digress) At 9:30 when they announced the location in the shoes department, people ran from one side of the store to the other, pushing associates into clothing racks trying to be one of the first 12 when they knew full well they couldn't possibly be with that many people there.
Once the peaceful line was formed in shoes, and by peaceful I mean ravenous and by line I mean mob trying to surge through the freight door to get a ticket, interns and management handed out the 12 tickets to grabby, yelling, pushing, nearly crowdsurfing shoppers. There were students, parents, fanboys, and their whole families and every one of their friends. Once the tickets were all handed out, they told everyone to go continue shopping or go home and dissapeared behind the freight doors as the the freight on pallets started being pulled out again.
All in all, pretty rediculous. But I suppose that's the point. No matter how much bad press something receives, there's always going to be someone that's willing to test the reviews and overlook the shortcomings. This time there were 200 stampeding, writhing, yelling, pushing someones.
I do, however, work this Saturday for the Wii release. We have 18 of those. I'm predicting a slightly smaller crowd, but who knows. Unfortunately I can't get one. 1: I work there and have to wait 24 hours. 2: I have no money, because I work at Wal-Mart. 3: (possibly the least important?) Little time between studying for school..... I'm sure at least one of those could be ignored.............
I work at walmart, my store may be getting the DIY counter installed (my manager really wants it). We're just one of the 8-11 stores and our computer section is pathetic. Right now we have about 4 complete computers in a box (w/ or w/o monitors) and a handfull of peripherals. We're completely redoing the electronics department, though, so here's hoping we get some decent stuff. (I't also a small college town, no best buy, no compusa, just walmart, k-mart, radioshack, and the college bookstore)
That said, I've seen printouts and pictures of the new DIY counter. As far as I understand, it's less a choice of what parts you want to customize your box with, and more which prepackaged box do you want? The email/solitaire machine, the office desktop for business, or the middle grade/low end gamer/media PC for the family or student. I may be wrong, the customizable everything would be great, but think about the walmart style. They'll make things as easy as possible for people.
Instead of choosing which ram, HD, mobo, OS; customers will choose between 3 or 4 boxes, monitors, keyboards, and mice. I don't have a clue about what options for OS customers will have, my guess is windows for each box. If a customer wants to try linux, it's often because they've heard about it through a friend. They'll have to ask the friend for help.
As a side note, I tried migrating once to linux, but sorry to say it was a headache for me jumping head first into it. I've ben on copmuters since the ti-994a and the amiga 1000. It's been intel chips at every level till amd was a viable alternative. I know windows, don't always like it, but it does most everything I want it to, most of the time. Most of my friends use linux, and have been for a while, I'm just not as interested in a computer I have to get down to the programming level to make great things happen. I know a lot more than the average walmart customer (thank goodness) The ones that want linux will get it somehow, everyone else will be happy with windows. The mac people probably would rather go to a certified macintosh dealer anyway, though I wouldn't mind the extra option here in small town Idaho.
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine the heated firefights of Counterstrike in a 2D sidescrolling, ragdoll kungfoo -esque package. It's nothing like that. (or is it?) But it's still fun.
I, for one, welcome our new futurist legislators...
Don't forget the fictitionists!
Being a student of geology, I agree with you completely. It's interesting that most of the data being used in studies and *ahem* certain slideshows/movies only deal with the last several thousand or more years of our planet. Look back in the millions of years and you will find that the average global temperature is warmer than we are now.http://www.blinkdrive.net/idaho/Climate_vs_co2 .jpg
Life was thriving on the warmer temperatures that peaked around the Triassic and Jurassic. Warmer temperatures, more CO2, more plant life, more animals and larger ones, too. This is where the dinosaurs enter and leave. For whatever reason, the climate cooled and CO2 levels dropped during the Cretaceous preceding the mass extinction event of the dinosaurs. The climate of the dinosaurs was much warmer than today's.
Anyway, so what? 2 million years BP, North America was covered by about 10 million km^2 of ice. The Tetons in eastern Wyoming were nearly covered with about 610 meters of ice around them. Even Kansas had a huge amount of ice covering it. That was the Pleistocene. Then about 12,000 years BP it all started to melt away. And we are still warming. We are currently in an inter-glacial period. It could get warmer, it cool back down.
So what's my point anyway... Our climate has changed, will change, and is changing. Carl Sagan was once heard to say something similar to "Global warming started with the first caveman's campfire." What about lightning strikes in the forest? Sorry Carl. Al Gore wants to warn us all about impending doom. It's a good way to get money behind an issue. But is it science? Is it even fact? I don't believe we caused global warming (...you can strip my weather anchor certificate now, not that I have one...), but I do believe we can do better with what we have. We've used resources that pollute in the past because that was what we had. We have a lot of budding alternatives now. (that's a whole different can of worms. Ethanol is supposed to burn cleaner in our cars, but is less efficient which means we would have to burn more, we are using food crop land to make fuel, and the machinery that converts corn or other crops to burnable ethanol produce more emissions from the extra load, all for a small perceived boost in climate cleanliness from the public when it could end up causing more emmissions anyway and someone gets a fat bank account for the idea. (Did I say that out loud?...)) But our reason to switch over shouldn't be to "stop global warming," that's nearly impossible. I do agree that we pollute too much for what we know. We should do what we can, but we shouldn't start a witch hunt.
(...SUVs, industry, China, Canada, Microsoft...well, maybe Microsoft, but definitely not those others...)
Dr. Crutzen, the atmospheric chemist that proposed the idea of deliberately spreading a layer of particulate matter in the upper atmosphere is himself "not enthusiastic about it," and that it was meant more for shock value. That's what is interesting about the scientific community. Sometimes if an idea could work it will still be suggested no matter how far out it seems. It's only a hypothesis that is placed on the table to be tested and researched if there is interest. Who knows, it could slow down our problem, it could speed it up.
u s_climate.html) In this article (replace anywhere where it talks about continental drift with plate tectonics as that is more accurate) the author outlines atmospheric CO2 levels corresponding to global temperature in the "Global Temp. & Atmos. CO2 over Geol. Time" graph. We are today most like the carboniferous period with our temperature and CO2 levels. The mesozoic had all the dinosaurs and look at the CO2 levels. Large animals eat small animals that eat plants that thrive on CO2. Plant life was incredibly abundant to soak up all that CO2.
Politics, however, can drive some scientists to look for a question instead of an answer. They already have the answer they want. I like to think that doesn't happen too often. The greater mixing of science and politics here is, when a scientist (and hopefully a scientist that is actually a specialist in the field they are reporting on) reports possibilities to uninformed officials they can take one of the possibilities, or predictions, for prophecy. Science is never 100% certain. It can get close though.
Yes global warming is real. The earth changes over time. We have not always been this temperature and we all know that. CO2 levels have also greatly fluctuated through time. (Similarities with our Present World URL:http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carbonifero
The problem now is that we don't know what will happen next. We aren't sure if history will repeat itself as we are now getting warmer by getting incredibly more warm, or if this interglacial period will only continue into another full on ice age. Yes, volcanoes and other natural phenomena add to climate change (earth's interaction with the sun; and even though on average volcanoes only emit at most 3% of a years CO2, large single eruptions like Pinatubo can emit at least the amount of CO2 produced by the US in a single year: those volcano numbers are a little fuzzy so feel free to correct me on them), but we are adding to it with our industry. We've had to rely on fossil fuels till now because we didn't really have much better choices for the last few centuries. But now we have do. We can certainly change our ways and cause much fewer harmful emissions, but unfortunately it may come down to whether moneymakers think it is worth the effort and cost to switch away from todays fuels (which will definitely be a costly and world changing effort).
So did we really tip the iceberg? or was the earth going to do this anyway. You tell me.
I work at a Wal-Mart. I didn't work thursday night, but I was there to watch. We had been telling people all week that there was no official line, they could wait anywhere, but tickets for the midnight sale would be handed out at 10pm in layaway. Apparently, management changed their mind on Thursday and instead of doing something easy, like a day long raffle a nearby Wal-Mart decided to do, they decided to announce the location of where the tickets were to be handed out at 9:30pm over the intercom. We only had two of each kind of PS3, and we were giving out 8 rainchecks for future systems (rainchecks do not a guarantee make by the way).
I have never seen anything like it beofre. Nearly all of the people in the store were waiting for the announcement, just standing at the heads of aisle waiting to run. It felt like something from a cheesy treasure hunt movie. I'd guess around 200 people waiting, and no one was buying anything at the registers. (Of course, what else do people do in retail stores when they're not really doing anything? Making a mess in the aisles for the associates to clean up, but I digress) At 9:30 when they announced the location in the shoes department, people ran from one side of the store to the other, pushing associates into clothing racks trying to be one of the first 12 when they knew full well they couldn't possibly be with that many people there. Once the peaceful line was formed in shoes, and by peaceful I mean ravenous and by line I mean mob trying to surge through the freight door to get a ticket, interns and management handed out the 12 tickets to grabby, yelling, pushing, nearly crowdsurfing shoppers. There were students, parents, fanboys, and their whole families and every one of their friends. Once the tickets were all handed out, they told everyone to go continue shopping or go home and dissapeared behind the freight doors as the the freight on pallets started being pulled out again.
All in all, pretty rediculous. But I suppose that's the point. No matter how much bad press something receives, there's always going to be someone that's willing to test the reviews and overlook the shortcomings. This time there were 200 stampeding, writhing, yelling, pushing someones.
I do, however, work this Saturday for the Wii release. We have 18 of those. I'm predicting a slightly smaller crowd, but who knows. Unfortunately I can't get one. 1: I work there and have to wait 24 hours. 2: I have no money, because I work at Wal-Mart. 3: (possibly the least important?) Little time between studying for school..... I'm sure at least one of those could be ignored.............
I work at walmart, my store may be getting the DIY counter installed (my manager really wants it). We're just one of the 8-11 stores and our computer section is pathetic. Right now we have about 4 complete computers in a box (w/ or w/o monitors) and a handfull of peripherals. We're completely redoing the electronics department, though, so here's hoping we get some decent stuff. (I't also a small college town, no best buy, no compusa, just walmart, k-mart, radioshack, and the college bookstore) That said, I've seen printouts and pictures of the new DIY counter. As far as I understand, it's less a choice of what parts you want to customize your box with, and more which prepackaged box do you want? The email/solitaire machine, the office desktop for business, or the middle grade/low end gamer/media PC for the family or student. I may be wrong, the customizable everything would be great, but think about the walmart style. They'll make things as easy as possible for people. Instead of choosing which ram, HD, mobo, OS; customers will choose between 3 or 4 boxes, monitors, keyboards, and mice. I don't have a clue about what options for OS customers will have, my guess is windows for each box. If a customer wants to try linux, it's often because they've heard about it through a friend. They'll have to ask the friend for help. As a side note, I tried migrating once to linux, but sorry to say it was a headache for me jumping head first into it. I've ben on copmuters since the ti-994a and the amiga 1000. It's been intel chips at every level till amd was a viable alternative. I know windows, don't always like it, but it does most everything I want it to, most of the time. Most of my friends use linux, and have been for a while, I'm just not as interested in a computer I have to get down to the programming level to make great things happen. I know a lot more than the average walmart customer (thank goodness) The ones that want linux will get it somehow, everyone else will be happy with windows. The mac people probably would rather go to a certified macintosh dealer anyway, though I wouldn't mind the extra option here in small town Idaho.