Yes and no. There is this idear of "competing theories" and the evidence used to be the arbiter. Science is supposed to be about more than belonging to the right clique. Skepticism is a prerequisite to good science - I don't give a flying hyena what you think, I care about what you can prove. Research "Null Hypothesis".

You've never heard of anyone having trouble publishing something that goes against current thinking?

Why yes I have but in general when a competing theory explains the observables as well or better than the current theory it's published. That's the way it's supposed to work, I'm sorry you missed the point.

-cluge

I call paskahousut.

ANYONE with a physics degree can certainly comment on the physics of AGW theory.

[flame thrower on]An ecology degree or a degree in meteorology is what you you get when you can't do the math for your physics.[flame thrower off]

The problem with current AGW theory is that the data doesn't always match the theory as well as would be expected. Generally for people trained in the basic sciences this means that one needs to re-examine the original hypothesis or perhaps the models. Not for people that truly believe in AGW. These folks, scientists or not, can be pretty dogmatic. In today's climate that means that work is either censored, ignored, or the researchers attacked. I find it odd that people who publish works that don't follow the prevailing wisdom that writes the pay checks for AGW researchers are called skeptics or crackpots or are accused of being paid off by "Big Oil" (While money in the form of government grants and/or "green" organizations isn't tainted, ever)

The laws of physics change for no person. They just get occasionally refined (hat tip Einstein). If the basic physics upon which the theory is based doesn't work, then the theory is wrong. Period.

I suspect he was speaking more from his economics degree. If one is to make a decision as to what is better for the world, with a limited supply of resources (ie money) wouldn't having someone with an economics background help do the cost benefit analysis? -cluge

They highlight the roles of the two biggest carriers: Great Britain, which actively censors internet traffic, and the US, which allows warrantless wiretapping of international traffic

Wire tapping isn't censorship last I checked. Censorship requires active suppression. Perhaps wiretapping may cause self censorship because one could think that they shouldn't say something?

That being said - the fact that traffic is monitored should be a given. Thus the raison detre for encryption. Anyone that worked in the ISP world in the early 90's will know that several of their upstream providers had rogue sniffers on their network. Why do you think telnet died and SSH came to be?

My reaction - use encryption as often as possible, assume everything is "wiretapped". Fight unwarranted active suppression wherever you find it. (FYI - I often black hole IP's that I see scan my network. I guess I'm censoring it ;)

-cluge

midpssh & google maps are the most useful apps that are free. There are good pay for apps for folks that are in specific businesses - like the hot sauce trouble ticket system.

Personally - one of the best apps already comes with the phone - a back lit screen. One late evening I was in need of some heavy equipment and being on a construction site began going through several front end loaders, tractors, dozers looking for one that had the keys left in it. If it wasn't for the BRIGHT screen on my berry, I would have never found the keys for that Lull, and got our portable tower moved 58 feet south. Sometimes the phone's native ability is the application you're looking for. It's ability to serve as a flashlight has been extremely helpful & I think it's open source!

Sometimes I even call people on it.