Maybe. But considering that I go through about 15 traffic lights on my way to work (and then the same 15 again on my way home), a car that handled them correctly 99% of the time would have about a 1 in 3 of messing at least one of them up EACH DAY.

We're looking for five nines here, minimum.

If they stay with the every 6 weeks release schedule, Firefox 360 should be out sometime in 2052.

This is wrong on all counts. It is very much traditional for us Icelanders (yes I'm from Iceland) to transliterate eth (ð) as d and accented characters like á without the accent.

Th is only used to transliterate the thorn (which Slashdot refuses to render).

What is annoying is when the eth is transliterated as o. I have one in my last name and I've had trouble with checking in to flights booked via Expedia due to this nonsense.

You must have checked it a VERY long time ago. It is true that the rate of complication is about 2-3%, but the MORTALITY rate (i.e. the number of people that die as a result of the surgery) is

(Source: http://www.surgeryencyclopedia...)

Not 1 in 50 as a 2% mortality rate would indicate.

Because they only reduce drag at low speeds. At high speeds (commercial airlines fly at Mach 0.8-0.85 usually) they would increase drag, not lower it.

Newton is a good example. We know for a fact that his 'laws' (or more accurately, models) of motion are wrong. We've known that for a very long time (that is why relativity was needed, Newton's model, for example, failed to predict the orbits of the planets accurately).

Now suppose you are building a bridge. It needs to withstand certain strains. Plugging the details of your plans into Newton's models shows that it will not withstand them. Claiming that since Newton's models are wrong, you can safely ignore this result and build your bridge anyway, is clearly nonsense.

The reason it is nonsense is because the limitations (or inaccuracies) of Newton's models are irrelevant to its application in this scenario. To wave away Newton, in this instance, you'd need to present extremely compelling evidence that we've been wrong these past 300 years in believing Newton's laws held any value at 'human' scale.

This would be an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof. Given how unlikely that is, we say that Newton is 'settled'. In that we know the limits of his models and have a mountain of evidence to back them up where we believe they do apply. You can't just point at the known limitations of his models and in a handwavy manner extrapolate that since his models aren't perfect, they are useless. You must provide extraordinary proof they Newton's models are wrong.

So lets move over to climate science.

Its a younger field, but it does rely on a number of fairly simple and testable models. Including that carbon dioxide (CO2) traps heat in the atmosphere. This can be easily tested (and has been repeatedly). Claiming that this is false, requires extraordinary proof and this can generally be considered settled.

The claim that us humans are releasing immense amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and have been doing so to an ever greater degree for over 200 years is also easily proven and can be viewed as 'settled'. That is to say, you'd need extraordinary proof to claim otherwise.

There is a mountain of these small, 'settled' issues that, when taken together, lead to a fairly unassailable (barring extraordinary evidence to the countrary) conclusion; We are having an effect on the global climate.

The exact effects are what is left for (real) scientific debate. But even there we know that the overall temperature of the planet will rise by some amount due to the presence of more CO2 in the atmosphere (claiming otherwise requires, again, extraordinary proof, although the exact amount of heating is still subject to some debate).

TL;DR Climate science is far from settled. However, the fact that we are having an impact on the climate is settled and arguing otherwise requires extraordinary proof.

No you can't. Aluminium plants take time to shut down. A sudden loss of electricity will destroy the equipment used to smelt it. So you'd need many hours to wind production down and then many hours to get it started again.

The last thing any aluminium smelting plants wants is downtime. That is why they are run 24/7. Shutting them down takes a very long time and costs a lot of money.

Yes, "just" stop using them. Like we can "just" stop voting in all these rubbish politicians.

Most people can't stop doing business with them because they are already in debt and clearing that debt will take decades. Even if not in debt, not having a bank account and debit/credit card(s) and other financial services can cause you all manner of difficulties.

Banks, on top of providing essentially services, have built a money sucking machine. And they've made very sure to entangle the leeching part thoroughly in with the good bits.

The only way to address this, without plunging the economy into chaos, is for the government to step in and untangle it (cutting the proverbial Gordian knot). "Just" not doing business with the banks will either accomplish nothing (because you can't get enough people involved) or will precipitate a financial collapse.

Unfortunately, getting the government to do something about this "just" requires us to vote some decent people into office *sigh* yes, "just".

Mod parent up!

Most insightful thing I've read on Slashdot in quite some time.

As if cutting/reducing services does not place a burden on its citizens?

If something can be cut without the citizens noticing it, then cut it (regardless of overall financial health, it's just waste).

But most services are there for a reason. It may be a lesser burden (especially if you take the long term view) to raise taxes than to allow certain services to degrade past the point of utility.

Sounds more like a reason not to buy in to the Apple/iOS ecosystem.

I bet it was a Monday.

Citation needed!

Most (European anyway) democracies are parliamentary democracies with 4-6 major parties plus some number of smaller/fringe parties. Typically, no one party has a majority and coalition governments are the norm.

That's 5000 planes per one billion. There are almost one thousand Boeing 777s in operation today. Add in all other comparable, i.e. long range aircraft (757, 747, 787 plus the Airbus equivalents) and you are quickly into the (very low admittedly) billions.

This is simply not correct. There are a number reasons some children can not be vaccinated, including allergies and other health problems. Generally, if vaccinations are widespread, those that can not be vaccinated will benefit from the herd immunity afforded by general vaccination. When the number of non-vaccinated kids goes up, the effect of the herd immunity goes down putting the children that can not be vaccinated at risk.