Comment Re:donor wanted it in a public place, not Google p (Score 3, Informative) 59
just another DICEy post
Check the submitter.
TheoDP often posts such material, complete with copious links, but weak on premise.
Comment Presentation as seen on YouTube well done (Score 2) 61
That was a very well done presentation even if it was so far over my head that I understood little but, "oooh, pretty".
The pacing was fast, confident, and even had the audience laughing at times. Congratulations.
Now I feel an evil urge to make a joke about how, since your model didn't properly account for "hydrometeor centrifigal whatzits" then it is therefore worthless and you, Mr Orf, like those climate researchers, are in it for the big bucks in grant money to fund your lavish Toyotas and suburban middle class homes.
Or something. I've likely failed at humour. But you've succeeded in your research, kudos.
Comment Re:Hey - works for me! (Score 1) 150
"Civilized country" . . . by which you mean somewhere in the "Old World", I assume? Or perhaps you meant the Third World? I always get those two confused.
Wrong on both counts.
No, thanks. I'd rather stay here in the "New World". You remember us - we're the guys who bailed y'all out something like seventy years ago when you were busy doing the genocide thing?
Actually, while "we" (us New Worlders) were bailing out the "Old World", "you" were sitting on your asses watching the whole thing unfold for half the first instance and until the fight came to you in the second instance.
It sure woulda been nice if the locals had been able to oppose governments that did things like that - but being "civilized" apparently means that would be a no-no, doesn't it?
Yeah, and how's your armament helping you oppose the gubmint these days? Doesn't seem to have been working out for y'all, whether y'all includes American-borne slaves, anti-Vietnam protesters, civil forfeiture victims, Ferguson protesters with
But y'all manage to keep your own numbers in check with all the guns, so carry on.
Comment Re:Question for btrfs users... (Score 1) 42
I am using OpenSUSE 13.1 right now with ext4 partitions and I am pondering migrating to OpenSUSE 13.2 with btrfs or simply updating the distro with ''zypper dup'' and keeping my ext4 fs.
If you are using btrfs, what has been your experience? Better performance? As stable as ext4?
I set up OpenSUSE 13.1 in a VM and chose BTRFS on the root (and home?) file system(s).
Since it was a VM for testing, I didn't assign it a huge image space, maybe 8 GB.
Well, after installation and then updating all the packages, I'd run out of disk space before the updates finished.
What a PITA. "snapper" can be used to delete some of the snapshots, but I disagree with the snapshot taking after every package update. I understand it can be useful in some scenarios, but it's something I'd rather have on my
That's the sum of my experience with poking at it a bit, other than the KDE version of OpenSUSE is probably the finest looking and most-polished OS I've every had the pleasure of using.
Comment Re:Hey - works for me! (Score 1) 150
This is why I travel with a handgun.
You ought to try travelling to a civilized country sometime.
On the other hand, most of them probably don't want you, so never mind.
Imagining the Future History of Climate Change 495
HughPickens.com writes "The NYT reports that Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University, is attracting wide notice these days for a work of science fiction called "The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future," that takes the point of view of a historian in 2393 explaining how "the Great Collapse of 2093" occurred. "Without spoiling the story," Oreskes said in an interview, "I can tell you that a lot of what happens — floods, droughts, mass migrations, the end of humanity in Africa and Australia — is the result of inaction to very clear warnings" about climate change caused by humans." Dramatizing the science in ways traditional nonfiction cannot, the book reasserts the importance of scientists and the work they do and reveals the self-serving interests of the so called "carbon combustion complex" that have turned the practice of science into political fodder.
Oreskes argues that scientists failed us, and in a very particular way: They failed us by being too conservative. Scientists today know full well that the "95 percent confidence limit" is merely a convention, not a law of the universe. Nonetheless, this convention, the historian suggests, leads scientists to be far too cautious, far too easily disrupted by the doubt-mongering of denialists, and far too unwilling to shout from the rooftops what they all knew was happening. "Western scientists built an intellectual culture based on the premise that it was worse to fool oneself into believing in something that did not exist than not to believe in something that did."
Why target scientists in particular in this book? Simply because a distant future historian would target scientists too, says Oreskes. "If you think about historians who write about the collapse of the Roman Empire, or the collapse of the Mayans or the Incans, it's always about trying to understand all of the factors that contributed," Oreskes says. "So we felt that we had to say something about scientists.""
Oreskes argues that scientists failed us, and in a very particular way: They failed us by being too conservative. Scientists today know full well that the "95 percent confidence limit" is merely a convention, not a law of the universe. Nonetheless, this convention, the historian suggests, leads scientists to be far too cautious, far too easily disrupted by the doubt-mongering of denialists, and far too unwilling to shout from the rooftops what they all knew was happening. "Western scientists built an intellectual culture based on the premise that it was worse to fool oneself into believing in something that did not exist than not to believe in something that did."
Why target scientists in particular in this book? Simply because a distant future historian would target scientists too, says Oreskes. "If you think about historians who write about the collapse of the Roman Empire, or the collapse of the Mayans or the Incans, it's always about trying to understand all of the factors that contributed," Oreskes says. "So we felt that we had to say something about scientists.""
Comment Re:Butlerian Jihad (Score 1) 583
Or read the back story of Dune perhaps?
Or saw this CGP Grey video entitled "Humans Need Not Apply":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Makes an excellent case that expert systems will be putting white collar workers and professionals out of work real soon now.
Think IBM's Watson applied to medicine, law, engineering, etc.
Comment Re: This is silly (Score 1) 720
So we should retain inefficient practices and increase costs to the consumer because otherwise we'll have a glut of unemployed low-skill workers that may commit crimes?
CGP Grey has an excellent video entitled Humans Need Not Apply which makes a strong case for not just low-skilled workers becoming replaced by automation, but skilled workers, and even professionals.
For example, a lot of lawyer work involves sifting through massive document dumps during disclosure. Solution? Automation.
IBM's Watson is being focused on the medical field for research and diagnostics.
Perhaps it can be "taught" engineering to a sufficient degree to create a glut of unemployed humans in that field too.
Think you can compete with Watson?
The unskilled workers are merely the canary in the coal mine. Your turn is coming.
China Bans "Human Flesh Searching" 109
hackingbear writes The Supreme People's Court, China's top court, has outlined the liabilities of network service providers in a document on the handling of online personal rights violation cases. "Rights violators usually hide in the dark online. They post harmful information out of the blue, and victims just can't be certain whom they should accuse when they want to bring the case to court," said Yao Hui, a senior SPC judge specializing in civil cases. Those re-posting content that violates others' rights and interests will also answer for their actions, and their liability will be determined based on the consequences of their posts, the online influence of re-posters, and whether they make untruthful changes to content that mislead. This essentially tries to ban the so-called human flesh searching. Though this does not stop others from using the chance to highlight the country's censorship problems even though the rulings seem to focus on personal privacy protection.
Comment Re:What has happened to Slashdot? (Score 1) 425
The information age is over. The age of lies has started.
Been saying it myself for a while:
The "Information Age" has become the age of mis-information and dis-information.
Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice Reaches Record Levels 635
schwit1 writes Scientists have declared a new record has been set for the extent of Antarctic sea ice since records began. Satellite imagery reveals an area of about 20 million square kilometers covered by sea ice around the Antarctic continent. Jan Lieser from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) said the discovery was made two days ago. "Thirty-five years ago the first satellites went up which were reliably telling us what area, two dimensional area, of sea ice was covered and we've never seen that before, that much area."
Scientists Record Quantum Behavior of Electrons Via Laser Lights 33
An anonymous reader writes in with news about a breakthrough in recording quantum behavior in electrons. A group of researchers has said that they have come up with a new method to record and control electron behavior at the quantum mechanical level. The research team, headed by the scientists at the University of Chicago, used laser lights in ultra-fast pulses for the experiment. The laser light controlled the quantum state of electrons. It contained inside nanoscale defects in a diamond. The researchers observed changes in that electron over a time period. They focused on the quantum mechanical property of electrons known as spin. Lead author David Awschalom, a molecular engineering professor at a university in Chicago, said, "These defects have attracted great interest of the scientists over the past decade. They provide a test-bed system for developing semiconductor quantum bits as well as nanoscale sensors."
Comment Re:A truly smart person ... (Score 0) 391
Not true. I work with EE faculty, and a number of them can't seem to grasp the concept that the being a brilliant engineer doesn't automatically confer one with expertise in diverse other areas such as patent law, accounting, videography, etc.
I'll agree and add a couple more topics that engineers often make fools of them self in: politics and climate science.
And, to be fair, it's not just engineers that suffer this; it's any highly trained individual who lacks humility.
Leaked Docs Show Spyware Used To Snoop On US Computers 135
Advocatus Diaboli writes Software created by the controversial UK-based Gamma Group International was used to spy on computers that appear to be located in the United States, the UK, Germany, Russia, Iran, and Bahrain, according to a leaked trove of documents analyzed by ProPublica. It's not clear whether the surveillance was conducted by governments or private entities. Customer e-mail addresses in the collection appeared to belong to a German surveillance company, an independent consultant in Dubai, the Bosnian and Hungarian Intelligence services, a Dutch law enforcement officer, and the Qatari government.
People Who Claim To Worry About Climate Change Don't Cut Energy Use 710
schwit1 (797399) writes with news that a UK study has found that folks concerned about climate change don't do much to conserve power at home. From the article: Those who say they are concerned about the prospect of climate change consume more energy than those who say it is "too far into the future to worry about," the study commissioned by the Department for Energy and climate change found. That is in part due to age, as people over 65 are more frugal with electricity but much less concerned about global warming. However, even when pensioners are discounted, there is only a "weak trend" to show that people who profess to care about climate change do much to cut their energy use. The findings were based on the Household Electricity Survey, which closely monitored the electricity use and views of 250 families over a year. The report (PDF), by experts from Loughborough University and Cambridge Architectural Research, was commissioned and published by DECC.
High power use doesn't have to be dirty: Replace coal, methane, and petroleum with nuclear, wind, solar, etc.
