Well, then the message boards are wrong. The water vapor feedback and the ice-albedo feedback do indeed operate for all causes of warming. We can measure solar well enough to know that even with all known feedbacks taken into account it cannot explain most of the 20th century warming. It's not as if this is a well-kept secret - it's essentially in every published climate modelling paper.

Not that the opinion of Al Gore matters significantly, but if you take a look at the images of his new acquisition, it's quite clear the "ocean view" is a far cry from "down at the beach". Given that Gore is 63, at best he can hope to live maybe another 50 years. That's about half a meter of projected sea level rise. I'm sure he will be safe.

But you should wonder who made this subtle shift from "ocean view" to "beach front" and why they made it in this context.

The first part is wrong, the second irrelevant. It's not the heat capacity that makes CO2 into a greenhouse gas, it's the combination of being transparent for visible light (where most of the energy of Sun light is transmitted) and being opaque in the infrared, where Earth is emitting most of its heat. In other word, the sun, at 6000K, is shining visible light on Earth. This heats the ground. Of course, Earth needs some way to get rid of the incident Energy (otherwise it would keep getting hotter and hotter). So, following the Stefan–Boltzmann law, the Earth also starts to glow. Since its temperature is only about a few K on average, it mostly glows in the infrared. This radiation is absorbed by the CO2 (and other greenhouse gases), and re-radiated - part of it up into the higher atmosphere and ultimately to space, but part of it back down to the ground. As a result, it takes longer for the energy to finally escape into space. More energy (=heat) is retained, hence it is warmer.

And that also is misleading. Water vapor is very nearly in a dynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere. As long as we can observe it, the relative humidity of the atmosphere as a whole has been about constant. Excess water quickly is lost in the form of precipitation. And a lack of water vapor is quickly made up via evaporation, given that 70% of the Earth surface is water. Water vapor enters into the equation, because the absolute humidity, which is relevant for the greenhouse effect of water vapor, increases with temperature. Thus, when CO2 initiates some warming, this will lead to more water vapor and more warming in turn. It's a positive feedback increasing the climate sensitivity of the planet. It isn't a total runaway effect because the emissions of the Earth increase with the 4th power of the temperature, so the series describing the feedback loop converges.

Lafayette called and said that you can say that again when you ever fought a modern war in which 70% of a generation became casualties, with about a quarter of these dead and another permanently maimed.

The difference between "them" (e.g. Al-Quaeda, and apparently you) and "us" is that we believe in due process even if it is inconvenient, and even if the other person is not believing in it. Nobody ever said freedom and justice are easy. It's just sad that too many seem to have given up the effort.

Well, since Islam doesn't do that, your comment is just noise. It's also a stupid non-sequitur, of course.

While plants do, of course, need CO2, things are not as easy as you claim. CO2 concentrations dropped to about 180 ppm several times during the ice ages in the last 800000 years, and plant life as a whole survived pretty well. So 220 ppm is not a hard limit. Also, while increased CO2 can benefit plants, it's not universally good. On the one hand, many plants are not limited by carbon availability, but by other nutrients, like phosphorus, usable nitrogen, or trace metals. And secondly, different plants cope differently with varying CO2 levels. So a change in CO2 can change the competitive advantage from one plant type to another, potentially disrupting ecosystems.

Water is densest at about 4 degrees C. It expands either way. Since water is densest at 4 degrees C, cold water sinks to the ground - and in fact, much of deep water is more or less at that temperature, and most surface water is much warmer. Thermal expansion of sea water is indeed a major cause of sea level rise, and if somebody told you otherwise, they either don't know shit, or they are trying to deceive you.

Nuclear energy has never been produced at market price anywhere in the world. Development has been done nearly exclusively in government labs or based on government subsidies. No nuclear plant can get sufficient insurance to cover accidents on the free marktet. Governments guarantee nuclear waste disposal at subsidised prices.

And I'm sure looking forward to a world where Nigeria, Belize, Tuvalu, and Iran produce their power from nuclear plants...

My 5 year old FRITZ!Box keeps traffic statistics for the current day, last day, last week, and current and previous months, with the stock firmware. It did so when it ran as a DSL modem, and it does so now it's configured as a WLAN router connected to the cable modem. I kinda assumed that level of features was standard...

Newton is a unit of force, not a unit of mass. "Weight" refers to mass, hence it's expressed in kilogramm.

I think you overlook that B&N most probably subsidises the Nook. Overclocking also is fine for the hobbyist, but not for the mainstream user. It also would cut into batterie life. And adding the "relatively cheap" extra components well into the small spaces of a tablet is not trivial either. So it may be possible, but I wouldn't bet on the "definitely", unless you assume extreme volumes.

BTW, a conference publication isn't considered a "journal" publication, and doesn't confer the same status. Conferences are where the work gets done: people present developing ideas and get feedback on them.

This is true in most fields, but not in computer science. In CS, good conferences are the primary venue, and are heavily references and prestigious. In my field these are conferences like IJCAI, ECAI, IJCAR, CADE. Conferences have full peer-review and proceedings are archived as part of the literature. The more informal exchanges go by the name of "Workshop". Of course, just as in the case of journals, there are more and less prestigious conferences. I haven't heard of CSCS, so it sounds like something on the "less" side of things.

Still, if someone wants to become a researcher, going is well worth it. Two tips: Don't sit through all the talks - you will go mad. Pick and choose the interesting ones. Don't be a dick barging in and out all the time, either ;-). And secondly, recognise that a lot of the value, both scientific and personal, is in the side discussions during breaks and dinner.

I also think you'll find that our soldiers are fairly thinking. It was a strength vs the Germans in WW2 (large numbers of German soldiers could be immobilized by taking out an officer or two).

Sorry to disagree, but historically it was exactly the other way round. Germany was the first nations to introduce small, independent units on a large scale, with the Sturmtruppen in WWI. It has been one of the more decentralised militaries ever since, trusting independently operating groups to achieve their objectives without micromanagement. You may have a point very late in the war, when completely untrained Volkssturm groups were lead just one trained person, but by then, there was not much of an advantage to be had.

You welcome your new tyrannosauroid overloards, I suspect? Sure, "life" will do fine in 5 million years (unless we put on other pressures). The main problem for humans is the rapid change from a relatively stable state that has persisted through most of human history.