http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3309501&cid=42254741\

    30% Troll
    20% Overrated
    10% Flamebait

The last time I looked

Wow.. took a break from slashdot for a while and already the mass down mods are happening again. Its no wonder why almost every story has posts with people crying about how slashdot has turned to shit. I guess it is a sign of how desperate someone's position is when they have to downmod with overrated just to stop an opinion they disagree with from being seen.

What's that saying about reality is everything that remains when you close you eyes and stop choosing to believe in something? I guess the same is true with the downmods. Just because they attempt to hide the comment doesn't mean the statement stops being true, it only means it stops being seen as easily. I can imagine a group of idiots sitting around plotting and planning thier down mod adventures in a comic book esq setting with them laughing about how they will win the war of whatever they deemed important at the minute, by not letting others speak or letting their speech be seen/heard. Then they stop to pop their zits and return to the plotting while declaring that if they are the only ones heard, they would always win,.

Of course the reality is probably much simpler and less sinister. It is more likely someone got but hurt by a comment made and while sitting in their mom's basement reassessing the pathetic life they live, decide to take their anger and frustrations out by mass downmodding someone they disagree with. They might pause for a minute to wipe the tears from their eyes, but are set to teach someone a lesson about having opinions contrary to their own.

fob

maximizing the experiential entropy, in the limit of large N, characterizes the geom(1/2) distribution.

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[n/t]

Here are the basic numbers on aailable geothermal vs solar power (since this has come up in discussion more than once).

The surface area of the Earth is about 5.1 x 10^14 m^2. The cross sectional area is about 1.3 x 10^14 m^2 (one quarter of the surface area, of course).

Per this paper found as a cite on wikipedia, the total heat flow out from the Earth's interior is 4.42 x 10^13 W, or 0.0867 W/m^2. Of course, the available power is much less because it's only the subsurface-surface temperature difference that's available.

Total solar irradience is 1361 W/m^2 by NASA's latest estimate (so about 1.7 x 10^17 W across the entire cross section), or about 1000 W/m^2 on the surface at noon on a cloudless day. Averaged over the day-night cycle (surface area vs cross-section, so 250 W/m^2), and taking clouds into account that's about 180 W/m^2 (I can't find a solid source on that yet, but it looks close).

So, total solar power flow is about 4000 times as large as total geothermal flow. I'm not quite sure how to estimate the (ideal) available power as a percentage of the total geothermal power flow, but if we use a WAG of 50%, then the available power from solar is also about 4000 times per square meter more than geothermal - significantly more if we average solar power only across populated latitudes.

here i am, modding up trolls; aspiring gadflys; inarticulate racists; and even the occasional goatse link... and i'm still getting an average of 15 mod points a week!

Just saw your nic and your sig, remarkably similar to mine. ;)

A recent Slashdot story claims that

"Some voters in Las Vegas have noticed that Democrat Harry Reid's name is checked by default on their electronic voting machines. By way of explanation, the Clark County Registrar says that when voters choose English instead of Spanish, Reid's Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, has her name checked by default."

Using a story from a local Fox news affiliate as a source.

Interestingly the current version of the Fox5Vegas story (marked "UPDATED: 6:39 pm PDT October 26, 2010") contains no mention of "default options" or "Spanish". It does contain a statement from Larry Lomax, the Clark county Registrar of Voters:

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.

"Especially in a community with elderly citizens (they have) difficulty in (casting their) ballot," Lomax said. "Team leaders said there were complaints (and the) race filled in."

Has Slashdot been trolled by Fox news?

I plaintively asked for a list of climate scientists who didn't believe in AGW and the estimable (arg!)Styopa came up with http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1715502&cid=32912336

Well, part of the problem is that the whole postulation of Global Warming (oh wait, it's merely Climate Change now, isn't it?) is such a hash of assumptions and begged questions. If an argument has 100 failed component parts, where do you begin in listing who's "opposed" to it?

That said here's a partial list of climate-specific scientists who have publicly critiqued one or more aspects of the general premise "The globe is generally warming and humans are a significant cause."

Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences

Garth Paltridge, Visiting Fellow ANU and retired Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research and retired Director of the Institute of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre.

Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute:

Antonino Zichichi, emeritus professor of nuclear physics at the University of Bologna and president of the World Federation of Scientists

Chris de Freitas, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland

William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus and head of The Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology

David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware

Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia

Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa

Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada

Syun-Ichi Akasofu, retired professor of geophysics and Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks

John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, contributor to several IPCC reports

Craig D. Idso, faculty researcher, Office of Climatology, Arizona State University and founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

Patrick Michaels, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and retired research professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia

August H. "Augie" Auer Jr. New Zealand MetService Meteorologist, past professor of atmospheric science at the University of Wyoming

Reid Bryson, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Marcel Leroux Professor of Climatology, Université Jean Moulin

Frederick Seitz, solid-state physicist, former president of the National Academy of Sciences

Does that list seem trivial to you?
--
-Styopa

Which doesn't sound trivial at all. But who are these people?

There really need to be two new buttons on the story's title bars. One to allow bookmarking for later reading and one to allow bookmarking for later reference; creating two lists. Later, one can read stories they pre-selected when they didn't have the time to fully explore and one can also pull up stories as references easily.

I always post my comments with 'no karma bonus' checked off. Even though I can post at default of +2 I do not do so often. This is because posting at +1 gives a safety margin. You can say more controversial and challenging things in a +1 comment and not have it modded down. But it gets saved in the permanent archive. When I do have something of note to add to the discussion, it gets marked up to +2 or higher fairly quickly anyway.

World peace is an unusually simple problem: it's entirely a marketing problem. We don't even have to get people to buy anything, all we have to do is get them to want it. The marketing is the whole problem. Once everyone wants it, then the problem is solved because no one will fight anymore. It really is that easy.

In talking to people, I have observed three broad 'market segments' that need to be addressed, three types of people. Maybe there are more, but this is what I have found so far:

1) Those who think that humans are violent by nature, and thus war is inevitable. These are believers in the 'killer ape' theory or perhaps they've just seen too much violence in their lives. Fortunately men are not violent by nature, the 'killer ape' theory is discredited, and in any case we are capable of choosing our destinies.

2) The second group are those who would stop fighting, but the 'other guys' won't stop. These are most Americans. They didn't want to attack Afghanistan originally, but the Afghanis struck first, so what choice was there? These people happily would support peace if they saw it as a viable possibility. Fortunately, peace is viable because it is the most profitable solution, we just need to help the world see that. The more people start supporting peace, the more this group will become convinced that peace is possible.

3) The third group is the most difficult group, because they actually have something to gain from war. In this category was Slobodan Milosevic, who wanted to consolidate power in his country, or warriors on the edge of the Sahara who want to take others' land for their own cattle. Some people fight because it is exciting, they like the thrill. These people need to see that there is a better way, and that their children will want to live in peace, and sometimes compromise is worth it. Anyone who has loved has learned the value of compromise. These people can too.

Try to talk to everyone you can about world peace, because word of mouth is the best type of marketing.

It happened once again. After this round of mass downmodding, I haven't been able to post from this account for about 2 weeks. The email complaint that the posting denial page gives is useless. Well, that is unless an editor is behind the mass down modding. That wouldn't surprise me because much seeing how the down mods are coming in at something like 10 and 15 at a time. I know some mod points are awarded at 10 instead of five and editors have unlimited points. I guess it's either a pissed off editor abusing their power because he or she cannot win an argument on the facts or a tightly knitted group of idiots who think quieting anything apposing their viewpoints is somehow winning an argument.

Oh well, it's ok, I can still post from my other accounts and have done so since the down modding. It's sort of interesting that almost identical posts under other accounts are either modded up or untouched by moderation. This and the fact that the downmods all come within a day or so each time locks the entire mass modding just to quiet an apposing viewpoint theory. I remember when slashdot was about conversations not who can yell the loudest or stop someone else from being heard. And my points weren't all that controversial either, things like there is no reason why someone cannot separate science from religion and practice both within their respective natures without being stupid or ignorant, that evolution as in speciation is still just a theory and not an observed fact even though the evidence points to it being likely, and the last one was that just because it's written in the bible doesn't mean it's mandated to certain religions to do. Oh, and I forgot about the conversation with the guy who wasn't aware that Microsoft was a separate incorporated company from Microsoft's licensing division which is incorporated and operated in an entirely different state altogether. Of course with that last one, once the guy discovered that they were two separate companies being run as separate companies, he agreed with my original assertions that it would be difficult if not impossible for Washington to apply a tax on the MS licensing operations.

I find it funny that I'm constantly being group modded by trolls who seem to think that ruining someone's karma is a legitimate way to counter an argument they do not agree with. This is probably the tenth time since late '09 that I have received an attack on messages I have posted. This time, in less then 24 hours, I went from having no comments moderated at all on my comment page to comments posted over a week ago with no mods at all and comments posted a few days ago being modded down for reasons obviously counter to the mod claim.

As for being obviously counter to the modded claim, Here is a post modded redundant when it is explicitly addressing the person I replied to about his misunderstanding of the post I mentioned. Could someone please explain how replying to someone about their inaccurate understanding of a post is redundant? And it isn't like I fifteen other people corrected him either, it was a dialog specifically between me and another person who admitted to mistaking my post for saying something else.

Anyways, this has typically happened only after I comment to someone who is commenting on some sort of religion or evolution post who has it wrong in some way. Is it really that important to people who do not like religion or people who have placed evolution as their religion the they need to take steps like this in order to suppress opposition to their wrongful opinions? I mean it's not like I'm saying Creation is correct or anything, I'm generally pointing out that they are doing the same things they blame the religions of doing when they make absolute statements about Evolution being an undisputed fact instead of composed scientific theory or when they have some sort of incorrect interpretation of the bible or whatever. I find it's typically easy to trip them up when I ask if anything could come along and make evolution different as in for our understanding of speciation or common descendant thoughts. When they say no, then it's obvious they are not following science because science allows for that regardless of how improbable it might be. For instance, the posts I believe that started this round of mass down-modding stems from some idiot who reposted a bunch of nonsense from a few websites about a few bibles verses they found and then took everything out of context in order to create some demonesque image of God. There are plenty of verses in the bible which one can legitimately question the compassion or loving nature of a god, but to take something completely out of context in order to make your point is a little intellectually lazy as well as dishonest.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised about the down-modding. When dealing with idiots who want to cite a few verses and ignore the context before and after it (whether they are for or against the bible) and draw completely one sided conclusions that do not remotely fit the story context, we aren't really dealing with articulate or intelligent people. It really does seem that the less intelligent the person is, the more dirty and underhanded shenanigans you should expect from them and like minded people. Maybe slashdot should have a system for their mods where someone could complain about the mass modding or a script that checks mods made to a single account within a certain time frame and then flag the comments for further review. It wouldn't need to be anyone special reviewing it either, just make sure they come up for metta moderation.