Comment Re:Last thing to do (Score 0) 602
That's backwards. Life would have been better because he'd be out sooner.
Boycott buying hard copies of the book, and make electronic copies widely available via bittorent. Simple test: If all the copied text was in quotes or italics, I would say he actually intended to attribute it. If not, it would appear that he was trying to claim it as is own, and only made up an excuse after he got caught. Which is it?
Why would you want to do that? It seems like he didn't bother to put serious work into his book (and tried to hide the fact by not citing his sources) so it's probably a waste of time to read it. You would be doing a disservice to anyone who downloaded it from you.
I don't know, when solar panel constructors and banks offer to install them for a monthly rate which is 80% of his electricity bill most people will listen.
It's debatable whether solar power will catch on when the effective cost is 120% or 90% of the price of electricity. But to claim that people won't switch until it costs effectively one fifth of what they currently have is pretty strange.
Exactly. That's often what it takes to attract every-man.
That's confusing enough where I can't be completely sure you are wrong.
Sorry, the payback needs to be under 3 years to have any chance at wide spread acceptance. Here's the cold hard reality: until we tax the living shit out of fossil fuel consumption, alternative energy sources will never gain traction.
Are you serious? 3 year payback time would be like printing money.
While I like the idea and evaluate it myself every few years, I have to mention that during a major credit crunch deflation is always a real possibility.
True, but even if the expected value equals the current price he's better off because his risk is reduced. Of course it could be that the price of electricity is expected to fall substantially but I think that's just not the case.
This is good, because, even if you quit smoking, you don't actually reduce your chances of getting lung cancer.
Maybe it could mean what you are saying but it certainly wouldn't be my first interpretation.
The information you got is either wrong or very short sighted.
I smoke and I've researched this issue into the ground. Its pretty accurate.
Good, then it's going to be easy to provide some data.
There's a reason why the "smoking benefits" timeline doesn't have a reduced cancer risk on it. It takes too long for lungs to clean themselves after you quit.
I basically know nothing about this but a quick internet search turned up this:
Stopping smoking can reduce your risk A large number of studies have shown that stopping smoking can greatly reduce the risk of smoking-related cancers.2 And the earlier you stop, the better. The last results from the Doctorsâ(TM) Study show that stopping smoking at 50 halved the excess risk of cancer overall, while stopping at 30 avoided almost all of it.10 However, itâ(TM)s never too late to quit. One study found that even people who quit in their sixties can experience health benefits and gain valuable years of life.30 The effects of stopping vary depending on the cancer. For example, ten years after stopping, a personâ(TM)s risk of lung cancer falls to about half that of a smoker.31 And the increased oral and laryngeal cancer risks practically disappear within ten years of stopping.2 But the risks of bladder cancer are still higher than normal 20 years after stopping.20 Cutting down the number of cigarettes you smoke slightly reduces your risk of lung cancer,32 but youâ(TM)ll only experience the full health benefits if you stop altogether. One study found that even smokers who halved the number of cigarettes they smoked had similar risks of dying from heart disease and only slightly lower risks of dying from cancer.33
From http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthyliving/smokingandtobacco/howdoweknow/ You can actually follow some of the links and the abstracts of the cited studies do say that stopping smoking leads to decreased cancer risk down the line (though usually still higher than non-smokers)
They don't publicize this, because of course, people will get the idea that you may as well keep smoking because you are going to get cancer no matter what you do, which is pretty true, but, they overlook the heart attacks, COPds and other bad things that can happen.
Technically, the internet is the largest library of information ever known to man. To dismiss it only shows his inability to truly grasp it.
Hmmm, no, I would not be so quick to dispute that statement at all.
There is so much crap on the internet that it undermines all the information that is out there. Conversely, if you go to the 500 and 600 sections of the library, you can be somewhat assured that you are getting at least -something- that is accurate.
This is wrong on so many levels (I counted 3). First there is a lot of reliable information on the internet and if you know where to look and how to evaluate stuff all the crap definitely does not undermine the good part. Second there is a ton bad information in print. From horoscopes to "alternative medicine" there's stuff out there that could cause quite a lot of harm you if you take it to heart. Which brings me to the final point. If the internet made some people realize that just because something is presented to a wide audience it doesn't need to be true it's already served a very useful purpose.
Also, there's really not anything that approaches the value of a good textbook available on line.
Are you serious? There are a ton of good textbooks online that you can download legally. Here are a few (from point 3): http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/week260.html That's one example from a pretty narrow field. And of course you can get pretty much anything through p2p though that might be illegal in some places.
If there's any problem with libraries, its more a lack of funding and a lack of societies attention to pay librarians seriously and to respect the field. A good librarian is a skilled position, somebody who can reach into all the various fields and find what's good, and gather it up into one spot.
I don't necessarily disagree with this, but a lot of the technical stuff librarians used to do, like cataloging stuff is becoming less and less important. Search is just superior, and while a good librarian is probably better at this too in the end everyone has to learn it. Finally, separating the useful from the useless is something that should not be relegated. It's just too important. Sure, if you're new to something you are going to need some advice where to start. But at some point you should decide for yourself, or at least critically evaluate any advice you receive or read.
But I'm pretty sure that almost ANYONE in their shoes would have done the same...it's called the human condition. You are given the power to abuse something and you think nobody will notice....so you do. Flame away but i probably would have.
I doubt almost everybody, but yeah a lot of people would. Which just makes it even more important not to let them get away with it. So that you and everybody else will think twice in the same situation.
New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. - David Letterman
