I'm a bit unclear on how this scientific consensus works.

What if the percentage of the world's climate scientists who agree with anthropogenic global warming were lower? Would they still be right? Say, if the percentage were 50%? Would that still establish anthropogenic global warming as scientifically valid?

Where's the cut-off exactly?

... is what they're pointing at.

Notice how that's left out of the article. Coincidence? I think not!

The question ought to be "what could possibly(sic) do wrong ten years from now?"

RTFA, baby since the rocket scientists who now run slashdot can't be bothered to do it for you.

...does that mean there'll be lots of lip service to the Prime Directive while completely ignoring it? Does this mean the captain of an important Federation ship will get into fist fights as part of his duty as well? Will there be significant loss of life among the crew as a regular occurrance during peace time and will the ship regularly engage in ship-to-ship combat during this same peaceful time as well?

If the answer's "yes" then this new production will be faithful to the original.

..ten years ago - http://www.gizmag.com/go/2440/ and http://rmax.yamaha-motor.com.au/

Hubbert came up with the peak oil hypothesis. It's not a theory until he demonstrates the hypothesis predicts something. He didn't.

I know, I know. Hubbert predicted peak oil in the U.S. putting the date of peak oil as 1972 and lo! U.S. oil output peaked in 1972.

Of course Hubbert didn't predict any such thing. He got lucky.

How do I know for sure? Because he never issued another correct prediction again. A stopped clock is right twice a day but doesn't have much value for keeping time. Hubbert was right just once.

The 100% doesn't move, other than at the pace of geological time frames.

Feel free to reveal the means by which you've nailed down the quantity of oil that amounts to 100%.

Yeah, I could have worded that a bit better. The comment's certainly open to misinterpretation. A couple of folks up the thread have divined the meaning that I wasn't precise enough to make clear.

It's not that you can't build neat stuff with 3-D printers what I contend is, other then AR-15 lowers and high-capacity magazines, there's not much reason to bother. And even in the case of AR-15 lower recievers and high-capacity magazines it's politics that makes building them worthwhile; conventionally-manufactured equivalents are simply better in every regard, including price when you figure in the cost of the printer and the time you'd have to put in to learn to use it.

One respondent has a car door that won't open for want of a plastic part which is known to break. But buying a 3-D printer, and putting in the time to learn how to use the software to draw the part, generate the G-code and deal with the inevitable idiosyncracies of any tool is hardly the sort of solution that most people would embrace. If you were looking for an excuse to buy a 3-D printer that might make the cut but most people would simply buy two of the parts the next time they had to go to a junk yard for one and be done with it.

Another respondent brought up Visicalc which is the sort of thing I had in mind.

The first time those of us of a certain age saw Visicalc in operation is memorable for the harp-accompanied epiphany that results from the realization that a pathologically boring and utterly inescapable task will now evaporate. No one who had to prepare organization budgets had to be sold on Visicalc. It sold itself.

Budgets are still necessary but the only people who now add up long columns of numbers suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

That's the sort of transformative change I believe is necessary to propel 3-D printing into society.

What's holding back 3-D printing is that there's hardly anything worthwhile to be done with it.

Other then printing an AR-15 lower receiver or magazines what can you do with a 3-D printer that's worth the bother?

Umm, so what's the Keynesian excuse for Japan's "Lost Decade" and more recently, America's non-recovery from the it's-all-Bush's-fault recession?

Lots of Keynesian goodness showered on both economies with nothing but massive government debt to show for it.

As for the observation that economics isn't a science, the complete indifference to the scientific method should have made that obvious. The delightful irony is that when the scientific method's applied to the field of economics, the hypothesis being that economics is a science by virtue of its predictive powers, the hypothesis fails.

I understand the reason for theropods having the need to swallow big hunks of meat but that capability would much more easily come from a wide jaw.

Theropods, I would think, wouldn't need to keep a narrow jaw profile like a snake because theropods didn't have to slither into narrow openings. There doesn't seem to be any obviously good reason for theropods to have a jaw that's narrow when they're not swallowing big hunks of meat and wide when they are.

Not even close to similar. Nothing in common at all and to suggest there is is evidence less of a desire to illuminate then to obscure. Or to find excuses for a failed and brutal ideology.

The Chinese leadership is trying to keep a lid on popular dissent by trying to enforce ignorance of factors which might lead to popular dissent and answers to no one on that score. In representative governments censorship is always a lively issue with those in favor of this or that convenient form of censorship finding themselves very often on the recieving end of unwelcomed attention and not infrequently losing their bid to impose censorship and just occasionally their position of political influence as well.

That's why the results are also not remotely similar. A Chinese citizen who wishes to educate themselves on some contentious issue is very likely to find their way as thoroughly blocked as the strenuous efforts of the Chinese government allows. A British, French or American citizen who wishes to remedy their ignorance on a previously ignored topic will find no such impediments in their path and, as like as not, find information on the topic from government officials.

Not sure if you noticed, but it's absurd to compare voluntary ignorance resulting from having too much information from which to choose to mandated ignorance that helps keep in power an authoritarian elite trying to hang onto that power a little longer even though their decrepit ideology has been repudiated everywhere people have the option to do so.

Yes, but those people must, quite properly, defer to their moral and intellectual superiors who know how much meat is allowable, if any and who know how warm you can be allowed to be in winter and who know whether you ought to be allowed to watch TV, how much and what programs and, well, pretty much everything.

Now, isn't it reasonable that the superior should advise the inferior and dictate to them if their inferiority prevents them from properly obeying?

Any reason you're trying to divert the subject from the lack of any mention of Antarctic ice conditions to me? I'd be flattered if it weren't so painfully obvious that you'd prefer the question go unasked.

There is another polar ice cap. Anyone know what's happening there with regard to ice coverage?

Seems to me that if you're telling only half the story you can't possibly be telling more then half the truth.

If that.