When they start seeing if they can manipulate the murder or suicide rates, THEN we can talk about ethics. Until then, hey, anything goes.

I think the real dichotomy is more between modern composition and older works. I'm only interested in listening to Wagner or Mozart for so long, at some point I'd like to hear something that's fresh. But many of the modern composers seemed to me have lost sight of what sounds good, preferring to take some kind of conceptual approach that may be of interest to other composers but I find often isn't very interesting to listen to. After the likes of Xenakis, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson and a few others, I found it to be mostly elitist insider music, and tuned out. And I'm a musician myself, but that kind of stuff just lost me. I now listen more to Chris Clark, Peter Scherer, and maybe John Zorn and some ethnic-fusion experimenters, Jazz and electronica artists and a few others who at least haven't lost sight of what sounds interesting. As far as I'm concerned, "purists" of any kind are tending towards boring. If you see your art as a museum piece be a purist and re-create that which has come before. But as I think Grace Slick once said, "Van Gogh never had to paint a painting twice."

You can tell these guys are all lamer coders, they can't document worth squat. In the forum some guy asks for clear docs and they repond in essense with "just run our simulator, it's too complicated to explain." What a bunch of hosers. A competition like this ought to have clearly deliniated parameters. From reading their page I can't tell a darn thing about what the "Greed" environment is, what the problem to be solved is, and the summary of the winning solution on the Slashdot article here presumes you already know exactly what the conditions and goal with which the warring program must run. I see references on the linked contest site to coins that "randomly appear" and not much more. There's no way he could submit his solution to a journal except the "Journal for Irreproducible Results." Lazy bastards. There may be an interesting solution to something here, but there's seems no way to tell exactly what without reverse engineering their simulator.

I wonder if I can get it configured to serve me really weird ads for ultra-obscure products. Himalayan llamas. Voodoo dolls. Chastity belts. Or maybe illegal products. Rhino horn. Brass knuckles. Poisonous snakes. I might actually read a few ads like that. Probably wouldn't buy anything though.

No doubt these devices operate by exploiting security vulnerabilities in the cel networks. If info got out about how it works, they'd have to upgrade every cel tower in existance at crushing expense. "Can you hear me now?"

These guys take the cake for the world's WORST user interfaces. They don't need more programming languages. They need to learn how to make USABLE programs with the languages they have, first. My latest favorite example: YouTube history lists are sorted RANDOMLY. I have a history list with nearly 2000 views. Now I want to find a vid I watched last week. WTF? It's no help at all. It allows me to clear the list, which might have helped if I did it a month ago, but not now. So I go off trying to find it by searching from memory. No luck, and now I've added several dozen additional views to my even more useless history list in the process. Microsoft will do dumb things, but usually I can figure out what they were trying to accomplish. The only thing that seems to explain Google on the other hand, is BRAIN DAMAGE.

Oh please. After you've been a "grownup" for 30 or 40 years, you may realize it's overrated...

- an administrator mode is accessible from the customer interface? And if they really insisted on doing that, they don't even require some kind of special admin credit card or key to be inserted? What moron designed that?

Dunning-Kruger strikes again.

17.5? Why not 15? Or 30? Cherry pick much?

No need for all of it to be, increasing ocean volume is enough, the comments you are responding to are the explanation of why sea level does not rise the same worldwide. Your failure to notice that does not bode well for your powers of comprehension.

Since the melting Greenland ice is mostly above ground, the melt causes the mass of Greenland to reduce. This reduced mass produces less gravitational effect on the surrounding ocean. Consequently, as Greenland ice melts, the sea level nearest the Greenland melt will actually drop, even as more volume is added to the ocean from this particular melt. It is basic physics, and contributions to sea level from various reducing ice masses can and has been estimated. Europe actually is at somewhat less risk of sea level rise from such gravitational changes than the South pacific or the US east coast. That is why Florida is at increased risk, while Italy, not so much.

The continents exert gravitational effects on the ocean that affects sea level. And this can change over time if the continent contains significant ice that is melting away. The melt of Greenland for example, is expected to actually DROP sea level nearer to Greenland, even as the melt increases ocean volume. This is because gravitational effect is lessened when the body's mass decreases (the body here being Greenland). This is basic physics. Increased ocean mass due to glacier melt will have a disproportionate effect in areas where change in gravitational and/or temperature or current effects are less, such as in the south pacific. Also, ocean temperature is not static, warm water moves around due to currents and the related temperature expansion of the water volume does too. But keep pretending the ocean is just a big bathtub, it's certainly appropriate to the level of your ignorance in the matter.

That's because the earth is not a bathtub. Current, gravity, rotation, temperature, etc., all have effects in sea level. The moon isn't the only force that affects sea level.

Don't forget gravitational and rotational effects.