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Comment Re:Lets set a few things straight. (Score 1) 639

The reason there is little research against global warming theories is because that effort is unpopular, in terms of funding. Universities, the government, etc. all want to claim they are fixing a problem. No one wants to fund a study that doesn't make a showing of "progress".

When the proponents of GW come up with confirmable theories (ones that don't require the "adjustment" of collected data and last more than a year or two), then they shall have my ear.

Comment Re:Kooks galore (Score 1) 639

If the data isn't accurate enough to explain the disparities in the data, then it isn't accurate enough to explain a theory of man-made global warming either.

So you think that all of the temperature readings (as a whole) taken from the ships all have the same offset error, over only a particular about 15 year period (but not before and after)? Really? I hope that such a correction is not a common one to make: it would make the conclusions of these "scientists" even more suspect.

I don't need to spend my reading time in the annals of junk science.

Comment Re:Kooks galore (Score 1) 639

I think you're missing the point (perhaps intentionally). If these "scientists" can't reliably predict collected data, why should we trust their computer models? The inaccuracies in the data they speak of can't be explained by errors due to limited resolution. Statistics says that such errors would be in both directions (for and against their conclusions). Their problem is that they have no explanation for the data adverse to their position, other than to call it "inaccurate".

And you're playing the old trick of shifting the burden of proof. It is not up to me to disprove what they have to say: it is their burden to show that they are correct. When what they have to say doesn't stand up to the light of criticism (by their peer scientists), they haven't met their burden.

I decline your invitation to play with Chicken Little.

Comment Kooks galore (Score 1) 639

FTA:

A US government laboratory says the much talked about "pause" is an illusion caused by inaccurate data. Updated observations show temperatures did not plateau, say National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) scientists. The warming rate over the past 15 years is "virtually identical" to the last century, they report in Science.

May I ask a question or two?

1. They admit that they're using inaccurate data. Why should we trust the conclusions they reach?
2. The population has grown a great deal over the "last century" (and correspondingly the amount of carbon dioxide released). Why would the warming rate now be "virtually identical" to that from 100 years ago?

I can get more reliable information from people living in the psych ward. Can we please stop having every word from these kooks published as "scientific research", please?

Comment Only concerns ISP-specific models (Score 2, Insightful) 66

Past research has shown that the security of ISP-provided routers is often worse than that of off-the-shelf ones. Many such devices are configured for remote administration to allow ISPs to remotely update their settings or troubleshoot connection problems. This exposes the routers’ management interfaces along with any vulnerabilities in them to the Internet, increasing the risk of exploitation.

So, in other words, these models were specifically made for and distributed by an ISP, and were not off-the-shelf models. The backdoors were there for the ISP managers. For 99% of network users out there, these vulnerabilities are of no practical concern.

Comment Re:Good (Score 2) 302

"Perhaps the Harold Lloyd films I saw had some new music added precisely to extend the copyright as derived works"

Adding something to an existing work doesn't extend a copyright: whatever copyrights already existed continue unchanged. Rather, new copyrights are created when the new work is, provided that the new work is a "work of authorship". All works are derived, because all of us rely upon historical material of the past. Conceptually just saying "ABC" is deriving content from the alphabet, but in such a case there is a work but no substantial authoritative content to hang copyrights on. Incorporating letters, words, colors, sounds, and anything else that existed before is a derivation of that content; the author must add something additional in the class of authorship to develop his claim to copyright protection.

I think Miamicanes got it mostly right, except that I would emphasize that transforming or changing a work in an automated, random, unintelligent or specification-conforming way is not "authorship", and would not render the product copyrightable. If you passed one of Shakespeare's works through Google translate to produce something in French or modern English, that effort would arguably not create a copyright because there would be no authorship. (The software running the translation is copyrighted, but not the product of the execution of that copyrighted software.) We can argue about whether or not such works are valuable, but that value must be created by something other than through copyrights.

Comment Nothing surprising here... (Score 1) 173

Experts inherently favor the interests of those who pay them. The FBI doesn't get paid to find people innocent. In a world where the FBI can choose to hire this expert or that expert, it will rehire the ones most likely to make a finding helpful to a finding of guilty.

Courts are masters of deciding truth between opposing parties. Where one side possesses more resources than the other (the U.S. Attorney General's Office vs. the local public defender) the criminal court is crippled to find the truth of guilt or innocence.

The same holds true for the experts reporting to the IPCC...

Comment Like telling smugglers the can't use $100 bills (Score 1) 229

They'll use $20 bills instead. Multicore processors with networking interfaces are in your phone, manufactured in South Korea and .... (wait for it) China! Okay, so it might take a bit more of them to get the same processing power, or it might take the Chinese longer to run their simulation, but they ain't stoppin' nobody.

Comment Re:They learned Legal Wiggling 101 from Microsoft (Score 1) 292

Well, yes, but it's an implied license. The purchaser of a car doesn't sign a separate piece of paper permitting him to do stuff with the auto's code. It's like that video you bought over the weekend. Copyright law prohibits performances of protected works. Can you invite the neighbors to watch that video for free? Yes, because with your purchase you got the implied license to do so. Can you open your own movie theater and charge admission? No, because your implied license doesn't cover that.

Now, if you want to look at the code, copyright law won't stop you from doing that. (But the manufacturer might by not giving you a port of access.) If you possess the copy of the work, you get to look at it. You just don't get to reproduce it or perform it (say, in another model of a car, modified or not).

The manufacturer might claim the code to be a trade secret too, but that won't work very well because they will have published it by putting it in the cars they sell to the public.

So unless the car manufacturer is going to make the purchaser sign a contract not to fiddle with the code, and to make any subsequent purchaser bound to the same terms, I think they just have to put up with the modders and the rodders...

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