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Comment Image processing (Score 4, Interesting) 181

I use -- and write -- image processing software. Correct use of multiple cores results in *significant* increases in performance, far more than single digits. I have a dual 4-core, 3 GHz mac pro, and I can control the threading of my algorithms on a per-core basis, and every core adds more speed when the algorithms are designed such that a region stays with one core and so remains in-cache for the duration of the hard work.

The key there is to keep main memory from becoming the bottleneck, which it immediately will do if you just sweep along through your data top to bottom (presuming your data is bigger than the cache, which is typoically the case with DSLRs today.) Now, if they ever get main memory to us that runs as fast as the actual CPU, that'll be a different matter, but we're not even close at this point in time.

So it really depends on what you're doing, and how *well* you're doing it. Understanding the limitations of memory and cache is critical to effective use of multicore resources. You're not going to find a lot of code that does that sort of thing outside of very large data processing, and many individuals don't do that kind of data processing at all, or only do it so rarely that speed is not the key issue, only results matter. But there are certainly common use cases where keeping a machine for ten years would use up valuable time in an unacceptable manner. As a user, I am constantly editing my own images with global effects, and so multiple fast cores make a real difference for me. A single core machine is crippled by comparison.

Comment Sources of water (Score 1) 708

The moisture source for lakes and rivers is -- inevitably -- precipitation over lands upstream. Either as direct runoff, or as recurring eruptions from underground aquifers. If the prevailing winds don't bring the more humid air over the cooler, higher landscape, sure, you'll see drought. But you'd see it anyway, more heat or not. When the prevailing winds are bringing more moisture over those same types of terrain, you're going to see more precipitation, not less.

The historical record bears this out. When the earth is warmer, we get (a lot) more plant growth. That's simply not going to happen if the precipitation is reduced for any reason. And, at least as far as I am aware at this time, there is no mechanism that would cause reduction in precipitation. Warmer air holds more moisture, yes, and that effect is in full view in the tropics -- with deluge level rainfall when that moist air hits colder atmosphere and the moisture inevitably precipitates as rain. 400 inches / year as opposed to about 100 inches / year in otherwise similar temperate regions.

I would certainly agree that if the wind patterns change, then the rainfall will too. In both directions. But it seems a little farfetched to say that such changes will result in a consistent decrease in winds traveling onshore. What would such a claim be based upon?

Comment Re: Impacts (Score 1) 708

Is this year actually a warmer year? Didn't I just read that we're in a 20-year hiatus in the warming trend?

Yes, warmer air holds more moisture -- anyone who has worked the steam tables to convert between relative and absolute humidity knows that (and I have done so for my auroral photo opportunity prediction freeware), but it's also susceptible to precipitating more moisture when convection brings that moist air up into the colder altitudes. That's why tropical rainfall tends to be in deluges as compared to, for instance, the typical rain shower in Pennsylvania. We know for a fact that the tropics are warmer and wetter in terms of rainfall amounts per year -- and that since they are warmer, their air can hold more moisture. But that's not stopped them from having much more rainfall than anywhere else. While there certainly may be outlier statistics, the general case seems clearly to be: warmer = wetter = more rainfall.

Temperate rainforests get as much 100 inches / year. Tropical rainforests get up to 400 inches / year. If it's not the heat that's doing it, what do you propose is the mechanism?

If it *is* the heat that's doing it, then what is the mechanism where more heat, heat that corresponds with previous tropical climates in the earth's past, won't repeat the same effect here? Looking at the past CO2 level graphs as correlated with plant growth and temperature, there's a very strong correlation with CO2 and plant growth, and with temperature. Plants love CO2, but they still need moisture to survive, and where there's more plant growth, it's pretty much a certainty that there's a significant water supply.

So far, anyway, the idea of warming in the tropics -- or anywhere there's basically unlimited water and related prevailing winds -- leading to drought seems to be a non-starter.

It's not that I can't accept it, it's just that to accept it, I need a sound scientific reason to do so. Just saying that one expects drought in the tropics seems like hand-waving at this point. There are plenty of legitimate concerns - a slight, very, very slow rise in sea level, movement of crop-appropriate bands in cultivated areas, that sort of thing, but tropical drought doesn't appear to be one of them.

Also, recent news shows increased plant growth worldwide... something to think about in a situation where CO2 is known to be increasing at an accelerated rate.

Comment Merkel Indicates German Wish for Federal Ukraine (Score 1) 848

This also from an interview Merkel gave to public German TV yesterday:

A solution must be found to the Ukraine crisis that does not hurt Russia and which the Ukrainian people must choose for themselves, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday.
...
  "There must be dialogue. There can only be a political solution. There won't be a military solution to this conflict," she said.
...
  On Saturday, her vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel had suggested that establishing a federal Ukraine was the only viable solution to the crisis pitting Kiev against pro-Russian separatists.

Merkel said that if Ukraine opted to rejoin the Eurasian Union with Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, then Europe would not make "a huge conflict" out of it.

Especially the last point is clearly a big step back from the earlier all out "Ukraine is EU" position.

Additionally to the economic side, pressure on Merkel also grows because there is more and more doubt, even in German mainstream media, about the veracity of the Ukrainian propaganda and about the destruction of flight MH17. Why is there is no news about it? Is there a coverup (in German)?

Comment Re:Except (Score 1) 18

You see what you want to see.

Just one point: Africa is in the aftermath of Colonial destruction and neon-colonial extraction. That has far more relevance than the practice of religion.

All people on earth are made of the same mixture of inclinations and inspirations. The mental proposition of a theology does little to change this, but provides one framework for justifying how desires are fulfilled.

God's grace arrives as a mystical occurrence, not the mental and emotional identification with theological proposition. "Morality" is how one behaves towards the creation, so that the opportunity to recognise the arrival of this grace is not clouded, or missed. Nobody can direct God, all are at the quality of absolute mercy. That is the root of real humility - the moral virtue from which all others are sustained.

Comment Re:NOT LULZ - LIES ! (Score 1) 848

Angela is not saying this anymore. Russia as resources and markets is necessary for an Industrial Germany. A de-industrialized US? Not so much...

The Kiev government are a coalition of hyper-rich oligarchs, wielding explicitly fascist militia. It is like Goldman Sachs running a country with the help of Blackwater and the KKK. The US is involved to own the gas-pipe to Europe. Look at where Joe Biden's son is, and what he is doing.

As to a WMD Neo-Con-Job?

The NATO commander making accusation, and touting photos no one has seen? He declared Saddam's WMD as "fact".

The NYT "reporter" putting this into public record? Co-author with Judith Miller on the famous lies of 2003.

Comment Re:Discrimination (Score 1) 579

> I had no idea that people still thought that being a woman made it impossible to be physically strong,

Not impossible. Just more difficult. Women are built differently. That's an objective fact you cannot escape from. That will cause the best male athletes to be better than the best female ones.

Although SKILL may alter the situation for sports where that can be a factor.

Comment Re:Obvious Reason (Score 2) 579

> I mean, face it, men are just more willing to be the trolls and make life miserable for each other. Women see that and avoid the whole issue altogether.

Are you kidding? Women love politics and backstabbing. In fact, they are much better at it than men are. They just like to pretend that they are better. If anything, all of this committee nonsense sounds like the sort of thing fueled by women rather than something they would flee from.

Comment The problem with beaurocrats. (Score -1, Troll) 221

Before you can pay for it or get it for free it's got to be authorized first. While actually being responsible for yourself can be a burden it also allows you to take command of the situation. That's something that is typically overlooked by people rushing to worship nanny state polices.

See the VA.

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