Regardless of the role of skepticism, everybody seems to be overlooking one key point:

If this paper were to turn out to be correct, current climate models are useless and will need to be completely reworked. Well, maybe not completely. Some more than others. But it would contradict some of the fundamental assumptions of most of those models.

I have to say, I agree with Bjarne's answers, especially his answer to the notion of dropping compatibility with older features. While it does make the language more complex to keep that cruft around, it's equally important to allow programmers to wrap up older libraries with newer interfaces, for example, and make sure the codebase still compiles cleanly.

Is there some reason you couldn't do backwards compatibility the same way every other data format does: just provide a version number so the compiler knows what you're trying to say?

I don't doubt they improve performance. But they can't improve above the performance of code that has no need for that.

That wouldn't be (good) C++ code, since C++ has inheritance and so faces the exact same problem.

But the real problem with "var" types is that the compiler can't check type safety for you, so you get a whole new class of bugs at runtime. Why not go the Haskell way: the compiler inferes type information where it can, you provide it where it can't, and you can optionally provide it where ever you want? That gives you the best of all worlds: short "script" programs are fast and easy to write, all functions and data structures are generic by default, and the whole program has run-time type safety?

Sex and the city = perfect example of what results when cultural toxins like feminism run amok.

So basically, you're saying they're harmless?

Once again, the fascists display their true colors.

Dunno about Mussolini, but didn't Hitler have this weird fetish for getting SS to live in small farming houses on the countryside? Something about it being the traditional German way of life...

I'll never live anywhere that won't let me have a car or where for whatever reason cars are uneconomical. I just refuse to live like that.

To each his own. I'd give up the car in a heartbeat if I could. Maintaining and fueling it is just a bother, and driving tired is dangerous.

It makes no sense. Spread out, people. Its a big world. Doesn't anyone want to listen to music without having to worry about whether the neighbors will object? Doesn't anyone want a dog or a garden or just some space that is theirs?

Some people want space, some want fast Internet, some want services and shopping to be within walking distance, most want both. There's a tradition in Finland of having a second, primitive home in the countryside you visit on weekends. That way you get the best of both worlds without having to commit to either.

Nuh uh! There are also compressed air cars - they only explosively decompress upon tank failure! ;)

At least with batteries, flammability or explosiveness aren't a fundamental requirement of how you're trying to propel the vehicle, just an unfortunate side effect of some variants of the technology (even not all types of li-ions are flammable). There's lots of people who assume that flammability is a consequence of electrical energy density, but that's just not the case. The actual charge/discharge lithium batteries via intercalating into the anode or cathode is more an atomic-scale equivalent of compressing air into a tank, you're having little affect on the substrate flammabilities and you're not even changing their chemical bonding, you're just cramming lithium ions into the space between their atoms. The flammabilty of some types comes from side effects, such as flammable electrolytes or membrane failures leading to lithium metal plating out; these aren't a fundamental aspect of the energy storage process.

Now, li-air, that involves an actual lithium metal electrode, and that is fundamentally flammable. Of course, so is gasoline. I have no doubt that they can reduce fire risks on li-air cells and keep them properly contained to prevent failure propagations. My bigger issues with li-air are its terrible efficiency, lifespan, and cost. I'm certain the latter would come down, and I expect that they can improve the lifespan, but I'm a bit uneasy about how much they can improve its efficiency. Right now, they're as inefficient as a fuel cell. : Who wants to waste three times as much power per mile as is necessary?

It is a non-sequiteur. The energy density of a li-ion battery doesn't even approach the theoretical maximum storage for the element lithium shifting between ionization states. That's hardly the only way this article is terrible, mind you. My head hurt every time they said the word "efficiency", it's like they were using it to mean everything possible except for actual efficiency. And if I read it right - who knows, the article is such a total mess - the researcher isn't talking about reducing battery cost, but increasing longevity. But maybe that was mangled too.

Because your analysis of it is a total clusterfuck. Here's another hint: I have told you several times where you're wrong, but you're so damned arrogant you think I'm the one being stupid.

Go where this has been debated before if you want your answers. Because you keep demanding them from me even though you were too goddamned stupid to realize that I gave you the clue a long time ago.

No more replies. I am through. Again.

"As much" rock. There certainly were rocks. And remember, it went much farther, faster, than Curiosity. Under otherwise harsher conditions: much hotter sometimes, much colder sometimes. The Mars atmosphere may be thin, but at least there is one.

Oh, hell. I'll just give it away, since you're being such a dumbass (my opinion).

Among other mistakes, you're making the same one that Watts did when he tried to refute Latour. I have noticed a couple of other mistakes, but that by itself shows you are wrong.

I have done nothing of the sort.

Are you saying that you have changed the nature of the experiment, such that it is no longer in vacuum?

The original experiment does not involve "enclosing a heated plate", except to the extent that it was already enclosed. In the experiment that has (always, as far as I am concerned) been under discussion, there is a heat source S, a passive plate P that is heated by that source, and an enclosure (which I have called W for "wall") that is actively cooled. Everything inside the enclosure is in vacuum, so that ALL heat transfer is by radiation only. No convection, no conduction.

Are you referring to the same experiment? If so, then I will repeat what I have already stated several times. And I will also repeat that if you have an argument with it -- other than your straw-man argument above, that is -- you go argue it with the proper parties, not with me. But I am indulging you to this extent.

1) Even if the passive plate completely surrounds the source, then in any real-world situation it is impossible for it to ever quite reach the same temperature as that source, even if only because the surface area is (however slightly) greater than that of the source. We have discussed this before. Therefore at equilibrium temperature Ts will always be warmer -- even if only a little -- than the passive plate Tp.

2) By the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, NET heat transfer will always be from hotter to colder. And since Ts - Tp is a positive number, net heat transfer is from the source to the plate. The plate cannot cause the heat source to be hotter because that would require NET heat transfer in the other direction. But that is a violation of the Stefan-Boltzmann law. (There is no need to re-derive how we apply the S-B law here. Again, that would be re-hashing old news.)

By asserting that at equilibrium the passive plate can cause the source to be hotter, you are contradicting the S-B law. You can make all the other arguments you like to try to sidestep this, but eventually you're just going to step in it again. Pun very much intended.

I have stated this all before. I repeat that you are making a mistake. But in order to find out what it is, you are going to have to address your argument to the person you are attempting to refute. Your argument is not with me and trying to make it with me is childish. Given that, and the abusive nature of your past behavior, I refuse to help you further. No more hints.

Complexity. the "vertical" transport system only goes to given floors in a given building. The roads go everywhere. I can drive from NYC to Los Angeles... and anywhere in between.

But I only need to go between points A and B, and don't much care about hypothetical point C (since I can always rent transport there, if needs be).

In order to transition an economy or government to true socialism,

Finland has been social democrat since the World War II. It's only in the recent years American-style capitalism has become fashionable. I'm sure it's a pure coincidence that our economy switched to an apparently permanent tailspin at the same time.

Gaze upon our debt-free university-level education and despair. Or grow balls and demand it from your own government. Either way, I'm gainfully employed and paying taxes because and only because my government gave me an education offer I could had refused, but didn't see any rational reason to.

How is this blow against Uber?
Uber is illegal in Finland as taxis here need a license to operate and they have service obligation.

Why would anyone use a taxi to get around Helsinki? It's the one city even I just leave my car parked at the outskirt (Mellunmäki metro station 24h free parking with enough space to make sure some is always available - take note everyone, that's what it takes to get people to abandon cars) and switch to mass transit.