Comment Re:Is there any way to reverse entropy? (Score 1) 205
At the very end, all that will remain is a sign floating innocuously through space as a lonely reminder that yes, once intelligent life flourished here. The sign will read:
Burma Shave
At the very end, all that will remain is a sign floating innocuously through space as a lonely reminder that yes, once intelligent life flourished here. The sign will read:
Burma Shave
nobody gives a shit about Benghazi
Except for people who care that Obama and his administration blatantly lied about what happened in the period right before an election. And we see that Hillary Clinton knew very well that what was being said by both State and White House spokesdroids (and by her, and the president himself) was pure fabricated BS meant to placate prospective voters. They deliberately lied about what happened so that those events wouldn't contradict the narrative that Obama was trying to sell in his re-election bid. The people who actually know this, and who claim they don't care, are desperately hoping that Clinton's complicity in spreading that lie won't remain on people's minds during this upcoming election.
Except for people who care that Bush and his administration blatantly lied about what happened in the period right before an election. And we see that Colin Powell knew very well that what was being said by both State and White House spokesdroids (and by him, and the president himself) was pure fabricated BS meant to placate prospective voters. They deliberately lied about what happened so that those events wouldn't contradict the narrative that Bush was trying to sell in his re-election bid. The people who actually know this, and who claim they don't care, are desperately hoping that Powell's complicity in spreading that lie won't remain on people's minds during this upcoming election.
The hypocrisy is real.
At least if there was some sort of conspiracy involved, this one kept the body count in single digits and didn't destabilize an entire region of the globe. But whatever helps you sleep at night.
The news side is fairly reliable. The editorial page has been brain-dead since the Carter administration, and that was long before Rupert Murdoch bought the paper.
As long as it isn't politics or science.
You have to actually wade into the issue and form a discrete opinion of it.
By far the coolest part of all this is now a "crowd" will form an opinion about Clinton and Benghazi from reading her emails. Primary sources FTW. Not want any journalist wants them to think, not a quote picked carefully for a political ad, but by actually reading what was said at the time. That's more informed democracy already than I expected in this whole election cycle!
Not really. The amount of cognitive dissonance that runs through this country when it comes to things like politics and, sadly, science, is quite staggering. People aren't going through those emails to become informed. They're going through them for dirt/vindication/etc. of whatever biases they have.
There's going to be a thousand cherry picked quotes out of context and a thousand facepalms. Fox news will more than likely take some of the juiciest out-of-context quotes and try to make Hillary sound like the next Pol Pot. MSNBC will make her out to be a saint. CNN will create some sort of pointless 3D fly through graphic that has nothing to do with anything and will make blue hairs think they didn't take their meds.
Whatever. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -Cardinal Richelieu
"It's a well-kept secret, but 95 per cent of the climate models
Ha ha ha. He used the notorious passive voice: "have been found". I wonder why?
Clues:
1. Does not specify who did the finding.
2. Provides no link to any actual information.
More importantly, he's flat out wrong.
1. It isn't a secret. Every single research article includes an error analysis. So unless he'scompletely ignorant, batshit insane, or completely fucking stupid he and anyone else should be well aware that models/research/etc. contain errors.
2. 100% of climate models are in error. 100% of any model is in error. That's why they're models. It's logic and algorithms trying to simulate complex real world situations. And since you never have absolutely perfect information nor absolutely perfect algorithms, there is always some error. Hence why scientists include error analysis in their research.
There's no excuse for this level of stupidity, other than malice. Nice fat paychecks in exchange for support to continue screwing up our environment.
nobody has a grant which depends on finding out that global warming is real.
nobody has that grant because we have known it is real, for sure, since the 1980s
Any academic would stand to make a huge name for himself or herself by finding compelling evidence that it *wasn't* real.
Correction, we've known it for almost 200 years. Fourier (which I'm sure most slashdotters have heard of) laid the preliminary groundwork back in the 1820's. The first climate model predicting global warming as a result of increased greenhouse gases was developed in the 1890's by Svante Arrhenius (if you're a chemist, you know who this guy is). Greenhouse theory and the theory of anthropogenic global warming are not new science. It is OLD SCIENCE.
The only thing relatively new is that our modern technology allows us to collect more data and run far more detailed and advanced global climate models. Instead of just predicting warming, we can get a better idea of what the impacts of that warming will be.
I have an idea. How about instead of wiping his ass with the Constitution, burning it, then shitting on the ashes for good measure, maybe this Stalinist assclown could try to protect us from some real threats to the American people.
Terrorism? Fucking idiot. Terrorism isn't a threat. Heart disease is a threat. Obesity and complications related to obesity are a threat. Car accidents are a threat. Cancer is a threat.
In fact, just about everything in life is more of a threat to the average American than terrorism, from accidentally dropping an electrical appliance in the tub while you're in it to falling down the fucking stairs. Even getting struck by lightning is more of a fucking threat.
Terrorism? This guy needs to get some fucking perspective.Terrorism is an excuse. It's a cash cow. It's a blunt object to club over the collective head of the populace. The fear of terrorism is doing more to destroy this country than any terrorist or terrorist organization could ever hope to accomplish on their own. In fact, if terrorists really want to bring down America all they need to do is open cheap shops of deep fried donut wrapped sausages and watch us die by the millions from strokes and heart attacks. They can laugh their asses off watching us drop like flies while we chant "protect us from the terrorists!".
Sad.
A Maunder or Dalton type minimum would have almost no effect on climate given the current forcings. The Maunder minimum represented about a 0.25% change in overall solar output. Multiple papers have been written on the subject, including what would happen today if such a minimum occurred. The average cooling expected from several papers on the subject would be a cooling of about 0.2C. The most conservative estimate of warming due to increased anthropogenic forcings is about 10 times greater than that.
Scientists are well aware that the sun has very minor variations in solar output. They are also well aware that a Maunder type minimum would do jack to offset the current warming.
....It's premature to throw a Singularity party but it's definitely premature to declare the device to not be a warp drive.
It isn't a warp drive, nor has anyone claimed it is. A warp drive operates by affecting local space-time. The method of propulsion here is no different than any other rocket, except instead of propellants it's using EM fields.
IF experiments continue to validate, then there could be some interesting physics that come out of this. Perhaps it's actually acting like a form of hydrodynamic thruster for dark matter. Maybe the quantum foam isn't as "frameless" as originally thought. Or it could simply be experimental error.
More experiments please.
I RTFA and don't get the controversy. Of course the data used to form regulations should be easily available to everybody. The only reason to use secret data is you want to hide something.
Not trying to troll here, just not seeing the other side.
So you'd be okay with the EPA releasing your personal data if you were part of health impact study? You'd be okay with letting some company dump unknown toxins into your water because the EPA can only regulate what's publicly available and said toxins are guarded by "trade secrets"? How about nuclear waste, where the contents, sources, and locations are all "secret" knowledge?
Do you see where this going?
Any bill regarding the EPA pushed forward by republicans is designed to destroy the EPA. They don't give a single fuck about pollution or destroying the environment. They want to go back to the days where you could set Lake Eerie on fire and getting black lung from living downwind of a coal plant. They want science to die a miserable death in all it's forms.
Always read the fine print. This bill is specifically crafted to remove the EPA's ability to function, with the eventual goal of disbanding it entirely.
ESRI is the Tomacco of GIS software. It's terrible, but they can't stop using it.
I was pulled onto a legacy application that was using ESRI, and after seeing what a disaster it was (the project was on the verge of losing funding) I trashed the whole thing and rebuilt it from the ground up using open source tools and libraries. What used to take weeks to months of hair pulling frustration from programmers now takes a couple minutes for a non-techie user.
Anecdotes are a dime a dozen though. I'm sure ArcGIS and friends have their uses, and in some cases may be the only game in town for some features. I just haven't found where'd I use ESRI vs. an open source equivalent.
Yes, but they also have certain commonalities. Just like almost all gas engines have a fuel pump, if you want to kill a gas engine, you might want to consider cutting power to the fuel pump. They have have different types of ignition systems, they might have forced air induction, they might be 4, 6, 8 cylinders, etc... but most cancer cells do share a lot of common pathways.
The problem isn't that they share certain characteristics. The problem is that they share the same characteristics with healthy cells.
Killing cancer cells is easy. Killing cancer cells without also destroying everything else is a very hard problem to solve. If this protein can force cancer cells back into healthy cells (or at least self-destruct) WITHOUT negatively affecting healthy tissues then this would be significant.
Is it really common practice now to have laid off workers escorted out by security?
It is fairly common. Sometime the terminatees will delete files, copy confidential information, or even sabotage equipment. I have seen all of these things happen, and was sometimes surprised by who did it. The polite quiet submissive people often have the most bottled up rage.
Have you seen my red swingline stapler?
Your assessment is flawed. Warmer temperatures do mean more water can evaporate, but that does not mean it will precipitate in nearby regions. There are many regions around the world that are hot, humid, and still dry as a bone (Somalia, Northwestern Peru, most Middle Eastern countries that border the ocean, etc.).This is like the other bad science assumption often tossed around by deniers: " Well if there is more water vapor then there will be more clouds and so the world will cool down!". No, it doesn't work like that.
There are conditions that need to be met for cloud formation and precipitation. If the atmosphere is stable, then it really doesn't matter how much moisture is present. If a blocking ridge forms over the region, then those warm moist air masses are going to move somewhere else. If there is a thick enough layer of dry air beneath the moist air, then it'll just be virga. If the air masses destabilize before coming ashore, then it'll just dump rain back into the ocean.
But I'm sure you know all this.
This is Florida, correct? Isn't their system something like:
1. YELLATUM!
2. GETEMRUNNIN!
3. CHUTUM!
4. DONCHATALKERBUTGLABALWURMIN!
THEGODDESSOFTHENETHASTWISTINGFINGERSANDHERVOICEISLIKEAJAVELININTHENIGHTDUDE
