Martians notwithstanding, nobody had any idea what the far side of the moon looked like before 1959. Sure, 55 years may be "a very long time" for some people, but we're not exactly talking about something that puzzled Hipparchus here.

Actually, as a climate skeptic, I've been saying for years that we should all focus on innovative nuclear technologies. Fossil fuels are dirty, finite and expensive. Cheap, safe & clean nuclear energy is something that could benefit everybody, regardless of beliefs. I don't understand why global warming believers aren't pushing super hard for this.

It's even stranger when you consider that whilst nuclear is both "low carbon" and "renewable" much of what is pushed dosn't meet those criteria at all. Indeed plenty of it appears to be worst, including by "warmist" metrics, than doing nothing!

Meanwhile, 80 billion is spent on global warming programs

What effect will this money have on "carbon" emissions anyway?

and fusion programs get their funding cut.

Nobody has yet managed to build a working fusion generating plant. In contrast there are "off the shelf" uranium (or plutonium) fission designs available.

If a climatologist and a mathematician disagree on the math used in a climate paper, who is the expert?

That is very much the crux of the matter.
In order to possibly be meaningful "climate science" must also follow the rules of many other sciences. They form a foundation to it. In the same way that biology must be consistent with both chemistry and physics.

Given that there's remarkably little proof that this is not caused by humans, wouldn't it be better to follow the path that would avoid a catastrophe in the event that the models are close and it is human caused.

Exactly what path is that? There are plenty of ideas which have the potyential to CAUSE a catastrophe. Even ignoring unexpected consequences.
Plenty of supposedly "green" methods of generating electrity turn out to have similar, even larger, "carbon footprints" than burning fossil fuels to boil water. With an existing technology which is "low carbon" dismissed by "envronmentalists".
This sounds like the so called "precautionary principle". Where "precautionary", along with "renewable" and "sustainable" has it's definition twisted in the sorts of strange ways associated with political extremism.

OK, that was funny. But the 97% number is nonsense, just for the record.

Claiming consensus (or near consensus) isn't "science" anyway. It's "politics" or possibly "religion".

Skepticism about AGW catastrophism is rampant among the world's scientists at large (physicists, biologists, etc.)

Since they are not "climate scientists" their opinion dosn't count here. Even if their skepticism were to come from either their own specialty (which would also include chemists, geologists, paleontologists, archeologists, historians, statisticians, computer scientists, etc.) or their understanding of "scientific method.

and many climate scientists have been cautiously coming out of the closet and poking sticks at the shaky foundations as well.

But would any "true climate scientist" not believe in CAGW? Or is there a "No True Scotsman" fallacy at work here?

I'm a little bit surprised that Slashdot doesn't have more AGW catastrophism skeptics, to be honest. Ordinary people hear "supercomputer driven model simulation" and they think "oooh, it must be really accurate and able to predict the future". Anybody who understands statistics and the banal realities of computation knows the good old GIGO principle.

That would still be a case of "not a climate scientist". The concept of "nobody out side of a group can critique a member's actions, but anyone who might do so wouldn't be allowed to be a member in the first place" isn't that uncommon.

Not to mention the reality that nobody has ever successfully predicted long term climate changes

It's even worst than that. Even models which can "hindcast" have been incapable of forcasting. But few, if any, have been "too cool".

"Complex" is not for laymen. There is only so much that you can do with any "appliance". Beyond that, you actually have to know what you are doing. This "problem" has nothing to do with programming.

This. Thinking about the web apps I've written, most of them required fairly deep knowledge in the area of the app -- auroras, photography, specialized group management, history, genealogy, measuring instruments, Chinese, retail procedure -- all areas an interested party could potentially bring to the table.

But the tools to instantiate, manipulate and present those ideas? Those simply don't exist in "amateur" form -- I had to create them. And in doing so, I used knowledge starting with HTML and CGI and CSS, but which extended well into Python, (replaced Perl), C, SQL, a fair bit about the underlying structure of the host OS(s), knowledge of how to structure an application in the first place, and to wrap it all together, a fairly deep knowledge of what's efficient and what isn't.

Now I will admit that I am particularly resistant to Other People's Code, partially because I am unwilling to be subject to other people's bug fix schedules (or lack thereof), and permissions (or lack thereof) and functinonal choices (or lack thereof); and partially because the more stuff I write, the more handy tools of my own I have to bring to bear on the next problem that depend on no one but myself and the host language(s) -- which frankly is quite enough dependency for me anyway. Plus it's been writing all this stuff that's made me a decent programmer in the first place. So even if there *were* a library out there to generate general purpose readout dials, I wouldn't have used it; the result would have been the same. All my own code. Not the least bit reluctant to reinvent the wheel.

Still, the idea of making all that stuff both available and trivially usable (and that's what we're talking about here, because a non-programmer will have to hit this at a trivial level) seems to me to have been tried multiple times in multiple venues, and to have failed every time. Personally, I think it's because as programmers, we underestimate the complexity because we've internalized so much; we can't see the actual level of difficulty very well, because it starts out relative to our own skills. This has resulted in quite a few attempts to "make it easy", and none of them have hit any serious stride. The best any of these can boast is a small following making very limited applications, if you really want to stretch what "application" means.

I don't think the idea is ready to fly. The only context I can visualize this actually working is where you have some *very* smart software that can take an abstract description and write code *for* you. That software would have to be (a) very damned smart and (b) conversant with an enormous range of general human knowledge. Right now, as far as I know, that's the precise description of a competent applications programmer. And nothing else.

Ideas don't arrive in convenient order. Interruptions occur. The world is not a smooth surface, it's full of bumps, pits and detours. Sometimes (as here) there are even reasons to top post. Such as, so someone will actually see it. So get over it. Notably, the AC comment you're objecting to contributed more to the conversation than yours (or mine) does. There's a lesson there.

I'm not against the idea of cameras in my house. What I am against the idea of is cameras in my house that are not under my control. Cameras that I have full control of, that I can control access to (and limit to myself), preferably connected to my Linux server (which again only I have access to) - perfectly fine. Cameras that some random third party can access? nope.jpg

Maybe at some point after they're all finally out companies, agencies, colleges, etc. will finally realize that using SSN's as their unique identifiers of choice is dangerous.

Using them as identifiers isn't actually that bad. Though it's a bit daft not to be able to come up with employee/student/etc numbers.
The problems come trying to use them as AUTHENTICATORS. As well as the daft idea that only you know your own "name"...

Actually Streets and Trips has a lot of features that Google maps and I bet Bing maps lack for trip planning.
For example you can tell it when you are going to leave, your MPG, fuel tank size, and how many hours you want to drive a day. Streets and Trips will suggest refueling points and stopping points.
I wish the online maps "Google" would put those features in and allow you to push the trip to your mobile device.

If I am hit by your acquaintance while they are giving you that free lift, their private insurance will cover my medical bills for as long as needed.

If I am hit by a taxi from a regulated company, their business insurance will cover my medical needs for as long as needed. The fact that they have adequate insurance is something that is checked by the taxi licensing people.

If I am hit by an Uber driver, well who knows how much insurance they have - Uber covers them for $1Million but that doesn't necessarily cover even a year in medical expenses or long term care, so I am left recouping the cost of my care from the Uber driver themselves. Uber drivers are not regulated or inspected (yet - wait for that shitstorm to hit Slashdot when it happens) so there is no guarantee that when you get into that Uber car you are actually insured at all.

Fine. McDonald's for you.

This

Well, that is where the instruments are.

IFR isn't an automated landing. The pilot is still flying. They're just using various beacons and displays instead of their eyes to see where they are.