Well, it's run by scientists who know more than any of us, which is why it is useful to link to them. There are also scientists who know more than any of us that oppose global warming, but there are much fewer of them. Therefore, it seems clear that we should believe the majority, since we ourselves are not experts. Linking to some of those experts is the correct thing to do here.

While that's not the worst idea I've ever heard--I once heard a guy suggest that we should douse ourselves in paint thinner and leap into a volcano--it ranks pretty high.

If that was rewritten with "priests" instead of "scientists" you'd probably shit your pants, but it would parse extremely well.

Now I'm happy to defend my science against legitimate, good, criticism.

Good, legitimate criticism is difficult when you find out that one side has been manipulating data, deleting data, strong-arming publications and otherwise engaging in questionable behavior in order to sabotage the opposing side.

The fact that these climate-skeptics were prepared to take these e-mails, pore over them for some choice quotes (which didn't even look incriminating to me out of context), blatantly misinterpret them without making any kind of good-faith effort to understand the context or the science behind it, and trumpet it all out as some kind of 'disproval' of global warming (which wouldn't have been the case even if they were right), just goes to show that they're simply not interested in either learning the science, or engaging in a real debate.

Interesting, because the climate scientists who have been caught out in this scandal seem to be the ones working hard to avoid a real debate. In addition, the email quotes were the low-hanging fruit, publicized without hours of the leak/hack. There hasn't been time to properly parse the data. Will more dirt be found? Maybe, maybe not.

While I get where you're coming from, viz. expertise, climate science isn't that esoteric. It's hard, uncertain science, but the results are not complicated. That's why they put up those graphs. Temperature? Going up! Except now we find out by peeking into the sausage factory that it's not that simple, because of a lot of statistical dodges, data massaging and other manipulations. Are they valid? Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to tell, since climate scientists don't want to reveal their models because that might impair their ability to get funding. Especially if their models aren't as robust as they want people to believe. While that's not a simple problem, it's got little to do with science and a lot to do with politics. Expertise is not required to smell a rat.

It's probably not fair to say they were ripping customers off. Wal*Mart's economies of scale allow it to do things a mom-and-pop simply can't do.

However, when my tire went flat on a Fourth of July weekend, it wasn't the mom-and-pop tire stores that were open. It was Wal*Mart.

Thank God we have Google to defend the end-users' interests.

Seriously, is there anything that Google can't provide? Maybe they should run everything!

I'd suggest disabling javascript and calling it a day.

FWIW, this is Slashdot. You can be pretty confident that a Slashdot user is aware of disabling Javascript, and of NoScript, and all the other obvious non-solutions. You can also be confident that if they haven't done so, there's a pretty good reason. In my case, the trouble it fixes is not as bad as the trouble it causes. Not a few Web sites do not work, or work poorly without Javascript. Sometimes it's even useful.

This has been a problem going all the way back to 1995 with a million nested tables and IMG tags with no width or height attributes. It's simply bad design and the bad habit of blindly following trends. People do that because good design is hard and expensive, and following trends is easier and cheaper than developing an individual marketing campaign.

With NoScript on and off, the web is a totally different place

Yes. Quite often completely non-functional, because the site requires Javascript to do anything.

Usually this is followed by an assertion that the site's developer is a clueless knob--which may be true, but doesn't help at all. This is the Web we deserve, I suppose: 6 megabit cable connections and dual-core 2.5 gigahertz processors that can't render a forum page for Pokemon addicts in under 8 seconds.

And all other "add this piece of Javascript to your Web page and make it more awesomer!"

Yes, yes, they're useful. And you can't fathom a future without them. But in the meantime I'm watching my status bar say, "completed 4 of 5 items", then change to "completed 11 of 27 items", to "completed 18 of 57 items", to "completed... oh screw this, you're downloading the whole Internet, just sit back, relax and watch the blinkenlights".

Remember when a 768kbps DSL line was whizzo fast? Because all it had to download was some simple HTML, maybe some gifs?

I want my old Internet back. And a pony.

I think most people are that way. Most people tolerate TV ads, for example, or use those discount cards at the grocery store.

I was willing to let Facebook know some things for their service, but not now. I got tired of every few months having to play the most played (and least popular) game on Facebook, "Oh Jesus, What's Changed Now, And How Can I Make It Go Away?". The News/Live feed thing did it for me. Yeah, I really want some Facebook programmer's script to determine what's "interesting" or "not interesting" for me. Who would think that's a good idea?

I didn't compare them. I made a jocular analogy to highlight the tendency for some people to overreach and why some people find that annoying. You interpreted it to fit your preconceived arguments, so I told you to go pound sand.

We can debate the fine line between logical speculation and hand-waving and story-telling if you want to (I don't), but as I said, if there were definitive science you'd point to it. There isn't. What you offered instead was a dodge, suggesting that I should go study biochemistry and self-organizing systems. It's clear to me that you haven't thought very carefully about this and prefer to wrestle strawmen.

I'm not entirely unfamiliar with what's gone on in this field. For example, I know enough that your suggestion that I "look into basic biology" and "self-organization in nature" is pretty much bluster. If you could point to a self-replicating cell created in the lab under conditions that seemed likely 3 billion years ago, you would. You can't, so you insinuate that I'm talking out of my ass and try to condescend.

Arrogance, in other words--though I have doubts that you're a scientist. More likely just an enthusiast with a grudge.

While there's a lot of good, interesting science going on here, some of it suggestive, that's all it is. Speculate all you want, but be honest enough to say it's speculation.

Wasn't part of Saddam's beef with Kuwait in Iraq War 1.0 that the Kuwaitis were slant-drilling? Or was it the other way around?

Or as P.J. O'Rourke says, "The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then get elected and prove it."

It's not that scientists haven't been able to reproduce what happened over a million years that engenders skepticism. It's that scientists manage to make a nut and a bolt in the lab, and evolution cheerleaders point to it and say, "And in a million years, it becomes a car! WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW, JESUS BOY?"

I think it's neat that we're getting hints about how life can possibly form from ordinary chemistry. But they're just hints, and it's just a possibility. Hand-waving, story-telling and invoking the million-year magick is not all that enlightening.

Who is using Netbeans?

Is there any major Internet site or technology that relies on it?

This sounds like the kind of announcement that will make two or three dozen Netbeans programmers gnash their teeth, and everybody else go, "....so?"