Per the article, that's not what happened.

Pre-Columbus, the Native population of the Americas was many, many times larger than most people imagine - on the order of 80 million people. This population actively cleared land via slash-and-burn agriculture and generally comported themselves the way humans do (contrary to the popular imagination of Avatar-esque tiny populations living in perfect harmony with nature)

When Columbus made contact, he passed on smallpox and diptheria, and the subsequent wave of epidemics wiped out 90% of the Native population. Along with this, most of the previously cleared land was reforested, and the theory is that the reforestation pulled out enough atmospheric CO2 to cause a temperature drop due to lack of greenhouse effect.

Note that the tiny Native populations encountered by later European explorers were the remnents of the mass pandemic extinctions that played out "offstage" from European observation.

DG

Widely accepted conclusion, based on overall sales numbers. No computer has ever shipped as many units as the C64*.

Games undoubtedly led would-be hackers to computing, and Atari had enormous influence on gaming - but far less so on computing. The Atari 400/800/ST family never achieved a fraction of the sales that the VIC-20/C64/C128/Amiga did.

DG

*The IBM PC being viewed here as a succession of compatible models, not as an aggregate of all PC-compatibles ever built. And even then, the C64 outsold the PC and PC-XT by a considerable margin.

The C64 was the most successful "personal computer" ever built, and more or less created the whole concept of "home computer".

Plus it trained an entire generation of future hackers - the guys who went on to build the modern Internet ecosystem.

And don't get me started on the influence of the Amiga, because I'll be a while stopping.

Atari was nowhere near as influential in the personal computer space as C=. Not by a country mile. (Games are another story)

DG

You're either joking or high. Those answers were great - and funny.

DG

And Scarrens.

DG

That makes me wonder how much energy is being transferred to / from this planet every time its orbit speeds up / slows down.

I bet it's not the most geologically stable place in the universe - assuming it isn't a gas giant.

DG

Good for you. I'm sure your mother would be proud.

DG

The NSA has nothing to do with our encryption.

DG

It's "military-grade" because it is a military encrypted fax machine.

For obvious reasons, I'm not going to discuss the encryption technology involved - save to say that it is very secure.

DG

We have military-grade encrypted fax machines.

They are by far the best way to send sensitive documents quickly and securely.

DG

Way to skew the curve, n00b.

DG

I prefer "tribal elder", myself, over "ancients".

DG

I still read daily, although my comment frequency has dropped somewhat.

Notwithstanding, I'm not leaving.

Odd how /. has been one of the few constants in my life over the past years. I have read and posted to slashdot from a Solaris machine in my cubicle, from a Linux machine in my house, and from a terminal in Afghanistan.

Good luck Rob. You did good here.

DG

I cannot say I disagree with any single stated point, but there is a theme - a pair of themes, actually - heavily implied that I simply cannot agree with.

The first is that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation.

The second falls from the first; that given the need for procreation, the only valid marriage is between a man and a women.

My wife and I are infirtile; happily, neither of us particularly want children, so we don't lament this. What we are is equal partners in life, helpmeets in all things. Of all the people in the world, she is the only one I can truly trust, and the reverse is equally true.

I defy anyone to make the case that our marriage is in any way inferior to that of one that has produced children. Indeed, being an observer of many the hollow, empty, sorrow-filled marriages of our friends (no matter how fruitful) I have no problem stating that our childless marriage is a good deal stronger than many that have produced progeny.

And with that being the case, it is an easy stretch to imagine her male, or me female, and yet maintaining the same bond. The bond is not a function of which genitalia we are equipped with. There is no requirement for us to be a male/female pair to make this marriage work as well as it does.

I am fully in agreement with you that the secret to a solid marriage is equal partnership. A marriage founded in inequality is doomed to failure. But I strongly disagree that equality flows from procreation.

DG

Back when I was doing the whole pro race driver thing, I'd spend several hours a week on a PS/2 and several different driving games.

It's not *exactly* the same - in particular, a lot of feedback about where the tires are relative to the grip level comes through your ass - but there's enough overlap to make the exercise worthwhile.

And especially for road courses like LeMans, the game (which duplicates the track pretty faithfully) can be a real help trying to memorize where the course goes. Much of road racing is knowing which turn follows which an where the racing line is.

Jacques Villeneuve used to do the same thing.

On the military side of things, AFV simulators like Steel Beasts Pro (which uses the real-life FCS and realistic ballistics) is great turret training. I had to be shown where the various controls were in the real turret, but once my face was in the sight, it was exactly the same. Shocked the hell out of the IG when the "newbie" was putting rounds on target and making the right corrections on his very first live fire.

So yes, for certain skills, simulation games can make a huge difference in Real Life.

DG