Posts by Rune Moberg
142 posts • joined Monday 11th June 2007 09:15 GMT
man-made climate changes
Alpha Tony, I am inclined to believe that man can influence climate, but no evidence suggests that CO2 is 'it'. Past increases of CO2 _follows_ an increase in temperature, not the other way around. So whatever we are doing to improve the climate (warmer temperatures combined with an increase in CO2 means lots more green plants and will help fight desertification), CO2 isn't it.
What works...
"might nonetheless want to pass on the word in other ways that lying is no way to convince people to support green action."
Lying has worked well for these guys for a long time already. I fail to see more effective ways of making sure other people's wealth gets distributed into your own pockets. This was never about environmentalism, but selling a doomsday prophecy to the masses; Mission accomplished.
Re: multimillionaire seeks funding?
"If you donate $25 and you're one of the first 5000 to do so, you get a free copy of the game, otherwise you get nothing."
Take another look at the kickstarter project. Since they have reached 5000 punters at the 25 dollar level, that pledge level is now closed off.
The next level is still open (391 left as of now). I.e. you're not betting on being one of the 5000 first. As long as your cash is accepted, you are already qualified.
It is almost as if someone has done this before.
Re: multimillionaire seeks funding?
...so you are saying that a kickstarter project is no different from buying games in a regular store? I've certainly bought some bricks that way and when you take it back to the store they can't refund you your money "because you might have made copies!" (butbutbut it had this fantastic DRM system that is supposed to protect against such things but instead crapped all over my computer?).
I have put up money in two kickstarter projects. Part of the fun is seeing if anything will come of it. (LSL remake + SpaceVenture)
Re: FFS!
"billions of tons of crap into the air"
The sad part is that all this focus on CO2 (food for the plants -- a required component for most, if not all, life on this planet) diverts attention away from the real pollution (NOx, SO2, particles, etc).
Case in point: Politicians in Norway favored diesel some years ago because diesel cars emit less CO2. The result is more serious respitory health issues in the larger cities.
Re: Writer was intent on high risk of failure
In two of my cars, when it reaches 0, there is usually enough fuel vapors left to drive another 100+ km. (and then, at the petrol station, I fill 73 liters of fuel into a tank specified to hold 70. I guess some fuel hides in various pipes and tubes)
Besides... For long trips, I bring a 5 liter spare can "just in case". Once, in Greece, I was driving around at night. I had to deploy my emergency fuel tank and then barely managed to reach an open gas station (turned out the guy had just started the first shift moments earlier).
Either way; Yes, a normal car can run out of juice as well, but the result is not nearly as dramatic.
Re: Well.
NomNomNom -- you are obviously not from Norway, nor have you lived here.
Norwegian scientists are more often than not on one crusade or another. Political biases run rampant.
This report will not receive any attention in Norway, and if that fails they will make sure that they quote the one bit that does not rely on any scientific evidence.
Norway is one freaky nation as we talk the loudest concerning "climate change", yet do not reduce our oil production by a single barrel. Instead we are still searching out new fields.
Which makes complete sense for those of us that think the myths concerning CO2 are mostly designed to scare us into paying even more taxes.
The notion that a vital component for all green life on Earth is somehow poisonous should require a substantial amount of proof. Sadly, the green activists have long ago decided that proof is not necessary. (the anti-H2O petition amply demonstrates this)
Haines, The Next Generation
"They'll thank me one day for organising these family bonding exercises, I have no doubt."
I am probably stating the obvious when I point out that they are more likely to send for brochures from retirement homes as soon as they become of age. If you are lucky. ;)
That aside, I thoroughly enjoyed your story. My apartment in Sweden can't handle me running the washing machine and the dishwasher at the same time. Coming from electricity-rich Norway, that was something of a cultural shock to me. I would probably have freaked out had I been in your shoes (what size do you wear?).
lifting people
petur, we do not have to lift "several billion people".
Only the hairdressers, account executives and telephone sanitizers will have to go.
Re: I don't trust the CO2 graph coral reef dashed lines.
http://www.co2science.org/data/acidification/database.php
AFAICT, corals survive better but grow a little slower (unless you really ramp up the CO2 in which case some corals show tremendous growth).
From perusing that database earlier, my impression is that the vast majority of organisms greatly _benefit_ from an increase in CO2. A result which indeed fits nicely with the fact that CO2 levels used to be much higher in prehistoric times.
But no, since James Hansen is worried his beach side property will sink into the sea, we will all have to stop exhaling this instance! (I strongly urge any warmistas to do so immediately)
Re: Keep in mind genetic engineering is practiced by *two* groups worldwide
I had an interesting chat with a local farmer a few months ago.
He told me he is growing several different types of wheat. Most notably spelt, but also emmer. "It grows everywhere, do not require antifungal treatment, no pesticides and no fertilization". I.e. bad for the chemical companies, but excellent for food production. Especially the past summers that have been extremely wet up here.
He went on to say that some of his customers have reported back that they can finally eat wheat buns again. I later looked up the topic of gluten allergy on wikipedia, and they claim that most people who think they are allergic to gluten are actually allergic to wheat and can eat spelt without any problems.
I remain skeptical towards modern farming. If we have to resort to a huge arsenal of chemicals to grow enough food, then maybe we need to take a careful look at our population growth? In my country we pay parents money for every kid they get. I think that is a silly thing to do.
Re: Simpler way to feed the world:
The price of corn was near a record low recently. The farmers are simply trying to return to profitability before more farms close down. Think of ethanol as a stop-gap measure to keep farms going while waiting for demand for food to pick up.
If you want to feel genuinely outraged, look at how much food gets thrown away every day. How can there be a shortage of food if we throw most of it in the trash?
Not that giving our food away is a great solution either. How can third-world farmers compete when we keep dumping free food in their market place? Why should they work their land for nothing?
Religion
In all fairness, most of the crticism of Darwin's theory of evolution today originates from people who believe there is a bearded guy in the sky who constructed the whole universe with everbody in it 6000 years ago (based on absolutely no observations or proof whatsoever -- just blind faith).
It is sometimes problematic to separate valid criticism from the "bible says differen'" crowd. The noise to signal ratio is not good. People eventually tire of debating with lunatics.
To GDI or not to GDI (in the kernel)
I have never seen an OS that cannot be crashed by a device driver. ("kernel panic" anyone?)
NT 3.51 was very stable, yes, but you'll find many of the same bugcheck code there as with newer iterations of NT.
In version 4.0, MS moved the GDI into the kernel. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc750820.aspx seems to explain why. Previous versions of NT would struggle on multi-processor hardware running advanced graphical applications. Photoshop was said to run _slower_ if you threw more CPUs into the mix. NT 4.0 solved that, but also increased the amount of code running in the kernel.
The thinking was that since graphics drivers were already in the kernel, and the OS so tied in with the GUI (few users will enjoy working with an empty screen and few servers will push the GDI hard enough into unchartered waters to provoke a crash) there would be few downsides stabilitywise.
I do not recall NT 3.1, 3.5 or 3.51 as being particulary more stable than NT 4 or its descendants. But, the newer versions supported much more hardware, scaled better, added many new APIs and features. More complexity too of course...
Fast forward to today, and Windows 7 is an incredibly swift and nice OS. I remember the "GDI is bad, mmhok?" debate back in '96, but that particular move has never caused me any grief. Installing antivirus software OTOH has several times wreaked havoc on my system. Once I triggered a BSOD by inserting a diskette into drive A:. Norton (I think) did not like that and immediately threw a spanner into the works. I never did trust antivirus software after that and every time I am forced to install them it feels like my system is running with scissors. It certainly moots the whole question of GDI being put in the kernel or not.
Re: Graph proves article accuracy
And the medieval warming period was also caused by human activity...
...pull the other one, it has bells on.
Re: It's the Norse gods I tell you
Well, some of them, Loki in particular, had a great sense of humor. E.g. the time when they dressed up Thor, the God of thunderstorms, as a bride (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Erymskvi%C3%B0a).
Clearly someone recently pulled another prank on Thor, hence the recent spat of bad weather.
The arctic
Ah... Yes, it was warm up north this year and a lot of ice melted. But 'unprecedented'? Funny how that report only goes back to 1979, completely missing the reports from the 1930s or the 19th century (see The New York Times archive) of ice-free waters.
Indeed, if such events equals 20 years of our CO2 emissions, then the melting witnessed in the 30s would account for 20 years of warming according to the scientist quoted in the article.
http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm claims CO2 values were as high as now a century ago.
To me, it doesn't look like we have had much of a warming the past 15 years. I would like a warmer climate with double the CO2 in the atmosphere, but so far nobody has delivered on that promise. I feel cheated.
Regional vs Global
Lewis, Lewis, Lewis...
When the ice thickens, it is due to LOCAL variations in temperature. When it melts, it is solely due to GLOBAL warming.
Re: Anders Breivik
The Baron, I suspect some of the reason for those numbers is that in Norway we put away more traffic offenders than the US (and possibly UK). Class A highways have a 100 kph speed limit and you do not have to go much above a more European speed limit before your ass ends up in jail.
As for the jail pictures in this thread, I do not think those are representative. http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10060268 shows somewhat similar, but more spartan facilities. The idea, as I understand it, is that he will share the computer room and exercise equipment with other inmates that will eventually land themselves in this high-security facility. As you can see, each room has a very solid lock, so I guess he will be on a timed schedule.
Segment size
I think he meant that the segment size was 16 bytes.
Segment * 16 + offset gives you the exact memory address. (or indeed, shift the segment register left by 4 bits before adding the offset)
That leads to (on the 80286, if not also the 80186?) a strange memory space just above 1MB (commonly referred to as "A20"): A 64KB segment addressable that you won't be able to reach with the 8086.
Re: Grand Challenge
Plus the guy operating it normally drives a Prius.
Re: Methane and Global warming
OTOH, if you reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, plants will grow much less efficient (and also require more water). Or if you reduce the temperature just a little bit and we might end up starving because food plants won't grow very well.
Better then to figure out how to keep the temperature up when the gradual cooling sets in.
Re: Many hacks have an agenda and small brain
But... Does that mean that *you* will happily take the "train, bus or a boat"? If TSA is all that stands between the terrorists and your flight, how come your "train, bus or a boat" does not go up in flames every week?
On the flip side of that particular coin: Would you suggest that TSA-grade security scans be instituted for other means of transport besides air-travel?
Is that even feasible?
Personally I do not enjoy being blown up (hehehe, very close to a raincoat icon there), be it on a plane, train or a bus. I do not see much difference. I would be just as dead on those fatal 9/11 flights as I would have on those 7/7 buses. Maybe there would be more pieces of my corpse left behind if I had been on an exploding bus rather than an exploding airplane, but I frankly could not care less at that point.
For the last couple of years I have preferred my own automobile. Not because I feel "safer" (statistically, well, you all know what they show), but because I just cannot be bothered with all the stress and hassle of air travel. I love to fly (despite learning from MS Flight Simulator that those things are NOT foolproof), but I do not like the intimacy on display at the security checkpoints. If that means (like last year) driving all the way from Sweden to Georgia (through some of the worst roads in Europe), then so be it.
...And that is what I would have written BEFORE the bastards took away our water, forcing us, in many places, to pay exhuberant prices for a tiny bottle of water to carry us through a dehydrating flight. Now airtravel has become a farce of epic proportions. I hope the bastards responsible will burn in hell.
Re: I didn't bother reading it
Stan, that is exactly why I mentioned the conditions in my part of the world. While certain people in the US cries "GLOBAL WARMING!" because they happen to have a record hot summer (in their own mind), I'm happy to point out that the warming is hardly global at all.
I expect, hope and want next summer to be a warm one. Bring on the sun!
Re: I didn't bother reading it
Watts refers to his process as "online pre-peer review". I see nothing wrong with that.
For me, the bottom line is this: Any and all doomsday prophecies (inkan or otherwise) have the burden of proof.
Especially when one of the main ingredients in photosyntesis is suddenly portrayed as the gas from Hades. That, combined with what is basically a tax on the very air we breathe smells of very bad science (aka religion).
Meanwhile, in my part of Europe we are "enjoying" the coldest summer in my recollection. Global warming, where art thou? Heck, we'd love to see improved plant growth from all that CO2 we keep hearing about, and we'd love to sit outside in the summer without wearing wool underpants.
Legacy
"When the competition is over, the equipment will be yanked out or repurposed, and the Olympic organisers' legacy team will decide who will get what."
Hold on. Surely this falls under sustainability, not legacy?
Re: 2 pence - and what of comedy?
I am only a simple foreigner, but I quite enjoyed "The Bleak Old Shop Of Stuff" which seems to have been cancelled after only one season.
As for the yanks, "The Big Bang Theory" (as you already mentioned) is a favorite of mine, but I'd rate "Modern Family" higher.
Re: Presumably
People who own/drive cars are expected to keep the tyres inflated, check the oil level (+ change it every 15000 km or yearly), keep enough gasoline in it to keep going -- all this while circumventing potholes the size of a moon crater and pesky pedestrians.
Certain precautions have to be taken when hooking up to the internet. That is unlikely to change. If I send your clients an e-mail with an executable attachment, they need to understand the risks involved in saving that attachment and play with its contents (no matter how many naked boobs I promised them in the e-mail).
Some tough love now might save all of us some major headache in the future.
Meanwhile... Last week I sent a colleague a link to dilbert.com. MSN blocked the URL until I prepended "www." to it... I fail to fathom what events must have taken place for someone to introduce such a moronic block. (a few years ago it blocked URLs containing "download.php" -- sigh).
Re: Methinks he doth protest too much...
If you are running an AV product, how do you know you don't have a virus right now?
My wife's PC got infected with a trojan. I was the one who found it and deactivated it. I renamed the executable and kept it around to see how long it would take before the AV agreed with my diagnosis. It took several weeks, if not months.
My machine at work has AV, but it never stops anything. Except it once choked on a text-file containing a URL that it felt was risky. Sigh. The AV product we are using (as well as the one we used prior to it) has caused us several concerns. E.g. we spent time diagnosing our software because it was so slow... Turns out our network overlords had activated the AV product's firewall, which included a http scanner. We lost hours on that one.
Looking back at the past 25 years, I can definitively state that AV-products have caused way more problems than they have solved for me.
Re: Oh the humanity!
I am very tempted to say "find a Mac in my area in less than 24 hours and I'll buy you a drink".
In my circles, there is about 1 Mac user for every 50 Windows user. True, it would not be hard for me to find an infected Windows machine, but it is because I know which particular user is most likely to have an infection at any given time. (OTOH maybe he has cleaned up his act by now, in that case I'd be hard pressed to find an infected Windows machine)
Re: Oh my....
And I have been a Windows NT user since 1993.
Number of malware so far (not counting that awful PowerDVD crapware that came with my burner): 0.
Most of that time I have surfed with Javascript disabled. That fended off quite a few threats in the early years.
I also avoid installing any antivirus products. They lead to a false sense of security. Case in point: I've helped people clear trojans that their AV software only managed to pick up on after quite some time (I kept a sample at work where we are forced to use AV software).
OSX has grown in popularity. Welcome to your worst nightmare.
Posted in With this ring, I thee frag
Cute, but what will transpire down the road?
After a few years of marriage, I would not be surprised if Taryn asks them to include a dishwasher brush in the game because Derek can't be bothered to do the dishes. (no worries Derek, I don't touch the dishes either)
I bet he will soon refuse all in-game "gifts".
Re: Missing the point
First of all, I trust electronics more than I trust people. I don't know what happens to my paper vote after it gets placed in the magic box. I do know that some of these magic boxes are sometimes found after the election is over, containing a bunch of uncounted votes.
Secondly, by cutting costs (both on the counting side, as well as for me, the voter), maybe we can hold _more_ elections, letting me vote on issues rather than on some pretty face with a slick tongue.
Today I do not have to visit my local bank and fill up my wallet with cold cash. I use a credit card instead, and more importantly: I can pay bills using their Internet solution.
In my country of residence, I use the same electronic ID to access my bank as well as various state services (e.g. accessing the DMV records, paying my taxes or book an appointment with my doctor).
If there is a hole in that system, then my bank account would be empty now. Well, truth be told, it is nearly empty, but for different reasons not pertaining to security issues.
Proof?
I would gladly vote for Bender in any election anywhere. He would be a great improvement over any currently elected leader out there.
How do we know that he did not win fair and square?
Re: Re: Re: Tesla is the future, old people....
Funny.
Most weeks I drive 720 km+ split over two days. Avg speed about 100 kph. (takes me 3:40 to cover 360 km, including a bit of traffic at the very end)
On the positive side of things: My car runs on E85 (Ethanol) which is the most environmentally friendly fuel known to man. It literally grows on trees, soaking up the sun's rays along the way.
"consensus"
I recommend this instead: http://petitionproject.org/
I'm not sure science by voting is the way to go. I've yet to see anyone bother explaining the various hot periods (farming on Greenland during the viking-era e.g.) of the past.
IMO, we must address the issue of over-population first. Once we get a more balanced population, then we can look at our CO2 emissions (hopefully we will still emit enough to keep the plants growing).
Do not play with the food
Seals have surprisingly tender meat. When prepared correctly, a cut of beef from a seal will melt on the mouth. The taste takes a little bit getting used to, but is delicious and quite savory. It kind of reminds a bit of whale beef, but somehow 'stronger'.
Seal meat is very nutritious and contains plenty of omega-3 fatty acid. There is a decent fish restaurant in Kirkeveien near Frognerparken in Oslo. They know how to prepare seals the proper way.
So Shakira, next time don't take pictures of the food. Just whip out your knife'n'fork and get down to business. Yum!
NT and kernel mode printer drivers
Yes, it took a while before games really started using NT, but Adobe Photoshop was one of the apps that benefitted from moving the GDI into the kernel. A dual CPU system would run PS slower than a single CPU system prior to NT4. (and keep in mind that XP kept GDI in the kernel for obvious reasons)
As for the printer drivers, they were moved back again to user mode starting with Windows 2000. (http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/09/14/kernel-mode-print-drivers-gone-the-way-of-the-dinosaur.aspx)
I quite liked NT4 back in the day, but I have never been big on printing. :P
9029
Follow the link on the first line of my comment..?
"including 9,029 with PhDs" it says in big friendly letters.
I see your 255 and raise you 8774
http://www.petitionproject.org/
9029 PhDs in the US alone who seem to not buy into the CO2-hoax.
That a gas so vital to all life on this planet should be deemed public enemy #1 is so extraordinary that IMO it requires a lot of evidence and observations to back up such tomfoolery.
Whenever I see a "we are doomed" newspaper headline, I can't help but notice that they fail to provide links to the underlying research. We, the unwashed masses, are asked to accept a helluva lot on face value alone. Quite frankly annoying.
Posted in The Sons of Khan and the Pascal Spring
GC
Ahem...
A Garbage Collector is all fine and dandy, but if you do any IO, or use any sort of resource somewhere... You have to start fiddling about with IDisposable, the using-keyword and suddenly you have one set of objects that you treat differently from everyone else.
I find it much easier to use one way of dealing with all objects. Takes the guesswork out of discovering which bastards have unmanaged resources hiding behind them.
Beach weather in Canada -- snow closer to equator
Well, not quite the equator, but my inlaws were surprised by snow in the end of November near the Georgian-Turkish border. They saw snow fall before Oslo, Norway.
So, warmer up here, colder down there.
On average, all good then.
Begs the question: To properly measure global warming (or cooling) -- where exactly do you measure? And do we blame an increase in CO2 emissions? ('No' says http://www.forskning.no/artikler/2011/desember/306493)
the terrorists won
Didn't MS issue a patch to FS so that you no longer could fly into buildings?
Atheism
As I understand it, the romans referred to Christians as "atheists", because the romans knew there were more than one God whereas the Christians had early on cleaned the bible of all scriptures that contained more than one God.
An agnostic hasn't commited to anything and is somewhat ambivalent.
The modern definition of atheism however is that the scientific approach must be followed. Occam's razor and all that. Given that no proof exists of the flying spaghetti monster, we disregard it as a kid's story. The same goes for the modern day version of Santa Clause. And the same goes for the Christian God. No proof, no dice.
You can make up any story you'd like, but unless you present any evidence, it will be just that: A story you made up.
And such kid stories should not be used as a tool to change laws or dictate how other people should live. It isn't OK to kill "witches", nor is it OK to taunt homosexuals (some good Christians even want to kill them). It is important that normal people stand up to those bible thumpers.
Troll hunter
A similar question (can a troll smell the blood of a muslim?) was explored in the Norwegian movie "The Troll Hunter": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1740707/
Highly recommended. :)
crashing the OS
One or two new hardware devices have been added to the mix since 1984...
Most of the bluescreens that occur are triggered by third-party device drivers. Windows (unless something has changed recently) is the OS that "enjoys" the most third-party support. The number of developers qualified to write good device drivers can probably be counted on one hand. Fortunately the development kits comes with good fleshed out examples that often only require minor modifications to support simpler hardware devices.
That said, it is of course extremely serious if a usermode app running as a non-admin user is able to trigger a BSOD. I do not recall something like that happening to me in 17 years of Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7 usage. I have of course experienced many BSODs due to badly written device drivers though.
Avoid ABS when you think you need it the most
On dry asphalt, ABS is marvelous. I would be very surprised if any driver (regardless of how skilled he thinks he is) could match it in any way.
On snow and ice... It only helps in those situations where you are too lazy to take your foot off the brakes so you can use the steering wheel.
The thing is that you want to lock the wheels on snow, because this increases your chances of digging the wheels deeper so they eventually touch the road surface. Plowing up snow in front of the wheels also helps.
ABS tries to mimic this by allowing the wheels to lock a bit, but the prime directive is to allow the driver the opportunity to steer the car.
Helping the environment
Where I hail from, Norway, the government announced a few months ago that they would add more taxes on diesels.
A few years ago they promoted diesel cars by lowering taxes on engines with low CO2 emissions, completely ignoring NOx and SO2 emissions.
Then, last winter, several big cities in Norway nearly choked to death and one city had to pose limits on the number of cars driving on the roads.
Clever much? Not really.
The politicians brilliantly pointed to 'new research', despite all the warnings they received prior to their first decision on lowering taxes on diesels.
That is my main objection to the AGW-hypothesis. We have important work ahead of us when it comes to limiting particle emissions. CO2 can wait. Think first, then act.
Passive farting
Now you got me worried. Has anyone carried out any studies on the potential health hazards associated with passive farting?
Obligation to give away water
That rule does not seem to apply at airports and most airplanes. They won't even allow you to bring your own water.
