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That's the only graph I've seen that shows forcing inputs graphed over time. It's based on Meehl et al. (2004) There's other graphs on the attribution of climate change to various forcings. This is the one I've seen the most, showing attribution of 20th century climate change:

HotSpot is great for small tight loops that do the bulk of your data processing, but any time a JIT'd native code segment completes you're essentially guaranteed cache misses when the VM resumes control of the CPU. In something like a complex scientific model that's essentially executing dozens if not hundreds of small transforms, you're essentially going to incur a cache miss each time you switch between transforms, or use the output of one to feed the input of another. Depending on how you structure your program the JVM/HotSpot may be able to do automatic method inlining to mitigate this, but short of hoping for the best with the JVM you really have little control and the only optimization you can do is haphazardly restructuring your program until HotSpot is able to optimize. I'm quite frustratingly having to deal with executing transforms in Java now (in this case variants of the DCT used in video codecs) and having to deal with cache misses preventing our program from working in realtime. Our solution has been a JNI extension and doing all the transforms in native code.

I found this chart long ago then lost it, but randomly stumbled upon it again. Yay Internet! Anyway, this is a breakdown of how America uses energy: It's pretty striking how much petroleum goes straight to automobiles and how much energy is wasted in general

Obama is proposing further tax cuts for the lower and middle class and a reinstantiating some of pre-Bush soak-the-rich policies. I would definitely like to see some of the wealthiest Americans taxed more, particularly by reforming the alternative minimum tax, and that's not just a bleeding heart liberal position: Warren Buffet wants it too. Of course, all that aside: why raise taxes to fund new programs? Why not reduce funding to the military, DHS, and the executive, all of which have been money squandering wastes under Bush? Or here's an even crazier idea: That which you can't account for comes out of next year's budget. That might help solve the ridiculous accounting snafus which have plagued the Defense Department for the past several years.

That's the beauty of science. Experiments are repeatable because they're methodologically performed under controlled conditions. Just because someone writes some numbers in a paper doesn't mean they're real. However, the author describes exactly how they got those numbers and how you can set up the experiment for yourself and confirm the results are real. If someone performs an experiment and gets different data, that's cause for concern, and means you should scrutinize the original paper and attempt to determine the reason for the disparity in results. However, when you have someone asserting a hypothesis, someone else testing it experimentally and determining it's false, things don't bode well for the original hypothesis until things can be demonstrated otherwise. Here's a question for you: Why hasn't Penrose performed his own experiments and determined that the decoherence time isn't too short to have an impact in the brain's behavior? Semantics are important here. The brain is physical. You can cut open someone's head, pull their brain out, and hold it in your hands, or slice it up and stick it under a microscope. You can stick someone's head in a variety of electromagnetic scanners and observe their brain using knowledge of the electromagnetic effects of various elements. You can cover the brain with sensors and observe the brain's electromagnetic emissions, etc. etc. Studies of the brain are scientific. The brain is formally defined by medical and neuroscience. The brain predictably structures itself and subcomponents of the brain operate in predictable and mathematically definable ways. Several of these pieces are the subject of mathematical / computational models, such as the neocortex and hippocampus. Consciousness is not formally defined. Short of double blind studies of perception performed by cognitive scientists, it cannot be studied scientifically. It can't be observed in the way the brain can. Consciousness is metaphysical and ontologically distinct from reality. The "missing science of consciousness" that Penrose is supposedly searching for cannot take place until there first exists a verifiable definition of what consciousness is. If I'm scared of anything, it's people purporting the scientifically indefensible to be science. Fortunately Penrose has framed his ideas in the form of a falsifiable hypothesis, allowing Tegmark to come along and demonstrate it to be incorrect. What remains isn't science. It's a metaphysical statement that Penrose failed to provide a scientific basis for. Penrose effectively concedes every one of Fefferman's points then goes on to say "But you didn't debunk my argument in Chapter 3!" This echoes a creationist who posts dozens of specious arguments and receives answers to a subset, conceding those, but continues harping "What about all my other arguments? You didn't disprove those!" Don't get me wrong: I think there will eventually be a science of consciousness. Science can define what consciousness is if a 1:1 mapping between neural activity and mental activity can be demonstrated, namely that a specific set of neural events determines the content of a specific set of mental events. This claim would be partly scientific and partly metaphysical. Penrose is trying to dodge the issue entirely by arguing that the physical events which determine the content of mental events are inherently unobservable, therefore sidestepping the rather difficult problem of scientifically defining what consciousness actually is.

Yes, the only way such a group could be successful is if those involved have absolutely nothing to do with the actual policy they're preparing science assessments for. The policy making process and science reporting process need to be completely decoupled.

Unless Tegmark's measurements are wrong, the decoherence time is too short for quantum effects to impact microtubule behavior. Penrose never tested his hypothesis experimentally. Tegmark did, and the results demonstrate it to be incorrect. If you're asking what's the source of volition, it's consciousness, which is ontologically distinct from the brain. No, particle interaction causes wavefunction collapse. "Consciousness" has nothing to do with it. Yes, just like opinion is divided between evolution and creationism. Penrose's Godelian argument was in the form of a mathematical proof. There's no room for opinion in a proof. The proof is either correct or contains an error. Penrose's proof contains errors, as Solomon Fefferman demonstrated. It is therefore wrong. Penrose's microtubule hypothesis is predictive, and therefore falsifiable by experiment. Tegmark carried out the experiments, and they do not support the hypothesis. I've posted about Penrose extensively, including multiple threads about the Road to Reality and Shadows of the Mind. Have a look here: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/search.php?searchid=352214 Penrose is a great example of why the opinion of a single scientist carries little weight when not expressed in the form of a peer reviewed paper. Don't get me wrong, he's done excellent physics work, but he's really gone off the deep end with this "science of consciousness" crap. As I said: it's intellectually dishonest.

The president and vice president are exempt from conflict of interest laws for whatever retarded reason. Cheney still has unexercised Halliburton stock options which are skyrocketing in value, however Cheney claims that they're earmarked for various charities.

If I were backing a candidate based solely on the issues I'd be a Kucinich supporter. Unfortunately Kucinich is unelectable. I think Hillary is unelectable too, although sadly she may win the primary... Obama actually stands a chance of garnering nationwide support, precisely because he's a moderate (at least compared to Kucinich)

Solar luminosity's effect on the climate system is well understood, as is the solar cycle's effect on solar luminosity. Solar forcing have not dominated climate change for decades:

An aside: universal single-payer healthcare is not socialized medicine. The latter owns the hospital systems, rather than just funding them. The former represents a government-run pooled risk system.

The entire argument behind this program is based around a composition fallacy (these schools have a problem, therefore your child's school has a problem). Differences in test scores can be explained by a number of factors, including America's ecumentical approach to education and different testing practices. Can you find a source that isn't a muckraking jackass with less than stellar journalistic credentials?

The question here is a philosophical one regarding identity. Here's some simple counterpoints: When did you start being conscious? Where do you go when you're unconscious?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070917151054.htm Implications?

Let's just keep in mind that that works both ways: http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Romney_Flier_Pride_Weekend.JPG Not going to happen. I think it's the responsibility of voters to vote for the best slimeball based on their merits and not what they say, help others to do so, and hope that the people who do buy tripe diatribes equal each other out. But realistically the masses of asses will make completely uninformed decisions.

Can you explain to me how Tegmark's measured decoherence times don't falsify Penrose's hypothesis? They aren't "controlled", they are interconnected systems which feed each other Again: "Free will" is a philosophical position which makes certain metaphysical assumptions which can't be proven or disproven by science. Furthermore, it's an ambiguous position and there are several alternatives which you can choose from. Kant suggests one form which is thoroughly compatible with both monist thinking and the brain as a classical physical system. Dennett suggests another which is in-line with materialist/physicalist thinking. Regardless of whether you espouse monism or physicalism, neither depend on the brain being a non-classical system. I suggest you read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. By adopting a monist position and Kantian metaphysics, it's possible for absolute metaphysical free will to exist even if the brain is deterministic without involving any form of dualism. QM would suggest that future states (in non-classical quantum systems) are determined by the random (but statistically predictable) way in which waveforms collapse. What does consciousness, which I hope you'd consider ontologically distinct from the physical world, have to do with the double slit experiment? The double slit experiment demonstrates that probability waves can interfere even in the case of a single particle passing through the slits. Penrose has been thoroughly debunked by the scientific, mathematical, and philosophical communities. The microtubule hypothesis has been discredited by Tegmark (see above) The Godelian proof in Penrose's Shadows of the Mind has been disproven by Solomon Fefferman (among others, here's a simpler description) Oddly enough, Fefferman is a neutral monist who does not see consciousness as being computable, but has enough intellectual honesty to argue against Penrose's attempted proof. The article you link equates computationalism to physicalism. This is entirely incorrect. Computationalism is compatible with a number of forms of monism, including epiphenominalism. Penrose and Hammeroff are misusing science and mathematics to make metaphysical statements about consciousness. This is both intellectually dishonest and incorrect. I've linked refutations of their attempts. They have made more arguments and there are more refutations available if you don't consider these substantive. Nobody cares. Knock it off already, will you?

Which "science institutes" are those? Java, while having a relatively good JIT compiler (HotSpot), is not particularly suited to the heavy math utilized by scientific programs in the same way that languages which compile directly to native code are. By the way, the proper capitalization is "Java", not JAVA or java....

The actually efficacy of a public onion routing network to provide anonymity is a subject of serious debate. The basic principle behind the onion routing structure utilized by Tor is to use three "hops", i.e. proxy servers: You -> [Entry Node] -> [Mix Node] -> [Exit Node] -> Intarweb The Entry Node knows your IP address. The Exit Node shouldn't, but can if a malicious snooper controls both the entry and exit node. Some students at the local University of Colorado have suggested that setting up networks of malicious Tor servers which advertise themselves as possessing high bandwidth can significantly improve the chances of controlling both nodes: http://www.cs.colorado.edu/department/news/torfaq.html Furthermore, merely controlling exit nodes lets you sniff traffic: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/09/embassy_hacks?currentPage=1 9 colluding Tor exit routers were spotted in Washington, DC, carrying 11% of the Tor network's traffic: http://cryptogon.com/?p=624

I saw this article as well and entirely agree there should be a non-partisan / bi-partisan agency tasked with interpreting any bills concerning science for legislators. I believe the overwhelming majority of legislators are ill-equipped in terms of science knowledge to accurately interpret science-based legislation for themselves.

Expressing regret for a failure to properly regulate the market is decidedly non-Randian, however

That's my take on pioneer...

On a tangentially related manner Alan Greenspan just repudiated himself for his own lack of foresight regarding the subprime lending crisis: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article2459578.ece

I'm interested in solving a combinatorial optimization problem

You're not going to find a scientific definition of consciousness at all. As far as science is concerned consciousness has never been observed, short of cognitive science experiments, which really don't come anywhere close to saying what cosnciousness actually is. I'd like to see a paper like this talking about a cuttlefish A more accurate one in regard to animal minds would be to compare chimpanzees and humans

The problem with that interpretation is the survey asked responders to classify the Democratic candidates as being liberal, moderate, or conservative. It wasn't specifically about Hillary. When you ask Democrats that question, Hillary is ranked among the least liberal, whereas the population as a whole ranked her as the most.