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“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” -- Charles Darwin

I don't think anyone is trying to argue that global warming will bring about the extinction of humanity. However, that doesn't mean that millions aren't at risk of dying due to climate change, especially in Africa.

I like how Bush uses "activist judges" as an excuse for his religiously-derived intolerance.

The proles would rather be members of the oligarchy than proles? Imagine that...

Well, the link is from his official MySpace artist profile... and it'd be really damn hypocrticial of him to release a song called "Download This Song" and not offer it as a free download, don't you think?

We don't know if the universe is finite or not. I'd like to think it is, but it certainly isn't scientific knowledge...

I beg to differ. Strong AI can do not only that, but it could do it better than a human.

Got me. But the always credible Wikipedia says they use ionic wind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifter_(ionic_propulsion_device)

The Last Question

You know, I could try to explain it to you, but MC Lars has already done such an awesome job: Download This Song

AFAIK it has been explained as the "ionic wind" effect (the kind those crappy "Ionic Breeze" air purifiers/unintentional ozonators use). NASA stuck one of them in a vacuum, turned on the juice, and... nothing.

http://tor.eff.org

Well, at the behest of Pangloss I'm making a new thread for this. He disagreed that the key points of Al Gore's crazy new global warming movie, An Inconvenient Truth, are valid. Actually, there's a few things I do want to address whose validity I dispute (well, not so much validity as scientific knowledge). But I'll try to summarize them here: 1. Global warming is real The general nature of the Earth's radiative imbalanche has been well-understood for over a decade. We know the Earth absorbs more energy than it radiates, so there can be no question of this, really. 2. Anthropogenic forcings are the primary cause Again, there's been little scientific debate about this for quite sometime. The debate lies entirely within the specifics. But anthropogenic forcings outnumber natural forcings in both scope and intensity 3. Global warming will result in a catastrophic loss of both human and animal life The nature of climate vulnerabilities is still rather speculative in nature, but in general we're seeing an extreme potential for water vulnerability in the coming years, which in and of itself could cause massive loss of life. As to whether we'll have "100 million refugees" or see sea levels rise to where Al Gore claims they will is another matter entirely. 4. Global warming is causing increased storm intensity I believe this is correct, but Al Gore portrays it as undisputed, scientific knowledge. His key source for this is likely to be the Webster et al 2005 which demonstrated a correlation between increasing SST and hurricane intensity, however at least two papers, Klotzbach 2006 and Michaels et al 2006 have come out contradicting the Webster paper's findings. Gore further draws a direct connection between the devistation wrought by Hurricane Katrina and global warming, something I really disklike. I think Hurricane Katrina was more indicitive of the need for better civic planning than it was the effects of global warming. 5. We have passed the tipping point and global warming will continue to accelerate out of control I think we have too little knowledge of nonlinearities and feedback loops within the earth's climate system to really judge when we've passed the tipping point. I'm guessing we're probably quite near it if we haven't passed it already (and by tipping point, I really mean a number of tipping points which affect a variety of different feedback loops within the climate system), but again, that statement is not scientific and is still being disputed. There are certain tipping points which do appear to have been passed, for example, one which occurs when the surface albedo of melting sea ice is flipped almost diametrically as the same surface the highly reflective sea ice covered becomes highly absorbant ocean water. Those who disputed the global scope of melting polar ice (including myself) have really been put in their place by a recent series of papers documenting the simultaneous melting of both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. (or rather, a continuous decrease in average levels of summer sea ice) Overall I think the movie is a good presentation of recent climate science research, but the papers he presents are cherrypicked to meet his alarmist agenda. I think his brainchild Kyoto was a pathetically stupid idea and I think Bush made the correct decision in refusing to go along with it, although I think he did so for the wrong reasons. Overall, it's still a good movie and I would certainly recommend it.

I think Diebold fu*ked up. Was it a malicious attempt to skew the results of the election? I don't know... the angry Bush hating liberal in me wants to cry conspiracy over the Diebold contract, but I have no evidence, and even if I did, it's a moot point now. So I've kind of grown apathetic...

And actually, that's what I thought it was at first, but that information is not what HHO is alleged to be. It's supposed to be a "magnecule" where the hydrogen atoms have a unique bond which doesn't match any existing valence model.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060602172512.htm So the burning question is... how long until we fully reverse engineer the brain?

Well, the thing about endangered species is if you kill them en masse they tend to go extinct

While an Inconvenient Truth is a lot of alarmist claptrap rhetoric, his key points are dead on. Step one would be to integrate with an international governing body, i.e. the UN Well, you didn't support them. Can you give an example of how the WTO has "helped" 3rd world nations?

I'd save my own child. However, whether or not such an action is moral is a different question entirely.

On the contrary, the global economy is a necessary part of human progress. However, I wish a more ecumenical view were given towards ensuring competative advantage, so that 3rd world countries need not resort to things like sweatshop labor to fight out a niche in the global economy.

Umm, I've been watching the series since its inception and have seen virtually every episode. I also live in Colorado and get all the inside Colorado jokes you non-Colorado folks don't They're obviously libertarians... I just happen to think they're liberaltarians

I've been looking more into Tesla's idea for wireless power and it turns out I grossly misunderstood it. I've discovered he intended to transmit electricity into the earth and air at the Schumann resonance, which is determined by the distance between the ionosphere and earth. His goal was ultimately to fill the Schumann cavity with non-Hertzian (???) waves, using resonance to gradually build the wave intensity until the cavity was effectively "filled" and devices could begin tapping into it. More power stations could be added as demand on the system increased. Possible? Impossible? Completely insane?

And I always thought its goal was to help its members continue to profit off the backbreaking labor of 3rd world nations. Re: the topic, allofmp3 went down a few weeks ago, but was back up. I despise the WTO and think they represent capitalism at its worst. I also despise the RIAA and wonder how long before they realize they're championing an outmoded distribution model.

Norman Lear liberalism. In the end, as much of a douche as Meathead is, you know he's right and Archie's wrong. And Cartman is really little more than Archie Bunker for Generation Y I'd call the show liberal but I call myself liberal and liberals piss me off left and right. So....