Pangloss

No. Web 2.0 refers to dynamic, data-driven web applications that are built on the fly in response to what the visitor is looking for (or what the provider wants them to see). It also refers to the behind-the-scenes intermingling of data sources to produce more complex and interesting web applications, such as a page that takes a data source of barber shops and their addresses and "mashes it up" with Google Maps, showing you the locations of said barber shops. All of which happens on good old Internet 1.

Lol, talk about straddling the fence. I actually started the last three paragraphs of the above post with the word "but".

Some interesting points. Thanks for elaborating. As Sisyphus points out above, there have been advances in economics in recent years that appear to be mitigating the cyclical nature of economics. George Will and Robert Reich (Clinton's Secretary of Labor) discussed this briefly on a talk show on Sunday and I thought it was interesting that over the last 15 years the cycles have greatly smoothed out. One thing that I think we should review our level of concern about is the "gap" between the "haves" and the "have nots". This was a useful indicator when the "have nots" couldn't feed or clothe themselves, but today that monicker applies to people who own cars and houses and Xbox 360s and DVD players and all sorts of things. The fact that the gap between the Joneses and the people who can't keep up with them is growing -- is that really something I need to be forced to deal with in the form of higher taxes and subsidies for these "have nots"? (And even if you dispute what constitutes a "have not", can we at least agree that giving these specific people more money just to even out the disparity is unnecessary? Isn't that just another form of greed?) On another subject, Norman raised the issue of where to put the garbage. But I seem to recall a recent episode of Bullsh*t in which it was stated that all the US's garbage, if combined, could be placed in a relatively small parcel of land just a couple of square miles in size. Perspective is a funny thing, and something that I think people of science should be more cognizant of. That's assuming it's true, of course -- Bullsh*t is hardly a reliable source. Another subject raised by Normal was unchecked land use. This in my view is a very valid concern and one which actually doesn't entirely relate to population growth. There is probably a connection there, sure, but I think urban sprawl is tied more to economic growth. At the very least there's more than one factor at work there. We could well take away more land from nature even if we were shrinking in size, don't you think? But I agree with the concern, and I think it's a great example of the "tragedy of the commons" problem that faces local governments. Heck, as I write this I'm sitting on a piece of land that by all natural forces should be under several inches of water in the Everglades. How the Everglades has been handled (or not handled) over the years is a prime example of this tragedy in action. But there's good news here that I think also has to be taken into consideration. We spend money on these things and we learn from our mistakes. The Everglades is no longer directly threatened by expansion because of laws and regulations (my land was reclaimed before I was born, btw -- the only thing my house displaced was an old parking lot). We accept our mistakes and we learn and we move forward, and there's no better example of that than where I live. But it's not a fait accompli by any means. When we reclaimed this land we undertook a permanent obligation, and ongoing, generational conservation duty is necessary. For example, a recent, post-Katrina study included the Everglades as an area where dikes and dams are failing due to lack of sufficient maintenance. Clearly more attention is needed there. And Florida is considered one of the SUCCESS stories. Obviously we can and need to do better.

That's interesting. Is that a serious concern? I thought Europe was perceived to have a growing immigration problem -- wouldn't that offset any losses due to a 2-parents-1-child trend?

Still not seeing the problem here. Are you concerned about world population growth overwhelming natural resources?

As much as I'd love to believe that would work, I just don't think that would be sufficient to stop all the empathy-based objections. Half of them would be screaming about "animals being lobotomized just so we can eat them", and the other half would be screaming that they still had some semblance of intelligence/emotion/pain/etc. That would be fairly amusing if it were tried, though, just to see an example of "Rescue Terri Schiavo Syndrome" coming from the left rather than the right. The irony there would be quite... delicious.

Actually Virginia's newest Senator has a son in Iraq. Of course he was just elected in November, beating out incumbent George "Macaca" Allen. I seem to recall there being a presidential candidate who has or had a son in Iraq. Unfortunately I can't recall the name at the moment. I want to say Sam Brownback, but in checking his Wikipedia article it doesn't mention it, so my memory may be playing tricks on me. As for the House, I believe a couple of current House members have actually served in Iraq during the current conflict, having also been elected recently. But of course they also weren't there when the run-up to war came down. I don't know if any sitting House members who were there during the run-up also have family members who served (didn't Michael Moore mention one in Fahrenheit 9/11?). At any rate, it's certainly an understandable sentiment, regardless of its technical accuracy.

The US population is growing, for exactly the reason ecoli mentions. But I'm not really sure I understand the problem that Norman is trying to outline for us. Can you expand a bit on what your concerns are?

I still think plants have emotions....

Lol, maybe some folks just don't like to be reminded that it's still winter. I suppose we could take a poll or something....

There was also a report out this week that less sleep contributes to overeating, due to changes in the chemicals that cause your brain to think you're full or hungry. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=2855457

It's still winter, isn't it?

Ah, but what if those were Richard Reid's shoes! (grin) That cartoon was a riot. BTW, regarding John's comment above, it's interesting that CNN was running this story while sitting in the same building as the Cartoon Network. You'd think somebody at CN would have CNN turned on and run down the hall to straighten them out. Or maybe they did, only it wasn't to straighten them out but rather to tell them to keep going!

I'm glad you feel that way. It's exactly what we've been working to achieve there.

There was resistance, and it wasn't just the far-left, anti-war crowd. It was far more substantial and realistic than what we saw during the run-up to invading Afghanistan. You're forgetting the whole "give them more time" argument that was common at the time, and the fact that voting for war was considered a bargaining chip for negotiations on the WMD issue as well as a support-the-troops issue. You're welcome to your opinion, of course, on how that all went down. Whoever coined the phrase "hindsight is 20/20" was clearly not interested in political debate. (chuckle)

Of course you are, Lance. You don't accept the evidence. Therefore you're a GWD. Welcome to the club. Hemp necktie fittings are on Thursdays!

I think that's a perfectly reasonable opinion, KLB. I also happen to think it likely would have played out exactly the same way under another president. Two wrongs don't make a right, but there is an individual component to the things you are speaking of, as well as a media frenzy component. It seems unlikely to me that Al Gore or John Kerry would have fared any better at "calming things down".

Well that's an interesting thought, but I think we're really more interested in real-world physics than speculative philosophy here (in this particular thread). (Or am I just misunderstanding Jackson33?)

(coff) Boy I really didn't quite get to cooper267's post in time, did I? (grin) I hope you don't mind, Snail, but I've deleted part of your post where you quoted the post that I deleted for inappropriate content. (He cussed somebody out, for those wondering, but it's been handled so let's move on.)

Nice explanation, thanks. I've been really unclear about that differential business, but that helped quite a bit.

Now now, let's be polite to the newcomer please. Welcome, Boss.

I didn't really take from KLB's post that he blames Bush for everything. But Paranoia has a point as well. There's room for criticism in a number of directions. Do you want to rant about Bush, or do you want to talk about overreactions to 911? These are two different subjects.

I removed Cooper's last comment, which unfortunately happened just as Insane_Alien posted above, so that may look a little odd.

Er, didn't Einstein prove that it's NOT instant?

I can understand your point (and Mokele's) in this area, and it even seems reasonable to me. But the thing that gets me is that we spend so much time carefully culling out these dangerous things and then carefully crafting public perception on them that we don't realize that what we may actually be doing is not influencing public perception, but rather policing opinions and ideas. The ironic thing here is that Mokele just got through making an argument that only paying people what their labor affords constitutes the same thing as not allowing them their freedom to live. In other words we have to set aside practical issues in favor of romantic notions. But here we're being asked to do the opposite -- to pay heed only to the real world, and not worry about silly things like freedom of speech. In other words, someone might say that this "anti-gay" thing doesn't constitute a freedom of speech argument because it's not technically censorship (we're not talking about government actions, we're only talking about public actions). But at the same time we're told that we have to cross the exact same line of unrealism when it comes to paying people a "fair wage". This is a stereotypical far-left catch-22. I don't care so much about this issue; in general I agree with much of what's been said here by Mokele and Sayo. What bothers me is the larger issue that's raised by the constant, never-ending social vigil of political correctness.