Actually, we probably do want to care about that. We know Earth's environment is changing but be don't really know why. Our planet is a single data point in the solar system, which makes analysis a little difficult.
Is Mars getting warmer or colder? Is Jupiter? Why is Jupiter's atmosphere visibly changing? If all other planets in the solar system are getting warmer/colder, shouldn't we expect Earth's temperature to change as well?
It's like a bright neon sign flashing "Clearly Explained Reason for Increased Solar System Exploration", but the space agency budget folks will likely ignore it and attempt to gain public support through some asinine vision quest thing instead.
I agree that sending probes thought the solar system is interesting, but other planets are not worming.
PS: This is the second time the band has disappeared discovering why that happens may be interesting like the North pole hexagon cloud pattern over Saturn but it's probably not a temperature effect: http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060519/full/news060515-17.ht...
Do we have sufficient data to conclude that other planets are not warming? How far back does our accurate, consistent measurement go? Years? A decade or two?
I'm not sure we have sufficient data to conclude anything right now. We know astoundingly little about the neighbourhood we live in.
I don't want to sound like too much of a jackass here, but do you have any reason to think that other planets are warming? The rhetorical technique of "pose a question without any real backing, then demand proof when someone answers" drives me nuts.
Yes. For one, there's that big ol' fusion furnace in the middle of the place that's tossing out a variable amount of energy as time goes on.
Examining the weather of other planets would help explain if solar activity or other factors are affecting planetary temperatures more than recent human actions.
Jupiter is far enough from the sun that it already emits significantly more heat than it receives. So the sun becoming more active won't have any measurable effect on Jupiter, or any other of our gas giants, or Pluto or Charon.
If any planets ARE warming because of an increase in solar activity, the ones we should expect to see a change on are Venus, Earth, and Mars.
Venus is a good example of what happens if the greenhouse effects run amok, and Mars is a good example of the opposite. We're in the middle, at least for now.
You don't get to just label contrary scientific findings as 'political', and dismiss it out of hand. Here's the published paper that the article refers to:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/3/2/024001/
The correlations don't hold up under analysis, and that's really all there is to be said on the subject. But if you feel that you can refute that paper with evidence, then go for it. I for one would love for you to be right, It's no doubt save me (and everyone else on the planet) a whole load of economic pain. Sadly, reality does't seem to be going along with my desires.
I didn't dismiss/refute/claim anything or intend to start yet another global warming flame war. I'm probably as familiar with that research as you are and I'm not refuting it.
If other planets are warming/cooling then something is responsible for it. If it's not the sun, then it's something else related to planetary environments with which we are not familiar. Studying that would be A Good Idea, regardless of where people stand on global warming, because examining Earth alone just gives us a single data point.
What's happening on Mars? Does it parallel the changes we're seeing on Earth to some degree? What's happening in Jupiter's atmosphere to bring about such a dramatic change in a short period of time?
Could we see a similar dramatic change on this planet?
Do we have sufficient data to conclude that other planets are not warming?
Yes.
The theory that the sun is causing global worming fails on several levels and there is zero evidence from the data we have that global the sun is causing global warming.
PS: Presenting a theory with zero support and then requesting more evidence from theory’s that have support is not rational behavior. You can request all the evidence you want but at the end of the day whichever theory has the MOST evidence is more likely to be correct.
Jupiter's atmosphere is really complex, probably more so than the Earth's due to its internal heat, high spin rate and lack of surface. I'm not sure we should look there for clues about the changes in the Sun. Probably much easier to just measure the solar output.
It's the unfriendliness of the editor_s_ which has been the problem in my experience.
When someone goes through the trouble of creating a well-cited article only to have it deleted for being 'not notable', they're unlikely to bother again. If there's a Wikipedia issue to resolve, it's the deletionists and the strange environment which encourages their behaviour.
Any anyway, how do you explain going from single-celled creatures to working organisms with a trillion cells? Darwin claims species are driven by their environment to better compete - is that not something like perfecting them?
Estimated selling prices for lunar He3 are around $6-10 million per kg (with the commercial viability of even that figure being pretty optimistic), so I'm going to go with 'no'.
When you've become your planned '10-year self' and are running a company, you'll find that there is no up-side to giving a no-hire an honest reason for your decision and plenty of down-side for doing so. As an example here, the binary decision not to hire you as an employee has created such a grudge that, almost two years later, you're still bitter enough to compose a rant against the company -- even though you never set a foot inside the place!
How bad would your rant have been if you were told "you're just not strong in <certain knowledge you thought you had cased>" or "a colleague told us that you were exceptionally difficult to work with in high-pressure situations and often became bitter if you didn't get your way"? What would the up-side have been for the company telling you these things? Wouldn't your bad-mouthing have just become worse, with your rant here (and elsewhere?) even nastier?
Yes, it would be nice if we could all tell no-hires exactly what they need to work on, but it is a very rare person who would say "Thanks for the rejection! That's awesome feedback and I'll tell everyone how you've managed to make me a better developer!"
As an example here, the binary decision not to hire you as an employee has created such a grudge that, almost two years later, you're still bitter enough to compose a rant against the company -- even though you never set a foot inside the place!
Not such a grudge. I just thought I'd point out a discrepancy between image and reality. I have no idea if this reflects at all on Joel, and I'm sure that Fog Creek is a better place to work than 94% of all companies. The two Fog Creek programmers I've had substantial discussions with have impressed me.
How bad would your rant have been if you were told "you're just not strong in <certain knowledge you thought you had cased>"
I'd ask for advice and maybe the name of a textbook or open source project that I could learn from. I was unemployed at the time, and one great thing about being unemployed is that you have a lot of free time in which to learn things.
or "a colleague told us that you were exceptionally difficult to work with in high-pressure situations and often became bitter if you didn't get your way"?
That's excellent information (in the sense of being useful; it's obviously bad news). It means that you need to use someone else as a reference.
Of course, one of the first things they did was add a prominent "Send your feedback to Google!" link so customers could tell them exactly what they liked and disliked about the service.
It always bugged me how Rumsfeld was slagged for that statement. I found it a very clear explanation of the difficulty in assessing a chaotic environment.
Agreed. Much like the "series of tubes" comment from Stevens -- that's a perfectly good analogy, and one that technically-inclined people use all the time in some variant like "fat pipes". He said so much other ridiculous stuff that I can't understand why people picked on the one thing that almost made sense.
No, Stevens was mocked because he rambled like Grandpa Simpson about how staffers sent him "an Internet" that took 5 days to reach him because the tubes were clogged. "Series of tubes" is merely the most memorable quote from that bizarre stream of consciousness.
And, he was the guy in charge of regulating the Internet in the Senate.
Time travel would be spiffy, but how easy is it to contact the Buzz engineers now?
If you've ever dealt with Google "technical support" (even if you're a customer who shovels them buckets of cash each week) you'll find that it's nearly impossible to reach an actual human being who can help you.
Convoluted as it is, getting a blog post ranked top in Hacker News seems the easiest (only?) way to get a genuine Google issue addressed. I hope they address this one AND create an actual means of contacting the people who are supposed to be running the place.
Exactly , I'm just furious about the buzz thing, so I wanted to send a feedback email to them, but... seems like there is no one there.
Seems like a bunch of geeks with autism that fail to understand that what they do in people's mail affect them enormously, is not a game, and you should ask them. People understanding 101.
Seems like this mathematical and logical geniuses are relationships retarded.
An e-peititon is going to do nothing. This nonsense distracts people from actual effort and helps bills like this get passed.
If you want to make an impact, the minimum you should do is write a letter to your MP, on paper, sign it and send it to them by post. Letters and phone calls (but particularly letters) are the currency your MP uses to gauge public opinion. Use them.
I think the whole point of the government petition website is to gauge public opinion. I think it'll do more than 'nothing'. I'd agree though, write letters as well.
Since an e-petition site like the one linked gives people opposed to an issue the impression that they've accomplished something, those people are that much less likely to do something substantive to resolve the issue they're concerned about [Citation_Needed -- I couldn't be bothered to find it].
So, less is actually done to oppose the issue than if the site never existed in the first place. It actually helps those who are in favour of the issue opposed.
E-petitions aren't useless: They're worse than useless.
Is Mars getting warmer or colder? Is Jupiter? Why is Jupiter's atmosphere visibly changing? If all other planets in the solar system are getting warmer/colder, shouldn't we expect Earth's temperature to change as well?
It's like a bright neon sign flashing "Clearly Explained Reason for Increased Solar System Exploration", but the space agency budget folks will likely ignore it and attempt to gain public support through some asinine vision quest thing instead.