sidney_b

No, seriously. Die Zukunft has no forums. I suppose I should have had more Vigilance, but there's no forum for that either.

Also, they should change the favicon.ico file to something not vBulletin. In fact, I'm not so sure I'm completely enthusiastic about this theme.

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/e squints eyes suspiciously.

Check.

/e puts Sidney in the Jet's category.

Speak now though cause once your a Jet, you're always a Jet.


Question Two. You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down and see a tortoise....

:P

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I am confused, because the desert I'm walking in does not natively support a tortoise population.

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I KNEW IT!

/e begins formulating Turing test questions.

Question One. How do you feel?

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I feel pretty. Oh, so pretty. In fact, I feel pretty, rather witty, and bright, and I do pity any girl who isn't me tonight.

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...when we were all freshly compiled AIs...

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You're insinuating most people out there in binaryland are intelligent, if only by virtue of having been designed that way. Empiric evidence does not support that claim.

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The "we" used in that refers only to Vangelus, Bradders, and myself. While I myself cannot claim to be "intelligent", my subroutines attempt to simulate some level of higher function.

In fact, the house of his that I burned down was no more than an encrypted disk drive that I convinced to spin at OVER 9,000 RPMs when it was rated for a measly 5,400.

Not to be nitpicky, but "xenophobia" doesn't necessarily equate to white supremacists. It's really a fear and hatred of anything that qualifies as a stranger, which, when coupled with nationalism, often means anti-foreigner.

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sidney_b! Bradders!

Sup. :O

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<3

It's been a while, hasn't it? Sometimes I miss the days back when the stars were new when we were all freshly compiled AIs...

I thought VV was using MediaWiki? What's so wrong about a disambiguation page? Simple, straightforward, nobody loses anything.

Disambiguation page!

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Honestly? Collaborative fiction and fan fiction always make my teeth ache. That going away doesn't sadden me in the least.

Frankly, the content of the forum will shift over time, and probably go full circle in time.

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Personally, I found that at least the fiction was an honest productive effort on the part of the characters.

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It was actually a lot more interesting then. Mostly because we had really interesting things to post about. These days? Not so much.

Bland and harmless is about as interesting as wonderbread and mayo sandwiches.

I'm going to retch at the thought of that now.

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Not buying it. I've been around at least as long as you have, maybe longer, and I don't remember this golden age of interesting subject matter.

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Golden Age might be putting it too much. But at least occasionally one would find threads about interesting scientific developments.

In other words, threads in (my idealized version of the past) weren't just saccharine. Y'know, we'd all pretend the internet was srss bsnss.

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Unless of course what one finds interesting is flame wars

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It's all about the lulz to be had there.

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I'm glad I could contribute to the deterioration of this thread.


What do you call a boomerang that doesn't return?


A stick.

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Actually, it's called a Kylie. QI FTW

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<3 Another QI viewer.

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I think we are all better off, however, keeping things like this out of the Rookery. That's not what this place is about. Let's start with a clean slate tomorrow and leave seriousness at the door.

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I disagree. This is one of the few times I've actually be interested in what goes on in here.

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Seriously, dude. Polar bears aren't even an endangered species. They aren't now, and I've been in rooms where people make comments like, "Polar bears are the next headliner species, we need to get them labeled endangered to get more attention."

Seriously. They are vulnerable, not endangered.

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You will have to admit, though, Emgro, two things:
1) Endangered species lists are often fraught with political selections.
2) The word "endangered", like "theory" has two different contextual meanings between conservationists/scientists/lawyers and laypeople. In this particular case, what laypeople call "endangered" corresponds roughly to what those in the field call "threatened". "Threatened", of course, is three levels or so, each denoting greater risk of extinction, with "vulnerable" as least and "endangered" in the middle.

While it's not as precise, it's perfectly valid to state that polar bears are endangered because by non-conservationist definition, they are.

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Every national academy of science in the industrialized world has has accepted the reality of climate change. But no, the guy that wrote jurassic park is who we should be listening to.

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Academies have no opinions. They are groups of people, with individual opinions. Many of those people disagree with the common popular view on global warming. Such is my experience at the universities I've attended and visited, and the people I've spoken and communicated with.

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Academies will often write position papers that reflect the general consensus of the academy, much like an editorial board at magazines or publications at think tanks. Thus, it's completely legitimate to take that position paper as an "opinion" of sorts.

One still has to note, however, science isn't done by consensus, but rather by evidence--but just because there's one person who disagrees with the commonly accepted interpretation (which may not be correct), it doesn't mean that he's necessarily right, either.

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And the guy that wrote Jurassic Park actually has a scientific education, unlike say, Al Gore, who you are holding up as reliable.

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Unfortunately, scientific education doesn't necessarily correspond to being correct. After all, Mr. Behe's a mathematician, but that doesn't stop him from speaking in areas outside of his expertise and using sophistry dressed in mathematics that look perfectly fine to laypersons to prove utter nonsense like "irreducible complexity" and "conservation of information".

Or, say, to use a more respectable figure, Linus Pauling, noted Nobel-laureate and Chemist, and vitamin C--which is as yet unproven.

Or James Watson and his insistence that stupidity is a genetic disorder, and poorly chosen statements that suggest he's a flaming racist--but based on genetic information.

And they're all technically scientists, which Crichton is not.

But this is all beside the point. Do you see the problem here, with bringing up An Inconvenient Truth? I have no reason to doubt you when you say you're a conservationist at heart; the simple act of trashing another conservationist work, however, rather than ignoring it, has only served as a divisive wedge in a group that should be working together.

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So now you are denying that polar bears are in danger? Who are you sarah palin's press agent Emgro? Seriously that is some incredible denial you are in over the reality of pollution and it's effects on the world. Keep drinking the kool aid though it you like it that much.

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Inflammatory remarks won't convince people. Polar bears remain endangered, and their food sources are shrinking, but they are not yet critically endangered and at risk of extinction.

It's something to keep an eye on, but it's not something to panic about; the problem is, because polar bears are an appealing, marketable face on climate change, they're held to be a prime example of what's at risk, when it's not them, it's us.

For instance: there are several cases of tiny Pacific islands losing above-ocean area very quickly, a harbinger of things to come. Certain diseases and species previously constrained to warm climates have started encroaching into more temperate zones.

Polar bears, by contrast, are still at naturally sustainable levels, provided we don't decide to screw them over further.

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There are no fact in Gore's movie? So those glaciers are all still there, they just don't show up on film now? Is that what you are saying. Every national academy of science in the industrialized world has has accepted the reality of climate change. But no, the guy that wrote jurassic park is who we should be listening to.

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Gore's documentary had facts, but he also stretched truths in many places, one of the most egregious being the coastline projections.

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Coincidentally, it's really hard to "strand" a polar bear. They can swim around 100 miles between things, and contrary to popular belief, they don't all live on icebergs, but on islands.

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But he looks so sad in those photos. Are you saying he's acting? Faking it, for the nature paparazzi?

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Impervious surfaces contribute to non-point source pollution, erosion, and flooding.

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One of the largest sources of pollution in neighborhood streams actually comes from nearby roads: since the rainwater don't seep into the asphalt (and, relatedly, nor will things like gasoline, antifreeze, motoroil, that bubblegum wrapper), it all has to go somewhere else.

Sometimes, into drainage pipes, which don't necessarily lead directly to treatment plants. It's "non-point" precisely because you can't point to, say, the BP refinery dumping mercury into Lake Michigan.

Additionally, it's been shown that areas with high levels of pavement tend to be several degrees warmer than areas without such construction--

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I want conservation to be an efficiently executed science that leads us to a better, more sustainable society.

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A noble goal; unfortunately, to get to that point, one would also have to educate society at large in what science actually entails~

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We need dramatic changes, and dithering over polar bears that aren't in danger weakens our case when we have something valid and helpful, like more efficient washing machines.

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This is an extraordinarily valid point. Things like efficient water machines, properly pressurized tires, better eating habits, more reliance on walking, biking, and mass transit, are all minor things that add up to major benefits.

Unfortunately, they're just not as cute and upsetting as seeing a picture of a polar bear stranded on a small block of ice.

Put another way, the small changes actually require sacrifice of a mild sort, and aren't a visible, free way of demonstrating concern. (There's a reason why the (RED) campaign is so successful, even if it hasn't actually helped many people.)

I mean, the thought of mass transit makes my skin crawl (the only reason I use it is because I detest driving), but it's very easy to go kawaii over a sad polar bear covering its nose.

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Nothing you suggested qualified as deception, those accusations were in relation to things like Gore's AIT. Hence me bringing it up.

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Fair enough. I just don't think it really helps anyone trying to suggest conservation when they bring it up just to tear it down.

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There's a big difference between changing and warming, especially in view of the articles in the WSJ today calling for dramatic efforts to cool the planet.

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I will flat out that I stopped reading the majority of Dow Jones's printed material the instant News Corp took them over, FEER being the sole exception, so I have no idea what the article says.

Besides, dramatic efforts to cool the planet will fail, if only because one of those [censored] (Chairman Shen-ji Yang, Sister Miriam Webster, or Colonel Corazon Santiago) will always vote against launching the solar shades.

On a more serious note, the concept of geoengineering on that scale bothers me, largely on the simple fact that we really don't know what we're doing. Even if we can prove that global warming is happening due to human intervention, that doesn't mean belching reflective material into the upper atmosphere or launching a series of mirrors to reflect the light won't cause some greater harm--particularly in chaotic systems that we don't fully understand, and only just now are getting the barest models.


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Y'know, like the Everglades which have dropped an average of 3 degrees F since 1880. Gotta freeze out them gators.

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Well, somebody's got to give the Real Housewives more gator-leather handbags.