by cameron | Mar 16, 2009 | Uncategorized
While Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme seems to be hated by everyone, the IPCC says things are getting worse than even their worst-case scenarios. We’re all doomed.
Key Message 1: Climatic Trends
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Recent observations confirm that, given high rates of
observed emissions, the worst-case IPCC scenario
trajectories (or even worse) are being realised. For many
key parameters, the climate system is already moving beyond
the patterns of natural variability within which our society
and economy have developed and thrived. These parameters
include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise,
ocean and ice sheet dynamics, ocean acidification, and
extreme climatic events. There is a significant risk that
many of the trends will accelerate, leading to an increasing
risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.
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by cameron | Mar 15, 2009 | Uncategorized
Penn says drugs should be legal and he’s never touched them. I’ve barely touched them myself (a couple of attempts to smoke pot never really worked, I seem to be incapable of inhaling without choking) and I agree with him. As Penn says “If you aren’t free to put whatever substances you want into your own body, then you aren’t free.” The so-called “War On Drugs” costs taxpayers billions. Let’s use that money for education instead. If people commit REAL crimes while under the influence of drugs, then we should punish them for those in the same way we punish drink drivers but don’t have prohibition. It doesn’t work.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbR9L0DR7oQ&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
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by cameron | Mar 15, 2009 | Uncategorized
The great Clay Shirky says (albeit much more eloquently) what I’ve been saying for five years – that newspapers are dying because of their economics. Read the entire article if you’re interested in the future of media, because this is the most intelligent analysis I’ve read in years. Clay points out that the newspaper industry knew it was coming, too. They just stuck their heads in the sand until it was too late. Twenty years from now, I believe business schools will teach about the end of the newspaper empires in the same way they used to teach about the end of the horse and buggy manufacturers.
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When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of its most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away.
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by cameron | Mar 13, 2009 | Uncategorized
The American Chronicle has this article on the discrimination faced by atheists in the United States. I don’t see it as being as much of an issue in Australia and yet I wonder – how many Australian politicians are public atheists?
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If you live in the United States, you are almost certainly friends with at least one atheist, agnostic, nonbeliever, skeptic, or unaffiliated humanist, whether you know it or not. And your friend almost certainly endures prejudice and unequal treatment, whether you know it or not. And your friend is roughly as decent, good, loyal, honest, courageous, and generous as your other friends, and you know it.
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by cameron | Mar 12, 2009 | Uncategorized
The big shock for me in this story is that Sesame Street only makes $145m a year? How is that possible? With all of that brand merchandising? I’m shocked. I’m sure the Wiggles make more than that. And they SUCK. (link via @thetowncrier)
Sesame Workshop, the US non-profit organisation that produces Sesame Street, is cutting 20% of its workforce because of the recession.
Read more on The Age.
by cameron | Mar 12, 2009 | Uncategorized
ROFL. I love it.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtR2m20C2YM&hl=en&fs=1]
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