zerealshadowban

While it is correct that this one particular comment of mine was inappropriately posted in anger at (perceived) dishonesty, please substantiate your statement that I have posted personal attacks "here and elsewhere".

It is not "misleading" when the scientific evidence collected via NASA's satellites is that CO2 fertilization has been measurably greening the continents for decades: "From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide." [1]

Anyone who studies the biology and evolution of plants, as well as the actual constraints of their growth processes, will understand why this gigantic transformation has been happening. There are similar measurements of major increases in ocean plankton over the last decades.

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...

Biologist here. I have a simple question in response to your disinformation: What CO2 level is used in commercial greenhouses?

All scientific, controlled experiments with plants demonstrate conclusively that they thrive (faster growth, larger leaves, increased biomass, larger fruits, less need for water, etc.) at higher CO2 levels than what we have today and than we had before the Industrial Revolution. I encourage people who are intellectually curious and honest to look up the scientific papers on the topic and read them for themselves (you don't have to be a biologist or a geologist to understand the experiments, the parameters, or the outcomes).

Maybe we should go by scientific facts? plants thrive in warmer climate and higher CO2 levels, not in colder climate and at starvation levels of CO2. I suggest you look into the operations of commercial greenhouses, then study the temperature and CO2 records matching the origin and evolution of plants going back to hundreds of millions of years ago.

The largest and, long-term, most effective carbon sink are phytoplankton. They are responsible for half of all photosynthesis, thus absorbing tremendous quantities of CO2. As they individually die, they over millions of years accumulate thick carbon-filled layers at the bottom of oceans. This is the ultimate origin of oil deposits, by the way.

My main point is that if CO2 levels fall below 150 ppm there would be a mass extinction of land-based plants, and of all the animals who depend on this vegetation. If you care about life on the continents, and human life, this is a valid concern when people explore schemes to rapidly remove massive quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere.

The two photosynthesis paths that evolved in land-based plants (C3 and C4) are very specific, not adaptable. There has been no such thing as further "evolution" of these chemical/physical processes in plants.

We do live in an interglacial [1] period, which is a slightly warmer, shorter time in the midst of an ice age.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial

We should remember that CO2 is an essential fertilizer for plants and phytoplankton, all of which thrive when there is much more CO2 in the atmosphere. Their photosynthesis processes evolved in and are ideal for an environment with CO2 concentrations at least 5-10x the current levels.

At or below 150 ppm of CO2 in the air, all land-based plants would go extinct.

I'm glad we have SCOTUS available to smack down POTUS idiocy when necessary.

compel: force or oblige (someone) to do something

Speech can motivate, encourage, inspire, disgust, leave indifferent, irritate, and so on -- but people who act on a given idea do it of their own free will. What authoritarian government fears is that people use their independent minds, allow disagreement and debate, and choose to act in defense of their freedoms.

Speech does not compel. People have free will, which is why they are held responsible for their actions, and judged accordingly.

Nobody was forced to visit or read Gab, just as nobody is forced to listen to what I say to a few friends in my living room.

Do you intend to control the latter as well, in the name of your "community"?

Are there major Chinese companies currently investing in the development of systems specifically tailored to help total surveillance of US citizens by the US government?

The Fire TV recast seems to be a shot across the bow for Tivo and Roku? the multiple speakers and amp seem to be a shot across the bow for Sonos and Bose?

The Alexa-everywhere tactics are reminiscent of the early AWS years. The SDKs and platforms for embedded systems are excellent long-term strategy.

The integration with Skype and Ring positions the Alexa Show to take over the video communication market. I'm surprised Microsoft hasn't attempted to release a Skype-based home-hub device. I'm also surprised Apple hasn't made more audacious moves towards a home-hub device.

The progression of product names is somewhat confusing -- how is the general public to keep track of "new" and "generation N" to understand features?

I'm not Greek... It was tempting, having studied Latin for a few years prior. I made the final decision based on a strong desire to understand the lyrics of Pink Floyd albums.

What a beautiful discovery!

For context, 50k years ago was the early phase of a North-African pluvial period when the Sahara was a wet and fertile region; this lasted 20k years. The Neanderthals disappeared 40k years ago. The first evidence of the domestication of dogs dates to around 35k years ago in Europe and Siberia.

For the Northern Europeans here, reindeer and caribou are actually the same species, Rangifer tarandus, but with substantial differences: caribou are large, wild, elk-like animals which can be found in northern North America and Greenland and have never been domesticated. In my experience the meat tastes the same.

I was given a choice between Ancient Greek and (modern) English...

tajen, the vast majority of your comments are marked [dead] and thus invisible -- it looks like you were shadow-banned two months ago.

Seattle is North enough that the sun sinks too low for your skin to be able to produce vitamin D between mid-September and mid-March!

The May-August period has very few clouds and a not-too-hot sun, so that is a fine season from the point of view of spending time outdoors and letting your skin work for your body.

This is so brilliant, I'm considering completely switching the type of software/hardware work I've been doing for the last decade.

My first assembly language was Z80, not really hard but not a lot of fun. Then along came the Motorola 68000 and that instruction set was bliss.

I've been repeatedly contacted by Google over recent years (supposedly because of the work I've done) but I've always felt uneasy about them and hesitated to respond. This additional layer of tracking and the recent revelation on location tracking regardless of explicit settings both seal the non-deal for me.

The soul of that company is to turn the human experience into a vessel for the paid delivery of ads, nothing else matters. Of course I'm sure that one can join many interesting engineering projects there, with suitable blinders. Even when they introduced their AR glasses, they had to show virtual billboards assaulting one's field of vision. What you are to Google is a recipient for ad delivery -- not a customer, not a respected human, not someone to trade with.

Many opine that Musk deserves punishment at the hand of the SEC. I disagree, profoundly. His post appears to have been ill-considered, may have been wishful thinking, was possibly driven by spite, and/or even written under the influence of drugs. So what? the government has no constitutional power to threaten or punish people for what they say nor for what they think apart from what they say, except for a few extremely limited instances such as a direct threat of force or libel.

The SEC embodies the modern drift of the administrative state at its worst; its many regulations are not laws passed by Congress, which is the only branch empowered to write legislation. One of the most famous and often used SEC rules is Rule 10b-5, which "prohibits fraud in securities transactions as well as insider trading." Fraud is a form of crime, but trading on one's knowledge involves neither force nor fraud and is simply a manifestation of our basic rights to talk and trade, regardless of what others may or may not know.

The proper rule of markets since Roman time is "Caveat Emptor"; don't rely on nor seek to control or punish the morass of conversations at the local inn or at Twitter. Many thoughtful economists and political philosophers suggest that by and large all of the federal securities laws (originated as part of the New Deal in the 1930s) should be abolished. It may be worth considering, when one small online comment becomes fodder for public calls to have the government severely punish a CEO.

Neat. There is also vastly more plankton.

Since modern philosophy has been teaching that reality is a social construct, why wouldn't it follow that each individual self is too? Further, we have been taught that values are socially determined (market prices, fashion, popular arts, ...) and that for the individual the highest moral compass resides in the well-being of others (e.g. utilitarianism, charity drives, altruism, welfare programs, ...).

Given this, wouldn't it be abnormal to eschew social networks and the daily, hourly, validation they provide? of course people used to seek social acceptance in person, but physical social intercourse has been shrinking, so the online world is now where we can most easily obtain it. And soon, virtual worlds will provide in even greater abundance.

Maybe we should parse this slightly differently -- what do these people think of corporation-operated censorship that is designed to exactly please a generally oppressive government?

In 1964 America, some types of rights-violating discrimination that (as generally understood due to the victory of the Union in the Civil War) the government ought not to engage in, were suddenly also banned from the sphere of corporate activity. [1] I wasn't born at the time, but I understand that there were many US locales where the discrimination forbidden to government had been retained, and remained widespread, via delegation to businesses.

Are we headed to a similar battle around online free speech? I personally don't want Western businesses to help implement censorship in any country, whether express or local, whether administrative or corporate.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

This was apparently done without his consent -- since he never wanted to be recorded live.

Here is the official YouTube preview, with captioned explanations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Xp2Djqh3s

Many-century human life, if not for me at least for my children. With time, I have several other careers in mind.

Has Microsoft identified similar posts on Gab in the past, and requested/obtained their removal -- or else? (is Gab acting as a sudden victim?)

If not, how is that possible -- since Gab was created to explicitly tolerate pretty much any kind of barely-legal speech under pressure in Twitter? are we to believe that this style of expression is completely new to Gab? (or did Microsoft just now notice?)