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Yep, and judging by the resume on his website, he ain't. At his last university he studied "Computer Science, General Studies, Basketball" (!). Saying he's an "informed scientist" is just a rhetorical device - ie anyone who disagrees with him is just an ill-informed non-scientist, that's all.

Normally I leave alone the qualifications of individuals on Slashdot. I preserve a separation between my Slashdot and my meatspace identity; consequently I avoid as much as possible arguing from a position of authority even on areas where I am very knowledgeable (radiation physics, molecular biology, and physical chemistry) and back my remarks about science with citations (peer-reviewed wherever available in a quick PubMed search). If I refer to myself as a scientist, I make that claim only where my knowledge, training, and research are applicable to the question at hand.

It troubles me greatly to see someone claiming to be a 'scientist' and using that to support the credibility of an argument without indicating any sort of qualifications. From what I gather of the parent poster's qualifications, his area of expertise is computer science--a long step away from climatology.

Imagine you're at the scene of a car accident. A man lies bleeding on the ground. A strong, confident voice rises above the crowd, and a dignified gentleman steps forward.
"I am a doctor. How may I be of assistance?" Relief! Heavens be praised!
"Doctor, what should we do to help this man?"
"Damned if I know. I teach C# to whiny undergrads. I'm just a PhD."

I did this about 10 years ago with an old VW Beetle that a friend and I bought for $250. Here's the only picture that I have of it:

http://www.michaelchaney.com/beetle/beetle.jpg

We removed the body, then welded a small frame for the steering column, and used duct tape to attach the speedometer. We welded on a battery holder, and I screwed the voltage regulator, an on/off switch, and a start button to another plate. The gas tank was simply a two gallon plastic tank that we ran the hose into. (not recommended) The last mod was welding the seat to the bottom of the unibody, we didn't bother to add a back, a fact which made driving it a bit more difficult.

Anyway, it's the same idea as this article. My friend and I were going to build a really fast go-kart, and we actually started welding one together. We had an engine, but when we started to buy parts to finish it out, we realized that it was going to cost another few hundred dollars. I decided that it was worthless, since we could buy an old Beetle for less and just remove the extraneous parts.

I personally topped the speedometer out (85MPH) with this configuration, the wind was difficult to deal with since I had no seat back. The acceleration was great, with the extra weight gone it was incredible. Dumb as hell, but incredible. Funny thing was, when my friend and I finished, his father admitted that he'd done the same thing 20 years earlier.

Michael

Herbix : "Herbix is a Linux server that fits on a floppy. It supports ipchains and can serve FTP, HTTP, IRC, DHCP, SMTP, and IDENT."

Mike's Jukebox Distro : "Mike's Jukebox Distro is really just a floppy image that you add to a CD full of mp3's, using it as the El-Torito boot image. It has a complete Linux kernel and madplay, along with BusyBox. A simple shell script uses "find" to get a list of all mp3's on the CD, and it then plays each of them in order. tty3 is used for the player output, tty1, and tty2 have shells to allow the user to "play" while it's playing music."

RIMiRadio : "RIMiRadio is a floppy disk distro of Linux and an Icecast server."

floppyfw : "Floppyfw is a router and simple firewall on one single floppy. It uses Linux basic firewall capabilities, and has a very simple packaging system. It is perfect for masquerading and securing networks on ADSL and cable lines, using both static IP, DHCP, and PPPoE, and provides a simple installation, which usually involves editing of only one file on the floppy."

BBIagent Router : "BBIagent is a single floppy Linux-based router for sharing a broadband Internet connection. It also serves as a firewall to prohibit intruders from accessing your LAN. You can create your own BBIagent router software (a diskette file image) on our server based on your hardware configuration (NICs) and connection protocol (e.g. PPPoE, PPPoATM or DHCP). It is very easy to install and use."

Coyote Linux : "Coyote Linux is a single floppy distribution for people who have an Internet connection that they wish to share with other computers on a LAN. In addition to connection sharing, it also provides firewall services to help protect the internal network. The goal of the Coyote project is to make it as quick and easy as possible to share an Internet connection."

Tom's RootBoot : "rtbt is the most Linux on one floppy disk for rescue recovery panic and emergencies, contains tools to keep in your shirt pockets, is useful whenever you can't use a hard drive and contains about 100 rescue tools."

Pocket Linux : "Pocket Linux is an almost minimal, one floppy linux system designed to quickly convert PC workstation into secure linux-based workstation using ssh to connect to remote host (other networking clients are also supported). It supports bootp for determining host IP and other network parameters (there's also manual configuration possible, but bootp is recommended). In addition to workstations equipped with a network card (ethernet or arcnet), you can also use Pocket Linux on a PC equipped with a modem. Modem is automatically detected and then PPP connection is made."

Trinux : "Trinux is a minimal Linux distribution that boots from a single floppy or CD-ROM, loads its packages from an FTP/HTTP server, IDE filesystem, or additional floppies, and runs entirely in RAM. Trinux contains the latest versions of popular network security tools that can be used to conduct security research, analyze network traffic, and perform vulnerability testing."

Hopefully this list is helpful to those of you just starting to think about tiny distros.

Why did you do this?

I did it to see what would happen if I did it, and I did it to help Hotmail users. It's been the most fun I've ever had for $35.

There has been some confusion, so let me state now that I had none of the following motivations:
To get to my Hotmail- While it's true that I noticed the problem while trying to get to my Hotmail, that wasn't a motivation. Like many people, I use Hotmail as a spam trap and alternative email which I check once every couple of weeks. I own enough domain names to have cooler email addresses, like mdchaney@michaelchaney.com.

There's more, but that answers your allegation -- if he's telling the truth, and why wouldn't he?

Can't you see that Michael Chaney is just trying to build brand? He has already registered MichaelChaney.com (see http://www.michaelchaney.com/), and, I'd wager, is planning on selling the domain on eBay for $10 million once his fame has pinnacled.