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Maybe WBC is a poor choice of analogy, I'm probably not familiar enough with them to just casually throw them around as an example. However this is also irrelevant since that clearly wasn't the point, which I'll restate....

It's not possible to completely disassociate yourselves from people claiming to be a part of your group, especially (as you said) trolls... All you can do is restate your actual goals, and work to point out that the harassers, trolls, whatever, don't represent the views of the movement as a whole, not even a small percentage. You even illustrated it perfectly with your moderate Muslim example.

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL"

In reality, most of the heat goes in the oceans

Nope. Skeptical Science tells you that 90% of the warming went into the oceans. That is, of the heat remaining in the system, 90% went into the oceans. But they really left out the percentage that has merely been emitted back to space and/or is simply missing. The IPCC says that the net forcing is +2.30 W/m2 right now. On top of that, there should have been water vapor and cloud feedbacks for another +1.75 W/m2. But all that is showing up is 0.535 W/m2. 86% of the energy is no longer here or is missing. Here is your reference.

Are you sure about that? People usually say the sea ice is increasing in extent, but that the land ice (the bit that might raise sea levels) is shrinking rapidly.

NASA and its climate partners (like GISS, NCDC) have been saying that. I don't know who else is saying that, unless they're quoting those sources.

RECORD sea ice this year. Sea ice forms around the generally WARMEST locations in Antarctic (lowest altitude, near the sea), and even so requires a consistent -2 degrees C to form. How is the rest supposed to be melting if it's colder than that?

Granted, temperature is not distributed completely evenly, and SOME part of the Antarctic is always melting. This allows the alarmists to scream and cry about the part that is. But the rest isn't. Quite the contrary: even when the alarmists were screaming about the "massive" melting of the Western Antarctic land ice sheet, the Eastern Antarctic was gaining more ice than the West was losing.

Of course it's Spring now in the Antarctic, and that will give the alarmists something to scream about as the record ice retreats a little. But if it's anything like the Northern Hemisphere was this year, even in summer it will continue to set new highs. As for the other hemisphere lately:

Does this look abnormally low to you? That's arctic ice right now.

Ice mass on Greenland is way above normal. And we're just coming out of summer!

Northern Hemisphere snow cover was at an all-time high in September.

NASA's own satellite temperature records often disagree with them. That's why they ignore it and you seldom hear about it.

They noted less sea ice, they noted the walruses, they noted AGW, and just linked A to B to C without bothering to any science in between. That is my problem.

It's probably completely bogus. The sea ice isn't far from normal for this time of year, and higher than in other recent years. It's higher than in 2005, not quite as high as 2006.

Why do you bring up all of the Arctic to tell us there must be sea ice around Alaska - there fucking isn't: http://pafc.arh.noaa.gov/ice.p...

Or, to quote TFA: "In recent years, sea ice has receded north beyond shallow continental shelf waters and into Arctic Ocean water, where depths exceed 2 miles and walrus cannot dive to the bottom."

But nooo, the walrus are just taking a hiatus on the beach because they are imagining things. When they should be swimming north a couple hundred miles.

They noted less sea ice, they noted the walruses, they noted AGW, and just linked A to B to C without bothering to any science in between. That is my problem.

It's probably completely bogus. The sea ice isn't far from normal for this time of year, and higher than in other recent years. It's higher than in 2005, not quite as high as 2006.

Let's not forget that parts of the Pacific coast were a little warmer than normal, too. But that doesn't imply "warming", because the majority of the U.S. was way colder than normal.

So we have: sea ice that might be just a little lower than normal in certain parts of Alaska, but pretty normal overall.

What are you talking about? We're talking about perspective here! This is not about object size, not even about object size in the picture. It is especially not about detail size because the topic is how the photo object changes when the camera distance changes while changing the focal length so that the details have exactly the same size.

As I said, go get a refresher on geometry.

Do you even raster render or 3D model?

I don't see how that is related to you being dumb. :-p

I'm curious, has CNN or BBC or perhaps New York Times shown you this: http://s3.postimg.org/p7r4c4yu... ? It's a Ukrainian military column masquerading as a medical convoy - a clear violation of Geneva treaties.

Or perhaps told you that teaching Russian is now outlawed in all schools in Slovyansk (with German and English replacing it)? Yeah, surely there is no fascism in Ukraine.

Hail Hit...uhm... Ukraine!

I'll do better than that.

Here is a screenshot from my Mac.

sigma, K, F, and T are variables I stored for some thermodynamic calculations I was doing earlier.

You're right. There's zero excuse for you blaming your problems on Firefox. Since you complained about other people not posting images here you go:

7 tabs open.
1 tab running a video
16 plugins installed
7 extensions running (10 installed).

350MB of RAM used. Go fix your browser instead of bitching about it on Slashdot.

http://s28.postimg.org/3zhxwhuzx/firefox.jpg

We live in different realities. All our best research so far suggests one of them is consistent with our best observations of reality, and that one of them is very inconsistent - or "wrong" and on a whole, becoming more wrong every day. That's why we see things so very differently.

Why, yes, indeed. I am glad that you do recognize this. One view definitely is deviating ever further from objective reality. It's just that you seem to be mistaken about which view that is. (Graph of climate models [lines] vs objectively measured reality [green circles, blue squares].)

I don't particularly blame you. You certainly have lots of company. Maybe you should take another blue pill and get some rest.

In other words, you're a birther who denies being a birther, just like you're a climate contrarian who denies being a climate contrarian. Maybe you see liars everywhere because you're actually a pathological liar named Lonny Eachus who's dishonestly posing as a woman on the internet.

Maybe this blatant psychological projection also explains why Jane/Lonny has been baselessly and libelously accusing me and my colleagues of fraudulent bullshit lies.

Further, I will state that this appears to be a blatant attempt to "besmirch my character", as the saying goes, by making such statements about me online. Why would you do such a thing?

Could it be because your accusations appear publicly on Google and other search engines?

I will ask you again where comments like yours come from. Try as you might, you have not managed to show that I even lied. Where are these statements you accuse me of?

The water in the ocean has much salt, however... Also. in the grocery store; the water is only on one side of the bottle, and there's not enough of it to make strong currents.

Ah... but in the ocean, there IS.

This is the most relevant point:

the US is safer now than ever before.

And not just a little. FAR safer. Violent crime is less than half what it was 20 years ago. And even less compared to 30 years ago.

The only "increasing" violence is news-media propaganda. Because chicks hatching on the farm does not sell news.

In fact, some recent studies have concluded that it was news media coverage, and not guns, which led to copy-cat "mass" shootings on college and other school campuses. (But even so, and even though they are splashed all over the news, THOSE are way down, too, compared to 2-3 decades ago.)

American does not have "increasing" internal violence. It has decreasing violence.

And during the same period, it is interesting to not, per-capita gun ownership in the U.S. has gone steadily up. And also during that same period, concealed-carry laws have become much more common.

Statistics do not prove cause-and-effect. But a negative correlation can DISprove cause-and-effect.

We have more guns. (Per person!) According to our own government's statistics. Yet we have less violent crime. This is a direct, indisputable DISproof of the idea that "more guns equals more crime".

[Sources: U.S. DOJ, and for more recent years: U.S. Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics]

Most probably the reason violent crime is way down is that fewer people carry cash, and rely on credit and debit cards.
Ergo, the stores have much less cash in hand then they had in the past.

the US is safer now than ever before.

And not just a little. FAR safer. Violent crime is less than half what it was 20 years ago. And even less compared to 30 years ago.

The only "increasing" violence is news-media propaganda. Because chicks hatching on the farm does not sell news.

In fact, some recent studies have concluded that it was news media coverage, and not guns, which led to copy-cat "mass" shootings on college and other school campuses. (But even so, and even though they are splashed all over the news, THOSE are way down, too, compared to 2-3 decades ago.)

American does not have "increasing" internal violence. It has decreasing violence.

And during the same period, it is interesting to not, per-capita gun ownership in the U.S. has gone steadily up. And also during that same period, concealed-carry laws have become much more common.

Statistics do not prove cause-and-effect. But a negative correlation can DISprove cause-and-effect.

We have more guns. (Per person!) According to our own government's statistics. Yet we have less violent crime. This is a direct, indisputable DISproof of the idea that "more guns equals more crime".

[Sources: U.S. DOJ, and for more recent years: U.S. Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics]

If you fail to understand the simple logic

What you say is simple, but not logical. It doesn't follow. Everyone has biases. It doesn't mean that nothing anybody says is right. (duh) Does my post here: http://s23.postimg.org/4f12i98... contain a link to ioppublishing.org ? No. So what on Earth are you going on about?

He took issue with this statement:

it is harmful as it opens the door for oversimplified claims of "errors" and worse from the climate sceptics media side.

According to the news stories, he took issue with many of the reviewer's comments, not just that one.

He has yet to show - or even claim that the reviewer was wrong. In fact he has been backpedaling ever since the publisher released the full review.

I have already explained this. If you fail to understand the simple logic that IF the reviewer rejected the paper out of bias (as Bengtsson claimed), THEN the reviewer did not reject the paper for scientific reasons, that's your problem. I have no reasonable way to help you through that.

P.S. please be a little more introspective when you read that Chris Mooney story that you linked to above. In another thread you have spent over a dozen posts trying to claim I posted something that I did not. Anyone reading the post can clearly see that I did not post that link, but for some reason you cannot back down.

I have no reason to back down, since you did in fact link to the page I referenced. Not only did I give you a link to the comment of your that contained the reference, here is a screenshot of your comment.

You are simply denying reality. And I clearly explained that the OTHER link I posted was an editing error. So you don't have that excuse.

Why do you continue to troll?

Wow. Trouble with links today.

Third try: U.S. "right to carry" since 1986

It's an animated .gif, so watch for a moment.

That link did not come through for some reason.

Here is the chart to which I was referring.

In my opinion (and I guess I agree with at least some others), guns are offensive weapons

80+ years of official Unites States Government statistics disagree with you.

For early years those statistics can be obtained from the Department of Justice. For more recent years, the Bureau of Crime Statistics.

I am rather amused that someone is using, as a supporting argument, the testimony of a sole person in the farthest Left and most pro-gun-control state of all 50.

Most police and sheriff's departments, and even police unions and organizations, say that handguns are the defensive weapon of choice, and support private ownership of handguns.

By the way: major crimes in this country are DOWN a full 50% from 20 years ago, and even more compared to 30 years ago. During that entire time, per-capita gun ownership (including handguns) has gone steadily up, and "concealed carry" has virtually exploded over that same period. Watch that chart for a moment. (Note: blue in that chart very much does NOT mean "blue state".)

If concealed handguns aren't being used "defensively", then what are they all being used for? Whatever it is, it sure isn't crime.

Agreed. Not sure why this is news, or honestly, why it is worthy of being published at all. This is part of the design and if people choose to login even after - the as the example says - Google or Facebook OAuth prompt says You are sending the following information to this site: (as those login methods do), that is their own problem.

"In the 19nth century, when prices were falling, the small farmers were being hurt because there wasn't enough inflation, so they kept owing more and more to the banks."

The prices were falling because production was expanding. This is called "supply and demand", and that's the way free markets are supposed to work.

"The problem with the gold standard is that it didn't permit elasticity."

The "elasticity" you refer to is the ability of government to print money it doesn't have and didn't earn or tax. This was the direct cause of both the cancellation of the internal gold standard in 1934 and Nixon's axing of the Bretton-Woods system in 1971.

We can see what effect those two decisions had. It's all due to government wanting (and spending) more than it can afford. And it's hurt everybody. (Except, of course, those who actually benefit from inflation: government, banks, and Wall Street. Everybody else suffers.)

The "elasticity" problem wasn't due to wartime and other "emergencies"... it was due to the government spending too much money, and its perceived need to get its hands on more. As you can see from the linked chart, until that happened inflation was not necessary (except for small blips around wartime, as in the labeled boxes... and it ALWAYS went back to normal afterward, until government changed all that).

Just as Alan Greenspan, a man with whom I often disagree, wrote in 1966:

"Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process."

"Which versions of Firefox had upside tabs? I must have skipped more versions of Firefox than I thought, because I remember when they were under the address bar, but never upside down."

The current one, and past versions for a long time now.

"No it isn't. Neither of them is. Not directly."

Yes, it is. If you don't believe me, I have posted a link to a simple example below. Not only is the JSON harder to read, it throws away data type information unnecessarily.

"When dealing with any format that's a hierarchy, you should be able to view the top level and click a little '+' or something to open it."

This is old stuff. TextMate (just for one example), has been doing that for a long time. Here's an example. Notice how the line numbers skip where the code is collapsed.

You can also open XML in Firefox, and again it does exactly the same thing: you can expand and collapse levels at will.

"Neither JSON nor XML is easily writable without special tools. "

Sure they are. Take just about any object in Ruby and call [object].to_xml or [object].to_json.

More relevant to the discussion though, I think, is what someone else said above:

"XML has standardized schemas, validation, querying, transformation, a binary format and APIs for interoperability from any language. All JSON really has going for it is that it's already JavaScript."

I would have to say the same for RSON.

While it is true that they are syntactical versions of one another, XML is far less ambiguous. In a way, XML versus JSON is a lot like Java versus JavaScript. The former have more tightly defined specifications, and less ambiguity. (I.e., Java will not let you treat a string like an integer or vice versa.) Tighter specifications can be a PITA sometimes, but other times they'll save your butt. JSON, on the other hand, throws away information about the data that you will probably have to supply yourself later. Here's a very simple example:

Here is a picture of the same data represented both ways. (I would have just posted it here but Slashdot's bizarre character formatting will not allow.)

While it's true XML is a lot more verbose, there is no ambiguity. Take a look at the element labeled "created_at" (or "created-at" in the XML) for example. In JSON, it comes out as a string? WTF?

Not only do I argue that XML is a lot easier to read, you don't have to mess around with translating your data into different types when it you convert back. If I take that XML and convert it back to a Ruby object (one simple method call), I get the correct data types back. If I try to convert that JSON back to a Ruby object, I have to convert those dates (and other things if I had used a different example) back to the types they're supposed to be myself.

I should not have to do that. I am manually replacing information that JSON threw away. It requires that I build a special conversion routine for each kind of data set I am expecting to receive. Yuck. Why would I want to torture myself like that?

"... that some low level inflation is better than low level deflation."

Are you serious? The healthiest markets today are ALL deflationary markets. Look at smartphones, computers, consumer electronics. Any commodity that is either getting better for the same money, or cheaper to produce. That's deflation.

THIS is what your "low-level inflation" has done over the last 100 years.

Government and big investment bankers have been pushing for an inflationary economy because for several reasons (time value of money being just one of them), it is INFLATION that helps the rich. It directly benefits Government, bankers, and Wall Street. It hurts everybody else by, among other thing, insidiously leeching from production and savings.

Absolutely totally wrong. First of all, Inflation and deflation have zero to do with prices of individual products or market segments - they are global to all products, services, wages and prices simultaneously. You cannot point to one product getting cheaper and say "that's deflation".

Secondly, industry changes have nothing to do with money supply changes. Electronics getting cheaper due to technology improvements, competition, supply, and manufacturing having nothing to do with the money supply.

Thirdly, while steady inflation is not good, deflation is worse as it causes the market to stop investing in industry and growth and instead invest in hoarding cash. The rich can become richer regardless of whether the market is inflating or deflating if they use their money intelligently, this is always the case. But deflation causes slow and negative growth in the overall economy and reduction in standard of living, which is bad for everybody.

"... that some low level inflation is better than low level deflation."

Are you serious? The healthiest markets today are ALL deflationary markets. Look at smartphones, computers, consumer electronics. Any commodity that is either getting better for the same money, or cheaper to produce. That's deflation.

THIS is what your "low-level inflation" has done over the last 100 years.

Government and big investment bankers have been pushing for an inflationary economy because for several reasons (time value of money being just one of them), it is INFLATION that helps the rich. It directly benefits Government, bankers, and Wall Street. It hurts everybody else by, among other thing, insidiously leeching from production and savings.

Hey Everybody, ever wonder what I look like? This was a picture I took of myself last night after sex with a female. While there's no nudity, it's not one for the kids!

I'm at Soylent News now. Later!

-- Ethanol-fueled

"Cars and appliances seem pretty stable for the last decade, as does housing ( rent ), appliances down a small fraction even."

Durable goods like cars and houses are the last to go up in an inflationary period. Have you looked at your grocery bill lately? Mine has been about twice what it was 3 years ago.

"Fairly flat" is not accurate at all. Even without any recent increases, THIS is how your money is being inflated on a regular basis. From 1913 on, those are the government's own figures.

Of course, that differs quite a bit from the government's periodic claims of inflation rate, but that just shows what BS they are.

Do you actually know how the government calculates CPI?

It is inane, but maybe not for the reasons you seem to think.

First, your first figure is probably pretty close, maybe a bit of understatement. But the second one is completely detached from reality.

Second, and this is the whole point (and maybe the point you intended, I don't know): fiat money isn't real money. When the government can print it whenever it wants (which it DOES, as you can easily see from that chart), it simply isn't real money in the historical sense. It can be devalued at any time, just like anything in the stock market (like Bitcoin!). And our Government has been making that situation worse at a consistent but increasing rate.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is inherently deflationary. Or would be, at any rate, if investors were anything like rational. Though the recent housing bubble and even more recent Bitcoin bubble indicate that they aren't.

"Those giant dragonflies and other large insects existed when the oxygen level of the atmosphere was considerably higher than it is now. It wouldn't be possible for them to get that big at the current level of oxygen because of the limitations of insect respiratory systems."

As I mentioned above, you are correct. There was more oxygen in the atmosphere. But it is also noteworthy that that time was also a LOW PERIOD of CO2. In fact it was about the same as today. Times before and since had FAR greater concentrations of CO2... yet life continued to thrive.

And before anybody tries to call bullshit:

HERE is the Arctic ice extent and thickness from a week ago, and

HERE is information about the current Antarctic sea ice.

This.

similar unlikely thing like your "I browse without Javascript and no background colors" which doesn't appear to hide that spot at all - funny about that isn't it?

Once again, you are wrong.

I tell you what, if you find that alleged post of mine, I'll find the post where you admitted to being into child porn. One baseless charge is as good as another, isn't it?

Divide that by the number of inhabitants in each country, will you?
1063 / 317M = 3.35
245 / 63M = 3.88
Oh oh oh

Captcha : 'retarded'
(seriously, not lying : proof!)

"It caused scientists to examine their methods for dealing with it more closely but in the end it just increased the confidence that they were dealing with it well."

Really? Well, I'll give you one good example that says otherwise. From Steve Goddard, just yesterday. The funny thing is people suspected the following kind of B.S. when Hadley Centre said it didn't have its intermediate results anymore... it had just been tossed out with other "obsolete data". While the following is just one example, it is hardly isolated. Isn't it a bit funny that in California, the mountain weather instruments are in general no longer being used for the "raw data", but almost all of it now comes from the warmer lowlands? Etc. The point being what every scientist knows: if you cherry-pick your data, you can show almost anything you want.

Then, there is the strange phenomenon of the GISS "historical data" mysteriously changing over time. And many, many other anomalies that people are just now beginning to look into. Expect some results announced in March. But back to the example I wanted to show you: Fort Collins, CO.

In 1961 they moved their weather instruments to a new location. It is important to note that this is all from the official records. Here is a chart of 90-plus degree days for each recent year. Official data. No fudging. You can look it up yourself.

Note that in 2002, they built a parking lot around the weather station, which had previously been in farmland. And not just a little single-lane road or anything of that nature. It is now surrounded by asphalt. Look at the number of 90-degree days since then! Gee, what a coincidence. But this is one source of official climate data.

And lest you say "a little asphalt doesn't make a difference", here, take a look at it, straight from Google Maps. Well... so the University (on that info page linked to above), said that rather than move their station again, they'd take care to "buffer" it from the hot surroundings. Well done, CSU! Right?

So here is their "buffer". (Again, straight rom Google Maps, and these pictures by the way are very recent copyright.) A rock garden, of all things, with a few flowers and a couple of tiny shrugs.

No sane person would call this an effective "buffer". But CSU pretends it is.

As I say: just one example. But it is one of very, very many. And by the way, speaking of "dealing with it": when Mann and CRU were the subject of 5 "independent" investigations, while they might have been absolved of scientific malpractice, all 5 reports criticized their methods in one form or another.

So don't try to give me this guff about "responsible methods". I have seen too many examples of exactly the opposite. If cases like this (of which, I repeat, a great many have been found) constitute responsible methods, then no wonder the world is shown to be warming. And no wonder an increasing percentage of the people are ignoring this "data".

"It caused scientists to examine their methods for dealing with it more closely but in the end it just increased the confidence that they were dealing with it well."

Really? Well, I'll give you one good example that says otherwise. From Steve Goddard, just yesterday. The funny thing is people suspected the following kind of B.S. when Hadley Centre said it didn't have its intermediate results anymore... it had just been tossed out with other "obsolete data". While the following is just one example, it is hardly isolated. Isn't it a bit funny that in California, the mountain weather instruments are in general no longer being used for the "raw data", but almost all of it now comes from the warmer lowlands? Etc. The point being what every scientist knows: if you cherry-pick your data, you can show almost anything you want.

Then, there is the strange phenomenon of the GISS "historical data" mysteriously changing over time. And many, many other anomalies that people are just now beginning to look into. Expect some results announced in March. But back to the example I wanted to show you: Fort Collins, CO.

In 1961 they moved their weather instruments to a new location. It is important to note that this is all from the official records. Here is a chart of 90-plus degree days for each recent year. Official data. No fudging. You can look it up yourself.

Note that in 2002, they built a parking lot around the weather station, which had previously been in farmland. And not just a little single-lane road or anything of that nature. It is now surrounded by asphalt. Look at the number of 90-degree days since then! Gee, what a coincidence. But this is one source of official climate data.

And lest you say "a little asphalt doesn't make a difference", here, take a look at it, straight from Google Maps. Well... so the University (on that info page linked to above), said that rather than move their station again, they'd take care to "buffer" it from the hot surroundings. Well done, CSU! Right?

So here is their "buffer". (Again, straight rom Google Maps, and these pictures by the way are very recent copyright.) A rock garden, of all things, with a few flowers and a couple of tiny shrugs.

No sane person would call this an effective "buffer". But CSU pretends it is.

As I say: just one example. But it is one of very, very many. And by the way, speaking of "dealing with it": when Mann and CRU were the subject of 5 "independent" investigations, while they might have been absolved of scientific malpractice, all 5 reports criticized their methods in one form or another.

So don't try to give me this guff about "responsible methods". I have seen too many examples of exactly the opposite. If cases like this (of which, I repeat, a great many have been found) constitute responsible methods, then no wonder the world is shown to be warming. And no wonder an increasing percentage of the people are ignoring this "data".

"It caused scientists to examine their methods for dealing with it more closely but in the end it just increased the confidence that they were dealing with it well."

Really? Well, I'll give you one good example that says otherwise. From Steve Goddard, just yesterday. The funny thing is people suspected the following kind of B.S. when Hadley Centre said it didn't have its intermediate results anymore... it had just been tossed out with other "obsolete data". While the following is just one example, it is hardly isolated. Isn't it a bit funny that in California, the mountain weather instruments are in general no longer being used for the "raw data", but almost all of it now comes from the warmer lowlands? Etc. The point being what every scientist knows: if you cherry-pick your data, you can show almost anything you want.

Then, there is the strange phenomenon of the GISS "historical data" mysteriously changing over time. And many, many other anomalies that people are just now beginning to look into. Expect some results announced in March. But back to the example I wanted to show you: Fort Collins, CO.

In 1961 they moved their weather instruments to a new location. It is important to note that this is all from the official records. Here is a chart of 90-plus degree days for each recent year. Official data. No fudging. You can look it up yourself.

Note that in 2002, they built a parking lot around the weather station, which had previously been in farmland. And not just a little single-lane road or anything of that nature. It is now surrounded by asphalt. Look at the number of 90-degree days since then! Gee, what a coincidence. But this is one source of official climate data.

And lest you say "a little asphalt doesn't make a difference", here, take a look at it, straight from Google Maps. Well... so the University (on that info page linked to above), said that rather than move their station again, they'd take care to "buffer" it from the hot surroundings. Well done, CSU! Right?

So here is their "buffer". (Again, straight rom Google Maps, and these pictures by the way are very recent copyright.) A rock garden, of all things, with a few flowers and a couple of tiny shrugs.

No sane person would call this an effective "buffer". But CSU pretends it is.

As I say: just one example. But it is one of very, very many. And by the way, speaking of "dealing with it": when Mann and CRU were the subject of 5 "independent" investigations, while they might have been absolved of scientific malpractice, all 5 reports criticized their methods in one form or another.

So don't try to give me this guff about "responsible methods". I have seen too many examples of exactly the opposite. If cases like this (of which, I repeat, a great many have been found) constitute responsible methods, then no wonder the world is shown to be warming. And no wonder an increasing percentage of the people are ignoring this "data".

"Fiat Money may not be perfect - but it's better than Gold and Silver coins."

Wanna bet? Oh, I suppose you might say it's "better" if you have an inflation fetish. But why would you?

This is what it has done to prices -- and as a consequence undermined savings -- over the last 100 years.

"The only problem with fiat currency is third parties making counterfeits and the money producers printing excessive amounts."

Wow. No, there are LOTS of problems with fiat currency.

"We the people if we are in control have an impact on that last part."

Sure, but we haven't been "in control" since 1913. Loot at that chart again. Monetary policy is under the control of the Fed. And the Fed -- although the chair is appointed by the President -- is a collection of private banks. And much of their assets are owned by foreign interests. They don't give the slightest shit what you have to say. They don't even really care much what the President has to say.

"Regardless of the form of currency, if a government is corrupt of falls into expediency -- then it doesn't matter what type of currency they have."

Not true, because when we had a gold standard (and no Fed), We The People were in fact in control of the money supply... just as it should always have been. THEN, the government+Fed could not inflate the money. Look at that chart again... the only times of inflation were when the government borrowed money for wars, and it went right back again afterward. Until the Fed was created.

The whole reason we HAVE fiat money, in the first place, was that the government spent more money than it actually had in gold. It could not meet its debts so it created the floating dollar. (First partially in 1934, the completely in 1971. See that chart one more time. It's full of valuable information.) They created the fiat dollar so they could inflate it at will.

But government inflates money, THEY and the BANKS get to spend it at full value. But by the time the inflation actually hits the economy (it's not instant, it usually takes 2-3 years), your savings have lost their value.

That's why government likes inflation. But it actually hurts the economy. Just one way it does that, is that your savings evaporate at a rate equal to the inflation rate. So if you get 5% from your bank account (haha... does anybody today?), but inlation is 6%, you're losing 1% of your money annually.

Right now, today, most "savings" accounts, after adjusting for inflation, are losing money.

"How do you know that the reason the savings rate has gone down since the '70s is benefits?"

I didn't claim one caused the other. Only that benefits have largely replaced savings."Crowding out" doesn't necessarily mean one causes the other. It just means that one has been replacing the other. Completely leaving aside any speculation about what the cause is, the effect is still a bad thing.

"And why would you take the word of someone who has been so wrong about everything else?"

Greenspan didn't create the statistics, he just mentioned them. But since you brought it up, yes, part of my point was: why is Greenspan just now learning these things? He was chair of the f*ing Fed!

"And savings rate is higher today than it was in the mid-2000s."

But look at it over a longer time frame.

"So, it's not because of benefits, is it? Maybe benefits are just taking up some of the slack in people's lives as monetary policy erodes their savings and ability to save."

I didn't claim it was "because of" benefits. But the fact is, benefits are way up, and savings are way down.

"And don't forget, look at who has benefited from these policies. Not the "savers", that's for sure."

I'm not disputing that. It was part of my point.

"Of course you're right, but if you think that Keynes says that "inflation is good" then you haven't read him very closely."

It isn't that. But Keynes was an interventionist, and government intervention deliberately keeps inflation well into positive figures. So it's "Keynesian" only in an indirect sense. Interventionism was obviously a pre-Keynes idea but he adopted it as part of his gospel.

"And then the Europeans came."

Haha. No. I was referring to historical inflation rates in America, colonial times to present.

It wasn't until after the creation of the Fed, and significant government intervention, that inflation started to rise. About that chart: from 1665 to 1913, inflation was essentially flat except for little blips around wartime when the government borrowed money to finance the wars (the labeled boxes). But it always went back to normal afterward. Until 1913 that is. The dashed lines mark 1913 (creation of the Fed and direct government-Fed intervention), 1934 (internal U.S. gold standard abandoned) and 1971 (Nixon tosses out the Bretton-Woods system, which was effectively a gold-standard-by-proxy).

The point (backed by evidence) being: inflationary monetary policy benefits government and investment bankers. However, it also provably eats away at productivity and savings, which are measures of "true" wealth in an economy.

"The problem is not just the Fed, but who the Fed believes they serve (hint: it's not the people)."

Agreed. But you won't change that, because of who the Fed is. The chair might be appointed by the president, but the Fed itself consists of private investment banks, partly owned by foreign interests. It has never been their genuine intent to "serve the people". Louis McFadden was chair of the United States House Committee on Banking and Currency from 1929 to1931. This is what he said about the great market crash of '29:

"The Great Depression was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence. International bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair, so that they might emerge the rulers of us all."

If anybody should have known, it would have been him. By the way: after this pronouncement to Congress, McFadden was shot at (according to witnesses) on at least two different occasions. A few years later he died of poisoning after attending a banquet.

"Yes, that changed, and brought the greatest economic expansion and shared prosperity in all of human history."

No, it didn't, if you are talking about the changes since 1913. Most economists today believe that historically, government intervention has been a drag on the economy, not a benefit. Even "mainstream" economists, not just Austrians, have come to accept this, at least for the period of 1920s-1930s. As for the economy after that: you certainly cannot credit the mainstream (largely Keynesian or "neo-classical") economists who advised government. They pretty consistently got things wrong. Often 180 degrees wrong.

Don't make the "correlation=causation" mistake. It is as likely, or perhaps even more likely, that the government could afford to intervene more, as the economy expanded. Not the other way around.

"If you want a global economy (and I don't, by the way), then you need central banking."

I don't either, but I still disagree. You don't "need" central banking. But central banking certainly makes it easier to force a "global economy" on people, whether they want it or not.

"If you want a "lazy-fare" "free market" supply-side capitalist economy, then you need the post-Greenspan Fed."

"Supply-Side" is a discredited Keynesian economic principle espoused by Art Laffer. Many people may not realize this, but Laffer is a dyed-in-the-woo

Before anybody starts slamming me, understand that I dislike Republicans approximately as much as I dislike Democrats.

But if you think THIS is "misleading" (from right there, plain as day, on the front page of the site, actual size), then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

"Summary Fourier was right."

No, he wasn't. The "greenhouse gas trapping radiation" explanation he imagined for the effects observed in the de Saussure experiments existed in his mind only and still does not exist. The heating in de Saussure's hotbox experiments was solely due to solar heating, and prevention of convective cooling. See the reconstruction here.

In other words, exactly like a real greenhouse, which works the way I just described, NOT via trapping of radiation.

Fourier's explanation was that the trapped gas also "trapped radiation" to cause the heating. Which was WRONG. Period.

Whether the modern conception of the "greenhouse effect" in the atmosphere works along the lines Fourier imagined is a different story. But as I stated before: the experiments that gave him the idea had NOTHING to do with "greenhouse gases" at all. They worked according to the well-known principles that govern actual greenhouses, which in turn has nothing at all to do with "trapping radiation".

Maybe you need to refresh the definition of a comparison operator : Partially Ordered set. In short : you can not have an ordering comparison relation and not having transitivity for it.

Maybe you need to brush up on your inequalities. I assure you that in the real world some inequalities (such as preferences) are not transitive. I have already explained one situation in which that is true, and you can prove it for yourself.

Flip a coin 3 times. Write down the result: HHH, THT, etc. There are 8 combinations. The game is played this way: you write down your prediction. I write down mine. NO MATTER WHICH prediction you make (if of course you make it first), I can choose another combination that has at least a 2/3 probability of occurring before yours. This is non-transitive, because (if you label the combinations with letters), it means A > B > C > D > E > F > G > H > A.

In fact, here is a chart of the probabilities of one combination coming up before another.

You need not believe me; you can flip a coin a few thousand times and prove it for yourself.

Then, if you still don't believe... I have a game I'd like to play with you. $5 a round.

The upshot is this: no matter what set theory may be telling you, non-transitivity of inequalities DOES occur in real world situations, and if you refuse to believe that, you'd better not be a gambler.

... to lose my trust in Nest.

There is a cool animated gif of the descent imager pictures of the landing, and a false color image of the surface.

Is there virtually no Caucasians left on Linkedin

One Hispanic, one female African-American, one Asian-Pacific-American, one Native-Indian, one Euro-Caucasian, one male African-American ...

What I'd like to be able to do is schedule my FB posts. I just found something Christmas-funny. I'd like to post it to FB around December 20th, but what I'd actually like to do is upload it now and schedule for it to appear on my feed (erm, 'timeline') on December 20th. Or on the weekend, schedule up a bunch of funny stuff to appear throughout the week. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know there's probably some ActiveGNUPerlFoxScriptExtensionPlugIn BS that does what I want, but I just want a button in FB.

What's really annoying is that you CAN do that as a "page" but not from your private account.

Example here.

Compared to 2539 bytes for the gif currently used on Wikipedia. That's a 90% improvement. A short trip to http://www.jpegreducer.com/ and I got the JPEG down to 960 bytes ~ http://s23.postimg.org/v7ut4927v/image.jpg ~ without any visible degradation

Granted, it's still larger that the original 236 characters.

Do you use magnetic cores?

Use? No. Own? Certainly!

http://postimg.org/image/ikdo5jnvx/

This is a 1.6 KB core memory module still in a functional condition.
It was one of many from the system it came out of, so I saw little point in backing up the fragment of program that was on it, but currently should still contain the state of an 8x8 game of life board from when I last had it connected to a PIC and LED matrix.

I keep it on my cubicle wall for anytime an employee requests additional RAM for their computer, along with the acoustic modem when they ask about Internet bandwidth or the QoS settings, and an 8" floppy disk labeled "Server Backups"

http://postimg.org/image/kxjre3fj1/
(Just ignore the energy drinks, it made sense at the time... I think)

Just one more fine touch for the BoFH that has everything :D