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  1. Re:So on Climate Panel Says To Prepare For Weird Weather · · Score: 1
    As usual the media are twisting the report into an end of the world horror story, when in fact it's anything but:

    There is limited to medium evidence available to assess climate-driven observed changes in the magnitude and frequency of floods at regional scales because the available instrumental records of floods at gauge stations are limited in space and time, and because of confounding effects of changes in land use and engineering. Furthermore, there is low agreement in this evidence, and thus overall low confidence at the global scale regarding even the sign of these changes. Projected precipitation and temperature changes imply possible changes in floods, although overall there is low confidence in projections of changes in fluvial floods. Confidence is low due to limited evidence and because the causes of regional changes are complex, although there are exceptions to this statement.

    To be sure, there are some paragraphs in which they have medium or high confidence of this or that, for instance more people are killed by natural disasters when they occur in poor countries. Well, smack my ass and call me a monkey, good thing the UN spent millions on a showy conference in Africa to tell us that. It was in Africa of course, because that's where they want the rich countries making all the CO2 to send trillions of dollars. That is the purpose of the UN (if most of the members were honest enough to tell you).

    Opportunities exist to create synergies in international finance for disaster risk management and adaptation to climate change, but these have not yet been fully realized (high confidence)

    You can see the report for yourself here: http://ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/

  2. Summary on What's Keeping You On Windows? · · Score: 1

    I don't game, but after reading too many of these posts, apparently the majority reason is to play games. Does that mean, when the gamers get older, MS will go out of business, or are there always more where they came from?

  3. Re:Honestly? on What's Keeping You On Windows? · · Score: 1

    At work and at home I depend on ssh, and I don't understand why anyone would prefer a GUI front end for ssh, rather than just using it the normal way from the command line.

  4. Re:Looking for Job on After MS-Nokia Pact, Many Nokia Workers Walk Out In Protest · · Score: 1

    I think you should cut him/her a break. Microsucks is so many more keystrokes.

  5. Suggestion for a protocol on Physicists Call For Alien Messaging Protocol · · Score: 0

    A couple blasts from a giant frickin' laser canon.

  6. Re:Global climate != Local weather on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1
    I did not interpret the graph that way and was confused by what you said, but now I have finally RTF summary for the graph and see that they make a caveat that the 2004 temperature is based on only one year, but the rest of the chart has a resolution of 300 years! So, any fluctuations in the past that might have risen above the 2004 value have been lost due to the smoothing.

    Too bad. Not very useful for making your claim.

    Wikipedia claims "In terms of the global average, temperatures were probably colder than present day" during the Holocene climatic optimum (my emphasis), but admit that the optimum did not occur at the same time in the northern and southern hemispheres.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum

    PS. Good catch regarding the speleotherm data, but the graph based on it sure looks a lot like the one you linked to on Wikipedia, and both indicate a general downward trend (with the Medieval Warm Period as a slight deviation), and in fact, looking Wikipedia's 5 million year chart, there is clearly a long term downward trend during this current ice age, as well.

  7. Re:Quantity, not quality, is often prioritised. on Why Published Research Findings Are Often False · · Score: 1

    Whether the conclusions of those are true or false is not something that hiring committees will delve into too much

    Rightly so. False conclusions are good for science, as long as they're honest. The pursuit for something new will eventually lead to the correct answer.

    It's good that the protagonist of the article (Schooler) recognizes and admits the problem.

    The people above who are focussing on pharma are missing the point, which is also the failure of the article. The author carefully avoids widening the perview which might then include other sciences which are hot topics these days.

  8. Re:It's simple. on Why Published Research Findings Are Often False · · Score: 1

    Fuck. Contrary, not contract.

  9. Re:It's simple. on Why Published Research Findings Are Often False · · Score: 2
    I'm game.

    The article is about selective reporting of results, publication bias, and "collective illusion nurtured by strong a-priori beliefs".

    Doesn't that fit the blind acceptance of the CO2 hypothesis despite evidence to the contract, exactly?

  10. Re:Global climate != Local weather on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1
    The graph which you linked to on Wikipedia contradicts your claim that

    it's now warmer than at any time in the past 12,000 years

    and in fact, supports what I said. Did you mean to include a different link, or am I missing something?

  11. Re:Global climate != Local weather on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1

    Rather than trusting a political organization or whoever wrote that in Wikipedia, I prefer to look at the data myself. A zip file containing speleotherm data has thoughtfully been provided here:

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/26/in-which-i-go-spelunking/

    When I look at his graph, it sure looks like it's getting colder to me.

    In addition, the following paper makes it clear that the warming since 1800 is a "rebound" from the little ice age with a multi-decadal oscillation superposed, and that we have now entered a downward swing in said oscillation, yet the underlying linear "rebound" continues.

    (PDF)
    http://www.scirp.org/Journal/PaperDownload.aspx?FileName=NS20101100004_10739704.pdf&paperID=3217

    And this paper has an explanation for the power spectra of the temperature oscillations which fit the data better than CO2 based models:

    http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4639

  12. Re:Global climate != Local weather on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1

    I have no argument about what you point out. Mainly, because it doesn't seem relevant in light of the facts. Namely that our current temperature is almost back up to what it was 1000 years ago, but not yet back to what it was 5000 years ago. Apparently we are still below the average temperature for our current interglacial period. There are all kinds of implications here.

    • The Earth has been cooling since about the time of Christ. Shouldn't the people who claim CO2 is the boogey man explain that trend first?
    • We're starting to warm back up to conditions in which civilization best flourished: The Holocene Thermal Maximum allowed the beginning of civilization and agriculture, the Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, and the Mediaeval Warm Period were times of plenty and advancement. Considering how well humanity did in warmer times than this, a finer grained assessment of the risk vs. rewards should be made, as opposed to a Hollywood scare treatment for the ignorant masses. That reeks of an ulterior motive.
    • And given the most of the Holocene has been warmer, any life forms which take longer than 10,000 years to evolve obviously have no problem with warmer temperatures than now, so what's with the crap about polar bears becoming extinct?
  13. Re:I see the Al Gore haters are out. on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1

    I wish I had mod points. +1000 to you.

  14. Re:No Sunspots = Starvation... on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1

    Absolutely right. And when someone who actually knows math and statistics (as opposed to climate "scientists"), and who are knowledgeable enough to consider influences outside the earth's atmosphere (as opposed to climate "scientists"), find that the planetary and lunar orbits fit the temperature cycles better than the climate "scientists'" models do, why does anyone (except media whores) even bother to listen to them any more? http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4639

  15. Re:I see the Al Gore haters are out. on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1

    What's even more depressing is that some people actually believe what politicians say. And if you believe what a politician says about science, I want some of what you're smoking.

  16. Re:No Sunspots = Starvation... on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1

    No, I think he means all the sheep that blindly accept the hyped up media version of what about 12 rabid climate "scientists" are preaching. http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/12/30/lawrence-solomon-75-climate-scientists-think-humans-contribute-to-global-warming/

  17. Re:No Sunspots = Starvation... on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1

    The believers sound so sanctimonious because AGW is a religion.

  18. Re:Global climate != Local weather on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1

    The period we are in now is among the coldest of the last 10,500 years. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/28/2010%E2%80%94where-does-it-fit-in-the-warmest-year-list/ That can't make the warmists happy.

  19. Re:What does Al Gore have to do with any of this? on Our Lazy Solar Dynamo — Hello Dalton Minimum? · · Score: 1

    Why should politics have anything to do with it?

  20. Re:I work for an LCD manufacturer on Does Anyone Really Prefer Glossy Screens? · · Score: 1

    Linux is bad in my experience. OTOH, Opensolaris fonts are as sharp as anything I've seen. FWIW.

  21. Re:Whew (US gasoline prices, as per the DOE) on BP Claims Gulf Well Has Been Stopped · · Score: 1
  22. Re:Unreadiness for Spills on BP Claims Gulf Well Has Been Stopped · · Score: 1

    Then the solution is to get everyone in Australia, western U.S., Iran, Phillipines, China, Indian, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Mexico and Pakistan, Yemen, Balochistan; dozens of other areas where agriculture or aquaculture is depleting the aquafers, to move to Ohio.

  23. Re:So what's new? Predators, anybody? on South Korea Deploys Killer Robot In DMZ · · Score: 1
    Hey kids, TFA points out that there's a person at the controls. It's not like this killbot that went berserk and killed nine people in S. Africa:

    http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki/

    http://gizmodo.com/312443/robot-cannon-goes-berserk-kills-9

  24. Re:Big Oil funding the evil deniers on Climategate and the Need For Greater Scientific Openness · · Score: 1
    BTW, before you (correctly) point out that prisonplanet.com is something of a nutjob web site, that's irrelevant. Those are either quotes by Tillerson or they're not.

    Discounting data because of the source is exactly what my original post was trying to expose as erroneous. It's either true or it isn't regardless of whether the source is your mother, Hitler, or Exxon Mobile.

  25. Big Oil funding the evil deniers on Climategate and the Need For Greater Scientific Openness · · Score: 1
    Since this AC was modded up to 4 and counting, apparently there are still a lot of gullible sheep who believe the spin that skeptics are funded by Big Bad Oil.

    With all due respect (ha) to WWF and Sierra Club propaganda, those of you who are of this persuasion may be interested in looking a little further than the latest issue of the "Weekly Weenie".

    See, for example

    http://www.prisonplanet.com/oil-companies-support-global-warming-alarmists-not-skeptics.html

    A common charge leveled against global warming skeptics is that they are on the payroll of transnational oil companies, when in fact the opposite is true, oil companies are amongst the biggest promoters of climate change propaganda, emphasized recently by Exxon Mobil's call for a global carbon tax.

    According to Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex Tillerson, the cap and trade nightmare being primed for passage in the Senate doesn't go far enough - Tillerson wants a direct tax on carbon dioxide emissions, essentially a tax on breathing since we all exhale this life-giving gas.

    In a speech last month, Tillerson brazenly called out the cap and trade agenda for what it was, an effort to impose a carbon tax camouflaged only by a slick sales pitch and deceptive rhetoric. "It is easier and more politically expedient to support a cap-and-trade approach, because the public will never figure out where it is hitting them," said Tillerson. "They will just know they hurt somewhere in their pocketbook," he added, pointing out that he disagreed with this convoluted method of introducing a carbon tax, arguing instead that it would be more successful to openly propose a straight carbon tax.

    Tillerson firmly expressed Exxon's support for climate change alarmists in stating, "I firmly believe it is not too late for Congress to consider a carbon tax as the better policy approach for addressing the risks of climate change."