very few built the bit coin mining network. it was all just hackers throwing cpu power at it. however it is to the point where it is no longer cost effective to throw CPU power at it as the # of coins you get is worth less than the power to run them.
You should take a look at the Mining Dasboard (it's a great resource in general, with the best mining profit calculator I've seen). You'll note that the total compute thrown at mining continues to grow, and just hit 35 petahashes per second (that is, 35,000,000,000,000,000 hashes per second). Clearly a lot of folk think there's value in mining bitcoins, and the increasing rate shows no sign of slowing down. On January 1, the rate was only 11 PH/s, so it's more than tripled in 3.5 months. Why are they doing it when for almost all of them it's not profitable now? Clearly they think the value of BTC will rise - a lot!
The problem of bit coin isn't whether or not it is useful but of it breaking down.
There are 44 quadrillion potential bit coins(21 million to the 8th power), but at the rate at which they are being permanently lost is just as staggering. every time someone loses 1 coin due to a lost password, bad hard drive etc, you really lose 8 potential coins.
You're conflating two different things. A "coin" is one bitcoin. Each coin may be subdivided into 100,000,000 "satoshis" currently. The Bitcoin Foundation could allow further subdivision in the future. So, the supply of BTC is not of any concern in the long run.
Real world currencies don't have to deal with "bit rot" (pun unintentional) You lose the combo to a physical vault there are other ways of opening it. even if the physical cash is destroyed you can always print more to replace.
Once a bit coin is gone. it is gone forever.
True, it's more like having gold destroyed (say in an explosion) than burning paper money. BTC was designed to have a limited amount, to prevent inflation. Given its divisible nature, that's not really a problem, although it will tend to drive up the value of integral BTC over time (thus the allure to investors).
Lastly we are already having to do transactions in milibits. what do we call.0000001 of a bit coin?
As mentioned above, a "satoshi".
Bit coin value has to go up in order to compensate for the inflation of number of coins and % of coins . however that means today's laptop at 1 BTC is worth.5 BTC tomorrow. People are already getting annoyed by such things.
What people? Certainly not investors.
Why is that a problem? Gold is currently worth four times (400%) what is was just fourteen years ago, and that's after taking a big hit a while back. Does that mean nobody wants to buy and hold gold now? When they need to buy something, they exchange some gold for dollars (or bitcoins) and make a transaction. BTC has nice attributes of both commodities and currencies.
Purchase a product for 1 bit coin and two months later that one bit coin is worth 10 times what it was. Bitcoin might be a transactional currency, but it won't ever be a stable one. it's very design prevents such a situation from lasting more than a couple of years.
There are a couple of factors that affect BTC price. The first, and the main cause of extreme volatility, is its newness and novelty. There have been giant "buyins", as when the Chinese became aware of it. Those things drive prices up. In the longer term, I expect it will stabilize quite a bit...but of course it will be worth more and more dollars over time if for no other reason than dollars are constantly inflating by design.
I expect BTC will do fine in the long run as long as the protocol remains secure.
True, but when the "authority" is a Nobel Prize winning physicist specializing in the exact area being discussed it means something. Further, "appeals to authority" invite the reader to investigate the claim, including detailed arguments made by the authority.
So, while not conclusive, an "appeal to authority" in this case is of interest.
The only difference is that so many people have been screwed over by so many different expressions of our modern greed that **they can't hide anymore**
.... or they could simply refuse to accept them, or any transaction that's taken place involving them.
They don't "accept" them now, and banks don't have control over external transactions. Thanks for playing!;-)
Sure, they'd still be valuable to people who don't seem to realize what they're backed by, and their actual value, is the same: absolutely nothing.
Almost no modern currencies are "backed" by anything. Go buy some gold or silver and have fun! They're not nearly as convenient for Internet transactions as BTC though...
Banks are insured against such losses so at least most customers won't lose most of their money. Who do you think is responsible for the regulations that require such insurance? Oh snap, that's right: THE GOVERNMENT.
There is no insurance for gold in safety deposit boxes. That was the analogy I used, with good reason.
You think the banks can't gain control of bitcoin?
Excuse me while I go laugh my head off.
I suppose "they" could if they started one hell of a mining operation...that would take quite a bit of effort though, and presumes there wouldn't be a mining arms race. Sounds farfetched to me.
Bitcoin just suffered a loss of 6% of its total currency
No, Mt. Gox just lost (most probably) all of its currency. It is similar to a bank with insufficient security getting robbed. That is no reason to ban US dollars. BTW, those BTC are out there and will no doubt be spent over time.
, if I understand the Mt.Gox math properly (and even if I don't, the loss was significant). One of the reasons governments came into being -- one of the reasons most people tend to agree that they should exist, is to protect property rights. There may be nothing wrong with Bitcoin inherently (mathematically), but if there are holes in the faucets -- the bitcoin banking system in this case -- then it's in everyone's best interest to patch the holes.
Indeed. However, other exchanges were smart enough to protect against this well known technique. Mt. Gox is the equivalent of a bank with a faulty vault and no security guard. Rumor has it that Mt. Gox hadn't balanced its books for months. Inexcusable.
If someone steals my money, then the taxes I pay go, in part, to pay for the legal system, rules, and police whose job it is to try and get it back or at least punish those who took it.
Bitcoin has had four years of freedom, and it has proven that it is as susceptible to abuse as traditional cash currencies, if not more so. While I don't want to see it crushed, and I'm in favor of limited government oversight, it seems to me that those limits should be non-zero.
The Japanese authorities should be making some effort to track the crime. Unfortunately, it's about the same as if a bunch of gold had been stolen from safety deposit boxes and shipped out of the country. There's likely no recourse, but that's no reason to ban gold ownership. Personally I think it's wiser to keep one's gold in a safe at home - and there is a BTC equivalent for that.
reigning system of currency/government considers it a threat
Outside of tinfoil hat land, there's absolutely no shred of evidence this is true. None, zip, nada. (No matter how much the tinfoil hat nutters would love it be true and their existence thus justified.)
I responded to some of your other points elsewhere, but as far as this goes I guess you missed Russia outlaws BTC. Russia hates it for the same reason it hates all currencies it doesn't control...
Kind of sad that a new currency - whose main idea was that it should be easy for private people to transfer money over the internet, free of charge - actually need these big "exchange-places"
Bitcoin is only a currency courtesy of the fact that it's creators and supporters don't actually grasp what a currency is. This repeated "calling a tail a leg" has lead to confusion because said supporters can understand why a legless dog can't walk - after all he has one leg!
Dictionary.com:
currency
[kur-uhn-see, kuhr-]
noun, plural currencies.
1. something that is used as a medium of exchange; money.
So, in what way exactly is BTC not a currency? It is clearly used as a medium of exchange...
Call it USD or BTC, same thing.
No, they aren't. They aren't even close to the same thing. That's my point, so long as you fail to grasp that Bitcoin is a trade token (on par with casino chips or trading stamps), you won't grasp why events have transpired as they have.
BTC are a "trade token" on par with gold coins. They don't have "state backing", but more importantly they're not controlled by any state. They have advantages as well as disadvantages compared to USD.
Do you think the first big bank robbery invalidated the dollar? Does it bother you that a dollar today is worth less than half of a dollar circa 1987?
Bitcoin isn't a currency and never will be - it's just a gambling scheme like playing roulette is.
It's a currency by definition. If you think national currencies like dollars are without risk, you should go read the hyperinflation page at Wikipedia.
You're not "safe" under any circumstances, offline or online.
TOR is a hard target, and unless there's some reason to go after you individually already, you'll almost certainly be secure using it. The TOR developers are constantly working to make it better as well.
I'm very surprised to see that the article and all posts fail to mention TOR.
TOR may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than any readily available alternative. I'd suggest using it for any browsing you think might be the least bit controversial. The more people that use TOR, the better it works. It's a bit slow, but it's livable.
As the first response points out, most modern Linux installs will run Steam games fine. There's a Steam client for Linux in addition to the full SteamOS. SteamOS has been terrific in that it's driving heaving improvement to Linux video drivers, particularly AMD's.
I'm hopeful that SteamOS will get Apple to wake up and make gaming a priority as well, giving us three high-quality PC game environments. For developers, MacOS and Linux game ports are well over 90% identical.
I predict Windows will whither at the same rate other desktop platforms improve their gaming experience.:-)
Latency and jamming is an issue, but is steadily improving.
There is no way to improve latency enough as far as air-to-air combat goes. Either the human controller needs to be close (within a few hundred miles max) or the drone needs to be fully autonomous. I seriously doubt autonomous air-to-air drones will be allowed to engage without human approval, so I believe there will be a human presence involved (in the general area at least) for the foreseeable future. Line of sight links will also be needed to eliminate jamming or other communication disruption.
It is true that drones will have an increasing presence, but some human piloted planes are still needed. I really like the idea of the B1-R. That would make a great "drone controller" aircraft.
I should also mention that if increased CO2 staves off the next Ice Age, it will be an enormous win both for humans and for the thousands of species that would otherwise go extinct...
After reaching a reasonable equilibrium point, in a glass containing water in a ratio of ~9:1 solid to liquid, what temperature is the liquid water?
Just above freezing. You know, rather unlike the actual oceans - which are far from uniform.
After several hours under a heat lamp, with a ratio of 1:99, what is the temperature of the liquid water? Now what happens once all of the ice is gone?
Now, what was that you were saying about not knowing where the excess heat energy was going?
Aside from that, the Earth's climate is a highly chaotic and complex entity. It has numerous long-term cycles and feedback mechanisms. As the latest IPCC report points out, the actual climate sensitivity to CO2 isn't known with good accuracy. We'll have a much better idea over the coming decades, but my hunch is that it will be a good bit lower than the current centerline IPCC estimate.
Finally, I'll leave you with the words of a noted global warming proponent and researcher:
"Pauses as long as 15 years are rare in the simulations, and âwe expect that [real-world] warming will resume in the next few years,â(TM) the Hadley Centre group writes. Researchers agree that no sort of natural variability can hold off greenhouse warming much longer." - Richard Kerr, Science (2009)
So, we'll see...2009 is already five long years in the past, and the pause shows no sign of stopping at this point...
What pause? The one you've been hearing about on denialist websites? How about instead of hearsay, we actually look at the data?
No, the one that everyone admits is ongoing, including climate scientists and the latest IPCC report.
Leading climate scientist Kevin Trenberth has told reportingclimatescience.com that he believes the pause in global warming may be caused by long term changes in the Pacific Ocean.
So, the very real pause is a subject of hot debate even among climate scientists. I suggest you re-read the quote from Richard Kerr above, as it also references the pause way back in 2009. It will be interesting seeing how things go over the next few years. We're currently right at solar maximum, and the tail end of this solar cycle will be long and low. Then, Cycle 25 will begin (starting probably in roughly 2020-2022) and it is predicted to be much lower than the current cycle, with the first estimate being a maximum sunspot number of 7 (versus about 67 for the current very low cycle - this one is already the lowest in over a century). So, the next 20+ years will give us an excellent idea of the true influence of extremely low solar activity on climate - and I believe the results will not be positive for climate alarmism.
As to the big picture on CO2, the US is no longer the biggest producer, nor will it be going forward. If growing CO2 concentration is in fact a crisis, the task of the alarmist community will be to convince China, India, Russia and the host of growing third-world economies to forgo growth and save the planet. Good luck with that.
The one possibility that might be a win-win is the proliferation of thorium or LENR nuclear technology in a major way. That route would provide plenty of energy at low cost, without producing a gram of CO2. Regardless of CO2 production, there are a lot of good reasons to displace coal electricity production with cleaner technologies. Solar will also play a role, but it is not a good source of baseline power, and is unlikely to ramp up to the levels needed anytime soon.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the rest of your post (for the three people that might actually read this lol) but I'll hit a couple of high points...
They aren't "theories". They are measurements.
You know, legitimate climate scientists going out with scientific instruments and collecting real-world sea-temperature measurements to do legitimate reliable science.
The ocean temperature measurements aren't nearly as straightforward as you make out. The purported "extra heat hiding in the oceans" amounts to changes of hundredths of a degree in the water column. Reliable measurements of that accuracy simply don't exist.
On the other hand, we do have accurate satellite measurements of sea surface temperatures going back for some time. Here's the most current data I could find. (If you track it down, you'll find temperatures have been similar back to 1998, the year of a major El Niño event.) You'll note that sea surface temperatures have not noticeably risen. As I said before, it doesn't pass the "sni
You may have see the phrase "past performance is no guarantee of future results" in the financial industry. That is equally true of the (even more complex) climate.
There are some interesting factors to consider.
First of all, volcanic activity has been low for a couple of decades now. The last VEI 6 or larger eruption was Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. Each VEI number represents 10x as much material being blasted into the atmosphere. Also as the VEI number goes up the height of the cloud increases - at around VEI 5 SO2 starts makng it into the stratosphere. VEI 5 and lower eruptions cause much less global cooling than VEI 6 and up. So, the lack of volcanic activity represents a net warming influence.
Second, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased about 25% since 1955.
So, it is in fact quite surprising if you're a devotee of climate alarmism to see temperatures stabilize like this. I understand there are theories regarding this heat hiding in the deep ocean somehow (rather in violation of entropy it seems) and others than try to explain the satellite temperature measurements away by various hand waving. So far I don't feel those theories pass the sniff test, and regardless we'll learn more as additional data is collected over time.
Finally, I'll leave you with the words of a noted global warming proponent and researcher:
“Pauses as long as 15 years are rare in the simulations, and ‘we expect that [real-world] warming will resume in the next few years,’ the Hadley Centre group writes. Researchers agree that no sort of natural variability can hold off greenhouse warming much longer.”
- Richard Kerr, Science (2009)
So, we'll see...2009 is already five long years in the past, and the pause shows no sign of stopping at this point...
Yeah, except that entire effort is a straw man of colossal proportions. "Climate deniers", really? What, do they deny the climate exists?
Many climate change skeptics accept the idea of greenhouse gasses and potential warming. What is contested is the severity of future warming, if any, and the certainty expressed by the IPCC when instead much is uncertain.
If you read the first review for this on Amazon, you'll find it runs at 120 Hz at 1920x1080 res. That's pretty nice, as most decent video cards do a good job at that res, but not even the highest end ones can hit 60 Hz at 4K, at least with good settings levels.
I'd be all over this if it were 30", and for $500 I may still give it a try... The review and comments afterwards are quite favorable, although one guy did install higher quality caps on the power supply.
Slashdot Mirror
TigerDirect, Overstock.com, and Gyft.
Be surprised. :-)
I think BTC will do well in the long run, simply because of low transaction cost/friction. Not to mention the small size and light weight. ;-)
very few built the bit coin mining network. it was all just hackers throwing cpu power at it. however it is to the point where it is no longer cost effective to throw CPU power at it as the # of coins you get is worth less than the power to run them.
You should take a look at the Mining Dasboard (it's a great resource in general, with the best mining profit calculator I've seen). You'll note that the total compute thrown at mining continues to grow, and just hit 35 petahashes per second (that is, 35,000,000,000,000,000 hashes per second). Clearly a lot of folk think there's value in mining bitcoins, and the increasing rate shows no sign of slowing down. On January 1, the rate was only 11 PH/s, so it's more than tripled in 3.5 months. Why are they doing it when for almost all of them it's not profitable now? Clearly they think the value of BTC will rise - a lot!
The problem of bit coin isn't whether or not it is useful but of it breaking down.
There are 44 quadrillion potential bit coins(21 million to the 8th power), but at the rate at which they are being permanently lost is just as staggering. every time someone loses 1 coin due to a lost password, bad hard drive etc, you really lose 8 potential coins.
You're conflating two different things. A "coin" is one bitcoin. Each coin may be subdivided into 100,000,000 "satoshis" currently. The Bitcoin Foundation could allow further subdivision in the future. So, the supply of BTC is not of any concern in the long run.
Real world currencies don't have to deal with "bit rot" (pun unintentional) You lose the combo to a physical vault there are other ways of opening it. even if the physical cash is destroyed you can always print more to replace.
Once a bit coin is gone. it is gone forever.
True, it's more like having gold destroyed (say in an explosion) than burning paper money. BTC was designed to have a limited amount, to prevent inflation. Given its divisible nature, that's not really a problem, although it will tend to drive up the value of integral BTC over time (thus the allure to investors).
Lastly we are already having to do transactions in milibits. what do we call .0000001 of a bit coin?
As mentioned above, a "satoshi".
Bit coin value has to go up in order to compensate for the inflation of number of coins and % of coins . however that means today's laptop at 1 BTC is worth .5 BTC tomorrow. People are already getting annoyed by such things.
What people? Certainly not investors.
Why is that a problem? Gold is currently worth four times (400%) what is was just fourteen years ago, and that's after taking a big hit a while back. Does that mean nobody wants to buy and hold gold now? When they need to buy something, they exchange some gold for dollars (or bitcoins) and make a transaction. BTC has nice attributes of both commodities and currencies.
Purchase a product for 1 bit coin and two months later that one bit coin is worth 10 times what it was. Bitcoin might be a transactional currency, but it won't ever be a stable one. it's very design prevents such a situation from lasting more than a couple of years.
There are a couple of factors that affect BTC price. The first, and the main cause of extreme volatility, is its newness and novelty. There have been giant "buyins", as when the Chinese became aware of it. Those things drive prices up. In the longer term, I expect it will stabilize quite a bit...but of course it will be worth more and more dollars over time if for no other reason than dollars are constantly inflating by design.
I expect BTC will do fine in the long run as long as the protocol remains secure.
True, but when the "authority" is a Nobel Prize winning physicist specializing in the exact area being discussed it means something. Further, "appeals to authority" invite the reader to investigate the claim, including detailed arguments made by the authority.
So, while not conclusive, an "appeal to authority" in this case is of interest.
The only difference is that so many people have been screwed over by so many different expressions of our modern greed that **they can't hide anymore**
WTF are you talking about exactly? Be specific...
.... or they could simply refuse to accept them, or any transaction that's taken place involving them.
They don't "accept" them now, and banks don't have control over external transactions. Thanks for playing! ;-)
Sure, they'd still be valuable to people who don't seem to realize what they're backed by, and their actual value, is the same: absolutely nothing.
Almost no modern currencies are "backed" by anything. Go buy some gold or silver and have fun! They're not nearly as convenient for Internet transactions as BTC though...
Banks are insured against such losses so at least most customers won't lose most of their money. Who do you think is responsible for the regulations that require such insurance? Oh snap, that's right: THE GOVERNMENT.
There is no insurance for gold in safety deposit boxes. That was the analogy I used, with good reason.
Now run along and get fucked, boi.
How eloquent! (Kids these days...smh)
You think the banks can't gain control of bitcoin?
Excuse me while I go laugh my head off.
I suppose "they" could if they started one hell of a mining operation...that would take quite a bit of effort though, and presumes there wouldn't be a mining arms race. Sounds farfetched to me.
A banking goon wants cryptographic currency - a technological currency the banks cannot gain any control of - to be banned. How about that.
Hah!
What's next? A system for banning competition in business?
We already have that, it's called "0bama Style Crony Capitalism"!
Bitcoin just suffered a loss of 6% of its total currency
No, Mt. Gox just lost (most probably) all of its currency. It is similar to a bank with insufficient security getting robbed. That is no reason to ban US dollars. BTW, those BTC are out there and will no doubt be spent over time.
, if I understand the Mt.Gox math properly (and even if I don't, the loss was significant). One of the reasons governments came into being -- one of the reasons most people tend to agree that they should exist, is to protect property rights. There may be nothing wrong with Bitcoin inherently (mathematically), but if there are holes in the faucets -- the bitcoin banking system in this case -- then it's in everyone's best interest to patch the holes.
Indeed. However, other exchanges were smart enough to protect against this well known technique. Mt. Gox is the equivalent of a bank with a faulty vault and no security guard. Rumor has it that Mt. Gox hadn't balanced its books for months. Inexcusable.
If someone steals my money, then the taxes I pay go, in part, to pay for the legal system, rules, and police whose job it is to try and get it back or at least punish those who took it.
Bitcoin has had four years of freedom, and it has proven that it is as susceptible to abuse as traditional cash currencies, if not more so. While I don't want to see it crushed, and I'm in favor of limited government oversight, it seems to me that those limits should be non-zero.
The Japanese authorities should be making some effort to track the crime. Unfortunately, it's about the same as if a bunch of gold had been stolen from safety deposit boxes and shipped out of the country. There's likely no recourse, but that's no reason to ban gold ownership. Personally I think it's wiser to keep one's gold in a safe at home - and there is a BTC equivalent for that.
Outside of tinfoil hat land, there's absolutely no shred of evidence this is true. None, zip, nada. (No matter how much the tinfoil hat nutters would love it be true and their existence thus justified.)
I responded to some of your other points elsewhere, but as far as this goes I guess you missed Russia outlaws BTC. Russia hates it for the same reason it hates all currencies it doesn't control...
Bitcoin is only a currency courtesy of the fact that it's creators and supporters don't actually grasp what a currency is. This repeated "calling a tail a leg" has lead to confusion because said supporters can understand why a legless dog can't walk - after all he has one leg!
Dictionary.com:
currency
[kur-uhn-see, kuhr-]
noun, plural currencies.
1. something that is used as a medium of exchange; money.
So, in what way exactly is BTC not a currency? It is clearly used as a medium of exchange...
No, they aren't. They aren't even close to the same thing. That's my point, so long as you fail to grasp that Bitcoin is a trade token (on par with casino chips or trading stamps), you won't grasp why events have transpired as they have.
BTC are a "trade token" on par with gold coins. They don't have "state backing", but more importantly they're not controlled by any state. They have advantages as well as disadvantages compared to USD.
Do you think the first big bank robbery invalidated the dollar? Does it bother you that a dollar today is worth less than half of a dollar circa 1987?
Bitcoin isn't a currency and never will be - it's just a gambling scheme like playing roulette is.
It's a currency by definition. If you think national currencies like dollars are without risk, you should go read the hyperinflation page at Wikipedia.
Well, you win for the most inane comment on this topic.
Stereotypes are bad, m'kay?
The "tolerant left"...an oxymoron for sure.
You're not "safe" under any circumstances, offline or online.
TOR is a hard target, and unless there's some reason to go after you individually already, you'll almost certainly be secure using it. The TOR developers are constantly working to make it better as well.
I'm very surprised to see that the article and all posts fail to mention TOR.
TOR may not be perfect, but it's a lot better than any readily available alternative. I'd suggest using it for any browsing you think might be the least bit controversial. The more people that use TOR, the better it works. It's a bit slow, but it's livable.
http://www.torproject.org/
heaving = heavy
Please provide an edit function /.!
As the first response points out, most modern Linux installs will run Steam games fine. There's a Steam client for Linux in addition to the full SteamOS. SteamOS has been terrific in that it's driving heaving improvement to Linux video drivers, particularly AMD's.
I'm hopeful that SteamOS will get Apple to wake up and make gaming a priority as well, giving us three high-quality PC game environments. For developers, MacOS and Linux game ports are well over 90% identical.
I predict Windows will whither at the same rate other desktop platforms improve their gaming experience. :-)
Latency and jamming is an issue, but is steadily improving.
There is no way to improve latency enough as far as air-to-air combat goes. Either the human controller needs to be close (within a few hundred miles max) or the drone needs to be fully autonomous. I seriously doubt autonomous air-to-air drones will be allowed to engage without human approval, so I believe there will be a human presence involved (in the general area at least) for the foreseeable future. Line of sight links will also be needed to eliminate jamming or other communication disruption.
It is true that drones will have an increasing presence, but some human piloted planes are still needed. I really like the idea of the B1-R. That would make a great "drone controller" aircraft.
I should also mention that if increased CO2 staves off the next Ice Age, it will be an enormous win both for humans and for the thousands of species that would otherwise go extinct...
After reaching a reasonable equilibrium point, in a glass containing water in a ratio of ~9:1 solid to liquid, what temperature is the liquid water?
Just above freezing. You know, rather unlike the actual oceans - which are far from uniform.
After several hours under a heat lamp, with a ratio of 1:99, what is the temperature of the liquid water? Now what happens once all of the ice is gone?
Now, what was that you were saying about not knowing where the excess heat energy was going?
Well, that would be a more meaningful question if the total amount of sea ice were decreasing... Actually 2013 was rather a banner year for antarctic sea ice.
Aside from that, the Earth's climate is a highly chaotic and complex entity. It has numerous long-term cycles and feedback mechanisms. As the latest IPCC report points out, the actual climate sensitivity to CO2 isn't known with good accuracy. We'll have a much better idea over the coming decades, but my hunch is that it will be a good bit lower than the current centerline IPCC estimate.
Finally, I'll leave you with the words of a noted global warming proponent and researcher: "Pauses as long as 15 years are rare in the simulations, and âwe expect that [real-world] warming will resume in the next few years,â(TM) the Hadley Centre group writes. Researchers agree that no sort of natural variability can hold off greenhouse warming much longer." - Richard Kerr, Science (2009) So, we'll see...2009 is already five long years in the past, and the pause shows no sign of stopping at this point...
What pause? The one you've been hearing about on denialist websites? How about instead of hearsay, we actually look at the data?
No, the one that everyone admits is ongoing, including climate scientists and the latest IPCC report.
For instance:
So, the very real pause is a subject of hot debate even among climate scientists. I suggest you re-read the quote from Richard Kerr above, as it also references the pause way back in 2009. It will be interesting seeing how things go over the next few years. We're currently right at solar maximum, and the tail end of this solar cycle will be long and low. Then, Cycle 25 will begin (starting probably in roughly 2020-2022) and it is predicted to be much lower than the current cycle, with the first estimate being a maximum sunspot number of 7 (versus about 67 for the current very low cycle - this one is already the lowest in over a century). So, the next 20+ years will give us an excellent idea of the true influence of extremely low solar activity on climate - and I believe the results will not be positive for climate alarmism.
As to the big picture on CO2, the US is no longer the biggest producer, nor will it be going forward. If growing CO2 concentration is in fact a crisis, the task of the alarmist community will be to convince China, India, Russia and the host of growing third-world economies to forgo growth and save the planet. Good luck with that.
The one possibility that might be a win-win is the proliferation of thorium or LENR nuclear technology in a major way. That route would provide plenty of energy at low cost, without producing a gram of CO2. Regardless of CO2 production, there are a lot of good reasons to displace coal electricity production with cleaner technologies. Solar will also play a role, but it is not a good source of baseline power, and is unlikely to ramp up to the levels needed anytime soon.
I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the rest of your post (for the three people that might actually read this lol) but I'll hit a couple of high points...
They aren't "theories". They are measurements.
You know, legitimate climate scientists going out with scientific instruments and collecting real-world sea-temperature measurements to do legitimate reliable science.
The ocean temperature measurements aren't nearly as straightforward as you make out. The purported "extra heat hiding in the oceans" amounts to changes of hundredths of a degree in the water column. Reliable measurements of that accuracy simply don't exist.
On the other hand, we do have accurate satellite measurements of sea surface temperatures going back for some time. Here's the most current data I could find. (If you track it down, you'll find temperatures have been similar back to 1998, the year of a major El Niño event.) You'll note that sea surface temperatures have not noticeably risen. As I said before, it doesn't pass the "sni
You may have see the phrase "past performance is no guarantee of future results" in the financial industry. That is equally true of the (even more complex) climate.
There are some interesting factors to consider.
First of all, volcanic activity has been low for a couple of decades now. The last VEI 6 or larger eruption was Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. Each VEI number represents 10x as much material being blasted into the atmosphere. Also as the VEI number goes up the height of the cloud increases - at around VEI 5 SO2 starts makng it into the stratosphere. VEI 5 and lower eruptions cause much less global cooling than VEI 6 and up. So, the lack of volcanic activity represents a net warming influence.
Second, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has increased about 25% since 1955.
So, it is in fact quite surprising if you're a devotee of climate alarmism to see temperatures stabilize like this. I understand there are theories regarding this heat hiding in the deep ocean somehow (rather in violation of entropy it seems) and others than try to explain the satellite temperature measurements away by various hand waving. So far I don't feel those theories pass the sniff test, and regardless we'll learn more as additional data is collected over time.
Finally, I'll leave you with the words of a noted global warming proponent and researcher:
So, we'll see...2009 is already five long years in the past, and the pause shows no sign of stopping at this point...
It's not a peer-reviewed study, it's an informal systematic review.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart
Yeah, except that entire effort is a straw man of colossal proportions. "Climate deniers", really? What, do they deny the climate exists?
Many climate change skeptics accept the idea of greenhouse gasses and potential warming. What is contested is the severity of future warming, if any, and the certainty expressed by the IPCC when instead much is uncertain.
As to the "pause" being a statistical artifact, warming has in fact flattened for about fifteen years so far - despite CO2 being at record levels. We'll see how long it continues, we're right at solar maximum currently and looking at a long stretch of low solar activity ahead. So, the next 20-40 years should give us a true concrete idea of how a solar Grand Minimum effects the climate.
If you read the first review for this on Amazon, you'll find it runs at 120 Hz at 1920x1080 res. That's pretty nice, as most decent video cards do a good job at that res, but not even the highest end ones can hit 60 Hz at 4K, at least with good settings levels.
I'd be all over this if it were 30", and for $500 I may still give it a try... The review and comments afterwards are quite favorable, although one guy did install higher quality caps on the power supply.
Time to look for a better job, without a doubt! I'm a bit annoyed with substandard hardware here, but it's not anywhere near that bad!