I wonder how this compares to the OPOC engine that is being developed by the same guy who did the TDI for VW. Check out the nifty flash animation: http://www.ecomotors.com/ . I think the new found focus on economy is starting to (finally) spur some innovation in this area.
Very weak. 40 miles on battery and then ~ 50mpg for the remaining 10 miles and you get the stupid mileage figure. Yes you can average 230mpg over the first 50 miles you drive on a fresh charge. Of course driving just another 10 miles would drop the mileage figure substantially. I guess it's time to have two mileage ratings. The first would be gallons per 100 miles with a fully charged battery, the 2nd would be gallons per 100 miles on a fully depleted battery.
I think it will be a lot harder for these researchers to go back and change their headlines than it has been for them to modify the historical temperature data. In a few years time we will be able to look back at these headlines and have a good laugh at what people were willing to say just to keep their funding.
My daughter loves to play tuxpaint and ktuberling on our touch screen laptop (HP tx series). She is 3 now but had mastered tuxpaint with the touch screen (using the sytlus even) before she was two. Great fun and a nice activity after you've done all the playdoh and puzzles you can handle.
She also knows how to launch her videos from their desktop icons etc.
The touchscreen is a must as the coordination neccessary to properly use a mouse and/or keyboard just isn't there at such a young age.
The only current sea level data that I could find (other than lots of "projections") is at http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ but they have stopped updating their information until the end of the year.
The good news is that the sea level has been dropping slightly (this is no doubt connected to the massive increase in polar ice). Hopefully they won't pay to much for their insurance.
So arctic ice extent varies (seasonally) between about 4 and 13 MILLION square kilometers. I'm guessing it's at the minimum for the year (it is the end of summer after all) so lets say 4,000,000 km^2. Hmmm 100km^2.... what is that about 0.003%. Why is this news?
I much prefer the story of the Polar Defense Project! (Kayak guys who are stuck in ice 1000km from the pole).
So by that chart you referenced there is 600,000km^2 more arctic ice now than last year? From the title of the article I would expect less ice now than before if it were in the process of disappearing. What gives?
I have also read that there is more antarctic ice now than in the last 30 years. Is there a similar picture for antarctic ice cover?
I am well aware that the total solar irradiance has little variation and does not correlate with global temperatures very well. I was however referring to the sunspot activity which seems to have a much stronger correlation to earthly temperatures and agricultural production.
I'm no solar scientist but I think it basically goes that cosmic rays (not originating from our sun btw) somehow cause clouds to form. Sunspots help to shield earth from these cosmic rays and thus fewer clouds form and temperature increases. With fewer sunspots there are more clouds and lower temperatures. Thus the little ice age.
I'm guessing we will be able to test this hypothesis over the next few years and see if it passes muster.
I find it amazing that this relationship (sun spots vs agricultural output) is dismissed so easily by the current anti-CO2 crowd. I am all for eliminating pollution but I am very worried that the focus on CO2 is completely wrong and is doing a great disservice to humanity.
You have to get her started on Mahjongg http://live.gnome.org/Mahjongg. My parent's computer is dual boot xp/ubuntu and after I showed them how to play Mahjongg they started booting into Linux. Now they are hooked. They have actually adapted all their other computer activities to Linux so that the game is readily available.
Pirsig has a great line in his novel which I paraphrase as "nobody screams and shouts that the sun will rise tomorrow", it's a given and there is no discussion. It seems to me that the people who are afraid of discussion are the screamers. If people argue that the world is flat there is no need to shout them down and freak out at them etc, if you _know_ something to be true you should not be offended or upset if someone else believes otherwise. If your knowledge (belief/faith) is in doubt perhaps then you would scream/shout/freak out. That is what I've taken from the trailer linked here, it totally reminded me of the fanaticism part of "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenence".
I don't think you caught the "reduced solar activity and lower (by 2.0C)" part of my post. The scientists on the NASA noaa panel appear to be firmly behind the belief that the sun's output doesn't vary enough to affect global temperatures. I find this puzzling as how else would one explain the maunder minimum (and ice ages for that matter)?
As I understand it some solar scientists (outside of NASA) are predicting a period of reduced solar activity and lower (by 2.0C) temperatures for the next 3 or 4 decades. Of course the AGW proponents are saying hogwash to that. I guess we will all know who is correct soon enough, the next solar cycle is already late (cycle 24) and we will know within 2-3 years if a) it is weaker than the last one b) if it does or doesn't affect temperatures. Both sides however are predicting lower crop output (higher prices) and tragically we are already converting more food (grain crops) into fuel than we probably should be. The affluent will notice an increase in beer/food cost, the poor an increase in hunger/dying.
Nice Link. What I took from this is that it's just a big feedback loop (started by some external factor - solar/orbital what have you). I've read some good articles on either side and was always wondering why this point wasn't discussed further.
Somewhat off topic but has it been decided yet which is the cause and which is the effect. I've read arguments on both sides (higher temps yields higher CO2 and vice versa). What is the consensus on this now? I've been waiting for the next climate change related story to ask this.
My experience has been that the 64bit version was dead stable (not a single hiccup) and once I got a non-nvidia sound driver so was the 32bit version. Before I downloaded a "generic" C-Media sound driver the nvidia one crashed at least every 20 minutes and had me very close to re-imaging my disk back to the 64bit version. My only gripe is that I cannot mount my EXT3 volumes from within Vista (was doing this in XP with the extIFS driver).
Windows update still tells me that they have an updated sound driver for me to install (the buggy nvidia one).
My triple boot (Ubuntu 6.06, XP-Pro, Vista-Ulti) now defaults to Vista (I know, I know but I'm currently working on a C# app in VS2005).
Actually there are many variations on the Traveling Salesman that an optimal solution is required for. In a previous life I worked on some software for laying out circuit boards, massive circuit boards. In fact the speed of the production line was limited by how long it would take the robots to place everything on the board. We managed to have a fairly optimal solution by dividing up the card into smaller regions (bands) and solving each one individually. The less distance the robot would traverse the better, thus the traveling salesman.
Yup, Sony is going to suck people in with it's PS3 the same way it sucked people in with it's PS2. 100,000,000 people got suckered into buying the worst/stupidest/most evil/not nintendo console! It's going to happen again. It amazes me that this is now a religious issue for some. Get over yourself people. My choice of console (or even to NOT get a console) has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU.
Every console maker is trying to make money, end of story. This is a great thing in that it leads to innovation and advancement. You have to love capitalism. The only thing better than capitalism to spur on new development is warfare. I prefer capitalism.
Well there is always http://distrowatch.com/> but just in general "mindshare" I get the impression that Ubuntu is gaining favor with many Linux advocates.
It seems to me that the rise in popularity of Ubuntu has caused "ripples" of concern amoung some of the more established (read older) distributions. As in the commercial world open source projects live and die by "mindshare" almost as much as technical merit. The spinning off of Fedora sounds like an attempt to recapture some lost mindshare.
Sony should be encouraging "home brew" apps for the PSP as much as possible. I believe that much of the early success of the Palm Pilot was due to the community of developers that flocked to the device.
There are *free* roms available for GBA so I guess the GBA emulator isn't TOTALLY copywrite infringment facilitating software....:-)
I don't remember the researcher's name but he was ridiculed when his findings on the causes of stomach ulcers didn't fall into line with the "popular" opinions within the scientific/research community. He actually had to infect himself with the bacteria in question (Helicobacter pylori), then cure his ulcers with anitbiotics before anyone else in the scientific community would take him seriously and/or publish any of his work. I am all for less polution in the air and do my best to reduce/reuse/recycle yadda yadda yadda but I can still remember how scared I was as a pre-teen when I learned at school that the earth was cooling off and headed for another ice-age. I am VERY sceptical of the amount of influence we humans have on the climate etc.
I try not to get too excited about new toys (especially now that I'm in my 30's) but the PSP has put a spell on me. I think this will be the first portable that doesn't make any excuses (nice screen, fast processor etc.). Now if I can only convince my wife that I need an early birthday present...
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I wonder how this compares to the OPOC engine that is being developed by the same guy who did the TDI for VW. Check out the nifty flash animation: http://www.ecomotors.com/ . I think the new found focus on economy is starting to (finally) spur some innovation in this area.
Very weak. 40 miles on battery and then ~ 50mpg for the remaining 10 miles and you get the stupid mileage figure. Yes you can average 230mpg over the first 50 miles you drive on a fresh charge. Of course driving just another 10 miles would drop the mileage figure substantially. I guess it's time to have two mileage ratings. The first would be gallons per 100 miles with a fully charged battery, the 2nd would be gallons per 100 miles on a fully depleted battery.
_GP_
I think it will be a lot harder for these researchers to go back and change their headlines than it has been for them to modify the historical temperature data. In a few years time we will be able to look back at these headlines and have a good laugh at what people were willing to say just to keep their funding.
Cheers,
_GP_
My daughter loves to play tuxpaint and ktuberling on our touch screen laptop (HP tx series). She is 3 now but had mastered tuxpaint with the touch screen (using the sytlus even) before she was two. Great fun and a nice activity after you've done all the playdoh and puzzles you can handle.
She also knows how to launch her videos from their desktop icons etc.
The touchscreen is a must as the coordination neccessary to properly use a mouse and/or keyboard just isn't there at such a young age.
Enjoy!
The only current sea level data that I could find (other than lots of "projections") is at
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ but they have stopped updating their information until the end of the year.
The good news is that the sea level has been dropping slightly (this is no doubt connected to the massive increase in polar ice). Hopefully they won't pay to much for their insurance.
Cheers,
_GP_
So arctic ice extent varies (seasonally) between about 4 and 13 MILLION square kilometers. I'm guessing it's at the minimum for the year (it is the end of summer after all) so lets say 4,000,000 km^2. Hmmm 100km^2.... what is that about 0.003%. Why is this news?
I much prefer the story of the Polar Defense Project! (Kayak guys who are stuck in ice 1000km from the pole).
Cheers,
_GP_
So by that chart you referenced there is 600,000km^2 more arctic ice now than last year? From the title of the article I would expect less ice now than before if it were in the process of disappearing. What gives?
I have also read that there is more antarctic ice now than in the last 30 years. Is there a similar picture for antarctic ice cover?
Cheers,
_GP_
I am well aware that the total solar irradiance has little variation and does not correlate with global temperatures very well. I was however referring to the sunspot activity which seems to have a much stronger correlation to earthly temperatures and agricultural production.
I'm no solar scientist but I think it basically goes that cosmic rays (not originating from our sun btw) somehow cause clouds to form. Sunspots help to shield earth from these cosmic rays and thus fewer clouds form and temperature increases. With fewer sunspots there are more clouds and lower temperatures. Thus the little ice age.
I'm guessing we will be able to test this hypothesis over the next few years and see if it passes muster.
Regards,
_GP_
A few hundred years ago William Herschel was able to notice the inverse relationship between sunspots and the price of wheat.
http://www.hao.ucar.edu/Public/education/bios/herschel.html
I find it amazing that this relationship (sun spots vs agricultural output) is dismissed so easily by the current anti-CO2 crowd. I am all for eliminating pollution but I am very worried that the focus on CO2 is completely wrong and is doing a great disservice to humanity.
CO2 is the breath of life.
_GP_
You have to get her started on Mahjongg http://live.gnome.org/Mahjongg. My parent's computer is dual boot xp/ubuntu and after I showed them how to play Mahjongg they started booting into Linux. Now they are hooked. They have actually adapted all their other computer activities to Linux so that the game is readily available.
Cheers,
_GP_
Pirsig has a great line in his novel which I paraphrase as "nobody screams and shouts that the sun will rise tomorrow", it's a given and there is no discussion. It seems to me that the people who are afraid of discussion are the screamers. If people argue that the world is flat there is no need to shout them down and freak out at them etc, if you _know_ something to be true you should not be offended or upset if someone else believes otherwise. If your knowledge (belief/faith) is in doubt perhaps then you would scream/shout/freak out. That is what I've taken from the trailer linked here, it totally reminded me of the fanaticism part of "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenence".
Cheers,
_GP_
Well to start
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/where-have-all-the-sunspots-gone/
sun cycle length predicts coming cool period
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/04/03/there-is-no-sun-link-with-global-warming/
sun cycle has no effect on temperature
http://reason.com/news/show/125300.html the David Archibald presentation mentioned here interested me.
AFAIK empirical data will be the final arbiter of the various climate beliefs (climate religion).
I don't discuss religion publicly so this is my final post on this subject. Too many people are too emotional on this subject.
Regards,
_GP_
I don't think you caught the "reduced solar activity and lower (by 2.0C)" part of my post. The scientists on the NASA noaa panel appear to be firmly behind the belief that the sun's output doesn't vary enough to affect global temperatures. I find this puzzling as how else would one explain the maunder minimum (and ice ages for that matter)?
Cheers,
_GP_
As I understand it some solar scientists (outside of NASA) are predicting a period of reduced solar activity and lower (by 2.0C) temperatures for the next 3 or 4 decades. Of course the AGW proponents are saying hogwash to that. I guess we will all know who is correct soon enough, the next solar cycle is already late (cycle 24) and we will know within 2-3 years if a) it is weaker than the last one b) if it does or doesn't affect temperatures. Both sides however are predicting lower crop output (higher prices) and tragically we are already converting more food (grain crops) into fuel than we probably should be. The affluent will notice an increase in beer/food cost, the poor an increase in hunger/dying.
_GP_
Nice Link. What I took from this is that it's just a big feedback loop (started by some external factor - solar/orbital what have you). I've read some good articles on either side and was always wondering why this point wasn't discussed further.
Cheers,
_GP_
Somewhat off topic but has it been decided yet which is the cause and which is the effect. I've read arguments on both sides (higher temps yields higher CO2 and vice versa). What is the consensus on this now? I've been waiting for the next climate change related story to ask this.
Cheers,
_GP_
My experience has been that the 64bit version was dead stable (not a single hiccup) and once I got a non-nvidia sound driver so was the 32bit version. Before I downloaded a "generic" C-Media sound driver the nvidia one crashed at least every 20 minutes and had me very close to re-imaging my disk back to the 64bit version. My only gripe is that I cannot mount my EXT3 volumes from within Vista (was doing this in XP with the extIFS driver).
Windows update still tells me that they have an updated sound driver for me to install (the buggy nvidia one).
My triple boot (Ubuntu 6.06, XP-Pro, Vista-Ulti) now defaults to Vista (I know, I know but I'm currently working on a C# app in VS2005).
Cheers,
_GP_
What? Solaris not stable or reliable? I call troll.
Actually there are many variations on the Traveling Salesman that an optimal solution is required for. In a previous life I worked on some software for laying out circuit boards, massive circuit boards. In fact the speed of the production line was limited by how long it would take the robots to place everything on the board. We managed to have a fairly optimal solution by dividing up the card into smaller regions (bands) and solving each one individually. The less distance the robot would traverse the better, thus the traveling salesman.
Cheers,
_GP_
Yup, Sony is going to suck people in with it's PS3 the same way it sucked people in with it's PS2. 100,000,000 people got suckered into buying the worst/stupidest/most evil/not nintendo console! It's going to happen again. It amazes me that this is now a religious issue for some. Get over yourself people. My choice of console (or even to NOT get a console) has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU.
Every console maker is trying to make money, end of story. This is a great thing in that it leads to innovation and advancement. You have to love capitalism. The only thing better than capitalism to spur on new development is warfare. I prefer capitalism.
Cheers,
_GP_
Well there is always http://distrowatch.com/> but just in general "mindshare" I get the impression that Ubuntu is gaining favor with many Linux advocates.
_GP_
It seems to me that the rise in popularity of Ubuntu has caused "ripples" of concern amoung some of the more established (read older) distributions. As in the commercial world open source projects live and die by "mindshare" almost as much as technical merit. The spinning off of Fedora sounds like an attempt to recapture some lost mindshare.
Cheers,
_GP_
Sony should be encouraging "home brew" apps for the PSP as much as possible. I believe that much of the early success of the Palm Pilot was due to the community of developers that flocked to the device.
:-)
There are *free* roms available for GBA so I guess the GBA emulator isn't TOTALLY copywrite infringment facilitating software....
Cheers,
_GP_
I don't remember the researcher's name but he was ridiculed when his findings on the causes of stomach ulcers didn't fall into line with the "popular" opinions within the scientific/research community. He actually had to infect himself with the bacteria in question (Helicobacter pylori), then cure his ulcers with anitbiotics before anyone else in the scientific community would take him seriously and/or publish any of his work.
I am all for less polution in the air and do my best to reduce/reuse/recycle yadda yadda yadda but I can still remember how scared I was as a pre-teen when I learned at school that the earth was cooling off and headed for another ice-age. I am VERY sceptical of the amount of influence we humans have on the climate etc.
Cheers,
_GP_
I try not to get too excited about new toys (especially now that I'm in my 30's) but the PSP has put a spell on me. I think this will be the first portable that doesn't make any excuses (nice screen, fast processor etc.). Now if I can only convince my wife that I need an early birthday present...
Cheers,
_GP_