India's Environment and Forests minister isn't an Al Gore fan...
The IPCC is getting an independent review. Well, that's what they're saying, anyway...
Willis Eschenbach has a nice analysis of problems with temperature data from the Himalayas...
Thursday, March 11, 2010
No They Didn't!
LOX (liquid oxygen), a high-pressure Dewar tank rescued from a scrap yard, and two not-particularly-well-informed fellows. What could possibly go wrong? Amazingly, nobody was killed...
Decriminalizing Drugs...
What he said.
People who know me are often surprised that I support legalizing drugs. Judge Jim Gray does a better job of articulating my position that I could do myself.
FWIW, I've been to the Netherlands. It's obvious that what many fear would happen here (us turning into a nation of drooling stoners) has not happened there...
The World's Largest Gold Coin...
Almost 500 pounds of it! And you can have your very own for roughly $5 million (depending on the current price of gold, naturally)...
Federal Tax “Revenues”...
The graph at right shows what's happened with tax withholding over the past ten years. It's no surprise that during the recession the tax withholdings go down, but the amount of the downturn may be. Coupled with record expenditures, this can only mean one thing: massive new federal debt.
Makes me glad I don't have any children; I don't have to worry about my progeny inheriting a planet-sized debt load...
Battle Buddy...
One of our favorite blogresses, Cassandra at Villainous Company, has lost her battle buddy: her 13 year old Dachshund. To anyone who has loved a dog, her last lines will resonate:
There is nothing worse than a cold, wet nose on your shins. Except, perhaps, wishing you could feel that icy cold nose just one more time.Go read the whole thing. Bring Kleenex...
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Norwegian Icebreaker Heads Up the Mississippi River!
As you may have seen on the news, it's been very cold in Iowa, so cold in fact that we have borrowed a Norwegian Icebreaker from Minnesota to unclog the Mississippi starting over near Davenport and working its way north. Here is the first picture of it as it begins the hard work required to break up the ice.
ClimateGate: Roundup...
Marthinus van Schalkwyk has been nominated (by the South African government, presumably) to head the UNFCC in the wake of Yvo de Boer's resignation following the fiasco in Copenhagen. I'd never heard of the guy before, but BigGovernment is reporting that he's a thoroughly disreputable and disgusting example of homo bureaucratis. Lovely...
Watts Up With That? has posted a nicely-done study of electronic temperature measurement biases (including a link to the PDF of the original paper). There are lots of interesting details for anyone into the engineering, but the conclusion is easy for anyone to understand: there are systematic errors in the three most common electronic temperature measurement systems, most of which tend to produce warmer-than-actual readings.
Also thanks to Watts Up With That?, I discovered the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) web site – chock full of darned interesting data. For starters, here's their March 3, 2010 newsletter observing that Antarctic sea ice extent is higher than normal, Al Gore notwithstanding. The capper for me was this animation tool, which lets you do some very interesting see-it-with-your-own-two-eyes kinds of observation. For example, I set it up to animate the Arctic sea ice extent from 1990 to present, showing me just January. The first surprise was how much the seat ice extent bounces around from year-to-year. The second surprise is that the noise level far exceeds any observable signal – the kind of thing that makes any engineer or scientist suspicious about any claim of observed trends...
Watts Up With That? has posted a nicely-done study of electronic temperature measurement biases (including a link to the PDF of the original paper). There are lots of interesting details for anyone into the engineering, but the conclusion is easy for anyone to understand: there are systematic errors in the three most common electronic temperature measurement systems, most of which tend to produce warmer-than-actual readings.
Also thanks to Watts Up With That?, I discovered the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) web site – chock full of darned interesting data. For starters, here's their March 3, 2010 newsletter observing that Antarctic sea ice extent is higher than normal, Al Gore notwithstanding. The capper for me was this animation tool, which lets you do some very interesting see-it-with-your-own-two-eyes kinds of observation. For example, I set it up to animate the Arctic sea ice extent from 1990 to present, showing me just January. The first surprise was how much the seat ice extent bounces around from year-to-year. The second surprise is that the noise level far exceeds any observable signal – the kind of thing that makes any engineer or scientist suspicious about any claim of observed trends...
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Scott Adams, a free-weight rack that arrived disassembled, a visit to Home Depot, and a Shop-Vac. What could possibly go wrong?
ClimateGate: Roundup...
Two informative posts at Watts Up With That?, one on the non-linearity of CO2's effects vs. concentration, and the other on yet another IPCC goof.
Totten in Romania...
The always-excellent Michael Totten recently visited Romania, and his resulting piece lives up to his high standards. Hit his tip jar, won't you? We need to keep him and Yon going...
Amazon Fights Back...
Several states have passed the so-called “Amazon tax”, intended to force Amazon to collect sales tax for the state. These tax measures are predicated on a redefinition of what it means to have “operations” inside the state (which in turn drives the issue of sales tax collection). Specifically the redefinition means that participants in the “Amazon Associates” program are counted as “operations”. Amazon Associates are owners of web sites that sign up with Amazon to direct traffic to Amazon in return for a (tiny) sales commission. For instance, were I so inclined I could sign up for Amazon Associates and then put links on my blog for you to click on to buy a book (or some other product).
The states that passed this law expected that Amazon would simply sigh and comply. They were wrong. Amazon's reaction is to play hardball: it is shutting down the Amazon Associates program for anyone in those states. This is a lose-lose-lose proposition: Amazon loses a source of referrals, the Amazon Associate loses a source of sales commissions, and the state loses the income tax (and most likely, some sales taxes) on the Amazon Associate's lost income. It's a great example of ignoramuses in government not realizing what the consequences of their actions would be (despite Amazon telling them loud and clear), and it's also a great example of an American business exercising it's freedom.
Let's hope the states wise up before too much time goes by. The last thing we need in this recession is more government meddling with successful business models...
The states that passed this law expected that Amazon would simply sigh and comply. They were wrong. Amazon's reaction is to play hardball: it is shutting down the Amazon Associates program for anyone in those states. This is a lose-lose-lose proposition: Amazon loses a source of referrals, the Amazon Associate loses a source of sales commissions, and the state loses the income tax (and most likely, some sales taxes) on the Amazon Associate's lost income. It's a great example of ignoramuses in government not realizing what the consequences of their actions would be (despite Amazon telling them loud and clear), and it's also a great example of an American business exercising it's freedom.
Let's hope the states wise up before too much time goes by. The last thing we need in this recession is more government meddling with successful business models...
Arthritis, of the Leaden Variety...
An Amercian soldier who served in World War II complains to his doctor of what he presumes is arthritis – and discovers that he has had a bullet lodged in him for over 60 years!
A Real Education...
Last month a student at NYU was peeved because a professor (Scott Galloway) wouldn't admit him to the class when he showed up an hour late. Professor Galloway is one of those rare professors with actual real-world experience. Read his response to the tardy student. I hope the student takes the professor's advice to heart.
After you read the letter, read the comments below – many are from teachers or professors, and you'll see why our students leave the educational system woefully unprepared for the real world...
After you read the letter, read the comments below – many are from teachers or professors, and you'll see why our students leave the educational system woefully unprepared for the real world...
Storage in the Cloud...
It's starting to happen, thanks to the conjunction of cheap bandwidth and cheap storage. Here's a great example: back up your Mac to Amazon's S3 (their storage-in-the-cloud service)...
When Engineers Have a Question...
...they figure out how to answer it. In this case, an engineer had a vital question: would a lava lamp work on the surface of Jupiter?
Why yes, it would...
Awesome, dude!
Why yes, it would...
Awesome, dude!
Monday, March 8, 2010
Taillights...
Driving into work this morning, I noticed a car that passed me because its taillights were a distinctly different shade of red. A few minutes later, I pulled alongside that same car in traffic, and I saw that it was a 50-something Chevy – over a half-century old. Somehow this triggered a cascade of memories...
Taillights used to be different, and somehow this happened so gradually that I never noticed it before.
These days as you travel down the freeway at night, you'll see red taillights into the distance, all of virtually the same color (the LED lights are subtly different, but it's a tiny little difference). Every once in a while you'll see the flashing amber of turn signals – and even they are of a perfectly uniform color.
This was not so when I was a kid. I remember in the '50s and '60s that the taillights stretching out in front of you at night would be of many shades of red, and of very variable intensity. It was common to see cars with taillights so dim you could hardly see them. Some of the reds were almost purplish; others bordered on orange. Amber turn signals were quite rare – nearly all cars used a single lamp for both brake light (steady) and turn signal (flashing).
It also used to be more common to see broken taillight lenses, as it was much harder to get replacments for cars more than a few years old. Parts stores were relatively uncommon, and quite often couldn't get obscure parts like taillight lenses for cars more than a few years old. Junkyards were your main resource, and even they were iffy – you had to find a junkyard that happened to remember having a car like yours. There were no computers, no web sites to search across many junkyards, etc.
Technology changes many little things in our lives...
Taillights used to be different, and somehow this happened so gradually that I never noticed it before.
These days as you travel down the freeway at night, you'll see red taillights into the distance, all of virtually the same color (the LED lights are subtly different, but it's a tiny little difference). Every once in a while you'll see the flashing amber of turn signals – and even they are of a perfectly uniform color.
This was not so when I was a kid. I remember in the '50s and '60s that the taillights stretching out in front of you at night would be of many shades of red, and of very variable intensity. It was common to see cars with taillights so dim you could hardly see them. Some of the reds were almost purplish; others bordered on orange. Amber turn signals were quite rare – nearly all cars used a single lamp for both brake light (steady) and turn signal (flashing).
It also used to be more common to see broken taillight lenses, as it was much harder to get replacments for cars more than a few years old. Parts stores were relatively uncommon, and quite often couldn't get obscure parts like taillight lenses for cars more than a few years old. Junkyards were your main resource, and even they were iffy – you had to find a junkyard that happened to remember having a car like yours. There were no computers, no web sites to search across many junkyards, etc.
Technology changes many little things in our lives...
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