Richard Lindzen at the House of Commons...

I'll let James Delingpole (my favorite English Conservative) introduce him:

Professor Richard Lindzen is one of the world's greatest atmospheric physicists: perhaps the greatest. What he doesn't know about the science behind climate change probably isn't worth knowing. But even if you weren't aware of all this, even if you'd come to the talk he gave in the House of Commons this week without prejudice or expectation, I can pretty much guarantee you would have been blown away by his elegant dismissal of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming theory.

Dick Lindzen does not need to raise his voice. He does not use hyperbole. In a tone somewhere between weariness and withering disdain, he lets the facts speak for themselves. And the facts, as he understands them, are devastating.

Follow the links in Delingpole's article to get more information.  You can read Professor Lindzen's presentation (PDF) yourself – I recommend it as an excellent summary of the debate.  In particular, it highlights the critical issue of positive vs. negative feedback assumptions and how the models the AGW proponents rely on consistently get it wrong...

Kira Davis Apologizes...

Until this morning I had never heard of Kira Davis.  I ran across the video below, and then I wanted to know more:



I'd like to know when she's running for office, so I can move to her district and vote for her!

English is a Crazy Language...

Passed along by my friend and colleague Aleck L. (for whom English is a second language).  As always, click to enlarge:

Remarkable Employees...

LinkedIn has an interesting article on what makes remarkable employees so remarkable.  It cites 8 attributes, and some of them resonate strongly with me – and made me think of some remarkable employees I've had...

What's Wrong with this Picture?

The chart at right covers most of my lifetime.  When I first entered the workforce, 88% of all Americans paid income tax.  I paid income tax while working in my very first “real” job (that is, one I was being paid wages for) – as a dishwasher for the New Jersey Turnpike's Howard Johnson's restaurant.  That was a minimum-wage job.  I paid income taxes.

The same has been true for each and every job I have ever held.  I have always paid income taxes.

The same is not true today for about half of all Americans.  What this chart doesn't show is that the majority of that half who doesn't pay income tax actually receives money from the federal government (in the form of the “Earned Income Tax Credit” – the name of which is a terrific example of politically-motivated doublespeak).  Those of us who pay taxes are paying many of those who do not.

I don't know about you, but I find this involuntary transfer of my money to someone else quite infuriating.  And I will remember that in November...

ServiceNow IPO Buzz...

Things like this are starting to show up quite regularly...

If Obama Has Lost Playboy...

It's been many years since I last saw the inside of a Playboy magazine.  But I do remember that the articles there (yes, I did actually read some of the articles) had a distinctly left-wing tilt.  A little googling this morning and I see that the same is still true, and perhaps even more so.  With that context, consider this joke that a friend tells me is in the March 2012 edition of Playboy:

In the tough economy, an educated woman was forced to apply for a job in a lemon grove. After the foreman had reviewed her résumé, he frowned and said, “I must ask, do you have any actual experience in picking lemons?”

“As a matter of fact I have,” she answered. “I’ve been divorced three times and I voted for Obama.”

Well, how about that.  I think Obama's “free pass” has expired.  Let's hope that's an accurate omen for November – because no matter what level of dismay I feel about the prospect of a Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich presidency, it pales into insignificance next to the dismay I feel about the prospect of a second Obama term... 

There's Always a Better Way...

For me, one of the constant delights of engineering is that any design, no matter how good it is, can be improved.  Even seemingly simple things can always be made better.  The world of software (where these days I do nearly all of my engineering) is perhaps an extreme case of perfectability – it's hard to even imagine a piece of software that couldn't be improved in some way.

Here's an example that delighted me: a better way to fold a piece of paper.  It's much harder to explain than to actually do it – if you follow the instructions linked on that site, you'll see that it's not hard at all.  Awesome!

A Nuclear Laboratory...in a Garage...

A nuclear fusion laboratory in a garage – that would be quite enough to pique your interest, no?  It gets even better: the person constructing this laboratory (Taylor Wilson) is just 16 years old.  Read about him here.

Via reader Doug S.

Brodiaea coronaria...

Via Botany Photo of the Day, of course:

Growing Old...

Though I'm almost sixty years old, I spend very little time even thinking about my age – and none at all actually worrying about it.  About the only time I even notice is when some new physical limitation shows up, or if I notice (and I'm always surprised!) that some part of my skin is all wrinkled up.  The rest of the time I just feel like me, and my age is apparent only by the cumulative learning and experience it allows.  I don't ever wish I was young again...

So when I read this (short) post on growing old, I found a lot that resonated with me – especially this paragraph near the end:

If I could go back to being 20 again, but stay the person I am, I would. But if going back to being 20 meant going back to being the person I was when I was 20, there's no way I would do that.

Yes.  That's it exactly.

Read the whole thing...

You Find Your Own Happiness...

An inspiring 12 minute video, via reader Simon M.:

What Is a Cat?

A logician's investigation, via my mom:

What is a cat?

Cats do what they want.
They rarely listen to you.
They're totally unpredictable.
When you want to play, they want to be alone.
When you want to be alone, they want to play.
They expect you to cater to their every whim.
They're moody.
They leave hair everywhere.

CONCLUSION: They're tiny women in little fur coats.

I Am a Free Man...

Don't. Tread. On. Me.

Via my mom:

Black-Scholes...

The Black-Scholes equation is little-known outside of financial circles.  It's challenging to explain if you don't understand the financial instruments (options) that it deals with, and I'm not going to try to explain them here (but the Guardian has a readable article).  I want to make a different point: that the Black-Scholes equation is, essentially, a mathematical model.  It is universally implemented on a computer, so it's fair to call it a “computer model”.

The Black-Schole computer model is a very simple example of such a model, based on a single equation modeling an isolated financial instrument.  The data underlying the model are as perfect as is possible to obtain.  Yet the financial industry – even those who understood the mathematics – badly misused it.  As best I can tell, the misuse arose entirely because of the lack of a better alternative.

The computer models being used to investigate climate change, by contrast, are enormously complex – many of the models contain hundreds of equations and millions of interconnected elements being modeled.  The data underlying the models is known to be full of systematic errors, unexplained negative correlations, and missing large pieces.  No single human fully understands all the mathematics involved. 

Without even looking more deeply than this, I cannot fathom why so many scientists are willing to bet their careers on those climate models...

Skeptical Scientists Engaging in Debate...

A few weeks ago, a group of prominent scientists skeptical of the claims of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) supporters published an open letter expressing their concerns.  Quite predictably, the AGW community rallied round and blasted the group with everything from idiotic ad hominem attacks to more serious critique.  In today's WSJ, the skeptics reply – and thereby start a very healthy engagement between the AGW skeptics and the proponents.  It's interesting and accessible reading.  An excerpt (but do go read the whole thing):

Given this dubious track record of prediction, it is entirely reasonable to ask for a second opinion. We have offered ours. With apologies for any immodesty, we all have enjoyed distinguished careers in climate science or in key science and engineering disciplines (such as physics, aeronautics, geology, biology, forecasting) on which climate science is based.

Trenberth et al. tell us that the managements of major national academies of science have said that "the science is clear, the world is heating up and humans are primarily responsible." Apparently every generation of humanity needs to relearn that Mother Nature tells us what the science is, not authoritarian academy bureaucrats or computer models.

One reason to be on guard, as we explained in our original op-ed, is that motives other than objective science are at work in much of the scientific establishment. All of us are members of major academies and scientific societies, but we urge Journal readers not to depend on pompous academy pronouncements—on what we say—but to follow the motto of the Royal Society of Great Britain, one of the oldest learned societies in the world: nullius in verba—take nobody's word for it. As we said in our op-ed, everyone should look at certain stubborn facts that don't fit the theory espoused in the Trenberth letter, for example—the graph of surface temperature above, and similar data for the temperature of the lower atmosphere and the upper oceans.

Seen on the Intertubes...

Indeed...

U.N. Eying the Internet...

Great.  One of the few things the world's governments has managed to do well is to keep their regulatory mitts off the Internet.  Now a group of countries interested in control (for various reasons) are proposing to screw up the Internet, just as they've screwed up so much else.  From today's WSJ:

Today, however, Russia, China and their allies within the 193 member states of the ITU want to renegotiate the 1988 treaty to expand its reach into previously unregulated areas. Reading even a partial list of proposals that could be codified into international law next December at a conference in Dubai is chilling:
• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;
• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet traffic, perhaps even on a "per-click" basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;
• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as "peering."
• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;
• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;
• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices. 

Read the whole thing...

The Storm Will Pass...

Via my lovely bride (click the photo to enlarge it):

A SEAL in Action...

But probably not quite the kind of action you're thinking of (and no, not that kind either!).  Here's a video taken by a SEAL with a helmet-mounted camera as he parachutes into the premier of the movie Act of Valour: