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| 2008/2/20-22 [Politics/Domestic/RepublicanMedia] UID:49200 Activity:moderate |
2/20 Solar variability is almost certainly not driving global warming:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yof847 (arstechnica.com)
\_ This is useful. Hope this settles the issue.
\_ "probably." You know how to tell the difference between a
liberal and conservative agenda? Liberal languages are weak.
liberal and conservative language? Liberal languages are weak.
"Probabily. Probabistically speaking. It is possible that...
There may be a contributing factor..." etc etc.
As for conservative agenda? It's always "It is certain that"
"many people think" and "experts believe..."
Guess which language appeals to the common people? ding ding
ding, the conservative language!
\_ It is undoubtedly absolutely 100% certain that solar variability
is probably not driving golbal warming."
definitely is probably not driving golbal warming.
\_ Indenpendent speak
\_ "Many people think" and "experts believe" are what are called
"weasel words."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_words
\_ That is what FoxNews uses a lot.
\_ I replaced "probably" with "almost certainly." Is that better? |
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| preview.tinyurl.com/yof847 -> arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080220-unpacking-interplay-of-solar-variability-and-climate-change.html Climate modelers gear up to provide short term predictions It's widely known that the ultimate driver of the earth's climate system, the sun, has a variable output. Short-term variations and an 11-year solar cycles have been observed, and hints of longer-term cycles appear in the records. It's tempting to speculate that this variability can account for the rise in temperatures that we've seen over the last 50 years; But attendees of last week's American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting were told in no uncertain terms that this speculation was badly misguided. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who has explored the possibility of long-term cycles in the sun's output using everything from earth-bound isotope records to observations of other stars similar to the sun. The data she presented suggested a number of possibilities, including a 200 year variability and potentially an even longer 2200-2500 year cycle. Changes in ^14C and ^10Be fluxes from various locations around the globe's sea floors also suggests a millennial scale variation. The small magnitude of the changes and large uncertainties in the data, however, leave the evidence for these cycles largely suggestive. Baliunas noted, without a detailed model of a star's internal dynamo, understanding long term patterns is difficult. Naval Research Lab took a shorter-term view, focusing on what we know about solar variability based on observations made since the advent of the space age. Lean detailed how solar forcings fit into the larger climate system, along with forcings from volcanic eruptions, aerosols, the El Nio southern oscillation (ENSO), and greenhouse gases. Given satellite data, Lean started subtracting various forcings and explored what happens in different layers of the atmosphere. For example, the ENSO had a far larger effect than the sun on the lower atmosphere, while the sun's forcings dominated the stratosphere--except after large volcanic eruptions, in which case all bets are off. His message, which he repeated a number of times, is that the increase in temperatures since the 1950s isn't due to the sun and, even if the next solar activity cycle doesn't arrive at all, temperatures are likely to continue to rise. He got there in part by noting that the signature of the 11-year solar cycle is actually really difficult to detect in the climate; quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) into account and modern statistical tools are used. While clearly visible, the amplitude of the effect due to the solar variation is still less than 01 K He also pointed out that increased solar activity should warm the atmosphere uniformly; instead, we see an increase of temperature at the surface and mid-troposphere, but a temperature decrease in anything above that. This scenario is exactly what one would see if greenhouse gases were the cause of the global warming. He showed that modern climate models that take into account natural forcings do a rather good job at predicting past climate data--they're all within the uncertainty of the temperature measurements. These models and reality only diverge in the past 50 years and, when greenhouse gas forcings are added in, the two match closely all the way to the present. The message of the talks was clear: although the sun's output is variable, those variations have occurred over a defined range for the last 50 years, with no trend once the variation is smoothed out. It's not the sun, and the only way to get the rising temperatures we see is to include greenhouse forcings in the climate models. couple of peer-reviewed papers saying exactly that, but it appears to be worth repeating, given that newspaper editorialists are apparently unaware of it. Incidentally, those who might have hoped that an unexpected drop in solar activity could bail us out were in for some disappointment. Ammann calculated what would have to happen to the total solar irradience (TSI) to counteract the greenhouse gas forcings. Apparently, the TSI normally varies around 1365W/m^2 give or take 14 W/m^2. To bail us out, it would have to drop to 1330 W/m^2--something that can pretty much be guaranteed not to happen. A chance to help some people without computers Here's your chance to nurture a love of reading in a group of young children while helping out HIV-infected mothers and newborns in a war-torn African nation. |
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_words A weasel word is used to avoid making a straightforward statement. Weasel words are also used to deceive, distract, or manipulate an audience. For example, the statement "up to 50% off on all our products" is attractive because it displays the highest decrease in price one may find at a certain store; however, it doesn't specify how many products are even on sale. Weasel words have been associated or identified in the political sphere. " One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called 'weasel words'. When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a 'weasel word' after another there is nothing left of the other. edit Non sequitur or apparent conclusion Often used in advertising to make it appear that the statement is a sales point: * "Our product is so good, it was even given away in celebrity gift bags." There are some generalizations which are considered unacceptable in writing. subjunctive can be used to introduce facts which are beyond the proof of the cited work. This is a legitimate function of language, which resembles weaseling. When it is impractical to enumerate and cite many individual works, then the use of these grammatical devices conforms to the standards established by tradition. For example: "For scientists as for so many others, evolution served as an example of a fundamental challenge to long-held convictions". dummy subjects, as when an author intends to distance himself/herself from the work, or to separate one part of the text from another: * "At the beginning, it was the train that was late." The personal pronoun 'one', as a subject or an object in formal speech, that refers either to oneself or as a generalization to anyone in a similar situation, may also be used justifiably to distance a speaker from a subject. edit Passive voice The passive voice can be used to weasel away from blame. A passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. edit In business Weasel words may be used to detract from an uncomfortable fact, such as firing staff. By replacing firing staff with headcount reduction, one may soften meaning. Don Watson collected two volumes (Death Sentence and Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words) documenting the increasing use of weasel words in government and corporate language. |
| arstechnica.com They have been watching the goings-on at E3 this week, especially the long-awaited (and much-doubted) appearance of the Phantom Console. Calvin (among others) had serious misgivings as to whether Infinium could deliver the goods. Sure, I was skeptical about the company delivering a product. Now that they (seem) to have done that, I'm skeptical about them coming up with US$30 worth of content for me every month. On the flip side, the plan seems to be financially sound, as long as people subscribe. Too often a company comes out promising the world for the low, low price of $X dollars a month, only to go out of business because they really needed $5X a month to stay afloat. Once it is released this fall, we'll find out if it's a yawner or not. In addition to the coverage of the not-quite-a-PC, not-quite-a-console, Calvin and WyldKard ponder the Star Wars gaming universe, bleeding-edge gaming card angst, and a good old Internet time-waster. The gist of it is pretty simple: the RIAA has their own tracking system based on units shipped, while Nielsen Ratings bases their Soundscan tracking system on actual barcode-scanned purchases. The problem is that Soundscan shows a 10% increase in music sales when comparing the first quarter of 2004 to 1Q 2003. Avalon suggests that sales aren't down, only shipments are. Simple: in the past, the RIAA always shipped considerably more units than were sold. Retails stores simply want less inventory, so they order less, even though they are selling more. Roger Goff, an Entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles confirms that, indeed, retail has reacted this way in the Post-Napster era. " In other words, retail has adapted to more of an "on demand" model (similar to the Internet) as opposed to the, accepting-tons-of-product-shoved-down-the-pipeline model record companies imposed on them in the past. In other words, the supposedly woeful state of CD sales isn't all that woeful after all. Retail outlets have been working hard to keep up with online competition, and part of that has meant following the rule of Dell: don't have inventory if you can avoid it. The problem is, if this report is correct, then something seriously wrong is afoot. If more units are being sold and fewer units are being shipped, then that means the total cost-per-CD is actually in the RIAA's favor. That is, with all things being equal, more sales and fewer shipments ads up to more profit than before, because there's less overrun and less returns from retailers who can't move product. The Library is believed to be the greatest library of the ancient world, rivaled only by the Library at Pergamon, which was built many years later by Attalid kings hoping to recreate the glory of Greece. As fate would have it, Marc Antony would make a gift of several thousand scrolls from the Pergamene library to the library at Alexandria (for his dear Cleopatra, no less), only for history to see most (if not all) of those holdings destroyed in a tragic fire. No one knows for sure, but the library housed in the area of 500,000 scrolls (some would say 700,000, some would say less). It was a travesty for civilization in the West, and as a result we often have to rely on poor medieval witnesses to ancient literature, although we are also blessed with many Arabic copies of the works of Aristotle, Plato, and the like. Much, much more was lost, however, and we must always remember that the voices that speak to us from the age of Pericles are only a tiny few of those that were once read aloud in the Library's halls. The Library did not house "works by Socrates," despite what the BBC said. Socrates did not produce literary works, and even the ancients knew of Plato's hand in the dialogues. The library was designed as a mausoleum for Alexander the Great, but his body never made it there. Built by Ptolemy II Soter, the library was part of an overall house built for the honor of the Muses. Many libraries in the west are also designed in a similar fashion, with a central "tomb" area in the middle. Widener Library at Harvard University is designed as such, and the central tomb area lays vacant, as the library was built with funds donated by a relative of a man who died on the Titanic. The announcement breaks quite a bit of silence as to when Longhorn Server is expected to ship and what features it may contain. Targeted for 2007, roughly a year after the Longhorn desktop release, the server release will support Indigo, Microsoft's new Web services architecture, and sundry other things such as dynamic partition management. In a rather curious development, the company is also saying that it has planned the future service pack release dates for Longhorn server. As it turns out, the company is transitioning to a system whereby major server releases are scheduled for every four years, with "updates" to major releases every two years. So, the Longhorn roadmap currently looks like this: 2006 Longhorn desktop release 2007 Longhorn Server 2008 Longhorn Server Service Pack 2009 Update to Longhorn Server 2010 Service Pack for Update to Longhorn Server 2011 The Next Major Server Release The company hopes that a stringent release pattern will help corporate IT types plan their future rollouts with more foresight. Now most IT shops know what they will be running in 2015 if they're running Windows. Beta testing for Longhorn Server is scheduled to begin in the middle of next year. Turning to the more tangible present, the company said that a server update for Windows Server 2003 is planned for later this year. The update will come under the rubric of a service pack, but new features, including support for 64-bit applications, will be bundled in. A fuller update, code-named R2 (probably Release 2), is scheduled for next year and will include support for the company's document rights management service as well as Trustbridge, a company-wide identity management system. " One form, the so-called "up-skirt shot," involves using small photographic devices to sneak a peak up the dresses of women in public. Such practices are hardly new, but the advent of camera phones and other digital imaging devices is making the issue more pressing, argue lawmakers. The bill, which passed the Senate last September, would prohibit taking covert pictures in locker rooms, bedrooms and other places where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Violators would face fines and up to a year in prison under the Video Voyeurism Prevention Act, which passed the committee by voice vote. Whoever, in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, having the intent to capture an improper image of an individual, knowingly does so and that individual's naked or undergarment clad genitals, pubic area, buttocks, or female breast is depicted in the improper image under circumstances in which that individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy regarding such body part or parts, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. Although the image sizes are of course different, you can see the same concept at work. Those of us working with advertisers have seen this coming. Targeting is key, the medium and format is largely assumed to be irrelevant. What will be fun to watch, however, is how targeted image ads fare against the text ads. Assuming that the same algorithm is used, it will be a test of presentation format coupled with the tradeoff of one advertising message (the image) versus multiple messages (the text ads) in the same space. Dell's Inspiron XPS is aimed squarely at the Alienware crowd). Now Alienware is looking to up the ante with some of their own technology designs, and wouldn't you know their opening salvo has gaming performance written all over it. Video Array is an accelerated graphics processing subsystem that will allow users to add multiple, off-the-shelf video cards to their Alienware computer systems and have both cards process graphic commands in parallel. Understanding the wide-ranging wants and needs of its customers, Alienware designed its solution so that it is not tied to any one specific video card. This design will allow users to take full... |