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| 5/16 |
| 2008/10/2-7 [Recreation/Dating, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:51352 Activity:nil |
10/2 I haven't had wet dreams for years. Is there any wet-dream-enhancing
drugs out there?
\_ Stop masturbating. (I'd say stop having sex but if you are
as pathetic a troll as this I think it's pretty obvious you
are still a 30 year old virgin.)
\_ Nope. Married and two kids. -- OP
\_ Agreed. I stopped having sex for about 2 years and I concentrate
most of my energy at work. I'm going to get promoted thanks
to channeling all of my energy to my professional work. The
plus side is that it makes my wife happier too because she's
a typical TAIWANESE WOMAN with the sexual drive of an ice cube
but has a voracious appetite for a suburban house where she
keeps all her expensive shoes and Gucci and Bebe and Prada
wears that she never wears.
\_ Why are you still with her? Is she otherwise fun? Does
she work in a comparable job?
\_ because I no longer have any sex drive myself. I've
been taking medications and my career's going well.
\_ But do you like having her around? Is she a net zero,
negative or positive? If regular sex isn't her value
add, what is?
\_ If I have the ability to divert my sex drive energy to my
work, I would probably be at two levels above my current level
on the corporate ladder. But I don't have that ability. I
waste a lot of time and energy on having sex, surfing porn,
day-dreaming about sex, and masturbating. -- OP
waste so much time and energy on having sex, surfing porn,
day-dreaming about sex, thinking about other hot women, and
masturbating. -- OP |
| 2008/9/30-10/6 [Reference/BayArea, Academia/Berkeley, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:51341 Activity:nil |
9/30 Escape From Berkeley Road Rally:
http://www.escapefromberkeley.com/?page_id=6 |
| 2008/9/24-29 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:51273 Activity:nil |
9/24 "Scientists Discover New Global Warming Thread: 'Methane Time Bomb'
Under Arctic Seabed"
http://www.csua.org/u/mfk |
| 2008/9/21-23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:51250 Activity:nil |
9/21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As_rI-A3B8o We Can Solve It. There is a solution. There is no time. \_ The message scrolls too fast. It should slow down so that most conservatives can read it and actually understand it. \_ I think this could mostly be accomplished in 10 years if we tried really, really hard, but realistically, I doubt most Americans care enough until the problems become much more obvious. Anyway, this commercial is so vague about who's they expect to do actually do this work that it's practically content-free. Maybe their website says more. \_ You're channelling Obama: http://preview.tinyurl.com/57br62 Well, minus the "No, we can't" part. \_ Drill Baby Drill! |
| 2008/9/18-19 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:51224 Activity:nil |
9/18 "12-year-old Revolutionizes the Solar Cell"
http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/09/12-year-old-rev.html
\_ Good for him, but 99% of the time these stories are way
blown out of proportion. I suspect it's cool, but not as
earth shattering as the story makes it out to be. |
| 2008/9/17-19 [Transportation/Car, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:51203 Activity:nil |
9/17 Haha, Pelosi has no idea where Natural Gas comes from.
http://csua.org/u/mde
\_ Sounds like she'd make a great VP candidate.
\_ What's wrong with that? Not everybody farts. :-) |
| 2008/9/15-19 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:51171 Activity:nil |
9/15 Facts are stupid things (at least to McCain)
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/energetically_wrong.html |
| 2008/9/10-12 [Science/Disaster, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:51127 Activity:nil |
9/10 Instead of discussing lipstick stupidity, how about a real scandal?
"Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties
partied, had sex with and accepted golf and ski outings from
employees of energy companies they were dealing with, federal investigators
said Wednesday."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080910/ap_on_go_ot/interior_oil_trysts
\- the republocan are only doing ths to make a point about how
govts are inherently corrupt. these people are RANDROID HEREOS!
\_ `"this whole IG report reads like a script from a television
miniseries and one that cannot air during family viewing time."`
Hmm, where can I submit my resume to those oil companies?
\- drill, babee, drill |
| 2008/9/4-8 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:51052 Activity:moderate |
9/3 What's so bad about community organizers? From the speeches
tonight you'd think that was a euphenism for smoking reefer 24/7
\_ Since the GOP has nothing to run on, they're just running a Hate
convention.
\_ Since when has either part had anything to run on? For the
last 6 years the Dems have been running on "Bush sucks" and
and now they're running on a combination of "Bush sucks" and
HOPE! and CHANGE!
\_ Change is all you'll have if you vote for Dems! GH Bush
\_ I don't know about you, but after 8 years of Bush and the GOP,
I'm about ready for HOPE and CHANGE.
\_ There are a whole lot more ways to change something for the
bad than the good. Obama is basically running on Mcain =
Bush! Scary! Which is obvious BS.
\_ I don't think that's BS. McCain will continue the
policies of Bush/Cheney.
\_ In what way are McCain's policies different than Bush's?
\_ Federal stem cell research funding. Being able to
speak coherently.
\_ So how exactly are you worse off?
\_ Like I said, you've got nothing.
\_ Does your life suck and you're blaming it on Bush?
Dem party running against GOP: of course they're going to
claim that this is the MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVAR and
that therefore due to ???? they should be elected.
The most significant changes we're talking about is stuff
is almost completely dependent on the legislators in
Congress, and not the president. i.e. the tax plan and
healthcare plan. All the other stuff is just posturing.
Do you think Russia is going to give a shit about having
a guy who wants to talk to them more? Obama's going to
use his magic inspirational charisma to bring about the
Age of Aquarius.
\_ Except Bush (or McCain) would veto the tax and
healthcare changes we need. Not to mention the energy
plan, which is a disaster under the GOP.
\_ Haha, "changes we need". Care to go into specifics
about energy?
\_ That's right, changes we need. The Bush/McCain
economic policies have been a disaster for all
but the very richest:
link:tinyurl.com/69jh74
Go read Obama's policy papers on energy, I don't
have the time or inclination to recap them here.
But they focus on conservation, not lying to the
American people about how much oil we can get
out of ANWR or some BS about "clean" coal.
\_ I don't need those changes. Hence "we" is
laughable. Obama can't shit oil. Conservation
is not a long term plan.
\_ "Conservation is not a long term plan"? What
does that even mean? Conservation is an
choice. The alternative is destruction.
Conservation alone won't save the society,
but without conservation you lose before
you even start. -tom
\_ Whatever... McCain focuses on conservation
too, and Obama's energy plan ALSO talks
about your "clean" coal. You guys are so
stupid and full of shit.
\_ McCain focuses on conservation? Is
that why he's voted against improving
fuel economy and pretty much every
other conservation initiative, pretty
much every time he's been given the
opportunity? -tom
\_ Please stop parroting left wing
blogs. I'm obviously referring to
the published "energy plans". Though
McCain has in fact supported CAFE
increases in certain forms (they
quibble about timescales). But of
course it's easy for Obama to say
he is better because after all he
has no track record to scrutinize.
By the way, stuff like CAFE is BS.
if energy self-sufficiency is a
matter of national security and
protection from foreign volatility
(and it is), then we should have a
fairly high tariff on all imported
energy (e.g. oil). We should always
have had this, and we should have
kept pushing nuclear.
\_ So you're saying that you put more
faith in a campaign promise than
you do in someone's actual
voting record? Interesting. -tom
\_ Obama voted for the '05 energy
bill. He voted for more ethanol
boondoggle, clean coal, oil and
gas subsidies. Obama voted for
the porky farm bill. That's not
a voting record I'm happy with.
\_ "We" means America here, obviously. Not what
some selfish prick in the top 1% of income
needs. We are all going into the tank if we
don't control our energy usage and our health
care expenses. Even you, I bet.
\_ I think the OP understands that GOP is bashing Obama by labeling him
as community organizer. But the questions is why community
organizer specifically. What's bad about being a community
organizer? (I wonder about the same questions.)
\_ Community and Communist differ by one letter, 'nuff said.
\_ 2 letters, actually. Go beah!
\_ That's just tit-for-tat. The Obama campaign keeps refering to
Palin as the mayor of Wasilla, so McCain calls him a community
organizer.
\_ You have your tats and your tits backwards. McCain has been
calling him that long before Palin entered the scene.
\_ Link? I hadn't noticed anyway.
\_ I see. Thx. -- PP |
| 2008/8/29-9/3 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50996 Activity:nil |
8/29 So Obama's energy policy is: natural gas, coal, and nuclear.
\_ And McCain's is drill more till no more.
\_ Link?
\_ http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUKN2835798020080829?virtualBrandChannel=10112 |
| 2008/8/26-9/3 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50976 Activity:nil |
8/26 Damn wind turbines. They're exploding all our bats!
http://tinyurl.com/5hfhj5 |
| 2008/8/25-31 [Science/GlobalWarming, Politics/Domestic/California/Arnold] UID:50956 Activity:nil |
8/25 Greens against clean tech
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121901822110148233.html
\_ A sizeable (or at least very vocal) part of the green movement is
against any increase in power generation. |
| 2008/8/21-26 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50922 Activity:kinda low |
8/21 I know 1 or 2 of you guys know about this, but why aren't you
moving your money out of stocks--and into CDs, savings, or Treasury
money markets? IMO we are looking at significant downside or sideways
movement that may persist for ~10 years. Even if you only earn 3%
interest/1yr, this is much better than losing 0 to 10% after 10 years.
My money is where my mouth is -- I moved all my 401(k) money out of
energy (my previous safe play) and into T money markets ~ 9 months ago.
Of course, you should only make these moves rarely (not more than
once every few years) for retirement accounts--otherwise you will
whipsaw out and meet the traditional definition of not being able to
time the market.
The Nikkei 225 is still down 67% from its peak 19 years ago--our drop
will be less in size and duration, IMO, but still nothing to laugh at.
\_ IMO we're not.
\_ why?
\_ IMO following the herd will get you run over. Buying high and selling
\_ why do you think we are in for 10 years of downside?
i don't know about the overall indices but it should be
obvious that some will win and some will lose.
there's a vast amount of invested wealth out there in
the world and it's gonna go somewhere.
\_ IMO following the herd will get you run over. Buying high and
selling
\_ IMO following the herd will get you run over. Buy high and sell
low is a terrible investment strategy. I have gradually been
moving my money into dividend paying stocks, most of which do a
significant share of their business overseas. The S&P 500 is flat
over the last decade, do you really believe that we are going to
have another lost decade? I do not.
have another lost decade? I do not. Also, getting 3%/yr is going
to mean you fall back in real wealth because of inflation. Surely
somewhere in the world, there is an investment opportunity that
will do better than that, right?
\_ الله أَكْ!
\_ Another lost decade? Maybe 5-10 more years.
Investment opportunity ... like energy?
Why? Significant global deleveraging and shrinking of credit.
\_ Are you GOOG short 100 guy?
\_ No. |
| 2008/8/20-26 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50909 Activity:low |
8/19 Falling oil prices present mixed blessing for consumers - Yahoo!:
http://www.csua.org/u/m53
\_ 1) oil companies have yet to explore 80% of their leases that they
have already
2) drilling offshore will have an impact like 30 years from now
I'd say those are pretty good reasons by themselves. This whole
thing is just an elaborate scheme to fuck California.
\_ More precisely, to set the precedents for fucking CA later.
\_ This is why drilling offshore is such a mistake. It just delays
the inevitable and makes it worse when the day finally comes.
\- Venit summa dies et ineluctabile tempus.
\_ Sic transit gloria mundi
\_ Drilling offshore should be left until the very last moment
when our civilization is on the verge of collapse due to
energy scarcity. We can then use 100% of it to convert to a
\_ Utter bullshit. Besides plate tectonics, everything
on earth is being set in motion by Sun's radiation.
We just need to tap this energy. There is plenty of it.
I do think it's a good idea to save a few oil fields for
the post oil world in order to produce useful chemicals
or say for intercontinental air travel.
renewable energy paradigm. Use it now and it just gets burned
up in the gas tanks of Hummers.
\_ الله أَكْ! |
| 2008/8/15-19 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50879 Activity:kinda low |
8/15 REX TILLERSON: Well, I think it has to do with an ability to understand
just the size of our business. Everything we do, the numbers are very
large. I saw someone characterize our profits the other day in terms of
$1,400 in profit per second. Well, they also need to understand we paid
$4,000 a second in taxes, and we spent $15,000 a second in cost. We
spend $1 billion a day just running our business. So this is a business
where large numbers are just characteristic of it.
http://a.abcnews.com/print?id=5571606
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=5574568&page=1
\_ "Things like providing lighter weight tires, tires that retain
their pressure more efficiently, lighter weight plastics to go into
vehicles to reduce vehicle weight" will help consumers use gas
more efficiently, according to Tillerson.
He must have not gotten the memo about the GOP talking points.
\_ Why _do_ we blame the oil companies? They don't determine the price of oil,
and the rising price is the reason for their huge profits.
\_ Why _do_ we blame the oil companies? They don't determine the price
of oil, and the rising price is the reason for their huge profits.
\_ YMWTGoogle: Bush Administration Energy Task Force.
\_ You'll have to be more specific. All I get are links about the
lawsuits. Secrecy and subsidies don't make the oil price rise.
Are you saying a sufficiently green energy policy would keep oil
prices down? Would have reduced our driving and China's thirst? |
| 2008/8/15-21 [Finance/Investment, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50873 Activity:nil |
8/14 http://preview.tinyurl.com/5frn2e He buried the lede: "The purchasing power of the typical worker has now fallen back to 1998 levels, despite a 29% increase in productivity over that period." \_ It's just another sign of the ongoing third-worldization of the US. Concentration of wealth in the hands of the elite, less social mobility, no middle class, decreased access to medicine and education. Third-worldization. \_ *yawn* \_ Excellent ... - mr. burns \_ This only happens when the Republicans are in power. Hopefully not for too much longer. |
| 5/16 |
| 2008/8/8-13 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50821 Activity:nil |
8/8 http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080808/sc_afp/usenvironmentclimatewarming "WASHINGTON (AFP) - US and British researchers have *confirmed* the link between warmer climate and an increase in powerful rainstorms, according to a study released Thursday that underscores one of the challenges of global warming." |
| 2008/8/7-13 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50810 Activity:nil |
8/7 McCain Oil Plan: Full of holes
http://preview.tinyurl.com/59bhaz (realclearpolitics) |
| 2008/8/7 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50805 Activity:nil 75%like:50803 |
8/6 Happiness is a clean RPG. Was cleaning my RPG last night, and my kids
wanted to watch. So we talked about RPG safety, etc. (RPG is
disassembled for cleaning). The discussion turned to linear and
rotational momentum, chemical vs. nuclear explosions, energy stored in
a spring, etc. Lotta fun. RPG into American Abraham tanks. Fun!
\_ they won't learn respect until the fire the thing
\_ They'll have to wait until they're a little older. -op
\_ And this is the basis for responsible ownership that will
make the difference between responsible citizenship and
tragic accidental statistic later in their lives.
\_ ^gun^RPG^penis
\_ You get chemical explosions from your penis?!? |
| 2008/8/6-10 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50803 Activity:nil 75%like:50805 |
8/6 Happiness is a clean gun. Was cleaning my gun last night, and my kids
wanted to watch. So we talked about gun safety, etc. (gun is
disassembled for cleaning). The discussion turned to linear and
rotational momentum, chemical vs. nuclear explosions, energy stored in
a spring, etc. Lotta fun.
\_ they won't learn respect until the fire the thing
\_ They'll have to wait until they're a little older. -op
\_ And this is the basis for responsible ownership that will
make the difference between responsible citizenship and
tragic accidental statistic later in their lives.
\_ ^gun^RPG^penis
\_ You get chemical explosions from your penis?!?
\_ ob too much rotational motion
\_ I have nuclear fusion going on in my balls.
\_ Don't you mean nuclear fission? Nuclear fusion
normally happens in the fallopian tubes, IIRC. |
| 2008/7/25-30 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50689 Activity:nil |
7/25 Ethanol worse for climate than gasoline:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18784732
\_ ethanol is/was/will be a giant ball of crap.
\_ No, corn and sugar cane production sucks. You can still produce
ethanol from better sources that don't effect the food market.
Ethanol from waste (cellulose, old donuts, etc.) is still quite
an amazing option. Your reading comprehension sucks. -scottyg
\_ Agreed. E.g. use the stem, not the kernel.
\_ Agreed. E.g. use the stem and the leaves, not the kernel.
\_ brilliant! I wonder why no one else has thought of it!
Oh, because it won't work. The concept of cellulosic
ethanol is based on the idea of genetically engineering
the plants so that their stems have less cellulose, so
it's possible to process them. Without a firm stem you
can't grow corn, so it's an either/or situation; you're
planting your fields either with corn or with limpgrass.
Maybe limpgrass will have better energy input->output
characteristics, but it's not like you'll be using a
waste product; you'll be using an agricultural product
grown specifically for the purpose of ethanol. -tom
\_ Actually you break down the cellulose into it's base
parts, lignin and sugars using enzymes so that the sugars
are available for fermentation to ethanol. Problem is that
these enzymes are still quite expensive to produce, as time
goes on we can and will overcome this. -scottyg
\_ tom, there's more than one approach. One approach is
the one you refer to, sort of, where one might plant
switch grass or some other non-crap plant that can grow
places crops don't grow well. Another approach is to
develop enzymes that break down cellulose quickly and
cheaply. It's not like cellulose is invincible, but
right now our techniques for processing it are slow or
expensive. But this is improving. -jrleek |
| 2008/7/19-23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50633 Activity:low |
7/19 Awesome what happens when you interpolate climate data from junk. You
get more junk.
http://tinyurl.com/5njt5y
\_ Totally agree. Drive your SUV and live the lifestyle you want.
Global warming is a hoax. -proud conservative
\_ yeah keep repeating it, and maybe everyone around you is
stupid enough to believe it eventually. Never mind the
overwhelming scientific consensus. Well, what's to expect
when we have for a president a man who endorsed teaching
when we have for a president a man who advocated teaching
intellegent design, appointed his activist cronnies in the
EPA, and whose cabbinet has people with strong links to
big oil. Of course it's a hoax. Gee, I can't wait for
him to get out already.
\_ You're an insulting person, and that is why I do not
believe you. -proud conservative
\_ yeah keep repeating it, and maybe everyone around you is stupid
enough to believe it eventually. Never mind the overwhelming
scientific consensus. Well, what's to expect when we have for a
president a man who endorsed teaching intellegent design,
appointed his activist cronnies in the EPA, and whose cabbinet
has people with strong links to big oil. Of course it's a hoax.
Gee, I can't wait for him to get out already.
\_ You're an insulting person, and that is why I do not believe
you. -proud conservative
\_ You don't need consensus if you have data. Check out this
data: http://surfacestations.org |
| 2008/7/17-23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50608 Activity:nil |
7/17 Wow, finally a map of where they want to drill in ANWR.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/07/021018.php
\_ How much benefit do you really think this oil will have?
I.e., assuming every last drop is pumped out, how much
do you expect the price of oil would drop, and for how
long? I'm genuinely curious here.
\_ It will definitely have a more measureable effect than hybrids
will on global warming.
\_ pp asked about "benefits", you described "measurable
effect". Did you go to community college?
\_ Aside from containing somewhat topical words, wtf does this
actually mean? |
| 2008/7/16-17 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50602 Activity:nil 60%like:50566 |
7/14 Where does oil in the sea come from? (63% fatty tuna)
http://www.noia.org/website/article.asp?id=129
\_ Do you want to have sex with Dirk Pitt too?
\_ Wow, you say that like adding over half again as much through
man made sources isn't alarming. Especially considering how
natural seeps are generally in stable locations. Hey look,
deforestation isn't a problem because look over there! Deserts!
\_ non sequitur. Note that transporting oil is more cause than
drilling.
\_ Cars kill more people than illegal handguns, so obviously
we shouldn't worry about illegal handguns.
\_ I know a jerk-ass who advocates dumping his motor oil down the
drain since there is already so much oil the bay already.
F*** both of you.
Fuck both of you.
\_ Call the cops on that idiot. -!pp
\_ Agreed. !pp && !op
\_ I don't advocate throwing more oil in the ocean. What's your
problem? -op |
| 2008/7/16-23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50593 Activity:nil |
7/16 China burned 1.9 billion metric tons of coal in 2004. By 2020, predicts
the China Coal Industry Development Research Center, it will burn 2.9
billion tons a year. That increment alone will send as much carbon
dioxide into the atmosphere as 3 billion Ford Expeditions, each driven
15,000 miles a year. This puts into sobering perspective the meager
efforts of the U.S. to stave off global warming by improving gas
mileage.
\_ 1. China's energy consumption per capita is about 1/7 of United
States.
\_ And, unfortunately, they're making every effort to be like us.
2. the reason why we are in such mess is because 150 years of
pollution by the industrized nation such as USA and UK and others.
So, you are telling me that G7 were the culprit of climate change
but you want China/India/Brazile to curb their emission for sake of
humanity while US/UK/France/Germany keep their Ford Expeditions?
\_ Gas is $11US in Germany. I bet they don't drive a lot of Ford
Expeditions.
\_ Um, no. I was quoting this because in order to solve something
we need to understand it. -op
\_ obviously you don't understand it. Industrialized Nations
are the cause of this problems, this includes United States.
If you want to solve the problem, you need to have a sense
of fairness or they will simply ignored it. The fact is
globally, if United States cut emission by half, it would
slow down the climate change crisis by a huge deal. but it
requires sacrafices, like paying $10/gallon gas, and see
natural gas and electric bills 3-4times of what you are paying
today. Would you willing to make such sacrfice? of course
not. You want to have 4-5 children to have that traditional
sense of a family. You want to keep you 5000 ft2 house while
there are only you and your wife live in it. You want to
keep your Ford Expedition. and if oil price is high, you
no longer oppose US government intervention to drive down
the oil price, i.e. relax the emission standards for power
plants and refinaries, and you no longer oppose US government
to invade another oil-rich nation to secure petro sources.
In the end, there are two things we need to look at when
we are looking at climate change issues. 1. population,
2. energy consumption per capita. In that sense, China's
one-child policy has been one of the greatest environmental
policy ever being implemented in the world in the 20th
century. talking about sacrafices.. you really think
given the choice Chinese only want one child per family?
IF industrialized nations are TRUELY care about emission,
all one has to do is impose a fixed carbon tax rate at the
consumption level. We can even divert some of these
carbon tax to United Nation to enforce it. Why consumer
level instead of producer level? because if we impose tax
at the producer level, again, China will be end up paying
bulk of the carbon tax for manufacturing good consumed by
USA and rest of the industrialized nations. Consumers
have to feel the pain, or there will be no changes in
behavior. Once carbon tax made energy-intesive product/
activities expensive, people will 1. curb the activities,
2. figure out ways to achieve the same thing without much
energy consumption.
That will be another dot-com. And innovative economy such
as United States will be the one reap the bulk of the
benefits.
\_ How about instead just taxing the hell out of any extraction
of hydrocarbons from the ground. The oil pumpers / coal
miners / gas miners can pass their costs on, thus
encouraging less usage. Why make exceptions for who its
for, G7 or China or whatever, they all need to pay for
the dumping of carbon into the atmosphere.
\_ Why doesn't China use nukular?
\_ Because buying oil from Sudan is cheaper and the PRC has no
moral compunctions.
\- as opposed to the US buying oil from say SANI ABACHA.
\_ Surely a more modern example is available to you, Partha.
\_ China is aggressively building nuclear power plant and hydro-
electric plants. Energy shortage in China is a lot more severe
than those of United States and other Industrialized country,
which outsourced much of the energy-intensive activities to
China at first place.
\_ Yes. But if we start investing on green technologies early and
patent everything, China will have little choice but to pay $$$ to
buy from us when they realize they have to go green or when they're
forced to go green by some international treaty. One argument in
the US against investing on green technologies is that the
investment is not worth the saving. But if we can sell the
resulting technologies or the products to populus countries like
China and India that are behind in the game, the argument no longer
holds.
\_ or, we'll waste tons of resources implementing our own,
high-tech sustainable programs, but they'll continue to use
cheap fossil fuels, and we'll all have to suffer through the
same crappy environment. Doesn't help to clean up our own acts
when everyone else is still pissin' in the pool.
\_ Fallacious: environmental effects do not occur globally
instanteously. Less air pollution in the US _will_ result in
cleaner air in US despite lack of reciprocity on part of PRC.
\_ Your argument fu is very weak.
\_ oh and china has been soo good at respecting things like
patents and other intellectual property rights. If they
want to use the technology, they'll implement it.
\_ Hey, if it saves Manhattan from drowning, we will probably
all be better off for it, too. |
| 2008/7/16-23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50586 Activity:nil |
7/15 In the past with rising energy costs->crisis and financial
difficulties, what were some of the industries that did well
and can we put our investment in those industries?
\- gas theft |
| 2008/7/14-16 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50566 Activity:moderate 60%like:50602 |
7/14 Where does oil in the sea come from? (63% natural seeps)
http://www.noia.org/website/article.asp?id=129
\_ Do you want to have sex with Dirk Pitt too?
\_ Wow, you say that like adding over half again as much through
man made sources isn't alarming. Especially considering how
natural seeps are generally in stable locations. Hey look,
deforestation isn't a problem because look over there! Deserts!
\_ non sequitur. Note that transporting oil is more cause than
drilling.
\_ Cars kill more people than illegal handguns, so obviously
we shouldn't worry about illegal handguns.
\_ I know a jerk-ass who advocates dumping his motor oil down the
drain since there is already so much oil the bay already.
Fuck both of you.
F*** both of you.
\_ Call the cops on that idiot. -!pp
\_ Agreed. !pp && !op
\_ I don't advocate throwing more oil in the ocean. What's your
problem? -op |
| 2008/7/9-11 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50509 Activity:nil |
7/8 Cutting pollution has increased global warming in europe:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6o9p9p [new scientist]
\_ "The latest climate models are built on the assumption that aerosols
have their biggest influence by seeding natural clouds, which
reflect sunlight. However, the team found that radiation dropped
only slightly on cloudy days, suggesting that the main impact of
aerosols is to block sunlight directly."
garbage in, garbage out |
| 2008/7/6-10 [Science/Electric, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50478 Activity:nil |
7/5 Just saw Wall-E. Beautiful movie. Environmental message was vague
enough to appeal to anyone. "Stay the course" was a bit heavy-handed.
Overall, thumbs up.
\_ I totally agree, it was very nicely done. If the stupid right-
wingers who are up in arms about how bad it is maybe they should
open their eyes and take a look at how much garbage our society
produces in a day. -mrauser
\_ I've got to admit, it takes serious balls for Disney to put
out a movie attacking our consumerist culture.
\_ I find it pretty amusing how Steve Jobs' company's vision of
the beautiful robot was basically an ipod.
\_ not disagreeing with you, but it was Ives who designed Eve.
must add integrated plasma rifle to next iPhone.
\_ I think that's a metaphor about what happens if you
cross Apple.
\_ http://preview.tinyurl.com/3jl38z
"I wanted Eve to be high-end technology - no expense
spared - and I wanted it to be seamless and for the
technology to be sort of hidden and subcutaneous,"
Andrew Stanton, Wall-E's director, told Fortune. "The
more I started describing it, the more I realized I was
pretty much describing the Apple playbook for design."
\_ I thought a lot of designs looked to have at least some
inspiration/influence from Portal, not to mention the short
film before the feature film. |
| 2008/7/3-8 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50464 Activity:nil |
7/3 Kill your TV - LCDs cause global warming:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6h8qpg [ceduna.yourguide.com.au]
\_ I won't believe it until somebody makes a hockey-stick
chart showing the correlation.
\_ No, the creation of LCDs emit greenhouse gasses.
\_ well, one of the chemicals used in the process. |
| 2008/7/3-8 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50460 Activity:nil |
7/3 Greenland's glaciers aren't melting (at least not for now)
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6cxdgj
\_ And Mt. Shasta's glaicers are growing:
http://cbs13.com/seenon/Mount.Shasta.Global.2.485725.html |
| 2008/7/1-14 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50441 Activity:nil 90%like:50437 |
7/01 Reid self-Godwins
http://tinyurl.com/423xaf [lv sun] |
| 2008/7/1-14 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50440 Activity:nil |
7/01 Awesome, now we can't even do solar power
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/us/27solar.html
\_ its just a moratorium of solar projects on public BLM land. Nothin
stopping folks from doing solar power on private land. Still the
vast tracts of cheap desert land under the BLM's control are
probably the best resources for solar plants. A government
concerned about alternate energy wouldn't put up obstacles like
this.
\_ ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
\_ "assess the effects of construction on the desert tortoise and
Mojave ground squirrel." I hate squrrels. Kill the squirrels!
\_ This is actually pretty funny. The continued carbon emissions
will drive the extinction of far more species than just
these two. Pave the desert!
\_ http://www.012009.com
\_ Or coal: http://preview.tinyurl.com/598vzr [treehugger]
\_ If you believe in clean coal, I have bridge in Brooklyn to
sell you.
\_ I refer you to
http://langmuir.nuc.berkeley.edu/~peterm/COAL_VS_NUCLEAR.html
for a discussion of the side effects of a coal plant.
\_ I'll gladly take nuclear as long as the safety
requirements are not neglected and the industry is
heavily regulated. |
| 2008/7/1 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50437 Activity:high 90%like:50441 |
7/01 Reid self-Godwins
http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/news/2008/feb/19/sen-reid-accuses-coal-industry-using-old-hitler-li
\_ ffs, tinyurl your links. They don't work as well across line breaks.
Here, I'll help you: http://tinyurl.com/423xaf |
| 2008/6/28-7/14 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50409 Activity:moderate |
6/27 Thanks Republicans, for high gasoline prices!
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4m3lkm
\_ Link unread, no point.
\_ Wow, that's some awesome reasoning. And thihs guy is a professor?
\_ Wow, that's some awesome reasoning. And this guy is a professor?
What a moron.
\_ Yet, he still gets laid more than you by waiving his PhD
\_ Why did you bother to post this drivel?
\_ Wow, what a stunning rebuttal. You don't think CAFE standards
could have reduced our depedency on foreign oil?
\_ No. Conservation is good but ultimately only market forces
\_ The whole point about free-market vs. control isn't
about efficiency. No one is argueing that free-market
is much more efficient at changing the market. The point
is about *stability* of market. Boom/bust cycles have
been well studied in the past few decades and is a
naturally occurring phenomenon in free-market, and a
great driving force in optimizing supplier vs. consumer
patterns. It also creates a lot of instability which
destroys businesses and hurts consumers during
harsh transitional phases. Obviously, there is a
middle ground, a trade-off between efficiency and
stability that unfortunately the ultra Left and the
ultra Right have failed to compromise on.
\_ Stability is a crock. With "stability" comes complacence
and lack of responsibility/accountability. The prospect
of going bust keeps markets in check. But another issue
is that the boom/bust cycles that have been studied in
the past were not truly free markets... we've never
really had a free market. In all the 20th century
crises the government was an active player in leading
up to the problem. The government manipulates currency,
borrows and spends massively creating entire industries
sucking on its teat, and acts to "rescue" and subsidize
imprudent/inefficient businesses. And it never goes
bankrupt itself... we're all stuck with its stupid
decisions.
\_ Nice tautology: Free markets work, because we've
never had a free market.
\_ Markets work because it's experimentally proven
that they do. Some regulation is necessary such
as anti-monopolization and preventing destruction
of ownerless resources such as air quality. The
idea of boom/bust being an inherent problem is
simply not proven. We probably need high
simply not proven.
\_ nor is it proven that markets provide optimal
results in the real world. -tom
regulation of banks. It seems like a common
It seems like a common
source of problems is when companies/banks get
so huge that they individually make or break
the economy of a large region, and then they
cannot be allowed to fail. The solution
would be to enforce competition by limiting
company sizes.
company sizes. And if that is impractical, say
for a power distribution grid or other common
resource, then private ownership may not make
sense.
Markets work on basically the same principle
as genetic evolution. We see the same problems
in nature when there is too little diversity;
the system becomes vulnerable to individual
diseases and is unstable. For example, with
low genetic diversity of endangered species,
or with agricultural species such as bananas.
\_ Would you like to try to prove that evolution
always produces an optimal result for a
given species? -tom
\_ What is the definition of "optimal result
for a given species"?
\_ Do the semantics really matter? It's
pretty clear that evolution did not
produce an optimal result for the
dinosaurs, for example. And while some
\_ Well, it did: the dinosaurs were the
optimal things for their time. We
are apparently more optimal than they
for our time. If dinosaurs were a
business then they went out of
business... but then that was probably
a natural disaster that changed the
world so you can't plan on that.
Then again they say birds came from
dinosaurs and they're doing ok.
argue (without any real evidence) that
markets always produce optimal results,
there's no reason to believe that a
market will produce an optimal result
for the United States specifically, or
for people in the US. -tom
\_ No, but given that nobody is all-wise,
competitive markets are the best way
to let people decide for themselves
what they want the economy to do.
You never have "perfect competition"
and even then you need humans to
come up with ideas, but markets
do the best at optimizing results
for what people want. It doesn't
solve wealth disparity... but that
is a technicality. I think wealth
caps are reasonable just like
breaking up monopolies is reasonable.
I don't think unrestricted immigration
is reasonable, or that the government
is obligated to support everybody
on welfare.
\_ I understand your ideology; you
haven't provided any evidence
that it provides optimal results
in the real world. If you want to
talk about the dinosaurs and
evolution, we are in the position
that we *know* that an asteroid
is on its way. We can either
keep doing things the way we are
now and hope that it works after
the state of the world changes, or
we can use our higher brain
functions to anticipate and
prepare for the changes. -tom
\_ What you don't understand is
that I think it's better to let
people make choices and live with
them. I think we've adapted pretty
well so far and don't *know* that
there is an asteroid. Is that a
global warming reference? Make
your case, let people choose.
It's not so clear cut as you
imply. And "optimal" is not
the same for every person.
\_ The idea that aggregated
individual choice will
necessarily produce a result
which is best for the US in
the long run is unproven, and
frankly absurd. -tom
\_ Is democracy absurd?
\_ I certainly wouldn't
assert that democracy
necessarily produces
optimal results for the
people. -tom
\_ Well, neither do
other systems.
So far as it works,
it by definition gives
the people what they
want, subject to
their resources.
Our democracy is
really a republic
of course and the
system is flawed.
But I certainly
prefer this principle
of freedom than to
put faith in fallible
and corrupt authority.
will change the way we live. When gas is too expensive,
people will drive smaller cars. There is no reason to force
people to do so however as the government is not fit to
engage in social engineering as they will only make things
even worse than they already have. The problem is lack of
\_ Complex problems need multi-prone solutions. Conservation
allows us to prolone the reserves longer, which will
allow us to buy more *time* to transition to alternative
energy. If we let the free-market force rule, we'll
get into a sharp, unpleasant transition where millions
of people will get priced out in a short period of
time and will unable to function in society (unable to
deliver goods, go to work, etc, which will cascade
down to the global economy). Free market will create
boom (cheap oil) followed by bust (breakdown of economy
when sharp shortage occurs within a small time span).
We need a middle ground of course. Conserve to buy more
time, and more drilling to buffer price instability
and to keep status quo. Not doing both hurts the market
in the short term, and in the long term.
\_ I disagree with your oil boom/bust scenario. If cheap
oil is foreseen to end, then there is a profit waiting
for those to take advantage of that. The market is
adapting and there are alternative energy sources,
and efficient tech. Where is the "breakdown of
economy"? The fundamental problems lately have had to
do with mass stupidity about housing prices and bad
loans, combined with the government borrowing and
spending like mad, natural disasters and political
instability affecting crops and oil production, and
cheapening of the dollar internationally. None of this
really dire stuff about peak oil has happened or ever
will happen as far as I'm concerned.
supply for current demand. If oil co's had been allowed to
start new drilling projects 10+ years ago we wouldn't be in
this situation today. That should be obvious. Over the long
term we *may* run out of easy oil or the definition of easy
may change as technology improves such that we have an
effectively infinite supply of cheap oil until other energy
tech catches up in 100+ years. But not drilling now (or ten
years ago) in the vague hope that something will change is
economic suicide.
\_ I don't think that even Adam Smith would have asserted
that only market forces can change the way we live.
Certainly there's no real evidence for that position. -tom
\_ And your answer is to instead distort the market with
the government sledgehammer? There are things the
government is good for: road building, border defense,
making sure the factory upstream doesn't pollute your
drinking water. Forcing conservation through an
artificial lack of supply? Don't think so.
\_ There is a middle ground to be met.
\_ Nice straw man.
Tell me, how would the free market solve the tree
shortange on Easter Island? -tom
\_ Reducing demand has the same effect on prices as increasing
supply. If we drilled in Alaska and the continental shelf,
the extra oil would only allow us one more year of oil
growth, and then we would be in the exact same situation
we are in now, but worse, because we would have less world
reserve to tap into. If we had forced improved gas milage
on cars 10 years ago, we would be in better shape, because
we wouldn't be stuck with a huge fleet of fuel innefficient
SUVs. Wise government policy cannot overturn the laws of
economics, but it can ameliorate the shocks from it. Do you
really think that doubling gasoline prices in a year is
the best way to reduce demand?
\_ Oil/energy is a necessity. Currently most of our
energy comes from oil. So yes you can reduce prices by
lowering demand but demand is mostly inelastic. You
can't lower prices by bringing our economy to a
crashing halt. The fields in Alaska are good for one
year *if* that was the *only* oil we imported that
year. That would obviously not be the case. Bringing
that oil online smooths the entire world supply. The
contintental shelf(s) is/are estimated to have decades
of oil, again without *any* other sources of oil which
again is not the case. I have no problem with some
reasonable standards for fuel efficiency. Have you
seen the new standards? They're simply ridiculous when
\- They're not ridiculous if you can consider
ALTERNATIVE vehicles. I'm talking about reducing
our "needs" for 5000 pound SUVs in favor of
more European-like mini vehicles. If you think
the current lifestyle of people driving
Hummers and turning up AC+heat for a 4000sqft
McMansion can be sustained forever with more oil
drilling and with solar energy (corn->ethanol),
maybe you should look at the documentary
The End of Suburbia: http://www.endofsuburbia.com
Current energy demands will clearly outpace
energy supply shortly and the transition will
be very harsh for global economies.
you take into account that MPG is now measured by real
world conditions, not lab conditions which is a large
part of why fuel efficiency has dropped or remained
flat across auto lines. I'm unclear how you got the
idea I'm in favor of doubling gas prices to reduce
demand. I'm in favor of adding supply to reduce gas
prices (95%) and in favor of reasonable CAFE-like
standards to nudge car companies in the right direction
but not the company wrecking random numbers they pulled
out of thin air on this latest round of CAFE standards.
Remember, energy use is mostly inelastic. Raise the
\_ This contradicts with your fucking free market
drivel. First free market will change usage
patterns based on price. Then you said usage
is mostly inelastic. Did you even graduate
from Cal?
price too high or simply not have enough supply and
real people living real lives will starve, go bankrupt,
or generally live crummier lives than they would have
if energy was cheaper. What we really should be doing
is building more nuclear power plants, spending on
cleaner coal technologies and sticking wind mills and
solar in places that can effectively use them (like off
Kennedy's coastline). Sorry, had to take the one cheap
shot.
\_ The "free market" is what has doubled gasoline prices
in such a short time. Perhaps I am not making my
argument clear enough: if all the oil in Alaska was
already online, prices today would be exactly where
they were last year, demand would be up 1M/day and
people like you would be arguing that there was no
shortage. Next year, prices would have doubled and
we would be in even worse shape than we are today.
Better to face our problems now. We can always
drill the Alaska oil when we actually need it (like
during a World War or something). Think of it as
The Strategic Reserve II.
\- this is a decent article:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6459fb74-420b-11dd-a5e8-0000779fd2ac.html |
| 2008/6/27-7/14 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50402 Activity:nil |
6/27 McCain made a pretty interesting speech about nuclear weapons policy
I missed.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/27/america/27mccain-text.php |
| 2008/6/25-7/14 [Science/Space, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50368 Activity:nil |
6/25 "NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080624/ap_on_sc/sci_warming_scientist
\_ Same thing he said 20 years ago.
\_ Not according to the article. |
| 2008/6/24-27 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50365 Activity:low |
6/24 Remember, you read it on the motd first:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6fylgy
High energy prices are encouraging the return to the cities.
\_ Yes, thank God! Please let energy price TRIPLE or more. I can't
wait. I hope y'all suburban dumbasses with SUVs will realize that
being irresponsible to earth is being a total dickwad to
everyone else. Fucking pollution cancer and asthma causing
suburban living assholes. FUCK PASADENA.
\_ Do you really want all those suburban dumbasses living next to
you? |
| 2008/6/23-27 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50338 Activity:nil |
6/23 WTF? McCain actually talking sense about energy issues?
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3pyo7g (cnn.com)
\_ Voted for it before he voted against it.
\_ Umm... This is pretty much in line with McCain historically.
What are you talking about?
\_ Not that this necessarily applies here but I think changes
of position/flip flopping aren't inherently bad and screaming
about a particular flip flop is just stupid. Only complete
morons never reconsider things. If it happens all the time
or is hypocritical/insincere that's another thing...
\_ A fine idea. I hope President Obama adopts it during his first term.
Actually, that would be superb: McCain as Energy Secretary. |
| 2008/6/20-23 [Science/GlobalWarming, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:50318 Activity:low |
6/20 Hinchey still thinks nationalization of refineries is a good idea, but
doesn't think it's likely
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,369321,00.html
\_ It's a stupid idea. He should be shot. Building more refineries
and not having 8 zillion different blends for ego stroking reasons
is a good idea.
\_ I'm amazed the communists state it openly. Last I checked there
were property rights in this country. Besides, the government
doesn't do /anything/ well, I don't see why anyone would think
they'd manage the energy industry better than the actual owners.
\_ The government does lots of things well, you just don't
appreciate them. The military kicks ass, public schools,
especially at the post-secondary level (think UC) are good and
Social Security is the greatest anti-poverty program ever
created.
\_ The government is "good at" huge expensive bureaucracies.
That doesn't mean those are really good things. While it's
tough to find a good alternative to the military given the
current situation in the world, I find your other examples
entirely unconvincing. For one thing, it does not compete
on a level playing field: we are forced to pay for it while
private alternatives have to earn your $'s. Considering the
money spent it does not do most things well. Greatest anti-
poverty program eh? Ok... how is it better than the Euro
socialist systems?
\_ SS administrative costs are 0.6%. Where else are going to
see costs that low? Part of that is precisely because of
the economies of scale. It also costs much less than
the European systems. |
| 2008/6/20-23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50316 Activity:nil |
6/20 6 ways mushrooms can save the world
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/258 |
| 2008/6/19-23 [Science/Disaster, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50309 Activity:low |
6/19 CBS and MSNBC talk to a PhD about global warming causing more energetic
earthquakes. Only problem is that he's not a PhD, he's a crackpot.
http://www.sanspretense.com/2008/06/18/78
\_ Which obviously means that all white things are ducks.
\_ Not the conclusion I was drawing. The mainstream media is so
enamored with global warming they'll take anyone to link anything
to it, so they're worthless as a watchdog on the creeping
socialism of global warming. Either that or they're completely
incompetent, in which case they're equally worthless. -op
\_ Worse than worthless. In cases of fear mongering, whether
of terrorist threat, or AGW, or any other boogeymen (real or
imagined), the press is a mostly unquestioning ampliphier
imagined), the press is a mostly unquestioning amplifier
of the self-serving line of hyperbole and nonsense coming
from those who wish to rule. -crebbs
\_ I wish to rule. They're not amping *my* message! |
| 2008/6/19-20 [Science/GlobalWarming, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:50297 Activity:nil 75%like:50317 |
6/19 Dumbest liberal evar!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d53lspwDeI |
| 2008/6/17-20 [Science/Disaster, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50281 Activity:nil |
6/17 World's wealthiest Oil Man endorses Peak Oil concept:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/68tf3f (Yahoo News)
\_ Peak oil is guaranteed when you stop drilling. Ever increasing
energy prices are guaranteed when you stop building power plants.
Econ 1.
\_ We have more oil wells in the United States than the rest of the
world, combined. Drilling quadrupled after the 70s oil shocks
yet oil production continued to slide. Peak oil is a result
of geology, not politics or economics. |
| 2008/6/13-14 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50253 Activity:low |
6/13 Des Moines changes name to Lake Des Moines
good thing global warming is a hoax
\_ Wait, wait, wait. Are you tying one weather event to global
warming? Because I don't think you're supposed to do that.
\_ Just because the planet has been cooling for 10 years doesn't
mean GW isn't real. That is just natural variation hiding the-
debate-is-over man-made-global-warming which will really kick
in 10 years from now! Really! |
| 2008/6/13-20 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50252 Activity:nil |
6/13 "Which way out of rising gasoline costs?" - http://USATODAY.com: http://www.csua.org/u/lr0 "Here's a look at how seven proposals could cut prices - and the drawbacks to following such plans:" \_ It is all Bill Clinton's fault: http://newsbusters.org/node/6858 \_ What isn't? |
| 2008/6/13-17 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50251 Activity:moderate |
6/13 Very harsh but reasoned commentary about global warming by the founder
of the weather channel.
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html
\_ You have a different definition of reasoned than webster does
\_ He presents his reasoning.
"to use the faculty of reason so as to arrive at conclusions"
Epic fail, try again troll.
\_ When did troll mean "someone who doesn't buy my bullshit"?
\_ Troll still doesn't mean "doesn't buy your bullshit" no
matter how much you want it to. Let me put it simply,
when someone attacks global warming by attacking Gore
"reasoned" is not a reasonable adjective.
\_ Clearly you didn't read the entire article. It addresses
solar cycles, and the validity of CO2 as a greenhouse gas,
etc.
\_ I question the validity of gravity daily.
\_ Ah, so you're playing the idiot game. Okay, so
where's the proof that CO2 at 380 ppm is anything
other than a trace component?
\_ THE DEBATE IS OVER! EEEEP!
\- i'm not a rabid follower of ALGOR but isnt
asking a weatherman to weigh in on climate
research like asking your GP/PCP to be an
expert in say evolution or molecular
biology or asking your an architect about
biology or asking an architect about
civil engineering questions? Note also the
talk was to the SD Chamber of Commerce,
hardly a tough crowd for this dood.
I think talks like this are meaningless
unless they are debates ... I'm not qualified
to call somebody on bullshit in this area.
I am not prepared to believe you unless you
are willing to debate somebody who can.
[BTW, does ALGOR debate sceptics in real time?]
\_ Gore does not debate anyone on climate
at all, ever. And this guy isn't just
"a weatherman", btw. Gore has been
challenged to any number of "anytime,
anywhere, just let us know" debates, but
as we all know, THE DEBATE IS OVER!
\- yeah, i didnt think so. so the above
applies to ALGOR too [not on a position
to claim "appeal to authority", soft
audience, non-real-time-debate].
audience, no real-time-debate].
BTW, I think this guys is "just a
weatherman". |
| 2008/6/12-13 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50244 Activity:very high |
6/12 By the way, the Government estimates that the outer continental shelf,
(the one they said no to yesterday), has 76 billion barrels of oil in
it that are recoverable and that's with today's technology. Let me put
that into perspective. 76 billion barrels is enough to replace every
single barrel of oil that we import from everywhere outside of North
America for the next 34 years at our current pace. That's in the one
place, one, that congress said we couldn't go into yesterday.
\_ oil is the ultimate strawman. the MSM websites harping on oil are
part of the conspiracy all over the internet to conceal the nature
of an exponential function. search for a graph of Moore's Law, the
quaint rule that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every
18 to 24 months, you will see a graph of a linear function, ie a
straight line, see this wiki page for a 'censored' graph of Moore's
Law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Moores_law.svg
however if this were a true linear function, the scale of the
y-axis would increase in regular increments, 10,000 then 20,000
then 30,000... etc... instead the y-axis of every Moore's Law
Chart you see increases in increments 10,000 then 100,000 then
1,000,000... making an exponential function appear to be a linear
function. I imagine this is to avoid general societal panic.
for a comparison of a linear graph and an exponential graph see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_equation
and for an exponential function here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_function
the graph of an exponential function at some point will veer
sharply up into infinity. before the powers that be began to
censor the true appearance of the Moore's Law chart on the internet
it was apparent that the singularity would occur in the year 2032,
when the chart veers sharply up into infinity. so the singularity
clearly occurs in the year 2032. CASE CLOSED.
\_ "The projections in the [Outer Continental Shelf] OCS
access case indicate that access to the Pacific, Atlantic,
and eastern Gulf regions would not have a significant
impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or
prices before 2030. Leasing would begin no sooner than
2012, and production would not be expected to start before
2017."
http://mediamatters.org/items/200806090012?f=h_latest -tom
\_ Because Clinton banned it until at least 2012. And he vetoed
ANWR in 1994 saying it wouldn't extract oil until 2007. What a
shame we don't have that 1M barrels per day right now. -emarkp
\_ We're using over 20 million barrels per day and importing
over 13 million of that. Maybe there would be a 10%
difference in the price of gas, maybe it would have been
a few months longer that would could pump out more
carbon emissions with impunity. So what? Pumping more
oil is not a long-term strategy and it's not even an
effective stopgap. Our oil production is down by 24%
since 1985 and our consumption is up by 10% in the past
10 years. Cheap gas just drives consumption, which only
delays the inevitable while causing further environmental
damage. -tom
\_ So we now know where you stand. The higher the gas price
the better, right? Right now demand is outstripping supply
by about 1 million barrels perday, which would be exactly
filled by ANWR. Go away tom, you're anti-civilization.
-emarkp
\_ Maybe he's anti-civilization-as-we-know-it, which is
unsustainable. Can the whole world live like us?
\_ The U.S. uses 25% of the world's supply of oil, and
produces 25% of the world's carbon emissions. Do you
really think that's necessary for civilization? -tom
\_ Right now, yes. We need to move away from burning
the oil (I'd rather it be used for plastic anyway),
but it's going to take decades. We need more oil for
now to sustain civilization until we can make the
switch. -emarkp
\_ How are we going to make the switch without the
crucial signal that higher prices provide? Do
you propose using legislation like the CAFE
rules and perhaps more? -ausman
\_ No, we need the higher prices, but the current
shock to the system is too fast. We need to
have a buffer to help it rise gently. (This may
be the one thing I agree with Obama about.)
-emarkp
\_ Okay, we are in agreement here. But if we had
say, ANWAR on line, I doubt that the oil
\_ Okay, we are in agreement here. But if we
had say, ANWAR on line, I doubt that the oil
companies would moderate the amount they
drill to try and control price shocks. Such
pump to try and control price shocks. Such
behavior would probably even be considered
illegal price fixing. Our best bet is to
try and talk the Saudis into pumping more.
I am not really sure why they are not doing
that already. Perhaps they don't really have
any more to pump. -ausman
\_ Oil companies don't have to moderate it,
the market will. Global demand and the
extraction of all the cheap oil is going
to push up the price. The artificially
capped supply, and the huge amount of it
in unstable regions is what is causing
the current spike. -emarkp
\_ In 1990, George H.W. Bush, calling himself "the environmental
president," signed an order putting virtually all the U.S.
outer continental shelf's oil and gas reserves in the deep
freeze.
\_ What does this have to do with the Global Warming Hoax?
\_ Yeah! We should tear that shit up and ignore the consequences!
Global Warming's a lie! The environment is out to get us! Kill!
Kill!
\_ Excellent false dichotomy sir! The Dem-controlled subcommittee
killed this yesterday, saying oil production off the continental
shelf isn't important. The NAS found that the offshore industry
is among the safest industrial activities in the United States.
Outer continental shelf operations are more than five times less
likely to cause a spill than oil tankers who are importing oil.
-emarkp
\_ "safest industrial activities": what does this have to do
with the environmental impact of offshore drilling? Cutting
down trees is safer than blowing them up with dynamite; so
therefore cutting down trees has no environmental impact?
\_ Actually, cutting down trees with dynamite is probably
safer. You can be far away when it falls down.
\_ Just come out and say that you favor high gas prices if
that's what you want. It's a reasonable position.
Claiming the 76b barrels of oil is insignificant is not.
\_ The environmental impact is less than shipping the oil. As
I wrote above. And, natural seeps account for 150 to 175
times more oil in the ocean than outer continental shelf
oil and gas operations. -emarkp
\_ It doesn't matter how much load the system is able
to handle. What matters is what happens when you
push them too far and the system falls down. A lot of
environmental issues work that way. It's classic
thrashing behavior.
\_ And other environmental concerns apart from leaks?
\_ Which are? (Serious question here. I could guess
what your concerns are, but would like rather to know
what you're thinking of.) -emarkp
\_ Drilling too deep might awaken Cthulhu.
\_ Drilling discharges; habitat impact; concerns
related to construction of oil-processing and
offshore drilling support infrastructure.
\_ Drilling discharges are currently less than
natural seepage. What habitat impact?
Drilling is in a very small area compared to
the coastline. Support infrastructure isn't
more than loading oil shipped from other
countries. -emarkp
\_ Your statement on drilling discharges is
not accepted as canon. Habitat is not a
function of size of geo. area but the
ecosystem in question. Your last statement
implies that we have to support offshore
continental shelf drilling somewhere so
it might as well be here. This is a false
choice. If there comes a time when drilling
can be done with no or even minimal impact
to the environment, I'll be much more likely
to support it. Until then, no.
\_ here's a more pragmatic question. At what oil price level
do you think all these environmental concerns will break down
and the stuff get extracted anyway?
\_ Your math is wrong, or your source is. The US imports 13.5M bbls/
day, which works out to 4.8B/yr, so 76B only lasts 16 years.
Even if you charitably throw Canada in there, we still import 4B/yr. |
| 2008/6/12-13 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50241 Activity:nil |
6/12 When two cars/bicycles/birds move in tandem, the one at the back saves
energy. Does the one in front use more energy? Thx.
\_ They both save energy. The one in the back provides a small
pressure wave which pushes the first one along a bit. |
| 2008/6/11-13 [Science/Disaster, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50227 Activity:nil |
6/11 Oil companies may have under estimate their reserves:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/4omqlj [new scientist] |
| 2008/6/10-13 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50212 Activity:nil |
6/10 Algae produced Oil:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5nw29d [new scientist]
\_ I'm only geting 3 paragraphs, is there more?
\_ I think the full story is viewable for subscribers only.
Here is a Dec '07 NY Times article on the same:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6zawtl [nyt]
\_ Thanks, this is about what I had heard before. There is
no imminent breakthrough technology, but it's a cool
idea that might work.
\_ plenty more better articles show up with a goole for sapphire
energy. -ERic |
| 2008/6/10-13 [Transportation/Car/RoadHogs, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50206 Activity:moderate |
6/10 What I have been saying for years is now finally going mainstream:
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/86938
"High Fuel Costs Could Spur a New Rationalism"
\_ I sure hope this is going mainstream. But most drives I see on the
roads are still solo drivers, the freeways are not getting less
congested, and my wife doesn't see BART trains getting more crowded.
\_ That's because those supposed solutions are crap. The real
solution is to use small, efficient vehicles, and have protected
paths for low-impact stuff like bikes. 60-80 mpg is not
unreasonable from a small car. You can do better by regulating
things, for example ensuring that on-ramps are long enough to
accommodate slow-accelerating cars, or improving safety by
limiting large vehicles which make small cars more dangerous by
blocking their vision and being dangerous in crashes due to their
mass and ride height.
Clearly people like fast personal transportation. Improving that
technology is going to be much more useful than trying to force
people to give it up.
\_ Once again, the solution is NOT technology. Creating
new infrastructures and testing, etc uses MORE energy.
The solution is to REVERSE technology. Kill everyone
and every innovations, and there will be no more
energy use.
\_ It is worth pursuing more than one line of solution at a
time, since the problem is so large and there is probably
not going to be a one-size-fits all solution. All your
solutions are going to take years, and we need to find a
cheap way to get people to work in the meantime. I envision
a smart car train, where people get into their individual
pods at home, but then join the "train" for longer distance.
You can get really good energy efficiency that way, while
still giving the misanthropes their "personal space," but
this is obviously a long ways off.
\_ The problem isn't really "privacy for misanthropes" but
1) going to and from where you want to go, when you want
to go there, and quickly
2) versatility and convenience in carrying stuff
3) comfort
In most cases mass transit simply doesn't do #1 which is
the important one. More efficient taxis could help. At
least people using taxis reduces the need for parking lots.
AI-driven taxis could be cool, someday. If people entered
their transit request to a taxi company then they could
coordinate the routes to be able to carry a multiple
people per taxi in many cases. That wouldn't require AI
taxis, just smart dispatching software.
As usual, the existence of government controlled transit
operations unnecessarily shackles us all to systems which
are probably not optimal.
\_ #1 has been solved by all the really big cities in the
world with elevators and one minute headway train systems.
But you need much greater density than most American
cities for this to work. Personal transit does not
really work in a place like Tokyo or Hong Kong, anyway.
#2 is solved by putting stores selling what you need
within very close walking distance of your home.
\_ Have you ever been to Texas? Asking big fat Americans
to walk to where they need to be is very unAmerican
and unPatriotic.
\_ Don't interrupt my posts. And you can ask people
\_ I will
to do whatever you want, just don't expect them
\_ interrupt
to do it because you are obviously smarter than
\_ as I see fit
they.
\_ mind you this this a free country
\_ The problem is solved by MOVING close to where
you normally have to go (work).
\_ you can't move in CA. if you do, you get hit with the
new property tax hit of 1000 percent to make up for
all the old people who haven't been properly taxed
since 1978. i am slightly serious about this.
\_ you mean "all the corporations"
\_ That doesn't solve it. It's impractical to
move every time you change jobs, housing is
not freely available, people go other places
than their job (and so they should).
\_ Obviously, a place like Tokyo or Hong Kong is
different. Different places are different. Tokyo can
still require a lot of walking... there are
still lots of places that are hard to get to on
the trains/subways. Tokyo also has lots of taxis.
Your #2 "solution" is not a real solution.
\_ It works all over the world. And what is wrong
with walking? Walking is good for you.
\_ No, it doesn't. Feel free to walk if you want.
\_ Yes, it does. The majority of the world's
population do not own cars, so they do their
shopping the old fashioned way, on foot. Feel
free to be a lazy fatass who pays $200 to
fill up his Escalate if you want, too. Just
don't bitch about it on the motd.
\_ When you say "the existence of government controlled transit
operations unnecessarily shackles us all to systems which
are probably not optimal." are you referring to things like
freeways?
\_ You're the one bitching and blanketing ppl
as lazy fatasses. What about people with
legitimate physical problems? I suppose we
should euthanize them for the good of the
species. What if you live somewhere with
bad weather? You're presenting a false
dichotomy: the Escalade is one extreme of
personal transportation. Why did you
even bring it up?
The majority of the world's population
lives in fucking shitty conditions and
have no choice. They do things like walk
long distances with giant loads of junk
carried on their backs, like pieces of
corrugated steel they found which they
are lugging back to add on to their tiny
shack where they sleep on the floor with
their various relatives and have no
running water.
Maybe you should move to one of those
places. Or just feed yourself to some
animals and stop wasting resources.
\_ The guy with the Escalade is going to
have to give up a bit so that the guy
carrying the steel on his back can live
a little better. A good think, imnsho.
a little better. A good thing, imnsho.
\_ The Fremont->SF BART line did get more crowded during morning
commute hours these days. |
| 2008/6/3-9 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50144 Activity:low |
6/3 Our spotless sun
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime-images.html
http://csua.org/u/lp6 (nationalpost.com)
\_ Original article by PK CHAPMAN: http://csua.org/u/lp7
Rebuttal by D KAROLY: http://csua.org/u/lp8
Both op-eds in The Australian
\_ It sure would be nice if the two effects balanced out.
I don't think the climate models included solar variation.
\_ http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/image-description.html
"In the images taken at 304 Angstrom the bright material is at
60,000 to 80,000 degrees Kelvin. In those taken at 171 Angstrom, at
1 million degrees. 195 Angstrom images correspond to about 1.5
million Kelvin, 284 Angstrom to 2 million degrees."
So, as temperature goes up, the wavelength first decreases then
increases? That doesn't make sense to me.
\_ It doesn't make a lot of sense to me either, but materials
at temperatures radiate over a wide spectrum of wavelengths.
It's just that the peak radiation level decreases in frequency
with increasing temperature. In a sense, you can observe
a body at a temperature at any wavelength--you just won't
necessarily be viewing the wavelength at which peak output
occurs.
\_ Obviously you are a shill for the global warming hoax.
\_ What does a discussion on radiation output w.r.t.
wavelength and temperature have anything to do with global
\_ What does a discussion on black body radiation output
w.r.t. wavelength and temperature have to do with global
warming?
\_ The Global Warming deniers claim that the temperature
increase is due to sunspot activity. At least some of
them do.
\_ You mean the nonexistent temperature increase? |
| 2008/5/28-6/1 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50077 Activity:nil 88%like:50074 |
5/28 Welcome to the world of Green Fascism
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6s976w [dailymail]
\_ http://www.cheatneutral.com -tom |
| 2008/5/28 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50074 Activity:nil 88%like:50077 |
5/28 Welcome to the world of Green Fascism
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1022110/MAIL-COMMENT-Carbon-rationing-inconvenient-truth.html |
| 2008/5/26-30 [Science/GlobalWarming, Finance/Investment] UID:50054 Activity:nil |
5/25 http://preview.tinyurl.com/4rheqx The WSJ on the commodity "bubble." |
| 2008/5/22 [Politics/Domestic/California, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50026 Activity:high |
5/22 We brought together the heads of big oil.
See that big head over there? Yeah, he runs Shell. That one? That
runs ExxonMobil. Mr. Big oil, we're here to talk about the high price
of gasoline. How could it have possibly gotten this high?
Let me tell you what we've done here in congress. We told you that
drilling in ANWR is off limits. We told you that drilling off the
coast of Florida and California is off limits. We told you, Mr. Big
oil, that there wouldn't be any new leases for drilling in the Gulf
while China and Venezuela and even Cuba pursued these leases and have
just signed 100-year leases on the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. We here
in congress have promised, as all three presidential candidates have
also promised, to introduce and pass in the next term a cap and trade
legislation bill that will increase the price of gasoline according to
the EPA by an additional $1.50. Some people say it could be as high as
$5 additional per gallon.
We have said that we're shutting down oil fields in Colorado. We
won't let you develop shale oil fields in several Western states. And
yesterday we passed legislation that would let us sue OPEC with the
full understanding that they'll never retaliate. Yes. We have allowed
environmental attorneys to sue you big oil fiends for future possible
destruction of Alaskan Eskimo village which legal experts believe is
the same strategy used to bring down big tobacco. We're especially
proud of our recent action to protect the polar bear and their habitat
which just happens to be where the future oil deposits happen to be
located. We told you that you're making too much money and that we're
looking at seizing any money that we consider windfall profits. Yes.
We have allowed you to drill in some very small areas in Alaska while
simultaneously creating very generous environmental laws which have
tied up the very production we authorize through years of litigation
after you spent the money on buying and setting up equipment. We told
you through our policies that we would not allow you to build a new
refinery in over 30 years. In fact, this great country, under our
tutelage, has even reduced the number of operational refineries by half
since 1982.
We have even told your potential competitors in the nuclear and
hydroelectric industries that we would send the environmental lawyers
after them if they even dared think about building a new plant or a new
dam. We've refused to fund or allow the deployment of coal-to-oil
technology which has been around since the 1930s. We've told you that
you have to make different blends of gasoline, let states like
California dictate what unique gasoline blends you have to make for
them. We will not reduce our federal gasoline tax. We won't even
consider reducing it for the summer months.
So Mr. Big oil, tell me why exactly are gas prices so high?
\_ This guy is barking up the wrong tree. Prices are high because
demand is high, due to economic growth in India and China. The
US cannot possibly pump enough oil to satisfy worldwide demand
increases, in fact, we cannot even make a dent in it. What
grandstanding politician are you quoting?
\_ This is essentially what the hearings on gas prices are. -op
\_ Yes, we agree. I guess this guy (Glenn Beck?) has a point
on the nuclear and hydro issues.
\_ No, demand is not driving the price. Speculation is.
\_ Wow you're stupid.
\_ Should I bother showing you why you are wrong, or is this
an ideological belief of yours that is not subject to debate?
\_ Go ahead and show me, because I've seen the charts
that show current usage versus supply. Usage now is
about 12% higher than it was a decade ago. Sure,
that's higher. Not enough higher to create the crazy
high gas prices we are seeing now as production hasn't
dropped. Also, the low dollar is making gas seem expensive
to us, but if you adjust for inflation (use real dollars)
gas prices are not even at historical US highs. In
short, people are buying oil because they are worried
about supply interruptions and because they perceive
that the price will always rise. This creates a
self-fulfilling prophecy. The DOE has 3 oil-price
profiles and only one of them (worst case) has oil
prices rising from here over the next decade. If you
look at supply versus consumption versus price on a
graph you will see that consumption is indeed driving
oil prices higher, but most of it is speculation. You
think oil prices have gone from $60 to $130 per barrel
in a year because of an increase in *consumption*?!?! -dim
\_ http://preview.tinyurl.com/6de8js (BP usage data)
This is the most recent good data I can find, which
shows more like a 20% increase in demand. Are you
laboring under the illusion that a 12% increase in
demand (with no increase in supply) should only lead
to a 12% increase in price? The truth is, prices should
obvious that gasoline demand is pretty inelastic
meaning that people don't use it much less just because
the price goes up. Also, your factoid about the dollar
is not really true: gasoline is now at an all time
inflation adjusted high. It might perhaps not be true
if you use some oddball deflator factor. Look at
oil priced in Euros. Speculation does not increase
the consumption of oil, in fact, it will decrease it.
If your theory about speculation is correct, oil
prices should collapse real soon now, right?
\_ The truth is, dimitrious has a linear mind
ding ding ding!
\_ More of he doesn't understand the non-linear
nature of cost with inelastic demand:
http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics4.asp
\_ No, I never said that 12% = 12%. The curve, if you
look at it, has a certain slope/shape that does
not match the reference at present.
\_ What curve are you looking at? I am curious what
your reference for this statement is. -dim
\_ Where do you see a supply-demand curve for
oil consumption? I would be interested in your
source for this.
increase as much as needed to clear the market. It is
\_ You could say this about real estate recently,
too and yet that was driven by speculation more
than by actual need for housing.
\_ Not every increase in price is due to a "bubble."
\_ You could say this about real estate recently,
too and yet that was driven by speculation more
than by actual need for housing.
\_ Bzzt. In 1981 it was $3.29/gallon in today's
dollars.
\_ Not all price increases are "bubbles."
\_ Bzzt. According to the DOE in 1981 it was
$3.29/gallon in today's dollars. I found a chart that
says $3.17 with an all-time high in 1918:
http://tinyurl.com/emy76
Regardless, the point is that prices have been just
as high in the past. This is not ground-breaking.
\_ Speculation increases the *PRICE* not the
*CONSUMPTION* which we already established is
just a bit higher than before. -dim
\_ I think they will eventually decrease a lot from
current level, yes.
\_ I moved your comments out of line. you're welcome -dim
\_ *********FUCK YOU***********
Worry about your own fucking posts, dick.
\_ Stop putting yours in the middle of others.
Makes it really hard to read. Or are you
too stupid to organize your thoughts? -dim
\_ This guy is wrong about oil shale and coal gasification, too:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/6xs54d
He is wrong about most things.
\_ Your story is from before congress changed things. |
| 2008/5/19-23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:50001 Activity:nil |
5/19 "Scientist Shifts Views on Global Warming"
http://csua.org/u/lm4
(AP) |
| 2008/5/14-16 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49943 Activity:nil |
5/14 "Planning a Trip? 20 Cities Global Warming Might Melt Off Map"
link:www.yahoo.com/s/880567
\_ Enough with Global Warning. It doesn't exist. Now the claim is
it's going to "take a break" for 10-15 years. But watch out! Then
it's going to go NUTS!
\_ What are you talking about crazy man?
\_ http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2008/05/decade_break_in_global_warming.html
\_ http://preview.tinyurl.com/6depom [nature]
\_ Here's from this very article that you're citing:
"Has global warming stopped? Is this a nail in Al Gore's
coffin? Well, no."
\_ Surface temperatures != total heat energy and North America
!= the world.
\_ Global Warming == Cthulhu? |
| 2008/4/29-5/4 [Science/GlobalWarming, Computer/HW/Printer] UID:49851 Activity:nil |
4/29 http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/tech/2F5C3C5D68A380EDCC257423006E71CD http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/WebHome (Open source, low cost 3d printer that can replicate all parts necessary to build a copy of itself). -- ilyas \_ This is a really cool project. Will they someday also print the circuit boards they need to run it? |
| 2008/4/28 [Transportation/Car, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49847 Activity:nil |
4/28 Cute: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8XfNoLCbVeU&feature=bz301 |
| 2008/4/24-5/2 [Science/GlobalWarming, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iran, Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Others] UID:49818 Activity:nil |
4/24 Oops, Mumbai caught supplying Iran with A-bomb material
http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEP20080423103959&Page=P&Title=Nation&Topic=0
\_ Really? A Bangalorian newspaper was the only place you could find
\_ Really? A Chennaian newspaper was the only place you could find
this story?
\_ http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=iran+graphite+&btnG=Search+News |
| 2008/4/22-5/2 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49799 Activity:nil |
4/22 Why I Left Greenpeace
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882720657033391.html |
| 2008/4/21-5/2 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49789 Activity:nil |
4/21 What's a good term for a place that is easy to move into but
hard to move out? Like "Tenessee is like a __________, it's
so easy to move into but once you're in it, it's really hard
to move out."
Some of the terms I can think of are: blackhole, trap. Anything
else you can think of?
\_ tar pit
\_ Roach Motel. In the old days in Hong Kong, Black Flag actually
mode a version of Roach Motel where there was a one-way metal
made a version of Roach Motel where there was a one-way metal
push door leading to the bait in a semi-transparent plastic housing.
No sticky substance was used. You could see how many "guests"
there were when you replaced the motel.
\_ Parenthood.
\_ Los Angeles. Quick sand.
\_ Hotel California
\_ Red state
\_ Quagmire. 'dict quagmire' comes up with numerous similar words too
\_ Cal
\- potential energy well
x |
| 2008/4/18-23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49775 Activity:nil |
4/17 China's Shaolin Temple installs luxury restrooms - http://USATODAY.com: http://www.csua.org/u/lb7 Restrooms worth $430,000 at a Buddhist temple. WTF!!?? \_ religion pays. |
| 2008/4/16-23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49767 Activity:nil |
4/16 Map of per-capita carbon emissions for continental US. GO LONGHORNS!
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/04/new-high-res-ma.html
\_ Also, go LA!
\_ What a surprise to me that LA is actually pretty green.
\_ Note the color maps aren't the same for the two images.
\_ I was referring to the per-capita map. -- PP
\_ We're still CA. Commie leftists in SF think we are Rush
Limbaugh, but the reality is we're still pretty leftist. |
| 2008/4/7-16 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49679 Activity:nil |
4/7 Global Warming Activist Pressures BBC to Significantly Alter Article
http://csua.org/u/l8g
(newsbusters.org)
Includes email back-and-forth with the author of the article.
\_ MAN THE BARRICADES! LOCK UP YOUR WOMEN! THE HUNS ARE COMMING!
\_ You lock up your women because the Huns want them, or because
they want the Huns? |
| 2008/3/28 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49596 Activity:nil |
3/28 Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming | LiveScience:
http://www.csua.org/u/l5c
Check out #4 Speddier Satellites |
| 2008/3/26-28 [Science/GlobalWarming, Finance/Investment] UID:49568 Activity:nil |
3/25 http://www.bankaholic.com/2008/federal-reserve-is-failure Federal Reserve is a Failure while the White House praise America's new society of ownership during the housing boom. |
| 2008/3/24-27 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49553 Activity:nil 97%like:49549 |
3/24 Oops, biofuels are worse re greenhouse gasses
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/03/24/ap4806595.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yv7nyg [wsj] |
| 2008/3/24 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49549 Activity:nil 97%like:49553 |
3/24 Oops, biofuels are worse re greenhouse gasses
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/03/24/ap4806595.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120631198956758087.html?mod=googlenews_wsj |
| 2008/3/23 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49542 Activity:high |
3/22 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23411799-7583,00.html What's a biologist know about climate anyway? \_ A biologist from a corporatist think tank. \_ Good catch. So she just made up all that stuff about temps being flat or decreasing. They continue to rise without stop. \_ "That's right, very much so. The policy implications are enormous. The meteorological community at the moment is really just coming to terms with the output from this NASA Aqua satellite and (climate scientist) Roy Spencer's interpretation of them. HIS WORK IS PUBLISHED, HIS WORK IS ACCEPTED, but I think people are still in shock at this point." |
| 2008/3/20-25 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49514 Activity:nil |
3/20 Dammit! This global warming isn't warming the oceans!
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88520025 |
| 2008/3/18-21 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49494 Activity:nil 80%like:49489 |
3/18 RIP Sir Arthur Clarke
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/books/AP-Obit-Clarke.htm |
| 2008/3/18 [Computer/SW/Languages/C_Cplusplus, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49489 Activity:nil 80%like:49494 |
3/18 RIP Arthur C. Clarke
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2264p8 [nyt] |
| 2008/3/13-17 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49445 Activity:moderate |
3/13 "The federal Clean Air Act requires that health standards for ozone
and a handful of other air pollutants not take costs into account."
http://www.csua.org/u/l0w
Whoa! I am an environmentalist, but this is nuts. Almost as nutty
as invading a country without stopping to consider how much it
is going to cost.
\_ It isn't like bad air is happening naturally. People are creating
pollutants and not actually paying for the externalities. I
have the right to breathe healthy air which means fuck the costs,
if someone wants to make my air unhealthy they should have to pay
to clean it up. Why is that so hard to understand?
\_ Okay, all cars are banned. Does that make you happy?
\_ How about gas is taxed to pay for cleanup costs? You know
the funny thing is the EPA was a big Nixon thing. He was
proud of it. Man, I can't believe I miss Nixon.
\_ I thought you said 'fuck the costs' -- well, the air will be
a /lot/ cleaner with no cars.
\_ It would be cleaner yet with no ships. I say keep cars
and ban commercial shipping.
\_ And that's why you have a standard to meet. The EPA
has a standard that has to be met. Not perfection, but
"no worse than this." Why is that so hard to expect?
\_ Why not completely virgin air? Since we're being
arbitrary, where do you draw the line?
\_ It's not arbitrary. The EPA exists in part
to determine when levels become harmful. The free
market is notoriously bad about this kind of stuff
which is why regulation is important.
\_ Um, yes it's arbitrary. Someone's making some
decision based on pretty much nothing.
\_ Let me guess, you also think global warming
is a big fraud?
\_ And you think the moon landing was?
\_ And how did you get there?
\_ Et tu?
\_ Nothing goes from 'not harmful' to 'harmful' in a
single stroke. There's a judgement about what is
'too harmful', and it's silly to ignore cost when
making that judgement.
\_ The moment your ancestors climbed down from their tree and started
their first fire we began the pollute the air. If you want truly
'virgin' (to use someone's phrase above) air then we have to simply
end civilization and go find trees to climb.
\_ nice straw man. Hint: 70 ppb ozone is not "virgin air"
\_ Neither is 60 ppb. How do you decide to chose one as the
clean air limit over the other? Don't you think the cost
of compliance should figure into the decision?
\_ Do you know how 60-70 ppb was arrived at?
\_ I think it is quite obvious that the EPA ignored the
law andd took cost into account in their decision.
Do you know how the numbers were arrived at?
\_ The numbers were arrived at by a scientific
process involving a panel specifically charged with
coming up with such numbers. I think it is quite
obvious that the EPA ignored its own advisory
panels because it's run by an administration that
is waging a war on science. |
| 2008/3/11-13 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49424 Activity:nil |
3/11 Daylight Savings Time doesn't save energy.
http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/null/83073
\_ But it saves awesomeness. |
| 2008/3/7-9 [Science/Disaster, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49375 Activity:high |
3/7 So what's the truth about oil prices? I'm sure supply is about
where it was 5 years ago and I cannot imagine demand is that much
higher and yet prices are almost triple. Is this a speculative
bubble where investors are buying oil because they perceive the
price of oil to be rising, is this manipulated by OPEC, or have
costs of doing business risen dramatically?
\_ What about it? People are already working on a solution.
The free market will solve the problem. -dimwit #1 fan
\_ The problem is that it's not a free market for oil.
\_ http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm
More info than you can possibly want to know.
Not directly addressed on that page is the fact that oil supply
is not entirely fungible; as production in individual countries
starts to fall, those countries tend to stop exporting oil before
their supply totally crashes. That shifts more of the demand to
countries with riskier supplies like Iraq and Iran. It also
reduces the excess capacity available on the market, which makes
the market more susceptible to shocks.
And demand is rising, of course. -tom
\_ Not really that much info there. Most of it was historical.
However, the article does allude to a $50/barrel "risk
premium". Is that really justified? To me that's another way
to say 'gouge' and that oil should realistically be about
$40-50 barrel based on supply and demand alone.
\_ Who is gouging whom? Crude oil is a relatively free market.
Why do you think it should be $40-$50 a barrel? -tom
\_ I am saying that based on supply and demand that is
where it should be. That's from your own article! So
there is a $50 "risk premium". That seems hard to
justify. I also can't believe you think oil is a
'relatively free market' when there is a cartel involved.
\_ Demand is certainly up and the truth is that oil prices are mostly
inelastic. So demand doesn't go down very much when prices go up.
If you think about this, there are pretty dire consequences for
the world economy, since the only other way to slow down oil
consumption is to have a recession. I can dig up some Economist
articles about this if you want, but you should try Googling
yourself first. -ausman
\_ I don't think these prices are driven by demand. Demand has
not tripled. The curve is steep and there's no real reason
for it. It's not unprecedented, but it's peculiar. I mean,
if demand is that inelastic then why not charge $200 or $400
per barrel? (Or why not charge $100 sooner when $35 was just
fine not long ago?) A 'risk premium' to me means that
someone is hoarding supply 'just in case they can't get any
later'. I know the US was doing this with the strategic oil
reserve. Is the US government the culprit and soaking up the
supply at these prices? Most businesses tend to buy what
they need and not keep massive inventories of oil. My
opinion is that much of this rise is speculative just like
the price of tulips or Miami condos. I am just wondering who
the greater fool is here. "Oil prices will never go down.
They aren't making more of it."
They aren't making more of it." I noticed in a lot of my
mutual fund portfolios that oil companies and suppliers are big
contributors in terms of % of portfolio. This implies to me
that Wall Street is parking a lot of my money there looking
for the quick buck and I was wondering what happens when
(not if) oil prices finally go down. Look at this graph:
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p237/1ace11/200705fig1.jpg
Pay attention to the "real" parts and not the forecast. As
you can see both supply and demand have been near a plateau
since maybe 2004 and yet price has risen.
\_ I look at the same graph and I see that production exceeded
consumption for most of 2004-2006, then production started
to fall, but consumption did not. In fact consumption went
up. So prices going up is what a relatively inelestic demand
curve would predict. Why didn't they raise prices sooner?
Because there was someone there willing to undercut them if
they did. Why isn't demand going down to match supply right
now? Because the people consuming most of the oil (American
drivers and manufacturers worldwide) are willing to pay
more to get the oil they want. This stand off has to resolve
itself somehow, I agree, but I am suggesting that it only
can do so by a demand shock not a supply increase, hence a
global recession, at least until we can get our economy
less hooked on cheap oil. The other alternative explaination
is that we are just suffering for an underinvestment in
oil exploration back when oil was really cheap, like in
oil exploration back from when oil was really cheap, like in
the late 90s. If that really is true, then production should
ramp back up again RSN.
\_ speculation, dollar weakness, venezualen hijinx
\_ Dollar weakness is something I forgot about, but a very good
point.
\_ Yes, perhaps these speculators are just looking for an
inflation hedge. |
| 2008/3/7 [Recreation/Dating, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49372 Activity:high |
3/6 /- dangit skippy, calm down
\_ I have a lot of energy from not getting laid.
\_ some of the world's wealthiest/powerful men were also
0 laid guy and channeled their energy to work. Most of
them didn't get married till they're really old.
Bill Gates, Larry+Sergey, Ikea guy, etc...
\_ http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/tgr/tgr16.htm
Summary: "...most men don't achieve great success because
they dissipate their energies through over indulgence
in physical expression of the emotion of sex." Through the
art of sex transmutation, or channeling your sexual
energy into that of creativity and work, some of the most
famous men were able to achieve great success... George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon, Shakespeare,
Lincoln, Emerson, etc etc. So, there ya go. Sex makes you
dumb and lazy, ABSTINENCE IS COOL!
\_ Geez, ow could you forget Newton?
\_ http://www.nationalpost.com/life/health/story.html?id=304049
An energetic romp between the sheets the night before a
competition, some athletes and coaches say, can lead to
poor performance the following day.
\_ 'A slightly increased heart rate was present in the
aerobic test performed two hours post intercourse,
but no lingering mental or physical effects were
noted 10 hours after sex, leading the researchers
to conclude "sexual activity had no detrimental
influence on the maximal workload achieved and on
the athletes' mental concentration."' |
| 2008/3/5-7 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49339 Activity:moderate |
3/5 What exactly is the purpose of an obituary in the newspaper?
I mean it probably made sense in the 50s in a podunk town but
in today's world where you don't even know your neighbor's
last name, it doesn't seem to make as much sense. I mean, who
in their right mind besides George Castanza's dad reads through
a long list of the deceased with less than 0.01% of hit ratio?
\_ I guess it's for legal purpose. For example, if your evil brother
doesn't show up within X days after the obituary, you get to
inherit 100% of your dad's worth. Something like that.
\_ What world do you live in where you get to keep the entire
family's inheritance because someone didn't see the obit?
\_ In small (say up to 60k people?) communities you'd be amazed
how connected people are.
\_ Yes but how many people actually live in such a community
today? People are more virtually connected, esp. the
tech/motd/Silicon Valley crowd.
\_ Most of the rest of the country outside, NY, Chicago, and LA.
\_ People in small towns are very connected, in cities less
so and in suburbs the least of all. But about 25% of the US
poplulation still lives in small towns and rural areas.
\_ And big cities don't have the same kind of obituaries.
You generally have to be someone to merit one.
\_ Nonsense. Obits are purchased. You can write your own
or pay the paper to write one for you. The paper may
run its own obit for a famous person, but most obits
are just normal people whose family decided to spend a
few bucks on their memory.
\_ I don't think you can purchace at obit in the
New York Times.
\_ You really think most people live like the SV crowd outside
SV? |
| 2008/3/4-7 [Science/Disaster, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49338 Activity:low |
3/4 Peak oil?
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2nwllk (wsj)
\_ Why does the WSJ publish this liberal clap-trap? I believe in
abiotic oil, which never runs out.
\_ You'd think if abiotic oil (also known as "oil creationism")
were true the USA wouldn't of hit a peak in 1970 since we
pray so much in this country.
\_ Obviously, we don't have enough faith and must
pray harder. -GWB
\_ What science backs your belief of abiotic oil? Also, even if
true, the rate at which these abiotic processes replace oil
matters. If they are slower than we're pulling oil from the
ground then there's still a peak oil problem, yes?
\_ I am not mr. aboitic believer, but there is some science,
mostly from Russia, that supports a abiogenic theory for
the origin of petroleum. Wikipedia has a decent discussion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenic_petroleum_origin
There was an article on this in SciAM or Discover a few
years back that dicussed the abiogenic theory.
I agree that if we deplete petroleum faster than these
processes can replace it, the peak oil problem remains.
\_ this guy's summary is basically taht 'more efficiant extraction
techniques will let us get more oil out of exhausted fields'. This
is the endgame of peak oil, and only delays the peak a little bit.
He's exaggerating how much the delay will be though. -ERic
\_ "Just make the next generation deal with it" is a pretty small
comfort, unless you are expecting The Rapture to bail humanity
out.
\_ He's saying the date is far enough out that other technologies
will replace oil by then anyway, thus the old line he quotes
about the stone age not ending from lack of stones. |
| 2008/3/3-6 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49317 Activity:moderate |
3/3 Photos of weather stations...badly placed weather stations.
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/weather_stations
\_ Oh, so global warming is just caused by concrete? I'm so relieved!
All those dumb scientists ought to read angry guy's blog!
FYI, you may wish to read realclimate's "no man is an urban heat
island" entry:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/07/no-man-is-an-urban-heat-island
http://tinyurl.com/ys6hg6 (realclimate.org)
\_ You global warming evangelists are scary. Everything is global
warming this, global warming that. These are pictures of *bad
science*, and your kneejerk response is like a young-earth
creationist's immediate response to dinosaur bones.
\_ They're pictures of bad data points, not bad science.
\_ Collecting data is part of science, or didn't you do any
labs?
\_ This is an amazing comment. I would go so far as to say
getting good data is the hard part of empirical science.
-- ilyas
\_ ...which is why the climate models use thousands of
data points from ground, atmospheric, and oceanic
stations, and do what they can to correct for errors.
\_ And if a substantial portion of the ground stations
have problems....?
\_ Will nobody read the damn realclimate article?
\_ I don't think any of the "mistaken assumptions"
apply. And?
\_ Agreed, case in point, the free market is already solving
global warming. Look at Plantos incorporated. They trap
CO2 by dumping iron dust into the ocean.
\_ No one could have anticipated that dumping iron dust
into the ocean could have caused [even bigger problem]
\_ My response was to the pompous douchebag that runs that
blog, not you in particular. You should check out the
realclimate post on UHIs, though. You know, follow the
link, read the information within, just like I did with
that sad little picture site. |
| 2008/2/27-3/4 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49274 Activity:kinda low |
2/27 Global Warming Kills:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2hlu2v (newscientist.com)
\_ Given my choice between the earth warming a few degrees and the
earth cooling the same amount, I'll take warming every time.
Cold is bad for people. Warm is mostly good for people.
\_ Climate change is bad, period. I haven't contemplated
the difference between cooling and warming, but having
to abandon 100 trillion dollars worth of infrastructure
(basically every coastal city) because it gets flooded
due to sea level rise sucks very badly. Also,
desertification of once productive farmland (even if
other lands become available...)
\_ Or, in CS words, we've optimized for the current climate, it
\_ Or, in CS words, we've optimized for the current climate, if
the climate changes, we have to reoptimize, which takes a
long time.
\_ Climate change isn't new. It's been colder and it's been
warmer. We are better able now than ever to deal with
it so the transition will be easier than ever.
\_ prove it.
\_ Prove what? That the climate has changed before?
\_ That we're better able to deal with it. Have
we had 2-foot sea level rises with many of the
world centers being on coastlines at sea level?
\_ Better able to deal with climate change as
compared to when? 50 years ago? Yes. 500?
Yes. The Roman era? Yes. 10k BC? Yes.
Technology has made it possible for more people
to live better lives across the entire planet
today than at any time no matter what the
local conditions are compared to the same
conditions with lower tech. Was this even a
serious question?
\_ A greater portion of the world's population
is living in seriously marginal conditions
than ever before.
\_ Uh, no. -- ilyas |
| 2008/2/26-3/4 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49262 Activity:nil |
2/26 Wow, so it *has* been a cold year
http://csua.org/u/kwb
\_ Global warming, baby! And when we are in the next Ice Age it
will also be a product of global warming just like it was
overfishing that crashed the sardine fishery in Monterey.
\_ Data point != trend
See also "dead cat bounce"
\_ Good, then we can stop hearing about how hot 1998 was?
\_ Big flucutations are what you get when you add a lot
of chaos to a stable system. Look at the trend. The deltas
are getting bigger and on average getting higher. If after
say 3-4 years things stay down then come back to us.
\_ Yah, when you can explain 1940-1970 I'll listen to you.
\_ Gore and friends are wrong but I wish they were right. A
slightly warmer planet is better for humanity. |
| 2008/2/23-26 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49221 Activity:low |
2/23 LANL researchers may have developed a way to convert atmospheric co2
into fuel:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2b6a9l (nytimes.com)
http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/12554
\_ key word: may [I'll save you the trouble]
\_ Of note, the above mechanism is just an energey conversion process.
The actuall energy source is electricity, ideally supplied by
The actual energy source is electricity, ideally supplied by
nuclear plants.
\_ The award for most bizarre piece of nuclear power advocacy I've
seen in a while goes to this proposal from some scientists at
the Los Alamos Laboratory reported on by the New York Times -
constructing nuclear power plants to power the conversion of
CO2 into petrol. Of course, you could use the nuclear power for
electric vehciles instead, and use less than 20% of the energy
this process requires. Or you could just skip the nuclear
option entirely and plug your electirc vehicles into a clean
energy grid instead (hat tip Engineer Poet).
(From http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/02/turning-greenhouse-gas-into-gasoline.html
(From http://preview.tinyurl.com/2xb3vo (peakenergy.blogspot.com)
\_ What takes more CO2 out of the atmosphere? Electric
vehicles powered by nuclear or this conversion process?
I honestly don't know the answer, but if the answer is
the latter then it's not so bizarre.
\_ too long, didn't read? This process, at best, takes C02
out of the air only temporarily, as it goes right back
when the fuel is burnt. Electric cars require
less nuclear energy than cars burning gas produced by
this process.
\_ But the amount of C02 would not be increasing in
that instance. You just reuse the same C02 over
and over again, right?
\_ This is news? We have a better mechanism that is solar powered.
Its called plants"
\_ Dude, don't you remember? St. Ronald said that plants cause
air pollution!
\_ Do you mean bio-fuel, e.g. corn? |
| 2008/2/21-25 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49211 Activity:high |
2/21 Just curious, what was Al Gore's plan to save the earth from
global warming? And which candidate is closest to Al Gore's
policies?
\_ McCain loves the environment, I think.
\_ I dont recall Al having any plans to save it or stop global
warming, just spread lots of fear and alarm about it being a
problem.
\_ I thought it had something to do with the Kyoto Protocol.
\_ His plan was to profit from liberal-guilt. And what policies
of his do you mean? He's been in the private sector since 2001.
\_ If you're not just trolling:
http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction -tom
\_ I want credit for driving members of the Casual Carpool every
day. --erikred
\_ Why does living in California lower my footprint?
\_ weather. and maybe regulations, energy sources etc.
\_ Ok, just energy sources. I guess weather is accounted in
the monthly bills amounts.
\_ "Location: Electricity is generated from different types of
power plants, such as coal, natural gas, and hydroelectric.
Different types of power plants create different amounts of
carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity produced;
therefore we need to know the user's location to apply the
correct calculation."
\_ All motd posts are trolls, except for this one.
\_ My carbon impact is .65, cool.
\_ That's very good! I drive a Prius and I still get 2.9. :-(
\_ keyword: usually.
\_ Mine was 1.85 and I don't give a crap about the environment.
\_ Mine was 1.6 and I don't give a crap about the environment.
I wonder what Al Gore's score is.
\_ Mine was 2.45, almost entirely based on plane flights.
(I don't drive and have solar power for my house). -tom
\_ What about all the sushi you eat flown in from Japan
and the waste from all the foam cartons that are
manufactured for the comic books you have shipped
monthly to your home from Tennessee? These simplistic
calculators are just meant to make you feel good/bad.
\_ Mine was 24.8. I feel great. Of course the calculator
is silly. You can't punch in a dozen numbers into a
javascript on the web and get a serious number out.
GIGO.
\_ I can't even imagine how you got such a high score.
I tried putting in a 1985 SUV with 20k miles/yr
and 10 flights a year and I still only got 16.
Do you fly a lot on business or something?
\_ I drive a V8 20k+ miles/year. And worth every
penny.
\_ It looks like your lifestyle might be
particularly impacted if the US implements
a carbon tax, as looks increasingly likely.
\_ The economy is going to super-tank if a
carbon tax passes. Paying $8/gallon will
be the least of anyone's worries at that
point. I could drive a toy that got twice
the mileage but the actual savings is
rather minimal, even at triple the price
of gas.
\_ A $5/gallon carbon tax would probably
not be feasable, at least not all at once,
this is true, but gasoline went up over
$1/gallon without causing a recession.
As long as it is done graduatlly, people
As long as it is done gradually, people
and the economy will adjust. Why do you
object to poisoning the water with
mercury, but think that leaving a
damaged atmosphere for someone else
to clean up is okay?
to clean up is okay? What makes you
think that a carbon tax would "super-tank"
the economy, anyway?
\_ Worth every penny that you're not paying.
You are a tragedy of the commons!
\_ I could drive a prius which cost only
a tiny bit less than my car and leave a
giant battery behind in 5 years for someone
else to clean up. Way to go, greenboy.
Have you swapped out your bulbs for the
mercury filled ones yet? Another smart
move. Or maybe put solar on your house
which requires toxic industrial processes
to produce those low efficiency solar cells?
I'm all in favor of green solutions that
actually work. When we get some I'll be
the first to use them.
\_ This is not GIGO. It is GO, but not GI. The input
is not garbage. The computation is garbage, and
therefore the output is garbage.
\_ The input is GI. For example, my electric bill
is not directly related to my carbon use because
electrical use uses tiered pricing. My usage goes
up linearly but not my carbon use. If it asked
what my actually amount of electricy used was then
maybe it wouldn't be so heavily GI.
\_ Why do you say that? Aren't the main contributors
of greenhouse gases personal transportation and
home energy use? I guess it might miss the
occasional person who burns a lot of wood at home
or something. Or do you have evidence that the
way they are calculating C0^2 emissions is actually
flawed?
way they are calculating C0^2 emissions is
actually flawed?
\_ Yes, it is flawed. See my reply above re:
electric pricing.
\_ I am guessing that industry and commercial
transport are bigger contributors, but
that's just a guess.
\_ It looks like it is about 50%/50%:
http://www.aceee.org/transportation/transoverview.htm
\_ By "industry" I meant energy used in
manufacturing and by commercial buildings,
not just transportation. Your link
says residential is 22% of energy use,
but clearly some unspecified % of
the 28% transportation use is also
manufacturing and by commercial
buildings, not just transportation.
Your link says residential is 22% of
energy use, but clearly some unspecified
% of the 28% transportation use is also
"residential" and not commercial. If
we say it is 50% (not sure how real
that is) it means maybe 36% is
directly under our control and the
rest is driven by our demands.
\_ Yes, I see that. You are obviously
right. |
| 2008/2/17-21 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49173 Activity:kinda low |
2/16 A Solar Grand Plan: Converting the US to 65% solar power in 40 years.
Would cost less over 40 years than the war in Iraq has cost us in 6.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan&page=1
\_ The projections for the war were a lot lower than the reality.
\_ No the projections by the liars who were trying to pull a fast
one on the American people were lower than the reality. Plenty
of us said that it would be a costly, drawn-out, indecisive
affair.
\_ We must immediately announce the Solar Grand Plan to the
People as Another Great Success in a long line of Greatly
Successful Five Year Plans. No large engineering project has
ever had a cost over-run or major delay especially when the
government is involved. Comrade, we must proceed with the
Grand Solar Plan!
\_ Did you vote for Bush?
\_ No. My candidates never win. Did you vote for Gore?
\_ Nope, Nader. |
| 2008/2/11-14 [Science/Battery, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49114 Activity:nil |
2/11 "Scientists have invented the Prius of ocean-going submersibles"
http://www.csua.org/u/kql (Yahoo! News)
\_ submarines have been using 'hybrid' power systems since WWI, in that
they have batteries to run off of and diesel engines to recharge
those batteries. Granted this was done not to save fuel, but to
actually have motive power when underwater.
\_ "submersibles". Besides, it's not exactly a hybrid in the Prius'
sense. It gathers thermal energy from the ocean to power its
propulsion, and uses battery power to run its controls only. I
guess it doesn't re-charge its battery by thermal energy or by
any equivalent of regenerative braking either. -- OP
\_ the 'prius' reference in the article was completely off base
and uncalled for. |
| 2008/2/7-11 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49087 Activity:kinda low |
2/7 Garbage Dump in the Ocean:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2xx234 (independent.co.uk)
\_ Before long, we'll be trawling all that plastic and
converting it to oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
\_ How much energy is needed to collect that waste out of the
water and haul it to a processing facility?
\_ Ah, thermal depolymerization, old news, that was
three "going to solve all energy problems" ago by now.
\_ TDPM is capable of producing oil at $80/bbl. It
wasn't economical before, now it is. Whether
there is enough available biomass to feed it or
not, it's a much better alternative than ethanol
currently is.
\_ Go look and see how well that turkey processing plant is
doing today.
\_ The problem will solve itself, and if it doesn't, we can
just move away. -dim #1 fan
\_ Yeah, I'm waiting for the Invisible Hand to clean up this mess.
\_ It's not like government prevented it. So what good is
government then? Government can't even do the jobs that it
is supposed to be good for, regulating "the commons".
\_ The Invisible Hand vs. The Tragedy of the Commons!
Round 1! Fight! |
| 2008/2/1-6 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:49045 Activity:nil |
2/1 Last year I put 35% of my 401K portfolio into Energy and Foreign
stocks. I just realized that my total 401K portfolio gain last
year was about 20% (got dinged on 10% of REIT). Go energy stocks
and THANKS George Bush, and go Republicans!
\_ Are you thanking Bush for the weak dollar?
\_ Shit! Mine dropped more than 10%. (FLPSX and FMCSX)
\_ I also gained 20% last year and with a much more conservative
strategy. Unfortunately, a lot of the gains have been given
back already this year.
\_ What was your strategy, just out of curiosity.
\_ I was going to explain it, but I decided I'd rather not.
Most of my gains *did* come from energy, resources, and
foreign stocks as it happened, but I diversified. On
reading the OP again, it sounds like he did, too, since
he had 65% of his portfolio elsewhere.
\_ I was up 40%-50% on USO and GAGEX -- it's dropped a bit though |
| 2008/1/10-12 [Science/Space, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48923 Activity:nil |
1/10 Biggest Black Hole in the Universe Found:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/293esb (space.newscientist.com)
\_ obyermom
\_ Racist!!!
\_ This one?
http://www.post-gazette.com/images4/20060630ho_onyxPJ_450.jpg |
| 2008/1/9-12 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48919 Activity:low |
1/9 Here's a nice pile of responses to the "global warming ended in 1998"
drivel:
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/05/the_significance_of_5_year_tre.php#
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2007/12/a_picture_is_worth_a_thousand_2.php
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/4/175028/329
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/garbage-is-forever
\_ Bad troll! Go to your room!
\_ Why is this a troll? Does every bit of scientific evidence
you don't agree with qualify as a "troll" in your book? |
| 2008/1/7-11 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48904 Activity:low |
1/7 What is the energy requirements of living in a city vs. living
in a suburb? For example, on average, what is the kw/day needed
for the elevators, gallons of petro/day, gallons of water/day,
heating, transportation of food, etc etc? Is it 1:2? 1:5? Curious.
\_ You probably can't answer that in the general, only in the
specific case, i.e. city by city. I am sure Pheonixites use
more electricity than San Franciscans.
\_ Maybe, but they have nukular power stations because they
are smart. |
| 2008/1/6-10 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48896 Activity:low |
1/6 Where'd global warming go?
http://csua.org/u/keg
(Boston Globe)
\_ the plural of "anecdote" is not "data"
\_ That's right, it's "hockeystick"
\_ There was data presented. There is 4% more CO2 in the
atmosphere and yet the warmest year on record was 10 years
ago.
\_ Recall that the warmest year on record isn't 1997, it's 1936.
\_ NASA says the warmest year on record was 2005. What is your
source?
http://www.csua.org/u/keq
\_ That's nearly a year old. It was mid-year last year that
showed that the data had errors in it, and after fixing
the error, 1997 was not as hot as 1936. Here's NASA's
corrected data.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
I got the years wrong, it was 1998 & 1934
\_ It is if you scale high enough.
\_ wait, you mean all that stuff about polar bears and some
bad weather and drought here and there isn't data? why do
you hate polar bears? back here in the real world, we just
entered the next solar cycle which is going to put all this
'the scientific debate is done', 'man-made global warming is
a fact and caused by co2' stuff to the test. i predict the
gw hypothesis will fail big time. in fact, it already has if
you check temps since 98 vs increasing co2 over that time and
previous eras when temps went up but co2 wasn't being made by
mankind at all. |
| 2007/12/30-2008/1/4 [Science/Electric, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48866 Activity:kinda low |
12/30 Did the guy with the $150 electric bill from this thread
http://csua.com/?entry=45823 every figure out why it was so high?
I'm curious. -jrleek
\_ $150 a month is high? I wish my bill were that low over winter.
\_ Do you have an electric heater or something?
\_ Yup.
\_ Never did, but the bill is a lot lower now after unplugging my
second refrigerator so I am betting on that. |
| 2007/12/19-29 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48836 Activity:very high |
12/19 So the dumbducks in Congress are legislating what type of light
bulb I can or cannot have. Are there CFL light bulbs to fit in
chandeliers? Won't that look like ass or are they more attractive
than the standard CFL bulbs? I am thinking of filling my garage
with incandescent bulbs prior to 2014.
\_ I'm with you. A good article on similar issue:
http://sound.westhost.com/articles/incandescent.htm
\_ People talk about CFL emitting less heat. Won't that mean
that in winter we have to run the heater that much more
often to compensate? Where is the saving? Summer?
\_ Your brain has been classified as: petite.
Think outside the box.
\_ Do you have anything useful to say?
\_ Burning fuel in your furnace to heat the house directly is
more efficient than burning the fuel at a power plant to
generate electricity and then using the electricity to
generate heat at your house. Someone talked about this here
on the MOTD a few months ago.
\_ Thanks for educating the dumb ass op. I was hoping
he'd think a bit more before his knee jerk replies.
\_ Sure, it's more efficient to do so, but you have to
take that into account when doing these 'savings'
estimates.
\_ Your A/C doesn't need to work as hard in summer.
\_ Oh my god. You are dumb. Suppose what you said was
actually true, there will still be significant savings
during summer.
\_ Maybe not, because the days are long in the summer
anyway. Read the article above. It points out a lot
of problems with CFLs - dimmers, recessed lights,
ceiling fans, oven lights, timers, motion detectors,
and so on. Legislating technology is never a good thing.
There's a lot of research about CFLs that has yet to be
performed and yet we're committing to them as a panacea.
I think it's hasty and it's a mistake. If CFLs are so
great and save everyone money then they will win over
incandescents in the marketplace - and we are seeing
that to some extent already. If there's some environmental
cost not captured in current prices, then calculate it
and pass it on. Banning a functional and well-developed
technology in favor of a technology with unknown
implications is silly. In my house, I would have to replace
a lot of fixtures, wiring, dimmers, and so on to use CFLs
if I wanted to. That is not a net savings for me or the
environment. I have to imagine that ultimately our
government will realize this and allow us to have the
bulbs we want to have at an appropriate cost.
\_ Huh? When your incadescant bulb burns out, you buy
a CFL bulb to replace it. big deal.
\_ You're an idiot who didn't read the link or pay
attention to all the situations where a CFL
won't work! It's not always a drop-in replacement.
\_ 99 Ranch Market carries dimmable CFLs, 4 for $1.99. It
works well with the light fixture at my home.
works well with the dimmer at my home.
\_ "All ravens are black"
\_ "Since not all ravens are black, you must be wrong
when you said you saw a black one."
\_ "You can't prove all ravens are black by seeing
a black raven. Therefore there must exist ravens
that are non-black, and I don't need to prove it
or even see a non-black one."
BTW, how do you know it's "working well"? Read
the article. There is some chance it's not
working well at all and you don't know it
because you never tested it.
\_ Read my above post. I wrote it works well *with
the dimmer at my home*. I didn't write it works
well with every single dimmer out there.
\_ My point is that your data is useless so
why take up bandwidth with it. You never
answered my question: How do you know it's
working well?
\_ You wrote "you never tested it" and I said
earlier it worked well at my home. If by
testing you meant scientific testing, no I
do not scientifically test everything I use
at my home. Do you scientifically test
incadescant bulbs that you use at your home
such that you know it works well with your
dimmers?
\_ You wrote "you never tested it" after I
wrote it worked well at my home. By
"working well" I took it as 1) dims just
like incadescant, 2) doesn't make a humming
noise when dimmed, 3) doesn't change color
temperature when dimmed, 4) doesn't feel
warm, nor does the dimmer switch, 5) doesn't
fail after a few months, 6) doesn't cause
electric fire to my house after a few
months. I didn't measure actual energy
usage before or after. If by testing you
meant scientific testing, no I do not
scientifically test it. Do you
scientifically test incadescant bulbs that
you use at your home such that you know it
works well with your dimmers?
\_ 1-6) aren't useful. I haven't tested
incandescent bulbs, but there has
been research done which shows they
work well. On the other hand,
research done on CFL bulbs shows
they do not work well. Your eyeball
test is not the kind of data we
should base public policy on. There
could be a 0.5% chance that you will
come home to a CFL-induced electrical
fire tomorrow for all you know.
\_ URL on the researches you mentioned
please?
\- are you going to decide which of your friends are "bulb worthy"?
\_ Common item now: http://www.google.com/search?q=cfl+candelabra
\_ Yes, but these are not clear. They look hideous, like some
sort of alien egg. Not exactly what you want in your $10K
Austrian crystal fixture. I would be willing to pay a lot of
money for regular bulbs on the blackmarket. Why not charge me
a polluter tax and let the free market decide which bulbs
we want? I feel this light bulb thing is a ridiculous fad.
We add a lot of mercury to the environment and we all get to
pay $6 per light bulb. I really care about the environment,
but this is enough to make me want to go kill some spotted owls.
\_ You're a fucking dumb ass. If you had a $10k chandelier
you'd have clue as to where to get a bunch of illegal
bulbs.
\_ I see. So I have to smuggle light bulbs in from Iran
in order to light my damn fixture. Sounds reasonable
to me.
\_ Paying $6 per light bulb? Where have you been doing your
shopping?
\_ Paying $6 per light bulb? Are those Calvin Kline brands?
\_ Paying $6 per light bulb? Are those Calvin Kline brand?
\_ Paying $6 per light bulb? Are those Calvin Klein brand?
\_ Keep in mind that if we simply turned off all light bulbs in the US
it wouldn't make a difference in greenhouse gas emissions.
\_ Huh? Do you mean to say it wouldn't make a significant
difference? Electricity in the US is mostly created by
burning fossil fuels and electricity powers lightbulbs, so
I don't see what you are trying to say here.
\_ If you look at world emissions, our lighting is something like
1%. Cattle farts contribute a lot more. You should go
vegetarian before CFLs.
\_ 1% of a gigantic number is still a huge number.
\_ Yep, but given the variety of causes and effects, it
can't even be measured reliably. And current growth is
about 3% per year. So that savings would be eclipsed in
4 months.
\_ So since growth is still happening we shouldn't try
to conserve anything? BTW 5-10 years after peak oil
you will see an amazing amount of involuntary
conserving happening all over the place.
\_ so by twisted logic, since encouragging
voluntary conservation isn't working, we should
encourage waste to sooner bring about
circumstances where conservation is forced by
unavailability of the resources.
\_ Okay, I see what you mean. Yes, you are right, there
are probably lots of easier ways to make an impact on
C0^2 emissions.
\_ CO2 (The 'O' is for Oxygen) is plant food. Methane is a
vastly bigger contributor to warming, as is water vapor.
\_ There has been an increase in the amount of water
vapor in the atmosphere? Where did you hear that?
\_ "According to the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, the livestock industry is
responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions\
measured in CO2 equivalent"
responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas
emissions measured in CO2 equivalent"
\_ I predict many people with 100-Watt bulbs will replace them with 2
60-Watt bulbs, thus increasing total power usage in the US.
\_ How are you going to fit 2 bulbs in place of 1?
\_ Buy more lighting?
\_ Why would people buy more lighting? The CFL puts out the
same amount of light with less juice. Just because it
uses less electricity doesn't mean I want it to be brighter
\_ Actually, the CFL puts out less light for an "equivalent"
bulb.
\_ Actually, the CFL puts out less light for an
"equivalent" bulb.
\_ It probably depends on your brand of incadescents and
CFLs. I once used a light meter to check the light
output. For one brand of CFLs I get the same output
as my old bulbs, while for another brand I get slight
more (2/10 f-stop.)
as my old bulbs, while for another brand I get
slightly (2/10 f-stop) more.
\_ I don't understand all the CFL hating. Almost my whole house uses
CFLs. They work fine, the light is fine, and they're pretty cheap.
(I saw them for $1 at Safeway the other day.) -jrleek
\_ You apparently have no sense of taste. There is no way the
CFL bulbs on the market right now are suited for many
lighting needs, including my example. I have an antique
chandelier I bought and sticking a bunch of those white eggs
into it isn't on my agenda. Do you think the people in
Congress are going to abide by this? (For example, George Bush
has a very expensive chandelier in his house in Texas.) They just
haven't thought it through too well yet or else figure the
has a very expensive chandelier in his house in Texas.) They
just haven't thought it through too well yet or else figure the
laws won't apply to them. I have to imagine there will be
all kinds of exceptions. You go to a romantic restaurant and
the inside is lit like Wal-Mart? Yeah, that's the future I
want to live in.
want to live in. Why not get rid of the fucking coal plants
and go nuclear instead of legislating my god damned light bulbs?
How much greener would the world be if all of Congress wore
buttplugs?
\_ You bought a chandelier and yet you have the gall to accuse
anyone of having no sense of taste? You're a moron.
\_ Seconded, the op sounds like a dumb ass.
\_ Yes, because chandeliers are a sign of poor taste and
IKEA is a sign of good taste. The lobby of the Ritz
is going to look really swanky with CFL bulbs in
place. Not everywhere has to look like some 20 year
old UCB CS student's dumpy apartment in El Cerrito.
\_ Wow, you're dumb and don't even realize it.
\_ Your argument is very convincing.
\_ I like your screed about Congress, but the new CFL lights
don't make a place look like the interior of Wal-Mart.
The better ones have a pretty neutral color palate, quite
close to incadescent. I agree with you on the chandelier
though. Maybe people will go back to gas for light in
these cases though. Wouldn't that be a hoot?
\_ Ha ha! I applaud your thinking. I can convert it
back to gas if I have to! Hee! The fact that CFLs
don't dim is why the place will look like Wal-Mart.
\_ LEDs!
\_ 99 Ranch Market carries dimmable CFLs, 4 for
$1.99. It works well with the dimmer at my home.
I guess we will just use candles again. Yay progress!
\_ I wonder what the carbon footprint of a gas powered
lamp is...
\_ You know what is even dumber about this idea? In probably 10
years we will have a new lighting technology that is better
in just about every way than CFL (LED) and we will have a bunch
of homes locked into an older useless technology because of
this law. Did you know that all new construction in San Francisco
has to have special flourescent bulb fittings as standard? That
is going to look pretty stupid in 10-20 years, I bet.
\_ Yes, it will, which is why you don't legislate technology.
A command economy is not as efficient as a market economy.
Let the market decide where it makes sense and where it does
not. With all of the contributors to pollution and global
warming our politicians decided to take a stand on LIGHT BULBS.
Not a tax, mind you, but an all-out ban! Next thing you know
they are going to tell us whether we should receive broadcast TV
in digital or analog.
\_ I thought they have already done that for TV. Aren't new TV
sets required to have digital tuner now, and analog broadcast
will be phased out by FCC in some year later?
\_ I don't mind that one as much because broadcast spectrums
are limited common resources. Gov't has to regulate it
to some extent, maybe not the way they did though.
\_ I think we shouldn't legislate CFL technology, but we should
legislater a certain efficiency requirement which happens to
match the efficiency of today's CFLs. I heard Phillips is
trying to improve incadescent bulb's efficiency (although I
have no idea how they can possibly do it.)
\_ Or why they would bother now, since they can't sell
them. Face it, light bulbs are not efficient. Even
CFLs are not efficient. Pick another battle to fight.
have no idea how they can do it.)
\_ Why legislate it at all? Government has much more important
things to worry about instead of micromanaging technology.
\_ Agreed. A energy tax or greenhouse gas tax will be
simpler and more effective, but that's probably not
politically good.
\_ That's because the average voter is a moron.
\_ Agreed again.
\_ GE is working on incandescent bulbs that are as efficient as
CFL's. http://tinyurl.com/38yg4s
\_ Why, when they won't be allowed to sell them?
\_ They can sell it outside CA.
\_ No. The ban is nationwide by the US Congress. |
| 2007/12/18-20 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48830 Activity:nil |
12/17 Toshiba builds a compact nuclear reactor:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2mg9n5 (nextenergynews.com)
\_ No control rod? Is there a way to stop the reaction and turn off
the generate when not in use?
\_ there's other ways to regulate reactions besides control rods.
some reactor designs use dampeners or reaction catalysts
dissolved into the cooling media. |
| 2007/12/15-20 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48811 Activity:low |
12/15 Finally the global warming fanatics reveal their agenda.
"A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of
wealth and resources"
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/965
http://csua.org/u/k9c
\_ Finally? This isn't news to anyone paying attention to the hoaxers.
\_ I don't know if I would agree with that, but the people doing the
most polluting are certainly going to have to find a way to
pollute less.
\- "most polluting" is kinda tricky. obviously you have to factor
in population, but maybe also factor in what the country does.
although you cant just use portion of world GDP, since if i am
tasked to produce a billion dollars of billable legal time and
you are tasked to produce a billion dollars of aluminium, you
reasonably get more "pollution credits" than i do. also, shouldnt
say people in quatar or alaska be entitled to use more heating/
colling energy than say bay area people who just want to be
cooling energy than say bay area people who just want to be
\epsilon more comfortable or have a bigger house etc. that's a
problem of willing-to-pay -> utility -> efficiency analysis ...
if billg or ALGOR is willing to may more to have their giant
house go from outside temp of 85 to a comfortable 72 vs a than
a poor person is willing (able) to pay to go from 36deg to 45deg
or 110 to 90 for their small space, that doesnt mean the comfort
of the rich offsets the lives of the poor. how about a spa tax.
\_ Volume of C0^2 emitted is not that complex an idea. People
who live energy intensive lifestyles, whether it involve
using lots of aluminum, living in Dubai or Nome or some other
not really habitable place, or burning up lots of fuel
in long commutes, are probably not going to be able to
continue to live like that. The adjustment will be tough,
but one way or another it is going to end up happening.
\- it's not the science/engineering [volume of co2] that is
complicated it's the economics/philosophy/politics.
\_ Fair enough. Neither a straight "each citizen is
alloted X pollution credits, which they may use or sell
as they see fit" nor "each pound of C0^2 gets a one
cent tax" solution is likely to be acceptable to
enough people to work. But we have figured out ways
to stop pollution before, it is not like this is the
\- we have solved the problem before *inside a
soverign state*, meaning there is a legal process
for making decisions, and a legal system for
enforcing decisons [property rights, torts etc].
the international system is anarchic. and really
the problem isnt that well solved inside states.
e.g. hypersubsidized water etc. there are some
decent articles in the e'ist on problems in the
EU pollution trading regime. there is also some
good econ theory on when a tax is better and when
a cap + trading regime is better. i dont remember
the name of the classic paper in this area but i
can look it up maybe. it turns a lot on whether
the "total target" is well or ill defined, i.e.
there are some forms of pollution where "more
is worse" but it's fairly smooth. there are
other areas where things degrade slowly up to
a certain point but then fairly catastrophic
things happen, so the marginal cost depends on
scale factors.
first problem of this type ever. Much sticker is going
to be considering the cost and responsibility for past
damage to the atmosphere. Who is responsible for all
the C0^2 that has already built up and who will pay
for cleaning it up? That is a much trickier and more
political issue even than reducing current emissions.
\_ CO2: we used to call it "air for plants", now we
call it "pollution". It's a scam.
\_ its a quantity thing. In low doses, it's fine.
In high doeses it's a problem.
\_ simplest way to look at it is globl warmnig being caused by people
taking carbon from the ground, to eventually be used by their
customers to put it in the air. A fee on extraction of in-ground
energy consumers to take that same carbon out of the ecosystem is
the most logicaly way to offset that. That fee could then go to
operations to get the carbon out of the ecosystem. Or could go to
"other parties" -- this is where the wealth redistribution issue
comes, and obviously not where the money should go. Taxing the
problem to pay for 'the poor' is actually going to be counter
productive -- developing nations are only going to increase their
energy consumption.
\_ Temp. rises precede CO2 rises. CO2 does not cause GW. CO2 GW
is a hoax.
\_ I suppose a more succinct way of saying this is charging the
'big polluters' a fee to pay to the undeveloped countries is
stupid and doesn't attack the problem. It exacerbates it by giving
them capital to develop and become polluters themselves.
Charging a fee to clean up or mitigate the mess makes more sense. |
| 2007/12/12-20 [Science/Space, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48793 Activity:moderate |
12/12 "Ominous Arctic melt worries experts"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071212/ap_on_sc/arctic_melt
\_ Global warming is a liberal lie.
\_ Isn't the antarctic ice growing?
\_ You mean like how the area of the antarctic ice shelf
has radically shrunk and huge icebergs have broken off?
\_ Yes, the edges have shrunk (hint, it's summer in Antarctica
now), but the center has grown colder and thicker, hence a net
increase in ice.
\_ Sorry, are you suggesting that icebergs of similar size
break off Antarctica every summer?
\_ Yep, every spring, big icebergs break off of A. And the
central ice /is/ thickiening--total ice in A. is
increasing.
\_ Just another effect of global warming. Some
places get colder and other places get warmer,
but the net result is a warmer planet.
\_ Antarctic net ice mass is decreasing. Please check
your facts before pulling things out of your ass.
http://tinyurl.com/kewgu (washingtpost.com, Mar 2006)
\_ Or not
http://tinyurl.com/2xgdyd (icecap, Sep 2007)
\_ It's hard to take Joe D'Aleo seriously when
he's drawing a check from Exxon via the
Fraser Institute.
\_ Yes, all the people who disagree with you
are in the conspiracy. What about Al Gore
and his carbon credit companies?
\_ If the only people saying that ice is
increasing are all paid by the same
company, doesn't that suggest something
to you?
\_ Ha! Lindzen is an MIT scientist who
has never gotten money from oil
companies. Meanwhile, GE spends more
on lobbying than all oil companies
combined, yet NBC has a "green week"
and no one flinches, even though GE
bought all of the wind farm tech from
Enron. Yah, I've seen the "if you
don't agree you're either stupid or in
on it" argument before. It's a weak
way to ignore evidence.
http://tinyurl.com/2ybkoj (NRO)
reposted here
http://tinyurl.com/2bh5se
\_ Actually it's pretty sensible way
for someone who is not an expert
to evaluate the situation. So you
have ONE MIT scientist who has ONE
study that goes against
overwhelming scientific consensus.
Could he be right? Maybe! That's
the cool thing about the
scientific method, though, yes, it
takes some time to shake out.
But, absent further study (Yes
Virgina, the scientific method
generally likes to repeatedly
check it's result), betting on the
scientific majority is probably
still a good bet. Don't be
disingenuous, it makes you seem
like a dorche. -dans
\_ net ice mass != "ice extent" (exposed surface
ice). Is that the best you can do?
\_ You think a giant area one inch thick is
better than a slightly smaller but still
giant area kilometers thick? No. Net ice
mass is what is important if you want all
that water to not flood the rest of the
inhabited continents. "ice extent" is a
useless metric.
\_ Ice extend, not net ice mass, determines
how much sunlight is reflected back to
space and not absorbed as heat. -- !PP
\_ So what? There was a time when
Antarctica was temperate. The
world didn't come to an end.
\_ Ice mass determines how much water is
free to raise ocean levels by 20 feet.
If ice mass increases, water levels
will not rise. Extent is not a useful
metric.
\_ ^will^does
\_ I prefer to split my hairs the
other way. YMMV. |
| 2007/12/11-14 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48786 Activity:moderate |
12/11 Ladies and Gentleman, the next President of the United States!
"I think we ought to be out there talking about ways to reduce energy
consumption and waste. And we ought to declare that we will be free of
energy consumption in this country within a decade, bold as that is."
--Mike Huckabee on CBS Evening News
\_ But can he clear brush and would I feel comfortable having a beer
with him a bar? I agree this statement is an impressive
qualification ...
\_ I think that we should colonize alpha centauri within a decade,
but it still has a 0% chance of happening.
\_ Huckabee is Dan Quayle II.
\_ Except DQ was a good person even if a little slow at times.
\_ "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?" |
| 2007/11/29-12/6 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48716 Activity:nil |
11/29 Scientists Working to Advance Wilhelm Reich's Sexual Energy-Cosmic
Life Force Work
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308462,00.html |
| 2007/11/29-12/6 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48714 Activity:low |
11/29 Global Warming causes everything. Well, at least 600 things:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
\_ get it strait, its Global Climate Change.
\_ get it straight, it's straight.
\_ Global Warming causes liberals to fume and making everyone
upset and pissed off about everything. Fuck Global Warming.
\_ If only all those Kyoto signing countries had come even close to
their goals the world might have pushed GCC back by a few weeks. |
| 2007/11/28-12/6 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48706 Activity:low |
11/28 Graphing the last decade of tempreature vs. CO2
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2MSU.jpg
\_ Do you have the graph over a longer time frame?
\_ certainly not on a global warming denial site.
\_ Good luck finding the last decade anywhere else. Since the
1998 spike, the global warming fanatics haven't been
terribly forthcoming with data.
\_ yeah, I had to jump through major hoops to find a graph
which went past 1998--I had to go all the way to
Wikipedia! The NOAA also goes through 2001--the time
at which a new administration hostile to science and
beholden to oil interests took power. -tom
\_ See, I told you Bush Derangement Syndrome was funny!
\_ I said "the last decade", not 3 years after 1998.
\_ the Wikipedia graph goes to 2005. twink. -tom
\_ URL?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
\_ I only seem to be able to find that comparison in the last
decade, or last millenium. |
| 2007/11/27-30 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48696 Activity:nil |
11/26 Dangers of radiation overblown
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,519043,00.html
\_ Maybe. I'm still not eating any plutonium or having chest xrays
I don't need.
\_ They didnt say it was safe, just that many of the casualty
reports were widely exaggerated. |
| 2007/11/13-16 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48626 Activity:low |
11/12 Removing CO2 from our oceans: http://www.planktos.com \_ Um, not quite. The idea is to drop iron filings in iron-poor areas of the ocean to stimulate plankton growth, which draws CO2 from the *air* not the ocean. When the plankton die, they sink to the bottom, sequestering the CO2. Only problem is that CO2 doesn't cause warming, it's the result. Oh, and I'm sure this will work out just like the artificial reefs made out of tires. Oh wait... \_ Wait, so, you're claiming that atmospheric CO2 this time is the result of warming, not the cause? You know that 90% or more of atmospheric scientists disagree with you? \_ No, I'm pretty sure everyone's been pointing to Al Gore's graph and noting that CO2 follows warming. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-09/uosc-cdd092507.php \_ A lot of scientists are dubious about this plan; it's a good example of the problem with carbon credits, because there's basically no regulation. This company would be getting money via carbon credits to do something with an extremely questionable environmental impact. -tom \_ Actually, they're doing pilot studies to make sure that they're not creating harm or not really sequestering the carbon. So they're being made to show it as a desirable scheme before they get into the carbon credit market. As such, it is worth looking at. \_ It's really hard to do pilot studies on environmental change. This one has the law of unintended consequences written all over it. -tom \_ Exactly. I envision giant armies of mechanized plankton rising out the ocean and destroying us with their carbon weapons. \_ dropping tons of sulfur in the black sea is going to create a lot of carbon offset opportunity \_ really? how so? \_ I read an article about this in the early 90s - some kook had the idea that the indian ocean was lacking plankton due to iron deficiency (despite a relative abundance of nitrogen), spread out iron dust from a huge ship, and measured the results. What happened? He was right about iron being a necessary prereq to plant growth, but the CO2 benefits were nil because all those happy little plankton were fed upon by happy little krill, who offset the CO2 sequestration and released it back into the atmosphere. I think the article was in Discover, and the title mentioned something about "the Ironman". |
| 2007/11/9-12 [Science/GlobalWarming, Science/Electric] UID:48594 Activity:nil |
11/9 this new fujitsu technology of monitors on standby
that consumes no power is awesome! go nippon!
\_ I invented that technology long time ago. Go finger power!
\_ huh are you sure? I suspect that modern monitors consume
power even when off, due to the big capacitors in the
voltage transformer. this is true of a lot of consumer
electronic devices. i am a big hippy and keep those on a
power strip that i shut off manually.
\_ By not living in suburban Southern Cal in my entire
life, I've saved enough power that'll last me
a lifetime of 10 24" LCDs, powered on.
\_ SoCal's energy grid is damaged? Have you reported this? |
| 2007/11/3-4 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48529 Activity:moderate |
11/3 I honestly had absolutely no idea the yankees won the world
series. i love my cave.
\_ I don't even know World Series was playing. My cave is smaller.
\_ Your cave is misinformed. The Boston Red Sox won... |
| 2007/10/30-11/2 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48487 Activity:nil |
10/30 No, the inflation-adjusted crude oil futures record has not been broken
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/business/30stox.html
\_ It actually depends on which inflation deflator you use. |
| 2007/10/27-11/1 [Science/GlobalWarming, Computer/SW/Editors/Vi] UID:48463 Activity:nil |
10/27 Unlimited competition for expanding markets would lead to a
global confict.
\_ I CAN HAS SENTENCE?
\_ trust the invisible hand
\_ You are not the original invisible hand!
--#1 original invisible hand
\_ PLAGIARISM!!! Karl Marx and John A. Hobson need to be quoted
(wrt to WW1, WW2, etc)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/aug/31/climatechange.food?gusrc=rss&feed=science
http://wapedia.mobi/en/World_War_I?p=1#1.5
\- and VI LENIN. just our of curiosity, where did you come across
\- and VI LENIN. just out of curiosity, where did you come across
JA HOBSON? |
| 2007/10/26-29 [Science/GlobalWarming, Finance/Investment] UID:48456 Activity:nil |
10/26 Dear oil man, which oil stocks are good to buy now? Thanks.
\_ DUG
\_ I'd avoid oil stocks because the Dems are going to win 2008
and with them will come socialist programs and
strict energy regulations.
\_ IXC is a safe bet, but I am holding XOM, BP and CVX. Any
big major is probably a good bet. |
| 2007/10/26-29 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48455 Activity:nil |
10/26 http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071009/climate_change.html?.v=1 "Scientist: Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Already Beyond 'Worst-Case' Scenario" \_ Did this guy vote for John Kerry? \_ Oh well. I guess there's no point in reducing emissions now. The smart thing would be to put our resources into fitting better into our warming world. |
| 2007/10/24-26 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48439 Activity:kinda low |
10/24 "an alarming new study finds that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is
increasing faster than expected."
http://www.csua.org/u/jtn
"what has been wrong recently is that the climate is changing even
faster than the models said. In fact, Arctic sea ice is melting much
faster than any models predicted, and sea level is rising much faster
than IPCC previously predicted."
\_ "Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental
Prediction at Rutgers University, added: "What is really shocking is
the reduction of the oceanic CO2 sink," meaning the ability of the
ocean to absorb carbon dioxide, removing it from the atmosphere."
This exactly matches the historical record that CO2 rise occurs
*after* temperature increase.
\_ Whew! I'm glad to see we're coming out of the last ice age faster
than expected. We can look forward to more rain, higher
agricultural yields and fewer climate related deaths. Is there
anything we can do to help warm the planet faster?
\_ Keep talking. |
| 2007/10/24-26 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48438 Activity:nil |
10/24 "Peak oil projections from Chevron's CTO | Tech news blog - CNET:"
http://www.csua.org/u/jtf
I don't get the math. If "there is a trillion gallons left for human
consumption" and human are consuming "about 3 billion gallons a day
worldwide", doesn't mean that we will use up what's left in one year?
\- world stock is probaby barrels.
\_ oh shit by 2012 we'll have consumed 1.5 tri gallons. Many
psychics also predict the end of the world by 2012!!!
\- world stock is generally in billions of *barrels*.
so closer to 30-50yrs.
\_ So when that guy said "a trillion gallons left", he really meant
a trillion barrels left?
\- i didnt read it carfully, but probably. the oil reserves
like the money supply has differet numbers under different
assumptions. for money supply we have M1, M2, M3, L.
oil reserves have P1 P2 P3 ... all with different magnitudes,
error bars, and uses. they are all in the "petabarrel" range.
\- i glanced at the comments. one of the followup correctly
says he meant barrels not gal, but incorrectly says one
bbl is 31gal. it is 42gal for oil. |
| 2007/10/24-26 [Science/Space, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48425 Activity:kinda low |
10/23 Whole Foods buys 100% solar power! Buy from Whole Foods and
be a good citizen of the earth!
\_ uhm yeah, you know how toxic all the stuff is that goes into making
those solar cells? solar cells don't grow on trees.
\_ They're called "leaves".
\_ So the farm equipment runs on leaves? The trucks that
haul the stuff to market, too? All the packaging, the
lighting in the store, the asphault in the parking lot.
It's all leaves. I never knew that. Thanks.
\_ pathetic troll attempt
\_ scientific reality. join us out here in the real world.
the view is great! |
| 2007/10/22-25 [Science/GlobalWarming, Health/Women] UID:48408 Activity:moderate |
10/22 So what's the carbon footprint of the fires?
\_ Trees -> fire -> carbon footprint. Therefore, we should
wage a pre-emptive war on trees.
\_ I heard California has a fire problem precisely because of a
long standing braindead policy of no preemptive fires. -- ilyas
\_ Your FUCKING brillian ilyas, can I have your baby?
\_ You can have my baby in exchange for your technology
used to impregnate idiot male motd trolls. -- ilyas
\_ Hey Smokey, he's right.
\_ I hadn't thought about that, but good point. -op
\_ I thought people stopped doing that in 1995.
\_ which shows that preemptive wars are sometimes the solution
\_ Please report to the preemptive herd-cull center
immediately.
\_ peaceniks do not allow firemen to cull dead or dying trees
\_ If you believe the 'zero carbon footprint' argument of the biofuel
proponents, then burning forests are net zero too, as they're not
putting carbon into the environment that wasn't there in the first
place. Trees will grow to replace them, taking that carbon right
back out. It is carbon dug out of the ground (coal, oil, gas)
that is the cause of the 'greenhouse gas problem'. |
| 2007/10/17-18 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48343 Activity:nil |
10/16 Not only do we have global warming, we now have global wetting.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071010/ap_on_sc/global_warming_humidity
"This story does now fit together; there are now no loose ends, ......
The message is pretty compelling that natural causes alone just can't
cut it." |
| 2007/10/15 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48330 Activity:nil |
10/15 It occured t'me dis mo'nin' dat treatin' honky chicks as equal t'men
has, so's far, been some poo' choice evolushunarily. Slap mah fro! Dis
suggests de practice gots'ta probably kick d' cud out eventually. Slap
mah fro!
\_ What do you mean? Fewer offspring? Fewer offspring may be the
only long-term viable evolutionary strategy due to environmental
limits.
\_ That's a salient point, but it requires that all societies agree
to limit reproduction. You may get two sets of societies, 'the
moral slow reproducers' and the 'immoral fast reproducers.' There
will still be an environmental catastrophe, but the fast
reproducers will have many more people than the slow reproducers.
The result is the fast reproducers wipe out the slow reproducers
in resource wars. There is historical precedence.
\_ Historical precedent is invalidated by technological
advantage. When the slow reproducers have a massive military
technological advantage due to not living at or below bare
subsistence, numbers won't matter.
\_ This assumes that the slow reproducers live in segregated
political states. In reality there are slow vs. fast within
each political entity, especially now with multicultural
immigrant states. Therefore in the long run we have the
same result.
Multicultural states are therefore bad for the species,
because they lead to global homogenizing of cultures.
Diversity decreases in favor of the fastest-growing
domininant subcultures, leaving the population as a
whole at greater risk.
\_ Or you can get mass die off of the fast reproducers, which
we will probably see in a generation or two. |
| 2007/10/15-17 [Science/Disaster, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48316 Activity:nil |
10/15 "Oil Futures Hit New Record Above $85"
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071015/oil_prices.html
Just Two weeks ago some economist was predicting $100 by end of next
year. It might even come sooner than that. |
| 2007/10/15-16 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/China, Health/Disease/General, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48314 Activity:high 64%like:48322 |
10/15 It occured to me this morning that treating women as equal to men has,
so far, proven to be a poor choice for our society evolutionarily.
This suggests the practice will probably die out evenutally.
\_ Too soon to tell. I suspect that the socities with faster growth
rates may be subject to a massive die-off sooner or later.
\_ What do you mean? Fewer offspring? Fewer offspring may be the
only long-term viable evolutionary strategy due to environmental
limits.
\_ That's a salient point, but it requires that all societies agree
to limit reproduction. You may get two sets of societies, 'the
moral slow reproducers' and the 'immoral fast reproducers.' There
will still be an environmental catastrophe, but the fast
reproducers will have many more people than the slow reproducers.
The result is the fast reproducers wipe out the slow reproducers
in resource wars. There is historical precedence.
\_ Oh you mean like in California, the whites are getting
wiped out by the exploding Latino population? You RACIST!
\_ Historical precedent is invalidated by technological
advantage. When the slow reproducers have a massive military
technological advantage due to not living at or below bare
subsistence, numbers won't matter.
\_ This assumes that the slow reproducers live in segregated
political states. In reality there are slow vs. fast within
each political entity, especially now with multicultural
immigrant states. Therefore in the long run we have the
same result.
Multicultural states are therefore bad for the species,
because they lead to global homogenizing of cultures.
Diversity decreases in favor of the fastest-growing
domininant subcultures, leaving the population as a
whole at greater risk.
\_ There is about five assumptions you are making here,
none of which you have justified, but I will start
with the largest. Do you honestly believe that having
a multicultural state in say The Netherlands has any
effect on culture in Chad?
\_ Not so much, but it affects the culture in the
Netherlands. Multiculturalism is happening mostly
in countries which have slower birth rates
than the countries where the immigrants come from.
Large amounts of immigrants from [3rd world highly
populated country] have the potential to, in the
long run, make the culture in the host country
more like the 3rd world country.
\_ Not the pp, but jumping in here: actually, yes.
If NL hires guest workers from Chad, and those
workers come to appreciate the liberal freedoms of
the west, they'll export those ideas along with the
cash remittals. Consumerism has been shown over and
over again to be much more prolific than any
religion or ideology, given sufficient access to
resources and products.
\_ Or you can get mass die off of the fast reproducers, which
we will probably see in a generation or two.
\_ A mass die off caused by what? Is there some magic
disease that only infects people who have more than 2.2
children?
\_ Famine, disease, warfare, the usual things that
cause mass die offs, what else? It is already starting
to happen in some of the overpopulated parts of Africa.
\_ You're begging the question; the societies which treat women
equally are significantly out-competing the societies which
don't. -tom
\_ Not in population, which is probably the most important metric
from an evolutionary perspective.
\_ Not if you're talking about survival of the society
(as opposed to the genotype). -tom
\_ In what way? If there was a world wide plague which wiped out
a few billion people, the less technically dependent people
would have an advantage in numbers and societal structure in
the aftermath.
\_ So why aren't well all cockroaches. Oh yeah, because pure
\_ The U.S. is much better equipped to deal with a world wide
plague than India or China, partly because we haven't
overpopulated in the way those countries have. If plague
with high mortality hits and the U.S. drops down to 100
million population and China drops down to 200 million,
does that mean China is doing beter? -tom
\_ So why aren't we all cockroaches. Oh yeah, because pure
biomass is not what makes something a dominant species. This
is especially true when talking about memes instead of genes.
\_ Cockroaches don't (can't?) compete in our ecological
sphere. We can eat cockroaches for example. Other humans
do compete with us: they use the same resources and inhabit
the same gene pool. Domination only matters if the dominant
ones are willing to crush the subordinate ones like
Nazis, an ideology which has been rejected. Hitler was a
Nazi. And thus the discussion is complete.
\_ You aren't cockroaches because the cockroaches are the
cockroaches. Who says cockroaches haven't already won
from a survival and evolutionary perspective? Long after
your pathetic species has imploded, the taken for granted
little cockroaches will still be here skittering about,
doing our cockroach things. We pity you, human. We've
already won, you just don't know it. |
| 2007/10/10-14 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48287 Activity:low |
10/10 My google-fu is weak. Can anyone point me to the 11 items the UK court
ruled had to be pointed out as errors in "An Inconvenient Truth"?
\_ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7037671.stm
\_ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2632660.ece
\_ Here's some more for you based on my prior research. I don't have
anything to add on the other items I don't mention:
re: error 2: The Pacific atolls are slowly 'sinking' due to plate
tectonics, not rising sea level. This has been going on since
before the industrial age. If you find a map of the Pacific plates
you'll see there's a direct correlation between subducting plates
and which islands are 'sinking'.
re: error 5: lost snow on various mountains is caused by local
environmental change (such as locals chopping down trees which
changes the humidity levels).
re: error 7: Katrina caused high levels of damage in New Orleans
due to insufficiently maintained levy system (because of local
corruption going back decades). Florida gets hit by much stronger
hurricanes without nearly the same level of damage.
\_ Maintenance and inspection were the responsibility of the local
government but the problem was that the original design by the
Army Corps of Engineers wasn't good enough and money was never
allocated to improve them (Bush consistently underfunded the
Army Corps of Engineers)
\_ Sorry, but there was tons of cash devoted to the repairs over
the last few decades. This is not a Bush generated mess.
It would be fair to be critical of the post-mess reaction from
FEMA (and thus Bush), but it is not fair to say that they
collapsed because of Bush. That runs contrary to the reality
of the situation. As if you repair decades of needed repairs
in a year or two. No. The entire infrastructure of this
country has been left to rot for decades. Bridges, roads,
water ways, everything. The world did not magically startup
in perfect conditon on 1/20/2001.
\_ I agree with you on this, but claiming that global warming
certainly had nothing to do with it is quite a stretch. It
is open for debate, as are pretty much all of the
nine "errors." -!pp
re: error 9: nevermind, the Judge in the article got this one down. |
| 2007/10/8 [Science/GlobalWarming, Science/Physics] UID:48270 Activity:nil 52%like:48271 |
10/8 Question for the motd physics geeks. I was talking to some friends
about flywheels. It's well known that one problem with flywheels is
their resistance to rotation (it's the well known effect that keeps
bicycles upright). One proposed way of handling this is to install
flywheels in pairs so they counteract each other. The question is,
how much energy should you expect to bleed off in this way? -- ilyas |
| 2007/10/2-5 [Science/Battery, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48221 Activity:low 75%like:48218 |
10/1 Finally! OLED Televisions
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071001112033.l3kf86xb
\_ Technology needs more development still. But I'm glad this is
finally rolling out.
\_ 3mm thick? Does it break easily just from moving around? (Unless
it's made of flexible material.)
\_ I don't get it. What use does a home user/consumer have for this?
\_ While this particular model isn't remarkable, OLED has a lot of
potential for televisions in general. Compared to LCD, OLED sets
should have wider viewing angles, response times two or three
orders of magnitude quicker (so fast action on screen won't get
blurry), and better display of the color black (all colors,
really, but black is particularly bad on LCDs). Early adoption
aside, the way OLEDs are manufactured means they should also be
cheaper to manufacture (once the production issues get sorted
out, yields come up, and economies of scale kick in).
\_ Thanks. I wasn't seeing how super-thin was that big a deal
but the color, speed, etc, makes sense. I get it now. |
| 2007/10/2 [Science/Battery, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48218 Activity:very high 75%like:48221 |
10/1 Finally! OLED Televisions
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071001112033.l3kf86xb&show_article=1
\_ Technology needs more development still. But I'm glad this is
finally rolling out.
\_ 3mm thick? Does it break easily just from moving around? (Unless
it's made of flexible material.) |
| 2007/10/1-5 [Science/GlobalWarming, Science/Physics] UID:48215 Activity:high |
10/1 "Time travel machine"
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/ver/246/popup/index.php?cl=4277716
Is this real?
\_ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Mallett
There was a piece on him on This American Life that was utterly
heartbreaking. An amazing person.
\_ I can't see the top link, but the wiki article makes it clear
that to this point he doesn't even having a working theory as
to how time travel might work.
\_ It's a hard problem when you're sane.
\_ I think that drawing this conclusion from a wikipedia article
really does justify the fears that people have about the
level of misunderstanding something like wikipedia can
engender. He appears to be both sane and knowledgeable enough
to be worth listening to.
\_ Wikipedia is shit. Citing wikipedia on a subject
generally signals 'I know nothing about the subject
area.'
\_ Uhm, what? This is *time travel*! There is no one on
the planet who truly understands *time travel*. Going
to wikipedia is better than reading this guy's papers
that no one is going to understand. Hey, did I mention
this was about *time travel*? *TIME TRAVEL*! Sheesh.
\_ No it's not. One of the reasons wikipedia is so
dangerous is it makes people think it's a better
source than the source, so to speak. Your first
impulse if you don't understand something is to try
to understand it, or ask someone who does understand,
not consult wikipedia. In this case, if you want
to know if the guy is a kook, talk to a physicist.
Wikipedia is the source of McDonaldization of
Wikipedia is a source of McDonaldization of
\_ This is an excellent
phrase. I hope you don't
mind if I adopt it.
\_ This is due to George
Ritzer. At any rate,
ideas belong to all
mankind. -- ilyas
knowledge. -- ilyas
\_ Lacking any physicists nearby who understand the
math and high energy physics involved in this
guy's work, I'll take the dime store version at
wp. Lacking the time and honesty, having a great
deal of apathy towards the entire time travel
silliness, I'll skip trying to decipher his
actual papers and be satisfied knowing that he's
having fun at some Uni tucked harmlessly out of
the way mumbling, "They mocked me at the Academy!
But I'll show them! I'll show them alllll!!!!!
Muahahahhahahaaa!!!!!" *TIME TRAVEL*!
\_ You are better off simply admitting ignorance
than assuming a contrarian is wrong simply
because he's a contrarian. Biased certainty
is not better than unbiased uncertainty.
If you are interested in rationally evaluating
things, that is. It's great fun to poke fun
at contrarians. -- ilyas
\_ tell us about the stars, ilyas
\_ Uhm, duh, it is *TIME TRAVEL*. How can I
not be ignorant of it? That is what I've
been saying since this topic went up. Please
do tell exactly who on this planet is not
ignorant of how *TIME TRAVEL* works. It is
great fun to poke fun at people who try to
seriously discus *TIME TRAVEL* as if it was
something we could rationally discuss as a
scientific concept and not a philosophical
one. And yes when I finish my *TIME TRAVEL*
machine I am so going back to whack your
grand dad just to put an end to this silly
nonsense. Nothing personal, I think you're
an ok guy.
\_ Time travel is a scientific concept.
You are operating using a very strange
distinction between science and
philosophy. -- ilyas
\_ Wikipedia is great for some things. One prof's
vaugly out there research is not one of those
things.
\_ The problem with wikipedia for 'some things' is
you never really know if the information is
accurate. So the only thing wikipedia is good for
is procrastinating.
\_ 1. Many times I do know if the information
is accurate, or it's not something I'm
worried about being exactly right.
2. If I do care about if information is right
using wikipedia as my only or primary source
is fucking stupid, yes, however it can be
a very useful starting point. Go to wikipedia
get the basics and then research those to
make sure they seem reasonable.
3. The problem with this prof isn't the accuracy
or lack thereof. The problem is it's a poorly
written article about something very few people
care about. What it told me was this dude is
someone who cares a lot about time travel and
has done research in the field that isn't
obviously batshit insane. If I want to know
more I can research other places and come to
my own conclusions.
\_ On a vaguely related note there is some good discussion on the
blogs about 'contrarian' vs 'conservative' strategies in science.
-- ilyas |
| 2007/9/20 [Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Science/GlobalWarming, Computer/SW/P2P] UID:48139 Activity:nil |
9/20 http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3812960/MediaDefender.Source.TrapperKeeper-MDD | ^ tools mediadefender uses to browse p2p | Update: A list of leaked utilities is now available: | AresDataCollector, AresLauncher, AresProtector, AresSupernode, AresUDPDataCollector, AutoUpdater, AutoUpdaterSource, BTClient, BTDataCollector, BTDecoyClient, BTInflationDest, BTInterdictor, BTIPGatherer, BTPoster, BTRemover, BTScraper, BTScraperDLL, BTSearcher, BTSeedInflator, BTTorrentGenerator, BTTorrentSource, BTTracker, BTTrackerChecker, CVS, DCMaster, DCScanner, DCSupply, DistributedKazaaCollector, DllLoader, ED2KSupplyProcessor, ... | ... EdonkeyIpBanner, FastTrackGift, FastTrackGiftDecoyer, GnutellaDecoyer, GnutellaFileDownloader, GnutellaProtector, GnutellaSupply, KademliaProtector, KazaaDBManager, KazaaLauncher, KazaaSupplyProcessor, KazaaSupplyTaker, KazaaSwarmerDest, KazaaSwarmerDistributedSource, KazaaSwarmerDownloader, KazaaSwarmerSource, MediaMaker, MediaSwarmerDest, MediaSwarmerSource, MetaMachine, MetaMachineHashSetCollector, MetaMachineSpoofer, ... | ... MI-GnutellaSupply, MovieMaker, NameServer, NetworkMonitor, OverNetLauncher, OvernetProtector, OvernetSpoofer, P2PFileIndexer, PioletDC, PioletPoisoner, PioletSpoofer, SamplePlugIn, SLSKSpooferDLL, SoulSeekClient, StatusDest, StatusSource, SupernodeCollector, SupernodeController, SupernodeDistributer, SupplyProcessor, TKCom, TKFileTransfer, TKLauncher, TKProjectManager, TKSyncher, UsenetPoster, UsenetSearcher, ... | ... WatchDogControllerDestination, WatchDogControllerSource, WinMxDC, WinMxLauncher, WinMxProtector, wma generator |
| 2007/9/18 [Science/GlobalWarming, Science/Physics] UID:48098 Activity:nil 75%like:48099 |
9/18 "Shrinking kilogram bewilders physicists"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070913/ap_on_sc/shrinking_kilogram
*The* kilogram is getting smaller in mass. |
| 2007/9/12 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48037 Activity:moderate 66%like:48030 |
9/11 Russia's 32GGs four times more powerful than our 32Ds.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070911/ap_on_re_eu/russia_bomb_test
\_ "Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment,
he added." Hahaha!
\_ Well, obviously he means no residual radiation. The stripping
the earth bare is part of the intent of the explosion.
\_ The environment really isn't hurt by conventional explosives.
You make a big hole, scatter some metal bits, kill a few
trees. It'll all regrow over soon enough.
\_ Efficiency and progress are ours once more, now that we have the
Neutron Bomb.
\_ They also built the only 100 megaton nuke ever made. Didn't
help them any.
\_ This bomb weighs significantly less than the US MOAB too. |
| 2007/9/11-13 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:48030 Activity:nil 66%like:48037 |
9/11 Russia's DOAB four times more powerful than our MOAB.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070911/ap_on_re_eu/russia_bomb_test
\_ "Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn't hurt the environment,
he added." Hahaha!
\_ Well, obviously he means no residual radiation. The stripping
the earth bare is part of the intent of the explosion.
\_ The environment really isn't hurt by conventional explosives.
You make a big hole, scatter some metal bits, kill a few
trees. It'll all regrow over soon enough.
\_ Efficiency and progress are ours once more, now that we have the
Neutron Bomb.
\_ They also built the only 100 megaton nuke ever made. Didn't
help them any.
\_ This bomb weighs significantly less than the US MOAB too. |
| 2007/9/7 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47935 Activity:nil |
9/7 ayn rand was right
\_ Good for NOAA
\_ Why do they continue to ignore solar activity?
http://csua.org/u/jfv
\_ they don't. |
| 2007/9/6-10 [Science/GlobalWarming, Reference/History/WW2] UID:47924 Activity:nil |
9/6 What are some "real" advantages of global warming? I'll start:
\_ Lost airmen from WW2 are being found! Yes!
\_ Canadians heating bills will decrease!
\_ Ice road truckers will have to get real jobs
\_ Go swiming at beaches year round. And beaches will be much closer
to your home due to rising sea level.
\_ No more pesky polar bears to worry about.
\_ Northwest passage will be open year round.
\_ Arctic oil will be easier to drill, accelerating the process.
\_ Fur demand will go down, saving the endangered species. |
| 2007/9/6-10 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47911 Activity:nil |
9/6 Bad boys bad boys, what'cha gonna do, when the cops come for you.
I'm watching Channel 13 COPS "Alaska Edition" and it is AWESOME.
Sheriffs have to fly to tiny little towns that look like 3rd
world countries on dirt runway to arrest people. Their court
house looks like a 12'x12' office, with one judge, and no
bailiffs around. Man, Alaska rules!
\_ "Bad boys bad boys, what'cha gonna do, what'cha gonna do when they
come for you."
\_ What is so great about people living in the 2nd world? |
| 2007/9/5-10 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47898 Activity:nil |
9/5 To err is human. To really screw up, you need the military:
http://csua.org/u/jg8 (Google News on B-52 with nukes) |
| 2007/9/4-7 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47890 Activity:nil |
9/4 "NOAA blames hot MILFs on greenhouse gases"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070829/ap_on_sc/greenhouse_warming_6
\_ Good
\_ Good for NOAA
\_ Why do they continue to ignore solar activity?
http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4
http://csua.org/u/jfv
\_ they don't. |
| 2007/8/23-27 [Science/GlobalWarming, Computer/Companies/Google] UID:47724 Activity:nil |
8/23 how do i view a private livejournal RSS feed in Google Reader?
\_ I've tried this, and I don't think you can. Livejournal provides
a couple of (pretty poor) mechanisms for feeds, but Google
Reader does not (last I checked) support any form of authentication.
I had a script set up to screen-scrape LJ, log in as me and spit
out an rss feed, but it broke and I haven't had the energy to
look into it. -niloc |
| 2007/8/21-22 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47696 Activity:moderate |
8/21 Damn this global warming!
http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_233143509.html
\_ even drudgereport wasn't disingenuous enough to lead the URL with
"Global warming?"
\_ The point is, everytime there's a new high people talk about
global warming. I'm not citing this as proof against warming.
-op
\_ The plural of anecdote is not data.
\_ Why did you delete my comment? The plural of anecdote is not data.
\_hi aspo.
\_ nope, that wasn't me. -aspo |
| 2007/8/21-23 [Politics/Domestic/California, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47678 Activity:nil |
8/21 "Arctic sea ice shrinks to record low"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070817/ap_on_sc/low_ice
And it's not even the end of summer yet.
\_ I was reading about how the snow pack is pretty low in the
Sequoia mountain range in CA, exposing more corpses from plane
crashes in WW2. pretty cool.
\_ Because the ice has always been there.
\_ Huh? |
| 2007/8/19-20 [Transportation/Car, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47659 Activity:high |
08/20 I drive a 90s Japanese automobile, and I live in the
bay area, where the weather just isn't that bad. What
sort of motor oil should I be using?
\_ weather is irrelevant in the Bay Area where temperature
and humidity swing are minimal. More importantly, you should
be CONSISTENT with the motor oil you use (stick to one brand,
one type, and change on a consistent schedule). 90s car require
oil change every 3K miles. A decent brand 10W/30 does the job. |
| 2007/8/17-20 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47638 Activity:high |
8/15 Fascinating interview with Ayn Rand by Phil Donahue.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aAExHnF1BoY
Ayn Rand says Middle East's oil belongs to us because of contracts
everybody signed that gave us all rights to their oil. In addition,
we have better use for oil thus we're the ones deserving oil.
Also look at part 2-- Altruism is horrible, says Ayn Rand. By
helping retarded kids, we deprive ourselves of resources that
could be spent on gifted kids.
\_ Are there really any Randites here to be trolled?
\- Randroid(tm)
\_ On a related note:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653653,00.html
-- ilyas
\_ Interesting article. The Brazils live in the land that
loves mediocraty, what did they expect-- royal
treatments for being special? BOO HOO! Our kid is smarter
than YOUR kids but we don't get special treatments! Our
system is failing! America sucks! Fucking whiners.
\- does it sound suspect to anybody else there would
be as many people at +3sd IQ as -3sd? ...
"only about 62,000 have IQs above 145.
(A similar number have IQs below 55.)"
i would think there are many disorders which
could push people into the lower domain. so
this may be a property of the IQ test score
distribution, but maybe not a property of the
underlying population. once again test outcome !=
population distribution. e.g. a "geography quotient"
test that ask "what is the capital of england, france,
russia, and burkina faso".
test that asks "what is the capital of england/france/
russia/burkina faso". although it's possible the
mass distribution on each side of the mean isnt
too asymmetric.
\_ part 5-- "Charlie's Angels is my favorite show. The Angels
are elite and I love them." Dumb bitch. |
| 2007/8/10-13 [Science/Biology, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47580 Activity:nil |
8/10 Why some people resist science:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bloom07/bloom07_index.html |
| 2007/8/10-13 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47573 Activity:kinda low |
8/9 1998 no longer warmest year on record for US
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt
http://csua.org/u/jaz
\_ ruh roh, i see a warming trend plotted in excel!
\_ You mean Open Office Calc. :-)
\_ Charting is one place where excel really kicks OOo's butt.
\_ Bah. I just charted it in OO and it was just fine. I
had way more charts and options and labels and whatnot
than I needed.
\_ 1934?
\_ Yep. Top 10 years are:
1934
1998
1921
2006
1931
1999
1953
1990
1938
1954
\_ What are the top 10 years in worldwide temps?
\_ We'll have to wait for the world data to include the US
correction. ANd who knows what other errors there are.
\_ There are no errors in data that points to man made
global climate change.
\_ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16204542
"The top 10 warmest years have all occurred in the
last 12 years" |
| 2007/8/7-13 [Science/Space, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47558 Activity:nil |
8/7 The miner incident got me thinking a lot. Do they make those
Juliet Pills where they slow down your heart rate and breathing
rate to reduce metabolism, to conserve energy, oxygen, and such
so that you'll have more time before you're rescued?
\_ Such pills would have been useful on Apollo 13 and during the
Russian submarine disaster a couple years ago.
\_ How? they all died anyway.
\_ Maybe by keeping them from dying? |
| 2007/8/4-22 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47529 Activity:low |
8/4 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2195538.ece "Walking to shops damages planet more than going by car". You called me a troll when I brought up some of the things this article says. Have a nice day and next time drive, don't walk, if you want to go green. ;-) \_ Why do you waste our time with this crap? Some examples: (huh?) - Someone who installs a "green" lightbulb undoes a year's worth of energy-saving by buying two bags of imported veg, as so much carbon is wasted flying the food to Britain of energy-saving by buying two bags of imported veg, as so much carbon is wasted flying the food to Britain \_ ok fine. what do the concepts in the above 3 lines have anything to do with each other? can't you find a better piece than this, this article is making me dumber by existing. - Trees, regarded as shields against global warming because they absorb carbon, were found by German scientists to be major producers of methane, a much more harmful greenhouse gas absorb carbon, were found by German scientists to be major producers of methane, a much more harmful greenhouse gas \_ The German study may be incorrect as a Dutch study has failed to confirm the same: http://www.physorg.com/news96890121.html Who are you? Please kill yourself. \_ If you have a counter then please post it. If all you have to say is childish nonsense and more personal attack, then you can stop anytime. I was waiting for someone intelligent to reply, not a knee jerker. Have a nice day, friend. \_ He's suggesting that you produce a lot of carbon dioxide and that he'd like you to offset his own carbon production by ceasing your output. Sounds like a winnning solution. -!pp \_ Childish smearing: A good way to avoid any intelligent debate. As expected. \_ Who gets 100% of their calories from beef? What a silly "study." The obvious answer, which is later in the article, is to eat less meat and imported veggies. Also, live less then 3 miles from the store. Who lives that far from the store? Suburbanites? \_ Up until this July there wasn't a grocery store in downtown LA. \_ "180 calories to walk to the store. 150 calories to remain alive while sitting on the couch for the same time period. maybe we should all just die instead. tc, bogota, colombia" This comment on the "study" says it all. \_ Except it isn't 150 calories to sit on the couch or we'd all be starving. Here's some basic math on that number. Let's assume the poster meant 150 calories per hour to sit on the couch. 150 calories/hour X 24 hours = 3600 calories/day. Depending on how active you are 1800-2400 calories will maintain body weight. By this person's "says it all" comment, we'd all quickly starve to death on a normal diet just sitting on the couch. \_ Is someone talking? Can't you read? That comment said it all. \_ I read. Try some math. The comment was stupid. Try again. \_ If you sit on the couch 24hrs a day and not letting yourself fall asleep, yeah you'll quickly die. Anyway, a body awake burns more calories than a body asleep. \_ Trolling or just pedantic? \_ A sleeping body generates less heat. That's why you use a blanket when you sleep in order to not feel chilly and wake up. \_ Ok, and this changes the numbers how? At zero calories for 8 hours of sleep you're still burning 2400 calories/day if you burn 150/hour slacking on the couch the other 16. You'd still starve, just more slowly. And that's zero calories for sleeping which we know is too low but I'm taking the extreme case against my point for demonstration purposes. \_ What percentage of people who get all their calories from beef actually walk anywhere? |
| 2007/7/24-26 [Science/GlobalWarming, Science/Electric, Science/Battery] UID:47414 Activity:nil |
7/24 Power outage in downtown SF. Lots of websites down.
\_ Unable to surf, SF's civilization is down! CODE RED!!! Terrorism!
\_ They got LJ, and now a million emo kids have nowhere to slit
their wrists.
\_ http://valleywag.com/tech/breakdowns/a-drunk-employee-kills-all-of-the-websites-you-care-about-282021.php
\_ My old roommate drinks a lot and works there... hmmmmmm and is not online
\_ FWIW I think the drunk employee story is a sham, but who knows.
Just seems too much of a coincidence - drunk employee and major
city power outage on same day?
\_ D you know if affected Yahoo's webmail/addressbook/calendar services? |
| 2007/7/19-21 [Science/GlobalWarming, Recreation/Food] UID:47337 Activity:low |
7/19 Group says sharks face extinction due to fin soup:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070718/sc_nm/china_sharks_dc
"Sharks could face extinction within a generation from overfishing for
their fins, a conservation group said on Wednesday"
\_ Plus these people are killing our dogs! BASTARDS!
\_ "More jobs, less sharks!"
\_ And gasoline is peaking thanks to the same groups of people. DAMN!
Stop consumption, use organic only, and eat vegetarian now! Better
yet, go kill yourself to reduce the overall carbon foot print.
\_ We're already lowering the # of people in Iraq, hence
reducing the overall carbon footprint.
\_ "These animals have been here for 400 million years and they may
disappear in one generation, not to provide people with basic
food, but for a solely luxury item,"
\_ What about the idiots killing the last wild tigers and
rhinos right in the fucking game preserves? Sharks are
hardly the most pressing problem at present.
rhinos right in the fucking game preserves?
\_ And the people who shot buffalos from the train.
They should make it into a video game.
\_ The surest sign the intelligent life exists in the
universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. |
| 2007/7/18-21 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47335 Activity:low |
7/18 Zacks predicts Peak Oil in the next five years:
http://biz.yahoo.com/zacks/070713/8635.html?.v=1
\_ I was saying that 3 years ago on the motd and everyone said I was
a tin foil hat wearing nutcase.
\_ You were. Anyway, the article doesn't say there will be
peak oil in the next five years. It says demand will
outstrip capacity to supply. There's a subtle difference
there.
\_ You still are.
\_ This article points out the vicious circle ... Oil prices go up,
which floods oil exporters with cash. Domestic demand skyrockets
due to the new wealth, which reduces exports and makes oil prices
go up more. Some big oil exporters (like the UK was) will no
longer be exporting any oil, domestic consumption will use it all
up, even without falling production.
\_ Uh, circle? How about this instead: there is X amount of oil in
the world. Each year we use Y more oil than the year before,
reducing X at an ever greater rate. As X->0 the price of oil
goes up and easy access to more goes down. What circle? |
| 2007/7/15-17 [Politics/Foreign/Asia/Korea, Science/GlobalWarming, Science/Electric] UID:47297 Activity:nil |
7/14 Korean Researchers Develop Plastic Solar Cells:
http://urltea.com/zd8 (chosun.com) |
| 2007/7/10-16 [Health/Disease/General, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47246 Activity:moderate |
7/10 Global Warming Could Fuel War - Yahoo! News:
http://www.csua.org/u/j3z
"The authors reviewed 899 wars fought in China between 1000 and 1911
and found a correlation between the frequency of warfare and records
of temperature changes."
\_ Universal Privatization will solve the problem! -Republican
\_ economics cause wars. When you have an economy that is largely
depends upon weather, it is not a surprise that weather changes
cause wars. This is also the reason why a lot of information the
Emperor collects are percipataion records through out the land...
He knew his throne is depend upon it.
\_ You mean Emperor George II of the Royal House of Bush?
\_ Aggression increases with temperature. Just look at how people
in S Cal drive. Also look at Africa and the # of wars.
South=dumb, north=smart.
\_ Damn those dumb ... smart Canadians.
\_ Yes, the peaceful Vikings.
\_ Yes, England was very peaceful. You have to tell me
what you are smoking.
\_ good thing it's imaginary
\_ Global Warming causes *everything*. Didn't you know?
\_ I thought everything caused GW?
\_ GWB causes GW, so by transitivity...
\_ Jared Diamond's "Collapse" has some pretty good analysis of
architectural evidence of wars and conflict surrounding the tail
archaeological evidence of wars and conflict surrounding the tail
end of the Mayan, Greenland-Norse, and Easter-Island civilizations
when they hit a time of severe resource shorages brought on by
climate change.
\_ Greenland Norse did great when it was warm. When it was cold it
was unsurvivably cold. Mayans most likely died of disease.
Easter Islanders simply used up their island. I'm sure it is
a really good book anyway.
\_ Jared Diamond is far too intelligent too attribute multiple
\_ If it's unsurvivably cold, how did the Inuit continue living
there? -tom
\_ because they were better adapted to living there
(culturally). This is one of the things covered in the
book, whose tag-line also is 'How Societies choose to
Fail or Succeed'. The Norse were doing some outright
stupid stuff, including, oddly, not eating fish, one of
the most abundant food supplies there.
\_ I've read the book. My point is that the Greenland
Norse more or less chose to starve to death rather than
change their culture. Greenland is not unsurvivably
cold, it's just unsurvivably cold for bovine-based
agriculture. -tom
\_ Yes. And we know what about the vikings? Oh yeah
that they had a farm+cow based culture and didn't
change. From which we can conclude it was
unsurvivably cold for our subjects. Thank you.
\_ 32 degrees is "unsurvivably cold" for someone
who refuses to put on a jacket. The point is
that Greenland temperatures are survivable,
but the society collapsed due to poor choices.
-tom
\_ Greenland didn't hit 32 degrees. Maybe 32
below. Their society did not have the skills
or cultural understanding of what was required
to live in temps like that and wouldn't have
wanted to anyway. Even the Thuule/Eskimo/etc
had summer and winter homes they migrated
between. You can bet your ass they didn't
winter in Greenland during a mini-ice age
because it was unsurvivable.
\_ The Norse didn't understand environments as
cold as the southern tip of Greenland? Then
what do you call Trondheim?
\_ Not really. They just barely hung on, and they were
dependent on imports of key items like iron tools.
\_ The Norse? In Greenland? They starved to death or left.
\_ And/or killed each other for resources during the bad
winters, but this was mostly just the usual opportunist
stuff. Also, some intermarried and disappeared into the
native population.
\_ The native population? In Greenland? At that time?
Say what?
\_ Also known as "eskimos"
\_ At what time do you think this happened?
\_ That's "Thule-Inuit" to you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule_people
\_ There's no evidence that the Norsemen ever
intermarried with the Greenlanders.
\_ You know, I don't if you're being contentious or
are arguing from an archeological/genetic POV.
The Norse were infamous for intermarriage; they
had extensive contact with the skraelingr in
Greenland; thus it's not a huge leap to infer
intermarriage. However, I have no archeological/
genetic proof to offer you.
\_ Jared Diamond is far too intelligent to attribute multiple
major collapse events to climate as a major cause. -- ilyas
major collapse events to climate as a major cause.
I have touched Jared Diamond. -- ilyas
\_ it wasn't just climate for all of them (Easter Island and
the Mayans were attributed more to environmental damge --
overfarmnig/deforestation), but the common thread was
conflict/warfare over the few remaining limited resources.
Not surprising -- who would expect people to starve to
death peaceably.
\_ and in the cases where climate change was attributed, it
was more as the tipping point that drove a marginal society
over the edge into chaos and decline.
\_ any society that close to the edge will eventually tip.
be it disease, war, lack of some resource due to any
cause, they're going over. climate change is not a
reason to fall over. the effects from climate change
might be but only for a doomed weak society. |
| 2007/7/9-11 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47232 Activity:nil |
7/9 IEA sees oil supply crunch looming
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070709/bs_nm/iea_energy_dc
\_ its not peak oil, its a 'plateau!'
\_ IEA == Eurofag socialists who hate the American Way of Life |
| 2007/7/6-10 [Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47204 Activity:nil |
7/6 The planet used to be warmer than we thought.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070705191403.gahmdtoi
\_ Well, an actual quote from the atricle is:
"What we've learned is that THIS PART OF THE WORLD was
significantly warmer than most people thought."
\_ You're right, it is not in the planetary averages at all. |
| 2007/7/6-10 [Science/Space, Science/GlobalWarming] UID:47194 Activity:nil |
7/6 Science!
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2115569,00.html
\_ I considered myself a science person, and I can't even remember from
high school the answer for "Why does salt dissolve in water?"! :-( |
| 5/16 |