OK, it isn't the first time I've been in a place that got a minor earthquake, nor is it the first time I thought I felt something at about the right time.
This morning was, however, the first time that I'm quite sure I felt an earthquake. At about 5:25AM Seattle got a 4.5 or 4.6 (U-Wash and USGS preliminary numbers respectively) earthquake. My house shook as if it had been hit by a truck, but there was no apparent damage.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Ouch
Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm
Quote:
Conclusion
Even if temperature had risen above natural variability, the recent solar Grand Maximum may have been chiefly responsible. Even if the sun were not chiefly to blame for the past half-century’s warming, the IPCC has not demonstrated that, since CO2 occupies only one-ten-thousandth part more of the atmosphere that it did in 1750, it has contributed more than a small fraction of the warming. Even if carbon dioxide were chiefly responsible for the warming that ceased in 1998 and may not resume until 2015, the distinctive, projected fingerprint of anthropogenic “greenhouse-gas” warming is entirely absent from the observed record. Even if the fingerprint were present, computer models are long proven to be inherently incapable of providing projections of the future state of the climate that are sound enough for policymaking. Even if per impossibilethe models could ever become reliable, the present paper demonstrates that it is not at all likely that the world will warm as much as the IPCC imagines. Even if the world were to warm that much, the overwhelming majority of the scientific, peer-reviewed literature does not predict that catastrophe would ensue. Even if catastrophe might ensue, even the most drastic proposals to mitigate future climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would make very little difference to the climate. Even if mitigation were likely to be effective, it would do more harm than good: already millions face starvation as the dash for biofuels takes agricultural land out of essential food production: a warning that taking precautions, “just in case”, can do untold harm unless there is a sound, scientific basis for them. Finally, even if mitigation might do more good than harm, adaptation as (and if) necessary would be far more cost-effective and less likely to be harmful.
In short, we must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.
End Quote
Wow. On many of the issues involved I don't share the absolute confidence implied by the authors' conclusion, but that has to be the most dense, comprehensive, and sweeping rejection of anthropomorphic CO2-driven global warming I've ever seen.
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/monckton.cfm
Quote:
Conclusion
Even if temperature had risen above natural variability, the recent solar Grand Maximum may have been chiefly responsible. Even if the sun were not chiefly to blame for the past half-century’s warming, the IPCC has not demonstrated that, since CO2 occupies only one-ten-thousandth part more of the atmosphere that it did in 1750, it has contributed more than a small fraction of the warming. Even if carbon dioxide were chiefly responsible for the warming that ceased in 1998 and may not resume until 2015, the distinctive, projected fingerprint of anthropogenic “greenhouse-gas” warming is entirely absent from the observed record. Even if the fingerprint were present, computer models are long proven to be inherently incapable of providing projections of the future state of the climate that are sound enough for policymaking. Even if per impossibilethe models could ever become reliable, the present paper demonstrates that it is not at all likely that the world will warm as much as the IPCC imagines. Even if the world were to warm that much, the overwhelming majority of the scientific, peer-reviewed literature does not predict that catastrophe would ensue. Even if catastrophe might ensue, even the most drastic proposals to mitigate future climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide would make very little difference to the climate. Even if mitigation were likely to be effective, it would do more harm than good: already millions face starvation as the dash for biofuels takes agricultural land out of essential food production: a warning that taking precautions, “just in case”, can do untold harm unless there is a sound, scientific basis for them. Finally, even if mitigation might do more good than harm, adaptation as (and if) necessary would be far more cost-effective and less likely to be harmful.
In short, we must get the science right, or we shall get the policy wrong. If the concluding equation in this analysis (Eqn. 30) is correct, the IPCC’s estimates of climate sensitivity must have been very much exaggerated. There may, therefore, be a good reason why, contrary to the projections of the models on which the IPCC relies, temperatures have not risen for a decade and have been falling since the phase-transition in global temperature trends that occurred in late 2001. Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no “climate crisis” at all. At present, then, in policy terms there is no case for doing anything. The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.
End Quote
Wow. On many of the issues involved I don't share the absolute confidence implied by the authors' conclusion, but that has to be the most dense, comprehensive, and sweeping rejection of anthropomorphic CO2-driven global warming I've ever seen.
Monday, January 26, 2009
From the Frontlines: Ursulmas XXVII
Ursulmas is a nice event for my because I live about 15 minutes from the site - talk about the ideal day trip!
For the first time I spent some effort helping out with the running of this event. Mostly I was just a go-fer, but I also spent about four hours collecting Gods only know how much money at Gate and two hours marshaling for rapier, along with a good twelve hours go-fer-ing. Add in a tournament I actually fought in (5 wins out of 11 fights, and with her permission I killed the Queen Inge (sp?) of An Tir!), some shopping (bought a hip flask with a wolf's-head pattern sand blasted onto it and a hook to hang my buckler from my gear), and general mayhem and it was quite a weekend!
I have a few regrets; due to my time at Gate I missed the Sable Rose Tourney (and I had a great death planned, too - perhaps next time). I also wish I could have followed through on the prep activities I said I'd help with; the Autocrat seems to have forgiven me (staying to the end Sunday probably helped), but I'm resolved to do a better job next time.
I'm going to address killing the Queen a little more; our Queen is a (fairly junior) rapier fighter, and fought in the Bear Claw Tourney (the one I fought in) as well as a few others. Before each tourney she informed the assembled fighters that they had her permission to try to kill her. My impression of the SCA is that a king is expected to look after himself more or less (although plenty of fighters are happy to cover his flanks on the war field), but going for a queen tends to mean belted knights jump out of the woodwork to pound you into the dirt. I was thus rather relieved that her majesty gave us leave; I'm not sure I would have felt right fighting her otherwise.
And it is really fun to say that I killed the Queen with her permission. :-)
For the first time I spent some effort helping out with the running of this event. Mostly I was just a go-fer, but I also spent about four hours collecting Gods only know how much money at Gate and two hours marshaling for rapier, along with a good twelve hours go-fer-ing. Add in a tournament I actually fought in (5 wins out of 11 fights, and with her permission I killed the Queen Inge (sp?) of An Tir!), some shopping (bought a hip flask with a wolf's-head pattern sand blasted onto it and a hook to hang my buckler from my gear), and general mayhem and it was quite a weekend!
I have a few regrets; due to my time at Gate I missed the Sable Rose Tourney (and I had a great death planned, too - perhaps next time). I also wish I could have followed through on the prep activities I said I'd help with; the Autocrat seems to have forgiven me (staying to the end Sunday probably helped), but I'm resolved to do a better job next time.
I'm going to address killing the Queen a little more; our Queen is a (fairly junior) rapier fighter, and fought in the Bear Claw Tourney (the one I fought in) as well as a few others. Before each tourney she informed the assembled fighters that they had her permission to try to kill her. My impression of the SCA is that a king is expected to look after himself more or less (although plenty of fighters are happy to cover his flanks on the war field), but going for a queen tends to mean belted knights jump out of the woodwork to pound you into the dirt. I was thus rather relieved that her majesty gave us leave; I'm not sure I would have felt right fighting her otherwise.
And it is really fun to say that I killed the Queen with her permission. :-)
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Pieces on a chess board
I read once that if you show a chess master a snapshot of a game in progress for just a moment, he can re-create the placement of pieces on the board with a very high degree of accuracy. However, if you place pieces at random on a board, the chess master does no better than anyone else at correctly re-creating the arrangement.
This demonstrates that chess masters see the underlying structure of a chess position - so-and-so's opening or Knight's Gambit, call it what you will, while an ordinary person just sees chess pieces.
The message, I think, is that context is everything. Or perhaps that more is going on than meets the eye of a casual observer. Maybe both.
In another way, you can drop some techno-babble and pretty pictures into a document or presentation and concinve the casual observer or layman that it means something, while a real expert will often sense the lack of underlying structure and recognize a fraud.
But the world is so complex that experts in any given field are rare. We're taught that vox populi is vox dei - but the majority of people can be tricked on any given subject. If the real experts aren't paying attention to the public or aren't as good at painting pictures for public consumption, the public will go with what it is shown - the fraud. I think that the fact that we've begun to accept that the universe is far bigger and more complex than we ever imagined before makes the problem worse - not only is there more to know, but things that are illogical on their face are often true. The world being flat makes more intuitive sense than the world being round - else why don't we fall off? Yet it is round. We accept that. And so we move on to accept more and more things that are less and less likely at first glance. Most of them are true.
Now along comes the internet - the ultimate test of the theory that an infinite number of primates at an infinite number of keyboards... suddenly all the information in the world is out there. Experts have no more voice than anyone else - just one person on a forum.
So how do we know what to believe when it comes to things we ourselves are not experts in?
This demonstrates that chess masters see the underlying structure of a chess position - so-and-so's opening or Knight's Gambit, call it what you will, while an ordinary person just sees chess pieces.
The message, I think, is that context is everything. Or perhaps that more is going on than meets the eye of a casual observer. Maybe both.
In another way, you can drop some techno-babble and pretty pictures into a document or presentation and concinve the casual observer or layman that it means something, while a real expert will often sense the lack of underlying structure and recognize a fraud.
But the world is so complex that experts in any given field are rare. We're taught that vox populi is vox dei - but the majority of people can be tricked on any given subject. If the real experts aren't paying attention to the public or aren't as good at painting pictures for public consumption, the public will go with what it is shown - the fraud. I think that the fact that we've begun to accept that the universe is far bigger and more complex than we ever imagined before makes the problem worse - not only is there more to know, but things that are illogical on their face are often true. The world being flat makes more intuitive sense than the world being round - else why don't we fall off? Yet it is round. We accept that. And so we move on to accept more and more things that are less and less likely at first glance. Most of them are true.
Now along comes the internet - the ultimate test of the theory that an infinite number of primates at an infinite number of keyboards... suddenly all the information in the world is out there. Experts have no more voice than anyone else - just one person on a forum.
So how do we know what to believe when it comes to things we ourselves are not experts in?
Friday, January 16, 2009
Order of Operations
"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven."
Of course, implied in there is that there are other times which are not right for any given purpose.
I'm trained as both a paramedic and an engineer. We both solve problems. We both use a combination of technical knowledge, calculation, experience, and guesswork to solve our problems. But the paramedic would rather an imperfect solution NOW then a perfect one in fifteen minutes, while as a wise man once said "engineers will keep engineering something until you make them stop."
I often think those two different perspectives are incredibly valuable to me. I often think the lack of perspective in my co-workers in either trade is a curse at least equal to the value.
There is a time to rush ahead, and a time to proceed with caution. There is a time to put up a straw man, and a time to do meticulous examination.
Having someone do work you know you're going to need to redo later may be a good option - but not when you're giving them overtime to do it in.
Sometimes you have to slap a dressing on and hold pressure with your hand, but sometimes it is better to let it bleed a little while you set up for a proper dressing. It depends on the severity of the wound, the resources available, the situation your in at the time... many factors. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it is not. Frequently you never know what the best choice was, even after it is all over.
Engineering has plenty of analogues. If you're making a family of parts, is it better to get the parent perfect, or forge ahead on several at once? While you're thinking, the clock is ticking and the budget is being used up. Not as dramatic as blood, at least to anyone who isn't an accountant, but just as vital in the end.
Of course, implied in there is that there are other times which are not right for any given purpose.
I'm trained as both a paramedic and an engineer. We both solve problems. We both use a combination of technical knowledge, calculation, experience, and guesswork to solve our problems. But the paramedic would rather an imperfect solution NOW then a perfect one in fifteen minutes, while as a wise man once said "engineers will keep engineering something until you make them stop."
I often think those two different perspectives are incredibly valuable to me. I often think the lack of perspective in my co-workers in either trade is a curse at least equal to the value.
There is a time to rush ahead, and a time to proceed with caution. There is a time to put up a straw man, and a time to do meticulous examination.
Having someone do work you know you're going to need to redo later may be a good option - but not when you're giving them overtime to do it in.
Sometimes you have to slap a dressing on and hold pressure with your hand, but sometimes it is better to let it bleed a little while you set up for a proper dressing. It depends on the severity of the wound, the resources available, the situation your in at the time... many factors. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it is not. Frequently you never know what the best choice was, even after it is all over.
Engineering has plenty of analogues. If you're making a family of parts, is it better to get the parent perfect, or forge ahead on several at once? While you're thinking, the clock is ticking and the budget is being used up. Not as dramatic as blood, at least to anyone who isn't an accountant, but just as vital in the end.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Willpower
Twice on TV shows recently I've seen a woman stripping to try to seduce a man who didn't want to be seduced. In one case it worked, in one it didn't.
This brings up the question of willpower. This is mostly a question for guys - at what point would your determination not to have sex with an aquintance/friend crack if they were undressing in front of you in an attempt to get you into bed? Or do you have sufficient willpower (or a low enough sex drive) that you could say "no"?
I seem to recall the line "sex may not be the answer, but it raises some pretty good questions." This issue raises many questions that I'm not sure how to ask.
The social trappings of sex make life very complicated, don't they?
This brings up the question of willpower. This is mostly a question for guys - at what point would your determination not to have sex with an aquintance/friend crack if they were undressing in front of you in an attempt to get you into bed? Or do you have sufficient willpower (or a low enough sex drive) that you could say "no"?
I seem to recall the line "sex may not be the answer, but it raises some pretty good questions." This issue raises many questions that I'm not sure how to ask.
The social trappings of sex make life very complicated, don't they?
Monday, January 12, 2009
Where are the flying cars?
Right here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479167,00.html
This is at least the 3rd flying car design I know of; the earliest one is in the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Another was buzzing around in the '90's; not sure what happened to it.
Even if the vehicle works, I'd expect some major hurdles in getting it licensed for public use.
Still, the dream of avioding rush hour snarls remains alive.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,479167,00.html
This is at least the 3rd flying car design I know of; the earliest one is in the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Another was buzzing around in the '90's; not sure what happened to it.
Even if the vehicle works, I'd expect some major hurdles in getting it licensed for public use.
Still, the dream of avioding rush hour snarls remains alive.
Boeing Layoffs
Boeing has announced that it will be cutting 4,500 jobs this year.
So after outsourcing has caused problems for every program they've used it on, they're reducing their internal workforce.
While they still have years of backlogged orders, they're reducing their workforce.
Am I the only one who this confuses?
Last year it didn't bother me that my retention rating had dipped to R3 (the lowest level) due to my promotion. Now I'm updating my resume. Yes, if Boeing honors its contract with SPEEA than the over 2,000 contractors on strength should go before they cut any union jobs (and good riddance, if that was all they were cutting IMO). But... Boeing wants to get rid of the unions, and it has violated contracts before. So I just don't know.
So after outsourcing has caused problems for every program they've used it on, they're reducing their internal workforce.
While they still have years of backlogged orders, they're reducing their workforce.
Am I the only one who this confuses?
Last year it didn't bother me that my retention rating had dipped to R3 (the lowest level) due to my promotion. Now I'm updating my resume. Yes, if Boeing honors its contract with SPEEA than the over 2,000 contractors on strength should go before they cut any union jobs (and good riddance, if that was all they were cutting IMO). But... Boeing wants to get rid of the unions, and it has violated contracts before. So I just don't know.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Recursive Dreams
Last night I had a dream about telling someone about the dream I had earlier last night.
Do you think I should tell them about it?
Do you think I should tell them about it?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
I'm sorry, officer, I didn't know I was exceeding the speed limit...
... by 100,000 MPH.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1870049,00.html?cnn=yes
The Solar System is not only faster than a speeding bullet, it is faster than we thought it was. Part of that is becuase the Milky Way is bigger than we thought it was. Lots bigger.
Well, it has been awhile since I posted last. Much has happened. I've killed myself without dying, been given a rock for Christmas, filed a police report, contemplated buying a motorcycle, hurt my back pushing cars and shoveling snow, recieved a family heirloom, tried going off my sleeping pills, seen Australia, been snowed in, played spin the Dreidel, been slushed in, put snow chains on my shopping list (despite never even considering having them while living in Boston and Pittsburgh), budgeted for the new year, dreamed many strange dreams, and decided that the full scientific name of my cat is Felis Domesticus Marmaladus Longus Roadblockus.
Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of posting. :-)
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1870049,00.html?cnn=yes
The Solar System is not only faster than a speeding bullet, it is faster than we thought it was. Part of that is becuase the Milky Way is bigger than we thought it was. Lots bigger.
Well, it has been awhile since I posted last. Much has happened. I've killed myself without dying, been given a rock for Christmas, filed a police report, contemplated buying a motorcycle, hurt my back pushing cars and shoveling snow, recieved a family heirloom, tried going off my sleeping pills, seen Australia, been snowed in, played spin the Dreidel, been slushed in, put snow chains on my shopping list (despite never even considering having them while living in Boston and Pittsburgh), budgeted for the new year, dreamed many strange dreams, and decided that the full scientific name of my cat is Felis Domesticus Marmaladus Longus Roadblockus.
Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of posting. :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
