宁静

宁静.
Just wanted to wish you serenity.

Having fun with industrial strength pressure cooking

This guy really loves to experiment with cooking, while trying to follow the scientific method :-)

Rolf-Dieter Heuer about before the Big Bang

The European: Do you think it is conceivable that we will eventually learn something about before the Big Bang?
Heuer: I doubt it.

Interesting. He says in the interview basically that humans will push the knowledge further and further, that answering questions will open doors to new questions – but whats's before the Big Bang is beyond our possibilities. And I think I can understand the reasoning, but it is still a bit absolutistic… (via)

A song I just heard, which I think I just fits right in:

There you go
Swimming deeper into mystery
Here I remain
Only seeing where you used to be
Stared at the ceiling
'Til my ears filled up with tears
Never got to know you
Suddenly you're out of here

Gone from mystery into mystery
Gone from daylight into night
Another step deeper into darkness
Closer to the light

Walked outside
Summer moon was nearly down
Mist on the fields
Holy stillness all around
Death's no stranger
No stranger than the life I've seen
Still I cry
Still I begged to get you back again

Bruce Cockburn – Closer to the light

John Hawks on consensus building

I feel so fortunate to have been engaged in this problem, because it says so much about the process of science. Science is always a process where progress requires an opinionated minority to recruit support among peers who are not specialists in the same area. Such a minority may forge consensus through consistent and repeated demonstration of facts. More likely -- as in the case of modern human origins, where new evidence was often equivocal -- a motivated minority will apply a broader range of rhetorical strategies. Over the years, I saw people pull out every trick in the book to persuade the uncommitted to their point of view.

"It turns out fish are essential to the health of a reef."

Scientists say the world's reefs are being harmed by a complex combination of factors; including pollution, agricultural runoff, coastal development, and overfishing. It turns out fish are essential to the health of a reef. Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other leading institutions are also very concerned about climate change because they believe rising ocean temperatures are triggering a process called "bleaching" in which the coral weakens, turns white and often dies.

Captain Obvious to the rescue!

There is a very important message from this news report. The risks to coral reefs are dominated by local interference by humans on its ecosystem function. Such effects include local pollution (e.g. runoff from rivers and shorelines and from shipping; overfishing including the major predator species such as sharks).

What seems to be a minor, or even an inconsequential effect, is any warming of the ocean (i.e. global warming) despite the reference by NOAA in the CBS show to bleaching (they also showed a calving glacier :-)).

Despite this short reference to global warming in the CBS report, the report is quite an important addition to the broadening out of environmental issues beyond the mypopic focus on global warming. The contrast between reef health near Veracruz, Mexico and the Cuba Preserve should convincingly show objective readers that coral bleaching from global warming is clearly not the largest threat to the health of tropical coral reefs.

Will Huntingt …

… tells it like it is:

What a nice inquiry indeed

Although the UK Parliamentary Committee directly asked Muir Russell to examine this incident, Muir Russell refused to do so, and, worse, made a false finding that Jones had not sought to delete emails subject to a prior FOI request. Muir Russell did not satisfactorily explain his false finding when recalled by the UK Parliamentary finding, but admitted that he had not asked Jones about the incident because that would have been asking Jones if he had committed a crime.

Funniest Nigeria Spam Ever

Urgent Information Regarding your Funds
WORLDBANK WASHINGTON DC

WIRE TRANSFER DEPARTMENT
WORLD BANK GROUP WASHINGTON DC.
PAYMENT CENTER
Funds Remittance Department
World Bank

Attn: Beneficiaries/ Scam Victims
After a joint meeting of the Executive Council (FEC), the Senate Committee on Debts/Scam reconciliation and the Presidential Payment and Implementation Panel on Contract/ inheritance fund, which was addressed and headed by President Obama. It became imperative to contact you on the subject matter. This meeting was initiated as part of the recent scams that has been coming from Nigeria
During the meeting, so many negative reports were tabled on behalf of numerous Victims and foreign personnels on how unfairly they have been treated and extorted by some corrupt Nigerian government officials who were vested with the authority to pay them their entitlements. The most annoying and irritating aspect of it all is that they could not effect payment to these beneficiaries after subjecting them to so much stress and trauma. So the WORLD BANK WASHINGTON DC OFFICE has been instructed to carry out the payment to you.
So for you to receive your fund which is worth $17.5M United States Dollars all you need to do is to choose an option amongst the below options on how you will prefer to get your funds.
…

Kindly choose the method you will like to receive your funds with and get back to the paying officer Mr Jerry Rothchild so that he can proceed on this matter rothchildjerry121@hotmail.com or call him on XXX
Best regards
Allen Schmidt

Atmosphere warming at lower end of computer model projections

The end of November 2011 completes 33 years of satellite-based global temperature data, according to John Christy, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Globally averaged, Earth’s atmosphere has warmed about 0.45 Celsius (about 0.82° F) during the almost one-third of a century that sensors aboard NOAA and NASA satellites have measured the temperature of oxygen molecules in the air.

This is at the lower end of computer model projections of how much the atmosphere should have warmed due to the effects of extra greenhouse gases since the first Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) went into service in Earth orbit in late November 1978, according to satellite data processed and archived at UAHuntsville’s ESSC.

“While 0.45 degrees C of warming is noticeable in climate terms, it isn’t obvious that it represents an impending disaster,” said Christy. “The climate models produce some aspects of the weather reasonably well, but they have yet to demonstrate an ability to confidently predict climate change in upper air temperatures.”

Climate consensuses that will be overturned

Just a quick and dirty list. The supporting evidence are left as an exercise for the reader.

1. Human emissions of CO2 are the sole driver of the recent global warming. 
2. Clouds have a strong positive feedback.
3. The recent global warming is unprecedented.
4. The sea level is rising catastrophically!
5. The sea level rise is accelerating!
6. OMG! More and more hurricanes!
7. The northpole is melting!
8. The antarctic is melting!
9. The [insert your favorite species] is dying!
10. The [insert your favorite species] is negatively affected!
11. We are all going to die!
12. Climate change is the biggest threat to nature!
13. Climate change is the biggest threat to humanity!

An comment to the above

1. The maximum contribution to global warming is 50% (probably lower).
2. No, the total feedback from clouds is negative.
3. No it isn't.
4. You call 3.4 mm per year (at maximum) catastrophic?
5. No it isn't.
6. No increase in hurricanes.
7. Yeah?
8. No it isn't.
9. Humans are probably causing it, but not by global warming. 
10. Humans are probably causing it, but not by global warming. 
11. One day.
12. Not by far.
13. Poverty? Hunger? HIV? War? Religions? Capitalism? Imperialism? Modern food?

Dietary consensuses that will be overturned

Just a quick and dirty list. The supporting evidence are left as an exercise for the reader.

1. Dietary cholesterol causes (heart-)disease
2. A high blood cholesterol level causes (heart-)disease
3. Dietary saturated fatty acids cause (heart-)disease
4. All dietary fatty acids cause (heart-)disease
5. Omega-6 fatty acids are essential and therefor healthy [notice the contradiction to the previous point]
6. (Red) meat is unhealthy
7. Grains are healthy

An comment to the above

1. This theory is no longer supported by the scientific community but still lingers on in the public and is repeated by the media.
2. A high blood cholesterol level is one marker (and not even a good one), not a cause
3. Studies either show that partially hydrogenated fatty acids (e.g. vegetable margarine) or sugar have to be added to a diet to cause disease. There are different saturated fatty acids, to show its "unhealthyness" in the lab only one saturated fatty acid is predominantly given – giving a composition of saturated fatty acids found in animals does not cause disease (by itself).
4. Omega-3 and Omega-6 are essential fatty acids. Too little of them is unhealthy. Too much of them is unhealthy. A wrong ratio between them and/or other nutrients is unhealthy. The banal commonplace hat all fatty acids are unhealthy is bullshit. Your vegetable oil will kill you.
5. The Omega-6 fatty acids become unhealthy when the ratio to Omega-3 gets high (higher than 2 to 1)
6. Processed meat is unhealthy. Grain-fed beef is unhealthy. Grass-fed beef is healthy.
7. Studies show that wheat is unhealthy. Studies show that whole grain is healthier than wheat, same as studies would show that heroin is healthier than meth.

Work in progress.

What is society? The cheeseburger example

Further reflection revealed that it’s quite impractical—nearly impossible—to make a cheeseburger from scratch. Tomatoes are in season in the late summer. Lettuce is in season in spring and fall. Large mammals are slaughtered in early winter. The process of making such a burger would take nearly a year, and would inherently involve omitting some core cheeseburger ingredients. It would be wildly expensive—requiring a trio of cows—and demand many acres of land. There’s just no sense in it.

A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.

That is Socialism!

Whether it was a question of the right of petition or the tax on wine, freedom of the press or free trade, the clubs or the municipal charter, protection of personal liberty or regulation of the state budget, the watchword constantly recurs, the theme remains always the same, the verdict is ever ready and invariably reads: "Socialism!" Even bourgeois liberalism is declared socialistic, bourgeois enlightenment socialistic, bourgeois financial reform socialistic. It was socialistic to build a railway where a canal already existed, and it was socialistic to defend oneself with a cane when one was attacked with a rapier.

This was not merely a figure of speech, fashion, or party tactics. The bourgeoisie had a true insight into the fact that all the weapons it had forged against feudalism turned their points against itself, that all the means of education it had produced rebelled against its own civilization, that all the gods it had created had fallen away from it. It understood that all the so-called bourgeois liberties and organs of progress attacked and menaced its class rule at its social foundation and its political summit simultaneously, and had therefore become "socialistic."
– Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

(via)

"I assumed no media outlet would pick up on it. I was wrong."

In 2008 Alice Dogruyol representing The Spa PR Company wrote to me requesting I plug a new genital cosmetic procedure – the g-shot. It involved injecting collagen into the vaginal wall. And was being spearheaded in the UK by a Professor Phanuel Dartey of Harley Street.

I immediately noticed there seemed to be no robust peer reviewed clinical evidence for the safety and effectiveness of the g-shot procedure. I felt the press release I was sent was so poor and the ‘treatment’ described seemed so bizarre that it was best ignored. I assumed no media outlet would pick up on it.

I was wrong.

Several newspapers including the Sun, Mirror, Telegraph and Mail clearly had been sent the same press release as me. The only difference was they joyfully publicized the g-shot and promoted Prof Dartey’s Harley Street practice. And in the case of the Sun and the Mirror the pieces were written by their Health and Science correspondents. Who really should have known better. Since then many women’s magazines and websites have also described the procedure as a sex life enhancer, promoting both the g-shot and Laser Vaginal Surgery (which Dartey also offered).
…
This media distancing could be coincidence, or it may be more deliberate. In the Mail’s case it can be seen as deliberate in the way Dartey is talked about. When his g-shot procedures are being lauded he’s a Professor from Harley Street. When his striking off is detailed his qualifications from the Soviet Union and Ghanaian heritage are at the fore. As @PeteDeveson astutely commented on twitter: “on the way up it’s “Hollywood” and “Harley Street”. On the way down it’s “Ghana” and “Soviet””. This xenophobic coverage neatly airbrushes any involvement of the newspaper in promoting Dartey’s practice – and subsequent harm done to his patients.

(via)

Kierkegaard on how to fool oneself

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.
― Søren Kierkegaard

Severinghaus asks questions …

… and Mann obfuscates. Must read.

DSK framed?

At 1:31 — one hour after [chambermaid Nafissatou] Diallo had first told a supervisor that she had been assaulted by the client in the presidential suite — [Hotel Security Chief] Adrian Branch placed a 911 call to the police. Less than two minutes later, the footage from the two surveillance cameras shows [Hotel Chief Engineer Brian] Yearwood and an unidentified man walking from the security office to an adjacent area. This is the same unidentified man who had accompanied Diallo to the security office at 12:52 PM. There, the two men high-five each other, clap their hands, and do what looks like an extraordinary dance of celebration that lasts for three minutes.

Not that I care much if DSK is innocent or not – nobody in a position with power is innocent – but this shows just how politics is a game for power in our so called "democracies".

"if the data doesn’t exist, the question can’t be answered"

#4133 Johnathan Overpeck – IPCC review.
   … what Mike Mann continually fails to understand, and no amount of references will solve, is that there is practically no reliable tropical data for most of the time period, and without knowing the tropical sensitivity, we have no way of knowing how cold (or warm)the globe actually got.

… Unsatisfying, perhaps, since people will want to know whether 1200 AD was warmer than today, but if the data doesn’t exist, the question can’t yet be answered.

Tiim Osborne #4007
   Also we have applied a completely artificial adjustment to the data after 1960, so they look closer to observed temperatures than the tree-ring data actually were

Tim Osborne #2347
   Also, we set all post-1960 values to missing in the MXD data set (due to decline), and the method will infill these, estimating them from the real temperatures – another way of “correcting” for the decline, though may be not defensible!

"Looks like the error bars need error bars…"

Hide the decline – the core:

Indeed, they did not simply “hide the decline”, their “hide the decline” was worse than we thought. Mann et al did not merely delete data after 1960, they deleted data from 1940 on, You can see the last point of the Briffa reconstruction (located at ~1940) peeking from behind the spaghetti in the graphic below:

Had Mann et al used the actual values, the decline would have been as shown in the accompanying graphic:

Looks like the error bars need error bars…

The problem with tree-rings

Tim Clark said
November 27, 2011 at 6:52 pm

As a physiologist, I could post a million references to studies like this one, on spruce trees in Canada:

“Response function analysis indicated that (a) climate accounts for a high amount of variance in tree-ring widths; (b) tree-ring growth has significant positive correlation with mean monthly air temperature of previous October and November, and with total monthly precipitation of current January and June, while has significant negative correlation with mean monthly air temperature of May to July
…

The best correlated analyses show a greater response to precipitation at all temperatures, and only show a significant response to temperature when water becomes limiting. For those with impaired reading comprehension let me rephrase; water availabilty limits growth, temperature, not so much.

But look closer at the first study. Jeff’s selected e-mails indicate (correct me if I’m wrong) that the tree proxies were calibrated to summer temperatures. Why not with the positive correlations in the fall and early winter temps???

John Skookum said
November 28, 2011 at 3:17 pm

These comments, especially those of Mr. Hmmm, bring to mind an old scam used by professional touts who sell their predictions of horse races to gullible gamblers. They will commonly mail (or nowadays, email) unsolicited free predictions to a very large number of gamblers (their “marks”) over multiple weeks, to allow them to place their own bets and thus “prove” to themselves that the tout has some can’t-miss inside dope on the ponies and jockeys.

What they don’t tell their victims is that each individual subset of predictions is different for each mark, tailored so that their entire set of predictions will encompass most plausible results. Each week, 25% or so of the marks will win, while the rest lose their money. The next week, 25% of last week’s winning 25% will win big again, and so on.

After three or four iterations of this, there will be a tiny fraction of their marks who will be gratefully astonished at how accurate their tout’s predictions are, and for another few weeks they will happily re-invest their winnings in paying a very high price for the tout’s predictions on upcoming races. (The alarmists and their rapacious government cronies have that part particularly well understood).

So what if nine hand-picked pine trees in Yamal show an amazing correlation with temperature, and neatly dispose of the Medieval Warming Period, and predict catastrophe if we don’t change our wicked carbon-spewing ways? The onus is on the alarmists to show me a much larger set of dendrochronology results from the same locality and elsewhere, and give a plausible explanation for how they are to be included in or excluded from analysis. Otherwise, the default assumption must always be that they are cherry picking their results from statistical noise and local conditions. And by God do these emails ever confirm it!