Today I Learned

[jim hardy]

https://www.quora.com/How-does-IQ-relate-to-climate-warming-denial

Barnard thinks he's competent to criticize this guy ?


now That's Dunning-Kruger

 

[fresh_42]

You don't need climate models to verify GW. It is completely sufficient to interview Inuits or Micronesians.

 

[mfb]

Barnard thinks he's competent to criticize this guy ?

I don't want to watch 30 minutes of video now, but the video title doesn't match the description in the article.

You don't need climate models to verify GW. It is completely sufficient to interview Inuits or Micronesians.

Global warming is one fact, the evidence that humans are causing it is another, and the Inuits and Micronesians can't help you with the second point.

 

[fresh_42]

Global warming is one fact, the evidence that humans are causing it is another, and the Inuits and Micronesians can't help you with the second point.

Agreed. But I regard this as an academic question. Who is to blame is never a good basis for solutions. The question to be posed is: Can a change in human habit change the consequences of climate change?

I once replied to the question whether we are to blame or not with the conservation law of energy: "I don't care. True is, that we continuously intensified our rate of transforming bounded (fossil and later nuclear) energy into atmospheric heat for nearly 200 years now. This energy did not all vanished miraculously into space without any interaction with the layer in between."

 

[mfb]

"I don't care. True is, that we continuously intensified our rate of transforming bounded (fossil and later nuclear) energy into atmospheric heat for nearly 200 years now. This energy did not all vanished miraculously into space without any interaction with the layer in between."

The heat released by the combustion has a negligible effect, something like a few mK, compared to 1 K from the greenhouse gases.

 

[jim hardy]

I don't want to watch 30 minutes of video now, but the video title doesn't match the description in the article.

understood.

The content of the article cited can be summarized as "Global Warming skeptics have low IQ, are stupid and probably racist. "

Which sentiment has no place in civil discourse.

I was mad at the moment but am over it now.

btw that video is the 86 year old referred to inn last paragraph of the quora article cited in post 1578. oops 1378
thanks OCR

 

[mheslep]

I thought that as well, but the data in that article don't exactly support it. ...

That kind of misconception is iconic among Democrats; the insulararity going back to the famous film crictic Pauline Kaen's comment, "I only know one person who voted for Nixon" in 1972 (Nixon won by more than 17 million votes.) The interesting question is why the myopia continues, to be answered in a future Today I Learned.

 

[OCR]

I was mad at the moment ...

Lol, and I'm still mad, because I actually read part of that article, thereby, proving the fact... I have a really low IQ...

Which sentiment has no place in civil discourse.

And irrespective of the issue, I'm a dumb-ass; I completely agree with you .....BTW Jim, even though I can barely comprehend, I think the Quora article cited was from post number 1378 .....

 

[mheslep]

Today on my trip to the Hoover Dam I learned that it took only 5 years to build the dam and power plant! I am sure an equivalent could not be built as fast 'today' with so many safety regulations and environmental protection jazz...

And for those interested, the 103 story Empire State Building was built in 11 months, more than two stories per week including the foundation time. Similarly, the 200+ ft Anderson Bridge across the Charles River in Boston also required 11 months in 1912. The bridge is being rebuilt currently, and the problematic construction has become iconic:

Rehabilitation of the 232-foot bridge began in 2012, at an estimated cost of about $20 million; four years later, there is no end date in sight and the cost of the project is mushrooming, to $26.5 million at last count.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion...idge-fiasco/uKS6xQZxFBF0fZd2EuT06K/story.html

 

[jim hardy]

BTW Jim, even though I can barely comprehend, I think the Quora article cited was from post number 1378 .....

you're right
i could blame it on my bifocals but it's more likely my right wing superstitious prejudice against number 13.

 

[OCR]

... i could blame it on my bifocals but it's more likely my right wing superstitious prejudice against number 13.

Lol....

 

[Stephanus]

TIL Gabriele Cirulli made 2048 in only one weekend.

Wow, that was fast.

 

[Hornbein]

Today I learned that the notorious Love Canal was originally a 1892 utopian real estate development by a William T. Love. He wanted to build an alternative route around Niagara Falls and generate electrical power.

 

[fresh_42]

TIL that even a first-page-entry-on-a-standard-google-search can lead you to illegal content.
And I swear I didn't enter a single <--peep--> word.

 

[Ibix]

TIL that even a first-page-entry-on-a-standard-google-search can lead you to illegal content.
And I swear I didn't enter a single <--peep--> word.

Years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth with their Windows NT boxes and electronic submission of documents was new, I typed "MPEG in LaTeX" into Google. The results did not help me to embed a video file in the pdf of my colleague's PhD thesis, but did prove educational on the subject of rubber fetishes.

 

[Borg]

TIL that even a first-page-entry-on-a-standard-google-search can lead you to illegal content.
And I swear I didn't enter a single <--peep--> word.

I was in a presentation where a manager was demonstrating software to a customer. He moused over a link that was poorly coded but never did click on it during the presentation. We later found out that it would have performed a google search for XXX. That would have been really embarassing.

 

[fresh_42]

I was in a presentation where a manager was demonstrating software to a customer. He moused over a link that was poorly coded but never did click on it during the presentation. We later found out that it would have performed a google search for XXX. That would have been really embarassing.

I can imagine this. I once forgot to change my background image. It was an old painting, so it wasn't really offensive but embarrassing enough.
But my experience today was a search on scientific content. They don't really distinguish between provided openly and stolen. And the domain or site name is only of little help either.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Barnard thinks he's competent to criticize this guy ?


now That's Dunning-Kruger

If he knows what he's talking about, let him publish. His specialty is solid state physics, not climate science. He says he never even looked at the subject of climate change until 2008!. In fact he shared his Nobel Prize with Josephson, who has been involved in a free energy scheme and was actually banned from this site [or perhaps just asked to leave...].

Beware of old physicists; especially those who are talking about subjects that are not their specialty. Even I could rip apart a few of his statements. For example, why are we now measuring ocean temps? Seriously?? How about, because 2/3 of the planet surface is water?

I also like how he pointed to the number of land-based thermometers as a problem and then went right to satellite measurements as evidence to support another claim. You don't suppose we can use satellites to measure temps where we don't have thermometers?

Google "Greenland Ice" and you will see his other statements about the temps of Greenland harbors are just silly. Hey, you don't suppose that dumping cubic miles of ice into the water might make it cooler, do you? Just a thought... since we all seem to be shooting from the hip.

 

[Dr Transport]

TIL: I can't take the traffic circle doing 25 mph while riding my bike...

 

[jim hardy]

Hey, you don't suppose that dumping cubic miles of ice into the water might make it cooler, do you? Just a thought... since we all seem to be shooting from the hip.

i guess this is the slide you refer to ?

Assuming it runs in as recently melted fresh water,
Looks to me like it might actually on average years warm it by ~0.8C.

I'd prefer to learn more about the ocean up there , though

"Ice cores from Summit show that melting events of this type occur about once every 150 years on average. With the last one happening in 1889, this event is right on time," says Lora Koenig, a Goddard glaciologist and a member of the research team analyzing the satellite data. "But if we continue to observe melting events like this in upcoming years, it will be worrisome." www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/greenland-melt.html

My complaint with Barnard was his high handed insult to Giaever.

Barnard's degree is English Literature not climatology or physics or psychology
and he actually brags on his closed mindedness
https://www.quora.com/profile/Michael-Barnard-14/answers/Climate-Change

the arrogant twerp made me mad, that's all.

I didn't care for the hyperbolic title of that Youtube ,
but the kindly Norwegian professor doesn't deserve Barnard's "Short Shrift" .

old jim

 

[Astronuc]

TIL, or rather, it was reconfirmed that Space Travel Has 'Permanent Effects'

Astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent 340 days aboard the International Space Station, said that being in space appears to have "permanent" effects that aren't fully understood.

“The environment astronauts are exposed to while in space is unlike anything we experience here on earth. Specifically, astronauts are exposed to high levels of radiation and carbon monoxide, and a micro-gravity environment which causes loss of bone and muscle, vision impairment and effects on our immune system to name a just a few,” he wrote in his prepared remarks to the House Science, Space and Technology committee. “These are very real issues that need to be solved before the human race is able to reach destinations beyond the Earth and the Moon.”

"Exposure to the space environment has permanent effects we simply do not fully understand," he added.

Due to the absence of gravity, Kelly’s skin “did not touch anything for nearly a year,” and because of this it was “extremely sensitive and became inflamed.”

Sounds like he has some kind of neuropathy/neuritis.

 

[Pepper Mint]

I learned today that Montana is the state that is least paid attention to in daily news. There are probably a lot of mountain lions over there.

 

[Hoophy]

Today I learned that the stain on my blue T-shirt is actually soil from Bikini Atoll.

 

[Hornbein]

Today I learned never to watch "flash flood on i-15 30 miles north of las vegas." Once I did, Youtube decided I would like to watch filthy porn in foreign languges.

 

[Buzz Bloom]

TIL:
The Earth passed another unfortunate milestone May 23 when carbon dioxide (CO2) surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) at the South Pole for the first time in 4 million years.

http://phys.org/news/2016-06-south-pole-earth-global-milestone.html​

 

[Buzz Bloom]

TIL:
Nearly all of microbiology, Epstein eventually learned, was built on the study of a tiny fraction of microbial life, perhaps less than one per cent, because most bacteria could not be grown in a laboratory culture, the primary means of analyzing them. By the time he matured as a scientist, many researchers had given up trying to cultivate new species, writing off the majority as “dark matter”—a term used in astronomy for an inscrutable substance that may make up most of the universe but cannot be seen.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...id=gnep&intcid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true​

 

[jim hardy]

TIL
the Russians really did build a "Doomsday Machine"

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/08/world/russia-has-doomsday-machine-us-expert-says.html

Russia Has 'Doomsday' Machine, U.S. Expert Says
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: October 8, 1993

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Russia has a computerized system that can automatically fire its nuclear arsenal in wartime if military commanders are dead or unable to direct the battle, a leading American expert on the Russian military says.

http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all

The point of the system, he explains, was to guarantee an automatic Soviet response to an American nuclear strike. Even if the US crippled the USSR with a surprise attack, the Soviets could still hit back. It wouldn't matter if the US blew up the Kremlin, took out the defense ministry, severed the communications network, and killed everyone with stars on their shoulders. Ground-based sensors would detect that a devastating blow had been struck and a counterattack would be launched.

The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, or Dead Hand. It was built 25 years ago and remained a closely guarded secret.

 

[fresh_42]

Fortunately there have always been men who acted by far more responsible than their leaders:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

On September 26, 1983, just three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile, followed by another one and then up to five more, were being launched from the United States. Petrov judged the report to be a false alarm, and his decision is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in large-scale nuclear war. Investigation later confirmed that the satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned.

 

[Borg]

TIL
the Russians really did build a "Doomsday Machine"

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/08/world/russia-has-doomsday-machine-us-expert-says.htmlhttp://archive.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all

Of course the obvious question is why did they keep it a secret?

 

[Jonathan Scott]

Today I learned that any remaining faith I had in the wisdom of the average citizen of my country (the not-so-United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) was misplaced, although I'm inclined to blame politicians in general for the result, encouraging self-interest not in a "win-win" way but at the expense of everyone else, and wildly distorting facts as if there were no possible consequences.

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others."