Comment Re:As someone living in Canada... (Score 1) 184
...we're always fucked up every orifice we've got, so there's no surprise here.
If you Google "Solar and climate signal records in tree ring width, from Chile (AD 1587-1994)" You find an article with similar findings from 2006.
The most interesting thing about this is not the 11 year cycle that the Brits in the previous email found this year, but the 50, 100, amd 200 year cycles that these guys found in 2006. If solar activity (and hence cosmic rays) is measurably affecting tree growth, what else is being affected. Also important is that this paper shows it is not just historical accounts about the lack of sunspots at the time that can be correlated with the Maunder Minimum (little ice age), but now there is concrete data correlating it with cosmic rays (through the measurement of C14 and Be10).
This is the kind of thing that GW people want to sweep under the rug because it puts their CO2 claims into doubt.
Abstract
Tree growth rings represent an important natural record of past climate variations and solar activity effects registered on them. We performed in this study a wavelet analysis of tree ring samples of Pilgerodendron cupressoides species, from Glaciar Pio XI (Lat: 491120S; 741550W; Alt: 25 m), Chile. We obtained an average chronology of about 400 years from these trees. The 11-yr solar cycle was present during the whole period in tree ring data, being more intense during Maunder minimum (1645\2261715). The short-term periods, around 2\2267 yr, that were found are more likely associated with ENSO effects. Further, we found significant periods around 52 and 80\226100 yr. These periodicities are coincident with the fourth harmonic (52 yr) of the Suess cycle (208 yr) and Gleissberg (80\226100 yr) solar cycles. Therefore, the present analysis shows evidence of solar activity effect/modulation on climatic conditions that affect tree ring growth. Although we cannot say with the present analysis if this effect is on local, regional or global climate, these results add evidence to an important role of solar activity over terrestrial climate over the past 400 yr.
Excerpt from text:
Techniques using cosmogenic isotopes permitted the reconstruction of solar activity variations on longer timescales. Two isotopes are commonly used, carbon-14 and beryllium-10, both produced by cosmic rays. Galactic cosmic rays are modulated by changes in the strength ofthe interplanetary magnetic field arising from changes in solar activity (Hoyt and Schatten, 1997). The existence of century scale variations caused by solar activity has been confirmed from 14C dating (Stuiver and Quay, 1980) and 10Be ice-core data (Beer et al., 1988). The Sun\222s long-term behavior also shows transient dynamics such as the Maunder minimum from AD 1645 to 1715 (Eddy, 1976),
Results and discussion:
The periods analyzed in this work are: (1) 1587\2261994 in tree ring chronology, (2) 1610\2261994 in Rg and (3) 1876\2261994 in SOI. In order to identify the main periodi- cities in each time series and study its time variation, wavelet spectrum was determined for Rg, SOI and tree ring data using the 95% confidence level contour (Torrence and Compto, 1998).
Fig. 1 shows the wavelet spectrum for the Chile tree ring data. It shows a signal associated to the 11-yr solar cycle and fourth harmonic (52 yr) of the Suess cycle (208 yr), in the interval 1645\2261715, and a strong signal associated with the Gleissberg ($80\226100 yr) solar cycles between 1720 and 1860. Fig. 1 also shows others signals in the 2\2268yr band, which are visible with more intensity for interval between 1616 and 1742 and weaker for interval between 1830 and 1950, approximately. This may be an indication of the response of the tree rings growth to environmental conditions at their location.
Fig. 2 shows the wavelet spectrum for the Rg. The signal near 11-yr is the strongest feature and it is persistent during the whole period, with higher intensity in the period 1940\2261994. It may be observed in the upper panel of Fig. 2 that in this period Rg have shown the highest amplitudes (higher group sunspot number), which indicates the non- stationary behavior of the Rg series. The signal near 11-yr do not appear in the period 1645\2261715, the Maunder Minimum epoch.
Fig. 3 shows the wavelet spectrum for the SOI. In this case strong amplitudes are observed in the interval 2\2268 yr, and the signal is clearly non-stationary, with periodicities alternating, present in some times and absent in others
Elizabeth
It's unfortunate that you're getting beat up over this. While I have not participated much in FOSS aside from using it, I do work for a tech giant,...
So maybe this blogger should mind his own business.
...Up the water spout,
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain,
Wave did the spider to the surprised proctologist,
And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.
Danger held your data hostage from the start and didn't provide backup. Then, when Microsoft took them over, it was clear that they were going to mess with the service and servers. No backup + Microsoft mucking with the servers = kiss your data goodbye.
But that's no more an indictment of hosted services or "cloud computing" than a Windows BSOD is an indictment of desktop computing. Microsoft screwed up, and quite predictably, too.
Mod parent up. Apple's advantage has never been the iPhone hardware - it's been software. Android reduces the software advantage in the same way that Win95 did when Apple finally lost the GUI PC war in the 90s. Comparing the Windows/MacOS 8 battle to iPhone vs. Androind is a bad comparison. Android is MUCH more capable than Windows was in it's early versions.
Whats wrong with writing a VERY VERY basic program that gives a list of browser, the user picks one and then the program downloads it via FTP from a central respository and then installs it.
Because then Microsoft couldn't have IE in the default install.
Of course it could be done. I'd imagine a junior programmer in Microsoft could whip something up in their lunch break. An executable that is placed in the start-up folder by default, on opening gives a list of browsers with a brief neutral description, and a button saying install. Then it links to the website via ftp, and does the install for the user, which puts the icon on the start menu, the desktop and possibly the toolbar. Same as every bloody program that is available for Windows.
Honestly, It sounds to me like everyone is over-engineering this to to death. That would take any capable programmer (myself) included less than a day to make. Whats the problem?
It isn't over engineered, it's under conceded. It's a lawyer generated solution. Personally, I'd have loved to see Microsoft stuck with their "well.. you can have it with no browser then!" EU version sulky offer of a few months ago, and watch them try to back-pedal when the drama queen option was accepted.
Did it refund that improperly charged VAT for Irish customers when it finally relented?
Of course not, because that money had already been paid along to the government.
You are talking like Amazon actually benefits from collecting higher VAT. They don't. VAT money is a tax, which is paid along to the government. Of course, if Amazon has been charging VAT while keeping the money, then we are talking about large scale tax fraud. Claiming that something is VAT on the receipt and than not treating it as such in accounting is highly illegal.
I say let's give them their Nobel now.
I program, therefore I am.
