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Science

Submission + - The Myth of Renewable Energy (thebulletin.org)

__aaqpaq9254 writes: Excellent piece by Dawn Stover about what renewables can and can't do. The sun and wind may be practically inexhaustible, but "renewable" energy isn't. Solar, wind, and geothermal power are not fundamentally different from other energy technologies that consume finite natural resources. Good reading for anyone who thinks they know how to combat climate change.

Submission + - Climategate 2.0 (wordpress.com) 4

kenboldt writes: "Someone going by the alias 'foia' has dropped a link to a zip file containing thousands of more emails similar to those which were released in 2009. There are apparently many more which are locked behind a password, presumably waiting to be released at some time in the future."

Submission + - Mexican Cartel Beheads Bloggers (chron.com)

sanzibar writes: The Zeta's killed and beheaded an Internet blogger Wednesday in Nuevo Laredo, the fourth slaying in the city involving people associated with social media sites since early September.

"This happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn't report on the social networks," advised a note left before dawn with the man's body at a key intersection in the city's wealthier neighborhood.

The victim, identified on social networking sites only by his nickname — Rascatripas or Belly Scratcher — reportedly helped moderate a site called En Vivo that posted news of shootouts and other activities of the Zetas, the narcotics and extortion gang that all but controls the city....

Science

Submission + - RSA takes on Scientific Heresy (wattsupwiththat.com)

sanzibar writes: Matt Ridley, Angus Millar Lecture 2011 -
How do you know whether you are taking the rational or the irrational side of an argument, the scientific or the pseudoscientific position? Or to put it a slightly different way, when are the heretics right and when are they nutcases? This question is not as easy to answer as it seems.

Many scientific truths began as heresies and fought long battles for acceptance against entrenched establishment wisdom that now appears irrational: the germ theory, continental drift, the use of antibiotics to treat stomach cancer, low-carbohydrate diets, even the idea that crop circles are man-made. Many environmentalists think the scientific conventional wisdom is right about climate change, and explicitly demand obedience to the consensus or even argue that dissent is illegitimate, but at the same time many of the same people once argued that scientific conventional wisdom is wrong about the safety of genetically modified food and that dissent is legitimate.

There is a consensus that the earth is round and natural selection explains evolution, but there is also a consensus that ghosts and gods exist. So the consensus cannot always be trusted, but nor can it always be dismissed. This lecture will explore the problem of how to decide when to question the scientific wisdom and when to accept it.

Full transcript in the link.

audio:
http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2011/angus-millar-lecture-2011-scientific-heresy

Comment Re:Different thing (Score 1) 776

perhaps i shouldn't assume your one of those warmist religious freaks.

If you are, the irony of these two agreeing that warming has stopped, you cant conclude shit from the land surface data and the ipcc has problems is priceless. Thanks for pointing that out.

If your not, well. Welcome to the club i guess. Now move along and argue with someone else. cheerio.

Comment Re:Different thing (Score 1) 776

here's the money quote: "I have to say that there isn’t much that we disagree on."

lmfao.

"Re the recent trend, Muller reiterated that you can’t infer anything about what is going on globally from the land data, but the land data shows a continued increase albeit with an oscillation that makes determining a trend rather ambiguous. He thinks there is a pause, that is probably associated with AMO/PDO. So I am ok with this interpretation."

" We also discussed problems with the IPCC, Climategate issues, etc., and we tend to mostly agree on all this. "

Did you even read it or was it too much information for you?

Comment Re:Different thing (Score 2, Funny) 776

Now... the denialists on SlashDot are saying ..

Such a weak strawman. No wonder you had to post as Anonymous Coward...
The real news of this story is that the co author slammed him, accused him of hiding data and put forth more data that shows you are basically full of shit.

Scientist who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2055191/Scientists-said-climate-change-sceptics-proved-wrong-accused-hiding-truth-colleague.html

Perl

Submission + - Perl sucks: we have proof (knowing.net)

locust writes: Hot off the presses from oopsla:

Researchers at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville have proven what a lot of us have already suspected: using perl is no better than using a language where the syntax and semantics are picked at random. The full paper is here

Let the flame wars begin.

Comment Re:No peer review, not "science" yet (Score 1) 967

how smug of you. 2 sec google work hit this http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/08/the-surfacestations-org-paper-accepted/

Being that you are the arbiter of who qualifies as a scientist, perhaps you would like to share your qualifications to such. Any published peer-reviewed scientific work to back yourself up?

Comment Re:No peer review, not "science" yet (Score 1) 967

you must be right because you said so.
He is an American meteorologist, AMS holder and conducts scientific analysis of weather stations. What does that blogger know about weather and climate. To be a real climate scientist you must be in bed with WWF, some other offshoot or labeled one by Al Gore. Everyone knows that!

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