http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=68975&cid=6302653

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3309501&cid=42254741\

    30% Troll
    20% Overrated
    10% Flamebait

The last time I looked

A recent Slashdot story claims that

"Some voters in Las Vegas have noticed that Democrat Harry Reid's name is checked by default on their electronic voting machines. By way of explanation, the Clark County Registrar says that when voters choose English instead of Spanish, Reid's Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, has her name checked by default."

Using a story from a local Fox news affiliate as a source.

Interestingly the current version of the Fox5Vegas story (marked "UPDATED: 6:39 pm PDT October 26, 2010") contains no mention of "default options" or "Spanish". It does contain a statement from Larry Lomax, the Clark county Registrar of Voters:

Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.

"Especially in a community with elderly citizens (they have) difficulty in (casting their) ballot," Lomax said. "Team leaders said there were complaints (and the) race filled in."

Has Slashdot been trolled by Fox news?

I plaintively asked for a list of climate scientists who didn't believe in AGW and the estimable (arg!)Styopa came up with http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1715502&cid=32912336

Well, part of the problem is that the whole postulation of Global Warming (oh wait, it's merely Climate Change now, isn't it?) is such a hash of assumptions and begged questions. If an argument has 100 failed component parts, where do you begin in listing who's "opposed" to it?

That said here's a partial list of climate-specific scientists who have publicly critiqued one or more aspects of the general premise "The globe is generally warming and humans are a significant cause."

Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and member of the National Academy of Sciences

Garth Paltridge, Visiting Fellow ANU and retired Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research and retired Director of the Institute of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre.

Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute:

Antonino Zichichi, emeritus professor of nuclear physics at the University of Bologna and president of the World Federation of Scientists

Chris de Freitas, Associate Professor, School of Geography, Geology and Environmental Science, University of Auckland

William M. Gray, Professor Emeritus and head of The Tropical Meteorology Project, Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University

William Kininmonth, meteorologist, former Australian delegate to World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology

David Legates, associate professor of geography and director of the Center for Climatic Research, University of Delaware

Tad Murty, oceanographer; adjunct professor, Departments of Civil Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Ottawa

Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia

Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist, Professor Emeritus from University of Ottawa

Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology at Carleton University in Canada

Syun-Ichi Akasofu, retired professor of geophysics and Founding Director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks

John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, contributor to several IPCC reports

Craig D. Idso, faculty researcher, Office of Climatology, Arizona State University and founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

Patrick Michaels, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and retired research professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia

August H. "Augie" Auer Jr. New Zealand MetService Meteorologist, past professor of atmospheric science at the University of Wyoming

Reid Bryson, Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Marcel Leroux Professor of Climatology, Université Jean Moulin

Frederick Seitz, solid-state physicist, former president of the National Academy of Sciences

Does that list seem trivial to you?
--
-Styopa

Which doesn't sound trivial at all. But who are these people?

So, I added my ha'penny worth to the debate on AGW:

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1559622&cid=31242422
Some guy says:

The head of the CRC (that group that fudged their data) has made a personal fortune from it

And I reply:

1. Perhaps you mean CRU (The University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit)?
2. Where do you find evidence that they "fudged their data"?
3. Where do you get the idea that Phil Jones (assuming that's who you're talking about) "has made a personal fortune" from being an "AGW proponent" (or anything else - hint: UK universities don't pay enough for people to make personal fortunes)

And it gets moderated:

A user has moderated your comment "Interesting" (+1).
A user has moderated your comment "Insightful" (+1).
A user has moderated your comment "Informative" (+1).
A user has moderated your comment "Informative" (+1).
A user has moderated your comment "Informative" (+1).
A user has moderated your comment "Troll" (-1).
A user has moderated your comment "Troll" (-1).
A user has moderated your comment "Troll" (-1).
A user has moderated your comment "Overrated" (-1).
A user has moderated your comment "Insightful" (+1).

Personally I think that comment was maybe a tiny bit insightful, the only information it contained was the correct name of the CRU, but what of the troll nature does it have? If people think I'm being sarky maybe they could mark it flamebait, but troll? Does anyone around here have a clue what "troll" means any more?

So, I see this: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1552564&threshold=0&commentsort=0&mode=nested&cid=31170808

I do not agree that the IPCC is 99.999% correct, I have very low confidence in the IPCC

Meteorologists' models make huge assumptions, they must. I won't believe a thing they've said until they clearly state their assumptions and make at least some attempt to find error bounds.

As an example, what do they use for the C02 absorptivity of sea water in their climate models? What temperature sea water? What salinity sea water? At what rate does the sea water mix? What percentage C02 in the water? What percentage in the Air? What temperature air? What wind velocity?

He's obviously read lot's of the literature, and seems to have some relevant questions, so I ask him what papers he's read that give him such a low opinion of climate scientists rigour:

That's the problem, I haven't even been able to find the papers to read. There are some whitepapers on the IPCC site, but I would like to find peer reviewed papers.

So, how, if he hasn't found any papers can he make such claims?

Anyway, let's leave that to one side for the moment. It's rather sad that it's so hard to find papers that answer his questions about the assumptions and error bars used by climate scientists. His main preoccupation seems to be modelling, so let's go check out what the IPCC said in Assement 4, WG1, Chapter 8 Climate Models and their Evaluation .

Why lookee there. There's a section of references. That's a surprise.

There are hundreds of papers referenced there. But "a skeptic" couldn't find one?

From http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file46772.pdf pp76

There is evidence however that nuclear plant can be designed to vary its output if required. In the case of France there are currently 58 Pressurised Water Reactors (PWR) operating, representing about 70% of the installed generation capacity and such plant has to provide flexible output. In load following mode these reactors can vary its output between 25% and 100% of rated output[29]. Load following can be done twice a day acting directly on the nuclear reaction or/and the cooling system. In 2002, 48 PWRs in France operated in a load following mode[30].

The most recent nuclear plant in France (Flamanville 3, in Lower Normandy, EPR design currently under construction) will have considerable response capability[31] being able to maintain its output at 25% and then ramp up to full output at a rate of 2.5% of rated power per minute up to 60% output
and at 5% of rated output per minute up to rated power. This means that potentially the unit can change its output from 25% to 100% in less than 30 minutes.

[29]
      âoeProgrammation pluriannuelle des investissements de production électriqueâ, 29 Janvier 2002, MinistÃre de lâ(TM)économie, des finances et de lâ(TM)industrie
[30]
      âoeRapport sur la durée de vie des centrales nucléaires et les nouveaux types de réacteursâ, 13-14 mai 2003, Parlement franÃais)
[31]
      âoeRapport préléminaire de sÃreté de Flamanville 3, version publiqueâ , EDF, Pg 26 http://www.edf.fr/html/epr/rps/chap01/chap01.pdf

This is hilarious:

Re: Deploying IPv6 in a datacenter

[ URL fixed ]

Have you Meta Moderated recently? Regular Meta Moderators are more likely to get mod points.

I get this irritating message about once a day.

I haven't had mod points for months.