Comment Re:Anonymous coward posted (Score 1) 262
Right on!
Right on!
For the record that music is from the movie Where Eagles Dare , starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. It's a pretty entertaining WWII yarn, especially when the music swells and you hear that iconic drum roll. I didn't know about the movie until late one night when I was in my twenties I caught it on cable and said, "Hey, that's the music from Wolfenstein!" It's one of my favorites now.
Yes, if they can get some actual science done.
A blind man could see in a minute that there's something going on with the atmosphere. We have all kinds of anecdotal evidence that temperatures are warming. We don't need any more suppositions as to the cause of this trend.
What we desperately need are scientific facts, not predictions based on mathematical models. We've seen what using unsound mathematical models can do in the financial sector. We know from historical records that just within the last thousand years it has been both warmer and cooler than it is now. We need a rigorously tested model that can account for what we already know. The model that generated the famous 'hockey stick' need not apply.
One other thing that would be valuable is a worldwide sensor network to get some rigorously defined temperature data. What we have now is a hodgepodge of airport readings surrounded by asphalt, land grant university instruments in rural locations, and various other methods and locations that don't give us an accurate picture.
In short, if politics and activism can be kept out of a nascent climate service, we might actually learn something useful. We, and by we I mean Americans, need to tackle this problem without bankrupting ourselves. We need to know the facts, and to how many decimal places.
Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid has already been mentioned, but bears repeating. Godel's Proof by Nagel and Newman makes a good companion to it. Finally, How to Solve It by G. Polya will help make up for the deficiencies in modern mathematics textbooks. I know I wish my mathematics instructor in high school had given me Polya.
Castles and fortresses were completely negated by modern artillery and war machines. A decent fortification would be an immense advantage against a mob armed with pistols and rifles. Just sayin'.
What is algebra, exactly? Is it one of those three-cornered things? -- J.M. Barrie