the performance war

Because, as we all know, performance comes in only one flavour.

This is an even sneakier version of what Daniel Dennett calls "rathering". This is where you write "The proponents of A would say that A resolves this issue. As we can see, A does not solve the problem, so rather B." The trick here is that no-one ever said the issue was a dichotomy between A and B. It's been implied by a rhetorical device that few readers even notice. Apparently Stephen J. Gould used this technique a fair amount. This surprised me. He was a pretty solid author for the most part.

Do you really think that SSD is the best storage option for Google Earth's highest resolution imagery of the Nunavut territory? I guess your philosophy is that if the data isn't in high enough demand to justify SSD performance levels, there's no point keeping the data online in the first place.

Then there's a few hundred people who charter expensive hunting trips in the Canadian north and afterwards they go to Google Earth to review where they've been and Google Earth says "Imagery 404: not enough demand to make it cost effective to host the data on SSD".

If it's just a few hundred people, so who gives a shit?

Hopefully they'll read the comments

+5, funny

I'm wondering: is your car a 1960 VW Beetle or 2CV? Because those are the only cars I can think of where the seats can sag enough to make this a worthwhile proposition.

Or, much more likely, you actually don't do any of this.

and profit must always be positive. no, scratch that, profit must increase every year.

The idea is that your backups should be far enough apart that they won't be caught in the same natural disaster.

Oh, OK. That makes sense. Like if you were in the Northeast when Hurricane Sandy hit. You'd probably want it like several states away to be safe. Maybe one in New Jersey and one in Chicago, where the only natural disasters are the Cubs and Bears.

And,

4) People like me who lose their tools on purpose because my wife keeps asking me to help her hang blinds while I'm playing Far Cry 4.

"I can't find the drill bits, hon. We're gonna have to put this off until I settle Pagan Min's hash."

Hell I have Bernoulli disks that are still readable.

Nothing beats clay tablets.

The Babylonians can still pull up their post-close EOY General Journal from 2759 BC if they need it.

in at least 1 different state

Are you expecting an entire state to disappear? I mean, I've heard jokes about California falling into the ocean, but a requirement of having backups in two different states seems kind of extreme.

But I guess it could happen. That's why I always insist on keeping at least one backup in low Earth orbit and another on one of the moons of Jupiter. This way, if Galactus shows up and eats the Earth, I'll still be able to pull my post-close EOY General Journal from 1996. Or at least I will be if SpaceX can ever figure out this manned space flight thing.

There are a lot of people in developing countries without safe drinking water, access to medical care, adequate nutrition and many other serious problems.

I can drive you through some towns in Texas that are just like that.

I believe qbast is being sarcastic

What is your evidence that qbast is smart enough to know the meaning of "sarcasm"?

No one who uses the acronym "SJW" has yet demonstrated that level of intelligence.

I hope that at some point in my life I'm lucky enough to have done something that would qualify me as a social justice warrior.

SJW bot

Uh-oh, somebody's upset about ethics in game journalism.

So will Jane stop incorrectly claiming that the globe isn't warming, or will Jane stop citing Llovel et al. 2014, which depends on the globe warming? Or will he simply chug along without acknowledging this contradiction?

Will Jane ever support his accusation about GRACE with a link to whichever WUWT article he thinks supports his accusation? Or will he simply keep making that accusation with no evidence whatsoever?

Your math was fundamentally in error, in that you counted some radiated power twice... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-25]

Completely backwards, as usual. In reality, Jane didn't notice that his electrical heating power halved when the enclosing shell was added, because Jane counted radiative power twice.

... If your idea of the physics were correct, a heat source within a cavity of the same material would form a positive feedback loop and heat to infinity. Which of course is ridiculous. You never did adequately explain how your positive feedback could occur only once, and then stop. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-25]

Good grief, not this nonsense again. I never described a positive feedback loop that occured only once, then stopped. In fact, several months ago I explained that the equations I'm using account for an infinite series of reflections. But as MIT explained, this infinite sum converges to a finite temperature.

Jane's never adequately explained why Venus is hotter than Mercury. Is Venus hotter than Mercury because of CO2, gray Oreos, or basketball player gloves?

... I don't give a damn if Postma is rude... as long as his physics is sound. Like me, he has had to deal with innumerable assaults by other rude people, who DON'T understand the physics. After a time, that does have an effect, and one gets to the point of having a short fuse. That's just human nature, when people are exposed to bullying and harassment for years on end. If people are bothered by his rudeness, and wonder what caused it, many of them need only look in a mirror. I have little sympathy for them. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-25]

I've had to deal with innumerable assaults by rude people who don't understand the physics, and then accuse me of being rude and insulting without evidence. Somehow, I've managed to avoid accusing them of being "complete and utter idiots" who are brain dead and hate themselves and everything else and go far beyond Nazism and want to murder people.

I cite Mr. Postma because he understands the physics of the problem better than you do. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-25]

Actually, Jane's claiming that Mr. Postma understands the physics of the problem better than me, Prof. Brown, Dr. Joel Shore, the National Academies of Science, the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, the Australian Institute of Physics, and the European Physical Society, etc.

That's quite an extraordinary claim, so it should be accompanied with extraordinary evidence. Or even just basic evidence like the very first simple equation necessary to solve the problem. Once again:

The fact that you insist that I provide you with something I already gave you, a long time ago and repeatedly, represents either a fundamental failure to understand on your part to understand the concept, or simple dishonesty. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-21]

As I've repeatedly pointed out, you've never written down the very first energy conservation equation without wrongly "cancelling" terms. You've only provided this incorrect Sky Dragon Slayer equation:

My energy conservation equation is this: electrical power in = (epsilon * sigma) * T^4 * area = radiant power out [Jane Q. Public, 2014-10-08]

No. Once again, that's absurd, Jane.

The fact that you insist that I provide you with something I already gave you, a long time ago and repeatedly, represents either a fundamental failure to understand on your part to understand the concept, or simple dishonesty. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-21]

A Dunning-Kruger victim would only consider the possibility that professional physicists are incompetent or dishonest. A real skeptic would at least consider the possibility that professional physicists understand physics better than they do, and that the physicists are trying to point out a genuine fundamental flaw in the skeptic's argument.

Here's how to use the principle of conservation of energy. Draw a boundary around the heat source:
power in = electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls
power out = radiative power out from the heat source

Since power in = power out through any boundary where nothing inside is changing:

electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls = radiative power out from the heat source

Jane got the very first equation wrong, because Jane refuses to write down an energy conservation equation for a boundary around the source without wrongly "cancelling" terms. If he tried to do this just once, he'd realize that electrical heating power depends on the cooler chamber wall temperature.

This is all clearly too difficult for Jane, despite the fact that this is the very first equation necessary to solve this problem. Because Jane is so far out of his depth, I suggested that Jane ask a physicist he respects this simple question:

@ProfBrianCox, an electrically heated plate is in a vacuum chamber with cooler walls.
Does heating power depend on the wall temperature?

If Jane were a real skeptic, he'd at least ask a physicist he respects this simple question. But Jane refuses. Why?

It's pretty clear that Jane refuses to ask this simple question because he's just scared Prof. Cox (or any other mainstream physicist) will say "yes", which would mean that Jane's entire calculation is wrong, from the very first equation.

I cited Llovel et al. because of their conclusion regarding the deep ocean. I have already stated what research I would have to do before I could responsibly make a claim that the globe was warming. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-25]

No, you stated this:

... One thing I would have to check, just for example, is what those confidence intervals are given the multidecadal variability, which is not -- at least not uncontroversially -- known to any precise degree yet. What has been claimed to be a newly discovered variability in the Atlantic has turned up, for example. Not to mention that we know during La Niña periods of ENSO there tends to be storage, while during El Niño, more of a release. All these factors would need to be considered. Until I do, I neither agree or disagree. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-24]

Jane, that's not research you'd have to do before claiming that the globe is warming. You'd only have to do that research before attributing the warming to a particular cause. The only research you have to do before claiming that the globe is warming is to read the last sentence in the Llovel et al. 2014 abstract, and ask yourself if the bottom edge of their confidence interval is positive. Is it?

I cited Llovel et al. because of their conclusion regarding the deep ocean. I have already stated what research I would have to do before I could responsibly make a claim that the globe was warming. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-25]

Once again, the Llovel et al. 2014 conclusion regarding abyssal ocean temperatures depends on the globe warming. I've already explained why. If you didn't understand the equations I wrote down, just ask for help. Once you understand those equations, you'll finally see why you can't cite Llovel et al. 2014 regarding abyssal ocean temperatures while also claiming that the globe isn't warming.

I have frequently been astounded by your ability to find past information that suits your purposes, but when it comes to information that may serve to contradict your position, you suddenly appear to have never heard of Google. It is SO ridiculously easy to find references to issues with GRACE that I'm not going to bother to do it for you, and only an idiot would call that confirmation of a contrary position. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-25]

Sadly, that's exactly the response I expected.

I've written about many issues with GRACE, and released my source code. Here’s a quick link to browse the “control panel” of my code, followed by the top level of the program itself. All the functions used in that file are declared here and defined in full here.

So Jane will have to be more specific. I've written about many issues with GRACE, but none that qualify as "rather huge problems".

Past experience suggests that asking Jane to provide a link to support his accusation is pointless, because Jane will just do this again. But if I were to guess which WUWT link Jane had in mind to support his accusation, Jane would just accuse me of putting words in his mouth.

So rather than put words in Jane's mouth, I've politely asked Jane to please link to evidence of these rather huge problems with GRACE's accuracy. Sadly, this won't avoid unpleasantness either. Doesn't Jane see that he's created a catch-22 where he gets to cuss and scream at people regardless of whether they ask Jane for a link to support his accusations, or whether they put words in his mouth by assuming what link Jane means?

That seems like a great way to justify cussing and screaming at people, but not such a great way to learn physics. So I'll politely ask again. Jane, please link to evidence of these rather huge problems with GRACE's accuracy.

... in regard to your Spencer's thought experiment, last year Astrophysicist Joe Postma wrote that your argument in regard to the physics was ... well, let's just say he used rather derogatory phrases. I was not aware of this article until today, but I thought you might find it of some interest. ... [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-25]

Mr. Postma's derogatory phrases are why I've often been puzzled that Jane cites Sky Dragon Slayer Mr. Postma approvingly and repeatedly. Here are some more derogatory phrases from Mr. Postma:

"... climate alarmists are instead trying to negate the human mind ... They don’t want to believe in anything good because their true goal is that they want to murder humans, as we will see below; that is what drives them. ... They negate the mind, they negate evolution, they hate what evolution produces, they hate all living things in fact because all living things radically modify the environment, even the lowliest bacterium. They must hate their own existence. They are a pestilence unto themselves, and they hate themselves for it, along with everyone else. ... Greenie environmentalists are negators of the mind. In other words, they’re idiots, complete and utter idiots. They know nothing of the way the actual real world works and has worked and what it has done in the past, and what it currently takes to keep them alive. I know lots of them and I live around them and they’re brain dead. All you have to do is talk to them to see that they’re brain dead. They don’t have high quality thoughts, and they don’t engage in high quality mentation. ... Have you ever encountered such evil at the basis of such a large fad? This goes far beyond Nazism. ..."

It's not surprising that Mr. Postma refuses to listen to mainstream physicists, because he believes they're "complete and utter idiots" who are brain dead and hate themselves and everything else and they go far beyond Nazism and want to murder people. Mr. Postma recently showed how pointless it is to try to educate Sky Dragon Slayers.

Is Jane more reasonable than Mr. Postma, who's Godwined himself many times over? Let's find out:

The fact that you insist that I provide you with something I already gave you, a long time ago and repeatedly, represents either a fundamental failure to understand on your part to understand the concept, or simple dishonesty. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-21]

As I've repeatedly pointed out, you've never written down the very first energy conservation equation without wrongly "cancelling" terms. You've only provided this incorrect Sky Dragon Slayer equation:

My energy conservation equation is this: electrical power in = (epsilon * sigma) * T^4 * area = radiant power out [Jane Q. Public, 2014-10-08]

No. Once again, that's absurd, Jane.

The fact that you insist that I provide you with something I already gave you, a long time ago and repeatedly, represents either a fundamental failure to understand on your part to understand the concept, or simple dishonesty. [Jane Q. Public, 2014-11-21]

A Dunning-Kruger victim would only consider the possibility that professional physicists are incompetent or dishonest. A real skeptic would at least consider the possibility that professional physicists understand physics better than they do, and that the physicists are trying to point out a genuine fundamental flaw in the skeptic's argument.

Here's how to use the principle of conservation of energy. Draw a boundary around the heat source:
power in = electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls
power out = radiative power out from the heat source

Since power in = power out through any boundary where nothing inside is changing:

electrical heating power + radiative power in from the chamber walls = radiative power out from the heat source

Jane got the very first equation wrong, because Jane refuses to write down an energy conservation equation for a boundary around the source without wrongly "cancelling" terms. If he tried to do this just once, he'd realize that electrical heating power depends on the cooler chamber wall temperature.

This is all clearly too difficult for Jane, despite the fact that this is the very first equation necessary to solve this problem. Because Jane is so far out of his depth, I suggested that Jane ask a physicist he respects this simple question:

@ProfBrianCox, an electrically heated plate is in a vacuum chamber with cooler walls.
Does heating power depend on the wall temperature?

If Jane were a real skeptic, he'd at least ask a physicist he respects this simple question. But Jane refuses. Why?

It's pretty clear that Jane refuses to ask this simple question because he's just scared Prof. Cox (or any other mainstream physicist) will say "yes", which would mean that Jane's entire calculation is wrong, from the very first equation.

Nuclear won't be accepted as a solution until people who claim to believe that climate change has the potential to end civilization accept that the only proven technology capable of replacing base-load coal is nuclear, and that climate change is a technological problem, not a social problem.

This will take a long time.

The green activist movement is completely dominated by Naiomi Klein-style social engineers who don't care one whit about the environment, but who see it as a useful tool for defeating global capitalism. Thus their opposition to any technological solution to the problem of CO2 emissions whatsoever.

Now that climate change is increasingly widely acknowledged as a real issue--the Pentagon takes it seriously, can you get realer than that?--the green activist community will increasingly be seen as the major impediment to solving the problem. The question is: will we push these utopian socialists aside quickly enough to save the planet?