* Posts by Mark

3397 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Oct 2007

Met Office: Global warming sceptics 'have heads in sand'

Mark
Dead Vulture

"We're not biased, just contrarian"

How come you don't shovel the same amount of shit toward the arrant nonsense spouted by the professional sceptics?

Nary a word about one of the big backers of denialist sites being Phillip Morris. Who make cigarettes. Why are they funding anti AGW? Because if scientists can be shown as wrong, who's to say they aren't wrong about cancer?

But that passed El Reg's laser sight for ridicule.

Maybe they can't SEE red states.

Mark
Alien

We have a repeat of Denialist Point D12

"In the 70's you scientists told us it was going to freeze!"

And the answer to that is

"NO, TIME Magazine and the New Yorker told you it was going to freeze".

There was ONE paper that said that this was uncertain and could be overcome by the CO2 industrialisation was producing and there wasn't a good enough model to show what was really happening.

It's all the denialists who are saying "it was going to freeze in the 70's!".

Mark
Alert

re: The majority is always wrong

Really? So the majority who think fucking little kiddies are wrong and it's actually A-OK?

Absolutes are always wrong.

Mark

re: scaremongering

Strange that Igor should use that title and then trot out the scaremongering story as if it weren't.

You breathe out CO2. Where do you get that CO2? Not from fossil fuels.

So breathing is carbon neutral.

Mark

Bistable state between hot and cold

And so when you've been "hot" for a ten thousand years, you should either *stay* hot or go cold. else you're no longer in a system that has a bistable state between hot and cold.

So how come we're getting hotter now?

Mark

re: Global warming is a fact

But it hasn't been getting warmer since the last ice age ended.

Temperature graph:

------- -----------/

/ \ /

/ \ /

----- ---------

It's been flat most of the last interglacial.

Within the error of an ASCII art chart.

Royal Society says goodbye to creationism row vicar

Mark

No modesty fromYirrel either

HE JUST KNOWS. AND YOU DO TO!!! Even if you don't.

He's the one who has decided that the question to the answer "what equals 2" is "one plus one". HE KNOWS God exists (1) and (+) therefore anything done is because god did it (1).

That there could be any one of a billion answers matters not. HE KNOWS. And YOU DO TO.

Mark

How do I know the bible is written by man?

Because it says "Copyright King James Bible".

Because God didn't dictate it in English.

Because there are several versions that don't agree.

Because God hasn't submitted to court a copyright infringement case.

Because God hasn't said he did.

Mark

The bible is a book written by men

translated into english by men, edited and added to by men.

No "Copyright God, 4004BC".

God didn't tell me, humans writing a book told me. That's not god.

Mark

Occam's Razor

Uh, how do you know God told me when *I* don't know any such thing???

So if God also created time and is therefore outside time, why must the universe have been created WHILE TIME EXISTED? The Big Bang theory is that before the Big Bang, there was no time. Therefore no "before the big bang". No need for God at the moment.

Now as to "where did all that mass come from", well gravitational potential energy is negative. E=mc^2 tells us mass is positive energy.

So that's where the mass came from.

If you want a more accurate explanation, read up on the theory.

Are you calling yourself a five-year old or are you saying that I've seen through your spurious "reasoning"?

Mark
Boffin

It may be worth noticing

That the God Squad are being told they're wrong and look at all the "I'm completely neutral" party are telling scientists that they can't say that.

How bad would it get if GodSquad children were being told this! The parents would go apeshit! Completely librarian-poo!

Mark

@Bob Period

Well, what created the creator? Why is the creator there?

Now if the answer to "How did all this matter come about" is "God did it", where do you go after that? What learning is possible if you're wrong? You aren't looking, you "know" the answer.

If the answer is "The Big Bang" then you have the option to investigate whether you're right. If you're wrong, then you will come up with a different explanation until you get something that fits. You are able to investigate because this isn't "divine truth", but "human truth" and believing people wrong is completely acceptable. Believing God is wrong is not acceptable in the least.

Mark
Paris Hilton

@Yirrel re: Typical Reactions

Are you talking about the creationists fairytale? Or the ID'ers "Aliens wot did it" fairytale?

Well, at least you seem to see the truth that these tales with no supporting evidence and no method of advancing knowledge (beyond "God did it" or "Aliens did it". wonder: Was it Xenu what did it?) are in fact fairytales.

You're beginning to open that mind of yours.

Mark

Occam's razor says take the simplest route and for me that's creation

Except that there's one honking GREAT BIG assumption there that breaks it:

What did the creating?

Which leads on to these assumptions:

Who created that?

What are they creating?

Why are they creating?

How can I spot it?

etc.

Mark

re: SCIENCE AND RELIGION MUST TALK

So why not in RE classes? Why not talk in Church?

Mark

@Martin Yirrell

Nope, MRSA has not been around for a long time.

Mark

@Martin Yirrell

"I don't know if MRSA is a new "illness" or not. Packing people into hospitals like sardines don't hlp"

Bob, how can it be detrimental if there is no such thing as adaptive evolution? If you pack lots of people together too close, they will share their illnesses but will not create new ones.

Unless the illnesses mutate and adapt to the new situation of resisting treatments.

Mark

Re: Typical Reactions

"When faced with something they cannot come to terms with let alone begin to understand people first close their hearts and minds and then lash out in anger at those who and that which represents the true source of all wisdom."

Uh, you seem to be closing your heart and mind to "the true source of all wisdom" to be anything other than your assumption of the personification of God.

You seem to be polarising your thoughts so that anything other than "all our knowledge is from God" doesn't get in. No possibility of that being wrong is able to pass in and be assessed by you.

Before you ask one side to open their eyes, open yours.

Mark
Boffin

@Yirrel

Then how come there didn't USED to be MRSA? How come DDT resistant mozzies weren't there until DDT had been used for a while? Why were they not as effective at resisting the problems of us trying to kill them in the past as now?

If it is merely "variation", then the variation would remain the same and the problem would not be getting worse.

Mark
Boffin

@BobPeriod

We used to die a lot too. Our infant mortality rate went down as we discovered why children were getting unwell. As we discovered penicillin we found a way to kill many more bugs. And this was effective for many years.

Then we started to see resistance to penicillin in the organisms that used to die from its application.

Why did we see that *come into existence*?

Then we invented or created new forms of penicillin. Versions these creatures had never seen before and these versions worked.

For a while.

Why is it they used to work if the variation to resist the new forms was as strong a hundred years ago as they are now?

Mark
IT Angle

re: Nope, no blood

So no knives being pushed in, either.

Hyperbole, this is called.

Now would it be considered rude to ask that the Pope be removed from his position if he said "well, y'know, maybe God doesn't exist. He's never talked to me, for a start."?

Or is this too "baying for blood"?

Mark

addendum to "re: Brock et al"

Oh, and if the bacteria only live months, how come each generation doesn't have to start from scratch in their "drug tolerance" like drug users' children do if this resistance/tolerance is not inheritable?

Mark
Paris Hilton

re: Brock et al

"Oh btw MRSA is a result of crap management and cleanliness so it's not a good example."

Uh, how does crap management mean that MRSA didn't ***evovle*** resistance to the antibiotics being used poorly?

Crap management: use less cleaner because that's cheaper than using enough cleaner.

Result: bugs are allowed to survive damage from the cleaning.

Bugs that are more resistant have more bug-children.

The bug-children have the genetic traits of their parents plus some random changes from transcription errors.

The bug-children are left to survive the next round of cleaning.

Those bug-children best able to survive out of this already survivable race of bugs have more bug-children.

This is the theory of evolution by natural selection that you say doesn't exist.

Are you a throwback?

Scientists study near-death sensations

Mark
Paris Hilton

the end of the world is nigh!

What? Rite nigh? Before beddy-bies?

Dash it.

Labour minister says 14 year olds should get ID cards

Mark

Re: rolling it back

"Que one new PM throwing his ID card away, and urging the rest of us to do so too. I just hope there's a policeman at hand to slap a no littering fine on him, we know who you are."

Point 1: It's "Cue", As in Autocue. Cueing up.

Point 2: No worries, there's no criminal intent so no investigation. Honest.

Police drop BT-Phorm probe

Mark

@Dave

That argument is how the US government gets around their laws: they pay a private company to do it and then exercise their force in ensuring you can't sue the company for doing it.

The government protecting BT is the government exercising its power to the cause against the public.

What's the cost of global warming?

Mark

Other planets have different seasons.

Also, have you treated these figures of extraplanetary changes with the same skepticism as you treat AGW?

No?

Then you're not a skeptic.

Mark
Boffin

The Space Sunshde

OK, so who gets the shade? If you make it big enough to cover the earth, it has to be bigger than the moon in diameter. If you don't make it that big, it won't cover a lot of the earth, so who gets to have night in the day?

Mark

Wonderful Miracle Limestone

"Final point of note. Do you actually know what traps the most carbon in the Earth's crust. I'll give you a hint, it is neither biomass, nor fossil fuels. In fact it's limestone"

And how quickly does limestone grow?

Royal Society: Schools should show creationism 'respect'

Mark

So if I "get your point"

the statement "Faith is evidence of god" is true if you have a definition of "evidence" that means "faith".

Would that be correct?

So you're telling us "Faith is Faith of God". But using the word "evidence" to pull in the standard meaning of "evidence" as "that which is shown".

There is no evidence of God.

Either deliberately, in which case, you live your life, I live mine (and leave religion out of science, we've got a perfectly fine RE class for it). Or because there is no God. In which case, by not investigating whether there is no God, you're creating a poor life for yourself in your delusion.

PS learn how to think, then learn how to put an argument on the table. your post was almost 100% gibberish.

Mark

re: Now, now ;)

Which AC are you? Who are you talking to? Your points are so ephemeral and undefined, 100% of life as we know it could think you are attacking THEM.

You apparently do not have a life, since if you had something in that area, you would have at least used your few minutes you spent typing on this site to produce something that could be read and your meaning gleaned from the words used.

However, your inability to say anything and use so many words to do so indicate that no, you don't have anything better to do with your minutes spent here.

Mark

You didn't explain where "explanation" comes from "faith"

Again.

Oh, and a little snippet for those who read religious texts and find "astounding proofs of their validity":

The Brahma Year is about 4.5 billion years. An astounding correspondence with the age of the earth.

So those Indians must have the right scripture, not you whiney little western christians.

US Congress votes for some offshore oil relaxations

Mark

re: Matt Bryant

Nope, not.

You're binding yourself too tightly to the neo-con oilman ideal.

Remember, you don't have a RIGHT to profit, just to liberty and happiness.

Mark

re: offshore relaxation

The reserves are not even a years' consumption, so the price of oil worldwide will be unaffected by the drilling offfshore.

So what's the difference between 97% of bugger all and 3% of bugger all?

Bugger all.

Now add in that people in the US are pissed off at offshore windfarms (spoil the landscape don'tchaknow), why is a freaking oil platform (and pipe and anceillaries and the clean up) OK?

Because the oil industry makes money from it?

If you don't work for them, that shouldn't make a difference.

Remember, you do have your own sunlight, wind and waves to produce power if you want.

Google's IP 'anonymization' inadequate, says EU watchdog

Mark

Needing IP addresses

Once the information has been checked (for click fraud etc) it can be deleted. There's no need to segment responses. If 18% of people search for "boobies" on google, then they don't care if it's more US IP addresses than Asian ones.

Anonymous hacks Sarah Palin's Yahoo! account

Mark
Paris Hilton

re: xcuse me folks ..

The subject matter were appropriate for official communication when you include the name of the person they were from or to.

Mark
Paris Hilton

re: Anecdoes

Well you're the anonymous that hacked Palin's account, aren't you? You have the same first name, anyway.

Look, if you're going to stand up, stand up WITH YOUR NAME.

Mark

re: excuse me folks ..

In Alaskan statutes it is illegal for her to mail a person in their @gov.ak.us government email address from a private email address. Probably because there's no required audit trail on private email accounts.

They are evidenced.

Some of the emails shown have been affirmed by their recipient to be true and accurate representations of emails actually sent from her.

Now if these were just "Hi. How's your daughter doing, now?" she could show them and clear herself.

But there's already a problem with her use of it. Given that some of the emails have subject headings that indicate government or at least political operational issues were the subject of the email, she has now to prove herself innocent of wrongdoing. The prosecution has already shown ample evidence of wrongdoing for a conviction.

Mark

re: Pearls

I quote:

"since my future is sort of enmeshed with it."

This doesn't sound like a religious acceptance but a cult indoctrination.

If you do not want to be classed as a body thetan, I would leave and not turn up again. You are damaging the CoS cause.

Firm threatens action against CCTV whistleblower

Mark

re: Naughty to give public instructions on how to exploit insecurity

Even naughtier is to put cameras in schools without putting some form of security in place. This "hack" is no such thing, any more than I can "hack" your computer by sitting next to you and watching what you type...

This exploit should have been absolutely impossible. It should never have been IN the product. Releasing this information on how there IS NO SECURITY is the only thing that can be done.

Mark

The companies lack of security

can only be the result of criminal intent. The CEO MUST be a paedo and wanted "plausible deniability" for his perversions if caught.

After all, why would someone put cameras in all the private places of a school if not to view the antics of innocent children at play?!?

Nokia's next-gen Linux-based net tablet to incorporate HSDPA

Mark

No 3G, more tablet.

I'd prefer "no" to these.

More efficient Bluetooth so you can connect to your phone (on contract), replace that phone and still keep the internet thingy (as opposed to having to get rid of both).

More ruggedness, more resistance to water.

Better screen (daylight readability improvements, slight increase in size to A6/6x4).

Longer battery life.

Take what the n8xx series gave us and make them more that.

Not as sexy as 3G, but a damn sight more useful.

Democratic rep fathered alleged Palin hacker

Mark
Thumb Down

[sing/ Gordon is a retard, gordon is a redard. na naah na nah[/sing/

What does another site have to do with El Reg? You're being as much a twat as the person on CBC. worse because YOU believe that sort of behaviour is wrong. The idiot on CBC may not have believed anything wrong in their infantilisim.

YOU do.

At least you say you do.

So shut the fuck up you annoying retard. When someone complains about MS in an unrelated problem, THEN you can take them to task. Don't prove yourself a worse infantile moron by "pre-emptively" attacking.

Mark

re: Why the FBI are involved

If that statement is true, why is it the FBI don't get involved in other interstate cracking crimes? Why is it that ordinary people and their private emails being cracked do not cause the FBI to come to their rescue?

Mark
Paris Hilton

@Chris

Well, there's one way to shut her up!

Fnar, fnar!

Mark

Gordon! Fecyk! Has! Kneejerk!

What's the need of bashing microsoft when their fans will do it for us?

When MS does something wrong, we complain and you tell us we're just jealous. When MS doesn't do anything, we don't complain and you tell us we're just jealous and where are our complaints about MS?

Tell me, do you intend to give ANY reasonableness to the situation?

Netbooks and Mini-Laptops

Mark

Wishlist

A 6x4 inch screen with landscape/portrait. Maybe a little bigger to hold an "action bar" for fat fingers. OLPC screen (black and white readable daylight screen). 10 hours standard battery life. one or two USB slots (with caps). Wireless and bluetooth. The battery life can go down with wireless/bt on, but it must be possible to turn them off completely and get 10+ hours.

Virtual keyboard like the n800/770. Especially like the "fat fingers" version.

Lastly (and to a large extend, most importantly), it should be rugged enough to take the knocks a book can manage and it should be weatherproof.

Ruggedness. If your hands are wet or dirty, you're not killing it when using it. You can leave it on the grass even if it is wet grass. If you accidentally kick it while there, it won't crack. If you hoof it deliberate, well, it's not a football.

Screen. Enough to be a real book and be used as a book reader. A paperback sized one may be a little unwieldy to have in a pocket, but 6x4 is a pamphlet and still acceptable. And being visible in daylight means you can USE IT as a book.

Wireless/BT because I don't think anything would manage today without them.

USB. If anything is missing, USB can supply it.

Virtual keyboard. A hinge is a weakness. It makes it thicker to little real need. If you need a full size one, USB or BT will cover it.

Probably want a proper clamshell to store it in when not in use so that you can stuff it in a backpack and not care about your keys/penknife/running shoes breaking anything. Make it strong enough to handle going through luggage checks or having other bags laden on top of it in the clamshell and you've got an investment that won't disappear because you were careless.

With that, there's not a lot of need for more than 10GB spare storage. Memory dependent on OS, but a Gig would be enough.

The ruggedness is most useful for me. These devices are for wherever they need to get used and getting them there is not going to be sinecure. So the EEE PC being built pretty much like a laptop (with the concomitant holes in it to let flavour flood in...) doesn't rate high enough to BUY it. Screen is bigger than it needs to be, so this is more an A4 book-a-like and you now KNOW you're carrying it. Battery life is close and could come closer without the size of screen they have.

Pick and mix gets you close except they ALL seem to lack the ruggedness. If you had any of them, you'd be worried they were going to get damaged if you put them in your bag. And who needs another worry?

Today be talk like a pirate day

Mark

Dangermouse, you miss the *meaning* of MILF

It's not necessarily someone you'd pick out of a crowd to bang, but would you do the wheelbarrow with her if she was looking for a change and you KNOW (because she's happily married) that there's no consequences to come from it?

THAT is the meaning of MILF.

"You have a woman's hands, my lord!"

Words from a great pirate, second rate captain but first rate second course.

Did the width move for you, darling?

Mark
IT Angle

Constructive criticism

If you're not a web designer, how do you know what is possible? All you know is what you don't like.

If you go to a fancy resturaunt and try some weird sounding meal, you can't tell the chef "you used too much lemon grass and you shouldn't overhead the pan before cooking else you caremalise rather than cook" unless you're a chef yourself. All you can get out is "It tastes like shit".

Take the non-constructive criticism. You don't have to change to obey it, but if you take away all the bits people say they don't like, what's left is what they DO like.

Noel Edmonds defies BBC's jackbooted enforcers

Mark

*tard

can you shove the retarded *tard meme up that orifice that would otherwise feel the intrusion of a large pointy umbrella just before being opened.

for fucks sake, *say* retard or say nothing.