Posts by Alastair McKinstry

UK.gov on Galileo: We can't stop it, just sign the cheque

Military independence

Everyone seems to be avoiding mentioning that they simply don't trust the Americans and GPS. GPS works for Europe only as much as Bush (or Clinton, etc....) allows it to. There is no way European nations will allow their militaries to be subject to a white house veto forever: e.g. cruise missiles, UAVs, etc...

This (to my mind) is why the EU is making Galileo a priority despite the lack of commercial need. And, at the same time, Russia is reviving its Glonast satnav system, in competition to both, for the same reason.

Met used 'dum-dum' ammo on de Menezes

Shoot to Kill, or simply "Kill."

When does anyone outside Hollywood <em>Not</em> Shoot to Kill? AFAIK, all forces say 'shooting to injure' is stupid, doesn't work and shouldn't be tried; you should either be prepared to Kill, and justify it, or don't shoot.

"Shoot to Kill", as in the euphemism used in Northern Ireland, simply meant

a "Shoot" policy. As in, don't even try to arrest them, just kill them.

Which is what happened to De Menzes.

Judge rules Gore's film an inconvenient catalogue of errors

Counter-argument?

Dan,

its the opposite way round: the existence of man-made climate change is effectively settled scientifically (not the _effects_, but its existence.). Most sceptics have been won over recently - eg. the last 5 years. Even the likes of Bjorn Lomborg, etc. no longer deny it -- hes changed his line to saying its 'not worth doing anything about' (shades of Bush).

However the political spin has been to _claim_ there is much more scientific doubt than there is. About 50% of the population think that the scientific case is unproven; about 98% think its proven.

Can you point for example to recent scientific literature that shows the case unproven?

The search for alien life

Non-Darwinian life

Jokes are never funny when explained, but anyway ...

Theres an unexpected 'double entendre' when talking of looking for 'non-Darwinian life' : there is a planned space mission

Darwin (http://www.esa.int/esaSC/120382_index_0_m.html) thats probably

our best hope of finding extraterrestrial life in the near future.

Its looking for the signature of life on terrestrial planets similar to our own:

oxygen for example being a biomarker (gas, in the presence of

e.g. methane, unlikely to be present without life). So the Darwin mission

is looking for Darwinian life ...

Sun's activity not to blame for climate change

CERN and the Science

Re CERN: The work done by Svensmark et al. has gone a part of the way to showing something that could affect climate: Cosmic Rays can create ions, which could cause water droplets to form.

They couldn't generate cosmic rays : the CERN accelerator can. Hence, CERN

can help prove this effect. It would be a worthwhile experiment.

From there to "Cosmic Rays explain all Climate Change", which Svensmark claims, is a huge leap: you need first to prove:

- the small molecules (DMS molecules of 0.1 um size, I think) do grow into large ones, large enough to seed water droplets.

- That water droplets then form, and this leads to clouds.

- That this leads to more clouds than you would otherwise get.

- That this leads to climate change.

Lots of work. You're far from there yet.

Svensmark claimed that the warming up to 1950 - 1980 or so was due to solar cycles, and that temperatures would decline as solar activity declined.

It didn't, as Lockwood shows.

Theres more to it than that, for a detailed scientific discussion, go to the "Real Climate" blog.

Ubuntu launch marred by website woes

Lesson: don't add a graphical tour of new features

The advert mail for ubuntu 7.04 has a pointer to a graphical tour

of new features on 7.04. Suspected load issue?

The website is now failing over to www-static.ubuntu.com,

which doesn't include 7.04 release notes or the graphical tour.

Brazilian airline takes off in Second Life

Queuing in SL?

Hmm,

Does this mean I can have my Avatar do all my queuing and

hanging about in Airports for me? I wish.