Posts by Douglas Lowe

Mac OS X Snow Leopard First Look

Re: Mac & PC owner

If the optimisations in Snow Leopard aren't worth £25 then surely they're not worth you breaking software copyright laws either?

Ubuntu gets pre-Koala cloud love

@Ash

Ubuntu's NetworkManager was a pile of dross a couple of years ago, but wireless networking has been working nicely on my netbook with the last couple of versions of Ubuntu. In fact in a far more user-friendly manner than the wireless network interface in Windows.

I'm a sceptic now, says ex-NASA climate boss

Muzzling?

I'm sure that Theon is correct that Hanson "was never muzzled" when Theon was his boss. But that's 20 years ago, under the first Bush administration, not 4 years ago under the second Bush administration, which was the one that Hanson claimed was muzzling him.

Yet another case of the Inhofe blog writers massaging the facts to attack their political opponents.

Entire class fails IT exam by submitting in Word format

Consistency?

While it's quite right that the teachers should have RTFM, at the same time edexcel accept excel spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations. Surely the .doc format is as much of a standard format as these; plus, if you can read any of these formats you're equally likely to be able to read the others. Seems to me that edexcel are being pointlessly, and inconsistently, nit-picky.

New Scientist goes innumerate in 'save the planet' special

unlimited growth

Fantastic - so if we all become bankers we can achieve immense economic growth and save the planet at the same time!

Mine's the one with holes in the elbows

'Series of Tubes' Senator convicted of corruption

Election Plan

So, McCain gets Senator Steven's to step down - leaving an opening for a Republican candidate in Alaska. Only with the election just days away they need a well know Alaskan Republican - so in steps Palin (pushed by McCain?). McCain now needs another running mate - decides to go for the celebrity factor, and ropes in Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger for president 2009?

(Note: I fully acknowledge I'm ignoring many, many US election laws with this suggestion, but it's a fun idea anyway)

The netbook newbie's guide to Linux

Re: desktop/netbook syncing

I've been using unison ( http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ ) to keep my desktop and laptop synced. It takes a little while to set up, but isn't platform specific (I sync between ubuntu and OSX, but I believe it's got a windows client too) and is very flexible.

The netbook newbie's guide to Linux

@Tony Smith

The Linux community generally addresses hardware compatibility issues as quickly as it can. It's the hardware manufacturers who drag their feet and don't provide the same level of support that they provide Windows users.

Arctic ice refuses to melt as ordered

@Steve Goddard

My apologies - I'd not realised you were going on about something so irrelevant to GW.

The "extent" of the ice cap is dependent as much on ocean currents and surface winds as it is on the temperature. As many, many people above have pointed out, the volume of the ice is more important than it's "extent" if you're interested in the effects of GW. Next time you'd do well to think twice before getting seduced by graphics which may be pretty, but have at best a very shallow meaning.

Re: Steven Goddard - The Emperor's New Clothes

Pixel counting is all well and good - but, as myself and Jeff have pointed out above, you have to take into account what the pixels actually represent, rather than just assume that they all represent 100% ice cover. Have you done this, and if not, why not?

Not all pixels are equal...

Rather than just counting the number of pixels, you should also take note of the colour of the pixel. They are colour coded to indicate the percentage cover of ice - red = 60%, purple = 80%. A lot of the new ice this year seems to be at a lower coverage than last years ice cap. If you took that difference into account you would probably find that your estimation is much closer to the NSIDC calculation.

Pope apologises for Apple's MobileMe sins

@ Kenny Millar

Apart from you being far too overly sensitive, your comparison doesn't even work as Jesus and Muhammad don't occupy similar roles in Christianity and Islam (the whole point of calling it the Jesus-phone is that he's the Son of God - whereas in Islam Muhammad was only a prophet).