Posts by Nerdo

Mozilla: Spidermonkey ATE Apple's JavaScriptCore, THRASHED Google V8

Most benchmarks actually show Firefox as using less memory than any of the other browsers across a range of scenarios. If you have add-ons, though, all bets are off, as add-ons may be memory pigs.

Antarctic ice shelf melt 'lowest ever recorded, global warming is not eroding it'

Re: *cough*

Tell us, do you know the difference between regional and global?

Zuck on it, Google: 'Public' Facebook events are dead to you

Facebook is the new AOL -- a popular site which attempts to build a "walled garden," their own private internet. I hope in time people will realize how corrosive Facebook is and will leave it for more open pastures.

Boffins cram binary data into living cells' DNA

The title says they crammed it with binary data -- but the article says it is one bit currently, and a decade away from a byte.

But storing large amounts of data should be relatively trivial. It sounds like the innovation here is that it is R/W storage (of one bit) in that they can flip the bit via enzymes, and further, it might be possible to program the genome of the bacteria to produce the enzymes itself so it can affect its own state.

At least, that is what I got out of the summary.

Extreme weather blown away from unexpected direction

Orlowski's confirmation bias is on full display. Any report which agrees with his position, or can be construed that way, he trumpets, and any which he doesn't agree with gets slagged. He also says that the IPCC is a "surprising source." It is surprising only if you believe that the IPCC is nothing but a propaganda machine, rather than an scientific enterprise.

Medieval warming was global – new science contradicts IPCC

confirmation bias

Perhaps this research is accurate, or not, I wouldn't know. However, it is painfully obvious the torch that theReg is holding for AGW denial. They publish article after article which ignores overwhelming concensus, casting skeptical interpretations on anything which favors AGW. But any paper which is contrary to AGW is touted as proof that the rest is a pack of lies.

Dinosaur-murdering space boulder family found innocent

AGW falsifiability

Chris, that is a fine criterion for picking apart useful from useless theories. In the case of AGW, if it was scientifically show that CO2 wasn't rising, then that would disprove it. If it was shown that increased CO2 doesn't trap more IR radiation, then that would disprove it. If it was shown that the long-term global temperature trend hasn't been climbing, for whatever reason, that would disprove it.

In science, unlike math, nothing is ever 100% proved conclusively. Something could turn up tomorrow that changes everything, eg, when newtonian mechanics was shown to be incomplete.

Michael -- don't get me wrong. As I am not an expert in the area, I defer to the scientists who spend their days trying to figure out the puzzle. I also believe there is good evidence to think that an asteroid event could have caused widespread extinctions.

However, I believe that the climate science is in the same or better shape than the extinction hypothesis. On the one hand, the Reg believes scientific consensus, and on the other subject ridicules it at every opportunity. I'm not asking for an invitation to hash out climate science. It is a meta question wondering how one decides which experts to believe and which experts to dismiss.

The register loves to ignore the overwhelming consensus opinion of climate scientists and to play up any doubt and promote any conspiracy theory about climate change.

Yet when scientists discuss what wiped out the dinosaurs, the cause of which is very much more speculative than that of climate change, the scientists are taken at their word. I don't read the Reg for the science acumen of its staff, but I'm still curious to find out how they decide which scientists to believe and which the staff believes it can ridicule.

Note to Mozilla: We don't get the Firefox billboards

I dunno

Kiva is making a go of it and "investors" are guaranteed to not have a positive return.

New NASA model: Doubled CO₂ means just 1.64°C warming

Cherry picking

There are thousands of people working on climate science. This is one modeling effort by one group. Just because it in some way agrees with what you want to believe doesn't make it the final word. In addition, there will be many people who reject the part that says AGW is true and their only take away will be, "See, those other trough-feeding scientists have been proven liars once again!"

Rumbustious Rambus rampaging rebarbatively, again

Founders and directors

Farmwald and Horowitz aren't just directors; they are the founders of Rambus.

Firefox engine speeds past Chrome after Jager shot

People are missing the point

Mozilla has broader aspirations than running javascript trinket animations quickly. They envision that a more powerful javascript will lead people to writing more heavy duty programs in javascript to run in the browser.

Take a look at their new and developing benchmark. Rather than running a couple dozen little code snippets dozens of times, many of which are done in a few milliseconds, their benchmark contains some long running javascript tests, like realtime image processing. In that context, the tracemonkey approach does better as it pays to invest more time in the compile and buy it back in the runtime. For their selected set of benchmarks, they are twice as fast as the others.

'Go veggie to save the planet' UN, EU plans debunked

Morons

I love how El Reg dismisses the work and consensus opinion of thousands of climate scientists, yet one dingleberry from UC Davis writes a report and it is taken as proof that scientists (except this one) are corrupt and trying to hoodwink the world.

You should apply the same skepticism to Mitloehner's work. UC Davis is best known as a Vet Med school. Is there any chance that Mitloehner is getting money from the beef-growing overlords? Or perhaps is just so steeped in cattle rearing (hey, I don't mean it the dirty way) that he is defensive about any accusation that his life's work is causing harm to the planet?

As others have said, it makes NO sense to say that the world's hungry are better served by taking 10 kg of grain and turning it into 1 kg of beef.

Second, dunderheads, the greenhouse problem isn't just the CO2 chain (growing the grain, the massive deforestation in south america), but CH4 (methane) -- it has 8x the greenhouse effect compared to CO2 by volume, and even more by weight.

Me, I'm a chickoterian (TM) -- I eat grains, vegetables and chicken, not much else.