Posts by JGT

'Turn to nuclear power to save planetary ecology from renewable BLIGHT'

Re: Dunno about warming

In science there is ALWAYS doubt, or skepticism. Consensus is not a valid scientific statement, it is a political one. Peer review is good, but it is not the gold standard. Replication of results by ANYONE is the gold standard. Go look at the cold fusion excitement of the late 80s.

If we are seeing records high temperatures, why are we NOT seeing new high temperature records being set? 90% of record high temperatures in the US were set before 1950.

The need for change to stop, or reduce "climate change" has been based on the 1992 treaty "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" http://unfccc.int/essential_background/convention/background/items/1349.php In the opening page is the following statement.

"Concerned that human activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, that these increases enhance the natural greenhouse effect, and that this will result on average in an additional warming of the Earth's surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems and humankind,"

In Article 1: Definitions, is this definition.

""Climate change" means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods."

The idea from the start (1992) was that anthroporgenic CO2 was THE problem, period. The duty of the IPCC was (and is) to confirm CO2 as the problem. Go read the "Mandate" in the assesment reports. Very similar wording to the above. The bias was towards CO2 as the cause, period.

If you want a good look at the Earth's climate, go read John Kehr's book "the inconvenient skeptic" Yes, it is lower case.

'Shadow IT' gradually sapping power and budget from CIOs

History repeats

25 years ago the data center executives where screaming and hollering about the influx of PCs that was wrecking their carefully crafted setup...and stealing their budget. Sound familiar?

Low sunspot activity linked to rivers freezing: Mini Ice Age on way?

Re: As a layman

"What do you mean with "exterior funding"?" Funding that comes to scientists from sources external to the university, like government grants.

"Most research is funded by government..." Agreed.

"...funding is never directly to the scientists, but to the university." Of course it is paid directly to the university. And the university turns right around and puts it an internal account for the research project.

"So there is no money flowing from a grant directly to the scientist's bank accounts." The implication is a scientist's personal bank accounts. This is a strawman argument. This is not the situation the previous poster was talking about. He was talking about the flow that you outlined.

However, since only the scientist that "landed" the grant, or his assignee's, can use the money, it is functionally a bank account.

No, that isn't right, the scientist has to justify every cent as used for the research project, something he doesn't have to do for his personal bank account.

New nuclear fuel source would power human race until 5000AD

Re: The Usual Silliness

Are you willing to go back to ALL the tech that horse-back riding means? No internet, no tv, no radio, no telephones of any sort, no drugs of any sort (including antibiotics), no synthetic materials (nylon, polyester, safety glass, super glue, plastics of any and all sorts, paper finishes, cosmetics), the grand majority of soaps, detergents and conditioners, no heating or air conditioning, no refrigerated food storage, no insulation materials, no concrete, no pesticides or fungicides, no dental filling materials, etc.

What of the above are you willing to give up?

With a horse riding level of technology how are you going to make the things you don't want to give up?

Re: The Usual Silliness

You have a few choices with the waste:

- recycle it into more fuel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor) The original nuclear fuel cycle int he US was going to include breeder reactors that would take the "spent" fuel and enrish it.

- Intern it in a deep place where it will be safe for several 10k years, or a subduction zone where it gets plunged into the mantle where it will resurface in a million years or more.

- Launch into space and store it on the moon (Space 1999 anyone?), or drop it into the sun where it will remain for another 4 billion years or so. Yes, launching radioactive waste is risky. However, containment design and materials have come a long way in the last few decades, making it feasible and fairly safe to lob the stuff into space.

Water utility hackers destroy pump, expert says

You'd be surprised

Over a decade and a half ago I took a short flight in the LA basin and sat next to a water district employee. We ended up talking computers communications and he mentioned that a city's water system used microwave links for command and control. I asked what kind of encryption they used. He was confused, wanting to know why they should be encrypting the link, it was only doing water system stuff. I mentioned how it wouldn't be hard to override the HQ signal with a correctly oriented and stronger signal. He asked why they should be concerned. As this was before 9/11, I struggled to find a convincing reason and came up with, what if they override the pump controls and over pressurize the system?

He was shocked at the idea.

Seems I wasn't too far off the mark.