Posts by Byham

Google Earth SHOCK: ZERO point ZERO ZERO SIX of world forests disappear each year

Wait until Drax, currentlyEurope's largest powerstation 3,960 megawatts starts in earnest using wood pellets instead of coal. There it is sitting on 100 years of coal seams and instead the intent is to change to wood burning - 70,000 tons per day. Wood pellets will be shipped in from the USA. This equates to approximately 70,000 trees PER DAY, at ~250 trees per acre that is ~280 acres per DAY of huggable trees being felled so that Drax can be 'green'

'Modern warming trend can't be found' in new climate study

Re: Temp data is "adjusted"

"Numerous studies have reviewed the effect of urban heat islands on temperature, and overwhelmingly demonstrated that the trends in temperature are similar for both urban and rural areas" - Actually not. You may find studies by the same people with their thumb on the scales. But there are many studies that show the UHI is real.

More importantly there are many sites where the 'adjusted figures are effectively indefensible - Darwin Airport for example with 6 independent observation stations yet the 'historical climate record' bears no relation to any of them and 'unsurprisingly' lowers historical temperatures and raises recent temperatures. All these adjustments seem to have that in common - which is grounds for some caution. The number of observation sites has markedly reduced the rural observations being the ones dropped. This alone raises the average temperature. Then areas of sparse observation are 'homogenized' by using observations up to 1200 km away. If I said I could tell you what Edinburgh temperatures were by taking observations in Neasden you would be somewhat disparaging of my approach - but that is what the various homogenizations do.

What is needed is a full QMS for these metrics with documented reasons for changing valid observations for each site, signed off by the person changing and the person authorizing. As it is finger in the air algorithms are applied world wide no documentation - and strangely always leading to change to a warmer current average and a cooler past. Changing original data cannot ever be acceptable without full documentation - except in climate 'science' which appears to be more akin to political science these days.

Apple KILLER decloaked? Google lovingly unboxes Nexus 7 Android 4.3 slablette

Re: Nice but...

A Freudian slip? I presume you meant Network Attached Storage NAS not NSA - However, with all cloud storage where you put your data outside your physical security perimeter you may as well be storing it with the NSA due to cozy agreements with the security services by the software/hardware suppliers and the various entities involved.

Cutting CO2 too difficult? Try these 4 simple tricks instead

Re: All hail the climate God!

"I thought it was tern years and just the air, the water is continuing to warm at the accelerated rate."

The oceans are not continuing to warm - this was the reason for Trenberth to call it 'Travesty that they couldn't find the missing heat'. As soon as the ARGO floats were distributed it became apparent that the oceans were not warming as fast as had been claimed. Indeed, NONE of the predicted effects of _anthropogenic_ global warming have actually occurred. There was meant to be a tropical tropospheric hotspot the signature of the enhanced water vapor feedback - it is in every climate model - but it doesn't exist in the real atmosphere despite thousands of balloon sondes, satellite measures and aircraft flights - it's not there. The global temperatures did warm from 1975 - 1997 at a rate slower than from 1900 - 1940 (when CO2 could not have caused it) but since that time temperatures have not risen and are below what the AGW proponents forecast for what should happen if in 1995 all emissions of anthropogenic CO2 had stopped when they actually accelerated. So the hypothesis has been falsified. This won't stop people building subsidy farms marked by windmills but it has led to a huge rise in energy poverty and deaths from cold. 2000 extra deaths in UK in the first 2 weeks of March alone. That's about one person dead per windmill just in March. It was extremely close that there were no power cuts last winter however, as coal and oil fired generation is taken off line next winter there WILL be rolling power cuts - and more deaths. These are not projected deaths from a couple of millimeters a year rise in sea level - these are actual people dying due to green power policies based on a falsified hypothesis but making politicians and greens extremely rich.

West Virginia seeks Google Glass driving ban

Cognitive Channels

One of the main problems is that our brains have only so much capacity. They are considered as 'cognitive channels' - so for example you cannot read this comment and recite a nursery rhyme. One or the other will take precedence. So you can listen to someone talking while you look up a word in the dictionary but as soon as you find and read the word you will cease to 'hear' what the person is saying. It is similar with spatial/graphical cognition your brain can only process one thing at a time. If you start trying to understand the map on 'Glass' then your will stop fully comprehending the road ahead. Even on a normal cell phone if someone starts describing how to find somewhere your brain switches to spatial graphical processing to understand what they are saying and that is the time you will wander in lane, miss turnings or stop lights as your spatial/graphical was processing the description.

So I would fully support the ban on 'Glass' being used while driving it would be seriously distracting. However, for the same reason I would also be concerned about the number of screens and communication devices in the average law enforcement vehicle. Being pulled over for using a cell phone by someone using a hand held radio and lap top on a gantry on the passenger side of his vehicle is less than logical.

Caught on camera: Fujitsu touts anti-terrorist pulse-taking tech

Re: So, you can defeat this by being late?

There is a flaw in your logic

What do you do when you have 'caught' someone holding a bomb? After the remains of the previous security team have been scraped off the ceiling latex gloves as well. Your enthusiasm for the 'gotcha' moment tends to fade. It is a little late once the hot sweaty guy is in the crowd at the security perimeter. Many of these security defences just allow you to tense up.