Posts by WageSlave5678

Here's the ugliest global-warming chart you'll ever need to see

Re: Just another alarmist global warming rant

What on *earth* has that upconversion piece got to do with anything here ??

Apart from the ability (in theory) to absorb low-energy photons and re-emit higher-energy photons, but it's not a 1:1 relationship,

otherwise you'd have an Infinite Energy Engine (which is simply impossible).

And your source says that a material could absorb TWO low-energy photons, to allow it to re-emit ONE higher-energy photon.

But the energy balance would have to be the same: photon energy OUT has to be equal to, or less than photon energy IN.

Oh, and BTW, if you have a large layer of atoms (e.g. a CO2 "blanket") where they all radiate in all directions, the net effect is in the same as a parallel stream perpendicular to the layer.

(The maths for that is Undergraduate-level Physics, & we can ignore the curvature of the earth, since the atmosphere is a tiny fraction of the Earth's radius).

Re: Just another alarmist global warming rant

@JelliedEel, I've been reading your posts & see many fundamental flaws. You appear to be cherry-picking what you like, and disregarding caveats and clear information that disagrees with your mis-led opinions. Here's a prime example. You write:

"So that has upwelling IR photons from a cooling surface hitting a CO2 molecule, and then some of that energy being re-radiated and emitted back down, and thus potentially warming the surface. But then the IR photon will be emitted in a random direction, so depending on altitude, most of that will miss the surface and end up on it's merry way back to space. Your 'explainer' rather glosses over that point, but is explained here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#/media/File:The-NASA-Earth's-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg

With a famous graphic explaining the way reality works, and note the 'back radiation' component. This is the actual key to real climate science, because quantifying that gives us the actual climate sensitivity wrt CO2. And funnily enough, as climate models have developed, lowering that sensitivity produces results that more closely resemble reality, because the physics state that CO2 is a weak GHG."

Okay, seems like NASA says that the net heat out balances the heat in

BUT: it clearly states that the *Net Abosorbed* is 0.6 W/m2, with a note to an update in 2021 to have risen to 1.0 W/m2.

You can throw out a lot of smoke about what the cause of the net absorption change is, but the consensus is that it's due to the Greenhouse gasses, of which CO2 is by far the biggest effect.

It's pretty clear in the information that *you* presented, so what are you trying to pull here? (other than attention and discord, in which case congratulations!)

But please look at the data and think a little more clearly about what it is telling you.

As they say: its best to be silent and thought a fool, than open your mouth and confirm it ! :-)

Re: Obligatory XKCD

Loved the Spinal Tap reference to StoneHenge!! :-D

Recommend everyone reads Helen Czerski's The Blue Machine - it's an eye-opener!

The comment title kinda says it all.

but I recently was gifted Helen Czerski's The Blue Machine

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123979539-the-blue-machine

Although founded on strong science, it is an easy read, well- and amusingly-written.

It also not light on the science of the mechanisms of oceanic Heat and CO2 transport,

what Global Ocean Temperature actually means,

and how long some of these planetary processes take to circulate

(spoiler alert: some are near-immediate, some are seasonal, some annual,

but the really BIG effects can take many decades !)

If anyone is interested in educating themselves on the underlying planetary-scale science,

I wholeheartedly recommend it.

NB: I have no links to the author or publishers;

this is purely my own opinion as a Citizen Scientist.

Go read it and enjoy

(& then get serioulsy worried!)

Elon Musk's galactic ego sows chaos in European politics

It's all about falling birthrate vs. Immigration & birth

I reckon Musk is only going anti-immigrant to maximise the effect of a fallling birthrate.

Think about it: fewer births and no short-term immigrant replacememt means fewer people to do the routine jobs, & so greater opportunity for AI & related tech solutions to fill the gap at a more profitable rate.

As always with entrepreneurs: follow the money, & possible returns on investment.

Muskrat has no empathy (his Dad is as bad so no wonder) so doesn't give a rat's ass about people impacted by his campaigns, he just wants money and power. Power and money.

We told Post Office about system problems at the highest level, Fujitsu tells Horizon Inquiry

Re: Dog Fight

Careful what you wish for - the next largest party is likely to be Reform,

and I wouldn't trust those chancers and grifters to run a pub

(where arguably they should at least have some experience)

let alone be allowed anywhere near any form of government

Re: Dog Fight

VOracity or VEracity?

I guess both could work there ...

Police arrest suspect in murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO, with grainy pics the only tech involved

Re: I wonder

My favourite is when my brother's wallet was nicked -

The hapless crim only went and ordered stuff from Littlewoods using bro's credit card,

for *delivery*to*crim's*home*address* ... which when the Plods knocked on crim's door

they found not only bro's wallet, but loads of other stolen stuff in his flat ...

Makes you wonder about some people

One thing AI can't generate at the moment – compelling reasons to use it for work

Re: "Possibly, AI is not the big bonus that everyone's thinking"

I recall back in - ooh, 1990-ish - when some of my then IBM colleagues were touting this newfangled Streaming Video as a "Solution with no known Problem" ...

Or going way back to the 1940s: Computers... hmm, yes, I think the Global Demand for Computers might be: Five ?!

Or the PC, which will only replace typists

Or that ol' Internet thingy, whatever happened to that?

But that's the rub: we just don't yet know how or when these smart youngsters are gonna wrangle the next Netflix equivalent outa this stuff.

It may be quick, or it may take a while yet, but my theseis is that wrangle a few game-changers they will.

... unless it's already happened ...

Here's how a Trump presidency could change the tech industry

Just look what El Muskrat did to Xitter

Well, Musk really helped improve Xitter, didn't he?

And of course, even if he *does* get the keys to the sweetie jar, slashing staff and capabilities won't just annoy a few shareholders,

it will have serious consequences for some people's lives, and usually the most vulnerable.

But of course the Little People don't count to Musk or Trump, they are either easy targets, useful idiots, or cannon fodder in their view

*sigh* I reference the famous classroom scene from Ferris Bueler's Day Off

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA

Anyone? Anyone know the effects?

... it was called ... Anyone? ... Oodoo ...? Anyone? Voodoo Economics ...

Feature phones all the rage as parents try to shield kids from harm

Does the battery last a week now?

Please say "Yes" !!

BBC weather glitch shows 13k mph winds in London, 404℃ in Nottingham

Bring Back the Met Office

when BBC shifted its Weather reporting from Met Office to Dutch HQ MeteoGroup it's not been as good.

I discarded the BBC Weather services 3 years back in favour of the Met Office's own app now -

their modeling is finer scale for the UK region, and Rain Radar gives you a *much* better picture of what is coming from upwind !

I correlate that with WindGuru, who take several different academic public APIs, with greater weighting given to the more local sources, and it's pretty good.

#TheJoysOfOutsourcing ...

No way? Big Tech's 'lucrative surveillance' of everyone is terrible for privacy, freedom

Re: A Small Price to Pay for the good of Olicharcs

"Your lack of privacy protection is a sacrifice We are willing to make ... "

Big Tech's eventual response to my LLM-crasher bug report was dire

Re: Well free the prompt, then

... or his later, equally interesting book: "I am a Strange Loop"

World's top AI chatbots have no problem parroting Russian disinformation

We're back to the 1700's,

This is like the 1700s where publishers wrote whatever they like based on who would buy their pamphlet.

Seems to me we are back there now!

But then the issues of Trust and Truth came up, so Editorial Boards were created who oversaw standards and intentionally built reputations for Truth and Integrity; laid down journalistic standards, etc., so that readers who cared about that stuff could go to trustworthy sources.

Seems to me like we need that online more than ever, and specifically now in the data that feeds Large Language Models (LLMs).

Just because it's on Substack or Reddit doesn't make it true, and I fear we're back into needing Circles of Trust, because we can no longer know or trust who we're dealing with,

unless it arises from a known and trusted recommendation.

A bit like the Masons ... and so back to the future we go again!

So for LLMs, word associations should be weighted much higher from trustworthy sources, (& arguably lower for proven liars, very mucb hlike we do subconsciously as humans)

And that in turn should lessen untruths and hallucinations from AI.

I know, I know, there's a million issues over who decides who is trustworthy, how that is earned and maintained,

and how to avoid being "bought" or corrupted by malign influences, etc.

- or simply cultural biases that creep in unwittingly.

But we should at least be having the conversation.

(And don't get me started about the Platforms ducking editorial responsibility - their algorithms decide who sees what, so in my book they have culpability for pushing lies & disinfo, whatever the legal loop-hole may be! )

The Post Office systems scandal demands a critical response

Looks like the usual Out-Tasking fun & games

Way back in my IBM days we had a project that needed some coding,

which we outsourced to an offshore partner.

We actually delivered a good project in the end, but discovered some insights into offshoring:

Coders who are distanced from the requirement process often don't understand the ask

They can be very keen and rush to deliver something, but in doing so, made decisions without checking

Many of those decisions were "weird" - i.e. out of context, not understanding the ask, etc., - see above

But with a drive to deliver lots of code fast, lost sight of effectiveness, quality, etc.,

Near the end of the project,we had to pile on lots more local consulting for QA, tighter project management, etc.,

all of which resulted in the cost savings by offshoring not being anywhere near what was expected.

All this suggests that inexperienced offshoring results in unexpected cost & time pressures late in the delivery cycle

... and no wonder code gets shooed out the door to meet deadlines, with quality suffering.

Of course it's the weird edge cases that get missed, and are harder to spot when they arise in production.

It's all down to poor management, who then get poltiical and cover their *sses like crazy when things go wrong.

No wonder it failed. And shame on everyone concerned

NHS England published heavily redacted Palantir contract as festivities began

Re: Transparency

Without transparency, it's hard to know if it;s truly an NHS only decision / initiative, or if it's been pushed down by a Gov't Health Minister becasue of commercial lobbying and hiddenm agendas.

All the more reason to give the cross-party oversight Committees greater teeth to force transparency, and at the very least allow Opposition MPs to inspect confidential documents if needed, and ratify any decision for redaction.

It seems that everything this current gov't does has a stench of corruption wafting behind it.

IBM shows off its sense of humor in not-so-funny letter leak

Re: You don't have to be from IBM or middle-aged

TBF the Fringe jokes are voted on by the general public,

who are known for making smart, informed and well-thought-through decisions.

Although I was surpised at even their lapse in standards.

Only a couple of years back Tim Vine's winner was "Conjuntivitis.com - a site for sore eyes"

which streets ahead of this year's very poor effort.

How to make today's top-end AI chatbots rebel against their creators and plot our doom

Re: Inflict Monty Python

Person1 "I'm trying to create an AI that can understand and use sarcasm"

Person2 "Ooh - interesting - and how's it going?"

>> AI: "It's going great. This guy is a real genius"

P2 "Was that sarcasm?"

P1 "I don't know..."

Whistleblower claims Uncle Sam is sitting on hoard of alien vehicles and tech

Re: This could be the biggest news in human history...

Maybe I read it wrong, but it seemed to me to say:

We have evidence of a cover-up to stop questions being asked around out funding,

and not that We have evidence that real UAP evidence has been covered up.

One is the usual internal funding & mission politics of large, diverse organisations

The other is potentially world-changing.

My money is on the former, with added exploitation by a disaffected ex-employee of said organisation.

UK warned not to bother racing US, EU on EV subsidies

Re: Atkinson

Atkinson's article has been pretty thoroughly deunked in a response, posting later in the Grauniad here:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/08/fact-check-why-rowan-atkinson-is-wrong-about-electric-vehicles

Mr Bean does fall for the obvious misdirections: citing the Carbon Footprint for vehicle manufacture without taking into account the whole life offsetting from miles travelled;

assuming battery weight in lorries is a major burden, since batteries are way heaviler than fuel. However, that ignores the additional weight of a large diesel vs. a small electric drive train for equivalent power output, *and* the same in-life savings made from electric power, etc., etc.

I would expect someone of Atkinson's intelligence and education to think more deeply and do better than that.

3/10

:-(

Today's old folks set to smash through longevity records

Re: Longevity in the US

Don't confuse vanity with greed ;-) !

US Dept of Energy set to reveal fusion breakthrough

Re: Not even close

As usual folks are digging etaphorical trenches & lobbing mortars, trying to prove right/wrong, rather than exploring a real debate.

Point is: until Fusion Utopia is reached ( in only 20 - 40 years? Yeah...) we need a diverse mix of energy sources suitable to our location. If you live in a sunny desert then Solar is a no-brainer. But in messy-weathered UK we need a sensible mix. Renewables are cheap when they work, but we also need capacity to dial up when it's cloudy & windless, hence not *all* Renewables, but also not all Fission. Nuclear is a useful source to use when we must, & it's a damn shame our political twits kept kicking that can down the road.

That said, I'm very glad we have a decent renewables section, too.

California to phase out gas furnaces, water heaters by 2030

Re: Are they mandating the replacement tech?

There's a lot of misinformation about this. I looked into it for my place in the UK:

Air source is cheaper to install, but relies on a decent source of heat in the outside to work effectively (i.e. energy in to drive the reverse 'fridge needs to be less than the heat pumped into the house). In warmer climes it's OK, since the outside air is relatively warm & more humid. As it gets colder you have to drive the pump harder (more energy in) to gain an effective temperature difference, and as it drops below zero you get icing on the unit and even less efficiency, and ultimately a barely-warm house and no hot water, or lukewarm water at best and no household heating. It's very limited in applicability.

Ground source is much better, since the ground is a nice, even temperature year-round, so you can drive decent efficiency whatever the outside weather. But it costs 3x as much to install, and you need plenty of land, or deep bore holes (even more costly) to lay sufficient heat exchange pipes.

Oh, and your house has to be completely draft-proof and well-insulated otherwise there's really no point.

so nice idea, but it really depends on your house whether it can work at all.

Enforcing it for new builds may work, provided the insulation and build quality is up to scratch, but for folks in existing poorly-insulated homes all it would do is make them cold and annoyed.

Post-Brexit 'science superpower' UK still hasn't appointed a science minister

Re: a fair amount of damage is inherited by the previous govs

It is clear from recent research that the strongest economic growth comes from a joint increase in consumer demand allied with productivity and investment in people, skills, and new technology.

Strongest consumer demand comes from actual consumers, i.e. the working and middle classes who make up the vast majority of the country, not gold-plated London apartments or super-yachts.

Hollowing out middle class confidence, and squeezing the workers until they can't spend anything has the exact opposite effect: it kills growth, irrespective of any tax breaks.

So whilst the UK's Financial Services may spread a woefully thin veneer of GDP success built upon stocks largely headquartered outside of the UK, and priced in USDollars, the rest of the economy is stumbling down an ever-more effluent-spattered sewer.

There's a continued squeeze on working conditions and pay, a squeeze on rights to protest, and amidst rising inflation any paltry stop-gap on energy bills won't cover the increasing shortfall in household budgets.

So peeking cautiously into our latest government's latest ERG-driven bucket of sick, all they appear to offer is tax breaks. That's it.

The rest of their policies continue to just make everything worse, as those bellweathers of confidence, the GBP exchange rate, and the price of UK Gov bonds, so clearly demonstrate.

Climate change prevention plans 'way off track', says UN

Re: Thought about using nuclear?

Just a small point of order: if the willow is Pollarded, it won't need re-planting. The stumps will just grow new whips. That's the whole point of pollarding: the tree stores a lot of goodies in its roots and surrounding mycelium partners, which the pollarding doesn't affect & so regrowth is fast and vigorous.

Re: So?

You keep shouting about your material, Bob,

but if you don't provide a link for reference, then you're just shouting at an unreceptive audience,

and not helping the debate.

Can you pls provide your links,

and then the Alarmists can provide theirs,

and the rest of us can break out the popcorn and watch the argument develop properly :-)

Nadine Dorries promotes 'Brexit rewards' of proposed UK data protection law

Re: Good god...

dr. or die?

UK and USA seek new world order for cross-border data sharing and privacy

Wave bye-bye to our Health Data then

This is a precursor to The Johnson et al. selling the UK's NHS data as part of the break-up and selling off of the NHS itself.

It's a goldmine to US Healthcare providers, and we're already selling data like crazy, but within the current boundaries.

It's clear this is yet again removing consumer/patient protection in the interests of big business.

Shame on the UK Govt.

OK, boomer? Gen-X-ers, elder millennials most likely to name their cars, says DVLA

To old ot be a Boomer, to young to be Milennial

We've always had weird names for our cars:

Captain Peacock (blue) / Bingo Snozzberry (red) / Chuffer Sandwich (it's too long a story) / Derek Zoolander (the face - it *was* Blue Steel, with the pout)

I could go on, but it'd be like asking a Mad Cat Lady about her 100 cats names...

Re: Nope, Not Named

A bit Tangential, but my dog thinks she is called STOPIT !

BOFH: What if International Bad Actors designed the vaccine to make us watch more Steven Seagal movies?

Re: Prey

Just type:

cc

(US version in cents), or:

pp

(UK version in pennies)

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the BBC stage a very British coup to rescue our data from Facebook and friends

Re: BBC - some programmes were biased

I think the issue is that overall the programming is relatively balanced, but there's a difference between giving equal - or higher - weight to extremist thinkers.

e.g. the inordinate amount of time given to Mr Farage and fellow right-wingers in both panel (1 of 4 panel members, over & over again to represent that extreme view, rather than, a fairer representation of, e.g. 1 show in 10, representing a c.3% balance in the population.

It is clear that Farage's air time had a huge influence on the Brexit vote, rather than treating them as a troublesome minority.

Giving equal time to a minority view is not balance, especially when that view is so regressive, and utters provable lies.