Ping Bil Slowman; The global warming hoax reveiled

[Jon Kirwan]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:25:52 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
snip

I think one most sensible people distinguish when to spend their time
and when not to. You do that. So do I. Some people writing in this
group (and other groups) are both ignorant AND willfully so AND where
it is clear they won't spend their own time "getting better." If you
decide that is the case, you don't write. Why should you? We all
have better things to do. On the other hand, if you have a serious
inquiry from someone who _is_ ignorant but at least shows some earlier
work -- even if that effort was in the wrong direction, it was engaged
seriously -- then you may feel better about trying to correct them or
point out some thought of yours that may help them.

Climate science is fraught with well-funded confusion, discord, and
the sewing of far less certainty where there is far more available.
Some scientists are ... wary. They've been caught flat-footed. (I
have been, too.) They might imagine a sincere request, respond in a
fair minded way, and have it cherry-picked and plastered without
context or understanding. At some point, one gets kind of sick and
tired of that, you know?

I do my diligence, first. By reading their recent work and related
materials, for example. When I write to them, I almost always have
something to say that shows them that I've done some work on my own.
That always seems to help a lot. It shows I respect their time by
first spending my own and therefore am obviously not out to just waste
theirs. A dialogue can start from there. But it really helps to not
ask others to spend their time when you haven't spent your own, first.

In a similar way, it helps to know that someone has at least tried to
understand a BJT and maybe even build some things they want to
understand a little better, but don't, when posting a BJT question. If
a poster hasn't ever read a single page of a single book on the
subject, never tried anything, and just jumps in with some completely
random request for "plase expln me how the bjt wroks?" question,
well... yeah.. it's not likely to get anything but suggestions to go
put in some time first (and maybe even learning some English, too.)

True. Sometimes I simply point them to "The Art of Electronics"

Indeed! I like to also point to a book (upon which I'm now quoted on
the backside proving his lack of good taste!) --

Ian Getreu's "Modeling the Bipolar Transistor"

-- which is now finally again available as a Lulu reprint.

Scientists are people.

Yes, and I have to forgive them if they do something bad since the bible
says so. But it doesn't say I have to trust them anymore ;-)

You are tarring a lot of people with one very big brush, Joerg. I
think in your heart you know there is something wrong with that. But
I'll leave it there.

snip
Well, between you and me, I bet you do. Climate is _very_ difficult
to master. Science breaks down into two main approaches --
reductionism and large number statistics. Reduction works great on
problems where ignoring small influences leaves a "good enough"
understanding. Statistics work great in large numbers of events. But
for systems with large numbers of highly correlated, but complex
interactions then neither reduction nor statistics work all that well.
Disease flows through populations fit this latter case. There are
well known processes by which disease passes from person to person,
but the processes by which people interact are... difficult to fully
master. Statistics doesn't work nearly as well as you might imagine
because these processes don't fall into nice Poisson events that
integrate into nice gaussian bell shaped distributions. And there are
so many important factors that reductionism is tough going, as well.

For a time, climate science was more like that Gordian Knot. Data was
scarce, theories were available but nowhere near enough of them, etc.
But as time went by, those large-scale important interactions were
gradually teased apart. Today, it's still very difficult work but at
least more tractable than before. I don't want to minimize the
difficulties. But I also don't want to suggest that they haven't been
addressed with hard and largely successful work.

Of course, if someone _did_ come up with another viable theory and if
that theory _could_ also explain those noise spikes, then you'd have
to consider that, as well.
Exactly. And that (considering others) is one of my points of contention
with IPCC.

Well, you can make the point. But you really have no idea because you
haven't put in the work required. So how should I take this 'point'?
It really isn't made until it is made from an informed position.
Otherwise it's just a random shot in the dark.

What I mean is making data accessible, even to critics. Has nothing to
do with me or the work I put into the matter. In a nutshell, ethics.

I think one has every right to conserve their own time. However, I
think all _serious_ and _informed_ criticism should be encouraged with
vigor. In many cases, the data is publicly funded and should be
simply available for a nominal or zero fee. And probably is.

I think the FOIA requests were NOT about raw data, Joerg. You will
need to clearly demonstrate that it was, for me to get as worried as
you seem to be. Internal work product is something I'm not nearly as
concerned over. They can withhold that and I probably would not care.

snip
We do have alternatives. Nuclear power is just one example but it ain't
ready yet. If we'd only be willing to invest in the research again
instead of imposing some <expletive swallowed> carbon tax that just
feeds yet another fat bureaucracy.

Hmm. I hadn't read this, earlier. You anticipated my reply and I
anticipated yours, too. As I said, the public won't get behind a
carbon tax that will merely line the pockets of power or capital. So
we agree there.

But body politicus might sock it to us and impose a carbon tax anyhow.
Because it's a gravy train for them, like almost all taxes are.

I _hate_ this "fact of life," Joerg. I think it is disgusting and
vile. And I think you are right. Bastards, all. But there it is.

(Frankly, I think the public _could_ at least give some fair
consideration to the idea _if_ the funds were returned to them in a
manner that was appropriate and fairly handled and didn't wind up
instead paying down some debt they'd forced down our throats at a
different time or lining someone's already deep pockets. The public
understands the idea of fairness well and also is quite properly very
incensed and angered by unfair treatment. I not only agree, I'd get
angry, too.)

Nuclear power has a number of very good alternatives, if we can just
get around to fashioning the right people-mechanisms around them. I've
written at some length on these subjects and won't bore you with that
unless you ask. But suffice it that I see the nuclear power problem
as essentially a human one. Solve that and the rest unfolds.
Technical and science knowledge is already there, ready to go. (And
there are human systems that can work... I know of a few... but enough
people with opportunity to move on this simply won't go there because
of some handcuffs that may mean to them, so we collectively remain at
square one.)

First we need to solve safety issues. Some have already been, as you
mentioned earlier. Then we need to figure out the disposal issue. But
without research it ain't going to happen. If we build a humongous
carbon tax bureaucracy instead that is not going to solve a thing.

I have had personal experiences with a 1987 memo between the NRC and
INPO that I've discussed in public forums. You can look these up, as
they are in this group as well as others. It's more than just
disposal. There really needs to be other changes, as well. As it
stands, things really are not set up in law properly. I'll leave it
there. If you want four or five paragraphs of summary posted again,
I'll do it. Otherwise, you can look it up on google using NRC and
INPO and my name.

Do you remember watching "China Syndrome?" Jack Lemmon played a
character who _knew_ things cold, but couldn't communicate the
technical issues to a listening public who wasn't ready to understand
them and could only see a "crazy man" talking. Yet he was right. The
problem was that the issues themselves required education and training
to fathom well. And the public couldn't follow.

Oh, my lack of movie-going now shows. Haven't even heard of the movie ...

Oh, well. If you watched it, you'd know what I meant.

Suppose, just for argument's sake, that there is a group of people
with a lot of capital at risk and a sincere desire to control the
voting public on an issue.

People respond well to the science of emotional appeal and propaganda.
(In fact, the science is so well refined now that it is sometimes
scary.) Sound bites are easily manufactured and played. Emotional
wedges found and used. Images, not facts, presented.

An example is McDonald's ads. They show happy faces on a beautiful
family, with nary a care in the world between them. Not a word about
the quality of the food, what nutrition is provided, etc. Nothing
technical, at all. No evidence presented. Just pretty images that
convey emotional well-being and goodness. And it works. Well.

True. But the ads never worked with me. Haven't been there in a decade.

Joerg, you aren't normal. Neither am I. Neither is my wife. And
there lies the problem.

Sometimes, my wife argues something telling me that others would do
"such and such" because that's what she'd do. Then I simply say, "You
are NOT normal and you know that, darned well! Don't imagine that
ANYONE else thinks like you do." Actually, she is the most creative
person I've ever encountered. She's unique, that way. And she knows
it. And yet she still "projects" her attitudes and behaviors on
others. She knows better and needs reminding, once in a while.

You do, too, I think.

The ads work, perfectly. And you know it.

Now, for argument's sake, let's say there is a group of scientists who
have a very difficult, very technical subject that taxes the very
state of human science. It's not even easy if you are trained in the
subject to get your mind wrapped around the bulk of it. These
scientists have two choices. They can face the pretty images and nice
platitudes with more of their own and just play out the battle on the
same propaganda battleground and forget wasting any effort on the
facts. Or they can focus on the facts... and lose the audience in the
process. Either way, they lose. They lose the audience if they try
to convey the complex issues, the knowns and unknowns, etc. And in
losing the audience, lose the war. If they choose to go with the
propaganda approach and do the pretty picture and sound bites crap,
they fail because they lose the one advantage they actually OWN....
the science facts in the situation... the one, single thing that
actually separates them from the public fray of every other political
issue. And when they sink to that level, they will get uncovered for
their perfidy. And even if their competition is equally guilty, the
public won't care because the scientists will have lost their respect.

There is one excellent countermeasure for those scientists: Keep your
ethical edge, at all cost, at all times. Be polite, humble and modest in
your demeanor. Goes a very, very long way.

I think so, too.

If you haven't gotten it yet, I think almost all of the chips are on
the side of those willing to use all means necessary. The scientists
can't let themselves slide to that level. But in refusing to be just
as bad, just as willing to use any tool that works, they bind their
own feet and give the other side no contest at all.

The only real choice they have is to stay the course and retain the
one thing they have -- science fact. But that means they are running
a race with a gunny sack tied around their feet and the other sides
are having a hay day with that. Oh, well. They can only hope that
they can run the turtle's race and believe that slow and steady will
win. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

Yes, it is frustrating. And yes, sometimes that frustration reaches
out in letters. Oh, well.

That's ok. But so many? And with such damning behavior outlined in there?

Well, you need to take me by the nose and drag me through it. I've
asked you in an earlier post. Answer it, in detail. Show me you have
the full context and are not overstating your case. We'll deal with
it, then.

See above: cannot be proven, current studies suggest. All assumptions.
That wasn't it's purpose. It's a summary designed to fold in new
information. You need to go back to the IPCC AR4, in particular
Working Group I's work. And even then, all you get is a summary as
the IPCC AR4 doesn't do the actual observation and theoretical work.
All they do is interpret and summarize the actually work. For the
actual knowledge, you have to go find all the relevant source
materials and read each and every one of them and then sit down and
try your own hand at it.

You are asking a cat to act like a dog. The report (nor any of
climate science) attempts to "prove" anything. ...
But is was sure written in that style, along the lines "you've got
questions, we've got the answers". While they don't have them.

They do, really. Have you ever cracked open a book on these subjects?
Try, "Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics," for size. Then repeat
yourself above. It's there, Joerg. It's just damned hard to master
well. You need to work. That's the problem here.

I'd rather see some honest debate among scientists.

Cripes, Joerg. There is plenty of that. Sit in on just about any
lunch meeting. It's brutally honest. Almost scary, at times.

Try presenting a novel idea of yours in front of a group of
physicists, Joerg. They will slice and dice you like a tomato. And
then afterwards, often ask you out to talk more about the idea and
help you work through it so that it gets better, next time. Their
focus is to see if your idea can survive the most brutal attacks
possible. If it does, it's probably a good one worth a little more
time. If not, best to kill it now and get it over with. It's not fun
when you are the one up there. But you learn to appreciate it and
seek it out. So does everyone.

Yeah, there are back-stabbers everywhere. Scientists, too. But in
general I find the heat and vigor of the process very much honest --
too honest, at times. Sometimes, my ego needs a little softer
landing.

But it's such a wonderful feeling when something you've said actually
makes it through the gauntlet.

Instead, I see stone-walling, blocking, shouts, accusation.

At whom, exactly? Climate Audit? If so, doesn't bother me in the
slightest. I completely understand. I wish they maintained a better
outward appearance. But I do understand. I spent years debating in
personal, 1:1 email, with one of those at Climate Audit. I'm fine
with ignoring them. I finally had to admit that years of his
disrespectful yelling at me was at an end and stopped responding to
him. So I personally understand.

And yes, also on the
non-AGW side, unfortunately. It's become too contentious. I have seen
similar skirmishes on a much smaller scale on my turf, the medical
field. Very ugly. For some reason I've never seen that among engineers
in public.

Oh come on, Joerg!

wrong to say "all assumptions." That is obviously over-reaching, and
I am pretty sure you know it is, too. Even if you were right on the
broader point (which you aren't), you must know that is going
overboard. (There is no need to make absolute statements to make your
point -- all it shows me is that you feel the need to speak more
loudly, to shout, in order to make your argument seem stronger.)

Proof isn't to be had. You know that. And "it" isn't "all
assumptions" and you know that, too.
There is no proof. But there is clear evidence of some past things, like
the stuff I pointed out. For example, the notion that many glaciers have
been mostly free of ice not too long ago is fact. There is proof. Roman
coins have no ability to "tunnel themselves" through thick ice and land
at just the right spot.

Again, we are going to go back and forth. Make a commitment to gain a
comprehensive view here. Until then, I've nothing to add. I'm
ignorant on the subject and I'm not willing to work for a serious
opinion here if you aren't, too. One good turn deserves another. But
if you won't work for it, why should I?

Ok.

Closed issue between us, I take it. Which is fine.

My point doesn't depend on whether or not ONE particular glacier is
growing or shrinking or whether or not someone can offer a specific
explanation about it, either way. Climate is averages. You point to
a specific glacier (or set of glaciers) and point out that they are
growing, as though that is meaningful. My point is that an isolated
data point, whether that data point covers 1 year or 30 years, has no
importance whatsoever when discussing 30-year _global_ averages. You
need to be comprehensive in your view. You weren't. That was my
point. End of story.
It ain't end of story for me. For example I am not a proponent of simply
papering over the recent cooling trend. That is not just an isolated
event. A trend that obviously has even some bigshot climate scientists
from the AGW party concerned, as evidenced in the leaked emails.

I don't think anything has been papered over. Climate scientists are
always working at difficulties and trying to find answers. Same with
evolution, though I don't mean to suggest that climate science is as
well understood, yet.

Then, please, tell me the emails in the link I posted above are bogus.

First, they don't represent the entire activity. You need to admit
that fact. Second, I skimmed over the same web page you read and am
still wondering about the details which appear to me to be not
entirely congruent with the words you chose to use to describe it -- I
gather you will discuss that more fully, when you get a chance. So
let's hold off a moment on this.

snip
Joerg:
I believe the findings by the Swiss at Schnidljoch were pretty powerful.
If you don't think so, ok, then we differ in opinion here.

I don't know anything comprehensive about that. So no real opinion
about it.

Then I might use your own words: You need to bone up on this stuff.

No, I don't. If you want to inform me more fully because it is
important _to you_ that I know about it, that's fine. The mere fact
that I'm ignorant really means that I don't know everything there is
to know. But I already knew that. Oh, well.

History is very important, and quite well documented because the Romans
were sort of perfectionists in this area. Archaeologists always came
across as honest and modest folks, at let to me. So when they find
evidence I usually believe them. And they did find evidence here, big time.

I think you are making too much out of far too little. But I don't
know what you see and perhaps you will be able to walk me through your
path so that I get it and agree with you. I already said a couple of
things bother me about the released letters and I've just today
admitted one of the general areas of that. None of it changes what
the knowledge I've gained in specific areas where I've spent my time.
Not in the least.

... And so far as
I've seen, not only have you not done that but you haven't indicated
to me a willingness to do it in the future, either. I don't know
anything about this, except one or two summaries I've glimpsed. I
know I don't know anything here. And I'm quite willing to walk this
path with you, if you are serious about it. I've no idea where it
would take us. Perhaps we'd wind up exactly where you predict we
would, largely ignorant right now. Perhaps somewhere entirely
different. I don't know. But without supplying our intellects and
hard work, we never will now for ourselves, either. And my point is
that unless and until you (or I) do the work at hand, our opinions on
this subject really aren't worth the electrons with which they are
written.
But I believe the skepticisim towards some conclusions is worth it,
because they may be premature. That's my whole point.

Well, that is a point you can always keep. It's not a discerning one,
though, because it is "always true" and makes no distinctions.

[...]

That's where we differ a bit and I think that's ok. My position is that
it is not always necessary to put tons of sweat into an issue to develop
an opinion on it. There are only about 700,000 hours in the average
person's life and that's a limit. Sometimes we must trust experts. To me
that trust is very important.

You are wrong on this. You really need some thick callouses developed
from real, hard work of your own. And that's where I'll leave that.

Ok.

hehe. Okay.

On the subject of the exchanges, I've read a lot of them myself. And
in a couple of cases, can say that I 'kind of' know the individuals
involved and enough of what was meant. As I wrote, there are two
things that bothered me after going through years of such exchanges.
But none of it affects the actual _work_ I've done or the
understandings I've earned in the process or the opinions of my own
I've changed as I've learned over time. That is all personally my own
sweat and effort and no one can take that away from me -- least of all
two things I find unprofessional in tone, but otherwise not affecting
what I've learned and done. And as I said, I'm not going to divert a
discussion and have to deal with your emotions, my emotions, and the
emotions of others in some free-for-all -- few of whom have actually
spent any significant part of their own life's blood on the subject. I
know what I'd wish a few had had better sense than... but I live with
the good and bad in all of us, so I can take a longer view here.
Good points.

Thanks. I've enjoyed your replies, as well.


And I enjoy yours.

Jon

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Nov 30, 7:06 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Nov 29, 1:58 pm, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:44:05 -0600, John Fields

jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:44:43 -0800, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:31:39 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

It's been some time since you posted anything interesting or useful
about electronic design. Last thing I remember is your perplexity that
a simple oscillator simulation refused to squegg.

That seems to reflect a weakness of the Gummel-Poon model. I'm working
on it.

But you used mosfets.

---
Priceless!!!

JF

Sloman is clearly confused. I was of the impression that he was a
sour, mean-spirited old git, but it's likely that he is actually
delusional. As such, it's neither kind nor productive to argue with
him.

He's gotta be maxed out over his heart.  That's no fun.  Maybe we
should have mercy, lest he explode it.

My cardiologist claims that my aortic valve isn't opening wide enough,
which means that my heart has to develop a blood pressure of 220/60 to
produce the 120/60 that one sees on the other side of the valve.

High, and the cardiologist plans on having something done about it in
the next few months, but a long way short of of any incipient risk of
detonation. I even went to field-hockey practice earlier this evening,
though I didn't do a lot of running around.

As for being "maxed out", my wife complains that I'm being much too
blasé about the whole business.

My younger brother in Sydney recently had the kind of experience that
gets you closer to maxing out - chest pains on Monday, cine-
angiography on Thursday and a quadruple by-pass on the following
Monday, but he's now well into recuperation.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Joerg]

Jon Kirwan wrote:

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:25:52 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
snip
If you want to point out the specific letter that bothers you (quote a
significant sentence or two so I can find it in my saved copies), I'd
be happy to look at the case and see what I think of it. I might even
write and ask about it -- though I won't necessarily expect an answer.
Might get one, though. But I could at least offer my take on it, if I
knew a specific case you were considering.
Don't remember the link but a quick search turned up some of them in an
article. Tell me this isn't true:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/emails-that-damn-cru-head-jones

I really hate that link -- bastard ads. I need to disable the things,
someday.

Suggesting that it may be best to destroy some data in case a FOIA
request comes in ... I mean, can it get any more gross than that?

Okay. Before I commment, let's be a little more precise about it,
Joerg.

The quote your web site provides is, "Think I’ve managed to persuade
UEA to ignore all further FOIA requests if the people have anything to
do with Climate Audit." I used the word "destroy" and searched your
web site for a quote that includes that word and didn't find it. So
I'm going to ask you to point out where they quote a climate scientist
saying they'd destroy data if an FOIA request arrives, on your web
site. ...

It seems that data can also conveniently get lost:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

Have they ever heard of offsite data storage? Oh man ...

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Nov 30, 7:19 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:06:35 -0800 (PST), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:



On Nov 29, 1:58 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:44:05 -0600, John Fields

jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:44:43 -0800, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:31:39 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

It's been some time since you posted anything interesting or useful
about electronic design. Last thing I remember is your perplexity that
a simple oscillator simulation refused to squegg.

That seems to reflect a weakness of the Gummel-Poon model. I'm working
on it.

But you used mosfets.

---
Priceless!!!

JF

Sloman is clearly confused. I was of the impression that he was a
sour, mean-spirited old git, but it's likely that he is actually
delusional. As such, it's neither kind nor productive to argue with
him.

He's gotta be maxed out over his heart.  That's no fun.  Maybe we
should have mercy, lest he explode it.

Agonizing and arguing over something you can't affect (ie, AGW and
Exxon) is a sure source of stress, and longterm stress is a
cardiovascular killer.

Aortic valve disease has nothing to do with stress - and my blood
pressure has been 120/60 for years now (give or take the usual noise
on the measurments).

Designing and building electronics, on the
other hand, is both satisfying and relaxing.

Designing the stuff is fun, but getting it built involves a lot of
detail work, and people do tend to pester you while you are getting it
to work.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Nov 30, 6:01 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:53:53 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 29, 5:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:31:39 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
It's been some time since you posted anything interesting or useful
about electronic design. Last thing I remember is your perplexity that
a simple oscillator simulation refused to squegg.

That seems to reflect a weakness of the Gummel-Poon model. I'm working
on it.

But you used mosfets.

The circuit that squegged in real life used bipolar transistors.

Exactly. The RC base bias network was a key part of the squegging
loop.

The classic bipolar Baxandall Class-D oscillator doesn't have any
capacitance in the base-drive. The example that squegged (until I
stripped a third of the turns from the inductor) had one film
capacitor in the tank circuit and an electrolytic across the supply
rail - there was no RC bias network.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Nov 29, 7:52 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:32:54 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 29, 5:08 am, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...@yahoo.com> wrote:
You living in the Netherlands so long, I would have expected you to speak Dutch too.

I do. I passed NT2 (Dutch as a second language) in reading, listening
and speaking someyears ago. I didn't pass on my written Dutch - nobody
has ever wanted me to write Dutch so I've never had enough practice to
get rid of the minor grammatical errors.

---
Then you didn't pass on your written English, either, I surmise.

Oddly enough, they didn't test me on that - it was a test of my
comptetence in Dutch.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Nov 30, 2:45 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:47:51 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 29, 10:41 am, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com
wrote:
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:27:20 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 29, 5:53 am, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:55:50 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 28, 3:58 am, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:38:11 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 27, 2:44 am, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:18:18 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 26, 7:35 pm, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:07:13 -0800 (PST)) it happenedBill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote in
6e3552a1-ae05-4a2c-835f-9f245f6d0...@m25g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>:

Without the [fossile] energy companies there would be no media, no energy> >> >> >> >> >> >,
as your car does not run on electricity (yet).
Without those machines, used to build cities, roads, transport goods, the> >> >> >> >> >> >re would be no civilisation
and not even internet, and no printing material, no paper, some paper man> >> >> >> >> >> >ufacturers have their own power plants.

And if we keep on digging up fossil carbon and burning it, all these
nice things will go away again.

Been there.
Now wake up from your green dreams.

An ironic appeal, since it comes from someone who clearly doesn't know
what he is talking about.

mm, why do you say that of everybody except your comic book scientists?

I don't say it about everybody, but there are a number of people who
post here on subjects that they know very little about, and they quite
often post total nonsense.

---
Like about being able to extract energy from a varying magnetic field
surrounding a conductor by wrapping a solenoid around the conductor?

Joel Koltner was making a joke. The smiley should have told you that.

---
He wasn't making a joke, he was being humorous in his presentation, you
wretch.

But, whether he was making a joke or not is immaterial, since I _proved_
my point by experimentation and presented the data and method for anyone
who cared to replicate the experiment to do so.

Few people are so lacking in a sense of proportion that they'd bother.

You really are no scientist are you?

And I'd suddenly become a "scientist" if I started wasting my time on
experiments that told me nothing I didn't already know, about a
subject in which I wasn't interested?

---
At this point, what with the deceit you practice ...

The deceit I practice? Perhaps you'd like to identify a specific
deceit. I've certainly told you things that you don't believe, but it
would have been deceitful to tell you what you wanted to hear.

snipped the rest, whatever it was

---
That snippage was deceitful because what you snipped identified the
deceit you asked for.

The deceit is yours. You say that I claimed that one could

" extract energy from a varying magnetic field
surrounding a conductor by wrapping a solenoid around the conductor? "

but this was - in fact - your misunderstanding of what I actually said
-

" Wrapping a clamp-on meter around one line means that there is
current
circulating around the clamp - the current that goes through the
selected line in one direction is matched by equal and opposite
current flowi g through the other lines in the other direction. The
coupling coefficient is unlikely to be good, but it is finite."

The clamp-on meter is in fact an openable toroidal core, which lets
you thread one of the power comapnies wires through the centre of the
core without breaking the wire, creating a one-turn primary.

You extract power from the primary winding by winding a secondary
around part of the toroidal core, in the usual way.

The solenoid is entirely your invention.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Nov 30, 4:12 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:18:33 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 29, 12:31 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com
wrote:
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:00:30 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 29, 5:10 am, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:05:35 -0800 (PST)) it happenedBill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote in
dc44176d-0d2d-43b4-b9b5-a498b93c3...@e27g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>:

John, you really don't have to remind us that you can't tell the
difference between peer-reviewed scientific publications and the kind
of rubbish that denialist web-sites spread around. Get yourself a
scientific education and you might be able to do better.

I will take John's understanding of science anytime over yours.

Sure. We've noticed. What you may not have noticed is that his set of
silly ideas doesn't have all that much in common with your set of
silly ideas.

People who understand science do have the advantage of defending the
same coherent set of ideas.

---
I'm sure that Jan and the rest of us here who actually _do_ science
defend the coherent set of ideas which includes experimentation as part
of the scientific method.

You, on the other hand, seem to pooh-pooh it as an unnecessary exercise
best left to churls and pretend to practice science by mounting endless
tirades where nothing matters but _your_ opinion.

I think you are confusing experimentation - which involves findng out
something you don't know already - and theatrical gestures.

---
Experimentation isn't used to find out something you don't know, it's
used to confirm whether what you think you know is either right or
wrong.

In other words, to find out whether something you think you know is
true or false. If you knew it was true, you wouldn't bother doing the
experiment.

So you really aren't a scientist, just an actor?
---

You need to find a more gullible audience.

---
You mean like the one that believes _your_ crap?

No. That requres background knowledge and a measure of intelligence.
You don't seem to have quite enough of either.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Nov 30, 12:28 pm, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On a sunny day (Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:40:50 -0800 (PST)) it happenedBill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote in
94c41e51-38cf-4801-8cb2-a63c18819...@r5g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>:

I am so sorry, SO SORRY SOOOOOOOOOO I did not realize that this is your *> >religion*.

Would you like to identify the particular element of text that brought
on this epiphany?

AGW *is* your religion.

You and Rich Grise do seem to be agreed about this. As Arthur C. Clark
said, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic".

Sloman's corollary is that "any sufficiently ignorant individual won't
be able to tell science from religion".

and it doesn't seem to contain an reference to moving us all into
unheated grass huts. Did you have some other greenies in mind, or was
that piece of information delivered to you by personal revelation?

Did you knwo that greenpeace' (greenpiss?) just stated last week that they will more target
'religious fanatic greenpeacers?'

You seem to be referring to the HardTalk BBC interview on the 5th
August 2009, where the retiring head of Greenpeace admitted to
"emotionalising" the issues.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8184392.stm

This doesn't exactly come as a surprise to me - I don't contribute to
Greenpeace precisely because they simplify issue in a way that I find
offensive. They have been doing it for many years.

This doesn't actually make them religious fanatics.

You, and your grass shack?

The claim about the "greenies" wanting us to move into unheated grass
shacks came from you. I can't remember seeing any such policy in any
of the Greenpeace literature that my wife used to get, and I'm
begiining to get the impression that you invented it.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Jon Kirwan]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:25:27 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:25:52 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
much snipped, my apologies

In general, there is no profit for a science team to duplicate work.
If they duplicate the work and get the same or similar results from
it, they've merely stared at their belly buttons and wasted a lot of
money in the process. If they duplicate the work and find an error,
then a correction is made and science moves on. But the team doesn't
really get much credit for it. It reflects more upon the team that
made the error. The ones finding it merely did a 'clean up' job that
shows they can follow procedure like they should be able to and really
doesn't reflect on their creativity and ability to "do science." So
again, they wasted their time even if they helped fix an error that
someone else should have caught.

An example of this later case is the artifact of the diurnal
correction that had been incorrectly applied to MSU T2LT raw data by
Roy Spencer and John Christy. For years, scientists outside this
inner circle had been "clubbed" by the University of Alabama's results
that conflicted with pretty much every other approach by teams all
over the world. Both Spencer and Christy were repeatedly asked to go
back through their methodology to see if they could find an error.
Over and over, they insisted they didn't need to do that. Finally,
Carl Mears and Frank Wentz apparently got sick and tired enough with
the continuing conflict that they decided to waste their own precious
time to duplicate the efforts by Spencer and Christy. That effort, by
all rights, should have been Spencer and Christy's efforts. But since
they weren't taking action, if finally all came to a head. In any
case, Mears and Wentz went through all the trouble to secure the data
sets and then attempt to duplicate the processing. In the end, they
discovered an error in the diurnal correction used by the Alabama
team. Once shown their error -- and it took them four or five months
to admit it -- they publicly made corrections to their processing and
republished old data which then, while on the lower end of the
spectrum, was "within" the range of error of the results of other work
long since published. At that point, though, Spencer and Christy's
work had been tarnished and Remote Sensing Systems began publishing
their own analysis in parallel. It happens. But there isn't much
credit given for this. Just credit taken away.

Most scientists want to find creative new approaches to answering
questions that will confirm or disconfirm the work of others -- not
duplicate the exact same steps. Or they want to solve new problems.
That illustrates creativity and leads to a reputation. Novelty is
important.

_Methods_ and _results_ are disclosed, though. But software programs
and interim data aren't that important. ...
But raw input data is. That's what it was about.

Yes. However, raw data has been fairly easy to attain, my experience.
Very much _unlike_ raw data in the clinical/medical field where
_everyone_ seems to consider it highly proprietary.

Mind telling me what raw data you asked for?

Sea level data. A FTP link would have sufficed.

That isn't raw data, Joerg. It's digested and developed from several
methods applied to a range of data sets taken in a variety of ways
from sites all over the world, each of which have their unique
characteristics that need to be understood and applied to develop a
sense of 'global sea level'.... all of which goes through refinements
and changes, from time to time. Assuming, of course, that you meant
to have "global sea level data" when you wrote "sea level data."

It would have helped you a lot had you known what you were looking
for.

Have you ever sat down and actually _read_ a report on these kinds of
subjects? I mean, really just one of them? Or the IPCC AR4
discussion, even? If you had, you'd know that "sea level data" isn't
"raw data" without my saying so.

Here, take a look at this one from this year:

http://www.igsoc.org/annals/50/50/a50a043.pdf

Since you were discussing mountain glaciers earlier, you have given me
a segue. It's really a very simple paper that illustrates the issues
involved when trying to see if there is a way to develop an improved
understanding by joining datasets from different sources and means.

Now, I think you can understand the reaction if you were writing to
some scientist about glaciers and asking for "glacier levels." They
wouldn't really know what you meant if you were asking for the raw
data. Which raw data?

Suppose I asked you about the getting access to "capacitor values?"
You might wonder, "Um... which types of capacitors? What values,
exactly? Do they need to know about temperature or voltage effects?
What application is this for?" Etc. And then you'd begin to wonder
if the questioner had any clue, at all, asking like that.

I would.

This is why I said it helps if you inform yourself by actually doing
some serious, sit-down reading of the material. Get familiar with the
issues of the day. Learn a little, first. By then, you can refine
your questions to something they can make good sense of and place it
into a context they understand.

I mean, how many times have you seem people writing in about
electronics and asking some bizarrely phrased question that makes it
patently obvious they have no clue, at all? And you know, before even
thinking about answering, that anything you say will only make it
worse? "There is too much current for my radio to work right. How
can I lower the current?" Stuff like that where you not only know
they have no clue, you know there is NO CHANCE that you can give a
short, directed answer that helps, either.

It really does help a lot to do some reading on your own before going
around asking questions.

I don't mean to be flip or abrupt, Joerg. Your question is the kind
of question that non-specialists really might have to help them think
about things. But you also have to understand this from the side of
someone who is deep into the details (like you are, here.) Consider
how you might have to respond in similar circumstances.

The data you asked for isn't 'raw data.'

... If you are going to attempt
replication (and sometimes you do want to, as mentioned), you want to
do it with a "fresh eye" to the problem so that you actually have a
chance to cross-check results. You need to walk a similar path, of
course. To do that, you want to know the methodology used. And of
course you need the results to check outcomes in the end. That's all
anyone really needs.

If you are creative enough to take a different approach entirely in
answering the questions, then you don't even need that.

The methods and sources used are an important trail to leave. And
they leave that much, consistently. Beyond that, it's really just too
many cooks in the kitchen. If you can't dispute or replicate knowing
methods and sources, then perhaps you shouldn't be in the business at
all.

When you say "underlying data," I haven't yet encountered a case where
I was prevented access if I were able to show that I could actually
understand their methods and apply the data, appropriately. ...
Why is it that one would only give out data if using "their methods"?

I didn't say "using their methods," Joerg. I said that I understood
them, or tried to. In some cases, I frankly didn't fully apprehend
what they did and they simply helped me to understand them and then
still gave me access. In any case, I wasn't saying that was a "gate
keeper" as you seem to have imagined. If you read my writing with
understanding, you've have gleened that I was suggesting that they
want to know if I am semi-serious or just some random gadfly.

I sure would NOT want to get jerked around by every nut and, if I
refused, to then get tarred and feathered by you because I decided I
didn't feel up to it.

But if the scientist took the time to write a few sentences, why not
just send a link to a web site with the data?

Because it doesn't exist? Sometimes, the data is developed as an
output of specific methods applied to a range of datasets coming from
a variety of sources of varying pedigree/provenance and there are a
host of error bounds and other assumptions, known about and unknown,
applied in order to generate an internal result that is then
summarized. The interim data is internal and, frankly, doesn't really
matter. They've disclosed the methodology and sources in the paper
and they very well may not wish to send you the internal work product.

Doesn't bother me in the least, if so. I've had to replicate results
by following procedures. In fact, it's good for you to have to work
for it, like that. Helps you understand things better when you have
to do it, yourself, too.

It doesn't have to be
exhaustive, just some place from where one can probe further and, most
of all, something from official sources (such as NOAA or other
countries' agencies).

May not be there. However, the raw data (like tree ring counts from
some Scottish researcher looking at a certain set of preserved trees
at a particular museum) is often available. Now, if you want that
tree ring data from yet another researcher looking at fossilized trees
from Tibet, 10 years earlier, then you might need to contact someone
else. And if you want that fused together in some kind of new data
set, you might need to contact someone else... if that fused data is
the explicit OUTPUT of a paper.

Just like in electronics. You get to know the signal inputs,
conditions, and drive requirements... up to a point. And you get to
know the outputs... up to a point. As far as the internals go? Maybe.
Maybe not. If you are informed, you can probably "work it out" on
your own. You don't need them to disclose everything. It's not
entirely different, except that scientists disclose a LOT more I think
and take a less-proprietary approach. So even better, in my opinion.
But you really don't _need_ the internal work product. You can access
the raw data inputs because they are usually the explicit outputs of
someone else's work. You can use the outputs, too. But you don't
have a right to dig into the internal stuff.... if you want it, you
really need to ask VERY NICELY and you need to let them know a lot
more about you and what you intend to do with it.

I'd want the same thing. Otherwise, I might spend the next 10 years
of my life having to either teach that person step by step or else
have them paste my name all over the internet, saying that they have
all this data directly from me all the while completely and totally
misinterpreting it to everyone else... but looking like they know
stuff because __I__ gave them the data and I cannot deny that fact.

Basically, I treat them respectfully as I'd want to be treated by
someone else asking _me_ for a favor. Do that and you get a long
ways, my experience.

That's what I always do. In requests as in replies.

It's good practice. I wish I followed it as well as you do.

That's exactly what I'd not want to do. In my case all I wanted to look
at is where exactly sea levels were rising and by how much. After
finding lots of data from places where it didn't happen I was brushed
off with the remark "Well, the ocean is not a bathtub". Here, I would
have expected a set of data that shows that I am wrong. But ... nada. Great.

snip of material I'll respond to later when I have time

Do you honestly feel they owe you an education, Joerg? It's a lot
better to show that you've at least made some effort on your own.
YMMV, of course. Act as you want to. I'm just suggesting...

I did not want an education, just a hint as to where underlying data
might be. I don't think that's asking too much.

Maybe you are. Maybe you aren't. But "sea level data" doesn't cut it
unless you are more specific.

Jon

 

[Joerg]

Jon Kirwan wrote:

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:25:52 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
snip

I think one most sensible people distinguish when to spend their time
and when not to. You do that. So do I. Some people writing in this
group (and other groups) are both ignorant AND willfully so AND where
it is clear they won't spend their own time "getting better." If you
decide that is the case, you don't write. Why should you? We all
have better things to do. On the other hand, if you have a serious
inquiry from someone who _is_ ignorant but at least shows some earlier
work -- even if that effort was in the wrong direction, it was engaged
seriously -- then you may feel better about trying to correct them or
point out some thought of yours that may help them.

Climate science is fraught with well-funded confusion, discord, and
the sewing of far less certainty where there is far more available.
Some scientists are ... wary. They've been caught flat-footed. (I
have been, too.) They might imagine a sincere request, respond in a
fair minded way, and have it cherry-picked and plastered without
context or understanding. At some point, one gets kind of sick and
tired of that, you know?

I do my diligence, first. By reading their recent work and related
materials, for example. When I write to them, I almost always have
something to say that shows them that I've done some work on my own.
That always seems to help a lot. It shows I respect their time by
first spending my own and therefore am obviously not out to just waste
theirs. A dialogue can start from there. But it really helps to not
ask others to spend their time when you haven't spent your own, first.

In a similar way, it helps to know that someone has at least tried to
understand a BJT and maybe even build some things they want to
understand a little better, but don't, when posting a BJT question. If
a poster hasn't ever read a single page of a single book on the
subject, never tried anything, and just jumps in with some completely
random request for "plase expln me how the bjt wroks?" question,
well... yeah.. it's not likely to get anything but suggestions to go
put in some time first (and maybe even learning some English, too.)
True. Sometimes I simply point them to "The Art of Electronics"

Indeed! I like to also point to a book (upon which I'm now quoted on
the backside proving his lack of good taste!) --

Ian Getreu's "Modeling the Bipolar Transistor"

-- which is now finally again available as a Lulu reprint.

Wonderful!

Scientists are people.
Yes, and I have to forgive them if they do something bad since the bible
says so. But it doesn't say I have to trust them anymore ;-)

You are tarring a lot of people with one very big brush, Joerg. I
think in your heart you know there is something wrong with that. But
I'll leave it there.

No tarring. I am a sinful being myself, just like everyone else.

snip
Well, between you and me, I bet you do. Climate is _very_ difficult
to master. Science breaks down into two main approaches --
reductionism and large number statistics. Reduction works great on
problems where ignoring small influences leaves a "good enough"
understanding. Statistics work great in large numbers of events. But
for systems with large numbers of highly correlated, but complex
interactions then neither reduction nor statistics work all that well.
Disease flows through populations fit this latter case. There are
well known processes by which disease passes from person to person,
but the processes by which people interact are... difficult to fully
master. Statistics doesn't work nearly as well as you might imagine
because these processes don't fall into nice Poisson events that
integrate into nice gaussian bell shaped distributions. And there are
so many important factors that reductionism is tough going, as well.

For a time, climate science was more like that Gordian Knot. Data was
scarce, theories were available but nowhere near enough of them, etc.
But as time went by, those large-scale important interactions were
gradually teased apart. Today, it's still very difficult work but at
least more tractable than before. I don't want to minimize the
difficulties. But I also don't want to suggest that they haven't been
addressed with hard and largely successful work.

Of course, if someone _did_ come up with another viable theory and if
that theory _could_ also explain those noise spikes, then you'd have
to consider that, as well.
Exactly. And that (considering others) is one of my points of contention
with IPCC.
Well, you can make the point. But you really have no idea because you
haven't put in the work required. So how should I take this 'point'?
It really isn't made until it is made from an informed position.
Otherwise it's just a random shot in the dark.
What I mean is making data accessible, even to critics. Has nothing to
do with me or the work I put into the matter. In a nutshell, ethics.

I think one has every right to conserve their own time. However, I
think all _serious_ and _informed_ criticism should be encouraged with
vigor. In many cases, the data is publicly funded and should be
simply available for a nominal or zero fee. And probably is.

Exactly! It's perfectly ok to ask for reasonable compensation if someone
has to go out there and compile stuff. Last time I did a request like
that (non-AGW related) I was promptly informed that it would take a week
and I'd have to cough up one Dollar for the CD. Later they didn't want
the Dollar.

I think the FOIA requests were NOT about raw data, Joerg. You will
need to clearly demonstrate that it was, for me to get as worried as
you seem to be. Internal work product is something I'm not nearly as
concerned over. They can withhold that and I probably would not care.

Again, I don't know whether unlawful things have happened behind the
curtains but there sure are indictator that some were thinking about it:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/emails-that-damn-cru-head-jones

Quote, first email: "If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information
Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone."

Does it need to be any clearer than that? Again, I have not accused here
but such a thought alone and putting it in writing is quite telling, IMHO.

snip
We do have alternatives. Nuclear power is just one example but it ain't
ready yet. If we'd only be willing to invest in the research again
instead of imposing some <expletive swallowed> carbon tax that just
feeds yet another fat bureaucracy.
Hmm. I hadn't read this, earlier. You anticipated my reply and I
anticipated yours, too. As I said, the public won't get behind a
carbon tax that will merely line the pockets of power or capital. So
we agree there.
But body politicus might sock it to us and impose a carbon tax anyhow.
Because it's a gravy train for them, like almost all taxes are.

I _hate_ this "fact of life," Joerg. I think it is disgusting and
vile. And I think you are right. Bastards, all. But there it is.

(Frankly, I think the public _could_ at least give some fair
consideration to the idea _if_ the funds were returned to them in a
manner that was appropriate and fairly handled and didn't wind up
instead paying down some debt they'd forced down our throats at a
different time or lining someone's already deep pockets. The public
understands the idea of fairness well and also is quite properly very
incensed and angered by unfair treatment. I not only agree, I'd get
angry, too.)

This is _the_ reason why we must get to the ground of what really goes
on behind the curtains of AGW proponents. Because once a carbon tax is
there pork will be doled out, and it will not leave us even if the whole
AGW really does turn out to be a hoax (which I think it could ...).
Remember how we kept financing the Spanish-American war until a few
years ago?

Nuclear power has a number of very good alternatives, if we can just
get around to fashioning the right people-mechanisms around them. I've
written at some length on these subjects and won't bore you with that
unless you ask. But suffice it that I see the nuclear power problem
as essentially a human one. Solve that and the rest unfolds.
Technical and science knowledge is already there, ready to go. (And
there are human systems that can work... I know of a few... but enough
people with opportunity to move on this simply won't go there because
of some handcuffs that may mean to them, so we collectively remain at
square one.)
First we need to solve safety issues. Some have already been, as you
mentioned earlier. Then we need to figure out the disposal issue. But
without research it ain't going to happen. If we build a humongous
carbon tax bureaucracy instead that is not going to solve a thing.

I have had personal experiences with a 1987 memo between the NRC and
INPO that I've discussed in public forums. You can look these up, as
they are in this group as well as others. It's more than just
disposal. There really needs to be other changes, as well. As it
stands, things really are not set up in law properly. I'll leave it
there. If you want four or five paragraphs of summary posted again,
I'll do it. Otherwise, you can look it up on google using NRC and
INPO and my name.

No need right now because this technology will be remaining dead in the
water. It would require serious majority shifts on the hill.

Do you remember watching "China Syndrome?" Jack Lemmon played a
character who _knew_ things cold, but couldn't communicate the
technical issues to a listening public who wasn't ready to understand
them and could only see a "crazy man" talking. Yet he was right. The
problem was that the issues themselves required education and training
to fathom well. And the public couldn't follow.
Oh, my lack of movie-going now shows. Haven't even heard of the movie ...

Oh, well. If you watched it, you'd know what I meant.

Suppose, just for argument's sake, that there is a group of people
with a lot of capital at risk and a sincere desire to control the
voting public on an issue.

People respond well to the science of emotional appeal and propaganda.
(In fact, the science is so well refined now that it is sometimes
scary.) Sound bites are easily manufactured and played. Emotional
wedges found and used. Images, not facts, presented.

An example is McDonald's ads. They show happy faces on a beautiful
family, with nary a care in the world between them. Not a word about
the quality of the food, what nutrition is provided, etc. Nothing
technical, at all. No evidence presented. Just pretty images that
convey emotional well-being and goodness. And it works. Well.
True. But the ads never worked with me. Haven't been there in a decade.

Joerg, you aren't normal. Neither am I. Neither is my wife. And
there lies the problem.

Sometimes, my wife argues something telling me that others would do
"such and such" because that's what she'd do. Then I simply say, "You
are NOT normal and you know that, darned well! Don't imagine that
ANYONE else thinks like you do." Actually, she is the most creative
person I've ever encountered. She's unique, that way. And she knows
it. And yet she still "projects" her attitudes and behaviors on
others. She knows better and needs reminding, once in a while.

You do, too, I think.

Yep, sometimes. Or maybe a lot

The ads work, perfectly. And you know it.

Sure. All they need is >50% of the masses.

[...]

If you haven't gotten it yet, I think almost all of the chips are on
the side of those willing to use all means necessary. The scientists
can't let themselves slide to that level. But in refusing to be just
as bad, just as willing to use any tool that works, they bind their
own feet and give the other side no contest at all.

The only real choice they have is to stay the course and retain the
one thing they have -- science fact. But that means they are running
a race with a gunny sack tied around their feet and the other sides
are having a hay day with that. Oh, well. They can only hope that
they can run the turtle's race and believe that slow and steady will
win. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

Yes, it is frustrating. And yes, sometimes that frustration reaches
out in letters. Oh, well.
That's ok. But so many? And with such damning behavior outlined in there?

Well, you need to take me by the nose and drag me through it. I've
asked you in an earlier post. Answer it, in detail. Show me you have
the full context and are not overstating your case. We'll deal with
it, then.

I did. Two examples. Those do not need context, they show a particular
and to me very disturbing attitude. If someone writes that if so-and-so
figures out there is FOIA in the UK that he might then delete stuff,
that's sufficient I think.

See above: cannot be proven, current studies suggest. All assumptions.
That wasn't it's purpose. It's a summary designed to fold in new
information. You need to go back to the IPCC AR4, in particular
Working Group I's work. And even then, all you get is a summary as
the IPCC AR4 doesn't do the actual observation and theoretical work.
All they do is interpret and summarize the actually work. For the
actual knowledge, you have to go find all the relevant source
materials and read each and every one of them and then sit down and
try your own hand at it.

You are asking a cat to act like a dog. The report (nor any of
climate science) attempts to "prove" anything. ...
But is was sure written in that style, along the lines "you've got
questions, we've got the answers". While they don't have them.
They do, really. Have you ever cracked open a book on these subjects?
Try, "Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics," for size. Then repeat
yourself above. It's there, Joerg. It's just damned hard to master
well. You need to work. That's the problem here.
I'd rather see some honest debate among scientists.

Cripes, Joerg. There is plenty of that. Sit in on just about any
lunch meeting. It's brutally honest. Almost scary, at times.

Try presenting a novel idea of yours in front of a group of
physicists, Joerg. They will slice and dice you like a tomato. And
then afterwards, often ask you out to talk more about the idea and
help you work through it so that it gets better, next time. Their
focus is to see if your idea can survive the most brutal attacks
possible. If it does, it's probably a good one worth a little more
time. If not, best to kill it now and get it over with. It's not fun
when you are the one up there. But you learn to appreciate it and
seek it out. So does everyone.

I worked with two physicists at a client. Yeah, they can be tough at
times but it was always constructive. And where they were wrong (and
sometimes with gusto, I might add) I bit my tongue and did not say "told
ya so" ;-)

Yeah, there are back-stabbers everywhere. Scientists, too. But in
general I find the heat and vigor of the process very much honest --
too honest, at times. Sometimes, my ego needs a little softer
landing.

But it's such a wonderful feeling when something you've said actually
makes it through the gauntlet.

Instead, I see stone-walling, blocking, shouts, accusation.

At whom, exactly? Climate Audit? If so, doesn't bother me in the
slightest. I completely understand. I wish they maintained a better
outward appearance. But I do understand. I spent years debating in
personal, 1:1 email, with one of those at Climate Audit. I'm fine
with ignoring them. I finally had to admit that years of his
disrespectful yelling at me was at an end and stopped responding to
him. So I personally understand.

That's personal preference. But it gives no right to scientists to
refuse a FOIA request or contemplate doing that. Not in my eye and also
not in that of the law.

And yes, also on the
non-AGW side, unfortunately. It's become too contentious. I have seen
similar skirmishes on a much smaller scale on my turf, the medical
field. Very ugly. For some reason I've never seen that among engineers
in public.

Oh come on, Joerg!

Well, ok, there's Phil ;-)

My point doesn't depend on whether or not ONE particular glacier is
growing or shrinking or whether or not someone can offer a specific
explanation about it, either way. Climate is averages. You point to
a specific glacier (or set of glaciers) and point out that they are
growing, as though that is meaningful. My point is that an isolated
data point, whether that data point covers 1 year or 30 years, has no
importance whatsoever when discussing 30-year _global_ averages. You
need to be comprehensive in your view. You weren't. That was my
point. End of story.
It ain't end of story for me. For example I am not a proponent of simply
papering over the recent cooling trend. That is not just an isolated
event. A trend that obviously has even some bigshot climate scientists
from the AGW party concerned, as evidenced in the leaked emails.

I don't think anything has been papered over. Climate scientists are
always working at difficulties and trying to find answers. Same with
evolution, though I don't mean to suggest that climate science is as
well understood, yet.
Then, please, tell me the emails in the link I posted above are bogus.

First, they don't represent the entire activity. You need to admit
that fact. Second, I skimmed over the same web page you read and am
still wondering about the details which appear to me to be not
entirely congruent with the words you chose to use to describe it -- I
gather you will discuss that more fully, when you get a chance. So
let's hold off a moment on this.

snip
Joerg:
I believe the findings by the Swiss at Schnidljoch were pretty powerful.
If you don't think so, ok, then we differ in opinion here.
I don't know anything comprehensive about that. So no real opinion
about it.
Then I might use your own words: You need to bone up on this stuff.

No, I don't. If you want to inform me more fully because it is
important _to you_ that I know about it, that's fine. The mere fact
that I'm ignorant really means that I don't know everything there is
to know. But I already knew that. Oh, well.

Now you are contradicting yourself. You told me that I need to dive
deeper into climate science to have an opinion. I told you that you need
to dive deeper into the climate of the past and now suddenly that is wrong?

History is very important, and quite well documented because the Romans
were sort of perfectionists in this area. Archaeologists always came
across as honest and modest folks, at let to me. So when they find
evidence I usually believe them. And they did find evidence here, big time.

I think you are making too much out of far too little. But I don't
know what you see and perhaps you will be able to walk me through your
path so that I get it and agree with you. I already said a couple of
things bother me about the released letters and I've just today
admitted one of the general areas of that. None of it changes what
the knowledge I've gained in specific areas where I've spent my time.
Not in the least.

Schnidljoch is just one example of many, of passes in the Alps that have
been mostly or completely free of ice in the not too distant past (Roman
era). There is proof of that and I have pointed that out, with link. You
can actually go there and look at the stuff they found. Then it got
colder and they became covered in thick ice, became glaciers,
unpassable, uninhabitable. Just like large swaths of Greenland did. Now
the ice begins to melt again and lots of scientists panic ;-)

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[Jon Kirwan]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:19:59 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:25:52 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
snip
If you want to point out the specific letter that bothers you (quote a
significant sentence or two so I can find it in my saved copies), I'd
be happy to look at the case and see what I think of it. I might even
write and ask about it -- though I won't necessarily expect an answer.
Might get one, though. But I could at least offer my take on it, if I
knew a specific case you were considering.
Don't remember the link but a quick search turned up some of them in an
article. Tell me this isn't true:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/emails-that-damn-cru-head-jones

I really hate that link -- bastard ads. I need to disable the things,
someday.

Suggesting that it may be best to destroy some data in case a FOIA
request comes in ... I mean, can it get any more gross than that?

Okay. Before I commment, let's be a little more precise about it,
Joerg.

The quote your web site provides is, "Think I’ve managed to persuade
UEA to ignore all further FOIA requests if the people have anything to
do with Climate Audit." I used the word "destroy" and searched your
web site for a quote that includes that word and didn't find it. So
I'm going to ask you to point out where they quote a climate scientist
saying they'd destroy data if an FOIA request arrives, on your web
site. ...

Quote, in the first email on that page: "If they ever hear there is a
Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file
rather than send to anyone."

That's an emotional comment and probably wishful thinking, not a
certain promise to act. I might write something like that if I felt
harassed.

Yes, it may be pretty stupid to say.

Quote, further down: "A couple of things – don’t pass on either…

2. You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but
this is the person who is putting in FOI requests for all emails Keith
and Tim have written and received re Ch 6 of AR4. We think we’ve found a
way around this."

Okay. Let's pop up the mail and post the whole thing, Joerg:

: Mike, Ray, Caspar,
:
: A couple of things - don't pass on either.
:
: 1. Have seen you're RC bet. Not entirely sure this is the right way
: to go, but it will drum up some discussion.
:
: Anyway Mike and Caspar have seen me present possible problems
: with the SST data (in the 1940s/50s and since about 2000). The
: first of these will appear in Nature on May 29. There should be
: a News and Views item with this article by Dick Reynolds. The
: paper concludes by pointing out that SSTs now (or since about
: about 2000, when the effect gets larger) are likely too low.
: This likely won't get corrected quickly as it really needs more
: overlap to increase confidence.
:
: Bottom line for me is that it appears SSTs now are about 0.1
: deg C too cool globally. Issue is that the preponderance of
: drifters now (which measure SST better but between 0.1 and
: 0.2 lower than ships) mean anomalies are low relative to the
: ship-based 1961-90 base.
:
: This also means that the SST base the German modellers used
: in their runs was likely too warm by a similar amount. This
: applies to all modellers, reanalyses etc.
:
: There will be a lot of discussion of the global T series with
: people saying we can't even measure it properly now.
:
: The 1940s/50s problem with SSTs (the May 29 paper) also means
: there will be warmer SSTs for about 10 years. This will move
: the post-40s cooling to a little later - more in line with
: higher sulphate aerosol loading in the late 50s and 1960s70s.
:
: The paper doesn't provide a correction. This will come, but
: will include the addition of loads more British SSTs for WW2,
: which may very slightly cool the WW2 years.
:
: More British SST data have also been digitized for the late
: 1940s. Budget constraints mean that only about half the RN
: log books have been digitized. Emphasis has been given to
: the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean log books.
:
: As an aside, it is unfortunate that there are few in the
: Pacific. They have digitized all the logbooks of the ships
: journeys from the Indian Ocean south of Australia and NZ
: to Seattle for refits. Nice bit of history here - it turns
: out that most of the ships are US ones the UK got under the
: Churchill/Roosevelt deal in early 1940. All the RN bases
: in South Africa, India and Australia didn't have parts for
: these ships for a few years.
:
: So the German group would be stupid to take your bet. There
: is a likely ongoing negative volcanic event in the offing!
:
: 2. You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet
: also, but this is the person who is putting in FOI requests
: for all emails Keith and Tim have written and received re
: Ch 6 of AR4. We think we've found a way around this.
:
: I can't wait for the Wengen review to come out with the
: Appendix showing what that 1990 IPCC Figure was really
: based on.
:
: The Garnaut review appears to be an Australian version of
: the Stern Report.
:
: This message will self destruct in 10 seconds!
:
: Cheers
: Phil

Now that you can read the whole thing, tell me exactly what you think
these emails are about and why you imagine they are trying to find a
way around having to disclose them. I can think of a lot of reasons.
There is a great deal of frank conversations that proceed in arguments
about which side of the bread the butter should go. And sometimes,
the heated discussions that led up to a final draft really were
expected, by those participating, to be (and should be) kept private.
An shotgun FOI request, made in the hope of finding anything and
something to create confusion out of would indeed be fought hard
against.

Of course, if I _presumed_ at the outset that they were evil and
sinister... then some of my thoughts might simply go in the direction
of supporting that assumption. But open your mind enough to allow the
idea of presuming they aren't evil liars, but faced with someone
putting in FOI requests just to hassle them and hopefully find
something they can misquote and use in the public venue without
context. (Hmm. Maybe like this letter.) If you don't start with the
'evil' assumption, you might find there are other ways to read this.

By the way, I'd love to see the 10 million emails "lost" by the last
Bush administration. I _do_ imagine there is a lot that would
interest the public. And legitimately, too; not just some prurient
interest.

Looking for a way around FOIA is illegal, at least in America. I don't
know about the legal consequences in the UK.

No. Looking for a way around FOI requests in the US is often
considered 'standard practice.' If you are so naive as to think
otherwise, you really need to get out more. There are good reasons
and bad. Some good reasons might be that responding fully to the FOI
might create a new precedent or be considered excessive. An FOI
request, for example, for ALL FEDERAL AND STATE DISTRICT AND CIRCUIT
COURT RECORDS GOING BACK TO 1781 might be such a nasty beast.
Perfectly horrible in terms of scope. And responding to it might set
a precedent that even crazy-minded requests like that must be equally
met.

Regardless, looking for an out is NOT illegal. What would be trouble
would be having a court order specific compliance with the request and
then to refuse even that much. Scoping the lay of the land about it,
or 'wanting' to find a way to avoid a response, isn't in and of itself
illegal. It's just normal.

... Also, take note that they are talking about dealing with what
really _is_ a gadfly -- Climate Audit. I'd like you to point out, on
this site, where a climate scientist is quoted saying this about any
other requestor (your statement above doesn't identify Climate Audit
and I consider that an error in presenting the problem, Joerg.)

No. FOIA is FOIA. If a data source falls under that law the holder of
the data does not have the right to decide on his own to disobey such
law. Unless national security is affected, of course, but then he'd have
the obligation to notify authorities about that.

If only it were that clear.

Also note that I wrote "_If_ data really has been deleted ...". Meaning
I do not accuse them. But I would really want someone to investigate
because they are influencing public policy.

Okay. So we can set aside the accusation of deleting climate data.

In
some countries that is considered a criminal act (when you actually
delete it) and AFAIR a probe into this has been contemplated by two US
congressmen. And I think they are darn right to demand one now.

If data really has been deleted in this sense I guess some folks better
look for a nice place somewhere where they have no extradition. Maybe
Brazil?

snip of more I'll have time for, later

I'll admit this to you. The comment I quoted from your web site is
one of the two things that bothered me. But you really seem to be
seeing things there I don't, too. So lay this out carefully for me.
I'd like to see what you see, and what supports it.

Hope I did above

Maybe. We'll see.

Anyway, yes I have a problem with this kind of frank comment. But I
saw the fuller context. I'd like to know if you went to the actual
exchanges, yourself, or if all you've done is read some angry summary
and got angry yourself without taking _your_ time to see for yourself.

Unless you or someone else proves that these emails were faked or pulled
out of some hat then this is very serious. And I hope the two
congressmen who want to have this investigated prevail with their
efforts. The people of this world have a right to get to the ground of this.

Oh, I think the emails are real. Though I can't say for sure, of
course. Could be doctored. But what I've read through 'looks real'
to me. So I tentatively conclude they are.

Some of them bother me. But I realize that these people are real
humans who have genuine emotions. I take the good with the bad, as I
said before. None of us are perfect.

Jon

 

[Jon Kirwan]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:00:18 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:25:52 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
snip
If you want to point out the specific letter that bothers you (quote a
significant sentence or two so I can find it in my saved copies), I'd
be happy to look at the case and see what I think of it. I might even
write and ask about it -- though I won't necessarily expect an answer.
Might get one, though. But I could at least offer my take on it, if I
knew a specific case you were considering.
Don't remember the link but a quick search turned up some of them in an
article. Tell me this isn't true:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/emails-that-damn-cru-head-jones

I really hate that link -- bastard ads. I need to disable the things,
someday.

Suggesting that it may be best to destroy some data in case a FOIA
request comes in ... I mean, can it get any more gross than that?

Okay. Before I commment, let's be a little more precise about it,
Joerg.

The quote your web site provides is, "Think I’ve managed to persuade
UEA to ignore all further FOIA requests if the people have anything to
do with Climate Audit." I used the word "destroy" and searched your
web site for a quote that includes that word and didn't find it. So
I'm going to ask you to point out where they quote a climate scientist
saying they'd destroy data if an FOIA request arrives, on your web
site. ...


It seems that data can also conveniently get lost:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece

Have they ever heard of offsite data storage? Oh man ...

[...]

I didn't read the web site, but you reminded me. When the USS
Vincennes fired upon and destroyed an Iranian airliner with about 300
people aboard, the data tapes were ordered by the Reagan
Administration to be shipped to Washington DC for analysis. I was
working on ISAR at the time and knew a little about the equipment
aboard and capabilities -- technical and personnel-wise. There was no
need to ship the tapes (because all of the needed capability for
analysis was present aboard the ship, itself.)

So I remember telling a co-worker at Lockheed that "The article said
the original tapes are being sent. I bet no duplicates will be found
and the original tapes will be 'lost' tomorrow."

Sure enough, sure as the sun will rise in the morning, the very next
day the news announced that somehow the tapes were completely lost and
that there was no duplicates made nor any other way to recover the
data.

Gee. I wonder why.

Actually, I know why.

Jon

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Nov 30, 4:48 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:29:00 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 29, 2:28 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
Since the "science" of predicting anthropogenic global warming seems to
be bogged down by the tug-of-war between you alarmists and the
denialists, instead of getting emotionally involved in the fray and
dumping a lot of energy into who might and who might not be right, and
because I don't give a shit,  I prefer to stand on the sidelines and
just watch the game.

The denialists are not doing science or prediction, just working the
creationist trick of pulling scientific papers out of context and
using them to claim uncertainty where none actually exists. By calling
the scientific concenus "alarmists" you make it clear that you don't
understand this fairly unsubtle distinction.

---
You obviously missed the "you alarmists" part which was referring to you
and your ilk, not the communities doing real science.

Right. "Real Science" is science that produces results that you find
convenient. When science comes up with results that that don't suit
you - by, for instance threatening to raise the price of power and
gasoline - it is being done by "alarmists" and can be ignored.

But then that's to be expected I guess, since you do seem to have
trouble with comprehension from time to time.

You can be unbelievably stupid.

Early sign of dementia creeping in?

If it is, it is following a different path from my mother's.

This isn't altogether
surprising. Since you don't exactly keep up to date in electronics, it
would be really surprising if you followed "Physics Today"  or read
"Scientific American" .

---
Well, I don't seem to have a problem with keeping up to date enough in
electronics to realize that you can't get energy by wrapping a solenoid
around a conductor carrying AC.

But your comprehension skills aren't up to the task of realising that
I never said that you could.

I never mentioned a solenoid anywhere in that thread, but you seem to
have misunderstood what a clamp-on meter is and though that you could
mimic it's action with a solenoid that you happend to have lying
around.

Also, I just recently posted a circuit list for a novel, simple MOSFET
amplifier which made Graham apoplectic, so I know that worked, and from
time to time I do stuff using microcontrollers, so I keep my hand in
pretty well, I think.

Sure, and you also boast about your competence with the 555.
Basically, you leap over low thresholds at a single bound.

You, on the other hand, haven't worked in - what is it, 8 years? - so
I'm sure you're on the cutting edge of things, eh?

I lost the job in Venlo at the end of May 2003, so it has been a bit
over six years. And the work there wasn't exactly cutting edge -
working out how to modify platinum black so that it didn't get
flattened by jets of water, amongst a wide variety of other thing. But
I do read stuff like the IEEE Spectrum and Phsyics Today so I sort of
keep up.

As for the rest of it, I let my membership with AIP lapse, so I no
longer get "Physics Today", and I stopped reading "Scientific American"
when it turned into a leftist rag and, so far, neither "event" has
caused a major impact in my life.

Youve obviously ignored the content of Physics Today and Scientific
American when you did get them - they both ran informative artilces on
anthroogenic global warming long before Al Gore got interested - so it
isn't exactly surprising that you don't miss them.

I must say that I recently dropped my subscription to Scientific
American. I can't say I noticed any political bias in their articles,
but the articles had becoe a lot less informative than they used to
be.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:11:47 -0800 (PST), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Nov 30, 6:01 am, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:53:53 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 29, 5:44 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:31:39 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
It's been some time since you posted anything interesting or useful
about electronic design. Last thing I remember is your perplexity that
a simple oscillator simulation refused to squegg.

That seems to reflect a weakness of the Gummel-Poon model. I'm working
on it.

But you used mosfets.

The circuit that squegged in real life used bipolar transistors.

Exactly. The RC base bias network was a key part of the squegging
loop.

The classic bipolar Baxandall Class-D oscillator doesn't have any
capacitance in the base-drive. The example that squegged (until I
stripped a third of the turns from the inductor) had one film
capacitor in the tank circuit and an electrolytic across the supply
rail - there was no RC bias network.

Got a schematic?

John

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Nov 30, 2:52 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:05:30 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
I can't really see the necessity to understand something that isn't
happening any more.

---

Here; read a little Santayana:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The last ice age ended about 11,000 years ago. I don't think that
anybody could be expected to remember it.

Jan was encouraging me to understand the Earth's natural cycles, which
demands a little more involvement than merely remembering them, and is
- in any event - somewhat ironic, since the current understanding of
the causes of the ice ages leads directly to the conclusion that there
aren't going to be any more "natural" climate cycles to understand,
because anthropogenic effects have overwhelmed th natural driving
forces.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Jon Kirwan]

On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:37:34 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:25:52 -0800, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jon Kirwan wrote:
snip

I think one most sensible people distinguish when to spend their time
and when not to. You do that. So do I. Some people writing in this
group (and other groups) are both ignorant AND willfully so AND where
it is clear they won't spend their own time "getting better." If you
decide that is the case, you don't write. Why should you? We all
have better things to do. On the other hand, if you have a serious
inquiry from someone who _is_ ignorant but at least shows some earlier
work -- even if that effort was in the wrong direction, it was engaged
seriously -- then you may feel better about trying to correct them or
point out some thought of yours that may help them.

Climate science is fraught with well-funded confusion, discord, and
the sewing of far less certainty where there is far more available.
Some scientists are ... wary. They've been caught flat-footed. (I
have been, too.) They might imagine a sincere request, respond in a
fair minded way, and have it cherry-picked and plastered without
context or understanding. At some point, one gets kind of sick and
tired of that, you know?

I do my diligence, first. By reading their recent work and related
materials, for example. When I write to them, I almost always have
something to say that shows them that I've done some work on my own.
That always seems to help a lot. It shows I respect their time by
first spending my own and therefore am obviously not out to just waste
theirs. A dialogue can start from there. But it really helps to not
ask others to spend their time when you haven't spent your own, first.

In a similar way, it helps to know that someone has at least tried to
understand a BJT and maybe even build some things they want to
understand a little better, but don't, when posting a BJT question. If
a poster hasn't ever read a single page of a single book on the
subject, never tried anything, and just jumps in with some completely
random request for "plase expln me how the bjt wroks?" question,
well... yeah.. it's not likely to get anything but suggestions to go
put in some time first (and maybe even learning some English, too.)
True. Sometimes I simply point them to "The Art of Electronics"

Indeed! I like to also point to a book (upon which I'm now quoted on
the backside proving his lack of good taste!) --

Ian Getreu's "Modeling the Bipolar Transistor"

-- which is now finally again available as a Lulu reprint.

Wonderful!

hehe. Now if the two people in the world who may care would just buy
a copy!

Scientists are people.
Yes, and I have to forgive them if they do something bad since the bible
says so. But it doesn't say I have to trust them anymore ;-)

You are tarring a lot of people with one very big brush, Joerg. I
think in your heart you know there is something wrong with that. But
I'll leave it there.

No tarring. I am a sinful being myself, just like everyone else.

snip
Well, between you and me, I bet you do. Climate is _very_ difficult
to master. Science breaks down into two main approaches --
reductionism and large number statistics. Reduction works great on
problems where ignoring small influences leaves a "good enough"
understanding. Statistics work great in large numbers of events. But
for systems with large numbers of highly correlated, but complex
interactions then neither reduction nor statistics work all that well.
Disease flows through populations fit this latter case. There are
well known processes by which disease passes from person to person,
but the processes by which people interact are... difficult to fully
master. Statistics doesn't work nearly as well as you might imagine
because these processes don't fall into nice Poisson events that
integrate into nice gaussian bell shaped distributions. And there are
so many important factors that reductionism is tough going, as well.

For a time, climate science was more like that Gordian Knot. Data was
scarce, theories were available but nowhere near enough of them, etc.
But as time went by, those large-scale important interactions were
gradually teased apart. Today, it's still very difficult work but at
least more tractable than before. I don't want to minimize the
difficulties. But I also don't want to suggest that they haven't been
addressed with hard and largely successful work.

Of course, if someone _did_ come up with another viable theory and if
that theory _could_ also explain those noise spikes, then you'd have
to consider that, as well.
Exactly. And that (considering others) is one of my points of contention
with IPCC.
Well, you can make the point. But you really have no idea because you
haven't put in the work required. So how should I take this 'point'?
It really isn't made until it is made from an informed position.
Otherwise it's just a random shot in the dark.
What I mean is making data accessible, even to critics. Has nothing to
do with me or the work I put into the matter. In a nutshell, ethics.

I think one has every right to conserve their own time. However, I
think all _serious_ and _informed_ criticism should be encouraged with
vigor. In many cases, the data is publicly funded and should be
simply available for a nominal or zero fee. And probably is.

Exactly! It's perfectly ok to ask for reasonable compensation if someone
has to go out there and compile stuff. Last time I did a request like
that (non-AGW related) I was promptly informed that it would take a week
and I'd have to cough up one Dollar for the CD. Later they didn't want
the Dollar.

I think the FOIA requests were NOT about raw data, Joerg. You will
need to clearly demonstrate that it was, for me to get as worried as
you seem to be. Internal work product is something I'm not nearly as
concerned over. They can withhold that and I probably would not care.

Again, I don't know whether unlawful things have happened behind the
curtains but there sure are indictator that some were thinking about it:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/emails-that-damn-cru-head-jones

Quote, first email: "If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information
Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send to anyone."

Does it need to be any clearer than that? Again, I have not accused here
but such a thought alone and putting it in writing is quite telling, IMHO.

snip
We do have alternatives. Nuclear power is just one example but it ain't
ready yet. If we'd only be willing to invest in the research again
instead of imposing some <expletive swallowed> carbon tax that just
feeds yet another fat bureaucracy.
Hmm. I hadn't read this, earlier. You anticipated my reply and I
anticipated yours, too. As I said, the public won't get behind a
carbon tax that will merely line the pockets of power or capital. So
we agree there.
But body politicus might sock it to us and impose a carbon tax anyhow.
Because it's a gravy train for them, like almost all taxes are.

I _hate_ this "fact of life," Joerg. I think it is disgusting and
vile. And I think you are right. Bastards, all. But there it is.

(Frankly, I think the public _could_ at least give some fair
consideration to the idea _if_ the funds were returned to them in a
manner that was appropriate and fairly handled and didn't wind up
instead paying down some debt they'd forced down our throats at a
different time or lining someone's already deep pockets. The public
understands the idea of fairness well and also is quite properly very
incensed and angered by unfair treatment. I not only agree, I'd get
angry, too.)

This is _the_ reason why we must get to the ground of what really goes
on behind the curtains of AGW proponents. Because once a carbon tax is
there pork will be doled out, and it will not leave us even if the whole
AGW really does turn out to be a hoax (which I think it could ...).
Remember how we kept financing the Spanish-American war until a few
years ago?

I'll give you more examples. I had to drive from here, in Oregon, to
Chicago. When I reached Michigan and especially Illinois there were
all these toll booths. Seemed like every 2 or 3 miles. Supposedly,
to pay for the roads. Which is patently false. They had been paid
for decades before. And they were collecting a LOT MORE than the
maintenence costs were, after. These were INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS paid
for by FEDERAL TAXES!! My money. Your money. These were not some
local drag, either.

That was sheer crap.

Out here, in the Portland metro area (1.5 million people big) there
was a bridge built across the Columbia river as part of I5. When it
went in, they added tolls. I paid 25 cents to cross the bridge, 'back
in the day.' They said that when the bridge was paid for, the tolls
would come out. Sure enough, when the capital costs were paid, they
pulled the tolls and it's now free to travel across.. these last
decades.

Back east, if a toll goes in... it stays forever. So I'm told by
those living there, anyway.

Wrong-minded and liars besides. At least here, our politicians did
the right thing. It does happen.

Nuclear power has a number of very good alternatives, if we can just
get around to fashioning the right people-mechanisms around them. I've
written at some length on these subjects and won't bore you with that
unless you ask. But suffice it that I see the nuclear power problem
as essentially a human one. Solve that and the rest unfolds.
Technical and science knowledge is already there, ready to go. (And
there are human systems that can work... I know of a few... but enough
people with opportunity to move on this simply won't go there because
of some handcuffs that may mean to them, so we collectively remain at
square one.)
First we need to solve safety issues. Some have already been, as you
mentioned earlier. Then we need to figure out the disposal issue. But
without research it ain't going to happen. If we build a humongous
carbon tax bureaucracy instead that is not going to solve a thing.

I have had personal experiences with a 1987 memo between the NRC and
INPO that I've discussed in public forums. You can look these up, as
they are in this group as well as others. It's more than just
disposal. There really needs to be other changes, as well. As it
stands, things really are not set up in law properly. I'll leave it
there. If you want four or five paragraphs of summary posted again,
I'll do it. Otherwise, you can look it up on google using NRC and
INPO and my name.

No need right now because this technology will be remaining dead in the
water. It would require serious majority shifts on the hill.

Okay.

Do you remember watching "China Syndrome?" Jack Lemmon played a
character who _knew_ things cold, but couldn't communicate the
technical issues to a listening public who wasn't ready to understand
them and could only see a "crazy man" talking. Yet he was right. The
problem was that the issues themselves required education and training
to fathom well. And the public couldn't follow.
Oh, my lack of movie-going now shows. Haven't even heard of the movie ...

Oh, well. If you watched it, you'd know what I meant.

Suppose, just for argument's sake, that there is a group of people
with a lot of capital at risk and a sincere desire to control the
voting public on an issue.

People respond well to the science of emotional appeal and propaganda.
(In fact, the science is so well refined now that it is sometimes
scary.) Sound bites are easily manufactured and played. Emotional
wedges found and used. Images, not facts, presented.

An example is McDonald's ads. They show happy faces on a beautiful
family, with nary a care in the world between them. Not a word about
the quality of the food, what nutrition is provided, etc. Nothing
technical, at all. No evidence presented. Just pretty images that
convey emotional well-being and goodness. And it works. Well.
True. But the ads never worked with me. Haven't been there in a decade.

Joerg, you aren't normal. Neither am I. Neither is my wife. And
there lies the problem.

Sometimes, my wife argues something telling me that others would do
"such and such" because that's what she'd do. Then I simply say, "You
are NOT normal and you know that, darned well! Don't imagine that
ANYONE else thinks like you do." Actually, she is the most creative
person I've ever encountered. She's unique, that way. And she knows
it. And yet she still "projects" her attitudes and behaviors on
others. She knows better and needs reminding, once in a while.

You do, too, I think.

Yep, sometimes. Or maybe a lot

The ads work, perfectly. And you know it.

Sure. All they need is >50% of the masses.

Okay. Granted and accepted, etc.

If you haven't gotten it yet, I think almost all of the chips are on
the side of those willing to use all means necessary. The scientists
can't let themselves slide to that level. But in refusing to be just
as bad, just as willing to use any tool that works, they bind their
own feet and give the other side no contest at all.

The only real choice they have is to stay the course and retain the
one thing they have -- science fact. But that means they are running
a race with a gunny sack tied around their feet and the other sides
are having a hay day with that. Oh, well. They can only hope that
they can run the turtle's race and believe that slow and steady will
win. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

Yes, it is frustrating. And yes, sometimes that frustration reaches
out in letters. Oh, well.
That's ok. But so many? And with such damning behavior outlined in there?

Well, you need to take me by the nose and drag me through it. I've
asked you in an earlier post. Answer it, in detail. Show me you have
the full context and are not overstating your case. We'll deal with
it, then.

I did. Two examples. Those do not need context, they show a particular
and to me very disturbing attitude. If someone writes that if so-and-so
figures out there is FOIA in the UK that he might then delete stuff,
that's sufficient I think.

It affects nothing I've learned, so far. Some of what I read I didn't
like. But that's because I'm an honesty-always sort who like to wear
myself on my sleeve and gets into trouble for it, sometimes. Including
nearly having my daughter taken away from me forcefully by police.
Being honest, being true to principles, can sometimes be treated VERY
CRUELLY be people who don't care and are willing to step on anyone and
everyone. Long story there. Point is, there is the way you would
wish you should be if others weren't so viscious and cruel and there
is slightly less honest way you find out the hard way you have to be
sometimes because of it.

See above: cannot be proven, current studies suggest. All assumptions.
That wasn't it's purpose. It's a summary designed to fold in new
information. You need to go back to the IPCC AR4, in particular
Working Group I's work. And even then, all you get is a summary as
the IPCC AR4 doesn't do the actual observation and theoretical work.
All they do is interpret and summarize the actually work. For the
actual knowledge, you have to go find all the relevant source
materials and read each and every one of them and then sit down and
try your own hand at it.

You are asking a cat to act like a dog. The report (nor any of
climate science) attempts to "prove" anything. ...
But is was sure written in that style, along the lines "you've got
questions, we've got the answers". While they don't have them.
They do, really. Have you ever cracked open a book on these subjects?
Try, "Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics," for size. Then repeat
yourself above. It's there, Joerg. It's just damned hard to master
well. You need to work. That's the problem here.
I'd rather see some honest debate among scientists.

Cripes, Joerg. There is plenty of that. Sit in on just about any
lunch meeting. It's brutally honest. Almost scary, at times.

Try presenting a novel idea of yours in front of a group of
physicists, Joerg. They will slice and dice you like a tomato. And
then afterwards, often ask you out to talk more about the idea and
help you work through it so that it gets better, next time. Their
focus is to see if your idea can survive the most brutal attacks
possible. If it does, it's probably a good one worth a little more
time. If not, best to kill it now and get it over with. It's not fun
when you are the one up there. But you learn to appreciate it and
seek it out. So does everyone.

I worked with two physicists at a client. Yeah, they can be tough at
times but it was always constructive. And where they were wrong (and
sometimes with gusto, I might add) I bit my tongue and did not say "told
ya so" ;-)

I've enjoyed every second of my experiences like that, after I got
over my first shock of being torn to shreds in front of a lot of
people and made into a complete fool (I thought, at the time.) I seek
these experiences, now, though I rarely feel like I ever am worthy of
them.

Yeah, there are back-stabbers everywhere. Scientists, too. But in
general I find the heat and vigor of the process very much honest --
too honest, at times. Sometimes, my ego needs a little softer
landing.

But it's such a wonderful feeling when something you've said actually
makes it through the gauntlet.

Instead, I see stone-walling, blocking, shouts, accusation.

At whom, exactly? Climate Audit? If so, doesn't bother me in the
slightest. I completely understand. I wish they maintained a better
outward appearance. But I do understand. I spent years debating in
personal, 1:1 email, with one of those at Climate Audit. I'm fine
with ignoring them. I finally had to admit that years of his
disrespectful yelling at me was at an end and stopped responding to
him. So I personally understand.

That's personal preference. But it gives no right to scientists to
refuse a FOIA request or contemplate doing that. Not in my eye and also
not in that of the law.

As I wrote in another email, I don't know if "looking for a way out"
is actually illegal. And you've admitted that "destroying data" is
more your suggesting than an explicit admission you uncovered. So
think the jury is still out. And yes, if Climate Audit gave me an FOI
request, I'd probably assume it wasn't because they were serious about
applying informed analysis to see if there was a real error (because
there is a place and time for that they can already use) but instead
because they are "looking for dirt" to use in smearing people.

As you admit earlier here, the McDonald's approach _works_. Just
paint an emotion and people are driven like sheep by it. And this
technical stuff is beyond their ken, anyway. Or they don't have the
time because they have a life, too. So a good smear compaign works
wonders. Always has. Always will. And reading through emails is a
great way to find some really nice 'sizzle.' The public won't care
about the meat, anyway.

And yes, also on the
non-AGW side, unfortunately. It's become too contentious. I have seen
similar skirmishes on a much smaller scale on my turf, the medical
field. Very ugly. For some reason I've never seen that among engineers
in public.

Oh come on, Joerg!

Well, ok, there's Phil ;-)

My point doesn't depend on whether or not ONE particular glacier is
growing or shrinking or whether or not someone can offer a specific
explanation about it, either way. Climate is averages. You point to
a specific glacier (or set of glaciers) and point out that they are
growing, as though that is meaningful. My point is that an isolated
data point, whether that data point covers 1 year or 30 years, has no
importance whatsoever when discussing 30-year _global_ averages. You
need to be comprehensive in your view. You weren't. That was my
point. End of story.
It ain't end of story for me. For example I am not a proponent of simply
papering over the recent cooling trend. That is not just an isolated
event. A trend that obviously has even some bigshot climate scientists
from the AGW party concerned, as evidenced in the leaked emails.

I don't think anything has been papered over. Climate scientists are
always working at difficulties and trying to find answers. Same with
evolution, though I don't mean to suggest that climate science is as
well understood, yet.
Then, please, tell me the emails in the link I posted above are bogus.

First, they don't represent the entire activity. You need to admit
that fact. Second, I skimmed over the same web page you read and am
still wondering about the details which appear to me to be not
entirely congruent with the words you chose to use to describe it -- I
gather you will discuss that more fully, when you get a chance. So
let's hold off a moment on this.

snip
Joerg:
I believe the findings by the Swiss at Schnidljoch were pretty powerful.
If you don't think so, ok, then we differ in opinion here.
I don't know anything comprehensive about that. So no real opinion
about it.
Then I might use your own words: You need to bone up on this stuff.

No, I don't. If you want to inform me more fully because it is
important _to you_ that I know about it, that's fine. The mere fact
that I'm ignorant really means that I don't know everything there is
to know. But I already knew that. Oh, well.

Now you are contradicting yourself. You told me that I need to dive
deeper into climate science to have an opinion. I told you that you need
to dive deeper into the climate of the past and now suddenly that is wrong?

No, I'm just saying I don't know anything about "Schnidljoch." Never
even heard of it until I read your words. It does happen to be true
that I live a limited life.

History is very important, and quite well documented because the Romans
were sort of perfectionists in this area. Archaeologists always came
across as honest and modest folks, at let to me. So when they find
evidence I usually believe them. And they did find evidence here, big time.

I think you are making too much out of far too little. But I don't
know what you see and perhaps you will be able to walk me through your
path so that I get it and agree with you. I already said a couple of
things bother me about the released letters and I've just today
admitted one of the general areas of that. None of it changes what
the knowledge I've gained in specific areas where I've spent my time.
Not in the least.

Schnidljoch is just one example of many, of passes in the Alps that have
been mostly or completely free of ice in the not too distant past (Roman
era). There is proof of that and I have pointed that out, with link. You
can actually go there and look at the stuff they found. Then it got
colder and they became covered in thick ice, became glaciers,
unpassable, uninhabitable. Just like large swaths of Greenland did. Now
the ice begins to melt again and lots of scientists panic ;-)

[...]

Well, I suppose I need you to inform me about all this.

Jon

 

[Don Klipstein]

In article <7nja22F3irfpmU1@mid.individual.net>, Joerg wrote in part:

Looks like it's going back down:

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/comparison.html

It has since been updated a bit, and that downturn is starting to look
like a dip rather than a downturn - expected since 2008 was cooled by a
major La Nina.

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/

- Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

 

[JosephKK]

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:26:00 -0600, John Fields
<jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:06:24 -0800 (PST), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Nov 28, 4:24 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:19:17 -0600, John Fields





jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:44:15 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Nov 28, 4:44 am, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:07:11 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 26, 8:33 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:36:14 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
It is a pity that I got it wrong. Peer review would probably have
prevented this.

James Arthur happens to be wrong - his concurrence doesn't create a
concensus, which in practice is confined to the opinions of people who
know what they are talking about.

---
Then nothing you post would lead to the creation of a consensus.

Certainly not to a concensus of which you'd form a part.

---
I'd certainly keep it from becoming a consensus by showing you up for
the fraud you are.

There you go again. I'm not a fraud, but you are too ignorant and dumb
to get to grips with the evidnece that makes this obvious to the
better equipped.

---
As is typical with frauds, instead of honestly addressing the issues
causing contention, trying to resolve them amicably, and taking your
lumps when you deserve them, you resort to invective in order to try to
silence your critics.

A cowardly practice, at best, and exactly what one would expect of a
"scientist"  who pretends to be clad in shining armor.

This says it best, I think...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja7cuVh96AI&feature=related

I'm in for a penny and I can afford a pound or two, so let's talk a
little about why you proposed that energy can be extracted from the
magnetic field surrounding a conductor carrying an alternating current
by wrapping a solenoid around it.

Can it be done when the axis of the solenoid is congruent with the axis
of the conductor?  

The ball's in your court and, unlike you, the better equipped of us know
how to speel and  don't write "evidnece"
JF

Most fraudulent scientists are smart enough to slink quietly away when
their fraud is discovered.  Slowman has no such IQ.

Jim Thompson and John Fields both think that I'm a fraud.

---
Actually, Bill, we _know_ you're a fraud.

And we're just the tip of the iceberg, I'm sure, so the longer you keep
on posting to USENET and your posts are examined by more and more
critical eyes and minds, the more obvious the fact that you're a fraud
will become.
---

This is - of course - a devastating blow to my self-esteem, since I've always had
such a high opinion of their judgement, but somehow I guess I'll learn
to live with this public humiliation.

---
You reap what you sow.
---

But I guess I'll stick around until they get around to telling us
which of my hypothetical frauds they have discovered.

This may take a while.

---
Just off the top of my head, the most recent was the power line and
solenoid debacle where you didn't know that you can't extract energy
from an AC power line by wrapping a solenoid around it and then, after
being proven wrong, pretended that you knew it all along.

Then there was the 24 oscillator fiasco where you only admitted you were
wrong by attributing my success in eliminating lockup to luck.

And, need I mention the plethora of damnations you've posted against the
humble 555 being the device of choice for a cheap one-shot or astable in
_any_ circuit you've "designed?"

Yeah, I guess I do.

More to the point though, why are you on this group in the first place?

It's not like you're any good at, or enjoy, circuit design.

If you were we'd have seen a lot more circuit designs from you over the
years but, as it stands, all you're doing is using this group as a
springboard from which you can spew your vitriol and political garbage
over a population which, I'm pretty sure, would rather see you gone if
that's all you have to "offer".

JF

Even with the tiny pittance that i have managed to contribute i vote
for bill slowman to go. I think that the total value of his posts
here is negative.

 

[JosephKK]

On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:09:09 -0600, John Fields
<jfields@austininstruments.com> wrote:

On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:59:33 -0800 (PST), Bill Sloman
bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On Nov 28, 4:19 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:44:15 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman





bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 28, 4:44 am, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:07:11 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Nov 26, 8:33 pm, John Fields <jfie...@austininstruments.com> wrote:
On Thu, 26 Nov 2009 09:36:14 -0800 (PST),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
It is a pity that I got it wrong. Peer review would probably have
prevented this.

James Arthur happens to be wrong - his concurrence doesn't create a
concensus, which in practice is confined to the opinions of people who
know what they are talking about.

---
Then nothing you post would lead to the creation of a consensus.

Certainly not to a concensus of which you'd form a part.

---
I'd certainly keep it from becoming a consensus by showing you up for
the fraud you are.

There you go again. I'm not a fraud, but you are too ignorant and dumb
to get to grips with the evidnece that makes this obvious to the
better equipped.

---
As is typical with frauds, instead of honestly addressing the issues
causing contention, trying to resolve them amicably, and taking your
lumps when you deserve them, you resort to invective in order to try to
silence your critics.

John Fields has learned the word 'amicable". It is sad that he shows
no evidence of knowing what it means.

---
Really?

I get along quite well with almost everybody here, while you, with your
neverending pomposity and penchant for using deception to foment discord
seem to have trouble getting along with _anybody_.
---

snipped the usual rubbish

---
Of course...

Pretend what you can't counter is worthless.


JF

And believe it or not i like and respect John Fields, Jim Thompson,
Michael Terrell, Vladimir Vassilevsk, Jeorg, Jan P., Don K., James
Arthur, Spehro, Martin Brown, Nico Cosel, Phil Hobbs, Frank Buss,
Dimiter Popov, and many more.