William M. Connolley
stoat
Posts by this author
February 25, 2011
The story so far: "Energy and Environment" threatens to sue RealClimate, and RC tells them they are a bunch of bozos.
But now the Grauniad picks up the story. Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen attempts to fight back by asserting that Every paper that is submitted to the journal is vetted by a number of…
February 22, 2011
(ht What's Happening In Libya? Ctd.)
Exciting times indeed. And just for once, it looks like We could actually do something useful: establish a no-fly zone over Tripoli. But, we'll prevaricate and do nothing until too late, so a few more Libyans will die. It will still be worth it for them, though…
February 20, 2011
Hat tip to JB, who points me at John Beddington saying:
"We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of racism. We are grossly intolerant, and properly so, of people who [are] anti-homosexuality...We are not--and I genuinely think we should think about how we do this--grossly intolerant of pseudo-…
February 19, 2011
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways!
Reclothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
In simple trust like theirs who heard
Beside the Syrian sea
The gracious calling of the Lord,
Let us, like them, without a word
Rise up and…
February 16, 2011
Via Baron von Monckhofen an interesting video, though I think it has been doing the rounds for a while now.
[Update: While I'm on the silly people, there is a nice takedown of the Jonny Ball nonsense by Deltoid. Which features the familiar elements: ridiculous claims which fall apart under the…
February 11, 2011
Some good news for a change. Well done chaps! Now, how about that dictatorship we're propping up in Saudi Arabia?
I didn't actually do anything useful in all this (other than copy-editing the wikipedia article, I'm sure that boosted their revolutionary fervour) but I was rooting for them.
Brian…
February 10, 2011
Science (the mag, not the concept) sez:
Science is driven by data. New technologies... blah... publishers, including Science, have increasingly assumed more responsibility for ensuring that data are archived and available after publication... blah... Science's policy for some time has been that "…
February 9, 2011
A while ago I reported Watching the Deniers say that "There will be no US Congressional investigation into "Climategate": or how global warming sceptics got duped" and commented that Even the wackos aren't really wacko enough to take on the science. But! Maybe I'm wrong. Science says:
The House…
February 5, 2011
I gave up watching the Curry train-wreck a while ago, but someone pushed this gem my way, and I can't resist:
When I make a public statement about what a scientist does or does not know, I make a point of actually reading what that scientist has to say on the subject, rather than what other people…
February 3, 2011
I suppose I could have made him a tosser, but I decided the the traditional rhyming slang was better.
Fred Pearce seems to have made a bit of a career out of being rubbish recently, but has now stooped to just making things up (or, just possibly, that good old journo standby, being so clueless as…
February 3, 2011
People don't talk about me much, so I'll point you at ocham.blogspot.com. It is even kind, in parts, but the problem he points out - the difficulty of maintaining an article like [[Existence]] - is quite genuine. I'm currently hacking through various "esoteric" bits of wikipedia removing cruft (I…
January 30, 2011
#4 in the series. Normally reserved for non-scientists, but WK wins a dishonourable mention. He is part of the stable of kooks that von S gathers round him at klimazwiebel, though as far as I can tell von S has carefully avoided becoming kooky himself.
You'd better go and read what Krauss has to…
January 30, 2011
The Indian government seems to be making a minor speciality in boosting voodoo science, presumably caring less for their reputations and more for fighting off any restrictions on coal burning. Or it may be all a matter of tedious internal politics and corruption, who knows.
This springs again from…
January 28, 2011
At a funeral recently, this was the lesson, from which I excerpt:
31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
(see here for some…
January 22, 2011
Actually, its just another pile of links thinly disguised.
We thought that mandating python-style indents with pre-processing back into C might be nice. Alternatively some scheme whereby indent levels reflect coder status, so you can see immeadiately what not to fiddle with. And of course, what…
January 15, 2011
Sez the Economist:
For, according to Dr Pyykko's calculations, relativity explains why tin batteries do not work, but lead ones do.
His chain of reasoning goes like this. Lead, being heavier than tin, has more protons in its nucleus (82, against tin's 50). That means its nucleus has a stronger…
January 10, 2011
#3 in the Is a Tosser series. For his grauniad article Universities must cut private schools intake, says Simon Hughes. Disclaimer: I went to private school, and to Oxford. My son is also at private school [*]. But this article is *not* going to be about my own experience. Meta-disclaimer: in…
January 9, 2011
Or so says KLIMARETTER.INFO. Here is the google auto-trans from the German:
Provocative it is, but apparently it is not enough: the issue of the conservative magazine, Focus on the benefits of global warming is only a little German kiosks have been sold to the. The booklet, entitled "Great…
January 8, 2011
Via TW (who says Inflation's a tricky thing you know) this interesting inflation calculator.
From the Torygraph, the Jetlev flyer. A ridiculous boys-toy, but it did cause my daughter to say "I must have one". Did I mention that reading the Torygraph in the Waitrose cafe is one of my guilty…
January 8, 2011
A running post I'm afraid. I don't think I promised to move them all across.
Courtesy of the generous Maz the Merciless I have a pair of "footgloves" wot am all de rage, or at least they were all de rage a year ago or somesuch. Naturally, I'm late to the party. Today I gave them my first try-out,…
January 7, 2011
This has been on my website http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html for some time now; but websites are so tedious to update. So I think I'll copy it here; more may follow. And it will distract the squabbling children. Note that as of now, this is the maintained copy; the version on my…
January 6, 2011
Jules James has a lovely pic, which I've shamelessly ripped off here. But go over there too. The paper seems to be at pubpages.unh.edu/~lch/Hamilton climate interaction.pdf; fig 1 is perhaps even more entertaining: not a single Republican thinks they don't understand GW at all.
While I'm doing…
January 5, 2011
Of Gerry Rafferty. Clowns to the left of me will serve: the same problems exist: remaining sane and balanced between we're-all-going-to-die and there-is-no-problem.
Oh, the song.
January 3, 2011
This is about the paper of the same name by A Dai, available from http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/adai/papers/Dai-drought_WIRES2010.pdf.
To keep things in one place, here is the abstract:
This article reviews recent literature on drought of the last millennium, followed by an update on global aridity…
December 31, 2010
A post a month, chosen not quite at random, and I couldn't always restrict myself to one post. Somehow, I feel that not a great deal happened scientifically during the year. But I still enjoy writing this stuff, and people still read it, so on I go.
* Himalayan glaciers to disappear by... when? an…
December 28, 2010
A couple of people have recently complained about the rash of stories explaining how snow-in-December (or, your pet weather event at whatever time of year) is compatible with Global Warming. For example: Cold Spells From Climate Change? (DA) or Yes, they have now said it (TW; I'm sure those two…
December 23, 2010
Well, I need to do a Happy Christmas posting (and here it is, folks!) so this message from wonkroom seems rather festive:
New psychological research finds that dire messages about the threat of global warming will strengthen people's acceptance of climate science when combined with solutions, which…
December 20, 2010
Since we're having this cold spell in the UK (which is just weather, and should not be mistaken for climate, much less global climate) now is perhaps a good time to look at the NH sea ice, which is at a record low for the time of year:
At the moment it is only low by a tiddly bit, and could well…
December 20, 2010
#2 in the Is A Tosser series, begun by Andrew Marr. But Boris is a bigger tosser because - hard to believe I know, but there are really no limits to some people's credulousness - he takes Piers Corbyn's predictions of a new ice age seriously.
Boris hedges his bets, of course: Is he barmy? he…
December 19, 2010
Time for a few linky type things. The first couple point to the New Blog in case you've missed it.
* Snowy again by me, about the recent weather.
* Christmas Head
* xkcd Christmas Tree (thanks Mayank) and on wikileaks :-)
* Lamest edit wars on wikipedia. The Bot wars section is good. Of course,…