William M. Connolley
stoat
Posts by this author
December 16, 2010
I largely ignored Copenhagen (the conference, not the city, I hasten to add: very nice place I'm sure and I mean no disrespect) and chose instead to push for Carbon Tax Now, though I felt obliged to read a little bit of what they had to say. But now we have Cancun. What to say about that, other…
December 14, 2010
In stark contrast to the hard liberalism of TW is one of the worst pieces of woolly-thinking soft liberalism (well, actually the Green Party, of which I'm a member and supporter, if you care. It is from their mag). And yet somehow it seems all too typical.
Life in the Peruvian Andes is hard...…
December 13, 2010
Tim Worstall has written a book, and not only that, he sent me a copy to review. So I have. And this is it.
It is a Slim Tome, as I believe delicate lady poets are wont to publish; yours for £6.74 off Amazon. Being slim is good; far too many books now are bloated and turgid.
First the Good News (…
December 9, 2010
David Appell's recent post is excellent, so I'll steal most of it, a quote from Hillary Clinton in January:
During his visit to China in November, President Obama held a town hall meeting with an online component to highlight the importance of the internet. In response to a question that was sent…
December 7, 2010
and yet more photo spam:
Last week it was cold. It was warmer at the weekend. But this week it is cold again. Though as RC points out, its not going to be the coldest winter for a millenium.
We went rowing tonight. Oddly enough we were the only crew out. We had to stop past the Elizabeth way…
December 2, 2010
SE has an excellent post about Validating Climate Models. It is all good, but I particularly liked
when we ask climate scientists for future projections, we're asking the question of the scientists, not of their models. The scientists will apply their judgement to select appropriate versions/…
December 2, 2010
We did it refers. Killed Linda Norgrove, that is. You can listen to Hague make excuses, if you can bear it. The foreign secretary said that with the agreement of the prime minister he had agreed to a rescue bid because of fears that Ms Norgrove's life was in "grave danger". Well yes, indeed her…
November 30, 2010
Exciting news just in - its cold in Cambridgeshire. All over the UK I expect, but I haven't checked. indeed I haven't checked out all of Cambridgeshire, let alone Cambridge, but never mind I'll trust the reports. I tried putting my foot onto the snow and I can confirm: yes, it is cold. Not much…
November 29, 2010
On of the key parts of science is prediction. Or so we're told. So it is fun to watch various people rip Steve Goddard's predictions of sea ice to shreds. WUWT is the one boosting Goddard's worthless noise.
* RMG seems to be the most complete, prompted I think by:
* Tamino and
* Neven.
There's a…
November 27, 2010
The normally sensible Bart went slightly gooey over Citizen Science recently, although to be fair he linked to his earlier article wherein he was distinctly more dubious about the benefits, and indeed about the good intentions about some of the wannabe scientists. And in the comments he is more…
November 21, 2010
Well yes, as is slowly becoming obvious. Deltoid reports USA today (or you can also look at the full Mashey). In the curious world of academe (which I presume Wegman aspires to) plagiarism is a no-no far more serious that just getting the wrong answer; and has the virtue of being fairly easy to…
November 19, 2010
I was going to blog about what bunch of ponces the Police were in the video for Wrapped around your finger (great music though; speaking of which Nice legs, Shame about the face applies today. King of Pain is better, but they don't look so stupid).
Anyway, what I decided to talk about today is…
November 16, 2010
I haven't ranted about climate for a bit, so I think I will. Misc stuff follows, mostly commentary.
APS has a nice post on "The nothing that was Climategate" (though he really needs to upgrade his colour scheme; links are hard to see). [Update: or ClimateSight perhaps; or Bart]. APS has some nice…
November 14, 2010
People have been trying to make me read Merchants of Doot for some time, but I still haven't (go on, someone, send me a copy for Christmas, me c/o CSR St Johns House will reach me :-). But TWD (in the midst of "turning serious") has a post on a particular tobacco-industry document apparently…
November 14, 2010
I was reading Butterfield (not the palaeontologist) on Antient Science and he refered to Descartes, and so it occurred to me that perhaps I should just read it for myself. Discourse on the method of rightly conducting the reason, and seeking truth in the sciences I mean, by "Doubty" Descartes.
Like…
November 10, 2010
Well, just one politician really. And an American one, and Republican at that, so I suppose we can hope his stupidity isn't truely representative. David Appell provides a wonderful quote from Chris Christie and Global Warming, from which I excerpt:
...that's probably one of the reason's why I…
November 10, 2010
See the Grauniad for the proof. But ZOMG now I've proved him right so I must be wrong. <pfft!> - that is me disappearing in a pile of logical smoke.
More seriously: yes, vast numbers of blogs are full of junk, and probably rude aggressive junk (though I don't know this from personal…
November 7, 2010
Strictly the title has precious little to do with this post; but it is one that I've always liked. Seen here is one of our pumpkins, carved according to D's design by your humble author. They are grown by Nicholas, whose allotment each year is a marvel of productivity, especially his pumpkin patch…
November 2, 2010
Thank heavens, James Annan wrote this so I don't have to.
Truely, you have to hand it to our politicians: whenever you think you are finally inured to their stupidity, they find a further depth to sink to.
PS: no, I did *not* vote for them.
October 30, 2010
Not that any of the existing ones are that good, either. Anyway: I slagged off her post on attribution a while ago, and then forgot (or couldn't be bothered) to slag off the nonsense she wrote about uncertainty (although my Judith Curry is now blogging, which is probably a good thing, because now…
October 30, 2010
The latest in a long stream of posts avoiding more important matters. But you take what you can get, I think. This one is about my continuing wanderings in bee land.
Some comb, as you'll doubtless recognise. Don't be too hard on the poor things, as the frames have been re-ordered as I was taking…
October 27, 2010
I'm sorry, but information on the list is only available via the list. As soon as you subscribe, you will get an email with full instructions. Please disable your spam filter, as we use steganography to make the more important announcements look like penis enlargement ads. In fact, you may already…
October 26, 2010
Or, more oddities in the Cyberwar stakes. I can't help thinking that the cyberwar stuff, much like conventional terrorism, is vastly overblown as a threat to national security, or indeed anything. A case in point is the normally very sensible Bruce Schneier with a short recommendation of a New…
October 26, 2010
Thank to Hank, who spotted this.
If you go to Nature's upcoming climate publication, there's an online quiz they're using to decide who gets a freebie: https://www.sunbeltfs.com/forms/nq/subscribe.asp.
At one point it asks what climate-related blogs you read. Naturally, only the finsest quality…
October 23, 2010
My previous post refers. There are lots more things to say; this post doesn't really say any of them but veers off at a tangent. Let me know if you get bored.
The tangent to start with is "no-one from outside understand how wikipedia works". An obvious example of this is Lawrence Solomon (my…
October 20, 2010
I didn't promise to cull all the boring rowing stuff off this blog, only the routine stuff. And obviously Anticipation of a new ergs arrival, The is far from routine. Let alone the actual arrival.
Here we see Darling Daughter pulling down firmly into her stomach in violation of all the best…
October 18, 2010
No, not a man with a stoat through his head. Instead, what appears to be an utterly gratuitious waste of time and money:
Yes, its a 5x. WTF? Presumably, these people really do have so much spare cash that they can create a new hull [update: more likely a converted coxed four; though rumour says…
October 16, 2010
Nick Barnes has an excellent opinion piece in Nature. And the comments are good too. There is a comment-on-the-piece by Anthony Fejes which I think is less good: too much like the kind of people who put you off cycling by insisting you have to wear a cycle helmet or walk. And you should read Nick's…
October 16, 2010
No, not the US in Iraq, but a smaller matter: the recent arbcomm case. The case is now closed, and the the usual idiots are as usual getting it wrong (hint: the bit about admin is totally wrong). But then again, no-one from the outside ever understands wikipedia.
At some point I'll do a long post…
October 12, 2010
Wise words from David Appell. But this is the blogosphere, so that isn't going to happen. And Hal Lewis would be disappointed if we did; after all, he is trying to make a splash with his nonsense. As DA puts it So someone named Hal Lewis has resigned from the American Physical Society in a snit…