William M. Connolley
stoat
Posts by this author
April 14, 2010
Scientists cleared of malpractice in UEA's hacked emails inquiry says the IOP, which isn't quite the headline I chose, but once again you'll have to forgive a little poetic licence on my part. The Grauniad says much the same, as does Aunty. Perhaps more tellingly, The Torygraph and Times have…
April 13, 2010
Hacked climate science emails: were requests for information vexatious? asks Monbiot, and then proceeds to get the wrong answer (though it isn't as bad as his previous nonsense). "Framing" all this in terms of FOI is silly and wrong. Monbiot loves FOI 'cos he is a journo and it is a one-way street…
April 8, 2010
So much to rant about, so little time. Where to start?
How about with that fool Broon, who is now reduced to "it was the wrong sort of recession". Not quite literally, but very very close (for those not blessed with residence in the Sceptered Isle, "The wrong sort of X" is now a saying, begun by…
March 31, 2010
Some while ago - probably about 15 years ago - there was a good Steve Bell carton showing the US airforce dropping "ozone friendly" bombs on the ragheads (or the gooks, or the commies, or whoever the enemy was then). It was quite funny, unlike Obama, who isn't.
March 31, 2010
Or have I used that one before? It seems only too likely. But perhaps not: I don't seem to have had a decent go at him for four years.
Anyway, it makes a change from CRU-investigation navel-gazing (I'll get back to that in a moment). So what has the much-loved but getting-on-a-bit genius of…
March 30, 2010
The HoC inquiry into the CRU hack has reported. Judging from BBC radio 4 this morning (which interviewed Acton and then Lawson, no, not the wobbly one) the results are good: I say this because Lawson showed a distinct disinclination to talk about what the report actually said :-).
I'll expand this…
March 30, 2010
I haven't been nice to Hobbes for a bit, so:
When God speaketh to man, it must be either immediately or by mediation of another man, to whom He had formerly spoken by Himself immediately. How God speaketh to a man immediately may be understood by those well enough to whom He hath so spoken; but how…
March 26, 2010
Who says GW is bad? Climate change stops fighting between India and Bangladesh says Nurture. [Err, see comments. And also, JA nailed this -W]
David Appell wonders about "Livestock's Long Shadow" - the odd thing is that I swear I've done this one before, and *I* didn't really believe their numbers…
March 26, 2010
Eli has a wonderful post on the McLean mess. So wonderful I can't resist ripping bits of it off :-).
McLean et al. quote:
"But as it is written, the current paper [Foster et al. draft critique] almost stoops to the level of "blog diatribe". The current paper does not read like a peer-reviewed…
March 22, 2010
I doubt I'll be running the ever-exciting competition again this year, due to a lack of people who strongly disagree with me (i.e., the decline will be on the long term-trend, plus some error margin).
But While I'm here there appears to be some excitement from Romm over a Grauniad study about a GRL…
March 21, 2010
Actually this is a post about statistics, but what the hell I've been listening to Carmina Burana a lot recently, even if Miriam thinks it is bombastic. So anyway, several people have commented on this article which (whilst it makes some points about statistics that are vaguely plausible) far far…
March 19, 2010
I'm wondering if this is fatal or not. Bike shops in Cambridge don't seem to do welding.
[Thanks to all who commented. The answer turns out to be the Genesis, £600, plus some mini-mudguards. To make things more exciting I'm buying it via the govt's bizarre buy-your-bike-from-work scheme, which (…
March 14, 2010
Mothers day, and so like all good fathers I went off rowing, only in this case I went Off a little further than normal, since we were competing in the Hammersmith Head.
First, however, I did my fatherly duty by assisting Miranda (who woke up especially to remind me that it was mothers day and that…
March 6, 2010
Warning: this post is of limited general interest, unless you (like all right-thinking people) are interested in rowing. More photos than you could ever wish to see are here.
We got a new eight today (well actually it turned up during the week, as Amy already noted; but this was the first outing…
March 6, 2010
From William Leeman but found via SkepChick, in turn found via The Penguin.
(If you've never read Time considered as a helix of semi precious stones you should; though it isn't quite as good as its title).
While I'm here, do you fancy some of that John "wacko" Donne?
BATTER my heart, three person'…
March 6, 2010
[This post got extensively re-written (you can tell that, cos it has a title that doesn't fit its URL :-) after I realised that I, too, had been fooled by the septic FUD. Oh dear. I've stopped now: you can read on without fear that the words will change under you.]
The septics are trying to pretend…
March 5, 2010
The ever-vigilant BigCityLib has spotted some revisionism by the Institute of Physics: they have silently updated their "clarification": the link http://www.iop.org/News/news_40679.html now points to a statement dated 5th March, instead of the original, which was 2nd march. What a bunch of slimy…
March 4, 2010
A headline stolen blatantly from HH. But it seems rather applicable to the Institute of Physics. The Grauniad are still pushing them (go big G!) but the IOP are stonewalling: they won't say who wrote their pap; but it seems one Peter Gill was involved.
In an apparent attempt to take the Irony Prize…
March 2, 2010
The "Institute of Physics" sounds jolly reassuring; but like all such things you never quite know what they are going to say. Just recently they have been saying some very silly things indeed in their contribution to the UK parliaments feeding-frenzy over the CRU emails. So the IOP apparently…
February 26, 2010
When we all wake up by the Onion.
Spam: I wrote a website for a friend who does English/German translation. This is my attempt to push it up the google rankings and maybe even get her some business: http://baumgarten-translations.com/.
ScruffyDan on the incoherent septic response to Siddall et al.…
February 24, 2010
Google has signed me up to their "buzz", which seems to be like facebook but with fewer people and no silly games. This link might work, or it might not. Who knows. Is it any use? I don't know.
Which brings me on to wireless mice. I've had a lot of trouble with my wireless connection over the past…
February 23, 2010
Yet more snow. This lot only just settled; moderately thick, but turned to slush later in the day. In particular, the puddle of dirty roadside slush I feel into was cold and wet. But along the footpath it was still beautiful:
This is to prove to Jules that the UK isn't all bad.
CSR is less…
February 21, 2010
Von S has an excellent article on adaption and mitigation (it isn't excellent because it says anything new or interesting - indeed, I'd regard it as the bleedin' obvious - but just as a fairly sane and readable restatement of the obvious). Plus this allows me to "reach out" as I believe the phrase…
February 20, 2010
I was dragged screaming from work at the riducously early hour of 7:20 on friday night, by my wife, to listen to this. Being a barbarian, and knowing only that it was by Debussy, I assumed it was a concert. But no, 'tis an opera, although possibly a slightly odd one, since it is largely a…
February 16, 2010
Wolf Hall is a now-immensely-well-known tale of a slice of Henry VIII's reign; a period I know little about: we skimped it at school and it gets throroughly mythologised anyway. The chief hero is Cromwell (not Oliver) who is portrayed (correctly,as I understand it) as a brilliant administrator and…
February 14, 2010
As I was about to write up the latest smoggy stuff, I thought I'd better check out Eli in case he had written it up first. And lo, I thought, Condolences referred to the death of Christy's scientific reputation. But no, it is about real death. So I need to press on.
[[John Christy]] has been a bit…
February 12, 2010
Every cloud has a silver lining, and it looks like Zorita is jockeying for some of the silver: the Future of IPCC apparently is to morph into one of those nice International agencies which pay so well and are headquarted in rather nice cities, staffed by... well, clearly by the likes of…
February 11, 2010
There is a good letter from some Dutch scientists at Open brief Nederlandse klimaatonderzoekers over IPCC en over fouten in Klimaatrapport 2007 (don't worry, its in English too). I think it does a good job of setting the recent "IPCC is utterly corrupt / mistaken / broken / infiltrated by space…
February 10, 2010
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