William M. Connolley
stoat
Posts by this author
May 31, 2009
The good beekeper keeps a close eye on his or her bees, carefully checks the weight of the hive during the winter to make sure they aren't starving, and pays particular attention during May for 'tis the season to be swarming. It will come as no great surprise to my readers that I don't fit this…
May 28, 2009
Over the last decade or so, hard rock geologists have done rather poorly in science, because they have become unfashionable, and are overshadowed by the popularity of climate change. Some of them become bitter and twisted and prominent septics.
Which brings me on to Copenhagen Congress: why the…
May 21, 2009
I apologise for the brief intrusion of something vaguely related to climate science on this rowing-n-wiki blog; we'll return you to your usual programming shortly.
Maurizio Morabito attempts to establish that there was a consensus for global cooling in the 1960's (this is all part of a rather dull…
May 18, 2009
There is an interesting (if you like that sort of thing) insight into some wiki-politics available from a recent RFA (which stands for [[Wikipedia:Requests for adminship]]. Not to be confused, obviously, with RFA which stands for [[Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests]]). Admins are the folks who do…
May 18, 2009
At least not Kings I. But we did have a really quite decent outing tonight (rather more fun than the ladies on sunday; we rowed in the Champs head on sunday, which was an experience but not really fun. James H's take on it is here). We weren't exactly solidly balanced, but the wobble was small, not…
May 17, 2009
One thing that has puzzled me for a bit about the current mess is the intereaction between the Government and the Central Bank (Bank of England or BoE, in our case). So the government is raising money by selling Gilts, in quantities that I forget but of the order of £200b when I last looked.…
May 7, 2009
At least we are as I write this. What we are when you read this I don't know.
Disclaimer: this post contains no inside information at all.
May 4, 2009
asks Unscientific American (and CP). The short answer is no. As you can find from the FAO, calories per day are going up, not down. [W]orld grain prices in the spring and summer of last year climbed to the highest level ever. says USciAm - but somehow can't find space to mention that since then…
May 3, 2009
Did you notice that RC called it "Meinshausen et al"? Barbarians :-). Anyway, they liked the paper whilst I'm less sure. As far as I can tell its not really a question of science in dispute, just what you make of it. So what M et al. do is instead of the std.ipcc "force a GCM with CO2 and see how…
May 2, 2009
Chesterton RC ran the Head of the Cam race today (we really must improve our website some time). I got to help marshalling a couple of divisions, on First Post Corner and Grassy Corner, which was a good post as nothing tricky happens at those points. So I took an absurd number of photos (only div 1…
May 1, 2009
In which I reveal my folky side. Not a part of my youth; something I've learnt recently. The Martin Carthy version (with Eliza on violin, which is where this started, as I was looking for some of her playing for another purpose) is just superb. [[Wikipedia]] has the story if not the words; this is…
April 29, 2009
I was a teenage rower, and now am a middle aged rower, so most of my exercise comes on the river, or on an erg (disregarding the 11 miles a day cycle to work, which is definitely good for me too, but that counts as base load). So today I did 10 km, which took me a fraction less than 40 mins, and…
April 29, 2009
I'm sure the risible rubbish in Denial Depot would once upon a time have raised some outrage, or at least the feeling that it might need rebutting. But now it just seems boring (and I'm only writing this as a placeholder for a change in interests). Eli briefly snarks it, and Coby apparently intends…
April 28, 2009
Stretham Old Engine is a former pumping engine out in the fens; visiting it is not too dissimilar to the Museum of fenland drainage that James visited a while back. You can see it from above and you can visit it's own website: strethamoldengine.org.uk/.
It is best to visit it by boat, though,…
April 25, 2009
Anyone who was anyone (and some who aren't :-) went to the great Cam clean up. Unlike James, I didn't bother turn up for the speeches. This may have been a mistake, as not only did I not get on the grapple teams but also by the time I'd come along most of the litter had gone too. I walked from the…
April 23, 2009
A while ago, crowing over the extent of Arctic sea ice this winter and the possibility this would mean loadsa ice this summer, I noted that "it is clear from that, that the winter anomaly doesn't correlate too closely with the summer minimum". That was based on the IJIS plot, and on little more…
April 22, 2009
Finally, I've been promoted to Rouge admin status. It is a game a little like Mornington Crescent: there are no rules, but it would be a dreadful faux pas to break them.
The excuse was quite a suitable one: I blocked a septic who in a huff had said "I'd quite like to be blocked" but who then proved…
April 20, 2009
I would have thought that saying the Israeli state was racist was just the bleedin' obvious; but apparently it is controversial. Odd. Maybe the "totally" was OTT. I suppose having the Iranians saying it must be irritating. So what was the conference for? To discuss racism without at any point…
April 18, 2009
With a side-swipe as Maslowski along the way. But first the wandering...
By the Catlin Arctic Survey. Why are they doing this? Mostly because it is fun, and you can earn your keep doing it. They are explorer-types, and unexplored bits of the world are thin on the ground now, so new challenges must…
April 14, 2009
But just for once not sea ice, at least not to start with.
RMG provides a nice link to some of the Wordie "collapse" stuff. Although I find that a touch confusing, as the Wordie had essentially gone by 1992 - see [[Wordie Ice Shelf]] for example. Reuters is also noting it as news. Odd. Perhaps…
April 13, 2009
Um. So I get a spam which begins: "Tweet this: Rapid-fire media may confuse your moral compass
Media culture should allow time for reflective moments, say USC neuroscientists..." Is there a media less suited to reflective moments than twitter?
April 6, 2009
I quite like reading the Torygraph. Unlike the Grauniad it doesn't tell me what I want to know. But every now and again it is time for a reality check, and the most recent demonstration of their utter incompetence at reporting GW is Rise of sea levels is 'the greatest lie ever told', which…
April 4, 2009
Well, I read it, so I may as well blog it. If that sounds unenthusiastic, then yes, I am. It is a book, in case you haven't realised; inevitably it has a wiki page so I won't summarise it here or even tell you the author. It gets less and less plausible as it goes along, though is fun enough in a…
April 4, 2009
Let's see if I can post this before Emma does :-)
As noted elsewhere, during the nesting season some of the swans on the river, and one in particular, can become aggressive. The one at the end of the reach seems partciularly provoked by our white blades. So when we were coming back today we were…
April 1, 2009
I hate blogs that force you to jump through hoops to post comments, especially when those hoops don't work. So I could mail Gareth to complain about my inability to comment on "The inner mounting flame" but I'm too impatient, so instead I'll just post my minor snark here:
It sez: "This is a global…
March 31, 2009
Well no, of course they haven't. It is yet more septic twaddle from Avery; David Appell has a screenshot, since he expects the original is so blatantly stupid that it will be taken down. And he was right, it is now gone, though not silently: *Apologia: I deeply regret my misstatement that CO2…
March 25, 2009
Via Durova I find Wikitruth Through Wikiorder which is worth at least a quick skim if only because, unlike most commentators on wiki, they don't seem to have totally lost the plot.
Durova points out the obvious lack in their analysis: they concentrate on arbcomm, whereas the everyday activity of…
March 25, 2009
Well, that was the Beeb headline, to The UK Treasury has failed to sell all its government bonds in an auction for the first time since 2002. But in fact It wanted to sell £1.75bn of 40-year bonds, but investors only bid for £1.63bn of the debt, the Debt Management Office said. so (a) it is…
March 24, 2009
Hearing about the Obama plan on BBC R4, my first reaction was but this is an obvious disaster for the tax-payer; a give-away to those who invest in it. If I had spare cash and lived in the USA, I'd certainly buy in. I would blog it, but the obvious suspects have already done so and said what I…
March 23, 2009
Paul points to Andrew Brown who has some curious list of "New Atheist" points. I shall take up the suggestion of treating it as a quiz, and find that I score:
* There is something called "Faith" which can be defined as unjustified belief held in the teeth of the evidence. Faith is primarily a…