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illconsidered | June 16, 2014This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup
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Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years
June 15, 2014
Chuckles, COP20+, Globe, Mischief, EPA Carbon Rule, Wenju Cai, Warnings, Energiewende
Bottom Line, Subsidies, Economics, Pricing Nature, Thermodynamics, Cook
Fukushima: Note, News, Policies
Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Forecasts, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica
Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production
Hurricanes,…
gregladen | June 14, 2014The tl;dr: maybe a little but for benign reasons. If fertility is important to you and you are a man, don’t put hot things in your pockets. This may fall into the category of switching from tidy whities to boxer briefs.
A study came out in September suggesting that it does. It is a meta-analysis by Jessica Adams et all, published in Environmental International, called “Effect of mobile telephones on sperm quality: A systematic review and meta-analysis.”
The study considered the effects of radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation (RF-EMR) on sperm motility (movement), viability, and…
gregladen | June 12, 2014Around the world, productivity of businesses, service, all things related to the progress of civilization, and pretty much everything else will be delayed and repeatedly interrupted from today on through some time in July as the quadrennial event known as World Cup Soccer is played out. This is just like the Olympics but much much longer and there is only one sport. Plus, there are only a few countries involved. And, of those, most are sacrificial lambs -- only a few of the countries that play ever win.
Every one in the world can watch World Cup Soccer for free by just turning on the TV or…
esiegel | June 10, 2014“It’s a brilliant surface in that sunlight. The horizon seems quite close to you because the curvature is so much more pronounced than here on earth. It’s an interesting place to be. I recommend it.” -Neil Armstrong
Whether it's a job, a college/University, a scholarship or a competitive program, we've all had occasions where we've had to go through the application process in one form or another. And in almost all cases, that means we've needed to get recommendations from others.
Image credit: Linkedsoul of deviantART, via http://linkedsoul.deviantart.com/art/All-i-need-is-someone-to-say-i-…
aardvarchaeology | June 9, 2014Sweden doesn't have much of a written record for the Viking Period. We have most of the rune stones but hardly any of the sagas. And thus among Swedish Viking scholars it is not uncommon to be rather poorly read, like I am, in the eddas, the sagas and the other written sources of the period. The Viking Period is pretty much prehistoric archaeology to us.
Still, even in Sweden you can't study the period without picking up a few fragments of the written lore. And in my reading, one of the best passages I've come across is this description of Viga-Glum's reaction to trespassing neighbours from…
gregladen | June 8, 2014What are the best applications, free or cheap, to install on your iMac for basic tasks and productivity?
This post is to guide you in the careful and considered upgrade to your newly acquired iMac or other Mac OSX machine, especially for non-Mac experts. For each of the categories of work you may want to do with your computer, I suggest a number of applications beginning, where possible, with the applications already on your computer, then moving on to free alternatives, then inexpensive paid alternatives. In many cases there is a high end expensive alternative that is probably very wonderful…
gregladen | June 4, 2014Sadly, a large percentage of Americans are under the impression that climate scientists do not agree on the reality of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). A lot of people are simply wrong about this. They think that there is a great deal of controversy among the scientists who study the Earth's climate. But there isn't. One way we know this is from a study done by John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A Green, Mark Richardson, Bärbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs, and Andrew Skuce, called "Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature…
gregladen | June 4, 2014Australian cast member, Toni Stewart captured, this amazing impromptu 'Circle of Life' performance on a flight from Brisbane to Sydney. The cast had just had an amazing day at THE LION KING Brisbane season launch announcement.
jrosenhouse | May 25, 2014My SIWOTI syndrome has not returned, the end of the semester notwithstanding. Watching the daily broadcasts from the recently completed U. S. Chess Championship, however, has certainly gotten my chess juices flowing. So here's another installment of Sunday Chess Problem!
Another mate in two for you this week, but with a twist. The problem below was composed by Norman Macleod in 1984. In the position below, white is to play and mate in two. The twist is that this game is being played under Madrasi rules!
Here's how it works: Everything proceeds as in regular chess, but with one…
aardvarchaeology | May 23, 2014Back in 2012 we had a look at the first novel written in Swedish, 1666/68's Stratonice by Urban Hiärne (1641-1724). He went on to become a high-ranking doctor, founded a hydrotherapeutic spa resort, was instrumental in putting an end to the Swedish witch hunts and fathered 26 children by his three wives. But before all this, at the suggestion of professor Olof Rudbeckius Sr., he also found time to write the first original play performed in Swedish: Rosimunda. This was student theatre, with a cast of young noblemen, put on to entertain the 11-y-o future king Carolus XI at Uppsala Castle on 15…
gregladen | May 21, 2014Tens of millions of red blooded Americans, Tea Partiers, were called to Washington DC the other day to overthrow the government. A few hundreds or so showed up.
Now, Bill McKibben, of 350.org, is calling Americans to New York City, not to overthrow the government but to talk some sense into it. I'll bet more than a few hundred people show up!
McKibben wrote an item for Rolling Stones that you should read HERE.
This is an invitation, an invitation to come to New York City. An invitation to anyone who'd like to prove to themselves, and to their children, that they give a damn about the…
gregladen | May 20, 2014You have probably already seen the cringworthy Youtube Video of the famous Wheel of Fortune Fail in which a college student makes three awful blunders and loses the game. Well, I'm here to tell you about another Wheel of Fortune Fail that is even worse. Pat Sajak, the famous host of the long running game show, turns out to be a rabid Climate Change Science Denialist.
Here's a recent tweet by Pat:
I now believe global warming alarmists are unpatriotic racists knowingly misleading for their own ends. Good night.
— Pat Sajak (@patsajak) May 20, 2014
Here's a screenshot of the same tweet…
gregladen | May 20, 2014There is new research on this suggesting that it does. I've written it up here.
pgleick | May 20, 2014I previously posted a summary of the water-related conclusions from the new National Climate Assessment, recently released after three years of writing, review, and analysis. The following “findings” are a broader summary of the results from the newly released National Climate Assessment (NCA). They are by no means a full summary: far more detail can be found in the chapters and the regional syntheses, but these are noteworthy conclusions. (Note, thanks to Tim Smith – Sustainable Water Resources Coordinator – for highlighting these. The page numbers refer to the NCA Summary)
1. Global climate…
gregladen | May 19, 2014I have nothing against Chobani Yoghurt. In fact, I like it. Even more importantly, Huxley likes it.
But the image above annoys me. It says "Nature got us to 100 calories, not scientists. #howmatters"
This is in accord with their latest ad, here:
OK, I have three challenges for Chobani Yoghurt.
First, demonstrate how science is not related to your yoghurt production AT ALL. Chances are you use methods of ensuring that your product does not contain harmful bacteria, or that the bacteria is killed off or removed during the processing cycle. Almost all food manufacturers use various methods…
jrosenhouse | May 18, 2014Clearly there is only one way to celebrate the end of the semester. With the return of Sunday Chess Problem! For our return to the world of chess composition, I have chosen a charming, but not too complex, direct mate problem. It was composed by O. Strerath in 1948. White is to play and mate in two:
Remember that white is always moving up the board, while black is always moving down. Horizontal ranks are numbered 1--8 from bottom to top, while vertical files are labeled a--h from left to right. So, in the diagram white's king is on g3, while black's king is on c5.
We'll cut right…
gregladen | May 17, 2014This is #UnsubscribeFromJunkMailWeekend. For each unwanted mass email you get, take a moment to unsubscribe. The entire Internet will breath a sigh of relief.
illconsidered | May 14, 2014John Oliver on Last Week Tonight shows us a proportionally correct representation of the climate change debate we should actually be seeing on TV.
jrosenhouse | May 11, 2014It's the season for graduation speeches, and let's be honest, most of them aren't very good. They tend to be very banal and cliched. So let's begin this post with a strong candidate for best graduation speech ever. I am referring to Woody Allen's speech:
More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.
I speak, by the way, not with any sense of futility, but with a panicky conviction of the absolute meaninglessness of existence which…