Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

‘Global Warming’ Through Bad Math and Bad Pipes

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I haven’t spent a lot of time on the whole ‘Global Warming’ thing except when really major things happen (like NASA grossly miscalculating several years of climate data). The 0.7 degree Celsius increase in mean temperature over the last fifty years hardly strikes me as conclusive evidence of anything. It definitely doesn’t make me feel like the world is falling apart or like Al Gore deserves a Nobel Prize for complaining about it. Even if you accept the argument that Earth is getting ‘warm’, which is a pretty goofy claim when we only have about 100 years of reliable temperature records on which to form a baseline, the evidence that it’s because of anything we did is paper-thin and circumstantial.

Anyway, NASA is at it again with their recent announcement that October was the warmest October on record. The problem is that much of the data from Russia was simply a repeat of the August numbers which, as you might expect, are supposed to be warmer than October’s numbers. Upon correcting the data, it turns out that October was stunningly normal.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts’s excellent ‘Watts Up With That‘ blog deserves much of the credit for uncovering this error (the same blogger who discovered NASA’s earlier miscalculations). Watts also asks why the NASA mean temperature graph has changed fairly significantly over the last ten years with little/no explanation, and independently researches weather stations and uncovers possible explanations for temperature ‘anomalies’ (like thermometers sitting close to air conditioner exhaust ports, which would erroneously skew the data warmer).

One bit I found interesting relates to the anamolous Russian numbers—many Russian cities have inefficient above-ground steam systems from the Soviet era, and these uninsulated above-ground pipes could possibly skew temperatures from entire cities. Even if the impact is more limited, it could certainly affect temperature readings at weather stations mere yards away. That’s the perennial problem with trying to get accurate temperature readings from manned outposts and populated areas in the arctic: humans bring heat with them for their own comfort, and a temperature reading at a manned outpost does not necessarily reflect the ‘real’ climate of the region.

Seeking a Phone That Isn’t Crap

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I wrote two months ago about the sorry state of smartphones, running through the litany of problems with the major smartphone operating systems available at the time. Since then, Google, HTC, and T-Mobile have rolled out the G1, the first phone based on the open-source Android operating system. While Android has a lot of long-term potential, the phone has some major shortcomings and the third-party software universe hasn’t really settled down yet (plus, I’m not particularly interested in becoming a T-Mobile customer).

I bring this back up because I am eligible in about two weeks for a discounted upgrade through AT&T, provided I re-up with a two year contract. This is good timing since I’m about ready to introduce my AT&T 8525 (made by HTC and running Windows Mobile 6) to the business-end of a hammer after it—for the second time this year—unilaterally shifted a random percentage of my appointment times by an hour when the time changed. Of course it didn’t change all my appointments, and there’s no rhyme or reason to which ones it changed and which it didn’t, so I have to manually double check that every appointment is correct now or risk being an hour-off when I arrive.

Needless to say, phones based on Windows Mobile are generally ranked at the very bottom of my list (below the rotary landline phones from the 1960s and the classic string/paper cups combination). I gave Microsoft another honest chance with this phone, my first new device running any version of Windows since back in 2000, and Microsoft blew it again. Good riddance.

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Bailout Bait & Switch

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Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, with the buy-in of President George W. Bush (R) and the Democratic congressional leadership, foisted a 700 billion dollar bailout on the American people and pushed it through with a narrow, bipartisan win in Congress. Paulson told Congress and the American people that he needed all that money primarily to buy ‘troubled’ mortgages off lenders’ books, which is what Congress stupidly voted on and approved.

Now we find out that Paulson, emboldened with more power than any Treasury Secretary has ever had in the history of the United States, is going to use that money to do something else entirely. Instead of buying up ‘troubled’ mortgages and bad debt, he’ll be buying even more stakes in U.S. banks. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a classic ‘bait & switch’. The swindlers get buy-in with fancy, nice-sounding talk and then, after you’re committed, the rules change.

Meanwhile, we find out that the oversight committees mandated by the bill to protect the taxpayers’ investments have nobody on them. Yes, the U.S. government is nationalizing industries, blithely overstepping Constitutional limitation of its power, intervening in our economy in ways it has never done before, and nobody is policing what is happening.

Last time the government intruded in our economy on this scale—Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ spending programs and economic interventionism—it turned a moderately serious recession into an unprecedented decade-long depression that was only broken by our entering World War II. That’s not a road we should be walking down again.

Most laughably, President Bush—this bailout’s biggest cheerleader and, sadly, the only person who has the immediate legal authority to stop Paulson’s power trip in its tracks—is warning foreign leaders against the very interventionism he solidly supports at home. “History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market, but too much,” says Bush, while his own administration engages in the unconstitutional partial nationalization of private businesses.

What country is this again?

Cats!

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So the cats are really starting to get along, which is good. Vincent is in his kitten equivalent of his ‘terrible twos’ though, and is being a little terror around the apartment. He’ll jump up on things that he shouldn’t and start knocking things over, and so on. He’s a fun little guy though. Mei Mei is just getting over a little cat cold that had here looking pretty miserable for a week or two (swollen eyes and everything), but is doing much better now.

Anyway, the two spend a lot of their time chasing each other around and play-fighting, which is pretty funny to watch. They both seem to be pretty happy and content with the arrangement now.

Want a Used Computer?

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I’ve just purchased a used computer from a friend to replace Robin, my secondary desktop computer I’ve been using for the last year or two. As a result, I’m giving away a computer totally free.

It’s a Dell Dimension 4100 desktop, Intel Pentium III 1ghz processor, 256mb RAM, and a couple of smaller hard drives by modern standards (I think it’s 20gb + 15gb). It has a 4-port USB 2 card installed, an Nvidia RIVA TNT2 video card, a CD burner, and a ZIP drive. It is in generally good working condition (no warranty though!) and I’ve used everything recently except the ZIP drive; I can’t vouch for the ZIP drive. I’ve pre-installed Ubuntu Linux, but it should take Windows XP too if you’re so-inclined.

I can throw in a keyboard if you need one, but I don’t have any mouses or monitors to spare (so you’ll have to provide your own). Let me know if you’re interested.

If I don’t get any takers within a week or two, I’ll be giving the machine away to one of the local charities I support.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.