Category Archives: Science And Society

Science And Society

Hey, Mount Shasta!

24 Comments

Get with the program!

“When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking,” said Slawek Tulaczyk, an assistant professor of earth sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led a team studying Shasta’s glaciers. “These glaciers seem to be benefiting from the warming ocean.”

Except the ocean seems to be cooling, at least lately.

One of the signs of a conspiracy theorist is that every bit of evidence, even counterevidence, is spun to support the theory.

Humor, Science And Society, Space

We’re Saved

3 Comments

Frank J. has a plan to deal with the asteroids. Sort of.

Here’s what we’ll do: We’ll paint Mars blue. The asteroids will see Mars, think it’s us, and hit it instead. It’s simple and it will work. So you’re asking, “Why not paint Venus? It’s the same size and should make a more convincing Earth.” That’s idiotic. For one thing, it’s super-hot there, so how the hell do you plan on painting it? Also, it’s further away from the asteroid belt than us, so the asteroids will see the real Earth before seeing the decoy Earth. Painting Venus is a truly idiotic plan. You’re disgustingly stupid for even suggesting it. This is why I sometimes think of just giving up blogging because I just can’t deal with people as stupid as you are.

I know how he feels. Sort of.

Science And Society, Technology and Society

Killing The Planet

7 Comments

…with wind mills:

…the only feasible backup for the planned 25-gig wind base will be good old gas turbines. These would have to be built even if pumped storage existed, to deal with long-duration calms; and the expense of a triplefold wind, gas and pumped storage solution would be ridiculous. At present, gas turbine installations provide much of the grid’s ability to deal with demand changes through the day.

The trouble is, according to Oswald, that human demand variance is predictable and smooth compared to wind output variance. Coping with the sudden ups and downs of wind is going to mean a lot more gas turbines – ones which will be thrashed especially hard as wind output surges up and down, and which will be fired up for less of the time.

The fiends.

General Science, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space

Sesquicentennial

44 Comments

It’s been a hundred and fifty years since Darwin first presented his thesis. Charles Johnson has some thoughts. I may have some as well, later. Or not.

[A minute or so later]

Well, actually, I do now, in light of Lileks’ comments this morning, in which he pointed out the simplistic, stilted views of many across the political spectrum. I’ll repeat:

Really, if one wants to cling, bitterly, to the notion that a believe [sic] in lower taxes and strong foreign policy and greater individual freedom re: speech and property automatically translates to a crimpled, reductive, censorious view of pop culture, go right ahead.

Similarly, if one wants to cling, bitterly, to the notion that a concern about Islamism, and an inability to realize what an evil stupid fascist criminal George Bush is translates to a belief that the world was created by Jehovah six thousand some years ago, complete with dinosaur bones, go right ahead.

Before 911, Charles Johnson was a Democrat, and a jazz musician. Almost seven years ago, he got mugged by reality. That, combined with some scary things that were happening at a mosque near his home in Culver City resulted in a change in emphasis at his web site. Now many of the left wingnuts who read LGF stupidly assume that he’s a “right” wingnut. Yet here he is, defending science from places like the Discovery Institute, on a semi-daily basis.

I get the same idiotic treatment, much of the time. I’ve often had discussions on Usenet whereupon, when I argue that maybe it wasn’t necessarily a bad idea to remove Saddam Hussein’s boot from the neck of the Iraqi people, and that I don’t believe that George Bush personally planted the charges in the Twin Towers, I am told to go back to whatever holler I came from and play with my snakes, and am informed that my belief in a Christian God, and my lack of belief in evolution is just more evidence of my irredeemable stupidity, despite the fact neither religion or science had been on the discussion table.

I then take pleasure in informing them that I am an agnostic and for practical purposes an atheist, and that I am a firm believer in evolutionary theory, it being the best one available to explain the existing body of evidence. Whereupon, I am sometimes called a liar. Really. It’s projection, I think.

Same thing often happens here, in fact. I tell people that I’m not a Republican, and have never been, nor am I a conservative, and I’m accused of lying about my true beliefs and political affiliation.

C’est la vie. There’s no reasoning with some folks.

In any event, happy birthday to a controversial but powerful (as Dennett says, absolutely corrosive, cutting through centuries of ignorance) scientific theory. Expect me to continue to defend it here, and Charles to defend it there.

[Late evening update]

Well, Iowahawk has the comment du jour:

I’m a dope-smoking atheist writer for a San Francisco lowbrow culture mag; I also enjoy seeing 7th century genocidal terrorist shitbags getting waterboarded. I really don’t see the contradiction.