BaalChatzaf

No science is "settled" in the absolute sense.  The settled science underlying the climate and weather models  is thermodynamics,  which has been a substantial and important part of physics  since the 1850's  when Joule,  Kelvin and Claussius  figured two laws of thermodynamics.  1.  energy is conserved and 2.  heat engines have to operate between a high temperature and a low temperature.  The is no way of converting all the heat energy from a hot source completely into work.  Some of the heat must be dumped into a low temperature sink.  This is the second law of thermodynamics. 

Later in in the 19 th century Boltzmann and Stephan figured out that all hot bodies must radiate out their energy until thermal equilibrium with the surrounding are reached.  In short no heated body can become infinitely hot.  Also late in the 19 th century  Tyndal and Arheneous  found that  CO2 (the gas) can slow down the radiation of energy in the infra-red frequencies.   The little CO2 we have in our atmosphere (currently 390 ppm)  along with methane and water vapor keeps the earth at about 288 K roughly.  Without the greenhouse gases the earth would be in a permanent ice age barely above freezing at the equator.  So the  chilly evening blanket formed by the greenhouse gases  keeps the earth about 33 deg Celsius warmer than we would be without them.  Human life would be impossible w.o. the greenhouse gases we have in our atmosphere. 

On a chilly Fall or Winter evening one uses a blanket or quilt.  This slows down the rate at which our hot bodies (310 K)  loose heat while we sleep. The CO2, methane and water vapor in our atmosphere do the same. (Note: the freezing temperature of water at one atmosphere pressure is 273.15 K)

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_equilibrium_temperature

First line of speech, a canard.  Trump does not humbly accept anything...

By the way,  it was not a Convention.  It was a Coronation,  just as the DNC  will be.  Where are all those smoke-filled rooms? 

3 hours ago, jts said:

My understanding is Aristotle meant man is the animal with the faculty of reason. The faculty of reason is volitional, not automatic.

 

That is why  reason is occassional..

13 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

I speculate that ____ ______, the Orlando mass murderer, was killing his disowned self using his victims as proxies.

--Brant

An interesting speculation.  You have transformed murder into suicide.

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

The huge difference between China historically and the West is the Christian religion with its common locus of one God and salvation through Jesus Christ for its individual equality before God. Replacing that work of staggering genius with the "rationality" of Objectivism is the philosophy's silly conceit save for a certain type of individualist coming out of and being part of an essentially Christian nation. Rand went so far as to claim that "rational" men wouldn't have arguments and conflicts not easily laid to rest by their rational minds--you know, like right here on OL.

--Brant

Aristotle should have said Man is the   occassionaly rational animal...

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

Sure there's a "Single Cause"--if you put causes into an appropriate hierarchy--this one--the basic one--is the religion.

--Brant

How do you explain the hundreds of millions of Muslims that do not commit mass murder?

12 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Let's stay focused on the refugees coming into the country (and Canada).

--Brant

The won't address the problem of self-radicalization among American born Muslims...

It is not immigrants that are the danger,  but memes. 

Deporting every Muslim (foreign born or native) would not make the U.S.  any safer.  In Spain,  being Jewish was outlawed.  Many Jews  become Catholics but maintained their Jewish practices in private and in secret.  Thus Spain's laws against Jews created Crypto-Jews.  Constitutionality aside, if such a policy were followed in the U.S.  there would be hundreds of thousands perhaps millions of Crypto Muslims  operating in the U.S.  and forcing them into secrecy and hiding will make it all the harder to find them.   Outlawing Islam (legality aside) is just a bad idea. 

Beware of boorish politicians with Bad Hair and short stubby fingers. 

Trupenproletariat!  That is so choice.

1 hour ago, MereMortal said:

Perhaps of equal importance, Alex Epstein gave some testimony before a Senate hearing on energy.  Here is a 15 minute clip of his statements and some of the reaction of Senators.  Barbara Boxer's reaction is interesting to say the least.  

 

The solution for us is clear.  Pave North America east to west,  north to south with nuclear fission powered electric generating plant.  No CO2  and the amount of produced could be far beyond our current demands.;   So call "Green Energy" is a sure failure for an industrial-technological society.  

1. The Sun does not shine at night

2. Sometimes the wind does not blow

3. We have no cheap reliable and massive way of storing the energy that can be produced fro either hydrocarbon burning or from solar conversion or from wind powered generators (which is really an indirect form of solar conversion).  

None of the "Green Power"  sources meets the demand of American (and Canadian) Industry for baseline power  365/7/24.  Industries  expect the power the need to come when they close their switches. 

A closed system of thought is a casket fit to be buried.

Jesus Christ! Do you really pray?

Ba'al Chatzaf

I have been doing some investigating and it just might be the case that Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton were Aspies. This must be speculative because neither of these persons are still around to examine. The speculation is based on biographical data which indicates the both Newton and Einstein exhibit non-typical behavior when they were young and exhibited some the the single-mindedness and non-sociability associated with Asperger's Syndrome.

One of my favorite fantasies is that back in the days when Cro-Magnons were settling in Europe there was some Cro-Mag nerd who spent his time busting up flint to see how to make pointy and sharp things pointier and sharper. Was the original Clovis arrow point designer a nerd? Or that nerd in the cave drawing pictures of animals instead of being sociable and gabbing with his mates around the fire. Sort of like software nerds hunkered down before a computer monitor doing their dream-doodles. Hmmmm..... Maybe?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Yet another article on the Aspbergers Computer Software connection:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000490.html

RAH is one of my favorite people. He was the personification of Good Sense and added several useful memes to our stock.

TANSTAAFL

If N.J. allowed 9 characters on the license plates, I would opt for that one.

TMIAHM occupies an honored position on my bookshelf and I re-read it often. It sets right next to -The Dispossessed- by Ursula Laguin who did for anarchism, what Ayn Rand did for capitalism. And she is a better writer than Ayn Rand.

Of course -Atlas Shrugged- also has an honored position on my shelves.

Ba'al Chatzaf

So you must be good at constructing SQL queries eh? I write them everyday at work and sometimes I just write them using my intuition and they work. If someone asked me why they work I honestly could'nt explain since I never had any formal training in it. I intermix them with a lot of PHP code so they don't have to be too sophisticated.

I invented a variant of SQL independently of Ted Codd. I was a tad disappointed that Codd scooped me but that is the way it goes. Thinking interms of second order predicate logic is like breathing for me. It comes natural. I am a flesh and blood automaton and I pass the Turing test with flying colors. I can even pass for human. Most of my career in software revolved around relational data bases and object oriented data bases. My main Good Trick was constructing data base systems with guardians that prevented badly structured data from being entered in the first place. The best way to keep a data base clean is to prevent it from getting dirty.

Ba'al Chatzaf

test

Ah!

Well think of the condition has being somewhat tune deaf in a musical world. It can be disconcerting but one can adapt to it.

I will get into more detail on how I adapted.

Could you do me a big favor. Could you tell me how to add another entry to the blog. I can't seem to find a new entry button.

As the dyslexic said when he was in trouble -- Pleh, Pleh!

Ba'al Chatzaf